

First Experiences with Running "Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures"
I just watched this video from the Wandering DMs (Dan Collins and Paul Siegel) about their experiences with playing/running games at conventions as compared to long-running campaigns. Aside from being interesting in its own right, it was fairly relevant to me since I just ran a game of Beyond the Wall (henceforth BtW). It wasn't exactly like a convention game since the players weren't strangers to me, but two of them were meeting the third for the first time, there was a mi
Workout Recap - Week of December 22, 2019
I got things back into a more typical routine for this week. Unfortunately, it seems like I tried to push myself more than I should've, so I ended up with strains in both legs' hamstrings. Nothing too seriously, so I expect to bounce back fairly quickly, but I did push back my weekend challenge workout from Saturday to the coming Sunday for a little bit of protection. Sunday Type: Pass/Fail Fingertip Push Ups - 1 set of 20 (pass) One-arm Dead Hang - 1 set of 15 breath isome
Thoughts on Doing Non-Attack/Save Resolutions (Ability Checks vs. Abstract Skill Checks)
Rolling around the Internet recently led me to this post by James Young (owner of Ten Foot Polemic) on how he uses skill checks in his OSR games. Aside from other points which I agree with by and large, he mentions that he avoids using ability checks because PC ability scores are pretty static in his system of choice (LotFP), so someone who rolled up 12 Strength during character creation would have the same chance of passing a given Strength check regardless of whether they
Workout Recap - Week of December 15, 2019
Circumstances early in this week led me to favoring pass/fail workouts on the first few days, so I decided to just make that a thing for the week as a whole. Unfortunately, I misread my log of last week's workouts while I was setting things up, so my rep targets for fingertip push ups were substantially less than what they should've been. Alas, but no purpose in dwelling on regrets. Monday Type: Pass/Fail Fingertip Push Ups - 1 set of 15 (pass) One-arm Dead Hang - 1 set of


Vegan Chocolate Heresy
One of my early recipe posts was for Orange Chocolate Heresy cake. With my recent excursions into vegan cooking, I did some experimenting and came up with an suitable (albeit orange-free) revision of it. Not that there's any apparent reason why it couldn't work with orange zest, too. I just didn't have any at hand, and I didn't feel like it was worth holding back on posting the recipe to try making such a version of it. I know the typical flax seed meal "eggs" are mixed 1:
Workout Recap - Week of December 8, 2019
As we near the end of another calendar year, I'd like to take a moment to say to anyone who happens to be reading this blog and thinking about getting themselves into better shape that you should start doing something. It doesn't have to be any particular program or routine. When I started out some five and a half years ago, I just picked a random smattering of exercises to do three times a week. Once I got used to doing that, I started looking at setting specific goals an


The Black Company
Rating: C+ (overall), C- (The Black Company) / C+ (Shadows Linger) / C+ (The White Rose)
Length: 704 pages, slightly larger than standard paperback page size, standard paperback font size Before I say anything about this collection, I feel compelled to point out that I got tipped off to the series from Matt Colville's frequent mentions of it in his YouTube videos. I hadn't realized just how much he borrowed ideas from it for MCDM's Chain of Acheron D&D game. As a result, I
Workout Recap - Week of December 1, 2019
Between having a busy schedule at the start of the week, having some accumulated fatigue from full loads for the past three weeks, and having a bit of soreness in my right ankle at the tail end of the week, I went with only four workouts for this week. The latter issue also prompted me to back off of doing 100 burpees, but I'll catch up on that with my first workout for the coming week. Monday Type: Pass/Fail Uneven Pull Ups - 3 sets of 6, each side (pass) Fingertip Push Ups
Workout Recap - Week of November 24, 2019
Flax seed eggs turned out to be a lie, at least in so far as using them as a direct substitute for regular eggs. Yes, the flax seed meal does react in a roughly 1:3 mix with water to turn into a goopy sludge, but that sludge is really only responsible for replacing the filler aspect of eggs without making up for the binding or leavening characteristics. I can only assume that most people supporting the use of flax seed eggs are using them with ingredients likes standard flo