Watching Mike Flanagan's 2023 series The Fall of the House of Usher made me curious about the stories it is based on. So, I went out and bought an edition of Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. The first story in that collection is The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, one of Poe's earlier works (published in 1835). While he is best known for his horror fiction, Poe wrote

Yesterday I was out for an afternoon on the town and also visited my favorite local-ish gaming store (shoutout to All the Problems in this World!). Once there, I was torn between getting the Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Set (given that I am currently running an OSE game) and Into The Odd. Ultimately, I went for Into the Odd as I was more in the mood for a new game than just an expansion. So, here are my thoughts after reading it. I have not brought it to the table yet, but would love to do so in the coming weeks.

What kind of stories does D&D 5e want you to tell? Primarily, you have a strong sense of progression built in. Characters accumulate XP, thereby increasing their level and abilities. To keep up the challenge, they fight ever stronger threats. The increase in hit points and AC, healing abilities and even means of resurrection ensures that at least from a certain point on characters don't die, or at least don't die randomly. In short, the game supports stories about the same group of heroes fighting increasingly more serious threats until they probably come up against

So yeah, basically the title. Over time, I've ended up with this idea that my main blog should be for long-form, high-effort content. The process for writing and uploading articles is also a bit more involved which has made me want to build a blog that's easier to use. Why not use an existing solution? Like most computer scientists I still suffer from "Not Invented Here Syndrome" and tinkering with software is just fun for me.