Toots for squishymage42@dice.camp account

Written by Alex Keane on 2025-01-21 at 23:39

Finished The Cosmic Computer yesterday. Pretty good except for when late 50s / early 60s sexism butted in. At least good enough to take a look at the rest of the Terran Federation books by #HBeamPiper

Next book on my #Traveller reading list is Foundation. I tried this once before a few years back and remember being ambivalent about it but don't remember why. But #Asimov is definitely on my hit/miss list.

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2025-01-20 at 03:42

Reading through books from the "More Reading" list on the #Traveller wiki.

Current book is The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper. I'm just short of halfway through it. I'm really enjoying it, except for where the fact that it's from the early 1960s comes screaming to the foreground with things "but we can't expect the women folk to use logic." Otherwise loving the plot about trying to use an almost religious devotion to a falsity to motivate a community to improve

[#]HBeamPiper #SciFi #Bookstodon

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-22 at 00:02

Had a post from Grognardia show up in my feeds today reminding me of this excellent post from A Knight at the Opera analyzing why the simple mostly black cover of Classic Traveller is so effective:

https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-best-rpg-cover-of-all-time.html?m=1

The distress call really does set a mood better than most any illustration I've seen on an RPG cover.

[#]Traveller #TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-16 at 04:56

Spent some time doomscrolling the Physical Games category on Itch rather than social media.

Honestly, I recommend it.

Found some stuff to bookmark for later.

Especially this one.

https://tabletop.itch.io/the-cat-is-the-dungeon-master

BRB, need to find a cat. Or I guess the dog will do.

[#]TTRPG #Cat

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-16 at 03:06

Last night was game night. Played my #Eberron game.

My party finally got to have their fight on a train scene defending some shifter rebels from Thrane customs officials getting a little too crossbow-pointy.

They separated the cargo car from the rest of the train and are getting ready to hoof it the rest of the way to Thaliost.

https://alexanderkeane.com/posts/session-stories-aftershocks-of-the-last-war-session-6/

[#]SessionStories #TTRPG #DND

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-12 at 11:51

One annoying thing with the increased digitification of the #TTRPG space is how much of past editions can quickly get lost (or just intensely hard to find) as the companies behind the games pivot hard to the new edition or the new tech.

Like, Mongoose Traveller only has 2e character sheets on their website. Wizards of the Coast shut down the website in favor of D&D Beyond where even finding the blank character sheets to the CURRENT edition is more annoying than it needs to be.

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-07 at 18:42

Looking for some #TTRPG advice.

Been running games for a while and been running off and on online since 2020, though not as many sessions as some others.

Having a recent problem moderating excited player versus player with a bit of anxiety speaking up.

We mostly play without video because the bandwidth isn't always great.

Any ways people have used to moderate their sessions to keep people engaged without having everyone talk over?

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-12-07 at 14:18

Spent yesterday afternoon tracking down contact information for 12 courts across 5 counties and reaching out to responsible people to get information about their appointed counsel systems and how to apply.

Every step I take compiling this info feels bigger and bigger, but it's a project I wish someone would have taken on when I was a new attorney trying to figure this stuff out.

[#]PublicDefense

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-11-18 at 03:59

Ran my #Eberron game last night. The party decided to do crime to get a party member out of doing further crime for her family, and make a buck in the process.

And then promptly decided that since the crime family knows where they are, they better get out of the town I'd been prepping plots for. Such is the life of the DM.

https://alexanderkeane.com/posts/session-stories-aftershocks-of-the-last-war-session-5/

[#]SessionStories #TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-27 at 20:31

Really loving this take on Halflings by @bedirthan

https://fullmoonstorytelling.com/2024/10/27/expanding-the-types-of-halflings-in-your-world/

The halflings in the first RPG I ran were a stand-in for Italy in a national stereotype to fantasy stereotype pairing.

I also enjoy the nomadic dinosaur-rider halflings of Eberron (WotC seems to forget the Talenta Plains halflings and focus on Boromar when talking Eberron...)

But seriously, halflings are great. Put more halflings in your games.

[#]TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-14 at 06:15

Biggest change, I don't have my analytics plugin anymore. And I'm not installing Google analytics, because people who visit don't need all THAT tracking from me.

Honestly, not watching the magic number bar might be better...

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-14 at 06:13

After some more reading, and playing around, I've migrated my blog again from ClassicPress to #Hugo

A lot of the plugin support stuff was still coming from the same #WordPress repositories that were shut off for WP Engine customers. Couldn't trust that my plugins would still be there tomorrow with the way Automattic has acted.

https://alexanderkeane.com/posts/switch-to-hugo/

I wrote a bit about the experience actually doing the thing along with the couple issues I had, in case the workarounds help someone else.

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-13 at 14:01

Had my latest session of my Eberron game last night.

The party finally fought a fairy prince and escaped his castle with a would-be fairy bride. Now to rest up and maybe confront the jerk who made the fairy bargain maybe.

https://alexanderkeane.com/2024/10/13/session-stories-aftershocks-of-the-last-war-session-3/

[#]Eberron #SessionStories #DnD #TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-10 at 04:03

So, with all the #WordPress drama going on, I got my own site migrated over to the forked ClassicPress which has the bonus of bringing back the Visual/Text classic WordPress editor I liked.

I just didn't trust Mullenweg to leave sites that aren't WP Engine but also aren't under his control alone.

So I wrote a bit about how my blog now looks different, and will as I figure out where things are and how to customize them: https://alexanderkeane.com/2024/10/10/changes-to-the-blog-because-of-the-wordpress-drama/

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-10 at 00:13

Looking at the pettiness on display from Automattic and WordPress.org, any recommendations for CMS for a personal blog that would be less painful to migrate an existing blog to?

[#]blog #WebDesign #Website #WordPress

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-06 at 03:08

Earlier this year, I had the chance to do a real life version of the "put D&D on your resumé" meme.

I got to do a whole presentation on how to use three-act structure to better organize the facts of a case and explain them to a judge or jury. Because cases are just stories. And stories are more than just facts, they have a point. And if we don't let people understand our point, why should they listen to our story?

Which is just stuff I learned from being a #TTRPG game master.

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-10-01 at 01:41

Got a gift from a friend a couple weekends ago, PHB, DMG, and MM for 3.5e D&D. Edition I started with, but never actually owned books.

Between this and the premium reprints of AD&D released during the wait for 5e, I am only missing 1 book of the "Core 3" from all major editions of D&D. That's the Monster Manual for 4e. I have a PHB, DMG, and MM for all other editions of the shelf.

(Have been tempted for the last year to throw together a homebrew 4e game too.)

[#]DND #TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-09-27 at 23:22

Today I learned that a wedge of parmesan isn't far off in price from a jar of shakey cheese.

Pasta night will never be the same.

[#]Cheese #Pasta

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-08-31 at 19:18

Prepping for a #DND 5e game in #Eberron for next weekend.

I'm thinking of starting at level 3 so that everyone has their subclasses to start.

Any #5e DMs out there find in their own games a compelling reason to start lower that I might be forgetting?

[#]TTRPG

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

Written by Alex Keane on 2024-08-21 at 02:25

Been practicing #guitar for the first time in a while.

Left hand is still complaining about stretches to chords that in my head should be no problem.

Right hand apparently never lost the memory of the strumming pattern to most anything I ever played.

So simple chord songs are fun while I work back up to what I used to play.

=> More informations about this toot | View the thread

=> This profile with reblog | Go to squishymage42@dice.camp account