I ended up chosting about different axes of "complexity" in TTRPGs and the way I like to articulate them: https://cohost.org/aysamanra/post/890523-i-hang-out-in-a-ttrp
Plus, using Lua here makes it easy to do some pleasant things, like persisting state across macro calls or doing simple logic (which can be… nightmarish in something like TeX.)
If I were using [La]TeX itself, I could do this with built-in macro facilities, but the goal here is producing HTML. I suppose I could use something like M4 or produce Pandoc, but that sounded… worse, and I like the ergonomics of this.
I realized today that "Gothic architecture" couldn't have been built by Goths, since all major Gothic tribes were long gone by the 12th century when Gothic architecture started being built. Turns out: the name "Gothic architecture" started as a pejorative term in the 16th century, slamming it as "barbarian" architecture and contrasting it with classical Roman architecture. Earlier Medieval sources generally called it either "Frankish" or "modern" architecture.
This thought comes because my brother's been running D&D for one of the first times and when he asks for advice I keep having to tell him, "Oh, yes, this isn't a problem for other tabletop games, but unfortunately, you're playing D&D."
My interests as a tabletop designer are mostly narrow, idiosyncratic games that are pretty far afield from D&D: for example, two of my current efforts include "comedic one-shot MegaMan party game" and "contemporary paranormal wilderness survival game". …but I do occasionally wonder how I'd try to tackle designing a standard fantasy fighting-monsters game.
Relatedly: I try to keep track of the movies I watch and review each one! My list is in fact public, although be warned that the ratings here are "did I enjoy it", not "is it good" or even "would I recommend it to someone": https://infinitenegativeutility.notion.site/Movie-List-aa3250d5738647288b7e398d12a50ba5
Over on Cohost I wrote a post about some holiday decorations and light pranking I did in my hometown: https://cohost.org/aysamanra/post/745518-so-my-family-has-th
Currently thinking about the time that I filmed a time-lapse video of a drive from San Francisco to Portland (although the sun went down before I hit Portland, so the last bit just looks like the end of A Space Odyssey instead.) Some day I should make another attempt at this that isn't marred by a windshield bug for the first third. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb61wE4U2PY
that spooky janitor character in the direct-to-video movie of your life
formerly @keweddji as well as @aisamanra and @uzhdanra on birdsite. he/him