New blog at Wordpress

I've switched to Wordpress and will be posting all new stuff here. The old blog will remain as is but will no longer be updated. I'm still learning the Wordpress interface but like it so far.

Thank you for your patience.

Considering a move to Wordpress

I don't feel like fucking around with the eventual Google Grand Conjunction, I'm still aching from getting blasted in the ass by G+, and tonight's abortive attempt at fixing up the now-imageless archives of this blog proved too irritating and depressing to even go into, so I'm thinking of starting over again with Wordpress.

If I move, I'm leaving this blog up as is, with a link to the new one. No import, because that does nothing to obviate the image issue.

Any tips or feedback from current Wordpress users?

Housekeeping

I'm more or less over my initial butthurt at the loss of the blog's associated image album, whether it was because of an ambiguous "glitch" on Google's part or something I did wrong. If it taught me anything, it's that in troubled times, I have community support.

(It also taught me that if you want a sharp spike in incoming traffic even when you're not posting anything new and in fact are wailing about not doing just that, you might try getting YDIS to bemoan your loss of fapworthy images.)

I'm going through the blog archives in the next few days and deleting some old posts that were basically nothing but a title and an image. For posts that actually had some accompanying "content," I'm deleting dead image links, with or without a pasted edit indicating that there used to be pictures there but, you know. I'm also cleaning out some of the superfluous personal posts, so the next time I flake out I can act like it's the first time it's happened and we can all pretend no one remembers otherwise.

I can say with certainty that I'm not fucking around with G+ again for a while. Even the densest hilljack will, after being burned once by the bug zapper, thereafter exercise some degree of circumspection in reaching towards it again, even if there's a really big moth just flapping and sizzling away on there.

Thank you for your patience.

Taking a break

The recent disappearance of every single picture on the blog has me irritated, and I need a break anyway, so I'm taking one. I'm still running the chat game and I'm still planning to distribute the Dwarf-Land stuff.

I'm not going anywhere permanently or long-term, nuking the blog, anything like that ... it's just disheartening to lose like 300 posts worth of pictures, because I'm sure as fuck not uploading them again. Maybe I did something wrong in the course of deleting Google+, but I'm certain I toggled the button to delete G+ content only.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be back, although I have no idea what I'm going to do about those godawful question marks where my images used to be. Like I said, really disheartening.

Missing images

Right on the heels of deleting my Google+ account, it looks like my images uploaded to Blogger have disappeared. All of them. Neat. Blood in, blood out, apparently.

Bailed on Google+

I deleted my Google+ account tonight. I don't seem to have a real use for it right now. I read a very narrow spectrum of things on the internet, and I'm already reading about as much of that as I want to, so its function as a delivery system for more internet content was superfluous for me. In my case, it seemed to be functioning much like Facebook, only with mostly gamers I know from online instead of mostly people I know in the meat world.

Anyway, I'll probably be back on at some point, especially if I ever succumb to the urge to run a pickup game using the video chat feature - that seems to be the one relevant feature that everyone's rightfully excited about. Beyond that, it just looks like regular social networking with a different crowd and a better content filtering system.

EDIT: Is anyone else having issues with images in their old posts disappearing, or is Google exacting its pound of flesh for me leaving?

"The Caves" mapping process, and cave symbols

Above is the very first dungeon map I've started for the Foulrevel dungeon, the uppermost level of "the Caves." It's on standard letter-sized grid vellum, 10 squares to the inch, meaning that in terms of physical space, it's a sprawling level with lots of wide passages and large caverns. I drew it straight on with a sepia Micron, and have scanned it so if I make any horrible mistakes, I don't have to go back and redo the whole damned thing.

Next up, I'm adding "cave features" using the symbols promulgated in .pdf form here. I'm consciously avoiding the dungeon commonplaces familiar from various old blue dungeon maps and seeing what I come up with just dicking around on my own. The symbol list contains a lot of "stuff that I don't know what it is" and I'm hoping for a bit of dungeon dressing and special feature inspiration from that quarter.

I plan to add ample ledges, pits, and at least one crevasse. One or more of the caverns will extend vertically to the second level of the Caves. The main entrance for delver purposes is the one to the west of the map. The northeast tunnel leads up to a secluded location on the surface, and the tunnel to the east leads down to the second level.

I also plan to add a few secret areas and the odd door and other construction. (The as-yet-undeveloped backstory is that, as is usual for OD&D, there was a race of advanced Men or Man-like beings who occupied the area in the distant past, even before the various fairy races. Thus dungeons.)

Unlike many, I'm not a fan of confederated Man-type groups on a dungeon's very first level, opting rather for various vermin, Undead, and magical beasts, along with the odd Dungeon NPC and perhaps roving bands of Man-types from other dungeon levels. I design dungeons with an eye towards use with players of varying experience with the game; for a potential first experience with dungeon delving, I much prefer the "wandering through a weird wonderland" tone of Quasqueton to the tactical slog and small-unit skirmishes of the Caves of Chaos. There's plenty of time for the latter after one's been exposed to the basics of dungeon exploration.

In fact, I hesitated to use a cave system for a potential introductory dungeon level, as I usually draw up the first level or two with mostly nice right angles and rectangles. Precise mapping of the cave system from a player perspective is obviously right out, and I expect most experienced groups will devolve to the "line and balloon" style. But even (or especially) n00bs need to build character.

I plan to place a decent amount of treasure in the Caves, but because of the nature of the denizens, the first level's treasures will be mostly concentrated in a few hoards. Experienced (read: grubby and acquisitive) players will soon send their delvers in search of portals to other, presumably more lucrative dungeon levels.