The Disoriented Ranger

Here we go, another post on the Substack. I think I can claim that I'm back at it. There are already two new essays lined up, and I'm aiming at one a week with one of those for those who have also subscribed. I can say one more thing: people are seeing the posts and it gets Likes, which is far and beyond of what blogger is offering. Good. Anyway, check out my new essay:

Excerpt:

Sometimes I just get hit by a topic. This is one of those times. You know how some issues will just not stop returning into the general discussion how a thing is done or not? The performative aspect of that aside (which has gotten worse, tbh, but it’s just a phase), it may be an indicator that something is either not understood properly or (and?) that an idea really needs looking into. Immersion is one of those.

What we agree upon is not what we think.

There is a new kind of meme going viral just now where someone takes music videos of famous bands and replaces the music and singing with just squeaky shoes and grunting. It’s unbearable (and funny, to a degree), but it manages to point something out that we tend to forget: many of the visual media we look at need something as abstract as music to even allow immersion. It’s not just what we see, it’s the combination of seeing and hearing that may create the kind of trance we need to lose ourselves in what we see.

Language can be, in that sense, like music and entrance a listener just the same (and that will be important later on). That is mostly due to the fact that we are reduced to seeing and listening with visual media. Many are not aware that those are skills we learn, actually.

It is hard to tell if allowing that kind of immersion for playing video games (which has an active part, of course) needs the training we naturally receive for growing up with visual media. But assuming that you need some proficiency in how moving pictures work before you could play something like Quake seems to be evident. Just give your grandma a controller and see how she’ll fare.

Anyway, the base line here are two factors: rhythm and the skill to interpret it towards an experience. That’s a good start, but not the whole picture, because we need to know the frame of what we explore, too. In other words, the experience needs to pose a question we need to be able to understand in order to work our way along the rhythm towards an answer.

Very broadly speaking, that question needs to be rooted in our understanding of reality. Specifically speaking, if the question leading into an experience is based on a compromise we can agree upon, then we are more willing to leave that base towards where the experience is leading to (which is why playing a character helps along the way so easily).

Read on ...

Already five posts published and there's a shitload of Notes out as well. Just to give you guys an impression what's going on over there. Already more engagement then I have here or on X. All good and positive, so make sure to join the party. My latest post is about what rules are and what the must do in order to work properly. A lot of it is explained via chess, but I'm eventually making my way to D&D and role-playing games in general.

Here's the first paragraph:

Link 

That's four essays linked here in April, including my introduction over there (three proper, then). There's another meaty one for those with at least a free subscription for the Substack. I'll try to have one for paying members up soon, too (they don't exist yet, but will eventually and they will have something to discover).

Among my next essays will be stuff about looting (bad) movies for their content and one with setting up a sandbox for ORWELL, hopefully with some play-reports building on that (it has to come together on the play side, but I'm working on it).

The Substack will focus a lot on my publishing endeavors, but that usually brings up a lot of adjacent topics and the lively community over there will do its own inspiring.

First time in a long time that blogging brings me joy again.

Here we are again, with my renewed effort to get a blog going ... This third essay is about how AI will impact publishing in general and what we can do about that. Even got a comment and all that good stuff!

Gotta say, I'm happy with what Substack does. And I was surprised (just a little) to find so many familiar faces posting there. It seems to be a somewhat closed ecosystem, but that isn't a bad thing per se, as it allows bundling some different aspects of blogging that don't go together easily in other places. So far it's the closest to what g+ had been, imho. The UI is a bit fickle, but nothing that can't be handled.

This newest essay is also free, and you'll find a link to it just below the picture:

Needless to say, I'd be happy to have you over there, reading what I wrote. Maybe following. Maybe even subscribing. Would mean the world to me.

I'll keep posting the free stuff here for some more time. Subscribers will soon find some more (also free) essays on the site as that's a thing we do. Paying subscribers will find even more content, once that's a thing. Either way, I'm putting in the work AND some more Notes on a regular basis.

Substack is starting to come together for me. Regular Notes, first couple of subscribers and here's the second post. A design post about some ideas I had for a game I'm writing just now: That Eldritch Sea. You'll get an idea what the game is about, how it will work and the details on one little idea I needed to make that game click.

You can find it here (for free):

Click this, please. 

As I said in the introduction, there's a bit more to discover now. I'll use blogger solely as a sign post from now on, until I think the blog is dead for good. It is for the better. Blogger has run its course and I need a new start of sorts. Substack fits that bill, and I'll be happy to see all those over there who liked my stuff here. As well as making new friends, of course.

Another post will hit Sunday. Meanwhile I'll do a little series of note about all my projects. That's a lot, as you'll find ^^ 

Hello, friends and neighbors. Long time no see, right? Well, I was undecided how to move on from blogger. It's just that ... well, the algorithm is an unkind mistress, so we are moving tents to greener pastures. I'll show you the way.

Looky here, a Substack ...

Blogger was good the first couple of years I used it, but when g+ got the boot, it all fizzled away. And the OSR community (of yore) with it. I stayed. I tried. And I never stopped working on the stuff I started. But this isn't the place for it anymore. I barely get traffic from other blogs anyway (AND haven't been doing much here as well).

So I have to move on.

But I'd be happy to take you! So here's where it's at, with a couple of words about what it will be about:
 

Go there, if you will 

You see? I shift focus a bit. Not so much about the culture and more about me being a publisher and talking about my projects, about the tools of the trade, all that good stuff, and with clear dedication to give this a proper pulse.

I'll update here when I update there until I feel like this blog can rest now.

See you on the other side!