General – Split Horizons

Afterliving for Artists — Cover Reveal & Pre-Order

Published by MichelV69 on February 9, 2023

Post Views: 89 So, “Afterliving for Artists” was the third novel in the Glitter City Knights series that I got started on in 2022. In fact, the first draft was finished in 2022, totalling over a quarter-million words written for the year on this series. It’s now up for pre-order on Amazon, with release day as February 14th, 2023 — Valentine’s Day. I’m very happy with how the cover art turned out; here’s the results of a lot of work: Back Cover Blurb:Early winter in Glitter City, 1996. Every where else on the Gulf Coast might be finding it chilly, but for the city’s Unwilling Orphan Alumna Afterliving, things are starting to warm up nicely. Anoki Kuwari is a young artist with big hopes for his tattoo and…

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You Need A GM Sheet

Published by MichelV69 on April 21, 2021

Post Views: 472 So, a while ago on my Twitch Channel, I made the assertion that you need a “GM Sheet“. If you’re a Games Master / Story Teller for a Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG) group, and you don’t have a GM Sheet passed out to your players, and then periodically reviewed for currency, you aren’t just lazy. You’re straight-up doing it wrong. I’ve been told, both directly and indirectly, that an awful lot of LGTBQA+ and BIPOC / WOC folx hear alarm bells ringing if a GM/ST doesn’t have or, even worse, doesn’t know what a GM Sheet is for. This is something that’s been in the TTRPG community for about five years now. As a DAWG GM/ST, it was only something I found out…

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DnD5e : I Made A Map. More To Follow.

TTRPG Map Sadelyn Island from my Scattered Islands setting

DnD5e : I Made A Map. More To Follow.

Published by MichelV69 on December 16, 2018

Post Views: 730 So I was having a quiet evening at home, and got playing around with ProFantasy’s Campaign Cartographer 3+ on a live stream. This is what I came up with: It’s free to use for non-commercial reasons in your private DnD5e game. I’m going to be setting up a section on the website here that will hold all the maps I make as I fill this place in. The next one will be a “Classic 5-Room Dungeon”. I had a lot of fun doing this. I hope folks enjoy the aesthetic.

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Bang-Bang, You’re Arguement is Invalid

Published by MichelV69 on March 25, 2018

Post Views: 1,184 WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE, MATHEMATICS, AND CITED SOURCES AHEAD. This blog post may not be suitable for all readers. Reader discretion is advised. Some people are going to be reading this because came @me in a forum, or Facebook or on Twitter. If you want to refute what I have to say, link me your blog post in the comments. If you can’t be bothered putting this much effort into this discussion, please stop talking to me. Seriously. I’m done. I don’t want to hear you. If you’re here because I posted this link to you, then go get your pen and calculator, because we’re going Grade 6 math here. Some folks are going to be here because Google or some other mechanism brought you here. …

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D&D5e – Thoughts On Balancing Encounters

Published by MichelV69 on August 24, 2017

Post Views: 836 In a recent video, prominent YouTuber and Dungeon Mastering evangelist Matt Colville (Twitter: @mattcolville) suggested that new Dungeon Masters should likely not use the DnD5e “Challenge Rating”, or CR, system as it was designed. The video is here: https://youtu.be/xANZTijbrw8 I like Matt Colville’s video series, titled “Running the Game“, an awful lot. He has some smart insights. In many cases, he is articulating stuff I have always done, or have had tumbling in the back of my head but do not have words for. In some other cases, though, he says something I Spock-Eye at him about. My take-away from this particular video was that he suggested Dungeon Masters use the “Challenge Rating”, or CR, system as a guideline to find a group of likely monsters to…

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From Pearl Harbor, to a Lack of Federal Voting Reform in Canada

Published by MichelV69 on February 10, 2017

Post Views: 866 First, A Bit of History Ok, so I know you think I am stretching here, but give me a chance to explain why voter reform was doomed by an event more than seventy-five years ago. On December 9th, 1941, Imperial Japan declared war on the United States of America. To this point, most historians will agree that the USA was maintaining a public neutral face(1 2 3) in the war in Europe, and the war in the Pacific. While the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the danger the Axis powers represented, “…The American public was decidedly isolationist and antiwar. Memories of the expense of World War I — in lives and money — were still fresh. In 1934, Congress passed the Johnson Act, which…

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Late to the Train Fever Party

Late to the Train Fever Party

Published by MichelV69 on February 27, 2016

Post Views: 863 Late to the Train Fever Party With a name like Train Fever you’d think this is a game about building giant virtual train sets under the restrictions of meta-economy. You’d be wrong; so was I. Train Fever, in fact is a ground transportation management simulator. The simulation component is a bit counterintuitive, and if what you’re here for is to build a model railroad, it’ll bite you as it did me. If I have a primary complaint about Train Fever, it is that for a game that is still $40 CAD a year after its release, the help / tutorial is functionally non-existent. For an early release game, that’s OK … for a “sim” game priced at the bottom edge of Triple A pricing a…

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Aquaponics Basement Test System – Video Blog Update for 11 April 2014

Published by MichelV69 on April 12, 2014

Post Views: 203 I’m trying something different in blogging … I’ve done a “video blog” post over on my YouTube channel. If you’re interested in the rapidly growing scene of Aquaponics, and my post from before Christmas got your interest, pop over and have a watch. The video is admittedly a bit out of focus in some places; the Android tablet I was using as my recorder seemed to get confused fairly easily. However, it’s a first try, just to see 1) if I liked doing this sort of thing, and 2) if you liked this sort of thing. I’m a firm believer that text blogs will always have a place. However, sometimes its just faster to record a 14 minute video and upload it, than trying to…

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Category: General