I Started a Development Journal!

I’ve started posting a text and video development journal over on Patreon for RPGWanderer Patrons. If it gets any traction at all I’ll nab a few of them and post them here as well.

I’m using the journal to talk about what it’s like to start and write, and run an in-browser game. So far it has touched on the tech stack and the decisions to get there, some general promotional stuff and some of the features under development. I think there’s a lot of interesting ground to cover, and I’m really looking forward to keeping it up.

Quite a few Steps Taken, and an Awful Lot of Pushing

A friend an I have been grinding full time (to say the least) on a browser based DND5e choose-your-own -adventure RPG, and we’re far enough along to finally turn on the kickstarter!

Has been a hell of a journey trying to put the pieces together on a tight timeline, and the challenges are myriad, but we’re off to a pretty good start. The first chapter is free, and you can give it a try on the site.

I’ll definitely be posting about the experience and about the development process as time goes on, but for now, there’s that, the site above, and our Kickstarter and the trailer, below.

I Want You to Act as a Critic

The Troubling Narrative of AI is Coming to Take Your Job

AI isn’t doing anything right now. Maybe one day, but not now. Certainly, AI isn’t seeking to take your livelihood. There’s someone with the wealth and power to make decisions who believes that leveraging AI will be cheaper or more productive than paying you. That person is going to take your job away.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s easy to say for someone who has the privilege of a fair number of hard-to-replace skills (not programming. Programmers, in the conventional sense, won’t exist in a decade, I think). For many people, AI will unleash their potential. What else is the computer of the Enterprise except ChatGPT on steroids? If we want that, we need this.

But that sentiment is privilege all over again. There are many people who have survival needs. They’re not interested in the minutiae and hair-splitting of whether or not AI will be a net good for civilization. We live in a reality where they need to eat, sleep, and live. We live in a society where they can only do those things if they convince someone with wealth to give them some of it.

All that to say, if you do lose your job “to an AI,” it is people making those decisions, not AI, and it’s those people we should appeal to or hold accountable for the decisions they make. Nothing will be gained by shaking our fist at the abstract concept of Artificial Intelligence.


PS: I asked ChatGPT: “Please proofread this for grammatical, spelling or obvious factual errors:”

Step Taken, With a Little Push

For several years I’ve had this site up with the rather trite, if self aware, words that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and that step will happen any day now.

Today for various reasons the opportunity has been presented to me to take that step. It’s an exciting and terrifying time. That is to say, it’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it’s not for the timid.