Slow month of job applications

Lots of boring real world things this month...

Photo from AVcon

In South Australia, June and July are often job application time. This means that a lot of my spare time was soaked up, writing about how good I am at teaching and leading teachers. By far, some of the driest writing you can do.

Although, I took a different approach this time that will either benefit me or close some doors. There's a real big push to use AI chat bots to help with teaching prep. I think there are some instances where this is useful. However, the most part I believe that thinking and problem solving are what teachers should do and therefore out sourcing that to some lame machine is detrimental. There is discussion about how the increase of AI in the job market means that AI writings the job description, then application, and then AI gets the job. I could only imagine at how challenging reading job applications must be now.

The world is filled with semi-illiterate people who think that AI writes well.

In my application, I addressed this directly and went as far as including an AI written response in it. I then went about explaining that while that response included all the things it needed, it didn't include all things that make me human and why a human is necessary for the job.

I'll write more about this once the application process is finished.

Schools Out Sale

I've got all my games and supplements on Itch on sale for the duration of the SA school holidays.

Get amongst it.

So, what have I been doing?

I ran some games at AVcon last weekend, three rounds of Into the Odd. While primarily an Anime and Video Game convention, they had a space dedicated to tabletop games.

There were rows of long tables for board games and wargames, and a library of games for folks to borrow and play. There was another section for card games filled with Magic players trying desperately to not buy more cards, and failing (they put a card vendor right next to them, poor souls). And then there were 8 big round tables for RPGs.

You can read more about that here.

I've been playing fantasy RPGs in the same world for about 10 years and my thoughts about world building and the fantasy genre have changed drastically since then. So, I'm slowly putting together a new world for a new campaign.

Adventures are more engaging when the everyday life of the world is mundane. Fishermen rise early and bring home their hauls, farmers labour under the sun, and bakers kneed bread with their hands. The player characters come from a place that lives and breathes, and for the most part, is boring. Humans will be the most prevalent peoples in this part of the world. Magic exists, sure, but it's rare, powerful and sort after and it's definitely not found in their home town. Home is boring and dull and the further one travels from home, the stranger things become.

You can read more about that here.

Also played through some of DNGN and found I don't like random nonsensical dungeons.

The party went in expecting to find riches but mostly, they've found cultists and earwax. Trying to hold reality together in a place like this seems pointless. The players were under the assumption that this place had some sort of meaningful order. That things in this place were purposefully placed. But they were not.

You can read more about that here.

I've also had a gut full of big tech companies, their greed, and their lunatic owners. I'll be starting my divorce from those big monsters of the next few years. More here.

This also connects with my interest in slowing down and focusing on what's most important.

Around the traps

• Idle Cartulary talks about getting things done and starting. It's a great read, and it's sparked an idea I've had kicking around in my brain for a while.

• Joseph R Lewis has been doing a series on adventure writing which is great and you should watch them all, but a few weeks ago was a video on playtesting which hit all the right buttons for me.

• Between 2 Cairns reviewed Where Chaos Reigns, an 80s D&D adventure that was in my house growing up. I'd never read it before but have learned that it's double plus ungood. Yochai, Brad, and Sam are quite hilarious in their review.

• Appendix N Jam is in full swing and the submissions are looking great!

What's to come?

• I’m chipping away at a weird sci-fantasy post apocalyptic novel. It's got minotaurs and lizard men and dungeon delving humans.

• There's a serious itch to podcast again. I have a few ideas floating around in my head. Be on the lookout for a call for interviewees.

Long days and pleasant nights.

Stuart.