Hello, and welcome to the Diegetic Advancement blog. I'm Riley.
Just over a year ago, on the 12th of September 2023, I released the first episode of the Diegetic Advancement podcast, and over that year, I published 40 more episodes (and some short daily episodes during RPGaDAY). So why are you now reading a blog post?
Well, why did I start in the first place? Several RPG podcasts, shows and blogs initially inspired me. The biggest inspiration was a community known as the “Anchorites”, a group of podcasters (who used the Anchor podcasting app) to talk mostly about RPGs and call into each other's shows. My original plan was to start both a blog and podcast, with the podcast mainly being readings from the blog. But I decided to start the podcast first as it was a lower initial investment and get a round to creating the blog later. I didn't plan on that being over a year later.
I thought my initial podcast episode was quite good too; it had a clear format and vision; however, this plan, like the plan for the blog, didn't pan out, and most of my episodes have been a far departure from that original vision.
So, let's try a reset.
What was that initial vision? I think the sub-title of my Podcast did an okay job of describing it:
“Join me in my quest to play more often and better.”
It could use some work to make it a bit snappier, but it gets the spirit of it right. I want to play more games, and I want them to be more enjoyable than the last - and so you should expect content to be about exactly that.
Let us revisit that first podcast episode titled “Pilot”. It was short, at 9 minutes and had a few segments:
I liked this episode, and apart from improvements to audio quality, I don't know if I produced a better episode in the year of podcasting. So expect more short, focused, relevant, and usable content.
What else do I plan to use this blog for? Well, I had recently started a solo play focused on learning the art of player mapping - I think that will continue. I'd like to do some other solo play stuff, but that will likely take the form of after action reports rather than a play-by-play accounting - I'll also have some session reports of the current games I'm running (a fortnighly game of Dolmenwood) and any future games.
Lastly, though I'm sure there will be other topics than what I've listed, I've found myself really interested in the original game so I want to take a deep dive of Original Dungeons and Dragons - I have a plan for how that will work out but I'll save it for another post.
In my other life, when I'm not trying to play RPGs, I write software for a living. Or at least thats what my title suggests. I actually get to do very little of that depending on the project. I started late in life, with a career change - so I feel like I have very little exposure. So this blog is also an attempt to upskill and keep my skills sharp when I'm not on a project that lets me code. So with that goal in mind, I am trying to write all the software required for the creation and hosting of the blog.
At this stage, if you're reading this it will be hosted on GitHub Pages, or if you're listening it will be hosted by Spotify. But as time goes on I'll move everything to self hosted as this will give me more opportunities to learn. So far I have created a simple program which takes all the posts I've written in markdown, and converts them into a website (a homepage which links to individual posts). It's very basic at the moment, but I'm pretty happy with it. My goal is for the website to be simple, fast and readable/look good, so if you have any feedback please send it my way. If you're interested in the code, its hosted here: Blogger feel free to provide feedback on the code as well, though this is definitely intended to be a personal project.
This also means that theres a lot missing in terms of functionality, so bear with me. I'm focusing on ease of use for both me and you. So again, please provide feedback, and I'll be working out an RSS feed ASAP.
Thank you for reading - bye for now!