April Updates!

Been a minute! But it's been a busy Spring! Finished up the project manager courses on Coursera and got two new fancy badges for my Linkedin profile. There are three courses to complete the full Project Management Cert. I completed the first 2 which centered on traditional waterfall methodologies, and the last one I need to complete is on Agile. Really it's been a great refresher of concepts I've been exposed to in the past but been able to ignore as the "doer" but as the "manager" now I have to remember these tools and use them, a lot.

I've recently been having the urge to roll some dice and play some TTRPG's, after a 15 year hiatus. I always loved playing Pathfinder with my friends and was happy to see there is a second edition now. I was able to score quite a bit of TTRPG content by watching humble bundle the past couple of years. Shadowrun is another one I've always had big interest but zero friends to play with since I was a wee nerd boy trying to convince my other 9 year old friends that playing Battletech was way more fun than video games. Somethings never change.

To scratch the TTRPG itch I did some YouTube digging and found quite a fascinating world of solo TTRPG's. I'll dedicate a whole post to the various types and give some insight after I've played a few of them. I'm working through a Runecairn Wardensaga adventure right now. It very much feels like a "souls-like" game for pen and paper. It's fun, light on the rules, and really easy to upload content to an AI bot and have them be your game master. I'm using Proton's Lumo, but great for on the go gaming with the GPT of choice on your phone.

You wait for a gust of wind to mask your footsteps, then move.

Dex Save: Roll 10 or under on a d20.

🎲 Roll: 11 — Failure.

You're halfway across the chamber, weaving between stalagmites, when a loose stone shifts under your boot. The click is barely audible over the wind—but the demon's head snaps toward you.

For a heartbeat, nothing. Two burning eyes fix on you from the ledge above. The hulking shape goes completely still.

Then it moves.

The demon leaps from the ledge, crashing into the smashed crater with a thunderous impact that shakes the entire chamber. Stone dust billows. It rises to its full height—a grotesque humanoid shape of rocky, pitted flesh, bloated and deformed. An enormous stone club rests in one hand. The bronze key swings at its neck.

It takes one step toward you. Then another. The ground trembles with each footfall.

You're caught in the open. The cramped tunnel is maybe 30 feet to your west. The eastern passage back to the bonfire is behind you.

What do you do?

Run for the cramped tunnel (Dex save to outrun the demon)

Stand and fight with your broken sword (d3 damage vs. 9 Res, 2 Def — this is a bad idea)

Try to dodge past it toward the eastern passage (Dex save)

Something else?