The Game Mage

Documenting one mage's journey to follow his dream and die trying

2025

PAX Unplugged 2025 - PAX Metro: The Underground Expedition

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For those of you who were at PAX Unplugged you may have encountered the Line Entertainment team. And if you found us at night, you may have been presented with the opportunity to participate in the Grand Campaign - a distributed adventure narrative told over the course of the weekend. As each story beat progressed attendees were presented with the current situation and a variety of options, each with a custom Difficulty Check (DC) attached.

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Dune 2: Even More Dune

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“It sounds like you might be playing the ghost of a better game that lives inside this one.” – Claude Sonnet 4 Previously: Waking Up to Dune Awakening Part 1: How Stella Got Her Groove Back, or, When The Worm Lost its Teeth Okay, so. Uh. I’m still playing Dune: Awakening. Yeah, I also think that’s weird. I’ve never spent so many words explaining why I don’t recommend something only to go on and keep engaging with it.

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Waking Up to Dune Awakening

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Chapter 1: Dune. So hot right now. I’m not going to bury the lede. You probably shouldn’t play Dune: Awakening. The rest of this article is going to be an attempt to explain why, despite my own anti-recommendation, I’m still playing it. You should know that Dune: Awakening is mean as hell. Up to a point that meanness is clearly intentional. It’s a Dune Simulator, and Dune’s world is mean as hell.

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Conventioneering

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A couple times a year I get together with a few tens of thousands of friends-I-haven’t-met-yet at a shindig called PAX. I have the great pleasure of being an [E]nforcer with the Line Entertainment team, which is a great gig if you can get it. Bullying people (politely) into having fun while they wait for a panel? The best way to spend a weekend. We have a few tricks up our sleeve for this.

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Love What You Do

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There goes a famous saying: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Variously attributed to just about anyone smart who is both old and dead. Word on the street is Confucius said it, though my money’s on a random high school teacher who wanted his students to believe it came from someone wiser than him. Or, alternatively: Convince someone to pay you for the thing you wanted to do anyway.

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A Little Bit About Me

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A Little Bit About Me It’s possible you might know me, but if you don’t: hi. I’m Professional Internet Wizard Contrariwise. I was born in the late 20th century on the West coast of America, but currently live in the sparkling southern-flavored Midwest[^Texas.]. Over the years I’ve done lots of things. I started my career in video games, worked on an MMO, burned out, did spreadsheets for nonprofits, got back in like with computers.

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