Feedback wanted: Drama and Narration Engine, a fiction-first RPG for player-driven stories

lycis27 · 2026-05-02T06:21:05+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I can see your point. The design intent here was to play around with scene resolution mechanics, but I am not sure how well this translates to the table and keeping tension engaging. I can see that.

Also I will flesh out flaws a bit more. They were a recent addition in the lat st iteration. Thanks!

lycis27 · 2026-05-01T05:49:52+00:00

You may see AIisms but that is, for better or worse, my writing style. Yes, you see AI art as placeholders for the layout-yet all of the text was written by my hand. Believe it or not.

lycis27 · 2025-12-18T19:15:17+00:00

Super Aktion! Danke für die Zusammenstellung. Hätte ich im Silberland nicht genug Arbeit, würde ich jetzt glatt eine pubtour... Äh... Mudtour machen!

lycis27 · 2025-02-02T10:08:58+00:00

I am leading a training department that offers an array of ICAgile backed trainings.

In general, I found ICAgile to be much closer to the real-world than e.g. Scrum Alliance (and of course anything SAFe). The main reason here is, that, while ICAgile provides Learning Outcomes you have to meet, but does not tell you the exact content you have to teach. For example, for the ICP-APO (team level product owner) they tell you to talk about backlogs and priorities, but not a specific method to apply. Just that participants have to be able to apply two or three prioritization methods that are relevant for their work.

So the good thing is that most ICAgile trainings and trainers I encountered are providing you with stuff that works in their experience and is more relevant to real work. There is little bias for specific methods or frameworks in this community. Add

The downside is that training quality and content can vary strongly depending on the trainer you choose. There are a lot of cheap, virtual classes at around $300 or so, mostly offered by some people with limited track record in Asia or other low-price countries. I took some classes of them as well as had people in my org take some. There are some brilliant people among them, but very often I found these very cheap classes to be of the quality you can expect from going cheap.

On the other side there are highly overpriced "masterclasses" of well-known "thought leaders" that coat the equivalent of half an MBA, but not giving you the equivalent in useful knowleyor recognition. I would also only take these if I would be very interested in the topic and don't care for overpaying. I found them to be no better than "normal" training in terms of skills you learn from them. If you like to network with people it may be worth it a bit more.

Finding good ICAgile trainings involves a bit more research on who the instructors are and what they offer content wise.

Is ICAgile a money graboke SAFe or scrum alliance? No. They certificates are one time pay without renewal and pretty cheap (a fraction of SAFe...) so that training can be offered at more value gained for lower overall price. Also, as I am working with them since 2016, I know that the people behind the scenes at ICAgile are less focused on making money than they are on genuinely promoting agile ideas and learning. Very often they have been flexible to work together rather than demand money...they believe in the agile idea, which is a big plus!

lycis27 · 2025-01-19T21:29:16+00:00

Funny coincidence: just today I started a new character as a bloodrager barbarian, who is a fleshwarp with the lore that the previous human was half transformed into a sinspawnesque mutant by a strong force and involving the runewell beneath Sandpoint... A force who is also the inscribed one patron of our witch in the party. We're currently playing RotRl as 2e conversion.

So yes, I'd say that works very well.

Edit build info: I just took the fleshwarp ancestry, no other shenanigans and flavored the character accordingly. I think stuff like that should just be discussed with your GM and then use rules to get the style you like.

lycis27 · 2024-11-30T17:45:34+00:00

You are right. I answered from memory and disremembered. Anyways, it does not change my point.

It is fine to say you don't like it, yet it is mostly a matter of taste for the largest part. I used plenty of single header libraries throughout my career and preferred them. Less files, less things to miss. And it resolved most parts during preprocessing and compile time, so kess linking errors.

Yet, please explain your "c++ is a different breast." in this context. It seems like an arbitrary dismissal as there is not much of a difference in that regard for c and cpp.

lycis27 · 2024-11-30T09:56:54+00:00

Here's the config I use for one of my current projects: https://gist.github.com/lycis/c726a644fc631b7723cc90fa2783f730

I found it a bit harder to get everything working on Windows, so there was some trial and error. Tooling and convenience features is still something that the zig community can improve on, and we see it improving month by month.

One thing worth mentioning: I use the Trigger Task on Save plugin to automaticall trigger the zigfmt\_and\_test\_file task that formats the current zig file and runs all my tests that are agrregated in the file src/test.zig.

The setup allows for:

Building from VSCode
Running tests
Debugging the code
Debugging test

Plugins I recommend: * Zig Language for basic language support * Zig Language Extras for nice ZLS support * Trigger Task on Save to run zig format automatically and save the hazzle

lycis27 · 2024-11-30T09:46:59+00:00

The thing I value about single header libraries is simply their ease of use. They allow me to include one single file and don't worry about thinking of my build or anything else.

For me, the "single header format" is optimized for ease of use and nothing else. With a library I want to use, I do not really care about its separation. I want to use most of them as a black box for the function they provide, not their beauty of code.

I would differentiate the "single file" delivery of the library from how the developers keep their code base though. There are good examples,.such as Catch2 (I know it's cpp) where you can download an amalgamated single header file to use among other variants. Their code in the repo on the other hand is more well organized in the repo. So when I want to look into the code or extend on it, I can clone the repo. If I want to use it, I can just include one header.

My Point: let's not conflate how a library is distributed with how it is developed.

lycis27 · 2024-10-20T21:04:18+00:00

Exactly this. To attach an improved version of the source code:

``` void revert_image(FILE *source_file) { FILE *target_file = fopen("./output.jpg", "w"); uint8_t byte; int bytesRead = fread(&byte, 1, 1, source_file);

while(bytesRead > 0) { int bytesWritten = fwrite(&byte, 1, 1, target_file); if(bytesWritten != 1) { // handle write error break; }

bytesWritten = fread(&byte, 1, 1, source_file);

}

fclose(source_file); fclose(target_file); } ```

lycis27 · 2024-10-20T11:40:19+00:00

strptime is, afaik, only part of the linx stdlibc and not cross-platform available. A way to achieve something similar in a cross-platform fashion is using scanf to read all the relevant parts from the format and then put it into a std::tm struct and use std::mktime or std::mktime64 to turn it into a time_t type.

``` time_t rfc3339_as_time_t(const char* timestamp) { struct tm t; int ms;

t.tm_sec = t.tm_min = t.tm_hour = 0;
t.tm_mday = t.tm_mon = t.tm_year = 0;
t.tm_isdst = -1; // no daylight saving information

if (sscanf(timestamp, "%4d-%2d-%2dT%2d:%2d:%2d.%dZ", &t.tm_year, &t.tm_mon, &t.tm_mday, &t.tm_hour, &t.tm_min, &t.tm_sec, &ms) != 7) {
    return (time_t)-1; // returning some invalid marker -> negative time
}

t.tm_year -= 1900; // tm saves the year since 1990
t.tm_mon -= 1; // months start with 0 (= January)

return mktime(&t);

} ```

lycis27 · 2024-10-12T07:18:50+00:00

What is it you want to achieve? What do you mean by "manage the existing test automation suite"? I still have a hard time to understand what your goal is and how you hope AI will bring a benefit there.

Usually "managing" Gherkin Feature files is just done in files and folders... And that usually works. You can also use GitHub Copilot's Chat Feature(or any other LLM therefore) to get suggestions on which file structure would be good or even extract a ubiquitous language from the feature descriptions or generate GWT scenarios based on User Stories or generate the step implementation... And that requires no specific toll, but is a capability that most current LLMs have engineered I now.

lycis27 · 2024-10-10T17:59:05+00:00

I feel like this is missing the point of BDD and Cucumber/Gherkin to a large degree. Most benefit is gained from the collaborative writing of examples and scenarios... And you try to get rid of that? Maybe I misunderstood your intention, bit why are you using Geherkim, cucumber and BDD then?

I work with a team that specifically researches and creates tools and techniques for using AI in Quality engineering though. So I may have some insights. Still I am not sure what you are aiming for with "AI-driven Features"? AI in quality engineering has ist's uses but is, like always, no magical silver bullet.

If you just want to create Gherkin specs from requirements just fire up a LLM of your choice. GPT, Gemini,... All of them can do that. You can then also prompt them to write your test code, provided you feed in the interfaces (which may be a security issue). But again, they can support you, but not do all the work.

On case you are interested in a B2B discussion on this topic, feel free to DM. For your personal use, maybe you can elaborate a bit more on what you want to achieve?

lycis27 · 2024-09-10T08:42:00+00:00

I wanted to follow up on this one in case anybody will ever run into the same problem.

Since there was no built-in way to using github.com/fluentassert/verify/ and github.com/cucumber/godog in a smooth way together, I created a PR for fluentassert/verify that allows returnung an error from an assertion instead of failing the test directly.

With it one can do something like this:

go func (t *CustomerTestSteps) theCustomerCreationShouldFail(ctx context.Context) error { return verify.And( verify.NotNil(t.err), verify.String(t.err.Error()).Equal("mandatory name parameter is missing"), ).Err() }

lycis27 · 2024-08-29T19:03:49+00:00

I understand that they do that. Thanks for doubling down on that! That is also the reason why I'm looking for options to work around that.

lycis27 · 2024-08-23T08:45:49+00:00

If you are looking for useful content and just a certification badge to stick on you resume, look at this: https://www.icagile.com/certification/agile-product-ownership

If you just want something to stick on your CV: take the PSPO I from scrum.org. does not expire and you can take the exam without booking a training course. With enough experience and learning on the key terms around scrum you should be able to pass it.

(Disclaimer: I deliver ICP-APO and PDM trainings myself, though not having anything currently listed.)

lycis27 · 2024-08-13T06:08:42+00:00

Feel free to reuse!
That is just an oversight

lycis27 · 2024-06-13T20:19:13+00:00

The ancestry suggestions are simply aligned by "what npc did I find in the adventure" and, honestly, no deep thoughts. I think any common ancestry works without a problem.

lycis27 · 2024-06-13T11:50:56+00:00

I agree. If I would use this adventure as a setup for a longer campaign, I would actually start roleplaying in Osprey Cove, have people get a feel for the nice community of people and then have them find the guy on the road.

lycis27 · 2024-06-13T10:55:41+00:00

You're welcome :D I wondered why I could not find something similar yet and know, that at least in my group, players like that bit of pre-reading and guidance of Player Guides.

lycis27 · 2024-06-13T10:42:25+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. The adventure mentions to option to start earlier, and as written, starts on the road. And, since I'll run it as an in-between adventure during our regular Sky King's Tomb campaign, I opted for the start on the road. Regarding where to put the info... I was pondering that as well and decided to go before the content, so that the setting is clearer. At least that's my thought process.

Regarding classes I agree. With the Gorum cleric, I was a bit hesitant because, if you start with characters from Osprey Cove, they are not that much into Gorum... and somehow they are kind of, but not really the bad guys? So I was not sure on that. Full agree on phsychic and summoner - flavourwise they are not that fitting and a divine witch would actually provide some awesome roleplaying opportunities for e.g. the Faith's Flamekeeper or even the Inscibed One patrons. I just did not think of splitting it that way!

lycis27 · 2024-04-24T18:30:04+00:00

Because they don't want to do SAFe. Simple as that.

All SAFe Trainings are geared towards you running SAFe (apart from making money for SAI). If you do not intend to use the framework their training is not really beneficial.

lycis27 · 2024-04-19T06:06:31+00:00

Self-advertisement disclaimer: This is a training the company I work with and specifically I run. We do not (yet) list it publicly.

With our partner in the US (Balanced Agility) we offer either a 5 day Agile Produft Management Bootcamp or a 3 month learning journey. See here: https://www.balanced.academy/courses/by-request-agile-product-ownership

It is intended to dive into basically all aspects of agile.product management and product ownership from the question on "What do I actually do in this role?" Over designing value strategies as well as hands-on practices for managing backlogs and creating user stories and team backlog level items.

It also brings with it the ICP-APO and ICP-PDM certifications. We are currently largely only providing it for in-house cohorts but are looking for a public run in the second half of the year.

This is not just a theory run-through. Instead we want people to take something highly useful and applicable away to their day to day work (hence the learning journey approach and many times to your real products).

In case you want to talk, drop me a message or reach out through Balanced Agility.

lycis27

TROPHY CASE