Not a Pascal fan myself, though Modula 2 had its moments, but kudos to you for getting back into programming. Language choice depends on experience and goals, of course. At the moment I wish I had more time to work on getting good at Python.
Looking forward to the Ten Thousand Islands novel! I enjoyed the game a lot, and think it got a lot more subtle in its attention to detail and theme than most. I'm thinking of starting an Ars Magica game in a similar PBEM format (though with more use of web resources, and more rules transparency) myself soon.
AD&D? As in, super retro? D20/3E really is a much superiour game, and captures the retro elements quite adequately I feel (I enjoy the retro OTT violence, garish bizarre monsters, and utterly mad completely adventure aligned gameworlds, but I don't miss the bizarre rules inconsistencys and schizophrenic proclamations of the one true path to role playing).
Carcassone is indeed a fine game. The whole german-style board game renaissance is a very good thing.
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Looking forward to the Ten Thousand Islands novel! I enjoyed the game a lot, and think it got a lot more subtle in its attention to detail and theme than most. I'm thinking of starting an Ars Magica game in a similar PBEM format (though with more use of web resources, and more rules transparency) myself soon.
AD&D? As in, super retro? D20/3E really is a much superiour game, and captures the retro elements quite adequately I feel (I enjoy the retro OTT violence, garish bizarre monsters, and utterly mad completely adventure aligned gameworlds, but I don't miss the bizarre rules inconsistencys and schizophrenic proclamations of the one true path to role playing).
Carcassone is indeed a fine game. The whole german-style board game renaissance is a very good thing.