A few weeks back, I started using an RSS reader app. It all began when earlier this year I began developing an interest in the “Old School Renaissance/Revival” (OSR) roleplaying scene and ended up investigating a series of links to blogs in the “Inspiration and Educational Reading” section of His Majesty the Worm (a relatively new roleplaying game I think is very neat and would love to play sometime - with you, perhaps, dear reader?). Upon finding these blogs, checking them out, and saying to myself “that’s very neat, I would love to read these thoughts on a recurring basis”, I had the question, “how do I go about remembering to check these blogs for updates?”

Now you already know the answer - I said it at the top of the page: RSS. Before I go into that though, a brief remembrance of the time before. When I was 16 or so I had a list of websites that I checked regularly. I kept track of them via my web browser favorites tab, and I would go through them semi-regularly one by one, looking at the new posts that had gone up. There were a lot of metal blogs, with Metalsucks.net being the main one I remember. Anyway - is there any reason I couldn’t reintegrate this habit into my life? Maybe, maybe not - I haven’t tried - maybe I should!

Regardless: I downloaded an RSS app, something I’ve done once or twice in the past. On previous attempts to integrate rss into my life I made a recurring error: I loaded my rss feed with too many Big Websites. While there are certainly interesting articles on big websites the problem is that they produce an enormous number of posts, flooding the RSS feed with Too Much Stuff. It turns the RSS experience into one of panning an infinite river for a few flakes of gold, an experience you may recognize from every single other way of engaging with posts on the internet. However, this time around I have found the RSS solution: blogs only.

My RSS experience is much improved this time around because I am only subscribing to blogs. There are still people out there in this day and age posting on blogs. Lots of them literally on blogger which was a shock to me, although many of these blogs claim to be “newsletters” and are posted on something called “substack”. Regardless - I’m having a grand old time reading this stuff. Currently I am subscribed almost exclusively to TTRPG blogs, and of those mostly ones devoted to the OSR style of play, something I find absolutely fascinating and yet have literally never experienced at a table (virtual or in person) - this is very sad, something I should resolve.

Nevertheless I don’t want to use my RSS exclusively for TTRPG stuff. I do check out a few other places:

In addition to these excellent reads, I am on the lookout for more good blogs (or even [god forbid] newsletters) provided they work in an RSS reader (and have a decent amount of free posts). Very much looking for Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror fiction blogs, especially if they write about old stuff, but am open to anything interesting by good writers, especially history, politics/policy, media/art, science - probably not business/economics or things of that ilk. Recommendations welcome! Finally, as a little treat for sticking with me here are some of the TTRPG blogs that I’ve been reading. Your mileage may vary, but I think these are all interesting to read even if you don’t play these games yourself (but maybe after reading, you’ll want to!) So in conclusion - I've largely (but not entirely) replaced mindlessly social media with reading blogs, and I'm having a grand old time. I realized I never mentioned this anywhere: I use the RSS Mobile app on iphone, if anyone was curious. Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that this blog does not currently have an RSS feed! To that I say: I'm working on it. Maybe by the time you read this, it will no longer be true - we live in hope.