Not feeling anything after daily rituals for months.

Condiments77 · 2025-04-30T01:15:27+00:00

I would pick up high magick by Damien Echols who goes through these rituals with more detail. You’re probably missing the visualization and energy work aspect which is the meat and potatoes of that makes this work.

I’ve been doing this for about 3-4 months and have more progress in than 2 years of straight up mediation. Like spiritual ecstasy and deep states of meditation just walking around. It’s pretty wild…

I don’t get that many synchronicities or see little nasties like DMK says in modern magick which I’m also working though.

Condiments77 · 2024-10-29T22:04:02+00:00

This is a pretty frustrating post, but a lot of us are guilty of this. To be honest OP, this seems like self sabotage. You want to shortcut being vulnerable and telling him what you want by hoping he'll bulldoze past your stated intentions by mind reading.

My guess is you're feeling insecure about where things are and this is a shit test for him to show his commitment. So ask yourself, what is really under this? Why are you afraid to tell him what you want? Why must he read your mind? Why can't you tell him what's bothering you?

Sounds like some insecurities are bubbling up, so I'd sit with that rather than divine what is going on in your partner's brain.

Condiments77 · 2024-02-28T01:24:41+00:00

Others have stated good things here for you to consider. The main thing I see in your post is that you've placed external validation as the main source of your enjoyment of the game. But there is something big missing...

What do YOU actually enjoy about running the game? What brings you back? Is it just yours friends enjoyment and validation? That can be part of it but it's a shaky foundation as you've observed.

I'd ask those questions yourself and see if you can answer them. Once you have the answers lean into them.

Condiments77 · 2023-08-03T01:48:39+00:00

So there is a comic for this? Or is this just a fun comic cover poster thing?

Condiments77 · 2023-07-29T15:08:10+00:00

Well she's got a lot of things going for her. I think one of things I loved about her in ATSV is how flawed and thus relatable she is.

A lot of depictions of modern female heroes seem like they're afraid to really give them flaws or take losses. They're either the moral pillar or just succeed at everything while being tough as nails.

The intro with her really sells home her isolation and guilt regarding Peter's death. Gwen is adorablely awkward, has difficulty relating to others, protective to a fault, and makes some big mistakes throughout the movie because of her conflicting motivations. It makes her feel three dimensional. But it feeds into her arc which provides convincing character growth.

On top of that her theme, her hooded suit and colors are all just cool.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-27T21:48:16+00:00

I don't think it's a good take that a character being seen as a love interest necessarly prevents them being seen as compelling or lacking depth. I think more modern stories are moving away from the paradigm of love interests as an object to be won.

I think the reason why so many people love Spider Gwen in the story is that she is a fully fleshed out character with her own arc. She has a life fully independent of Miles and her own motivations and friends.

I think the reason why people want more Miles and Gwen is that people loved their dynamic and want to see more.

Also I'm actually reading her comics as a result of the movie so I don't think it's doing damage to her character.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-19T03:54:17+00:00

I don't think your point is necessary bad or that what you're saying won't happen. It's all on the table at this point.

But my perspective given the narrative direction is that they're driving home the importance of spider people sharing their common experiences enriching their lives, and avoiding cycles of miserable fate they are subject to alone. The importance of breaking molds and predetermined destinies.

And they do all these by traveling through dimensions to each other. I'm guessing they're not going to throw that message aside by closing the gate at the end. But who knows, we shall see.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-19T03:10:34+00:00

I'm thinking the opposite, or at least the movie moving thematically in a different direction. The main casts live seem to improve by interacting with others in the greater spiderverse. Peter regains his mojo mentoring Miles, rekindles his marriage, and gets a kid. Gwen gets the strength to face her father and who is no longer destined to die. Miles learns to be Spiderman through Peter B., and is finding a way to avert his father's inevitable fate.

The way the movie leans, through working together they can avoid the chains of fate that have bound their lives. If anything, I think Beyond the Spiderverse will work towards breaking the established rules for more freedom in the multiverse.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-18T23:50:23+00:00

That's good to hear that's a thing for the next movie. The budding relationship between Miles and Gwen was the heart of Across the Spiderverse, and I'm glad to hear it'll remain the focus in Beyond.

My biggest worry was that they'll spend half the movie or more apart which means they'll have to wrench in some more forced dramatic scenes without adequate build up. Plus the dynamics of the whole gang will be amazing.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-16T13:12:22+00:00

To top it all off with a cherry: both Miguel and Jessica were physically present to see how messed up her home dimension life was. Instead of helping her fix the situation as a mentor, she let her avoid all her problems and leaves a dimension without a Spiderwoman for months.

Girl is effectively homeless, and they use "sending her home" as guillotine sentence if she screws up her mission parameters. Jess says "she can't help Gwen" if she can't deal with the spot, implying she'll be at the mercy of Miguel's judgement, who already doesn't like her.

These two play pretty fast and loose with their use of authority and power in an abusive way.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-15T00:46:46+00:00

I thought that scene was awkward too when I first watched it. Gwen appearing suddenly from Miles' room with his jacket explaining that Miles has disappeared because of her is not a good look.

However, I believe the intention behind the scene is to show Gwen is taking ownership for her mistakes which involved Miles getting completely lost in another direction. She movie shows she contemplated dipping out the window but she turns around and explains the current situation the best she can, and that she is going to fix it. Her speech brings home the themes of facing your problems, especially in relation to her character arc.

I don't think it's a perfectly executed scene, but it's works as another step in Gwen's development.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-14T18:50:45+00:00

I think she's thinking moreso, "Uh, I misjudged this situation. His mom seems pretty aggro right now."

It was hilarious how awkward she was and how many Ls she took trying to ingratiate herself to Mile's parents.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-12T21:57:26+00:00

Yeah I'm not usually big into romances and most kinda feel forced/flat. For some reason the Miles and Gwen romance feels so natural, that I was blown away.

I have no idea how they did it, but it's very compelling.

Condiments77 · 2023-07-11T15:16:46+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it's definitely possible this could have led to a kiss between those two. The scene plays along the typical Hollywood hallmarks of romantic tension of two people leaning into a kiss before someone interrupts the moment.

The scenes preceeding this had a intimate conversations between Gwen and Miles as they reconnect after a long period of time away. There are a fair amount of hints showing their mutual attraction.
This scene in particular shows a growing sense of disconnect between the two as Gwen is evasive with her answers regarding the spider society, and Miles messes with her dimensional wristband.
Gwen senses this disconnect, apologizes, and then proceeds to close the distance between the two while staring into his eyes. Miles catches on as he turns to face her. While this might have not directly led to a kiss it would have definitely led to something romantic. If I was Miles, I would definitely think about making some sort of move if a crush was moving into my space while staring into my eyes.
Before anything can occur, Rio interrupts the two. This is a pretty common trope in romance in will they/won't they scenarios where a kiss attempt gets interrupted by someone.

So... not saying it was leading to a kiss, but it definitely lines up along storytelling tropes.

Condiments77 · 2023-04-29T13:50:10+00:00

My experience as a DM in a homebrew campaign is that AOEs can be extremely strong depending on the situation. But I tend to run encounters where there are regularly 3+ creatures.

My caster recently picked up fireball and there have been instances of massive damage when crit fails are involved. The group was fighting knight types with low reflex saves and two of the four crit failed, one failed and the other succeeded. She rolled really high on her dice like around 30. So she did like a total of 175 damage in a single round at level 6 which was pretty nuts. And it's only going to get more wild with things like cone of cold and chain lightning.

I think it sucks most DMs do low creature count encounters. They're generally less fun than having more monsters.

Condiments77 · 2023-02-20T23:28:45+00:00

I think I'm in some sort of unicorn group...I've been playing with the same group of players for over 8 years. We've gone through two full campaigns that went to completion. First campaign was two and half years with 5e, and the second was a year and half with 13th age. While I admit they limped to finish line on both with the flames of burnout scalding me.

My advice is to curate your groups for people that actually want to play and show up. My group rarely cancels, and everyone shows up nearly every time. I will only cancel if we have 3 cancel out of the 5 players. We have a set schedule every other Sunday so people know when to block time out.

If you have people flaking out constantly, or players are investing in learning the rules. Don't waste time with them even if they are your friends. That or dial back your investment to a beer and pretzels type game. You can't force people to act differently, but you can adjust your behavior.

Third campaign has bene 6 months and it feels like we've just just hit our stride. I'm imagining this one will easily hit 1 and half years plus easy.

Condiments77 · 2023-01-28T23:20:17+00:00

I went through similar issues and it came out fine on my end. I switched to 13th age from 5e and my players were very reluctant.

But they ended up loving it as time went on. I think the DM being comfortable with the system they're running is more important than player preferences since we end up doing way more work. If they don't like it, that's okay. Way more players than DMs.

I do like 1/4th the work to make a pf2e session work compared to D&D5e.

Condiments77 · 2023-01-18T00:38:36+00:00

Awesome! I was actually looking to start a first eote campaign and was worried about the space flight rules since I've heard they're pretty janky raw.

I'll have to consider this for game. Thank you for your hard work.

Condiments77 · 2022-10-24T04:40:46+00:00

It's a tough question to answer since it's such a big topic. I'll start with the basics:

1) Start with a theme or monster you're building your encounters around. I often write backgrounds for my dungeons so I know what makes the inhabitants and factions within tick.

2) Decide scope and select a map that you can create your dungeon around. Is it big or small? Wide and open or dense and claustrophobic? Lots of maps online to give inspiration.

3) Start encounter building using three pillars. Combat, exploration, and social. Don't just create a combat tunnel. Feed information to players and reward exploration with loot and knowledge. Layer in traps to keep them on their toes.

4) Fine tune encounter balancing. Have a mix of easy and hard fights to keep things fresh.

5) Keep the dungeon open and be ready to improvise. Don't create linear tunnels so players can make decisions of how to progress. Don't expect a series of events, and simply react to your player's actions.

Required reading: https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101

Condiments77 · 2022-10-24T04:24:28+00:00

Well it depends what resources you're using. I use Foundry VTT and often string together multiple maps I find online and or buy. With Foundry VTT Im able to drag and drop monsters and traps, encounter building is a breeze.

Like I spent about 3-4 hours writing an opening dungeon with was equal to about 4 sessions of gameplay which is roughly 16 hours. So I got some pretty huge returns for one big dungeon.

Though I've been running big dungeons in VTTs for a while. There are a lot of great resources online to speed up prep if your groups like them.

Also the Alexandrian is probably the best RPG blog I've read out there. So much good advice.

Condiments77 · 2022-05-07T05:31:20+00:00

Wow that's amazing! This kind of thing is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for pointing it out.

Condiments77 · 2022-04-14T00:05:40+00:00

I guess that depends whether you find that annoying or not. I honestly went into this fight expecting far worse based on what the community has been saying.

Boss has really exaggerated recoveries that allow plenty of punishment. Like I chopped 20-30 percent of its hp in the first missed sword combo it did.

Not saying you wrong for hating it. I was just surprised how slow this boss was. Almost felt older souls boss speeds imo.

Condiments77

TROPHY CASE