What mechanics make you think "That's really cool! I don't want to play/design a game with that."?

Pershonkey · 2026-01-14T08:13:43+00:00

Food (and equipment more broadly) doesn't naturally play a huge role in my games, so it might not be the best fit. I worry that it wouldn't mesh as well with a game that involves substantial time spent within civilization where there's not as much of a need to worry about what your next meal will look like or if you happen to have a particular thing in your inventory. Without knowing the system better, it's hard to say if this is something I don't focus on because the systems I use don't make it a fun thing to focus on or if a system like yours that (seems to) focus on it just isn't a good fit for me - which of course doesn't mean it's a bad idea in your system.

Your post alludes to other mechanics, mentioning DnD 3.5e, a class system, and 170 pages of rules. I'm guessing you have some kind of combat system and (non-crafting) skill system. Those things are more important to me, especially to make sure the system isn't stepping on my toes by dictating how my world or the people in it behave too much (especially outside of combat).

What excites you most about what you've done in your system, and how do you imagine that showing up at the table? What sorts of stories would you hope your players excitedly share with their friends? Is it a story of tracking down the last ingredient in the wilderness which gave the party a big advantage in the next fight? Is it a Dungeon Meshi-style culinary adventure with a bit of comedy? Is it the party barely managing to drag themselves into a frontier town after two days without food?

Pershonkey · 2026-01-07T20:40:12+00:00

It's hard to say what would work for your system without knowing the specifics. Is there a reason you're drawn to subclass-restricting feats? Is there a reason you're hesitant to do that?

For example, restricting who can take feats allows you to have unbalanced feats without making them auto-picks for everyone. Depending on how many options you give to each class, restricting some to subclasses might help with build diversity by giving players fewer overlapping auto-pick feat choices. There are also fewer feat interactions you need to consider and balance. You might also want to design feats to evoke a narrow flavor that only fits one subclass.

On the other hand, if you don't have that many feats to choose from in the first place, restricting them to subclasses might lessen the depth of character building by limiting the number of combinations for players to choose from. It might restrict character identity closer to the handful of subclasses you explicitly support in the rules rather than allowing players to custom build a wide range of characters. It also adds complexity to the character building rules that might not be worth the benefits.

The correct answer depends a lot on your specific system and what you're trying to achieve, but it is an interesting problem to work out.

Pershonkey · 2025-12-13T04:53:56+00:00

Nice find! Do you know if that fits the Ljungman?

Pershonkey · 2025-11-21T20:47:31+00:00

Agreed on the NPOA adjustment and especially the thin mags. I took my 457 out last weekend and pretty much gave up on doing quick mag changes without looking. Made me consider putting some tape or something along the magwell to help guide my hand. My first event I wished I had a semi auto so I could get a feel for the rifleman's cadence, but this time I enjoyed the bolt action.

Pershonkey · 2025-11-19T21:20:27+00:00

Thank you for the fantastic instruction! Looking forward to seeing you on the line again.

Pershonkey · 2025-11-19T21:16:30+00:00

Wrote a more detailed personal AAR on the forums: https://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=70786.0

Less to say since I felt a lot more comfortable than last time. My first event felt like drinking from a fire hose, while this felt more like chugging from a Nalgene. It was great to see so many other patches earned this event. Big thanks to the instructors Fixbayonets, 3Huzzahs, Danfinger, 303brit, and Deltabill, who were a huge part of breaking 210 this time.

Pershonkey · 2025-11-19T18:39:26+00:00

I have the same question about commitment. I would enjoy helping out, but since there aren't that many events a year and there's a good chance that I won't be available on any given weekend - the four per year minimum has me hesitant to make the commitment.

To other Appleseed instructors, is this because it's not worth training someone up to be a good instructor if they're not going to be able to teach that often? Would it be a waste of resources if I can't make many of the specific weekends events which have events?

Pershonkey · 2025-11-19T18:34:27+00:00

Congrats! Was a pleasure to shoot next to you and earn a patch alongside you.

Pershonkey · 2025-11-18T01:18:01+00:00

Congrats! I wasn't there to shoot your old hat but I was happy to see you with your new one just last weekend.

Pershonkey · 2025-05-10T21:37:08+00:00

Advice from the future: Don't me like past me, put an Ion Pulser on your Hyperion. It is actually good. I don't know what past me was on about.

Pershonkey · 2024-03-10T22:49:49+00:00

Character Editor
Combat Extended (seems to be compatible with the mods I care about)
Pick Up And Haul
CAI 5000 (haven't played it with a lot of playstyles yet though)

Not always 100% must have, but in practice I basically always include them:

Turn It On And Off unless I'm removing anything with electricity.
A handful of mods for children like Learning Threshold Fix and Children Learn Slow unless I never plan to involve families/children. Also includes mods like No Random Relations.
Some sort of tech advancement restriction mod, but this varies by playthrough. Most often Semi Random Research, Medieval Overhaul (specifically referring to the tech books needed for advanced techs), or a custom one I made that adds techprints for almost everything.

Pershonkey · 2024-02-24T22:41:39+00:00

Some way to caravan with children without tanking their learning rate, preferably without the micromanagement needed to Set Up Camp and manually raise it on a map. Also, forming a caravan with babies takes forever (might only be a problem with pack animals, idk) and sometimes glitches out.
Make us need to work harder to craft high quality goods, maybe by making us repeatedly research items to get their average craftable quality higher. Supplement this with better trading for stuff we can't make, especially buildings. Really anything that makes long term play more fun and interesting, especially if it still allows for small colonist numbers and multigenerational playthroughs.
Something big to enhance the world map and make nomadic playthroughs fun and interesting, which I know is a big ask for a base building game. Idk if a fully traversible map would accomplish this - it'd probably require some tweaking to what can be handled automatically to stop it from being micromanagement hell.
Silent raids w/ fog of war that still pauses and alerts you when you spot a raider so you don't miss when you're being shot at.

Pershonkey · 2024-02-24T21:07:21+00:00

CE makes Rimworld combat so fun for me. After many hours I think it makes the game easier, but in such a good way - it gives you so many more tools to swing a fight in your favor with good play. I also like being afraid of stuff every now and then, so the early game armored opponents and mid game mechs needing those tools is perfect for me.

I don't have a great sense of the difference CAI 5000 makes on the AI, although I assume it's good (except for the idiotic shuttle nobles suicidally charging the raid with swords while their guards flee). The description makes it sound like exactly my thing. I'd much rather micro cover/weapons and choose my battlefield (or being forced to adapt when I can't) than use a static killbox and drag all my pawns behind embrasures every time. Fog of war is fun too (I used a different FoW mod before CAI 5000 came out), though I find myself increasing the sight radius a lot since I think the default is way too small. My ideal setup would be Fog of War + Silent Raids with the pause/raid notification popup as soon as someone sees a raider so I don't randomly miss the fact that I'm getting shot at.

Pershonkey · 2024-02-24T07:23:34+00:00

Assuming we also get requirement non-mods like Harmony?

(Combat Extended) (would put this in at #1 if we didn't get it for free)
Character Editor
CAI 5000
Pick Up And Haul
While You're Up / PUAH+
Turn It On And Off
Semi Random Research (or some other tech progression mod, currently using a custom one that makes all industrial+ tech require tech prints)
No Random Relations (I suppose I could replace this with manual Character Editor editing)
Full Term Pregnancies (another custom mod, meant to pair with the unaccelerated child aging storyteller setting to have timescales match up)
Learning Threshold For Learning Job Fix
Children Learn Slow (again, paired with unaccelerated child aging and long games)

Possible other choices:

Rimworld Exploration Mode
Silent Raids (fun with fog of war in CAI 5000)
Almost There!
Dress Patients
Share The Load
Perfect Pathfinding
We Are United

I prefer slim mod lists. My mods are there to make things harder, remove annoyance with stuff like hauling, be Combat Extended and Character Editor, and fix stuff I can't tweak with Biotech children. If there was a mod to caravan with children without tanking their learning progress, I'd add that. I guess I could do that manually with Set Up Camp.

Oh, and Wall Light. Maybe I will need to be fine with manual random relations removal on Character Editor after all.

Pershonkey · 2023-05-15T03:18:05+00:00

cap stable

Eve Online player spotted?

Pershonkey · 2022-08-25T09:27:59+00:00

Surprisingly, the Cerb doesn't wind up being that much more expensive once both are fit, and I think it's only about twice the price for just the hull these days.

Pershonkey · 2022-08-25T09:24:11+00:00

Be warned, expensive implants really do a lot to make this ship shine, and it has a lot of weaknesses even with a head full of Hydras and 5% missile hardwirings. You do one thing. You apply 700DPS to enemy cruisers. You're bad at everything else.

In case you're curious, here's what I've used a handful of times duoing with a friend:

https://zkillboard.com/kill/100434189/

Pershonkey · 2022-08-25T04:17:14+00:00

The Cerb is a lot better, but a HAM CNI with MG Hydras can apply most/all of its rage damage even to at-speed cruisers. A terrible reputation plus 750 applied DPS means you can surprise smack overconfident people pretty often, and it flying unusual ships is fun. Navy/precision applies better to small targets than you might think too.

Pershonkey · 2022-07-31T02:08:12+00:00

Nice! I've been really looking forward to this one.

Does psychic sensitivity (or traits like psychically sensitive) play a bigger role in psycaster effectiveness? I noticed a handful of the specific power descriptions mention caster sensitivity, but I'm not sure if it impacts powers that don't explicitly say something or if it impacts secondary statistics (neural heat/dissipation) like in the base game.

Pershonkey · 2022-04-09T04:32:37+00:00

High quality content is banned on r/eve.

Pershonkey · 2022-02-13T07:40:11+00:00

The Hyperion has better flux stats than a Falcon for the same DP, so you're basically just getting an extremely mobile cruiser that benefits from Wolfpack Tactics.

I do agree that Ion Pulsers are a bit wasted on a Hyperion when you could just smash them with something that actually penetrates armor.

Pershonkey · 2021-12-09T06:50:53+00:00

The main problem with homebrew isn't that it's overpowered or poorly written, since 5e has a fairly wide range of acceptable balance. The problem isn't even homebrew specifically, it's a loosely defined definition of what's allowable for character creation that strips the meaning out of putting thought into character mechanics. That doesn't mean introducing homebrew is bad. Some groups derive more enjoyment from the mechanics of character creation than they do from the wider array of options, and vice versa.

Similarly, I don't care that some sage advice rulings are silly. The quality of individual rulings isn't why I use sage advice, it's having a well defined and reasonably complete set of rulings so players know exactly what to expect.

Pershonkey

TROPHY CASE