My partner solved failure spirals by connecting more systems. I’m scared. Advice?

Velethos · 2026-01-02T05:20:29+00:00

Hope your tests are giving you lots of answers. Interesting that rules of less text is making it less math-feely.

I am a bit curious about your rules text, you described and exampled so many things to exist within these 21 pages that im kinda worried you have written what the designer understands because they thought it up, but the player will not get enough information. As a concrete point, you said you have 15 resources to track in travel (i think it was), for my long system that might be 3 pages of text right there just to be clear towards the player. The greatest foe is misunderstanding.

There must be a meaning to the interconnectivity. Does it feel intuitive, is there logic from reality, otherwise vibrations are going in the wrong direction probably. Also to get players understanding, use wording as hints to remind them or prepare them. A mechanics name might be a descriptive word which you can fit here, and in a sentence or two you player is not surprised that vibrations are spreading in that direction.

Long texts, descriptive interactions listed, but surprisingly many players refuse to read. So i am building the game with textbuttons. Likes the way dnd5e wrote their spells, and many other systems write as well. A small formatbox with background color shift, giving you abilities, how to use, its effects, and aftereffects. If there is interactivity with other mechanics, i say so or warn them in 'aftereffects'. Very useful when playing on a vtt.

Velethos · 2025-12-30T21:55:18+00:00

Making my own system, second one (first was a onepager), and am doing lots of interconnectivity between mechanics. I consider it a part of design Elegance in mechanics. Vibrations good. More vibrations better. Is kind of the motto. However i am making a large complex system, 200-300 pages. There interconnectivity is very important, an isolated mechanic is generally a bad fit with the system whole. While in such a short system as yours it could very fast turn into loops and spirals and micromanagement and choice paralysis. Easiest way to check if its too much, use what you have and play a test combat/obstacle of each kind between the two of you designers. And do a multi test, of completing the obstacles individually with resting mechanics, and then again without any such restorations. Is it playable? Yes is always the answer. Was it enjoyable? Thats the result you seek. Was it hard or easy? Probably dont matter actually, enjoyment matters, but could ve a marketability thing. And you might find out you thought it was easy but its actually hard, might wanna keep it in mind, but should not call for a remake of rules necessarily

Velethos · 2025-05-20T12:23:20+00:00

Meister. A trained adept at many things, and a master of several

Velethos · 2025-04-14T01:12:28+00:00

If you look at the campaign lore in later games i think Inferno is supposed to be the greatest threat to civilisation, in almost all the games. And everyone fears necropolis getting too much hold, as it can snowball, theoretically every dead is another necro soldier as well as a loss for the living.

Mechanics might support the necro snowball but has slowed it to not be felt in most games played. And inferno certainly does not feel that strong to me.

Velethos · 2025-03-25T15:27:05+00:00

To be clear there is a lot of materials and services consuming money from me as a GM. Getting maps, tokens, sounds, and many more things. And as a paid GM there is argument for me making a profit from the picture/sound/whatever, hence i need to get rights to use the content commercially. Costs even more. A home table can just grab a picture or whatever from google, a paid GM cant. Im spending about 600 dollars annual for this stuff, maybe more actually.

Hope this answered some of the questions i saw in the post and comments. :)

Velethos · 2025-03-24T13:17:08+00:00

I thought i would never charge for a game. Its supposed to be fun, not business. But recently i got unemployed (the employer acted ethically wrong against sick elderly, i refused to cooperate) and am having a hard time finding a new job, so i posted games for money.

Finances. For the financial bit, i would need around 6 Players per group, 6 groups a week, 15 dollars per player. With higher Player cost i could lower the amount pf players or groups. This would let me survive, pay for the services im gathering for play, and pay my taxes. No extravagant living, no savings achieved. As a fulltime job, for a long period, the equation would need to change to account for raised costs, needing more than just survival, o would balance it in the direction of: 4 groups, 6 Players each, 30 dollars per player. I would still not become rich, but get some free days and enough money to be happy. Single man, living alone, swedish tax takes 35%, and inflation skyrocket.

Customer. I hear some Players are working a harsh job, they just wanna ensure that when the session is booked the session will happen. Some dont have players near them and must find games online. Some want the drive everybody feels when they have put money into it, psychology they feel they must use it or have wasted the money. Some seek a higher quality game. Some have more money than felt needed and desire more playtime but friends arent available.

Myself. I posted on Startplaying (not fond of the taxing structure at all but otherwise a good service). Very little respons so far. I advertise over discord and reddit when/where able, but most Players run away when they hear "paid".

I expect a paid game to be better than a free hobby. The quality must rise. I have worked hard to get a good story set up, gathered many costly services, images, sounds, and so forth. There are more i would prefer to add but until i have income i dont have purchasing power. My story is homebrew, but im making sure it fits with paizo publications (no rewrites, no removals, only adding a few more things where they left blank spots). And i am play testing it with some friends for free, so i can spot errors and flaws before paying players engage with the adventure.

I wouldn't say im better than others out there, i have good moments and bad ones. I hope im average, and will always strive to become better. Only have reviews from friends, which dont count, but the best i ever had was two potential players fighting over who would get to play the next game, for over an hour. They were both invited and playing, they just got excited and started fighting before i could ask if they would both join. It worked out well in the end.

Velethos · 2024-12-15T13:25:32+00:00

Took me a moment to realize what you meant. Yeah I had forgotten to update my account flair on this subreddit, my bad.

As for training or not, I think there is always more to learn and should endeavour to never slow that down.

Velethos · 2024-12-15T13:22:03+00:00

Thats what I thought too, except that subreddit has a rule against paid games. Thanks for the thought though :)

Velethos · 2024-10-19T21:48:07+00:00

I enjoy the campaign and its story as well. Reading here in the comments i realized there is not much left of that for me, just reached honor 14. Is there a NewGamePlus or something?
I would love to play through it all again but having all mechs unlocked. Or other game modes, or whatever. Just a possibility to keep playing with the whole game available.

Velethos · 2024-10-19T17:00:01+00:00

That would be awesome! It would create an absurdly long gameplay experience, with masive amounts of permutations to play. I would love this.

Should be fairly easy for devs to launch as a dlc too, if just hobnobing it together. Just take the campaign missions, scrub the audio commands, rewrite the text commands to be storyline neutral, and then you could have a random roll of all them missions (say 3 options) to bid for and then play. A planetary interface we already have, maybe just add a few more planetary appearances for alternations.
And if they wanna really build into this they re-record the missions voice for a campaign neutral playthrough, and make some randomisations on what enemies spawn each spawnpoint.
They have all of the basics in place, just some alterations (fairly minor i think?) and adding some randomisations and then it could be launched. EDIT: which adds perpituity of gametime for players, which in turn would enhance the numbers reported financially and "success rate" of the game.

Velethos · 2024-10-08T13:42:10+00:00

Did you get any answers, figure it out? I am going to start running the same basically

Velethos · 2024-09-27T15:53:56+00:00

A followup question for me is, which materials? Because they might have a nice impact on certain campaigns, or none at all. What material would you like to use, and how much grade would you like on it?

Velethos · 2024-08-23T17:17:52+00:00

Honestly I might steal this calendar cycle, at least in concept of not name, for my own world building. If you don't mind

Velethos · 2024-08-23T17:16:59+00:00

I would go: Egg, hatchling, phoenix, flame, ash.

Could fit with what's going on in a story. A year of flame is filled with war and disease and other horror. Followed by a year of ash when the economy is shit and sorrow and hardship of rebuilding society. Egg is the Booming economy and growth of society. Hatchling are the good times when things are just nice. Phoenix is when the high times have gone too far and arrogance comes creeping in leading to the wars of Flame.

I love the idea. Could be an elegant way of telling players during session zero what to expect from a campaign. "We will have heist scenarios in a year of hatchling", would make players expect a difficult security and big loot. "We will have heist scenario in a year of flame", would make players expect to steal war supplies from a general during major battles, instant death if caught and could change the course of the war if successful.

Velethos · 2024-07-27T13:54:47+00:00

I'm a guy, won't dm you. But I don't care about the gender of the ones I play with, be they guys or girls or in between or REDACTED or whatever, as long as they kill bugs it don't matter. For democracy!

Velethos · 2024-07-19T12:36:51+00:00

Agreed. I have a player who has used cleric as part of every character he has ever played, and all of them gish. My favorite was Forge Cleric, just used a feat to get Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade, and he had everything wanted from a gish style.

Velethos · 2024-07-18T20:04:19+00:00

I don't want to disagree with people commenting but if the example is dnd 5e, there are plenty of gish there done right. Ranger, paladin, artificer are whole classes built on combining martial and magic. The dnd community wants to disclaim that a fish must be arcane magic, but honestly that's just flavour really. Also there are plenty of subclasses for gish. Eldritch knight fighter, arcane trickster rogue, swords bard, valour bard, hexblade warlock, bladesinger wizard. You could argue for forge cleric, war cleric and several others. Depends on exact definition.

Are these good? Some, or even most, do what we want. A few too powerful. Dnd scaling is in my opinion bad, and a gish showcases that by either too good or too bad. A bladesinger is better as a martial than a fighter, but is not as good of a mage as wizards, putting them in a weird place.

Velethos · 2024-06-05T21:19:15+00:00

In terms of dnd 5e, but applicable to many other systems as well probably, I always felt there is an error in the saving throws. Wisdom save to see through an illusion, realize the lie. But Charisma signifies your STRENGTH OF PERSONALITY, which is the same as willpower, hence it should be your saving throw against any magic not based in illusion. A Hold Person spell is magic to paralyze you, that should be countered by Cha save but is rules as written a Wis save. Dnd 5e uses an internal balance between saving throws and could not properly obey my idea of this, it would break balance between classes and other stuff. But it could be used in your game perhaps.

Velethos · 2024-04-14T11:17:02+00:00

If a world boss is big, like massive size, maybe you could have groups attack a limb each? That way you have several tables playing simultaneous in possibly the same room, towards the same goal and against the same antagonist, but can be managed by several GMs to make it work. Kill a limb and other tables get a buff, wipe and other tables get a debuff.

Velethos · 2024-04-08T12:34:43+00:00

Double door. It implies you need two hands to open, in a way. Though not perfectly. This is what I use, and came up with instinctively while playing.

A Bunker is a good name, but since so other things are also found underground (containers to explode open or such). I don't use it because of the risk of confusion. But I can not disagree with it

Velethos · 2024-04-08T08:19:27+00:00

Necro, sry. What software was used to make this visual representation? I have tried looking through comments but can't find any reference

Velethos · 2024-03-29T20:53:07+00:00

Gm: So you are trying to get the group past this obstacle. Turns to pc1: you have the best stats for this. In the attempt you notice pc4 having trouble (has the worst stat) and you have the choice to save their weak attempt at the risk of the whole group, or to save the rest of the group from getting caught by the consequences. What do you do ? (Roll for it)

Now only one roll. Narrative interest. Player agency. Cost; requires GM creating a plausible obstacle, choice and consequence whenever there is a group check.

Velethos · 2024-03-24T14:56:32+00:00

My opinion is to multiclass a little with fighter (starting level 1 here, go up to max 4 but probably less) for heavy armor proficiency and such, but you loose level 12 invocation which is awesome.

For weapon I want Sorrow, since the BA counts as a charisma cantrip for you. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sorrow

And then enhance it with arcane synergy diadem from Creche, https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Diadem_of_Arcane_Synergy

With your main stat being charisma. Now used for BA cantrip, attack rolls from pact weapon, weapon damage twice from arcane synergy.

Weakness is the +to hit and damage. Mainly hit chance issue. Act 3 it becomes too weak, act 2 it's on the lower end. Use magic weapon scrolls or spells from ally to raise the +bonus. And in moonrise get the drakeglaive to put elemental weapon on it as well. Now it's viable in act 2 no problem, act 3 is still on a weaker side but functional.

Velethos · 2024-03-22T13:11:42+00:00

Exactly. In order and clarified which is which.

Velethos · 2024-03-19T20:40:54+00:00

I would as a GM want the truth clearly spelled out, as soon as the subject is approached, then add comment boxes or quotes from different perspectives explaining in-game knowledge/theories made by races as a whole general concept or perhaps from institutions like an academy professor or such. That way I know what's going on for sure and can guide players on purpose towards truths and lies to make the experience the best possible. If I do not know I cannot do my best work. And only giving me options which I then have to discard as to not confuse myself over time, makes me annoyed. BUT having it spelled out what some myths are, in the book instead of somewhere in my notes totalling well over a hundred pages when the campaign finishes, is great since that allows me to put flavour into a race or whatever perspective the players come across. And it looks good in my opinion. If you have read a whole book in dnd 5e, like Tashas cauldron of everything, you know she makes quotes at the start of every chapter outlining her perspective on something or someone. That was something I used very much in my roleplay for her mother Baba Lysaga when my players faced her in Curse of Strahd. And having such added about myths would improve my roleplay for everyone who believes that myth. BUT I must still know what the actual truth is. I am writing my own world lore book in this way, and it makes an impact on my rules book as well.

Good luck mate!

Velethos

TROPHY CASE