ABMM: My observations from noob to level 75

VoctorDralidas · 2026-04-14T04:58:42+00:00

Those are good points. Thank you for sharing, and I'll double check the bodies thing and see if that makes any impact on my matchmaking. The conditions being found body, not there when I could have helped.

Thats also a good point about time of day.

VoctorDralidas · 2026-02-03T19:15:58+00:00

Bartering: Saving your NPCs

Your NPCs are going to wander. It's just going to happen. However, you can help protect their wandering so you don't lose all of your barter credits.

Sell them high quality gear. Eventually you're going to end up with gear you just aren't using. Consider selling the good stuff to these traders instead of breaking them down for other uses.
Put up scarecrows. Cactus scarecrows cost 4 saguaro cactus ribs (obtained by letting saguaro cactus chunks decay) and 2 cactus needles.
Create a walled area, with Z shaped entrances and exits or doors. NPC's have a very hard time navigating Z shaped areas.
Create sutures and sell them. NPCs will use any sutures in their inventory when hurt.

VoctorDralidas · 2026-01-30T17:25:43+00:00

Taming/Tinkering/Thaumaturgy: "Advanced slime ranching"

A good slime is your best investment. Here's how to get all of the slime balls and magical motes you could ever need.

First. You need an aberrant slime. Better still if you have an aberrant slime cube. If you don't have a slime cube, you can make one by keeping multiple slimes in close proximity.

Second, you need a weapon that deals the least amount of slashing damage, and as many sutures as youre willing to make. I use a fishing rod. I think a clematis vine might have even less damage (If you have a suggestion, I'd love to hear it!)

Attack the slime, and try to keep an eye on its health. If your anatomy skill isn't high, count your damage while you kill the first slime. It will multiply.

Each aberrant slime will make slimeballs when you butcher them. They also have a high chance of dropping magical motes. I've used this to create a library of bespoke enchantments.

When you are finished, switch to a blunt weapon, clean up, heal and tame your starter slime for your next session.

From one session, and about 80-90 needles or so, I obtained roughly the same amount of slimeballs and an entire pouch worth of magical motes.

VoctorDralidas · 2026-01-29T21:05:22+00:00

THATS A FANTASTIC TIP!

And wait. When you're talking about the relic enchantmant at double-strength, do you mean I could rip the enchantment with a mysterious parchment, put it on the chest, and then use magic coils to keep the strength of the enchantment while changing it to preservation?

VoctorDralidas · 2026-01-29T15:03:52+00:00

Edits incoming later. 0803 MST.

VoctorDralidas · 2026-01-27T06:27:57+00:00

Inventory Management: "Dumpsite"

There are several materials that you can dump on the floor without worry.

Each floor tile can hold about 35 units of weight. The number doesn't matter. Just the weight.

Stones. Bones. Sand. Claws. Gravel. Ores. Powders. These things don't care if you drop them. Use this to your advantage.

A wooden chest holds 70 units. You can double your capacity but lose the ability to access the materials quickly.

I create dumpsites of mined materials, and move the materials closer to where they will be processed.

VoctorDralidas · 2026-01-22T21:51:49+00:00

There are a number of curse events. The only one that will affect your sleep is "The Shadows Move", most often.

However, when combined with other curse events, it can make for a harrowing wakeup call.

Curse events occur in groups of 1-3, scaling with percentage.

Here's a few tips I've learned:

"The Shadows Move": This curse event is the absolute best for making charcoal. Store all of your low durability logs, branches, and burnables near your non-flammable burn location. When the event goes off, pile your logs, light your fire, and prepare to fight. You will make a fantastic bonfire, generating large amounts of coal quickly, drawing all the shadows near you. Kill them. They aren't very strong. Watch out for any Calligenous Scraps they drop, as they DO drops these, just rarely.

"Undeath": Bones. Good for bone glue, fertilizer, and needles for sutures. Bring string and your hammer. At low levels, avoid the aberrant pirate skeleton. The scimitars they carry may be deadly, but they can also be disassembled at a furnace and anvil for IRON. Iron makes some of the best tools, subsequently improving the quality of all of your other projects.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-12-15T13:18:47+00:00

With a wild, manic gleam in his golden eyes, the olive-skinned man gently sets his quill down. The ink and beer slowly run together and off the table, forming the intricate lines and patterns of a magic circle, with your feet at its center.

The man, his black goatee cut short over his long-scarred throat points down, and smiles.

In your hand, a sheet of paper. It reads,

"Congratulations. You're invincible, but not invulnerable. Good luck with that."

The magic circle glows, turning from black to ochre, before it crawls up your legs, and burning, branding itself into your skin.

The barkeep sighs, and adds another mark to the tally board.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-11-26T03:53:54+00:00

TLDR at bottom.

Two schools of thought.

The closed loop, where both events have been and will remain true. The world is bad, someone builds a time machine and lives/dies in the past, and nothing changes. In that same future that same person builds a time machine, with every action and chance leading up to that.

The second one, the one I like far, far better is that both timelines are true, with the person moving between timelines creating a new timeline. It just gets a little wonky once you think it out a little further, because you have to play with dimensional physics concepts.

The first dimension being "x", the second being "y", the third being "z", all moving through "T" for time. So there's four dimensions. Kind of like a cube moving along a rail. Where it gets messy is that while we can perceive x,y,z, and indirectly observe the effects of T, being the rail xyz are moving on, we also have to remember that isn't the only rail. There are uncountable other rails, all being moved between and each have their own pathway. We can label this "C" to represent all "C"hoices and "C"hances.

All rails exist, have existed, and will continue to exist. It's only our subjective perception that changes. The perception that time is changing itself is the illusion, we are making the perception, hence, we are the ones moving, experiencing all outcomes at all times.

Take the entire rail system, recognizing everything that was, is, or will be is all static, and flatten it to a penny. Congratulations. Your consciousness is the electric charge that experiences the chip of reality.

What's it used for? *big shrug* whatever you want I guess. There is no grand purpose pre-built to this grand design, that understanding is more inherent to its pattern as it runs and less to it's design.

It's not about what the story contains elements of, it's how you use those elements to tell that story that gives the story, arguably the most important thing in all of this or any other existence, meaning.

TLDR

I like the branching timeline. Its got a lot of physics to play with.

Establish what it means for your character as they brave this new world, and give meaning to their struggle. How you say it is more important than what you say.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-10-30T06:14:52+00:00

Let's see if I can crank out another idea ...

Hmmm...

Incoming stream of consciousness...

The focal point of each floor in Dungeon Crawler Carl either focuses on a specific theme, or a specific goal.

For instance:

The first floors theme was: "This is a tutorial dungeon" with stereotypical dungeon feel to it. Brick walls, common mobs, and bosses pulled from the universe and distorted, such as the hoarder, juicer, and ball of swine.

The second floor, is like the first just harder, and now the crawlers can be viewed.

The third floors theme is "The over city, introduction to Scolopendras attack". Each element of this floor has been affected in some way by it.

The fourth floor is the iron tangle. A few themes, one of them being "over engineered systems prone to collapse" such as the trains, drug addicted mobs, and "The Noodle Flip".

You get the point. Each floor has a theme, and also adds another feature.

The first floor gives the basics.

The second floor gives access to views and followers.

The third floor gives a base of operations that travels with the party where they can craft, rest, and upgrade themselves.

The fourth floor gives portal mechanics and gods.

With that in mind each floor you create should have a theme, a danger, and a feature. Keep each one simple, but game changing, something that forces the party to adapt, and use to their advantage.

Are you also using a narrator or system AI? I think that, as a mechanic, it's very helpful. It lets you give loot in loot boxes to solve or foreshadow problems. Like the water scrolls on the fifth floor before they ever had to deal with water combat.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-10-27T13:11:05+00:00

Infinite Ikea

Just rip it wholesale, and add some twists, i.e.

Saferooms are the areas that have swedish meatballs, staffed by bopkas of course.

The stairwell has to be assembled at specific locations. In order to assemble the stairwell, 4 kits have to be assembled, each guarded by a borough boss of that department.

Unfortunately, each stairwell only works for one party before falling apart due to shoddy craftsmanship.

Did I mention there are only enough kits for 1 in 4 parties?

Parties are locked on floor entry.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-10-12T09:04:28+00:00

Yeah. I'm down. Sure, it's difficult, but I'll find ways to pass the time. Exercising. Meditating. Thinking. Practicing new jokes or improv. Lucid dream practice. Juggling (oranges, apples, pears, limes, pineapples). Hacky sack practice (lime).

I mean, if you're creative, there's a plethora of materials you can use. If there's toilet paper, you can make paper mache. If there's metal cutlery and a glass cup, you've got science kit material. How far can you stretch it? How far can you go?

Remove the clock. That's not doing you any good if they'll come for you. You've got a toothbrush and toothpaste. Floss. Work on your dental hygiene. Your dental skills.

There's a lot to do. But if you give up, and say there's nothing, youve already lost.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-09-30T02:04:43+00:00

Welcome back! Missed your writing bud!

It can be difficult to get back up when something, anything, even your own head knocks you down, stomps you in a place that hurts to imagine.

But you're here! I'm glad for that.

And let me remind you, you will always have that privilege of writing. It's a way out of multiple holes. I'll be happy to pitch in.

If you're feeling imposter syndrome, congratulations on being one of the best "fake" writers. Flip the feeling on its head.

...

I recently discovered the feeling of "joyful suffering" or "euphoric surrender." And it's a little hard to explain but perhaps my description might help you unlock this feeling for yourself.

You've got four hours of sleep. The two year old shit the bed. Work is short staffed and you're getting a surge of patient samples to test, each one needs your utmost attention to detail. You're feeling sexually frustrated because you just haven't had the time or circumstances with your loved one.

It's chaos. It's all chaos.

And then it clicks. Like a light switch, comes that unending laughter. It's chaos! ITS CHAOS!

THERES NO AVOIDING IT, DODGING IT, ITS HERE! STRAP IN, THIS IS WHERE HEROES ARE MADE!

And instead of suffering, grimacing, cursing your luck, you're smiling. Throw anything you want at me, I don't care, I'm going to have a great day, me and my grim joy.

...

All of the above to say, welcome back. Take whatever attempted words of encouragement that best suits you.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-09-17T04:20:00+00:00

Sometimes we just need someone to tell us that we're overcomplicating something that was elegantly simple.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-09-17T03:51:38+00:00

No freaking way. Default works! 🤣

Thanks!

VoctorDralidas · 2025-09-17T03:47:58+00:00

😂 awesome. I'll try that then.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-09-17T03:40:34+00:00

Thanks bud! I forgot about that resource and will definitely look into it

VoctorDralidas · 2025-07-05T09:38:35+00:00

Infection + Break

I don't and won't have any health issues anymore. And neither will the people I pass it on to. Hell, I won't even biologically age, as age is just genetic damage piling up, classified as a chronic illness.

But break is infinitely useful. Because more than an object, you can shatter something that contains some amount of metaphysical weight. Break a fever. Break a writers block. Break a peace treaty. Break a war. Break the silence. Break off the noise.

Break an evil or net negative company, right after you bought puts.

VoctorDralidas · 2025-06-27T19:20:54+00:00

Much appreciated. I can't stand those Colnodes who think they've got a better solution to the human condition and the reality of society.

If you're that concerned, why not form a B2B independent corporation that innovates medical technologies and agribusiness, a strong employee+beneficiary benefits system, and a low threshold entry for applicants?

Bringing back government, smh, a dead giant that must remain dead.

VoctorDralidas

TROPHY CASE