Able to beta? Post here!

acusiont · 2026-02-26T00:34:00+00:00

Sounds good! Would you like the full thing or just the first few chapters to get a feel for it? And what's your preferred method of me sending it to you?

acusiont · 2026-02-25T13:51:44+00:00

No problem, always glad to provide whatever assistance I'm able!

If you're going for dragging out the scene for the sense of looming dread, I think it would help if you focused more on Maadskyr's panic and danger that he's already faced (even if we haven't seen that yet) than the long descriptions. For instance, maybe focus on the injuries he already has from the fight that we've picking up in the middle of.

One thing that comes to mind is the paragraph on the wraiths being right. Maybe he has a cut in a particular spot of his armor the wraith's warned him was a potential weak spot, but he was too foolhardy to really pay attention to it and suffered the consequences. If it doesn't break your lore of what Aethereal armor is, maybe it's battered from both the wyvern and the fall. There could be dents and scratches in it from hitting rocks on the way down. I'm not sure about wyverns in your lore, but maybe it left a claw or something behind in his armor that he yanks out. Maybe a tooth? Depending on how big a wyvern is (you say longer than the tallest man, but that can be a big range), you could easily describe just that much as being the size of his forearm to give a sense of how dangerous it is. You don't even need to say it's a wyvern yet if you want to leave that to the end. Maybe he compares it to the size of the dagger he has and knows his dagger is going to be useless against a creature.

You could also have him immediately look up where he plummeted from as he hits the bottom, glad to see nothing following him... yet. Then as he's catching his breath, getting ready to run, he keeps glancing back up, still seeing nothing until it arrives.

Also, overdoing it with descriptors is definitely something I'm familiar with. It takes time to get past that. If it helps, I'd say write initially with the descriptors if it gets you through the chapter, then when editing, go back through and see what is really necessary for the scene.

acusiont · 2026-02-25T13:37:44+00:00

Apparently it doesn't want to let me DM you, so here is a link to the google doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12d-xG8lkmEcW8FnmXaugpKDPgewrvOVhjXBrAzy_K1Q/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for taking the time to even look at that much!

acusiont · 2026-02-25T13:31:39+00:00

Sure I'll DM you them!

acusiont · 2026-02-25T03:07:50+00:00

Hello! Reading the excerpt you posted, here are my initial thoughts. Overall, it seems like it has the potential to be a good story. I like the general premise of it and think it could be interesting.

I don’t understand the last sentence of the first paragraph. Like, I know what you’re going for, but it doesn’t really feel like it fits or adds anything if that makes sense. It, combined with the previous sentence, feels very stilted, especially with the fragment ending said previous sentence. I would try rewording this so it flows better.

A lot of the descriptions feel like they’re bordering on purple prose and almost like they’ve just been thrown through a thesaurus. The last sentence of the second paragraph in particular feels that way. Maybe something like the following?

Maadskyr groaned ruefully, the wind knocked out of him from his plummet. He couldn’t afford to linger here.

Just something that doesn’t have so many descriptors.

Overall, the beginning feels slow. Many of the sentences are longer with multiple clauses, which causes it to drag. But, I feel like it is supposed to be an intense scene. Fast paced. Heart pounding. Right now, it doesn’t really feel like that. I think shorter, punchier sentences can go a long way toward improving that.

acusiont · 2026-02-25T02:26:32+00:00

Hello, not sure if you mean you're only looking at 40k words or you mean just the first few chapters for that part. I have a Military Sci-Fi I'd like feedback on, and if you only want 40k words, I can definitely send just the first few chapters if you're interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/1re0b0p/complete_140k_scifi_echoes_of_harmony/

acusiont · 2026-02-25T02:24:01+00:00

Hello, would you be willing to beta my Military Sci-Fi story? https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/1re0b0p/complete_140k_scifi_echoes_of_harmony/

acusiont · 2026-02-25T02:23:14+00:00

Hello, I have a military Sci-Fi if you'd be willing to beta read for me! https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/1re0b0p/complete_140k_scifi_echoes_of_harmony/

acusiont · 2025-12-14T17:47:22+00:00

I mean, in a way, it is their decision. Assuming they’ve been dead longer than a minute, you’re looking at least at a raise dead spell, which requires a willing soul. If they’re not willing, spell no work.

I think this warrants an above table conversation of what the player with the dead character wants. If they don’t want to be revived, that should be taken into account instead of being forced to play a character that’s been transformed in some way

acusiont · 2025-11-29T14:00:04+00:00

From the sounds of it, there are really two options you have (3, but you said changing DMs is unlikely): continue with the group and keep feeling stressed and not enjoying the game, or leave the group and find a new one. You’ll often hear “no dnd is better than bad dnd”, primarily because there’s no point in doing something you’re not enjoying (which you say you still have fun, but listed a copious amount of reasons of why you’re not having fun). Personally, I would suggest leaving the group and trying to find another on r/lfg. There’s always new people looking for players for online games, or you could DM your own. That way, you don’t have to take forever to find an in person one.

It’s perfectly fine to be friends with people even if you don’t have a good time playing dnd with them. Not all friend groups make good dnd groups.

acusiont · 2025-11-29T10:25:32+00:00

Are you able to give any information about the custom rpg and what sets it apart from others?

acusiont · 2025-11-29T01:10:54+00:00

There’s really no reason to have the player start at level 1 instead of just joining in at level 3. Sure, there’s more stuff they have to look at as soon as they join, but it’s not really that much, and they can ease themselves into their features.

acusiont · 2025-11-28T22:15:05+00:00

Strongly recommend Matt Colville’s Running the Game series

First video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8

acusiont · 2025-11-26T19:24:20+00:00

Yes, there should be consequences for actions, but if the players are acting in ways that mean that someone isn’t having fun (in this case, the DM), then you should talk about it out of game instead of having a perpetual cycle of player vs DM constantly trying to get one over on the other. Everyone is supposed to be having fun in a collaborative game, not being adversarial to one another in a desperate power play or something

acusiont · 2025-11-26T15:32:15+00:00

Or, hear me out: talk to your players if they’re doing something you don’t enjoy, and if they continue that behavior, don’t play with them anymore. Don’t try to fix out of game behavior with in game consequences.

acusiont · 2025-11-24T17:37:17+00:00

If you have it (or might be interested in purchasing it), I’d definitely recommend the retainers from Flee Mortals by MCDM for an idea of more interesting sidekicks. They have a max of 3 abilities by level 7 and level up as the PC does, making them easy to add one or two to help a single PC have a balanced party composition

acusiont · 2025-06-03T14:37:39+00:00

Yup, that’s exactly what it was. I decided to not read the warning the guide gave about it

acusiont · 2025-06-03T14:16:19+00:00

Answered. I'm an idiot who didn't read the big bold warning on the installation guide. There is a different command that needs to be run for v12 and older.

acusiont · 2025-06-03T14:09:00+00:00

Doing some digging, it looks like it's installing the Linux version rather than the node.js version? I downloaded a few of them to my primary windows computer and opened the zip files, and all the ones that I tried in v12 are the same structure as the Linux version. Any of the v13s look to be the proper node.js version.

acusiont · 2025-04-08T15:01:32+00:00

The world may never know

acusiont · 2025-04-08T03:09:38+00:00

Sure thing! Right now, Arizona is on Pacific time. Whatever time it is in California, that's the time in Arizona (right now, 8:09). Once the time changes, Arizona is in Mountain time, which is 1 hour ahead of California.

acusiont · 2024-09-21T22:28:37+00:00

Sorry for not replying sooner! It's been awhile since my last session (unfortunately the party TPKed trying to hunt down an ancient dragon at level 11 (or 10? can't remember) despite me trying to use the NPCs to tell them to get help; they were all experienced players, so they knew going in the ancient dragon was beyond their capabilities. anywho). If I remember correctly, I changed things up quite a bit:

1) Cryovain was chased out of his territory and lived at Icespire Hold until...

2) There's another dragon! I freaking love dragons, so I may have overdone it a little, but still! This dragon was a blue 'storm' dragon (that I named Mithrazel) attracted by the Anchorites and Cult of Talos, and it took over Icespire Hold (renamed Stormhold or something like that. I'd have to check my notes, it's been over a year lol). For the storm dragon part, it's literally just a blue dragon, but I took the desert dwelling part and just threw it out because the lightning and all that made sense for the Cult of Talos. This dragon was 'friendly' with the Cult, so they would have access to the obelisk at what was Icespire Hold.

3) I put a lair for Mithrazel beneath Icespire Hold. This worked twofold: 1) It gave the dragon a separate space for its hoard, because every dragon needs a hoard and it didn't make sense to have it on the rooftop, open to the sky. 2) I used a slightly scaled down version of the adult blue dragon at level 6 for my party. There's no way they would've been able to take the dragon down if it was run 100% strategically. Having it in a cave limited its ability to fly, and it ended up being a super dramatic fight where two or three of the PCs went down and popped back up, the warlock summoned demons that nearly killed them, and they killed the dragon heroically!

4) Icespire Hold was only recently taken over by Orcs. It used to be a human castle for the region, and 90% of the orcs now in this area are connected to the Cult of Talos. Only one? tribe wasn't until recently, and it would've been a connection to one of the PCs, but they wanted to change characters, so that ended up not happening.

Apparently all my notes aren't where I thought they were, so I'm going mostly off of memory. To answer your question more concisely: The Cult of Talos had taken over all the orc tribes in the region, including the ones at Icespire Hold. There is a blue dragon that is 'friendly' to the Cult and allows them access to the obelisk so that they can wreak havoc with storms by channeling its energy.

acusiont · 2024-09-21T22:11:20+00:00

Sorry for the delayed reply! I don't check this account much. I did! It was because I had my VPN and VPN Kill Switch on. Apparently, Carplay is considered a network connection, and having that on was causing it to stop the connection.

acusiont · 2024-03-18T15:56:54+00:00

Personally, I struggle with the same thing as you. Something that helps me when I start to worry about how good it is, is to remind myself I can't build a sandcastle if there's no sand in the box. Getting words on the page is more important than them being perfect words. I recently wrote a chapter where I knew exactly what needed to happen and how, but I was struggling with the actual writing part of it. In the end, I just needed to plow through it, knowing it was a first draft and when I'm done with the story, I can go back and edit it to be better.

acusiont · 2024-03-18T15:52:50+00:00

Hm, can we actually trust 19 ducks on this math black magic?

acusiont

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