I wish I remembered my dreams better, some of them are pretty good.

Went to the office, ate some veggies and meat and rice and veggies, had too much meeting and didn’t like it, did some work.

Watched (live-action TV): Leverage: Redemption 1.6: The one with the Martin Shkreli stand-in and Breanna’s speech about fandom. (Did she come out as queer there, or just allyship?)

Read (manga): Spy x Family vol 14 (Tatsuya Endo): Ski cabin mystery! Then Anya’s first school dance, and a lot of backstory on secondary characters and the horrible war.

Read (novel): Demon in Disguise (Deborah Wilde): Main character has come out to just about everybody she knows, is at least tentatively back together with her ex, time for everything to go bad and end on a cliffhanger.

Written (game design): 328:

So you have the fancy temple wizards, who draw circles to establish
holy domains and write the true names of gods around them and recite
genealogies back to Creation or cite the exact section, paragraph,
and clause of the Celestial Ordinances that applies, etc, etc. They can
make something happen right away, or bless your weapons, or whatever.
Wizards who aren’t so fancy take longer to make spells, but then they
can stash them in their rings or toads or whatever for later use. Some
don’t bother with storing spells and evoke spirits to follow them around
and do stuff for them. Alchemists don’t cast spells at all, they refine
philosopher’s phosphorus or whatever by actually refining it. Mystics
and martial artists also don’t cast spells, but gain special powers over
body and mind by rigorous training and self-discipline. (This is
completely different than the way people get special powers when they
turn into monsters, how dare you.)

Is this too explainy and mechanical? I don’t want to be as completely
vibes-based as some story games (cough DW Wizard’s primary move cough),
because players need to be able to plan in at least a slightly crunchy
way, but it is magic and shouldn’t be boring like D&D. Do I need to go
full post-apocalyptic “we can turn it on and replace the batteries if we
find new ones but no idea how to repair it”?

(D&D is advertised as medieval, but it’s really a combination of
Renaissance (cities, inns, cash economy) plus post-apocalyptic (perilous
ruins, incomprehensible artifacts) plus Wild West (murder-hobos, clear
the subhuman savages to expand civilization). Various editions have
emphasized different aspects: 1e was relatively heavier on the Wild West
since it was supposed to transition into domain play but the
colonialism aspect has faded over time; 4e was more post-apocalyptic
with the “scattered points of light”, etc. I’m also leaning toward the
post-apoc genre, since ancient magic going haywire is a great excuse for
monsters and other problems.)