Hello patrons,
Michael here.
I got many things to tell you.
As you've maybe seen, I'm late to deliver ambience packs and Miguel's tracks. I won't go into details but I've been really sick for the past year and a half. I wish I could tell you what's going on, but the truth is, I have no idea. I've been seeing specialists and all I have is a list of symptoms, a few theories and no exact explanation. The consequence is that it has severely impacted my ability to stay on my main computer and compose ambiences in the past months.
On the other hand, I'm physically and mentally unable to stay inactive. I love working and creating stuff, anything. I need it. Having to lie down and watch Netflix or doomscrolling on TikTok is my worst nightmare ; feels like dying faster.
In that regard, I've been looking for stuff to do, and I let my intrusive thoughts win.
Each time it happened, I built a big thing a few months later - my first ambiences, a full conlang based on Russian and Latin, 500-pages D&D books (unpublished, french publishers are shortsighted, but that's another story), and many other shenanigans.
So, what's new? Let me tell you a short story first.
Story time
I've been DMing for 14 years. Each time I start a new campaign, I create a new global mechanic for my players. For our current campaign, very thematic, my players are sent to colonize and develop an abandoned dwarven mine, lost to the ages.
I wanted to give my players a genuine feeling of achievement, each time they develop something in their mine. At the same time, the mine was not meant to be the center of the activity. At its core, it's an augmented West March type campaign ; each month passing in the game, they could leave the mine and explore any hex on a huge 17x30 hex region map (I prepared over 100 random events, encounters, seasonal activities, etc.)
How to track the mine development? I thought about creating an advanced random event table system, but it lacked objectivity (this is a core element). How do you tell the difference between a hamlet, a mid-sized village, a large town? How do you justify narratively that after weeks of your players improving food production, a random roll still generates a famine? How to explain that yes, they did scout the tunnels, but they were still hiding dangers? How to objectively gauge the effect of a small thing they discovered and its impact on a colony of XYZ size? It would have forced me to fudge rolls, reroll, wing it, or (worst of all) give players the impression that their actions don't matter.
So I started building "Mine Simulator": a simple Google Sheets file with a 1k lines automation script. As I worked on it, I realized my dwarves needed to eat : so I coded a food system. Then they got sick : health system. Then trade, defense, research. I ended up with a monstrous spreadsheet that took ten minutes per cycle (in-game month) to manage. That's nine minutes too many by my standards. Below : a few screenshots of the main view and some tabs.
While it's cool (if you're a nerd like me), it's still unhandy as I had to copy buildings and their effects, manually add inhabitants, etc. My friends like when I DM because my sessions go fast, lots of things happen, the pace is intense. I get bored fast and I dislike waiting, but I dislike even more when people wait on me, so I had to find an alternative.
Now, some of you may know that before I started making audio, I was working in cybersecurity and loved coding (and actually never stopped). Maybe you see where this is going,... ?
The madness
Enter Fantasy City Simulator (FCS), the most complex, deep and realistic settlement simulator for tabletop roleplaying games.
It's here. It works. It's made for you (and my players).
FCS has everything :
Food management
Revenues (trading/mining/other)
Morale management
A technology tree
Buildings
Crime and defense Management
Health management
Random events
And way WAY more. You can create your own buildings, tech trees, races (called species to be scientifically correct), events, etc... and everything is customizable. Even the calendar ! Your community has a 23 months year with seven seasons? I got you. And you can set different modifiers for food production, crime, etc... for any of them.
All inhabitants are unique. They marry, get a job, have kids, suffer from anxiety, die.
EDIT: A tester told me it made them feel like playing Dwarf Fortress. Good. That's my favorite game :)
Absolute freedom
The app is setting-agnostic and system-agnostic. I already imported all species from D&D and from my own setting (Kor), and I plan to add more. At any moment, you can export your simulation, tech tree, buildings, etc. and import others/more.
You don't like the base settings I set up? Change them. It's not a video game and no one will tell how to play it.
If you think maths are cool, you can use the built-in "effect builder", that allows you to build any effect using almost any in-game variable. For example, you create a new type of job called "Geomancer" ; you want the "Earth Magic Guild" to generate 5 additional gold per Geomancer : add an effect on the Earth Magic Guild -> “Fixed Revenues" = [geomancer_count] * 5. Here you go, the "Geomancer" job variable is immediately recognized and works in equations.
Gold finally matters! And new rewards!
One of the main motivations behind FCS was that my players systematically became rich beyond measures and couldn't use their gold in a meaningful way in their adventures. You may say it's a skill issue from the DM, but considering how many optional rules you can find online to "fix" it, I think it's a widespread problem.
FCS fixes it. Building a city is a money-sink, and allowing your players to spend their hard-earned money in new buildings, units, etc. is extremely rewarding.
And not only that, but you get access to tons of new rewards for your players : skilled workers that join their community, lost technologies, materials (replacing gold for construction), etc.
There's a LOT more to discover. I'm extremely proud of what I built. I know it's not meant for all kinds of campaigns but it's a revolution for the ones revolving around community building.
A new era for MGS
It's not all I created. I always try to see long term and I liked the process too much to stop there.
FCS' tech is built with maximum modularity, basically like my ambiences. It means that it's like Legos, I can take parts and build new things out of them. While I was working on FCS, I had other intrusive ideas that came to my mind. I steered the direction to build the MGS Hub. This is where all MGS apps will lie.
All MGS apps? There's more than FCS?
Yes, there's five of them. Three big encyclopedias for GMs and a crafting system app for players (5e).
Say Hi to Crystal Encyclopedia!
I love minerals, got a whole collection. I run a campaign about dwarves and mines. I needed good references, vocabulary, etc. I couldn't find what I wanted online, so I built it.
Crystal Encyclopedia (CE) is a webapp that displays official, scientific information about crystals. It also features arcane properties useful for the crafting system that I'll show later. Time to stop distributing boring rubies and diamonds. Have you heard about hiddenite and Painite? It's freaking cool.
Pictures are Creative Commons (no generative AI in my apps) and the data is from Wikipedia and mindat.org
Here's Metal Encyclopedia!
Basically the same but for metals. Also with mythological metals and other fictional elements.
Here's Rerum Natura!
Basically the same but for ingredients! All these ingredients have essences that you can use to create your own potions in the app "Crafting Table".
Alchemy and jeweling made easy!
Crafting Table (CT) does both. The app is based on alchemy house rules I wrote for one of my books a few years ago and on jeweling rules I made for the dwarven campaign. I thought you'd enjoy them so I turned all of that into apps. It has nice colors and animations, the full ruleset can be read in the How To Use (each app has a full documentation).
And now you can do crafting without having to pledge $120 on a Kickstarter and receive the book in two years (maybe).
The gems have effects. You can socket them in your armor, helmet, weapons, basically anywhere. There are easy rules to add sockets and the app manages all of that for you without enforcing much.
(NB: The jeweler rules have not been thoroughly tested so I'm actively looking for feedback).
What else?
Achievements, lol.
But also full French / English translations.
What do Patrons get?
On FCS, you can make as many simulations as you want
Skins for the website. You can choose between Golddiggers (Dwarven theme) and Immortal Vegans (Elven theme).
No annoying banner at the top
No future restrictions on apps (I will restrict the automatic feature on CT once it's in its final version)
More achievements
Your feedback/suggestions come first
Please note that I couldn't test the Patron connection pipeline myself as last time I tried it, Patreon deleted my page for a week, perhaps you remember.
If there's an issue, I'll work on it asap.
What comes next?
I'll work on video explanations for those who are allergic to reading (they probably left a long time ago).
I'll fix the bugs you find and balance what needs to be balanced. The app has been tested a lot by friends and me, but there's certainly some small issues.
More themes (skins) for the apps, to fit your campaign.
More presets for your simulations
Future apps. I have many other ideas. I'll make things clear: I'll never work on any virtual tabletop, dice roller or anything similar. Others do it much better. Red Sea VS Blue Sea. I'll focus on my own very original apps. I may also distribute my books as apps, so you can get access to 12 new game-tested species, 8 classes, 100+ items, class set items. As well as to 800 pages of 5e campaigns (ready to be published).
Final words
It's the first time I release an app (or five), I'm currently stressed beyond measure, feels like the day I shared my first song on YouTube 14 years ago.
Connect with Patreon on : MGS Toolbox — Michael Ghelfi Studios
Your opinions are more than welcome.
Have fun with the MGS Toolbox!
Thanks for being here.
Disclaimer: the apps don't use any AI image. I used AI to translate text, get rid of typos and generally write building, tech and events descriptions cause I ain't gonna write 60k lines of configuration.