rpg skill: lessons — Vain Crown build (pregen incentive audit, dice primer, villain countdown, pipeline silence)

memory/midjourney_bridge.md

@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ metadata:
   node_type: memory
   type: reference
   originSessionId: fa4ca039-8c0e-4b9c-aee8-b6d7a81482b5
+  modified: 2026-07-19T13:45:17.670Z
 ---
 
 # Midjourney bridge (`mj-gen`)
@@ -40,6 +41,25 @@ mj-gen "Ink sketch, lone figure standing on a flooded London street at dawn, ...
 
 Then read the resulting PNG back to verify it matches the brief before placing it into game files. If the user dislikes U1, re-run `mj-gen` (cheap re-roll) or — if the same grid is still in the channel — manually post the other U-button custom_ids; the script currently only auto-clicks one upscale per call.
 
+## Prompt gotchas (learned in production)
+
+- MJ's moderation blocks prompts containing banned words **even in negation**
+  ("no visible gore") — the grid never arrives and `mj-gen` times out with no
+  error. Reword positively ("understated, nothing graphic").
+- Scene prompts drift photorealistic; for illustration styles lead with
+  "hand-drawn pen and ink illustration, NOT a photograph" and append
+  `--no photography, photorealism`.
+- Saved files get a `-u1` (upscale-button) suffix — rename to canonical names.
+- Don't run two `mj-gen` calls concurrently in one channel: each polls the
+  channel for the newest grid and they can grab each other's jobs.
+- **Out-of-fast-hours is invisible to the bridge**: MJ declines the job in an
+  ephemeral reply the channel-poller can never see, so `mj-gen` waits out its
+  full timeout on nothing. Signature: several successes, then consecutive
+  timeouts with NO new bot messages in the channel (check via the messages
+  API). Fix is account-side (top up fast hours or switch to relax); retries
+  are wasted until then. `timeout_seconds` in config.json is 1800 as of
+  19 Jul 2026 (was 600) to survive relax-queue waits.
+
 ## Known fragility
 
 - If MJ changes the `/imagine` slash command schema, run `mj-capture-command` to refresh.

skills/rpg/references/lessons.md

@@ -78,3 +78,20 @@ pass.
   geography; a hand-styled SVG (rough displacement filter, handwriting font,
   cream paper) passes visually as sketch art and stays correct. Expect two
   or three label-collision passes in a browser before it's clean.
+
+## 2026-07 — The Vain Crown build (house-system debut package)
+
+- **A rulebook's pregens are not con pregens.** VANITY's five shipped without
+  Vices — the system's own core engine. When packaging an included adventure
+  for a slot, audit the pregens against the system's *incentive* mechanics,
+  not just their stat legality.
+- **Debut systems need a dice primer baked into the Intro** — one staged
+  practice roll per player that doubles as the arrival scene, so teaching
+  costs zero extra minutes and the first Stumble happens somewhere safe.
+- **Give the villain a countdown table.** "Where is he now" per session-clock
+  row makes lost time (a failed pathfinding roll) mean something concrete and
+  lets fast tables genuinely change the finale's staging.
+- **Silence from a generation pipeline is a diagnosis, not a delay.** When a
+  batch goes quiet, check the actual channel/API for what the service said
+  before waiting again — and keep a fallback asset source (the system's own
+  existing art) so the package ships regardless.