Thank you so much for this thoughtful feedback! I absolutely agree--the mechanics here can be modded to fit lots of things that go wrong at high speed. A warding spell that has to be "defused" before it (destroys the warded item? Teleports the party away?) would probably bring out a lot of the same dynamics in play!
Your comments about parsing the cores make complete sense. I wanted to respect the limitations of the One-Page RPG Jam, but to do so I shifted a lot of the burden of figuring out the game onto the reader. Frankly, this concept may have been a little too elaborate for the format! It would be fun to make a version of this game with a little more "room to breathe"--including more complete instructions. Watch this space . . . .
Thank you again! (And if I can answer any questions about how the game works, let me know!)