TRPG General Chat

12:18 AM

> For every successful action you complete by yourself, the skill used is reduced by 1. Every time you successfully complete an action in cooperation with at least one other player character, you can each remove all penalties from one of your skills.

Thoughts?

I'm feeling a bit better about this direction; it encompasses a lot of what I wanted to do, because it allows for both obsession-based stories and cooperative stories without changing anything.

Maybe "one skill is reduced" instead of "the skill used is reduced."

Alex P

@BESW Anything in particular happens when the skill hits 0?

What are skills like and how many do you get?

BESW

I'm thinking about something closer to Fate Accelerated's "approaches" than a full skill list.

Not sure about hitting 0 yet; it'd depend on the rest of the system, I suppose.

Maybe "you can't use that skill at all anymore."

Alex P

@BESW Sounds good.

BESW

So you can stay good at one thing as your other skills plummet, until it's the only skill left and you have to reduce it.

Or you can cooperate regularly and your skills go up and down minimally but never get to be a problem.

That way the group can decide through action what kind of story they're telling.

Alex P

What do you risk when you undertake an action?

BESW

12:31 AM

Not sure yet.

Alex P

I think that's the big thing, really.

Does every failure introduce its own narrative complication? (Such that you can't really test for anything without a possibility of failure.) Is there a resource or a condition or whatever that is affected?

BESW

I think some kind of complication would be a very good idea.

Alex P

What does failure in the original fiction look like?

BESW

Failure introduces complication that makes it harder to accomplish the goal.

Often the complication requires the aid of others to remove.

okeefe

1:00 AM

"4e, like all RPGs is exactly as good as its GM." Wow, I can't quite disagree with that more.

BESW

@okeefe Where's that?

okeefe

18

A: Last-minute system-related second thoughts before starting a game

4e, like all RPGs is exactly as good as its GM. With that said, it depends on what your requirements are. I've experienced a campaign that went from 1-30 in 4e. It had significant RPing in it. With that said, 4e offers few rules (but a few excellent books on suggestions) of how to guide RP. If y...

Thought it'd be more sensical to be unhappy about it here than to clutter up the answer, though.

BESW

I'd say the GM/system interaction is more like force multipliers.

@okeefe I think that in the context of the question, Brian's statement has more to do with the guy being worried he'd chosen the "wrong" system.

And Brian's saying that GMs can compensate for areas where systems are weak.

The way he says it is a bit absolutist.

Alex P

1:23 AM

@okeefe I like that answer overall, but I agree with you on that point.

@BESW "Compensate for areas where systems are weak" isn't one of the fun parts of the job description. ;)

BESW

@AlexP Spoken like someone who doesn't like to make random encounter tables.

Alex P

@BESW Shrug, that doesn't really feel like "compensating" per se. Any more than making a map of the village is "compensating."

Don't get me wrong, I dooooo kinda hate encounter tables.

okeefe

My hope is that the players and gm have all agreed upon a system that will generate the kind of game/story they're interested in. I want all three of players/gm/system engaged; a good system can engage all three. If the GM is throwing out or changing the system, then there's a mismatch.

Alex P

1:40 AM

@okeefe I do find it weird how often conversations in the hobby just neglect, like, the (non-GM) players.

BESW

Agreed.

Alex P

Oh, hey, this is totally my "middle school" rant! I hate on middle school because I feel like at its root was the decision to minimize the players. Dragonlance modules. The play advice in Old Vampire. It slants towards making the players an audience. :/

BESW

That does jive with my experience in Mage, and what I heard of the ST's style in his other games.

He told awesome stories that his players were happy to be part of... but they were his stories.

Character agency was almost unknown; players were basically puppets that told the story the ST wanted to tell.

C. Ross

hi y'all

Alex P

1:55 AM

Hi!

BESW

Hey, what's new?

C. Ross

@BESW Not too much. Just needed to distract myself for a few minutes

BESW

@C.Ross I like to watch the Alien opening title sequence, myself.

C. Ross

@BESW Hmmm, that just made we want to watch the Stargate intro ...

BESW

Which one?

Alex P

2:00 AM

@C.Ross mmmm chevrons

C. Ross

@BESW As Alex P points out, Chevrons ... one sec

►

BESW

I preferred the one they pulled from the film, but I can see where it'd be generally less popular.

Alex P

I just like chevrons locking

also a bit of the fwoosh, maybe

C. Ross

@BESW link?

►

This is generally amusing ...

BESW

►

:10372101

C. Ross

2:09 AM

Shared by Fred Hicks (G+)

@BESW that one is also, quite good

sigh Seasons 8-10 :-(

BESW

9 and 10 don't exist.

C. Ross

@BESW They're not on my shelf, so I can affirm that

trogdor

@C.Ross ah ok

C. Ross

@trogdor spoilers!

trogdor

lol

well sorry, but that wasn't hard to figure out

C. Ross

2:14 AM

@trogdor but the whole enjoyment of the piece is figuring it out

trogdor

mm

tadaaaa!

C. Ross

hooray!

trogdor

that was entertaining making guesses at it though

but as soon as she (spoilers) I kinda figured it out

Alex P

@trogdor hahahaha

trogdor

lol

BESW

2:17 AM

Also, not a reboot. More of a "gee, wouldn't it be nice if someone could do this right?"

trogdor

well

wtv

they changed appearance, that's the word I found in my brain

BESW

Personally, I suspect any attempt to go into that character from a romantic starting point is going to run into major issues.

C. Ross

on another note: I often have a problem when running a game of power escalation. My players always seem to want to up the power level. My current thoughts on my "low-power heroes" game is that the first thing people will want to do is create Iron Man/Thor/Martian Manhunter power level characters ...

trogdor

mm

well it is fun to be powerful

BESW

@C.Ross Can you provide them with pop culture examples that are closer to your vision?

trogdor

2:19 AM

Batman?

C. Ross

@BESW Batman, Kick Ass, Black Widow, Hawk Eye, Green Arrow?

trogdor

or would he also count as too high?

BESW

Ah.

C. Ross

@trogdor depends on your concept of Batman ...

trogdor

yeah

BESW

2:20 AM

I was thinking you were aiming for something more like Zorro.

trogdor

but my idea is that he has no powers

Oblivious Sage

Squirrel Girl

trogdor

he just makes himself badass

BESW

@ObliviousSage You just snapped the dial off.

Oblivious Sage

or whats-his-face, the kid from Marvel who makes bouncy balls, started the Civil War, and became all grim and changed his name to Penance

C. Ross

2:21 AM

@BESW in tone, but not necessarily power level ...

hmmm, Zorro and Lone Ranger would be good, if archaic examples ...

BESW

@C.Ross Well, I think the key to successfully conveying your goal to the players is going to lie in finding a known example they like.

James Bond also comes to mind.

C. Ross

@BESW John McClean from Die Hard 1 ...

Alex P

@C.Ross I was just about to say "80s/90s action movies"

BESW

Ho ho ho.

C. Ross

@BESW eh?

@trogdor it's fun to be powerful, but it renders some plots/themes silly, absurd, or impossible

trogdor

2:25 AM

yeah

I get that

was just mentioning

BESW

trogdor

you can't blame PC's for wanting to play someone powerful

C. Ross

@BESW :-D

@trogdor I can blame them for wanting it all the time for free ...

Alex P

I think setting the expectations to "not superheroes" will help.

Don't call it "low-powered supers"

trogdor

@C.Ross yes you can

BESW

2:26 AM

"Mortals vs Maniacs?"

C. Ross

@AlexP I agree in retrospect, but I think I made that mistake

sigh My mental tagline for the one shot is: "A game exploring heroism and vigilantism in modern urban America. Also, kick ass."

BESW

Be transparent, say "Okay, I used the wrong word. Can we start over and I'll try again?"

@C.Ross And why is this tagline staying mental?

C. Ross

@BESW I'm afraid it will come off as too cerebral ... but then again perhaps I should be trying to attract the more cerebral part of the player base

Alex P

Argh! My DVR taped a three-minute long "episode recap." Apparently it has the same title as a real episode? :/

trogdor

huh

well when I record stuff, sometimes it turns into a basketball game or something

Alex P

2:30 AM

@trogdor And baseball season totally destroys all the shows that run after baseball.

trogdor

this is one of the reasons I am lukewarm about sports

Alex P

@trogdor I watch the superbowl about 70% of the time. That's it.

And, no, I don't actually like superbowl ads. It's usually a good game, though.

C. Ross

well, thanks for the distraction guys, I need to get some sleep

trogdor

I watch almost any sport, exluding for example golf and others

but I don't watch them often

BESW

@C.Ross ttfn

trogdor

2:34 AM

@C.Ross have a good sleep

Alex P

See ya.

BESW

3:07 AM

Okay, so here's a first shot at the basic mechanics for FiM (not complete).

Each pony has four aspects (Fate-like): Race, Personality, Cutie Mark, and Pony Problem.

When rolling for an action, you roll 1d6 + 1 for each aspect that should help you with the action.

trogdor

seems like 3 out of 4 of those can be any of a wide range of things

unless you mean to restrict them in some way

BESW

If something is clearly in the realm of your Pony Problem (group consensus) and you are not cooperating with another Pony on the action, you automatically fail and get a token good for +1 on any future roll.

trogdor

so instead of FP you get these tokens

which for the moment to work in a relatively similar way

BESW

And if something is clearly in the realm of your Cutie Mark (group consensus) and you are not cooperating with another Pony on the action, you may spend a token to automatically succeed.

Cooperation: One pony makes the roll and all ponies involved add their modifiers to it. A pony can revoke her modifiers to grant a re-roll.

Whenever a pony fails a roll, she must choose one aspect that is no longer able to grant bonuses, unless she spends a token instead.

Whenever a group of ponies successfully cooperates on an action, they each get to choose one of their aspects to restore.

Failed cooperation attempts result in every involved pony losing the use of an aspect.

Maybe 2d6 is better for the base roll.

trogdor

rather than 4d6?

BESW

3:19 AM

I was going with 1d6, actually.

Alex P

How does it look in the long arc?

BESW

(These aren't fudge dice.)

@AlexP What?

Alex P

Like, in D&D, you level and increase in power. And that's not something that really happens much during a session but it's driving play monumentally because it's like your goal in the campaign.

BESW

I don't see leveling up as part of this system.

Alex P

Well, sure.

BESW

3:22 AM

Instead, Pony Problems and Personality might be adjusted at the end of each storyline.

Alex P

But what's the long-term goal that's driving your short-term play?

trogdor

story most likely

BESW

Conflict resolution.

Each story should start with a conflict or potential for conflict, which escalates... ahah.

Spending tokens creates complications.

Something like that, anyway.

Basically, each story is a self-contained conflict-escalation-resolution narrative which is its own goal.

Alex P

My inclination is that anything that's not purely short-form should have some kind of hook that makes me really care about how my character changes as part of this session.

Traditionally that's advancement of some sort, but it doesn't have to be.

E.g. in In a Wicked Age, it's actually whose characters gets to come back in the next short story.

But I find games much grabbier when system-level long-term objectives are driving me forward.

BESW

I'm not sure how interested I am in long-term play for this.

Alex P

3:27 AM

So, more self-contained, then!

BESW

Hmm. I'm changing this to a dice pool mechanic.

Alex P

I <3 dice pool.

In particular because if your game stresses cooperation, the act of giving people help bonuses is much better when it actually involves handing someone a die.

BESW

Instead of every aspect relating to the action adding +1 to the d6 roll, you start with 1d6 and add 1d6 for every aspect.

Alex P

Nd6 take highest?

BESW

No, let's make it a "successes" pool.

Successes are... 5 or 6, and you need X successes to achieve a task.

Alex P

3:29 AM

@BESW Those are my favorite.

BESW

Cutie Mark activities make success ranges wider, Pony Problem activities make them smaller.

So if you do something related to your Pony Problem, you get +1d6 for it relating to your aspect... but you need 6s to succeed at it.

Tokens are spent for turning failed dice into automatic successes.

Alex P

So, why don't I just want to help every roll I can?

That the other players make, I mean.

BESW

Because failure means you have to choose an aspect and lose the ability to have it add +1d6 to rolls.

Alex P

As the helper, too?

trogdor

yeah

BESW

3:34 AM

Everyone involved in the roll.

Alex P

ahhhh

okay, that works!

Silly question: is there a GM?

BESW

Dunno yet.

Alex P

You might find this useful for big-picture design.

You definitely kicked this off with a very clear statement about ponies. ;)

BESW

Interesting.

...I don't like having Race as an aspect.

trogdor

well it does define some things you can do that other Races can't

BESW

3:47 AM

I'll lump it into Personality.

Basically it'd mean that Twilight would be a Loner Bookworm Unicorn instead of a Unicorn who is also a Loner Bookworm.

BESW

4:03 AM

I added some more solid rules to my FiM game notes page.

Right now it's just aspect guidelines and the basic roll mechanic.

So, at the start of Party of One Pinkie Pie would be a Bouncy Friendly Earth Pony who is great at Throwing Parties and has a Terrible Fear of Rejection.

But in A Friend in Deed she'd be a Bouncy Friendly Earth Pony who is great at Making Friends, but she Can't Take a Hint.

trogdor

"go away" "not until you are my friend"

"ok i'm your friend, please leave me alone" "nope not how it works new friend"

that would have been pretty much a solo session though

but otherwise a good example I think

Magician

Hm. So does her personality change, or are the episodes simply focusing on different aspects of it? And should the character have all those traits and pick some at the start of each session, then, that they want to explore further? Is that a Thing FATE does?..

BESW

@Magician In some cases, the personality is changing. In others, it'd just be a matter of what's interesting/important for that story.

And no, Fate doesn't do this.

Fate allows aspects to change, but it's a different kind of thing.

I'd say that having a "bank" of aspects might be overkill, though an individual could certainly do it.

One interesting variant might be to leave some of the aspects blank at the start of play, and have the group suggest them during play.

@trogdor Let's see. Dragonshy is a good group episode.

trogdor

4:18 AM

yep

I have to admit though, I also enjoy the episodes that only have one main character for most of them

BESW

In that one, Fluttershy could have been a Timid And Shy Pegasus who was Good With Animals, but had a Crippling Fear of Flight.

trogdor

she always prefers not to fly though

as you said

it's probably more like focusing on specific parts of a personality

rather than saying it is completely different now

BESW

Yeah.

In light of that, I'm going to throw in this:

> if a pony succeeds on a roll related to her Pony Problem (alone or as part of a cooperative action), she can spend a token to overcome that problem and replace it with another.

Alex P

4:53 AM

@BESW Writing a new problem right there seems kinda daunting.

Which is not to say "Don't do it!" but "Guidance and group support for this process, plz!"

BESW

Yeah.

The way I see it, if it's something a person wants to do, it'll probably be obvious as part of the story.

Alex P

Good point.

It is an optional.

And you can rewrite problems regardless between sessions, right?

BESW

Right.

Alex P

sounds good, then

BESW

Now I'm integrating the token mechanic.

> Failed roll: everypony working for the roll chooses an aspect to forsake and gains one token, or spends a token to avoid forsaking an aspect. A forsaken aspect cannot add +1d6 to rolls until the pony successfully contributes to a cooperative roll.

Tokens can be spent to turn failed dice into successes, but not when cooperating.

Basically I want tokens to only be spendable to help yourself, not other ponies; this helps encourage non-cooperative play without neutering cooperation.

Alex P

4:59 AM

Natural question: what happens if you forsake all of your aspects?

I feel like you are in trouble then.

Like, narratively speaking, you are LOST.

And someone else needs to come help you out of it.

BESW

You can then only accomplish 1-success level actions.

Until someone helps you. Yes.

I'm not sure yet what failure means when you've run out of actions to forsake.

You're probably screwed enough that it doesn't matter.

Take the token for failure and keep going.

..ooh.

> Tokens cannot be spent to turn failures into successes on cooperative rolls unless the pony spending them has no unforsaken aspects.

Because a totally forsaken pony is going to probably rack up a lot of tokens.

Now inviting a forsaken pony into your roll brings their pile of tokens along, making their recovery all the more triumphant.

(And provides mechanical reason to want to help them.)

Alex P

@BESW I would rewrite that to make the exception stand out more. Make it its own statement.

This is the core cycle of your resources. It should be really obvious how it all is supposed to work.

Also, good night.

BESW

> Only ponies whose aspects are all forsaken can spend tokens to turn failed dice into successes during teamwork rolls.

Alex P

I must sleep.

BESW

@AlexP G'night!

trogdor

5:14 AM

"it's so strange, everyone is sleeping when I am awake"

:P

BESW

5:59 AM

I'm off to do shopping and check for Fate.

ttfn

BESW

11:05 AM

Still no Fate.

Phil

11:21 AM

:o(

BESW

1:27 PM

I'm running Roll for Shoes in the Fate Chat if anyone wants to spectate.

(Turn off your fudge dice script to see our actual rolls.)

Magician

1:50 PM

Oh, btw. Still the right day for it.

►

Joshua Aslan Smith

5:31 PM

trying to decide if I feel the hidden tag is redundant

wax eagle

stealth is probably more apropriate

Joshua Aslan Smith

yes, we have a stealth tag which is more widely used

most questions with hidden also have stealth tag

and if a question already had dnd4e and stealth tags then hidden is a bit redundant

just seeing if anyone else thought the same, I'll post in meta

wax eagle

vote here to make them synonomous: rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/stealth/synonyms

Joshua Aslan Smith

dont have the score yet

guess its 3k or highter

wax eagle

2500 I think

Joshua Aslan Smith

5:36 PM

actually exact message is score on this tag

wax eagle

yeah gotta have +5 in the tag to vote

Zachiel

mmmmh I've noticed the actual-play synonim

it's the same of the campaign-journal one

that worries me

Joshua Aslan Smith

how do I get score in a tag?

wax eagle

wow, I'm actually teh top user in the stealth tag

@JoshuaAslanSmith answer questions tagged with it :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

welp Ive done that some and posted one with it but I guess I havent done it enough

Alex P

5:39 PM

@Zachiel why?

Joshua Aslan Smith

3

Q: Does the [system-agnostic] tag conflict with system specific tags?

In this question, the asker tagged his question with system-agnostic. He also tagged it with dnd-3.5e and dungeons-and-dragons. Is this contradictory or in some way contrary to the spirit of the tags in general? If so, it seems like we should enforce some kind of rule that a question with syst...

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith you'll have enough to vote in a few minutes, then the system just has to catch up

Joshua Aslan Smith

woops wrong tag

*wrong tag question

Zachiel

@AlexP an actual play is the summary of what the players did. A campaign journal is the summary of what the characters did.

Joshua Aslan Smith

0

Q: Is the Hidden tag too specific and redundant?

I started looking at the Hidden tag when I answered this question: Can I hide using Cunning Sneak with Wilderness Skirmisher? To me it seems that stealth (a much more widely used tag) would make more sense than having a hidden tag which is overly specific. Tagging a question with both 4e and ste...

discussion tag-synonyms

I tossed it up if only to draw attention to it beyond myself

Alex P

5:41 PM

@Zachiel Excellent point.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle thanks for the response

Alex P

@Zachiel They are both session summaries, though, aren't they?

Zachiel

Yes, they are... but one is about fiction, the other is about gameplay. I'm not sure they need to be separated, but they are certainly two different, separated things

Alex P

@Zachiel Well, how does it look from the perspective of posting questions about them to this site?

Looks like right now there are just "where do I find AP?" questions

The Oracle

6:05 PM

2

Q: Is the Hidden tag too specific and redundant?

I started looking at the Hidden tag when I answered this question: Can I hide using Cunning Sneak with Wilderness Skirmisher? To me it seems that stealth (a much more widely used tag) would make more sense than having a hidden tag which is overly specific. Tagging a question with both 4e and ste...

discussion tag-synonyms

wax eagle

@TheOracle slowpoke

Joshua Aslan Smith

6:20 PM

@waxeagle this deserves a slow hand clap "I wish you well trying to play 4e without DDI, I wouldn't even try. "

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith tried to put that as nicely as possible. It's a game that demands access to it's online resources.

Joshua Aslan Smith

especially if he doesnt have essentials books, huge feat loss there

I mean I balked at first, but char builder is super helpful for managing characters and creating them and the compendium is great for just about any rules or optimization question

wax eagle

in time and effort saved it's worth the cost, add to that full access to all the rules content and you then only have to buy the books you actually want...

Joshua Aslan Smith

the value is right for the price espeically when you consider having to buy all the books printed and you still wouldnt get access to dragon article feats and whatnot that way

wax eagle

ultimately it's the price of entry for paying 4e. If you don't want to pay it playing a different game is probably the best option.

Joshua Aslan Smith

6:28 PM

Concur

Zachiel

6:41 PM

@AlexP Usually, fiction summaries are on SE because of "how do I encourage writing chronicles?" questions, while APs are named in "where can I find APs for this game"? You generally use APs to get an idea of what the game is about - chronicles are seldom used for that because they don't tell how those stories have emerged and they mask "story after" situations - that thing you have when you roll-play and then you tell to your friends "we battled a dragon and the fiction was epic"

Alex P

@Zachiel Ah, okay, so your concern is that questions about campaign journals focus on creating the campaign journals, whereas AP questions focus on learning things from AP.

Zachiel

@waxeagle If you own some manuals and want to use those, it's a "on top of it" price, I don't like to pay for things I already have

wax eagle

@Zachiel perhaps, the game is technically playable without online tools, you just don't get the full experience. But then that full experience requires at least a few hundred dollars in books...

Zachiel

@waxeagle I guess DDI is better if you don't plan to play 4e for too long

@AlexP I believe there can be questions about how to write an AP (system-agnostic, presumably) but while both being summaries they are really two different things in scopes and question/answer areas of interest. I'd like to know if I'm the only one who thinks so.

wax eagle

@Zachiel yes. Now that you can't just download all of the content in a month it does become a balance game at some point. I'm in year 3 of paying for it and in another year or two I could have bought all the books for the money I've spent.

Zachiel

6:47 PM

@waxeagle you still get a way more user-friendly tool, but then the worthyness of the cost becomes a subjective matter.

wax eagle

@Zachiel right. It's worth it to me for a variety of reason, ease of access and time savings are huge IMO

Zachiel

I'm battled. I saw DDI doing its magic in the free first three levels incarnation and it's a great way to see which feats are compatible with your class + ability scores. It's really bad at telling you how you could have set your ability scores to build for some useful feat that's now filtered out.

...It's like playing 3.5e and never discovering a fighter can get improved trip because you never mattered giving 13+ Int to your non-caster, non-skill-monkey guy.

C. Ross

7:04 PM

Ah skill monkey rogue, how I miss you.

Zachiel

The character you see portrayed in my avatar is a skill monkey in D&D 3.5e. She's really far from being useful, but she does things no-one else can do without spells and she's very proud of that... ç_ç

wax eagle

@Zachiel very true. I borked my fighter build that I'm playing right now and either have to invest in an odd way to get where I want to go or retrain into hammers...(and I'm honestly not sure which way I'm going to go)

Zachiel

4e is still very D&D. In fact, you need to plan your character way ahead.

C. Ross

@Zachiel true

wax eagle

yeah, I'm still playing my first character and he was very unplanned....

he's still pretty good thanks to retraining and a slight class feature adjustment, but he's not the fighter I would build with my current knowledge

Zachiel

7:10 PM

If you don't learn how to recognize the valuable informations you're doomed to fail somewhere

it's the part of D&D I hate the most. System Mastery is required and the amount of information to memorize is huge.

wax eagle

this is actually something essentials fixed to some degree. You don't have to plan your character out for levels and levels, basically stats and feats are the only things you have to worry about. And at low levels feat choices are pretty simple and stats are pretty simple.

C. Ross

@Zachiel if you aim for "optimal play" yes, but as often stated, many of us have gotten great fun out of it without system mastery

Zachiel

However, now I feel sort of naked if I don't have to plan for a game. It's like... no need to plan? No choice I will make is going to be better or worse than the others? This kind of paranoia has almost ruined RPGs to me. I'd play Fate looking for the aspects I could more easily bring into play and building my character on that knowledge.

I'm obsessed by performance

It's not a good thing to have

I get performance anxiety when choosing where to move in a battle - Oh how I'd like there was an easy to spot best move, some sort of manual telling me "if you are in this situation, do that" or some probability calculator to sort out the most optimal solution for defeating the enemies... I guess if I had a character I'd take ages choosing what to do. Or I'll ask around the table. T_T

@C.Ross I think I'm a little bit worse than that.

C. Ross

@Zachiel ouch ...

Zachiel

@waxeagle and are they as strong as non-essential classes made following optimization threads?

C. Ross

7:19 PM

I mean if you want to play that, that's fine ... but no thanks ...

I enjoyed it a bit in college when I had time to do the planning, but now I have more important things going on

Zachiel

@C.Ross Luckily I'm the DM and I know my NPCs are there to die. When I'm not, I like being railroaded.

C. Ross

@Zachiel now that's one of my hangups, I fight being railroaded like a wounded wolverine

wax eagle

@Zachiel there are a couple that rate on DPR king threads... It's a striker heavy bunch of classes and most of them keep pace with expected damage. The Defenders are fantastic. The leaders are fairly typical 4e leaders. The only place it really suffers is in controller and that's because controllers are hard to build well and in my opinion the least defined role in 4e

C. Ross

I love the breakout moment :-)

Zachiel

@C.Ross I do too. It's morally wrong! But if they don't do, I don't know what to do.

C. Ross

7:22 PM

@Zachiel really? I always have goals. Little ones or big ones that are totally aside from the campaign goals.

Zachiel

@C.Ross I'm pretty good at those

C. Ross

It was enlightening to me in a campaign our cavalier charged and annihilated a future villain in two hits. I thought cool, one threat down. The GM was astounded and didn't believe it. Some of the other players were angry he "ruined the story".

Zachiel

I'm used to roleplay on "lands". It's a name that stems from "lands of Shannara", a persistent world based on the Shannara world, I think. However, the gist of it is that the players can and should have objectives and it's funnier for everyone if their objectives keep the world from going stale.

I'm really bad at this. My characters usually want to make the world a peaceful, tranquil place

C. Ross

@Zachiel there are lots of ways to make that interesting ...

Zachiel

Or to find some employeer and show him their worthiness and fidelty

My last character ended up asking her emplyeer to tell her what to do because every time she acted on her own initiative she made a diplomatic mess.

the employeer's player had no interest in playing my character for me

also because I could as well think he was the culprit of everything bad happening to my character.

Alex P

7:36 PM

@Zachiel I find the thing that helps me get out of "I have to do everything right!" is having a system without, like, levels. When I have a system that tells me "a 10th-level character has four powers" or whatever, then I am really sensitive to whether I used all my power choices well as I leveled. When I can always just sit there and pick up another power, though, I care less.

Zachiel

@AlexP Are systems like Dungeon World where basically a new level means a new power included in such games?

I've been playing a Solar System game once, is any of you familiar with it?

Alex P

@Zachiel The real sticking point for me is that choices can feel permanent -- like "I have to complete my degree in four years, so every class I pick that doesn't work out is a massive missed opportunity" -- or fleeting -- like "What shall I have for lunch today?" And the kind of game where being level X means you have N of these and M of these and K of these tends to feel more like the former.

@Zachiel I've played The Shadow of Yesterday. Which is its predecessor assuming you mean that Solar System.

Zachiel

Yes, that Solar System. My main concern there was not having carefully choosen my keys because another player was getting way more opportunities to gain XP. Same thing in DW, I'm worried my character has less opportunities to roll dice, so he either fails less (which means getting less XP) or shows off less.

Alex P

@Zachiel TSOY/Solar making you pay to change keys is kinda tricky. It works when it works but it's not the best solution for "you made a bad choice."

Zachiel

The Solar System thing hit me pretty hard. We were at a convention and we were asked to come up with a character in a few minutes. Choose cool things, don't worry about efficiency. Me and another player both went with the same concept. We got the same keys and really similar point distribution, because clichées.

at that point I said, I know him, he'll surely play a woman. Let's play a male.

and so he did

one of our keys was about... let me find the sheet

Alex P

7:48 PM

@Zachiel In my experience TSOY was also a bit prone to "spotlight" issues in general.

Zachiel

Ok the key was like this (Vin Diesel: tokyo drift setting)
Idol.
1xp - everybody sees how cool you are
3xp - you get ridiculed
and then the buyoff.

He also got a gender-related key that gave him point every time his character got into problems because she was a female driver or something like that. So he basically got twice the points every time he got ridiculed (while my second key rarly triggered)

I know TSOY/SS does not care about people having really different XP and advancement

but I felt tactically inferior for not having foresee the obvious combo

Alex P

This is why I don't especially like keys.

They're roleplaying hooks, sure, but I don't think they work as "flags."

And yours is a great example of how they don't necessarily individuate the characters well.

@Zachiel And I think you're not necessarily playing wrong, in the sense that these games do expect you to "powergame" a bit. That's why they have these mechanics -- they're trying to align chasing the mechanical advantage with narratively-fun stuff.

After playing Burning Wheel, I don't like TSOY/SS Keys, TROS Spiritual Attributes, &c. Because they remind me of overly generic beliefs, which fail hard in BW games. "I want to be famous" is toothless by itself. Also it's awkward when multiple players have it.

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