@BESW this makes a lot of sense

@Aaron Ask an opinion based question? How could that work? I mean... It's wholly opinion based...

Context for others in chat now: I'm trying to assign the 8 schools of magic to the 9 martial disciplines in D&D3.5 so I can take the various class features that a Swordsage gets and find out how they'd work for an Arcane Swordsage variant.

I'm voting to close this heat metal question as primarily opinion based; see my comment. it's attracting discussion.

Time ladies!

@trogdor I will share the image if it's the correct book! I know several people are interested in seeing it.

Allo.

HELLO;

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

GOOD AFTERNOON INDEED;

Good after-midnight.

I remember seeing this one quick-and-dirty fix to Pathfinder combat maneuvers that involved cutting a monster's CMD by an amount (the creature's CR, maybe?)... I don't remember where I saw it, though...

o/ @doppelgreener @Pixie @BESW

how's it going over here?

@Shalvenay Hey! Alright. Just doing laundry. (One of my cats just looked at me and proceeded to jump on top of what I was folding and roll all over it. Ah, cats.)

hahaha

This one goes out of his way to cause as many problems as he can, but we love him for that. Sometimes.

I'm pondering a very, very interesting problem -- in order for failure to be interesting to me, the failure mode itself needs to be technically interesting/novel, but I run into a lot of RPers who aren't a big fan of experimentation and innovation mid-fight in the community that's been giving me most of the trouble

I'm wondering if I simply expect too much knowledge out of other characters RPing fighters? (I find it odd that people want to play a specialist role without learning about it, myself...)

Yes, you are expecting too much if you think people should become real-world experts in the things their fantasies are about. One point of role-playing, for most people, is pretending to do and be things they can't do or be in the real world. That includes being an expert in the thing their character is an expert in.

Everybody has a different level of cut-off for research into their fantasies, but yours is unusually high.

We don't generally think someone should become an expert in karate or fencing to play a character who is good at that, and the same goes for... most everything else. The mechanics of the game system become a surrogate for real-world expertise, giving the character proficiencies his player does not. It's kinda like how the actors in a TV show don't have to know anything about what their characters are good at.

True from the perspective of writing as well. I don't think many books would get written if one had to be an expert in everything all characters were supposed to be experts in. There certainly wouldn't be many varied casts.

But it sounds like that's wrapped up in other issues: "experimentation and innovation" don't have to be based on technical expertise, but it sounds like you're equating them.

A lot of people playing D&D 3.5, for example, are VERY interested in technical experimentation and innovation as experts on the system itself.

@knarola Hi! Grats on 20 rep.

You may be looking for the game dev chat; you're welcome here but our topic is tabletop RPGs rather than computer-based games.

thank you for your warm welcome

i am into android game development

Yeah, RPG General Chat isn't gonna be especially helpful for that, I'm afraid.

where should i go?? please help me out. I m new here

@BESW -- I can understand that when you have a system to work with

@knarola -- gamedev.stackexchange.net

Like I said, game dev chat is probably useful. Chat rooms associated with the Android Stack might also be good for ya.

You got to this chat just because it's the most active right now, so it's at the top of the list of chat rooms for all of Stack Exchange.

@BES

thank you

No problem.

@doppelgreener He's already got an account with gamedev.SE; he's looking for chat rooms.

@knarola good luck!

@knarola since you're on Game Development.SE, you'll be able to get to its chat rooms by visiting that site and clicking the chat link in the top menu:

@Shalvenay I don't have a lot of experience with freeform play, but there are other ways to be innovative or experimental. For example: challenging established tropes, or re-interpreting characterisations, or experimenting with narrative conventions, are all exploring a player's expertise divorced from the character's.

@Shalvenay From my perspective: I simply don't have the time or ability to learn the intricacies of everything I find interesting. These things don't stop being interesting to me because I don't fully understand them, though, and they help make diverse casts of characters that experience a wide variety of things that I don't get to in real life.

The devil is not in the highly complex details as far as most narratives are concerned. I don't need to be that intimately acquainted with something to simulate a "good enough" version of it for the purposes of a game. Some research isn't a bad idea, but as BESW noted, everyone has different cutoffs for the amount of research time they're willing to put into a recreational activity like RP.

Unbounded research leads to turning a game into a bunch of rocks.

It winds up being about the accuracy of the simulation of events instead of focusing on the events themselves, and that kills the momentum and interest for most people.

I suspect that a realism-forward gaming culture may be partly responsible for the burgeoning of Forgeite and post-Forge games, but that's totally unfounded speculation.

@BESW -- I have tried trope-challenging as well, but I often find that when I try that, it goes too far away from recognizability

Then that's something you can practice.

I suppose so

ttfn, Trogdor's here and we're getting food before the game stars.

For my own fun, if I want to create a region where wine-making is important, I might do things like research what kind of soil grapes grow best in and then what conditions in which that soil occurs. But that appeals to me as a bored world-builder, and these aren't details that will ever see play. This level of realism has no bearing on the things that come up in my games, and it isn't interesting to my players. Sandy loam will never be a plot point.

whereas, I might make it so that a character recognizing a certain soil type from his childhood saves an entire town from sickness by subtly altering the design of a septic system to better suit it...

or in other words -- I'm badly torn between "a good story is about drama" and "a good story is about engineering"

and those two definitions of "a good story" lie at very direct odds with each other

That's not necessarily a bad plot point, but the meat of the game for most players in that case is going to be "sickness is threatening the town." It's probably poor design if this soil is the only way to fix that and it isn't made pretty obvious (because it's obtuse to the point that hardly anyone is going to consider it), and it's probably a little too easy (thus boring) if a character can just say, "sandy loam? ah, needs this kind of septic system, problem solved!"

I'd probably make it so that getting to that point would be a lot of work

(i.e. there's a whole ton of beating around the bush going on)

Which could work, but only if the nature of the work is something the players are interested in.

*nods*

also -- I'm running into another conflict, and this one is far nastier -- the character that's been the source of most of my RP trouble is aggressive to the point where it's frustrating for other RPers, but I get this nasty sense that I can't really tone it down much without really losing what makes that character her in a sense

in FATE terms -- its as if the character's High Concept is the source of everyone's discomfort with her

(the irony of it all being that the character has been around longer than a significant portion of the players who complain about her have)

Well, you recognize that the character is making people uncomfortable. If you can't change the character, it may just not be appropriate to use her in this setting, where she is clearly making people uncomfortable. I have characters whom I would not ever use in certain places because I know their "thing" is incompatible with those places.

yeah -- the problem i have is coming up with a suitable concept for a replacement RP main character

There's a character I've mentioned before, Andersen. He's just got too much power for me to consider using him outside of a group of friends who don't mind (actually enjoy) the nature of the character -- and even then, I wouldn't use him in all of the games we do. The things that make him too powerful for a lot of games are very important to his character, but that doesn't mean I should just go ahead and employ them anyway.

(she'll stay around, but mostly as a game-mechanics crash test dummy :P)

so -- what is Andersen's thing?

@Pixie i super wonder what he'd look like in fate

@Shalvenay He's the head of an organization of mages who use a giant magical computer to detect anomalies in the multiverse which are likely to cause worlds to end; they then dispatch people to rectify those anomalies. The scope of his powers is pretty broad, and he's one of the most powerful of these mages (if not the most). He wasn't originally intended to be an RP character or even a protagonist.

hahaha

He was a background character in a setting I was working on to potentially write in. My now-boyfriend and I were just tossing out characters in a really casual, informal way, and Andersen happened to show up to bail out one of his operatives who got owned by one my boyfriend's characters (said character probably would have killed mine, and we were just having fun, so Andersen was the solution).

haha

He made an interesting connection with the character who owned his operative, so we kept putting them together, and Things Happened.

@doppelgreener That is a good question! I don't even know. xD

yeah ... I suppose one thing I'm really bad about at times is not being a stage hog, if you will

I expect other people to make and take chances for their character to shine, not be given them

the other sense I get is that people simply don't pay attention to the character in question otherwise

or...maybe I should RP so that nobody pays attention to my character? :P

because I'm basically being told that it is impossible to set predefined boundaries that will keep a character from outshining others in the context of a given RP

Players should be active participants and take initiative, but not everybody is good at doing that. It can also be difficult if someone else is really actively working to keep the spotlight and the other player isn't up to the challenge of muscling in. It can be exhausting, and issues can crop up in the social realm.

yeah -- my problem is that I either have no initiative at all, or so much initiative that it overwhelms the rest of the RP :P

Ahh, yeah. I don't have any actionable advice there, unfortunately.

I've even had trouble where people have jumped all over me for trying to pull people into a RP

@doppelgreener Gosh darn it, now you've got me thinking about it. I think his Trouble would be something like I Live (and Die) for My Job. :v

@Shalvenay Trying to pull them in how?

@Pixie -- going "I need a specialist's help for task A, so I'm going to grab specialists X, Y, and Z", when the original RP did not intend for characters X, Y, and Z to be involved at all

but that's a sidenote right now

I'm more concerned with finding advice on how to avoid being a stage-hog before people start walking out on your RP

Well, that I might be able to help with. Try to build situations such that all characters you know will be involved (if you know ahead of time) will have something to do.

I suppose so -- but I'm usually walking into other folks' RPs

Oh yeah, MMO stuff. Hmmmm. That presents some challenges, especially if you're just picking it up and not collaborating outside of play.

@Pixie -- yeah, people don't want to let me in much on OOC collaboration it seems

I think they're afraid that I'll metagame their plot into oblivion...

either that, or morph it into something utterly beyond their desires

Well, it may take some time for people to trust you again. All you can do is to keep working on your habits and thinking about what you can do differently next time until then.

@Pixie -- also, perhaps while we're at it, we could come up with something useful character-seed-wise for the paradigm shift that doppelgreener mentioned to me a while back?

BESW already mentioned the notion of a "doer" instead of a "solver"

@Shalvenay What kind of setting is this?

@Pixie -- high fantasy, more or less -- the world can be very magic-heavy -- but while the playable races are sort-of-typical, the bestiary's rather strange

Sorry, kind of a broad spectrum... any concepts that interest you come to mind?

@Pixie -- that's where the problem lies -- the concepts I natively come up with for characters lie at/near the edge of the envelope

I'll share one though nonetheless

It might help me at least get some ideas.

this was originally intended to be a D&D char, but would fit into the universe in question with some tweaking

the concept is "flying doctor meets deliveryman meets search-and-rescue specialist"

a cleric-esque char who rides a flying mount of some sort and grew up and lives in a remote (preferably rugged/mountanous) area -- day-to-day, he or she delivers packages, supplies, and messages and acts as a town healer for the villagers -- but when the char in question is flying over the countryside, he or she is also on the lookout for lost or injured travelers

problems 1) while flying mounts are a thing settings-wise in the universe in question, they're not really implemented (point-to-point airline service is all we have), and very awkward to RP

2) the terrain really isn't all that rugged/harsh -- there really isn't any desert, high mountain, tundra, or mountain forest territory to deal with -- most parts of the world-so-far have no problem growing edible things, and water is readily available.

I see. I kinda like the flying delivery service question (pegasus expess :v), but if it's an awkward thing to RP in this setting, I'd probably nix it. You could still work with the concept of a delivery person though.

Food and water likely wouldn't be pressing concerns, but every large but interconnected society needs someone to get stuff from point A to point B.

I actually have a char already who's a pure courier version of the same

but yeah -- she's very awkward to RP both due to the lack of mechanics and having to work around my brain trying to play aerodynamicist with fantasy creatures :P

(I can accept your world having dragons, giant birds, and such -- the main limitation on the size of flying creatures is the amount of power their flight muscles can output, even)

(however, once you start introducing flying creatures into a world -- then I start asking questions about their flight performance etal)

Yeeeah, if it's something you have trouble with simplifying, I'd definitely skip the flying part, since one of the goals here seems to be "simplify stuff enough that other players do not get overwhelmed."

(what are the V speeds for an unladen adult copper dragon?)

yeah. skipping the flying part is for the best I think -- it'd work far better in a setting like D&D where flying mounts and flying mechanics are better pinned down

I agree.

(as an aside -- flying dragons in modern-fantasy settings are a hoot)

and when you have a flying courier who can provide near-door-to-door service, it's hard to really establish a niche for a ground-based one

well, other than cost :P

you see where I'm getting at @Pixie?

@Shalvenay I think so, yeah.

@Shalvenay So, if you go with a courier, ground-based is a better plan. And it's not a bad backdrop, because it gives you an excuse to be any number of places where stuff might be happening.

*nods* that is true -- the next question I have is an odd one -- how do you balance the character's intended job with their participation in RP?

well, stated profession

because I have a tendency to make noncombat characters into workaholics

There are different ways to do that. You could design the character such that her personality prevents it (she prefers moderation, she's lazy, etc.) and then stick to that. Or you could consider outside circumstances that might limit her: maybe she's not employed officially but runs kind of a freelance operation. Maybe she just doesn't have business all the time.

freelance operation + sporadic business'd make sense

now last but not least -- do you have any tips for bootstrapping a new character into RP in a MMO?

@Shalvenay What do you mean by bootstrapping in this context? (I also fear that I may not be the best person to answer this question. I do MMO RP, but not a lot of it, and not a lot of longterm stuff that doesn't involve my boyfriend or our friends.)

as in, getting the character involved in RP to begin with

Ah... that's pretty difficult and is probably the reason I don't do more MMO RP outside of personal contacts. >w>;; It also might depend on what kind of social structures the game has in place. GW2, for example, is very big on... well, guilds.

I'm dealing with a very small community in a world that's large and mostly empty

well, not large, but large relative to the player base

Mm, so wandering til you bump into play isn't a sure bet. Do you know of any hubs for RP, like a place randoms tend to congregate? (One issue I have in GW2 is that the hubs and the nature of the RP that goes on there kinda bores me, especially the human capital, which of course is the most popular.)

@Pixie -- there are a couple of taverns that can be hub-ish at times for RP

Blaaargh, tavern RP.

the smithy and arena are full of mindless drones :P

(Not knocking it, it's just kind of my absolute last resort in GW2, haha.)

(well, most of the time)

come to think of it -- one other thing is making small talk

There's also the possibility of networking outside the game itself if there are forums around for it.

I'm rather hit or miss with that, if you can't tell

there are forums

but randoms generally don't pay much attention to them

If there's an appropriate spot, you can post that you're looking for RP and describe the character and (if you know) what kinds of things you might be interested in doing with her.

In this case, you don't need randoms, you need RPers who like to network and plan.

yeah

and getting them to trust me to go along with their work-as-planned is rather hard

(OOCly, even. it's really annoying, because I find that I do far better with following instructions when I know the backdrop of what's going on)

the other character concept I can think of is a roguish figure of some sort

I think the best plan might be to just try to sell your character(s) on an RP-inclined forum. See if you can get people to come to you. It's not always successful (and this isn't necessarily a reflection of how well you're doing, sometimes the right people just don't see your ad). However, it's a chance, and something you can do in addition to keeping an eye out for randoms.

yeah

I think a freelance courier and gambler who slowly turns roguish would be a good one

Another thing you can do is be the random yourself. Go somewhere that has a relatively high concentration of players and just start RPing out your character doing stuff. Talk to yourself and someone might join in.

yeah -- I have tried that in the past with very little luck

I can only do this for so long before it feels silly and becomes clear that no one is interested, though. But sometimes I get a bite.

but, I think this was a good 'un. thx @Pixie -- but I badly need sleep now, o/

I generally find it more successful if you're already RPing with someone else. Then people will sometimes pop in. Or: be busy with non-RP stuff, and then people will talk to you IC, for some reason. :v

@Shalvenay Glad to help! Goodnight.

@KRyan I know, fractional BAB and saves are a good thing, but telling everyone that it's stupid not to use them is bugging me. It's an optional rule and most people I know would rather houserule the whole game before changing the standard options into optional rules. Now, I don't know about other people in the world but please, can you not be dismissive of those who don't play like you do? Thank you.

(I've just stumbled upon the monk4+full-bab1 question. BTW, I think it's ok to provide options for those who use fractional BAB)

@Zachiel To be fair, I don't think he's trying to suggest that it's stupid not to use fractional bonuses. I think he's suggesting that it's stupid that they aren't the default.

Spam flags NAO!

@Miniman maybe. "If you aren’t using sane multiclassing rules for BAB (read: fractional)" makes me feel insane because I'm not using them, but I see the difference.

@Zachiel I can't know obviously, I just thought I'd mention it. Also, spam flag the above if you haven't already.

And I mean, I like non-fractional rules more because it's easier to do the math on the spot (no multiplications, just sums)

Tonight, we caused a prison riot in a techno cult's headquarters, stole rescued a Victorian brain in a jar, and blew things up.

Did you put things on fire?

@BESW Did you get your spam flag in?

@Zachiel No, but I stopped time.

@Miniman Yup.

@BESW Gah, it just isn't dying. Site too quiet right now I guess.

@BESW You're not playing a RPG then

Things blew up good though.

Ok then

Not all explosions use fire :)

I rigged some missiles on armoured vehicles to explode, then lured a squad of spider-bots and power suited soldiers into the vehicle hanger and used my Time Gun to freeze everyone in place (including myself; I was the bait) while my friends sent the signal to set off the bomb.

When the enemies broke the time lock, the explosion happened immediately with everyone positioned perfectly.

Rolled +10 with weapon:4; took out everything except myself.

@doppelgreener I linked Ben the RFS/zombie chat.

@BESW eeeeeexcellent

let me know what he thinks!

Aye

Bed now.

@BESW Yes! Goodnight. :)

I am going to be DMing for my first time, any pointers?

@Kaz_king chillax and enrol your fellow players in helping you out with DMing

you're new and they won't expect you to be a master

if you make mistakes or don't know stuff you can ask them for help.

also -- this can be stunningly easy for people to forget sometimes -- the other players are still your pals sitting at a table with you to have some fun in a game ;)

Not sure this question is getting a fair shake. This isn't the easiest thing in the world to sort out

@Kaz_king Which game?

Theory: Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and both just as interesting as Gryffindor and Slytherin, but neither pair really pays attention to the other 95% of the time.

Harry Potter is simply a biased account.