TRPG General Chat

BESW

12:05 AM

@TheOracle Oh, dear. [puts on helmet and knee pads]

BESW

1:26 AM

@Magician Hey.

Magician

Morning!

BESW

What's new?

Magician

I ran Fate this week! We've messed up a bunch of rules, but still had fun.

A bit later, I'd like to ask you some questions about the rules, as it's all still settling in my head.

But first, breakfast!

BESW

@Magician Sounds good! I look forward to hearing about the session.

I would like to ask the chat's opinion of something, but if the answer is "that's cool" then it'll be a spoiler for my players.

Grubermensch

1:44 AM

We can hop over to the spoil lair?

BESW

Can do; it's asked over there now.

BESW

2:57 AM

→ 1 message moved to D&D 5e Discussion Goes Here.

Although technically only 5e arguments have been banned from general chat, it's both easier and leads to more coherent conversation threads if we just keep all the 5e stuff in one room regardless of tone. (And as the person who will most often be doing the moving I'd rather not have to make judgement calls every time.)

Grubermensch

also considering that the arguments have tended to evolve from benign questions

though this was an interesting development to come home to after my vacation

BESW

3:24 AM

@waxeagle Ah, you're the reason I just got thirty rep on the owlbear question.

Joshua Aslan Smith

3:39 AM

yolo

Grubermensch

that is an interesting way to start a conversation

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

how are you guys

Grubermensch

finally starting the apartment hunting for my move to san francisco

also starting to recruit players for my Legend campaign

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

Grubermensch

surprisingly good response rate on that so far

and mostly from people I hadn't talked it up with in advance

BESW

3:42 AM

@JoshuaAslanSmith The Spoil Lair is getting Scoobified.

trogdor

@BESW certainly no incentive for me to go there then

lol

mbriand

I'm not sure what you mean, they're definitely asking to know for sure that god has that domain, not what the domain actually is...

BESW

[goes back to re-read]

Grubermensch

@mbriand hmmmmm.....?

mbriand

Sorry should have specified @BESW

BESW

3:46 AM

@Grubermensch [context]

Grubermensch

ah ha

BESW

@mbriand My bad, you're right.

Magician

Are Pathfinder's subdomains like mini-portfolios of 3e?

As in, spheres of thematic influence rather than mechanical things like domains.

mbriand

They seem to replace a domain with slightly different mechanics.

BESW

4:00 AM

I just saw someone refer to The Forge as "Froge."

Magician

Such stance, so model.

BESW

Very GNS. Wow.

Adeptus

wax eagle

@BESW aye, it's a good example of "trivia" asked in a non trivial way

BESW

It's rapidly outpacing all my other questions and answers in votes and views.

And has been since the first hour I posted it.

I wonder if this says anything about a relationship between "trivia" and self-answering.

Magician

4:11 AM

Ah, I remember. I had a couple of questions about Fate. First, moving through multiple zones as an action came up, and the rulebook is not that helpful. It just says to set the difficulty as I wish, taking into account zone aspects and distance traveled.

We set the passive opposition at +2 per each zone beyond second as a rule of thumb, is that reasonable?

BESW

I take inspiration on that from DFRPG, though DFRPG has a much more complicated set of mechanics for it.

Here's how I do it: you can move one zone for free (no action, no roll) if that's the only movement you're making that turn. If you want to move more than that, it takes an Overcome action and costs a minimum of 1 shift per zone (more for zones that are difficult to traverse, like if they're fenced in or muddy).

Magician

So it'd be 2 shifts to move to the second zone?

BESW

Right.

Magician

Doesn't seem quite right, seeing as moving one zone is free.

But maybe it works out fine in play.

BESW

I could easily be persuaded otherwise.

Magician

4:17 AM

I don't think I'm yet in a position to make arguments about the right way to play Fate :)

BESW

Generally I try not to set "this is how we always do it" precedent in Fate; instead I have general guidelines that get modified depending on specific circumstances, and the specifics are talked out before the roll is made.

Magician

...or that there is a right way to play Fate.

@BESW I was thinking of the same approach, yeah.

BESW

If it feels right to everybody at the table, that's the way to do it.

Hmm.

Magician

Another question I had was about mental conflict. We've had an argument between a PC and and NPC that wasn't that personal (until it became personal). We've decided to model it as a conflict, with mental stress being inflicted, but I'm not sure that was the best way to do it. Also, when both characters have high Provoke and no Will, ouch.

BESW

Here's a guideline: Roll an Overcome action at difficulty +0. On a success, move one zone plus one extra zone for every shift you got on the roll. Special circumstances may change how many shifts it costs to move through a particular zone.

Magician

4:22 AM

@BESW The player actually requested the cost be doubled, as they had high +4 Athletics (or thereabouts) and could move across the whole map easily, which seemed a bit off.

BESW

@Magician Makes sense!

@Magician It's impossible to say without knowing the specifics of the context, but often I've found the conflict option is too fiddly and we should instead represent it as a challenge.

However, there's an underlying issue with the Fate Core mechanics that you may have run into... let's see if I can dig it up.

Magician

@BESW Well. I'm more than happy to just describe our world and game in great detail, if you wish :)

BESW

Oh, right, you're the one I had the conversation with in the first place...

May 22 at 5:53, by Magician

On removing mental stress track from Fate. @BESW, any other takers: thoughts?

Magician

Hah. Yeah, but it's not like I knew what I was talking about then (or now).

BESW

@Magician Was it an important NPC? Someone who, if she took consequences, it would matter later?

Magician

4:26 AM

@BESW It was, she's basically a face of a major organization PCs will be dealing with frequently.

BESW

Okay, so that makes the "conflict" option a better choice.

Magician

The way the session ended, she got a consequence even if mechanics didn't say so.

BESW

I've had that happen a few times, yeah.

(In future Fate games I'm going to suggest that we try playing with stress tracks starting at 0, because very often we have conflicts with no lasting consequences.)

@JonathanHobbs I am mocking your typo mercilessly.

Magician

Meaning you only get stress boxes if you have a corresponding skill?

BESW

@Magician Aye.

doppelgreener

4:35 AM

@BESW rpg.stackexchange.com/revisions/45143/1

@BESW Which one where? :)

BESW

There, he fixed it.

doppelgreener

[dies]

BESW

In light of the chat's occasional interest in Scooby-Doo games (we've talked about Fate and Cthulhu Dark conversions at the very least), I'll share that mxyzplk has Call of Cthulhu stat blocks for the Scooby protagonists.

2

doppelgreener

4:52 AM

@BESW <-- what is this thing?

Magician

It's a Gloom, from 3.0's Epic Level Handbook.

They are mysterious uber-assassins, basically.

BESW

High on flavour, low on effectiveness.

Magician

Low on sense, I'd say. They're one of the many, many monsters that are cool on their own, but don't really integrate into a comprehensible world.

BESW

Yeah, but even if they did, their mechanics are not scary.

They're assassins without a death attack, whose damage is frankly laughably easy for a party of their intended challenge rating to ignore.

doppelgreener

@Magician so they're only theoretically uber-assassins

until you actually meet one

the daleks are coming to mind

Magician

4:57 AM

I don't think I've every actually looked at their mechanics, as we've never played close to that level. Trying caused me to abandon 3.5.

doppelgreener

months and months ago, I recall Moffatt saying he wanted to focus on races other than the Daleks, as they're the most reliably defeatable villains in DW's history

Magician

Haha. Well, if you have a race of genocidal space-conquerors, you can't actually have them ever win.

doppelgreener

@Magician Lessons to be learned about picking the scope of your villains

Adeptus

@JonathanHobbs They got a lot tougher once they weren't stopped by a staircase :P

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Very much so! If the villain's goal is to kill the PC (Doctor), they will always fail.

BESW

5:01 AM

@Magician +54/+49/+44/+39 (plus at-will true strike); damage is 1d4+21 /15-20 (+1d6 on crit) with +13d6 sneak attack.

Magician

The villain's primary motivation, primary win condition, has to be something other than killing the protagonists and/or the world, if said villain is to be featured many times. Otherwise, they will be thwarted every time, becoming more and more laughable.

@BESW That is pretty poor.

BESW

@Magician I'm trying to think if I ever made a high-level character who didn't have the DMG magic armour feature that grants immunity to criticals and sneak attacks.

Magician

@BESW I (happily) can't recall anymore, but I think soulguard (???) feature was more of a priority - immunity to death effects.

BESW

@Magician Depends on the GM, I suspect.

Magician

At high levels, random death effects just happen.

Which is a problem, of course.

doppelgreener

5:09 AM

high level 3.5e is a frighteningly strange thing to me

Metool

@BESW mmm, fortification

BESW

@JonathanHobbs It is also a strangely frightening thing.

doppelgreener

I have not witnessed it, and yet the numbers are incredible, things can summon ferocious things, everyone begins picking up save-or-die effects (I am still amazed that these are a thing), and I am probably only just scraping the surface of the matter

BESW

@JonathanHobbs What strikes me most about epic level 3.5 is the insane proliferation of trap options.

doppelgreener

Like, what kind of GM would actually put a thing on a monster that could even lead them to say: "You know that fighter you've been developing for a year and a half? Roll that d20, and you now have a one-quarter chance of him dying instantly and his corporeal body evaporating."

why would you do this

why would you even let a GM do this

BESW

5:12 AM

I mean, 3.5 is built of trap options at every point, but when you hit epic levels chargen becomes almost deadEarth-like (except you get to make the choices yourself instead of being able to blame the system.).

Metool

From what I can tell, the only thing "epic" about epic level is epic spellcasting and a few special monsters

doppelgreener

or suggest it as a good option or put it on the monsters you give them

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Ah, but True Resurrection is also a thing. For a mere 25k gold, not even money, you can have your fighter back.

doppelgreener

@Magician Without even having the body?

Metool

Quite!

Magician

5:13 AM

@JonathanHobbs True Rez FTW!

doppelgreener

why is this not immediately obviously an awful state of affairs

BESW

@Magician Ah, but you're forgetting all the monsters and spells which prevent resurrection by any means.

Magician

No annoying level loss either. At epic levels, death is a condition that lasts until the end of the encounter.

BESW

Get your soul trapped by a demilich who then consumes it to kill your friends faster!

Magician

@BESW Ah, yes. The game of magic rocket tag: finding the spell that says it trumps your spell.

doppelgreener

5:16 AM

@Magician the exception that is more exceptional than your exception, which in turn is an exception to several other exceptions

it's exceptions all the way down, though some theorise that if you keep going, you'll eventually find the rules

4

Adeptus

@JonathanHobbs exceptionally exceptional

wait, is that exception... or inception :P

BESW

excincexcincexcincexcinception.

lisardggY

I think the Epic Level Handbook should just be a little leaflet that only says "Go play Exalted or something"

Adeptus

Yo dawg, we heard you like being exceptional... so we put exceptions in your exceptions, so you can be exceptional except in the case of an exception

4

BESW

@lisardggY What part of "D&D is the best game ever and is best for everything you could possibly want to play" haven't you swallowed whole and unquestioningly?

lisardggY

5:23 AM

I remember reading, but never actually playing the old D&D Immortal set.

It wasn't as broken as 3e's Epic level handbook, I think, because it had a lot fewer rules.

BESW

Oh, man. Epic spellcasting was insanely broken.

If you got enough minions and free time you could do anything.

Adeptus

Once you get minions, I think it's time to retire. Or become the villain.

BESW

@Adeptus Level 6!

Lower if you're a neutral cleric who chooses rebuke undead.

Or, yanno. You can throw coins at commoners.

Adeptus

6, really? Which class?

BESW

Any class can take the Leadership feat; its only prerequisite is that you be level 6 or higher.

With minimal effort you can get handfuls of low-level flunkies.

Adeptus

5:32 AM

I think I have a new campaign strategy. Forget the magic armour & weapons, just hire an army of low-level NPCs to fight your battles for you.

I wonder how an army of commoners would fare against, say, a dragon?

BESW

Poorly, but depending on how your group rules on natural 20s you can kill a dragon if you throw enough commoners at it.

Adeptus

"Throw enough commoners at it"... Step 1, build a commoner-pault

BESW

When you get enough rep to see deleted questions, look for the one about using a bag of holding to rocket-propel goblins.

Adeptus

heh cool

lisardggY

@BESW Now you're thinking with portals.

BESW

5:38 AM

@lisardggY Oh, my players came up with some amusing Stupid Ring Gate Tricks too.

Clamp a ring gate to the front of your armour, and the other one to your back. Then get flanked.

lisardggY

Heh.

BESW

(See also: Cloak of Portable Hole.)

doppelgreener

@BESW I have a friend playing a 3.5e Bard in his very first campaign. He has seen many of Spoony's videos. He fully understands his role as a utility caster. He already understands how to be a very clever Bard. I pointed him to the Leadership feat whilst he was figuring out his character. I fear for his DM, but I have unrestrained glee in anticipation of what he might do with it.

lisardggY

@JonathanHobbs A bard with Leadership would have groupies, I imagine.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY Yes! He is actually modelling his character after the protagonist of the Soul Music Discworld novel. So. Yes. Groupies. Yes.

lisardggY

5:46 AM

Awesome.

Haven't read that one in years.

doppelgreener

His most recent exploit was that they were trapped in a mine, fighting a giant Flesh Golem his DM never expected them to defeat. There was also a magic circle there, very obviously evil and magical, though they didn't understand exactly what it did. (This was an open-rolls game: no fudging.)

They were getting very frightened and trying to work out a means to escape alive and whole. Then the Bard says: "I use prestidigitation to wipe away part of the magic circle."

The DM frowns. "But... you can't actually disrupt the ritual. Prestidigitation is just an illusion."

Metool

@JonathanHobbs [blink]

doppelgreener

To which my friend knew well enough to say: "Aha! Unless you're cleaning something."

(Everything prestidigitation does reverts after an hour. Theoretically, it's illusion-like. Unless you are making something clean.)

... so he broke up the magic circle with a cantrip, solved an encounter levels before they were supposed to revisit it and do so, and almost killed everyone in the process when the magic circle exploded and everyone had to roll fortitude and reflex to not die or be greviously injured. (They made it.)

Adeptus

My daughter is a fan of all the Discworld books that have Death in them. She's read a couple of the others, but keeps re-reading the Death ones.

BESW

> "The mojo's been building here for a couple hours. You break the pattern, boy, and it'll be like someone shoved a stick of dynamite up your ass."
> He grinned as if daring me to make the attempt.
> - Caleb "Bone Daddy" Mosha Washington, black market mage; from "The Dragons of the Cuyahoga" by S. Andrew Swann.

user61230

6:00 AM

Hiiiiiii.

BESW

[wave]

user61230

[pops in]

user61230

How goes?

BESW

I'm working on converting Scooby-Doo stories into Mythos adventures.

user61230

That sounds... distinctly difficult for want of content.

user61230

6:02 AM

How goes that venture?

BESW

Well, at the moment I'm converting a really really bad made-for-TV live-action Scooby movie.

user61230

Live-action?

BESW

Yes. It's awful.

doppelgreener

@BESW I dearly wish to know the context surrounding this quote

and what the mojo is and why iit would be like that

BESW

But the underlying plot seems solid enough for a one- or two-session adventure in cthulhu-dark.

user61230

6:06 AM

Hmmm... aren't Scooby-Doo shenanigans unbelievably formulaic, though?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs In "Dragons," magic is a natural force that's attracted by pattern and intent. Rituals combine both those things to manipulate the force in particular ways.

So Bone Daddy put together a magic circle and then left it to gather power for a few hours before he used it as the focus for a truth spell.

@Emrakul Ah, but there are two things working in my favour here: first, cthulhu-dark games are also pretty formulaic; second, the formula is in how the gang interacts with the mystery, not in the mystery itself.

user61230

Hmm... perhaps, but the mystery is still a pretext for the interaction, and without solid pretext, there is no text.

BESW

If you take out the "it was Old Man Withers all along!" ending and have it be a real monster, and you use normal Mythos-game Investigator PCs, the formula falls apart and you're left with a horror story.

I've been doing something similar with Doctor Who "base under siege" stories: take out the Doctor, put the PCs in his place.

user61230

But it still characteristically matches that trope

user61230

Much of the monster lies in darkness, and our capability to grasp its entirety throws it up into light

user61230

6:12 AM

This is why the Scooby Doo episodes aren't horrifying as they are when you think about them: their characteristic predictability gives a cane for children to lean on.

BESW

I'm not sure what you're comparing or contrasting there.

Ah, yeah.

Well that's the thing; the predictability lies in two places I'm taking out: the steady progression of common events, and the reassuring ending.

Then I replace 'em with the CD "layers" approach to adventure design.

user61230

Hmm... I see what you mean. Remove the reassuring ending ("It's not actually Old Man Jenkins - by the gods, it's a real monster") ((this would be an interesting Fate aspect, if refined)), and leave the predictability of the plot to provide structural support for a one/two-shot.

BESW

And it's even better suited for Mythos play than Doctor Who stories, I think, because good Scooby-Doo stories are about actively looking for clues.

user61230

That's the first time I've heard 'good' in conjunction with 'Scooby-Doo stories' :P

BESW

They research historical archives and interview the locals and do some breaking and entering to look for clues, where the Doctor often just stumbles across clues or already knows them.

user61230

6:16 AM

But they do serve that purpose well.

user61230

Ah, yeah, that's one of my issues with modern Doctor Who - the deus ex machina feel.

BESW

Even old Who does it.

user61230

I haven't seen enough to say.

BESW

I tried Mythos-ising "Pyramids of Mars" and failed utterly because the entire second half of the story rides on the Fourth Doctor's prior knowledge.

user61230

Yeah, I think you may be onto something with this.

user61230

6:19 AM

Ahh. That makes sense.

BESW

On the other hand, both "The Abominable Snowmen" and "The Horror of Fang Rock" led to awesome games of Cthulhu Dark.

user61230

Only episodes where the Doctor genuinely has to figure everything out as it happens - but those are rare.

user61230

The problem, though, is one of unique material. SD has a few tropes, and honestly very little variance. Doctor Who, at least, changes plots (somewhat - it arguably still relies on a couple major tropes each episode).

user61230

Forming two games of CD from SD, I think, are likely to result in near-duplicated games

BESW

We'll see how it goes.

At the very least I can get one good game from it.

user61230

6:24 AM

Yeah, definitely.

BESW

I think the fundamental variable will be motive.

user61230

How much does motive play a part in CD?

BESW

Very little as a system, but in terms of story--by making the SD antagonists inhuman I'm stripping them of their (always very similar) motive.

The "monsters" of SD often have unusual and varied motives attributed to them, which are just covers for the motives of the human antagonists.

When the ghost of Captain Whoosit really is trying to get revenge for his grisly murder, or the Beast of Spooky Point is honestly trying to kill the treasure hunters...

Well, we'll see.

One thing I've learned from my DW adaptations is that the Investigators don't have to learn the real motive or the real nature of the threat.

If the threat continues to be a menacing threat, that's enough.

user61230

Makes sense.

BESW

DW stories fall apart as Mythos games when the protagonists have to find out what makes the monster tick.

user61230

6:28 AM

It's hard to say without having played the game.

user61230

Why so?

doppelgreener

@BESW Oooo. Do magic circles gather power because they (a) have intent, and (b) are patterns?

BESW

@Emrakul Because the action stops if they fail to figure it out.

If the action continues regardless of their ignorance, it works.

@JonathanHobbs Yes. They're patterns imbued with intent, so they accumulate mystical power very easily.

doppelgreener

@BESW excellent

user61230

Aha. So the system must have reasonably volatile and permanent success and failure?

BESW

6:33 AM

Actually not so much. It's more a matter of narrative movement; if your ability to continue participating in the story is based on figuring stuff out, that leaves too much open space for fumbling around un-interestingly.

The system itself (which is free to download from the link in the tag wiki) is actually very failure-lite. I was skeptical at first--I thought Mythos games needed strong failure--but it works really well!

Most of the time you're rolling to see how well you succeed rather than if you succeed, and even when there's a chance of failure you can get a re-roll if you're willing to risk your sanity to succeed.

This means that instead of "ooh, I could've stopped them if I'd rolled better!" you get "ooh, I succeeded and it hardly helped at all!"

user61230

Hm. Odd. That just seems interminably frustrating - how does it translate into horror?

BESW

Instead of failure, rolls more commonly have the chance of increasing your Insanity score, pushing your character ever closer to the edge of madness.

user61230

(Or is horror just a manifestation of frustration through helplessness...)

BESW

@Emrakul Part of it comes from the way CD adventures are designed (also free to download from a link in the tag wiki).

user61230

In what sense?

BESW

6:38 AM

Adventures are designed to incrementally reveal the horror, in the process pushing the Investigators closer toward madness.

So there's this sense of two-fold progress: you get closer to understanding what's going on, while also getting closer to going mad from the experience.

user61230

Ahh, that makes much sense.

user61230

But then, what makes it worth playing twice?

user61230

(Sorry of the questions are coming off a bit aggressive/rude... I'm tired, and am not really thinking clearly right now)

BESW

Cthulhu Dark is a system, not an adventure.

I've run... three games in it so far. Two of them were with the same group but different stories; the third was with a different group but I re-used the second story.

user61230

Did the second group enjoy the game as much the second time through?

BESW

6:42 AM

Each time it was a very different story experience; your question is kind of like saying "What's the point of playing D&D again?"

user61230

(I apologize, as I will need sleep soon.)

BESW

@Emrakul I think they did!

user61230

Hmm, interesting.

user61230

I think I'll have to read the rulebook...

BESW

So I ran one group through two different stories (Abominable Snowmen and Horror of Fang Rock), and with another group I've only done one game with them and I re-used one of the adventures I'd already used with the first group (Horror of Fang Rock).

@Emrakul The rulebook's a single front-and-back page, generously spaced.

Ditto for the extra rules and the adventure design guide.

user61230

6:45 AM

I'm wondering if it would be impolite to abscond at this time...

user61230

I would love to talk about this in more detail, but perhaps sometime when my mind has not been deadened by several books?

BESW

No problem. Sleep well.

user61230

I've read three, and read too much of House of Leaves this weekend. (House of Leaves removes a peace of mind I did not know existed.)

user61230

Thanks.

user61230

Sorry for the abruptness!

BESW

6:47 AM

[goes back to watching the surprisingly awesome Mystery Incorporated series]

user61230

We shall speak again soon!

doppelgreener

@Emrakul BESW's GMed a few games. As a player (of one), I'm also available for questions from the play perspective

(though, y'know, not now - you should go sleep, goodnight!)

BESW

You can also ask @trogdor about the other group's experience, as he was in that one.

trogdor

in what now?

I have been paying very little close attention to the chat

user61230

Ooooh shiny, @Jonathan! I may indeed take you up on that, as I am rather curious about this system (and in case you can't tell, am a little skeptical, too).

user61230

6:49 AM

But perhaps not right now, yeah. Thanks, though!

BESW

@trogdor Cthulhu Dark.

trogdor

ah ok

BESW

I was skeptical too, until I saw it in action.

....the subtitles on this series have some amusing problems.

"Soul-crushing" became "skull-crushing."

Magician

Oooh, one of my players has made some blog posts about our game, one before it and one after the first session. With illustrations!

BESW

Pictures? I'm in!

Magician

6:52 AM

Well, only a couple. But it's awesome to play with artists.

doppelgreener

@Emrakul Oh, also, probably a better way to explain this: a common theme in Lovecraftian stories is that you do not win. You only postpone the inevitable. Cults of Elder Gods often start up for that exact motivation: it's going to happen anyway, so let's get it over and done with, and since we'll be at the epicenter of it, maybe we'll suffer the least when it actually happens.

There are games of Call of Cthulhu where the players are elated: "Yay! We defeated the Elder God!" - those people are doing it wrong

So the system gives this feeling: you are extremely competent. You can do a tremendous amount. But at the end of the day: you have not defeated the major threat, it is very likely not gone, it is very probably still there, you have just made sure it does not destroy all you know and love yet.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs One of the adventures provided in CoC 6th Ed feels more like a particularly nasty episode of Warehouse 13 than a Mythos story.

doppelgreener

So you feel incredibly capable, and yet... ultimately feel like there's only so much you can do about the major threat

@BESW Alas I'm not sure what you mean to suggest there

(You might have mentioned Warehouse 13 before, but I'm not sure what it is)

BESW

@JonathanHobbs It's a TV show about secret agents who track down and neutralise powerful mystic artifacts which tend to cause chaos and mayhem and death.

Although artifacts are often quite lethal and each one works on its own logic, once you've figured it out and neutralised it the threat is over and won't be coming back on its own.

They even know what makes artifacts--though predicting or controlling it isn't possible.

So that adventure of CoC is "horrible freaky stuff happens! Identify the cause, neutralise it, and wipe up the freaky stuff with minimal collateral damage."

The only possible "maybe it's not over" element is a bit of background you're unlikely to even uncover during play.

doppelgreener

@BESW aw :'(

BESW

7:08 AM

Shame, 'cause it's got some nice character-driven horror elements but the players aren't close enough to the emotional tension of the piece.

Adeptus

I liked WH13. It wasn't my favourite show ever, but when it ended after 5 seasons, I was sad to see it go.

BESW

I liked it very much, when HG Wells wasn't around.

...I liked it enough to endure HG Wells when she was around.

doppelgreener

7:23 AM

@BESW this sounds a little like a TV Show about the SCP Organisation

except that the SCP Organisation isn't interested in neutralising things - they secure, contain, and protect, which means keeping it intact but benign

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Except usually less horrific.

doppelgreener

@BESW Yes possibly that too

BESW

And with a much smaller budget and staff.

doppelgreener

@BESW I have considered writing a joke submission for SCP-001 which describes the SCP Foundation's bank account in heavily obfuscated terms

BESW

I'm sure their ledger is an artifact in its own right.

doppelgreener

7:28 AM

obfuscated not as in censored, but such that it might take you a while to realise that's what you're reading about

@BESW oh yes.

kviiri

7:44 AM

Eschew obfuscation.

The Oracle

8:28 AM

0

Q: Is there a tag for various around-the-table issues?

I found that there is are not many tags that relate to around the table issues that do not directly relate to the game. I asked this question, but found myself at disadvantage when choosing appropriate tags. Is there a tag or multiple tags that would be used for issues around the table that are r...

BESW

9:52 AM

HA! HA HA HA! HAAA! HA HA! Someone fetch my my popcorn, dis goan be gud. http://boingboing.net/2013/06/13/lawsuit-happy-birthday-is.html

Tweeted by Nash076 on July 28, 2014 at 8:45 AM

kviiri

Whoopsie!

GMNoob

@BESW I love stories like that , which don't seem to have any follow up.

BESW

When I have some time I'll do some research.

Actually... [wikipedia]

> As of April 2014, Warner's motion to dismiss had been denied without prejudice, and discovery has begun under an agreed plan with respect to claim 1, declaratory judgment as to whether Happy Birthday to You is in the public domain. The Motion Cut-Off as to Merits Issues on the Claim One deadline is November 7, 2014. After that, the court is expected to rule on the motion for summary judgment as to the merits issues on Claim One. A jury trial has been requested.

GMNoob

Yeah, I see that lawsuits take longer than I thought!

One day, online article writers will remember to update their articles instead of just letting them be out of date.

BESW

10:11 AM

That'll only happen when the sites they work for are trying to be a neatly-organised database as well as (or instead of) an ongoing source of new content.

GMNoob

I think people who write content don't yet have the mindset that it's an editable document which survives forever and will be retrieved accidentally yet. I know I never think of my own blog posts that way, even though I probably should.

Mourdos

@GMNoob @waxeagle Thank you guys so much for answering that question fully and completely :-)

BESW

@Mourdos Hi!

wax eagle

@Mourdos Come into our web

Mourdos

10:28 AM

Yo yo

BESW

What's new?

Mourdos

Every moment.

lisardggY

Except that one, several seconds ago. I'm pretty sure I've lived through that one before.

BESW

lisardggY

Call it the post-lunch lethargy, but I've been staring at this gif for a minute now and feel no need to ever, ever stop.

GMNoob

10:36 AM

HA!

lisardggY

I wonder if they're actually producing the third movie like they said they will.

Zachiel

Can I call it pre-lunch lethargy? I think I have it.

Mourdos

If only it perfectly looped

GMNoob

@lisardggY Still working on the script is the latest news bit.

Mourdos

I think I'm going to make a PFS character.

I hear perception is king

BESW

10:39 AM

...I am increasingly peeved with myself for having filed away my copy of Shadow of the Colossus so well.

Mourdos

Also, anyone got any experiance with Delta Green?

lisardggY

I played a short campaign, back in the 90's.

Not sure it counts. :)

Mourdos

We are planning to use it to play an XComm RPG

BESW

Hah! It was exactly where it should have been, just slipped between two larger books.

GMNoob

@Mourdos Nice! What is PFS?

BESW

10:53 AM

@GMNoob A Paizo-curated Pathfinder campaign held in various venues around the world.

GMNoob

Ah, Path finder society?

Mourdos

Yes

I'm thinking about playing

GMNoob

@Mourdos Nice, just playing the modules or submiting the results?

Mourdos

Playing the modules. Also looking for others who want to play with me.

Get a regular group, or just someone to play with so that we can scheme.

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/45163/… is list generating

BESW

Vote to close as too broad.

Inviting him to chat if he's just curious.

lisardggY

11:11 AM

I'm pretty sure we had almost the exact same question a few months ago.

doppelgreener

@BESW Whoops, I had your spoil-lair starred. Don't worry, I didn't peek!

BESW

@JonathanHobbs And go ahead and delete your comments on my question. Brain fart or something, I guess.

doppelgreener

@BESW Yup, sure seemed like it

Magician

Related to that question, can a character choose to be taken out once the dice have been rolled, instead of taking consequences?

BESW

I considered adding it to someone else's answer as an addendum, but decided it was sufficient as its own answer to the question as asked.

@Magician Yes, but they can't concede after the dice are rolled.

Consequences are always optional, a choice to stay in the fight at the cost of lasting drawbacks, instead of losing the fight without lasting drawbacks.

doppelgreener

11:23 AM

Also, the units you're referring to are harm rather than stress, but that's up to you if you want to edit that

Magician

@BESW Looking at this, it seems to say you're taken out when you can't take on any more.

BESW

But conceding is something you only get to do when you're not staring down the barrel of a haystack of shifts.

doppelgreener

(I figure 'harm' is so little discussed they might as well be synonymous)

Magician

"If you get hit by an attack, one of two things happen: either you absorb the hit and stay in the fight, or you’re taken out." - is that the bit that allows to volunteer to be taken out?

BESW

@Magician Yes. I think this was addressed in a question somewhere--but maybe not on this site yet.

Magician

11:26 AM

Makes sense.

BESW

Design-wise, it's kind of like the "will you escalate the conflict" question in Dogs in the Vineyard.

doppelgreener

User script I want to make: a Fate SRD companion for RPG.SE.

BESW

?

doppelgreener

If you're writing an answer, you can activate it, and it'll start offering to insert links to sections of the SRD. If you write [golden rule], you can hit a key and it'll add to the bottom of your answer some markdown that'll turn that into a link to the golden rule section.

BESW

Cute.

doppelgreener

11:28 AM

So that all this stuff at the bottom just gets added automatically.

BESW

....I just responded to a Fate question with a pure non-narrative mechanics-only answer.

[waits for inevitable response]

Magician

@BESW You monster!

doppelgreener

@BESW yes

BESW

@Magician At least I'm not a potato.

Zachiel

12:38 PM

to @Adeptus, @JonathanHobbs and @lisardggY: save or die effects do exist in D&D because D&D is a port of a miniatures game with whole armies, where if one unit dies in a hit it's ok.

Oh, also to @BESW since he was in the conversation as well, but since he wrote the last line here I kinda said to myself "he's gonna read it anyway"

lisardggY

@Zachiel Is this a question?

Or a continuation of a past conversation that I vaguely remember?

BESW

@Zachiel Actually I was fullscreened so thanks for the ping.

@Zachiel Pure speculation, but at least as much as its wargame roots I think D&D owes save-or-die to its roots in novels, films, and TV shows where save-or-die effects were common but moderated by the author's control over the plot.

(Consider the polymorph line of spells, which are a form of save-or-die we usually see in fairy tales, not wargames.)

GMNoob

Medusa isn't really scary if you just get stiff a bit. shrug

lisardggY

Save or die is a great dramatic element, but a crappy game element.

GMNoob

12:57 PM

@lisardggY Really depends on the gamer. I honestly don't mind having 20 characters that may or may not survive the story. I also don't mind a TPK resulting in a new band of adventurers investigating the sudden dissapearence of the previous group.

lisardggY

@GMNoob It's not a matter of surviving, it's a matter of swinginess.

If a single roll determines your fate, it can make your choices feel meaningless.

GMNoob

@lisardggY I agree that some things should not be swingy. I don't agree that a stray bullet (or gaze from medusa) ending your life suddenly makes your previous choices meaningless.

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