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12:39 AM
Campaign plot I should probably never actually use: futuristic 1950s Frigidaire commercials stopped when its R&D department schismed in the wake of a dispute over responsible practices. The more creative and less ethical Frigidaire scientists left with the marketing team and established a secret base on the far side of the Moon, where their descendants are now perfecting the world's only combination blowdryer/freezer/dishwasher doomsday weapon.
Someday soon they will return. One that day our sleek iPhones and digital refrigerators will offer no resistance to the tyranny of fake wood panelling and clumsy jump cuts.
 
@BESW I take comfort in the fact that I have neither of those things.
 
You should also take comfort in being one rep cap away from a silver badge!
 
@BESW [blinks] Wait, what? As in Epic?
 
@doppelgreener Playing with GIMP (ie, procrastinating...) i61.tinypic.com/elcxe9.jpg / i60.tinypic.com/29xi0d4.jpg / i60.tinypic.com/yexd3.jpg
 
Yup.
 
12:48 AM
Hey, awesome! That makes me feel better about all the rep wasted by that damn cap!
 
You rep-cap a lot more frequently than I do.
I've been on this site for two years more than you, and I'm only at 48/50 as of today.
 
Yeah, but there's definitely a low/high-hanging fruit dichotomy going on here.
 
1:10 AM
and here i am having been on this site for longer than both of you and you're both beating me at rep XD
good stuff ;)
 
thbbt.
Of course, you've got Reversal and two Great Answers.
 
Yeah, rep is as much a reward for quantity as quality, I think. Golds are where you can see the really good stuff.
 
\o/
i don't mind not having more rep at all, it is as a result of being choosy about what i answer and i am totally okay with that.
@BESW this is a nice thing though :)
 
1:35 AM
@doppelgreener ^^^ I tried regreening your king in a few different ways
 
@Adeptus oh right! yes, i saw! they all look rather good and i'm having trouble choosing. xD
I may go with the colourful one.
after all it is king katamari, it must be more colourful, yes.
oh! oh! i know how i need to greenify it now! and it is in a way i can actually do with SAI.
[for now has colourful green king katamari]
i am simply going to make his entire face green instead of grey.
 
2:19 AM
actually this one alone may be fine :D
i like it.
 
\o/
 
3:03 AM
A tag specifically for versatile weapons in 5e seems completely ridiculous...
 
@Miniman yeah, it's a minor property
 
3:29 AM
'versatile' is not a good tag name, but we do have a few 5e questions about versatile weapons (i count 3)
 
@doppelgreener there's a half dozen or more 4e questions it could stick to as well if we made it, I'm just not sure it's a tag that's needed
 
Yeah, but should we then also have tags for "two-handed weapons"? "One-handed weapons?" Hell, what about "swords"?
 
(it's pretty meaningless as a standalone or as a singleton with a system tag)
also, if escaping a grapple takes an action per grab, escaping is freaking punitive.
much better off pounding on the punk that's grabbing you
 
Hell Freezes Over: enworld.org/forum/…
 
@waxeagle Yeah, but even if your snakes could grapple a dragon, they can't, because of the size restriction.
This is more of a PVP tactic.
 
3:34 AM
@Miniman true. Well PvC :P
 
@Miniman are people being very confused in general about the fundamental nature of two-handed or one-handed weapons?
 
@doppelgreener Ok, good point. From that point of view, if we were going to have the tag, it should probably be "versatile-weapon", since "versatile" on its own is essentially meaningless.
 
3:58 AM
Really, I think [versatile] is probably covered by .
 
@Miniman agreed
@SevenSidedDie unless versatile weapons in particular warrant particular attention, though I'm not certain they do yet
 
Congrats, Wax
May God have mercy on you, for the community will not :p
 
Like how we could say "grappling is covered by combat" but it is so good to have a grappling tag
 
@doppelgreener That they don't is my assertion. :) But I don't feel strongly enough about it to campaign against the tag.
 
@Lord_Gareth some of us will have a bit of mercy!
 
4:06 AM
@doppelgreener Yeah, that there is a subject with weight.
 
@SevenSidedDie grappling has enough weight to crush souls
And hopes and dreams
 
@doppelgreener honestly I'd support a grapple tag simply because I have yet to see a grapple system that isn't an abomination
No one on the planet seems to be able to write one.
 
@Lord_Gareth I want to make Lucha Libre: the RPG, now, and see how it can be done. XD
 
@doppelgreener Honestly I think that would be the key. Making it the focus of the system/combat and not a subsystem.
Subsystems are generally meant to be small and punchy but for some odd reason whenever grapples come up everyone decides to try and simulate.
So make it the thing, not a thing.
 
@Lord_Gareth I'm guessing massive over-simplification doesn't count here?
 
4:10 AM
@Miniman Y'mean like how it'd be handled in FATE or the like?
 
A world where problems are solved by wrestling actually sounds fantastic.
 
Because I was sort of excluding systems where combat isn't a different thing to begin with.
"Grappling" in, say, the Window is just a normal check
 
There's a mechanic I could borrow for fate that was made for sword duels: you have to contest your opponent for the Upper Hand. Only whoever has the Upper Hand may use the Attack action.
 
@doppelgreener Doesn't that already exist?
 
@Lord_Gareth Tbh, I was thinking of 5e (having just answered a 5e grapple question). It's straightforward, but only because it's incredibly simple.
 
4:11 AM
@SevenSidedDie I dunno.
 
@doppelgreener Ah, it does! Voila: Piledrivers and Powerbombs.
RuneQuest 6 grappling is pretty simple too. Most systems not derived from d20 are, AFAIK.
Regardless, the tag is well established in its usefulness and isn't going anywhere. Newcomer on the other hand, is probably just tagging gone wild and still needs to prove itself.
 
@Shalvenay, @Emrakul, @harlandski: So, it turns out that I'm actually not getting home from work until like 8, which means I can't really start before 9, so Fridays at 7 aren't going to work. Sorry, harlandski, it looks like the scheduling gods didn't smile on you today. :(
 
@BESW Hi! Fate has an elegant solution for grappling, methinks. I wrote about it in Fate chat.
comes from the above conversation.
 
Shalvenay and Emrakul: Would you be cool with playing at say, 4 PM EST on Sunday? that can move a bit, but the only day that Shalvenay has told me is good is Sunday afternoon.
 
Gosh, but it's hard to read backlog on this phone.
 
4:47 AM
@doppelgreener I want to see a Monkey Island style swordfighting mechanic ;)
 
@Adeptus There has to be a Monkey Island RPG system. There just has to.
 
@DuckTapeAl @Shalvenay @Emrakul It's OK, I knew it was an outside chance that I could play. Are you going to be playing in a public chat room? I'd still be interested in reading the chat history of the game if possible.
@BESW Ain't that the truth. Does your chat application actually update in real time?
 
@harlandski That's the plan. I'll make sure to put a like to the chatroom in here once I make it, so you can get there easily.
 
@Adeptus Alas this is not a game I've yet played. (It's on my list! Promise!)
@harlandski BESW has disappeared, disintegrated by the sheer complexity of reading the backlog on that phone.
 
5:11 AM
@doppelgreener Ooh! Someone has made a JavaScript game of the swordfight sequences! int33h.com/test/mi
2
 
@DuckTapeAl Great. Have a good game :-)
 
5:39 AM
@Adeptus Whoa! Okay, this is something that's super cool. I'll try this later tonight.
@BESW I am probably going to do some things re: the fate looms blog: in particular, end it, and instead start a more personal blog. Then talk about stuff in there related to web development and Fate, and Fate looms.
(just considering it)
 
5:54 AM
I am so glad I didn't continue with what I had planned. I got to what was going on in a much more interesting way
 
Ooh, do tell!
 
6:10 AM
Yes do!
 
Basically, I let CNN inform the party that bad things are happening with the drug, and implied that it may be the parties fault
 
Nice.
 
Excellent.
 
6:27 AM
0
Q: Should the metric system be avoided when referring D&D 3.5?

teaSorry to bring up something on meta after asking my first question on this site, but I'm somewhat puzzled at metric units being forcefully translated to feet and inches; this was done under the assumption that D&D uses only feet and inches. I've seen foreign translations of the D20 documents usin...

 
as far as I can tell, related to that meta question, the D&D5 rules only use the US system of weights and measures. I do await the poster's response with an example before I say anything, but if the questions are rules questions, it makes sense that metric would be edited to US...thats the system the rules use
 
I gather they are using a non-English translation of the rules, that from the sounds of things, uses metric.
 
6:48 AM
D&D is the only reason I know how long a foot is. It's not the most egregious sin of the system, but it's way up there on the list.
They kind of already did that, for the rest of the world.
Next you'll tell me that pounds are a real thing used by actual humans.
2
 
@Magician Apparently so. The British use them as money.
 
@Adeptus Australians use pounds as burger measurements. Though they rarely go above a quarter-pounder...
 
@Magician I'd like to go to Britain, order a quarter pounder, then try and pay them 25p for it...
3
 
There's a funny convention in English RPGs, where fantasy games generally use Imperial measurements and sci-fi ones generally use metric.
(Not a strict rule, but it's a definite trend.)
 
@SevenSidedDie That's because metric is the measuring system of the future!
 
7:00 AM
@Adeptus Exactly! ;)
(Really, it is. The Imperial system is doomed.)
 
@Adeptus If Star Wars taught me anything, it's that parsecs are the measurement unit of the future.
...or a long ago past, I guess.
 
@Magician That's what I was about to say...
 
That part never really made sense to me. I sure hope they don't pull a BSG ending on Star Wars 9, explaining how they're the ancestors of humanity arriving on Earth.
 
@Magician I think it was just invoking the audience's classic myth and legend Pavlovian reflexes. It's the Star Wars rendition of "Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away..."
 
You're probably right. It was a different movie for the time, maybe they felt they needed to ground it somehow.
 
7:25 AM
Lucas really likes/d his Campbellian journey stuff.
 
7:46 AM
Possibly the dumbest edit war I've seen on the site: rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/53784/revisions
 
@Miniman Yeah... It is, apparently, a correct variant spelling, but unfamiliar enough that it will always get "corrected" again eventually.
 
@SevenSidedDie Honestly, it's pretty ridiculous whether it's valid or not - why does the OP hate "until" so much? Did he have a deeply traumatic experience involving the word "until"?
 
government brainwashing, I bet{.}
 
Whooo! I joined the Thousand Club!
 
Yo!
 
7:53 AM
@MarcDingena Gratz!
 
@Miniman Maybe they think until means the opposite of til...
 
@Miniman I think I can see both sides of the argument here. There's nothing within the guidelines for the site that explicitly says abbreviations such as 'til are not allowed, and if that's the voice they prefer to write with then I could see why they might get frustrated that someone is trying to 'correct' something that already makes sense
 
@Wibbs I disagree. There is a level of expertise to be expected by both askers and answerers. I don't consider abbreviations (or in this case I think it's more slang) to be language an expert would use.
 
we'll have to agree to disagree then :)
 
@Wibbs It's not 'til they want to use though, it's till. Which will often be assumed a spelling mistake, even though it's technically not.
(For the record, I started that slow-burn edit war and argued against "till" because it will inevitable keep getting corrected, so I'm not defending it. Also not really defending the edit war either....)
 
8:04 AM
We have a meta about this.
 
@BESW Yep. The "keep OP's preferred spellings when correct" meta.
 
@SevenSidedDie it is a tricky one, as till is correct as well, but I see what you mean
 
There will always be a new editor who thinks "hey, that's a spelling mistake I can fix."
Anyway, it's a hall-of-famer, yes. :) And I have to get some sleep, so g'night all!
 
14
Q: Standardization of English, etc.

KRyanIn a recent (otherwise quite solid) edit of “Will changing an artifact sword to another weapon type impact game balance much?”, @okeefe changed the British spelling “artefact” to the American spelling “artifact.” Searching our meta, I see no rule regarding whether a particular spelling is prefer...

 
8:19 AM
@Wibbs But it could be argued that till also has another meaning (a cash register or drawer for money), and this ambiguity can be avoided.
 
(Also, the act of preparing earth for crops.)
(Context supports neither, however!)
 
8:34 AM
@MarcDingena indeed it could, which is what makes it an interesting case
 
There's no ambiguity in the first place, I'd argue.
 
....and now you can see why we generally refer to the meta post BESW linked to for guidance :)
 
9:22 AM
Y'all arguing over til, till, until: the foundational dictionary for the common English lexicon, and how we tend to spell things, was a project too enormous for one man, conducted by one man, and is full of minor errors that creep in with scale or the imperfect methods of the time.
It's half the reason we have instill with two L's yet distil with one L, the word ache even though that CH is a K, and so on.
You are literally arguing over which typographical error is the correct one. They're all just the results of people a couple of centuries ago trying to figure out how to pen the sounds we make with our mouths then working out what to do with the several variations they came up with, and the standards they adopted and we inherited are riddled with errors. Quit it.
You have better things to do, like reflect on how much sense it makes that our language is the result of an awful lot of errors. :D
2
 
9:39 AM
Luckily, there's not actually much arguing over til/till/until.
There's some debate over which is considered more formal, but mostly it's been kept on track re: editing policies.
 
9:51 AM
Is it unusual that I'm playing with a group of 3, of which two are female, and now a third female is joining? They also tend to be way more violent :P
 
No, it's not unusual.
Popular wisdom would hold that RPGs are a male-dominated pastime, but that's just not true anymore--if it was ever true.
Assumptions such as "women don't like violence", which are used in support of the idea that RPGs are inherently not a female-friendly medium, can easily be swatted away by the simple observation that it's impossible to usefully generalise the tastes of a group which consists of roughly half the human race.
 
@BESW Tangential, but I think this is also the source of the problem for anyone of the general opinion that "women are confusing" or other befuddled sentiments re: female personalities. Naturally, I would be very confused if I tried to understand an individual by assuming they and another 50% the population share the same traits as each other.
as if there is some gestalt personality to be found
 
 
1 hour later…
11:28 AM
Greetings, humanoid beings.
 
o/
 
@Wibbs \o
 
Hey.
What's new?
 
just completed a run through of Dungeons of the Endless \o/
 
On which difficulty?
 
11:39 AM
:p
don't spoil it
(too easy)
I only bought it the other day
so still getting used to mechanics
 
@Wibbs That name sounds like Marketing and Development didn't really communicate very well.
 
All their other games are Endless ________. Endless Legend, Endless Space, but Endless Dungeon was already taken by another game I believe
All set in the same universe
 
Not associated with a certain Dark Horse imprint, by any chance.
 
2
Q: Are slasher merits a good investment for a combat focused nWoD Hunter?

PureferretI'm making a Cheiron Group Hunter for a Hunter the Vigil game. I'm set on playing my character as similar to the Operative, from Serenity, but with a darker outlook. He will see him self as damned, and that he has sold his soul to the Devil/Corporation. I plan to back up this attitude by invest...

can someone take a look at that last edit? It seems most of the text is copied straight from the book, which is excessive?
 
Dunno what was my problem, but I didnt made it on too easy ^^
 
11:43 AM
I'm slowly getting my head round the game. The fact that its blend of mechanics are pretty much unique makes it something of a steep learning curve
 
I'm kinda tempted to bounty this answer.
 
I still chuckle about my first run....i never used the research stones, because i didn't know how to.
 
How do you bounty that answer?
 
But, there isn't a bounty button for me on the question.
 
11:47 AM
> If you don't see the bounty button on a question, one or more of the following applies:
- The question has been asked in the last 48 hours. Give the community a chance to answer your question normally first.
- You already have three outstanding bounties. You can only have three open bounties at any one time. To start a bounty on this question, you must award at least one of the previous bounties first.
- The question already has a bounty. To start a second bounty on this question, you must wait for the current bounty to be awarded first.
 
@Wibbs literally just about to dinner in and ask for help with this one
 
Normally I see a "this is eligible for a bounty in x days" but nothing now. Do I only see that on my own questions?
 
Maybe so.
I haven't paid a LOT of attention.
 
gasps
 
@Wibbs the usual se stance is that it's on the posters head, whether they infringe copyright or not
 
11:51 AM
@Pureferret I'm not familiar enough with the game to know whether that is directly copied from one of its books. If it is, then I think it probably falls the wrong side of reasonable usage of copyrighted text. I'd like confirmation from one of the more expierienced users cough @BESW
@Pureferret I believe where this has come up, questions/answers infringing have been edited so that they comply though
 
17
A: What constitutes copyright infringement?

mxyzplkI think that we need to do only two things. In the FAQ or other prominent place, warn people against plagiarism. (and/or copyright infringement, blah blah) Take down stuff IF a copyright holder complains or issues a DMCA takedown notice. We as moderators/site people do not need to be engagin...

 
@Wibbs good idea, also given it adds nothing to the answer
@BESW Boom
 
See also:
5
Q: Whose Law do we follow?

the dark wandererWhose copyright rules do we abide by here? Wikipedia's list of parties to international copyright treaties outlines five major international copyright treaties, which apply in various combinations to various countries. We seem to be a US-centric site, so I currently assume we follow US copyrigh...

5
A: Does this question have too much quoted text?

wax eagleHere's my strategy for writing answers on all SE sites: Use only as much quotation as is absolutely required to make your point. It's almost always better to summarize rather than to quote giant chunks because your answer needs to be tailored to answer the question. Use integrated quotes when p...

 
@BESW what if I profess to be CN?
 
@Pureferret Then we kick you into the Not A Bar for bringing up D&D alignment.
 
11:55 AM
chuckle
 
I asked... "Why do you think that?" and he just quotes the books and says "As you can see they're good." smh
 
Hmm. It's time for Welcome to the site, here's the [tour].
 
@BESW ♫ Be my guest ♫
 
I've got an awful headache, so can someone else fix this and post it?
> Welcome to rpg.se! Please take a look at the [tour], it's a useful introduction to the site. In particular (as the Stack is a Q&A site rather than a traditional forum), answers should do more than simply quote the rulebook: we can assume the querent has probably read the rule he's asking about. Can you edit in the experience or insight you have with these rules which leads you to your conclusion?
 
12:10 PM
@BESW will do, get some rest/water/medicine.
 
Hullo all.
 
@sillyputty Yo Ho ahoy
 
Hey.
 
@waxeagle youtube video showing how rantasyg rounds works for 5e. good thing to hang onto when people ask about virtual tools for 5e in the future.
 
....I can't tell if you just wrote rantasyg or if my migraine's getting worse.
 
12:22 PM
@BESW he did
not just your migrane :|
 
@BESW Naw, you know, rantasyg- the parasitic crustacean living on the underside of Jormungandr, the World Serpent.
2
clearly =P
 
I never used Fantasy Grounds....is it a good program? In we use roll20.net in our new created online group.
 
I prefer roll20, but I've not used either for 5e
 
Roll20 was absolutely fantastic for a virtual game of Mountain Witch that my group played.
 
Roll20 is epic
 
12:26 PM
We've been using roll20 for 5e for a while, and it's fine. The character sheet seems well written, obviously none of the spells or game content is there, but that's a nice to have more than a need to have
 
Well we have our Character sheets local, not on roll20, we just use it for the grid and for dice rolls ^^ so we use maybe 10-20% of the functions
 
thats what a lot of people do
it does those things very well though
 
and its Free
 
unless you need access to some of the scripting stuff
and other bells and whistles
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith yep, bookmarked
 
12:38 PM
I love the feature to import generated dungeons from donjon.bin.sh/5e ^^
 
useful indexes there too
 
And i love the Inn-generator....x) "The innkeeper is a short female elf named Becha. She is actually a vengeful devil who has murdered the real innkeeper and her family."
 
@Shuro where's that?
 
We use roll20 for mage the awakening
 
@Wibbs on Donjons, under Fantasy. See here donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/inn
 
12:51 PM
@Pureferret that new edit to the answer we were talking about seems much better
 
I love the macros, I just want to chain them together, or modify existing ones
2
Q: Are slasher merits a good investment for a combat focused nWoD Hunter?

PureferretI'm making a Cheiron Group Hunter for a Hunter the Vigil game. I'm set on playing my character as similar to the Operative, from Serenity, but with a darker outlook. He will see him self as damned, and that he has sold his soul to the Devil/Corporation. I plan to back up this attitude by invest...

?
 
@Pureferret yeah, chango's newist edit
 
@Wibbs woot!
 
:)
It's really, really surreal listening to one of our neighbours playing classical/baroque music on their accordian
 
@Wibbs accordions are cool
 
1:04 PM
@Pureferret Indeed, and they're a brilliant player
 
@Wibbs somehow that sounds epic. And it sounds like a old man in a city on germanys northsea coast. x))
 
they mainly play Jewish music, but just recently have started practicing stuff like Bach
counterpoint on the accordian is seriously cool
 
@Wibbs in still not 100% satisfied with Chango's answer
 
@Pureferret I can't really comment on that given I don't know the system. I was pleased that their edit removed the copied sections of text though
 
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/60005/how-much-creative-and-descriptive-power-should-i-offer-my-players-is-it-differe

I think the idea of the question is a good one, if not the execution. Don't know how to help fix it though.
 
1:12 PM
@sillyputty Same.
hence no edit =)
 
@Wibbs Yeah, I have ideas on how to answer, but don't want to answer yet, as it's (probably?) gonna be put on hold.
 
@sillyputty Almost certainly
It'll be worth you waiting, as with a clearer definition of what they mean by good, you'll be able to tailor your answer to their requirements
 
Haha, I didn't do the thing where I answered a bad question. I'm LEARNING!
 
well done [pats sillyputty on the head] there's a good boy ;p
 
hahahaha. I'll go spin in a circle a few times than flop down with my favorite chew toy now to celebrate.
 
1:34 PM
@sillyputty does the edit to that improv question help do you think?
 
I think it helps the formatting, and so makes the question more clear. I'm glad he told us how experienced his play group is. It might be close to being answerable now, but that answer will still fall along the lines of "talk to your players!"
Think it's answerable now?
 
I think so, but I made the edit :)
 
@Wibbs Haha fair enough. Welp, if it turns out we're wrong, someone can swat me on the snout with a rolled up newspaper. =P
 
2:09 PM
@DuckTapeAl Hullo!
 
Hey.
 
o/
 
\o/
 
I think it's funny that even now, 7 years after the game stopped being supported, I'm finding out new things about 3.5.
 
@DuckTapeAl Like the fact that Astral Projection gives a free Plane Shift to the Material Plane? :P
 
2:13 PM
It's a ......hefty system. =) @Anaphory o/
 
I must say that I don't know a thing about 3.5e...started with 5e. But 3.5e is quite popular,right?
 
@Shuro Very. Also, hullo to you, too!
 
I think my number of hours I have played (any) D&D is just about not countable on hands and feet. I thought it was less, but I just recalculated, and in particular if you count one very distinct homebrew, I have actually played some of it…
 
I detest DnD :)
 
Similar. That's why I'm surprised I played so much of it!
 
2:17 PM
Why do you two detest it?
 
Interesting. I've found some iterations of D&D suitable for great play and have had wonderful experiences, while others have been nothing more than frustrating messes, but I don't think I've ever come across an entire product line I've disliked.
Well, aside from obvious ones like that game about being an abusive sexual...something or other.
 
Maybe not detest. But I have hardly played DnD in a playstyle that fit me and the system (there was a ridiculous ADnD 2-Day one-shot, though.) and I go out of my way to avoid it, and to tell people that there are actually other games out there, and if they did not like their game of DnD, that does not mean they can't like role playing.
 
@Shuro Different reasons for different editions
 
I may actually consider trying out 5th ed, because I heard some things that make me think it might work for what it pretends to work for.
 
@Anaphory Depends what you think it pretends to work for.
 
2:21 PM
My problem right now is that, while I'm super tired of playing and running D&D, it's very difficult to get any other kind of game running.
 
It does. I can't put it in words right now.
@DuckTapeAl I just never steppend into that quicksand…
 
To paraphrase Ghandi: I like D&D but I do not like your D&D players.
 
@Anaphory Nothing is more beautiful than abuse the rules. x)
 
But generally I appreciate consistency (which drops old editions) and detest micromanagement, designing a later character at the beginning of play (3.5) and for mechanics-heavy stategising (4) I don't want to play rpgs, but boardgames, leaving pretty much nothing.
 
3.5 - way too complex, encourages charop, leads to too many rules discussions at table, a lot of work for GM
4 - too combat focused
5 - Seems a bit of a mish mash, expensive
bearing in mind I pretty much exclusively GM
 
2:26 PM
I find all of these critiques valid! I will say that I enjoy the later editions of D&D more (4 and 5). Though that could be because of a lack of much experience with 2. 4 IS too combat focused in its rules, but that just means my group free-forms the rp'ing bits and then gets to have little minis-matches every once in awhile. It's fun for when that's what you want.
Then again, the game I have the most fun with is my Delta Green campaign I'm running. Which is WILDLY different from every D&D game ever.
 
Most fun I currently have in L5R, in a playstyle I normally don't go for, with high stakes politics, secrets, reveals, terror, etc.
 
Haven't played that system. Care to give a rundown?
 
I'm a Savage Worlds nut, with a side serving of Call of Cthulhu and Unknown Armies
 
Essentially Samurai fiction, set in a magical fictional version of Japan.
 
I've played none of those
 
2:30 PM
@Anaphory That sounds....awesome! This will be the second time I mention this today, have you ever played Mountain Witch? And if so, is the setting similar?
@Wibbs Never actually played Savage Worlds. I've heard great things.
 
I have only heard about Mountain Witch and pitched it to other people who I thought might appreciate it. Not played it.
I think the setting is quite similar, but.
 
Savage Worlds is my go to. I know it inside out, and its flexible and low prep for me to GM. Plus I adore some of the settings like Deadlands and Hellfrost. CoC is fun as a player, and I love the lore. Unknown Armies is completely different to GM - very mature, dark themes
 
In L5R, playing a ronin party is the exception.
in Mountain Witch, the setting is much more constrained and co-created by the characters, wheras L5R has quite a detailed setting, and the mechanics to reflect it.
 
My favourite ever game was a 2 year Savage Worlds campaign of War of the Dead, a published zombie apocalypse game with 52 sessions worth of gaming
 
Unknown Armies is on my list of games to try, for making magic interesting.
 
2:33 PM
@Anaphory the magic is fascinating
 
Does anyone here play Advanced Fighting Fantasy (2nd edition)? Simple fantasy RPG published in the UK, have read great reviews. Alas, it appears to be out of print. There are used copies going for $300+ on amazon which is completely insane.
 
dark and twisted
 
@Anaphory Ahhh. Well I think I'll have to recommend that to a friend of mine then. I assumed it would be a bit less...player-created. @Wibbs CoC is my jam. Well, specifically Delta Green. It's super fun to play AND GM.
 
That's what I heard, that's why I'd like to try it.
@sillyputty Depending on what he cares about, Wick's Blood and Honor might also be interesting.
 
I think he just secretly wants to be a shogun.
 
2:35 PM
@sillyputty I'm generally not into horror, but if someone were running something like that or Laundry files, I would be tempted.
 
I have one PC who draws their power from letting their own blood and can literally melt peoples bodies. Another gets their power from manipulating written, formal rules systems, and can magically alter sets of rules in the world. I have a PC who is an Avatar of the Chronicler, who is so obsessed with his blog that his marriage and relationship with his children is falling apart. Finally I have an Avatar of the Mother, who has maternity issues with her brother (another PC)
 
Beautiful.
 
@Wibbs that sounds amazing
 
I like running my games dark, and this lets me go all out :)
 
@Anaphory Oh if I had but the time, I would love to run Delta Green for some of you wonderful people. If any were interested to begin with that is.
 
2:37 PM
also, its the first game I've been able to set somewhere I know well (London), which is helping massively
Delta Green is cool
 
I sometimes appreciate some darkness in my games, but only when I explicitly sign up for it. And I'm bad at it myself.
 
@Anaphory It's what I'm known for as GM
 
Unknown Armies is pretty cool in concept, but the skill system always seemed too punishing to me.
 
(My self-blurb for the stack is me as a Fate character. One of my aspects is “I can't even play a bad guy”…)
 
@DuckTapeAl yeah, it takes some getting used to. But once you get your head around minor, significant and major rolls and learn how to appropriately employ them as GM it works fine
I liberally use the 'falling forward' technique
helps remind me to make failiure interesting
 
2:39 PM
@Wibbs How close to London are you?
 
Barnet, so London itself
 
@Anaphory I have a friend like this. He actually reboots video games when he makes a decision that he then finds morally reprehensible, cause he just feels so badly. Needless to say, I torture him in my DG game, constantly weighing the greater good with, y'know, torturing innocents to stop the apocalypse.
@Wibbs Failing forward oh my god yes. Nothing worse then "You failed. Nothing happens. Now what do you want to try?"
 
@sillyputty I don't think I'd do that in a video game. In that case, it'd probably be trying to make up for it.
 
What is failing fowards ?
 
@Pureferret The idea that a failed roll can still get the players closer to the goal. Kind of like saying 'Yes, but'. It keeps the story moving. Cause we all know that time in a game where a roll fails and everyone just sits there with nothing else to do. It's the worst. The new Delta Green (I keep going back to that) standalone game that's in Beta has a good mechanic for it. Failing a roll can, at GM discretion, still succeed in the action but cost a penalty.
 
2:45 PM
@sillyputty That's a good kind of choice, and I would be fine with that agony. But honestly something like Breaking Bad, where a normal guy turns into a crime boss in full conciousness, that's something I'd not be able to play, and I think BB actually terrified me slightly more than some of the few horror films I watched.
 
Loss of Willpower points, temporary loss of characteristic points (STR, DEX, etc) fatigued condition, stuff like that
 
@Pureferret An example might be failing to pick a lock. With failing forward, rather than tell the PCs that the door is still locked, instead they might have unlocked it but made a lot of noise to attract attention, or broken their set of picks, or left marks on the door to make it obvious it'd been picked
 
@Pureferret The basic idea is that “Nothing happens” is BAD. “You fail, and therefore get captured” is BETTER. Maybe not for the character, but for the enjoyment of players.
2
 
@Anaphory He got me back though. Playing in a FATE sci-fi game, he had us choose between committing genocide on a race of "always hostile but still sentient" creatures, or leaving the next planet on the chopping block for the Thing Terrorizing The Galaxy less defended.
 
Basically, only roll if failiure is interesting
 
2:48 PM
@Wibbs Or, the DW/AW way: When you roll and fail, chose one of these to make it interesting.
 
@Anaphory And I actually don't watch a lot of tv. I get the feeling I would really like Breaking Bad, but choose to spend my freetime elsewhere.
 
@sillyputty Same here, but my house mates started watching it, and I just found it agonizing to watch.
In a slightly good sense, because it is really well made.
 
Yea I get that. Cringing because the character is so awful, but if he wasn't a good character that sucked you in, you'd have no reaction at all.
 
And above that getting the impression that his actions are motivated and inevitable, and in some sense normal!
That's what made it particularly terrifying for me.
It is so much more comfortable when the anti-hero I follow is a Skorpion-Clan Samurai, and not a next-door school teacher.
 
Yea, the realization that "oh man, if not for some factors outside of my control, I could turn into that"
 
2:56 PM
Fail forward simply means you move forward, and you fail somehow, but not in a way that prevents you moving forward.
the examples above re: lockpicking are good.
 
Much clearer
I'm sure GMC has a similar rule
 
@Pureferret GMC?
@sillyputty Indeed.
 
BESW also mentions some failing forward here re: beaver summoning. If you succeed, you get beavers! If you fail, you... still get beavers... but not in all the ways you wanted. Hopefully you can still use them to do what you wanted to do! And be alive!
 
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