TRPG General Chat

12:54 AM

@mxyzplk Whenever you're around, I'm keen on getting your perspective of what needs to be worked on still in my meta answer. You left this comment:

No ones saying "5e specific." The obvious point of contention is with bounded lists, where some have some variant of triviality and some variant of maintenance needed, what are the reasons they might be on or off topic? You addressed maintenance fine but are throwing up your hands about the other. Also we are free to set anything as on/off topic so we can go beyond pure meta.se post analysis to "yes but what should we do to make the site the best it can be"? — mxyzplk ♦ 9 hours ago

I presume the missing part is where a question becomes trivial such that we close it, like the "check the spells in the book I have for me" question?

BESW

Since Harry Potter is back on everyone's mind, I present @UrsulaV Hufflepuff Fanfic http://ursulav.livejournal.com/1595532.html

Tweeted by words_from_law on August 7, 2016 at 11:22 PM

doppelgreener

@BESW aw :D

trogdor

for the reccord, I was not actually thinking of Harry Potter

doppelgreener

@trogdor [reports trogdor to authorities for noncompliance]

Miniman

@trogdor I am; I'm trying to work out why it would be "on everyone's mind".

trogdor

1:03 AM

@Miniman I used the word "was" for that reason

doppelgreener

PSA: the dregs in a the last few drops gathered at a bottom of a glass of alka seltzer taste like concentrated seawater. Don't drink it.

trogdor

I also am wondering why the heck anyone is bothering to think about it right now

Miniman

@trogdor Oh yeah, I missed that.

doppelgreener

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part West End stage play written by Jack Thorne based on an original new story by Thorne, J.K. Rowling and John Tiffany. Previews of the play began at the Palace Theatre, London on 7 June 2016 and was scheduled to officially premiere on 30 July 2016. The rehearsal script, not a novelisation of the play, was released on 31 July 2016 and became the eighth story set in the Harry Potter universe. The story is set nineteen years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his younger...

trogdor

@doppelgreener they will be sumarrily BURNINATED if they attempt to arrest me for that oh so stupid of reasons :P

doppelgreener

1:04 AM

The stage play just premiered a week ago, and its script was released as a book.

mxyzplk

@doppelgreener Yes. Seems like the general confusion over "list questions" is about a) how dynamic it is and b) how trivial it is, though I assume your note on my edit is after this chat message

doppelgreener

@mxyzplk Yeah. Chat message -> your edit -> my comment on your edit.

mxyzplk

word

trogdor

@doppelgreener ah, well now that I know that, I am once again un-interested XD

mxyzplk

seems like in general the confusion around them is a) what's a list mean (list in answer vs list of answers) b) can something still be 'too localized' (list or not) - pre-beta questions for example - or lists requiring forever updates, c) what's a stupid use of our dark powers (list or not) - what spell does 1d4 force damage per missile? what spells do force damage?

but b and c seem to come up a lot with lists, even though they come up in isolation too

and they all get mixed together

Miniman

1:16 AM

@doppelgreener That's a pretty complicated plot for a play.

nitsua60

1:27 AM

@mxyzplk o/ [raises hand to admit to being one of those confused by what people mean when they say "list question."]

Miniman

Yeah, I'm pretty happy to see that meta too - especially since, on reading it, I realised that I had no idea what the answer might look like.

mxyzplk

1:44 AM

Yeah as I thought about it I realized it was fairly complicated with a number of different kinda-separate factors. That's also why I asked it and didn't try to answer it myself :-)

Miniman

@mxyzplk Oh, I was hoping you were working up an answer :(

nitsua60

3:12 AM

DW-folks (esp. @JoelHarmon @Anaphory @Adeptus @trogdor @SevenSidedDie @BESW) I'm running a three-session DW intro for a group of four 5e players who are always wishing there were more roleplay and that combat were less of a grind. Session 1 will be character-choosing, an in media res scene to start things off, and perhaps one scene following on that and mostly improvised by me. Any suggestions on how to pace/plan/prep a two-session "arc" to follow that?

(I'm heading off for the night, but feel free to ping me with any thoughts.)

trogdor

I don't know much at all about 5E itself

nitsua60

@trogdor sorry--Im running DW for them; just for context, they're currently 5e players and are left wanting with it's "grind" in combat and roleplay that feels like it doesn't effect much.

I'm thinking session 1 covers the call to adventure, crossing the threshold, and meeting the spirit guide. That leaves session 2 for challenges and temptations, perhaps meeting the goddess; and session three for transformation, atonement, and returning with the goddess' gift? All monomythical, of course =)

trogdor

ah ok

now that you clarified, I remember talking with you about it before

my knowledge of DW, while still very limited, is a sight better than my 5E knowledge XD

nitsua60

And I believe you've just played MotW, but I've still got you on my post-it of "people to ping when sounding out DW ideas" =)

trogdor

yeah, it is limited to MotW

still, that means I can at least offer an opinion based off of that when I need to XD

Adeptus

3:26 AM

@nitsua60 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

nitsua60

Nice shrug =)
If you think of anything in the next week, give a shout =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 I know almost nothing about DW, but I get the impression that you're not really meant to plan your stories?

nitsua60

@Miniman True, not plan the stories. But you are to prep "fronts"--collections of elements that may or may not come into play as characters make their way.

And as exploit your prep and make offscreen moves are explicit guidelines for GMs, there's some room in there to think about how best to plan for what one knows will be only a three-session adventure. I think =\

Miniman

TIL that you can't VTC dupe a question with the dupe target being a meta question.

nitsua60

I'd say "flag it for migration to meta (and then possible closure)," but I've already done that myself.

@Miniman TIL that linked meta posts will not show up in the "Related Questions" sidebar.

Miniman

4:16 AM

@nitsua60 On that dupe, do you think the Sword of Wounding question is also a dupe of the same target? I'm not confident enough to VTC with my mighty hammer, but if I wasn't burdened with said hammer I think I'd probably have voted already.

nitsua60

@Miniman definitely disappointed by the answers on the older question, but not because of the conclusions they draw. A bunch are a whole lotta "well, I'd rule this" with nothing backing them up.

@Miniman I'm not too sure, either. Slap a "related, possible duplicate" comment on it, I'd say.

The sword of wounding is new to me, so I don't think I've really wrapped my head around everything yet.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Believe me, I know - it's even worse having written one of those answers, rereading it now and it basically just says "It's obviously different" and leaves it at that.

nitsua60

(Also, I'm still sidetracked by the 0HP short rest thing.)

@Miniman Yeah, I actually came over here to say to you "hmm... that's a lot resting on your judgment of what's 'strenuous.' And an implied differentiation in qualities of unconsciousness which isn't reflected in the rules."

When I noticed (thinking about the sword of wounding question) that Long Rest has the caveat about needing to have >0 HP at the beginning to benefit but that Short Rest didn't, well, that just-about seals it for me. In the other direction =\

Miniman

@nitsua60 If you give that answer, I'd certainly upvote it.

nitsua60

(The "just-about" stems from the question of whether the PHB's verbiage around a character being the one who spends a Hit Die implies some implicit requirement of the character's state.)

[scribble scribble scribble]

Miniman

4:30 AM

There's a comment I've been meaning to write for a few days now, but was operating on mobile - finally wrote it, with seemingly positive results.

nitsua60

4:42 AM

Not my finest writing, but perhaps it'll do.

@Miniman Well, that's a nice success story. Well done.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Looks good to me! I hadn't noticed the stipulation on long rests, and as you say it's a pretty clear distinction. If it doesn't get much attention I'll slap a bounty on it.

nitsua60

@Miniman Tonight's the first time I noticed it, too.

Or, rather, really took notice of the difference between the two rest-types in that regard.

@Miniman I've got to say, reading it anew, that the first line of your 0HP answer does strike me as absurd: "you can't treat the time you spend unconscious as a short rest." (Not that absurdity is an argument against correctness, esp. when reading D&D rules! It's just that I can't un-see the plain-language reading of that sentence now.)

It also amuses me that you're gaining upvotes today on that answer at about the same rate I am =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 That's fair - I'm not at all happy with that answer either. On the other hand, according to the designers if you get woken up in the middle of a long rest, you don't get the benefits of a short rest, so there's already some funky stuff going on in that space.

nitsua60

"funky stuff." Probably because nobody ever bothers to take off their armor =\

@Miniman IN all seriousness, though, I'm totally with you on that one--no short rest after an hour's sleeping is bs.

Miniman

4:58 AM

@nitsua60 Ayup. On the other hand, I might as well add it to the answer to make it slightly less crappy.

nitsua60

(I can deal with the metagame necessity of "okay, you slept nine hours--do you want to treat it as a short rest followed by a long, or a long followed by a short?" But an hour's rest is a SR only if you didn't intend to sleep longer? Bull!)

Adeptus

Can you decide to have 6-8 short rests in a row, while the rest of your party has a long rest?

Miniman

@Adeptus No reason why not, AFAICT.

nitsua60

@Adeptus Yes. Though I'm not sure what any short rest after the first would accomplish. (But there are lots of class features pegged to rests that I can't keep in my head.)

Miniman

@Adeptus Cf: sageadvice.eu/2016/01/21/…

Adeptus

5:04 AM

I'm fascinated by this "never-long-rest" build:

54

Q: Does this cheesy character concept violate RAW, and if so how?

Does the following, very cheesy character concept, violate any RAW? Please cite rules or official rulings in your answer. (Apart from RAW, I expect my DM to disallow or limit the concept, in the interest of balance. That is not part of my question.) Elf. Multiclass: Sorcerer 2+ / Warlock 1+ / Ba...

Miniman

@nitsua60 If you're a Bard, you get double (approximately) healing from taking 2 short rests and spending 1 die in each over just spending 2 dice in 1 rest.

nitsua60

@Miniman You lost me at "if you're a Bard..." </bardhate>

trogdor

does 5E not have a resource allocation for resting? (this is what would have stopped this kind of thing in 4E)

Miniman

@nitsua60 I think we've discussed this before, but I'll mention how sad I find your bardhate.

@trogdor It does, sort of. You can spend hit dice on rests to heal.

nitsua60

@Miniman (it's as much bard-pretend-hate as anything)

Adeptus

5:07 AM

@nitsua60 With the cheese-build I linked, you could replenish your Warlock spell slots each time, then convert them to Sorcery points

trogdor

@Miniman so would "never-long-rest" actually mean don't long rest until you have to?

nitsua60

@Adeptus That one led to one of my favorite bits of 5e play ever: a party found themselves having wandered into the shadowfell. And one of the clues that helped them finally suss out what was up was the trouble that some characters' Fey Ancestry was giving them. Like never getting a long rest, which they could survive but not enjoy.

Miniman

@trogdor No, the build in question uses short rests to stockpile infinite spell slots which they can use for healing among everything else.

trogdor

ah, so it has some kind of resource allocation system,... but not the kind 4E had by any means

Adeptus

@nitsua60 Maybe I'm missing something... If they're elves, they get the benefit of a night's sleep (but not a Long Rest) in 4 hours of Trance. How does the Shadowfell interfere with that?

Miniman

5:14 AM

@trogdor I'm a 4e novice, but a quick read of the resting rules suggests that it's exactly the same resource with a different name.

nitsua60

@Adeptus Sorry--in this game it was the case that being in the shadowfell screwed with Fey-Ancestored characters in a mechanical way. The though being that they're "farther" from the Feywild while in the Shadowfell. It was depressing and hard for everyone else, but actually exercised a mechanical toll on Elves and Half-Elves.

trogdor

@Miniman except it has no way around it

Miniman

@trogdor To put it into 4e terms (as far as I understand them) - the build has no way to recover healing surges, but it has no need for them, either.

trogdor

if you run out of healing surges, you have either no way to heal yourself, or extremely limited ways, usually those extremely limited ways are also only replenished by long rests

Miniman

@trogdor There's no magical healing in 4e?

nitsua60

5:16 AM

@Adeptus cf. PHB303, "The Planes of Existence"

trogdor

@Miniman it has magic healing, but it all still costs surges, it also typically gives bonus healing (you still can't get that bonus healing if you didn't spend the surge)

Miniman

@trogdor Huh, interesting.

nitsua60

Night, all.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Cya!

trogdor

@Miniman 4E makes a very small mechanical distinction between casting spells and not casting spells

there can be a bit "narrative" difference, but in 4E narrative stuff is basically fluff

Miniman

5:19 AM

@trogdor Wait, so if I have a tank character, and my friend has a healer character, and I tank everything for them, sooner or later I'll be out of healing surges, they'll have all of theirs, is it then impossible for them to heal me?

trogdor

which is a weakness in a way, but at least leaves the mechanics in a pure state that I liked (ignoring the mechanical power creep issues it had of course)

Miniman

@trogdor I know that bit - it's the resource gating all forms of healing which is new and a little bizarre to me.

trogdor

@Miniman tanks typically didn't necesarrily always keep allies from taking damage by taking damage themselves,... also if you were built to tank you most likely had at least 2-maybe 3 times as many surges as them

@Miniman 4E had several things including the healing that forced you to long rest, all your moves were powers, and your strongest ones could only be used once before you needed to long rest to get them back

Miniman

@trogdor Hmmm, ok. So the overall answer to my previous question is "Yes, but that's highly unlikely to happen?"

trogdor

@Miniman your healer probably ran out of healing before you necessarily ran out of surges

plus, some people could build to "give" their surges to someone else in some way

as I recall, paladins either had it built in to some of their healing to pay the surge cost for the person receiving it, or they had easy access to a feat that let them do it

Miniman

5:23 AM

@trogdor That's true in 5e, too. The proposed build just leans on short rest abilities, as well as abusing a complicated interaction that allows a short rest resource to be transformed into a long rest resource.

trogdor

@Miniman that is the thing that sticks out, at least while I was playing it, there was nothing that in any way allowed you to get a net gain of long rest resources in 4E

I believe there was one ED that let you get back a daily power once per day or something, but that is about as far as it would go

mind you, I found one build that could make your healing surges last ridiculously long, I put it in to a Dragonborn Warlock, and at level 30 he could take more hits than most actual tank classes, assuming everyone in this theoretical competition got to spend surges until they were out as counting for health

Miniman

@trogdor To put it in 4e terms: the Warlock's spell slots are effectively "encounter powers". The Sorcerer's spell slots are daily powers. The Sorcerer has an ability called sorcery points - also daily powers. However, the Sorcerer also has the ability to turn sorcery points into spell slots and vice versa. The abuse happens because the rules weren't written with multiclassing in mind, so there's nothing stopping a Sorcerer/Warlock from converting Warlock spell slots into sorcery points.

trogdor

but he was still toast once his downright ridiculous (at least for a Striker, arguably for even some Defenders) number of healing surges, which healed for over half his health each (normally they did a quarter without outside bonuses)

@Miniman yeah, nothing like this exists in 4E

Miniman

@trogdor Yeah, 4e avoided this kind of thing by placing extremely strict limits on multiclassing - it's amazing how many abusive interactions appear when you can combine 2 things that weren't designed to be combined.

trogdor

@Miniman so can they use this to heal, or does it just mean as long as they don't get hit they are good?

@Miniman I personally liked that about 4E

there were even still interesting things you could do with multi classing, you just couldn't quite abuse it to this degree

Adeptus

5:35 AM

@trogdor If you also multiclass with bard, you can cast healing spells using your spell slots (which are shared between your multi classes)

trogdor

@Adeptus that is pretty disgusting XD

4E also had a limit on multiclassing

if you decided to hybrid between two classes, you could not by any means choose a third

if you took multiclass feats from one class, that was the only class you could take em from anymore

again, I personally appreciated those limits

for reasons such as this silly build that apparently exists in 5E XD

Miniman

@trogdor Personally I prefer having the freedom to customize my character - if I have a concept that involves being a Fighter/Rogue/Paladin, then it's nice to be able to build it.

trogdor

@Miniman well, in any non-D&D system where they had actually acounted for the customization you could make? I would agree with you

no D&D system I have ever played has accounted for the amount of sheer character customization you could do, technically not even 4E

Miniman

@trogdor Ah, well, that's a matter of how you feel about finding abusive exploits - I enjoy it, and I'm always on the lookout for stinky cheese.

Not to play with, it's just fun to come up with this stuff.

trogdor

I appreciated that 4E seemed to be at least trying harder to keep it from getting too silly in some respects,... it failed to keep the system completely balanced in every way, but it still did a much better job than 3.5 even seemed to try to do

Adeptus

5:45 AM

I'd be tempted to bring this to an AL game, see what I can get away with :)

trogdor

@Miniman oh believe me, I loved building 4E characters to do ridiculous things

Miniman

Plus, too, on at least one occasion someone's had a character concept which they really wanted to do, which just didn't work, and stinky cheese was the only way to do it.

And I'm inordinately proud of the stinky cheese I came up with to help them out, especially since it's not at all overpowered or broken.

trogdor

@Miniman 4E didn't allow for one of our players to make a character he wanted, he wanted a half or riding an elephant while wielding a polearm so he could reach all the people under him

Miniman

@trogdor That's pretty awesome.

trogdor

nothing for allowing this even remotely existed at the low levels we started at, so when I built his character for him I just went with "half orc with polearm"

and I stumbled upon the ability to build someone weilding polearms to push people with almost every attack they hit with at surprisingly low levels

and a few levels later they could push further, and a few levels later they could push more often, until his character was pushing people around 8 or so squares on average with every attack he made

even ones he was making on someone else's turn

Miniman

5:51 AM

Is that really useful? Pushing people out of your own attack range doesn't seem like the best niche.

trogdor

and he was also slowing, and knocking prone with those same attacks (amusingly BECAUSE he had feats that did that to everyone he pushed)

@Miniman our party strikers were all ranged

and it isn't like he lacked targets

Miniman

@trogdor Ah, right. The "Giant Fan" approach to tanking.

trogdor

he did this to one guy, and still had other guys trying to get past him to get to the rest of us

by the time he got everyone away from him, the first guy was hobbling back over with a look of pure disappointed disgust as he was summarily thrown back (at least in the ideal scenario)

plus, if he really truely pushed everyone back, he got to charge them

which as a half orc, and with a couple items and spare feats, is something he wanted to do

he charged at every opportunity

as I recall

he got like, bonus move speed, + to hit, and extra damage, (I think) when he charged people

Adeptus

@trogdor I can imagine how that would look. Charge enemy, push him back, charge again... rinse & repeat

trogdor

there was a point when I literally had everything that character could do memorized (the player sat next to me and reffered to me rather regularly, usually at the very least to remind him how ridiculously far his target was flying after getting smacked in the face)

@Adeptus in 4E, it is surprisingly easy to make charging your most preferred form of attack

heck, I built a ridiculous charge fairy for the heck of it

Miniman

6:00 AM

@trogdor Not that surprising when you consider that charging is the form of attack in 3.5e.

trogdor

no one used it, party because I had made too many characters, party because it was honestly not fitting to our group seeing as PC's in our group (and probably most 4E groups) were a little too strong for standard enemies ( this charge fairy was one of the more broken characters I rolled up)

@Miniman true

as alluded to above, there was a lot more you could do with it than I did with this fighter build, because his first priority had become pushing people as far as possible and scraping up as many of his extra feats as possible for push-based synergy

Miniman

But...the elephant...?

trogdor

@Miniman BESW was our DM, and he made sure the character could summon an elephant about as soon as levels would allow

it was an item or a boon or something

I had no way of giving him an elephant just through simply the act of character creation

Miniman

@trogdor Druids can't turn into or summon elephants in 4e?

trogdor

BESW graciously saw to giving him the elephant

@Miniman no not really, I don't think

Miniman

6:07 AM

@trogdor :(

trogdor

besides, EVERYONE in that whole group had a character concept of their own that they were pretty attached to (sometimes multiple ones to be fair) and none of those was a shape shifting type of druid

heck, I don't think anyone played a druid

even our dryad was a cleric

@Miniman druids in 4E did shapshifting via Daily Powers

it was typically powerful, but didn't always alter your size, and the pre-pakaged flavor for it was a specific animal per power

you could of course say whatever animal you wanted, but it would be a little silly to say elephant if your power didn't increase your size to that of one

4E druids are not as pre-pakaged awesome as 3.5 druids

Miniman

@trogdor I doubt there will ever be a class in any D&D edition as pre-packaged awesome as 3.5 druids.

And that is definitely a good thing.

doppelgreener

6:36 AM

@trogdor wild shape: pygmy elephant

trogdor

6:56 AM

@Miniman I agree

druids, while awesome, had too much going for them from the start in comparison to many other classes

they even had it better than at least some casters from the start

let alone anyone who didn't have spells

@doppelgreener except,... I would love to see a half orc try to ride that XD

because it would fail hilariously

Baskakov_Dmitriy

7:55 AM

@SevenSidedDie THat's superstrange to me, because an answer with "Mechanics are the answer. " phrase has 78 upvotes. But I will believe your expretise. Will try to write another answer.

Each such an issue makes me hate downvoting without comments more and more.

Miniman

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Said answer goes pretty deep into analysis to justify using mechanics to fix the problem, and also doesn't suggest adding a whole new system into the existing system, instead suggesting using the reward mechanics that already exist in the system of choice.

Your answer offers a suggestion, but doesn't provide any reasoning for why that suggestion is a good one.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Isn't it marked as system-agnostic? O_o

Miniman

Yep, and the answer you pointed at suggests using whatever reward mechanic exists in your system of choice. Yours suggested adding a whole new houseruled system into your system of choice.

In the niche case where you're playing a system that doesn't have any reward mechanics, I suppose that answer would be useless. But judging by the votes, that's a very niche situation.

Also, consider that you've answered 5 years later. Not only has the audience completely changed over the course of 5 years, even the individuals who have been around that whole time have probably changed how they think about things.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Oh, wow.

Didn't notice how old this actully was.

Miniman

8:10 AM

And, too, we're talking about a question that got a lot of attention, including HNQ attention - that's a large audience which tends to be uncritical and upvotes most things. Whereas the audience now is people who take the time to look at new answers to questions they've already seen - much smaller, and perhaps more likely to read, and think critically, about answers.

In general, late answers tend to suffer in comparison with answers that got in when the question was still fresh; there's a lot of reasons for that, some fair, some not.

BESW

And since the primary focus of the Stack engine is getting timely answers for professionals who need answers for their work, the change in voting on questions that get answered 5 years later isn't given priority.

@nitsua60 In my experience with any system, prep as if you have only half the time you've actually got.

With a system like DW, that probably goes double.

Anaphory

8:55 AM

@BESW So, quarters?

BESW

Absolutely.

@Anaphory Also, I've left something for you on Skype.

eimyr

9:11 AM

@BESW Awesome but ridiculous ideas for RPGs: Norwegian Butter Crisis

BESW

Also a good name for a band.

eimyr

If it's really Norwegian, chances are it's death metal.

BESW

With a name like that, I'm guessing mock metal.

eimyr

Hard mock?

BESW

So vicious.

eimyr

9:17 AM

Are you still working on Surgadores?

Is it heading towards completion anytime soon?

BESW

Still not sure what it's missing.

eimyr

... I was just about to reply to that with "Interesting. What's missing then?" Then I realised.

Have you playtested it in any way?

BESW

We've played a few times, yes.

eimyr

Was it unsatisfactory?

BESW

Am making complex dinner. Can banter occasionally but not carry full convo.

eimyr

9:27 AM

kk

remember to InstaStack your recipe

BESW

Okay, tofu is marinating (soy sauce, calamansi juice, local hot pepper, sesame oil, garlic, ginger powder) and brown rice is started.

eimyr

is that actually pigeon?

BESW

I have a few minutes.

Squab is, indeed, pigeon.

eimyr

so, what wasn't working with Surgadores so far?

BESW

The sudden death round isn't working, but not I'm not sure what's wrong with it.

I think the escalation from start to end is too extreme.

eimyr

9:38 AM

How does your tension curve look like in comparison with the engagement curve?

BESW

I'm not sure.

eimyr

Maybe that would give you some pointers.

BESW

I'm not sure what you mean by those, or how I'd measure them.

eimyr

Well, the tension curve would be (in my book) how the game is paced in terms of expected engagement.

the engagement would be how it actually looks like

one is theoretical, the other one you'd have to judge by the look on your players' faces and their behaviour

BESW

I think it's more that the tension is about the wrong things, than that it's in the wrong place.

Oil's ready, afk again.

Tofu's in the pan, drained the marinade and added the onion. Now we're in "leave it alone enough to brown, not enough to burn."

The sudden death mechanic seemed great on paper, but in practice it leads to repeated rounds of everyone doing the same thing until either [number of players -1] people fail or the other person succeeds.

eimyr

9:49 AM

what was the original purpose of the sudden death round, remind me?

BESW

There's tension, but no choice or strategy.

In the last phase of the game, all the other doctors are holding back Death while the final surgadore finishes the surgery.

At first it's difficult to hold off Death but the surgery is easier. As the game progresses, that inverts.

Maybe I should invert that dynamic.

Probably worth a playtest, at least, to see what happens.

eimyr

Perhaps the surgery difficulty should stay the same, as a benchmark for progress, but the Death fighting scale?

Or the other way around

BESW

Hmm. That's a darling i could kill.

eimyr

to make it a bit more predictable

Perhaps the difficulty of the surgery should depend on how far Death is? Then it would create a loop of tension, where 1) Death is far, everyone does the surgery with relative ease 2) death approaches, surgery is more difficult, team makes a strategic decision (steal or save) 3) death is almost at the table, surgery hard, everyone rushes to fight, pushes back 4) increase difficulty of Death fighting, rinse repeat

I'm just pointing ideas, but perhaps if you want a toothy engagement curve you'd get relaxed, strategic and tense phases, at least on paper

BESW

10:32 AM

Tonight's dinner is tofu marinated in soy, calamansi, and sesame oil with ginger and hot pepper, sauteéd with steamer veggies and onions, served on brown rice.

Anaphory

@BESW Ta! No skype at work for me, but I look forward to seeing it.

@BESW That did strike me as not the dynamics I would expect when you first mentioned it.

Shaamaan

1:46 PM

Quick question to seasoned DMs.

In non-heroic games (otherwise known as games where PCs can totally die) how do you actually keep them from dying (at least until a certain, satisfying conclusion)?

Alternatively, what do you do with players who have lost their characters before the end of the session?

Miniman

@Shaamaan If you're deliberately keeping characters from dying, it's not really a "game where PCs can totally die".

@Shaamaan Give them an NPC, let them run enemies, find a way to resurrect them or introduce their new character quickly.

Shaamaan

@Miniman My players tend to be smart enough not to do completely stupid s**t that would get them outright killed. I'm talking about really unfortunate dice rolls.

(Unfortunate from the perspective of players - it might be my own rolls that are just really luck in really "bad" moments)

Shaamaan

2:17 PM

@Miniman (Of course if they DID do something stupid that would get them killed, well...)

Wibbs

@Shaamaan I don't. I let the dice fall with no fudging and no special efforts to keep PCs alive. This is made clear at the start of any campaign/game that I run so it doesn't come as a suprise.

Miniman

@Wibbs That would be a game where PCs can totally die, yes.

SevenSidedDie

@Shaamaan In a game where PCs can totally die, a player putting their PC in a position where they can die on an unfortunate roll counts as stupid s--t. ;)

Not actually stupid though, really, but a risk that they chose. Gambling and losing is part of playing a game where PCs can totally die.

@nitsua60 Prep in DW isn't really compatible with prep that is pacing-centric. Instead, think of neat/cool/fun things to have nearby; if a perfect opportunity presents itself to use it, then you get to, but expect to never use the ideas because the improv during the session is often just better.

nitsua60

2:36 PM

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, I'm definitely digging the improv nature. I was just asking because in my full-on DW game I've got no sense of how it might "end," but that's no problem because I've got no particular end to the group in sight. Now this new thing's come up and I've got a three-session bounded experience; I know how I'd handle that in D&D, but I've never thought of "having to end" or "having a ticking clock" in DW.

Anaphory

There is still Fronts with their Countdowns

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 My experience with short demos of DW is that they're best allowed to find their own cliffhanger naturally; that is, don't prep an end, just let the last session end as if the adventure continues. The session is fun, and it leaves them wanting more. :) And if they dug DW, then maybe it's not actually the end session!

nitsua60

@Anaphory Sooth. Maybe just thinking of it as a race condition? There's a front, portents will come, perhaps the party'll avert the impending doom and perhaps they won't.

@SevenSidedDie Sounds reasonable. Nothing like gameus interruptus to create some new addicts, eh?

Shaamaan

@SevenSidedDie Good point about the die rolls.

Anaphory

@nitsua60 What d7 says is true, but yes, that's what I mean.

That's where “Play to find out what happens” and “Think offscreen, too” and Impending Doom (sorry, Countdown is AW terminology) come in.

nitsua60

2:41 PM

@Anaphory Thanks, that helps. Even if it has no impact on how things play out at the table, I find myself really needing a "mental model" to keep my thoughts and flow organized. (Otherwise I just manifest "spastic ADD scattershot what-the-hell's-he-doing?" mode.)

Anaphory

From session 2 onwards, that's precisely what Fronts are for.

nitsua60

@Anaphory It just feels weird when "onwards" = "one more session." =)

Anaphory

After session 1, that should be.

nitsua60

Unrelated DW question for the masses: I've got a party in the citadel of some magically-slumbering giants. Like GIANT giants; 100- to 150-footers. If they were stupid enough to attack there's just be no chance of harming them. Okay to not even stat them up?

Anaphory

For a short thing like this, I tend to go in with some more of my own ideas than I would for a longer campaign, and essentially start prepping before S1, but essentially the idea is to clean up the world building that happened in S1 into one or more fronst between S1 and S2 and work in that framework from then on.

@nitsua60 Still need moves and stuff, which are actually the core of the statting up.

The hit points are a thing that falls out of the statting-up process just in case the party is really ingenious and accidentally manages to surprise you and get close to them and be properly armed and ….

nitsua60

2:48 PM

@Anaphory Good point; I hadn't yet made the paradigm shift to move=stat. In D&D the actions are a thing a monster can do; in DW they're what the monster is, eh?

Anaphory

> If a creature is of such a scale far beyond the players, or if it just doesn't put up a physical fight, don't assign it HP, damage, or armor. You can still use the monster creation rules to give it tags. The core of a stat-less monster is its instinct and moves; you can have it make its moves and act according to its instinct even without numeric stats.

(So, I was wrong, don't bother with the HP that fall out – still ask yourself similar questions, because they will inform your move and instinct design.)

SevenSidedDie

4:33 PM

@nitsua60 Like @Anaphory says, they still need HP. The 16hp dragon was nigh invulnerable to the PCs, but still has those HP. Those HP are just not terribly accessible with just a party's hand tools. If they manage to drop a giant-sized cauldron off the top shelf onto the head of a giant snoozing in their giant kitchen, though, then you'll need some HP to deplete.

(Fortunately, it takes almost no effort to stat things up, since perfection is far from the goal when doing it. Consider the statting process more a slight codification of handwaving.)

Anaphory

5:19 PM

I was wondering whether to link to The Dragon. But then I found the mention in the rule that “You may not need HP”, and posted that instead.

nitsua60

6:29 PM

@BESW mailed. Now we'll see how long the snails take to get from eastern seaboard to Guam =)

DuckTapeAl

7:14 PM

Facebook just reminded me that it's been four years to the day since I got my RPG.SE "thank you" package. It really blows my mind to think about how long I've been a part of this community.

Zachiel

7:57 PM

@trogdor ugh, I know.

I'm also trying to aggregate some people with good game-dev skills in order to create a 4e hack that really works as a tactic game, with no auto-wins and a large number of equally useful options (seriously, have you ever seen someone charging to push or someone holding someone else?)

nitsua60

8:12 PM

@Zachiel Do terrain and obstacles not moot much of the OP-ness of charging? Or is it just that (too) many encounters are in wide-open, flat spaces?

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Difficult terrain only slows down chargers. When the builds mostly focus on getting just a pair of squares away each turn in order to charge the same target again, it's not hard to find a path that lets you anyway.

nitsua60

@Zachiel I guess I'm thinking more of obstructions than "terrain," perhaps. Walls, columns, trees, rocks, escarpments, buildings...?

Zachiel

@nitsua60 It's there. Still, the only way to be safe from chargers is standing two corners away from them

Or, one corner and a square

For corners are hard to pass while getting near each square (but you can move, then charge)

Anaphory

8:27 PM

@Zachiel In which areas will you value value verisimilitude more, and in which tactical decision-capability?

Zachiel

@Anaphory I generally don't care for verisimilitude a lot when playing D&D at the table.

Unrelated: I'd completely do away with at-will powers in D&D 4e, hoping to get players carefully chose which of their encounter powers is best for the party at each round.

BESW

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Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on August 8, 2016 at 8:02 PM

trogdor

8:45 PM

@Zachiel that doesn't seem like the best idea to me, that just takes away extra options once you are out of non at will powers

also, I did actually make a grapple fighter that I used

so I saw plenty of grappling, even if the vast majority of it was me doing it

BESW

And the push-specialised fighter liked to charge too.

trogdor

yeah, Zachiel probably saw that

Zachiel

@trogdor I know. But I'm a bit tired of the characters whose strongest attack is the basic attack, and most chargers rely on that. It wasn't a tactic so strong before Essentials.

@trogdor It was a reply to that.

trogdor

@Zachiel yeah that is why I said that

@Zachiel yeah it has that problem but,... taking the at will powers away hurts everyone

not just the people building charge fighters and the like

(or charge rogues, which probably works better, as silly as that is)

Zachiel

@trogdor (yes, I had a charge rogue in the game. It's not like the double strike archer he plays now deals less damage... maybe 4e did away with save or die, but "die in two rounds to a single party member" is still a thing...)

BESW

9:23 PM

Sudden death is a lot less of a problem in that kind of game when it only happens to NPCs.

Zachiel

Maybe I should be a non-DM player

BESW

Maybe. I know there are systems I'd be okay to play in but could never run.

(And vice versa, I imagine.)

Zachiel

9:43 PM

@BESW I'd need a clone of me to be my DM in order to be satisfoied with the DM. Except "that Zachiel is so poor on the RP aspect"...

BESW

And then your clone would be miserable.

Zachiel

@BESW That's why I'm not going to get cloned.

BESW

And we've all seen enough scifi to know what happens when the clones are unhappy.

2

Zachiel

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

(While I was searching for an official version of the song to post here I stumbled upon several wonderful gospel versions of the song and I'm listening to them instead of going to sleep.)

trogdor

10:03 PM

lol

@Zachiel yeah, charge rogues do brutal damage

Zachiel

This is ending with me going to the Glee cast singing I still haven't foud..., then Pompeii, then for some reason the officail video of Fun ft. Janelle Monàe. Toniiiiiiiight... ♪

(Goodnight)

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