TRPG General Chat

12:45 AM

@Trisped Hi!

@Shalvenay So, the thing about DW as a system is that Tha'lursyn can try to Discern Realities, but he may not actually trigger the move. He may find that he's instead Defying Danger, or triggering a GM move.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Studying the situation and asking questions is about the easiest thing you can do to me =)

Shalvenay

1:30 AM

@nitsua60 heheh I probably should do more of that

I guess part of it is just adjusting to the tempo of the game if you will, and trying to figure out what questions would actually be useful as well?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I won't say you should do more or less of anything; but I don't think you should worry too much about throwing me for a loop. I signed up to sit at the head of the table.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 alright :) I will stop worrying then :D

nitsua60

(Actually, come to think of it, I didn't. You volunteered me. But it's all the same.)

@Shalvenay Also remember: making the Q&A useful is shared on us: you ask a question in the hopes it'll be useful, and I provide an answer with that in mind, too.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 nods

nitsua60

@Miniman what would you think about this as the last sentence of your HIgh Elf language answer:

> With two more languages of choice from their background this gives a high elf acolyte a total of 5, consisting of Common, Elvish, and 3 of their choosing.

Miniman

2:13 AM

@nitsua60 Sounds good to me! I'm at work right now, but if you feel like editing that'd be awesome. Otherwise I'll add it later.

Adeptus

2:36 AM

@Terriblefan If you want to try 5e without buying anything, WOTC has released a fair amount of free content

@Terriblefan rpg.stackexchange.com/a/75686/14988

(it doesn't onebox answers?)

BESW

@Adeptus It doesn't onebox anything unless the link is alone on the entry, or preceded by a ":########".

ie, regular @ pings break oneboxing but directed @ pings to earlier messages don't.

Adeptus

ahhh that's what I did wrong

nitsua60

2:55 AM

@Miniman done

Miniman

@nitsua60 Hey, thanks!

kviiri

6:15 AM

@BESW Excellent question. I think it should be on the main site, maybe. The main differences I've spotted are more playbooks (some of them limited edition playbooks from the first edition), more moves and the threat map as a tool of GM prep instead of fronts. Disabilities (permanent -1 stat) were removed, and character death was made voluntary with "when life is untenable" move being triggered when a character would usually die.

I also recall there being some changes to Hx, but don't know the exact nature of them.

Cost of living was changed from 1-barter per in-game month for stingy living to 1-barter (stingy) or 2-barter (comfy and secure) per session.

Operator playbook was removed - their main thing, gigs, is now accessible by most playbooks.

BESW

@kviiri Bam.

0

Q: What's the difference between Apocalypse World 1e and 2e?

The second edition of Apocalypse World was recently released, and I'm unclear what's significantly different about it from the first edition. I've even been told it's substantively identical, by someone who was nonetheless very excited about 2e. The Kickstarter says, "You'll see a couple of obvi...

kviiri

Some more flavor oriented mechanics are introduced: d-harm (deprivation effects), psi-harm (psionic damage, actually introduced in 1st ed limited edition playbooks)

@BESW Sweet!

Anaphory

8:04 AM

@kviiri I need to check: I think it has been simplified from “Turn”/“On their turn”, to just going around once without having to factor other things in.

kviiri

@Anaphory Ah yes, everyone marks Hx on their own sheet instead of telling others to modify theirs.

@Anaphory Notice anything else missing?

kviiri

8:40 AM

Yay, upvotes! Slowly lurching towards tag wiki edit approval privileges.

kviiri

8:54 AM

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/88489/… this question looks a bit difficult to answer

Miniman

@kviiri I don't know enough about 4e to be sure, but I suspect it's still too broad.

Anaphory

@kviiri Dunno! I had a short look at the preview a while ago – I haven't managed to look at it yet, been to busy with other stuff.

The Hx change was already in the preview, that's why I assumed it made it into the final and pointed it out to you for confirmation.

Faceless and Quarantine did exist as LE playbooks before.

How has the Show been differentiated from the Skinner?

kviiri

@Anaphory The Show basically has a very broad range of abilities for affecting large groups of people, changing their threat type. They can also raise large amounts of barter by pandering to their audience. However, they're also like rock stars in that they're not in control of their own life, really. They need someone to hold their leash and manage them.

Think of the guitar guy in the Mad Max film.

It seems a bit overdramatic for my tastes.

@Miniman Same here. Maybe we should ask for clarifications on what is "good enough".

Anaphory

Ah, but if it's in Mad Max, and no other playbook would fit, of course he had to include it…

kviiri

I haven't seen the Mad Max flick myself, but my big brother's a fan of the guitar guy. Apparently he has a sort of following despite being a mere extra, "prop" in the film.

Doof Warrior is his name, I see.

BESW

9:09 AM

One of the cool things about the Mad Max films is that even the minor extras tend to feel like the film could easily have been about them instead.

kviiri

So I've heard. They're definitely on my to watch list.

@Anaphory Cheers, added that.

BESW

@kviiri If you're not a completionist, you can skip the first quite easily. It's the least Mad Max-y of all of them. If you're mostly interested in the most recent (fourth), it's fine as a stand-alone. If you want to get a sense of where it's coming from, watch the second and then the fourth. If you want to see the Birthplace of Memes, watch the third.

kviiri

@Anaphory Oh, also, the guy holding The Show's leash gets the jingle.

@BESW Lots of options, I see!

BESW

9:25 AM

It's not exactly a series in the sense of having a coherent narrative thread.

kviiri

I don't know any Mad Max memes off the top of my head. Or maybe I do, but not their origin.

BESW

The franchise is probably best approached as a collection of post-apocalyptic urban legends attributed to a vaguely historical figure called Max.

kviiri

Well it sounds even better that way

BESW

In broad strokes, Max is a rude, grumpy loner who's (probably) a survivor from before the apocalypse. Max wanders the wastes, finding himself caught up in the lives of other more interesting people before eventually moving on again.

kviiri

Lucky Luke.

BESW

9:30 AM

...And he's good with cars and guns, that's consistent.

Anaphory

@BESW Does he have a “Never leave anyone behind” attitude or a “Just rewards” attitude, by any chance?

kviiri

Or Tintin. Or... well, many heroes are like that. It's a pattern that works.

BESW

@Anaphory Nah, he's (again, usually) a self-centered guy with just enough sense of enlightened self-interest to keep him from being a complete tool.

Anaphory

Shame. I would have loved to turn some Mad Max into Good Walder hagiographies for Empire.

BESW

He helps people because it's a good way to help himself. Sometimes he sticks around a little longer than strictly necessary, or goes out of his way a little more than strictly necessary, but that depends on the specific urban legend being told.

He does wind up being peoples' hero, though, in spite of himself.

Most portrayals show him as a broken man (the first film sets up why, but the later films don't all mesh with it perfectly) who's lost the ability to socialise properly--in the fourth film he describes himself in terms similar to Riddick's description of himself in that franchise's third film, being more akin to an animal than a man.

We see glimpses of the man he used to be, and if the franchise has a character arc for him, it's the incremental healing of a broken man's soul.

kviiri

9:39 AM

scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/90591/why-is-max-mad I was reminded of this question.

Wasn't this question here before?

Anaphory

@kviiri It would not surprise me if there was some periodicity with which it re-appeared.

@BESW Ah, that's not a literal #, but a placeholder for the numbers of a post id.

RollingFeles

Ah. Lately, I've been thinking about rewatching last Mad Max more and more often.

kviiri

@Anaphory I think it was just yesterday when it was last VtC'd.

RollingFeles

Hi @BESW, @kviiri, @Anaphory!

kviiri

@RollingFeles Hiya o/

Anaphory

9:56 AM

Hello!

Argh, I thought I had just fixed my bug. But still no cognate sets show up in my database.

Argh, stupid typo.

RollingFeles

I know that feel.

Fortunately, lately, I'm in a process of making new bugs, not fixing old ones. :)

kviiri

10:11 AM

I'm watching a SQL query that's been running for like 20 minutes.

Anaphory

I want to get there, but first I have to make some data accessible to other people so they can annotate it for me so I can use it in the next step. Which means fixing bugs.

BESW

[wave]

RollingFeles

And I'm slowly working on new project, while listening to colleagues discussing bug fixes, refactoring fun and dump hell.

BESW

I've got some ideas percolating re: Dungeon World and moves, but they're as yet nascent.

Anaphory

Dump Hell?

@BESW What kinds of ideas?

BESW

10:17 AM

Something to do with how each system defines actions.

Anaphory

So that's theory/observation ideas, not “how to make it work for X” ideas?

BESW

Yeah.

RollingFeles

@Anaphory I mean memory dumps. My friend spent about a month trying to find out what causes crashes.

Anaphory

Augh.

RollingFeles

Ah, first algorithm for converting boolean formula to dnf, then minimization algorithm.

That's the most interesting part in whole project. At least for first version.

Anaphory

10:25 AM

@RollingFeles Still not showing up. It feels so close! I can see them in the database dump now, but not in the online tables.

Ha, there they are!

RollingFeles

@Anaphory keep going! With each new drop of information about it behaviour, you're one step closer to it.

Hurray! :)

Anaphory

Good! Some clean up to do, some debug prints to remove, and then I can let other people work on that dataset and prepare the next analysis step.

RollingFeles

@Anaphory If I may ask: what technology do you use and what area are you working in?

Anaphory

I'm building cross-linguistic linked databases, with linguistic data (word lists, typological features, trees) from a small family of Indonesian languages, using python (sqlalchemy→pyramid→clld).

RollingFeles

Sounds interesting.

Anaphory

10:31 AM

The current step is to transform a lot of word lists in Excel sheets into something that can be versioned (utf16-tsv, because I need to stay remotely Excel-compatible, for editing) and cleanly displayed online (sqlite).

BESW

@Anaphory There is one bit of "how to make it work" banging around in the back of my head, but it's more of a "how it doesn't work, why, and what to do about that," and is rooted in a better understanding of the nature of actions across systems.

The Cliff's Notes version is, too many moves spoil the improv, and I'd prefer playbooks which modify the basic moves more and add new ones less.

Anaphory

@BESW RPG theory/analysis should always lead to and is motivated by “how to make my game better”, so no surprise there.

@RollingFeles It is, when not struggling with the issues with formats introduced by the fact that the data gathering happened before someone looked at the data it with an eye for further use and compatibility.

BESW

D&D maps each specific action to a specific mechanic--there's a different set of rules to follow depending on if you're attacking with a bow, or a sword, or a fist, and those are all quite irrelephant to wrasslin', and none of them really care what you're attacking or why.

RollingFeles

@Anaphory You can say it about anything. "X is great, apart parts that were done without any thought about future issues" :)

BESW

Fate maps specific actions to goals in order to determine which of a small handful of broadly applicable mechanics is appropriate--it doesn't matter what you're attacking, or what you're using, so much as it matters how and why you're attacking: to incapacitate, to inconvenience, or to bypass, are all different mechanics.

RollingFeles

10:38 AM

Well, if X itself is great. There are a ton of things which sucks even without compability and extensibility issues.

BESW

Dungeon World takes a weird middle road.

It's got a lot of very generic mechanics which are interested in almost all of those qualities described above, except the tools you're using.

But it's also got a lot of very very specific mechanics that only map to quite particular actions.

I think it'd be better served if it avoided adding lots of extra moves that are specific to playbooks and instead playbooks focused on redefining the capacity of the generic moves.

The notion of defining everything as a move is.... novel, and probably helps kick people in the pants that this thing is different. But I think it gets in the way of itself.

RollingFeles

11:09 AM

Sounds quite problematic.

BESW

I dunno, maybe I'm just not getting it.

Feels to me like calling everything a move is muddying the issue, though.

It's useful in helping folks be more cognizant of all their choices--especially the GM.

But when "move" encompasses every kind of trigger (goal, action, tool, situation, etc) and every kind of resolution (roll, fiat, limited choice, etc), that philosophical goal starts to override common practical usability for me.

RollingFeles

11:29 AM

I can understand that. Not that I have own experience to comment, but after reading the rules I can see what you mean.

@BESW But this is inherited from AW, doesn't it? I'm looking now on kviiri's answer about AW2E and it looks like the same: on one hand generic moves, on the other: specialized.

BESW

11:56 AM

Yeah.

It's a quality of the AWE.

Anaphory

2:12 PM

@BESW The GM has that problem less than the players, because her moves feel moderately uniform to me.

@BESW I think the philosophical goal is less that everything is a move, think about it! and more that in the fiction that we want to model, this is a class of actions which always have one of these outcomes for this type of character.

That is, it's not action resolution, it's trope resolution.

And in that sense, it needs to be as broad in possible outcomes as tropes are (although, admittedly, they have neither rolls nor limited choice, when we perceive them in a finished medium such as a film or a novel) and sometimes be genre tropes (GM moves), sometimes be protagonist tropes (basic moves) and sometimes be tropes that The Bard observes (class moves).

So, it's not for making you aware that you can do EVERYTHING. It's for making you precisely aware of the choices that you should make in this narrative for this character.

Terriblefan

2:51 PM

@Adeptus Cool, thanks!

doppelgreener

4:02 PM

@Terriblefan as far as I've been privy to the D&D 5e community, the lack of an exhaustive database like D&D 4e had seems to be a regular point of complaint about D&D 5e. (so was the fact they apparently came close, then entirely dropped support for the company doing it.)

Terriblefan

@doppelgreener It is a pain. WotC needs to change its business model.

Skathix

Afternoon guys

doppelgreener

4:20 PM

@Terriblefan it is a mystery to me why they haven't established a D&D 5e database like they did for the D&D 4e database, but it might be out of effort to make sure they absolutely do not resemble D&D 4e and don't pick up its reputation.

Terriblefan

@doppelgreener Pretty sure it's just to force people to buy the more-expensive books.

doppelgreener

i consider a lot of the bad reputation D&D 4e has earned (like "it's just an MMORPG!" or "it's like a board game!") to be quite unreasonable, but it earned it. During D&D 5e's development, the official blog appeared to never acknowledge that 4e ever existed, despite 5e very clearly implementing a lot of 4e's new features, but notably, under different names. (meanwhile the 5e authors discarded a lot of others, including some of its best.)

@Terriblefan best estimate I can make is that it's about making people buy the books as you're describing, or it's about making sure 5e doesn't resemble 4e in any way if they can help it.

Terriblefan

@doppelgreener As I just argued the "It's an MMORPG" thing yesterday, I would argue the unreasonable statement. It took imagination out of combat.

doppelgreener

@Terriblefan I saw that, yes.

Terriblefan

The social skills were... kind of the same? But combat is where the majority of D&D gameplay lies, so people who make fighting classes don't feel useless.

Skathix

4:38 PM

@Terriblefan I feel like combat is legitimately 33% of D&D, Intrigue and Adventuring is the other 66%, my group loves every aspect, and the fighters I have intimidate the pants off people.

Granted, some of the aspects of combat can bleed into interactions, grappling, sneaking, stuff like that.

Fighters are good for a lot outside of combat, breaking stuff, scaring folks, war planning, strategy

kviiri

Our DnD experience was ~20% combat, 40% all the bookkeeping and extra hassle that comes with combat, 20% rolling perception checks everywhere and 20% the pacifist elf character rolling all her skills to avert combat encounters :P

Skathix

Man, I gave up on perception checks unless they were specific

Granted, again, I have 8 people at the table

Terriblefan

@kviiri Basically the same.

Skathix

So I explain the room, if someone looks for something specific, it's investigation, perception is only to watch or look for people, or hear ambushes and stuff

At my table*

kviiri

We would've needed a sort of meta contract about that stuff. Including the "if I drop you a quest hook just take it please. No one wants to debate half an hour whether you can trust the kindly old questgiver wizard. It's going to be fun, just do it."

I did that myself in a short campaign I ran.

Skathix

4:43 PM

Yeah

I've had to create quests that I know my characters will be pulled into

The most helpful thing this group has done is assisted suicide

Terriblefan

I have been working on a world that's more like an Elder Scrolls game, with lots of hooks so that people could do whatever they wanted.

Just to find out what they'll do, when given options.

Secret discovery, should they follow through: the world's a dead god and they're in the Astral Sea.

kviiri

Video games implicitly have that meta-hook though, players know that completing quests will net them certain rewards. Subversions are quite rare.

Terriblefan

@kviiri The older D&D games never told you what you'd get. It was a real Bard's Tale (the one from last decade) situation.

kviiri

@Terriblefan Exactly, isn't it the same with the newer ones?

Terriblefan

Will you get gold? An awesome spell? A pun about your character's relationship with the questgiver?

kviiri

4:47 PM

So many players take quests only if their character would do so in-universe, which is different from what a video game player will do.

Terriblefan

@kviiri That I'm not sure of. I haven't played a proper D&D video game since NwN2

DDO and Neverwinter, of course, following the MMO model of "do this and I'll give you this".

Which, you know, is totally acceptable in real life so I don't see why it wouldn't be in a game -- it's just less fun for us, as writers.

If someone said "hey, I want you to go risk your life to do something stupid for me" and didn't say what they'd give you, would you work for them?

Skathix

That's where alignment comes in

Terriblefan

You caged that rabid wolf that was in my backyard? Thanks! <walks away>

Skathix

Also knowing your players is 90% of DMing

kviiri

@Terriblefan No, but RPGs aren't real life. I actually sit at the table because I want my character to get into adventures.

Skathix

4:49 PM

So like I said I wrap my quests in things my players won't resist

Such as, hell is pouring out, one of you is turning into a demon, if you help close the portal, Lolth will grant you powers beyond imagination

kviiri

If RPGs were real life my level 1 cleric would probably just make a steady living healing the sick, collecting tithes and blowing it on good wine and luscious ladies.

Terriblefan

@kviiri Reading Forgotten Realms has reduced my mindset to both value the story, but also want to use my rogue's skills to break into a noble's home and steal all their jewelry.

kviiri

I don't understand what you mean, tbh.

Terriblefan

@kviiri Elminster started off as a pickpocket and burglar.

Skathix

Yeah but if you want to do that, why don't you?

Your DM would/should be excited when you want to do that

Terriblefan

4:53 PM

Because that's not generally something a linear plot allows for.

Skathix

I sure would be

Terriblefan

IE, the hellmouth and demon turning would definitely take precedence.

Skathix

That's true I suppose, I would definitely allow it, and I think I could handle that on the fly

But I work on improv stuff with my cowriter

kviiri

Isn't DnD pretty badly suited for solo jobs, though?

Skathix

I'd also have unknown consequences

@kviiri Oh god yea, splitting the party is a bad thing, so they'd probably all go together on an elaborate Ocean's Eleven plot

(We've done it before)

kviiri

4:54 PM

Suppose your rogue gets cornered while robbing a house on "down time". Should the other players just twiddle their thumbs while you play out your escape sequence?

Point being, DnD isn't a bad game necessarily, but it lends itself really poorly to certain types of plots.

Terriblefan

See, that's why I want to make my world the way I am. If I end up splitting the party because the party never decides to get together, that's ok.

Skathix

Typically my players express solo desires at the end of the game and we play it out through facebook or roll20

kviiri

@Terriblefan That sounds a lot like My Guy syndrome.

@Skathix Not a bad idea at all!

Skathix

Yeah, it's worked out REALLY well

Because what ends up happening

is One of my players will want to do something

kviiri

We use party splits in AW quite often. The system is designed to handle them a tad better - well, there isnt' really an expectation of a "party" at all.

Skathix

4:57 PM

Then EVERYONE wants to go alone

Terriblefan

@kviiri And, given my upbringing on solo RPGs, I'm cool with that. We all make our characters snowflakes, why be confined to a snowball?

But if you rob the whole city and are a wanted man, it will make it much easier to put you on the main questline.

Skathix

So I create spiraling webs that are all based on the other players actions, the last time this happened is when one of my players was possessed by lolth, another one of players found her and they almost killed each other

kviiri

@Terriblefan Because the point is to have fun, and if players let their characters work against making the game fun, they're not doing a very good job at having fun.

Terriblefan

Ask yourself: what kind of self-respecting wizard would associate with the kinds of guys who wear furs and rage in battle or spend all their time in the inn if there wasn't the "party" plot device?

Skathix

@Terriblefan It sounds like you've had some bad experiences man

5:01 PM

@Terriblefan Does that need to be answered, really? I'm fine with just hand-waving it and moving on to action, in systems that expect the party.

Skathix

@Terriblefan my group has put me through all these tests, "Why would we give a **** about this stuff?" "Why would I journey with these people?"

kviiri

If you don't want to be a part of a party, why even stick to a system that expects you to be in a party?

Terriblefan

@kviiri It doesn't, if you force it. It does if you leave it up to the players. I want an organic party.

Skathix

Again, this comes back to knowing your table

Terriblefan

5:02 PM

@Skathix "Because the plot was delivered to you! Now open wide and eat it!"

;P

kviiri

@Terriblefan Ok, well what do you do when there's a guy in the table who insists on playing a committed anti-violence character when both their party and the system expects there to be a lot of combat?

Terriblefan

@kviiri Suggest he figure creative ways to play it.

You can bust in and kill the goblins. You could also manipulate them, fool them, bypass them...

Walk right up and offer peace, just to throw them off.

Diplomacy is a skill for a reason.

kviiri

@Terriblefan So every combat begins with this ritual where the committed anti-violence character rolls all their skills to no effect.

When every character (including the anti-violence guy) is a specialized combatant and has moves that let them shine in combat.

Terriblefan

@kviiri If you, as a DM, don't give them the ability to change the way it goes down, that's not really their fault per se.

kviiri

@Terriblefan I wasn't the GM that time.

Terriblefan

5:06 PM

Rogues make great killers. They make even better politicians.

Thieves. Mimics. Guys who can set up a pick so the party's load is easier.

And in 5e, with the arcane trickster? Oh man.

kviiri

Eventually the guy did figure out a creative way to roleplay their character - they participated in combat saying that if fate lets their blows connect, the kills are justified. That's creative and does not detract from the other people's fun.

But the original rollapalooza surely did, and no one was really experienced and socially gutsy enough to tell them to rework that.

The 4e system was set in a way that I think is objectively good but that I don't find very appealing subjectively. Each character has their coolest abilities in combat.

There's some out-of-combat stuff too, and everyone gets a share of that too, but importantly, everyone's having fun when there's combat.

Skathix

I feel like all of these problems have happened at my table, but they must have been handled well between the players and I, because we're still going strong.

Though I feel like we're in a circular argument, or at least one I don't understand. What's the problem you're encountering?

kviiri

When there's a single focus there doesn't need to be this sort of balacing from the GM's part, like "oh boy, we've had three combat encounters already, Tuikku the Thief must be getting bored. Gotta throw some locked doors and traps at them".

Skathix

@kviiri is very pretty, @Terriblefan seems to live up to his name and is also pretty.

:)

kviiri

I'm not sure where you drew the conclusion, but thanks :P

Anyway, DnD 4e was fun back in its day.

I'd not go back to it, but it was fun.

Skathix

5:21 PM

Ooooh this was about 4e?

I was all up in the kool-aid

kviiri

Well, DnD in general. But 4e too.

I'm still hankering to try out 5e in a safe, sane, consensual environment. A friend has this rotary GM campaign in the works, I'm going to play there when we get around to it.

Terriblefan

@Skathix Eh? How am I pretty?

Skathix

On the inside. Don't think about it too much. As far as 5e goes, I hope you guys have a good DM, it sounds like you've had some bad experiences. I prefer to have a general story, and let my players do whatever they want in the world, if they follow the story, that's cool, if not, no worries, but the show goes on regardless.

Some of our best nights have been the nights the PCs just went crazy

kviiri

Probably the worst RPG time i've had during the past year was when the party I was in got a bit too sane. We were playing Deadlands:Reloaded and trying to uncover a suspicious businessman's connections to black magic conspiracies. So we marched into a telegraph office, shut the door, coerced the signal guy to give us access to his records... and then spent over half an hour real time discussing if we want to spoof the businessman or not.

Terriblefan

@Skathix Aw, thanks!

kviiri

5:26 PM

There were good arguments for and against, but seriously, in retrospect the session felt like "some stuff happened and then we were in the telegraph office for ages".

Skathix

Lol we've had those nights too

kviiri

Our GM put it like this: "The telegraph office thing was a very cool off-the-rails move, but y'all really need to start making up your minds faster".

Our more insane stuff, like "let's dress one of us as Abraham Lincoln and enter the Native village to negotiate, then covertly steal their ceremonial pipe" turned out quite good.

Very good. Not bad at all. Stupid fingers.

It was a very memorable, good non-combat session.

(as you can guess from it being non-combat, the disguise worked like a charm)

Skathix

The first session our players had (I was a Newbie DM)

They were investigating a factory where everyone had gone missing

kviiri

Deadlands:Reloaded is one of those games where I wished I'd talked to my party more about my expectations. For example, my character is a Texas Ranger, and there has been some pretty cool fluff around that. But I haven't got to really enforce da law at all, which is a bit annoying. I only run fetch errands with my party, ostensibly keeping them on the leash.

Skathix

There was infected blood on the wall, and fake walls, someone got pulled through a fake wall by a clown demon, someone licked the blood and went crazy

kviiri

5:34 PM

Clown demon! Awesome.

What system was this?

Skathix

5e

But always know with me

We play 5e

kviiri

Oh, ok.

Skathix

But EVERYTHING I DO IS HOMEBREW

kviiri

Can't blame you, I never was too hot for readymades either.

Skathix

I've run Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Terriblefan

5:36 PM

@Skathix That is basically what 5e is.

Skathix

And it was lame

Terriblefan

The "ask your DM" edition.

Skathix

But it's great, so awesome, and we have SO much fun

It works out well for us

I flip the table a lot though, I crowdsource ideas, I feel like our table is much less of a God DM and much more of a DMocracy

4

I try to use the rule of cool fairly

kviiri

Reading Worm, there universe is quite heavily populated with people who have some superpowers (the protagonist can control insects, arachnids and other similar critters within a fairly wide range). There's a lot of the usual superhero vs supervillain stuff, but there's also Kaiju-style monsters called Endbringers who turn up from time to time to totally trash some place. The Endbringers hit hard and regenerate fast, can be hurt and driven away but are very tough, if not impossible, to kill.

If I were to run a DnD campaign now, I'd have such creatures smash places, let the players figure out how they're killed. Maybe DW.

Terriblefan

@kviiri Would they die if hit by a couple thousand brown recluse bites?

kviiri

5:42 PM

@Terriblefan I don't think so. They're basically composed of layers and layers of redundant flesh, with each layer deeper being tougher than the last.

Terriblefan

@kviiri Hmmm. Concentrated bites in one area to soften the flesh, then send in the composters!

kviiri

@Terriblefan One of the stronger things the protagonist does is combining a temporary ally's ability to freeze objects in time with her ability to manipulate spiders, to create a near-invisible perfectly stationary razor-sharp wire that cuts chunks out of anything trying to rush through.

Skathix

That's awesome

Currently we're using the 5 layers of horror for October to create a shadow temple

Terriblefan

@kviiri Ooh that's a good combo!

kviiri

Yeah. Worm's pretty good. It's just feeling a bit drawn out, I guess.

Skathix

5:47 PM

Where the players will feel more and more alone

kviiri

But I like how there's a lot of MacGyvering with unconventional superpowers.

Whenever I read it I get the hankering to incorporate stuff from it into my RPGs. Masked vigilantes, superpowered teams, and Endbringers.

Joel Harmon

6:24 PM

@Skathix What about 5e do you like so much you homebrew it into crazy stuff or, conversely, what prevents you from picking a system that's more in line with what you want in the first place?

Terriblefan

7:06 PM

Shalvenay

9:12 PM

hey there @JoelHarmon

BESW

9:38 PM

@kviiri Venture City?

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Shalvenay

9:56 PM

hey there @BESW and @Anaphory

Anaphory

Hey @Shalvenay!

BESW

[wave]

Anaphory

@BESW It does have some games in it which I wanted to read at some point and which I don't think I own, including Ron Edwards' stuff…

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Anaphory

(The other ones I thought about were 1001 nights, Ehdrigor and Our Last Best Hope)

Shalvenay

10:02 PM

also @kviiri -- I'd be willing to run a 1on1 5e oneshotish with you over roll20 if that works for you

Anaphory

@Shalvenay I should really go to bed, but somehow I switched on my computer instead and went here. Hm.

Shalvenay

muttering about EE.SE feeling like a wasteland to me at the moment, and also pondering what systems I should look to learn next in the RPG world

the concepts behind the AWE seem quite interesting, but I'm not sure if there truly is a suitable implementation of it for me

Anaphory

@Shalvenay So DW is not suitable?

Shalvenay

10:18 PM

@Anaphory it comes closer than say AW I suspect, but there are some trip-ups (I'm trying a Druid on for size, and the way I play the class is very scientific-naturalist vs. the mysticist approach the playbook implies)

Anaphory

The whole engine is very trope-based, so given that you are someone who – IIRC – does not play by tropes, I can see something like the Druid clashing in particular.

On that note: @BESW, any opinion of my analysis?

BESW

I think you're coming at the same idea from a different direction.

Anaphory

@Shalvenay I momentarily thought about suggesting Sagas of the Icelanders, but historicity does not mean you get on with it better per se, either.

CBredlow

Is a one shot typically a short dungeon crawl?

Anaphory

@CBredlow Are you referencing a specific system/chat message?

Otherwise, no.

BESW

10:25 PM

@CBredlow For systems/games where dungeon crawls are the common activity, yes. Otherwise, no.

Shalvenay

@CBredlow it can be. there are other backdrops that can be used, depending on the system and what the players wish to explore

@Anaphory yeah, BESW suggested I look at modern-era type settings

CBredlow

I've got the basic outline for a short adventure, but I think it may be longer than one session, but not by much. I didn't know if I need to trim out some extra to make it a one shot.

Shalvenay

@CBredlow aaah! there is value in short, two or three session games as well

BESW

Aug 28 at 4:33, by BESW

@Miniman I'm still learning how to implement this, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that in order to have a one-session adventure I need to prep a one-scene adventure.

Anaphory

@BESW I was about to quote that, even though not verbatim.

Shalvenay

10:29 PM

sort of the RPG difference between a short story and a novel if you will

BESW

But, yanno, a lot depends on your group's speed dynamics and how long your session time is.

Shalvenay

@BESW that is quite true as well

BESW

A lot of folks assume an RPG session will be at least 4 hours. That's about the absolute max my group can dedicate.

CBredlow

gotcha. I go to a game shop for a weekly game night, so party size is variable but the game session is 2 hours

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, IME, 4 hours is about as long as sessions go for me as well

harder to fit longer blocks of time in

Anaphory

10:31 PM

@Shalvenay I think the case that AWE is, in some sense, trope-reinforcing but otherwise (not that there is much outside that, if you look from the right angle) freeform probably means you should look for/hack a game you very much appreciate for its tropes.

@CBredlow For me also 2 hours is really short, and @BESW's self-cite above is really fitting here.

Shalvenay

@Anaphory if anything, that'd be moderately firm SF (EVE Online would be a good example, but you'd lose so much trying to capture it in a tabletop setting...)

CBredlow

yeah, it does feel really short. Like we start going and we do a couple things then it's time to stop

BESW

What system are you using?

Shalvenay

@CBredlow no doubt.

Anaphory

@CBredlow Yes. You can do one thing and finish it, not a couple.

Shalvenay

10:33 PM

@Anaphory there's also something to be said for bits and pieces of urban fantasy as well, but not the whole hog there though

BESW

'cause, like, in D&D 4e I'd expect 2 hours to cover a combat scene and a little RP, while in Fate I can do so much more.

CBredlow

@Anaphory So if I can find a way to break my adventure into solid 'chunks' where I can fit important parts to game time, that'd be optimal?

BESW

Two hours in Fate can cover "trick the guy in the bar to tell us where to go, fight lasers wolves on the way, nearly get killed by a fiendish trap, acquire the mystic artefact, and battle the rival who wants to steal it."

Anaphory

@BESW I need to get better at zooming-in-and-out.

BESW

@Anaphory Yeah, zooming is really crucial when real-life time is at stake.

Anaphory

10:36 PM

@BESW When isn't real-life time at stake! Or at least the fun-per-real-life-time ratio.

BESW

Well, for some groups the leisurely "everything at real time" pace of the game is part of the fun.

BESW

11:46 PM

So far as I can tell, this question is a history-of-design question; the answer is quite simply that aerial tracers only became a default visual aesthetic for spellcasting pretty recently: there's no legacy of glowing lines in the D&D franchise. Modern artists have adopted it, but the system itself isn't interested.

BESW

11:59 PM

Not to say that energized neon was unknown before the last two decades or so, but it only became ubiquitous with the advent of games like Warcraft and popular brushes like Obsidian Dawn's Arcane Circles.

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