Yeah I'm not personally sold on the 'mother-may-I-ness' that was reintroduced. I liked being able to have a real starting point of 'does this work?' Before going in to ask for something. OTOH, with less codified and rigid rules you have more flex in what char's can become/do.
there are things that 3.5e does better IMO (if you want a high-power/high-magic game and are willing to embrace the breakage that results, 3.5e can be very good at that)
That's a real sweet-spot in 3.5; it's when 'it all starts to come together' and a concept 's abilities start to come online. I'm told that 5th has mor of that feel throughout most play, but obv, I've not experienced that yet ;)
it's my first try at a high-level dungeon (4-5 5th, 4 6th, or 3 7th), my first attempt at full-custom creature designs, and also a combat-heavy dungeon
ancient-but-still-used-public-works-crypt/mini-catacomb that came down with a case of the zombies
party is tasked with shutting down the zombie spawner before the apocalypse starts ;)
@Shalvenay I am available around this time until your monday (I'm at GMT+8). I dont think youll want to play in the mornings like we did with my playtests, right?
@BESW not much. Debating between leveling Cleric to 2 or Warlock to 3 on D&D5e but I have time. It'll probably take another 2 games before I actually level
and wondering if anyone is going to run for mod but that's another issue entirely
Line breaks are turned into spaces on the star bar, so the markdown is broken in chat but magically fixes itself in the pin while preserving the ability to have all that extra character space.
Not really. I think a lot of people just wanted to get recognised for their work, and/or are already known by a namey type name in association with game design.
I think it'd be good for a 3.5 expert to take a gander at this question. I'm wary of a post with four numbered questions, but perhaps the system-savvy can tell better than I how closely/fundamentally related the parts are?
@nitsua60 I'm happy to edit that if you think it's too much like multiple questions. The sub-questions are all closely related to whether the overall strategy works, but it could probably be asked in a way that looks less like multiple questions
@A_S00 It feels a little like a question with partial-answer included. My gut says that the base question "can you avoid demoralization by simply closing my eyes at the right time?" is fine without you breaking it out so much, and that it's the answers that should be doing so. But I don't really know.
@ATaco No. Because I immediately bench them, so that they know what they've done wrong.
@nitsua60 Hm, I tend to include more info than that for Show Your Work reasons, I guess? Like it feels like asking the question without pointing out the relevant rules that I've found while attempting to answer it on my own is a lazier, less complete question/
But maybe it like biases answers toward ones that depend on the rules I've found and discourages others?
iunno either. Show Your Work's a good point, too. I'd say just watch the sorts of answers and comments that come in, and if things get out of whack perhaps (but just perhaps) this might be a factor. We'll see =)
The '3rd' question is mostly redundant due to the type of action question; action type determines when you can do them, unless the ability says otherwise.
@Chemus I included it in case the answer is "free action that you can take on another character's turn," which is a thing that weirdly exists but I'm kind of unclear on which free actions you can do it with
it could probably be folded into 2 though
yeah I guess all of the examples I know of do specify in their text
From the most upvoted questions... "Are there any cultures that developed maps not based on the N-E-S-W cardinal system?" Yes. Including whatever culture you're part of, no matter what culture that is. "How do you create a map of your surrounding when your only tools are paper, pen and a magnetic compass?" What tools are missing from that list which thousands of years of cartographers had ready access to? Or do you mean "How can I draw a map without a solid writing surface?" "What metadata should every map include?" The data appropriate to the map's purpose.
I don't even know what to say about "Why were some medieval maps made in Latin?"
What she's published so far has been short stories & novellas. 3 shorts + 1 novella = a little under 200 pages. She usually gets me (& others) to read through after each draft (about 4-5?), then again when formatting for ebook, and again when formatting for POD. (And still we've found errors in the printed proof copies...)
Well, I tried running it twice, and both times it turned into an over-the-top comedy, so apparently horror isn't my thing either. Hard to scare your players when they have ridiculous super powers.
I'm told that the key to horror is helplessness. Esp helplessness to save others that you can see or communicate with. So ppl on a phone/radio get slaughtered while you're talking w/ them, etc.
The players 'succeed' in killing the monster, which turns out to be almost exactly like them; 'there but for the Grace of God' etc. A mirror caricature.
@Chemus It's easier when the players know that you're indifferent to the system killing their characters. I think active sadism or fudging in their favor might kill the fear quite a bit both ways.
@Chemus What I've found makes the difference has always been not actually showing the horror.
People mysteriously disappearing, creepy noises, movement in your peripheral vision are all effective horror, whereas a big monster in your face is "oh hey, it's a monster". We see too many monsters for them to be really effective.
@Miniman OK, I can see that. I'm not cathartized by horror like some, just weirded out. I don't even watch horror films; I unhappily watched The Shining... 20+ yrs ago, and the 'worst' since then have been on par with The Sixth Sense.
@WrongOnTheInternet That's a pretty good point; 'I'm not out to get you...but something is.
@Chemus As a player, you feel scared when you see the guy who has been around since session one get nearly drowned by a tentacle, while you play tug of war to try and stop this thing from killing him
@Chemus One of the most effective horror experiences I had wasn't actually meant to be horror at all - playing a bog-standard FPS, but there was no fighting in the first ~10 minutes. I was so on edge, waiting for something to attack me, it was ridiculous.
Nightmares of Mine breaks down horror into content, intent, and type, and talks about how horror really isn't a single coherent genre but rather a collection of very different kinds of scariness.
It breaks down horror by its tropes ("The Bad Place," "The Grotesque," "The Serial Killer," and so forth). Then by the kind of scare it imparts ("Dread," "Terror," "Gore,"). Then by setting: high fantasy, sword and sorcery, gothic horror, western horror, UFO horror, and so on.
@Chemus Portal was a bizarre experience for me. I spent about 5 hours going "OK, when is the first chapter going to end so I can close the game and get on with my life." Then the game ended and I had a moment of total discombobulation.
eg, Dread (creeping fear of an unknown quantity), Terror (adrenaline-pumping moments), Gore (being forced to endure something horrific for a period of time without looking away).
@BESW I think Dread is what I associate most with horror, then. Clench moments. Terror is usually more just Excitement, and Gore kind of has a blunted effect.
@WrongOnTheInternet Me too - Terror works if it's not overused, but it's a momentary thing. I guess I'm just too desensitized to properly appreciate Gore. Whereas prolonged Dread has a definite impact on me.
@Chemus Moderation in moderation can be moderately moderating.
For me, dread is only useful when I'm actually alone IRL (can be multiplayer over internet, but I gotta be alone) as it gets the superstitious monkey in me lookin over his shoulder into the darkness a lot.
@Chemus I'll have to think about that - I can't recall any strong Dread experiences in company, but I do most of my media consumption alone anyway, so that doesn't prove much.
Great Ork Gods has more sudden meaningless death than Cthulhu Dark, for example, but the former is designed for slapstick games and the latter for cosmic horror games.
@BESW Is a game scarier if it's actively attempting for a horrific mood, or if it's just an system that propels characters to their doom at the whims of chance?
@Chemus Death is actually literally a god controlled by one of the players, but yes.
(Every player runs an Ork PC, but also controls at least one god. Whatever an Ork does which requires a roll, the god presiding over that kind of action determines the difficulty of the roll. And any god can spend Spite to increase the difficulty.)
On the other hand, it's almost impossible to fail any action except attacking a monster in Cthulhu Dark--you just have varying degrees of success and the risk of losing sanity. But losing too much sanity turns you into an NPC, and attacking a monster automatically kills you.
GOG is about failing hilariously. Cthulhu Dark is about it not mattering that you succeed.
@BESW Well, it probably matters to a degree. Horrible abominations might still destroy the world, but you can at least turn the doomsday clock back a few minutes.
@BESW Please don't get me wrong, your explanations have been great and helpful (Oz?) It's just taht they underscore that as entertainment, they're really not for me.
A couple of my players really like horror in situations where they feel safe about it, so I've put some effort into finding the edges of my own lines and veils.
Definitions
We all have our limits and boundaries. Lines and veils are different ways to handle those boundaries in play.
A line is, well, a line — a hard limit, something we do not want to cross. Lines represent places we don't want to go in roleplaying.
"There is no torture in the event...
In broad outline, you're not wrong: RPGs tend to get people into narrative spaces they wouldn't normally go in casual social interaction, and it's useful to have tools specifically designed to help us remember to respect peoples' boundaries and feel comfortable about speaking up when we aren't cool with what's going on.
In my other party, which incidentally also deals with a cult, I dropped the slightest clue about the true identity of the main villain. They guessed it almost immediately. Good times!
I'm trying something else with my Party #2, a more Apocalypse World -ish way of plothooks... I'm throwing trouble at them to see how they deal with it, not just the usual opportunities.
Some PC had a plan that required something else, that required something else... etc. When it began to involve flying a floating island through a portal on Mars I managed to convince her to try an other way
@AnneAunyme In AW, there's Threats - basically anything that can cause people harm. Gangs, diseases, beasts, weird phenomena, even particularly terrible buildings.
Each threat has an associated list of moves that the GM can trigger to narrate something the Threat does to draw the need for the players to react. For example, the Gangs have something like "demand tribute from a population". Whenever there's a gap in action, something like that happens.
In addition, many playbooks (≃ classes) have in-built sources of threat - the Hocus has a cult that can misbehave, the Hardholder rules over a holding of people who might misbehave, the Chopper reigns over a biker gang who will misbehave...
But basically, the idea is that the threats come for the players, where typically in DnD the players go for the threats (because threats have experience and loot!).
I'm doing a bit of both - the players can go on quests as usual, but they're also being stalked by a Night Hag who is going to be a huge pain until they find a way to dispose of her.
Yeah. Apocalypse World characters aren't really expected to be heroes who solve others' trouble... although they often wind up doing something like that anyway :)
(not saying that they should not care for others, but they aren't really expected to - a game works quite well with selfish player characters too)
Regarding this, I wish our AW2e books shipped already. It's been almost a year since we signed up for the Kickstarter, and the original estimate was in Q4 2016.
If the PDF wasn't ready, I'd think Vincent was a hoax.
OK, so I've got an idea for a puzzle where there are a bunch of paintings on a wall, and behind each painting is a lever. The only way to open the door is to pull on the correct lever(s), and the answer to a riddle hints at which painting they should be looking at.
So what I'm asking is - does anyone know any good, D&D appropriate riddles?
@BESW When I was a kid, there was a popular joke that I present in a slightly sanitized version: "What doesn't fit over your ears and doesn't make a sound? Soviet-made earphones." A year or so ago, I heard a younger student make the exact same joke, except the "Soviet-made" was replaced by "Kickstarter-funded".
In a later campaign, I had a tomb where access to each level was blocked by an angel with a riddle describing previous campaign events in Revelatory language. The point was to get the players to think about what they'd learnt and experienced and put it together, so any answer even vaguely related to the subject was acceptable.
@DrRDizzle Can you tell us more about these paintings? What are they of, and how detailed are the descriptions to your players? Or do you have pictures to show of them?
Pictures have some advantages, because you can be subtle with them.
It's going to be the first "test" in a series of trials designed to weed out the weak before it gets too dangerous, so I'm OK with the riddles being pretty much trivial.
@DrRDizzle I was thinking of something subtle like all three paintings being portraits of people, and one facing the different way. You know, they usually don't face straight towards the viewer, but slightly diagonal - make one face slightly left instead of slightly right or vice versa. Extra points because you can throw in something about "turning the other cheek" in the riddle.
But stuff like that requires, in practice, that you include the actual pictures - because if you say "the painting is of an old man, wearing military decorations, facing slightly left" - that reveals that the facing is crucial. Luckily, plenty of portaits can be found in Wikipedia, for instance. Just pick someone obscure enough not to draw too much attention as a historical figure :)
All I have so far is "what has a head and a tail, but no body" (a coin) and "what has 6 fair faces and 21 eyes" (a die), and the correct painting would be of a gamblers den.
There might be a caveat that the way of facing the painter could be one of those highly standardized things in European painting, at least. Some image manipulation to flip the image can help you there.
On drive to work, I thought of another problem with markovchain's locate object reasoning: you can't use a relative location to find something when you don't know where the locaiton of the object it is relative to is (the mona lisa)
a piece of lead blocking my direct path to the mona lisa probably is specific enough to warrant being considered a specific lead object, not a kind of lead object
The concept of describing an object in relation to a different object isn't explicitly in the spell description. Sure, you can argue that the spell would have to be able to find the fixed object first (which it can't in this case) or that the "description" of the object should be inherent, not circumstantial, but neither of those options are forbidden by the spell directly.
> Describe or name an object that is familiar to you. You sense the direction to the object's location, as long as that object is within 1,000 feet of you. If the object is in motion, you know the direction of its Movement.
The spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close - within 30 feet - at least once. Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon.
I think it's an issue if you're not familiar with the lead sheet
I think familiarity is pretty well described by the spell. It says "the spell can locate a specific object known to you, as long as you have seen it up close - within 30 feet - at least once." There is your familiarity.
The second paragraph as a whole is qualifying what it means to be familiar with something.
Definitions
We all have our limits and boundaries. Lines and veils are different ways to handle those boundaries in play.
A line is, well, a line — a hard limit, something we do not want to cross. Lines represent places we don't want to go in roleplaying.
"There is no torture in the event...
