WW/OP is really bad about eratas compaioed to WoTC
I have decided to end my cruisaide against the use of [tag:nwod-god-machine] with [tag:nwod]. At least for Crossover games. It is still my beleif that a Crossover game is normally a nwod-god-machine only game with some ported content. But I don't care anymore how it is tagged.
Onyx Path Devs are on the Onyx Path Forums (Particyularly Rose Baily (Vampire/Demon), and some freelancers show up in RPG.Net and very rarely here. Also Periodically a Onyx Path Dev will show up on /tg/ and answer all questions (Edwin or eric or something like that I can't remember the name).
Either I heavily misunderstood the gift (so much so that I can't see how I misunderstood it) or since they didn't specify certain things the gift is not worth it.
The Dual Senses rule allows a Werewolf to see across the Gauntlet with two penalties, firstly they cannot see clearly, the vision they get is blurred and fogged. The second penalty is of course not being able to see the side of the Gauntlet you're standing in. The only way you can see clearly i...
Random probably unanswerable ponderage: To what extent does the Oberoni fallacy contribute to the number of GMs and the kind of person who becomes a GM?
(And how has this changed over the history of RPGs?)
@Emrakul Yeah. A common complaint is that nobody wants to GM, and in fact early on in gaming history Rule 0 was in part described as a bribe of power to get reluctant gamers to take up the GM mantle.
Speaking for myself, I generally prefer to play rather than GM. I ended up GMing Shadowrun years ago because it was the only way I'd get to play in that world/system. And I'm only GMing D&D 3.5 now, because our other game kept getting postponed due to unavailability, and nobody else was willing to run it. (and now, my game keeps getting postponed due to illness, and the other game is running on schedule, minus some players)
I prefer not to GM, because I don't want that responsibility? Maybe. But, more like, I don't want to run the whole world & worry about balanced encounters etc. Much more fun to just embody one character, to me.
Glaivelock build doesn't require weapons, and there are a list of stackable bonuses too.
Add to that a dip into Battledancer, and with Saint's AC bonus... Feral too. You'd be rocking AC so high armor would seem redundant. The only thing the build's lacking is SR and reactive resistance but I can deal.
Dip Binder so you don't have to worry about Hellfire Warlock's con drain and you don't have to get items to do that.
Between DR, AC, and fast healing... You'd be one tough cookie.
VoP is an universally weak option, as it's always better to have adaptable money-derived benefits than fixed benefits (and pure numbers-wise, you're losing effective bonuses compared to someone using the wealth expected at any given level).
From a purely optimisation-for-power standpoint, it's a bad choice.
I've used it when optimising for other considerations, deliberately reducing the complexity and power of my character.
If it's for RP or meta-game reasons, that's obviously a different kettle of fish. But when I asked why you chose it, you said it was because it'd make for a powerful character.
And I can dump a good portion of my gold into the party fund, so my fellow champions of good can use it, and the rest I can donate to various churches.
The flavor fits, and mechanically it also stacks well enough that it won't cripple this build
Most builds need weapons, mine doesn't. Many builds need armor, mine does not. I don't even need spell components, healing, or many other things most adventurers need.
> Having a character in the party who has taken a vow of poverty should not necessarily mean that the other party members get bigger shares of treasure! An ascetic character must be as extreme in works of charity as she is in self-denial. The majority of her share of party treasure (or the profits from the sale thereof) should be donated to the needy. [emphasis mine]
If your GM is willing to overlook or re-work that paragraph, that's fine. But as worded, "A good portion of your gold" should not be going to the party.
it would still be my allotment, and the "party fund" is not increasing shares to the party.
It is "as needed for the good of the party"
"As needed for the success of the mission"
"As needed to further the good cause we work for"
It's essentially a pool of money everyone contributes to and people take when needed. Thus far we haven't touched it.
A good portion could vary alot. Most treasure items would go to the party member that needs them the most regardless (last encounter we had a good 75% of the loot went to one dude, it was all caster stuff and he was the only caster in the party).
The only thing that gets split in "shares" in this party is the stuff we sell.
Hmm... Can Subduing Strike make Eldritch Glaive nonlethal? That would be quite interesting... and make Vow of Peace a viable option.
Finally dropping swordsage if I can get the Saint template.
But I might consider dropping Swordsage if I can't still... I need to chat with my DM the implications of the Saint template, how they interact with say Hellfire Warlock (I know there's a flavor adaptation in there, but that's DM option).
Dropping Phrenic altogether too I think... Too much to worry about.
There's also the problem that one of my party members is Lawful Evil... And another is Chaotic Good leaning towards Chaotic Neutral. The CG is the Hulk, and him I can work on and steer probably. The LE is the Trip God (now with demonic wings). He's not an outsider, but I doubt he'd be willing to convert. I'd be worried that that would hurt my Sainthood.
Hey, I have a question about posting links... When I tried to post a link to some creatures from the compendium it says that I'm not allowed to post links from D&Dinsider; however, I got the links originally from a question I asked previously...
Sailing the seas! Raiding ships! Getting various liver and oral diseases! Drinking rum! Getting wooden limbs! Getting into fights and losing teeth! Getting wooden teeth!
and instead of saying it verbally as "that pirates arr pee gee", I can call it the "yaharrr pee gee". The book will instruct the reader to try and make the "yahar" part sound as piratey as possible.
ARRG is swiftly becoming my favourite reference guide for Fate implementations.
I really REALLY like going back to the choose-as-you-go initiative order.
Oooh...
> The best way to understand stress is that it represents all the various reasons why you just barely avoid taking the full force of an attack. [...] Stress boxes also represent a loss of momentum—you only have so many last-second saves in you before you’ve got to face the music.
Evil Hat is getting better and better at explaining Fate mechanics.
Although ARRG is using mental and physical stress boxes, and I'm still not seeing a good reason for that beyond "legacy."
At some point along here I'm going to write up "BESW's sweet spot for the Fate dials."
Oh, and the book uses frames/pages from the actual comics to illustrate the mechanics in action.
Oooer. They've got a group pool of consequences which simultaneously do four things: It lets the party hang on through ridiculously challenging events; it modles the impact of the party's actions on the environment; it encourages the group to clean up its messes (as you have to remove a mild or moderate collateral consequence right away or it sticks around for a long time); and it forces character and setting development (as severe and extreme consequences help define the next story).
@doppelgreener No, though it's somewhat similar in its dynamism.
We implemented it toward the end of our D&D 4e campaign, and I rather liked it.
We'd lay out index cards on the table with everybody's name on one card. Then we'd roll initiative like normal to see who goes first.
When that person's turn was over, they'd turn over their card and choose who went after them from the face-up cards.
Then that person, at the end of his turn, would turn over his card and choose who went next from the remaining face-up cards.
Repeat until all the cards are facedown: end of the round, turn all the cards face-up again and the last person in the previous round picks the first person in the next round.
This was great for a tactical game like 4e, and I imagine it's just as good for a narrative game like Fate.
@Magician It's exactly the same. If someone obviously initiated the conflict, they go first. Otherwise roll skills (in ARRG, it's modes) as appropriate to determine the first turn.
There are two stores in the city here that reliably stock RPGs: Good Games and Ace Comics & Games. The former can't stock it, the latter's ordered it but it hasn't arrived yet.
This is partly because many extras are equipment on loan from your Science Organisation sponsor rather than your own stuff, so you'll be gaining and losing them between scenes and stories.
If you bring a Tesladyne Charged Particle Beam Cannon to a fight, the GM has the resources to ensure you'll need a Tesladyne Charged Particle Beam Cannon in that fight.
I have realised I have a destructive pattern I am now catching and avoiding:
1. Decide I want to do a thing. 2. Start doing the thing. 3. Doing the thing is going pretty well. Get more ambitious, and decide I want to do some extra things too. 4. The extra things prove difficult/impossible. 5. Stop doing the thing AND the extra things.
I am tuning down #3 where I think I should just finish #2 before #3. I am also replacing #5 with "Stop doing the extra things, just do the original thing."
@doppelgreener I don't think we're talking about the same Thing(tm) here. Since for legal reasons the Thing(tm) can only ever be referred to as the Thing(tm).
@Miniman Oh. I don't know this variety of the Thing(tm).
@BESW also various little web experiments like the Kittens game have let me relax: the first version can have loads of imperfections, it just needs to be fairly functional.
@Magician The kittens game. It's a progress game, like Cookie Clicker. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
And for the love of everyone in this channel and their productivity, I know sometimes we star messages that share resources or sites, but don't star that message.
ARRG has subsystems dealing with inventing Weird Things and figuring out what Weird Things the PCs are encountering. In both systems, there's a brilliant little bit of Fate narrative authority:
When Action Scientists are hypothesising about Weird Science, they're never wrong. They either figure out what Weird Science is happening, or they don't, but they're never WRONG about an answer they come up with. This means the players get to tell the GM significant things about the plot.
And when Action Scientists are inventing Weird Things, they never fail: instead the invention process's mechanical purpose is to figure out what it does well and what its flaws are, and whether the players or the GM get to choose for each of those.
So if I turn on my calibrifier, and unexpectedly it begins melting and channeling lightning from the sky, my character could shout out over the racket: "THE ELECTROMAGNETIC ACTIVITY MUST HAVE REVERSED THE POLARITY!!" - they might never find out whether that was truly the case, but because they guessed it was, that's what was happening?
So it starts with a series of opposed checks by all the Action Scientists involved in the brainstorm. The winner of each round gets to establish a fact related to the Weird Thing they're trying to figure out.
If, after three rounds of this, there aren't at least three facts, they don't have enough information to form a hypothesis. This means the GM gets to place an aspect like Science can't explain it! to represent their puzzlement.
But if there are at least three facts, then everyone rolls again to see who gets to combine those facts into a hypothesis to explain the Weird Thing.
The hypothesis is an aspect with free invokes based on how many facts informed it, and the hypothesis is always true.
So it's basically the players vying to come up with various true statements about the Weird Thing which one of them gets to combine into an explanation of the Weird Thing.
In fact, that part of the book concludes with a few paragraphs about how the GM may get to just sit back and listen during a brainstorm, but should always be ready to take advantage of opportunities to compel them for drama.
> “Seems like a Team Player wouldn’t be so adamant about advancing his own ideas when another scientist’s have already gained traction. I don’t know; maybe it’s just me.”
> “Strong and weak forces? Really? And not the Freemasons? Does that sound like something a Conspiracy Theorist would buy into?”
This whole "Action Scientists are never wrong" thing is actually rather similar in concept to the DFAE "If you can perform a ritual, it always works" idea.
I suspect we're seeing a relatively recent Evil Hat epiphany.
> Now that you know the invention’s purpose, it’s time to decide how it actually works—in game terms, anyway. Don’t sweat the actual science too much. Let the characters worry about that.
(This defines the difficulty of the Science roll to make the thing, how many complications it introduces to the story, and whether the player or the GM chooses those complications.)
Complications can be just adding points to the GM's Fate pool, or the process of making the invention has a "catch," some story complication which might require its own adventure to resolve.
Bweheheh. Catch: You attract the attention of Majestic 12. Serious catch: You attract the attention of Dr. Dinosaur.
...Am I just blind/forgetful, or is ARRG the first time a Fate game explicitly says that the teamwork bonus on mobs doesn't apply in situations where being numerous wouldn't help?
Can someone explain to me why when I try to @name in a comment nothing happens and it just disappear when I post the comment? It is especially common with names consisting of 2 or more words?
so, it isn't anywhere near set in stone yet, but I am thinking of a character in Atomic Robo who specializes in botany, fire of some kind, and spaceship building
and it looks like it is insanely simple and easy to make that happen
@BESW I want to make a character who is obsessed with the Sun, the study of the Sun, the benefits the Sun has (one of the biggest ones could be plants and photosynthesis) and at least for now, I think his ultimate goal would be to be the first person to fly a ship into, or onto the Sun,... at least without dieing.
though it is at least possible, or even likely, that no one else has tried it before
Hmm. I like it, though the ultimate goal might be problematic: it's specific enough that it's going to be hard to get the character to engage with the goal meaningfully without railroading the rest of the party into it.
in the meantime he would be doing,... whatever they are doing. and in whatever spare time he has he would be researching stuff
my intent does not absolutely include him succeeding at it any time anywhere even near soon
or possibly even at all, though I admit it would be cool XD
he has other more short term goals that can easily be woven in with the party, at least mostly
in the long term they would all converge to his main goal, but none of that means they are not useful for our narrative needs, at least as far as making sure his main goal doesn't consume the plot
I was thinking, if I take a weird mode, it would probably involve him having given himself plantlike properties, like photosynthesis.
or in a different approach, some kind of fire resistance
but the first one might be more appealing, especially since I have already thought of amusing drawbacks for it
it does seem to be at least "possible" to take both, but I dunno if that is such a good idea. they are both pretty small ideas at the moment.
So, here's something I've been thinking about for our group: we really like long-form campaigns, but we can't sustain the regular attendance needed for character-driven long-form gameplay.
In rock-'em sock-'em combat games like D&D 4e, I could just tie the plot to the one character I knew would show up regularly: @trogdor's.
With DFAE? Just barely, and it's the result of a lot more brainpower on my part than I want to dedicate on a regular basis. It's not sustainable for me.
We do have slightly more regular attendance from Greener and Dan, which is nice, but I don't want to lean on them too much.
But here's my idea for after our Currently Scheduled Lineup (DFAE, Doctor Who Accelerated): Obviously we're going to be trying out Atomic Robo, and that gives a golden opportunity.
The Atomic Robo comics are about one main character who has a lot of short stories, and each short story features different secondary characters working with him.
They jump around through time and space over a wide timeline.
So if @trogdor can come up with a lynchpin character, then whoever shows up in a given week can slot in around him.
And on the days @trogdor doesn't want to play the lynchpin, we can do a side mission with Totally Different Characters doing something tangentially related to the main plot, sort of a "Meanwhile..."
@trogdor Yeah, I'm not saying it has to be Atomic Robo.
We could actually be working toward his goal until he accomplishes it (or dies trying) and then move to another of your PC concepts (notice that I'm not even questioning whether you'll have other concepts to use).
Okay, so basically he's trying to make an invention which gets him to the Sun safely.
We've got rules for making inventions!
The amount of stunts and mega-stunts necessary for this invention to accomplish its job is insane, which means that it requires a lot of catches and serious catches.
Catches, and serious catches in particular, are often complications which need to be overcome before the invention can be built.
This means that just "making the invention" will be complicated enough to provide multiple "issues" worth of story to get the right experts to help, acquire the right rare materials, etc.
Right. But instead of you framing your participation in a larger game as "Doctor Light is joining your mission because he wants your help later," we can frame the game as "Doctor Light needs your help to accomplish his mission."
and even with the three fields of expertise I am currently thinking of, this character would definitely still need a lot of help making sure every aspect of his goal was accounted for
even just in a scientific way, let alone needing combat help
So I don't want to play a spell caster anymore but I don't want to lose the versatility of playing a caster. Is there a good martial class that can nearly match a caster's versatility in Pathfinder?
.....and the Atomic Robo equivalent of Chandler's Law is "A BIG DAMN EXPLOSION."
> A BIG DAMN EXPLOSION: something that ought to not explode does. Don’t feel the need to enforce harm from A BIG DAMN EXPLOSION. It’s there to motivate players, to force action from them. Sometimes, sure, that action can be a trip to the hospital, but mostly you just want your players to get things rolling again by making some quick decisions while under (or on) fire.
Oh my. There's a table to roll Fudge dice for random factions. Four blanks is Dr. Dinosaur.
I'll post the story paragraph when i finsihed writing it.
I stand in the middle of the field. The bodies all around me. Where did the bodies come from? They aren't dead... not yet. But broken and beaten, yes.
I reach for them with my feet-roots. I sink my toes-tendrils deep. My blood-sap fills with there life-sap. I spread my arm-branchs. I grow taller into the sky.
They bring more peoples-fertiliser,victems-food. I sup upon them. I grow the bloodrose for him. The life-fruit, the heart-apple. He will be pleased with my gift.
The Dual Senses rule allows a Werewolf to see across the Gauntlet with two penalties, firstly they cannot see clearly, the vision they get is blurred and fogged. The second penalty is of course not being able to see the side of the Gauntlet you're standing in. The only way you can see clearly i...
