TRPG General Chat

Magician

2:02 PM

Even that doesn't fit generically.

Life of a 1st level AD&D character was many things, but 'complex' or 'dense' is not how I would describe it.

No Such Thing as D&D and all that.

BESW

Aye.

eimyr

@Magician "Dense" is how I would describe some AD&D design choices.

BESW

D&D settings also quickly became dense and complex.

So even with the simplest character (which was often a matter of navigating dense choices which wound up being less dense in play), your interaction with the world might be highly complex.

Magician

@BESW Tolkien being an universal inspiration must have had something to do with that.

BESW

@Magician Perhaps. But look at the proliferation of settings in early D&D too.

In addition to increasing the complexity of existing settings, the density of settings available increased rapidly.

eimyr

2:05 PM

It's hard to generically summarise a system that spans several decades, extremely wide variety of options and diverse editions, that has codified the RPG culture as a whole, then became skub and every time managed to defend itself from the changing playerbase.

Magician

I dunno. Quintessential D&D for me is very simple: go into dungeons to kill weird things and take their stuff.

2

BESW

Yes, but that's a purely Thermian view.

I guess I'm looking at the meta- and ludo-narrative experience as well.

Magician

@BESW Thermian?

BESW

The Thermians of Galaxy Quest are aliens who cannot experience meta-narrative because they're unable to conceive of fiction.

Argument of a fiction from within itself as a thing which exists in its own right, rather than as a construct created by design choices, is Thermian.

In other words, I'm looking for a description of the experience of playing D&D, rather than a description of the experience of living within it.

Magician

That... seems to discount immersion. The experience of playing D&D is rather dull: you roll pieces of plastic and do maths.

eimyr

2:13 PM

Well, first you need to ask a more fundamental question, @BESW. Does the game assume or encourage a specific style of roleplaying or specific narrative choices from you as a player or a GM, implicitly or explicitly?

BESW

Playing Fate is about players making interesting choices for their characters; playing WH40k is about players making grimdark choices for their characters. In both cases the characters may (will) often not be willing parties to these choices. The experience of "making grimdark choices" isn't something a WH40k PC wants; it's what his player wants.

eimyr

E.g. Fate... exactly

BESW

So if we frame a specific game's experience as "making [adjective] choices," what choices does, say, D&D 3.5, forefront?

Or is NSTAD&D so pervasive that such statements are mu?

eimyr

Well... from my point of view it would be "limited".

Miniman

@BESW Mostly making gameplay choices.

eimyr

2:16 PM

D&D always appeared to me as a game about picking stuff from a list and then using it to be able to pick more stuffs from a fancier list

Everything else is secondary and much less supported by the game.

BESW

@eimyr You have also described character generation and advancement in the Apocalypse World Engine.

Can we drill down further?

eimyr

@BESW Which is not a bad thing and there can be multiple systems with similar choice axioms

Magician

@BESW This. As much as one group might "make mechanical choices" from a list, another would make "funny" or "heroic" choices.

All somewhat supported by the game.

And by group I mean individual players, because all too often it happens within one group.

Miniman

@Magician All the choices are mechanical choices, the outcomes are funny/heroic/something else.

eimyr

@Miniman Contrary, Fate is not at all about picking from a list. You come up with stuff yourself, and mechanics make it work within the game, whatever you came up with.

Miniman

2:19 PM

@eimyr I mean that in D&D all the choices are mechanical choices.

eimyr

So not all choices are mechanical. These are clearly narrative, only abstracted by mechanics.

BESW

@Magician Would it then be reasonable to say that D&D 3.5 is about "choosing your choices"?

eimyr

Oh, OK, sorry.

Magician

@Miniman Nope. Some choose to use Power Attack taking a -2 penalty, because that's the optimal hit chance to damage ratio for them. Others choose to throw chickens at the enemy because that's how they're entertained.

@BESW ummm. What game isn't?

eimyr

I think it's BESW's point.

@BESW But isn't the finite list the core bit in that statement?

Miniman

2:20 PM

@Magician Right. They make a choice to throw chickens at the enemy. This is a choice of which mechanic to use and what to do with it. The outcome is amusing, where the outcome of the Power Attack is optimal but not interesting, but it's still a mechanical choice.

eimyr

You only ever have so many choices to pick. And that also explains why there are scores of supplements with additional lists to pick from.

Magician

One of the big criticisms aimed at 4e was that it narrowed down the choices available in a fight to a list of options. Ergo to many people, it wasn't the case in 3.5

BESW

Fate says "Choose interesting things." Call of Cthulhu says "Choose horrifying things." D&D 3.5 says... "Choose why you choose things"?

Magician

@Miniman But they don't choose based on that metric. Yes, mechanics get involved at some point, but, again, that happens in every game.

eimyr

Weren't there a similar list in 3.5e?

Magician

2:22 PM

@eimyr Shhhh!

eimyr

It seems that the one in 4e got noticed, but each edition had prescribed maneuvers, spells and whatnot. Maybe the 4e ones were more uniform?

Magician

@BESW Well. PCs in CoC aren't normally supposed to seek self-destruction.

BESW

So, while some games have implicit or explicit choice parameters, we're saying that 3.5 doesn't? Or are we saying that 3.5 offers players the choice? Or something else?

eimyr

Further than that, it seems that in 4e it was a conscious design choice to make the lists more like each other to promote this style of play more strongly.

BESW

@Magician Again, are we talking about the choices made by PCs or by players?

Magician

2:24 PM

@BESW Either, in this case. While there's some expectation that players will pursue the mystery and try and avert the eldritch horror, there's no expectation that they'll seek the ruination of their characters. Contrast that with Fiasco, where that's the goal.

It's mostly on the GM to provide the horror in CoC, players just react to it.

eimyr

Well, I was thinking of the players, actually.

Magician

I think... I think it's kind of late, and my brain may not work well. But I think that a lot of games don't strongly encourage any kind of choices. In fact, I'd wager that's a relatively recent development.

And for "old school" systems it's important that they can accommodate any and all kinds of choices, or pretend that they can.

eimyr

Strongly, I agree. Many games have no explicit choice paradigms. However equally many have implicit, soft encouragement ingrained in their systems, mechanical or narrative.

World of Darkness does it implicitly, but a certain degree of overacting, brooding and theatrical excess in roleplaying is evident when applying the systems in play.

Magician

And "old school" (for lack of better term) players rail against systems that tell them how to play. Hence the opposition to the newer stuff.

eimyr

@Magician I think you mean "rally". It took me a second.

Magician

2:30 PM

@eimyr The description I've seen repeatedly, is that WoD thinks you'll be playing angsty drama about their tormented existence, but majority of players wants to wear trenchcoats and wield dual silver katanas.

@eimyr I actually checked before posting as I wasn't certain. "Rail: complain or protest strongly and persistently about."

eimyr

@Magician In a similar fashion, new-school (modern?) players scowl at D&D for the exact same reason. They are accustomed to systems that limit the narrative choices but not mechanical or storytelling ones. D&D and friends do the opposite.

Magician

...maybe "against" was the wrong choice there.

eimyr

@Magician I thought of come together again in order to continue fighting after a defeat or dispersion. or a mass meeting of people making a political protest or showing support for a cause. as a noun

I learn something every day.

BESW

"Rail against" is idiomatic.

Magician

"To attack with harsh, often insulting language". I see.

eimyr

2:33 PM

@Magician You seem to conflate the games. Vampire fits your description perfectly, Werewolf a bit, Mage not at all.

BESW

"Rally against" is also structurally sound, but would imply more organisation while "rail against" implies more individual fervor.

Now, for me, the bed.

ttfn

Magician

G'night!

eimyr

@Magician Also, oWoD is like that, while CofD (nWoD) brought the game in line with the way it was played.

@BESW nighty night

BESW

(Good discussion! I remain intrigued by the original concept and am a little closer to having a formed opinion.)

Magician

@eimyr My experience with WoD is very limited.

Hm. Having thought about it a bit, I'd say Call of Cthulhu players are expected to make futile choices.

...or they can just blow shoggoths up with dynamite, that works too.

Polyducks

2:39 PM

@Magician

I had some bad experiences with Call of Cthulhu. I played in a game with no monsters and it was very repetitive - but from what I gather no monsters are good monsters in Cthulhu.

Magician

I've never actually played CoC. But I've run plenty of horror, most of which has been lovecraftian.

Polyducks

What is the Lovecraftian appeal? Is it meant to be quite slow paced?

Magician

The original stories by Lovecraft did tend to build up slowly, but I'd hardly choose that as the defining feature.

I'd say that part was to do with the scenario you played and nothing else.

eimyr

Also, Lovecraftian also means vague and unexplained.

Magician

It's hard to run investigative games, even harder if they're meant to be horror as well. The first two games I ran, out of a book, were horrible. Players didn't know what to do, neither did I, they bounced around for a few days achieving nothing, then the Big Evil Thing happened and they fought it. The end.

eimyr

2:44 PM

HPL stories mostly dealt with an unnerving, eerie sensation that wasn't cause by specific danger, but one that is poorly understood and intimately personal.

@Magician Fear and sorrow, in that order, are the greatest testament to GM's skill, if the GM can invoke it in the players.

@Polyducks let's take a simple story, a ghost in the attic is haunting a man, and run it through some settings, k?

Polyducks

@Magician We must have played the same game. That's pretty much how it went for me

@eimyr okay

Magician

@Polyducks ...was it the hospital-related adventure from CoC d20?

eimyr

The Witcher: A ghost haunts a man. PCs meet the ghost and it's a ghost of a little girl that was raped by a man. The man offers a bribe for not telling.

Polyducks

That's pretty messed up.

@Magician Well, my character ended up in a hospital. I don't know if that's related. I got bored of the game because the DM had a Mary-Sue PC so I told the Mary-Sue's wife about his affair. Not my proudest moment.

eimyr

Forgotten Realms: A ghost haunts a man. PCs kill it and discover the man is a necromancer. They kill him and discover a whole sect in the basement.

Polyducks

2:50 PM

Dun dun dun...

Magician

@eimyr This actually sounds like Exercises in Style.

eimyr

WoD: A ghost haunts a man. The player is the ghost and a man is a werewolf. They fight each other while the world falls apart.

@Magician my intention exactly

Polyducks

@Magician That's interesting! I'd like to read that.

eimyr

Finally, Lovecraftian Horror: A ghost haunts a man. The man is slowly driven insane by the haunting. Turns out the ghost is not a ghost, but something else that now also demands PCs souls. PCs move away, but the thing is relentless and returns to haunt them after 5 years. PCs discover the true nature of the thing, but lose all sanity and the secret is never revealed to the world.

Magician

Would be interesting to do Modules in Style, or something like that. Hmmm. Maybe tomorrow.

eimyr

2:53 PM

tag me please

Magician

@eimyr Will do.

Polyducks

@Magician me too please

@Eimyr I dunno. Seems a bit of a pointless game if you can't win.

especially if your only option is 'run away' and even that isn't going to work

eimyr

This game is not about winning.

There is one dude who won an CoC game and he is now used as a yardstick for plot derailment.

Polyducks

But I don't understand

eimyr

CoC is supposed to be about facing overwhelming challenge and not being able to respond with authority, instead trying to trade away yourself for slight mitigation of impending doom... that never comes. But surely will come soon. You just gave humanity a little bit of time.

Polyducks

2:58 PM

No mystery was solved. There is no confrontation. There doesn't even seem to be a story.

I'm missing something crucial about CoC.

eimyr

Have you ever read any HPL stories?

Polyducks

Yeah, I read the main one.

Magician

And of course individual GMs can let PCs win.

Polyducks

It was nice, but what little development there was was crammed into the characters rowing away from the island before dying.

eimyr

Call of Cthulhu? Mountains of Madness? Shadow over Innsmouth?

Polyducks

2:58 PM

Call of Cthulhu

eimyr

OK. So there wasn't any confrontation, right?

Polyducks

It starts getting good when we finally get to the palace of Cthulu. And then it ends.

eimyr

Well, it was good from the beginning.

Polyducks

The rest of it was reference notes right up until that point.

eimyr

Not exciting. Not awesome. Not necessarily very interesting.

Polyducks

2:59 PM

"So I found this statue and read a book. That's pretty scery."

eimyr

But scary and ambient.

heh

maybe then CoC is not something you would enjoy?

Polyducks

It must have something about it or it wouldn't be so popular.

I think you're right. I'm missing something crucial about it

It just felt anticlimactic.

eimyr

Try reading en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_on_the_Doorstep

Polyducks

added to my million tabs from this chat

still trying to not get fired.

eimyr

This is an essential short story that defines how a CoC game should be like

you can just read the plot summary from wikipedia

it should be sufficient in terms of story, not the mood though

Polyducks

3:03 PM

I look forward to it. How's geology today?

eimyr

the same as yesterday

a lot of processing in the background

Polyducks

I thought you might say the field was...

rocky :p

eimyr

nah, it's usually innuendo puns

I am considering dropping one, but then I might be banned.

Polyducks

You can get banned for that?

eimyr

Well, you have no idea how explicit geology can be.

Polyducks

3:10 PM

gneiss...

I really can't think of a way to make geology explicit

Like, I'm trying puns with 'water table' and I can't get anything.

eimyr

maybe elsewhere

but I can treat you to some

Polyducks

Hook me up on Skype, fam

k, signing out for now

later gang

eimyr

4:14 PM

hello @JoshuaAslanSmith

Joshua Aslan Smith

hello just poring over the previous conversation

Im not into the mythos at large and definitely not into the RPGS but the original short story he wrote that spawned all of it is quite good

eimyr

Well... It's weird.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Or I should say I feel i enjoy "The Call of Cthulhu" short story

eimyr

I won't even say it's good. It's only good if you like it,.

You know what I mean.

Joshua Aslan Smith

its a master class in tension building but the reader needs to be able to go with the 1920s setting and flow for it to work

its got such a great twist ending

>! test

hmm spoiler quotes dont work in chat

well no on eis really here

when you realize that the short story you are reading is actually a long form letter like the one that starts off the the events its a nice no you too are part of this dread thing

eimyr

4:20 PM

True.

Epistolar style of writing has definitely fell out of the modern interest.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I love me a good epistolary

Im a big fan of when video games do it well with audio logs such as system shock 2, or email files in the Deus Ex series

eimyr

ew

Maybe emails are not too bad

But I hated the audio logs in Bioshock.

Joshua Aslan Smith

believe me audio logs work in system shock 2 if you havent playe dit

eimyr

Am I supposed to just stand there and listen?

Or go forward and miss half of it?

Joshua Aslan Smith

bioshock is basically following the form, but failing to grasp the actual art

eimyr

4:23 PM

Nah, I'll just ignore it and, oh boy, more splicers!

Joshua Aslan Smith

Audio levels for them were well balanced in SS2

and also the writing and acting was much better

eimyr

I liked the audio logs in Batman: AA

Joshua Aslan Smith

yes they were sort of like that

eimyr

I could listen to them whenever, just ignore them if I don't feel like listening atm.

Joshua Aslan Smith

you could listen to them while you played

exactly

you could always replay a n audio log at your leisure and there was a setting to have them autoplay on pickup or no

eimyr

4:24 PM

or The Witcher journal logs, which were often funny and riddled with puns and double entendres.

Joshua Aslan Smith

combat itself was much sparser in system shock 2 its a game that has a lot more existential dread going on

eimyr

mhm

what year is it?

Joshua Aslan Smith

1 or 2 enemies are terrifying because you only have 3 shotgun shells and your shotgun is also down to condition 2 (out of 10, with 10 being pristine) so it might jam

System Shock 2

System Shock 2 is a first-person shooter action role-playing survival horror video game for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux, designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during production into a sequel to the 1994 PC game System Shock; the alterations were made when Electronic Arts—who owned the System Shock franchise rights—signed on as publisher. System Shock 2 was released on August 11, 1999, in North America. The game takes place on board a starship in a cyberpunk depiction of 2114...

1999 like the prince song

@eimyr its got some mods to update the textures and its available on the cheap through steam and our beloved GOG.com

eimyr

heh

cool

Joshua Aslan Smith

which I totally had my bank card frozen the last time I tried to buy something off it (because my bank was like WHOA poland)

eimyr

4:27 PM

Happened to me twice with humblebundle

a) it was an american charity, so FRAUD!!!!!!

b) it had a funny name so MORE FRAUD!!!!!!!!!

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

yeah

eimyr

do you realise gog is created and owned by CDProjekt?

Joshua Aslan Smith

I had previously made all GOG.com purchases on my credit card which didnt care but the debit/credit card from my bank did apparently

@eimyr I do hence "our beloved" but I actually only realized it like last year despite buying games off there since it launched

it was like ah yeah gog's non-drm strat makes even more sense now (I have read up on the history of cdprojekt and games piracy as a cultural legacy of the soviet block)

eimyr

yeah

the piracy was rampant and still is

the fact that piracy was almost the only way to obtain good prior to 89 and in the 90's the prices were crazy, Poles (and others) have an unhealthy obsession with piracy.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I think gog has a good business model of being better than free though, they have a great client now and even before that with the downloader their dosbox installs and all the bonus goodies as downloads work great

eimyr

4:32 PM

yep, not even once had an issue

I am actually tempted to re-buy stuff I already own that simply refuses to work.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I really want galaxy to keep getting better, I like my stupidly big steam library but I also like using gog.com for a certain type of think

eimyr

e.g. my go-to sick game Gorky 17

whenever I'm ill, it's Gorky-17

Joshua Aslan Smith

@eimyr ive totally bought old games like rollercoaster tycoon which I have a disc for still simply for the ease of install and library function of having them on gog

eimyr

also: if you live in above-average price region, they will give you store credit to match the cheapest available one

to the point that they openly called out companies for overpricing the EU and esp. UK market

Joshua Aslan Smith

Im frankly always baffeled at the pound to dollar price differences

eimyr

4:36 PM

yeah

Joshua Aslan Smith

real exchange is always somewhere between 1.25-1.5 dollars for 1 pound but they just use the same numbers, the market is bearing it for now,

eimyr

currently I think 1$ is like 0.70p atm

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep I did it from the opposite direction

eimyr

but the difference is often closer to 10-15% than 30%

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep

eimyr

4:39 PM

and in fact I come from Poland, where games are muchcheaper

And what did gog do? Store credit! So much store credit.

recently prices caught up with the rest of the world, but it's still a bit cheaper.

Joshua Aslan Smith

If I wanted to buy software in SE asia, would be crazy how much my purchasing power could go there (there isnt the market for the type of prices charged in the west but microsoft still wants to sell copies, hence region locking)

eimyr

yeah

which also shows how much of the price is marketing etc.

@JoshuaAslanSmith I wonder if that's true with RPG books too

Smurfton

5:18 PM

@eimyr I imagine that printing costs are pretty high to have a lot of full color pictures. If there's no full color pictures, it's cheaper, of course.

Hey poly

Polyducks

Hey gang :)

Late night at the office still

needed some company.

What's the subject of conversation?

Smurfton

it stopped a little while ago :/

Polyducks

Oh, sorry to hear that!

I'm trying to think of something DnDish I can hide in this website code for a laugh

I'm thinking maybe a loot rolling chart for shits and giggles.

Smurfton

Maybe

Polyducks

I made a random snowman generator for Christmas :)

Smurfton

5:25 PM

How hidden are you talking?

Sounds cool.

Polyducks

Had to open the console and type 'snowman()'

Smurfton

ok, that's very hidden.

Polyducks

Today I had to replace a javascript file with blank text so I did some ascii

wanna see?

Smurfton

sure

Polyducks

media.clothingsites.co.uk/media/clientstyles/bbclient.js

Smurfton

5:26 PM

Is the + a window?

Polyducks

haha yeah! :)

Just fun things nobody will see. It feels like I'm just doing it to entertain myself at this point

Smurfton

I'm pretty sure you are

unless you give people hints for the console

Polyducks

In fact, I'm certain I am.

Well, yeah. Can't really make it detectable or the director will come down on me like a ton of bricks

Smurfton

lol

Polyducks

I've recently found all my 2nd edition books after the move

Things like the complete necromancer

Smurfton

5:28 PM

Random magical item generator?

Polyducks

They're in mint condition and such fun to use.

Yes, I think that'll be a good idea. When I put it up I'll let you know

Y'know, finish my work first though ;)

Smurfton

Give it a 10% chance of a secondary effect, come up with a whole bunch of potential effects

Polyducks

Shouldn't be too hard. I think I've got a good idea of how it'd work in my head

Smurfton

Might be a bit large though, unless it reads from a table elsewhere

Polyducks

nah. No more than a kb

Smurfton

5:29 PM

Does the Director glance at the code?

Polyducks

To most people outside of our department we literally just copy and paste the designs we get sent.

Smurfton

Ah.

Polyducks

like uploading an image to imgur

haha

obviously it's actually coding the pages. But it's not the general understanding

Smurfton

right

Polyducks

I'm the only front end developer here, so it's rare I have to explain why Jabberwocky has been typed into the bottom of the HTML

Smurfton

5:31 PM

lol

Polyducks

How has your day been?

Smurfton

If you don't mind my asking, what website?

OK.

It just started for me though

I'm GMT -8

Polyducks

It's just a generic clothing website. Nothing to write home about

You'll get a link when I've done something I shouldn't have

If you want to see a good easter egg, though, go to vogue's website and enter the konami code.

That's my all time favourite hidden script

Smurfton

Nothing seems to be happening

Polyducks

up up, down down, left right left right, B A enter

you might have to do it a few times to get the timing right

Smurfton

5:37 PM

apparently I suck

Polyducks

haha basically it makes a velociraptor run across the bottom of the screen wearing a fancy hat

It seems they update the script monthly to change the hats

you have to enter the code quickly. Can't leave too long between the entries

I've put forward for our April Fool's day post to be birthday suits

Smurfton

drawings of said suits, or full body images?

because I am voting against that last one

Polyducks

haha artfully posed footballers probably

or similar men's fashion-like pictures

otherwise I have to pose, and I don't really fancy that. Might be good for a laugh though.

Smurfton

that's not too bad then.

Polyducks

"Birthday suits are all the rage this season."

Smurfton

5:40 PM

yes

Polyducks

at the last place I worked I tried to push selling triffids for april fool's

Smurfton

Everyone's wearing them!

Polyducks

apparently nobody really gets the reference

haha brilliant

Smurfton

I'm missing the reference too, sorry

Polyducks

Ah, it's okay. It's a really obscure one

Triffids are a giant, man-eating plant from 'Day of the triffids'

Smurfton

5:43 PM

and Night of the Triffids

Polyducks

They were bred by a government somewhere for their viciously barbed stamen which they use to attack and poison humans

Smurfton

the 2001 sequel

Polyducks

Ooo! I didn't know about that.

Anyway, this, combined with a blinding meteor shower, caused the downfall of the human race.

Smurfton

yeah, thought you were just going to leave me hanging on the reference

so I looked it up

Polyducks

:) Nah, that was a good opportunity for a conversation

wb @eimyr

Smurfton

5:44 PM

blinding meteor shower?

eimyr

Lurking

Smurfton

Also, yeah, high @eimyr

hi

Polyducks

So there was a meteor shower which was so bright people that went outside to see it (everyone) was blinded by the light.

At this point people were keeping triffids in their gardens and docking the long, dangerous stamen so it couldn't attack

however, now that everyone is blinded, nobody could trim the stamens and they regrew

then the triffids began hunting the humans.

They could get up on these stick-like legs and sort of walk like a man on crutches

Smurfton

I was maybe hoping a little bit that meteors would just land in your eyes, blinding everyone who dared to look up.

Polyducks

The main protagonist is bitter because he has a broken leg in a cast and can't get up to see the meteor shower

haha

I think it had something to do with radiation. The implication is that the meteors were man-made weapons - but because it's the pov of a survivor there's no way of knowing

likewise it's implied that the spores for triffids were purposefully spread from a plane and it got transmitted around the world by odd air currents.

The story is very much like war of the worlds

Smurfton

5:48 PM

Why did people keep the Triffids around in the first place?

Polyducks

They had really pretty, big flowers.

They were being harvested for some sort of miracle resin too

So there were large farms full of them.

When people became blinded they stopped turning up to work. The triffids went to seed and nobody weeded them up. The spores landed in yards, alleyways rubbish pits and grew.

Smurfton

ah

Why the <3 8 hours ago? Was I even in chat?

Polyducks

I think it was something you said

You were in chat

everyone deserves love now and again

Smurfton

oh, 12:49 AM
i am now jealous of your map.
and players too.

Polyducks

Purely platonic, you understand

That was it

Smurfton

5:52 PM

Yes, of course

Polyducks

Glad for the appreciation

I'm looking forward to how the game is going to evolve

I really like treating the universe as if it were a living, breathing thing

having that many corpses is going to attract scavengers. That many goblins will eat the countryside clean.

Right, I'd better head out before I get locked in

pleasure talking to you @smurfton

Later, lurkers.

Smurfton

bye @Polyducks

Smurfton

6:54 PM

2

Q: What kind of things can I use to give hints about forgotten memories?

I an building a campaign for my players. I want them to have been experimented on by some evil wizard/sorcerer and have lost memories of what happened, only knowing that something did and they aren't the same as they were before. I have ideas like an enemy with a mind affecting attack triggering ...

While I agree that it was too broad before, he changed the question so that it asked how to not be repeating himself. Why is it still too broad?

BESW

8:34 PM

@Polyducks Lovecraft himself was interested in cosmic fear. The authors who expanded and codified the Mythos after his death tended to be more pulp in style. This leads to a distinct rift directly down the centre of Mythos play.

Wibbs

anyone recommend a GM-less RPG for 2 players thats not too heavy and doesn't take huge amounts of time to play? Got Microscope so far

BESW

Pilgrims of the Flying Temple isn't ideal for twosies but it works.

Wibbs

Yeah, I looked through that

Prefer something that would work better for 2

BESW

14 Days is a mechanically lightweight twosie, but it's not what most people are looking for in a quick game.

Burning Wheel's supposed to be good for twosies, but is very complex.

Wibbs

Yeah, needs to be relatively simple - am looking for something my wife and I can play when we want something quickish to pick up and easy to play

BESW

8:45 PM

29

Q: 1 GM and 1 Player games and game systems?

I'm eager to hear how other people handle this? I do quite a bit of GM-Less gaming in Mythic and some other fringe systems, but, sometimes it's just better to be playing 'other sides' even if you're still cooperating to build a story. So, what game systems do you use when there's only you and a...

game-recommendation players scaling one-on-one

23

Q: A 2 Player RPG for buddies?

If myself and an old buddy sit down for a night of roleplaying, what game can we use? I've heard of a couple of romantic games, but they're not really for buddies. Are they? Suggestions please.

game-recommendation one-on-one

9

Q: Can Apocalypse World be played as a two-player game?

Apocalypse World seems to be designed for a small group of PCs, all interacting fiercely. This is a part of both the hard-and-fast mechanics, like Hx, and the MC techniques, like the emphasis on PC-NPC-PC triangles. Sometimes you really want to play a game and there's just two of you, though. Ca...

apocalypse-world one-on-one gm-less

Wibbs

needs to be GMless and zero prep

BESW

17

Q: Easy-to-learn system that supports one-on-one play

The Situation I'm looking for a system that I would be able to GM and have my wife as my only player. I am experienced with RPGs; she is not. She joined a D&D 4e game with me and my friends once and ended up intimidated because we all knew the rules and system well and she did not. I tried to...

game-recommendation one-on-one

Hmm. APfMT needs at least three...

Mars Colony looks about right.

Anaphory

I still haven't played Breaking The Ice, otherwise I might suggest it.

Wibbs

sounds a bit too adversarial

needs to be cooperative really

BESW

15

Q: Easy-to-learn GM-less system with flexible group size, for fantasy, urban fantasy, or sci-fi?

A little background info might be helpful: I've roleplayed in online games and have some experience with single-player computer games based off of pen & paper game systems (The Dark Eye), and I'm thinking about trying to start a pen & paper game with my boyfriend. He's an experienced pen & paper ...