@trogdor eheheh, yeah it is -- it could use a few daggers hidden in it I think, too ;)

it probably has those

:D

can't hardly tell XD

I would hide a stool in it, so i could sit and no one would know.

that is a great idea

Anybody know of a good resource for learning to draw complex Venn diagrams?

I know a professor of mathematical philosophy whose work is in "diagrammatic calculus," but I think she's probably not quite what you meant=\

Maybe not quite that complex.

BGS says I should draw a relationship map showing the various PCs and NPCs, their personal connections, and the social circles they move in.

I would maybe start with a directed graph, which you could potentially condense down later into Venn diagrams

My brain likes small circles with lots of lines

[googles "directed graph"]

I have a question for one of our resident SQL experts.

Say I have a table where every record has a Name, a Type, and a Value. Let's say I've recorded D&D's Armor table: the name, the armor type (non-armor, light, medium, heavy, shield, perhaps other categories) and its purchase price.

How do you do that, exactly? I can't just sort by type then by value, because that sorts the whole list by type, and I want that remainder of the list ordered regardless of type.

What I imagine right now is I run two separate SQL queries: one to grab Light and Medium armors, sorted by type then value; one to grab all non-Light non-Medium armors sorted by value.

@doppelgreener You can use case statements in the order by.

Typing on phone, but you'd want something like: order by case when type in light, medium then type else value end

No, wait. Rereading your reqs, you actually want: order by case when type = light then 1 when type = medium then 2 else 3 end, value

@Miniman oh boy, i didn't even know this was a thing. that's fantastic.

@doppelgreener If you think about it, you can reference a column in an order by, which means anything you can put in a column can go in an order by.

@Trish I would just roll the dice+coin (each roll separately, because I need to know which coin is paired to which dice, or which d6 are my fake d4), then remove the dice from the table and change them with tokens. Tokens can be crafted in bulk before the game, and they will be one piece of equipment (like the original die), easy to count, and maybe even saying which kind of die generated it (but I don't recall this information being useful in DitV).

Wasn't this a XY problem (the real problem is "I can't use d4, d8 and d10" rather than "I only want to use d6 for a hack"), I'd also be interested in how the game would play if all (or all non-fallout dice) were d6s, i.e. if all traits were valued the same.

I lack in depth system knowledge to predict the results of just using d6, but it will be remodeling the 'tables'

I just had tried to make up a method of emulating the d4/d8/d10 with d6, each method has its ups and downs (and I actuallywould hack my dice with marker and tip-Ex

@Trish Yes, I know, and I recognized what you did. If you're inclined to understand the probabilistic and strategic consequences of the change, and you think you have what it takes to tackle it, I might explain several things about the system to you.

All I can "see" without the math is that every player has overall lower pairs of dice to use, which means easier to contrast offensive rolls (there's no high values there anymore) but also harder defense (no high values and lower chance of having the opponent need to use two dice so low that a single die from the defender manages to total the same value).

@D.Webber I've at least heard about it.

Of what? TBZ?

@D.Webber Yes

Have you played it? I rarely meet many folks who do.

@D.Webber No, I didn't. I might have some friends who played it, but I need to inquire.

If you're into heavy story and roleplaying aspects and have a creative group of friends for it, it's a very magical experience compared to a standard TTRPG.

@D.Webber I do like the idea of heavy story and RPing, but I'm ill equipped for making this kind of game work. I work best with tactical games with a contour story, and the same is true for many of the people who play with me.

Or maybe I'm trying to self-convince me that I don't have the means just to avoid some other worse explaination of my failures.

@D.Webber can you explain more of the system to me?

Any Fate players around? I have some system questions after my last session, and they feel too basic for Main.

@DuckTapeAl [wave] I'm kinda busy, but ask and I'll answer when I can if nobody else does first.

hey there @DuckTapeAl

So, I'm using the standard set of skills, more or less, and I had a weird issue with combat attacks and defenses. If I attack someone in melee with Fight, should they use Fight or Acrobatics to defend?

Or can they use either of their choice?

@DuckTapeAl I'd say Acrobatics would be for a flashy sort of defense, while Fight would be for straightforward maneuvers

So, we look at the default skill list and see which have "Defend" as a built-in action.

Dope, sorry, meant Athletics.

> Defend: You use Fight to defend against any other attack or create an advantage attempt made with Fight, as well as pretty much any action where violently interposing yourself could prevent it from happening.

> Defend: Athletics is a catch-all skill to roll for defense in a physical conflict, against close-quarters and ranged attacks.

> You might decide that Athletics is inappropriate for defense against firearms or other high-tech ranged weapons in your setting.

So the answer boils down to, as it so often does in Fate, which skill best fits the way the player is narrating their character's defense.

In Fate we're kinda discouraged from going "Which skill can I use to defend? Okay, I'll narrate so I'm using that."

Instead it's "How would my character defend against this attack? Okay, now what skill is that?"

Okay.

That makes sense.

Is there any cost to giving your boosts or free invokes to other characters?

Either in actions, Fate points, or anything else?

Only narrative justification.

Fate has a rhythm of narrative-mechanic-narrative: You generate a unit of narrative through roughly free-form play, and when it's not obvious what should happen next you translate the moment into mechanics and let them tell you what happens next in the narrative.

The only part of the mechanics that really matter even when everything is going swimmingly is Fate points; they need to flow back and forth as things get complicated and complications resolve.

And Fate's not very interested in balance, except between PCs inasmuch as it helps players avoid upstaging each other.

So if you want to hand your narrative currency to someone else, that's awesome and the rules aren't gonna punish you for it--they just ask that you make it more awesome by narrating what that looks like in the game.

Alright.

I think it's going to take a while for me to get used to running a narrativist game like this.

It's a pretty big shift, yeah.

Luckily Fate is very flexible.

It's a kind of flexible frame for encouraging certain kinds of stories and reminding you to make choices about what's important in those stories.

Mhmm.

And, heck, I keep running into dev statements that basically say "Well, we didn't mean the rules to imply that, but whatever, it works both ways."

Oh, and one more: is it generally appropriate for players to invoke their high concept for bonuses? Like, I've got one guy whose concept it "Disgruntled Gnomish Pyromancer Chef". His main thing in combat is throwing fireballs around, which makes me think that he never really has to think hard about what aspect he wants to invoke, since he can just invoke his pyromancy whenever he throws a fireball.

And I worry that kind of thing will get a bit dull.

Absolutely that's okay, it's kinda what high concepts are for, mechanically speaking: when you do something that's in line with the basic definition of your character, you can always get a +2 on it.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Remedy for boring: (1) Don't let him just spend the point to get +2; have him narrate what that looks or feels like. (2) He can only ever get +2 on the roll by spending Fate points on his high concept. If he wants more, he has to go looking for more aspects.

(3) Throwing fireballs is often going to be a non-optimal solution to a problem.

Okay.

MAkes sense.

Compel him to have things go wrong.

Give him situations where fireballs are not a good solution.

(And then compel him to use them anyway.)

you could also create the "on fire" aspect in an area where he has thrown too many fireballs (sometimes too many is one)

though you probably should compel for that

like if he throws fireballs in an old dry wooden building, you could easily compel that to burn down around him and be dangerous for him

or possibly get the authorities mad

We once started a campaign with a known pyromancer being framed for murder-by-arson.

He was so famously fire-happy that everyone just believed it.

@BESW that could be a fun one for someone like me actually -- arson investigation is notorious for witch-doctory and general pseduoscientific screwiness

@BESW we also had the one where my brother's classically unlucky monk burned down an entire district because "he wanted to see if the magical gas would burn away"

Answer: yes! Dramatically!

it did, but so did most everything else

XD

our whole party got in trouble for that one

understandably of course

(The magic district of that city had the smog equivalent of the Cuyahoga River.)

it was hilarious, I will give it that

and it is the only thing I recall that was actually his fault because of a choice he made rather than bad luck

@Mala hey there

hey @AlexP

@Shalvenay sup?

@AlexP not a whole lot, pondering a few things, as for you?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lol

@TheOracle This might be good for Tabletop.se

@Garan you just replied to a bot. :p

@Shalvenay I know, but this way people know what I was talking about.

@Garan ah, true

I had to ask someone if it was a bot when I was really new here XD

it did sort of seem like it since it only ever posted stuff like that