TRPG General Chat

12:25 AM

Second part of the dnd starter set live stream is up on YouTube now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KriJFIfPhlc&list=UUi-PULMg2eD_v5AO0PlW4sg

Grubermensch

12:38 AM

@Matt YESSSSSSSS

No audio for the first 30 seconds = not cool

Did they lose the wizard's player?

That's unfortunate.

Or maybe not the wizard. There's one less player though.

Matt

12:57 AM

It's the rogue

now there is a 1 to 1 girl to guy ratio.

with the players that is

Grubermensch

Yeah. The way this is shaping up, a shame that they don't have the rogue.

Matt

he might come back later, or get replaced

Grubermensch

1:19 AM

I wish someone did interesting combat descriptions. It's kind of sinking into "I hit them, I hit them again"

I guess Emi is doing a little bit.

BESW

1:34 AM

@Grubermensch This is something I've been thinking about as I use different systems with different levels of crunch.

doppelgreener

There are games where you might not get to do much of that, through fights being fairly quick.

In Fate, you can only take a few points of stress, so unless your enemy's really tough, I find it tends to come down to a few actions. A lot of stuff before that is various stuff working toward that end. And killing people isn't the aim.

Grubermensch

I'm eagerly awaiting my Combat Description Cards.

BESW

It is my general experience that regardless of a group's natural tendency toward dynamically narrating their actions, the more a system provides mechanical terms/keywords which adequately describe an action, the more likely players are to fall into rote recitation of those terms/keywords with minimal narrative variation.

doppelgreener

There's also RPGs where combat is lethal, and you want to avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary. A gunshot or a stab wound has a good chance of being a fatal injury, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of one, but at least combat will be over quickly.

Grubermensch

@BESW That's what the cards are great for, though since I play online, I can't let my players use them.

BESW

1:39 AM

Even in Fate, where narrative is so key, we sometimes fall into that trap of saying "I'm going to use create advantage to set him On fire, which I can do because I'm a fire mage."

When we get into that rut, extra narrative is only consistently brought into play when we're trying to do something less obvious which requires more justification to be allowed.

4e was even worse.

Grubermensch

It's one of the things I really liked when I played Exalted. The system actually had built-in rewards for describing your actions. And frequently, the difficulty of some scenarios assumed you'd stunt at least a few times.

BESW

By contrast, games of Roll For Shoes and Cthulhu Dark, because their mechanics are so incredibly sparse and broad, demand more thoughtful narration for every action because there's nothing in the game system to prop up lazy narrative.

Grubermensch

Though it took me a long time to get into the feel of stunting often.

doppelgreener

@BESW Oh, yeah, that's true. Rather than "I pick up the fire brand and throw at in his face! So I'll roll to create advantage to set him On fire..." there's just the mechanical bits

Magician

@BESW That's a concern I have with DW: it's really a game about fighting monsters in dungeons, and there are only so many inventive descriptions I care to use to slaughter orcs.

BESW

1:45 AM

@Magician Mmm. My very limited knowledge of DW suggests that it's perhaps got a mis-match going on, in trying to fit narrative-focused mechanics onto a narrative model built for crunch-heavy mechanics.

I have an idea about the relationship between the amount of narration required for a game and the scope of activities the game offers, but I can't phrase it quite right just yet.

Grubermensch

Oh my god the goblin conversations

doppelgreener

@BESW D'you wanna have an attempt here?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs The more a game expects/requires innovative narration from its players, the wider the scope of arenas for action the game should expect/support, so that the participants don't quickly burn out their narrative juices on a narrow set of actions. The longer the game expects to be played, the more important this guideline becomes (one-session games can be very tightly focused, year-long campaigns need more variety).

(This guideline is important for other reasons, like boredom and the common need to cater to multiple tastes within a single group, which should be obvious and are not relephant to the current discussion of the relationship between crunch and narrative gameplay.)

doppelgreener

2:02 AM

So the combination of [variety of options x versatility of those options] must be in direct proportion to the amount of innovative narration from players multiplied by the amount of time they will be playing the game.

BESW

That... sounds about right.

doppelgreener

my only concern is that length of time is already factored into "amount of innovative narration from players", since a longer time necessary means a higher amount

so the second part may be better stated as something like... "the variety of innovative narration expected from players, multiplied by the amount of time they will spend playing the game", or, "the number of unique narrative descriptions expected by the players, which necessarily increases depending on the amount of time they will be playing the game"

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I think you have the implication backwards, which is somewhat confusing.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs If we continue your equational theme, I think that "amount of innovative narration" should be expressed as a per-hour or per-session value rather than a per-campaign value.

@Magician [ping] I think it just clicked why the _World engine rubs my fur the wrong way: it's a system that uses rules enforce creative narration rather than using rules to create environments where creative narration occurs naturally.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch how so?

Grubermensch

2:08 AM

The narrative innovation is proportional to the variability of the narrative options multiplied by their versatility, distributed over the length of the campaign

BESW

@JonathanHobbs He wants to put "narrative innovation" on one side of the equation, rather than as part of an expression.

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I think in terms of the structuring it so the term we care about is obvious, my above is clearer.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch that's a way of reflecting on a game, the equation I wrote is a way of expressing what is demanded from a system which supports effective narration

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I suppose yes

doppelgreener

or, i guess it could be ordered your way and still as a demand: "the amount of narrative innovation is proportional to this stuff, so make this stuff large"

Grubermensch

2:10 AM

@BESW I think maybe it's more than the length of the campaign has a sub-linear influence on the narrative innovation.

Though the length of the session is also a factor.

Or perhaps the length of the scene, not the session.

doppelgreener

actually on reflection i like your way of ordering it

BESW

My thought construct is @Magician's example of a narrative-focused game in which the primary activity is physical conflict.

"There are only so many inventive descriptions I care to use to slaughter orcs."

It doesn't really matter how long the scene or the session is, if you're doing the same basic activity every scene and every session.

Grubermensch

Ugh there needs to be something between scene and adventure then.

Like an episode maybe.

A sustained period of mostly doing the same activity.

doppelgreener

@BESW there are so many inventive descriptions you can use. Almost every sword dual could be described as a bit of footwork, sword-swinging, and blocking. The exceptions are... exceptional, such as when a master claps a blade between their hands to stop it, or someone kicks someone else, or etc. Beyond that, if you want to keep being original, you have to start becoming a creative killer, finding entirely new ways to do bad things to people, which is kind of disturbing.

Grubermensch

Such that a big dungeon crawl might be considered the same [time-unit]

BESW

2:14 AM

Let s represent the duration of consecutive stabbing activities.

trogdor

@JonathanHobbs I was actually thinking about that same thing

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs Note that @Magician used the phrase "care to use", which is really what this is about.

trogdor

I don't tend to spend my time thinking of creative ways to kill people

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Hence "only so many inventive descriptions I care to use to slaughter orcs," I think.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch well, as much as you care to use, you're still limited by what you can use

trogdor

2:15 AM

I like to think that is a good thing

doppelgreener

and, yeah, if you care to use even more, you eventually have to expand into disturbing territory. so any activity has a natural limit to what you can do anyway.

Grubermensch

Right, but we're trying to model the player's caring, not their theoretical capacity.

doppelgreener

@trogdor i think so too.

trogdor

:)

Grubermensch

(Aside: I get so excited when people post WoD questions because they sound like Exalted questions, and then I'm sad.)

doppelgreener

2:16 AM

@Grubermensch I get that, and they're linked.

BESW

So again, this is about my favourite topic: how we create environments (in this case through rules) to influence peoples' actions (in this case inventing increasingly creative methods of violence).

Magician

I'm back, give me a moment to catch up.

Grubermensch

@BESW I think there's also a factor as to how much the system rewards the creativity.

doppelgreener

(Maybe not linked in a useful way to factor in to our phrasing about the narration people care to perform, but it's still worth understanding there is a theoretical limit)

BESW

@Grubermensch Which, again, rules influencing behaviour.

Grubermensch

2:18 AM

Ex. In D&D there is a simulationist sort of culture to penalize "called shots", whereas Exalted has stunts, which actively reward you for being interesting.

@JonathanHobbs I think this is encapsulated in the variety and versatility terms in our working equation.

BESW

[Tangentially: I am generally allergic to mechanics which hang reward or punishment on a participant's opinion regarding whether another participant is "role-playing well" or "being interesting." It reeks of using treats and a spray bottle to train a dog. That I've done it myself doesn't make me any happier about it.]

Grubermensch

N ~= (x * f)/log(t)*log(r)
Where N: innovation; x: variety; f: flexibility; t: time; r: reward factor

Magician

Hm, so "care" got snagged on a bit. Lets see. In DW, you're not rewarded for flowery descriptions of orc decapitations. You still use the same mechanics, same move. As exhaustion sets in, people will default to the path of least resistance. If I've come up with a novel way to describe fighting orcs 10 times in a row, for 11th I'll just go "and I stab him".

Grubermensch

With a crapton of constant factors slid in there

doppelgreener

@BESW (You have a beef with the inspiration stuff then, right?)

BESW

2:24 AM

@JonathanHobbs [blargh.] I suspect I do, which is why I haven't read it yet.

Grubermensch

@Magician How long it takes to get to the "I stab him" point is what we're trying to model here.

Magician

The trick, I think, and this was true for 4e and pretty much any other game, is to offer enough variety that the same fundamental action of stabbing someone is viewed through a different lens each scene. Orcs on a bridge, cutting ropes, flying down. Shark in the water below. Orc arrows as we try to climb up.

doppelgreener

@BESW You will have an issue with it. Do you want me to quote you a couple of sentences from it, or spare you?

BESW

I'll steel myself and plunge in all at once some time.

Magician

@BESW That's why I keep saying Inspiration is a poor copy of aspects (even if it came from WoD). Fate doesn't require constant permissions or break if they're given.

BESW

2:26 AM

@Magician Fate used to require constant permissions.

doppelgreener

@BESW Very well. Steel yourself well. Even I don't like it.

Magician

@BESW But then it got over it? :)

doppelgreener

It's like Fate Points for compels, without the everyone-is-equals attitude of Fate, minus the bit where it's compensation for complicating your life.

BESW

In DFRPG if you had a Broken leg Fate points had to get exchanged every single time it came up.

@Magician Fate Core said "Wait, what? We (the devs) never intended it to be taken to the literal extremes you guys are going to! Forget the whole thing."

Grubermensch

Sometime I should play Fate so I understand what you all are always talking about.

Magician

2:28 AM

The worst outcome of unimaginative use of aspects or constant permissions to do so in Fate is that you'd get somewhat boring scenes. Do you want to carry sand in a bag and throw it into everyone's eyes for Blinded aspect? Fine. Here are the rules, here's what it'll do.

doppelgreener

@Magician well, the self-description portions of the character sheet are like aspects, but the Inspiration itself is like fate points.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Yeah, the whole thing is modeled on it. Which is fine! Except it's missed the fate point economy which makes it work.

BESW

@Grubermensch We've got actual play transcripts if you wanna look.

And I might be convinced to run a single session of it for you some time.

Grubermensch

@BESW I'll have a look, though I should still play it at some point.

doppelgreener

@Magician It's missed a whole lot of supportive stuff from Fate that helps it work well in Fate.

Magician

2:31 AM

That, too. Inspiration + backgrounds are tacked on top of the system, they can be ported over to any other game.

BESW

The Fate point economy is at the heart of Fate being (as I think I've said before) a manifesto about the skeletal elements which from which a particular kind of interesting story can be built.

Fate effectively says, "If you have these generic elements which interact in this way, it will hard to not tell an interesting story regardless of the particulars you choose."

Magician

It also means as a GM I don't need to worry about a player using their aspects in a "wrong" way that might break the game somehow. Do you want to use it and does it make any sense at all? Cool, pay up.

There's no inadvertently breaking the game with rulings that get extrapolated into house rules that everyone needs to watch out for constantly.

BESW

Indeed.

(The Fate point economy says that protagonists should fail in ways which fuel future success.)

Grubermensch

Is Fate GM-less?

BESW

@Grubermensch No, it's not.

One moment... [digs for primer]

What kind of game is Fate?

Jul 24 '13 at 7:43, 22 minutes total – 43 messages, 5 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Aug 26 '13 at 15:00 by BESW

Grubermensch

2:37 AM

I wandered into the swordfight log, which I guess is probably not terribly representative, but has been entertaining.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch It's not GM-less, but the GM isn't seen as the Benevolent Overlord Who Doth Rule Over Us All, either. They're just the first among equals, the guy who settles issues when it's needed, and the representative of the NPCs and world. They don't call all the shots, they don't have authority to arbitrarily decide the rules, or so on.

In D&D, the DM has absolute authority. In Fate, the GM is just another one of the players, and he's the one playing all the characters the others aren't.

BESW

In fact, one of the key elements of Fate gameplay is that players can acquire narrative authority over the game pretty easily, by succeeding on rolls or by spending game currency (Fate points).

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch oh hey, getting back to this, what's the reward factor in this equation?

Grubermensch

r over real numbers

negatives are where the game penalizes you, a la D&D

BESW

@Grubermensch Well, D&D also has (totally ad-hoc) rewards for narrative innovation: the GM in several editions is encouraged to award bonuses to rolls and/or extra XP.

doppelgreener

2:45 AM

@Grubermensch so a reward factor for taking certain actions, or being innovative..? i'm not clear on what it represents exactly, but i'm not sure that's the best way to factor it in

Grubermensch

@BESW Possibly, but my experience has been that the presence of called shot penalties and such is a strong disincentive.

BESW

@Grubermensch Agreed.

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs It's the reward for doing interesting things.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch Oh! Like: "This action does exist in the system, but it's so terrible you'll never use it"?

Grubermensch

Or, rather, the reward for doing what is measured by N

@JonathanHobbs Yes basically.

doppelgreener

2:47 AM

@Grubermensch We could just say 'x', as in variety, is the amount of good or appealing options to a player

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Ah, like some peoples' opinion of the Fighter or Monk classes in 3.5, or post-Essentials 4e characters using pre-Essentials weapon expertise feats.

doppelgreener

(That means x has a different value depending on whether you're one-trick fighter, a skill monkey fighter, or an omnipotent wizard)

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I don't think we want to break it down within the system. But we could.

doppelgreener

So, more important than options simply existing in the system, are the ones people are actually going to use

@Grubermensch we don't need to be that specific in the equation. N is already about the innovation from each player. The innovation for each character will vary depending on the mechanical options available to them that they will want tou se.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs That'd mean a 3.5 game with nothing but Fighters would have a shorter innovative shelf life than a 3.5 game with all Bards... that scans.

doppelgreener

2:50 AM

@BESW Yeah.

Grubermensch

So now we're at:
N ~= (x * f)/log(t)
Where N: innovation; x: weighted variety; f: flexibility; t: time

actually maybe the weighting is part of flexibility

doppelgreener

51 mins ago, by Jonathan Hobbs

So the combination of [variety of options x versatility of those options] must be in direct proportion to the amount of innovative narration from players multiplied by the amount of time they will be playing the game.

45 mins ago, by Grubermensch

The narrative innovation is proportional to the variability of the narrative options multiplied by their versatility, distributed over the length of the campaign

Grubermensch

N ~= SUM(x_i * f_i) / log(t)

Where a particular option is less flexible if the system often penalizes you for using it.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch N = innovative descriptions you'll see from a player, x = the variety of appealing mechanical options available to that player, f = the versatility of how those options can be used, t = time playing the game

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs yeah

doppelgreener

2:56 AM

In D&D, shooting is something you do with your bow to attack someone and damage them, so f is low. In Fate, 'shoot' is a skill that can be used to injure someone, scare people, create covering fire, or so on: f is high.

@Grubermensch wouldn't that just naturally decrease x? our equation isn't that precise and is qualitative more than quantitative, so you can just discount mechanics people will rarely want to use

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I kind of want x to be countable.

Maybe the x_i term is redundant.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch people will count it differently depending on the game though

Grubermensch

I mean, there's no way to be rigorous with this equation really.

doppelgreener

in qualitative terms, this just means: "give players a lot of options or a great variety of ways to use the ones they have, or both"

@Grubermensch yeah, it's just meant to get a design message across. N doesn't ever actually need to be calculated.

Grubermensch

N ~= SUM(f_i) / log(t)

doppelgreener

2:59 AM

@Grubermensch no, having both x and f is important

Grubermensch

I'm not sure what x_i is though.

doppelgreener

i dunno why you gave them an '_i' suffix

Grubermensch

We're already summing over some space of actions.

N ~= SUM[i in X](f_i) / log(t)

doppelgreener

x is the amount of mechanical options available. f is the amount of things you can do with them. let's put it this way: Roll for Shoes has basically just "pick a skill and roll it" for an action, and maybe "oppose someone if it's interesting." In Roll for Shoes, 'x' is a very low number. However, you can do almost anything through this mechanic, so flexibility - f - is high.

Grubermensch

Where X is the set of all actions and f_i is the versatility of action i

doppelgreener

3:02 AM

Therefore, if the amount of playtime is the same, Roll for Shoes has the same N as a game where you have a few dozen mechanical options (x is high), but you can only ever do one very specific thing with any of them (f is low).

Grubermensch

@JonathanHobbs I would say that the numbers are changing throughout a game of RFS. X is the set of all the player's skills, and f_i is probably something like the inverse of the skill score.

BESW

In RFS, x increases proportionally to t. In D&D x also increases proportionally to t but much more slowly. In Fate x rarely, if ever, increases.

Magician

х'!

doppelgreener

I need to go pick up something to eat, and it's comic book store stocking day, so I'm going to excuse myself for a little while. Back later. :)

BESW

ttfn

Grubermensch

3:05 AM

bye

I think it's best to look at X as a set, not as a number.

@BESW This still holds, of course, but the flexibility is changing also.

BESW

This math is rapidly approaching the point where I know what all the words mean but can't make them do things together.

Grubermensch

Apologies. I like math.

BESW

I love math too! I love the patterns and the ideas and how if you poke it with a stick it turns into philosophy.

Grubermensch

Essentially I'm saying we have a bunch of different options and each option has a versatility associated with it.

BESW

But I could never get the numbers to behave (I once took a test convinced that 2x3=5 and 2+3=6) so my ability to advance beyond them has been limited.

Grubermensch

3:08 AM

I wonder if we should account for the number of options somehow.

BESW

Well, my original notion didn't have much to do with mechanical options at all.

Grubermensch

It seems to me like the more options that exist, the more likely the player will fall back on "I do [name-of-option]"

BESW

It had to do with the narrative range of the actions.

Grubermensch

Right, that's supposedly what f_i is, for each action.

How flexible is the action narratively.

BESW

If the lion's share of a session's actions fall into the set [fighting hordes of things], vs also doing things in the set [solving dangerous puzzles] and [negotiating with Baal].

Grubermensch

3:11 AM

So maybe there needs to be a term quantifying how frequently the action is available?

BESW

That's the crux of my original thesis, yes.

Players burn out on creative narration faster if their narration is confined to describing a single set of similar actions.

It matters less that they'll burn out if the game is expected to end before they do.

Magician

@BESW So a DW session consisting of room after room of goblins would be deathly boring.

Grubermensch

N ~= SUM[i in X](p_i * f_i) / log(t)
Where N: player innovation; X: set of possible actions; p_i: probability that action is available; f_i: narrative flexibility of action; t: length of campaign

BESW

@Magician Which sounds stupidly obvious, but I'm analysing about a specific element of it so I'm okay with that.

Magician

Hence, different monsters in different environments to provide some variety, as stabbing is constant by design.

Grubermensch

3:14 AM

@Magician Only if the monsters/environments present different opportunities for player actions.

Magician

@Grubermensch Naturally. Well. Stabbing a goblin and stabbing a bullette is different, even if it's the same fundamental action. You get to describe how it bursts out of the ground and you scramble away (while stabbing it).

Grubermensch

@Magician That sounds like more variety for the GM, not for the player.

The entrance of the monster is different, but the response from the character is the same.

Magician

No, the player also gets in on the fun - they're doing the scrambling. It's the same stabbing action in a changed context.

There's also the universal Defy Danger move which may be required first before stabbing can occur.

Grubermensch

I'd separate the stabbing and movement actions then. Stabbing is still the same.

(Also I'm not hip to the DW lingo)

Magician

3:31 AM

Considering my misgivings about DW in the long run (for a few sessions it's fine), you can maybe see why I don't like 5e fighter.

Hopefully its other subclasses will be better.

Grubermensch

@BESW Oh noes, you and @Problematic never finished the dragon tribute, I was so interested to see the conclusion...

The Oracle

3:43 AM

1

Q: Should I post self-answered questions, for rules I clarify for my players?

My Players often come to me and ask: "How does this ability work?" "This example contradicts the text, which is correct?" "How do these abilities interact?" Generally I have a fairly solid response to them, and generally these are good questions. RPGs can be notorious about being unclear --...

Adeptus

4:00 AM

Has anyone read the "Fell's Five" D&D comics? I thought they were really good. The characters had lots of personality, with enough stereotype but not too much, and the art style was

BESW

@Grubermensch Mebbee someday, but the structure of that game has been a useful tool for me many times since.

Adeptus

...was good too

(where's my thesaurus... overusing "good"...)

doppelgreener

insteadofamazing.com (points about amazing aside, it's a nice positive adjective generator)

2

Magician

@Adeptus Yup, they were awesome, and sadly just suddenly stopped.

Possibly because they were very 4e and 5e has just been announced, but I have no idea if that'd interfere with licensing.

@JonathanHobbs That's an amazing website, hur-hur.

doppelgreener

hur hur hur yes actually that adjective is entirely appropriate in my opinion

:D

and now i want to make a drag and drop client-to-client thing for something my friends and i are getting up to, and i have to puzzle over what to make it in

WPF has a relatively strict layout engine and i'm not sure it'll be conducive to a lot of drag-and-drop, HTML doesn't do client-to-client without a server in the middle, Java is Java...... and it's possible I'll just have to make my own GUI from the ground up, game style, in XNA or some kind of Python or Ruby framework...

woe betide me. also i should get back to that Fate Looms project.

Oxinabox

4:20 AM

How do you feel about C#?

I recommend WPF.

The Oracle

4:36 AM

0

Q: Should I post updates to my questions when they are resolved?

Is it considered 'best-practice' to come back and edit a question with the actual solution that was used in the situation? For example, I have a question (Playing a loyal character without it being boring) that attracted a number of good answers of which I selected one as being the best for my s...

discussion

GMNoob

4:50 AM

ActionScript does peer to peer connections

doppelgreener

5:23 AM

@GMNoob Flash applets sure do

I just realised I could distribute a small server along with the client, so I can use webpages, if the server is a lightweight HTTP server

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Loooom.

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox I am interested in using that, but this is a lightweight card game sim. It'll have decks, you'll have a hand, and you'll play cards in front of you, and drag things around. Not sure if WPF will play nice with me needing to do that; maybe it can.

Oxinabox

WPF will play nice with drag and drop

It won't be super light weight though (ever).

doppelgreener

Oh, yeah, only the behaviour is lightweight. I don't expect the same from the code behind the scenes.

I've done some WPF, so I at least understand how light-weight it won't be ;)

Oxinabox

it will play nice with much more complicated drag and drop than any lighter framework.
Things like draging and dropping part way can be done with the canvas element (iirc).
I haven't done much more than the most basic drag and drop myself though.

doppelgreener

5:28 AM

Alright, thanks. So currently it's between WPF and a web app thing.

Oxinabox

I really would like it if questions for [nwod-god-machine] were not tagged [nwod] except in specific circumstances like "What changes have been made to X"
While they tend to (in some areas) be compatable,

it is like tagging dnd questions: [dnd3.0], [dnd3.5]

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox Well, tagging WOD questions with [nwod] or [owod] in addition to any specific edition stuff has been convention on the site

heck, even a lot of fate games do it

Oxinabox

nwod god machine is no more comatitvle with nwod, than nwod is with owod.

GMNoob

I'd do it in ActionScript

You can have a flash web app or an air app for mobile desktop and they can talk to each other without a server

doppelgreener

D&D itself is actually bucking the trend that we rigorously enforce the one-editon-tag-only thing

@GMNoob I'm sure ActionScript can do it, but Flash is one of the technologies that repels me from learning it

Adeptus

5:32 AM

@JonathanHobbs "Questions should not be tagged with both nwod and nwod-god-machine, unless specifically about both." - rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/nwod-god-machine/info :)

GMNoob

That's a shame because it can do what you want with the most minimal of code

doppelgreener

@Adeptus Aha, ok ;)

Oxinabox

To be fair I wrote that Tag wiki, Adeptus

Adeptus

@Oxinabox heh OK

GMNoob

It has drag and drop and peer to peer connections 'built in'

doppelgreener

5:35 AM

@GMNoob I'm sure it can do some of the stuff relatively easily. It's the rest of the stuff I'm more concerned about being able to program half-decently. Flash being a technology that's going obsolete, I'd rather not invest in learning it either.

Adeptus

@JonathanHobbs What do you see as replacing Flash? HTML5?

doppelgreener

@Adeptus Yeah. There's less and less reason to use Flash nowadays, and APIs like WebGL are seeing to it that the rest of the reasons are going to go away too.

GMNoob

Well feel free to make things harder for yourself

Unless you need to do lamdas, generics, or method overloading, you won't have any technical hurdles

Oxinabox

Big plus in my mind of HTML 5 is you keep text content, textual. So people could copy and paste there tag descriptions if asking how they work.

(This is absolutely amazing when I saw it in a HTML5 lecture video.)

doppelgreener

@GMNoob That's the thing: I know C# very well, I know WPF and XAML decently, and I know HTML5/JS/CSS very intimately. Flash might have drag and drop and networking built in and easy, whilst C# will only make networking easy and HTML will only make drag-and-drop easy, but Flash being unfamiliar to me makes everything else harder because I'll have to learn everything involved in making a decent Flash application.

GMNoob

5:40 AM

Html5 is great until you need to use object oriented programming

If you know c#well and you know JavaScript well you all ready know ActionScript

doppelgreener

@GMNoob JavaScript has OOP, just a different inheritance model - and I use CoffeeScript, which dresses it up in traditional OOP terms like classes anyway.

@GMNoob I need to do a lot of that stuff, though. This is more than just drag and drop with networking, there is a lot more to it.

GMNoob

Oxinabox what are you referring to that html4 couldn't do?

doppelgreener

I appreciate the recommendation of actionscript, but it's not going to be suitable for my purposes.

@Oxinabox What d'you mean by copying and pasting tag descriptions?

Oxinabox

Oops cross thinking.
I meant Copy and pasting *card* descriptions

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox Oh, yeah. That'll be handy.

Oxinabox

5:44 AM

GMNoob: I'm no web expert. idk if it was possible in HTML 4.
But I've only seen it done in a video, that would "View in HTML5 or View in Flash".

GMNoob

I'm sure you think it won't work for you, but really you are missing out because of regrettable missinfornatiin. But maybe you should see if unity has peer to peer and an easier way to make a ui

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox Nothing particularly special about HTML5 that helps that, just so happens to be part of the spearhead in a new era where we're finally figuring out how to make HTML support all the cool stuff we're doing with it.

GMNoob

I'm still not understanding the copy and paste stuff

Oxinabox

Because the text in HTML interactives is still just text. (VS in flash where it is (alway?) images? (Maybe its not maybe all the flash i have seen was made crap).
You can select it and copy and paste

GMNoob

If you are making a simple game it seems to be you should use techs designed to make simple games 😊

doppelgreener

5:50 AM

@GMNoob I think he's saying you can get a DIV or somethin' to go float around the screen, or you can drag and drop it and do other fancy things with it, but the text inside the DIV is, after all that, still text, and you can select it and hit CTRL+C and paste it elsewhere. I think Flash would still be happy to let people do that. A framework like WPF would not allow for doing that.

BESW

We still like doge here, right?

doppelgreener

many love, wow

lisardggY

Good morning, gentlefolk.

Magician

Greetings.

BESW

@lisardggY [waves gently]

GMNoob

5:51 AM

Ah, ok yeah. Most flash is made with text which is not copyable on purpose the default is to allow you to highlight and copy text.

But artists and companies like the cleaner interface of not having the mouse interact with the text

Is that a riff on game of thrones shirt with the context of doge or something else I'm missing?

doppelgreener

@GMNoob yeah that's it

@GMNoob Plus that'd get in the way sometimes. Having a flashing cursor or highlighted text in a button after I click it doesn't look good. :P

Magician

Dungeons & Doges are a thing, but only barely:

4

doppelgreener

next character: flail snail

BESW

@Magician Now I'm thinking about Doge Fate.

Magician

@BESW Not quite the same thing, but we've considered a valley girl superhero character with Like, Seriously as an aspect.

lisardggY

6:02 AM

@BESW Such Aspect, Very Stunt, Wow.

BESW

High Concept: Very rogue.
Trouble: Such wanted.

3

Much steal: +2 create advantage when pick pocket. Wow.

doppelgreener

@BESW ... i sincerely want to play this

Magician

What's next, lolcat fighters? I Can Haz Advantage!

BESW

It'd get old fast, so the rest of the party would have to be other memes, yes.

Magician

Are there any other memes with speech patterns, though?

BESW

6:08 AM

Trouble: Mah Bukkit!

lisardggY

Lolcat fighter, doge rogue, philosoraptor wizard?

Magician

Yeah, but that's all the walrus can do :)

BESW

.....what's the creepy serial killer guy who turns out to be very nice?

doppelgreener

@BESW one session, clear objectives, done quickly, fate accelerated, doges all the way

lisardggY

There's the Y U NO Guy.

doppelgreener

6:10 AM

@BESW i'm not sure; I can think of intellectual redneck and stereotype breaking black man

BESW

Dating Site Murderer

doppelgreener

@BESW That's him! I'd forgotten about him :D

BESW

Magician

Individual memes like that don't make a good basis for a character, I think. They do make a basis for actions/aspects/whatever. Print out a bunch of wordless meme images as cards, deal out a hand to everyone, play as appropriate.

BESW

[amused]

doppelgreener

6:13 AM

i like how specific the latter search term gets

BESW

Heheheh.

Magician

So... Characters don't have aspects, they get to "invoke" memes as they play an appropriate meme cards. Steal All The Things!

Fate points are replaced by draws of the meme deck.

doppelgreener

@Magician defender's mark is: y u no attack me

BESW

Take back your last move:

Magician

Ah, no. You do have aspects, as permanent memes attached to your character. You discard cards to power them.

BESW

6:16 AM

BTW, @JonathanHobbs, still no word on a good day for your friend to play?

doppelgreener

@BESW not just yet, I might give him a call this evening

BESW

Aight.

I'm not good for tomorrow; got an NSA meeting.

doppelgreener

@BESW with all this security news i've been hearing recently it took me a minute to remember what that stands for in this case

BESW

Oh, right. Heh.

This is pretty cool: You can scroll down to the second map and move that around to compare Guam to any other place you like. (Thanks to @SQB.)

kviiri

About the size of Helsinki metropolitan area.

Metool

6:26 AM

Also about the size of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

... How does that work?

Guam, I mean.

doppelgreener

@BESW Oh, wow.

BESW

@Metool Huh?

doppelgreener

I have a sense of scale for what your island is like now.

Most places I ever visit in this city and its surroundings are in the center - around Brisbane and Woolloongabba - and halfway down to the southeast, and sometimes the airport.

BESW

Based on your positioning of Guam in that screenshot, from Woolloongabba to... Chernside... is the primary developed area with Brisbane at the heart of it.

I live just below the "s" in Brisbane, and I grew up around Forest Lake.

The pictures I posted the other week were taken south of the M15 icon.

kviiri

6:43 AM

I relapsed into a couple of games of GeoGuessr the other week.

I landed in a forest in Lapland and managed to pinpoint my location by finding the nearest liquor store, only to find out that you have to guess your ORIGINAL position, not the current one. :(

BESW

[amused]

doppelgreener

@BESW .... given the relative overlay, you live close to where I live, and grew up close to where I grew up (at least, where I grew up here - my single-digit years were in Sydney)

BESW

[still amused]

kviiri

Amusement intensifies!

Oxinabox

Right, Have made meta to get community input

0

Q: Lets get a clear consensus on the use of [nwod] vs [nwod-god-machine]

There is a ongoing issue with the tagging of the various Editions of the World of Darkness Lines. See: Shall we review the various World of Darkness tags' use? Clearing up White Wolf World of Darkness tags I want to tackle a new small part of that problem, now. While it is still in infancy. ...

discussion tags

Right now to do some actual session prep...
after some gardening...

trogdor

6:59 AM

@BESW I suppose that must mean I more or less grew relatively close to Forest lake, but sorta a bit between it and Woolloongabba

BESW

You're probably closer to Forest Lake and I'm a bit down toward Springfield, maybe?

What kind of game is Fate?

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