TRPG General Chat

(although -- I think astronomy would be easier than particle physics -- who wouldn't want an astronomy lecture from an honest-to-goodness E.T who's been up-close-and-personal with much of the craziness the universe has to offer?)

Doomed Mind

7:06 AM

mornin

Adeptus

afternoon

Doomed Mind

whatever it is :)

or whenever.

something.

Doomed Mind

7:25 AM

If anyone is interested in helping me: I am looking for a good term describing dice successes!

Miniman

@DoomedMind Passes?

Doomed Mind

Mhhh, no, i don't think that'd work. I want to measure the amount of successes for rolls with many dice. I'd like something more in line with "Confidence" and "Expertise", something not as much technically correct as "success" or "pass", especially since one might need multiple "successes" to pass a skill check

Adeptus

7:54 AM

Have a look at what other games with a dice pool mechanic call it. (eg, Shadowrun, World of Darkness)

Doomed Mind

8:08 AM

Well, I don't know about SR, but the german edition of Mage calls them "success"...

Anaphory

8:40 AM

If “successes”, “hits”, “Erfolge” etc. don't fit for what you need, and you want something more flavourful (Mouse Guard calls the opposite of these Snakes, Torchbearer has Scoundrels – I don't know the positive ones at the moment) I think you need to either give us more flavour of what the general world is like, or more about what can increase the number so you see what it correlates with.

eimyr

9:02 AM

+1

@DoomedMind In WoD one of the most confusing phrases is that a given number of successes (dice showing above target number) can result in a borderline/partial/full success (total result of an action).

I empathise with your need for a different word.

You can use "progress", "fortune", "advance" or "steps" but it's all about your game and setting

BESW

Consider widening your vocabulary range to things which are evocative of a movement or moment or accumulation.

Splats, bangs, bumps, ticks, points, taps, jumps....

eimyr

[starts beatboxing]

eimyr

9:26 AM

@BESW you there today?

BESW

Ish.

eimyr

Dinner?

BESW

Baked cinnamon pancake and fried veggie sausage.

eimyr

sounds lovely

Doomed Mind

9:41 AM

@Anaphory The system is not setting-specific, even though I'll be using it for a science-fiction type world.

@eimyr yeah, I feel many games using a dice pool have this problem. I'm trying to find something that is descriptive enough, but not setting-specific

eimyr

That's your problem right there.

Doomed Mind

I kinda thought of something like "fortune", yes. But i'm not completely satisfied

eimyr

"Descriptive" and "not setting-specific" are contradictory

it's like saying "I have this thing and I want it to describe something, but I don't know what"

Doomed Mind

mhh, i don't think its contradictory. "Confidence" and "Expertise" aren't setting-specific either and work fine too.

eimyr

You can either settled for something generic - like your Fortune or Progress or even Success and be not-completely-satisfied or find a descriptor that works for your specific setting.

Thing is, with generic mechanics you want to keep your descriptors vague. For settings you want your descriptors to reinforce the setting.

Doomed Mind

9:47 AM

the problem with setting-specific descriptors is that I have to find other terms if I want to use the system in high-fantasy setting for example

BESW

@DoomedMind They aren't setting-specific, but they're descriptive of the system's assumptions about what kind of rolls are being made and what it means to do well on them.

Doomed Mind

@BESW yes

BESW

And thus far I haven't seen an explanation of the system's ethos.

eg, "Fortune" and "Expertise" have vastly different connotations that are almost contradictory and I don't know which would be more appropriate for your context.

Doomed Mind

Well, it works like this: Each of your skills have two values you can develop. "Confidence" determines the size of the dice pool. "Expertise" determines the maximum amount of "successes" that you can achieve without also getting adverse side-effects

"fortune" could then describe how good your skill check is.

which means, how many successes

BESW

If the determining qualities are confidence and expertise, then a luck-based descriptor seems misplaced.

Doomed Mind

9:53 AM

yeah

Miniman

So what you're looking to describe is something that, in conjunction with expertise, leads to success, but if over-confident, leads to failure.

Doomed Mind

@Miniman, not necessarily failure, it could still work somewhat, but with drawbacks connected to the action

for example, you crack open the door, but in the process, you trip the alarm

BESW

chutzpah?

Gumption, initiative, enthusiasm.

Reach?

Doomed Mind

Well, Initiative is already a locked term, as it is used for the combat mechanics. Enthusiasm is kinda nice, but still somewhat off.

Reach actually doesn't sound bad.

Control?

eimyr

10:08 AM

Effort?

Doomed Mind

effort isn't bad

it also translates well into german

If I don't choose the closest translation, Reach might also fare well

Anaphory

“Too much effort” is also a phrase that makes sense.

Means something different most of the time, though.

Doomed Mind

yeah

Anaphory

Which translation of Reach are you thinking of?

Doomed Mind

but Reach and Control have similar problems as they don't quite catch the overestimation/overconfidence metaphor

"Einfluss"

BESW

10:20 AM

@DoomedMind Are you familiar with the term "overreach"?

Doomed Mind

@BESW no, but then again, I'm not a native speaker. That is quite nice, thank you, I didn't know that

Anaphory

“over-” is probably a generally useful prefix to look for in this context.

Doomed Mind

true. I currently use "Overestimate" in my writings to describe this

but if I were to use "reach", "overreach" would be the perfect match

Anaphory

Commitment/Einsatz?

eimyr

@DoomedMind If applying "effort" is not necessary you can have a nifty resolution mechanic that takes into consideration whether the action was "effortless" or "with great effort"

Anaphory

10:25 AM

(commitment would really only be fitting if you then committed dice to result or something)

Doomed Mind

@Anaphory That also would work well, as it makes sense in the context of what I described earlier.

its also very easy to directly translate

@eimyr that is an interesting idea, I'll have to think about that

@Anaphory, well, the system allows you to choose the amount of dice you throw, so I think "commitment" works fine as you have commited your attention/time/momentum to that action, and now cannot turn back

eimyr

10:44 AM

momentum is also a good word

Doomed Mind

mhhh, not sure how it works for purely intellectual things...

although thought momentum... mhh

or intellectual momentum. I mean it works

Anaphory

“Impulsiv” has a nice negative connotation, if momentum is your choice.

@DoomedMind But in that sense, commitment is what governs what you put in, not what you get out.

Switch it around? Make “Enthusiasm” the base stat, and then “Confidence/Overconfidence” the result of the roll?

Doomed Mind

True, yeah. Switching them... That's not a bad proposition

Anaphory

You can obviously not spend more Effort than your Enthusiasm, otherwise it's Just Too Much Effort. Now if you come out very Confident, that's good. But if you come out with more Confidence than your Expertise, you are obviously Overconfident.

The disadvantage is that Overconfident does not have a good German equivalent.

“Eifer/eifrig/übereifrig” might come close, but has old, school and effort connotations.

All of which do not appy here.

Doomed Mind

11:02 AM

Your idea grows on me regardless.

There's "Überschätzen", though that would only work for over side

Anaphory

Vermessen/Maß/angemessen/?

Not good either.

Doomed Mind

Nope

Selbstüberschätzung?

Works, but isn't pretty

eimyr

That sounds scary.

Doomed Mind

Yeah

:D

Typical case of German word construction

eimyr

Would it translate literally self-over-estimation?

Doomed Mind

11:08 AM

Yes

Anaphory

Yep

Doomed Mind

11:39 AM

It's really difficult to find good wording in German

eimyr

This sentence rings true regardless of the context.

Miniman

2:36 PM

Close votes plz; those answers are just going to keep rushing in.

Anaphory

4:50 PM

Hey

Zachiel

7:25 PM

@DoomedMind "ü!" [typewriter noises that last for minutes can be heard in the background]

Doomed Mind

8:02 PM

@Zachiel eh...what? :D

Zachiel

@DoomedMind I was hoping you'd get the reference. There's a scene in The Great Dictator where Chaplin dictates (how appropriate!) a lenghty sentence in German to his assistant. She only types a few letters and he looks at her with surprise. Then he ends the sentence with a single "ü!" and she starts typing furiously, upsetting him.

Or at least that's how I remember it in the Italian version of the movie. Apparently, the original had something different, now that I check it. Hardest reference ever. :(

Doomed Mind

8:24 PM

Well, i haven't seen the movie yet, my gf was not interested yet

It's on my list though

Anaphory

9:18 PM

We did have links to medieval manuscripts with crazy animals recently. Someone know a good way to search for something in such images? I'm looking for a scarecrow, wicker man or something like that.

BESW

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Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on July 26, 2016 at 3:28 PM

@Anaphory What kind of image (photograph, lithograph, watercolour), and what do you want to use it for (private use, commercial use)?

Anaphory

Medieval manuscript illumination-like; for private use.

BESW

Then I'd suggest going to museum databases first.

Anaphory

I mostly know the koninklijke bibliotheek having an illumination search by topic.

But the words “scare”, “scarecrow” and “wicker” are not it that one.

Oh right, the images we had in chat earlier were mostly etchings, weren't they?

BESW

The British Museum, the Louvre, the Staatliche Museen, the Pitt Rivers Museum...

The Met.

Dozens of museums have been publicly digitising their collections over the last few years.

This page has a great list of Art History databases.

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Miniman

11:31 PM

@nitsua60 You're right, but he specifically wants to use Subtle Spell to cast Dispel Magic on the bubble effect.

nitsua60

@Miniman Yup, sorry--got that part now.

(It wasn't clear to me on first-read, but when I walked away I only got about 20 ft. before realizing what was really going on.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Yeah, been there a few times. (All the time.)

But anyway, looks good!

Shalvenay

hey @nitsua60 -- will be AFK for a while, but should be around for a bit when I get back...

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Cool--just got back home from road trip, wife's at book club, so it'll be after bed until I'm really here. Just popping in for a minute or two at times for the next few hours.

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