TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

12:56 AM

@doppelgreener good catch on that Slaadi answer--thanks =)

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60 and @Emrakul

doppelgreener

1:25 AM

@nitsua60 I've a habit of always scrolling to check what's going on at the bottom of an answers list

nitsua60

2:22 AM

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay busy--second exchange group came in last night. About halfway through my list and I'm about to call it quits for the night.

You?

Shalvenay

trying to fathom just what is happening to one of my NWN chars

we're blaming the illithids so far.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay not unreasonable

Shalvenay

so far, it seems that an illithid has been using powerful psionics on none other than the Grim Reaper himself...

nitsua60

2:36 AM

I'm heading off to bed--hae a nice night.

daze413

I know I've hit my stride as a DM when a player tears up at the death of an NPC. Wild night, wild night...

Shalvenay

@daze413 dang, sounds like it

daze413

2:54 AM

@doppelgreener I read the starred message on the right, ping me if you post up a meta Q for advertising games

Joel Harmon

3:41 AM

@nitsua60 your bell ringing first reminded me of the book Anathem

@nitsua60 and now you've gone and reminded me of Karnaugh maps

@doppelgreener +1 for the 'squash' and 'gourd' puns

also, @BESW, I'm curious how your digital organization project is going, but I have to head out. Please remind me to ask you about that later.

BESW

5:06 AM

@JoelHarmon Not really any progress on that front. Letting options percolate while I go about my work, so I can go "Ooh, this is a category I need ready access to" and "Ah, that's a common tool I don't need."

I'm not very good at self-awareness re: organisation.

BESW

5:26 AM

Whoever suggested a Monsterhearts edit to the Timely RPGery pin, nice job!

BESW

5:46 AM

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[LCQ comp](http://blackarmada.com/lovecraftesque-competition/ "Write a short (~600 wds) Lovecraftesque scenario and you can win the adulation of your peers and a copy of the game! Nov 07");
[playtest](http://www.modiphius.com/star-trek.html "STAR TREK ADVENTURES - Living Playtest Sign up");

doppelgreener

10:36 AM

Is anyone else having trouble loading Stack Exchange mainsites due to cdn.sstatic.net hanging?

@BESW Ooer. A couple of those kickstarters (Alpha Omega Hobby, and Soulbond) are not going well at all.

BESW

@doppelgreener Yeah, I also removed a few that have been cancelled.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Nope.

BESW

We tend to see the Kickstarters that get good publicity and a lot of traffic, so we mostly see the ones that do well.

By trawling through everything with "tabletop" in the description, I wind up finding the ones wedged away in the corners too.

eimyr

11:29 AM

@doppelgreener It seems that there are (in practice) two types of KS projects: one does very well and is funded easily and the other never gets above 50%. KS that reach 90% and then die are very rare.

@Zachiel Potentially interested in Fourthcore. Any details available yet?

Joel Harmon

@eimyr there does seem to be a power law in effect over there, yes

doppelgreener

New candidate for an oh-nooooooooooooooo tag:

6

Q: If an Umbral Blot came up against a black Hole, what would win?

Thanks to DM logic, the characters in our epic-level campagin started layering spell over spell until we ended up creating a black hole. Don't ask how. These things tend to happen in our campaign. As we were figuring out how to deal with the singularity we just created, one of the players asked ...

BESW

@doppelgreener They turn into a bag of holding, obviously.

doppelgreener

@BESW You know, that actually vaguely makes sense.

eimyr

11:48 AM

@JoelHarmon I've heard it explained as (quotation very liberal) "KS fail because one of these has happened: a) It didn't reach enough people b) The presentation didn't convince people it's achievable c) the KS target sum was hilariously large d) KS target sum was too low to be realistic" a) and b) means it stopped somewhere around 20% before it gained traction, c) was doomed to only reach 20% or so, d) either had people see through the misestimation or was funded easily and then flopped.

BESW

a) is very common. I've seen creators describe it as thinking KS is a way to acquire an audience.

eimyr

It's a bit like with video game preorders - you only hear about the ones that didn't deliver despite massive hype

@BESW Ouch.

BESW

You gather your audience/fans somewhere else, and they'll follow you into a Kickstarter.

But if you open your relationship with a potential audience by asking them to pledge a Kickstarter, that's... a very hard sell.

eimyr

The folks who browse KS biting on their wallet looking for stuff to pledge to are hard to come by.

BESW

Every time I've ever seen a creator with a successful Kickstarter answer questions about how to make a Kickstarter successful, there are two things they say: Overcharge for shipping, and have a group of satisfied customers before you start the KS.

eimyr

11:53 AM

Well, if it's your first KS, you have to have some other evidence of success.

transferable skills

BESW

EG: Evil Hat has a reputation for quality games of a certain niche, and they make successful Kickstarters for more of the same.

eimyr

Names like Vincent Baker, Ben Robbins, Jason Morningstar are KS honeypots and get fantastic KS results - but they are ALSO very professional and look great.

Say, Follow - It's not even a game I'm interested in, but I was tempted to back it even so.

BESW

I've also seen prop/model makers talk about Kickstarters that fail, and they tend to live and die on volume.

Somebody starts a Kickstarter to produce a short run of hand-made statuettes, and forgets to limit the number of pledges to actually get a statue: suddenly they have to make 20 times the product they expected.

Another emergent wisdom is not to offer discounts to backers: instead of charging less as a reward for backing, offer first-priority shipping.

I also once saw a poor Kickstarter with a target goal of $X dollars, and only a single reward level where you could pledge $X/20... and it was limited to 10 backers.

@nitsua60 [wave]

doppelgreener

12:10 PM

@nitsua60 [intense scowling and glaring whilst also waving]

eimyr

So I was thinking to turn NaNoWriMo motivation into NaRPGDeMo instead.

That sounds like a very reasonable thing to do, but I need a good idea for a throwaway RPG that's good enough to work on but not good enough to work on seriously :D

doppelgreener

@BESW that's some bad math they did there

BESW

@eimyr From the most recent episode of The Flash: "Murder on the Titanic."

> "Who did it?"
"Who cares? We're drowning!"

eimyr

12:43 PM

@BESW What is that about?

I fail to see what your line is related to.

BESW

"a good idea for a throwaway RPG that's good enough to work on but not good enough to work on seriously"

eimyr

...and what is the idea?

BESW

Murder on the Titanic. Or more broadly, the absurdity of a mystery in a disaster.

Murder on the Titanic, Blackmail at Pompeii, Embezzlement on the set of Battlefield Earth...

(That last one's historically accurate!)

eimyr

well...

I'm not too hooked.

Maybe you should pick it up?

BESW

If I had any interest I'd've kept it for myself.

eimyr

12:51 PM

So you're giving me an idea that you have no interest in and expect me to have any? I feel gravely insulted.

BESW

[eyebrow raise] You'd feel better if I assumed you were only interested in things I like?

eimyr

I'm joking, but yeah, It'd be nice to assume I have standards no lower than yours.

But the joke is not funny anymore. Let's drop it.

doppelgreener

@eimyr i don't see that middle ground

what is "worth working on" that is "not worth working on seriously"?

is "seriously" here being used as a term for "worth putting into a 40-page finalised PDF manual for distribution"?

eimyr

1:14 PM

@doppelgreener not-seriously means "not regretting treating the thing as an exercise"

doppelgreener

you can work on it as an exercise then take or leave working on it further

effectively any RPG design is little but a series of exercises

the difference is how many you choose to do and whether you decide the end of any particular one means it's finished

eimyr

ah, but then an exercise is to bring the project into completion

I have ideas that I would be unsatisfied if I brought them into "completion" under a month.

Anaphory

1:30 PM

@eimyr De=Develop?

eimyr

Design

doppelgreener

2:02 PM

@eimyr well, where i'm coming from here, i've had two separate fate project hacks that i've been working for on-and-off when i feel like it, for enjoyment, at various points over the past year (and one of them, two years, but i put it on hold until quite recently because i realised i had some things i needed to learn about Fate before i could resume it)

nitsua60

2:54 PM

@BESW @doppelgreener hiya

@nitsua60 hello!

@nitsua60 Yo!

@eimyr hiya

What's up?

Have to grade. Don't feel like grading.
Our school's on a 6-point scale.
I've got d6 in my pocket.
Fighting... temptation.

2

eimyr

3:07 PM

Make it into a haiku.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 quick, give the d6 to someone else!

@SevenSidedDie "The magic needs a creature to function. (How does magic tell creatures from non-creatures? Magic!)" That cracks me up.

(for others, that's from this answer)

SevenSidedDie

3:23 PM

@doppelgreener I almost didn't write it, thinking it might be a bit of a cop-out. Except it is magic! Magic cares about this kind of thing, so I left it. It makes sense in context. ^^

doppelgreener

3:35 PM

It does!

DuckTapeAl

@doppelgreener Did you end up asking that question about advertising games on Meta on Meta? I think that's an awesome idea.

doppelgreener

4:07 PM

@DuckTapeAl I have been hesitant, if only because I am not myself someone with plans on doing that. But I think I ought to do that, since apparently people are interested in that being a thing!

DuckTapeAl

4:42 PM

Pro Tip: If you throw two Griffons at your level 1 party, make sure to remember the balance adjustments that you intended to apply before starting the fight, so you don't one-shot half the party in round 1.

doppelgreener

4:53 PM

@DuckTapeAl Pro-Tip 2: Do not bring wild Griffons to parties. They are terrible guests.

DuckTapeAl

5:05 PM

Maybe, but they are definitely great dancers:

nitsua60

5:46 PM

@DuckTapeAl That guy's named after a woman at my school =)

(Seth grew up in this town, next door to the Griffin family.)

DuckTapeAl

Fibericon

6:22 PM

Long time no see, all! Thought I'd pop in and say something cool. I'm running a FATE campaign where wealth is intrinsically linked to every aspect of your person. So yes, if you're rich, you really are better than everyone else, at least in this world they're visiting. The players haven't figured that out yet (one session in), but they're pretty creeped out already by what they have found.

doppelgreener

6:48 PM

@Fibericon Oh hi!

Sounds wicked. For several meanings of that word.

DuckTapeAl

@Fibericon That's pretty trippy.

Zachiel

7:20 PM

@eimyr I'm just seeing how many people I can find, for now. I have a friend who wants to play some D&D by forum, 4e is the only kind of D&D that I want to DM, I like Fourthcore and it is organized in short dungeons. By now it's me, him, you if you want to, Anaphory is mildly interested but it'n not their genre. I have another wannabe player, but I don't know if he speaks English yet (and people from the stack get priority)

DuckTapeAl

I would be interested, but I generally don't like things that describe themselves as "hardcore", so I don't think it would really be the game for me.

I like 4th ed, and a forum game would be the only kind of game I have schedule space for, but I don't think I would enjoy the higher difficulty.

Zachiel

Not really. Adventures are short and there's no rest (there's some small chngest to the rules for casting rituals). Lots of exploration and cool rooms, the adventures are very thematic and that's one of the things I like the most. Yet you have a different resource to manage: the life of your characters.
Throwing a character in an unknown room knowing that resurrection will cost you 15 minutes of the in-game timer? (Originally, out of game timer, but this will be a PbF so... no OOC timers) That's a thing. I know players who did a run of 10 different fourthcore dungeons with a pool of 50 rand…

@DuckTapeAl I understand.

doppelgreener

7:58 PM

@Zachiel "We stop and wait here beside this waterfall in this place we've established is relatively safe, for fifteen minutes. Ok, he's back now right? Let's go." Might want to find a different measure than in-game time, such as X posts or X real-life days. Especially since in reality, 15 minutes of in-game time might mean they don't wind up posting in the adventure for 3 weeks, and by the time they're resurrected the player has buggered off and found something else to do.

DuckTapeAl

8:55 PM

@BESW Hey, I don't know if you saw this, but it might be cool to put on the sticky: humblebundle.com/books/fiction-faves-rpg-book-bundle

2

nitsua60

9:14 PM

VTC rec

BESW

9:53 PM

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[RPG bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fiction-faves-rpg-book-bundle "The Humble RPG Book Bundle: Fiction Faves. Nov 16");
[LCQ comp](http://blackarmada.com/lovecraftesque-competition/ "Write a short (~600 wds) Lovecraftesque scenario and you can win the adulation of your peers and a copy of the game! Nov 07");

Adeptus

11:35 PM

@DuckTapeAl I'm tempted to back that at the $1 level. I'm not likely to play any of those games any time in the foreseeable future, but... I still like looking at new games

DuckTapeAl

11:47 PM

@Adeptus Me too.

BESW

11:59 PM

They've all got good reputations.

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