TRPG General Chat

12:00 AM

To be Marxist and reductionist, AD&D2e's fullest dataset is very very early capitalism with swords, and the Renaissance is very very early capitalism with swords. It would be quite interesting to set a restricted D&D game in the bronze or early iron or late iron age; but, players often have a problem with the absence of commodities (What do you mean no full plate to fit off the shelf?)

As I've said online, "One day people will pretend to be wage labourers for their amusement." Meanwhile I forgot about Eve Online.

BESW

Yeah, it would quickly stop being Dungeons & Dragons, and instead become Bludgeoning & Bartering.

As much as it annoyed me in so many respects, The Redemption of Althalus's simplistic approach to the cultural and technological advancement of humanity was hilarious and realistic on the level of personal reaction.

The main character, a thief, finds himself traveling through both time and space from early bronze age cultures into early Renaissance cultures, with appropriate stops on the way. His bewilderment at things like paper money are very much an inverted reflection of the average D&D player's bewilderment at playing in a game which attempts to emulate historically accurate cultural trends.

I have absolutely baffled players by refusing to allow them to assume round turn-knobs on doors.

Samuel Russell

Yes! Latch-levers or bars or…. "You travel to great Knossis bedecked with golden necklaces, seeking to barter them for arms foretold long ago. After three days of eating and feasting the King of Knossis murders you in your sleep on the dawn of the fourth day—sorry about that, cross cultural misunderstandings." There was that play-by-yourself book about greek myth that did that nicely much of the time.

BESW

@AvnerShahar-Kashtan Isn't that how Greek plays usually end?

Samuel Russell

I guess you could get everyone to watch the animated Grendel movie and then play an iron age game. Bronze age is harder, I think Robert Graves is right when he imagines that much myth is psycho-sexual; but do you really want to ERP human sacrifice with your gaming buddies?

BESW

@SamuelRussell In my experience big stuff like that doesn't actually impact players as strongly as forcing them to shell out twenty as much money for a room instead of an opportunity to fight for a place by the fire (BYOBlanket), fifty times as much if you want the bed, and a hundred times as much if you don't want to share the bed.

(And the bed has lice. This is non-negotiable.)

Samuel Russell

12:13 AM

As long as it has less lice than I do.

BESW

Even if they're at the point where money is irrelephant because D&D economies are so awful, the fact that "I want to spend the night here" is assumed to mean "I'd like to pay for a spot of floor with a dozen unwashed strangers," and you have to be explicit about leveling up from there? Makes players sit back.

There are absolutely hilarious American revolutionary war diary entries about the torture that was sharing a bed with Benjamin Franklin.

Samuel Russell

I don't play often enough, or in a way that, the Wish economy has ever become relevant to me; but the mix between nethack encumbrance and WoD's "if you've got 3 dots, sure, that's normal" ways of dealing with items is ingrained and bizarre.

Also, urgh, Franklin.

BESW

I'm falling in love with DFRPG's skill-based equipment system.

Samuel Russell

That sounds sensible and tailored to getting on with hitting orcs or telling stories rather than trying to create a perfect map of a fantasy reality

BESW

Yeah.

You have Resources as a skill, and a ladder of values.

Anything two steps below your skill ranks, you can just have if the party agrees it's reasonable for your character to have it.

More expensive than that, and you have to roll to see if you have it.

Samuel Russell

12:24 AM

good system element.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

whee, if you're out of the country, auto 2 month extension on us taxes

if I do this right, I might be able to get something to calculate joint us/aussie taxes at the same time

also, whee, not actually qualifying for the external income extension because bullshit!

Samuel Russell

I find it bizarre that as a non-resident you have to pay US taxes

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

If you're going to move out of the country, do it in january.

Samuel Russell

I find a lot of US bizarre.

BESW

The Doctor and Leela, on taxes.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

12:26 AM

@SamuelRussell Yeah....

Samuel Russell

The rituals are sufficiently intelligible and like my own that they are bizarre and disgusting.

Oblivious Sage

as a non-resident, don't you get to deduct foreign income taxes from your US tax bill? or at least some of them?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@ObliviousSage only if I'm sufficiently non-resident!

Oblivious Sage

oh good, i thought that deduction sounded too simple to actually exist in our tax code

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@ObliviousSage yep.

so next year, when I earn more money, I won't have to be taxed (us-wise) on any of it.

this year, since I've earned half as much, I suspect I'll need to pay a great big chunk

I've just sent an e-mail to the aussie migrations office (not kidding at all) cause fuck. this. shit.

Oblivious Sage

12:34 AM

are you looking to become an aussie citizen, or just over there temporarily?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@ObliviousSage citizen

BESW

Guam's got its own fun bits; being an unincorporated territory means forms that tax software doesn't even know exist.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mind you, that's an order of magnitude harder than what I can do now.

step 1 is to level up to "harder to toss me out of the country"

Oblivious Sage

yeah, i'd heard immigrating to Australia was hard

otherwise i'd be tempted to do it just to escape the clusterfuck that is US politics without having to learn another language (UK & Ireland are nice to visit, but i wouldnt want to live there)

Samuel Russell

Step 1: Do you own $10M? Y / We will lock you in a concentrationcamp

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

12:43 AM

@SamuelRussell just a little bit.

@ObliviousSage eeeh, depends on your skill set and where you're willing to live

Samuel Russell

The system is designed to lock out people unless they're willing to work the worst jobs (and have a migration agent giving them advice) are very rich (and have a migration agent giving them advice) or are a unique specialist works (and have a migration agent giving them advice and an employer).

BESW

I wonder how my high school friend managed it.

She's studying and teaching in Perth.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW oh, temporary they'd love to have you.

Samuel Russell

Are you sure she's got permanent residence?

Oblivious Sage

@BESW: grad student? i'd imagine it's relatively easy to get a temporary visa for that

BESW

12:48 AM

I'm quite sure she's a citizen.

Samuel Russell

student visas grow on trees, and disappointed failed accountants from city business colleges trudge out on planes back to India or China.

BESW

She's studying Human Rights at Curtin.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@SamuelRussell yep.

BESW

1:03 AM

The Doctor: He Saved Others

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:17 AM

... hweee ... these people want $800 for prepping us+au tax returns. Um. No.

Samuel Russell

ATO don't care about non-returned returns as long as I owe them money

other way around, they owe me money

head no good

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@SamuelRussell yeah....

bleeeeeeeh

::shudder:: Why do people want to get blog updates via e-mail? ::shudder::

BESW

1:33 AM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Because they have and reasonably understand email already?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

but... but... they're doing it wrong!

Samuel Russell

So invent the Complex Painful Syndication specification.

BESW

RSS feeds and the like are an extra level of complication, an extra system to add to the brain.

(And explaining RSS feeds can be rather difficult; they're still Strange Wizardry and privileged information to the vast majority of Internet users.)

Remember, most technology is used superstitiously: If I perform a certain set of actions my car will behave in a particular way, but I have no idea why or how.

The Internet trebly so.

Samuel Russell

Stop confounding me, people on my magic face book machine.

BESW

Seven years ago the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web was significant but poorly understood by the majority.

Today, it's increasingly irrelephant.

Samuel Russell

1:38 AM

<fogey>Seven years ago it was 1986 and the web didn't exist.</fogey>

BESW

Just a gleam of cat-filled tubes in Al Gore's eye, eh?

Samuel Russell

I think the magnificence of USENET in the late 1980s indicates the "internet" as the social phenomena we now know. Complete with its 4chan, pony-fetish-equivalent and supply of disturbing pornography.

BESW

You keep writing phrases that I can't quite parse, and it confuses me. Somewhere in "magnificence" and "indicates" I think I lost something.

I think it's a use of the word "indicates" as more active than I'm used to?

Samuel Russell

I think so, "indicates" as an evidentiary data point.

Should have encapsulated the sentence with, "We can prove "the internet" as a social institution has existed prior to the web, and prior to that."

I'm sure that even The Well has its equivalent of cat pictures.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

..... ooookay. why does the "electronic resources unit" of the unsw library have... no web presence?

BESW

1:47 AM

Probably.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

this is an amusing contradiction in terms...

BESW

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Tragic irony.

(Please read that in Christopher Walken's voice, because this is how I hear it in my head.)

2

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW yes.

BESW

Our university's wireless network requires that the tech lab install a program on your computer in order to access it. My mother took one of the early Asus EEE PCs with Xandros to the techs, and they looked like she'd brought them a bobcat.

Samuel Russell

2:04 AM

Lunch is here, which means I switch from frustrating employed work to frustrated abstract writing.

Samuel Russell

2:43 AM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Do you have a brain for idiot checking labour history abstracts?

BESW

Sigh. This price quote thing is turning into the monologue of Mister Waturi.

Samuel Russell

3:46 AM

What is the correct name for aloof late 18th early 19th century masculinity that developed against vulgar gentlemen and Byronic exuberance. Restraint, failure to express emotion, perfect mannerliness.

I saw it on a BBC "documentary" about forcing moderns to behave like early 19th century rural bourgeois courting, like in Austin.

Samuel Russell

4:34 AM

It seems after all to have been "Dandy"

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@SamuelRussell no.

Samuel Russell

no worries!

BESW

7:01 AM

Herp, derp. I installed a different word processing program on a client's computer and forgot to update the default program-open settings.

Magician

12:16 PM

Hello!

BESW

Hafa.

Magician

I wrote something approximating another blog post. Care to take a look? It's a short one this time.

BESW

Chure.

Magician

magbonch.wordpress.com/?p=423&shareadraft=516bef82b3a22

BESW

What am I reading for?

Magician

12:19 PM

I suppose if you're not familiar with DRYH you can hardly tell if it makes sense, so... is it at least funny? :P

BESW

Voice: "only one such thing" breaks the cadence you've got going.

(I read part of the manual once)

Maurycy Zarzycki

I didn't read DRYH and it utterly confused me ;)

BESW

Spelling: "Aperture" has acquired an extra "p." Might want to have the boys track down where that came from. Don't want a consonant leak. We're still looking for the "u"s that fled to other countries during the last symbol containment rupture.

Magician

@BESW good point, thanks, changed that bit to "The Portal Gun was exciting, can't wait to see what else they've cooked up."

@BESW Hah, good catch. I tend to do double p's, I don't know why. "appartment" is a frequent offender

@MaurycyZarzycki fix that! :))

BESW

Otherwise, nice.

Jives with what I remember about DRYH, too.

Sounds like a solid port.

When you've posted, I'll share with some friends who would appreciate it.

Magician

12:26 PM

Cool, thank you for feedback.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Magician ::twitch:: Grant. application.

::twitch::

Magician

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Hehe, yeah, I have my inspirations.

BESW

@Magician Let me know when it's posted?

Magician

@BESW Aye, most likely soon. Waiting on a couple more people to take a look first ;)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Mr. Gin, and Mr. Tonic approve.

they approve of many things.

Aether

12:44 PM

@Magician Looks good, but you seem to have swapped the a and o in Caroline's name.

BESW

Good catch. Coraline would probably challenge GLaDOS to a game of finding personality cores.

Aether

And there's still a rogue p in the second Aperture (the first mention is fixed)

Otherwise, nice post. I can hear it in Cave's voice. :)

BESW

I'd make a Disney joke in the "head storage project" line, myself.

But that might be too off-topic.

BESW

1:29 PM

FATE Core update: "We're most likely looking at a May delivery of the official PDF, and early June delivery of the books and other digital formats. [...W]e're projecting both FAE and Core will emerge from their printers at around the same time." And a preview of Evil Hat Fudge dice.

Maurycy Zarzycki

May :(

BESW

I know.

Maurycy Zarzycki

So... @BESW Want to indulge into some over-the-net FATE testing? nudge nudge wink wink

BESW

I would love to.

Maurycy Zarzycki

Wait... Really?

BESW

1:43 PM

It'd be nice to have someone to bounce mechanics off of.

Maurycy Zarzycki

Cool! Not sure how we could arrange it though, I've never done any RPG-ing over the net

BESW

I'm limited in experience as well, but the first order would be for the Kickstarted GM to share his material with the non-Kickstarted player(s).

You're not Kickstarted, right?

Maurycy Zarzycki

I have a Kickstarter account but unfortunately I didn't participate in Fate's kickstarter

BESW

I might not have a lot of time for playtesting until May (spending a week and a half in Israel at the end of the month, gotta deal with everything before I go), but you'd have time to familiarize yourself with the material.

Maurycy Zarzycki

I'll have to disappear soon to get home from office in a few minutes though

BESW

1:51 PM

mm, and I'm soon for bed.

We shall pick this up again soon.

Maurycy Zarzycki

It might be difficult for us to synchronize ;)

I am wondering how I can give you my email address or something without posting it here

BESW

a) you can post it here and then delete it

Check.

Maurycy Zarzycki

I forgot there is an option to delete a chat message

BESW

It's on a short timer unless you're a mod, but yeah.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW uyou.... have summoned me?

BESW

1:58 PM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton ....no.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW damn. ::vanishes in a puff of logic::

Maurycy Zarzycki

I am off, bye!

BESW

@BrianBallsun-Stanton ...you're a straw-man argument for the existence of God?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

sure.

BESW

That must be awkward at parties.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:00 PM

Due to logic: jelly donut

BESW

[blink] I was about to make that reference.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW ....

::shifty eyes::

that. exact. reference?

BESW

Yes. The Mac Hall jelly donut.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW errrrrrr....

we have got to stop doing this.

BESW

There is no good reason for our pop-cultural-reference synapses to be synchronized like this.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:05 PM

@BESW nupe

especially since they tend to be remarkably obscure

otoh, one blog I read today referenced this

so it may be same blog reading?

BESW

I haven't seen anyone except myself reference the Mac Hall jelly donut in... at least six years?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW ah. excellent.

BESW

I mean, the Douglas Adams was a gimmie. I don't even like HHGTTG but I know the references.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

ummm

Magician

@Aether haha, yeah, thanks for that.

Phil

2:19 PM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I am intrigued by your answer on the 'Respawn' question, and am considering running a Groundhog day like adventure based on your ideas. One of the things that is making me hesitate is the possibility of PCs having to win the same combat's over and over again. How did you manage this in the game you ran?

Or should I put that all in an actual question? :o)

Magician

Don't Rest Your Head (If You Want Cake)

Novian

3:27 PM

I Got bored this morning and wanted to see what the highest AC i could reach with a D&D Character was. Right now that limit seems to be 60. taking a -12 on attack rolls and such as well as burning though 98% of the characters wealth.

Eh. I got reeeeally bored.

Touch might be rubbish. I dunno I need to go through and add all the little bonuses that go to touch to touch to get the final Number.

Novian

4:58 PM

In Short AC is Dumb past a certain Point.

Aether

Particularly when every enemy will always have at least a 5% hit chance.

No advantage in having an AC higher than 20 more than your opponent's attack bonus.

BESW

8:35 PM

@Magician Showed DRYH (IYWC) to a friend. And I quote: "I would play the shit out of this."

Maurycy Zarzycki

8:57 PM

@BESW Hey

Aether

9:41 PM

There are plans for some FATE playtesting?

Is it possible to register interest in this happening?

BESW

I was thinking about doing a FAE test with my Hounds of God concept, but not until I'm back from Israel at the start of next month.

@MaurycyZarzycki Did you get the email? Did it unzip okay?

Aether

Sounds good

BESW

Also worth noting is that I have no concrete idea how to implement on online FATE game, so.... [wings it]

Clever +3

4d6

Dice Service

•

Aether

Great!

BESW

9:52 PM

I guess it works.

@Aether Do you have the Core/FAE pdfs from the Kickstarter?

Aether

@BESW I do

BESW

(This playtest thing is at least partly a justification to get them to Maurycy.)

Oblivious Sage

@BESW: i'd be interested in joining (assuming there's room for more), but i dont have the PDFs (had no money to spare while the kickstarter was running)

BESW

@ObliviousSage I'm happy to share them with prospective playtesters, so you can familiarize yourselves with the rules before we start.

Oblivious Sage

actually, i should probably find out what the scheduling is like before i start making commitments; is everyone going to try to be online at the same time for fast-paced play (and if so, what day of the week & what time?), or is this a slow-paced play-by-post affair?

BESW

9:55 PM

We have no idea.

This is at the "an idea we had last night" level of planning.

Aether

Timezones could be a slight issue from the get-go

BESW

I think play-by-post would be more appropriate, since at a glance we've got two continents and an ocean in the group already.

Problematic

@BESW I'm in for asynchronous anything.

Oblivious Sage

play-by-post is fine with me; real-time is better, but sometimes it's just not an option

BESW

I've never done PbP though, so I'll need support on that end of things.

And again: I'm leaving for Israel in a week, insanely busy until then, will be out of communication while I'm there, and I get back the first week in May.

Oblivious Sage

10:00 PM

the main issue i've noticed is to come up with rules ahead of time for whose turn it is to do things, so people who can check more often don't dominate the play

BESW

So I'll distribute the pdfs by email to anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with it, but I can't start anything until then.

Also, my HoG concept is just a suggestion. If people want to try something else, I'm flexible.

Oblivious Sage

i don't know what your Hounds of God suggestion actually is, but i'm up for most settings/playstyles

Aether

docs.google.com/document/d/…

BESW

@Aether Speedy linker!

Aether

@BESW I happened to still have it open in another tab

BESW

10:07 PM

Woooow. Either I'm flattered or you never close tabs.

Aether

A little bit of both and somewhere in between

BESW

I'll take it!

Thoughts on the Hounds?

Problematic

Now I want a "Werewolves Against Satan" t-shirt

BESW

@Problematic That is an excellent idea.

I ran across the testimony of Thiess and couldn't stand the idea that it wasn't an RPG.

So... this is my first attempt at this kind of game design.

Problematic

I'm eager to read the rules behind this.

Because this is very good, and I like that describing character traits seems to be a game mechanic.

BESW

10:19 PM

Yup!

You can spend Fate points to get bonuses or make declarations of fact that are in line with your character traits.

Aether

@Problematic That is very core to FATE in general

BESW

And you get Fate points when your character traits cause complications to the story.

Problematic

@BESW example of "making a declaration of fact"?

@Aether excellent. I really like that

Oblivious Sage

@BESW: Hounds of God seems like a pretty interesting setting, but I'm not sure FATE is the right system for such a combat-focused adventure; it seems like once character creation is done all you'll do is fight stuff

Aether

@ObliviousSage I'm not sure that's much of an issue - as it stands, it's a one-shot

Oblivious Sage

10:32 PM

true, but it doesn't seem like an ideal adventure for teaching people the FATE system

"Let me show you how to use a hammer: first you insert the flat wedge on the back of the hammer into the head of the screw, like so, being careful not to strip it. Then you keep flipping the hammer around in a circle, like this, until the screw is all the way in."

Problematic

@ObliviousSage what is FATE suited for?

Oblivious Sage

@Problematic: FATE is better for less combat-intensive stories, particularly intrigue, horror, mystery, etc.

Problematic

But it does have combat rules, I take it?

Aether

@Problematic Yes - the combat rules apply to all sorts of combat (mental, social), as well as regular physical combat

Oblivious Sage

oh absolutely

Aether

10:37 PM

It's not a tactical combat/minis game.

Problematic

@Aether so I see a Stress stat in this Hounds of God doc; that can be reduced in non-physical situations, then?

Oblivious Sage

but if i was running a pure-combat adventure, i would pick a system that's particularly strong at combat (like D&D 4e) rather than one that's intended to cover a much broader range of situations

Aether

@Problematic Yes, FATE Accelerated (which the HoG adapts) has one stress track which applies for all kinds of things. FATE Core has separate physical/mental stress tracks.

C. Ross

@Aether or more, depending on your game

Aether

So you could be fighting someone with words at a social event, and inflicting mental or social stress on them by insulting them

@C.Ross Right.

Problematic

10:41 PM

@Aether and what would having a full stress track mean in that situation?

Aether

One of the things about FATE is that there are lots of "dials", which you can configure for your games. One is that you can give characters other stress tracks.

@Problematic Stress is your characters ability to shrug off such things - it's not really your character getting hurt.

You can reduce the severity of "hits" in combat by taking Consequences. These are aspects which represent the damage you take.

Problematic

@Aether so potentially something like "Flustered" in a social situation?

Aether

A hit that does 3 damage can be absorbed by either ticking your 3-stress box, or ticking your 1-stress box and taking a mild consequence (for a -2 to the damage)

@Problematic Exactly. And then opponents can spend their FATE points to gain bonuses on you when "Flustered" could apply

More severely, you could be "Embarrassed" or "Shamed" or "Everyone knows my secret"

When you can take any more stress and consequences, you get taken out, and your opponent gets to narrate what happens to you.

If you're worried about getting taken out, you can concede sometime before you take the "fatal" damage to regain a small amount of control

Problematic

I like it. (when) are these rules publicly available?

Aether

The latest estimate has it sometime early in May

Problematic

10:51 PM

Thanks.

Whelp, time to go home. I'll be back later, folks.

Aether

No problems.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

11:26 PM

@Phil it should never be about combat. Players will generally play a combat once (if that) then avoid it. Choose your system well. Combats eat time.

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