@MaurycyZarzycki For me, I'm fascinated by communication and how to facilitate the advancement of understanding through calm discussion.
Online RPG theory is just a tiny application of it.
For physics, well... the idea that a game's mechanical rules should be decided by modeling physics is a foundational and reasonable one. But taken to logical extremes it turns into A Bunch of Rocks.
The point at which simulationism should be let loose is a personal/group choice, and many debates arise from trying to apply one group's idea about simulation to a system not designed to handle it at that particular level of reality/abstraction.
So to sum it up, people come to the table (or discussion) with different, clashing expectations. And they are ignorant of the fact that their expectation is NOT necesserily the best or the only correct one.
D&D alignment is objective, real-world alignment is subjective, and never the twain should be confused (Wizards, I'm looking at you; you started this!).
@MaurycyZarzycki Just because it's objective in-game doesn't mean it's not handled monstrously by the developers (who can't decide what it is), nor does it mean that players can't choose to associate the alignment system with their real-world morality system of choice.
@BESW But it is very inconsistent at determining WHAT constitutes a given alignment. If we know that something is Lawful Evil there is no problem, but we have no measurable way of identifying correctly if something should be Lawful Evil or not, because it's entirely subjective.
@BESW But assigning alignment is an element of the game's nature, as much as the fact that alignments can change. Criteria of doing which are subjective.
Regardless of how alignment is described, its effects as a physical law remain without doubt or quibble.
Consider the lowly subatomic particle.
We can only just barely fathom its nature, which is itself largely theoretical; the subatomic particle exists inasmuch as our current experiments produce results which are as yet consistent with our theories describing the particles we conjecture exist.
But there's something there whose nature is absolute; our inability to describe it precisely is not an obstacle to its existence.
Ultimately alignment is whatever a group decides it is (the same as anything else in an RPG), not least because There Is No Such Thing As D&D.
But from within the D&D world looking out, alignment is as real and solid as gravity--and equally weird and ineffable.
Alignment is as real as HD; something abstract and unobservable, but its effects are quantifiable.
Yes, but who gets how many HD is very clear. But who gets what alignment and when/how it changes is not. The effects are absolute, can't disagree with that.
Still, if D&D is an artificial world, its nature and what it is comes from the rules as written by the creators, therefore there isn't more to it than what the creators have said - except all the user-made content. Therefore, if the way alignments are assigned is subjective and not codified from the point of view of the rulebooks, it is the same from the point of view of the world.
I have an 80-page literary magazine that needs to be printed on the 16th of next month. As of yet I have next to no material to work with, edits are not yet completed on the material, much of the material has yet to be approved for inclusion, and I'm about to go to Israel for a week and a half.
With the material I have now, I can... make the cover.
I suspect it's not a major issue because of the dual balancing factors inherent in the process: first, FP available to the players is limited. Second, FP spend on NPC aspects goes into the NPC's pool for later use against the players.
Especially if you use a single "universal" NPC pool for FP, invoking NPC aspects becomes a more serious choice.
In the second session, a teenager was dragged to a fundraiser dinner by his folks. He made some local connections, accidentally said something very embarrassing in front of a lot of socially important people, and then hung out with an older youth.
Highlights included tricking a guy he wanted to impress into insulting the PC's mother, then convincing his mother not to tell the guy's boss; and frightening a busboy into dropping his spliff out the window, then clandestinely acquiring a replacement.
I started using the single NPC point pool because I didn't want to track individual pools per NPC while I was also learning the system.
Now, I like it because it has good narrative implications and makes invoking NPC aspects more meaningful.
(And it's really simple.)
We're still struggling to overcome D&D-taught habits, largely dealing with the movement of the locus of narrative control.
Hey guys! Interesting question: Does anyone own a full set of every D&D mini? And if so, what did you pay for it all? Also, what would you expect to pay for them all in one big shot. Trying to figure out what a 'fair' price would be.
@DampeS8N: good point; the demand is probably a lot lower for the rares than it is for a Magic rare, but the supply is also probably a lot lower; I can't imagine they did the same scale of print runs for the mini game that they do for Magic cards
@DampeS8N: i've seen commons go for a quarter apiece, but that was admittedly selling them to people who didn't care about their stats in the actual minis game, they just wanted cheap pre-painted minis for normal use in grid-based combat in 4e or similar games
which is actually where my group got 90% of its miniatures supply (until our huge Reaper Kickstarter order shows up)
I'm planning to run this as a membership deal. And part of being a member means you can request rare items for your game. So if you can't afford that Colossal Red, no worries, I'll pick it up.
But I won't be getting much that size from the get-go
though i admit i'm dubious about the viability of your business model, unless there are a lot of moderate-wealth groups in your area (low wealth groups won't find it worth it to pay for your service, and high wealth groups can build their own collection)
actually, what you might do until you can afford those minis is go hit up a toy store and find some kind of dragon toy that can stand up and that takes up the same amount of space at its base
you ought to be able to find something the right size and color for 20% of the price of one of those "minis", for dragons at least
@ObliviousSage The much smaller and cheaper Aspect of Orcus would work just fine sitting on a piece of card stock. But yeah, that's why I want to do these as-needed.
I could pick up Orcus and see it never get used because no-one ever runs a campaign that needs him.
Fighting gods isn't exactly as common as fighting dragons.
@DampeS8N: you might also consider a non-member option, that allows people to just rent the minis they need from you for 1 session; say, $5 for any 20 commons, $1 each for uncommons, $2 each for rares, $5 each for the big stuff; or just price it so that a non-member group pays about 150% of what a member group would pay if they both play 1 session a week
@ObliviousSage That's an interesting idea. Our plan was to have a non-member option where players pay around $5 an hour to play. However GMs always play free regardless of membership status.
More games = more members. So GMs play free sounds to me like a great rule. So if you GM with us, you get to use all those minis, maps, tiles, and whatnot for free.
@Aether We'll have multiple copies of the full line of dungeon tiles, terraclips, some dwarven forge when requested, maps. And a gaming table with under-side projection maps.
@ObliviousSage Eventually. Once you start selling products you have to start keeping serious track of things. I'll need to find someone who has done that before to do it, and I'll need to be able to afford to hire that person.
@Aether I think there are more people who want to get into it than our current infrastructure allows for. It is too expensive and there are no good tools for meeting other people who play or join games.
@ObliviousSage I have plans for this.
@ObliviousSage Actually, many plans. Including a clever way to monetize theft.
@DampeS8N: i still think you should do drinks & snacks; it sounds like you'll have minimal operating costs, but you'll still need enough revenue to cover rent & utilities
the other problem with getting enough volume is that there's going to be considerable overlap in when people want to play; most groups I know play Friday night, Saturday afternoon, or Sunday afternoon
memberships will start at somewhere between $30-50 a month. There will be at least 2 tiers of membership offering different perks. Not the least of which is that GMs can reserve slots in their games for players that are either members or VIP members.
The way I see it, the break-even point will be somewhere around 30 members. If we can't attract 30 people, then roleplaying is truly dead-dead-dead.
This is in the Baltimore/DC area.
The website has the potential to pay for the venture all on its own, too.
@ObliviousSage You'll like this. There will be several copies of various AD&D2e books signed by Zeb Cook at this location.
And if I can convince him, he might even DM a game.
@DampeS8N I'm not going to be signing up for other reasons, but I'd never pay $30-$50 for membership to some sort of D&D club. Though I might be misunderstanding your intent here, I've not read all the comments.
@Pureferret This is a per-player price. And if you want to call it a club, the club house is outfitted with thousands of minis, dungeon tiles, terraclips, books, props, tools and things. Fog machine, underside projected gaming table, and gaming relics like signed books and things.
Not to mention armor, capes, and not-sharp weapons.
So you are paying for access to all the things.
And for being able to play in games with really strong GMs
@Pureferret I'm interested to know what you would pay for this, and in what format. There would be a non-member hourly rate. Currently at about $5 an hour.
@DampeS8N I dunno, I'm not a 'hardcore' gamer, and I doubt I'd need all that stuff, most of it would just be superfluous. I doubt I'm your core demographic.
TBH I find RPG expensive enough without adding in an hourly/monthly rate
What you do want to do is make the non-member sessions cheap enough that they're enticing, but expensive enough that a steady membership is cheaper
@Pureferret The idea here is to eliminate your expense. And we'd probably buy all your stuff and give you 50% on top if you take it all in membership dues.
Like, First 4 hours (or less) is $5, and then $5 for every hour after that. At Hour 6, if you plan you plan to go more than twice a month you're only just breaking even
@Pureferret I really want to attract people that otherwise can't afford to game, can't find a GM that's any good, or simply doesn't have the space for all that stuff.
@DampeS8N Then you need like, one month free. I don't know how conveinient it is to not have to own all that stuff, or have a decent GM until I've tired. And If I can't afford it, I don't want to risk losing out on $30-$50 for a whole month that's wasted
@Pureferret I'm not factoring it like that. I'm trying to beat the monthly costs. The start up costs will be beat with whatever is over the monthly break-even point.
@DampeS8N: Have you considered also having board games? There are a lot of nice board games out there that are fun to play once in a while but are hard to justify the $60+ price tag (Arkham Horror + all expansions, I'm looking at you).
@DampeS8N: that's what i was thinking; they don't need to be separate, they usually need less space (though I've played some that took up more than a typical 4-person kitchen table), and they don't need any other frills
@DampeS8N: actually, hosting TCG tournaments and selling TCG cards can be a nice sideline; there's probably already a lot of competition in that market, though
@Pureferret: That's a good idea too. Some RPGs work especially well for one-shots, like Kobolds Ate My Baby.
@DampeS8N: it wouldnt even necessarily need to be only once; maybe if you go for a full year without doing anything at the store then you qualify for it again; that lets people give it another shot and see if their feelings have changed
@DampeS8N: the drawback to having the free tryout session only last 1 week is that most groups only play once a week; you might go with 2 weeks, which gives new people time to try different things or to start making friends in a repeat group
Like this: 1 month free + free-nights every 3 months. This means a good number of players to help fill out games. This encourages more GMs to try to start games. Free members are a lower class than paid. So the rank goes: Free, P2P, Member, VIP, Elder.
@ObliviousSage We will. But not from day 1. We'll start out all fantasy, with maybe some SF books. As people express interest we'll start investing in SF minis, maps and props.
This is one of my issues, by having a periodic fee you're partially dictating when the group will run. For instance, I'm currently gaming on a quarterly basis, with ~three day sessions
@Pureferret: if you're playing for 3 days, that's only $10 per day, which isn't too bad for the kind of setup @DampeS8N is describing; it's about what you'd pay to play at IHOP and get a endless stack of pancackes & endless coffee, & IHOP doesnt have minis plus their tables are a bit small
@Pureferret There would be other ways to handle this too. Like I said, I'll be giving 50% extra time to people who 'sell' RPG items to me. So if you buy $20 in minis and donate them, that's your $30.
@Pureferret And I'm totally just going to go on amazon and ebay and average the prices I see to come up with a fair price. So you can do even better if you get a wicked deal on ebay.
@Pureferret I might do something like this eventually. Only it would be more like if you buy $20 on minis from me, you'll get $10 in play time. But I'll have to think about that more than the reverse.
@Pureferret @ObliviousSage @Aether A small tease for the website: Do you often wish there was a better way to find quality players for your games, or quality games to play in? Find it difficult to gauge the quality of a GM or player from some online ad or listing?
My Comment is reaching the bottom of the starred comments visible to me on the right side of my screen. But it is undying! go little comment, do not die!
the product of a 3 hour psychology class this boredom is.
I picked up the free module 'We Be Goblins' at free RPG day a few years ago.. I did not think my players would be having this much fun playing chaotic little goblins in a one-off campaign.
It's one of those mini-campaigns where if you giggle madly and offer the solution of 'hit it with a rock' to EVERY problem, it's kinda funny and in character.
The only goblins I am familiar with in my RPG experience either Burninate orphaniges or Dual Weild Bucklers as proper weapons and somehow do a decent job of it.
A ninja only has twenty skills, thus they only know these twenty things. But if you can convince your DM of new uses for them such as "Driving a car is totally a horsemanship test", you can do this.
A ninja starts with ten honor. You also start with ten fingers. These are directly related.
@MadMAxJr: Ninja Burger is entertaining too, but I found it to work a lot better as a card game than as an RPG; the guy that made it also made a really dark Shadowrun-esque RPG called Iconoclast that I really like
bout the size of a childs head, I used it as a legitimate D20. getting around our houserule that a roll off the table is a 0(not a failure you just dont get the dice.)
we dont do it as much anymore. weve gotten better at keeping the dice on the table.
You should definitely check out some Old Who (and Nine is my favorite New Doctor).
Anyway, the Masterplan: In the beginning of the show, the Doctor was very mysterious.
Hardly anything was known about him, and that was one of the show's draws. Other Time Lords didn't show up until the end of the Second Doctor's run.
However, over the following decades more and more was revealed about the Doctor and the Time Lords.
In the late 80s, script editor Andrew Cartmel decided that this wasn't cool; that too much was known and that a return to mystery was needed (this may have had something to do with flagging ratings).
So he devised a multi-season story arc that would put the very nature of the Doctor's existence in doubt. He began to imply that the Doctor was much, much more than just a vigilante hobo.
The show was canceled before the Masterplan could be more than foreshadowed, but something very much like it was turned into a novel or two during the Dark Years when the show was off the air.
It's not canon, but it's never been quite debunked by show canon and every now and then a writer makes a nod to it.
(Although since Time Lords now seem to be born rather than made, that puts a pretty big hole in the concept.)
