TRPG General Chat

user61230

2:42 AM

It seems like every time I read the Burning Wheel rulebook I discover new rules

BESW

@Emracool Do you find this an appealing feature?

user61230

Not really? To be honest, I think a good quarter of the rules in BW aren't actually necessary.

user61230

One of my favorite quotes of all time:

user61230

> A design is not finished when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

user61230

I question the necessity of certain rules. Not only would one quite literally have to have an eidetic memory to remember them, but they're also not really relevant.

BESW

2:53 AM

I hear ya.

user61230

> ...break the time according to the following rules: If Close is tied with Flank, the tie breaks in the Close maneuver's favor. If Sneak In is tied with Close or Charge, the tie breaks in Sneak In's favor. If Flank is tied with Sneak In or Charge, Flank is favored. If Charge is tied with Close, Charge is favored. BWG 408

user61230

There is another paragraph after this one detailing tied circumstances.

BESW

That is grapple levels of unnecessary.

user61230

I could rant about this for a while. Grr. How does anyone play this RAW?

user61230

> Characters may speak [up to 8 syllables] in each volley they are not hesitating. BWG 455

BESW

3:04 AM

...now I want to design an RPG with prosody-based mechanics.

Barbarians have to declaim their actions in unrhymed accented verse, while clerics must intone their actions using monophonic plainchant.

4

Metool

Someone's explanation for how they got around a ban: "I forgot you banned me." facedesk

BESW

@Metool I think I'll forget I'm sick today.

user61230

I need to write a guide or something. "When rolling Steel, consider the following five charts..."

BESW

Bards may use any form of poetic prosody, but take penalties for repeating the same form more than once in an encounter.

Elves have bonuses when using tetrasyllablic metres, and dwarves get bonuses in any turn when all their lines end with stressed syllables.

...you know, I think this could work as a Tolkien parody.

BESW

3:31 AM

Tweets to Campaign By thinks a villain who drives villagers insane with poisoned vegetables might seem a touch didactic in our current organic-vs-GMO food culture.

Hmm, apparently eggplant was originally known in Italy as "the apple of the insane." And they say gardening is dull!

Tweeted by UrsulaV on December 5, 2013 at 1:31 AM

Alex P

4:09 AM

@Emracool Well, the actual rule is:

> Characters may speak a few words in each volley they are not hesitating. (That's up to 8 syllables, for the pedants.)

Which is more like "Don't sweat it, but if you feel someone is abusing this, then here's a hard cutoff."

BESW

It's like that, yes, but what it's actually doing is presenting a hard rule while mocking people who don't like games that just handwave stuff.

It's a very snide way of doing things.

Alex P

I don't really mind if a game text has opinions about how to play itself. Even strong opinions. The author needs to to write that text in the first place.

BESW

@AlexP Sure, but don't mock your audience.

If you don't want pedants to play your game, don't write hard rules for them.

Design the game for people who are okay with "a few words."

If you want to have hard rules like "up to 8 syllables," don't add color commentary about how people who need those rules are pedants.

Just provide the rule.

I like highly opinionated games, but I have no interest in being talked down to.

user61230

4:37 AM

Well, that's not even really what bothers me about it.

user61230

I get that it's dry, sarcastic humor, and for many people it's not funny, just derisive. The real issue I have with it, though, is that there are so many rules that people need to know, but reasonably, one can't be expected to.

Alex P

I think you're approaching "need" wrong here. The crunchy-conflict bits cover a lot of quirks and special cases.

You don't need crunchy-conflict at all.

Any of it.

I've never had to care about how much you can say during a single volley in Fight.

(I've never had to break a tie in R&C, either, though to be honest that's more likely to actually come up.)

user61230

No, but my guess is you have had to care about how long it takes to reload a crossbow during a fight (or some equivalent)

Alex P

(I definitely would replace that big clump with something simpler,though.)

@Emracool It's a bazillion actions.

Metool

This is probably not relevant to anything but Chrome Translate tells me you're all using another language or languages.

user61230

4:41 AM

Yep. I mean, I don't take an issue with detail, but I take an issue with excessive detail which is necessary.

user61230

i.e. I can't run a detailed fight scene without opening the book to pages 403-473.

user61230

And every time someone takes an action, I have to look it up to read the cases for what happens, if special effects apply, and resolve them.

Alex P

@Emracool That is the case, yes. Quicksheets will get you about half of the way, memory another quarter, but you'll probably always need to look something up.

BESW

@Metool Chuoa? Feliayey, kahka wahdevo'. Ulu'uh wipowipol! Tagemah bukoa.

user61230

@AlexP Yeah. But in order to not stall play, it seems better in most cases to just ignore the rules.

user61230

4:49 AM

At least that's what it seems like. I've never tried it while doing so

Alex P

@Emracool Well, my advice to avoid stalling play is to not use crunchy conflicts unless it really matters. That's not how everyone does it but that's certainly my preference. if you don't like the detail, it means it's irrelevant and you'd best off avoid the whole thing for this scene.

I think our Duels of Wits average, I dunno, ten minutes?

user61230

There's a problem, though: Bloody Versus is too simplified for the detail involved on the charsheet.

user61230

Duel of Wits I have yet to actually experience in full, so I'm not entirely sure about it.

user61230

I may just not be seeing how to properly GM BW, though.

Alex P

The beilefs chapter of Adventure Burner that you can download online is a good reference there.

Basically, the game has quite a few "flags" on the character sheet.

It runs optimally when the group communicate well using those flags.

shatterspike1

4:56 AM

Huh, the button for chat has disappeared from the bar...

Alex P

IME you generally don't need to push the players to engage the mechanics, beyond not letting them dawdle.

@shatterspike1 Yup. It's only on the pulldown.

shatterspike1

Ah, thanks.

user61230

Hmm. I wonder if there's a way to get a copy of the Adventure Burner still...

Alex P

Some GMs do seem to push more with the mechanics, inviting players to Fight or DoW. But I think it's sufficient to just remind them to roll for stuff that matters.

user61230

Yeah. I think that with a certain amount of player knowledge, the game can go smoothly, too.

user61230

5:03 AM

If players want to Fight or think it would be appropriate, they can certainly ask for one. Same with DoW.

Alex P

IME player knowledge matters more than GM knowledge.

Like, my wife is an excellent BW GM while knowing about 10% of the mechanics by heart.

Maybe less depending on how you count what's "mechanics."

user61230

Hmm

user61230

I have a seed in my mind for a system now that allows entirely variable complexity

user61230

Basically, the game is very modular. Each component can be swapped out with others of different complexities to obtain statistically equal results.

Alex P

@Emracool It's interesting to note that BW is mostly the opposite of this. Simple test -> Bloody Versus -> Fight is about dialing up the failure consequences, for example. To raise the stakes to match the scene getting bigger.

(The Shadow of Yesterday did something like this, also. Important named NPCs can't be permanent taken out without using the big-conflict mechanic instead of a simple roll. If you kill a guy with a basic roll he might still come back as a zombie or only be presumed dead or whatever.)

user61230

5:13 AM

A side note: I can't seem to get this BW reference booklet to print properly. The left half of the pages are upside down.

user61230

That's also an interesting concept, though. I think Bloody Versus is about equal to Fight, though there are a lot fewer ways to screw up.

Alex P

Fight is more likely to end with rolling 5 dice vs. Ob 1. As opposed to rolling 3 dice against 2 dice. :)

Though it gets more complicated with armor and stuff, I guess.

user61230

Roll five dice vs. Ob1, hit, register three shifts, add those to VA +1Ob, which your opponent rolls against; if that roll fails, they are hit with.... etc.

user61230

Lots of cases in BW.

user61230

5:29 AM

ARGH. Attempt 4 at printing this booklet..

user61230

Wheel sign goes down in the printer...

user61230

(I swear I am more intelligent than a chimp. Trust me on this.)

BESW

@Emracool I hate printing. Which is bad, since I'm a print media designer by trade.

Alex P

I hate home printing. I just gave up on it years ago.

Now I will only ever print from a Xerox WorkCentre.

BESW

@AlexP I may have to do that for my business cards... my printer that accepted 170lb paper died.

Alex P

5:34 AM

It's a joy to use, as far as printers go. As long as your office doesn't buy Staples paper.

BESW

Granted, I don't think we have a Xerox place on island, but we have the equivalents.

My experience with them has been generally poor, but that's because I only use them for Weird Stuff.

(Everybody says you have to order business cards from a professional printer in order for them to look professional, but the right design in black on watercolor paper printed off an ink jet looks fabulous if you can wield the paper cutter with precision.)

Alex P

I have no brand loyalty particularly, it's just the one they use at work and it has worked pretty well for me so far.

user61230

You know you're playing an intricate game when you need to make a table of contents for your game reference booklet.

3

BESW

user61230

beautiful

BESW

5:45 AM

BW sounds like Twilight's kind of RPG.

Alex P

So, you know how in D20 D&D, a lot of things are only handled by basic checks, and those things aren't really there in the system? They just get eclipsed by, like, combat? (And magic-item-crafting, I suppose.)

Metool

Quite. Why?

Alex P

So, in BW, the simple check do most of the heavy lifting. The other mechanics are A Sometimes Food.

If you try to use all of the mechanics as much as you can, I don't think it's a very pleasant experience.

user61230

Ah, yes, that I do appreciate about BW. Everyone rolls very average, with just enough variance to make things interesting; this removes the goblin die problem. Simple checks become meaningful.

Alex P

Basically because you're gonna get overinvolved in scenes that don't need it.

user61230

5:57 AM

I guess that makes more sense, if the game mechanics aren't intended to be used most of the time.

Alex P

So, my advice is, if you can't imagine something being a 5-or-more-minute fight scene in a movie, don't use the full Fight for it.

BESW

@Emracool I thought that was your original difficulty with the whole thing: that a lot of mechanics seemed unnecessary to the structure of the game.

3 hours ago, by Emracool

> A design is not finished when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Alex P

Because that's kinda what Fight is. For some games, you'll want it never. For others, you'll want it only as a climax. For yet others, I could see using it twice a session.

user61230

(I still love that quote.)

user61230

@BESW Yes, that is still true. I still think a lot of the mechanics are unnecessary, but I think I'm seeing better why they're there in the first place.

Metool

6:01 AM

@BESW Would the magical version of GMOs be MMOs?

Novian

...new site look. wasnt here this morning.

user61230

All I'm left with now is a feeling of a general lack of cohesion of the rule set.

BESW

Blog - Stack Exchange: A New Top Bar for Stack Exchange

David Fullerton on December 04, 2013

The top bar of a Stack Exchange site has always been a bit of an odd place. It somehow combines user info, navigation, search, and a one-size-fits-all popup that includes hot network questions, a list of 100+ Stack Exchange sites, personal inbox messages, and other system notifications (lovingly referred to as The StackExchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™).

It was, in retrospect, overdue for a face-lift which is why we’re excited to roll out a new top bar this week.

So, in the redesigned top bar, we wanted to make sure that it would look the same across all sites, and make it obvious that you’ …

user61230

That doesn't make it bad, just... a little unclean, I suppose? It's not a game designed to be houseruled, but RAW has some issues.

BESW

SF&F is already petitioning to change theirs to a semi-transparent version.

Alex P

6:03 AM

@BESW Reminds me of a thing Sirlin posted some time ago.

> [To make a fashion object] you have to remove all the elements you can without hurting functionality, then remove some more.

BESW

@AlexP Heh.

Alex P

Not too much, because then it becomes cheap.

BESW

@Emracool It's how I try to write and design, which is one of the reasons I like the "closure" style so much.

Alex P

@Emracool So, to me: the text is this kinda odd running conversation. The game is a bunch of systems that are rather complex but fit together very elegantly (Hub and Spokes). They seem overdone when you just look at them on paper, but they don't at all do the same thing as each other, which is why they live together in the first place.

The "Rim" is a collection of advanced tools that tailor the experience and you can take or leave.

Choosing whether to take them or leave them can be a difficult decision or an easy one, depending.

BW as a whole is baroque like a fantasy novel. Or, really, A Distant Mirror. It kinda reminds me of A Distant Mirror. Complete with quirky asides.

The thing I like about it is the polished core thing -- which is, like I said, layers of long- and short- term cycles and various contact points between the rules and the fiction coming together. Crunchy combat is just a pleasant diversion.

BESW

There's a Shade of Aran joke in there somewhere.

user61230

6:26 AM

@BESW I like that.

BESW

@Emracool Hm?

user61230

@AlexP I sort of see your point. At the same time, though, one cannot play with jagged rims.

user61230

If a system is too complex for its own good, then there is no medium between simple and intricate.

user61230

@BESW The drawing.

BESW

Oh! Thanks.

It was one of the higher-selling pieces at the art auction fundraiser I donated it to.

Sharpie on watercolor paper, of a Guam Rail.

Alex P

7:31 AM

@Emracool The medium between simple and intricate is linked tests and smaller tests to establish individual elements of the fiction without resolving an entire scene at once.

I realize that may not float your boat mechanically, which is fine and all.

user61230

I guess I have yet to wrap my head around the ideas of optional mechanics and, more generally, game intent.

user61230

I mean, I know exactly what they are, but I haven't had that fundamental click of intuitive understanding.

Alex P

Game intent: it's something you play like Apocalypse World (BW is using traditional-ish mechanics to compose a non-traditional-ish whole, written back when the Forge was around and most indie games had a serious problem with making mechanics tightly coupled to the fiction), not like D&D.

user61230

I've never played Apocalypse World, tbh.

Alex P

So, generally we aim to never let an entire scene go through as free play. With the exception of intermissions and expositions, there's pretty much always something at stake, and engaging the mechanics (just a single roll works for me) "keeps you honest."

user61230

7:42 AM

Right, that makes sense. That's pretty common in games, afaict.

Alex P

@Emracool It's not at all the most intuitive of games. Nor do I think everyone will like what it does, really (note I don't go out of the way to recommend it much, outside of "this is why it is my favorite game"). I've spent a lot of time this week explaining bits of BW (and their appeal to me) to a game-designer-ish friend of mine, and he's occasionally shocked to go back to a mechanic he kinda dismissed as fiddly or traditional without special payoff and see the payoff.

I got him to like skill advancement. :D

He never likes skill advancement.

user61230

7:55 AM

That's awesome!

user61230

I've not yet had a chance to be a player in it, which makes this somewhat difficult.

Alex P

So, the secret of skill advancement (in general, not just BW).

You get new tools to overcome obstacles.

Thus:

1. Old unresolved things are now more likely to become resolved. I.e. we are heading towards a conclusion!

2. New things that were previously outside your grasp are now within scope for the game. I.e. new chapter, rising action!

So, growing character effectiveness in this way isn't dramatic "character development" in its own right, but, if executed well, it can drive character development in big, big ways.

My fondness for BW's skill mechanics in particular is that advancement is tightly tied to doing stuff in the fiction. I become a better swordsman mechanically by doing that in the fiction.

(Contrast to more free-spendy systems, where depending on what happens, the skills I've learned could be "on-screen" or "off-screen" -- e.g. get 3 XP for fighting a bunch, sink that into an extra point of Persuasion skill.)

Avner Shahar-Kashtan

@AlexP Apart from the use of "fiction" here, this is a pretty old-school school of thought. You can find it in old Call of Cthulhu or (to switch mediums a bit) Final Fantasy 2. Skill usage = chance of skill increase. But in the old-school way, it's a lot of number crunching.

Ars Magica has a similar concept. The main form of skill advancement is spending a season in the lab, but if you didn't, you get "exposure" XP which you can use on skills you used throughout the season. A bit looser, though.

user61230

@AlexP I agree entirely with what you have said.

Professor Loki Caprion

11:33 AM

Ah, okay... I see how to find the link to the chat, now. Nice.

BESW

12:07 PM

Dai stihó.

Professor Loki Caprion

Baruk Khazâd!

BESW

Shorah.

Professor Loki Caprion

Suilad randir.

BESW

Alláh-u-Abhá!

Professor Loki Caprion

I can't keep up at this hour.

BESW

12:18 PM

I sound my barbaric yawp!

Professor Loki Caprion

The best I can manage is a subhuman growl and a pre-coffee glower.

BESW

[grin] In my teens when there was something I was trying to avoid thinking about or dealing with, I'd memorize vast swathes of something totally irrelephant and useless, like the D'ni base five numeral system, or every poem in The Lord of the Rings. I've got a ton of random foreign and fictional greetings floating around in here.

Professor Loki Caprion

Ah, so you probably at least recognized what I was saying. I had to Google.

I used to have a dwarf shouting Baruk Khazâd as my text alert for a while, until I got a text in the middle of the night and had forgotten to silence my phone.

BESW

Suilad took me a moment, I admit.

My text alert is the first "tink-tink-tink-tink-tink" of Eulogy.

Professor Loki Caprion

Almost all of my Middle-Earth linguistics are due to my playing of LotRO.

And my current text is R2-D2.

BESW

12:25 PM

(I went out of my way to find phone noises that wouldn't be too disturbing if I forgot to silence it during prayers.)

Professor Loki Caprion

I actually keep mine on silent almost all of the time, now, since I keep forgetting to do so before I go to sleep.

My wife goes the opposite route, so I'm sometimes awoken by her lovely ringtone of blasting "What Does the Fox Say?"

("Ringtone of Blasting" is actually a good name for a techno-mage Rote... I need to jot that down...)

BESW

Speaking of which, I was looking at the weekend sales ads and decided "Gallon Odoban" would be a great name for a pulp adventure protagonist.

Gallon Odoban and the Mayan Mystery, Gallon Odoban and the Giant Catfish, Gallon Odoban and the Curse of the Chinese Dragon.

Avner Shahar-Kashtan

I had a character named Randir once. Not Suilad Randir, but still.

Of course, that was in a MERP game and the name is in Sindarin. :)

BESW

Ah, names. I love 'em.

I'd spend hours, sometimes days, finding just the perfect name for an NPC.

Professor Loki Caprion

@AvnerShahar-Kashtan My friend made a human character on LotRO, who's first name was supposed to be "May," but that was taken, so he made "Maey." Last name "Govannen". The schtick was supposed to be her wondering how all these elves knew her name.

Randir isn't a bad non-jokey name for an Elven sobriquet, though!

Avner Shahar-Kashtan

12:35 PM

And then I had an Ars Magica character with the same name, but in Latin.

@ProfessorLokiCaprion He was human, but of Numenorian stock, so a Sindarin name was appropriate.

BESW

One of my favorite role-players in college had an elven archer, with prototypical mechanics and build in every way, named Andrew.

Turns out, Andrew's from a rare town where the human-to-elf ratio is 50:50 and species-based prejudice is basically nonexistent. His character arc dove heavily into the massive culture shock of finding out how prejudiced the rest of the world was.

He eventually forsook both elves and humans and married into a catfolk hunting-and-gathering society.

Professor Loki Caprion

Oh, nice!

BESW

The marriage was the "happy ending" of the year-long campaign, after they'd saved the world. Very Shakespearean (happy stories end with weddings).

I modified poems by Walt Whitman for all the catfolk songs and recitations.

BESW

1:13 PM

@Kethryweryn, @RedRiderX, @Magician, @InbarRose [wave]

Looks like it's time for the nightly influx.

RedRiderX

Howdy.

Kethryweryn

Wave back

I found the new chat link. It took me 10 seconds. That was awful. :D

RedRiderX

Yeah, it's all so different!

7

Q: New top bar quick reference guide / Where has the link to <X> gone?

Over the last 24 hours - since the new top bar has been rolled out - a number of different people, established and new users alike, have asked questions on where a specific link has disappeared to with the new top bar design. Where has the link to <X> gone?

This is already a thing.

BESW

I'm glad I've got the chat as a default tab.

Kethryweryn

Hahaha.

Change is hard.

wax eagle

1:18 PM

aye, it is

and I need a new avatar :(

@waxeagle Whyso?

...I don't get it.

@waxeagle No transparency?

Well, it would also make your RPG.SE profile page look better too.

@RedRiderX yep

1:22 PM

@BESW frog and toad!

If I changed my avatar, that's probably next in line.

RedRiderX

@waxeagle Eh, it shouldn't be that hard making the background transparent.

wax eagle

@RedRiderX yeah, I can probably figure it out, but I've had that one for a while and this is more like a catalyst for change

RedRiderX

@waxeagle Good point.

BESW

1:24 PM

[pokes through collection of icons]

Inbar Rose

@BESW howdy.

BESW

@InbarRose What's new?

Inbar Rose

Actually, some cool news

BESW

Kethryweryn

*Opened BESW's page*
Oh, THIS is what your avatar is !

Inbar Rose

1:25 PM

I managed to convince a friend of mine to try Fate for his new game. And we did, we have a first session (just world and character creation) and it went well.

BESW

The Bookworm

The Bookworm () is an 1850 oil-on-canvas painting by the German painter and poet Carl Spitzweg. The picture is typical of Spitzweg's humorous, anecdotal style and it is characteristic of Biedermeier art in general. The painting is representative of the introspective and conservative mood in Europe during the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1848, but at the same time pokes fun at those attitudes by embodying them in the fusty old scholar unconcerned with the affairs of the mundane world. History Carl Spitzweg painted three variations of this piece. Th...

@InbarRose Yey!

Care to tell us a little about it?

Inbar Rose

Sure

The general idea is sci-fi

It's set in the very far future (of our own universe)

Without going into too much detail

before I explain more

we first though of some themes for the game

Tragedy, Adventure, Lust, Mystery, Action

basically, humanity spread all over the place using recovered "precursor" technology, and quickly became a dominant race in the galaxy, very few other races rivaled humans technology, and eventually a powerful golden age emerged.... blah blah balh.... eventually this fell into ruin.... because...

The technology the discovered was so advanced that it halted human scientific advancement, and they simply used the technology taht they found. and everything was based on hacking the new technology to work. But it required enourmous amounts of power.

Also -these technologies were mostly found from wreckages etc... and it was very costly and hard to manufacture more of it

This led to a decline

RedRiderX

@waxeagle So what do you think you'll be looking for?

Inbar Rose

a resource race

and the huge galactic federation fell

wax eagle

@RedRiderX not sure yet

I might snag something from the missus' facebook of our dinos misbehaving last month

Kethryweryn

1:30 PM

@inb

Inbar Rose

after the fall there was a total lack of technology/advancement/law/order... etc

Kethryweryn

@InbarRose (ah it's tab), are you all humans then ?

Inbar Rose

no

thorugh the thousands of years sicne humans started leaving earth and the solar system - they started to evolve (albeit slowly) but independantly

RedRiderX

@Kethryweryn @ inb technically works too.

Inbar Rose

after this fall of the federation - it was increased due to loss of environmental controls and communication and travel

humans starting relying locally on food, water, air... which started changing them

for instance - my character is a race that developed on a very humid planet - so is developed acustomed to high moisture in the air - I have to wear a breathing mask inside spaceships to keep moisture inside.

As a result, my skin is dry and scaly.

Small differences like this

Kethryweryn

1:33 PM

Ok. But all originating from the (now mythical ?) human race ?

Inbar Rose

Some humans developed underground on planets that were too close to the sun

mostly

but tehre are other races too

wax eagle

Inbar Rose

anyway - thats the idea

wax eagle

"Dinos playing Dread"

Kethryweryn

I like the fact that humanity evolves in other races.

Inbar Rose

1:34 PM

so its a mix between a bunch of common sci-fi elements and stories.

RedRiderX

@waxeagle Interesting.

Kethryweryn

@waxeagle a friend of mine would love this. :D

Inbar Rose

plus some interesting mixes

also there is a mysterious "magic" force in the world

Professor Loki Caprion

Whoa... take one phone call and suddenly there's activity in here! Hello!

Kethryweryn

Hello !

Inbar Rose

1:35 PM

Anyway - that's in short

Kethryweryn

That seems very good for a creation session !

Inbar Rose

yep

we also each (3 players) have cahracters with full backstory and are all connected

Professor Loki Caprion

@waxeagle I don't know what's going on here, but it's wonderful.

BESW

v. cool.

Inbar Rose

Yep

BESW

1:36 PM

I look forward to hearing about creative aspects.

wax eagle

@Kethryweryn During the month of November we became aware of Dinovember. Where Dinos make mischief at night a-la Elf on the Shelf...We thought it was far, far better than the Elf

Kethryweryn

Hahahaha.

Inbar Rose

My trouble aspect is "nosy"

My high concept is "Recently appointed junior representative of the order of the serpent"

Professor Loki Caprion

[Perks up] Fate system!

wax eagle

@ProfessorLokiCaprion are you familiar with Dread?

Professor Loki Caprion

1:39 PM

@waxeagle I am not, but if it involves little plastic dinosaurs, I'm in!

wax eagle

@ProfessorLokiCaprion sadly it does not, but it does involve Jenga as the conflict resolution mechanic :)

Inbar Rose

aspects: "Trained in the martial art of Serpentis", "natural born diplomat', 'mystery seeker"

Professor Loki Caprion

@waxeagle ... still interested! :D :D

Inbar Rose

We had to rush a bit towards the end of our creation session - so we decided we would refine our characters over the coming week. I know that I still have some work to do on those aspects, because they just don't click yet.

Professor Loki Caprion

@InbarRose My players had their first Fate session this past Sunday, and they came up with some good Aspects, but I let them change whatever they like on their characters before next session now that they know how the system works.

My wife picked two good aspects; "Black Sheep of the Delphi Council" and "Not so subtle..."

The latter of which came in very handy when she had to try to bite her tongue around royalty.

wax eagle

1:43 PM

@ProfessorLokiCaprion rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/83854/Dread you can buy it there. Or there are quickstart rules here: tiltingatwindmills.net/dread/index.html . It's very narrative and by default it's horror themed though you could do anything where suspense is a strong part of the narrative.

Professor Loki Caprion

Thanks to a Compel, she blurted out "Is this ----- for real?!" when she saw the grandiose procession of Queen Victoria VII.

@waxeagle I'm definitely giving this a look! Thank you!

wax eagle

Characters are created from questionnaires distributed before play begins. the questions are leading and designed to set characters up with story roles, narrative twists, flaws etc.

Professor Loki Caprion

@waxeagle Sounds almost Fate-ish, so I'm even more intrigued! And $3 makes it a no-brainer, at this point.

wax eagle

@ProfessorLokiCaprion it's our groups favorite "the DM can't show up tonight, let's do something fun" game

Inbar Rose

@ProfessorLokiCaprion Same idea.

My problem is that I have an idea I want an aspect to embody - but I have great difficulty putting it into words

So basically we discussed them with eachother and just put down enough words to remind us what that means.... hopefully to refine that later.

Anyway - I can't recall where exactly it's written - but somewhere it says that the exact wording of an aspect is not what is important, it is that every one understands how it should be used.

BESW

1:51 PM

@InbarRose Very true!

Inbar Rose

I am thinking to combine "Nosy" (which is my trouble) with "Mystery Seeker" into one aspect which will be my new trouble something along the lines of "I must know everything!"

Which I think is a better fit.

Professor Loki Caprion

Has anybody in here played "A Penny For My Thoughts?"

2

BESW

An aspect is only as good as how well the group understands it, but a well-worded aspect vastly improves that understanding, and can open up new unexpected levels of application.

2

If you want to brainstorm on it, I have a fairly decent track record in that area.

Inbar Rose

@BESW ! :)

BESW

@ProfessorLokiCaprion Heard of it! Sounds interesting, but I don't think my player would ever go for it.

Inbar Rose

1:53 PM

@BESW Yes, you do....

BESW

Irrepressible curiosity comes to mind.

But a pithy full sentence might be better.

@Niebes [wave] Hi!

Professor Loki Caprion

@BESW I actually have purchased it, but haven't gotten a chance try it in practice, yet. SOME of my players would like it.

Inbar Rose

I am also thinking of changing the "trained in the martial art of serpentis" into something more engaging like "second best serpentis fighter on admentia"

BESW

@InbarRose Good instinct.

Inbar Rose

Also "natural born diplomat" is supposed to convey that my character always tries to solve things peacefully, prefers words over war "pen is mightier than the sword" kind of thing.

Professor Loki Caprion

1:57 PM

@InbarRose That would probably be better; the "second best" aspect could even be used as a compel to become THE best.

Inbar Rose

@ProfessorLokiCaprion I was also thinking that. But it could also be used for boasting

Like "Do you really want to mess with me? I am the second best serpentis fighter on all of admentia" :)

BESW

@ProfessorLokiCaprion It also implies a relationship.

Professor Loki Caprion

And one of my players has the Aspect "Die monster, you don't belong in this world!" Which actually comes up as a Compel/Invoke more often than I'd thought, when he had to try to act civilized around a vampire (who, at the time, was in civilized company).

BESW

@InbarRose Gregory House has a catchphrase: "It's an anomaly. Anomalies bug me."

Inbar Rose

Well - a theme in the game is mystery.

BESW

1:59 PM

Consider what drives your character need to poke his nose into other peoples' business, to uncover any mystery put before him.

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