TRPG General Chat - 2013-05-16

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1:37 AM

What do we do with this question?

0

Q: What Assassin's class feature should have "hybrid" tag if I were to hybrid it with another class?

1) What Assassin's class feature/s should have "hybrid" tag if I were to hybrid it with another class? Assassin’s shroud Guild Training, Shade Form Shadow Step. 2) Assume the following has: Battle Caster's Defense, Artful Dodger, and Riposte Assassins shroud is a free action, so in theory ...

pretend it never happened?

The first question is already answered plainly in books. I provided an answer, but I think I should delete it and leave it as a comment, and edit the first question out of his question.

But the second question is not very clear to me.

Someone needs to get Silver on chat, I think.

Not it.

I left a comment, deleted my answer.

Please join us in chat so we can discuss your question and clarify it. The second is unclear; the first is already answered in plain text in books: a simple search on the D&D 4e Compendium will reveal there is already a Hybrid Assassin class (DDI) described in Dragon Magazine 385. — Jonathan Hobbs 3 mins ago

Unfortunately I might not be here when he hops on.

2:03 AM

@BESW Regarding this, there's an interaction principle here: people tend toward the easiest options, regardless of which options are doing something well or not well. So if you want to make sure people do things well, make that the easy way, and make the bad ways difficult.

@JonathanHobbs Aye.

The problem is that many mainstream RPGs have one easy way, and making it hard is rightly viewed as negating a large portion of the players' work.

Specifically this came up in the design of the Windows Azure cloud hosting platform. There are a lot of traditional methods for making websites and webservices which are really really bad on cloud hosting, and there are ways you should be doing it instead. The designers of Windows Azure were clever enough to make those really bad methods overly difficult, and the path of least resistance leads you straight to the good ways of doing things instead.

@BESW I guess so...

@JonathanHobbs It's not a matter of the best way to accomplish this task in the general sense, but of overgeneralizing the situation leading to good advice being applied in contexts where it becomes unwelcome.

@BESW What was the context of that thing about encouraging desired behaviour, by the way? Was it the "marching orders" question?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@JonathanHobbs Yep, and his poorly specced and researched questions are getting closed.

@ObliviousSage close, close, close the question.

2:13 AM

No, it was @LitheOhm asking me about this in chat.

Starts here:

22 hours ago, by LitheOhm

how do you challenge/reward critical thinking in PCs?

@BESW Aha, thanks.

3 hours later…

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

5:37 AM

@BESW what's your single page thingo?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Wha?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

nevermind

I good at searching!

durr

Context, I doesn't has it.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

I was wondering where you could find: bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool

Ah, yes.

1 hour later…

6:42 AM

The second Enchanted Forest game session is up: In Which Wil Meets a Dwarf and is Impressive.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

6:54 AM

yeah, if trusting was an aspect, compel compel compel the aspect

the player should have paid to ignore it :)

At the time, his aspects were:

High Concept: Humiliated Hedge Wizard
Trouble: I Must Hide My Shame
Aspect: It’s All Academic

@BrianBallsun-Stanton ?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Problematic reading the previous bit form linky above

@BESW err, nono, previous session

Ohh, got it.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

cause yeah, it's "hit pause, that's not how aspects work, unpause"

6:57 AM

Ooh.

That... was a call. I'll talk about it later.

Heading out to shop now.

Ta!

1 hour later…

8:16 AM

Argh bows!

4 hours later…

12:00 PM

Hey guys!

Anyone played Dresden files?

Yo.

Not a lot of experience, but a bit.

Thought a lot about it, read up, talked to those with more experience, and I've run a handful of sessions. What's up?

I dont realy have questions about the tabletop yet

I am just wondering how much spoilers for books it contains

Since I am only reading the 3rd one

Full-on spoilers for all the books up to when it was published, and some hints at things to come.

They're currently working on a new release to cover the books since then.

Then I will better stay away from it for the time being.

Should finish the books first. Kinda got tired of 4e, or just tabletops in general a while ago. Uni deadlines didn't help. Now that I will have some more time on my hands, was thinking of trying something new...

That's... up to book 6, I think? For the two core rulebooks and what they spoil.

12:04 PM

Oh, just 6. I can manage that. A friend lent me all of the books, kinda going through them at average pace.

DFRPG is pretty good. It's a good introduction to broad-mechanic, low-subsystem narrative-based systems for players who are used to systems like D&D with a lot more crunch.

I just love the narrative of the books. Also, the concept of magic is pretty interesting there, but I dont have much knowledge of the lore there about becoming a mage, so I wanted to look that up there too. Just no spoilers for now. I have a feeling that in those kind of books the spoilers would completely ruin the story.

I find that I'm preferring FATE Core and FAE, though; its' probably backlash from spending so much time in rules-heavy systems.

I dont know much about FATE system, but I knew it worked on that. For now I have some experiance DMing 4ed and playing 4ed and Dark Heresy

I like 4e lore, but then again I like pretty much all lore. And the monster manuals are pretty good. I like the design and, well... lore. I am like an old recording. :D

I've got most of my experience GMing 3.5 and 4e. We moved to DFRPG/FATE recently because we finally figured out that the game experience we want isn't the kind of thing any D&D or d20 System game can support without intensive effort to make it bend in ways it doesn't want to go.

12:08 PM

Have you read the Dresden Files?

@TheBW I love PoL.

@TheBW Aye.

PoL?

Points of Light.

The default 4e setting.

I have heard that after the 2nd book things only get better.

What I love best about DnD Lore is Sigil. Just dig that place so much.

Define "better."

The main Dresden Files plot arc starts kicking in more strongly around book 3 or 4, but some people like it more as a serial and less as a series.

12:11 PM

Not sure what they meant either. Wanted to ask you opinion about that.

Also, a few books later it becomes increasingly clear that Butcher's masterplan (and he's said this explicitly) is to do whatever makes Harry suffer the most. Repeat.

(I don't think that's spoilers.)

Who is Butcher?

Dang

The author of the Dresden Files books.

OH

Right

I was thinking character, that I don't know of yet

Thats too bad. I dont think I will enjoy that. I am a fan of spectacular and overpowered magic.

Oh, spectacle and overpowered magic you'll get aplenty.

12:16 PM

Right now I am at the part where he got mad and used tremendous amount of fire at the vampire party.

As Dresden gets more powerful, so do the people he ticks off.

Anyway, I have to go. @BESW Thanks for the info. I appreciate it! Have a great day!

ttfn.

See you around.

2 hours later…

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:04 PM

roight

@BESW That certainly sounds like it's Butcher's masterplan. Though he may have worked himself into a corner; Dresden is starting to run out of bad things that can happen to him.

@ObliviousSage He's still got friends, family, and limbs.

And don't forget when <spoiler> called up to tell him their <spoiler> had been <spoilered>. Butcher isn't above pulling rabbits out of hats we didn't even know existed.

True.

And the reveal that XX-XXX-XXXXX-XXXXXX wasn't actually just a powerful XXXXX. That came out of the blue.

blink

What

2:16 PM

You have to use book names, I'm too sleep-deprived to catch what you're referencing.

It just seems to me that, after Cold Days, what's-her-name (curse you, brain!) the ex-cop is the only major target left on the field.

my brain at the moment:

user image

I can't remember exactly which books, but there was a powerful being who was passingly referenced early on as part of Harry's backstory, a bad guy tried to summon him a few books later, and then recently the backstory was fully revealed and the bad guy was a lot worse than we'd thought, in ways that hadn't even really been hinted at much before then.

Sounds like the last two books or so, particularly Cold Days. That pulled the curtain back a lot on the "behind-it-all" villains.

Yeah, that.

A lot of that felt very much "I only just figured this out recently and tied it into vague stuff I said earlier to make it look like a plan," rather than "I've been planning it all along!"

Yep.

That's my issue: not that Harry's running out of Bad Stuff to happen to him so Butcher won't be able to continue doing it... but that Butcher will continue doing it in spite of that.

Also, it smacks too much of Whedon Syndrome to me.

2:21 PM

Whedon Syndrome?

Making your character suffer is a fine literary tradition, but you need to do something else too, or you get boring.

May 7 at 1:14, by BESW

@KRyan Whedon Syndrome is what all of his works suffer from if allowed to go on long enough. Up to a certain point, his shows have a wide variety of sources of tension and drama. Past that point, they increasingly rely on "Give favorite character what she wants. Take it away as brutally as possible. Repeat."

ahhhh

I'm not familiar enough with his TV shows (other than Firefly, which didn't go on long enough to hit that point) to judge that one.

Well, consider the last few episodes of Firefly.

The characters' relationships were running aground, most obviously with Inara deciding to leave.

...and have you seen the film Serenity?

Yes.

Hmmm, I still don't see that aspect super strong in Firefly and Serenity. It seems more like "give one character what they want, screw over a different character".

Firefly hadn't developed it quite to the extent that Angel and Buffy did, certainly.

Oh, my. The last season of Angel and the last several seasons of Buffy were really quite sadistic.

2:26 PM

I got that impression from friends that watched Buffy.

It's not that they were sadistic, even, that bothered me.

It was that they seemed to forget all the other ways they'd each spent three+ seasons creating tension and drama.

I didn't even get past the first episode of Dollhouse because it seemed designed to do that from the start.

I like many of Whedon's ideas, and he can do great dialogue within certain limits. But everything by him that I watch, I'm just waiting for the doomhammer to drop on the whole thing and turn it into a heavy-handed Shakespearean tragedy.

I've liked his work on movies; Avengers was good, and his touch improved Alien: Resurrection. Maybe it's because those aren't long enough for him to tragedy up the place?

Mmm. I'm holding my breath on his involvement in the rest of the Marvel franchise.

Buffy obviously was sadistic. They played D&D in one of the last episodes (xD)

Murf. I simultaneously loathe and appreciate post-highschool-Buffy.

It got so much better in terms of production as time went on: script, acting, directing, camerawork, SFX, the works. Because of this, many of the hands-down best single episodes are in the later seasons.

But it stopped being Buffy in many of the ways I watched the show for: it lost a lot of the original "horror film cliche stood on its head" and went for deeper territory... with mixed success and many failures.

Its symbolism wrapped in on itself like an ouroboros until it became meaningless, and the character development often felt forced or didn't last longer than a few episodes.

3:00 PM

I Wish i was more knowledgeable about things so I could understand what in the world you people are talking about half the time.

I Understand your talking about Buffy but thats about it.

maybe its just too early in the day.

A Show of which i only watched a few seasons.

No, I'm frequently accused of that.

...Welp I just came to see what was going on, I have a psychology final to study for.

cya!

There are worse things one might be accused of. Like crimes against baboonity.

@BESW Eh, all concepts have finite depth. Only so many times you can go "look, she's a girl but she's kicking vampires' butt, neat, huh" before you need to add something.

@Magician Yes, but sometimes you should just let it drop instead.

3:06 PM

@BESW Evidently, they felt they had more to say. And they did.

If you've got something else to say, it's important to consider whether the venue you constructed to make your previous point is suitable for the new idea.

@Pureferret Hi!

Yo ho

@Pureferret Hula wocka hula wocka?

3:21 PM

Anybody knows what I could do to roleplay a better charisma in a play by post game?

or to learn to do that

(I think it's too broad for Q: )

No, because "Charisma" by itself could mean any way in which you are able to control your social effect on the people around you.

In D&D terms, anyone who can leverage their presence to deliberate effect is displaying Charisma.

The ugliest orc alive has high charisma if he uses it to his deliberate advantage; the comeliest elf in all history has low charisma if he can't use it to his advantage.

I know the difference

So if you were to define a manifestation of Charisma, then you'd have a question.

I'm going to manifest sleep now.

The ugly barbarian that says "I don't want to be your friend" but has killed a god and a dragon is doomed to have charisma even if he does not want to (and I'm not talking about the stat)

4d6

3:24 PM

•

•

•

•

•

...drat.

I have more than 6 HD

I've been told that, no matter the character I roleplay, it looks like they have the same charisma as a slipper.

I'd like to fix that

I'm looking for people who has experience in play by forum, play by chat or anything else where you manifest the charisma of a character by writing

@Zachiel think of it as social intelligence then.

TThat might make it easier

What does a charismatic character -do-? (or, what could a character do to be recognized as being charismatic?)

JJoe knows his presence insult the king, but the kings anger has put everyone on edge making prying information out of them easier

1d20

3:28 PM

20

CCritical success you've just gotten information out of the kings court

ok and that's crunch

What'ss the fluff?

what would you desscribe your character is doing to achieve that?

Crunch? That was the fluff.

How do you anger the king? How do you leverage that?

you have described what happens because of the character being charismatic

that's the conseuqence

TThat's not stat based that's character personality based

BBrb

3:31 PM

ok but you're still saying "my character is charismatic, so this happens"

I'm looking for "my character does this, and I write that underlining this, so everybody knows that my character is charismatic" (then we roll and what happens is given by the roll)

3:57 PM

Of that i don't know

Writing.se might be of use

I hope they know enough of RPGs to be of some help

While it's nice to leverage one's skills, do research and gain ability, there comes a point where you have to say "I'm playing a character who can swing a sword better than I can, speaks three times as many languages as I do, and is better at social nuance than I am. Why do I need to actually gain one of those skills when I can use the rules to simulate the other two?"

(The answer being that D&D provides sufficient mechanics for the first two, but is ill-equipped to handle the third with equal grace, and there's a common --and stupid-- tradition of expecting players to pick up the slack instead of acknowledging the hole in the system.)

@BESW but if its slack everyone else picks up...

I'm not saying don't try, but I am saying that you shouldn't feel obligated and you shouldn't let anyone tell you you're bad at D&D if you don't or can't.

@Pureferret It's not. It's a per-group house convention that advantages the socially dominant players.

As a socially dominant player myself, I have RPed my way out of impossible situations in ways that by the stats on my sheet should not have been possible, because I am persuasive and eloquent IRL.

By contrast I have seen high-charisma PCs regularly fail basic social interactions because the GM insisted that the less-socially-ept player RP his speech to the king instead of just rolling the die.

Very well put

4:12 PM

@Pureferret Well, see above. [wry]

It's akin to penalizing a fighter's attack because his player is unfamiliar with the nuances of swordplay.

I can't follow which of my comments you're replying to on my phone...

If a GM ever said, "Act out how you swing your sword, and if I don't think you did it accurately I'm going to give you a penalty to the attack," there'd be mutiny. But it happens all the time with social checks.

@Pureferret You complimented me on how eloquently I talked about using my eloquence to my advantage. I was amused.

(I'm guilty of the "act out your social interaction and I'll adjust the DC accordingly" trap myself, to my shame.)

If everyone in the group is roughly on par socially, it might be acceptable. And of course any practice that the group is genuinely happy with is fine by me.

But social groups don't usually work like that: there's a pecking order, there are the loud and the quiet, the eloquent and the stumble-tongued.

So you wind up with the social-mechanics equivalent of giving the athlete a bonus to his wizard's endurance check and penalizing the asthmatic's barbarian.

One of the dynamics I've noticed arise from that is that nobody plays high-charisma characters; the smooth talkers realize they don't need to, and the wallflowers realize it won't do them any good.

I actually went the other way: when I realized that it was almost impossible for me to not make my characters persuasive, I deliberately sought out builds that justified it.

@ObliviousSage Been there, seen that

4:22 PM

...I also experimented with making persuasively wrong characters. That was fun.

But I fully recognize that I'm... not representative.

i believe it's more common in high optimization groups (which is what i tend to end up in).

Fair enough. Even in my high-op groups we weren't... superop? I was usually the most overpowered PC around, and my favorite PC was a 67-year-old human caster with 1 hp/level.

...and move 2.5'. 3.5 catered to some of my weirder conceits.

Anyway, I think it's nice to learn how to portray charisma in a chat game, but I think it's inappropriate to be expected to.

Many of us play RPGs in order to do things we can't do IRL.

For some of us, that includes being socially suave.

4d6

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Now I shall go to sleep.

4:59 PM

@BESW It's not expected. We still roll dice. But it's nice to see a fighter describing his stances, a wizard telling us how he overcomes a riddle by being more intelligent than Albert Einstein and charismatic people... well, being charismatic.

I knew a player who portrayed an elf by saying "hey, Elves have these keen senses, right? I fake it. I say the character stops and listens to something you can't ear. I've not actually done anything but you get the impression that I'm not human, because I do things human don't do". I think it's the same way with charisma. Identifying what people recognizes as charisma and just telling them your character does that.

(by the way, nobody says I can't play an high charisma character. They say that, being it a game about portraying people, if I can't portray them well it would be better if I settled on a lower charisma. Problem is, low charisma means I feel compelled to shun other characters or to act so to be shunned, which is the thing I want to avoid.)

4 hours later…

8:33 PM

The issue is most 'charisma moves' are conveyed with non-verbal communication, subconsciously. Emulating it near enough having it, the same not able to be said about sword fighting etc.

1 hour later…

9:34 PM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton at some point could I go over a concept for a shadowrun char with you?

Roll to persuade

1d20

8

Ouch

I had a friend roll 1d650 in MapTool the other day.

He got a 4.

6d20

8

2

18

13

20

15

9:46 PM

@ObliviousSage a 4? What are the odds?! (!)

1 in 650

Love that joke. Relevant: penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/08/25

1d12

6

10:04 PM

@Zachiel There are a TON of self-help books (most of them cynical and manipulative money grabs) aimed at giving socially self-conscious people specific tangible strategies and tools for being more socially dominant.

From being more influential in the workplace to the secrets of picking up up women, they're largely useless in practice but might be useful to your specific goal of describing individual social tools.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret sure

I've seen assertiveness at work recommended on here. Is that a good book?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton So my concept was for an ex-ganger cram/nitro addict troll who starts to take deepweed and awakens as an adept

with a bow

and stuff

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW yeap.

@Pureferret fun

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I guess what I want to make sure is that I don't fall into obvious char creation traps, not knowing what skills/attributes would fit the character

etc

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:18 PM

@Pureferret that's easy. "Any of them that you give him, fit the character..."

it's just important to be able to look at the character and describe it.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I have a habit of just picking shinny stuff

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

The causal chains of character creation are frequently confused with the causal chains of narrative. They run in the other direction.

2

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Thats what I need to do.....

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

So, step 1, define your requirements.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton This is what I often get hung up on, as I go through an itterative process between the two when I generate characters

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:19 PM

@Pureferret yep :)

so step 1, have you read my paper ?:)

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Narrative? Mechanical Req's? Requirements to have fun? Requirements to be useful?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

cause I really do go into this in my paper.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Which one?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

constrained opt

there are three levels of interaction, narrative, mechnical-fucntional, mechanical-theoretical.

It's useful to have requirements that touch on each one, as that adequately constrains the design space.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton The first two seem obvious....the later?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:21 PM

::points at paper:: I need coffee...

basically the statistical systems behind the mechanical choices that serve to unifiy and coherentize the mechanics.

the problem of character creation is to define the problem you're trying to solve and then obey the solution you find

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Could you ::links to paper:: as well?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret sure, it's been about a month :)

Constrained Opt

@BrianBallsun-Stanton So 'I'm a potent combat mage (narative), I need spells (mech-fuc), they need to be high force (mech-theo)' ?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

well, for theoretical, instead of high force( valid) are there opponents that you measure yourself against?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Got you

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:29 PM

"I want to be able to kill an X with power Y in duration D"

'I can take two troll gangers' ->'I need to be able to cause X DPR'

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Beat me to it

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

but yes, that's the concept here. Sometimes it forms into a useful requirement

note also that "I want to be able to be beat upon by two gangers for at least unit time D"

is completely valid

@BrianBallsun-Stanton See, I have zero awareness of that aspect

or at least looking back

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret Most people do. Most people have a damage fetish :)

finding the statistical models behind the system, BTW, is actually somewhat difficult.

but make sure that you have at least three axes for mechanical-theoretical

My Psyker in Only War has some powers as I thought they were cool, but I don't really know how to use them

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:32 PM

damage-dealt, damage-taken, interesting-stuff

this also helps you understand your character. "These bits are for fundamental purpose X, channeled through the rules Y, and the narrative Z, thus I expressthem like so"

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Can you specify a level or two further?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret ?

(I can't do SR4 chargen from memory...)

@BrianBallsun-Stanton An example purpose, what rules, narrative in some arbitrary fashion

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

urrrr

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I'm use you can do a bit of D&D 4E, and I'l translatre in my mind

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:37 PM

so, in 4e, I want to be able to do stupidlots of damage, therefore, I use the rules for the essentials sorcerer + feat implements + feats, and fashion a narrative (quite simple) of channeling elemental energy out of the ground. Mini volcanos if you will. Thus, I'll describe lava hurtling through space, exploding from the ground, syurupy quagmires of death, all the time killing my opponents in roughly 1.5 rounds.

(that middle bit is simplified, of course)

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I get all of that, except where '1.5 rounds' comes from

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1.5 rounds is the calculation performed by the mechanical-theoretical on the mechanical-practical such that the requirements of "stupidlots of damage" can be tested

via the normal DPR formula.

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I have to be honest, in that I find that part dull

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret automate it :)

but it's a way to make sure that your intended narrative expresses itself correctly in the rules

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Too many options!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:39 PM

@Pureferret not... really

you're not interested in the options

Nah I'll give it a go once I've read and re-read the combat rules in SR4

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

you're interested in the formula in which the options are plugged into

ignore most edge cases. what's the central attack + damage formula?

Will there be generic enough formulae to fit all ooptions though?

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Not sure yet

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Pureferret well, pasta, and we'll go through and refine... and get a paper out of it

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Some time next week perhaps?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:41 PM

sure

Also, is this answered well: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/25581/2788 ?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

no?

it needs formatting

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I didn't think it was...thanks. I shall lie in wait.

But first, sleep

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

cheers

@BrianBallsun-Stanton G'night

11:12 PM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton "The Causal Chains of Narrative" would be a good name for a band.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

11:28 PM

@BESW or a paper

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