Fate books in Missouri, France, and Scotland.

I'm trying to decide if I should use my lunch break to go check the mail even though the tracking page says it's not there yet.

@BESW ick, I'm actually prepping for my own AC repair tomorrow :(

I wish these apartments had been built to take advantage of the trade winds.

We get great wind and weather most of the year, but our buildings are rarely designed to take advantage of it.

If it were up to me, I'd have a room unit to keep my tech from molding, and keep the rest of the house open whenever possible, with judicious application of fans for when the weather's not cooperating.

@BESW that's unfortunate. We've been without AC for the past couple of weeks but it's been tolerable because we've had a nice breeze and it's been fairly cool for us

(and we were on vacation for one of those weeks)

The majority of modern architectural philosophies, styles, and materials are designed for temperate climes, and they're just not appropriate for our tropical situation.

Nobody checks which way the winds blow and design the house (and situate it on the lot) so it can take advantage of them.

I grew up in a house that had lovely north-south windows and doors to facilitate airflow... but the winds came across the lot east-west.

Hi @BESW, have fun at your meeting :)

@JonathanHobbs [wave] I'm on break!

:D

@BESW My tracking page's last mention of my book was that it was in Chicago on the 2nd.

And then it was inside my house yesterday.

I checked the tracking page not half an hour before it was delivered.

@BESW Perhaps that was deliberate so you didn't simply have winds tearing through your building?

@JonathanHobbs We could close up the doors and windows....

@BESW I guess so <_>

@JonathanHobbs Duly noted.

Lunch break! And mail check.

No Fate book.

Tweets to Campaign By:

@user1810077 Hi!

As of 18:30 tonight, still no Fate for me.

@user1810077 Hi again!

@BESW Has @Problematic gotten his?

Not that I know of.

morning @mxyzplk

@C.Ross Morning

g'morn

::grumblesnitz::

[waves at room]

@BESW Hi!

@JohnP everything ok?

How's your bookwatch going?

@BESW waves

half of the parts for my AC repair are here...yeah looks like it might rain today though

@AlexP The sun has risen, and the sun has set, and here I am Fateless yet.

@C.Ross How do you, as they say in the finer parts, "do"?

@waxeagle ...is this good because it will be cool, or bad because it will be wet?

@BESW yes? if it's raining I really don't want to be mucking with electrical systems today

but it might be cool enough that I won't care

The A/C guy today installed a new electric thermostat to replace the old mercury one.

I am unsure why he did this, as the problem had to do with the A/C being on but not cooling properly, and condensing excessively.

Central conditioning systems are so inappropriate for my family anyway.

@AlexP I take comfort that people are reporting second waves of books coming to places already shipped to.

@BESW dollars to donuts you've got a leak somewhere :(...

mine wasn't cooling and the condensor fan wasn't coming on. I'm replacing the condenser fan and capacitor, hopefully that fixes it. If not I've gotta get a pro out to inspect the compressor motor :(

Actually, it seems to have largely resolved itself through increased frequency of filter cleaning.

Like, twice as often as the maximum recommended frequency.

@BESW fairly well, trying to plan out the rest of the day

@C.Ross I feel like the "basics on combat" question needs something more than what I've asked for in order to be answerable, but I don't know what.

@BESW It's really really broad. Depends on what kind of game and what kind of book he's writing.

It's also a bit too much opinion based. I'm not sure what experience can say besides "Most books have that or don't".

Anyway, it's on hold, and since his user doesn't exist ... I doubt it will ever change.

Yeah, what happened to that?

@BESW not sure, investigating

'cause when I left my comment, he existed.

yeah, it's not normal to see a user disappear within an hour of asking a question

unless it's spam, we destroy those, but that takes the question out too

Did I break him?

@BESW there's no user delete button, so he would have had to request deletion and gotten it in an hour? that seems ... odd

oh wait, there's a delete me button now ...

rpg.stackexchange.com/help/deleting-account

There is? Oh my yes, there is. Dear me how very unexpected!

I was going to suggest that he give us an example textblock of the kind of guidelines he was considering.

But... mu.

Oooh, new Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre. [distracted]

It's an interesting question, though. Too bad it died before it was properly born.

@BESW shrugs happens

Ayuh.

@C.Ross as long as they have no posts and no votes they can delete themselves

@waxeagle so I read

grr...bought the wrong part (well partly wrong)

@waxeagle I hate that feeling

@C.Ross yeah, and parts from amazon is never quite informative enough

gonna see if I can source it locally...

wonder how long before amazon starts offering same day delivery...

mind if I run some NPC aspects past y'all?

@C.Ross I gotta go to bed, but I'll review them in the morning.

aight

I might say a few things before I hit the sack, but they're unlikely to be cogent.

(Can I get a blurb of context about setting or something?)

this is for that heroes game I was planning

more or less modern day America, set in Cutterville, a fictional rust belt city

Police Chief: Top Cop, Tone-deaf, Necessary Police Brutality

Good, because I immediately thought of Tales of the Starbuck Avenger. So that's right on target.

Tone-deaf doesn't sound like it'll hit play very often.

Hard of Hearing maybe, for the same too-many-gunshots-at-close-range feel but more frequent usage.

Tinnitus?

@BESW that has possibilities, but I was trying to capture social tone-deafness as well

"What? I didn't hear/catch/get that."

Okay, beddy time.

Hi all

@user1810077 hi, welcome to chat

@C.Ross - yeah, it was just another saturday where I could sleep in, woke up early anyway, then realized I could still make the group ride if I hurried. So... ::grumblesnitz::

Guys, can you help me to find info, abt taming creatures in DnD4ed?

@user1810077 - I don't know 4e well enough yet to offer an opinion.

Hmmm, Do you play in DnD Next, JohnP?

@user1810077 Never came across it in my 4e days

@user1810077 I'm not sure there is much rules wise. Skill challenge with nature would be the best way to do it

possibly over an extended period

yeah, "train animal" is a listed option under the nature skill in the RC, but the actual rules are sparse (that's by design)

@waxeagle But which creatures can be tamed and which are not? And what abt difficult level of taming?

@user1810077 that's left as an exercise for the DM tbh. 4e is barebones when it comes to role playing and setting. They leave most things up to the discretion of the DM.

decide what level of a challenge it is, how easy/hard it is, and use the DC tables provided

Ok, let's try to tame crocodile...xD thx.

@user1810077 not unreasonable, but not easy methinks

@user1810077 I'd make that 6 hard nature checks of the creature's level before 3 failures. The number of failures determines the creatures loyalty. And it takes 2 weeks-6 months

Dear Internet, I need a name for a character trait.

My character is very good at empathy, in the sense of figuring out how other people feel and what motivates them.

What would you call that?

It's like introspection but directed at other people?

@AlexP what's wrong with empathy?

@C.Ross Probably nothing. I am fishing around for other ideas.

"Empathetic" does sound good.

I think my only hang-up is that I'm not necessarily consistently playing it as particularly possession sympathy. Like sometimes figuring people out leads to helping them, and sometimes it doesn't.

Is that still "empathy" in a how-we-use-the-word sense?

@AlexP yes, it often has a connotation of concerned

Perspective seems a little general

Face reader?

The thing I'm using for it mechanically is called "Manhunter," because it's like a tax collector / bounty hunter kind of trait. (This is for a skin-your-own-traits kind of thing.)

Good ideas to get me thinking more, though! Yay.

@C.Ross I think we'll go with Empathetic, now that you mention it.

so Early?

docs.google.com/…

page 109, from the title to the end of the paragraph. Wow.

I like the logic chain

@Zachiel Elaborate?

I read the section you marked out, then read the intro and conclusion. I'm not sure what "sex in the lavatory" really has to do with the GM role.

I mean, I understand not having the GM "sing off" on that kind of thing. But my (non-LARP-based) experience says that for things to be part of the Shared Imagined Space, I should actually tell people about them.

::reads a few paragraphs before the conclusion::

Okay, I think I follow.

He's saying the "GM" wouldn't know about the sweet, sweet lavatory sexytime if it wasn't for the weird overloaded expectations people have about the "GM" role. That makes sense to me. I still think doing away with the naively-defined too-much-in-one-bag GM role isn't going to protect you from other players' lavatory sexytime, though.

sry I was afk. You're right

It depends on why the players told him

LARPs have different expectations about player knowledge, I think. Since they're more "immersive" / directly-representational, generally.

but I liked the logic in the paragraph I posted about

This one, right?

@Zachiel I'm not getting it either

nm, can't copy-paste

I read that paragraph on 109 as basically saying that if the GM is the arbiter of all input, then really the GM is the only real authority.

another aspect set

Rich Man’s Pimp, Not in the face!, I can find what you need, Mama’s in the home

@C.Ross "Corporate Ethics is an Oxymoron" could mean he has no ethics because he is corporate, or that he hates corporations because he has ethics.

what it says to me it's that if the GM is the only real autorithy, then the players have no authority at all.

@BESW yeah, I mean the former, suggestion for clarification?

put Ethics in italic

I really do dislike "The GM tells you what your character should feel."

That said, I do think that shared veto power among the group is practical. But you have to use it sparingly.

I really dislike that too, but I also dislike players telling me their characters fear nothing. Nothing.

Several ways to disperse authority exist

Hello @SlatzG (I wonder if he has enough rep to use the chat, let me seeeeee...)

@Zachiel The solution there is that games that involve fear should involve a reasonable fear-type mechanic, I think. I like Burning Wheel's Steel a lot for that purpose. It has the side benefit of making fights less lethal.

@C.Ross "Ethics/Conscience are/is bad for business"?

@Zachiel or they aren't evil even though ... etc, etc,

@BESW "A conscience is a weakness in business"?

That's a bit clunky.... hm.

"Conscience has no place in commerce."

"Ethics, shmetics"?

"Business first, conscience later."

@AlexP corporate types don't talk like that

"Ethics are expensive."

@AlexP I like this, but for a "different reason". If there's no rule for fear, If my character acts like he's in fear, he's getting a self-imposed disadvantage. If there's a mechanic, the mechanic sets the disadvantage on me and I'm not shooting my foot anymore. Two problems arise here and I see a relation between them. 1) fear being imposed by the mechanic can turn into a...

"no, what? My PC would not do that" and into a "ow, I lose this turn, this mechanic sucks", which in turn leads to "let's make an optimized character against as many things as possible, thus returning me to the initial "I fear nothing" state.

@Zachiel I think the trick is to make the fear mechanics give you a choice.

"Money makes right"?

My experience with corporate ethics is that you watch training videos about how it sucks to get caught.

@AlexP I like it when the mechanics put you in a win/win situation. You fear this and this helps

(it only solves the second half of the first point)

@AlexP I meant they wouldn't say "shmetics" :-)

@C.Ross I gather.

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

@AlexP In all honesty, corporations are full of human beings, some of whom have strong integrity, and some of whom obviously do not.

(the second being mechanical exploitation of rules to nullify the chances of failing, but I forgot to write 2) in front of that)

@C.Ross Yes. The fictional "corporate type" is the guy who actually cares enough to try not to get caught. The rest of us just look at the rules and say, "Well, clearly it's not worth the crazy effort it takes to be a sleezeball even if I get a promotion out of it."

@Zachiel I don't think trying investing game resources into not being afraid of anything is necessarily a problem.

"Gain is my master passion"

How 'bout "I will kill for shareholder value?" >.>

@AlexP a lot of overlap with Slave to the market

@C.Ross Touche

@AlexP It is when you're weak if you don't do and it sucks when the designer was aiming at seeing people roleplay their scaredyness (for opposite reasons)

@Zachiel That's a matter of the manner of the mechanics rather than the fact of them.

Torchbearer is officially endorsed by theRPGsite:

@BESW I'm talking of my D&D experience, not so obviously maybe

@Zachiel Well, in D&D, being scared seldom helps you.

Being cautious helps you.

@Zachiel Aye, especially since what you were replying to was a Burning Wheel reference.

But the fear mechanics usually just make you DEAD.

What you want fear mechanics to do is stuff like get you out of danger, at a cost. Or signal the end of a conflict BEFORE someone dies dies.

I honestly don't want to RP fear in D&D because it actively gets in the way of stuff like Help the Party Win the Encounter. Which feels like letting your friends down, you know?

@AlexP Sadly, D&D is usually structured so that this extends to "I don't want to RP friendship" and "I don't want to have relatives," because those are weaknesses which impact effectiveness as well.

@BESW I think that's easier to remedy than "I don't want to RP fear," though.

So, I made the mistake of reading that Torchbearer thread Luke referenced. :|

@BESW Oh I don't think so. No mechanic is forcing you to keep those intact

Fear is a very genre-specific thing.

E.g. in pulp adventure stories, "Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes." But he's not afraid of machine-gun Nazis or evil magicians or riding a raft down a mountain or whatever. It's a character quirk.

In a game that wants to be more like, say, YA fantasy, maybe fear is more present but something you are trying to overcome.

....now you've got me thinking about a Chris Crutcher RPG.

@BESW What is that?

He writes YA novels about highschool-age boy athletes dealing with common real-life personal problems like abusive parents, prejudice, and poverty.

His novels very much belong to the "other people struggle with the same issues you do, person who is reading this book" school of YA literature.

@BESW Would that be a 1-on-1 game?

Or more ensemble-cast help-each-others'-issues?

Probably 1-on-1.

Interesting!

...although.

I'm gonna run off. Back in several hours, maybe.

2 players, one GM: 1 player is the main character, the other plays the other NPCs, the GM oversees the scenarios.