TRPG General Chat

> - Because I am the perfect host, I get +2 when I Flashily create aspects to control a situation.
- Because I always get my way, I get +2 when Forcefully overcoming people who try to stop me.
- Because my son is a mob boss, I grant +2 instead of +1 when I help by throwing money at a problem.

doppelgreener

3:44 AM

@BESW \o/

@BESW Also I deliberately left the Twilight Club nondescript, so that we can shape it during play

BESW

Cool.

Here's Grandpa Joe:

Lord_Gareth

Man, my Harbinger beta doc is blowing up with viewers. I think the release of PoW attracted them to the thread links.

BESW

Grandpa Joe: Eternally cheerful club owner
Trouble: A bad limp
Always playing games
Good judge of character
Universally popular

> - Because I have an infectious good cheer, I get +2 when Flashily creating advantages to make people feel good.
- Because I own the Twilight Club, I get +2 when Forcefully kicking people out of it.
- Because I’m so popular, once per session I can have a friend show up to help me.

doppelgreener

I like these.

Lord_Gareth

Curse you @BESW now I have a concept I'm half sitting on >.<

BESW

3:48 AM

@Lord_Gareth Bwahahahah. [cough] I mean: Oh, really?

Lord_Gareth

@BESW I may have been influenced by urban fantasy leanings, esp. in light of DFAE discussion

BESW

The game with Aslan and Emrakul is going to be set in a wild west town that a gang of supernaturals is trying to take over.

Lord_Gareth

But Lily Thurston, Traveling Lightning Rod Salesman. Lost her brother when a machine she was building totally did not do what it was intended to do and blew up. She thought he was dead...until his handwriting started showing up in her diary

Now she's trying to re-create her experiment under more controlled circumstances and get him back

BESW

That... is perfect.

It's exactly encapsulating a particular element of DFAE that I'm interested in exploring.

Lord_Gareth

[tilts head curiously]

BESW

3:52 AM

The Dresden Files divides magic between evocation --spur-of-the-moment casting-- and thaumaturgy --ritual casting which takes time and prep, but can create much more powerful effects with less strain on the caster.

In DFAE, rituals have no rolling of dice or expenditure of stress or anything like that. You describe the desired effect and the GM helps you determine what's necessary to achieve that effect in terms of power to channel, sympathetic bond with the target, metaphor for the effect, and time expended.

Once you've got all that stuff worked out, you perform the ritual and it just happens.

Lord_Gareth

I sense that you are not pleased with this precise execution.

BESW

No, it's... pretty workable, especially for an alpha version of the thing.

So here's what I want to explore: a plot driven by the PC(s) working toward being able to perform a massive ritual.

Gathering the necessary power--finding a location whose energy you can tap, making bargains with higher powers, etc.

Lord_Gareth

Hrm

BESW

Acquiring a sympathetic bond with the target--lock of hair from the person, scale model of the building, etc.

Creating the metaphor of the effect--drums and a lightning rod if you're summoning a storm, for example.

The more powerful and precise the desired effect, the more specific and intimate the elements of the ritual need to be.

Lord_Gareth

Aye

I...think I have a Trouble and Aspects around

(Do continue expounding by all means)

BESW

3:59 AM

No, that's about it.

Lord_Gareth

Off of the top my head, and remembering that I have neither done this nor read the book

Trouble: Collateral Damage. Aspects: Lightning in a Bottle, Bright Personality, Broadened Horizons

BESW

Those definitely have potential, depending on the narrative supporting them.

Sometimes adding a word can help flesh out an aspect. For example: Necessary collateral damage, as opposed to Tragic collateral damage.

Lord_Gareth

I'd envisioned it as being the result of her missing key details or not thinking things through. Like, she offends someone socially and makes an enemy of their family as a result

She didn't check the runes on her lightning rod and now there's an angry elemental on the loose

BESW

Unnecessary collateral damage, then?

Lord_Gareth

Etc

@BESW Could very definitely fit yeah

BESW

4:04 AM

Or, you could make it about the character trait rather than the fallout from it: Always in a hurry or Too much multitasking.

Lord_Gareth

Devil in the Details

BESW

afk gotta clean the bathroom.

Lord_Gareth

It's dangerous to go alone, take Scrubbing Bubbles with you.

BESW

(And I still have at least one NPC to stat up, and some location aspects...)

I have another kind of bubbles.

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener - I don't suppose you're FATE-enabled enough to comment/help? I figure if I can get this sort of thing out of the way ahead of time it'll make the future one shot easier to get rolling.

BESW

4:07 AM

@Lord_Gareth Greener is more than qualified.

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth I am, what am I helping with/commenting on?

This lightning rod game concept?

Lord_Gareth

Aye

doppelgreener

the character herself?

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener That part

doppelgreener

I feel like something missing is the Avoidable part in the collateral damage

BESW

4:13 AM

@doppelgreener Get him talking more; ask leading questions about motive, family, hobbies, experience, etc. You know my methods, Watson.

doppelgreener

But if it's a trouble about her personally, that doesn't describe something about her so much as something that is an event that occurs sometimes

Lord_Gareth

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the idea of the Trouble; I was under the impression that it's a persistent problem in your life that is not really avoidable

doppelgreener

Yes, though it's generally something about the person. Being haunted by your past, for instance. So what is it about herself that stops her?

BESW

Trouble on the SRD. Okay, I'm out.

Lord_Gareth

Lily jumps the gun despite repeated personal experience that suggests she shouldn't. She gets...eager? Or in a rush, or under pressure, and forgets to consider or check details

And then things explode, literally or figuratively

And the thing is, this has happened before

And she never seems to learn her lesson

The Oracle

4:18 AM

0

Q: How do we feel about Genre Tags?

In this answer to What to Do with WOD tags, I suggest that any setting question that is broad enough to applicable across all WoD editions is broad enough to be applied against the whole urban-fantasy genre, and should be tagged as such instead. Now I am thinking that reviewing what Genre tags a...

Lord_Gareth

If that makes sense?

doppelgreener

That makes perfect sense!

[now has tea]

BESW

[wanders past with cleaning supplies]

doppelgreener

so we have delicious opportunity to make her trouble about her guilt (if this is a big deal for her), but making it about her careless is probably helpful for a different tone

specifically a more light-hearted one

BESW

The Hulk's trouble isn't Smashed stuff, it's Uncontrolled temper or I lack the delicate touch, depending on where he is in his story arc.

doppelgreener

4:20 AM

(we could even make it about both, through something like My carelessness got my brother killed)

@BESW Yeah, the Uncontrolled Temper is a constant personality trait that leads to a lot of things happening, including smashing stuff, turning on people trying to help him, etc

For Lily, being Hopelessly Careless or Can't wait for anything or etc could lead to a lot

I'm not sure how to best pithly describe her carelessness, but it is a great thing to work with as a trouble

BESW

Alternately he could have a trouble like General Ross wants my blood, which is an external problem (in this case caused by an internal problem).

Lord_Gareth

And as the SRD suggests, it can be used in a positive way; for instance, Lily knows a lot of different ways to make things explode

BESW

"Collateral damage" is an effect of a trouble (being careless) or the cause of a trouble (being wanted/shunned/guilty).

Lord_Gareth

Why? She's rigged those devices before

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth Absolutely

Experienced Troublemaker?

BESW

4:25 AM

Troubles are often difficult to invoke for benefit, but they can--and perhaps should--be.

Making it your trouble is just a method of telling the GM "See this thing here? I wanna see this bite me on the butt repeatedly and spectacularly."

[puts on gloves, slogs back in]

Lord_Gareth

So, if I'm getting the idea right, like...

Okay, say we used the 'collateral damage one' and Lily was setting up a 'cage' of rods to contain a spirit or something. DM invokes collateral; Lily forgot to check a detail, spirit is not properly contained

Right?

[Horribly nervous]

BESW

@Lord_Gareth Yes, that's the mechanic. It's called a "compel" if it's establishing a story detail and an "invoke" if it's changing the difficulty or modifier on a roll.

If you accept the compel, you get a Fate point for your troubles. To refuse it, you must pay the GM a Fate point.

However, if the trouble were something like Always in a hurry, then it could be compelled in that situation and in situations which have little to do with stuff blowing up at all.

doppelgreener

Indeed; her carelessness is something that can go well above and beyond simply stuffing up rituals and causing collateral damage

BESW

My carelessness hurts others, maybe.

Lord_Gareth

[Nods] I wanted to be sure I understood the concept so I went back to the simpler idea for the example.

BESW

4:41 AM

Then when you're actually trying to be careful, you could invoke it for a bonus saying "I know my carelessness hurts people, so I'm going to go back and double-check my work."

Lord_Gareth

I like it

So revised trouble reads: My carelessness hurts others

What next? Are the Aspects okay? Interrogation time?

BESW

Well, usually aspects come out of the character discussion.

It sounds like you've had a lot of that discussion in your head, so we don't know what's behind the aspects that came out of that conversation.

Lord_Gareth

Huh.

BESW

Lightning in a bottle--is that literal as well as metaphorical? Is it as cliché as it sounds, or is there a twist implied?

It's not a very clear phrase in the first place.

Lord_Gareth

Literal and metaphorical, leaning towards the latter. Lily got into the lightning rod business for a reason, and the biggest reason is that she's talented in capturing and re-purposing energy. She's prone to creating tools that help her solve complex problems in a simple way

BESW

4:55 AM

REALLY awesome spot-on aspects can be understood independently, but almost all aspects need to have some mutual group consensus backing them up.

Lord_Gareth

The machine the blew her brother up was supposed to convert one kind of energy to another. Thatdidn'tworkout.gif

I...am not honestly sure how that whole group consensus thing works for character creation. It's always been very deeply personal in my RPG career

Others are invited to help and expected to stay away unless given such an invitation

BESW

It's better when there's a talky conversation than in text, I've found.

But yeah, it varies from group to group. My players usually focus on "how can our characters relate to each other?" and "Hey, I'm stuck on this aspect" or "How do I make a stunt that does X?"

But if we've got a cool idea for someone else, we'll blurt it out.

At the end of the day, each player is in charge of his or her own character except if the group vetoes something they really don't want to see.

But the creation process is much more conversational and brainstormy.

Anyway, I need to start final prep; expecting players in about 45 minutes and I haven't eaten yet.

doppelgreener

5:17 AM

@Lord_Gareth for me personally, I created a half-troll for BESW's alpha dresden files game, and worked out some stuff about him specifically, then figured out how he'd relate to the others and get mixed up in their business. we figured he may also have some debt to a mob (or there is a mob who wants to insist he is), and then one of the other characters made a mob enforcer and we worked out a few things about how they should be involved with each other and so on.

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener Complication: this is sounding thus far like it will be a solo 1-shot

BESW

5:54 AM

At least, we should expect it to be a solo one-shot and get pleasantly surprised if it turns out otherwise.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Indeed

The Oracle

11:55 AM

0

Q: Tag merge request: [nwod] and [storytelling-system]

The storytelling-system tag is a relic from a much earlier idea of WoD tagging; there never were any games that used the Storytelling system that were not also nwod games, and with the subsequent developments involving Onyx Path, there won't be. Let's bring together that which once was asunder.

support tags

BESW

3:12 PM

The highlight of tonight's DFAE session has to be tackling the fat man off the third-story balcony.

Although rallying the clubfull of half-drunk gangsters into a fire brigade was pretty sweet too.

(It's a Fate game, of course something got set on fire.)

2

Tarmikos11

3:38 PM

Getting caught on fire is a staple of P&PRPG's, don't you know that?

doppelgreener

4:11 PM

@Tarmikos11 thankfully no people got caught on fire

but lighting things on fire is definitely a staple

Lord_Gareth

4:40 PM

@BESW I think you mean, "There were player characters present, of course something got set on fire."

Zachiel

5:10 PM

@Lord_Gareth [thinks about his gaming experience and nods]

Oxinabox

5:39 PM

I wish there was a better way to manage my filters.
I want to be able to turn groups of 10 filters on and off at a time.
most of the time I am not in the mood for dnd, but sometimes I am trying to find something (like see how a tag is used).
Sometimes I am tired of WoD questions and would like to hide them.
Sometimes I would like to hide all questions that have a system tag, and only see the remainder.
Is there a firefox extion/userscript for this?

I should take that to Meta.SE

Zachiel

9:25 PM

And this is the boring part of the game. The part where we need to find an item which location we don't know save for the plane and maybe the layer it's in.

kviiri

It's always in the last place you look.

Zachiel

9:39 PM

Then we'll never find it, the plane is infinite.

kviiri

Infinities work in peculiar ways!

Zachiel

Nah, we just need to use divinations. I've never had any divining divination cast in my games, because I often give the players enough hints in the form of NPCs knowing what they need to know and knowledge checks managing most of the "where's this place that's named in this letter?"

kviiri

9:57 PM

Hm, I tend to dislike divinations myself. Not that I've played enough DnD or similar games to actually use them a lot.

In Apocalypse World, we've agreed that the Psychic Maelstrom is somewhat similar - but the players know better to expect ready, clean answers from it. Everything is cryptic and obscure.

Zachiel

I just want to tell this girl "look, I don't want to risk my life to free your dad, I'm done with this job"

but this is not how you do adventuring, damnit!

kviiri

I hate it when I have to figure out excuses for myself or my players to get their characters to grab onto plot hooks.

At least Apocalypse World (which is my current game of choice, as you might've figured out, hehe!) hands some action hooks to me with very much ease.

For example, one of the characters is a leader of a small group of followers. They have to roll every session to see if the followers are doing well or poorly. If the roll goes awry, I can just make up trouble among their lieutenants ;)

Zachiel

10:12 PM

Oh, I have hooks. A character I want to consider me a friend has her dad imprisoned by a contract with a devil and we know how we can undo it with no fees. I'm just too afraid of the devil (or the warlord involved in the deal)'s revenge.

@kviiri Hardholder?

kviiri

@Zachiel Hocus, actually. Her character is Franz, who claims to be the legitimate King of America. The "cult" is those who recognize his claim.

But Hardholder, Chopper and others who can gain followers have similar appeal for plot hook generation, naturally.

Zachiel

@kviiri Yeah it could have been one of several options. But I don't like playing AW. Too much troubles and too few power to solve 'em. I like more those games where problems shows up one (or 2-3) at a time and you vanquish them (or believe you did but they return in a future story arc) before getting introduced to the new menace(s)

kviiri

@Zachiel Isn't that entirely up to the GM?

Zachiel

I like the idea behind the game, it's just that I'm not able to enjoy that level of stress.

kviiri

Well ok, AW has the Front system, but every group I've ever played with it (including the one I master) has more or less neglected it.

Zachiel

10:20 PM

@kviiri Well in AW you have fronts and they go on if ignored and you always ignore one to stop another

kviiri

Hm, when I'm playing I enjoy the feeling of stress. The best sessions I've had have been those where my party's been under constant fire ;)

Zachiel

And even when not playing with fronts, every failed roll introduces new problems or worsens existing ones. I like more when, in D&D, after you've cleared half the keep from bandits, you have half problems less

kviiri

I thought problems are the reason we play for!

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW You there?

kviiri

All in all, I guess it depends a lot on how the GM decides to play the problems. When my party's having enough heat on their own, I won't let a single failed roll ruin it for them. As long as the action feels fluid and the pressure's on, it's all fine by me.

Zachiel

10:28 PM

@kviiri I'm more of a setting tourist. I like to get in touch with cool NPCs and having them care about me.

kviiri

@Zachiel Hehe, you'd like my game. I like NPCs too.

Zachiel

Maybe that's why I'm rarely a player in my tabletop groups

kviiri

Actually that's partly why I dislike divinations, I find it more interesting if there's a NPC who knows and can be persuaded/bribed/coerced into dispersing the intel.

Phil

divinations are only fun if they lead to complications

kviiri

"Any facts provided by this spell are true, but only in a sense most people would find extremely contrived."

Zachiel

10:34 PM

@Phil Oh, they lead to. If we don't ask the right things we'll probably walk into a very unforeseen situation. And unforeseen situations are potentially deadly.

Phil

Good good good

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