TRPG General Chat

12:10 AM

@BESW I don't think our group uses it exactly

We tend to say "I'm gonna do this thing." Or "I do this!" [roll] ".... aaaaand I don't end up doing that quite as well as I thought! Oh noooo!"

doppelgreener

12:25 AM

... I am having significant problems with that Willingness 5e question and I really wish I had the books.

like emotion-level problems

the current only answer is attesting that intimidation can make you willing

and i'm considering this in the contexts of, like... robbery, sexual assault, and so on; complying with someone frightening the crap out of you with threats if you do anything other than what they say apparently makes someone willing?

like, i can get that you're willing to do that thing so as to avoid terrible things happening, but the point of the threats is you're not willing in general and would not be making those choices given any other better circumstance

Miniman

When you put it like that, it raises some interesting questions.

doppelgreener

[/rant or letting off steam kinda thing]

Miniman

"Let me cast this spell on you or I'll kill you." - assuming they don't want to be killed, that might actually make them a willing target.

doppelgreener

yes, if willingness works that way

Shalvenay

yeah, that's ... a rules bug :P

doppelgreener

12:31 AM

it's not a rules bug at all, it's not rules.

there are not rules for it.

Shalvenay

oh?

I see...

Miniman

This is why it got closed in the first place, but a mod reopen tends to be irreversible, so that option's out.

doppelgreener

well, others can re-close it

mod reopens are not irreversible at all

and mxyzplk and Brian at least tend to go with a policy they'll only use their mod-reopen or mod-close once, if the community overrides them then so be it

I'll wait a day or two and if things in that question stay bad I'll probably open a meta Q then.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Sorry, I didn't mean technically irreversible - just that it almost never happens, and it's highly unlikely to happen in this case.

doppelgreener

yes

i have issues with this

i mean they're mine and on me to reconcile but that doesn't make it easy to reconcile them

Miniman

12:38 AM

Well, so do I, but I've learned to live with the fact that sometimes a question that should be closed (in my opinion, obviously) stays open. They tend not to do particularly well and disappear off the radar fairly quickly, so impact on the site is fairly minimal anyway.

Zachiel

@Althis beware, emotional bleed is very possible wit this game

Althis

?

Zachiel

the game is emotionally intense

basically, one player is a vagabond and the rest are the evil of society. And the poor guy is going to be forced to take bad decisions and get into trouble or fail, most of the times

Since the game is set in a real life setting, it's not for everyone

BUt it uses cards.

Other card games: Bacchanalia, Montsegur 1244, Storming the Wizard's Tower

Althis

What kind of cards?

A regular french deck?

Zachiel

Storming uses poker cards for combat resolution. Drifter's escape uses poker cards for conflict resolution (poker hands)

Bacchanalia has its own set of illustrated cards and it's the play with cards version of bacchanal, that uses dice

Althis

12:50 AM

@doppelgreener ...I think you might have just invented the reverse ellipsis trick.(Which I just stole)

Zachiel

Montsegur has cards with inspirational elements for the narrative

Althis

Then I am most interested about the last two.

But thank you very much for the tip.

Will look into them right away.

Zachiel

there's also some game that uses tarots

But I can't remember which

doppelgreener

@Althis which part?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Now that I think about it, my group does this too. It's especially hilarious hearing people roll a 1.

Althis

12:54 AM

The ellipsis trick uses the "..." before the roll.

doppelgreener

oh XD

Althis

You did the same thing, you just added it after the roll.

Therefore, a reverse ellipsis trick.

doppelgreener

that was meant to indicate a mildly horrified pause at a bad result

Miniman

"The bat flies down and...runs straight into a stalactite, damn thing is drunk again."

doppelgreener

so i have invented the mildly horrible pause retcon trick? xD

Althis

12:55 AM

@Zachiel Is it me or do I sense some very slight religious undertones in this Drifter game?

Zachiel

@Althis well, there's the devil, but it's an allegory

Miniman

@doppelgreener I don't know about invented, but it's the first time I've heard it articulated.

Althis

@Miniman And that was how my character died in Mouseguard.

@Zac

@Zachiel Do you say it is intense? Care to elaborate?

doppelgreener

@Miniman Althis said I invented it, so it must be the case

Althis

Yes.

I am One, and indeed am never wrong.

Miniman

1:00 AM

[looks meekly at the ground]

Althis

Actually, some might say things become true just to agree with me.

Or in pure spite of my dissidents.

Miniman

Quick, say "Miniman ~~doesn't have~~ has a million dollars!"

Wait, oops.

doppelgreener

No, don't! It might be one of those horrible ironic consequences wish things!

Althis

I have a better one for your tiny brains.

This sentence is false.

Now I might have just broken the universe.

Enjoy the rest of your lives in a black hole.

doppelgreener

@Althis It is.

Althis

1:05 AM

Hey @Zachiel I've played this Montsegur game.

Had completely forgotten it.

It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life.

Trully depressing stuff.

doppelgreener

i will probably never play this thing

Althis

You are missing out. Read this:

"Let the following inspire your scene description:
A sharp stench of urine"

doppelgreener

> It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life. Truly depressing stuff.

"I won't play it." "You're missing out." -- Althis 2015

Althis

Dude, how many times will you get the chance to base a whole scene on the stingy stench of urine?

doppelgreener

Um. Probably a lot. Many of which I will simply not take.

Althis

1:37 AM

Dude...

This Bacchanalia game seems like the RPG equivalent of playing an Eroge.

Emrys Ternal

2:48 AM

Are there any 3.5 people here right now? I need some GMing advice.

Althis

Please ignore the Fate player behind the curtain.

Emrys Ternal

Pathfinder would also work for this

Althis

Please ignore the Mouseguard player behind the curtain.

doppelgreener

I did a bit of 3.5 and a bit of Pathfinder and I GM?

user61230

@Emrys I might be able to help, depending.

doppelgreener

2:52 AM

@BESW did like ten years of 3.5e, maybe he's here

or Emrakul!

Althis

Please ignore the Candy Crush player behind the curtain.

doppelgreener

i don't understand this reference you are making

Althis

Shame on you.

That was a classic!

I've repeated it thrice and no one noticed the reference...

Sad times in which we live in.

doppelgreener

Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.

there's gonna be a lot of people who don't get it c(:

Emrys Ternal

I use the Complex Skill Checks variants from the SRD. I need to adjust my CRs to be fair to a party that's missing a character. However, Because of the other variants I use (most notably the Bell Curve Rolls variant) by-default I have all encounters be CR+1 using the Level-Independent XP Awards system (which is essentially the same as Pathfinder's XP Awards system for XP tracks).

Normally there'd be 4 players, but this time there'll be 3, and they're all Lvl 1.

What I want to know is what kind of adjustments I should make to skill DCs for social skills to be fair to a party of 3 1st-level characters.

As opposed to 4 1st-level characters

From what I can tell, I shouldn't have to change anything.

But I'm not sure.

Aside from that with one less person there's one less person doing Aid Another.

Althis

2:58 AM

@doppelgreener I don't understand you emote. Is that supposed to be a pacifier or a smiling person or the top of homer simpson's head?

Emrys Ternal

Oh, and none of them are social-focused characters

user61230

@doppelgreener I think they are trolling.

user61230

@Emrys A part of it is, probably, how difficult do you want the game to be for them?

Althis

As a side note: @EmrysTernal , I am really impressed by how much math it takes to DM 3.5 these days.

I never considered the amount of work my DM had to go through to prepare each session.

Emrys Ternal

@Althis It is if you want to have an objective understanding of a fair challenge.

As for the difficulty, it's one of those "the story doesn't progress if it's impossible" situations. However, failing multiple times means that it takes longer.

Basically, I want to know if there's some sort of guide for calculating CRs for non-combat encounters.

In the DMG for example.

or in the PFSRD

user61230

3:06 AM

There's some math involved in figuring out what an equivalent difficulty would be, and unfortunately I'm not sure I have the time to do it all at the moment.

user61230

However, my suggestion would be to find a specific measure of success in the base system, compute the equivalent threshold of success in the modded system, and see if it matches your expectations.

user61230

When you're changing from a linear function to a bell curve, you're going to change the game dynamics significantly de facto, so there's some consideration you may want to give to that. anydice.com may help.

Emrys Ternal

I can do the math if I can know where the math is written.

Ideally, I'm looking for examples of social encounters

user61230

Ahhh, then I'm not sure I'm the person to help, sorry!

Althis

I might be spouting nonsense here. But if you have a graph for a linear progression, can't you just create a linear transformation to map it for a bell curve space?

And in theory it would work for any value, right?

Emrys Ternal

3:16 AM

Basically, if I can see an example of a skill-based encounter (preferably a social encounter) paired with a DC and CR, I can have a starting point

Althis

I am not sure you need. Again, I am not exactly what I am doing here but I think if you get the line equation that you do have you can equal it to the bell curve value and find the mapping function. Then all you need to do is to apply the transformation for all and any value you find in the vanilla, linear model and it will map to an according value in the bell curve universe.

Unless there is not really an equation that describes the experience curve.

In which case, you would have to go through the transformation for each example separately.

And that wouldn't be very usefull.

Am I making any sense at all?

doppelgreener

@Althis smiling face poking a tongue out

Althis

Yeah. Sad there is not an inverted c anywhere in the keyboard, right?

doppelgreener

:)ɔ

might turn into a white box for some people though

Althis

Nope.

You are fine here.

doppelgreener

3:24 AM

apparently it is an IPA pronunciation symbol called open O

Althis

Emrys. Which book are you using. It might be that I am the ONLY ONE who will ever be able to understand the nonsense I just uttered.

Therefore it falls onto my shoulders the task to complete this fundamental equation of BALANCE.

Emrys Ternal

No you're not. A bell curve's benefit is that you can be reasonably sure that the results will be clustered in the middle and taper off on the ends. That is, you'll get an average result far more often than a piss-poor or exemplary result. The advantage of this is that the player can be reasonably certain that their roll sans mods will likely get around a 10~11. The standard CR system does not have this assumption, and instead says "we want you to be able to have ___% chance without a modifier".

Althis

Well, I was going to say that I could do the math for you, but if you actually understood what I said, just as well then.

To the mapping between the functions and the result will be always correct.

I do think you will need 3 dimensions though.

DC, CR and XP.

Emrys Ternal

My point is that I don't want to adjust the CR (aside from making it easier for 3 players), I just want to know what the game expects to be a reasonable challenge for something that doesn't require specialization for a CR 1 or CR 2 skill-based encounter.

So, for example, a challenge that requires Open Lock won't work, as that requires specialization.

A good example would be to ask what counts as a CR 1 jump check challenge, and even better would be something like a CR 1 sense motive or similar "non-discrete" skill.

Really, 4e might be a better source

Because of skill challenges

Magician

As demonstrated by 4e's skill challenges which have been plagued by poorly set DCs and number of successes/failures required for multiple erratas, what a game thinks is a fair challenge and what is a fair challenge are two different things. You may be better off deciding on the probabilities you want and retro-engineering the DCs.

Emrys Ternal

3:34 AM

Okay, so what kind of probability would be fair for a CR 1 then?

50% chance, with 3 stages of potential failure?

Magician

I've missed most of the preceding debate. What do you mean by 3 stages of potential failure?

doppelgreener

41 mins ago, by Emrys Ternal

I use the Complex Skill Checks variants from the SRD. I need to adjust my CRs to be fair to a party that's missing a character. However, Because of the other variants I use (most notably the Bell Curve Rolls variant) by-default I have all encounters be CR+1 using the Level-Independent XP Awards system (which is essentially the same as Pathfinder's XP Awards system for XP tracks).

might be a factor of that variant

d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/…

Magician

Right, so basically skill challenges, with 3 failures to fail the entire thing.

Emrys Ternal

I'm looking for a 3.5e or PF example of a skill-based challenge that's either CR 1 or CR 2 and doesn't require a specialized character.

Magician

I wouldn't rely on getting that. Even if you find one, there's a good chance the author didn't apply the rules consistently or used their previous iteration or just made things up.

Emrys Ternal

3:42 AM

Okay, so then what I want to know is what kind of skill DC is appropriate to a CR 1 in-general?

Magician

Most games do have easy/moderate/hard DCs in them. For a first-level party you'd probably want to just use easy ones. --a laid back answer to that question.

Emrys Ternal

In 3.5e, here's what they claim: d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm

Magician

First level party. A decently specialized character will have +4 attribute +3 skill = +7, uber-specialized could have a racial bonus or skill focus or something, for up to +12 or so, but that basically deserves an auto-win. An entirely irrelevant character will have +0.

Emrys Ternal

So basically it's a wash

Magician

So figure out what chance you want a specialist to have, and what chance you want a noob to have, and work from there. 50% success for someone without any applicable skill is generous.

...or is it level+3 for max skill? It's been years since I've played that game. In that case specialized char would have +8.

Emrys Ternal

3:47 AM

Level+3

Magician

The problem you may find with skill challenges (or whatever else they're called) is they penalize low-skill characters for participating. Set-up needs to be very careful, either limiting the number of rounds or giving PCs something else to do. There's nothing worse than a player going "I could try and help, but chances are, I'll make things worse by failing, so I'll just pass".

The other failure mode is everyone aiding another for one massive auto-succeeding roll, ad infinitum.

Skill challenges are not a bad idea, but they require a lot more effort to actually work than the authors originally understood.

In my 4e game, I've abandoned the 3 failures model entirely. Skill challenges would either sap healing surges each "round", causing everyone to move, or be part of combat, or something else. It was almost never a "haha, you failed a roll and now all is lost".

doppelgreener

@Magician it occurs to me that Fate has a pretty similar thing - Challenges - but they work out very differently in practice because the players can invoke aspects to affect their roles, and if you fail the story just takes a different turn.

Magician

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of challenges either. The couple of times we tried to use them, they ended up being very contrived. Particularly the need to roll 3 different skills. Which may well mean that those weren't the appropriate circumstances to apply those rules, but eh.

doppelgreener

challenges require you to roll 3 different skills!?

[reads]

Adeptus

@Althis Another one to look at is Castle Falkenstein. Pretty sure it used cards... I only played once and barely got past character creation

Magician

4:00 AM

@doppelgreener I think so? I may be mistaken.

> A challenge is a series of overcome actions that you use to resolve an especially complicated or dynamic situation. Each overcome action uses a different skill to deal with one task or part of the situation, and you take the individual results as a whole to figure out how the situation resolves.

doppelgreener

> A challenge is a series of overcome actions that you use to resolve an especially complicated or dynamic situation. Each overcome action uses a different skill to deal with one task or part of the situation, and you take the individual results as a whole to figure out how the situation resolves. -- challenges

yes

that thing

i did not know about this

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