TRPG General Chat

1:51 AM

that is a great feeling XD

Actually... like 5000 words. Wow. That is... more than I've written consistently in a fiction project in a long time. xD

losing track of how much you even wrote sounds like a good sign

I am bouncing around in the timeline so there are a number of separate documents. xD

2:10 AM

This is helpful: Dave Girouard, a former executive at Google, talks about making tough decisions quickly.

2:33 AM

Post Dated check loan is an amazing ship

3:25 AM

(i think this person needs to find a shorter tumblr name to write beneath their comics)

Oh man I love Floccinaucinihilipilification

There are like eight or nine of those Harry potter comics on that page

@Sandwich Thank you for writing that out in an easily copyable and pastable manner. XD

Oh! They moved their blog or something, there's an 'a' now.

floccinaucinihilipilificationa.tumblr.com <- a thing to click for the comic's artist.

3:58 AM

And here's one using the magic of tags

All the Harry potter comics on that site

@Sandwich I like the Gilderoy one a lot.

Heh heh yeah

8:08 AM

@BESW @trogdor I suddenly have a new character I very much want to turn into a PC XD

(Maybe I'll do this after the trip back from N1 to earth!)

Q: How to politely explain that a player's character doesn't fit the role as well as they think it does?

9:50 AM

@trogdor @BESW there's a 4e question you might have some insight into.

Zachiel

0

An old friend of mine who had to leave our gaming group for various reasons recently returned. He created a new character since we had gone a long way since he had left and he wanted to try a defender. He put together a Warden and joined our group. He optimized the character's health and healing ...

I'm tempted to start a new one-answers-all trend: "Give him the link to your question and let him figure out.".

@Zachiel that would be a poor answer.

there are actually things to explain here about the role of a defender in D&D 4e.

and, also, I pinged a couple of people who have direct experience with 4e's Wardens and might have insight into what this person could adjust to better fulfil their role, and what they could have done poorly to end up in this state.

(one of the things they did was misunderstand the defender role)

Zachiel

My next suggestion would just be "Keep attacking the squishies until he's facing all the enemies alone, with 7 damage per round and not-infinite life" but that'd be just as bad.

Yes, that is not how the defender works.

There is actually technique involved in being a successful defender, and for each defender class the techniques involved are different.

Zachiel

10:07 AM

No, I mean, his problem is not building a defender, it's understanding that, as a defender, it's his role to be sticky. He seems not to care, thinking the controller is the one who has to do all the job (in my game, the controller brings enemies into defender range), thus failing at his role because he isn't even trying. He's maximizing survivability, at the expense of everything else. He's as ignorable as the worst D&D 3.5e so-called tanks.

Which is not a problem to him but to his party, at least until he's in the "First they came for the controller, and I did not tank, because I was not a controller". Which will ultimately result in "Then they came for me - and there was no one left to [well, kill my enemies] for me". But that only comes after the whole thing has become unfun for everyone else.

10:30 AM

@Zachiel Yes, this is precisely the thing. He believes the role of a defender is to not get hit and not die ever, in the fashion of what it means to be a tank. But defenders do have to be sticky, or otherwise repel people, so he doesn't understand the defender role, so an answer to this question will also probably cover how to explain the defender role to someone with this misunderstanding.

@BESW you are missing a semicolon before Downfall in Cool Stuff

12:30 PM

**Cool stuff:** [Bundle of Holding](http://bundleofholding.com "buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[Kaiju Incorporated early preview drawing](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/122Jec8d_LojM53yzJzLosNpGzxHeoeeIgRCnoHT0dOs/viewform "Pacific Rim meets Wall Street");
[Downfall](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1488255788/downfall "role-play the collapse of a society");
[Numenera: Into the Ninth World](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/numenera-into-the-ninth-world "Venture farther. Explore deeper. Go beyond.");

Betrayal at House on the Hill was fun!

12:55 PM

> Green is my favourite colour. You get +1 to create advantages by placing magical aspects on green targets.

@BESW Hahaha! This sounds fun.

I got into a brief conversation with a friend about her, and she suggested this girl might be a fun doctor. So I'm going to make one of her aspects about her being a "fun" doctor (with exaggerated finger quotes)

fun for her but with possibly terrible consequences XD

> Hewgy and Mewny. You can use Notice instead of Contacts to overcome when trying to learn information.

> Unavoidable collateral damage. You can take a faction consequence of the lowest available slot to automatically succeed on a roll.

@BESW I LOVE IT.

@BESW This works well :D

> Alchemical shot. Once per session, spend a Fate point to declare that your gun is loaded with ammunition which lets you ignore a particular kind of physical immunity to stress for the rest of the scene.

> Specially tinted lenses. You can use Alchemy in place of Notice or any magical skill when creating advantages about existing magical effects.

@BESW I see you too concluded she's an alchemist! I'm glad, I think the apron suits her well XD

@BESW Hmm. How would this interact with things we've seen so far?

(Have we seen something like this so far?)

1:08 PM

> Heavy lab gear. You have armor:2 against physical stress inflicted by temperature or chemicals.

@doppelgreener We haven't done much with immunity yet.

But it'd be things like Bulletproof.

For a werewolf, she's got silver shot.

For a vampire, holy water cartridges or charcoal-tipped stakeshot.

trogdor

yeah, we would just have to make sure that enemies like that show up if you play this character

with a stunt like that I mean

Q: What to do if I wish I'd worded the question differently?

1:23 PM

@doppelgreener For a more general version, try "...loaded with exactly the right ammunition you need (describe it specifically) for the rest of the scene."

The Oracle

1:36 PM

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I recently asked this question about simplified character creation rules, and it's received a few answers, but I'm wishing that instead I'd omitted the word 'rules' and just asked about simplified (or simplifying) character creation. I'm not sure if the two questions would actually get different...

discussion questions

2:37 PM

@BESW I will do this! Because @trogdor I don't want to necessarily force that, and this one's useful in other cases too

> Unavoidable collateral damage. You can take a faction consequence of the lowest available slot to either automatically succeed on a roll or gain +4 to it.

for a version that also works with Attacks, or other cases where more shifts makes more sense than automatic success.

3:12 PM

@doppelgreener One of the things I thought when I first saw that picture that was "she reminds me a little of a lady version of November," one of my boyfriend's "fun" doctors. XD But very alchemist-y, yes.

@Pixie She might be both a doctor and an alchemist. (But not very good at one of those?)

@doppelgreener Totally possible! (Nov is a doctor and a necromancer.)

@Pixie That is a worrying combination. Or a reassuring one, since dying on the operating table won't be much of an issue?