TRPG General Chat - 2016-11-08

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12:33 AM

@KorvinStarmast No natural talent here; any niceness that comes through probably stems from my default assumption when commenting/discussing: "they probably know something that I'm missing, and I'll only learn what by listening and asking honest questions."

@nitsua60 We call this a "humble posture of learning."

Also, I tend to take a bath when I'm grumpy, and tend not to bring electronics into the bath =)

2

seems like a good thing to not bring in with you

@BESW Is that a royal we, or a Baha'i we?

why not both?

12:34 AM

@nitsua60 Yes.

@nitsua60 I hear various health and, uh, being alive agencies recommend this policy.

Being Alive Agency sounds like a front for some serious necromantic stuff.

I think some people might bring their smart phones in with them

@doppelgreener The Health and Being Alive Agency is probably an actual thing in Cascadia.

not that I reccomend it, just,... it probably happens

12:37 AM

(I'm just dropping in while I Google where my polling station is; the Election Commission changed its mind about which village we lived in, but didn't tell us that the change was made too late to change the paperwork and we need to vote in the old village anyway.)

Woke up to wordpress congratulating me on my blog getting lots of traffic, because Goblin Dice got linked in a massively popular answer. On the old url. Where the redirect has run out. Sigh.

@BESW ugh, really? that is pretty bad

@BESW Malice or incompetence? whynotboth.jpg

....so I drove 5.5 km out and then back again when the actual polling station is only 2 km away.

@Magician edit, edit, edit the outdated link!

I did! 2 days and 300 views later!

12:41 AM

@Magician The Election Commission and utilities say we're in Barrigada, the lease says Mongmong-Toto-Maite, and the Land Commission says "the Toto part of Barrigada."

ah, the wonders of the system they use for deciding where a place is

Both mayoral offices are happy to claim us.

Hm. Gerrymandering?

Not really. The village you vote in changes nothing about the election except which mayoral office you vote for.

It's just the natural result of decades of different groups fighting over who gets to label things.

@BESW that still sounds a bit like Gerrymandering, I personally understand how it isn't, but deciding which areas vote for you sounds a ton like Gerrymandering

12:46 AM

The military labelled whatever it cared about after WWII bombed most of the island's infrastructure to rubble, and the locals just called everything else whatever would be understood by themselves.

yeah, I just wish that places were given a name, and a clear boundry of area, and not moved semi constantly

Then the cable TV company came through and insisted on Western-style street addresses, where "the house across the old Lionel-Richie-Madonna bus stop" didn't count, so whoever got cable first on a street got to name the street.

it's a minor annoyance in most cases, but it usually is an annoyance regardless

gerrymandering would be like... if there's two areas that will vote blue, and one area that will vote red, and each area is the same size, then if you make your border cut the red group in half, you have two guaranteed wins for blue and no wins for red. if you allow an area to be red-dominant, red gets a win.

@BESW I am trying to remember the road I am thinking of that illustrates that in a bizarre way

can't remember it though

I think it was actually like, a Canadian name or something weird like that

12:49 AM

Happy Landing Road? Billy Two Cows? Birthday Party Road?

@BESW those all work too

like, those three are all weird, but they are something maybe someone random would name a road here

but the one I am thinking of was like,... how did someone random from here name it that?

that being said, I do not by any means think that no Canadians have ever been to this island, but maybe not so many that it was likely a Canadian named a road something, but if I recall, in a vague sense, correctly, it may be what happened

I would be less surprised to see a Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean street name

or even Russian, though that would probably be a bit of a stretch

1:10 AM

Possibly the greatest scene in documentary history. Incredible. #PlanetEarth2 https://t.co/01dDjDJcdX

Tweeted by MrLukeJohnston on November 7, 2016 at 12:50 PM

2

ooooh myyyy gooood

give that there lizard an Olympic medal

give him all of the medals

just take them off the athletes, they'll be cool with it

I fully expect the lizard to star in the next Die Hard movie.

I re-watched that like, 4 times XD

1:32 AM

@Magician Die Hard? Nah, that's the next Fast and Furious co-star.

1 hour later…

2:47 AM

@KorvinStarmast Have you ever heard a US Southerner say "Bless his heart"?

@JoelHarmon hey

hey @Shalvenay

how're things going?

blerg; I seem to be coming down with something

@JoelHarmon awww hugs

sends chicken soup

3:09 AM

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be trying to finish up last year's Advent of Code right now

4 hours later…

7:00 AM

@JoelHarmon Tis the season. I just kicked something myself.

3 hours later…

9:45 AM

Tonight: garbanzos roasted in savory spices, cucumbers, apples, served in whole wheat tortillas with creamy tahini dressing.

1 hour later…

10:56 AM

i have been with one avatar for so long i'm getting Alien Avatar Syndrome now that i've changed it. "who's that? i haven't seen them before," i wonder, as i look at my avatar in the sidebar, and then remember it's me.

Alien Avatar Syndrome is not to be confused with something related to that movie about the blue aliens.

[amused]

@doppelgreener You think you're wondering who that is.

@Miniman [wreaks havoc and chaos]

@Magician @BESW possibly both a health agency and a front!

11:13 AM

It's a cover for spies from the Republic of Davis!

11:41 AM

@BESW GAAAAAAAAAAASP.

plot twist: they're actually just former Davis medical academics honestly employed there without subterfuge but nobody would believe that and so their origins are kept secret.

double plot twistaround: that's JUST WHAT THEY WANT THE CITY COUNCIL TO THINK

12:00 PM

this is too much intrigue

how will anyone ever trust them if you keep spreading these rumors? XD :P

12:57 PM

I've started re-writing my SG-1 notes and am already noticing that noxious goblin which torments level-based design, Padding.

Out of nine missions, 2 are basically irrelephant and another 3 can probably be melded together into one just by avoiding needless duplication of villains and a little GM sleight of hand to make sure something happens the first time which d20 would have forced me to leave to chance.

@BESW also compels

Normally one shouldn't rely on compels too heavily because part of the point of a compel is that the player is free to buy it off.

Oh yeah.

I feel free to rely on compels generally to increase tension, add complication, etc. But I shouldn't assume any specific compel will be accepted.

1:12 PM

So that makes 9 missions go down to 5, neat

Potentially! I'm still working out the details.

My notes aren't complete.

@BESW shouldn't an SG team encounter lots of boring "wow, just another desert" planets?

I mean, statistically not all of the missions can have archenemies, still inhabited planets and goa'uld

@Trish Screw statistics, we have narrative framing devices!

Montage the boring stuff, spend our game time on the cool bits.

Some must be barren wastes left after mining and the people there dying. It can be still an interesting place. Leftover mining equipment, unstable ground, maybe the chance to find background information about the next/last big bad!

like... the repository of knowledge?

The problem with padding is that it's not relevant to the story, except in a really forced way like stretching the story too thin or making it overcomplicated.

In a system like the official SG-1 game I was originally using, padding is encouraged/enforced to add XP so the party can level up.

1:25 PM

hm, so... what missions do you have and are they interconnected?

The level mechanic artificially controls the GM's ability to pace the story.

I'm not gonna talk about that in front of my players.

This is a campaign I designed in the official d20 Spycraft variant for SG-1, and am now re-building for Fate Accelerated.

I mean, in the show there was... apophis. he's the nemesis for parts of the seasons 1 to 8. Interconnectivity is a big thing.

I don't want an eight-season campaign, this is a relatively short story.

ahh, so more like... the feature films or one season.

We'll be playing SG-13 over a period of time roughly from the middle of season 2 to the middle of season 3.

1:28 PM

you might think about mission A giving infos that become relevant in Mission C and so on. And then all strings tying up in the 'season finale'

Like... Metaplot.

@Trish the show doesn't present those though. It's inferred there's a whole lot of exploration going on behind the scenes with several SG teams we barely see mentioned unless they're relevant to that episode's plot. the show focuses on the episodes where there's something for the SG teams to actually do, same should go for a game cause the rest is boring.

Yes, thank you, I am familiar with basic campaign structure.

@doppelgreener true, but they have some... "leisure" episodes here and there with little to no plot.

Sure! And those are fun and relevant, or boring filler.

@BESW well, do you have your main enemies prepared?

1:30 PM

BESW is moving a campaign from one system that requires boring filler for levelling up, to another that doesn't, and simply remarking on the amount he can cut because of the absence of need for filler.

well, still, mission profiles are repetitive. It is a military campaign under the cut.

I think you're looking to solve a problem where none is present.

there are only so much things you can do: Search and destroy, search and rescue, diplomatic first contact, Infiltration & Scouting, sabotage, kidnapping,...

The official franchise RPG, while mechanically useless, has some good work put into that kind of thing.

But you complained that you have to cut half your missions. So what is your problem if it isn't new missions?

1:35 PM

[blink] Where did I complain?

uhm... I think I misread?

I'm talking about being able to trim the fat off a bloated campaign because I'm moving it into a system which doesn't need my adventures to meet XP quotas.

I still havn't grasped how character advancement in fate is handled... When do you gain a new 'trait' or how those are called?

I'm ripping out a needlessly duplicated villain, mashing together repetitive missions because my new system can accomplish the meta-plot goals more reliably so I don't have to throw out as many opportunities to achieve the goals...

Fate lets you change (but not add) any one feature at the end of every session. At the end of every minor story arc you get to upgrade a feature in a small way, and at the end of every major story arc you get to add or upgrade a major feature.

sounds... faster than gaining anything in MSHRPG...

1:40 PM

I generally don't even bother with adding and upgrading features; PCs have plenty to start with and extra complexity shouldn't be added for its own sake.

Unlike D&D, there's no escalating access to new types of powers as you level up in Fate.

Fate's character advancement is not about moving upward in power or gaining new stuff, it's about the story changing, and mechanical changes are available to reflect that. A character starts becoming narratively pretty good at one particular thing, or trained in it, so you get the opportunity to swap that with a higher ranking skill, etc.

I hold against fate 3 grudges:
1 The GM I tried it under gave out either only halfboiled info pre game that was changed considerably when the game actually started
2 New players were handed chars with pretty much redundant skills (as in: already present in the group)
3 The GM didn't bother to explain anything but the main dice mechanic, and only that to a degree that made me wonder how anything can be accomplished at all with a max of +4 or something.

*max result of +3 on the dice

yes, all these are GM related.

That's terrible.

That's... very unrepresentative of Fate.

I know he is an awesome GM in other systems, but he spoiled FATE for me.

I daresay they ran the game poorly for any RPG's standard and exceptionally poorly by Fate's expectations.

1:46 PM

well, I play in a college club of 30 peeps.

or rather 45 as of lately.

Re: Mission types, SG-1 RPG lists 8 broad types of mission, then breaks them down into examples of the kinds of specific goals they have and the kinds of challenges one faces while on them.

Sorry to hear you went through that.

we got like tons of systems to choose from (I run a PF Kingmaker on a 2 weeks to 1 week base and an Exalted 3 if we are in the mood)...

eg, a Scientific Operation might be a cultural or survey detail which consists of overseeing, puzzle-solving, repairing, researching, and testing.

stuff like Being trapped on a planet due to something... where does that fit? SG1 met that at least once a season.

1:48 PM

A Diplomacy mission might be arbitration, envoy, or first contact, and is liable to require advising, mediation, negotiation, and overseeing.

Oh, naturally there's going to be Unforeseen Complications.

I'm weaving my campaign around the existing series canon, which gives some great opportunities.

Remember that time the SGC dialed a black hole and all the away teams were unable to dial home for two weeks?

I remember that.

You can take it as given that SG-13 is one of those away teams.

Wonderful. :D

SG-13 might be one of those away teams that is notoriously sent to backup SG-1 at points when they can't call home in time...

or one of those that gets repeatedly lost and SG-1 is sent after them.

Anyway, bedtime. ttfn

1:54 PM

(@Trish I'm one of BESW's players in this scenario, btw, which is why he declined to talk about the missions here.)

@BESW Goodnight!

@doppelgreener oh!

@BESW nini! sleep without goa'uld larvae!

2:47 PM

@Trish somewhere this is probably a legitimate way to say "have a good night"

heh, yea.

4 hours later…

6:19 PM

Eyup!

ohi

6:51 PM

You changed your green again?

0

Q: Is asking a question about the location (pg number, chapter, etc) of content in a specific book on topic?

Background -- I own and have read the Curse of Strahd, and know of some information that exists within the book but cannot for the life of me remember where I read it in the book. Short of reading the entire book again, I don't know how else I can find what I am looking for. Is it off-topic to a...

7:02 PM

@Anaphory I did changed my green!

What does prompt that?

(Or, what did prompt it in this case?)

@Anaphory Someone on another chat mentioned a few weeks ago they hadn't even noticed me change my avatar since forever, so I thought about changing it, felt like doing so the other night, and did so.

I'd been watching Tintin too.

7:31 PM

When I was reading Tintin comics when I was younger, I found them horribly racist, even though that wasn't a thing I would see much otherwise.

It may be that for some reason the two I read were set in Africa and China, and they are particulary so?

I don't know, I don't have much comparison.

That's not just you! People have generally noticed Herge has some quite racist depictions throughout his comics.

I think I once read someone talking about his depictions of African or dark-skinned individuals improving a lot in his later comics.

@DuckTapeAl @daze413 I have asked that question.

0

Q: Can and how should we advertise community games on meta?

There seems to be a bit of support for the idea of using meta to advertise about games we in the community are running or planning to run. I'd like to ask about whether and how we might do that here. Last month, Thales asked about a RPG.Exchange Virtual Tabletop (or almost that) for organising a...

discussion meta community

8:12 PM

There it is

9:00 PM

@doppelgreener That someone would probably be me.

@BESW might be!

He seems to have been racist more out of ignorance than malice; as he was exposed to more diverse peoples in his own life, he made an active effort to represent them more fairly. He also talked very openly about his early racist works and fought his publishers' attempts to cover them up as an old shame, because he felt it was important for people to see the problem.

After above conversation I started watching the recent Tintin Unicorn movie on Youtube. I gave up, because I couldn't bear it for its stereotypes and tropes.

Yeah, it's definitely not without its problems.

@BESW The wikipedia article mentions Blue Lotus as one where he actively went against racism? I still found that quite unbearable.

(But in general, that is a nice sentiment!)

9:09 PM

@Anaphory Racism is... complex and nuanced. One era's progressive is another era's heel.

@BESW I don't think I was old enough to be nuanced when I first encountered it.

I recently read some interesting stuff about contemporary classes studying the 1808 novel Woman of Color.

@BESW Might just be that the irony he used (eg. Thompson and Thomson disguising as ancient chinese wise men – which I found awful, but maybe it was supposed to be sarcastic) was lost on me, as well, so instead of an ironic nuanced image I got even more stereotype.

I haven't read Blue Lotus in about seventeen years, so I can't speak to it specifically.

I do know that T&T have always been the bumbling idiots who do exactly the wrong thing, though.

@BESW I don't think that was entirely clear to me when I read that one for the first time (Are they in Tintin in Congo, doing their comic relief? That's the other one we had), their running gag of falling down stairs definitely wasn't.

9:15 PM

Oh, Tintin in the Congo is the absolute worst.

[nopebadger]

I don't doubt it! But reading it as one of my first two Tintins has made me never seek out any of the others really.

That's quite fair.

I admire Hergé's art and his apparently sincere attempts to improve his own attitudes, but he's by no means without deep flaws even in his later works and I wouldn't attempt to excuse them.

(He's also a great teacher in the art of the Contrived Coincidence.)

@BESW in what way?

Most of his stories are pushed forward by chains of increasingly unlikely circumstances, more than anyone doing anything particularly proactive or competent.

I mean, Tintin is both proactive and competent, but it's surprisingly rare that those qualities are what lead him to solve the mystery.

Tired now, ttfn!

9:27 PM

oh, like how The Golden Crab is sparked by him happening to see a can then happening to spot the scrap torn off the can then happening to be seen by a chinese gentleman who happens to get kidnapped in Tintin's apartment while Tintin is home, and then Tintin happens to visit the docks with Thomson and Thompson and happens to see the ship whose name was written on the scrap of can-label?

If Tintin were a game of Fate, Tintin's player would have a lot of Refresh and hardly any stunts.

(Snowy, on the other hand, would have a lot of +2 skill stunts.)

@BESW Tintin would have three stunts that each say "you have one more refresh"

Sounds about right.

@doppelgreener huh, that is one I never considered

@trogdor It's basically reverting to the DFRPG paradigm.

9:34 PM

not sure DFRPG would be incredibly balanced by that would it?

@BESW and he'd be taking compels and concessions in so many scenes

"time to fight! whammo, boot to the head!" "i take a mild consequence and concede!"

suddenly 2 scenes later, Tintin is sitting on 14 fate points and the GM is trying to figure out how this has happened again

lol

14 is more than you can easily spend, for sure

unless you start spending them like crazy to get a mystery solved!

yeah, you can spend them to declare stuff

but even that isn't going to cost you 14 of em to solve the mystery

tintin's player probably has mercy on the GM and spends them only in bits at a time

9:42 PM

seems fair

Hmm. If we carry this to its logical conclusion, the Fate of Tintin game has one regular player (Tintin), one semi-regular player (Snowy), and one or two other players who drop in occasionally (like Captain Haddock).

[feels for the GM]

fits our group perfectly :P

(not really, because boy would we need more semi regular characters)

Maybe they just give two players Thompson and Tomson.

That'd explain the broad and somewhat inconsistent caricatures.

10:29 PM

haha, thompson and thomson are the characters who get given to the new players and whoever may or may not be there

they're the "oh we didn't plan this session for you, but here you go" characters

lol

10:45 PM

@BESW @trogdor Did either of you ever happen to come across an effective way to run a duo character in Fate?

one fractal representing two people which is somehow mechanically simpler than just having two characters?

Not yet. If this is re: SG-13, I'm looking into justifying a two-man team.

I was actually thinking along these lines re: SG-13 a few days ago, and came up again just now with the idea of one person taking Thompson and Thomson.

The trick is less mechanical and more cognitive, I think.

The "talking to yourself" problem, for example.

11:00 PM

i'm ok with doing that when i'm the GM

11:29 PM

I don't like talking to myself

even if I am the GM, I would rather avoid that as often as possible

i like putting on a show for y'all sometimes

like with the raptor sister and her guard

in that scene in which i made some big mistakes, maybe there's a connection ...

(maybe just correlation without causation tho)

@Momonga-sama Hi! :)

that one plan I have for a few possible sessions when and if we get back to the Amaterasu campaign might involve some talking to myself

it isn't so much that I like it as that my idea for a couple of characters involves them needing to talk to each other at least a little in front of the PCs

and I like that IDEA so I will certainly tolerate the execution

@trogdor i understand you had a bunch of take-aways from your sessions which you've worked on, if you feel you'd like practice sessions or something to see where you're at i'd be happy to do that anytime it's you and me and @BESW

i mean i'd be happy to run sessions under your GMing any other time too when there's more of us, but i figure BESW's already on board with doing that and i'm signing myself up too here

Also, we can do things like have Greener run two PCs while Troggy's only got one.

11:45 PM

i'd be willing to experiment with that to see how it goes and whether I'd be comfortable doing that regularly (and whether you two would be happy with that)

I would be fine with that as long as you are able to handle it

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Nov '168

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