TRPG General Chat

trogdor

00:56

@BESW oh,... I just had a horrible thought, you might be possibly able to include Col. Oneil in there

he had a son,......

BESW

I'm not sure that counts the same way.

trogdor

mk

that is entirely fair enough

obviously, he beats himself up over the possible qualification, it's more or less obvious he would do just about anything to turn the clock back on that incident

I just, I had the thought because of the inclusion of fathers who are not, like, completely horrible people

trogdor

01:20

Dark Savant

I think he definitely counts

XD

BESW

....yeah, I'll buy that.

trogdor

he has several avenues available

I don't know if anyone suggested Homer Simpson yet,.. seems like he qualifies

and on a similar note, Leo Wong from Futurama

throwing money at the problem and nagging about marriage and grandkids does not a great parent make

BESW

02:48

Today in Adventures In system-agnostic, "[T]he GM should never be surprised by something like the weather, and probably should know if the adventure is going to switch to [a] tropical island before it happens."

trogdor

lol

Shalvenay

@BESW ...what GM?

BESW

Tubey Fare, the question does assume a GM.

On the other hand, the querent explicitly wants a method which surprises the GM.

BESW

07:11

This comment thread is my warm fuzzy for the day.

BESW

07:32

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[Hatmas gallery](http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/q/6640/4398 "The Hattening is upon us!");
[Star Trek](http://www.modiphius.com/star-trek.html "Star Trek Adventures RPG 'living playtest' signup");
[UScons](http://casualgamerevolution.com/blog/2016/01/2016-tabletop-gaming-conventions-a-comprehensive-list "List of RPG conventions in the US.");

doppelgreener

10:40

Does anyone know any urban fantasy RPGs that are suitable for beginners? A friend's looking for something that will be reminiscent of Durarara!! especially. (A show with mostly ordinary interpersonal drama, but also a headless Dullahan trying to find her head, and a few extraordinary people like a man with completely outrageous amounts of strength he has a lot of trouble controlling.)

(for example said strong dude punched someone right out of their clothes)

This request has me in a bit of a bind! The only urban fantasy RPG I know is Dresden Files which may not be for beginners (and isn't out yet).

BESW

11:04

There's also (but fewer) games like Little Fears and InSpectres where the PCs probably aren't the powered people but the world has powered folks nonetheless. Or look for an RPG licensed to an urban fantasy franchise like Buffy or Dresden Files or the Laundry Files. You could also play Primetime Adventures and roleplay being the people making an urban fantasy TV show.

Well, there's the generic engines like FAE, A/N/N, DramaSystem, GF&C, PDQ, Minimus, Simple World... And then there's stuff where the PCs are the dramatic powered people like Katanas & Trenchcoats, City of Mist, Monsterhearts, any White Wolf game ever...

(Part of the takeaway here is that "urban fantasy" is probably the LEAST useful descriptor for figuring out what game to play.)

@doppelgreener So, a game about interpersonal drama with a bit of comedy in a modern setting with supernatural elements. Are the main characters mostly/all powered? Does it matter if they are or not?

Is the drama focused on romance, workplace, neighbours, family...?

Tonight's Bad Dad comes from something I've never watched, but I'm assured he's very bad.

Miniman

11:23

@BESW Quite possibly the worst.

doppelgreener

@BESW I will find out from them after they wake up. I've actually linked them this to look so they'll see that question themselves!

BESW

(Oh, there's also Bubblegumshoe variants for both powered and nonpowered PCs.)

doppelgreener

@BESW If it's Durarara it'll be mostly powered (like 1 or 2 powered max) but it's ok if they're not, because they'll be adventuring in the vicinity of powered people. Drama would be focused on people's personal lives as overlapped with underground, not 100% legal activities — and investigation

trogdor

@BESW oh shoot, yeah he is the worst one you have had, I think

well, arguably, I suppose, but jeez

he sure was horribad at parenting

he was the most traumatic for me to watch, at least

BESW

@doppelgreener So, Fate Accelerated is always an option for character-centric games where people with vastly different skill sets can co-mingle easily.

Miniman

11:28

@trogdor +100

BESW

You don't really need extra mechanics unless the group needs them to help focus on what the story's about (eg, to aid the group in understanding the story goals).

Or you can use one of the BGS pre-mades for mystery-focused play.

doppelgreener

11:48

@BESW Yeah, I was thinking that would be it. The game's even interested in Fate's kind of stuff — e.g. the super strong guy hates his strength and considers it a curse because of how he wound up hurting people as a kid.

BESW

Ah, yeah, a lot of powered-PC systems don't really do "cursed with awesome" very well.

trogdor

@Miniman he actually is part of the reason I have taken a Hiatus on that show

Miniman

@trogdor I can understand that - it hits you with some big emotional punches pretty early on.

trogdor

that plus,... I tried catching up on 500 different anime at once and managed to burn out on it for months :/

Miniman

I want to ask if you saw a certain thing happen to a certain character, but if you haven't it would be the worst thing I could do to you.

trogdor

11:56

the episode where he did the thing we are nominating him for is literally the last episode I saw

Miniman

Ah, right.

trogdor

though I suppose maybe you don't remember if the thing you are talking about happened before or after that, possibly

Miniman

No, I know exactly when it happened.

trogdor

mk

Miniman

It's not the sort of thing you forget.

BESW

12:02

How it works: Kaiju! The excellent monster #inforgraphics of Shoji Ohtomo. #Japan https://t.co/CFf0EH2Fpv

Tweeted by PulpLibrarian on December 28, 2016 at 11:45 AM

trogdor

hehehee

Magician

The one using eyes to mill the food in its stomach is my favorite.

trogdor

12:23

seems a strangely inefficient way to digest, but wtv

Kaiju don't gotta make the sense and all that

Magician

Kaiju gotta kaij

6

trogdor

yeah

I mean, they shouldn't be able to survive just being that large outside of the ocean, but they do it anyway

doppelgreener

13:20

@trogdor For me it's a toss up between him and Firelord Ozai.

But I think Tucker took the Bad Dadness to another level entirely, so he edges out Ozai strictly in the Dad department.

Miniman

14:10

@doppelgreener Yeah, he's not the most bad guy on the list, but I think he's probably the worst dad.

DForck42

14:28

anyone know what the taco hat's from?

Pixie

17:45

@Miniman Yeah. It would be... pretty hard to outdo him there (I pray no one rises to that challenge).

I'd read some of the manga first, before the anime started airing in the US, so when those characters showed up in the next episode preview, my immediate reaction was a visceral, "Oh, no. No. No. Noooo." FMA is good for having to relive those gut-punching moments again and again. :P

@doppelgreener Let me know what your friend chooses and how it goes. I haven't seen DRRR!! but I'm interested in the concept and in successful anime-to-RPG inspiration in general.

doppelgreener

@Pixie @BESW FMA fans notably make and share memes and jokes about Shou Tucker and what he did. They are awful, they're a punch to the gut the moment we see them. And then we share them. It's a special kind of sadomasochism.

Pixie

@doppelgreener Oh yes. Yes we do. I have more than once wondered, "Why would you do that?" while hitting reblog. It is a mystery to me.

DForck42

19:26

anyone know a good shooty mcshooter build for 5e?

doppelgreener

19:39

@DForck42 <- @Miniman @Anaphory @SevenSidedDie @nitsua60 @Adeptus

Y'ALL BE PINGED

DForck42

@doppelgreener lol

doppelgreener

This question has a bounty on it but has had no answers since I put that bounty there.

8

Q: Does the GM have to pay a fate point to Declare a Story Detail?

I don't see any specific information in Fate Core declaring that this is not the case. Normally, I would assume that the GM just narrates what happens, but what if one of his/her NPCs is trapped in a situation but has an applicable Aspect? Does the GM need to spend a Fate Point to Declare a Story...

I challenge & request that the Fate players here provide their responses.

doppelgreener

20:09

@DForck42 people are not sure

Zachiel

I know, I should be asking on Software Rec.

Do any of you know of a free PDF editor that lets me edit the existing text?

doppelgreener

@Zachiel <- @BESW

Zachiel

Jason Morningstar has these two games that I want to translate and he's perfectly fine to let me use the original layout, but he has no idea where the source files are. He provided me with a copy of the .pdf (I guess the one I downloaded from his site was protected and this one is not, but I didn't check. And every free pdf editor out there seems to be a trial or "just blank out the text and write something new over it")

doppelgreener

20:24

@Zachiel If that's what you're going for you shouldn't merely edit the original PDF text. PDF documents are not friendly to that kind of task; they aren't like Word or anything. You should write your translation in a proper text editor and then publish your translation to PDF.

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel PDFs can't really be edited. They don't (usually) contain the sentences, just coordinate maps of where all the letters go. You'll have to create your own layout. The only real use of having the PDF is having direct access to the words and being able to copy parts out into your word processor for convenience of translation.

DForck42

@doppelgreener basically

SevenSidedDie

(Advicealache )

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie Uhm, maybe it's because I export them the right way, but on my workplace PC I use FrameMaker and InDesign to export PDF files and the I edit them just fine with Adobe Pro. True, I don't have the story anymore, just unconnected text boxes, but text boxes they are.

doppelgreener

That sounds like the hardest way to draft a translation.

Zachiel

20:28

Uhm, no, wait, I take it back. Form Framemaker I print to a virtual PDF printer and Adobe Pro still gives me the paragraphs.

doppelgreener

A translation is necessarily going to have different sized text regions. Different word lengths and explanations needed, more or less verbosity section to section, etc.

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel That's the (usually) part. They can store the sentences, but it's in a separate optional layer from the actual visible text. It's usually not included in published PDFs.

Zachiel

@doppelgreener Yes but at least I want the titles and the start of a paragraph to be in the same place, and the printable game cards to have the same look.

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel You have chosen a challenging task. ^_^

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie Ah, no, they are not OCR. Or Adobe Pro is really good at turning images into OCR and then the edited text into images again.

(It also bloats the filesize with no apparent reason)

SevenSidedDie

20:31

@Zachiel It's easier, in my experience, to recreate the layout fresh over top of a raster reference image of a page, then get rid of the image. Then I have full use of my desktop publishing software instead of trying to cram things into a hacked PDF.

(Also, hacking a PDF can make it not perfectly standards-compliant, making it fail in some PDF readers.)

DForck42

@Zachiel tbh, you'd be better off copying al of the original text to a separate word document, translating all of that, then laying out the translated text in a new document to try and emulate the original document

SevenSidedDie

@DForck42 Yeah. Not to mention, editing the PDF won't work anyway unless you have access to the original fonts.

DForck42

@SevenSidedDie true

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie Then I think I need a publishing software that's better than text boxes in GIMP or in InkScape :P

DForck42

hell, just COPYING from a pdf is a chore

Zachiel

20:33

I already translated most of it

doppelgreener

@Zachiel In what way does this require editing the original PDF instead of writing your own copy then publishing it with a suitable layout?

DForck42

@Zachiel I use ms publisher, but I get yelled at on the internet when I mention that for some reason

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel … Yes.

@Zachiel Although years in the past I've said it's a pain to work with, I've since had good luck using Scribus for DTP since it has matured some. Free and does the job.

Zachiel

@doppelgreener Because I'd like to have the same exact layout as the original and it's easier to trace than to draw. Having had to create all of my InDesign templates from Framemaker documents the raster image + line everything up again way, I think I know.

@SevenSidedDie DTP?

doppelgreener

@Zachiel very well.

SevenSidedDie

20:37

@Zachiel Desktop publishing (software). InDesign and Scribus and the like.

Zachiel

Back in half an hour.

TFW you realize you forgot to shower. >_>

trogdor

20:50

@doppelgreener Ozai was not great, for sure,... but he didn't do such a visceral thing as Shou did

doppelgreener

@trogdor exactly

trogdor

it was disturbing, to say the least

SevenSidedDie

21:06

Just got Taco on Arqade after 1) commenting on someone's answer and editing another answer beside it, 2) [and I think this is more likely] gold-badge closing a question without leaving a comment.

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie (2) sounds like "don't wanna taco bout it"

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Indeed!

The duphammer would make for less delay between cause and effect, too, if it's just participating in a close.

BESW

21:56

@SevenSidedDie Participating in a close gets you Abominable.

It seems to be about making multiple edits without putting anything in the summary each time.

Miniman

22:53

@DForck42 Depends how fancy you want to get, although it's tough to beat a straight fighter with the Sharpshooter feat.

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