TRPG General Chat

BESW

1:03 AM

trogdor

lol

BESW

1:17 AM

Gozerian font.

The Oracle

3:44 AM

0

Q: One featured question or none? Make up your mind!

I noticed something odd in the sidebar just now: an ad for "01" bounties with no total bounty amount. So I went to check it out, and found this: After hard refreshing, this remains. I checked my ignored tags, and they're not set to hide questions.

nitsua60

4:02 AM

@Skyler Hi there--a few thoughts, four hours late to the party.

1. large (dozen-person) parties were very common in older editions of D&D. Like original, and 1e. This is something that can be done.

1a. I'll agree with some of what @BESW and @SevenSidedDie say, that other systems may be easier if you're already comfortable in them. If this really is just going to be a one-session thing, though, it may not be up your alley to learn a new system.

1b. @doppelgreener also makes a good point, that simply going to play laser tag (or something that scratches that same group/play/competitiveness itch) is something you should at least mention to the group. ("Alright, guys, I'm willing to run a huge session, But it's not really in my wheelhouse and I'm worried about having it end up a dull afternoon for everyone. There'd be no harm in going bull-riding...?")

1.a.i. I'd throw Microscope or Kingdom (both available here) into the list of other systems that one might consider, as you could set them up to feed into/play off of your existing campaign.

2. The key (in my experience) to running a large group is to offload as much as possible of what a GM does at a "normal" D&D table. You don't sketch out rooms/terrain, you hand the map to a player for them to draw things out on the board.
You don't track initiative, a player does that, calling who's up and who's on deck. (BTW, people get skipped if they're not announcing their combat action within five seconds of getting called by the emcee.)
You're not going around the table polling everyone as to who they want to talk to at the tavern, the "caller" (a player) is doing that, and they're th…

(These all are old 80's-era conventions, too. Not my ideas.)

3. An assistant or co-GM may be necessary. I do this often with my group of high-schoolers. In one pairing I'll "run" the game while the co-GM plays the parts of all NPCs. It's amazing, because I can just sit and think about mechanical things, he just sits and thinks about setting/characters.
In another pairing the lead GM will run the gameplay and do NPCs, but I assist players...

...literally walking around the table answering questions about how something works, or what the room looked like, reminding the person "on-deck" that their turn in combat's coming up, sometimes handing people the correct handful of dice they should be rolling in that instant.

4. PvP can also be very helpful, as @BESW pointed out. I'll point you to an Expeditions module called "Shackles of Blood" (which you can find on DM's Guild) which has a big arena-combat scene that's really... spectacular. Literally. It's one of the finer set-pieces I've seen in 5e. It's written as players vs. NPCs, but works well (we did it) with two groups of players. If you can shoehorn it into your plot/setting.

5. Some 5e-specific things:
a. With a large group I pass around a sheet where each player fills in their character's name, alignment, deity, AC, HP max, class, level, perception, insight, stealth, persuasion, intimidation modifiers. I also have a second sheet that lists every skill and I ask for the single highest modifier in the group (and that character's name) next to each skill. I don't cotton to a cascade of failed skill check, someone else says they're going to search, failed skill check, another player decides *they're* going to search the room, &c. My concession for large groups is …

6. don't be afraid to split the party. If half want to go to the tavern and half to the docks, go ahead and tell one half they're on a fifteen minute break, and give the other half their due attention. Then swap. They'll all take bio-breaks, check in with partners, stretch their legs, &c. Just don't let the half that's "off" stay in the room. Part of it is to give your brain a break from tracking twelve people's engagement!

(That's the reason to do it in two fifteen-minute chunks, rather than bouncing back and forth with the spotlight every 90 seconds. For you and for them. You need to vary pacing/energy through the duration of a session like this, or everyone gets desensitized.)

nitsua60

4:40 AM

Oh, and @doppelgreener: thank you kindly for the 500 fake internet points. Very kind.

nitsua60

4:54 AM

VtD NaA

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 a while back you were recommending children's books to me, and I can now make a counter-offer: the My First Fandom series

my daughter got several of them for Christmas and they have some real gems in there

in Can't Take the Sky: "Inara is pretty and has many friends."

nitsua60

5:15 AM

@JoelHarmon OMG that's ~~terrible~~ ~~amazing~~ stunning.

Like, I'm stunned, don't know what to think of that!

@Miniman (and anyone else interested) some time when you've got ten minutes, I'd love to pick your brain about monk/cleric MC possibilities. I've never really considered it before but our party could use a bit more healing and it doesn't seem crazy....

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 the Firefly one is just an intro to the crew and ship. Star Trek is the alphabet; Star Wars is opposites; Harry Potter is colors.

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon that's wonderful!

Joel Harmon

there's a few more I don't recall at the moment

a quick note on healing: you can slap a level of Cleric on any caster to give them reasonably potent healing

I need to head out, but I'm interested in a monk/cleric MC (in more ways than calling it an M/C MC)

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon Me too. Should have been in bed at least 20 min ago....

Night!

Powerdork

6:25 AM

I'm about to perform a really trivial edit.

Someone please convince me not to do that.

Adding question marks to heading text for tone ('is [scenario] the case? if so' rather than '[scenario] is the case, so') in K Ryan's answer here.

Miniman

6:52 AM

@Powerdork I dunno, that was bugging me about that answer too.

BESW

7:19 AM

@misael123bones Hi! You'll need 20+ rep to type in chat, but you're welcome to hang out until then.

daze413

9:06 AM

my question is answered! I feel all giddy!

theangrygm.com/ask-angry-cleaning

Miniman

@daze413 Not sure why he thought "Dazed" was a funny choice for a name, though.

BESW

Because it's a D&D condition.

daze413

he prolly hates that condition.

also, actually the adventure I was asking that for never really took off. And I have another opportunity to use it. Great stuff!

BESW

9:42 AM

Hmm. A thought on modelling Buffy-style vampires in physical combat:

> Demonic toughness. Physical stress fills your stress tracks as normal, but can't inflict consequences or take you out unless it's dealt by something you're weak against--like fire or a wooden stake for vampires.

(Buffy beats 'em up to wear down their defenses, then delivers a final blow with a stake.)

Miniman

You know, it makes much more sense when you put it that way.

I never understood why the show spent so much time on completely pointless action sequences.

BESW

10:06 AM

Yeah, Fate-wise you either need to create advantages to build up free invokes so the stake hits 'em for more stress than they can absorb (like tripping them to create the prone advantage), or you need to inflict a number of small stresses (kicking, punching) so your stake attack works even if it just deals one stress.

Usually, Buffy uses the Attack action and trusts on her Slayer feats to help her get boosts from success with style.

Once she's got enough boosts, or inflicted enough stress, she goes for the takedown (I assume a wooden stake has some kind of drawback like only inflicting one stress no matter how well you roll, because it's a hastily-made 'weapon').

She also sometimes has to throw the vampire across zones to get 'em close enough to something she can stake 'em with, if she's caught without.

However, when she goes up against legions of minion vampires, she can go straight for the staking because they don't have much in the way of stress tracks.

nitsua60

12:31 PM

@daze413 That was really you? Cool =)

(Also, thanks for asking the question--I really enjoyed its answer.)

DForck42

2:28 PM

@JoelHarmon no, the indexes have totally slacked off after 3.5

BESW

I found the 3.5 indices rather lackluster as well, myself.

DForck42

@BESW mornin

BESW

Yes, it is. [sigh]

DForck42

@BESW lol

first day back after a 3 day weekend for me, having only worked 3 days last week, had the previous week off, and only worked 1 day previous to that

nitsua60

2:56 PM

@DForck42 Pretty much the same here. It's a luxury problem, I suppose, but I'm still dragging.

DForck42

@nitsua60 yup

MOAR COFFEE!!!

nitsua60

There's also a hat I haven't gotten, that I'm unreasonably-bothered that I haven't gotten, but I will not stoop to the level of pandering to get. The Stack continues to exert its hold!!!

DForck42

@nitsua60 lol, which hat?

nitsua60

The boom box.

I haven't altered my patterns at all; I'm just surprised that none of the VtD or VtC links I've dropped in here have generated five visits.

DForck42

3:25 PM

@nitsua60 it might not count links in chat

nitsua60

some discussion around this meta indicated that the medium doesn't matter, it's actually the underlying link that does it.

this is a better reference

DForck42

@nitsua60 ahh, ok

@nitsua60 so question, for your fighter/rogue, why did you choose battle master over champion?

if I've got the name right

Zachiel

@nitsua60 I visited some.

Most of those questions I saw from the main list.

nitsua60

@DForck42 Yes, that's right. Two reasons: precision strike to convert misses into very-painful hits. Even with archery fighting style, taking that -5 to-hit makes missing a pretty common occurrence. And then our party was pretty low on healing, so rally seemed nice to have. I also grabbed parry to be able to get out of melee as quickly and easily as possible.

@Zachiel Thanks, though you didn't have to do that.

DForck42

@nitsua60 ok, neat

nitsua60

3:35 PM

I really wasn't trying to shop for clicks, I'm just really surprised that dropping VtC links here (as is my habit) hasn't garnered 5 clicks.

DForck42

cause I was looking at the build in more detail last night, and was wondering if you decided to have the more flexible mechanics vs crit fishing

nitsua60

@DForck42 Second reason: with so much damage (proportionately) coming from modification as opposed to dice, expanded crits are less-beneficial (again, proportionately).

I didn't run numbers on that, just my number-sense talking there.

DForck42

@nitsua60 by modification do you mean sharpshooter/battle master?

Zachiel

@nitsua60 I want someone to get all the hats, since I have no hope of getting there myself.

nitsua60

Yes. The +10+DEX doesn't get doubled, so expanded crit is (again, proportionately) less important that someone who's just got +DEX to damage.

Zachiel

3:41 PM

It's not you shopping for hats, it's me wanting to see a complete gallery in the meta:hatocalypse thread

nitsua60

(Battle master damage from dice does get doubled on a crit, but that's moot as you can't have expanded crit and battle master.)

@Zachiel Sadly, I didn't get the new year's chat one, so I won't be your complete-collector =(

(Unless, and I only mention this because it's an interesting experiment, you went back and starred a message of mine that did qualify. I'm not sure whether it's the message or the star that needed to land +/-12 hours.)

doppelgreener

@Zachiel or hataclysm!

nitsua60

Hatnarok! (@trogdor <-- )

Zachiel

@nitsua60 DAMN! I'm gonna retract my link visits, then! [marches away]

nitsua60

@Shalvenay @BESW we're pulling three sessions/week for the playtest, so as much as it pained me to push off the Spectacularly Bad Plan, it's definitely necessary!

Zachiel

3:47 PM

@nitsua60 (I'm too lazy for that)

DForck42

@nitsua60 when do you get the battle master dice back, I can't remember

nitsua60

@DForck42 short rest

DForck42

@nitsua60 ok, neat

nitsua60

It took me a while to get the hang of spending them quickly enough.

DForck42

@nitsua60 yeah, same here for inspiration dice

it's still kinda difficult

nitsua60

3:55 PM

(Basically, if ever there's an encounter when you don't use one, you're not going to get through them!)

It helped to throw 4 extra, different-colored d8 in my go-bag. I keep those ones on my charsheet until they're used, so I'm always reminded they're there.

nitsua60

5:41 PM

So hard in this answer not to make an unsubstantiated crack about how much less GMs were concerned with player fun thirty-five years ago....

I mean, just because my older brother made ithis point to kill off PC fast as we could roll 'em up, doesn't mean all GMs of that era were like that. Right?

The Oracle

0

Q: Does Standard English overrule game terms?

Role-playing games often concoct their own rules governing in-text presentation of game terms, and these rules sometimes violate the rules of Standard English. For example, in Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition, and its kin, initial capitalization is used in the term Hit Dice, periods are omitte...

discussion

trogdor

9:09 PM

@nitsua60 Hattttttnarooooooooooook

XD

DForck42

@trogdor heh

BESW

10:59 PM

@doppelgreener re: your UTC+14/UT-12‌ idea... The Journeyman Project did something similar, but UTC+/- would be an interesting twist.

Basically, the UTC+14 guys would take a short hop across the dateline to UTC-12, and then have 26 hours to prevent the problem before it happens.

BESW

11:16 PM

(The actual base of operations would be in UTC-12, with a vigil post on UTC+14 to jump back and give the warning.)

doppelgreener

11:30 PM

Oh interesting!!

That sounds viable haha

BESW

In TJP, they can see temporal anomalies coming before they hit.

So the vigil post jumps back to pre-history (figuring any time change will be caused after pre-history) and picks up a regularly updated log of all known history.

Then he jumps forward into the changed version of the present and compares the log to current events to figure out what went wrong.

And the whole station goes into lockdown so the new present can't stop him from traveling back to fix what changed.

I like that a lot.

lol

@BESW I like that alot.

Transcript for