TRPG General Chat

You might want to even consider making an influence map.

Explain

An influence map is a collage showing the different films/shows/books/whatever that are influences and inspirations for your game.

It helps keep things coherent and focused, reminds you of the sort of thing you're trying to make.

For example, this is my influence map for the "spaceship to stop solar flares" game I mentioned above:

You can see it's got robots and cyborgs, animal-like humanoids and magic, a lot of action and combat.

Awesome

Mmk I can do that

12:08 AM

If you recognize any of the influences, you'll get some more hints toward my sense of tone and theme: highly competent people in an organized institution combating world-threatening Weird Stuff in a setting that's rather silly but takes itself seriously.

Oh I'm familiar with pretty much that entire map lol

It's just another way to process and codify things about your campaign that might otherwise remain subconscious and thus harder to actually embody.

We've got a pretty big spreadsheet at this point with tons of info

Oh, speaking of which have you seen www.inkarnate.com

Interesting. Not really something I'd use these days, but there was a time...

Yeah, I used it to make a full-on world map

It's not great for cities, but continents/worlds it's great

12:14 AM

hrm, interesting

if it can get hydrology right, decent random terrain, and get me something I can unproject into a GIS DEM instead of just making artsy-fartsy maps...

Ugh GIS

I haven't had any experience, I work at a university and an annoying student was begging for it

Hold on

Let me make sure I'm thinking of the right thing

Nope, some map making software that cost like $600 that she wanted us to buy

For 1 project

Though, even in the last few years of D&D, I was becoming more appreciative of maps that had empty spaces or were obviously not super accurate.

That google maps would do it lol

Yeah, I've got a couple games recently where I actually used a private Google Maps document to share with my players and we'd annotate it accordingly.

Good for games like Bubblegumshoe, Dresden Files, Morts...

I like this because I can have a good idea of stuff, but I can also duplicate these maps and clear it and give it to my player so she can have a general map

Idk though, I've always run theater of the mind

12:21 AM

I haven't made big-world maps from scratch since my last D&D games.

yeah, re the tool you mentioned @Skathix -- my big doubts are on the third

hey as well @NautArch

NautArch

12:42 AM

howdy @Shalvenay

what's up?

not a whole lot, still LFP for the mino-maze

hey there @KorvinStarmast, how've things been?

1:01 AM

Hi shal, mostly OK

working, fixing the house, gettting repair estimates on the roof ...

ah. things are OK here. whipped up another convention-dungeon over the last couple of weeks and could use playtesters atm :)

A play by post deal?

@KorvinStarmast play-by-chat more or less (we used roll20 for the first playtest, but straight-up play-by-chat in our backroom or in Discord is possible as well)

Hmmm, when?

My free time comes in splotches...

basically, whenever I'm on and can round up folks

1:06 AM

OK, well I'll check in with you when I am on, we'll see what luck. Low, mid, high level?

@KorvinStarmast need 3 5th levels or 2 7th levels. hoping to run with exactly 3 5th levels to get a feel for if the final boss would be too close of a shave for what I've pegged as a min-spec party for the dungeon

Ok, you make the chars or do we?

@KorvinStarmast chars are up to you folks

OK, I can put together a 5th level something and we'll go from there. Have anyone yet?

@KorvinStarmast NautArch is interested but hasn't started in on making a char yet

1:09 AM

OK, I can be anything the party needs. At the moment, my opening offer is Paladin, Hill Dwarf Druid, or any cleric. No rogues, I played too many over the years. Monk or Ranger, yeah. All the other two have to do is tell me what they need to round out the group.

Do you nave a teaser/hook or intro for the story?

@KorvinStarmast teaser for the dungeon is the classical rumor of a maiden trapped in a minotaur's maze ;)

Is she hot?

Is her daddy rich?

@KorvinStarmast HAHAHAHAHA -- you will find out ;)

Is her momma so good lookin' ... and is it summertime?

(A riff on Porgy and Bess there ...)

I'd love to do this ....totm?

Discord might be the best bet.

@KorvinStarmast can be run that way, yes. first playtest had the party hand-sketching a map + using map/tokens for combat b/c parts of the party were very position dependent (kobold twins incl. ranger with Sentinel&Horde Breaker)

1:13 AM

Sounds like one for foll 20

roll20

@KorvinStarmast 'twas what we used for the last playtest. Discord s/b fine provided we don't have another party o' kobolds tho

let me know, I'll either be able to or I won't. All depends on time.

And now, momma calls. I'll check in with you next time I'm on.

hey there @nitsua60

@Shalvenay ahoy

how're things going?

1:31 AM

My little bell-ringing band is set to attempt a quarter-peal on Sunday, but we failed tonight during practice to get one last little bit down right. Because I screwed it up repeatedly. So, keeping fingers crossed for when the observers are here =)

@nitsua60 ah

alright here

nitsua60

2:17 AM

RfC: possibly running a one-shot tomorrow in 5e. Party size anywhere from 2-10, composition and levels unknown. Aside from reviewing 5-room dungeon layout, bringing plenty of scratch paper, and flossing, any tips?

Miniman

3:19 AM

@nitsua60 Wow. 2-10, with level and composition completely unknown. I guess my #1 tip would be...wear clean underwear, you never know when you might get hit by a car.

hey there @ThomasWard and @Ben

and @NautArch too

Thomas Ward

good bacon to you @Shalvenay. :P

how're things going?

Thomas Ward

meh

i'm slightly drunk, and it's not a friday evening. does that sum things up?

heheheh. trying to find players for a D&D 5e mino-maze-with-a-twist short-form dungeon I want to playtest a bit more

Ben

3:38 AM

@ThomasWard I'm with ya on that one haha

3:51 AM

hey there @mxyzplk

6:14 AM

Hmm .. in 2e they have a system opposing schools of magic, and specialists in one can't cast from the other. So, Abjurists can't cast Alteration spells and vice versa. Except for Avoidance, which is both Abjuration and Alteration magic. There's also half a dozen Invocation/Evocation & Enchantment/Charm spells too.

@BESW did the players get to see & pick from a choice of options?

6:50 AM

@BESW this West Marches thing sounds very much like the world I'm building. Reading through what is there I see many mentions of bits of information shared about ... but how do they avoid the problem of "Everything is a Checkov Gun" misapprehension?

@Erics Yes. I'd have between three and six ads up most of the time.

@Erics By telling the players what kind of game they're playing.

@Erics If I had something I particularly wanted the party to get involved with, I'd make sure that each ad touched on some element of that thing. For example, every beginning adventure hook would be a thing the main villain of the campaign was somehow connected with, however distantly.

@Erics The best way to tell players what's really going on... is to tell the players what's really going on.

There's very little gained by playing charades-by-proxy, where the GM tries to tell the players something by having his NPCs tell their PCs something.

7:20 AM

It's all in the framing.

Communication by implication is... fraught, at best.

If relying on players to interpret clues, it's a good rule of thumb to have multiple clues pointing to the next thing. Don't set up a choke point of (a) discovering the only clue, and (b) hoping the players interpret that clue the way you imagined it.

And don't ever try to use in-game cues to communicate metagame information, like whether a particular behavior is expected or acceptable at the table.

Trying to control table-level behavior with game-level tools is a sadly common technique that ultimately ends poorly.

Game mechanics are not a substitute for social niceties.

7:35 AM

Totally. No "oh, an ogre appears and unexpectedly<cough> rolls a crit" as punishment for using sexist language about an absent player.

So if you've got something like "Not everything in this game is part of some big overarching plot," that's a thing to say out of character.

It's a GM decision that impacts player decisions, so it should be communicated that way.

Yup, set up the baseline very early on.

"You will come across lots of information about this world. Much of it is not relevant to your immediate objectives. Some of it might come in handy much later on."

And set up multiple paths through the content that intersect, don't try to force an A→B→C→D storyline. The players could pursue the Brigand Black Pete storyline, or the Kobolds in Hills, or Pilgrims Needing Escorts. While rummaging through the trash that is kobold treasure the players find some documents of a trade deal with local brigands. While rummaging through the Brigand Camp they come across barrels of rotgut rum with strange brand markings - they almost look like Draconic, weirdly.

7:50 AM

And remember, the world responds to adventurers.

Often the presence of an adventurer is like knocking a bowling ball through the NPCs' chess game.

Embrace that.

Give NPCs--good and bad--goals and plans and backup plans. You don't even need a plot, per se. Just let an adventurer loose in a world full of motivated people acting to achieve their goals, and all the NPCs' carefully orchestrated plot threads will start twisting and tangling and breaking in the wake of the PC.

The story comes out of how the world deals with that sudden chaotic element: do they try to stop the PC? Manipulate or control her? Team up with her?

kviiri

8:04 AM

@BESW I have noticed that whenever a NPC questmaster in one of my Apocalypse World one-shots tells the PCs to be diplomatic and discreet and not be provoked by whatever they're facing up to meet, it ends in absolute carnage.

doppelgreener

@BESW thank you :)

The adventurers take out Black Pete and his merry band. Now the kobolds don't have a middleman to sell their rotgut to, so they instead strike a deal with goblins. The goblins get bent so often that they neglect their religious vows and [something something]

The Wagoneers guild no longer have a supply of illicit rotgut, so the Town Councilman running the local brewery is getting more profits. Which comes in handy because he's secretly on the Blood Court, and underground faction of demon worshippers. They now have more cash available to finally finish digging that secret tunnel under the city walls.

8:45 AM

@BESW Not only ineffectual to say as an NPC, also weirdly Genre Savvy. How would an NPC even know that or be thinking that?

@Erics Well, part of the problem with that scenario is, in my experience, the GM is trying to convey the out-of-game meaning through the implication of in-game avatars who can't say it directly.

Hence "charades by proxy."

The closest you might get is a Wise Mentor given to spouting platitudes. "Every cloud has a silver lining. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Look both ways before crossing the street. When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack. Only you can prevent forest fires"

As a player, DMs that do that are annoying. Even if they are TERRIBLY mysterious.

9:00 AM

I once had a dungeon, toward the end of a very long campaign, where each level had a guardian who asked a riddle. Each riddle was about some part of the setting or plot they'd encountered, and the real purpose was to remind them about what was going to be important for the end of the campaign.

So any answer they gave was accepted so long as it had made them talk to each other about that part of the game.

The players didn't know that, though--which was why they'd spend five to ten minutes recapping the game and reminding each other of things at each level of the dungeon.

It was more manipulative of me than I'd do now with my current group, but it worked very well for that group's playstyle.

9:24 AM

I just realized @dndoggos is the next generation of dogs playing poker.

Tweeted by wolfflax on October 18, 2017 at 9:04 PM

12:50 PM

[stays up late rebuilding a worksheet page in InDesign because the only copies he has are all filled in]

If my printer is found bleeding toner in a ditch, I need you guys to say I was nowhere near it tonight.

Who is responsible for diversity in board games? Thread.

Tweeted by beth_sobel on October 19, 2017 at 6:56 PM

Anne Aunyme

@BESW do like Jan Jansen. He hired a hundred monkeys to dress up like him and be seen in different places, like that he had a hundred different alibis

trogdor

@BESW lol, I can give you my blade runner ticket :P