TRPG General Chat

2:35 AM

Happy Int'l Tabletop Day!

Kerooker

Hi guys

[wave]

Hi @Kerooker

How's it going?

Also hi @PhiNotPi.

PhiNotPi

Allo

Kerooker

2:45 AM

Things are great

I didn't know this kind of chat existed in SO until today lol

PhiNotPi

Also looking at the starboard, I didn't know 200WordRPG was a thing, seems pretty cool.

it seems like a pretty cool thing, yeah

Proper link: the annual 200 Word RPG Challenge.

PhiNotPi

One of my friends has created an RPG before, his rulebook is like close to 100 pages long.

hey there @Kerooker @PhiNotPi @nitsua60

3:10 AM

@PhiNotPi Cool; that's a very nice upper limit page count for the sorts of games my group often plays.

3:41 AM

@Kerooker This particular room tends to be pretty chatty during the work-week, quieter on weekends.

@Shalvenay heya--back from con? Was it a one-day thing, or more tomorrow?

@nitsua60 am back from con, will be more tomorrow

got to take an indie system called Against the Darkness for a spin, and also poked Numenera rather briefly since the local demo-guy for Monte Cook Games was there today

@nitsua60 He's lying. This is a par-tay! ;)

also, snagged a schedule slot for tomorrow for 5e DMing

@nitsua60 noooo, that can't be it, that never happens here XD :P

@Shalvenay In three sentences, what was Against the Darkness like?

3:46 AM

@nitsua60 Shoop. :D

@trogdor charts are incapable of lying. One of these statements is true.

It's a modern-set heroic/supernatural game (i.e. unlike a Mythos setting, the players are expected to win on the whole). The conceit is "demons are real, and the Catholic Church is tasked with kicking their rumpy tails"

hey there @LearnHowToBeTransparent

@nitsua60 it's the second one, because it says nothing and therefore contains perfect truth

@trogdor mu

@Shalvenay running a module, or your own creation?

The base resolution mechanic is quite simple (dice + attribute + skill, with possible opposed rolls, and a distinction between mundane skills and miraculous ones) -- each attribute has a die size set with it (d8/d6/d6/d4 as their are four attributes).

3:49 AM

@nitsua60 huh?

@nitsua60 it was a module (I was a player -- the publisher had a booth up there and had a demo-DM out running it)

Mu (negative)

The Japanese and Korean term mu (Japanese: 無; Korean: 무) or Chinese wú (traditional Chinese: 無; simplified Chinese: 无) meaning "not have; without" is a key word in Buddhism, especially Zen traditions. == The word == The Chinese word wú 無 "not; nothing" was borrowed by East Asian languages, particularly the Sino-Xenic "CJKV" languages of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. === Pronunciations === The Standard Chinese pronunciation wú historically derives from (c. 7th century CE) Middle Chinese mju, (c. 3rd century CE) Late Han Chinese muɑ, and reconstructed (c. 6th century BCE) Old Chinese ...

@nitsua60 ah, how zen of you

@Shalvenay Sorry--I meant your 5e slot tomorrow. Are you running something published or your own creation?

@nitsua60 oh, my own creation :) (it's the dungeon that I've been playtesting here)

3:52 AM

Ah. Good luck.

(already got at least one player signed up, too -- we'll see if more come :)

Ooo, what time?

@Yuuki it's a 1PM/4h slot @ the con

@Yuuki (if you are not attending the con, though, I should be available-ish to run it that night for you)

Oh, it's a physical event? :(

@nitsua60 (basically all the rest of the D&D @ the con is published modules, mostly AL material)

@Yuuki yeah, it's a physical event. as I said though, I should be around here tomorrow night and can run it then for you if you'll be around :)

4:35 AM

It's quiet... a little bit too quiet.

4:59 AM

Fellow GMs, this is a really good thread. Don't do this. https://twitter.com/d20Blonde/status/858490728804225029

Tweeted by clarkvalentine on April 30, 2017 at 1:25 AM

godskook

5:10 AM

I'm......not really sure she has any concept of why DMs actually use that phrase in practice.

I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt that the managing editor for Illuminerdy whose handle includes "d20" is speaking from experience, but why doesn't have anything to do with her point anyway.

I can say from my experience that I've been the GM she's describing, with all the best intention in the world, and it's driven people from my table.

6:13 AM

A flat "Are you sure?" is not a very good idea, but new players DO need to occasionally need to hear what will happen if they do "that action" before it resolves and be given the option to rethink.

Because they might not be familiar with tropes, rules, or just simply the fact that they CAN do that thing and the game won't stop them, even if it's instantly fatal or campaign derailing.

Yeah. The thread talks about more constructive, effective strategies for addressing the motives and goals which prompt that behaviour.

I don't know, I'm not seeing much of that. I don't believe that 'The Best Action is the one the player invents for their character." when it comes to actions that will get them killed because they don't understand the consequences of their choice due to lack of experience with the game.

2

It's definitely gonna very depending on playstyle, group dynamics, game choice, etc.

But, for example, I've had a lot of success with this one:

@d20Blonde @GeekyLyndsay ime a better question is "what does that look like"

Tweeted by teeterpyg on April 30, 2017 at 1:39 AM in reply to d20Blonde

That works, some of the time.

It invites the same reflection on the interaction of declaration with narrative, with the added bonus of encouraging evocative detail, and without positioning the GM in a position of superior judgement.

6:27 AM

And without showing them that they are misjudging some hidden variables that would heavily influence their choice.

It won't help a low level character who just stated "I stab the vampire lord in the face", because they can explain very well what that looks like; they just don't know it's too powerful an enemy to attack like that.

If you think they're missing some information, don't mess around with a coy leading hints. It's not a Socratic exploration of the truth.

Just tell 'em what about the scenario makes you puzzled by their action, and ask them to explain why they're doing it.

Right, that's why I said above "tell them what will happen, then let them rethink"

There's no one-size-fits-all catchphrase for every situation--which is one of the things that thread's talking about with "are you sure."

"If you stab it, it will simply kill you. It's immensely powerful and you won't be able to kill it. Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

(And personally, that kind of mechanical shutdown is one reason I stopped playing 4e even though I loved what 4e was doing.)

I had a new player with amazing, dramatic, interesting ideas which would've made sense with the narrative and created excellent story--but would've trashed 4e's mechanical balance, so I spent the whole night telling her "no."

6:32 AM

Yeah, 4e would not be my system of choice for such a player.

It was a threshold moment for me, and re-framed all my struggles and challenges over nearly 10 years of D&D.

I'd been thinking about trying DFRPG, and that night was what cemented in my mind that we needed a dramatic system change. Turned out DFRPG wasn't the right system for us, but it was a good gateway because the group was excited about the franchise--which helped bridge reticence about sunk costs.

7:23 AM

Does 5e have any mechanics that rely on alignment?

7:36 AM

@Yuuki Besides detect [alignment] and protection from [same]?

Detect <Alignment> has been combined into a single Detect Evil and Good spell and it functions off of monster subtype rather than alignment.

I think.

And I think Protection From <Alignment> is the same.

Yes; I merely looked at the spell list...

So: lair effects of the silver dragon (MM p118) has: Within 1 mile of the lair, winds buoy non-evil creatures that fall due to no act of the dragon's or its allies. Such creatures descend at a rate of 60 feet per round and take no falling damage. For example.

@Yuuki Healing spells cast by good creatures on good creatures near a Unicorn's lair can be maximized.

7:55 AM

Okay, seems like mostly small things.

Or very situational things.

Which I can probably retune.

I don't like the Good-Evil nomenclature and was wondering if there were any mechanics that would be messed up if I retooled it for my homebrew setting.

Looks like it's pretty open, then. Even those things I found were open. Alignment is talked about quite a bit in PHB, but it's mostly RP stuff (as it 'should' be)

1:11 PM

Some awesome & terrifying gifs of natural weather. (And remember, in a world with Magic, you can do at least that extreme!)

1:48 PM

hey there @PhiNotPi

2:10 PM

hey @Ash

Howdy @Shalvenay @Yuuki

hey there @NautArch

how're things going?

And @doppelgreener!

Not bad. At my son's swim lesson. 3 hours to gameday!

Gameday during spring/summer is tough. Weather is so nice outside and hard to justify being indoors.

well...it kinda depends. we're in the thick of the weather over here xD

Where's here?

2:19 PM

(midwest US)

Ah, I'm northeast. It's pretty perfect today. If you ignore the pollen.

Looking forward to unleashing my bard today.

Hoping dm uses a humanoid so I can try out dominate person.

xD what system?

5e

Right now, that's our main focus. We've dropped into Iron Kingdoms, though.

ah

But haven't played it awhile. And our dm likes to take away our gear, so we're currently without anything. So that's annoying.

Have you played IK?

2:25 PM

I have not

also...does your DM say why they like to jack your gear?

It's a very cool game. Entirely d6 based.

Base 2d6 with opportunities to get an extra die or two.

Sort of a magic/steam punk world.

@NautArch Hi!

I am finally mostly recovered from a flu that has dogged me all week.

2:48 PM

@doppelgreener ugh, but glad to hear you're on the mend

3:17 PM

The best thing about being a tiefling with an STD is that you have resistance to fire damage.

hey there @Yuuki

Hello.

Working on completely unnecessary details for my homebrew setting, I decided to fix the one problem I've been having with other fantasy pantheons: the death god is always the bad guy.

So the death god in my setting is both the "leader" of the gods, lawful good (or lawful altruistic), and a god of nature.

@Yuuki The Raven Queen's a nice alternative in Points of Light.

There was a god of death, undeath, and several other things -- and he became drunk with power, so a few other gods and minor gods decided to bring deicide down upon him. After he died they split up his portfolio (because they figured this much power shouldn't be given to any one deity), and the "death and afterlife" part of it went to The Raven Queen, who was previously said corrupt god's consort (by force; she didn't want it).

@Yuuki ...last I checked, Kelemvor was LN...

Well, death gods in modern pop culture tend to be either lawful evil, chaotic evil, or lawful neutral.

3:26 PM

That's reasonable, yeah. (With affordance for where the two-axis system doesn't accurately describe stuff, but they are frequently evil or neutral.)

At least, the stuff that I encounter.

So I'm going to make a lawful good death god and a chaotic evil life god.

Both are also deities of nature.

In this case, good is "altruistic" and evil is "egocentric".

I feel like chaotic egocentric makes the most sense with a god of life and nature as that represents wild animals the best. Nature doesn't care much for rules, only survival which is innately self-centered.

@Yuuki reminds me a bit of Malar actually

@Yuuki will you be around tonight btw? if so, I'd be more than happy to run my dungeon for you then as a one-on-one

@Shalvenay I don't think I'll be available tonight, I have previous engagements. :(

@Yuuki drat. I could do a mini-run for you now, but 2hours would make for a bit of a rush. I should have time sometime this week though...

3:41 PM

@Yuuki would a weekday evening this week work better for you?

Hmm... Wednesdays and Thursdays are typically right out. I have D&D on Tuesday nights, but that ends at 8pm CST.

@Yuuki so Monday or Friday then?

Yeah, I think I can do that.

@Yuuki which evening do you think'd work better?

Hmm... Mondays are usually quieter days so I won't get pulled into random activities with friends.

But I also tend to stay later at work on Mondays.

3:57 PM

I should be on a good chunk of the night Monday evening -- so when do you get off work?

Tom Dacre

What tag should I use if I'm looking for the article that a rule or statistic is found in?

@Yuuki It's easier than most people think to write a death god as being good. All you need to do is make immortality an evil, corrupting force and you're good to go. (Hell, lots of fantasy already does that, especially with undead being almost 100% evil).

@TomDacre You mean something like "I know $SYSTEM had a rule for $EDGE_MECHANIC, but I can't seem to find it... where is it?"

@Shalvenay Well, I usually leave around 6-6:30 CST.

@Yuuki that's not a problem

And it's anywhere from 15-30 minutes to get home, depending on traffic.

4:02 PM

@Shalvenay your slot start up in 2 hours or so?

@nitsua60 yeah

Tom Dacre

@nitsua60 Well, a monster's statistics block, but basically, yeah.

@TomDacre I'd think tag:$SYSTEM, tag:monster, tag:product-identification should cover it....

Tom Dacre

@nitsua60 Thanks.

It's sort of a nuanced PID question, but I think it's a useful usage.

Hmm... PID tag-wiki could use a little care....

4:38 PM

@nitsua60 in that there isn't one?

i like the wiki excerpt

what's on your mind about updating it?

5:31 PM

So I just realized that I'm spending waaay too much time writing out greater-scope lore when I'm probably starting at 1st level where characters wouldn't interact with that at all.

5:46 PM

@Yuuki I've heard it described that lore should be written like an inverse donut: the players need detail about what's immediately around them, and detail about the big picture of the world, and don't need detail about the intermediate stuff.

Well, there's some outer-level stuff like deities that need to be fleshed out, but I think I was starting to get too into the weeds.

I think for deities, players would care about a brief summary of the major deities, because that's important to establishing the big picture, but the intimate details of a deity doesn't matter until they are directly doing business with that deity.

7:09 PM

@Yuuki Also, a general political overview of the setting would be appropriate. What's the big news everybody in the area got to know about?

This can easily tie into local situations like gropus of soldiers relocating, political unrest, tax raises or other things that the players will recognize as symptoms of a consistent world.

(Wow, it looks like I could build a campaign in a custom setting, if I only would...)

KorvinStarmast

7:28 PM

@Yuuki A sprite can know a creature's alignment via the ability called "heart sight" so if you have a Sprite Familiar, you can learn alignment. There is a DC 10 for all except fiends, celestials, and undead whose alignment is known without a save

7:55 PM

FREEDOM

8:14 PM

Cortex Prime Kickstarter: the next generation of Cortex after Cortex Plus. It's already funded, and it's still got a month to go!

4

8:29 PM

@Papayaman1000 Pharrel Williams?

@BESW I'd ~~like~~ love to hear some examples of that.

@Zachiel I learned about a new person today

and I still don't get it

Hipster Opinion: Blockly [Google's block-based cross-language-(so-long-as-someone-codes-it-in) learning tool] is a legitimately good way to pick up a new language or tool even for experienced programmers.

@Papayaman1000 from the official youtube channel

@Zachiel ahhh ok

I just learned that it was actually Pharrel who "taught me how to spell _bananas-" - He's the author of Hollaback Girl, ssang by Gwen Stefani

8:51 PM

@doppelgreener It seemed to me that PID would be reasonable to put on the question @TomDacre was asking about, but the wiki excerpt didn't really support it. I figured since I can edit the wiki and not vice-versa, perhaps it should change =)

@nitsua60 there is content-identification for material inside books, including rules within games

if that's what we're getting at

@doppelgreener ahh... that's more like it, then.

SirTechSpec

Quick heads up - I know I'm late to the party, but I've just added my thoughts on moderation style to the "how are we doing" question, and I'd appreciate any feedback. I mention it because it's relevant to the ongoing elections.

9:21 PM

@SirTechSpec Seems sensible. I know BESW's identified a few things that help his communications seem welcoming, but there's a lot of parts to it as well and it's taken me a while of being around him to pick up on how he does what he does.

SirTechSpec

@doppelgreener Yeah, I mean, obviously a lot of it comes down to extensive training and/or attitude, but there are some parts that should be more easily reproducible by those of us who are willing. KS linked to part of that, but I know there's more already written somewhere.

10:09 PM

@SirTechSpec I don't have the time/energy to write up a coherent post right now, but here are the resources I'd use to do so:

> We could use some more pro-forma comments; Pre-made comments: A resource-gathering & workshopping thread; Could we have a [tour] short link in comments?; How to make the community's Nice Actions more visible?;

> When should I comment?; A chart of comments per user; Who should make welcoming comments?; Well-intentioned help-piles are occasionally problematic.

11:23 PM

hey there @SirTechSpec

hey as well @nitsua60 and @Papayaman1000