TRPG General Chat

BESW

12:02 AM

I showed @trogdor some The Librarians last night, and dug this up this morning:

.@boymonster not EXACTLY the Cortex relationship map, but #TheLibrarians map certainly inspired by that style:

Tweeted by jonrog1 on January 26, 2016 at 4:59 AM in reply to boymonster

Also last night, we played Honey Heist (PDF link). It was tons of fun.

Apparently the best way to deal with an armed opponent is to grab their weapon and wave it around wildly. This led to a polar bear grabbing a man's shotgun and swinging it around, shedding cartridges everywhere.

trogdor

lol

Timy may have that wrong on some points, but it worked well the two times we did it

(being a bear he does not have time for a second m in the name)

BESW

#TheLibrarians RT @RyanMacklin: Fate Accelerated The Librarians: replace Clever w/ Attentive. Librarians are naturally clever. That's all.

Tweeted by jonrog1 on January 5, 2015 at 8:04 AM

Shalvenay

1:25 AM

hey there @ACuriousMind

ACuriousMind

hey there

6 hours of DW, my brain is fried

BESW

New DnDoggos designs are up in the DnDoggos TeePublic Shop! Based on their heroic in-game selves, the doggos are ready to roll some dice with you at your next session. https://www.teepublic.com/user/dndoggos?ref_id=5400&ref_type=aff

Tweeted by dndoggos on January 6, 2018 at 6:18 PM

We are so excited for @TheZoneCast to play Monster of the @MotW_rpg! Hoping they have as much fun as we did playing with @seanmccoy. Fingers crossed for more drag queens! If you curious how our adventure went, it starts here: https://soundcloud.com/vrecast/monster-of-the-week-1-hayden-university

Tweeted by VREcast on January 5, 2018 at 1:19 PM

BREAKING NEWS! Mantic Games will be launching a Hellboy board game in April! Find out more on the blog http://bit.ly/2Ebgde7 #hellboy @DarkHorseComics

Tweeted by manticgames on January 5, 2018 at 6:03 PM

From the Fate Core community: What are Extras, exactly? https://plus.google.com/+matejcikneasi/posts/edRtpmcbU9K

Tweeted by fredhicks on January 6, 2018 at 8:15 PM

nitsua60

1:43 AM

@ACuriousMind Hooh, yah. I find DW very draining. Very rewarding and very fun in lotsa ways, but GMing it feels like constantly scrambling, constant adrenaline. (I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?)

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 No, in my experience that's pretty much working as intended ;)

I enjoy it immensely, but the constant improvisation is mentally more draining than games where I can rely more on prep

nitsua60

But you do sprint through "plot," such as there is. (I don't know that I've ever correctly foreseen how much a party will do and not had a half-session of "well, I guess we'll just run with this.")

BESW

This is why I found PbtA lacking; I got that draining scramble, but with very little to show for it because the mental hoops it was making me jump through didn't give me much new I wouldn't have gotten already just from my own play style.

nitsua60

I can't help look at a D&D hardcover adventure, likely to take 9 months of weekly sessions, and think "maybe 5 sessions of DW?"

ACuriousMind

Well, in this case, they completely shredded the plot hook because the paladin used I Am The Law on the barkeep in the deserted tavern they had been called to, which resulted in the barkeep attacking them and messing everything up before I could even give them their quest :D

nitsua60

1:47 AM

@BESW So what would you suggest next for a thirty-year D&D player who's enjoyed some parts of DW?

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind LOL. what provoked the paladin into doing that?

nitsua60

@ACuriousMind Gah! Games would be so easy to run if it weren't for the PCs!

BESW

@nitsua60 This, all of this. I'm so happy to be able to skip all the slog and filler and just zoom straight to the interesting bits now. If DW teaches folks how to do that, then I can't begrudge it an important place in the RPG canon.

@nitsua60 What parts?

nitsua60

@BESW Just don't forget that there are people who enjoy pushing minis around with a ruler and placing fireballs to maximize enemies hit. It's not just slog and filler to everyone =)

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay Well, the whole setup was shady: No one else was in the tavern, and a table had been set for the five of them + a throne-like chair for their "benefactor". The barkeep refused to tell them anything about that benefactor, and the paladin wanted to force him to divulge more information

Shalvenay

1:49 AM

@ACuriousMind heheh

nitsua60

@BESW I felt like characters had much more support for the "try something, and our rules have a small number of really big buckets where something'll fit." Pushing narrative authority into the hands of PCs' players. Though I haven't quite internalized them, I feel like the GM moves do a nice job of reducing some of the D&D-style asymmetry between GM and other players.

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind so the barkeep went at the paladin with his fists eh?

nitsua60

(brb. Kid's awake.)

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay No, the barkeep was an elderly gnome wizard and went at him with acid and flames :P

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind LOL

ACuriousMind

1:51 AM

(They killed the barkeep :P )

BESW

@nitsua60 In D&D I came to consider slog and filler to be directly related to XP requirements. Any time I thought, "I need another three fights here or they won't be the right level for the next thing," that was a sign of bloat. Fights for their own sake were great in 4e, but an awesome setpiece isn't the same as an obligatory fight for the sake of getting to another one.

I wound up ripping XP out of the 4e leveling system completely and just using it as a difficulty measure, so that I could focus on cool setpieces and not worry about being forced to make more fights than I had good ideas for.

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind who else was involved with this btw?

ACuriousMind

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you mean who the other characters were, we had a very low-intelligence barbarian, a bard who's more of a chronicler, a cleric of a god of secrets and a ranger with a crow

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind that was it, yeah :)

ACuriousMind

While the other characters explored the tavern, the barbarian enjoyed himself by smashing all the furniture

nitsua60

2:01 AM

@BESW That I can certainly see. The D&Ds I've played (5e, 2e, 1e, BECMI, 0e) it's never felt like I needed to push XP at someone via combat in the way you're describing there.

BESW

I definitely felt it in both 3.x and 4e.

@nitsua60 13th Age. Lady Blackbird. InSpectres. Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. Most anything in Fate, obviously.

...Microscope would be a kick in the pants.

nitsua60

I've liked Microscope. We have a standing game we play while the table's assembling for AL.

BESW

Faith Corps, perhaps.

nitsua60

DPotFT I wasn't crazy about. I think it might just be the genre.

LB I have and have read over many times, but I don't feel like I understand it to run it. I'd love to play it first.

Same with Fate &c.

BESW

Sort out the time zones and I'd be happy to run 'em with you.

nitsua60

2:10 AM

[makes note of 13th Age and InSpectres.]

@BESW You mean, like, twist the earth until Guam rotates under NYC? Right on it.

=)

BESW

13th Age is a bit of a backslide into D&Disms from DW, but it has a number of Narrative RPGisms as well, in particular how it replaces skills with rated Backgrounds.

nitsua60

@BESW Thanks, btw. I'll take you up on that, but it might be March before that happens.

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 I'm not sure I'd phrase it as reducing asymmetry - DW is highly asymmetric between players and DM: Only the players roll dice, only the players "act" while the DM mostly reacts, etc. What's not as asymmetric anymore is information - often the DM knows exactly as much about the world and what's gonna happen as the players do

BESW

You rank a few elements of your character's backstory, like Raised in the Highlands +2, Captain of the Guard +2, and Best Barman in Northalia +1.

nitsua60

@ACuriousMind Yeah, maybe it's the authority asymmetry being reduced that I'm thinking of.

BESW

2:14 AM

And then you add those to your rolls as if they were skills. If you want to use a background for an application that's not obvious, the GM will ask you to give a short flashback explaining how your experience in that context justifies using it for the current action.

nitsua60

You don't think Fronts introduce information asymmetry?

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 Ah, they probably would, but I most often played DW as one-shots (or two- or three-shots) so far rather than extended campaigns, which means fronts don't see much use.

nitsua60

Anyone know if Katanas & Trenchcoats ended up being any good? I do love me some Adrian Paul and Peter Wingfield. (Speaking of flashbacks justifying odd inclusions.)

@ACuriousMind Gotcha. That makes sense.

BESW

@nitsua60 As originally written, it's mostly a playable meta joke. It's currently being re-written for the Kickstarter into something that's supposedly more fun to play on its own rather than as a joke.

It's currently fun to play as a loving joke about its source material but less so on its own merits.

nitsua60

Gotcha.

BESW

2:19 AM

I'm hearing great things about Blades in the Dark but don't know first-hand yet.

Lovecraftesque and A Penny For My Thoughts might rock your GM/player paradigm.

Since, yanno, they're aggressively GMless.

And both really mess with "what is an RPG?" in completely different ways from, eg, Microscope.

APFMT is practically a table-confined LARP.

(BTW, in my experience, the GM/player authority/information symmetry in DW is.... much much less obvious from the player perspective.)

I've been on both sides of the table and talked with people on the other side in both cases, and it's just a completely different kind of thing as a GM, especially in terms of understanding how much or little the GM is restricted or has prepared.

@nitsua60 InSpectres is aggressive about the GM sitting back and reacting to the players. The only prep is "Who does the client say they are and what does the client say is the problem?" Good outcomes are handled by the player doing the roll; the worse the outcome the more the GM steps in to hose you.

nitsua60

@BESW Interesting.

BESW

Oh, and any time a player mentions some asset their company has, that player must roll their PC's Technology to see how good or bad the asset actually is.

We wound up with a photocopier that never malfunctions, but is vocally critical of whatever you're copying.

And office phones that are all hardline, no wireless handsets at all... but never receive telemarketing calls.

Our occult library was a collection of heavily-annotated D&D manuals.

For another game, our research resources consisted of an Amazon Kindle Fire with full subscription services, unlimited data, and a backup power pack.

(Personally I prefer games where the players get to define their own failures, and the GM steps in for successes, but that's not a common trend.)

SevenSidedDie

3:30 AM

A Penny For My Thoughts is fantastic and, being a one-shot game, is an easier “RPG taster” to make happen than some others. In my experience it's ideal with 3, good enough with 4 (but then allot much more time than you expect, else you don't end up seeing the endings).

Shalvenay

oh hey there @SevenSidedDie

how're things going?

SevenSidedDie

(I have way too many unfinished APFMT games under my belt. ;.;)

Shalvenay

hahaha

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay Life is complicated but on a general good trend! It's kind of like surfing. I have a cold kicking my butt something fierce right now though.

Shalvenay

ouch, get well soon m8

@SevenSidedDie -- you mind if I bounce a couple of system-selection questions off of you?

SevenSidedDie

3:32 AM

@Shalvenay Fire away.

@Shalvenay (ty)

Shalvenay

first one is trying to find a system for a medium-fantasy, if you will, disaster-recovery-centric game (logistics/survival elements, with conflicts with profiteers and local power struggles to deal with as well)

Burning Wheel was recommended to me, but I do want some other suggestions to consider as well

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay Burning Wheel has some fantastic resource-management mechanics. The default magic system is pretty particular though (unless you can get your hands on the Magic Burner's alternates). I always find magic systems matching what I want to do a bit of a stumbling block for picking out fantasy-based systems.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah, that could be a problem, doubt its insurmountable though

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay I'd be tempted to run that in an old-school D&D actually. Basic is very accessible, has a lot of retroclones to choose from, and finances/economy constraints and management are at its core. It has minimal rules for social interactions, but there's enough there for me as GM to not feel like I'm the one deciding how PC roleplayed negotiations work out (basically, it gives the GM a way to determine NPC reactions without resorting to fiat).

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie that's actually a rather good thought

SevenSidedDie

3:38 AM

BD&D gives logistics a lot of teeth.

Let me see if I can think of any other good matches…

If you're already familiar with HeroQuest 2 that's a possibility, with its flexible character creation and its community-attributes (including resources) rules. However, I wouldn't suggest it without prior experience; it's a weird system to get a hang of, and playing through it is the best way to learn it and then apply it well to a campaign concept.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah, anything I'd pick for this would probably need me to have some player-time with it before I DM it

SevenSidedDie

For a completely different take on such a campaign, Microscope or Kingdom would do. Both GMless though, so it would be more a matter of selling the group on creating that kind of situation through each player's fiction authority turns.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah

SevenSidedDie

Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are BW variants that you might consider too, though both have a restrictive player-turn-GM-turn overall play structure that might not be to taste. TB has the logistics focus of BD&D, but doesn't really have community-modelling support. MG has the community-focused stuff, but ignores logistics a lot.

I think that's it! I'd be really tempted to go with BX for this, but BW could really sing.

Shalvenay

the other one is I'm wondering what would serve as a good intro game to use to sort of show the diversity of the TTRPG world to new players (and in particular, what I see as the pre-Forge/"trad" vs post-Forge split) -- I'm talking new at the level of "one shortform D&D 5e twosies game with me" level of experience

SevenSidedDie

3:49 AM

(And for an RPG that I would totally look into if I was doing this campaign, but that I haven't read or played so I can't speak to its actual effectiveness or ability to be reskinned for medium-magic, is Mutant Year Zero. Definitely the post-disaster, lots of discovery, and great community-centric mechanics apparently, as well as inter-character conflict support. But all I know is I've heard good things about it.)

@Shalvenay For diversity I'd play one of the many games designed to be one-shots. Like, I'd run a single session of Apocalypse World, or (if the play group is small enough) facilitate a session of Fiasco.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie DW unfortunately is a poor choice for twosies, although I might try running a DW game sometime or the other. I'd love to expose them to Fate, but I butchered it last I ran it, and would want a counseling run with some Fate vets to help me get the hang of it before I try to teach it to noobs

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay By twosies do you mean one-on-one, or one-GM-and-two-players?

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie the former

SevenSidedDie

(I find DW doesn't work well with only two players. Oddly though, AW does. Neither are good for one-on-one though!)

Shalvenay

DW works...okay? with two players + 1 GM IMLE

SevenSidedDie

3:58 AM

@Shalvenay Yeah, but only just okay. I find it's ideal with 3-4.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie I'll agree there

SevenSidedDie

BW is fantastic for twosies though. The long character creation is less of a liability because of the focused attention of the GM, and the vast variety of characters that it can result in works well when you can focus on their personal story.

Shalvenay

I actually have a friend who's a longtime RPG vet that hasn't had any PbtA exposure, and I'd like to get them roped into a DW session

@SevenSidedDie good to know for learning the system

PhiNotPi

Totally different subject, but right now I'm trying to come up with some good criminal conspiracies for the campaign I'm gonna run soon. Ideally I should have a decent range from small-scale (easy) to large-scale (hard) conspiracies/antagonists.

Shalvenay

@PhiNotPi hrm, what are the goals of the conspirators?

SevenSidedDie

4:04 AM

@Shalvenay I find the best first PtbA experience is with the original AW, because it has clarity in its rules philosophy that even DW doesn't, and it doesn't have “standard fantasy baggage” (which can either interfere with grasping DW's system if they know standard fantasy well, or can be a liability if they don't).

Shalvenay

and what sorts of things would they target/infiltrate?

@SevenSidedDie AW's problem is that me and postapoc are oil and water (I'm too optimistic for the postapoc genre to be at all a good fit for me)

PhiNotPi

It's a city / "advanced" civilization setting (though still medieval, system is D&D 5e). So there's businesses and trade group that want money, politicians that want power, foreign countries that want to invade, civil unrest, etc.

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay (I know what you mean. For what it's worth, I was/am the same, but AW is the game that made me understand the appeal of the genre. And, though it's pessimistic on the surface, hope is actually woven thoroughly through AW's fundamentals.)

But with this topic shift I'll sign off! I have some The Crown to go watch with my partner. :)

PhiNotPi

I'm thinking about starting off with something like shipments (of processed metals, etc.) which are being stolen/diverted to help fund a criminal group.

So to start off, players can be told to go investigate reports of stereotypical bandits, but then they find out that the bandits were waiting for them because someone else inside the company tipped them off, etc.

But then this criminal group is being paid off by some other powerful political entity that stands to benefit from the unrest/etc. in order to gain power and implement changes that would benefit his own businesses, etc. (details super fuzzy at this point)

What sort of things do you think would be worth smuggling in a D&D universe? I guess magical weapons or raw materials.

Miniman

@PhiNotPi Same sort of thing as in our universe, I guess - drugs, weapons (not necessarily magical), stolen goods, etc.

nitsua60

4:15 AM

@SevenSidedDie ooh, yes. We're embarked on this project, too. Enjoy!

BESW

4:36 AM

Chapter 5 is where we switch to @EvilHatOfficial's Fate Core system! Look forward to it on the 15th. #podcast #podcasts #brokensunrpg #fatecore

Tweeted by BrokenSunRPG on January 6, 2018 at 8:24 AM

Sora Tamashii

Hey, :)

I'm sort of here, sort of not. So don't get too attached. ;P

Shalvenay

hey there @SoraTamashii, how's it going?

Sora Tamashii

5 by 5, Sha. How about you?

Shalvenay

doing alright

Sora Tamashii

Cool.

Shalvenay

4:45 AM

@SoraTamashii -- do you have any subgenre preferences under the fantasy umbrella I should be aware of? I'm thinking it may be best to do something custom, unless you feel comfortable jumping into the player side with a higher level (L5 or L7, depending) char

Sora Tamashii

Well, if I do begin as a player, it probably won't be for a little while. But, yeah, I tend to have more of a preference towards urban fantasy, but I do like just about anything.

Except spiders. Spiders can burn

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii nods that's not an issue, although by "urban fantasy" do you mean sort of a "modern fantasy" vibe, or something more akin to a city-based campaign in a traditional fantasy setting?

Sora Tamashii

I am actually a fan of both of those. I guess you could say i meant both.

BESW

..Trogdor and I have two different pre-modern urban fantasy campaigns. One's a political thriller in ancient Egypt, one's a noir mystery in a setting inspired by the Thief video games.

Sora Tamashii

The political thriller sounds cool. Tell me more?\

Shalvenay

4:53 AM

@SoraTamashii ah. I've dabbled in "modern fantasy" stuff, and in urban intrigue as well, but neither is my strong suit. I tend to be too wonkish/in-depth with my politics for intrigue to be a particularly good thing for me to run

Sora Tamashii

I can understand that. lol

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii LOL! I take it you tend to geek/wonk out when it comes to politics/gov't pieces as well?

BESW

@SoraTamashii The Egypt Campaign: Setting, Issues, and The Story Thus Far

Sora Tamashii

I'm more into adventures and puzzles, but I like the way political games run. The backstabbing, the subterfuge, all of it. It appeals to my sense of depth, but I can't really maintain one for too long without it sort of falling apart or getting overly complicated.

BESW

Yeah, I think it's important to find a system that supports that sort of play.

Shalvenay

5:01 AM

@SoraTamashii ah. I tend to be less about people-maneuvering (backstabbing, power plays, intimidation, blackmail, that sort of thing) and want to focus more on the functioning of systems (courts, deliberative bodies, bureaucracies, that sort of thing)

Sora Tamashii

Ah, I see.

BESW

@SoraTamashii You might want to check out House of Bards.

Shalvenay

"congratulations. your character gets to play lobbyist for a day"

Sora Tamashii

Looks interresting

and Sha lol what?

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii hehehe :) or for another example: I have a WIP campaign concept rattling around where one of the story-threads is an argument over a badly drafted tax law

Sora Tamashii

5:08 AM

lol Ok? haha

Shalvenay

that starts off looking like it's going to be typical Ace Attorney stuff but quickly gets kicked upstairs to the high courts and turns into something much more involved: appellate argument!

and it turns into this high-stakes lawfare between factions, with the highest court in the land at the center of it all trying to make sense of, well...gibberish

to quote Justice Gorsuch from the oral arguments in Cyan v. Beaver County Employees' Retirement Fund:

> I mean, it seems like it's gibberish all the way down here

(part of the holdup, though, is figuring out how much of that subplot to expose to the PCs and what zoom level to expose them to it at)

Sora Tamashii

Interesting

Shalvenay

(because I'd be cool with the party basically writing their own briefings and arguing the case themselves, but that'd be very tricky for me to support well, and not something very many players would be interested in)

Sora Tamashii

I bet

Shalvenay

also: would you be comfortable with your first D&D player-side experience being with a higher-level char, or would you rather start at first level?

Sora Tamashii

5:22 AM

I know DM-ing, I always prefer seeing my players start from L1 and working upwards from there, so I would assume it'd be preferable for me to play that way as well.

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii nods got it -- do you have anything else you'd want to see or not see in an adventure, or do you want me to surprise you?

Sora Tamashii

Haha You're getting ahead of yourself. I might not be available for a while ya know. :P

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii well, I do want to give myself some lead time for coming up with adventure ideas since I'll likely have to come up with something bespoke for you

Sora Tamashii

"bespoke"? lol

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii as in a custom-tailored one-off

Sora Tamashii

5:26 AM

I know what you meant, but I still thought it was funny.

BESW

Bespoke campaigns are the best thing about twosies!

Sora Tamashii

"twosies"?

This time I don't know. lol

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii another term for 1 GM + 1 player play

Sora Tamashii

Ah. ok

i haven't worked without a group before. lol

BESW

It's a very different experience. Both people involved are always in the spotlight, so it's a lot more pressure and no downtime during the session.

Shalvenay

5:34 AM

it's still useful though, especially when teaching a newbie how to play or learning/teaching a new system

Sora Tamashii

Sounds intimate. I couldn't do that, personally. lol

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii as in running for only one other player you mean?

Sora Tamashii

Yeah.

BESW

That intense experience means it can be personalized to exactly those two people with no worries about managing a crowd, making sure nobody feels left out or left behind, and you can lean into each other's choices much more heavily.

Sora Tamashii

I see it like this: making a game for a group is cool, because it's being shared with others. But when you do something this detailed for one person, it seems like it'd be too personal. I like the generality of group play as a result.

BESW

5:37 AM

It does, however, require a different kind of simpatico than RPGs with larger groups. Trogdor and I are great together in larger groups but need a strong twosie-focused system to make twosies work for us.

Sora Tamashii

fair enough

BESW

You're absolutely right, it's a very different experience. The skills and goals of group play aren't always directly transferable to twosies. They scratch different itches.

Sora Tamashii

ok :)

BESW

The closest I've seen twosies come to group play is when you use a translation system to turn a pre-made group-system adventure into a one-player adventure.

...I'd love to find an OSR translation system that didn't creep me out, to run Troggy through famous early D&D crawls, but enough of the OSR community is heeby-jeeby that I'm not interested in mucking around for the gems anymore.

Sora Tamashii

Ok. :) Anyhow, I'm calling it a night. Bye :)

BESW

5:46 AM

ttfn

Ben

7:32 AM

Egh. First session of Tombs of Whichever one it is, and we are getting railroaded pretty hard :/

BESW

Ah, yes, the Tombs of the Railroad Baron.

BESW

7:55 AM

> Telepathic cheating. Because you can read their intentions, you can use Will instead of Athletics to defend against physical attacks made by thinking beings.

Ben

8:31 AM

Question... Does Tavern Brawler (Proficient in improvised weapons) allow me to use things as a shield? Cos technically a shield isn't a weapon..?

Szega

8:45 AM

@Ben a shield is categorised as armor (if you mean 5e)

Ben

Yes

So effectively, I can't pick up a large piece of wood and gain the bonus ac from that

Szega

Not in 5e, sorry

Ben

Ok. That's cool.

Wanted to clarify

Szega

The DM might rule it gives half cover if it is big enough...

I would say it is two-handed and you either use it to attack or to defend, not both at the same time

Ben

Yeah. Might put that to him later.

He plays rules a bit more realistically, so it might work.

BESW

8:53 AM

In a lot of games the question isn't "can you use it?" the question is "can you use it without significant penalties?"

Ben

Well, the point is to gain a benefit, rather than to use it without deficit

BESW

10:26 AM

if yr feeling uninspired about a project i highly recommend making a pinterest board of everything that gets u excited about the project. it helps me a lot

Tweeted by jonniphillips on January 7, 2018 at 5:40 AM

@doppelgreener, @trogdor Lets try that inspiration map concept again for Amaterasu?

trogdor

@BESW make new ones you mean?

BESW

Yeah. Maybe link me images that you would consider inspirational for the remake of the campaign, and describe why you chose them.

When we have the rebuilding conversation, we can use those as touchstones and afterward I'll make a map out of the ones that we implement.

So, like, if you want to use some element of Avatar or Librarians, grab an image which demonstrates that particular element.

trogdor

so should I only be looking for ones I think you guys would also put in yours or,....?

BESW

Go for what you want.

trogdor

ok

BESW

10:34 AM

Surprise us!

trogdor

Librarians will be in there

I just have to figure out how to phrase it in an inspiration map form

but other things will be surprises I think

I will definitely be dropping some of the stuff that was in my last one

BESW

We'll probably focus on inspirations that we're all familiar with, but if you've got something that we haven't seen maybe we can seek it out--like I'm doing with Librarians.

trogdor

some of it, in retrospect, was probably part of the disconnect

@BESW yeah, I figure if I have something I want to use that I either think you have not seen or just don't know that you have seen, it should be something I could show you guys or that you could look up yourselves

BESW

Part of the problem with the first go-around is that Raycia and I were drawing heavily on Warehouse 13, which Hobbs didn't know at all.

I think Librarians hits most of the same notes, but more in line with our play styles.

trogdor

@BESW I did that too, just not with Warehouse 13

@BESW yeah I agree

they are similar shows but Warehouse 13 takes itself a little more seriously

which isn't bad but does make it fit less well

doppelgreener

1:02 PM

@BESW Librarians seems to do what I'd heard Warehouse 13 was about, except with what I understand to be a significant difference in tone.

BESW

Yeah, in broad strokes they're very similar, but Warehouse 13 was more of a character drama and bit harder into "Are we doing the right thing?"

It had fewer main characters, especially in its early seasons, and pushed themes of "isolated from the rest of the world and subject to a government's version of morality."

nitsua60

1:47 PM

BESW

I still think this is the superior Conan the Librarian.

nitsua60

Well, yeah... but pulling Reading Rainbow is almost cheating =)

BESW

If Reading Rainbow is cheating, I don't want to go straight.

BESW

2:12 PM

A new species of crab that's purple with glowing yellow eyes has been discovered. It's called Geosesarma dennerle. (Photo: Chris Lukhapu)

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on December 28, 2017 at 2:00 PM

Dirty thunderstorms or volcanic lightning occurs when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume. (Photos: Martin Rietze & Carlos Gutierrez)

Tweeted by NaturelsWeird on December 5, 2017 at 6:00 PM

Shalvenay

3:25 PM

hey there @Anaphory

Shalvenay

3:41 PM

hey there @SoraTamashii -- btw: you said you wouldn't be available for a while -- do you have an estimate of when things will start freeing up time wise?

Sora Tamashii

Not a clue. I have videos to edit, chapters to write, and a test campaign to run and finish. I probably won't be free for a couple of months at least.

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii wow, that is a lot. see you around then I suppose :)

Sora Tamashii

lol Ok. :)

Shalvenay

I suppose in the meantime, feel free to ask me any Session-0-y questions you might have :)

Sora Tamashii

4:14 PM

I still don't really understand the whole depth of Session 0. I kind of understand the basics, but aside from helping players with character creation (which I try to pass of the responsibility every chance I get... I never said I was a good DM...), I don't really do a Session 0.

Shalvenay

@SoraTamashii heheh

Anaphory

4:35 PM

@Shalvenay Hey! I'm out of hospital since yesterday. Everyday life is so tiring!

Shalvenay

@Anaphory glad to hear you're on the mend :)

Sora Tamashii

Good to hear, anaphory :)

Anaphory

Thanks! It's been so long, I hope I can get some one-shot games organized while I'm recovering at home and a campaign started. I have been without any games – board or rpgs – for 8 weeks now, so even a board gaming afternoon will be nice.

Oblivious Sage

5:21 PM

@SevenSidedDie (OK, apparently enter at the autocomplete prompt also immediately sends the message) Is there a reason we removed the lore tag from the dwarf sky quest question?

Shalvenay

hey there @ObliviousSage

Oblivious Sage

Yo

doppelgreener

6:51 PM

@BESW (@trogdor) So in my watching of the librarians, I now understand better what you mean when you said "we're the librarians" gets them into most places. I thought you meant people knew who The Librarians were. It's the opposite, nobody has any idea who they are, but instead make assumptions based on them being ordinary librarians (ranging from "oh you're the librarians we were expecting" or "oh librarians are trustworthy people").

Shalvenay

hey there @doppelgreener

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay Hi!

Shalvenay

7:56 PM

hey there @Anaphory

Anaphory

Hey!

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Anaphory

Decently. Got out a bit today, not too tired yet, but still tired quite early, so I haven't arranged a game evening yet.

Shalvenay

mind if I toss a system-selection question by you?

also, working up notes for a more...conventional mini-campaign, at last :)

Anaphory

Go for it. I'm quite out of the loop, and have mostly read PbtA recently, but worth a try

How's your law-interpretation thing gone?

Shalvenay

8:03 PM

I'm wondering what a good system to expose new (as in "one twosies game of short-form D&D 5e") players to other parts of the RPG scene would be -- mostly interested in getting them some experience with the more narratively-minded RPG world

@Anaphory still stuck in neutral

Anaphory

@Shalvenay @BESW did have a good list of them when they were trying the same for VisualImpaired. How much do you want to show them something entirely different vs. slowly opening the way to more narrative control? – That's the main question, I guess.

Shalvenay

@Anaphory I'm not sure, really -- I do want to stay within the fantasy genre, but I'm not sure if going gradual or whole-hog is a better recipe when giving newbs a tour

Anaphory

I don't think I can give a qualified answer to that.

Shalvenay

I'd like to do Fate but don't consider myself qualified to run it for newbs yet :P

doppelgreener

8:55 PM

@Shalvenay its reliance on narrative flow & tropes as a driving force would present a notable challenge to you

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener yeah, I'd want to have a couple of vets basically "coach" me through running a Fate game or two

@doppelgreener -- do you have any suggestions as to what system would be a good fit for the application at hand?

BESW

9:08 PM

Your Fantasy World is Boring Because... it doesn't have atomic grape tomatoes.

Sora Tamashii

Wait... what?!

Those. Look. AWESOME!

BESW

[wave] I have a semi-regular event where I share a real-world thing that's noticeably more awesome/interesting/ridiculous than anything in most fantasy settings.

Because really, it's hard to out-do the real world when it comes to improbably awesome stuff.

(See also glass gem corn.)

Sora Tamashii

I saw the corn when I was looking at the tomatos.

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay lasers & feelings, blades in the dark, masters of umdaar

dungeon world is also popular but i'm not in a position to be able to vouch for it as an introductory game

doppelgreener

9:33 PM

i haven't played blades in the dark myself but it's a favourite game -- including for introductions -- of @JuneShores, and I've a friend who was introduced to tabletop roleplaying by way of that game (completely unrelated coincidence) and it went resoundingly well for them and their group.

all of these games are going to do things they're familiar with but also contrasted enormously from D&D

Shalvenay

hey there @SoraTamashii

Quentin

@Shalvenay It's a tricky question, and I suspect it really depends on the players. I've had people come from a variety of trad (in both rules and setting) into narrative games via Dungeon World (which sticks all the D&D tropes in a narrative engine) and Monsterhearts (which is WoD by way of the tropes of Twilight). Some thought DW was great but couldn't engage with MH because they didn't know the tropes. Some easily got into MH but really stumbled over DW not being as much like D&D as it looked.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener DW is something that I have some experience with, and could talk to folks about what it'd take to DM

@Quentin I think DW would be a better choice than MH, in part because the kinds of chars I'd want to run in a setting akin to MH's are either a bit too mundane or a bit too monstrous

Quentin

In the end, I suggest running the game you're comfortable running and be prepared to try a different narrative game out on a player for whom your first choice doesn't click.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener Blades is a system I should talk to JuneShores and/or Asteria about trying sometime

doppelgreener

9:42 PM

@Quentin I'd love to play Monsterhearts, though it'd have to be in a group comfortable to explore the discomfort the game wants them to be able to explore.

@Shalvenay yes! i agree.

Shalvenay

(too mundane: daughter of ye olde vampire next door :) although with some tweaking, I probably could get that work. too monstrous: my favorite 7'3" floofball -- she's rather too furry for MH)

Quentin

@doppelgreener I've very glad that my early experiences of MH were with people I trusted. I've played enough of it now that I'm happy to pick it up as a con game with people I don't know, but it can go to some nasty places.

doppelgreener

@Quentin that is really good!

i trust the group i play with a lot, but there are themes we're not prepared to explore as a group.

Shalvenay

the other big negative about MH is that it lacks the resonance with me it normally would have with most other players -- my HS and college experience basically touched on nothing of what the game's themes are

hey there @ACuriousMind

@Quentin -- what all do you play for games and genres btw?

Quentin

@doppelgreener That's fair. Games about emotional trauma are a somewhat specialist taste (he said after spending a weekend at The Smoke playing three fairly traumatic LARPs and being very glad he ran a light and fluffy game this morning)

@doppelgreener I don't have much personal experience with most of the themes either, and even less with those of the characters I tend to play in MH. Most of what I know about them is through other media. The step of separation probably helps :)

@Shalvenay I play just about anything :) I've got a regular gaming group of ~20 people which splits into three different games and shuffles players and GMs around every 6 weeks. It gets a lot of different games played.

@Shalvenay I lean towards running DW more than anything else these days since I'm comfortable running it on minimal prep and its very hard for players to break the game :)

Shalvenay

9:54 PM

@Quentin ah, nice. my in-person/online group is still recovering from holiday disruption, and most of the other stuff I do is with chatizens or a few other folks online

@Quentin aye. I had a lot of fun with a sword-and-cloak scrawny-boy paladin in DW lately with ACM and Pixie

Quentin

@Shalvenay My other main game for GMing is Deadlands Noir. It's a lovely setting :)

Shalvenay

I tend to favor D&D 5e for "trad" stuff since it's what I know, but have a shortlist of games I want to play: Burning Wheel, GURPS, and probably Blades as well...also want to take shots at GMing Fate and DW

hey there @JuneShores

JuneShores

Howdy.

Shalvenay

what's up?

Quentin

@Shalvenay We're still having holiday disruption too. First game since early Dec is this week. I'm actually GMing DW again. Third time I'll have run it at the club. Two players coming back from season 1, one from season 2, and two new players. I've done more prep for it than normal - inspiration struck when I had my notebook handy.

@Shalvenay I like the idea of scrawny-boy paladin. I might have to steal that next time I get to PC at DW!

Shalvenay

9:58 PM

@Quentin nods I actually whipped up a mini-campaign earlier today (probably will run it as a D&D 5e game). This is a really good thing because my past 3 campaign ideas are all stuck in neutral for some reason or another (one of them has a legal-eagle subplot that I'm not sure how to handle re: zoom and exposure, another raises system-selection questions, and a third is just "I'm not comfortable with improv'ing the Underdark :P")

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay i'm not comfortable with improving the underdark either. the place is a mess and that's a herculean task.

;D

Shalvenay

as to genre: I do a fair variety of fantasy stuff, and am also willing to poke my head into fairly firm ships-in-space SF, but science-fantasy/space-opera is a no go...never mind supers or post-apoc

@doppelgreener haha, you won't get to by the time I'm done with it, since it'll be all wet :P

Quentin

@Shalvenay I like D&D 5, but haven't done a lot of it. When it first game out I ran a very silly one-shot Spelljammer game where the players had to deal with a psychic demon living in a Dwarf mine (in an asteroid) and the army of Flumphs it was controlling. BW I really like the look of, but have never managed to play successfully — I think I need to be a PC in a campaign run by an experienced GM to get to grips with it.

BESW

@Quentin Yeah, when some of my group wanted to play Dog Eat Dog, I actually had us move to a different location on a different day to do it, in order to do a hard reset on the usual goofy fun our games wind up being.

Quentin

@Shalvenay GURPS I've never got on with, I've never found a generic-crunchy game I like. Blades is good, but I found it tough to GM. I think I'm just not comfortable enough with the genre to improvise while learning the rules. I should give the space opera hack of it a go.

JuneShores

10:01 PM

Making dinner. Leveling up. The usual.

Shalvenay

@Quentin yeah, I think that'd help

@JuneShores finally got a mini-campaign noted down for 5e that I should be able to run OK \o/

JuneShores

Aw shoot! Sounds like fun.

Quentin

@Shalvenay Oh space opera. A friend is running a Babylon 5 prequel game with Uncharted Worlds. The 7-9 results have been entertaining. I accidentally put 30 people into a coma and seem to have set things up for Bester to learn about the existence of the Shadows.

Shalvenay

@Quentin yeah, space opera is a mixed bag for me -- my rather extensive experience as an EVE Online wormholer heavily colors my approach to just about anything ships-in-space

Quentin

@Shalvenay Ahh. That's a very "proper sci-fi" background :)

Shalvenay

10:13 PM

I have three requirements I place on a setting, really: Separation (from reality), Plausibility/Consistency (internal and external), and Familiarity (it needs to have enough anchor points, knowns if you will, that I can figure out how things work)

Separation is more essential the more the norms of PC behavior diverge from RL behavior norms

(I can stick an elf in a railyard without too much trouble, but if you're expecting heavy bloodshed, I'm pretty much going to need something that's very much not our universe)

Plausibility/Consistency problems can be one of three things: 1) things that take inappropriately placed handwavium to explain, 2) failures in internal consistency, or 3) stuff that's AWOL

(an example of the latter actually comes from Star Wars -- the lack of electronic warfare in a ships-in-space setting gnaws at me to no end)

and Familiarity deals with just how limited my media exposure is, and that some tropes just won't "click" with me as a result

(I'd struggle in anime or wuxia type stuff because I know so little of the genres in question)

@JuneShores -- do you think Blades would be worthwhile to learn for the sake of using it to intro folks to narrative-style games, or do you think I'd be better served using either DW or Fate for that job?

JuneShores

10:29 PM

Blades is excellent for introductions to narrative games. It's pretty trad on the micro level, but it fits together in a way that pushes its premise really well and fills in a lot of holes in the way that trad games and even Fate treat action resolution. It's one of the best intro games you could run.

trogdor

@doppelgreener lol, even the DOD seems to not know who they are but they roll with it anyway XD

@BESW I must now eat a volcanoe to take it's powers

Shalvenay

@JuneShores cool, cool. I'll have to see about finding a way to play it sometime :) and seeing how it works out for me

BESW

@JuneShores Have you seen Scum & Villainy?

Also hi.

JuneShores

@BESW Yep, I have it. I don't know if I'll run it anytime soon though, because of all the other games i have in my queue. I am running a post-Last Jedi game soon, though.

BESW

Cool.

I'm still very interested in getting some kind of Blades experience under my belt, but I'm not sure when/how that'll happen.

trogdor

10:35 PM

cool, put it in the pile XD

JuneShores

10:52 PM

I'm putting Chuubo's basic quests into Streets of Mos Eisley for this Star Wars game.

Shalvenay

11:04 PM

hey there @nitsua60

JuneShores

Because the only thing that shoves Streets of Mos Eisley out of my Top Star Wars Game spot is that the GM awards the meta-currency arbitrarily. That makes issues.

BESW

@JuneShores I don't know anything about either of those games!

JuneShores

I apologize, @BESW

BESW

No, it's awesome.

JuneShores

Here's Streets of Mos Eisley. sentientgames.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/sw-mos-eisley-v2.pdf it's a World of Dungeons hack with a neat hero point mechanic, where you can spend a point to use any power from your class, and it's possible to multi-class. So the power progression is the most accurate I've seen to the source material.

Shalvenay

11:33 PM

@JuneShores World of Dungeons?

Miniman

@doppelgreener I feel a little weird about having voted to close and then answered while the question was closed - sorry for the...I dunno what to call it, process failure?

doppelgreener

@Miniman s'fine, we all do it from time to time

there's those borderline questions which seem to be on both sides of the border and we do that :U

"your question has major problems but I think I can answer it but it still has major problems"

Miniman

I actually didn't even think about that when I was voting to close. But I went and took a look at the spell afterwards, cos I was curious whether you actually could do that, and went "oh ok, I guess that's the answer".

I'm not sure I would've voted to reopen, though. I'm much more comfortable with your edit.

JuneShores

@Shalvenay It's a Dungeon World hack that was included in its Kickstarter. John Harper made it as a joke, and then a few years later it kind of became Blades in the Dark. onesevendesign.com/dw/world_of_dungeons_1979_bw.pdf

doppelgreener

@Miniman my thinking was there's about an equal chance between the question was just asking for our opinion, vs the question was just asking whether it was a reasonable way to use that spell, vs both. we can do half of that just fine.

@Miniman gotcha, makes sense. that's how it's worked out for me in the past too. (and i got in there before you could retract your close vote. though, even if you weren't intending to retract it, that's still OK.)

Shalvenay

11:48 PM

@JuneShores ah, i see :)

Miniman

@doppelgreener Yep - thanks as always for your ninja moderation XD

doppelgreener

@Miniman you're welcome!! :D

Miniman

@doppelgreener How goes the acclimatization, btw? Missing the Aussie summer?

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