Heh, I am out of votes for the day.

@KorvinStarmast heh :) Dating myself as well, I remember having to find the 'local' number for my preferred BBS' that didn't cost more than the other 'local' numbers.

BBS systems <3

Trade Wars. Legend of the Red Dragon.

@Maximillian I remember convincing a friend to set one up with me at his house. I paid for the upgrade to the 14.4 baud

@Maximillian I have one war to trade but it's a mostly regional conflict between tribes so I don't think I can get much value out of it.

It's no Third Crusade by any means.

@NautArch We started at 2400. Then got 9600 when those came out. 14.4 was a new world. Then that 33.6, who needs to go that fast??

So this question of whether you have to embrace lycanthropy curse in order to shapechange at will is actually more unclear than I thought. Anybody have a take on this?

@NautArch Maybe @kviiri can correct me on this, but in 7th sea, if a character is a deposed noble who wants to restore the family name, then they mechanically advance by taking steps to do so. In D&D, if a character is a deposed noble who wants to restore the family name, they mechanically advance by killing monsters for XP and loot.

@MikeQ Yep

@MikeQ Unless you are running a story-based/Milestone XP game - in which case it's exactly the same?

@MikeQ you can get so in dnd for other things too (depending on edition) but that's the main way

Except I haven't really ever seen a DnD game based around running player-written stories.

True, the DM of a D&D game can reward bonus XP to players who do stuff according to their personal sideplots

@kviiri Do you normally play published adventures only?

But generally, PC backstory in D&D is limited to character flavor, and is often ignored entirely. The primary method of advancement is going into dungeons and murdering goblins and stealing their wands

@NautArch No, usually our GM writes a plotline. With varying success :P

@kviiri ive done it a few times when the stories are easy to align. Issue is people show up with different backstories so it's hard sometimes

Our normal DnD policy has been "don't have a backstory" after it became apparent people usually cared only about their own. It worked quite well!

@kviiri Heh, okay. A lot of it will depend on the GM. In my current table, I've got my main story, but I've got hooks that plyers want to pursue for their own stories. I'll be doing both (but have also told them that th world moves on without them, and pursuing their own things may create bigger issues if the bigger storyline is left untended.)

@kviiri I hope it's not the same group of people playing...

@NautArch It largely is :)

@NautArch That is a good practice for keeping players engaged and having a more eventful campaign story

@NautArch Except in milestone campaigns usually all PCs level together. It sounds like in this they would level separate from each other as they did their own individual goals.

@kviiri We may have found the core of your problem :D.

@NautArch Naah, it's not that. The problem wouldn't exist if they didn't have four dramatically different backstories :P

@Rubiksmoose That's a good point - although WHO milestone levels is not necessarily dictated by that system (I don't think...but could be very wrong that.) I think the assumption is that XP is generally equally shared and that milestones occur for all - but that may not be a requirement.

Well ok, the Ussuran lawman is definitely the only really odd one.

@kviiri If you don't have a main storyline and the characters stories are the storyline, then you mostly need to create threads tying them together. You can have parts of sessions focus on one character's story (but require actions/involvement that only the other characters can do) in order for that character to meet their milestone.

But TBH while our policy to not have lengthy back stories was mostly intended for DnD, I think it's pretty applicable elsewhere too. A finely crafted back story for a character may be a finely crafted story, but the point is not just to make a story but to make one together.

@kviiri I tell my players to have a 1-3 sentence backstory that includes the character description

@MikeQ We usually have a "half an A4" upper bound ("no back story" I mentioned earlier was a dramatic exaggeration :P)

That way they start the game with a concept in mind, but it's not so deep that they'll hyperfocus on their individual sideplots and motives

But I think the important bit is that the players should consider not only who their character is, but how they relate to the others. The Swahili proverb mtu ni watu, roughly translated "a person is people", applies here.

and no trying to justify antagonistic behavior with "Didn't you guys read my 3-page character biography? It explains all the bad stuff that happened to my edgelord character and why they would act this way.", which I have seen before

@kviiri A session 0 would really help here. Let the players give input on how they think their character stories can interact

@MikeQ Agreed. I think you're right that I should push for one, so I told my players we'll be having one or at very least do the IRC thing properly instead of a constant stream of low-intensity chargenning.

@kviiri Right, for 7th Sea there is more emphasis on building their character backstories, because it's kind of a story-driven game

Yea

But with that, I wish they won't forget the shared part.

For other games, though, I find that if players assume that you expect a very long backstory, they will either powergame it (have a very complex biography that will justify any "my guy"ing later, or be so detailed that it detracts from the rest of the game) or get overwhelmed and provide nothing (and play as blank adventurer #18934)

@kviiri that's where I think you can play a part. A player's story may have the spotlight, but it doesn't mean that the other players acn't actually be the spotlight for the action.

but I digress. The issue is you have a story-driven game and one of the characters (the lawman) is kind of the odd one out. So while I can think of plenty of interesting hooks and imposed motives to give them, I have no idea what sort of character arc they want to play. So the players themselves will need to provide input on that.

@Rubiksmoose That's my reading. You give in, your alignment changes and you can change at will. You don't give in, you remain your alignment when humanoid and only change during the full moon.

And during that full moon time, it's more than likely that they are not in control of their character.

@NautArch What about "With time and experience..." do you think that implies that they don't get the ability right away RAW?

@Rubiksmoose Hmmm. That does seem to be the implication. But that is also a very loose requirement. It could be a day, it could be a year.

@NautArch Yeah it is all a little weird how they lay it out and state it.

@MikeQ What makes that character different? You dn't see a way to tie them into the other stories?

@MikeQ Whoops, that should have gone to @kviiri.

@NautArch Well, the rest of the group is a foreign spy, a revolutionary and a pirate... in DnD terms, they're Lawful in a very decidedly Chaotic party :)

@kviiri What's the story goal for this lawman?

@NautArch They're hunting for a thief who fled Ussura with a precious object. The player insisted that I determine the nature of this object without telling him even though I'm more in favor of him deciding himself, lest I come up with something he doesn't enjoy.

So I baked in a little change of heart story in there, by having the thief be from the anti-war secret society Skara and the stolen item is a bunch of strategic maps that'd help Ussura invade Eisen in the event of a future war.

I really would've preferred the player to review this first, but if they want to keep it a surprise then I guess they shall :|

@kviiri is there a way to tie the thief or the object in to another character's story?

@NautArch Not really

I did offer them the alternative of having more shared stories, but they wanted to try this model out first and I think it's overall a good idea to run strange things by the book in case they actually work out. (:

@kviiri OK - but I'm a believer that there's always a way :)

I guess I was alone on this one and too picky?

@NautArch It's broad but I've seen similarly-structured questions and answers

@MikeQ fair enough :)

@kviiri Having done something like this before, I fully believe that your player is trying to push story-building to you because they think it's "DM's work". And it almost always causes problems, minor or major.

@Yuuki You might be right

Being on both sides of the screen, even just for mostly one-shots as a DM, I have leaned far back away from "hey, DM surprise me".

I'm really frustrated with the rigidity of the paradigm these guys are in

Learning from my mistakes and misconceptions, narrative and overarching plot should always be done collaboratively.

@Yuuki Yeah, "no gotchas" is a big part of my personal GM creed.

This thing here would be too benevolent to count as a gotcha, but it still rubs me wrong.

I feel like players go into D&D with this idea that improv is the best way to play. I used to think that too.

@MikeQ Just makes the answer kinda weird. Are they answering for Scrying? Or Charm spells? Or CC spells? Looking for always-on effects or acute needs?

@Yuuki What do you mean?

Like it feels like I went into my first game thinking that the best way to create your character is to act how they would naturally and spontaneously, right? The problem is that kind of acting and roleplay requires years of experience that I, and most new players, just don't have.

@NautArch Yes the scrying bit seems irrelevant

Most people can't immerse themselves so deep into a role or character that they can behave differently spontaneously.

@Yuuki Nah, D&D is basically just improv comedy club, with more dice

Especially if you haven't really fleshed out that character. It's hard to "become" someone if you don't know who that someone is.

Nonsense. It's easy to play as Edgy McSwordGuy

@MikeQ Or Dummy McRageFace

@Yuuki Yea well, improv works for many things but it's hardly optimal for everything

And if your character is chaotic neutral, obviously that means you have to betray the rest of the party at every moment, or randomly murder quest NPCs, even if it doesn't benefit you in any way

And if you're lawful good, that means you should constantly judge your peers and lambast them whenever they do anything other than heal you

@MikeQ Or do something lolrandoom

@NautArch I think that third one is really not that related.

@MikeQ @kviiri I was actually thinking of this with the Lawful Lawman.

(IMO)

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I think it's probably not that related, but it's about whether or not there's a visible effect. But someone else seeing/knowing it vs the person under it seeing/knowing is a different case, but it could still contribute to help someone come up with an answer.

Decided it wasn't helpful :)

@NautArch At least he's serving a foreign country so his laws don't need to apply at all times x)

Screw this I'm asking the Texas Ranger's player to do his work and decide on the item

@kviiri How specific does he need to be?

Is there any reason his backstory can't be something like, his superiors told him to capture this thief and retrieve the macguffin. So maybe he doesn't know what the macguffin does, but was given some superficial description in order to identify it.

@MikeQ The book instructs writing the story's ending, as a single third person sentence, so it kinda depends on how the player wants to wrap it up. Find the item and return it to Ussura, find the item and decide to keep it, find the item and deliver it to an agent etc.

Find the item and transcend reality to become a multiverse-conquering eldritch abomination.

It's the Necronomicon

it has the power to make its way into any tabletop campaign, regardless of system or setting

It's a cadbury egg from before they started making them smaller.

Oh, another question: they mentioned "The Alchemical Compass" which is some kind of a Clarke's Third Law artifact from way before mankind (like the Apples in Assassin's Creed). I think it's function is left up to the GM. Ideas are welcome!

It's a copy of a misprinted book: The Berenstein Bears.

So far, I've got this: it opens temporary portals good for teleportation, with the destination based on a mixture of mercury, sulfur and salt using a formula whose workings are pretty much impossible to solve analytically. Luckily whoever had it before included a small notebook containing the coordinates to some major towns whose mixture ratios they discovered by accident.

@kviiri what are the stories from the other characters (yes, i'm going back to trying to tie stories together)

@NautArch The guy playing the revolutionary hasn't got any idea, the femme fatale is going to steal a secret document for the Vendel league and the Highlander is going to become a Knight of Avalon, probably through monster hunting.

@kviiri why not have the secret document be the same thing the lawman is recovering?

Steal a secret document that someone else already stole?

@Yuuki won't somebody think of the children intrigue?!

@NautArch That'd screw up with the rules too much

@kviiri really? Why/How?

@NautArch Because Stories are not just "find this item" but the entire arc that culminates in the PC finding that item. It'd defeat the purpose to have the item found by accident by following someone else's story.

Why can't finding the item be the mid-point of the Story?

@kviiri Oh - not what I meant. If both of their goals match - why not have them discover that and work together to do so?

@Yuuki Of course it can, but the player chooses

If gunpowder tech is considered a rarity, maybe the item is Chekov's Gun

Or a magical blade called Occam's Razor, which does extra damage against assumptions

Or a book of legal statutes called Murphy's Law.

Or Newton's flaming laser sword

@MikeQ Can I make it keen?

@Yuuki Yes, except instead of multiplying the damage by x2 on a crit, you multiply it by itself. It has a x^2 multiplier.

Oh, so not like this?

@Yuuki No, that would be considered a double weapon, which is stylistically cool but mechanically inefficient

Hm, this sounds like the type of silly campaign quest I would make. The PCs have to collect all the philosophy-themed macguffins: Chekov's Gun, Occam's Razor, Russell's teapot, Shroedinger's Cat, etc.

You have found and not found a cat.

Undead cat familiar with a permanent Blink effect

Please do not look at your character sheet as this will alter the outcome.

Chekov's Gun isn't philosophic, it's narrative design.

@Yuuki Yes, the philosophy of narrative design

This is why nobody likes philosophers.

We also need an NPC or faction whose coat of arms include a red herring

@MikeQ There also needs to be a legendary item that is literally a coat made of arms.

@Yuuki are we making a discworld campaign?

The Buff Banner

Depends. Is there a long-forgotten language and its only remaining example is a giant word scrawled on the top of a mountain? And the protagonist gains nigh-omnipotence once he finds out that this mysterious word, "France", is just a name for a slice of salted pork belly?

The moral of the story? "Knowledge is power, France is bacon".

I'm tempted to flag that as offensive, because it offends my sensibilities

@MikeQ How dare you, at no point during that story did I mention walls or barriers. There's no way it could be construed as "a fence-if".

As a ghost would say, "Boooooo"

@Yuuki I don't think “tiny bit of” cuts it :)

@MikeQ Dungeons & Discourse for more puns? Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophers? for more philosophy?

@Anaphory i like the idea of that second one's title canonically ending in a question mark

@doppelgreener It's definitely that and not me making a typo.

@Yuuki well, also, to be more charitable, speculation is that it seemed he feared he was beginning to go senile, and he dreaded losing his mind and was looking for a dignified way to go out.

but nobody likes moral philosophy professors

Name tents!

@BESW Beautiful!

@doppelgreener Except Chidi Anagonye. We love Chidi.

@BESW beautiful

@BESW Yes. :D

In Fate Accelerated, if someone fails a “Sneaky” roll, does that mean they were not sneaky enough, or does that mean they were sneaky, but did not succeed at what they wanted to? (Oh, might this actually be a mainsite question? I should try.)

@Anaphory What action was it?

And what was it they were doing?

@doppelgreener I'm not sure, I'm trying to get a consistent set of rules into my head in preparation for a game in the future.

The Actions section indicates what happens.

@doppelgreener Mechanically, but not narratively.

Hello all

Right. So, we need a narrative input to get a narrative output. Failure generally means you don't get what you want, or you get what you want but at a cost (minor or serious cost depending on how badly you failed).

@N.A. Hi, welcome!

Thanks @doppelgreener, how are you?

If I'm trying to sneak through a room, that's an overcome. Failure either means I'm found out (straight-up fail), or I get stuck and have to ditch something to get unstuck (cost), or I make a noise by dropping something and now someone wants to find out what that noise is but hasn't yet discovered me (cost).

@doppelgreener Or you get somewhere else, but don't get found out (ie. you were sneakily enough to not be found out, but still didn't succeed).

Right. You're trying to sneak up onto the roof, but you made a mistake -- turns out you didn't bring enough rope for your grappling hook -- and now you have to climb in through the balcony instead.

@doppelgreener Exactly. So, if I fail at sneakily climbing on the roof, should the narration be that I wasn't sneaky and therefore not successful, or that I was sneaky, but I wasn't careful (etc.) and therefore not successful?

Failure means you're experiencing a setback and not getting what you wanted, or if you are, you're getting it at a significant cost (whether minor or serious cost, it should matter to the character and the player).

Is this a good place to ask about question-asking etiquette?

@Anaphory If you are a master ninja, it doesn't makes sense you can't be sneaky. You're competent enough at being sneaky. But because of your competency, you saw guards altering their shifts and had to adjust and hide elsewhere, and know you can't reach your goal yet, or must do so by using up some of your equipment you were saving for later.

@N.A. Yes, this is a fine place for that. You may also ask on our meta site about asking etiquette if you'd like. (Meta is where we discuss policy, and provide support on using the site itself.)

Oh, it's far from a unique question

@Anaphory Meanwhile if I am some two-bit thug, it makes plenty of sense that if I fail at being sneaky, it's because I didn't sneak very well and I kicked a pipe and someone saw me in plain sight and now I am found out.

I was just pleased at the reception that my first question got, and enjoyed reading the discussion about it. It has been brought to my attention though that it was pretty broad, and I would also like to receive perhaps more specific guidance on what steps I could take in GMing. I don't think updating the question is an appropriate step here, no?

@Anaphory Of course, being some two-bit thug sneaking into a rival gang's hide-out I could've paid a serious cost of shooting the people who would've found me. Now absolutely everyone nearby has heard gunshots and if someone found out it was me that did it I'm in some serious crap from the gang and, if they don't get to me, maybe the police.

So my plan on sneaking in without anybody noticing has completely fallen apart now at that point because of the cost I paid to not get spotted (by anyone alive).

@N.A. Looking at it, it's probably best to leave it as-is right now. If you want more specific advice you can follow it up asking about your system.

You can reference your previous question and specific solutions offered. (If you're not aware, you can click the "share" link at the bottom left of any question or answer to get a direct link to that post.)

@doppelgreener Okay, it makes sense now that it does indeed depend on circumstances and is extremely generalizable. I was just thinking that finding a general rule might be able to push people towards using their worse approaches – “I know I'm awful at sneaking, but being stealthy is a priority here, so I will use it anyway, because I know if I fail it won't be due to that” like. You have convinced me that doesn't and shouldn't work.

(Convoluted post is convoluted.)

In general people will mostly stick with what they're good at because, well, that is how people do things. I stick to what I'm good at as well, and try to resolve situations using methods I am good at rather than methods I am bad at.

So that means people will prioritise their +2 and +3 approaches, and rarely if ever use their +1 and +0 approaches.

But that is OK.

Obviously, and I read that answer of yours before. Essentially, I was thinking how to “Make the narration matter”, but not thinking it through well enough.

Narration matters so much.

Narration alone will drive 90% of your game, with Fate mechanics just being a reference point for "so how's that work out?".

(with the caveat that compels should have teeth, and rolls should only be made when any given outcome would be interesting)

Those are things I know in principle, but still need to internalize.

You'll make mistakes with them and that's ok.

Compels especially can help drive the story along in interesting ways.

It is an entirely viable variant to use only aspects and fate points.

(albeit mostly just suited as a crash course for how much weight those mechanics alone can pull)

A friend of mine typically opens stories by compelling at least one of the characters.

@BESW why,.... is this a thing?

@trogdor Cut along the middle line, fold on all the other lines, tape the ends together and you've got triangle namecards with the name and blurb on both sides. That way the players can remember who each other is easily.

@doppelgreener lol certain philosophers would also approve

@BESW ooooooh

clever

They're gonna give me a little mike time with the MC at the beginning of the day, to pitch my table.

cool

not that I would personally be thrilled to have to do that

but still cool

I universally dread MC banter.

I don't blame you

Okay, I think this is the final:

I decided @nitsua60 is right, it's important to keep the title all on one line because the different fonts make it harder to parse on two lines; and the pitch needs to be centered because I don't know how their easel frame works and it's likely to cover up the edges.

And adding a verb helps the flow from title to pitch, and mirrors the old-timey playfulness with text that the crawl uses.

(It's the same "in which..." meta-textual awareness where the author treats two different structural elements as semantically connected because they know the audience will be reading them sequentially.)

mm

ie:

what a woolly wise man

"In Which Cimorene is Polite to a Dragon" only makes sense grammatically if you treat it and the "CHAPTER 2" as part of a single sentence rather than (as is more standard) two separate ways of labeling the same thing.

And I'll just buy some big white label stickers to slap on the poster with time/table info.