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Pixie
Pixie
1:58 AM
Dungeonographer's random feature is useful, but the ages are kind of hilarious. 3 and 5 year old private guards and merchants, human and halfling "children" and "teens" in their 30s-50s. :P
 
trogdor
trogdor
I am 5 and what is this?
A guard uniform in the size of a human adult? For me? You shouldn't have
No really why did you do this thing? XD
 
Pixie
Pixie
Likely my favorite from this batch:
 
trogdor
trogdor
Lol
 
Pixie
Pixie
Opinionated and diligent 3 year old guard is kind of an adorable mental image.
He will not eat peas, but you won't find him slacking off on his rounds, no sir.
 
trogdor
trogdor
Lol
I already like this guy's styly
You'll go far kid,... Err sorry that was very age-ist of me
XD
I guess that's just what you get when your random generator has no set parameters
Like not having a minimum age for a job built in
 
Pixie
Pixie
2:22 AM
Heh, yes.
 
The Oracle
The Oracle
3:11 AM
2
Q: Is the question about the origin of "Waterdhavian" on-topic?

RubiksmooseThe question at hand: In-universe, why is "Waterdhavian" the adjective form of Waterdeep? This question seems to be a a designer intent question (which are off topic) or at the very least very close to one. It does not fit the definition perfectly because it is not asking about the origin of why...

discussion on-topic specific-question
 
 
1 hour later…
kviiri
kviiri
4:32 AM
@KorvinStarmast Gorilla tavataan, among the folk of the zoo.
 
trogdor
trogdor
4:43 AM
Godzilla tavataan in Japan (I have no idea what this is)
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:02 AM
"Torilla tavataan" roughly means "Everyone meet at the town square" and is used both seriously and facetiously when someone Finnish does something notable, like Matumbaman rocking it in the Internationals :)
 
trogdor
trogdor
Ooooh ok
That's fantastic
I don't know if we have a phrase like that for Guam
We should though
Every time we make the news for something positive it's worth celebrating
It's extremely rare
 
kviiri
kviiri
Yea, there aren't too many of you, the odds are stacked against you :(
 
trogdor
trogdor
Heck we hardly get into international news even for bad stuff like Typhoons or U.S politicians saying extremely insensitive and uninformed BS about us
@kviiri true
I think it's more than that too but that is a big factor
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:18 AM
Yeah
I don't think many people here know Guam even exists. Many people think even Puerto Rico is just a normal country
 
trogdor
trogdor
Mm I admit that at one time I also thought Puerto Rico was just a country
But I think the U.S has a vested interest in people either not knowing or not thinking about it "territories"
 
kviiri
kviiri
I used to think Europe was a country. Despite living there for most of my life :)
 
trogdor
trogdor
In quotes because they're basically just colonies by another name
@kviiri lol
Strangely I never did
The first time I learned of Europe it was very clear that it was a name for a large geographic area
Not a specific country
There was a short time in which I thought Africa was a country though
That would be one biiiig country
 
kviiri
kviiri
I think my first globe was one of those that were produced shortly before USSR collapsed
 
trogdor
trogdor
And of course there are just so many separate counties there
@kviiri ah so USSR right?
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:25 AM
The mapmakers just changed "Soviet Union" to "Former Soviet Union" instead of redrawing everything
 
trogdor
trogdor
Looks like one big country, is not
XD
@kviiri lol
How lazy
 
kviiri
kviiri
Maps can get obsolete quite fast when large, oppressive regimes collapse
 
trogdor
trogdor
Too true, how inconsiderate of them :P
XD
 
kviiri
kviiri
Yep
I was born just a couple of weeks before the USSR formally dissolved. Not trying to take any credit here but... :)
 
trogdor
trogdor
Hehehe
I didn't realize I was in the online presence of a hero
XP
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:34 AM
 
trogdor
trogdor
Ah cool
 
kviiri
kviiri
5:50 AM
That's really cool stuff
One of the biggest, if not the biggest bloodless revolution
 
kviiri
kviiri
6:07 AM
Aww, a coworker came to my desk asking about my Linux installation as if it was the most exotic thing ever :3 (to be fair, it might've been to her)
 
trogdor
trogdor
6:27 AM
Linux is still a bit of a mystery to me
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
Linux is a mystery to most people
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
6:53 AM
Note: always report Tome Fire to your gynecologist. Thanks spam.
 
 
1 hour later…
kviiri
kviiri
8:16 AM
Impressive amount of spam this morning
 
trogdor
trogdor
we have had more some days
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
Cue Monty Python "Spam" in my head.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
9:01 AM
This is about average compared to the last 2 weeks in fact. Something of a spam campaign has started up here and Charcoal HQ has been helping keeping it deleted within seconds or minutes of being posted.
 
trogdor
trogdor
9:15 AM
burn it all down
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
9:28 AM
@trogdor The first instinct of every PC when encountering a problem of any kind.
 
trogdor
trogdor
lol
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
10:18 AM
@Secespitus now that's just unfair
they'd at least pause to assess whether there's loot first, so as to avoid burning those parts down
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
@doppelgreener I can assure you not
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@doppelgreener If it can be burned down it's non-magical, so chances are it's not that valuable
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
Once our rogue fired a firey arrow to the hay roof of a shop so that he could enter it and rob something while villagesmen tried to douse the fire.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
If fire doesn't solve your problem you are not using enough of it.
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
It turned out to be the shop of the friendly NPC that they freed from bandits, in which house all the valuable goods of the party were stashed. The house was above the shop, of course.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
10:27 AM
@Secespitus hmmmmm fair point
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
In fact, it's easier and faster to simply pick the stuff that still stands after the fire. No need to go through piles of copper pieces and "art" while burning your spell slots or time on Identify to get to the magical stuff.
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
@Secespitus goodbye, glass vials and scrolls.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Zachiel Are spell scrolls magical for the purpose of determining whether they can normally be destroyed?
You might have found a weakness in my argumentation... which is great for nudging my players in a different direction in the next session :D
 
Sdjz
Sdjz
@Secespitus DMG p.141 on Magic item resilience "Most magic items, other than potions and scrolls, have resistance to all damage" so yes they are magical but not that tough to destroy. Scrolls would probably burn easily.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Sdjz Thanks, that's what I was looking for!
The store was in fact a library full of ancient secrets and vast amounts of spell scrolls - which apparently make for a nice camping fire...
 
 
2 hours later…
BESW
BESW
12:42 PM
Character concept: Olivia Mutant-John.
 
Nzall
Nzall
1:07 PM
Do we have a guide on what material you need to start with for D&D 5e?
like, which books
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Nzall Do you mean a question that says "SRD - it's free. And if that's not enough the LMoP Starter Guide. And if that's not enough PHB, DMG and MM."?
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
 
Carcer
Carcer
there's almost certanly been questions to that effect
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
the closest is:
33
Q: I'm completely new to D&D. How do I get started with the D&D Starter Set?

DarrenI picked up the Dungeons & Dragons 5e Starter Set for my 9 year old for Christmas. That is where I'm at. All I've done. I've never played the game before and am totally new. I am pretty sure I will be the DM who introduces this game to my son and a couple of his buddies. Questions: What do I n...

dnd-5e new-gm system-introduction
but that's not "what material do i need", it's "i have this material, what do i do now"
 
Nzall
Nzall
Essentially, I want to start playing D&D with my brother
 
Carcer
Carcer
1:10 PM
22
Q: What do I need to run a 5E campaign?

SkeithI have GM'd several RPGs before that are not D&D (Fate, Deathwatch, Star Wars). We first tried to play D&D using the 3.5 edition and it went horribly — too many books and too many options with no idea of where to start. I have been told that 5E takes care of all that and is easier and more fun s...

dnd-5e new-players books
 
Nzall
Nzall
but I don't yet have any 5e books
 
Carcer
Carcer
this question seems to address your situation.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Nzall The basic rules are free and online.
 
Nzall
Nzall
@Secespitus ah, really? do you have a link?
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
 
Carcer
Carcer
1:12 PM
dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules also exists as a web-based resource - all the basic rules content is freely visible, but the site also hosts a lot of not-free content you'd need to sign up and pay to view
 
Nzall
Nzall
Okay, bookmarked both
 
Carcer
Carcer
it's definitely enough to run the game on, though the way the material is laid out in the actual books is probably a bit easier to digest for a first-time introduction
 
The Oracle
The Oracle
0
Q: What is an acceptable form for a "no" answer to a question of the form "Does X exist in the lore?"

screamlineThis question asks whether there is an "in-universe" explanation for a particular piece of lore in a particular setting. Note that there is already a meta question about the question's topicality. The appropriateness of the question aside, how does one provide an acceptable answer to such a quest...

discussion
 
Nzall
Nzall
@Carcer I think I'm first going to try the starter kits before I drop a multiple of 40 EUR on the books
I first need to find my dice again
 
Carcer
Carcer
that's fair enough. If only you could preview books, eh?
 
Nzall
Nzall
1:24 PM
Those dice are hard to find... I'll have to look some more tomorrow
Probably clean out those 4 shelves of random crap left over from renovation
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Nzall If you can't find any you could use dice rollers on the internet/ an app for the first game.
 
Nzall
Nzall
@Secespitus Yeah, that's also a good solution
 
kviiri
kviiri
1:37 PM
@Nzall There's also many cheaper or free RPGs out there, if you don't need it to be specifically DnD
People in this chat may have good recommendations :)
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
@Carcer [adds system-introduction tag]
 
BESW
BESW
Yeah, especially for a two-person group, D&D is going to take a lot of customizing to make it really work smoothly.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@kviiri I'd add "easier" in case you are searching for something that does not need three tomes for the basics.
 
BESW
BESW
There are several games that are designed specifically for two-person play, and even more that work fine at that number where D&D struggles.
For free, fast-to-learn, two-player-compatible, I'd have to recommend Fate Accelerated. If you like it, the Fate system has a lot more complexity you can introduce as you like, and it comes with a lot of free pre-made settings/scenarios in lots of different flavors.
 
Carcer
Carcer
@doppelgreener makes sense.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
1:46 PM
@Carcer thanks for finding that :D
 
kviiri
kviiri
@Secespitus definitely seconded
 
Carcer
Carcer
@doppelgreener will be honest - I've repeatedly found that simply googling "rpg stackexchange X" produces much more useful results that actually using the SE search for X
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
@Carcer yeah, that's what i find sometimes too.
 
Carcer
Carcer
search is hard and I've never seen a site which indexes their own content better than google does unless it's super specialised
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Carcer Well, most sites have a different focus than "indexing stuff", like "providing a framework for people to collaborate", while google is really just about "indexing stuff". It makes sense that they are pretty darn good at it.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
1:49 PM
yeah :P google has set everyone's standard for how good a search engine should be
and they set that standard to "super-advanced cutting-edge mind-bogglingly good to the point they literally have multiple super-specialised AIs running it"
where most sites are "... we'll... find articles... that have those words people enter in them? and some synonyms?"
 
Carcer
Carcer
oh, you want some tags? Phew, we can do tags. Here's all the content... that was tagged properly!
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Carcer As long as all humans that created a free online account to talk with others perfectly and correctly tag everything according to the newest set of rules that a subset of them decided on it should work fine most of the time.
 
Carcer
Carcer
@Secespitus And also assuming your system of tags is actually a useful way of distinguishing between content for the type of search you're trying to do!
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Carcer Also assuming that the searching user knows how your tagging works, especially in cases where certain characters can't be used in tags or the name of something exceeds the character limit, and that they perfectly write every tag and search query without any typo ever.
 
Carcer
Carcer
@Secespitus this problem sounds too hard. Can we just get google to do it?
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
2:03 PM
@Carcer We probably could. But that would cost us money.
 
BESW
BESW
And then you'll have to adjust your searching technique in accordance with their algorithm's evolving interpretation of the constantly-changing norms that shift in response to demographic shifts and the population's interaction with those same algorithms.
 
Carcer
Carcer
no, they have this great model where you just deal with advertising and don't pay.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
OR: We leave it up to users to realize that google does this automagically and they simply use google for that.
 
BESW
BESW
Also there's the "gave up trying not to be evil" thing.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@BESW A basic instinct of every PC after a few sessions.
 
BESW
BESW
2:06 PM
....And that's why we need to get D&D out of the spotlight.
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
"I didn't mean to burn down everything! Really. It was just... kinda... in my way, you know?"
 
BESW
BESW
(Seriously though, five years ago Google couldn't handle sentence syntax in queries; it'd respond with garbage because the connecting words confused it. Now you get better results with sentence syntax than without.)
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@BESW It's interesting to see how it all evolves. And at times a bit frightening to imagine how it will evolve in the future.
 
BESW
BESW
I just wish the people applying AI technology were the same people creating AI technology, because Weizenbaum's still not wrong.
For all its flaws, the Stack tagging system is explicit about its goals and processes, what it's doing and why and how, and there's public debate about what to do in response to shifts in how the community interacts with the system.
That transparency is valuable because it provides actionable learning which can be generalized to non-Stack contexts as well.
The locus of control is visible and interactive.
Google's locus of control is invisible and reactive.
Which is the point, it's part of their mission statement, it's the Clippy Principle.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
2:32 PM
what's the clippy principle?
 
BESW
BESW
Remove the locus of control from the user by creating programs which guess what the user will want and do it for them without asking.
The goal is a program which appears to anticipate the user's wants and needs before the user is even conscious of them.
I believe Google statements have used the word "mind-reading" to describe the effect they're going for.
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
2:49 PM
gotcha
 
SPavel
SPavel
3:10 PM
"We had a Centaur heal mage/epidemiologist. Yes, he was the centaur for disease control."
5
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
@SPavel cent-ar?
I'm trying to figure out every possible way to increase the effectiveness of a D&D 3.5e monster without increasing its CR - pointless, I know, but it makes me happy while also not being fit for a Q on main.
That's what I got to this moment: add HD just short of what is needed to reach the next CR increase; add XP just shy of next level and let the character spend it; LA +0 templates; having visited magical locations that give feats and other buffs.
@Carcer I have a site with a search. Tags are just more words that the search searches into.
 
Zachiel
Zachiel
3:36 PM
Facing two enemies, the DM rolls 18d20. What the- oh, it's a dispel.
 
 
2 hours later…
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
5:25 PM
@SPavel Thanks for that little grin this morning.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
6:04 PM
@Zachiel One method you could do, if you're just trying to be a jerk to the players while still keeping the CR the same, is the change the geography to the monster's favor. Bottlenecked tunnel when he has a line attack. Difficult terrain if it's ranged. Heavy winds if it's melee (so that ranged attacks have penalties), and fog if it doesn't use magic (so the vision of player spellcasters is reduced)
 
 
2 hours later…
kviiri
kviiri
8:27 PM
After spending a long long time refining my toolchain, I can now say with a reasonable degree of certainty that I have produced a science.
Seeing that the script works, it is my intent to leave the script running on a cluster and have it produce hundreds of sciences overnight.
 
GreySage
GreySage
@kviiri SCIENCE!
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
@kviiri How do you count sciences? Is it just 1 science, 2 science, etc. Or is there a counting word. Like 1 loaf of science.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Anyone remember, off the top of their head, what subclasses are in the free, basic rules?
for DnD 5e?
 
BESW
BESW
@Rubiksmoose 1 science, 2 science; red science, blue science.
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
@BESW of course science would have an irregular counting word. ;)
 
kviiri
kviiri
8:33 PM
@Rubiksmoose I have 2³⁰ problems (≃ 1 billion short scale) I want to solve or declare possibly unsolvable, each solution / unsolution is 1 science.
 
GreySage
GreySage
@Rubiksmoose An ology of sciences
 
Rubiksmoose
Rubiksmoose
@kviiri So what you are saying is: You have 2³⁰ problems (≃ 1 billion short scale) problems but a science ain't one?
 
Carcer
Carcer
did the site font change?
 
kviiri
kviiri
@Rubiksmoose exactly
 
Carcer
Carcer
it looks different all of a sudden
 
The Oracle
The Oracle
9:02 PM
0
Q: Answer or Comment?

PaulSo, this has happened to me multiple times now, and to be honest it's getting frustrating as a casual user of this particular SE (especially since the judgements seem less cut-and-dried than other SE's I'm on). I have a really hard time figuring out whether a partial answer should be a comment ...

discussion
 
GreySage
GreySage
9:18 PM
Today I learned we have a tag for [wall]
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@DanielZastoupil Rogue/Thief, Fighter/Champion, Wizard/Evoker, Cleric/Life
@DanielZastoupil That is carried over into the SRD, and (from memory) Bard/Lore, Barbarian/Beserker, Druid/Circle of Land, Monk/Way of Open Hand, Paladin/Devotion, Ranger / Hunter, Sorcerer / Draconic, Warlock/Fiend
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
@KorvinStarmast Thank you! That kinda sucks, though.
All the most boring subclasses. Champion Fighter, Healer Cleric, Thief Rogue.
 
GreySage
GreySage
@DanielZastoupil I think that is somewhat intentional
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Evocation Wizard is also pretty boring, I guess. It just happens to do well in combat.
Any decent suggestions as to what a Thief Rogue could use the Use an Object action as a bonus action for?
There's not going to be too many instances where someone would need to disarm a trap or pull a lever the same turn they're using their main action during combat.
Unless, maybe to do the same thing twice in the same turn. Like disarming a trap.
 
GreySage
GreySage
9:38 PM
@DanielZastoupil Drinking tons and tons of antitoxins
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
@GreySage Apparently
Clearly not that good at disarming poison traps.
"Shoulda rolled a Dwarf"
Hmm...there's something I don't really get.
I would assume that most Sleight of Hand checks don't require an action. They seem quick enough.
Like, if I were going to try and cut you with a blade up my sleeve, I wouldn't think it would require an action for the sleight of hand and a second action for the attack.
But the Thief level 3 ability says that Sleight of Hand checks are one thing you can do as a bonus action.
Does this mean that most sleight of hand checks should be requiring an action?
Or that, in general, I can choose to spend a bonus action to do a sleight of hand check rather than whatever the normal cost is, (whether that's a normal action or otherwise)?
 
GreySage
GreySage
@DanielZastoupil In general, a check isn't an action ever. Sometimes actions require you to make a check to succeed. I assume that the feature meant that actions which require Slight of Hand checks to succeed, can also be done by using a bonus action.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
@GreySage Then if someone tried to do something, like swiping something important off the floor, and the player says "I use my action to grab that thing", and the DM says "Alright, use a sleight of hand check", does that mean the player could retcon his main action use for a bonus action?
 
GreySage
GreySage
@DanielZastoupil Probably? It all comes down to your DM, since they are all improvised actions.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
9:55 PM
Even if it wasn't improvised, like if I wanted to plant something on someone, I feel like it'd be the same question.
 
BESW
BESW
That's a playstyle choice: how does your group negotiate the translation of player intent to mechanical expression? Does the GM take the player's statements literally, or act as a medium between the player and the rules, or facilitate a dialogue?
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Mostly literally, unfortunately.
But preemptively stating I'm using a bonus action for a sleight of hand check seems to contradict how skills are supposed to be used.
And if it's out of combat, when action economy isn't important, then the entire feature doesn't matter in the first place, as is whether it's a bonus action or not.
 
BESW
BESW
My impression of 5e is that it's designed assuming the GM takes on an interpretive role, acting as medium.
 
Yuuki
Yuuki
Hmm... next time I DM, I should open with a seance then.
"We call upon the spirit of Crawford..."
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
@Yuuki Curse of Strahd starts with a Tarot card reading to determine how the campaign goes for the players.
So...yeah? Kinda?
What's more interesting about that is that the reading itself doesn't seem optional. Showing it to your players is.
At least, from what I remember about it.
Back to the whole sleight of hand thing, I'm trying to wrack my brain as to how to actually use the darn thing.
Same with Investigation.
The skills are there, and there's some reasons to use them, but they almost always rely on other skill rolls.
Where the skills they rely on generally can be rolled by themselves.
 
BESW
BESW
10:05 PM
I assume that 5e doesn't really follow through with 4e's "skill challenge as part of combat setpiece" breakthrough?
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
I don't remember that about 4e. Could you elaborate?
 
BESW
BESW
4e had skill challenges, a formal structure for dramatically resolving complex non-combat obstacles using a series of different kinds of skill checks made by the entire party. It reduced the swingy randomness of relying on a single d20 roll for an important outcome, and let the entire party participate creatively rather than standing around while the one person with the highest rank in a skill got the spotlight.
 
GreySage
GreySage
@BESW Not as far as I've seen
 
BESW
BESW
Mathematically it was awful, but the concept was sound and there are a number of fan hacks which made it quite nice (I used Stalker0's modifications).
And one of the coolest ways to use a skill challenge, I found, was to integrate it into a combat setpiece.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
And how does Stalker0 do it?
 
BESW
BESW
10:10 PM
Stalker0 mostly just fiddled with the math to make it do what the original design had intended, and added a few extra bits to make sure everyone had tactically interesting things to do.
But what I'm talking about in relation to your using-skill-actions query, is using the skill challenge concept to give structure and direction to a physical conflict.
Often in D&D, combat is pretty flat because it's got one goal: defeat the enemies before they defeat you.
Skill challenges are a good way to mechanize alternative goals and make them tactical.
Instead of having "everyone on one side is defeated" be the trigger for ending the conflict, have something more interesting going on.
Maybe one side is using a skill challenge to complete a ritual and the other side wants to stop it.
Or both are competing to finish the ritual first.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
I could see about trying to convert something like that to 5e, but there are a number of difficulties I see.
 
BESW
BESW
Maybe you've got a really really powerful enemy who you know you can't defeat, but you have to hold him off while completing a skill challenge to revive the guy who knows the teleport spell so you can all escape.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
The main one being that hit die, the universal resource, is fairly untouchable in 5e. It was common to expend in 4e, especially with healers, but in 5e it's barely referenced.
 
BESW
BESW
You mean healing surges? Yeah.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Yeah, sorry.
I could still use something like that, though. Using them could help players who otherwise end up wasting them.
 
BESW
BESW
10:18 PM
Aye.
Or you could use a more Fate-like approach and model your mechanic off challenges and contests.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Beefy fighters who use their hit die to heal won't have much energy left to do challenges (likely are focused on fighting anyway) while the wizards and rangers "exert" themselves during skill challenges since they're well rested and uninjured throughout the day.
My one gripe about it is the fact that it leaves it all out in the open.
 
BESW
BESW
Not sure what you mean by that.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
5E keeps a lot of stuff hidden, to try and make things interesting.
 
BESW
BESW
Ah, yeah.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
But for something like that, it's very goal oriented. You know what to do, you know what you should try to do, you know what the result is.
 
BESW
BESW
10:22 PM
I know it's a popular attitude, but my experience leads me to strongly disagree with that philosophy.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
It works for 4e, since it's not about secret stuff. It's very upfront.
"Here's a problem, here's the solution"
 
BESW
BESW
I've found that players are more engaged, more interested, and come up with cooler stuff to do, when they know what's going on that their characters don't, AND when they know what mechanical actions will be more or less effective.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
5E tries to make you come up with your own solutions. Which means that the goals can't be set in stone.
 
BESW
BESW
And that's true even/especially of games where the "point" of the game is characters uncovering a mystery.
Like, Bubblegumshoe is an investigative system where the interesting stuff isn't solving the mystery: it's deciding what to DO about what you learn.
Or in Fate, where we had a whole adventure in which one of the PCs had been replaced by the main villain of the adventure and everyone at the TABLE knew but nobody in the PARTY did.
If I'd kept that replacement a secret we would've had one "wow" moment when it was revealed.
Instead we spent the entire adventure chortling about the dramatic situation, having fun teasing a reveal to the characters but walking away from it at the last minute, reveling in the ironies and character moments it provided.
If you're worried about presenting a skill challenge's structure as fait accompli, yeah, that's totally valid. Which is why I suggested looking at Fate's challenge/contest structures.
See also mission briefings where players help define the adventure, and brainstorms where players decide what the answer to a big question is.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Good ideas, thank you.
I was reading over the specifics of what Stalker0 posted for skill challenges.
 
BESW
BESW
10:31 PM
Ah, yeah. I never intended to suggest that you use 4e skill challenge mechanics, hacked or not.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
For the example, The Negotiation, do players roll play each action they take, or do they all roll, getting a single result (conversation) with the NPC?
Sure. Just wanted to get an idea of how it worked.
If I can understand what works there, I can find something that works in 5e.
 
BESW
BESW
Just the idea of using a set of complex, creative, collaborative skill rolls to replace or augment existing resolution structures.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
*role play
 
BESW
BESW
Ah. 4e leaves the granularity of the mechanics/narrative interplay up to the group almost entirely.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
So it could be almost as simple as "Here's the challenge. You succeeded the challenge. He tells you..."
That does give me an idea, though....
A combination of systems, to utilize how 5e keeps its information hidden.
 
BESW
BESW
10:37 PM
Right. In Fate challenges, first the party brainstorms all the things they'll have to roll for. Then they roll for them. Then they use the results to figure out how to roleplay the interaction.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Hmm... I can see that.
 
BESW
BESW
But in Fate contests, which takes place in rounds, everybody rolls for a round, then roleplays that round, then rolls for the next round.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Hmm?
 
BESW
BESW
Say there's a race. For a round, everybody rolls, highest gets a success (two successes if they're three higher than everyone else). First to get three successes wins the race.
So for the first round, everyone says what they're going to be doing.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Ah, I see. They roleplay first, then roll on round A. Depending on how things went, they roleplay what happens after round A and then roll for round B, repeat until someone wins.
 
BESW
BESW
10:41 PM
"I'm going to start out giving it my all!" [rolls Forceful]
"I secretly trip the guy next to me." [rolls Sneaky]
"I'm going to pace myself." [rolls Careful]
Forceful fails, Sneaky succeeds and Careful succeeds with style. So they decide that Sneaky tripped Forceful while Careful jogs ahead. One success for player 2, two successes for player 3.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
To clarify, the successes you mention at the end are based off of rolls, not what was roleplayed?
 
BESW
BESW
Right.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Makes sense.
 
BESW
BESW
Next round, player 1 looks for a shortcut [Clever], player 2 insults player 3 [Flashy], player 3 busts on a burst of speed to hit the finish line [Quick].
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
What the hell happened to pacing yourself, player three? Careful my ass.
Apparently I am player 2.
 
BESW
BESW
10:46 PM
Player 3 got two successes the first time, meaning they're within sight of winning if they just get one more.
(Presumably less because being Careful made them fast, and more because the other two were still faffing around at the starting line.)
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Right.
 
BESW
BESW
You get the idea: Fate's got a strong narrative/mechanics/narrative/mechanics/narrative pacing structure.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
Hmm...I think I came up with a decent idea I want to try out. When building a dungeon, find 1 thing, for each skill, across different rooms that that skill can be applied to.
Writing on the wall, arcane wisps, blood that seems from a goblin, etc.
Once I hit the bottom of the list, start from the top and find new stuff to add to the dungeon for each skill.
Some could be combat related (insight to determine a leader is drunk), or they could be traps (sleight of hand to stop a falling weight that triggers a trap)
 
BESW
BESW
You can also encourage players to come up with creative uses for their skills.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
That's true, but I have to be careful about that for combat reasons.
If I say a cool combat trick can be done with sleight of hand, and they become theif to utilize that combat trick on a regular basis with more strength than intended, it could be an issue.
Either the player is screwed, because I say no, and they now are stuck with an archetype that they didn'like without that feature, or it gets retconned; or I have to figure out how to balance something I thought was going to be a one-off gimmick.
 
BESW
BESW
10:53 PM
Just make it clear up front that letting something cool happen once doesn't establish precedent that it'll always work the same way forever.
That is, talk to your friends about your concerns and enlist their support in making it work.
 
GreySage
GreySage
@BESW Talking is severely underrated in the TTRPG world. Most game issues can be solved just by talking about them.
 
BESW
BESW
@GreySage This is why I love Evil Hat games.
They're all based on the explicit and explicated assumption that talking is a thing your group should do.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
I've been thinking about it, I'd really like a system that utilizes more than just "overall health". Like Constitution, Sanity, and Perception. So you could make your enemy get bloody, insane, or completely blind, as ways to take someone out.
DND generally makes them all lumped as one HP value. Psychic damage is the same as damage from the sword.
You guys know of anything that works around something like that?
 
BESW
BESW
Tons.
Fate uses stress tracks to represent a character's ability to shrug off things that might otherwise make you unable to continue being influential in a scene, and the default is to have one track for physical stress and one track for mental stress.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
11:08 PM
Cool
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@DanielZastoupil It's only boring if you play boring. :) But as noted, probably a deliberate choice to entice people to look at the published material ...
 
BESW
BESW
If you take more stress than your appropriate track can hold, then you can either choose to be "taken out" (you no longer influence that scene) or you can stay in the scene at the cost of a lasting "consequence," which is a short phrase that describes how the stress of staying in the scene will be bad for you for some time to come (the more stress you absorb with a consequence, the longer it lasts).
And because Fate is phrasal and designed to be hacked, you can add stress tracks for whatever you want: I've seen fiscal stress, social stress, sanity, fashion...
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@BESW I think that's the intent, but inertia from previous editions likely makes that moot at some table.
 
BESW
BESW
@DanielZastoupil Meanwhile, Gumshoe uses a completely different way of handling "damage."
In Gumshoe, every skill you put ranks into also gets points equal to that rank, which you can spend to do awesome things. Skills that represent the ability to stay in a conflict (like Athletics for fighting or Cool for social encounters) also use that point pool as a health pool. If you take a really cutting insult, you lose Cool points.
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
That's also pretty....cool.
 
BESW
BESW
11:15 PM
Gumshoe One-2-One does something different again, where damage isn't represented numerically at all. Instead each kind of damage or stress gives you a custom debuff:
 
Daniel Zastoupil
Daniel Zastoupil
I like that idea. I gtg, but I'll definitely look at today's transcript if the conversation continues with someone else.
Thanks for all the info, guys.
 
BESW
BESW
("Continuity" means the problem lasts until you explicitly solve it; all non-continuity problems are removed automagically at the end of the adventure if they weren't solved before then. But some problems, like being gut-shot, say that if you haven't done something to fix the problem before the adventure is over then you die at the end of the adventure. This is because Gumshoe One-2-One is a game for one GM and one player, so things like death need to be handled differently.)
Other games don't really do damage or stress at all. Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple just has "in trouble" or "not in trouble."
In Misspent Youth a failed roll can be turned to a success if the Youthful Offender sells out one of their convictions (like Smart or Altruism or Sneaky) to its corrupted counterpart (Pedantic, Unctuous, Untrustworthy).
Honey Heist does the Gumshoe thing again, sort of: your skills are Bear and Criminal. They go up and down proportionately depending on your actions and their successes. If one of them ever maxes out, you either betray the party and leave, or you get hauled away by animal control.
 
Ben
Ben
11:47 PM
> Coffee doesn't cure Narcolepsy You've been drinking the stuff non-stop, but it still won't stop you falling asleep at the wheel. Hand over your Driver's License.
 
trogdor
trogdor
@BESW ah yeah I like that mechanic, it was pretty great
 
BESW
BESW
> Too much blood in my caffeine system. If you would fail at an act requiring concentration, you tie instead. In any scene where you use this stunt, you cannot succeed with style on any action for the rest of the scene.
 

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