@V2Blast honestly, I don't think there was much to be done about it. wilwheaton was an annoying kid. The character just ratched up his innate smarminess by 1-2 degrees
@Rubiksmoose Buffy's a pretty decent show for the most part. Some really standout episodes, and some really meh ones. Reruns of Angel are actually what first got me into the buffyverse
Buffy has a lot of problems, but a lot of them are because they're trying to address other problems and should be viewed through the lens of the time they were made.
@ColinGross Thing is, even with MASH, the creatives involved were already, in the late '70s and early '80s, saying "yeah, we shouldn't have been making those kinds of jokes, that was dumb" in reference to their earlier stuff.
I know Gelbart is on record as regretting a lot of the staple humor of seasons 1-3.
Whedon is really difficult to parse as a creative, w/r/t Feminist critiques of his work. He's very good at writing good strong Female Characters, but he has issues writing good strong Feminine characters. And as a lot of Feminists are starting to realize, only being good at the first half of that equation can be problematic.
@goodguy5 Also, I know there is plenty of room for answers better than mine (eg a more thorough balance analysis, experience with allowing the house rule at the table, etc.)
I'm entertained that the question tag filter applies after the posts get loaded. I have it set to 50 posts per page, and I see 3-5 per page with the 5e tag ignored.
Shadow step shenanigans. Through windows. Through keyholes. "I'm batman". I do put the kibosh on extending it's already pretty darned useful and powerful uses. Advantage on the next attack makes it hella useful with a rogue though.
@ColinGross I've always wondered why we haven't had a huge fight here over casting spells through keyholes or gaps under doors or the like for a "clear path"
@Yuuki The 3rd party 5th edition foes has a grue monster. I had an encounter with grues. Two in opposite corners that were written to try to lure characters, and failing that, try to convince them to go kill the other grue.
@Xirema yeah, crawford said that sacred flame's targeting ignores cover and it's clear how he thinks that was intended to work, but what's actually written in the spell is "The target gains no benefit from cover for this saving throw."
Actually, Zork had capitalization confusion. Really, there was just a cannibal running around. If you stepped into darkness, you were likely to be eaten by A. Grue (Arthur Grue).
From the news feed: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?6074-Odyssey-of-the-Dragonlords-Player-s-Guide-is-Free! https://www.modiphius.net/products/odyssey-of-the-dragonlords-players-guide-free "You can grab the 28-page Player's Guide for the greek-inspired Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign setting for D&D 5E for free. [...] Inspired by ancient Greek mythology, Thylea is a brand new campaign setting—a lost continent that can be seamlessly added to any existing campaign setting. [...] Note: The Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign book has not yet been released. The expected launch dat…
@Carcer Right, since the cover-ignoring property theoretically applies to only the saving throw, but full cover would normally make the creature not have to make a save in the first place.
@CTWind Yeah this is one of those cases where it is clear that the RAI reading is biasing JC's interpretation of the spell. And indeed mine after reading it.
@CTWind it's not really theoretical, it's explicitly scoped in that spell description - nothing about it says that its targeting works differently than the normal rules
Speaking of Crawford, his recent tweet in regards to that question about Invocation-sourced spells being warlock spells makes me wonder if there's some errata/sage advice in the future for it- the phrasing of "[...]are meant to be[...]" might mean that as written, he can see why the question needed asking.
Found Odyssey of the Dragonlords Player's Guide on DriveThruRPG as well, so you don't have to enter your address/billing info: drivethrurpg.com/product/267073/…
That's the "man with a gun" principle: introduce something that demands immediate response while also implying new questions, and then write or play into it to discover how the characters will deal with the danger and what the questions are.
It really depends whether the introduction of new ones retroactively ruins the conclusions about old ones. Such as the shift from planning The Man being the mastermind of this plot to asking Who is the Man Behind the Man, retroactively downgrading the former's importance.
Speaking as someone who watched/watches a lot of Anime, the "Man behind the Man" trope seems perfectly fine and I don't see what the problem is and I definitely have a level-headed unbiased perspective on the issue. =)
...not literally (usually), but I just keep rolling from whatever question was answered into the choice that will set up the next question for the next act.
(My general opinion is that it's very good to use in the first 20-30% of a story's planned arc, but any later than that and it loses its effectiveness. A good use takes what seemed like a smaller story and expands the scope and raises the stakes. A bad use adds needless complexity or prolongs the story)
> A classic technique once told to me by @BESW is that if the players defeat the bad guy early, a shot rings out and the villain falls dead. Now it's up to the players to figure out who was the Man behind the Man.
The technique isn't about introducing a bigger, badder villain. It's a specific way to easily introduce a new complication if the resolution seems to quick or easy, by having something happen which suggests new questions the protagonists will need to answer--without having to know what the answers to those questions are.
I'm not sure how to reply. The fact that you offer approach B doesn't seem to change the fact that I find approach A victory-diminishing. (Whether or not approach B is victory-diminishing is a separate matter.)
@vicky_molokh It doesn't seem that BESW is arguing with you about your take on man-behind-the-man twists. It seems like they are simply correcting the record on what it is they actually said (which is what inspired the whole conversation).
@V2Blast This is a good concept to keep in mind; if the new questions are about a pre-existing story element that had seemed less important before, it feels more narratively reasonable than introducing a completely new story element. The Law of Conservation of Plot isn't realistic, but it's expected.
@ColinGross Approach A referring to 'PCs solve the mystery quickly, therefor retcon the mystery by making it so that a second baddie controlled the first all along'.
@MikeQ Weirdly, anime story-extension tropes may be more usefully transferred to long-form RPG campaigns than many other tropes, because they're trying to deal with similar problems of quickly improvising ways to extend limited material.
That's what "Suddenly, A Shot Rang Out!" and "a man with a gun comes through the door" are for:
@vicky_molokh The plot thickens? The plot can always thicken. If they don't add starch to the stew themselves, sometimes the DM has to dues ex macaroni that stuff.
Not a fan of Deus Ex M'ing. I prefer that if something is meant to be part of a given plot-arc, it should be thought of in advance. Improvise into the future, but not into the past of the plot's 'light cone' as much as possible.
@vicky_molokh It may depend on where the audience (players) are in the story. If the antagonist is removed from the equation but the mystery isn't solved yet, then the storyteller (DM) may need to add a substitute antagonist for the remainder of the mystery.
But if removing the antagonist effectively resolves the mystery, but the group wants the campaign to continue, then the DM could write "End of chapter 1" and start up a new plot arc. Which is ok!
Or how about resolve the mystery without an antagonist, as an epilogue, followed by going to a different story arc earlier? 'This is not the culprit because we only watched half of the episode' is a jarring.
> the DM could write "End of chapter 1" and start up a new plot arc. Which is ok!
Interesting. If the antagonist is stopped early, and there's no substitute or secondary antagonist, then what sort of opposition would the PCs face for the remainder of the game?
It's not like a session must be spent in opposition. It can be spent as an epilogue, as an RP-oriented session etc.
And for the next session, the GM can think of what new troubles are worth dealing with, assuming the PCs didn't spend the break on picking their own goal to pursue.
@MikeQ In one of my games we'd established that an antagonist had been someone one of the PCs knew long ago, so we did a flashback to their falling-out decades previously and that helped us figure out what sorts of things would happen next.
@Rubiksmoose Not me, but I think @doppelgreener has played Paranoia.
Conflict could mean anything from "murderous necromancer" to mundane stuff like "it's raining and the PCs don't have umbrellas", but it's still conflict from a narrative sense
Tend-and-befriend is behind a lot of mobile games' success with demographics that aren't interested in adrenaline/dopamine games, and I'd like to see more of that in tabletop RPGs.
Though there are a few I know of already, like Golden Sky Stories and Hot Guys Making Out.
Maybe i'm using the wrong term here? I thought that conflict just means there's a goal, and the protagonist/PCs aren't currently at that goal. Doesn't have to be dramatic or violent conflict.
e.g. Fuzzy Bunny wants to eat a carrot, but they do not have any. That's conflict, yeah?
Well, I took it as there is an obstacle preventing the goal.
i.e.- FuzzBunn wants to eat a carrot, but they do not have any, but is in the carrot store. That's not conflict (assuming there are no other obstacles, like rabbit-based racism, or this month's den-rent)
And of the 32 possible configurations of 5 fingers, I think middle finger only is still top 5. fist thumb only middle only pointer only roman numeral V
@BESW Anyhow, if the game has no conflict or complications, if the bunny can simply wish a carrot into their possession, then I'm skeptical whether the resulting narrative would be interesting or engaging
@BESW Er, it was meant to extend to the idea of continuing a mystery, if the culrprit's been revealed and nothing stops the investigators from solving it
Our first adventure had a younger boy coming to the teenage sleuths, asking for help finding his stolen bike without his father finding out (because he'd been irresponsible about locking it up and would get in trouble).
The sleuths figured out that the bike had been stolen and destroyed by a local teen who used it to film himself doing stunts for YouTube.
They decided that their priority was the client, the boy whose bike had been stolen.
If they did nothing, the boy would get in trouble (and the thief would get away with it).
If they involved any adult authorities, the boy would get in trouble because his dad would find out.
So they got blackmail on the thief (videos of him wiping out embarrassingly on a stolen bike) and forced him to help get the boy's bike fixed quietly using parts from his own bike.
That's the end of that mystery. But we've established elements of the community that will be important in future mysteries.
The primary mechanic is about relationships: your relationships create opportunities and offer access to things you couldn't do on your own, but maintaining them requires effort.
They've now got at least two more relationships which can be called on in future stories.
And the way they handled themselves and the mystery defines those relationships, thus defining how they'll come up again later.
eg, the thief actually has a small positive relationship with one of the sleuths because he thinks he can convince her to help him get into the school's extreme sports club.
@GreySage I think they're Medium in all forms, except for werebat, which is Small in all forms
wait, nevermind. I just noticed that wererats change size based on form, without specifying the size for the hybrid form. I still think it's reasonable to use their humanoid size for their hybrid form size.
