TRPG General Chat

9:19 AM

... someday, when you have some spare time I would love to hear what this room users would have to say about FF7 plot. Specifically, the sudden plot twist that switches your character personality. Think I kinda mentioned that once in "Not a bar" while in the middle of a discussion about sparkling vampires but never expanded on that

trogdor

I hardly remember the plot to FF7 in any detail

I remember the broad strokes only

BESW

9:35 AM

I started a FF game once.

kviiri

The only FF I've played to any degree of completion is FF X, which I think is a good story in an immersive world but somewhat hampered by the fact that it's still a pretty normal JRPG. With terrible voice acting (understandably, since it was Square's first time making voice acting for Final Fantasy)

And I guess "terrible" is a bit of an exaggeration. It's not too bad most of the time, but of course it's easy to remember the worst lines

trogdor

yeah I have played a few FF games

not any before 7 though

well except a little of 2 I think? or wtv number it was

there were moogles in it

kviiri

Chrono Trigger is the first classic JRPG I'm playing in years and I'm almost through with it. It's been good enough despite the genre being a bit off-putting to me, in general

trogdor

I would love to play Chrono Trigger at some point

my brother and what seems like half the internet have all played it and said it was great

it's just a big ask for me to pick something like a JRPG up right now

BESW

All I remember about the one I played was that there was a guy who made Max Headroom's hair look natural, and then the story stopped cold for me to play an interminable sports-management minigame.

trogdor

9:42 AM

I think that was FFX

was it underwater stuff?

kviiri

Yeah, X and X-2 have the blitzball minigame. I think it's more management-y in X-2

trogdor

well

X2 doesn't make you play it does it?

and also,... X seemed pretty managementy to me

to be fair

we could have stopped playing X-2 before any Blitzball shenanigans had a chance to pop up

non of the three of us wanted to play it anymore after the first 1-4 or so hours

Carcer

Are you telling me that the fashion-and-orb-based character progression system did not have you absolutely enthralled

trogdor

it felt like a cheap sequal to X, with dressup elements and only three playable characters,... one of which wasn't even from the game before it

@Carcer oh no I,.... totally,..... loved,...... that

Carcer

[tidus laugh]

trogdor

9:49 AM

just,..... real fun

oh god

Carcer

(FFX and X-2 are the only FFs I have ever played)

trogdor

I mean come on

where is Waka or blue cat man

give me blue cat man

Carcer

IIRC Waka's somewhere supervising Lulu while she pumps out children

trogdor

of course

because it wasn't obvious enough she existed to be objectified

/sarcasm

not that you need to go looking too hard for that in X2

kviiri

@trogdor Not really, iirc

trogdor

9:53 AM

@kviiri yeah I thought maybe it didn't but again,... I could have missed that part when we outright quit the game

one of the things that annoyed me the most about X actually was the obligatory Blitzball

I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't actually been forced to play it to progress

it wasn't horrible for a mini game inside a different game for it's time

the mandatory nature didn't do it any favors though

kviiri

My little brother loved to play Blitzball, although I think it's not a very good minigame

trogdor

well especially for standards of now

kviiri

And its part in the plot is essentially mood-building and padding

trogdor

yeah

it deserved no place in the plot or in any "force you to play it to progress" category

i'm not exactly saying it's the best minigame ever here

but maybe I would have at least enjoyed it a little more at the time if it weren't for that

kviiri

@trogdor Might be a matter of taste, but the Tetra Master minigame of FF IX (the reason I never finished the actual game, because I was hyooooked on cards) was kinda nice, and so was the Sphere Break of FF-X2. I guess I'm just far more inclined on these simplish abstract strategy things

although Sphere Break was super easy for the mathematically oriented

trogdor

10:00 AM

@kviiri what was the "Sphere Break" ?

I mean, I didn't play that much of the game so it's possible I never saw it

I assume Tetra Master was some kind of collectable card game

kviiri

@trogdor There's a 4x4 grid of coins, each having an integer from 1 to 9 (maybe zero was included too, I can't remember). You choose the 4 coins in the center at the start of the game, and they are persistent, while the other 12 coins are random and disappear after being used

trogdor

huh

kviiri

The game picks a random target integer from 1 to 9, and your task is to pick coins whose sum is a multiple of the target integer. Then you get points, more for larger multiples

trogdor

either I never did that part or I forgot it with most of the rest of the game

kviiri

However, you also get escalating combo bonuses for using the same amount of coins or having the same multiple on successive rounds.

eg. if you match a target of 3 with a sum of 9, you'll get a combo bonus for matching a target of 5 with the sum of 15 because you're maintaining the third multiple combo

trogdor

10:04 AM

yeah I,... definitely don't remember that

Derpy

Sorry to interrupt, just a little clarification just in case someone was wondering. When I mentioned FF7 I was specifically thinking about the whole Zack->Cloud thing. I think most fans of the game agree on the fact that that plot element is "the most brilliant plot twist ever made" - to me instead it seems an arbitrary removal of player agency just because they planned it out that way. That was the whole reason I was curious about how that plot element was perceived by the users of this room.

trogdor

we did get to a part where you can fight a robot thing and it gets stronger every time but you get rewards for beating it?

we stopped I think after beating it any number of times

Derpy

@trogdor that was... FF8 I think

trogdor

stopped playing I mean

kviiri

@Derpy There's that in FF X-2 too!

trogdor

10:05 AM

@Derpy nope X2 definitely had a robot thing

kviiri

@Derpy Hm, I haven't played FF7 so I can't comment otherwise, but I think people usually are more lenient on this stuff in C- or JRPGs

trogdor

I mean I am sure 8 did too but

I didn't play 8

Derpy

@kviiri I know but I don't remember if it plays out that way in FFX-2 too

kviiri

Totally does ^^ IIRC you can also find some external junk components to make the robot even stronger

trogdor

you meet some guys who are making it and you offer to fight it to test how strong it is

when you beat it you prove it can be improved and they give you stuff

kviiri

10:07 AM

FF X-2 felt to me like they were going for "Final Fantasy, except only sidequests"

trogdor

something like that

@kviiri it did,..... feel a little like that

but that was by no means the only issue we had

kviiri

Yeah, I don't think that's an issue in itself. FF X-2 has plenty of actual flaws :-)

trogdor

well I mean

I can understand not wanting to play a game under just that one circumstance too

kviiri

@trogdor Oh yeah and the Sphere break minigame also had collectible coins (that you could use as the center coins) and some of them had unique effects that I can't recall.

trogdor

for me, if that was the only flaw, it probably wouldn't have actually bothered me much

I like sidequests

I mean,... to be honest they don't feel any more pointless than,... the rest of a videogame

XD

but if it isn't fun then that is reason enough not to like it

Derpy

10:11 AM

@kviiri the way trogdor described the thing almost made me think he was talking about the escape sequence near the beginning of FF8 - when you actually should escape from the robot (which IF I remember correctly is actually unbeatable the first 4-5 times you meet it) but yep, I was wrong. Sorry :P

trogdor

no big deal

Derpy

@kviiri The fact is that in FF7 imho they kinda overdid it. I mean - it is evident that they rigged the gameplay in the whole first disk of the game to trick the player into buying-in a certain personality of the main character - and a certain relationship too.

trogdor

honestly, I hardly paid attention to half of the plot of FF7

and that was before they started doing the really weird #$###

XD

and I can't really bring myself to be excited for these,... reboots of it

I think people remember that game just a little too fondly

it wasn't a bad game but,... it wasn't really blow your socks off good in my opinion

Derpy

Then, disk one ends in tear thanks to a scene that seems artificial just because of that, and you are prompted by a nice "the character you were playing as was fake, here is his real personality. Oh, by the way the party member you carried about and just died because stuff... was the girlfriend of the fake personality, so in reality the real character liked another person and your fake choices didn't matter."

trogdor

lol

Derpy

10:17 AM

Oh, and no need to thank us for loading the fake choices so that they was rigged into making the fake character like the party member we just killed of.

trogdor

I mean

I think you can just say it's Aerith

the game is extremely old

anyone who cares about that spoiler already knows it

Derpy

@trogdor and ruin the surprise for the players that will play the remake on the Playstation 7 in 2038?

(knowing Squaresoft times, I don't expect the remake to be available anytime sooner)

trogdor

yeah what was I thinking, that definitely isn't going to be almost exclusively people playing it for nostalgia XD

Derpy

Anyway, in the first disk there is a specific scene that plays differently based on an hidden "affection value". Technically there are 3+1 possible outcomes, but the affection value for the character they kill off starts at a greater value than the other two - meaning it is almost granted you will get her

trogdor

is that the carnival thing?

Derpy

10:22 AM

@trogdor yep

trogdor

(if I recall correctly we took Barret up there) XD

we liked Barret

Derpy

technically, there are three options: Aerith, Tifa and Yuffie. Barret is only used if none of the "real" three has an high enough score.

trogdor

wait Yuffie was even in the party yet?

I don't recall that

I thought it was pretty early on?

man my memory of that game must be pretty bad by now

also,.. are you sure Cait Sith and Red XIII weren't options?

Derpy

Yuffie is almost impossible to get - by the time she joins (IF she joins, you kinda have to try to get her before accessing that zone) there is virtually no time to increase her score - your only option is a dialogue on the boat to Costa Del sol - a dialogue that gives like 10 point but is repeatable

trogdor

eh

I mean, we did a blind playthrough one time and didn't know that was gonna happen

Derpy

10:25 AM

Tifa and Aerith are similar, but Aerith starts out with a much higher score - meaning that if you play nice to everyone... you will get her.

trogdor

and even if we did we would not have been remotely interested in gaming it into letting us take someone on a ferris wheel ride

Derpy

@trogdor I am kinda surprised you even get Barret since I seem to recall that to get him you need to have done something to lower Aerith initial score.

trogdor

it's possible we did that?

Derpy

Her initial score should be sufficient to guarantee you dind't get Barret.

trogdor

it's not like I would remember that

Derpy

10:27 AM

so... by any chance you refused to buy the flower the first time you meet her?

trogdor

heck, it's ridiculous enough that I remember we took Barret on that at all

@Derpy if that's it then probably

I wouldn't have put it past us because we were really into finding all the dead ends and secret items in games like that

so buying flowers from the one NPC around when you fall in a pit? I assume that's what you mean? that looked like "would you like to progress the story?"

or at least I assume it did

Unless you meet her before that sequence

Anyway, as for Yuffie,

.....

I've said it before, but she was mega annoying

Assuming I even knew that part of the game was going to have a choose your favorite party member bit, she would have been dead last anyway

Just gonna throw that out there

"oh look at me stealing your actual items tee hee" isn't a great first impression

yann.kmm

Hi everyone! I have a question related to d&d maps and how they can be used shared. I asked a question in the gis community related to toril & faerun maps (TLDR I want to have a gis map of faerun) gis.stackexchange.com/questions/315497/… . One commenter asked if I could share this on google earth, however I have no idea of the legal restrictions on using this stuff, do you think I should create a question about this?

trogdor

10:45 AM

uh

I have no idea

I'm pretty sure making a map for an RPG is on topic

but what exactly would the question be?

also I have no idea what the legality of GIS stuff is like

I work with it a little but that definitely isn't my expertise

what little I have on the subject to start with XD

yann.kmm

I think it would be about the legal rights to alter and republish this map for example dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/map-faer%C3%BCn

trogdor

ah

yeah I have no idea there

yann.kmm

on the page there are no legal disclaimers about the image usage

Derpy

@trogdor at least you later discover WHY she did that and it make a little more sense. That said, asking you for help would have been a better option.

BTW since we are at it, I will add two more things.

First, please disregard my notice about the flower @trogdor - it shouldn't matter. Aerith still starts with an higher score but the flower option does not really matter. All I said about Yuffie still applies.

Also, it is worth noticing that the affection score also control some other minor events in the game.

trogdor

11:03 AM

@yann.kmm one issue is, the site is a little on the low activity side right now for most of the people who might know enough about this to help you out

Derpy

One is especially noteworthy because it is actually impossible to get.

It requires a score that is impossible to have at that point in the game.

trogdor

maybe in around half a day more people can take a look at the problem

Derpy

Why it is funny? Because that is the scene where Aerith actually seems to wonder if Cloud could be Zack.

trogdor

@Derpy I mean, having a reason for doing the really annoying thing that you reveal later isn't on my list of things that makes it all ok XD

yann.kmm

@trogdor low activity because of the hour?

trogdor

11:05 AM

@yann.kmm yeah because of what time it is

a lot of people are asleep

yann.kmm

Ok, I'll try asking the same question later in the day

thanks =)

trogdor

for example

@yann.kmm no problem

Derpy

@trogdor what I meant is that at least you discover that she hadn't exactly an happy life and so is more a "don't know what to do" thing that a "spoiled little annoying child"

Again, they could have reached the same result in a lot of other, better ways, but at least she wasn't the thing that annoyed me the most in there.

trogdor

she was,.... the instrument for me losing items

that was pretty much what colored my whole outlook on the situation

I hate it when that kind of thing happens in a game

Derpy

@trogdor You mean the first time you try to go to her city? Don't tell me you actually tried to backtrack... I have some friends that did

trogdor

11:15 AM

as I recall she steals your items through the regular course of the game before you get her in your party

and those three,.... people wtv they were show up too

and fight you at some point

BESW

@yann.kmm The room's average activity-per-day and -per-week can be found here:

Derpy

@trogdor the first time you can meet her is after getting thru the swamp south of Midgard. That means past the Midgard Zolom. At that point every time you meet her you can make her join - if you chose the right answers in the event dialogue.

If you miss, she just steal some coins -about 200-400gp, depending on the answer you got wrong. At that point, it should be just the price of a potion... no great deal.

The real problem comes when she steals your materia when first entering the Wutai zone.

As soon as the Bronco crashes, she actually will start suggesting visiting Wutai, which only aggravate the problem.

yann.kmm

@BESW thanks! ;)

doppelgreener

@BESW A recent game I saw my friends arranging involved creating the following lists: "Definitely in the game", "Potentially in the game", "Absolutely not in the game", and separately "Should happen" and "Could happen".

Derpy

You see @trogdor - the real issue is that Yuffie is programmed to only steal about.... 50? materia, based on a precedence list (example: she prefers to steal summon materia over magic materia, master version over regular ones and so on...). If you go there late in the game you probably will end up with most of your bigger weapons took away but still have a bunch of level 5 magic materia to back you up

Now: there are two problems there:

a) if you go to Wutai soon in the game... 50 materia is ALL your materia probably. So you are left without any spell or the ability to heal.
b) to get the materia back technically you should have to beat a single boss. That boss isn't scaled to your level, so if you go there too son... again, bad luck.
c) I think that if you don't get the meaning of Yuffie clue you can get stuck in a minor boss fight with the Truks **before** getting said materia back. Have fun

trogdor

11:35 AM

@Derpy I would argue that that is kinda bad game design honestly

either way, I don't know why but yes, she took like, pretty much everything we had

it was pretty uncool

Derpy

@trogdor it is indeed.

doppelgreener

11:46 AM

@BESW Also, wow, that Luxton technique sounds great. I just read the description of it. What we do in our group is in that direction, and I can definitely see this as a safe way to handle difficult topics.

BESW

@doppelgreener Oh, yeah. I want more techniques that are designed for specific kinds of curation needs!

Like, the x-card works great for some people and some circumstances. The Luxton technique works great for other people and other circumstances. There must be more!

Anaphory

11:59 AM

We rolled much triumph and despair in Star Wars yesterday. Explosions and burning wrecks aplenty.

BESW

@Anaphory What system?

Anaphory

@BESW Fantasy Flight's. The one that has Triumph and Despair on the dice.

BESW

Ahah.

I kinda want to try the Faith Corps Star Wars hack.

Anaphory

What kinds of things does Faith Corps run?

BESW

It's a not-officially-published mashup of Fate Core and a particular flavor of Cortex Plus called Demon Hunters.

It's been used by individuals for several things, most notably a Star Wars Rebels game. It's suited to Star Wars because Demon Hunters introduced a good/evil currency system that Faith Corps brings some fate point concepts to, basically creating Light and Dark fate points.

...correction: It's published in the Demon Hunters supplement "A Comedy of Terrors," as a setting-specific system for a good-vs-evil game about temptation and violence.

[rummages through pdfs]

Anaphory

12:14 PM

@BESW Interesting!

BESW

Okay, so: in chargen, you take the Fate Accelerated approaches (or whatever equivalent works for your game) assign dice from d4 to d10 to them. Then you select a small set of disciplines that your character is good at and assign dice to each of them.

Disciplines are kind of like skills, but more broad. A PC might have Action, Banter, Intrigue, Tech, and Jedi.

For each action you pick one Approach and one Discipline, and roll the associated dice to determine the outcome.

There's also Fate-like aspects and stunts.

Action resolution is pretty much Fate-like, with Overcome and Create Advantage and so on, and success at cost, all that fun stuff.

But then, instead of fate points, you've got (in Demon Hunter) Faith and Demon dice.

Before you roll, you can add Faith dice to your pool by invoking aspects the way you would with a fate point. You lose the dice no matter what the outcome, unless that particular die comes up 1, then you get it back.

After you roll, you can invoke and roll Demon dice to increase your outcome... but if they come up 1, something bad happens.

Faith dice are gained kinda like fate points, refreshed each session and given for various in-game actions.

Demon dice are an unlimited pool (but there's a cap you can spend per roll) for all players, but spent Demon dice to into the GM's pool to spend against you.

vicky_molokh

@BESW Do you generally find variable-size dice more enjoyable to use than 4dF?

BESW

You can see how that'd pretty easily translate into certain other kinds of moral-question stories, like some Star Wars.

@vicky_molokh Different dice for different effects. [shrug] There's no magical dice choice that is better than others.

vicky_molokh

Ah, OK. Was curious.

I've seen different people have different preferences for how to generate a probability curve.

BESW

Practically speaking, it's convenient to only need four dice to play a whole game.

vicky_molokh

12:27 PM

Oh, a stable dice set is convenient yes.

Glazius

@Derpy Eh. Player agency in re backstory took a flying leap as soon as the train pulled into the station after the opening cinematic and the little white glove started pointing down at the guy with an origami traffic cone on his head. There's a spectrum from "craft your story" to "explore our story" and by 7 the dial was pointing hard at the second one.

BESW

And 4dF gives an easy-to-grasp curve that's also easy to process mid-game.

vicky_molokh

For physical dice anyway. Less important in chat games.

BESW

But there's significant tactile enjoyment in manipulating large sets of variable dice, and having a less predictable random outcome generator is valuable for some games.

When I'm designing games I always go for d6s because that makes my game more accessible to audiences that haven't invested in TTRPG props.

Anaphory

@BESW Is there a narrative trigger for adding demon dice? Or are they just demonic because they are a temptation that comes back to bite you?

doppelgreener

12:30 PM

@BESW That list one I mentioned seems useful on account of helping to guide play in specific directions while ruling things out. "Rescue the princess" in "Should happen" indicates the princess doesn't get ... not rescued.

BESW

@Anaphory Abstract/table-level temptation.

vicky_molokh

Table-level?

BESW

It happens at the table, not in the fiction.

vicky_molokh

Ah.

BESW

The players are tempted to use demon dice, not the characters.

It's a non-diegetic mechanic.

vicky_molokh

12:32 PM

Didn't guess to think in that direction.

Glazius

@vicky_molokh Fun fact, Wrath of the Autarch used that style before the author settled on the Deck of Fate.

vicky_molokh

Speaking of WotA and adiegetics, I think I'll need to convert the way resource dice work for my group.

Towards more diegetic.

BESW

They can trigger diegetic effects, but as written in Comedy of Terrors (to the best of my understanding, I haven't studied it super carefully yet), demon dice are not triggered by in-universe effects.

kviiri

I like decks as a randomization mechanic, although they're a bit unwieldy as a straightforward replacement for dice. However, they allow lots of interesting tricks that dice don't, because they easily allow breaking the independence of events.

vicky_molokh

(WotA is such an odd book: full of cool ideas, but not easily digestible as a text, so I take it in in small bits.)

BESW

12:34 PM

(I think they're akin to the Insight die in Cthulhu Dark.)

@kviiri I would love to do game design with a regular deck of playing cards, but my brain isn't built to do that kind of complexity easily and I need to use that energy in other things.

That's one reason I'm so disappointed in Ki Khanga.

kviiri

@BESW Haha, I totally understand :)

BESW

...and why I want to play I'm a Pretty Princess! and Hot Guys Making Out.

Anaphory

@kviiri I was, once again, thinking about how to generate cultures, subcultures or something like that, and I was wondering whether I could lift the non-independence of a card deck to get some non-independence in the choices made.

BESW

That sounds interesting but dangerous.

Feb 21 '18 at 1:34, by BESW

> Stop, Luke, and listen. You get +3 instead of +2 when invoking meditative aspects.

Derpy

@Glazius I mean, you don't usually really expect jrpg to be about "craft your story" but I was kinda expecting that the little characterization I was given the option to make would have mattered in the end.

A quick comparison: there is an affection system in Tales of Symphonia too.Changes very little of the game, but at least it changes something.

nitsua60

12:40 PM

@Shalvenay Didn't just go with 3d3? =D

Glazius

@vicky_molokh It goes a lot harder into game territory than most Fate stuff. I've definitely found it useful to strip it for parts for that purpose.

vicky_molokh

@nitsua60 That's just a different expression of 3dF.

BESW

@Glazius I should really put together a document of mechanics and concepts I've mugged from games I'll never actually play.

kviiri

@Anaphory Ooh, that sounds like an intriguing proposal

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh Sure.

Glazius

12:43 PM

@Derpy Yeah, that's fair. At the same time, it's different from, say, adventure 6 in a 9-module adventure path going "YOU ARE A LIE THIS IS YOUR ACTUAL PAST".

nitsua60

Or, "3dF" is just another way of putting "3d3"

vicky_molokh

But if going for simplicity, 2d6 is probably the most accessible thing ever, most easy to find anywhere, and most understandable to beginners.

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh (Are you talking to me?)

vicky_molokh

Addressing the topic of die accessibility that's been touched upon in general above.

nitsua60

Okay--this was part of an older conversation about d27s.

doppelgreener

12:45 PM

@BESW Do those two use cards?

BESW

@doppelgreener Yup!

vicky_molokh

@nitsua60 Oh. I didn't realise. I mistook your messages for also being on that topic, not seeing what it links to.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh A big part of why I like 2d6 :) plus its biased towards the mean without being very mathematically complex

vicky_molokh

Sorry.

kviiri

I mean, I'm the probability geek of our group, but I prefer to use those skills to make the game math more accessible, not less

BESW

12:47 PM

@kviiri I also like "roll a few, take highest" and "roll a few, count over/under-X."

kviiri

@BESW Absolutely

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh Ah, no worries--sorry, I'm just catching up from @shalv's ping to me.

BESW

And then there's Trollbabe's "roll 1, check over/under depending on context."

kviiri

I'm a bit ambivalent on mixing roll over/under

nitsua60

@kviiri Traveller last night in our group--gotta love 2D =)

vicky_molokh

12:48 PM

I find Roll-and-Keep's math to be too complex in the examples I've seen (Seventh Sea and the way people explained Blades in the Dark to me).

BESW

@kviiri I mean, it's Lasers & Feelings.

vicky_molokh

Dice pools and target numbers . . . well, my experience with White Wolf style dice pools is that they're slow.

BESW

But I'm especially fond of it when it slides.

Cthulhu Dark's dice mechanic makes my brain squeak in pleasant ways.

kviiri

@BESW Yeah. But I've come to think that maybe just presenting the stat as two separate stats and the roll as "roll over" would be simpler conceptually (while being the same game-mechanically)

Or roll under

BESW

I think over/under has conceptual power that you don't get by dividing the stat up.

vicky_molokh

12:51 PM

I have a player who seems to not intuitively grasp roll-under for some reason. I wonder how common that is.

(He specifically keeps forgetting that rolling low is/can be good in a given system.)

(Should be noted that I GMed very gears-hidden-style for the last few years.)

BESW

Like, it really reinforces the interrelationship of the two concepts: Lasers & Feelings, Bear and Criminal, combat and bubblegum.

@vicky_molokh I've had people struggle with it if their previous gaming experience has been years of exclusively roll-high mechanics.

vicky_molokh

@BESW That does work for opposed stats.

kviiri

Well, Honey Heist actually did split them into two stats

BESW

Yeah, and I'm not sure why.

doppelgreener

Bear and Criminal could've easily been over/under, since they were two perfectly complimentary states: moving one down always moved the other up.

Hadn't thought of that.

vicky_molokh

12:53 PM

@BESW His prior gaming experience included Fallout PnP though.

kviiri

@doppelgreener Yeah, they could've, but having tried both I don't really think the over/under mixing really helps anything

nitsua60

@vicky_molokh Ah, okay, catching up now. Dice just keep coming up in conversation, I guess =)

goodguy5

can someone break up that wall of text on switching characters?

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/143450/i-keep-switching-characters-how-do-i-stop

I keep looking at it and being daunted.

BESW

@kviiri What are your thoughts on the mathematical elegance of the curve created by Cthulhu Dark's Insight die?

kviiri

@BESW I'll have to look it up, it's been a while since I eyed CD

doppelgreener

12:55 PM

@kviiri I just mean they're sorta mechanically equivalent. There was nice flavor in saying "roll bear" and "roll criminal".

kviiri

@doppelgreener Yea

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 done. somehow it looks bigger now that i've done that...

BESW

@kviiri Your Insight starts at 1. Whenever you see something potentially jarring, or you risk your sanity to re-roll, you add the Insight die to your pool (roll 1 to 3 dice, take highest).

goodguy5

(that's what she said)

Thank you. You're a saint among men.

If I could upvote edits, I would

BESW

If your Insight die is highest, roll it again. If it comes out higher than your current Insight, roleplay freaking out and increase your Insight by one.

kviiri

12:56 PM

I think it ultimately boils down to over/under being more clear that the two stats are "opposites", and "always over" being easy to remember (you don't have to go "uhh so which stat was over, which was under")

BESW

After you've reached 5 Insight at least once, you can start hindering the investigation in order to reduce your Insight score.

kviiri

@BESW Oh yeah, I like that

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 lol, you're welcome

goodguy5

I have lots of ideas, but none of them are experience based.

it's all just stuff that floats around in my head.

BESW

If your Insight hits 6, you narrate how your Investigator completely loses control and stops being a player character.

@kviiri It's an amazing tension-building technique. Your party quickly gets jumpy, spooking at minor things, then settles down into a slow boil where you get exposed to more and more nasty stuff... but it takes more and more to freak you out... but you're also getting closer to permanent freakout.

It perfectly captures that horror-film progression from "What was that!? oh just a rat" fake-outs to grimly slogging through gore and terror with increasing dread, knowing something's lurking but not knowing when it'll come.

@doppelgreener HGMO deals hands of cards to the players, which determine what kinds of actions are available to the player and the player gets to choose which card to play from their hand each time it's their turn to add to the scene.

Derpy

1:04 PM

@Glazius well... I get your point, but you should also consider that we are speaking about something like 20-30 hours of Zack gameplay before getting told "So bad, that was the personality of another guy who was already dead at the start of the game"

BESW

IaPP! uses dice for the players, but the Fairy Godmother uses cards to randomly determine the nature and themes of new characters and scenes.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener from the perspective of someone who has listened to a few honey heists but never yet played one, I think bear and criminal added to the fun of the rolls personally.

BESW

(Spades are anger and cruelty, Hearts are strong emotions, Diamonds are material possessions, Clubs are interpersonal relationships; you divide the deck into face cards which are drawn to determine new NPCs, and number cards which are drawn to determine the nature and intensity of obstacles.)

Rubiksmoose

Oooo speaking of dice Gamescience's seven sided dice are back in stock for the first time in a very long time. If you recognize them they were the topic of this Q&A.

VtC

Hot RPG Questions

1:27 PM

5

Q: How to avoid the Conga Line of Death?

I’ve heard this phrase being thrown around sometimes on other game tables. Apparently, it describes a straight line of melee combatants on a grid, alternating between members of two opposing groups. This only occurs if the Flanking Variant Rule are used. Under these circumstances, the Conga Line ...

BESW

@HotRPGQuestions Play something with a slower beat?

goodguy5

@BESW waltz of death?

BESW

@goodguy5 ...is the name of a band whose members are all rejected Walt Disney clones.

goodguy5

heh

BESW

1:42 PM

(It is also the actual name of an actual song from the soundtrack of an actual survival horror video game.)

Glazius

@Derpy I think a couple things worked to soften that for me. You're getting hints all through the Zack gameplay that the boy ain't right, you get about 2-3 hours of Tifa and Cid gameplay before the big reveal to distance yourself, and the reveal pays those hints forward and makes things connect up.

yann.kmm

1:56 PM

Hi everyone! Re-asking now that the chat is more popoluated =) I have a question related to d&d maps and how they can be used shared. I asked a question in the gis community related to toril & faerun maps (TLDR I want to have a gis map of faerun) gis.stackexchange.com/… . One commenter asked if I could share this on google earth, however I have no idea of the legal restrictions on using this stuff, do you think I should create a question about this?

the link was not properly pasted gis.stackexchange.com/questions/315497/…

Derpy

@Glazius you get hints that Cloud mind isn't right, yep. But imho basically the situation they put you into is summed up in Cloud taking up Zack personality (the scene in the underground lab sound like he got in his current state due to the fact he was broken over his failures, not because of pure mind-control), avoiding to tell what Zack destiny was to a) his family, b) his girlfriend, potentially playing casanova with said girlfriend etc. And Zack was the one who died to save him.

In the meantime, the next character we are supposed to like since they conveniently put Aerith on the dead bus - Tifa the Gainaxer - knew something didn't add up in Cloud story since the start but decided that didn't deserve to be clarified until said Cloud is stuck on a wheelchair (you can clearly see she notices Cloud is altering the story as soon as the first scene in the inn outside Midgard)

doppelgreener

@yann.kmm That's borderline for the site but could be viable. We're not experts on Google Earth but we do know things about legally handling game IP.

David Coffron

Anyone have a tip to binding a high Strength NPC for an extended period of time? A DC 20 Strength check for chains isn't that high...

Yuuki

@DavidCoffron Do you have a three-hole punch?

Alternately, find a notary.

goodguy5

@Yuuki three hole punch man

yann.kmm

2:12 PM

@doppelgreener thanks, I was reflecting about this, and I think the larger question is, "are Toril, Faerun, all of the forgotten realms geographic information free to use? For example can I create a faerun map completely from scratch (but obviously putting in everything related to mapping (locations, city maps, etc), and distribute it on the internet?" I think I'll add this too to the question.

Yuuki

Hmm... I wonder if that would count as a "transformative work".

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 Absolutely undefeatable when it comes to office paper filing

David Coffron

@Yuuki Years of legal debate and various (sometimes semi-contradictory) precedent

That feeling when the rope of entanglement is easier to escape than an actual rope...

Even the iron bands of binding are as easy to break as a regular chain (I know the magic items have other benefits, but grr!)

Yuuki

I think there are spells that reduce the target's ability to succeed at Strength checks.

David Coffron

@Yuuki The reduce half of enlarge/reduce but that only lasts 1 minute.

Yuuki

2:33 PM

Well, if you can somehow manage to get the target to attempt and fail a Strength check while reduced, then any further Strength checks will fail for the next 24 hours.

David Coffron

@Yuuki Really? Is that how they work?

Yuuki

That's what iron bands of binding says.

David Coffron

It just says "Chain. A chain has 10 hit points. It can be burst with a successful DC 20 Strength check." Where's the 24 hour restriction? (or are you referring to the magic items)

Ah. The iron bands would do it in that case

Yuuki

> A creature, including the one Restrained, can use an action to make a DC 20 Strength check to break the iron bands. On a success, the item is destroyed, and the Restrained creature is freed. If the check fails, any further attempts made by that creature automatically fail until 24 hours have elapsed.

David Coffron

Might have to rely on this:

70

A: How many times may a character attempt a skill roll for the same test?

The DMG, at "Multiple Ability Checks," is your friend. Read p.237. Some highlights include: No number of attempts make an impossible task possible Failed attempts may make possible tasks impossible (like the hairpin breaking off in the lock!) If repeated attempts are all it takes, dispatch wit...

Yuuki

2:38 PM

Also, exhaustion could help.

Poisoned creatures have disadvantage on Ability checks.

David Coffron

@Yuuki Mmmm... poison is perfect actually

That's something I can do

Hot RPG Questions

9

Q: I keep switching characters, how do I stop?

I have been playing in a couple of campaigns recently as a player rather than a DM, and I have noticed a trend. I build characters that are flavorful in one way or another, memorable, fun characters. Everyone enjoys them, including me. However, I often grow bored of a character after as little a...

dnd-5e character-creation

David Coffron

Actually the Essence of Ether is perfect

> A creature subjected to this poison must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 8 hours. The poisoned creature is unconscious. The creature wakes up if it takes damage or if another creature takes an action to shake it awake.

It's like the perfect sleep. Now just to figure out how to get it...

CTWind

@Yuuki Hex'd also work for that.

David Coffron

@CTWind Bestow curse is another one

And can be upcast

vicky_molokh

2:56 PM

Anybody got ability and willingness to view deleted answers, comments and reasons? I see another case of last activity pointing nowhere, and that user's comments are also all mysterious deleted, like in some X-Files episode, so if I understand correctly I can't even use an @ comment. rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8907/…

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