TRPG General Chat

@nitsua60 Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.

Q: Does the Darkness spell dispel the Color Spray and Flaming Sphere spells?

14

The last sentence of the Darkness spell has the following text: If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled. The Color Spray spell creates "flashing, colored light", and Flaming Sphere she...

@nitsua60 what Marshal do you mean?

V2Blast

@trogdor rpg.stackexchange.com/help/badges/78/marshal

it's a badge for raising 500 helpful flags

that said, pretty sure a bunch of the flags were by me for conversation happening below one of my answers

Oh

I thought there was a person or a show or something

But a badge for flags makes more sense

Shalvenay

1:25 AM

hey there @nitsua60

A quick Google informs me that this is Marshall Badger.

I,.... Don't know how to respond to that

Other than, " this man apparently exists"

1:50 AM

Huh,.. I seem to be having trouble connecting to the chat here, but my internet otherwise doesn't seem to be having trouble

Joel Harmon

@trogdor For what it's worth, this message came through.

I guess the server SE side was having temporary issues

@JoelHarmon fair enough

Joel Harmon

Also, hello, all!

Hello yes

user15026

@trogdor Hahaha that was my reaction

1:52 AM

@Ash it might be the only reaction

user15026

It just might be.

I have a sample size of two, that's good enough right?

XD

user15026

Like I am very "this is a thing I have learned now"

Yeah I had to Google him just to see if he actually calls himself that and I guess he does

Which is weird specifically because that's what we call badges here and there was just a thing about that specific badge

The coincidence broke my brain

I'm guessing he does at least some country because of the name and the getup

The hat mostly

@trogdor 'Marshall' is a perfectly normal name, and 'Badger' isn't that weird for a surname. It's entirely possible that is his real name.

1:58 AM

I suppose but he does have a discography apparently

And it's not considered weird to make up a stage name for that

So either way

XD

user15026

Yeah I assumed he was probably country

Q: Can PCs use nonmagical armor and weapons looted from monsters?

2:17 AM

1

According to the PHB/basic rules, "Weapons and armor used by monsters are rarely in good enough condition to sell." Are nonmagical weapons and armor used by monsters in good enough condition for PCs to equip and use themselves?

dnd-5e monsters weapons equipment armor

2:28 AM

It would make sense

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 glad I could help! That insight is also super helpful as I debate that a lot when flagging, so thanks for putting that it there as an answer!

Fwiw I did a lot of both today and the differentiating factor was often "how easy is it for me to describe what comments should be deleted in a custom flag in a way that mods would find helpful" sometimes it's not easy at all...

2:56 AM

Me: Let me try @Trist_Chi Cozy Little Game Dice: You are writing about catastrophe & you betrayed someone That's how I ended up writing the POV of a Selkie's daughter & how her dad's selfishness ripped the family apart. Conclusion: This game is amazing and my brain is weird.

Tweeted by casskdesigns on April 29, 2019 at 11:19 PM

3:32 AM

I posted my own answer on my question about the GM - along the lines of the railroading

Though I accepted Aguinaldo Silvestre's answer, as that was what led me to my solution

Q: Which skill should be used for secret doors or traps: Perception or Investigation?

3

Which skill should be used for finding secret doors or traps: Perception or Investigation? If I only look at the SRD, it seams pretty cut and dry; all the examples for Wisdom (Perception) are creatures and all the examples for Intelligence (Investigation) are objects, but if I look at the Player...

dnd-5e skills

@Ben I'm glad you got a solution. I don't entirely understand the situation but I'm not sure that the DM's explanation fully excuses the 'meta-gamey/railroadyness' of their style.

You have an answer about the situations not being enjoyable but did that address the issue of them using your plans against you?

I do fee like my answer is a little vague in its explanation of the "solution".

@linksassin I feel the issue was to do with a conflict of my own plans in line with the GM's. I didn't know that he was creating plot lines for my character to investigate, I just felt he was sabotaging me.

So now that I know he's creating these points of conflict as an opening for my own character arcs, it makes more sense.

@Ben That part I understand. But the DM still shouldn't use the players plans to change an encounter specifically to thwart that lpan

So basically, we were playing two different stories, and since the GM wasn't responding to my directions, I felt like it was intentionally trying to thwart me. Instead he's just taking something that I care about as a way for me to try and follow a new arc.

3:40 AM

@linksassin ouch yeah if that's a thing they were doing that is an issue

@Ben That was kinda of what I assumed it was when I first read the question. They are perhaps a little heavy-handed by doing things the next session. Feedback that they should allow the character arc to grow more naturally could be useful. As you feel like it is being forced

Well, I think maybe it wasn't forced, it was more I felt like I was being picked on? I get n new toy, only to have it taken away. I didn't understand why, only that it was just confiscated without explanation.

Now they've explained it's not like that; it's just a tool to open a character arc. Mainly because on a Monday night, my brain isn't overly invested in any real character development, so taking items is probably the only approach they have.

As a DM confiscating items that took a lot of effort to obtain is a low move. Something that should be used sparingly rather than as a common plot hook.

Perhaps you can work with your DM to come up with better ways for them to indicate interesting character arcs.

Potentially. I might talk to him about that. I understand the reason for taking these things - they're really the main things I have shown any kind of investment in - so if they're taken, then of course I (should) go after them... no?

And since I have no investment in anything else, it's probably the only choice.

So I should give him more options

My personal favourite is to parallel characters backstories. For instance; A ranger who left a family behind to go adventure may come across a family in trouble because their father left for adventure and got killed. Now the ranger's player needs to deal with guilt and what to do about it. And how to get back to their family alive. Suddenly that characters survival means a lot more to that player.

3:56 AM

Yeah. And it allows for my own character to develop as well. My normal approach for creating a character is similar to meeting a new person. I write up the character sheet - "Hi. This is John. He's a soldier and has 17 Strength." By the end of the adventure, because he's been exposed to different situations, he's had opportunities to show his character - so I have had opportunities to think about how he reacts to them, and the kind of person he is.

From a DM perspective it is helpful to have a few more character details to draw on. If that is all the DM has I can see what they have to resort to taking things from you.

I usually get my players to write up at least a 1/2 page background. Usually including where they are from and how they ended up an adventurer.

I do the same for any character I play. The important part is I leave a lot of unanswered questions.

I don't try to nail down who the character is, that gives room to change/grow/discovery through gameplay. But it also gives the DM hooks that they can use to get my attention

Yeah. I feel like we do have a solid ground to move on from now though. I understand his intention, so I can let him know what he can use to open those character arcs

I should also talk to the whole group about this, because sometimes I feel like I need to follow the group's plans, meaning my own sort of get sidelined. It's not that I don't want to try and retrieve things I've lost. It's more that I feel I probably can't afford to waste the time to do so.

If you are good at not meta-gaming, working with the DM to create collaborative story arcs can be super rewarding.

You know, it's only a suit. I can get another one, no? It's certainly less important than saving the world from a certain apocalyptic doom event.

@Ben You definitely should. But "I'm useless to you without this item. Remember that time I saved you? You owe me." is a pretty good RP moment.

4:14 AM

Indeed

In other news, do you feel my Corruption system is "too complex"?

As in the latest version with 6 tracks and 4 tiers for each track?

I've been trying to talk to one of my friends about it and they keep interjecting before they get a full understanding of it. Their main issue is that since it's not on one page, it's bigger than it needs to be.

@linksassin Yeah. That version

Maybe. But you won't be able to get unique abilities onto a single page.

MikeQ

@Ben Many things make sense in hindsight, when all the factors are explained. But it's the DM's responsibility to communicate the world (and story) to the players.

Aug 21 '18 at 15:38, by Mike Q

Another thing: Most, if not all, DMs overestimate their ability to communicate and explain information

Indeed

I am probably in the same boat. As a programmer, I know how my program works. I know what I need to do to make it work. When I give it to another person, they break it immediately, because they don't have my intricate understanding of how it works.

@linksassin I think if anything I just spend a lot of time explaining the... lore of how it all works? That's the main part. I could potentially simplify it all and get it on two pages. Maybe I should do that and give it to him. See what he says haha

4:25 AM

@Ben Possibly a good idea. But lore isn't a bad thing. If their only complaint is that it takes 3 pages, that's not much of a complaint.

Yeah. He's very much a "dot-point" GM. This does a, b, and c. When x happens, respond with y.

He did seem a little more compliant when I explained it in this manner

@MikeQ An unfortunate truth. I put in conscious effort between session to ensure my players understood everything I described to them. Some of them (my sister and wife) get it because they know me well. The others struggle and require additional information a lot.

I am also yet to get any feedback on my 2d20 system.

OH MY GAAAAAASSSSSP

@Ben I like the premise but there are a fair few balance issues

The level 2 feature is basically Arcane Recovery but doesn't require a short rest.

Meanwhile have you seen the other answer on that problem players question? I'm a little concerned that people think that is a genuine way to solve a problem.

4:45 AM

Oh dear. Yeah.

The only way Ican see this being... productive (and I use that very loosely) is just to grab attention.

These people are ignoring me. Let's anger them into paying attention to me...

Yeah.

Attention grab is all it is. And that's what the others will see it as. A petulant child looking for attention.

The premise of it is sound enough. An interaction that will grab attention. But that's the same as yelling "I KICK THE DOOR DOWN AND YELL 'HERE'S JOHNNY!'"

Without a dead PC

If they can't get the attention of the other players without causing a scene then there is little to no chance of resolving this situation anyway.

4:49 AM

Yeah.

My 2d20 system for saving vs Corruption

To me it sounds like a combination of the other players being a little self-centered, a DM not knowing how to share the spotlight and a player not having the confidence to voice their opinion.

I wish I could give a good answer but I only know how I'd handle it from a DM's perspective and thats not very useful for the OP.

@linksassin Exactly. I am of the belief that this is not going to be resolved without the OP following suit. Forcing themselves to be heard. Some people are just like that, sadly.

The held object is probably their best bet. It's the same thing without having to yell all the time

@Ben Hmm... all checks from then on is a lot of overhead.

Until you get 3 successes/failures

@Ben I think the 'talking stick' approach can lead to frustration or feeling like its a waste of time. I think it requires a strong DM to solve issues like this. "No, Johnny is talking, wait your turn."

4:55 AM

@linksassin Yeah.

@Ben Not sure about that system. It feels like you are making unrelated rolls. Plus the ability to decide which dice is which is a bit weird and meta-gamey.

This does need to be enforced in some way, and someone needs to take responsibility for it

@linksassin Potentially. I like the idea of it... but I'm not entirely sure of it. the premise is that once you reach the tipping point, anything that steals your focus from battling it, causes an interaction to save/fail.

You need to spend extra effort (i.e. roll for it)

That's the idea, at least

If 'focus on resisting' is the goal make resisting require concentration. As long as you are above tier 4 corruption to must use your concentration to resist. If you lose concentration you are lost.

Makes getting the corruption back down a bit more urgent because you can't concentrate for that long.

@linksassin Hmm, ok. The other idea was that players can reach this point out of combat.

And, no way for other players to interact

@Ben You can concentrate out of combat.

5:03 AM

Yeah, I know.

Maybe I should read up on concentration again. Lol

My only interaction with it is spellcasting

TBH I'm still in favour of no save. This is corruption you got yourself into this situation. Why do you get a 'take-back'?

@linksassin I can agree with your understanding of it. But it depends on how you play it. Hw do you let the players know it's coming

@Ben They know the rules of the system, they know their current corruption score.

Ok. Fair.

I think my concern is giving away too much detail?

[Snort]. The Paladins of Diablo follow the Zakarum Faith. Which was corrupted by Mephisto - one of the three Prime Evils. Lol

I might make it optional. See what happens

6:19 AM

@Ben Giving away too much detail? I had assumed the had access to the full ruleset

Yeah. I'm not sure who I was writing it for, to be honest haha

I think I was writing it for the GM only, but there is too much conflict of interest to keep the players out of the loop.

Especially now

The players need to know what is means to get an influence point

I don't see how this system could possibly work if they don't know the rules

The DM doesn't want to be tracking 6 tracks per player

Yeah. I suppose I was coming from the direction of they can know what things do, and the outcomes, but not when things happen

But I don't see reason to do that anymore

Especially since the players are the ones in charge of managing it all

6:44 AM

@Ben They don't know when things happen. Sources of influence are party of the campaign and entirely at DM discretion. They players just know how they can response to it and what will happen when they do.

If the players don't know the system they might get pretty annoyed about losing a character despite successfully resisting the whole time.

@linksassin Sorry, "when" being at how many points

So they reach 5 points - Surprise! you've reached tier 1

@Ben I knew that was what you meant. I was taking the other viewpoint.

But once that's revealed, it won't take a scientist to figure out the pattern

They know it is 5 points. But how many influences = 5 points? 5 encounters? 3? 1?

Yeah

6:46 AM

The next influence could straight up give them 5 corruption. They don't know

I could see the argument for withholding the exact nature of the abilities though.

Speaking of that - I want to figure out what would be better; when a player tries to remove influence, it's a resistance roll at disadvantage. If they fail/succeed, they add/remove either double, or +1 point.

My thoughts was that interactions would be base, 1 point, maybe 2 or 3 in extreme cases. But double would be 6 points.

In that extreme case

@linksassin Yeah.

Double is fine. Trying to resist a large influence and reduce your influence total should be difficult and risky

The risk though is that six points might take someone form tier 3 straight to tier 5

The tradeoff might be that they can allocate the points as they see fit.

Maybe make tier 4 worth 10 points?

Potentially... that is the "use this ability and get 1 point" tier

so that will give them a bit of room to move as well

6:54 AM

Wait is there is 5 tiers? Sorry I thought tier 4 was the lost character tier

I meant whatever the last tier is. Make it 10 but the rest 5.

Or maybe make each tier higher than the last. 3->5->7->10->15 or something

0-4 does nothing. 5-9 is tier 1. 10-14 tier 2, 15-19(24?) tier 3, 20/25 is loss of character.

Yeah my b. Got confused

It's ok. I'm having trouble keeping all the version straight

Lol

Did you not go with the "gaining the ability subtracts influence" bit?

Uhh no? I don't recall nothing like that?

Anything*

Ohh right

I remember now

I feel like less maths is better. Haha

7:07 AM

The goal for that was to keep the total influence number down

And to prevent moving back down the tiers

Once you hit a new tier you couldn't go back

Moving down is OK, just not past a certain point. I left it at can't move back beyond 5 points.

And total influence can be calculated at the end. Tom got 45. Dave got 109. Dave gets the special prize

Ah to the save is no longer dependent on total current influence?

I'll have to look it up, but no, I don't think so

I've been out of the loop for a while over the long weekends. No totally up to date with how it works at the moment

I think it was based on types over a tier. E.g. DC 15. Two types at tier 2, so +4 to roll

I think...

Haha yeah all g.

Apr 19 at 13:54, by Ben

Corruption v2 Draft

OK. I didn't have that... But I need to review that

Cos d20 +60 is a bit unbalanced hahaha

7:18 AM

Yeah, just read that bit and was like "cool I can never go past tier 2 if i choose to resisit" 1d20+30 is pretty easy to get

I'd say +1 per tier is probably enough

maybe +1 for tier 1 +2 for tier 2 and +3 for tier 3 but it's cummulative. So a total of +6 at tier 3

Yeah. By the end, you'd have up to +9, but the DC would be up there too. Easier to resist, but not impossible

It also says resistance score not corruption. Is that only meant to be tiers in resistance trees?

Yeah

I think I made corruption (embracing) increase as you went on. Once your reached tier 1 it's +1 point, 2 is +2, etc. But that's in each respective branch, not overall...

Maybe I'll make it that once you reach a cumulative tier 1, 2 and 3? So tier 1 in hatred, tier 2 in darkness, that's cumulative tier 3

But I would cap it at... Hmm... Maybe 5?

What does your embracing modifier do though? You don't make saves when embracing.

No, it only affects how many points you gain.

7:31 AM

Oh, I thought the number of points was based on the influence not on your current score

So if the interaction is 1 point, you'd gain +2 points on top

I.e. This influence is worth 2 points and DC12 to resist.

You can choose to resist, so you have to roll vs DC. Or you can embrace, for no conflict.

Hmm... ok I see. Trying to get the "slippery slope" of embracing

You just gain more points, the more you embrace.

Yeah

Willingly submitting yourself to it all

7:33 AM

I think that might cause some balance issues. The embrace tree is effectively a lot shorter than the resist tree. As in it takes a lot less total influence to lose a character that way

So the idea is: you resist, with the chance of not being affected at all. If you fail, you gain a point. Or you can embrace, for no challenge, with the risk of losing more and more quickly.

Or, you can resist extra hard (roll with disadvantage) to remove interaction value+1 point from anywhere

Yeah but if the trees are the same number of points I will lose a lot faster if I embrace. I'm not sure that's balanced.

Currently there is a significant advantage to resisting.

Well, that's the pay off. You get cool stuff quicker, and easier, at a much higher risk

Or you take the safe, slow path

And gain cool abilities way more slowly

Yeah but think about it. Resisting has a ~50% of gaining 1 point. Embrace has a 100% of gaining 1. Then Later resisting might have a ~10% chance of gaining 1. While embrace against have 100% chance of gain 6.

It makes embrace almost impossible to survive at high levels

You either need a save for embrace. Or you don't increase how quickly you take it.

Yeah. I should have said earlier that the numbers need to be reviewed

7:41 AM

Maybe put all the +1 point per use abilities on the embrace side instead?

That still gets the accelerated corruption with more embracing. But doesn't feel so deadly.

@linksassin Or maybe remove that. Gain a temp + and - instead?

So, like you can rage x per rest and gain fatigue each time

For example

@Ben Not sure about that. Don't want to step on the toes of a barbarian PC

The accelerated corruption with embrace is good. It just needs balancing against resisting

Yeah. Was just using it as an example.

Basically for a system to be balance there needs to be no choice that is clearly better than the others

Ok

V2Blast

7:45 AM

@linksassin or at least, not universally/consistently better

If it is a clear detriment to choose to embrace no one will ever do it. You don't want to make "trap options" either.

@V2Blast True, it can be situational. So long as the situation isn't "always"

8:01 AM

Ok. So I was thinking of having those +1 abilities on both sides. So for example, Delusion could be I picture a door in the wall here, and it manifests. +1 Delusion.

Then for hatred, maybe you can inflict damage through sheer will because you just hate everything. +1 hatred.

These would probably be x uses per rest.

So I will need to come up with a more balanced way to get that "slippery slope" working

My HOT TAKE on writing "hopeful" stories: Hope can be brutal. Hope can be grim and unceasingly cruel and violent. Hope can make people bleed. Hope can kill. Hope is anger, hope is rage, hope is terrifying. To hope means to not give up & that can be the hardest thing to do

Tweeted by ellle_em on April 26, 2019 at 9:47 PM

I should also clarify, if it wasn't already; you can freely choose to embrace or resist any situation (except for the occasional ones the GM throws at you that say you can only embrace, or you can only resist)

@BESW How very morbidly empowering

@BESW that actually perfectly describes the books I am reading at the moment

there is horrible stuff happening almost nonstop but there are people constantly fighting against it too

Would it be fair to say that not everyone should answer some questions?

This answer is basically providing advice that is perhaps contradictory to what the OP wants to achieve.

@Ben Demonstrably, yes. Whyever would anyone think otherwise?

8:13 AM

At this point I think the issue has reached a certain point. They've provided their answer and are getting defensive.

If you've suggested an improvement, leave it alone.

If you don't have an improvement to suggest, vote and leave.

I'm not sure if I should point out that the OP is asking for pne thing, and they have provided potentially contradictory advice

The Stack interface doesn't really provide space for anything else, unfortunately.

Hmm.

Conflict is... unsightly.

The comments are not a space fit for persuasion or dialogue.

8:15 AM

Yeah

Unfortunate as it is

@Ben There's a discussion bouncing around Writing Twitter recently about how most utopian novels are largely unconcerned with how the utopia was achieved, and that this is not hopeful; it is wishful.

Right.

The term "hopepunk" is getting used a lot lately, too, and those two conversations smashed together, and... [gestures above]

That does open up a whole new genre

I think their point is that there's always been a genre of hopeful utopian fiction... but it's not a placid and pleasant genre so it doesn't get seen as utopian.

8:26 AM

It is a recurring theme - utopia is only utopia to those that benefit from it.

And to those who do not benefit, utopia is often apocalyptic.

That's one of the central "some anvils need to be dropped" themes in the Broken Earth trilogy.

8:40 AM

The first scene of the first novel is a guy literally breaking a continent in two along a fault line, triggering an apocalyptic event which will destroy the most stable civilization in thousands of years and risks wiping out all humanity... because his response to the Omelas question is that a smoking volcano is preferable to a society which buys the safety of many with the misery of a few.

...and now I'm trying to find two short stories that are responses to Omelas which I read a few years ago but can't remember the titles or authors of.

@BESW the Parole stuff from RoAnna Sylver definitely follows this version/description of hope

thanks again for linking her

8:55 AM

My pleasure!

@Ash Do you remember a short story online, about imagining what happens to the children in Omelas when they grow up?

And I think there was another, about the people who live near Omelas, or visit it?

I think at least one of them was published around August or September of last year.

While I'm digging, came across these which are rel🐘 to some recent conversations: "When the Supernatural is a Natural Part of Your Culture," by Natalia Sylvester, and "The Voices of The Odyssey: Emily Wilson On Language, Translation, and Culture," by Fran Wilde, both for tor.com.

9:22 AM

I think the weirdest thing about utopia stories is how people take the word and try to apply it as a perfect society

But no Utopian story I have ever read had that going on

They always look like that on the surface before they turn out to be perpetuating something horrible to keep it going

I mean i suppose on one hand the story isn't going to be any good if everything is perfect

But it is pretty bad when someone tries to design a utopia without input or even purposely ignoring a particular group or multiple groups of people

Also some stories like that are all "this is a perfect society see?" And then later they bring out the bad stuff,.... But there's already several obvious glaring problems with the "utopia" before that

And I'm not sure it's usually self aware

9:39 AM

A lot of the original utopian boom were idealized.

And yes, there was a massive utopia craze ushered in by an astoundingly popular 1888 novel called Looking Backward. Books like HG Wells' Time Machine (1895) are satires of that craze.

(I recently ran into an essay about how time travel as a common literary device is one of the only visible legacies of the original utopian boom--because Looking Backward popularized the idea of a utopia as a future place rather than a distant place.)

(So all these utopia novels had to come up with variations on "and then my POV character went to sleep for a hundred years," and they got more and more elaborate--mental transference was popular--until HG Wells just invented a time machine and everyone went "Oh. That works.")

Tangentially, it's really funny to me how many well-known works of film and literature were originally rebuttals or satires to works that are now long forgotten, which forgetting has dramatically changed our relationship to the well-known text.

@trogdor Looking at Omelas, I wonder if it's atypical in those senses: (1) It doesn't ignore anyone, but rather commits an unethical action deliberately in order to maximise happiness and (2) it tackles the matter of the 'best society' being subjective, albeit in an immersion-breaking manner.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is not a utopian work.

Well, Omelas is presented as an eutopian society with one huge dark point.

I suppose there's the matter of what counts as eutopian works as opposed to works with eutopias within them.

9:56 AM

That is the original subject of this discussion, yes.

Would you consider Culture and/or 2150 eutopian works?

10:14 AM

@vicky_molokh I have not read it specifically

@vicky_molokh if you mean the culture series I would say it at least attempts to be

It does have it's own issues though

In my opinion

Some of which is admittedly muddied by the fact that outside forces threaten it, but even within the Culture itself there is robot indentured servitude as I recall

I haven't read either.

And really he doesn't detail how they have a perfect society

He simply assumes they have post scarcity

As far as I can tell

I refer you to my point above, though, about utopias tending toward wishing rather than hoping. I'm less interested in categorization for its own sake than in considering with an eye toward action.

Specifically, since this is an RPG chat, what does hopeful utopian gaming look like?

And there is a but if a grey area because of the war/s they have going on which opens up a question of why they are at war with anyone if they have a perfect society

And the only semi acceptable answer would be that they didn't start it

I think Misspent Youth and Sundown and Fate of Cthulhu all offer possibilities for hopeful utopian gaming; and I think the solarpunk Thunderbirds riff I've mentioned in chat before would also qualify.

10:21 AM

@BESW I would think specifically playing people in an imperfect society fighting against something

@trogdor Agreed.

@trogdor :50109653 It's more complicated than that.

@vicky_molokh yes but

Also not entirely

@trogdor There's the 'we didn't start it', but there is also 'we consider some societies so imperfect by our marks that we decide to go interventionist'.

There is a lot going on

At least up until the third book

I didn't read past that

10:24 AM

Also, I don't remember the indenture bit. I do remember the permanent overwatch attached to those who committed the more serious of crimes.

Finally home. Phew

I've said before, one of the fundamental flaws in the Star Trek concept is that contemporary script writers don't have the tools to create interesting, engaging stories about emotionally healthy people who celebrate diversity and are made genuinely happy by cooperating to empower each other's successes.

I would LOVE to see an RPG which does that.

Golden Sky Stories IN SPAAAACE.

Because THAT kind of utopia would show a happy future while also showing how we got there: it's hard work to establish and maintain, even in the best of situations.

It'd be stories about what to do when there's more need for emotional labor than one can provide, about dealing with anxieties which don't just evaporate when you stop lying to your friends, about the difficulty of reconciling conflicting goals even when all participants are willing to help each other.

11:01 AM

Game design is impossible! The more of this game I finish, the more there is left to finish! It makes no sense!

Tweeted by lumpleygames on April 29, 2019 at 8:52 PM

Thinking about it, I'd say that in a civilisation where writers are informed enough to write proper 'how to get there' about a subject (whether a sociological one or a mathematical one or whatever), the actual experts on the subject are usually informed enough to get there. In fact normally the fiction-writers lag behind experts more than that: fiction writers can't write a proper 'how to get here' even for things we *already have* (which is how we get e.g. Hollywood Psychology).

Would I want to read fiction by people who understand how to 'get there' (whether in physics or sociology)? Pro…

Q: How would adding a darkvision racial trait to Dragonborn affect balance?

4

Dragonborn, as I understand it, are considered to be one of the weakest, if not the weakest, playable race. Their flavour is cool, especially for people who like dragons, but their being sub-par in terms of balance can be off-putting. Furthermore, dragons all have darkvision (by which I mean "tr...

dnd-5e homebrew balance racial-traits dragonborn

@vicky_molokh That would only be true in areas where there is no friction between knowing how to do a thing, and doing it.

These areas are few and far between, especially in social contexts where those invested in the existing structures create barriers to change which they fear would threaten their power and prestige.

There's certainly the matter of people not wanting to get there, but in most of those situation, people also seem not to be informed enough to get there either. E.g. there's much less consensus among experts on political science at an applied level than among experts of maths at an applied level. I.e. not only do some people resist some 'getting there', but there is not enough knowledge to make the choice of 'there' unambiguous and objective.

Yeah, now you're talking about something totally different again. If anybody else wants to engage with it, that's great.

11:13 AM

I see the lack of knowledge of a path (including its midpoint and endpoint) as very much relevant part of the same matter, but I'm OK with disengaging on that topic.

I'm not talking about stuff where there's a complete lack of knowledge of a path. I'm talking about stuff that people are writing about based on existing scholarship and experiential learning.

I'm talking about things which are addressed by authors like Jemisin and Dr. Okorafor, and projects like the Ruhi Institute.

This isn't like speculating about FTL travel. We can look around us and see philosophies for fighting oppression, and praxes that inspire communities to a spirit of selfless service.

Perhaps most crucially, stories are not manuals.

@BESW oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

xD

But yeah that's what I mean

11:29 AM

@trogdor Darmok and Jalad at the sushi bar.

The culture series looks like a utopia, but it has a similar problem to Star Trek

We don't know how they got there

Also it's not clear what kind of diversity they have either

@BESW lol

yeah, like, this shouldn't be hard. We've got games about people being kind and compassionate to each other.

@vicky_molokh if I remember correctly basically they create sentient/sapient robots, and as payment for being made they spend a certain amount of time working for the Culture society

@trogdor IIRC it's more complex than that.

Which..... Is one way you can do that but it's extremely arguable if that's ok

@vicky_molokh well it could be

11:33 AM

It's more that the first AIs were developed to be meatbag-friendly, and so they're inclined to pass on that traits onto their descendants / other AIs they make. Which means that all AIs tend to want to care for meatbags.

I will admit I may have details wrong or be forgetting some things

Or missing something past book 3

@vicky_molokh that's a thing too but I'm talking about what they are all expected to do for a certain amount of time right after being made

As I recall it was sort of a throwaway detail

And it may or may not have been the Culture who did that to be fair

I just remember that robot indentured servitude was a thing

I don't remember enough details about how the expectations were presented to definitively disprove such a recollection.

And it wasn't explored as much as it could have been

@vicky_molokh as far as I recall it was all laid out just in one or two separate short conversations

I played Bubblegumshoe yesterday, and it's nice!

@Anaphory Ooooer.

Spill the deets!

11:43 AM

@BESW Yes! So would I! And I continue to wonder why, among the thousands of games by talented game designers, some of whom think about these things very hard, I'm sure, it's still not a thing I have seen, and not that many things approaching it.

I'm sure there's some on itch.io... somewhere...

But now I've got a germ of an idea to make a Ruhi-inspired RPG.

@BESW I was GM, two players, playing a quite-recently migrated Japanese science nerd girl and a punk middle-class rebel secretly into drama in a semi-rural town with upcoming drone-based biotech industry, thank to Japanese investigators. We played the ‘photo’ adventure from the book.

Nice.

GSS in space would be so rad

Happy Valpurgis Eve everyone

Or Walpurgis. Can't recall how ye Angles spell it

11:54 AM

that's today? :P

(I am not familliar with it, is the joke,... I wish you could read this in the tone that tells you it's a joke)

@BESW The first part of the investigation went very smoothly, with some sidescenes and cool ideas, but then I found it difficult to give the clue that would take the investigation from the ‘peer group’ level to the ‘town adults’ level, without it essentially being me as GM saying ‘The princess is in another castle’.

@trogdor I don't think many people outside the Nordic/Baltic sphere do :>

@kviiri It's also the eleventh day of Ridvan!

@kviiri I would love to hear what it is?

It's one of my favorite celebrations but I'm feeling rather introverted today and don't really want to go out to party

11:58 AM

unless it's one of those bad holidays maybe

@kviiri Pretty much just you.

@kviiri ah hehehe no one else here like that right guys?

@Anaphory Ah, I don't remember that adventure very well so I'm not sure how that works out.

I made up my own adventure about a stolen bike.

@trogdor Our version of it evolved largely from Labor Movements' May Day celebrations with a healthy dose of student culture infusion

@kviiri ah

11:59 AM

It coincides with Walpurgis' feast, hence the name

so sort of a grass roots type of thing