TRPG General Chat

Hot RPG Questions

00:06

8

I am running a D&D 5e campaign, and we had an interesting case come up in play last night. The party cast minor illusion to conceal themselves in a cave at the end of a narrow canyon, and then a Spined Devil, with telepathy, spoke to them telepathically (and they replied). Does the presence of th...

A. B.

With regard to what happened on Saturday. I did not mean any of the things people appear to have taken me to mean. Sorry if I managed to give anyone the impression that I did.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW I'm learning that and absolutely loving it. I had no idea they were making a TRPG of it!

I'm pretty curious how one would do that. But I'll certainly be keeping an eye out!

BESW

00:25

@A.B. Thank you. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me pointing out "hey, that's not a great thing to say" is not the same as saying "I think you meant this horrible thing." When I say things that aren't what I mean, I want people to tell me so I can improve my ability to say what I mean. So that's how I approach others, too.

nitsua60

@A.B. So, I had some thoughts while I was puttering about in the garden. Ping me in the NAB some time if you're interested. (But I'm busy-ish for the next hour, sorry.)

A. B.

@BESW Aw, thanks!

@nitsua60 I'm... kind of tired.

Unless you mean thoughts about something other than fights in chat rooms, in which case I'm all ears, but still probably tired so don't expect intelligent answers immediately. :-)

Oh, you said Notabar, right. Pinging there too.

A. B.

00:56

But honestly I think by this point any further discussion on that topic isn't accomplishing anything on any side except making me cross.

I have absolutely no idea regarding the spiny devil.

Except to wonder if a spined devil is anything like a thorny devil. :-) upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/… How do I do proper links in the mobile version?

nitsua60

[link text](target_url) renders like this

Shalvenay

hey there btw @linksassin

linksassin

01:12

@Shalvenay G'day. Your thought experiment is interesting. I'm too busy at the moment to give it proper attention. But I will get to it when I have a chance

Hot RPG Questions

8

Q: Do Githzerai hatch from eggs?

We know that Githyanki hatch from eggs from this question. Is there a specific source that says the Githzerai hatch from/lay eggs?

dnd-5e monsters lore gith

A. B.

Thanks Nitsua. testing testing

yay!

BESW

01:30

@RedOrca [wave]

user15026

@Rubiksmoose It's such a good series. I loved it when I read it.

Red Orca

@BESW Well met!

BESW

I saw you doing some data on the protection thing, thanks for that.

Red Orca

Yeah...I may have gotten a little carried away in "investigation mode". Slow day at work. I didn't intend to call anyone out, so apologies if any of it came across that way!

BESW

@Ash Ooof it's so good but also so hard. So many very real feels.

user15026

01:38

@BESW oh man yes so many

BESW

I just had some brain lightning. Does anybody know of games which reach outward from the table into the participants' communities? Like, a game with an expectation of engagement with friends/family/neighbours somehow?

MikeQ

A viral game? Like the game that you lose if you think about it?

linksassin

@BESW Do you mean actually TTRPGs or things like "wide games" and the sort of things that get run at youth groups?

BESW

@linksassin I'm specifically thinking about TRPGs but am willing to cast my net wider.

linksassin

Note: Not sure if "wide games" is a colloquial term or not.

BESW

01:40

I've got ideas percolating about games that value process over product, and consider the game a thing which also happens to people who aren't at the table but are part of the community in which the game occurs. Putting the focus on the people and calling for mindfulness about existing in that moment and the people who share that moment.

So before I try to invent the wheel I wanna see what wheels other people have made.

linksassin

I don't know of any TRPGs but have played plenty of wide-games and youth group activities that require engaging with people.

BESW

Sort of like... oh, a little bit like how el teatro del oprimido re-imagines theater spaces, maybe.

linksassin

Things like the trading game. Where everyone starts with a paperclip and has to go out into the community to trade with people. At the end of the night the winner is the team with the best item.

user15026

@linksassin yeah, I immediately thought of that one when you mentioned youth group stuff

MikeQ

If the game doesn't stop at the table, then how can it establish boundaries and prevent bleed?

BESW

01:44

Bleed isn't always bad. But a game has boundaries or it's not a game. Just because we've challenged the supreme impenetrability of the table/community barrier and made it permeable, doesn't mean we've thrown out the boundary entirely.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Things like a community scavenger hunt, where teams go out in cars to people's houses (generally people they know) to find a list of items?

That kind of thing?

linksassin

I've definitely been involved in games that didn't have well defined boundaries. Lessons were learned.

BESW

Potentially? I'm thinking more about a game which produces a call to action, that has both table time and community time.

linksassin

We had one game that was a video challenge. There was bunch of objectives that you had to film yourselves doing. The problematic one was "Follow a red car for 5 minutes".

BESW

Like... someone in another chat just told me about I Know How To Free Them by Paul Czege:

linksassin

01:46

Thankfully most people realised that was a terrible idea and aborted.

BESW

> I Know How To Free Them is a (mostly) solo play game about freeing a character hidden in a book. You discover aspects of the character in response to prompts, including a talent they have that the world needs, and something they believe that you yourself have a hard time believing.
At the end, to determine if you succeed at freeing the character you have to reach out to a friend, coworker, or relative and convince them that the world does indeed need the character's talent and the thing they believe is indeed believable.

That's not really the kind of engagement I'm after, but it's vaguely structurally similar.

Adeptus

@Rubiksmoose I've just started it. I've also read her Dreamblood series, and most of her short story collection (didn't finish it before it had to go back to the library. Now I've bought myself a copy). I haven't read much for the past month or so... kind of burnt out after Deadhouse Gates.

BESW

(Czege seems to do this semi-regularly but I'm not always thrilled with his games' attitude toward consent.)

Peter Cooper Jr.

Alternate reality game

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real time and evolves according to players' responses. Subsequently, it is shaped by characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by an algorithm as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot...

Some were marketing stunts, but some are much like RPGs but try to overlay onto real-world-space in some way. Again, not sure if that's what you're looking for.

BESW

It's something to think about but no, not really. More about games that have players engaging with the local reality, rather than games which supplant the local reality.

nitsua60

01:51

@BESW If I knew where to look, I'd look for ideas in the Church of Latter-Day Saints' spaces.

MikeQ

Ah ok, so it's not that the game uses its own gameplay to market to others, but rather the gameplay involves affecting a community outside of the game?

BESW

Like. Traditional Western theater is about actors who bring stories to audiences. El teatro del oprimido is about audiences who bring stories to actors.

nitsua60

Sidewalkia!

BESW

@MikeQ Yeah, more like that!

nitsua60

[rummages]

200wordrpg.github.io/2018/rpg/winner/2018/05/18/Sidewalkia.html

It's a silly game, but maybe in the sort of mechanic-space you're feeling around?

Peter Cooper Jr.

01:53

So, "I love bees", which is the only ARG I'm somewhat familiar with (and "familiar" may be a bit of a stretch, and it's been a while at that), involved going to GPS coordinates and conversing with actors. So kind of a game where you went to it, rather than it coming to you. Really not a "community" engagement, though, I suppose.

BESW

When we play a game, it doesn't stay with us. Even if we never mention it to our family and neighbours, it has an effect on our community because it's changed us and we're part of the community. What if games were more cognizant of being part of something beyond the table where they're played? That's a core thought I'm having.

MikeQ

It's kind of like a community service group that "gamifies" community service, but instead of handing out badges, the person's fictional character gets some benefit?

linksassin

@BESW Sounds like improv theatre.

BESW

@nitsua60 That's a good thought. There's definitely elements of faith-in-action in my thought process here. Studying the Sacred Word results in a call to action in your life.

nitsua60

The other place I'd wonder about is LARP-world. There's got to be larpers who've pushed the boundaries of what's "in" vs. "out" of the game they're playing.

BESW

01:57

@linksassin El teatro del oprimido could be called a kind of improv, yes, but it's an improvisation carefully designed to empower an audience to discuss solutions to its community's problems.

Peter Cooper Jr.

And you may need to define "game" somewhat if you want to narrow it down. To some extent, trying to get Boy Scout badges is a game where some of them may end up doing something for your community. Looked at the right (wrong?) way, getting elected to public office is a game.

BESW

yeah, I'm being kinda deliberately open about definitions at this stage because I think that to do what I want to do, I'm going to need to synthesize a lot of things which aren't usually considered part of the TRPG landscape.

nitsua60

The one thing that's jumping out at me is "this may need to be long-form." Because I'm imagining that either something in-game triggers outside interaction, or it's part of the tempo of the game... and I suspect you're imagining something more in-depth than "run across the street and tap the neighbor's mailbox!"

Which makes me think that between "turns" (or phases or actions or epochs) in-game there might need to be hours or days.

linksassin

We once ran a wide game that was required actions in the outside world to earn resources to spend at the table.

MikeQ

@linksassin And how did that turn out?

Peter Cooper Jr.

02:02

There's been a little bit of it in some of the parody Magic the Gathering sets

gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/…

linksassin

Since it was on a camp the actions weren't really "community actions" but could easily be adapted to it

nitsua60

I mean, for a fictional example: suppose we-all were playing a game of Dread and every time a pull were triggered, that person actually needed to take a social risk the next day. We come back to dread next game night and the person tells us about the experience, and their rating of how it went determines whether they get one hand or two on the draw, or if they're on a timer, or something like that.

Sound on the same continent as your notion, @BESW?

linksassin

@MikeQ Pretty well actually. There were some actions you could do at the table and some that required going out to do things. We had a bunch of leaders out around the camp that had various challenges to earn rewards.

BESW

Not exactly, but it could be an interesting structure.

Hah. How's this for a frame: "How can a game be good for people who aren't playing it?"

nitsua60

I might be too hung up on the time/sequentiality element.

Suppose we all agree we're playing $game next game night; for all of us that means we know what RL-things we should do/keep track of/observe during the week to come to the table with...?

MikeQ

02:06

So something with idle components? Play-by-post format can kind of support that asymmetric interaction.

BESW

Idle/intersession components are a definite possibility.

One really low-key idea I had as an example: I've got a game I'm making about traveling librarians. Right now it's just a campaign guide but I wanna mechanize it.

nitsua60

For a trivial example, we're playing D&D but I only have as many spell slots as doors I held for people the last week. Or we're playing fate but the only aspects available to me are ones I gleaned from asking someone how they're doing...?

BESW

And I was thinking, what if part of your time in the town between routes is getting book recommendations for the fictional people on your route, from the real people in your neighbourhood?

MikeQ

The boundaries between game and reality are crucially important. If you want to cross that boundary, you'd need to do so very very carefully. Specifically:
- how do you assure that each player has fair access to resources outside of gameplay time?
- how can a player leave the game voluntarily? what about involuntarily?

BESW

Yeah. Consent and bleed and all of that need to be curated REALLY carefully, and a big part of that is approaching it from a means-not-ends philosophy that focuses on Good Process.

MikeQ

02:11

I just don't see how this would work for anyone who views gameplay fiction as an escape from real life

user15026

Then it wouldn't be a game for them, potentially.

BESW

This is absolutely not that kind of game.

This is a concept which directly challenges the possibility of that divide being anything more than a polite fiction.

user15026

If I am understanding right, it would be baked in from the get-go, so it wouldn't be a surprise?

MikeQ

Ah, yes, I suppose that was sort of obvious. I didn't phrase that right.

BESW

@Ash Yeah. I don't like surprises like that so I wouldn't try to make a game with that kind of surprise.

MikeQ

02:14

The game's designers would need extra care, both in how the game is designed and how it is presented, to avoid using incentives to manipulate people into harmful behavior

I think that's more along the lines of what I meant. Does that make sense?

BESW

A more aggressive frame for this question, which actually opens up dialogue for more traditional game formats, would be "How can a game take responsibility for its impact on the community in which it is played?"

@MikeQ Yes, that's absolutely a major consideration that should never be far from our minds!

MikeQ

Hm, yes, I suppose it would be. Sorry for raining on the parade like that. I've had bad experiences with bleed, and I tend to have knee-jerk reactions when someone suggests doing something that I've seen end in disaster.

nitsua60

In a completely different direction, here's a 200-word RPG that absolutely does not take responsibility for the number of index cards it might consume: Recursive Roleplay 200-word RPG

MikeQ

roll factorial dice

excuse me what

nitsua60

They could have saved a few words, but I guess they're committed to GOTO-less RPGing.

It did just occur to me that one could easily require 720 dice. Not saying my regular group couldn't scrounge that up, mind you....

MikeQ

02:29

I did run a session with 1-deep recursive tabletop RPG gameplay, mostly as a joke

Dunno if I've ever seen 2-deep recursive before

This one seems to have infinite (or at least probabilistic) depth

BESW

@MikeQ No worries! I think that in the current TRPG climate it's better to be overcautious about making sure people are aware of safety and consent issues, than to be not cautious enough.

user15026

@nitsua60 I don't even understand how that would even function

nitsua60

@Ash We start playing a quickly-made RPG. Every time an action has to be resolved, that actually spawns a new RPG. I think.

Whatever it is, I think if @BESW ran it at their next game night they'd discover the RPG they've been thinking about tonight. Monkeys/typewriters, at that point =)

BESW

trogdor

lol

Ben

02:42

Came up with an interesting weapon concept: A shield axe

Dragon prince gave me the idea

Adeptus

Is that just a shield with a sharpened edge, or...?

nitsua60

@Adeptus No, an axe with a large, thin body =)

MikeQ

Maybe it's a shield on a stick

nitsua60

@MikeQ or a double-bit without a stick!

Ben

So the idea cane from someone using the shield as a (very *very large) fist weapon.

Clearly, the edge would have to be sharpened for this use, and the shield was worn down the arm, rather than across it.

So it got me thinking, you could use it as a shiled, then have a small-headed hammer, then comine the two to make it into a two-handed axe

Adeptus

02:58

Reminds me of tortoise blades from Dark Sun - though that's shield-sword not shield-axe. I think it might be based on a real-world weapon, but I'm not sure.

Ben

03:13

Ahh ok I get ya Similar but different I guess.

In my idea the shield would have a sharpened edge, so it would become the blade

MikeQ

So like a mezzaluna with a shield in front?

Joel Harmon

03:40

@nitsua60 Are you familiar with 1000 Blank White Cards?

Also, who is to say that factorial dice is of the d6 variety?

Ben

03:55

So you have a shield and hammer, then you loop the hammer handle through the arm holds, and make it a battle/great axe

Yuuki

So a Charge Blade?

But an axe instead of a sword.

Ben

I think you'd have a hard time convincing your DM to let you have a charge blade :P

Bardic Wizard

04:29

@Ben I don’t think any DM I know would let me have one.

trogdor

04:46

@Ben I feel like this would have to be either ineffective as a shield, or ineffective as an axe

Ben

There would be a tradeoff, yeah

Yuuki

07:02

@trogdor Why not a regular shield and warhammer then require an action (or bonus action) to change it into a two-handed axe (and back)?

I don't see why it has to be a bad shield or a bad axe.

trogdor

07:48

I wasn't thinking game mechanics honestly, I was thinking "what if someone just made this thing?"

XD

and I was assuming that if it can be changed between a shield and an axe, that it might not be entirely effective at both of those things

Hot RPG Questions

09:02

5

Q: Cheap Earth Elemental tactics

I'm DMing a campaign themed around monsters based on the elements, so making use of the Elementals naturally came to mind. Taking a look at the Earth Elemental, it strikes me that there is some very strong potential for making use of incredibly cheap tactics depending on the terrain. Essentially,...

dnd-5e monsters combat balance

BESW

trogdor

lol

BESW

09:34

The Asians Represent Podcast is unimpressed (twitter link) with WotC's quiet addition of a buried content disclaimer on its older store material.

As Phenexian points out (twitter link), "unlike cartoons [which seem to be model WotC used for the disclaimer], DnD books are guides for how to craft new stories. It's designed to propagate those ideas. They're not equivalent."

"What does belonging outside belonging mean?" by Avery Alder on Buried Without Ceremony.

BESW

09:55

13 hours of Tabletop Gayms! Dragonhearts!

►

Dee Pennyway talks on twitter about the layout for their upcoming Kickstarter project Mnemonic: A Weaver's Almanac

Ajey Pandey wrote a twitter thread about how his game Bolt is "not really aiming for newcomers. It's going for GAME DESIGNERS."

Kickstarter: Wait For Me by Jeeyon Shim and Kevin Kulp is a 21-day journaling game about time travel and connection.

The Asians Represent Podcast will be using Quest RPG for their actual play series (twitter link) and Daniel Kwan wrote about some of the factors leading to the choice (also twitter link).

BESW

10:20

Upcoming Kickstarter (15 July): Necronautilus: Heavy Metal Science Fantasy TTRPG: Emergent storytelling in a galaxy ruled by Death by Adam Vass. Catalogue new planets in a dead galaxy, learn powerful magical words, & remember who you once were. For story gamers & osr fans alike.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW OSR ?

BESW

Yup.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in answer, repeated url at end of long post (178): Are the instructions given in the "Planar Binding" spell part of the casting time, or can instructions be amended during the spell duration? by aLA on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)

BESW

It's worth noting that for quite some time OSR spaces were dominated by toxic abusive personalities, and there's a lot being done now to cleanse OSR of that influence but it's still a work in progress. Necronautilus was recommended to me by people I generally trust not to recommend known problems.

Movements like #SWORDDREAM (itchio jam link) came directly out of a movement among OSR content creators to actively reject the patterns of bigotry and abuse in OSR communities.

BESW