TRPG General Chat

Zachiel

16:00

You're basically telling me to stop playing RPGs, which I don't want to because I don't want to.

Aaron

@Rob Starred simply for its suddenness from what I assumed was the peanut gallery.

Alex P

@InbarRose It's doable with a game that doesn't suck. Especially if you play a lot of different games rather than just one. You just don't, like, have to do it.

Aaron

@Zachiel No one is saying that.

Rob

@Aaron Nah; just joined; it's an atypical Yorkshire greeting :)

Aaron

@Zachiel What we are saying (I think) is that rules are meant to be broken in most tabletop RPGs if they are subtracting from the fun.

@Rob Oh. I thought it was an agreement.

Inbar Rose

16:01

FUN > RULES

7

Zachiel

I think I want to play a game that can't possibly exist. The one I was in was good enough for me, maybe because I was involved in the story. All the other games look not that great in comparison.

MadMAxJr

I think an important, but off topic question is if you are enjoying that game and if the other players are.

Rob

@Aaron It can be used for many things :)

My word; I think it's the first time in over a year I've not seen the entire quotes list from @BESW :)

Inbar Rose

I think someone is just going star-crazy :P

4

Alex P

@Zachiel Okay, so you're saying "I want this thing to be a barrier for everyone, except not me." That's... really not approaching the game from a position of good faith.

Zachiel

16:03

@MadMAxJr oh, the other players are. At least, the ones I'd like to play with are. Someone else says there are favoritisms in the game and estabilished elite clubs, but I believe it's part perception and part oh screw it I want to be in da clubs too

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel Then stop coming to us for help. Frankly I'm starting to feel cheated when I try to help you, especially when you stonewall with such...GAH! I cannot express my hate properly right now because this chat has standards.

MadMAxJr

@Zachiel Is this the game where the DM has a girlfriend at the table he's catering to, or was that a different game?

Lord_Gareth

Trust that I'm screaming invective in a thousand different tongues and you just can't hear it.

If you can't be helped, stop freakin' asking

Zachiel

@MadMAxJr I'm not even playing the game now. I'm trying to find a way to be accepted before I join again. I want to learn the skills needed to be a good player in the other player's opinion.

Inbar Rose

@Lord_Gareth That is very frightening, and probably a bit over-board, let him have his own problems.

Zachiel

16:04

@Lord_Gareth that's what they usually scream at me. But what else should I do?

Inbar Rose

@Zachiel Sounds like they don't want you.

@Zachiel Don't play that crappy game.

MadMAxJr

@Zachiel Hmm. Rather than shoehorn yourself into acceptance from a group that has radically different expectations than you, this sounds like an ideal time to find a more suitable group, though I know that's not what you want to hear.

Zachiel

@InbarRose Some basically behave jut like Gareth did. "Stop bothering me and just play."

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose Don't worry, undying hate is a typical state of being for me.

Alex P

@InbarRose Meh. That statement is reductive. Fun is more important than rules but that doesn't actually tell you anything about how fun relates to rules.

Inbar Rose

16:05

@AlexP It doesn't. FUN and RULES have no relation at all. But it is more important to have FUN than to have RULES :)

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I didn't even ask help for that, to be honest. I don't even know why we're talking about the game. I tought I was talking about why I don't think refluffing is always easy.

wax eagle

required reading: rpg.stackexchange.com/a/7169/1084

Alex P

@InbarRose "Fun and rules have no relation at all" - that's absolutely wrong. It's missing the entire point of game design by a mile.

Inbar Rose

@Zachiel Do we need to bring you to the XY Problem? ?

@AlexP Who said anything about games? woohoo anarchy! party! [rocks socks off]

Zachiel

@AlexP uhm not really. I'd like to find something the others are not interested in doing, which is probably impossible unless I play something really weak or impopular.

MadMAxJr

16:08

@Zachiel I think the point they're trying to make is that treating the rules questions you're bringing up is a band-aid to a bigger problem and that it would be more effective to treat the source.

4

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth You should get that checked out. I recommend trading it in for bemused snarky judginess. Way less likely to cause frustration headaches.

Lord_Gareth

@MadMAxJr Pretty much this. And you never freakin' reveal that you're trying to jump through this freakshow's hoops until after everyone's angry at you either, @Zachiel. If you said that stuff up front we might be the tiniest bit happier with you.

Instead we go through an hour of you stonewalling general game advice before you finally say, "The thing is, I'm trying to join Satan's campaign, and he just won't take those solutions."

4

Zachiel

@AlexP So the source is that, through years of conditioning, I've come to believe myself that "refluff it" is not a solution to all problems

MadMAxJr

Refluff/reskins are just a costume on a rule. If done right, they don't change anything.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I will repeat myself again. This character is not going to be in that game, or any game really.

True, I got someway caught by some insane line of thought midways and my ideal DM started behaving like if it was a DM in that game

My apologies for that

Alex P

16:12

@Zachiel It's not the solution to most problems, I agree. But you seem to have set up an unanswerable question of "There are no rules explicitly for this, but how do I play it without creating new rules or 'refluffing' old ones?" And the answer is... you don't?

2

Zachiel

@MadMAxJr And the problem is, how do you do them right?

Aaron

@Zachiel There is no "right" way.

Zachiel

@AlexP It probably is. But I wanted to ask you because maybe you know of something that I don't know of.

Aaron

Refluffing rules IS homebrew albet a tame version of it. If this guy doesn't allow homebrew then...

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth And if that was for a pencil and paper campaign I'd probably say "not in this system, make a character that's by the rules"

Maybe the true question was "WotC, why didn't you make a PrC that does this?" XD

Inbar Rose

16:15

@Zachiel In RPG's sometimes you can make characters who don't exactly follow the rules by following the rules.....

MadMAxJr

@Zachiel I don't run into this problem very often. I encourage my players to look through the rules available in the books for the system we're playing to find ideas to build around, not grabbing a concept on their own that they then struggle to piece together from the material. I've been called out that this is 'limiting' before, but it's a game with specific roles to fill

Alex P

I think the "if my invisible servant is made of hair, then it's not exactly like invisible servant" line of thought is a mistake. That's saying that the new thing has to have almost all the same fictional consequences as the old thing. Which defeats the whole point of giving it different "fluff" in the first place.

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel If I tell you that my sorceress has hair made of soft, lambent flame that feels warm to the touch, that shifts and ripples when she casts spells, which rule have I broken?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Goodness... I've done a few submittals, gone to lunch, come back, and this is still happening!

[Stars the star-crazy comment, because yes.]

MadMAxJr

One of my players didn't like the Kitsune race in Pathfinder as written and wanted the base form to be humanoid. The point of the race appears to be a clearly fantasy creature that can /pass/ for human at times. We reskinned it so that she's humanoid but with a foxtail and ears as a middle-ground re-fluff that doesn't impact the rest of the racial rules, and clearly makes her non-human on a glance.

Aaron

16:18

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Hehehe me to

Zachiel

people probably would stay away from you because they would fear to get burned. Something you wouldn't have got from other rules. You could be trying to get some agency over NPCs by telling me "would they really do that? I remember you they look like flaming hair". It's not something I'm ready to manage.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion My dog in this fight is both rabid and starved.

MadMAxJr

Anyway, I think you're past the rules part at this point. You need a group to fit your style of play into and I wish you luck.

Alex P

@Zachiel That's exactly the thing. It's like saying "You can't make Wall of Iron look like screaming faces because what if some NPC finds it scarier than the normal version?" Don't do this. The reason to let people change things is to actually change them.

Inbar Rose

@Zachiel Okay - and walking through a city with weapons and armor is not a problem?

2

KRyan

16:21

@InbarRose this

you can paint a scary picture on your armor to be scarier: there's no cost

Inbar Rose

What about encumbrance rules? Do you make sure your character is carrying only what makes logical sense? or does your character have 400 feet of rope, 10 swords, 30 flasks, 50000 gp ?

Aaron

@KRyan yea but it doesn't actually impact anything. You wouldn't get an intimidate bonus from it.

Inbar Rose

Where does he put all that stuff?

KRyan

your armor can look like guards' armor, or it can look like an evil monster's armor, and so on

MadMAxJr

Note to self. Have badguy paint his CR on his armor, but up the value by 5 and see if the players metagame and believe it.

4

KRyan

16:21

@Aaron exactly

Aaron

@InbarRose Try 4 million

@MadMAxJr This. All of this!!!!

KRyan

tracking wealth weight in D&D is almost impossible

the weight of the gold necessary for even basic magic gear would need a wagon train to cart it around

Inbar Rose

Your character would have to have a whole army carrying his items behind him when he goes from place to place.

Zachiel

@MadMAxJr and that is the problem with that game and part of why I'm not building a new character for it: I don't find anything interesting in the rules. There's apparently nothing I want to roleplay. It all looks so uninteresting to me. I want to have a character that uses spells and class features, that's where I want him to be special (but I like the idea of seeing him in the social game)

KRyan

which would, consequently, make it an awful currency that no one with anything of real value would accept anyway

Aaron

16:22

@KRyan Tracking weight in general is a pain in the BLEEP

MadMAxJr

My players bought a donkey and a cart for their loot-hauling issues. They now setup camp sites at dungeon entrances as a 'base camp'

Inbar Rose

@KRyan Which is why D&D has gems. :)

Zachiel

@KRyan I have an excel sheet for that

KRyan

@Aaron it absolutely is, but it works out well enough if you can be bothered to do it, provided you ignore the weight of wealth

MadMAxJr

Next on their list is a couple cheap hirelings to watch the camp while they explore dungeons

Lord_Gareth

16:23

And it's not like weird crap isn't common as dirt in the majority of D&D campaign settings. Flaming hair or shadows that point in the wrong direction are odd, sure, but, like...there's a whole species of dwarves that all have fire hair.

Zachiel

@InbarRose if everybody does it, it's not.

Lord_Gareth

This is a thing that's happened before.

Zachiel

@KRyan Not a terrifying armor? Well, no effect.

KRyan

@Zachiel no, you do not have an Excel sheet that fixes this problem, I assure you

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Excel spreadsheets don't exactly sound fun...

KRyan

16:23

@Zachiel but it looks scary!

Inbar Rose

@Zachiel And what about all the other many races with strange appearance? who will notice one guy with fire hair?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

(Thus why I don't play Eve Online)

Aaron

@Lord_Gareth They are scary when drunk. One burp can set the place on fire.

KRyan

didn't you just say that if something looks like it might be worse than it is, that needs to have a real mechanic behind it, can't just be refluff?

but look, the armor! it is scary!

in other words, you are wrong.

Alex P

@KRyan Tattoos are OP.

Zachiel

16:24

@InbarRose I have an acrobat that refuses to wear her cloack of resistance +4 when she's showing off, even if they could target her easily.

KRyan

there is a bajillion different precedents for this kind of thing, the problem you are imagining is not actually and never has been a problem, and this entire conversation is absurd

Aaron

@AlexP They are?

Zachiel

@KRyan gems

KRyan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion try to play an artificer who attempts to actually make significant use of his item-crafting class features

Alex P

@Aaron Everyone will think you are fancy or scary! Can't have that without a level adjustment.

Inbar Rose

16:25

If I join your game, I will play a level 1 rogue who wears bits of wood that are painted to look like full plate mail armor ordained with the the holy order of badass knights. then I will walk around and demand everyone give me money or I will kill them.. because if I look like what I am - then I must be it.

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel Sounds like an acrobat who doesn't know how to work a crowd. Acrobatic tricks? Awesome! Acrobatic tricks in a flowing cape? Mother of Olidamarra, how is she doing that?

Zachiel

wth this is going too fast, I reply to things only to discover someone else already said it minutes later.

MadMAxJr

@InbarRose This same character will also claim to be the lord of the land.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@KRyan Not saying it may not be necessary! Just saying it doesn't sound fun.

KRyan

@Zachiel do you have magically-standardized gems in your settings? or do you roleplay out the haggling and negotiating and third-party appraisal every time you want to buy something?

Inbar Rose

16:26

@Zachiel Better stop the world so you can get off? :P

KRyan

even then, mundane gems that are common enough to be standardized are still definitely not going to keep up with the costs of magic items

Alex P

@InbarRose The chat client gets weird with high volume plus some connection latency.

KRyan

it only delays the problem for a few levels

Inbar Rose

@KRyan I love telling my players that the gems they find "look like they are worth 4000 gp"

MadMAxJr

@KRyan Funny you bring this up. I make the players roleplay their first encounter with a shopkeep when they're visiting a new location and don't know the local customs yet. After they manage one successful deal, then we handwave the transactions after that.

Usually gives me a chance to give some local flair and role play opportunities, but since we only do it once it's more fun and less of a chore.

Zachiel

16:28

@Lord_Gareth she actually uses her cape when the trick calls for it, but she's even doing things in minimal dresses. I had my belt of magnificience enchantment on a waist chain so I could wear it as jewelry

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel Waist chain sounds like a belt to me. The hell is the supposed problem?

MadMAxJr

Also my players need to learn you can't take an artifact of ungodly power and pawn the thing off for list price just anywhere.

KRyan

@MadMAxJr the first game I played in, the DM had the group roleplay out buying things (particularly since they were an Evil group and were looking for some illicit materials), and it nearly killed the game it took so long

we handwaved it ever after

Inbar Rose

If we are running high-powered games, I just have them go into "downtime" in towns where they can just do whatever without roleplay, each character rolls a general "haggle" and a general "appraise" skill to see how good they are.. and I just adjust all prices based on this.

Lord_Gareth

@MadMAxJr See, this actually sounds kinda fun. I sometimes do roleplayed scenes with shopkeeps when I need a brain break or to warm up into roleplaying if I'm starting a session.

Lets me handle an NPC without dramatic importance and get back into my speaking cadence.

Inbar Rose

16:29

Got to watch out for the unfortunate "every NPC is a questgiver" syndrome.

Zachiel

@InbarRose I mean, if you want to camouflage as a fire genasi, go on. But you need some sort of illusion or trasmutatation to be able to (no, a -2 to your disguise check won't give you a moving tail or believable movile wings of flame hair.)

Inbar Rose

Lots of players seem to think that any NPC with a name, a speaking role, or an interesting appearance is important to the game.

Alex P

@InbarRose I want to go back to this for a minute. It's a good reminder of a weird inconsistent mindset a lot of D&D players get into: you're living in ADVENTURE! world where people wander around armed all the time and there's a wyvern under every rock, but then the group / the GM consistently represent everyone as scaredy-cat rubes who freak out at the sight of a magic missile.

KRyan

@MadMAxJr while I like that from a setting/fluff perspective, I'm always leery of statements like that because of the importance in 3.x of wealth, and that includes the ability to buy what one likes with wealth. If a lot of your supposed "wealth" is tied up in something you cannot use, you don't actually have that wealth (though of course there are a ton of ways to avoid any problems, this is just a sort of warning point for me)

Inbar Rose

@AlexP Yes and No. Depends on the game world setting.

Zachiel

16:31

@InbarRose And I'd ask you a bluff and a disguise check. And if you win I'll cry over game balance XD

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose Yeah pretty much. Sometimes they end up falling in love with a shopkeeper, though, and want to help or support that person's business. I remember this tiefling shopkeeper who ran Amelia's Adventuring Supplies, a pawn shop that catered to adventurers. She was young, enthusiastic, and had a habit of remembering her customers and anticipating their needs.

The party paladin ended up marrying her.

Inbar Rose

@Lord_Gareth :)

Zachiel

@KRyan off screen. Just have enough carryng capacity to bring your money to the city and you can exchange them for gems.

Inbar Rose

I once had a guard be nice to a player who started running on rooftops... ever since then the player wanted to look for that guard, include him in every plot, and eventually asked the guard to join the party.... :(

Aaron

@AlexP We just arrived in a city where children had been being kidnapped for the last week. The city had done nothing to protect their remaining kids...

Lord_Gareth

16:33

I'm fond of converting my wealth into in-demand magical items that I then trade for the things I want. Wands of create food and water will buy you a lot of consideration on the road.

Aaron

@InbarRose Is that a bad thing?

Inbar Rose

D&D tried to solve this problem with magic... all the extraplanar chests, and magical houses in the astral plane.... :P

Aaron

@InbarRose Don't forget my favorite. The pocket dimension house.

Inbar Rose

@Aaron "random guard number 3" who didn't even have a name, let alone a personality, only let the PC get off with a warning and suddenly the PC is infatuated.. the problem isn't the guard.. its that the PC thinks he is important to the game because He spoke... :P

Aaron

@InbarRose ooooh

Zachiel

16:35

@Lord_Gareth No supposed problem, but I wouldn't be comfortable with buying the belt from another player who described it as a sturdy dwarven belt. I guess I'd be looking for a belt-for-belt trade with an NPC who's ok with the looks of mine, so he gets mine and I get him to play a crafter to build me one of my liking. I'm ok with capes draped on one shoulder instead of mantles. I'm not ok with describing myself without mantles while benefitting from a cloak item.

Inbar Rose

"It must be an important character in the game world" [sigh]

@Zachiel Zach - what?

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose My players used to have that problem. I trained them out of it.

Inbar Rose

@Lord_Gareth One player decided to stalk a shopkeeper once because he thought that the shopkeeper "knew more than he was saying" because he rolled bad on a gather information roll and I told him that the storekeeper just told him everything anyway........ SO i decided to make the storekeeper have the most boring life ever... and the PC would just not stop..... [sigh]

MadMAxJr

@KRyan I have a character who almost religiously bashes me with the 'Wealth by level' chart, frequently telling me how the party is a few thousand short of what she feels they are 100% entitled to and required to have for their level of play. Oddly enough, despite being a little short, they seem to be having fun with the encounters as they have to be more creative with their perceived equipment shortage. And that creativity has made for interesting player-driven story moments.

Inbar Rose

I literally had the shopkeeper go home and eat dinner with his wife.. and I started actually talking to myself for their discussion... gawd....

Zachiel

16:38

Ok I caught up

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose See, that's not the way to do it in my experience. What you do is make everyone interesting so that interesting no longer equals suspicious. Going back the Amelia example? They weren't suspicious of her because despite being interesting and enthusiastic she gave off all the cues that said she was who she said she was.

Inbar Rose

@MadMAxJr Great.

Zachiel

@InbarRose what's unclear? (going AFK 2 minutes

Lord_Gareth

If some NPCs are generic but others aren't, being non-generic is instantly an issues.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth which were these cues?

Inbar Rose

16:39

It's impossible to establish a base-line when the first NPC they encounter becomes a target for observation

What I hate most about PC's is when they enter a city and figure that the guard at the city gate is some sort of tour-guide with knowledge of everything in the city.

Okay, maybe not what I hate most but something I hate much . :)

Aaron

@InbarRose We normally do that with the innkeeper/bartender but they generally do have said knowledge

MadMAxJr

My party has not just a party-inventory quartermaster, but she's gone as far as to be the accountant, regulating all party item distributions by their book values and ensuring all claims of items are deducted from gold shares. First party I've had where they are strictly self-regulating GP value per player. In past games it's always been. "Okay, you're X class, you obviously need Y item, just pay it forward when we get to the next loot drop eh?"

Inbar Rose

I want you to go to the nearest bar to your house tonight, ask the bartender what is going on in town, if he heard any interesting rumors, or if there are any easy jobs you can do in the area..... see what happens :P

@MadMAxJr D&D DKP ? :P

Aaron

@InbarRose DKP?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Dragon Kill Points!

Inbar Rose

16:46

@Aaron Dragon Kill Points

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

(AKA - The reason I rarely group with strangers in MMOs)

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose So catch their attention with another interesting NPC. The guy selling kebabs on the side of the street, or a town crier with a lisp or something.

Inbar Rose

@Lord_Gareth Or the rogue in the alley about to steal your purse! roll initiative! :P

Lord_Gareth

@InbarRose Hahaha.

Zachiel

@MadMAxJr oh we tried that in my P&P group. It was tiresome. I like Legend's approach of "at this level, you get another item, how is not important to the system." A D&D DM I know used this "at every new level, re-equip with your expected wealth". But I think players want to be thrilled by treasure finding.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

16:47

@Lord_Gareth Or the kebab seller with a lisp but his kebabs are just SO GOOD you'll keep going back there.

Aaron

@MadMAxJr I do item management to the point my character frequently buys mead for his flasks.

Alex P

If you want players to be excited about finding treasure, I think you have to remove expected loot (on a game-design level, not a run-D&D3.5-without-gear level).

MadMAxJr

Some of my players are a little annoyed that they can't made a claim on an item in a loot drop in some situations without having to /pay in/ because the item is more valuable than the coin split.

RedRiderX

Hmm quick question:

MadMAxJr

I'm not enforcing this at all, it's arbitrary party rules. It amuses me somewhat (dance puppets DANCE), but I make sure to break it up if they start getting charged on arguing the split and try to keep the game moving.

As a DM I made it clear, "I read the loot drop off once, and then it's your responsiblity."

RedRiderX

16:50

I was reading Roll for Shoes and I was wondering how you determine the amount of dice that the DM rolls?

MadMAxJr

Roll for Shoes? Have a link for context?

RedRiderX

story-games.com/forums/discussion/11348/…

Aaron

@RedRiderX I play the DM decides the difficulty and rolls the amount of dice they think fits the challenge.

MadMAxJr

Hmm. Can't get that to open. Might be a company firewall thing

KRyan

@Lord_Gareth relevant. Or it was at the time of the replied-to comment; I've spent the time since rereading OotS to find that, and it was a far more enjoyable way to spend my time than the conversation I left. Heartily recommended if that's still going on.

Inbar Rose

16:53

@RedRiderX Whatever he feels the difficulty should be.

@RedRiderX Generally, I have the roll be the same as the player adjusted by difficulty, so... if its hard +1, very hard +2 easy -1 very easy -2 (from the level of the player)

Zachiel

@AlexP the cleric player is still talking about when, in an Expedition to the Demonweb Pits run, he got his hands on "that 300,000GP sword".

Inbar Rose

@RedRiderX Unless it is for a specific NPC character or resistance of the world, then I give that ability a level.

@RedRiderX Sometimes just a flat out number that the player must hit.

Zachiel

@MadMAxJr this happens a lot in my group. And what's the point of keeping track of everybody's loot separately if in the end the druid keeps lending money around.

Inbar Rose

I gotta go - ciao.

Lord_Gareth

@KRyan Heh! Amelia was a good girl, not her fault that Great Grandma had a thing for banging incubi.

Zachiel

17:03

So a guy in my old D&D group (because he doesn't like D&D 4E) wants to run a D&D scenario for us. He's already said he's gonna limit the books to 8 - maybe 10. And he's not gonna run E6. I doubt I can have fun with them but half my 4E group is eager to stop playing 4E and the rest is bad at tactics. This is like recipe for disaster isn't it?

wax eagle

@Zachiel running 3.5?

Zachiel

@waxeagle yeah.

wax eagle

maybe he should give Next a shot? at least then there isn't a feeling of being hamstrung by a limited source pool

MadMAxJr

I haven't even looked at Next yet. No idea what it looks like under the hood.

wax eagle

@MadMAxJr it's an interesting system (I really need to go read the latest playtest through to see what's changed). It certainly suffers from the design seeming to go in multiple directions at once, but it's playable in a way that feels D&D ish

RedRiderX

17:11

Oops I was afk for a bit

Ah it's mostly GM discretion.

That's what I had mostly gathered from the text

MadMAxJr

I get the feeling some of the designers they brought on board at the beginning were skeptic about the 'plan' for 5E/Next

RedRiderX

@InbarRose Ah okay so like a boss or specific situation that you know is coming as a GM?

@InbarRose Thanks for your help!

Zachiel

@waxeagle we all know 3.5 better. And we have a traditionalist in our group who doesn't like to learn new rules.

wax eagle

@MadMAxJr Monte Cook left quite early on in the playtest to start his own game company, so I'd say you're probably right.

Alex P

17:31

@waxeagle I think its problem (from an artistic standpoint more than a market standpoint) is that "feeling really D&D-ish" is a niche that lots of people are exploring right now, in all sorts of ways. Honesty I think a lot of those people are better designers than the Next team, too, and working with a better starting point.

wax eagle

@AlexP I'd agree with that, I'd also argue that what feels D&Dish to D&D designers has seemed rather...conflicted and often rather...narrow

Alex P

@waxeagle (Talking out of my butt here) Kinda like a BD&D group where the game hasn't "clicked" yet so they haven't started to apply their own sense of style and direction to what they're playing?

I'm not a big older-D&D person, but when I compare what other people say about D&D and what Next designers say about, they don't quite seem to get O/B/AD&D in the same way.

Maybe because they're intentionally trying to avoid projecting too much of their own thing onto it? Dunno. Handwave-handwave.

Elsewhere, we are talking about DW Barbarian. You have moves to smash all the things, but also moves that are about "reveal the otherness of your culture."

Lord_Gareth

17:55

Hey folks - how well do you think a Q&A on, "How can I make NPCs more interesting?" might go?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth [Gets popcorn]

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth I think you'd need to define the parameters a bit more. But presumably a paragraph or two of question text would do that alright.

Describe how your players act towards your NPCs now and how you want them to act, I guess.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Heh, my players roleplay just fine when it comes to social interactions. Its their strategies and combat tactics that make me slam my face against the wall. I'd be doing such a Q&A as a public service.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth That seems a bit too nebulous of a question, then.

I mean, there are 1000 ways to make NPCs "more interesting," right?

This feels like the kind of question where it's helpful to define a specific problem (even if it's not one you have personally, if you can talk about it effectively).

Lord_Gareth

Hrm. I've done something sorta like this before, when I wrote one about playing monsters and NPCs "up to their potential"

Alex P

18:02

@Lord_Gareth I think that's inherently a more narrow question since it's scoped to, like, a system (which also scopes it a bit to a playstyle, at least implicitly).

You could do the same here, I suppose.

Tag it D&D or something if that's the focus.

Lord_Gareth

16

Q: How can I play monsters and NPCs up to their potential?

In many cases discussions about balance in 3.5 will, inevitably, involve one side or another invoking an anecdote of the time they fought this monster, or a member of that class, and they didn't suffer the problem being illustrated in the discussion at hand. In many cases it seems like these anec...

for all reference

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

I'd like to see a D&D DM do something like... "You encounter a group of kobolds. This one here is wearing robes." But have nothing special at all about the robed one.

Just a kobold that likes robes.

lisardggY

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I don't like that. It's a deliberate manipulation of the unspoken rule that if a DM focuses on an element, that element should be meaningful. That's a part of the rules of the medium.

If all the kobolds have their wardrobe described, that's fine. If they're all just "kobolod, kobolod, robed kobold", you're deliberately singling him out.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@lisardggY I suppose that's fair. But that also makes the whole thing seem 2-dimensional.

lisardggY

As an occasional plot-justified red herring, it's fine. If it's just to mess with your players, they'll be understandably upset.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

18:06

Oh, not to do it all the time! Maybe there's a really smart ACTUAL kobold cleric that dresses up a lackey in robes so he can escape.

Or... maybe I'm trying to make the games less hack-and-slash than they're meant to be.

lisardggY

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion If they know there's a kobold cleric out, and that cleric switches outfits with an underling to fool them, that's fine.

If there's no foreshadowing and there's just a special kobold which turns out to be a non-special kobold, it feels kinda like a detective story where the real culprit is suddenly brought out in the last chapter without the reader being able to guess it in advance.

Alex P

I find that a good way to make characters interesting is to let go of the notion of what an "average" person looks like. Not entirely, of course, since you kinda want to understand what the expected baseline is, but basically no one comforts to it perfectly.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@lisardggY Or the smoke monster never really gets explained DAMMIT

lisardggY

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I actually only watched, sporadically, several episodes from the last season of Lost. But I already had the full weight of people's disappointment from it on my shoulders. :)

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@lisardggY I watched the first two seasons, stopped, then came back to watch the last episode. The last episode had a precursor that told you everything that happened, so I didn't feel like I "missed" anything, but I didn't have the full investment in the show many did.

And I was still disappointed.

lisardggY

18:11

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Oh, definitely. From the little I experienced, I was annoyed at them too. I mean, that was a seriously cliched and overused trope they ended with.

And even at that, it was badly done.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

My friend had a party for the end, and we were all just sorta... staring blankly at the TV.

(Though I totally called what the final shot of the series would be, because it was just too preditcable they'd make it Jack's eye closing)

Alex P

My wife's theory is that Lost sorely underestimated how quickly its audience would figure out that it's just purgatory, and then spent all of its time after season 1 trying to confuse and muddle the issue and pretend like that was intentional all along. Whereas really they just thought they were being subtle and they weren't (or, rather, they were being an appropriate level of subtle for narrative that people can follow, rather than incomprehensible-unless-you-geek-out-over-it-lots "subtle.")

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@AlexP The problem being, lots of people started to geek out over the show, so they started to deny what it clearly was. So people started to take "Word of God" as just that, tried to figure out what was REALLY going on, only to be told "no, we were lying, it was purgatory."

lisardggY

I seem to recall several interviews with staff writers that indicated that they really didn't have any idea where it was actually going, at first.

So they had a lot of ideas, but no real official plan.

Alex P

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Exactly.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

18:19

I would have been more satisfied if it all turned out to be Bob Newhart having a dream!!!

Aaron

18:32

Is there a way to raise flight from clumsy to poor and beyond in pathfinder?

Oh @Metool I will be starting the game but I found some software that I can design maps on so I am making an actual detailed map so the game might start later than I planned. Sorry for the slowness.

Joshua Aslan Smith

18:48

hello again everyone

@alexp I think that lost had an initial 2-3 season story arc, but then its audience exploded beyond any expectation and the studio said nah you gotta milk it and therein lies the problem

Alex P

That just reminds me of the stupidest article I've seen in a long time... it was "<some number> Shows That Ended Before Their Time," on some listicle site that isn't totally terrible at them (Cracked, maybe?)

And most of the examples were... not at all a model of that.

Like X-Files.

X-Files is widely remembered as the show that kept having endings and then deciding to just go on anyway.

Until all of the protagonists were gone, for instance.

And, erm, Breaking Bad. And it's like... Breaking Bad is 100% the model of a show that ended super-purposefully in exactly the way that its creator intended it to.

Zachiel

Definitions of "their time" might vary

But Ninja Dragon Raiders deserved a mention in that list. XD

lisardggY

"Ended before their time" = "Somebody on the internet wanted more".

But if Farscape isn't on that list, heads will roll. :)

Alex P

I'd say Farscape didn't so much end before its time as have a really, really bad ending.

(And a lot of stuff leading up to that ending.)

lisardggY

Are you referring to the end of season 4, or the movies?

Alex P

18:58

Season 4.

lisardggY

I think season 4 was great, personally. I liked how Earth was integrated into the storyline instead of remaining always out of reach, and I loved the 3-episode story near the end.

Alex P

I thought the bit where he unlocks the wormhole to show the Scarrans and PKs how stupid their fight is was actually a pretty good ending. I think that's the movies.

lisardggY

@AlexP Yeah, it is. Condensed from the aborted 5th season.

Alex P

The perfect expression of everything that's wrong with noir stories:

> I need to solve this domestic violence dispute by walking through a black and white city for two hours as cops punch my stoic immobile face

Joshua Aslan Smith

hahahaha

@AlexP Everything thats wrong with cliche noir

Alex P

19:02

@JoshuaAslanSmith Every genre can be saved.

Usually by killing its cliches.

Joshua Aslan Smith

in a true noir story the domestic violence issue would actually be the victim (the woman) really being the predator manipulating her husband/lover, but before the PI can figure this out they will got through the muck and uncover corruption as they bear in on the truth leading to a final confrontation in which the PI is mortally threatened by the femme fatale but wins out because of his superior logic and people skills

Its tough because LA confidential is one of my favorite noir movies but it really uses some of the tropes to move itself along

I mean I basically just pitched the big sleep

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith Hmm. That doesn't actually sound like a solution to the fundamental problem, to me.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the issue with noir, beyond the obvious visual style is that it has extreme connations such as the lack of innocence and the city as corrupt by default etc. that stem from its era which dont always ring true today

westerns have the same issues but for the exact opposite reasons

the solution is something like blade runner which layers noir with cyberpunk sci fi themes and issues

cyberpunk as a whole is basically the noir genre updated for the near future

lisardggY

@JoshuaAslanSmith Exactly. What you need to do is break the genre down to its constituent elements, or tropes, and then reintegrate it with other, modern tropes, leaving the dead wood behind.

I've started reading the Dresden Files novels, which try to take the classic noir formula into a modern urban fantasy setting.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Im so afraid of dresden files source materials because of the black mark of urban fantasy

lisardggY

19:08

And some of the tropes he's using feel dated and out of place.

Joshua Aslan Smith

like I really like the Dresden files fate setting and game but I cant bring myself to read the books

lisardggY

Urban Fantasy is a great genre. And a popular one, which means a lot of crap on the market.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Theres only room in my life for ridiculously long books series and thats Honor Harrington

so I have a lot of beefs with the fantasy genre writ large at this point in my life. Its like star wars where I went head over heels for it in middle and highschool, reached saturation point and then saw all the flaws (for me) with it that I cant unsee

lisardggY

@JoshuaAslanSmith It's like that for me with classic/high fantasy.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I still like Tolkien and a few fantasy books by sci fi authors (like glory road by RAH) but in general I avoid id

Alex P

19:10

I think Dresden's a great example of "freshening up" a genre for a modern market without actually dealing with any of its problems or limitations in a significant way.

Joshua Aslan Smith

The only fantasy books/setting Ive read in the last 10 years thats new is the Witcher series

which I am the biggest fan of ever

lisardggY

About a ear ago I finally got around to reading Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, recommended many times over the years. And while it's not a bad fantasy novel, it really annoyed me with its treatment of women and nationalism, both of which felt really conservative and even reactionary, but were (when you think about it) common tropes in high fantasy.

Joshua Aslan Smith

when the trailer for the witcher board game hit this past week (officially licensed by cdprojektred but being made by fantasy flight games) I was so hype

lisardggY

Similarly in the Dresden Files - one element (aspect, if you will) that Harry Dresden borrows from classic noir is his weakness for women. An old-fashioned gentlemanly conduct that worked fine in the 40's, but feels a bit sexist these days.

The trope is an essential part of classic noir, but not an inseperable part - I think it could and should have been separated.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I feel like a lot of fantasy jumps over a lot of the issues in the middle ages and Renaissance (supposedly about when they are set technologically) such as the duality of existence, expectations of class and issues steming from the creation of the middle classes that rarely get addressed

Alex P

19:13

@lisardggY Exactly. I'm of the opinion that there's no point in trying to write a genre from the 30s like you're still in the 30s.

It's even worse when people do it to stories that are reactionary and prejudiced even for their own time.

Joshua Aslan Smith

devils advocate: you story shouldn't have to live up to social expectations.

harry's blindness to getting used by women may be sexist but theres plenty of dudes that put women on pedestals in that way today. Harry is supposed to be a flawed hero so I dont have issues with it.

Alex P

I'm not talking about social expectations. I'm talking about owning the fact that fiction says something, and the author is effectively the one saying it. If all a story does is imitate its predecessors, then there's no point in writing it.

Which is why I can't stand the tendency towards genre-checklists in genre fiction. The statement of the work is reduced to "I like this genre!" copy-pasted over and over again on every page.

lisardggY

@JoshuaAslanSmith True, but the form that blindness takes is borrowed blindly, not adapted, which makes for a less believable character in 21st Century Chicago. Yes, that bit is even less realistic that his being a wizard.

Joshua Aslan Smith

hahaha

good points both of you

Alex P

Also, "Dresden Files is, like, all white people" isn't a feature of Harry being a bit of a cad, it's a feature of Jim Butcher either misunderstanding Chicago or being a bit afraid to write about what it actually looks like. For example.

lisardggY

19:20

Regarding imitation vs. adaptation: I liked John Scalzi's Old Man's War, even though I had a lot of criticism over its very deep nod to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. But even though I think it borrowed too heavily in the plot department, I think it adapted very nicely, and doesn't feel like 50's sci-fi.

Alex P

@lisardggY Agreed. It's clearly in a dialogue with the original work.

Although I think more so it's in a dialogue with 4X space games. :)

And Scalzi doesn't have nearly as much to say to Heinlein as Haldeman (who's been to war) has.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ive read/audio booked all his stuff, and I come out with meh for the opposite reason, theres not enough tactics and actual military science baked in and he goes so far as to do fan service and say the movie is better than the book (Starship Troopers) in the books thats all about the ghost brigades

lisardggY

@AlexP Which, in turn, were inspired by Heinlein. :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

Personally I think Armor was/is a much better book in the same vein

lisardggY

Haven't read the sequels yet.

Also, I'm not a big fan of tactical/detailed military SF, so I'm fine with what he put in.

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:22

Armor (novel)

Armor is a military science fiction novel by John Steakley. It has some superficial similarities with Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers (such as the military use of exoskeletons and insect-like alien enemies) but concentrates more on the psychological effects of violence on human beings rather than on the political aspects of the military, which was the focus of Heinlein's novel. It was first published in December 1984. Plot summary Armor is the story of humanity's war against an alien race whose foot soldiers are three-meter-tall insects, referred to in the book as 'ants'. It is...

Basically old mans war gets put in the mil-sci-fi genre but it doesnt belong there for that reason

I read mil-sci-fi because I have some limited military experience and knowledge and it enhances my immersion/willful suspension of disbelief when realistic tactics and strategies are discussed.

I cant get into some new wave sci fi guys cause they're too into physical sciences in a lot of their books

lisardggY

I also have some limited military experience, and it reduces my willful will to keep reading when realistic tactics and strategies are discussed. :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol

guess that depends on your views of the military and what that experience was like

brb

Alex P

My patience for future-military stuff is limited because trying to make it "realistic" seems to involve making it hew closely to the modern day, and then I start to question whether it makes sense for conflict to be like that, anymore. For technological or geopolitical (well, not really "geo" if it's in space, you know) reasons.

Which is why I describe Old Man's War as a 4X game world. I think it's got that kind of fakeness to the setting to hand-wave why the fighting is the way it is because it's not really the focus.

It feels kinda obvious to me that the universe in it doesn't especially make sense and the author doesn't expect you to think it does. "Space opera," if you will.

lisardggY

@AlexP My problem with it is that the issues that is, ostensibly, the focus - the gimmick of taking old men because they'll behave differently than young soldiers - is totally lost because, well, they behave exactly like young soldiers.

@AlexP That's a direct nod towards Heinlein. There's a war because there's a war, and you fight because you fight.

Alex P

@lisardggY Hmm, that's true.

The protagonist feels about 30 to me.

lisardggY

19:34

Yeah. They all have some personal history, so they're not total teenagers, but if the point of bringing older people is their experience and opinions, it's a bit lost - they all become unflinching soldiers.

Alex P

Well, they're all giddy with new bodies and new lives.

And I think the idea is that Earth is so cut off that they have no real reference point for this kind of life anymore.

lisardggY

@AlexP Yes, but narratively speaking, what's the point?

Alex P

AGreed.

lisardggY

Good. That topic's washed out, then. What's next? :)

Alex P

I think Scalzi's old-man voice is just his own voice. And that's a letdown.

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:44

@lisardggY Except that Johnny goes into a lot of introspection and logical reasoning over why ultimately he fights which is built upon the foundation of all his history and Moral Philosophy flashbacks.

and if you guys dont wanna discuss it anymore thats fine

lisardggY

@JoshuaAslanSmith Oh, there's a lot of thinking around "why we fight". But less so around "Why is there a war". I withdraw the second half of my previous claim. :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

Alex P

I think Scalzi takes his war stories far, far less seriously than Heinlein. That's why I keep going back to Haldem (Forever War, Forever Peace).

Joshua Aslan Smith

I mean I believe he pretty much sums it up as competition over limited resources between us and the Bugs.

also the initial beginning of the war is glossed over in part because johnnie's caring about real issues is null before he enlists and grows as goes through training and becomes a soldier

Alex P

So, Haldeman's books are very much driven by feeling disconnected from the world around him as a result of going to Vietnam.

In contrast, I think in some ways Starship Troopers is very aspirational. It's trying to paint a picture of a society where going to war is honorable, morally acceptable, and socially empowering.

Compared to Haldeman's tendency to depict societies that reflect the modern-day war-hypocrisy mindset.

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:56

I completely agree Im of the latter opinion which is why I prefer it, but I totally understand the vietnam war thing. I would argue that popular opinion of the GWOT was fairly positive

maybe not the war itself but the opinion of soldiers has basically come around again to WWII era

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith But it's not about people liking or hating the war. It's about whether they can understand you when you come back.

Aaron

What was that story about aliens that attack earth (we had evolved to the point we didn't have wars) but found out we didn't have wars because we were VERY good at war already?

Alex P

People cheerlead about "supporting the troops" but they don't get what soldiers have experienced. Civilian society is more distanced from it than ever before.

@Aaron All of Larry Niven's stuff.

Joshua Aslan Smith

To be fair I think Heinlein address the difference between the soldier and the civilian quite well hence the reason why the veteran has voting rights but the civilian does not

Alex P

The Kzin (cat-people) attack an exploration ship and it rips them all apart with its engine exhaust.

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:58

@alexp that disconnected existed in WWII as well its just society addressed it differently

Alex P

Sure.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I do understand what you mean about the population disconnect only 1 percent in the us have ever served in the military

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