TRPG General Chat

RedRiderX

00:08

@BESW Heh yeah that's an interesting question there.

And what the heck it got 4 upvotes?

Magician

00:26

Tyranny of Dragons, "next D&D story". Despite being essentially an ad, the article seems to be confused by the difference between an adventure and an edition. Summer, dragons, fight back, wooo.

And immediately: "The next chapter for Dungeons & Dragons will spread across multiple modern platforms, including a new tabletop adventure, and similar experiences for console video game systems and mobile devices." Sounds familiar, no?..

Alex P

00:59

@Magician So, what the hell is it? A tie-in novel?

The intro adventure?

BESW

01:33

VTCs on this, please.

Phil

beat you to it :o) just to tired to post a comment

Metool

@BESW This question was voluntarily removed by its author.

What are you talking about?

BESW

Not before it was closed by five citizen votes.

Metool

I see.

BESW

I think he wanted to ask a question about how players can help ease the GM's load.

But the question was actually asking exactly how the GM and players should interact at the table, operating under the assumption that all RPGs work the same way in that respect, with points like "Storytelling is the GM's job and being respectful is the player's job."

I left a comment suggesting that if he's got an actual problem in his game that he's trying to solve, he should ask about that.

Phil

01:48

2

Q: How exactly does the Web spell work?

A player in my group plays a Wizard who favors terrain controlling spells. One such spell that he uses is Web. Up to this point he would cast Web and it would spread on the ground, with it's effects as normal. Now after reading the spell myslf, I'm not so certain if it's supposed to work that wa...

Is it cool to post that much direct text from the book?

Not sure what the license is with pathfinder stuff

BESW

First: pfsrd entry on web

Phil

Ah cool

BESW

Second: meta discussions on posting copyrighted material on this site.

wax eagle

@BESW @Phil might not hurt to source that via an edit

Phil

out of interest, what difference would it make?

wax eagle

01:52

@Phil right now it has no source, there's not actually an atribution for the quote, so at the very least it gives proper credit

BESW

5

A: Does this question have too much quoted text?

Here's my strategy for writing answers on all SE sites: Use only as much quotation as is absolutely required to make your point. It's almost always better to summarize rather than to quote giant chunks because your answer needs to be tailored to answer the question. Use integrated quotes when p...

Phil

ah I see, misread what you were suggesting

BESW

Regardless of legality, @waxeagle's strategy makes for better questions.

Phil

I really should go to bed, too tired

wax eagle

@BESW short to the point quotations are best, because most of the time the extraneous stuff subtracts.

BESW

01:54

I'll work on it.

wax eagle

(unless you need specific page/word counts, then quote away)

(and most profs won't notice if you 2.2 line space things :)

BESW

Done.

(Also, I think the answer to that question is "Honey badger don't playtest.")

Phil

time for bed - nn all

BESW

ttfn

Magician

03:32

@AlexP I think it's an organized play-style adventure, maybe with a tie-in mobile "game" or something.

Seems to be reminiscent of the "drow year", or whatever they were calling it.

Alex P

03:46

So, I am reading this thread, and, kinda out of nowhere, Bruce Baugh chimes in with this:

> Ryan Dancey [talked up One Game to Rule Them All], but then he also talked up organized play as the savior of gaming, the evils of Vampire and Vampire as the savior of gaming depending on who was paying him that year, $70 in-game purchases as the key to MMO success, and quite a few other things that have gotten him fired and helped sink or wound companies.

Oh SNAP!

Game-industry-person fight.

BESW

Heh.

Also, that thread is predicated on so many fallacies I'm having trouble keeping track.

Alex P

Yes, yes it is.

BESW

Seriously people? Arguing about what games are going to be classics without evening defining "classic?"

Alex P

Nobody except the OP really agrees with the premise.

Classics are games that have 20th anniversary editions, clearly.

Also that resemble Motorhead. But not Nirvana.

BESW

The guy who points out how many indie games there were twenty years ago has a point.

Alex P

04:00

@BESW More commentary on Medieval POC blog: so, a lot of people of color in art have been actively erased.

This comes from ignorant Victorian restoration projects. And also the way stuff is photographed sometimes in the modern day.

(Also I think modern people just don't look at medieval art much. Even though there's a bunch around. We tend to distrust it, somehow.)

BESW

True.

Alex P

So, the blog is showing off how Medieval European art isn't exactly full of all-white figures. Some of these are multiracial fantasy/allegory scenes. Some are Biblical scenes. Some of them are legendary figures. I think a few are day-in-the-life scenes.

That's about all I can really understand about the topic.

BESW

I am reminded of the way European artists drew and painted Pacific islands.

Alex P

It's not so much that people of color were common in Europe, but that they weren't unheard of, and certainly Europeans had a clear sense of, like, the fact that they existed, as real people, in nearby parts of the world.

BESW

Even artists who actually spent time on the islands and painted from life had learned their styles in European contexts. Thus, for example, Spanish paintings of tropical trees look exactly like the kind of trees you'd find in Spain.

Alex P

04:07

The Bible stuff is kinda funny. Because they basically draw everything like their own time period except for a few things that are "in the story" so they've learned about them. Like sticking greaves on Goliath or something like that.

BESW

And putting horns on Moses.

That one cracks me up.

Alex P

I think -- and this goes back to our earlier conversation like a week ago -- we're too prone to imagining the world of the past as terribly isolated, just because a lot of travel was time-consuming or inconvenient. But, like, Vikings have been freakin' everywhere. And (as we discussed before) trade goods moved from one corner of the Eurasian landmass to the other for, like, 2000 years almost uninterrupted.

In that regard, I think the epic fantasy journeys that a lot of published settings seem prone to (just by virtue of laying out the whole continent for you in a big sourcebook) are totally fitting and awesome.

BESW

(Still reading that thread.) Anyone who has complained about Twilight, or Bieber, or Bay's Transformers, or any other major-marketed IP, has no rhetorical leg to stand on when making the claim that a culture of pricy publishing discourages low-quality material.

@AlexP The degree to which the isolated islands of the Pacific had regular communication and commerce astonished the first colonisers and continues to surprise scholars.

Oh, Victoria line. You're my hero. http://t.co/pYl4xRY8Xy

Tweeted by jamestilston on January 23, 2014 at 7:33 PM

Alex P

wat

Joshua Aslan Smith

04:22

hey guys

lol

how is everyone

Alex P

Alright

Joshua Aslan Smith

I just keep rereading madmaxjr's comment about thaco and pathfinder and I keep chuckling

Alex P

04:39

Some people "house-ruled" exactly that when D&D3 was young.

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh my gosh

my brain

Lord_Gareth

So...@BESW

Are there rules about redundant answers?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Lord_Gareth if its a blatent copy a mod might delete it

usually itll not get the upvotes if its the 2nd of the two to post and not offering anything new

doppelgreener

05:12

What's this "positive energy popcorn effect"?

Lord_Gareth

@JonathanHobbs The Positive Energy Plane heals you for 40 hit points per round. If this would exceed your maximum, you gain temp HP - and are in hideous danger

Gain too much temp HP and you explode into a shower of positive energy

Magician

13th Age wins this media cycle

#TyrannyofOwlbears http://t.co/ONdZZP39pQ

Tweeted by 13thAge on January 24, 2014 at 3:12 AM

Alex P

Soooo cute!

I followed a link from Chris Chinn's blog and was like, "Oh. This thread." That's like the third time that has happened to me this week.

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth Oh wow, seriously!?

That's kinda awesome.

Alex P

Yeah, that's definitely canon.

doppelgreener

05:27

Is it just me or do they not define how much positive energy it takes to destroy you (or much else about it)? I'm reading the positive energy plane page on PRD.

oh, but they do mention stuff in the positive energy elemental page:

> A positive energy elemental infuses a target hit by its slam attack with positive energy. This deals extra damage to an undead or negative energy based target (as listed in the statistics block) but heals positive energy based creatures (including creatures from the Material Plane) by the same amount. Such creatures can be healed above their normal hit point total, gaining extra hit points as temporary hit points. These temporary hit points disappear 1 minute later.

Creatures healed to twice their normal hit points (that is, a creature whose hit points are effectively doubled) must succe…

Is this a universal thing?

Can I pick up some intense temporary HP spells and become a HEALER OF DEATH?

Magician

@JonathanHobbs No such thing as "universal thing" in D&D.

2

doppelgreener

@Magician y-yes well. I mean, does this explodey limit happen in general, or is it just from being overloaded by the positive energy plane or positive energy elementals?

Magician

@JonathanHobbs It's a trait of the positive energy plane, which the designer of the positive elemental (ugh) had remembered about and wrote as an ability.

Doesn't say anything at all about healing, temporary hit points, or positive energy in general.

Lord_Gareth

@Magician This. It doesn't matter what an ability looks like, only what it is.

Also, interesting note:

None of the published natives of the PoP are immune to its effects.

Gotta love that designer incompetence

Metool

05:58

@Lord_Gareth not the point being made

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth Hahaha! Oh dear.

lisardggY

07:22

I have been playing Ars Magica for almost 20 years and three editions. I've been a primary storyguide for almost two years and a secondary one on occasion. And I think today is the first time I ever actually wrote up monster stats.

Lord_Gareth

07:44

You know what would be nice? If I could read one thing Paizo wrote without losing a little more respect for them.

lisardggY

You seem to have an awful lot of anger towards Pathfinder.

Lord_Gareth

@lisardggY You're late to this particular party

lisardggY

Which of course raises the question of why you spend time on it.

Lord_Gareth

I'm being paid to write for it.

And, correction - I hate Paizo

lisardggY

I see.

Hopefully, you're being paid well.

Lord_Gareth

07:49

@lisardggY Royalties, yeah. We'll see how it goes.

I certainly hope it's worth fighting with their wretched abomination of a ruleset

A whole lot of my beef with Paizo is centered around SKR and his unprofessional, hostile, and totally unforgivable behavior

The rest of it is based on how they threw away 12 years of data gathering on 3.5 and addressed 'problems' that didn't exist while simultaenously developing a culture of exclusion and hate for people who don't play 'their' way

doppelgreener

09:29

@ArleCamille Edits like the one you did warrant their own answer!

BESW

10:02

I heartily approve of my Twitter feed's newfound obsession with concrete jokes.

3

doppelgreener

10:22

@BESW concrete jokes?

what are those like?

BESW

@TimeOutLondon Londoners can rest assured that the Victoria Line now has a solid signalling system in place.

Tweeted by nariusp on January 23, 2014 at 5:50 PM in reply to TimeOutLondon

Context is set in stone.

@sydneypadua I've seen speculation, but nothing that I'd say was on a firm foundation.

Tweeted by drhypercube on January 23, 2014 at 8:07 PM in reply to sydneypadua

they reckon they might have the victoria line back up and running by monday morning, but it's not set in stone

Tweeted by PrototypeCube on January 23, 2014 at 8:06 PM

"Concrete is the building material of the future" they said. "You can't maintain a tube network using wood, platted straw and magic." Well.

Tweeted by TlfTravelAlerts on January 23, 2014 at 7:10 PM

doppelgreener

Oh my god XD

I get it

BESW

10:52

Friday. You wake, covered in concrete. An industrial pouring machine is parked erratically outside your house. Oh no...it's happened again.

Tweeted by TlfTravelAlerts on January 24, 2014 at 8:24 AM

Well that's got rid of that quick drying cement I had lying around the house.

Tweeted by AcmeDarryl on January 23, 2014 at 6:10 PM

So, my newfound understanding of boosts meshes nicely with Venture City Stories and their implementation of superpowers.

Part of a superpower is "special effects," which are fancy things you can get instead of boosts when you succeed with style on a roll that's using your powers.

For example, someone with super speed could have Improved Extra Action: if he succeeds with style on a super-speed action, he can choose to split the shifts into three different but related actions, each with an extra +1.

He might also have Extra Movement, which lets him move up to two zones for free.

Every time he succeeds with style, he can get a boost as usual or he can choose one of his special effects to replace the boost.

They've also got some cool stuff like requiring each superpower to have its own trouble aspect, and a "supercharged" version of your power at the price of having the GM place a collateral damage situation aspect of his choosing on the scene.

I'm not fond of the relatively generic setting, but the mechanics please me.

[appropriates]

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

12:12

I rise.

BESW

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Dripping and weed-covered from the tepid muck?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@BESW No, just laden with bags of bagels and boxes of donuts.

BESW

Close enough.

Aaron

13:21

Good mornin

Metool

ahoy

Aaron

Arg matey. Is your character ready?

BESW

Metool

@Aaron No ._.

Phil

Arggggh! Why do users with silly high rep answer questions that are blatently going to be put on hold -_-

Metool

13:37

0

Q: About Druid transformation and stuff

I'd like to have some details about the Druid transformation in D&D 3.5. Ok, you have reached level 8, so your BA is +6/+1 and let's say that I want to transform into a lion; according to rules I can choose between 2 kinds of natural weapon, bite or claws and that I can't use both at the same tim...

dnd-3.5e druid

Nice title.

Aaron

working on editing that.

About Druid transformation attacks sound better?

Metool

about [class feature name] natural attacks

Aaron

This will be my first edit XD

About Druid's wild shape natural attacks

Phil

Tbh I'd just get rid of the word 'About' at the start

Metool

is druid a thing?

ah, it is tagged

Aaron

13:41

@Metool he used the tag so yes

Ok sending my edit thru

Alex P

If you can, make the question title a question. If you can't, the question is probably not very well-formed.

Aaron

@AlexP Oh. I hardly ever make my titles actual questions.

I didn't think that was a thing. I try to title them like I would search in google.

Metool

It's a Q&A site.

Aaron

@Metool I feel like a derp now.

oh well I will just do so from now on.

My edit still needs peer review so changes are welcome. How do you get peer review?

Metool

You wait for peers to review it.

Aaron

13:45

I figured but how do you do so so I can also review edits

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:40

on my pjone for the first time
good morning everyone

a lot of not great 4e questions lately

Lord_Gareth

Bam, commented on answer to enhance it

For my next trick, curing world hunger

MadMAxJr

14:55

@Lord_Gareth Engineering report on world hunger issue: Resolve issue at source, eliminate need for hunger. Recommending shifting living creatures to photosynthesis.

Aaron

15:06

@MadMAxJr what-if.xkcd.com/17

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:23

@besw check out this horribly untrue to source material lotr game being made

observationdeck.io9.com/…

Metool

Krod.

4

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:41

@metool funny story glad I'm not I that party/table/system

Aaron

@JoshuaAslanSmith Sounds like a good time to me lol

Phil

I think they come across as a marmite player - as a GM you would either love them or absolutely hate them

and I think I would fall into the latter camp

Aaron

@Phil marmite?

Phil

Marmite

Marmite ( ) is the brand name for two similar food spreads: the original British version, since 2000 a Unilever product; and a modified version produced in New Zealand by Sanitarium Health Food Company and distributed in Australasia and the Pacific. Marmite is made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing. Other similar products include the Australian Vegemite, the Swiss Cenovis and the German Vitam-R. The British version of the product is a sticky, dark brown food paste with a distinctive, powerful flavour, which is extremely salty. This distinctive taste is reflected in the...

one of their ad slogans is 'you either love it or hate it'

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Like spreadable salt, isn't it?

Phil

15:55

:op

Its delicious

Joshua Aslan Smith

@javafueled if I came iff as squishy it was more out of being polite. it shouls be a the one ring question because you mention the one ring in the question. if you think its agnostic remove all mention of the one ribg and the tag

MadMAxJr

I need some help from the crowd here. Isn't this question entirely opinion? Or did I miss something where this has a definitive answer? rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/31921/…

Phil

I think answers can be OK if they draw on actual experience of being in this situation. Otherwise, I would expect the mod-hammer to fall

MadMAxJr

Okay, people with experience adjusting dice gamers to a no-dice game is a valid point.

Short of answers along the lines of "I find that having my standing army keep the players at gunpoint great motivation to get them to change systems."

Phil

I've flagged for moderator attention, as the answers so far don't make it clear whether or not they are from actual experience

And in the past this has led to answers needing to be edited or deleted

Joshua Aslan Smith

16:08

ill edit my answer

MadMAxJr

16:57

Letsee, what seemingly common, mostly harmless creature and we turn into horrible, horrible death machines with just a few class levels...

Alex P

17:15

I'm tired with "verisimilitude." I want to reclaim "realism" for RPGs. Like, actual artistic/literary realism.

wax eagle

@AlexP that's actually a really interesting point, they're often used synonymously

Alex P

@waxeagle Or people telling other people that you can't have realism, only verisimilitude. Which is maybe an effective way to shut down "Okay, but in real life, X and Y, so the rules should do exactly what I say..." argument, but it's kinda missing the point of the concept of "realism" in every other form of media.

wax eagle

@AlexP right, realism is more than just accurate mechanical models, it's about vivid story telling etc

(if I'm understanding you correctly)

Alex P

Yup.

Alex P

17:44

Are the particular system aspects that promote "realism" (in the sense of a "grounded," not-pulpy-or-romantic aesthetic, for instance)?

Joshua Aslan Smith

18:02

i think verisimilitude has a mechanical connotation wheras realism a narrative one

Aaron

poisons suck in pathfinder

they have low dcs and barely to anything

MadMAxJr

18:20

And costs to create are all over the place.

You can up the DC by doubling up on dosages, but it takes way too many resources to get a suitably challenging DC

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith I think that's true to an extent, but the main kind of mechanics I care about are hard to extricate from the fiction of play.

Aaron

@MadMAxJr I was going to make a character that used a blowgun with poison but screw that noise. I think my money is better spent on a bow and thistle arrows that cause bleed damage.

do three damage on turn and for 1d6 turns after that it does 3 damage.

MadMAxJr

You'd basically need a permanantly frozen block of highly concentrated poison, sharpened into a blade, and hope bits chip off in your foe and heat up and metabolize.

And since that itself would be a weapon, also coat the frozen poison blade in poison. Just to be sure.

Dear Paizo. You address lots of things in your hardcover splatbooks. How about we get some better poisons and toxins eh?

Alex P

D&D3.x designers don't really like it when there is a way to circumvent hitpoints.

Unless you are a spellcaster.

So every option to do something like that has to suck.

Aaron

I think thistle arrows are good though. They deal bleed damage so lets say each gets lucky and deals max. 6 damage for 6 turns from 1 arrow

MadMAxJr

18:29

I'm going to consult my mystical d20 8-ball.

"Blindly blame Monte Cook"

Aaron

shoot again and it is 12 damage for 5 ect until you are doing 36 damage on the 6th turn.

Aaron

19:21

that is how bleed damage works right?

KRyan

@MadMAxJr for Pathfinder, that would be Sean K. Reynolds

the man apparently hates mundane characters and thinks they should all suck

Joshua Aslan Smith

@KRyan its a very popular belief with a lot of the PF and 3.5 players as well

the next boards were scary in that regard

KRyan

@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm painfully aware

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:41

that diceless question was interesting

though from the description it sounds like his playgroup is not ready/willing to make that step

MadMAxJr

I don't know a lot about diceless systems. Do they still involve a random element somehow?

Joshua Aslan Smith

so dread could be a good example of that

rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11974.phtml

MadMAxJr

Dread is the one that uses a Jenga tower for event resolution, right?

The tower falling over means someone dies, I think?

Alex P

Some don't use random resolution at all.

Amber has stats. And if my stat is better than yours, I will always beat you eventually.

But you can try to do stuff like change what the conflict is about (so the stats are different) or give yourself an advantage.

I'm not sure on the deets.

I think it's rather GM-moderated.

But it's not arbitrary.

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:59

gotcha thanks for the info I wondered what amber was

@madmaxjr yeah its the one with the jenga tower

Alex P

This page is actually pretty decent:

Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

The Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game created and written by Erick Wujcik, set in the fictional universe created by author Roger Zelazny for his Chronicles of Amber. The game is unusual in that no dice are used in resolving conflicts or player actions; instead a simple diceless system of comparative ability, and narrative description of the action by the players and gamemaster, is used to determine how situations are resolved. Amber DRPG was created in the 1980s, and is much more focused on relationships and roleplaying than most of the roleplaying games of that era....

MadMAxJr

So it caters more to the 'We're telling a story' than a 'We're playing a game' group? Just curious, never had any hands-on experience.

Alex P

I'm not sure it's "narrativist" per se. You can get really cutthroat with it, if you want to. If you emphasize fictional positioning. People play freeform like that sometimes.

You win by establishing the best plan, &c.

Joshua Aslan Smith

20:15

the covers on that wiki page just make me think of aeon flux

Alex P

I've got a semi-complete copy of Everway, another diceless game, and I think it's kinda rubbish.

It kinda has randomizers in the form of a deck of cards you can draw from. But they, erm, "give you ideas" rather than being a direct mechanic.

My impression was that it was one of those systems that had no real vision about what it was, erm, about. Amber's a bit different because the setting is much clearer, at least.

(Well, the "what do you do?" part of the setting.)

Joshua Aslan Smith

20:29

understood

Alex P

I'm just remembering Everway. It's one of those "Man what?" games.

wax eagle

@AlexP ooh, Brian and I played everway with @Tynam a while back. it seemed kinda cool

Alex P

@waxeagle It seems very GM-driven. I'm curious: what did y'all do in the game?

(Like, "This is a game about the protagonists (going into dungeons to find loot / vying for political dominion over an awesome future cyber-Athens / making deals with the devil to try to restore their shattered lives)" -- what was the thing in parens for the Everway game you played?)

wax eagle

20:51

@AlexP I'm honestly trying to remember

it's been a while

I think I might have a doc from the game, let me search

Joshua Aslan Smith

dude I am so close to being on that front page of users

wax eagle

I'm stuck at 6th for the forseeable future

Joshua Aslan Smith

6th?

you have more rep than me

oh you mean 6th user

not 6th page

yeah lol

Joshua Aslan Smith

21:04

I remember during the site last anniversary I was like on page 7 and sad about not getting a t-shirt or whatever it was

and I was like I WILL MOVE UP! but I find it odd that Ive moved up as much since the questions I comment on are 4e, dungeon world, next and fate, but I guess I have a lot of problem gm/player sys agnostic questions

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith sadly, most of us on the front pages have done so on the backs of either 4e or 3.PF

Joshua Aslan Smith

eh I mean its fine

I mean you, besw youre some of the most active and vocal members of the site

mzlplk or however you spell it is the mod

etc.

regardless of if you got the rep via "easier questions" or more numerous ones or not you got there and you put in the time for very non-repy things like chat a lot

Lord_Gareth

I got a lot of my rep answering questions that could've been sys agnost if they were a little bit more broad. Stuff like, "Can a lich redeem itself?" and "Was killing these pirates evil?"

BESW

My secret is a) catch questions early, which is easier because I work at home to help take care of my dad; b) provide empathetic answers to social-tension questions; c) be eloquent and well-researched.

Joshua Aslan Smith

21:22

@lord_gareth haha, great examples

BESW

It's my niche point: I have non-RPG-related experience and training in creating small-group environments that foster cooperation and mutual support, and I've also put a lot of work into being able to community clearly.

Joshua Aslan Smith

\I seem to rep up big on story/character development questions

Lord_Gareth

@BESW We all know your real secrets are black magic, debts owed to you by the Seelie Court, and your passionate relationship with Athena, who gave up her maidenhood and her hand in marriage to you in recognition of your towering wisdom.

5

Joshua Aslan Smith

which makes sense since my undergrad was in screenwriting

Lord_Gareth

(No matter what religion turns out to be correct, I'm going to hell. Even for the ones that don't have a hell, I'm going to hell)

Joshua Aslan Smith

21:24

there is a special unwritten hell for you in those

Alex P

All my highest answers are "What the heck is this D&D thing about, anyway?" Except that time I got 500+ rep for "Note cards are a thing."

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol

Alex P

@waxeagle Let me know if you remember. I'm curious. It's a big part of the game I never "got."

Joshua Aslan Smith

one of the latest question I answered became my highest

41

A: Unhate-able Villians

The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions In the Screwtape Letters, Screwtape toasts at a banquet stating that all the best sinners were failed saints. Men and women with a powerful will and a strong virtue, such as justice or defending the natural world, whose zeal crossed the line or had ...

prior to that it was my bit about hot to politely say I dont wanna listen to you boring story about what your characters did in a an RPG game I did nothing in

@alexp what people using notecards?

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith Note card answer. (My thing to Wax is not related to that. It's a follow-up to our previous conversation about Everwary.)

Joshua Aslan Smith

21:31

lol well I voted +1 for that one

I Think feelies as I dub that sort of thing are incredibly great for moving things along and at the same time creating immersion even if its something like a note on a notecard

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP - TASTE THE PAIN OF THIS NEEDLESS REP BOOST! FEEL IT! SUFFER!

Joshua Aslan Smith

hahahaha

muahahah

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith Oh, no, I certainly do like the answer. I'm just saying: secretly that answer is "note cards."

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

I feel like my rule of 3 type answers are all stating basic truths

theyre face value answers to me but I also spent 4 years writing and studying movie and fiction novels so that sort of thing is like water to a fish to me

Tynam

Wow. I earned a note card!

Joshua Aslan Smith

21:35

hahaha

Tynam

Yes, that game really tested my GMing. My players created two amazing characters, but it was a lot of work to get them into the same universe.

So I ran out of time (read: ability to stay awake) a bit.

Alex P

@Tynam This is Everway? Tell me more.

Tynam

To answer the question: Yes, Everway is very GM driven. I think of it as the first of the modern indy rules-light plot-focussed games.

Resolution mechanics are:
1) If it works for the story, it happens.
2) Highest stat wins,
or
3) Draw a pretty not-quite-tarot card and interpret.

It's a great game for new players - because character creation is very evocative - but the GM must be an experienced GM, or many things can go subtly badly wrong.

Alex P

That kinda sounds like a nightmare to me.

Mechanically.

Tynam

It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

Alex P

21:39

I guess really a better way to look at that is that it's not "resolution" as much as just "what happens whenever anyone says a thing."

Namely, usually there is no resolution.

Tynam

A simple, clear system for defining magical powers during character creation.

Alex P

You just say it and it happens.

Tynam

...makes it go more smoothly.

Alex P

Who decides to go to stats/cards?

While we're staring at our answers, folks, new game: your favorite question/answer of yours.

Tynam

GM, but it's usually pretty obvious. You say "OK, I run at the ogre with my sword" and I either say "what's your Fire score" or "what did you draw?"

If a card draw is ambiguous, I use the stats to interpret it.

The magical powers system is really simple, and encourages characters to have a small number of cool powers during creation.

Alex P

21:43

Follow-up: the setting is full of characters, like, planeswalking around. What's the thing that you do with ir? Or, rather, what did you have the PCs do in the game(s) you GMed?

Tynam

In this case: Brian had created a character who was, in effect, a necromancer imprisoned in alone in a world-prison. First half of the adventure: Get the two characters together (via a hidden worldgate into the prison world), get them introduced, escape via gate.

BESW

My friends, we have velociraptor cosmetics.

0

Q: Feats & role for velociraptor companion

I'm a level 5 Druid and my group consists of me, the DM, & a level 5 fighter. I am unsure of what role my companion should have. I was thinking of having it fill in the roll of a rouge. It knows common, and it's skills are acrobatics, intimidate, sneak, and survival. It has 4 tricks, attack, ...

pathfinder

Tynam

Second half (adventure as I'd originally planned!)... (1 sec, oven requires attention...)

...arriving in the realm of Stonehill, they discover - in order - a missing princess, a disrupted wedding, and eventually a traitor to the realm who is behind both. Rescuing (a) and foiling (c), I called the game due to exhaustion...

...but if I'd been running a campaign, it would have mattered that they'd missed the real villain, and caught the disposable subordinate.

Everway is good at running classic-fantasy-with-Star-Trek-plot-structure. Party arrives at World of the Week, gets used to local culture, learns that Something Is Wrong With It, and tries to fix it / escape / cope. Interesting worlds get revisited in later episodes.

BESW

Reading too quickly, I thought "Okay, so the wedding was disrupted because the princess is missing and now the prince is sitting sadly on the Royal Tractor with tin cans tied to the back that he was planning on using to ride away from the wedding with his bride."

2

Tynam

;)

BESW

21:51

More monarchies should have a Tractor of the Realm.

Tynam

When I first ran the same adventure, a couple of years ago, I had used a shapeshifting dragon as lead villain, and the end was... more explosive... than that.

But I'm not conveying what makes Everway work properly here, any more than explaining the Move die rolls tells you why you would play Dungeon World.

Alex P

@Tynam Thanks.

Tynam

The reason to play Everway is the incredibly simple and evocative character creation. Faced with everway, even my most shy and unimaginative players create backstories that just beg for the GM to write plots around them.

(That and Greg Stolze's Spherewalker Sourcebook, probably the best grab-bag of random fantasy ideas ever written. When I run any fantasy-genre game, and am stuck for ideas... I get it out and turn to a random page. There'll be something amazing on it.)

Aaron

have a nice weekend everyone

Tynam

You too Aaron.

BESW

21:56

ttfn

Tynam

Of course, some great interaction between waxeagle and the ever-reliable Brian Ballsun-Stanton helped make the game. I'm pretty certain Brian's transformation sorceror (I've just remembered I was wrong; not a necromancer) would have ended up in an evil-overlord-duel for who secretly runs the kingdom, with wax's plucky street survivor as the swing vote / key knife-in-the-back.

As always, what you do with the game depends on the group most of all.

BESW

I don't think my current "group" would do well with Everway at all.

Alex P

@BESW Elaborate, please.

(I certainly don't think I would. It doesn't really have levers for some of the stuff I care about most.)

Tynam

The character creation is so pleasant that it's easy to get people started, but it's not for everyone. (Rules lawyers can have fun on creation, but don't have enough to work with tactically.)

BESW

He's already really great at making compelling characters, and he prefers to have a crunchier system to master.

Tynam

22:04

Yep, not right then.

Although... I did once switch my regular D&D 3 game to Everway behind the scenes, without telling the players, as a GM practice exercise.

BESW

Half his fun with Fate Core is working with me to invent the crunch which supports his concept.

Tynam

That is something Everway does do very well, because of a great magical power system.

Which I'm planning to steal as a way to assign FATE Core refresh costs.

Oops. Oven timer. Dinner is ready, off to open oven and enjoy the magic therein. Have a good night, all of you.

Alex P

Have fun!

@Tynam thanks for taking the time to tell me about your game :)

BESW

ttfn

Zachiel

Ugh.

I got a badge for pathfinder

Lord_Gareth

22:38

@Zachiel For shame.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I need some Waffles of Shame now

Zachiel

23:26

@IssamTP If you happen to pass by the chat feel free to ping me. You just need to write @Zachiel anywhere on your post.

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