TRPG General Chat

user61230

00:00

You know what I love more than sliced bread?

user61230

Old books.

BESW

00:32

I would probably like old books better if I didn't live in the tropics.

Old books generally equals serious mold and mildew.

BESW

01:16

[Wave] Hey, Hobbs.

doppelgreener

@BESW Hi!

BESW

Hmm. My Android Stack app crashes whenever it tries to view a post with an embedded image.

doppelgreener

01:34

oh dear

take screenshots and post it to meta.so

BESW

What would I ~~screenshot~~ screenshoot? It just reboots.

doppelgreener

is there a crash screen?

like "oh no! stack exchange has stopped"

BESW

No.

doppelgreener

ok. welp! Just tell them what to do to reproduce it then I guess!

BESW

0

Q: Stack app for Android crashes when viewing posts with embedded images

Every time I view a post with an embedded image using the Stack app on my Kobo Arc (Android e-reader/tablet using 4.1.1), the page loads as normal without the image... and then the app crashes. I don't have an error screen to show you, because it just changes the post content to a blank white pa...

doppelgreener

01:49

\o/ Good report

BESW

Woo!

BTW, @JonathanHobbs, some of the readings at a Bahá'í meeting yesterday made me think of our conversations a few months ago. I'm tracking them down online.

I can pass them on over Skype some time.

doppelgreener

02:07

@BESW Sure :O

Alex P

02:25

Hey folks.

BESW

Yawp.

Magician

Mornin'

BESW

What's new, citizens?

Magician

I've been suddenly working on a fantasy combat game (don't even want to think about turning it into a full-on rpg system just yet) based on lots of d20s. Naturally.

BESW

Suddenly?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

02:32

Hallo!

BESW

Hafa.

Alex P

@Magician Exalted? >.> <.< >.>

Magician

@BESW I'm "supposed" to be doing other things. As in, things I've already been working on.

BESW

Ahah.

Magician

@AlexP It started with 13th Age's flexible attacks and Otherkind dice, and went from there...

BESW

02:35

I wonder what would happen if you massively increased the die sizes in PK...?

user61230

Ahh, yeah, @BESW. I live in a desert.

Alex P

@BESW Well, if you increase the range a bit (like add d12s), you end up with DitV, which makes conflicts a bit different because reversals are easier to come by.

user61230

That's why I don't mind keeping books like this. Occasionally. This one was actually surprisingly cheap, though, which is good. And it's in superb quality.

BESW

@Emracool I love my old books, but...

user61230

Yeah. It's hard to keep them in a wet environment.

BESW

02:45

Is Exotic Zoology even still in print?

user61230

Willy Ley's?

BESW

Yeah.

My copy is an old library edition I picked up for a dollar because the library was throwing it out as ruined.

user61230

It's in print, but it's not the original edition, as you might expect

user61230

It's worth about 2.5x what you paid ;)

BESW

I have no idea how old my copy is; its publication page seems to be missing, and the only date on the whole thing is a '74 checkout date stamped in the back.

@Avarkx Hi!

John Craven

03:17

you can get the Cryptozoologicon instead!

Alex P

Today's Wondermark is very topical.

BESW

03:44

I think you mean relephant.

Alex P

I do indeed.

Alex P

03:59

This is kind of a cool gizmo.

Err, doesn't work when you embed it in chat. Basically you stick it in community ads and you see a thing saying "This site has X bounties worth over Y rep! Answer some now!" Good thing to have if your site is having problems getting attention to those questions. (Not a problem RPG SE has right now.)

BESW

Describe the spell's desired effect and determine its value in shifts (similar to DFRPG).
Determine what skill is appropriate for the effect: Deceive for illusions, Investigate for divination, etc.
Make a check with that skill and compare it to the desired shifts for the spell, and to your Will rank.
If the shifts of your check are greater than your Will, roll a Will defense as if your skill check was an attack against you. You may choose if it is a physical or mental attack as appropriate.
If the shifts of your check are less than the shifts needed for the spell, the spell fizzles. If your…

Thoughts on this magic system?

Maybe Lore instead of Will.

Alex P

(I have no ability to comment on that. Sorry. Let's poke the chat room and see if anyone else can. POKE!)

BESW

04:28

My goal is to have a simplified Core version of the DFRPG casting system. I want to keep the idea of casting being dangerous and draining, but streamline the casting process.

Eliminating the casting skills is part of this, and it helps make the "specialized casting" flavor more mechanical.

The skill check is an overcome action, which means success at cost can stand in for the collateral damage part of DFRPG casting.

Alex P

So, there's a big thematic consequence to whether casting spells uses its own esoteric skills or powers up standard skills.

I think the latter is better for a "generic" subsystem, probably.

Because you're saying "Whatever your character's shtick is, take skills for it normally and then jazz them up with magic."

BESW

Right.

Alex P

In contrast, dedicated spellcasting skills build up a separation between the normal approach and the magical one. E.g. Deceive to trick somebody vs. magic to straight-up twist their mind.

BESW

DFRPG is weird that way.

It's got two and a half dedicated casting skill which are the universal to all casters, but every caster is unique in the way they implement the skills.

Additionally (and this is something I'm happy to sacrifice), the main shtick is that the magic skills can utterly replace any other skill, given enough uninterrupted time.

Alex P

04:45

@BESW I think the main advantage of that is that it has the effect of forcing wizards to, well, keep paying the price. You can go whole-hog with illusions or suck with your kinda low Deceive score, with little middle ground.

But that definitely powers up wizards on the whole.

err, side track, sorry

BESW

Makes sense.

With my version the balance is that you can't rely on one skill for every spell, unless you're super specialized, and you get major backlash unless you also keep your Will/Lore up.

Alex P

So, here is a bit from BW (one of its magic variants) that may be applicable: once you start using the magic version of a skill, you can't stop for the duration of the scene.

BESW

Meaning...?

Alex P

So, we're sword-fighting. Halfway through the fight, I call upon my magic to make myself a better sword-fighter. Because it's magic, ever roll has a backlash risk if I fail hard enough.

So, what the "can't stop" rule does is make it so that if I'm starting to overload myself, I can't just go back to non-magic sword-fighting. I need to either take it, end the scene (e.g. give up), or switch to a different approach.

BESW

What does it look like narratively?

Alex P

04:58

It's a variant I don't use (Practical Magic, which is the most magic-is-like-skills version of sorcery). So I don't know that much about the narratie quirks. Roughly speaking...

With Practical Magic, doing the thing is still, like, using the skill. So using magic to sword-fight involves, you know, sword-fighting still. As opposed to straight-up substituting another action for the same effect (e.g. using telekinetic throws to win a sword-fight without ever touching my opponent).

So, when you call upon sorcery, you're filling yourself with power. At that point, your skill-based actions are the magic.

You can't just stop tapping it in the moment.

The engine is already full of nitrous, so to speak. (That is totally not how cars work, is it?)

BESW

Cool. Not what I'm after here, but I'll keep it in mind for other settings.

Alex P

It's an easy knob to adjust.

BESW

(I wouldn't know.)

Alex P

I mean "can you stop magicking during a scene" is an easy little switch to bake into the subsystem.

In my experience the best magic subsystems come with some options for customizing them, to power them up or down slightly.

BESW

In Fate that's probably best done with stunts.

"When I us Shoot to cast magic attacks, I deal an extra two shifts of stress every time I hit."

Alex P

05:05

I was thinking more as setting-level... erm, I forget the terminology. Not a "fractal" but, you know.

BESW

Ah....

Alex P

So, okay, a great example of this is the variant we actually use in play, called Art Magic. Actually we use a variant of a variant. Art Magic is a subsytem designed for on-the-fly spellcasting with some predefined effects rather than a boatload of spells (basically you tap the rules for traits, advantage/disadvantage, and certain opposed checks directly)...

It's very flexible.

With support for specializing in particular themed schools.

The variant is "use the specialized schools part to actually define the only spells you can cast."

Easy tweak that totally changes the range of spellcasting without busting up the math.

Going back to the Fate thing you proposed...

BESW

DFRPG does something similar.

Alex P

Does being magic mean you can magic up all your skills? Or just one / a few?

I kinda imagine supporting both, with stunts of different values.

BESW

In DFRPG, you get one or two __mancies that you're restricted to. More mancie cost more resources.

Alex P

05:10

(Remind me: do stunts have different costs, or is a stunt a stunt?)

"My character can do one magic skill trick" is a great thing for a lot of PC concepts.

BESW

Stunts are all equal. If you want more oomph in a single unit of feature, there are super-stunts called extras.

Extras have variable price and more scope for their feature granting power.

Our PC in this game is limited to illusion.

Alex P

So, there we go: being a real wizard is a high-powered extra. You can also create "hedge mage" or "arcane knack" or something for specialized I-know-one-thing-really.

Useful thing to point out: there's a lot of value in not having a homogeneous magic system. Like, standardizing a bunch of things is awesome, but sometimes they'll be a total proud nail -- it's okay to just make it weird and different.

Like maybe the character who summons devils to do his bidding uses an entirely different mechanic.

Because the price and the limitations and the skills involved are all different from magic-skills magic.

So, rereading the original description...

This is the part I would change: "If the shifts of your check are less than the shifts needed for the spell, the spell fizzles."

As written, this is a fairly straightforward "Can you do it or not, and also sometimes you take damage" system.

BESW

I'm looking at that and I think Fate makes it easy to fix.

Alex P

I think it's pretty elegant now that I've kinda sat here and processed it.

But there really should be cooler consequences than "Does the spell fizzle?"

BESW

If the check is an Overcome action, that comes with "success at cost" options built in.

Alex P

05:19

My intuition here would be to get the GM or the group as a whole to pick appropriate failure penalties.

They're often context-specific.

BESW

That's exactly how success at cost works.

You negotiate an appropriate consequence for having the effect happen even though you failed the roll.

Alex P

perfect

well, okay, what I mean is also that the spell can fizzle or it can do more than fizzle while still failing

lots of options

BESW

05:39

Fate can accommodate that: failure by 3 or more often creates an effect which benefits an opponent.

BESW

07:05

- Describe the spell's desired effect and determine its value in shifts (similar to DFRPG).
- Determine what skill is appropriate for the effect: Deceive for illusions, Investigate for divination, etc.
- Roll an overcome action with that skill and compare it to the desired shifts for the spell, and to your Will rank.
- If the shifts of your check are greater than your Will, roll a Will defense as if your skill check was an attack against you. You may choose if it is a physical or mental attack as appropriate.

Oh, no! Someone's asking questions about time travel in Primer!

Hmm. [modifies further]

BESW

07:38

Trimming it up into a final form here.

My explaining is bad.

Lord_Gareth

08:09

I'm noticing a whole lot of, "Does the RAW really work this way that makes no sense at all?" questions for 3.PF lately. I really need to come up with a standardized, "Yes, RAW is that psychotic, welcome to D&D's metagame," answer.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth Wiz be cray, yo.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Less "is Wizard really that powerful," and more, "Did they really design the wording this poorly?"

To which, again, the answer is "Yes."

BESW

I was thinking Wiz(ards of the Coast), actually.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Ah, yes. Their 3.X crew really needs to be banned from the industry.

Zach

08:31

I ask this out of blatant curiosity:

Is it really so uncommon for players to want to take part in a game where they're forced into a role they choose, as opposed to simply doing as they will with a character they made?

BESW

Not sure what you mean by "forced into a role they choose."

Lord_Gareth

@Zach Do ya have a comprehensible version of that question?

Zach

Well, if any of you remember most of my questions, I tend to be the type of person who thinks that there is a right and wrong way to play any character, once that character has been finalized.

Lord_Gareth

@Zach Stop right there.

@BESW, I want you to witness the asking of the following question and note that it was asked before a single opinion was expressed:

@Zach - Do you want my honest opinion, or my polite one?

John Craven

uh oh

BESW

08:35

@Lord_Gareth I duly witness the false dichotomy that honesty and respect are mutually exclusive.

2

Zach

If it is relevant to my actual question (i.e., if whether or not my opinion is uncommon) and not simply a rant against said, then go right ahead and answer as honestly as you like

Lord_Gareth

I have noticed your questions, and I'm astounded that you still have players. Frankly the underlying attitudes and information sought suggest a power trip of immense proportions and some serious control issues. As the DM, your first, last, and only job is to ensure that the entire group - yourself included - is having fun. These obsessions with forcing your players to act in certain ways are a rather severe impediment to that.

Not to mention killing ideas like evolving characterization or OOC resolution of disruptive and unfun IC elements

Both vital tools to maintaining group stability.

Zach

@l

@Lord_Gareth (I really hate my keyboard at times)
I fail to see how that answers my original question.

Lord_Gareth

It doesn't. I was responding to the point at which I stopped you.

@Zach As I feel the post I've linked to this one is a rather toxic attitude that needs to rapidly stop being a thing in the community.

I can almost - almost - get behind it for 'canon' characters in roleplaying scenarios set inside other works - like, oh, Dr. Who or Dresden.

But in any other situation? No. A player's character is their one and only opportunity for agency and self-expression.

2

Get your dirty hands off of their characterization.

Zach

Well, here's my honest opinion.
I am not you. I do not play in the group you do. My goals, ideals, and beliefs on the matter are not yours. The reason I play the game is very likely not the same reason you play.
That said: I still enjoy the game I want to play, when I successfully play it. If you can not see why I do so, then you can be of no use in answering my questions on the subject.

Lord_Gareth

08:43

By all means, continue explaining, but I doubt you'll get much of a hearing. Even outside of the problem where there's No Such Thing as D&D, no one here is you, or plays the same game as you, or for the same reasons.

BESW

I have to go to a meeting. I will be gone for several hours. Please don't get blood on the chat while I'm gone.

Lord_Gareth

Kinda beggars the question of why you bothered asking us if you'll dismiss an opinion for that.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth You didn't answer the question he came to chat to ask. You brought up a tangential subjective issue related to the relatively objective question he was asking.

John Craven

well, to each their own of course, but I don't think Lord_Gareth's point is that you aren't having fun, it's that it's hard to fathom other people having fun in that kind of a "game". Obviously, there's a whole spectrum of how deep people want to go in and monkey around with the narrative, but yeah, that would definitely be no fun for me.

To the original question, I think that even having to put it down to a "do players get to choose from a limited set of roles I've pre-created for them, or do they get to do whatever" is a bit anathema to roleplaying as a hobby.

Again, to each their own, but it seems like there are better hobbies out there for folks who don't want to be bothered with story-telling.

Zach

@Lord_Gareth In many ways, we're like opposing sides of the same government. Our end goal (to have fun with other people also having fun) is the same. How we believe this goal is best achieved is not.
I dismissed your opinion because, to be honest, it is not relevant to me. You seem to be of the opinion that a character is the element within a game that its player has control over. I, however, do not share that opinion.
I am of the opinion that a character is just that: a character. When I roleplay, I do not do so as some extention of myself within someone else's made up world; I do so as a…

A key example of the difference between us:

I have no doubt that you do not like the Paladin code of conduct rules, though I can not right now site an instance of you saying so:
I quite enjoy them. It's part of the reason that Paladin is my favorite class. It is a perfect example of the role I enjoy taking on.

John Craven

08:52

That's an obvious straw man. If I were to answer for Lord_Gareth, and I am because I can't go to sleep right now, I would answer that having constraints and a moral code is not "choosing a pre-existing role". You still have the freedom to act within those constraints, or even to break the rules and watch how the world makes you pay the consequences for doing so.

Lord_Gareth

I'd say you've misunderstood my position, though you're right - I don't like the paladin CoC. But I don't like it because it's shoddily-worded, has little to do with Good behavior, draws no inspiration from the sources that shaped and ultimately defined the Paladin as a class, and results in cookie-cutter character behavior where any given Paladin is much like the next since they never bothered to build any variants in.

My trouble isn't with the idea of taking up a moral code and being challenged to hold to its strictures.

It's that the written Paladin code is a wretched, half-edited mess.

Zach

@JohnCraven Honestly, I've met several people who enjoy that type of game. A lot of them made up my highschool drama club. Very often, we would play a game where in each of us was given a role from a previous work, and told to act out a scene as we believe that character would act in it. We were given scores based on how well the others believed we did at depicting the character. The idea was to improve our improvisational skills.
Everyone in the group liked this game a lot, and if I had not been forced to move to another town by extenuating circumstances, I would likely still be taking par…

John Craven

That's all well and good, but where you've gone off the deep end, I think, is implying that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to act out those roles, and then on top of that a character in an RPG is an archetype, not a predetermined personality.

In fact, I would go ahead and say that some of the worst games of DnD I've ever played were the ones where people flat-out did not make any attempts to define their characters beyond the archetype.

Lord_Gareth

RPGs aren't just acting and roleplaying; they're also writing, collaborating, and editing. For better or for worse you're not just the actor when you play a character, you're a writer and a producer too.

John Craven

Going back to my first point, though... Bandersnatch Cumberbund's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is quite a bit different from Basil Rathbone's, and both are a lot off from Hugh Laurie's portrayal of House, who is an obvious paean to Holmes.... does this mean that 2 of them are doing it wrong?

Lord_Gareth

09:00

Not to mention the various characters in classic Broadway productions and the different ways they get costumed and performed.

John Craven

I'll help you here: the answer is "no". While yes, making Sherlock Holmes into a social butterfly or a petty criminal would be antithetical to the character, that still leaves quite a bit open in terms of how to portray him. Particularly when you introduce him into a situation that Conan Doyle never put him into.

Zach

I don't believe that a character is defined solely by their race and type.
I just don't feel that having a character throw up his hands in honest prayer to a god of honor one minute, then cut the purse from his ally the next, is something that anyone should be allowed to do within a roleplaying game, ever, no matter how much they personally feel that they should be allowed to

John Craven

True, Lord_Gareth, and even the paradigm of the play is waaaaay more restrictive than the paradigm of a role playing game

Lord_Gareth

@Zach This is not what you presented to us when you asked the question. Or any of your other questions, for that matter.

Zach

Really? Because I recall on several occasions pointing out similar instances

A monk who suddenly starting throwing his feces at people

Lord_Gareth

09:02

You have communication problems [/blunt explanation].

Zach

A group of players who would continue to act completely crazy until nothing short of outright death was put against them

Lord_Gareth

That in mind, consider that the underlying problem is elsewhere. Things like that are usually an indicator of a problem with how the game is being conducted, usually that player wants or needs are not being met.

John Craven

I would probably draw the veil on poop throwing in general if I was a member of that game; I don't even care whether it's in character or not, frankly

Lord_Gareth

Even the most annoying attention-grabbing player is usually after something that can be understood and, having been understood, offered in an exciting way.

Zach

See, this is my problem

Lord_Gareth

09:04

I had one guy who used to brag that none of his characters had ever executed a tactical retreat. Nothing "was ever scary enough to turn them into cowards."

John Craven

heh, was he telling you that he wanted to be scared, or was he telling you that he never wanted to be scared?

Zach

I ask these questions hoping someone will agree with me that, just because it's "their" character, that doesn't mean they should be allowed to completely drop the role they're supposed to be playing whenever it suites them

Just to do something stupid and spontaneous, because they think it's "funny"

Lord_Gareth

@JohnCraven After the third such anecdote what he was actually telling me was that he was sick of his previous DMs using heavy-handed railroading to force the party to flee. Since I never did that anyway it took about 3/4s of one session for him to calm down and realize that this game was different.

John Craven

Interesting.

To the "players who do stupid things because they're funny" bit, I think that's related to a longish answer I posted in a Microscope thread the other day.

Lord_Gareth

I think the big eye-opening revelation was when the mimic the party was fighting started wailing a gibbering surrender and sobbing that all it ever wanted was food, that it'd do anything for food.

Zach

09:07

I'm the type of person who spends a lot of time on his characters, defining who they are and how they see the world. I will go so far as to see them die in horrible ways, even if simply playing to a single advantage of character knowledge would prevent it. I enjoy games where that's the norm, not the ideal.

Lord_Gareth

They kept that mimic fed for eight freaking months IRL - more than three years of game time - in exchange for detailed reports on the goings-on of the dungeon it lived in.

Zach

Seeing characters of surprising depth and potential for plot advances and role playing opportunities butchered by their characters... frankly, it pisses me off

John Craven

To people who are just beginning to get into expressing their creativity in a group, it's generally easier and safer in this society to go funny than to be creative and serious. Usually it's my experience that folks will either stop that once or twice after they see that the results aren't really what they wanted, and more to the point once they understand that they're in a place which will not make them feel like they did something horribly wrong if they expressed themselves.

3

Zach

*by their players

Lord_Gareth

@Zach - You know you can edit your old messages, right? Like this.

Zach

09:09

No, I did not. Thanks for the information. I'm not used to this chat system.

Lord_Gareth

Wait, are you telling us that you write up characters that you force your players to portray?

Zach

No, I'm saying that I write up My characters

John Craven

So ironically that means that if you start punishing players for "bad" roleplaying, you're going to get nothing but bad roleplaying.

Zach

I also read the two to three pages of backstory that my players present to me

About characters of their own design

I ask for at least that, so I know what kind of character I'm going to have in my game, so I can (hopefully) make up a story that will play to those characters, both individually and as a whole

Lord_Gareth

Ultimately, Zach, they are the players' characters and it is their right to treat them however they like. If that's creating a problem with the game, the correct response isn't, "You can't do that," but rather, "Why did you do that?" Asking at the time might not work, but hostility won't solve anything. Open communication will, eventually, let you know what's driving them to disruptive behaviors.

Though I'm gonna reiterate that it's probably the bit where you come off as a control freak.

John Craven

09:11

Honestly, I think that writing up backstory is usually a waste of time, although some game systems (Fate) have good ways of putting that together. Backstories are not roleplaying and to be honest I think you're setting yourself up for failure if you think they are.

Lord_Gareth

@JohnCraven Hey now. With the right DM a backstory is a good chance to sell the themes you wanna address with your character, offer plot hooks relevant to those themes, and contemplate how you fit into the campaign world.

Mind you, a good backstory is like a good skirt - long enough to cover the important bits, but short enough to excite interest.

John Craven

@Lord_Gareth Absolutely, but in my experience the little writing exercise where you put together 2 or 3 pages all by yourself to do that, doesn't actually accomplish that for most people.

to compare and contrast, Fate has you actually generate it during character creation, as a collaboration with the rest of the group

Lord_Gareth

@JohnCraven Heh. Yeah, I tend to work faster/write shorter and fill in gaps as they become relevant within the game. I haven't had a DM yet who didn't realize that I was making crap up as I was going along.

Or, for that matter, a player who's realized the same.

Zach

You see, that's my problem. I ask for enough so that I can get a feel for who a character is, what drives them, what their goals and dreams are. Then, I make up situations that play to those, offering greedy players chances at great wealth at a steep price as an example.
Then I see that same back-stabbing, cut purse suddenly turn noble... for no reason at all!

John Craven

right... I think that when you're first starting out, what you need to know isn't what a character got for his 4th birthday, it's what their outlook on life is and maybe a set of traits and beliefs you can lean on at first while you're trying to figure out exactly how that character interacts with the group dynamic

Lord_Gareth

09:16

@Zach Really? You don't stop to think that maybe the implications of the cost have made them rethink their greed?

John Craven

wow, good point.

Zach

When that same character offered an arm in exchange for a new sword, only to be forcibly dragged from the chopping block by the rest of the group? Nope, not really.

Lord_Gareth

@Zach In D&D, an arm is replaceable. Other things might not be.

John Craven

The tricky thing about roleplaying is that players will do things with their characters that you didn't expect. Sometimes it's just to be silly, but that specific example you just gave? In the right hands, that would be an amazing evening

Lord_Gareth

I'll be in and out for a bit, I'm getting more acquainted with Warwick and his delicious, delicious lifesteals.

Zach

09:18

No, it was quite clear. He would have the arm magically taken, never able to be returned. The other offer was similar, except this time it was a kingdom in exchange for his first born (should he even ever get one)

John Craven

As a GM, I don't think it's your job to keep people in line so much as it is to understand the direction they are taking their characters and to adapt to that. Again, in extreme cases like poop throwing there is even a thing out there that you can invoke to tell them to knock it off

Lord_Gareth

@Zach There you have it. You've learned that he doesn't value his arm more than money, but he does value his offspring. To a certain mindset, selling off an organ just is not a big deal. I mean, it's my organ, right? It's my arm, it's attached to me, no one else has a claim on it.

But a child? Well, maybe that isn't different, but then again maybe it is.

That character clearly feels it is, either because they place more value on the child or because they feel they can't morally justify it.

After all, that child's future doesn't belong to its father.

It belongs to the child.

Now, semi-AFK to play League.

Zach

When I said 'no reason' I meant from the character's perspective. The player was all for it, until another player made a knowledge check that revealed the one making the offer was a demon, and thus very likely lying.

Lord_Gareth

Which would cause the character to know that. Knowledge checks are rolled on behalf of the character, Zach.

Not the player.

The PC

Zach

It was a different player that made the check

Lord_Gareth

09:22

It'd be great if you said that sort of thing up front.

Zach

I Did

John Craven

No, you definitely didn't

Zach

Quote:
"The player was all for it, until Another Player made a knowledge check"

John Craven

still, the issue of players acting on information they're not supposed to be party to can be circumvented a number of ways

you can go to passing notes if you want to do that, and then the player who gets the note is free to tell everyone else if they want to

Zach

To be completely blunt, my biggest issue is that I simply hate hearing "It's my character, you can't tell me how to play it!" the way most people hate the GM abusing rule 0

Whether in my campaign or someone else's

Lord_Gareth

09:25

@Zach It's absolutely the player's right to do so. If the conflict is unsolvable, you ask them to leave the game.

John Craven

but these examples you keep bringing up, they're not solvable by you telling the person how to play their character

Lord_Gareth

You do not, and cannot justify, telling someone how to play their character. You can only ask probing questions that get them to think or re-think their actions.

John Craven

having a monk or any character throw poop because throwing poop is funny is not going to be the kind of thing that stops because you tell them they're playing their character wrong. It's stopped by you saying "guys, I don't feel comfortable with interacting with feces. Please stop."

Zach

It's nothing but a blanket excuse for bad roleplaying, if you ask me. And when you're forced to either play with people who refuse to play to the group dynamic, or not play at all, it's annoying as hell

John Craven

having a player act on information their character shouldn't know is IME 9 times out of 10 the result of the GM not being clear whether or not this is party information or just character information

Zach

09:29

I have, in all honesty, never forced a player to have their character do something they didn't want to, or prevent them from doing something they did. The closest I've come to that was a situation with immediate in-game consequences for what I judged to be poor choices, and even then only when the rest of the group agreed with me

John Craven

having a party play Chaotic Stupid is also not usually something you can resolve by saying "hey. you're not playing your character correctly" either; in fact, my experience with that is that it's generally the result of people saying "hey, I want to play a character who thinks X this time" and not realizing that believing in thing X makes them an antisocial jerk if they carry it too far

these are issues inherent to roleplaying, but they aren't necessarily "bad roleplaying".

Zach

See, that's the issue. I enjoy being in a group where it is expected of me to portray the character I created the way that character should be portrayed. If I do something that someone disagrees with, I will readily justify my actions, or ask if I might change them if I feel I was wrong.
Is it really so uncommon to want to play in that kind of game?

John Craven

you lost me at "should be".

Zach

Try looking at it this way:
Would you except a person playing as super man to suddenly punch someone to death, only to then want to continue playing as though nothing had happened?

John Craven

so now "actions don't have consequences" is the fault of the players, too?

it seems to me that your issue isn't actually with super man beating someone to death and then acting as though nothing happened, it's with superman beating someone to death in the first place

which, sure, if you're going to roleplay well known characters like that, people are bound to get angry

Zach

09:36

To put it yet another way:
Have you ever read a book where the main character did something that just seemed wrong for that character? Something so completely beyond who and what they are supposed to be that you can't help but think there's something more to it than what you're seeing?

John Craven

however, every fighter is not Beowulf. Every wizard is not Gandalf. Every cleric is not Joan of Arc. There is lots and lots of room in there for interpretation, even room that you may not like at first glance

Zach

Only to then have it turn out to be just something forgotten, brushed off under the mat and put out of memory?

John Craven

have you ever tried to write a story?

because I've written 2 books and that shit happens all the time

you then go back and fix it

because when you write a book, you can do that

Zach

See, that's where we disagree

I don't think that kind of thing should be allowed.

John Craven

then you're just plain wrong

it's not about being "allowed", it "happens"

Zach

09:38

It's, in my opinion, just plain bad writing

John Craven

yes, it is bad writing... when it stays in there. However, there is this great thing in modern word processing known as the backspace key which can be used to remove passages which do not make sense

Zach

I'm talking about instances where that doesn't happen

John Craven

right, this is my point

Zach

Where it's just left in there, because it happened to tickle the author's fancy or the like

John Craven

in trying to make this analogy to writing, what you're actually doing is pointing out that you're holding your players to a far, far higher standard than any writer holds themselves to

Zach

09:41

True. I'm trying to hold them to a potentially unreachable ideal. I'm well aware of this... I don't mind that they fall short of it, I'm just pissed off that they don't even try to reach it in the first place

John Craven

consider why the US has so many fat people even though the US also leads in image consciousness

Zach

When that kind of thing happens, and a well-established character suddenly acts completely different for a never justified reason, it leaves the reader feeling betrayed

Am I wrong?

John Craven

on several levels, yes

the level that I just mentioned

the level that you are now comparing well established characters in books to PCs with by your own admission consist of a character sheet and a 2 or 3 page backstory

Zach

I'm trying to make a seperate point that draws on this basis as the underlying ideal

John Craven

(for what it's worth, I wrote backstories for all the characters in the last book that I finished a draft on, and by the end of the first draft I may as well have thrown those in a fire)

the level that you keep introducing issues that aren't really bad roleplaying issues into a so-called discussion about bad roleplaying

Zach

09:45

Do you or do you not agree that butchering a character's well established persona for no reason is bad writing, and that when it happens the reader feels let down?

John Craven

I've just explained how the book analogy fails

I'm not going to entertain that question, I'm sorry

Zach

It very well may, as an analogy

It's not, for my purposes

It's a basis for explanation

John Craven

what the fuck do you think an analogy is?

okay, you're just arguing to read your own type at this point. I think I"m done.

later

Zach

If you would, humor me, and answer the question.
Also, I was mistaken... I was thinking of a metaphor. I'm a college student studying business. Cut me some slack

What I'm trying to get at is this:
Once a character has been established to a certain point within a work of fiction, being able to determine what they would do within a given scenario becomes possible. This is how people are able to even have arguments about such things.

I'm of the opinion that this is true of all characters. That, once they are established, there is a right and wrong way to depict how they are portrayed. I do not decide what is write and what is wrong for that character, but neither does the player. There is a write way and a wrong way to play any character, once created. I do my absolute best to play them correctly, regardless of whether I want them to act that way or not.

I very much dislike people saying that their character is their own, and that they can do with it what they will. It's like an author saying that, because they wrote the book, it's their right to trample all over it if they want to.

Lord_Gareth

He left, Zach.

And judging by these logs, I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment. Enjoy your evening.

BESW

11:59

[tiptoes into chat]

I'll just leave this here: Making the Tough Decisions, and that's all I've got to say about that.

I will say that I've had games where the players aren't invested in their characters' stories, and are interested mostly in mechanical mastery; and I've had games where the players are devoted to their characters' stories and screw the mastery. The only time either attitude is a problem is when some people think they're all playing on kind of game and others in the same group think they're all playing the other way.

And then I've had players who have their characters do things I didn't expect and didn't understand, but when asked they presented the most amazing internal dialogues and silent character progressions which just hadn't ever been made obvious at the table--but looking back, it was obviously there.

BESW

12:23

Lastly, issues of the Authority of the Author make me twitchy because they're so often expressed as false dichotomies of extreme positions.

BESW

12:53

9/2 - deipnosophist (/daɪpˈnɒsəfɪst/) - n: a person who is an adept conversationalist at table.

Tweeted by thewordoftheday on February 9, 2014 at 12:27 PM

Zachiel

14:07

I hate D&D. But it's a love-hate issue.

I figured out which epic feats I want to take, and I figured out most of what my normal feats are. I need to choose two more normal feats to take and I don't have the will to read all the different manuals and magazines from where I can get feats from to figure out which ones could really make my character awesome.

Even pirate collections of feats are bad because they are incomplete. So I need to figure out which other manuals exist and if they have feats in them. I... I just wanna something else to do this for me.

doppelgreener

14:46

We have a new dice roller community ad. I was trying for a value more than 50 away from 1500, which are incredibly rare... but getting this exact one is satisfying. :)

Alex P

I missed quite the discussion.

Phil

15:24

so it would seem

me also

I've had problems with players trying to tell each other how to play their characters, but I've not played in a game where the GM does that

If I had then I would probably have immediately walked away from the game

lisardggY

I don't even know if I want to start diving into the logs to catch up.

Phil

summary - one person arguing that if a player makes decisions for their character that the GM disagrees with then the player is in the wrong unless they explicitly can justify it

everyone else talking about differing play styles etc etc

lisardggY

Well, it seems I disagree with almost everything said by both sides of that argument, so yay. :)

Phil

lol

there's always an awkward one :p

Zachiel

15:47

What about when a player disagrees with how he himself is playing the character? Because that always happens to me.

Alex P

16:26

@Zachiel That is, indeed, a thing that can happen.

Alex P

22:35

A 17th century poison case disguised as a book. #histmed http://t.co/jDBbZzRYan

Tweeted by jaivirdi on February 9, 2014 at 5:24 PM

2

BESW

Ooh, shiny.

Alex P

She has a bunch of stuff like that on her Twitter.

Pretty cool.

RedRiderX

22:49

@AlexP Nice.

BESW

I present a third alignment axis: the Grump/Woo! axis.

As in, "My paladin is Lawful Good Grump," or "My bard is Chaotic Neutral Woo!"

Zachiel

23:23

I... I think I have a situation

BESW

Is it Michael Sorrentino?

Zachiel

No. There's this guy I've never played with who wants to start a D&D 3.5 campaign and tonight he explained me and another player his ideas. He's going for a sandbox and his NPCs will have special things they can do out of the rules but that's not really what I'm worried about. Neither is the -one basic class, one PrC- clause.

I just don't feel this good about all his talking about being OP but not breaking the game and the huge lists of things he dilsikes, like having all your list of buffs persistent, using multiple metamagic rods to max every spell you cast or getting immunities.

Does that tingle your spider senses too?

BESW

This man has had Bad Experiences. He's trying to avoid having them again, by going through and prohibiting each individual offence.

It's a pretty common tactic, but it almost always winds up frustrating everyone because he's playing whack-a-mole with symptoms instead of trying to address whatever underlying problem there is.

Zachiel

I think I'll tell him I have tought about the whole thing and expose him the problem

But his story ideas look so good.

I fear we'll also be playing "guess what I want you to do"

BESW

Sounds like "Guess what I don't want you to do."

Zachiel

23:31

Rrrright

BESW

There's a general playstyle he's trying to avoid by banning specific elements that are sometimes part of it.

You're familiar with this: it's trying to fix a table-level problem with mechanics-level solutions.

Zachiel

Also, no delaying rounds. Because it doesn't make sense if you open the door, see the enemies and then.... wait on the starting line until you got a buff from soneone else

(But ok, I can just be the buffer myself)

BESW

Right, because tactics have no place in a tactical-combat-heavy game system.

Zachiel

I guess he wants to aim for simulationism

BESW

[alarms blare, red lights flash] This campaign will self-destruct. Please exit the group in a calm, orderly fashion.

5

Aside from the obvious "3.5 is really bad at simulation despite what it thinks," everyone's action in a round takes place in the same six-second window. Delaying your turn is part of the attempt at simulation, not an impediment to it.

Alex P

23:49

"Let's all make powerful characters but not too powerful" is... hmm. I don't think it's a crazy idea in principle, but really with PF/D&D3 you're kinda doomed.

Zachiel

Oh that was a wild guess

but you know, telling me that he likes his fighters to get Weapon Expertise because the fighter is a weapon expert... kinda worries me

(and I'm the one that wants to take mobility on a character just because she's very agile)

BESW

When I hear things like that --taking a feature mostly because its name sounds appropriate to the character concept, regardless of whether it's mechanically supportive of the concept-- it makes me think the player would prefer a game like Fate or Princes' Kingdom where the feature's name IS its mechanical effect.

Zachiel

In my case I don't think so. I just wantedd to find the elements of the D&D game that evoked the concep and cram them togheter. Using D&D is part of the satisfaction.

(I'm not getting Mobility, by the way, nor Acrobatic. I just took Agile because I wanted to max Escape Artist.)

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