TRPG General Chat

BESW

13:00

I... should probably finish watching Metropolis before I put it on my list.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

My wife and I really need to suck it up and finish "Sharknado" at some point, too. We got halfway through.

BESW

But silent films take so much more attention-paying than I usually have solid two-and-a-half-hour chunks of time for.

Zachiel

afk now

BESW

I also want to watch Nosferatu.

It's a gaping hole in my vampire canon.

Heck, I've seen the silent Phantom of the Opera already.

lisardggY

141 messages in the last hour. Nice.

BESW

13:05

[bleep bloop] We have so many achievables!

trogdor

lol

BESW

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I've heard you can skip straight to the second half and not miss anything you came to see.

lisardggY

Oooh, I love Labyrinth - despite, and occasionally because - of the serious crap that goes on in it.

Also, David Bowie.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@BESW You would miss ONE thing if you skipped to the second half; the dad from Home Alone is in it!

BESW

Oh, Brick. That goes on the list.

lisardggY

13:09

@BESW Brick was fantastic.

I loved almost everything with Joseph Gordon Levitt in it, actually. He makes good choices.

BESW

It's one of those films that should not have worked. It should have sucked.

doppelgreener

@BESW would you be able to suspend your not getting it til after the movie?

also did you watch Paprika?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Sometimes?

@JonathanHobbs No, haven't had access.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@jonathan hobbs isnt there material in the printed compendium thats not in the online compendium? Mostly Gm stuff.

doppelgreener

@BESW start with that one. or start with Akira.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

13:11

TETSUOOOOOOO!

doppelgreener

Paprika will confront your trying to get it with a huge wad of NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Akira is decently similar to Western conventions.

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yes, but none of it is rules.

All the actual mechanical rules in the Rules Compendium are replicated in the DDI Compendium.

doppelgreener

@JoshuaAslanSmith What BESW said, and also a bunch of powers and features and feats from a couple of the red introductory books.

BESW

Hmm. Maybe Henry's Crime.

(Ebert didn't really like that one; I think he missed the kind of film it wanted to be.)

Joshua Aslan Smith

you guys talking about movies you need to see or movies that are good despite major flaws or something else I cant derive?

Aaron

13:15

Gmornin.

BESW

I'm making a list of films I would like to have on DVD so I can easily share them with friends.

lisardggY

@JoshuaAslanSmith Talking about BESW's DVD shelf.

doppelgreener

wups BESW already said that better. \o/

Trajan

we had a great fun watching Mario Bros.

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah gotcha

lisardggY

13:18

Recommending movies that I liked seems a bit out of place, since why would you want to share movies I liked to your friends?

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah, @besw but which versions of metropolis? I like the latest most complete version but I also am a sucker for the gergio moroder 80's synth and color version

Trajan

@lisardggY what could you do otherwise, besides read BESW's and his friends' minds ?

lisardggY

BESW's mind, actually.

Better. :)

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Trajan My wife and I had a little debate about her love of the Super Mario Brothers movie!

One of the things she said about it was hilarious if you took it out of context, so I posted it as a quote from her on Facebook.

Lord_Gareth

Blarglargl

BESW

13:20

Alien, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman vs Dracula, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Blade, Blade (TV series), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged!), Dark City, Die Hard, Joe vs the Volcano, Mission: Impossible, Pitch Black, The Princess Bride, Run Lola Run, Sneakers, Stargate SG-1 Continuum, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Trouble with Harry, Underworld, Wrath of Khan,

@JoshuaAslanSmith I've only started the Restored version.

Trajan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion what was it ?

lisardggY

@BESW How do you feel about Almost Famous? It's one of my all-time favorites.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Trajan "Even as young as I was, I knew it was wrong. But I loved every minute of it, and I'll never regret it."

Lord_Gareth

Y'know @BESW, I think I know a way - not a quick way, but a way - to tell if any given RPG is worth bothering with or if you should seek another system.

Sit down and try to tell a good story without changing any of the rules.

Trajan

@BESW Dogma, Princess Bride, Willow... maybe already on your shelf

Lord_Gareth

13:22

The more rules you have to change, the likelier it is that you want another set of mechanics.

BESW

@lisardggY It looks familiar but I'm not twigging on it. Although I'm getting That Thing You Do flashes.

@Trajan Princess Bride is in the list.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth What if you enjoy the setting, but hate the system?

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion That'd still be a sign that you wanna seek another system. After all, you can make the setting work in another system.

BESW

Oh, add Dark Fury to the list.

Lord_Gareth

A famous example is the tendency for folks to run New World of Darkness's setting using FATE.

BESW

13:24

@Lord_Gareth That sounds hilarious.

Trajan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I re-watched it recently, the joy was intact. Maybe with more second degré (I understand you use our french expression for that)

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Hilarious?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I actually abhor the NWoD setting, but love the system.

Trajan

@BESW I overlooked, great choice !

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Bwa....*huh*?

BESW

13:25

I dunno, just matching the impressions I've gotten about nWoD with Fate sounds like whether it succeeds or fails, it would be hilarious.

Trajan

@BESW Dark city, dark fury... have you heard of darkman with liam nesson ?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I'm an OWoD setting junkie, but they didn't do the best job at integrating the various game lines together.

NWoD integrated them better, but ruined Mage.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Speaking as A Mechanics Guy, both oWoD and nWoD have wretched mechanics that don't serve or help anyone.

It's always a case of fighting the dice with those games.

BESW

@Trajan No, I haven't. [takes notes]

Lord_Gareth

My objections to oWoD's (literally) pot-headed setting design notwithstanding, neither is worth playing for the mechanics

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

13:27

@Lord_Gareth Well, I'm almost a purely non-Mechanics guy. I'm just saying I liked NWoDs better.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion They are cleaner and easier to grok but in the Great World of Mechanics they're pretty terrible.

Which is why a lot of folks use FATE

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

And I didn't much care for the old Changeling setting, because that was just too much brain-bending for me to handle.

Yes, Fate is my favourite system of them all.

Lord_Gareth

Mother of Asmodeus new Changeling is so awesome setting-wise.

I want to have its setting babies.

BESW

Brain-bending; is that a subset of water-bending?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

I told my players that every game I run from here on out is going to use the Fate system.

@BESW It's what Katara could learn beyond Blood-Bending.

BESW

13:28

"Bah, I'll just change your mind for you!"

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

I've heard the new Changeling setting is wonderful, and I do want to give it a look!

lisardggY

I played the old-WoD Vampire for a while, but I never really liked the other games in that series, settings and theme-wise.

BESW

[wibbly fingers, freaky crunching noises]

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Oh dude you will never look back. It's beautiful and insane and strange and dream-like

I own all the nWoD Changeling books that weren't pre-made adventures

And oh my god

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@lisardggY Vampire was just... well, vampire. You're playing in an Anne Rice novel, and that's about it. Mage was just such a great take on Magic and using your Paradigm and nothing was really absolute... it was so wonderful to me.

Werewolf I don't like much, because I'm not big on savagery and primalism and such.

Lord_Gareth

13:30

Bleck, old Mage.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@BESW Kind of what Amon did, I suppose? I'm still not clear on what he was doing.

BESW

I played a single session of an oWoD Mage game before it fell apart and the ST became a player in my 3.5 game.

Lord_Gareth

Meaning no disrespect to your enjoyment of the game, @ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion, but you couldn't pay me enough money to slog through that high-handed, sloppily-done crap ever again.

I think the high/low point was the term 'disco warrior'

BESW

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion He was [cough] NPCpowersastheplotdemandsit [cough].

I.... think I might've liked Mage in someone else's hands.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@BESW See, I came up with this awesome theory that, when Aang "died" in the first series, the Avatar spirit split and Katara's incomplete understanding of her powers was because she only had part of the Avatar spirit and Amon got the other half. Which my wife informed me was a plot from Buffy and I had no idea.

BESW

13:33

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I'm not sure the parallel is an accurate one.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

I think that's the main problem with Mage; there were just too many ways to approach it, if someone thought they were approaching from one angle, it could look awful, but it could also be wrong. And right. At the same time.

BESW

The Slayer Power didn't diminish or get shared in any way, it created two fully powered, fully capable Slayers.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

The whole "Science is Magic" bit is what had me happy.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Both editions of Mage have significant potential to be super awesome. Unfortunately, the oWoD version fights you at every step of the way to do so. In a game about the hope and triumph of the human spirit, they did everything in their power to rob players of agency and kick the setting into a nihilistic hellhole from which there was no escape.

nWoD Mage gives you the same set of tools to tell an awesome story about hope & despair, triumph & failure

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@BESW Right, but the "death" of the main person causing there to be technically two of those people.

Lord_Gareth

13:34

But provides no guides to actually doing so.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth My ST railroaded us right out of agency before the mechanics had a chance to.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Not the mechanics

The setting.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth But NWoD Mage robs you of the individuality of Paradigm like OWoD Mage did!

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I respectfully disagree.

BESW

Ah. Well, I'm pretty sure the ST was doing a lot of it on his own.

Not that the ethos wouldn't have made him think it was okay.

Lord_Gareth

13:35

What nWoD Mage did was take a step back from Paradigm as a formalized concept and instead let groups address it or fail to address it on their own.

doppelgreener

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I always just saw it as Katara having a mental block. When drawing, an artist might try new styles, but for some, they find it an incredible struggle to not just end up drawing the same way as usual.

BESW

I really liked my character, as nascent as she was.

doppelgreener

Suddenly, removing all other possibilities left her with the only one that was blocked.

BESW

Also, I will forever be indebted to Mage for introducing me to the notion of non-alignment-based personality mechanics.

doppelgreener

And there was no default left any longer to leap in its way.

BESW

13:36

However clumsy it was, the notion blew my mind open.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW oWoD Vampire did that one for me.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I suppose that much is true. I liked it being more of a core concept of the setting, rather than an optional extra.

But I do love Entropy being split into two Spheres.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Thing is, the reason they took a step back from it is that nWoD Mage is ultimately about humanity and the things that make us wretched or great.

oWoD Mage was supposed to be but the design team was literally stoned through the entire dev process.

The sober guys that did the revamp realized that Paradigm was harming the theme.

So they eased it way the hell back.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I have absolutely no problems believing this, actually.

Just the Dreamspeakers alone...

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion They admitted it point-blank at a convention. It was a sad moment for me in my life; I was searching for answers as to why I was becoming upset and unhappy with a game that'd shaped my early RPG experiences, and the answer turned out to be, "Incompetent stoners."

That's not really one of those comforting answers.

BESW

13:43

It sounds like they were very competent stoners.

Incompetent developers, perhaps.

Lord_Gareth

Heh.

BESW

Credit where credit is grudgingly due.

Lord_Gareth

In any event, nWoD Mage does an incredible job of displaying Mages as fundamentally human beings warped and distorted by access to inhuman power.

BESW

That would have been fun to play my character in.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I can see your point. It's the same concept approached a different way; I just preferred the Paradigm being the core. It made it feel less like the "magic" people were used to. It's still basically the same thing, under the hood, it just feels different.

Naturally I can't argue that anything is better, since everyone has opinions. Hell, someone out there has to like FATAL, after all.

BESW

13:50

That poor sod. "Why'd I get stuck liking this dreck?"

lisardggY

Presumably someone liked deadEarth enough to publish it.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

By the way, complete tangent... the Hero System book is huge, but what is it made out of? It feels far lighter than it looks like it should.

I picked it up easily, and I am not a strong person.

BESW

@lord_Gareth some day soon I will ask you for recommended links to WoD magic implementations in Fate.

But today is not that day.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW I'll see if I can get Exelixi on here to give it to ya.

As I've never done it myself.

BESW

I came to chat about films and go to sleep, and I'm all out of films.

G'night.

Trajan

13:54

@BESW good night

doppelgreener

makin' a bookmark

In Which Zach Discusses his Horror Survival Game Which Subverted the Typical

5 hours ago, 35 minutes total – 62 messages, 4 users, 4 stars

Bookmarked 13 secs ago by Jonathan Hobbs

because I liked reading about that a lot

Lord_Gareth

14:13

Anyway @ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion, lemme know when you pick up Changeling.

Zachiel

Do you guys think it's absurd to not let D&D 3.5 characters change their feats once they're in place, or limit how often that could be done to once every 10 levels?

Lord_Gareth

I am available to be your guide and answer Changeling questions.

@Zachiel Retraining rules are in PHBII, so yes.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I think those are optional.

Lord_Gareth

See also Psychic Reformation, which is literally for this.

See also Mind Rape, which is not specifically for this but screw it, it works.

Zachiel

I don't want my character to be mind raped. Nor I want her to spend a wish to do that, even if that, if properly worded, could work.

I don't also want to have her take a bath on the Styx river

Trajan

14:15

@Zachiel I never met anyone even thinking that was allowed. Personnally, I would tend to allow to change a feat (or a spell, or anything) if it wasn't used.

Lord_Gareth

So use Psychic Reformation

Like I said, that's what it's for.

Literally

lisardggY

Pathfinder apparently has retraining rules that include replacing class levels. Hmpf.

Never knew that.

Zachiel

I'm not familiar with Psychic Reformation. What is it? (Spell, psionic power, ritual?)

lisardggY

Maybe you can get your DM to accept the PF rules: d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/…

Zachiel

Oh, found it on the net. Psionic are not a thing in our game right now.

lisardggY

14:18

Basically, for a feat, spend 5 days with an instructor who knows the new feat, and 50 x your level GP.

Lord_Gareth

In any event, I find nothing unreasonable about retraining, especially in the timeframes offered.

From a flavor point of view, retraining represents picking up a different style and abandoning previous teachings

Zachiel

@lisardggY not a chance. My environment is like a living greyhawk game, where rules are the same for everyone and every house rule changes the play dinamics for hundreds of players..

Lord_Gareth

Or can be used to flavor curing conditions (like if a Vile character wants to give up their deformity feats)

lisardggY

@Zachiel I see. In that case, I guess you'll need something explicitly in the rules.

Lord_Gareth

Mechanically speaking, retraining is a good safety net for players with low system mastery.

Zachiel

14:20

I know there's a spell that can turn your feats into some specific kind of feats and a spell that does the opposite, but asking demons to make you like them and then going at some celestial and asking them to undo it seems kinda metagamey

Lord_Gareth

And helps to address some of the Mundane Problem, though not all of it; it removes the difficulty that addressing low-level survival cripples high-level ones.

@Zachiel That's not what happens.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I asked that not because I really care but to set the foundation for my true question. I need to choose some feats and I'm not easily allowed to retrain. I'm currently not playing because I want to read and understand every existing feat I can take before making the choice. Am I stupid?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I may just have to give it a look. Changeling was pretty low on my list for OWoD settings. Just above Werewolf, really, though I did love the Nockers (that's a fun one to say out loud).

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel There are 500+ supplements for 3.5

So just a little

Trajan

@Zachiel Why would it be ? It's a certain kind of game that requires commitment, but if you're ok with the hours and hours spent...

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:24

@Zachiel I wouldn't say "stupid", but definitely too thorough.

Trajan

like @BESW said, optimization is a mini-game within the game

Lord_Gareth

@Trajan Because resources like the Stack and optimization forums exist where you can benefit from the work of people who already crawled through every inch of the wretched hell that is 3.5 mechanics.

Zachiel

I'd be ok with it if I could say "this looks cool, let's take this" and I could change it whenever someone else showed me something cooler.

Lord_Gareth

Instead of doing so yourself, with your innocence and hope bleeding out of a thousand wounds while an uncaring god booms out laughter at your pain.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

I used to feel the same way, Zach; just agonizing that "oh, this is going to be a PERMANENT choice".

Zachiel

14:25

@Lord_Gareth Ah, the problem is I'm not looking for optimization feats, I'm looking for even useless feats that incarnate a concept.

Trajan

@Lord_Gareth I think actually building the build is part of the fun

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel Okay, no, you stop right here.

Trajan

like building a mtg deck

Zachiel

Maybe I should try asking a Q: for help on this specific character

Lord_Gareth

If they read up on every feat in the game, what makes you think they can't help you out with your concept?

Optimizers are not magically incapable of roleplaying.

Zachiel

14:27

@Lord_Gareth The absurd number of feats so useless one actively tries to forget about them.

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel Underestimate our lack of social, romantic, and/or sex lives at your own peril.

3.PF has been out for more than a decade.

Trajan

Having a Zach and a Zachiel here is unsettling

Lord_Gareth

We know everything.

Trajan

Lord Gareth sayth the truth

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Wait, what's this about sex lives?

Zachiel

14:28

@Trajan I see @Zach in orange. There was a time I got notified every time he was named.

@Lord_Gareth Also, the possibility that someone doesn't know all the feats, or forgets about one and still replies.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

By the way; if anybody wants to throw out some advice on making an Inquisitor/Infiltrator like Sterling Archer, lemme know. I already figure he's going to follow... crap, one of the Chaotic Neutral gods. I forget who.

Zachiel

But a Q: it's going to be.

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Olidammara? Mask?

Lord_Gareth

Mask is NE

Trajan

he does know everything.

The Oracle

0

Q: Uploaded picture alignment issue

The uploaded picture on my profile is not aligned correctly. When first set, the picture is in the correct position, but after refreshing the page it shifts to the right. If I use a gravatar it aligns correctly. This occurs in firefox, chrome and internet explorer. Here is a link to my profile...

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:30

@Zachiel The one of war... his weapon is a greatsword... hold on, I'll find his name.

lisardggY

@Zachiel Do you find yourself paralyzed by choice? Do you sit in front of a menu at a restaurant unable to pick a dish because it might not be the perfect choice?

Lord_Gareth

@Zachiel - You know there's a feat in Dragon that makes you worse at holding your breath despite theoretically being there to enhance your breath control?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Zachiel Gorum?

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Ah, Pathfinder.

Zachiel

@lisardggY Constantly. While doing character building, at work, when buying computers, when I'm supposed to take some decisive, life-changing action for my RP character.

Lord_Gareth

14:32

@Zachiel That's a horrifically bad habit.

lisardggY

Analysis paralysis

Analysis paralysis or paralysis of analysis is an anti-pattern, the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome. A decision can be treated as over-complicated, with too many detailed options, so that a choice is never made, rather than try something and change if a major problem arises. A person might be seeking the optimal or "perfect" solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution. The phrase describes a situation where the...

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I know, but knowledge isn't making this any easier.

Lord_Gareth

Here, try this: build a ToB character. Keep a mechanical concept in mind - "Fights with a greatsword," or "ninja" or something like that - and then pick the first option that sounds cool every time.

The experience is wonderfully liberating.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth Right, sorry; I forget that they're different things.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Setting-wise especially.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:33

Since the group I fell in with has so little emphasis on RP, I decided to just make a character that'd be fun to play and be damned with "seriousness".

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Or you can sneak in RP by stealth.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth You know what people here think about ToB characters. And it's not even the same game I usually talk about, it's a different one. But I'm thinking about playing a ToB/chameleon character in my next pencil&paper campaign

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth That's the problem with this group; it could be d20 modern for all it matters. Just endless strings of dice rolling and combats, with so little character interaction/development that the setting is a haze.

Before it's asked: I'm playing in the group because my wife enjoys it. The sacrifices I make for marriage...

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Okay, here's what you do:

Portray a perfectly straight follower of this CN war god. Wage war for the glory of war, for the thrill of the contest and the proving of strength.

Then, over the course of the campaign, deconstruct it.

Have him grow disillusioned with violence for its own sake and doubtful of his god's bloodlust and slaughter

Until, about 3/4 of the way through the story, he has a BSOD

Breaks his sword

And walks out of the group to find a way to undo the misery he's made of his own and others' lives

Alex P

@Trajan I am curious about this "Replace the stack" business. (Skeptical, but curious.)

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:37

@Lord_Gareth I'm liking this, actually... and it can still start with him building on the "Medieval Sterling Archer" concept that I just want to play for the fun of it.

Because that kind of happens during the series.

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Yay!

The big tipping point in the characterization would be when he realizes that he's fundamentally unhappy.

That his strength and proof of valor have not made him content, or given him joy.

Because tomorrow there's always the next fight

And the next

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth I can figure out when to throw that in, I'm sure. By the Gods, I will make these people learn what the "RP" in "RPG" stands for!

Lord_Gareth

Until he inevitably finds the one he has to lose.

What's the point of staying in a game with only the one out? Why follow such a god?

Trajan

@AlexP it was years ago, I could ask him about it, if you want to know, but it was more "removing" than "replacing", and more "coping with the gaping hole in a complex but working system" than "enjoying a simple game". That's why we never planeswalked together again

Lord_Gareth

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion \o/ I'm glad I can help!

The beauty of this is that the initial characterization is easy to do within combat.

Trajan

14:40

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I hope you'll tell us about it

Lord_Gareth

And then you can interest them in the combatative nature of it during other character interaction.

Alex P

@Trajan Why did he or she hate the stack in the first place?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

It's either going to work like some feel-good 80's movie, or it'll end in a confused disaster of people asking what kind of dice they'd roll to handle "roleplaying".

A story to tell, either way!

Lord_Gareth

I remember the game that finally got my stupid freaking players to roleplay.

Early on in the game they were contracted to escort a lower-level - not cripplingly lower, mind you, just lower than them - NPC from one city to another. She and the party hit it off big time, and they just loved her. When she got to the city, she asked if they'd stick around long enough for her to handle some business, and then if she could keep hanging out with them.

Trajan

@AlexP he's a bad loser, doesn't like seeing a spell cancelled by a suddenly-became-illegal target, and find illogical to raise a shield (like God's willing) after the Fall of the Hammer

Alex P

14:43

@Trajan Oh, uh, that sounds like a disaster.

Trajan

mostly he's a bad loser.

Lord_Gareth

She went on their adventures in a support role, using bardic music and magic to help them out. They loved having her around, loved her characterization, enjoyed interacting with her. She teased out all kinds of character elements they'd never thought of before, had intimate moments with the party members individually, was trusted with their hopes and fears.

Zachiel

@Trajan No counterspells in that game, I assume

Lord_Gareth

Party paladin fell madly in love with her and she returned that feeling wholeheartedly.

Trajan

it's not the first game he reinvents

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:44

@Lord_Gareth [Waiting for the turn...]

"And she's a Lich!"

Trajan

@Zachiel Actually he does like mtg counterspells, and he's a huge fan of 3.PF wizards and their high int score, overthinking, overplanning

but he feels a counterspell should be the only way to actually counter a spell

Zachiel

@Trajan Ok then I'm a worse loser than him

Lord_Gareth

Which made it a deep surprise towards the end of the campaign when she trapped the party in a magical cell - except for the Paladin. She explained everything to him in the eager tones of someone who's solved all of her problems. She served the Unseelie, and they'd never let her get away with the party disrupting their plans. But they didn't all have to be captured! Come with her, join her in serving them, and no one has to get hurt!

She begged the Paladin to turn, to come with her, professed her undying love.

Alex P

@Trajan I was just about to say that. It's totally the "only my deck should be able to interact at all!" mindset. "You just sit here and take it, non-blue deck."

Lord_Gareth

Party ended up persuading her the other direction and, with her help, driving the Unseelie back to Faerie

Zachiel

14:46

@Lord_Gareth That's wonderful

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

Awww!

Trajan

@AlexP Actually I had a quite powerfull artifact deck, he build the perfect nemesis and asked me "which one will you play ?" "mmmh my artifact one, I guess" "right, I'll take my green one".

Alex P

(I say this as a guy who always plays blue-based controlling decks, pretty much. It's just such an obvious "Man, you don't really understand what you're supposed to do with these cards, so you're being a total whiner trying to force the game to make you the best just because you picked the control deck at all" behavior.)

Trajan

great fun was had.

Alex P

^ Hmm. That was maybe too harsh. That thing I said.

Zachiel

14:47

@AlexP Blue decks do that already. Except that time I got my WU shifting sky deck pitched against a jolkulhaups/darksteel ingot/capsize combo.

Then I tried that deck and I never won one game (story of my life), so I stopped playing.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Trajan We try not to reveal our decks until we've all already chosen, since each of us have that deck that people construct something to counteract.

Trajan

@AlexP I totally agree, he couldn't understand the stack properly, couldn't comprehend what having a stack implied, so he kept misplaying. But being highly educated and very smart, he wouldn't lower to play a RG deck.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

If my Artifact Deck comes out, people like to just immediately eliminate me. :(

Zachiel

(Actually, I stopped playing after I lost to Marit Lage in turn 3 several times, then switched to marit lage / vampire hex deck and lost to every blue deck in the format)

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Excellent.

Trajan

14:51

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Artifact FTW. But among friends we like to test our decks against yet-unfaced threats, ponder strengths and weaknesesses. Well... except for this specific friend.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Trajan I only play EDH, for the "less competitive" atmosphere... but one of our friends doesn't quite get the point of EDH.

Trajan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion I LOVE EDH.

Even EDH tournaments are less competitive

(at my FGLS anyway)

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Trajan I still haven't gone near a tournament with EDH... or even played with many strangers.

Alex P

My problem with Magic is that my budget has decreases while my competitiveness and appreciation for multipolar formats have increased. So I'm left going, "Well, if I had an extra $4,000, I might spend $600 of it on a UWR Splinter Twin deck..."

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

The first time I played EDH with a new person, he had Kaervek as his commander and it just all went to crap from there.

Trajan

14:54

@AlexP play EDH !

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@AlexP What @Trajan said.

Aaron

Trajan

@Aaron weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Aaron

I thought this was from a movie but it's real XD

Alex P

@Trajan Ha, you guys! That is not gonna fly. Well, French, maybe. But I'm not sure I can find anyone to play French with me.

Trajan

14:55

@AlexP what is french ?

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@AlexP Is... this a euphemism for something else?

We're talking about card games, right?

Lord_Gareth

So yeah that's how I got the apes I play with to roleplay

Alex P

@Trajan Duel Commander. It's got a banned list that isn't designed around "Well, Sol Ring is broken as hell but the rest of the group will just attack you if you play it right away" and "This deck is insane but nobody knows how to pilot it correctly." (Because those things don't work in duels.)

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

@Lord_Gareth That was brilliant, really!

@AlexP I don't see Sol Ring as too broken, since pretty much everyone has it.

Trajan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion well, we're still trying to find every possible way of controling while inflicting regular damage, but Zur (I'm sure you know him pretty well) isn't played around here despire being the top commander in the metagame

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion That's the point. If everyone has it, it's broken and distords the format.

Professor Captain Loki Caprion

14:58

@Trajan I'm honestly not sure what's good in metagame, since I'm like a hermit and don't play with strangers.

Lord_Gareth

Norin the Wary commander deck!

Trajan

It's banned in official tournaments in France

Alex P

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Okay, but not everyone will draw it in this game. That's the thing. It's like Lotus in Vintage. You put it in every deck and when you get it it's like "WHEEEE!" But Vintage lets you stack your deck with more cards like that and has a metagame with lots of answers to these fast starts.

Trajan

@ProfessorCaptainLokiCaprion Zur and Derevi win 25% of tournaments

In Which Zach Discusses his Horror Survival Game Which Subverted the Typical

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