TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:44

Is it inaccurate to call D&D Next a "3.5-like system"?

Alex P

@BESW Depends on the context.

I mean, IME like half of 3.5 was builds and bonus-stacking, which D&D5 doesn't really do much of.

BESW

1

Q: Can Charisma be considered a physical score?

From the PRD: Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance. From the 3.5 Player's Guide: Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. From t...

I think I'm safe, since the context is copypasta from 3.5.

Alex P

Yeah.

Zachiel

01:09

Anyone has a link to that article where D&D Next team talked about level tiers in D&D and spellcasting?

BESW

This one?

Nov 18 '13 at 6:01, by Magician

Latest D&D Next column, in which Mearls discusses ability hierarchies based on their source, for purposes of balancing.

Or this one?

Also, I left a comment on your multiclass-without-advancement answer, responding to the OP comparing multiclass feats to half orcs.

Zachiel

@BESW that one

@BESW mine?

BESW

Sorry, my above comment should have been @AlexP.

Alex P

@BESW Just saw it. Thanks.

BESW

01:34

Kickstarter got hacked! No credit cards or actual passwords, but usernames, emails, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.

They suggest we reset our Facebook logins.

Zachiel

Ok, so this new DM has never read ToB, does not know what archivist, chameleon or factotum do and... I rolled 18 14 12 11 11 8

BESW

@Zachiel [blink] Sounds... fun?

Zachiel

I... I don't know. Those scores are the lowes I've ever worked with

And he said he's not going to pull punches, but does not want us to craft invincible characters...

BESW

You have an 18. Pick a single-stat class and gloat.

Zachiel

there'ss no such thing as a single-stat class.

BESW

01:47

Heh. You can easily have an 18 and a 16.

Zachiel

Wizard? I need 14 wisdom for getting lvl4 spells from the war domain and a decent constitution for going melee

BESW

18/16 or 18/14/14 is a pretty great spread.

Pick a build that doesn't require tertiaries and go to town.

Maybe a ranger.

You can optimise a ranger pretty aggressively and feel good about it without breaking the game, and you can do it with high Dex and a secondary in Wis.

Catfolk ranger (+1 LA) could have a +22 in Dex, a 14 in Wis, (and 14 in Cha for animal handling), and a lot of fun flavour options.

Zachiel

02:09

I'm used to having at least two 18 in my stats

Maybe I've been pampered too much

BESW

...yes.

In my seven+ years of 3.5, I saw two unmodified 18s twice.

Not on my characters, but on any PC in any game I was involved with.

But hey, you want two 18s? Make an orc. Have 18s in Str and Con, be a barbarian.

Lord_Gareth

03:01

@Zachiel Wizard, laugh forever.

BESW

07:26

@Zach New icon?

Zach

Yep. Finally got around to finding one I like.

So, out of curiosity, does any one here play forum-based RPGs?

BESW

I know at least a few do, but I'm not among them.

Zach

Well, I asked, because I was wondering if questions based around such games would be considered appropriate for the site. I have no idea what an example of one might be, I was just curious because I recently got back into the hobby

lisardggY

I see no reason why not. It might not be the classic RPG style, but it's certainly common enough.

Although, when I think about it, questions that relate specifically to roleplaying aspects of games like WoW will not be on topic.

So now I'm not as sure.

Zach

See, that's what I was wondering about.

BESW

07:32

Yes, I'm pretty sure forum-based RPGs are fine. The defining line is a bit blurry, but a good rule of thumb is "does the RPG rely on humans or machines for determining actions and outcomes?"

lisardggY

Another useful guideline (though not definitive) is "does it more properly belong to a different SE site".

WoW would certainly fit in Arqade.

Forum RPGs? No real home.

Zach

Well, the ones I'm referring to would be the ones that are completely role-play driven. No real luck involved, just whatever makes the best story

... kind of

It's really more of a completely free-form role play, where the rules of the 'game' are decided upon by the group, with the outcome being to get to the end of the story... whatever that ultimate end may be

lisardggY

I'd take it to Meta.

Zach

@lisardggY That's what I had considered doing, but I wasn't sure if that question had been asked and I just wasn't finding it, or if it was just obvious and I was somehow missing it

lisardggY

I think your question passes the non-obviousness test.

BESW

07:37

Yeah, though I wouldn't bring it to meta unless/until you had an actual need for a ruling.

Prematurely creating policy on issues that haven't actually come up is... not wise.

Zach

Well, the more I think about it, the more I think it's really just not a good idea.

The only questions that would apply, basically already exist and are perfectly good answers

Mostly having to do with GMing issues

BESW

It sounds to me like it'd fall under "questions about free-form RPGs" regardless of the venue in which the game is being played.

Zach

Well, at least in my experience, rules questions really don't apply. There are no mechanics, and the basic rules for what you can and can not do are different between each story

So, the only questions that Would apply are those that apply to basically All RPGs

BESW

Likely.

afkish; dinner-making.

Zach

All this said, I'm beginning to think that many of my views on RPing, specifically issues where lord_gareth and I keep disagreeing, are partly do to how much of my RPing experience comes from forum-based RPs

I'd never really thought of it before. I generally only ever really participated in those games when my usual gaming hobby had taken a stop for some reason. Until now, I'd never really even associated the two hobbies with one another

BESW

07:47

Makes sense.

I think most of us are in a constant state of realizing just how broad a range of experience "RPG" really encompasses.

Zach

Well, to explain, in a lot of forum-based RPs, the GM has final say on what any given character can and can not do.

BESW

Because there aren't a lot of (or any) action-resolution mechanics?

Zach

In many cases, this is necessary, as the GM is really the only check on what limits any given character's power can reach. Unless the GM said otherwise, there would be nothing stopping a player from simply writing out how their character found some ancient mystic gammuffin, which then made them omnipotent

BESW

Ah. So in a game like d&d, that role is, to a greater or lesser extent, replaced by the mechanics.

Zach

@BESW basically yes, but I think putting it that way implies a need for them

@BESW yes, exactly

lisardggY

07:53

From my (limited) experience, forum games don't tend to fall into the classic D&D dynamic of a-party-in-a-dungeon, right?

BESW

There is a valid philosophy of gaming (though one which I find limited) that rules exist to control participants--players and GMs--who can't "play nice with others," and so a truly mature group doesn't need rules.

lisardggY

I think in those kind of games, the basic narrative dynamic will already discourage such macguffin-finding shenanigans, since you're in the mindset of "I explore, what happens next?", rather than describing the events yourself.

Zach

@lisardggY it varies. They don't happen often, but then again, when you think about it, those are becoming less common in RPGs as a whole as the medium evolves

BESW

I find that approach to be true in and of itself, but it ignores many other purposes and roles that rules can fill and support.

lisardggY

In effect, D&D's default Actor Stance comes not only from the rules, but also is ingrained into the genre itself, while forum based games started out in Director Stance, if only because it wasn't tied down to the old ways.

@BESW For instance, that rules can be fun in and of themselves.

BESW

07:56

@lisardggY EG, the character creation minigame.

Zach

@lisardggY not quite. It really depends on what level of play you're looking at.

lisardggY

@BESW Or leveling up.

BESW

(Or that game where one of the primary design goals seemed to be "we want to roll great double fistfuls of d20s!")

Zach

In my experience, you can have a forum-based version of basically any RPG, even D&D

It happens fairly often, actually

BESW

@lisardggY hmm. It must be interesting to watch tabletop games exploring Director Stance, if viewed from the forum-game perspective.

Zach

07:58

@BESW I've been there. It's really not all that interesting.

BESW

Rules can also create/enforce atmosphere, like how DitV's resolution mechanic creates an environment where anyone could support or obstruct anyone else at any time.

Zach

You can do that in a forum game simply by making it part of the plot

lisardggY

Or Castle Falkenstein, where the mere act of choosing cards instead of dice sets the feel of the game.

BESW

(As opposed to 4e, which defines "ally" as a mechanical description of a creature which is not casually modified.)

Zach

There's nothing stopping someone from writing something that effects another person's character to a greater or lesser extent, except that going too far is often considered in bad taste

BESW

08:00

@Zach Oh, aye, I'm just saying that rules can support and encourage the playstyle the group wants.

lisardggY

When Fate introduces mechanics for director-stance play, it explicitly encourages that style of play.

BESW

That is, choosing a ruleset creates an environment which encourages a specific play experience, lending it impetus above and beyond the group's agreement to play that way. The atmosphere becomes an entity of its own, detached from the group's consensus.

Zach

They can, though I think forum-based games actually have the easier time with it, as they make rules up as they go along at need, instead of trying to fit into a pre-existing mold

BESW

(This can be disastrous if a group accidentally chooses a ruleset in conflict with their desired experience.)

Zach

And you're right, the rules can help with that, but simply choosing a theme is often much more effective in forum-games than any rules I've ever known

BESW

08:03

@Zach I'm not trying to create a conflict between free-form and rules-based play, or imply the superiority of one or the other.

I'm merely reflecting on the way rules can be a tool for guiding play.

Zach

And I'm agreeing. I'm just also stating that, often, the same end-goals the rules I've seen seek to imply can be reached just as easily within a free-form game

The main difference, in my experience, between free-form and rules-based games is how much the player feels like they are their character

BESW

@Zach You might be interested in games like Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, where players share responsibility for narrating the actions of each others' characters.

@LiarLiarPantsonFire Hi!

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

hi

Zach

In my Pathfinder games, I constantly feel that my character's goals and desires are my own, and that I share in their successes and down falls. By contrast, my character within a forum game always feels more like an entity whose life I'm simply depicting

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@BESW how's the season there in US?

BESW

08:09

(Or Microscope, where there are no consistently present characters and when a character does recur they might be represented by any player regardless of who controlled them before.)

@LiarLiarPantsonFire I hear it's unusually inclement in the Southeast, but since I'm on a lovely tropical island I wouldn't know first-hand.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@BESW you are from US?

Zach

@LiarLiarPantsonFire here in the mid-east, it's Really cold... and snowy

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach country?

lisardggY

@Zach This is exactly what I was trying to convey earlier, that D&D and D&D-inspired games have a tradition of actor-stance play.

BESW

@LiarLiarPantsonFire I'm a citizen of the United States of America, yes, but I'm born and raised on a tropical island which is not actually part of any of those united States; it's an unincorporated territory of the USA.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

08:12

I'm from India. Have you ever heard about it?

Zach

@LiarLiarPantsonFire US, the mainland

BESW

Geographically I'm closer to the Philippines.

@LiarLiarPantsonFire I have indeed. Some day I hope to visit the Lotus Temple near New Delhi.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@BESW Is there any indian brand popular therre?

@BESW yeah! i have already visited it!

BESW

@LiarLiarPantsonFire I'm envious. I've only been to the Temple outside Chicago.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

1 min ago, by Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@BESW Is there any indian brand popular therre?

@BESW ^

BESW

08:14

@LiarLiarPantsonFire "Brand?" I'm not sure what you mean.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

any indian tea, car, company?

Zach

@BESW Think Pepsi

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

what do you think, why is india is popular?

BESW

There are several Indian restaurants, but if there are any India-based corporations whose products are popular here, I'm not aware of their association with your country.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach nno pepsi is not indian

Zach

08:16

Well, where I'm from, people generally only talk about India in reference to bad tech-support service... I'm not even joking, that's really the only time I ever here the country mentioned in conversation around here

lisardggY

I'm familiar with Tata cars, but they aren't really sold here, just mentioned occasionally.

Zach

@LiarLiarPantsonFire true, but it is an example of a 'brand'

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@lisardggY Tata? Biggest steel comany in india

@Zach O.O But in food, no one can beat indian

Zach

@LiarLiarPantsonFire please keep in mind, I live in what is considered to be the most racist part of a state that is often given as an example of places that are still mostly racist

Meh, I prefer American food. Cow is Very tasty

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach you eat cow?

Zach

08:19

Often

Nearly daily

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach means you are a nonvegetarian?

Zach

I can think of four big-name restaurants that serve it as their main course

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

i can't believe! you can eat a COW?

Zach

In the states, I'd say less than 3% of the population is vegetarian

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

THAT COW? ^

Zach

08:20

Yep

Ever heard of burger king?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

nope

Zach

Subway?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

yup

Zach

Here in the states, they serve roast beef

lisardggY

I like both Indian and American food.

Zach

08:22

'beef' being what you call 'cow' when used as an ingrediant

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach terrible!!

BESW

This is starting to get uncomfortable. This chat is not the right place for challenging peoples' dietary choices or engaging in national rivalries.

Zach

... I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or funny.

I thought they knew!

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach hinduism.about.com/b/2004/05/23/…

Zach

I'm Chirsitan

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

08:23

Terrible! They can't do that!

Zach

*Christian...

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@Zach then? christian are in india too. but killing a cow is a crime in india

@BESW you are right :p

Zach

And?

It's legal here

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

okay, okay! but i think cow's milk is better than cow's beef

BESW

If anyone feels the need to continue this conversation, please create a new chat room to do it in.

lisardggY

08:25

The wikipedia entry on Indian cuisine specifies that eating beef is acceptable in various parts of India, like Kerala, Manipur and others.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

@lisardggY it was past, not now

lisardggY

To carry on BESW's comment - @LiarLiarPantsonFire: have you come here to discuss roleplaying games, or to be mortified at other culture's culinary choices?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

okay please end this converation. This is starting to get uncomfortable. This chat is not the right place for challenging peoples' dietary choices or engaging in national rivalries.

BESW

@Zach The majority of tabletop RPGs, especially "traditional" ones, have that kind of "I am my character" stance.

But a lot of them, increasingly, are exploring other modes of storytelling.

Zach

True

BESW

08:27

I find it very interesting, and I'm curious about the modes of storytelling which forum-based chat supports more effectively than the tabletop context.

Zach

That said, I don't think 'traditional' RPGs have actually been around longer than free-form games

BESW

Does anyone think that?

lisardggY

@Zach As you said earlier, it took you a while to think of forum games and tabletop RPGs as part of the same hobby.

Zach

Fair enough

lisardggY

So the "hobby", as defined by the industry, the forums, the cultural phenomenon known as "RPGs" (mostly D&D-derived), only recently started to include free-form games in it.

BESW

08:29

The specific "forum-based" context of free-form games are necessarily limited in their existence by the age of the medium in which they thrive.

lisardggY

So for people coming from the point of view that "the hobby" is the rules-based tabletop RPGs, free-form style games are new.

BESW

But free-form and rules-based RPGs in general seem to have developed as separate semi-parallel entities which are increasingly finding points of contact.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

anyone has played the game: gta vice city?

BESW

@LiarLiarPantsonFire I imagine many of us have, but the chat for video games is over here.

Zach

@BESW I'm starting to wonder if he's a troll...

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

08:31

no dude i am not

BESW

@Zach If so, he's the nicest, most coherent and responsive troll I've ever met.

Zach

I said wonder... It's not like I'm demanding he be shunned or any such thing

But, getting back to the point, I really can't think of any style of story telling that free-form RPing Wouldn't lend itself to

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

not a troll but a kid

see my profile :)

BESW

@Zach No, I think it's more a matter of the way you want to tell the story, rather than the kind of story you want to tell, which determines whether a ruleset is a good fit for your group.

Zach

@BESW I'm aware. That's what I'm saying. So long as exploring that style of storytelling was the point of the group, I can't think of one that wouldn't be as readily playable in a free-form game as it would be in a mechanics-driven one

lisardggY

08:35

@Zach For many players, the rules are an essential part of the game. Either the system mastery required to overcome the challenge, or the feeling of achievement involved in leveling up.

You can say that this is part of the game, not the story, but hey, that's once of the things that make RPGs different than just collaborative storytelling.

BESW

As a GM, I enjoy the exercise of taking something in my head and defining it on paper effectively enough that I can wind it up and let it go without constant supervision.

lisardggY

@Zach Well, that's a bit tautological. "So long as exploring free-form style storytelling is the goal of the group, free-form style storytelling works best!"

BESW

That is, if I can use the rules to create a character (or whatever) properly then the rules take over a lot of the heavy lifting and guide it in ways I wouldn't have thought to go if I'd had complete and utter control.

Zach

@lisardggY I meant, so long as exploring whatever of the many various ways a story can be told is their goal, a free-form group can use basically any method of story telling

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

rpg.se is down

Zach

08:39

It's working fine for me

BESW

@Zach This is pure speculation on my part, but--forum games usually have a relatively large number of participants, right? Like at least a dozen?

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

bye bye

gonna study

tomorrow is my exam

BESW

In a large group, there's a lot of discovery going on: there are many people influencing play and making decisions so it becomes unpredictable and you're never sure what's going to happen or how your choice is going to be resolved.

In smaller groups that discovery-via-other-peoples'-choices is lessened. Tabletop games usually max out at maybe ten before they dissolve into chaos, and many have between two and six participants.

For example, I've got one other regular participant in my group.

For us, rules-based resolution mechanics with an element of randomness is what gives a lot of that sense of discovery. We don't know the outcome of our choices until we discover what the fallout is by analysing the rules and the dice.

Then we interpret that outcome into the story and make new choices based on it.

This lets us re-direct some of the pressure and responsibility for coming up with new things to discover in the story, because the rules and dice tell us what KIND of thing we must come up with: a success at great cost, or a clue to a terrible secret.

When you've got a half-dozen or a dozen people involved in telling the story, that responsibility is spread around and no one person has to be "on the spot" all the time, so it's easier to use rules (or lack of rules) that don't provide this element.

(Of course, for groups which are less confident about their creative mettle or who just prefer rules to help out in that way, still find great usefulness in such rulesets.)

[/endmusing]

Zach

09:18

@BESW Yes, and no... in free-form games, the discovery comes not from random mechanics, but from the other people involved, and most often from the GM.
As for the number of people... well, at least in my experience, the same is true between the two styles. Too many people is bad, and anything more than 10 is just chaos. However, that's likely because of the forum I use.

Where many forums are simply an entire world, with the many different parts of the forum representing the different facets of that world, I play on a website where each topic is its own game.

People find interest for their game idea in one part of the forum, then handle the out of game and in game parts in two other areas, though the two are linked.

Such games can range from groups of 2, to groups of 10

I've seen a few try for more, but I've yet to see one succeed

BESW

The only forum type game I've seen was a monstrous HP game on LJ, some, oh... Eight years ago?

Zach

I've taken part in a great deal of games with just myself and someone else. Often, those games work best when we give each other basically complete narrative freedom over the world in all respects that don't directly control the other's character

BESW

It was enormous and sprawling and very long-lived.

Zach

roleplayerguild.com

that's the site I use

The longest game I've seen run there lasted some 5 years... the shortest tended to die within the first day

Both long and short games could range from a few dozen posts to hundreds

It all depends on the group, and their intent

BESW

I recently met one of the mods of that game over on sf.SE chat.

Lord_Gareth

09:35

Hail @BESW

How're you this morning/evening?

[Wanders off to get ready for work]

BESW

09:51

Oh, hey @lord_Gareth. Was dinner.

Lord_Gareth

Well how dare you enjoy food

How's tricks, @BESW?

lisardggY

Which reminds me, it's time to look wistfully towards the office kitchenette and hope my lunch has arrived.

Lord_Gareth

Oh hey, ze Lizahd

I still have to explain my earlier statement w/r/t Hebrew

Essentially, folks near where I live are under the impression that it's God's Own Tongue, and thus must never be 'blasphemed' with 'ungodly' topics. There seems to be no set criteria for what those actually are.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth Tricks are pretty good. Made some friends today!

Lord_Gareth

And it's like, "Dude...the guy is supposed to be omnipotent. What makes you think he's going to bother with something as stupidly inefficient as language?"

BESW

09:57

@Lord_Gareth That's a nice quick way to make a living language dead.

Lord_Gareth

Yep.

I caught up with the logs on what Zach was talkin' about.

I can only state that his forum-based freeform experience was radically different from my own.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth The Bahá'í Faith has some pretty cool things to say about the idea of Divinely Revealed Words and the power inherent in them, but... yeah, that's for our benefit, not His, which is why His Revelation has come in so many different languages.

@Lord_Gareth I don't think I will ever reach the point where I have fully realised the scope of the RPG landscape.

Lord_Gareth

@BESW Oh?

BESW

Every time I think I have a grasp on the general outline of the medium's borders, or that I can even roughly define the nature of the experience, something like My Life with Master, or Microscope, or that HP PbP on LJ, comes along and blows my mind.

Lord_Gareth

Feel the long-repressed creative fury of our collective nerdom!

BESW

10:04

"RPGs can do what?" or "That's an RPG too?" are common phrases that echo through my skull, and are always eventually followed by, "Well, okay, that makes sense," and the sound of stone grating on stone as my benchmarks shift.

Lord_Gareth

Heh. In any event, the idea of a free-form game with a DM of all things is what blew my mind, above. I honestly still can't wrap my head around why you'd do that.

You don't need someone to arbitrate the rules when there are not any rules.

BESW

There's a comic strip I'm trying to track down...

Lord_Gareth

When we did free-form the general process went like this:

1. One to three people propose a setting, possibly with a general plot outline

2. We hash out characters and work on bringing concepts out of line with the setting into line with the setting

3. The initial consortium runs plot-relevant NPCs that don't directly relate to a PC background (unless asked to)

4. Each player takes responsibility for integrating their own subplots/main plots

5. Fun

BESW

[source]

Lord_Gareth

Heh, that's cute.

But yeah, the only 'rules' as such were social

Don't control the actions of another PC without permission. Don't run plot-relevant/backstory-relevant NPCs without permission. Stay in OOC communication during IC fights to make sure everyone's on the same page.

Etc, so forth

's why FATE sounds so awfully familiar.

BESW

10:14

Interesting.

Lord_Gareth

Gotta go.

BESW

Yeah, Fate is basically "freeform," but with the following caveats (for which there are rules):

1. When the story reaches an action where success or failure would be equally agreeable to the storytellers, the result is determined semi-randomly.
2. When you deliberately allow/cause something significantly unfortunate happen to your character, you get increased permissions for making the semi-random determinations come out in the character's favour later.

Everything else is very much a kind of "formalized" freeform as you've described it.

@Lord_Gareth The LJ game that I saw was so inanely massive and sprawling that it needed moderators (not really GMs, but supervisors) to make sure everyone stayed on the same page and remembered/adhered to the social rules.

Zachiel

@Lord_Gareth I fear more "wizard, stomach aches everytime I want to do something my spells let me do and the DM has something to say against it".

BESW

10:39

I think Gareth forgot for a moment that this is Zachiel, master of finding games which only somewhat resemble D&D as he knows it.

lisardggY

11:00

@Lord_Gareth Yeah, I eventually figured that out.

You can tell them to come over to Israel, where people use Hebrew when ordering lunch, cleaning sewers, or cursing when stubbing their toes. Hell, there's porn in Hebrew, if you want something to really blow their mind.

BESW

11:16

@lisardggY One of my defining cultural moments was when, at age 17, I went on pilgrimage and saw a Coke bottle with the exact same shape and swirl of logo that I was used to seeing, but in full Hebrew.

Not because I had any delusions about Hebrew being a Sacred Tongue or anything, just... something in me shifted perceptibly to see a familiar logo that I'd always associated with one language integrated so faithfully and yet so fully into another.

On reflection, it may have influenced my interest in graphic design. It certainly made me look at language differently.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

whats happening folks?

lisardggY

@BESW It's always a challenge, to be able to recreate the feel of a logo (or other work) in another language, or in another medium.

BESW

@lisardggY Don't I know it. (My trilingual book design is all over but the screaming, thank God.)

There are a couple of authors whose works I really enjoy, but they're translated so I'm rather curious how much of the style I like is coming through from the original author and how much is the translator's work re-capturing the feel of it in a new language.

(Isabelle Allende apparently writes in Spanish and then translates it to English herself, which I find fascinating.)

lisardggY

I find it hard to read science fiction or fantasy in Hebrew. It just feels... strange to me. I'm used to it in English.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

My pants are on fire!

lisardggY

11:26

*blink*

BESW

And then there are a few of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablets which are said to be actually impossible to translate in any useful way, because of the way He used both Arabic and Persian and made references to famous traditions and works in those cultures.

@lisardggY Say "hi" to Liar. He's an Indian youth who just found his way onto chat. Thus far I'm not sure what attraction a role-playing games chat has for him.

lisardggY

There's one book, I think it's Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, that features extensive use of an English/Spanish pidgin language. The translation into Hebrew used a Hebrew/Arabic pidgin, which worked great in capturing the feel of the original.

BESW

@lisardggY Very cool.

lisardggY

Also, when translating Dune, the translator (same one) had to decide how to translate the Kwisatz Haderach.

BESW

Even in English, I run into authors like Margery Allingham who "polished her prose until it shone overbright," then read it out loud for her husband to write down again in order to make the work more readably vernacular.

@lisardggY That poor, poor translator.

lisardggY

11:31

In English, it's an exotic foreign term used for a mystical concept.

In Hebrew, it's just an expression.

Not a common one, but easily understood literally, nonetheless.

BESW

Something about translocation or the like, right?

lisardggY

Well, luckily that translator was Emmanuel Lotem, who's been the foremost translator of SF&F for, oh, 40 years or so.

BESW

@lisardggY ooer.

lisardggY

literally it's "The Jumping of the Way", easily interpreted as "the shortcut"

Herbert himself wrote it out as "Shortening of the Way", which is close enough.

BESW

So what did he do, if it's something you can explain to someone illiterate in Hebrew?

lisardggY

11:33

He actually decided to leave it as is, the Hebrew term (though probably italicized, IIRC).

And though it was different than the English feel, it did work. Of course, knowing Hebrew, even reading it in English was a different experience for me that for a non-Hebrew speaker.

Oh, apparently it's a real world Kabbalistic term that Herbert appropriated.

So it makes sense that Lotem would "translate" it back to its original Hebrew form.

Kefitzat Haderech

Kefitzat Haderech () is a Jewish Kabbalic term that literally means "contracting the path." The word kefatz has both the meaning "to shorten" as well as "to jump". Kefitzat Haderech refers to miraculous travel between two distant places in a brief time. It is perhaps similar to the Lung-gom-pa magical travel in Tibet, and, like the Tibetan practice, involves the use of magical or divine names. The Talmud lists three biblical stories in which this miracle occurs. In early stories of the Chasidic movement, wonder-working rabbis are ascribed the ability to reach destinations with unnatural s...

BESW

I believe I've mentioned before that I've run into a lot of people who think that any term they don't recognize in a fantasy/sci-fi work is just a made-up term.

lisardggY

If he would have just transliterated it back to Hebrew, that would have been terrible

BESW

That's a pretty twisted-up linguistic puzzle.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

ok its eve

Bye! Going to Study now!

Zachiel

13:12

@Lord_Gareth Strange, since the real reason the GM was born was to arbitrate all that was not covered by rules in chainmail/early D&D

@BESW D&D as I know it has everybody play Pun-Pun and sit in boredom around the table, godmodding.

No wonder I'm a master at finding something else.

Zachiel

13:44

@BESW or, well, it is low level D&D 4e

Alex P

15:12

@Lord_Gareth There's ample room for playing background characters and antagonists without having to actually be rules boss. That role is still functionally "the GM."

Alex P

16:01

RPGnet demonstrates how not to Fate points:

> Aspect: Fly Free or Die Trying

> Player: I fly into the asteroid cave to escape the droid fighters.

> GM: Actually, I think you........"Die Trying". ::holds up a Fate Point::

4

> Player: ...

RedRiderX

19:25

Well.

that was a fun outage

in The Bridge, 9 mins ago, by 3ventic

Our network provider is experiencing a bit of increased traffic. We and they are investigating.

Tweeted by StackStatus on February 16, 2014 at 7:15 PM

Zachiel

20:24

Bwahahahaha I reached you even without rpg.se

Shiester

21:12

@RedRiderX yeah, cant get to it myself - was curious to see if it was up yet.

Lord_Gareth

21:26

@Zachiel Why thank you for perpetuating an insulting and inaccurate stereotype that I already have to face down on every other RPG website in the universe.

RedRiderX

@Shiester Chat seems to be one of the few things left standing

Lord_Gareth

@BESW - how's your dya been?

BESW

It started about ten minutes ago.

Lord_Gareth

21:42

I see.

Lord_Gareth

21:53

'ey, @BESW. We were talking (tangentially) about words of power a bit earlier. Were/are you familiar with the Last Word, an 'artifact' of sorts from the Planescape setting? It was instrumental in some very interesting divine events that reshaped the surface of D&D's settings

RedRiderX

SE IS UP AGAIN

EVERYBODY TURN OFF THE PANIC ALARMS

BESW

I am not! Afk a while, but do go on.

Lord_Gareth

Orcus, the current Demon Prince of the Undead, was actually the Demon God of the Undead for all of about thirty seconds. At the moment of his apotheosis, a drow hero deity by the name of Krilishnee assassinated him and stole his godhead; Orcus awoke as a dead god, no longer truly a demon and no longer truly divine, but a sin against every possible level of nature.

He was deeply displeased by this.

So in the first step of a plan that would become the greatest affirmation of Chaotic Evil ideals to have ever happened to date, Orcus infiltrated Arborea, the home of the Eladrins - ancient enemies of demonkind, and their siblings by skewed creation

Phil

cool, a bed time story

Lord_Gareth

There Orcus - now calling himself Tenebrous to hide from his enemies - penetrated the ruins of Arborea's second layer, which are so unimaginably ancient that even beings that predate the current multiverse have no memory of their formation, or of what alien beings built them.

And there, in the shattered desert, was the Last Word, a weapon that could slay even gods with a single utterance - a weapon so profound that simply knowing it began to fray Tenebrous's essence, to annihilate his fledgling divinity and unmake him.

With it, Tenebrous murdered a god of knowledge to steal his library, slipped through the defenses of Mechanus - the Source of All Law, the Clockwork Nirvana - and murdered Primus

Primus is to Law what Satan is to Evil in Christianity; Primus does not merely serve Law, Primus is Law

Such fundamentals as cause/effect flow from him and to him

Tenebrous murdered him - and took his place

He cheated the very concept of Law itself into accepting him as its rightful ruler and bent the unstoppable might of Mechanus to recovering his mighty Wand, which contained the power to restore him to true life

And overcoming the last-ditch effort of mortal heroes to stop him, roared back into his own flesh once more

At which point he scrubbed the Word from his mind as fast as freakin' possible

Because it was diligently re-killing him

Zachiel

22:09

@Lord_Gareth No, wait, how can you say I'm an inaccurate stereotype? If my DM let me I would do exactly that.

Lord_Gareth

I must go for now.

Zachiel

I need someone to give me hard limitations on what I can't do or which material I can't use. I'm having a hard time building a character for my next campaign for this precise reason: I don't know what is too much for the DM, but my characters is getting anvils on his head if he is too powerful

BESW

@RedRiderX I can't turn it off! OH NO! MY PANIC IS UNENDING! [hyperventilates]

@Lord_Gareth And was the part of the Last Word played by Billie Piper?

RedRiderX

22:26

@BESW Yeah you should probably get that looked at.

BESW

Also, [sigh] "overcoming the last-ditch effort of mortal heroes" ruins that for me completely, because now it's some GM's railroaded story about his favorite NPC.

Instead of awesome setting background establishing the kind of amazing challenges PCs face, it's the record of failed campaign.

BESW

22:50

This is a blind man holding what appears to be Schrodinger's cat, circa 1850.

2

Zachiel

mpfhhh, I'm still in analysis paralysis

BESW

@Zachiel It sounds like you don't get a lot of help from your GMs on that account.

Zachiel

He's been pretty vague, true, but right now I'm not really worried about campaign power. I can make a character and then finetune it to the campaign. Using less spells to buff or more according to what other people do, for example

and maybe buffing the less optimized ones

(no, we won't have a monk)

I hope the in-joke was appreciated

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