There's a conversational tick that I like to use in particular NPCs. I got it from the Fat Man in The Maltese Falcon.

When a PC says or does something, anything, the Fat Man NPC is likely to say "I like a man who says/does <that thing>. It shows <character trait which is probably blatantly untrue.>"

I like a man who mentions The Maltese Falcon. It shows malfeasance.

It's a good tool for me, because it helps me portray a cool customer when I'm thrown for a loop by what a player says.

In the setting I'm working on now, I'll give it to this guy.

@Emracool That would, on reflection, be an awesome NPC to throw at the party randomly and see what they do.

I would expect the typical party to respond, "Fireworks, you say? This sounds like a handy person to know."

Ooh, 1034 rep.

Grats!

I'm hoping someone accepts one of my answers today. i'm 15 rep away from getting the daily max, and getting a badge.

[wanders over, upvotes two worthy answers he'd missed seeing before]

Also, the woman in your icon looks vaguely familiar.

Yay!

She's my wife.

Aww. Turns out it's tomorrow, according to the SE clock.

No badge for me. :(

Darn.

Alas!

[shakes fist] Next time, Gadget!

Anyway, I have to go do professional things for a while.

@JonathanHobbs et al: I have asked a question in the Spoil-Lair.

ttfn

@DuckTapeal Alphonse Elric and... uhmmm, Edea from FFVIII?

Close. Lulu from FFX.

My second bet was on Lulu, but she missed the fur.

It's small, it's hard to say

...what is?

@Emracool No, seriously, what's a "puzzle RPG"?

Doesn't that run the risk of turning into a "guess what the GM is thinking of" text-adventure?

@Emracool The difference being, perhaps, that the player character in the Myst franchise is entirely free of characterisation.

Unless "likes to push buttons" is a character trait.

(One of the big-box releases of Riven came with an official Hints/Guide/Walkthrough book which included a first-person-narrative of playing the game as if written, journal-style, by the main character. It was hilarious to see the author struggle to infuse some kind of personality in the neutral player avatar.)

It's a cool idea, but I'm not sure a chat RPG is the right medium for it.

Now I'm curious [looks up authors]

It appears to have been a collaboration between an author of strategy guides (Baldur's Gate and Fallout are on her bibliography too) and an author of science fiction franchise novels (Doctor Who, BattleTech, Buck Rogers, etc).

It is!

But very well crafted.

It's divided into general play tips, and hints, clues, and walkthroughs with three levels of spoilerifficness clearly labelled.

Ah, you're playing it?

I might be able to help... shall we adjourn to the Not A Bar?

→ 4 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Apropos of nothing: I appear to be writing a novel. The first few chapters can be found here, with more already scheduled. It's vaguelly inspired by multiple D&D campaigns, so is almost on-topic. Take a look, if you so choose, I would appreciate it.

I just finished a session of Fate Core and it went... really well

It's our first proper session of Fate Core - the last time wasn't narrative-first and I ran it really weirdly, so it's not quite a proper session

this time was brilliant though. My players knew off the bat what they wanted to do: two had discussed it on the way over, and the third agreed the moment he heard it.

They decided they wanted to be agents of something like Hellsing Organisation, which they later decided to call the Gatekeepers of Tartarus: keeping the people safe from the paranormal.

The setting is something like 16th century Europe, in Angland, with clockworkpunk elements

A couple of tailors in a village had been gruesomely murdered, and the player characters were dispatched to look into it: one a trained assassin and diplomat, another a mechanic, and the third a missionary who'd seen all too much. The Sheriff was (probably) murdered too by the time they arrived (they couldn't find his body, but they found a lot of his blood and an arm).

(it was his favourite arm, too! it was his bludgeoning arm, and it had his I ♥ My Job tattoo on it)

They investigated, found someone shellshocked and boarded up in the house who'd seen a wolf-man.

After literally kicking in a neighbour's door to inquire about anything suspicious, that took them to the tavern, and they happily contributed that the beefy tavern owner, Gertrude, was probably a racketeer for criminal organisations.

She pointed them to someone suspicious who'd entered town prior to the attacks with companions, obviously enough they saw it, and they absconded. After pursuing her to the woods and a fight, they chased her into a cave, probably intent on taking her down - only to find she and her colleague had already shackled the werewolf, and her colleague was grievously injured during the effort.

I was worried two of my players would decide to pursue the option of killing both of these suspicious people and the werewolf, but to my pleasant surprise they didn't - and the Missionary offered peace, helped with the limited healing they could do for the injured colleague, and convinced the woman they'd pursued to work together with them.

The werewolf was formerly a scientist trying to develop a serum to allow for werewolves to control themselves, and these people were from an organisation my players came up with themselves: an organisation that, just like the Gatekeepers of Tartarus, is working for peace, but unlike them, this organisation works to weaponise the arcane for the purpose of peace and unity. They have similar ends, but opposing means.

they tied up the session there; the mysterious organisation called in backup, got the werewolf taken away, and next session the woman they'd pursued - then helped - is going to go with them to try and recover the research notes on the werewolf serum to hopefully reverse it.

and my players already suggested what we should do about that session. \o/

that is my gush i am done now

fun fun

yes very

Awesome!

[sigh] So, apparently my tablet is no longer supported by its manufacturer, which means it's not able to update to the version of Android which is patched against Heartbleed, and because it's not a phone it's illegal to root the thing so I can update it.

I'm not sure how relevant Heartbleed is to consumer devices.

Perhaps not, but I consider this indicative of security vulnerabilities to come, as well.

@BESW Dx eargh

Yes, unsupported devices are a pain.

I'm not up to date on US precedents - has rooting and ROM switching been established as illegal? How do tablets differ from phones?

The way I understand it, all rooting/jailbreaking/etc is illegal by default, but there are lists of exceptions which get reviewed every few years.

At the last review, phones were exempt but "tablet" was deemed too vague a term to be covered without creating too many loopholes.

*sigh*. This is somewhat ridiculous.

Yeah. And now we're getting phablets....

Problem is, I can see many mobile ecosphere concepts migrating to PCs - Apple are slowly trying to lock OSX down like iOS, and Microsoft have been looking in that direction too.

Oh, now I see claims that this all revolves around the MPAA, DMCA and copyright infringment issues. Which is even stupider.

Naturally.

I can understand regulations that prevent tampering and accidental damages - like requiring certified mechanics to change brakes in a car, and certified companies to change computer software in places where improper installations could cause harm.

But replacing a personal media device's OS doesn't really fall under that.

And doing it just so people won't be able to theoretically bypass DRM is even worse.

My mom's chatting with the online help for the manufacturer. We're not sure if it's a bot, or if it's just a guy who can only copy-paste the company line.

I just did major revisions on the primary villain of my new campaign setting for... what, the third time?

@besw illegal or just warranty voiding?

It looks like 3.5e rules compendium completely killed the Hulking Hurler build.

@Zachiel Oh?

Complete warrior had rules about throwing improvised weapons that dealt damage based on their size. Rules Compendium tells the DM to decide the damage basing it on a comparable size weapon

Damn.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Federally illegal.

@BESW wtf America

Now, I know you're not the nation of common sense, but come on, you're still supposed to be the the nation of freedom!

In this case, we're a nation of business interests being free to push blanket laws.

Amen, bro.