one of the things I love about LOTR is that Tolkien's combination of actual field experience in WWI and knowledge of european myths and legends meant he understood the importance of logistical items in stories, the lembas bread and the elven rope (and the cloaks) are perfect examples of this
yeah, its the lack of specific power but also them being utility items. Its arguable whether or not the rope is actually magical, if it is its definitely tolkien's subtle magic (in the books magic, at least for the good side, is slight influencing of the world in some way, its not brash and changing like it is when weilded by evil)
And yeah, I like that a lot about how tolkein handles special things: by and large, things in the world are not magical, just extraordinary in some way. And people react to it as if it's extraordinary, not magical: people are impressed by lembas bread like it's some pretty damn good stuff (it is), and mithril like it's very good armor (but they might react the same way to an extremely well-crafted suit of full plate by a reputable master armorsmith)
In other words, it's just considered mundane. Not common or everyday by any means, but entirely and simply earthly.
My vision of elven magic in this setting is that it's ancestor-based: at some point the wisdom of generations passes from "potent experience-based insight" to "genuinely magical," but the line isn't always clear.
By contrast, lizardfolk magic is based on crafting: a master craftsman's ability to take natural objects and draw out their innate power to be tools will, at the highest levels of skill, become magical.
And Serpentian magic is about the strength of the community: the combined will of the people can make great things happen, and if focused properly groups can perform ritual magic.
@BESW Those details on elven/lizardfolk/serpentian magic are pretty cool. I'm unclear on how elven magic manifests though. Could you spare a concrete example?
@BESW How'd you do? I'm finding some of the terminology confusing, and the examples I've found online are either crazy detailed or just strange (I'm not into weird planar forces try to take over the world, that seems really popular).
@BESW I can see that. I'm sure it will make more sense over time. The rest of the system (perhaps 'framework' is a better word) is so good that I'm sure it'll be great once I 'get' fronts.
@JonathanHobbs As another example of ancestor magic, look at that Medical Alchemy card again; I didn't specify it explicitly there, but at some point "the family medicine recipe" can get so potent and effective that it becomes a magical potion.
(From the outside that looks a lot like a lizardfolk master healer's ability to draw the healing properties out of herbs to a supernatural degree, but for the practitioners it's very different.)
@JonathanHobbs One of our player characters is a spiritualist who gets constantly badgered by the ghosts of ancestors whose advice nobody wants: "the dead are usually dead for a reason, and it doesn’t often have to do with their great wisdom and perception."
"Seriously, people die in the most ridiculous ways all the time. Don’t eat random swampberries, kids."
She gets things like: "Eh, I don’t trust him. He’s got a shifty look about his eyes. And I’d never trust anyone with detached earlobes. Mark my words, detached earlobes mark a man as a true scoundrel. Seriously, anyone with those beady little eyes and earlobes is up to no good. What makes you think he can tell you anything important, anyway? You should stick with me instead, I’ll tell you what’s what."
This is Operafloozy, an online friend of mine for about twelve years now, who I've always wanted to do RPGs with because LOOK AT THAT CHARACTER. LOOK AT THAT WRITING STYLE.
"One of them is a cynical fly-by-night lawyer who'll do anything to win a case; the other is a steel-skinned do-gooder with a soft touch for sob stories. Watch them go head-to-head in Knight Court, this fall!"
@JonathanHobbs Odd, yesterday I double and triple checked, and the 8th digit in binary corresponded to 256, but today it's only 128... Weird! I wonder what other bad decisions I made yesterday.
I counted in my head while looking at the digits, an then did 2^8 and somehow managed to think that that meant that it confirmed that the 8th digit was 256 :P
and then counted again to make sure, and completely fooled myself
@JonathanHobbs That's a great image. A bit silly though no? :P I suffered from some sneaky confirmation bias. Now to figure out what else I screwed up yesterday.
@Magician I think he's right in his final conclusion, but his reasoning is over-simplifying the challenge/contest/conflict trilogy by pigeonholing each of the three into overly narrow parameters.
In the end, mental stress is another of the Fate Core "complication dials."
And he's probably right that its default setting is a little more complex than it usually needs to be, but I suspect that's because having a "social" stress track makes non-physical conflicts easier for D&D-brained players to wrap their heads around.
So it's unnecessary but useful as a tool for levering peoples' brains into new spaces.
As for the whole "mental conflicts are really contests" thing, that's rainbow-flavoured ponypucky.
Is there somewhere you can get minis corresponding to the class, race and sex of adventurers, be it singles or a giant collection of minis?
For example: I might be looking for a male elf druid and a female half-orc fighter.
I think so too. One of my players has 3/4 physical/social; the other has 4/2. The second character was extremely threatened by a beast who simply made otherworldly howls that terrified him to his core.
I think the article messes up in two interconnected ways: it defines the nature of social/mental conflict too simply (perhaps because he seems confused about the scope of such a thing), and it frames the connection between challenges, contests, and conflicts too legalistically and focuses too much on in-game intent while ignoring their use as zooming and framing tools.
One of the problems I've run into over and over with the mental stress track is that it tries to do too much.
It's the representation of social aplomb --the ability to stand your ground in an argument or not be suckered into a bad deal-- AND it's the representation of your fortitude in the face of terrifying experiences and psychic probes.
As for contests vs conflicts, that's quite simple.
Am distracted at work for the past hour by a furious discussion of Paul McCartney's earlobes, and the proof they hold that he did, indeed, die in 1966. invanddis.proboards.com/thread/2765/…
In Fate Core there are different skills for attacking in those two different scenarios but they are both backed up by the same stress track and the same default defensive skill.
As for contests vs conflicts, that's quite simple. Contests are for parallel actions; conflicts are for opposing actions.
He misses that entirely.
And granted, part of this is because the Fate Core phrasal blurbs don't make that totally clear.
> Contests, when two or more characters are competing for a goal
> Conflicts, when two or more characters are trying to directly harm each other
But if you look at how they actually work it should be pretty clear. Contests are races down parallel tracks, and whoever hits the finish line first wins with everyone else losing.
There's no "trip the other guy so I can get ahead" in contests, no built-in assumption that you're trying to hinder the other person.
Conflicts are back-and-forth sparring.
To win a contest, you get to the finish line first. To win a conflict, you keep the other guy from getting to the finish line.
Now, which of these is accurate for an argument? Depends on the argument.
If there's any mud-slinging, any insults or emotional attacks, involved in an argument, that's probably a conflict.
If it's a purely intellectual "we both present our opinions and the crowd is swayed by the more eloquent or superior presentation" debate, that's a contest.
But seriously, how often does that happen?
In short: he's right about mental stress tracks, but the points he makes in support of his conclusion are riddled with oversimplification and confusion over the implications of mechanics.
I'm thinking that we might experiment with a Goal stack like "Prove My Worth to the Prince" which could be played on moves that have the servant doing things on his own initiative.
It'd make Endufal a bigger character in the story, which might not be to your liking, but it'd be an interesting test of the limits of Storium's system.
I know you like posting more often, so I thought The Adventures Of Endufal Elsewhere might be one way to do it without dominating the primary characters' scenes--kind of an intercut set of secondary scenes.
@InbarRose If I couldn't manage cropping a portrait into a 2/3 landscape with at least minimally pleasing results, I'd have to turn in my graphic designer license.
I still don't really get Organized Play. I wonder if it's because there are hardly any FLGSs in Israel, and the only popular concept I grew up on was in home groups.
@lisardggY Yeah, Israel lacks an FLGS culture. It's not really needed so much with the internet anymore, but it used to be hard to find people willing to play your expensive geeky games with you.
There is also the "official competition" side of things that some people like.
@InbarRose Ha, all you need is a coin, and be really good at binary math :P
However, I believe the OP is looking for a way to play Avatar in an RPG. That's why they used the game-recommendation tag. And the rest of their question, which was later removed: "If no such systems exist, I'm curious what suggestions people have for existing systems that would support the different styles of martial arts, bending, and creatures that exist in Avatar."
If/when they ask a new question, or edit the existing one, to be a solid and answerable question about modifying RPGs to run Avatar, your answer will be awesome.
@InbarRose I need your help in this because I'm not this good at math but... I suppose tossing 4F and then converting the results to binary is like rolling a d16, right?
@GMNoob he's adding the digits locations, which is fine, inside the parentheses. He was not outside them. That's why I suggested to use the 4(1d2-1)+1 to set the units digit and the (1d2-1)+1 to set the... the howdyoucallem
Anyway, since I saw you talking about doing math wrong and getting wrong results even by checking (the 256 thing that happened earlier), I'd like to tell a joke but I'm not sure I know how mathematical things are called in English.
Is there somewhere you can get minis corresponding to the class, race and sex of adventurers, be it singles or a giant collection of minis?
For example: I might be looking for a male elf druid and a female half-orc fighter.
