TRPG General Chat

BESW

01:33

@DampeS8N I don't know if this is relephant to your experience, but in the wider non-RPG community "role-playing" often has a sexy-times connotation.

DampeS8N

@BESW It does, but this isn't a case where people are misunderstanding what TBC provides or anything. These are folks who essentially want to have group LARP sex.

BESW

Yeah... I don't have much knowledge of that part of the RPG community.

DampeS8N

Unrelated. My main group is losing a player to group drama (she asked a guy out, he rejected her, she can't play with him anymore) and I need a good way to kill her character in the middle of a magical dungeon. Thoughts?

@BESW I knew it existed, but I wasn't expecting greater than half of the people who come play to be part of it.

BESW

@DampeS8N Suggestion: don't kill the character, but give it an exit.

"I must go, my people need me!" or the like.

DampeS8N

@BESW Problem is I've basically done that with the last 4 player exits. It is time for a PC death.

BESW

01:39

Then define "good way." Dramatic, ironic, selfless, idiotic, senseless, meaningful?

DampeS8N

One turned into one of the main antagonists. That character keeps coming back and given a great chance to kill the character (even with the original player returning to reprise the role) the party didn't do it. They couldn't stand to.

BESW

Also: is the player coming back for the final session, or are you effectively killing an NPC?

The last time I had a player leave so suddenly he couldn't be there to retire his character, I worked with him online to design a scenario.

Grubermensch

@DampeS8N Is this guaranteed to be a permanent exit, or is she likely to come back to the group after muddling through her emotions for a while?

DampeS8N

@BESW I'm open to any ideas. Here's her basic story so far. She joined the group (who all, even the players, believe themselves to be good, but are basically the bad guys) when they came through the town she was acting as a temple cleric at, the town was destroyed and she tagged along. Over time, she's been trying to save the PCs and convince them to drop their evil ways, and it is has been working pretty well. She just overcame a trial for heresay (for hanging around in an evil party.)

@Grubermensch This is a permanent exist, the game will probably end in the next 3-5 months and be replaced with a new 5E game.

@BESW She won't be there, and isn't in the mind set to really come up with anything.

BESW

A recurring villain who just wouldn't stay totally dead (he'd already returned as a vampire after being killed once, and got staked) returned as a ghost and possessed the retiring PC, forcing the party to fight him and trying to turn them against each other. When it was clear he couldn't split the party up, he killed the PC he was possessing and attacked in wraith form to just kill them.

DampeS8N

01:46

@BESW I like stuff like this. But we already have an ex-PC villain. I have two in cold storage in Crystals and a 4th that went off to try to become Azathoth.

That one might end up a villain too

Grubermensch

@DampeS8N I think he's suggesting that one of them should show up and possess her.

DampeS8N

@Grubermensch Oh.. hmm..

Grubermensch

Come to think of it, since you're terminating the game, it could be interesting to finish out by defeating all the ex-PC villains you seem to have accumulated.

BESW

Yeah, the PC didn't become a villain; he was possessed by a villain, forced to fight the party, and then killed by the villain.

DampeS8N

@BESW I get it now. I might be able to work with this. :)

BESW

01:49

(Which led to some awesome character advancement for the other PCs, in particular one who pledged himself to any higher power which would punish the villain in the manner he desired.)

That party had some trust issues at the start, so the recurring villain was themed on "friendship;" he used necromancy and mind control to "make friends," and when he discovered he couldn't make the party be his friends, he determined to turn them against each other.

By having a villain try to force them apart, it turned them toward each other and made them a more cohesive unit out of pure ornery contrariness.

Grubermensch

@BESW Colonel Graff would be proud.

BESW

The players were instrumental in making it work--if they hadn't wanted to cohese it wouldn't have happened.

But I enjoyed giving them amusing opportunities to bond the party and take it in the direction they had planned.

DampeS8N

It is interesting how the party in this game got to be the secret badguys. Very early on in the game we lost our first PC, it was between the second and third sessions. I actually still have the old wordpress blog for it if anyone cares.

The guy leaves early in surprise (which is where the site stops) and goes to his own home town, the party follows a week later. The guy, Zooknor, learns that one of the people he was just with is an evil doppleganger who is trying to revive a terrible evil god Azathoth.

So, rather than learn of this about their party member now, the party just blithely went on becoming loyal to her and when the rubber met the road, rather than trying to fix things, they decided that Zooknor (who had been wiping out hidden dopplegangers all over) was some kind of Hitler.

So they, who have been running errands for someone they know to be a 2000 year old lich that hangs out with Drow royalty, have literally no idea that they are the bad guys.

Grubermensch

But this departing female player does? And the metagame hasn't hit the fan yet?

DampeS8N

02:05

@Grubermensch The cleric believes the party to be evil, but the party has taken that as her being a religious zealot.

They believe themselves to be neutral. They are a good bit murderhoboy

Grubermensch

How do you get around the whole D&D "alignment is a force of nature" business?

DampeS8N

@Grubermensch They aren't evil aligned. They do enough good on the small scale that it doesn't really come up. They are mostly being misdirected. They don't really know they are working to do this. Also, DM fiat.

doppelgreener

So in today's installment of How Mundane Classes Get Totally Screwed: magic ignores DR.

DampeS8N

I'd say that it is really an abuse of 4E's unaligned alignment.

doppelgreener

I now want to make an anti-DR specialist who deals mainly environmental damage.

Teleports people into the air, drops rocks off cliffs, etc.

Grubermensch

02:14

@JonathanHobbs I once played in a 2E campaign where we defeated an army by causing an avalanche above their (very poorly situated) camp.

DampeS8N

@JonathanHobbs Uses a wall spell to capture them in a cage and then fills it with water?

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch that's amazing and fantastic

that is a pretty stylish way to defeat them

@DampeS8N ouch, yeah, this is probably going to get cruel XD

teleporting people into the plane of fire, etc

BESW

Amusingly, in 3.5 you cannot kill people by dropping any amount of gravel on them from any height.

Grubermensch

I am a firm believer that the correct usage of magic is to break the environment ontop of your opponents every time.

BESW

(Objects weighing less than one pound neither deal nor take damage via falling.)

Does this count as environmental damage?

2

DampeS8N

02:17

@BESW The case could probably be made that a pile of gravel is one object.

Grubermensch

@BESW I don't think I would count a cubic yard of gravel as individual objects.

Ninja'ed

BESW

(I had a player in an early 3.5 game who wanted to carpet-bomb a city by dropping gravel off a floating island.)

Grubermensch

@BESW Just drop a bunch of flour. Then cast fireball.

I am a terrible person.

DampeS8N

@BESW Like pennies off skyscrapers, gravel doesn't weigh much and probably has a slow terminal velocity. Better to use bigger rocks.

Given enough rolls, a strong character should be able to break down every segment of wall in a building, acting as a one-man no-tool wrecking crew.

BESW

Also I once ran a villain who spent the majority of the campaign in stasis with an advanced telekinesis power as her only way of interacting with the outside world.

►

DampeS8N

02:21

@BESW sooo a poltergeist?

BESW

@DampeS8N A bit more than that, but yes.

(She'd accidentally level-drained herself from high epic to single digits, and then spent thousands of years siphoning the magic of the entire world into her "tomb" to rejuvenate.)

Probably only reason the party didn't wipe when they finally confronted her was that the tarrasque showed up stoned out of its mind and heavily mutated by the magic-absorbing mineral she'd used to build her tomb.

DampeS8N

02:38

@BESW It's all fun and games until a stoned Tarrasque shows up.

5

BESW

Yeah. He found depots of the mineral weaponised, ate it, got addicted to it and started hunting down all the rest of it in the world instead of going back to sleep like he's supposed to. But eating that much raw magical power caused him to mutate: multiple heads, insect wings, breath weapons...

In the process of hunting down all the magic mineral, he destroyed an expanding empire and enabled the downfall of an ancient rakshasa witch-queen bent on world domination.

Grubermensch

So, you know, Tuesday.

BESW

Yup!

(The tarrasque was actually very much a background presence for most of the campaign, more of a reason for the party to be adventuring on the side of the world that wasn't being rampaged by an unstoppable mutant with the munchies.)

doppelgreener

@BESW ... maybe it's treated as a weapon taking durability damage?

BESW

doppelgreener

02:53

@BESW this sounds like it would've been really fun to play in the presence of

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Aye, once the party was able to survive the tarrasque, it shifted to their side of the world because it had eaten all the mineral where it'd started.

It would show up occasionally as a Force of Nature environmental hazard, or to push the plot by driving NPCs and factions to do things they wouldn't have done otherwise.

In the middle of the final battle with the witch-queen it showed up to eat the last of the mineral left in the world: her tomb, while they were fighting inside it.

This gave them a chance to fall back and regroup, coming up with the strategy to kill her (how to use the plot coupons they'd been collecting for most of the campaign).

Then upon eating the last of the tomb, the tarrasque fulfilled its natural purpose: by outgassing all the magic it had consumed, it restored the world's magical balance (upset for two thousand years by the witch-queen's regenerative tomb) before crawling back under ground to sleep off the worst hangover in the history of ever.

And, naturally, the party had to survive being at ground zero of All Magic Ever.

doppelgreener

03:08

@BESW oh boy. did they?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Yes! The sorcerer conjured a portal to a tiny alternate dimension where they sheltered it out.

doppelgreener

@BESW That is awesome :)

BESW

It was Mordenkainen's Magical Mansion, so they still had to hold the door shut against the All Magic blast.

doppelgreener

03:23

@BESW i hope it was full of Mordenkainen's Magical Door-Reinforcement Furniture

BESW

No, but we had a half-dragon sorcerer and a human with 26 levels of straight Strength-based Fighter.

(Optimisation? What's that?)

The Oracle

0

Q: Is it Appropriate to Mark a Question as Duplicate if it's Unclear What's Being Asked?

My question was mostly prompted by this question. I find the question as originally asked either extremely broad (whole book broad) or totally unclear. Since it is not clear what is being asked, how can we say that it is a duplicate of another question? Unclear Let me point out a couple things...

Magician

03:40

Good morning.

BESW

Hey.

Is it my Internet, or the Stack, that's going wonky today?

Magician

Haven't noticed anything particularly wonky.

BESW

Every now and then I get the cute kitten "We Screwed Up!" page, and/or parserrors.

And I notice that our chat suddenly lost more than half its members.

Metool

Huh.

Metool

04:28

@BESW Someone's curious about pixie berserker rituals.

BESW

Hmm?

Metool

Nevermind, I've found it.

Jun 10 at 10:27, by BESW

The shrill oomph of a twelve-inch tuba strikes fear and confusion in the hearts of all who hear it. Mostly confusion.

Oxinabox

05:23

Hey @Magician: I believe I was told to poke you (a few weeks aback) to swap stories of reforming "broken" players.

Magician

Really? Curious as to why. But do tell.

I've had my share of troublesome players, not sure if I've reformed them.

Oxinabox

I might be misremembering the conversation entirely. I think i was told that you have options on how this should be done. Or something like that.
It came up when I was talking about how my roleplaying club has been fixing new members, with things like:
Player: "I loot the corpse"
GM: "Umm, you find his wallet, in it is $5, his drivers liscence and a photo of his family. The 5 year old is cute."

Even security guards for companies that are scaping people for parts still have a family to go home to when the job is done.
Anyway someone was like (as I recall) you should talk to Magician.
And I was pokign around online and saw you were on, so Hi, i guess

BESW

I believe I mentioned your blog article on post-D&D rehabilitation.

Oxinabox

That was probably it.

Magician

Ah, that makes sense, then.

BESW

05:31

A lot of it is a matter of genre expectations.

Magician

Overall, I'd say it's a question of shared expectations. There's nothing inherently wrong about being murderhoboes, even in modern settings.

hah

It becomes a problem when players are murderhoboing while GM expects a deep personal drama, or vice versa. Which is solved with a conversation.

BESW

In The Matrix, the rebel humans will kill Agents without hesitation despite knowing they're killing innocent humans and the Agent will survive; in Korra we have to see the enemy pilots' parachutes open so we know they got out of the plane before it exploded.

Oxinabox

indeed. (I have run Changeling the Action RPG. Kill the guards, save the pricness)

I have also run 4e the Grifters

(conmen)

BESW

This is one of my fundamental problems with the Arrow TV show: it has faceless innocent goons get casually killed in vast numbers by the main protagonist with only token fanfare from ANYone or from the show itself--and it tries to get us invested in whether or not another character will kill a single bad person, as a major multi-episode plot arc.

I've seen GMs fall into the same trap: some murder is important and other murder isn't.

GMNoob

What is the formula for expected damage and the number of rounds it will take to kill a monster? ceiling((%toHit*averageDamage)+(%crit+averageCritDamage)/monsterHP)?

BESW

05:38

(And while you can walk that line successfully, it requires that the players are totally on board with you and walking the line as well.)

GMNoob

@BESW Most goons in Arrow moan or start standing up at the end of the fight.

Oxinabox

mm, it is one of my issues with the GMC-RU for nWoD. It introduces a Mook mechanic.

BESW

@GMNoob Now, yes. But the values dissonance of the first season is shocking, and continues to carry over albeit to a lesser extent.

First-season Arrow kills dozens of unnamed innocent security guards to reach evil corporate rich dudes who he... humiliates, or impoverishes, or sends to jail.

GMNoob

@BESW In the first season he was killing people and not feeling bad about it...that was the point.

His friend stops being his friend over it.. and then dies

BESW

@GMNoob I know that was what they were trying for, but there's a big difference between how Queen feels and the judgement the show gives us.

GMNoob

05:41

@BESW I thought it was clever. At the end of the seasons they basically said to the viewer, "these fictional characters care that Arrow is a muderering bastard, why don't you? "

Anyway, before my question gets lost, was my math correct?

BESW

For the majority of the season the production of the show itself--writing, camera work, music--was neutral or positive regarding the killings. To suddenly turn around and say "but that's all bad!" doesn't seem clever. It seems like a last-minute attempt to salvage a bad choice.

@GMNoob I have no idea.

GMNoob

Naw, they hinted to it along the way (you only notice it in retrospect), and played to tv stereotypes. It was done well.

Magician

@GMNoob Not quite. First, I'm assuming you multiply crit chance and average crit damage, not add them up.

GMNoob

@Magician d'oh right. Error on typing there.

Magician

Second, you're counting regular damage twice when a crit happens. You'd need to multiply crit chance by extra damage a crit does, if you want to count it this way.

GMNoob

05:45

@Magician I want to count in the correct way :)

Magician

Alternatively, you can calculate the chance of a regular hit (say, 10-19) and a chance of critical hit (20), and multiply those by respective damage.

GMNoob

@Magician Doesn't this do that? ceiling(((%toHit*averageDamage)+(%crit*averageExtraCritDamage))/monsterHP)?

Magician

Yup, if it's extra damage you're fine.

BESW

@GMNoob Perhaps. I didn't re-watch episodes of a show that, on first viewing, seemed devastatingly unaware of its own themes. If its goal was to make me re-examine my acceptance of the status quo, they failed. Instead I examined why they thought it was a good idea to spend a whole season failing to make me like an oblivious murderer.

I liked Dexter better than I liked Oliver Queen, so if they wanted to trick me into liking a murderer they failed utterly on a target who was willing to be so manipulated.

GMNoob

Well if you failed to like queen then they failed on that part. But for those who did like Queen it worked well.

ofcourse everyone I know is annoyed by his sister's screen time.

BESW

05:50

I know what they're trying for--cramming decades of comic strip character growth into a handful of TV seasons--and it's not a bad idea. But they seem chronically inept at making it work.

(I suspect that if most of the actors were given more ranges of facial expression it'd work a little better, even over the writing problems; Queen's got what, three expressions? Stubborn Determination, Awkward Liar, and NOOOOOO! I dunno if that's the actor or the director but it hurts the character something awful.)

@GMNoob Urgh. Thea is almost one of my favourite characters, but she keeps being given the Stupid Side Plot Stick.

GMNoob

They could remove her from a few episodes entirely and I don't think I would notice. Heh.

BESW

It's that tired old Bad Communication Kills stuff where five minutes with everybody in the same room having half a lick of sense would kill all potential for drama and tension.

Which --again-- can work! But the writing isn't strong enough to support it here, yet they keep trying again and again.

GMNoob

@BESW I've never seen that work to my sasitsfaction.

BESW

It's very uncommon.

But they're writing Marvel plots for DC characters, and that's just not gonna fly.

May 26 at 8:25, by BESW

There's a generalisation which is surprisingly accurate (though, of course, it is a generalisation) about DC and Marvel characters: DC characters are defined by their heroism, while Marvel characters are defined by their humanity.

To make successful DC franchise TV shows, I'd point producers at Stargate SG-1, not Buffy, for their model.

GMNoob

Arrow is doing both :P

kviiri

06:04

I can never remember which characters are which, apart from the simple rule that "Batman is DC and Spider-man is Marvel". I extrapolate the other characters from that.

BESW

@kviiri That works. My rule of thumb is whether I think of him in or out of his costume--or more accurately, is he "Clark Kent" or is he "Superman"? is he "Iron Man" or "Tony Stark"?

DC characters tend to be superheroes with street identities; Marvel characters tend to be superheroes in addition to their ordinary lives.

It's one reason X-Men can have such a massive cast of characters and be all soap-opera-y.

lisardggY

Good morning.

GMNoob

@BESW heh, that wouldn't help me at all... I'd just answer yes.

BESW

@lisardggY [wave]

Did you see a day or two ago where Mos Eisley had a discussion about the difference between steampunk goggles and cyberpunk goggles?

lisardggY

@BESW Must have missed that. I'll dig back.

BESW

06:10

It wasn't very meaty, but amusing and I thought of you.

kviiri

Steampunk goggles should come with a cleaning kit to get all that soot off them

BESW

Whereas cyberpunk goggles need little existential wiper blades for the angst and ennui.

@Emrakul Hi!

user61230

@BESW Hi!

BESW

What's new?

user61230

Not too much!

user61230

06:16

Started a new internship and was accepted to another for a couple years from now. Also, found a wonderful anime.

user61230

You?

BESW

I made a new game tag!

Also:

in Not a bar, but plays one on TV, 20 hours ago, by BESW

Here, have a picture.

user61230

Nice! Get ready for a shiny new badge! :D

user61230

And that is a gorgeous picture.

BESW

Scroll down a little for kite flying and over in Mos Eisley we have a panorama.

user61230

06:20

Kite flying looks fun, and that panorama is great!

BESW

Not likely. It's a three-half-page short-form engine with only two adventures I could track down designed for it.

None of the answers I've got had even heard of the system before I asked the question. Which... shows in the quality of answer.

No way I'm getting Taxonomist from that.

user61230

Give it a decade... maybe?

BESW

@Emrakul And now you have seen a tiny little BESW.

user61230

How long's the system been out?

BESW

@Emrakul Four years.

user61230

06:24

Hmmhmhm. Fine, just wait a few centuries :P

user61230

@BESW What was the Morningstar Malfunction?

BESW

@Emrakul Several times an hour the Wizards RSS feed would spit out links to an article titled "Morningstar."

user61230

Ew.

BESW

Copy-pasting from sf.se chat because I just came to an RPG conclusion in my ramblings.

> Holodecks are... strange. Voyager shows us that they're given totally separate dedicated power supplies which are more resilient than the ship's main engines but can't be diverted to any other ship function.
> I think that early in the history of human interstellar travel, they kept getting ghost ships: starships where the entire crew mysterious died, or went raving mad, or both.
> Now they use holodecks to stave off space madness by simulating other experiences, keeping the human mind from cracking in the void.

Now imagine the scene: The USS Enterprise has sustained damage from the Opening Scene Menace, which was quickly defeated. However, they are crippled and months from rescue... and the holodeck has failed.

Tensions are mounting, madness seems imminent. Some of the more sensitive crew members are already developing nervous tics, paranoia, or ennui. Something must be done!

kviiri

06:41

That could be fun for both less-serious triggerhappy one-offs and a larger campaign.

BESW

Picard, a student of archaeology, remembers an old Earth tradition and --with the necessary files on his pad-- calls for volunteers to participate in an experimental therapy called the "role-playing game."

Reginald Barclay volunteers to GM.

Geordi is game, Data is intrigued but just wants to watch at first, and Troi is alternating between catatonia and telling anyone who will listen that her potted palm is radiating a strong sense of discomfort.

lisardggY

I couldn't find a YouTube clip in decent quality of Ren & Stimpy's Space Madness episode.

BESW

Worf, naturally, is skeptical until Wesley finds the section of the textbook which describes LARPing.

"Today is a good day to pretend to die!"

GMNoob

@BESW lol

BESW

Beverly is nervous about such a primitive form of therapy. Riker wants to know if there's a "sexiness" stat.

kviiri

06:49

"Roll+hot, Riker."

BESW

All joking aside, it could make for an interesting Mythos In Space kind of setting.

Ignoring the "RPG" solution to the problem and genericising the setting away from Star Trek...

kviiri

07:14

Treating race, racism, sexism etc in games can be tricky in part because for some reason, there are people who consider even the portrayal of racism and sexism to be racist/sexist

lisardggY

07:29

@kviiri These are tricky issues, and what for one person is a sensitive handling of a topic, could be a callous and exploitative use for another.

kviiri

Sure, everyone has the right to get offended. I just think equating the subject with the message is stupid.

We do have anti-war war films, don't we? :P

BESW

Our own @Bankuei has some articles and links to articles on the subject in the Deeper in the Game blog.

Very fascinating stuff, really helped me express consciously some of the misgivings I've had about various fantasy tropes for a long time.

lisardggY

@kviiri I've never actually seen anyone make that claim, that dealing with sexism is sexism.

I've often seen claims that sexism is dealt with obtusely and heavy-handedly, but not that it shouldn't even be discussed.

kviiri

By the way, as a short throwback to our fantasy race discussions yesterday, I've actually played a game where orcs are actually among the most civilized and sophisticated races - or were so, until they were branded as savages by elves for so long they lost it.

@lisardggY Me neither, but I have for racism.

Oh wait, yes I have.

A friend made the assumption that Quentin Tarantino is a racist because otherwise there wouldn't be the "N-word" in his movie.

Of course that's an assumption most people wouldn't make, and it's fine that way - I'd seriously dislike it if we had to censor stuff out of history to match our modern values.

GMNoob

07:46

Any math people left in the room?

kviiri

Well sorta o/

Shoot.

lisardggY

08:06

@kviiri There's nothing historical about a movie like Django Unchained. It's a modern movie, made today, that takes place in a reconstructed historical setting.

Using or not using the n-word is a choice, and it should be a conscious choice by the author, used for a specific effect.

Especially since Tarantino allows himself to play fast and loose with historical accuracy as it is, and that's fine.

Just saying "I don't want to censor history" is disingenuous, since you're already making many choices over which parts of history to represent and which not to. It's a form of the "my guy" problem.

GMNoob

@kviiri Sorry for the delay. I'm trying to figure out how to calculate average damage for a rogue who has a dagger offhand

If he uses his offhand dagger, he can't use cunning action to get sneak attack damage.

but if he allready gets advantage, he would use it and the SA damage.

So sometimes his damage is 2d6+3 + 1d4, sometimes its 2d6+3 and sometimes its 1d6+3 +1d4

GMNoob

08:31

Nothing better than watching a bunch of elephants protect themselves from rocket fire, only to have a real siren go off while watching!

facebook.com/…

kviiri

08:51

@lisardggY The effect, I see it, is to portray the racism of the era as it was.

And again, I see no racism in that.

@GMNoob, as a general rule of the thumb, the more dice you throw the less likely the extreme results will be. You have 1/6 chance of scoring a six with a normal d6 but only 1/36 chance of scoring 12 with two d6's.

2d6 averages at 7 I think (And 7 is also the most likely sum), so 2d6 + 3 would average at 10.

lisardggY

@kviiri When the intent is to portray racism, it's very appropriate, I agree. But if a work (or a game, for that matter) doesn't seek to portray the issue, but rather does it "along the way", it can certainly be viewed as gratuitous.

kviiri

@lisardggY Of course it can be viewed. The viewer always has the right to their own interpretation. I have an issue with blaming people for portrayals, because I fear that can make us incapable of ever handling serious subjects well.

lisardggY

Since it's certainly possible to portray the wild west (for instance) without using the N word, if it is used, it's a conscious choice, and you can evaluate a work based on the choices made.

BESW

My brain keeps going back to Wolsung.

kviiri

Yes, but the evaluation that "since this work uses the N-word it's racist" or "...the creator's racist" are both stupid.

GMNoob

09:02

@kviiri Yes, but my question was how to deal with the 3 possible scenarios to make the average

Do I just average them all together? pick one? or what

BESW

It's equally possible that a work can be legitimately read as prejudiced for including or excluding certain words/events/themes/peoples. However, the mere fact of inclusion or exclusion is rarely (to the point of probably "never") sufficient in itself to make a judgement either way. It requires context.

kviiri

@GMNoob You need to factor them according to how often they happen, I believe

GMNoob

@kviiri Right. But how do I figure that out?

BESW

09:15

@kviiri @lisardggY Further discussion of this topic would probably be sensitive to move to the Not A Bar, for reasons which I hope are obvious.

GMNoob

@BESW you were having trouble loading rpg.se before?

kviiri

@GMNoob You need to estimate a bit

Unless you have a trivial case (for example, one ability is always the best so you wind up using it all the time)

GMNoob

The situation is like this. If I use cunning action to get advantage to use Sneak Attack Damage, then I can't use two weapon fighting, and thus lose the d4

But it's possible I'll have advantage, and sneak attack damage without using cunning action.

Oh man, advantage changes the damage output percentages also..

kviiri

Yeah, you have to make a lot of "guesstimates". How often will you have the advantage, how often can you use cunning action etc.

BESW

@GMNoob Aye, mostly the chat but the main/meta site was also wacky for a little while.

doppelgreener

09:25

i have just completed four days of training \o/

time to go back onto a project tomorrow that will maybe also keep me very busy

GMNoob

@BESW I just had a similar problem that the site was not loading.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Wooo!...?

doppelgreener

Compared to what i was doing before, yes \o/

BESW

Woo!

GMNoob

09:54

lol, what a great "con" point in a review of 5e. "a bit derivative of earlier editions"

lisardggY

4e was anything but derivative.

GMNoob

I guess you need to know one of the pros: "And as this new edition brings together mechanical elements from several past editions of D&D, it might have greater appeal to a wider cross-section of fans of this fantasy role-playing game.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1744-The-Wait-is-Over-The-Magic-has-Returned-WotC-Releases-the-D-D-Starter-Set-Pre-Release-Review#.U75PNflxV8E#ixzz373fH7NVr

lisardggY

@GMNoob Heh. Pro: it's derivative of earlier editions. Con: it's derivative of earlier editions.

You can't win, huh?

kviiri

Hah, true.

Solution: just give it a new name instead of incrementing the version number ;)

lisardggY

Ah, but the name is the biggest asset D&D has going for it.

For most of the world, D&D is synonymous with roleplaying games.

kviiri

10:02

Yeah.

GMNoob

@lisardggY I find it even funnier because it says "a bit derivative", as if it wasn't intended to be.

BESW

Mazes & Mutants!

lisardggY

@BESW Awesome red-box reference.

kviiri

Yeah, isn't the very point of new editions to derive from older stuff somewhat?

doppelgreener

I have finally found you, most relevant of Penny Arcade comics: We're ramping up for D&D 5th edition - and we need your input. Tell us how things go at your table.

> The old adage is that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, which is the stated goal of this project. The truth of the matter is that some combination of TSR and Wizards of the Coast actually did please all the people, it’s just that they’re each pleased with their own iteration of the system. They’ve already pleased them; they’re pleased. It’s only a problem if you’re trying to sell them something else.

And the quote I have been looking for from its newspost.

Now think on the "brings together mechanical elements from several past editions" thing.

(This is from January 2012.)

BESW

10:13

@JonathanHobbs Ah, yes, I remember that post.

GMNoob

btw, they never said the goal was to make everybody happy. And they made it clear that if you really love a previous edition, then you should stick with it. They will sell you that old stuff that you want.

doppelgreener

it seems to have been the prevalent attitude back then that it was

GMNoob

@JonathanHobbs Yes, it's still a prevavlent attitude today. But it was caused by people hearing what they wanted to hear.

They did say they wanted players from each edition to feel comfortable at the table.

And to recognize the game and feel as D&D.

doppelgreener

well they are also a company that needs to sell things to make money, and apparently regards the edition that a lot of people responded very negatively to as a mistake

GMNoob

@JonathanHobbs They regard the way they handled the edition a mistake, not the game itself. i.e. not selling pdfs, too much erratta, making players feel like they were being suckered into buying more, etc.

doppelgreener

10:22

that is none of the complaints i heard about it :O

but selling PDFs sure would've helped

GMNoob

The complaints you heard about were symptoms of presentation and other meta issues. Atleast that is how Mearls talks about it.

I know my biggest problem was how I felt like each book didn't have enough content, cost to much, and on top of that they wanted me to pay a monthly subscription

So I didn't even look at the game until the Rules Compendium was released

doppelgreener

I was happy just to have a database of All The Things that didn't require me to buy... all the books

2

I was actually super happy with everything about how they handled that game

including the low levels of fluff. That was what drew me in there.

As for WotC: I have Opinions on what their chosen representatives choose to say about their products. The least of those being that it can often be taken with a grain of salt, because someone's telling someone else what opinion they need to have for the sake of PR.

kviiri

I prefer games where you don't need databases :P

3

doppelgreener

I will not go hugely into depth on those opinions since they're just opinions, but yeah, I don't buy their messages. Their attitude is better read from the sum of their actions, and the words they say taken with caution.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs [ding!]

@kviiri Ai adei, yes, but it took a long time for me to get there and at least one of my players still kind of pines for the databases.

doppelgreener

10:28

@kviiri Oh, yes, well, those too.

I have moved on to one of those. I have a few of very specific points of interest in playing some D&D, but most of those interests are me wanting to see how badly I can break the system by doing certain things.

I will probably never otherwise again go back to a game with a rule for everything.

@BESW also hi!

kviiri

DnD 4e is one of those games I like to play by rules though (note, lack of "the" intentional)

BESW

I tried to modify D&D as little as possible, partly out of laziness and partly out of a somewhat misguided belief that the devs had a better idea how things worked than I did.

GMNoob

@JonathanHobbs Who's actions? Companies are made up of many different people each of which have different opinions and actions.

But it seems pretty clear from the playtest, that the target audience isn't a very active internet audience.

BESW

I hacked D&D 4e mostly through selective monster design, but I also implemented L1E damage and Stalker0's skill challenge variant.

doppelgreener

@GMNoob yes, quite! and the company's, hence the sum of their actions. There are many. Since they're by different people, there's variations. But they'll average toward various directions those people doing the steering take the company in.

kviiri

10:37

@BESW Yes, these are exactly why I omitted the "the" - I feel DnD 4e works the best if it has rigid rules, but it doesn't have to be the original rules.

Or rather, rigid rules in combat. Outside of combat the game can be more relaxed-

BESW

Heh. 4e's non-combat rules are so relaxed they're practically nonextant.

GMNoob

I really liked the unaware condition that somebody invented :)

kviiri

@BESW I like how there's a handful of these rules that never kick in play, in practice.

Like weight limits - everyone's gonna have a bag of holding anyway.

lisardggY

In my one 4e game, I played a Warforged paladin. I had a bag of holding installed in my chest cavity.

Of course, I then went on to leave the game, so my character left as well, rather dramatically, with a chunk of the party's loot still in him.

GMNoob

10:57

@lisardggY until they discovered it was all just a dream.

lisardggY

11:07

I'm ashamed to say I actually used the "it was all a dream" schtick, in earnest.

In my defense, I was 17 years old at the time.

Magician

@BESW So here's a terrible thought. It seems to me that as it currently stands, the entirety of Basic is just as nonextant. You can roll skills and sometimes get advantage, if the GM feels like giving it to you. That's all of Exploration and Roleplaying covered, 2 of 3 pillars. And combat has just enough meat on it for the fighter to hit twice.

GMNoob

wha?

Magician

I was hoping the dread question I've asked about 5e's stand-out features would shed light on some hidden treasure of game design, but as of yet that hasn't happened for me.

GMNoob

That's like saying 3e is all just roll 20 and add modifiers

Magician

Nope! 3e has character building metagame, which is arguably its most fun part.

GMNoob

11:17

so does 5e

even in basic, I have 3 different rogue builds I'm trying to figure out which is best, but I ditched one because there is no RP in the comparison.

There is room to optimize building a character, but if you don't want the hassle you can avoid it.

Magician

Moving away from the lengthy chargen has been their stated goal. There's "just enough for people who want it to be comfortable", near as precise a quote as I can remember.

GMNoob

I can make a character in 5 minutes. I can also craft my character and spend days figure out what's best.

So yes, there is just enough for people who want it to be comfortable, and you also don't have to if you don't want to.

Magician

@GMNoob That speaks to lack of system mastery, rather than system's depths. There may be system depth there, eventually, though they themselves have said there won't be much.

GMNoob

It actually took me longer to fill out my online character sheet than to make one of my chars.

@Magician lots of qualifiers there that don't mean much to me.

Magician

@GMNoob ...I'm not sure if you want me to explain the meaning of a term, or state you don't care for that thought in general.

kviiri

11:30

@GMNoob, I answered your question in SE (with mostly the same stuff I posted here, but somewhat more verbosely and hopefully clearer)

GMNoob

I'm not sure how many options equals "depth"

or how mastery is different than depth.

doppelgreener

it's also complexity of the options, right?

Magician

Naturally I don't want to draw borders. But we can look at systems and state that 4e has system depth, while Roll for Shoes does not (which is not at all like saying Roll for Shoes is bad).

GMNoob

@kviiri Much more clear! thanks

kviiri

@GMNoob Glad to be of use - although unfortunately I can't provide a solution for estimation itself. You could try some statistic analysis ;)

GMNoob

11:33

@kviiri You gave me what I need to know how to move forward

Magician

As for system mastery, that has nothing to do with system's depth. It's how well you understand the entirety of the rules, however complex they are.

GMNoob

@Magician The rules or the math?

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Yup. It's not that there aren't many choices in Basic (there aren't, but that's understandable). It's that they're not themselves complex, and hardly come together into a complex whole.

doppelgreener

@Magician So, I'm curious to hear: outside of chargen, because that's not where this matters, to what extent is 5e just d20+modifiers? Or to what extent is that which other games weren't previously?

Considering, y'know, d20+modifiers is the core mechanic.

Magician

@GMNoob System mastery refers to both, I think. To an understanding of how rules impact maths and how it all resolves in gameplay. Mastery takes time to accumulate.

@JonathanHobbs 5e is d20+modifiers. There isn't much more to resolving an out-of-combat task in it than rolling that. There's occasional (dis)advantage that GM can hang out at their mercy. In-combat, it's not much more involved. Fighter hits things, sometimes twice. Wizards get to do wizardy things, that could be interesting if all the spells didn't make me fall asleep.

As for what other games did, 4e had skill challenges (they didn't work by the rules, but the idea was salvageable), and 4e's combat was so much more than a d20 roll. That's what I'm saying: 4e's skills are same as 5e's skills because it's just a d20 roll.

GMNoob

11:39

The only way I can make any sense of what you are saying, is if "complexity" = "move 5 feet with forced movement"

doppelgreener

It sounds like that might be it. I.e.: 4e Feylock, teleport around, be strategic about getting close but not getting killed. 4e Paladin, keep your folks defended and be careful not to get yourself killed doing it. Wizard, consider where to dump your AOEs to be effective.

Other specialised builds: push and disable as necessary, lend the right buffs, hopefully do not be a class involving a lot of personal accounting.

GMNoob

@Magician To say that "There's occasional (dis)advantage that GM can hang out at their mercy." is to really ignore all the rules that actual grant (dis)advantage. Sure I guess you can ignore them if you want to, but its disingenuous.

kviiri

By the way, this might be because our party is still fairly low-level but I sometimes feel as if DnD 4e plays like a party of solo players in combat, more than a team...

trogdor

@BESW would that be a player of the fire breathing variety?

Magician

@GMNoob Rules that grant advantage are not that interesting to me in this context. In that case, it's just a buff, not significantly different from granting +2, just neater. Advantage on roleplay is interesting because it adds something new to the conversation. Alas, it's all based on GM fiat.

GMNoob

11:46

" Alas, it's all based on GM fiat" Sure if you ignore the rules....

I just don't understand how creating conditions where someone is prone or blinded or hindered or incapacitated etc, are dismissed as not having depth since they create conditions which guarantee (dis)advantage and the other restrictions they place on characters.

The rogue for example always has to decide if they want to use a bonus action for more damage or for tactical positioning, which may sometimes itself add to the damage significatly.

Magician

From the top, then. A game system consists of multiple sub-systems, each of them made up of various interlocking elements. You use Strength to attack but also to do damage and also to move things around. The more elements there are, the more design space there is. A system with forced movement on a grid has more bits to play with. The less elements there are, the more elegant the system is, the easier it is to use.

System complexity is emergent from the sum total of the elements and how they interact. It's not enough to have a rules element, it has to connect to others in a meaningful way.

How does fighter make someone prone, or blinded, or hindered?

GMNoob

@Magician Ability check contests

Aaron

Morning

Magician

As for GM fiat, I was speaking of using advantage out of combat, as that's 2/3rd of the game by their words. Here's what I found in the rules:

"You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions or spels. Inspiration can also give a character advantage on checks related to the character's personality, ideals or bonds. The DM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result."

I haven't yet seen any abilities that would grant advantage in out-of-combat setting, and the rest is pure GM fiat.

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