TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

01:22

!!!?!!!??/??!!!?!!!?!!!????!!1??!???!!?!1?!!!?!!??

2

Q: What is the type of Touch of Gracelessness dexterity penalty?

Today I was reviewing my sorceress spell list for before our game tonight, and I came to the description of the 1st level spell "Touch of Gracelessness", specifically the text that describes the effect. According to the online SRD it reads as follows: The target takes a penalty to its Dexte...

pathfinder

pathfinder has ability damage and ability drain and penalties (which can apply to abilities)

BESW

Eeeyup.

It's ported pretty much unchanged from 3.5, so far as I can tell.

The reason being, implicitly, that you need so much variation in order to accurately depict the various kinds of ability-impacting effects the setting has to offer.

IE, subsystems = verisimilitude.

doppelgreener

my mind is reeling a little

so, there's ability damage, which is temporary and restores over time

and there's ability drain, which could just be expressed as "permanent ability damage"

but then i reach the point where it describes the creature will gain temporary HP, which means it's a form of vampirism so it isn't that simple

(unless the creature's ability specifies otherwise)

Metool

there's also ability burn, which is ability damage that you can't magically heal

doppelgreener

@Metool hrngh just so long as nothing refers to curing ability burn or whatever this is acceptable as shorthand for "ability damage you can't magically heal" and not a rules exception

BESW

01:37

@JonathanHobbs And how messed up is it to have a feature which converts a permanent unit of competence into a temporary unit of endurance?

doppelgreener

@BESW well, it doesn't convert it for the player who lost it, so it's more like a mind flayer going "NOM NOM NOM DELICIOUS" and gaining hp

BESW

It's a mechanic which causes one creature to endure long-lasting debility in exchange for another creature lasting another round in that fight.

doppelgreener

in hindsight i'd be inclined to redesign these mechanics as just... ability damage.
ability drain -> "permanent ability damage"
ability drain with the vampirism -> "You deal 1d3 permanent ability damage and regain 5 temporary HP per point."
everything that cures ability drain -> "cures ability damage." so it cures regular ability damage too. who cares if it's permanent.
ability burn -> is NOT a concept, but just a writing shorthand for convenience of psionic classes to say "ability damage which cannot be cured magically." Nothing can interact with ability burn, because it isn't a thing on i…

ability score penalty? what's that? [shows it the door, specifically the one that leads to a 1,000 foot drop]

BESW

One does not simply redesign 3.5 subsystems.

Metool

@JonathanHobbs A penalty is temporary, and this one in particular has a duration of 1 round per caster level, a lot shorter than it would take for it to heal naturally, and I'm willing to bet things don't play nicely with ability damage that is healed after a short duration.

BESW

01:49

Ability penalties heal over time; ability damage heals over longer time; ability drain does not heal and grants pathetic goodies to the inflictor.

(In all seriousness, 5 temp hp? That's enough extra buffer on your health to let you blink unhappily before you die.)

doppelgreener

@BESW this is more like: "if i were designing the same thing from the ground up, what would i do so as to achieve a similar effect and not have my book channel nyarlathotep's graces"

doppelgreener

02:14

@BESW and yeah, at the stage you might be encountering monsters who can use ability drain (because it won't be horribly crippling forever at that point hopefully), an attack that deals 5hp is like a scrape on your knee or something

better yet: scrap the idea of ability drain completely because permanent reductions in competency is a terrible device of attack

Joshua Aslan Smith

hola

BESW

[wave]

@JonathanHobbs Spsh. Now read about energy drain.

doppelgreener

02:35

@BESW no plz

if i reach 5 insanity i'm going to have to relieve it by purging the world of 3.5e manuals

Metool

Ack, hit dice.

doppelgreener

personally i have some pretty deep respect for both D&D 4e and Magic: the Gathering in that they have well-defined mechanics, and new effects are a combination of the existing mechanics, not an exception and addition to or layer upon the existing mechanics

(they introduce new abilities occasionally in M:tG, but at a manageable rate that does not turn into an exception pile because nothing cares about those abilities, it cares about the mechanics those abilities re-use)

like, Dredge: nothing cares about Dredge. Dredge is composed of card drawing, self-milling and other relevant mechanics. Things care about those mechanics.

things that help or hamper Dredge do so by interacting with the mechanics Dredge makes use of, not by mentioning Dredge itself

Metool

Help, there are artifacts with no school of magic to their auras, artifacts with all the schools, and artifacts with the Universal school and two others. [not MtG]

doppelgreener

@Metool wait. The Universal school, and two others, but not 'all the schools'?

BESW

> A small number of spells (arcane mark, limited wish, permanency, prestidigitation, and wish) are universal, belonging to no school.

[watches Hobbs's brain melt]

Metool

02:46

> Aura strong enchantment, necromancy, and universal; CL 20th

BESW

The idea behind "universal" is that every spell needs a school... but wizards have to choose schools they can't cast from... but some spells should be castable by all wizards... so we'll have a non-school school for those spells.

doppelgreener

@BESW okay, so does universal mean every school or no school? i can understand universal in terms of magic.

but i can't understand it in terms of artifacts belonging to Universal.

BESW

Ah, that's fun.

See, artifacts are magic items.

You can use detect magic to figure out the school of spells used to create a magic item.

doppelgreener

so Universal is neither "every school" nor "no school", it is its own school, that is in turn available to everyone

BESW

So if you need charm, enervation, and prestidigitation to make an artifact, it'll detect as enchantment, necromancy, and universal.

Right. It's supposed to be the "N/A" entry.

But they made it the not-any-other-school school instead.

doppelgreener

02:51

this is only barely good

and i must away. bye!

BESW

ttfn

Metool

I reiterate: Gah, hit dice.

BESW

I am imagining Cathy playing D&D.

Metool

Oh?

BESW

Metool

02:56

I see...

I'm really having trouble figuring out intent on this item. I need coffee.

BESW

Coffee is an excellent idea.

[cold brew + brown sugar + cinnamon + vanilla + vanilla soy milk]

Metool

03:12

So this magical painting traps a creature, as the binding spell, and according to that spell, you can set a release condition based on observable things, as well as on name, identity, or alignment, but not on level, class, hit dice, or hit points.

But hit points are observable, because power word spells act on specific values... And hit dice are observable, because the painting "creates a duplicate of the subject that lasts for 1 day per Hit Die the creature possesses."

BESW

@Metool "Is released when the painting is viewed by a boy named Sue."

(Attempts to trick the painting by bringing it a man named Sioux were unsuccessful.)

Joking aside (but not speaking seriously either, as this is 3.5 and seriousness would be misplaced) "observable qualities" has always been a 3.5 bugaboo.

To the best of my knowledge they're defined per spell rather than as a standardised term.

Metool

03:28

Alright... I'm still concerned, then, by how this artifact makes ability scores, ability modifiers, and hit dice observable things.

Probably a few other things have, too, like the wizard classic, sleep.

Ah well.

BESW

Hush, don't struggle. The logic will be gone soon.

BESW

04:06

@Magician Thanks for the accept. I was hoping to get a clarification on Brian's comment, but it just vanished...

Magician

Yeah, not sure what happened to that.

Good morning, etc., etc.

BESW

Hi!

BESW

05:24

More Mystery Incorporated amusement:
Subtitle: [cows growling]

"Like, Scooby old pal, we're doing the 'gather around behind Velma while she researches things' thing. Care to join us?"

BESW

05:53

....oh, Fred. I don't think "Hitting someone in the face with a shovel" counts as a trap.

3

Magician

@BESW Wait, it doesn't?

trogdor

a trap is only a trap if Admiral Ackbar says it is

Magician

06:22

Fate is tricky. I'm trying to write up stunts for a supers team extra, and realizing that half of my ideas are better expressed as aspects.

trogdor

a lot of things in Fate can be aspects

Magician

Here, in case anyone wants to take a look and help out.

trogdor

and even probably should

not all, but a lot

Magician

I'm trying to keep the number of extra aspects down, though, as it could easily get out of hand.

And, of course, I could be overthinking this and it could not be all that useful in-game...

trogdor

these look like they should be stunts

Magician

06:32

I've had Officially Sanctioned as a stunt originally, +2 to Rapport when dealing with authorities. It can probably go back into that category. But trying to write up Training Facilities (a la Danger Room), I realized it basically comes down to "we've trained for this exact thing", which is best handled as an invocation of an aspect.

trogdor

yeah

I think part of what you want to look at is how the item you are looking at is intended to be used

and how it mechanically works

+2 to doing a specific thing with a specific skill is generally a stunt

but anything that starts to get more broad than a specific type of thing done with a specific skill is going to more likely need to be an aspect

if you specified a narrow kind of training, like hand to hand combat, especially with a very specific weapon, that can be a stunt

Magician

Yeah. I started with teams just having a high concept (and any temporary advantages inflicted upon them), but it seems like some of the staples of the genre are best described as additional aspects

trogdor

though you could also make an aspect of like "I love my Samurai Katana"

Magician

I think specific training better fits on an individual character sheet.

trogdor

yeah

it probably does, I am just saying that anything like that needs to be pretty specific and narrow to work as a stunt

Magician

06:40

True.

Do the stunts look reasonable?

I'm fairly comfortable with the kind that give +2 to a narrow field or allow to use a different skill in a narrow field, but the third kind, the ones that just alter the rules, are a different story.

BESW

[wanders over to look]

trogdor

I am not sure

those are always hard

Magician

Eeep, people!

BESW

Team Transport feels a little shaky. The others are great.

Magician

@BESW Yeah, it's basically a way to not worry about logistics of getting to the adventure. I'm not sure if it's worthwhile either.

BESW

06:49

Suggestion: make an extra that provides the team with a Resources skill and stress track.

Magician

Hmmm. Probably not a good fit for our game, but would definitely work for others.

A player had actually requested we don't include a media stress track, as they didn't want to focus on managing PR too much.

Are there other team/headquarters prominent examples that I'm missing?

There's the Wise Butler, +2 to Empathy to overcome mental stress?..

BESW

Batcaves Everywhere?

Well Networked?

Magician

@BESW Wouldn't that be an individual stunt, though? I guess not necessarily.

BESW

(see also: army of homeless orphans)

@Magician If the team has got boltholes and supply caches squirrelled away around the city....

Magician

@BESW So what would this actually do?

BESW

06:59

@Magician Once per session, the team has a contact, informant, or fan in just the right place to help out.

Magician

That works. I've called it Popular Support.

BESW

The waiter lets you look at the guest list, the cop tips you off, the night watchman smuggles you onto the grounds...

Daphne: "You know, Freddy, that kidnapping really turned out to be a great experience for me!"

lisardggY

Good morning* to you all.

* - morning only available in selected timezones. Other times of day will be substituted where appropriate.

BESW

[wave]

Inbar Rose

10:18

Morning.

Ish

BESW

11:06

An observation from last night's game, unrelated to horror gaming: if you make something up and don't try to explain it, no matter how ridiculous or verifiably asinine, the party will explain it for you.

In this case, I invented the "ascot cinch," a variant on the tie clip, and two players immediately began explaining it to the third player.

(Apparently it's a decorative bracelet-y band that you incorporate into the knot of the neckband to keep it from coming undone.)

trogdor

11:35

hey, it works

Zachiel

12:31

what's a neckband?

is it a tie?

kviiri

A little orchestra that you carry around your neck.

Joking aside, I've mostly heard it used to refer to stuff on headphones, cameras etc so they wouldn't fall too far from your head.

Zachiel

Is there really a neckband for headphones?

[Zachiel just deals with them falling case by case]

And passing the cable under your shirt usually works, unless you're shirtless.

kviiri

@Zachiel One of my friends has one at least. I don't think they're that common though.

They're wireless, so the cable trick won't work :)

Zachiel

12:48

Oh well if they're wireless you need something not to lose them, right

BESW

@Zachiel A tie is a kind of neckband.

In this case, an ascot is a wider, thicker neckband, like a cross between a tie and a scarf.

It's the orange thing Fred wears in Scooby Doo.

trogdor

yeah

I know that is what it is, but it was a little hard to explain

doppelgreener

13:15

@BESW what's this regarding? :o

BESW

@JonathanHobbs I just finished watching Mystery, Incorporated.

It's really rather brilliant, I think.

doppelgreener

oh wow alright xD

well it's a trap in the sense an ambush is a trap maybe?

doppelgreener

13:51

@BESW well it did seem to make some semblance of sense and i think that is the key, though i don't think the description i ended up with is the same as the description you provided at first

@BESW okay actually I think this is fantastic upon reflection

picture the scene:

the characters creep into the room

something seems amiss

they do their perception check type thing, they notice wires and hints of contraptions. the room must be trapped!

they get to work looking over everything, trying to carefully disarm it...

then a mysterious assailant just steps out of the shadows and hits someone in the face with a shovel.

Ha-haaaa! You fools! There wasn't a trap at all! It was just a distraction so I could sneak up on you with a shovel! That was the real trap!

(I am totally going to do exactly this one day.)

Dave

16:36

So, got a convention, not an rpg convention but general "geek stuff", coming up and I'm thinking of trying something a bit different.
The guy running it appears to have mostly 1-hour slots (something I decided was far to short at the event I help organize). I was thinking about going for a set of linked games, each part of a larger plot and giving insight into the setting they take part in. Most will be driven by previous games, but if I don't have a break in between some might be simultaneous or otherwise disconnected, possibly operating in batches.

Metool

Sounds neat in concept.

Dave

System-wise it would be really light, characters pregenerated with perhaps room for a minor customization.

Phil

@Dave With slots that short I'd go pure pregens

Dave

Or a system where character features could be bought in-play, due to the time constraint it could work.

@Phil, true. I prefer to give them some option, but agree that it might not be possible,

Phil

trouble is, by the time you've given then the opportunity to customise, you've lost a quarter of your time slot

Dave

16:40

I think you may be overestimating how much I mean by customization.
Pick-a-word-from-a-list-of-four is what I was thinking.

Do that twice and they've at least shaped the character.

Phil

That sounds doable

A bit like certain parts of Dungeon World chargen

Dave

Yeah, guess where I got the idea!

But with actual game effect.

kviiri

17:14

Ooh, new face in chat! (at least I don't think I've seen you before)

Dave

I'm not on much.

Hi.

kviiri

Hello!

Dave

I'm just writing up a sort of "Social Contract Guide" for GMs at a convention I'm doing.

Or, I'm putting off doing so!

kviiri

Heh, I know that feeling.

Dave

17:33

Trying to not make it look like more work for GMs, or a license for them to kick out players without trying to sort it out. We had a terrible GM last year who put a few folks off, and I don't want a repeat.

Dave

17:47

It's way too long.

kviiri

Out of curiosity, what con?

Dave

Alcon.

It's a UK anime convention.

Zachiel

18:18

Hello @Dave

Dave

Hello @Zachiel

It's still too long, but I think it'll be ok.

Zachiel

One hour solts? Bring minigames like "What Is A Roleplaying Game"

Dave

Hopefully they'll have someone else for that, and I can do something weird!

Also, I meant my document was too long. Mind taking a look?

Zachiel

18:51

Actually yes, I'm not really present now

Dave

No worries.

Zachiel

Maybe when I'm back tonight

A friend that lives away from here is in town for a few days, I'm going to the welcome party.

Byeeeeeeeeeee.

Dave

Have fun.

BESW

21:01

@Dave Hi!

kviiri

@BESW, what a coincidence! I just stumbled upon this: imgur.com/gallery/DGrzs

It appears historical English private soldiers and guards used red coats as well - although not quite as fabulous as the ones in the pictures I posted the last time.

BESW

Cool.

BESW

22:41

@Grubermensch [wave]

Grubermensch

I exist

I ran FAE

It was... oddd

BESW

Do tell!

Grubermensch

one of the players had a lot of difficulty narrating

also i had difficulty working some of the rules

and forgot how to count, which is always fun

BESW

Oh, counting. Bah.

Grubermensch

yeah i ran some mobs but forgot to count the stress boxes correctly

so they fell off too quickly

the one player really was looking for a lot more structure defining what would be possible in the game

rather than a sort of open-ended "do things!" directive

BESW

22:47

Ah, yeah.

Grubermensch

a lot of "I [approach]-ily [action]"

BESW

That can be a challenge--some people take a while to adjust to that playstyle, and it's not a playstyle for everyone.

Grubermensch

she also had difficulty coming up with aspects, for kinda the same reason

The other player, who DMs an AD&D/2e game I play in, played better, but said he still preferred a more structured system.

BESW

I've noticed that Approach+Action style narration is a pitfall of Fate games. It can be overcome, but I've got a rant about it upstream on the chat somewhere.

Grubermensch

it's really something common to basically all games

because people run out of ideas eventually

BESW

22:50

Hmm. Disagree. It's a common problem in games where mechanics can substitute for narration.

Jul 17 at 1:41, by BESW

By contrast, games of Roll For Shoes and Cthulhu Dark, because their mechanics are so incredibly sparse and broad, demand more thoughtful narration for every action because there's nothing in the game system to prop up lazy narrative.

Grubermensch

but how long that takes differs on how much experience the person has with improvisation and how good they are at mentally stepping into the roll

@BESW I think it's more that there's a selection bias at work. Mixed up with a learning effect.

BESW

It's interesting to me that Fate falls neatly across the divide between "the mechanics don't tell me what I can do," and "I can substitute 'what I do' narration with 'what mechanic I use' description."

Grubermensch

Playing a system which rewards or assumes more narration means you are getting more practice with narrating, so you get better at it.

And the reverse comes from systems that are very mechanical.

BESW

I'd agree, but when we go back to Fate with the same players, they revert to mechanical description really easily.

Grubermensch

@BESW From RFS you mean?

BESW

22:54

@Grubermensch And Cthulhu Dark, and Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, and so forth.

Games like RFS, CD, and PotFT literally don't have mechanics which can be used as sufficient description for actions.

Grubermensch

Yeah so you're right about that too.

BESW

CD has one action mechanic: roll to determine degree of success.

Grubermensch

Yeah I feel like the one mechanic systems though make it hard to model complex moves.

If we take Fate for instance, I think Creating an Advantage makes it much more interesting than RFS.

But you have to be able to bring that narration.

BESW

The complexity spectrum of RPGs is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around for my own MLP system design.

Grubermensch

Maybe it's a reward issue

so at the one end, you've got RFS, et al. where you have to describe because that's literally all that you can do

And then you've got something like D&D at the other end, where there's very little benefit to extra narration.

Fate is almost more D&D-like in one sense.

Because the mechanics assume you narrate. But at the same time, there's no real necessity to because the actions are provided, and there's no reward for narration.

Contrast this to Exalted, where the mechanics allow you to narrate, but also allow you to just do mechanics things. But when you narrate, the GM is encouraged to bestow rewards explicitly for the narration itself.

Both an immediate reward (extra dice in the die pool) and a resource replenishment.

BESW

23:02

Yeah. I have trouble with systems that give the GM power to declare what is and isn't "good RP," but games which can be played purely mechanically are increasingly lackluster to me.

Grubermensch

Now on the one hand you can talk about how this knights the GM as Defender of the One True Way to Role-Play

yeah

however, it provides a way to overcome that sloth that leads to "I hit him" style play

I really feel like having the players reward each other for being interesting players is a good thing

but i'm not wedded to the idea of throwing all that power to the GM

Exalted also has a strong suggestion that at the end of the session, players decide by consensus to award bonus XP to whomever was the most awesome on a variety of dimensions that session

i think what would be good is a way to get the whole table into the awarding, but it needs to be fluid enough to not screech a scene to a halt

BESW

I'm interested in finding compromises between "popularity contest" and "GM dictatorship."

Grubermensch

mhm exactly that's the difficulty

something like the fate point economy is almost attractive

but i'm not a fan of the idea of penalizing the act of rewarding another player

via depleting your own pool of points

also because since the GM is immune to this penalty, it would probably tend back to the GM awarding

what about something like bidding in>

everybody starts with x points or something

if you want to reward something, toss a point in

the points only get passed on if above some threshold are put in

BESW

I'm also reminded of something I ran into regularly in 3.5, where you could get mechanical bonuses in social situations, like a +2 to your Diplomacy check, for role-playing the conversation really well.

Grubermensch

and only points that are "awarded" count for anything, if you hoard them, the just disappear

alas, dinner

BESW

23:11

But you couldn't get a +2 to your attack if you acted out the sword-swinging.

Grubermensch

i'll be back in like twenty minutes

yeah that whole mess is a weird d&d-ism

BESW

The day I realised that my dumb-as-pants Charisma-dump minotaur who drained the life from everything he touched was a better diplomat than the bard because I'm better at social stuff than the bard's player was probably the day my love for D&D began to fester.

(And yes, I know it's a GM/group issue rather than one inbuilt to the system itself, but it's also endemic to the community. Moreover, I think it was the first time I realised --albeit subconsciously-- that D&D wasn't actually able to support the playstyles I desired)

BESW

23:36

@Murch [wave]

Grubermensch

back

Murch

Hey there :)

Grubermensch

I mean D&D has a significant problem with the way it models social interaction.

Murch

@Grubermensch: Just don't model social interaction with rules. Play it, and do what's good for the story.

Just make it harder for people to achieve something through social engineering if their characters are not supposed to be good at it.

Grubermensch

@Murch That's the D&D mentality, and it's really, really bad if you want to do a lot of social things.

BESW

23:39

@Murch Unfortunately, that's the "If the GM can fix it, is it broken?" argument. Ignoring problematic rules doesn't make the the system itself any better, just the individual play experience.

Grubermensch

Like D&D has no inbuilt way to model a negotiation. None. Nothing at all.

Murch

Well, I have never found a set of rules that really worked well for social interactions.

Grubermensch

I mean, have you met many combat rules that really work well to approximate how actual combat works? My guess is not so much.

BESW

There isn't any one universal "best" system for anything, but D&D offers next to nothing.

Grubermensch

It's all an approximation.

Murch

23:41

Okay, I might have stepped into the mid of things here.

What I meant to say is, I have not found any set of rules that has improved the experience of solving social situations for me over just playing them.

Of course there still are worse and better tries at offering a framework

Grubermensch

@Murch "Just playing" PvP social hasn't ever worked for me in practice.

"versus" used expansively there

BESW

@Murch The general topic is how to mechanically encourage narrating our actions (rather than just describing the mechanics we're using).

Murch

And I certainly didn't mean to suggest that rpg rules are supposed simulate real life. What fun would that be. ;)

Grubermensch

@BESW Yes this is somewhat of a tangent from that, tbh.

Murch

@BESW Interesting

Grubermensch

23:44

Rolling back, I'm curious what your thoughts are @BESW on the suggestion I made before?

BESW

Unisystem, and Fate, and Dogs in the Vineyard, all have moderate success in the "social conflict modelling" arena because they use a generic conflict system for all kinds of conflict.

2

@Grubermensch The "bidding" thing?

Grubermensch

@BESW yeah

BESW

I'd have to see it fleshed out a little, I don't think I totally understand it. But I have two problems with what I see: first, it looks like another "popularity contest" mechanic; second, it looks like it'd drag things out more than I'd want, unless it's an "end of session only" thing.

Grubermensch

Dragging out is definitely a concern there. The popularity contest issue is tricky. In some sense this is supposed to be a popularity contest, almost like art criticism.

BESW

@Murch My experience has been that you either set up a scenario where someone(s) are in a position to dictate what "good narration" is and reward/punish others for conforming to that vision; or you take away the ability to replace action narrative with mechanical description by only providing mechanics insufficient to describe the action on their own.

That feels like a false dichotomy, though, so I'm hoping to find some middle ground for my own MLP game design.

Grubermensch

23:49

I don't know that there's any way to get around requiring the people at the table to decide that something is "good narration"

Without bundling Strong AI into the rulebook, and that seems like a poor choice.

Murch

@Grubermensch Even if there is rules for it, in the end it always comes down to the table, doesn't it?

BESW

(There's also the matter of how much I trust my players: if a game doesn't trust its players to make good group decisions, it dictates every little nuance of the game experience. If it does trust them, then it can easily give them too little to work with.)

Grubermensch

@Murch For narration, not necessarily for in-game social interactions.

BESW

Jul 29 at 12:55, by BESW

(There's a difference between trusting one's players and throwing them to the wolves.)

Grubermensch

@BESW I think trusting the players is a prerequisite to having a reward system like this.

BESW

23:51

@Murch One point of contention in the RPG community is the extent to which a system's mechanics influence the experience at the table.

Grubermensch

If you can't trust the players, you'll have to rely on only things that the rules can give you.

BESW

afk a bit

Murch

I think I might be too tired to properly partake in this discussion right now. – It's almost 2am here. ;)

Grubermensch

Mm then I shall wait for @BESW to return.

Murch

Sorry, it sounds really interesting, but I feel like I am only throwing you back right now. ;)

Grubermensch

23:55

it's cool, i've been there

BESW

@Murch The 2am thing is valid, but it's often easy for this kind of conversation to get too theoretical and "begin with words and end with words." Keeping us grounded can be important.

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