TRPG General Chat

Metool

00:56

How well would a "team of passionate people with strong leadership skills who always voice their opinions" do at... well, anything?

wax eagle

01:24

@Metool heh

Adeptus

02:53

0

Q: How would you penalize a Total Party Kill without killing them?

I have a lot of story planned and it's just as lame for me as it is for them.

Obvious answer is, make it non-lethal. But I'm not sure I can word it well enough.

also not sure that it counts as a "good question"?

shatterspike1

Yeah, the question doesn't seem particularly well thought out.

doppelgreener

03:49

@Adeptus yeah it doesn't count as a good question yet

The Oracle

04:15

0

Q: Answers that do not answer the question

When I gave this answer, I may have provided good information, but I didn't actually answer the question. Now there is this answer, which does answer the question, or at least comes a lot closer. Should I remove my answer? In general, what is the correct course of action for answers that don't an...

discussion

BESW

04:39

[wave] Power went off for about four hours today, and then we had a 5.4 earthquake.

Magician

Wow.

Everyone alright?

BESW

Yeah, no reported damage on Guam yet and Rota's still gathering info but nothing yet.

In 1993 we had a 7.8 that killed no one. Two buildings had to be demolished as unsafe afterward; it turned out both of them had been constructed in violation of local building codes.

We are seriously earthquake-resilient here.

This was an unusually long one, though. Started low and ramped up over time.

But then, you're living in The Land That Earthquakes Forgot.

Magician

Never been in an earthquake.

Adeptus

I've been in a couple of very minor tremors.
First one, I thought it was a heavy truck going past. No damage as far as I know.
Second one was bigger, at first we thought it could have been an explosion, except it went on for too long. A few houses had new cracks from foundations shifting a little.

trogdor

@BESW yeah, it really surprised me

I almost forgot they existed till this one hit

doppelgreener

04:57

@BESW this one time i woke up to something that felt like an earthquake; my family didn't figure out what it was until later when we discovered half our front brick fence had collapsed

(it was a very small quake :P)

Metool

I'm taking magical pony roleplay too seriously.

BESW

@Metool How?!

Metool

Context: One character just proposed to another.

<Iron-Heart> Can you tell me what [marriage] means, then?
<Iron-Heart> how it shapes interactions with the world
<Iron-Heart> government and society
<ALT|Crystal> Oh... then no, i can't answer that then...
<ALT|Crystal> im not married... and i don't plan to be for a while
<Iron-Heart> Ah. Well, not going to tell you what to do, I'll just note that I wouldn't go through with it in-character unless the character had done appropriate consideration for their foresight, and I had done actual consideration.

BESW

05:19

@MrTheWalrus Hi!

Metool

@BESW So yeah, that's how.

BESW

@Metool [amused]

Metool

Any advice for solving this particular problem?

(The taking it too seriously thing?)

BESW

Well, as a general rule I use the "Is everyone safe? Is everyone happy?" guideline.

It's a priority thing; if everyone's safe and happy then I can start worrying about other things. But it's also a good way of reminding myself that I don't have to worry about other stuff if "safe and happy" are being met.

I recently came across a priority/reaction strategy that I'm still processing.

In it, you respond to every new thing by asking "So?"

doppelgreener

@Metool magical pony roleplay is always serious

3

BESW

05:27

"So what does this change?"
"So what happens if I ignore it?"
"So can I do anything about it?"
and so forth.

Magician

2

BESW

@Magician [speechless approval]

BESW

07:35

@InbarRose, @kadu [wave]

kadu

[wave back]

I'm amused how a single answer on a question that just popped up in my SO sidebar just launched my reputation in rpgSE above my SO one

BESW

That's what happens when a person manages to post even a half-decent answer to a question that gets over seven thousand views.

I got a gold badge out of it and it's now my third-highest-voted post ever.

kadu

I guess. and outside SO questions are more open-ended, more fun to research and given less attention

I noticed that, was rooting for you getting that one when I saw they accepted mine hahha

BESW

Thanks.

kadu

I miss RPGing, need to try and find a nearby table

BESW

07:43

Where are you?

kadu

Oz, moved in a year ago from Brazil

BESW

Cool. We do have some active users in Australia, including one of our mods and a couple of the people who frequent this chat.

@Mãhãd Hi! You'll need at least 20 rep on any one Stack Exchange site before you can type in chat rooms, but you're welcome to hang out until then.

Adeptus

Yep, South Aussie here. What part are you in?

kadu

there's a gaming group in uni, I'll see if they have anything going on

Hey, Adeptus. In Sydney

BESW

I've actually got a couple friends from Brisbane joining my weekly group via Skype recently.

(Being in the same time zone makes it easier.)

Adeptus

07:46

ah yeah, uni groups are usually a good place to start. The other place to look is gaming stores (not sure what stores are in Sydney, but I know there are some)

kadu

I know or even near. I'm a full 13h away from my favourite GMs

BESW

My IRL player attendance is very spotty; I've got one player who shows up every week [waves @trogdor] and two others who come... sometimes... and last week one of them brought her brother.

kadu

@Adeptus, yeah, it had just been away from my mind, but I know the shops. It's just so hard finding cool GMs without knowing anyone inside.

@BESW more people, always fun

BESW

So I've taken to using short-form systems and running adventures which only take one or two sessions to complete, so people still feel like they can just show up whenever they're able.

Adeptus

I got invited to play via skype in waxeagle's 5e game... except he's somewhere in the US, so when he was playing, I was at work :P

BESW

07:48

I've found that long-form campaigns drive away people who can't commit to regular attendance, no matter how accommodating I make it.

And occasionally, when I can carve out the time in my schedule and the planets align, I run some games in SE chat.

Adeptus

eep, is that the time? Excuse me while I dash off... ttyl

BESW

(All chat rooms associated with RPG.SE have a dice service.)

kadu

amazing hahaha

BESW

@Adeptus ttfn

kadu

@Adeptus see you

@BESW I know what you mean. I like investing time and effort in my characters, making them compelling and realistic, but it's hard for me to commit to anything regular because sometimes I have surges in workload

BESW

07:52

Aye. I'm having to learn a totally different approach to campaign design, and find new systems to fit the new paradigm.

Happily I love system-hunting.

And a lot of the best "pick up and play for one night" systems are not only quick to learn and quick to design for, but also free!

kadu

And it's particularly frustrating that I had to abandon some good characters just after starting. My GURPS table fell apart because the two GMs broke up, my GoT one because the GM had to move and my Werewolf because some players were being asses

Yeah, those are indeed fun

Did a few one-shot campaigns

BESW

A big element in one-shot play with an unpredictable group of participants is being able to make characters in under ten minutes.

Putting more effort than that into a character makes it hard to let go of them after the night's over, as well as eating into play time.

roll-for-shoes is probably best at that: you pick a name and you're ready to play. My group's really in love with cthulhu-dark right now, too, which is just "name and occupation."

kadu

Yeah, I usually asked the system beforehand, made decent characters and kept an archive

But it also doesn't help when my characters are deep and complex and no one else's is hahaha

I play board games with some friends, will suggest a short campaign tonight

BESW

For more complex games we're using fate-core and Fate Accelerated most of the time. It's hard not to have a character in those systems without at least a little depth.

(All of these games are free and have links to their downloads in the tag wikis.)

kadu

I was just gonna ask that

BESW

07:59

Roll For Shoes is seven bullet points in its entirety; Cthulhu Dark is less than a front-and-back page, with two more pages of extra rules and scenario construction advice; Fate Accelerated is about 75 pages and Fate Core is an expanded version with more fiddly bits for customisation.

kadu

I was just looking at cthulhu dark

All D6es?

BESW

Yup.

3d6 per player (one must be distinguishable from the other two) and 1d6 for the Keeper.

Roll For Shoes uses small pools of d6s and Fate uses Fudge dice which can be approximated with d6s.

kadu

I have 0/1/2 fudge dice

From some board game

BESW

Oh, cool.

(I'm making dinner, so will be erratically here.)

kadu

I will be leaving for dinner soon

what are you making, if I may ask?

BESW

08:09

Whole wheat rigatoni with sautéed/stir fried onions and vege-burger.

(I might use leftover falafel instead of vege-burger, haven't decided yet.)

kadu

sounds good. vegetarian?

or reducing consumption?

The Oracle

0

Q: Do we need the [adventure-writing] tag?

So we have this tag: adventure-writing. I thought this was about creating adventures. That seems to be what people use it for, too. Because, y'know, 'writing' them is the standard way to make them. Apparently it isn't about that though, because its summary says: This question focuses on the w...

discussion tags

BESW

Roughly vegan-plus-fish, for reasons of health and happiness.

kadu

I understand, a nearly-vegetarian friend of mine eats fish and offal for the same reasons

doppelgreener

D'you really mean to use the word offal?

kadu

08:16

yes, blood and internal organs

doppelgreener

Oh wow okay nevermind. I was about to post Inigo Montoya here, haha.

kadu

usually sausages made specifically from those and nothing else

BESW

My mother doesn't eat non-fish meat and keeps dairy/eggs to a minimum, and I need to have a very low-cholesterol diet, so it works out to "roughly vegan + fish."

kadu

yeah, makes sense. I think offal makes sense because it's frequently wasted. If I went veg* I'd abolish milk and eggs before offal

but it's very cholesterol rich

BESW

I'll eat lean meat when there's not something else available while eating out, but I keep it to a minimum as much as possible.

kadu

08:18

@doppelgreener, what by Inigo?

doppelgreener

I was going to post that c(:

kadu

ahahhaha nope, I meant it =P

well

doppelgreener

Evidently!

kadu

gotta go eat the college grub, see you guys

BESW

ttfn

doppelgreener

08:20

See you. :D

BESW

@doppelgreener He's a fellow Ozian, in Sydney.

doppelgreener

:O

Metool

[woot woot]

Love that feeling when you make up shared backstory in play.

BESW

Yey!

Metool

Over drinks, no less.

BESW

08:36

Mmm, sautéeing in a rice cooker.

Metool

Mmm, pony bonding.

BESW

08:49

I'm not sure if this answer is a duplicate or not, but it should be helpful at least. Maybe you can edit your question to show how it's different from that one, so answers can be more useful to you. — BESW 2 mins ago

(IE: VTC as dupe?)

Metool

09:29

Well, that helped my mood significantly. Now to stay awake for several hours, waiting.

BESW

10:09

@Mourdos Yopp!

Metool

Mmm, here here is a summary of the roleplaying session I just had in the form of out of character commentary.

(( Yes, it has a link back to this chat. ))

Ack, OoC brackets, what are you doing here?

BESW

ack, ooc!

doppelgreener

15

A: How do I explain stress to a d20 crowd?

“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.” - Bruce Lee New players to FATE won't necessarily have much trouble learning what the stress track is about. The issue here is that your players already understand one way of doing things, and are apparently trying to...

I need to update this answer now that I know what on earth I'm talking about (and realise I didn't understand stress tracks well back then)

BESW

Okay, so this Saturday we should be doing Lady Blackbird and can have Skypery.

@doppelgreener Yes.

Oh, I had an interesting experience/learning with Cthulhu Dark last week.

If you play it with the "roll dice for every action" attitude of more traditional RPGs, the game kind of breaks.

You succeed at lots of minute early-game actions and then go cracking insane.

Or you play it safe and succeed at a lot of mostly useless actions but don't really get in on much of the Fun Stuff.

doppelgreener

10:34

because of the time taken rolling?

BESW

Because the point of Cthulhu Dark is to act in the face of horror. If you play it safe, you act... not in the face of horror.

The new player last week rolled for every minor action his character did, but he almost never risked his sanity voluntarily.

It was especially interesting because he wasn't acting out of "traditional RPG" habits; it was the first tabletop RPG he'd ever played.

doppelgreener

@BESW he might have heard how they work though, or picked up on the explanation he has to roll for his actions

BESW

Probably.

He got taught Cthulhu Dark shotgun style by all the other players while I was putting together the adventure.

doppelgreener

it sounds like the rule of thumb should be something like: roll when there's actually going to be a notable difference between passable and brilliant success

like, when it's worth thinking about how well they succeeded

though i don't know if i would have suspected it being worth it to roll for how well someone made a sandwich

BESW

Ah, yeah, that was a player who has a fairly well-honed sense of the ridiculous.

So for him, it was probably more like "Is it funny to barely or brilliantly succeed at making a sandwich? I'm playing a circus strongman named Scooby who is cosplaying as the Thing, so yes. Yes, it is funny."

doppelgreener

10:44

@BESW yes x) i guess it is

kadu

11:14

How was your rigatoni, @BESW?

BESW

Good!

The falafel and onion was very good on it, and my mother rebuilt the tahini-Tabasco sauce from last night too.

kadu

I love chilli with tahini

BESW

11:33

Oh, @kadu, if you're interested in more quick-start RPG options, check out Lady Blackbird. It's an adventure module with premade characters and a starting scenario to improvise off of during play.

You can find a link to it in my profile, in the bit where I talk about what games I'm using now.

kadu

I'll go see that.

How hard are the systems we spoke about for begginer GMs?

*begginner

BESW

(And, again, it's free.)

Hrm. Well, the systems are fine and easy. However, most of the ones I'm using do assume you have some experience with RPGs to draw on.

Fate Core is probably the most "hand-holding" of the bunch, but it's also the most complicated.

kadu

I have some experience as player

never been a GM

BESW

Lady Blackbird provides the most pre-made "adventure" content for the GM to draw on, but that's not much.

Fate Core (and by extension FAE) puts forth a good process by which the group defines its setting and story communally before and during play, with the GM as more of an arbitrator or leader than a dictator like in D&D.

kadu

yeah, only played DnD once, and didn't quite like it

BESW

11:37

Cthulhu Dark has great advice on how to design an adventure for its system but leaves the rest of it mostly up to the GM to figure out. Roll For Shoes just throws everyone to the wolves.

So... what part of GMing do you expect to have the most trouble with?

kadu

permanently put off, though I should probably blame the GM and the table

creating the adventure should be easy, though it'd be handy if it didn't take too long

uni takes up most of my time

BESW

@kadu Eh, it took me seven years of running D&D 3.5 and 4e to finally figure out that the problem was D&D just doesn't encourage the kind of story I want to tell and the kind of group dynamic I want to enable.

@kadu The systems I've recommended (aside from Cthulhu Dark) put adventure design at the "figure out the starting scenario and what the characters want to accomplish" level; what comes next is what you play to discover, so you don't have to prep for things because you don't really know what's going to happen!

Fate puts the "figuring out" in the hands of the group as a whole, facilitated by the GM, before play.

kadu

My problem wasn't even with the dynamic, it was just the way people were playing. "I try to convince NPC of whatever"—[rolls dice]—"I try to sway my warhammer at whatever"—[rolls dice]—"I go to sleep"—[rolls dice]

well, unless that's what you're calling the dynamic hahaha

BESW

@kadu Ah, yeah. That's sometimes called "roll-playing."

Cthulhu Dark's adventure design is a little different: you make lists of the kind of horrific things the characters might encounter/discover as they investigate the mystery, and rank them according to the game's advice, and... that's pretty much it for prep.

kadu

@BESW yup. very offputting. My favourite table was the GURPS one, don't even remember rolling dice ever, though it crumbled as I was getting to meet the other characters. And werewolf sat somewhere in between, where I rolled for combat but had the option to actually try to roleplay the social interactions (and then roll sometimes, because my character was way more introverted than I hahaha)

BESW

11:44

So you're doing more "planning in advance what they'll encounter" than the other systems, but still on a pretty laid-back level compared to, say, prepping a D&D adventure.

The trade-off is that in D&D there's often less need for the GM to improvise things at the table because he anticipated what the party would encounter, while in the kind of games I'm running now improvisation is crucial because I rarely even try to anticipate what they'll encounter.

kadu

I see. I'll read them all up and decide which one I'll try. All seem pretty straightforward, simple and good for beginners—players and GM.

I know what you mean. My favourite GMs just drew general maps, with threats and goods marked.

BESW

Roll For Shoes is inherently silly. Cthulhu Dark is really only good for horror games. Fate is "pulpy," with characters who generally succeed at what they try to do except where their own weaknesses get in the way.

kadu

the one GMing GoT went through the trouble of printing capital city maps and outlining tournaments just to have us all create non-noble characters and trash everything hahaha

BESW

(In Fate, part of character creation is deciding what will most often prevent your character from accomplishing her goals.)

kadu

@BESW I see, sounds like I should try Fate first.

BESW

11:48

I really like Fate.

If you want to see some examples of play, the conversations tab of the Fate Game Room has lots of chat games archived.

kadu

btw, have you tried GoT?

BESW

Game of Thrones? No.

Aaron

Morning

BESW

(We're using Fate Accelerated in those games, because it's got fewer fiddly bits to keep track of. Simplicity in a chat-based game is important.)

@Aaron [wave]

kadu

@BESW I'll take a look later, thanks

BESW

11:52

There's also a couple of Roll For Shoes games floating around here somewhere.

kadu

@BESW it's immense fun. I haven't read the books, which would help, but if the GM has that's more than enough. and I love the system.

@Aaron hey

BESW

Looks like it uses the d20 System as its engine?

kadu

perhaps my vocabulary is not precise. I meant the character creation, settings etc

BESW

...and Tri-Sat dX, a system I've never paid much attention to. Hrm.

"System" usually means the mechanics of the game--what are the character's stats, what dice do you roll, when, and why, and so forth.

"Engine" is sometimes interchangeable with "system," but it refers to a basic foundational system which is used by multiple games with some variation to adapt it to the game's specific needs.

kadu

yeah, I thought of engine as the rules concerning when, why, what to roll

BESW

11:57

(Like, Star Wars and D&D both use the d20 System, but Star Wars has a variant on the hit point mechanic which they hope will make combat more "cinematic.") (They're wrong.)

kadu

and system for everything else. anyhow, I meant the character stats and peculiarities like aging.

would never buy anything star wars w/o special effects anyways. hahaha

if I remember well, there were also interesting effects regarding the coming of winter

Aaron

I just had an idea. Would it be unreasonable to give each players limbs a separate HP bar and debuffs around that limb if it hits zero?

BESW

@Aaron In what system?

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