TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:13

Oh, and @Emrakul, I'm taking a page from the Doctor Who RPG on initiative: initiative count is determined round-by-round according to the kind of action you're going to take.

In DWAITAS, it's talkers > runners > doers > fighters.

In FAE, I'm thinking about keying it off approaches: clever > flashy > sneaky > quick > forceful > careful, maybe.

user61230

That makes a lot of sense for this world.

user61230

Though it requires players to declare what they're doing beforehand

BESW

Yes, I'm a little unsure how to deal with that.

I may keep it at the narrative talk/run/do/fight level, for simplicity, and then make it so you can move down in the round but not up if you change your mind mid-round.

At the end of the day I suspect it'll just be loosey-goosey in practice.

Alternately I could keep FAE's approach-comparison initiative, but rank it across all initiatives.

So the Cleverest people go first and the most Careful people are last, regardless of their particular action that round.

[insert stunt to use a different approach rank for determining initiative]

user61230

Here's a possibility

user61230

Just say who wants to take a type of action

user61230

00:26

"Anyone [action type]?", and execute them in order of priority

BESW

Ah, so don't go round-by-round but turn-by-turn.

"Who hasn't gone yet that wants to talk? No one? how about run?"

I like that.

user61230

I usually do that?

user61230

I feel like games flow better that way

BESW

This is a kind of halfway-point, though.

Unlike truly initiativeless systems (RFS, Cthulhu Dark, Lady Blackbird, etc), there's a priority system for determining who goes before whom; it's just a dynamic system so there's per-turn priority evaluation rather than per-round or per-encounter like D&D--or per-session like Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and Microscope.

user61230

01:28

I'd argue that turns operate linearly in Microscope.

user61230

Everything is sequential in Microscope except in scenes

BESW

Turn priority is determined per-session by position at the table.

trogdor

01:44

I am not entirely sure why flashy and sneaky are above quick

I do get why clever is

BESW

Because it's show logic, not "real" logic.

trogdor

but I require my daily dose of real logic

show logic is like unappetizing junk food

The Oracle

0

Q: Why is asking how good role playing for the purpose of giving out experience too opinion based?

this question was closed for being too opinion based. To be fair I got enough answers, but I'd like to bring it up here, because I feel almost every question under gm-techniques and problem-players is opinion based. I feel that this question was broadly applicable, and yet well scoped enough to n...

mbriand

Hmm that question title is not grammatical. I think.

BESW

It needs quotation marks.

Wait, no, it needs an excision.

"Why is it too opinion based to ask ~~how~~ about good role playing for the purpose of giving out experience?"

Mourdos

02:05

Why is it too opinion based to ask about rewards for the quality of roleplaying? reads better, I think

mbriand

It does, but the question that got put on hold is How do you determine what good roleplaying is?

Mourdos

Ah

Why is "How do you determine what good roleplaying is?" this too opinion based?

BESW

This post is a bit muddled and unlikely to get good answers because it is both a vote-to-reopen request and a challenge to the site's policy on the scope of a vote-to-close reason. Perhaps reading the official line on close reasons would help a little (for example, it seems that you're unaware the "too localized" close reason has been removed). — BESW 21 secs ago

He's got some questionable claims.

From the idea that "opinion-based" is to quash flame wars, to the belief that there aren't "years of scientific research into the art of being a GM" (I think Brian would beg to differ, and I know there's at least one small scientific journal dedicated solely to RPGs).

mbriand

I have to agree the original question is not really appropriate because of it's incredible scope, but the meta post isn't asking how to improve it but declaring it should be reopened...

Could just ask what should be considered good roleplaying for the purpose of giving roleplay xp in wod

Which would be answerable by references from the book with some added experienced opinion.

BESW

02:24

Aaaand a quick glance at his question shows that he was told two weeks ago not to use the Pokémon defence.

I'm done. Let Mxy or Brian handle that; he's bringing relative excellence into it, which is more likely to get other questions closed than to get his opened.

Mourdos

pokemon defence doesn't work with me. I know practially nothing about pokemon :P

BESW

@Mourdos It's from an early Wikipedia rhetorical case: when an article's noteworthiness was challenged, its defender would say "X Pokémon has an article, and this subject is more noteworthy than a Pokémon."

Mourdos

I know of it, I've just read up on it.

BESW

Which ultimately resulted in Wikipedia saying, "You're right! Let's not have pages for every Pokémon. Now your article is more noteworthy than something we don't have an article for."

Mourdos

On a completely separate note I have a to build an exalted character (using 2.5 errata). I note a complete lack of actual guides for exalted characters, and I'm not looking to build the next essence reactor anyhow. Anyone feel like advising me?

BESW

02:30

I got nothin'.

Mourdos

I kind of like that the campaign spec is as follows:
Suggested: Solar, Lunar, Renegade Abyssal.
Talk to me: Alchemical, Gold/Independent Sideral
If you are Mad: Terrestial, God, God-blooded, Dragonkind, Mountain Folk, Fey
Go **** yourself: Loyalist Abyssal, True Fey, Akuma, Green Sun Price

And that is 90% of the document

I have a feeling I'm going to be a Solar

BESW

[sigh] "My question is perfect and I've been persecuted by unequal application of the rules" is kind of a non-starter.

We had someone try the martyr complex thing last month and it didn't work out well for them either.

BESW

02:53

Bah. I tried one last time, and he contradicted himself. I need to go to K-Mart; at least there I get useful items to go along with my frustration and high blood pressure.

user61230

03:48

Skill get: walking completely in the dark

user61230

@BESW Do you mind if I follow you on Twitter? (Asking because this is an odd medium and you probably wouldn't recognize my name immediately)

doppelgreener

user61230

(Also, I just found one of the saddest songs I've heard)

doppelgreener

oogie boogie is in our banner

user61230

05:25

I wonder how balanced "I was Raised in a Forest, so I can move in the dark without stumbling." is as a stunt

mbriand

Well it always depends on the setting. In some cases it would be entirely useless and others extremely useful.

For example in doctor who everyone spends like 50% of their time running away so that stunt could be very useful

user61230

06:42

►

user61230

(Watch on 1.25x speed, improves it about 1000%)

user61230

I feel like this would make a cool RPG

The Oracle

07:26

0

Q: Should we start a community blog?

Stack Exchange runs blog services for some sites upon request on their blog site, Blog Overflow. Stack Exchange has a blog post dedicated to what they're looking for in a blog, and I think we meet and exceed it on all counts. We have people with fascinating ideas and experience, and who write rat...

discussion feature-request community-blog

Oxinabox

07:48

I see that a [tag:god-machine] has been created.
for the NPC/Entity/Setting element of the God-Machine

Not certain it is a good thing to have.
Though i guess if we get to fully rename nwod-god-machine (they system) to nwod-2.0
it would be good.

BESW

@Oxinabox A meta post about this is a good idea, with explanation of the concept for those not familiar with WoD.

@Emrakul Sure, but I haven't posted on it in years.

Oxinabox

mmm, I might get round to that later.

doppelgreener

08:04

1

Q: What does a polished, quality campaign look like?

I've played many sessions of D&D 3.5e over the years as a player, but haven't played in about 7 years. I've decided it's time to start again, but this time as a DM. I've got a group of 3 players to start, and I'm working on creating my own world and campaign for them to adventure in. I've read ...

dnd-3.5e new-gm campaign-development

delete votes please; this won't get autodeleted on its own because of the positive score

BESW

@doppelgreener I don't think it needs to get deleted....

Closed, yes!

doppelgreener

@BESW seems to fit the bill for deletion, though:

> Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted.

(from the 10k privilege page)

BESW

Hmm.

"no lasting value whatsoever..."

Oxinabox

I have this never ending trickle of rep from an a answer to a very basic question on StackOverflow.
It is getting normally about 1 upvote per week, and has for over a year now.
Cos it is a basic answer, to a very common newbie mistake, it continues to draw upvotes everytime someone makes the mistake and googles it...

BESW

@Oxinabox I've got a handful of those here.

Oxinabox

08:10

this kinda thing causes inflation in the rep economy

doppelgreener

is it this one?

Oxinabox

yeah

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox that's an ok thing though

i still get upvotes for this one sometimes:

4

Q: ? Operator Does Not Work

How come this is not possible? I am getting illegal start of expression. (s1.charAt(i) == ' ') ? i++ : break;

java operators

Oxinabox

yeah, it is.
I guess it is this kinda inflation that has SO having different priverlage levels to other sites, (and beta and private beta having lower again)

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox i still get upvotes on my two highest scoring answers here

but yeah, SO is in a privileged position where it has a set of canonical problems that get googled all the time and it's a reliable source for answers

(a very very very large set)

Oxinabox

08:15

SO normally has all basic questions like my python answer already answered, I guess i got lucky enough that it wasn't a duplicate and i got the first (correct) answer in.
I feel like I have earnt my rep more here.

BESW

►

Oxinabox

It is abit weird the whole rep !=Work put in, Rep=number people helped.
Thus while only 3% of my answers are for dnd,
all (one) of those answers is in my top 3 highest voted questions.

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox oh yeah i see what you mean.

and there's the fun outliers

1327

Q: RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags

I need to match all of these opening tags: <p> <a href="foo"> But not these: <br /> <hr class="foo" /> I came up with this and wanted to make sure I've got it right. I am only capturing the a-z. <([a-z]+) *[^/]*?> I believe it says: Find a less-than, then Find (and capture) a-z one or ...

html regex xhtml

BESW

When I first joined this chat, I ran into some discussion (theoretical, as the users involved were far beyond concern about scraping up more rep) on the way to get the highest rep:work ratio.

doppelgreener

whoa. the author of this answer is still getting several upvotes a day from it:

12844

A: Why is processing a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?

You are the victim of branch prediction fail. What is Branch Prediction? Consider a railroad junction: Image by Mecanismo, via Wikimedia Commons. Used under the CC-By-SA 3.0 license. Now for the sake of argument, suppose this is back in the 1800s - before long distance or radio communicati...

@BESW Oh yeeeeessss? [leans in closely with notepad]

BESW

08:26

The conclusion was that one should provide answers to dnd-3.5e gm-techniques questions, because the questions got a lot of attention and even the laziest answers on them got upvotes.

The Oracle

0

Q: How do I judge "no lasting value whatsoever"?

My 10k rep moderator tools include voting to delete questions, and it offers this guidance for my voting: Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted. I am then instructed to avoid deleting questions with good answers, and to be cautious in deletin...

discussion moderation deleted-questions

doppelgreener

@BESW a couple of my top answers are gm-techniques... but none are 3.5e!

Oxinabox

And so with my spat of clearing a handful of misused new-gm tags I enter the 2k rep club

BESW

@Oxinabox Grats!

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox welcome!!

I've discovered our site is remarkably resilient to edit sprees

Oxinabox

08:34

and am unable to get rep via edits anymore. (I think that is the fastest way to get rep honestly.)

what do you mean resilant?

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox only your first 500 approved suggested edits get rep anyway

so you can only get 1k rep tops from them

@Oxinabox look at how many questions on the front page right now are there with an activity stamp of modified by you or me ;)

Oxinabox

8.
Only one by you.

(I have anything related to dnd hidden)

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox oh, well then add 4

BESW

Of the top 15: 5 by Hobbs, 7 by Ox.

doppelgreener

@BESW that's it

so, edit spree of ~12 between us

which i used to get concerned about because it meant pushing a ton of questions off the front page and thus out of prime visibility

Oxinabox

08:38

I feel that my interactions with the site as very shaped by my having dnd hidden.
I see a very differnt site to most users i suspect

doppelgreener

but they get a lot of attention anyway.

BESW

What he means by resilient is that in 24 hour most of the questions will probably have been modified by someone else too, or will have dropped out of the top 15.

Oxinabox

Again, I suspect not for me, with dnd hidden.
I find the site to be a fairly quiet place with i think around 5ish questions posted per day.

BESW

So editing sprees, which don't add significant content but are crucial to the site's "neatly sorted" goal, bring attention to questions that maybe didn't really need it--but then they go away and the site returns to its regularly scheduled program.

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox questions about D&D: 4,211. questions on the site: 8,785.

BESW

08:41

@Oxinabox Oh, man, you miss all the best drama and tantrums.

doppelgreener

also, all the inanity where the exceptions in D&D 3.x's mechanics collide together with explosive, horrible, terribly confusing force

Oxinabox

doppelgreen: you missed the pathfinder tag:
questions about dnd: 5,454

doppelgreener

so I did! There we go: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…

BESW

Sweet Luna on the Moon.

doppelgreener

you see 37.9% of the site's questions

62.1% of the site's questions erupt from one single series of games.

that is probably not just due to popularity.

and these are the ones people didn't actually manage to solve at the table.

BESW

08:45

Yeah, complexity has as much to do with tag frequency as saturation.

I have not yet found a question to ask about Lady Blackbird.

doppelgreener

oh wait, OD&D too: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/… Current total of 5457

BESW

(Except maybe "Where does this come from and how do I make my own characters?" --hmm.)

doppelgreener

D&D 3.x was an emormous, apparently organically grown and complex rules system that cared little for having secure foundations to support a system at such scale

so we get an awful lot of questions of the nature of "what if I foo a bar?"

or basically, what happens when you put foo and bar in the same gameplay vicinity in some way

BESW

I was thinking about my relationship with 3.5 and this doggerel just ran through my head:

> I eat my peas with honey;
I've done it all my life.
I do not LIKE my peas with honey,
But it keeps them on the knife.

doppelgreener

@BESW oh my goodness XD

that's a brilliant poem

Oxinabox

08:50

About 250ish WoD:
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/world-of-darkness+or+nwod+or+nwod-god-machine+or+storyteller-system+or+storytelling-system+or+werewolf-forsken+or+vampire-masquerade+or+mage-awakening+or+vampire-requiem+or+changeling-lost+or+hunter-vigil

I didn't quiet get all the wod tags, but i suspect very few WoD questions don't have one of the tags i did hit

trogdor

@BESW I would like to know how to make characters

then again, I really really love the only one I have used

Oxinabox

I wonder if there is a nice way to discover tag groupings.
then we could compare system-lines.

I suspect I could apply a clustering algorithm to tags and put them into familities.

I really should extra a machine learning dataset from SE.

doppelgreener

Does Lady Blackbird only have premade characters, and not guidance on making your own?

Oxinabox

I could train a AI to spot possible abuses of tags.
With a bit more difficulty I could probably make it discover meta-tags.

doppelgreener

@Oxinabox fate has a list of its own system tags, so does dungeons-and-dragons. maybe owod and nwod should have similar compilations?

Oxinabox

08:55

I wonder if i can find a way to convince uni to let me do a PhD on it.
Probably, the hard part will be convincing them it is a form of electronic engineering...

@doppelgreener: nwod-god-machine does too. (because i put it there)

doppelgreener

from nwod's wiki...

> NOTE: This tag is to be renamed new-world-of-darkness and merged with storytelling-system.

Is that still current/accurate?

kviiri

Hiya guys! It's been a while.

doppelgreener

apparently not, it's from may last year

Hi @kviiri!

@Oxinabox aha: world-of-darkness

Oxinabox

I am scared of the mess around the WoD Tags, and have resolve to keep my little corner of nwod-god-machine clean

doppelgreener

@oxinabox Do you know what the 4th paragraph is supposed to say in the WoD tag wiki?

> The world-of-darkness tag applies primarily to cross-edition, all edition, and generic questions concerning World of Darkness games. Those original World of Darkness games that are listed among the old/classic titles below should get the classic-world-of-darkness tag. The new-world-of-darkness tag applies to games set in the new World of Darkness in general, (...)

the two tags at the end do not exist. naturally, the last one should be nwod, but what's the classic tag? is there one?

I need to go out and eat, but if you know what it's referring to, it might be useful to update it

but then again people don't regularly read these anyway ;)

off i go!

trogdor

09:02

@doppelgreener as far as I know that is indeed the case

though to be fair, the ones I have seen are already pretty awesome

especially Niomi Bishop, at least in my opinion

BESW has mentioned to me that the Goblin is apparently the most popular

Oxinabox

@doppelgreener classic-world-of-darkness is the official branding for owod.

as I understand it.

as I said, I fear the naming issues with the wod family

I wish they had have done something like:
WoD 1.0 =owod, WoD 1.5 = revised editions of owod lines, WoD 2.0 = nwod, Wod 2.5 (or 3.0) = nwod-gmc, WoD 1.75 = 20th anniversary oWoD

which we are kinda getting with nWoD-gmc being rebranded to WoD 2.0, but that still leaves difficulty talking about anything todo do with the other wods.

The Oracle

0

Q: is God Machine a good tag?

A new tag: god-machine has been created by xenoterracide. This is distinct from nwod-god-machine because it about the setting element/entity/character known as the God-Machine. Which while is a staple of the nwod-god-machine system, is not intrinsically linked to it and plenty of games of nwod-...

discussion tags

BESW

09:29

@doppelgreener Yeah, it's apparently a single-serving hack of a larger, more unwieldy system.

Oxinabox

10:32

do mods have the power to rename a tag?

wrt meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/4773/…

rather than just creating a synonym I think it might be good to fully rename the tag.

BESW

10:58

@Oxinabox I think so.

@user1810077 Hi!

BESW

11:57

@doppelgreener [wave]

doppelgreener

@BESW Hi!

@Oxinabox yes, but it might be through the ability to create a new one and immediately synonymise the old one and then maybe even delete it

BESW

@doppelgreener I'm still trying to get the FAE Doctor Who pre-mades into shape; any input would be welcomed.

@RedRiderX Hi!

RedRiderX

12:12

Hey!

BESW

(I am doing my best not to go all OMGSQUEE on the chat re: Deep Breath. I hope you all appreciate that.)

RedRiderX

@BESW Yes very much so

I haven't seen it yet :x

BESW

I will mention that there was a very sly reference to one of my favourite Fourth Doctor quotes.

RedRiderX

Oh goodie the Canadian broadcaster of DW has finally gotten their act together with regard to their online stuff.

Available next day with ads.

BESW

Yey!

RedRiderX

12:17

Better then probably-available-next-week-but-who-really-knows-right, which is what it was for the last year or so.

BESW

Ouch.

RedRiderX

Which was so painful last summer, as they decided to have reruns of all of NuWho, but with random videos not being uploaded properly and what not.

Which is why I still haven't seen Midnight

BESW

[blink] That's a shame.

Oxinabox

2

Q: Would a place of business be gifted along with the territory it's in?

So early in my chronicle I mentioned that a certain local bar (which is a 90% outside bar and very dog friendly) is a werewolf hangout. When the group decided they were going to all play werewolf (instead of the crazy multi game we were playing) they also decided that they had been gifted said ba...

werewolf-forsaken

BESW

Midnight is one of my favourite Tenth Doctor episodes that has the Tenth Doctor in it.

Oxinabox

12:20

It seems like people are trying to use mechanics to solve a social problem

RedRiderX

Or Silence in the Library.

Which bums me out even more

I really should try to see it

BESW

Someday I shall run a Cthulhu Dark adventure based on Silence in the Library.

RedRiderX

Oooh that sounds like it would be cool

BESW

It'll be a great exploration of meta terror.

RedRiderX

Are the Vashta Nerada not based on anything?

BESW

12:23

Because my players will know it, and recognise it, and probably someone will remember that the scenario was totally unwinnable except by virtue of the Doctor being exactly who he is.

So without the Doctor...

RedRiderX

Shadows that eat you seems like such a good concept I'd be surprised if it hasn't been done before.

@BESW Ah I see

BESW

The idea of darkness itself being the danger is definitely not unique to Moffat.

RedRiderX

Sure I guess

BESW

Also, as I'm Googling it, I just made the most wonderful typo:

Science in the Library.

RedRiderX

Heh now I want to read up on Library Science.

BESW

12:33

Heh.

@RedRiderX If you'd like to chime in on my FAE Doctor Who pre-made characters, you're more than welcome to.

RedRiderX

Is Romana v1 or v2?

Because they were a little different

I assume one from the mugshot

BESW

I'm going with one because she's more interesting and dramatic.

RedRiderX

Ah okay

BESW

Romana II is... well, she's basically a smart-mouthed little gender-bent Fourth Doctor cosplayer.

RedRiderX

@BESW Heh yeah hard to argue with that

BESW

12:40

But Romana I has interesting depth of character.

RedRiderX

Adric "A desperate need to prove my courage"

;-;

doppelgreener

I just noticed something from these reference photos: a lot of lighting in their era of film is too bright

BESW

Heh, yes, though part of that is just "low budget = bad lighting."

doppelgreener

Oh yeah true enough

RedRiderX

Could "I don't know why I like you humans so much" be "I don't know why I bother with you humans so much"?

It's pretty grumpy but Shalka Doctor was pretty grumpy.

BESW

12:46

Heh, yeah. I just added a couple of quotes from the Doctor on humanity to the comments on that aspect.

(I'm trying to hit a balance of Doctors for a generic "could be any of them" effect, with a tendency toward Fourth when I have to make a choice.)

RedRiderX

@BESW Yeah a lot of the companions are around Forth's era too

BESW

Aye, he had a lot and they broke the "Doctor Who Girl" mould more often.

RedRiderX

You should probably use his mugshot then, gets a lot more of the "Cosmic Hobo" across.

BESW

I started writing up Jaime McCrimmon, but he turned out to be too much overlap with Leela.

@RedRiderX Meh. I'm deliberately using a Doctor that has been excised from canon, to reduce the pressure to play him according to any particular portrayal.

RedRiderX

@BESW Ah okay

BESW

12:52

If Peter Cushing's version weren't so recognisably Peter Cushing, I'd use him.

Oh, @doppelgreener, one all-important question: is there a character here you'd enjoy playing?

(And/or is there a companion you'd like to see added?)

@doppelgreener One problem I ran into picking companions was that over the years a relatively small set of companion "roles" was repeated over and over with minor variations. Jamie and Leela as bright but uneducated warriors; Kamelion and Turlough as sneaky operatives with shady pasts; and so forth.

doppelgreener

@BESW I have to do a thing, but I will have responses for you later/tomorrow!!

BESW

Aight, thanks.

No rush; we've got all week.

doppelgreener

15:01

@BESW my main concern is i do not know anything about these people, except for Leela, who I have only seen a few scenes of

except new who does not do a great job of having independently interesting companions

but having a modern companion may help if i'm to play one

amy? rose? rory?

however, if it is not important that i remain faithful to their character, I would probably play Leela

I would likely not play a Leela anyone who's seen the show would recognise, though

but that is only a problem if someone has a problem with it ;)

user61230

17:14

Designers & Dragons: A complete history of role-playing games by Evil Hat

user61230

17:29

I'm seriously tempted.

Zachiel

@Emrakul which is it?

oh I see you linked it later, nvm

Joshua Aslan Smith