TRPG General Chat

trogdor

08:00

you seem to imply in some way that nothing I say ever contributes to the conversation :P

BESW

08:13

→ 30 messages moved to Area 51

Saffron

Sorry @BESW, I'm still new to this stuff :(

BESW

@Saffron No worries. It's not that it's a bad discussion--quite the opposite, if it weren't useful I'd let it languish in an off-topic chat quite happily.

Zachiel

08:45

Hello people

Saffron

@Zachiel hello

BESW

[wave]

Mourdos

Morning

trogdor

hi

Zachiel

I'd like to flood the chat with Intelligent considerations (which are really considerations about the Intelligence score), in order to explore the possibility to simplify a question I wrote.
How's your logic skills at this time of the day?

Lymia Aluysia

08:54

It's 4 in the morning.

^.^

Zachiel

@LymiaAluysia I'll take this as a "nope nope nope nope nope I'm out"

Lymia Aluysia

Depends on the question. :P

Zachiel

Also, my parents would probably kill me if I was still awake at 4AM, and I'm 29

Saffron

You should think about moving out :p

Zachiel

The costs, man, the costs.

Mourdos

08:57

Its 10 am, throw it at me :P

Zachiel

(I would need a job to be able to move out. Then again I'd probably need to go sleeping way earlier, in order to be able to do my job properly.)

So, I know BESW and Trogdor to be familiar with D&D 3.5e, I don't know about the others here.

lisardggY

Reasonably familiar, though I've never really optimized.

Mourdos

3.5, 3.P

from the D&D scene

trogdor

I have played it a few times at any rate

Zachiel

Anyway, I recently wrote a question about optimizing skill points, and the problem has several inputs, two of which are the character's staring intelligence score and the possibility to increase your age for gaining a +1

Saffron

09:00

@Zachiel find a girldfriend/boyfriend and move in with him, if you're subtle, it's free food and free house

BESW

@Zachiel My librarian was a 67-year-old human for exactly that reason.

Zachiel

@Saffron hahahahaha I wish.

(I'm really bad at romance)

Anyhow

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW Playing people /that/ old isn't so fun though. :P

At least, not to me.

trogdor

I believe there is also a feat that gives skill points

If I remember correctly

Zachiel

If I want to maximize skill points gain, I'd be under the impression that I need my starting Int score (age included) to be odd, so that I could add a +5 to it with the tome. Why starting with an even score and only adding a +4 when you got money?

doppelgreener

09:02

@LymiaAluysia BESW's librarian was very fun.

Zachiel

@trogdor but that is independent on Int optimization

trogdor

yeah

true

just mentioning

Zachiel

Oh, I think I already know most of the tricks in the book, but thanks anyway.

Lymia Aluysia

@doppelgreener Eh? :P

Optimizing skill points seems weird to me. Is this just a theoretical question?

Zachiel

So I tought: well, one reason to start with an even score would be if I were to max my initial int and could not afford to decrease my physical stats.

Mourdos

09:05

3.5 handles skill points in an odd way

trogdor

yes it does

Mourdos

since I don't believe you gain skill points retroactively for gaining int

I would house rule that you should (you gain hp retroactivly for con boosts)

Zachiel

@LymiaAluysia I'm just trying, given an already built character, to get all I can from it. I'm obsessed by lost opportunities.

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia He built a Librarian lich who could yell "SHUT UP!" and knock out everyone in the vicinity.

He was built to kill entire cities, and leave all the books intact.

Mourdos

It very much depends on if you are trying to optimise skills or skill rolls.

Zachiel

09:06

@Mourdos While I like the idea, if I'm the one making a character I'm not the one in charge of deciding house rules.

doppelgreener

Time stop, nonlethal sonic damage, and an overwhelming amount of delayed sonic explosions served pretty well to make everyone be quiet and leave him alone.

Lymia Aluysia

That doesn't sound like a very fun librarian. :(

Saffron

Sounds more like a apocalyptical monster to me

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia He was very fun if you were not his enemy.

This was in an epic level 3.5e campaign that was completely insane.

Lymia Aluysia

Yeah, well, it's pretty easy to make an enemy out of a grumpy librarian, don't you think.

Zachiel

09:08

@Mourdos skills. I often find myself wishing for some more point to spend here and there, often just for flavor, and I'm -always- points-starved. Even on characters who gain 21 skill points per level.

doppelgreener

IIRC he also managed to figure out a combination in the spell point system such that he regenerated spell points faster than he could use them.

Zachiel

so, since I'm going to buy a +5 Int tome sooner or later, I'm trying to see how early I can get it and if itìs more convenient to buy a smaller tome earlier, even if this means spending more overall

So my first idea is: If I can only increase my age once from character creation to the end of the campaign, is there any event that makes it more convenient to do it later than character creation?
And my own answer is yes, if you would start with an even score, and I should consider an odd score anyway for checking when to buy tomes, because the age increase should come with the first tome, since a +2 tome costs more than a +1 one and +1+1 would therefore let me carry more money to the next level, possibly letting me purchase other tomes earlier.

Am I right in saying that I can ignore the age point in the optimization procedure, considering it part of my starting intelligence?

Mourdos

I really hate to say this, but I think its true, that the way to do this is to abuse a thought bottle.

So that you can gain all your HD again with a better int score

I think that works, I've never really looked at the applications of a thought bottle though.

Zachiel

09:34

@Mourdos Yeah, but that's too cheesy for any DM I know.

BESW

@LymiaAluysia In terms of role-playing (rather than mechanics) "old people" are no less fun to play than anyone else. I particularly enjoy it, actually.

And in terms of mechanics, it's only less fun if physical ability is the primary focus of the campaign and you don't compensate for it.

D&D 3.5, for example, looks like a physical ability campaign but is in fact dominated by mental ability (wizards rule, fighters drool).

Zachiel

@BESW the only thing that worries me about old age is the huge Constitution penalties. When your Con score is -, on the other hand...

BESW

@Zachiel That's why he became a lich at epic levels.

Prior to that, I had 1 hp per HD, and that was quite deliberate: I was invited to join that group as a player to demonstrate non-fighting encounter techniques, so I designed a character with a vested interest in avoiding fighting.

(He was also the healer, so when there was fighting, everyone else wanted to keep him alive.)

Lymia Aluysia

09:51

@BESW I didn't mean in mechanics terms. It's just, well, not something I like RPing, really. That's all. :P

BESW

And I really like RPing old people.

Saffron

Is it usual to create a character in D&D to fit an optimization purpose and not a personality ?

BESW

@Saffron It's impossible to say anything's usual about D&D because it's played so many different ways by so many different people, but it is a common approach, yes.

Zachiel

10:09

@Saffron Sometimes, going personality first leaves you with nearly unplayable characters.

lisardggY

@Zachiel Well, "unplayable" is very table-specific. Most, if not all tables I've played at, there was no such thing as unplayable.

BESW

D&D of every edition is a system where some choices are better than others. Depending on the choices of your fellow players, you need to pay attention to the mechanical impact of your choices to a greater or lesser extent in order to participate meaningfully to the story.

(I had several characters I needed to scale down or retire because my choices were making other players' choices irrelevant.)

Inbar Rose

Hi

And, yes. But - It is important then to be on the same page (queue same page link)

BESW

Same Page Tool

Both these links can be found in my rpg.se profile, for future reference.

Inbar Rose

Ah, yes.

BESW

10:16

(And both blogs are authored by rpg.se citizens!)

Zachiel

@lisardggY That's why I said sometimes (Partly. Partly because sometimes you want to play a personality that's perfectly compatible with optimal choices)

BESW

My D&D PC creation generally went, "What does the party need? What mechanics can accomplish that which I'll enjoy using? ...what's a fun personality that would do this?"

@doppelgreener [wave]

doppelgreener

@BESW Hi!

Saffron

10:40

@Zachiel what do you mean ?

Nearly unplayable char?

BESW

@Saffron I played in a game with a guy who designed a character that dealt a large cupful of dice worth of damage at the beginning of every encounter, and then was nearly worthless for the rest of the encounter. If his first-round target proved to have resistance to critical hits (undead, animated object, creature with certain kinds of armour...), his first-round damage was also negated.

Inbar Rose

That's why I like Fate so much. You design CHARACTERS not MECHANICS :)

BESW

Our own @trogdor rolled up a 3.5 monk which dealt decent damage when she hit--but her attack bonus was so low compared to those of the other PCs that if she had a chance of hitting, everyone else hit automagically--and to challenge the others, monsters had defences so high she couldn't hit them at all.

I designed a quarterling (halfling with a permanent reduce person effect) ninja who could hide in plain sight in the noonday sun from creatures with supernatural senses--but none of the rest of the party could, so any time I used him to his full potential all the other players had to sit and watch while the GM and I did our thing because their characters couldn't join.

All these characters were, in very real senses, "unplayable."

Mourdos

10:56

I made a dead earth character. It was also unplayable :P

5

BESW

We tried, but they were frustrating at best. At worst, they required the rest of the group to cater to that particular character's needs in order for more than one person at the table to have fun at a time.

Zachiel

I was just thinking at "I want a character with a specific fighting style that the rules don't support"

Saffron

@BESW but then it's a system issue, not a char creation issue

doppelgreener

@BESW note to self: when i do a D&D campaign wherein the ultimate antagonists are a disreputable roving band of murderhobos, make sure the entire world stigmatises any use of stealth as ridiculous

Saffron

The GM can (and should) restrict these loopholes I think

Inbar Rose

10:57

You mean like a world where Honor and Chivalry reign?

BESW

@Saffron That's the point, I think. The system makes it VERY easy to create characters which should not be played.

Inbar Rose

Just give up now and move to Fate.

Everything is better.

(Personal opinion)

Saffron

@BESW yes but what I'm saying is, you can allow a personality-based character creation, and still restrict chars that are not balanced.

Mourdos

I hadn't noticed :P

doppelgreener

@Saffron generally only happens after the fact though - find out the character's unplayable, make a new one

those weren't, y'know, "loopholes", they were just a few mechanics that might've looked good on paper but turned out horrible in play

Saffron

10:59

@doppelgreener Instead of making a new one, you can nerf this one (OOC or IC through plot events)

BESW

Many groups try to restrict chargen options: "only X books," "don't use Y submechanic," "be sure you character can do Z."

Inbar Rose

D&D is so unbalanced in it's own logic that in 3.0/3.5 (i forget exactly which one) I build a sorcerer that at a certain point had more armor and life and damage while fighting with a sword than the fighter. (Because of spells)

Saffron

I guess my point is, is it really that fun to rely so much on a system to have fun ?

BESW

But whitelisting is overly restrictive for most D&D playstyles, and blacklisting such an expansive selection of options is a never-ending case of reactionary banning.

Inbar Rose

Which is why I suggest Fate.

I am a total convert.

doppelgreener

11:01

@Saffron I don't know what that's meant to say, really.

Saffron

Yeah what a crappy sentence

doppelgreener

You can have fun with or without a system, but if you're playing with a system, the point is that you're playing with it so that it helps you to have fun, right?

Saffron

I mean that, relying so much on a system seems to break the fun to me

lisardggY

@Saffron The system is part of the fun. Some people play RPGs for the roleplaying. Some for the stories. Some for the mechanics - that layer of the game where you get to use the rules to achieve stuff.

BESW

The extreme conclusion of that notion is that we should all abandon RPG systems and play only free-form improvisation games.

It's a matter of finding the system which best fits your group's playstyle.

trogdor

11:02

@BESW yeah, that kinda sucked

lisardggY

(To be clear, "some" means that most people have a mixture of all these elements).

doppelgreener

@Saffron If I pick a system, I pick it so that I can rely on it to help me have fun! That's the entire point of having picked it at all. If I can't rely on the system to help me have fun, there's a problem.

trogdor

one of the things I don't miss about 3.5 is the ridiculous character power discrepancy

BESW

I spent years in D&D trying to make it fit my playstyle before I figured out there were other systems that already came pretty close to how I want my games to behave.

Lymia Aluysia

Isn't FATE one of those RP systems with a focus on telling a story together rather than playing a character?

Saffron

11:03

I guess I just don't understand that way of playing RPGs

Lymia Aluysia

Or am I getting my systems mixed up again?

Saffron

I should try it some days

lisardggY

@Saffron I know people for whom characterization/roleplaying is a distant second behind the mechanics. It's not the way I like to play, but it's common, and I can certainly understand its appeal.

BESW

@LymiaAluysia Maybe you're thinking of Microscope.

What kind of game is Fate?

Jul 24 '13 at 7:43, 22 minutes total – 43 messages, 5 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Aug 26 '13 at 15:00 by BESW

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Those two aren't opposed. You tell a story together and play a character. But there's characters, and you're telling their story.

Yeah, maybe Microscope is what you're thinking of, if you're thinking of one that doesn't emphasize the characters.

lisardggY

11:04

@LymiaAluysia It's not either/or. Fate wants you to play a character and participate in the story telling beyond the scope of that character.

Saffron

From my perspective, a system is just a way to decide what's going on when nobody knows what to decide

Inbar Rose

@Saffron ??

BESW

@Saffron That's a good way of looking at it.

Inbar Rose

Systems shouldn't dictate what you do.

BESW

But many groups want to shunt that decision-making process off very early in the storytelling, so that they discover what the system says happens in response to their inputs.

lisardggY

11:06

@Saffron This is similar to my point of view. The system isn't "the game", but a set of tools that help you play "the game". What "the game" actually is is a bit hard to define, but it's the collective play experience of the players, characters, plot, etc.

Saffron

It's more like playing a video game then

Inbar Rose

Forget what a RPG tabletop pen and paper game is for a moment. You get a bunch of friends together at your house. You decide to play something. Well - everyone is an equal, everyone wants to have fun, everyone should participate. Well - now you decide to play a RPG. So you all play it together, the story is yours, and you take it where you want it to go - You don't look at a system to see what to do - then it's not a RPG, its a board/card game.

BESW

For example: Fate says that if only success or failure would be interesting/further the story, you just have that happen. If both would be interesting/further the story, then you can apply mechanics and randomisation to determine which happens.

Lymia Aluysia

I guess it'd be more accurate to say that it's more opposed to trying to play a character immersively? I recall hearing something about an RP system where you were supposed to go "Roll a spot check to see if you see the trap in the hallway" instead of something more like "Roll a spot check" or even "I roll a spot check in secret behind in the GM screen", and seem to recall it's FATE for some reason.

BESW

In D&D, it's not a matter of "what impact does this action's outcome have on the story;" it's a much narrower focus of "Do I succeed or fail if I try to do this?" rather than "What happens if I succeed or fail at this?"

Inbar Rose

11:08

Fate is just fantastic and I can't get enough.

BESW

@InbarRose Did you get into the DFRPG Accelerated playtest?

Saffron

@InbarRose RPG is just playing a role, so what you said IS a RPG IMO

Inbar Rose

..... no ?

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW That isn't exactly what I remember hearing about /some/ system (and can't for the life of me remember where I read it, or what system it was...), so. That sounds like a good idea in any system, really.

BESW

@LymiaAluysia It's a common standard for what are often called "narrative-first" games.

lisardggY

11:09

@LymiaAluysia I think what you're alluding to here is the concept of "the author stance", rather than "the actor stance". In the latter, the classic D&D mode of play, the player is expected to know only what his character knows and experience the game through that character. In the former, you're like the (shared, collaborative) author of the story, so you know things your character doesn't. You can be aware of the trap, while still playing the game to see whether your character finds it or not.

Saffron

@BESW Does fate supports variation in the failure - success scope ?

Inbar Rose

@lisardggY Good example.

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Fate's approach would be something like: "I'm going to Investigate to see if I can find a secret door to that basement we're looking for..." (GM sets a target of 6, I roll Investigate, I get 6+.) "... Aha! I find a trap door beneath the carpet!" (There is now a secret door that retroactively existed all along, even though we only "discovered" its existence just now. We proceed through it to the basement.)

BESW

@Saffron Yes!

Inbar Rose

@Saffron It's all narrative pretty much. There are very thin mechanics.

BESW

11:10

Extreme failure; failure; tie/success at cost; success; extreme success.

Inbar Rose

@BESW * Success with Style

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW I don't think I've ever played in a campaign before where there wasn't an overarching narrative, really, so, I'm not sure I can say anything about the difference.

Saffron

@BESW It's weird because every single "description" that I get about fate seems to be what every GM do on any systems I've experienced so far

BESW

@LymiaAluysia "narrative-first" is an approach to applying mechanics to storytelling, rather than whether there is a story.

Saffron

@BESW So it correspond more to a concept than a real system to me :p

Inbar Rose

11:11

The games "Mechanics" are mostly narrative.

The only real mechanical part of the game are the skills.

lisardggY

@Saffron I think BESW and I had this conversation before, where we both said that Fate aims to do exactly what we had been doing already for most of our roleplaying careers, only doing so outside the system, rather than embraced by the system as a primary mechanic.

BESW

@Saffron Yeah, but Fate does it as part of the system rather than as a hack or fix to the system applied by the GM.

doppelgreener

@BESW * by the GM

BESW

Yes.

Lymia Aluysia

@lisardggY Makes sense then. I've never actually be in a game like that, so. My gut feeling is that I probably wouldn't be so good at RPing in that kind of game, but, I should probably give it a try first. :P

Inbar Rose

11:13

Take a look at some sample games.

Lymia Aluysia

@doppelgreener I see. Keeps things going smoothly instead of letting the players get stuck on "you find nothing" over and over, right?

BESW

We've run a lot of text-based Fate sessions, recorded here.

Lymia Aluysia

I was thinking more of the author viewpoint games that someone was talking about instead of a FATE game. I've been involved in similar games before-- or at least, played in the same style.

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Yes. A major difference between Fate and D&D is that Fate expects the characters to be the primary agent of pushing the story forward. You can't just pull them along like you can in D&D.

Inbar Rose

@BESW Note the Dice rolls will appear as a d6 for him

Saffron

11:15

The thing is that, I think the two (fate concept, and system rules) are different needs, and we need both. So you can't really use Fate as a system IMO , since you also need a system for you specific need

doppelgreener

Fate characters are proactive and capable. As opposed to D&D characters, who can easily get away with being purely reactive.

Fate characters actively shape their own world, and the GM is there to facilitate them doing so.

As well as give them the consequences of how they do so.

Inbar Rose

@Saffron Fate is also a fully fledged system.

Saffron

But can you play L5R by dumping the system, and using fully Fate ?

I don't think so

Because L5R's system was created exclusively to target some specific needs

That a generic system can not solve

BESW

If the narrative structure Fate is designed to provide matches that of L5R, then yes.

Inbar Rose

But it's mechanics are such that all you need is a simple small piece of paper for your character - there are no looking up abilities or feats or skills or spells. Everything is right in front of you. Everything boils down to a selection of skills which is how you interact with everything, the rest of the effects (bonus or penalty + special abilities) are all granted from narrative elements (in this case, aspects and stunts)

Lymia Aluysia

11:17

Is there a difference here between a game where a lot about the world is rather fixed (in particular, if you wanna avoid contradicting things you've established before) but players are still proactive and what you're describing?

BESW

There are four different published Doctor Who RPG systems. This weekend I'm running a Doctor Who game in Fate.

@LymiaAluysia Somewhat, depending on the extremity of the pre-designed world, but not really.

So long as all the players are in agreement on what is fixed, it's fine.

Saffron

But then it's not Doctor Who RPG, and you do not achieve the same things as with the systems created for Doctor Who right ?

BESW

@Saffron I think Fate does better than Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space with doing the things with DWAITAS is trying to do.

Ditto Fate vs the official SG-1 RPG, which used d20 Modern. Urgh.

Saffron

Well some systems are dump anyways I agree

BESW

(And I think Cthulhu Dark does a better job of supporting Lovecraftian horror with mechanics than Call of Cthulhu.)

Saffron

11:20

But some are pretty well made for the universe it supports, and will always do a better job (with some "fate concept" tweeks from the GM) than any generic system

doppelgreener

Fate isn't a concept; it's a system

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW I guess I'm more wondering what you mean by "reactive", I suppose. My group's only tried Pathfinder as far as traditional (in the sense of hack-and-slash stuff like D&D) systems go, and I doubt a group used to stuff like Maid RPG, or Paranoia would play Pathfinder like the 'reactive' players would.

BESW

Fate is a setting-agnostic RPG engine; it provides mechanics which support telling a certain KIND of story, regardless of the trappings of setting applied to the story.

Lymia Aluysia

Or, well, "get away with being purely reactive"

Saffron

I know, I introduced "fate concept" as what fate system is trying to achieve, but through not a system, but changes by the GM

doppelgreener

11:22

it's been in many many games (like Dresden Files RPG and some others mentioned in its tag wiki), and now has its own standalone systems: Fate Core, and Fate Accelerated

@Saffron ahh, alright.

What comes with the "fate concept" then?

BESW

@LymiaAluysia Doppelgreener is the one who said that, actually. [bows to Greener]

Lymia Aluysia

Errr

Opps

Saffron

To me it's breaking the rules of the system so that it seems more realistic, natural, and in line with the plot

BESW

afk a while

Lymia Aluysia

@doppelgreener hi

Saffron

11:23

afk too

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Hi! Reactive is like...

DM: You find a goblin encampment!
Players: Oh no! Let's attack them!
DM: You win! What do you do now?
Players: Uh, I dunno. We look around. What do we find?
DM: You find a note from Governor Wilkins!
Players: Oh no! Let's go hunt him down and attack him!

Lymia Aluysia

I should probably go look into FATE sometime, honestly. It sounds like it wouldn't be a bad match for how I usually GM stuff. How complex is FATE exactly? Or, rather... how about: Does it have/could it support any source books outside the core rulebook?

doppelgreener

In a certain mode of play, the DM can be relied upon to drop down breadcrumbs for the players to follow, with the players doing absolutely nothing if they're not given breadcrumbs.

The exact opposite of this is Sandbox play, where the players are relied upon to do whatever they want. However, D&D 3.5e involves huge and hefty stat blocks and carefully crafted encounter, which makes the on-the-spot improv required by sandbox play fairly challenging.

In Fate, however, I'll give you an example of being proactive: My players were in a town suffering Werewolf attacks. The Sherrif was suspicious to them; they could've actually attempted to declare (mechanically) that the sherrif was the werewolf! - but they didn't, we're still getting new to the system. What they did do was sneak into a house that'd been attacked, and start creating their own evidence. I had to respond to that by deciding what that evidence trail lead to.

They decided to investigate the woods, I had to improvise some scenes around what they were doing.

The players were pushing me as the GM to declare the story they were creating.

And Fate makes it easy enough to improvise that I was able to do a good job of that.

Lymia Aluysia

I'm not quite sure what'd be the major difference between reactive playstyles and sandbox play where you are able to find lots of clues and pointers (when you go looking). Right now, it sounds like a difference between the GMs defining the world and the players being able to define parts of the world outside their character, is that correct?

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia That's correct. The players actively define and shape their world. (Unlike in Sandbox: they still don't get to define the world, they just get to do whatever they want inside the world the DM creates for them.)

Fate gives the players lots of ways to shape the world themselves, decide what's in it, create new things, change things, etc.

Lymia Aluysia

11:31

So, the reactive style of play you were talking about is more the GM deciding the world /and/ basically story direction. (because the players aren't going to go off investigating without explicit prompting?)

Yeah, that clears things up a lot. :P

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Yes, precisely. Reactive play is where, if the players were left to their own devices without anything to tell them where to go next, they'd basically twiddle their thumbs and poke at things until the GM gave them a breadcrumb.

BESW

In D&D 3.5 and 4e, I did extensive complex worldbuilding independently of my players, but I set it up so that the players would then tumble through the world poking things and making things happen.

doppelgreener

Proactive play means the players throw their own breadcrumbs a few feet away then chase after them.

@BESW Or that! In D&D 4e, I was also able to create a world which had a very fragile balance of power between certain forces, and the players were going to be invited to try to act within the conflict and act as the tipping force. The world would be profoundly shaped by their actions.

(Never got to do that campaign, but nevertheless...)

Lymia Aluysia

And sandbox play is where the GM still controls the world (the players aren't pulling something out of a box without GM prompting there, unlike proactive play), but are choosing where to go, and what to do in that world?

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia Well, sandbox relies on the players to be proactive too - there's nothing to react to, they have to choose their own path. Just that in D&D's sandbox play, the world is still 100% the DM's creation, the only thing the players control are their characters. In Fate, the world is a collaborative creation between the players and the GM.

D&D sandbox play, and Fate, both rely on players to be proactive.

Lymia Aluysia

11:37

Oh, whoops. I thought "proactive play" was meant to refer to that specific playstyle. :P

doppelgreener

Proactive just means: "You initiate things yourself."

Lymia Aluysia

Yeah. I was thinking about my own group and wondering what exactly we were doing under that system. :P

doppelgreener

"Things happen because you decide they are going to start happening, and then you do them."

Lymia Aluysia

So, the difference between sandbox play and FATE is basically "You do something, and stuff happens", and "You decide something happens and your character and other things follow suit", right

Definitely sounds fun to run, at least. Though I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy playing that.

doppelgreener

@LymiaAluysia yeah, the simple difference is that the players themselves get to declare things about the world or NPCs as true.

that's pretty much it, but then a whole lot follows from that in them getting to mould the world.

Lymia Aluysia

11:40

Yeah, my group usually doesn't do it. Or, well... no.

doppelgreener

the GM's still the major content creator, but as a GM I rely on my players to create stuff too.

BESW

It's useful to remember that none of these playstyles are often seen in their pure form at the table.

Lymia Aluysia

One early game where I had a co-GM, a few players did that in the first few sessions. The other GM and I were a little confused privately in PM, but, went along with it. Though, it basically stopped happening after that.

BESW

Almost every group is a little bit of one and a lot of another with a splash of something else...

Lymia Aluysia

I'm curious if those players were used to the kind of style FATE usually does now. I wouldn't be surprised knowing one of them, at least.

doppelgreener

11:43

@BESW Yeah, I do have to create content for my players to follow, too.

Lymia Aluysia

@BESW I know. :P

@doppelgreener I think it'd be an interesting challenge to try and run, at least. Or maybe play, but, that sounds like it'd be hard(er) to just jump into.

lisardggY

(Incidentally, it's "Fate", as a name, not "FATE" as an acronym. It used to be, but is no longer)

Lymia Aluysia

(... geez, confusion all over. e.e)

s/FATE/Fate/g

BESW

In my experience, players that are totally new to RPGs instinctively use an improvisational narrative-first approach. If their group isn't using that style, it gets squashed pretty fast.

Lymia Aluysia

I'm pretty sure we had 4/4 new players, so. I don't recall consciously discouraging it, but, I guess nobody encouraged it either.

(Well... no. Only new to extended campaigns. Two were completely new AFAIK)

BESW

11:48

Systems like D&D, which require mechanics to justify actions and have a pre-implied setting, make it hard to maintain that kind of approach to play without active effort.

(In D&D, you say "I use X mechanic to do Y action." In Fate, you say "I do Y action; what mechanic shall we use to describe it?")

3

Inbar Rose

@BESW You forgot the most important part of that. In Fate it's "I want to do Y action; Should we use mechanics? Is it interesting? Why? And what mechanics should we use?"

Lymia Aluysia

We were using Magical Burst, which doesn't really heavily use mechanisms for actions outside battle, so. I guess it still has standard rolls for magical effects, which would wouldn't exactly encourge that play style.

Inbar Rose

Of course it's much more streamlined than that.

Lymia Aluysia

Even then, we usually just didn't roll when there wasn't an interesting reason.

In Fate, how do you deal with players declaring something about the world that would be hard to work into anything... or just makes no sense relative to the current situation?

BESW

@LymiaAluysia If something doesn't make sense according to the narrative, the other players call you on it.

@LymiaAluysia Then there are systems where you roll to make things interesting. Roll For Shoes uses its mechanics to progressively discover things about the world and the characters.

Inbar Rose

11:54

Ooooo RFS!

BESW

It's a silly game, but interesting.

Inbar Rose

My character wakes up from his sleep. I check to see if my sword is still nearby!

d6

Dice Service

•

Inbar Rose

damn.

Lymia Aluysia

Dice bot. :o

1d7

Mourdos

11:55

You know, thats also SLUG

:P

Lymia Aluysia

d7

Boooo

Mourdos

1d10

Dice Service

3

BESW

In my last game someone called his character "Loud Bear." Someone asked if he was actually a bear, so he rolled for it. He was.

Lymia Aluysia

d2

Inbar Rose

11:55

d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 d20

Lymia Aluysia

No coins either. :(

Mourdos

This reminds me of Sir Bearington the Bear

Inbar Rose

4d6

Dice Service

•

Inbar Rose

4d6 2d20

Dice Service

11:55

•

4

20

doppelgreener

@InbarRose I roll to see if your sword is lost. You'd better oppose this.

d6

Dice Service

•

Mourdos

Metool

@LymiaAluysia Standard polyhedral dice, 1-9, you can have "d" and it'll make two assumptions. One die, six sides.

Mourdos

Image, not a link. SFW

Metool

11:56

d 1d20

Dice Service

•

20

Mourdos

d d

Dice Service

•

Mourdos

d.d

Lymia Aluysia

(I remember an instance of a player being proactive and pulling something in the world, and the other GM deciding to take the opportunity to introduce a major character early)

Inbar Rose

11:57

@doppelgreener It's already gone.

Lymia Aluysia

d6+4

Not the most advanced dicebot. :P

Mourdos

Also, I go away for lunch, come back and there are 124 unread messages

Lymia Aluysia

Guess that's the consequences of using images though.

doppelgreener

@InbarRose Not nearby doesn't mean it's altogether lost necessarily!

Inbar Rose

d

Dice Service

11:58

•

Lymia Aluysia

RFS? Random Fate Session? :P

Mourdos

I seem to recall I once had a trouble of "Promoted from the Field"

Inbar Rose

Roll For Shoes!

Lymia Aluysia

Oh.

Even sillier.

Mourdos

Which explained why my character had bad social skills but was a military commander

Inbar Rose

11:58

I look for my robe and wizards hat.

d6

Dice Service

•

Inbar Rose

I use a point.

Do anything 1.
Robe and Wizards Hat 2.

woohoo!

doppelgreener

@DiceService You found it! It's in the hands of... SIR BEARINGTON. Your faithful neighbour. What the hell's he doing with your sword!?

Lymia Aluysia

Can we stop playing Chairman Mao now? :(

What kind of game is Fate?

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