TRPG General Chat

Tritium21

00:09

No yawning, that's contagious

Dorian

That's the point. It'll help me find out if everyone in here is dead or not :P

[goes back to looking for a phrenic racial class]

Dorian

00:29

Has anyone brewed up a Phrenic template class like the Half-Fay savage progression?

Metool

00:53

@Dorian Yes.

Dorian

Hmm.... Didn't find that one. Found this one though rpol.net/display.cgi?gi=9686&ti=157&date=1182116343

Now I have choices...

Dorian

01:19

I failed my saving through vs Fear of Building a FUBAR Character

Been staring at the screen for 2 hours thinking about this Kobold build, and I haven't written a darn thing.

Metool

I have that so much...

Dorian

01:31

I think I'll just go straightforward Warlock, Binder1, Hellfire Warlock.

Less to worry about...

BESW

01:45

Atomic Robo's version of Thomas Edison doesn't seem that different from ours.

"Progress is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent assassination."

BESW

02:02

@Arrowfar Hi!

user116848

@BESW Hi! How is it going?

user116848

:)

BESW

Getting ready for the typhoon that cancelled this weekend's Dresden Files playtest session.

user116848

I see :)

trogdor

I R sad

BESW

02:04

Yourself?

Dorian

02:18

[rolls]

8d20

Dice Service

13

14

16

14

1

4

18

1

Dorian

Dem 1's...

BESW

Very nearly average altogether, though. 10.125.

Getting within half a percent of average in a sample of just 8? That's impressive.

Tritium21

...makes me question the prng

Dorian

But 1's carry hefty consequences beyond just being a low roll in D&D

Tritium21

02:30

... if you say critical miss...

Dorian

That's exactly what it is though unless someone house-rules them out.

Or rather, critical failure.

Tritium21

no. nonononono... Critical failure is NOT a core rule. It never was. I DARE you to find the page number in a core D&D book that lists them as a core rule. Not a sidebar, not an optional rule. Not a splat book. Just in the holy trinity. You wont find it.

Dorian

Not saying it was.

But every game I've joined has had that as an expected rule unless someone specifically house-rules it out.

Tritium21

(I will temper my assuredness with 'i have not read 5E', but it never was part of the previous edition.)

That is called house-ruling it in

Dorian

If it becomes an accepted norm at most D&D tables... Though it is technically a house-ruling it in, unless specifically said otherwise it's generally expected.

Tritium21

02:38

Every table I have played at, once it was pointed out that it was NOT in the rules, never used it.

Dorian

I'll take a wild guess and say that you were the one that pointed it out :P

Tritium21

Nope. I learned it from another player.

Dorian

Well I happen to like the terror of a critical failure. It can change the best laid plans or the easiest encounter into a flight for your life.

Tritium21

I come from a White Wolf background, where a botch (critical failure) has always been in the rules

Dorian

Just as you get good luck in the Critical/Exceptional Success, the Critical/Dramatic Failure shows bad luck.

Tritium21

02:42

It's D&D, where simple failure is enough to destroy your plans. Success may not even be enough

Dorian

I've yet to wind up in a situation where a crit fail destroyed my plans irreparably.

Tritium21

It does not fit the genera. You fail, you succeed, or you succeed spectacularly. You dont stab yourself with your own sword, you just miss. Besides, there are already rules for if you fail - your opponent gets attacks of opportunity and the like

Anyways, I need to go to work

Dorian

Crit fail on an attack isn't something that has to be senseless like stabbing yourself with your own sword. You could instead overstep and lose your dex bonus to AC trying to right yourself, or trip and fall prone when you try a leap attack.

Well toodles, enjoy work.

BESW

03:06

My 3.5 players liked critical failure, for a variety of reasons which don't really apply to my current group.

We knew it was an optional rule, and we liked it enough that we chose to also apply it to skill rolls.

trogdor

I was one of your 3.5 players

so was Ben

Lord_Gareth

@trogdor So you are the one I must destroy

trogdor

@Lord_Gareth bring it on cowboy

lol

anyway, I wasn't technically saying I liked crit failure

BESW

Mmm, I'm mostly thinking of my college group.

trogdor

@BESW I figured that

though we did use crit failure too

BESW

03:10

Yanno, the one which believed the 4e=MMO rants and instead moved to Pathfinder after I left.

trogdor

lol

that is a pretty funny reaction to be honest

Lord_Gareth

@BESW I will hunt them to the ends of the Earth and decorate my home with the desecrated corpses of all that they have ever loved.

How is everyone tonight?

BESW

...killing Pathfinder and desecrating its corpse may put a bit of a damper on your side job.

@Lord_Gareth Typhoon incoming. Cancelled my Dresden Files playtest session.

On the other hand, ARRG is increasingly awesome.

trogdor

everything is fine if you don't count the fact that a typhoon is coming

and we had to cancel our game night for the whole week

Lord_Gareth

Well, a typhoon does sound like sufficient reason to cancel a test session

trogdor

03:14

it's enough reason to cancel any session

BESW

@trogdor I was thinking Marvellous Initiative probably won't impact the playtest results in any meaningful way, so I'll implement it next week.

Metool

@Lord_Gareth Trying support. Leona!

BESW

Yeah, nobody wants to get stuck at my house during a typhoon.

trogdor

@BESW it might make me reconsider my stunt

BESW

@trogdor Maybe re-phrase it, at least.

Lord_Gareth

03:15

@Metool Lemme know how that works for you :D

BESW

What is it now, +2 on Quick for initiative?

trogdor

if anything shows up that is faster than me, it wastes it completely

yeah

Metool

we have Tundra Hunter Warwick, Assassin Master Yi, Malphite, Leona and game_character_skin_displayname_Kogmaw_6.

Lord_Gareth

Kog needs you to protect him

Metool

Yes, he does.

trogdor

03:16

is there still precedent for Kog mid?

cause I remember seeing him in mid sometimes a while ago

Lord_Gareth

ADCs used to be mid in general

These days, assassins and mages go mid

And the ADC goes bot with a support

AP Kog happens sometimes but it's not as good as AD kog and as a result only gets built vs. armor-heavy opponents

BESW

@trogdor A thought: 1/conflict you get to choose who goes next in physical combat, regardless of who should have made that choice. This can be used on the first turn of combat, and can include designating yourself. The target must still be legal (no double turns in one exchange).

trogdor

maybe

@Lord_Gareth I think that is what I saw

BESW

That means you can go first in every combat, or you can let Rodger run away before anything else happens, or whatever--even if there shouldn't normally be an initiative check for that conflict.

trogdor

I do admit that was rare even then

I have not played League in a while

Lord_Gareth

03:30

@BESW I read a short story recently that has a battle strategy perhaps not out of place in a DFiles game

BESW

A swarm of pixies armed with box cutters?

Lord_Gareth

A group of adventurers smoked a dragon out of its cave with a bonfire made entirely of weed

Then fought the extremely stoned dragon

BESW

[blink]

Aside from the fact that Dresden Files dragons are practically gods, that might work.

Lord_Gareth

I thought it was the kind of plan a modern sorcerer might imagine :D

BESW

Heh.

Oh, here's an image you might want to use in a RAEG entry some day.

Lord_Gareth

03:36

That pixie is so mad

Man this song is wonderfully sinister

►

BESW

Harry's superpower isn't so much being a crazy-powerful wizard as it is having a rage aura with nigh unlimited range.

Metool

03:51

@Lord_Gareth Defeat with 1/14/20 because I don't know what the hell Kog was doing.

Lord_Gareth

Ah well

trogdor

that happens sometimes

Metool

Stats

Lord_Gareth

My second game with Thresh had an amusing post-game chat

Metool

Oh?

Lord_Gareth

03:55

Me: "Can I get any tips? Second time playing Thresh, would love advice." Enemy ADC: "I didn't need that dignity. Go ahead, take it, I wasn't using it."

2

Metool

Pfff.

Dorian

04:58

kooobolds

Dorian

05:49

[rolls for kobold supremacy]

1d20

Dice Service

11

user61230

Plot Seed #42: Kobolds overrun the market square; redecorate poorly.

4

Metool

d20

Dice Service

18

Metool

Haha, opposed rolls win again!

Dorian

05:56

@Emrakul Poorly? Kobolds have excellent taste!

Metool

(Wait, that's a bad thing.)

user61230

@Dorian ....are you a kobold?

Dorian

@Emrakul What if I am?!

user61230

[draws sword]

Dorian

@Emrakul Would you slaughter a creature that has done you no wrong?

Metool

06:06

@Dorian That's kind of what happens with a variety of livestock, innit?

Dorian

@Metool For food as a necessity to survive. They're also animals, not people. Kobolds are people!

user61230

Kobolds are food. Just like soylent.

Dorian

@Emrakul Kobolds are not food! Kobolds are people! Yes, some of u-them are a little.. misbehaved, but that doesn't mean you should just randomly slaughter u-them.

user61230

But mmm... the delicious taste of kobold roasted over a spit... and maybe I'll get my damn shop back the way it was once my business kicks up from kobold soup.

Dorian

[aghast]

user61230

06:21

What? It's good for business. The nobles come here often. Stop looking so surprised. I'm not the first person to kill game for business.

Metool

Friendly reminder: The range of 3d6 is not 1-18.

BESW

07:04

@Metool [blink] Who thinks that?

Metool

Someone in imgur comments for an album of Natural 20/Natural 1 macros.

Metool

07:49

Cheap electronics strike again. I would pay loads more for a power adapter that did not wear.

BESW

08:17

@doppelgreener Fuller speculative write-up on Fate hack-and-slash kobolds:

> Clutch of Kobolds (contains 5 kobolds; +1 Teamwork bonus to skills per kobold after the first)
Courage in numbers!
Instinctive trappers
Stealthy +2 (+6) [Create advantage, overcome, defend]
Teeth & Claws +1 (+5) [create advantage, overcome, attack]
Traps +3 (+7) [create advantage, attack]
- Any zone to which a kobold has had unsupervised access for at least one day gains the aspect ‘Hidden traps’ with one free invoke (multiple kobolds does not make this stack).
- Can use Teamwork bonus on Stealth checks even when being numerous wouldn’t normally be an advantage.

BESW

08:47

Hmm. Gonna make some further tweaks to that in the Fate room.

Concept: Fred Jones vs Kobolds.

BESW

10:00

@trogdor I just posted an ARRPG question. If you can answer it...

0

Q: When does a GM's reserve pool reset?

Atomic Robo: the Roleplaying Game is very clear on how to determine how many Fate points are added to the GM's reserve and what the GM can spend them on (ARRPG 54). However, I'm confused by the when of adding points to the reserve: Does the reserve ever zero out automatically? The book says "th...

trogdor

@BESW I'll take a look

BESW

It's probably not something you read really carefully, because GM.

I don't expect to get a lot of answers, since it's a question that only people with that specific Fate game can answer--and the game is less than a year old.

trogdor

I can look over a few things, and at least make some kind of answer

and if nothing is actually in the book, I can answer based off of normal Fate rules

I certainly wouldn't mind making some kind of answer

mm I can actually start crafting an answer now

still a couple things I need to look at, but I can bounce between them

trogdor

11:20

mk, I posted an answer

it is long, but don't hesitate to mention anything you want clarified or expanded on

@BESW poke

BESW

11:36

Thanks, I'll read it.

Hm. I'll have to think on that.

My instinct is that the reserve resets to [0 + mega-stunt points + borrowed hardware points] at the start of every issue, and outside of that mega-stunt/hardware points are only added when they're first introduced to the issue if they weren't there at the start.

trogdor

mm

well that bit was my thoughts with very little from the book itself

BESW

Also note that "session" and "issue" are similar but not synonymous, and that a lot of what other Fate systems do per-session, ARRPG does per-issue.

trogdor

yeah, I am not entirely clear what "issue" is

that is why I stuck to "session"

I added in an edit that put Issue in parenthesis when I mentioned sessions as a possible "trade off"

BESW

"Issue" is exactly what it sounds like--the RPG equivalent of a single issue of a comic book. It's usually one or two sessions and runs from the resolution of one significant cliffhanger to the start of the next.

trogdor

ah ok

more or less what I figured it was

BESW

11:51

There's usually three to six issues in a story, and each issue has a particular problem (usually precipitated by the previous issue's cliffhanger, or the resolution of that cliffhanger) which is the focus of play.

trogdor

mk

BESW

Page 185 breaks them down roughly into four discrete units: the first issue or two are where the PCs find out about the major problem they have to resolve in order to finish the story; the next issue has them chasing the problem down/researching it to find out more specifics, followed by an issue in which they confront and are defeated by the problem, and then it concludes with an issue or two in which they rally and solve/defeat the problem.

trogdor

ah ok

I remember reading that actually

I didn't connect that with "issues" for whatever reason

BESW

And each issue should contain a point where it's logical to have a minor milestone.

trogdor

it seems a little restrictive to require things like "and now the PC's lose" or "and now the PC's win"

and even specifying when they do research and how long it takes

BESW

11:58

Well, it's... guidelines...

trogdor

especially for groups like ours that usually meet once per week (at most)

yeah

I get that

BESW

And actually it's introduced by saying the game usually plots itself just fine, but if the GM wants guidelines, here they are.

For me, it helps remind me where to put the pressure on with compels and higher difficulties to get the "pulp comic" feeling.

trogdor

I have nothing against that

saying "ok put the pressure on" isn't the same as "ok, they lose now"

BESW

Aye.

Like, for brainstorming it says that the group will likely make it obvious when the brainstorm should happen. But if they're not moving in that direction, there's some suggestions for how to push, since brainstorming is a major part of the Atomic Robo thing.

(Also, Fate points get handed out like candy for participating in brainstorms.)

trogdor

12:27

is there a reason for that?

BESW

Several, I think, but none explicit.

First, brainstorming is most dramatic when it takes place mid-combat, and by joining the brainstorm you cede your ability to participate in the conflict until the brainstorm is over. That's compel territory.

(And notice that it's worded as a compel: to join the brainstorm you declare your interest in doing so and then explain which of your character aspects justifies it, and the GM hands you a Fate point.)

Second, brainstorming is a series of important rolls which the GM is encouraged to frame as a competition between players, and the difficulty of the rolls increases each exchange. Handing out Fate points at the beginning of the brainstorm encourages players to spend Fate points during the brainstorm.

trogdor

or to forfeit getting anything done during the brainstorm at a certain point and pocket the FP (but if everyone does that it might not be solved obviously)

BESW

And third, it's a straight-up bribe to get you on board with the most SCIENCE!-y group activity the game has to offer, if you happen to be reluctant to do so.

trogdor

welp, your question is a little more popular than I expected it to be this early seeing as it is a new and relatively obscure system

BESW

Eh, mostly it's just sitting at the top of the Active and Newest queues during a low-question time.

trogdor

12:35

I guess

some people here don't do what I do I suppose

BESW

BTW, if you think it's worth asking either the "what are issues?" question or the "why does brainstorming give Fate points?" one on main-site, I'll happily answer 'em there too.

trogdor

which is ignore any question on a system I am not personally interested in or knowledgeable about

@BESW not a bad idea

technically you answered them already, but I don't see how it hurts to ask

I posted the "Issues" one

now for brainstorming

BESW

Answered.

Don't accept right away, though.

trogdor

yeah, no problem there

I will wait, I know that is the right thing to do here

if someone shows up with a better answer more power to em

mk, posted the other one

are theses good questions in your opinion?

they are litterally the first two I have ever posted

BESW

You might add a bit about why you're confused re: brainstorming and FP.

Like, "Shouldn't you get FP for not being part of the awesome plot-defining moment?"

trogdor

12:48

mk

sounds like a reasonable thing to add

BESW

Also, typo in the first sentence.

trogdor

the missing "a" ?

between read and section?

BESW

Yes.

trogdor

mk

caught that

BESW

And hey, look, you got 55 rep from today already!

trogdor

12:56

posting a question is actually a bit exciting, though I don't actually expect too many answers (or at least quickly) to questions from this system.

yep

BESW

I've only got 50 rep so far today on RPG.SE (and 10 on scifi.se for an old Marvelverse answer).

trogdor

more than my loot in fate core answer ever got me

though to be fair, this is two questions

BESW

And an answer!

trogdor

And even though they don't give as much rep,.. it's two of em. At the same time.

yeah true

two questions and one answer

and to be even more fair

there were a few (deservedly) higher voted answers than my Loot to Fate Core answer too.

a lot of people were ready to answer that one

BESW

Ayuh. That was a weird little question, anyway.

trogdor

13:03

so theoretically, I (or someone else) could put a bounty on these questions in two days if they didn't think the questions (or possibly the answers?) got enough attention yet and wanted to see some activity?

BESW

Yup.

Dorian

i fell asleep :(

trogdor

don't feel bad

I probably will within the hour myself

Dorian

I intended to finish my chara....

but i fell asleep. i now have little time before i leave for my nWoD game, and after that is my D&D game, and i kinda needed this chara cor the D&D game tonight.

though admittedly i've been sick so i have a good excuse but still....

BESW

@trogdor Much better, thanks.

Side note re: brainstorming. One issue I've had with Core is that the Overcome action is unnaturally weighted outside of conflicts: both contests and challenges use overcome rolls exclusively (you can roll Create Advantage, but it's secondary and serves only to support a later Overcome roll).

trogdor

13:15

@BESW I added something on the end too, just now.

BESW

This means that Overcome stunts are functionally superior to other stunts in games where contests and challenges happen at least as often as conflicts.

Brainstorming uses the Create Advantage action!

trogdor

neat

BESW

This helps move the weight away from Overcome, and models the power of using Create Advantage to let the player define the world independent of the GM.

trogdor

I have actually noticed that more text is usually used for Overcome too

BESW

Overcome is the default "If you're doing obviously using any other action, use this one."

It's also the Spot Check vs Hidden action, and we know how powerful that is, even/especially in games where you can't use it to invent new things about your surroundings.

Phenomenally thoughtful review: http://www.philipsandifer.com/2014/10/kill-moon-review.html

Tweeted by 2minutetimelord on October 5, 2014 at 12:16 PM

trogdor

13:24

I also just got the "student" badge

a little strange considering I already have the "Teacher" badge

BESW

Back to school for you!

trogdor

lol

mk

I am gonna turn in for the night

hopefully the storm doesn't wake me up or anything annoying like that

BESW

Yar. The wind picked up just a little, but otherwise not too messy here yet.

Weird.

I should go to bed too... g'night.

lisardggY

14:22

`ello.

@BESW @trogdor I like the back-and-forth dynamic you have going there. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were each other's sock puppets. :)

The Oracle

16:26

0

Q: qa.sockets.stackexchange.com never finishes loading

Chrome shows the "loading" spinner for RPG SE endlessly for me. Taking a look in Chrome's dev-tools shows wss://qa.sockets.stackexchange.com as Status 101 Switching Protocols and Time as Pending. Google Chrome version 37.0.206...

bug

lisardggY

20:23

I'm surprised that in all the foofarah over the Light Fortification question, nobody compared it to Spell Resistance, which functions similarly in terms of overlapping vs. stacking.

lisardggY

20:46

Also, 'foofarah'. Good word.

BESW

22:10

@lisardggY [grin]

We've both just got the ARRPG book, and it's crunchy!

RedRiderX

22:34

THATS NO MOON

Is there a place we can discuss the latest doctor who episode?

Or has everyone watched it

BESW

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

I'm not a place to unwind after work, but I play one on TV.

1

RedRiderX

@BESW Hah okay

Tritium21

23:03

... Does anyone have a chart for me to roll against to see whats for dinner?

Phil

elephant trunk with squirrel gravy?

Tritium21

Not exotic enough

Phil

man you have high standards

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

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