TRPG General Chat

Joshua Aslan Smith

00:04

@waxeagle did anyone take detect magic?

wax eagle

00:16

@JoshuaAslanSmith lemmie check, wiz should have it, but I don't know if he took it

Bradd Szonye

@DuckTapeAl I’ve personally found it easiest to deal with gaming dissatisfaction by starting my own group. GMing experience isn’t all that tough to develop, and you might be able to recruit a GM looking for group.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith it's in the cleric list and he can cast it if he preps it. Wiz doesn't have to have it prepped if he's taken it as a spell...I don't think I have robert's full list anywhere

Bradd Szonye

I didn’t realize at first that rituals without preparation are a special bonus of the wizard.

Everybody else gets them slot-free but not prep-free.

doppelgreener

@Pixie I still have yet to work out how to manage shift work in my group. Though when I start it again - when I get a chance, since I've been so busy! - I think I'm gonna have to work on the basis that not everyone will be there all the time.

wax eagle

@BraddSzonye yeah, it didn't fully click with me until just now

Bradd Szonye

00:20

@doppelgreener I read Inspiration as a tool for DMs to encourage their players into cool and compelling play, rather than playing “right.” I imagine it depends on what biases you bring to the game.

The fact that it’s all carrot and no stick leads me to believe that it’s not for straitjacketing though.

@waxeagle It’s a nice little bonus!

There are a few of those around. Like, I didn’t realize that Healing Word was a bonus action. I thought the tradeoff was purely less healing for range.

But it’s less healing for range and time.

Tritium21

0

Q: Help me manage a Vampire homebrew roleplay issue

I have a (8th level) Magus [Skirnir archetype, so, casting using shields as a catalyst, etc. Not entirely relevant] who, for the sake of roleplay, is an exile from Kelesh who was removed due to his graverobbing tendencies in regards to Ancient Osirian culture. (As a Magus, he's basically a spell-...

wax eagle

yep, action economy is a big boost there

Tritium21

I am having trouble parsing this

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye the absence of carrots, especially when others in the room are rolling around in carrots and feasting on them, is a pretty good mechanism to encourage change even if you don't have anything resembling a stick.

Bradd Szonye

One of my players had an interesting comment about Healing Word though. He noted how D&D 5 was backing away from recent editions’ tendency to DPS-balance everyone via action and damage economy.

Pixie

00:24

@doppelgreener Yeah, that's just what we've had to do between players' work, school, and illnesses.

doppelgreener

but I totally acknowledge this is just the vibe I'm getting. Part of the contributor is that the DM is seen as the total arbiter of Inspiration, but I guess that's just the D&D attitude: the DM is the ultimate arbiter of all things, so they do that for Inspiration too.

Bradd Szonye

Like, his attitude is that when you’re playing a healer, your job isn’t to squeeze in what healing you can in between your own middling attempts at DPS. Your job is to keep your friends alive, and that can’t be measured in DPS.

@doppelgreener Yeah, D&D has a very strong “DM is the referee” tradition, which I personally tend to ignore, although less so than I used to.

wax eagle

@Tritium21 he wants a RAWish solution to become a living vamp/lich

@BraddSzonye I instead see it as a way to make up for lost time with say spare the dying cast on one ally and healing word on another

doppelgreener

This would be helped if the rules said something like: "When a player does something awesome, fellow players can point out they should get inspiration." This creates some neutral acceptance of this idea, and encouragement from the rules that players can go "That was rad. DM, give them some Inspiration for that?"

wax eagle

though it does allow you to attack on the same turn as heal, which is a nice choice for some clerics

@doppelgreener it does actually, inspiration is transferable

Bradd Szonye

00:27

@waxeagle Yeah, it’s cool, his point was just that healing your pals is not “lost time,” which is kind of a turnaround from D&D 3–4.

Tritium21

@waxeagle Well, it is still in the first post review queue

wax eagle

@Tritium21 yeah, I have no idea if it's remotely answerable

Bradd Szonye

@waxeagle Which my players actually planned to use tactically in the big duel at the end of HotDQ episode 1.

doppelgreener

@waxeagle correct. but you can't suggest it be created anew for another player when you don't have any or don't want to give it away. you get no stake in the decision-making process to get new inspiration; it's solely the domain of the DM.

Bradd Szonye

They were all full up on Inspiration, and they decided that the paladin fighting a duel for honor and glory was awesome, so they were all going to feed it to her as she used it.

@doppelgreener You can always make suggestions to the DM, they’re just the referee, and so they might not agree.

doppelgreener

00:29

@BraddSzonye yes, and I totally understand these things can be done, but my issue is that the rules at no point endorse it.

wax eagle

speaking of, I need to remind my players to remind me about when they're fishing for it...

Bradd Szonye

I regularly remind my players to fish for Inspiration whenever they can, especially because I can’t remember all of their traits.

Miniman

@waxeagle Yeah, I tend to rely on someone around the table saying the word inspiration

Bradd Szonye

Just like I count on them to speak up when I’m dumb and remember the rules wrong.

I don’t think you need a rule for that.

(Although perhaps some DMs do.)

wax eagle

some DMs have power fantasies and can't stand being corrected?

doppelgreener

00:32

I'm not saying there needs to be a rule, but the book suggesting it or mentioning it is helpful.

Bradd Szonye

I don’t have the PHB handy, and nobody has the DMG, so I don’t know whether it has any advice of that nature beyond what’s in the Basic rules.

doppelgreener

e.g. the rule that the DM can change anything is always assumed in D&D, so that's taken as a basic ever-present assumption, but the book explicitly suggests the DM is free to come up with their own scheme for how inspiration works.

that totally endorses the idea, suggests the DM may want to do it, and makes it seem totally acceptable when the DM utterly changes the Inspiration scheme. (which is fine.)

likewise, if the book endorses the idea of players suggesting other players get Inspiration, or even themselves, this adds it to the culture of the game as a good and accepted thing because even the designers said so there in the book.

not even group needs this to remind them they can/should be doing all of this. evidently your group doesn't, Bradd. But it helps with other groups.

and it suggests something fundamental about how the Inspiration system was designed: It's the DM's toy, and the players are subservient to the DM's whims on the matter.

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener The rule that you can hand off Inspiration, without any approval whatsoever, goes pretty strongly against that.

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye I am not talking about handing off Inspiration, I am talking about suggestions the DM generate new inspiration.

Bradd Szonye

“Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game.”

@doppelgreener I’m saying, the very idea of being able to trade freely in Inspiration argues pretty strongly against the whole idea that it is a tightly DM-controlled resource.

doppelgreener

00:38

Could we bear in mind that a large part of D&D culture is that there are DMs who:
- are heavily controlling or manipulative
- are not benevolent at all
- take any challenges on their actions personally (when not sanctioned by the rules, and even then still)
- have a story to tell, and the players are there for the ride
- and so on.

Bradd Szonye

And while there are DMs who are very you-can’t-do-anything-without-my-say-so, I don’t think that is evidence toward the designers supporting it, just because they don’t suggest player input at every possible place.

doppelgreener

And a DM can be multiple of these Not Good things at once.

So I am talking about how these unhealthy attitudes interact with the Inspiration system.

Bradd Szonye

People with those unhealthy attitudes tend to ignore any suggestions, in the rules or otherwise, that they should cut the players a break.

doppelgreener

So I am talking about how these unhealthy attitudes interact with the Inspiration system, and how the Inspiration system doesn't give much leeway to players in this situation.

Bradd Szonye

I know plenty of those folks, and if the rules say the players are welcome to make suggestions, they shrug and say, “And I’m welcome to ignore them, because I’m God and the Law.”

Folks like that interpret things like Rule Zero as license to be jerks, rather than license to make things work to the group’s liking.

More importantly, I don’t think you need to go to the extent that (say) Fate does to tell you how to use tools, for the designers to have intended you to use the tools that way.

Absence of evidence of democracy is not evidence of authoritarianism.

doppelgreener

00:43

@BraddSzonye i'm not suggesting the player are not capable of realising they can do this, man

All along I have been saying it helps. Because it does! That's why the Fate authors bother to point out retroactive compels and so on.

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener I just don’t see how you can reach the conclusion you have, especially given that the DM’s Guide is not out yet, that the DM’s advice leans toward authoritarianism.

doppelgreener

It makes players feel more relaxed about doing this - less uneasy, specifically, because they don't have to wonder if they're breaking the rules. It teaches people who are trying to learn from the books about how to use the system that this is good, and so on.

@BraddSzonye Well, in part, because I am judging the present materials.

Bradd Szonye

Sure it helps, but you’re making claims about the designers intended when the designer’s intent isn’t in the rules.

doppelgreener

Because that's all I have.

Bradd Szonye

And you and I have inferred totally different things from what’s written in the stuff we actually have available.

I’m just not that worried that other people might play it wrong.

Just like I’m not going to tell my players that they’re playing their characters wrong, whether by omission of Inspiration or otherwise.

Miniman

00:47

@BraddSzonye +1. The nebulous hypothetical groups out there full of nebulous hypothetical people just aren't my problem.

wax eagle

(tbf though, when analyzing a design, they are a concern)

Bradd Szonye

Heck, while I’m likely to use Inspiration similar to Fate points, other DMs won’t, and that’s OK.

(As long as they’re not my DM, because it would make me unhappy.)

Shalvenay

@BraddSzonye: healers have their own metric :P

Miniman

@waxeagle Yeah, I'm not putting that forward as a point for either side of the argument. Just saying that I'm not sure it's an argument with any purpose.

Shalvenay

my personal problem from a DMing standpoint is that I can easily push a party into a state where they are simply helpless to respond to the events that are taking place -- because their scope of play never included what I had in mind

it's the difference between saving a key NPC from a garden-variety alchemist's poison and saving them from carbonyl fluoride poisoning

Miniman

00:56

@Shalvenay my personal problem from a DMing standpoint is that I my players can easily push ~~a party~~ me into a state where ~~they are~~ I am simply helpless to respond to the events that are taking place -- because their scope of play never included what I had in mind

wax eagle

@Shalvenay this is why abstraction is important :)

Shalvenay

@Miniman: haha xD we'd be a perfect match ;) the outrageous meets the befuddled

doppelgreener

@Miniman the difference may be that I'm viewing this from the perspective of a game designer, and the results of other systems within this craft are of great interest and relevance to me - and thus so are their strengths and weaknesses. even if it does not directly affect groups I play in (I am not even playing in a 5e group).

Shalvenay

@waxeagle: I'm very good at finding holes in abstractions and leveraging them -- somewhat too good for other RPers at times

carbonyl fluoride is a good example of this -- it not only attacks the lungs in a manner somewhat similar to phosgene gas, it dissociates on contact with water to produce hydrogen fluoride

wax eagle

@Shalvenay see...I have no expectation of an RPer to know this...but their character might...

Shalvenay

00:59

which is a nasty poison partly because its mode of effect and presentation are so darn different from most things that you can get whacked by

Miniman

@Shalvenay Well, when one of my players says "I want to tame the evil intelligent guard drake and use it as a mount" I'm never quite aure how to respond.

Except for, "go ahead and try".

Shalvenay

yeah, I don't have a problem with "go ahead and try stuff"

Miniman

@Shalvenay I can't think of a game system off the top of my head that is really meant to let you do this sort of thing.

Shalvenay

yeah, and even in freeform -- most players expect a fairly high level of abstraction

Miniman

I feel like we're about to go for round 3 of this argument - I'm just gonna say that your expectations seem completely mismatched with any PRG player I've ever met, and leave it at that.

doppelgreener

01:03

pseudo random generator player

Miniman

@doppelgreener I read that as sudo RANDOM generate player

doppelgreener

@Miniman also relevant

Shalvenay

yeah -- something twigged off your example though: I wonder if it's possible to frame the relationship between an intelligent flying mount and its rider as something akin to the relationship between the pilot flying and the pilot monitoring in an airline cockpit?

Miniman

@Shalvenay [blinks]

Not sure I see a connection there.

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay if one is doing the flying, but the other has greater intelligence at their disposal and the big picture, maybe

(i can't confess to knowing how two-pilot systems are generally handled in aircraft)

Shalvenay

01:09

@doppelgreener: what will happen on a typical airline flight is that one pilot will fly a leg (whether it be hand-flying the plane or telling Otto the Autopilot what to do) and the other pilot will monitor the instruments and the progress of the flight as a cross-check against the pilot flying goofing something up

the pilot monitoring will also be responsible for many 'systems' tasks as well, especially in a non-normal situation, where they run checklists etal

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay i do not think the same dynamic would exist when the aircraft is intelligent and awake, already monitored by its own bodily functions, and there is just one pilot telling the aircraft what to do.

Adeptus

Shalvenay

hrm...yeah, I could see it shifting somewhat -- but the basic point still holds -- you want a second pair of eyeballs and brain backing you up, even if you're an adult gold dragon

although part of the RL side of what I describe is due to the need to safeguard against error, and another factor is the high workload created by flying under the instrument flight rules

having to deal with getting clearances, checking navigation, etal

BESW

i ate a bunch of unpopped popcorn kernels, and now it is tanning bed time

Tweeted by __MICHAELJ0RDAN on November 19, 2014 at 11:52 PM

Pixie

I don't know, gold dragons are brought up to know how to fly without any help and likely have instinct on their side. Consider flying creatures in real life. The dragon is intelligent, but that doesn't necessarily stop it from having similar flight instincts.

Shalvenay

01:16

I wonder how hard it would be for an appropriately equipped dragon to get their instrument rating, actually...

I agree in some areas -- I'd give intelligent flying beasts credit for not being susceptible to spatial disorientation, at least, and also having good instincts for recovering from unusual attitudes, not breaking themselves with high G loads, etal

Pixie

Not to say a second pair of eyes couldn't help, just that it's probably not very necessary, vs. checking and rechecking complex equipment that humans must learn from the ground up, generally starting during young adulthood.

Shalvenay

but: I certainly wouldn't want to be an adult gold dragon trying to pick my way through the LAX Class Bravo without at least a little help

(same with any other busy city for that matter -- listen to liveATC feeds for LAX, JFK, ORD or the likes sometime)

@Pixie: although a dragon getting their instrument rating would make for a fun modern-fantasy sort of plot, I think ;)

Pixie

@Shalvenay Well, yeah, with a modern setting you might have some additional concerns. xD

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay i think the issue is that although there are a small number of passing resemblances, in general the comparison is weak

Shalvenay

perhaps

doppelgreener

01:23

the two pilots on an aircraft system does not generally have the aeroplane being awake, having its own sense of judgement and wants and needs, and its own internal mechanical monitoring systems, and etc.

it is its own thing, that may have some loose comparisons to another somewhat comparable situation.

Shalvenay

I suspect it's dependent on the rider (first time rider vs. say someone who's an airplane pilot) and conditions -- even dragons find severe clear easier to fly in than a bumpy tropical T-storm, I suspect ;)

doppelgreener

it is much closer to a cowboy riding a horse, but i don't think we could compare horseriding to piloting an aircraft and get very far.

(or at the very least, we'd get a little of the ways in, and wonder: "what are we doing here again?")

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener I just don’t see how you get from a brief description of a few cool things you can do to earn inspiration (but check with your DM), to it being a tool for autocratic DMs to tell you that you aren’t playing your character right.

Shalvenay

autocrats will be autocrats?

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye ok, and i think we should leave it that way; i was attempting to communicate it and we just had a big weird discussion dominating the chat room and the communication seems to have not gone well.

BESW

01:28

D&D 5e Overflow

For when main chat wants to talk about other things too.

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener My personal take is that a game’s free basic rules just aren’t (necessarily) the place to communicate things like group decision-making style, and so absence of a statement there is inconclusive.

@BESW Not even trying to make this about D&D.

RPGs in general are all over the map regarding decision-making style.

Shalvenay

so, other than @BESW's FATE table and @waxeagle's 5e table -- who here runs games for the rpg.se folk at large?

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye it is nevertheless a discussion we should have in that room, if we have it, but i am not presently interested in having it: we are communicating against radically different paradigms, including having experienced different groups, and you having radically different expectations of the free rules or even D&D 5e's rules (e.g. "well the DMG isn't out yet").

Bradd Szonye

Some of them take a stance on it, like Fate, which is all about consensus-building style, for example. One of the things I like about Fate.

doppelgreener

if you are interested in pursuing this line of discussion I suggest you head to the debate room or the Not A Bar, given its contentious nature.

Bradd Szonye

01:32

But not every game wants to be Fate. And so I don’t think we should assume that just because a game’s intro rules don’t explicitly mention consensus-building, that it is encouraging the opposite of Fate, because many people historically go that way.

I guess I’ll just drop it, as nobody seems interested in discussing it.

I am getting tired of a certain kind of system-bashing that seems prevalent around here lately though, that goes sort of like “Game X doesn’t say what I want it to say, so I presume they meant the worst possible thing instead.”

BESW

Seriously, if you want to talk about it, take it to another room. The disengagement is largely a sense that it's too dominant and contentious for main chat, not an actual lack of interest.

→ 7 messages moved to D&D 5e Debate Room

doppelgreener

01:48

@BESW should the above messages also be moved there?

or at least my latest one

BESW

→ 1 message moved to D&D 5e Debate Room

The higher-up messages are mixed into attempt to conduct other conversations, which I'm not sure I can easily sort out.

doppelgreener

alright.

in other news:

earlier i wrote illithud by accident, but I like this typo

4

Pixie

illithud: the noise an illithid makes when it runs into a door

Shalvenay

haha

doppelgreener

alternately the juggernaut of illithids

also I found out the bar beside my work has this ale:

Pixie

01:54

On that note...

doppelgreener

(I am not sure if this is a joke or if this ale truly exists)

Pixie

I attempted to text my boyfriend "Up for Pathfinder?" I forgot Pathfinder isn't in my phone's dictionary and instead texted "Up for paradise?"

trogdor

lol

Shalvenay

:P

trogdor

it would be extra funny if he responded positively immediately

doppelgreener

01:55

@Pixie both sound like an excellent kind of text to receive

Pixie

@trogdor Ahaha. I caught it, so I clarified it within the same message, but it was too funny not to keep.

trogdor

ah ok

still funny though

Pixie

@doppelgreener Very true. :v

@trogdor Yeah. I'm usually pretty good at catching things, but sometimes some weird stuff gets out. I can hardly type on a phone without Swype, so it must be lived with. xD

doppelgreener

Admiral Ackbar anti-imperial red ale really exists.

trogdor

yeah, from what I understand, auto corrects,... replace written stuff with really weird awkward things sometimes

Pixie

02:01

@trogdor Yeah. With swype, you slide your finger along the letters of the word you want in one continuous motion. Usually it's either pretty good at getting it or it's the second suggestion. Sometimes, however...

I have also texted a friend "Just checking Baal." instead of "Just checking back." I was like "BAAL? Seriously? That is not only in your autocorrect dictionary, but you thought it more likely that that's what I'd be trying to say?"

trogdor

computers think in mysterious ways I guess

Pixie

But that was fun too. I was like, "Yeah, just making sure Baal's doing okay, could I get him back before Sunday?"

@doppelgreener I love fun booze types (although I don't drink).

wax eagle

@doppelgreener how is anti-imperial defined as a style? is that like session?

definitely not session...not at 8.5% abv

Tritium21

02:17

Imperial Red is a style, and Anti-Imperial is puffery - trade name

trogdor

@Pixie gotta make sure he gets home before curfew

also I can't help but think of this Baal whenever the name comes up

wax eagle

@Tritium21 oh sure, I get that. Imperial in a style name just means its high ABV, I was wondering if the anti- was truth in advertising or just marketing hoi palloi

trogdor

doppelgreener

@waxeagle i presume a percentage of profits will be diverted to the rebel alliance

@Pixie Me too! I like our Craft beers here.

Pixie

@doppelgreener Yeah, those can be interesting. What I do not like is how alcohol descriptions make me want to taste them and then when I do they're terrible every time. Like "oh that one sounds like it might be kind of good!" NOPE.

doppelgreener

02:27

@Pixie .... yessss....

I don't like that either.

Lunch meeting! Ttfn.

Pixie

Wah... I hope Cannon Busters gets funded... still need about 40k in the last two weeks. They got a good start, though. Animation kickstarters are probably outside the scope of the chat list, but I'll link it just because it's cool. kickstarter.com/projects/473463284/…

Tritium21

02:47

Am I the only geek that has no interest in anime?

Miniman

@Tritium21 No.

Shalvenay

@Tritium21: hell no

Metool

03:03

@Tritium21 Absolutely not.

Tritium21

I no longer feel alone

Miniman

Which is to say, I love (certain) anime, but dude, that's like asking if you're the only geek with no interest in RPGs.

LitheOhm

@metool yo

Shalvenay

ugh. I get this sense that I just don't grasp why people insist that RP should be purely collaborative -- to me, the purely collaborative model just creates the same old saw over and over again: stories that bend over backwards just to fit some notion of 'plot' without any thought as to developing a chain of logic to their events

Miniman

You want RP to follow a story laid down by one person? There's all kinds of terms for that around the genre.

Pixie

03:18

@Shalvenay What do you mean by "purely collaborative"? There's not really any other way for a non-solo RP to be but collaborative.

Shalvenay

let me restate that actually

I'm thinking along the lines of 'the RP should reflect what happens when its participant characters clash'

Adeptus

There's always a choice between "railroaded" and "sandbox" style campaigns/plots (or something in between).

Miniman

@Shalvenay Wait, are you saying you want RP to be competitive rather than cooperative?

Shalvenay

and for that to work for me, there needs to be an element of player vs player conflict thinking -- otherwise, the IC conflicts become artificial/forced

there is a metagame, a mindgame, at work whenever conflict takes place

using conflict purely as a plot device ignores that

Pixie

What I've found is this: characters can be competitive with one another, and this can really spice up the game. Players who are adversarial with one another cause problems almost always, unless they have a really good understanding of what they both want out of the game.

Miniman

03:22

@Shalvenay You know there are large numbers of PVP RPGs, right?

Shalvenay

@Miniman: it seems that there are systems which are this way, yes

Miniman

@Shalvenay Then I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Pixie

@Miniman Yeah, games intended to be PVP games are one case of players having a really good understanding of what they want.

Shalvenay

@Pixie: the problem with making cooperating players play competing characters in my mind is that the conflict winds up 'ringing hollow'

Pixie

@Shalvenay That's not how it happens in my experience.

Miniman

03:24

@Shalvenay But many games involve competing players playing competing characters!

Shalvenay

the drive to 'create a good story' gets pitted against the competitive metagame in my mind

Miniman

@Shalvenay So your point is that there is an implicit assumption in RPs that players are working together to create a good story?

Shalvenay

@Miniman: yes -- that's what I have been lead to believe

Miniman

25

Q: How to deal with questions that just don't understand the scope of the RPG landscape?

We've had several questions lately that we've been closing. What point-buy systems of magic (like psionics in 3e D&D) are there? , What are the main Creative Commons powered tabletop RPG out there?, How do the rules that govern a Cleric's Turn Undead ability vary among D&D editions? (before it wa...

discussion feature-request game-recommendation

Pixie

Some players want that. Some players don't. Although I enjoy narrative in my RP, I dislike the assumption that RP is synonymous with story. It's not.

2

Miniman

03:27

@Pixie +1

Shalvenay

I suspect it's free-form types who are more inclined to make that implicit assumption -- and yes, +1 @Pixie

I have met a few fellow RPers who have an appreciation for what RPing Xanatos Speed Chess is like, but they are a rare breed all the same -- and I suspect that's the same factor that causes some (many?) to see me as 'you jerk!' straight-away without realizing what's really going on

Pixie

@Shalvenay Some freeform players do make that assumption, yes. Not all, though (me? :v). The thing is, though, at the same time... you can come off as kind of condescending.

Shalvenay

yeah, part of the problem is that I don't know what to expect other people to know or not know -- or be willing to look up, even, for that matter

I'm a lot more cool with 'I don't know, but I'll be happy to look it up or have you explain it to me' than 'I don't want to know and shouldn't have to know to RP with you'

that last attitude I mentioned strikes me as just as bad as they probably perceive me to be condescending

Pixie

You have different notions of how RP should work than some others -- that is all well and good! But those notions are about how RP should work for you. When you say things like "the problem with making cooperating players play competing characters in my mind is that the conflict winds up 'ringing hollow'," that's a pretty big value judgment about what those players are trying to achieve and what they're actually achieving.

Miniman

@Shalvenay But...unless it was agreed upon, people shouldn't have to understand physics or chemistry to RP with you.

3

Pixie

03:34

What is absolutely necessary to all forms of RP is group consensus.

If you have expectations, you need to make them clear at the outset.

Shalvenay

@Pixie: what I find is that some (many?) people don't even want to be on the same page as me, even when I'm trying to grab them and pull them onto it

Pixie

@Shalvenay Then maybe they just don't enjoy playing the same way that you do, the same way that you don't want to play the way they play -- and thus you probably shouldn't play together, because your playstyles clash to that extent.

Miniman

@Shalvenay Well, yeah. From what you've said, I wouldn't want to play on the same page as you.

Shalvenay

@Pixie: perhaps -- but what do you do when you espouse a rare playstyle?

@Miniman: curiosity: what page do you prefer to be on instead?

Miniman

"trying to grab them and pull them onto it" You do realise that other people have a right not to like your playstyle, right?

Pixie

03:37

While I don't agree with people making similarly sweeping judgments about how RP "should" be done with a story in mind, people are free to play that way. You can explain what you want to willing listeners, but you can't make people play in ways they just don't want to.

Miniman

@Shalvenay I'm a professional programmer. But if you tried to make me, in game, apply real-world knowledge to a hacking sequence, for example, I'd probably walk out.

I play RPs to have fun and enjoy myself. I learn about things where I find them necessary or interesting.

Shalvenay

I'd actually be more inclined to play the social-engineering/rubber-hose aspects up, because those I think are better for other people to RP than straight up hacking scenes

Adeptus

@Miniman Exactly. Does the character have a hacking skill? Yes? Make a roll. No? Then my character doesn't know that much about computers (even if I do)

Miniman

@Shalvenay I think you're missing my point. Yes, I know an awful lot about how to break into someone's computer. No, I would not want to bring that knowledge into a game.

Shalvenay

@Adeptus: and then you run into the situation I deal with -- I have no qualms about asking someone to redo their fluff because it doesn't yield what the roll says it should

Pixie

03:40

Sometimes that means you can't find a group -- and I've been in that boat myself, when my style didn't fit with the style of a majority of the people in the community I was in. I was very frustrated with that for a long time, but at a certain point I just had to get over it. There's not really anything you can do but, again, explain what you want to willing listeners.

Shalvenay

@Miniman: which is exactly why I'd go for the social-engineering/rubber-hose aspect of it over straight-up hacking -- it circumvents the need for heavy domain knowledge, instead relying more on things that are closer to typical RP norms

Pixie

Think of it like this: you want to play a flight simulator. They want to play a bullet hell where their character pilots a plane.

There are reasons to like both, and some people do. But nobody has to want to play one or the other, and they're being played for different reasons.

Miniman

@Shalvenay And I'm saying, no, I'm not going to use my free time to write a spam email just because it would make my game more realistic. Why would I want my game to be realistic?

Adeptus

@Shalvenay You shouldn't need "heavy domain knowledge" to play a game!

Shalvenay

Pixie: and I'm wondering why we can't load a giant pile of anti-air defenses into a good military flight sim and let them have at it

Pixie

03:45

@Shalvenay Because that's not what they want to play.

Adeptus

If I'm playing an alchemist, I'll say "I want to make a potion that does X". I shouldn't need a degree in chemistry to do so. And neither should the DM.

Pixie

Again: they're being played for different reasons. You can't just say "so play this entirely different game that happens to also have planes and missiles."

Shalvenay

so basically, my problem is that I reject abstract gamism for the most part...although I have also had the opposite problem, where I play so close to the vest on mechanics that others see as clearly unrealistic/broken that they don't want to RP with me for that reason, either

Miniman

@Shalvenay If you want to play an entirely different game to someone else, then you playing in their game or them playing in your game is not going to work.

Pixie

Again, it's alright that you personally don't like abstract gamism. You shouldn't have to play in a way that you don't enjoy, either.

Shalvenay

03:49

@Miniman: I think part of the problem here is that I spent way too long RPing in a game that wasn't well defined to begin with :P

Aaron

Good evening

Miniman

@Aaron Good afternoon

@Shalvenay Quick metaphor: If there are 4 people sitting around a table with a pack of cards, and 2 of them want to play Snap, and the other 2 want to play Euchre, it's just not going to work.

For one thing, you'd hardly ever see a pair being played in Euchre.

Metool

@LitheOhm Sup?

Pixie

It's just that sometimes your personal preferences may make it hard to find people who like to play the same way that you do, and there's not really anything you can do about that.

The best you can hope for is to make your expectations clear at the outset, before you start playing at all, especially if you know they differ from the typical expectations wherever you happen to be playing. People will then either agree and play with you or disagree and (hopefully, rather than butting their style against yours ceaselessly) not play with you.

Shalvenay

@Miniman: what do you do when the game's developers still have not come out and said what kind of game they want?

(accompanied by "under construction" signs, scaffolding, jackhammers, etc etc)

Miniman

03:57

@Shalvenay Did we just switch topics, or are you talking about the GM analogue in an upcoming RPG you're considering playing in?

Shalvenay

no

I'm talking about the situation in the ill-defined game I spent way too long RPing in :P

FATE pretty darn well says on the tin what it's after, TYVM

Miniman

@Shalvenay Are you talking about a freeform game?

Shalvenay

nor does it have giant under construction signs hung on it and jackhammer sounds coming from it

@Miniman: freeform inside a proto-MMO

Miniman

@Shalvenay Then I should warn you, my answer will be an anti-freeform rant thinly disguised as an answer.

Pixie

@Shalvenay Well, in that case, ask for clarification if you can. If you can't, and you're not getting any clarification that suits you, and this is impacting your ability to enjoy the RP, don't play it.

Shalvenay

03:59

and I will tell you this right now -- I'd much rather have key mechanics that work than deal with the status quo

Pixie

My rule zero: if it's not fun, don't play.

Miniman

@Shalvenay So...you're saying that you'd rather play in a system with clearly defined mechanics that determine what you can and can't do?

Shalvenay

@Miniman: what I am after is an accessible, reasonably balanced 'final arbiter' if you will

or in other words -- mechanics PvP that has a >0 value of works for it under the constraints RPers find themselves under

*works to it

Miniman

About all I can get out of that statement is that you want a PvP system. I can't tell if you want mechanics and constraints or not.

Adeptus

Sounds like the answer may be, "don't play freeform RPs, they won't do what you want"

Shalvenay

04:04

I want some sort of mechanic that can serve as an impartial 'last resort'

Miniman

So you want a freeform PvP RPG with rules that provide arbitration where necessary?

Shalvenay

yes

Miniman

Sounds like a question for the site :P

Shalvenay

that actually would be a good one!

0

Q: Looking for a free-form PvP RPG with a "last resort" arbitration mechanic

I am after a RPG system that: Allows for freeform (for the most part) play Supports player vs. player conflict fully Provides an arbitration system of "last resort" -- outside the control of the participants, that is. Dice are acceptable for this task -- in a digital environment, a roller can ...

game-recommendation

BESW

I really want to suggest RFS for this.

@PurpleMonkey [wave] Hi!

Purple Monkey

04:20

Afternoon

Metool

Heyo, Bonzi Buddy.

doppelgreener

@BESW me too, but the people who have trouble with bookkeeping may get overwhelmed with their skills over the course of a large adventure.

Pixie

I still need to try RFS.

Miniman

@Shalvenay Are you looking to play online?

doppelgreener

oH NO.

A piece of code I am working on... has mixed tabs and spaces for indentation.

Miniman

04:34

@doppelgreener I think there's a plugin for Notepad++ which can normalise them to your preference

doppelgreener

@Miniman thankfully it seems I am using an editor that has done the same, or otherwise everyone who was using tabs seemed to have them tuned to 4 spaces.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Wow, I can't even keep tab width consistent when it's just me working on a piece of code.

Shalvenay

/me sends the TabNanny after whoever wrote the code @doppelgreener is working on

@Miniman: yes, most likely -- I actually know where our local gaming shop is -- its just that getting around town nights/weekends is a hassle for me

Miniman

@Shalvenay Ok, add it to the question. Every detail you can add makes it better.

If you don't have a specific genre in mind, you can add that it should support a wide variety. Or if you do have one, add that!

Shalvenay

@Miniman: edited

doppelgreener

04:49

@Shalvenay it may have been an auto-indenting feature actually

there's a consistent pattern: enough tabs to make the code indented properly, followed by eight spaces.

Shalvenay

lol@autoindentfail.

doppelgreener

meanwhile I am busy puzzling over why, in a HTML jquery template, {{if !day.selectable}} would fail to make an attribute show up but would succeed in making an entire element show up.

[acquires coffee, puzzles over.]

Magician

@BESW A sysrec question that has FAE and Ars Magica as answers. My bullshit sense is tingling.

BESW

Yeeeah.

Pixie

I can't answer the question as I don't have any real experience in a system I think would fit the bill, but those just didn't seem very appropriate answers to me from what I've read of both systems. P:

Miniman

05:15

@Shalvenay It might be worth adding a bit more detail about what you want the 'final arbitration' to achieve. Is it the means of settling every player conflict? Is it the last resort tiebreaker?

@Shalvenay It seems specific enough to me, and I voted to reopen, but my sum participation in gamerec was to pick off one incredibly low hanging fruit.

Which is me saying I don't know what else you can add to get it reopened, and I'm about to head home. Good luck!

doppelgreener

@Miniman it is possible for a game-rec request to simply be too broad and that's that

10

Q: What's so problematic about a recommendation question having potentially hundreds of answers, anyway?

We've recently had a couple of recommendation questions appear with requirements so broad that they can cover dozens or even hundreds of systems or adventures. They've been closed as too broad, and the question author has been asked to refine their requirements. In both cases though (covered her...

discussion questions game-recommendation

(see especially "What do I do if I don't have narrower criteria?" and the next section)

..... of course. day.selectable never gets defined, and in fact nothing under {{if !day.selectable}} ever got triggered to begin with. Someone just hacked around it, and the end result is it looks like that code got used.

Tritium21

05:44

That looks like... jinja

the dark wanderer

So, is this the place to talk about improving posts and stuff?

Tritium21

one of them

as long as its Role-playing Games related

doppelgreener

also generally it is good to keep the main site users in the loop; there was a time when post-improvement chats would happen here, posts would get totally revamped, main site users would go "wtf happened here?" and not act in unison with the people in chat, questions would get put on hold, and the people who came here for help would get confused and unhappy.

Tritium21

Eh, just flag all the comments as obsolete before you change the post (if its a question that has no answer)

doppelgreener

the best way to do this, i think, is that when you make a significant edit based on a chat conversation, provide a permalink to the conversation in the edit summary. e.g.: "post edited based on chat conversation: {link}". it will be there permanently (unlike a comment), it is out of the way, and permanently unambiguously attached to the revision in question.

Tritium21

05:56

that too

doppelgreener

@Tritium21 didn't resolve it. it was a serious issue. it usually happened with questions that were on hold, and we'd invite people to chat to workshop it. that didn't work out well in the end.

finally culminated in this:

17

Q: The role of chat at RPG Stack Exchange

TL;DR? Meta is where consensus happens. Questions and answers, have to be good questions and answers without chat. Any Stack Exchange site has three realms for interaction, Main, Meta, and Chat. Main is where the business of the site happens, in our case we ask and answer questions abou...

discussion chat meta

the dark wanderer

It's cool, I'm just figuring out how the site works. It sounds like figuring out why people disagree with your post when they aren't allowed comments happens here.

Thus it is good to know that is the case

Tritium21

Finding out why people disagree is not useful unless it comes with a way of updating the post to make it better. Otherwise, they should just write a better answer

the dark wanderer

Well, except that if I don't know why I got a -1 I'm likely to assume that my writing is unclear/misleading in some way.

Then, when I try to edit the post, it ends up a mess or unnecessarily repetitive and redundant

If they write a better answer obviously that would solve the problem. But people frequently don't

doppelgreener

@thedarkwanderer i was about to submit a comment when you deleted that meta answer! want me to leave it here or leave it be?

(it was an update on my previous comment since i saw you edited yours)

the dark wanderer

06:03

put it here, more info is always appreciated :)

doppelgreener

> @thedarkwanderer comments suggesting actionable improvement are generally ok - comments are for doing that, or requesting clarification. Comments explaining someone needn't try (e.g. "-1 I disagree completely" I guess?) get deleted, since there's no actionable improvement there.
Also, I don't think 'misunderstood' means what you think it means there, but if someone is communicating badly and I'm having trouble understanding it, I could leave a comment saying I'm having trouble suggesting where they can be clearer - that's a request for clarification and actionable improvement.

the dark wanderer

Hmm, but how do you know you misunderstood what the poster meant?

doppelgreener

(with apologies for repeating the princess bride reference, but generally if I find I've misunderstood something, that's after I've already left feedback and often just before I go "oh. whoops! time for me to reverse my downvote.")

@thedarkwanderer exactly

the dark wanderer

What I mean is, if you say I disagree with you because 3<4 then I can go Oh! He thinks I think 3>4! What in my answer might make him think that? Oh, here it is *fix*.

But you have no way of knowing that I don't actually mean to say 3>4.

doppelgreener

@thedarkwanderer oh, so you're suggesting that if someone provides a reason for their downvote, you can respond to that and point out they did not understand correctly, or realise you communicated poorly and improve your post?

e.g.:

> -1 this is bad advice, stabbing the other character won't help at all. -- me
no I meant they should stab the doppelganger. -- you
oh right whoops that's a really good idea +1. -- me

or...

> -1 this is bad advice, stabbing the other character won't help at all. -- me
whoops I meant to say the doppelganger, i can see how that was unclear. -- you
much better, +1 -- me

something like that?

the dark wanderer

06:18

yes

usually the second one in my case ^^;

Except it's not usually THAT obvious. I'd catch that just by reading through a couple times

I hope

Adeptus

@doppelgreener Just stab EVERYONE!

the dark wanderer

XD

I see we have a Paranoia player in residence

Adeptus

No, I've only played it once. I'm just silly sometimes.

Tritium21

We do, but they are not

Remember, its not ok to stab another PC. It IS ok to stab the player though.

wait

the dark wanderer

XD

Tritium21

06:21

i think i got that backwards.

doppelgreener

no that was mostly accurate, but you have to file for clearance before stabbing the PC

the dark wanderer

Does this count as legal advice?

Tritium21

Friend computer is the only legal advisor

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

►

Just to ... demonstrate our allusions to princess bride, since it doesn't seem like you're getting them.

doppelgreener

@thedarkwanderer yeah, there is not much support for that.

but that's usually because it turns into an argument.

> -1 this is bad advice, lightning bolt is an awful spell.
fireball is fine, {reasoned explanation that assumes damage is an excellent way to win in D&D}
no it's not, it's not worth investing in. {reasoned explanation that simply casting 'sleep' wins the fight quicker, also that lightning bolt won't work because of a rules interpretation.}
that rule doesn't mean that at all, it means {opposing interpretation.}

and often the arguments are not that calm and reasonable, and go more down a path of "your idea sucks" "no your idea sucks!" "your idea sucks more, and also, has cooties!"

the dark wanderer

06:47

@BrianBallsun-Stanton No, I know the reference, I just didn't originally understand that you were making it.

@doppelgreener Yah, that's fair. That's because of bad users though, not an inherent property of the system. Obviously we shouldn't argue/discuss in chat.

BESW

In summary: a comment which is about why a post is bad, instead of being about how it can be improved, is usually not a useful comment to have.

the dark wanderer

Yah, I can see how people are likely to turn it into an arguement

BESW

This meta post has many excellent ideas about how to tell when comments are or aren't a good idea.

(And more importantly ideas about what to do instead.)

D&D 5e Overflow

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