TRPG General Chat

user61230

00:09

@doppelgreener Last I heard, there were suspicions 3Doodler was a scam :[

doppelgreener

@Emrakul For real!?

[googles]

user61230

Yeah

user61230

I haven't looked in a while, but I was convinced last time I checked

doppelgreener

I found some criticism of the name and their reward tiers (it's a 3d printing pen if a ballpoint pen is an inkjet printing pen) and some criticism of their advertising, i.e. the actual 3D models they advertise it with take a lot of care and patience to create and are not trivial.

user61230

Huh.

user61230

00:20

Last time I checked, no prototypes had been released, there were questions about the filament melting point, the processor they claimed to be using was too large to fit in the pen, and a couple other things.

user61230

...weird

BESW

This one's questioning a competitor on grounds similar to what you remember, but it's saying the 3Doodler works.

user61230

Hrrrm.

user61230

I'm almost certain it was the 3Doodler, though...

user61230

AH

user61230

00:28

You're right! It was the Scribble Pen

BESW

For the record, I found it by searching 3doodler AND ~fraud.

user61230

Yeah, it was the scribble pen. Sorry about that, @doppelgreener!

user61230

link one, link two (though it's not just video errors)

doppelgreener

Yeah, and this one talking about it getting pulled from both Kickstarter and Tilt.

Both requested they provide details on how the pen works, they didn't comply.

BESW

01:16

@doppelgreener [gestures upward] Thoughts on whether Colma is an undead Necropolis in our Weird World?

doppelgreener

@BESW Yes

Now I wonder whether anyone realises this, whether it's a highly protected secret (that photo on the wiki page is actually a town in Italy), whether it's underground or above ground, whether people are in the know as to what happens with the 'burials' there, whether there's a model town built on top populated entirely by Weird Agents to keep the underground necropolis in check...

BESW

In Skin Horse, it's well-known by humans who are able to notice such things (more than 70% of humans are unable to process Weird Stuff and just filter it out). The living people in Colma are in an area called Upwind. Prop 39 is being voted on; it's designed to give zombies equal rights under the law, but can be applied to other non-human sapients as well.

doppelgreener

@BESW hahaha, that's a great name for an area in there

BESW

Necrotic citizens of Colma keep to themselves and are self-policing: the Emperor of Necropolis knows that if they can't control themselves, the humans will stop tolerating them.

This is... difficult, to say the least.

The strip I linked is at the start of a story about trying to help Necropolitans become more self-sufficient by giving them a brain-cloning machine (back-engineered from a mad science device into something that sane people can maintain), in order to help Prop 39 pass. There are factions which don't want Prop 39 to pass, for a variety of reasons, and are trying to sabotage Colma to start a zombie riot.

...or a human riot, or...

Given what we've established about the Weird World so far, I suspect our Colma has an elaborate black ops cover story.

Oh, and this strip might be interesting for thinking about Stellata's characterisation.

BESW

01:57

Emperor Norton

Joshua Abraham Norton (c. 1817-1819 – January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton, was a celebrated citizen of San Francisco, California who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States" and subsequently "Protector of Mexico". Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa. He immigrated to San Francisco in 1849 after receiving a bequest of $40,000 from his father's estate, arriving aboard the steam yacht Hurlothrumbo. Norton initially made a living as a businessman, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice. After losing a lawsuit in which he...

doppelgreener

@BESW Almost certainly.

Unless a giant necropolis citadel suddenly kind of... appears in the middle of the town. Then it will have a black ops cover story explaining away the ghastly citadel where various peoples' neighbours used to be very quickly, probably involving weather balloons.

@BESW This guy is an impressive character.

BESW

doppelgreener

@BESW Thanks for that.

@BESW That's it.

BESW

@doppelgreener He's the Emperor of Necropolis, of course.

doppelgreener

@BESW of course

BESW

02:11

It is also worth noting that in real life, The Imperial Council of San Francisco charity was created in his honor. Its membership is composed largely of drag queens, including its founder Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, the Widow Norton, who is buried beside the Emperor.

This is perhaps the most San Francisco thing ever.

Also: If the undead rise in Colma, there will be zombie Hords:

doppelgreener

@BESW uh oh.

BESW

Possible future plot seed:

> The dead of Colma become UnQuiet--more than usual, most of them were already UnDead. Emperor Norton knights the party to act on his behalf to restore order in his UnDead empire and keep it from spilling out into the mundane world by discovering why his subjects are more restless than usual.

doppelgreener

02:42

@BESW Sounds like a good candidate for a session with player-driven complications via compels and them describing the world and people around them.

BESW

Yes!

This first set of adventures, while fun, has a lot more "has to end up in a certain place" than I think should be the norm.

Ohh, here's a good aspect: "What [other PC] says, I trust."

Magician

Greetings

Miniman

03:01

I know it's no good trying to rationalize SE voting, but it always worries me when I see people upvoting an answer that contains factually incorrect information.

doppelgreener

@BESW yeah, though that's because we based them around making a ship that'll safely fly near the sun

@Miniman understandably.

BESW

Well, "with hope of non-lethality."

Magician

"There's an 80% chance we hope it'll be non-lethal."

doppelgreener

@Magician I find the phrasing of this concerning

Magician

It's quite precise.

The next game I'll be running (some time from now) will be, at the request of my group, inspired by Sunless Sea, which, in turn, is a spin-off from Fallen London. Sunless Sea's tagline is "Lose Your Mind. Eat Your Crew."

BESW

03:16

..are we sure that's not inspired by Watchmen?

Magician

The Black Pearl, you mean? There's probably shared ancestry there.

It's set in the Neath, an enormous underground cavern into which London fell after it was sold by the Traitor Empress, and in which laws of physics are somewhat more lax. It's weird and gloomy and decadent.

I'm thinking it'll be following the "Firefly" model of plot: travel around, meet interesting people, do stuff for them and to them. I've tried a similar model once before, with Eclipse Phase, and Brian ran something similar with his latest Ars Magica, and it didn't quite work either of those times, though.

Miniman

@Magician I'm playing in a campaign that's based along those lines atm.

Magician

Problem being, if we arrive into a new place for each adventure, and we know we'll leave it behind in a session or two, even if we'll eventually come back, players are less inclined to care about anything that happens there.

BESW

@Magician Connect things more? Franchises, guilds, travellers. You've heard about a place before you arrive, and people have heard about you when you get there.

Magician

That's a start. Though that kind of negates the element of discovery.

So, yeah. I'm only starting to poke at it. Not even sure which system we'll use, perhaps a crossbreed of Fate and Pirate World (hack of Dungeon World, should be fully out by then).

doppelgreener

03:24

@Magician this is to a degree a good way to enable some freedom

BESW

Pirate World sounds... unhygenic.

doppelgreener

the crew of Serenity care about what happens to a planet to the extent that it won't prevent them all leaving together and in one piece

Magician

Tempted to try the sandbox thing of drawing an actual map (with empty of blank spaces), and filling it out as we go along.

doppelgreener

and, well, if they cause sufficient trouble, plot dictates they aren't able to leave together and in one piece unless they resolve it

Magician

@doppelgreener When we did it in AM, we found that we went to the absolute minimum effort to achieve our goals. Part of it was that we were magi and didn't care for the mundanes one bit, of course.

BESW

03:26

Aspects for meaty moral compels?

doppelgreener

heck, the model of Firefly adventures is probably: "let's go to a place, do a delivery, surely it won't be too bad" and then several compels fly around the table and things go to heck.

@BESW and as I write this, I realise something that resembles a Firefly mission would be a great canditate for our compel-heavy session experiment

BESW

Also: one of the crucial notions in Firefly is that what they do matters not just in terms of "what happens here" and "did we do the job" but also "will this make other folks want to hire us."

There is a loose communication network by which word gets around.

You need people to owe you favours, and consider you trustworthy enough to be hireable.

Magician

sorry, afk for a bit

BESW

Take that sort of thing out, and you move toward murderhobo territory.

("We can't stop here; this is murderhobo country.")

4

Miniman

I feel like murderhobo territory has a very different meaning in the context of Firefly, where they have actual murderhobos with actual territory.

Magician

03:36

Back, sort of. Boss can yank me away at any moment.

doppelgreener

@Magician That'd make a difference. The Serenity crew are either in the border planets they're sympathetic towards (so they don't want to go shooting people in general), or they're in Alliance territory where they generally can't really go causing trouble and shooting people and expect to stay alive.

Magician

I expect compels to certainly help here, as well as making sure the characters want to do these adventures, and aren't just doing it because they have to.

doppelgreener

@Miniman ain't it the truth

"Some say they were men that just reached the edge of space... saw no monsters in sight or loots to take... and just went bibbledy over it."

2

Joshua Aslan Smith

herro its been a week or so since ive gotten in here

how is everyone

lol a firefly fate game?

FAE or just normal FATE?

@Magician theres a space-opera reskin/module for DungeonWorld called Dungeon Planet that may also be viable though I have zero experience with that system

doppelgreener

04:00

@JoshuaAslanSmith something possibly sharing the same themes!

Magician

@JoshuaAslanSmith In this particular case, I've used Firefly as an example of plot structure. The game itself will be set in late Victorian steampunk-ish underworld sea.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ah gotcha

BESW

@Magician Not to be confused with a game that's set under SeaWorld.

Magician

Observation: a driving force in Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, etc, is constant lack of cash. The crew needs the money, that's why they take the dodgy jobs. At which point their own morality often takes over and causes them to forgo the reward in favor of a better outcome.

BESW

Do we think there's an element of autobiography in these stories?

Magician

04:07

Question: how would you model this in Fate? A ship aspect of Constantly Falling Apart is a start, but I'd kinda want a heavier mechanic here.

@BESW Hmm?

BESW

@Magician I had to turn my back on what got you paid. The author is drawing on their own struggles with money and ethics. It's an idle thought.

Dolphins get high on pufferfish toxins.

Joshua Aslan Smith

04:24

@besw for the author/artist working on the manga?

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Mmm. It's easy to fall into the intentional fallacy and see elements of a story as necessarily drawing from the creator's own experience, but it's also true that artists do draw on the themes they're familiar with, while re-casting them in new lights.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw I actively disparage that school of criticism/analysis because it always undervalues the work, but I do agree that in some part the who of the author does influence the work, but it only the starting point

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Like I said, it's an idle thought.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw Id probably really enjoy a meta discussion on schools of literary criticism with you if you were ever up for it someday

BESW

Heh. At the end of the day I find most literary criticism rather self-indulgent.

Joshua Aslan Smith

04:34

very true

gotta crank a career out of that english masters somehow though

BESW

So, I haven't done a lot of in-depth study. I think a lot are extremist, like "death of the author," and some--like New Historicism--seem like they exist only to serve some non-literary agenda.

Shalvenay

o/ @JoshuaAslanSmith

Joshua Aslan Smith

yes I would agree with that

BESW

(I single out New Historicism as the critical theory devoted to studying a work's historical context, rather than its particular author, whose creator then went on to write a ridiculously illogical book about the Authorship Question.)

I like playing with literary analysis sometimes, though. It can be a fun mental exercise.

user61230

When I hide my ignored tags, I have 3/50 questions on the homepage.

BESW

04:46

(Once wrote a paper on how Treasure Island is a Biblical allegory. Total poppycock, but almost plausibly supportable poppycock.)

BESW

05:01

...whoops, almost put paprika instead of chili powder in my hot chocolate.

doppelgreener

that would've been interesting

Shalvenay

@JoshuaAslanSmith -- were you able to finish your draft answer to my question btw?

o/ again @Emrakul -- one other thing -- I took up the suggestion you made re: small talk, and it's making a difference already

user61230

05:23

Sweet!

user61230

Glad it's helping!

BESW

BTW, @doppelgreener, I draw on Skin Horse so much because it's got a lot of interesting parallels to the Weird World already, like: the creations of mad scientists are themselves often sane, as much as one can be when you grow up in a mad genius's lab. Like Stellata having a better grip on everyday matters than Doctor Light.

Shalvenay

yeah, I'm glad it's helping some as well

MC_Hambone

Hye guys quick question. in D&D 5e does all magic armor add to your AC? For example if you had +1 chainmail of protection from evil would that be +1 to AC in general or just towards evil creatures?

Magician

I don't play it, but I highly doubt this has changed: it should always be +1 to AC, protection from Evil being a separate bonus.

MC_Hambone

05:37

thats what I am hoping... I have neglected buying the DMG so far since I am just running the Rise of Tiamat campaign for the group i DM in.... but tonight in the game I play in I got some magic armor, but the DM isn't letting me add the +1 until i figure out what kind of magic it has

Magician

This should be covered in the free basic rules, online.

Miniman

Protection from Good and Evil is a single spell that offers benefits against certain types of creatures, not alignments, and none of those benefits are AC.

That aside, have you considered using Identify? Even if you can't cast it, and have no-one in your party who can cast it, you should be able to find an NPC somewhere who can help you out.

MC_Hambone

@Miniman I was just using that as an exaample... I dont know what the magic armor is specifically yet. and alot of magic armors magicyness isnt just a flat bonus to AC... I seem to remember a magic shield in 4th that shed bright light as part of its magic abilities.

Miniman

@MC_Hambone Ah, sorry.

doppelgreener

@BESW Sure! I understand that, and I like it. Unfortunately I don't think I'll end up reading much of the comic itself, for reasons I shouldn't elaborate on because it'd be like explaining bad kerning. Nevertheless I will generally be OK with its story stuff and drawing upon it.

MC_Hambone

05:42

the meat of my query was, while wearing the armor should i have the +1AC even while not knowing what its specific magic properrty is

Magician

If all magic armor is at least +1, it's fair to argue for that.

Miniman

@MC_Hambone To answer your original question: No, decidedly not. Some armour gives you resistance to things, some armour is very specific like Demon Armour (for example)

@Magician This is no longer the case.

There are multiple magical armours in the DMG that do not change your AC in any way.

MC_Hambone

@Miniman thats what i was wondering

Magician

Fair enough! Then I'd suggest for @MC_Hambone to ask the GM whether they expect them to figure out the magic properties via experimentation (D&D sometimes does that), or if they should just shell out for an identify spell.

Miniman

@MC_Hambone Sorry for missing the point on my first try.

MC_Hambone

05:44

like i said I havent bought the DMG yet so I cant just look up the rules of magic items in 5th

Miniman

Note that under the new magic item rules, you can spend a short rest communing with the item to find out what it is.

MC_Hambone

@Magician I certainly will ask next session

Miniman

(This is separate to the short rest attuning to the item to be able to use it.)

MC_Hambone

@Miniman ohhhhh thats right, i do remember reading that. it makes sense now

even if it was a +1 magic armor, since i havent attuned to it, using just makes it normal chainmail right?

Magician

I thought you only needed attuning to major magic items?

Miniman

05:46

For the former point:

The identify spell is the fastest way to reveal an item’s properties. Alternatively, a character can focus on one magic item during a short rest, while being in
physical contact with the item. At the end of the rest, the character learns the item’s properties, as well as how to use them.

BESW

@doppelgreener There's usually between two and five specific prior sources of material that I draw on heavily to populate a long-term campaign. For this one, Skin Horse and Warehouse 13/The Librarians/Sanctuary (all three are basically iterations on the same theme) are definitely in the pile.

Miniman

For the latter, some items allow limited use without attunement, but for the majority, attunement is required to make full use of a magical item's magical properties.

@MC_Hambone Yep! And if it's cursed, the curse shouldn't affect you until you attune.

BESW

Take a notion from an existing work (Colma is an undead haven), modify it to plug into the campaign world's already-established context (there's a coverup!), and see where it goes (chaos, one hopes).

Miniman

@MC_Hambone So yeah, the main point is that 2 short rests should have you using it fully. Or horribly cursed, in which case I apologise.

doppelgreener

@BESW bear in mind though, I think what works best in the ARRPG system is what works best in Atomic Robo

if you can see an Atomic Robo adventure about a thing, it'll make a good session

if you handle it the way Atomic Robo would handle it, same again

since we're using a system optimised for playing Atomic Robo-style adventures

MC_Hambone

05:57

@Miniman I hope i dont get cursed!! what away to start a new campaign tho if it is cursed! I can see the journal entry now... "Day1, met new friends and found some lightweight armor. I put on the armor and now I cant shake this odd feeling of impending doom. its probably nothing tho.... just these creepy catacombs...."

doppelgreener

those ideas were my guide in the BRAC session I ran

Miniman

@MC_Hambone Most of the cursed stuff is more along the lines of "some pros, some cons" than "haha you're screwed".

For example, there's an armour that gives you resistance to one weapon damage type but vulnerability to the others.

Or Demon Armour, which has some great benefits but also makes you really bad at fighting demons.

Anyway, time for me to head home.

MC_Hambone

@Miniman safe trip, and thanks for the info

Magician

Or an intellect devourer helmet*, which gives you telepathy and psychic powers, but replaces your brain with an intellect devourer.
*not actually a thing

MC_Hambone

@Magician If it was real and it looked like a futurama brain slug i would wear it

Magician

06:02

I'm sure an arrangement can be made with your friendly local Underdark dealer.

...and now I want to introduce a crazed svifnerblin (however they are spelled) merchant selling a variety of items.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Shalvenay I was thinking it might be better to have an ongoing discussion vs an answer

I have a lot of questions in addition to suggestions

Metool

@Magician Shift the r three spaces to the left.

Pixie

... svifnerblin is making me giggle far more than it should.

user61230

06:17

such a svirfneblin

BESW

07:53

Request: Images of helmets/headgear/cyborg implants with a 1950s/dieselpunk vibe, particularly vacuum tubes. I'm having a hard time finding much.

Pixie

09:17

Curse it being 4 AM. I'm watching a new magical girl anime with some similarities to what we were working on for the Fate game, and now I'm all in a planning mood...

doppelgreener

@BESW these things

BESW

Yup, found that.

There's a few more examples of the rough sort of thing, in the Spoil Lair.

BESW's Spoil-Lair

CAUTION: High chance of plot. Not for BESW's players.

doppelgreener

09:31

Pixie

What we know so far is that much of the action will take place in "shards," which are strange, self-contained dimensions with a prevailing theme or two. (Which makes me really appreciate that everything is designed like a character in Fate. I can model characteristics!)

In order to complete their objectives in a given shard, characters will have to engage in a mixture of combat and problem-solving. Things from shards can potentially persist outside of them, because we decided that the magical jellyfish "guide" is not a guide at all but a leftover from a shard who decided to tag along. Knows little more than the characters do.

But we're still working on both shard origins and what happens to shards once the objectives are completed. We do at least want an idea of what's going to happen when we're through with a shard -- whether they're temporary or permanent. We're looking at the possibility of cosmic glitches, but there are other settings we're working on that deal with that concept, and we don't want to bore ourselves with it.

Zachiel

10:08

[sighs]

doppelgreener

@Pixie re: puzzle solving, you might be interested in BESW's puzzle brainstorming experiment (and part 2 in which the completed puzzle was reflected on)

Zachiel

I login to my game and I see people I've never seen before with three +12 (epic) items, items I've never heard before (hathran mask of protection and resistance?), no visible description or background except knowing it's a bald, evil lookin drow that dual-wields what looks like daggers (shortswords or kukris maybe) and I think "wow, this character is cool. I wonder how do you play one".

BESW

10:26

← 2 messages moved from BESW's Spoil-Lair

Pixie

10:53

@doppelgreener Ah, not necessarily puzzle-solving but resolving issues vs. fighting stuff. Puzzles aren't out of the question, though. I think I have one player who likes them and one player who doesn't like them as much, so they need to be kept light (which I think is generally for the best anyway unless your players are really into puzzles).

That is a good way of doing it, though, reading through.

Zachiel

Turns out the overequipped character is a test character or some NPC

BESW

@Pixie It's a little clumsy because that's not what it's really made for, but it's workable. With some tweaks, could be great.

Pixie

@BESW Yeah, I detect some clunkiness, but there are good ideas there.

BESW

11:30

I'm poking around in my Windows 7 account options, and apparently they still think floppy disks are a thing: if I change the password on an account, they recommend I consider making a "password reset floppy disk."

This particular computer doesn't even have a DVD drive; it's strictly socket-only.

Aaron

13:40

Morning

JohnP

17:03

@BESW - It's there for backwards compatibility. You can still get 3.5" drives, USB based. (Which reminds me, I need to see if my old 3.5 discs are still viable media, I have some stuff I want to xfer)

mawimawi

20:50

About the DARKNESS spell in pathfinder ( d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/darkness ): There is a well lit long corridor. In the middle of it is a magical darkness (20ft square). Can anyone see through the darkness? (so just the 20squareft are dark, and anything behind is visible)

or is the darkness something like a wall where a normal human can't see through?

JohnP

@mawimawi - Did you read the description at all?

Or are you referring solely to mythic darkness?

mawimawi

21:18

I read the description, yes. and I ask only for the normal "Darkness" spell.

But the description is just about the area inside the darkness. Not about anything behind it. So therefore my question

JohnP

You're in a room with a dimmer switch. If you dim the lights, you can still see things on the other side of the room, just not as clearly, and obviously you won't be able to see as far as normal through the spell area.

So if you can look around (i.e. the hall is 40 feet wide and you can get to the "side" of the area) the darkness, no penalty. If you look through it, you will have the dimming effects.

paizo.com/threads/rzs2n197?Darkness-spell-clarification

mawimawi

oh, that's a great link! thanks a lot!

and a veeery long discussion :)

JohnP

Yeah, there's a lot of back and forth. Some say it dims only in the area of the spell and then you see normally past/through it, others say it dims completely. I guess I can see the normally past/through it argument.

@mawimawi - The last couple posts on the 2nd page spell it out fairly well.

BESW

23:51

On minions:

I mean I really like my job but I'd definitely start quietly slacking after about 45 seconds of the hail of hi tech gunfire.

Tweeted by sydneypadua on January 10, 2015 at 7:36 PM

BESW's Spoil-Lair

Transcript for