TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:05

@Alan Hi!

You'll need at least 20 rep on any one Stack Exchange site before you can type in chat rooms, but you're welcome to hang out until then.

doppelgreener

00:16

@shatterspike1 What are your thoughts? You've gone silent, and I'm not sure if BESW and I have accidentally left you feeling dogpiled or something.

shatterspike1

Sorry, I was called away for dinner

I'm now reading to catch up

doppelgreener

No worries, just thought I'd check.

shatterspike1

@doppelgreener I think that the issue isn't so much that you can't ask people to change their behavior (You can, it's healthy) or that you can't play a certain genre (a world without super RPGs is a less rich world) but you can't try and change someone's behavior in an underhanded way (like artificial pushing consequences on them).

This is my argument, by the way, not his.

If we replace the word "murder" with "rape" in that question, all of a sudden, the answers may be "boot them from the group", which is totally acceptable

There's a whole meta discussion of expectations about what the game is; and everybody needs to agree with that discussion. If that discussion involves "Your characters are relatively heroic and shouldn't feel comfortable with murder", that's good. Treating the players as elements to be controlled, though? That's not okay.

As for his comments on "making the game work like television", I think he's referring to a linear narrative that hits all the right notes as opposed to the more chaotic haphazard thing games actually tend to be (with the railroading that entails). I don't personally find a linear narrative interesting in games, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it, myself.

I'm still thinking, though.

@BESW I understand there isn't a dichotomy between these things; actions without consequences are boring, and the GM has to set up the environment in some way that it provides feedback; there's no way that it doesn't. However, if you can't get buy-in on a playstyle goal between yourself and your players, it's much more likely that your goals are just incompatible from go. Soft measures to affect behavior may, at best, change the player's behavior a little;

and hard measures, like punishment, will only frustrate.

BESW

00:37

Aye. The trick, really, is that RPG groups often miss the bit where you can talk openly and meta-ly about playstyle goals.

4

shatterspike1

@BESW Oh man. Playing in a group that does talk openly about things like this has been like night and day for me.

BESW

Ditto for me running a group.

shatterspike1

I dunno, I'm still trying to sort the crazy side of the OSR from the interesting and useful side, and usually both exist within the same person.

Adeptus

@detly Only the Basic rules, and Fantasy Grounds datapacks

shatterspike1

OH LAWD

Time to write up more dream powers for summoned creatures

Miniman

00:57

@shatterspike1 Which system?

shatterspike1

A weird homebrewed variant of whitebox D&D

It's mostly thinking of things that aren't stock standard "Can fly" "Instant death attack" "Breathes fire"

BESW

"Can burrow," "Instant tickle attack," "~~Breathes~~ Burps dragonflies."

shatterspike1

@BESW That... is better

I like that.

doppelgreener

@shatterspike1 What d'you mean like night and day? You've had it sometimes and not others..?

shatterspike1

@doppelgreener I've played in groups where the order of the day is illusionism without open talk about it.

It was... less fun.

BESW

01:06

@doppelgreener He means that comparing his experience with the non-talky group to the talky group is like comparing night and day, they're so different.

doppelgreener

Ah, ok.

Adeptus

@doppelgreener There was a site question about that. The answer was, it costs to maintain a shop. If you spend downtime to work it, you make money.

22

Q: Does Owning a Shop or Trading Post Really Cost Me Money?

The Dungeon Master's Guide on page 127 lists the costs of maintaining various buildings. While some of these make sense, of note is that Shops and Trading posts are listed. This means that, rather than being a source of money, these actually cost the player money to own. Below, under "Total Cost...

dnd-5e

Miniman

It's probably representative of your staff embezzling from you.

Adeptus

01:38

Any 3.5e people around? I'm buying some more books, & want advice on my shopping list...

Miniman

I would define myself as 3.5-ish.

Adeptus

I already have PHB, DMG, MM. Spell Compendium is on order (new for $12, I couldn't resist). I want to get Complete Adventurer, Magic Item Compendium, PHB2. My budget might stretch to one other...

Miniman

A lot of people will tell you Tome of Battle; I'm sure you've seen the love for it around the site.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Complete Mage, but then, I tend to play Wizards, so that's not a huge leap.

It depends on what kind of content you want to get.

Adeptus

@Miniman Yeah. I haven't actually read it myself. I'm not sure I want to add complexity with the new combat maneuvers/stances/whatever... but it does give the fighty types more to do...

I've looked at Complete Arcane, Mage, Scoundrel, Warrior. But not in-depth enough to sell me on any of them

Miniman

@Adeptus I can completely understand not wanting to add a whole new mechanic set to your game, it's a big step.

@Adeptus I would strongly recommend Complete Mage over Complete Arcane; it was published later and has much better balanced content (IMO).

Complete Warrior is good because it adds stuff for most classes.

Complete Divine is good, although it adds some cheesy options.

Complete Champion includes some things which are good, some which are cheesy, and some which are considered vitally important.

Book of Exalted Cheese is...cheesy.

Book of Vile Darkness is less or more cheesy depending who you ask.

I can't recommend PHB II; there's not much in there I'm a fan of.

Draconomicon adds some really cool stuff and some really cheesy stuff.

Dragon Magic is better balanced and still cool.

Magic of Incarnum is one of the most confusing subsystems in the game (IMO, at least).

Adeptus

01:52

@Miniman Is that the one with binding spirits or something?

Miniman

@Adeptus No, that's Tome of Magic. Magic of Incarnum is all the soulmeld stuff.

I don't pretend to really understand either of them.

Tome of Magic also adds Shadow Magic and Truenaming; it's not something I'd recommend to anyone.

Adeptus

Ah yeah

Miniman

"Races of ___" books add a lot of extremely niche options, so I wouldn't recommend them either.

Note that this is all my opinion and I'm not an expert by any means.

The environment-based books (Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Frostburn) all include some really cool stuff, but they are also a bit niche.

detly

02:25

@Adeptus thanks for that. Maybe there's a benefit to writing them out, in that I might remember them a little better... I will tell myself that, anyway :P

doppelgreener

03:10

@Miniman this would make sense. Or that adventurers make terrible businesspeople if they can only make a profit from their shop by working at it themselves. Or that they're giving up personal profit to help the shop run, while they find money some other way.

@Adeptus It also gives the fighty types ways to be more/actually viable among magical colleagues. (Not sure whether it's 'more' or 'actually'.)

Justin T

@Pureferret @doppelgreener Running a business in 5E has a maintenance cost of 10gp per day, but if you get a 40 or higher on a d100 + the number of days in a row you run the business, the maintenance cost is waived. Higher results can generate money.

doppelgreener

Does that mean it gets almost trivially easy to cover the maintenance cost a month in, and then increasingly easy from there to generate money?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Yep, but it becomes impossible to make money after 3 months.

doppelgreener

@Miniman What? Why?

Miniman

@doppelgreener The catastrophe you were supposed to have prevented by adventuring happens.

doppelgreener

03:22

Am I parsing it correctly that you roll [1d100 + number of days in a row you run the business] vs 40?

@Miniman Oh, so "number of days you run the business" = days you are in downtime actively attending to it?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Yep, for it to be anything other than an ongoing cost you have to devote some of your personal time to it.

doppelgreener

And the business will continue to be an ongoing cost perpetually if you haven't worked on it for a while.

So, D&D 5e's running a business mechanics are just an Adventurers Had Better Just Stick To What They Know, Like Killing Stuff simulator/educator.

Miniman

Pretty much, yesh.

doppelgreener

... 'cause this is totally not how businesses actually work.

Miniman

What? Really? You mean a business isn't guaranteed to fail while its mentally retarded Barbarian owner isn't personally overseeing it?

doppelgreener

03:25

Uh. Well. No. That one's doomed.

But the intelligent wizard for instance.

Maybe some of them have a head too in the clouds to just focus on arithmetic and finances and budgeting? But surely some of them are total geeks for that stuff.

Miniman

Nonono. The business is guaranteed to fail unless the owner is personally overseeing, regardless of their Int score. Only personal attention can ever create profit.

doppelgreener

e.g. "This budget is boring! [wand swish] Financio completus! Ha-haa! Whatever this mumbo jumbo it created will totally work!" [numbers are all over the place and totally doomed to financial failure]

@Miniman Yes. This is what I mean, in that D&D working that way is uninterested in matching how this stuff actually works.

and the results is ultra weird.

Miniman

Well, yeah. Regardless of any attempts to prevent otherwise, fighting is the only thing D&D really cares about.

Everything else is a vague afterthought.

doppelgreener

Yeah no that is fine

It is this nonfunctional suggestion of "hey, you can run a business if you want" that does not pay out because it shouldn't that bothers me

either don't entertain the idea of letting them run a business, or do, and give them material reward for doing that - if actually handing them a few hundred GP is a problem, give them a different type of material reward.

This is all old news and complaints though cause this is always how they've handled stuff like this.

(Except in 4e!)

Adeptus

04:09

@doppelgreener Most things in D&D are "except in 4e" :P

(or, conversely, only in 4e)

So 5e wild magic... if you're trying to cast a spell that requires concentration, and you get a Surge that causes you to cast a different spell that requires concentration... do you lose the spell you were trying to cast & just get the Surge one?

doppelgreener

04:25

@Adeptus naturally :D

@Adeptus good main site question, sounds like it depends on ordering

do you cast the surge spell first or the spell you were trying to cast first?

6

Q: How does concentration interact with spells cast via the Wild Magic Surge table?

I can't find any official ruling about this. I'll use the example of Fog Cloud on the Wild Magic Surge Table (PHB pg. 104) as an example. The Wild Magic entry reads: You cast fog cloud centered on yourself. The spell Fog Cloud (PHB pg. 243) is a concentration spell, lasting for up to an h...

dnd-5e magic wild-magic

this one at least goes down the path of "if it makes you cast something that requires concentration, it'll break anything you were concentrating on before"

@SevenSidedDie Did you know we have user rankings for edits? I did not know that until the other day.

PurpleVermont

04:54

I can't seem to login to meta -- anyone else having difficulty? When I click the login button I just get redirected back to where I was. At one point I got a message about a redirect loop. I tried "signing up" using FB, but that didn't get me in either.

I was trying to ask what is the right thing to do when you want to ask if the answer to a question has changed, since the DMG came out (for 5e).

In particular this question

6

Q: Does casting a spell from an item count as casting a spell?

In the released DM basic rules, Lost Mine of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and the DMG teaser there are wands, staves, and rings that you can use to cast spells. Do abilities that trigger from casting a spell activate when casting a spell from an item? An example would be an abjurer wiz...

spells dnd-5e

We were wondering about using an evocation wizard's spell sculpting on a fireball cast from a Wand of Fireballs. We ended up ruling that since it doesn't use the Wizard's own save DC, it probably can't be "modified" by the wizard during casting.

Although we didn't discuss in detail, I think we would allow sculpting (or careful spell for a sorcerer) for a fireball cast from a Staff of Fire -- since that one does use the user's save DC, it stands to reason that they are "controlling" the spell more than just completing a pre-configured cast, so to speak

doppelgreener

@PurpleVermont Do you have HTTPS Everywhere active for this site?

If so, disable it.

PurpleVermont

I do

doppelgreener

SE doesn't fully support HTTPS yet, and HTTPS Everywhere has been known to break things and cause redirection loops and login failures.

If you prefer, re-enable it later after you've logged in, since it seems to work fine in most parts of the site.

Also, that is a pretty good meta question.

I am not sure what the answer is myself!

It's relatively straightforward if you know things have changed...

PurpleVermont

05:11

I disabled HTTPS for stackexchange but it still doesn't work -- do you know if I need to disable it for some of the other sites (google APIs etc) listed when I'm looking at HTTPS everywhere from a meta page?

oh wait, it did work :)

thanks :)

doppelgreener

05:28

Woohoo :D

The Oracle

0

Q: How to ask people to re-answer a question in light of new information

There were a lot of questions answered before the DMG came out that hypothesized about what it might include. Now that the DMG is out, those answers might be wrong. If it's obvious that they are, then one could just propose a new answer with the new information. But what if you still don't kno...

discussion answers

Adeptus

05:55

@doppelgreener That's what prompted my question

doppelgreener

@Adeptus yeah, do ask on main though. it's a good one.

"i cast mage armor. wild surge says i cast fog bank. how does the wild magic do?"

[completely ignorant of whether mage armor can possibly trigger a wild magic surge]

Miniman

Isn't that the same question as the one you linked above?

doppelgreener

@Miniman Not exactly. The one linked does ask what happens if you already have a concentration spell active (e.g. you cast it last round), but this a matter of what happens if you are trying to cast a concentration spell now.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Ah, right. Answers to the linked question answer that one too though.

(The answer being that if you chose to be a Wild Mage, it just sucks to be you.)

doppelgreener

@Miniman well. yes.

@Miniman In terms of, answers there already provide the answer, or the question can/should be expanded for this tidbit?

Miniman

06:04

@doppelgreener [Muses] It really is such a cool idea, and so incredibly poorly executed.

doppelgreener

@Miniman What is the cool part?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Answers there already provide the answer.

@doppelgreener As in the idea of a Wild Mage. I've had 2 players get really excited about it, then get really sad when I explained what being a Wild Mage actually means in D&D 5e.

(I.e. that it sucks to be you.)

doppelgreener

@Miniman Doesn't seem like it to me! If you're trying to cast Mage Armor and wind up having to also cast Fog Bank... what happens first? Have you successfully cast Mage Armor, and are you now overriding it with Fog Bank? Or has your Wild Magic surge unleashed Fog Bank, but now you're overriding it with the Mage Armor you're finishing off casting while the wild magic surge does its thing?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Hmmm. I just assumed the spell you were actually trying to cast comes first...I'll have to wait until I can look at my PHB to be sure about that.

doppelgreener

@Miniman What is the exciting part of the idea though?

(I am not trying to conduct an interrogation here, just curious.)

Miniman

06:08

@doppelgreener It doesn't have the appeal to me that it does to some people, but anyway, rather than trying to explain it I'll run with an example:

Questor Thews (Can't find a good link, so I'm hoping you've read the Landover series.)

Magician

5e's Wild Mage is weird, because wild magic surge is both a reward and a cost of their abilities. It's both a thing they want to see happen (or they wouldn't be playing the class) and the thing the GM can inflict upon them as "payment" for recharging their spells. Plus it's entirely in the hands of the GM.

doppelgreener

@Miniman I haven't :'(

Miniman

@doppelgreener Ok, how about Discworld's post-magical warzones?

e.g. Rincewind flipping coins in The Colour of Magic.

doppelgreener

I-I have only read the first book and Soul Music

and seen the Going Postal and Hogfather miniseries..es

Oh! And the adaption about the Tooth Fairy and Mister Teatime.

But I gather the excitement is in like... being able to have effects that are wildly more powerful sometimes, and backfire on you at other times with interesting results?

Miniman

@doppelgreener Yeah, I think what appeals to people is the idea of magic being a random chaotic uncontrollable force that doesn't always do what you want it to do.

@doppelgreener Right, whereas in 5e you're just a regular spellcaster who occasionally has a (fairly minor) side effect when casting a spell

doppelgreener

06:15

This sounds like it would work out pretty well as a Fate thing.

Magician

From what I recall of the wild surge table itself, it was largely a "roll if you're bored with the current plot" table.

Instant shenanigans.

doppelgreener

@Miniman and occasionally turns themselves into a baby and takes themselves out of combat.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Now that you mention it, I think it would! GM can compel for negative effects, player can invoke for positive effects

@Magician The problem is, they're effects that at low levels could potentially cause a TPK, but quickly become meaningless

Magician

@Miniman Crucial bit that's missing in Fate: you'd have to come up with your own shenanigans.

doppelgreener

@Miniman Player can also self-compel for negative effects. "Wizard, think you can quietly remove that door?" [wizard player glances around at his companions.] "... What if I just explosively shoot it off into the room and blow up something on the other side to destroy our sneaky entrance?"

@Magician Being able to come up with your own shenanigans would probably be more helpful than any preset table though.

Miniman

06:19

@doppelgreener Yeah, the crappiness of the table is a big part of the problem the 5e one has

Magician

@doppelgreener But it's an entirely different play mode. Wild magic is all about giant tables.

doppelgreener

Unless the table is general guidance. "The spell does what you were going for, but ramped up to 11." "That inanimate object has now come to life." Etc.

@Magician Sure, in 5e's version of Wild Magic, it is.

Wild Magic in Discworld and Landover probably isn't about giant tables.

It's about cool stuff happening at the best and worst possible times.

(which sounds like something Fate would handle well!)

Magician

Giant table implementation is traditional, though (even 13th Age has one!). And having a table to roll on plays differently from having to occasionally go wild with narrative.

doppelgreener

[SHRUGS SO HARD SHOULDERS GET DISLOCATED]

I think it's cool, but I have no exposure nor attachment to this tradition.

I'm just thinking of what kind of execution would pull it off well. In D&D, I would not go for an enormous percentile table either, but some way to create an equilibrium of success and failure. (Which is what brought me to Fate in the first place: realising that sounds like Fate points.)

Miniman

I think the smarter way to implement in D&D would be to have the numeric effects of the spell randomised in power.

Am I being too harsh here?

Adeptus

06:30

@Miniman Like, using this table replacing "bonus" with "caster level"?

Miniman

@Adeptus Something like that, yeah. Although thinking about it, while that might work better in terms of the game it's probably a step away from the cool idea of a Wild Mage that players want to be.

So I guess I don't really know. Maybe it's just not an idea that works well in D&D's paradigm.

Magician

Hm. Here's why I think the Giant Table of Doom is essential: wild magic is uncontrollable. The player doesn't want to have a say in what happens when it goes wrong.

Adeptus

I remember 2e Wild Mages being kind of fun. Can't remember what their Table of Doom looked like, though.

Though, they did have the chance of getting a more favourable result from random magic items (Deck of Many Things, Wand of Wonder, etc)

Magician

Which is why I think Fate is not a good fit for this kind of wild magic. Though, of course, there are other interpretations of it for which Fate would be wonderful.

doppelgreener

06:56

@Magician Fate: Anyone but you can say what happens.

I am positive there are good ways to execute it in Fate.

For example...

Magician

That's still not... That's wild magic controlled by someone else, be it GM or other players. The table depersonifies the author of the weird outcomes, making it so that it feels like it was wild magic itself that screwed you.

doppelgreener

Okay, so I gather that someone super attached to D&D's wild magic tables loves rolling dice to get something totally outside of anyone's control

I thought I said before, I don't care about that, like, even a little. I'm not trying to emulate D&D's wild magic. I don't care about D&D's wild magic.

Magician

In which case, sure, Fate is good. It doesn't even require any changes whatsoever, the wild magic provides narrative justification for coming up with weird events.

doppelgreener

I'm considering what wild magic looks like in a story, and how that might be executed well. D&D 5e picked one execution that involves a big percentile table of wacky specific effects. I think that execution sucks. I don't know other executions.

So: I'm going to take this giant table of doom, flip it, send it out the window, where it can go soak and drown in the bog outside of this castle.

Magician

Wild Magic: once per scene, gain +2 to a Magic Overcome or Create Advantage roll. GM places a Wild Magic aspect on the scene with one free invoke.

doppelgreener

07:08

That would be neat!

I was thinking of something that forces a compel that you are not allowed to deny and cannot dictate the terms of (beyond making sure it isn't ultra-lame, like insta-death). Say, in the power of three trigger: roll the dice and get a result with exactly three of the same face. (Four doesn't count.)

But that sounds more useful, and not forcing things sounds more useful.

Get a benefit, then hand your GM and the other players something to play with at their discretion.

Magician

@doppelgreener Well, the wild mage probably has a corresponding aspect which can be compelled if so desired.

Adeptus

0

Q: Novel set in Forgotten Realms Universe

My question regards using the forgotten realms setting for writing a novel. I'll explain. My original intention was to request permission to write a novel using WotC's Forgotten Realms setting, but as they're page says they are not accepting unsolicited submissions for novels, I'm trying to find...

forgotten-realms books

doppelgreener

07:46

@Adeptus haha

The Oracle

08:12

1

Q: Can an answer recommend a game that isn't a role-playing game yet remain on topic?

The question Can I play D&D4E solo? seems to really need an answer recommending Wizards of the Coast's line of Dungeons & Dragons Board Games (e.g. Legend of Drizzt, Wrath of Ashardalon), and a Comment was made suggesting exactly that. That Comment's gone now but I don't know if that's because th...

discussion

BESW

08:32

Having penetrated the protective exoskeleton, a wily hunter harvests the succulent housemeat within. http://t.co/fq4n7GlFQb

Tweeted by thecatamites on April 29, 2015 at 7:25 PM

BESW

11:14

Ursula Vernon on which birds to choose to carry your hopes and dreams.

2

Aaron

12:19

Morning

Anaphory

wave/

sillyputty

o/ hullo all

Anaphory

12:36

hi there

I still owe you a wall of text, don't I?

What were your points of interest on running a courtly LRP?

(And how's your own megagame prep going?)

sillyputty

Oh yea! I remember our conversation. I believe by the time we finished up I was just excited to hear how your plot went. You were going to tell me what went down. And it's going well, if slowly. We're organizing potential players and figuring out who works best in what role. We have several locations around the "city" established and a pretty good grasp of what's going on, story-wise.

Anaphory

Cool!

Now I remember, I think I was about to list what characters we had, to then explain what their stories were.

Host: Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alastair Henry, 28th Regiment of Foot, a British officer who's not bad at diplomacy (“The General's Diplomat”)

Invited guests:

Sir David Evans, fellow of the Royal Biological Society, head of an expedition to hunt big game for obduction

Marie Sophie, Tinkerer and air ship designer for the french Academie des Sciences

The head engineer of the Royal British Railway Association

sillyputty

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alastair Henry. Daaaannnng. I love that name.

Anaphory

Mister and Madame Haudiquet, owners of the Haudiquet Mining Conglomerate. He a con man, she heir of these formerly French gold mines.

The Reverend Giovanni Serale, nephew of a cardinal, pretending to be the Pope's Observer, but actually more interested in getting some public money into his pocket

Pierre-François Chevalier, adopted son of the French Governor, grew up as son of a native Chief.

Some plot lines were the following:

From the initial setup:

sillyputty

13:00

(Exciting! You have my attention, as often as I can spare it from my work.) =)

Anaphory

Oh, I forgot Monsieur Chevalier's indian butler, who was sent there by his father to have an eye on Pierre.

Many people had resources they could give out or wanted, we had actually intended to give everyone a set of like 4 they had and 3 they needed (mostly disjoint), but that was reduced to mostly one in the heat of the moment, but people came up with their own stuff.

Sir Evans needed some logistics for the expedition, but could provide hunting for food.

Madame Haudiquet needed infrastructure for the mine, but had some metal to hand out.

Sir Henry had army logistics and newly-conquered (liberated from a native rebellion…) land, but needed supplies (metal, ie. weapons, and food)

the Railway Company had logistics to offer, but wanted land to expand

the Academie could offer air ships, but needed tools

stuff like that

In addition, conflict came from the fact that the French were educating the Natives, the british (particularly Sir Henry) saw the bad effects of armed Natives, and the spanish (mostly known through conversation and an uninvited NPC turning up) were arming Native allies to fight their Native enemies.

Mr Haudiquet con'ed quite a few people out of money, by promising profits from his depleted mines (additionally complicated by the fact that his wife actually worked to make the mines properly profitable again)

The French Governor's Son and his Butler tried to get the Academie to keep superior french Air ship knowledge as a french-exclusive thing (which is a nice plot hook for the next time we might play, because that would probably be in the Academie's facilities), with Sir Henry and Sir Evans trying to get access

Unfortunately, Mr. Haudiquet got pretty much all he wanted, because otherwise his hotheadedness might have provoked a duel. The way it ran, no duel happened.

And due to us GMs not communicating explicitly enough, a chance for an interesting romantic triangle (between the three scientist) did not work out either.

sillyputty

13:18

how much of the characters were the GMs' creation versus the players'? because i'm about to seriously commend you on your character creation skills.

Anaphory

A mix.

Aaron

Not sure if anyone here plays warmachine but I am looking for an article about this guy who one in the first round because his opponent tried to put all his minis in the far back of the field so the other guy put his minis right up against them and won because the other guy couldn't move or something. I haven't had any luck but someone familiar with warmachine know what I am talking about?

Anaphory

Sir Evans and Monsieur Chevalier were entirely mine

In the Butler and Rev. Serale I had some strong influence

The others were mostly created by the characters, with some nudging to instigate potential conflict

David Reeve

how do you make money off depleted mines? speculation of course

Miniman

@DavidReeve Sell them to ignorant foreigners?

Anaphory

13:21

Covincing people to invest in them, for a share of the profits, yes.

Miniman

(Repeatedly.)

sillyputty

I think he means, how do you make depleted mines profitable again, like the wife was trying to do.

Am I correct?

@Aaron Sorry, mate. I have no idea about mini games

Aaron

Me either. I saw it on imgur once and just found out a friend of mine likes warmachine. Now it's bugging me I can't find it

Anaphory

She actually knew how to run them, and one of them seemed to have more metal in a lower layer, but needed new infrastructure to access it.

(so not really depleted)

sillyputty

@Anaphory Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh it all comes together. =)

Anaphory

13:25

In the end, she convinced the railway engineer lady to sign a separate contract from the one her husband was looking for ;)

(I need to clear up the rules from anything that might be a copyright infringement upon Mr. Wick, but then we'll put them out under CC-BY)

Aaron

ugh I hate allergies. I can't breath.

Anaphory

They are nasty, and a bad reward for cleaning the house in my case.

Aaron

Miniman

@Aaron Mind = blown

David Reeve

when i said "speculation of course" i was missing the comma, i meant that as a rhetorical question

"we need to generate money from nothing" "let's sell people on the promise that nothing will make money"

~speculation~

Aaron

13:42

imgur.com/gallery/rkXoII4

Anaphory

@DavidReeve Yes, that!

@sillyputty Does this help? Any further things you'd like to know?

sillyputty

@Anaphory Yea that helps a lot. Thanks. =) Managing large groups of people is always an undertaking, it's nice to get someone else's perspective on it.

Anaphory

13:58

What seemed to work mostly was, let them manage themselves.

We were 2 GMs for 9 people, and I would have been fine with like three more. There were highs and lows, which I think I could have mitigated somewhat by fixed deadlines on spontaneous quests

(Like, there were some people ill in Sir Henry's garrison, and if I had given him a fixed time by when a doctor needs to be there or otherwise bad stuff happens, that would have worked better, two of my players remarked.)

Another one of the bigger pieces of feedback was to make sure people don't feel the need to stand all the time, because that's exhausting.

David Reeve

for the fixed deadlines, do you mean stating a deadline to the player?

e.g. "sir henry, you need the doctor to arrive before 8 pm or bad stuff will happen"

Pureferret

@Anaphory I've not had much joy with Co-GMing

Anaphory

@DavidReeve Yep

David Reeve

in a live action roleplay, i think players should have the same amount of information as their characters

without any sort of doctor already on hand, sir henry couldn't predict when bad things would start happening with his soldiers

he'd just know that they need medical attention

Anaphory

@Pureferret What's your problem with this? In this case, I had pretty much the initiative, and my co-GM was around having another eye out, so I don't know how it's with more GMs

David Reeve

14:08

that'd make information more valuable in the game and make characters with information gathering skills more useful

Anaphory

@DavidReeve It was a suggestion from my players, and they did not ask for having explicit times, but I should have the time pressure on my agenda at least.

David Reeve

maybe something like "they need medical attention within the next day"

Anaphory

So, when I go to the Colonel and tell him one of his soldiers is seriously ill, I the implication would be that he needs to do something soon or the situation will somehow get worse.

David Reeve

i still feel like it's up to the players to figure out those deadlines and prioritize themselves

since the game appears to be entirely about logistics

Anaphory

Yes, but there needs to be some prioritising.

Actually it's not supposed to be, it just worked out that way, because characters were quite tame.

It was intended as an idea to give players something they can try to achieve.

David Reeve

14:11

but logistics are the best thing about colonialism!

Anaphory

what about the clashing of cultures?

David Reeve

that's harder to express in numbers

Anaphory

If I wanted a numbers game, I'd make a board game, nor an RPG ;)

@DavidReeve Also, in this game it's sometimes useful to explicitly say “I'm trying to con you out of a large sum of money”, so the player who's bad at picking that up, but has a skill that helps, is valued.

David Reeve

ah ok

Anaphory

@Pureferret But if you could explain possible pitfalls, I can find ways to circumnavigate them before they appear

Pureferret

14:26

@Anaphory I think the root cause was that we weren't on the same page

Anaphory

Between GM and players, that's bad. Between multiple GMs, that sounds horrible.

Pureferret

He did lots more prep of the characters and I did the story, but without addressing that before hand it felt like I lost a bit of control and agency

Anaphory

But it's a good point that I need to sit down with any Co-GMs before next time and make sure we are.

Pureferret

Oh it could have been far worse

Anaphory

There's still a scale of being not on the same page, yes ;)

sillyputty

14:32

@Pureferret That's something my co-GMs and I are trying very hard to avoid. The last large scale game we did, I felt as though all three of us were on exactly the same page. This one, it's a littler harder. There's some resistance and pushback. We're gonna hafta find some compromises.

Anaphory

How do you make sure you are?

JohnP

15:00

hurgh. What a week. Hopefully this week is better. :/

Pureferret

@JohnP what happened?

David Reeve

life, i assume

JohnP

15:51

@DavidReeve Pretty much. Kid was sick, lots of meetings at work, last tournament week of the season, rainstorm knocked tiles off the roof. Just a lot of little things that eat up every moment.

Pureferret

16:05

@JohnP Yup, life

Dorian

@BESW
for the cool links which seems to have vanished
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-fancy-fake-money-for-all-your-tabletop-roleplaying-game-needs/

wax eagle

16:58

new rogue archetype and martial fighting style: dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/…

oooh and storm sorcy

also, this design team nugget: "Ribbons
On the R&D team, any ability meant to convey flavor
rather than a mechanical advantage is referred to as a
ribbon—a thing that’s mostly for show. Thieves’ Cant is
a great example of a ribbon ability, and Storm Guide
also falls into this category.
We don’t weigh ribbons when balancing one class or
option against another. For example, Heart of the Storm
carries the power load at 6th level for the storm
sorcerer, while Storm Guide is here only to show how
these sorcerers can excel as sailors. It isn’t meant to

Grubermensch

18:02

[manifests]

sillyputty

as a 2/2 face down creature with a morph cost equal to your casting cost.

Grubermensch

:(

Pureferret

@Grubermensch Summoning sickness?

sillyputty

18:19

don't be sad. you make an excellent tricksy gambit in combat situations!

Pureferret

18:41

@waxeagle Arrrrr

wax eagle

@Pureferret indeed! arrr!

Pureferret

I like it. Not sure how useful that fighting technique would be for my Dragonborn sailor

wax eagle

@Pureferret it's a +1 to light/med armor AC...plus climb and swim speed, right?

sillyputty

@Pureferret @waxeagle what's a pirate's favorite letter?

wax eagle

@sillyputty presumably R?

sillyputty

18:49

ahhh ye'd think that, but it be the C!

...

I'll see myself out.

Pureferret

@waxeagle He's a paladin, who I plan to put in heavy armour

wax eagle

@Pureferret ah yeah, no dice there

Pureferret

@waxeagle i'd reconsider, but bumping Dex would be too MAD

wax eagle

@Pureferret yep

nice to see martial/rogue getting some love though

Pureferret

Yeah

wax eagle

19:04

it's probably a really nice feature for a ranger or TWF fighter as a second feature pickup for Champs

Pureferret

I still want to make my cage fighter Daeva vampire

That's sightly off-topic

Pureferret

19:24

I'm going too call it. Conversation died, 20:03 UTC.

wax eagle

@Pureferret lol, not your fault. I'm playing sys-admin today instead of developer...

(and have been for the last few weeks :()

Pureferret

20:16

I'm playing at bank holiday

BESW

21:13

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BESW

22:02

...I just found a leech expert who reminds me uncannily of Michael Shank's Daniel Jackson.

(Warning, hippo leeches are kinda nasty.)

Purple Monkey

23:40

Am I jumping the gun by added a system tag to this question?

Grubermensch

Probably

BESW

If the page number and the "bonus action" thing jive with 5e's version of the spell, you're not wrong to add the tag.

However, it does train the new user to expect us to tidy up his work.

Grubermensch

The problem now is that we don't know what the asker wants, but the question looks like we do. If the asker comes back and thinks to themself "oh, that's right", and does nothing, now we have a quandry

Though.. I suppose the "bonus action" does make it pretty likely to be 5e

Adeptus

@BESW I'm imagining either leeches the size of hippos, or a leech/hippo hybrid... I'm assuming that's wrong (I'm hoping that's wrong!)

BESW

@Adeptus Wrong on both counts. Thing is, hippos are really calloused and thick-skinned; leeches can't bite through to the warm blood underneath.

So there's this one leech which specialises in a different approach.

Purple Monkey

23:51

So it still probably would have been better to leave it to the asker, just in case. I'll keep that in mind than

BESW

Especially because the querent is new, yes.

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