TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

00:06

@SolidusVerum which game is this? there are games that would suggest "quite a bit", others that would say "very little"

ones like Fate and Roll for Shoes would even say "why are you doing this without the players in front of you?"

SolidusVerum

I am playing d&d 5e.

@doppelgreener I am trying to have at least a few npcs fleshed out.

doppelgreener

aha, then the answer's something like a piece of string. it's worthwhile remembering your players are going to end up interacting with and learning about very little of it, unless they're the kinds of players to dive into a high level of detail, so going into deep details is going to be going well overboard. you may want to put in more detail the more players are going to be invested in an area or a person.

for a D&D 4e campaign, I detailed some major facilities in a city that was going to be at the heart of the entire campaign (specifically its major shrines, and its water filtration facilities which had brought the surrounding area to life), and its overall layout, and some local legends and what the farmlands outside might be like, but there was little to no value going into much more depth on anything else and i was comfortable improvising as my players showed me what they were interested in.

SolidusVerum

Okay, I see. I tried to make up some NPCs on the fly and I couldn't stand them. I doubt my players cared much, but I hated them.

doppelgreener

00:29

Well, it is a good skill to learn and develop, since you're gonna have to do more of that. :D

Even if you prep a lot they're going to take great interest in that one dude you didn't develop.

and all that prep time is going to be murder on you.

(in a world with hundreds of people, you can't give all of them a build and a motivation and so on in only a few hours per week)

SolidusVerum

Right now I'm writing in a bit more information about the factions in my world, hopefully I'll be able to generate the NPCs of those factions on the spot based on the faction.

Iron Heart

hi

SolidusVerum

hola brola

doppelgreener

One important thing to think about on a civilisation level is their attitudes and the major parts of their cultural identity. Think about what they value. Japan was a warrior civilisation with military leadership which had a societal structure that placed the warriors first, then merchants and farmers second. They all had their places and it was taboo to try to change your course in life.

Ancient greece was deeply invested in philosophical dialog, had major trade going on, was interacting with many other cities and defending themselves from invasion about as much.

Ancient Rome also became a military nation after a while, but still fully embraced the democracy of its people or at least maintaned that on the face of things with the Roman Senate.

SolidusVerum

The region my players are starting in will be reminiscent of Renaissance Italy.

doppelgreener

00:42

the people in these placed various values on art, literature, history and record keeping, accounting (e.g. the chinese recorded EVERYTHING, the egyptians LOVED keeping detailed records of finances), stories, war, peace, and so on.

Excellent! Real world inspiration is a great thing to draw upon.

SolidusVerum

I'm building a sand-box for my players, and therefore I'm creating some noble houses a few merchant associations which balance those houses economically, a thieves guild of course, and then a few outlying factions.

doppelgreener

Likewise, for individual people, you can detail the facts about them, but there's a wellspring of inspiration if you go a level deeper: what are their motivations, what do they like, what do they enjoy, what are their strengths and weaknesses, what do they fear, or so on. Those will help you understand who the people are, and then the moment you're thrown in the deep end because the players drag that NPC into a situation you didn't anticipate, you're ready to continue acting as them.

@BESW Probably remembers better than I do some of the most effective questions to ask about those NPCs.

What are their hopes and dreams, as well, and what if anything are they doing to achieve them?

SolidusVerum

That's helpful to know.

I've read a few of the questions on rpg.se and other places, and I've found that mostly the answer is relationship, motivations, and player interactions.

doppelgreener

(I'm saying all this as someone who prefers to let the players lead me to what they're interested in, and improvise heavily, and just do the minimum amount of prep to support keeping things going smoothly that way.)

Yes.

SolidusVerum

I'm curious, how would you approach a creating a secret organization?

doppelgreener

00:47

What kind of secret organisation?

Depends on how secret it is.

SolidusVerum

The idea is that it is a guild for the wealthy and powerful merchants only.

doppelgreener

And what parts of it I expect the players to see, and how soon I expect them to: (a) realise it exists, (b) realise that that one guy is in it, (c) realise its goals, (d) realise who else is in it, etc

and what its goals are. A shadowy organisation manipulating the Emperor and basically every official in the world to resummon Baal and crack open the earth is a very different organisation to The Very Secret And Shadowy Sect of Party Animals

(who meet up on the last thursday night of every month for wild parties)

SolidusVerum

I thoroughly appreciated that comparison.

doppelgreener

:)

SolidusVerum

Thank you for your help, that pointed me in the right direction.

doppelgreener

00:51

@SolidusVerum So this sounds like it would be a merchant's guild to remain coordinated, discuss relevant issues, settle disputes outside official channels, make deals, talk trade without any of those louts about who don't understand how any of this works, and so on. A privileged club of the few.

Or is there more to it? Do they have goals? Trade embargos, price manipulation, seeing to it that certain parts of the empire do well and certain parts do not?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle lemme know when the room is up

doppelgreener

(And is this something everyone in the guild knows about or participates in, or are there a secret faction or factions in the guild doing this stuff?)

SolidusVerum

I appreciate those questions they're helping me give some shape to the shadows.

doppelgreener

Depending on what it is doing, I might even play around with how the players find out about it. Maybe they make friends with a wealthy merchant. They find out there's a secret trade organisation. They hear it's doing evil. They ask him if he knows about it, he says he's pretty sure those are just rumours. They later find out he is in it, and they confront him directly. He says you got me, but no, everyone's fine and there's just a lot of good people meeting up for a chat regularly.

SolidusVerum

That is ingenious.

doppelgreener

00:55

He even invites them along for one of the meetings. Everything seems fine, then someone raises the issue of how long they're going to keep up the vegetable embargo to the southeastern lands. (There's a section of the countryside where people are starving because they can't get in vital food supplies.)

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith will do. had a bit of a tech snafu. My desktop died. going to give it a go on the wife's laptop and see if that works, but no headset may be a problem

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah gotcha

doppelgreener

Or something like that. Do I make that a secret thing and implicate this merchant as being unwittingly in an organisation where some of the other people are doing bad stuff? Maybe the players overheard someone in a small conversation on the other side of the room.

Or is he like "What? What's evil about this?"

SolidusVerum

This is super awesome! Unfortunately the people I would typically talk to about this are either in the campaign, or for one reason or another inaccessible. I really appreciate your help.

doppelgreener

No worries.

I know that pain. I was usually BESW's go-to guy for talking about this stuff, and he was mine, then I started playing in his games and GMing some of the sessions, haha.

Adeptus

01:00

(every time I hear "this is [...] awesome", I think of that song, Thrift Shop)

doppelgreener

So, also, you could just play the Merchants Guild up as really cool stand-up dudes who are doing nothing bad at all. (Maybe like, a small section of them is doing something bad, and they get kicked out. Maybe nobody's doing anything bad.) They could be a force for good in supporting the players.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith @Shalvenay @RobertF @Grubermensch plus.google.com/hangouts/_/gq57pmycquymk3sk3o6bg3knrua

SolidusVerum

I am trying to avoid any faction being "good or evil." I am planning on just letting them have at it.

doppelgreener

Certainly

SolidusVerum

@doppelgreener I appreciate the help, but I've got to run. Time to pick up a player.

doppelgreener

01:05

But I mean as in, are these players going to have a positive relationship with this merchant's guild (if any), or a negative one, or a conflicted one?

Certainly!

Have a good day.

SolidusVerum

02:36

I am in the middle of a situation where I have allowed my players to remake their characters or switch if they didn't like the one they played our first night. I figured that this was fair because it was their first time in D&D. Now to of my players are paralyzed, and not making any choices. What should I do?

I've referenced this question: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/58277/how-do-i-get-players-to-invest-in-their-character-concept-and-stop-making-new-pc

but it hasn't really helped too much.

One was a rogue, but thinks that rogues are too weak and doesn't want to be one anymore. The other didn't really like his paladin and now won't make any commitments.

Adeptus

Find out what they didn't like, what they would like, and suggest new classes based on that?

If the paladin player didn't like the morality restrictions etc but liked melee combat, maybe a fighter. If the rogue wants to still be a bit stealthy but not so weak, maybe a ranger or bard.

Or something completely different

Miniman

@SolidusVerum What level?

doppelgreener

@SolidusVerum Decision paralysis can also come from being confronted by not knowing what the game will throw at you.

Ask them what they'd like to do with their character, what is on their mind, if there's any particular reason they're not choosing the things they want to do, or if there's something on their mind they're not choosing for some reason.

In D&D players will often pick choices to survive what you might throw at them. Someone might pick a feature that defends against Fear not because they want to deal with fear encounters, but because they want to survive them if they're thrown at them.

Likewise they might avoid picking a class they'd love to play because they're not sure they'll get an opportunity to do their thing.

One of the perspectives of being a GM is that it's your role to challenge the players. Certainly this is valid. Sometimes, however, this is seen as it being your role to hit the players' weak points. If they've got no defences against mental attacks, time to use mind control on a few of them!

That makes them pick defensive choices or make choices based on things they won't enjoy so much or avoid choices they will enjoy. ("I can't pick Paladin because I'll face too many moral dilemmas...")

Another perspective of GMing, though, is that the players should pick options reflecting stuff they want to engage in. If they pick some heavy focus on history knowledge or acrobatic skills, they want to use them. If they pick stealthy stuff, they want to do stealth. So you can take it on as your responsibility to provide opportunity for your players to do their cool things.

This approach requires some mutual understanding between players and GM: "If it's on your character sheet, that means you want me to involve it. Focus on high mental defenses if you want to deal with struggles against mental compulsion or something like that, and I'll introduce that stuff. If you're picking it just because you don't want that stuff, don't worry about it. Leave it off, let me know, and I'll avoid those things."

SolidusVerum

02:59

@Miniman level 2

doppelgreener

Part of it can also be "I want to be able to do this cool thing but there's no good way to do it"

(which is a frequent problem in D&D. You want to do a cool thing? Well, it's probably imbalanced and will require enough class levels and feat prerequisites that by the time you unlock the cool thing, it's not very useful. Or you can just roleplay it.)

I could be off the mark with any of this though, paralysis can occur for lots of reasons.

SolidusVerum

03:18

@doppelgreener I essentially just read your response to one of my players and they made up their mind.

and then the second one just did too.

SolidusVerum

03:33

You're 2/2 tonight.

Miniman

@SolidusVerum Well, it sounds like it's a bit late now, but I was going to point out that at this point your players have barely tried the classes they picked.

doppelgreener

@SolidusVerum Awesome!! :)

SolidusVerum

@Miniman that was sort of my feeling. @doppelgreener you have been killin it.

Miniman

03:53

As a benchmark for you, the Adventurer's League guidelines recommend level 5 as a good time to let players think about changing.

doppelgreener

if i remember correctly, 5e was developed with the idea that at level 1 you're just a slightly above average person, then at level 2 and 3 you're unlocking the awesome stuff that defines your class, then at level 4 and 5 you're trying it out.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Interesting, I hadn't heard that! I don't suppose you have a link?

doppelgreener

@Miniman Pretty sure I just picked it up via osmosis from answers here.

Adeptus

@Miniman I vaguely remember reading something from the devs along these lines, as the reason the first few levels have considerably lower XP requirements

doppelgreener

Yeah.

@waxeagle @Joshua @SevenSidedDie If any of you know what I'm talking about re: levels 1-3 essentially being the becoming-your-class levels, would you happen to have a link handy?

Magician

04:29

That's what I remember reading somewhere, too. With the expectation being that you'd gain 2nd and then 3rd level in a session each, and will know what you're doing by then. Consequently, experienced players may wish to skip the first 2 levels entirely (though they don't actually say that).

Adeptus

Interestingly, the Adventurers League says to create new characters as level 1 or 5. That might depend on which campaign is being played, though.

doppelgreener

@Adeptus The Adventurers League... aka the League of Exsanguinary Gentle(wo)men?

Adeptus

04:50

@doppelgreener ...maybe

BESW

05:52

From Trenchcoats & Katanas:

> You need a name. Awesome names often include: prefixes, suffixes, ostentatious middle names, titles like “Baronet” or “Grand Poobah,” nicknames like “Superfreak” or “Giggles,” or fake names. Fake names are especially arousing, because it means your real name is a mystery.
If you get stuck, here’s some awesome on loan: Google “dubstep songs,” pick any two titles, and mash them together. That will give you an amazing and totally believable modern-day name. Or if you yearn for historically accuracy, Google “renfaire names” and mash up any two.

..."Galleria Thug." Okay, I can behind the dubstep strategy.

Iron Heart

Evening.

Adeptus

@BESW "Jahova Midnight". Yeah, look out.

BESW

"Scatter Boy."

Adeptus

"Monsters Kill"...am I doing this right? :P

doppelgreener

pulled up Opiuo, mashed the first two titles I read, and got Snorkle Ladies.

and then Wiggle Ripple

then Quack Cider. Opiuo is a good source for this if you want to be unable to say your name without giggling.

Pureferret

07:08

Reddit is currently discussing what they think of as the main three RPGs

Thoughts?

doppelgreener

"why three?"

"what qualifies them as 'main'? popularity, sales, relevance, contribution to RPGs in general, uniqueness?"

Pureferret

Because three it's a number of esoteric significance /s

doppelgreener

"can i suggest dogs in the vineyard for pushing the boundaries even if it's very obscure?"

@Pureferret naturally. three is a good number! but given the criteria for 'main' i could pick several or a dozen.

Pureferret

Main is probably your choice, but I think the way out looks is "helped define RPGs the most"

@doppelgreener welltake that list, apply a semi-arbitrary sorry, then take the top three

doppelgreener

Haha.

D&D for sure. As BESW's put it, the Garry Gygax is to RPGs what Sigmund Freud was to Psychology: introduced the very concept, and simultaneously ruined it for everyone forever, great job.

The others, not sure. Roll for Shoes, Fate, and GURPS come to mind.

GURPS for showing just how simulationist and overwhelming a game can get, and yet also catastrophic at creating the right game experience for a lot of people.

Fate and Roll for Shoes for pushing all the way in the other direction.

Roll for Shoes for being about as tiny as an RPG can get.

I clearly have Opinions on GURPS, haha. Lots of people have fun with it, but its high level of detail makes it difficult to push the boundaries or do slightly obscure stuff. I once created a guy who was blind and had a sort of tech-based sonar vision instead: he could see surfaces, including through thin surfaces, but it would all be like viewing an untextured 3D model. Came to it by combining a bunch of different disadvantages and advantages and came out at 0. Seems reasonable I guess?

Can't view colour or screens, can see through clothing to see if people are hiding something, that last bit has social comfort implications.

Magician

07:20

@doppelgreener I've seen most criticisms of GURPS dismissed with "there's a book/module for that", which kind of ends the discussion unless you're willing to go read all the GURPS books ever.

doppelgreener

@Magician Which itself is a problem. D&D and GURPS: We'll create an overwhelming mechanical system you'll have no idea how to reverse engineer or design unless you're one of the rare experts. Because you can't do this, we'll sell hundreds of books with the same material. If there's a cool thing you want to do, and it isn't described, chances are you'll have to buy a whole book for it.

Fate: Here's the rules and the bits. Here's how to play around with them. Go have fun!

The former is a good business model, but I now prefer playing the second variety of game.

Magician

As a friend said while observing my multiple shelves of D&D books: "If it's a game all about imagination, why do you need so much stuff to play it?"

5

doppelgreener

Yes.

That's a very concise way to consider it.

@Pureferret I apologise for derailing your thing.

Pureferret

09:38

@doppelgreener no worries

BESW

09:58

@doppelgreener And yet, Fate is still making decent money on "Here, we messed around with the bits for you!"

Tritium21

10:11

rolled a D&D character: 10 10 4 8 9 4. I dare someone to non-ironically play that

doppelgreener

@Tritium21 were I a DM I would weep quietly, construct a small pyre for the character sheet out of twigs, lay it to rest, and tell you to roll new stats.

@BESW absolutely.

BESW

10:24

Ask Lovecraft on the many permutations of Call of ~~Cthulhu~~ Bernard.

Anaphory

10:39

@Pureferret I'm looking for such a list, although with more like 8 instead of 3 elements. Where is that reddit?

(My number is the number of games you can if you play a game every evening for a good week, because that's the purpose.)

BESW

Personally I think "main RPGs" isn't necessarily mapped consistently with "RPGs people should play for fun."

Depends entirely on what "main" means: popularity... maybe. Influence... definitely not.

Anaphory

For my purpose, it would be “highlighting a stream of influence”, it would not have to be the first games doing something, but maybe those that did it best.

It's also not something I really have the time to consider seriously right now.

But if something like this comes my way, I'd like to drop it in the place where I collect this information.

Tritium21

10:54

@BESW 'Should'?

BESW

In the "marathon of RPGs sense," yes.

Pureferret

@Anaphory reddit.com/r/rpg

should be near the top?

BESW

I love how they don't seem to notice that roll20's numbers are inherently biased toward the kind of game it's good at supporting.

Anaphory

11:10

@Pureferret Bookmarked for future reference, thanks.

David Reeve

good morning

BESW

yawp.

BESW

11:24

@shader2199 Hi!

Met up with an old RPG friend from my old D&D 3.5 college days last night. I handed him an index card with the RFS rules, and I think it broke him in all the right ways.

Zachiel

@BESW hooray

Anaphory

Yay! I still have to play RFS.

BESW

We didn't actually do any gaming last night, just made cookies and swapped RPG stories.

Zachiel

@BESW We should start printing RFS business cards

BESW

Also, I've seen some people abbreviating it R4S. Not sure how I feel about that.

Zachiel

11:37

@BESW It's probably a different game made for the same contest.

BESW

Nope. Roll For Shoes.

Zachiel

What was the plane with all the tarrasques, again?

BESW

Terrible.

Zachiel

[rimshots]

How was the plane with all the tarrasques named, again?

Hastily.

[rimshots again]

BESW

Heheh.

I don't remember a plane of tarrasques being mentioned in chat, actually, but you've got a better recall of that sort of thing than I do.

I rely on fast searches to simulate memory.

Zachiel

11:48

I usually rely on logging all my games in .txt files I then search for simulating in-game memory on PbC games.

Then, of course, the game gets freezed and weeks later I have no idea of which dress my character was wearing at that time.

BESW

I have mentioned the time a new GM threw five tarrasques at a level 12 party.

Zachiel

Players upheaval?

BESW

No, it was just... poorly thought-out all around.

SolidusVerum

who won?

BESW

I think you mean "Who ran?"

SolidusVerum

11:51

lol

the tarrasques ofc?

BESW

We were level 12. It was his first time ever GMing.

SolidusVerum

I hate it when GMs fudge the numbers in favor of the monsters, you guys almost had that.

BESW

We all ran and survived while the tarrasques ate the city, and the campaign was never revisited.

SolidusVerum

Rough.

SolidusVerum

12:14

@BESW I'm about to post a question, and I'm not sure if I should post it with the d&d-5e tag or rewrite it and make it a system-agnostic tag? Though I am playing and asking about d&d-5e, I feel like this could apply to other games.

BESW

I personally feel that questions get better answers the more narrowly they're focused.

SolidusVerum

Okay, so I'll leave it the way it is then thank you.

BESW

Ask for yourself; answers will be helpful to others anyway. If you make it vague, answers will be less likely to be useful for anyone including you.

SolidusVerum

I see your point.

Wibbs

that's pretty much the view held by the site in general I think

sillyputty

12:21

@BESW Think I can convince that GM you mentioned to let me have a tarraseque as a mount? =)

SolidusVerum

Oh what a mount...

sillyputty

Oh what a mount, what a LOVELY mount!

SolidusVerum

I'm just curious what size was your character?

sillyputty

Haven't decided. Maybe I'll make a pixie for this Tarrasque mount!

SolidusVerum

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is FAN-FLIPPIN`-TASTIC

@doppelgreener I just made a formalized question of the one you answered last night. I figured it might help others.

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/62679/how-can-a-gm-alleviate-a-new-players-analysis-paralysis

Wibbs

12:45

@SolidusVerum Hey, I just edited your question to remove the new-gm tag as it doesn't seem directly relevant to what your question is about

SolidusVerum

12:56

@Wibbs I figured it was about becoming a gm, but I wasn't sure if that was a stretch or not. Thanks for the edit.

When I was posting my question I wasn't sure if the trying-new-systems tag applied.
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/trying-new-systems

Wibbs

Again I would say not. Tags are used to describe what your question is explicitly about

your players may be trying a new system, but that's not what your question is about

SolidusVerum

Thank you for the clarification.

Wibbs

np :)

Its a really good question btw

I was suprised it hadn't already been asked, as its something that can come up a lot for new players

SolidusVerum

I'm really relieved to hear that, I get really nervous when asking questions.

Wibbs

heh, I know the feeling

I'm much better with answering them

One thing you can do if you're unsure about a particular question is to run it by someone on chat first. I did that yesterday and it really helps to get a second opinion

SolidusVerum

13:05

I think I'll have to do that then. I asked this question last night on chat because I was scrambling to help my players, and doppelgreener answered it on the fly.

BESW

You can also do it on meta, for a wider audience and better records.

Wibbs

that too

BESW

Chat is just a bunch of people hanging out; meta is a better place for proper discussions about how a question can fit into the site.

SolidusVerum

Ask if my question is worth asking on meta you mean?

Wibbs

yeah

BESW

13:06

We like being helpful here, but we aren't officially useful.

3

Wibbs

good point

SolidusVerum

This chatroom has been really helpful in getting advice.

sillyputty

"We like being helpful here, but we aren't officially useful." <- every practical, useful organization

SolidusVerum

In idea why the thieves' cant isn't listed in the urchin or criminal backgrounds in d&d-5e?

DrewS

13:30

@SolidusVerum my guess would be it's a thieves guild kind of thing.

SolidusVerum

@DrewS okay, it just seemed odd. I feel like I should give it to the people who take the criminal background but I'm not sure.

sillyputty

I guess you can think of it like, being a criminal doesn't give you the skills of a rogue. Rogue's get special training from masters of their crafts. And getting into a thieves' guild is the culmination of that training. And only the guilds teach the cant.

DrewS

@SolidusVerum But not all criminals are in the thieves guild

SolidusVerum

Valid points for everyone.

DrewS

They've also explicitly called out Cant as a"ribbon", an ability that

s just about adding flavor

MadMAxJr

14:22

Any science is wizardry with the proper application of -mancy. Pharmacology? Pharmomancy.

sillyputty

pathomancy

sociolomancy

(do soft sciences count?)

anthropomancy... hrm.

David Reeve

uromancy

MadMAxJr

Proctomancy

doppelgreener

archeolomancy

sillyputty

library science....mancy

MadMAxJr

14:33

Okay admittedly that one has issues because it doesn't end in -ology

Joshua Aslan Smith

@doppelgreener for somereason it wont let me reply to your ping

I cant off the top of my head say where mearls said it but levels 1-4 of 5e essentially get you up to the powerlevel of a 4e lvl 1 character, They split out the features as a tutorial basically for new players and experienced players can easily jump straight to level 4 or 5 without any issues. the goal was to focus on learning basic mechanics (at level 1 you have hardly any spells or class features so you are just focused on moving attacking, skill checks etc.

doppelgreener

@JoshuaAslanSmith schwa?

sounds useful

the part where they don't appear to have actually told anyone that in the books, less useful...

Joshua Aslan Smith

chat login was bugged for me

@doppelgreener D&D: Smoke and Mirrors edition

There is a ton of read between the lines/did you follow all the tweets and read all the interviews metagame to understanding 5e's actual balance in practice vs. what it says on the label

CR is a great way to either make laughably easy encounters you think will be tough or accidentally murder everyone

4

Miniman

Yeah, my level 2 players just took down 3 CR 2 monsters without taking a scratch.

Joshua Aslan Smith

They went out of their way to distance it from 4e but the action economy is 4e's action economy with different names and more restrictions

Miniman

14:42

The monsters took them by surprise, too.

Joshua Aslan Smith

right but theres also a CR2 monster that has an INT save attack that lowers your INT if it lands and if your INT is lowered below 0 it eats your brain and you die and it controls your corpse from inside your skull

which protection from evil will stop/save a player from but protection from evil doesnt say anything about this monster or the type of monster it is in its description, protection from evil only works because it says so in the monster stat block only the DM will see or players will know because 1. the read the MM to metagame or 2. they lost or know someone who lost someone to this monster and the DM replied "but its so easy you coudlve just cast this level 1 paladin and cleric spell!"

on a technical level 5e is probably one of the easiest versions of the game for a player to get into, but on the strategic/DM level its one of the toughest games to run in my experience from sheer wisdom required to not mess it up

/end rant

by the way how is everyone, ive stopped coming to chat because I was already on the edge of losing drive for the site post 20k rep and the mod election results sorta sucked the wind out of my sails, but I hope everyone is doing well.

Miniman

The whole ID thing has been blown so far out of proportion though.

sillyputty

@JoshuaAslanSmith Aw sorry bout the election thing... I'm doing well. Good to see you again! =)

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Miniman ID?

Miniman

It's only a credible threat to a lone, low Int character.

Intellect Devourer

Being killed by an Intellect Devourer is like being struck by lightning.

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:49

I watched it murder our barbarian and nobody knew what to do (there are some legit well intentioned meta gamers too who went through their heads about how to stop it having not read its stat block for this edition though)

Miniman

A clear sign that your DM wanted your character dead.

Joshua Aslan Smith

this was an experienced DM that threw it into the mix thinking it would be okay

it got put in because it was a whole far realm campaign and it seemed appropriate CR

doppelgreener

DMG guidance is that you should pit characters against CR-equal enemies right?

Miniman

A cr 2 creature should be a moderate fight for 4 level 2 characters

doppelgreener

right

does it say the parts about "and also pay deep attention to what the heck the monster's going to do and make sure your party can actually deal with that thing", and go on to explain how different groups have different capabilities and different monsters have different solutions, so some monsters will be trivial for some groups and the utter destroyer of others even with both being the same CR, or does it just talk about CR as the equalising factor?

Grubermensch

14:55

It is my considered opinion that drain abilities just ruin fun and should never be used.

doppelgreener

@Grubermensch something i would not disagree with entirely

Miniman

@doppelgreener Not really. There's some dire warnings about making a party face a monster of a higher CR than their level, but nothing about individualising

doppelgreener

@Miniman Okay. So, DMs are going to trust that, and be very confused when encounters go pear-shaped.

Miniman

@doppelgreener I'd agree with you, but I've yet to see an encounter not go the player's way

doppelgreener

This is the designer of the game talking, and surely if there was something that important they'd talk about it.

@Miniman The ID one ^

sillyputty

14:59

@Grubermensch I feel the same way about stun effects in 4e.

Miniman

I've created an encounter which was technically double the difficulty of a deadly encounter, with creatures that have really nasty abilities, and while it was tense, the outcome was still never really in doubt

SolidusVerum

Do the dragons in D&D only mate with other dragons of the same color?

doppelgreener

@Miniman Ok. You have an aspect of system mastery a lot of GMs don't have: the realisation that CR is not altogether a balancing encounter mechanic.

Miniman

@doppelgreener The Dm getting several lucky rolls in a row and insta-killing a player is a risk with any encounter in a game which includes critical hits

Joshua Aslan Smith

@sillyputty stun isnt great but its way better than drain

SolidusVerum

15:02

I have found a reference in the silver dragon description that might imply silver dragons only fraternizing with other silver dragons. However there is a reference on the D&D wiki that suggests they consider themselves as one race.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Miniman crits matter less now though, they are less swingy in terms of damage output I feel

Miniman

@JoshuaAslanSmith True dat

Grubermensch

Basically any game mechanic that leads to a player saying "Well #$%! I guess I'll just stand here and do nothing!" is a bad mechanic, and I've had several sessions of D&D where this has happened and it was the worst.

Joshua Aslan Smith

tunes out, plays with phone, all immersion lost, etc.

doppelgreener

@Miniman joshua never mentioned crits being at play, I'm just pointing out that many GMs will take it as gospel that level 2s can deal with a CR2 enemy and if they aren't, they're just not strategising as well as they should.

Grubermensch

15:03

@doppelgreener Which we should note disagrees with the official guidance from the game.

sillyputty

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yea. I just don't like Stun because it makes an encounter slog down into unfun territory. Repeatable stun. Killing me with one hit? Cool, dice rolls happen, good game. Stunning me every turn so I don't get to actually play and my turn consists of "roll save vs stun?" for 10 turns? Not fun.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah Cr is a party of 4 should be able to defeat it with only losing a quarter of total health (1 person my get knocked out)

of equivalent level

sillyputty

Oops. Misread the comment by Miniman, looked like it was directed at me. I was confused

Miniman

@sillyputty It was till I edited it, I misclicked when I first wrote it

@doppelgreener It isn't always, but it is generally

MadMAxJr

Stun-lock is something for MMOs not tabletop. :P

doppelgreener

15:05

stunlock is something for no game ever

or put differently,

"this game could really do with me getting stunlocked!" said nobody ever

6

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

sillyputty

Heh. I understand the theory and/or inclination to put it into a game. "We should have a way to counter-act powerful [characters/abilities/archetypes/etc] I know! Let's take away their ability to act!"

Grubermensch

@sillyputty This is a tragic misunderstanding of how to balance a game.

sillyputty

But...it makes things unfun. It's the same reason that I don't like counterspells in casual Magic. It's a "you don't get to play the game we decided we wanted to play" maneuver.

@Grubermensch Agreed.

doppelgreener

@sillyputty i don't mind them, i just don't want one of my friends building a deck full of them :)

Grubermensch

15:09

You can't balance additive elements with subtractive ones. This is essentially why systems where you can buy extra character creation points with flaws are almost always broken.

shader2199

@BESW Hi :). So what's general RPG chat considered?

sillyputty

@shader2199 Hullo! =)

doppelgreener

@shader2199 BESW doesn't seem to be here at the moment, which isn't surprising considering the time zone he's in right now. Are you asking what the chat is about?

MadMAxJr

@doppelgreener "Alright, you're all under the effects of Hold Person. I'm gonna drive a few blocks over and get a burger. The rest of you have to stay in character and sit right here, silently."

doppelgreener

@MadMAxJr DM returns. The current campaign nemesis steps into the chamber through a portal eating a burger.

wax eagle

15:17

@shader2199 we have 2 topics, pen and paper rpgs, and everything else we feel like talking about :)

doppelgreener

Nemesis pulls up a chair, sits there quietly eating it.

shader2199

@doppelgre I was just curious if this chat was more on the role playing side or on the coding side. I do enjoy talking about ideals on games and coding games. @waxeagle that's nice to know :). Thanks. Hello everyone, very friendly environment I see :)

MadMAxJr

It's not super strict, but we try to avoid certain polarizing topics.

doppelgreener

@shader2199 There are some programmers here such as myself, but this is about tabletop, paper-and-pen roleplaying games, or also sometimes freeform roleplay

shader2199

Lol. I am at work and things are kind of slow. So sometimes responses might take a bit.

doppelgreener

15:18

but we tend to talk about a lot of thigs.

@shader2199 This is fine. Many of us are active here primarily at work. c(:

shader2199

Lol. Very nice to know doppelgre. I am not the only one atleast :)

Miniman

@waxeagle I thought I might have seen that question before...my bad.

wax eagle

@Miniman heh no prob, I only knew it was a dupe because I'd asked :)

MadMAxJr

@doppelgreener Sounding less like an actual villain and more like Ice King from Adventure Time.

doppelgreener

@MadMAxJr i'm trying to think of a pun about the lodgings or something.

like, the villain just sitting there while the heroes are paralysed, arms over their head, floating in midair.

(long minute or so of eating.) "... So, how's it hanging?" (more eating, silence)

MadMAxJr

15:25

That should go in my next one-off game.. Villian that freezes the party in blocks of ice up to their neck, then sits down and reads them his fanfiction, asking for feedback.

doppelgreener

Hahahaha yes brilliant.

but it seriously warrants consideration that the ice king (a) writes fanfiction about a genderswapped version of his nemesis [or best buddy, depending on the day], (b) writes these stories so that this girl falls in love with him and does the romances with him, and (c) seeks out said nemesis/buddy and read stories about this to him and asks for his approval.

2

psychologists would have a field day with that

MadMAxJr

Over the years, he's gone from evil wizard bad-guy to horribly misunderstood guy who lives next door in the mountains and when he acts out, don't pay him a lot of attention or it just gets worse.

doppelgreener

(source, page is broken-ish)

MadMAxJr

Kinda sad when the badguy peers in your window asking if you heroes are doing anything cool today and if he can tag along.

doppelgreener

yes it is xD

@MadMAxJr i like this. and then there's more!

... which i am not totally up to date with on account of not having seen the latest season. but there's more!

MadMAxJr

15:31

I only see the occasional episode, but it amuses me so much how he's changed. It's like they've slapped him enough times, "No. No. We do not steal princesses. Stop that."

And he's tried to become friends with the wizards guild, but some of them are stranger than him.

doppelgreener

and more dangerous!

MadMAxJr

The one that anything he touches comes to life.

doppelgreener

I don't remember that one.

sillyputty

Is AbracaDaniel more dangerous?

doppelgreener

hmmm.

that is a genuinely good question.

sillyputty

15:39

I mean, IK is pretty dangerous in his abilities, if not his temperament.

doppelgreener

i suppose he does regularly do legitimately dangerous stuff.

sillyputty

New Power Couple: Daniel and Slime Princess.

done. Story over.

MadMAxJr

For a secretly horrific dark apocalypse world, it's a fun series.

doppelgreener

It is!

And totally not a kid's show.

(which is probably the best kind of kid's show)

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