Also, the last game made me think that it'd actually be easier than I thought to run a game with people abroad... I get that I shouldn't bite off more than I can chew right now, but all we used was around three index cards and not very many rolls
It goes by a lot of names, but the basic idea is you attach a stack of small papers/cards together with a binder clip, add a pen, and keep it in your pocket.
Using different colour cards for different kinds of notes, printing out a little calendar to add to it, and having a decent filing system for them at home, you can get a very coherent and adaptable non-electronic information organisation system going.
But in many scenes the aspects can remain narrative until needed; everything that's been established as true is just waiting to be seen as important enough to justify having a mechanic attached to it.
When I start a scene with aspects in place, I'm telling the players what I think is important.
When I start a scene with just description, I'm giving the players a cue that their actions are what's going to decide what's important.
(You don't need to Create an Advantage to make an existing fact into an aspect; it just is as soon as it needs to be. Create an Advantage is there to manipulate the established facts, or create new ones, and give free invokes as a result.)
So for me, scene aspects follow the same guidelines as scene description: the Rule of Three, the Sense Invocation, and the Hint of Purpose.
...Actually, I need to workshop some scene aspects that Greener gave me.
They both mean "more detail has been added on another page, go there to find out what's up," with the > meaning it's been moved forward to another day page and the < meaning it's been put on the calendar at the beginning of the month section.
Myself, I just write => and put the page number to look at.
(Usually those kinds of items, for me, are to-do with the [ ] ticky box. So I put the number in the ticky box because I like having it filled in with SOMETHING to show that I've acted on that item.)
My first Fate game, a DFRPG campaign, was set in a neighbourhood: local university, community college, park, lake, gated community, low-rent housing, etc. We mapped that out in a very sketchy "what's next to what" sort of way because it was important.
I've already asked my SO to just sit and watch, and I hope one or two more can do that, because I doubt the players will otherwise get much spotlight...
@eimyr That will happen eventually, but tonight is about pitching Fate as a new system to play. So they will all show up for dinner, then we will play / showcase the game.
I'll most likely end up playing with my now-wife (got married. reason i was absent for a good 3 weeks here) anyways, in a separate group, so she just wants to see how the game is played tonight. There is probably another guy's girlfriend who's just gonna observe us playing
Also, the guy I made hating RPGs with Pathfinder a year ago, is now so hyped up he wants to GM tonight's session. I even got him to read the FAE book. Twice.
@MarcDingena It worked for us not to necessarily bring up anything about the system in worldbuilding, other than the idea of Aspects, how much control the players can have, story declarations and Proactive, Dramatic, Competent
They became the main source of confict on all scales. From humanoid animal tribes tapping into ancient sorcery to use the crystals in the ground and rip their own land into the sky to get away from the destruction and exploitation of humans, to traitors and shady people looking to mine what's left of the crystals to build their own flying strongholds or do other things
@BESW My potential-GM wants to use Steven King's The Dark Tower as a concept of a multiverse, each place having its own rules. So to keep it interesting in the long run.
we've already established that humanity is building a grand magical engine that runs on them, trying to reverse the magic and send the islands back into the ground
but between what some humans secretly want, and what is actually known to the wide population, including humanoids living in cities, and one island that is still in touch with the World Below, there's a lot of morally grey or ignorant people just trying to o get by... and the PCs right in the middle of it all
by messing with runes and glyphs, Z has established that they exist, so I established that they could be used to control people in a very Big Brother Is Watching Maybe kind of way
we know there's connected glyphs... Thug's glyphs are connected to some bad guy tracking and keeping him in check
so if they like the idea of networks of magical connections and glyphs I'll run with it
maybe even transpose some IT ideas into this, like a magical "virus" that infiltrates glyph links and messes things up
@eimyr I get that, but it wasn't the original plan for me to include so many people. I just wish at least the two latest 'extras' are fine with just observing 5 people play (1 GM, 4 players, 2 spectators)
maybe it's even worked on by "good guys" to release their own shackles, but it goes, naturally, horribly wrong
meanwhile, in the chains of "get crystals, work on great magical engine", there's a lot of profit to be made, and some people are just links in the trade chain, not knowing where their wares go.. even descendants of the island tribes helping this happen
or some chains getting interrupted for people to just serve their own interests and build their own flying fortresses and such
the crystals need more of a purpose and use than just keeping things afloat or not, because B, the ex-miner, established that the reason people want to bring the isles back down is because they have stupidly high concentrations of the ore
which is how they got to the sky in the first place
Oh, in here they're quite clearly a resource that has something to do with floating, maybe some storage of magic, but much more easily accessible by animal humanoids
The question to ask is, does your group want crystals to have specifically defined properties with interesting uses, or do you want them to be bizarre half-understood minerals with as-yet-unexplored properties to be discovered as the plot demands?
The only reason things haven't gone to hell already is that humans have trouble tapping into them, so they're drowning them in magitech to even get a spark
yes, a user who Ive been talking to a lot was talking to me about their issues with different worldviews causing communication issues in games
they tend to be very very logical/problem optimization focused at the expense of roleplay
and I suggested that a mystery format RPG or one where there is a character that is explicitly all about that (such as say playing the doctor in your FAE game) and other players buy in to be the supporting characters with more interesting stories might be what he should try to find/construct
It's a clever idea, but I think the issue runs a bit deeper and trying to solve social-level challenges with game-level constructs is, at best, a temporary solution.
@besw yes the person in question came to that conclusion (I don't know them in person so did not want to suggest it bluntly to them over chat) and I concurred
because at face value RPGS are just about dice and numbers and lewtz
but the reality of it, that even in the most hack n slash of campaigns you are still RPing can clash with players expecting to avoid/diminish social interaction outside mechanical systems
Mmm. Role-playing Games sees a fair number of questions which, at their root, are based in the mistaken idea that a set of game rules can --or even should-- substitute for a social contract.
@AlexMitan At its most obvious, stuff like using in-game punishments for out-of-game actions.
But generally, there's often a sense that "playing with the same rules" automatically means "playing with the same expectations and goals," and that problems in communication or behaviour should be "fixed" within the context of the game rather than within the context of the social group.
This often leads to not talking about the problem because the game has rules that should be able to fix it.
Actual example that happened: GM did a thing, the players thought it was unfair, the players and the GM argued a bit, then the GM said "fine! rocks fall, you're all dead. roll new characters."
That was a recent one, I'm paraphrasing, but that's more or less how it went down.
or passive-aggressive suggestions to make {terrible ingame thing} happen when a player engages in {frustrating out-of-game habit, like checking phone}
True, and great for both of you, but by default, especially as a newcomer, it feels as if you shouldn't stomp anything out that's written... and newcomers' games are important as all hell, otherwise it'd die out with the current veterans doing so
@doppelgreener Yeah, I don't even know, I still think the argument "But GURPS can be as complex or simple as you want!" is kind of hogwash
So for my first D&D experience I treated the PHB, and the Rule Zero, as what to go back to in case things fail or stall
I ended up kind of dictating at some points, and I'd NEVER do that... hell, the reason Fate caught my eye and not the other 40 something systems is that it seems to very well help me not HAVE to do that
So as a newcomer, I was willing to go against my personality to do what the rules encourage
as such, since the rules changed my behavior, they had very direct impact on the social contract, which the other newcomers readily accepted too
@AlexMitan my problem is rule zero is it voids the rest of the manual in serving as a game fix/repair tool.
I do find Dungeon World to have the best Social guidelines/imperatives for a GM and the players which is why its my go to now for D&D like experiences even if there is less player creativity and agency than say FATE
System documents need to give a lot of social contract advice too. I feel that even if I went ahead and ran D&D again, I'd be so much better because of what I've read in Fate SRD
Not sure if that's legal, but they might as well take out all the mechanics from Fate SRD, slap them into D&D 5E Starter Set, and end up with players having a much better experience anyway
I hear... yeah, @JoshuaAslanSmith, I heard Dungeon World has a very good GM guide, which I plan to read some time
@AlexMitan so the dungeon world playbook is basically a GM guide lol
players only really look at their own PCs sheet, the general basic and advanced moves sheet and maybe the equipment section to see what stuff costs and what tags they have
but monster stats, world building, how things resolve its all fiction driven and the mechanics of the game world all whirl around in the GMs head and their notes
As a player it lets you focus solely on RPing your character and as a GM if you prep right and follow the imperatives/guidelines you will always have something to do/fall back on to keep the story moving and the players engaged
@AlexMitan as to 5e, yeah my GM'd version of 5e basically has 4e-ish basic combat stuff worked into it and a lot of FATE and Dungeon World mechanics slipped into how I actually use inspiration
@AlexMitan there is a free pdf on their website that has all the classes and move sheets
however you do need the book/PDF version of it to effectively run the system since it explains how you create and manage the world and challenges for players
but its pretty cheap though it might be legal to DL it somewhere since its under an open creative commons license (because dungeon world itself is built on Apocalypse world's open creative commons license)
@MarcDingena booze/wine/beer if you are of legal age and into that, Ive found fate being far more character driven sometimes needs people to have freer inhibitions to get into if they arent used to acting as much
@BESW I've printed evil hat's Cheat Sheet (from their downloads page). It includes the ladder, lists the outcomes, quick references for consequences and recovery and such
Also, it looks like 2 people already canceled, so it won't be so crowded after all.
One is quiting smoking and is probably needing some time on herself now. The other is stuck somewhere in the country because trains aren't going right now...
@JoshuaAslanSmith Yep... it's very difficult to express my scowl at that sort of thing without giving off an air of BadWrongFun
But it just... I mean... colour-coded guides for what kind of stuff is a "must have" and what is a "very bad idea"... where such choices are races or skills like Craft...
I actually love optimisation. I just love RP more, and while one does not prevent the other, heavily optimised character in an amorphous RP group can break the game a little.
@eimyr I do. Hell, Fate Freeport does, but Craft in D&D is an INT skill, whereas I feel it should at the very least be a separate number that you add a relevant stat to
it'd remove things that you have to remember, and it'd give opportunities to narratively argue for your case that you can add your INT bonus instead of your CHA to your performance because it's full of witty snark and social insight and whatever
@eimyr Hahah, I'd probably let it fly as a GM, but it's in the system rules to add a trapping with a stunt, so "Because [something], I can use Fight to perform [details here]" is good anyway if you're not allowed to have it for free
@eimyr No, some day I will but now I'm barely starting, I had a couple of D&D sessions, the second one disastrous, a LOT, actually INHUMANE amounts of reading both RPGs and stuff about them, a very sweet twosie with FAE, then one very successful session with my two closest friends that'll follow up into further sessions
I need to be away for a bit, but I'd love to come back and chat :D
@AlexMitan depends on the game but I feel using an online tool like roll20 can be superior in some cases but they do require mic discipline (theres no body language and eye contact to handle who talks when)
I still need to pick up Tabletop simulator and try doing D&D or another system via it
@JoshuaAslanSmith btw -- I don't see it as "at the expense of roleplay" -- I see it as "at the expense of a certain style of roleplay" -- (i.e. there's nothing wrong with composing a character that's a problem-solving driven system in my mind, even if it doesn't fit the expectations other RPers have of a roleplaying character)
I think D&D 5E would benefit from giving you a framework to base cantrips on, at least, and make some... I know it has a table for that, but it's buried way too deep
I've always been interested in DW as a system, but at the same time -- the things I want to try it with don't fit into the system's tropes well (in fact, I dare say they don't fit into any system's tropes)
Hmm. Does anybody use a web service to track shows and movies they've watched? MyAnimeList has the kind of interface I want (a simple and clean list that shows what I've watched and how many episodes if it's a series), but I need something for non-anime. Trakt.tv... works, but it's so crowded and heavy.
There's also a series called Stand Alone Complex (with a movie called Solid State Society to go along with it), a 2015 movie just called Ghost in the Shell: the Movie, and another series called Arise.
I think most of my anime exposure has come from stuff like Princess Mononoke, whatever of Dragonball Z, and possibly a little GT I think? that I have seen, and then mostly short stuff like the Blade anime
probably a couple other things I just can't remember seeing
or at least the names of anyway
I have also seen like, bits of any single episode of things I don't know the name of because it didn't interest me at the time
I've been collecting it for a long time now, and Crunchyroll and Hulu make it easier these days. I really need MyAnimeList, though. Otherwise I can't keep track of anything. That's why I want something similar for non-anime. I might watch more if I had that.
I can understand having something playing in the background of something you are doing, but it's a little odd to do that when watching something with your family,....
it's slightly annoying, but it is also kinda funny
I don't really watch things with my family. I think the last time I did was last winter when the power went out. My laptop had some battery left, so my sister and I watched one of the Ju-on films.
