TRPG General Chat - 2015-10-09

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12:04 AM

whoa

1

Q: ADnD First Edition; Damage for chained cannonballs

For the next session we roll, my players will be faced with pirates. My question is how would you determine what kind of damage chained cannonballs inflict? (By chained cannonballs I mean two cannonballs that are chained to one another, and then shot out of a cannon. Kind of like a rocket powered...

this is a GM who doesn't hold back

1st edition encouraged a "take no prisoners, and kill any of your own who look like they might be thinking about taking prisoners, pour encourager les autres" attitude.

Case in point.

@ObliviousSage oh yeah, no objection here. a pirate turning their cannonballs - and their chained cannonballs - on attacking adventurers is totally metal. i just might not have actually thought to do that myself.

12:22 AM

**RPG stuff:** [WOTC FORUMS GO DARK 20 OCT](http://community.wizards.com/forum/community-business/threads/4255901 "so grab anything you want to preserve before it's gone!"); [Bundle of Holding](http://bundleofholding.com "buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[looking for furious test drivers](http://ryanmacklin.com/2015/09/looking-for-furious-test-drivers/ "playtest Fast & Furious mods of existing systems");
[Masks: A New Generation](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1277034820/masks-a-new-generation "young superheroes powered by the Apocalypse");

powered by the Apocalypse

I am not sure how cool that is considering there has to be one in the first place

@doppelgreener I would've thought it was a GM who watched Pirates of the Caribbean recently and got inspired.

@Miniman that's quite possible! :D

12:41 AM

lol

@trogdor No, he's your best friend!

he is the worst

do not even

time to cry

if that flower is anyone's best friend they have some serious issues finding actual friends

Morning folks :)

morning

time for summoning

1:22 AM

Who calls upon me? Give up your mornings and despair.

I don't like mornings anyway

/feeds Magician many enjoyable mornings.

I'll make you happy if it kills me! :P

@Nyoze hey there

you think we can continue today? :)

@Shal Nope :P

Ready when you are.

1 hour later…

2:45 AM

@Nyoze waitin' for you :)

3:00 AM

@Shalvenay sorry, work got busy :(

3:16 AM

@Nyoze :) no worries

Tom Sterkenburg

Is this happening to anyone else

user image

The crop-draw on the sprite sheet seems to be offset

Not me.

@trogdor I want to talk spoilers, but can't.

@IronHeart that is fine, I don't know most of them

I just know enough to say he is horrible

Have you played the game yourself?

3:25 AM

no

I have been watching lets plays on it

Which game?

Undertale

I can't buy or play every game that interests me

so for some, like this one, I watch a lets play

@TomSterkenburg It's there for me.

user image

Tom Sterkenburg

It works out for me, usually. I'm not that interested in 90% of the AAA games. Indie games usually fill the niche for me, and there aren't that much of those that interest me either. Wish I could be 14 again and be satisfied with anything for hours lol

@Nyoze mmmmmmmmm

3:46 AM

@trogdor I buy way more games than I play... thanks to bundles and Steam sales

I do not

(currently about 250 games I haven't even installed, let alone played)

I play every game I have, at least enough to figure out if I actually like it or not

unless I like it but it turns out my laptop can't handle it (typically this happens only if someone gifts me something I have not heard of )

If I see a game I like the look of, and it's 90% off... I'll probably buy it. If I see a game I like in a bundle, and the bundle's cheap enough to make it worthwhile... I buy the bundle (getting one game I want and maybe a bunch I don't care about)

yeah, bundles are great

3:50 AM

Add that to the fact that I don't have as much game time as I used to, and... lots of unplayed games

yeah

I'm kinda that way about RPGs.

I don't have as much time as I used to either, but I also don't have 250 games to begin with

(that's not counting the on-disc games...)

yeah

I have maybe 10 or so

even counting the unplayable ones

4:14 AM

plus, some games are short

and may or may not have replayability

4:47 AM

Any of you who enjoy rhythm games and roguelikes (or at least like one and are amenable to the other), and want replayability, I strongly recommend Crypt of the Necrodancer. It's on Steam for $15ish.

Crypt of the NecroDancer -- Launch Trailer

It's a greenlighted game that actually hit v1 and it's still been getting updated.

I've heard good things about it, but I'm trying to avoid adding things to my backlog atm.

I am in a constant state of trying to keep from adding to my backlog XD

Thankfully this one skipped my backlog a while ago.

Speaking of your backlog, @doppelgreener, weren't you going to start playing Riven?

(plus it's one of those I can just pick up if I want to play for half an hour and then stop)

@BESW Yes. Sooner or later. :D

(probably on the sooner side of later)

1 hour later…

6:16 AM

@trogdor has the LP gotten to the end? because I feel like it hasn't

it has not

I halfheartedly attempted to make that clear

emphasis on halfheartedly

but where it is he has certainly gone beyond,... being a jerk

plus he is creepy in that he knows when you have been messing with your save file

@IronHeart also, it feels like a really long game

6-hour game by a 6-hour dog

but packed with secrets

also grinding

I mean, even just the stuff with Toriel takes a decent amount of time

the lets play is currently only a little of the way into the next 2 characters

has not fought either of them yet,... if that even happens, which I think it does

I have a feeling every important character fights you at some point

I don't want to say their names because they are near the beginning but not like, at it

plus I think, to be fair, you would double that at least because there are 2 different playstyles

they both make the game pretty different, I would think

6:47 AM

@trogdor kill nothing, kill absolutely everything, and kill only some things, actually

ah

so three anyway

that does not set the case I made back XD

I kinda figured you would go whole hog on one or the other

oop looks like the first fight starts next time

dang cliffhangers

all jesting aside, cliffhangers do leave you with a sense of suspense, I do not actually curse them wholeheartedly

anyway, I have no idea if what I am watching will go back and do kill everything and kill some things later

but I am most interested in the kill nothing game

so it works for me at least for now

I might want to know what the other ones look like out of pure curiosity later though

also, the music in this game if great

7:03 AM

user image

source tumblr full of reaction gifs

1 hour later…

8:15 AM

@IronHeart I dont recognise the flower - never played that game.

SPArchaeologist

Nor do I, only game with flower companion I remember is Boktai.

he is not a companion

you meet him more than once, but he does not accompany you

also, he is the worst

and I have not even seen all the things he has done yet

8:32 AM

Remember your words and deeds.

SPArchaeologist

Is this game Japanese by chance?

I,.. don't think it is

I could be wrong though

SPArchaeologist

8:48 AM

Was it Japanese, then anyone presented as bad from the start would have had a good chance to be actually good

I just wanted to have a kawaii cthulhu ~desu

SPArchaeologist

Sep 23 at 8:59, by SPArchaeologist

user image

I wouldn't put it past this game to make him good in the end,... buuut

I would need more than some silly handwave convincing

especially if he were to continue in the same vein he has or do anything worse

SPArchaeologist

That's why I was asking if the game has some Japanese origin. Usually, Japanese anime/games are pretty good at reversing the picture you got of a character.

that would be hard in this case so far

still, I say that with a lack of knowledge

8:58 AM

@SPArchaeologist I beg to differ - I watched enough anime to see that while mainstream animes often put a lot of pressure on seeing the story from villain's perspective and providing moments of redeptiom I often find that hamfisted. Call me judgmental, but if you went on a bloody rampage, it doesn't matter if you just felt lonely or thought it's the hero's fault. You are still an ass, Mr Villain.

that is the way I view this too

if your villain killed lots of people over a long span of time a sudden redemption doesn't cut it for me

however, as far as I have gotten I have not seen flowey kill anyone

though I have seen him attempt it once

at the very beginning of the game

SPArchaeologist

@eimyr It really depends on the anime genre, the author and the FEV factor. And it is not a matter of "sudden redemption", it is a matter of what they made you see and what is actually happened, and who was actually who.

Sudden redemption obviously don't work well in any genre

yeah

I don't mind villains slowly coming to realizations that things they did were wrong

it;s just when they suddenly do it when 5 seconds ago they were just as evil as they had ever been, that is what gets me when it does happen

SPArchaeologist

Take Nico Robin. You first see her with Baroque Works. Then she joins the other Straw Hats. Then she "betray" them and go with the CP9. And only at the end you discover the "why"

and I don't mind that either

a villain doing things that hinder the protagonists ( assume that is what the example person did) happened to have a good reason we find out later

SPArchaeologist

9:07 AM

That's was my only point, I don't know the game, I don't know the story, but from Iron notices above I suspect that flower may be a Nico Robin.

though I prefer it to be hinted at before we learn it

it doesn't seem like it

it is more likely, if it does turn good, that the main character influences it

unless it has a completely convoluted reason for what it is doing, in which case I would knock a few points off of the relatively high opinion I have for this game and its's story so far

SPArchaeologist

That is also possible. Since the game seem to have a pretty unique premise judging from its steam page, it could also do something like Braid

it is a rather unique premise

at the very least, I never saw an rpg where you can "fight" all your battles by getting your opponent to stop trying to kill you

or at least by not finishing them off when you win

9:27 AM

@trogdor isn't Fate supposed to be non-lethal?

Yeah but FASERIP isnt! XD

@eimyr Not exactly? Fate is a game where each conflict's lethality is entirely the group's choice.

Fate suggests that random pointless death is actually sorta anti-climactic, so PC death should be controlled to happen when it'd be interesting and dramatic.

cool

Maybe then we should MAKE an RPG that has that premise?

Some sort of an indie couple-pager, where the PCs can't do harm to others and instead need to talk them out of conflict?

Cthulhu Dark has the first bit, but not the second.

PC: "I use Existential Futility argument to make the goblin realise his aggression is just projected self loathing. Roll: Two successes!"
GM: "Critical hit, goblin is now vegan. He retaliates with Convoluted Pretentious Self-Justification attack!"

9:35 AM

My Life With Master is... an interesting examination of the trope, but not a strict adherence to it.

Dogs in the Vineyard/The Princes' Kingdom is a game where talking things out is massively preferred but the PCs are constantly tempted to escalate.

Have the community of RPG.SE ever created a game or a homebrew?

Not as a community, no.

I am specifically not talking about people who worked in RPG business regardless of their connection to the RPG.SE or only efforts by entire community. I'm thinking of efforts that came to be here, even if only a handful of people were engaged.

@SPArchaeologist Could you please explain what FEV factor is?

9:56 AM

@eimyr I'm not aware of much that really got off the ground.

Any that were completed but did not achieve any popularity?\

SPArchaeologist

@eimyr Sorry, forgot that few actually know that term. It is an acronym taken from a game, Jump Super Star. The game is a sort of Smash Bros like fighting game with character from many different series that where published on Shonen Jump, one of the main Japanese publisher of shonen mangas

When they made the game, they tried to come out with an acronym that was meant to symbolize the common tropes from shonen shows. From that, F.E.V. was born (or F.E.T in some recent games)

Friendship
Effort
Victory (Triumph)

Oh.

SPArchaeologist

It is actually defined as the power that moves the heroes forward in the game.

I was somewhere between Forced Evolutionary Virus and Full Electric Vehicle.

10:06 AM

Fancy Equivalence Vector!

SPArchaeologist

Nope, just a single "word" way to say that in shonen friendship is the thing that thru effort bring the good character to victory.

It is a little strange when you consider that Death Note is also a shonen (since often shonen is more related to the age market of a manga than to the actually story/tropes involved)

@eimyr I'm trying to think of any that were conceived and designed in chat and actually brought to completion.

@AdamSroka Hi!

So, @eimyr is right when he says that there's no universal formula for leading a group to care about an NPC.

I'm actually working on designing an NPC with a similar purpose for one of my games, and despite knowing my players pretty well it's challenging.

@AdamSroka Cześć!

For the NPC I'm building, he's going to be a "friendly local guide" to a new, strange area the party's entering. It's not the NPC specifically so much that I want them to care about, as the whole new setting they're discovering. So I'm tying the NPC to the conflicts of the setting and using him as a gateway to what's going on and why they should care.

@donkopotamus Hi!

10:26 AM

@AdamSroka My take on creating NPCs that the players will like is to... not do it. I create a bunch of likeable characters who fill the surroundings. I wait and see which one is the party's favourite and include him more and more in the adventures. Then I can use that character - but sometimes it's not possible, as in BESW's case.

Hey, thanks for the advice. What I'm trying to do, is get the PCs to really care about this town and invest in it, then I'm going to destroy it and take away that investment hoping this will incite genuine anger at the bad guys!

I can do it from a table/game POV but wanted to expand my repertoire as it were and play with real emotions.

I'm gonna shift the CRPG chat to the Not A Bar, okay?

@AdamSroka cool.

→ 25 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

I had experiences real anger at a tabletop once, exactly the way you describe.

10:35 AM

@AdamSroka Hmm. I think I wrote an answer about that once... [goes digging]

@BESW more than acceptable

I played as a magical detective and had a completely meaningless NPC accompany me as a guide/driver etc.

19

A: How to make players care about a community

Give them unique resources/opportunities It may seem callous and calculating, but a town that gives discounts to the adventurers has a special place in the heroes' hearts (and pocketbooks). Services and opportunities help disguise the ploy a little better; perhaps the town is unusually good at ...

We've had some Starsky & Hutch type bonding type while driving, but he was a sort of a less experienced version of my character - like a younger brother.

@BESW thanks, missed that one!

10:36 AM

When he died it happened because my character screwed up. Not only that, but his death was totally meaningless. I was very angry.

@AdamSroka My pleasure! However, I do caution you against cultivating emotional investment specifically so you can exploit it. That often leads to wary, jaded players who are reluctant to care about anything at all.

Murderhobos :)

If something happens to the one thing they love, they need to see the light out of a tunnel. It can't be the "everything is lost" situation, but instead a cue, a disturbance, that they can make better. Not completely fix, but at least improve.

@AdamSroka Be careful about inciting anger as motivation to take revenge. If your players are anything like mine, they might be more concerned about rebuilding than taking revenge.

Which is, you know, awesome.

10:52 AM

Yeah.

Spam flags yo.

"Darn, our Friendly Local Tavern is burned. But the barkeep's fine! Let's build him a new one, but this time with a palisade and stone walls!"

Also for those unaware, spam flags come with implicit downvotes. (The Community user applies one for you for free!) Just in case you're wondering what's going on with the voting there, and how someone always coincidentally downvotes when you spam flag something...

@doppelgreener Huh. I just assumed there was a vast conspiracy.

@Miniman Nope, the Conspiracy is about felt.

1 hour later…

12:03 PM

Tales of the Caribbean is in its last 40 hours.

2

12:26 PM

Good morning

@Aaron Hi!

12:57 PM

0

Q: Can we put a pause on tool-rec VtC's in main while it's discussed here in meta?

Is there a good reason to be actively closing tool-recommendation questions in main while the issue's being discussed here in meta? I imagine there might be good reasons: will some high-rep and long-time members who have seen the comings-and-goings explain a little? As it stands it seems that cl...

discussion tags

3 hours later…

3:48 PM

I wish I could find a group for Heroes Unlimited 2E

4 hours later…

7:58 PM

I think we have a wquestion that's viable for reopening, now. rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/69742/…

3 hours later…

11:12 PM

Good evening friends; how many of you are familiar with the gothic thrills of Call of Cthulhu?

I haven't run it, but I've read it and am listening to Actual Plays.

Then how would you like to hear the tale of the most outrageously wild campaign ever played?

The Campfire

Well, bard, get barding. Regale us with tales of your old RP e...

We've got a room for that!

tried there, they booted me here

Oh, I see you were referred here from there.

11:19 PM

yep

all bc my opening question

[shrug] Well, it's edging into the weekend. Any room will be a bit quieter than usual, so go for it.

ill just skidu back over there

I think they didn't realize you were gonna tell a story

from your first sentence it could have easily looked like you just wanted to talk about an RPG, hence sending you here

but you do have a story, and that is what that room is for soooo

:)

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