TRPG General Chat

eimyr

15:00

He had three spies and he would control any chosen one during any scene.

The spies were generally... well, operationally challenged. But there were three of them and they were replaceable.

BESW

There's some suggestions about using Contacts for proxies, creating new NPCs that slowly populate the world with recognisable faces.

There's no reason a player can't control an NPC working in the interests of his PC.

eimyr

(As a joke he said he has three monkeys. The spies ended up being lowly nobodies no one pays attention to, as they were a blind spy, a deaf forger and a mute assassin respectively. )

BESW

(There is generally an unstated expectation in HoB, though, that if no PCs are in a scene, it'll get narrated quickly and move on to the next bit with your own characters.)

> Where House of Bards differs from those familiar games is in a focus on drama and conflict rather than procedure and challenge. The focus of the game takes the player characters and puts them up against other characters (including each other), instead of focusing primarily on working together against external forces.

eimyr

How is group cohesion maintained in that game?

I wouldn't want my players to start offing competition with themselves.

BESW

What group cohesion? It's about conflicting with other PCs.

> The traditional structure of RPGs, from its roots in D&D, is that the players usually all work together on the same side, save for the occasional disagreement about how to split the loot or doppelganger infiltration.
A game like House of Bards, however, follows a more dramatic structure. Instead of the action being driven by external threats, the player characters are put at various cross-purposes and thrown into conflict with one another, driving the action. When temporarily allying, or even when part of the same organization working cross-purposes, different goals and drivers push tensi…

There's some good advice about how to handle this in Fate, and keeping the IRL group cool while the PCs are at each others' throats.

eimyr

15:07

They might plot against each other, but I want them to primarily plot against non-player opposition.

E.g. They might have different ideas who should become the next Court Chaplain, but all should desire/benefit from the untimely demise of the current one.

BESW

Well, take a look at any rate.

eimyr

I most certainly will.

BESW

I think there's a lot of useful stuff.

And, yanno. Free.

eimyr

Isn't there an obligatory fee of not-zero dollars?

BESW

Nope.

eimyr

15:10

cool

Though if it works I'd happily send these guys some money.

It seems the mean PWYW is 3 dollars.

That is not very much.

BESW

The Bundle of Holding is all about the wurr-wilfs.

eimyr

Man, when I was 17 I wanted my dice to be ornate, thematically fitting the game, heavy in the hand and compelling to be rolled. These days I just want big, bright numbers.

Polyducks

That's the sign of failing eyesight ;)

BESW

I've got some dice that nobody can read without a searchlight.

And yeah, I'm a lot happier with dice that facilitate play rather than distract from it.

eimyr

@Polyducks I'm just old.

@BESW Shame it's not 20th anniversary in that bundle.

MadMAxJr

15:35

I see torches and pitchforks in meta. Is this the same diamond mod concern that was discussed last year?

BESW

It's not unrelated, but further discussion should probably go to the Not A Bar.

MadMAxJr

That's fine. Just making sure I was reading correctly from what vague information has been put on meta.

MadMAxJr

15:50

And everything I was looking to find out was in Not a Bar. Thanks. What a headache.

Smurfton

Just me trying to defuse it

BESW

16:02

It's an important good-faith attempt. Whatever happens going forward, this will be a useful benchmark even if nothing else comes of it.

eimyr

16:15

@BESW What is your opinion on John Wick and his RPG style/recommendations?

Joshua Aslan Smith

17:34

@besw I'll be honest if we did have someone juding the RAW tag/acting in the other META discussion currently being discussed. I would probably want it ot be you as arbiter as you have always displayed levelheadedness and understanding about both sides of the issue without casting your lot in with a side as it were.

BESW

20:47

@eimyr I don't think I'm familiar.

A quick glance at the tags on his blog tells me I probably don't have much overlap with his interests or playstyles.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Thank you, that's flattering. We've got plenty of other folks who are just as capable in that regard, but less vocal, so if it goes through there's no dearth of support.

eimyr

21:06

@BESW He's the guy who wrote highly popular books about how to abuse your players until they love it.

BESW

I probably would've eaten those up in my first few years as a GM.

eimyr

Also, involved in some highly acclaimed games as a designer: 7th Sea, l5r

BESW

But now, it sounds like a lot of work for no particularly desirable effect when I can just work with my players to figure out what kind of game we'd all like instead of manipulating them into agreeing with my taste.

eimyr

Well, some of my sheltered friends think he is a gamemastering god, whose rule is not to be dismissed.

Well,and a half of his books and some of his suggestions make sense.

His attitude doesn't though.

Let me give you an example.

He encourages GMs to let his players add details or even roleplay NPCs ad hoc and then take those suggestions/performances and repeat them.

Can't argue with that! Technique for an instant win.

His presentation of the issue though is somewhere between "let them do work for you" and "these silly players will never notice you are totally unprepared"

BESW

Aw.

eimyr

21:15

I hoped you might be familiar with his work and comment in your usual honest way.

Because to me, BESW is like the Honest Trailers of RPG. Just and viciously mindful.

BESW

[blink] That's a new one.

okeefe

I wish Wick's Houses of the Blooded had an editor. Blood and Honor was in some ways a successor to HotB, but I never got around to reading it. I like his game ideas but presentation could be better.

What I came in here for, though, was to ask what's going in meta about moderator distrust. I can't seem to find more details.

BESW

@okeefe That should probably move to the Not A Bar.

okeefe

@BESW Got it, thanks.

BESW

21:39

@eimyr If there's something specific you'd want to point me to, I could take a look some time.

eimyr

I don't want you to spend time over it, you surely have better things to do.

BESW

Yes! That's why I spend so little time here.

eimyr

Right.

He wrote three (?) books, Play Hard, Play Dirty and Play... dunno, in your basement I suppose.

BESW

If the progression holds, the fourth is Play without a Safe Word.

2

eimyr

They are a mix of brilliance, curmudgeonry, underhanded awesomeness and misguided laziness.

I can't believe how hard they are to find after John Wick the Keanu movie.

BESW

21:51

@eimyr ...so he's the Moffat of RPGs. Got it.

eimyr

I don't know who Moffat is.

BESW

He's the showrunner behind Sherlock and Doctor Who.

MadMAxJr

He likes making Brits say witty things on TV.

Ahriman

make my wife cry

eimyr

Actually I might confused John Wick with someone else.

Wait, I need to get my facts straight.

BESW

21:53

Oodles of style, occasional flashes of pure genius, lots of repeating himself smugly, well-meaning but heavy-handed and misguided attempts at social commentary, and a barely-concealed contempt for the amateur fans he used to be one of.

eimyr

@BESW Okay, back from Confusedville. His articles uner a column "Play Dirty" were gathered into some books under the same name. In Poland it actually spawned a series, which had multiple authors.

The series followed the naming convention of Play Dirty, so there was Play Hard, Play with the Plot and Play with Your Head etc.

BESW

"Back from Confusedville" would be a great name for an album by a band that just got back together after a decade-long breakup marked by abjectly failed individual projects.

2

eimyr

btw

9 hours ago, by eimyr

I honor of @BESW's name-spotting abilities, enjoy some handy statistics. So far RPG.SE chat has generated 23 great names, 149 good names and 1 awful name. I think we're doing well.

+1 to great

MadMAxJr

Thank you for subscribing to BESW facts!

2

eimyr

Don't forget to like and subscribe, also, see our Patreon page for his secret identity!

MadMAxJr

21:58

Did you know the average BESW can moderate four times its weight in questions?

BESW

@eimyr ...and Play in Traffic?

@MadMAxJr A fully grown BESW can be confused by up to seven 5e questions in a single hour!

MadMAxJr

I have no idea why I turned you into catfacts, but it made me laugh.

eimyr

@BESW So yeah, there is John Wick and some other authors who may or may not consider him their spiritual liege.

BESW

THE AVERAGE HUMAN BODY CONTAINS SO MUCH BLOOD. #SCIENCEFACT

Tweeted by Dr_Dinosaur on July 17, 2013 at 6:56 PM

eimyr

'Look to my coming on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east.' 'And look to the west to see our shadows!'

BESW

22:05

@eimyr Sounds like he's an OSR guru.

eimyr

Seems so.

Also he "says it how it is", which does get him a lot of sympathy but none from me.

Following our discussion about how to differentiate oldschool and modern games I wanted to write an article about it.

BESW

Anyone who claims to have an unadulterated line on "how it is" for an entire hobby is more likely delusional or selling you something.

eimyr

Anyone who claims to have an unadulterated line on "how it is" ~~for an entire hobby~~ is more likely delusional or selling you something

BESW

Third time's the charm!

eimyr

Me and edits.

Or me and markup.

Or perhaps Markup and I, since Mark is a clearly a person.

BESW

22:10

It'd still be "me."

eimyr

Also, there was the one discussion about how to summarize games from player choice perspective in a very short sentence that I would like to continue sometime.

ssshhhh

I did good.

I can grammar.

BESW

@eimyr I'm not sure that's ever actually going anywhere. It was a fun thought experiment, but I think its failure was more revealing than any success could have been.

Javelin

@eimyr That sounds like fun. I almost wish I could have been there

eimyr

I still think DnD is a game about making choices by picking from a list.

maybe it doesn't fit the "X game is about making Y choices" format, but it fits my dnd experience so far

MadMAxJr

At some point in history, someone rolled a die for fun. This has made a lot of people angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

eimyr

22:13

@Javelin some +-20 posts around the core statement chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/11?m=27106909#27106909

@Javelin actually it started here: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/27106424#27106424

BESW

@eimyr A day or two ago the chat feed had a blog post about what makes D&D feel like D&D. [rummages around]

> [...E]very single spell is a declaration that in this setting, this thing is possible. It is a thing that happens. That’s bold. And with the sheer volume of information in the spell list, it’s also very broad. (source)

eimyr

Oh, I've read this.

As someone who played mostly as and with non-casters or low-casters, it was never true for me.

Javelin

@BESW Speaking of spells, I want your opinions on a certain idea if I may ask for them: Could a creature be transported through space in 0 seconds?

BESW

...context?

Javelin

22:29

No context

BESW

Are we talking D&D (edition?), or CthulhuTech, or Dresden Files, or reality-science-y, or...?

Javelin

okay ill give you some context

There is magic involved in some way

BESW

Then it depends entirely on the rules of magic in the setting.

Javelin

Sounds like an answer

BESW

In D&D--yes (for most settings/editions, personal results may vary, consult your GM if symptoms last more than a day or a rash develops). In Dresden Files--probably not. In CthulhuTech--ia ia!

Javelin

22:30

Thats a better answer

I had someone try to tell me that the best it could do in any situation was approach 0, which can go on infinitely.

BESW

That's a reality-science-y answer.

It likely would be true of magic in settings where magic is a manipulation of our current understanding of physical laws, but not in settings where magic is a method of bypassing them--or, like D&D, where physical laws are largely ignored whenever inconvenient, magic or no.

Javelin

Like when you carry 10,000 gold on your person?

BESW

Or when you drop 10,000 gold pieces on someone from a mile up and they hardly notice, because objects weighing less than a pound have no falling mechanic.

Or when you violate the laws of thermodynamics by doing almost anything with magic.

Javelin

I smell some swim checks coming up.

Magic Missile^

BESW

D&D has never been interested in being a self-consistent physics engine, much less one recognisably related to real-life physics.

Javelin

22:36

That has made a part of my life a struggle to explain to someone that no matter how high their Strength is, they cannot one-hand a two-handed weapon

BESW

It may help to use terminology like "rules-first" and "fiction-first."

D&D tends to assume that you're using it as a rules-first system, where the rules tell you what the fiction will (and can) be.

Compare an engine like Apocalypse World or Fate or Solar System, where the narrative comes first and rules are triggered by the fiction as appropriate.

D&D says "These are the ways you can use a two-handed weapon." It may include triggers for wielding it one-handed, but unless Strength is explicitly one of those triggers, no amount of narrative haggling will create a gap in the rules to allow it unless the group decides to make one themselves.

Javelin

I finagled his understanding of wielding weapons by explaining that, while it would be physically possible to hold the weapon in one hand, it is designed to be wielded effectively with only two hands.

Maybe I shouldn't try to fight on his battleground, though.

BESW

By creating this set of absolute permissions and triggers which often roughly coincide with "common sense" understandings about what is and isn't possible, D&D rules can create the illusion of emulating physical reality.

In truth, though, D&D rules are the physical laws of the D&D world, rather than being rough emulations of our own physical laws.

A D&D biologist would understand HD and inherited templates, not genetics.

Javelin

@BESW That sounds mildly scary to me

BESW

If your friend wants to play in a game where a high Strength score is an open permission for doing things that strong people can do, he'd be happier in a system which is built to support it, or a group which is willing to hack D&D in that direction.

(A lot of groups do hack D&D in that direction, often unconsciously, because they prefer a fiction-first playstyle but are reluctant to change systems for whatever reason.)

Javelin

22:47

Maybe they are worried about breaking the balance

I probably have broken that a few times for narrative-based amusement

BESW

Jan 23 '15 at 0:27, by BESW

> I find it difficult to imagine that in a world where spells effect creatures in recognizable, quantifiable ways that are directly based on HD, and the same world is filled with towers of wizards dedicated to fully understanding the universe in general and magic in particular, that nobody sat down for some empirical testing to figure out what HD are. (source)

Javelin

Thats something a lot of my characters would do if they werent distracted by a lot of other cool stuff to experiment with.

My exploits have landed me with 4 curses on a single wizard.

BESW

I'm personally much happier now that I'm aware of the rules-first bubble and can choose consciously to spend most of my game time outside of it.

(Ditto the GM-as-superior bubble, the props-are-required bubble, and the d20-System-can-do-anything bubble.)

So, to come back to your original question: Arguments from real-world physics are only unassailable in games which explicitly prioritise real-world physics. They're defensible but arguable in games which don't give any indication either way, and in games that actively defy real-world physics, arguments rooted in those laws are about as helpful as oysters to a panda.

3

Javelin

I will try my damnedest to quote the exact phrase "arguments rooted in those laws are about as helpful as oysters to a panda"

BESW

[bow and a flourish]

BESW

23:48

@Mourdos [wave]

Smurfton

@BESW waving at all the passersby?

BESW

Sometimes it's fun!

Smurfton

Sometimes they even respond!

BESW

Bonus points!

Smurfton

How's life?

For all five parts of the four-part hivemind, I suppose.

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