TRPG General Chat

BESW

01:17

I've been thinking about making Fate characters whose backgrounds and origins play more directly into their competencies and how they solve problems.

To that end, I think Sweetheart needs a new stunt.

> Sorry aboot that, eh. You can use Rapport to defend against mental attacks.

Katanas & Trenchcoats will be Kickstarting a physical book next month.

doppelgreener

01:44

@BESW cute

i like it

nitsua60

02:23

@BESW have you (or anyone around here) played Katanas & Trenchcoats?

BESW

Not that I know of. It's on my very long list of games to try.

I've read it, and it looks like a lot of fun.

nitsua60

I'm a huge fan of the series, so will probably support the KS it just to send a signal to the market that there' demand.... but I don't have any Fate games.

BESW

K&T isn't a Fate game.

nitsua60

@BESW Really--I thought I remembered it being one. Is it a standalone? Or some other system?

BESW

It's its own thing.

nitsua60

02:29

Hmm, cool. Thanks!

(And now I'll have Queen running through my head all night...)

BESW

As foretold by the prophecy!

The basic mechanic is, Immortals have Traits (Awesome Sword, Ancient Memories, Raging Passion, etc) and Skills (Make, Move, Heist, Fight, etc), and each has a rank.

When you take an action, you combine the ranks of the relephant Trait and Skill and roll that many d10s. Each 7+ is a success; more successes are better.

nitsua60

Is there leveling through Quickening? How does one manage the cast of immortals? Is the idea of frequent historical flashbacks built into gameplay/mechanics? Is it the tongue-in-cheek feel of the series, or the grittier feel of the movie?

(cast, that is)

BESW

Re: tone:

> 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.

nitsua60

So... the fun frolicky feel (with occasional decapitations) of the series, then =)

BESW

Flashbacks are the way you heal Traits, when they're broken.

nitsua60

02:40

Tried it: "Fire Hive" and "Katy on a Mission" were the first two I saw.
My immortal name will be "Fire on a Mission," translated into Finnish:

Palo Lähetystyöhön

@BESW that sounds pretty awesome.

@BESW a real fidelity to the writers' use of the flashbacks, I mean.

BESW

It's not Highlander, just suspiciously similar, so they don't do Quickening--at least, not in the first volume of rules (which is a 26-page totally playable April Fool's joke).

May 29 '15 at 5:54, by BESW

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

May 29 '15 at 6:03, by Adeptus

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

BESW

11:00

> Vincent Baker talks about the “moment of judgement” on his blog—a point in the game where the rules require you to refer to the narrative. If you want people to really pay attention and connect to the story, you need to design the game so that the mechanics require you to do so in order to function. (Dog Eat Dog 31)

BESW

11:24

Bah. I need to stop drooling over Dog Eat Dog and prep for tomorrow's game.

But it's so shiny.

trogdor

lol

it still isn't officially out yet,... or soemthing?

BESW

It's been out for several years, but it's only ever been self-published and self-distributed by the author, via his blog.

trogdor

ah ok

BESW

And the author hasn't been contactable for at least a year now.

trogdor

so that was the problem

BESW

11:25

People give him money through the blog, but then nothing happens.

trogdor

that doesn't sound good

BESW

So it's turned into a kind of "keep circulating the tapes" situation. I got in touch with someone who has a PDF, showed him a screenshot of my PayPal payment to the author, and he shared the PDF with me.

trogdor

ah

so you do have it

BESW

Yup, got it this morning. Finished reading it tonight.

(It's 54 pages, but only 16 of them are the actual game rules. The rest is commentary, history, advice, and hacks.)

Dog Eat Dog is very much in the same "A Game Which Makes The Players Think And Feel By Forcing Hard Choices" genre as Dogs in the Vineyard and My Life With Master, but it's benefitted from the intervening years of post-Forge game design. Also instead of "Feel creeped out" or "Contemplate fictional moral puzzles," its subject is more concrete and rooted in the real world.

trogdor

mm

perhaps that will leave it without the problems those other two games had

well some of them anyway

there were also actual mechanical problems with those games in some respects

BESW

11:49

I don't see much mechanically able to go wrong with DED.

And it's GMless, which solves a few other problems.

...and the players define the setting at the start of each game, which gets around some other problems Dogs in the Vineyard had.

trogdor

yeah

BESW

I'm going to probably have to make some reference sheets to keep track of what happens when in what order during play, but it's not that complicated--just precise.

I'd be less inclined to make ref sheets if it wasn't going to be used in a classroom.

trogdor

the person playing the colonizers is a bit like a GM though

BESW

Not so much.

trogdor

it isn't exactly the same thing but there is an element of it

BESW

11:52

It's there, yeah, but it's... different.

trogdor

the colonizer player is restricted in some ways, but definitely not to the same degree as everyone else

or in the same way

and a lot of the restrictions of the other players come from the colonizer

BESW

[grin] Actually, not.

trogdor

the colonizer gets to decide what breaking the rules they came up with actually amounts to

how is that not him deciding some restrictions they have?

BESW

The Natives' players define the restrictions; the Occupier's player enforces them (and applies the same Rules to the Occupiers as well).

trogdor

was there not something about being able to interpret to some degree what a rule means?

BESW

11:58

> All the players can discuss what happened and who they think followed or broke which Rules, but in the end, it’s the Occupation’s decision—though they should explain themselves if there’s disagreement!

trogdor

yeah right there

BESW

And that's intentional, but it's not the kind of authority a GM has, though it looks like it.

trogdor

it isn't impunity, but it is last word

I am not trying to say "occupier is exactly the same as GM"

I am saying "occupier is a lot like GM in some ways"

BESW

12:10

@trogdor Have I shown you this?

trogdor

the game you mean?

you have talked about it

BESW

trogdor

oh, no you have not

BESW

Well, there you go.

trogdor

is that a zombie samurai with bits of dragon armor on?

BESW

12:12

I think so? It's from Matt's picdump, so totally without context.

trogdor

ah

it was probably from something

then again, it could be a standalone thing

Magician

Unbound kickstarter.

BESW

**Cool RPG stuff:** [Bundle of Holding](http://bundleofholding.com "buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[Unbound RPG](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gshowitt/unbound-rpg "Limitless adventures in worlds of your own creation.");
[Map & Doc Archive](http://plagmada.org/Home.html "'PlaGMadA.' 'Bless you.'");
[Venture City SRD](http://www.faterpg.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/venturecitySRD-CC.html "not on fate-srd.com yet");
[Storium with the Stack](http://goo.gl/forms/jvz9Bs6jg8 "an interest survey");

trogdor

didn't we see this in here before? (probably without the video in it)

BESW

We had a playtest in the pin last month.

trogdor

12:19

oh

I did not even know this thing

BESW

12:47

@trogdor Best I can tell, it's an illustration of Yang Qilang by a contemporary Chinese artist called something like Zhang Wang (I can't track him down for sure; there's another artist with a similar English name that might be him or not).

trogdor

ah

so probably not samurai

the rest of my observation still seems apt

Shalvenay

13:17

hey @nitsua60

Shalvenay

19:02

hey @Zachiel

Zachiel

19:28

Heya @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

@Zachiel how're things going?

Zachiel

My character's probably getting resurrected. I hope it's not on Easter again (once I had a character [pictured in my avatar] die on the friday before Easter and the random roll for auto-resurrection worked on Easter).

Shalvenay

@Zachiel ah. I'm grappling with how to get back set on the idea that a game should be fun when people mostly eschew you because they think you're no fun -- because basically, what I did with my problem char is pit winning against fun -- either you lose, or you wind up with what basically is a Pyhrric victory

Zachiel

19:55

@Shalvenay I think it doesn't help that I'm out there in the game's forum trying to convince people that metagaming isn't necessarily bad, and people just look at me in horror.

Shalvenay

20:23

@Zachiel yeah -- the "metagaming is universally bad" attitude runs rampant online, and it really doesn't help things

Shalvenay

20:51

@Zachiel in your game's forum you mean?

Zachiel

@Shalvenay there

I deftly avoided the "you're saying metagaming in D&D is good?" accusation. No. I said there's games where it's not harmful, thus your statement that it's always bad is false.

Zachiel

21:26

I think I'm going to post this to them

Shalvenay

21:41

@Zachiel reading your post -- the other factor that comes with it is that I don't obstruct nearly as often as I either a) short-circuit or b) go wild

@Zachiel either I'm the Cleric coming into the middle of the torture scene and going "Hey, isn't there an easier way?" then proceeding to use a spell to fish the info out of the prisoner's head on the spot

@Zachiel or I'm the Thief, stopping at practically nothing to get that information to the point where I'll find myself past player norms as a result (i.e. the Cleric sees what is happening and runs away screaming)

Zachiel

@Shalvenay And this would again go against those same principle that had you show up later

@Shalvenay While this would have the cleric sap the thief

Shalvenay

(and if I'm playing the prisoner, woe betide both of them.)

basically, my characters aren't story constructs -- they're AIs of a sort. they have goals and values of their own, yes, but those goals and values carry no emotional weight, either IC or OOC

furthermore, if you want me to be a story-construct, I need full foreknowledge of the plot-as-intended in order to do so effectively -- leaving me to guess or fill in gaps basically is giving you enough rope to hang yourselves

@Zachiel actually, that was a bad example -- a more poignant one would be if my character was the prisoner, and every question they asked started....spawning things?!

Zachiel

21:59

Mmmmh the chat is behaving strangely

I arrive here called by the "bump" sound of "someone named you". I see no new messages since last time, so I click on my writing tab and I press ESC. Then, again, "bump". And a nice looking (1) on the bar. Nobody wrote in the meantime, and this is the only room I'm in.

@Shalvenay I'm the opposite. I know I have the spells to do that but I end up being ineffective because I don't want to interfere with the other players who would maybe like to do it themselves.

trogdor

mm my bump/pings are acting a little weird too

someone pings me and I come in here, then later the same exact message shows up as "new"

eimyr

22:51

bump!

@Zachiel see what I did there? ^^

trogdor

lol

eimyr

does it work?

trogdor

eh?

do you mean did it ping me?

eimyr

@trogdor

trogdor

because it did

eimyr

23:01

Cool

but it didn't ping you twice/

?

trogdor

that isn't the issue, at least for me

yes

you pinged me twice

the second time I was already paying attention though,....

I have not had trouble with pings not working, quite the opposite, I get the silent notification (the number of "new" pings I have that gets higlighted in red) even if I already saw it though, and I don't recall it working that way before

eimyr

mhm

so what are you up to these days?

trogdor

working, then having the day off for Good Friday yesterday and having a normal day off today XD

eimyr

your today is my tomorrow

trogdor

yes

eimyr

23:06

And I do have a day off, which is strangely prophetous.

trogdor

that tends to be the case

eimyr

pesky buggers from the future

trogdor

well, without the prophetous part anyway

lol

eimyr

cool

@trogdor how books get read in this state?

trogdor

what do you mean exactly?

eimyr

23:17

I dunno, but I wasn't supposed to ask.

trogdor

oooooooook then

eimyr

@trogdor looked at your profile

trogdor

ah

@eimyr just think about how someone could read if they were constantly on fire

that is all it is

XD

eimyr

I take it you read a lot

trogdor

I do indeed

eimyr

23:20

What do you read mostly?

trogdor

a lot of different things, classics, fantasy, sci fi, historical accounts, fiction

historical fiction

eimyr

technical writing and academic papers?

Zachiel

@eimyr Ah, Right. Editing.

eimyr

@Zachiel [trollface]

Pretty dank, eh?

trogdor

@eimyr rarely I suppose, but it depends entirely on if it is an interesting subject (to me), if I actually have it, and on what you would define that as

Zachiel

23:23

Still better than wasting part of my evening asking questions on the stack that might solve work problems

I really like to disconenct when I'm not there but I'm not allowed to post from there (yet?)

eimyr

Al my past and present workplaces encouraged use of Stack, as long as you don't post company code or associate yourself with the company in any way.

@nitsua60 Hi!

nitsua60

@eimyr hiya

eimyr

23:39

How's your back garden hole?

(I wanted to just ask about how your hole is with less context, but it would sound very weird.)

nitsua60

growing. Or shrinking. I'm not sure how one measures the change in size of an absence of material.

@eimyr lol

We're through the nice black loamy layer, into clayey soils.

eimyr

How fast are you going?

Also, remember, never dig straight down.

You might fall into lava.

trogdor

@eimyr probably the best for everyone that you made that more clear XD

eimyr

All your worn/carried equipment would be lost. Not to mention you'd have to walk all the way back from your bed.

trogdor

lol

nitsua60

23:42

@eimyr about a half-hour at a time =)

trogdor

sweet minecraft joke

eimyr

@trogdor Yeah, especially considering the response. It would be extra disturbing without the context.

trogdor

lol

this is true

eimyr

@nitsua60 Ha! Depth-wise.

nitsua60

@eimyr we've had a bit of a slow-down this week--we spent some time digging other holes for two trees and to transplant some of our rose bushes.

eimyr

23:44

@nitsua60 Now I want to do some digging in the garden too.

nitsua60

@eimyr It's nice to be able to do when you want to, but you don't have to.

eimyr

You sound like an old farmer.

Today morning, when my GF let the bunny out to the garden for a few hops, she was greeted by a goat.

One of our neighbour's two goats climbed onto his shed to peek into our garden and was very interested in the strange bunny running ritual.

(also, I'm convinced this is a GOAT FROM HELL, as it breeeeeets and blaaaaaps us awake EVERY. FRICKING. WEEKEND)

trogdor

every goat I have ever met, which isn't very many but still, has been a real loud animal

eimyr

23:59

Goats are very chewy.

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