TRPG General Chat

Adeptus

01:54

@T.J.L. Changing the die size and/or making them (die-1) doesn't fix the TN overlap, it just moves it.

nitsua60

"TN"?

Adeptus

Target number. D&D's DC ~= Shadowrun's TN

nitsua60

thanks

nitsua60

02:12

@Shalvenay you still around?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah

nitsua60

Tarry substance left behind after burning organic material... is that "creosote"?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 depends on the organic material

wood fires produce creosote

nitsua60

what about... organic waste? (I.e. in a wood-sparse area where animal dung might be used for heat?)

Shalvenay

same with coal and organic wastes to some extent

it's a pyrolysis product of large molecules

and is generally not produced when liquid or gaseous fuels are burned as a result

nitsua60

02:15

any uses, or is it just generally unpleasant?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 lots of uses actually -- it's the original wood preservative, for one

BESW

This may be r🐘.

Adeptus

02:57

Free Comic Book Day's Serenity comic is beautiful

SirTechSpec

03:11

Hey all. Question for you. I'm in a new group with less dedication than I have ever seen to consensus. Like, we'll try to form a plan, and if we can't agree on one within a few seconds people will actually split up and start implementing their favorite plan/exploring totally separate parts of the dungeon/whatever. Do you think this will improve over time as we settle into a groove, or is this more of an innate personality thing?

Miniman

@SirTechSpec There's a lot of factors there.

SirTechSpec

As background, almost none of the 8 of us knew each other before this - two players knew each other, and 2 of us knew the DM (separately).

Miniman

Like, the annoyance of having to deal with a split party might encourage consensus, or the DM might explicitly ask for it, or, or or...

But you're probably better off putting it to the group.

BESW

40

Q: How to transform a bunch of strangers into a friendly group?

I am about to start a game with a bunch of strangers. I posted a flyer in a friendly local game shop (FLGS) and some folks responded enthusiastically. I talked a little bit to them about what sort of characters they would like to play and we're starting soon. We know what we want to play and what...

SirTechSpec

@BESW Looks relevant!

@Adeptus Totally agree, btw.

@Miniman Suppose so.

Though it's not actually more annoying when the party splits up (less so, really, if it saves time arguing) - just more risky than I'm comfortable with.

BESW

03:18

They may also be telling you something about the kind of game they like to play.

Maybe Paranoia or Great Ork Gods would be a better fit than a game which assumes team cohesion.

SirTechSpec

I mean I've definitely played games with instigator types who want to make stuff happen, and don't much care about the consequences because they don't much care about their characters

But like... they expressed that by pushing the button/setting fire to the witness/proposing ridiculous plans, not just going off and doing their own thing.

BESW

It's important for players to care about other players, whether they care about their own characters or their characters care about other characters.

SirTechSpec

@BESW I absolutely agree. I think it may not have occurred to them that this isn't how everyone plays.

BESW

That's a reasonable and charitable assumption.

A lot of the group mishaps I've seen come from conflicting unspoken assumptions.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, that's what messed me up hardcore with my problem-child char (and a few others)

BESW

03:28

A major problem (which @Shalvenay has dedicated much virtual ink to trying to overcome) is that most of us have no training or experience in evaluating and expressing our own social contract needs and gameplay goals.

So you wind up with a group of people who, even if they recognise there's a communication problem, don't have the tools to define or address it.

Shalvenay

@BESW not only that, there are players out there who would rather not explicitly elucidate their social contract needs and gameplay goals because they see going through that process as detracting from their enjoyment of the game

BESW

@Shalvenay The first rule of their social contract is, "You do not talk about the social contract."

SirTechSpec

Also I'm saying "them" but now that I think of it, it's pretty much just two people. One, I think, has that button-pushing style; one is totally new to RPGs and a bit frustrated with her character (social rogue and the DM started us off with a traditional dungeon crawl; also, I think, has trouble believing that her character can meaningfully affect combat, even though she's a rogue with 16 dex, a rapier, and a bow, so should be balanced with the rest of us.)

Shalvenay

@BESW yup. which makes it very hard to approach it when you are not natively equipped to absorb unwritten curriculum

BESW

@SirTechSpec Oof, new RPGers coming into system-first games often have a rough time of it.

Shalvenay

03:31

@SirTechSpec yeah -- the latter character does sound slightly like a fish out of water -- is that social-rogue thing something she wants to do?

BESW

Even the most narrative of RPG systems don't support a lot of character types that are popular in other mediums (team-forward games really don't play nice with lone hero archetypes).

And "pick from a list" character creation can be pretty brutal about forcing a character concept to conform or die.

SirTechSpec

@Shalvenay Oh yeah, has a fairly complex backstory and everything. I think that situation should improve now that we're out of the dungeon and will probably face (/create) a wider variety of situations.

I also think there's a feedback loop where we're all new to the system including the DM (I'm the only one who can usually answer questions off the top of my head from having studied the book and hung around here recently), so doing anything takes forever, so people get bored and think "this is taking too long, I'll go do something else", which then adds to the frustration (for me at least).

BESW

Ah, yes.

I spent more than a month studying the books before my first session (GMing in D&D 3.5), and still spent a lot of the first campaign going, "We'll do it like this for now and look it up afterward so we know the right thing to do going forward."

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec GM needs to put themself on an internal ten-second "shot-clock" for making decisions about rules, IMO.

BESW

Many systems have a default "Do this if nothing else" mechanic that GMs can lean on in moments of indecision.

Shalvenay

03:38

@BESW I actually think system-first vs story-first is a less problematic divide than metaphysics-first vs story-first

BESW

@Shalvenay That is a distinction far beyond the scope of this conversation. I'm still not sure what you mean by "metaphysics" in many cases.

SirTechSpec

We just wrapped up our 5th 2-hour session and people have pretty much gotten the hang of attack rolls, but I still had to explain things like not adding the damage modifier to offhand attack and that being second-level doesn't mean you can cast spells at second level.

BESW

D&D 3.5's "do this if nothing else" mechanic is the ability check: 1d20 + ability modifier vs 10/15/20/30.

Shalvenay

@BESW agreed that it is a bit out of scope right now

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec playing 5e?

SirTechSpec

03:41

Not that I think people aren't catching on fast enough - working in IT I've had to let go of the notion there's a speed people "should" understand new concepts at - but they haven't totally caught on yet, is all.

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec (Obligatory reference)

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 Yep, sorry, thought I mentioned that.

nitsua60

you might have--I've been in and out.

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 [snrk]

@nitsua60 Nah, looks like I didn't.

@nitsua60 The GM pretty much does have that 10-second limit for rules decisions - if I can't jump in with a snap decision, he'll usually just say yes or no, but if it seems like it might be important he doesn't want new people to get the wrong idea about the fundamentals.

nitsua60

If the GM's pretty quick about making calls/rulings, what's causing
> people get bored and think "this is taking too long, I'll go do something else"?

SirTechSpec

03:50

@nitsua60 Good question, I was just trying to figure that out myself.

BESW

@nitsua60 He said it's about planning courses of action, not about rules checks.

42 mins ago, by SirTechSpec

Hey all. Question for you. I'm in a new group with less dedication than I have ever seen to consensus. Like, we'll try to form a plan, and if we can't agree on one within a few seconds people will actually split up and start implementing their favorite plan/exploring totally separate parts of the dungeon/whatever. Do you think this will improve over time as we settle into a groove, or is this more of an innate personality thing?

nitsua60

sorry, I was looking at:

18 mins ago, by SirTechSpec

I also think there's a feedback loop where we're all new to the system including the DM (I'm the only one who can usually answer questions off the top of my head from having studied the book and hung around here recently), so doing anything takes forever, so people get bored and think "this is taking too long, I'll go do something else", which then adds to the frustration (for me at least).

Should have looked back farther.

SirTechSpec

Part of it is that combat takes a long time - people have neither good heuristics for what to do in different situations (mostly, IMO, casting about for something weird/clever to do when the default should be to just attack someone with your standard attack maneuver) nor a good knowledge of how their characters work (so they mostly know their attack rolls now, but not how to calculate damage or how their spells work)

So it's a bit of a drag instead of being snappy and exciting

That much, I assume, will improve pretty readily with time

BESW

@SirTechSpec You might look for other kinds of character sheets that, eg, provide guidance for damage calculations so you don't have to do the math every time.

A good character sheet can do amazing things for speed and comprehension. Some even have little rules notes.

SirTechSpec

It's right in the middle: "Shortsword, attack +5, damage 1d8+3 piercing" so I'm not sure what the hold up is

BESW

03:56

....huh.

SirTechSpec

Very possibly some people don't have it written down and are calculating from scratch every time; I sit at one end of the table so I'm not close enough to see their character sheets. Possibly I could take it upon myself to rotate sitting next to people and checking over their character sheets to make sure all the calculations are done completely and correctly.

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec Seems like you're losing the forest for the trees, IMO.

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 How so?

BESW

At its root, your problem is probably group cohesion.

SirTechSpec

Well, lack thereof. :P

nitsua60

03:59

@SirTechSpec Getting a damage roll wrong wouldn't slow things down: the way you're talking about fixing it definitely would. Also, that ^^

BESW

Unfamiliarity with the rules may exacerbate that, but rules familiarity won't fix the underlying issue.

nitsua60

One thing I've done with groups learning is to have a table rule: if you don't have your dice in hand when you declare the action I roll 1d20 and 1d6, unmodified, and we use that roll for your declared action. Some players are perfectly happy with that for many months until they start seeing their mates rolling 1d8+2d6+3 for damage and they're still just getting 1d6.

BESW

That's so bizarre to me, coming from a few years of trying to learn "the player narrates the action but the GM determines if a roll is required."

SirTechSpec

Gotta agree with BESW on that one. Also seems a little harsh to me; I think it would turn people off who would otherwise eventually learn it and become part of the community.

BESW

About the only dice policy I've ever had to add to a game is controlling where the dice get rolled.

Anyway, must dash. ttfn, and good luck.

SirTechSpec

04:08

Thanks, ttfn!

nitsua60

Well, all I can say is that sometimes a dozen teenagers can be difficult to wrangle =\

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 Ah, if you've got highly-motivated-but-not-highly-organized teenagers that's different. This group is more hesitant middle-aged folks.

Good news: I just found the email with the notes on when we actually went through the Same Page Tool together, and "working together as a group" is definitely in there. So I think I can use that as a basis for bringing something up next session.

Over the course of this conversation, as people have pointed out that it's mostly the cohesion, I've started toying with an idea.

What do people think of this? "If we can't all agree on a course of action within about 30 seconds, and none of the choices are obviously fatal, why don't we just assign a number to each of the proposals and roll for it? I think that would be more fun than arguing, and at least we'll all be together to deal with the consequences."

Whoa, hey, just saw the time. Thanks for helping me out thus far, everybody. I'd appreciate any further feedback and I'll check in tomorrow.

Sejanus

05:28

morning o/

Asteria

06:15

Evening

Glen_b

07:04

On this:

10

Q: When to kick out frequently absent and disruptive players?

I DM for a group of 6 people and we play once a week. Two of the players barely ever show up (less than once a month), and when they do we have to stop, and recap a huge part of story, just for them, which takes a long time. It slows down the whole rhythm of the game and I can see that this reo...

problem-players

The obvious answer is "the next time you hit 50mph while they're in your car"

trogdor

08:11

that seems rather harsh

Magician

Sanity check my ramblings on running a Fate game about secrets already established in other media?

trogdor

08:34

I don't see anything out of place in it myself

or more importantly confusing, it looks good

eimyr

@trogdor yo

long time no chat

Magician

@trogdor Good! Anything obvious missing?

trogdor

@eimyr I have been here, but I have not said much no

been a little bit busy

@Magician not really, as far as I can tell

to be fair, I am having some trouble wrapping my head around keeping some mystery in Fate myself, so there probably isn't much I would catch so far as it missing from suggestions for it

like, I have an NPC I am going to eventually have show up on one of the sessions I GM for our group (again if anyone isn't aware, @doppelgreener and I sometimes GM but it is most often @BESW)

I would like him to remain a relatively mysterious person for a couple sessions or so at least, but I don't want to just veto people from trying to discover/declare things about him either

eimyr

@trogdor how do you approach declaring stuff that's contradictory to already established material?

trogdor

all that being said, people don't generally do much declaring about NPC's in our group unless the NPC in question is really popular with them,... so I would definitely take that as a consolation prize XD

@eimyr that doesn't happen, well maybe it does, but if it does we discuss it

BESW

08:46

Give him an Ineffable past or Deeply mysterious origins and lean on it.

Or give him a stunt like this one Parrish had:

> BEYOND TOP SECRET. Director Parrish can always cause attempts to discover classified information to fail, if she's willing to fill in Amaterasu's lowest available consequence slot.

eimyr

e.g. if you Mysterious Guy has Nobody Knows Who He Is aspect, can someone just declare he's Joe from the shops?

trogdor

@eimyr if someone tries to declare something that actually contradicts something firmly established, pointing that fact out is usually enough

eimyr

Then I'd be just about to say what BESW just said.

trogdor

that works

I wasn't thinking that I could just give him an aspect, or even a stunt, that literally points out how hard it is going to be to figure stuff out about him

BESW

Probably an aspect is all you need.

trogdor

08:51

yeah

I don't think I want to make him similar to Parish in any way I can avoid

eimyr

09:12

@trogdor what's going on in your session currently?

trogdor

currently we just finished failing a mission to keep Holywoods power from turning off

eimyr

wow

are you creating an utopia?

trogdor

we had to fight Shatner and a bunch of D list celebrities who were sabotaging the Star Trek sound stage that was providing magical power

one of us severed the power line (don't ask me how that works with magic) and then the soundstage later turned into a real Enterprise

we practically failed twice

but we did do some damage control, so there is that

we kept it from getting too much worse anyway,.. not that it isn't pretty bad already XD

eimyr

and in general, what your objective is?

you know, long-term?

trogdor

now all the people and things magically imprisoned under the Hotel we are currently based at are going to be escaping

@eimyr keep the world from going to hell in a hand basket basically

BESW

09:18

@eimyr We're the A-team field agents for the United Nations & Black Raven/Amaterasu Cooperation: Using weird stuff so it doesn’t use you!

trogdor

it isn't one specific goal so much as a very general one

eimyr

and I assume you're not doing a very good job with earth becoming Weird all around?

BESW

One of our setting pressures is currently The world is weirder than we know how to deal with.

eimyr

And do you have a win condition?

alternatively, a campaign end deadline?

trogdor

not really

BESW

09:21

It's a world we're having fun playing in.

So long as we still have fun ideas for what to do next and everybody's on board for it, we'll keep going.

trogdor

eventually we might feel like we need to move towards wrapping it up, but for now we don't have that urge

eimyr

I see.

Well, good to hear.

Ahriman

@trogdor the npc made me think of Justin, the Nick in Time

trogdor

you mean the word itself did?

Ahriman

a fun merit from Wraith, where the pc is helped by a mysterious npc who always appears in teh nick of time and then dissappears again

eimyr

09:34

Makes me think of Fallout.

Ahriman

no hint is given in the merit as to why this is happening

trogdor

that isn't quite the vibe I am going for here, I actually do want to reveal something important about him about 3 to 4 sessions in, while revealing smaller things liberally

along the way

Ahriman

Oh, teh player can start to investigate this

but it's going to take quite some time

eimyr

@Ahriman any other fun merits from Wraith? I never got interested in it too much.

Ahriman

@eimyr Will ponder about it while fetching food

expect an answer some time in the future

eimyr

09:48

git fetch f00d --multiple --prune

trogdor

@Ahriman pretty much yeah, I just want it to be a slower process than Fate sometimes makes it

eimyr

@trogdor I like to withhold exciting stuff from players, but I'm trying not to do it.

Ahriman

10:07

@eimyr Echoes of the Past: create physical manifestion in your personal haunt

eimyr

what's a haunt?

Ahriman

Disembodied: You have completely forsaken the idea of a physical body and exist in the Shadowlands as a drifting voice. You can't learn certain aracanoi (= wraith fancy powers)

your stronghold/haven/lair

Echoes: You are susceptible to the old wives’ tales about how best to handle ghostly visitations

Virus Carrier: Somehow, you’ve managed to pick up a computer virus in your jaunts down the Electron Highway, and everywhere you go becomes infected

Plasm Famulus: Through careful practice, you have managed to create a small homunculus out of your own plasm, one that is capable of independent movement and action (cue the floating eyeballs, or fetus babies that come from bellies).

Headless: For whatever reason, your head is not attached to the rest of your Corpus, but is still the seat of your intelligence and senses.

Kassandra Complex:As a punishment for spurning the love of Apollo, Kassandra received a devastating addendum to her gift of Sight – no one would believe any of her predictions.

Speaking in Tongues: When receiving a vision, your ability to communicate it is lost. When manages to emerge from your lips is horribly garbled, mangled to the point of incomprehension.

Kaidan: For whatever reason, when you Embody, you can not be seen normally. Only through the eyes of electronic equipment are you noticed. Everything from Polaroid cameras taking your picture to digital web cam will pick up your image however you are Embodying. The normal human eye, however, just seems to block you out.

eimyr

do games of Wraith happen on Gaia or in the shadowlands?

Ahriman

shadowlands

but you know

Gaia is not that far off

eimyr

I always wondered, what can you do in the shadowlands?

you're dead anyway and waiting to get sucked into Oblivion

so what's the game about?

Ahriman

10:16

resolve your fetters

But that also means you first have to discover them

all while another entity lives inside of you and tries to destroy them

or you can travel into the tempest to stygia

and join teh ghost politics

or go diving into the Labyrinth

trogdor

@eimyr yeah, it can be hard to refrain

eimyr

@AHriman is it the same as the nephandic labirynths from elsewhere?

Ahriman

dunno

isit close to oblivion

if yes, then probably

eimyr

not necessarily

Ahriman

the "wraith" labyrinth "sits" ontop of Oblivion

eimyr

10:25

it's from Mage, it's like a chantry for nephandi, usually filled with illussions and Qlippothic Quiets

Ahriman

from checking some wikispaces

yes, they seem to be the same thing

eimyr

oh

Ahriman

but it would also mean that the Nephandi chantries are more akin to stable doorways into the Labyrinth

The wraith versus of the Labyrinth is gigantic in size & filled with horros

eimyr

which would make sense

the Nephandi want to push the entire world into the oblivion, including oblivion itself

Ahriman

I always use House of Leaves to help me grok how the labyrinth looks & works

BESW

10:33

...I still need to find the time and brain to finish House.

eimyr

@BESW the series with Hugh Laurie?

Ahriman

House of Leaves

House of Leaves is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. A bestseller, it has been translated into a number of languages, and is followed by a companion piece, The Whalestoe Letters. The format and structure of House of Leaves is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style, making it a prime example of ergodic literature. It contains copious footnotes, many of which contain footnotes themselves, including references to fictional books, films or articles. Some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged in strange...

eimyr

@Ahriman No idea what that is, but I assume it's wraithy. Funny, how I always had to go to Velvet Shadow to prep umbra for Mage. Well, until M20 rolled out

Ahriman

it's a book

About a house that's bigger on the inside

But not in a friendly tardis manner

eimyr

looks interesting

eimyr

11:34

VTC shopping question rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80047/…

nitsua60

12:05

@SirTechSpec I like the idea of just picking one and going with it, and I like that this wouldn't let the deliberation go so long that people would get attached to "their" plan. I'm not sure about putting adults on a timer, though....

BESW

Kickstarter: CELTIC FAERIES - Deluxe Edition Book by Jean-Baptiste MONGE

nitsua60

One thing I've done as GM--not because a group was being over-deliberative but just to create a sense of urgency for narrative reasons--is to put my watch on a repeating ten-minute timer. Every ten minutes in real-life I'd roll on my "developments" table to see what plotline in-game was progressing without the party's intervention.

T.J.L.

12:22

@Adeptus Sure it does... The overlap issue is caused by exploding dice. Under the normal mechanics, a TN6 and TN7 are equivalent because there is no way to roll a 6 on the die - it always explodes into at least a 7 (6+1). Using D8s at 0-7 means that TN7 (rather than TN6, because the range is adjusted) is legitimate because a roll of seven can explode to 7+0. As a side benefit, it makes TN1 valid as well, because you can actually roll a 0.

doppelgreener

12:35

T.J.L.

12:51

Wrong kind of explosions, @doppelgreener :)

doppelgreener

13:06

be careful around exploding dice

treat them with care

or this could happen to you

SirTechSpec