once I edited one of my posts and someone upvoted it almost immediately, I think that one was random, but I can't be sure someone was somehow waiting for me to make that specific edit somehow
ah
even when I get multiples,... they seem to come in one big group, well, not that far apart from each other anyway
there was a point when I first joined that I just thought people copiously upvoted here, I got what seemed like an awful lot at the time for my first post pretty dang quick
but where's separation measured from...? One mental image of grappling is the bear hug, another is the hand-on-wrist. What's the separation in each case? Is one "in" another's space when bear-hugging?
@Miniman I've re-worked it a little more and would be interested in your take whenever you've got a moment. Also, feel free to edit in any factors for/against either side, if you think of them.
Where I'm having trouble is that now I'm not sure what I'd actually rule, as a GM =\
(In gridless play, that is. I think gridded is pretty clear.)
I can't wrap my head around whether shove-beats-grapple makes breaking the grapple "too easy", or is grapple already such a big deal that it's not a bad thing to have another route out.
And it's just now occuring to me: using the shove to break the grapple is almost exactly the same as using the existing grapple-breaking rules.
Existing: grappled STR or DEX against grappler's STR...
Shove-breaks-grapple: grappled STR against grappler's STR or DEX.
That's a tiny difference--I may have to embiggen my answer even further to point that out.
@nitsua60 Is Shove something anybody can do, or is it granted by a feat or class feature? If it's something you have to buy into, I don't see any balance concerns with Shove having an added side-effect.
@besw I'v enot posted a question in so long I need moral reinforcement for a pre-planned self answer. Edge-of-the-empire has 2 different checks for initiative based on intent which took me awhile to ruminate through and I thought Id toss up a Q&A on it, sound reasonable?
Yeah I did a bunch for the 5e site prep event and also a few over the years where I found the answer later online and then self answered but this was more like the 5e stuff, but without the explicit ask for it
@nitsua60 I think I simply discovered that Chasing the Spectre of Immersion isn't actually very fun for me or the people I've played with. Engagement, suspension of disbelief, and the sense of a living world, can be found through other methods that are less easily burst or shattered.
Now, the idea that "a player is there to play their own character" carries some more weight for me as a generalisable argument.
And notions about staying on your own side and not playing characters who are trying to kill the party are definitely concerns in groups which strongly value the GM/player divide.
But it's been my experience that players aren't there to play just one character; they often welcome a chance to put on a different hat for a little while.
And the value of the GM/player divide is so custom to each group that I'm not going to even try to make it part of an answer.
@BESW That makes sense (obviously that part comes down to personal taste, so I tried to allow for the possibility my answer as well) but I think it would be jarring to do so for just a couple rounds of combat. When one of my players gets an itchy hat we change it up for a whole session.
I've done it all sorts of different ways. Depends entirely on taking the pulse of the player and group.
And, well. Games like Great Ork Gods and Lovecraftesque destroy the "player with a character" dynamic entirely to great effect.
And one of the most immersive games I've ever played forces each player to ask two other players to suggest what their character does next, and pick one of the suggestions.
For me it's less about immersion per se and more about settling comfortably into a mindset where I only have to care about one character's goals and personality.
Everybody at the table (there's no GM) is playing an amnesiac who's volunteered for an experimental form of slightly psychic therapy to help each other regain their memories. The game book is the procedural document telling them how to conduct the therapy session.
Though actually I'm probably going to head to bed pretty soon. Stressful day - long story short, after some tense negotiations with the former owners we now actually have the arrangement we thought we had, and our cat officially belongs to my roommate and me (specifically me).
I did want to drop in, though, with an update about the game where we had a problem with party cohesion that you, @nitsua60, and @Shalvenay were helping me with.
