@BESW oh right. @Magician ding!

@doppelgreener Whaaaaa?..

@Magician I was thinking the name "botch blog" may be evocative of events and lessons more severe than we're actually primarily interested in documenting. It has sounded to both myself and SSD like it's documenting total screw-ups, as opposed to times things didn't go as well as we could or we had made mistakes and been able to learn from them.

I have lots of things I can document and none of them are me botching anything after all.

They were successful stories in successful sessions and campaigns and people had fun, only there were things I could have done better. Like a scene where I let player talking & my own talking overwrite rolls where instincts told me and another player it felt like a roll was missing.

Right. Well. I think those stories can still fit in a "botch blog", but I'm not married to the name. It was something quickly picked out of a few options brainstormed in the chat. Do you have a different suggestion?

yeah, it's just like uh... it's like if I picked a book off the shelf that said "TERRIBLE DISASTERS IN HISTORY" and it listed the time Fred took a while to change the tire on his car and he was ten minutes late for the work meeting

"Things that went slightly worse than they could have but still mostly fine" wasn't how this was first pitched, hence the name. We're still figuring out the identity of the thing.

anyway, mind's mostly been on other things this morning - some ideas floating through my mind are things like "GM Confessions" or "A GMing Lesson is Learned" (there's an old webcomic i enjoy that is called "a lesson is learned but the damage is irreversible", so i may just be slightly attached in seeing that as a nice name)

@Magician oh, gotcha

but then this blog might also feature player-perspective stories, so!

We could have a category of "GM confessions", I like the sound of that.

Or just Confessions.

yeah, cool. "botch blog" with tags that reinforce certain kinds of content as being genuine valid content on the site is actually quite good.

@doppelgreener Would you like me to send you an invite?

@Magician Yes, please. :) Do you still have my email handy?

I do indeed. Invite sent.

@doppelgreener Definitely has player stories too.

@Magician Received! I'll sign up/whatever tonight. Also I'm happy with the name Botch Blog now if we can reinforce various types of content as valid & first-class citizens using stuff like tags. :) (cc @BESW)

@doppelgreener Bungle Blog?

I like the L sounds together

@JoelHarmon gosh dang heck that name's a cute one.

I couldn't make 'bog' work out well

I liked "Blotch Bog," myself.

I can't think of any nice W synonyms to match "weblog"

@JoelHarmon Wascally Weblog

Wending? Wry?

Wily?

Character seed: Incantation wizard with rhotacism; pronounces all the R's as W's.

@PremierBromanov it looks like you lack citations

If I had to guess, it's because only the last sentence of your answer addresses the question, and invokes GM fiat to do so.

how does the header and 1st 2 sentences not address it?

the whole thing tends to beg the question of why you'd cast that spell if there wasn't another target to hit (I'm not immediately aware of any reactions that move people around)

The question is asking about targeting when "no other creatures are available." Mearls says, "you can always choose nobody for an effect worded that way," while you say, "you could always choose to target a different creature." Which isn't what the question's about.

hmm

noted

And a claim like "targeting the ground... makes as much sense as targeting yourself" needs some kind of support.

I guess my answer is saying that you can always choose no target, which solves the problem regardless of if your target is alone. No?

particularly because "the ground" is unlikely to be a creature, which it must be to be a target

ah

@PremierBromanov I don't see you saying "you can choose no target." I see you saying "choose another creature or the ground as your target."

@BESW "That means he can choose "none" as his target."?

Ah, right. So yeah, you say that.

thanks for your help, i dont know if Im sounding argumentative here, im starting to see the flaws appear

But that's a duplicate of another answer, and everything else you say is... nonsense in the context of the question.

It'd be easy to assume you just rattled off every possible answer you could think of in hopes that one of them would get you upvotes.

sure, i guess if Im going based on the rules and not a tweet, I should have some citations. Seems pretty clear to me personally, but ill beef it up

well that happens sometimes

lol

If someone's asked a question, then it's not clear.

to me at least

thanks, i gotta go

ttfn

@BESW I'm not so sure about that. I feel like there's the occasional question that's best answered by "go read the books and explain what isn't clear for you"

@JoelHarmon Sure, often a question is improved by having the querent be more specific about their confusion. But that's not an answer.

That's vote-to-close-as-unclear-and-comment-asking-for-them-to-say-which-text-is-confus‌​ing.

that's the norm here, yes

but I'd rules-lawyer that it's how I'd answer them if they asked me to my face

(you know, once I figured out who the hell they are, and why they're in my house)

Heheh.

@PremierBromanov I downvoted it because you answered that "a creature of your choice" can mean "no creature at all", without citation.

I'll leave a comment.

Anybody here read/used Bubblegumshoe yet?

Okay, different question: would a mainsite question about hacking Bubblegumshoe with DFRPG style magic be on topic?

I think it would, but I wanna get a sanity check.

is Hacking one part of a system onto another generally on topic?

if so I don't know why it would be bad specifically for this

I think "how do I accomplish X story thing in Y system which lacks X mechanics" is legit.

seems fair to me, though I don't craft as many questions on this site as basically everyone else here does XD

I'mo get Bubblegumshoe and read it, then ask a few questions.

Maybe "how can I do this?" and maybe "will things explode if I do this?" depending on how far I can get on my own.

Speaking of mechanics hacking, there's an official supplement for exalted with four extra settings. I'd never seen it before. The modern one is completely stupid in a way that's growing on me.

@BESW seems fair yeah

Can anyone tell me what this means? I find it vague, windy, and entirely irrelevant, but I'm hoping there's meaning to be found there.

It's definitely smugly condescending, but it is relephant.

He's reading the vagueness of the spellcasting language differently than you are, seeing "as if it had cast the spell" as being a broader transference than you are.

To be more specific: how does it justify his previous statement? Because I got the same meaning from that as you did, but his latest comment just seems like circular reasoning. "A different person delivering the spell changes effects based on position because delivery depends on the person doing the delivery."

Yes, exactly. It's circular because for him it is a tautology. From his point of view you're looking at "A, therefore A," and saying "But why does A result in A?"

So all he can respond with is rhetorical flailing.

Ah, I see what you're getting at. Hmmm.

[empathy powers, ACTIVATE!]

Alright, here's the leap you made that you don't see as a leap but is giving him trouble:

The rules line says "when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell." You read that as obviously saying "for the purposes of determining range when delivering the spell and ONLY for the purposes of determining range when delivering the spell, use the familiar's position instead of your own."

Since you thought this was obvious, you didn't clarify that you read it as an exclusive statement about positioning for determining range rather than a general statement about modifying the nature of the caster.

I think I agree with you on the reading (though not being a 5e guy my opinion isn't worth much), but the rule's actual wording isn't explicit enough to block other interpretations from being reasonable.

I think your reading is the most likely because the whole section is focused on range-based targeting and doesn't mention any other qualities of the spell which would be changed by treating the familiar as the caster.

But that's support through omission, which is admittedly shaky ground.

Do you have any wording suggestions for explaining my POV? I'm having trouble writing a comment.

Don't write a comment.

Edit your answer.

If my understanding of your view is correct, feel free to borrow any of that either in content or in form.

@Miniman the enemy getting pushed away from me, the caster, and not the familiar, who delivered that source of lightning, is pretty weird to imagine. Seems more like rules funking up than in-world logic.

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

@doppelgreener Oh, absolutely. But the same is true for a bunch of spells even without funky familiar shenanigans.

For example, you can Call Lightning down from the sky, striking an enemy from the opposite side to you, which will throw them away from you nonetheless.

Might want to acknowledge the narrative/mechanical dissonance (imagine if the other dude is around a corner?). It'd be a scenario I point out "hey so the ruling says this, but this makes little sense and the spirit of the game would be happy with you doing it this other way that makes more sense."

I really don't like even mentioning realism in an answer on the site.

This isn't so much about realism as narrative congruity. I can buy a narrative that says when someone gets hit by lightning they go flying away from it. It's harder to buy into a narrative where they go flying sideways / into the source of the lightning / etc. Stretches my suspension of disbelief enough that it snaps.

Whether lightning would actually do any of that realistically isn't important. :)

[wave as he come in]

Orrite, time to take that blog invitation thingy for a spin.

Oh, Hi!

I hope what I'm about to ask does not devolve into something that belongs in Not a Bar, but I'm aware bits of it might.

I have recently encountered some discussion by role players of sexist, racist and similar negative action. This includes the question “So what do I do in that situation?” – Do we know role-playing-poems, micro-larps or other gameoids that would allow us to experience and try to manage such a situation, taking care that it won't escalate between the players?

I'm not sure exactly what situations you're asking about.

Negative action by whom? Players or GMs? Negative content within a game manual?

Person A being overtly *ist against person B, and me standing by as person C.

In a not-specifically-gaming context, though I have heard descriptions of it where it was sexism at a gaming table.

@Anaphory Ah, okay, that's helpful. I thought you were talking about an RPG context.

I know of games designed to increase empathy for situations and experiences unlike our own.

But I'm not aware of any specifically designed to recreate "Person is being bigoted right now, what do."

Why slapping the bigot across the face never the solution?

That would feel great for once, don't you think?

Because it doesn't actually fix anything.

Also, it's not a thing I dare do.

I'm quite sure about that.

I know, I know... At least, it give you time to think about an effective solution

(like some split seconds)

Sadly, never saw any answer to this matter, apart from "Talk about it, then kick A out of the table if I doesn't improve his behaviour"

Which, imo, fix the problem at your table (sort of), but doesn't fix the problem in itself

@Anaphory Focus on the person targeted. This is imperative. You are not doing whatever you are doing to fix the bigot, but to protect the victim. Whatever you decide, make sure that the person B is OK with it.

There's lots of social-group-level actions that can be taken, depending on the situation and the people. But @Anaphory's specifically asking if there are RPGs designed to mimic the experience so people can role-play various ways to handle it.

ie, he's not asking "What can I do?" he's asking "Is there a game that lets me practice some of the things I could do?"

@BESW Indeed!

Well, what I said still makes sense, I assumed the situation is present at the table already and the gameoid is a tool to approach it.

@Anaphory I think a structured RPG is not a good way to do this.

I've seen success with similar subjects by using free-form skits.

Rules and mechanics... get in the way of what needs to be done in those practice scenes.

@BESW Depends on where you draw the line. For fairness, I assume there will be part of it where I need to play the bigot, in which case I need some way of structure I can cling to.

I still assume it would be mostly a LARPoid, not a dice-rolling mania, to be close enough to allow bleed.

The only game I can think of right now that comes close is Dog Eat Dog.

But that's a stretch.

I have seen poems that might employ useful structure, but curiously haven't seen one that handles this topic. (There's some about abortion making interesting use of bystanders, and there is one about sexism, male police officer vs. female victim, played cross-gender.)

Anyway, if you encounter one, please poke me!

So, I'm reading Bubblegumshoe with a mind toward using it instead of DFRPG for a college town mystery game about teens developing magical powers.

Thus far it's looking VERY appropriate, except for the "magic" bit obviously. I haven't gotten to the chapter with alternate settings for superpowers and dark magics, but I doubt they'll be quite right.

I'm thinking, though, that the Relationships mechanic might be very appropriate: Sleuths have Love/Like/Hate relationships with NPCs, and each of those NPCs has a skill the Sleuths would normally never have--like Sport Fishing or Forensic Investigation or Speaks Chinese.

I think all I have to do is let Sleuths take on Relationships with magical mentors/sponsors/etc, and mechanically treat "I can create illusions" as roughly equal to "I can 'borrow' my dad's car."

The Sleuth may not even know their magical ability comes from the person they have a Relationship with, but mechanically it still works the same.

Does anyone know any RPGs that require the player to think in completely foreign and strange value systems?

@eimyr I am trying to find some anthropologically interesting games, and Dog eat Dog and Shock: Social Science Fiction might qualify.

I haven't had the chance to try them yet, though.

Montsegur 1244 will also be in that direction, and that's one I'll hopefully have a chance to try soon.

@eimyr [amused] Yes, but it depends a lot on the player's baseline.

Dogs in the Vineyard is utterly alien to people who don't have experience with the moral imperatives and concepts of external forces of evil which drive the Dogs.

Ehdrigohr draws on traditional Native American values and worldviews, including concepts of time and destiny which may be exotic to Westerners.

@BESW … adds it to my list.

Of course there's Eclipse Phase; it's not about cultural foreignness, but bodily foreignness, and struggling to define personal identity in a world where mental and physical identity are independently fluid.

Paranoia is about buying into selfish doublethink.

Do these games generally require that manner of thinking from the players?

@Anaphory How We Came To Live Here attempts to do the same thing, but written by a very well-meaning white person.

Whether he succeeds or not, I as another well-meaning white person won't attempt to decide.

@eimyr I think so.

Maybe not Eclipse Phase?

How much of the worldview axioms are challenged? I'm thinking that say in DitV very low-level cultural ideas (aggression deserves punishment, help should be returned, death is to be avoided etc.) are generally upheld.

I dunno if it's "value systems," but My Life With Master is about exploring what it's like to believe yourself subhuman, and to give away your agency because of that.

@eimyr Sooort of. The Dogs would consider those to be good things for other people to do, but that Dogs have a bigger picture which means they need to sometimes act in horrible ways "for the greater good."

Super-simplified, Dogs consider selfish behaviour an infection which can destroy their entire way of life, and Dogs have a divine mandate to do anything they deem necessary to prevent that infection from spreading without reprisal.

So while, yes, death is to be avoided, the Dogs consider it preferable to kill an entire town than to let that town's misbehaviour spread to another town.

woooo! morality!,...... wait wtf?

dogs in the vineyard is quite strange yes

I suspect you may be underestimating how much a fairly small change to a worldview assumption can throw people off.

me specifically?

No, Eimyr.

ah

It doesn't take big dramatic breaks from common views to render a person's decision-making process seem utterly foreign.

cause I was about to say, what you thought I meant isn't what I meant

XD

@BESW That one I encountered before.

@BESW That's generallly what I'm probing for. I know a small change can have great consequences but I'm trying to grasp how the game delivers the necessary guidance on how to adjust.

For example, if a game has a small worldview change, let's say "punishment is pointless" as a cultural axiom, this can probably backfire by not settling well within player's mindset.

… This Conversation Is Very R🐘 To My Interests.

Hmm. Gah, there's a game I can't remember.

If such a change was on a very basic level, e.g. "blood relations are unimportant" it can be even more problematic.

Mainly because of the cultural baggage the players bring to the table. I wonder if there is a game that has that figured out.

There are actually several games I heard mentioned in a podcast a while back, but I can't recall them now.

Can you remember the podcast?

Digging it up now.

Hah!

Kagematsu is... interesting. For many players it puts them into a totally alien headspace.

Ditto Marrying Mr Darcy, though it's a card game.

One review of MMD described it as a game where the women have all these awesome abilites but have to wait for a man to give permission to use them.

The podcast was the RPG Design Panel Podcast Episode 1: The Coolest Game You Never Heard Of.

wow

And of course there's empathy games like 14 Days.

@BESW I just read all of that,... and it seems to just drop the Pity score with no purpose added to it

Same thoguht right here

I haven't studied it, just heard about it.

I expected Pity to play a part in the confrontation or something

the game seems awesome though

oh, perhaps it governs how much dice she gets for specific affections

I think that is it,... they spent so little time explaining that part, but it does mention getting the number of dice you roll from the corresponding stat tied to the type of affection you want,.....

@trogdor that's Charm and Innocence, 7 points to spend among these

yeah I was about to correct myself

those are all listed

anyway it certainly does look weird

I think it can be just "give a point of Love or not, depending on narrative circumstances"

hmm but why assign a point to it?

Love reduces difficulty of affections.

Pity doesn't seem to have an effect.

It might be a leftover artifact from the development.

possibly

@eimyr yeah I get the love thing, the pity thing is all that confuses me mechanically

well, there are only 3 mentions of Pity in the entire text and none explain what it's for

exactly

I realize you are saying it is probably just a simple mistake, but this kind of thing hangs me up a lot XD

morning, all

[heads out to graze in the east pasture... with all the other sheep]

omg, @nitsua60 has a new avatar

how? why?

lol

@trogdor That reminds me of the Conflict tokens in The Quiet Year. They don't do a thing, they are just there to remind you that conflict is about in the community.

But in that game text, it's made explicit that that's what they are for.

> So there it is, from the developers' mouths: if the stat isn't in here, feel free to grab something similar and re-skin it. Knowing almost nothing about either species I'd say grab a Goat (MM330) and run with it.

Why reskin the mechanics of a Goat into a Sheep when you can surprise and delight all your friends by reskinning a Tarrasque or a Bulette for that Sheep?

@BESW yes! beautiful

@BESW LED on RAM? That's some modder's dream.

@doppelgreener I really want to have a game with a Water Elemental that has living sharks inside.

@eimyr An elemental with a shark inside? I'm really curious to see someone RP this concept

(For starter, I've never seen anyone RP an elemental)

I'm not sure these are playable races in D&D, though probably there is at least one indie game that features that.

Or you could play fate and be whatever you want.

You could go druid. I think they could shapeshift into a water element?

And have the shark be your animal companion? :)

And use some weird Pathfinder alternate gizmo to merge with your familiar into one entity

just polymorph someone else into shark

The Shark Elemental.

and stuff them into your body!

I'm sure it would go swimmingly.

Yea it's a bit off the deep end. But should be ok.

Jawsome.

[wait patiently until the play on words are done]

I'm not good enough in english to add one, but I laughed, don't mind me ^^

What play on words? I sea nothing going on here.

As a French, I would say we're nearing the "fin"

Well done.

I see, the tides are changing.

So, we're talking about Shark Elemental, and it sounds pretty awesome... But last time I suggested playing the male counterpart of TinkerBell, a lot of people found it a really stupid idea

Why did they think so?

Am I the only one who think it would be awesome, as a support character?

I mean, you wanted to play a pixie, is that correct?

Tinkerbell is really small, so I was looking for a fine creature, but there is no playable race that fit

Well my DM has something like that. It's an Imp, who is bound to his master. So to show his frustration he has a mouth of a sailor.

D&D doesn't tend to handle size differences well, but other games do.

@Fransisc I suppose it imply a lot of sea related puns?

@Nyakouai I wish :(

@BESW Well, that's what a lot of people told me ^^

I've played very small PCs in D&D 3.5, and it was... niche, at best.

Not a good experience?

It was very hard for them to work with the team and not derail scenes and stories.

@eimyr I can't locate it again, but I found a chart, describing the measurements for each size classe. Small creature are around 30 cm, so I can't help but picture a flying garden gnome

@eimyr Shark Synthesist Summoner with a Water Elemental Eidolon? :P

I thought either a cleric or a rogue could be interesting. A cleric healing his allies, providing bonuses could be helpful. A rogue able to lockpick something almost his size make me laugh, I don't know why

My first time, I built a quarterling assassin.

Why not an eighthling?

Any time he was using his abilities to get a job done, the rest of the group had to just watch the GM and I do a scene together because their PCs couldn't join us.

I couldn't find a way to make shrink stack.

That wouldn't be half as good @Francisco

So he was just a permanently shrunk halfling. Hence, quarterling.

At one point I made a pixie bard who was invisible, inaudible, and intangible. That would've been fun, but it never hit the table for social reasons.

A Small or Very Small scout would do an awesome job. Given his speed is sufficient enough.

@Nyakouai eeeyy

Doesn't the bard spell imply your allies have to be able to see or hear you to work? ^^

@Nyakouai Normally, yes.

But never underestimate the power of D&D 3.5 to subvert its own concepts.

Ok, I was wondering if you found a way to bypass this limitation, in order to make ...

You did?

I think it was an epic-level feat, but--yes. I got the ability to use bardic music without needing to be seen or heard.

In game, that would look (or sound) like an eerie music coming from nowhere, that's pretty nice :)

d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/more-races/…

@BESW i estimate that character would be a source of significant trouble

@doppelgreener Yes, well. The week before I was going to switch over to the can't-prove-I-exist pixie bard, another player showed up with his own pixie bard that he was very proud of.

After he spent all session bragging about how he'd made the best, most powerful bard possible, it would've been cruel to bring mine to the table.

@BESW How did he manage to have the same concept as you?

@Francisco Pixie's the best Charisma bonus for your buck, especially with the house rules we were using, and there'd been talk about needing another buff character.

So it's quite reasonable to go "buff--bard--pixie."

@BESW Ah. Yea I was kind of salty about my latest campaign. I'm playing a rather interesting Tiefling Paladin. But didn't want to play it with having another Tiefling in the party, just because I don't want to screw over the party by having 2 Tieflings in a party of 5. So I would change. Come in on first day after working over my characters backstory. Another person shows up as Tiefling.

Well, the problem of not stacking to many characters from the same species (apart from humans) seems fairly common. So far, with the groups I had, we try to discuss what everyone wish to play, and try to come to a compromise

I've never really had a problem with that. Characters tend to be pretty different even if their broad framework is similar.

@Nyakouai What made me salty was he never talked to the DM about his character. And just showed up day one with a 3/4 finished sheet.

While I had gone over with my DM and made revisions, and he started to create some personal connections to the game with my character.

How come it's you that had to let go your character? Was there a discussion about it?

Oh no I didn't let it go. I kept it for sure and we're going to roll with it. Just my two cents of salt. But in any case It's going to be a great game for sure. :)

I thought you had to change, as not to have two Tiefling. Well, I hope you have fun with it. I always find frustrating to be forced to abandon a character.

Yea I wouldn't abandon this character. I had worked on it too much. Just I didn't really want a party of 5 people with a lot of exotic races in it.

We recently closed a game where the DM allowed "any" races. 1 Tengu, 1 Tiefling, 1 Gob, 1 half elf with an homebrew class and 1 (mandatory) human. We went a little bit overboard with the possibilities.

However the worst thing about that game, even my DM is not happy with. Is there's one person who in this group we've had trouble with before ranging from changing dice rolls, to hard core meta-gaming. Who showed up on day one with no chracter sheet, even though this has been a campaign months in development. And many times the DM asking us to get concepts to him over those months.

@Francisco There seem to be a lot of player problems all in one person.

This is going to sound callous, but is there a reason this person is even allowed to play in your group?

Well, I'll tl;dr this as much as possible. Basically there's 6 people in the group including myself. I met the DM in RPG club in High school, he's a few years older than myself. He has two friends who are also part of the group, both are fine and great people. One person I brought to the group, and she's great. However number 6 I met once I started hanging out with the DM and his friend.

However both of them have been on wits end with this guy in real life, many times. But I've only known the guy for about a year. However I can feel it from the DM that he is really not happy. And probably if this guy screws up one more time he'll be kicked out of the D&D at least

Look what pop up in the feed item ^^

@Nyakouai It's perfectly fine. Why would you play a bog-standard regular old Joe if you can play an awesome frog, a cool half-demon, a ravenous pyromaniac midget or something you just literally made yourself?

plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html might be relevant and of interest

@doppelgreener Have all my stars. This thing is the new black.

@eimyr I knwo, right? I forgot, we had an ifrit too. The public relations were complicated, to say the least. But I really wanted to try the racial only archetype of the Alchimist for goblins.

@Nyakouai Next time I GM fantasy, I'll make humans incredibly scarce in a world full of weird alien creatures.

This too. Now I sleep. @magician the blog could have a few generally useful links like the five geek social fallacies and same page tool and making the hard decisions, might be useful to people. Ok that's me done, goodnight!

@doppelgreener Thanks for the read. But trust me when I say that my DM and his friend will remove this trouble player should they need to without hesitation. This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last. My DM even took him aside later into the first session, to tell him to stop meta-gaming.

@NexTerren [wave]

Hey! I'm just reading over what's been said. Thanks for suggesting I stick my head in here, @nitsua60.

@NexTerren Oh, you're the GM from that recent question "Troublesome players"?

@NexTerren Cool. I'm actually popping out to lunch in a few minutes, but I'm sure others'll chime in, too.

Was considering trying to answer, but nothing from what I have to offer seems to suit you, judging by your question. Nonetheless, I suggest you read the link posted by doppelgreener

The Five geeks social fallacies are worth reading

I am. I know it sounds like a repeat question but I couldn't find questions that dug deeper.

The only qualm I have with the link is that it and the answers all fall into what I think is a fallacy: "it's the GM's job to deal with it because it's too icky for me, the player, to say something."

By the way, did he tried to explain the logic behind the taking of control of a robot after a stab with a katana? If so, that ought to be fun

Ha, it might be a fallacy but it's been how our games tend to operate. I guess I'm not entirely against asking him to leave, but I want to make sure that I've exhausted other options as he's a member of a smaller group of friends.

'Logic of Cool.' I asked him what skill check he'd be doing and how he'd doing it, and that was his reply, he also redirected me to a Youtube video of the main character of Metal Gear Revengeance who stabs some sort of flying transport with his katana and pulls it off.

By that logic villains should one-shot him to appear cooler while at it.

Well, given that the protagonist from that MG is some sort of cyborg, if I remember correctly, there is an explanation in game. Logic of Cool seems to be the way to say "I want to do it, and you shouldn't question it"

@eimyr Great suggestion!

I mean you're absolutely right, emiyr, but I'm not sure he'd take that to heart, being that he thought that the battle he was fighting was 'pointless' and that battle they ended up protecting the 150 objective all but 5 HP even without his help for the second half.

Like he doesn't seem to hold equal standards for the two sides, I don't think?

@NexTerren But really. The guy comes to the game, disrupts it, takes away the fun, dismisses his friends suggestions and refuses to play by the rules. I'm not asking why he is still playing but rather why is he still a friend?

So to be honest I don't see what others see in him, besides we've known one another for years. I act civilly/friendly around him but myself I don't make contact with him unless in the context of the group.

@NexTerren So was it you who brought him into the group or another group member?

And I feel bad saying this (and didn't want to say in the question) but I think he has some sort of mental deficiency? He talks strangely, and doesn't seem to follow some things that I think are more basic, and that other players follow just well. I'm no doctor though, so I'm not trying to diagnose him.

So I'm now 26. He came into our group back in... middle school or high school, I don't remember, via somebody else.

@NexTerren OK, so in a group that I used to play with there was a guy who had some mental issues. He was aware of it and so was everyone else. The bottom line was that he was fine to play and/or hang around in certain games, and in others he would become easily irritated and disruptive. It was considered normal and reasonable to avoid playing THOSE games with him.

It was not only a courtesy to the organiser but to other players too.

@eimyr Yes I agree with this. It's a different playing field when you play in an RPG. Especially when dealing with your party which sounds like they want to do more RP, rather than dice rolling for combat.

I am all for inclusivity and reasonable adjustments, but if a person's behaviour is infringing on the fun of others repeatedly and without improvement, then there's no point in playing anyway, is there?

So you both think I should try to see that he leaves, and try to ride out the drama in our group of friends?

Imagine you all go to play basketball and the guy repeatedly kicks the ball, ignores the dribbling requirement and quits halfway through only to rejoin when his team is winning, would you continue to have him on the team?

Exactly. There's no point in pushing people to not have fun, just when the there is one problem person who ruins it. People will start to rue going to game night, and before you know it your campaign will come to end.

@NexTerren It's up to you to decide, but remember, drama is not a thing.

At least in my book.

@NexTerren Friendship isn't an exact science. If he can't understand what his problem is, and won't adjust because he's selfish and wants to be the "hero". Not a good friend in my books.

There are reasonable concerns that needs to be voiced. There are arguments for and against. And there are irrelevant statements that don't help.

Well I guess I was defining drama a something along the lines of "hurt feelings, feelings of guilt, tension in the group, etc" which I would say are things, do you think of something different when you hear "drama?"

I'd myself approach this from a slightly different angle. I'd say to everyone "look, we have this problem. I will not be happy until we solve it. I believe this XXX is the reason. What does everyone think?"

Oh, hurt feelings are bound to be there.

That's what I considered to say, but the group seems a bit passive/shy?

to me drama is when people deal with those issues in an unreasonable fashion

What if they prefer to "deal with those issues in an unreasonable fashion" rather than voice out their problems?

I mean we do tend to be passive/shy, that is correct.

If the group shares your view then you can say "Bob, look, we don't like the way you behave. We all like you etc. and you're a friend but you're spoiling our fun. If you're not willing to change or think that we're exaggerating, that's fine, but it doesn't change the way we feel. If you can't change your behaviour, we can't play with you anymore."

And that's it.

make it about the behaviour, specific issues that make the game unfun, not about the person in question

Yes, be clear and to the point. If you do the song and dance, you only open opportunity for things to be misconstrued.

Okay, I'll try that. I'll reach out to each of the other players first, and then come to him. See if they want to join in the discussion.

I really appreciate the help. Not sure if it'll work since this isn't the first (or second, or third) time talking to him, but maybe it will.

If the offending player tries to pull a "you don't like ME" card, respond with "we don't like you doing this X thing that is clearly bad behaviour. I'm sure that's not what makes you who you are"

Yes. If they do that, then they are clearly looking after their self-interests and value your friendship with them less than his/her hapiness.

@NexTerren There is one thing that will positively make it not work. That thing is a sense, notion or a hint that there is a third way out of this which allows him to continue the behaviour.

Okay, got it.

I'm going to copy this conversation off. Work has a meeting that's pulling me away, but again I appreciate your help, guys!

Clearly, RPG are meant to have fun. If he is spoiling everyone fun, that's a problem that need to be adressed. As Francisco pointed out, losing fun in a game is not a good omen

This conv. is stored indefinitely here.\

Good luck with that

Oh is it? Well that's handy.

it will not go away and you can always find it in the transcript

everything you say here is goign to stay forever

Thanks, @Nyakouai.

I removed myself from a game (with advice from this chat, actually), because the GM, while my friend, ran it poorly and targeted me unfairly. It was a good decision.

(part of the reason why this community is so great)

You can remain friends with people and not play with them.

@doppelgreener Fair enough, ill revise when I'm able

Well, I of course tried that first. He showed me the door, with much shouting.

I think I remember reading this. Yea, he doesn't even sound like a good friend.

You might be right. I haven't actually seen much of him after I bailed, because he had to fly out to Hong Kong on work.

@Fibericon Sometimes it's better to end relationships. Like for instance, this one rather recent. A group of about 5-6 people I got together with nearing the end of High School, because we played a lot of Dota 2. We must've played almost every night for about a year.

However over time, whenever I would say something in the chat, like if they want to play a new game that's on sale, if they want to play a round of Dota 2, etc.... They would either never respond or give the bullshit answer of "If you can get other people to play"

It was never a yes/no answer. Needless to say I asked them for yes/no if they can so I can better organize stuff. But nope, they did not follow through. It all boiled over about a month ago, and one person said I was being passive aggressive, a self-centered asshole, a drama queen. It pissed me right off. And I just left the group the next day and haven't talked to them since really.

I feel better now and can move onto different things.

Aww. @PremierBromanov--mensch of the year!

You just rep-capped me and bumped me over 20K to "trusted user"!

What happened?

@Anaphory bounty to me on a question where he's already got an excellent answer.

Are bounties subject to the cap?

@Anaphory No. What I mean is that he pushed me above 200 on the day, so as to have me "hit" the cap and put another notch in my epic belt.

A while back SE told me, via my profile, that that was the badge I should be caring about next. Now any day with 150 rep just feels like a missed free throw =\

Baah. I use far too niche systems to ever encounter that…

[baaaaa]

lol

@nitsua60 nice avatar choice

@trogdor Some are born to sheep, some achieve sheep, some have sheep thrust upon them =\

lol

Alright, all. Hitting the road for a week. I'll see you when I see you. (@Shalvenay Traveler book arrived in the mail today, so that's my passenger seat reading!)

@nitsua60 Have fun!

is there a reliable D&D 3.0 or 3.5 source I can point at for "fire elementals do/don't light everything in the vicinity on fire"?

> Those hit by a fire elemental’s slam attack also must succeed on a Reflex save or catch on fire. [...] Creatures hitting a fire elemental with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the elemental’s attack, and also catch on fire unless they succeed on a Reflex save.

By inference, mere proximity to a fire elemental doesn't give you a chance to catch on fire; you've gotta touch it.