TRPG General Chat

@DuckTapeAl Were you to build the new The Witcher... please, no more random items in random boxes from which you can steal and that weighten you far too much

Shalvenay

@Zachiel witcher opens random box, finds fully loaded railcar inside

DuckTapeAl

Well, since I'm in America and not Poland, it's pretty unlikely that I'd be working for CD Projekt Red.

Zachiel

I wonder if anybody is really interested in the "manage your inventory" subgame

DuckTapeAl

12:32 AM

Yes.

A large minority of gamers are.

Also, the 'manage your inventory' subgame acts as an important brake on itemization.

Since you can't just pick up everything all the time.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics"

Zachiel

I mean, I can see players who go "it's not realistic if he can carry all those things" but... people wanting to play the subgame for the sake of it? It's not like you will ever end your money

I end up picking all there is and making frequent trips to the sellers

DuckTapeAl

It's a pacing thing. Since you have limited space, you have a limited amount of play time before you have to go back to town, which means that designers can use a limited inventory to alter the pacing of the action.

Zachiel

this is making it hard to reach the end of the game while still on vacation

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, it's probably not done super well in The Witcher 3, then.

Zachiel

12:34 AM

I'm playing 2

DuckTapeAl

I've never played any of them, so I can't really speak to the specifics of their systems.

I had the 'why is the inventory so limited' conversation with the lead on my last project, like, three times.

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl -- my beef with most inventory systems is the use of discrete slots as a limitation

that, and low limits on stack counts

it makes it very hard to manage items that rightfully should be treated as close to bulk commodities as possible

DuckTapeAl

@Shalvenay That's totally reasonable, but I think using slots as a way to get around the issue of 'how big is my pack and how much fits in it' is usually pretty acceptable.

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl I personally think that simply tracking volume directly is a better system overall

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, but it's waaaaaay more complicated and hard to understand for most users.

Shalvenay

12:39 AM

@DuckTapeAl why? I don't see why it's any more complicated than a weight limit

DuckTapeAl

Weight limits also have that problem.

I'm not saying that they're bad, just more complex than a 2D plane of slots.

The point of a well-designed inventory system is to let the player get to the item that they want quickly, and to limit the total number of items that the player can have at once. The best systems do this while also making it very easy for the player to make decisions about what to keep and what to toss.

In a slot-based system, the question of "can I pick this thing up" is trivial to answer. In a numerical one, it requires math and mental subtraction.

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl yeah, I'm thinking of this from a MMO perspective, where you also have to deal with the impact on crafting and markets.

@DuckTapeAl or a progress-bar type display in the UI (EVE's trick)

DuckTapeAl

MMO design in general and crafting/itemization is what I spent most of the last year doing, so I definitely get what you're saying.

And in an MMO, it's a lot easier on the server to do slots.

A item in a slot (possibly with a quantity) takes up way less server time than a bunch of discrete objects filling up a bag with a numerical volume limit.

The server doesn't care how much 'volume' is in your bag, it cares about how many item IDs it need to process.

Which is why basically every MMO has super strict item slot limits.

Zachiel

@DuckTapeAl Ah. I tought that was in order to sell more inventory spaces. XD

The "super strict" part, I mean

DuckTapeAl

Well, there's that too, but that only applies to very young MMOs.

Like, less than 5 years old.

Most older MMOs were built assuming subscriptions, and then later became free-to-play. Or possibly just stayed subscription because they have infinity users, like WoW.

Zachiel

12:50 AM

My brief MMO history was with Neverwinter - inventory space was a problem so felt that people started opening guilds just to store things in the guild bank.

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, that's pretty common in games that have guild storage. I play a lot of Guild Wars 2, and all the long-time-players in my guild have a second, personal guild just for storage space.

I'm the only person I know that doesn't run into storage space issues in MMOs.

Zachiel

I didn't run in storage problems just because I was poor XD

DuckTapeAl

Lol.

I played a lot of Neverwinter at one point when I was applying for a job at Cryptic. I liked it a lot.

Zachiel

I... well, I have mixed feelings about it.

First of all, it had to be a cRPG but at some point someone decided "no, we will make a MMORPG instead".

So I was waiting for the next Neverwinter Nights and I ended up playing Neverwinter even if it was going to be an MMO because hey, why not.

(and because some people told me I was the kind of person that would have had more fun with an MMO than with a play-by-chat game)

Then, it had bugs, lots of rubberbanding and I discovered I don't like auctions.

Pixie

I have major storage space issues in GW2. That's a good idea, I should make myself a storage guild. :P Although I don't play much anymore, and I'm not currently in any guilds at all.

Zachiel

1:03 AM

goodnight

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl not EVE.

DuckTapeAl

Rule #47 about MMOs: EVE is weird.

My personal theory is that their servers are run on actual dark magic, because how the hell could they do what they do without virgin blood and baby souls.

Pixie

I think inventory management is most frustrating in games where you receive a large volume of useless or near useless items that you constantly have to sort through and dispose of. That's the source of my frustration most of the time.

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl clustering is a huge part of it. I also suspect that EVE just treats inventories as lists-of-objects (or objectIDs depending on context)

DuckTapeAl

@Pixie In one of the most recent patches, GW2 introduced a thing where you can bulk-salvage all items of a certain rarity and below.

nitsua60

1:08 AM

@Zachiel [breaks away from designing new character sheet optimized for tracking carried items and encumbrance] "whuh... what? Oh, no... not me. I don't like that sort of thing at all."

Shalvenay

so you don't have "slots" as a fixed resource; instead, it just sends over as many as are needed"

hey there @nitsua60

Pixie

@DuckTapeAl Hmmm. That helps a little.

DuckTapeAl

@Shalvenay I've been in the MMO industry for the past six years, and I've been watching the technical stuff that EVE engineers say publicly, and all I can say is this: Even assuming they're doing everything right, efficiency-wise, I have no idea how they can get their game to run at all, nevermind as well as it does.

I understand what you're saying about clustering and efficient inventory setup, but that's not enough.

Anyway, I have to go pick up my wife at the train station. G'night!

Pixie

Seeya!

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya

@DuckTapeAl biya

Pixie

1:11 AM

My issue with GW2, though, is actually not so much the salvaging, which doesn't take me long, but having built up a large amount of event items and things I want to use for their skins later. (I'm a bit of a packrat, I have to admit.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

@Pixie ah. it sounds like I should send DuckTapeAl to Jita sometime :p

Pixie

Jita?

Shalvenay

@Pixie Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant to be precise (aka EVE's primary trade hub station) -- it is a cross between the Mall of America and a commodities trading floor :P

Pixie

Ahh.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Good. Just got back from fechtschule with the boy. What's a longsword to me is basically a zweih\:ander for him =)

Shalvenay

1:14 AM

@nitsua60 heheh xD

nitsua60

@Shalvenay saw that concealed-carry question closed over on WB today. You getting any useful feedback over there?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 haven't been able to find anyone to give me feedback on getting the question opened -- talking with someone who had an answer lined up when it was closed tho

nitsua60

I see Cort mentioned the same sort of broadness concerns I'd mentioned yesterday.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- what's your schedule look like for nights this weekend?

@nitsua60 yeah -- he's got something of a point, but I'd like to talk to him further about it

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Both nights free. (After kids' bed, that is.)

Shalvenay

1:19 AM

@nitsua60 ah. I take it tonight's not tho?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Nah... I've got a houseguest. (Who's currently singing to the girls, so I get a ten-minute vacation!)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Part of it is "what are the pros and cons" screams "how will I vote on these answers?" If it were something like how to conceal for quickest draw, least detection, safest (individually) I'd be less wary of it.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 as 3 questions?

@nitsua60 I almost put a section in the question about voting criteria

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I don't know--which actually matters? What're your ordered priorities?

@Shalvenay Focus the question, don't try to dictate the answers.

trogdor

1:22 AM

@nitsua60 nice, work the houseguest to the bone, get your monies worth XD

nitsua60

in-law, of all things =)
(I don't have anything to complain about, though. The last time my mother was here she binge-watched seven episodes of The West Wing while doing five loads of laundry, then found the time to leave my wife a note with a written "laundry plan" to "help you get on top of it."
My wife's got reasonable in-law complaints!)

trogdor

ah, that is too bad

Shalvenay

oh wait, back from the train station, I mean :P

trogdor

@nitsua60 I sincerely hope neither of my parents does something like that to any future significant other of mine

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I guess my big thing about the concealed-carry question is that it holistically strikes me as an "idle curiosity" question, rather than a "I'm having this problem while writing my novel/designing my game/populating my setting." Which makes it really hard to write a focused, answerable question.
I know WB lives and breathes those questions; most of my activity over there'd been casting close-votes until they rescinded that privilege of mine. But that's why it struck *me* as broad/unclear.

Shalvenay

1:28 AM

@nitsua60 in a sense it is curiosity -- I think it's you're thinking of worldbuilding more linearly than I am

oftentimes, the actual tradeoffs behind tropes like these are unclear/hard to get at and it makes such reality-checking more needed

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I think of it as "I'm doing some creative activity and ran up against a problem," while it's perfectly clear that 99% of WB users like it to just stay a spitballing-place.

If you care, my honest thoughts on WB, preserved for all time.

DuckTapeAl

1:49 AM

@Shalvenay I've got the mobile app, so I was checking the chat while waiting for sushi. I'm back home now.

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl ah

BESW

@nitsua60 You're more generous than I would be.

Miniman

@nitsua60 You maxed your Diplomacy, I see.

nitsua60

2:54 AM

@BESW @Miniman I feel like my relationship with WB is like that high-school good girl/bad boy trope. I like following the rules and they laugh at me for it, yet still I'm attracted....

@Miniman (or anyone else who wants to weigh in): do you have strong feelings on Sharpshooter at creation (via Human variant) vs. grabbing it at first ASI? My thinking's that the -5/+10 hit/damage choice isn't that appealing early on when hit bonus is only +7 (+3 DEX +2 prof +2 archery) so there's a temptation to push it off 4 levels.

But I love that 600' range and ignoring non-total cover right from creation, depending on how a GM tends to structure their encounters.

(I.e. if the GM never thinks about cover in any encounters, who cares if you can ignore it? Ditto if every encounter's in a 60'-square room, who cares for extreme range?)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Depends - is there another feat you're thinking of, or are you looking at other races?

nitsua60

♫ look at me, I'm Sandra Dee... ♫

@Miniman No other particular feat--it was wondering about races that got me thinking about pushing Sharpshooter.

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's AL, right?

nitsua60

Yup.

Miniman

Ok, so no flying and no rolling.

nitsua60

3:08 AM

Wood elf, in particular. High enough DEX to afford the feat at L4 and still hit 18. Gain mask of the wild and +1 WIS which is where I like some of my skills.

Miniman

That means that a +2 race isn't really better than a +1 race.

nitsua60

@Miniman Right--not better, but cushions the blow of sacrificing a full ASI to get the feat.

Miniman

You're planning on going Fightet, right?

nitsua60

(Effectively feels like an even trade: as a human take +1 dex and sharpshooter out of the gate, +2 dex at first ASI. Elf take +2 dex out of the gate, +1 dex and sharpshooter at first ASI.)

Yes, mostly fighter, likely with 1 to 3 levels of rogue at some point.

Miniman

As an aside, alternatives for good archers are Hunter Ranger, straight Rogue, and Bard.

@nitsua60 You can't take Sharpshooter and +1 dex with a single ASI, though.

nitsua60

3:12 AM

Grah! that's right. I'm thinking of the plethora of feats that have a +1 build into them, forgetting that's not going to apply here.

That pretty-well seals it.

Miniman

Yeah, it's tough to compete with variant human.

nitsua60

@Miniman I can definitely see rogue. It's just that archery synergizes so nicely with sharpshooter =)

Miniman

Yep.

nitsua60

With leather armor, great ranged attacks, wis-skills... I'm fully aware that I'm basically trying to build my vision of a ranger without actually taking the class.... My intent is that once I've got this build pretty well mapped out go ahead and straight-compare to both rogue and ranger.

Not bard, though. Never bard. =[

Miniman

@nitsua60 About that, btw - I recommended rogue levels in that answer because the question was asking for highest dps at a specific level. In your case, where you're actually playing it, you might not want to slow down your Extra Atta k progression for the sake of an extra d6 or two.

Rangers have the edge when fighting multiple enemies, they just suffer when there's a priority target.

nitsua60

3:17 AM

@Miniman [warning: metagaming ahead] Given the usual lengths of AL I'm assuming I may not get to that third attack at ftr11. 2d6 SA feels like a decent trade, given that I'll also grab expertise. (Me likey the skillz.)

Miniman

Worth pointing out, if you're doing that it's better to start with a Rogue level - you get one more skill that way than doing it the other way round.

nitsua60

So if I assume ten levels then the comparison's ftr10 vs ftr7/ro3. I'm losing the ASI at ftr8 (when I've already got max dex and expertise more than makes up for bumping a skill-stat), rerolling a saving throw once daily, and ratcheting up the superiority dice one type. At the gain of 2d6 SA, expertise, and cunning action. I can live with that.

@Miniman [trying to remember why I'd rejected that when I was thinking about it the other night]

Possibly that I have to wait 'til L2 for the longbow?

Miniman

@nitsua60 You lose heavy armor proficiency (meh) and your saving throw proficiencies go from Con and Str to Dex and Int.

nitsua60

@Miniman Yeah, I'm going leather anyway, planning to keep parry and cunning action in back pocket to get away from melee if it comes my way.

party's got a melee warlock, barbarian, ftr1/cleric who I'm assuming will be tanky, and PAM fighter, so I figure melee's pretty well covered.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I figured. I like the saving throw switch, personally - Dex throws are more common than Con, plus I like having a saving throw I'm almost certain to make more than 2 I'm OK at.

nitsua60

3:25 AM

A straight-up rogue also, in case we need a little stabby-stabby.

[warning: cheese ahead] perhaps F1, MC into Rogue at 2, then use AL rebuild rules to retroactively switch the order =\
(Not really. A Sandra Dee like me would never treat the spirit of the law like that.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 [wipes a tear] I'm proud of you, char-op-son.

nitsua60

wife: "what are you laughing at?"
me: "I just made Australia cry."

Miniman

@nitsua60 PSA: Even our tears are venomous, so watch out.

nitsua60

Yeah, rogue saves probably are nicer. Either set of starting equipment's pretty-good-but-not-quite-perfect. (I.e. from either list there's, like, one thing I'd prefer from the other.) But not having my "signature" ability to engage at 600' for the first few sessions... I'm not sure I can give it up =\

Hmm... every class that has arrows as a choice in starting equipment specifies "a [long|short]bow and a quiver of 20 arrows." Except fighter. I'm going to try to convince GM that's a goof by WotC and save myself buying a quiver.

Miniman

If it takes more than a session to reach level 2, well...ah...respect all playstyles...look, it just shouldn't, ok?

nitsua60

3:43 AM

Yup. But it's my... what's the word? Idiom, sir. Idiom!

Okay, signing off. Wish me and the kids luck LARPing tomorrow =)
A buddy and I rigged spear-traps for them this afternoon out of pneumatic actuators with pool noodles affixed. This totally wasn't a bad idea, right? Right?

(The Indiana Jones-style spherical boulder was a bear to get on the roof, but now that it's up there I'm sure everything'll go well....)

Miniman

4:04 AM

@nitsua60 Good luck! Cya!

BESW

4:23 AM

Now here's an adventure starter.

For those times when you're stuck on an art problem and are willing to try anything: https://t.co/wG2eFpPpTx

Tweeted by rgb_alpha on July 27, 2016 at 8:52 AM

Joel Harmon

5:00 AM

am I the only one who finds it ironic that the pentagram is poorly drawn?

BESW

I think that's part of the joke?

DuckTapeAl

Hmm. Is there an easy way to track back to previous times you were in chat?

I'm writing up Fate stunt stuff for my players, and I remember talking about things in chat that I want to pass on to my players.

But I don't remember exactly when that was.

Miniman

@DuckTapeAl chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=fate&user=34192&room=11

DuckTapeAl

Oh, sweet!

Thanks!

Joel Harmon

5:21 AM

@BESW you're probably right; I should stop attempting to interact with humans right now and hope the laundry is finished

DuckTapeAl

Humans! Yes! So quaint!

How very unlike Zognoids.

DuckTapeAl

6:33 AM

I remembered the stunt thing I was looking for. Turns out it was from a meatspace conversation, not from here.

One of my players has a stunt called You Make Your Own Luck.

BESW

What's that like?

DuckTapeAl

At the start of each session, he rolls 4dF. For each +, he gets a free invoke he can use whenever he wants, based on his good luck.

For each -, I get a free invoke to use against him, based on his bad luck.

BESW

Ahah. I've toyed with ideas like that myself.

DuckTapeAl

And if he uses a good luck invoke on a roll, I can't use bad luck on that same roll.

All of my players only have two stunts so far, and the first adventure is drawing to a close, so I want to nail down their current stunts and make sure everyone has at least 3 before we start the next one.

BESW

Mmm. My group's generally had good results from taking stunts that are obvious, but leaving their other stunt slots open until there's a moment in the play that calls for a stunt.

That way their stunts are guaranteed to be useful and relevant, and might even surprise us.

DuckTapeAl

6:50 AM

I think that approach might work once we've had a few more sessions together, but right now everyone is still trying to figure out what might count as a good stunt, and how the rules work in general.

I'd be worried that either they wouldn't consider taking a stunt to help out with a challenge, or would end up taking stunts that are too narrowly focused on the current goal.

doppelgreener

7:56 AM

D&D 5e's lair actions could be used to make a Capricious GM legendary creature with a "rocks fall, everyone dies" lair action.

Zachiel

9:36 AM

@nitsua60 I had a D&D 3e campaign where I kept track of the encumbrance/weight and gold value of every equipment piece on a spreadsheet, so that characters were always balanced and could only carry so much gold at a time. They could still carry more gold than they should have had.

Also, the main problem was how to manage party money. "If character X dies, and character X' joins the party, is it right to use the previous character's riches to buy him equipment? He will spend less if he uses the same kind of armor and weapons!"

nitsua60

11:12 AM

@BESW Schr\:odinger's stunts =)

@Zachiel knowing virtually nothing about 3.x, the extent to which (it appears) prices and wealth are used to fine-tune things strikes me as a bridge too far. But then again, I'm six legal sheets of notes, three spreadsheets, and one MATLAB program into building a 5e character; who's to say I wouldn't enjoy another dimension of complexity?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Wait, what?

nitsua60

What 'what'?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Well, for starters, there's the part where I thought you weren't interested in mechanical complexity.

But mostly, there's the "what the hell are you doing with six legal sheets of notes, three spreadsheets, and one MATLAB program?"

nitsua60

@Miniman Trying to hit stuff 600' away, obviously =)

Miniman

But...you could already do that...

nitsua60

11:30 AM

in all seriousness, sheet 1 is just really a scratchpad to play around with the sequence of when to take fighter/rogue levels. Sheet 2 takes info from that to make up expected damage vs. level and AC Sheet 3 was first stab at creating a "decision curve" for "at what AC to prefer -5/+10 atk/dmg" as a fnxn of attack bonus; excel proved a little unwieldy for that so I'm kicking it over to MATLAB.

[clears throat]
NERDS FTW!

Miniman

@nitsua60 Well, the decision curve is of interest to a huge number of people, so I'd strongly recommend posting it as a self-answered question when you're happy with it.

nitsua60

@Miniman I don't mind--obviously--digging into the weeds a little bit, mathematically. My vague/generalized aversion to some of the complexity I see out there comes from (a) I don't want to need to scour a half-dozen books to get there, and (b) I don't want to have to do this.

My impression--again, totally hearsay--is that there's a feeling that in some systems you will really "fall behind" if you don't really dig in like this, whereas in 5e I've been happy to grab pregens more often than not.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Yeah, optimization is definitely mostly optional.

nitsua60

@Miniman Good call--thanks.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I do find the pregens tend to make some poor decisions, though.

nitsua60

11:37 AM

@Miniman I don't even think of this as optimization, at least in the mathematical sense. That is, at the end I'm going to compare this build to a few others (ranger, rogue, straight ftr) not because I'll choose something else if it's "better," but out of curiosity. (I.e. have I made a "better" ranger? Or just spent a lot of time making an "okay" rogue?)

@Miniman Any come to mind?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Poor stat allocation, mostly. For example, the elf wizard from the Starter Set has a 15 in Dex - why? Even assuming you were crazy enough to give up the extra point of AC, why is it 15 rather than 14?

Miniman

12:48 PM

@nitsua60 What is it about that damn familiar variant that draws these questions like a magnet?

(I copied that answer verbatim from this one, and only made some very minor modifications to it.)

Joel Harmon

1:24 PM

I've long since given up on trying to puzzle out why certain categories of questions are asked, such as the "can I use weapons I'm not proficient in" question

and its armour cousin

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon How about the "but I really want to be the best spellcaster and the best melee fighter" perennials?

Joel Harmon

trivial solution: be the only PC

Zachiel

@JoelHarmon Well, videogames based on AD&D had it that way. Not competent? You can't equip it. I guess it comes from that trope.

Joel Harmon

but why can't my character use mines? There are mines in minesweeper!

nitsua60

@Miniman Yeah, I don't know--I've never given familiars very much thought. The only one I've ever found moderately interesting was Druzil from The Cleric Quintet. (Also, while we're at it, containing one of the only interesting clerics in my somewhat-limited experience.)

Zachiel

1:27 PM

Or from similar game systems, be it RPGs or videogames based on tabletop RPGs

@JoelHarmon Because the game is based on, and claims to be based on, AD&D rules. So people figure those are the rules of the game.

Joel Harmon

that is to say, I tend to be confused when people use different games to try to adjudicate the current one, rather than reading the actual book(s)

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon I want the laser blasting from Space Invaders. Blasts through all cover, one-shots enemies....

Joel Harmon

I hope no one asks for Dr. Device from Ender's Game

that'd make for a short campaign

Zachiel

Heh, because the books don't say "you can use weapons you're not proficient in", that would be stupid. (But hey, someone had to write "don't use this to dry your pet dog" on microwave oven instructions.)

3e had "you get a -4 in weapons you're not proficient with", which is enough clear for someone who stumbles upon it to realize that yes, you can use them

Joel Harmon

yeah, and if you read the backlog from a day or two ago, nitsua and I had a hard time rewriting the DW rules in chat to be more clear

5e is more of a "you get a bonus if you're proficient", which has the same kind of implication

nitsua60

1:31 PM

@JoelHarmon I really do assume, though, that the (really useful) DW design-decision to make it all fit onto the front of the character sheet probably forced some terse writing.

Joel Harmon

oh, I'd agree, nitsua

Zachiel

But if a game does not spend a word, like 4e does IIRC (you have a bonus with weapons you're proficient in. I don't recall anything sayong explicitly that you can use the weapons you don't get a bponus in, exacerbated by the fact that different weapons get different bonuses, so the real meaning of "you get the proficiency bonus" could be "you get the proficiency bonus of that specific one")

nitsua60

(something of which I've never been accused!)

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Maybe it also tries to emulate AW, and as you might know AW is written in a slang-y language on purpose, because it wants to feel post-apocalyptical

Anaphory

@Zachiel But AW still goes into great detail in the actual book, and Vincent Baker's favourite way of playtesting is looking at questions people have and making sure they won't have them in the next iteration – or they have them even more in the next iteration because they are there on purpose.

Zachiel

1:37 PM

@Anaphory The moment DW authors tried to give a D&D-ish feeling to the game was when I realized that their trains of tought couldn't possibly be the same as Baker's. :p

Joel Harmon

I keep hearing about this AW thing; I should probably try it at some point

Anaphory

@JoelHarmon What gaming do you do at the moment? (Yes, everyone should!)

Zachiel

I have never played AW, just a lot of its hacks, but I've seen the actual play of a game and all I could do was doing the puupy eyes and ask the MC (who's an illustrator) to draw a comic of that story.

Anaphory

And what do you like in games in general?

Joel Harmon

@Anaphory sadly, none as this time of year is hard in general, plus personal schedule is pretty insane right now

Anaphory

1:47 PM

Up to now, then?

Joel Harmon

no, I'm currently procrastinating priming a room :)

and that's in preparation for the life-upside-down I'm expecting in a few weeks when my daughter is born, so...

Zachiel

@Anaphory Does this mean "what about before?"?

Anaphory

Sorry, I did not mean to inquire about private life, I meant, what games have you been playing and liking before you stopped?

Joel Harmon

as for things I like in games: a few months ago I introduced Angry's 8 kinds of fun to the group. It got big enough in the group that @Reibello printed off charts to fill in for people (one for tabletop, one for computer). I was pretty evenly balanced between a few things (challenge, narrative, discovery, expression) before we figured that I'd go with most kinds of game so long as my friends were also having fun

Zachiel

Oh ok, I got it right, today's gonna snow.

Anaphory

1:50 PM

@Zachiel Huh?

Joel Harmon

ah, I misinterpreted "Up to now, then?" as a personal schedule question

Zachiel

@Anaphory I guess Joel understood "up to, now, then?" while I -and that's unusual- got the right meaning at first sight.

Joel Harmon

I'd say you did, @Zachiel

Anaphory

Aye!

Joel Harmon

I just misunderstood the subject as being personal schedule, rather than rp preference

Zachiel

1:53 PM

For all the The Witcher 2 players out there, the Incredible Lockhart (best dice player in the game) just rolled one of his dice out of the yathzee board. o.O

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon would you or @Reibello mind sharing that chart?

Joel Harmon

my overall view on RPGs is that they are like food. Just because I like steak doesn't mean I can't also like lasagna and stir fry

@nitsua60 I'll ask him, but he may well see your ping before I contact him

it was basically just an 8-slice pie where each piece was broken into a 1-5 scale

but overlaying the RPG version and the computer version was interesting to see

also, @nitsua60, shouldn't you be wrangling children right now? I'm pretty excited to hear how the giant-ball-on-the-roof turns out (+1 parenting)

BESW

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[Fate module](http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191782/Good-Neighbors--A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core "In Good Neighbors, players take on two roles: a human who must deal with the politics of this new industry, and a fairy who feels the full spiritual damage of the Industry.");

Shalvenay

2:57 PM

hey there @JoelHarmon and @nitsua60

Zachiel

3:13 PM

@JoelHarmon My overall view in games in general is that I will never get to [ level 30 / level 33 / whichever level I can reach / the end of the game / rank 1 / full collection ] if I keep playing other things in my free time.

I guess I'm not having as much fun as I could and should

Joel Harmon

5:48 PM

@nitsua60 Reibello informs me that he's unavailable until later tomorrow, but he'll get back to you

@Shalvenay hi

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon how're things going?

Joel Harmon

@Zachiel I think I share your completionist pain

@Shalvenay pretty good; just checking in over here. Yourself?

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon not bad

kviiri

6:08 PM

@Zachiel Heh, this is why I personally prefer games that have a definite end.

BESW

10:52 PM

@kviiri While for me, it's why I prefer games that don't have linear character advancement.

Anaphory

@BESW Aye!

I think I have now managed to write a rudimentary editor for my thing. Now I need to tie it to the thing and make it actually useable for people without a deep understanding of the database it edits.

Zachiel

11:07 PM

@BESW I think I know what you mean, but doesn't your definition include GURPS and the like?

BESW

Well, "doesn't have a thing" is an insufficient description of what I actually look for in a game.

What I'm especially fond of is character change without mechanical growth.

eg, you don't get more build points but you can switch up where you're allotting the points you have.

SirTechSpec

@BESW Interesting. I think I would find that really frustrating - I like getting more cool powers (be they supernatural abilities or social skills) as the game goes on.

What games have you found that scratch that itch?

BESW

@SirTechSpec I can totally get behind that too, but for my current situation it really doesn't work for us--and it makes for some forced storytelling choices too.

@SirTechSpec Not many do it out of the box, but many of the games we use can be easily made to do it.

Systems like Fate and Gumshoe don't really need any mechanical escalation.

And one-shot games, of course, eschew it.

Shalvenay

hey there @SirTechSpec

SirTechSpec

Hey hey @Shalvenay

BESW

11:19 PM

The thing about the relentless march of mechanical character growth is that it makes assumptions about the nature of the group (that everyone should show up every time or be okay with losing comparative mechanical agency) and the kind of stories being told (that the PCs are on a linear upward competency path and either face commensurately ever-more-difficult challenges or begin to roflstomp their obstacles).

Shalvenay

@SirTechSpec how're things going?

SirTechSpec

You and I must have similar schedules; I've seen you in chat a lot recently, though I'm not in here much overall.

(I also see BESW in chat a lot, but everyone knows he does not sleep.)

trogdor

@BESW yeah, I personally like mechanical growth, but I can certainly get behind just personal change of a character

BESW

...and when we've only got a few hours to play every week I'm not interested in spending much of that time on leveling up.

Shalvenay

@SirTechSpec kinda? not sure.

trogdor

11:21 PM

true, we don't have much time for doing that at the table

plus, those few hours every week don't always contain more than just 2 people in our whole group :(

so even less time to spend on that kind of thing because we actually want to like,... do stuff with anyone who does show up

SirTechSpec

@BESW I'm not sure either of those are necessarily true. A good chunk of GM's keep all the PCs at roughly the same power level regardless of attendance, and in GURPS, for example, you can have events that give people uncompensated disadvantages to keep their point totals within certain bounds for a while.

Zachiel

@trogdor Probably because I'm not used to it, I don't like characters to change a lot in how they behave/believe.

BESW

@SirTechSpec Right, I did the first in 4e with some success.

trogdor

@Zachiel I like it as long as it isn't too overdone

SirTechSpec

Though if you did a lot of that in GURPS, I suppose you would be liable to end up with characters who were very good at several things but could only do them under certain circumstances. The idea of the goal of the game being to get enough points to more-or-less buy off the disadvantages the GM keeps throwing at you and still have enough to increase your skills a bit is intriguing to me, though.

trogdor

11:25 PM

it should happen over a period of time with actual experiences building up to change the character

BESW

But the second invokes the "if you can fix it, it's not broken" fallacy. I don't want to have to put more effort into my game design to mitigate the problems that would be removed by just using a different system.

And there's another issue. Are you familiar with E6?

trogdor

obviously, if their personallity changes too quickly or too often, they just seem like they didn't really have one to begin with

SirTechSpec

@BESW Fair enough. I think it was your use of "linearly" that rubbed me the wrong way; I agree that the general trend over time in GURPS as designed is upward competency.

@BESW No, what's that?

BESW

In most of the games I've played that featured leveling up, the PCs' upward competency forces the KIND of story they're telling to change over time.

E6 is a D&D 3.5 hack which observed that many people have the most fun playing D&D between about levels 1 and 6; after that, PC competency escalates to the point that the standard dungeon challenges can be easily mitigated by a simple spell or item and the nature of the stories and obstacles undergo a fundamental shift.

Zachiel

@SirTechSpec To complement what BESW said, E6, or Epic 6, is a D&D 3.x variant where characters are considered epic once they reach level 6. They keep getting feats every bunch of XP, but higher levels do not exist. Spells not obtainable after level 6 do not exist except for circle magic, and harder enemies are... well, really harder.

BESW

11:30 PM

So E6 halts normal level gain at level 6, and instead just grants extra feats and the like as PCs progress. This keeps traditionally challenging monsters and traps and physical dilemmas from ever becoming trivial.

Similarly we see that in D&D 4e and DFRPG the game explicitly talks about how you solve local problems at lower power levels, then national/planewide problems, then multiplanar problems.

If a group has more fun playing in a neighbourhood, leveling forces them to stop doing what they want to do.

SirTechSpec

@Zachiel I'm with you; my (at the time) regular gaming group wanted to switch to Burning Wheel, and I thought Beliefs were things about your character that you wanted to be true. When it was explained, after much arguing (and citation of designer comments on the web about how the explanation in the book was basically wrong), that they're basically "things you want the conflict of the game to center around" and/or "ways you want the GM to mess with your character", I quit the campaign.

BESW

The kind of story you're able to tell is changed by your character's power level, so relentless power escalation can feel like bait and switch: "This isn't the game I signed up for anymore."

SirTechSpec

(Knowing what I know now I'm not as thoroughly opposed to the concept, but not understanding it and having a lot of trouble getting a straight answer made it a surpassingly frustrating character generation experience.)

@BESW Ahh, I think part of where I'm coming from on this is that I've never had that experience. I have never gotten a character past level 5, and I'm really curious about the other 3/4+ of spells and abilities in the book.

BESW

@SirTechSpec Yeah, for a group of players who want that escalation, it's all hunky-dory.

Though in my experience, for games like D&D it's often preferable to start at the desired level and play a short campaign there.

Zachiel

@SirTechSpec IIRC, Beliefs are things that get you rewards when you act following them, so of course it's both things the character believes in and things you want to see in the game. I don't really like the idea of those things having to be challenged by a GM, but I see why others would.

BESW

11:36 PM

I've played in or run D&D 3.5 games that started at level 12, or level 16, or level 30.

SirTechSpec

I think part of it, for me, is that I don't like playing characters who aren't good at things. I played DH for, like, a year and a half only sort-of enjoying it. When we did a high-powered campaign where our characters were more cinematic, I loved it, even though we weren't progressing quickly.

BESW

DFRPG handles this much better by making your starting Refresh an explicit "What kind of story do you want to tell?" choice, but the milestone mechanic escalates your Refresh as you go so it's only a matter of time before everyone's playing at the highest story levels.

@SirTechSpec That's a different kind of system thing, and in many systems is also a GMing style choice.

SirTechSpec

@BESW I think that's probably what I really want to do, but I've never been in a group of players that weren't mostly new to the system, and the decisions/reading required at that level can be overwhelming.

Zachiel

I think it's satisfying, but very time-consuming, to start at low levels and rank up. In D&D 3.5e there's the problem that I like a middle-level situation where you face "paragon level" (to use 4e slang) enemies, but I want high level class features because they are cool (and I really mean it. How do you pull off the "young and powerful" trope without being a high level monk whose apparent age is much younger than your real one?)

BESW

@Zachiel I've run two campaigns (one in 3.5 and one in 4e) like that, and they were rewarding. But I also burnt out afterwards.

One of the things I like about Fate's more fluid and customisable iterations (like FAE) is that competency and agency don't map literally to the mechanics.

SirTechSpec

11:41 PM

@Zachiel I think optimism bias plays a big role here. You get a group of people who've never played together before, maybe have never played RPGs at all, and you play a game that expects rewards to accrue slowly over a period of over a year. It's not realistic.

Zachiel

I'm now trying to reach the end of a 4e campaign spanning over te whole 30 levels. Even if none of the players who started it are playing in my group anymore. It's a bit frustrating when the party gets sent back to some NPC and no character has ever seen him, imagine how it is when no player has.

BESW

You can take the exact same starting mechanics and make characters who find it challenging and dramatic to take down a street gang, or fight an undead god.

The group gets to choose the "level" of the story divorced from the mechanical power level.

Zachiel

At the same time, I'm playing a level 18 3.5e character and I get told that I'm not doing the nearly-epic things my character would be expected to do

But in this case, playing 3.5e is a prereq for being part of that story/group

...and the challenge of finally managing to play an efficient character makes me want to play the game

SirTechSpec

@Zachiel Ugh, yeah. I've come to the conclusion that the way to go is to plan a campaign that will be complete in 3 months, tops. If, when you're done, everyone wants to keep playing - with those same characters, in that same world - you can always do a sequel, but in the meantime you're avoiding the near-inevitable frustration of having Life interfere and break up the group when you're partway through a story.

BESW

@SirTechSpec I'd been GMing for about six months, and playing for about three, when the group I was playing with decided to start a new 3.5 game at level 30. My first PC was awesome on paper, and died in the second round of the first fight.

@SirTechSpec I've had success with episode/issue campaigns, Atomic Robo style.

Each session or two is an episode, a reasonably self-contained adventure like a single issue of a serialised comic book.

The next episode takes place in the same world, but not necessarily with the exact same cast. It might even be a flashback or something.

Every six or ten episodes add together to create a story arc, like a collected volume of comics.

So you have a set of adventures that all deal with the same theme and move toward a conclusion of the theme, but each one can be treated independently as well.

And when you're done with one "volume," you can decide if you're going to start another one.

That way the whole game has less pressure to "reach an end," because every session or two would be a reasonable endpoint, and every dozen sessions or so would be a satisfying endpoint.

(And, in my group's case, it means you can have multiple campaigns that you switch between, like reading multiple comic books.)

SirTechSpec

11:52 PM

Yeah, I'd like to do that. Not everyone has the gift for that kind of fractal storytelling, though.

BESW

There are a number of games that support it with both advice and mechanics.

And then there's blog posts like this one.

SirTechSpec

(Example: I'm running a group through Hot Dairy Queen, and while the story is theoretically divided into episodes, they're not really all that self-contained. I'll sure be bummed if we can't finish the full adventure.)

BESW

Yeah, there's a useful but significant philosophical change in game prep that I've found is necessary for this sort of gaming style: you don't prep stories.

I'm learning to prep challenges that I expect to take half a session to solve, and that means they take 1 or 2 sessions.

The stories come out of the players' choices and interactions with the world; as the GM I only get to guide them inasmuch as I create challenges that hit on certain themes, and then new challenges which respond to the PCs' solutions.

This is a lot harder for pre-made modules like the Hot Dairy Queen to accomplish.

So module adventures tend to fall into one of two categories: stories for the GM to walk the players through, with perhaps some multiple-choice middle bits that have a minor effect on the conclusion; and open-world settings with little to no guidance on how to turn the glut of setting detail into a narrative.

SirTechSpec

@BESW That is a pretty great blog post. Bookmarked.

Transcript for