TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:00

@SirTechSpec You may also like this.

And I recommend reading modules like Aeon Wave and Night Fears (both free/pay-what-you-like as PDFs) for examples of modules that walk a middle ground.

SirTechSpec

@BESW Yeah, GURPS Fantasy Folk includes a couple "adventure seeds" for each race that I really want to try, because many of them are pretty open-ended challenges or situations, and also they seem like they could actually be played in a single session. The lack of detail actually increases the appeal.

BESW

Tying back into the original "leveling up" topic, a pet peeve of mine is that XP-minded systems tend to encourage bloated adventuring.

In D&D 4e I used a LOT of pre-made modules, reskinned for my story, and I found that I could usually take about at least 1/3 of the encounters without losing anything except XP: they weren't interesting, they had no story point, they were just there for the levelup.

Similarly there's an awesome CoC adventure I'd like to run some time, but I'd rip out probably two thirds of it as pointless padding scenes.

(I wouldn't run it as CoC though. Trail of Cthulhu, maybe.)

SirTechSpec

00:19

@Zachiel So IIRC as described in the rulebook, you're correct. But it seems that in later iterations of the designers' thinking, and the way the game is played in practice (at least by this one group), they're explicitly Flags for what you want conflict about. burningwheel.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-2449.html

From Thor, one of the designers: "Beliefs are not meant to remain static. They are designed to grow and change. To be strengthened, weakened, resolved or broken. If a belief expresses something about your character that you never want to change, then it should be expressed as a trait instead."

BESW

Generally anything a player chooses about their character is going to be taken as a flag to the GM for what they want the game to focus on, whether or not it's intended consciously by the designers, the players, or the GM.

(Unless it's a GM who has Their Own Ideas and the PCs are just vehicles for them.)

Zachiel

@SirTechSpec Ah, right, I've heard that before. Maybe it's been included in the Gold edition?

SirTechSpec

@BESW Yep, definitely cut the first ep of HotDQ from 15+ possible encounters down to about 5, and players still complained there was too much fighting by the time they got to the keep :( (though they agreed that it was balanced overall once the episode was complete)

I think being much more strategic with which fights to include and which to skip is gonna be huge for this game

@Zachiel I don't think so, just because I think the Gold edition is what we were using and the first time I read that was a shock to me.

@Zachiel also, check out luke (other designer) on that page talking about someone whose Beliefs were to see his mentor given due respect, and to avoid violence:

"Use his other two Beliefs against him: Have his mentor's corpse dragged around the streets by drunken rakes mocking coitus with it and feeding bits to the dogs. If this player every wants to engage in a Duel of Wits, say no. Go right to Fight! Violence doesn't accomplish anything? Well, how is he going to protect his mentor's good name against the tyrannical nobility who won't listen to reason?"

I agree that if you accomplish all your goals right away and easily, there's no conflict and no story, but... holy %(*&, man.

The whole concept is way too adversarial for me.

BESW

[blink]

SirTechSpec

@BESW About which?

nitsua60

00:34

Can I get a 5e sanity check? Probability to hit = (21 + attack mod - AC)/20, yes?
(The 21 takes care of when attack roll ties AC, which tie goes to the attacker.)

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 Pretty sure that's true, though I've never quite thought of it that way

BESW

@SirTechSpec That last bit about how to use Beliefs. That's... it sounds like a guy who thought Dogs in the Vineyard was pulling its punches.

SirTechSpec

@BESW Glad I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

Zachiel

I guess Luke Crane played The Witcher too much :p

BESW

I mean, there's "I want my character to experience conflict about his beliefs" and there's "I want you to make it impossible for my character to uphold his beliefs."

SirTechSpec

00:41

Yeah, and check out the final result further down the page (ctrl-F Kirshner) and how the GM plans to challenge those beliefs. And the response from the community - including the two lead designers - seems to be "yep, sounds good."

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

SirTechSpec

@BESW Speaking of how to use Beliefs, I agree that that's very common, but don't think it's a good idea. Check out Making Good Flags, specifically "The Trap of Non-Flags"

BESW

Aye. I much prefer games that make flags explicit.

(If they don't, I will.)

Shalvenay

@SirTechSpec looking at that, I thought of something: how do you use Flags with a character who does not take conflict personally?

SirTechSpec

@Shalvenay How do you mean? Even if your character is a badass who laughs (or silently wears sunglasses) in the face of physical danger, everybody wants something, and the conflict is around that.

Shalvenay

00:55

@SirTechSpec I mean -- it's not that they don't want things, but that they don't have anything they can't give up, change, or rework -- their professionalism is their only immutable.

BESW

I think he's talking about systems/stories/characters where conflict doesn't offer any truly lasting consequences the character cares about.

Shalvenay

@BESW exactly.

BESW

The character's stakes in the conflict are very low.

Shalvenay

@BESW further than that -- there are no high-stakes conflicts for such a character

SirTechSpec

@Shalvenay If a character has nothing they want so badly that they'll get upset or conflicted if they don't get it, I'd say they're not necessarily suitable for the kind of game where Flags and character motivation are a big deal.

Also, you say professionalism is their only immutable - but that's something that can be put at risk for some really interesting conflicts. (See Firefly 1x02 The Train Job.)

Like, the Terminator isn't super emotional, but definitely very concerned about achieving the mission. So it'll have a Flag of "I must achieve my mission at all costs" and the conflict is around either making the costs high enough that they do flinch and hesitate, or just have a hard time of it.

BESW

01:09

@SirTechSpec What are the costs, though?

"At all costs" is meaningless hyperbole if the costs don't phase the character.

So, what cost does make the Terminator flinch or hesitate?

SirTechSpec

I guess this is where the style of game comes in - is "I want Thing, there are traps and monsters [or courtiers and social status] between me and it, I may or may not live to successfully get the Thing" enough conflict for this game?

BESW

Not collateral damage. Not physical injury. Not even its own demise.

SirTechSpec

@BESW Exactly. So like i said, that kind of character may not be suitable for the kind of game where Flags and character motivation are a big deal.

Lots of games and stories more generally have external conflict where the protagonists want a thing, there are obstacles, they overcome the obstacles and get the thing. The conflict is around whether or not they'll get the thing, and the Flag just has to be "I want the Thing."

Depending on how detailed and fleshed out Thing and Obstacles are, that can be a bit one-dimensional.

There's a different kind of conflict that I'll call drama, which comes of having competing goals and ideals within a single character, and having to make difficult choices based on those. Most stories have at least a bit of drama. The Terminator really doesn't IIRC.

(The first one, as a character, not the franchise as a whole.)

BESW

And then there's reactionary protagonists, whose goals are defined as opposing the antagonists.

SirTechSpec

@BESW True, but all of those I can think of also have staying alive as a goal, and most have other goals as well.

nitsua60

01:19

@Shalvenay Hiya. 20 minutes or so? I've only got an hour or so in me--running the LARP wiped me out today.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 in 20 minutes? sure.

SirTechSpec

So, @Shalvenay, if I were running a game where [hopefully with buy-in from the players] I told everyone "Give me 3 Flags for your character", and someone came back with "Let nothing stop me from killing Bob until he is dead" as their only answer, I'd say they needed to complicate that a bit.

Though even if that's not an option (and it's hard to think of a situation where it wouldn't be if your character is sentient - even existing characters change and develop new goals over time), there's a little bit of wiggle room:

Having "Kill Bob" as a goal implicitly has "Live long enough to kill Bob" as a secondary, and possibly drama-inducing, goal, even if "Live past that" isn't a consideration. Inigo and whatsisface from the Mask of Zorro both had some pretty interesting struggles with that.

BESW

01:43

Aw. I just had somebody delete their answer instead of expanding on it.

BESW

01:53

VTC unclear/opinion

nitsua60

@Shalvenay just a thought: my houseguest is on netflix. I'll bet two streams has my connection laggy.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I'm entering again--let's give it a few minutes and see if it forces netflix to buffer better, or if it's intolerable?

nitsua60

02:46

@Shalvenay so, is it possible to tease apart the module and the system, so as to reflect on CT sans any justifiable feeling of "adventures written in the 70's sure have some strange assumptions baked in..."?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 CT seems like an interesting system -- very Firefly-esque I'd say, much closer to that end of the scale than what I'm used to in my space adventures xD

(my bet is that defensive fortification would fall at the "nuisance" level for my EVE main and his idea of a scout-ship)

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Yeah--you may have noticed that a recent Traveller answer of mine actually refers to a young Mal Reynolds =)

@Shalvenay That's another oddity: if designed to keep out bats, how's it 80% likely to shoot down a ship that can survive reentry?

If designed to shoot down ships, isn't that a huge power waste to be targeting bats?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah -- it struck me as using a battleship's main gun to blast flies

BESW

When you have a hammer...

nitsua60

@BESW kill bats?

Shalvenay

02:53

so...as to the DW game....when do you think you'll know your schedule for the semester @nitsua60?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Anyone who's played a Zelda game knows that bats are the most dangerous creatures in the universe.

Shalvenay

@Miniman you mean cute fluffy things that pose more hazard to the contents of your fruitbasket than they do to you?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay My next course starts Monday--early next week, then, I hope to use that to inform some RL scheduling that needs to happen (club meetings, my RL DW game), then I can look at where to suggest some times for chatizen-DW. I'm excited and want to make it happen, but much hinges on how brutal-vs.-cakewalk this course looks in the first few days.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 got it -- so you'll have an idea about next weekend or so?

nitsua60

(@VisuallyImpaired and many others may find ^^ interesting.)

Let's shoot to start organizing by week's end.

Shalvenay

02:57

@nitsua60 alright

Miniman

@Shalvenay I remember when I was that innocent.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- also, Green on WB gave me some hints as to editing my concealed-blades question there, and it's up to 4/5 reopen votes now

nitsua60

@Shalvenay cool--what, briefly, were the suggestions?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 mostly, add some more setting detail and something to guide applications

nitsua60

For you, @Shalvenay. It may die opinion-based, it may languish never-answered. But I threw it out there.

Shalvenay

03:03

@nitsua60 thx :)

nitsua60

Thanks for the upvote I assume you just tossed me =)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 np :)

nitsua60

In the background of that adventure I had to be rolling every time you changed location to see if there were a tremor. And, also, every ten minutes in-game, which frequency might change depending on what you do. Also, with every tremor I'm supposed to roll for every roll-up door to see if it had flipped its state.

Classic 70's adventure design, man!

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 heheh

nitsua60

Oh, and there's nothing of any importance behind any single door in the place.

Shalvenay

03:08

@nitsua60 gee whiz. not even the service manual?!

nitsua60

Also: those murals were only supposed to be visible in IR.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 LOL.

(I'm actually pondering adding a thermal camera to my "tools to buy" list)

nitsua60

It was a mis-read on my part when I first mentioned the first of them. A good misread, because who's going to expect a player in 2016 to think... "gosh, this is a lot of blank walls. I should probably check IR and UV."

In 1978, yeah... probably. In 2016, without a single clue in that direction...?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 near-IR maybe due to CCDs picking it up, but full-on thermal imaging? no way man

nitsua60

For those who care--and I know you're out there--8-yo LARP was excellent.

SirTechSpec

03:13

@nitsua60 Congrats!!

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 cool that that wen't well :)

@SirTechSpec went better then me radically misjudging the CT dungeon :P

nitsua60

The 6'-diameter Indiana Jones-style ball rolling off the roof to threaten the kids below was the hit of the neighborhood.

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 I am definitely that way with VG's (Nintendo tends to reward/require such thinking). Drove my roomie nuts when they were watching me play Undertale.

When it was done they were like "OK now replay to get the real ending" "but that'll take forever" "but it'll go so much faster now that you know there AREN'T THINGS HIDDEN IN THE CORNERS."

nitsua60

My personal favorite was the Wile E. Coyote-style plunger I rigged up (through manifold) to 4 18" stroke pneumatic actuators-cum-spear traps.

BESW

Huge news. Avian dinosaur wing found preserved in amber. @tetzoo @desertlifeaus http://fb.me/4LkbbQDWz

Tweeted by Birds_Central on June 29, 2016 at 2:12 AM

nitsua60

03:17

@SirTechSpec Yeah, it's neither good nor bad, just a style thing. And when it's a style that's been largely tossed aside for decades in one medium, it's a bit jarring to come across it there.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah

nitsua60

Do I really need <br> tags to create paragraph spacing within spoiler (>!) markdown?

(Also, I look really angry in that last line. Gotta remember that....)

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 That or redo the markdown every line... oh, but that would probably show as a separate spoiler.

@nitsua60 You... did a lot more prep for this than I do for my games. XD

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec It's possible that, thanks to my side-job running a robotics program, it only took me 30 minutes to whip that all up. 10 of which was carving pool noodles into "spears." Like @BESW says, "to a man with a robotics lab...."

Another trap--a fire trap--was triggered by an invisible-eye. Computer fans and red crepe paper as flames leaping up across the stairway. I... might be coming around on traps. (At least in LARP. TT, jury's still out.)

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 I shouldn't be surprised that one of the most thoughtful and insightful guys on the Stack is also good at other interesting hobbies ^__^

nitsua60

03:25

@SirTechSpec [blushes] there are at least three debatable adjectives in that sentence....

(but: thank you. Very kind of you to say.)

@SirTechSpec Anything good I know I learned from Mr. Rogers.

SirTechSpec

YW. You and @BESW are so consistently nice and patient with explaining things to newbies. Working as I do in IT, I think that's a rarer (and IMO more valuable) quality than technical aptitude.

Mr. Rogers projected an air of genuine, unwavering, almost saintly pure-hearted decency. But when you look deeper, at the person behind the image ... that's exactly what you find there, too. He's exactly what he appears to be.

nitsua60

I actually cried the first time I saw that one ^^

SirTechSpec

Aaaaaaand come to find out the SE chat module has special code for handling XKCD links. Again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised XD

BESW

At the last two EBBF meetings I've attended, the same point was made from two totally different directions: it's better to hire people with the right attitude for the job on the assumption they can gain the skills, than to hire people with the right skills for the job on the assumption they can gain the attitude.

2

nitsua60

@SirTechSpec about 3:15-5:00 in the audio I linked had me pulled over, unable to drive for the tears.

BESW

03:34

@SirTechSpec The fact that this Stack values those virtues so highly is the primary reason I'm here.

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 Fun fact: those two are and were, respectively, profs at the college I attended and now work at

nitsua60

(StoryCorps does that a lot. The problem is, it comes on my local station every Friday morning just as I've pulled out of the parking lot of my kids' school and have maybe a minute to spare in getting to my own classes.)

@SirTechSpec Wow. Crazy wow.

BESW

It's a good place for me to practice those skills and develop my potentialities with immediate feedback.

...so kinda the same as one of the reasons I love GMing.

nitsua60

Alright, all... pumpkin-time for me. Have a nice $LOCAL_TIME_DESCRIPTOR =)

BESW

ttfn

SirTechSpec

03:36

@nitsua60 Francois was in my office a couple months ago. Super nice guy. Exceptionally flamboyant and colorful in ways I appreciate. Graduation every year isn't the same without him singing the school song.

G'night!

@BESW Same. Right after I joined RPG.SE, when I was really stuck in it to a problematic extent, I was describing the concept to a friend of mine and she said "...Wow, that sounds like crack for you." Not like I can put either the site or my GMing on a resume but the skills are super transferable to the support end of IT.

And vice versa.

nitsua60

ooh, came back with one thought @eimyr will appreciate: to obtain weapons from the NPC blacksmith the kids had to provide him with "ore." From the mine. That we've been digging =)

SirTechSpec

@nitsua60 You'll have to give us all the details tomorrow, this sounds epic

nitsua60

We'll see what sort of "what the heck happened at that party" calls I get from the other parents =)

ttfn again!

BESW

@SirTechSpec Aye. It does help in working with my clients, but for me a lot of the skills are more directly related to my service with the Ruhi Institute's community-building programs.

Central to the Ruhi Institute is idea of a group being facilitated rather than led by an individual who helps guide the group's culture but encourages all the participants to be proactive about the group's needs and actions.

The more I use those concepts in my RPG group, the happier and more productive we seem to be.

And by practicing those concepts in my RPG group, I get more experience and insights to leverage in the Ruhi programs.

SirTechSpec

03:53

Badass.

user507974

howdy folks, been a while

BESW

[wave]

user507974

hows everybody doing

about to do my first real bit of DMing tomorrow afternoon

SirTechSpec

Awesome, awesome

What game?

user507974

5E with some tweaks

kinda planning for it to be a long term campaign

actually I want this first day being a murder mystery, just haven't really found a lot of examples of murder mysteries in D&D to study and tweak my technique

SirTechSpec

04:06

It's not a system that does much to support that genre, really.

Though the setting is compelling enough that I think it sounds fun anyway

user507974

its not really that im doing it for system but rather as a nice way to pull together the first party

and for the fun of course

but ive heard people complain alot about invesigation checks causing issues and stuff

had a really nice guide i saved liked a year ago with some advice that I lost =(

BESW

So, a few things about mysteries in D&D-like systems:

First, never call for the dice to be rolled unless you're okay with any result they might kick out.

If the party absolutely needs to find a clue or the mystery grinds to a halt, just give them the clue.

Second, remember what spells are and aren't available to the PCs and the NPCs, and design a mystery with that in mind.

Most traditional mystery structures are blown to bits by a simple scrying spell.

user507974

can you tag me here so my phone can find this chat

BESW

@user507974 Third, remember that D&D is a system where physical conflict is the default resolution mode.

user507974

@BESW thanks

BESW

04:14

When designing your mystery you have to take into account that the player characters' most powerful features are probably designed to kill people. That means any time violence is an option they'll probably take it. Massive threats of overwhelming odds are a dare, not a brick wall.

user507974

yea, i kinda was having difficulty there trying to decide how to inject the right amount of action

BESW

D&D doesn't really have many mechanical handholds for PCs in polite society; it's designed on the assumption most of your time will be spent in deep wilderness and dangerous ruins where the creatures you meet--sapient or not--will default to killing you and it's okay to kill them right back.

user507974

like all clues pointing towards a sewer overrun by depraved cannibals

BESW

This doesn't mean that a murder mystery is impossible, but it means that, eg, Polite Crime Fiction in the style of Margery Allingham is right out.

Right. I'd advice using a murder as a hook to plunge the PCs into an action adventure story: solving the murder is basically a few scenes that set up what deep ruin they're going to go pillage.

user507974

Also someone had said that they like to have players roll like 20 Investigation/Perception/History checks at the start of the session then secretly pull from those results pull how their investigation was going

SirTechSpec

04:20

@BESW Or at least, if you do try to set up a "cozy" in DND, you'll be all but free-forming it.

@user507974 That can be a fair strategy, if you don't want to tip off your players to the fact that there's something to be found in a particular location. (Though again, don't call for a roll if you won't like the results.)

BESW

@user507974 I'm not really sure my group would see any tangible difference between that, and my just deciding if they succeed or not without any rolls at all.

user507974

opinions on false leads and twists in the investigation

SirTechSpec

It does lack a certain illusion of agency. (Which is one of the fundamentals of any dice-based game, IMO: the assumption, mathematically invalid but oh-so-compelling, that it's possible to "roll well".)

(I mean, technically I'm sure it is - I used to be pretty good at flipping a coin so it would come up heads - but that's not common.)

@user507974 My vote is to keep those to a minimum, especially if you want the mystery to be primarily confined to the first adventure.

There aren't too many GMs whose players consistently figure things out quicker than they had expected.

BESW

One moment, digging up a BGS quote.

@SirTechSpec I definitely had a player who rolled poorly.

> You may wish to seed in red herrings, too—clues that seem important, but that don’t relate to the main case. Be sparing. Players may get frustrated by being sent down too many dead ends. Instead, it’s always possible to let a seeming clue lead to another character who is having difficulties: a B-plot or C-plot mystery. Or maybe that “red herring” becomes an A-plot case later on down the line.
[...]
This can’t be stressed enough. Things that seem obvious to you as you design the mystery or improvise on the fly may be utterly baffling to the players, particularly if your adventure spans mor…

Miniman

@user507974 So, here's the thing. The kind of game it sounds like you want to play just funadmentally isn't Dungeons and Dragons. It's like trying to play Cluedo using a Snakes and Ladders board - with enough work, you can pretend that it works, but really, it doesn't. If you want to run a game with a deep investigation, false leads, plot twists, and so on, you should really pick a game that actually supports those things.

SirTechSpec

04:30

@BESW Yuri manages that with astonishing consistency on Titansgrave, even after chucking out his first set of dice.

Also, how do you have a post over the length limit?

BESW

Agreeing with @Miniman here: if you want mysteries to feature in your campaign as more than a scene or two leading into more traditional D&D fare, your success will be proportional to the amount you and your players ignore the D&D system.

user507974

@Miniman Eh I'm not shaping up for the entire quest to be that, just kind of a moderately interesting day 1 where the first seed of characters kind of has a reason to join up

@BESW its not a major focus throughout the whole campaign

BESW

@SirTechSpec Internal carriage returns break most markdown but also drastically increase the length limit.

Miniman

@user507974 In that case, I think you'll find you don't have time for things like false leads and plot twists.

BESW

@user507974 Then... I'd recommend not having your introductory session be such a drastically different experience from what you want the rest of the campaign to be like.

SirTechSpec

04:33

@BESW ...Huh.

BESW

It'll confuse your players.

Miniman

One of the things I've found consistently while DM-ing is that stuff always takes longer than you think it will.

BESW

@Miniman I'm still learning how to implement this, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that in order to have a one-session adventure I need to prep a one-scene adventure.

SirTechSpec

@user507974 I think it really depends on whether you want the campaign to start with a mystery (something unknown), or an experience in the Mystery genre.

BESW

@SirTechSpec It's how I'm able to do the Timely RPGery pin, too.

user507974

04:34

@SirTechSpec good point

SirTechSpec

I was in a spectacular game of DND this spring where the DM started off by passing each of us a slip of paper with the question "What's the last thing you remember?"

BESW

@SirTechSpec [starts scribbling notes about hacking APFMT into a campaign starter]

user507974

@SirTechSpec How does paper slipping tend to work in campaign

i feel like its so conspicuous

BESW

@user507974 What's wrong with conspicuous?

It's been my experience that the more the players know about what's going on, the more we can conspire to have interesting things happen to the unsuspecting characters.

SirTechSpec

We wrote our answers, then woke up imprisoned in the hold of a sinking ship. The first challenge was getting out alive; then we spent the rest of the campaign gradually piecing together how we'd gotten there, where we were going, and why.

BESW

04:37

Otherwise players are just flailing around guessing what actions will cause their PCs to trigger interesting stuff.

Shalvenay

@BESW seconded here -- it's better to have the players understand what's going on then to keep them into the dark and have them flail

SirTechSpec

That was exceptionally mysterious and intriguing, but not a Mystery game; clues were included with the loot from a very normal (but well-run) game of DND.

BESW

Some groups prefer to have more of an overlap on the Venn diagram of player knowledge and character knowledge, but that's a totally different play style.

user507974

@SirTechSpec thats pretty damn good

SirTechSpec

If I as GM want to pass someone secret info - something I think there's a good chance they'd wait to reveal until a dramatic moment - I'd probably text them, but i have kind of a Thing with writing by hand.

@BESW I think players not knowing much more than their characters about the situation is probably the most common way to play DND, though you're right that the alternative provides a lot of possibilities.

And also helps break down the mystique of the GM somewhat, which I see as a good thing.

BESW

04:46

Aye. Equating PC and player knowledge is a very common "traditional" mode of play. I've never personally seen it produce more good effects than bad ones, though. At best it breaks even.

(Especially if you've got a group with limited time and any interest in doing something other than noodling around.)

SirTechSpec

"Present the characters with a puzzle for the players to solve" works pretty well... if it's a single relatively well-contained puzzle, and it's clear that that's what's going on.

Otherwise, yeah, take advantage of the creativity of your players so they can help you build the story in meaningful ways.

kviiri

08:38

@BESW My experiences agree here... And to be honest I don't really even see the point of the equation in the first place.

I occasionally set up action like "a gunshot whizzles past your head. You're caught in an ambush. They're Mayor Kromer's thugs, but of course you don't know that yet."

My players tend to take this as a cue to go for maximum impact of dramatic irony. Like going to Mayor Kromer to ask for his help in identifying the attackers.

BESW

@kviiri I like your players.

Tonight's dinner is curry-spiced (curry powder, ginger powder, fresh garlic, basil) peanut butter sandwiches with green onions, carrots, and sprouts, on sourdough.

Oh, and sunflower seeds.

kviiri

09:07

Sounds great! I guess you eat a lot of local produce there in Guam?

BESW

Some, yeah, but we've got way more people than the island can support, food-wise.

But yes--fresh fruits and veggies, especially.

And there's some things you can't get in the store, at least not regularly, but if you know a guy...

Like breadfruit, or calamansi.

trogdor

my parents grow calamansi XD

BESW

Heart calamansi.

Oh, and fresh fish. There's a fisherman's co-op with caught-that-day-fresh fish, and if you're feeling more adventurous (or cheap) there's roadside stands and hole-in-the-wall shops.

You can also get seasonal stuff like local corn (and tuba if you're into that sort of thing) from the back of trucks on the side of the road.

People with any green space at all tend to grow some of their own food here. It's just part of the way you live.

kviiri

Aye

BESW

Unfortunately I live in an apartment with a very harshly lit balcony and even harsher condo rules about what you can do with your balcony.

This makes my mother sad.

kviiri

09:20

We're trying to grow tomatoes on our balcony but alas, the cold weather we've had for August has given them the chills. They're nowhere near ripe yet and Fall is coming fast...

BESW

Still, we can grow aloe vera and that's useful.

Anaphory

@kviiri My (located at my parents', I haven't taken them here) tomatos had the opposite problem.

Anaphory

09:57

@BESW That reminded me to have some lunch. Which was half a tiny avocado on German rye sourdough, with salt, pepper and chili powder – I'm low on vegetables (and all I have are green) and leaving the country for two weeks the day after tomorrow.

BESW

Avocados can be fun.

kviiri

It's the season for nightshades here, so I try to pack aubergine and zucchini in everything I eat. I find zucchini works wonders with tofu, too.

BESW

Nightshades take a lot of extra prep for my stomach to handle, unfortunately.

But mm, tofu.

Anaphory

10:13

@BESW I used to not like them outside of one particular sweet dessert with avocado, cream and orange (and not much else). These days, they are on the threshold between “impartial” and “like”.

BESW

11:52

Another thought about games with significant level-based escalation mechanics: perhaps it's (at least partially) a tool for avoiding burnout on long campaigns.

If a single campaign is expected to last more than six months, out to multiple years, at some point variety is needed to avoid burnout.

It can't just be same old same old for years without people getting bored/tired/etc.

Leveling offers a way to force some kind of change over the length of the campaign.

kviiri

Aye. It's even more difficult because one can't significantly vary difficulty either without becoming boring or unfair.

BESW

Individual groups can choose variety, but for groups which aren't aware of the need or lack the skills to do it carefully, leveling may be a valuable "hardwired" way to make it happen in systems which are designed for long-form play.

I suspect this element of leveling is largely an accidental feature, but it's there nonetheless and might be useful to think about for future designers.

kviiri

I don't really like character progression a lot, as a mechanic. Some games to it better than the others, though.

BESW

I guess one way to describe the kind of character changes I like is to say that I prefer transformative progression to cumulative progression.

kviiri

Some games give linear, vertical benefits on levels. Go from strength four to strength five, deal more damage, take two punches more, and get stronger enemies who cancel all these upgrades out.

Some, like AW, give more narrative options. A gunlugger can found their own holding on leveling, for example. But I don't see why it should be connected to leveling - if the player wants a holding, couldn't they just have their PC found or capture one?

BESW

12:07

Yeah, that's more along the lines of Fate's progression: you'd get your holding after hitting a major milestone, which is just a fancy way of saying "you get your holding after you've played out the story of how you got it."

kviiri

It's one of my less-favorite bits of AW, tbh. One can just spend an advance to get a holding between-sessions. It's still narrated, but it feels too major to happen off-screen.

It's both prescriptive and descriptive, like most things of AW - using the advance on holding means your character gains the holding somehow, gaining the holding in other ways gives one the relevant advance without using the exp.

nitsua60

When there's a hyphenated compound in title case, the second word gets capitalized, yes? (As long as it's a word that would normally be capitalized in title case, that is.)

kviiri

In Deadlands:Reloaded, some edges are similar... One needs to purchase "Texas Ranger" as an edge to join the Rangers. Bothers me a bit... that's something that ought to be decided by the plot.

Another pet peeve in Deadlands-RL and SW in general is that new skills are cheaper to buy at character generation but equally costly to level at start and later on... I wouldn't leave open such glaring windows for minmaxers.

Anaphory

13:03

@nitsua60 That's what I would to. But Rule 0 of Typography is “When you do it wrong, try to do it wrong consistently.”

@kviiri A thing like that can be on purpose.

And is not as bad as having two different point-buy systems with different costings during game play, like Scion does!

(Normally, buying Dots has costs proportional to the number of Dots you have, but at certain milestones you get some Dots, flat, without having to pay for them!)

Visually Impaired

@nitsua60 For sure! Just let me know what I need to do. :)

Anaphory

Hi @VisuallyImpaired!

Visually Impaired

Hey!

nitsua60

@Miniman chart coming that may interest you. First, a bit of description:

Concept is sharpshooter, looking for good DPR on longbow attack. I plot career average DPR vs. character level for a handful of different progressions.

(Career average DPR on the theory that sessions per level is roughly constant, so this is like a time-weighted average. I don't want to consider a DPR progression like (1 2 3 4 20) the same as one like (1 17 18 19 20); the second is clearly preferable.)

DPR is not assuming "always hit" like many others seem to do and which I don't understand. I'm using an AC=12+floor(character level/2) as the target, totally off the top of my head. (Spurring what may be a later project: running a CR-AC regression on the MM and modeling the ~15 encounters per level to come up with a better "foe AC curve")

I do, however, over-simplistically assume that Sneak Attack will always trigger. That's obviously weighting things in favor of rogue levels, but I think you'll see that doesn't seem to skew, qualitatively, the final recommendation.

Legend interpretation: Fa/Rb/Fc/Rd means "progress fighter to level a, then rogue to rogue level b, then fighter to its level c, the rogue to its level d." &c.

Short takeaway: there's a really nice synergy between SA dice and extra attacks. Neither, alone, drives up DPR as quickly as some mix.

(Again, my "target zone" was character levels 10-12, assuming that's about where a full AL campaign will get to. However, I just got a note from my DM that there's a lot of milestoning in the first chapter of SKT, so he expects tier 2 to come pretty quickly. That's why I extended the analysis to character level 16, which doesn't really seem to change much.)

@BESW can you delete that ^^ chart? I want to re-post with a slight improvement.

Re-post: this time the legend is in the same order as the right-endpoint of each curve...

Notes on the builds: F1/R1/F5/R3/F9 (or, possibly, swapping the first two) was my first thought from the get-go--you may recall from our earlier conversations. Idea being: "establish Archery fighting style and get longbow, grab expertise, get to that first extra attack, take as many Sneak Attack dice as possible while still, eventually, getting to third attack."

F5/R3/F9: "is it worth it to try and get to that first extra attack a little earlier, putting off SA dice? (Also, putting of the expertise I like so much?)" Nope.

R1/F1/R3/F9: "let's start R1 to get the good saves, immediately grab longbow and archery, then grab another SA, before finishing fighter?" The R1/F1 swap might be worth it, but delaying the onset of the first extra attack is a big long-term hit.

F1/R11: "maybe just a rogue who's got the longbow and archery?" Starts out pretty nicely--rogue's got pretty consistent damage growth, while ftr has to wait 5 levels to get that hockey-stick bend at extra attack. But, oh... those extra attacks!

F12: just for comparison. (And look at that comparison! F12 vs F5/R3/F9. This is what, for me, makes the synergy with SA so obvious.)

Zachiel

13:40

I'm in that unpleasant situation where there's one person on a MMORPG (let's call this person Sam) that doesn't want to talk to me anymore, and I would like to tell that to the admins so that they will know not to group me with Sam, but that will very probably have them ask me why, and if I reply, Sam will probably be reprimanded and be even more angry at me (and of course if I won't it will look like it's entirely my fault). Again.

nitsua60

(@BESW at your discretion, perhaps all that ^^ should be NABbed? I'd forgotten how long-winded I am!)

Zachiel

I think the Not-a-bar is for when there are two discussions going on at the same time, or for things people doesn't want to read anymore (maybe my vents, for instance)

There was nothing else going while you posted that wall of thext, I wouldn't move it.

nitsua60

@Zachiel At the risk of being super-naive, is it possible to ask Sam about this? "Sam, I think we both would agree that we'd be better off not grouped. I was thinking about asking the admins to intentionally separate us, but I don't want to cause any trouble for you. What do you think?"

Zachiel

Sam told me to stop talking to them. And they made it sound like trying to keep going would be considered very wrong (you know, I got told to STAHP)

nitsua60

@Zachiel My thinking was "if I've just posted more than a full screen's text, perhaps that should have been elsewhere." So I'll let someone else decide.

@Zachiel I'd hope that if I were Sam I'd see an approach like that as allowable, recognizing that the process of STAHPping sometimes isn't a perfectly clean cut... but I'm not Sam, and perhaps it wouldn't be well-received.

@Zachiel Take 2: can you message an admin to say "there's someone who has asked me to STAHP talking to them; I'd like to ask them that ^^ question. Do you think I should, or should I just drop it?"

Zachiel

13:49

@nitsua60 Last time I did something like this (talking to the admins without making names) the then-in-charge admins told me "who's this person? We're gonna talk to this person ourselves". I didn't tell them because it would be obvious I had put this person into troble and I got told I was being part in a conspiracy of silence. The admins are different now, but... I can see this happening again.

nitsua60

@Miniman (I'm currently daydreaming about kicking all that ^^ from Excel to MATLAB; I want to write up a script that'd run all the orderings of F9/R3 and F11/R1 for comparison.)

@Zachiel Tough beat. Sadly, my wisdom ends at "talk to the person" and "talk to the teacher."

Zachiel

I don't think there's a solution to this.

I'm just trying to vent, and there's the tiniest chance someone has a good solution.

I think I will just write on my character sheet "I will have to avoid playing with X and Y because reasons" instead of "I will avoid playing with X"

This means there's at least two more places in the world map where I'd better not go.

That totals six now.

I'm totally not sure what will happen when I will be in bad relationships with enough players. I will probably only be able to play after setting up teams myself, with the usual people, trying not to block the games of others with my mere presence.

And my biggest problem is that I want to talk about this with people who know the game inside out and can suggest me a strategy to avoid it, but if I do I will only worsen it :\

nitsua60

I'd love to lend an ear, but we're out the door to church. (Just didn't want you to think I'd stopped listening out of not-wanting.)

Zachiel

;)

Also, this is not the best place for talking abut things taht I don't want to reach the wrong people. Google indezing and all.

I need to find someone who knows the game, but won't just say "I will take care of it" and start moving things and messaging people. Again, this might be an impossible wish.

kviiri

14:58

@Anaphory sure, but I find people often do bad things on purpose too.

And while someone might argue that having different orders of same skill picks have different total costs, I personally find it very off-putting, especially in RPGs (as opposed to video games).

Zachiel

> One guacamole is equal to 6.0221415×10²³ units of guaca. (That'd be Avocado's number.)

dot_Sp0T

16:06

Hey there, anyone versed with DnD around?

Shalvenay

@dot_Sp0T ask away

Zachiel

@dot_Sp0T Which D&D edition?

dot_Sp0T

I've got a DnDNext goblin weighing 42pnds carrying, who'd have thought 66something pnds - only basic equip received from creating it..... Any ideas on what to do

I mean it's literally: Here, take that Burglar's Pack, and there take a Rapier, and what about that nice shortbow? - Ah and that stuff weighs more than you do

Zachiel

Just so you know, D&D Next is no more called Next, it's just D&D now. Or D&D 5e if you want to distinguish it from previous editions. Next is nowadays recognized as being the initial playtest for 5e.

Anyway, there should be a table somewhere telling you how much a character can carry based on his Str score (I'm no 5e expert, but it looks like the kind of thing 5e game devs would do since it was in bothe 4e and 3e)

So how much the goblin weighs is not important (can anyone check if I'm right?)

dot_Sp0T

Yeah well there're tables naturally. I just found the fact that starting EQ will weigh 1.5 times my character weight highly entertaining - and was sorta hoping someone had an in-verse idea on how to make it less silly

kviiri

16:22

I actually had a very small guy in my unit when I was in the army, and he weighed noticeably less than his gear when fully loaded (so not very often). He was released of conscription because of his diminutive size, eventually.

Not goblin-small, but hey, square cube law says he'd have been even stronger then (in relative terms)

nitsua60

@dot_Sp0T It's a known flaw in most D&D editions: carrying capacity's based off of STR (15*STR in 5e), but there are no more racial penalties or caps to ability scores. So the 6'6" 300-lb dragonborn and the 3' 40-lb halfling, each with STR 10 can carry 150 lb. Encumbrance variant doesn't "fix" it; only, really, the sort of racial simulationism that's not really en vogue these last few decades.

Shalvenay

16:39

@nitsua60 -- that's one fatso d-born you have there :P

kviiri

Encumberance is something that I don't know many people to play straight. I guess it makes sense in DnD's original dungeon looting context, but usually people I know tend to just pretend it's not there unless it's important to the plot.

kviiri

16:54

We did try playing it by the rules in Dungeon World, but found it pretty pointless after a while.

dot_Sp0T

Yeah pretty much the issue, I don't feel like dropping half the things that I get for free :/

nitsua60

@Shalvenay PHB p.32 =)

kviiri

17:29

@dot_Sp0T I have the same problem, so it's good most of the games I play don't let me loot junk I don't care about :)

Well, Dungeon Crawl (roguelike, not RPG) does, but it makes it pretty clear useless junk is useless.

dot_Sp0T

ALSO: Burglar's Pack in DnD Next is stated to weigh 44.5lbs, but when adding up the components I only get to 42.5lbs and I don't think that 10ft of String make up for 2lbs?

kviiri

The rest is the burden of conscience.

dot_Sp0T

I'm fine with that

goodbye 2lbs

kviiri

18:22

Apocalypse World 2e preview book pdfs should be here any day now! hype intensifies

Anaphory

@kviiri WAAAAA!

@kviiri … Torchbearer. Or the “6 slots where you have stuff, to make awesome stories about dropping things and frantically scrambling through other things” hack someone linked to earlier.

kviiri

Sort of reminds me of Omega, the ancient, forlorn adventure Roguelike. Sort of like ADOM before ADOM.

Unusually for roguelikes, the player character has a ton of slots for arbitrary items. But the thing is, items stored in the backpack are slow to access.

A lot of the time in the game was spent reorganizing items between slots, using the swap slot of "up in the air". It's like you're juggling stuff around.

Like, literally juggling.

Anyway, we've been playing some AW2e using the preview playbooks already. Lots of questions are waiting for answers...

I would've asked them on the main site but save for Vincent answering them himself, I'd be basically asking for houserules to use until the book is out.

Anaphory

18:44

@kviiri You should have asked them to Vincet directly, eg. on barf forth. I get the feeling that questions people have are the main thing he takes back from external playtests.

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