TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

12:00 AM

@Miniman updated...

Miniman

Hmmm, interesting.

nitsua60

and the career-to-date averages...

(note the legend now doesn't line up nicely with the lines' endpoints.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 So I guess the moral of the story is multiclass early and often.

nitsua60

@Miniman For me the surprise is how well a mix of extra attacks and sneak attacks outperforms either in isolation.

Again, the "SA always triggers" assumption that's baked in may be overselling the synergy. But the concept's there.

(I also ignore any effects of taking Assassin at R3. I can imagine that actually being impactful, esp. if one of the mid-game feats ends up being Alert.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Nah, that makes sense. Extra Attacks are huge damage spikes that arrive very slowly, whereas Sneak Attack is a very steady, incremental, progression.

Adeptus

12:10 AM

@nitsua60 I haven't played 5e yet. But I get the impression it is much easier to qualify for a SA than in, say, 3.5e. No disadvantage, and an ally within 5ft, should be achievable pretty often.

nitsua60

That's why I threw the F1/R11 and R1/F11 curves in there--they're nice-and-clean comparisons.

Miniman

@Adeptus An ally within 5 feet is almost always achievable if your party contains at least 2 melees.

nitsua60

@Adeptus I've talked with our tank and we want to play around a little with the idea that I'll sometimes ready an attack until tank gets in range--my SA sniper-shot then fires off. If either I or the tank drop that foe tank can continue moving to be w/in range of next target, locking down a target for next round.

If the DM's good, it's sightlines that make it interesting for me =)

afk

Miniman

@nitsua60 Nice, that also prevents the scenario where your tank moves next to someone then kills them, leaving you unable to trigger SA.

BESW

12:38 AM

(Have I mentioned #DresdenFiles Accelerated will have a few heretofore unrevealed tidbits from The Word of Jim? It will.) @EvilHatOfficial

Tweeted by jeditigger on August 29, 2016 at 12:24 AM

nitsua60

@doppelgreener yo, thanks =)

@Miniman Right. If tanks moves and I kill, tank can probably keep moving or just pivot to another foe. If they kill that one with no movement remaining, we repeat the cycle. If there's enough motion left to move to foe 3, then I don't need to Ready next time.

BESW

@nitsua60 He deyoed your answer!

nitsua60

Although, in all honesty with a melle warlock, PAM fighter, F1/Cl many, and a barbarian, I'm not thinking I'll be short of meles to shoot into =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 If you're expecting to do that a lot, it's worth considering going straight Rogue.

nitsua60

@Miniman I think if we really get that setup once or twice in the campaign I'll be happy: a sniper's nest for me with clean sightlines, and a good-sized scrum of two- to three-hit mooks?

That and the once or twice in the campaign I'm hoping we'll see a giant a quarter-mile off so I can take my dozen non-disadvantaged free shots =)

Miniman

12:47 AM

@nitsua60 Sightlines...yeah...I totally pay attention to those while DMing.

BESW

@Miniman They were a major consideration for me in designing 4e setpieces, but outside of that... yeah, no.

If the players want sightlines, they can spend a Fate point or roll a relevant skill to Create Advantage.

nitsua60

In any case, I'm back to working on my "when to choose -5/+10" writeup. Realized while putting my daughters down that I don't need to present tabularly, I just need to rotate my axes! It's a function of (attack bonus - expected wpn dmg/2), not really a function of (attack bonus, expected wpn dmg) =)

BESW

And way back in 3.5, sightlines were kinda laughable because it tended to favour "find a good place and stay there" tactics.

Miniman

@nitsua60 That's the one I'd really be interested to see advantage factored into - although it's largely for selfish reasons, I suppose, since advantage is much less common as a ranged character than for melees.

nitsua60

Once I've whipped up the analysis w/out advantage, it should just be changing one line to throw the closed-form advantaged hit-probability in place of "standard".

Miniman

12:53 AM

@nitsua60 Hooray! Thanks :)

nitsua60

@Miniman Where are you getting your melee-specific advantages? Proning? I'm trying to think of what other advantage-granters respect range....

Miniman

@nitsua60 Well, for example, Barbarians can and will almost always attack with advantage using Reckless Attack.

trogdor

@nitsua60 wait, what?

what is that?

Miniman

@trogdor When you link to a specific revision, you can't see changes - it makes much more sense if you look at the overall revisions page.

nitsua60

@trogdor It was a common salutation in the late 80's.

=D

trogdor

12:56 AM

@nitsua60 I'll get you gadget

XD

nitsua60

@trogdor (also, notice greener's edit-comment in the linked revision)

Miniman

Makes much more sense if you look here: rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/87175/revisions

BESW

If you go back to the full revision page, you'll see that Greener changed "yo'd" to "you'd."

trogdor

mk XD

I see now

I thought there was some glitch that destroyed his question when he tried to edit it

Miniman

@nitsua60 Then there's stuff like Pack Tactics, which there's a bunch of different ways for players to get.

(Summon a wolf, turn into a wolf, have a pet wolf, follow the wolf totem...)

nitsua60

1:01 AM

@Miniman Ah... makes sense.

BESW

@Miniman Get bitten by a radioactive wolf?

Miniman

Plus, proning is pretty common, especially if someone chooses to focus on it.

BESW

Bond with a space gem on the Moon?

Live near sparkly vampires?

nitsua60

@Miniman Sure--I have played a grappler once, but have yet to play with one.

Miniman

@BESW Surprisingly, no.

@BESW I don't even know what this one means.

nitsua60

1:03 AM

Ooh... I know!

The sparkly vampires are the tweeney-twilight ones, right?

And werewolves live near them?

Miniman

Yeah, but I was replying to "Bond with a space gem on the Moon."

nitsua60

@Miniman @BESW Is that one a Dragonlance Tales II reference?

BESW

@nitsua60 J. Jonah Jameson's son is an astronaut who bonded with an other-dimensional ruby that turns him into Man-Wolf.

@nitsua60 Specifically, the youth of the Native American tribe in that area turn into werewolves if they come of age when vampires are nearby.

nitsua60

Dammit. I'll go back to programming, leave the cultural references to the experts =D

Too broad?

Miniman

@BESW Wait, seriously?

BESW

1:06 AM

@Miniman Seriously.

Miniman

@BESW There's so much wrong with that, on so many levels.

BESW

@Miniman Seriously.

Surprisingly, the novels DO explore the diegetic wrongness with some nuance.

The non-diegetic wrongness, of course, is left entirely unchallenged.

Miniman

@nitsua60 On the one hand, there's not many good options, so I'm inclined to leave it. On the other hand, it's going to attract a rush of really bad answers...

BESW

@Miniman Should I tag it optimization?

nitsua60

@Miniman Maybe I'll keep an eye on it and protect it when some 1-rep new user posts the (correct, and best) answer "a sandwich."

(Maybe I'll post that answer now, just to inch that much closer to my 5e gold badge....)

Shalvenay

1:11 AM

here's a Faerunish fun one for you -- can surfacers worship Drow gods?

Miniman

@BESW Eh, SSD has been destroying that tag along with rules-as-written lately. It's a good idea, but I doubt it'll stick.

@Shalvenay Yes, of course. Why wouldn't they be able to?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay (Trigger warning(s): Faerun, Drow, and deities.)

BESW

@Miniman Fair enough. I'll avoid bringing a potentially controversial subject to a new-ish user's post on a tag I don't use.

Shalvenay

@Miniman I don't know if the Drow gods would get pissed off at being followed by non-UD folk. (in my case, an elf, even :o as there are no evil magic gods in the surface-elf pantheon, and being a Blackguard in the corner of the 'verse I'm dealing with means you have to have an alignment-matched deity, a la cleric)

Miniman

@Shalvenay Ah, right. Well, anyone can worship anything, but how that would be received by the drow deities is another question.

BESW

1:13 AM

For some reason this made me think of a bit of doggerel from The Dragons Are Singing Tonight.

> If you don't believe in dragons,
It is curiously true
That the dragons you disparage
Choose to not believe in you.

@Shalvenay What about a heretical sect or secret cult of the surface-elf pantheon? Dalla Thaun comes to mind as an example.

Miniman

@Shalvenay I think Lolth would be amused by a surface elf worshipper, and quite pleased at getting one of Correllon's folk for herself, but that's purely based on the impression I've built up of her from absorbing FR media.

Shalvenay

@BESW hrm -- if I had an open field to choose from, that's what I'd choose, but the DMs don't provide that sort of option

BESW

Is Wee Jas still around in this iteration of FR?

Shalvenay

@BESW I believe so -- that'd work if I wanted to go with a plain old human deity for said char

BESW

I'm not familiar with the current FR setup.

Last I checked, Lolth was very... hands-on... with her followers.

trogdor

1:21 AM

yeah,... hands on in blessing them AND killing them or cursing them when they displeased her

which was very easy

nitsua60

@BESW Not according to SCAG

BESW

So a non-standard follower would have to be actively permitted, he wouldn't just be a passive hanger-on.

BUT--he'd be judged on his individual, personal merits as a follower rather than simply as worthy or not based on his social/racial context (though those would count against him in the judgement).

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Kiaransalee is listed in SCAG in the Drow pantheon: CE, Arcana domain. I don't know anything else about her, though.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah, that's the deity I picked

BESW

A surface elf follower of Lolth would have a very interesting story about how she came to be allowed into the Lolth club. And probably some scars to go with the story.

Alternately, it'd be interesting to play an elf blackguard who is still in the process of appealing to Lolth.

[takes notes]

You need a sharknado miniature. http://dastardlydesignedgames.blogspot.com/2014/08/sharknadohttpi15photobucketcomalbumsa38.html

Tweeted by FakeTSR on August 28, 2016 at 4:16 PM

Miniman

1:29 AM

@nitsua60 Lots of fun going through the equipment list finding useful items for a free hand - "Abacus. Hmmm....yeah, add it to the list."

BESW

@Miniman That's what my librarian was missing.

nitsua60

@Miniman That's not better than a sandwich. Keep going.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Soap?

nitsua60

Fishing pole? Not better than a sandwich....

@Miniman You need sandwich-making lessons, I see. Unless those are venemous down there, too =)

Miniman

@BESW I've thought about building a character purely around the Gnomish Calculus before.

BESW

1:31 AM

17 hours ago, by BESW

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

Miniman

@nitsua60 Alright, fine. You want something to hold that's better than a sandwich? A thermal detonator!!!

BESW

@Miniman Does 5e have darkness as an emanation like 3.5 did?

Because Dark Rocks are awesome.

Miniman

@BESW Yep.

BESW

A Dark Rock is like an everburning torch: permanent light or darkness cast on an object, and the emanation of brightness or shadow is obstructed if you cover the object.

So you hold a rock in your fist, and when you open your hand, the whole area goes dark.

Miniman

Yep, those rules haven't changed at all. Well, except there's no way to make spells permanent anymore.

BESW

1:33 AM

(I assume dropping things is still a free action?)

Miniman

@BESW Unspecified, but the general consensus is yes.

nitsua60

@Miniman despite my VtC and comment, despite the glaring lack of a first bullet-point: "a sandwich," despite all these flaws... that's a pretty good answer you put up.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Thanks! I also VTC, but I'm square on the fence here, and I didn't want to leave it sitting in a txt file.

nitsua60

You could go with the magic item opaque disc of not-hitting-me which is known not to emanate any magical signal detectable by any means. 'Cause it's a shield.

Miniman

@BESW I just thought of something cool with Warlocks, Devil's Sight, Darkness, and Pact Weapons.

BESW

1:39 AM

@Miniman I probably did something similar in 3.5 with the Shade template.

Shalvenay

@Miniman I want to hear this :D

Miniman

@Shalvenay It's about what it sounds like: "When I draw my sword, it plunges the room into total darkness."

@Shalvenay Also known as "making Darkness + Devil's Sight thematic so people stop calling it cheesy".

Shalvenay

@Miniman oh xD I...actually have something I want to talk to Nitsua about on that front

@nitsua60 -- will you have some time soon? (I was actually thinking we could hop back into r20 and talk there -- we didn't get to do much to debrief the dungeon b/c of the whole thing with netflix hogging your connection)

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I've still got a visitor, so voice'll probably still be borked. Text-chat there? Or NAB?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah, your visitor is still on Netflix eh?

nitsua60

1:45 AM

@Shalvenay yup

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 wow. is that all they've been doing while over at your place? :p

nitsua60

@Shalvenay No--very engaged with the kids during their waking hours, but then retires to the guest room to get some alone-time while it's quiet.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 aaaah!

nitsua60

@Miniman want to sanity check one or two of my sharpshooter numbers?

Miniman

@nitsua60 I added the sandwich - as an individual answer it would be deleted, but there's room for it in my list :)

Shalvenay

1:47 AM

@nitsua60 NAB should be fine then

Miniman

@nitsua60 Up to you - I'm happy to trust your maths if you do, or I'm happy to check it if you don't.

Shalvenay

and hit that uppity rogue with a VtC btw :P

nitsua60

@Miniman Pick an attack bonus anywhere between 5 and 15 (inclusive). Then pick an expected weapon-damage anywhere between 6.5 and 28, on the half-integers (inclusive again). Then tell me the AC you get for "at or below this AC I expect higher damage from choosing -5/+10." We'll see if it matches up with mine. I've hand-checked a few of them, but whatever stupid mistake I made in code I'm probably making by hand, too =)

Miniman

Hmmm. It doesn't really work to have more than one joke in there, but I kind of want to add: "A laptop! How else will he ask RPG.SE all his questions?"

nitsua60

@Miniman Remove the sandwich and I remove my upvote =|

Miniman

1:52 AM

@nitsua60 Don't worry, I think the sandwich is better. I just like the idea of a Rogue in the middle of a melee using his turn to ask a quick question about how to trigger Sneak Attack (or whatever).

@nitsua60 Attack bonus +7, expected damage 10.5.

Shalvenay

@Miniman LOL

@Miniman youtube.com/watch?v=FGIGUBYJLn8 << one of these?

nitsua60

@Miniman BTW, I have my AC threshold--let me know what you get.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Still working it out.

nitsua60

@Miniman (no worries--just didn't want to hang because of a communications error)

Miniman

@nitsua60 At AC 17 or lower, I find higher expected damage from choosing to take the -5/+10.

nitsua60

2:06 AM

@Miniman Me too =)

Want to do that 481 more times, just to be sure?
=D

(You included crit on 20, yes?)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Hooray! I wrote this and kept trying different ACs till I found the crossover.

@nitsua60 Yep, and miss on 1.

Ugly as sin, but I was in a hurry.

nitsua60

@Miniman Excellent--I'm glad that three very-different methods are getting the same number, at least for one of the input-pairs =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 In case it wasn't obvious, one of my players is a Barbarian, so I used his numbers.

nitsua60

@Miniman so is it a d12+4 for damage?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Yep.

I just tried adding in +2 damage for Rage, and that shifts it down to AC 16.

nitsua60

2:10 AM

So that's +7, 12.5?

Miniman

@nitsua60 10.5 - average for d12 is 6.5.

nitsua60

'Cause that'd what I'd get, too.

(Sorry, I meant after adding the +2 rage.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 I just worked that out, sorry.

nitsua60

Woo-hoo! Two matching data points =)

Miniman

Now I'm going to try adding advantage, but that'll take longer.

Or not, turns out that's quite simple - something I didn't think anydice could do but tried anyway just in case worked perfectly.

nitsua60

2:13 AM

So I think I'll present two different "guides". One's a table lookup: attack bonus across the top, expected damage down the side. In the field is that threshold AC. The other presentation is a nice one-line formula for the AC, but the input variable is (attack bonus - expected damage/2).

Miniman

With advantage and rage damage, I find the threshold AC goes up to 18.

With advantage and no rage damage, up to 19.

nitsua60

Hmm... so I said it'd be changing one line to add in advantage. That's true. Figuring out the change to make... that might take me a while =\

Miniman

Aaaaaaand I'm saving this as a conversation - there's too much stuff I don't want to lose from this.

Joel Harmon

@Shalvenay still backlogging, but for the record 6'6" and 300 lbs doesn't seem unreasonable to me; look up some athletes for rugby, basketball, or US football

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon I agree that it's not unreasonable at all -- but at a STR of 10, that'd be quite a pudgy character.

Miniman

2:18 AM

Aaaaaaand I'm well overdue for lunch, be back in a bit.

Joel Harmon

depends on what str 10 translates to, which varies by system, but quite possibly

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon (we were referring to D&D 5e, so average)

Miniman

@Shalvenay Average here means they can comfortably lift 300 pounds.

nitsua60

@Miniman I believe it all comes down to "AC at or below which -5/+10 is better = floor(ATK-<DMG>/2)+16." (But I wouldn't be surprised if I'm off-by-1 on the constant; my eyes are swimming from keeping <= straight from <, and so forth.)

If anyone'd be so kind as to check ^^ for a few more instances, I'll feel comfortable enough to post =)

Miniman

2:33 AM

It's kind of awesome to realise that my little gnome wizard could reasonably compete as an Olympic weightlifter.

nitsua60

2:46 AM

'kay, think I've got advantage sorted out.

@Miniman Can you summarize for me the numbers you found with advantage? (ATK, <DMG>, threshold AC) if you don't mind?

'cause I get the following for AC threshold vs. (ATK-<DMG>/2)...

nitsua60

3:07 AM

Delete jackass-ery

Miniman

@nitsua60 I just did it for the barbarian - the way I'm doing it doesn't lend itself well to generalisation.

Which is to say, it does, I'm just not smart enough to do it quickly.

nitsua60

Sure--I was just asking if you could repeat the numbers you'd already found. (I'm having trouble keeping things straight, digging back.)

Miniman

Attack bonus +7, expected damage 10.5.

With advantage and rage damage, I find the threshold AC goes up to 18.
With advantage and no rage damage, up to 19.

Rage damage here meaning +2.

BESW

@nitsua60 My response to the "answer's" sentiment.

nitsua60

@Miniman and that's +2 to expectation value?

Joel Harmon

3:12 AM

@Shalvenay str 10, which is the default for a commoner, means you can lift up to 150 pounds and push/drag, or lift 300. I'd say that's more than I'd expect the average person I know to be able to do

Miniman

@nitsua60 +2 either way - rage damage is a flat bonus.

nitsua60

@Miniman gotcha

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon yeah -- good point. commoners back then were huskier than commoners now I suppose

Joel Harmon

@Shalvenay not necessarily huskier, but more likely to be living a life of hard labor and subsistence farming

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon true

Miniman

3:14 AM

@Shalvenay I don't think this is a "back then" thing - see previous comment about Olympic weightlifters.

Shalvenay

@Miniman ...hrm, you might have a point there.

@JoelHarmon -- got a clue how your schedule looks this week btw?

Joel Harmon

same as before; likely Monday or Thursday

nitsua60

@Miniman Hmm... I'm 1 lower than you. I.e. at (7,12.5) I get 17 as the AC at which or below to choose SS, at (7,10.5) I get 18 as the AC at which or below to choose SS. =(

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon gotcha

nitsua60

@BESW That user would not have liked today's chat =|

BESW

3:17 AM

No, he would not.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I was just reflecting on that particular irony.

nitsua60

Perhaps we should send him a link =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 What's your expected damage at each AC?

nitsua60

for posterity, that's attack bonus of +7, expected damage of 10.5 (no rage), advantaged attack

Miniman

Hmmmm.

nitsua60

3:21 AM

why are my crit-only values off by a factor of 2 in the first column?

(oh no they're not. Nevermind.)

Night, all.

BESW

@Miniman Are there still everburning torches?

Miniman

@BESW Not that I can find, and no obvious analogues, either.

BESW

Iiiiinteresting.

Joel Harmon

light is an at-will cantrip now

Miniman

That's a good point, so magic items that provide it are much less of an issue.

Joel Harmon

3:47 AM

in particular because any character can pick up some cantrips as a feat

(DM allowing, of course)

anyway, seems it's quitting time; later, all

Miniman

@JoelHarmon Cya!

nitsua60

4:01 AM

Btw, @Miniman, note those numbers are all a little off because we're inherently mis-handling criticals. By only inputting expected damage, not dice and modifiers, we lose track of what to double and what not to on a crit. (And now I'm really off for the night.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 That "we" is actually "you" - I've been using dice and modifiers the whole time :P

Also, cya!

Nox

7:14 AM

Hello, RPG chat. Can somebody maybe give me any pointers regarding RPG stores in Oslo, Norway? Will be there for a week or so. Have doubts about them existing, though.

Doomed Mind

Hi @Nox :)

BESW

@Nox How about this?

@Nox My searches are indicated Notabene is a bookstore chain that has a good selection of RPGs.

kviiri

8:34 AM

Our odometer turns 222222 kilometers soon. Intense!

BESW

Ooer.

kviiri

We are approaching the final frontiers of intensity.

Alas, the moment was one of transient pleasure, and while momentarily comforting, all that remains of it is a fading memory. Odometer at 222228 now.

BESW

I'm told that's what vines are for.

Magician

9:06 AM

Fate. I wish to speak of it. I recently was able to formulate what's been bothering me about it, and there's a seemingly easy way to fix it. Now I'm wondering if others already do that and I'm just slow on the uptake.

Consequences are great. They're a way for mechanics to affect the story, and for that story to have a mechanical impact. Get hit, take a consequence. Succeed at a major cost, take a consequence. Mechanics->story. Cool.

But I eventually realised we often have situations where, surprisingly enough, story happens, without any mechanics involved. And that's where it broke down for me. It made sense to gain an aspect attached to the character to represent the change in the circumstance. But there's no "circumstance" aspect slot.

BESW

I was thinking about something similar last night, and my conclusion is that it's just what I've said many times before, but which I have trouble actually implementing: Fate isn't a system so much as a toolkit.

Magician

There's consequences, but they, by the rules, result from a bad die roll.

BESW

Let me dig up some quotes.

Magician

And having read the rules a few times, I internalized this. And it doesn't seem to work (for us). So I'll try giving out consequences as the story warrants, likely with a fate point on top so that it's not so punishing.

BESW

> The rules say that by default, a consequence is something a player chooses to take after getting hit by an attack in a conflict.
But say you’re in a scene where a player decides that, as part of trying to intimidate his way past someone, his PC is going to punch through a glass-top table with a bare fist.
Everyone likes the idea and thinks it’s cool, so no one’s interested in what happens if the PC fails the roll. However, everyone agrees that it also makes sense that the PC would injure his hand in the process (which is part of what makes it intimidating).

Magician

9:15 AM

...yeah, pretty much that. And I remember reading it, and not liking it's arbitrary nature. Figures.

BESW

By "toolkit" in this case I mean: while there are various ways that Fate mechanics interact with and trigger each other, it's more important to remember that they interact with and are triggered by the story.

The system element of Fate is how the mechanics interact with each other.

But they're also all just sitting there for the group to pick up and use as needed without mechanical triggers.

Magician

Well... Yeah. But. The rules tell us when and how to apply the mechanics. The logic of mechanics-> consequences is there. I even checked the ARRPG, and it didn't have examples of story->consequences (that I could find).

BESW

Bubblegumshoe is, I think, going to help me with this because it has a lot of Fate-like mechanics without any mechanical triggers at all.

@Magician Yeah, and DFRPG says that being On Fire has no story effect unless someone spends a Fate point to invoke or compel it.

I find it helpful to also look at replacements for a mechanic, to give me a better sense of what role the mechanic is supposed to fill. To that end, conditions.

Magician

A slightly different way of looking at consequences that I'm starting to adopt is not "bad things that happened to the character that need to be healed somehow", but "ongoing issues the character is facing". If mechanics of combat told us the character took a consequence, such ongoing issue could be Broken Arm. But it could also be Pissed-off Guards, or Unflattering Rumors, etc., whatever the story dictates.

BESW

Yup, that works.

I think we once had a PC take a consequence of Untrusted or something like that.

(Some of my players are very eager to push at the edges of those kinds of mechanics, which is great.)

Magician

9:23 AM

Yeah, we've had something like that occur as a result of mental "attacks".

BESW

We often use consequences as "costs" for success when the dice are just being mean--or we use consequences as positive currency.

Magician

Cool, just as I suspected, this wasn't a revelation to people who're not me, and so isn't worthy of a post.

BESW

Oh, no, I think it's very much worth a post.

It's not a revelation to me, but it's something I still struggle with constantly.

Your approach to it will be sufficiently different from mine that it'll be helpful to see from that other angle.

Magician

I'll actually try it on my group for a week or two first, to see how it works and to refine my thoughts a bit. Then, we'll see.

trogdor

@Magician I think it is still worth one

BESW

9:26 AM

Sounds good.

Magician

@BESW thanks for the relevant quote, I had forgotten about it.

BESW

No problem.

The first time I read it, I got the distinct impression that it was supposed to be an "Ah-ha!" moment for me but I was too dense to get it.

kviiri

I need to try Fate out, it sounds very good.

trogdor

it is a good rule, but I feel like it has potential to be abused

that doesn't mean it will be, but it has that potential

BESW

@trogdor That's why everything in Fate comes with "make sure everyone’s on the same page before you do stuff like this."

@kviiri We can try to find a good schedule for a short session some time.

kviiri

9:34 AM

@BESW That might be fun!

As a new learner of the system, should I just look into the newest version?

BESW

Yeah, Fate Core and/or Fate Accelerated are probably the places to start.

The Fate SRD has all the freely available Fate information for the most recent (Fate Core +) iteration of the system.

kviiri

Which one would you recommend, Core or Accelerated?

BESW

Fate Accelerated is a whittled-down version of Fate Core. It's the same basic engine but with fewer fiddly bits--but also with less explanation of the how and why behind the system.

Fate Core is a full introduction to the system AND the philosophy behind it: lots more space dedicated to the reasoning behind the design choices.

kviiri

Alrighto! Sounds like good reading for the last 100 km to go.

Doomed Mind

I don't know about the former, but I think the latter is an excellent read, even if you dont plan on playing fate.

BESW

9:47 AM

If we play in chat, I'll recommend that we play Accelerated. But I'm able to teach the game through play so there's no need to do homework before someone comes to my "table."

@DoomedMind I can see that. Sorta like how I really value the advice pages in Call of Cthulhu despite never intending to play it.

...hm. I wonder if Fate of the TMNT would be a better chat engine for Fate games.

trogdor

@BESW yes, and I seriously doubt our group would have that specific problem

or even if we did, we could resolve it easily by talking it out

BESW

I'm glad we've reached that point, yes.

trogdor

inexperience with Fate might invite that problem though

BESW

10:43 AM

Three medieval manuscript cats going through a rectangular cat flap. @RareBooksOfBod MSBodl533 http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/detail/ODLodl~1~1~34815~119564:Bestiary-?qvq=q:Shelfmark%3D%22MS.%2BBodl.%2B533%22;lc:ODLodl~29~29,ODLodl~7~7,ODLodl~6~6,ODLodl~14~14,ODLodl~8~8,ODLodl~23~23,ODLodl~1~1,ODLodl~24~24&mi=11&trs=18 http://t.co/b3IuTXCJtk

Tweeted by SLevelt on April 13, 2014 at 1:18 PM

nitsua60

11:41 AM

@Miniman the sober light of dawn and a good night's sleep have convinced me: I'm redoing the "with advantage" analysis from scratch. Some of those crossover DPA values are so close between standard and sharpshooter--within 0.1--that the imprecision in mis-handling criticals is big enough to threaten incorrect AC predictions. So I'm going to build the tensor with (a) attack bonus, (b) weapon di(c)e, and (c) damage modifier as separate inputs.
Hopefully at the end I'll be able to smooth it down to a 2D function, presented in a table.

Miniman

@nitsua60 In Matlab?

nitsua60

11:55 AM

yup

I suspect it's only going to come up in extreme cases, like a STR24 (magically enhanced) barbarian throwing a dagger +3. But it'll be nice to know, not just suppose.

@Miniman I'm ranging over damages from a thrown dart (d4) up to a heavy crossbow with sneaky devastation (d10+10d6)--sound right?

BESW

12:11 PM

This game designed around Buddhist concepts of nonviolent conflict resolution is an interesting concept, but it's not really clicking for me.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Well, that depends how generally applicable you want it to be - if I was doing it, I'd go up to 1d12 and 2d6 to accomodate Great Weapon Masters (the same maths works for them too).

Anaphory

@BESW But I like that people are thinking about games like that!

BESW

@Anaphory Very much agree!

Although the page makes it sound like they're designing in a vacuum and are trying to re-invent the wheel.

Anaphory

Yep.

BESW

Truly spiritual-themed nonviolent RPGs are something I've thought about and researched a bit, and they live or die on whether/how they mechanise the ability to make frame challenges against conflict itself.

And that's a very tall order.

Anaphory

12:19 PM

This one looks very trad, judging from the character sheet and

> If you’ve played D&D or a similar game before, you probably understand the general mechanics of a tabletop role-playing game.

> mechanise the ability to make frame challenges against

BESW

Yeeeah.

Anaphory

care to elaborate?

BESW

@Anaphory I can try. It's something I'm still percolating.

Non-violent spiritual philosophies tend to re-define the nature of conflict, of success and of failure.

Anaphory

Makes sense.

BESW

They're about what virtues the person develops from the challenge, or the ineffable spiritual benefits granted to the world by an individual's voluntary suffering, or similar outcomes which have nothing to do with traditional win/lose scenarios.

Anaphory

12:24 PM

Ah, this is where it is important to talk “spiritual”, because nonviolent by itself can try to keep the win/lose conditions.

BESW

Right.

But we can look at, for example, the Salt March led by Gandhi.

Its participants suffered horribly, and their immediate physical victory was at best symbolic.

Their true victory was a social one, with tangible benefits over a much longer period of time.

And that's one of the more... physically tangible... examples I can think of.

Anaphory

From my perspective, that's physically tangible enough. The point I wanted to make above was that focussing on “spiritual” absolves you of trying to look for that kind of physical tangible benefit.

BESW

Nonviolent victory is not something with quickly measurable results. Its victories are often dismissed as insignificant, or as failures, at the time, and the true success of spiritual nonviolence is often never measurable in the ordinary way.

Anaphory

I get that train of thought, now the “mechanise” part?

BESW

[shrug] That's simple enough: the game's system needs to provide mechanics--rules, features, structures--that support and enforce its themes.

What does a mechanic for the Salt March look like? How does it work?

It has to be able to moderate between immediate physical failure and eventual social/spiritual triumph.

If you get even more mystical, what mechanics would we use to gamify the idea, common to many religions, that the persecution of the faithful grants spiritual bounties to humanity?

Anaphory

12:38 PM

@BESW Ah, it sounded like you were referring to something more specific.

I probably need to talk to you more about this, but not now.

BESW

Well, specifically for this topic: in a game that wants to focus on non-violent philosophies (not just an eschewing of physical violence as a primary mode of conflict resolution, but a worldview which sees conflict itself as part of a fundamentally different paradigm), PCs need to be equipped with abilities that let them deal within their paradigm in the face of NPCs who follow a different paradigm.

In a system that believes in the transformative power of suffering, for example, hit points or similar mechanics take on a totally different role.

They're no longer end-of-conflict countdowns (hit points), or ways to complicate the story (consequences). Suffering and persecution becomes a tool for personal and societal transformation.

...but it still really sucks to experience on a personal level, and that can't be dismissed or it trivialises the power of sacrifice.

(About five years ago, someone in my religious community made a passing comment about the potential of RPGs for telling the stories of the early days of our faith, and I've been poking these ideas ever since.)

**[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.");

@dot_Sp0T, @diego [wave]

BESW

1:09 PM

@Pixie Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is on Netflix!

BESW

1:19 PM

Hmm. Something else I've been thinking about re: RPG design: mechanising banter and character moments. In a lot of my games we want to have banter, or asides, or little bits of characterisation that don't really relate to the plot, but we have a hard time making space for it.

We've played games that offer rewards for saying clever things, or let us use banter to get bonuses, but we rarely take much advantage of it.

Miniman

1:35 PM

@nitsua60 I found something interesting in a "check my working" question! There's no particular reason it'd be interesting to you, but I felt the need to tell someone.

nitsua60

@Miniman Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten GWM. Easy enough to modify the loop-range.

@Miniman What's up?

Miniman

@nitsua60 This one. Just an incredibly niche shenanigan I noticed while checking his working.

I'm struggling to come up with a use for it, but all the same.

nitsua60

1:53 PM

@Miniman That is an interesting little quirk....

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's even weirder that they errata-ed it and didn't fix it.

nitsua60

@Miniman You'd almost think they don't compulsively lurk here to find our excellent analyses of their games' strengths and weaknesses =)

Miniman

Methinks they only look at the non-quarterstaff options in Polearm Master - they're all pretty much identical, and reach is much more obviously prone to abuse.

nitsua60

I almost want to e-mail sage advice to ask if the fighter's starting equipment is right: one of their options is "longbow +20 arrows" while the other two starting kits that have longbows mention "a longbow and a quiver with 20 arrows." Quoth the fighter: Where's me quiver!?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Fighters use a bandolier of arrows, medieval Mexican banditos-style.

(A bandolier is an item of clothing, so it doesn't need to be mentioned in equipment lists.)

nitsua60

1:58 PM

@Miniman Quivers!? I don't need no stinkin' quivers!

Miniman

@nitsua60 One quick curiosity google later: Wow, that phrase has way more history than I realised.

nitsua60

@Miniman on this answer, I've got to say: I'm faux disappointed that you don't calculate the expected number of casts-to-succeed against Big T's 3 LR and saving throws. Should just be something like 3+ 1/(1-save_probability), right?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Yeah, but I don't know the caster's stats.

Or, more likely, the casters' stats, since no-one can cast multiple 9th-level spells without at least a short rest.

nitsua60

But they're at least L17, so you can make explicit a reasonable assumption and go from there. Even better, assume STAT20, then show the benefit to using enough magic items to pump the stat up to 24 or whatever's achievable.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I mean, I could, I suppose.

nitsua60

2:09 PM

All good answers, like publications, should end with a "Suggestions for further reserach" section, is all I'm saying =)

(Or with a sandwich. That'd shut me up.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Hey, as long as the suggestions from the peer reviewer don't come with a "reject" recommendation...

nitsua60

In any case, I shoul dshut up. I should do some work, then start my new grad-class, then finish up the new sharpshooter script, then prep tonight's DW session.... SIgning off for a while =)

Miniman

@nitsua60 To calculate the probable number of tries required for a success with a binary success/failure, it's a hypergeometric distribution, right?

@nitsua60 Ah, nevermind. Cya tomorrow!

nitsua60

2:29 PM

@Miniman (Just came back to say "How hard is it to hit Big T with a spell" should probably be its own question.) Off the top of my head--not even jotting anything down, I'd assume we get something like the expansion for 1/(1-p) in there.... Hypergeometric isn't quite it, I think, as I've usually come across that in card-problems (no replacement).

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's been almost a year since I was last maths tutoring, so I'm probably remembering wrong. I'm thinking of one that resolves to a really simple formula, like xp^n or something like that.

kviiri

@Miniman Number of tries before first success is just geometric, if each try is independent.

Miniman

@kviiri That sounds like the one I'm thinking of.

kviiri

Expected number of misses before first hit is simply P(miss) / P(hit), then. It's easy as π ;)

Miniman

@kviiri Yeah, that's definitely the one. I remember how impressed I was at its beautiful elegance.

Anyway, 12:30 and I still have a bunch of stuff to do before bedtime - I'll keep glancing at chat till I sleep, but I'm no longer officially "here".

kviiri

2:41 PM

@Miniman Yeah, it's a beauty.

Bye o/

Miniman

@kviiri Cya!

kviiri

I have sauna soon, so I won't be hanging round much longer either :p

I've been reading Fate SRD. It's interesting and thorough, I can say.

The Oracle

6:38 PM

1

Q: Answers blinking when clicked?

I noticed today that answers are sometimes blinking when clicked on. Very weird. Doesn’t seem to happen with questions, nor does it consistently happen with answers. When it happens, it happens consistently for all answers on that page, but reloading or going elsewhere and coming back may leave t...

bug

BESW

10:18 PM

Roll for SAN loss: Chaosium has signed up with the Bits & Mortar program! http://www.bits-and-mortar.com/2016/08/chaosium-joins-bits-mortar-roll-for-sanity-loss/

Tweeted by bitsandmortar on August 29, 2016 at 10:00 PM

SirTechSpec

10:59 PM

@kviiri That is indeed beautiful.

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