TRPG General Chat

BESW

13:00

@UffishL @juliegoldberg Naw, it's just a labradoodle.

Tweeted by Joshua_Pollack on August 30, 2016 at 12:13 AM in reply to UffishL

doppelgreener

@BESW Humans not around. Time to produce *real* art.

eimyr

I've lived through e-stuff, digital stuff, touch-enabled stuff and now it's 3D printed stuff.

Why oh why is it always mentioned even if completely irrelevant?

BESW

@eimyr "Get off my lawn, ya durn technohippies!"

eimyr

@BESW I have nothing against the principle of 3D printing. I think it's an important technology that enables simple low-unit-count manufacturing of complex items. I hate, however, how the term is so trendy that it's mentioned even when there's nothing 3D printing enabled in that situation.

BESW

A lot of the Mythos art in my feeds lately have been designed digitally and printed, then finished by hand.

Lots of cosplay props doing that too: printing the custom parts you can't get otherwise.

(My pet technoculture peeve that I'm waiting to see go away is secondcase.)

kviiri

13:11

You mean like iPhone?

BESW

uGot it.

eimyr

@BESW That's pretty much the best use of it. Printing something you can't make otherwise, agreeing to pay premium and deal with the shortcomings, esp. if the item is decorative first.

BESW

@kviiri There's a bank here that calls its online banking myCloudBanking. [cringes]

eimyr

3D printing of certain parts of prosthetics is also a good idea, though I'm jaded at the cost, because the solution is available but not efficient. Again, we failed at good redistribution.

@bEsw?

BESW

@eimyr [goes mad]

eimyr

13:16

@BESW Should I go for eImyr or eiMyr?

because I'm both e- and i-

BESW

@eimyr Do you want to sound like a bevowelled Magic: the Gathering creature, or an electronic Arab ruler?

2

eimyr

eimyr is pronounced /eɪmɘr/ --- I should probably tag @Anaphory

kviiri

Does eimyr mean something in particular?

eimyr

@kviiri "Hedgehog" in Nilfgaardian.

BESW

@kviiri "I bought too many vowels."

kviiri

13:28

Oh boy, wheel of fortune. Too bad they haven't showed it for almost 20 years anymore. Kids today don't understand why anyone would buy a vowel.

BESW

@kviiri I understand there's work on a new Phantom Tollbooth film. Maybe it'll include the Word Market.

kviiri

I wonder if languages with fewer vowels in their words have dropped the need to buy them.

Would make sense, right?

eimyr

Wheel of fortune...?

kviiri

@eimyr It's a TV show revolving (!) around a huge wheel of fortune and solving hangman-like word puzzles. One could guess consonants for free, but guessing a vowel would cost some points (so vowels were "bought").

Or at least that's how it worked in the Finnish version - the format is international though.

eimyr

Oh, I know that show.

but there are many other things by that name and vowel-buying I just didn't remember

Anyway, the nickname is from The Witcher.

kviiri

13:35

I think the vowel-buying meme comes from the wheel of fortune. I guess it could barely be a self-perpetuating meme?

@eimyr Ah, I see. Never got into the Witcher myself, but I have a friend who was totally into it way before it was cool.

eimyr

well, I started reading before the last book was published

It was cool already, but not internationally

kviiri

14:01

It's been ages since I last read any novel, sadly.

Except Worm, the web-serial, if you count that as a novel (and I don't see why one wouldn't).

I'm a bit bored by it but there's not many chapters left so I guess I should just inch my way onward...

I kinda feel the urge to roleplay superheroes whenever I read it though.

kviiri

14:24

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast TIL this exists

kviiri

14:36

Out of curiosity, do any of you people here use wish lists when playing RPGs? The traditional approach is known to be that the GM decides the content, but we've been doing some little experimentation with the players suggesting content for the GM to incorporate.

eimyr

@kviiri first of all we use lines and veils

kviiri

Lines of veils is for a different purpose though, I mean wishing for stuff you'd like to see. For example, if there's been a calmer period in the campaign, focusing much on investigation or social interactions, I might wish for "mass battle" for my gunlugger.

Or when we were roleplaying awakening dragons, I wished for a scene detailing the first ships, because I was a marine dragon.

eimyr

In my experience I usually give the players a brief pitch of what the game I'm going to gm is going to be - the system, the plot ideas, main themes.

Every sesh at the end I ask people whether they have something they'd like to see more of next sesh or two sessions down.

kviiri

Yeah, that's pretty much what we've been doing, too. I just wonder if someone does it more extensively.

eimyr

Depends on the system.

If you're playing a PbtA game, then you have that built into the system. Same with most Fate games.

Generally, have faith if your players say "it's OK, what we're playing is just fine, keep it up".

kviiri

14:48

@eimyr That's true, sorta.

eimyr

That doesn't mean they think it's the best game ever, but not that it's the worst game not worth saving either.

kviiri

I've still to play a game of AW that's as extensively player-driven as I've wanted. My current GM is quite good at it, but he keeps throwing us plot-hooks like it was DnD.

eimyr

When players say "It's OK, let's play how we played so far" it means "The way we go is good for the kind of game we want and we are not tired of it yet"

kviiri

I'm a bit disappointed by his lack of faith, I mean... does he think we wouldn't get into trouble otherwise?!

@eimyr Well, it could also mean "we have complaints, but they're so minor we'd rather not bother saying them out loud lest we sound picky" :P

eimyr

Not in my book.

kviiri

14:50

Maybe I play with too taciturn people :)

eimyr

I mean, sometimes they say "Err, yeah, the game is sorta ok, but we don't really have much to say at this point"

kviiri

The RPG scene we're playing around isn't too large, people couldn't afford to be picky anyway.

eimyr

at the beginning of my current game it was too sluggish - the players didn't know what to expect from me, I didn't know them all, the system was new etc. etc.

they thought it's a linear single-adventure game, I envisioned it as sidequest-heavy open world thing

kviiri

I've actually gotten complaints after a single game. They were very polite, but I feel people tend to swallow up minor points of criticism so easily that it felt like a rather serious deal - and rightly so. Read it up on Botch blog when it's posted :P

eimyr

at sesh #5 pre-game rituals I said "people, I get it, you want to be careful. You take time to discuss, that's cool and shows you're invested. But there is 7 subplots you might want to explore instead. Also, if you spring a trap or something, if you don't discuss you are still considered appropriately prepared and I won't TPK because you didn't consider all possibilities. And if I want you in a trap, it doesn't matter how much you discuss."

It worked like a charm and they burned through remaining 80% of the main plot in 3 sessions.

@kviiri is that the goblin one?

kviiri

14:55

@eimyr Oh yes.

It was terribad.

I never wish to see another goblin again.

eimyr

hah

You know, it might be arrogant of me to say that...

kviiri

Say it anyway, I won't mind :P

@eimyr Sounds like they took this cue seriously then :)

eimyr

but I wonder what would happen if you made a soft move, the one with foreshadowing an impending hard move, going "You fight the goblins and kill a few, but you quickly realise that slaying them all will take much longer than you expected and give bandits time to escape even if you do. The bandits shout a few words in Orcish and the goblins start encircling you. Party rogue, you see what's happening best, what do you do?"

kviiri

Yeah, that's along the lines of what I should've done. But it didn't occur to me back then.

I host one-offs for new roleplayers every now and then, they take certain cues surprisingly well. Like "yeah it looks like a perfectly ordinary house. Even too ordinary. Like, it looks so unsuspicious that it's got to be a set-up" makes them go all Leeroy Jenkins on the house.

--> fun ensues

eimyr

Yeah. I like when combat turning into a battle of attrition turns into a puzzle instead.

"how to defeat this horde or boring mooks so that the leader doesn't escape?"

"How to kill all the spiders before the queen arrives?"

"How to fight the endless waves of Sauron's orcs so that they abandon the idea of assaulting this tower we are trying to hold?"

kviiri

15:04

Those are cool ideas, I need to remember them :)

eimyr

wait a moment...

22

A: Keeping Mass Battles interesting for players

Establish PC's goal in the battle Never forget that the battle has a purpose but your PC's motivation might be different. Are they fighting to help win the battle to save a city? Are they forced to fight and want to survive together? Are they protecting an NPC friend who will fight no matter wha...

this might be relevant to your story @kviiri

kviiri

Aye!

I like mass battles in general, on a strategic scale.

eimyr

I like both, but strategic is often unsuitable for many games, especially action games

kviiri

Yes, that's true. That's why many games have abstractions for larger scale combat

eimyr

I find players often prefer their character to be a hero and show valor through direct small-scale action in a battle rather than be the general who gives orders through a nearby hill.

kviiri

15:10

True, true.

I like being a part of a larger action, though. Like a single man in a set of 20 that is a part of a gang of 200 that is a part of an alliance of a thousand soldiers.

eimyr

Say, the general ordered retinue cavalry to bolster right flank. The messenger was delayed on his way and now the general sends one of his HQ guard captain to go there and organise ranks until delayed cavalry arrives. Would you rather be the general or that captain?

kviiri

In real life or in an RPG? :P (assuming RPG, captain!)

eimyr

Assuming real life I'd rather be the king who sent his general to command instead.

kviiri

I'd rather be a peasant in a neighboring country that isn't involved :)

I think the AW system of treating gangs as sorta single combatants and making pretty much any damage quite decisive works rather well for many cases.

SirTechSpec

16:43

@BESW Agreed

@BESW I'll definitely check it out, then. I'm big into how we construct our lives as narratives.

@kviiri There aren't too many languages with fewer vowels than English, though; we're already pretty consonant-heavy. German, maybe.

eimyr

@SirTechSpec Try Polish.

(Admittedly, it's spelling-wise. Pronunciation isn't as consonant-dense as people make it to be.)

kviiri

Yeah, I'd assume Polish is more consonant-heavy than English, at least spelling-wise.

Just a gut feeling though, so I didn't post it earlier.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Guys, is the Gaming SE gone? I was sure it existed, but can't find it.

SirTechSpec

@eimyr As a phonologist, I temporarily forgot spelling is a thing. :P

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Looks pretty extant to me: gaming.stackexchange.com

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Hmm. Search has shown nothing when typing "gaming" in it.

Wow.

Thank you.

kviiri

16:54

We had Icelandic visitors last year, the poor guys didn't do well trying to decipher our songbook. "Wtf is the Finnish obsession with double vowels"

SirTechSpec

Though in Polish, since <y> is more often a vowel, I wonder if it'd be considered such for the purposes of WoF.

@kviiri Well they actually count in Finnish, yeah? What's the English obsession with double consonants, that's the question. :P

kviiri

Well we have lots of them too

Swahili is a cool, sensible language.

nitsua60

Very strange. In the advantaged case, by hand I get (5, 42, 11)->3 (like you do), but I get (20, 2.5, 3)->25, not the 27 you do. The program gets (5, 42, 11)->9, (20, 2.5, 3)->33. Which seems off, but look at that code (the second one I sent): it's so simple, where would the error be?
Lunch break's over, and I'm playing IRL tonight, so I won't have a chance to look at it again until tomorrow =\

kviiri

17:18

I'm gonna spend tonight reading AW2e handbook

kviiri

18:00

Wow ok, surprise geocaching happened. My SO was around so we decided to complete some geopoly caches... and forgot to restore one to its rightful place.

Well done us.

Axoren

20:35

What could he be doing to his poor fictitious magical beast to even have this question?

2

Q: Can an familiar or animal companion sever the magical bond with its master by itself?

After many discussions with an experienced GM, I know one thing : players don't have absolute control over their familiars and animal companions, they can be unhappy and may refuse to follow orders from an abusive or careless master. There is a thing we're both unsure of : familiars and animal c...

nitsua60

In Salvatore's "The Cleric Quintet" a LG cleric has bound an evil imp as a familiar--and the imp's not too happy about it =\
(I may have mistaken a detail or two, but that's the gist of it.)

Axoren

They singled the reverse relationship which is what got me thinking the worst. Honestly, I feel like an imp would be down for being treated favorably by a holy man instead of constant poking and prodding by fellow pitchfork-wielding hellions.

I haven't read Salvatore, so I'm not familiar with the story or mythos

BESW

21:27

I just saw a man wearing only boxers and a guitar chasing a squirrel. Never seen a first level bard leveling up in the real world before.

Tweeted by jeremiahtolbert on August 30, 2016 at 1:30 PM

2

Pixie

@BESW Ooh, thanks for letting me know.

BESW

No problem.

Momonga-sama

Possible overkill? rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/87330/…

BESW

Well, I know how I'd model that in Fate...

> Fight in the Shade. You can Cleverly attack by telekinetically flinging dozens of loose objects at one target. The defender gets +4 to defend against this chaotic barrage. Then, until your next action, if anyone moves into or through the zone you were attacking, you attack them without rolling and produce a Great (+4) result.

I'm pretty sure 3.5e can't do what you're asking for in any effective way, though.

At least, not reliably and replicatibly without massive GM fiat.

Shalvenay

22:35

hey @Reibello

William Mariager

How does 5e combat works with regards to the old standard/movement action system?

I saw this question:

3

Q: Can you have a 1 round cantrip always active (prior to initiative)?

I'm planning on doing some scouting and wanted to know if I can tell my DM that I always have "BladeWard" up until something happens (either Im surprised or see something - basically when initiative needs to be rolled). BladeWard Abjuration cantrip Casting Time: 1 action Range: Self Compone...

dnd-5e spells movement

And figured it would effectively halve his speed since he'd spend half of each round casting.

But I'm not sure how it would work in 5e.

Shalvenay

23:16

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

@WilliamMariager 0th order: you've got move and action. One of the actions you can take doubles your move (Dash). So the player in question (Al Sun) will take no movement hit from casting his cantrip every six seconds. (1st order would include bonus actions and reactions, but neither are relevant to that question.)

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Okay. In RL game right now; just printing something.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah.

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