TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:00

...There's gotta be some military regulation about changing their network wifi passwords semi regularly.

Not that I'm complaining exactly.

trogdor

why would they not do that?

if anything it seems like a security thing

BESW

I dunno, but I got the Navy Hospital password three or four years ago and it's still good.

Makes these emergency room trips more endurable, anyway.

trogdor

oh I see

they have not changed it in years

@BESW I hope it isn't too serious, by the way

BESW

Bit of a scare at the time, but probably nothing major. It's just hard to diagnose concussion in someone who's always kinda flakey, so we treat it seriously just in case.

trogdor

00:16

ah

Joel Harmon

01:53

@BESW I hope that's a guest wifi password; also, hope everything is ok there

also, @BESW and @Nox would you feel differently about that DW success question if you knew I made it as a reference point to help nitsua convert some stuff from 5e's flatter probability?

BESW

@JoelHarmon I'd think it was maybe a wasted opportunity to take advantage of the Stack's collective expertise to weigh in on the conversion.

@JoelHarmon It's their "public" network.

Joel Harmon

I'm much more ok with a public network not changing very often

as I recall, nitsua had asked a few more specific questions around that time

BESW

And yeah, no lasting damage.

Adeptus

02:29

@sequoiad I'm sure I remember reading in an official Adventurers League guide, that you can change almost anything about a character for the first few levels. But, I can't find it now... Not that AL has much weight on a home game, but it could be a good precedent for your request.

Miniman

@Adeptus Pre-level 5 you can change your character completely if you want.

Shalvenay

03:23

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya

@Adeptus AL players guide calls it "rebuilding"; it's on p.5 of the (current) .pdf.

You can't change the character's name, and you keep exp, treasure, magic items, renown, downtime, and (mundane) equipment gained to that point; starting equipment and gold are swapped out.

Miniman

@nitsua60 "Why is your wizard playing plate mail?" "Oh, just in case."

nitsua60

Quote from tonight's game:
[spacey player] Will a 19 hit?
[GM, deadpan] The giant rat? Yes. They had time to get their plate barding on, but not their shields.

4

(I wish I could say I were that GM; I'm not that quick a thinker while running games.)

Joel Harmon

you wouldn't have thought to put on the barding, and you'd be stuck with just the shield, then?

BESW

04:46

@JoelHarmon To elaborate on my comment, I think of PbtA games as falling into the "spotlight-balanced" category rather than the "power-balanced" category of systems. +bond is unique because it's a bonus that only comes into play during spotlight-sharing moves and is keyed off of a spotlight-sharing "stat."

Comparing its numbers or positionality to stats and moves that focus only or primarily on the character whose player is making the roll seems weird to me, so I'd like to see more support than "Why is this special?"--because I could write a couple paragraphs on why it's special.

BESW

05:08

@SevenSidedDie To play devil's advocate re: in-fiction justification of not using others' bonds with you, isn't it very common for people to ride on the effort of people who care about them more without any effort on their own part to maintain the relationship?

(I think you're probably right overall, but I'm curious about digging into this.)

BESW

06:48

> [...] that little edge of superiority which is cynicism's only privilege.
- Margery Allingham, "The China Governess" 1963

Also I have a new term to use when thinking about attempts to deal with RPGs as math systems divorced from use by people: mathwashing.

trogdor

lol

BESW

> Mathwashing can be thought of using math terms (algorithm, model, etc.) to paper over a more subjective reality.
- Fred Benenson, coiner of phrase

(source)

> I think the term mathwashing should be [...] a warning to fellow technologists: don’t overlook the inherent subjectivity of building things with data just because you’re using math. Algorithm and data driven products will always reflect the design choices of the humans who built them, and it’s irresponsible to assume otherwise.

BESW

08:37

VTC opinion-based

(Also, reading between the lines he seems to have a pretty D&D-like focus to his understanding of RPGs. I'm kinda tempted to leave a link to the scope meta.)

doppelgreener

@BESW I was thinking of doing something like that too.

with some emphasis on "of course opinions on what makes a great game differ, people like different things"

BESW

> When asking this question elsewhere, [the staggering breadth of scope which RPGs offer](http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/q/1475/4398) may be a stumbling block for such an open-ended survey.
The qualities you've described are common to a prominent subset of the RPG medium, but there's a great many RPGs which offer an utterly different experience. Describing your goal (a truly generic system adaptable to all possible play styles? a refined D&D-like system which offers up the play experience you like best? etc) will go a long way to get getting useful responses.

@doppelgreener Like that?

doppelgreener

"small but prominent" is what i'd tend to engage in: if we divide up RPG design space, there's a ton more available than D&D-like combat. the fact it gets repeated a lot is something I'm happy to ascribe to the idea that people were deliberately copying D&D and/or didn't know what else they wanted to do or could do until recently.

BESW

Will you write it up so I'm not the only blabbermouth leaving comments?

doppelgreener

sure

(i downplay D&D's significance in a deliberate effort to startle users who think it's just about all there is into learning a bit more about the RPG medium's diversity)

@BESW oh, yeah, fair enough!

You may be surprised to find that the features you've described are only a very narrow, albeit common and prominent, section of the RPG design space -- the one revolving around D&D. There are thousands of RPGs with many, many kinds of radically different play experiences entirely (including quite a lot with no interest in combat). Of course people would find different things in a great game; different people like different things! You may want to consider what your actual goals are in this project lest you stumble over this diversity asking elsewhere — doppelgreener 8 secs ago

BESW

09:03

[updoot]

Just in time.

doppelgreener

oh yeah.

BESW

BTW, @doppelgreener, any sense of whether you'll be joining us this weekend?

doppelgreener

@BESW Not this weekend or the next, but that's because I'm travelling with family. After that second one I plan on buying a new personal device during the week, so I think I'll be there for the session that's on the 1st.

BESW

Okay!

Everyone else's schedules have been super busy and unpredictable too.

Well, you know, except me and @trogdor. We've watched three seasons of Korra and are starting the current TMNT cartoon.

trogdor

yeah

it's nice to see some more TMNT,... though the animation style of this newer one isn't as to my preference as the one I saw as a kid

BESW

09:12

I like the claymation-esque feel of it, myself.

trogdor

it isn't bad, just not my favorite

doppelgreener

Wibbs

@BESW thanks for adding my KS link

doppelgreener

@BESW have you seen all four now, or do you have the last one to go?

BESW

@doppelgreener I've seen all four, Troggy hasn't. My dad's Amazon FreeTime only has the first three.

Also, @doppelgreener, your profile is out of date. [grin]

doppelgreener

09:22

@BESW oh yeah c(:

BESW

danger-patrol-pocket-ed and lasers-and-feelings, at the least.

doppelgreener

@BESW NooOOOoOOOoooOoO! The fourth season is like, tied for best!

BESW

(And great-ork-gods is now a proper tag.)

trogdor

@doppelgreener hehe

@doppelgreener we'll figure something out

in the meantime, I have already seen 3 more seasons than I ever have before

anyway, I definitely see what all the fuss about the show has been

@doppelgreener which one is it tied with?

doppelgreener

09:45

@trogdor the creative team figured out what they needed to do eventually in seasons 3 and 4, but the whole show's creation was kinda shaken up by initially only being a miniseries (season 1) then being extended to a second season, then being extended to a full four.

If they'd known they were going to get a full three or four seasons in the beginning, there could have been far better ways to organise even just the same content.

@trogdor third season

trogdor

ah ok

fair enough

BESW

The seams are very visible.

doppelgreener

Oh, also, between The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, the team split in half, with the other half going on to write the comic books that acted as an epilogue for The Last Airbender.

(i don't think there was a falling out, they just wanted to do two things at once)

so the two halves had to figure out how to write stories without each other to lean on the same way as before.

trogdor

I am sightly confused as to why they would want to make a really short series set in that world

doppelgreener

oh, and the whole Korra/Asami arc had a mid-season decision change due to fan reactions; have I ever mentioned that?

trogdor

09:52

it really seems like something like that would not have measured up to The Last Airbender

@doppelgreener yes

doppelgreener

thought so

trogdor

the thing where she was gonna turn out to be evil

doppelgreener

yep

and then the creators were like "oh no the fans love her too much and see her as an inspiration, we can't do this to them"

trogdor

I can definitely see where that was supposed to fit

more or less

doppelgreener

me2

@BESW between the seasons? yeah, for sure.

and you could see how seasons 1, 2, then 3+4 were each designed to be "the end".

BESW

10:01

@doppelgreener And across character arcs, and setting shifts, etc.

Season three is especially slapdash, as it's in many ways just a more introspective but much less well executed retread of season two's villain plot.

trogdor

I do think season 3 had some issues

doppelgreener

i thought it was way better executed than season 2

(and season 1)

it involved a lot of what makes the series great, came up with new types of bending which weren't completely weird and built on some stuff they'd previously introduced (Combusion Man), had a compelling villain who seemed to be the villain for his reasons, not the plot's reasons; etc.

BESW

In many ways, yes. But Zaheer and the Red Lotus are a massive sinkhole. The general thrust of their goal is a retreat of Unalaq's "exploit and then destroy the Avatar to Throw The World Into Chaos(tm)" schtick, but without the work on characterisation or motive that made Unalaq work.

RollingFeles

Hey-ho! :)

How is chatizen DW going?

BESW

Zaheer's personality and motives were left a cipher for far too long, and eventually explained through exposition. And when his motives were explained? It was purely philosophical "order/chaos" ideology without any real personality driving him. He had no personal stakes in the chaos like Unalaq did, he just thought it was "better."

doppelgreener

10:09

Hidely-ho!

BESW

He wound up being like a really boring version of Heath Ledger's Joker, desiring chaos for the sake of its own purity.

So all the mystery around what he wanted and why turned out to just be stringing us along that the writers didn't have any good answers. You know, like LOST.

@RollingFeles We've got most of the characters and a bit of the setting down!

doppelgreener

Zaheer was an anarchist who felt the world was stagnant and that the Avatar helped to enforce that stagnation.

BESW

@doppelgreener Right, I get that. But a dimensional character has personal investment and emotion behind their ideologies. How did he become such a devoted anarchist? Why? "An anarchist" is a character trait, not a character.

When Raspberry Reich (NSFW) has a more interestingly dimensional anarchist than the Avatar writers, I feel like something went deeply wrong somewhere.

trogdor

@doppelgreener yeah I have similar complaints to BESW

the villains in 3 could have used,.... something

BESW

"The Red Lotus" is the answer to all questions about who Zaheer is and how he became that way, but it's even more of a cipher than Zaheer.

Compare Unalaq, who had the same goal of sowing chaos across the world and destroying the Avatar.

trogdor

10:16

mhmm

then he also does things that seem counter to what little is explained

BESW

For him, we were shown from the very first episode (not told in the last episodes) gradually building layers of personal, political, and ideological pressures which led him to become the villain.

RollingFeles

@BESW first session I suppose? :) I'm interested in impressions. I would be glad if you'll share it when you get acquainted with the game.

BESW

But Zaheer is kept as the Shadowy Mysterious Overvillain, like a D&D nemesis that the PCs never get to interact with until the finale so there's no tension in the confrontation because we're still going "Who IS this jerk?"

Zaheer COULD have been one of the best villains in the whole Avatar franchise, if he'd been given more development.

They didn't even have to change anything about him, just show us more of him.

trogdor

he does take really long to actually do much that directly effects the main characters

even after he saves his buddies from their secret prisons

@BESW I do agree with this, some of the things I saw no reason for him to do? could have been easily explained if,.... they took half the effort to try

BESW

@RollingFeles Well, I was only available for the first hour of the planning session. It started out kinda slow as the group didn't yet have any cohesion.

That's just a "new group of people who've never played together and many hardly know each other" thing.

trogdor

10:22

instead, there are a couple points in time where he doesn't have to try to kill some people, but he does anyway, and then at least one time where he should have wanted to kill certain people, but did not

BESW

@RollingFeles I'm generally not thrilled with the D&D setting, but DW let us talk about what we want from the game and make setting choices to enforce those things happening.

Which is... not really standard for D&D-likes, but I'm used to it coming from Fate.

RollingFeles

I see.

BESW

Me being who I am, I've created a character that confronts some troublesome D&D-like tropes while also helping me keep the spotlight on other players.

This mostly has to take place outside the mechanical character choices though.

DW allows it more than, say, D&D 3.5 only inasmuch as the narrative will trigger my mechanics rather than vice versa so I can subvert the mechanics by triggering them in subversive ways rather than only by using them for subversive ends.

DW puts alot of pressure on the GM to set and maintain the tone, especially in the first sessions, and @nitsua60 is doing a good job of that.

RollingFeles

10:51

I thought any game where GM is the main source of narration has this pressure.

BESW

To a certain extent, yes.

But games which put that pressure on the GM and also expect the group to create a collaborative setting? Yeah.

Cues for tone and theme are often found in the setting material.

doppelgreener

11:08

@trogdor i agree with that

BESW

12:41

→ 20 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

UrhoKarila

Morning, all

BESW

[wave]

kviiri

14:56

Hiya!

UrhoKarila

15:13

@kviiri hEY

Whoops

Caps

UrhoKarila

16:12

@nitsua60 Good to see that you're getting your mileage out of page 237

nitsua60

@UrhoKarila I've cited that one so many times I don't even have to look it up anymore. Really, I wish WotC would just license "5 Angry Rules" and include it as Appendix:Angry in future DMG printings =)

Anyone have a map-drawing tool they really like appropriate for a complete hack like me? Let's stipulate that I'm nowhere near the level of trying techniques in fantastic maps, but that I'd like to give my players something better than a phone-photo of my pencil-drawn flowchart-cum-map.

nitsua60

17:09

Today's wisdom, courtesy of Jonathan Roberts:

> Mountains define the river heads of most major rivers. So, from every peak, there has to be a route to the sea that is all downhill. This is key to making your map believable. Water can flow up in a fantasy world, but it should only do so intentionally, rather than to help you out with accidental geography.

DuckTapeAl

...am I the only one who really doesn't like The Angry GM?

UrhoKarila

17:28

@DuckTapeAl Maybe. What do you dislike about him?

DuckTapeAl

Now that I'm thinking about it, there are two things I generally don't like about him.

I feel he spends so much time bashing on people who don't think like he does that I get bored before I get to the meat of the article.

And I've read a bunch of his articles where I just straight-up disagree with his conclusions.

Like, he frames something as truth from on high, and everyone else is doing it wrong, when it's really just that he has a way that works super well for him, and he doesn't like how the other way works.

UrhoKarila

18:59

@DuckTapeAl Yeah. It's kind of a shtick. I personally find it a bit amusing, but I haven't read most of his stuff.

I've liked what I've read of his so far, but that's a pretty important qualifier

nitsua60

@DuckTapeAl Oh, no, this is absolutely a thing I don't like. YOu're not the only one.

DuckTapeAl

@nitsua60 The worst was in the post about initiative.

nitsua60

(I'd love it if "The Nice GM" popped up, who copied all of Angry's posts but cut off the 30% of wasted space insulting people/schticking.)

DuckTapeAl

He spends like 500 words talking about how he, unlike other bloggers, doesn't write all kinds of extraneous information to bulk out a post.

UrhoKarila

And then cut out the excess profanity

nitsua60

19:00

But I find the analysis/commentary useful enough to tolerate the schtick.

DuckTapeAl

If that didn't sound like an absolutely massive amount of work, it would sound tempting to do. :P

nitsua60

(And, from what I've heard from people who know him IRL, it's not actually schtick--he's actually that way and just doesn't edit for mass consumption.)

UrhoKarila

It almost bothers me more that he obfuscates everything. It's clear what he means, and I've just wound up wasting time trying to figure out if all occurences of F%&$ are the same, or if he makes each one unique.

nitsua60

@DuckTapeAl In defense of this point--in a few posts he's made the point that everything he's saying is Gospel truth for his game.

But there's definitely a bunch of "skim the first three or ten paragraphs, hoping to get to some RPG-talk."

DuckTapeAl

@nitsua60 I think that's sort of a cop-out for him. You can't say "Everyone else does it wrong, here's the only good way to do it" and then say "oh, this only applies in my game".

Skathix

19:05

Sup

Well, Saturday is the big game

Tonight I'll be going over power specifics to see what we need to trim

Pretty stoked, I feel like there needs to be a better way to collaborate as DMs

DuckTapeAl

Co-DMing is definitely a challenge.

On several different levels.

Okay, super-random question: What do you call it when you cook a chunk of meat on the stove, in a pan?

I'm trying to find recipes for "grilled" salmon that I can make on my oven, but I don't know the right verb to be searching for.

Skathix

Sauteed

Pan-Fry

Pan Sear

DuckTapeAl

Turns out Pan-Fry was what I was looking for.

Thanks!

Skathix

Yep

Zachiel

20:30

I'm a simple man. I see a new RPG system, I like.

Then just one moment later I'm all "is it objective-based or action-based? And which do I like more?"

DuckTapeAl

What do you mean?

Zachiel

I've been convinced by some posts I read that the inherent problem with some RPGs is that their rules don't let the players try to get what they want. The rules let at most try to get something that hopefully will have the intended consequences. Compare "I try to intimidate him" with "I try to make him tell me where the treasure is"

DuckTapeAl

I see.

Zachiel

Also compare "I beat him to a pulp (and I hope he talks before he dies) to intimidate him" with "I want him to tell me what I need to know"

DuckTapeAl

I actually noticed a player of mine doing something like that the other day in my Fate game.

There was a mostly-intact house inside a woody bramble thing, and he kept asking me how much it was covered by the brambles, and whether the brambles went all the way over, and stuff like that.

Zachiel

20:37

This was in the context of a Dungeon World character who "to do it, does it" and risks getting told to roll for damage instead of being asked to roll for leverage"

DuckTapeAl

Eventually, I got a little exasperated and said, "What are you trying to do?" He replied, "I want to climb up to the top of the house".

I immediately responded, "Okay, you're at the top of the house." He was so used to D&D, Shadowrun, and other super action-based systems that he was trying really hard to justify climbing up the house, rather than just telling me that's what he was trying to do.

@Zachiel Ahh.

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel The terms of art here are Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution. Your “objective-based” = “conflict resolution”, and “action-based” = “task resolution”.

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie right. I used to use them but it's been two days since I saw that post and I couldn't recall them. Thanks.

No, wait, not clear enough. "Despite having passed two days already since I saw that post, The technical words had yet to come back to my mind". <-- better.

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel I tend to like conflict-resolution systems, but DW being task-resolution works much better for me than most. Since the instructions are to keep discussing what's actually happening until it's clear to everyone, it's task-based but manages to sneak in many of the benefits of conflict-based resolution via that conversation. It's a big reason “just say the move” is so strongly discouraged.

nitsua60

@DuckTapeAl I guess the other thing I'll say about Angry: who else is regularly doing analysis/commentary in that depth of the D&D/PF-style RPG scene these days? If there's someone producing that serious of work--perhaps, eve, without the 30% innanity--I'd love to be reading them!

DuckTapeAl

20:50

@nitsua60 Is 5th not your cup of tea?

I don't personally find 3.x and 5 to be all that different in play.

So for me, anything 5th-related works for the kinds of games that I'd usually use 3.x for.

Zachiel

I guess the guy who had problems with it ("I hear the same buzz in my brain with players trying to sneak their view of what I should rule in my brain", he said) is very baffled to why people likes task resolution or "task resolution that might work provided everybody consciously makes large efforts to keep it in check, and then there are a lot of players that are too used to D&D and don't follow DW's rules anyway - but the game still looks like it's working and that's bad".

DuckTapeAl

(I'm also sort of assuming that there are good, in-depth blog posts about 5th ed, when I don't actually have any proof that such things exist.)

nitsua60

21:09

@DuckTapeAl 5e is all of my play and much of my running these days; I'm not sure I'm following you...?

DuckTapeAl

You're asking if anyone is writing in-depth blog posts on 3.x-style games, and I'm saying that I would assume that a. such blog posts are being written about 5th edition these days and b. 3.x and 5th are basically the same style of game.

And, as a corollary, I'm assuming that people are writing posts like that about 5th at all.

nitsua60

@DuckTapeAl Sorry, by D&D/PF I meant 0e, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, PF, 4e, and 5e. D&D and Pathfinder.

DuckTapeAl

Aha.

nitsua60

(I probably would have said '3.x/PF' if I meant what I think you understood.)

DuckTapeAl

So, then, to clarify: No one is writing in-depth blog posts about 5th edition?

nitsua60

21:15

Now I know there are a lot of good blogs out there in that huuuuuge landscape I just identified, but the regularity and depth of Angry is, to my knowledge, unparalleled.

DuckTapeAl

I wouldn't know. I'm not really into that scene.

The most I do regarding that style of game these days is proofreading my buddy's DM's Guild stuff.

Shameless plug‌.

As of about a half hour ago, I now have two different answers that boil down to "5th edition is okay with things that are purely flavor" in my top ten answers by score.

BESW

22:51

"New ideas on using maps as a campaign planning and gameplay tool" Do we have your attention yet? #PayWhatYouWant http://drivethrurpg.com/product/193248/Blood-on-the-Trail--A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core?affiliate_id=24139

Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on September 15, 2016 at 10:34 PM

(I haven't had time to read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.)

trogdor

nice

weren't you talking about something like this a little bit ago?

BESW

I linked it when it first went live, yeah.

trogdor

ah, ok

BESW

23:21

I'm a little worried that they'll fall into the trap of blame-shifting real human tragedy onto supernatural, inhuman beings, but it's Evil Hat so I'm not very concerned.

Miniman

23:43

And today we have the Mary Sue of Mundane Weapons.

sequoiad

23:53

It's always a good feeling when the DM tries to pull a Kobayashi Maru to force you to run away... And the group somehow turns it around and wins

Shalvenay

@sequoiad hahaha xD

sequoiad

Through a combination of luck, stubbornness and creativity

DuckTapeAl

And insanity! Don't forget the insanity.

Shalvenay

hey there @DuckTapeAl

DuckTapeAl

Hey, @Shalvenay. Haven't seen you around in a while. How's tricks?

Miniman

23:56

@DuckTapeAl As if that ever happens at a D&D table.

DuckTapeAl

*"As if that ever stops happening at a D&D table."

FTFY

Shalvenay

@DuckTapeAl alright, hoping to get this DW thing off the ground long enough to get a feel for the system at least :)

sequoiad

@DuckTapeAl yep, insanity also played a big part :-D

DuckTapeAl

@Shalvenay Cool. Looking for players? :D

Adeptus

@sequoiad I had something like that in a published D&D3.x adventure. It said something like "The Roper is tougher than the PCs should be able to beat, so that they realise that sometimes it's better to run away." The party then beat it, in about 3 rounds.

(mostly due to recon & preparation)

sequoiad

23:59

He should have known the gut reaction of a group of MMO players is always to attack the big thing

BESW

If it has hit points, the PCs can kill it.

If it doesn't have hit points, the PCs can still make it cry.

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