TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:02

Yeah, I'm fond of "magic is unpredictably whimsical at the best of times, and don't give it excuses to go wacky."

I like magics that always do something notable, and never just fizzle.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, that can be fun actually -- had a 3.5e game that was high-magic enough to be that way xD

BESW

I... can't really imagine 3.5 supporting the kind of magic I prefer without heavy GM fiat that it's basically not using the 3.5 magic system anymore.

doppelgreener

00:18

@BESW i like the thing dresden files does with it.

BESW

Howso?

doppelgreener

if you want to do something notable on the spot, you have to draw out enough power to do the job. once that power's there, it's either going to do what you want it to do, or it's going to do its own thing. possibly explode.

BESW

I like the "internal or external" choice for losing control of power, but I'm not really fond of the... ah, lack of interesting options for what that power does.

Because "explode" is about the only option: do you explode, or do things around you explode?

It's a good choice, but not a lot of granularity or room for cool unexpected fallout.

"Wild" magic has the potential for so much more.

Like the time in 4e our bugbear turned purple. Or when Babbage's spaceship turned steampunk.

doppelgreener

i recall there was an option of "the GM gets that many shifts of magic to wreak havoc with." i presumed that meant things like "well, the magic decided to turn that house into a stone elemental instead", but without (i imagine) any firm guidelines on what to do with it.

BESW

Yeah, it's possible to read it that way, but none of the examples in the RPG material or the source material back it up.

Compare Shadowcraft, where magic ALWAYS does what you want it to--but if you fail your roll your body or mind takes on an attribute of the power you were channeling. Too much of that and you're lost to the power and stop being an individual person.

doppelgreener

00:26

@BESW none of which i was privy to. so i guess what i might've meant was: i like the impression i got of the thing i thought dresden files did with it. 8)

BESW

That's super narrow and strict, but within it is a lot of potential for awesome character choices because your new attributes can be very beneficial and are totally up to you within the theme of your power.

@doppelgreener That's fair.

doppelgreener

@BESW i do like what Shadowcraft does with that. it's in that narrow region that encourages creativity.

or seems to be, anyway.

BESW

Your magic always works. If you fail the roll, you get extra awesome stuff.

But if you get too much awesome stuff, that's really really bad.

doppelgreener

this sounds like it could go into Thing Explainer

BESW

Last week we were talking about curses, and this is exactly the formula for curses that I like.

doppelgreener

00:39

@BESW Oh? The two lines prior?

BESW

Yup.

Cursed items, cursed princesses, whatever, it's that balance of awesome-laced-with-awful that makes them fun in games for me.

It encourages the player to balance on the knife edge.

doppelgreener

like that thief's curse you gave a player! :D

BESW

Right.

doppelgreener

01:00

For a curse in Fate, I'd be happy with that or a curse that just says "you did bad. now you have bad stuff for a long time."

BESW

That'd work too.

I'm thinking about curses for that Egyptian setting, too, and trying not to fall into cliches...

doppelgreener

Cliches can be useful and fun. Don't avoid them too hard for their own sake!

BESW

Well, not cliches. Stereotypes.

doppelgreener

@BESW I'd get all the Bad Stuff complications, explore some good story connected to it, and maybe use my curse to my benefit sometime.

@BESW Oh, right. Bit more dangeous territory though. (Those can be useful and fun too though.)

BESW

One of the cool things about Fate in particular is that Bad Stuff comes built in with temptation to compel for more points.

doppelgreener

01:06

yes :D

BESW

@doppelgreener A major goal in that campaign is to avoid the popular misconceptions perpetuated by Egyptomania.

Ancient Egypt, especially the period I've chosen, is awesome and fascinating and fantastical enough without the exotic baggage the Victorian lens added on.

doppelgreener

That's quite fair then!

BESW

So, especially for magic and religion, I'm doing a fair amount of research into what they really had going on rather than what the version filtered through a Euro-centric monotheistic lens.

Why play in ancient Egypt if we're going to act like it's Rome or Novgorod?

doppelgreener

01:44

I can respect that. :D

Joel Harmon

04:10

@doppelgreener that's weirdly specific; I played a game with a friend wherein a house was possessed by a mountain spirit, also in Dresden Files Fate

Shalvenay

hey there @JoelHarmon

Joel Harmon

@BESW Why are you worried about viewing Egypt through a Euro-centric, monotheistic lens, but you are ok with doing the same to Rome or Novgorod?

hey @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon how're things going?

Joel Harmon

tired; went back to work this week, and generally didn't get enough sleep

I've also arranged two different Great Ork Gods games (thanks, chat!) for the next two weeks.

I should probably come up with something vaguely resembling a plot for them to smash to bits

BESW

@JoelHarmon They're examples of cultures that are commonly superimposed over the ancient Egyptian culture in Euro-centric, monotheistic-lensed materials.

Resulting in a generic blob of not-actually-anything-like-pantheism which more closely resembles D&D than any of the historical source materials.

Joel Harmon

04:19

my counter-assertion is (or was intended to be?) that modern Western views of Rome are just as colored on their own

that's what one gets when they have their own culture and are studying another

BESW

I'm not sure what you're countering with that assertion, as it's basically my point.

Joel Harmon

it seemed there was an implicit assumption in "Why play in ancient Egypt if we're going to act like it's Rome or Novgorod?" that modern views of Rome or Novgorod are clear and accurate, but were being projected onto Egypt; perhaps I'm simply tired enough to be reading into things

BESW

If I'd said, "Why play in Cree culture if we're going to act like it's Sioux or Yupik?" would you have read that assumption as implicit?

Joel Harmon

in other news, I'm suddenly very happy with Wizards of the Coast. I was reading [this question](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/65693/how-do-i-know-which-printing-of-the-phb-i-have) on versions of the PHB, which led me to the Credits page. It contains the following wonderful disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Wizards of the Coast is not responsible for the consequences of splitting up the party, sticking appendages in the mouth of a leering green devil face, accepting a dinner invitation from bugbears, storming the feast hall of a hill giant steading, angering a dragon of any variety, or saying…

@BESW I think the difference there is the explicit application of a frame of reference to one culture but not the others

BESW

I guess I don't see that application as non-explicit in the others.

I've even written an answer on this site about how monotheistic cultures tend to mis-read pantheons in general.

Joel Harmon

04:38

I think I read it as the following three sentences:
1. Egypt is cool without Victorian lens
2. I'm researching what they [Egypt] had going on without Euro-centric monotheistic lens
3. Why Egypt if we act like it's Rome or Novgorod?

BESW

So no, I didn't intend to say that our sense of Roman culture is any more accurate than our Egyptian, when I mentioned how we keep applying one to the other.

Joel Harmon

and just mixed up your intent because the previous sentences explicitly applied a lens to one

and now we've got a nice, page long conversation on how we miscommunicated :)

BESW

(In part because both were desirable for nations to associate themselves with, as a sign of the nation's respectability and lineage, which is why they kept hauling back obelisks or building their own.)

Anyway, I'm off to Troggy's birthday outing. ttfn.

Joel Harmon

happy birthday, troggy

3

Miniman

05:06

@JoelHarmon All of the 5e books have an awesome disclaimer along these lines.

I especially like the one for Princes of the Apocalypse.

Anaphory

08:34

@BESW I assume the things mentioned in ancient-origins.net/history/… are not qualifying because they are not interesting?

(And, of course, ignoring the second page.)

It looks like if you exclude "pharaoh" from your results, you get a few Egyptian inscriptions containing curses, some of them more interesting:

> His heart shall not be content in life (on a statue of Wersu, Dyn. 18)

> His name shall not exist in the land of Egypt (on a statue of the high priest Herihor, Dyn. 20-21)

> His office shall be taken away before his face and it shall be given to a man who is his enemy (on a statue of the scribe Amenhotep, Dyn. 18)

(that one is more interesting for the other parties involved)

BESW

09:27

@Anaphory This one is actually a great possible step in an ongoing plot.

Miniman

09:43

@trogdor Happy birthday!

trogdor

@Miniman it is not currently my birthday, but thank you

though this was technically an outing to celebrate it

Miniman

@trogdor The day the world learned to fear.

trogdor

lol

BESW

@Anaphory The second page is worth looking at for their sources: not a single .edu or Egyptian source, mostly clickbait and new age sensationalism.

Anaphory

10:10

@BESW Ah, makes sense.

BESW

The only "museum" on their list is a .ca whose mission statement doesn't really inspire confidence (though perhaps a little more than Ancient Origins' own credentials, that's a low bar).

Anaphory

10:24

How much scientific literature have you dug through for this game? And what kind of Egyptian sources?

BESW

I did a good bit of research when I started it a couple years ago, but I was less aware of the pitfalls and biases I was dealing with.

So I'm looking at digging into newer, more self-aware material.

I also have a bit more experience in locating actual scholarly texts, though there's still a TON of junk to sift through and I haven't spent a lot of time on it yet.

doppelgreener

10:47

@Ben I read your answer here and enjoyed where my mind went on that "easily picked out in a crowd" thing:

> Shopkeep: That's the one, officers! A dragonborn stole those weapons! It was him!
> Dragonborn: Oh, right, because all us dragonborn look the same, right? Just because I'm a dragonborn, I did it?
> Shopkeep: [to guards] He was a big, red, tall, spiky dragonborn! This man did it!
> Dragonborn: [while guards briefly frisk him] Oh yeah, a big red spiky dragonborn, never seen one of those before, well with a description like that it must have been me.
> Guard Captain: [moustache ruffle, grumpy voice] Sorry to have troubled you, sir. [leaves with shopkeeper while giving him some firm words]

(but did he do it or didn't he? ooOOoOOOooOOooooOooOooo.)

BESW

Heh. I was thinking more along to lines of...

> DB: Oh, no, don't look, it's Gary. Maybe he won't recognise me.
Gary: Red! Hey, Red! It's me, Gary! You remember, from the Horned King, I was your darts mate!
DB: Damnit. Hi, Gary.

doppelgreener

haha

Joel Harmon

11:12

@Miniman I had no idea (clearly)

Miniman

@JoelHarmon Yep, that's why I pointed it out :P

They're pretty easy to miss, really.

Joel Harmon

thanks, then!

doppelgreener

11:55

I cannot parse the sentence in the hat of disguise question. Does someone know better what it might mean?

BESW

@doppelgreener "accounted for."

doppelgreener

@BESW aha, that's what they meant.

BESW

You may also want to figure they mean "prices."

doppelgreener

@BESW Surely there might also be at least two princes available for commission for hatmaking though.

[corrects]

Shalvenay

20:05

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

trying to decide whether to follow the urge to halt execution on some analysis that' been running 16+ hours....

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ran that 5e oneshot I mentioned a while back last night

nitsua60

If I halt now I'll have to do some real digging around to salvage the >45% of the work that's been done; if I can just hold back until passing 50% it gets super-easy to use the results.

@Shalvenay Which one was that?

Shalvenay

20:16

@nitsua60 ah, it was the random-dungeon one I was running for a couple of the #giantitp folks

nitsua60

@Shalvenay cool--how'd it go?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 alright -- the PCs actually rolled quite well, making light work of the encounters. also, got to trot out harpies vs shriekers xD

"You know it's a good day when the harpies are singing victory hymns for you as you walk out of the dungeon" ;)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 sounds like only a handful more hours until it reaches at least 50%, if it's already at 45%. keep it running.

Zachiel

20:31

meanwhile, I tried pitching my PbF to a bunch of people on a PbF forum, and I got 11 views and 0 replies in two weeks.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel wow, what was the premise/theme?

Zachiel

"This is a game where you get tested as players, and roleplaying your character is only OK as long as it doesn't get in the way. Therefore, we shall metagame. Unexperienced D&D players need not apply."

Shalvenay

@Zachiel apparently that audience isn't into that sort of OSR-type thing

Zachiel

(Last time I tried this game without the premise, a player rolled a thief of the deity of traitors and lies, and kept trying to let the other players take risks first, instead of doing what rogues should do to "win" the dungeon.)

Unfortunately, nobody I know is into OSR. Immersive, "do what your character would do" players abound around Internet-me.

The fact that I'm spending an entire evening to roleplay the resurrection rituals for a guy when we could just have said "ok, it has happened" might speak for itself.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel hrm...are they more "your character's behavior is what your character's behavior is" or more "your character's behavior is OK insofar as it doesn't get in the way of 'the story', whatever that might be"?

doppelgreener

20:42

@Zachiel if that's the whole ad, there's not much there to go on

i'd be interested in knowing what sort of scenario we're going through, what edition, and what we would be doing specifically beyond "i'm being tested, somehow roleplaying is not at the forefront". we'll metagame, ok?

i only know you mean you want to run an OSR-type challenge module presently, but i am not interested in being tested personally (i'm not sure what that would mean -- do i get assessed? i would rather not be assessed)

you may have the wrong audience (i don't know either way), but i think you also need more detail on what's going on in the game you want to run

Zachiel

@Shalvenay There's some workable range. I think they've been reading that column about why "that's what my guy would do" is not always the best thing to say. Most do not like PvP and avoid it at all costs.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel ah.

Zachiel

@doppelgreener Ah, well, here in chat I just summarized the most problematic parts. In my pitch I said it was D&D 4e, that it was a deadly dungeon where the survival of humanity is at stake, and other details.

doppelgreener

ah alright, that's other good detail that would be important

might just be the wrong target audience, yeah

nitsua60

21:00

That's absolutely the right call, logically. I was fighting the urge to just CTRL-C because I wants to sees the analysis....
Then, I mis-clicked and opened a second instance of the IDE, crashing everything. So, here I sit with 48.715% of the 50% that would have been easy to work with =\

All 'cause I couldn't just step away and not push any buttons.

doppelgreener

oh nooooooooooooooooooooooo T_T

@nitsua60 [backrubs]

Zachiel

@nitsua60 T_T

nitsua60

(Also, the computational load was preventing me from developing the other utility I'm going to need, so I can work on that now. Then I'll let the 1.285% run while I'm at rehearsal.)

Thanks, all =)

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Wait, I thought you'd need to run it from scratch

doppelgreener

@BESW Good morning!

nitsua60

21:04

@Zachiel No, it's just that I'll have to spend a half-hour re-jiggering things to start from the break point--part of that being the work to exactly identify where the "break" point was--rather than starting from scratch.

BESW

Hey.

Zachiel

@nitsua60 then it's good.

@BESW hey.

nitsua60

@Zachiel Yeah, it's really on the scale of "I've got a hangnail that's really bugging me, and it's an hour 'til I get home to take care of it" annoyances =)

Miniman

@Zachiel You might have a mismatch recruiting OSR players for a D&D 4e game.

Shalvenay

Yeah, 4e isn't balanced that way, basically :P

Miniman

21:19

That's not what I meant - it doesn't matter whether 4e is a good or bad choice for an OSR game (and I have no idea if it is). But most people looking for an OSR game probably aren't looking for a 4e game.

doppelgreener

mm, D&D 4e is very very very unlike the OD&D-BD&D-AD&D games which define the feeling of OSR

Zachiel

I don't feel I'm being very clear when telling people "it's going to be a fourthcore game" and then "what's fourthcore?" - "oh, it's just D&D 4e with an OSR mindset"

doppelgreener

might want to explain in what way fourthcore has an OSR mindset: lethally dangerous traps and creatures, with deaths expected, possibly many of them, and some kind of provision for respawning accordingly.

(i got those words by sifting through google results for "what is fourthcore" until i found a decent short explanation)

BESW

"OSR" is... not a really descriptive word. It's kinda like "horror." You get a vague sense of what's going on, but it could mean so many things inside that broad category.

To me, OSR doesn't have anything to do with roleplaying styles.

Zachiel

You know what, I shall translate my pitch for you to see.

doppelgreener

21:40

Sure!

Zachiel

"Player search - for "tomb of horrors"-style adventure.

Hello everybody.

A friend who moved abroad asked me to organize a PbF game so that he can join.

I have no idea when we can start but I'm making an initial survey to see if anyone is interested.

I'd need 4 players that:
-Know the D&D 4e ruleset (preferable) or are ok with learning it (as my friend needs to do). This adventure starts and ends at level 1.
-Are long-time D&D players (any edition). Your knowledge about the D&D world will be more useful to you than your character's knowledge.

doppelgreener

"This adventure starts and ends at level 1. " should mention this and how long you plan for it to take (one session? two?) further up, since that's not part of what the players will be like!

"have an old-school mindset" automatically eliminates most people into D&D 4e, like BESW said. You only have two actual bullet points about the players, you're describing the game at this point. Just say it's fourthcore, don't say the players have to have an old-school mindset. The third and fourth bullet points are just the game description, take them out of that list.

Reorganise it like this:

- Brief summary of the game being a short level-one one-shot fourthcore (extremely dangerous) game.
- Describe briefly what you're looking for in players.
- Describe the game, like you've done here, but concentrate it into one section. Explain briefly what fourthcore means and how this affects the game. Explain it's super lethal and challenging, and there'll be lots of resurrection.
- Describe the remainder, the PbF method you're using, etc.

Zachiel

21:56

@doppelgreener It is a play by forum, there's no sessions (unlike a play by chat). I do agree that it might make sense to mention it early but it was there just to remind them that they don't need to learn all of D&D 4e, just level 1 things.

BESW

[pedantry] Miniman said OSR folks are going to find 4e a hard sell regardless of the reality of 4thcore or the specific campaign. I said OSR is a vague term.

Zachiel

I will take a look at the reorganisation I can do based on your list tomorrow (I'm heading to bed now), thank you for your suggestion.

By the way, point 3 was there because the previous players I had utterly failed at that. Mostly because the chat we used to manage this sort of things became socialization chat and I had to move all technicalities to separate "what do you want to do this turn?" mechanical discussions. Probably a bad move on my part.

Miniman

@BESW [pedantry squared] Actually, I said it might be a mismatch. It's not a question of whether you can sell it to them, it's whether they're even looking at your pitch.

Zachiel

@Miniman (In a forum mainly inhabited by 3.5e and PF players)

BESW

...that's a tough crowd for stuff that's OSR or 4e, much less both at once.

Zachiel

22:04

@BESW Aye!

BESW

Does 4thcore support easy use of actual early D&D adventure modules, or is the mechanical translation labor-intensive?

BESW

22:23

I have found a wonderful vanity Twitter: endless screaming.

2

doppelgreener

@BESW that's fantastic

BESW

It's got something for everyone!

doppelgreener

@BESW mostly screaming!

the great thing about @infinite_scream is that the world is terrible so every time it tweets it will appear to be reacting to your timeline

Tweeted by NoraReed on October 14, 2015 at 3:47 AM

BESW

Also Munch.

BESW

23:21

...oh. oh. oh. Looking at RPG Kickstarters gives me so many sympathy pains.

> The Book of Tor has more options without sacrificing complexity. That's right, our classes are just as, if not more intricate than our competitors, yet also more abundant. You have much more free range to create a character, and to tell a story.

I also like the one that says it's systemless, then lists four systems it supports and says you can vote for more systems if you back it.

Miniman

It's all part of the learning process (hopefully).

BESW

On the bright side, I just found "a tabletop role-playing game about brotherhood, sacrifice, and death - all part of the Motorcycle Samurai lifestyle."

(The author is Kickstarting a Voltron-y game using similar mechanics)

trogdor

23:38

hehehehe

motobushido

BESW

@trogdor I'm downloading the free text-only version, if you're interested.

trogdor

I like the concept anyway

BESW

@Miniman ...and then there's the Kickstarters with descriptions so poorly edited I'm not sure what they're saying, which makes me doubtful the promised game will be playable.

"You do are the fearless," indeed, Kickstarterer.

trogdor

lol

doppelgreener

@BESW that's what systemless means though right? you can translate it to lots of systems. and they totally will, for you, for money! :) /s

BESW

23:51

@doppelgreener Turns out, they're writing up narrative-only descriptions and then adding as many crunch blocks as they can raise money for. So yeah?

Shalvenay

oh lovely -- @nitsua60 broke his DM, LOL

Miniman

@BESW It's a bit of a worry whenever someone tries to market a piece of writing using poor writing.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay (???)

Miniman

@nitsua60 The Sharpshooter question.

(That was my first thought too.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yup, the sharpshooter question

nitsua60

23:57

@Miniman ahh.... That's a strange characterization, methinks? My GM and I worked together, talked with the other players, and have so far been happy with how things are going. It sounds like this player and GM have a bit of an expectations-mismatch to work out?

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