TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:00

If you've really given up on your existing circles of friends, check out your Friendly Local Game Store, or local gaming groups on Google Plus. Or look for online gaming on platforms like Roll20 or Storium.

doppelgreener

Is this that scenario where you planned a game for five people but only two or three can turn up to any particular session?

BESW

I had my group fall apart for a year, and then rebuilt it as a "Anybody who wants to come to my house on Saturday night is welcome, and we'll probably play RPGs" thing. It meant totally re-structuring how I run games.

Tarinaky

That /was/ the scenario... Then I started planning games for 3 people... and 1 or 2 showed up... Then I started planning games for 1 or 2... and nobody showed up.

I've run out of friends I can bribe with alcohol to come over. Lol.

doppelgreener

I've found that adulthood means that for any given thing, we should reasonably expect that Life(tm) means half, or maybe one or two, can't attend reliably. (And who is unable to attend differs between sessions.)

BESW

We run episodic campaigns where each session is a self-contained 'episode' but they come together to make a 'season' of story.

Tarinaky

00:02

I'm prepared to entertain the possibility that I am a terrible GM.

doppelgreener

Yeah it's not a terrible GM thing, it's life and being an adult.

Tarinaky

I work long, but regular, hours... Which is probably worse than irregular hours.

Because I don't get breaks.

BESW

GMing is a skill, not an in-born trait. It takes practice and reflection to get better, like any other skill.

And even then, I had to un-learn a lot of my D&D-style GMing habits before I could be any good at running my current games.

Tarinaky

I know. My old group wouldn't let me run anything except Shadowrun because I ran a lot of homebrew stuff when I was learning to GM and was bad at it.

doppelgreener

That's rough. :(

BESW

00:04

Doing things wrong can be a good path to learning the right way.

Tarinaky

Last time I ran D&D (one shot, regular DM couldn't make it) the comment of the group was that what I ran was not D&D. I never learned the D&D habits :P

doppelgreener

@Tarinaky It's not uncommon that gaming groups coming from the classical big games (D&D, shadowrun, gurps, world of darkness) can branch out, happen to run another game badly, and then decide other games are garbage and dig their heels in with only doing the one thing they know they can do well. (but with the perception it's the only game that's good, not aware the difference is they know how to do that one well.)

BESW

[eyeroll] There's no such thing as D&D. The franchise deliberately obscures any kind of coherent vision of itself so that it can try to be all things to all players.

Shalvenay

@Tarinaky what was the game like?

@BESW yeah, exactly.

Tarinaky

@Shalvenay Honestly, imagine Shadowrun in Fantasy setting. The party were hired by a Prince in disguise to steal a painting that they later learned was evidence said prince was illigitimate.

BESW

00:06

@doppelgreener This happened to me with Mage (drove me back into the d20 System fold) and then with SG-1 (drove me away from even non-D&D-3.5 versions of the d20 System). Took me years to break out of that bubble again.

Tarinaky

(Innuendo, the prince was depicted sat in-front of the King's Consort, not his wife)

Shalvenay

@Tarinaky xD that actually sounds like a pretty reasonable little quest

BESW

Maybe not as much combat as they expected?

Tarinaky

There were neither Dungeons, nor Dragons. The painting was in the posession of the Prince's older brother who had been turned into a Vampire (by an earlier plot of the Prince to force the older brother into Exile and disqualify him for inheritance)

I warned the party ahead of time to make Rogues.

BESW

Bah. I once ran a D&D 3.5 session in which we shopped at a market and bought an itinerant seller a dog to keep him company on the long lonely journeys between towns.

Tarinaky

00:10

Anyway. I'm keeping that mission in my bank to run again some time. It was fun.

BESW

It does sound fun.

Shalvenay

@Tarinaky -- yeah, it sounds like they were expecting a hack-and-slashy dungeoncrawl instead of a courtly intrigue game

BESW

It seems like a big problem you're facing is a group that doesn't synchronise game expectations before sitting down to play.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah

BESW

That's... unfortunately common, and related to the "geek fallacy" that our friends must like exactly what we like. Happily there are a lot of tools for addressing it in RPGs.

doppelgreener

00:13

my own perspective to RPGs with any arbitrary group of friends is that i will always have ideas on standby -- but i can't force anyone to help me make them real. instead i need to find out what the gaming group wants. it may not be the thing i was hoping for, but hopefully i can work something out. if we figure out what they want is something like what i'd got on standby -- wow! i can offer that. if they latch onto it great! if not, let's keep thinking.

Tarinaky

@BESW In this case, the party had their expectations properly managed and had fun. It's just they felt the game would have been better run using a different system.

They just felt it... wasn't D&D.

It was fun in-spite of the system etc...

Shalvenay

a-ha. D&D is indeed not the optimal system for intrigue-based games even within its scope of setting.

doppelgreener

i've had a story idea i started up in D&D 4e but didn't get to really play through, because my friends decided they weren't all that into fantasy stories. that's ok! i can't make them be into fantasy stories. i've had groups since but they haven't been looking for that kind of story, that's ok, we came up with other fun stories. (more fun, in fact.) i may find a group into that, and if so i have something ready waiting for them.

more recently, BESW who I play TTRPGs with just suggested i use that exact game scenario for some game testing of a fantasy-oriented RPG I'd been drafting up. that's a good opportunity. :P

trogdor

@doppelgreener I am trying to think of it in that way as well

BESW

@doppelgreener I'd love to play in Bastion for extended periods too.

doppelgreener

00:16

@BESW hurrah!

i've got studying leverage and faith corps on my backlog, and then that'll be a thing available i can facilitate.

BESW

@Tarinaky I've got two or three scenarios that I've tried at least once or twice each and still haven't nailed down what system is best for them.

Tarinaky

I don't really know what system I'd use for that 'style' of game in future. I have my grievances about FATE and OpenLegend but they're probably the two best picks.

BESW

For Greener and I, the key to happy gaming is finding/nurturing a group of friends who are here to play games with friends first, and so even if the game itself turns out to be a flop, we still had a fun night with friends.

doppelgreener

BESW's had a scenario simmering for like five years that was originally planned for the Stargate SG-1 game system he mentioned, and he just noticed @trogdor and I are a pretty good fit for it, because he relatively recently found out I was into that show -- around which time I rewatched the first four seasons for the first time since I was a kid.

BESW

That process included easing the social tension between GM and players, and relaxing/removing attendance penalties.

Tarinaky

00:19

I could probably try backfitting some stuff onto OpenLegend to fix my complaints, but houserules suck.

And OpenLegend needs a lot of work :(

trogdor

mm, my personal key is having people I can stand being around for several hours, I am not the fondest person of social interaction, but the group we have together are all people I actually like spending time with XD

doppelgreener

@Tarinaky I am curious - what was the last fate system you used?

Tarinaky

Core.

doppelgreener

oh! alright

people coming from oldschool games (D&D especially) tend to have a weird experience with fate

D&D players tend to think it's all about combat when arguably combat is the least interesting part of Fate

Tarinaky

This was with the group from Uni. I ran a FATE Core game for about 6 months, although we barely got to play in that time.

doppelgreener

00:23

.... i'm not sure how World of Darkness players fare actually

Tarinaky

I was running a scenario based on the Githyanki Incursion from Dragon magazine.

Very intrigue heavy.

doppelgreener

neato

darn githyanki, stealing our jobs

Tarinaky

Literally.

They had the Royal Monopoly on producing Magic-juice revoked from the alchemist's guild and given to the Royal Bodyguard of Sneeple their imposter-King created.

doppelgreener

hahaha! bodyguard of sneeple?

like, snake people?

Tarinaky

I mean that tongue-in-cheek.

Not literal Snake People.

doppelgreener

00:27

that's fantastic still

Tarinaky

But Githyanki in disguise.

doppelgreener

(... or are they yuan-ti in disguise....)

Tarinaky

I was going for the Sneeple from XCOM 2

They had better tech.

The 'tell tale' was that in-setting Magic required a magical resource. Normally, it was dissolved in Alcohol... but the Githyanki preferred to store it inside crystals.

Which was actually an excuse for me to work in a RIFTS reference by having the Githyanki Power Armour be called 'Glitterboys'

doppelgreener

are you saying there are wizards who are basically drunk

because i like the idea of that

Tarinaky

They don't drink it.

doppelgreener

00:29

that's like, rick 'n morty rick wizards

Tarinaky

The alcohol is just a solvent.

It's Life Force dissolved in a solvent.

doppelgreener

well but... could they?

Tarinaky

There were shades of Full Metal Alchemist about the setting.

Because Alchemists Guild :)

doppelgreener

if you handed me a glass vial of magical alcohol in a fate game i'd seriously consider having my character seriously consider drinking it

aw yeah, FMA

BESW

@doppelgreener [offers fate point]

trogdor

00:31

lol

doppelgreener

@BESW .... [gluglugluglugluglugluglug]

Tarinaky

Anyway, one of the themes of the game was that there were multiple ways of creating the substance that resulted in a different, but equivalent, product.

So legally produced Quintessence (produced by the Alchemist Guild) was indigo.

BESW

@doppelgreener You are now magically drunk. You can sing with all the flavours of the fish.

Tarinaky

Quintessence smuggled into the city by the Spiderkin Gang was scarlet.

And the Githyanki used crystals.

doppelgreener

@BESW @trogdor Whenever we start up Amaterasu again I'm gonna have someone seriously looking into making magical alcohol a thing if it's setting-compatible.

BESW

00:32

Must dash, got a client. ttfn

doppelgreener

You may assist them if you wish.

@BESW ttfn!

trogdor

@doppelgreener that would be hilarious, are you saying it would be like, a quest?

doppelgreener

@trogdor well. in a sense. if you consider "we're gonna help someone invent alcohol that is literally magical" a quest. which i would. albeit not a very heroic one. but definitely an awesome one.

trogdor

well obviously, we would need specific ingredients, and to gain the assistence of some NPC or other who would probably need convincing

doppelgreener

(darn, i can't find comic panels of Dr Dinosaur talking about SO MANY CRYSTALS on google images)

@Tarinaky sounds scandalous.

Tarinaky

00:52

vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/rifts/images/b/b9/…

Adeptus

@doppelgreener I tried a search "for Dr Dinosaur crystals" and one of the results was this...

doppelgreener

@Adeptus that's appropriate

@Tarinaky very cool

Tarinaky

Unfortunately RIFTS is a terrible game :P

Shalvenay

@Tarinaky how so?

Tarinaky

You know how I started with 3e Shadowrun and am comfortable with systems you'd consider Rules Heavy?

Adeptus

00:55

Tarinaky

And that 3e Shadowrun is a mess, rules wise.

doppelgreener

@Adeptus yes excellent :D

Shalvenay

yeah, I have heard that SR is a mess, rules wise

Tarinaky

RIFTS is worse.

Shalvenay

so I take it RIFTS is to SR 3e as SR 3e is to say...Fate Core?

Tarinaky

00:56

Basically.

The art work is great though.

somethingawful.com/dungeons-and-dragons/wtf-dnd-rifts/1

doppelgreener

for those unaware: Dr Dinosaur is ostensibly a dromaeosaurus with a vendetta against mammals. but he's inaccurately represented (he doesn't even have feathers!) and the protagonist's theory is he's some mad genetics experiment gone awry.

Dr Dinosaur is from Atomic Robo which is a print comic and now also a webcomic. He's also featured in the first volume, the beginning of which I've linked to. It is also a Fate RPG: atomic-robo

Tarinaky

The only 'gamer story' I've ever heard about RIFTS involves the nightmare son of the narrator's Landlord who demanded the narrator GM for him, and wore diapers so as not to miss any gaming despite there being no other players. And threw a hissy fit if the narrator wanted to take any breaks - to the point the narrator would escape to the toilet if they needed 5 minutes to plan more material.

Oh, that and the joke that you get XP for every succeeded skill check, so you can level up by doing backflips over and over again.

RIFTS is special.

Shalvenay

...quite.

it makes 3.5e look sane by comparison, and that's a feat.

Tarinaky

IDK how deserving it is of the reputation for crazy. It's not FATAL.

doppelgreener

that scenario sounds like a violation of the geneva convention.

Tarinaky

01:09

It's only a story.

The kind you tell to frighten people :P

If anyone wants to come over to my house and GM for me and my partner, I homebrew Mead :P

doppelgreener

yum.

on which continent do you live?

Tarinaky

The Disunited Kingdrom of Brexit

I need to go to sleep soon. Work tomorrow :(

daze413

is it really best practice to call for a break when the player's do something you haven't planned for?

Tarinaky

If you need to.

nitsua60

@daze413 system?

doppelgreener

01:24

@daze413 @BESW used to do this regularly. gave me it as a piece of advice. plan for possibilities, and if the players really throw you for a loop, call for a few minutes snack break while you plan for what to do next.

nitsua60

"prep" vs. "plan" is also a helpful paradigm, I've found.

daze413

@nitsua60 dnd5e. I prep minimally and plan heavily, I find.

nitsua60

@daze413 btw, hi!

Magician

@Shalvenay Yes, but what are the feat's prereq's?

3

daze413

@nitsua60 oh hai. o_o

trogdor

01:33

@Magician a certain low level of sanity obviously

BESW

@daze413 From my very first days as a GM, "Take a snack break, I need to review my notes" was a valuable tool in my box.

nitsua60

Does this question need work on its last line? It strikes me as a good, possibly great (depending on the answers it generates) question, but perhaps VTCable as-is?

@BESW There's also something to letting the rhythm of a session have an ebb and flow, rather than just a monotone pace....

BESW

@nitsua60 Absolutely.

Shalvenay

hey again @nitsua60 and hey there as well @daze413

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 "what did you do and how did it work for you" is boilerplate survey talk

and is going to generate a survey

because people are going to answer what they did how it worked for them

"personally i performed satanic rituals beforehand and i can't say how well it worked for me but i can't conclusively say it didn't work"

if you've seen guardians of the galaxy, they present twelve percent of a problem

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy clip - 12 percent of a plan | HD

►

nitsua60

01:50

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

also hey there @Eidolon108

Eidolon108

heyo

daze413

heyyy @Shalvenay

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Yeah, it's clearly problematic. I left a rambling comment. Maybe it's because I'm tired I can't put a fine point on it? Or because I'd really like to see good answers?

daze413

@nitsua60 just like my question on bribing players to switch classes

doppelgreener

01:54

@nitsua60 past midnight i absolve myself from attempting to resolve issues like this

Shalvenay

how're things going?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 also the whole problem statement is this:

> I received some feed back from 2 of my PC that is more difficult to get into the "RP mood", easier to leave the mood and that the feeling is less good during online session than when we were around the table.

which begs the question, what's the actual problem they're dealing wiith? because this is so vague a description of the problem it's not a description of the problem at all

first of all "RP mood" is not exactly a thing

daze413

@Shalvenay bummer. A player (if you remember the macho player that teared up during our Out of the Abyss game) dropped out and we're left with 3 people. I should start widening my player base, not that I can GM for them all...

doppelgreener

it's a thing to those players, but there's a reason the querent put it in quotes

second of all it happens exclusively with only 2 players

and we have no statement of their experience

third we have no understanding of what problem this presents. what does practical effect does being in "RP mood" have on anyone?

it sounds like the players kinda-sorta don't really feel like playing? is that it? because they don't say that's it. the players also don't express why. and the querent doesn't describe what it is they see that's going on.

Shalvenay

@daze413 awww man. I'm trying to figure out what time (of week) I should try paying a visit to my FLGS

daze413

02:00

@Shalvenay what're you visiting for??

doppelgreener

i rescind my earlier comment because 12% of a description of the problem is an over-quantification; this is some fraction of a percent of a description of something that isn't, in fact, a description of any solvable probelm at all so much as a thing that just happens.

Shalvenay

@daze413 mostly to see what sorts of opportunities there are there for a RL game group

daze413

@Shalvenay to challenge the wisdom of actually going out, is there a facebook page for the FLGS? How active is it and can you post interest there, like an LFG forum?

Shalvenay

@daze413 I don't use BaceFook.

BESW

02:27

Commercial pages for G+ and Facebook tend to be publicly accessibly without an account.

daze413

@Shalvenay oh... well... you should just go whenever, then. Also, what BESW says.

Shalvenay

@daze413 I'll take a quick look at what they have and see when the last post is (I was more referring to the idea of posting interest there though)

BESW

At every FLGS I've ever been to (which is not many), there's a corkboard for posting about RPGs--LFP, LFG, open games in the store, etc.

So no matter when you go, there's at least an indication of the store's value as a hub.

Adeptus

My local store doesn't have a board. But there's almost always people playing card or miniature games at the tables, and the facebook page is quite active. And the staff are usually helpful

Shalvenay

so -- looking at their calendar, they have an open night on Saturdays, what might be a regular PF game latenite on Fridays, and something they call a "Guild Ball" wed nights/sat afternoons

BESW

02:35

Well that sounds promising.

Shalvenay

yeah -- try the open night first perhaps?

Eidolon108

How many of you run more than one game at a time, for different groups? If I wasn't crushed between school and work, I'd consider DMing for AL at the FLGS next door to my house on top of my regulars, but curious how many actually manage it.

BESW

I don't think my FLGS knows what Facebook is, and its corkboard had a lonely "Looking For Group" index card that said "Nick" wants to play 3.5... or any other D&D edition... or any system, really.

Shalvenay

@Eidolon108 I do not, mostly because I'm not organized enough to manage a long-form campaign to begin with :P

BESW

I've run a regular Saturdays game for years, and in the last couple months I've also been in a short Tuesdays game where every other week I'm a player in Dungeon World, and alternate weeks I'm running a couple of the players through one-shots as a kind of Tour of the RPG Experience.

Even in my Saturday game, a key to sustainability is not getting too invested in running a single coherent long-form game.

Episodic adventures within the same world, and independent one-shots, are the name of the game.

Eidolon108

02:39

I think that makes sense. We might break out of CoS at some point to let the other DM in the group do his thing, we stopped about halfway through his OotA campaign.

Shalvenay

I guess the other question is "how should I prepare for such a thing?"

BESW

What thing?

@Eidolon108 Breaking down GM/player role barriers has also been very helpful for me.

Shalvenay

@BESW oh, sorry, my first visit to said FLGS

Eidolon108

@Shalvenay If you mean running a long-form campaign, I'm not sure being organized in the sense of making lots of prep helps at all. But i'm still new-tier DM.

Ah

Shalvenay

I suspect the Open Game Night would be the time to try it, but I'm not sure if I should be doing any prep before heading to such a thing

BESW

02:45

@Eidolon108 Preparing plot helps not at all. Preparing context can be very useful.

2

Eidolon108

that is a nice answer @BESW

Adeptus

@Eidolon108 I was playing in one monthly(ish) game and running another monthly(ish) with a different group. But the one I was GMing folded due to players switching to weekend work.

BESW

@Shalvenay Brush your teeth.

There was a brief period in college where I was running three games and playing in a fourth every week.

That was not (and thankfully was never intended to be) sustainable.

Shalvenay

@BESW xD yes

nitsua60

03:01

@Shalvenay Sorry--a bunch of kids swarmed me with math questions. And, being a swarm, they resist bludgeoning damage. So my usual teaching methods go out the window.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hahaha :P

Eidolon108

@BESW That sounds terrifying but also fun

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, playing in 3 is the most I've ever managed at once

nitsua60

@Eidolon108 two or three, depending on how you count sporadic sessions.

@BESW This makes me want to get hundreds of TTRPGers, LARPers, CRPGers, to crash Guam for a week and throw a raging "NickCon."

Eidolon108

@nitsua60 How much of your life does it consume?

Maybe that sounded bad. I would gladly let tabletop consume my life.

Shalvenay

03:09

@nitsua60 LOL

nitsua60

03:28

@Eidolon108 Well, One game runs roughly every-other week (hi, guys!) and doesn't take too much prep. Well less time prep then spent in-sessions. 5e student group I run published adventures (~2 sessions/3 weeks), so not too hard on the prep there. Another was/is high prep, but it's very intermittent in its meeting frequency.

night, all

Fibericon

I'm running a fate game at the moment that takes almost no prep. For those of you who've been following, the players almost figured out my world gimmick. They had the answer, but convinced themselves it was wrong.

Shalvenay

@Fibericon wow xD

Fibericon

"It must be an illusion"

BESW

03:48

(Ironically?) one of the most prep-heavy systems I use these days is cthulhu-dark. I can do more prep for Fate, but I rarely do.

(I'll probably be doing an unusual amount of prep for the Fate Accelerated SG-1 campaign, though, just because it's got more rails that I usually put into a Fate game. Experimental!)

bubblegumshoe has a lot of prep before a campaign starts, much less during the game.

It's emblematic of the "prepare the context, not the plot" paradigm.

Fibericon

I prepped for the first session, and I find reference images for areas I expect the players to go to, but that's it.

BESW

Cthulhu Dark prep doesn't look like much at the end of the day, but it's the hardest stuff for me to prep.

Compare Fate, where prep essentially boils down to "describe the cool stuff you think we might encounter."

Magician

04:05

@BESW What makes Cthulhu Dark so prep-heavy?

BESW

05:32

@Magician For me, it's a lot of work to devise the interlocking layers which lead into each other.

Also, for anything horror related I need to put more time in ahead to consider how I'm going to create atmosphere.

Magician

06:11

@BESW What are these layers you speak of?

BESW

@Magician GM prep consists of devising five layers, or stages, that the investigators progress through. Each layer is just a set of incidents, experiences, or clues which might be encountered, and which hint at or lead toward the items on the next layer. It's set out like a pyramid with the horror at the top and mundane weirdness at the bottom.

Magician

Hm. Is there a separate rules doc describing this?

BESW

Once the investigators have encountered at least two things from one player, the GM has permission to start adding things from the next layer to the story.

Yup. It's linked in the tag wiki.

Magician

Ah-ha, that's what I've been missing, thanks.

BESW

The GM prep is really important to the Cthulhu Dark experience, I think. It meshes with the insanity progression nicely to create a solid escalation of tension.

Usually investigators blow through layers one and two very quickly, plateau on layer four for a while, then run around screaming in layer five until things resolve one way or another.

BESW

07:31

Which pairs better with The World's End, They Live or Terminator?

trogdor

why not just those two together? XD

BESW

I'm planning double features for the Cornetto Trilogy. Dawn of the Dead is the obvious pairing for Shaun of the Dead and Point Break seems absolutely necessary to match with Hot Fuzz, but the mate for The World's End is less obvious to me.

Alternately: what's a better film than The World's End to pair with either They Live or Terminator?

doppelgreener

13:18

@BESW attack the block? as an alien incursion film

BESW

13:29

Hmm.

doppelgreener

I can't think of anything that shares similar thematic beats

Tarinaky

13:55

My partner likes the idea of doing a one-on-one rpg... But only if I GM.

I think they really want for me to run VtM, but it's not a rule set I know well enough, and I never know what to do with the setting.

So I've tried to steer them to OpenLegend as a compromise between me wanting to do something rules light, and them hating FATE.

We're going to have a conversation about the setting of the game tonight.

doppelgreener

Depending on what you're thematically after, people in this chat room ought to be ale to suggest a variety of games.

Tarinaky

I'm not sure. Truthfully I feel too burned out to GM...

doppelgreener

what're you feeling about that role?

BESW was the dedicated GM by coincidence for his groups for almost the entirety of a decade, he certainly found it fun to be able to be a player when trogdor and I started GMing as well.

Tarinaky

I don't have a story I want to tell.

I'm hoping to work through the campaign creation rules in FATE to try and get them to design as much of the plot as possible.

But I don't have the energy to fill in a 3x3 or 5x5 plot :/

doppelgreener

what's a 3x3/5x5?

Tarinaky

14:06

Err, basically it's a grid of scenes, the columns are plot threads and it describes the key scenes of the plot and how you get from one scene to the next.

doppelgreener

huh, sounds like an interesting narrative management technique

Tarinaky

I find it helps.

doppelgreener

BESW's group and I have found a lot of fun in doing one-shots recently.

That's in part because we have a lot of different games we like or are interested in. we have a main story going on, but in about half the nights we're just doing a one-shot in some new system or one we've used and know we like.

given ~2-3 hours we can comfortably cover as much plot as a ten-minute TV show segment, i.e. about as much plot as is found in a ten-minute episode of Steven Universe or Adventure Time.

We hopefully have fun with the story and game (hooray!). We've got no commitment to pick either back up or build it into something big. However, if we do want to do that, we can size it up and see what we'd like to do with it.

sequoiad

I'm running a one-shot d&d tonight for the first time as a sidestory to our main campaign and give the regular DM a break

kinda excited for it

doppelgreener

cool. :)

sounds great.

i hope you enjoy yourself.

sequoiad

14:15

I'm hoping everyone else will, more than anything

Tarinaky

I'm terrified my partners going to come up with this setting, be all 'I can't wait to play' and I'm just sat there with no idea what to even do.

Normally I have months of material when I start a game and cut down as we go.

Tarinaky

14:42

Normally when I 'improv' GM something like Shadowrun I just reuse old material I have memorised.

doppelgreener

15:43

@Tarinaky sounds a bit like the intimidating blank slate, a state where everything's an available option so you have no idea what to do

it's generally found that creativity increases proportionately to constraints, so some constraints on what you can do will help in that scenario

BESW

21:07

@Tarinaky Especially with twosies, it's valuable to collaborate with the player to make sure the story works for everyone. There are a number of tools and strategies for doing this at various levels of detail and prep so you can both feel comfortable with it.

I like to use systems which ask the players to define their characters' motives and goals pretty specifically; that usually makes it clear what kind of plot is gonna happen.

Leading questions like "What's the problem in your town everyone's talking about?" can be helpful too.

D&D-like games tend to just create independent characters with little connecting them to the world or investing them in any struggle beyond the meta-narrative of personal advancement through XP and loot.

But it's pretty easy to add ties, motives, goals, and other forms of personal investment in the setting. Plots then emerge from how those elements criss-cross and conflict.

This lets the twosie game be about the character in ways which traditional adventures seldom can be. It's an intimate form with opportunities you just don't get in larger groups. There's no spotlight sharing, no need for an external motive to bind the group: the "plot" can simply be the character's inner struggle to achieve some very personal goal or overcome some very personal demon.

In order to do that, though, the GM needs to conspire with the player. Rather than presenting a plot as fait accompli for the player to walk through, consider asking leading questions and using "yes, and" techniques to respond.

Tarinaky

22:18

Argh, there's no Google Wave for us to fill out campaign info.

Damn you Google!

doppelgreener

@Tarinaky There's Google Docs now instead

it has collaborative editing even; our group uses it constantly

Tarinaky

I forgot about that.

I filled out a document with the bullet points from 'When Creating Your Game' from the FATE Core book... but now my partner 'doesn't have any ideas' and doesn't want to do it any more -.-

Zachiel

@doppelgreener Isn't it Google Drive now?

Tarinaky

So I guess that game's dead :/

doppelgreener

@Zachiel Google Docs is the Word equivalent; Google Drive is a general storage medium which Docs also uses.

Zachiel

22:28

@Tarinaky Which might be good if his idea of fun was "you do the work, you entertain me"

Tarinaky

I didn't even get that far. I just asked if we could work through it together.

I could fill it out if he wanted, but then I wouldn't be collaborating.

BESW

23:38

**[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!");
[RPGbundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fiction-faves-rpg-book-bundle "The Humble RPG Book Bundle: Fiction Faves. Nov 16");
[playtest](http://www.modiphius.com/star-trek.html "STAR TREK ADVENTURES - Living Playtest Sign up");

@Zachiel Do you want that 4thcore pin still up?

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