TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

01:04

Playing Little Adventures this evening, one child specified that a "giant pirate ship" be a story element. They've not yet learned that I interpreted that as a "giant-pirate ship." But they've seen a giant ship on the other side of a lake....

trogdor

hehehe

BESW

Are they pirates who raid giants?

trogdor

why be so exclusive?

pirates raid everyone

BESW

Maybe that worked for their fathers, but these days you have to specialise.

nitsua60

I was actually reading as pirates who are also giants.

But time will tell.

trogdor

01:09

@nitsua60 I am pretty sure @BESW is just being silly

nitsua60

We left it at a cliffhanger: one PC tried to use their "transporter beam" power to bring the ship to them. A low roll saw her transported most-way to the ship, instead. She's swimming fine for now, but it's a frigid alpine lake....

trogdor

not that it can't count as a real sugesstion, just that I am sure he knows what you were talking about

nitsua60

=)

=|

=)

BESW

=?

New bat! Cute bat!

trogdor

batbatbatbatbatbat

BESW

01:21

Its colouring is kinda badgery.

trogdor

it is

BESW

01:47

Hmm. Compare Sly Flourish's "Make" Versus "Let" article to my informal observation about "make" vs "get."

...and throw in that my local dialect has instances where "make" and "let" have functionally inverted meaning.

trogdor

lol

Shalvenay

@BESW that gives me an interesting framing of some of my troubles: "My problem is that I want to make things happen all the time, which disrupts the narrative cycle and its associated tempo"

BESW

Mmm, and sometimes it's different per group and per system.

eg, Fate never "lets the dice decide." Calling for a die roll is a deliberate action, a choice amongst choices. Rolling dice doesn't just happen as a default state or an organic event.

trogdor

@Shalvenay I have similar issues with that

I plan out a whole session, and then when the PC's deviate I have nothing prepared for that

nitsua60

02:38

@Shalvenay All day I've been fighting the urge to follow up @BESW's meta.WB answer with one that basically just says "Flag it for deletion! Then tell the user that you did so! That'll light a fire!"

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 I prefer using a carrot

nitsua60

@trogdor you even used the operative words: "plan" vs. "prep" =)

trogdor

@nitsua60 yes

that was indeed deliberate

to be fair, I am trying to do that kind of GM style less

BESW

BTW, @nitsua60, I ran across some old chat conversations from early wb beta:

trogdor

but in the past it has happened to be that way

nitsua60

02:40

@Shalvenay I dunno... stuff like this just frustrates me....

BESW

in The Factory Floor, Sep 30 '14 at 14:30, by BESW

Otherwise we run into the "anything is on topic if I'm building a world related to it" problem. By requiring actionable contexts, we re-define those questions so worldbuilding experts are better suited to answer them than, say, biologists or historians.

in The Factory Floor, Sep 30 '14 at 14:34, by BESW

Aye, it's not about the world being different but about the building of the world. Which is a subtle nuance but an important one: even if I'm designing a totally contemporary, realistic, true-to-life setting for my game, I'm going to be making design choices which support the kind of story I want to tell: that's worldbuilding.

nitsua60

@trogdor It's easy to say "prep, don't plan." A lot harder to do, in my experience.

trogdor

yeah

BESW

This is why I like confined settings, like islands and small towns.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- are AL DMs required to accept any AL-legal char of appropriate level at their table?

BESW

02:41

There's a finite amount of prep it's reasonable to need.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, the geographic confinement of an island is very nice in that regard, it means that you don't have unknown expanses of land that you have to make uninhabitable... somehow :P

BESW

The other way to confine a setting is to tie the PCs to it.

Investment in a local area means they're less likely to randomly leave it.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hmm... there's a little grey area between the DM and the coordinator. Certainly a site has to accept (unless the player's "banned" or something), but the coordinator is well within rights to say "I know you've got a L9 you really want to play, but that table's full so if you don't have a L5-8 handy to play at table B, you'll have to dial up a new one for the L1-4 table.

Why, what's up?

Shalvenay

I'm more asking because my main turnoff to AL or other organized play is having to deal with a stick in the mud DM who doesn't want to deal with "weird" but legal-by-the-rules chars, only ones that fit straightforwardly into their mold of how things work

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Like any other format, you're going to end up having a much better time if you (a) go in with a positive (and flexible!) attitude, (b) give the DM a chance rather than just assuming they'll have problems, (c) talk beforehand about the type of game you want to play prior to worrying about the type of character you want to play.

BESW

02:48

I'd be inclined to cut a GM some slack in controlling his environment if he's willing to deal with whatever random people walk in off the street.

nitsua60

@BESW I'm inclined to cut a GM some slack if they'll deal with me =)

@BESW It's funny reading through that chat. I can't tell you how many times I've left comments to the tune of "what actual worldbuilding are you doing, and how is this causing a problem?" Only to be met with "oh, I'm jut curious." And that really doesn't seem to bother anyone else.

@Shalvenay Walking up to some strangers and saying "I want to play XYZ" before anything else is explicitly saying "I don't care about what you-all were doing before, or how you've negotiated a game that tries to activate everybody's fun, I'm'a be me."
I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but it's an easy line to sneak up to without realizing it.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 it's less that I'm picking a specific XYZ, but that I tend to be at my best when I'm "outside the box" of "normal adventurers" as a rule

nitsua60

@Shalvenay What makes you say that?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 basically, I identify with "other" figures relatively easily

BESW

@nitsua60 Yeah. Very early on there was a sense that it needed to be a bit more confined, but when it came to actually curating the site, they went with a more scifi.se-esque "Eh, whatever, we just want to shoot the breeze" attitude.

nitsua60

02:54

@Shalvenay So it's easy, but what makes you say it's best?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 it means I don't have to work as hard to "hook" into my own character, and also puts the challenges of making a character that's identifiable-with by others in a different light

there's also the question of "do I want other folks identifying with my character?"

BESW

Frame challenge: you don't identify with "the other" so much as you fail to identify with the typical adventurer.

Shalvenay

@BESW perhaps to some extent I do not identify with the "typical adventurer" either

@BESW although that does raise a question of "what is the typical adventurer?"

nitsua60

@Shalvenay what's your answer?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 sometimes I feel that I want to play a character that's "other" to the rest of the players involved, as a frame challenge of sorts

nitsua60

03:09

@Shalvenay why? [goes digging]

BESW

So it doesn't matter so much what the rest of the players are doing, you just want to do something orthogonal to it.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 basically, trying to unbalance things as well...get folks to react instead of acting

@BESW to some extent, yes

nitsua60

@Shalvenay that seems very meta, and I'd think should absolutely be discussed with--and approved by--other players before embarking upon.

"I'm going to play this character to change how you play" strikes me as borderline-aggressive.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 I think it's again a dynamic that's not nearly as pronounced when I'm going into tailor a character to a table. perhaps my best approach to AL is to sacrifice character portability and construct-from-scratch for a given DM/moduleset?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Remind me: are you planning on playing Expeditions or Encounters?

Shalvenay

03:16

@nitsua60 I have no idea

nitsua60

@Shalvenay (Usually) Wednesday evenings, long-form campaign; or (usually) Saturday afternoon, one-shot-though-thematically-and-setting-tied-to-current-season modules?

BESW

@Shalvenay [squint] In what context would a generic one-size-fits-all character provide a better game experience than a bespoke-for-this-group-and-game character?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 maybe Encounters? but I suspect local scheduling practices may vary...

@BESW I'm not sure if people expect/want to deal with such frequent applications of chargen

(at least in a 5e context. ofc, there are systems where rolling a new char every session is NBD :)

because "bespoke for group and game" could mean "bespoke for group and module" especially for something like Encounters

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Playing out of a hardcover, or a printed-off/pdf thirty-pager?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 I have no clue

that was not raised at the great schedulation :P

nitsua60

03:20

Sorry--I just realized I'm conflating the 1e table you've already started with and this scenario: you're going to be doing some AL.

(A lot makes more sense, now.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 more like "I'd have jumped on the AL opportunity,...but I have qualms with organized play"

nitsua60

Take AL for what it is. You get to play some D&D, but you have no idea with whom, there's little-to-no story (or even character!) continuity, and generally ends up being focused on walking through the more-mechanical parts of a published module. It's a training ground for GMs, for new players, and somewhere you can go to scratch parts of your D&D itch.

Magician

@UristMcDorf It does make some class features less useful, sure. Or, rather, it removes the need for them. This was one of the things I tried to combat, the need for mechanical "crutches" which made certain stats combinations viable. Everything is viable in 4eLite. Don't worry about it.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah. I think that a more complete experience might just be better for me all-around

nitsua60

To be fair, that ^^ is really Expeditions I'm describing. Encounters is much more like your weekly RP-group.

Shalvenay

03:27

right

nitsua60

I pop into Encounters once in a while to show my face, meet any newcomers, see if I pick up any interesting idea from a GM or module-writer, and occasionally run one as a sort of reciprocity to the store. (They let me sit and play every Wednesday, the least I can do is help some new D&D players get some gaming in.)

(Crap. I meant Expeditions ^^ again.)

BESW

03:48

When Laskamana (Admiral) Keumalahayati, the Widow Admiral of Indonesia, first fought the Dutch, she captured one of their leaders and forced him to write the first Malay/Dutch dictionary.

I like her.

trogdor

wow

so she wanted his language and she took it by force

I think I like her too

XD

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 +1 for "parts of your d7d itch". I definitely have different games that are satisfying in very different ways

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon Definitely parsed that as a comment about SSD, the first time through =)

Joel Harmon

oops - didn't notice the typo

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon I have a fun time watching my AL (Encounters) GM--who's a very rational, thoughtful, by-the-book GM on Wednesday nights--play a completely gonzo moon druid on other nights.

We all play different games, all the time, is all I'm saying =)

Joel Harmon

03:55

I like to think I have the flexibility to play weirdly different characters, but I have a tendency to drift toward "me with super powers"

Joel Harmon

04:06

Any of the Dungeon World fans out there played with an Arcane Duelist? It looks to be third party, but it's in the SRD. I'm considering allowing it for an interested player.

nitsua60

VtC system needed

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon I heard they say Duelist has a problem with all his moves which gives bonuses. Although it's pretty interesting idea for a class.

If I happen to find discussion about it I will share it with you.

Also, hi all! :)

Shalvenay

hey there @RollingFeles and @JoelHarmon

@nitsua60 system tag added

nitsua60

@Shalvenay thanks

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 wasn't my doing :)

RollingFeles

04:13

Speaking of DW. I came up with monster idea yesterday. Big(actually, I think huge is a better word) aloe, which leaves are tentacles which grab it's enemies and hang them in the air only to be eaten by a worm-like head, which only has a big mouth with teeth. this worm-like head will be hidden in the middle of the monster only to came up for some chewing. Head is very vulnurable and although it has a good amount hp, I want to show that even boot to the head(he-he) is very painful.

And mechanicaly, I want it to be 5-6 tentacle monsters, with 1 head monster. Tentacles can die on their own, while death of head will be the end for whole monster.

I really like this idea, but I'm afraid that it would be too tough for a party of 3 novice players.

Joel Harmon

@RollingFeles So it's not aloe, it's goodbye?

3

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon yeah :)

Joel Harmon

seriously, though, there is a question on scaling DW difficulty. Spoiler: it comes down to the DM's narration.

RollingFeles

I want it to mimic plant.

Joel Harmon

@RollingFeles Totally stole that joke, by the way

RollingFeles

04:22

@JoelHarmon sorry, I think there is a pun somewhere, but I'm yet not very good to understand it :)

Joel Harmon

at the risk of being tedious, have you read the monster creation rules?

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon Yeah, I read 16hp dragon. That's why I'm not giving up this idea.

Joel Harmon

'aloe' is a near homophone of 'hello', and it references a pretty famous line

RollingFeles

Yes, I have. The thought: "they gonna die" established in my head after I formulated it according to the book.

@JoelHarmon ah, I see. Thanks for explanation!

Joel Harmon

@RollingFeles Sure!

then consider scaling back damage, armor, or narrate it slower

25

Q: How to increase difficulty in Dungeon World

I've been GMing for a couple of sessions now and I'm still struggling at making encounters or situations more difficult. I will describe dangerous situations and encounters in fiction but the mechanics make it too easy for my players to succeed. For instance no matter how big I describe the Trol...

RollingFeles

04:29

I want tentacles to be slower in their attempts to smash or push PCs. So they can dodge it in most situations even without Defy Danger. But with bursts of speed, so they could caught them off guard and grab or hit them. And very sensitive head. I will sit down after the work and think over my narration.

Magician

My big issue with DW's idea of difficulty is it comes down to "Defy Danger repeatedly"

2

RollingFeles

Aaand I want to think about couple of other ways to deal with the monster. Something like: crack the rock above it, force it to hit it and see like it will be crashed by stone.

@Magician hi! And yes, I had this feeling in my first session too.

Joel Harmon

@Magician that's an easy default, but there are certainly ways around it

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon thanks!

Magician

Which are called by the GM's discretion. So it merely replaces the HP total as an "objective" measure of difficulty, with arbitrary difficulty of accessing those HP.

Joel Harmon

04:33

@Magician in particular, if the players take a moment to Spout Lore or Discern Realities, they may well be able to avoid dangers rather than Defying them

Parley can also be a very effective counter in a fight

Magician

Parley seems like a way to avoid a fight rather than win it, as such. And getting leverage on big tough enemies you're currently fighting is tricky.

Joel Harmon

what are your goals for the fight? If you're there to kill everything, that's one thing; if you're just there for some macguffin, that's more negotiable

if nothing else, you can KO one baddie, then threaten its life for the others to back off

that will, of course, depend on the GM and his view of the opponents' goals

Magician

Yes. But the ability to talk your way out of a fight is orthogonal to the actual fighting part of the system.

Joel Harmon

Fighting is (or should be?) just one way of bypassing an obstacle. The moves are (nearly) all valid things to do at any given time

(Carousing in the middle of a fight may not be the best idea)

BESW

@RollingFeles As someone who uses fresh-cut aloe on burns, I hope the spines on the tentacles are represented somehow--extra damage, extra difficulty getting free, or something.

RollingFeles

04:41

@Magician the thing is, player can control it. They may trade their HP for some advantage, for example. (DW guide has two examples with goblin archer. One with DD, and another without).

BESW

(Also it'd be amusing if the plant has an unexpected relationship with fire.)

RollingFeles

@BESW aloe is the first thing that came up in my mind, while I though about this monster. I'm between aloe tentacles vs root-like.

Joel Harmon

@RollingFeles that, and Defy Danger is the player side of things. The DM always has hard moves (but again, only when triggered), which can do damage directly

as if damage was the worst thing that could happen to a player

BESW

I'd totally go with aloe, but that's in large part because all my friends are intimately familiar with the plant so it'd be easy to hook into their schema.

RollingFeles

@BESW Hey, that's awesome thought! Thanks! I will think if I can implement this in game.

BESW

04:44

@RollingFeles I'm thinking, like, damaging a tentacle in melee gives you +1 forward against fire?

([splash!])

(Encourage liberal use of fire vs plant attacks with friendly fire.)

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon I'm really reluctant to deal damage to players, just because I find it boring to just deplete their HP in most cases. Of course, when narrative demands I do it, but I always try to use other moves.

@BESW or I can make fire encounter before that and monster juices will mend burns after that.

Thanks for ideas!

BESW

@RollingFeles I'm increasingly interested in using conditions instead of stress (rather than instead of consequences) in Fate.

Joel Harmon

@RollingFeles I tend to as well, because other moves lead immediately to drama. On the other hand, damage eventually leads to more drama: I could do this thing, but I'd end up knocked out!

RollingFeles

Yes, I try to make intense and dramatic situations. I'm not very good at it, but I will be very happy, when I will achieve that :)

Magician

@BESW Thought: Conditions are to stress what aspects are to skills.

BESW

04:59

I was never good with logical analogies. Expand, please?

Joel Harmon

I need to head out; later, folks!

BESW

ttfn

Magician

Skills are generic areas of competence. We are quite happy to know a character has Athletics +5 without drawing attention to why and how they do each time it is used. Aspects, in contrast to that, require justification whenever they are brought in. Similarly, stress is a generic measure of "damage" while conditions are specific, "interesting" bits of story.

BESW

Interesting.

trogdor

@Magician well, except, characters also have aspects that are intrinsic to them

Magician

05:06

Diminishing hit points/increasing stress highten tension without changing much about the narrative. "I can't take another hit like that", "wow, that ogre took more than half of my hit points in one swing".

trogdor

those are only called into question if they are being used in the wrong way

same as a skill

BESW

I suspect that my group's very short session durations tend to make me unusually impatient with stress as a pacing/tension mechanic.

trogdor

(excusing the difference of fate point use to activate)

@BESW but how do you replace it without sticking us with allllll the consequences ?

BESW

@trogdor Malleable condition slots which last only as long as the stress would have.

trogdor

oh

that is an unexpected way

BESW

05:12

Basically make stress mean something moment-to-moment instead of making it count down to something.

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon bye!

trogdor

@BESW that honestly sounds like a decent compromise that works for groups

(such as ours) that don't have as much time for sessions

BESW

Greener is exploring similar ideas in some of his Fate hacks.

trogdor

I think I may recall some discussion on that point

vaguely at least

SevenSidedDie

05:27

@Magician This is one of the popular ways of running DW that I think is contrary to its rules and defeats some of its strengths. Quoting myself from that Q&A, “The GM can't just call for Defy Danger on a whim”. Defy Danger is often a go-to move, but IMNSHO it really shouldn't be.

RollingFeles

@SevenSidedDie hi! What do you mean by "go-to move"?

BESW

@RollingFeles It's the "I feel like there should be a move here but I'm not sure which, so let's use this one" default.

Magician

> Defy danger also applies when you make another move despite danger not covered by that move. For example, hack and slash assumes that’s [sic] you’re trading blows in battle—you don’t need to defy danger because of the monster you’re fighting unless there’s some specific danger that wouldn’t be part of your normal attack. On the other hand, if you’re trying to hack and slash while spikes shoot from hidden traps in the walls, those spikes are a whole different danger.

> GM: The athach is swinging his burly third arm down at you, knobby fingers gripping a broken branch. What are you doing, Valeria?
Valeria: So he wants to fight, huh? Let’s do it. I hack and slash him, swinging my sword at his legs.
GM: Now hold on there, champ. He’s already got you at a disadvantage. You can jump into the fray but you’ll take that club head on unless you defy danger first.

RollingFeles

@BESW thanks!

Magician

I don't have much experience with DW, but Defy Danger does appear to be omnipresent, both in how it played out for me, and how it was described in the rules and blog posts. The 16-hp dragon comes to mind.

SevenSidedDie

05:40

@Magician The 16-hp dragon is demonstrating an exceptional circumstance; it's not even demonstrating the uses of defying danger, it's demonstrating that fictional validity is necessary for moves to trigger at all. (It's incidental that, players trying to toe-to-toe a dragon impervious to mere toothpick swords end up putting themselves in danger, which then needs defying).

Urist McDorf

@Magician Well, I was looking specifically at the features that you had to pick. For example, one of the Druid's paths, Primal Guardian, is "use Con instead of Dex/Int for AC". Other choices, such as Primal Predator which gives a flat +1 speed, give benefits that don't get "eaten" by the system.

Also, don't worry, the first message despite lacking the @Urist McDorf still got highlighted for me.

Magician

@SevenSidedDie But every adventure is exceptional. It can be a dragon, or an ogre, or a swarm of goblins, there's always something dangerous. And whether or not the fictional validity of this danger is high enough to require defying is up to the GM.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician That's a common mistake. Defy Danger is a player-triggered move, always always.

Magician

@UristMcDorf "use Con istead of Dex/Int for AC" does end up a wasted feature. Most of such features were there in the first place to make a particular combination of stats viable. They don't make a subclass "better", they make it possible. Once stats don't matter, these concerns go away.

@SevenSidedDie Hm. Can you elaborate? The example I quoted from the core book seems very GM-driven.

Urist McDorf

Hrm. That's one way to look at it, it's just that it makes the feature look wasted in comparison to others. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll probably slap a +1 AC on it and make a Primal Predator anyway :)

RollingFeles

05:59

@Magician GM calls if there is the move. Player describes their action. In the example above GM tells player that hack&slash is not possible atm, because they're about to get a club in the head. Then it's player's call to action upon this information. She can duck, jump away, dodge and then fight. There are many options and it's not 100% that all of them will lead to DD move.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician I find that example unfortunate because it contains an assertion that the athach has Valeria at a disadvantage, but it's after the player tries to do something. There's context missing, which the GM is just reminding the player of, but which we can't see because it's before the example begins.

@Magician More on point: the way the game is designed to work, the GM presents the dangers, but doesn't apply them to the PCs. PCs can make choices that expose them to those declared dangers, and that player agency leads to Defy Danger moves, not GM whim.

Magician

Players choose to defy the presented danger or not, true. But GM chooses when there is danger and when there isn't.

There's effectively a "Defy Danger tax" on dealing with dangerous monsters, which can be avoided with some clever fictional positioning.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician Yes, quite. That's up to the GM.

@Magician But it should never be arbitrary, in the basic sense of the word, as up to an arbiter (the GM). The GM doesn't just say “this monster is dangerous, ooo” and then they get to Defy Danger tax anything the PCs do. The dangers are supposed to be specific and informative.

Magician

But there's no... guidelines? Limits?... on this. It's a dangerous monster. Of course attacking it can be dangerous, one way or another. Fictional justification is trivial.

I'm not talking about an adversarial GM here, btw.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician Guidelines are in there, but easy to ignore. That doesn't make them not there though.

The biggest guideline that's in there is the absence of “challenge the players/PCs” in the Agenda. GMs importing that job from other RPGs seems to be a large source of unnecessarily non-specific or gratuitous dangers.

Magician

06:15

Hmmm.

There's "Make PC's lives interesting" in the agenda. Which is good but not specific. To some, fighting an ogre for two hours is interesting. But that's not quite what I mean when I say "guidelines".

Taking a step back here, to the start of the conversation...

SevenSidedDie

@Magician I guess I know that's not quite what you mean, yeah. I guess it's more that… the guidelines are a few explicit ones, and the rest are emergent. A GM that starts adding in different priorities, or lacks discipline and starts ad-libbing their moves instead of making sure they fit the Agenda and Principles and Moves, will often overreach. Following the rules more carefully leads to avoiding a lot of these concerns.

Magician

Difficulty of a monster in DW is largely up to the GM, as it's their decision whether or not doing anything to it will be dangerous. The GM can react to the way the group plays, to whether they are engaged or getting bored, to the flow of the story. And this is mostly accomplished through requiring the PCs to Defy Danger. In the hands of different GMs, the same ogre can be a speedbump or a TPK machine.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician It super shouldn't be mostly accomplished through requiring PCs to Defy Danger.

Magician

This is in stark contrast to most other systems where monster stats are much more important to determining the difficulty of facing a monster. And it's this arbitrary difficulty that's often leaving me unsatisfied.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician That's just it though — monsters aren't dangerous based on how much they require Defy Danger moves. They're threats because of their stats. Few monsters should require a Defy Danger to engage.

Magician

06:23

@SevenSidedDie It would be interesting to play in a DW game you run, to see how it works for you.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician I've been pondering running one here in chat, though when I'd find the time I can't imagine. One day maybe.

Magician

@SevenSidedDie The question on increasing difficulty of monsters in DW, quoted here recently, seems to suggest differently.

SevenSidedDie

@Magician Yeah, and I politely haven't yelled at the other answers, and instead gave my own that focused on where difficulty actually lies in DW. :)

Magician

Heh, fair enough, turns out I haven't scrolled past the first couple of answers.

SevenSidedDie

Difficulty can arise from there being dangers in the way (and hence, Defy Dangers, if the PCs choose that frontal assault), but that's way overblown as the way difficulty is assigned in DW. In DW, there is no difficulty mechanic, really, but people really really expect there to be one, find Defy Danger, and assume that it's the difficulty mechanic they assume must be in an RPG.

This is a really interesting conversation, but I'm being reminded that I should be going to bed. :)

Magician

06:28

I have to run. Will have to read your answer later and ponder some more.

Hah

G'night!

SevenSidedDie

Ha! Well then, cheers!

RollingFeles

And I must thank you guys for very interesting and useful conversation :) Gotta play with how to use DD move in my next game and think about what is and what is not danger to be defied.

BESW

08:14

@RollingFeles I think it may be related to how Fate Accelerated can be 'gamed' by trivially making an action use one's best approach, and the solution is to think more carefully about what's really being achieved and how.

If you're really using your best approach, that's great. And if you're really defying danger, that's great. But sometimes it just looks that way because of sloppy thinking taking the mechanic at its name's face value.

RollingFeles

@BESW yes, you've expressed issue pretty well. Plus, the "need for roll" that makes DD "go-to move" in many cases. I think I'll try to control myself with question "Is it really a danger for this hero?" to measure if it should be a move or just result narration.

BESW

Relephant thinking:

23

A: Approaches for shooting?

Use the approach which makes sense for how you're shooting at the time. Approaches were a little difficult to wrap my head around at first. Unlike skills, they aren't about what I'm doing: they're about how I'm doing it. Any approach could be appropriate for shooting a gun, depending on the cont...

21

A: How do I prevent PCs from spamming their top approach in every situation?

Fred Hicks (the dude who cofounded Evil Hat) talked about exactly this in an official blog post: One-Note Approaches in FAE. It's worth a read. The bottom line is this: there is nothing that is inherently a problem about people primarily using their +3 approach. That's fine. If everyone's having...

RollingFeles

Thank you! I'll read them a bit later. Got a work to do :)

BESW

ttfn

BESW

09:05

@jmoreno [wave]

jmoreno

Hello!

BESW

We're in a bit of a lull this time of day. Anything in particular bring you to RPG chat?

jmoreno

I'm going to be DM for an AD&D 2ed game and have some rule doubts, it's been like 20 years since I played :)

I was taking a look on the tagged questions of the site to see if they are answered already

BESW

Oh, cool.

I'm not gonna be much help for 2e-specific stuff, but we've got several folks around who have a lot of experience with that.

jmoreno

Well, I'm going to try to see if someone can answer. Can a magician learn/cast the same spell several times?

I mean, is the spellbook a list of spells where he can have any number of them, but only study its maximum nuber of spells per level at the same time?

And say, learn Magic Missile three times

BESW

09:12

That's definitely something main-site-worthy.

jmoreno

Good, thanks!

BESW

(I know what the answer would be for D&D 3.5, but that's a different country entirely.)

@jmoreno Questions like "I've looked for this rule but can't find it and/or don't fully get this particular passage" are the most straightforward kind of questions RPG.SE tends to field. They form the bulk of the site's content and are nice and easy to curate.

Joel Harmon

12:43

@RollingFeles We've been collectively remiss in not explicitly calling out the trigger for Defy Danger. It only ever happens "When you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity".

RollingFeles

@JoelHarmon Indeed.

nitsua60

13:34

@SevenSidedDie sign me up! (Must learn more about this system. From reading your answers it appears you know a lot more, or that it comes much more-naturally to you; I've read the book many times but haven't yet converted knowledge to wisdom.)

Urist McDorf

13:47

What possible and not long-shot reasons would there be for the crew of a ship to mutiny at the party? A "they're unnatural and therefore they bring the sea's ire" could work but maybe some other idea would fit better.

BESW

[hauls out Captain Johnson's A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates]

Ahriman

the passage requires a living sacrafice?

it's a slave crew rebellion, and the party is swept since they are "passengers"

Urist McDorf

The sacrifice thing would be pretty funny.

DForck42

mornin

BESW

...yeah, traditionally mutiny comes from either greed or mortal fear.

The crew wants more money, or thinks the captain will get them killed.

And it's usually not some superstitious fear. It's obvious mortal peril.

nitsua60

13:58

@BESW The sort that usually hangs in a cloud around PCs like a fart in a still room....

BESW

Not uncommonly a mutiny for greed will be followed shortly by a second mutiny for peril, because the new captain is reckless.

Urist McDorf

The setup is this: I'm planning to run a colonisation-themed game with some new players. To reach the continent they're planning to colonise they'd need a ship. I'm planning a mutiny on a ship to 1) familiarise the players with combat 2) familiarise myself with the concept of consequences and such in combat (props to @Magician, been binge-reading the blog a bit).

For the latter, I want to have the players decide on what the colony would be specialising in at game's start (also familiarising them with player agency). After that, have the outcome of the battle determine if the colony starts out with "all resources are at worst except for that thing they picked which is just bad" vs "same but you managed to save one other resource thanks to not missing half the crew". I figure mutiny would be best for it.

I might've missed some things there, brain no work good. Not getting enough sleep.

BESW

I'd go with giant octopus, myself.

nitsua60

@UristMcDorf "I'm planning to run a colonisation-themed game..." Boy, have you ever come to the right room =)

DForck42

@UristMcDorf which system?

nitsua60

14:03

@BESW To avoid the thorny questions of whether to kill one's (presumptive) mates on day 1?

Urist McDorf

D&D 4e with Magician's 4eLite mod.

BESW

[grin] I'd be interested in picking your brain on what you mean by "colonisation-based," but not now. Sleep now.

@nitsua60 Also: tentacles as minions.

Urist McDorf

And some adjustments of my own.

BESW

They can surround the boat and get hacked off.

nitsua60

@BESW lolfigsl

BESW

14:04

Goodnight.

Urist McDorf

Well, one reason I wanted mutiny is because the party as it's built is focused on forced movement a lot and throwing people overboard would be super cool.

Not as much with giant octopus

DForck42

@UristMcDorf neat

RollingFeles

@SevenSidedDie I'd be happy to learn from you too :)

RollingFeles

14:17

@BESW tentacles are trendy today

@UristMcDorf hello! I can't really add any input, but I think your idea is awesome. Have fun!

Urist McDorf

Hi. Thanks, I hope I will :)

nitsua60

@UristMcDorf If not full-on mutiny, perhaps "splinter faction"? They might make off with a lot of the resources, but maybe you can stop them, and maybe you can stop them without destroying resources?

Urist McDorf

Hmm, that could be a good way to do it, but I'm already kind of hooked on the whole "throwing people overboard with forced movement powers" thing and I'm not sure how that could be done in the sailing part. Maybe simply have two ships instead of one?

doppelgreener

14:39

33

Q: What is "Hammertime" a reference to?

When the "knockdown" status effect is applied, text appears that says things like "whoops", "tripped", or "hammertime". What does "hammertime" reference? I'm familiar with the M.C. Hammer song "Can't Touch This", but I don't recall there being anything about slipping and/or falling in it.

terminology divinity-original-sin

Kids these days. Next thing you know, they'll wonder what badgers have to do with mushrooms and snakes... — Journeyman Geek 8 hours ago

DForck42

@doppelgreener lol

Urist McDorf

badger badger badger

But eh, they've got newer memes. It's the cycle of life.

DForck42

@UristMcDorf mushroom! mushroom!

RollingFeles

15:01

Do it! Do it! Do it!

Joshua Aslan Smith

16:08

Now I am just picturing fighting a giant kenyan mangrove crab

Crab Battle HD

►

RollingFeles

@JoshuaAslanSmith you said Kenya?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@RollingFeles All your memes are belong to us

RollingFeles

@JoshuaAslanSmith look like some secret content I've missed in my MGS3 days.

doppelgreener

16:32

@JoshuaAslanSmith <-- @BESW "Cave Demon" would be an appropriate creature to confront for a bunch of little mouse people

Joshua Aslan Smith

@doppelgreener which system were you guys using again? was it mouse guard or a different brian-jaques-ian inspired rpg

doppelgreener

@JoshuaAslanSmith Storium

Joshua Aslan Smith

@doppelgreener good fit

thats right I remember now I like totally lurked on your game last time I saw the link

DForck42

17:59

btw, the new literature site has launched in private beta: literature.stackexchange.com

2

Joshua Aslan Smith

18:44

@DForck42 what is the scope for it?

Do you guys have a date cutoff or some other more qualitative scope requirements

DForck42

@JoshuaAslanSmith basically anything that would be considered literature

it's mostly going to end up being works of fiction, I think

@JoshuaAslanSmith whenever SE ends private beta, I forget. I think it's a week or 2

after that we go to public beta

Joshua Aslan Smith

@DForck42 Thats a circular/externally based qualifier

If its literature its literature

etc.

or if x textbooks or y publication consider it literature its literature

DForck42

Literature

Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. More restrictively, it is writing considered as an art form, or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting) was used to refer to all written accounts, though contemporary definitions extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung (oral literature). Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether...

it's going to depend, tbh

Joshua Aslan Smith

So a subjective judgement by the community?

DForck42

that's what a private beta is for, knocking out the early low hanging fruit

@JoshuaAslanSmith basically, but that's really not that much different from other communities such as scifi and movies

Joshua Aslan Smith

18:52

I feel like at face value the term science-fiction or fantasy are less ambiguous concepts then literature though, a work can be deemed either solely on the contents therein whereas literature usually connotes a level of quality or cultural impact/importance that is relative to other works and a signifier of the time of its writing. IE we think of Charles Dickens as literature but not any of the penny dreadfuls or dime novels of that era.

@DForck42 I'm just very interested to see what the site lays down or eventually molds into its working definition of on-topic

DForck42

@JoshuaAslanSmith whether something is sci-fi or not is actually a lot less cut and dry then you might think, they're VERY broad spectrums and can vary based on people's preferences. for example, is star wars scifi or fantasy? and if it's one over the other, why?

@JoshuaAslanSmith yes, me too. in the original incarnation I wanted to include transcripts of speeches, I think I got overthrown though

Ceribia

Hello!

DForck42

@Ceribia hai

Joshua Aslan Smith

@DForck42 I'm quite familiar with the vagaries of genre and the various ways we use those terms, I dont think a hard line is as important between science fiction and fantasy as say between fantasy and noir or sci-fi and procedural

you could easily group both under "speculative fiction" (as many do) as a 1 or multiple axis spectrum

Ceribia

Does anyone remember if D&D4e had DR as a mechanic or just resistance? I could swear it was gone after 3.5e but it has been too long. Oddly hard to google

Joshua Aslan Smith

18:58

star wars is a space opera and like so many things in that subgenre it has the veneer of science fiction with the heart of a traditional romance or myth, ultimately the type of story it tells is a fantasy story, prophecy, destiny, the heros journey (in my opinion)

@Ceribia resistance is how its handled

Do you have a specific example you need parsed?

DForck42

@JoshuaAslanSmith OMFG, you're the first person to agree with me on that...

Urist McDorf

@Ceribia There's no DR in 4e, only resistance of various kinds

If you want resistance to physical you'd want resist untyped

Quentin

The mention of Sci-Fi and Procedural in the same sentence makes me sad that there weren't more series of Star Cops. youtube.com/watch?v=GdHlHTi2cCM

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