It's useful to have an easy way to share code and short communication with people in your company. It supports a lot of useful plugins so that various utility systems can communicate with you through it.
But I probably wouldn't gush about it myself. I know I've described it to people as "a glorified IRC client"
To be fair; if you're going with a developer-only team you might get MORE out of using mIRC or another powerful IRC client, because those things are programmable directly from the client.
My idea of "developers" is probably different from most, but I'm almost at the end of my working day, and I only opened my IDE an hour ago. And it was still showing my personal project that I was working on yesterday morning :P
You don't need to write code to be a developer imho
possibly because you are sort of an impostor -- you just sorta slid into this and other roles you haven't been formally trained for but suddenly need to do -- but now you're doing the job, and what looks like a developer and grumbles at their code and internet documentation like a developer is a developer
More Mechanics To Steal To Make Your #DnD Game Better http://geekandsundry.com/more-mechanics-to-steal-to-make-your-dd-game-better/ #RPGs https://t.co/cRgMBX8QX8
I have a NPC that has a East-European nobility name, lives in a manor with only one domestic servant and never go out during day "because he always either busy or tired". He has a creepy gallery of pictures of his ancestors who all look like it was the same guy and he only drinks red wine.
@AnneAunyme a vampire can live off 1-4 servants easily without causing any sort of evil. So even if you decided that he was a vampire, that wouldnt make him any less of a noble (so killing him would be a crime?)
There you go, if he is good to those people, they could be loyal enough to feed his hunger. According to blood of night, a vampire simply has to use his blood draining ability once per day to be considered well fed.
@Shalvenay mix of everything, he was really vague in his explanations up front (especially with combat). He skipped a ton of character statistic info and how it impacted the game. He actually got frustrated about an hour in. I think the guy was a new employee at the shop or something because he was seriously unprofessional.
Then again it is a card shop. lol
Not a great first impression of the game, but I definitely want to learn.
One of the people wound up leaving early because "the game wasn't for him", but I think he was just totally lost.
I get this is a heavy game, but it's shocking that someone whose supposed to be an expert can get mad at newbs playing for literally the first time.
@AnneAunyme yeah. it sounds like the DM that @HazyKingdom got was a pretty bad one -- I'd be pursuing other avenues to play myself if I was in @HazyKingdom's shoes
You guys got any tips on how I can learn without getting railed? There aren't a ton of shops out here for me to learn and I doubt I can get into a full time group if I don't know what I'm doing.
it's pretty intermittent -- a lot of it depends on folks' schedules
@HazyKingdom yeah, the roll20 UI emulates miniatures-and-map/battlemat play. if you're forgoing that, you can play online in pretty much any chat facility equipped with a dicebot
@HazyKingdom Well, are you picky on what flavor of TTRPG you're looking for? I'm kind-of looking to do a Fate Accelerated game online at some point (in preparation of doing it for reals with my flatmates in a month or so); though it's set in near-future during an alien invasion, so a less-typical RPG setting
@HazyKingdom while I'm not really setup to run campaigns -- I can and do run shortform stuff online from time to time -- either map-and-minis using roll20 or straight theater of the mind off in our very own Back ROom
@ShadowKras Well for starters, we had no idea DEX drives combat order. So our cleric went first ... lol I was playing a rogue so I was supposed to go first in the group. Uh couple other things like saving throws and how they work. Poison still confuses me.
I remember going to a card shop for a few hours, and sat down to play a quick card game with another patron there before a tournament. He kept putting down my deck, didn't trust my knowledge of my own deck mechanics and rulings, and generally just treated me like dirt. Nothing could be done to make the experience any better.
@HazyKingdom Hey, don't worry about it. Fate is probably one of the better systems to start with anyways, if you're into storytelling. The system is very good at getting out of the way of narrative- you try to do things and then find mechanics for it. Also, the campaign file already has macros set up for all the actions.
@Adam That's why I took a long break from card shops. I used to play MTG back during Urza and i had three or four poor visits and i didn't go to another shop for what? 15 years?
@HazyKingdom yeah -- keep an eye on this space -- I have something planned for tomorrow night even but the other player has problems with schedule preemption and I'm not 100% on my schedule that evening either
@HazyKingdom Yeah, I stopped going after that too. Occasionally I stop into stores to look at source books, but that's about it. The best way to learn is to get some friends (or acquaintances) together and just go for it I think. You might have to step up and lead the whole thing, but that forces you to read the rules. And teaching other in a big social setting where everyone is learning makes the whole process less stressful.
@RollingFeles coming from a background with little tabletop experience, it's been a little thick for me so far. I've heard the earlier editions were heavier, thankfully I didn't start there lol.
@Adam I'll have to try that, unfortunately, I know only 1 other person who plays and he plays at the shop I was just at. Our schedules aren't exactly a perfect match either.
@Adam it sounds sad. We don't have shop like this here. A couple of clubs maybe. But I always thought that this places should be some cozy place for playing, but your stories and also some thread at reddit that I saw just shows that it's far from to be always a truth.
@RollingFeles They should be. But alas, the best place for cozy gaming I've found is my home, with a bunch of snacks, and a couple friends who I genuinely want to spend time with.
@HazyKingdom 3.5e and its spiritual successor Pathfinder are still pretty common (I'm a big fan of Pathfinder; I'm just starting to branch to other systems now)
@Shalvenay Difficult question. I haven't been on the player side of the table in many years. I've hosted a variety of games though. AD&D, D&D 3.0/3.5, BESM, Heavy Gear 2nd/3E, A single D&D4E game, and some silly stuff that almost isn't worth listing (Ninja Burger 1E).
@MadMAxJr ah. for me -- I've played basically every edition of D&D save for 4e (which I tried but couldn't get past char creation for), Fate, RFS, and smaller amounts of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, classic Traveller, Against the Darkness, and DW. (also a trifle of Numenera)
Not everybody likes having your character of 12 sessons die to a lucky head shot in which their head explodes, causing all other players to flee in terror.
my "want to play" list is another PbtA chance (either DW or Monsterhearts), Savage Worlds, and something from the hard sim side (say GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds)
maybe something from the whole Burning Wheel/The Riddle of Steel family of games too
@RollingFeles yeah -- the combat approaches in that family of games seem...interesting. the narrative-driving mechanics I'm not so sure about though (they make me know I probably won't be able to DM them well though, at least)
@RollingFeles -- btw, I take it "Feles" is "cat" in some language? and that also explains your avatar?
@ShadowKras interesting -- one of the themes of my headcanon is making the supernatural mundane, actually. (the two WoDish chars I have rattling around my head are a good example -- both are Toreador vampires. the guy is a by-the-book first officer flying overnight cargo who also spends some time with a Pitts or the likes honing his acro skills in his off hours, the gal's an airplane mechanic and aviation machinist who is basically "Mama Rosie the Riveter")
One strategy i use when i want to make my players scared or curious, is to make them believe in things that are not actually there. This is achieved by describing things that are unnecessary to the gameplay, but that would happen if it was not a game. Example: describe the effects on the wind blowing against a torch and the effects on the enviroment shadows while they are completely focused on something else.
Last session, our rogue was going forward in a tunnel in order to check for traps and open a door, naturally, she didnt carry a torch with her because the group's fighter had one and could illuminate the corridor and door properly. However, as she was moving towards the door, the effects of the torch moving her shadow against the wind made her (the player) believe that the shadows moving against the door were supernatural and she refused to get anywhere near the door alone.
all i said was something like "alright, as you walk closer to the door, you check the ground and walls for traps, it seems safe... but you notice that the shadow on the end of the corridor is moving erratically"
yeah -- that's another thing. I tend to handwave lighting somewhat due to my assumption that the inhabitants of wherever aren't stumbling around in inky blackness
this might be something I'll have to work on for the crypt crawl -- it seems to me like this sort of dungeon wouldn't be lit near as much as say my last one, which had permanent residents who cared about such things
i mean, if you have been in a situation where there is light behind you and you move closer against a wall or door, you will get startled on the way the shadow moves, you might even play with your shadow. Iv been there. So i simply described the same thing and she got scared. The other players were like "dude, its your shadow, im holding the light, forgot?"
she only checked the door after the guy holding the torch was by her side in case something attacked her.
an unnecessary description spiralled into a scary situation in her mind.
i remember this one time where i described that the floors and walls were shaking as a huge statue was slowly walking towards them (a minor shake caused by the sheer size and mass of the creature they were fighting) but without any sort of mechanic effect, and they ran away without even attacking him.
so yeah -- I'm trying to work out the layout of this crypt/catacomb here still. mostly trying to figure out how many clusters it should have in it, how those clusters should be laid out, and how accessible the place should be to visitors (whether it should be a case of "leave gifts at the antechamber" or "full self-guided tours")
my thinking is each cluster is 5 rooms, with 9 clusters so far, one for each of the basic forms of the 5-room dungeon described in the Gnome Stew piece on the 5-room dungeon that was linked a while back
(the overall layout is going to come out with a fairly heavy Jaquaying as I'm thinking the first few clusters are directly connected + the canal system effectively forms a loop connecting all the clusters)
yeah -- that is a lot of rooms, but at the same time, the focal point of this dungeon is meant to be combat (shutting down the zombie spawner) not exploring every last room (in fact, being bent on raiding the whole place for loot might start fights you otherwise wouldn't need to)
Even if you aren't searching for loot, characters will want to check every room before going forward because they don't want to be surrounded. At least my party would. We never move forward until we know for sure that something can't sneak up out of a room behind us.
@Adam Sometimes that isn't an option. If you make it clear ahead of time that there is some sort of time limit, the party will be forced to move quickly
If there are loops, we'll check as much as we can in whatever direction we are going, and the wizard stays in the back of the formation and moonwalks with us to mitigate the danger
I've heard that a fair expectation is that a party can get through somewhere between 4 and 6 encounters per 3 and 1/2 hour session, depending on the difficulty of each. I would figure out how many sessions worth of encounters you want the dungeon to be, and multiply out the number of encounter rooms that you need. And at most, add back in no more than an equal number of non-encounter/ambiance rooms.
You could stick some cool stuff to find in the non-encounter rooms for sure, but for the most part, you would just give a description and they will move on from those all within a few real world minutes.
@Yuuki I like that! I'm going to steal that for next time the moonwalk joke comes up. He is a rather spry young man named Wren, son of Wren, son of Merlin. Merlin and the first Wren were both characters back when he played AD&D 1e.
@Adam given that there's a natural objective-fork that's reflected in the dungeon layout, I actually think that the 9 by 5 layout will work given that you don't need to totally clear the dungeon to accomplish the objective
@Shalvenay for dnd it's too much for one session. We had 2-3 sessions in dungeon half this size. And it was already in the middle of the campaign - no hassle in the beggining. And when you run one-shot one way or another you have some introduction in the game.
normally, when people will explore sewers, i avoid designing the entiriety of them, and only design the relevant parts, like those with creatures and treasure to be found.
I'm thinking that some of the side clusters may have been barred off to try to contain the zombie horde?
@ShadowKras nods I haven't gotten to indulge in full city design yet, but if I did, the sewers would largely be inaccessible by dint of "the party can't fit through most of the pipes" -- then again, separate storm and sanitary sewer systems are the way to go, and you don't need particularly fat pipes for most of your sanitary system
there is no fun if they cant squeeze through the sewers
in an iron kingdoms adventure, my players explored sewers, and 80% of it were things very difficult to access, and they had to leave all their heavy equipment behind
The persone I was trying to play with in the past three months seems to be free tonight, but my character already promised he'd do something else tonight. Seriously, destiny? Seriously?
hey again @HazyKingdom -- come to think of it, it might be better if we set up for some other time (Fri. night may not work for an intro for a couple of reasons)
@BESW I think I have all the attention of bitter fairies.
(Friends keep trying to goad me into drinking tonic liquor by insisting to buy a shot for me too, and someone always ends up having to drink two glasses of bitter.)
I shudder at the thought that my friend Alexander could be a fairy.
You just finished lunch, you have 5 minutes to enter, right?
Today's your last chance...
http://www.evilhat.com/home/the-dresden-files-cooperative-card-game-giveaway/
It's one of the relatively rare instances of modern literature conflating two distinct lores rather than creating artificially sharp distinctions where the lore was fuzzier.
