@trogdor I have found that the new Mountain Dew bottles are a little too green... I'm not sure if I should go to the doc to test for radiation poisoning, or start collecting the bottle caps...
@BESW Question: I haven't read through it completely yet, but the variant that destroys Monster Island... How doe one win that game, if the island is destroyed?
Fate Core is about to sell out on Amazon again. This is mad times over here. https://smile.amazon.com/Evil-Hat-Productions-EHP0001-System/dp/1613170297/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HEN0K64N58TKEEV5CC7H
@nitsua60 That'll teach me to ask closed questions... What I really meant to ask was - does a large group pose any problems, and do you have any advice for running such a group? (Also any general advice for a DW-newbie GM)
As an update to my homebrew system's massive, sprawling Custom Spells table: Considering making summons for all three main schools of magic (Destructive, Healing/Clerical, Illusory), to help put a throttle on the ever-versatile Illusory school and disperse it over the other two schools. Thoughts?
Destructive can create Aspects of [Magic Damage Type, aka Fire/Frost/Shock/Force], Healing can create Aspects of [Stone (battlefield control), Spirit (healing), or Herbs (buffs and debuffs)], and Illusory can create Aspects of [Dreams (illusions), Nightmares (enemy control), Mind (Ethereal conjuration), Matter (Physical conjuration), and Exchange (Alchemy)], and powerful wizards (and those Jacks-of-all-Trades) will also have access to Aspects of Mana, which are more metamagic-y.
That's the first draft, at least.
Oh and Illusories also get Aspects of Flesh (Necromancy)
While dark arts will grant their users Aspects of Blood, which absorb the life-force of other beings to power innate abilities.
These dark arts can also corrupt the three schools, leading to Aspects of Inferno (DMAG), Rot (HMAG), and Insanity (IMAG).
@Ben Well, they could, but more likely the Aspect would use it for its own energy pool (while possibly gaining full sapience and betraying their summoners).
The idea is that, for a large base cost, the Aspect could be created, then rather expensively (around 5x the cost of the normal casting) imbued with spells. It can cast these spells from its own Focus (discount Mana), which is capped at creation and slowly regained by drawing from the environment.
@Ben I slap such a prohibitively high cost on them for that reason. Yes, you could create many of them, but it'd take a lot of time, energy, and skill.
Well, what I mean is that if you "learn to control" the Destruction Aspect, you can't "learn" to control the others. So it'd be a 1 in 3 choice - no going back
@Papayaman1000 The problem with that is it would end up with lots of "can I do (x)?" from the players.
In fact, the cost would likely be too expensive for any one mage to create on the battlefield. An exceptionally powerful practitioner could theoretically do this, but it really wouldn't be practical compared to, say, another massive evocation.
@Ben I mean "probably" referring to the bit with Dark aspects betraying their masters.
Anyways, as an extension of "too expensive", I've worked in a sort of Ritual Casting system: the total Focus (discount mana) cost of any spell can be reduced by tacking on levels of a component that increases casting time.
So summoning these aspects would probably be what the caster does instead of a Short Rest.
@Ben It would be based on their Focus pool. This has a nice trade-off in that they regenerate over time (and Dark aspects are vampiric!), but all their abilities are cast from hit points.
As a side note, yeah, HP damage is definitely converted to Focus damage.
Also, going hand-in-hand with the Ritual Casting mock-up I mentioned earlier, do you think it'd be a bad idea to allow mages to "prepare" spells for later use (pay the full cost up-front, but cast the spell for free one time afterwards)? Should it be available to powerful uni-school mages, or should it demand a skilled "Jack of all Trades" wizard, like metamagic Aspects?
@JoelHarmon Plus, the sheer versatility of a given spell, effects-wise, in my Custom Spells system is (hopefully, and if so, obviously) far beyond that of a spell in D&D.
Some of them write XP out separate for example 1500/1000 when multi-classing. Does this really make any difference?
No, the manner of recording XP doesn't change the total, which is all that really matters to a 3.5 character.
I mean in the end your XP total should add up the same and as ...
I'm just not sure what isn't clear about it, and I'd appreciate feedback
@JoelHarmon Oh right, that. I'm just really not clear on what's going on there. In 3.x there's only a single XP total for a PC, and individual points aren't ever associated with a particular class of a MC character, so I'm totally lost when you're suggesting that there is something about how XP works that can be associated with each class.
@SevenSidedDie the something that can be associated is just the penalty. It seems the question can be rephrased to "given that xp is per character, not per class, why track XP separately", to which my maximally pithy reply would be "accounting".
@Papayaman1000 I've just skimmed your backlog here, and I'm now wondering if you're familiar with the magic system in Whitewolf's Mage (either edition)
@JoelHarmon Oh, that's what you mean. In that case though: how does that actually work, in terms of practical math bookkeeping? Why is any splitting needed?
Or put another way, what's on the left of the slash, and what's on the right? What do the numbers mean?
@Adeptus I actually did that intentionally. I was pretty sure (time zones) that you weren't around, so I wanted to reply so you'd see, with a "yes" so we could remember to follow up next time we crossed paths. Really wasn't trying to be a dink, even if it came off that way =)
My core reasoning why you'd ever attempt this is when someone asks how much experience everyone has. The expectation is they'd all have the same totals, but they don't because multiclassing penalties. Some kind of tracking like this seems to be the best way to corroborate the amount of experience gained per encounter among people with different levels and penalties.
@SevenSidedDie Since the OP didn't define the system used more explicitly, I'm kinda stuck with making an educated guess as to what they're doing based on my own knowledge/experience.
the real situation is probably more like "I saw these people doing this weird thing. Why would they do that?" to which the answer is "Did you ask them?"
@SevenSidedDie I'd feel a bit silly asking this in a comment, but for the meta question, should I just edit that myself and move the second question to its own meta question? Will the mods transfer the answers that relate to the second, or...
@JoelHarmon Okay, so I think what the answer could use is clarifying exactly how that hypothetical accounting method accomplishes the tracking of different character XP totals. It's not clear from the answer why noting it separately per class accomplishes that. I'm not entirely sure where to start with more specific suggestions though.
While I think I see where they're coming from, it's definitely a playstyle thing. By a strict reading barely any game qualifies, as third-person narration is totally legit in almost every system.
Player: "Grundar makes a rude gesture at the advancing goblin and shouts something nasty about the soldier's mother." GM: "The goblin laughs and agrees."
Player: "Hey, stupid goblin! Your mother wears hats with stinky flowers!" GM: "Hahaha! You're right, her hats are *terrible!* We tease her about it every harvest!"
Only one of those is an example of making in-character statements.
I like the first one. Less effort required, and more open for the imagination. That way it leaves it up to the group to think of, and share an appropriately funny alternative.
I call it "zooming in and out," adjusting the focus to match the scene's importance and interest with appropriate mechanical complexity and narrative intimacy.
@Adeptus I'll be in bed by then. It seems my evenings/your mornings might be the best time to catch up, in which case my Monday/your Tuesday is probably the next time I can! (Next few evenings are booked solid.)
@nitsua60 Incidentally, I've been thinking about this a lot, mostly because I realised what chat event I'd really like to host, and it just isn't practical for me :(
@WrongOnTheInternet Glad it helped! Good conversation to be having, I think, and I'm glad SSD spotted the trouble that conjoined-ness was causing earlier.
I kid, of course, because now that I too have a goblin-clawed, fanged little ball rolling around the house, I would also deal with the emergency first, then not even bother with social media, because I'm an introvert like that
@nitsua60 Wait, the babies and the robots have joined forces? If that alliance added zombies to its ranks, we would be facing the three most literally helpless forces imaginable.
@trogdor Similar to what @Miniman suggested. It's easy to talk here. Technically, we're all strangers (or at least you are to me), so there's no history of anything to make judgements on. You guys and gals are all just people willing to talk about stuff.
Relating to this question on main, and a spin-off of this question on meta, I noticed an odd trend: five votes to close, five votes to open, and one diamond close, all without any editing. This is far from common, and the question has since been edited, reopened, and edited again, but it did pro...
@Ben "We killstealers have a legend. It is said, that there is one killstealer whose ability to steal kills transcends her own mortality and even time itself. Wherever and whenever a kill occurs, she is there to take the credit. Her name is mentioned only in whispers... Zelda "
@Miniman I'm imagining a big hall. like Valhalla or something, with all these characters sitting around, eating, drinking and being generally happy about their lives, with Zelda sitting at the high table
@trogdor The only trouble is that she does it to the same poor sap that the actual hero is after, constantly. That's why there's a series. He's just trying to get his own for once
Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon are two action-adventure video games developed by Animation Magic and published by Philips Interactive Media for the CD-i video game console. The two games were released at the same time, and look and play similarly due to their simultaneous development cycle and low budget. Another game was released for the CD-i, titled Zelda's Adventure, which featured a different developer and perspective than its predecessors.
Link: The Faces of Evil puts players in control of Link, while Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon has players control Princess Zelda. Both...
in that second one you actually played as Zelda, and the art style was hilarious in both of them
@Miniman The only exception to this rule I have found was Wind Waker
@WrongOnTheInternet I think it was around that time that the PC industry realised what was happening, so they stepped things up from MS Word
I enjoy explaining things to people that have no idea what you're on about. They pay attention, but after a while they just get a dazed look on their face as they get more and more lost
"So I was playing Harvenfall, and the main character Gralt can do this thing called Rewsting, where he takes his Trendlewatch and swings to the Yuldren. But the last time I did it, a Gulip got in my way, and I nearly died, until I managed to pull out the Wastur, and pulled myself to safety."
@Ben What. Is this like when you're in a game store, and some guy regales you with his epic tale of what happened in the last D&D session, only you have zero context for what's going on and he started in the middle, so your eyes just glaze over?
I actually had a n interesting experience when I first started playing. Was really getting into it... the game is just so damn pretty... then this happened.