@nitsua60 I'm definitely changing my approach after this. But it does make me wonder about opinion/discussion based questions that get closed and if there really is a place for them.

@NautArch how so?

@NautArch The difficulty is that most of those sorts of questions need kinds of support which enough users are unwiling to give, that the benefit to the site for permitting those kinds of questions is outweighed by the time and energy needed to keep the answers from turning into noise.

That's what happened to recommendation questions, for example: there were very clear guidelines on how to give good answers, but enough users actively resisted (not just were ignorant of) those guidelines that it wound up being too much of a drain on site resources to keep those pages near the same level of the quality that the rest of the site is accustomed to.

(Discussion questions are another thing again, and just don't fit the Stack's need for answers to be independent of each other so if one goes away the others are still useful--and each can be sorted according to its own merits independent of the relative merits of its peers.)

It took me a long time to wrap my head around the notion that the Stack's target audience isn't the person asking the question, but the untold numbers to come afterward with the same/similar question.

@nitsua60 then you get into areas where the similarity quotient is pretty low, sadly :/

@Shalvenay Whaddya mean?

@nitsua60 where the querents' situations and constraints are different enough that even if the gist of the question is the same, the answers can be fairly different

Mmm, and that's one of the reasons we often close as Unclear even when it seems obvious what the person "really means."

(And why we roll back most edits to add clarifying details that people are just guessing about--but also because it helps train new users how to write better questions.)

hey there @MikeQ

Hello all. What's the hot topic?

A franchise chain that specializes in clothing and accessories a few years behind the edge of rebellious teenage fashion.

A truly rimshot-worthy remark. I could use more puns like these in my upcoming campaign.

Has anyone here ever written and/or ran a Mutants & Masterminds campaign? Creating NPCs is kind of exhausting, and I've been looking around for shortcuts and time-savers.

That might be askable on main-site, if you can specify what's giving you trouble.

I considered doing so, but it's essentially just an advice question, if not just a vent/rant.

Advice questions are fine if they're specific enough that answers can explain why they're useful for the situation instead of just being random buckshot guesses in the dark.

Okay, maybe as I make more progress and if the sessions don't go well. But for now I have so little structure that I'm not even sure what to ask.

The only recently active chat users I can find on the mutants-and-masterminds tag are @mxyzplk and @ShadowKras.

The system's character creation is inherently complicated, and most of the campaign structuring questions I have begin with "Should I..."

@MikeQ i know a lot of people use Hero Lab to generate npcs for M&M. But there was an old generator called Mutagen.

That's a clever name. But my question is less of "What specific tools can I use for NPC management?" but rather more along the lines of "How do I design balanced generic NPCs?", which I fear is too discussion-based for this site.

Balancing is terribly difficult in M&M

the system is naturally unbalanced

Both general and specific balance questions have found a place on the site in the past.

The other idea I had was - instead of creating a zillion NPCs, just have a list of "average values" for the purposes of NPC social interactions. Then my question would be "What numbers should I use for these values" which is an opinion-based question, with no discernibly correct answer.

If you can lay out your play goals, the "should" becomes quantifiable and users can support their answers from experience.

You know there is a sourcebook for villains right? With lots of premade characters

"I used X numbers and got Y effect in play, which matches your desired effect in Z ways."

@ShadowKras the Gamemaster's Guide? Have you used its premade NPCs before?

Iv used those and even the premades from the core book reflavored as villains

My concern is that I'm trying to run a very low PL campaign, and so I'm unsure if the civilian NPC templates may be too "cookie cutter" for actual player interactions.

in large quantities, even the mundane npcs can cause trouble

i mean, its a d20-based system, a 20 is a 20.

We played at PL10 though, and only one character was actually weak defensively

Yes, that's the thing - Most of the "official" resources seem best catered for a PL 10 campaign, whereas now I'm looking at PL 5 or so.

Basically, each player will control 2 individual characters, one at low PL and one at PL 10. Now I'm facing the pandora's box of possible questions. That's what I haven't posted any on the site yet.

@BESW A Leslie-Nielsen-worthy response

@Adeptus Not a life goal, but I'll take it.

(I aspire to SFSPT comparisons.)

@BESW SFSPT = Stephen F Seagal-Peter Tork love-child, I assume?

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, but close enough.

@KorvinStarmast You haven't explained your problem with the quote, so I guess I'll meet your disapproval with a resounding "ok" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Not sure what Sturgeon's Law has to do with approval of comments either.

That tricky arm, always trying to fall off

@Magician 'Tis but a scratch!

@BESW this is great

Well that sucks... MinMaxBoards and BrilliantGameologists are offline, possibly permanently

@trogdor Medieval POC's "medieval reactions" tag is awesome.

@Adeptus It is with a heavy heart then that I update the meta post for it.

I just noticed this Con though:

> Historically, the forum has had serious problems with stability

@BESW it is indeed

(source)

imgur you no longer like the thumbnail suffixes do you D:

lol

@BESW omg no

@doppelgreener [waves innocently]

@BESW NO

Bad BESW!

@BESW YEEEEEESSSSSSS

hi folks

'sup

@Szega Did you have a chance to vote in my poll?

@eimyr sry, I don't know about that

This one.

I mean I know I didn't vote. link?

throws an error

huh

better

I ate a few characters off the end

gimme a minute to read it

There's no pressure: you don't have to vote.

I was just curious what your preference is

Both ideas seem like things that can already be incorporated into an RPG.

I would be interested in how you wanna wire it into the mechanics

that's because they are!

Well, After Adventure, methinks, is going to be PbtA.

AfterA reminds me of Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

Lesser Evil would be some sort of a cross between DitV and Fate mechanics, but I'm not as clear and confident about the mechanics here as in AA.

LE would be harder to pull off in my opinion, as you had to restrict "peaceful" actions

definitely, with an escalation mechanics

These seem more like things a GM has to plan out, rather than something that can be enforced by rules

As you progress through the situation, at any time you want to catch a breath and replenish your resources, you also would need to let the situation deteriorate. Also, acting against an NPC faction would escalate the situation.

So more like an adventure line than a ruleset

Escalation would essentially render friendly actions more and more difficult until it's prohibitively so

Or a system-agnostic rules add-on

er, no, I think there should be rules, like in DitV, that guide the GM while preparing the scenario

I'm not a big fan of guiding the GM with rules TBH

I am.

wait, I'll quote myself...

We might be talking about different things here.

How so?

Creating rules that support a playstyle / genre / "feeling" is fine

ok?

But what PbtA does with restricting to moves seems iffy

Why would you think so?

I have enough on my plate without referencing a list

Well, the list is there specifically so that you don't have to have a plate in the first place.

I still have to keep the whole thing in mind

to make informed decisions

unless you go for silly, random adventures (can be fun)

Keep in mind that it's the narrative that triggers the moves, not the other way around.

I have to admit to not playing it yet, so I will not act all smart

but I am not drawn to it at all

looking through a book to see if I'm allowed to do something as GM

I don't see a problem there.

This same issue was previously dealt with as well, but socially, through group consensus and social contract

I would have to sit down and see it work to add anything more to this discussion

So, for example, if you wanted to have a e.g. teen drama game in a traditional system, not only do the rules often not support it well, but also you have to explain that very very well to your players and trust that they understand it the same way as you.

In PbtA you whip out a game and it literally can't be played in any other way

I'd be happy to run a PbtA taster game for you if you're GMT-compatible.

if everyone wants to play that way and knows the genre, you do not need enforcement

can I give you a car example?

dunno much about cars..., but you can try

I hope you wouldn't see it as insulting to your intelligence

prefacing it that way makes it both more and less likely :)

go on

so if you just want to drive around, you get a regular hatchback. You can put luggage in there, or 5 people, or your super-fat friend, and drive on most roads without a problem. But some people have very specific needs, like easy parking and low fuel consumption or whatever, and they get a Smart

So if you want to have a very specific game and you don't mind having a game that just just that one thing but does it very very well, PbtA is the way to go.

I don't recall: do the mechanics reference GM moves like they do with player moves?

Sure, you can't use your Monsterhearts for anything else than teen monster drama about high school romance, or Night Witches for anything else than soviet pilots in WW2 fighting misogyny and Nazis, but if you're OK with that, you remove all other worries.

@Szega I'm sorry, I'm not sure to what you're referring to. There are GM moves and they are a bit similar to player moves, but you don't roll and there are rules on how and when to use them.

phrased another way: do I have to know which move I am making?

err... yes and no

elaborate on that?

you have to know which move you're making, but they are usually very open-ended

then you can't just make a decision as GM

you have to link it to a rules construct

how does that work with ambiguous stuff?

@Szega When I ran AW, I often ran with the “obvious” in-setting responces to player action, and it breaks/between sessions/… I would check that the things I narrated fit with the MC moves, checking that all mapped nicely and none would be over- or underused.

OK, but let's look at the GM moves from Dungeon World

Use a monster, danger, or location move
Reveal an unwelcome truth
Show signs of an approaching threat
Deal damage
Use up their resources
Turn their move back on them
Separate them
Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities
Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
Put someone in a spot
Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

"Reveal an unwelcome truth" - is that really all that restrictive?

@Anaphory so then you do not need to know the exact move

@eimyr it is more about when two or more could apply

@Szega Can you give an example?

deal damage is part of use up resource for one

well, resources and damage are separate mechanics

if you reveal that someone has a dark past, it could be reveal truth and separate them

you absorb damage as HP, and you have various potions, weapons etc.

Maybe an important things to note here: The GM moves are “Do this thing, narratively”. They are very rarely “Do this thing, narratively, then resolve this mechanics and tie it back to the fiction”.

show a downside could be mixed with any

@Anaphory so if I view them as guidelines only, I would be doing fine?

Well, OK, I can see your point of view. However, keep in mind that it doesn't really matter which move you use. You don't announce it. The player options, responses, mechanics are not affected in any way

@Szega No, because the more you depart from the spirit of the game the more the game will suck

@eimyr this is exactly what I asked about earlier

@eimyr that is not what that question was about

ofc I want to stay in-genre

the question was more that if I respect the style/genre, can I just play it as any other game, or am I restricted by the moves

that sounds like "yeah, I don't want to drive people over, but I don't like traffic laws anyway"

If you understand what the game is about, you will not be restricted by the moves until the point at which you depart from the genre.

@Szega Once you start using them only as guidelines and adding other possible outcomes, you are moving away from the genre the game codifies and is written for. Hacking (which is what you are doing then) is well-established for PbtA games, but if you do that, go back and think about the consequences of doing so.

At least, that's what happens in good PbtA games

I will have to look into this then. Only read a basic fantasy ruleset from PbtA, that didn't stand out much

@eimyr That is an important caveat. The other thing to mention is that there aren't just these General GM Moves, there is usually also sets of GM moves that come with each Front/Threat/Monster/…

running in a genre I do not know well would be the real test of this

but I see why it is buit the way it is

How would you know if it worked then?

if I am (we are) able to emulate the genre

@Szega Running a genre I do not know well is what got me into this type of game, and I learned transferable genre conventions through it (Sagas of the Icelanders→Fiasco “Blood Saga”)

@Szega OMG, @Anaphory. I think we managed to... to... explain a thing... on the internet!

Quick! Save everything before it explodes!

@eimyr I started using Apocalypse World, and I played it with people who like post-apocalyptic settings. I had no clue about post-apocalypse and picked up the game because it came well-recommended and made sense. It worked.

I see.

… is there a Jane Austen PbtA?

@Anaphory What are you imagining as the focus? Romance, historical, literary?

@BESW I don't know, I'm just thinking if PbtA games can be codified genre conventions, I'd like to read a Jane Austen novel with that on the side and think about “oh, look, that's that GM move!”

Because... Bedlam Hall.

Check out the sidebar on this page.

I found that website some time earlier. I should devote some time to delve into it some more and see what's out there.

But then, there are other types of games there that I want to try. Maybe I should just look at my list(s) of games to play and not play and update.

I can't vouch for quality, but it's pretty much exactly what you're describing in terms of "PbtA for X subgenre."

@Magician Simple; going into pseudo logic to assert that D&D isn't a game is what garnered that response. (as previously, your point on the development looking like requirements creep software is fair, and quite frankly they didn't know what they had until they found out).

Ah. I suspected this was a misunderstanding. I didn't say "D&D isn't a game". I said it doesn't exist. Or, to unpack it, it's too vague a concept to be of any use. People play entirely different games using the same rules. And that's before we get into the many editions D&D had.

None of this was meant as an attack on D&D, either.

"D&D" is almost as broad and ill-defined as "RPG", to which it is practically synonymous.

I mean, technically you did literally say "It is not a game." But in context as part of a rhetorical flourish elaborating on "it’s everything and therefore nothing," your point was easily taken by me.

@KorvinStarmast I think the point is that D&D isn't a singular game -- it is a game construction kit if you will (which is rather typical for RPGs, but contrasts sharply with most simple board/card/dice games, where there is either one set of rules or a few well-defined rules variants)

the closest thing outside the RPG sphere would be how variable say poker is

@BESW Ah. Yes. Well. I can't be expected to remember every silly thing I say :D

Is anybody here familiar with Questlandia mechanics?

@BESW BTW how's your frogs vs bots game going?

It's been tabled indefinitely in favor of using my currently very limited free RPG brainpower on my current campaign.

I see. Shame.

I'll probably return to it eventually.

My current Fate campaign feels like maybe the first time I've really hit the sweet spot for Fate dead-center.

which campaign is it again?

SG-13.

@BESW We may also have the benefit of being familiar with @Magician and so understanding he is not the kind of person to think D&D is not a game, along the lines of how Angry has outright said Fate doesn't count as an RPG

(which is, y'know, nonsense)

@doppelgreener Angry nonsense, but that's enough for some.

@eimyr it's mainly deeply concerning to me because he has a considerable following among the D&D crowd who already tend to dismiss other games as not worth their notice

I abandoned Angry's rants as useless to me long ago; his experience with RPGs has very little overlap with anything I want to do.

@doppelgreener I'd like to think I'm good at expressing my ideas so that one doesn't require a personal connection to understand what I mean, though the reception of the stuff I wrote recently is maybe saying otherwise. That, or people on reddit don't read past the headline and argue with voices in their heads.

Why not both?

@eimyr From the last session's encounter notes:

@doppelgreener Extend that to anything in the media: emotionally charged non-nuanced opinions presented as gospel by a person you can identify with easily is just about one of the most problematic aspects of media in the current age.

@Magician BTW thank you for the comment and the vote. I appreciate you supporting your choice with feedback that sounded very unique in a sea of unanimity.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about but would like to, @BESW @doppelgreener, it's this poll

@eimyr No worries. And it's not that I think the After Party idea is bad, it just didn't sound like something I'd want to do.

After Party - that sounds like an awesome game about friendships breaking up

Ah. Damn. I was going to suggest that name to you!

Well, here you go.

hah! I do need a different name, this one I've spent 3 miuntes figuring out, so it can't be the best possible one

So, nobody has experience with Questlandia or Noirlandia?

never even heard of it

I'm trying to get a sense of Damn the Man, Save the Music.

Iv seen Questlandia on amazon once, but never bothered to check it out.

I'm looking at both the Kickstarters for Damn the Man and Misspent Youth and going "ooh... maybe?"

(Also Clink, but it's less something I think I'd actually play.)

I'm mostly skeptical about Damn the Man because it's targeted at nostalgia for a particular era, and that rarely meshes well with my play goals. But if the system is strong enough...

Misspent Youth is hard for me to wrap my brain around. Could be most excellent, could bomb for me entirely. Probably have to dig up an Actual Play and dedicate time to it.

If it works, well. It seems to be my best bet at an ArchAndroid Suite system.

@eimyr i agree with that.

@MrLloyd [wave] Hi!

Hello

Hi there!

Thought I couldn't talk till I hit 20 reputation? Far as I can tell I have 1.

20 on any Stack

It's 20+ rep cumulative across all your Stack accounts.

right now you got 33

Oh, someone must have liked my comments on renewable energy then

Well, if anyone has any questions about Amazing Tales (which I understand you guys were calling Little Adventures) now is a good time to ask them.

Hello all. What is the syntax to create a hyperlink in a comment?

[displaytext](link)

Thank you :) don't know why that didn't work the first time I tried it..might have missed a symbol somewhere

[hyperlink text](http://example.com "optional mouseover text")

@MrLloyd OH RIGHT IT'S YOU

The http:// is crucial.

Hello there!

Oh that was it. Didn't use http:// on my first attempt

@BESW or https:// nowadays if you're linking to another page on the stack

That too.

@MrLloyd It was me you spoke to on FB. I go by "Eimyr" here. Welcome! I'm so glad you stopped by.

Well, you asked me to, so here I am. Took a little while to get to grips with how things work around here.

My first attempt at looking up about Little Adventures did not work out so well.

[squint] is @nitsua60 around?

@shadowkras that's oddly appropriate, but yeah, not it.

So @MrLloyd how long until release?

Funny enough, it took me like 30 seconds to realize it was not about rpg

Good question. There are three pieces of artwork to go, I've just got concept sketches for two of them through.

@nitsua60 Approaching both my answers and my voting/comments to others with a little less strictness and little more fun.

Until then i was like oh, that looks interesting, lets check this out

Layout is just about done, the designer has told me he's not 100% happy with it yet, and won't let me see it till he is ;-)

[amused]

So hopefully getting something off to try and print a test copy in the next month or so

@MrLloyd What format and volume should we expect?

And then I'm going on holiday, so probably September

Kid friendly hardback, big, about 80 pages

And a pdf option of course

Might do a softback if that won't require redoing the entire layout

Lots of artwork

Any idea about expected prices?

hardback probably around 20 euro, pdf a lot less.

Comparable with buying a nice book or two for bedtime stories

What are you guys talking about

MrLloyd is the... author?

Amazing Tales

And yes, I'm the author / designer / whatever

@MrLloyd Just wanted to say Thank You! I haven't had a chance to play it yet with my 5 year old, but I'm getting ready to do it :)

@MrLloyd You have visited us during a time of a somewhat-heated discussion about whether D&D experience is well-codified by the game itself or not.

@MrLloyd Where will be Amazing Tales shipped from? We're a multinational bunch so there are folk here who pay exorbitant shipping for most products.

It's gonna be on Drive Thru, which if I understand it means there'll be a US and EU shipping point, which makes tax easier

Not sure exactly where the EU hub is

awesome

As for your well codified debate, I'm not sure I understand the question, on the other hand, I haven't played D&D for 20 years

@MrLloyd they are debating something else unrelated. You and me are both missing the context.

→ 11 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Thanks, @BESW

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

It's what the NAB is for.

@MrLloyd None of this is critical to the security of the free world.

err, so, yeah

Asking because I am so new to the site: I understand question-based chats get created automatically, but are you able to manually create one as a non-moderator?

@A.B. At the bottom of the list of chat rooms is a "create new room" button.

@BESW many thanks

But i dont think you can invite someone

Do people get a ping if I just tag them in a room they are not in?

@Szega no, unless you're a mod

Nope, you can only tag if they have been there

People only get pinged if your @ can auto-complete their name (which means they've been in that room recently).

but I recall you can invite people to a room you own

who owns a "comments moved to chat" room?

To invite someone to a new room, go to their chat.stackexchange user profile and click "invite this user to" and you'll get a list of rooms you're in that you can invite the person to. There's also a button for creating a room with the person.