@JuneShores @Zachiel can I poke either of you to improve the golden-sky-stories tag's wiki and description? I just created it a few days ago, and just put in some very superficial placeholding description.
@JuneShores yeah -- that's another factor -- my engineering-bent towards technical (vs. social) problems and problem-solving clashes with storytelling's emphasis in focusing on the universal, the human condition if you will
@Shalvenay I don't think that's a fair generalization of it overall, although it could certainly be used that way. There were other ways to make 3.5 less trappy(ironically, 5e took the "balance around weapon focus" approach and made that work). It was more the poor mapping of archetypes to build options, like Miniman said. Gestalt's additional options combined with a rough level of guaranteed viability is fantastic for people who like combining things.
Well, for instance, Rogues+Clerics don't "work" in such&such a setting, as well as other combinations. So churches in that setting aren't going to have many strong+devoted cleric+rogues.
@Shalvenay And I don't know any of them having a strong Rogue+Cleric archetype, but maybe that's a lack of knowledge on my part, I'm not GREAT on setting lore.
> Portmanteaumancy. You can use Rapport to combine two things into a single thing. Examples including making two people friends, creating a minotaur, and whatever nonsense the Dorito Taco is. The difficulty is based on how alike the things are, how inclined they are to listen to you, and how easy it is to pronounce the name of the resulting thing.
@nitsua60 something about how they used their skills to "create" their own path in life rather than rely on what was handed to them was the background behind it, I think
OK so, I've got these OSR games that I'm hacking together. One is a Ducktales game that takes out the fighting completely and the other is a Final Fantasy game that tries to make the fighting more fun.
@nitsua60 hmm... would Shepherd Book from Firefly count? (I thought of Benni from the Brendan Fraser version of The Mummy, for that one scene with all the holy symbols... but since he doesn't have genuine faith, that falls more under either rogue or factotum)
@Adeptus He doesn't really fit any of the Rogue archetypes, within the context of the show, which is what I was aiming for: an easy reference-able character who's Rogue+Cleric. Best I could come up with is Van-Hellsing and Constantine.
@Miniman Yeah, that'd certainly work. Or in a different system, everyone'd have levels in "mechanic." (Though whatshername would be the only one whose "main" class was engineer.)
Eh, I'm feeling more of a points/skills system for Firefly, honestly.
@Adeptus Definitely not "everyone with the criminal background" - Mal and Zoe have the soldier background, Simon and River have the noble background (sort of), and so on.
@Adeptus If she was actually religious? Maybe? As it is, she's "better modeled" as a Sorcerer, in as much as I'd be willing to consider "caster" for her, which I'm not :P
1. PCs assault an abandoned keep being used as a forward base by a commander of the enemy Horde, killing most, except their leader, Koth. They abandon the keep, leaving Koth in chains but unguarded. This is Day 2. Later that day, Koth escapes with the aid of other Hobgoblins that are just generally roaming the area.
2.They progress deeper, assaulting a Dragon guarding a Bridge the Horde needs to cross, but failing to do any real damage. PCs retreat. Mid day 3, shenanigans happen, and...
@godskook Go back in time (in your mind) and stat up the commander+Horde, the Hobgoblins, the dragon, and whoever's manning the bridge in this fashion: theangrygm.com/schrodinger-chekhov-samus
(And whatever factions/subunits-of-Horde haven't been mentioned.)
The players don't know how tough it was going to be before... Do you want the players to have a chance of winning, or do you want them to retreat or be captured?
@Adeptus Beyond Koth and the current Bridge Garrison, I'm at a liberty to make the game world react "appropriately" to the PC's current set of actions.
New RP character: Evil Abed. Very high charisma and intelligence, little of anything else (except a high level of skill with crossbows). Also has a gloriously evil goatee
> Evil Goatee. When you're being Clever, you can improve your Outcome by 1 tier, at the cost of alerting any heroes in the vicinity to the fact that you're evil.
@BESW Is there any standard wording for improving an outcome? I was typing out "turn success into success with style, turn failure into success" and so on, but that seemed ridiculous.
> Secretly Evil. You gain the condition Trying to blend in, which begins with its box checked. You can automatically succeed with style on a single action by unchecking that condition. While it remains unchecked you have the aspect Obviously untrustworthy but get +2 on (choose one when you take this stunt) attacking with creepy weapons, persuading NPCs to follow you, or undermining the heroes' morale.
Yes, the next time the story says you're trying to blend in, the condition is re-checked.
That'll usually involve some sort of mechanical hook (like using create advantage to make a new disguise, or overcoming an obstacle to vanish into the crowd) but it doesn't have to.
Traditionally, conditions are used to replace consequences.
There's a number of different systems that use 'em different ways. DFA uses them for supernatural effects.
For example, if a True Fae is injured with an iron weapon they have to check off Ferroburned, which means they can't heal any other physical injury until it's dealt with--that means resting in Faerie or getting cared for by someone who knows supernatural medicine.
Vampires get a lot of stress boxes on Hungry and mark them off to power vampiric stunts. Unchecking those boxes requires the obvious.
I've heard an opinion that in RPG games one of the player characters (and by extension one of the players) is always the center of action, regardless of the intentions of the participants (GM included) or the game designers.
Your opinions?
I'm eager to disagree, to throw a counter-example in the face of the claimant, but I... don't have one. It always happened in groups I've been in.
@eimyr Is this the (to me evidently true claim) that at any given moment one of the player characters will be the focus of the action, or the claim that one specific characters will have the focus on them all the time?
@ACuriousMind No, it's the idea that in any given narrative one of the players, specifically the one who has achieved the greatest immersion in the game, will tend to become a key element of the experience. The idea is that even if other PCs will have greater plot significance, this player will have the others coalesce around their experience, elevating them and their character to a more central position than originally.
@eimyr TV has the same thing - ensemble casts appear hard to keep blended. In many (but not all) cases, they settle down to a smaller number of key characters. Other ensemble characters are featured from time to time, but the bulk of the story is really about two or three of them. Star Trek: The Next Generation, for instance... Picard and Data end up being the two main characters.
@Adam Yes, and it happens even if a) all players try to prevent it, b) there is a mechanic reinforcing egalitarian access to the spotlight, c) another PC has more significant relevance to the plot (e.g. Big Bad's sibling, a Chosen One etc.)
This seems related to some other group dynamics. One person will always be the leader, another will be challenging the leader and so on. And even if you take the leaders from all groups and form a new group the same pattern keeps emerging.
@eimyr Interesting... my knee-jerk reaction was "this is one of those 'players-on-a-continuum' thing, so of course somebody's going to be the most X." But then I'm reflecting back to my recently-concluded ten-month campaign with seven PCs and can't think of one around whom things really pivoted. (Prolly means it was me...?)
I think a good sign that my groups don't have such a central character is that they are usually unwilling to play as soon as even one (two in the groups with players with more constrained schedules) player is missing, regardless of who it is
Certainly we've had games with wildly shifting spotlights, and plots which pivot around different characters at different times even if one player's character is the pivot more often.
And we've had games where I don't think anybody was really the lynchpin of the experience; our Dresden Files Accelerated beta test comes to mind. There were characters who probably had LESS import, but no single one that stood out beyond all others.
@Adam Er... in short, Bleed is a name for when a player starts experiencing emotions of the character. Tehre is more to it, but I'm not sure of the proper definitions myself.
Over two decades of gaming, I've never had much luck trying to force the spotlight. I start the campaign with an idea in mind, but I let it settle where it settles... then run with it. I've even done stuff like having every player create more than one character; it alway seems to settle down to one character being the most important.
@T.J.L. I let my players make multiple characters for the most recent campaign. most of the players have one primary character that they want to play, and any of their other characters are just mindless zombies that they keep around for the mechanical benefits they offer.
Although there's often one character in a campaign who winds up being the primary focal point of the plot, it has nothing to do with system mastery or immersion. It has to do with regular attendance and a willingness to respond to the story.
Case in point, one player made a cleric, because the party was missing a cleric. The cleric does not really speak, nor does the player roleplay through the cleric all that often. The only reason the cleric exists is to heal people, cast buffs, and make religion checks.
@BESW In my experience, it isn't always the same player, and it isn't always the "leader" character, but it always seems to happen. System master and immersion both appear to have an influence, though. The players who like the system and like the setting tend to get deepest into their character, and that seems to prove the experience for everybody.
I'd like to see the concept tested against games where character interaction is minimal or non-existent and only explicit player-to-player interaction can lead to the game being influenced more by one player.
Like, for example, A Penny For My Thoughts or a split-the-party game of Don't Rest Your Head.
@Adam In the scenario I was referring to, its only ever one character a time. In the two most recent instances, one was two entirely separate casts on opposite sides of a conflict - I decided which group was in play for the given episode. In the other, it was Shadowrun, so one person got the contract and called up the characters they thought would be useful - but only one per player.
@eimyr I think the last time we explicitly went for bleed was My Life With Master, and the group quit before the end of the campaign in part because bleed wasn't a thing they wanted to go for.
I've got an upcoming game that WILL have bleed for one of the players, because of her character choices. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
@BESW I'm pretty sure your group is quite bleed-averse in general, and that's one of the reasons why Fate with its pronounced player - story divide and dissociation of player and character works so well for you folks.
@Adam Er... in short, Bleed is a name for when a player starts experiencing emotions of the character. Tehre is more to it, but I'm not sure of the proper definitions myself.
@eimyr Yeah, bleed affinity is definitely something related to why a person chooses to RP in the first place.
My groups now are mostly looking for a comfortable, creative way to relax and unwind with friends. Forging empathetic bonds with fictional characters is liable to be... neither relaxing nor comfortable.
That's one reason I had us play Dog Eat Dog on a different day, at a different time, in a different place.
@Ben Bleed, as I understand it, is a kind of immersion in which the emotions one's character feels are also experienced to some extent as real emotions owned by the character's player. And characters in RPGs tend to go through the wringer, emotionally.
If you transfer a character's emotions to the player, the player's gonna feel sad, betrayed, excited, scared... and even if that wasn't going to leave you drained and tense, there's a lot of pressure on the whole group to "play right" in order to not BREAK the immersive effect which allows the bleed.
@BESW I think the latter is only true for a certain style of gaming. If a group tends toward the light-hearted and comedic, bleed is much less emotionally taxing than in other cases.
@Ben Not really. Bleed is supposed to be separate from IRL relationship building.
To give you an example, I experienced some bleed during a Night Witches campaign, I was pretty invested in the narrative, but we recognised very well the difference between our characters and ourselves, and the relations IRL were completely separate from the ones in game, bleed had nothing to do with it.
But even for light-hearted games, I've played in groups where we all have to be really careful not to speak out of character too much, or dwell too much on mechanics, and we have to time the pizza delivery so it doesn't break immersion. It's an extra level of pressure and tension that I never felt was worth the reward.
@BESW By that definition, I'd say bleed is a bad thing. While being invested in your character is good, and being invested in the story is good, actually allowing your emotional state to be manipulated by a game does not seem healthy.
@eimyr Didn't you say the original term was from a LARP, where player self-insertion is kind of the whole idea?
Especially since it tends to ALSO lead to Old Man Henderson style frustrations because the pressure to maintain the immersion enforces a reluctance to communicate about important table-level subjects.
@BESW I'm pretty sure the Story Game community puts heavy emphasis on game-driven in-character interactions and guiding everyone to a very sharply focused style and content.
@T.J.L. I... can't really agree. Are LARPS about roleplaying yourself? Really? I've never seen a LARP before then.
@BESW Up to this message, I thought bleed and continuous immersion were different things. If the scenes are gripping and immersive, it doesn't really matter if you order pizza in-between, imo.
Maybe I just have much lower standards of immersion, though :P
@T.J.L. Aaaand that's precisely why in story game circles Nordic Larp is a different beast, as it speficically tries to achieve heavy bleed through careful characterisation, narrative and system
@eimyr Yeah, which could be cool, if it works... That said, all of the LARPing I've seen and/or experienced as pretty much been "player personality + character powers". The jerks always end up playing jerks, the wallflowers always end up playing wallflowers, so on and so forth.
The presence of the table itself in non-LARP RP gives a bit of extra freedom, gives more allowance for character to be separate from player. A non-LARP that has "bleed" has somehow worked its way through that abstraction layer sounds like manipulation, not investment.
Mind you, I've had games where players feel for the characters, but as the characters. Things that are good for the story can be bad for the character... but good for the story also means good for the player.
@eimyr I fail to see how "bleed" can be a benefit. When something happens to a character, the player's thought should be "How would the character react to it?" not "How would I react to it?". If the character's reactions are the player's reactions, you're not playing the character - you're self-inserting. Self-insertion is not immersion or investment.
For me it is the opposite. I identify with my character and want it to be successful through whatever means I can. The notion of "grinning how terrible this decision is" but at the same time being happy that it makes for an interesting story is completely foreign to me.
If you identify with your character, or try to play vicariously through your character, then I could see how trying to sync your emotions to your character's emotions could be a very fulfilling experience.
@nwp It's not a question of how "terrible" the decision is; it's a question of how authentic to the character's personality it is. Sometimes people make stupid decisions for internal reasons of their own; why would a character be any different?
To be fair, there are definitely some genre-specific factors to take into account. What is reasonable behavior (or, understandingly unreasonable) in one setting may not be reasonable in another.
@Adam I never said that one precluded the others. I just said they're not the same thing.
@T.J.L. There is a difference between accidentally stupid and purposely stupid. While the character has some weaknesses that would make it behave suboptimal I wouldn't have my character "punch a dragon because that's funny". That might be a style or experience thing thought. I guess after you played yourself so many times you get bored and start playing other people and don't care if they fail.
Also the definition of "fail" might differ. I would consider punching a dragon failing. Others might consider it succeeding at having fun playing a game.
@nwp Who said anything about "not car[ing] if they fail"? Unless the story is some sort of heroic (as in the old Greek stories, or most Hollywood action flicks) fantasy (as in something implausible), failure is bound to happen. If there is no chance of failure, there's no chance of excitement.
@ACuriousMind Isn't that the whole point? I mean, anything else usually turns into "What could I get away with if I had special powers"... which is what I said about most LARPs I've seen: player personality + character powers.
This attitude for example doesn't work for me at all. There seems to be no pressure to "play well", or, better put, the understanding of good play is incompatible my understanding.
OK, OK, folks. This is going way beyond the scope of what I intended to discuss, and you're totally ok to continue, but I thought it's necessary to clarify some things I thought were assumed by all. So, certain people play RPGs in order to explore various situations and see in what kinds of relationships would be formed by these situations. Part of this is having the relationships (e.g. between PCs) be emotionally charged.
There are whole games written solely for that purpose, and they use a variety of tools, such as mechanic-driven PC interactions, relationship-focused play, narrative and creative constraints and yes, in fact, Bleed as well. In that constellation bleed can be useful and beneficial to the overall playing experience.
Of course bleed is not universally beneficial or desired, in many playstyles it's nothing but a drawback and in some it's impossible to achieve or irrelevant. In fact, Nordic LARP which coined the term is so much different from regular LARPs that their creators don't really align themselves with traditional LARP events.
So all I wanted to say is "assuming that bleed exists, and it's part of the gaming experience, is that influencing immersion-driven emergence of central players, assuming it's a thing" and we discussed that.
I'm not entirely convinced there is merit in discussing the benefits and drawbacks of bleed in absence of a very much focused story game context, as it's such a constrained phenomenon, that it might need heavy redefinition to even be applicable to other RPG fields.
@nitsua60 For nitsua, yes, i served on four different aegis cruisers, and they were bringing the Burke's on line as I was leaving the fleet and becoming a staff puke. Am quite familiar with SPY 1A, SPY 1B ops, but the more recent variants and updates I am not very good about. Just too out of date
@nitsua60 I was also involved in a few projects for setting up regional BMD capability, but that is well over a decade out of date, so what they've done lately I have to discover by the usual research
I do wonder how much Actors influence their roles with their own personality. I'm guessing since their drawing on themselves as much as the role, it happens frequently.
@godskook Possibly, but the definition suited for story games and nordic larp reduces it's usefulness as a game element in discussions lacking this context, methinks
@NautArch I believe it does. There are also stories about the role eliciting emotional burden on actors, especially method actors. You could say method acting is a very visceral attempt to create maximum bleed.
if anything, I see less of a problem with bleed at my tables (probably because of the little amount of RP we do) and more of a problem with metagaming actions
@eimyr What I"m saying is that it can't be avoided. That even trained actors do it, and when an untrained actor (aka roleplayer) does it, it's definitely going to happen.
@NautArch But actors train to be in character as much as possible to be as authentic as possible. If they have to play a character that stutters they will be stuttering weeks in advance to practice. They would never even think of avoiding getting into character.
definition, I don't think there's anything inherently "Nordic Larp"-oriented about the concept, such that it would inhibit useful discussions for those of us lacking that context.
And you could avoid it by, for example, rotating the character everyone plays. It avoids emotional attachment because the next person will ruin whatever you wanted the character to be anyways. I just don't think avoiding emotional attachment is at all desirable.
@godskook Yeah, that is an error that actors try to minimize.
@nwp I disagree. The Sherlock Holmes that both RDJ and Penoftin Clap'n'snap could both play would not POSSIBLY be as good as the more personalized portrayals either actor has already put to screen.
Actors get paid, so nobody cares about their fun. It is their job to portrait the character as closely as possible. RPGs are different. Here you want to bring your personality into the game. Otherwise it wouldn't even matter who plays which character.
@godskook I think that is just an artifact of the fact that there are different disagreeing ideas about how Sherlock Holmes behaves. Each actor played the version that fit to that story's/producer's vision of him.
Maybe some producers don't really have an idea of how a character should be and just go with whatever the actor gives them, but I wouldn't consider that a feature either.
@SevenSidedDie About the comment on the dragon question: I voted to close and presumed I will have no way to post a full answer, yet wanted to help him out. He does not have enough rep to chat. What should I have done?
2.Why are you saying this? It seems disjointed from the conversation....
3.Its their job to portray the character as *well* as possible, not as *closely* as possible. Actors are praised when they can augment a Producer's or Director's vision for the character.
@Szega If you upvote, he'll now have enough Rep to bring to a chat room.
@godskook 1. Really? You would like to have RDJ have fun at being a terrible Sherlock Holmes? That goes against the goal of making a Sherlock Holmes movie. 2. Because we were talking about characters bleeding into actors and actors bleeding into characters. The distinction between actors and RPG players seemed relevant. 3. I don't see the difference between well and closely here. Fleshing out a character can be well done by an actor, I agree.
@nwp @1 That's not within the context discussed so far, so I'm not answering it. And RDJ not having fun goes against the goal of making a good Sherlock Holmes movie starring him. @2 Not that you've convinced me, but I'm not sure how we can distill it, into a discussable point. Cest le vie. @3 Closely implies an objective measure of success and a singular target. Well implies an at least semi-subjective measure, such that two portrayals, with conflicting takes on the source material
@godskook I guess you are right with 3. I was thinking about having a fictional character that needs to be played by an actor who should better do it correctly, as in according to the fictional character. But I see your point that saying "give me your best Sherlock Holmes impression" and then going with whatever seems good even if it contradicts the fictional character is also a valid way to make a good movie.
@NautArch Yeah, though I'm kicking myself a little for not posting it the other night. I was just so tired of talking about it by that point, though....
@nwp Its why I referenced RDJ and Back'n'forth With'mah'staff. They both do EXCELLENT Sherlock portrayals. But they also both do DIFFERENT portrayals, in a way that I think would be made worse if we tried to get both of them to homogenize to the "same" portrayal.
The point was not that they need to portrait the same thing, the point was that they should portrait the envisioned character by whoever is making the movie.
But the point is moot anyways since that clearly isn't how good movies are made.
@Szega Just not try to help solve their problem in a comment at all. It's not what comments are for, and defeats the point of the hold system and all the site's other peer-review tools.
There are situations, when you know SOMETHING that is related to the question but its insubstantial to be a proper answer, in example lets imagine a question:
In which edition of game X dwarves are allowed to play as mages?
Now lets say that I know a bit of game X, but I haven't played a wh...
@SevenSidedDie Is there any way I can write a private message to a SE user? If I am not welcome to help in a comment, I would still like to do it another way.
Yep, everything on SE happens in public, for the same peer-review reasons. Specific to the current situation: SE doesn't ever let one person claim that their help is right, only offers ways for someone to submit help for peer review, and lets others decide which help is right. That's why there's no private help, and comments aren't for help.
If the question is Primarily Opinion-Based, to help solve it, first help it not be opinion-based; If the question's off topic, it's off topic and the fastest way to help is to direct them to a place where it's on topic (such as a forum).
@Szega Yeah, ruthless efficiency is about right. All the restrictions are designed to force people to do the useful things that help the site help others better, so no answers in comments forces people to see if the question can be fixed up, in order to help with an answer, or whatever else is needed to do before helping them. Then the result is a long-term useful resource for everyone, rather than just one person.
@nitsua60 you say Attack is a defined game term, but it isn't actually defined, right? It's definition is a product of usage.
@SevenSidedDie this is where i went wrong when attempting a question on a different stack :) Needing something that was mainly just for me and not for everyone.
I think there is potential for that question to be edited to fit the site. Its main issue is that it's looking for ideas (“ I was wondering what else I could do…”), which is a PoB problem, but often questions like that can be edited to not invite ideas, and better focus on describing the problem to be solved.
@Szega Area 51 is where proposed new sites like that are suggested & developed. The hurdle I see is whether there are enough people interested in such a site. There might be.
@T.J.L. AFAIK, the only uneconomical part is that super-sonic speeds are banned above populated areas in the US (and probably Europe, but I don't know about that part), which made the Concord a great idea that would have worked fine, but hampered by the inability to use it for many routes. Being confined to the Atlantic route was a regulatory necessity, not a technical one. I know there are technical costs too, but IIRC the route limits were the big economical problem.
Hey gang. Just popping in to congratulate @nitsua60 and @Miniman on an amazing discussion of Attack vs. attack.
Choice quotes: "I know people say Ranger needs a buff, but giving them an infinite number of attacks each turn might be a shade too much." "Worked for Salvatore!" and "Should be going to bed. Wife will (rightly) be annoyed at how much time I've spent on one letter. Should be going to rabbinical school if I want to get this deep into textual construction." XD
It's possible that I've had that conversation a few dozen times in meatspace. Frankly, though, I'm fine with anybody who's confused by it and blame WotC for not picking a distinctive name for the action.
@NautArch That's what I like about it; it sounds so wonderfully dystopian. It's also much more accurate than the more-common "IRL", which to me suggests that online interactions aren't real, which I think unfairly minimizes both the positive and negative consequences of online social interactions.
@nitsua60 I should really read that, especially as I start to consider myself a quasi-professional gamer.
@SirTechSpec It's... impressive. About every few pages I come across something that makes me want to throw a QA up here. Recently it'd have been "Q: where did the term "role-playing game" (or "roleplaying game") originate? A: it seems to have been coined by a staffer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussing the suggested changes to kriegsspiel practices that RAND proposed for a world of mutually-assured destruction...."
I can see why Mike Tresca drops an article on ENWorld every few weeks that just seems to be summarizing a two-page part of the book. It's really that good. And dense--a few pages per fortnight is about my "fast" pace.
@NautArch I think one thing is missing from your answer: explicitly asking for communication. You're at the edge of it ("start with... an opportunity to discuss") but don't quite come right out and say it the way I would. For instance, I try to make a habit at the end of sessions of saying "please let me know if anything bothered you, if there're any questions, anything you liked or didn't, anything you want more or less of..." I also explicitly ask for feedback offline between sessions.
@nitsua60 my concern with that is explicitly asking doesn't necessarily give you a response. I've explicitly asked for feedback from my table when I've DM'd and gotten none (but our table generally doesn't communicate like that because we haven't/don't do the things I listed)
FOr me, it's more important to create an environment where you can talk like that. The session zero and following up sections provide the specific opportunity to talk.
There are situations, when you know SOMETHING that is related to the question but its insubstantial to be a proper answer, in example lets imagine a question:
In which edition of game X dwarves are allowed to play as mages?
Now lets say that I know a bit of game X, but I haven't played a wh...
