TRPG General Chat

BESW

01:10

@UrsulaV I admit I miss the days when the massive Helvetiphonts roamed the grasslands, raising their sans-serifs and trumpeting into the sunset.

Tweeted by sofawolfone on October 16, 2017 at 8:42 PM in reply to UrsulaV

trogdor

Jesus I regret looking at the guy who can hear font sizes

I don't like looking at shouty angry crazy

BESW

"Hears font sizes" is a lousy superpower anyway.

I'm much happier considering the ecosystem of Helvetiphonts.

trogdor

01:25

Lol

I also don't like the narrative where it is OK to harang over people complaining about something they care to change positively.... Especially since most times I see or hear it it is like that guy, I wanna complain about people complaining about things.... I seems so hypocritical

It* but I guess I works too because I am complaining about people complaining about complaining :P

Joshua

01:51

Does a (probably long) sequence involving parallel casters exist that can reliably cancel out the 33% chance of being unable to cast wish again due to wish stress?

Shalvenay

@Joshua what system?

nitsua60

Yes, to within desired reliability.

Shalvenay

and hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

hiya

Shalvenay

how're things going?

nitsua60

01:52

Okay--grading. Kids are generally doing well, so that's good. But I'd rather be sleeping.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah, grading -- the only thing worse than doing homework.

Joshua

I think that rule only exists in D&D in the first place. I also think that given reliability >= 66% I could extrapolate it all the way to zero.

Shalvenay

@Joshua well, there are like a zillion and two TTRPGs out there

so wish probably got monkeyed with quite a bit by the various OSR games out there as well as by Wizards when they took over the D&D franchise

Joshua

ah got it

What always bugged me about that world was you have 9th level spells why are you still at medieval tech level? (I think you don't even need wish to abuse to bootstrap near future tech.)

nitsua60

189

Q: Managing a Medieval Low Orbit Ion Cannon

Sometimes I hate my players. My table is currently composed of five diabolically inventive players. They come from a mixed IT/Engineering background, so more often than not, I have to deal with some really weird solutions that they create for the problems I present them. This is one of those c...

and obliquely related...

83

Q: Given powerful low-level Clerical healing, how can sick, crippled or otherwise unhealthy people exist?

In my attempt to make a more harsh, uncaring setting, I’ve hit a stumbling block in terms of the ease with which even low level Clerics can treat the poor and the sick: A 1st-level Cleric can bring most commoners back from the brink of death (Cure Wounds), Detect Poison and Disease, and Create ...

dnd-5e cleric world-building healing

Shalvenay

01:59

@Joshua some of the folks on GitP I believe went hogwild with that actually and developed what basically is a system of magic dedicated to worldbuilding work

I can't recall what it was called tho

nitsua60

Are you talking about the tippyverse?

giantitp.com/forums/…

Joshua

Well would you say that attempting star travel is a good enough reason to become a lich from a chaotic good wizard?

nitsua60

@Joshua Do you mean, like, personal interstellar travel? (I.e. no need for a ship if you need neither food nor air?)

Joshua

Well I think I'll still need a ship but no resources to consume anymore. I'll happily maneuver it with fly spells.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 don't believe it's the Tippyverse per se

Joshua

02:02

Somebody's gotta cross once for greater teleport to possibly work beyond the moon.

nitsua60

@Joshua Sure--you need a circle-setter =)

Joshua

Well the idea is a lich can make the attempt and try again if he fails.

nitsua60

The whole bit about consuming others' souls to feed the phylactery doesn't give the "good" part of your CG lich a bit of a twinge?

BESW

02:20

D&D 3.5 had the archlich, a Good-aligned caster who embraced undeath in order to continue a worthy cause.

trogdor

So wait, this whole wish thing is there like a worldwide diminishing returns on wishes in some or all versions of D&D?

BESW

[shrug] It's news to me.

Sounds like a 5e thing.

trogdor

Ok , and I mean I could be misinterpreting exactly what it is

That is just what it sounded like

BESW

02:54

Dang it, tweeted the wrong file the first time. Here it is again! Warlock-turned-fighter Moorwen Frostmoon and her dragon Chalarook!

Tweeted by mooncalfe1 on October 16, 2017 at 4:17 PM

Adeptus

04:24

@doppelgreener My wife used to live in Queensland. One day at work, after moving to SA, she looks outside and the sky is greenish. Says to coworkers, "Oh no, it's going to hail! There's nowhere to park undercover, I don't have anything to protect the car, it's going to get trashed!" They look at her funny a moment, then go "...oh yeah, you're from Queensland. How big is hail there, usually?" She was expecting fist-sized. We usually get 5mm sized.

trogdor

Good Lord fist sized hail no thanks XD

Shalvenay

@Adeptus we have you beat over here on the hail front. tennis-ball-sized hail is not unknown where I live.

sometimes even softball-sized

BESW

04:40

PALADIN: Dear lord, forgive me, it has been..uh...ten minutes since my last confession, actually, I'm a Paladin. #DnD

Tweeted by UrsulaV on October 17, 2017 at 2:12 AM

Lyndon White

06:16

It just fully hit me. Since the RPG I am making is entirely about roleplaying artists.
The character sheet is going to need to be a truly excellent work of art

BESW

What kind of art?

Lyndon White

Like actual fine art.
Constructionism I think

BESW

'cause a clean, clear design that efficiently communicates its content and makes it easy to use during play is a thing of true beauty to me.

But then, I'm a graphic designer with a fine art background.

Lyndon White

Indeed, for a normal game that is what I would be wanting.

BESW

Do you mean Constructivism?

Lyndon White

06:18

Errh yes.

I think so

BESW

Russian futurism, art-for-social-purpose?

Lyndon White

Yes, I think so yes.

In particular it is a game about playing Anartists from the SCP universe.

And the core Anartist fiction in that universe is AWCY, which is heavily influenced by I think Dadaism? (Its actually been a while since I read the stories, I think I need to bush up on my art knowledge, then reread them)

BESW

That's... a strange mashup.

Lyndon White

Is it?
How so?

BESW

I'm not very familiar with SCP, but Anartism is weird already and I'm not sure the SCP folks really get Dadaism.

Lyndon White

06:25

I'm pretty sure they don't. I'm also pretty sure I don't

As a game, it so far seems to be coming together. (I'm not vacumn chambering it).
You play artists,
you go around making Art (that are SCPs).
You regain you mana stat (Inspiration) by being inspire by things you see, and especially by putting on exhibitions.
You do this while dealing with the fact that you are being hunted by the foundation and probably a number of other people.
(There is a heat and wanted level system involved, I think I discussed that last time I was on)

trogdor

is there no danger that your art kills you?

Lyndon White

trogdor: There is a HUGE danger your art will kill you

trogdor

ok

because you didn't mention that part, and it seemed like that would definitely be part of the problem

Lyndon White

Not too much of a problem, I mean you control what art you make

BESW

I'd be tempted to use a DRYH-like mechanic for the art.

Lyndon White

06:33

Right now the art is based largely on a very very compacted set of uses similar to Mage the Awakening

I'm not sure I am happy with the current rules in that area, but I have determined not to mess with them until after a playtest

I wonder if I can get away with cheap tricks that make the character sheet feel artistic.
Like have it be black background, with white text, printed on card.
and give all the players white-out markers to write on it with.

I think I might end-up commissioning the character-sheets.

BESW

Hmm. A really evocative design would give the elements a sense of independence or rebellion--that the parts of the character sheet aren't happy with their roles, or are about to get up and leave.

Also, check out the Eyebleed Edition of Misspent Youth.

It's got a cut-up-art sensibility in line with some Dadaist artists, and a mimeographed aesthetic evocative of underground zines.

I'd definitely look at underground zines for inspiration.

[has been reading about underground magazines for a possible upcoming campaign]

Lyndon White

thanks for that. (also the artistic stylings alone make me want to playing before i've read more than a paragraph of the rules)

BESW

Finding the image/text expression of a client's vague sense of theme is kinda what I do.

Lyndon White

06:50

Its very unfortunate that color printing is so expensive.
My working draft is like 50 pages long, with red headings.
It is as artistic as I can get with my skills and staying inside googledocs (Eventually I will ave to export it, and recreate it in InDesign, but this at least gives me enough of the feels to keep writing).
Printing it out will cost an unreasonable amount.

But I think without the bold colors, it won't get the feels I want at all.

BESW

Designed... in... Google Docs...

Lyndon White

For co-authoring something, you can't really beat google docs

BESW

That's reasonable... but...

Lyndon White

I mean it has huge flaws (simply by being a word processor rather than desktop publisher.)
But until I have content complete,
a word processor is better.

BESW

I once had to design an anthology in MS Word. It was a nightmare.

Yeah, work on the text in a word processor, absolutely.

Lyndon White

06:56

Yeah, it is text and tables only right now.

BESW

And, to be fair, it's not as bad as the client who sent me mockup pages for a book... as PowerPoint files...

Lyndon White

I found out people make their conference posters in powerpoint all the time.
(I use LaTeX)
I was terrified.

BESW

Posters.

In PowerPoint.

Lyndon White

Yep, A0 posters. 1 slide

BESW

Lyndon White

06:59

25

A: Software to use for creating posters for academic conferences?

Powerpoint. There are hundreds of PowerPoint poster templates available online, many of them are good, and it is one of the standard formats people accept — and can be exported to PDF for easy post-conference distribution.

BESW

I would strongly advise against a white-on-black color scheme for the document.

Lyndon White

You mean for in-print, or also on computer?

BESW

Both, but especially for print.

Lyndon White

I'll take that into consideration, once I am content complete.

BESW

Mmm. I'm used to having deadlines that mean I'm still getting content long after I've had to begin--and possibly commit to--the design.

Lyndon White

07:08

Where as all I am after here is something that makes me, as a writer, feel like I am making something for Edgy Artist, who don't care about the System, Maan.

BESW

(Also, the more you look at a design the more normal it feels and the harder it is to change it later.)

Lyndon White

That is true,

BESW

I try to compose in plaintext.

And I often design with lipsum.

Lyndon White

I find it hard to keep motivation if the work doesn't look right.

But you make good points

BESW

Yeah, visuals are important and it's a fallacy to try and totally separate medium from message.

But it's very rare that both progress at equal paces.

Lyndon White

07:16

Related "Fallacy" separating mechanics from fluff

BESW

The Medium is the Massage.

BESW

07:29

...Anartism also seems odd because it's been closely tied to commercial interests.

I have no problem with art as a commercial medium, but anartism feels like it's pretending to be something it's not--but not doing very well. Maybe I just don't understand it, but I somehow doubt it.

Lyndon White

Mechanically, I am hitting players where it hurts for having money,

right in the mana-stat

You loose inspiration (mana) at a rate that is proportional to how much money you have.
(actually its expodentially linked to your wealth level, but your wealth level is expodentially linked to the amount of money you have.)

But in general one can't expect too much consistency from SCP fiction.
It is large group collaborative fiction.

And its only reviewed via large crowd of non-experts

Its good enough, I think, for me to get a fun game that is strongly inspired by it.

BESW

09:11

[sigh] Yet again, the free open source software is superior to the paid proprietary software.

trogdor

lol

Anne Aunyme

09:38

@BESW is that a bad thing?

BESW

It's a bit disappointing since I have the paid program.

After a long time wrestling with it, I wound up finding, installing, and learning an open-source equivalent.

Erics

10:28

Are there any questions that delineate the different genre tones of RPGs? By which I mean "high fantasy" vs "low fantasy" vs "grimdark" vs ... are there others?

trogdor

I think there are others depending on what kind of setting you are using

if you diverge from fantasy into say, sci fi, you could get steampunk or solarpunk

or dystopian future

ACuriousMind

@trogdor You would put steampunk as a subset of sci fi? Interesting.

trogdor

it seems like it would depend on what you are looking for

@ACuriousMind well, it is dependant on what technology people are using

and typically it actually does have like, things we never made with steam power

could we do those things with non-steam power? sure I guess, but it's still science fiction

Erics

and steampunk is speculative what-if fiction, or is that defn. of sf declassé?

trogdor

um, as a genre tone I think it is speculative what if stuff

as in "what if we never stopped using Steam power?"

mind you, I am not some kind of expert on it

Erics

10:37

what i'm looking for is content to better understand what is meant by grimdark, low-fantasy. Right now I'm using those terms in a hand-wavey manner, without much insight into what that translates into in game terms. (eg. in D&D 2e)

ACuriousMind

@trogdor I understand why one might reason that way, but it just would never have occurred to me that steampunk is technically sci fi - I really just found your assessment interesting, wasn't saying I think it's wrong.

trogdor

@ACuriousMind oh I didn't take it that way at all, I just figured you would want me to explain why I immediately thought of it that way

ACuriousMind

Alright then :)

trogdor

@Erics ah ok well as I understand it, low fantasy is fantasy with magic in it, but not very powerful magic

high fantasy is more like, everyone important is using magic left and right

and grim dark is,.... everything is pretty dang horrible and scary

so like, if you have watched Game of Thrones,... at least the first few seasons were low fantasy

at this point it has kinda transitioned into high fantasy

without detailing why because major spoilers

Grimdark is,.... sorta what people have been doing with Batman movies for a while now

I think that would be a good example anyway

Erics

yep, i'm mostly up to speed on the tropes in general media terms .. but as applied to game mechanics etc .. is where i'm falling a bit short

trogdor

10:41

hmmm

so maybe specific RPG examples, I see

ACuriousMind

Yeah, "grimdark, low-fantasy" would mean a world in which magic is either very rare or not very powerful (or both) which also is generally portrayed as rather bleak and hopeless (what TVTropes calls Crapsack World). Grimdark and low-fantasy are kinda orthogonal descriptors.

Erics

Like, other than descriptive tone and motivations of those involved in an encounter/dungeon ... how might a dungeon evidence as being grimdark?

trogdor

that is a good question

ACuriousMind

I think the only mechanical implication of the setting being grimdark will generally be that encounters are rather deadly, and PCs are not expected to live in general.

Erics

A good question for chat .. prolly too open ended / opinion based for the Q&A ;-)

trogdor

10:43

I mean, I would imagine it would be really dirty, and have evidence of prior use

Erics

More mooks for the slaughter too?

trogdor

yeah it might not be too empty either

having random NPC's around to get dragged off as soon as the players see the place would be a possible thing

Erics

The Big Bad Protagonist is more a High Fantasy thing. Heroic clashings. Tuckers Kobolds would be grimdark or maybe low-fantasy?

Ooh .. red-shirt hirelings and henchmen

trogdor

Tuckers Kobolds,.... would strike me as low fantasy, I don't know if they would be grimdark though

Erics

The village chieftain sends his youngest son with the party to act as a guide. In scene 2 he gets eated. As a plot point.

Tuckers Gnomes would be grimdark.

ACuriousMind

10:47

@trogdor I don't think the kobolds belong to either descriptor clearly. Even in a ludicrously high fantasy world, not everyone has to use high-powered magic

trogdor

@ACuriousMind that is fair actually

I just don't know how ludicrously competent they would be anymore at that point

ACuriousMind

Sure, at some point, the ease by which the players could obtain magic artillery support would probably trivialize them

trogdor

or how important they would be even

BESW

@Erics So, here's the thing: genre is often treated as a description of content, but it's not. It's a way to categorize audiences.

3

Erics

go on

BESW

10:54

Genre is basically a flag for "If you like these things, you might also like this thing."

Any given work will fall into several different genres because different groups of people will want to read it for different reasons.

And those groups will change over time--meaning that the genre a work is categorized as will change also.

(This is, by the way, one of the reasons people get really upset about genre: it's not describing what they like, it's describing them. And if you define yourself by what you like, then--for example--shifts in audience demographics become a challenge to your own identity.)

So, if we talk about steampunk... well, most people like steampunk for the visual aesthetic, not for the themes it often explores.

Erics

ah

BESW

So it's really hard to describe the steampunk genre except as an aesthetic, because that's the important signifier for describing the audience uses "steampunk" to find things they like.

Erics

said themes would be .. optimism vs dystopia, tinkering & mcgyverism vs pandoras box?
but as you say: more the aesthetic than the themes

BESW

Well, [thing]punk is derived from cyberpunk, which is derived from punk punk, an actual real-life subculture movement about taking what's around you and using it to create your own identity in defiance of what the materials were originally intended for--and the "materials" you co-opt might be physical, or cultural.

2

Punk was a revolutionary subculture, about defying the existing order to recreate yourself with its pieces.

Cyberpunk took this very literally, and began as stories about using the tools of the existing regime (the technology which kept corporations in power) to defy or dismantle that same regime.

Steampunk... well, it's a very colonial kind of story. Most steampunk isn't interested in defying the existing power structures.

Instead, steampunk's usurpation of existing materials to its own ends is metatextual: it's about applying modern standards (technological and social) to elements (material and cultural) of 19th century Western society.

That's steampunk, theme-wise: seeing how cleverly the author can impose modern concepts onto Victorian materials.

Erics

cool

BESW

11:08

This, ah. Makes it a rather difficult genre to translate into collaborative play.

Not impossible by any means! But tricksy, because if the "point" of steampunk is to revel in creative anachronisms, then either the players are simply exploring an existing world to admire the cool setting or the players must engage in the creation of anachronisms themselves.

So, grimdark. Low-fantasy. urrrgh. These terms are nearly meaningless.

Roughly speaking I'd expect a grimdark low fantasy RPG to be cynical and brutal. It's dirty and corrupt. Hope is costly, friends are hard to find, and violence is common.

Magic, like all other power in the setting, tends to be in the hands of the oppressor. However, sufficient physical violence can overcome even the most powerful magic.

Soap may not have been invented yet.

ACuriousMind

@BESW It has been invented, but the process of soap-making spawns numerous horrors from beyond, so none but the most callous and powerful people use it

BESW

This explains why the only clean person in the land is the evil emperor's comely daughter.

Erics

Hmm .. with high fantasy the reward might be the honor and the glory, low fantasy the opportunity for gold, for grimdark .. you get to eat this week, and the local lord won't be sacrificing one of your loved ones to some conjured horror?

With grimdark, if you go chasing the adventure that offers glory you'll still end up poor and hungry and take a permanent -2d6 loss of HP due to starvation. But, y'know, glory!

kviiri

@BESW With great cleanliness comes great comeliness.

Unless one is so cleanly they completely scrub off the oils of the skin. I did that once - it was a rash decision.

2

BESW

11:29

Low fantasy is more about magic being limited and not so powerful that a sufficiently determined barbarian can't hack up a wizard. Tech levels are generally lower than in high fantasy and magic doesn't replace it.

Often, low fantasy means "like a really historically inaccurate version of pre-medieval Europe, but with some magic swords and a couple of wizards."

Grimdark... well, it's cynical. It's about corrupt institutions and making bad compromises to get a dirty job done.

It's like noir but uglier.

kviiri

I've never associated grimdark with noir but it makes sense now that I think of it.

Erics

A simple rescue-the-princess quest turns out to be a retrieve-tasty-morsel-for-my-demon-lord, i.e. the "Kindly Paladin King" quest-giver turns out to be something quite different .. and clues to this are amply distributed. Then, once the players have figured this out, they also figure out that this sacrifice ritual is the only thing keeping the hellgate from opening.

So off they go

kviiri

The princess was rescued, she succeeded to the throne, and the oppressive feudal society continued for yet another generation. The nobility lived happily ever after.

BESW

I'd say grimdark isn't necessarily "you didn't know what your choices would mean" so much as "even when you know everything there won't be good choices."

But there's room for both.

@kviiri Hee, yeah.

Erics

An encounter with a bandit group in the dungeons could be resolved by offering them a bribe, and enlisting them in murdering some opposing faction leader.

BESW

11:40

But I'm not a big fan of grimdark so I'm probably not the guy to hand down definitions.

The Oracle

0

Q: If an answer to question A can be found in question B, should we close A as duplicate of B?

Situation — there are two different questions Aq and Bq. Question Aq has a specific answer Aa. Question Bq has a good detailed answer, that includes points Aa, Ba and Ca. Should Aq be closed as a duplicate of Bq? Or does "duplicate" imply that Bq has to be a duplicate of Aq as well?

discussion duplicate-answers

Erics

Question Bq should be closed as too broad? ;-)

Yeah, my preference would be more towards low fantasy. Grimdark also suggests too much plot meddling by the DM

BESW

The classic "low fantasy" is Conan the Barbarian. Which also highlights some of its common pitfalls.

Erics

Only familiar with the movies :-/

kviiri

12:00

One of my favorite RPG genres and least favorite genres otherwise is heroic high fantasy where there is a clear concept of good folk and villains, no or few gray areas.

It's an excellent genre for some good ol' hack and slash.

Erics

Yep

Less rolling up of NPCs too .. just need the iconic big bads, don't worry about the army of mooks. Two ogres & a bugbear, not 10 goblins + 15 kobolds + 2 badgers + etc

BESW

I'm less and less able to stomach the way high fantasy usually uses real-life arguments for eugenics, slavery, and genocide, to justify its black and white morality.

Erics

not to mention out right racism

BESW

You CAN accomplish a similar "acceptable targets" effect without using those strategies, but it's so easy for authors to just use the pre-existing constructs instead. Slavers and Nazis already did the heavy lifting on those subjects, why not re-use their work? I guess?

I mean, to be fair, it's not usually conscious on the parts of the writers. Those arguments are built into the DNA of our pop culture liek woah, it's not just an RPG problem.

Erics

the Evil orcs (read: nazis) are planning to sacrifice the princess to a demon (read: ..ugh)

Wait .. the orcs have dark skin, unlike us fair and noble elves.
double ugh

BESW

12:13

I spent a year or two in D&D 3.5 making most of the enemies constructs or zombies or vermin.

I actually invented a whole new deity, the Vermin Lord, to help support hack-and-slash campaigns that didn't involve the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of sapient beings.

I think my favorite use of the Vermin Lord was in a twosie campaign where the PC's sister became a champion of the Vermin Lord and led their tribe to war against other humanoids at the head of an army of giant centipedes and two-headed rats the size of elephants. The PC had plenty of mindless vermin to slaughter in D&D fashion, but also had to find a way to overthrow his sister without killing any of their tribe.

Erics

Neat

BESW

(It was a tribe of minotaurs, and the brother and sister were twin half-bronze-dragon minotaurs; she was Lawful Evil and he was Chaotic Good. The campaign ended with him demonstrating to the tribe that their traditional evil ways were actually holding them back, and teaching them to be more cooperative and enter into alliances with their neighbors.)

(He did wind up killing his sister, but he felt very very bad about it and had tried everything else--but the rest of the tribe was at risk and he couldn't figure out any other option.)

Erics

grim. dark.

heh

BESW

It was definitely a bittersweet victory, but the conclusion was mostly happy. He appointed a good friend to be chief and left to seek atonement, promising to return.

There was a definite sense that Evil Had Not Triumphed and Things Could Get Better Now.

Re: Dadaism references in previous conversation:

Emmy Hennings (c.1917), performer and poet of the Dada movement and involved in the founding of the Cabaret Voltaire #womensart

Tweeted by womensart1 on October 17, 2017 at 6:20 AM

Erics

yay \o/

kviiri

12:44

My next Apocalypse World game will feature some of these heavier themes of racism, in particular of the "untouchable" kind (which is mostly foreign to the people here but very relevant for eg. Dalits in India)

Erics

I recall a SF short story about a space ranger being called in to resolve a dispute on some mining colony. Apparently the guy that handles all the waste decided to go on strike, and no one else wanted to get involved with all that muck.

Adam

Me and my friends don't play the game to muse upon any great societal themes, so I avoid making them the focus of the game. Or if I do, they are usually sparingly brought up and easy to overcome/change.

kviiri

@Adam Yeah, that's how I do it in DnD. I try to steer away from the most traditional fantastic racism regarding humanoids, but evil guys are still always obviously evil.

Erics

So, after a bit of negotiation and back and forth, with the engineers and doctors and other hoity-toits basically being obtuse about having to deal with this (ugh) filthy untouchable ... the space ranger decides enough is enough, and goes to figure what needs to be done to purge the umpteen gallons of waste before it backed up.

Pressing a couple of buttons. That's it. It's SF, it's not crawling around in pipes with a gorram shovel.

And yet ... once he'd done the deed, there was an instant turn around of reaction from the rest of the colonists. No longer the respected and revered space ranger, he was now shunned and avoided. Filthy filthy filthy.

Untouchable.

kviiri

@Erics That's a lot like what I've got planned. The colony deep in nuclear wasteland is heated up by a nuclear thingamajig left behind by the Apocalypse, and the engineers tending to it are super-vital to the colony's survival. They are also marred by the hot steam shooting everywhere and the huge dose of radiation they get (in game terms, they're grotesques). So their job is super important, but they're also so disgusting to the normal humans they are forcibly kept isolated.

Erics

12:52

Kinda the opposite point, but ok =)

kviiri

They have developed a semi-religious movement that waits for a future liberator for the "gnomes", as they are called, but at this time they are too weak and specialized to survive without their normie overlords - so, uneasy truce.

And their leader, Buck, wields more power than anyone outside the engineers would like to admit.

Erics

They provide power & heat, they receive food & protection. Fair deal.

kviiri

Kinda. There are no good guys in Apocalypse World - the bad guy here is the conflict and separation itself.

Both sides' leaders try to keep their own ranks closed by antagonizing the other - a bit like the leaders
of great powers often work. But they're not inherently leading in a way that benefits their subjects.

kviiri

13:11

Cagot

The Cagots (pronounced [ka.ɡo]) were a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Their name has differed by province and the local language: Cagots, Gézitains, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Agotak, and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000. Cagots were shunned and hated. While restrictions varied by time and place, they were typically required to live...

a little known fact is that there was an "untoucable" hereditary class in France as well.

And not related to heresy or skin color, at that!

KorvinStarmast

14:16

Do any of you have an assist for me? What's the natural healing rate in D&D 4e? I don't have the books, and I'd like to add it to an answer. in 3.x it was "1 HP per level per long rest" and in 5e it's "all HP return after a long rest". In OD&D, 1e, and 2e it could take weeks to heal up "naturally" since it was based on 1 HP per day.

DForck42

mornin

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast In 4e, characters heal to maximum HP on long rest. On short rest (which is only five minutes or so) they can spend as many Healing Surges as they want (and Healing Surges themselves are also replenished upon long rest)

Adam

@DForck42 good morning

DForck42

@kviiri sounds correct to me

kviiri

If you want to be really correct, IIRC "Extended rest" was the 4e term for long rest.

DForck42

14:30

@kviiri yup

which I think was 6 hours in 4e?

Adam

http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Extended_rest

Not really an official source, but google gives this at the top result

kviiri

@DForck42 Yeah, but the rules are a bit hazy on what it can include.

DForck42

@kviiri yeah

kviiri

The 5e rules for long rests very explicitly state that some activity (like keeping watch) can be included in the 8 hour long rest. 4e says something like "no strenuous activity", which I wouldn't consider to exclude watches, but "Keeping watch" is specifically mentioned in the rules as extending the time needed for the rest.

(granted, keeping watch can be a rather exerting task)

Yuuki

Oh hey, 5e Forge Domain cleric.

kviiri

14:45

Forge domain cleric will beat some sense into the heathen hordes of the Abyss.

Yuuki

I'm sorely tempted to roll this for my current campaign. We sorely need a healer+tank and my Paladin build just isn't cutting it.

kviiri

I'm having a hankering to play Cleric again. It's been one my favorite classes since I started DnD.

Well, not even one of my favorites, but the favorite.

Yuuki

Although question about Artisan's Blessing. Do you think I could use it to transmute 100g worth of rusty armor and weapons into... 100 gold coins?

@kviiri I have a soft spot for Cleric since it was my first class.

kviiri

@Yuuki Mine too. My first character was a Cleric of Avandra, listed in the PHB as the "God of Change". We jokingly agreed on that meaning the small denominations you get after paying for something with a larger denomination. I came up with some impressive faux-theology why Avandra found it desirable.

Adam

@Yuuki Arguably yes. Nothing says specifically that it can't be coins. At best it's implied that it's supposed to be some kind of tool or object, rather than pure cash. DM might say no, but the rules don't guarantee a no.

kviiri

14:54

@Yuuki I think it's a stretch to consider 100 gold coins a single item, so it would require repeated using. However, higher denominations would work, maybe?

Adam

@kviiri That's an easy fix, make it a solid bar of gold worth 100 gold coins

kviiri

On the other hand, since "ten pieces of ammunition" is given as an example, it can be non-singular after all.

Anyway, I think creating duplicates of keys, tools and such might be cool, but otherwise the power seems rather boring to me.

Yuuki

The other problem is that it's an hour-long ritual.

Feels a bit over-long to me.

10-20 minutes maybe?

Or 5-10 minutes?

Long enough that it's expressly a non-combat ability but not so long that it's a massive waste of time for everyone else.

kviiri

DnD has its problems with time anyway

Adam

I mean, 9/10 times you're going to use it during downtime, when nothing is going on and the DM will go "an hour passes and you have your item"

It gives you something special to do during a short rest

kviiri

15:02

Downtime stuff is often boring to the point of deserving less, not more, "screen time". So I guess that feature's entertainment factor will depend largely on how much "trivial" transformation it's used for.

I think it opens up some rather silly possibilities, like spending hours after each encounter transmuting enemy equipment into gold coins for easier portage.

Yuuki

Transmute the assassins' armor into a giant "SCREW YOU" sign to send to the noble who sent them after you.

kviiri

Note to self: a tea infuser works poorly if not loaded with tea leaves prior to immersion in hot water.

Yuuki

Alternately, it works perfectly.

You filled it with nothing and you got nothing-flavored tea.

Sounds like status-by-design to me.

DForck42

@kviiri lol

kviiri

@Yuuki Heh

nitsua60

15:31

@kviiri Were you going to give Angry's time pool a try? (I remember some chatizen saying they had it on their to-try list, but now who?)

kviiri

@nitsua60 I've tried it in two sessions so far - but I haven't actually gotten around to making those time rolls yet because my players have gotten so spooked of actually facing time-related trouble they have rushed through the dungeons both of the times :)

So I guess it works!

DForck42

@nitsua60 I can't look at it currently, can you give me the tl; dr?

kviiri

It's basically a simple system for rolling for trouble when the players stay in dangerous areas. It could solve a lot of issues DnD often has with time being meaningless or arbitrary.

I can give you a more elaborate summary but I would hate to ninja nitsua who is probably already typing :)

Anyway, introducing the element of time actually addresses a lot of common DnD grievances. Eg. why do some DnD players announce their character checking every inch of the dungeon as they go carefully, but real life adventurers (or their closest equivalents) don't actually do such? Because it's slow and tedious business to actually scan every square inch of a large room. A real-life adventurer would feel the tedium keenly, but in DnD it is usually just over in a blink of an eye.

Providing an element of time sort of bridges the gap between a character who feels urgency, has a limited attention span and doesn't want to dally in hostile territory, and the player who knows role-playing such urgency can result in mechanical disadvantages like missing treasure, springing traps and facing the enemy without being fully stocked.

@DForck42 Okay, so... whenever the players spend a considerable amount of time (ten-ish minutes) doing something, eg. searching a room, the GM announces that "time passes" and adds a die to the time pool or rolls all the dice in the time pool. Any ones rolled means trouble - the players are happened upon by a guard patrol, an unstable section of the dungeon caves in, something like that.

If a one is rolled, one die is removed from the time pool.

nitsua60

15:46

@DForck42 think of the "tens" digit of a digital clock. Every time that ticks, drop a d6 in the pool. Any time the pool hits 6 or a rest is called, roll the pool. #InterestingThings happen if a 1 comes up.

(Clear the pool when it hits 6.)

kviiri

However, if the time pool is full (six dice) the GM must roll the dice, and then any ones means that an hour has officially passed (durations time out etc) and the pool is cleared (and time-related trouble happens as normal)

DForck42

interesting

kviiri

Yeah

It actually resembles another homebrew mechanic I have for party #2

They are being tailed by a Night Hag, who is determined to haunt their dreams until the party dies.

So they have a tracker from 0 to 8 representing how aware the Night Hag is of their location and how angry she is. 0 means the Hag is either completely oblivious to the party or is going to have a night of anyway, 8 means the Night Hag is right behind them, just waiting to strike.

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri thank you, I'll add that.

kviiri

Whenever the party takes a long rest, I roll a d8 the tracker. If the long rest happens during the day, I roll two d8 and use the greater value. If the d8 is equal to or less than the tracker's value, the Night Hag strikes during the rest. Otherwise, the Hag keeps on searching and the tracker increases by one.

If the Hag manages to successfully haunt their nightmares, the tracker is zeroed (they are patient creatures, no need to risk things by attempting again very soon) but if the attack is thwarted in any way, the tracker instantly maxes out, so the Hag will definitely try again ASAP.

The tracker is reduced by 1 when the party travels between towns or between towns and dungeons, by 1d8+1 when they make larger distances (eg. regional travel) and increased by 1 if the party leverages their reputation as successful heroes or otherwise makes a spectacle.

I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from Apocalypse World and pals, although its rules for sporadic nastiness are usually even simpler: roll+something at the beginning of the session to see if your cult misbehaves, your stronghold starves or your gang mutinies.

KorvinStarmast

16:33

@kviiri did 4e have the negative HP feature, and the -10 limit, or not? For some reason I think it doesn't, but as I never got the books ...

"For a PC, there is no difference between 0 and being at negative hit points. Both grant the unconscious and dying conditions." I see this in a 4e answer, so I suspect that the 3.5 / 1e mechanic for bleeding from -1 to -9 was not in 4e ... but I don't know

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, 4e has negative hit points, with characters dying if they go negative at least their bloodied value (which is max HP halved rounded down).

However, healing effects always bring character up to zero + the damage healed.

KorvinStarmast

Ok, thanks, I'll edit that in. It's a subtle difference between 3.x, 4, and 5.

kviiri

Yep. With 4e characters usually having huge hit points compared to the damage being dealt, death from negative hit points required actual effort.

Except at the early levels, of course.

DForck42

18:31

@nitsua60 having read it, I might do something along those lines, I like the idea of having a clock that pushes them towards goals

what I was thinking of was having a sliding scale. when they're in the thick of exploration, a die is added every 10 minutes. when just traveling, every 30 minutes. when long resting, every hour.

kviiri

@DForck42 Angry's system proposes using different die types to provide a varying level of difficulty.

Or hazard, I guess.

DForck42

@kviiri yes, I was going to play with that too

kviiri

Tell me how it works out for you, I'd love to hear others' experiences too :)

DForck42

so if they're exploring, but it's only mildy dangerous, then a d12 is added. if it's extremely dangerous, a d4 is added

if they're traveling on a high-traffic, patrolled role, d20. if they're traveling through the feywild, probably a d4

NautArch

howdy y'all

my main campaign was very time-focused and we probably rushed or had time constraints heavily influence the decisions we made

at times, we opted to forego rests or do forced marches and risk exhaustion levels in order to arrive somewhere faster

Adam

18:41

@NautArch The Red Hand of Doom game I'm running is like that. The PCs are going all over the place as fast as possible. Though, it's kind of funny because they'll do things like pay a guy in town to translate the evil army's orders, run off to the place they think the bad guys are going, act entirely on gut feel, and then come back to town to learn what the army was doing in area after the fact.

It's a bit of a dice throw after that as to whether or not they go back to that location or not.

NautArch

I liked the urgency, and we also are much more cognizant of time because of it. I think there are times when the DM would probably allow us to take a short rest, but we feel that it doesn't make sense to and don't.

We look at time as reality rather than time as a way to get stuff back

kviiri

I just dislike the disconnect between in-character urgency and the mechanics. Angry's system bridges that gap nicely.

NautArch

18:59

I think it's mostly up to the players to manage that well.

But also for the DM not to overruse urgency as a means to make something more difficult.

kviiri

@NautArch Why?

I think it's hardly the player's fault if the game's mechanics contradict the narrative and they pick a mechanically sound option instead of a narratively sound one. Rather, I'd prefer them not having to make a choice between the two.

NautArch

Well, I guess since we don't do a lot of more traditional role play, then I think the onus is on us to play it realistically. I mean, if we feel that it makes sense to take the hour rest and that it won't create an issue for us we'll take it.

but if we're somewhere where it doesn't seem feasible or we believe time is of the essence, we'll just push through.

At times a player may say "but we really need this, why not?" and others will respond "because it just doesn't make sense now"

kviiri

But wouldn't it be better if you didn't have to make the choice? If the mechanics agreed with what makes sense?

I mean, it's hardly an impossible feat to reconcile the two.

NautArch

I think that's what I'm saying. There are times when the mechanics agree with the need and the time/place. Those times are gimmes. But there are times when it is literally impossible to rest or forcing the players to decide between a rest or arriving at a certain time where if they don't consequences occur.

I don't think that a rest should always be an option, personally.

kviiri

That's not what I'm saying, either.

NautArch

19:10

i have a feeling we're in agreement...

what're you saying? :D

kviiri

That it's better game design to support things like urgency with mechanics than just hope the players will role-play them despite it being mechanically disadvantageous.

NautArch

Ah - yes I agree!

kviiri

I know many people oppose adding rules to such moments, because they fear it increases metagaming - I think it goes exactly the other way around :)

NautArch

19:27

I think the mechanics can work in addition to consequences. I wouldn't want it to just be a mechanical disadvantage without a storyline consequence

almost like the mechanics help teach the players

kviiri

Well, Angry's time model is basically just a timer, and when it clicks, something nasty determined by the GM happens. The GM can pick something that fits the scene.

NautArch

I think that's an interesting path to take that shows risk without definite repercussions for those decisions. But if the timer is story-based, then there can (and i think should) be an effect there, too.

kviiri

19:46

Yeah, but (unless completely scripted) I'd still base that outcome on the timer.

NautArch

I guess I'm thinking of more scripted events. But I guess the timer adds an element to it where the consequences could range. I think I was looking at the timer as an immediate response consequence (battles). that was wrong?

<note> I did not read teh AngryGM article. I don't really like his writing style or a lot of his ideas, so i'm sorry for not understanding the purpose.

DForck42

@NautArch I think it's "Interesting Things Happen" sort of timer

that could mean a wandering monster, or the guards are on higher alert, a part of the cave collapses, etc.

kviiri

@NautArch I dislike his style of writing as well. The frequent cartoon cursing comes off as cringy to me.

GreySage

@NautArch I'm not a fan of AngryGM either and I've stopped reading his stuff, but from what I recall its basically a way to get the PCs moving if they stall out. Like, if they want to search every room top to bottom, fine, but eventually something is going to happen

NautArch

I'm starting to really like the idea of this. So the players may not KNOW what the result is...just that SOMETHING occurred/will occur.

great suspense tactic

kviiri

19:51

However, I agree with the problem he posits there is real and the solution seems sound.

NautArch

everyone gets on edge when the DM rolls a die in the open.

GreySage

@NautArch or 12 dice

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