I think they're slightly different concepts, though. "Fail forward" is a philosophy that says nothing should be able to grind the story to a halt: even failure progresses the storyline in some knowable way. "Success at a cost," however, sounds more like what you said. "Fail a test you still succeed but with some difficulty added."
> Eagle. While you're raging and aren't wearing heavy armor. other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attack rolls against you and you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn to The spirit of the eagle makes you into a predator who can weave through the fray with ease.
Ahh... dang it
I nearly thought that could work with Charger, cos you Dash as a bonus action, but then that uses your Bonus Action, so you can't use that to attack
@Ben Storm Herald was supposed to be a guy who, when he raged, generated a storm around him, but it was pretty well balanced, so they nerfed it into the ground. Zealot is a generic warrior of the gods, and it was crazily overpowered, so they nerfed it very slightly.
So I have started to watch Critical Role. Some of the rules they use are really confusing me. For example the DM like to rule that players can use their bonus actions to do stuff that they would normally not be able to do.
@fredhicks played Fate Accelerated for the first time at Gamicon this weekend, the scenario was a reality show with competing mob families. Great game, easy to understand mechanics, and I laughed so hard my face hurt. Highly reccomended.
What would be an optimised string of ability scores, not considering racial modifiers or class requirements? I'm just looking purely at numbers, I can put them where I need them
I know the lowest would be 8, and the highest would be 15/16?
Depending on the character, I might turn one of those 10s into a 12 and the other into an 8 - maybe bring Wis up since it's such an important saving throw, not to mention Perception.
Also, if I was looking at any half feats I'd adjust a score appropriately, but for a Sorcerer there aren't really any they want too badly.
Yeah. I'll keep it that way until we decide on char backstory and such :) decide what sort of character they are - the smart talking snob or the strong and silent type :)
Is there somewhere I can find a list of all the background traits? Just like, a list of all the ideals, bonds, flaws etc, in case they want to come up with their own background?
@Ben I know there are more backgrounds than in the PHB, because some of them are available in free PDFs. There's ones for Curse of Strahd, Hillsfar region, & Mulmaster (not sure if they came from hardcovers, or AL)
If you're in the UK and want to get your talons on #GreedyDragons the new card game from @EvilHatOfficial, I found it for a good price with Gameslore here:
https://www.gameslore.co.uk/acatalog/PR_Greedy_Dragons_Card_Game.html
As in consecutively. Technically 4 - first was several zombies, then that was joined by another undead beast (1.5), then another battle with two wyverns, because we couldn't find cover (2.5) then apparently we rolled our hit die pre-emptively after we agreed to rest, so some dinos attacked (3.5), then the place we were meant to be resting was populated by skellies, but at this point he gave in, and it was a Quick Time Event more than actual combat
We're playing in a text based chat room, so play is stunted a bit, so we try to keep RP down to a minimum, but this expedition has kind of just been "go find the bad guy" - "Ok, we get our essentials (quick list) then go" - "Ok you're halfway down the river, then you're attacked, then again! then again! then again!"
By then end we'd all just had enough
And afterward, I spoke to the DM and yeah, apparently when we make camp we're supposed to apply bug repellent, because the bugs have diseases, and set up rain catches, because the water is diseased and populated by piranha and other creatures
Thankfully he cut that out, but I just don't see the point. D&D is meant to be fun, not stressful
Oh, and on top of all that, this game is meant to have an over-arching deficit - no revival. There is a creature that is eating souls, so when a PC dies, it's perma death.
I'm beginning to think the DM no longer wants to run this game
@Thatguy Doing okay. Disappointed that Ki Khanga isn't really playable, but going back to thinking about inspiration maps for rebooting a lapsed campaign. yourself?
@trogdor @Shalvenay @KorvinStarmast I'd avoid the conversation through the last twenty messages or so--it mentions some of the ToA things you haven't yet run into.
(BTW, probably the reason your answer on the "players skipping side quests" question is being downvoted, is that you're suggesting a game-level consequence for table-level actions. If some members of a group are making another member unhappy, the solution has to be implemented at the same level as the problem.)
Yeah, many experienced role-players on the site have found in-game punishments to be a rather souring solution. If they even solve the immediate problem, that is.
In my experience, one of two things happens: either the players learn the wrong lesson because the GM expects them to figure out the problem being "solved" without talking to them about it, or the players learn that their behavior has a cost--but it's a cost to their characters so it just turns into part of the game's strategy equations rather than influencing their social behavior.
Rampant derailing and avoiding plot hooks is an understandable mistake from novice players: a lot of RPG scene memes and discussion visible to newcomers is very hostile against railroaded campaigns, presenting it as some sort of ultimate GM faux pas. It's easy to get into the mindset that avoiding anything resembling rails or prepped content is therefore the right thing to do, and it's not always obvious how detrimental that can be to the game at hand.
Games which try to legislate trust or mechanically punish cheating generally just make things worse ("a fine is a price" and so forth). And unless the game is Paranoia, that's not good.
@BESW I can understand that. I mean its what i would do, because its making the game harder for the pc's because they have to do extra stuff, but also on the same hand it makes it harder for the GM to manage the game because of the extra stuff and the smae goes for the characters. I can totally see that, but i didnt just wanna copy the other answers, and it seemed as though that one was the only one left to say. It is a valid option, just obviously not the popular one.
@besw Sorry not quite used to this format of chat yet. I wasnt going to delete it, i'll just take the shot to the rep. Its not my favorite option, but I'd rather have a mildly unpopular opinion than have an answer go undone
I didn't mean to imply that it's automatically or always good in a game like Paranoia, just that Paranoia-style play is one of the only places it's likely to be good.
Paranoia-style play is about using mechanics to turn the social text of a game with a sour group dynamic into game text so that people who like the kind of game story which can come from that, can have it without losing friends.
I think its success is grounded in the fact that Paranoia is quite well known for hijinks like that, so there's a bit of automatic expectations management going on.
@Thatguy It doesn't seem to have been playtested or edited very vigorously. I suspect the author was more interested in the setting than the game, and whoever was involved in turning the text into a book didn't have much experience with RPG book design.
The pitch was good and I want to see more diverse game creation in terms of who's making games and what they're making games about. I may hijack some of the setting background for my own homebrew, but I'll probably leave everything else behind and use something like that Faith Corps engine.
Which also doesn't make sense. What is the DC for the saving throws you make? In Xanathar's, it just says "makes a strength check"... not opposed, and without a specified DC?
Ahh thats understandable. Take what you need from the game. I think you're right. i havent had much time to look into it so i'm glad someone decided to.
yeah after reading some of the KI Kanga book,.... it just seems like the author had some key parts of the game in his head and didn't ever commit them to paper
Some mechanical bits were just copy-pasted from other games, while others were extremely innovative but not playtested enough to be fully formed. And the two extremes didn't play nice with each other.
@Ben Ben, the way it looks to me, the Zealot Barbarian is an interesting attempt to mix Conan(Barbarian) and The Terminator (relentless, never stops, and always gets up) in a PC class. If I make one I'll name him Ahnold. Or Schwarzenbarber ... :)
@nitsua60 Good Morning Nits, I saw a text addressed to me, and I heard this Alec Guinness voice tell me that "these are the chats you are looking for." :)
@Rubiksmoose There's a great podcast where a hostage negotiator buys a car
Essentially he doesn't really haggle, he just says "I can only pay X" and waits until the other side comes back with progressively lower counter-offers
while lamenting how great the car is and what a shame it is that he can only pay X
@goodguy5 Which is right and proper. I find that a few nips of the rye makes the dragons and pixies seem a bit more real, but it doesn't make the half orcs any prettier at closing time.
@Rubiksmoose Never negotiate over the phone if you can help it. It's much easier for them to say no. If you can do it in person, and you have the number in your head that you are unwilling to go above, then go there. Walking out the door is a great way to pull you back in and agree :)
@goodguy5 There is a decent mead supplier near to LaGrange Texas. (Uh how how how how). No kidding. Rohan Meadery. My wife and I stopped there a few years ago, very good people, decent meade, and great t shirts.
@Rubiksmoose Yes! Turned a real corner today, but was improving through the weekend. Still a bit congested, but out walking the dogs again and starting to eat normally.
@SPavel I must have told Quora at some point that I was interested in anime because whenever I go there it shows me posts from that sub. From what I can tell it is like 99% Naruto questions.
@SPavel many questions are "Why is X able to beat Y when Y was clearly more powerful?" and I'm just thinking "These people think way too hard about their anime."
@SPavel Or, you could watch Hunter x Hunter and just constantly cry because the mangako goes on hiatus super often and for long stretches and new episodes never come out.
@SevenSidedDie In regards to this (rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/110880/…)... There is no answer, and I am concerned that a question with no answer might be in the edge of being acceptable for this website. Specifically because this question is asking for designer intent where the intent is obvious.
@Sh4d0wsPlyr Generally, it's okay to ask questions like that. While there isn't an answer now, there may be one in the future.
But I agree that it's also an odd question. It's two different creatures and I can't come up with any reason why they couldn't or wouldn't be different.
It may acceptable as a question, but if you don't think it's a good question then that's where your downvote comes in.
@NautArch Already done. I understand there "may eventually be an answer", but it seems like a lot of housekeeping for very little gain (in this case anyways, since "intentional difference" only seems to be regarding the difference in text, not the actual function or gameplay).
Please do not roll hypercube dice. Please only roll human observable dice. Unless your GM is a being that perceives the 4th dimension, then by all means do so.
Dice are a strange thing. I had a player ask if he could print a sheet of paper that was filled with the output of a script that rolled 1d20. His code proved reasonable randomization, and he wanted to just cross them off and use them in order when asked to roll a d20.
There's this meme that the post-millenial generation has overtly elaborate names that include unusually exotic bits or names of peculiar household objects.
The last part, at least, has no foundation in reality that I know of.
@GreySage A few years ago, people referred to each other by their IRC nicks at the university anyway, to the point where I referred to my real name as my "census nick".
@kviiri What? I feel like consensus is that millenials don't like overtly elaborate names because they (and Gen X) were saddled with them by their parents.
@Maximillian Do what Battle.net does and append a series of numbers after your child's name.
@nitsua60 @SevenSidedDie Was this a mercy killing, or just the standard SE distaste for newbies? I was trying to help that new person get their answer revised to fit our format. Also, for @SevenSidedDie What am I goofing up with formatting/headers as you see it? I use headers to break things up as a habit. Is that a particular kind of error?
One of the reasons I do that is to ensure that if I want to use bullets or numbers, the bullets don't overwrite the numbers, as has happened to me before in markup.
I can see that being a dramedy TV show. An off-beat psychiatric doctor is scary and lashes out in ranty tirades and property damage, but has an impressive track record in curing his patients. Then he starts on a quest towards self-discovery that helps him be not only a good doctor, but also... a good person.
There's also that British show, Doc Martin, with a House-like premise. Except he's extremely formal and blunt instead of purposefully mean, and has to cope with living in a small village where formality just doesn't work.
I imagine it has more appeal to the British, who identify with either the stuffy city doctor or the happy go lucky village people that keep injuring themselves in stupid ways
Inspirations for your RPG campaigns: Eugène Vidocq. Travelling troublemaker, criminal, soldier... and later, a genius criminologist and detective, codifier of lots of police and detective protocols to come.
@SPavel Aye, I watched it for a while because of the scenery and because I am quite fond of the actor Martin Clunes, but it didn't really appeal that much to me either.
I sort of liked Martin's character though, because he occupies that area that I really like: a perpetually frowning person who isn't really evil in any way, just grumpy. They're sometimes worth it just for those few moments when they're actually happy.
@KorvinStarmast Oh, your headers were fine! I only removed that one because a list doesn't need a header to introduce it (it can work, but rarely necessary and often awkward), so when I converted the following to a list I habitually converted the header to a "list intro paragraph", so to speak. It wasn't strictly necessary, just how I usually structure that particular kind of text.
@KorvinStarmast I think that was a misunderstanding through the review queue. The question is about a wizard wanting to use spells for RP and running out of slots for combat, then the Q asks how to make combat cantrips better. The answer rejected the Q's assumed solution to point out that RP spellcasting can be done without using all slots, so running out can be prevented. I don't think it's a great answer, but it's answering an XY question's X validly, while ignoring the Y other answers focused on.
