TRPG General Chat

SPavel

7:01 PM

Some might think I am just loafing around, but any way you slice it, these are fresh jokes.

Yeast.

NautArch

@SPavel Maybe I'm just being crusty because I failed so hard in my game last night.

SPavel

@NautArch I was playing Blood Rage for the very first time last night and got schooled

I had something like 80 points and the next lowest was 106

But I got the sea dragon out in the First Age and had it eat my enemy's entire band of vikings, so in some ways I was the winner

NautArch

@SPavel that's the spirit

Rubiksmoose

@SPavel great game.

SPavel

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I had a lot of fun, my mistake was focusing too much on holding the Ragnarok zone instead of building up my clan

I also got hit with Loki's BS from two opponents in the first combat, and sat out most of that Age

goodguy5

7:08 PM

@Rubiksmoose I think you're right. That question should probably be closed.

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 There's really just no way to answer it honestly. It is going to be all opinions and recommendations. No way to vote on answers like that.

goodguy5

I actually meant as a dupe, but yea. it probably also belongs on a forum

(queue Indiana Jones: "IT BELONGS, ON A FORUM!"

That library encounter question is bad, right?

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 Ummm as it is it can definitely be improved. there are several things that are unclear about the question for one thing. Also knowing party composition is going to be key.

I've voted to close as unclear until we get answers from OP.

It may not even be homebrew at all. It is very unclear.

goodguy5

Wait, why does the party composition matter?

Party effectiveness has nothing to do with if an encounter is balanced.

SPavel

@goodguy5 Yeah, even the most dysfunctional party can have an encounter designed for them to beat

Rubiksmoose

7:22 PM

I take it back definitely homebrew.

@goodguy5 Sure it does. 3 flying archers can destroy a party of PCs without ranged attacks or magic.

Just as an example.

goodguy5

@Rubiksmoose That doesn't make the encounter unbalanced.

Maximillian

"We're gonna have to throw the fighter."

goodguy5

Also, the appropriate response there is to run away

Maximillian

Bard: "Maybe we could improvise a ballista..."

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 how would you define balance then?

SPavel

7:25 PM

A bard would know that a trebuchet is far superior, since it can throw a 90kg projectile over 300 meters

Maximillian

Well yes but that's an arc weapon and not a direct fire.

direct fire may work better against flying archers.

Rubiksmoose

A blanced encounter means that the power levels on both sides of the equation are roughly where they are supposed to be. And advantages such as class features and equipment and other advantages (flight, terrain) can play very heavily into it.

goodguy5

@Rubiksmoose I'm not sure, honestly. But I'm fairly certain that party composition isn't important.

Right, you use the phrase "supposed to be".

A party isn't "supposed to be" five wizards. But there are a lot of encounters deemed balanced where five wizards would end it fairly quickly

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 here's another example (this one is straight from the DMG btw): if I throw a monster with damage resistance/immunity to nonmagical weapons against a group of 3 barbarians with clubs they have no chance.

goodguy5

Just so that we're clear:
I agree that you should cater to your players (to an extent).
But I think that you are purposefully messing with the balance of an encounter to suit your needs.

SPavel

7:29 PM

@Rubiksmoose Grapple the monster and shove the club down its throat?

Rubiksmoose

@SPavel hahaha, that would be impressive.

SPavel

That was Hercules' go-to move when something couldn't be weaponed to death, WRASSLIN

goodguy5

@SPavel Or Grapple and do the old "stop hitting yourself"

SPavel

Then again he was at best a level 6 guy so that doesn't really work on everything

@goodguy5 Disarm the creature, wield its arm as an improvised weapon, its claws bypass its own damage reduction? Genius

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 "purposefully messing with the balance of an encounter" is the definition of encounter design as a DM. If you are building encounters from scratch, then of course you need to consider these factors when building them.

goodguy5

7:31 PM

yes. I agree. And that is the crux of my argument.
Encounter Design != Encounter Balance

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 Hmmm I don't think I see a clear differentiation between those terms. Or at least they are very very closely related.

goodguy5

Okay. Pick a Module. Whichever the most balanced one is, in your opinion.

"Is it balanced?"

Follow up question:
"Can you make a party that would have a nearly impossible time with that module?"

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 That is, in fact, my point. I don't consider an encounter to be balanced properly unless it is possible for the party to overcome (to the extent that I want it to be).

goodguy5

@Rubiksmoose So, you don't think it should be possible for the party to overcome (undercome?) balance by just not fitting the situation?

SPavel

@goodguy5 The DM's responsibility is to give the party encounters that they can engage with meaningfully.

goodguy5

7:37 PM

I agree

But I think that's different than Encounter Balance

SPavel

Naturally, if the PCs went off to the Lair of the Deadly Ghosts without ghost touch weapons or death ward, that's on them.

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 I can't think of what else balance would include if not that.

goodguy5

Alright. I think we're just going to disagree on this. Maybe I'm just arguing semantics (I do that a lot).

To me, it's like a balanced breakfast. But Timmy has Celiac's and can't eat wheat. So, Timmy needs a special breakfast. There's nothing WRONG with the balanced breakfast, it's just that it doesn't work with Timmy.

SPavel

@goodguy5 Then who is the breakfast balanced against?

There are no other PCs in the game world.

goodguy5

But there are other PCs in THE world.

SPavel

7:41 PM

If nobody but Timmy ate breakfast, the "balanced breakfast" would not be.

@goodguy5 And their DMs design encounters for them

Designing an encounter for parties that will never engage in it is pointless.

goodguy5

Which is why I likened it to a module.

SPavel

@goodguy5 Are you a module writer? No? Then why does that matter?

An encounter in a module is a suggestion; a DM should never run the encounter blindly against whatever party he happens to have

goodguy5

All I'm saying is that these two (equally valid) questions are actually different things:
"Is this encounter balanced?"
"Can my party handle this encounter?"

SPavel

@goodguy5 And all I'm saying is that they are the same question, because an encounter can only be balanced against something

That's what balance is

goodguy5

the balance is on the average party

Rubiksmoose

7:44 PM

@goodguy5 which means we just have a different definition of balanced. I'm not sure what yours could really be... but if you aren't budging on that than yeah we are just arguing around definitions.

SPavel

There is no such thing as an average party.

goodguy5

The hell there's not

SPavel

There is an iconic party.

But it is not average.

goodguy5

I don't care about iconics.

SPavel

You can add up all the rogues and all the wizards and all the fighters ever played and you could get a mean party but it would be meaningless.

Sir Cinnamon

7:46 PM

@SPavel They take offense to that, they're really quite nice!

goodguy5

If you take an encounter/module/adventure/puzzle whatever.

Give it to 1000 groups.

0% can get through them? not balanced.
100% get through them without expending a single resource? likely not balanced.
Finding that sweet spot of struggle vs success is balance.

@SPavel (also, did you intend the pun of a mean party being meaningless?)

SPavel

@goodguy5 That's completely meaningless.

Rubiksmoose

but lets take the specific case here

SPavel

Your extremes are completely untethered from reality

goodguy5

Then we fundamentally disagree on this and further discussion will get us nowhere

Rubiksmoose

7:48 PM

OP wants to design one encounter for one party. He doesn't have 100 groups to test against so the composition should be very important to the discussion no?

SPavel

By your metric, if 500 parties fail miserably and die, and 500 effortlessly succeed, the encounter is balanced. After all, it's perfectly average!

Yes or no?

goodguy5

yes

well...

SPavel

Then yes, we have nothing to discuss.

goodguy5

not sure that 50% is the right number for success

but overall yes

Rubiksmoose

[shrug]

So I think I got that wizard tower question all fixed up.

goodguy5

7:50 PM

Sure, but then the question shouldn't be "Is this encounter balanced?"
imo, it should be "Can my party of ___, __, and ___ handle this encounter?"

Because otherwise, as a question on SE, it is useless and cannot benefit others looking for a balanced encounter, unless they specifically have the same party composition and that information is available.

SPavel

IMO failure or success is not a relevant metric. If the party fought valiantly and whittled the enemy down to the last hobgoblin before dying, it was a good encounter, they will remember it fondly. They would still remember it fondly if there was one cleric standing instead of the one hobgoblin.

goodguy5

But I accept that I am in the minority on this and will pursue it no further.

SPavel

An encounter where everyone got wiped, and an encounter that was a trivial success, do not cancel each other out. They are both bad encounters.

Rubiksmoose

Yeah I think it is best to end it there. We understand each other. We disagree. No need for things to get unpleasant.

GreySage

@goodguy5 That is indeed what the OP is asking (they added in their party composition). It also does not mean that the question is useless to others, as the "why" it is balanced/not is helpful

Rubiksmoose

7:53 PM

Right it is just an argument about terms here. Everybody agrees this sort of balancing/design should be done for a good encounter. We just disagree on what that process/condition is called.

goodguy5

^

I'm sure you find this hard to believe</sarcasm>, but I have these sorts of pedantic and semantic arguments with my wife all the time.

blah blah blah, Charles. Consider the human element. Blah blah blah we'd never eat our cats.

"I just said they were technically edible. As are you and I. Jeez"

SPavel

@goodguy5 Cat fact: Cats are composed of the same atomic elements as humans.

goodguy5

XD

SPavel

Finished the stitching. Now gotta tuck the excess and put a back on. 💀

Tweeted by toxic_cute on March 20, 2018 at 11:49 PM

GreySage

In an answer to a CSE hotnetwork question, someone said "Make sure the basic functionality works before working on the look and feel of your program! Remember: it's better to have an ugly program that works correctly than it is to have a beautiful program that doesn't work."
All I can think of when I read that is "Apple would disagree with you".

Rubiksmoose

8:01 PM

@GreySage Most of the software I work with meets neither criteria lol

ACuriousMind

@GreySage I work daily with software where that seems to have been the prevailing thought and I am constantly cursing the people who thought like that :P

Rubiksmoose

Man if you just looked at the stack you'd think Shield Guardians were the most popular monsters ever created.

NautArch

or most confusing

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch touche lol

SPavel

@GreySage "Look and feel" is the worst phrase. I am a UX designer and way too many people (some of them my managers) think that design is just "look and feel" and is only as deep as the UI.

Apple's UX used to be very good, recently not so much.

NautArch

8:18 PM

@SPavel No Jobs, no Apple.

they're just another tech company now.

Rubiksmoose

@SPavel ooo I used to vaguely want to do UX, but it was really way too late to change to do that even if I was serious.

Yeah Apple sUX

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose It's never too late

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch that's the spirit!

Man I'm actually getting used to closing dupes now.

I think I'm getting them right. At least nobody is complaining about them yet lol.

SPavel

@Rubiksmoose I'd say it's easier than ever to incorporate some UX into adjacent practices (product management, engineering, any other kind of design, systems thinking)

Rubiksmoose

@SPavel I try to with the stuff I design honestly. Not in any kind of rigid or academic sense of the word UX though.

SPavel

8:24 PM

@Rubiksmoose The most important thing is understanding what problem people are actually having before even starting to think about possible solutions. Otherwise, you get Juicero.

Rubiksmoose

@SPavel oh man...that was the most cringe-worthy thign ever.

SPavel

If Juicero had a good grasp of the problem they were solving, they could have stopped and asked "is a $1000 mega-press that can only squeeze pre-fabbed pouches of fruit solving this problem?"

And the answer would have been, no it is not.

If you understand what the problem is, you can evaluate potential solutions against that problem. If you don't, you can't.

It's basically that simple.

NautArch

My prior job was with a consultancy that had a very strong focus on UX (they had designed Apple original design language and the original Macintosh)

SPavel

@NautArch Wow, they must be miffed

NautArch

@SPavel They made their money :)

Rubiksmoose

8:32 PM

@SPavel appalled? (appled) :P

SPavel

@Rubiksmoose haaaaa

Rubiksmoose

8:49 PM

Man, it seems like this stack is really active voting-wise today.

KorvinStarmast

9:02 PM

@goodguy5 I'll have a djinn iconic please, with a twist. Tanqueray, not Gordon's.

goodguy5

there are a lot of layers to that. and I like most of them

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast wow! I made almost the same joke a few nights ago. Though it was just djinn and tonic. Great minds eh?

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose Mine would be greater if I didn't drink so many djinn and tonics, I suppose. :)

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 you aren't supposed to layer your djinn and tonics.

@KorvinStarmast or maybe it would be better with more! Experiment time!

goodguy5

@Rubiksmoose not with that attitude.

KorvinStarmast

9:06 PM

@SPavel I think she needs to roll up a rogue assassin. Halfling. (toxic_cute)

@GreySage most of the apple software seems to work, though, but I don't do apple very much.

@SPavel Are you referring to RPG.SE or software? ;)

SPavel

@KorvinStarmast Everything. All the things.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose I like a challenge; will get the djinn on the way home. He's out of wishes, so he's on sale.

SPavel

If you don't understand your goal, you can't know if what you are doing will get you there, and not just waste time, money, patience, and possibly body parts.

KorvinStarmast

@SPavel Engineering design methods, 101, before software was even a thing.

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast just not too much. Djinndigestion is no fun.

KorvinStarmast

9:12 PM

I think the spelling is djinndijestion

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast can't argue with that XD

GreySage

@SPavel So very true in so many contexts.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose I'll drink to that

GreySage

9:53 PM

Urhg, one of the developers in my team refuses to use camelcase, putting all function and variable names in all lowercase.

It hurts my eyes

BESW

And in making this character, I have written my fav stunt ever. Because I am a frilled lizard wildblood, I'm able to respond to threats with a show of force. Defend physical attacks with Provoke.

Tweeted by amazingrando on March 21, 2018 at 1:50 PM in reply to amazingrando

doppelgreener

@BESW oh that's just fantastic

I love it

trogdor

lol

HSSSHHH back off punk XD

doppelgreener

10:09 PM

Freak people out so much they back off and think twice of what they were doing

Maiko Chikyu

Guys is summoning two monsters with summon monster II instead of summoning rank two monsters?

doppelgreener

@MaikoChikyu which game?

Maiko Chikyu

Pathfinder

Shalvenay

10:27 PM

@KorvinStarmast yup, you got it :>

doppelgreener

11:14 PM

@MaikoChikyu i've read and re-read that and i suspect there may be some words missing from that question

or are you asking whether summon monster II does one or the other?

'cause summon monster II says you can do either: "This spell functions like summon monster I, except that you can summon one creature from the 2nd-level list or 1d3 creatures of the same kind from the 1st-level list."

Ben

@doppelgreener Well in that case it might be time to do a bit of research :P

Morning all

doppelgreener

@Ben i've tended to leave social situations like that to people who've had direct comparable experience

Ben

11:37 PM

@doppelgreener Good choice

On another topic... has anyone played Savage Worlds?

doppelgreener

rumors are that some people have done so

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Ben

Excellent. In that case, some people may be able to answer the question I have about the rules of the game.

@doppelgreener To clarify, this isn't hinting that you are one such person?

doppelgreener

@Ben i am not, alas. i am only a smartarse.

(sorry for misleading you :P)

Ben

Haha no it's cool. I thought that to begin with (the misleading, not the being a smartass haha). But I thought I might just double chek before I post the question

doppelgreener

going by this list, @Wibbs or @SevenSidedDie or @Magician might be able to help you out here whenever they're around.

@Ben that is a fair call actually, hahaha. i might've answered the same had you asked about fate.

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