TRPG General Chat

12:00 AM

@Carcer They're not ruling that humans can't fit through doors < 2.5 feet wide, the rules say that humans can't fit through doors < 2.5 feet wide. Which is ridiculous, and you're free to rule against it, but it is still what the rules say.

Er, 5 feet, sorry.

Which is even more ridiculous, obviously, but still the rules.

trogdor

Oh humans can't get through 5 foot doors you say?

XD

Miniman

Nah, they can get through 5 foot wide doors, they just can't get through doors less than 5 feet wide.

trogdor

Oooh ok I'll just make doors that are 4.11 feet wide

No problem

Humans are so dumb XD

Apparently

Miniman

But...you don't fit through any doors. You burst through walls in a shower of rubble and awesomeness.

trogdor

12:16 AM

Lol

Thanks that's nice of you to notice

XD

Shalvenay

yeah -- most finished frames are in the 30" range IRL

Carcer

@Miniman I think it is ridiculous to read the rules as meaning that because it's clearly nonsensical, and that squeezing is as xanthir correctly notes a rule about fighting in a constrained space, not about what space you could conceivably fit in any circumstances

and that as an answer to the question simply going "the rules for squeezing say it can't fit through anything smaller than 10'" is not helpful.

why am I awake, I should've been in bed like two hours ago

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Hmm... that doesn't sound right. I think it's (width of washing machine) + 2*(thickness of knuckle)-1/4"

BESW

3:38 AM

You know how Einstein figured out that the speed of light was constant, and everything else had to change for consistency? My theory is like his, except not smart or good.

trogdor

Lol

That's my impulse now too, my fix is to smash all the clocks and then just replace them with myself shouting really loudly some random numbers for what the time is

Bam fixed

Rubiksmoose

Would it be reasonable to ask "what would the mechnical implications of allowing ranged weapons to be used with Fancy Footwork?" As an alternate for this question?

I want to suggest a stackble version of the question to OP and see if they are interested in asking that instead.

trogdor

That seems like it just doesn't work with the mechanics in question

:/

I don't see how the stack would like this at all unless maybe it turns into a question about Homebrew? And even then I am not too sure there

Err or maybe the stack is actually fine with this but the answer is just "no" ?

I guess?

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor It would certainly be a houserule question no doubt.

trogdor

Yeah

Rubiksmoose

3:51 AM

I suggested it to them. At the very least it gives them an idea of what kinds of questions we do answer.

Given that OP has admitted that all they want is opinions and has left this question we should close this as POB

BESW

4:43 AM

Square One TV: The Adventures of Spade Parade

►

Rubiksmoose

5:19 AM

@BESW That is fantastic.

BESW

@Rubiksmoose Square One TV was consistently amazing.

Ben

Is there a question about handling combat for parties with mismatched combat abilities?

Like, one player is all combat, no skills, and the rest are all skill no combat?

Not really worried about system atm

BESW

I recall several, but system really does matter between them.

11

Q: How can I balance practical spells with RP spells?

I'm playing a warlock in our DnD 5e campaign. Near as I can tell, this is sort of specific to warlocks because they have so few spells known (correct me if I am wrong). Either way, I still have a problem. Every level, I learn 1 additional spell. Soon, it will be one every two levels. I want to p...

11

Q: My character is more powerful than the others in the party

Background: DnD 3.5 Homebrew campaign. Level 5 party. Warblade (me). Bard. Warlock. Paladin. Rogue. The dilemma: my character completely outshines the others in almost every single combat setting. How do I play down my character so others get a chance to shine too? If we consider the wide...

dnd-3.5e balance party

42

Q: Power player is a problem. Any fix?

Context I'm a new DM because the old DM wanted to play for once. No big deal right? Man was I wrong in accepting. Let me explain. This "DM" knows everything. He is always right. Even if he is wrong he is right because you are either too logical or forgetting logic, depending on the situation...

dnd-3.5e problem-players new-gm

5

Q: How to integrate roleplay, foci, paradigm into casting magick

I was away from RPGs and story telling for some time. I used to run Mage: The Ascension scenarios before, but I had to take a break, and now I want to get back on my feet. I struggled with some concepts back then, and I want to get them right this time. How can I encourage my players to integra...

gm-techniques roleplaying mage-the-ascension

37

Q: How to reward players that come prepared for non-combat, non-RP situations? I.e., real life

For example, players who either spend their starting gold on combat gear, but not items like bedrolls and rations; or who, at char creation, simply ignored the equipment packs and just loaded up on the combat gear and tools? While I don't want to be overly difficult, I feel that an adventuring p...

dnd-5e roleplaying equipment

26

Q: What do I do with a dissonant player?

We have a gaming group that has been playing the game for about 4 years. One of the players is my old friend, with whom I started gaming about 15 years ago. There is also another player, who has also been my friend for a long time. We are in our mid-twenties to mid-thirties. We prefer long-term ...

gm-techniques problem-players metagaming

Ben

5:53 AM

I'll have to go through them properly, but so far they all seem to be along the lines of "this PC is a problem".

What I'm looking for is more in line with "you have to accommodate for the combat player, without murdering the non-combat player"

Rubiksmoose

@Ben Are we at least talking about D&D here? Or at least D&D like?

I guess that doesn't really help me help you, but it might help you to consider that I suppose. I can't think of any question I've seen like that off the top of my head (in any system), but that doesn't mean much

I would argue that system is vital here though. For example D&D and PbtA would treat this very differently to the point that in some PbtA systems this question doesn't really even apply.

V2Blast

Definitely agreed that system is vital to answering that question. Combat mechanics, non-combat mechanics, and the balance thereof varies hugely by system

Rubiksmoose

For example (and this is only mostly serious) my answer for D&D would be: have the player create a combat character otherwise they are not going to have a good time.

If you aren't interested in fighting monsters (player or character) D&D is not the game you should be playing.

Miniman

6:15 AM

@Ben What's the goal? Are you looking for information about this issue for a game you're running/playing in? Are you just looking for a question you can link to someone you're arguing with/trying to help out/something else?

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose I'd updoot if I could

Don't do the thing where your players don't know what to focus their characters on, because that cretes preventable problems. DnD, played by the rules, does a fair job averting it: there aren't that many points where you even have the option to sacrifice a significant amount of combat power for a significant amount of non-combat power. Spell picks are the big exception

Also don't try to rebalance that by making sure there's something for every type of character, because then you wind up with three players waiting for their turns to shine while one is describing their Fishing Trip #67.

Basically it's more fun to have a single game everyone is playing rather than one game for combat, one game for setting up a bank in Hesse-Kassel, one game for romance and one game for becoming the #1 racer in the Halfling League.

trogdor

6:48 AM

@BESW just got home, immediately watched this, it's the bessssssst

BESW

7:38 AM

@kviiri I once made a 3.5 quarterling shade with that problem.

Voluntarily retired him because a character whose entire build, combat and non-combat, is built around perfect stealth, does not really lend itself to sharing scenes with... anyone...

(After some looking up of rules) GM: Sooo...the corridor is full of dense fog, changing colors like a disco, and eventually this giant floating eyeball is going to emerge from the fog... BUFFALO: Yes, thank you, I have BEEN to a Pink Floyd show before.

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Derpy

8:01 AM

@BESW at this point, I wonder what would cost less: a pack of "official FATE tokens" or a blister of poker chips? ^_^'

Ben

Well I've come across this issue again and again, across many different systems. The question I'm posing is very broad... I've seen this issue caused by min-maxing, people just focussing entirely on combat skills and other players focussing on the opposite, as well as a few other situations, and these have been across all different systems. Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Numenera, 5e, Dark Heresy, and a few others.

Cc @Rubiksmoose @V2Blast @Miniman

There has to be an option other than focussing on the "problem player/PC"

BESW

:46882608 I think that's why folks are saying you need to narrow it down; it's a common symptom of many many different problems, and good answers need to address a problem. Fixing a symptom will just make the problem fester.

@Derpy Still the poker chips, because shipping to Guam is $20.

(And, since it's fundamentally a mechanical problem about character builds and encounter designs, solutions are still better when system-specific.)

Ben

Hmm. Ok

Derpy

8:29 AM

@BESW still thinking that the best option is to use candies, so that you can just eat them when you use them :P

BESW

Nah, keep candies for the Bowl of Doom.

(Spent fate points often go to someone else at the table, and the temptation of just eating them whenever is better, I think, with systems that take advantage of it.)

Derpy

@BESW that's a feature, makes popular fate point flavors worth more than the "lame" ones.

@BESW ^ closest thing I could found, unless you meant the actual dish

Has both "Doom" and "bowl" in the listed name

BESW

8:45 AM

Aug 19 '17 at 23:18, by BESW

@nitsua60 There's a bowl in the middle of the table, filled with a kind of candy everyone in the group likes. The bowl is clearly labelled "DOOM."

Aug 19 '17 at 23:18, by BESW

Everyone is free to eat the candy... but the candy is also an expendable resource in the game, and the empty bowl triggers an event.

Aug 19 '17 at 23:20, by BESW

When I used it for a session in 4e, so long as there was candy in the bowl every d20 roll also had the player to your left roll a d20. You could eat a candy to use their roll instead of yours.

Aug 19 '17 at 23:20, by BESW

And when the bowl was empty, it triggered the boss fight immediately, rather than you reaching the boss on your own terms.

doppelgreener

@BESW fate core specifically says don't use anything edible for fate points because they'll have a tendency to vanish and they need to not. :)

Derpy

9:00 AM

@BESW Some time ago in my country you could find some candy bags sold at newspaper stands... Never bought one, but based on the TV ads the bags had about ten candies in them. Random flavors.

The catch? every candy color could correspond to two flavors.

One... normal.

The other usually something disgusting (again, based on the names they had... thing like "spoiled milk" or "dirty sock")

you could replace the candies in the bowl with those.

V2Blast

D:

Derpy

anyway, nice idea you had. For some reason, it reminds me of that "Amazing world of Gumball" episode with the candy-eating eldritch abomination

doppelgreener

9:20 AM

@Derpy the doom bowl concept probably gets better serviced by having 100% just nice good candies

there's already a dilemma: i want to eat them because they're tasty and good things will happen, and everyone else wants to eat them too, but we need to not have too many, but this is so tough we need to eat some.

in that dynamic adding bertie bott's style candy doesn't really serve a purpose, but would be disruptive because it gives you reasons not to have candies

there might be a time and place to have bertie bott's style candy in some kind of bowl, but it'd be a very different thing

kviiri

10:25 AM

@Ben FWIW, I think it's far less serious in Apocalypse World where combat typically takes just a couple of minutes before you zoom in on the next cool scene

trogdor

11:01 AM

@Derpy that wasn't just a Harry Potter thing?

kviiri

11:17 AM

@trogdor "Random foods inside caramel shells so you never know what you're going to get" was a course in Italian futurist cuisine of the 1920's or 1930's

trogdor

sheesh

kviiri

The futurists were a bit bonkers that way :p

They also supported Mussolini which means they went out of fashion in the 1940's.

trogdor

yeah I got nothing on that one :/

too real

Mike Q

12:22 PM

@BESW That's not the generalized solution, though, because it assumes at least one of the three will claim to be the one who always lies

BESW

@MikeQ No, it's about teaching the logical concepts not teaching the specific problem.

Mike Q

Oh okay. Here and here are some generalized approaches to it.

BESW

12:52 PM

[confused] What am I supposed to do with these?

Colin Gross

@BESW Make a truth table like anyone should do /S

BESW

I think Mathnet did truth tables a few times.

trogdor

1:20 PM

@BESW destroy the real people who only tell the truth or only lie?

not literally but the "sick burn bro" way

BESW

@trogdor "I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lie that burns your house down!"

trogdor

lol

literal works too if you want to be like that

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor Why not both?

trogdor

because that is just real mean?

but sure if you want to be the worst person go ahead :P

Rubiksmoose

I always like to participate in a hearty conflagration after particularly good zingers.

@BESW I'm pretty excited for these since I kickstarted this.

I'm not sure when we are going to get around to doing Fate, but we are going to do it eventually.

trogdor

1:25 PM

Fate is pretty cool

Rubiksmoose

I have the core book and I've skimmed over parts and watched/listened to some actual plays. It seems very interesting with a lot of compelling mechanics.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 oh, i forgot to respond, but results are good—i've been wearing them every day. i haven't had any properly hot days to test them in but i've had warm days and cold days and they're fantastic.

lots of small problems resolved.

trogdor

it's a nice system to use if you are getting out of a very restrictive system, like any edition of D&D

doppelgreener

another very successful "not D&D" introductory game i'm aware of is blades in the dark

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Besides the update (which I love) is there any easy way to reply to a message without joining the chatroom and then manually scrolling all the way back to it?

@doppelgreener Now I've heard the name before but actually know nothing about it.

trogdor

1:29 PM

Fate is pretty flexible, that's it's main strength I think

Rubiksmoose

We just finished a very sucessful game (according to my players) of Masks so we went to a really rules light system right off the bat. Hopefully our future RPG systems will be somewhere in between 5e and Masks

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose hit the yellow bar that appears on the left hand side of a message when you mouse over it. pick 'reply' in the dropdown.

mobile chat doesn't have that option though, so if you need a mobile chat answer i can provide a couple of options with more steps.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener ohhhhh wow. I never even thought to check there since I always use the arrow shortcut on the right. I just assumed the option under the yellow bar was also removed. Thanks!

@doppelgreener If you have a minute and don't mind explaining I think it would be useful actually.

doppelgreener

:D

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor It seems that way!

doppelgreener

1:33 PM

mobile chat options:
1. hit 'full site' in the top left and use the desktop flow with the dropdown.
2. if you have the permalink (which you do if it's the highlighted message), the permalink will look like this:

https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46886680#46886680

here 46886680 is the message ID. :46886680 is the reply syntax.

so i can just write :46886680 at the very start of my message to reply to that one.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Nice! Thanks. :) Made my life much easier. I knew there had to be a way to do it besides copious scrolling, but never got around to asking. Much appreciated.

doppelgreener

\o/

you're welcome

Rubiksmoose

On the Masks note, I was thinking about it last night (doing some introspection and thinking about lessons learned) and I believe this game of the Masks was the most fun time I've ever had around a gaming table (on either side).

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose you don't have a reply arrow? I still see it on mobile when I click the message I want to reply to

Derpy

@trogdor never knew that was a thing in HP, so nope. Sadly as it sound, someone is marketing those here

David Coffron

1:42 PM

@Carcer example of a reasked question just got posted

NautArch

@DavidCoffron Ha! I need more coffee.

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron If the message is old enough (eg you clink on an old notification or on the link back in a message reply) it opens in a window that has you not joined in the chatroom. When that happens there is no arrow. For example try viewing the message doppel is replying to in this message

@DavidCoffron I just noticed as well. We should request the previously closed one gets duped to this one by a mod. So that if they come back they have a trail to follow.

NautArch

@DavidCoffron But I think this is a good case of that. The original asker has had a week to get involved and hasn't. A current member sees a good question and links them together so that it can be solved.

Not quite the same as the concern of stealing rep in my opinion.

Mike Q

Is there a "core" ruleset for Masks? I found some pdfs on their website but I couldn't figure out how the game actually works

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose eh. The OP never clarified their game. Maybe better to leave it as a comment ala "This question for 5e: [link]"

Rubiksmoose

1:47 PM

@DavidCoffron Sure that is one way to do it. But closure reasons don't matter that much and I think that a much better use of the system would be to hard link the two together with a closure.

Comment would also work obviously and they are linked in related now for me, but still I think that may be the best way forward.

Maybe I'll open a meta about it and see how people feel.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose Agreed - but we don't know for certain they were referencing 5e. Duping to a 5e is making an assumption on something we never confirmed.

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron oh shoot. I see what you are saying now. Doh!

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose in the past, mods have handled duplicates differently than other closures. This is because the message is "this question already has an answer" which may not be the case If the system is different

doppelgreener

@MikeQ yes there is: there is a masks rulebook.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch Yup I'm a dummy, just realized I'm doing that thing that we are not supposed to do!

doppelgreener

1:49 PM

the GM section of the masks rulebook is basically all of the actual game rules and is a nonoptional read.

unlike other games where the GM section is advice, the GM section of a pbta game is the game

David Coffron

(Ignore my cc mods, resolved)

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron see above (you are totally correct)

doppelgreener

Oh hey, @MikeQ it's on sale too: drivethrurpg.com/product/193258/Masks-A-New-Generation

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ If you want a good taste of the game I can link you to a podcast where they run through an adventure in about 4 hours I think. Super fun and entertaining and a decent intro to the system. But yeah I agree with doppel entirely.

Mike Q

@Rubiksmoose It's Fate-like, right? I wanted to get a feel for that system before buying anything

David Coffron

1:53 PM

Why does FoD just say "rise as a zombie." Someone with no background knowledge of zombies (however unlikely) who hasn't read the raise dead spell may have no idea what that means.

Mike Q

Either Fate, Fate 2e, or Fate Accelerated... whichever is the one that yall always talk about

doppelgreener

@MikeQ it's a Powered by the Apocalypse game,not fate

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Hmmm... having not played Fate I can't say conclusively but I think it plays differently.

Mike Q

@doppelgreener Aha. Well that's my first mistake. I was trying to map it to the Fate rules which led to confusion.

doppelgreener

it is similar to fate in that it cares about character development and narrative as its first priority, and it is similar to fate in that it is extremely different to D&D (it is not about murder and loot and mechanical progression)

Rubiksmoose

1:55 PM

@MikeQ here is a podcast that I referenced above oneshotpodcast.com/podcasts/one-shot/182-masks-part-1

doppelgreener

@MikeQ right, in terms of rules they are hugely, vastly different

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener In fact murder is kind of off the table as a default assumption in the game.

Mike Q

I might want to start with Fate though

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Masks IMO is simpler.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose is it? good :)

Mike Q

1:58 PM

Most of my friend cloud consists of diehard PF players, and I dislike GMing the system, at least for an extended campaign

I want to get them on board something else

And a good chunk of them liked the JJBA campaign idea

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Mhm. There are like 5 things that are agreed upon by people/characters. One of them is that the PCs are not killers and that killing is an unusual and would have very very severe repercussions in the world. Any kind of death would be devestatingand dramatic basically.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose awesome. having only played i wasn't sure whether that was called out, but that's entirely appropriate for the genre.

Mike Q

I've tried running superhero themed campaigns, but we used M&M and the players felt overwhelmed by the system, so they lost interest

Hence my new interest in Masks

doppelgreener

@MikeQ masks might be easier for you to work with as a new, different game. Fate is very different to playing D&D or Pathfinder, much looser, and there are a lot of common initial mistakes people make. Sometimes a group is only willing to give a game one chance and those initial mistakes have them decide “ok, we can't play this new game properly, it's too hard, let's go back to D&D/PF.”

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Masks very much steps out of the way of the players almost completely. I never felt like the system had any kind of chains holding me or my players back from telling the story we wanted and doing the actions we thought were most appropriate/fun.

doppelgreener

2:02 PM

Fate offers itself like a lego bricks kit: "here's some mechanics! If you use them you can build things! here is some suggestions about how to use them." But you can use them to build something really wonky if you're not paying attention or using them quite right.

Rubiksmoose

Also, Masks does come with a bit of a default setting whereas Fate is a blank slate. Could make it easier to get things started. There is a Fate superhero module that I looked into but I went with Masks over it for a variety of reasons.

doppelgreener

PBTA games put you on some guide rails because of the nature of how PBTA games get run: they are very much unambiguous in how you should do things. The game rules are basically a manifesto that boils down to: FOLLOW THESE PRINCIPLES AND DO THESE THINGS THE WAY WE SAY AND YOU WILL HAVE A GOOD GAME FITTING THE KIND OF NARRATIVE WE'RE GOING FOR.

Mike Q

What if I wanted a campaign where the players are minor-league villains? How feasible is that in Masks?

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Not at all really.

Masks takes a very niche and focused part of the superhero genre and leans into it: young superheroes.

Mike Q

@doppelgreener PBTA?

Peanut Butter Teaching Assistant?

doppelgreener

2:04 PM

@MikeQ powered by the apocalypse. the game system masks implements, derived from apocalypse world.

@Rubiksmoose completely agreed. fate is not only a blank slate story-wise but also a blank slate mechanically; fate core is a sort of build-your-own-mechanical-system kit. it is not pick up and go.

Rubiksmoose

You could try to shoehorn them into teenage villain superheroes but you are going to run into issues I think with the playbooks (basically classes). And some of the basic assumption of the game. It could work but it isn't going to work out of the box.

doppelgreener

(fate worlds and fate-implementing RPGs are the prebuilt mechanical systems based on fate)

@Rubiksmoose Yeah I would not try to do a villains game in masks. Masks is about teenage superheroes and the challenges they explore, and being villains would not gel.

Many playbooks would not make any sense in a villains game.

Mike Q

Hmmm....

Carcer

can it do Worm

doppelgreener

@MikeQ Does any of your group know about Teen Titans?

Mike Q

2:08 PM

Yes, but... One of my motives for wanting a villain game is because I like challenging conventional moral frameworks, and encouraging people to question their ethical assumptions

And the superhero genre tends to have a very rigid moral framework

Sometimes to the point of silliness

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Indeed. Only a couple I can think of that would really fit it at all (delinquent maybe and Reformed and at a stretch the Innocent)

Carcer

@MikeQ like Batman never kills?

Mike Q

@Carcer like Batman never kills the Joker. That's definitely one.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose yeah, i'm not sure what i'd use

@MikeQ Do you know about Teen Titans? Does anyone in your group know about it?

Carcer

@MikeQ Yeah, that kind of thing.

Mike Q

2:10 PM

@doppelgreener Yes, that was my "Yes, but" in the previous message

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ One thing you might be able to do actually though is have your characters be the children of supervillains a la The Runaways.

doppelgreener

@MikeQ Masks is in a lot of ways Teen Titans: The RPG. It exists to provide a narrative similar to Teen Titans, and many TT characters have direct analogues available in Masks playbooks.

Rubiksmoose

Or depending on tone it is actually very close to Young Justice as well. Those were the two direct inspirations.

Mike Q

So I kinda had a setting where the superheroes were the establishment, who use might-by-right to impose their principles on the world, thereby pushing these no-name villains into freedom fighter roles

doppelgreener

To that end you have characters trying to figure out what is right and wrong, and trying to live up to it and their ideals. One of the playbooks is a character who has to live up to tremendous expectations, another is one with such overwhelming power they're trying to use it for good and avoid turning evil or destroying things, another is basically Raven: that playbook is called The Doomed.

Sir Cinnamon

2:12 PM

@MikeQ Magneto's vision?

doppelgreener

Masks is like Teen Titans or Marvel in terms of exploring character driven drama and teenage angst and stuff.

If you don't want that, Masks is not the game for you.

Mike Q

I mean, Teen Titans and Young Justice were great, so if the system encourages that feel, then I'd be glad to use it

doppelgreener

But also, you're trying to deliver the idea of playing not-PF to a group of hardcore PF enthusiasts. Take baby steps with them. Take safe options and reliable paths to show them other games exist. Don't burn your chance to open the floor to different games on an experiment that might not work.

So if you want a villains game, that's great, but park that for later once your group is interested enough in various games they'd be willing to run experiments and stuff and not wholly write off non-PF games for it.

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Literally the character examples they use for the Playbooks are heavily cribbed from both those shows. Robin = Beacon playbook, Raven = Doomed,etc.

Carcer

Isn't there an M&M setting which presupposes that aliens invaded and stomped all the heroes, so the villains are all who are left to fight for humanity?

doppelgreener

2:15 PM

Also The Legacy (I think?) is basically Superman's kid.

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer There is! And it is reputedly very fun.

@doppelgreener The Bull is probably the most direct translation if we are talking Superboy, but Legacy could work as well.

@doppelgreener I completely agree here though. I like the idea in general, but I wouldn't recommend starting with it. Get comfortable with the genre before inverting it.

@MikeQ my advice would be to run a very short one-shot in the system to kick the tires and see if people are interested and if the system is clicking.

Mike Q

@Rubiksmoose Would Masks at least permit a setting where the Justice-League-analogue was questionable, if not corrupt?

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Yes, this could work.

I think what you are shooting for is possible here. I'm not sure if it is optimal and you are going to be fighting some parts of the game I think a bit. However, with a bit a tweaking I think it would work.

And depending on the extent of the corruption you may not need to tweak things at all. There is advice in there for running a Corruption themed campaign (breifly in a list where it outlines common story arc patterns you can fit your story into)

Fwiw in my campaign the world had a bit of a Civil War ( the movie) bent to it. Vigilantes were not illegal but the politicians were trying to make it so, and the superhero community had made some very high profile mistakes.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose nice and subjective :) "this is my personal interpretation of superman's kid" and both are valid

honestly for a first time run with a skeptical crowd you're very likely best sticking with the recommended/standard path

run it for a few sessions, see if they're interested and enjoying it

Rubiksmoose

Yeah I really do recommend doing that. At least for a short adventure. Maybe do a brief prequel adventure? Or a bottle episode in your universe that doesn't have any of the baggage of the corruption yet.

Mike Q

2:26 PM

Hm... What about a My Hero Academia -like structure?

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ Definitely doable. What part specifically?

Mike Q

Well, the theme, for starters. Characters are at a superhero school, villains exist but most of the challenges are focused on training (competitions, tasks, etc.) and school life.

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ 100% doable.

In fact, it is a great fit IMO.

Mike Q

And is it best played with a board/battlemap or can it be run mostly verbally?

David Coffron

@MikeQ I wish I had the confidence in TotM to ask a question like that. I'm jealous

Rubiksmoose

2:32 PM

@MikeQ fwiw many of the MHA characters fit fairly neatly into Masks Playbooks as well. Bakugo is probably a Bull, Midoria is a Beacon that suddenly becomes a Nova (and could also be played completely validly as a Legacy)

Mike Q

@DavidCoffron ToTM = time of the month...?

Carcer

@MikeQ "Theatre of the Mind"

Sir Cinnamon

Teenage Otaku Turtle Mutants

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ It can and should be run mostly verbally. There are no abilities that come even close to specifying range or movement speeds or spacing or anything. If you have a complicated scene that you need people to understand the details of and point to where they are you can certainly use a floorplan or map, nothing in the game really will be enhanced with the use of a battlemap.

Mike Q

@DavidCoffron It's more like, over time I've developed an annoyance for the amount of detail required in preparing battlemaps

Like, to prepare a PF map, I have to consider battle tactics of each encounter (large spaces for AOE blasters, hiding spots for rogues and casters, etc.), critical paths and methods of entry (what if the PCs teleport in?), and possibly fill my search history with stuff like "17th century european fortress blueprint"

It's so much work

Rubiksmoose

2:38 PM

@DavidCoffron You might be surprised. I'm very much a battlemap person in 5e, but in this system I had no problem instantly transitioning into a TotM style of DMing. The system just does a great job of making that unnecessary.

Mike Q

So a TOTM style game requires less preparation, plus it's easier logistically if I want to run it online

Rubiksmoose

@MikeQ But yeah. You don't have to worry about that at all in Masks. In fact, prep was largely extremely easy aside from the worldbuilding I was thining about behind the scenes.

Mike Q

That's my secret, captain

I'm always worldbuilding

It's preparing the mechanical stuff that takes up all my time

Rubiksmoose

One cool thing wit this system is that the players are encouraged to world build as well. In fact I would highly reccommend you allow the players to have key voices in how the world is formed. Mine loved that aspect so much.

@MikeQ Then you are going to have a lot of free time! Because there is almsot nothing that needs to be mechanically prepped in Masks and it is so easy you can actually prep at the table somewhat.

Given like 10 minutes and a core concept you can create a villain from scratch.

kviiri

@MikeQ That's a large part of the fun of DnD for me, but not having to do that is a large part of the fun of non-DnD systems :>

Mike Q

2:44 PM

@kviiri It was fun, for a while

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Masks is PbtA, right?

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri Yup!

kviiri

@MikeQ I see what you mean for sure x)

@Rubiksmoose Yep, fits the pattern very well :)

Mike Q

@kviiri I liked the ability to build whatever characters I wanted, and combining different builds to make interesting encounters

kviiri

I've stopped even pretending my DnD adventures are anything but largely railroaded combat romps. That's not to say I don't do other types of campaigns, I just use different systems for them.

Mike Q

2:46 PM

However, I realized that:
1. I have too many responsibilities to dedicate the zillion hours needed to prepare stuff, and
2. The amount of work I put into campaign prep was disproportionately high compared to the amount of stuff actually showed up in-game, and a lot of the design choices simply did not matter

kviiri

@MikeQ Amen on both counts.

NautArch

@kviiri I'm actually having some issues with that right now. I'm trying to have more of a sandbox where the players can choose which paths they want, but it's definitely creating some problems (with at least one player)

Mike Q

and with PF especially,
3. Campaign prep turned into a tedious arms race with my players, where I had to figure out which combinations of classes, feats, and other choices would result in anything resembling a challenge

kviiri

@NautArch Funnily enough I've come to accept that DnD can support some sandboxish stuff as well, if done right. One thing I'd recommend is asking the players what they want to do in the next session so you can prep it in advance :)

NautArch

I've tried to make it clear that there will be a main storyline and sidequests and they can decide which direction they want to go (in advance of session so I can prepared) and also provide options for them to pursue their own goals. But I also told them that time keeps going, so it's not like a videogame where quests wait for you.

And that I will not allow party splitting.

so they ahve to come to a consensus of what they want to do the next session.

kviiri

2:49 PM

Sounds wise, on all counts

@MikeQ :( that sounds like a recipe for bad time, really

Mike Q

@NautArch This is what I do with my PF players

doppelgreener

@MikeQ one of the principles of PBTA is play to find out what happens, so you will need to not worldbuild too much like Rubiksmoose said.

kviiri

I absolutely love the PbtA style of improv-heavy game mastering, but I can imagine it being more difficult for people who don't have as good imaginations as I do :)

It's a skill one can train, though, and the GM moves can help there: eg. if you don't know what to do you can just call a brief timeout and take a look at the GM move sheet, notice something like "Announce offscreen badness" and get inspired to narrate a loud explosion in the distance or somesuch.

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch I gave my group a talking to about party splitting after a few close calls (and pulled punches by me). Now they're scared to be in different rooms haha

Carcer

@SirCinnamon that could make for some interesting downtime.

Sir Cinnamon

2:54 PM

@Carcer Due to the setting, downtime is pretty rare for the time being

doppelgreener

@kviiri constraint helps a lot with creativity after all

Carcer

"Guys, I need to use the little dwarf's room." "FORM PERIMETER! WE MOVE AS ONE!"

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener I delayed deciding if a character was actually evil or not for the entire campaign until a story element popped up that would allow me to decide which way would be more interesting. In other words the story decided if he was good or evil behind the scenes the entire time. @kviiri

kviiri

@doppelgreener Aye, my friend! This is an oft-underappreciated fact, but a fact nonetheless.

Sir Cinnamon

"If you dont hear me whistling in the outhouse, something has gone horribly wrong"

Carcer

2:55 PM

tactical latrine action

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose wonderful :D

kviiri

@Carcer "We move as one", taken to its logical extreme, is the JRPG style where everyone's just a single character until the combat starts :)

Rubiksmoose

@SirCinnamon Funny thing, in Masks it is almost a certainty that the party will be split and it is a lot of fun.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Excellent!

Carcer

I'm just imagining the party forming a tremendously awkward outward-facing circle around one guy pooping in a bush in the middle of the woods

doppelgreener

2:56 PM

waffles

Carcer

everyone hating what is happening, but nobody willing to let anyone go out of sight

Rubiksmoose

XD

Sir Cinnamon

Love waffles

doppelgreener

Yeah masks doesn't care about group splitting

kviiri

Group splits are cool as long as everyone's invested in the scene currently being played, and the scenes remaining short and tense helps with that. And PbtA is very good at short, tense scenes :)

Rubiksmoose

2:57 PM

I can't see how you could not split it either. Unless your players were a group of orphans that went to the same school and all the same classes and lived in their super secret HQ.

And never went on dates or to prom or anything like that.

Mike Q

@Rubiksmoose You can split more easily when the setting is constrained

Carcer

huh, the rep notifications seem to be broken again

Maximillian

"Why does the party always have to move together?" "Guild rules. Something about insurance doesn't cover individual acts of heroism."

Mike Q

Such as, everyone is in the same school campus, or same town

Unlike, say, the Golarion multiverse (multiplane?), which has literally everything in it

kviiri

@MikeQ Not anymore - under GDPR I was allowed to ask them to remove myself from it

Rubiksmoose

3:01 PM

@MikeQ I mean my party was split up all across this enormous city. They each live in their own homes and some had part time jobs even.

kviiri

:)

Carcer

@kviiri Good call. The elemental plane of water system especially is notorious for accidental leaks.

[accepts violent beating]

Rubiksmoose

Luckily superhero logic dictates that all locations in a city take exactly the most dramatic amount of time to reach an area where something interesting is happening.

2

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose LOL

Yuuki

@Maximillian "It's kinda like group solipsism. If we don't stay together, reality disappears and nothing exists."

Derpy

3:05 PM

@Rubiksmoose also known as "Fi(r)st rule of The North Star": Kenshiro will walk slowly to the battle and won't arrive until at least 20% of the local survivor population was already killed by the foe-of-the-week bandits group

Rubiksmoose

@Derpy XD

KorvinStarmast

I think this question might be ready for a re-open. Please visit and vote to reopen if you agree.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose I wish more games actually had reminders that "remember that good narrative isn't often about realism", accompanied by a list of tropes to consider :)

Maximillian

Ken is min-maxxed so the fight tends to end with the first hit or set of attacks.

Ken can also apparently cleave with his bare hands, which is rather impressive in terms of narrative.

Yuuki

Rubiksmoose

3:09 PM

@kviiri Me too! I not only used the tropes I leaned into them. I borrowed from anime and manga tropes as well since that is something my group was really interested in incorporating. So we had characters pop out from behind someone that they could not have been hiding behind, we had yelling-powered punches, villains carrying literal bags of money with dollar signs on them, etc.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Sounds awesome :D

Rubiksmoose

But yeah. Most fun I had running or playing a game ever. I look forward to trying to best it!

kviiri

I'm actually excited to get our CoS wrapped up

Later sessions have been more fun again, although we're not getting to play as often as we'd like.

Also! Many of my players have expressed interest in playing a longer game of AW which is totally rad and makes me all warm inside <3

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose that all sounds genuinely wonderful and i would be delighted playing in that game

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast I don't think it is the best question but I agree it can be opened. Good work fixing it up and helping OP clarfiy things. :)

:)

NautArch

3:19 PM

@MikeQ I've got one guy who seems to not quite get it (and also is most interested in his own character's arc compared to the other players)

Mike Q

@NautArch And I have one who doesn't care about any of the plots, and just wants to murder everything, which is ironic because he's the "I'm good alignment" obsessed guy

NautArch

@MikeQ Thankfully I don't have that problem.

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri Yay! That is one of the best compliments I think you can get as a DM or to a system. "Yeah I loved it. When can we play another one?"

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose There's a downside, though, that I'm having trouble not thinking my 7th Sea sucks because of this

Rubiksmoose

@Yuuki I have no idea what i just read but I love it.

kviiri

3:23 PM

I really wouldn't want to be the guy who only plays their favorite system(s) but I sure feel like pulling the plug of that campaign

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri Well it is always possible to like and not love something. And to enjoy something but not want to do it again. So I wouldn't take it too personally if possible. :-/

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Yea, we just spent a lot of time hyping up and session zeroing that campaign and I'm a bit sad if it dies so fast

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri That is completely understandable and fully reasonable. It is sad sometimes when things we enjoy go away too soon :(

Mike Q

@NautArch My bigger problem may be closer to yours then - I think the players are so overwhelmed by paizo's overdetailed setting that they're hesitant to explore outside the initial "main" plot, putting me in a position where I have to either railroad them or bombard them with new sideplot hooks

Rubiksmoose

Then again, I'm not sure you should be pulling the plug here. I certainly wouldn't do it unless people were obviously not enjoying themselves and not in a way that can be rectified.

(though I do recall from previous discussions some of the issues you brought up)

NautArch

3:28 PM

@MikeQ We haven't started the main plot yet :( They have had two potential sidequest plot lines dangled in front of them. One player gets it, one player is indifferent, the last player doesn't get it (yet)

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose I didn't really enjoy our first session. I feel the group wasn't... well, very supportive of me as a first time GM for that system

NautArch

@MikeQ Do they need to explore outside or is there enough content in the main to keep them happy? Maybe introduce a sidequest that is directly related?

kviiri

They're used to the paradigm where the players shouldn't know about the rules, because it's METAGAMING

(where possible I mean)

(brb)

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri Yeah.... that is frusterating and pretty inhibitive honestly.

Mike Q

@NautArch There's more than enough content in the main, but not in a good way

Too many names and places to remember

NautArch

3:32 PM

@MikeQ that's frustrating :/ I'm thinking of making up a cheat sheet of names and quests for them. But I worry that's too much.

Mike Q

@NautArch I've done that too, but they don't really look at it

NautArch

@MikeQ Have they said why not?

Mike Q

They have lives outside of the game?

We meet infrequently enough that I need to remind them about the documents too

doppelgreener

To celebrate the Avengers 4 release, we're going to kill half of the Stack Exchange communities at random. We're really hoping Stack Overflow makes it.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on September 25, 2018 at 2:58 PM

Rubiksmoose

hahahaha

Derpy

3:35 PM

Teenagers from Outer Space (role-playing game)

Teenagers from Outer Space (often abbreviated TFOS) is a rules-light comedy role-playing game written by Michael A. Pondsmith and published by R. Talsorian Games. It was inspired by gag anime such as Urusei Yatsura and Ranma ½. The game was first released in 1987, when anime was still mostly an underground sensation. The game is currently in its third edition, published in 1997. This edition was retooled to play up the anime inspirations after anime had become more mainstream. At least two modules were published for the original edition. The first was "Field Trip" written by Dave Friedland and...

Mike Q

@NautArch What has helped was cutting down the main plot to only involve a small handful of NPCs and necessary locations

NautArch

@MikeQ That's fair - but post-session reminding them to review as a means for them to decide what to do next seems reasonable.

Mike Q

Hahaha

Expecting my players to prepare stuff before the next session?

To them, "before next session" translates to "the first ~30 minutes of next session"

Joshua Aslan Smith

herro

NautArch

@MikeQ Yeah, i'm starting to think my current group is very different in the amount we talk about old sessions, upcoming new session, and telling the DM what direction we want to go in.

doppelgreener

3:40 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith hi!! :D

Joshua Aslan Smith

@doppelgreener hows it going

Im trying to lurk a little bit every day

as I expect to be posting a bunch of questions on Cyberpunk2020 as I try to run a campaign in it and its and old wonky system

doppelgreener

going good :) it's good to see you

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah it is good to see you as well

nitsua60