TRPG General Chat

Joel Harmon

00:36

@nitsua60 That makes much more sense timing wise for a guy with a family and a job.

Shalvenay

00:53

hey there @Viishnahn, how're things going?

Viishnahn

@Shalvenay Pretty fine, just enjoying a rare night off from coursework.

Shalvenay

@Viishnahn doing OK here

Viishnahn

@Shalvenay Run any interesting adventures lately?

Or joined in any?

Shalvenay

@Viishnahn not run, no, was in some interesting stuff lately but that's under wraps (and will be for a while)

Viishnahn

@Shalvenay Too bad, sorry to hear. I just finished an arc that's been going for about 3 months now on Sunday, but I alternate my campaign with another that one of my players is running (I'm playing in that one, too), and I'll be out of town for my week next time, so the cliffhanger that people ended on will be more suspenseful than usual this time, I suspect.

Shalvenay

00:58

@Viishnahn yeah, I was going to run something for some newbs to D&D, but that fell through on account of the usual scheduling woes

Viishnahn

bummer

@Shalvenay How well do your session zero meetings usually play out during your games?

For me, it seems like everyone nods and agrees but really has no clue that everyone is expecting different things, or that they don't know what they think they're agreeing to

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay Might Malik join in, at some point?

Viishnahn

@KorvinStarmast Hey Korvin. Enjoying the night?

Mike Q

@Viishnahn I'd actually like to learn more effective GM techniques in dealing with this. How to prompt players for more meaningful feedback and ideas during out-of-game discussions.

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast meatspace table, so unless you want to commute for it....XD

Viishnahn

01:10

@MikeQ I told my group that I wanted to run a political-intrigue-heavy game, and they all agreed, though as I got to learn their playstyles and preferences further on, I could tell that intrigue was not something they would likely enjoy.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ yes, that would be welcome. I don't have a ton of experience with session zero type things myself, and it's very different briefing someone for a shortform than I imagine it would be for a campaign, as well

Viishnahn

That's probably just a problem with being new and not knowing what all these meta descriptors fully entail.

Shalvenay

@Viishnahn -- my thing is what is political intrigue, from a genre conventions standpoint? I find myself wobbling between very detail-oriented lawfare and over-the-top stuff whenever I start considering such sorts of threads

Viishnahn

@MikeQ I blatantly ask each one of them in person for one element about the session they overall enjoyed, one moment that they really liked, and one thing that I could have done better/handled differently in between sessions every other week.

Mike Q

@Shalvenay "Intrigue" isn't defined very well, and its execution will vary by system

Viishnahn

01:13

@MikeQ True that.

Mike Q

"Intrigue" could mean any of the following (non inclusive):
- The campaign story has an overarching mystery of some kind
- NPCs are indirect and secretive, and the PCs are expected to coerce information from them via social stuff
- There is a complex webs of NPCs, motives, and middlemen
- The narrative objective involves finding clues
- etc

Viishnahn

@MikeQ and/or any combination of those

Mike Q

I've also learned that intrigue from the player perspective is very different from intrigue from the GM perspective

Shalvenay

@MikeQ how so?

Viishnahn

@MikeQ Is it typically viewed as antagonism by the GM to the players?

Mike Q

01:22

Actually I'll backtrack on that one, because it's a bit too subjective on my own experiences

Viishnahn

Your subjective experiences could be useful for others that haven't thought about it that way to learn from.

Mike Q

Hmm, okay, well... Basically, if mystery is supposed to be one of the driving forces in your narrative, then you have to be super cautious and particular about how and when you convey information

BESW

@MikeQ "What did you like and want to see more of," "What do you not want to see again," "What were you hoping for that didn't happen," "What do you hope will happen next?"

Viishnahn

Are you concerned about giving too much information to the party too soon? That the party is expecting more? I don't fully understand.

KorvinStarmast

@Viishnahn hullo, sorry, was afk playing hearthstone

Viishnahn

01:27

@BESW good questions, will steal

@KorvinStarmast no prob. Welcome back

Mike Q

When you're a player in an intrigue game, the goal is simple. Get as much info as possible, then figure out what to do with that data. The answer is probably in there somewhere.
When you're the GM, more finesse is involved. Be too obvious too quickly, and the mystery is spoiled. Give too much detail for non-mystery things, the players get overwhelmed. Don't give information regularly enough, the players get frustrated.

BESW

The "session zero" isn't going to be useful if it's treated as the only place to set up what's going on in the game: it's just the first touchstone to try and get on the same page.

2

Synchronizing the group is an ongoing activity.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Can't be restated enough. You could say that it's a labor of love.

BESW

@MikeQ Assuming you're playing the kind of intrigue game where player knowledge and character knowledge are roughly overlapping, or even the kind where the characters don't know what's going on.

Shalvenay

@BESW no kidding

BESW

01:29

In my experience, really good intrigue isn't about finding things out. It's about deciding what to DO with the things you find out.

Viishnahn

@MikeQ Much clearer, thanks.

BESW

That's why systems like Gumshoe exist.

And then there's the "nobody at the table knows what's going on, let's play to find out" which Atomic Robo, Lovecraftesque, and A Penny For My Thoughts each have interesting and divergent approaches toward handling as a game.

Viishnahn

@BESW Right. As a GM, you should (in my opinion, at least) be giving your players plenty of information; some of it will be interesting, some of it will be useful, but a select amount of it will be both useful and interesting.

BESW

Or the intrigue stories where the point isn't to find out what's going on, but just to survive it, like Cthulhu Dark.

@Viishnahn The Gumshoe system's central conceit is that, if a character is looking in the right general place and has the right general skill, they will ALWAYS find at least the minimum clue to keep the story moving.

Viishnahn

I just restated Angry's guide on how to do exploration. I guess the two aren't that dissimilar.

@BESW Great. After reading enough guides on how to write a mystery for an RPG, the gist I got was that there should always be plenty of clues (and plenty of backup clues for when players ignore, miss, or misinterpret the ones they find) that players are guaranteed to find.

BESW

01:34

But it's harder to make that matter in D&D-like games where the tendency is to fall into "kill problems until they stop being problems." Intrigue games are generally more successful when they push social stakes and social consequences.

Viishnahn

This was system-agnostic and general writing advice.

BESW

That's one reason I think the most successful Gumshoe game is Bubblegumshoe, where one of the characters' primary resources for getting things done is their relationships with others which get tested, strained, and reinforced depending on what the sleuths decide to do with the information they get.

Viishnahn

@BESW It's a dilemma: do I let the players know that what they just killed wasn't black-and-white bad, that it had feelings, emotions, and potential utility to the party so that they learn for the future, or is that simply cruel?

BESW

@Viishnahn And now we're back to the "session zero" concept and making sure the whole group is playing the same game, because that's not a decision the GM should make unilaterally.

Mike Q

@BESW Magic also can spoil games that rely on a mystery. You know who the bad guy is? Teleport into his bedchamber and kill him. You know what clue would exonerate so-and-so? Use a divination spell to find it. Etc.

Viishnahn

01:36

@BESW Agreed.

BESW

@MikeQ Right, but again that only "ruins" the game if the stakes aren't set up to match the setting and the experience goals of the gamers.

Does the local court accept evidence acquired by freelance divination, or is that fruit of the poisoned tree? Killing the local crime boss just creates more chaos as gang war breaks out in the streets now that there's no one keeping things orderly.

D&D "magic solves everything" tends to fall apart as soon as you place the adventurers in a setting where they care about other people and the societies they inhabit.

For example, both those cases involve morally repugnant actions: murder and invasion of privacy.

Viishnahn

@BESW Some of my friends in a group that I play with always downplay the importance of the session zero/same page tool, saying that we all know each other and that we don't need to waste our time on such things. How can I talk to them or others with similar attitudes and convince them that doing so is useful?

Mike Q

@Viishnahn If meeting up is considered a waste of time, then why are they committing to a campaign

nitsua60

@MikeQ second half of this article has some useful tidbits, IMO.

BESW

@Viishnahn They might be right. I had one group, once, where we spent so much time together outside the game and talked ABOUT the game outside of game time so much that we wound up doing informal synchronization constantly. I didn't even know it was a thing that happened until I found myself later in groups that didn't synchronize.

But in my experience that sort of serendipity is super rare.

Viishnahn

01:42

@BESW I haven't seen it yet in my groups.

BESW

Okay, so what do you see in your groups that tells you it's not happening? Those things are the reasons to do it.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Even with people you know pretty well, it's good to make sure expectations are out in the open. The PvP / Not PvP baseline I have found is important to know up front, in terms of player preferences.

Heck, even with Monopoly: what house rules are we using?

BESW

Or you can just have them read Old Man Henderson.

KorvinStarmast

For board games: do dice that fall on the floor count, or not?

Mike Q

You could have a group of folks who all like each other OOG and all enjoy tabletop games, and if a campaign is described to them in vague terms, then each could have a completely different expectation about what they're signing up for

What will be the tone of this adventure? What kind of split can be expect between dialogue, combat, puzzles, survival, etc?

Viishnahn

01:47

@BESW I see players that want to take more risks being shot down by those that don't want to take as many. I see players assuming that certain things are enjoyable by everyone (I happen to not enjoy said thing). I see players getting bored when there isn't combat in a session, and they tell me the one thing to do differently next time is to include combat (D&D 5E). I could go on.

Mike Q

Would my character Chuckles McLighthearted be out of place? Would my character Shadowdeath Edgeblade be out of place? Would my character Crafter McReliesOnMagicItemsAndGold struggle with the pacing?

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Umm... they're not called floor games, are they?

(he he he)

Shalvenay

and all this is magnified thousandfold when you try to do crazy stuff like persistent-world RP

BESW

@Viishnahn Those are your persuasive reasons. That's why participant synchronization is useful.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Uh, that's Twister. It's diceless. And when you are young, iceless. Ice packs when you get older

BESW

01:49

@MikeQ This is another reason I love having a lot of different games and not being tied to any one of them. Because I've got a system for each of those characters, and a few that might be able to handle all three without stepping on each others' toes.

Viishnahn

@BESW How deep do you and your players invest in any given system? Perhaps more importantly, how deep do your wallets invest?

BESW

@Viishnahn Very little. Many many excellent games are cheap or free and require little time to learn and few or no props to play.

trogdor

Yeah it's actually kinda easy to play a wide variety of games

BESW

All the many Worlds of Adventure for Fate are free. Cthulhu Dark, Danger Patrol, Dungeon World, Lady Blackbird, Honey Heist, Roll for Shoes, all free.

Viishnahn

@BESW If I wanted to run a low-fantasy (magic exists, but is rare) setting revolving around player interaction, roleplay, and intrigue/investigation/not just combat, what systems could you recommend, assuming cost is no issue? How easy are these systems to get into?

Shalvenay

01:53

indeed. I do want to try DMing DW sometime, even

BESW

@Viishnahn Off the top of my head, Bubblegumshoe with one of its setting hacks.

That'd fit pretty much perfectly.

Viishnahn

@BESW Does the setting hack have a name?

BESW

Depending on what you have in mind, there are a handful of Worlds of Fate settings which might work (free!).

Viishnahn

Thanks! I'll take a look into it.

BESW

Katanas & Trenchcoats is set in a world where magic is rare but the player characters are brimming with it.

Lady Blackbird (free!) technically qualifies but probably isn't what you're thinking of. I'd recommend it anyway.

trogdor

01:56

Lady Blackbird is great

Viishnahn

scribbling furiously

BESW

The Mouse Guard hack "Realm Guard" is for playing Rangers in Middle-Earth.

trogdor

Huh

BESW

@Viishnahn Bubblegumshoe has a whole set of pre-made setting mods in the back of the book and instructions for making your own.

Ruby Hollow is basically Scooby-Doo.

Viishnahn

@BESW So, who wants to be the Great Dane?

trogdor

01:59

Lol

BESW

In the Ruby Hollow mod, the sidekick is a shared resource built and controlled as a team.

Viishnahn

Aside: is formatting done in HTML here in chat or some other way?

Shalvenay

@MikeQ re: your stated characteristics of intrigue: it's the second one that I think gives me the most trouble -- my instincts when dealing with a mystery are to reach for evidentiary clues instead of relying on social coercion to milk clues out of witnesses/other folks

@Viishnahn it's a subset of the Markdown used to format Stack posts

Viishnahn

@Shalvenay Thanks

So this should be in italics

Shalvenay

hey there @Syric, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

Viishnahn

02:00

Excellent

BESW

@Viishnahn Chat formatting is similar to the mainsite formatting with a few variants.

There's a number of games like Dresden Files Accelerated that are designed assuming a relatively high saturation of magic but can be scaled back just by not choosing magical PC options.

If you're looking for existential dread intrigue, Lovecraftesque and Cthulhu Dark are great for one-shots while Trail of Cthulhu is better for long-form campaigns.

Or you might want to try Secrets of Cats, where some cats can perform magic to help defend their neighbourhood domain--provided humans aren't watching.

Joshua

I now feel rather silly. It looks like necklace of adaptation + goodberry can be used to survive indefinitely in a vacuum

BESW

A Penny For My Thoughts is deeply invested in roleplaying to discover a mystery, but it's structured unlike any other RPG I've ever seen and is super intense.

Blood on the Trail is about surviving harsh conditions on the Oregon trail while keeping the travelers from getting into fights.... oh, and also there are vampires who want to ambush you and drink your blood.

Viishnahn

@BESW I went from very confused to very interested in milliseconds there

For most it might be the other way around

BESW

Under the Table is an urban fantasy version of King Arthur's Court set in Prohibition-era USA.

InSpectres is about running a Ghostbusters-like startup company.

@Viishnahn You might also like Morts, which is set a hundred years after the zombie apocalypse, in a city where people are kind of complacent about zombies because of the hard work done by the PCs who are underpaid, underappreciated government employees who keep the zombies out.

Glazius

02:23

InSpectres is great, because it does the one thing the Ghostbusters totally would have done if they started up a couple decades later: get themselves a reality show.

Viishnahn

@BESW Thank you for all the recommendations, but I'm much more of a depth guy than a breadth guy. I'll take a good look into a few of the first ones you mentioned, but I don't think I'll be able to examine all of them

Viishnahn

02:40

General D&D 5E query for anyone here: is antagonism between a player character warlock and their patron or a paladin and their deity a terrible idea? This would be something that results from fear that the servant would outshine the master, and a form of jealousy, rather than punishment/rebuking for breaking a pact or oath. There wouldn't be any mechanical changes.

Joshua

for the paladin this sounds terrible

Viishnahn

In my setting the gods, patrons, and the like are all similar level and much, much closer to adventurers than in traditional D&D

Mike Q

What kind of antagonism? And what purpose does it serve?

trogdor

@Viishnahn closer to adventurers in level or in social contact?

Mike Q

(Also, for reference, 5e paladins get their powers from following a code, not a deity per se)

Viishnahn

02:43

For the paladin, his deity might start to get nervous if his servant gets too powerful for his liking. One thread I'm toying with is introducing an incredibly powerful former paladin of this deity that broke his oath after the deity essentially betrayed him.

@trogdor They can be killed, though to do so is no small feat even for the other gods. They live long enough to essentially be immortal to humans.

@MikeQ Right, which is why this wouldn't affect anything mechanically for a paladin. A warlock is another story, though.

Mike Q

I'd say be careful, and ask yourself how this subplot benefits the game

trogdor

@Viishnahn so closer in ability then

Mike Q

If the warlock's patron acts against the party, would you be forcing the player to choose between their character and their companions?

Viishnahn

@trogdor They are complex, imperfect yet very powerful creatures that reside on different planes than their followers

trogdor

That doesn't seem incredibly different

Viishnahn

02:47

@MikeQ I'm not considering this at the moment, but if that were the case I would make sure to get the player's consent and have another patron lined up

Mike Q

Another patron?

Viishnahn

@MikeQ of the same mechanical type and/or flavor if it comes to that. It most likely won't.

Mike Q

General rule of thumb for D&D games: The system assumes party cooperation. If you set up the players with conflicting interests "because plot", don't be surprised when team cohesion breaks down.

Viishnahn

The warlock is a distant future potential thing. The paladin is much sooner in scope, thus I want to make sure I understand all the ramifications of what might happen if I enact this

@MikeQ This is true, but I don't see how it necessarily applies here.

This is player vs. setting, not PvP

Mike Q

If you communicate that the paladin shouldn't trust their deity, then how do you think they'd react? How do you think the others would react?

Viishnahn

02:52

@MikeQ I have no idea. Have you ever run across anything similar before?

Mike Q

Yep. A game where one player character learned that they get their powers from a dark god. The player is split: Do I lose my powers or betray my allies? Ultimately the player spent the rest of the campaign trying to hold on to their power while his allies never quite trusted them.

Viishnahn

The idea I have for now is to introduce a paladin with strange powers and a shield notably missing its holy emblem, though there's a mark where you can tell the emblem of this deity used to be. This powerful former paladin would give some cryptic message to the player character, just enough to perhaps plant the seeds of doubt. Nothing more for now.

@MikeQ Like you said before, the powers are from the Oath itself, not the deity, so the question would be more along the lines of "Do I abandon my god or try to change and accept this side of it that I never knew before?"

Mike Q

And there's no mechanical penalty involved in the choice?

Viishnahn

Due to the way Oaths work in 5E, only if he reneges on his oath, which is unlikely since he tends to play very in-line with it.

Mike Q

Okay, so the point of all this is just to give the paladin their own personal nemesis? Does this tie into the main plotlines in any way?

Viishnahn

03:00

I toyed with the question of doing this with the warlock's patron a while back, but there are no such safeguards in place for them.

@MikeQ The purpose is to demonstrate that the gods have noticed the power of this party growing at an alarming rate, and that they might not approve of that.

As for tying into the main plotline, not yet, although it leaves room for quite a few interesting scenarios: the government, the enemy nation, and the gods are against you: what will you do?

I'll take your allegorical advice under consideration. Thanks as always! I'll probably end up leaving it vague enough to backtrack if I reconsider or if it isn't something the group would enjoy.

Mike Q

Another allegory then. Not long ago someone asked a question about this. They had given different party members divergent objectives and motives. Either opposing, or at least unrelated, it wasn't 100% clear.

The problem was that when one subset of the party wanted to follow their individual plotline, the other players weren't interested

One of the PCs had been given a personal quest to assist the empire that the other PCs were opposing, and that led to some sort of inter-PC conflict that broke the game. So the PC told the GM they weren't comfortable with the character, and wanted to make a new one that aligned with the rest of the party's motives.

Viishnahn

@MikeQ I remember

Mike Q

I don't know about the dynamic of your players, but this could be a possible consequence - the paladin tries to work with their antagonistic patron, this causes tension, and the player stops enjoying the character

Viishnahn

@MikeQ This is exactly the sort of thing most people recommend talking to the player about. I don't know if I could discuss it with them and still have it as suspenseful or enjoyable, though maybe not talking with them would be much, much more suspenseful and un-enjoyable

@MikeQ You're right, and that's a worst-case scenario that I don't like at all. I'll scrap this for now.

Mike Q

03:19

@Viishnahn If introducing a potential rival of "former paladin of the same code/deity" would achieve what you're trying to achieve, then I'd suggest that. It's much simpler.

Viishnahn

@MikeQ I've thought it over for a few minutes now and what I'm really trying to accomplish is to show that nothing is perfect; you can't fully put your trust in anything, not the gods, not your neighbors, and potentially even your other party members.

Putting that into words shows how much I really don't fully understand my own thought process

Although the gods of my setting are basically pagan ones; this one is the god of storms (among other things), and he might just as likely spare you from a storm as put you through one

They are powerful, so they are worshiped. They are jealous, so they cut others down or undermine them to safeguard their own power. This antagonism between the paladin and his deity is almost guaranteed if the paladin keeps growing stronger just due to the nature of the deity, this other former paladin notwithstanding.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ -- did you catch my remark re: social vs evidentiary clue-finding btw?

Viishnahn

So unless I change how the gods work, this is how it would logically occur. I don't know what to do.

Mike Q

@Shalvenay Yes, I wasn't sure what you meant by it

@Viishnahn I can't make any recommendations in terms of the consequences on your setting. All I know is party dynamics.

Viishnahn

@MikeQ Fair point. Sorry to bombard you with irrelevant details.

Mike Q

03:30

It's one thing to get the party to question their assumptions and evaluate their motives. It's another thing to make player characters distrust each other in a system that generally assumes party cooperation.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ ah. it's the difference between interrogating witnesses to figure out whodunit and figuring out whodunit from a bunch of blood splatters, boot prints, and such

Viishnahn

@MikeQ I agree. I could always remove the option for the paladin to try to work against the party (though knowing the player I don't think that would be their response)

Mike Q

@Shalvenay Ah, then yes, that's good. Better for players to learn by asking questions and forming theories, then to just wander and find journals containing exposition dumps.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ yeah, I don't like exposition-dump-journals either

Mike Q

@Shalvenay They're efficient, but lazy.

Audiologs generally work well in video games because they're not interactive. The player can keep doing stuff while listening to the journal. But that doesn't translate to TTRPGs.

Shalvenay

03:33

@MikeQ I'd rather present someone with a smoldering car wreck and ask them to figure out why the car crashed XD

Mike Q

@Shalvenay Based on your text games that I was in, I would suggest finding ways to highlight the important clues. You don't need to say why they're important, just find some way of indicating that certain details are more important than others.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ yeah, "this looks odd" might be a useful stock phrase to use :) or variants thereof

Mike Q

03:54

@Shalvenay Or possibly prep the players with a hint or two of what kinds of clues to look out for

Shalvenay

@MikeQ yes

Ben

06:33

More of a feeling than an opinion... But I don't think this is really an answer?

0

A: Why does a Lich have two 8th-level spells?

Monsters don't conform to character classes. Both the Lich and Archmage exceed the abilities that an 18th level wizard with 20 Int would have. An 18th level wizard with 20 intelligence would have 23 spells prepared, a spell DC of 15, and a spell attack modifier of +7. (PHB p.114) Questions abou...

Carcer

07:00

that question has problems all round

fundamentally it seems to misunderstand how spellcasting preparation works

I don't think it needed to be closed, I think it needed someone to explain to the person that the lich's spell list is totally valid

the only thing unusual about the lich from a spellcasting perspective is that it has a proficiency bonus of +7 as per its CR rather than +6 as per spellcasting level

the archmage is the weird one which doesn't follow the rules so closely

and even then it's only actually one spell off if you treat it as an 18th level wizard who's enjoying the spell mastery class feature

kviiri

07:53

@Carcer I think you forgot the most important thing: a Lich isn't a wizard, and trying to force PC classes on monsters or interpret monsters as PC classes is doomed to fail :)

Carcer

@kviiri I know, and he needed that explaining to him, since the question makes it obvious that that's where his understanding fell down

Carcer

08:14

it's too early in the morning for me

who invented this time of day

kviiri

@Carcer The English earl James II of Morning (hence why it's called early)

Carcer

sounds fake but I'll believe it

[goes to work]

kviiri

Of course it's fake, truths are so rigid they're no fun.

Carcer

10:17

seems SSD figured the same thing I did

Colin Gross

12:53

@kviiri Hey! Math is fun!

kviiri

13:45

@ColinGross Math is fun, although the truths it deals with aren't exactly truths in the usual sense.

Colin Gross

@nitsua60 I blame that trilogy for kids these days eating pennies.

Helwar

14:10

the answer to this question ( rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/133813/… ) is a bummer :(

Sdjz

@Helwar I'm sorry :(

Helwar

haha

I just thought it was a great idea

the answer is good though! Upvoted it instantly :)

Sdjz

@Helwar If not for the tweet I wouldn't think rituals would be invalid. In fact, if you are going to pre-cast something into the ring, the spending of a splot may not matter that much since you can store the day before

Xirema

I got to punch a ghost during our session last night. I comboed with a use of Divine Smite, and the ghost exploded. 8)

Helwar

@Sdjz exactly what I thought, I odn't see it being overpowered or anything, but it is what it is

checking other "spell storing" questions, I have stumbled into a couple whose accepted answer is wrong (for example this rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/113537/… )

Sdjz

14:18

@Helwar to be fair, that answer does predate the tweet by JC

Colin Gross

@Sdjz Yeah... I don't understand the implication of casting a ritual into the ring? It means you don't have to plan a long rest ahead of time?

Helwar

well I wasn't pointing fingers accusing anyone :) I just noticed it was contradicting the tweets you mention, so maybe it would be good to add another answer with that knowledge?

Sdjz

@Helwar I prefer to add a comment first to allow the person to update their answer

Helwar

@Sdjz sure, manners first

Sir Cinnamon

I think that answer makes sense - to be honest i would have probably thought that way but i looked at other questions which stated or implied otherwise. those JC tweets are nicely definitive though

Helwar

14:26

@SirCinnamon If not for those tweets I would also have thought it was a totally legal action

@Shalvenay hey buddy, I'm sorry I have this all the day open but I don't pay much attention to the chat if I don't have the time, so I never notice when you greet me >_< Sorry!

Delioth

14:46

I'm a little surprised/disappointed in the lack of [pathfinder-2e-playtest] questions so far. I'd think there'd be more questions, if only due to some poor organization and bi-weekly updates changing things

Carcer

it shouldn't really be surprising

it is just a playtest. The kind of people who are going to be interested are largely going to be people who have the chops to work things out themselves

plus what's the point in asking about a wonky detail if the system is liable to change so often

Delioth

Fair enough- I wouldn't really expect a ton of questions on the order of several a day, it's just a bit surprising that the last question was almost 2 weeks ago, and the prior one was a full month before that. I'd expect at least some questions to pop up

kviiri

It's still enough, unfortunately, to put Pathfinder 2 among the "hottest systems" of this site.

I wish we'd get more questions outside the usual triumvirate of PF/DnD3.5e/DnD5e

doppelspooker

15:05

same

Sir Cinnamon

RPGs have a bit of a critical mass effect

a lot of them arent played consistently or popularly because they arent played popularly or consistently

The more it's played the easier to find groups, rules, resources, homebrew content etc.

goodguy5

I often think about just switching systems on my D&D players

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon Ugh... I wish that trilogy had been finished well.

@goodguy5 From what to what?

goodguy5

"Alright guys. tonight we're playing mouseguard

or whatever

Sir Cinnamon

Instead of cancelling a game because people couldnt make it, one day I sprung dungeon world on my dnd group

goodguy5

15:08

we don't cancel the game I run for one person. We've agreed to 4 or more, ready to explore

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon That's clever. Alt game system for when players can't make it or there isn't sufficient content written.

Sir Cinnamon

My unfamiliarity with the system was a hurdle but it was still fun. I'd like to try edge of the empire

@goodguy5 Pretty much the same for us, it was 2 people missing and one guest who wanted to come so it was all out of whack

goodguy5

I had my fate players play D&D once. But that was because I was feeling a little burned out.

And I've always wanted to give torchbearer a proper try

doppelspooker

@SirCinnamon there's another side to it though: the D&D family of games are singularly confusing.

a lot of people play it and a lot of questions come up in playing it.

goodguy5

@KorvinStarmast can you link the "post update rollout" thread link?

Sir Cinnamon

15:14

@doppelspooker I would argue that's cause and effect

doppelspooker

@SirCinnamon Well I mean like: compare this to Great Ork Gods. In all our play we have had no questions to ask about it. Then I deliberately searched for things to ask about it, because I wanted to create the tag on here. I found nothing. Then after a long, long time, BESW found one question to ask, about expanding the game material.

Fate has a number of questions to ask that come down to good application of mechanics.

But day to day, the mechanics are very resilient and don't bring up many questions.

Sir Cinnamon

@doppelspooker I dont think D&D is perfect but I think it's an unfair comparison to compare a few hundred pages of rules and mechanics to what appears to be a 12 page one-shot style rpg

doppelspooker

It is not, though.

There are plenty of short, confusing RPGs for which lots of questions can be asked.

D&D breaks or becomes confusing nearly every time you bring three mechanics into connection.

Sir Cinnamon

So comparing it to a game that only has 3 mechanics is fair? I disagree. It has more content which makes it more difficult to balance how all those things work in connection

Xirema

I suspect that might be anthropic bias.

doppelspooker

15:19

The point of the comparison is this: D&D and its family have mechanics that are inclined toward prompting questions for each combination, and tons of mechanics, and tons of people playing it. All of those are exponential force multipliers in terms of the number of questions we have.

If we had the same number of users but people were predominantly playing other games, I sincerely believe we would actually see significantly less questions overall.

None of this is good or bad, just a thing I suspect would be the case.

Sir Cinnamon

@doppelspooker Yes, if people exclusively played one-shot rpgs where the mechanics are "when attempting anything flip a coin, heads is a success and tails is failure" then yeah that doesnt generate questions but it also doesnt really promote longevity of play

D&D is a rules focused game vs a lot of RPGs being roleplay focused first and balance and rules and such being lower priority.

doppelspooker

@SirCinnamon I'm not even talking about just those?

I'm just suggesting lots of other games do not prompt questions at the same rate per, say, unit of gameplay and/or interaction with the system

Colin Gross

@doppelspooker To be fair, I've rarely ever had two mechanics agree on what's making a particular noise.

Let alone on how to fix it.

@Yuuki We're making puns again! I know it's early, but puns!

doppelspooker

This means the reason we have such an abundance of D&D/PF questions is because of it having a lot of questions, not simply only because of how many people are playing it

Sir Cinnamon

I think only a few games have a comparable scale to even guess at that

Colin Gross

15:29

@doppelspooker How would you disambiguate between the abundance of questions arising from the volume of players and the complexity of the system? What observations or date would we record to allow us to pull that apart?

Xirema

@ColinGross That's kind of what I was suggesting by "Anthropic Bias". We've got several confounding variables, and no clear cause↔effect relationship.

doppelspooker

@ColinGross This is why I mention questions per unit of gameplay. As in, the rate at which questions get uncovered during time invested in the system which we cannot resolve rapidly or trivially ourselves.

i.e. questions I'd need to bring to the site

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 Hmm, I am not sure what you are asking me to do. What was that in reference to?

doppelspooker

Of those games I've played, D&D/PF has the highest rate by that abstract measurement.

Sir Cinnamon

@doppelspooker Personally I can count on one hand the questions which I have needed to bring to the site in the last 3 years of playing 5e

doppelspooker

15:35

@SirCinnamon That is good. My experience with that questioning is based on D&D 3.x, PF, and prior.

Sir Cinnamon

@doppelspooker Maybe it's a personal stance, and bias of this site towards wanting the "one true ruling" but very rarely does something come up that cant be resolved by the DM just making a judgement call, and think that's true in a lot of games but sometimes a newer GM will lack the confidence to make those rulings

GreySage

@SirCinnamon Most 5e questions on the site really don't need to be here, as the answer is almost always clearly spelled out somewhere else in the rules

Sir Cinnamon

@GreySage Which is a flaw in formatting sometimes but yeah I agree

Xirema

I've brought a fair amount of 5e questions to the site in only the last year. But I'm also the sort of person who tends to.... "break" things. I once played on a Minecraft server where the admins started calling me the "Mad Scientist" because whenever there was a server problem, it was like 3:1 odds that it was the result of some block interaction that I used that was buggy. XD

Sir Cinnamon

(I.E. Rules about weapons having size only being in the DMG, but not being optional...)

@Xirema But how many of those questions were thought experiments vs things that came up at the table?

JohnP

15:38

@doppelspooker I want to start bringing Rolemaster questions to the site just to watch people twitch.

Sir Cinnamon

i feel like thought experiments and extreme edge cases are a lot of questions on the site as well

Colin Gross

@doppelspooker Seems like that could be estimated with number of hours of gameplay by the posters?

doppelspooker

@JohnP That's as valid a reason as any to ask questions here :P

Colin Gross

Given number of hours of gameplay in a particular system for a number of people posting questions, what would the model then look like for estimating question abundance by game system complexity?

JohnP

@doppelspooker My former GM was one of the authors for ICE. :p Needless to say, we played a lot of RM.

Carcer

15:40

I can honestly say I've never had a confusion about the rules while playing D&D 5e.

This is a literally true statement.

Colin Gross

@JohnP I heard those guys want to build a wall these days.

kviiri

@SirCinnamon Those are definitely a part of the DnD culture, which is one of the reasons why I feel the system family is over-represented on the site.

Colin Gross

@Carcer But what about while puzzling an edge case or esoteric discussion on this site?

JohnP

@ColinGross Made me think on that. Well played. ICE = Iron Crown Enterprises, not the immigration guys :) :)

Carcer

@ColinGross oh yeah sure, then I've needed to use my noggin

GreySage

15:41

@ColinGross You mean a situation that will never actually come up in play? They're fun, but not really a problem with the system.

Colin Gross

@JohnP Did Arthas take over their throne?

JohnP

@ColinGross ??

Colin Gross

@Carcer So there we have it... one time on the internet you were confused. Definitive evidence of ~~aliens~~ a confusing system!

Sir Cinnamon

@JohnP No King can rule forever, my son

Carcer

I mean, my single most upvoted answer is about whether or not trolls can actually die, and the answer content is a very long-winded way of saying "dunno lol"

Colin Gross

15:43

@JohnP Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. Arthas is the Lich King... sits on the frozen throne...

You had to be there.

Sir Cinnamon

At Ice ~~Cream~~ Crown Citadel

Yuuki

~~One more.~~ Whoo!

Sir Cinnamon

....

AY!

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon Yeah... I know the markdown for this chat is the worst

Sir Cinnamon

@ColinGross I'm used to discord markdown now

Colin Gross

15:44

@SirCinnamon Which is basically github's markdown

Sir Cinnamon

@ColinGross Which is my favourite flavour! wish discord had tables though

JohnP

I...don't think I've ever played Warcraft in any iteration.

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon Yeah.. or if the posts here could use markdown tables. LaTeX and HTML tables are for the ~~birds~~ scripts

Sir Cinnamon

@JohnP Well you see, in the beginning the light fought with the void and formed a race called the titans. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Colin Gross

@JohnP It still holds up pretty well. Plus, it's a cultural icon at this point.

GreySage

15:48

@SirCinnamon Especially orcs

Colin Gross

Some of my friends have never seen SpaceBalls, but they still know the important references.

Sir Cinnamon

@GreySage So. Angry.

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon Hitchhikers Guide to the Blizzard Universe

Carcer

I remember when I was a younger person I used to entertain myself by reading the massive lore texts in the Warcraft 2 manuals

barely remember it now and probably more than half of what was written has been retconned out of existence or beyond recognition by this point but hey

it was a grand time when a game manual wasn't afraid to basically be a short novella

Colin Gross

When games had manuals? Oh those were the good&bad old days.

F'ing software for the masses that requires a manual. Needs better UX. looks around for UX guy

Sir Cinnamon

15:51

The section for taking notes at the back. /nostalgia

GreySage

@ColinGross I loved reading game manuals. Now I just read GameFaqs walkthroughs

Colin Gross

@GreySage I did too, but I realize the folly of the manual now that I've drank the kool-aid... errrr... seen the light.

GreySage

@ColinGross Having an offline additional repository of knowledge is never a bad thing. Redundancy is how we achieve stability

Yuuki

@SirCinnamon Although apparently now, it seems the Light and the Titans are unrelated.

Sir Cinnamon

@Yuuki Something something the naaru something something?

Yuuki

15:55

Naaru aren't Titans.

And Titans aren't Naaru.

Carcer

@SirCinnamon evil evil necromancers DEMONS noble savages

Sir Cinnamon

@Yuuki Right but they... know each other I guess

Yuuki

In current-but-probably-soon-to-be-retconned-again lore, Titans are avatars of sapient planets.

@SirCinnamon Actually not sure about that.

Carcer

is Gul'dan still important?

Yuuki

Some, but not all, planets have something called a world-soul. This is basically a baby Titan.

@Carcer Which one?

Sir Cinnamon

15:58

@Carcer he's doubly dead

@Yuuki Just Azeroth now I believe

Carcer

@Yuuki there's more than one?

Yuuki

@Carcer Yeah, we got alternate timelines now, baby.

JohnP

@ColinGross Yeah, I played the original Diablo, and just now got to Diablo III, but only on console. Other than BBS door games, I don't think I've ever played a MMORPG

Carcer

criminy

Yuuki

@SirCinnamon Azeroth is the biggest world-soul ever encountered, but I don't think there's anything that definitively says it/she/they are the last.

GreySage

15:59

@Yuuki Naaru and basical the Light given physical form, while Titans are servants of the Light. They're basically on equal footing in the Light hierarchy

Yuuki

@GreySage Titans aren't servants of the Light.

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