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12:18 AM

Lesson of the day: It doesn't matter what your secret notes say should happen, it's much better to "Yes, and" react to your players' silly ideas

I finished(?) my messy campaign earlier today, and I was going to post this as a question, but I think the answer is obvious

BESW

@MikeQ For a lot of people it's really really not obvious at all. Especially since many RPGs' advice for GMs emphasizes prep over improv at the worldbuilding/plotting level.

Glazius

The question being "secret notes vs. silly ideas"?

MikeQ

@BESW So the players had fun setting up the sting operation, but during the sting itself I got flustered and things just fell apart from there

They had incomplete information and tried a bunch of cheap tricks, and I kept saying no because of details that hadn't been communicated

Combat happened later than expected, we ran out of time after round 1, and I just ended it and said how the campaign storyline would resolve

BESW

12:34 AM

Yeah, I've had campaigns end that way too.

MikeQ

@BESW Well, as I like to say, it was a learning experience. A very demoralizing one, but still, not a complete loss.

@Glazius The notes weren't secret per se - I had dropped many hints about certain NPCs and plot points, but the players had a different impression of what was going on.

Aug 21 '18 at 15:38, by Mike Q

Another thing: Most, if not all, DMs overestimate their ability to communicate and explain information

BESW

12:59 AM

@MikeQ Yes, I wouldn't be the person I am today without those experiences and most of the time I'm okay with that.

nitsua60

1:13 AM

@MikeQ Yeah, that happens to all of us, I assume. One thing I've found helps--not that it helps with the communicating, but at least with not being on different pages--is always asking the players to recap/summarize/theorize rather then throwing things out there myself. I don't know if you've noticed, but I never provide a session recap myself--it's much more important for me to hear what you-all thought was important than for me to push on you things I find important.

MikeQ

1:36 AM

@nitsua60 The new technique I'm going to do for now on - At the start of every scene, ask the players to recap the premise and what their goals and expectations are, even if they say they have a plan and say they agree on what to do

BESW

2:17 AM

@MikeQ This is something that Fate's supposed to have the group do at the beginning of every conflict, but it's not emphasized very much and there's no specific praxis for it.

Glazius

2:45 AM

@BESW Oh, huh. There is more in here than I thought: fate-srd.com/fate-core/conflicts

2 hours later…

KorvinStarmast

4:21 AM

@MikeQ Good call on that technique.

1 hour later…

V2Blast

5:35 AM

RPG.SE finally trusts me

BESW

[side-eyes suspiciously]

V2Blast

rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/trusted-user

lol

20k reputation

1 hour later…

V2Blast

7:02 AM

Mostly it's just nice for editing tag wikis

2 hours later…

Ben

9:02 AM

Evening all

[wave]

[vague gesture]

burble burlble?

9:21 AM

@trogdor Yes basically

trogdor

lol

BESW

kviiri

9:55 AM

Hi all

MikeQ

halloo

trogdor

11:01 AM

@BESW XD

2 hours later…

Anaphory

1:13 PM

Haaallllooo!

Zachiel

2:01 PM

@KorvinStarmast I have this screenshot where a turn 2 Dragon Roar in arena gives me 2 Yseras but I can't be bothered to post it. RNG for the win.

@BESW and stunning or otherwise blocking people is the same. I know because our alckemist does that all the time to my NPCs and "save or can't do anything but walk" for 1d4+1 turns is a huge debuff

BESW

And usually quite boring.

I rejiggered 4e's mind control to be "the mind controller gets to make you use one of your at-will powers at the beginning of your turn, and then you get one action of your own."

Zachiel

New challenge: get at least one kid-friendly game for each time slot of my convention in the event the nephew of one of us likes her first RPG ever and wants to keep playing.

Current status: failed.

Shalvenay

2:17 PM

hey there @Anaphory, how goes it?

Zachiel

(The current games are a blasphemous World of Darkness session set in the Gospel, an x-card worth Cthulhu Gray game, a The King is Dead game [fight with your friends, make love with your enemies], a postapocalyptic game set in New Orleans with a possible Redneck invasion, the KKK and brothels and Shell Shock, a game on war trauma. Maybe some are ok for a 12 Y.O. but I don't think her mother is ready.)

I hope changing one of the games into "let's plan a bank robbery" is ok.

Shalvenay

3:22 PM

hey as well @ACuriousMind

kviiri

3:36 PM

Hi all

Anaphory

4:14 PM

@Shalvenay Hey there, forward through the pile of things that need doing which I piled on myself over the last year!

Shalvenay

@Anaphory heheh, alright here. pondering things for a DW campaign I want to run sometime in the near future...

Anaphory

I thought I could do some RPG meetup today. Turns out that even with cancelling my plans for that and only doing one other big thing today I still haven't done a fraction of the things I intended.

Okay, well, a positive fraction, but only an ε.

@Shalvenay Oooh, nice! What are you pondering about it? How is your view on DW these days?

Shalvenay

@Anaphory wanting to run a campaign :) got a lot of stuff rattling around my head, but a bit concerned about overload in the form of "too many fronts"

@Anaphory would you be a good one to bounce some of my campaign ideas off of even?

kviiri

4:40 PM

Hmm, I think DW works generally better with less content to start out with, but I'm of course not familiar with how much content your group is used to

Anaphory

@kviiri By the rules, definitely. I have only played one-shots of it, and there it is generally fine to front-load some prep.

kviiri

Yeah. Tbh I usually have my players participate in the worldbuilding in *Worlds because it is a concrete way to keep me from making it a novel ;)

Anaphory

The AW advice to spin some ideas, but to be willing to drop them as soon as something interesting comes your way (can't remember the phrasing) is also useful here, I'm not sure how explicit that advice is in DW.

In that sense, prep all you like! Just be sure that maybe none of your prep will actually hit the table.

kviiri

5:02 PM

AW had some interesting ideas as optional additions

Eg. "pick two problems from this list -- they're what your hardhold is facing"

nitsua60

> What you bring to the first session, ideas-wise, is up to you. At the very least bring your head full of ideas. That’s the bare minimum.

If you like you can plan a little more. Maybe think of an evil plot and who’s behind it, or some monsters you’d like to use.

If you’ve got some spare time on your hands you can even draw some maps (but remember, from your principles: leave blanks) and imagine specific locations.

The one thing you absolutely can’t bring to the table is a planned storyline or plot. You don’t know the heroes or the world before you sit down to play so planning anything c…

From the DW section on "First Session."

Shalvenay

5:24 PM

@nitsua60 yeah -- my line of thinking with this is definitely "play to find out what happens" -- got several factions and associated campaign fronts, and the PCs are going to get thrown into the middle of a multi-way fracas for an in medias res start and then they get to pick who to align with ;)

kviiri

6:14 PM

One absolute jewel, in all of its simplicity, from the perpetual-beta Apocalypse World: Dark Ages game is the inclusion of a map template that's essentially just a garbled mess of polygons

It's so conductive to quick mapping: the "randomness" of polygons naturally creates something that resembles natural borders

and I'm one of those people who really likes seeing maps

Joel Harmon

6:32 PM

@kviiri Do you have a link for that?

kviiri

@JoelHarmon lumpley.com/index.php/awda you need to "sign up" with your email (again, never have received any spam from them so it must be some other nefarious purpose they're collecting those for)

Mind ya, the game is in playtest state and has been so for years sans any updates. I think it's not really worth playing as-is, but it's a really cool find in terms of ideas to steal and adapt.

Joel Harmon

That second question looks pretty dubious :)

kviiri

@JoelHarmon true; a fellow human like yourself will definitely have no trouble solving it

Joel Harmon

@kviiri Yep. Nobody here but us humans! chuckles nervously

kviiri

@JoelHarmon Affirmative! Now excuse me, I must hydrate my internal tissues like we humans do.

1 hour later…

V2Blast

8:05 PM

off-topic question here about Monster Hunter World:

Q: MHW best weapon class?

I'm currently switching between bow and charge blade but I'm having some desires to do more damage at long range I like the mobility and damage of charge blade is there a ranged weapon that will allow me to move quickly and fire yet still be able to have large damage combos?

monsters

kviiri

tsk tsk, Capcom.

(in all seriousness, I've been enjoying Mega Man X a lot recently)

2 hours later…

Ben

10:24 PM

Morning all

Pathfinder - Lvl 3 Druid (no multiclassing) - In for a feat soon. My GM has made a strong argument toward taking a feat like scribe scroll/brew potion.

Any other suggestions?

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