TRPG General Chat

BESW

12:04 AM

@MikeQ I was hoping it wasn't an alternate term for Romani/Travellers or stereotyped fantasy equivalent.

MikeQ

@BESW Nah, I was thinking along the lines of some cart-hybrid humanoid

Shalvenay

12:32 AM

@BESW hah, no. simply that the party was on a wagon at the time

Glazius

1:01 AM

@BESW So he missed the part where a pack of cards can be PbtA if you say so. apocalypse-world.com/pbta/policy

No, it's not using the engine, but.

BESW

By that definition, it is not PbtA.

Glazius

Isn't it? apocalypse-world.com/pbta/games/title/Blades_in_the_Dark

BESW

It does not follow the PbtA IP policy, nor does it use the PbtA logo. By virtue of trade dress, Blades is PbtA as much as it's Burning Wheel and Fallout and Fate.

@Glazius You're arguing from authority now, and granting authority to neither the creator of the game nor its publisher, but to people who created some of the game's inspirational sources.

Look, let's go back to the original context: Fred Hicks is talking about Apocalypse-style playbooks and showing how Blades' playbooks are unlike them.

Fred Hicks has personal stakes in having acertained whether or not Blades is legally PbtA, because his company published Blades without that attribution. He's also a game designer who supported the development of the game, and is speaking in that thread as a designer of games materials and discussing how Blades materials are unlike PbtA materials.

Glazius

Except that PbtA is more of an artistic movement than a theory of game mechanics.

No, not theory, the other thing.

Praxis?

BESW

Your argument seems to be that it's PbtA because it's similar to PbtA and it's listed as PbtA on a third-party site.

Glazius

1:12 AM

apocalypse-world.com/pbta/games/browse/system_outlier

BESW

By the "artistic movement" argument, everything that ever reminds us of a seminal game engine is also that game engine.

Glazius

...I'm not sure how apocalypse-world.com is a third-party site, except by technicality.

BESW

Because it's not associated with the game we're talking about.

It's not run by anybody involved in designing, producing, or publishing Blades in the Dark.

Glazius

But it is run by the founders of the Powered by the Apocalypse movement?

BESW

Who say that it's not up to them to decide if something's PbtA?

Glazius

1:16 AM

Right. So Blades isn't there because they want to claim it.

BESW

That's like saying that Jonathan Tweet can decide if D&D 5e is a d20 System game.

D&D 5e doesn't carry the d20 System label or use the d20 System policies, so no matter how much it rides on the shoulders of the d20 System it's not a d20 System game.

Specifically for context: Blades character sheets are not PbtA playbooks. That's the point.

Blades' sheets don't follow even the "artistic movement" definition of PbtA, they simply use the general format as a jumping-off point.

Glazius

I mean, I'd say the main thing they do is add in the heist loadout mechanic, so the "starting equipment" section stays relevant all through the game.

And as a result it can let the available equipment express the central identity and functionality of a character so it doesn't need to lead into a big page-devouring mechanic.

Like, whenever the Spider kits up for a heist, they can have a fine-quality cover identity if they want one.

BESW

I also think it's very dangerous to give a playstyle the weight of a brand, which is what the "praxis" argument seems to be advocating.

Glazius

Er, no, I said it's not a praxis.

There are diceless games in there.

Engine? Was engine the word?

Ben

2:17 AM

Hey everybody!

BESW

[wave]

Ben

How's life?

BESW

busier and busier. You?

Ben

Wetter and wetter. Townsville has been declared a "disaster zone", due to flooding. The schools are closed, most of the roads are closed, but I'm still at work haha

IT's been raining heavily for 4 days straight now

trogdor

Urg

Why did you still go to work?

It sounds a little dangerous

Ben

2:30 AM

Not overly. Only some roads are closed, primarily the highways leading in/out of town. The flooded areas are out of bounds, for those reasons

The Oracle

1

Q: How should we handle answers that use Jeremy Crawford's now unofficial tweets?

The 2019 sage advice compendium has released, and it includes a change to what is considered "official rulings." Previously, Jeremy Crawford had the capacity to make official rulings over twitter. This is no longer the case. As stated in the updated compendium: Official rulings on how to int...

Ben

@TheOracle The rate at which the tweets are treated as official or not is dizzying...

BESW

Really sorta hammers home how little "official" matters compared to experience-based "does it work?"

Ben

2:45 AM

I.e. Monopoly

trogdor

@Ben ah fair enough I guess, I guess the question came from the fact that I don't think I could go anywhere if it was raining hard for four days myself

I don't think any of the roads I could possibly take to get to work would still be viable after that

The main one is almost unusable after just one day of rain

Ben

Yeah. Here we're right on the coast, so flooding isn't something that happens everywhere in town

trogdor

The main road right around my area is sitting right next to a mangrove swamp

BESW

We've got a lot of roads very near the water table.

trogdor

It floods fassssst

Yeah

BESW

2:50 AM

Roads that go over swampfill, or through inlets.

Ben

Oh lovely

BESW

Especially in the south, where Troggy is.

The north is mostly limestone so the water goes down a few hundred feet before it hits the water lens floating on top of the basalt beneath.

The south is mostly basalt with a thin layer of dirt.

trogdor

And technically the second road if choice is worse

It's completely ripped up, has been for a while, and rain really gets the rocks strewn into the road

Ben

Oh lovely

WE haven't had weather this bad for nearly 20 years actually

BESW

At least most of our roads have been re-paved without limestone for fill.

Limestone asphalt gets super slippery when it's wet.

But there are places where the water crossing the road gets strong enough that it just floats the asphalt right off.

trogdor

3:00 AM

And it's only compounded by weird,... Strategies for fixing the road

Like using sandbags to fill it back up, or my personal favorite of ripping the road up seven times and not actually fixing it

Not mad at all bro

Ben

Oh that sounds productive

trogdor

Yeah and I can't even think of a reasonable excuse for it at that point

I've heard of the road being worked on as many as three different times because that many utilities needed to install or fix something and didn't communicate with each other

But the road I take home was ripped up seven times or so

Ben

Communication seems to be the one thing that the government really just does not do.

trogdor

We don't have seven different utility agencies that would need to work on stuff under or related to the road

BESW

Somebody once told me that our utility and infrastructure agencies coordinated very well for about five years in the 70s.

trogdor

3:12 AM

Lol

Ben

I feel like there's a narcotics joke in there somewhere

Can I get some feedback about this comment over on gaming.se?

Shalvenay

@Ben seems fine to me

"no" is a valid answer to "can I do this?"

hey there @nitsua60

Ben

The comment is fine or the answer is?

Shalvenay

@Ben both are

Ben

The way I read it is that the comment is saying the answer is wrong, but then points out information that doesn't relate to the validity of the answer?

Shalvenay

3:19 AM

@Ben oh, I thought you were talking about your reply comment, not Manchineel's comment

Ben

Yeah sorry if that was unclear

Shalvenay

ah -- I think he means that your answer, while correct in the specific case raised by the OP, seems to imply it might not be that way for the general case when the answer's the same for the general case as the OP's case

Ben

Right. That makes sense I guess. The information provided is only summarised to provide evidence to the answer - it's not misquoted at all, just excerpted from the full text which goes into more detail.

Either way, I'll leave it.

V2Blast

Sounds good

Ben

3:50 AM

5

Q: What is the world record for the longest D&D marathon?

I have been looking for awhile to find the world record for the longest Dungeons and Dragons marathon because me and my friends had a plan to try and attempt to beat it and give the money from the stream (if we get any) to my school's Gaming and Anime Club. So if you have the answer to this quest...

dnd-5e time session

Shalvenay

hey there @goodguy5

Ben

4:08 AM

All this hoopla... several suburbs have been evacuated, road closures, and now the army is on standby. This is getting very exciting.

And my worst problem is that my clothes won't dry due to the 90% humidity

V2Blast

4:25 AM

Oh my

Ben

I think the reaction has been "Oh wow... that a lot of rain" to "Hey the dam is overflowing for the first time in 12 years!" to "Oh look, the shopping centre is flooded. Lol" but now they've forecast another week of 200m/day. So yeah... best prepare just in case

BESW

5:31 AM

> Interrogator. Once per scene you can force a target to reveal a fact they'd rather conceal, but they get to choose what fact they reveal unless you offer a compel on one of their character aspects and they accept it.

Or, hm.

> Interrogator. Once per scene you can force a target to reveal a fact they'd rather conceal. If they give you a fate point, they get to choose what fact they reveal.

Or a more PbtA-style verison...

> Interrogator. Once per scene you can force a target to clearly and truthfully answer a direct question. If they give you a fate point, you must ask two questions and they choose which to answer.

KorvinStarmast

@Ben My brother lives in Chicago. -50F. Slight disaster, and I am glad he had a house to be in.

@trogdor FWIW, I was in two typhoons while in Japan and went to work both times. It's a thing. (no, not the best thing, but a thing)

But I'd rather not that be a habit ....

trogdor

5:54 AM

@KorvinStarmast my dad went out once to drag the generator into the house after the shed it was in got ripped up by the wind, we still tell him he should not have done that

I wouldn't recommend traveling in the middle of a Typhoon

KorvinStarmast

Yeah, that risk reward thing is uneven ....

As I age I guage the balance differently

trogdor

Definitely

Anaphory

9:46 AM

@BESW Hm, I feel a big point of those PbtA moves is that this bit of the conversation happens between the players, not the characters; the term “direct question” is misleading.

BESW

10:18 AM

Hmm, true.

kviiri

12:08 PM

Ciao a tutti. How's it going?

Derpy

> Helsinki, Finland

Writes in Italian.

something is fishy here

BESW

Finally got my magazine draft signed off as ready to prep for printing. Spent the afternoon outlining text, which is considered practically archaic by most but the client's chosen publisher ships large print jobs to an international printer so they don't trust typefaces to render properly. Just as I wrapped up and exported the print-ready document, got three pages of new copy revisions from a project member who'd been on leave until today.

kviiri

@Derpy I try to be a reasonably multilingual person!

I don't remember how to greet everyone present in Swahili though.

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