TRPG General Chat

Shalvenay

12:14 AM

hey there @KorvinStarmast

BESW

12:57 AM

I was just asked to do a Lady Blackbird table at a local gaming convention again this year.

Anaphory

Are they better organized this year?

BESW

Dunno, just got the "hey doing the thing are you interested" text.

It's during March this time, which is harder for endurance events because the first 19 days are a time of fasting.

So, we'll see.

Joshua

slow chat day

Shalvenay

yeah, weekends do tend to be a bit slower, Sat. nights especially

Joshua

there's a well to one side of the room with no wall around it. The water is only an inch below the floor and exceedingly clear. There are some bones scattered around.

Shalvenay

1:06 AM

@Joshua where I'm from, there generally aren't walls around wells. examines the well, trying to determine what the casing is made from

Joshua

the casing is made of the same close-fitted stones as the floor

Shalvenay

@Joshua (believe it or slurp it, there's an abandoned well in a cellar-room off the basement of my house. you can't fall in it though -- all the well gear was abandoned-in-place with it, with the water pipe from the well-gear cut off in the basement furnace room

@Joshua pulls out rope, ties weight to it, starts lowering it down the well

Joshua

There's no rope.

Shalvenay

drat

Joshua

Why do you need a rope the water's only an inch lower than floor level?

Shalvenay

1:09 AM

@Joshua "the water surface is only an inch lower than floor level" is how I interpreted it :)

I'm trying to find the full dug/drilled depth of the well

Joshua

I think you got the water level right, now I really wonder what you were trying to do with the rope that wasn't there.

On peering down you can see the bottom more than fifty feet below. There are some more bones down there.

Shalvenay

what's around the perimeter of the well-room?

Joshua

the room appears to be hewn of mostly solid rock with a few places having close-fitting stone work. There's another doorway opposite the doorway you came in. It would appear from the doorways they were not designed to ever have doors mounted.

Shalvenay

peers at the bones and into the bottom of the well Can I tell if the bones are from the same corpse, or from different corpses, and anything about how Ol' Bones died?

Joshua

definitely multiple heads present in the bottom; they've been there a long time

s/heads/skulls/

Shalvenay

1:17 AM

any sign of how Ol' Bones died, or is that a lost cause?

Joshua

something's wrong the bones don't show signs of decay even though the bones on the surface do

Shalvenay

"Hrm. Must be preserving conditions deep in the well." takes a sample of the well-water into a vial

Joshua

It's too far to tell for certain but you don't think any bones are broken.

/wonders what Shalvenay intends to do with the vial/

Shalvenay

moves on, noting to assay/analyze the well-water when he gets back to the lab

Joshua

That's a good decision. The water is laden with arsenic salt.

Shalvenay

1:24 AM

"Not exactly what you'd call Sweetwater eh?"

Joshua

lol Nope!

Shalvenay

at least it's not the well adjacent to Beverly Hills High School :P

Joshua

There was also a dispel magic glyph on the bottom of the well, but you were wise enough to not try diving.

Shalvenay

@Joshua wells where I'm from are generally too skinny to dive into :P

you couldn't get a starving hin down the casing of the well at my house if you tried

Joshua

Ol' Bones did somehow

Shalvenay

1:29 AM

@Joshua -- want me to spoil you on the reference I just made btw?

Joshua

Might as well.

Shalvenay

Beverly Hills High School

Beverly Hills High School (usually abbreviated as Beverly or as BHHS) is the only major public high school in Beverly Hills, California. The other public high school in Beverly Hills, Moreno High School, is a small alternative school located on Beverly's campus. Beverly is part of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and located on 19.5 acres (7.9 ha) on the west side of Beverly Hills, at the border of the Century City area of Los Angeles. The land was previously part of the Beverly Hills Speedway board track, which was torn down in 1924. Beverly, which serves all of Beverly Hills, was founded...

Joshua

Oh, and I was searching for "starving hin"

Shalvenay

:P

in general, the LA Basin is an absolutely awful place to set an underground supervillain lair in

dig the wrong way, and suddenly you've got a black gusher right in the middle of HQ

Joshua

Indeed. Or maybe a tar wall.

I've got an excellent idea for how to build a well-armored underground lair. Dig the whole place out, construct a model out of wood, fill with clay, and cause a pahoehoe lava flow to run over the whole thing. When it cools, dig out the clay.

Bonus points for running an AA flow over the top of the whole thing.

Shalvenay

1:45 AM

@Joshua AA flow?

Joshua

thicker, blockier lava flow

Shalvenay

ah

KorvinStarmast

2:11 AM

just saying howdy, taking a break from painting. Doing the trim in the dining room.

V2Blast

3:21 AM

sounds exciting

Shalvenay

3:35 AM

oh, hey there @nitsua60

Ben

3:56 AM

So, after a forecast of another week of heavy rain, this is also being followed by a tornado warning.

Joshua

booo

V2Blast

4:47 AM

dunno if sharing my DM's stream here is okay, but... nobody's around to tell me either way :P

twitch.tv/events/kvkxggM9RzeZwoO30tGoaQ

Planeslip: Echoes of Creation is back with its first game of the new year!

In a universe adjacent to our own lies a world known as Runia. This world, once peaceful and idyllic, is now threatened by a monstrous being from its prehistory. A group of adventurers known as Whiskey Company have risen up to do what they can to fight this entity known only as Nagat. They have trekked far across the mortal realms in search of the shards of Barrinoth, the Titan of Justice, in hopes of returning him to his full power. Now bound into the service of Lizeth, the Emissary of the Raven Queen, they prepare…

V2Blast

6:43 AM

Stream just ended

trogdor

7:50 AM

@V2Blast there is no issue with sharing streams here as long as it doesn't get too out of hand

and I have never personally seen it get to the point where anyone complained

(but obviously don't anyone try to get to that point please XD)

MikeQ

8:02 AM

@trogdor [wave]

trogdor

hiya

MikeQ

I just had a very long discussion with some of my tabletop friends, about whether some types of TTRPGs are "serious", or what makes them "serious", or whether the "serious"ness is in the narrative or in the constraints for players

They said seriousness as structural, in that a serious TTRPG has consequences, and a non-serious TTRPG is "lolrandom"

Whereas I argued no, seriousness is about tone rather than structure or the setting, but I couldn't articulate it very well

From your experience, how would you define a "serious" TTRPG?

V2Blast

@trogdor Spam it constantly, got it ;)

trogdor

@V2Blast oh no I done it now

V2Blast

@MikeQ Some "serious" RPGs do reinforce tone through structure/rules, but I assume most don't and leave it up to the GM and players to deal with as they will

and some simply have that tone innately in the world they're set in

trogdor

8:12 AM

@MikeQ I think honestly both sides of that argument were just talking past each other, I think you can argue a wide variety of types of "seriousness"

MikeQ

@trogdor It was less an argument, and more like trying to identify the concepts we were talking about

trogdor

for example, GSS isn't a silly game, its serious about feelings but doesn't necesarily have serious consequences for failing something, whereas say maybe D&D is serious in an entirely different way where you do regular battle and someone typically dies (whether on your side, the enemy side, or both)

they are definitely not the same "type" of seriousness

@MikeQ well either way, I don't think either side was "wrong" so much as maybe not everyone understood what everyone else meant?

I do think games like Great Ork Gods or King of all Monsters are silly though

even though they have content that could be seen through a serious lens, they choose not to

so I'm not arguing that everything is serious or anything

there are also systems that could be serious or,... not

like Fate

it depends on the setting for stuff like that

I think Seriousness is definitely something you can measure but it also needs it's own asterisk that points to a description of how and why it is "serious"

and Serious Sam is not serious, even though the name would have you believe otherwise :P

MikeQ

8:33 AM

@V2Blast Hm, yeah. There's definitely an important factor of how the tone is enforced or reinforced

Setting is a factor, but the serious-ness can't just be a product of setting or story elements. Example: The same events of LOTR, but from the perspective of orcs, using Great Ork Gods

@trogdor That's a good point. Describing a TTRPG or campaign (or any narrative, really) as "serious" is probably too vague without saying how or why it's serious.

trogdor

yeah that's my point

kviiri

8:59 AM

One of my best DnD games in terms of seriousness actually started as a fairly silly-sounding concept, with me choosing to enforce meta concepts as in-universe tropes. Adventuring parties were treated as something between mercenary companies and superhero groupings and many people had their favorite party they cheered for. Levels and classes, likewise, were a part of the official classification scheme used by the Adventurers' Society

Later I realized that Goblins webcomic went down a similar route...

trogdor

9:17 AM

yeah I mean, depending on the group playing the game the level and type of seriousness will change

kviiri

Yep

trogdor

but when I use D&D as an example I mean the sort of default expectation of seriousness

kviiri

I would guess people expect something along the lines of Tolkien when they start playing

But that's often interspersed with stuff like "hahah I want to play a Chaotic Evil mass murderer" or "can I be a bear with a really high deception score" and the other very hilarious stuff from DnD memery :-)

trogdor

9:29 AM

yeah it's definitely fully capable of silliness

Carcer

9:48 AM

this question about borgstromancy confuses me

kviiri

10:12 AM

@trogdor The silly stuff gets over-represented in memes and stuff like that, which bothers me a bit

We should have memes about friendly GMs and good same-paging

Carcer

that's cause it's memorable and usually doesn't require any actual understanding of the games to appreciate so has wider appeal

kviiri

Yep

But at the same time, there's no obvious bias so people think that's the real essence of gaming :)

trogdor

@kviiri I mean, we can't stop people from doing the memes

kviiri

True but I can moan about it!

trogdor

yes

this is also true

BESW

12:00 PM

Just remembered that time in an RP campaign when I gave my players a box labelled "DO NOT OPEN" with explicit warnings of the horrible doom that would follow if it was opened and they didn't open it and I have NEVER BEEN PROUDER of a group of gamers.

Tweeted by LadyRowyn on February 2, 2019 at 3:00 PM

Zachiel

1:47 PM

@BESW Yay for LadyRowyn

Aside from that, I'd like to hear your opinion on what I should do next: one of the parties I DM for is on an extraplanar quest to prevent a demon from controlling a primordial being, making it its undead slave. Yet the majority of the party makes wild choices that, if I were to play out the consequences, would absolutely derail the plot and have the big bad win.

For example, they're in Sigil. They have been warned that The Lady, a way-too-powerful entity, kills people who destroy everything. Yet one player keeps casting fireballs that deal full damage to buildings.

Shalvenay

hey there @Zachiel

kviiri

@Zachiel Why are they doing that?

Zachiel

@kviiri because it's the fastest way to dispatch enemies.

kviiri

@Zachiel Oh ok, so there is actual enemies too? It's not just wanton destruction?

Zachiel

Yes, but The Lady won't care. They have broken the law, they have to be punished.

But this means that I have to come up with more combat encounters, or to kill characters, instead of going on with the campaign.

kviiri

1:58 PM

I'd be wary about that... I mean, having to worry about collateral damage to buildings is not a very common concept in DnD

Shalvenay

@Zachiel I'd put a fire sprinkler system in the next building they are in

Zachiel

They're actually hampering themselves in the long run

Shalvenay

getting a nice, wet mess out of their next fireball + setting off the fire alarms on account of sprinkler waterflow might teach them a lesson :P

Zachiel

A better example then: one of the characters, let's call him Bob, found an altar with a tied-up guy. Around the altar, there were items activated by shedding fresh blood on them. Those items' aim was to free some slaves from a prison. So Bob tried to kill the tied-up man, drew enough blood to activate the items, then as some other character Charlie tried to medicate the guy Bob killed the guy just to piss off Charlie.

My jerk-knee reaction has been to declare that some of the escaped slaves called the guards, and now there are guards in the building. And the NPC who hide them from their enemies will stop being collaborative. But maybe I can just tell them "ok, you screwed up, you won't be able to escape justice unless you get away from this city fast", which puts a time constrain and forces them to face the consequence they most dread: not being able to take long rests for the next 4-5 encounters.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel also, would you be interested/have the time these days for a regular DW game/campaign? (I'm looking at running DW for the first time, and would rather have experienced DW/PbtA players surrounding me for it considering the complexity of what I want to run)

Zachiel

2:04 PM

@Shalvenay 1) I'm not an experienced DW/PbtA player and 2) I'm running a D&D 4e game, a Pathfinder game and I'm a player in a 5e campaign: what's this time you talk about? XD

Shalvenay

@Zachiel ah, I saw that you had some experience with the system in your unsorted Big List of Games :)

Zachiel

@Shalvenay the keyword being some

Shalvenay

@Zachiel eheheh

Zachiel

I have only played in one-shots and I'm not sure I grasped the game enough to be of some help

Shalvenay

@Zachiel yeah, I didn't know how much you gleaned from your short-form experience

(or how up-to-date that list was :)

kviiri

2:09 PM

@Zachiel It sounds like they're not understanding your warnings, or taking them seriously for other reasons

Zachiel

@kviiri I guess they're not considering my warnings because I'm more interested in running the campaign than having them suffer for disobeying. My warings have no teeth.

kviiri

@Zachiel Do they need have teeth?

Zachiel

2:29 PM

@kviiri well it's a little unsatisfactory inserting some setting into the story only to see the characters disregard it. And I mean, weren't they trying to save the world, hey, get into how much trouble you want, here's the rope, do as you please. But constantly trying to have 15-minutes days, creating extra problems for nothing and all seems like a good way for them to fail, in fiction.

kviiri

@Zachiel Well, I had players a bit like that and I think the game got a lot more satisfying when I changed my style so it better fit the way they were playing, rather than vice versa

Of course they could change too. That's something you need to discuss with them

Shalvenay

hey @Glazius @ACuriousMind -- would 1 week 30mins from now (9AM CST next Sunday) be a workable time for you folks? looks like it will be just us chickens, unless I can somehow rope someone else in at that time....also, would The Back Room be best, or would you rather we played over Discord?

kviiri

Overall I think it's good to remember that the setting and the story exist for the game and if you and your players aren't getting kicks out of it, it's probably not a very good story for your game

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay That would work almost any Sunday except that one :/ I generally don't have a preference for the location, choose whatever you like

Zachiel

@kviiri the point here being that we're trying to play through an official level 1-30 campaign, I guess.

Shalvenay

2:44 PM

@ACuriousMind I take it the Sunday after that's workable, then, at least? (cc: @Glazius)

ACuriousMind

Yes :)

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind alright :) we'll see what @Glazius has to say then -- if he's open now, we might be able to session-0 today if you're comfortable with that, if not, it'll be two weeks from now as long as Glazius is open then, I'm pretty sure :)

kviiri

@Zachiel I guess it might not be your style then

I mean, those things aren't good matches to all players. I had quite bad time with CoS.

Zachiel

I'm sure I will have a discussion with my players to re-align

Glazius

3:34 PM

@Shalvenay Two weeks. Got it, unless someone IRL makes a demand of me in that time, in which case I'll say.

Shalvenay

@Glazius okiedokie, two weeks from half an hour ago it should be then :)

Glazius

4:26 PM

What were you saying about session zero?

Shalvenay

@Glazius I was wondering if we could do it today on the off chance everyone was free, but don't worry about it :) session 0 will be two weeks from today then

BESW

8:38 PM

@Zachiel Sounds like in-game responses aren't gonna work, there's a mismatch of expectations. Did everyone go into it saying "we want to run an official campaign," or was that something the GM decided?

Shalvenay

10:01 PM

hey there @vicky_molokh

vicky_molokh

Hmm?

Shalvenay

was wondering if you counted DW specifically, or the PbtA family more generally, among the games you were comfortable with

vicky_molokh

. . . me?

Shalvenay

@vicky_molokh yes :)

vicky_molokh

I never played either of those two.

Shalvenay

10:05 PM

@vicky_molokh ah, was wondering, since you are into the post-Forge scene if you will

vicky_molokh

. . . Into the post-Forge scene? O_ò

Shalvenay

@vicky_molokh what with Fate and such :)

vicky_molokh

I'm a GURPSologist generally, my interest in FATE seems not to align all that much with the usual reasons people are interested in it.

I came for the streamlined skill mechanics first and foremost.

Shalvenay

@vicky_molokh aaah, I see :) GURPS actually is a system I'd like to play in sometime

vicky_molokh

Also isn't it a bit wrong to call the 4dF games post-Forge, since the central pillars thereof predate the Forge? ^_^

Shalvenay

10:11 PM

@vicky_molokh well, I consider them as following the same lines of thought

BESW

"Post-Forge" tends to be used as a broad category description about game philosophies, rather than a historical dating tool.

Shalvenay

@BESW indeed

you could see the 4dF games as harbingers of a broader movement coming as early incarnations of those probably were being played by the Forge denizens at the time, even :) and served as both inspiration and basis for what was going on there in terms of thought

vicky_molokh

Also I must say that since a few days ago, I am now aware of some bits about the Forge that make me reluctant to use it as a label for a broader group of games.

BESW

Yeah, I think the Forge-as-sea-change narrative is... missing a few major pieces in order to make the story nice and tidy.

vicky_molokh

As sea change?

I'm sorry I'm probably on the dense side right now.

(More than usual anyway.)

BESW

10:19 PM

"Sea change" is an idiom meaning a substantial shift in perspective, usually of a large group.

vicky_molokh

'It is the largest party in a parliament where party sizes range from 1% to 2%!'

Anyway the reason I'm reluctant to use it as a label is because of strong its OneTrueWayism turns out to be.

BESW

Also the Forge itself is so steeped in jargon that it's almost incomprehensible as a reference.

vicky_molokh

(Before that, I was mostly just annoyed about how some terms got redefined into either counterintuitiveness or useless fuzziness.)

BESW

I'm somewhat sympathetic to its extreme perspectives though, because it came about in response to equally extreme perspectives that systems are irrelephant to the success or failure of a game to achieve any given goal.

Out of the clash of differing opinions rose useful dialogue and experimentation, and generations of designers eager to use those resources while refuting the extreme positions the sources were trying to support.

But these thoughts and experiments long pre-date the Forge and I think it does the community a disservice to perpetuate the myth that the Forge invented the idea of systems which prioritize player emotions and are structured to tell a specific story.

vicky_molokh

> prioritize player emotions

That's already such a loaded phrase for characterising systems . . .

BESW

10:30 PM

One of the primary goals of the Forge was to design games which create emotions in players similar to those their characters experience.

They were exploring how mechanics affect the table-level experience, and chose the manipulation of player emotions as a useful measure of success.

vicky_molokh

I think there's a certain degree of talking past each other and taking slogans literally involved. It doesn't help that it feels as if the decision is between purely binary extremes.

BESW

eg, My Life With Master is supposed to make the players at the table feel uncomfortable and creeped out and helpless, then give them a cathartic release when they can exert control over the Master.

I'm certainly not saying the Forge was without flaws; its theories were reactionary and its praxis was navel-gazing.

vicky_molokh

A system is a tool. A pencil is a tool. A paintbrush is a tool. You can make a picture with a pencil, you can make a picture with a paintbrush. Of course they are not the same. But they also aren't the end-all-be-all of picture-making. A person with a broad set of artistic skills will be able to make a useful or pleasant picture or a recognisable portrait with either, even though the two will not look the same.

And if the artist is unskilled, a great tool won't make much of a difference.

vicky_molokh

11:00 PM

Also, I am wierded by the implication that traditional games don't cause players to experiences emotions similar to those of the characters. Because that time when I played 4-5 sessions with a GM who was [in]famous for running horror in AD&D, I sure did get horror'd.

Shalvenay

@vicky_molokh they can, but are not necessarily designed to

vicky_molokh

Well yeah. Pencil, paintbrush.

BESW

Yeah, I have no idea what you're responding to.

vicky_molokh

> They were exploring how mechanics affect the table-level experience, and chose the manipulation of player emotions as a useful measure of success.

eg, My Life With Master is supposed to make the players at the table feel uncomfortable and creeped out and helpless, then give them a cathartic release when they can exert control over the Master.

To this.

Anyway, I'm not currently in the mindset to coherently continue my line of reasonings and observations.

Good luck everyone.

V2Blast

11:23 PM

@vicky_molokh: What is your profile picture from?

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