TRPG General Chat

KorvinStarmast

12:42 AM

@Ben I did that on a damage roll for Shatter once. :p

Shalvenay

hey there @KorvinStarmast

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay hail shal. How is trix?

Shalvenay

OK here, as for you?

KorvinStarmast

So far so good, running a session in my brother's world tonight.

I like shared worlds ... the world building as a collaborative effort ... makes for some interesting variations and themes

nitsua60

2:09 AM

@V2Blast I was wondering about that "+1 or better..." bit also. Definitely existed in 1e/2e, IIRC.

Joshua

@KorvinStarmast want some druid 🐝 s?

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

hiya

Miniman

2:26 AM

@nitsua60 It was also (IIRC) a 3.0 thing, but not a 3.5 thing.

Ben

@Miniman took a Con ASI after all that. Turns out my Storm Barb abilities were based off Con as well, so my saving throws, ac, hp, and save DC all went up :D

nitsua60

@Ben that's some nice SAD at work, there.

Miniman

@Ben I remember being surprised when you said they ran off Wis! I should've investigated that.

Ben

@nitsua60 SAD... S.A.D..... Nope... no idea lol

@Miniman Yeah, think that was from the UA maybe?

nitsua60

(S)ingle (A)ttribute (D)ependence

Ben

2:29 AM

@nitsua60 Ahhh right

Yeah, I'm at 20 Con now, so I'm pretty happy with that :D

Miniman

@Ben Not a chance - that would mean they buffed it, and we both know there's no way that could ever happen :P

Ben

Nope, you're right. I just checked and it was always con haha

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

Ender Look

Can I ask some things? When you DMing, do you make descriptions for every building that PC could visit and for every character that they would see (a few paragraphs of description)? For example, do you describe the odour (or another interesting trait) of every building or set the name, alignment, age, personality/goal for all NPCs?

How can you know if a PC would want to talk with them or visit a place? Also, do you make a difference between NPCs that talk to player than passive NPCs (I mean, those NPCs which are just a decoration, like a drunk person in a bar or a buyer in a shop)? Do you plan a dialog for every NPC (you can't never know if a PC would like to chat with the drunken man or the woman who is buying food from the shop)?

Does all NPCs has always something meaningful to say (like information or a quest) o sometimes some NPCs do nothing worth of tell? Thanks

Ben

@EnderLook You don't have to. Unless it's important, I wouldn't worry about it

nitsua60

2:37 AM

@Shalvenay father-in-law had two positive days, then a little bit of a backslide today. So that's got us a bit down. Trying to crank on grading, but one kid had their last swim practice tonight so that frees up a bit of breaking room in the family life. So... busy with swirls of good and bad? Thanks for asking. You?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 OK here, still hoping to get a chat in with you in the near future here :)

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Next week I'm hoping to take what free time I have and both get up to see my dad (hospice) and get down to see father-in-law again. So... about eight days from now?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hopefully?

Ben

@EnderLook Again, you only need to plan if it's important. Part of a quest etc. IF a PC wants to talk to everybody, then that's probably somethin you should discuss with them, because that is likely only going to lead to issues. Maybe just restrict conversations with PCs to relevant information - if they've heard anything about something the PCs are looking for, etc, otherwise they're not overly talkative.

@EnderLook That could probably be tied to a dice roll. If a an Orc PC came up to a random stranger and just said "HI! I'M GRUG GRUG", while covered in crusty blood from their last adventure, likely still sticking since it's been 4 days since his last bath, I doubt they would want to stay and chat.

All in all though, that could probably be asked on the main sight

nitsua60

@Ben (that's basically my first day as a TA in grad school you're describing there. I'd been at a three-day Ultimate tournament in Montana, camping out for the overnights on the property of a wolfhound-breeder--read: no sleep--and the car broke down on the way back so I had to hitch 500mi, getting into town about 7:30am before my 8am class.)

("GRUG GRUG" may be more coherent than what I managed, crusted blood on my legs and twigs in my beard....)

Ben

2:49 AM

Yeesh! Haha. How did everyone handle that?

Ender Look

@Ben The problem is, how do you know if something is important? My little hamlet has the house of a nobleman, the judge of the town (like a kind Governator and tax collector), a temple, a tavern, a barn and saddler, a general store, a weaver and cloth maker, a tannery, a shoemaker, a bakery and a blacksmith.

Each building can be used by the players: cloth maker and shoemaker, maybe they want new and cleaner clothes, a barn and saddler, they could buy a horse, a general store, obviously, a temple, for healing or a quest, the tax collector, a quest, the nobleman, a quest, tavern, I have ideas for two or three quest.

I have just started to make the tavern, inside there are 3 employees + 7 clients, each one could have a quest. There is a young woman who is learning divine magic in the temple, she wants help for the PCs since she is afraid of a near goblin camp. A Farmer said that goblins stolen their animals and now the tax collector (who is evil) want to claim some taxes that they can't afford, he needs help.

A local hunter found an interesting cave, but he is too busy to investigate it, etc. I can give quest to every person, I don't have time for that. I don't know how to manage it! There are so much variables and different paths

nitsua60

@Ben No recollection!

Ben

Are you the DM or a PC?

@nitsua60 Hahah fair enough

Joel Harmon

@EnderLook I typically don't even have a fixed number for the population size of a town; just a rough idea. What I typically do is have some resource nearby for easy character generation. For example, the Dungeon World rule book has "Appendix 4: Instant NPCs". It has a 100-entry table for Instincts (goals), 100 entries for Knacks (quirks), and a list of names. Grab 2d10 and roll on it. Throw in a d6 for race and make yourself a d12 for current mood, and you've got thousands of possibilities.

Also blatantly stolen from Dungeon World: keep a short list of three relevant/pressing things in the world. Looking at your example town, let's say the nobleman is drafting townsfolk for some border skirmish. The blacksmith is now low on iron/steel, and the baker is making money hand over fist selling hard tack to the militia men.

Ben

@Enderlook, I would suggest asking this on the main site.

nitsua60

2:57 AM

@JoelHarmon Thisssssss. Frontssssss.

Joel Harmon

So now you're in game, and find you've blurted out that there are three drunk guys at the bar. You quickly roll on tables to find out that:
- this dwarf is the baker in a great mood out to celebrate his newfound (relative) wealth
- this human is a surly guard captain who is wallowing away a tough day of training incompetent militia men
- this elf is a worried apprentice at the blacksmith, and he's currently trying to ply the guard captain for information on why the next shipment of iron is late

Ender Look

@nitsua60 I saw that of Dungeon World, but I thought I should take each NPC as a different small front. Then, at a geographical point of view, I made a front per cardinal point (N, NW, NE, S, SW, SE).

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