TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:00

Oh, I ripped the numerical increases out of my Fate games years ago, it doesn't fit my group's needs at all--we have irregular attendance so numerical increases leave people behind.

Our Fate games never have skills or Refresh rates increase, but you can swap ranks between skills and change out your aspects and your stunts.

inthemanual

I got the impression they were small enough to not matter.

BESW

(Actually, we ditched Refresh, too. You can have any number of stunts you want, but every stunt above the default number gives the GM an extra fate point.)

inthemanual

I was just about to mention swapping skill ranks as a potential "change" without increase

BESW

Small numbers matter a LOT in Fate because of the Fudge dice curve.

Black Spike

@BESW that's one reason we have flat XP/Session (turn up or not). Although non-attendance is an exception, the Player has been "punished" by not getting to play. No need to "dock XP", too

BESW

00:02

I also dislike numerical increases because they mean the ludonarrative demands a commensurate escalation of scale and stakes.

inthemanual

@BESW yeah, but it takes like 6-7 increases until you've really got a single new skill you're "good" at. The slow rate of change was more what i meant than the low numerical change.

BESW

You know how games often start with fighting rats, and end with fighting gods? That's a scale-and-stake escalation which means you're not playing the same kind of game over the course of the campaign.

inthemanual

yes

I'm not really a fan of that escalation either.

BESW

(Also, the higher tiers of milestone in Fate, like other traditional leveling mechanics, require increased out-of-game player time that is very precious when attendance is already irregular.)

Black Spike

@BESW "Zero to Hero". I don't like that scale of escalation, but PCs can learn things ... it's the speed/scale that is important

inthemanual

00:05

out of game time how?

BESW

"What leveling bonuses did I miss?"
"What skills should I add these points to?"
"What stunts should I buy?"
etc.

If my character is leveling up when I'm not present, then as soon as I return I have homework to do before I can play.

inthemanual

my impression was that a new stunt or skill should refelct something that had happened in the story so far

BESW

Yes, that's another problem with absentee milestones.

Black Spike

@BESW This is one reason why we have Forum, with Session reports, discussions, Character Notes, etc. Players can dip in and out, do all their "homework" at their own pace.

BESW

But even without absences, I just don't like the "Grats, you get a bigger number" form of advancement.

@BlackSpike That's a ridiculous amount of work to expect my group of a dozen-and-a-half casual friends who might drop in two or three times a year, to maintain.

It's great for "oh, Bob can't make it once every four sessions" kind of absences, but that's not what I've got.

Black Spike

00:12

@BESW Fair enough. As five dedicated Players, who meet every week, it works for us

inthemanual

That's why i like the skill pyramid set up in Fate so much. it keeps your biggest number from getting bigger at any appreciable rate. Instead you're just adding new things that you can do for quite some time.

BESW

[shrug] I just don't want numerical increases at all unless there's a really good ludonarrative justification for it.

inthemanual

I can see doing away with it as a viable solution, i just don't think that a lack of mechanical improvement sits too well with a lot of people

it wouldn't work for most of the people in my group

BESW

Yeah, I know my group is rather unique.

We play single-session games or episodic campaigns with rotating casts, our group of players is widely distributed and any given week @trogdor is the only individual I can count on showing up, we pick which system we'll play in each session according to the mood of whoever is there...

trogdor

lol

BESW

00:18

But even when I was running a year-and-a-half once-a-week attendance-is-expected campaign in D&D 4e, the number increases were obviously unnecessary.

I even changed the number increase rate so the ratios would stop changing because I didn't like the way the numbers behaved at higher levels.

inthemanual

@BESW how does the episodic nature work well when changing systems? do characters need to be "statted out" or have character sheets in multiple systems in advance, or do your players have significant enough experience that working that out on the fly doesn't eat into your play time?

Black Spike

I think Everway RPG specifically had no XP/Improvement System. They stated that as PCs got to know each other, got to know the World, built up Equipment, Contacts, etc, they would inherently become more effective

BESW

Most of the time we don't change systems mid-story, but we've done it a couple of times and we just use systems where it's not a big deal to make the jump because the systems are based on narrative descriptions.

For example, we had a nightmare session in the middle of a campaign that used Atomic Robo rules. For that one session we jumped to Don't Rest Your Head.

Atomic Robo is a Fate game, it's got aspects and skills and stunts.

trogdor

yeah that is a good example

BESW

Don't Rest Your Head is a horror game about being so tired you gain insomnia powers and slip into a world of nightmares.

trogdor

00:22

basically we just took the characters and used them in a different system

inthemanual

I'm curious because I've considered running a "west marches" type thing across systems with my group, allowing those interested in any "hooks" or locations they've discovered to run with an appropriate system for the story involved with said "hook".

BESW

Character creation is a series of questions:
- What keeps you awake?
- What stressful thing just happened to you?
- What first impression do you give people?
- What's your real deal?
- What's your personal journey?

Then you set your Discipline and fight/flight stats, and decide what insomnia superpower you've acquired.

This means it's easier to make a DRYH character if they're someone you've been playing in Fate beforehand.

inthemanual

-My son crying
-My son was born
-I'm very tired
-I'm very tired
-I want to eventually be a good dad

BESW

And transferring back into Fate is just a matter of checking if the experience means anything should be changed on your sheet, like an aspect representing something you learned about yourself.

inthemanual

That seems to be a rather smooth transition

BESW

00:27

Slipping from any system into Fate is relatively straightforward.

inthemanual

much smoother than anything I imagined in my multi-system game

trogdor

@inthemanual grats by the way

I hope you can get some decent sleep on the occasion at least

BESW

But there are a lot of systems with similar concepts. I'd expect the same level of ease of transition to and from either of those systems with InSpectres, for example.

inthemanual

You have quite the astounding knowledge of different systems

trogdor

we've played a lot of em

XD

plus he digs up more

@BESW I'm guessing it's partly a relaxing activity for you to dig stuff up you are interested in and RPGs are included ?

BESW

00:30

Not relaxing, stimulating.

trogdor

ah fair enough

I guess I'm biased on the relaxing side

BESW

Once I figured out how many systems there are out there, and how wildly diverse they are, and how the ones I'd started with were actively fighting my ability to play the kinds of games I wanted, studying new systems became a kind of empowerment.

trogdor

I can get overstimulated easily, I relax a lot more than I look for some stimulating activity

all fair enough then

BESW

I love celebrating the scope and depth of the medium, and the more I learn about games the better I get at helping my friends play the games they want to play--by identifying the best system, or applying new attitudes and styles to an existing system, mashing multiple systems together, writing entirely new ones...

inthemanual

so you're basically the world's greatest GM

BESW

00:32

Hahahah no.

trogdor

lol

he's pretty good though

inthemanual

identifying the needs and wants of your players and doing your absolute best to fulfill those regardless of the changes to rules, system, or story you might need to make, seems like a damn fine GM

KorvinStarmast

@BlackSpike Traveller didn't do that, but it had its own "accumulation" thing in terms of equipment/ships.

V2Blast

@inthemanual lol

BESW

The best I can say is that I'm always trying to learn from my mistakes.

My friends are AWESOME and I couldn't do it without them, it's less that I'm a GM than a host. Some people are more expert in certain systems than I am, everybody can run a game even if they aren't an expert in it because we support each other that way. My focus is on curating the environment to make it possible.

trogdor

00:39

@BESW fine don't accept any praise :P

BESW

Okay, fine.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW My focus is on curating the environment to make it possible If you don't mind me riffing off of that ... "the social experience of us all getting together to play is at least as important as the game itself, if not moreso" Some of us had to learn hard lessons early on about how focusing on the game itself, rather than who you are playing with, could have some disappointing outcomes.

trogdor

lol

inthemanual

Fine, we can go with "World's greatest RPG host" instead

BESW

trogdor

00:40

XD

Black Spike

@KorvinStarmast It can be a difficult line to walk. Some of my players are there to "Play-The-Game!". Others, less so. All are there to have some fun with their mates.

KorvinStarmast

@BlackSpike Yeah, one needs to be alert for a variety of social cues ...

BESW

This is one reason I like Script Change as a way to formalize non-diegetic calibration conversations before, during, and after the game, because it extends the veneer of diegesis to those conversations.

Black Spike

@KorvinStarmast yup. (Not just a "GM's Job". All players should do this). It makes it a little difficult that one of our players has mild Autism. Mild, and recently diagnosed.

KorvinStarmast

@BlackSpike Amen, all players should ... but that's also a learning thing.

BESW

00:52

@BlackSpike My group of gaming friends includes at least two people diagnosed "on the spectrum," and one of them is an amazing GM. Over the last several years we've had semi-regular attendance from at least four genders, three nationalities, four ethnicities, two sexualities, at least two kinds of neuroatypicality... it's awesome. Playing games that mean things to all these people, even/especially light-hearted casual games, means celebrating them all.

But we had to make a space where that could happen, where we could share those parts of ourselves with each other and add it to the games rather than trying to figure out how to keep playing the same games we had been.

45

A: How do I convince my group to try a new system without always having to DM it first?

I've had similar challenges, both with getting group buy-in to try new systems and with getting people to feel comfortable GMing anything at all. My solution was a long-game process of changing the "landscape" of how people at the table viewed their role in the game. I didn't set out to delibera...

Black Spike

That's really good to hear! We've become very insular in our games. We're all* traditional white males.
* 1 as mentioned. 1 homosexual. 1 un-diagnosed depression.

BESW

For example, a friend joined with significantly different interests and tolerances for certain kinds of stories, and now we are just revelling in how that gave us a push to say "Hey, you know what? We really like low-stakes games about being friends, this is awesome," and looking for more and more ways to do that.

Black Spike

On the rare occasions that I join other groups, it is always refreshing to see some other views

Knocks me out of my comfort-zone :)

(I really like my comfort zone! I'm comfortable there! But I know there is more ...)

BESW

01:07

I keep wanting to be able to run stuff for people here, but it never really works out.

I've got this idea of a recurring "BESW Tries A Thing" event where I take a game I want to try and say "I'll be playing Bell Songs at [time] on [day] if enough people can join to make it work."

Or experimenting with mashing together the worldbuilding from Kids On Bikes and Bubblegumshoe.

Black Spike

@BESW We play long campaigns, so that has to fit in between. One of our group has LOTS of stuff on his shelf, waiting to be played ... we only fit small amounts of it in ... then get back to The Big Game

nitsua60

01:35

One of my favorite things about Traveller is the lack of a D&D-style numerical character progression. In the good Traveller campigns I've played "advancement" doesn't really exist.
If there's a thing we want to achieve and don't have the ability, that means we need to either acquire some gear (requiring credits requiring some scheme to get credits) or some help; I love that "leveling up" in that style of game is "do some favor you can stomach for the local syndicate so that they'll let you 'borrow' their fastest boat and its pilot for a fortnight."

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yep, it also makes us feel "mortal" for most of the game ...

nitsua60

Yeah. Esp. the old-school "first wound goes to a randomly-determined physical stat" rule =)

Makes me wonder if a little hack for the D&D starter set might be in order: that's got a set of rules without character advancement or high-level spells, and pregens that go up to what... L4?

KorvinStarmast

yeah, but an ASI does come at 4, why not just make a 'feat' mandatory

No ASI, only feats

Or something else

nitsua60

So you play your apprenticeship (L1-4) and then are a full-fledged character, ready to go, as if having just completed your chargen in traveler =)

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yeah.

Or instead of an ASI, you get a magic item

nitsua60

01:39

No XP, no more HP, no increases. You might tackle bigger challenges, but you're going to have to assemble the right crew and/or do the good combat-as-war stuff to pull it off.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 the HP thing becomes the sticky bit.

It is so baked into the mechanics

nitsua60

Only if you try to take on a dragon!

It's baked into the mechanics at higher levels. But so what?

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 like that one in chult

Actually, it is baked in at level 2.

The difference in survivability between 1 and 2 is non trivial.

nitsua60

Oh, I see. I was reading you backwards.

KorvinStarmast

What about no HP increase, but a DR increase with level?

Probably a million holes in that, though

nitsua60

01:42

I was thinking that you were saying "your HP only goes up to 4th level HP, which is going to be nothing when you try--even with friends--to take on something bigger." But no, you were saying "your hp does increase, which doesn't feel very travellerey."

KorvinStarmast

yeah

And damage increases with CR of monsties in parallel ...

V2Blast

@nitsua60 Oooh, sounds fun

KorvinStarmast

or just leave HP alone cos it's so baked into the core mechanic ...

nitsua60

I'd try it first with regular HP. Then maybe do "HP increases by CON mod at level-up" if regular HP felt like too much.

KorvinStarmast

yeah ...

nitsua60

01:44

Really discourage that -1 con mod =)

KorvinStarmast

I do that already.

I mentor new players on that specifically

Veterans who know the risks? Go for that low Con, let's see how it plays out

nitsua60

Imagine a wizard with -1 con mod: L1=5hp. L2=4hp. L3=3hp. L2=2hp. Thank God the game stops at L4!

KorvinStarmast

Snark.

nitsua60

Then you go straight into Strongholds and Followers at level 4.

KorvinStarmast

(didn theerrata say always +1 per level?)

@nitsua60 Yeah!

nitsua60

01:46

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, but we're playing Traveller =)

KorvinStarmast

Right, I forgot myself there for a minute.

Where's my monofilament blade, anyway?

nitsua60

(Except with HP rather than stat-damage.)

@KorvinStarmast Blade proficiency!

Turret proficiency!

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yeah, blade proficiency. (You ever play Snapshot?)

It's a board game that does tactical Traveller combat. I've not played it in nearly 40 years, but I still have the game...

And my wife complains "you never throw anything away" which is kinda true

nitsua60

Okay, so here's what I've got: play what's effectively E4 (maybe go to E5, netting Extra Attack and L3 spells?) D&D. From then onward all advancement is S&F or nonweapon proficiencies.

KorvinStarmast

Why not?

nitsua60

01:48

@KorvinStarmast No, I haven't.

KorvinStarmast

And I want a catapult

@nitsua60 No worries, just curious

And a Trebuchet

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast If you build a keep, I'll bet a catapult will make its way to you. (Maybe even with a James Earl Jones voiceover.)

@KorvinStarmast Hey. Calm down. We're trying to get away from the last 40 years of powergaming, mister.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 chuckle but Joe Jackson will be replaced by Conan

@nitsua60 Greek fire: was that the Greeks powergaming? Discuss.

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast "I never understood why the catcher wasn't wearing a shirt until now, as he took off his mask and approached me, looking for all the world like my hallway mirror. Also, he had no pants."

KorvinStarmast

And who is this Crom, anyway?

nitsua60

01:51

@KorvinStarmast He's very cromulent.

KorvinStarmast

groan Been summoned by SWMBO, laters! :)

nitsua60

Go obey!

I'm out, too. Hoping to get more than 3 hours' sleep tonight--wish me luck! ( <-- uses diamond voice there.)

inthemanual

Same

nitsua60

@inthemanual Yeah, new baby!

In our house it usually took about two weeks to figure out a schedule (when to do bed, night feedings, when's wakeup vs. just wakefulness and we can get them to settle for another precious morning hour) and get it to work with some consistency.
For about a week. Then it would all change.

V2Blast

02:09

@KorvinStarmast SWMBO?

...ah:

SWMBO

Noun: SWMBO (plural SWMBOs)

(humorous) Initialism of she who must be obeyed: one's wife or female partner.

Ben

03:28

Afternoon all

MikeQ

Ahoy!

user15026

Heya :)

V2Blast

03:54

@Ben sup

Hot RPG Questions

04:10

1

Q: What happens if you cast Animated Objects on an weapon affected by Shillelagh?

I was looking at shillelagh whose description states (emphasis mine): The wood of a club or quarterstaff you are holding is imbued with nature's power. For the duration, you can use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of melee attacks using that weapo...

Xirema

04:41

@Sdjz FYI, I ended up finding a pretty significant issue with the Roll20 Macro you gave me: It'll show the correct modifiers, but the roll itself only adds the Ability modifier and not the proficiency bonus.

I was able to jerry-rig it so that it would add the correct modifiers, but that resulted in the Ability modifier no longer being displayed in the roll.

Catar4

05:05

Good "period of the day which is completely relative on where you hide out' everyone !

BESW

[wave]

Catar4

I asked a question hichi is now on hold, asking for precision which is very understandable since it is a very complicated question about very specific group interaction ... I'm thinking of closing it now due to new developments (since the DM changed the context, in a positive way).

should I just close the question and if so ... how does one go about giving an explanation for closing it ?

hichi == which **

BESW

It's on hold, which is exactly the same as "closed" but a gentler term that's applied for the first week or so. Just leave it alone and it'll change from "on hold" to "closed" with time.

MikeQ

@Catar4 Is there more to the problem than "player characters are stealing from each other"? The question mentions some other history with the problem player, but I'm not sure how those details are related.

Catar4

good to know !

there is but I do believe there is hope for that group.

which is something I might not have believed a few hours ago @MikeQ

BESW

05:10

(And when it's saying closed, that doesn't change the fact you can still go back and edit it to try and get it opened again if you decide to do that at ANY point in the future.)

I'm glad to hear that!

Catar4

My thanks.

BESW

(A mechanical note for how the site works: try not to edit the question until you're ready to try to get it re-opened, because the first time it's edited after it's closed, it gets put in a review queue that'll get a LOT more eyes on it to get it re-opened.)

And this chat is a fine place for talking about challenges you're facing in a less... strictly guidelined... way, but that limits you to getting input from just whoever happens to be here at the time.

Catar4

I love mechanics, even though generally ppl do not bother with those lol. Still good to know :D

yes, I found that this chat is veru responsive.

very*

BESW

05:56

Hmmm. I've got a friend who's interested in RPGs but it's unlikely that we'll be able to get more than just the two of us to play any time soon.

So I'm looking at good systems for a one-session twosie. No horror, so Gumshoe One-2-One is right out. Roll For Shoes works, obviously, but our mutual interests would be better served by something where the rules say something about the story we're telling.

A lot of systems work for twosies but their engines don't really chug properly, like Fate or Pilgrims of the Flying Temple.

Golden Sky Stories would be perfect but that really needs two hengeyokai.

BESW

06:14

I don't need to persuade my friend or anything. She's not gonna have the time to join a regular group, but she's not skeptical about the hobby. She just wants me to share what I'm so passionate about.

BESW

06:28

Kienna S has made a Twitter Moment compilation of all her TTRPG safety tool resources, interviews, and Twitter threads. It is where she will continue to add new material as it is available.

trogdor

06:50

@BESW yeah I'm not even sure how it could work without two henge in it

at least I mean

you need at least two to bounce off each other

though I think you could maybe design a scenario for just one if you tried hard enough

maybe

but it might just not be worth it

or not even work

:/

BESW

I'm kinda thinking about playing We Forest Three with her.

It's singleplayer but it's got a multiplayer variant or I could just accompany her.

trogdor

seems fair enough

is this someone I know?

BESW

You've heard me talk about her, but you haven't met her yet.

trogdor

ah ok fair enough

BESW

07:10

"The world’s tiniest dragon must defend his hoard, a single gold coin, from those who would steal it." A tumblr vignette.

trogdor

08:25

XD

V2Blast

@BESW Reminds me of the homebrew "hoardling dragons" in our streamed Wednesday night game

kviiri

09:58

Today is national sauna day and fittingly it's hot as heck

KorvinStarmast

11:17

@kviiri Where I live, during July, every day is Sauna day. Just walk outside. :) We had a cold front blow through a few days ago, so it's mid 80's (F) for a few days. But warming back up.

People were starting to wear sweaters ... (Not really, that's an exaggeration)

kviiri

11:40

I'm going AFK for a while, but could I get some more input on this meta:

13

Q: Proposal to reboot our forum list

Our list of forums gets used in comments quite frequently, including by yours truly --- however, while I like describing it as "our curated list of forums", many of the answers there haven't been updated in ages. This means that statements pertaining to various features like activity, moderation ...

discussion

The votes 15 vs 2 suggest most of us approve or are indifferent of my proposal, but if there's a reason to prefer not deprecating the current forum post that hasn't been communicated yet I'd like to hear it

KorvinStarmast

12:15

@kviiri I would prefer to see the current list updated, not replaced.

While I upvoted your question since it is an issue worth discussing, I don't think making a new list is the way to go.

BESW

@kviiri It'd be nice to just revise the existing list, but practically speaking I think we'd get more "current use" value out of a new one--just because the system doesn't have any way to deal with "outdated" votes.

Carcer

12:33

SE's just kind of terrible for anything where "good" might change over time, yeah

BESW

Yeah, we're running head-on into the problem with using the mainsite interface for meta content.

kviiri

12:46

@BESW Yeah, that's one of the big points I'm trying to make and that the alternative of updating can't solve.

BESW

I can't see a way around it without starting over. We can copy-paste material to wash the votes off.

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast I'm sorry I couldn't return the favor, but your answer doesn't really address any of the concerns or offer any reason to prefer that course of action

kviiri

13:02

I've been thinking before that the SE format of voting is pretty abysmal, but this is one of those cases where it's a really bad idea for long-term posts.

At least if I ask something about DnD rules or social dynamics, the correct answer is something that's pretty static in time. But assessing a community? The answer changes with time, the community changes with time. But votes made at any point of the process linger.

Ships of Theseus ahoy

I think I should maybe post a self-affirming answer too but I was thinking someone else might articulate it better than just "yeah read the question again, that's why"

Carcer

@kviiri >the correct answer is something that's pretty static in time.

that's a bold assumption

kviiri

@Carcer I'd agree, but comparing to the context of communities...

Carcer

13:18

heh

anyway if you want a supporting argument for your view we do the same thing with community ads for exactly the same reason

kviiri

@Carcer Good point! (and our internal community health check, which I already noted)

I added an answer of my own

Zachiel

13:32

Question I was scouring the Internet for: "Won't my players with a racial -2 to charsima just dump it, starting with a 5, and is there a mechanical drawback apart from NPC reactions?"

Today's pearl of wisdom:

> What generally happens seems to be this:
> Your GM will try to have additional bother come your way for having such a hideous charisma, but will soon grow tired of doing so and eventually ignore it.
> Congratulations. You are playing a 5 stat character with no downside.

@Rubiksmoose Also this

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri No worries.

kviiri

I think stereotypically low charisma has been used often as a sort of "threshold" stat that you need at least X to be admitted to certain places or to even try talking to people. Not sure if it's just a CRPG meme or if someone actually does it

Zachiel

@kviiri I've had one character, in a game that added the "comeliness" attribute just to avoid all PCs being overly handsome/beautiful just because you can, that was barred from entering the grounds of an Ysgardian goddess of beauty because she was not beautiful enough (my character, not the goddess).

vicky_molokh

@kviiri The CRPG meme would be a low intelligence mandating a different speech pattern (Fallouts).

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri My guess is that charisma is far too often eqated with good looks, when it really isn't that ... but I think that train left the station a long time ago.

Zachiel

13:37

@vicky_molokh And if it's D&D-based it's all of nothing from 9 to 10

KorvinStarmast

@Zachiel All that changes is +0 to -1. If I have proficiency in deception, but a 9 charisma (my ranger has that) I still have a +1 roll until level 5, and a +2 roll now that I am level 5.

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast The roguelike ADOM actually uses a fairly normal DnD-ish attribute list (except IIRC Intelligence is called "Learning"?) but split Charisma into Charm and Attractiveness. It's been ages since I played but usually splitting a dump stat gets one two dump stats x)

KorvinStarmast

In 5e, you can try anything. All that the stats to is raise or lower part of the die roll modifier

Zachiel

@KorvinStarmast let's say that, in the real world, good looks help. Just like having a lot of muscle prevents from developing that much agility or cages your breath making it harder to sing, or other things that D&D does not care about

KorvinStarmast

But that isn't true. having a lot of muscle prevents from developing that much agility

kviiri

13:39

If I recall correctly ADOM also has some nonsense where male characters benefit more from charm, female characters more from attractiveness. Don't quote me on this though.

Zachiel

@KorvinStarmast I mean, in most CRPGs if you have a 9 you speak like an uneducated farmer or an orc, get a 10 and you speak fine.

KorvinStarmast

But yeah, good looks help. IRL. Absolutely.

kviiri

Hmm, I wonder if that one game that split Dexterity into Dex and "Agility" was ADOM too or something different

Zachiel

@KorvinStarmast bulkier muscles, more heavy, less motion range. Incidentally, it's harder for a muscular person to develop flexibility than for a flexible people to keep it while growing bulkier. Or so I've been told.

kviiri

Agility being dexterity of the feet and dexterity being agility of the hands.

KorvinStarmast

13:41

@Zachiel You might be amazed at how flexible some body builders are (particularly the ones who eschew steroids) See also male gymnasts.

Zachiel

@kviiri I mean, it makes sense that you can be good at fingerwork and really bad at dodging hits, but where does the line lie between grouping abilities and separating them?

kviiri

@Zachiel Yeah it makes sense for a given kind of game at least. I'm not sure I understand your question though

KorvinStarmast

@Zachiel In order to make it a game, and not a reality simulator, you find a cut off point and just hit it. Simulation is very expensive.

Zachiel

@kviiri I'm going to run a Pathfinder game with a party of dwarves. I was trying to see if the low point buy mandated for Adventure Paths was good enough to try a charisma-based character such as a paladin or a skald, and how better would a warpriest fare.

And the warpriest fares pretty well, especially if they dump charisma and intelligence

How do I make it so I don't end up with a bunch of stupid, antisocial dwarves?

Apparently, the only reason not to dump charisma is as a buffer against ability damage/drain and charisma damage/drain is very rare.

kviiri

If you mean this like a game design challenge, one option is to just penalize dump stats or plain ban having a stat below some threshold.

KorvinStarmast

13:46

@Zachiel I don't see a problem with a group of stupid, anti social dwarves. sounds like a hilarious basis for a campaign. (but that's just my two cents)

Zachiel

@kviiri The official lower limit is 7, which gives you 4 more points to use elsewhere.

kviiri

On a more general level: splitting is a decent way to make a too good stat less good. Joining is a decent way to make two bad stats better.

Hence why I think ADOM's idea of splitting Charisma into two while still adhering to pretty traditional hack'n'slash is a bit ill-advised.

Zachiel

@KorvinStarmast Well I wanted to DM a heroic campaign, not a silly one where stupid characters do the wrong thing at every step. Luckily they will get a wisdom bonus so maybe rather than stupid it will just be "low culture"

KorvinStarmast

@Zachiel OK, there ya go. Wisdom salvages their mental and social ineptness.

(And some of my friends look at Int as 'how much schooling you have' while Wisdom is "can you use your head/have common sense?" .. but that's variable

Zachiel

@KorvinStarmast that's the D&D/PF definition of those two abilities.

I think.

KorvinStarmast

13:51

@Zachiel So they aren't actually stupid with a low int. They just don't remember as many things as well as a person who did better in school did.

Zachiel

Exactly my point from 3 posts ago ;)

KorvinStarmast

@Zachiel We seem to be in violent agreement.

nitsua60

14:24

@BESW Amazing Tales works very well one-on-one IME; none of its mechanics explicitly support that, but they're not working against it. (And its mechanics take roughly an index card to summarize.) I do feel like the free-flowing and fast-driving emergent flow of a game that both fails forward and has almost no mechanical restrictions on what a player may attempt works well for a duet.

@KorvinStarmast am I remembering correctly--did we design a new RPG last night? (I was kinda out of it.) Was it good?

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yes, we had an e4 traveller / D&D 5e lash up idea that seemed to be going well.

still not sure what we did with HP though.

kviiri

argh, I'm queuing for a mental health support hotline and it's taking forever

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 And you mentioned "new baby" does that mean that you and Mrs Nits have 4?

kviiri

No wonder kids are going crazy :( (luckily I'm not the patient, just a bit close to one)

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri Hang in there ... being helpful is a good thing in itself.

@nitsua60 I think we went with 'ability score takes damage' as the better idea

nitsua60

14:31

@KorvinStarmast Noooooononononono. I wonder if inthemanual were around--I might have just been saying something to them.

@KorvinStarmast It would certainly feel much more traveller-ey to do score damage; I'd want to redesign the charsheet (like I already do, actually) to make it so that you're not rewriting a lot of different skill/attack/save bonuses all the time.

(On my characters I just jot down the ability scores, list any proficient skills under their "default" scores, and star the ones that have save proficiency. Prof. bonus is written right there, too. So my eye-flow on any thing that requires a roll is (a) look at relevant ability mod, (b) check if a proficiency applies, (c) roll away. Pretty sure that's the way the game's intended, and not at all the way the default charsheet teaches it.

@KorvinStarmast I need to jot this down in my "campaign pitches" document--this could be one I try out with the kids this year.

Except I'm already planning a CP2020 campaign, to tie in with the eponymous year and the CP2077 video game release.

Grr.

KorvinStarmast

CP2020, I guess I have to look that up. Cyberpunk?

@nitsua60 I can put all I need on a 3x5 card on a grid for 5e. But spell cards are separate from the char sheet.

I annotate proficiency with a small p next to the skill or stat

(I think I did that in the back room for that sun soul monk)

Shalvenay

14:51

hey there @ThomasCaio, welcome to the RGP.SE lair :)

Hot RPG Questions

15:29

5

Q: How to deal with a player who makes bad characters and kills them?

This is kind of a two part question, firstly about the bad character thing and secondly wrangling table drama. For context, I am currently DMing D&D 5e Curse of Strahd, with 5 players. Some of you might think this is one too many which I would agree with, but our group was founded as a social thi...

dnd-5e problem-players social curse-of-strahd player-communication

KorvinStarmast

16:00

@G.Moylan OMG, you rock. I finally downloaded the humble bundle. More than I could ever use unless I quit my job and become a full time GM. Wait, that's a brilliant idea! (Don't let Mrs Starmast here me say that! There is no save versus the Frying Pan of Spousal Fury!)

C. Ross

I am one question short of Socratic, and every question I come up with lately is well asked already :-|. Good thing for the site. Mildly annoying for me.

Zachiel

@C.Ross [hugs C.]

Shalvenay

16:17

hey there @KorvinStarmast, how're things going?

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay going well, this humble bundle is huge. Saving into a particular folder, one at a time.

@C.Ross I have faith in you.

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast doing alright over here

KorvinStarmast

We should be "on" in about 45 minutes, trying to get my Orc on. :)

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast I thought it was Sunday not Saturday? but if it turns out to be Saturday, I can make that work

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay OH, let me check back room I may have gooned that up

Yeah, Sunday it is.

Shalvenay

16:22

ah

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay Just me and my reading problems ... chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/51104806#51104806

This frees me up to help Mrs S a bit this afternoon.

kviiri

18:30

Finally time for the sauna day sauna.

V2Blast

@kviiri That's the problem with asking a question and suggesting a solution in the same post. It's unclear whether voters agree that the question should be asked, and/or agree with your suggested solution.

@nitsua60 The best RPGs are the ones you don't remember designing :P

@KorvinStarmast Nice :D

KorvinStarmast

19:09

@V2Blast Are we still on for tonight? Or are we taking a week off?

V2Blast

19:32

@KorvinStarmast Not sure. I haven't heard one way or the other from nits. I also haven't gotten any NDA stuff from WotC

nitsua60

Hey, everybody! It's doctor ~~Nick~~ Nits!

V2Blast

lol

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast I'm good for tonight if everyone else is. As for NDA, lemme drop a discord-note about that in a sec.

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Doctor Nits! Doc Doc Doc Doc doctor Nits!

nitsua60

@Zachiel You've tried the best, now try the rest!

[hums] the knee bone's connected to, some-thing....

KorvinStarmast

19:48

@nitsua60 Woo hoo, my Sun Soul Monk is very much hoping to go! Yay

Karu Solos ... now if only he had a lovely tenor voice ... he'd have been a bard instead of a monk.

Ludoss

21:15

Is DnD5e combat-oriented and 80% of traits are for combat?

KorvinStarmast

@Ludoss Depends on who is running the game. there are a lot of spells that work outside of combat

MikeQ

Yes, D&D (including 5E) is combat-oriented, and most traits provide some sort of mechanical feature that can affect combat. Unsure what the actual percentage is.

@Ludoss There is non-combat stuff, but the majority of the rules are about resolving combat encounters and the actions one can do during a fight. Why do you ask?

KorvinStarmast

As far as things that deal with Dice Mechanics, yes, more of them are combat based than not since Combat is "we don't know how it works when you send that arrow down range, roll to see if ..."

That's come to us from war games (avalon hill, miniatures,etc) since long before D&D. Randomizer to deal with the chance and friction of combat.

Role play, like in the game Diplomacy, never needed dice.

The fusion of those two play archetypes created something new and unusual.

(FWIW< most of the people who developed D&D and the early RPGs were also war gamers and also played Diplomacy)

Ludoss

ah, okay, the gm in one game uses that term.

KorvinStarmast

On the other hand, war games in the abstract - Chess, Go - don't use dice either.

In war games run by the military, you have GMs. Called "the white cell" (blue versus orange versus (pick a pallet color) gets judged by the white cell. But as time has gone on, there are a lot of digital tools being used.

Braunstein games: look up the JRRTC at Fort Polk. They still do roughly what Braunstein games were 50 years ago. Lots of non linear and non digital "OK, here's the situation, what do you do now, Captain?" hard situations. Usually with lots of non combatants in the mix.

Sorry, JRTC

Friend of mine over 20 years ago was trying to build a war gaming module for plug in to mil exercises. He was trying to capture what JRTC does, rather than the attrition based model the army uses out at NTC in Fort Irwin/Miles Gunnery/Etc.

I never got to see the final result, we both got assigned elsewhere ...

Ludoss

21:27

So RPG situations to train military officer

KorvinStarmast

@Ludoss And NCO. The army was doing RPG before TSR ever published one.

Ludoss

NCO?

KorvinStarmast

Non comissioned officers. Sergeants and corporals whose decisions have international consequences due to 24/7 global communications.

And the 'rules' never stop changing. ;)

Ludoss

lol like real rpgs.

KorvinStarmast

hee hee, yeah! :)

Ludoss

21:35

In this military training, are the rules known by the players who were tested?

Shalvenay

@Ludoss it depends on your DM and adventure, but D&D generally is a more combat centric game, yes. however, there are some very good TTRPGs centered around other things though if combat-centric stuff isn't your cup of tea

Ludoss

21:50

Which TTRPG are not combat centered?

Would Fate Core count as non-combat centered?

KorvinStarmast

@Ludoss heh, sort of, the rules are "anything goes" and that's the fun part.

Pendragon IIRC is heavy on the social/courtly skills

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