TRPG General Chat

Maurycy

18:05

We decided to switch from Fate to 5e, as 4e seemed to be too heroic. Now I just need to throw the players to the trans-dimensional portal and they can wake up in a new world

Himitsu_no_Yami

@Maurycy kill them and have them wake up in the new world. Isekai style

Bonus points if you use a truck to kill them

Maurycy

Oh gosh, first time I heard of Isekai, not surprised it's a genre

Himitsu_no_Yami

Isekai

Isekai (Japanese: 異世界, transl. "different world") is a genre of Japanese light novels, manga, anime and video games that revolve around a normal person from Earth being transported to, reborn or trapped in a parallel universe, fantasy world or virtual world. Often, the protagonist is already familiar with the parallel world, as it is often a fictional universe from a fictitious work published in the protagonist's origin universe, but the parallel world may also be unknown to them, as is the case with Sonic X. The new universe can be an entirely different world where only the protagonist has any...

Maurycy

Yup, googled it already

Himitsu_no_Yami

most of the popular ones are "you died, here's a new world"

er.. maybe not most but a lot of them

GcL

18:16

@Himitsu_no_Yami That's convenient to have a term for that.

Himitsu_no_Yami

It's an entire anime genre (and my personal favorite). Really helps when looking for new series to watch

especially with everything going on meaning I leave the house a lot less often

Maurycy

I think my favorite anime are romances

I am a sucker for a decent love story

Himitsu_no_Yami

fair enough. I'm not personally as much of a fan

nitsua60

@NautArch Have you gotten to the point where you can 'golf' them? Like, just take a whack wherever it lies? Oh, but you're getting it delivered, so it's probably stacked rather than just in a pile?

I just cleared that hurdle, and man is it fun.

GcL

@Maurycy like Fight Club?

Maurycy

18:22

@GcL More like The Lobster

GcL

@nitsua60 I don't think I have a high enough quality flannel shirt and hat for that anymore.

Maurycy

Playing 5e after years of playing 3.5e is going to be a challenge

nitsua60

@GcL That's why you gotta do your splittin' in the summer, man =)

(Though in the last two weeks I've split in 80-degree sun, hail, 50-deg. rain, 30mph winds, and snow. It seems the seasons, too, can't tell one week from the next.)

GcL

@nitsua60 I'd still wear my nice log golf flannel. Maybe rolled up the sleeves or unbuttoned, but summer isn't an excuse to shirk on the proper equipment.

nitsua60

lol

GcL

18:25

@nitsua60 What was the weather like on the second day?

GcL

18:36

@Maurycy I totally forgot about that film! That one was really odd.

Maurycy

@GcL It was very pleasantly non-naturalistic

OR maybe non-realistic? I mean it wasn't meant to look and sound like real humans would in our universe, but rather something slightly bizarre and off. Kinda like Lynch's works but without the horror aspect

NautArch

18:56

@nitsua60 no, they deliver in a pile

Himitsu_no_Yami

Decided to have a mock combat with two of the characters for fun. Ended up with a barbarian vs a rogue at level 1

NautArch

I usually stack and then before winter starts I split about a cord and put it in the shed

Not the smartest to move it twice, but it's a system that works for me

Himitsu_no_Yami

Rogue let herself be goaded into close combat and well...

nitsua60

19:17

@GcL <rimshot>

trogdor

20:33

@Ben lol

Hot RPG Questions

4

Q: What is the allure of Ensnaring Swordmages?

I know this is bordering on off-topic for this site. However, many of the old class guides started with a section explaining why you would pick each subclass, which gave a quite good answer for these kind of questions. Unfortunately, most of the old handbooks are lost with the WotC forums, and th...

trogdor

20:49

oooh a 4e question XD

BESW

@Medix2 A filter is a custom search tool. You can find it at the top of the Questions page or on the right sidebar on the Questions Page or the Home Page.

But what Korvin's talking about my using is the favorite/ignored tgs feature, which I can use to look at the Home or Question page without seeing any questions tagged with things I'm disinterested in, and with tags I'm interested in highlighted.

As he says, my tag lists are extensive.

trogdor

lol

BESW

I haven't updated it in a while. Recent tagging practices mean I need to add D&D settings to the ignore list.

trogdor

ugh I just found a 4e question that asks what happens if you use a power that doesn't let the target move to any spaces that aren't adjacent to you after pulling them adjacent to you,.... and all the answers are "ok they can't move now"

BESW

[squint]

You can do better than that.

trogdor

21:03

that's some very 3.5 thinking right there

it's very weird, they think that if you use that power and then move away you just screwed their movement

like,.... no that's not how defenders work in 4e XD

Medix2

So this question was in the "Active" filter with an edit by the Community Diamond Bot/Process thing. What exactly was this edit?

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 A bump, shows up revision history and timeline

(There used to be a banner for it)

Medix2

@BESW Oh those! I just called them search parameters or something similar, glad to know they have a real name

@Someone_Evil Oh yup, should've just checked the edit history myself. Thanks a million!

BESW

21:19

1

A: Where's the bump notice?

We deliberately removed the bump notice. The data is still there in the message history for those who are in the know and want to look for it. But for almost all users it is not relevant. (In our opinion) it is not a best practice to give a small technical detail related to post sorting such ...

@trogdor Now that I've added D&D settings and LotR systems, there are... five questions out of the most recent fifty, on my newest-questions page.

trogdor

wow

BESW

And one of them is a D&D question, it's just closed because it doesn't have a system tag yet.

V2Blast

@GcL Definitely 9th-level. :P

BESW

GcL

@V2Blast It was well organized enough that I didn't immediately down vote it. Also well reasoned, a copacetic interpretation, and well finished.

Someone_Evil

21:33

@V2Blast dispel confusion?

V2Blast

@Medix2 Hahaha. I mostly just disagreed with some the existing answers, and the answers drawing the conclusion I agreed with seemed to insufficiently support that conclusion. I left a bunch of comments on all the answers, but at that point I figured I should just write my own answer instead :P

@GcL :D

GcL

@V2Blast I like it better when an answer is submitted instead of questioning comments.

V2Blast

yeah, it was sort of disorganized at first. Also my ADHD medication had definitely worn off hours earlier so I was basically jumping back and forth between different parts of the answer as I wrote it. I had to go back and reorganize it a few times as I was writing it

GcL

The result was easy to follow.

V2Blast

@GcL Indeed. I'll usually just toss a comment on an answer if it fails to address a major contradictory point, or if it's already a good answer but I think there's another data point it could use as support, but given a certain number of data points I just leave an answer instead.

@GcL Good to hear! :)

trogdor

21:36

@BESW oh god the pun

XD

V2Blast

lol

Part of my "reorganization" of that answer was to add headers and horizontal rules to break up the text a bit. Before that, there were just overly long sections of text that brought up a bunch of different points with nothing breaking them up

GcL

@V2Blast I thought the question a wholly theorycraft affair. However, upon review of my current campaign log I did find a use the result of a max of 20 independent of ASI.

V2Blast

@GcL Haha, yeah, the Bag of Beans question is definitely pure theorycrafting, but the interaction of max ability score increases (from the few things that explicitly say they increase it) with things like ASIs that say "increase this score by 1 or 2, to a max of 20" is at least a bit more likely to actually be relevant in play (in the cases of the few items that explicitly increase your max score)

BESW

@trogdor [innocent]

nitsua60

@V2Blast You're describing exactly the process I went through, just a few hours earlier =)

BESW

21:50

7 Everyday Items for Battling Baddies

►

trogdor

@BESW don't pretend, you scoundrel XD

nitsua60

Ohno! There's a goblin-court question on the stack, but it's v2 and I'm still stuck back in v1!

BESW

That particular bit of the text is pretty much unchanged.

nitsua60

[crosses fingers you're not answering it right now, 'cause I want to try my hand at it]

Medix2

@V2Blast Yeah I've learned to throw in as many horizontal lines breaks and headers as possible. Just helps so much to paragraph out and section something, which I only learned after reading such an answer and realizing how easy it was

V2Blast

21:55

@BESW: A wild goblin-court question appears!

4

Q: When does "Goblin Magic" happen?

I'm exploring some rules-light RPGs, and am intrigued by "Goblin Court v2" by "BESW" (though I haven't played it yet). I'm confused by the wording on how "Goblin Magic" happens. If some dice succeed and some dice cause Goblin Magic, what happens? Just to make this concrete example, suppose my Ma...

magic goblin-court

GcL

@V2Blast I'm making it relevant by using it as a sure fire indicator that supernatural or magical forces are at play for an observed NPC. The fighter has a feature that allows them to assess another in relation to themselves. I just have to find a way to illustrate and inform the players that 20 is the natural limit so anything they observe or discover above it is clearly supernatural.

We'll see if it works to drive a story. If so, then it's a useful question and answer.

BESW

@nitsua60 I'd love to see your take on it.

nitsua60

@BESW Just posted my read of it.

Basically, I think of Goblin Magic as an interrupt.

BESW

I did notice that my v2 text has an accidental layout change which makes it a little less clear.

Hmm.

That's not exactly how I'd intended it but it works.

Peter Cooper Jr.

22:12

Really I just wanted access to chat again, since I missed chat here the most since I ragequit SE last fall. But I did have the question, and figured that I might as well ask it. Honestly I find the whole wording of action resolution confusing coming from a mainly-D&D background.

BESW

[wave] Thanks, this is really getting my juices flowing and I'm working on a re-write to push soon.

Peter Cooper Jr.

And I suspect, like most games, it makes more sense when you play it than when you just read it.

V2Blast

@PeterCooperJr. Ah, I had a feeling your name looked familiar :)

Peter Cooper Jr.

@V2Blast Thanks for the (re)welcome anyway

I felt kind of creepy checking in on what was happening in chat here without having an account.

BESW

For one thing, somehow my v2 push of Goblin Court managed to change the fourth outcome's label from ! to 4.

Peter Cooper Jr.

22:15

@BESW That is certainly one of the confusing parts.

BESW

Also, the mechanics are... wonky... because they're a drift of Lasers & Feelings and it's unclear there, too.

6

Q: How do Laser Feelings work?

During our game of Lasers & Feelings we had a bit of a disagreement concerning how the special insight mechanic Laser Feelings works. If you roll your number exactly, you have laser feelings. You get a special insight into what's going on. Ask the GM a question and they’ll answer you honestly...

lasers-and-feelings

Peter Cooper Jr.

And in case it's helpful while figuring out how to word it for those of us new to that style of RPG, one possibility I considered (but thought wasn't right) was that the Goblin Magic happened based on the sum of the dice, even though "successes" was based on individual dice. Just because it was a random something-else-happens-instead thing, which made me think it was like the dice as a whole that it looked at to make them not give a resolution.

But again, I'm used to a "roll" meaning "sum the dice" even though I know there are plenty of count-successes RPGs out there (and I've even played some a bit, ages ago)

I certainly wouldn't have expected that which dice you reroll depends on whether you change your action as nits suggests. I certainly see it, and probably as long as the table's understanding is clear it doesn't really matter, I was just surprised how confused I was reading it since, well, there are so few rules.

BESW

Yeah, I hear that. [wry]

Peter Cooper Jr.

Sorry if it's coming across as critical, that's really not my intent.

BESW

No, I'm happy to get feedback!

I'm now considering a rather dramatic re-structuring of that section, rather than just copying L&F.

Peter Cooper Jr.

22:28

I'm just trying to explain where my reading went wrong.

BESW

More and more Goblin Court is less of an L&F hack and more "inspired by L&F"

Peter Cooper Jr.

It sounds to me like it could use a flowchart, but I'm a software engineer kind of person so that might not work for everybody. :)

Another possibility I considered it meant was that you needed to match the Magic Number on all the dice you rolled, since then the "reroll" was clear at least (that it, if you rolled all on your number then it was obvious "it doesn't resolve your action"), and it was more likely the less you knew what you were doing, as a kind of "catchup" mechanic. Rather than being more likely the more dice you rolled, such that it was going to happen half the time you threw 3 dice.

I didn't know which way it was supposed to scale as you got more dice, I guess is what I was saying

nitsua60

@PeterCooperJr. Ah, I was really curious about the "new user" indicator. Sorry to hear about the rage, glad we can still be helpful.

Peter Cooper Jr.

But I may have just been using too much Cleverness and not enough Compassion analyzing it :)

nitsua60

(nice callback ^^ )

BESW

22:36

Some thoughts:
The big narrative concept is that Goblin Magic interrupts your action to provide more information, which you can act on immediately.
The L&F model says that Goblin Magic happens when at least one dice rolls your Magic Number.
If dice which roll your Magic Number don't get re-rolled, your total number of possible successes is reduced for the action informed by Goblin magic, and that's not very magical.
If you only re-roll the Magic Number dice, then your revised action is informed not only by your insight from Goblin Magic but also by knowing how many successes and failures yo…

Peter Cooper Jr.

@nitsua60 Oh yes, it's not any of you of course. I'm just really hesitant to be using up my time to provide free product for a corporation.

nitsua60

@PeterCooperJr. My thinking there was just "if I choose a new action, I re-start action resolution." Which may not be what BESW intended, but it seemed to make sense to me?

@PeterCooperJr. That's a completely understandable position.

@PeterCooperJr. How's the Cooper fam handling quarantine? Do I remember correctly that you homeschool(ed) your kids already?

BESW

@PeterCooperJr. I'm in pretty much the same boat, my Stack interactions these days are limited almost exclusively to chats like this one.

Peter Cooper Jr.

@nitsua60 Oh, we're getting along alright. Our oldest has been going to public school this year, but well they sent her back now. :) Main change is just that I've been working from home for the past 9 weeks, so I have less commute time.

Biggest downer is that our home game was just before the climax of Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and I don't know if we'll get to finish it. But I started a new game with people from work online, and while I much prefer a physical table it's been working alright.

nitsua60

@PeterCooperJr. Don't we all. The podcasting world is all in upheaval as people saw their numbers absolutely tank during mid-March -> early April, but it's come back mid-April -> present as people settle into new habits/routines.

BESW

22:41

[grumble] Stupid L&F and silly me for not criticizing it more during my creative process. Now I gotta rejigger the whole page layout to make the better version fit right.

nitsua60

@BESW So I'd suggest (in this case) something like "so roll again after getting your answer" --> "so roll this die again after getting your answer"?

BESW

That's consistent with the current text but I don't want it.

Current revision:

> If any dice roll your magic number, your action is interrupted by your Goblin Magic which gives you a special insight into what’s going on. Ask the Goblin Mom a question & they’ll answer you honestly.
Goblin Magic doesn’t resolve your action, so you can re-roll (first changing your action if you want to) with your Magic Number counting as successes, or even choose to stop & pass the focus to another goblin.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Well, if the rest of my dice were bad (say no successes + 1 magic), then I pretty much want to change my action regardless of whether the answer from the GM is relevant to it, right?

nitsua60

@BESW That certainly gets it =)

Peter Cooper Jr.

Maybe just the section on magic numbers needs to be at the beginning, before you talk about what numbers of successes mean?

Like, less is failure, equal is magic (described later), greater is success.

BESW

22:44

@PeterCooperJr. Yeah, very much so, and that's where I'm struggling with layout issues.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Or whatever (flipped around as needed)

And your new text still doesn't make clear to me if the reroll is that die or all dice

Editing is hard, criticizing is easy.

BESW

@PeterCooperJr. Thanks, I'll add that.

GcL

@PeterCooperJr. Crediting is somewhere in the middle?

Peter Cooper Jr.

Now, if you want me to keep nitpicking…

What if changing the action changes the number of dice you should roll?

nitsua60

That ^^ is why I assumed you'd just re-start the whole process.

Or what if the new action meant I wanted to change my approach?

Peter Cooper Jr.

22:50

I gotta run and have dinner and then run my remote game, thanks everyone!

nitsua60

be well =)

BESW

Hrmmm.

Okay maybe I'm explaining too much in the text.

> If any dice roll your Magic Number, your action is interrupted by your Goblin Magic which gives you a special insight into what’s going on: ask the Goblin Mom a question & they’ll answer you honestly. After you get your answer you can either take a new action (with your Magic Number counting as successes) or pass the focus to another goblin.

@PeterCooperJr. ttfn

@nitsua60 Got a minute on Discord to vet two revised rules pages?

Transcript for