TRPG General Chat

V2Blast

12:11 AM

@doppelgreener beep boop

@BESW I took a stab at updating it (though I'm not too familiar with the system beyond some cursory Googling) :)

BESW

12:49 AM

Wow that's a lot more than I would've put in!

I usually just stick in links to games that I think are good for people to find but might be difficult to track down, like the free PDFs which aren't linked on the site where they're hosted.

(tag wikis are supposed to be about use cases, not the content of the tag itself, but nobody follows that guideline anyway so I'll happily ignore it to make a good game more easily available.)

Hot RPG Questions

1:22 AM

8

Q: How can I make theater-of-the-mind dungeon-crawling/location exploration fun and engaging?

I've been struggling with making exploration of locations/dungeon crawls engaging for the players. I've tried a few things: "And then you enter another room with X, Y, and Z" provides no choices, even if stuff in the rooms is interesting. "You see two doors ahead of you" provides no meaningful c...

A. B.

1:40 AM

True about "insanity", apart from anything else this is a specific thing and most kinds of insanity would be zero use for this (I don't think it's really trying to argue that somebody with severe OCD would have a better chance of pulling off this spell...), so it reads ludicrously.

Shalvenay

@A.B. yeah, no kidding

Szega

As I understand it, having any mundane medical issues should not necessarily help with the Mythos. What the game term Insanity refers to is the effect of disconnect you experience as a result of being exposed to the truth of the Mythos.

A. B.

Yep. And besides, it's more of a description of what's happening. "Insanity" is arbitrary. "He started laughing maniacally and screaming in an unknown tongue because people who get too close to the tentacle monster go insane".

It's stupid.

Szega

What do you mean by it is stupid?

GcL

I can attest that seeing a spaghetti mess of tentacles all doing their own thing connected in some horrible yet hidden way and driven by the machinations of an incomprehensible entity is pretty darned maddening.

A. B.

1:49 AM

Well, it's a thing, but it's arbitrary. Why is he doing that? because he's insane, no reason required.
Whereas the point is, and "insight" makes it look more that way, that the response of *any*, even if totally healthy, person to discovering what's really going on here would be to run screaming...

>:-)

I mean, Lovecraft isn't my cup of tea, but I get it.

I think.

Szega

I have not read the mechanics behind Insight, but the expression seems a bit ... tame for me

A. B.

It does, true. But you can't have everything.

GcL

What really drives you crazy is when you think you've made sense of a piece of it and your model seems to be working... even though it's counter intuitive. Then just when you think you've got a solid base to stand on, it goes and performs something unexpected and counter intuitive to your new model! At that point, screaming is entirely apropos.

A. B.

:-D

Szega

Well, I do not really see the need for the change in phrasing

A. B.

1:53 AM

(I've actually thought sometimes about whether it would work in such a story or game to have somebody with actual mental problems, the right kind, at least, be more immune to the cosmic horror. On the "that's just Tuesday" principle.)

BESW

Honestly I'm gonna just use "fear" for the stat in my future CD games, it's a lot closer to the aesthetic I'm after.

And it's even right there in the text: "If you get higher than your Insight, add 1 to your Insight and roleplay your fear." (emphasis mine)

A. B.

Yeah, that would work too.

BESW

In the broader context of CD, it uses Insight because the score is a reflection of the character's dawning understanding of the horror they're facing.

But I prefer to draw on more Doctor Who/Scooby-Do type inspirations for my games.

Szega

So it is a new take on the idea?

A. B.

Same point: enough fear and nonsensicality and even the sanest are going to throw their heads back and run around yelling about universes... some things there just IS no sane response to.

BESW

2:02 AM

And in practice one of the most freeing elements of our CD games has been taking the text very literally about when to roll for "Insight:"

> When you see something disturbing, roll your Insight Die.

That means our PCs get creeped out by things which startle them or creep them out even if it isn't directly related to the mystery, and it lets the mystery itself be mundane if that's the direction we want to go. It validates the characters' internal journey through fear without needing to justify fear externally.

Mark Wells

I'm thinking now about the CD Insight mechanic (which, if I'm reading this right, is a model where you get more resistant to the horror through exposure) vs. the CoC Sanity stat, which is the other way around

vs. the Unknown Armies stress check mechanic, which is kind of both

GcL

A series of basements you have to go down and turn off the back room lights. You know nothing is down there, but you still hustle to the stairs afterwards anyway. Totally legit fear.

Shalvenay

@GcL :D that'd be absolutely infuriating indeed

BESW

It's also notable that while the player-facing rules for CD are quite good at using very simple mechanics to emulate a mood and atmosphere which other systems struggle with, the GM-facing scenario building advice is what really pushes it over the edge into a functioning self-reinforcing dread-and-terror engine.

A. B.

2:49 AM

What kind of thing?

BESW

12:13 PM

Under The Floorboards by Chris Bissette is a tabletop roleplaying game for 2-5 players about tiny people living in a giant, hostile world, inspired by The Borrowers. The focus of the game is very story-driven, with an emphasis on collaborative storytelling and worldbuilding over stats and crunch.

"Five Dualities That Can Replace Good and Evil," article by Chris Winkle for Mythcreants.

Inspired by the voyage of the bathysphere and the world's first deep sea dive, Into Blue Midnight by KiennaS is a GMless two-player Wretched and Alone game that lets you play out the last hour of two scientists within the bathysphere when everything goes wrong.

BESW

12:39 PM

Bad Pun Jam 2020 hosted by 蠢謳迷 / omi chun starts in three and a half days. Do you enjoy insufferable wordplay at the expense of everyone around you? Have you ever wanted to immortalize your witty verbal exploits in the unnecessary and extravagant form of a game? If so, then this jam is for people like you. If not, I'd appreciate if you could at least spread the word.

BESW

1:37 PM

Proton_31 suggests "Yoko Ono was making RPGs over a decade before D&D" and offers the poems to prove it.

Thomas Markov

3:20 PM

I need some help, but I want to be sure Im not just being stupid before I ask the question on the stack

The spell Compelled Duel

The target fails the initial save, then it says the target "must make a Wisdom saving throw each time it attempts to move to a space that is more than 30 feet away from you; if it succeeds on this saving throw, this spell doesn’t restrict the target’s movement for that turn."

The spell doesnt say what happens when it fails this save, nor does the spell actually say anything about restricting movement before this.

I dont understand what this spell actually does.

@HellSaint I'd like your thoughts here

Someone_Evil

There's a heavily implied "If it fails it can't move away" but it seems like you're right

Thomas Markov

It also seems to imply freedom of movement within 30 feet of you

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