TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

12:06 AM

I'd be interested to see how she responds when Stellata arrives back from Umdaar.

BESW

If we ever return to that campaign, the return of Sweetheart will probably involve needing to help her.

trogdor

lol

doppelgreener

:D

Bardic Wizard

@BESW @doppelgreener How do you make an NPC like that connect with the character without seeming either condescending or helpless? I’ve never been able to do that

BESW

Same way you support someone without smothering them in real life: put them in charge of deciding how you will help them.

I'd love to hear what Greener felt worked in that situation.

nitsua60

12:26 AM

@BardicWizard I like there being space carved out for spells =)

trogdor

@BardicWizard well also, she wasn't technically an NPC, BESW joined that game as a player of a one shot character more like

I realize that might not sound like a big difference but, that's the exact way it worked rather than the character being an NPC

I was the GM for that session

doppelgreener

12:41 AM

So, context: Stellata was a dryad created in a science experiment from an oak sapling. Her creator, Doctor Light, played by @trogdor, was very firmly established as not the greatest human being. For a start, he was actually now a plant monster in a lab coat. (Picture the Swamp Thing.)

trogdor

lol

doppelgreener

Stellata had been his proof of concept. If he could turn a plant into a person, then he could turn himself into a plant! Makes sense, right? Well, no, but this is action science and that's not important. The experiment worked, and now he's a plant monster.

Around the time bringing in Sweetheart to the story was just a concept that hadn't yet happened, we had considered and established that what Doctor Light did was probably pretty unethical, and he was not necessarily the best plant monster dad a young dryad progeny could ask for, on account of, he was pretty much still 100% scientist and 0% dad. We'd revisit this much more concretely later, it was a big part of her character arc.

Sweetheart comes in from a related agency whose responsibility is to uphold the welfare of Weird lifeforms. Like a talking dog, or like a dryad made in a science experiment. Sweetheart was there to make sure everything was okay, and to make sure Stellata was happy, so... that's what she did. She came with us on an adventure to help out, saw Stellata in action, talked with her to check she was happy, and left Stellar her business card in case she ever needed to call.

That was kind of it? Sweetheart wasn't there to meddle and do things for her. Sweetheart was there to kick ass and take names alongside everyone else, and then also while doing so keep an eye on things. I imagine Sweetheart might have dealt with plenty of cases of abuse, and wanted to make sure this wasn't that or wasn't other bad things. When she was on a mission with us, her mission wasn't Stellata, it was the mission.

It was an important step in Stellata's development, I think.

BESW

Yeah. Basically Sweetheart just did a mission with us, and at the end took Stellata aside for a "are you happy, here's my card" chat in which she made it very clear that she would move heaven, earth, and Doctor Light's pedantic butt, to make Stellata safe and happy--but only according to Stellata's needs as expressed by Stellata.

doppelgreener

Like, BESW didn't introduce this character to meddle in our activities. He introduced this character because it would develop ongoing character arcs we were consciously choosing to develop. This character didn't even reach the game table without BESW and I talking over it and both of us agreeing we were interested in seeing this happen with our characters, and it would not have worked very well without that I think.

BESW

All of that, yes. I didn't suddenly impose a black ops social worker on Greener's character and expect that to be fine.

And Troggy was in the conversation too, because (a) everyone's in these conversations, they happen in group; and (b) Sweetheart's introduction would potentially impact his character's arc too.

doppelgreener

12:56 AM

Fate asks you to approach the game from the stance of a director quite often during and around play. We are separate from our characters, arranging and conspiring to put them in interesting situations variously either within or against the character's interests for fun and drama. So we consciously had conversations about where we wanted things to go, to the extent we knew, and talked about interesting ways to progress in that direction.

(This is a game where characters failing, and even failing hard, progresses things just as much as succeeding the same amount, just along very different story routes. Hence working to even introduce situations that are against our characters' interests. This wasn't one of them, of course.)

Bardic Wizard

That’s actually really helpful advice. I like that you guys talked it out ahead of time and that seems like it helped.

BESW

For example, one of the next Big Moments in Stellata's character journey was, after having terrifying lucid dreams that made her confront her creator's failures as a father, she exploded at him in the middle of a stealth mission and the ensuing confrontation caused (almost) everyone to get captured and thrown in the dungeons.

This wasn't just okay, it was awesome because it was dramatic and interesting and our characters were competent and proactive enough that "thrown in the dungeon" was less "a problem" and more "we didn't have to bother sneaking in."

(Also at that particular time in the story, Stellata's creator had been replaced by a shapeshifting villain whose only knowledge of their relationship came from reading the creator's mind--and he thought he was a GREAT father, so the villain was being a better father figure than Doctor Light would have been in the same situations. And everyone at the table knew it even though none of the characters did, so we loved the delicious drama of it all.)

doppelgreener

@BardicWizard If we hadn't, this wouldn't have happened at all, I'm sure. This whole thing came out of conversations we were having around the game.

Working out what we thought about the experiments was part of that. (Stellata didn't have a frame of reference to even consider something might have been not okay with her circumstances, so none of that was in character; Sweetheart probably helped her begin to think about that.) At some point BESW raised the idea of bringing in Sweetheart, we were all interested, he suggested doing this with her, we liked that too, we talked about it and developed it further and then it hit the table.

This all comes from us being positioned as equals in shaping where we wanted the story to go and how we wanted it to get there.

BESW

I was the primary GM, but that mostly just meant that I helped mash everything together and felt more comfortable running sessions more often than playing in them.

doppelgreener

@BESW This whole thing was amazing. The specific line Stellata blew up with, yelling at what she thought was Doctor Light but who at this time was actually this shapeshifting villain, was "you're not my real dad!!!". The villain thought their cover was blown!

trogdor

1:09 AM

I don't know if he thought he was a great father so much as he just didn't think of it at all

Which isn't better for sure

In fact I wasn't even thinking of him as a father all that much, partly because I didn't orginally conceive of the character with this as part of his backstory

doppelgreener

(but stellata had more to yell, so the villain realised it wasn't meant in the very literal sense. But there was a very awkward silence for a moment there in which the villain was sweating bullets.)

trogdor

So I realized through the rest of the group how he was a terrible parent and it was amazing

It was great

doppelgreener

Yes, it was :D

trogdor

I think that was actually my favorite role playing moment, if not of all my time doing it than at least of that campaign

And it's probably of all my time doing it

doppelgreener

@trogdor I am very happy this worked out that way too

trogdor

1:16 AM

XD

I'm really glad I agreed when you came up with Stellata being like, his sort of prototype

because that idea took over the whole show during that moment

and it was fantastic

BESW

On a meta-level it was interesting to see how, once again, Troggy's PC became the pivot around which a campaign revolved despite not particularly loud or pushy about his presence in it.

Troggy's got mad invisibility powers IRL but his characters almost always bend the story around themselves just by existing.

trogdor

that is weird actually

I think I flip a switch when I am role playing or even acting in a play or something

BESW

I really noticed it with Iados, who tended to be a major pivot of the story and party even when you barely had him say or do anything all session outside of combat turns.

Hot RPG Questions

4

Q: Did D&D 5e ever use a d3 prior to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything?

The Path of Wild Magic Barbarian recently released in the preview for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has the unusual design choice of requiring a d3 roll for Bolstering Magic. Needless to say, it's highly unlikely that the average 5e player has a d3 die in their collection. I can't recall any oth...

trogdor

1:32 AM

I mean like, you know I don't like attention for extended periods of time

sometimes when that starts happening I talk less

I don't know why that is still a thing even when I'm not doing anything

XD

I haven't explored this as much as my more normal interactions with people

and it does kinda require other people's involvement

in some arcane way I don't understand

Bardic Wizard

2:08 AM

Wow. I don’t have the right kind of relationship with the people I play with (in all but one group) to be able to do something like that all. It seems like it needs a lot of trust and a clear knowledge of the other players to make it work well

trogdor

to do what in particular?

Thomas Markov

If you've got reopen voting, throw one on here: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/175499/…

Bardic Wizard

@trogdor ...just kinda all of it: the relationships between PCs and NPCs that feel real, the ability to tell players something that their characters don’t know and not have it horribly abused, and the culture of trust and openness that creates an environment that lets it all happen.

trogdor

@BardicWizard ah yeah I mean, we kinda had to work on literally all of that together

XD

Bardic Wizard

It’s probably also the system; I play almost entirely D&D5e cause nobody in my group wants to try other games (which they define as anything that isn’t D&D or Star Wars d6, which we played once) whereas you guys were playing something that sounds like Fate

MikeQ

2:16 AM

The Fate system is structured in a way that requires players to discuss with each other (as players) about what they want from their characters and from the story. d20 systems don't provide that framework in any explicit way.

trogdor

@BardicWizard breaking out of only playing D&D was definitely part of the process for us

MikeQ

Of course it's possible for a group to approach a D&D game like this, but the system won't force them to do so. Thus there's a general tendency to default to... well, whatever patterns we typically observe in D&D games.

trogdor

yeah I mean it's not that I don't think you could do it in D&D

buuut

I think there are at least two reasons you should probably switch systems if you want to work towards that

the first is just that if you play any of the same game all the time you will probably wear a comfortable groove into it, and that's not bad per se but it might get in the way of changing your play patterns and so forth

BESW

It's important to note that we began the social work well before we left D&D.

trogdor

the second is I just don't think the D&D rulesets are,... any good for helping you with this kind of thing

@BESW this is true too but I think switching systems helped us grow towards where we ended up

BESW

2:29 AM

But that we kinda hit a plateau with it until we started using other systems--and while Fate had some very good specific bits that helped us, I think just playing several different systems was more important than any particular system we played.

trogdor

yeah basically

what I'm advocating is broadening your game horizons

the more different systems you play the more different perspectives and wider experience you will have

which will just help in general really

BESW

You've seen this post by me, right, @BardicWizard? That work we did wasn't just about GMing, it was also laying the groundwork for a group dynamic which empowered the kinds of stuff Troggy and Greener are describing above.

Bardic Wizard

Okay, anyone know how to convince a bunch of teenagers how to change the group dynamic when you’re just the GM (and nobody else wants to do that?

@BESW no, I haven’t before. That’s actually super helpful

trogdor

I mean, if no one wants to do it it isn't going to work

BESW

We can't ethically convince people to play a game in a way they don't want to play. But we can model behaviour, and invite them to join us, that shows them why they'd want to play that way.

trogdor

2:39 AM

Yeah

BESW

And, not everyone in that D&D group came with on the journey.

trogdor

I think the first thing you have to do if no one wants to engage with a dynamic change is convince them

That's going to be the hardest part but if you manage it you will find the rest of the process easier I bet

If you try to force it from the start it's going to be difficult from step one all the way to the end, someone will get hurt, and it's still not guaranteed to work

I mean, some of them didn't get a chance to come along on that either

But yeah

Mostly a few people left before we ever changed systems

It was a long process to be honest

It happened in part organically and in part because we were trying to figure things out

And we lost a lot of people for various reasons

Some of which may or may not have been involved with the dynamic change itself

Some were definitely not specifically because of that

trogdor

3:01 AM

anyway, the point is, the idea isn't to try to trick or force or coerce your group to make this kind of change

if you really want to do it you have to open by talking to them about it

and if they just are not interested,... you can't really do it

hopefully that's not the case but that's just how it works

BESW

Yeah.

And it's a process.

trogdor

it is

BESW

Like, if I'd just up and said "Hey, Troggy, wanna GM a 4e game?" he would've noped out to another planet.

trogdor

lol

BESW

But after months of everyone helping each other to make characters, track conditions, fold minis, etc., you know what you were getting into and you knew that you wouldn't be alone.

trogdor

3:05 AM

I mean by that point I wanted to run some 4E

trogdor

3:40 AM

but yeah if you had asked me to run 4E before I was even familliar with the system that would have been a hard no

trogdor

4:14 AM

I also didn't have the confidence at that point to run anything really, even if I had understood the system well

I actually think I still struggle a lot with running games yo be honest

It's hard to tell in the moment what I should do to maximize everyone's enjoyment and experience

3

Bardic Wizard

5:45 AM

UUUUGGGGHHHH. I just got some troll putting comments on a google doc pdf for an rpg I wrote (the one about stabbing stuff) that were really just suggesting deleting the whole thing and even though I didn’t let it happen it’s still frustrating UUUUGGGGHHHHH

trogdor

:/

that's some pretty messed up trolling

Bardic Wizard

What’s the best way to keep this from happening? Bc I need the doc to keep comments open cause I have a friend who’s occasionally trying it

BESW

You can make it so only that friend can interact with it.

Bardic Wizard

I can’t believe I didn’t remember that.

BESW

You've got a lot on your mind and the Internet is a h*ckhole.

Bardic Wizard

5:56 AM

Granted it’s almost 11pm here and I nearly fell asleep in history class today

BESW

@trogdor I mean... same? All the time! It's part of why I push so hard for open communication at the table and being able to stop and ask "hey, what should happen next?"

Bardic Wizard

I’m gonna head to bed, good night!!!

BESW

ttfn

trogdor

6:09 AM

@BESW tis fair enough

@BESW yes this is also unfortunately true

AncientSwordRage

10:18 AM

Ahoy!

Someone_Evil

10:29 AM

Salü!

how're things?

[wave]

Moro

Bor da!

Kia ora!

11:00 AM

Habari?

AncientSwordRage

Hola, Que tal?

AncientSwordRage

11:34 AM

Toki!Sina pilin seme?

Thomas Markov

aight i had a dream about rpg.se last night. I think Im in too deep.

At least, I think it was a dream.

Gotta check my post history.

kviiri

11:54 AM

Oh yeah, I had a fever hallucination about IRCing for several hours in 2012

trogdor

lol

kviiri

I broke off it shortly after realizing I usually IRC on a computer, not directly with my mind

Thomas Markov

In my dream I was trying to convince @NautArch to delete one of his answers so I could get a populist badge.

It seems so real, Im digging through my posts to make sure it was just a dream.

Someone_Evil

I hope so, because I don't think deleting an answer would gain anyone a populist badge

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil You're right, I dont think thats real.

RevenantBacon

12:04 PM

That's a very... interesting dream :p

trogdor

I've had dreams about doing things I just did

rarely though

and it doesn't seem to specifically happen just because I did a lot of a thing

I could do it one time and dream about it immediately after

and it's like, usually mundane stuff

kviiri

The storm has been eventful

...but not for us.

Seems to have mostly passed by Helsinki, we have strong winds but nothing significantly out of the ordinary

NautArch

@ThomasMarkov Successful dream cast

as opposed to the successful dreamcast. because it wasn't.

@kviiri good? or bummer?

i love storms.

kviiri

A bit of each x)

I'm definitely happy there hasn't been major damage but I would've wanted to see a flashier display of nature

Thomas Markov

@NautArch My parents bought one when I was 5 so they could have email. Little did they know, Sonic the Hedgehog was going to run it into the ground.

kviiri

12:15 PM

A few years back we had an autumn storm that brought such thick clouds it was almost dark outside

Thomas Markov

I'm getting some rain from this hurricane right now.

just a little bit though.

kviiri

Speaking of Sonic, I found this mildly interesting:

SONIC 3D's Intro Sequence Is Impossible To Fit On A Cartridge - Right?

►

@ThomasMarkov Yeah, i feel a bit like a poser with all the talk about a storm because we don't... have anything like hurricanes x)

Thomas Markov

@kviiri I grew up on the east coast of the US, my family has hosted hurricane block parties with all the neighbors.

100 mph winds outside, and we're all sittin around drinking beer in the dark

AncientSwordRage

12:36 PM

@NautArch I could swear I dreamt of the Dreamcast before it was announced

also a fully glass home, which I'm sure I saw on TV years later

NautArch

@AncientSwordRage As a kid I had imagined cars with screens in them. With each screen being controlled by the person in front it,

Although, mine also had barriers between the seats. Yeah, I had a sibling.

Yet, I am now a parent who doesn't allow devices in the car.

AncientSwordRage

@NautArch smart

NautArch

When older, I"ll likely allow music (since I had a walkman as a kid). But I don't think i'll allow video.

also don't allow it at the table. Not that we go to restaurants anymore.

Transcript for