TRPG General Chat

The Oracle

00:00

3

Q: When is the Sexuality tag appropriate to tag a question?

This question is in response to @nitsua60's comment on my old question. (I figure Meta is a better place for the discussion than comments on an old question) Background for everyone else is that the sexuality tag was added to the above question. At the time, the tagwiki for the tag was as follows...

doppelgreener

00:12

@ThomasMarkov @RavenDreamer i agree

@AncientSwordRage so in weightlifting exercises, the main thing i deal with is that i have to compete with my own head going "oh wow, i'm so tired, let's stop, i don't have to do this longer, it's fine," etc and i can let myself off the hook

anybody you have for company can encourage you to do just a tiny bit more than you'd normally call quits at

Thomas Markov

@doppelgreener Are you familiar with auto regulated training?

doppelgreener

they can also spot you: for example, if you're struggling with the last 2-3 reps of a bench press, your partner could provide just minimal help that helps you make those last reps.

@ThomasMarkov I haven't actually!

I'm getting pretty good at overcoming that voice nowadays.

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener I think if I did weight training, it'd be more to get more comfortable at low weights than pushing myself to lift more and more

Although maybe one is a way of achieving the other

Thomas Markov

@doppelgreener strongerbyscience.com/autoregulation/amp

doppelgreener

@AncientSwordRage for comparison: i'm always working at, maybe, 75% of my capacity, because I want to build muscle. Because I do that, my capacity is always growing, so 75% of my capacity is going up and up over time.

My increments are slow and steady — each session I'm increasing by basically the minimum, and only if I successfully completed my target last session.

Thomas Markov

00:21

@AncientSwordRage You have to push yourself in some fashion to continue progressing, but there are lots of different variables you can adjust, with different variables contributing to different adaptations. So whatever “progress” means to you, you progressively increase the relevant training variables for the desired adaptation.

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener would continuing at the old 75% do nothing, or just slow you down?

Thomas Markov

You’ll also find that as you learn more and experience more, what you like and dislike will change, and your goals will change as well.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov true

doppelgreener

@AncientSwordRage It becomes like picking up a coffee mug. It's not going to do anything at all really.

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage it would contribute progressively less and less to the fitness adaptation you’ve selected for.

doppelgreener

00:23

Right.

Squatting 40kg did a lot when 40kg was close to my limit. Right now, squatting 40kg is just a warmup.

Thomas Markov

Fitness and exercise generally follow the law of the repeated bout effect.

That is, the more you do something, the less it affects you. “If nothing changes, nothing is going to change”.

AncientSwordRage

Gotcha

Thomas Markov

I’m enjoying the ride of lifting heavy now, but my end goal is to be as strong as possible when I’m old.

And the higher my ceiling is when I’m young, the higher my floor will be when I’m old.

One of the major benefits of resistance training, especially when it comes to aging, is that your skeleton responds to external loads by increasing bone density.

But the degree to which that adaptation occurs is a function of the load demand you place on your bones.

doppelgreener

Also super important: whatever result you get is going to be the result of deliberate effort toward that specific goal. There's a number of people, myself included, who feared that we'd start lifting weights and then suddenly the next day be like Arnie or Hafþór, but ... that doesn't happen. Muscles don't just go whoosh like that. You'll work toward a goal with steady change, and when you reach it, you'll be able to just maintain it if you'd like to do that.

Thomas Markov

@doppelgreener Exogenous hormones might make muscles go woosh.

:p

doppelgreener

00:31

oh yeah

though that'd also be a deliberate effort lol

Thomas Markov

The trick is to select the right training variables (exercise selection, frequency, volume, intensity, rep scheme) for the desired adaptations.

And a personal trainer can be a great help in doing that for a novice lifter

That said, you don’t have to have a well organized, focused plan if your goals don’t require that.

doppelgreener

@ThomasMarkov (thank you, i'm gonna read this!)

Thomas Markov

There’s a dude that lifts at my gym that has no goals besides “do some resistance training”, and he just comes in and does whatever he wants for an hour, and that works for him.

But a lot of people find adherence quite difficult in the absence of rigid structure.

(This is me)

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Thomas Markov

@doppelgreener that’s a somewhat technical introduction, but should be mostly accessible as a birds-eye view. If when you get back to it you want some ideas for implementing RPE/auto regulation in your training hit me up.

Glazius

00:58

I love the name "Dungeon Wordle", and I also love that it's somehow managed to invert the Forged in the Dark result curve.

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AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov that sounds like how I'd start, at least to get comfortable

BESW

01:49

@AncientSwordRage Grats on a new tag!

AncientSwordRage

02:56

@BESW I should probably fill in some details on it

Oregon Rolled A 20 asks for your best 7 word adventure hook (Twitter link)

BESW

@AncientSwordRage Ignoring the "D&D" part, I got a lot of effect out of "yetis are such gentle and timid creatures."

(Cthulhu Dark scenario based on the 1967 Doctor Who story "The Abominable Snowmen")

AncientSwordRage

@BESW yeah it's good

> Vampire ladybugs swarm in from the Feyfell.

> Romeo and Juliet RUN opposing thieves’ guilds.

> Rescue an entire town transformed into mice

BESW

03:14

There was also "Shatner's ego kidnaps Trek extras, escapes planet."

"Christmas ghosts exhausted, trapped, by unrepentant Scrooge."

"Impatient D&D players search for missing DM"

"Local asteroid diner threatened by corporate takeover."

Actually that ghost one was more like "Unrepentant Scrooge hires local exorcists" but that's not seven words.

Joel Harmon

@AncientSwordRage One likely underplayed aspect here are that Romeo and Juliet are something like 16 and 13 years old, respectively.

Another aspect is that the play is basically a lust story taking place over a long weekend.

Shalvenay

@BESW makes me think of Sully from Monsters Inc.

BESW

One from an actual D&D game: "Long lost twin leads unholy vermin army"

AncientSwordRage

03:35

@JoelHarmon not sure what you mean by underplayed? As in not many people know that?

@JoelHarmon also that's one reading but not the only one

Joel Harmon

@AncientSwordRage That, and how Romeo starts off the play pining over his dear, sweet... Rosaline.

AncientSwordRage

Especially when you consider when it was written

Joel Harmon

Most modern renditions put them at late teens, maybe early 20s, and I generally don't have a ton of faith in folks knowing stuff like that.

AncientSwordRage

I mean readings of the actual play

I think there's more that one layer to it

Upstart Crow, whilst being mostly satire, at least levies the idea that the original intention is probably different to the modern reading

@BESW that's cool

@BESW favourite

Joel Harmon

@AncientSwordRage I'm not aware of any proposed timescale that is longer than a week to go from Rosaline infatuation to Julet-induced suicide.

BESW

03:44

If somebody said "Romeo and Juliet" to me in the context of pitching an adventure, I'd assume they mean the pop culture memetic concept of the couple, rather than anything to do specifically with the text of even the most well-known version of the story.

@AncientSwordRage The player leaned into alignment explorations; his PC had a dragon mother (Lawful Good) and a minotaur father (Chaotic Evil), so he was Chaotic Good and his twin sister was Lawful Evil. They parted ways and she came back as a Blackguard of the Vermin God, leading an icky army.

@AncientSwordRage That was a fun game of InSpectres!

AncientSwordRage

@BESW magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/…

Similar story idea

Joshua

04:02

Has anybody destroyed an entire plane yet? Last time I found a working mechanism everybody was still assuming they're planet-sized, which they're not.

Although that does cause problems specifically for the abyss if it's infinite. It's supposed to be under high pressure from souls filling it.

Joel Harmon

04:23

@Joshua In D&D lore? In actual games? Do you count demi-planes and extradimensional spaces?

Joshua

(And that's why this isn't on the main site.) Anything with an infinite extent; game or theoretical.

BESW

I once broke the Plane of Indefinite Article, but I'm not sure it counts as "destroyed."

It just started... leaking.

Joshua

Never heard of that one.

BESW

The Plane of Indefinite Article is a massive honeycomb of impenetrable cells. Whenever you read about 'an extradimensional space' like the inside of a bag of holding, that's an extrusion into one of the cells on the Plane of Indefinite Article.

Joshua

ah; I see. I guess somebody got tired of them just being on the astral plane.

BESW

04:31

All extradimensional spaces described with an indefinite article are cells on the Plane of Indefinite Article.

Where "somebody" is the group I was playing with at the time, yes.

Joshua

You just reminded me. I really want to put a bag of holding inside itself.

BESW

I broke it by putting an extremely high-level magical artefact into a bag of holding, while the item was 1/3 of the way between two planes and the bag of holding was 1/2 of the way between two planes.

Joshua

Put a teleportation circle there and planeshift to it while holding the ag should do it.

well that's new I've not seen a definition of 1/2 of the way between two planes before.

though then again it should exist because rope trick

BESW

A paranoid dragon had a wizard twist him and his treasure cave so that it was halfway between two planes, preventing anyone from ever stealing his hoard again.

Joshua

sounds like the dragon failed a Wisdom check

BESW

04:37

...We were level 32 adventurers who wanted to steal an artefact from his hoard, and had the Arcana check to ALMOST nail shifting exactly halfway between two planes.

Joshua

... 32!

You just might have been able to outright survive the first trap of つてしんす

BESW

Yeah, I remember it was 32 because at level 33 my shapeshifter would have been able to become a Tarrasque.

Joshua

ok now I'm worried

I have no idea how spell immunity is going to interact with anti-magic-field

BESW

But I retired them because they were making the rest of the party feel unnecessary, and went back to my archlich librarian who was powerful but not "treats monster manuals like lists of prepared spells" powerful.

Joshua

lol yeah

the DM got worried when half way through a fight at level 1 I asked "what's our longitude?" because my character would know but I didn't yet

BESW

04:47

I actually made a bard because bards were almost impossible to REALLY overpower so I could go hard with the build and still not outshine the others, but the session before I was ready to bring my bard in, somebody else very proudly presented their new bard character who was "as broken as possible" and I didn't have the heart to show them what I'd managed with a very similar build.

Joshua

:(

BESW

Invisible inaudible intangible Tiny-sized flying bard who just adds massive numbers and dice to everyone else's rolls.

"We don't know what's going on but we're feeling very good about it."

Joshua

There's a reason my lair's traps don't allow saving throws unless you got a 10th level spell slot somehow.

BESW

I'm just glad I'm out of systems where that kind of thing matters anymore.

Joshua

I see.

BESW

04:50

It was fun for a while but eventually system mastery starts becoming the point instead of a tool.

Joshua

I guess my "treat the entire manual as one big puzzle" approach is no longer to your taste.

BESW

I understand the Sherlockian Game but it's not what I want from an RPG.

(That is, taking a collection of texts that were written haphazardly without any thought toward consistency or realism, and treating the texts as if they really are documentation of a coherent reality.)

Partly I think my disinterest came from seeing 4e actually achieve what I was pretending 3e was attempting, and it was fun but I "solved" it and now I'm done playing that game--especially with texts that weren't written for the purpose.

Joshua

I see.

BESW

Amusingly 3e occasionally played the Sherlockian Game with itself, such as when the ELH tried to backwards-engineer 'rules' for spell design based on the spells in the PHB.

Joshua

Yeah there's no way player spell design won't be horribly broken.

BESW

05:00

Heh. Then I read DFRPG's spell creation section and was "oooh, so you CAN do it. If you work in a system which values it."

I had expected 5e to iterate on 4e's implicit system of relative feature values to implement its promised multi-edition plug-and-play module structure, but we all know how that turned out.

And by then I'd realized I wasn't just dissatisfied with any particular edition of D&D, but with the basic premises of the whole franchise.

Joshua

And I was hoping somebody would get a laugh at details when I decided to make a fireball scroll fire resistant.

But yeah I get it.

BESW

Holly Gramazio wrote a twitter thread of "ten things I've read that I think about a surprising amount while working" on game design. (Focused on video games but useful for TRPG design as well)

Pandion Games shared on twitter three "gorgeous spreads for some of the #LATAM Breakout games!"

"The BAD TIME Game Jam! - A BAD TIME SRD" article by Hessan Yongdi on Hessan's County. It is that time again. Time to explore a new SRD!

"Working on a Dime | Ep 20 - Anticipation: Creating Suspense in TTRPGs, with Adam Vass" video interview

Cezar Capacle wrote a twitter thread of "#ttrpg projects that are currently itchfunding!"

momatoes wonders on twitter "what makes "swag" more appealing in a KS than a preorder?"

Idle Cartulary wrote a twitter thread "about interesting random tables"

MothLands wrote a twitter thread about "what playing [At Death's Door] is like."

Wordle Wizard by breathingstories. You are a wizard, using wordle to cast arcane rituals and solve peoples problems.

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AncientSwordRage

09:01

@Glazius I think I need to rethink my approach to ~~solving~~ splicing core and accelerated

BESW

@AncientSwordRage "solving"?

AncientSwordRage

@BESW splicing*

BESW

09:17

Hmm. I've successfully run Accelerated characters alongside Core characters and the only concession I made was to standardize their maximum ranks and "refresh" (I don't use Refresh but that's the equivalent to what I did)

Specifically, Atomic Robo PCs and Masters of Umdaar PCs.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I need to 'refresh' my knowledge of Fate by the sounds of it

@BESW but they were solely using one system

BESW

Refresh is the number of fate points you reset to if you have fewer than that number at the start of a session. You get more stunt slots by reducing your Refresh value.

AncientSwordRage

That's just jogged a memory and also makes sense

BESW

Instead, I use a set number of fate points to reset to for every PC all the time, and if they want more stunt slots then I get a fate point for the GM pool at the start of each scene for each stunt above the default number that the PCs in that scene have.

AncientSwordRage

Interesting

I haven't thought through if magic stunts should refresh from the same pool as non-magic stunts

BESW

09:23

One of the major philosophical design changes Fate made when it transitioned from 3 to Core/Accelerated, was to remove subtraction. Rolls never get penalties, instead the other side of the roll gets a bonus.

AncientSwordRage

And maybe just give everyone a free stunt that used an approach for magic

BESW

I applied the same philosophy to Refresh and found it wanting.

Instead of forcing players to choose between stunts and fate points, I now have players choose if they want to amplify the power level of the scenes their PCs are in.

AncientSwordRage

That sounds more funner

BESW

I thought so.

Question: will every PC in your game be wielding magic this way?

AncientSwordRage

Yes

At least that would be the intention

BESW

09:29

Okay that makes things a LOT easier.

AncientSwordRage

I haven't got anything planned so a player might say they don't want magic ... But 🤷🏻‍♂️

BESW

Hrmm. I have an idea for a wildly different way to handle your magic.

But its expression depends on what magic IS in your world.

Is magic expressed through character identity? that is, if somebody's mundanely sneaky does that get amplified into magic, or are they only magically sneaky and otherwise might be a loudmouth klutz?

Also: is magic something that dominates a person's identity? Is it like "I'm a wizard, I don't have time for other hobbies" or more "I picked up this spell while working my second job as a baker"

AncientSwordRage

@BESW my intent is the later

BESW

Awesome.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW hmmm is there room for both?

BESW

09:42

....yes, I think I can swing that.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I think core definitely works better for 'full time wizard' based on my reading of the sample characters

BESW

> Mystic Knack Whenever you invoke one of your character aspects for +2, you can make your action magical and get +3 instead of +2. Magical actions can roll to attempt things which would normally be so impossible no roll would be allowed.

AncientSwordRage

Shiny

BESW

If that's too powerful, add "Choose a character aspect other than your high concept when you take this stunt" and make it only apply to that aspect.

AncientSwordRage

Fun, and each character would get that?

BESW

09:47

I might prefer that anyway. One part of your life has become magical. Take the stunt multiple times to be a wizard who's filled his life with magic.

Yeah, give everybody the stunt once for free and if they want to focus on magic they can take it more on their own.

Hrmm.

[fine-tunes]

> Magic Knack Choose a character aspect other than your high concept when you take this stunt. Whenever you invoke that aspect for +2 or a re-roll, you can make the action magical. Magical actions can attempt things which would normally be so impossible no roll would be allowed. (This stunt can be taken multiple times; choose a new character aspect each time.)

AncientSwordRage

@BESW there might be some variations and then they can pick?

BESW

Aye.

> MYSTIC PATRON You can draw on your relationship with a mystical being to achieve supernatural effects. Consult with the table and together define your patron with three aspects: a high concept, what they expect of you, and a domain they cannot influence. You can invoke and be compelled by these aspects as if they were your own.
When you invoke them for +2 or a re-roll, you can make the affected action magical. Magical actions can attempt things which would normally be so impossible no roll would be allowed.

Now, by tying magic to fate points I'm making it special without making it rare.

You could instead do something like...

> Magic Knack Choose a character aspect other than your high concept when you take this stunt. Opponents cannot succeed with style against you on actions related to that aspect, and once per scene you can make an action related to the aspect magical. Magical actions can attempt things which would normally be so impossible no roll would be allowed. (This stunt can be taken multiple times; choose a new character aspect each time.)

Notice that the big thing I'm doing with all of these, is NOT introducing new layers like a new skill or approaches. Instead I'm taking something they are/do already and giving it passive or activated "be awesome" moments.

This is a fundamental shift from D&D's "magic is mechanics and features added on top" approach.

...actually I might just steal Atomic Robo's "better than" mechanic.

You can take a stunt that basically says "pick something humans can be or do like 'strong' or 'fast.' You are better than a human at that: you auto-succeed at anything a human could roll to attempt, and you can roll to attempt things humans would auto-fail at."

Then it has you pick a weakness, which doesn't have to be related at all but it's something you can be easily compelled for like "afraid of heights" or "obviously a stranger."

AncientSwordRage

10:11

@BESW ahh right so this isn't splicing stuff from the two different systems?

It's early here (by my count)

I almost put coffee grounds in my porridge so forgive me if these things should be obvious

BESW

Haha nice

Yeah, I'm offering another alternative to skills that's rooted in characterization like approaches are: key magic off aspects.

You could even... hm.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW gotcha, a frame challenge of sorts

I think the main thing I want to avoid is Derek the wizard knows the Unlock Doors spell, and uses their Lore skills

BESW

Ah.

Have you looked at the SRD's magic options?

AncientSwordRage

Like thats not fundamentally bad, but I like 'Jill the baker is so <Approach> that she can XYZ' (I got nothing, started second coffee though)

@BESW maybe ? Once, some time ago, while also looking at work stuff ... possibly?

BESW

Do you want magic to be dangerous?

AncientSwordRage

10:22

Not by default

BESW

> - Tone: Is magic a neutral force, a flavored force, or something with opinions?
- Cost: Does magic demand a price, a risk, or neither?
- Limits: Does magic follow strict rules? Is it flexible and open-ended? What are the limits on magic?
- Availability: Is magic universally available, so everyone in a setting might have it? Is it rare enough that only some people have it, possibly including all the PCs? Or is it rare enough that only one or two PCs might have access to it?
- Source: Where does magic come from?

from Fate SRD - Fate System Toolkit - Magic

AncientSwordRage

This seems important for me to have read

Glazius

10:39

Specifically in there, the Six Viziers system is a way of having magical elements that enhance the mundane skills you're already good at.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius that's going to fit well with what I've got in mind

Glazius

But, like, just as a simple for instance, consider John Snoop, Whisper Mage, high concept "I Was Never Here". In a full approaches + skills setup they might be Sneak Magic +3, Stealth +4 Deceive +3 Burglary +3. When would they use Sneak Magic over their mundane snoop skills, or vice versa? Did they screw up during character creation by making both of them high priority?

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius to the last question, maybe?

I wonder if there would need to be a) a way to make sure your Approach is higher than your skill and b) a flaw/limitation associated with using the approach

Jan 21 '19 at 1:02, by BESW

> Implacable Pursuit. You can move through solid matter with ease. Ignore physical obstacles, but weak against metaphysical barriers.

I like the idea of this, but tying it to a character being Forceful where another skill doesn't make sense.

Mar 26 '17 at 12:42, by BESW

> Death Perception. You can use Notice to create advantages representing a target's metaphysical weak spot.

Or that but swap out notice for Careful

Dec 4 '20 at 14:21, by BESW

There's a game where one of the example characters can summon knives and is very good at using them. As you gain power (which is dangerous but usually inevitable) you learn to summon more kinds of knives... but you also learn to use the knives to greater effect. You can cut the tension in a room, or the connection between siblings.

Or you can do the last sentence effect by using/invoking Quick or Sneaky

I almost wrote snarky and now I want to make a set of alternative approaches based on that kind of thing

Car-full, Cleaver, Fleshy, Farce-full, Click, Snarky....?

Going back to my attempt at splicing Approaches and Skills, I'm picking up might not want to make the players pick between them, so you can only use Stealthy in certain circumstances say

BESW

This is where "cost" would naturally come in: the question "if you can do a normal thing better with magic, why don't you just always do that?"

Glazius

Cowardly, Mouthy, Showy, Pushy, Flighty, Snarky.

BESW

10:53

Dresden Accelerated changed them to Flair, Focus, Force, Guile, Haste, and Intellect.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius that first one make me think of Bad* Ensigns (it's not Bad, it's a swear, so I swapped it out), might be a fun setting for those approaches

@BESW yup, need to cogitate on that

BESW

Maybe it's a social pressure: magic is forbidden, don't get caught.

Or a resource pressure: you can only use magic once per scene, make it count.

Or a consequence pressure: every spell costs one stress, don't push too hard.

AncientSwordRage

Or some mix

BESW

If magic doesn't have a pressure on it, that's absolutely fine but it totally changes how we use it.

AncientSwordRage

Like either high-prestige magic is allowed (some aspects, maybe a highly restricted Skill based magic) but others are considered low-prestige?

Taking a leaf from linguistics terminology there

BESW

10:58

Hedge magic vs Tower magic, that's a fun distinction to play with in some settings.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that ties with the exhaustion/exertion idea for the RPG I'm using

@BESW what if tower magic always costs a stress but there is social pressure on hedge magic?

do any of the fate varieties put a limit on stress per scene?

BESW

@AncientSwordRage Dresden Files likes tying magic to a control skill, and if you succeed at gathering the power but fail the control check you either let the magic go and things explode instead of the spell working, or your force the spell to work but take your power check in stress.

@AncientSwordRage Not sure what you mean?

afk need food

AncientSwordRage

Because as soon as we talk about bans on magic I think of the cut scene from Baldur's Gate II where Irenicus fights the Cowled Wizards

@BESW interesting

Glazius

You're saying "you have 6 stress but you can only take 3 from magic"? The preferred approach would just be to give you a 3-magic stress track.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW like, if you take more than X stress in a scene, you need to recover?

Glazius

11:03

"if you take more than X stress in a scene, you need to recover" is called "consequences".

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius my interest is in making players choose if taking stress from magic is worth not being able to take stress from elsewhere

Like, if you incur stress from opening a locked door with magic you can't run as well/far from the guard who spots you

@Glazius I should re-read to the rules

Glazius

For that you might consider a Conditions track (fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/conditions) where only half the Conditions apply to taking stress from magic.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius that's very much what I'm thinking

Using more than 1+ Some level equivalent magic in a scene gives you a condition

Separately, would letting the previous example of 'John Snoop' add sneaky and stealth (for a whopping +7) with caveats (automatic condition, once per game session etc) be workable?

I need to go be productive this morning, and not just noodle about hacking FATE, so I'll pop back later

Glazius

11:19

I mean, I'll be honestly, my particular dog in this fight is to use Approach Magic like Atomic Robo's Science skill, where on its own it just sits there being theoretical and in order to bring it to life you have two options:

1) pay a stunt cost to reflect a magical item or signature spell that does what stunts can do, including substituting Approach Magic for another skill under certain circumstances

2) "work magic" by creating a temporary stunt that comes at some fictional costs in time, care, and materials and a story cost in that the GM gets points in their reserve the same way they would if you overstunted

bleah, not "a story cost", a mechanical cost.

Like: John Snoop's Shadow Shroud (function: Shadows Flicker Unseen/flaw: Shadows Flee From Light) - absolutely capable of evading mundane detection (as an Overcome with Stealth) but at a cost.

(in this case the "at a cost" means the GM is free to compel the spell's flaw, by say having the item John Snoop came here to steal on a floodlit pedestal so they'll need to employ other means to avoid detection)

John Snoop could either use one of his stunt slots or pay a refresh to have that available all the time, or it could be something he develops during play, rolling Sneak Magic to "invent it" and dropping a point in the GM's Reserve every time he "prepares it for use" during a session.

You could also bring his Sneak Magic rating into play if there isn't just mundane security but also some kind of detection magic.

The advantage here is that John Snoop has a reason both to be good at mundane sneaky skills (to work around flaws in his magic) and to be good at Sneak Magic (to both better his existing skills and counter magical opposition)

AncientSwordRage

11:39

@Glazius so, to recap the example, to check I've understood: Snoop can use Stealth somewhere it wouldn't normally be able to (Overcome) but there's a flaw. Then can either use a resource to bypass the flaw, or use Sneaky Magic at a different cost?

@Glazius I like that principle

Glazius

The Shadow Shroud is an "absolute ability" which in Robo terminology means it can do whatever a successful overcome can do.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius ah like an auto success

Gotcha

But in this example, it won't work as the item is too well lit?

Glazius

Specifically if the GM compels the flaw and says the item is too well lit, darn the luck.

AncientSwordRage

Mmhmmm

Glazius

It also won't automatically work if there's something else operating that would qualify as an absolute ability.

But that's more a matter of deciding what the opposition is.

AncientSwordRage

11:44

Random thought: a game of Demon: the Descent with rules like this, where the absolute ability would be like an exploit

@Glazius I see

Glazius

If it's protected by magic that could absolutely penetrate mundane stealth, then John Snoop is back to making opposed overcomes.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius sounds like it could be a very fun system

Glazius

I stan hard for Atomic Robo, admittedly.

But in your case you'd be well-served by going over the little bit in the SRD on magic, the longer discussion in the System Toolkit on magic, maybe Robo's invention section if you want to get your crunch on, and see what best fits the way you want magic to be expressed by your players.

trogdor

12:23

Atomic Robo is pretty nice for crunch that's for sure

AncientSwordRage

12:37

I find crunch delicious

nitsua60

15:06

Alright, Latin scholars: I'm sitting in a room where the Latin teacher has clearly assigned the students to create memes as a little project. Many are variations on the phrase "Quintus in impluvio est."

What's that mean?

Someone_Evil

?

AncientSwordRage

15:28

@nitsua60 Google translate gave me 'fifth is in sky', but from my basic french, that might be 'rain' not sky

Then I looked for those keywords and meme on Google and came across the 'Rain in May' meme

It's the fifth month

knowyourmeme.com/videos/354785-heaven-stairway-incident

(video doesn't autoplay)

So it could be that

AncientSwordRage

21:40

@nitsua60 did you get to the bottom of it?

@BESW did you get that foods?

BESW

22:17

@AncientSwordRage Yes, but also finally got the last parts needed to assemble the memorial slideshow I'm presenting in two hours.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW That also sounds vital

Hot RPG Questions

22:45

2

Q: Is a weapon proficiency also a skill proficiency, or are the two things completely distinct from each other?

A simple question to answer, I thought, but so far I've been unable to find a reference that really clarifies it. The context for it is the Skill Expert feat in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Part of the feat description is given thus: Choose one skill in which you have proficiency. You gain ex...

dnd-5e weapons skills proficiency

BESW

That disability mechanics for D&D book hit Kickstarter and it's still got all the problems and exposed a few more.

AncientSwordRage

23:44

@BESW yeah it's quite depressing to see

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