TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:02

"Game Hype Feb 2022" by bankuei on Deeper In The Game. I picked up quite a few games recently and have been slowly going through them.

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast sure!

although...it froze :/

oh there we go

V2Blast

@KorvinStarmast Not that I know of

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay on phone with son

BESW

02:54

@AncientSwordRage Something else got me thinking about the problems with Heinlein's "competent man" ideology and I feel like that's another useful to lens to bring to the competent-characters-derail-campaigns issue, but I'm not sure yet exactly how.

Something something interdependence something something fallible people something something dramatic choices something something

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I think there's a big difference between Heinlein's 'Specialization is for insects' and Ginny Di's 'if your ranger is good against dragons let them fight dragons'

She's almost arguing for specialization

BESW

Totally!

AncientSwordRage

You could somehow work strengths and weaknesses into a group thing

BESW

The issue I see isn't in her argument, it's in the problem she's trying to solve.

AncientSwordRage

I getcha now

Technical Solutions Vs Adaptive Solutions

BESW

02:59

A lot of speculative fiction and individual philosophy falls prey to Heinlein's ideology, and it's infested D&D character design in a lot of ways. One of the things people were vocally displeased with in 4e was that it flagged each class as specialized for a role in the group.

The very notion of "character optimization" tends to be read as an attempt to design the Competent Man who doesn't need the rest of the party, rather than designing characters whose competencies complement each other.

AncientSwordRage

Do you think that's because a lot of people see their character as the hero of their story?

BESW

I think it's absolutely a problem that so many of the game's media references --both in the text and in the player base-- tend to be stories about singular hero protagonists, when the game itself assumes a troupe.

AncientSwordRage

So how about, in a mouseguard type system where you need success and failure to advance a skill (to go to level n, you need n successes and n+1 fails) you reward helping by counting helping as either/or a free one?

BESW

That's one way to mechanize it, yeah.

You can also make features that inherently complement each other, like how in 4e the warlord could grant free basic attacks to their allies, and this became much more beneficial when 4e Essentials came out with classes that all used their basic attacks to great effect.

Or incentivize resource-sharing by mitigating the risk of failure like how Lady Blackbird gives you back the dice you shared if the roll failed; you only lose the resource if the helping actually helped.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that's interesting

Shalvenay

03:10

@BESW yeah, it's also an ideology that tends to get in the way when you start talking about Human Factors stuff

BESW

I think the influence of the Competent Man is also at play when people feel like, for example, it's "unrealistic" for players to self-compel in Fate.

The Durian Hotel from DenMother Plays. A Call of Cthulhu Modern Story set in one of Davao City’s beloved landmarks.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW go on... I'm not really familiar with how FATE gets played

BESW

@AncientSwordRage In Fate you start out with a handful of points that you can spend to get +2 on a roll, a re-roll, or to declare that something useful is true ("I knew the bouncer in college," "the gun is jammed," "there's a phone booth nearby where I can change into my costume").

You get the points back at the start of every session, and if someone spends points against you, you usually get those points at the end of the scene. But there's a much more dramatic and central way to get more points during a scene: have something happen which makes your character's life more difficult or dramatic.

AncientSwordRage

03:27

Ahhh, and picking something yourself is a self-compel

BESW

This is called a "compel" and it can be anything from "the mafia shows up to collect their debt in the middle of your date" to "you decide this is a good time to flirt with the President's bodyguard."

AncientSwordRage

Like "I know the bouncer but I owe him my life savings"?

BESW

Right!

AncientSwordRage

That sounds fun but also something I'd have to get used to

BESW

If anybody suggests a compel and you accept it, you get a fate point (maybe two if it's super juicy) but you have to spend a fate point to reject the compel--unless you're the one who suggested it, then it's free to go "nah, never mind."

This is the core of the Fate game's pacing: you spend fate points to get out of trouble or succeed, and dramatic stuff happens to refill your tank.

Self-compels are great because they give the player control of that "refill the tank" phase, both when and how it happens.

Almost every version of Fate encourages players to have at least one character aspect (short phrase describing something that's always true about the character, which fate points can be spent on to make relevant to the action or scene) designed specifically to tap on and go "give me a fate point please."

This is often called the 'trouble aspect.' It could be Can't pass up a bet and you get a fate point for saying that the bouncer's your bookie who wants to collect.

(Having one dedicated trouble aspect can get a bit one-note, I'm not a fan of that; I prefer aspects that can be "double-edged".)

Some people don't like being expected to self-inflict dramatic moments on their characters, and that's totally understandable as a playstyle choice. But sometimes it seems like instead they feel it's the character self-inflicting trouble on themselves, rather than the player conspiring with the rest of the table to make the story more interesting.

AncientSwordRage

03:37

@BESW "Nobody calls McFly chicken"

BESW

Exactly.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I bet there're was if phrasing it to mitigate that feeling

It can be viewed in a positive light but is open to being 'abused'

BESW

I had a character who was really REALLY into knowing all the guidelines and rules. One of her aspects was There's a protocol for that which was great for knowing the right way to do something... but awful when we were in a hurry or corners needed cutting.

@AncientSwordRage Fate is a game that doesn't put a lot of bumpers on the sides to avoid "misusing" rules, and instead makes it clear that the table needs to figure out what's acceptable and never use the rules to justify a choice that someone at the table doesn't like.

BESW

03:55

@AncientSwordRage I had a great moment where a friend who'd been struggling with compels clicked with it. His character had just put on a mind-controlling Walkman and rolled REALLY badly to resist. He piled up all his fate points and they were just barely enough to resist... but I offered him one fate point to instead accept the bad roll and be mind controlled, saying "I think you'll enjoy this."

He kept his pile of points and added mine to it, and got to be the center of attention in the dramatic finale a couple scenes later when his character turned on the party in the middle of an already-tense situation.

We all got to spend the rest of the session deliciously anticipating the reveal that Leela wasn't herself. And then he used all his points and bonuses on BETRAYAL which was an excellent proactive moment, rather than draining all his points into NOTHING HAPPENS.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW abused its the wrong word.... Reappropriated for self-compels

@BESW that's cool

Glazius

@AncientSwordRage In second edition, you can spend a "downtime check" to mark a pass/fail on the skill you helped with per the result of the check, and helping on success and failure will get you an advancement on your Wises. ...though really, you'll be helping whenever you can because while the mechanical price of failure may be constrained, the consequences of failure blow back to the whole patrol.

AncientSwordRage

@Glazius I need to get my hands on edition 2

BESW

And because it was a Doctor Who game and Leela fatally stabbed the Doctor in the back --biggest attack numbers I've ever seen!-- it led to a regeneration scene where the Doctor's sheet was handed to another player who got to change one aspect on it for free, and the Doctor's previous player became a new companion.

The Land Beyond by Cezar Capacle. A solo RPG about letting go

The Tears of a Machine SC by Russell C. The Tears of a Machine SC is a mecha-drama table top role-playing game of giant robots and young adult pilots.

"How an RPG is written makes a big difference to how it plays" by Nevyn Holmes for Dicebreaker. Reading an RPG can give you a whole new kind of insight into how it works and what it’s saying.

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: How does Dark Speech interact with spells like Magic Mouth and Programmed Illusion?

The Book of Vile Darkness has the property Dark Speech which lists it as While you carry the Book of Vile Darkness and are attuned to it, you can use an action to recite words from its pages in a foul language known as Dark Speech. Each time you do so, you take 1d12 psychic damage, and each non-...

AncientSwordRage

04:07

@BESW that's awesome

BESW

@AncientSwordRage Honestly the swapping-players-when-the-Doctor-regenerates thing is probably a solid 1/3 of why I wanted to run that game.

...and a lot of the rest of it was that I'd written an adventure about my favorite bit of personal Wildly Improbable To Ever Be Confirmed lore interpretation.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW it all sounds amazing 🥺

BESW

It was also kinda proof-of-concept that Fate could easily handle a lot of different "power levels" of characters in the same team without any problems with spotlight sharing.

We had "airline attendant" and "teenage explosives expert" alongside "shapeshifting robot" and "immortal alien super-genius."

The airline attendant was probably the most helpful person in the group, honestly, because she was good at keeping her head in a crisis and making sure everybody followed the plan.

AncientSwordRage

04:28

@BESW that's vital

Hot RPG Questions

06:34

3

Q: What are the odds of rolling high all the time?

So, I have a suspicion that a player in an online game is... being creative in the way they call their dice rolls. I play with them in several games, and in 2 games I have convinced the DM to enforce online rolling, but in the 3rd game that is unlikely to happen. Today I noted all their D20 dice ...

statistics dice

Hot RPG Questions

09:26

1

Q: Is there precedent for how players identify the capabilities of Artifacts (outside the DMG)?

Question first: Are there precedents outside the DMG for differences in players identifying the capabilities of Artifacts as opposed to other magical items? This could be a rule in a sourcebook, a specific item in an adventure, or anything else. Background: Artifacts are a type of magic item, and...

dnd-5e magic-items

NautArch

13:57

I just had a comment removed, not entirely sure why.

Any mods around?

Someone_Evil

Let me check

Uhm... where and/or when posted?

NautArch

3

Q: Is there precedent for how players identify the capabilities of Artifacts (outside the DMG)?

Question first: Are there precedents outside the DMG for differences in players identifying the capabilities of Artifacts as opposed to other magical items? This could be a rule in a sourcebook, a specific item in an adventure, or anything else. Background: Artifacts are a type of magic item, and...

dnd-5e magic-items

It was under the question asking OP to confirm what they mean by precedents.

Someone_Evil

There are no deleted comments on that post. Something in the pipes must have eaten it

NautArch

The pipes must be clean!

Someone_Evil

I think I found it. See under the top answer

BESW

14:02

Maybe it was baptised by Omi.

NautArch

@Someone_Evil posting before coffee. bad idea.

Hot RPG Questions

18:03

1

Q: Does a character know the properties of a magic item when they buy it from a vendor?

Some published modules in D&D 5e have NPCs that can act as magic item vendors, e.g. from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. If a player character buys a magic item from such an NPC, I presume it is logical that the NPC knows about the nature of the wares they're selling. Would this also mean that the item is ...

dnd-5e magic-items

Thomas Markov

18:57

I think I got this question in shape for reopening.

NautArch

@V2Blast Much better - thanks again!

@ThomasMarkov That's a tough one.

goodguy5

19:38

@ThomasMarkov I'm thinking about downvoting your initiative = combat answer.

lemme think on it some more

Thomas Markov

@goodguy5 but why

goodguy5

Because I think I disagree with it.

But I'm a little distracted and I want to make sure I reread the question and answer

Thomas Markov

@goodguy5 It seems like a pretty plain reading of the rules, I'm interested to hear your objection.

NautArch

20:07

I've used initiative outside of comment

But I'm not sure that's the question.

V2Blast

20:17

@BESW I really want to play more Fate sometime (especially with a GM who better understands the system and how it should work). I've enjoyed what little of it I've gotten to play, but at least one of my GMs for it seemed to be coming at it from a D&D mindset and struggled with it.

goodguy5

20:30

Ah, I'd misread the question that it pertained to Assassins.

I thought it was asking "are there other uses for initiative"

carry on

doppelgreener

20:42

vote to delete, totally off topic programming question: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/196357/1204

goodguy5

@doppelgreener weirdly, they have thousands of rep on main stack

Xirema

I wonder if maybe they don't understand the separation of the stack sites, i.e. they think "oh, it's just different wallpapers for the same site!"

Tumblr kind of works that way.

Posts can look extremely different depending on whether you view them on your dashboard, or on the various profiles of the people who reposted them.

bobble

@Xirema Puzzling had a user insisting their question must be on-topic because they saw an analogy to a question on Code Golf

goodguy5

@Xirema maybe. I'd more suspect that they were browsing around the stack and accidentally posted a programming question here

Thomas Markov

Could have been posted from the mobile app, it doesnt have theming.

Xirema

20:48

That seems very plausible.

doppelgreener

oh true

good theory

Thomas Markov

Or could just be a brain fart.

Happens to all of us.

The other day I threw an unopened box of cereal in the trash can and put the empty box back in the pantry.

goodguy5

I hate when I do things like that.

Or put my cup down and start to take my toothbrush to the other room

Wait, what kind of cereal?

Also, obligatory, you should be recycling.

Thomas Markov

I once found a spoon in my pocket and my phone in a bowl of water in the sink.

goodguy5

I just recoiled in horror

Thomas Markov

20:54

This was back when I used a flip phone, so a new device was only like $30.

@goodguy5 We don't have recycling services near me, unfortunately.

goodguy5

fair enough

Thomas Markov

We do reuse reusable containers though.

Supplement tubs and deli meat containers fill my cabinets.

goodguy5

ugh, I long for the days of reinforced paper chinese takeout containers and non plastic deli meat wrapping

NautArch

21:37

I just long for a day where the deli meat packaging doesn't tear open when you try and undo the sticker.

Feeds

21:56

Needles & Nilbogs: One year!

posted on February 24, 2022 by Bardic Wizard

So tomorrow, to steal the term used by some bloggers I like, is my “blogversary”, the 1 year anniversary of my first post. I’m really proud because it means I’ve kept this up for a whole year! One thing I learned from blogging is that writing regularly is really hard. I keep putting things out that I’m not proud of, because if I miss a week for no reason, I feel guilty. I don’t put up wel…

goodguy5

@NautArch oh, I tell them not to put the sticker on in a way that closes it, and I won't take it if they do

a little karen-esque, but it's such a simple solution

I don't know what dummy decided that was a better method.

TheDragonOfFlame

23:56

Anyone familiar with the “When Armies Clash” UA?

Nevermind, I think this might make a good main site question

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