TRPG General Chat

Ben

00:07

@AncientSwordRage if it did, it would be heresy on so many levels

linksassin

@NautArch Ok sure but take it to the extreme. Currently there is 15 skills and most characters get 3-5 proficiencies. With a reasonable spread across the party there might only be 2-3 skills where Jack of All Trades is the best available proficiency. Add 4 additional skills and don't balance proficient now there is 6-7 skills where JoAT is the best prof in the party. Doubling its effectiveness.

Basically I don't want to end up in a Pathfinder/3.5e situation where the Bard is the skill monkey and there is no point anyone else attempting things because the bard will just be better at it because skill monkey.

AncientSwordRage

@Ben worth it

linksassin

Maybe I'm overestimating the risk. But I'd like an answer to show that if I am.

@NautArch Perhaps. But I think in this case the "Y" is that I've created a campaign with a heavy focus on actions that typically use the Survival skill.

Ben

@AncientSwordRage new character arc: "Does it toast?" Test every device and see if it toasts bread in a similar way to a toaster.

The first item: a small metal box that provides very little light from a small red LED, and a small amount of heat from the small slots at the top, for a short period of time. Used as an emergency light source for up to 7 minutes, and a heat source for up to 7 minutes, when bread is inserted, it comes out as charcoal.

AncientSwordRage

00:27

@Ben I am a small metal box that heats bread... Wait no that's an SCP

Ben

Other buttons on the side marked with strange glyphs and symbols "REHEAT" and "DEFROST" (I am yet to determine their origin/meaning... I am feeling it might be Tau or Dark Eldar), are both highly inefficient, providing light and heat for a greatly reduced time frame. "CANCEL" seems to be broken, as it shuts down the box operation automatically.

Outcome: not a toaster. Next on "Does it Toast?" - Melta fuel

NautArch

00:51

@linksassin Do you have some examples of these actions?

linksassin

@NautArch I've just added a bunch to the question.

NautArch

01:05

@linksassin I think you have a lot of opportunity to play around with abilities and skills. As a quick example: "Estimating travel times and determining the safest route."

That could easily be Perception(Intelligence)

You don't need to be so literal with Survival and can dig into the specific actions and how they'd work.

Thinking of travel times is like consider where you are, where you need to go and about how long it would take. I think perception with intelligence works for that.

linksassin

I do that a bit. Sometimes I'll use Intelligence (Survival) and other combinations but it always feels forced. Wisdom (Survival) is typically the best fit and trying to use something else always feels like I'm just doing it for the sake of not using Survival.

@NautArch Perception is already an overused skill so I wouldn't want to add additional things to it. Thats why I wanted to add Intelligence (Navigation).

I'd like there to be some separation between guiding the party over long distances (navigation) and guiding the party through short sections of difficult terrain (survival). But currently both fall under survival.

Someone_Evil

Just a 2c suggestion: what about varying what is the challenge for a given attempt? When trying to forage, you need a Strength (Athletics) to climb up and grab some inaccessible mushrooms (or whatever)

Pregening some tables/lists of ideas might be useful depending on your GMing style

In my experience, Wisdom (Survival) (along with some other skills) are most useful when trying to handle something without going into much detail, but if survival stuff is about half your gameplay that doesn't quite seem applicable

As a side note, there's the navigator's tools in the rules somewhere, might be useful for that specific issue

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil don’t think those are really for jungles. Think ships.

linksassin

@Someone_Evil Navigators tools specifically call out being at sea. But yes could easily use that. I prefer skills to tools though as they are more flexibly applicable. Plus tools proficiencies are rare and I always find players forget about them completely other than Thieves tools.

Thomas Markov

Let me just get out my sextant to survey this leafy canopy.

Someone_Evil

01:20

@ThomasMarkov Depending on the amount of landmarks you have, the main difference between navigating in jungles and at sea is the density of venomous spiders

linksassin

@ThomasMarkov You could easily handwave the exact nature of the tools to make it work. But fundamentally I don't think tools are as useful as skills.

Someone_Evil

Isn't your problem right now that one skill is too useful?

linksassin

Tools imply proficiency with the tools itself. If you can use the tool in that situation good, if not you won't. But a skill you can apply to a variety of things based on similar proficiency.

@Someone_Evil Yes. And using tools has been part of my current solution. I just find the players never have the tools I would want to use, or ways to gain proficiency in them.

Someone_Evil

That's fair, tools are largely forgotten by players, DMs, and the books themselves

linksassin

A skill doesn't rely on anything external like a tool does. Stripped of all equipment PCs can still make skill checks to progress.

Thomas Markov

01:25

@Someone_Evil I sometimes let my players make up tools and then give them proficiency.

linksassin

@ThomasMarkov I've done that too. But typically based on background and rarely all that useful.

One of my players has "Tailor's Tools" proficiency. Since his backstory was that his parents were tailors. Lets them repair the parties clothing and leather based armour.

linksassin

01:54

@Someone_Evil I think I might actually try to incorporate that. Pretty solid suggestion.

AncientSwordRage

02:23

I found a Google spreadsheet for calculating Atomic Robo skills, that even allows custom modes/skills

> Athletics +2; Burglary +2; Contacts +3; Deceive +5; Empathy +1; Notice +2; Provoke +4; Rapport +1; Stealth +4; Will +4; Dreaming +3;

Bound to the Book 3 (Deceive, Provoke, Stealth, Will)
Intrigue 2
Banter 1

I really like how modes work

BESW

03:12

Kintsugi by Valistarri. A one page rpg about falling apart and healing.

"Playing for Keeps: Designing Keepsake Games With Shing Yin Khor" on Atlas Obscura Experiences. In this four-part seminar, learn how to design a keepsake game that guides players toward building a story, artwork, or heirloom object as they play.

GlossandGadgets wrote a twitter thread about why consultation "is not the end all and be all of solutions"

2

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, a well-made set of modes and skills that captures the game's expectation scope, can feel almost magical.

Shalvenay

03:51

@BESW this is true more than the tweeter knows

not only is consultation only as valid as the recipient is willing to listen...adding more consultation to try to fix a physical inequity (infrastructure/landuse/...) can easily create more delay and cost inequities than the consulation can ever hope to correct)

Hot RPG Questions

09:04

6

Q: One game's great GM is another game's problem player-- How to handle for a novice GM?

So I am a player in a long-term pathfinder campaign which I like very much. The players in that campaign are myself, my fiance, the GM's fiance, and the GM's co-worker. We're all in our twenties, and I consider the GM (henceforth "problem player" or PP) and their fiance as some of my best friends...

AncientSwordRage

09:18

@BESW the only thing that gives me pause is that 'dreaming' is at +3 but other skills are at +4 or +5

BESW

10:37

@AncientSwordRage Oh, I dunno what the site you're using says, but in Atomic Robo you've always got a few extra points left over that you can use to customize your skills so not everyone with the same modes has the exact same ranks. That lets you bump a +3 up to a +5.

AncientSwordRage

11:03

@BESW ahh cool, it might be that the spreadsheet didn't go that far

or if it's just based on the SRD it doesn't reflect the book

BESW

Basically Atomic Robo uses a point buy system, and modes are pre-spent bundles of points. Any points that aren't spent in your bundle picks, you get at the end of chargen to spend as you please. Usually that's about 2 or 3 per bundle, if I remember correctly.

From the SRD:

> Reinforcement isn’t the only way for a skill to be rated higher than its mode’s rating. You can also spend excess skill points, whether during character creation, during play, or after an appropriate milestone, to improve skills as well.

The numbers for that aren't in the SRD.

I'd need to know what your Bound to the Book mode's skills are, and what applications Dreaming has, to do the special math.

But if that mode has the same point value as the other two, you would be able to pick one of these options:
> increase a +3 to a +5
> increase a +3 to a +4 AND increase a +4 to a +5 (not the same skill twice)
> increase three +3 skills to +4

AncientSwordRage

11:21

> Bound to the Book 3 (Deceive, Provoke, Stealth, Will)

@BESW ahh yup! I have only been able to focus enough to skim the SRD

BESW

(That's the "E-Z No-Math Skill Improvement" option available if your modes are Banter, Intrigue, and Action. Science costs fewer points so if one of your modes is Science then you ALSO get to bump a +3 to a +5, AND bump a +3 to a +4, AND bump a +4 to a +5. But if your special mode costs something other than those standard mode values we have to use the Weird Character breakdown and actually count points.)

@AncientSwordRage Where's Dreaming come from?

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I did not figure out for myself what the applications are, but I just wrote 2 in the spreadsheet

@BESW Oh, should be in that list 🤦‍♂️

I shall figure things out then get back to you

BESW

Okay, so that's Deceive (2), Dreaming (2), Provoke (1), Stealth (2), and Will (1) = 8 points, which is one less than the standard mode. So in addition to one of the three options above... [consults chart] Improve one +3 skill to +4.

Applications: each skill can be used with at least one action (Attack, Defend, Overcome, Create Advantage) and some skills can be used in more than one distinct way for a given action (like Athletics lets you Defend against both physical attacks and attempts to create physical advantages against you). Each of those sub-action contexts is an application.

In Atomic Robo, adding a skill to a mode costs points equal to the number of applications it allows. Each regular mode totals 9 points (Science costs 3), out of a total of 30 for the character.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW before I get back to you, (because I've slept since my initial message about modes and trying to remember stuff so you don't have to find the rules text for me) is that addition an extra option or applied to each? (e.g. increase a +3 to a +5 AND increase a +3 to a +4?)

I think I modelled Dreaming on Hallucinations?

right, I will actually stop sending messages without thinking and get coffee and water

BESW

@AncientSwordRage Pick one of the first three options. Regardless of what you pick, also do the extra thing.

AncientSwordRage

11:48

@BESW you're very good at simplifying things for me and I really appreciate that

also, I can has coffee and water

AncientSwordRage

12:29

Spit-balling/thinking-out-loud the applications of dreaming (at the risk of it becoming the Do Everything skill): Overcome/Create Advantage Similar to Lore (or just one of those? or should this be Science? Or should this be a stunt - how to make it specific enough?), Advantage like the example Hallucination: "Mike can see using those illusions to distract his opponent with imaginary enemies or immobilize them in an imaginary pit". I don't see if used for Defence or Attack ...?

AncientSwordRage

12:46

Here's where I'm hazy - if I could use Dreaming to create an advantage where I get the temporary aspect I saw it in a dream once to give me a bonus/add the overcome action to Dreaming (to be used next turn) AND use Dreaming to create an advantage aspect of like "You didn't see me, you're dreaming" for a similar thing with Stealth is that two applications?

it feels like it must be

but that could equally be one application and a stunt?

Oh no, BESW is back and I've not finished thinking

think faster, think faster!

BESW

Those feel like the same application to me: Create Advantage to implant a dream.

That would be different from, say, Create Advantage to discover a person's own dream--that's a second application.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW oooooh!

I don't think that's something I considered or would want part of the character/skill

still trying to be conscious of this:

Sep 1 at 12:16, by BESW

If somebody comes to me and says "my character is magic, so I can do anything I think of," I'm going to say no.

BESW

So you've defined "create advantages by implanting dreams" and are considering some kind of general knowledge-of-dreaming application, right?

AncientSwordRage

Not sure what we mean by "knowledge-of-dreaming application", as in 'knowledge-by-dreaming' ?

BESW

(On consideration, "you don't see me, you're dreaming" is not implanting a dream--it's persuading that reality IS a dream, which may not be in your compass at all)

> Overcome/Create Advantage Similar to Lore

AncientSwordRage

12:56

@BESW yeah so I'm trying to figure out where that line is between what is essentially 'reality control' and just 'creating hallucinations'

@BESW yes

BESW

Describe what the thing looks like in the game, then figure out the mechanics. This is how we play, it's also how we define skills or stunts.

AncientSwordRage

I will give some thought on how to describe it

BESW

Like... while sleeping you can make a Dreaming check to learn information, but it must be information that's being dreamt about by someone at that time? (the less likely it is someone's dreaming about it, the higher the difficulty; failure at cost can produce incomplete or partially-incorrect info)

> She walks through the world of dreams, peering into mindscape after mindscape, hoping to find someone's dream or nightmare about the so-called Yellow Duke. There! a fitful dream, the dreamer is near waking. The dreamer flees in terror from the Yellow Duke's castle, pursued by the Yellow Duke on a sledge drawn by skeletal dogs. In the distance three curved mountaintops jut up against a leering red moon. The Yellow Duke is upon the dreamer, and the nightmare collapses into a waking scream that brings her upright in bed with a start.

Honestly that sounds like a stunt (one of the things a stunt can do is add an approach to a skill).

AncientSwordRage

13:12

@BESW honestly that sounds more awesome than anything I've thought of

Here what I came up with for the 'What the thing looks like in the game' part:

- Looking into The Dreaming realm for knowledge on something past/future (Oneiromancy) or someone in the present but elsewhere (Clairvoyance)
- Pulling parts of The Dreaming realm (Dreamstuff) into the waking world to create illusions to either deceive people (change appearance, or turn 'unnoticeable' like a SEP field, or illicit an emotion (fear, calm, jealously) from seeing a 'dream'.

BESW

Okay, so neither of those are dream-themed. The first is ignoring time-and-space considerations, and the second is D&D's "shadow realm" illusion concept.

That's okay! We can make them more awesome.

First goal: learn stuff that's hard to learn normally, through the Power of Dreams.

AncientSwordRage

... I now have 'The power of love' playing in my head ...

BESW

So, "the power of dreams" is both our justification and our limiter. You can learn anything connected to dreams, but you can ONLY learn things connected to dreams. What does that look like, narratively? We could wave our hands and say "dreams are everywhere, so anything," but that's not just OP--it's boring.

Instead we ask "what does it look like when you sift dreams for knowledge, and what does it look like when you fail?"

AncientSwordRage

oooooh

BESW

Well, dreams are fluid, transient things. So it makes sense to limit access to them. Unless a dream is some kind of recurring cultural nightmare like "naked and forgot about the test," it doesn't stick around long after the dreamer wakes.
What does it look like to sift dreams? Urgent, impulsive, ever-shifting. Opportunities rise and die constantly.

> Dreamspy. Once per session while you sleep, you can sift through the dreams of others sleeping at the same time, and maybe learn something. To do this, initiate a challenge with the goal of learning a specific bit of information. Your tasks should include finding a knowledgeable dreamer, resisting the influence of another's dreams, and interpreting the dream accurately.

Second goal: Draw on dreams while awake, to conjure effects in the waking world.

KorvinStarmast

13:31

@linksassin Yeah, that's part of my feedback to WoTC, they are really losing their grip with the bloat.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW this is awesome

KorvinStarmast

@linksassin Plus it includes memory, which is an INT based thing usually in this edition

AncientSwordRage

I do still like the idea of doing some amount of dreamspying while 'awake' but in a trance

BESW

@AncientSwordRage I'd allow that with creating an advantage such as dream-like trance, which is probably a Will roll.

AncientSwordRage

and being in a trance means being very vulnerable/not able to hide/obvious glowing eyes or something

@BESW I had not considered doing it that way

KorvinStarmast

13:34

@Someone_Evil sailor background provides them nav tools. I have been sailor often since I spent a lot of years in the Navy and I like pirates and smugglers in games. Yeah, I had to eventually get out of that rut, but it works for me.

@NautArch @nitsua60 Got to play second session of Blades in the Dark. Only two players showed up, but we still did a Score and I had to use a lot of stress to help; got some trauma, GM and I are going to figure out just what it is. We are all beginners. My big chance to shoot the demon was a bust, though...missed both times with my electroplasmic ammo.

BESW

> Dreamweaver (skill) This skill lets you tap into the Dream Realm, an ephemeral reality composed of all the dreams being dreamed at any given moment. Its composition varies depending on the dreams of those nearby.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch The whisperer caught it with a hook and put it in a bottle as it tried to turn into spirit stuff and escape. Whew! So we gained rep and created three new complications. It's an interesting game, all of us (GM and players) are new so we are learning as we go.

BESW

> Create Advantage: Reach into the Dreaming world and pluck out a figment from a nearby dreamer, like a terrifying dragon, an inexplicable sense of longing, or a willingness to accept the impossible. Access to the Dream makes these aspects powerfully open-ended, but they fade quickly among the wakened: any aspect made with this skill will vanish when it has no free invokes, unless you spend a fate point to make it last until the end of the scene (or until overcome as usual).

(Yeah, I'm getting deep into mechanical weirdness but it's fun! Dreams are weird.)

Basically I'm giving you an extremely open-ended "create advantage" skill, with the caveat that every aspect it makes is a boost.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW hope that's ok with you. Also I think watching Sandman helped me figure out what I want this character to be narratively

brb

BESW

Making it a boost inherently adds a "maintain concentration" option: keep spending your action each round to add more invokes to that terrifying dragon so you can spend them in defending against enemies' attempts to deal with it, without the dragon dissipating afterward.

Give the guard a dreamer's credulity so he'll let you through the checkpoint despite all of your passports being Monopoly money.

A couple things here: you've gotta make the aspect fit the theme of "plucked from a dream." This makes it thematically coherent and thus awesome which justifies a lot of OP stuff in Fate. But it also gives you limits. Stuff plucked from dreams won't fit in perfectly. It's not 'normal,' you can't just magick up exactly what you want because you're getting it from somewhere.

And this gives you other limits as well: you're going to have fewer choices during the daytime, the GM can compel you on that.

Are you out in the middle of the woods? Good luck getting by with the dreams of squirrels and owls, that's gonna be a new experience for ya.

(Or add +2 to the difficulty to reach further away and get the dream closer to what you want)

AncientSwordRage