TRPG General Chat

Ben

01:33

That's hilarious

We had one game where our rogue attempted to sneak up on some bad guys, eavesdropped and discovered they were planning a surprise attack. He attempted to run back to warn us, but stumbled and tripped. Instead, he decided to try and hide, but was only the equivalent of picking up a leaf and holding it up in front of his face. Decided that wouldn't work, and just ran screaming through the scrub.

He was successful in warning us; so the enemy didn't have the element of surprise, but they were on us in the same round as the rogue arriving

The Oracle

06:15

0

Q: Is there a way to find out which user was removed, and when are their votes reverted?

I got a message this morning about reputation changes, stating they were due to a user being removed. However, there is no information which user that was. Is there any way to find out? Also, this Q&A seems to indicate that reputation changes only happen when a user was removed for fraudulent vot...

support

0

Q: Why some questions appear with a blue/cyan title?

The main page of the site now appears to me as depicted below: The first and third question there have a blue/cyan title: I supposed that that denotes that a question has been recently modified, but that's not the case, indeed the second question in the list as been modified too but it has the c...

support user-interface

AncientSwordRage

08:34

@Ben that's amazing

AncientSwordRage

11:59

1

Q: How to balance a one page RPG?

I recently saw a great little one page RPG called Potatoes shared by Death by Badgers on twitter: Potato, a one page RPG about being a halfling and trying to quietly enjoy your potatoes in a world that refuses to leave you alone I won't try to transcribe the rules here, but I'm always fascinat...

balance dice game-design solo one-page-rpg

Any ideas on how to narrow the focus here?

BESW

Feb 5 at 4:22, by BESW

@GroodytheHobgoblin The trick to "balance" questions on RPG.SE is, "balance" means something different to everybody. Part of asking a really good balance question is explaining what "balance" means for your particular group/campaign goals. That is, to answer this question: "What part of the experience of the game at your table are you trying to change, and why, with this rule?"

Sep 4, 2020 at 13:24, by BESW

Quinn Murphy wrote a twitter thread about how game balance is primarily emotional, rather than mathematical.

Thomas Markov

12:55

@AncientSwordRage Ask it about one game.

I vtc'd for needs focus because a question about balancing an entire genre (medium?) of game doesnt make sense.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov the genre is fairly well defined, but I may have not made that clear

I don't know if there's a better term for 'one page RPGs that have three scores, and you race one against the other two' ?

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage Definition isn't the issue.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW good catch, I've factored that in

@ThomasMarkov the question is about game-design not just one game though

Thomas Markov

Reading through the game, I'm not sure that particular game is even on topic.

AncientSwordRage

If you look at Trapped in a Cabin with Lord Byron it's essentially the same game, but with wildly different outcomes - this feels like it would make it more bleak but how does one make sure it's not a boring game that's impossible

BESW

13:06

rpg.se is pretty lousy as a game dev resource.

2

The structure doesn't easily support the kind of noodling-and-figuring-out that goes into dev, because there aren't formula answers for those kinds of questions. And our users don't have the cross-section of Stack compliance skills and dev experience needed to write Stack-acceptable "good subjective" answers to those dev questions.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I think the later part is the bigger issue

but maybe our users used to have those skills?

15

Q: How can you balance a system without making it bland?

In one of my long-term PvP LARP games, we've done a lot of work trying to balance the system we're using, either by banning certain "classes" or "powers" or by altering their specs slightly to make them less "overpowered" so that people who choose to go this route don't have an automatic advantag...

balance game-design larp

That would be a close (but not exact match)

BESW

@AncientSwordRage How many of those answers would be closed as speculative or Not An Answer now?

As it is, they're awash with people going "Nuh-uh!" in the comments and arguing about combat vs social, video game references, and nitpicking vocabulary--and that's the comments which have survived for ten years.

Only two of the answers seem to draw on experience with larps rather than trying to generalize tabletop experience to larp experience or ignoring the larp element altogether.

And one of those is basically "don't use D&D, use a larp system."

The Oracle

1

Q: Are potatoes on topic here?

As Potato is a single page game, here it is: Potato was mentioned in this question as an example of a one page RPG, and the objection was raised in the comments there that it wasn't an RPG. My question here is not about the closure of that question in particular, but rather more generally, is Po...

discussion on-topic

AncientSwordRage

13:40

@BESW hmm good point

I feel like it's something that's answerable

BESW

Oh, sure.

But so are designer intent questions.

And game recommendation questions.

AncientSwordRage

like, answerable in the stack model

BESW

Both of those are Stackable too. Good Subjective answers all.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I think designer intent questions are often red-herrings and don't need that tag

@BESW recommendations aren't really stackable IMO

BESW

But in order to be viably Stackable, there also has to be a critical mass of users who are expert enough to answer them and a low enough mass of users who aren't experts but want to pretend.

AncientSwordRage

13:43

@BESW I feel that's a stack problem not a question problem

BESW

Yes. But when talking about whether the Stack is a good place for a kind of question....

We aren't dealing with spherical topics in a frictionless vacuum.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW then my physics degree background has failed me once again! :-p

I guess the analogy would be if someone asked a question on SO for a programming language nobody had heard of...

although thinking now I can imagine the comments "Is that a real programming language?" etc.

BESW

Also, the Stack just isn't really a place for devs. Not the kind of space the devs I know are interested in, anyway.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW there's definitely several issues there that would be difficult to unpack

BESW

The Stack is an impersonal "answer my question" space, not a place for collaboration, sharing resources, developing industry, or any of the other interpersonal type things that happen in the game dev and design spaces I'm privy to.

Instead, the Stack actively discourages those things, treating everyone with "nobody knows you're a dog" distrust and anonymity that devalues individuals and connections between them.

The devs who come here, leave. Quickly. And post on social media or in private forums about the Bad Time they've had.

NautArch

13:55

@BESW Heck, it may be worse than that. Answerers just see a question at face value and aren't necessarily interested in the real problem - only at the literal problem asked. Trying to understand a querent or their issue is discouraged. Just answer the damn question is the directive many approach things with here.

BESW

Yup.

NautArch

And for things that are inherently collaborative (homebrew, development, etc.), that is really a big problem and why those questions have always been hard(er) here.

BESW

The more I've gotten into a design headspace rather than a consumer-who-sometimes-mods headspace, the less I've had anything useful to ask or say on mainsite. And the more often my attempts to talk about things in chat are met with open incomprehension about my fundamental assumptions regarding how to interact with a game or text.

The Stack works great for a specific Venn diagram overlap of tabletop gamers, and moderately well for a rather larger set. But game dev questions? The Stack isn't built for it and so the users aren't here to force it to work anyway.

AncientSwordRage

Since posting I've considered writing a one-page rpg about using the network, where the scores are downvotes, closevotes and answers...

BESW

Don't forget exhausting comments.

AncientSwordRage

14:01

@BESW hmmm good point

So I was thinking that one track could be split up into downvotes, close votes etc, so that would free a track up for 'exhausting comments'

nitsua60

14:44

@AncientSwordRage I think BESW has it in their self-linked quote: I have no idea what you mean by "balancing" this game. I don't think you mean the math problem of making each of the 3 outcomes equally-likely, but past that I'm at a complete loss.

AncientSwordRage

@nitsua60 I did update the question a few times

> But how does one strike that balance when trying to elicit certain emotions? Is it purely trial and error to make a 'hard but winnable' game vs. 'obviously impossible' game? How can you balance one of these where winning is more likely than not, but still feels worthwhile to play - instead of a forgone conclusion?

The crux is that it's easy to make each negative like "+50 doom", and clearly the player loses (if they want to minimise the doom score), or "+50 Woop" and they win (if the player wants to maximise the Woop score) but that won't be fun

BESW

15:00

The illusion of high risk with a moderately high actual rate of success.

AncientSwordRage

that sounds suspiciously like the basis of a good answer...

nitsua60

So is the question you're asking more akin to "how do I make this game work out to winning 70% of the time?" or "what percent of the time should the player win to elicit $FEELING?" While recognizing that neither of those may be your real question. I'm just feeling around for the light switch here =D

NautArch

@AncientSwordRage I'm still unclear what Potatoes has to do with the question other than as a potential example of what type of game is your goal.

If that is your 'goal', then identifying what aspects reach that goal and how to achieve those aspects would make your question focused and hopefuilly answerable.

But the variable $FEELING is going to be an impossible bar for us to answer.

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage The lowest scoring meta question ever was about a similar idea.

-23

Q: How about we make Stack Exchange into an RPG game?

TL;DR: Let’s make Stack Exchange into an RPG game! =CURRENCIES= There’re 2 currencies in the game: gold and diamonds. Gold Gold is the most common currency. It’s very similar to the existing “reputation.” You’re able to earn most of it the same way you earn reputation. Up-vote on a que...

discussion feature-request status-declined

AncientSwordRage

15:18

@NautArch how so? If someone (likely an RPG developer) could have collected feedback either in development or after release and could say "Before I made the illusion of risk higher, players said the game felt boring/fun/enjoyable/bleak" etc

nitsua60

@ThomasMarkov Oh, wow, that's a blast from the past....

NautArch

@AncientSwordRage Sure, but even then that was the illusion of risk as perceived by their polled players about that specific game. I understand what you want, I’m saying that it is opinion based

what I consider to be an acceptable illusion of risk isn’t what you do

And trying to measure that becomes impossible without specifics

Not every question fits the stack, and that’s okay. We don’t need every question to fit.

And I think the desire to force questions to fit is a real problem here

nitsua60

(To be clear: when you say "here" do you mean "this stack, generally," or "this specific question"?)

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I see what you mean now

nitsua60

@AncientSwordRage Okay, and let's be clear on this, too: if people are openly not comprehending your fundamental assumptions, that's got to be okay. When met with incomprehension of your underlying assumptions, you get to decide to explain more or not. That's fine. But I want to be sure everyone sees there's no reason to assume anything but good faith, in both directions.

AncientSwordRage

15:42

@nitsua60 sure of course

There comes a point where I don't know how to further elaborate what I'm after, without giving so much detail that either the question is too narrowly focused to be useful to me or I have so much detail that I could have just posted an answer

AncientSwordRage

15:56

For the record, I did feel the implication that 'I have a desire to force question to fit' patronising, as well as the implication that I'm not 'okay' that 'not every question fits the stack' as though this isn't an RPG question on an RPG stack site that has quantifiable (if not objectively measurable) requirements. It's probably just my reading of the chat messages here, but I'm going to have to take a break and come back to this with a clear head.

NautArch

17:00

I probably should have made a big space between the feedback on your question and my general thoughts about how we approach questions that aren't a good fit for the stack. I am sorry that you saw a connection there I didn't intend to make about judging your question.

That was not my intent at all and I really am sorry.

Glazius

Well, the vidyamagames way to do it is to cheat outrageously.

Implement coyote time in platformers so people can jump while they think they can while the engine says they can't.

Secretly roll with advantage or disadvantage all the time depending on whether your hit chance is below or above 50% so the odds are what your stupid brain believes they should be.

Only have a health bar and not health numbers so you can take 6 hits and they each knock off half your bar so you start feeling pressured a long time before you actually are.

NautArch

@Glazius A coyote time spell is now of interest to me ;)

My intent was a more general concern that we try to force square pegs into round holes because we want to help. But sometimes it's better help to let someone ask they question they really do want to ask in a place that lets them ask it as they want to.

AncientSwordRage

@NautArch don't worry about it, I think that was all me

Glazius

Apocalypse World kind of pulls off that last trick a little bit (rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/122095) but also it kind of doesn't because basically you can get your first 3 harm back easy and your last 3 harm back hard so the optical illusion is actually making you feel "like you should"

the reason a vidyamagame can get away with cheating is because it's running on an unconscious machine instead of your conscious mind and that's a lot hard to pull off with a one-pager

but also: one-pagers are a great medium for experiments and sometimes experiments fail

nitsua60

@AncientSwordRage :thumbsup:

@NautArch My (personal) challenge is that I feel half of the time like I'm doing the joinery while wearing rawhide gloves and blindfolded, so I'm not sure I've classified the holes and pegs correctly =)

@ThomasMarkov thanks for that last flag. I don't know if it was actively not-nice, but any merit it held in terms of clarifying the post certainly wasn't coming through clearly =\

AncientSwordRage

17:16

@Glazius perhaps I'll try that then

NautArch

@nitsua60 Yep - and that's why closing a question to help figure that out for a querent is better than answering at face value. However, my experience has generally been that that is not the workflow that is desired here.

But, if in the end, we have to change what they're asking so they can ask it here (rather than somewhere they don't have to change what they want/what they ask), I think that's in our interest more than the alternative.

Thomas Markov

@NautArch Saw a comment just a few moments ago voting to reopen a question on the grounds that "there is an answer".

Glazius

@AncientSwordRage always remember: the question is "what is your game about, and how do the rules help make that real?" Consider: is POTATO is a game about how halfling only pawn in game of life, who can only briefly affect their own non-game-term destiny?

Thomas Markov

If "there is an answer" is reason enough for us to avoid closing a question, I think we're missing the point of closure's utility as a quality control measure and optimizing for sand.

Glazius

17:35

for a game where you're intended to aspire to lonely potato cave but risk of orcs but also risk of destiny I'd maybe take a page-ish from ironsworn:

you have two oracle d10s and three phases: planting, harvest, and winter.

in planting and harvest there's a table of d10 events, roll the oracle dice and pick which one you want. events are all like "gain small potate" "gain big potate but orcs" "gain big potate but destiny" "lose potate and orcs" "lose orcs gain destiny"

better events in harvest phase, you can sacrifice potate during planting phase to bump harvest dice around

roll in winter - if neither oracle beats orcs, you get orced. Otherwise if neither oracle beats potate, you establish potate bunker. If the oracle dice ever match each other, or match your orc or potate values in winter, mark destiny

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast I love the stress mechanic! We've only done a few sessions of Scum, but 'early level' (?) is tough. Odds of success just aren't great until you've got more attempts at stuff under your belt and get more dice.

But with failure being fun, it doesn't feel so awful when Plan A fails.

Glazius

to model state of world and power of destiny, maybe make destiny three rows of three and the ten that gets you destiny as its own thing. each full row of destiny is +OMEN, start at one, some orc events give you +OMEN orcs or cost +OMEN potate to lose 1 orc

AncientSwordRage

19:22

@Glazius sounds cool

Ben

22:20

And now we wait to see if Arthur returns...

Carcer

23:16

Arthur's return has been held up by train strikes

BESW

Arthur's okay with it, he's pro-union.

Transcript for