TRPG General Chat

wax eagle

00:06

@BrianBallsun-Stanton ah yeah, and your contest runner kinda left midstream...

BESW

02:59

Current state of the Fudge Dice for Fate sets that haven't had their dice finalized yet:

> Eldritch and Leather only have one die style certain per set; samples are pending to sort both of those out. Vampire is finalized, while the Valentine set almost is (I'm working on dialing the ink darker). Samples are delayed because we're using the mold to make the First Batch. :) The samples should follow hard on the heels of that.

doppelgreener

03:51

@Lord_Gareth Seconding what @BESW said just before and @C.Ross said just after. Understanding those rules is hard, even when we now can see they mean exactly what they say or etc. You appear to have forgotten! I can still clearly remember looking at my character sheet, and having no idea how my companions knew what numbers I had to add together to fill this box in or that one. A lot of rules were very hard to understand. Thank goodness I was a Barbarian, not a magic user.

The knowledge my companions had seemed arcane to me - they understood stuff and could tell me what it meant and it made sense but I had no idea how they actually knew the stuff they were telling me, and their interpretations of mechanics made sense once I heard it but it took them knowing stuff I didn't to arrive at that interpretation.

7

Thinking "Wait, did that just leave out <this important thing>? It should apply there too, right?" sometimes, as in the case with that lay on hands question, confused me further sometimes, because I didn't understand in what way it made sense.

Surely they just missed something right? I didn't see in what way it applied or didn't apply (or didn't see the major balance implications behind decisions)

Ultimately it takes understanding a lot of the system very well before you understand any of the system decently, or at least that was my experience. My early learning of D&D involved a lot of understanding almost nothing and stumbling around and doing what I understood well, then as bits began making sense, all the other bits started making sense.

BESW

Can I star all of that?

doppelgreener

let's get in touch with the chat developers about it

(you could start just one piece and curious people will see the rest? :) )

(relevant)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

well, make one line worth?

you've got 2k characters

copypasta

BESW

Hey, Brian, is that pin still needed?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW which pin?

BESW

04:04

No pin at all, sir.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

okay, that one. Yeah, it was nominally kinda sorted needed

but

doppelgreener

04:21

@BESW What's the SFWA thing?

BESW

I'll let Ursula Vernon explain.

doppelgreener

Wow okay. That misogyny faerie is amazing but i'll read this one later!

Magician

Morning

BESW

Heyo.

BESW

07:27

Alan Moore as the Twelfth Doctor. I think the portrayal is rather understated, actually.

BESW

09:35

I really wish Prometheus had been a better film.

Magician

...what

"Jesus was an Engineer, we killed him, and the Engineers were prepping to use the Goo to punish us."

BESW

I WISH I WERE MAKING THAT UP.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

11:15

Hey, @ethan how's it going?

Oblivious Sage

12:32

@BESW Prometheus in a nutshell

BESW

@ObliviousSage That... is surprisingly accurate, on a literal level.

Oblivious Sage

The literal level was the only level that wasn't a complete trainwreck, and therefore the only level I'm willing to think about.

BESW

...except it made no sense at the literal level.

The other levels were stupid but at least granted some modicum of comprehension.

Oblivious Sage

Speaking as someone who liked the other 4 movies (yes, even Resurrection) and owns the 9 disc special edition quadrilogy, Prometheus was deeply disappointing.

BESW

Things like "motive" and "cause and effect" just crumble if you try to analyze them realistically.

Oblivious Sage

12:37

It made sense, you just had to apply Movie Logic(TM) rather than normal logic.

BESW

Okay, so what's the Movie Logic answer to this question?

Oblivious Sage

(digging through memory) Humans came from Engineers + Goo, while Aliens came from Goo only, or Goo + something other than Engineers.

I think, I saw it when I came out and had no desire to view it again.

BESW

That works until I remember the pile of Engineer corpses with exploded-from-the-inside chests.

Prometheus suffered from the same fatal flaw that I see in a lot of modern films: it failed to commit to its concept. If you're making a film about Space Jesus, don't get cold feet and leave a Space-Jesus-sized hole in the film!

Oblivious Sage

Goo + Mystery Ingredient = Aliens, Aliens + Engineers = exploded-from-the-inside chests

BESW

Yes, and the mystery ingredient is dickery.

It's a cool concept! I like it! I just... wish it had actually been in the film.

Oblivious Sage

12:50

Actually, I didn't grasp the religious "they sent Jesus to us" deeper level until later. When I watched Prometheus, at the time the message I got was that the Engineers had sent a bunch of serial fuckups to field test a bio-weapon and our intrepid explorers have come upon the results of them botching it a second time.

BESW

Yeeeeah, it was not clear unless you were looking for it. But it was pretty obvious that something was missing.

Keeping the film's/ship's title in mind, I started getting a sinking feeling around the time I saw the Engineer Creation of Adam ceiling mural.

When the captain and his two crewmembers died standing in cruciform, the middle one slightly higher than the other two, my high-school Catholic theology classes went bing!

(And, um. The virgin birth scene. That kinda clinched it.)

And all the "2000 years ago" with none of the supposedly intelligent and sometimes religious cast even mentioning Christ was a serious negative-spaced tipoff. But it wasn't until much later that I cottoned on to the role the goo's behavior had in the... allegory? No, because it was supposed to be literal. I don't know what to call it.

wax eagle

@BESW effed up?

that sounds like a good term

(didn't see, don't really have context)

BESW

@waxeagle Context is a Space-Jesus-sized hole in a science fiction horror film, into which all attempts to figure out exactly what kind of backstory the film was implying got sucked.

...I have a hard time with stories that wuss out on their own conceits.

wax eagle

@BESW oh I got that much context :)

BESW

@waxeagle Basically, Space Jesus was from a race of Engineers who made black Goo. When it was absorbed by someone with a spirit of self-sacrifice, it made life (they started life on Earth this way). When it was absorbed by someone selfish, it produced mutant supersoldiers to wipe out life.

doppelgreener

13:01

@BESW You say Space Jesus and all I can think of is this

BESW

@JonathanHobbs ....yes. Because when humanity killed Space Jesus, the Engineers started packing up a shipfull of Goo to kill earth.

wax eagle

@BESW in...teresting

BESW

But they were all hatey because we killed Space Jesus, so the Goo turned on them before they could leave.

So the film is about a bunch of future humans who find the Goo Factory Planet and a bunch of dead chest-bursted Engineers (Space Jockeys, from the first Alien film). And it is allegorical, and people generally suck so the Goo kills them horrifically, and there is an android who pokes things to get the plot moving when it stops.

But because it never explains anything about the whole "self-sacrifice vs dickery" switch on the Goo, it all seems very random and vague and like the Goo just does what the plot wants.

wax eagle

@BESW i see. Goo does that :)

BESW

And then the Goo does the virgin-birth thing on the only religious person in the crew, because We Need More Symbolism... and then things get silly.

wax eagle

13:06

@BESW symbolize all the things?

BESW

Soooo.... yeah. A lot of symbolism and Meaningful Stuff without any context unless you read really deep between the lines or read the interviews with Scott.

@waxeagle yes. The Sacrifice of Christ imagery is forefront, but it's also trying to shovel in the story of Prometheus, and the Garden of Eden, and some Generic Eastern Philosophy I think he got from the Matrix sequels.

wax eagle

@BESW lol

BESW

And it's frustrating, because there are Good Ideas in there. Like, compelling Who-Are-We What-Is-Life-About ideas with characters that could have been good to explore them with.

wax eagle

@BESW it is a real shame when movies have really good opportunities and then fail to deliver (see Matrix 2,3)

BESW

Heh.

So instead of pathos, we get bathos, and long before we start ripping heads off and forgetting how to get out of the way of slowly-falling objects, the film has lost any thematic credibility it ever had.

(In particular, the ostensible main character's internal conflict should have been the core of the film but was laughably trivial, and the android's conflict existed only to drive the plot when it could have picked up the slack.)

Novian

13:17

@waxeagle It could have been worse. Jason Statham could have been Neo. not that hes a bad actor or anything but the types of movies hes usually in and the type of movie the Matrix was wouldnt mesh. all I can immagine is Crank with weird physics and it isnt pretty.

There is always a way to make things worse. Now how about making things better for a change....The Animatrix was interesting.

Also Good Morning.

wax eagle

@Novian good morning

Novian

Sooo......Jesus Goo?

wax eagle

I just found the Matrix 2 and 3 to be odd tbh. I need to rewatch them again, it's been a good long while since I've seen them. But I felt like they failed to deliver on the promise of the first

Novian

They lost the whole "is reality real?" question and jumped into a major conflict that seemed to only affect them. when fights happen we conveniently forgot there was this world full of people and it instantly becomes a CoD map....

Lets not worry about the poeple were trying to save and cause wanton destruction...

lets build up the rep of one character and make him useless.(E.X. Morpheus.)

if you want a good matrix entry. Watch the animatrix. its pretty good.

wax eagle

I found the build/destroy hope conceit to be interesting, but over explained...

will check it out

Novian

13:27

Yup. they kinda harp on the whole hope thing.

wax eagle

(which seems to be a tendency with action movies, they don't trust the audience to understand from context what's happening so someone has to explain it all)

Novian

like we are a bunch of twiddling idiots

....and there goes the Jason Statham as neo image again.....I DONT WANT TO REMEMBER.

Oblivious Sage

13:42

@Novian You know the Wachowski brothers originally wanted Ahnold, or someone beefy like that, right?

wax eagle

@ObliviousSage it actually makes sense with Keanu. Neo shouldn't be some kind of huge action star...the idea is that his physical gifts are mastering the matrix rather than pure brawn is kind of key to the film. Getting someone beefy would have made the original far less interesting

Oblivious Sage

14:06

@waxeagle I know, which is why I wasn't shocked by the crumminess of the plots of 2 & 3 (the second one had some really good action sequences and so was not a total loss), because I knew they hadn't understood from the beginning what was good about the Matrix.

wax eagle

14:56

@ObliviousSage it actually all makes sense now. They didn't know what they had.

doppelgreener

15:34

I don't know why you're concerned about them fighting whilst killing the people they're trying to save. The first movie had Neo walk into an office building and shoot up a bunch of guards. It also drove home at the beginning that those people would and could become agents, and were not their friends. Not that they went out of their way to kill anyone either. People died because of the agents and programs.

I think they were well aware of what they had, but the entire first movie was about accepting reality and breaking free of ordinarily limitations to become a powerful human being (or that was a major part of it). Once that was achieved, they decided to take it in a superhuman direction and it didn't work out so well.

The "is reality real?" bit was only ever a part of the larger plot of breaking through the limitations we think are there in the reality we think is real

That is the entire progression of Neo's character and the entire movie was about Neo's progression.

If you think I'm getting weirdly existential about it: the Matrix is an incredibly existential movie poking at how we look at everyday life. The movie is existential as heck.

Maybe I'm using existential wrong but whatever.

wax eagle

@JonathanHobbs no, that sounds about right for the movie.

doppelgreener

I don't think they missed what they had, they just tied up the entire first movie completely and then had a few options for how to run the next few and hey maybe if they continued with the is reality real thing it also coulda sucked!

Tho yeah there were probably a lot of good options for how to continue the theme of questioning reality and its limitations. Maybe they got saddled with producers who wanted the wrong thing from the movie or something. Or they just chose really badly.

@waxeagle ok excellent I wasn't sure how that would be received :)

BESW

15:49

Ummm. I'm not sure "existential" is the right word. Existentialism is about the chaos of existence outside the meaning and order given by taking ownership of one's actions and their consequences regardless of the fact that you cannot accurately predict those consequences.

Otherwise, sure, no major objections to your premise except that their other films give me more reason to doubt they were "more good than lucky" with The Matrix being as coherent as it was.

...and I shouldn't be typing if I can't keep my negatives correspondent.

doppelgreener

@BESW yeah I was pretty sure it wasn't but editing on a mobile isn't an ordeal I want to go through

BESW

I need a famous volcano in popular media.

doppelgreener

Mount doom

BESW

Ummm. Post-50s.

wax eagle

@BESW Olympus? (is that the one in Washington St?)

doppelgreener

15:56

Look up something from x men. I'm sure there's a volcano on that fictional island that was magnetos or whatever. The no mans land island.

wax eagle

Dante's Peak?

Problematic

It's encouraged to answer your own questions, yeah?

BESW

@Problematic If they're good answers.

Problematic

@BESW What if it wasn't a good question to begin with? :P

wax eagle

@JonathanHobbs There is one in the cartoon in the savage land

but I'm not sure it's named

BESW

15:59

Depends on why it's bad and if it can be salvaged. Good answers have been known to appear on bad questions.

Problematic

Guess that's why there's a badge for it.

doppelgreener

@Problematic Universally yes you are meant to answer your own questions the same way you would any other.

Which includes making sure they're good answers like BESW said

@waxeagle The Savage Land, that's it.

Novian

16:18

@ObliviousSage Just mix any jason statham movie with the matrix. it doesnt make sense and ruins the matrix. And yes I was aware of that. Keanu Reeves was a better choice like @waxeagle Said. I do not think i would have enjoyed The One'inator....

Never let me say One'inator ever again.

BESW

Pronounce it like the Oneders.

...Or, if you prefer, Oneboinginator.

wax eagle

@BESW haven't seen that movie in ages...need to do that sometime soom

DampeS8N

Hello everyone, it is question time! If you could have access to 5 different gaming rooms with individual themes. What 5 themes would you find most useful for setting the mood for your games? To point you in the right direction, imagine a "Rainforest Cafe" level of detail.

Oblivious Sage

16:34

I would take the "I didn't spend extra money on a theme" theme.

DampeS8N

You get these for free.

The Oracle

1

Q: Cross-system Fate tag protocol

This question started out tagged fate-core and fate-accelerated. It was retagged with just fate, and then the two original tags were re-added. Now, as I understand it Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition are unique game systems running on the FATE engine. Although Core is the current "official...

0

Q: Answers that expand on existing answers

I've seen this a few times recently, and wanted to check what the 'official' line is. My understanding is that when you want to expand on an answer that someone else has already given, the way things are intended to work is that you edit the existing answer rather than create a whole new one for ...

discussion

Oblivious Sage

honestly I'm not convinced it's worth it for you to go to the trouble of giving the rooms themes

wax eagle

@DampeS8N off the top of my head, deep woods fantasy, medieval town, futuristic space/sci-fi, post modern dreamscape and non-descript conference room.

but I tend to agree with @ObliviousSage that a room theme might be both unnecessary and also limiting/counter-productive

DampeS8N

@waxeagle I can see unnecessary. I assume you mean counter-productive because people will imagine the space they are in to be like the room, and not the descriptions of where they are.

Oblivious Sage

16:38

hmmm, I would have gone with fantasy ancient ruins, something sci-fi-ish (if that's a word), something nice & gothic for WoD games, something with a modern gangland feel, and non-descript conference room

but as I said, I don't think the value added is worth the expense

BESW

Yeah, I think it'd be hard for the people who like to have their miniatures the exact color and holding the exact items of the character they're intended to represent.

What if they want to run an Empires of the Dying Sun campaign?

DampeS8N

True, but I feel like I need to offer something a little more stimulating than blank white walls. What about something much more subtle?

BESW

A while back gamer blogs did a "what my game room looks like" meme. Try to track down some of those posts.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N subtle goes a long way. I'd stay away from rainforest cafe level decor and go more inference than outright statement

DampeS8N

@waxeagle So, more potted plants than giant green man face with glowing eyes.

wax eagle

16:41

@DampeS8N yep

subtle borders/scroll work, I'd stay away from wall art

DampeS8N

I've been crunching the numbers, high-detail is actually pretty cheap. Great Stuff and chicken wire don't cost much. :)

Oblivious Sage

actually, I'd look into the research on what wall colors are the most soothing

BESW

@DampeS8N yeeeeah, but cost isn't the issue here. Taste is.

You can do a lot with trim, borders, and little touches like themed dice cups.

And people can more easily appreciate or ignore it as they desire.

wax eagle

table style matters too

BESW

I know that if I try to run a game in a roomful of fiddly bits and distracting shinies, my players aren't gonna be in the game. They're gonna be in the room.

DampeS8N

16:44

@waxeagle On this note, I intend to offer a few different styles throughout the rooms. These are where I am right now:

a 4K screen gaming map, on a tier above individual places for each player for books, sheets, and stuff.

tables ranging in size from 8 foot conference down to more intimate rounded.

non-tech tiered tables

wax eagle

@DampeS8N are you going to have enough staff to shuffle tables from room to room? Or would they be set by room?

tables tend to be quite heavy unless they are designed to be portable and then durability becomes an issue

Oblivious Sage

what @waxeagle said

DampeS8N

@waxeagle Almost assuredly be stuff in whatever room they are in.

*stuck

Especially things like the conference table, which would have to be torn down to move. (the top alone is over 100lbs)

wax eagle

@DampeS8N that's kind of what I figured. In that case I'd abandon most attempts to theme as room choice will likely be largely based on the type of game rather than the theme. If that make sense.

DampeS8N

@waxeagle Makes perfect sense.

BESW

16:49

@waxeagle This.

I'm not going to take the square acre of table for my three-man group just because there's parrot noises in the room.

wax eagle

@BESW right, and I want the best tactical map setup for my 4e group even if that means playing in the sci-fi room.

DampeS8N

I'll keep any themes very light, then. I'll pull the theme stuff into other spaces to keep the rooms focused.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N I think that's a good choice. Is there a main common area with smaller breakout rooms? or is it more of a hallway with rooms off the side kind of setting?

BESW

@DampeS8N Yeah, the primary themes of a game room should "useful" and "not distracting."

DampeS8N

@waxeagle It is essentially a big hallway from the reception area at the front to a kitchen/bathroom area at the back. With one large room off the hallway on one side and several conference rooms on the other. Also, a basement and a big yard I plan to put a large tent up in for yet another gaming space when the weather is nice.

wax eagle

16:54

@DampeS8N cool. If I might ask, how do you plan to make this thing profitable?

DampeS8N

All tolled, there is space for 5-7 gaming rooms, and the large room (which is a bit of a hallway really) is a prep/storage/whatever room.

@waxeagle I'm getting an unbelievable deal on the property. It is located pretty close to several colleges. Consider it like a club. So you pay to belong, reserve the gaming rooms for games, but can otherwise come hang when it is open. Membership will be tiered, starting around $30 a month and going up to $100. Each tier gives you more and more perks.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N So $30 gets me what, weekly sessions? or is that just 1/month?

I could see it doing well if you can keep your membership roles up. Are you going to sell food?

DampeS8N

@waxeagle Also, GMs play free. $30 gets you unlimited games but no perk access. $60 will get you access to the kitchen which has snacks and drinks. $100 gets you a lot of perks, including first dibs on promotional things and sometimes the ability to play with legends I know. (such as Zeb Cook)

@waxeagle No, we will be giving it away. :) Also, there is a nice pizza place across the street.

$60 will probably get you more than just food. I don't have all the perks worked out yet.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N gotcha. I'm intrigued. I'll be interested to see how it progresses.

Wish I was in the area, I'd come check it out at least

DampeS8N

Additionally: We'll be buying RPG stuffs (books, minis, tiles, maps...) and offering 200% payment if taken as membership. Which means you can trade in all your stuff for a long membership pre-pay.

wax eagle

17:05

I assume you'd offer some kind of one time admission for folks coming in on one offs?

DampeS8N

@waxeagle I'm bouncing between something like that and free/reduced rate first months.

But if you are really coming in for a one time thing, it will be something hourly and steep to encourage signing up instead.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N I'm just thinking about my group, we have a few guys who aren't regulars but who we invite to come hang out with us every once in a while. No way these guys would pay for a membership, but we'd want to be able to include them in our normal space

DampeS8N

Maybe something in the way of guest allotments.

Or perhaps that's a good perk for $60 and $100 members.

oh, also, I work at ZeniMax Online Studios and could probably make this place work just off of people that work here. But have Zeb show up wouldn't be a good draw anymore since he also works here. lol

*having

wax eagle

@DampeS8N I could imagine.

DampeS8N

There will also be a website where you can setup games, not just at one of my rooms, but anywhere. There will be encouragements to sign up for membership there too. And games can be locked to only allow people of certain tiers to join. It will track player/GM reputation as well, so you know you are always getting good players for your games.

The idea is to make it way easier to fill holes in existing games, or create brand new ones. You can be a GM that knows no players and still get a game up and running. And you'll be able to manage the time of the games and keep notes, and all the little administrative things to do with gaming.

wax eagle

17:13

@DampeS8N makes sense. that'd very helpful. Our current group organizes on facebook, and it's clunky at best

DampeS8N

@waxeagle Agreed, my group does the same. It is messy. And I see tons of people going out and making generators for content, or digital game spaces, but so few that focus on the meta side of gaming. So I am hopeful that I can carve out a niche there.

I want to make playing a table-top RPG as easy to get into as going bowling.

And as inexpensive.

Hm. A cave hallway (with real glowing mushrooms), tavern kitchen.. I think I can keep the absorbing atmosphere while keeping the gaming spaces something that vanishes into the background.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N right, and you have to strike the same kind of balance that Jin did when he did our design, you can't focus on a single theme or period because you'll turn off whole subset of gamers

DampeS8N

@waxeagle I agree. I think glowing mushroom caves work well as alien and fantasy.

wax eagle

@DampeS8N yes

DampeS8N

I'll keep iterating. :) Thanks guys.

amazon.com/Ghost-Fungus-Growing-Log-Kit/dp/B00APK4TXE/…

But seriously. Glowing mushrooms. :)

wax eagle

17:26

@DampeS8N just make sure you get an MSDS for it

Lord_Gareth

17:36

I got a Pathfinder badge. I feel spiritually unclean now

wax eagle

@Lord_Gareth wonder if mxy feels the same way about his 4e badge :)

speaking of which, mxy is about 60 pathfinder answers away from the gold tag badge there and he already has the score for it.

ooh and we're only 2 answers away from our first dnd-3.5 gold tag badge.

KRyan will be the first there unless something dramatic happens

C. Ross

19:35

Does anyone have experience with any sort of resource tracking in FATE?

Problematic

@C.Ross like wealth?

C. Ross

I'm considering some sort of resource tracking for a Dwarf Fortress game, and I'm leaning toward stress tracks

@Problematic yes

Problematic

Ah.

C. Ross

the most relevant thing I can think of is Wealth in Diaspora

Problematic

They give it a bit of treatment in FATE Core

C. Ross

19:36

but DF woudl require Food/Booze/Wealth ...

Problematic

I think stress tracks would represent that well; probably the closest thing FATE has to tracking tangibles over time in a way that doesn't bog down gameplay?

When your dwarves have a Wild Rumpus, the community gets aspects to help productivity, at the expense of shifts against the Booze track? :P

... there are no end to fun and interesting consequences to be had from overflowing that track...

The Oracle

0

Q: What's the status of the birthday contest?

Has the drawing been held for the one year anniversary contest? If so, who were the winners?

discussion

C. Ross

20:06

@Problematic something like that

BESW

23:27

@C.Ross This discussion might be useful for getting the juices flowing?

Hunger Tracks as a model for drug addiction.

C. Ross

23:57

@BESW thanks

a problem with stress tracks occurred to me after I thought on it for a while

Stress tracks only go down from a hard cap

you wouldn't really want a cap on wealth; food and booze maybe, but not wealth ...

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