Heh, my Ki Khanga questions get an upvote about once every other month, but still no answers.

yes well there might only be the one person on the planet who can answer them

For tonight's dinner I simmered Bob's Red Mill veggie soup mix, a can of Amy's lentil soup, whole wheat penne, and some garlic and red onions, in a rice cooker with Worcestershire sauce. Served with whole wheat drop biscuits with chia/flax meal.

(And I put some grated Parmesan on the soup when serving.)

@Rubiksmoose Lol it's ok, I screwed up the discussion myself by starting it right before sweetie wanted Hanabi :)

But anyway, I'm happy that they're actively trying to improve the game with me now

I'm just too used to running games everyone knows how to play, or at least I know how to play well (like DnD or AW)

@BESW good thing you gave credit to Bob and Amy XD

@kviiri I'd honestly be pretty nervous (even more than my usual DM jitters) about trying to learn a new rules heavy game with my group. Even though I think they'd take it well and have a high tolerance for screw-upage. But I've also talked before about why I don't really want to play another rules-y RPG anyways. At least none that have caught my attention yet.

@kviiri Ayy, glad you like it. It's something I picked up on a whim a few months ago and climbed near the top of my "we have 20 minutes to kill" board game list. The only downside is it kills all conversation because everyone is trying to remember their hands :P

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, 7th Sea is rather bulky compared to AW which comes from me almost instinctively :>

And it's a whole new paradigm of its own.

@kviiri Out of curiosity, how heavy is it rules-wise compared to 5e?

@Rubiksmoose It's... hard to compare, really, because they have rules for so different things. I'd argue 5e is still more heavy mostly because there's a ton of very particular rules compared to 7th Sea

5e is rather light in the sense that most things outside combat are covered by "decide to roll, set DC, have the player roll".

But 7th Sea has a rigid but interesting framework for playing scenes

The players spend their Raises (dice adding up to at least 10 in their dice pool) to perform actions, which I don't understand completely yet

@kviiri huh interesting. Does it have rules for non-combat things?

(which 5e is very light on)

The simple Risk is "one Raise to accomplish your main objective, and further Raises to avoid Consequences or accomplish Opportunities"

@Rubiksmoose Yeah. It's heavily built around romantic tales of adventurers so it's still quite action/drama -heavy, no rules for running a shop or something but definitely rules intended for gathering intel in a court or humiliating a cocky swordfighter.

@kviiri Oh yeah well that makes sense given the theme!

Yep :>

I'll be back shortly

how's your day going people?

going well \o/

Can't complain too much lol

:D

Yours?

could be better, could be worse

I got back to work yesterday, the second day is surprisingly more depressing than the first :/

@Helwar from vacation?

yup

had 2 week during wich I did absolutely nothing

ah yeah, that always sucks pretty hard.

(the coming back)

run a Mutants & Masterminds one shot for my friends, they didn't like the game and it was like... half a shot, at most :P

Might be an indication for finding a new vocation

What didn't they like about the game?

THey felt all the characters were the same, and they had no options other than atack...

I tried to explain them how the game worked, how you were supposed to use your hero points and try to be more narrative than "I attack" and all that...

but meh, they kept their hero points, used their area attacks just because they didn't have to roll to attack, and got bored

also the one shot was quite comical and I planned to roleplay a little and have some silly fun, they just punched in the face, or shot in the face, of every dubious character

starting combat right away

I could've run it better, but it was very obvious they were not into it anyway

Well it is certainly good that you realized this and were willing to move on. Nothing is worse than playing a game where nobody is having fun.

I tailored the characters to the concepts they told me they wanted to play, but also wanted to keep them easy to play, maybe that's what made seem look like "cookie cutter"... I gave everyone balanced defenses, a long range attack, short range, area...

If you are interested in trying the superhero gig again but people aren't that into the rolling or mechanics, I would suggest looking at Masks. Though they have to be in for playing up the teenage hero stuff as well.

@Helwar Still cookie cutter seems a strange critique of any varied superhero party...

@Helwar what system are these players used to playing in?

D&D5

they felt D&D5 had more options than just hitting things

no matter how much I told them that they had other options too, like the psychic having a mind control power, or the poison master that could attack with... poisons! instead of the direct damage acid spray...

xD

it's ok, you know when you get to the table, and before sitting you see their faces and know instantly they are not up to it?

it was one of those days

@Helwar Ugh, yep.

it's been my experience that players used to D&D are trained by the game that if they are having trouble figuring out how to move the story forward, they should be fighting something, and that if they are in a moderately sticky situation, they should solve it by fighting something. if the fight is not immediately apparent, they should create one.

this leads to D&D players, when first foraying into a new system, looking to start or create a fight within the first hour of play quite often, if not concluding they're supposed to be fighting in the first few minutes.

It's really hard to get to people who aren't driven for it.

Pheonix Dawn uses cards and a point system which incentivises spending the resources... also... everyone dies anyway a few time

in superhero stories, doesn't superman always solve problems by simply punching things hard enough after all? so that wouldn't exactly seem like going against the grain.

@doppelgreener Your players don't set up businesses and side hussles that consume more time than the main quests?

@ColinGross well, some players do that, and that's awesome and those players might be more prepared for what other systems will throw at them.

especially if they're playing InSpectres.

but the fight thing is very common: I did it, my friends did it, BESW and trogdor did it, Helwar's group did it.

@doppelgreener All-Star Superman was nice because there were several problems he solved by not punching the heck out of things.

@doppelgreener I STARTED with a fight, a bunch of fairies with UZIs and submachine guns corraling everyone in the mall, just to get them up in their toes, and then they were supposed to investigate what happened and why :P

@Helwar gotcha. did they investigate by fighting things?

that's kinda how superman and batman investigate: there's always a punch-up before any information is traded.

@Helwar I think the why is pretty obvious there... because they wanted to get punched to death by some super heroes

but also, fighting things is how you find things out in D&D.

or you find them out after the fights.

@doppelgreener I feel like that's poor GM'ing. Usually fighting begets less information but for faster "results"

@ColinGross [shrug] I'm making generalisations here. It's the effect the system has on players moving to other systems that don't expect you to do any/much fighting to move things forward, and it becomes readily apparent once you make the move and see it in action.

Gotcha

they read the mind of one of the fairies and went to the "alleged" boss, a middlewoman I had planned for that occasion, I let them know the odds in her office weren't good (plenty of goons with superpowers protecting her), we started roleplaying, she wanted something and she was ameniable to work with them to avoid the other method (kidnaping a whole lot of people and asking for it as a rescue)... they just punched her mid conversation

@ColinGross It really really depends. Honestly, given how biased the rule in 5e are towards combat (and how poor the social/investigation aspects are) GMs doing this are just following the general trend of the rules.

@Rubiksmoose everyone says that, I just feel like D&D has plenty of rules for combat, because that's what needs the rules, and the social interactions are up to you because you simply don't need a... simulation, of it. You can just play it on your table. IMO.

@Rubiksmoose The rule system does describe combat in more detail that anything else.

@Helwar I concur

It's difficult to come up with rules for social interactions as those are so much more varied

@Helwar I almost wonder if they were just being deliberately goofy? It is confusing why they would keep starting combats and then complain about the combat options though.

@Helwar Out of curiosity, have you played a system with good rules for social interaction?

@Rubiksmoose I feel like they didn't want to play, but were trying to get into it without much success, trying to shake things up... after a couple of round of combat with that woman I just told them to leave it, and everyone was glad to stop playing so...

@Helwar Social mechanics are not this weird, impossible to write thing. And they are also, when done correctly, not a restriction but a tool to enhance and resolve and drive forward interactions to interesting results. This would not be something that would be impossible to introduce into D&D but it is clear that it was not really a design goal at all. Until you play a game that is actually designed for doing social mechanics well, it is hard to understand how amazing it is.

@Helwar that's not at all true

@Rubiksmoose Not really... I played other systems, but none that was "social heavy", I played D&D and Pathfinder in various versions, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, some mishmash of games of white wolf games...

you can just play a combat on your table

but D&D wants the stakes in physical combat, and focuses there

I played more things but can't think of it now

other games heavily mechanise social interactions and puts the stakes in those because that's what's important, and merely playing them out freeform at the table won't work any better than a mere freeform interaction for D&D combat

heck, we could all be playing freeform

@doppelgreener yeah, it's a little strawmaning my argument but... yeah, we could

I just feel like, when I've encountered rules governing social interaction

they were obstacles to actually doing things

so i'm glad when they aren't there

@Helwar Then they were objectively bad rules unfortunately.

those generalisations you're making that social interactions are categorically not needed are not reasonable though

they're not needed in D&D because D&D just doesn't care and is happy to let you play it out

@doppelgreener I feel like that, though :/

given the list of games you just mentioned i'm not surprised?

haha

true, true

but there are games where the social mechanics are the whole reason you're playing the game. gumshoe and bubblegumshoe aren't "well let's just freeform the socialisation, we don't need these mechanics" -- you're playing that game so you can leverage its mechanics whilst socially working through an investigation.

In Masks (sorry I know I bring it up a lot), social interaction is built into the core of the game and the mechanics are just wonderful. Not only does it encourage RP, but it gives good tools to adjudicate the results and the results are almost always more interesting than what I could have devised in a free form system or anything that we have ever done in our RP heavy 5e game.

in fate or apocalypse world if you just freeform social situations you're going to have as much missing as freeforming combat in D&D: you've just totally not involved the system in places it is there to be involved.

@Rubiksmoose yes, completely agreed.

@Rubiksmoose I actually want to try Masks some day, don't apologize :P

@Rubiksmoose I was waiting for you to bring it up again. Because they are awesome.

(fate you can get away with involving mechanics less in social situations, but they should be coming up.)

my challenge is that if you think "(kind of thing) never needs mechanics in any tabletop RPG, you can just freeform it always", then you have never played a game that is about that kind of thing or to which that kind of thing seriously matters.

I personally think 5e could really really benefit from an overhauled social interaction system. However, I really don't think the current designers would do it justice given the focus and design goals that are apparent from how 5e has been designed thus far. And really the shift it needs to make RP really part of the system might even need a paradigm shift in the way they think about the entire game.

I dunno, skill sistems in the games that I've played made me feel like less skills = best. FOr example, in 3.5 D&D, your warrior had 2+int skill points... That meant you knew how to do 2 things. Probably Spot, and athletics. THen you were deaf (no listen), couldn't mount, didn't know how to lie, convince, intimidate, or any social interaction, etc...

@Rubiksmoose I wonder if that would make is less commercially profitable

@Rubiksmoose that would probably cause 4e-esque degrees of alienation, at least if my players are representative.

@Helwar are you aware the games you've listed are settled almost entirely in a D&D-like paradigm?

At least in 5e there are less skills, and the numbers are squashed so even when you don't have points in a skill you can do things with it

They're very strongly in the mindset that it's among those things the GM should just do well.

this is a bit like evaluating the movie landscape based on having seen Die Hard and some buddy cop movies.

@Helwar I do like that.

@doppelgreener Tango and Cash?

@doppelgreener yeah it's what I played most, can compare with others but this is the one I know the most

in that paradigm, the complexity and handling of their skill systems does make smaller skill systems preferable, because of how many complex mechanics are wrapped up in them.

@doppelgreener Have you played Anima Beyond Fantasy?

i haven't.

in games like bubblegumshoe, the broader skill system is fine and helpful; for atomic robo it helps articulate our characters. other games justifiably go for narrower skill systems, like the limited range of stats in masks (but wide range of abilities). but in atomic robo and bubblegumshoe, we don't have a dozen subsystems and status effects to track in correlation with our skills, which why a larger skill list is fine there and difficult to manage in D&D.

@Helwar Yeah it is really hard to explain how other systems work and how they just do it so differently and so well as a core concept. To give you an idea, in Masks there are no skills (in the D&D sense) at all. Only Moves which represent a way to resolve something that happens.

@kviiri @ColinGross I wonder as well. They certainly seem to think so anyways, or at least not a value added proposition. But then again, that also reflects the design intent of 5e. Social just isn't a priority.

It's a weird game, has a lots of combat options but penalizes you for entering combat, recovering health and resources takes ages, so you are supposed to avoid it as much as you can. Rules stablish that you have to use at least 40% of your points in skills (trying to encourage you to have some of them), but then you have like fifty thousand skills and just so many points to put in them, and in skills that you don't have points you have a -30 modifier.

It's always been so frustrating, that I always thought that it would be better without the social rules

that sounds nutso

@Helwar wowza. That... is a lot of things to understand.

it is

A game for those that like accounting?

I mean, there was an etiquette skill in that game, with just so many points to use, noone put any in it if their character didn't focus on it, so... everyone were pigs at the table :P

(fifty thousand was a super exageration)

@ColinGross They do say there is no accounting for taste :P

then i think this thing where they are just bad/burdensome social rules applies

@Rubiksmoose I think what they mean is "there's no tax deduction for taste"

It's definitely a line item in my books.

like, yes, in that game, sure, the social rules suck and you don't like engaging with them

but i'm calling out the notion that this applies to any and every ttrpg

I never knew why game designers think that my training with a sword or climbing ropes would interefere with me being able to woo a lady or my manners at the table

they should be separate... but that's my opinion

Yeah Masks doesn't tell you what you are good at. You can decide that on your own according to whatever your character concept is. So games definitely have different ways of handling that.

as much as I didn't like them, white wolf games have a better system... you have 3 pools of points, and you distribute these pools in three categories

@NautArch hey! long time no see buddy!

@Rubiksmoose howdy howdy! Back from holiday :)

relaxed and in a much better frame of mind

@Helwar I don't think I've even heard of these honestly.

@NautArch Vacation check critically sucessful.

Vampire, Changeling, Werewolf...

isn't hte company that makes them "White Wolf"? I might be mistaken

Nowadays it's Onyx Path, they acquired White Wolf or merged with them or something.

my bad

Kinda like TSR vs Wizards of the Coast namewise?

TSR?

I might have started too late on the hobby because I always knew Wizards of the Coast :P

the original company that created/ran D&D from the start through to AD&D 2e

@Rubiksmoose definitely critted the vacation. Was supposed to be thunderstorms all week and the weather ended up nearly perfect beach weather.

Did make a new game purchase for the kids (Sleeping Queens), which I highly recommend.

@NautArch board game or rpg?

@Rubiksmoose board game (card game). Really simple and fun.

ALso played Stay Away! with some friends on Sunday before D&D and that was a lot of fun. Complete rip-off of The Thing, but that's what it makes it good for Thingphiles.

@NautArch Neat all around!

sleeping queens and Stay Away!

@Helwar While that may sound intuitive (applying your own social interactions rather than a system ruleset), it can become an issue when it changes from "character skills versus environment" into "player social skills versus DM social skills"

@doppelgreener Which itself grew out of Guidon Games ...

@MikeQ yeah that's a problem. I'm not a good liar (i'm a horrible liar) and still like to play characters that know how to lie... My way of "just roleplay it" doesn't help

i.e. if a player is bad at being persuasive, charming, deceptive, or whatever, then their characters are suddenly also limited in that way

It's like the "rule" where if the player forgets something in between sessions, then the character forgets it, even though the last session was just moments ago in-game

(some DMs do this practice, and it is infuriating)

@MikeQ Mike Mornard pointed out that if you (the player) do it more you (the player) get better at it. I think he's right. But here is my caveat: IME it takes the GM doing a little coaching (meet each player at their own level) to move that progress along.

Aye

Eh, I dunno. I figure if the character knows it, then the character knows it.

When you GM for pre teens, teenagers, and adults you are often put in the position to adapt as GM. (Which IMO is a good thing, since you the GM grow)

@MikeQ I do it (soft-do it...) to punish players that don't pay attention. If you don't remember the name of an npc a couple of times, it's ok, but when that character is central to the story and it's always there, and you never remember him... or never know what you were doing or... you know where I'm going

The wizard's player doesn't have to memorize a list of spells. The bard's player doesn't have to sing. The fighter's player doesn't have to be skilled with a sword. The ranger's player doesn't need extensive out-of-game knowledge of botany and zoology.

@Helwar As a GM, I think it's primarily my mistake if my players find my NPCs forgettable.

@Helwar But players are humans, with real lives and more important things to think about than the fictional story their DM made. It's unreasonable to expect them to remember every single detail.

@MikeQ Games as a social activity. When I play Waterloo or Blitzkrieg, I don't have to be as experienced as an actual general to run a campaign; but I do get better at thinking strategically if I do it during each session.

@MikeQ yeah but when all the table does remember it and you know it's that person that doesn't pay attention ever... Meh it's just my messed up table and friends :P

It being "think strategically"

@Helwar Just... remind them?

@MikeQ DMs are also humans. And if I put time and energy into my game and the players are flippantly and frequently forgetting important NPC names because they don't have the time of day to write it down even after you've reminded them 5 times, it stings a bit.

@MikeQ I do, I do. Believe me, I do.

@MikeQ i'd do that

Especially in fantasy settings where everyone has silly names

i don't myself agree with my character's memory being predicated on my memory

i'm busy, i have a lot of things to think about, and story details in this once-a-week game are not correlated to my memory the way my character's story would be correlated for theirs.

@doppelgreener yeah not me either, I always do a session recap at the beginning to refresh their memories and everything. It's just that one player.

well, if it's just that one player, you're doing that thing

My strategy is to have a rotation of my players taking notes through the session and posting it to our chat

@doppelgreener that thing?

(I used to do it but as the DM i think i biased the notes)

It's fun! Some of them do it in character story telling style, some just do point form. Very helpful

@SirCinnamon doesn't help. Notes taking is not a skill any of us has invested any skill point, i think :P

@SirCinnamon My players' notes are always detailed, hilarious, and are very precise in omitting all actually relevant information :P

@Helwar i mean you seem to be saying you'd prefer not to be making characters forget things based on what the players forgot, or that you somehow object to doing it, but you're also saying you're doing that anyway for one of your players.

@ACuriousMind that's great

@doppelgreener yeah, I do. It's the only way I found for him to try to remember anything. Or pay attention

@ACuriousMind As a DM its valuable insight on what you need to emphasize, but yes the players are practiced at missing the point

@Helwar ok, gotcha

It's just that me and my friends are playing the same rules but not everyone is playing the same game, if you know what I mean

@SirCinnamon Yes, a great many things become more important to the game simply because the players refuse to believe they are irrelevant...

It's not optimal but it's what we have

@Helwar right

I tend to make things important to the game the more the players are interested in them

Such as fictional names, or subtle motives, or the complex relationships between fictional entities

@MikeQ I do that! :) I'm aware of it, though, and I tend to ask them what they understood of the situation or description

to help it a bit

It's the DM's job to convey information that the characters should know. Punishing players for not memorizing every detail is partly punishing them for the DM's miscommunications. (I say this from my own experience as a DM, and as a player where the DM will mention things offhandedly and then punish us for not remembering)

@MikeQ I'm in that boat. Sometimes I write myself notes like "on the nose" to make sure I remember that no hint is too blunt.

Otherwise you get "abused gamer syndrome" - i.e. powerplayers who write everything down, memorize every rule, etc., and they're not fun to play with

Rather than enjoying the game, they'll spend all their energy trying to exploit the DM's idiosyncrasies and social/cognitive weaknesses

@MikeQ I don't know if you are talking about me or just in general, but I don't do "THAT", It's the big things, the name of the organization they are a part of and interact every session should be a regular name for them, this guy never remembers who is working for

I don't punish them for not knowing that X member secretly loves Y member but has not told everyone or some bs like that :P

@Helwar The latter part of my parentheses mean that I'm talking in general terms

@Helwar I have drawings and some of the title pages of my notes on a poster board on the wall in the room where we play. Just in case the players forget the name of the country they've been in for the past 20 sessions.

@ColinGross :)

I wish we had a fixed room to play in so I could do something like that

My strategy is to start every session with a recap, because again, my players have extremely busy and stressful lives, and we have about a month in between sessions

@MikeQ How broad do you go with those?

Like, do you mention the name of the country?

@MikeQ I do that ^^ First I ask someone to make a recap, and then I feel the possible holes and fix whatever they said wrong

@Helwar I like this plan

yoink

@ColinGross Dunno, maybe a 5 minute discussion, tops? Ask the players what they remember. Then fill in the blanks, make sure to cover 1. Where they are 2. What they're doing 3. Why they're doing it

Also, if there are scenarios where you expect a player to do something (and they're not doing it), and you suspect that maybe it's because they forgot, then remind them what their character knows

@MikeQ that's complicated to do

without directly giving them the answer

Yes. Yes it is. I don't want to tell them what to do.

@MikeQ I usually do a recap to start the session as well - but I did just have a player post a question of 'any notes from last session?' that I'm currently ignoring and hoping another player will answer.

My players take detailed logs and recordings of each session. Sometimes I feel like I got the RPG group lottery.

Also one player who remembers things even I don't. Though I have a terrible awful memory. I would be the guy that gets punished by @Helwar for sure. Not because I don't care but just because I cannot remember things

@Rubiksmoose Mine do the same.

One made a conspiracy board style chart of all the NPCs and their connections.

It's pretty spot on... he also tracks all the ones they murder hobo'd

That's amazing

@Rubiksmoose Believe me, if you make the effort, and you are not playing some mobile game whenever is not your turn, and not make us wait 20 seconds to "finish the game" when it comes your turn... I will not punish you for not remembering things

Lemme see if i can find the image

We print it on a map printer

@MikeQ I like to write my recap up and post it a few days before we play, so everyone can read/comment on it. Then I'll read a slightly revised version at the start of the session, so everyone knows whats going (and I get to show off my awesome prose skillz)

@GreySage Are you the DM or player? I really would prefer the players write recaps. I'm doing enough work :)

Evening/morning/day periodm

Evening/morning/day period.

As a side note, I have found session recordings to be the best freaking tool ever for me as a DM in so many ways. Highly recommend everyone to do it if the group is ok with it

@NautArch DM. I usually write them at work when I need a break.

Has anyone figured out that script yet? :P

I'm not typically an XML type guy

Yeah that's good

And I do this in my games, because I have been a player for DMs who don't

i.e., My character would go to the bar, I forget about the sideplot, and then the DM punishes me later on because my character didn't deliver the envelope

I don't reaaaaaaaaaally want to do that, not because I don't think it's good, but because I'm bad at it and most times I end up being too subtle (and then is worthless) or too on the nose (and tell them the solution to the conundrum directly, wich then makes it boring)

@MikeQ Being given a specific task to complete is different than remembering the name of a NPC.

@NautArch I could provide a separate example. Replace "man with eyepatch and raven tattoo" with some fantasy name like "Spades McGenericAdventurerName" or "Jor'thog Zavksdfhasdffgkasdf" and it's a similar situation.

@Rubiksmoose s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sewer-cleaners/…

@MikeQ good name, I'm gonna use it for my next NPC