Dang, Umdaar's got legs.

@nitsua60 "How, step by step, will combat play out when Alice brings her sonic pliers to a quantum spanner fight between Bob and Charlie?" sounds like a bad Doctor Who knockoff fight, and I love it.

(from here)

Umdaar's definitely one of my favorite Fate iterations.

@doppelgreener Correction: an excellent Doctor Who knockoff fight.

@BESW You're right.

@PeterCooperJr. that's a good guitar for smashing things with

@BESW re: this, in the storied history of social gaming questions getting a lot of "you need a session 0" answers, i have found myself downvoting almost all of them, mostly because they just point out you have a session 0 then describe how a session 0 runs ... but add zero connective tissue on how to come back to the scenario after the session 0 and use it to resolve what's happening, often with 0 Good Subjective citation of "I dove into a session 0 and it fixed a similar thing".

@doppelgreener Prolly because of all the Dr. Who that Douglas Adams wrote =)

@doppelgreener Yeah this is also timely because in my group has been having some issues lately and is probably call it quits on the current campaign and starting something new. Session 0 gets thrown around (I catch myself all the time) as a panacea for all woes without much in the line of how we are actually going to use it to prevent repeating the issues.

I sent them BESW's comment though because it was perfectly stated.

We learned the importance of normalizing active course-correction, when one of our long-running campaigns collapsed because everyone's vision of it had deviated noticeably from everyone else's.

@Rubiksmoose Same Page Tool gets thrown around too as a panacea, usually at the same time Session 0 is getting mentioned, but that misses the point that it's basically just the start of a discussion. It is a discussion starter for discussions groups usually don't think about having.

Honestly I'm coming to think that "session 0" is an actively unhelpful concept, especially that particular way of describing it.

I think the hobby would be inclined toward healthier table discussions if our phrase for them didn't imply they were one-offs AND independent of the actual game.

I agree with that ^

You need to establish a baseline, but it often doesn't need a whole session all to itself. And you need to remember it IS a baseline--session 0 divorces the "establish expectations" part from the "play the game" part by implying you only ever have to establish expectations once.

Reflection and revision are essential to sustaining any long-term action.

@BESW And this is one of the big things that killed our campaign.

We had ongoing discussions about what was/wasn't working well, and adjusted along the way. A character wasn't working, in response to that you and I also spoke about how to approach levity vs seriousness in the story and how players respond to it; we realised the way we handled character creation was actually not the best way (we thought we were being experts by filling everything in at the start and didn't realise that leaving most things blank was actually ideal) so we tried out a new way.

We also realised the vision was deviating so heavily only after a few different conversations reflecting on the overall vision, of which that character not working well was one.

I'm thinking that my next long campaign we should have periodic "check-ups" after session 0 to get feedback and see what adjustments need to be made.

@Rubiksmoose At the end of every session, I try to ask:

@BESW That is a great idea. I'm not sure end of session would work for us. Everyone is usally pretty tired and dreading a trip home and work the next day.

And if there's anything I noticed getting a reaction at the table that session, I ask about it specifically.

Obviously that is but a minor detail in what you said though

@Rubiksmoose I dunno, I think it's useful to ask when things are fresh. It might be worth adjusting the session so you have a bit of time at the end for it.

@BESW That is a good point. I might try to aim for that.

Definitely ask it at the end of session.

Our group always did it at end of session, it's a 5 minute conversation tops.

Though there's also value in getting peoples' considered opinions after they've had time to percolate their thoughts, the hot takes are usually more important. I like trying for both when I can.

If everyone's too tired for a 5 minute conversation, end 5 minutes sooner than you usually do. :P

hahaha all very fair.

and very good points all around.

The other thing I have to find a way to help with is a couple people's reluctance to give any kind of critique or criticism (social anxiety and lack of self-confidence mainly)

And if it's not a 5 minute discussion... then more than ever it needs to be something you're asking at the end of the session. If something big comes up, and after discussing it for a few minutes it looks like it's going to take a lot more talking and you really don't have the time and energy for talking about it further, table it to talk about further later when it's a better time.

@Rubiksmoose Model it yourself! Be open and honest and center your input on your feelings and concern for others' feelings.

If longer talks are needed, have them outside game time, preferably while sharing food.

@BESW I like to think that I am doing this (or trying to) already. I seem to be the trusted by these people enough that when they have issues with other DMs/players they talk to me at some point at least. Not sure if they would come to me about a problem with me right away though.

But I absolutely agree. Part of the struggle is convincing them that their opinion matters to me/the rest of the players and that their feelings and enjoyment matter just as much as everyone else's.

You can model concern by saying things like "I noticed Susan was especially quiet during [scene], and I wondered if that's because she didn't feel comfortable about it."

Speaking from a point when I was deeply affected by social anxiety: there is no magical way to make me provide criticism. You can only make me slightly more relaxed and safe to eventually bring it up. When someone else brings it up, I might chime in.

yes, that's an important point: a lot of times if you think maybe something should be talked about, other people do too but nobody wants to be the one to bring it up.

By being the one to open up that space, the others can add their insights.

In a lot of social circles at various times I have been The One Who Brings It Up.

@BESW On the other hand I do worry about white knight-ing or putting them on the spot if I bring up a concern for them.

That's also important to keep in mind.

@Rubiksmoose You are asking if they may have had a concern during a certain moment, not raising that they had one as if it is definitely true.

Again, fair.

And notice that my questions aren't focused on negatives: if you first make the end-session reflection a place to celebrate success, then concerns can be framed as "how to succeed more" rather than "we failed."

Hmmm that is a really good point. I was already slipping into a point out the negative mindset for this.

Which, when I'm a player, usually ends up being a lot of me talking because I generally am not super subtle and not at all shy.

"I noticed that Tåsi was smiling a lot during [interaction], and I really liked it too. I think I'd like to see more that kind of thing, but I'm not sure exactly what about it made me so happy. Tåsi, what did you like about it?"

For better or worse.

I think this will all be an excellent discussion to have in our session 0. I'll make a note to propose after session reviews every week.

"I liked our interaction with [NPC]. I'm thinking about making her a recurring character but I'm not sure how; can you help me figure out if/how to do it?"

@Rubiksmoose Are you the DM/GM?

We kind of already had to do this for Masks except the session wrap-up was about in-character growth and feelings instead of OOC ones.

@doppelgreener Not currently no. Though I have been in the past.

Usually when I DM though I'm the one begging for input and am generally not giving out a ton of it.

Ok, got it. If you were the DM/GM I was going to say just do it at the end of the next session. :D

As a GM or a player, asking the group for help --even in figuring out what feeling you're having-- can be very powerful.

@doppelgreener Ah yeah definitely. Though to be fair with the current long-running campaign ending there is also coming a changing of the DM-chair. So it will be agreat time to talk about all these thigns

@doppelgreener I sometimes have that same issue

The GM/player roles should fade during reflection sessions, and it should be a conversation between friends who play games together.

@Rubiksmoose You can also offer to facilitate those discussions yourself, the GM doesn't necessarily have to be the one to have them

@BESW Yes :)

@doppelgreener Absolutely. The GM shouldn't have sole responsibility for the social dynamics of the group.

That's one of the hardest things for me to unlearn.

Totally

@doppelgreener For sure. And I think that is something we have all (DM included) realized. The group had issues that were wide varying and got worse with time (sometimes diverging/opposite issues) and we didn't talk until it was too late and weren't able to fix the issues. I think we all want to have a way to make sure that we start and keep on being on the same page and adressing the good and the bad as they occur.

We kind of let the DM drive without giving him direction or input and he continued driving in a bad direction for a lot of us.

It is pretty complicated I think, but part of the problem seemed to be that the DM was thinking more and more of the story as "his" story, not "our" story.

@doppelgreener It's a thing I've come to admire about you around here, frankly.

@nitsua60 i think it's a positive trait too, except for a period where i let it get to my head

@Rubiksmoose That's a common thing, and when the group isn't in a mode of regularly having meta-level discussion as friends playing a game together about what they like and don't like etc then it makes it harder to be much else.

The DM is, after all, the sole one analysing things at any sort of long-term meta level if you're not having those discussions.

They are left as the sole author of the big picture.

The players wind up as the collaborative authors of the moment to moment, but it's easy to wind up with very little room to have long-term impact from inside a session of D&D if the DM has already figured out some big picture.

(unless you go killing a vital NPC out of desire to do something meaningful, and then the DM comes here with a question about "my PCs derailed my plot by killing a vital NPC, what do I do!?")

@doppelgreener it's worse when the DM's idea of what the big picture is diverges from the players'...(been there, done that)

@Shalvenay yes

I once played in a game where the GM had a very specific idea about how an NPC was going to save the party from Certain Doom... which meant that all of our hypercompetent PCs with tools that would totally trivialized the Certain Doom got told "Oh, it doesn't work because... because."

The only thing the GM can completely control is the opening scene.

Hmm. I wonder if anyone's designed a Microscope-style Add/Ban/Legacy system for generic use with other RPGs.

Or if it'd be portable pretty much as is? Has anybody done that?

For those unfamiliar with Microscope, it's a setting-history-design game that starts with the group agreeing on a short sentence that describes the scope of the history they'll be creating. "The rise and fall of the dragon empire" or "How music won the robot war" or whatever.

Then you take turns putting things on the Add/Ban lists: you put elements on the Add list if it's not obvious they'd be part of that history but you want them anyway (like including aliens in the dragon empire history) and you put elements on the Ban list if they'd be commonly part of that kind of history but you don't want them (like "humanoid robots" in the robot wars).

When you start the game and take turns creating parts of the history, at the end of each round somebody gets to add a "Legacy" which is pointing at something somebody's added and saying "I want to see more detail added to that later."

And in later rounds, that Legacy will get picked as the focus for that round, so everything added in that round must related to that Legacy somehow.

It might be an interesting structure to hack for game reflection/course correction practices.

@BESW oooooooh that is a neat idea

→ 1 message moved to Trashcan (just removing a smokey report for a r/a answer nobody needs to be subjected to)

@BESW I like the sound of this.

@BESW I use that during campaign/adventure design conversations with groups when I run homebrew. Go a few rounds around the table with add/ban, but not so much that it's really gelled. Then I switch modes to picking the setting's "position" on each of about six different axes: tech level, societal organization, magic prevalence, high/low fantasy/intrigue, scope/scale, &c.

@nitsua60 Now I'm thinking about the hilarity that might ensue from using the 1985 Doctor Who planet/society randomization tables for that.

By the time that's done it's usually pretty clear what the story is: we've got wood elves and sea elves and warforged, but no humans. It's age of steel, strong theocracy, and literally everyone's got a cantrip.

@BESW My favorite was a campaign where we did that to start, and then ran a concurrent Microscope game to flesh out the setting's history while we played in the "present."

(Which led to us playing any number of "flashback" sessions: something'd come up in Microscope that just had to be played out in realtime to find out....)

Cool.

That may be my favorite campaign ever. Certainly that I've run.

We've got two questions about Four Against Darkness by the same user

I decided to look it up, and found this product page describing it: ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?products_id=295

:thinking:

also, the [solo] tag shouldn't be used for questions that aren't about the solo nature of solo RPGs specifically, right? (i.e. it shouldn't automatically be used for every question about a solo RPG)

Because both questions are rules questions unrelated to it being a solo thing

@V2Blast That's a tough one for me. Because of the "tags are for what a question's about, not just what it contains" argument on one hand and the "tags are for discoverability and browsing" argument on the other.

I totally see what you're saying that the questions aren't about solo play in any way; I also think that a person interested in solo play who didn't know the name of that game would likely never find the posts if untagged, and would if tagged.

I will say that I'm not totally sold on the company's claim that "it is NOT a roleplaying game."

There's obviously (likely) no playacting when playing a solo game. But they mention that you can fight monsters "or decide discretion is the better part of valor." That decision, depending on your mindset when making it, sure is roleplaying, no?

Yeah, I agree about the company's claim

@nitsua60 In Monopoly, you can make risky investments or decide discretion is the better part of valor. Contrariwise, it's been my experience, both personally and while watching kids, that solo play often involves a heavy dose of really clear roleplaying.

I guess what I'm saying is, "this is/isn't a roleplaying game" is pretty much a meaningless statement unless you define your terms, and then you might as well have just said "this is a game that does [thing] but not [other thing]" and leave "is it an RPG" as an exercise for the user.

One of my pet peeve RPG blanket statements is "more role-playing, less roll-playing" and not only because it hasn't been witty for decades anymore --- I find it promotes an unhealthy gatekeeping attitude towards particular gamestyles

If I want to play my RPGs while curled up into a ball like an agoraphobic armadillo, that's nobody's business except mine.

@kviiri Like, yeah, dice aren't definitional for RPGs, but randomization mechanics persist for very good reasons other than tradition.

Yeah. There's also the narrative that rules are a kind of a polar opposite of narrative, and that they're mostly downplayed or kept obscure by good GMs to not dilute the fun or somesuch

Totally unrelated: Today's Unnecessary Imagery of the Day is the phrase "meat cameras" to describe our eyes.

@kviiri This exactly: it's been my experience that people who talk about "rollplaying" tend to also be reluctant to explore experimental game systems that provide mechanics to support character-heavy roleplaying.

There's actually an interesting similarity I noticed recently... I play quite a lot of Paradox Interactive's Grand strategy games (eg. Stellaris, Hearts of Iron IV etc)

They're pretty good at making these large-scale but reasonably accessible strategy games. They're not very good at balancing them.

So eg. in Stellaris, there's a lot of suboptimal choices... not exactly trap builds since the differences aren't exactly game changing

But still, suboptimal on paper as well as on gameplay. And we're talking about mostly rather simple numerical modifiers: eg. in the previous version, an empire with the Mining Guilds civic would just increase the empire's mineral output by a flat +10% without any other manifestations of having a prominent guild in charge of affairs

Do you get the impression that they didn't get/understand good/sufficient playtesting feedback, or that they didn't understand where balance was necessary and where it wasn't, or...?

(due to the extreme versatility and necessity of minerals as a resource, many players considered Mining Guilds to be a "feat tax" so that not taking it would always be a handicap)

@BESW I think it's partially because of their iterative design model ("we can always fix balance later", which they admittedly sometimes do!) and partially because they have mixed feelings regarding the importance of balance in immersive grand strategy.

I mean, many players defend obviously unbalanced choices in those games with the usual reply: "but it's good RP value!" ...that somehow ticks me off. I like role-playing as much as the next guy but I don't like it when the game punishes thematically interesting choices by whittling them down to a tuple of (name, numeric bonus), especially when the numeric bonus is so underwhelming one would rather not even consider it!

Oops, I had to leave for a moment and forgot to carry on this thread of thought

I think the false dissonance between "balance" and "RP value" in Paradox games' fanbases (not exactly universal there) is peculiarly similar to the "roll-playing" vs "role-playing" dissonance

Anyway, I'm off to lunch at mom and dad <3 see you around

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer (346): Does the caster of an enchantment spell always know if the spell worked or failed? by Cudu Orela on rpg.SE

I've done many things in my life that I regret

What a coincidence, me too!

Last-minute swapping my Christmas gift to my brother so he got a fancy pack of normal black tea instead of this smoked Lapsang Souchong (which I then kept) is not one of those. I'm absolutely in love with this stuff

(and having given him a taste of this tea, he didn't like its very tarry flavor, so it's a win-win)

Also brewing a pot of it makes my flat smell like a good ol' fashioned smoke sauna

@kviiri I've been struggling all day with whether to star this message or not. I feel like if I do I'll regret it. Then again, if I don't....

I'm working on tweaking some D&D-5e NPC stat blocks, and I'm trying to figure out how the Scout has the same to-hit bonus for both its melee and ranged attack

It looks like it has a +4 prof. bonus for most things, but it doesn't quite add up

So I'm wondering if I'm missing something, or if it's just a bunch-of-stats and isn't really "built" from the core components the way one might expect

@PeterCooperJr. It seems to add its Dex modifier (+2) to damage for Dex weapons, so if it has a +4 on the attack, then it has an effective +2 prof bonus

So he has +4 prof bonus on melee and skills, but only +2 on ranged?

Shortswords can use Dex

unsure what's going on with the skills, maybe they have some Expertise-like math

Oh, right

Okay, so +4 for skills and +2 for weapons?

I guess calling it an Expertise-like thing makes some sense

That makes the math work out as well as anything else does. Thanks.

It is worth noting that some monsters don't follow the math for their numbers like you would expect and don't list the reason why.

I think NPCs have an effective proficiency bonus that scales with their CR

Sure, but then they did that recent errata to make the math work out right for some creatures even though it didn't before. And it's fine if the answer is "it's just made up", I just wanted to know where the starting point was before I made tweaks

Now, my next question. I know I can do just about anything, but what I'm working on doing is taking this Scout and making him a Halfling. I can just add the abilities like Lucky and Halfling Nimbleness, but is it "normal" to tweak the stats too? So increase its Dex by 2?

Or is it kind of considered that the stats used for an NPC are already after any applicable bonuses, as that's "what they rolled" so they probably became a whatever because they had those stats?

I know I'm very much overthinking this. Just wondering if there was any precedent or "best practices" to be aware of.

Though I need to go have lunch now. Thanks for your help.

I think the DMG says something about modifying the race of an existing monster

ok here we go, there's a table of monster stats by CR

monsters with CR 0-4 have an effective +2 proficiency bonus

changing an NPC to halfling... +2 Dex, +1 Con or +1 Cha, Brave, Halfling Nimbleness, Lucky, Small size, 25 ft speed, halfling languages

@nitsua60 Yes, managing logistics for discrete units instead of an entire army is a core part of a game where you play singular roles, but language is use, so I don't blame them for disclaiming it.

Apparently, I fell off the world for about a month or so. Did I miss anything good?

@JoelHarmon We finally finished our Curse of Strahd campaign!

(not a moment too soon if you ask me)

@kviiri Cool! How'd it go?

@JoelHarmon Well, the final session went ok despite the campaign, I'd say. I hadn't been a fan of the campaign design and the final session did little to change that but we got a bit lucky at points that could've gotten rather way more tedious

Since I have no real experience playing or running a pre-fabricated campaign, would you say it's something that could be improved with the book, or with DM/party choices?

I've only taken a summary glance at the campaign book, but I think many of the issues I have with the campaign are indeed within the campaign content, not the way it was ran to us. (Of course, the GM could always use their discretion to cut content on the run, but it might go wrong easily in a complex setting like the one CoS has where everything is connected to something)

Then again, many of the things I disliked are indeed enjoyable to some kinds of players... reportedly.

I just feel it's weird to play in a group where everyone's in not-so-tacit agreement that being too careful is boring and checking everything for traps or ambushes slows down gameplay, and then choosing to play a campaign that's all too eager to screw one over for whatever reason.

(and this being DnD, one's character's welfare is directly proportional to the agency they have in the world)

Sigh, I feel like ranting about CoS again... if you want to listen, we can create a room for that but if you don't, that's cool with me too :D

(I still have gripes I haven't mentioned here!)

@PeterCooperJr. Scout needs 5 or a 3 in Nature; the stat blocks show "expertise" for the other three which is double proficiency. Nature +4, Perception +5, Stealth +6, Survival +5. The stat block I see has +4 attack with bow and +4 attack with sword, not sure what you were looking at.

Multiattack. The scout makes two melee attacks or two ranged attacks. Shortsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (1d6 + 2) piercing damage. Longbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: (1d8 + 2) piercing damage.

Sorry I cut and psted that from roll20 PHB/MM.

@MikeQ Monster CR --> prof bonus is the same as character level --> prof bonus. (Except that monsters go all the way down to CR0 at +2 prof, while characters bottom out at L1.) It's one of the places where one can see the "tier" concept actually shining through.

@nitsua60 too bad blud font isn't with us anymore, I suspect he could talk with the goblins ...

@KorvinStarmast Nature is an Int skill, so expertise in it equals a +4 mod (if prof. bonus = +2)

@KorvinStarmast Yes, I was looking at Scout on D&D Beyond, and for the skills it's the relevant stat +4.

And for the weapon attacks, it's Dex +2.