TRPG General Chat - 2021-05-21 (page 1 of 2)

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AncientSwordRage

1:02 AM

@BESW what you have produced was more than enough

1 hour later…

Hot RPG Questions

2:17 AM

5

Q: Should PCs receive XP for enemies that die to friendly fire?

Should player characters receive XP for enemies they're in combat with who die to friendly fire? For example, say an archmage and two berserkers are fighting a party of three. The archmage casts fireball into combat with their friendly two berserkers and ends up killing them. Would the PCs receiv...

dnd-5e combat experience-points

Hot RPG Questions

2:42 AM

6

Q: Do PCs receive XP for Strahd when encountering (but not killing) him?

I've been running Curse of Strahd for about 25 sessions now. The party just encountered Strahd in combat for the first time on top of Yester Hill. It was an intense fight where only two out of six PCs remained standing (the rest were stabilized) by the time they were able to stop the ritual. I ha...

dnd-5e experience-points curse-of-strahd

3 hours later…

6:04 AM

is there a way to get the stack to write in Capital letters but with size?

I think you mean small caps, and no good ways

6:19 AM

@Carcer Actually, I mean Kapitälchen, which is... oh, yes, small caps. Too bad. They are the clearly superior script to All Caps, less yelly and much better for disembodied evil voices.

but then again... unicode characters! Copy-paste them 1 by 1 from wiki works :)

yeah. No built in support in markdown and they're not covered by the html subset that SE allows

but DIY smallcaps using extended unicode is also bad! rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6735/28402

It is 2 words that are not meant to be actually searched for. "You Failed" in a booming voice from an example.

u n l e s s y o u ' r e o n e o f t h e s e w e i r d o s

I wanted to invoke some of Pratchett-vibe there, but ALL CAPS looked a little too boomy, so small caps.

it's not just about searching but accessibility - compatibility with screen readers and that kind of thing

you could try just using all caps and subscript? (<sub> tags)

6:27 AM

Yeah, I would opt against. We had a similar discussion concerning a question which used unicode trickery to emulate formatting of the source material, with similar results

emphasis ... extra emphasis ... I'm really trying to get things across now

Then there's caps

Oh, it was actually linked in that very meta.

@Carcer Subscript looks wonky...

but huh... apparently Google can tell you only other instances where exactly those character appear... I revert for readability to All-Caps

1 hour later…

7:48 AM

<sub>TRYING THIS OUT TO SEE IF IT WORKS</sub>

Oh, apparently no sub tags in chat.

@A.B. The problem is, that T<sub>HIS</sub> would shift the HIS down half a character height, making it look wonky.

Hmm, yes.

1 hour later…

Hot RPG Questions

9:23 AM

7

Q: Is there an in-universe reason why each wizard uses different notation in their spellbook?

One of the best things about being a wizard in D&D is the wide array of spells that, in principle, you have access to. To prevent this from being over-powered and over-whelming, you can't just prepare any spell: you first need to learn it and copy it to your spell-book. So far, it all seems logic...

dnd-5e spells lore wizard

9:58 AM

For those interested in grand strategy gaming and don't mind a spoiler about tonight's PdoxCon reveal: reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/nhny4a/…

1 hour later…

11:15 AM

Inspired by a scenario described by G.Moylan in Dragons (https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/58066490#58066490): I'm thinking about a tactical fight where there is
1. an area entrance that has a smashed crystal beside it, and an open door
2. closed doors, with crystals beside them, and the door opens upon the crystal being smashed
3. an end encounter with a beeg monster that has several crystals on its back and creatures ready to defend them.

11:28 AM

@kviiri Vicky III was already in HOI4... if you resist Hitler, have the Hindenburg survive, ally the British and reform the Holy Roman Empire, then you play as Victoria III :P

@doppelgreener Well and now I'm thinking about Crystal Maze TRPG.

11:43 AM

@Trish I only play Kaiserreich, the Vanilla HoI 4 experience is too wacky alt-history for me ;)

@kviiri You should try the Alt Histry of the Alt History then!

@Trish I presume you mean Führerreich? I haven't had the time to check that out yet

There's also TNO which seems cool but takes a really long time to play with all the events

I have dropped almost all strategy gaming for now since I'm working on my own game project, anyway

@kviiri that... or the Fallout RE-vamp

AncientSwordRage

@BESW yes!

12:04 PM

@AncientSwordRage I have no idea how I'd do it, but one of the necessary features would be the host desperately improvising to fill time on puzzles that weren't tested to see how boring they'd look to an audience.

(I love the early seasons so much, they're so cludgey.)

AncientSwordRage

I need to find a way to rewatch them

They were definitely a big part of my childhood, but I haven't got a good recollection of them

@AncientSwordRage Youtube playlists. So many of them.

AncientSwordRage

Playlists, playlists everywhere

My Watch later list grew too unwieldy, so I made a second list, and now that is becoming too unwieldy....

I will have to throw some Crystal maze into the mix

@BESW I haven't heard of this, but I just found out Richard Aoyade has been the host for a few years, so I'm interested

@doppelgreener The original host is even better: Richard O'Brien, the creator of Rocky Horror (and the guy who played Riff-Raff in it).

12:13 PM

Oh wow!

He's the perfect guy for the early series, because it's full of awkward pauses and fumbles that he fills with rambling improvisation. Starting the second episode, he carries a harmonica in his pocket for when even he runs out of things to say.

oh, brilliant

And the craft of the early show is fascinating to me, because the sets and puzzles are clearly labors of love-on-a-budget by talent set and prop designers who have absolutely no experience with how to make game show activities look good on camera.

AncientSwordRage

12:28 PM

@doppelgreener you're in for a treat

@BESW but they still have a great gameshow aesthetic

It's so much a product of its time, in all the best ways

12:49 PM

Hmm. You couldn't use Primetime Adventures to do a gameshow as written, but I wonder if there's something there. Pick "win a crystal" or "look good on camera" - high card wins that, red cards win the other one.

@doppelgreener I described how the golem didn't seem very affected by their attacks and how the crystals would surge with energy every time he was struck. They caught on after about 2 rounds

@G.Moylan You got some smart players!

@Glazius I'd be inclined to focus on the metanarrative of running a game show, as much as the experience of being a contestant in a game show.

@BESW off-camera hijinx?

Implied off-camera hijinks.

1:02 PM

There's a mod for the Dungeon of the Mad Mage D&D adventure book that turns it into a madcap game show dungeon

@G.Moylan WUUUUT?! Linky linky!

@NautArch let me find it

This was the campaign i was planning on ending soon, but maybe i'll turn the next level into a gameshow.

Stuff like, the puzzle isn't quite set up right to be solveable, or the focus is on the host improvising over a boring-to-watch puzzle rather than on the puzzle being solved, etc.

Almost like the show itself is a single character shared by all the players, and each part of the show--host, challenges, contestants, sets--are elements of that one character.

This is the specific supplement: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/267787/DotMM-Companion-Halasters-Game
and this is a bundle that includes it: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/268607

1:06 PM

The focus isn't on contestants winning or losing, but on the show being entertaining.

@BESW how do you judge success in something like that?

AncientSwordRage

@BESW could you hack Villagesong (maybe the solo play version)?

With no actual audience to gague against

@AncientSwordRage ?

AncientSwordRage

Villagesong is a boardgame you don't win, but you play a leader of a village and face change by accepting or rejecting it. At the end, your choices form a song your village is remembered by

1:08 PM

@G.Moylan How do you judge if a D&D campaign is successful? Some outcomes don't have a mechanical metric, they arise out of the sum of the parts.

AncientSwordRage

the whole "Make a memorable song" feels like it maps to "Make an enjoyable show"

I mean, I could use InSpectres' resources-and-advancement cycle but that would make it a game about a job.

@AncientSwordRage [takes notes]

@BESW you play as the behind-the-scenes crew trying to make the audience pleased without stressing out the host

AncientSwordRage

So rather than have a volcano be an event to react to, it could be that someone is trapped in a challenge....it's not a perfect mapping.

0

Q: Ambigious [3D-Space]

the 3d-space is described as For questions that primarily involve calculations, coordinates, and movement within the imagined 3-dimensional space of the game world. However, that is a little ambiguous, as the recent volume discussion brought up: Are Volumetric problems, which are in the math of "

discussion tags

1:13 PM

when you encounter setbacks in keeping the show engaging, the host will make up for it and keep the audience engaged, but he's got limits to how much he can do!

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener Having watched the show it's probably the opposite. Richard O'Brian seems pretty unflappable

well the description i got above was that when the setpieces weren't engaging to watch, the host would make them engaging

AncientSwordRage

true

i imagine the goal is as the behind-the-scenes crew to minimise the amount of work the host has to do by maximizing the entertainment on the set itself

AncientSwordRage

that's a good point

1:16 PM

cue Price is Right yodeller

Main contestant: [doing math in their head]
Rest of the team: [shouting distracting encouragements]
O'Brien: [practically eating the camera while improvising a story about the gruesome fate of the last contestant who failed this challenge]

O'Brien also quickly picked up that he'd have to understand the puzzles well enough to give clues when the puzzles were unclear about what's expected of the solver.

AncientSwordRage

Does O'Brien work as a shared character the players rotate between?

Possibly.

I also have this role that I've wanted to use in game design, of a player who isn't any character, and doesn't take on NPC roles, but is just there as the GM version of a color commenter, adding juicy details and fleshing out scenes.

I think a Crystal Maze game, as I envision it, would have "shared character" as the default.

@Akixkisu If you still don't like my answer, just downvote and move on, I don't have anything to add re: your comments.

Not just for the host, but for everyone. Players might take on responsibility for different parts of the show --set, props, casting-- or different kinds of actions, rather than distributing agency across characters.

More Cozy Town-ish, maybe.

AncientSwordRage

1:25 PM

@BESW I like it

If players do get their own characters, the characters are fleeting tools for players' long-term responsibilities over sections of the game. Almost Great Ork Gods ish.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW [Takes notes]

It'd be kinda funny to treat contestants as fungible targets for slapstick failure.

Roll for what your character does and narrate how the host has to react to it :D

or rather, say what your character attempts, find out how it works out, and the narration we get for how events unfold comes exclusively from the (unreliable narrator) host's description

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that would be good

1:32 PM

Now I'm imagining an inverse GOG scenario where each player sets the difficulties for certain kinds of actions, and they want characters to succeed but don't have enough resources to spend to make the difficulties low all the time.

AncientSwordRage

If it had a dicepool mechanic, you could lose dice as players get trapped?

And do you still have Physical, Mental and Skill challenges?

@BESW if it fails you can either use a limited resource for a hint from the host, or skip the challenge while the host tells a story or plays an instrument

@Trish Never was into Fallout, unfortunately (OTOH, it's not like I knew anything about Kaiserreich universe before playing the mod either...)

@AncientSwordRage The ticket grab would be rolling dice accumulated over the course of the adventure, with trapped players modifying the pool somehow--maybe you're rolling d10s and looking for success on 6 through 10 if all your players are there, 7-10 if you're missing one player, etc.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I like that

The number of dice you roll would be based on challenges completed.

AncientSwordRage

1:39 PM

so maybe you start with X dice, and ... yup you got there

Although for some reason I feel like this would be a game better suited to playing cards than dice for some of its mechanics?

Hrm.

At any rate, bed for me.

ttfn!

AncientSwordRage

I think to balance it out you may need to make 1s subtract, otherwise it might always be advantageous to leave people behind

@BESW ciao for niao

2:10 PM

@Trish FWIW I downvoted the tag question because I believe tags should not be well defined and are a folk taxonomy where only significant issues should warrant overhauls and changes. To that end, I would not consider slight ambiguity (i.e. small overuse and underuse) to be problematic

@Medix2 i'S more than slight in some areas... I don't think "HP of a mountain range" fits at all into 3d-space

if anything, it would warrent a topography thing

I downvoted it because having two active discussions about the same tag going on concurrently is likely to cause problems. The conclusion of one discussion will affect the other discussion.

@Trish Your citation style really does make it uncomfortable for me to read your posts. It really is a barrier to readability for some.

Yeah I just don't think one user happening to put the tag on their question about mountain ranges when nobody commented about it or edited it and the user almost certainly did not check the tag description is meaningful

@ThomasMarkov They literally do not render properly on my i-Pad

@Medix2 Yeah, we can probably just remove the 3d-space from that question, it doesnt belong.

Agreed

But also, yeah, on my i-Pad, the superscripts render as regular looking text :(

cloakingMekton Zeta 75. And another 0.33 for Piracy ChipsMekton Zeta 93'

2:21 PM

I honestly wasn't sure about 3d-space for the recent question on meks. But I can't find any other relevant tag for distance or scaling or range.

@NautArch Same

I don't think it applies here, either, but I'm not sure we do have a tag, either. Going to sift through some range distance questions and see if i can find something.

I feel like that tag really needs to focus on questions where 3d space is the main issue.

@Medix2 that's why I usualyl have a space in front...

otherwise, we likely need to add that tag to A LOT

There's ranged-attack but nothing for ranges per se

2:22 PM

@NautArch scale?

yeah, that's not it

@Someone_Evil I dont think that fits

@Someone_Evil that description reads very differently from what I assumed it would. DOesn't apply.

Apparently scale is specific to FATE or something. It's at least not exactly scale in the sense of map scale or building or range scale

@ThomasMarkov would <sup>[W20 CB p.90]</sup> be better?

2:25 PM

@Trish "combat cloaking [Mekton Zeta 75]. And another 0.33 for Piracy Chips [Mekton Zeta 93]." Yeah, that's a lot better. Though I'll go check how it looks on my low DPI screens later today

That is going to be a LOT of bumping... :(

@Medix2 Your misrendering of it looks better than it does rendered properly on my screen.

Got a sec @Someone_Evil?

I don't know if it's a "fix all previous posts" kinda thing, but maybe just a "for the future" kinda thing

@NautArch A short moment at least

2:27 PM

@Someone_Evil can you pop up a room for us?

Sure

The long superscripts just doesnt work for me for some reason. Obviously I cant make you move away from that style, but consider I'm not the only one who has expressed issue with that style.

@Trish Please don't fix all of that as one bulk. Going forward as fix as they come up might be good enough. Otherwise please limit yourself so to not flood the homepage

@ThomasMarkov I asked if with a square bracket it is easier to read. It seems to parse better, but I won't go away from superscript that easily.

@Someone_Evil yea, just some handfull... and then the next tomorrow... and the day after...

@Trish Brackets didn't help me. May I ask if there's a reason you use the style other than, "It's mine and I can"?

2:32 PM

@ThomasMarkov I am forced to do superscript referencing by my studies. The stack does not support <ref>, but <sup> is the cloest.

You can format Stack to resemble ref by just using superscript with numbers and a table at the end

@Medix2 I tried that, it is 5 times the work. especialy if you need to add stuff... rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/91487/…

@Trish Is it actually published in a style manual? Ive never seen such a system (and apparently SSD hasnt either)

The only superscript styleguides I find are things like the AMA, which superscripts with numbers, not full citations.

(American Medical Association)

@NautArch Chicago uses superscripted numbers to point to footnotes.

2:36 PM

@ThomasMarkov German Historical studies. All notes go into footlines and you have to have superscript. Which I create using <ref> in my text program.

@Trishn Can you please slow the roll on the edits, especially since we aren't in agreement on what the edit should be.

Do you have a visual example?

@Trish Do you have a link to their style guide?

@NautArch pardon?

@Trish citation updates, that is - sorry!

2:38 PM

@NautArch Here, but you need to read german. geschichte.uni-hamburg.de/studium/studienbuero/…

@NautArch oh, I did stop.

@Trish Gotcha - but that's a pretty niche style guide. And with direct input here from users on what would be better, both for 'normies' as well as those who use screen readers, it really would help to move to something more standard and common.

@NautArch I would much prefer SE to get a <ref> tag that auto create the citation at the end.

@Trish That style guide doesnt use the citation style youre using here...

@Trish Parsing through, I see zero examples of superscript full citations. I see parenthetical and footnotes, though.

@Trish That is pretty unlikely :) But you can post on meta.stackexchange.com for it.

The style you used in this answer works great (and seems consistent with the style guide you just shared).

2:41 PM

@ThomasMarkov As said earlier: in my text program, I type <ref>blablabla</ref> and it puts it in footnote with superscript number. Which is demanded. But I can't use ref here, so put in <sup> instead

@ThomasMarkov I spent 2 hours on that answer to make the superscripts match. Which is why I swapped to just <sup>

@Trish Like, if you just dont want to take the time to use that footnote style, it sounds like other users (myself included) are willing to do it for you.

As in, I will literally take the time to convert all of your posts to be consistent with a number-footnote citation style.

(to be consistent with the style guide you shared)

But you seem more committed to it than just "it is whats easy for me". If that was the only reason, it seems you shouldnt take issue with people fixing it for accessibility reasons - it isn't more work for you if someone else handles citation work on your posts.

Responding to editors with remarks like "fingers off citation style" is indicative of something more than a motivation of convenience.

@ThomasMarkov I despise full-size inline citation: The first and last time I used it, I got the paper back with a remark "You have 30 minutes to fix it or you get a fail on the paper". All edits so far were just forcing THAT style on me.

@Trish So how bout a standard footnote number notation?

@Trish Ive received similar comments, but only because inline parenthetical were not consistent with my style guide.

@Trish I think you are conflating what works in your class for that professor and what works here.

@ThomasMarkov if you are willing to do that, that would be cool, but that is at times losts of work, as at times I point to the same page several times... As I said, it took like 2 hours to manually mark it down in that one you liked.

2:56 PM

Heck, when I was in school, every professor had a different style guide they wanted to us to use.

And in the publishing world, you don't get to choose. The publication decides.

@NautArch The professor drilled us to despise inline. :shrug:

@Trish I can probably handle it with little trouble.

@NautArch which, in german historical sciences is... footnotes.

@Trish One professor alone shouldn't guide all you do.

@NautArch no, just all the history professors hate inline, because they want to only read the footnotes...

2:58 PM

@Trish I did notice on that one answer you had some 1A and 1B notes, you cool with just incrementing numbers?

@Trish Which you aren't using, either. Honestly, I don't understand this doubling down. There is a clear and easy path to make this site more readable and usable for the masses.

@NautArch Writing papers I use <ref>Source p.XX</ref> and it makes the footnote itself. I just can'T stand Inline-fullsize.

@Trish You aren't using that software here. <sup> isn't a replacement for that functionality.

@ThomasMarkov yea, the 1A/1B was a result of a fix I had to add... which is part of why it is messy.

I've used some awesome footnote software in my academic past as well, but that has zero input on what I need or should do when writing in other areas.

3:00 PM

@NautArch it's a crutch, which is why I asked on Meta for <ref>. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/364683/can-we-please-get-ref

@Trish But until and IF then, can you please just use more readable citations or allow us to edit?

Preferably the former.

@NautArch if you must edit, please to footnote. Is just a page number in superscript OK? such as [p.12]?

@Trish That will be up to the editor as to what they believe is best and easiest for the stackizens.

@Trish I don't think so, because the publication isn't referenced. Those should be tied together.

@Trish superscripts are used to point to the specific footnote

^ that too

3:03 PM

KRyan has a good citation style, let me find an example

True... Finding a good citation style for a webpage that doesn'T support <ref> is hard, but inline citation is... EVIL. I mean (DMG p.123) just disturbs the reading flow for me as parentheses are still content to me.

KRyan uses a pretty standard style here

@Trish I can emulate the style used on your latest edit

@ThomasMarkov That's annotation/ootnote style... Ican ligve with that...

11

Q: Rokugan's Light Cavalry

Sword and Fan does offer a lot of military background for Rokugan. Including the following excerpt: Light cavalry is a staple of any Rokugani army, even if it otherwise has little in the way of mounted warriors. [1] This implies each and every clan has cavalry. For most clans, they even give a ...

mounted-combat l5r-4e rokugan

the [1] makes it possibly easier for screen readers.

@Medix2 can you check how the brackest look there?

That works, I think the bracket will help offest the number from text if the reader doesnt get the superscript.

Turns out there is guidance for screen readers!

8

Q: Accessibility of using <sup> to indicate powers (such as 4^2)?

Is using the <sup> tag the proper way to indicate powers? In a screen reader, wouldn't 3<sup>2</sup> just read as three-two or thirty-two? It seems like there has to be a more accessible way to do this.

html accessibility superscript

Use unicode, not <sup>

oh wait, those are for exponents, not citations...

3:09 PM

@NautArch exponents you should use \$M_a^th\$ anyway.

hmm

I think I'd still remove the brackets.

Kryan's looks clean and clear

What about the screen reader? Medix2 mentioned that without anything around, it looked akin to "something1" earlier if there was no leading space, but the [] or () could help differentiate it as a line-mark

but I can live with <sup>\nbsp #</sup> I guess. no preference on the listing size at the end.

@Medix2 <- That's what happens with no leading space or brackets. @NautArch

3:42 PM

@Someone_Evil is there a way to edit without bumping?

Apr 24 at 4:32, by bobble

63

Q: Is there a way to edit a question without bumping it to the front page?

Given that the Stack Overflow trilogy is to be a resource for googlers, I usually try to go back over my questions/answers and improve them in whatever way that I can. However, I feel this may be inappropriate if there is already an accepted answer because edits bump the (already answered) questi...

feature-request status-declined edits bump

urgh... Too bad...

TheDragonOfFlame

4:06 PM

Do any of you have problems with in combat metagamers sneaking monster manuals in combat?

Especially online

@TheDragonOfFlame I tend to give quite a bit of info about monsters.

TheDragonOfFlame

@NautArch such as HP, AC, and damage resistances? I like to surprise my PCs

WHich is why I usually 'homebrew' almost all my monsters, by reskinning and renaming them. And maybe changing an ability or two

@TheDragonOfFlame I don't give out HP. AC is generally figured out after a few turns.

Resistances...yeah, I"ll often tell them.

Or ask for knowledge checks to see if they 'remember'

Whether it's arcana, nature, etc.

@TheDragonOfFlame I don't ever give the stats of a monster but for what the players need to roll to hit it (if the system requires that)

@TheDragonOfFlame ut if players are making 'odd' decisions then I'd call them out, too :)

TheDragonOfFlame

4:11 PM

I call my players out but they still do it..

@TheDragonOfFlame What do they say?

TheDragonOfFlame

Like 'what do you mean it's not dead? We've dealt it 123 damage?' about a monster with 121 HP, normally\

@TheDragonOfFlame what works wonders is to don't tell them any name if it is not a humanoid they know.

TheDragonOfFlame

Or does the fire damage deal extra damage? against a monster wit hfire vulnerability

@TheDragonOfFlame I'd just tell them moving forward that you make changes to monsters. That way they know looking stuff up won't necessarily be relevant.

TheDragonOfFlame

4:13 PM

@Trish yeah I never say a name, but the art on roll20 makes it easy

@NautArch yeah I mostly do that now

@TheDragonOfFlame then don't use the monster art :)

Yeah, it' snot hard to figure out a monster - especially if the players already are familiar with monsters from reading the monster manual.

And many do - because it's a cool book.

Like, I am sure you can make your own tokens on Roll20. Use numbers or non-monster-manual art.

I'd even consider making big swaps of resistances to something else. Make those decisions back-fire.

@NautArch oooor because it is damned required to make a knight's horse. At least that is the case in TDE. You actually have to calculate through your warhorse's training from the breed, training type and possibly armor.

4:15 PM

The art as tokens is really helpful and brings the experience in. And the characters know what they see, so having the image is not just reasonable, but helpful and accurate.

@NautArch I have had a GM that used tokens with the number to hit them in normal turns (e.g. if they didn't do some defensive stuff). That's all we needed to know past the description given and nicknames we chose. The Bog-Hag we encountered in L5R? It was a 20-marker and we called it "Pennywise" as a stand in for we didn't know it.

You may not know the name of the creature, but you 100% know what it looks like.

The token image handles that bit. THe problem is that the tokens are also sometimes named.

But again, the issue isn't having that info, it's what the players are doing with it.

@NautArch true, but there are tons of other art you can use that is not in the monster manual.

Taking away the info semi-solves that, but it creates more problems than it solves.

It's still a workaround fix. I think I"d prefer to solve the problem.

actually, could be a good mainsite question @TheDragonOfFlame "how to prevent MEtagaming monsters?"

4:19 PM

delete dis

113

Q: How to prevent metagaming induced by trying to not metagame?

We have a lot of questions on how to prevent metagaming on this tag. But usually the metagaming is something like Using player's knowledge to optimize your character's actions. Now, I've experiencing something that is kinda the opposite of the usual - instead of metagaming to make an optima...

17

Q: How can I avoid metagaming when I know things my character doesn't?

One common problem I run into, as a player, is having to feign not-knowing things my character doesn't but I do, be it rules about certain creatures ("Hmm that rock golem sure looks weak against [...]"), or simply some my character did not witness but I did because other players at the table had ...

system-agnostic metagaming player-techniques

38

Q: Is it wrong to use monsters other than how they appear in the Monster Manual?

A one-shot I joined last week was tasked with fighting a bunch of tribal orcs. At one point the orcs drew longbows (with what was at least a +6 to hit as the DM was asking if 25 AC hits). At this, everyone at the table got upset as, according to them, “the monster manual orcs use javelins 30/120 ...

dnd-5e gm-techniques monsters monster-design

47

Q: Suggestions for decreasing metagaming and increasing player immersion?

This question is posed in a great way over on the Paizo boards, where I hang out since I play/run a lot of Pathfinder. Immersion is one of the key parts of the RPG experience to me, so I loved the question, and wanted to open it up to this community and also generalize it to other RPGs. (Quick...

gm-techniques roleplaying metagaming gaming-style

^Those are a solid start.

closeby, but not the actual thing that I thought might be looked for... 1) is about players trying not to do it by themselves, 2) the same. 3) is a solution that at times does what Dragon said, 4... 4 seems to be going into the right direction.

44

Q: How much do I tell new players about new monsters?

Background I am a brand-new DM, about to lead a game for brand-new players. I have a lot of knowledge of rules from playing Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights over and over, leafing through a friend's books, and finally buying the three basic books for myself. Question How much informatio...

gm-techniques dnd-5e monsters

57

Q: Does D&D 5e have a rule for character knowledge about monsters?

In the 3rd and 4th editions of D&D, there were explicit rules for determining if a character knew anything about a monster before them. In 3rd edition, for example, use of the Knowledge skill with a general DC of 10 + the monster's HD allowed for determining one fact, plus one fact per 5 points ...

dnd-5e monsters skills knowledge-check

We got lots on this :)

that last one has two more in the comments

true true... we are a treasure trove at times... how's the citation in the Mekton one? readable? @NautArch

Had to fix some words anyway... and... try to find where that attacks like 10000 times ability for weapons was...

4:37 PM

@Trish whats goin on here?

You deleted the answer seven seconds after posting it

@ThomasMarkov I pulled just the quotes for others to use, realized I could not get to a good solution and left it for 10ks to use the links and texts if they wanted.

though my solution would be "Decide it yourself, surprise the players, make it PLOT dependent.

If you don't have an answer you shouldn't post an answer.

3

@ThomasMarkov I was working on one, researched the texts, wrote, found my solution unsatisfactory. But I didn't want to totally waste the work, so left the quotes.

@Trish Re: your meta earlier, if resolution of the current issue around 3d-space doesn't also resolve your concerns, then that question will be a good question. By my comment earlier, I did not mean "don't ask this question", rather "let's resolve one thing at a time to avoid confusion and crossed wires". I apologize if my comment seemed terse.

@ThomasMarkov in the contrary, I retreated it till we have a consensus on volume. To re-open later (bookmarks are a thing)

4:52 PM

@Trish That information could be made available to everyone by just including the ddb links to the item pages in the question.

Us 10ks need to stay above suspicion of privileged communications in deleted answers :P

@ThomasMarkov right, Getting to that... include the quotes or not? old wording for bag of holding?

@Trish just the links is sufficient, I think.

I don't think that including any of that is necessary. Comments can be left for relevant information from other questions on the stack, but I don't think we need to be providing information for experts. We are the experts, we either have it or we don't. We shouldn't even be answering questions for which we are not familiar with the system

@NautArch including links to item descirptions for items mentioned in the question is still helpful.

If we really want, we can just hyperlink the terms for those items in the question to their digital pages. But that's really all we need to do.

4:54 PM

(and all those items have SRD pages at DDB)

@NautArch yeah, thats what im suggesting

Oh, misunderstood. My bad!

TheDragonOfFlame

@ThomasMarkov why?

@TheDragonOfFlame it may be linking directly to the question since you cannot see deleted answers

There was a low quality answer that needed to be deleted.

TheDragonOfFlame

@ThomasMarkov gotcha.

@TheDragonOfFlame more like a fire-alert...

5:01 PM

VTC needs details on this one.

@ThomasMarkov locked. (wasn't there discontent that we employed moderating via chat in the community status thingy?)

@Trish I think the issue there was that broader site specific policy discussions were happening in chat. This is a standard fare closure though.

@Akixkisu's answer here dealt with discussions about meta posts happening in chat.

5:39 PM

Some pathfinder2e content is up on humble bundle

1 hour later…

6:40 PM

@TheDragonOfFlame I can't stop it on line, but I do ask players to stop. IRL, the only books in front of any player is: PHB. Put the rest of them 'over there' in case we need to check something during a break.

I also switch up stuff about stock creatures. Sometimes I reskin creatures to fit with the species encountered, but described with some striking differences. All my players have played for so long not having the books doesn't mean they can't meta from memory if the creatures were stock.

Also, my players are good at asking/justifying if their character might have heard something about the creature type.

7:09 PM

Gotta love having you messages starred, and then you notice later that you spelled stuff wrong.

@ThomasMarkov On CS.SE I typoed some math in a comment today and only noticed when another user upvoted and thanked me sincerely x)

@kviiri oh no

TIL Rokugan got a D&D treatment at one point

@G.Moylan We don't talk (much) about "Asian adventures". It wasn't D&D. It was d20.

@Trish d20 and 3ED are tightly knit

and WotC published it. it was D&D compatible

Wikipedia: "Oriental Adventures (abbreviated OA[1]) is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game."

so it seems it was very much D&D. The book says Dungeons & Dragons on the cover

7:23 PM

@G.Moylan Compatible... Yes and no. The whole class thingy created more problems than it solved, and the content that was 3rd edition L5R in d20 was quite... wonky. At times what Wizards deemed high level was actually much worse than what was in the first levels, and the standard classes of D&D just put the whole game into an odd nomans-land where the heroes could literally best Samurais that were in canon gods

Oriental Adventures

Oriental Adventures (abbreviated OA) is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game. Each version of Oriental Adventures provides rules for adapting its respective version of D&D for use in campaign settings based on the Far East, rather than the medieval Europe-setting assumed by most D&D books. Both versions of Oriental Adventures include example campaign settings. == Advanced Dungeons & Dragons == The original Oriental Adventures (ISBN 0-88038-099-3) was written by Gary Gygax, David "Zeb" Cook, a...

This is what I'm talking about. Not sure if you're talking about the same thing

@G.Moylan yes, those are the same things. The D20 content was not well balanced, and the L5R ruleset content was at times just as misbalanced, just not as gamebreaking. It also had one of the (objectively) worst metaplot with the hidden emperor

l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Hidden_Emperor

it was more than just 2 books... it was a whole 3rd L5R edition.

The Oriental Adventures books were just the two. and this was very much a D&D 3E setting, so I'm not sure why you keep telling me I'm wrong in making that statement

What WotC published was separate from the Lo5R official editions

huh? wait, 2nd edition L5R had lots of books under the monicker "Oriental Adventures, d20"

read that wikipedia page

hmm, here's some more info: Wizards of the Coast re-released Oriental Adventures (a long out-of-print AD&D supplement), changing the setting from the original Kara-Tur to Rokugan, and updating the supplement to the d20 rules. Several of the following sourcebooks provided dual (d20 & d10/R&K) rulesets.

In late 2000, however, speculation about the future of Legend of the Five Rings – especially the RPG – began to run rampant after Hasbro, during a string of decisions that greatly upset the leadership at Wizards, decided to sell Legend of the Five Rings two years before AEG's long-standing l…

7:33 PM

@G.Moylan which misses a lot of content. There was an entire edition (including the book I earlier linked) that all had the label "oriental Adventures" on them.

The Dual statted ones.

it seems the issue is blurred due to ownership by WotC at one point

@G.Moylan yes. l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Category:RPG_Books is a more complete list of the L5R books. You see lots of books with the Oriental Adventures trade dress on there. Bloodspeakers, Complete Exotic Arms....

the Oriental Adventures book I'm talking about was just that self-contained d20/3E book that added Rokugan as a setting. It seems there was another product line that used the same name...

Seems like the original Oriental Adventures was for ADnD and didn't have Rokugan

@G.Moylan ah, yes, that one book was also an AD&D book, and yes, the original wasn't Rokugan.

7:37 PM

@kviiri yeah and then they "updated" it to 3E/d20 and added Rokugan

@Trish the first one was, the second was 3E/d20

@G.Moylan and that second one did fall into the d20/Roll&Keep edition of L5R.

@Trish It plainly says Dungeons and Dragons on the cover. You're saying that's an official version of L5R?

I'm very confused. I'd think L5R would want to say "L5R" on the cover

Yes. That is the shunned edition in some areas, due to the D&D conversion issues.

NOPE! it doesn't :P

OR rather, it does say Legend of the 5 Rings but not D&D:

static.wikia.nocookie.net/l5r/images/9/93/… - one of those covers

so, I think i've figured it out

From the L5R wiki: "The second edition and most books made for it were written to work both with this system and with D20 rules as presented in the Oriental Adventures D&D setting; this was discontinued after 3rd edition was published. "

so it seems it was treated as optional from the L5R perspective

but they supported it because papa WotC likely told them to

"this system" being the d10 system

it was. But the D&D side of content lead to wonkynesss. Because D&D power scaling and the intended L5R scaling just... don't match

7:42 PM

That's fine. I was just confused since my original statement was "Rokugan once got a D&D treatment" and you told me that it in fact had not

when it seems to indeed have, but it also served a weird dual purpose of trying to convert L5R palyers to d20

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that was the point of the product

@G.Moylan ye, it's more like... D&D got a Rokugan treatment... and it was not good"

"here's this d20 thing. You like it, right!?"

L5R uses a rather flat scaling in its native editions: you don't become super mighty. D&D uses a much more epic scale

it seems like WotC was trying to press L5R into using d20 in the long term while gaining crossover D&D players

@G.Moylan or... "Here is your fix! By the way, we added glass shards" to some players, and "Here is your D&D content, also try this new world with rules you find arcane" to others. Both sides were not happy.

Cross-system books are... generally not the best.

Or have you ever seen a book that did it at least passable?

@G.Moylan possibly

7:46 PM

Well it seems L5R chugged along anyways and just published supplemental material to be compatible with both dice systems. Oriental Adventures (the 3E book) was L5Rs estranged cousin, I guess

@Trish As an aside, Vicky 3 indeed confirmed.

@G.Moylan so to say... estranged cousin you only call to ask how the border between group A and B was in year X

I have high hopes, Martin "Wiz" Anward is the game director and he's easily my favorite game designer from Paradox's roster.

WotC: releases _Oriental Adventures_ for 3E and an "updated" Rokugan
Everyone: Congratulations, you tried

@kviiri Told you, jsut need to look into a history book to know she is real :)

@G.Moylan kinda like that. It's the one edition that all players of L5R I know shun and only touch for the maps.

Just like D&D 4e... which... Wizards themselves managed to try a Damnatio Memoriae on 4E when they nuked the 4E SRD... or something like that

7:50 PM

I don't get why they were so scared of backlash from 4E

Me neither... in some respects it might actually help to know more about it to understand why they made 5E how they made it. Or what they saw wrong. It seems like they tried to wipe it to try to hide fatal flaws...

I mean I get that it was different from 3/3.5 but there are a lot of parts of it still present in 5E

and players generally love 5E. Sure it has flaws, but some of its defining parts came from 4E originally

maybe it was the whole "I have 15 different types of powers and I ahve to keep track of when I can cast them all" thing

Though, looking at how WotC handles backlash in things like MtG, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they pretend 4E doesn't exist

well, historically anyway. These days they'd just point out how X controversial decision was "the most profitable ever" and tell us to shove it

@G.Moylan they literally wiped their entire site of any reference to it.

Crystal pepsi

Which might be the biggest loss of RPG Content ever, even topping the loss of the White Wolf Forums!

7:56 PM

@GcL I kid you not I was in a convenience store like 4 years ago in my old office and they had trays of that lined up in the back room

@Trish Well, White Wolf kinda did that to themselves

although I guess so did WotC

@G.Moylan I think it was a New Coke deal. It's not just rational dislike, but memetic dislike internalized without due scrutiny.

@G.Moylan I credit to them that they had the most bloody edition war between WoD and CoD1e

@kviiri That scans. You can still find all the 4E stuff "elsewhere" on the internet. But it's astounding to me how the D&D zeitgeist tends to treat 4E as if it 1) never existed; or 2) as if it did exist but "we don't talk about that one"

@GcL which is odd, because Coke literally can't ever change the recipe because they fear people might notice, while Pepsi changed its recipe multiple times and advertized with "new and improved" - the one time Coke did it everyone hoarded old coke! Then Coke pulled back

Matt Colville is one of the few prominent D&D people that speaks in favor of 4E

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