TRPG General Chat

12:50 AM

For example, one thing "Session 0" does is, by calling it "Session Zero," we separate talking about the game from playing the game, and normalize the (very toxic, in my experience) idea that talking about the game happens before you start but you don't need to keep checking in:

Dec 28 '18 at 23:54, by BESW

@RyanfaeScotland I've found that session 0 is often necessary, but rarely sufficient. Session 0 is less about figuring out everything about how the game will be played, and more about initializing an ongoing conversation about what we like and need which will continue over the entire campaign so we can course-correct as we go.

BESW

1:46 AM

G_Bloodworth asks on twitter "Is there a TTRPG that is essentially Gundam Wing the role playing game?"

@BardicWizard Followup textile thread!

ARLECCHINO'S ELEVEN by Grant Howitt. A gang of embittered wizards doing magical improvised theatre to rob a casino

Clayton Notestin wrote a twitter thread about "dungeons and how the best ones often employ "Entry Point" concepts from design theory."

GontijoDesign asks on twitter "Has someone ever wrote about the the form and funtion of architecture in tabletop RPGs?"

Hot RPG Questions

3:22 AM

8

Q: How much damage do vehicle weapons vs. personal size chars

Planetary scale armor is 10x personal scale armor according to the rulebook. But I didn't find any statement about the damage itself. Is this also taken by x10? Thus if a starship or speeder with light blasters (4 damage) fires at a personal scale target is that then 40 damage? or "just" 4 damag...

BESW

4:38 AM

I'm revisiting the Goblin Court text, preparing for a v3 export, and I think some people here would be interested in a specific preventing-harm choice I made in the text:

In an early draft, number 6 was "kiss someone."

As I revised the text, I noticed that this had the potential to justify a player making their goblin act like a pest. Changing it to "get kissed" was a simple way to make the goal less ambiguously consensual.

@BESW finger slipped, that's number 4, obviously.

For v3 I'm considering changing it further by re-writing all the goals to use the "share" verb. "Share poetry," "share kisses," etc.

(This would have the added benefit of encouraging players to have scenes with each other.)

Ben

Do we choose, or is it a dice roll?

Bardic Wizard

@BESW I find floriography really awesome. And yeah … hoco is a weird acronym (?) but it’s a thing around here

@AncientSwordRage do it! do it!

@BESW ooh

Ben

@BESW I can see that being good, it pushes the players to interact.

BESW

Ben

Nice

BESW

4:56 AM

I spent a while going back and forth on whether to comment about dice-rolling, because I kinda wanted to let groups choose their preference, but enough people asked me during playtesting that it became clear if I left it unsaid that'd be a consistent pacing problem in game setup.

There's a lot in Goblin Court where I could've said "here's how to do the thing" but I really prefered to leave it a space for the group to do what's best for them without any pressure from the text.

Ben

My partner's sister is very much someone that needs direction. "Should I do this, or should I do that?" Doesn't matter if we're playing with each other, against each other, even if she's played it 20 times

A lack of understanding on how things should/could be done make things worse.

Hot RPG Questions

9:33 AM

2

Q: Does the spell Owl's Wisdom confer other benefits from an increased Wisdom ability, as the other ability buff spells?

All five of the other spells that temporarily buff an ability score explicitly state that the creature gains the other benefits of having an increased ability score. Owl's Wisdom, curiously, does not; though, it does specifically note what it does not allow for Wisdom-based casters, and does expl...

spells pathfinder-1e wisdom

Hot RPG Questions

10:22 AM

2

Q: Can a Tiger get two attacks in a round and a possible third with pounce?

Tigers get a bite attack and a claw attack along with this: Pounce. If the tiger moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature right before hitting it with a claw attack, the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the tiger can take ...

dnd-5e monsters attack

Medix2

10:48 AM

@ThomasMarkov I will say, I do think there's at least two possible new Metas: "If the OP asks for Lore, and an answer doesn't give any, should we delete it?" "If an answer is unsupported, should we delete it?"

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 Probably a good start. I feel like this is much more grey than link and KRyan are saying it is.

At least the current state of what’s written on meta is far from consistent.

And when I pointed that out, I was told that meta doesn’t work. So I don’t know what to do with that.

Medix2

RIGHT????

Like, I would genuinely come back at that with "and review queues don't work either because 80% of reviews are done by five people". We still use them anyway

@ThomasMarkov Like, if Meta doesn't work, how can I possibly read the minds of thousands of Stack members to poll their desire for unsupported answer deletion? Why would I believe one person can speak for the people and anybody else can't? I'm left without knowing what I should do at all and with no way of even possibly figuring out an answer

Well, I suppose that's not true. I checked SE guidance and found an answer, and then was told this site works differently, and learned that other sites work differently too. Right now, I feel like the one thing I know is that people disagree

Thomas Markov

11:06 AM

@Medix2 Step 1: Try your hardest to have an account more than five years old, then your opinion of what site practice is might be legitimate.

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov I will say, I certainly value the judgements and experiences of people who were around back then. I just also can't really be assured things haven't changed since then

From March 2019: "I don't like questions drawing large numbers of unsupported answers having to be closed either. But last time we tried the alternate path of deleting unsupported answers, that generated a lot more blowback, so here we are." And I have no idea what that context is

Akixkisu

12:30 PM

@Medix2 Downvoting doesn't work - which is a real issue that introduces deletion as a stop-gap action in grey situations.

@Medix2 Things have most definetly changed, as they should - and KRyan in particular holds some beliefs that didn't adjust to the reality of current stack pratice - while they are also knowledgable in many areas.

doppelgreener

1:10 PM

@Medix2 the context was game recs, and it failed horribly. I don't know if it necessarily applies here, but it did inform us that when we're experiencing a recurring problem within a specific tag, "delete everything that doesn't fit specific requirements" surprisingly enough worsens the problem rather than improves it.

@ThomasMarkov This isn't about not having a five year old account.

Thomas Markov

@doppelgreener I know, and I didn’t get that sense from anything you said. But I’d definitely got the vibe from KRyan that newer user’s perspectives are less legitimate.

Hot RPG Questions

6

Q: Are there any special rules governing invisibility underwater?

Are there any special rules for invisibility when underwater? For example, Pathfinder (a different game) has a rule that makes it easier to detect invisible creatures underwater due to the way they displace water (I haven't quoted the text in order to avoid confusion). Are there any similar rules...

dnd-5e invisibility content-identification underwater

doppelgreener

@ThomasMarkov Is that about the "small group of new users" comment? If so, would it be helpful for me to share what goes on in my mind around that comment?

Thomas Markov

1:25 PM

@doppelgreener That’s obviously part of it, though there have been other interactions that bias me toward that reading of the comment. I would appreciate your perspective.

BESW

1:50 PM

The Stack was designed for a singular purpose, to provide verifiably-correct answers to questions in a specific profession and professional culture. And then that system was applied to everything from parenting to religion to literary analysis.

The whole network is built on a flawed premise of universality, and it only works as much as it does because each site is given some small opportunity to (using the same flawed system for backtable discussions) implement soft policy changes to mitigate the fact that the hard site structure is inappropriate for their subjects. That's just the sea we swim in by choosing to stick around here.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov I nearly flagged this as being unkind earlier, but now it looks like you're re-iterating something someone else said? Mayhaps that would be better if made clearer?

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage It was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek take on KRyan’s comments. I don’t think he actually believes that, at least, not consciously, but those comments and past interactions give me the impression that he may have some bias in that direction.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov I think out of context it doesn't read well

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage delete it for me?

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov it doesn't read that badly

Thomas Markov

2:00 PM

Haha

AncientSwordRage

I would hazard to edit it to add '/s' but ... ::shrug::

Thomas Markov

Let’s see how my probably deserved roasting from @doppelgreener goes.

@AncientSwordRage there’s an obscure cultural reference in there.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov it's from people closing a 'sarcasm' tag, </sarcasm> morphed into /s

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage I mean my comment there is a movie reference.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov which comment?

Thomas Markov

2:03 PM

@AncientSwordRage “try your hardest….”

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov intensive googling later aahhh I like that film

doppelgreener

(sorry, I had to step away for a bit! Back soon)

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage Oh good, you found it. Wasn’t sure if the explanation was too saucy for this room.

AncientSwordRage

2:38 PM

@ThomasMarkov I suspect not, but fair play on being cautious

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage satire and irony can be tricky

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov especially online

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage Which makes me wonder

Did people in the past ever misunderstand famous satirists?

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov Well Charlie Chaplin was famously misunderstood at one point... wasn't he?

Thomas Markov

Reading now about Jonathan Swift and Gulliver’s Travels, apparently critics are divided on if he was a misogynist or a really good satirist lol

So yes, misreading sarcasm in text is a tale as old as time.

AncientSwordRage

3:03 PM

ahh, I've just remembered about Poe's Law

BESW

3:14 PM

GoblinMixtape suggests on twitter "using the tag #itchfunding on games currently crowdfunding on itch," to "help people browse"

new Patreon: momatoes is creating art & games & tutorials

doppelgreener

3:53 PM

@ThomasMarkov i'm going to take a bit of time to write this. i definitely don't want it to be a roast, i want to share to convey some dynamics that might not be getting noticed.

but if i'm not careful it'll just get long

so i'm gonna take a bit of extra time to just formulate it and keep it concise