Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[IronyOwl]

What do people consider about pairings? To give an example. A Master & Slave/Servant/Pet relation, One controls, one is a powerhouse. with 2 players?

Not a fan. It's an interesting concept, but in practice it tends to either not really differentiate them much or one position is far more popular than another. Healer/fighter and gatherer/crafter might be good mechanical examples.

"Control" is an especially problematic variable, because loss of player control tends to be boring. A Master/Pet relationship where only one of them gets an action in any given turn is basically two players taking turns playing one character. A Master who gets to decide which buff or ability his Pet has active is a little more interesting, but tends to result in the Master just doing what the Pet wants, since the Pet's still generally the one deciding what action they take that round. I'm sure there's ways to do it interestingly and successfully, but they'd probably be really tricky to pull off.


As a random idle thought, a Master/Pet game where each player is both, but not in the same pairing, could be interesting and silly. It'd also alleviate some of the design issues with such a setup, since even if one role is boring everyone's still got the other. That'd still just shunt it from "harmful" to "pointless," of course.

[Mr.Zero]

Do people like to choose traits from a GM created pool? These can vary from small boons to large boons with effects. To give 2 examples from something thats in the make. I'll provide a little bit background information to understand the traits.

Lea particles are comparable to mana in games/Magic used to cast magic.
Aura's are naturally emitted by those that are able to cast magic, those who are able to read it/understand it can retrieve pieces of information like behavior, type of magic, thoughts, etc.
Boons(Positive boosts) can go from +0 to +6, with 6 being the equivalent of god-like skill.
Effects(Negative boosts) can go from -0 to -6, with 6 being the equivalent of Supreme fail with bad effects.
Activation sequence is the first part of casting a spell, when that part fails, the rest of the spell fails.

Small trait:

Name: Rapid weapon activation
Description Trait: You are a member of a family which developed a special type of activation sequence for weapon activation sequences, because of this you can avoid/nullify the activation part of a spell when casting weapon type summoning spells.
RTD Description:No activation sequence for weapon type spells.

Big trait:

Name: Visual Hypersensitivity to Lea Particles
Description Trait: Due to a rare occurrence of Lea Particles affecting the brain, the user is able read other's people Aura's more precisely. However, the user has to wear specially designed glasses or rest after long exposure to aura's. Otherwise the user has to face  the side-effect of disrupted activation sequence for spells because you are unable to focus with the amount of information that you are receiving.
RTD description: +3 to Auramancy, -5 to spell activation when Lea particle overload happens.

[Samarkand]

What do people consider about pairings? To give an example. A Master & Slave/Servant/Pet relation, One controls, one is a powerhouse. with 2 players?

I tried a knight/squire pairing a while back. It seemed to work well, since I gave the squires a number of special interactions/abilities that the knight couldn't access by themselves.

[Yoink]

Man, I really wish I could keep RTDs going for longer.
Some of my short-lived attempts at running them have actually been rather fun.
Maybe it's time to try again, and hopefully not be so useless and lazy this time. Anyone have any ideas for what I should try to run? I was thinking about some sort of heist RTD, or perhaps something involved futuristic cyborg assassins. Or maybe an epic adventure where you play as an assortment of children's toys, setting out to rescue their young owner from the monster under the bed! (idea shamelessly stolen from The Stuff of Legend.)

Or perhaps just some generic medieval fantasy? Generally pretty easy to handwave one's way out of explaining things in too much detail if you have a vague enough setting. That's generally what gets me, I get all bogged down in the details.

[Mr.Zero]

Man, I really wish I could keep RTDs going for longer.
Some of my short-lived attempts at running them have actually been rather fun.
Maybe it's time to try again, and hopefully not be so useless and lazy this time. Anyone have any ideas for what I should try to run? I was thinking about some sort of heist RTD, or perhaps something involved futuristic cyborg assassins. Or maybe an epic adventure where you play as an assortment of children's toys, setting out to rescue their young owner from the monster under the bed! (idea shamelessly stolen from The Stuff of Legend.)

Or perhaps just some generic medieval fantasy? Generally pretty easy to handwave one's way out of explaining things in too much detail if you have a vague enough setting. That's generally what gets me, I get all bogged down in the details.

Ahh Laziness, a worthy opponent. Maybe just relaunch it, but with a fresh batch of players.

[Tarran]

Man, I really wish I could keep RTDs going for longer.
Some of my short-lived attempts at running them have actually been rather fun.
Maybe it's time to try again, and hopefully not be so useless and lazy this time. Anyone have any ideas for what I should try to run? I was thinking about some sort of heist RTD, or perhaps something involved futuristic cyborg assassins. Or maybe an epic adventure where you play as an assortment of children's toys, setting out to rescue their young owner from the monster under the bed! (idea shamelessly stolen from The Stuff of Legend.)

Or perhaps just some generic medieval fantasy? Generally pretty easy to handwave one's way out of explaining things in too much detail if you have a vague enough setting. That's generally what gets me, I get all bogged down in the details.

If laziness is a problem, I'd say pick anything that you're actually interested in writing about (in general). Something you've been interested in for a while, perhaps, not just in a passing moment. Maybe actual desire to write will overcome laziness. Just a guess.

We don't have all that many medieval fantasies (at least... I don't think so?), so if my above suggestion doesn't actually hit anything, then you can always use medieval as a backup. Anyway, what part of handwaving is a problem? Are you obsessed with being realistic, do you worry that people will point out stuff that is incorrect, or are you actually getting people arguing with you for not being realistic?

[Yoink]

Thanks, guys.

Anyway, what part of handwaving is a problem? Are you obsessed with being realistic, do you worry that people will point out stuff that is incorrect, or are you actually getting people arguing with you for not being realistic?

The first one. There are so many minor details that I have no knowledge about, and it drives me mad.
In Blacktree Trail for example, I wasted hours just trawling websites trying to find out average prices for various goods from that time period, even as the rational part told me to stop worrying about it and focus on the story.

Completely silly and unnecessary, I know, but that's the sort of stuff that bugs me constantly when I try to write something in a realistic setting. Bah. I really need to get over that.

[Tiruin]

What do people consider about pairings? To give an example. A Master & Slave/Servant/Pet relation, One controls, one is a powerhouse. with 2 players?

I tried a knight/squire pairing a while back. It seemed to work well, since I gave the squires a number of special interactions/abilities that the knight couldn't access by themselves.

*looks at Caellath*
He ran an awesome RtD with the theme of these 'pairings'.
I wonder if he'll see this post soon...

-bloop-

Keep at it, mate!
I've searched the RtD threads in pages far back and noticed 97%+ were the cause of abandonment by the GM instead of anything else (pertaining to the game being idle). And being the curator of the library...have really noted that down as basis for those who'd like to understand RtDs.
...
I just have to post that thing.
Just have to post it. >_<;

[Mr.Zero]

snip

You do yes, or you just have to put more work into it until it satisfies you. But tbh, people don't really give a crap about stuff like that unless it absurd.

[Person]

I'm now almost thinking of converting the initial portion of problem sleuth to rtd format. Probably semi-minimalist honestly. You're trapped in your office, escape. Might post what I currently have here if it comes to anything.

[Tarran]

Thanks, guys.

Anyway, what part of handwaving is a problem? Are you obsessed with being realistic, do you worry that people will point out stuff that is incorrect, or are you actually getting people arguing with you for not being realistic?

The first one. There are so many minor details that I have no knowledge about, and it drives me mad.
In Blacktree Trail for example, I wasted hours just trawling websites trying to find out average prices for various goods from that time period, even as the rational part told me to stop worrying about it and focus on the story.

Completely silly and unnecessary, I know, but that's the sort of stuff that bugs me constantly when I try to write something in a realistic setting. Bah. I really need to get over that.

Consider that even today humans don't really understand every single detail out there, and also consider that it's really difficult to cram the the entire history and all the physics of the world into your mind and trying to do so is a bit of a fool's quest. Getting things vaguely right is what to aim for, really, not getting things perfect. Perfection is something to do when you actually know and can easily find out about the details.

Alternatively, you need to not base your games too much on real periods, and instead base them on "alternate realities" of those periods. In an alternate reality, you can easily handwave something as being slightly different in that reality.

[Draignean]

Thanks, guys.

Anyway, what part of handwaving is a problem? Are you obsessed with being realistic, do you worry that people will point out stuff that is incorrect, or are you actually getting people arguing with you for not being realistic?

The first one. There are so many minor details that I have no knowledge about, and it drives me mad.
In Blacktree Trail for example, I wasted hours just trawling websites trying to find out average prices for various goods from that time period, even as the rational part told me to stop worrying about it and focus on the story.

Completely silly and unnecessary, I know, but that's the sort of stuff that bugs me constantly when I try to write something in a realistic setting. Bah. I really need to get over that.

Consider that even today humans don't really understand every single detail out there, and also consider that it's really difficult to cram the the entire history and all the physics of the world into your mind and trying to do so is a bit of a fool's quest. Getting things vaguely right is what to aim for, really, not getting things perfect. Perfection is something to do when you actually know and can easily find out about the details.

Alternatively, you need to not base your games too much on real periods, and instead base them on "alternate realities" of those periods. In an alternate reality, you can easily handwave something as being slightly different in that reality.

Yeah, adherence to reality is overrated. I can't tell you how much time I spent finding a picture of an actual 1930's menu and gimping it for my brief Lovecraftian RTD, when all I really would have had to do was briefly mention something about the menu. 

[Draignean]

Double post, but with a legit questionish idea.


I've been working on the Small Mercies system, and I just finished writing the basic rough of the Dual Wielding (Ranged) skill. Thinking about it, I worry that the penalties at start are too severe, and the penalties at max skill are perhaps too light.

Right now, if the character has no weapons training and they attempt to dual wield hand-and-a-half weapons (weapons that could, conceivably, be wielded in one hand but would definitely need two hands to reload/aim/use according to warranty) they take a base -15 penalty on a d20.

I haven't finished the accuracy effecting skills yet, but, ballpark, it looks like a character with complete mastery of the relevant ranged skills would have a base accuracy modifier of between -1 to +1 on the exact same task.

The question essentially boils down to: Should I go a little closer to reality, or should dual-shotgun messiah be a viable character build?

[Yoink]

I don't know much about the game you're working on, but I'd go for the first option.
Dual-wielding always strikes me as incredibly silly and unrealistic, outside the occasional situation where it might be viable. (i.e: 17th century swordsmen, fencing with a sabre in one hand and a dagger in the other.)

[Kadzar]

This may not be terribly relevant to what you're doing, but you've reminded me of a dual-wielding rule I picked up somewhere that I thought was pretty neat: instead of dual-wielding giving you more attacks per turn, you roll one die (or set of dice if using some sort of multi-dice resolution system)to attack for both weapons and, if it's a hit, roll damage for both of them and use the higher one for the actual damage done (or you can use the lower one if that helps you somehow, like if one of the weapons has some special magic effect or something).