What are y'all up to these days?

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Had to modify extended task enchanting rules because a player want to breed 'tame' gelatinous cubes that only eat specific species. Thrre is now a very small but non-zero chance of creating intelligent computer using gelatinous cubes that spontaneously explode when they get hungry/angry/depressed/wet/etc....

Holy fuck is 27 cu.m of jello heavy!
 
I announced my Mythras: Japan 2024 (1924) campaign. PCs are modern humans dealing with the supernatural in modern Japan (whether the kami existing counts as a change is up for discussion). But some things their ancestors did are getting back at them...::honkhonk:

So there are going to be flashbacks. But not as in BitD flashbacks, they're literally going to get their ancestors character sheets, and get to play them in visions...:angel:
"Traditional mechanics flashbacks, 0% narrativium, safe for people with allergies", as I explained it on Discord. Yes, it's my own invention:heart:!

Telok said:
Had to modify extended task enchanting rules because a player want to breed 'tame' gelatinous cubes that only eat specific species. Thrre is now a very small but non-zero chance of creating intelligent computer using gelatinous cubes that spontaneously explode when they get hungry/angry/depressed/wet/etc....

Holy fuck is 27 cu.m of jello heavy!
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I'm impressed. Lean on the computer part, that's the first time I hear of your players NOT shooting something or someone:grin:!

Positive reinforcement could maybe help...:gooselove:

Fenris-77 said:
Sometimes this is a very strange and wonderful hobby.
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Indeed:thumbsup:!
 
AsenRG said:
I'm impressed. Lean on the computer part, that's the first time I hear of your players NOT shooting something or someone:grin:!

Positive reinforcement could maybe help...:gooselove:
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He wants to throw them at people and watch their flesh dissolve off.

Exploding depressed computer programmer gelatinous cubes is, technically, a failure state.

Or he wants to have cute little ones running around eating rats & space herpes on the ship.

Their ship did not have space herpes untill he mentioned it. It is now canon that space herpes exist in the setting.
 
Telok said:
Had to modify extended task enchanting rules because a player want to breed 'tame' gelatinous cubes that only eat specific species. Thrre is now a very small but non-zero chance of creating intelligent computer using gelatinous cubes that spontaneously explode when they get hungry/angry/depressed/wet/etc....

Holy fuck is 27 cu.m of jello heavy!
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Well, it's 27 tonnes of water, plus impurities (and sugar is fairly dense), so I'm not surprised. OTOH, a lot of people who've never really had to manage the logistics of carrying drinking water don't really realise just how heavy the stuff is.
 
Sharrow said:
Well, it's 27 tonnes of water, plus impurities (and sugar is fairly dense), so I'm not surprised. OTOH, a lot of people who've never really had to manage the logistics of carrying drinking water don't really realise just how heavy the stuff is.
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Yup, if you didn't grow up backpacking or spending decades in the military carting water around, you are indeed in for a surprise when you actually do have to carry it.
 
I've just finished proofreading East Isles Vol 5: Bezarngay Boil for the Jonstown Compendium and am now finishing off Secrets of Dorastor: Bugswarm Swamp, which might be available in early May. Following that, I need to finish Foulvale and Hahlgrim's War, also for the Jonstown Compendium..
 
Last week, I watched a few videos on the American Library Association's Games & Gaming Roundtable's Youtube channel that were disappointingly "meh." The presentation on "print RPG collections in libraries" was the one that made me really say, "I could do better than this"... I had already been kicking around the idea of getting some sort of podcast or YT channel together to talk about RPGs in libraries (among other things), and this was the final catalyst... Since then, I've been prepping material for episodes and getting the technological side set up (which is a bit of a struggle for my decade-old laptop.) I even wrote an introductory post on the accompanying blog. Looking forward to the new challenge and opportunity!
 
I'm going back through Pathfinder 2E, for reasons, and I noticed something in the opening, what's roleplaying bit. The book describes the following conversation sequence:
1714304136374.png

Now I don't know about you, but if my DM said to swim across make an athletics check and I succeeded, I would expect to swim across the fucking river not halfway. I hate this kind of bait and switch shit, never mind rolling multiple checks to buff the chances of failure at overcoming a routine, even mundane task.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I'm going back through Pathfinder 2E, for reasons, and I noticed something in the opening, what's roleplaying bit. The book describes the following conversation sequence:
View attachment 81432

Now I don't know about you, but if my DM said to swim across make an athletics check and I succeeded, I would expect to swim across the fucking river not halfway. I hate this kind of bait and switch shit, never mind rolling multiple checks to buff the chances of failure at overcoming a routine, even mundane task.
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Yea, success should have been getting across and critical success should have been catching up to the chimera. That example smells like moving the goalposts to fuck with the player.
 
No session this week, after the WFRP GM got sick. First Daughter also got sick, and I don't want to start the "Mythras in Japan 2024" campaign without her, given that it's her idea.
But that means "no play and no running on the week-end". As a bonus, both of these happened at the end of the week, so I didn't have time to reschedule. If I knew, I'd have run something with Classic Fantasy, or maybe Hack100 for a change::honkhonk:.

Well, admittedly, we played Fate of Chthulhu on Friday, but it's not the week-end:tongue:!


OTOH, a friend we've been playing with (he's running C:tL for us) is having a birthday party, so we'll meet again with the crew:gooselove:.
The less nice part is that I'm on a night shift after that, but I'm going to deal with this somehow. Probably will just use an extra energy drink:shade:.

I'm going to give him a copy of Sigil&Shadow as my birthday gift, because it's totally up his alley:thumbsup:.

Admittedly, I was thinking of Classifying or Covert Ops, but they can't arrive in time, so Sigil & Shadow won out:gooseshades:!
 
Fenris-77 said:
I'm going back through Pathfinder 2E, for reasons, and I noticed something in the opening, what's roleplaying bit. The book describes the following conversation sequence:
View attachment 81432

Now I don't know about you, but if my DM said to swim across make an athletics check and I succeeded, I would expect to swim across the fucking river not halfway. I hate this kind of bait and switch shit, never mind rolling multiple checks to buff the chances of failure at overcoming a routine, even mundane task.
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Yeah, that's an odd interpretation. At least I'd expect to be told that the GM wanted two successes or s critical to get across. I'd have rules that a success meant you were across, but washed downstream a bit (because that's normal when swimming across swift rivers), and critical meant you weren't swept downstream and thus didn't lose so much time. A critical in PF2 should be nice, but not amazing (because they're not too rare if you're facing level-appropriate challenges). A failure would mean little progress across the river and a lot of drift downstream, more rolls required, and a critical failure would mean moving to 'trying not to get drowned'.
 
D+W: A Tale of Two Regenerators

This week we are looking at how two characters with similar power sets can play very differently at the table. Grab a stogy and chimichanga, it's time to talk about Deadpool & Wolverine('s powers).

housedok.com

D+W: A Tale of Two Regenerators - House Dok Productions

With the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine sweeping the internet, we wanted to see what these character’s powers might look like in Metahumans Rising, and how different they really are.
housedok.com
 
AsenRG said:
But that means "no play and no running on the week-end". As a bonus, both of these happened at the end of the week, so I didn't have time to reschedule. If I knew, I'd have run something with Classic Fantasy, or maybe Hack100 for a change::honkhonk:.
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This is why I invested in Paranoia and worked up a quick & dirty mission gen setup fir myself. Great for one shot sillyness and the players don't need to know much in the way of rules.
 
Telok said:
This is why I invested in Paranoia and worked up a quick & dirty mission gen setup fir myself. Great for one shot sillyness and the players don't need to know much in the way of rules.
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Yeah, Hack 100 is similar in prep needed. It doesn't come with much in the way of mission generators, but I've got 1234567890 of those in different games, from Art of Wuxia and Barbarians of Lemuria to Thrilling Tales...:grin:

I just wasn't sure I'd manage to give it the ~20 minutes I'd have needed to prepare, so I just cancelled it. And then the events proved that I wasn't going to have the time, indeed, so that was the smart option:thumbsup:!

That's why I try to prepare from earlier in the week, people, letting me know on short notice doesn't give you any guarantee, not any more:gooseshades:!


OTOH, I was on a birthday party. Met a few new and roleplayers, there, and got some of them to join the Discord server that I'm visiting most::honkhonk:!
 
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Fenris-77 said:
I'm going back through Pathfinder 2E, for reasons, and I noticed something in the opening, what's roleplaying bit. The book describes the following conversation sequence:
View attachment 81432

Now I don't know about you, but if my DM said to swim across make an athletics check and I succeeded, I would expect to swim across the fucking river not halfway. I hate this kind of bait and switch shit, never mind rolling multiple checks to buff the chances of failure at overcoming a routine, even mundane task.
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I'm gonna say that's a bad ruling on their part. I like the ten over being a critical success though. I would have ruled you got across had you successfully made the DC check. I might have had you appear more down stream, near a harder part to get up the onto a ridge/trail etc the closer to barely making the roll. Maybe. This getting halfway across for a success, that doesn't float for me (pun intended), unless it was a very large river. Then I could see making a second roll.

I used to do a lot of exploring swimming along the Colorado River and at times I did get in over my head distance wise/current wise. Had a few close calls as a dumbass teenager, where I had to stop and basically float on my back a while to recover before swimming on. The key was I was of course dressed for it and didn't panic. Same thing with ocean swimming, never panic.

Anyhow previous paragraph aside, I don't see the fun of making the second check required for smaller rivers/creeks/streams what have you. I will say I don't see it as bait and switch, nothing about traversing a river in gear is mundane. I just see it as excessive skill checks. Though I could see honestly (sorry I'm thinking about this as I write, I tend to think out loud too as an aside as a work a problem) that a second check might be required to get out of the river, depending on the banks of the river.

Everything is after all situational and if you as a the GM can make it exciting due to how your describing each phase of this scenario, and requiring skill checks along with questions explaining what the player character is doing exactly (which could give bonuses/penalties to the check) then I think it's not a bad thing and adds a level of suspense and excitement. If it's just roll this, roll that with no narrative and back an forth between the players and GM then yeah it's tedious.

Then again I've been feeling out of sync with the newer generation of gamers who don't want mechanics but want what feels like free form acting versus an immersive, organic role-playing experience that uses to the mechanics as the tools that they're meant for to help create that immersive game world. (shrugs) Sorry, got onto a meandering thinking it through out loud ramble)
 
Acmegamer said:
I'm gonna say that's a bad ruling on their part. I like the ten over being a critical success though. I would have ruled you got across had you successfully made the DC check. I might have had you appear more down stream, near a harder part to get up the onto a ridge/trail etc the closer to barely making the roll. Maybe. This getting halfway across for a success, that doesn't float for me (pun intended), unless it was a very large river. Then I could see making a second roll.
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But it should be about endurance, not swimming. You rolled to swim already:thumbsup:.

Acmegamer said:
Then again I've been feeling out of sync with the newer generation of gamers who don't want mechanics but want what feels like free form acting versus an immersive, organic role-playing experience that uses to the mechanics as the tools that they're meant for to help create that immersive game world. (shrugs) Sorry, got onto a meandering thinking it through out loud ramble)
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Eh, different tastes - we discussed plenty of that tonight. Since it ended up being two and a half hours of talking about RPGs, at one point I was discussing RPGs with a PF DM who had never played neither 2d20 nor d100 systems, and a guy who's played it all, but unlike me likes 2d20 (though he still has no use for d20, outside of Pendragon:grin:)!

So yeah, different tastes are different.
 
Acmegamer said:
Then again I've been feeling out of sync with the newer generation of gamers who don't want mechanics but want what feels like free form acting versus an immersive, organic role-playing experience that uses to the mechanics as the tools that they're meant for to help create that immersive game world.
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It seems like they want to play everything like it's the Pulp Adventure genre, with lots of extraudinary narrative justiifications and rollicking fun.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that if the GM is actually running a Pulp Adventure game (whether it's Jazz Age, Action Adventure, Fantasy, etc), but if the GM is running something designed to be gritty or more challenging, then this is a problem.

Critical Role's liveplays are a good example of this, everything is pulpy and handwavey (although I haven't seen Candela Obscura yet)

I guess it's down to having clear expectations beforehand, otherwise the players are expecting a different game to the GM.
 
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AsenRG said:
But it should be about endurance, not swimming. You rolled to swim already:thumbsup:.


Eh, different tastes - we discussed plenty of that tonight. Since it ended up being two and a half hours of talking about RPGs, at one point I was discussing RPGs with a PF DM who had never played neither 2d20 nor d100 systems, and a guy who's played it all, but unlike me likes 2d20 (though he still has no use for d20, outside of Pendragon:grin:)!

So yeah, different tastes are different.
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Right, but under that system "Athletics" covers it all in that regard. Though again, getting out of a river, fast moving stream etc can be a really difficult and potentially dangerous thing if you are wearing a lot of encumbering gear or gear that soaks up all that water. Also, then you have the embankment to consider.

So I could see the two rolls if you didn't get the ten over the DC. The first roll allows for crossing the body of water and the second was to get out successfully without issue. Then the ten over rule makes more sense since it basically removes the danger of getting out of the body of water. Yeah the more I think about it, the more I think that's what Paizo was intending with that rule Fenris showed us. Or at least how I'd play the rule.

p.s: We all know your taste is NOT to be trust oh master of the abused wow emoji! So there!
 
Acmegamer said:
Right, but under that system "Athletics" covers it all in that regard. Though again, getting out of a river, fast moving stream etc can be a really difficult and potentially dangerous thing if you are wearing a lot of encumbering gear or gear that soaks up all that water. Also, then you have the embankment to consider.

So I could see the two rolls if you didn't get the ten over the DC. The first roll allows for crossing the body of water and the second was to get out successfully without issue. Then the ten over rule makes more sense since it basically removes the danger of getting out of the body of water. Yeah the more I think about it, the more I think that's what Paizo was intending with that rule Fenris showed us. Or at least how I'd play the rule.

p.s: We all know your taste is NOT to be trust oh master of the abused wow emoji! So there!
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If you go with two rolls I think that needs to be transparent to the player prior to the roll.
 
Acmegamer said:
Right, but under that system "Athletics" covers it all in that regard. Though again, getting out of a river, fast moving stream etc can be a really difficult and potentially dangerous thing if you are wearing a lot of encumbering gear or gear that soaks up all that water. Also, then you have the embankment to consider.
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...yeah, right, that's true. I was thinking of an Endurance skill, then I realized I'm overlaying a system that accounts better for human PCs over PF:shade:.

Can't you at least roll Athletics with Str the first time, and Athletics with Con the second:crygoose:?

Acmegamer said:
So I could see the two rolls if you didn't get the ten over the DC. The first roll allows for crossing the body of water and the second was to get out successfully without issue. Then the ten over rule makes more sense since it basically removes the danger of getting out of the body of water. Yeah the more I think about it, the more I think that's what Paizo was intending with that rule Fenris showed us. Or at least how I'd play the rule.
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Totally fair, but your own account was telling me "roll Swimming now, then roll Endurance":thumbsup:!

Acmegamer said:
p.s: We all know your taste is NOT to be trust oh master of the abused wow emoji! So there!
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Lies:madgoose:!

(I'm not abusing it, it likes it:grin:!)

sharps54 said:
If you go with two rolls I think that needs to be transparent to the player prior to the roll.
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Also, very much this!
 
Mankcam said:
It seems like they want to play everything like it's the Pulp Adventure genre, with lots of extraudinary narrative justiifications and rollicking fun.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that if the GM is actually running a Pulp Adventure game (whether it's Jazz Age, Action Adventure, Fantasy, etc), but if the GM is running something designed to be gritty or more challenging, then this is a problem.

Critical Role's liveplays are a good example of this, everything is pulpy and handwavey (although I haven't seen Candela Obscura yet)

I guess it's down to having clear expectations beforehand, otherwise the players are expecting a different game to the GM.
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Really good points. I think my own issue with it, is that is what feels like what is expected all the time and any other type of ttrpg game play is wrong/bad. Which is frustrating and makes me feel like I can't be involved with games. The expectation "feels" like that's the way it is now and unless you get lucky and stumble upon a more simulationist ttrpg game (Me, Myself and Die!) then you just have to do with out because obviously you're doing it wrong.
 
Acmegamer said:
Really good points. I think my own issue with it, is that is what feels like what is expected all the time and any other type of ttrpg game play is wrong/bad. Which is frustrating and makes me feel like I can't be involved with games. The expectation "feels" like that's the way it is now and unless you get lucky and stumble upon a more simulationist ttrpg game (Me, Myself and Die!) then you just have to do with out because obviously you're doing it wrong.
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And I keep trying to get you to run games online...:shade:
 
AsenRG said:
...yeah, right, that's true. I was thinking of an Endurance skill, then I realized I'm overlaying a system that accounts better for human PCs over PF:shade:.

Can't you at least roll Athletics with Str the first time, and Athletics with Con the second:crygoose:?


Totally fair, but your own account was telling me "roll Swimming now, then roll Endurance":thumbsup:!


Lies:madgoose:!

(I'm not abusing it, it likes it:grin:!)


Also, very much this!
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Yep, something that Pathfinder shares with the more recent version of DnD is that you swap out the stat that's more apt for whatever the skill is calling for.

I mean, this isn't a legendary system like the BRP family or GURPS after all. Its the ole shortcomings included class/level mechanics d20 system. lol
 
The issue was adjudicating a success as halfway after the roll without (apparently) making the stakes of success clear before hand. That's juts bad GMing, period. If its going to take two rolls to cross the river (which is still fucking stupid btw) it needs to be clear before hand so the player can make an informed decision. I know this is just a blurb at the front of the book, but that actually makes me even more irritated as that example would stick with a new GM.
 
AsenRG said:
...yeah, right, that's true. I was thinking of an Endurance skill, then I realized I'm overlaying a system that accounts better for human PCs over PF:shade:.

Can't you at least roll Athletics with Str the first time, and Athletics with Con the second:crygoose:?
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That is Not The Way. None of us are doing it right according to the RAW.

They state:

Swim said:
You attempt an Athletics check to move a maximum distance of 10 feet through water. The GM determines the DC based on the turbulence or danger of the water; in most instances of calm water, you get an automatic critical success. If your land Speed is 40 feet or higher, increase the maximum possible distance by 5 feet for every 20 feet of Speed above 20 feet.

If you end your turn in water and haven't succeeded at a Swim action that turn, you sink 10 feet or get moved by the current, as determined by the GM. This doesn't apply if your last action on your turn was to enter the water.

Critical Success You move through the water, increasing the maximum distance by 5 feet.
Success You move through the water.
Critical Failure You make no progress. If you're holding your breath, you lose 1 round of air.
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So unless the river was quite narrow, the RAW require many rolls if the water is dangerous. OTOH, failing is mostly inconvenient unless you fail every action for a whole turn (and a turn has three actions, so if you're being sensible and just swimming, not clowning around doing other shit you get three rolls).

But, yeah whatever. Unless it's mid-combat I ain't going through all that. One check, don't fail and you're good, roll really well and you're golden.
 
Sharrow said:
That is Not The Way.

OTOH, none of us are doing it right according to the RAW.

They state:



So unless the river was quite narrow, the RAW require many rolls if the water is dangerous. OTOH, failing is mostly inconvenient unless you fail every action for a whole turn (and a turn has three actions, so if you're being sensible and just swimming, not clowning around doing other shit you get three rolls).
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...but then, unless that river is between 3 and 4,5 meters, the blurb on their cover is also not using the RAW:shock:!


As for the compound probability, I'll let the other posters state their opinions, lest you people accuse me of being biased::honkhonk:!
 
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