D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jul 7, 2013 11:25:45 GMT -8
Ahoy Bastards! Thanks for the very nice shout out regarding Jackercon! 12 Days to GO!. Hopefully this thing will keep snowballing Flash Flooding ? (Pasadena people don't know snow). We still definitely need players! I will repost this the Jackercon thread but wanted to let the community know the Virtual Con's status here as well: My Dark Heresy game is full with 2 alternates left. I will post the pre-gens on Obsidian Portal for the players to start to squabble over next week. My Warhammer Fantasy game has three seats left! Come on, I swear your mighty hero won't go horribly insane, mutate in some terrifying fashion, or die a gruesome, bloody death...right away. You should make it through the first three hours at least. whodo has 3 seats left in his Demon Hunters game, where there might be the possibility of RPing as a christmas tree. I'm playing that one! The Firefly game has 4 seats left. Muntjack's game that won the Two Sides One Epic Contest has one seat left. dnddad has SEVEN seats left in his Shadowrun game. Kainguru(Aaron) has two seats left in his Strontium Dogz Travler Game. guitarspider has 5 seats left in the Primetime Adventures game. And the whole thing closes on Sunday with Bloodsparrow's Murderous Ghosts which if I understand correctly involves one player and a hivemind (no relation) of up to 30 members of a chatroom telling that person what to do. Its run in the Apocalypse World system. Cheers All. Thanks for your support. Jackercon 2013 Games
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Jul 7, 2013 12:56:45 GMT -8
Dammit, Stu, it was Stan Rogers who did Northwest Passage.
Edit: Ah. Someone finally caught on to it.
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jul 7, 2013 14:01:29 GMT -8
Just finished the episode:
1) at 1:34 :I think the idea of game/panel is sorta like what bloodsparrows Murderous Ghosts game in Jackercon is going to be.
2) 1:40 Wow Holy Fuckin Creepy Derail there Gammon! You should hangout with Kainguru
3) at 1:55 ? I second the idea of testing Stu's game at a face to face game and compare with a G+ playtest. I'm really interested at seeing how those things compare.
4) Finally, I think having a Live G+ recording of the show on the Jackercon week would be AMAAAAAZING.
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Post by malifer on Jul 7, 2013 15:26:41 GMT -8
On the 1 hour and a half Savage Worlds combat.
I agree that this is mostly on the GMs shoulders.
I am not informed of the whole scenario, but not every NPC should fight to the death and certainly not to a stand still. No movie villain stands around waiting to be killed or fights fair after he realizes he is on equal footing with the hero.
But for arguments sake I will say this is the final battle and this NPC will fight to the death. Now it's time to take a page from the list of Dungeon World GM moves. Not everything the GM does has to be damage.
Change the environment. Coincidence happens have there be an earthquake or take the fight out into a busy street...change something.
But honestly what I can't seem to understand is if it was down to the Main Villain vs the Heroes how the fuck did the Gang-Up Rules not completely swing the fight in the Heroes favor. Either the GM forgot about these rules, every player storked every roll, or that villian was ridiculous.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 7, 2013 15:33:15 GMT -8
Shadowrun with Dnddad - how is that standing with wife's ultrasound mentioned in another Jackercon thread? Cause, well, it's guns and elves and cybernetics and shit . . . ie: I'm psyched to play the edition of the game I always wanted to play but never got the opportunity. Aaron PS: Gammon's derail was worthy of being considered an honorary Australian : 'gidday cunt"
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Post by malifer on Jul 7, 2013 15:46:47 GMT -8
On Daniel from Serbia's min/maxing.
No one mentioned this, but min/maxing is not what he described.
He described Maximizing a skill or attribute. Or what some might just call optimizing.
The problem with min/max-ers, is truly the Minimizing.
It's okay to make a super thief or fighter, but when you make that happen by taking the allergic to strawberries disadvantage, because it will never come up that is a terrible player.
That is someone who groans every time the monsters attack and hit their PC, or who will argue with the GM if suddenly they have to roll a skill or ability they dumped in order to maximize something else.
As far needing to maximize a skill in order for the GM to take notice you have a skill, well that is slightly sad. I think it might be better just to talk to your GM about that. I think a good GM should pay attention to the PCs and what kind of game can be built out of that for both good and bad scenes.
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Post by bloodsparrow on Jul 7, 2013 18:53:19 GMT -8
I said this in the chat room but I don't think it got noticed. The problem with min maxing is not simply optimizing one's character.
The problem is when a player consistently finds feedback loops in the system, and then constantly does things that makes everybody else wait around while they roll 1 million dice.
Before I go off on this subject, let me tell you a story I think all you will enjoy. The group I used to play with before I moved to Texas had some min maxers of various flavors in it. One of them (Mr. "I've always wanted to do this" mentioned below), was pretty notorious. One time he brought a character to whichever of them was DM'ing and it was a SUPER cheesy build. The DM said that he could play this, technically "legal", character on one condition. This character would be cursed. At random intervals, a dire bear (named "Bo-Bo") would jump out of nowhere and hump said character for some amount of time that I don't quite recall... So, occasionally, one of the guys would let slip some plan for their character and it would illicit the response, "Hmmm, that makes Bo-Bo... randy."
Anyway. Examples of what is really the problem with min maxing above and beyond simply optimizing the character.
In one case I had this one guy (let's call him J) in my old group. Any time he said, "I've always wanted to do this", we would all throw our pencils on the table and go get a sandwich as he summoned four or five hastened enlarged elephants that then surrounded the boss, making it impossible for anybody else to get a shot in edgewise. (Or something like that.)
In another case there was this thing that my group and I called "Hamloaf". In fourth edition another friend played a paladin, any time he rolled a crit it would set off cascade of "if/than" conditions that meant that he would be rolling for five damn minutes at least. The last straw happened when he killed the big bad we'd been chasing since the game pretty much began several years prior in real time. But nobody was there to see the guy die, because Hamloaf occurred and everybody had gone into the kitchen to refresh their drinks, get snacks, and just generally stand around the refrigerator chatting while the player of the paladin got out the flowchart he made to track the cascade of abilities and rolled his bazillion attacks and points of damage.
(I'm reasonably sure that this particular event contributed to the eventual meltdown of the group.)
Now this is what the player of the paladin pretty much lived for. And I don't begrudge him doing what he enjoyed.
However, it very much impacted the fun of the rest of us. Not only would the game come to a screeching halt any time he rolled a crit, but he would comment at other players (namely me) when we would use abilities that allowed a re-roll if an attack missed for anybody but him.
There is a difference that just being optimized and being super cheesy, hogging all the turns just because you can.
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Post by rickno7 on Jul 7, 2013 19:42:00 GMT -8
Ahoy Bastards! My Warhammer Fantasy game has three seats left! Come on, I swear your mighty hero won't go horribly insane, mutate in some terrifying fashion, or die a gruesome, bloody death...right away. You should make it through the first three hours at least. I'm teetering on being able to sign up to this one. I need to test out some stuff on the computer I'd have to play on for it. Plus I need to download and learn Fantasy Grounds. Do I need a camera with this one? or just a mic?
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jul 7, 2013 20:34:35 GMT -8
Ahoy Bastards! My Warhammer Fantasy game has three seats left! Come on, I swear your mighty hero won't go horribly insane, mutate in some terrifying fashion, or die a gruesome, bloody death...right away. You should make it through the first three hours at least. I'm teetering on being able to sign up to this one. I need to test out some stuff on the computer I'd have to play on for it. Plus I need to download and learn Fantasy Grounds. Do I need a camera with this one? or just a mic? I think I'm going to abandon the fantasy grounds aspect this time through. Just play it on roll20 and G+. Also I think I'll bump the system back down to Warhammer 2e because roll20 doesn't have the symbol dice for 3e. All you need for G+ is a headset. Cameras are nice, facial expressions and all but not a necessity. I'm also planning on running a G+ test session for anyone interested next weekend. Just a quick 10-15 min gear test. I think I'll also set up another Google Drive for folks if they want to put pre-gens in there. Sorry to hawg the thread...*wanders muttering over to Jackercon thread*
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maxinstuff
Supporter
Posts: 1,939
Preferred Game Systems: DCC RPG, Shadowrun 5e, Savage Worlds, GURPS 4e, HERO 6e, Mongoose Traveller
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by maxinstuff on Jul 7, 2013 22:47:32 GMT -8
I'm also planning on running a G+ test session for anyone interested next weekend. Just a quick 10-15 min gear test. I'm keen to do the gear test - I haven't used roll20 and it would be nice to check for any nasty voice latency Let me know what time you are doing it.
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Post by The Northman on Jul 8, 2013 6:43:58 GMT -8
Really nice of Jesse Eisenberg to drop by the podcast again, pseudonym aside.
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daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
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Post by daniel on Jul 9, 2013 0:54:01 GMT -8
The Win button.
In most tabletop RPG games there should not be one, realistically i feel there is a bit of one its just that loosing can still be fun. I think ware i am coming from is not that i want to have a win button but i do want to have a 'realistically influence the situation' button without necessarily getting the benevolent nod from the GM to do it.
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Post by guitarspider on Jul 9, 2013 4:03:40 GMT -8
So, occasionally, one of the guys would let slip some plan for their character and it would illicit the response, "Hmmm, that makes Bo-Bo... randy." That is quite possibly the best way to deal with minmaxing that I've heard of so far. Love it.
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Post by The Northman on Jul 9, 2013 4:58:45 GMT -8
Stork has mentioned his philosophy on choosing skills based on what sort of activities his character has been pursuing in game a few times now. While I agree that choosing strange or obscure skills with no justification in-game hurts the suspension of disbelief, I also think this can be taken too far. No game I've ever played in fills 100% of the character's time with on-camera events, and it's always assumed in our games that you're keeping busy with something during that downtime, whether it's working on a kata, tinkering on your armor, or reading a book.
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Post by malifer on Jul 9, 2013 5:23:54 GMT -8
Stork has mentioned his philosophy on choosing skills based on what sort of activities his character has been pursuing in game a few times now. While I agree that choosing strange or obscure skills with no justification in-game hurts the suspension of disbelief, I also think this can be taken too far. No game I've ever played in fills 100% of the character's time with on-camera events, and it's always assumed in our games that you're keeping busy with something during that downtime, whether it's working on a kata, tinkering on your armor, or reading a book. In the Mongoose Traveller game I play in Skill progression is slow process so it actually becomes part of the story. You are in Jump Space for a week what is your character learning?
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