Speaking of RPG nighspots, I remember Volo's Guide to Waterdeep where they leaned way too far into the fantasy side of things and all of the bars looked like the kind of fantasy-themed family restaurant that you get in Las Vegas.
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@RogerBW I love these types of shortcuts. The amount of boring, expositional, pacing-killing scenes I had to endure in order to find out if anything fun happens is astonishing. Give me those downtime mechanics
There's a lot of different versions of Downtime. I'm very very fond of the way Golden Heroes used it as a sort of reward schedule. "You have beat the baddies thoroughly, and because of that there is some free time to do..your own stuff"
Downtime was success/XP in it.
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@RogerBW I love these types of shortcuts. The amount of boring, expositional, pacing-killing scenes I had to endure in order to find out if anything fun happens is astonishing. Give me those downtime mechanics
@vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg I take your point, but I came to the game to role play, and that's more subtle than "I spend my downtime slot indulging my vice".
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@devilsjunkshop Might argue I'm quite Bernard Blackesque IRL
@Printdevil I suspect the argument would be which of us is more Bernard Blackeque tbh @RogerBW @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg
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@vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg I take your point, but I came to the game to role play, and that's more subtle than "I spend my downtime slot indulging my vice".
@RogerBW I understand your point. We did some acting out downtime scenes, especially with a player who chose Weird as their indulgence but I am not too fond of acting my scenes. I like my roleplay as in making decisions, coming up with plans and doing things. Acting a character is not my preferred activity, especially with a bunch of other awkward nerds. Which is why I love Blades and other FitD games.
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@RogerBW I understand your point. We did some acting out downtime scenes, especially with a player who chose Weird as their indulgence but I am not too fond of acting my scenes. I like my roleplay as in making decisions, coming up with plans and doing things. Acting a character is not my preferred activity, especially with a bunch of other awkward nerds. Which is why I love Blades and other FitD games.
My troupe would have made a basic planning to react to something take six weeks, provisions and sit end up with us eating Penguins to avoid scurvy. They were a power of magnitude happier playing in character in the downtime.
That though is the "game for the table you have, not the table you wish you had"
Unless you want to find new friends
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@RogerBW I love these types of shortcuts. The amount of boring, expositional, pacing-killing scenes I had to endure in order to find out if anything fun happens is astonishing. Give me those downtime mechanics
@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass it can go both ways though. I remember kingdom running and rebellion management in Pathfinder, which was rolling dice to see what events happened and how things were going, and it was tedious. I'm not saying I wanted to roleplay everything everyone was doing, but I'd have liked a middle ground.
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@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass it can go both ways though. I remember kingdom running and rebellion management in Pathfinder, which was rolling dice to see what events happened and how things were going, and it was tedious. I'm not saying I wanted to roleplay everything everyone was doing, but I'd have liked a middle ground.
@shimminbeg @vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass Which may come down to "allow roleplay, allow pure mechanics, follow the mood of the table in deciding which to use in the moment".
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@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass it can go both ways though. I remember kingdom running and rebellion management in Pathfinder, which was rolling dice to see what events happened and how things were going, and it was tedious. I'm not saying I wanted to roleplay everything everyone was doing, but I'd have liked a middle ground.
@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass
But admittedly I do like playing in character, and I'm the sort of person who goes "OOC I don't expect anything to result, but IC I want to look around the exterior windows to check if anyone used a blowpipe to drug this NPC instead of them having an actual vision"
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@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass it can go both ways though. I remember kingdom running and rebellion management in Pathfinder, which was rolling dice to see what events happened and how things were going, and it was tedious. I'm not saying I wanted to roleplay everything everyone was doing, but I'd have liked a middle ground.
I always tend to argue for the middle ground of things, I think you have to decide on the focus that entertains your table the most, how much latitude you have around that focus, and then what they abhor.
I've met (and played with) GMs who just revelled in playing things they know the group abhor, just to be adversarial. It's an unnervingly common style in old school D&D
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@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass
But admittedly I do like playing in character, and I'm the sort of person who goes "OOC I don't expect anything to result, but IC I want to look around the exterior windows to check if anyone used a blowpipe to drug this NPC instead of them having an actual vision"
I like players doing that because sometimes they do something that makes me think as the GM "oh actually there would be a dead penguin outside now that Shim has started looking at the windows"
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@vdonnut @RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass it can go both ways though. I remember kingdom running and rebellion management in Pathfinder, which was rolling dice to see what events happened and how things were going, and it was tedious. I'm not saying I wanted to roleplay everything everyone was doing, but I'd have liked a middle ground.
The separate issue is conventions, where you have "random table" and you have no idea about expectations of style, some (Vazh) should write a critical patois for explaining gaming styles so they can be marked as such at conventions so people looking for dice dicey can avoid the thesp game and then (Vazh) can post it on their blog.
Vazh
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The separate issue is conventions, where you have "random table" and you have no idea about expectations of style, some (Vazh) should write a critical patois for explaining gaming styles so they can be marked as such at conventions so people looking for dice dicey can avoid the thesp game and then (Vazh) can post it on their blog.
Vazh
@vdonnut @Printdevil @shimminbeg @RogerBW @BigJackBrass @Taskerland an interesting idea, if only you knew who could do it
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@vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg I take your point, but I came to the game to role play, and that's more subtle than "I spend my downtime slot indulging my vice".
@vdonnut @Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg yeah, i liked downtime as a concept because of how it was presented to me — a bit of a “rp reset.” a short scene about what your character is like, what they choose to do or are forced to do because of who they are, usually separate from their tactical specialty. and if it was never separate from tactics, that also told part of that character’s story.
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@vdonnut @Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg yeah, i liked downtime as a concept because of how it was presented to me — a bit of a “rp reset.” a short scene about what your character is like, what they choose to do or are forced to do because of who they are, usually separate from their tactical specialty. and if it was never separate from tactics, that also told part of that character’s story.
"tactics... " *wobbles ineffectually..*
@cumush @vdonnut @RogerBW @Taskerland @BigJackBrass @shimminbeg
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I also wonder if there's not a degree of cultural difference here....
I get the impression that Americans like and expect a certain degree of cheerfully inauthentic theming to even their local watering holes whereas most British pubs are broadly the same only more-or-less rundown and more-or-less gentrified.
A US game designer would naturally reach for the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a baseball-themed bar and to UK eyes that reads like the fake restaurants they have in Disneyworld.
@Taskerland It's the lighting that doesn't sit right with me. The artists have obviously never gone to a pub during a powercut. Every candle should be an island of light getting steadily crushed by ambient darkness (but in a cozy way).
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@Taskerland at some point I really should take a look because I am curious what exactly you *do* with a cosy vibes DnD supplement
@shimminbeg @Taskerland I *do* know there's a fair number of cozy style solo-rpg kinda books kicking around (I'm always tempted, but they fall into 'Kale wants to play a solo game, but has other things his brain is thinking of') - so I suspect that's kinda some of the market.
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@shimminbeg @vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass Which may come down to "allow roleplay, allow pure mechanics, follow the mood of the table in deciding which to use in the moment".
@RogerBW @shimminbeg @vdonnut @Printdevil @Taskerland @BigJackBrass I kind of wonder if there's wiggle room for Microscope to sneak in there.
Bookend it with this is JUST for X to Y date, and people slap in a few events on the timeline and see what comes out
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I like players doing that because sometimes they do something that makes me think as the GM "oh actually there would be a dead penguin outside now that Shim has started looking at the windows"
@Printdevil @vdonnut @RogerBW @Taskerland @BigJackBrass so many times, this. The whole game can get enriched with players and a GM who are happy to do this kind of thing. But always YMMV and sometimes it's not the right time, game, or evening for it
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I also wonder if there's not a degree of cultural difference here....
I get the impression that Americans like and expect a certain degree of cheerfully inauthentic theming to even their local watering holes whereas most British pubs are broadly the same only more-or-less rundown and more-or-less gentrified.
A US game designer would naturally reach for the Forgotten Realms equivalent of a baseball-themed bar and to UK eyes that reads like the fake restaurants they have in Disneyworld.
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Speaking of RPG nighspots, I remember Volo's Guide to Waterdeep where they leaned way too far into the fantasy side of things and all of the bars looked like the kind of fantasy-themed family restaurant that you get in Las Vegas.
Waitresses dresses as fucking Drow House Mothers and shit...
Awful.
Hilarious.
Not even remotely game-useful.
Someone should have gone into the commercial interior design rater than writing books for elf games.
@Taskerland Check out the chapter on Krytuk's Fancy for more realistic description https://wbeekeeper.thegood.cloud/s/Dc5Mek6twTTHJEb
