lextenebris

lextenebris, 25 days ago

@jonobie Congratulations! Welcome to psychoanalysis, where the answers are made up and the points don't matter!

This should give you some degree of concern about your chosen field. The more you learn, the less you trust.

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@mcoorlim Well, if you've got that much time, maybe try something that isn't quite as in the normal silo as you might think.

Pick up one of the new generations of #soloRPG games and began blogging your play as a web serial. Extra points if it's not a mode of play or genre of play that you normally engage with, giving you an excuse to push yourself out of your normal comfort zone.

There's a lot of different intellectual and creative stimulation points in that kind of move forward and there are too few people blogging their play rather than making videos. There are some really good people doing solo actual play videos – but not nearly as many blogging such that they reveal their thoughts along the way at a metalevel before returning to portraying the game fiction and mechanics.

Just thought.

#TTRPG

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@mcoorlim See, I like that sort of thing. I like doing that sort of thing so it's a little bit self-interested.

But I would definitely suggest that if you haven't already, go check out some of the newer solo play games that are out there because some of them are really incredible. Ironsworn/Starforged (https://www.ironswornrpg.com) is the best game released in the last several years, in my opinion. Five Leagues from the Borderlands (https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/pages/five-leagues-from-the-borderlands)/5 Parsecs from Home (https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/pages/five-parsecs) are two of the best "adventure wargames" you can put on the tabletop. If you're looking for something of a more horrific bent, Elegy (https://miraclem.itch.io/elegy) and The Vampire: Alone in the Darkness (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/329920/The-Vampire--Alone-in-the-Darkness-Remastered) do the solo vampire thing pretty interestingly in very different ways.

That's before we even start to get to specifically journaling games where there are some fascinating things going on.

It's a brave new world.

#TTRPG #solo

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@mcoorlim Unfortunately, no, because I tend to stay away from places like that, like the plague. People get a little precious about their solo play and their writing. So I generally find that those particular communities are a little more prickly than I want to get involved with. Personal preference generally grown from the fact that my personal preferences are not like other people's.

There is a huge Ironsworn community out there; the author (@shawntomkin) just completed a Kickstarter for his new Starforged expansion, which is going to tackle fleets and ships and rebellion and piracy and definitely integrating a lot of exciting things that are going on. The Discord (https://discord.com/invite/DffSF7xx) has been extremely active for obvious reasons. If you were looking for one with a whole lot of community support, that would definitely be the place to go.

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Tim_Eagon As I see it, here are some of the problems structurally that lead to bad Call of Cthulhu scenario design.

• Both the players and the Keeper know that this is a Lovecraftian horror scenario.

• The style of gameplay being initiated is not "play to find out" but instead "play to be told."

• Because if the clues aren't found, the horror doesn't happen, but the mechanical architecture doesn't exactly make discovering the clues likely or even possible in some cases.

• The mechanics around finding clues are fairly horrifically bad or completely left out because they get in the way of actually executing the plot.

• The only on-character markers that can be affected dynamically by the mechanics as presented are HP and SAN, which provide a very narrow scope of "things that can be done to you and that matter in the long run."

• Real problem solving requires that there be a real chance of not solving the problem, and if the problem doesn't get solved, the level of threat being manifest is too large to be acceptable either to the players or the Keeper.

My gut says that the underlying idea of "the scenario" is part of the problem.

#TTRPG #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Tim_Eagon This doesn't exactly come from a position of ignorance; the first RPG that I ever ran on a regular basis for a stable group was Call of Cthulhu. The combination of mechanics that don't actually lead to behavior that fits with Lovecraftian stories and the really heavy reliance on pre-generated scenarios as the expected means of play, which never turned out to provide a Lovecraftian experience, pushed pretty hard on me.

There have definitely been better approaches to the genre of Lovecraftian horror, specifically Cthulhu, over the years. Cthulhu Dark is a pretty good example. Really, though, the key is to recognize that a good Lovecraftian horror comes together when the players don't necessarily believe there is something to discover, and sometimes there isn't. When there is, it should be threatening to them at a reasonable scale that the cost of failure beyond purely personal cost, of course, is sufficient to make walking away a reasonable response, but not necessarily one they want to do.

A lot of Lovecraftian storytelling boils down to, "We came, we saw, we walked away to tell the tale," and that's a perfectly good story. But those aren't the stories that scenario writers want to push because it's not particularly heroic. Call of Cthulhu, unfortunately, has become a very heroic-character-focused game.

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Tim_Eagon There's a really simple reason for that. Nobody has done it before.

Obviously, that's a complete simplification, but it's not far off from the truth. "That's not how Call of Cthulhu scenarios are designed" is just the facts. On top of that, it is creating content that you know some significant percentage of the players are never going to see because they will have already got the first clue. So why make the second clue? I mean, sure, they could have completely missed that first clue, and need the second clue, but isn't the "Good Keeper's job" to make sure they don't/can't miss the first one the first time?

The small-scale stories are easier to manage because in the same expected space that someone paid for, you can have a lot more things going on simultaneously and stuff just works.

I would love to see some Lovecraftian fantasy horror using the system of Fantasy World. The game is so low prep and so extremely clear both on how it expects mechanics to be operated and how much it leans on the precepts of PbtA that it almost deliberately excises that get in the way of a good COC game. I think there's something there to be mined out, but my brain is still chewing on it.

#TTRPG #PbtA #FantasyWorld #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Tim_Eagon I think I actually have a good reason for it:

Because for three quarters of the PbtA/FitD games out there, some element of Lovecraftian horror is already worked into one of the potential world building paths, so going purely Lovecraftian would be firstly something that felt like somebody else had already done it and secondly duplicating effort.

I can pick up Blades in the Dark right now and run an extremely Lovecraftian-flavored game, and it can even be from the perspective of the cultists. I can pick up Starforged and run an extremely Lovecraftian-flavored game – in space. Scum and Villainy, maybe a little bit harder but not impossible.

It's reasonable to assert that Call of Cthulhu, as a specific subgenre representative, is dominated by a single game which represents pretty much a single manifestation of the style… But Lovecraftian horror has spread as a concept through almost everything else to the point where unless you specifically want to do 1920s-era Lovecraftian horror, you can do it with the tools in your pocket.

Which is probably a good thing.

#TTRPG #PbtA #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@ericmpaq @Tim_Eagon I actually picked it up during its initial Kickstarter and I have a copy sitting on my shelf. I think it's been opened exactly once because it didn't really "do the job" as well as I would have liked.

It was also pretty early on in the PbtA explosion so a lot of those systems didn't really gel so much as took the core mechanics and washed over them briefly. I don't regret making the purchase but… It didn't burn any barns down for a reason.

Maybe it's time to sit down, open it up, and write a bit of an article on why it doesn't quite scratch the edge.

#TTRPG #PbtA #tremulous

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@scimon @Tim_Eagon I have; not surprisingly it's in my library. It's #Gumshoe, which is a bit of a different game design concept then #PbtA
#TTRPG but it does have a really good understanding of how to set up a game which centers around research.

The problem is it doesn't really do anything else well in my opinion. There's just too much in the way of mechanics which tried to simulate things which don't need to be simulated within the context of the game.

Yes, I have a special and particular hatred of skill lists. If you must have them, there should be fewer than 12. I would prefer there to be three or four dynamically generated Traits and no skills at all but I'm willing to be flexible.

I'm going to attach a Trail of Cthulhu character sheet which basically should explain in great detail everything I dislike about the game. #TTRPG #TrailOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Tim_Eagon I'd say that probably counts. I'd probably throw in Trophy Dark/Gold as a closely related game design which puts its fingers into a lot of the same spaces. Also the Dee Sanction.

Let me grab some links for those people who may be coming along later and want to check out what we're talking about:

Brindlewood Bay: https://www.brindlewoodbay.com/brindlewood-bay.html

Trophy Dark/Gold: https://trophyrpg.com

The Dee Sanction: https://www.thedeesanction.com

That last is particularly interesting because they put out a standalone SRD book (Sanction) which essentially lets anybody build a game off of the core that they want, as quite a lot of indie RPGs these days are doing.

In a real sense, we are not spoiled for choice when it comes to Lovecraft on the tabletop. Not even a little bit. In my mind, truthfully, the question is "why does Call of Cthulhu remain so ridiculously dominant when there are better game designs out there for doing the same thing?"

But I ask the same question about D&D on a regular basis.

First-mover inertia is all I can come up with.

#TTRPG #BrindlewoodBay #Trophy #DeeSanction #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Rollenspielblog @Tim_Eagon Perversely – not something in my collection, but the existence thereof doesn't shock me at all.

According to DriveThruRPG, it was added to the catalog and thus probably came out about 10 years ago which puts it in a particular era of #PbtA development, one of the front runners. That would explain why it's not in my pocket.

Good catch, though!

#TTRPG #MythosWorld #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@Rollenspielblog @Tim_Eagon Interestingly, I found this relevant review that talks about both Mythos World and tremulous.

https://www.dramadice.com/blog/mythos-world-cthulhu-rpg-with-pbta-rules/

#TTRPG #CallOfCthulhu #MythosWorld #tremulous

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@wholeenchilada @scimon @Tim_Eagon And yet they fixate on characters having skills to an incredibly fine degree, which is directly at odds with how the clue mechanisms work best.

I like a lot of the advice that you get with Gumshoe better than I like the system that is implemented to manifest Gumshoe, which is an interesting dichotomy.

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@luxet @Tim_Eagon That definitely touches on one of the significant issues in mimicking the architecture of the original mythos stories: they aren't intended to nor do they involve characters who continue from one experience to another.

Some unprepared person falls into a horrific, nightmarish situation and either manages to escape from it or is consumed by it – and then we go on to the next guy.

Continuity of character is not something important to generating verisimilitude of the stories, but it's extremely important to Call of Cthulhu as it is formulated mechanically in the TTRPG.

If it took five minutes to put together a character, you drop them into a situation, and they either get killed while discovering things or make their way out and enter the NPC pool that anyone could draw on, that would be a far better representation of how characters in the Cthulhu mythos actually exist within the stories.

You would also probably get better set up situations, better kickers, as a result.

#TTRPG #CallOfCthulhu #writing

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@notasnark @Tim_Eagon @luxet That is literally one of the reasons that Delta Green became one of the most interesting evolutions of Call of Cthulhu. And one of the most appreciated.

It is generally more fun to have a character whom you recognize immediately as capable and effective - even if they are capable and effective in tasks which are not going to be critical to the thing that you know you're going to be experiencing. It's why watching Event Horizon is great fun because the protagonists are competent people in their field. And you know they are capable of dealing with extremely difficult situations. They are simply in a situation they aren't prepared for and isn't within the context they have trained for.

The sensible thing for most of the characters created for Call of Cthulhu to do is to find out that there is a weird problem and then run as fast as possible away from it. The problem is that the game itself does not create a reason mechanically on the sheet expressed for those characters to remain engaged, to want to deal with that problem, to put their sanity or lives on the line. That's an artifact of the fact that BRP is effectively an ancient system that predates the development of good tools for creating situational setups that Call of Cthulhu demands.

#TTRPG #CallOfCthulhu

lextenebris, 2 months ago

@liaizon @obsidian Why aren't you just putting "@user" in the Aliases YAML of their Person note? Then, on reference, you link to it like any other, [[@user]] and it'll probably offer to autocomplete before you're done.

No plug in necessary, just basic use.

lextenebris, 3 months ago

@drevrpg Yes, it has been done before. On multiple occasions over the last several decades.

The classic reference would be Traveller which used a series of tables to generate a fairly complex approach to planet generation, tech level, and society.

https://www.traveller-srd.com/core-rules/world-creation/

Stars Without Number also has systems for sandbox sector creation that people seem to love. Quite a lot, in fact. Plus you can have it for free, which is impressive.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/230009/Stars-Without-Number-Revised-Edition-Free-Version

https://www.reddit.com/r/SWN/

In the last when I'm going to cite is Starforged, which has an entire sector/planet generation system, as is appropriate for a game which has a significant portion about exploration.

https://www.ironswornrpg.com/product-ironsworn-starforged

Planet creation systems have been around for a very, very long time.

#TTRPG #SWN #Starforged #Traveller

lextenebris, 3 months ago

@samurro You've started with an invalid assumption, thus invalidating the whole point of the question.

You assert, without proof, that TTRPGs live off of their social interaction and emergent storytelling, as if solo gaming eliminates all of the above.

When you state something which is patently untrue and a little insulting to the very people you want to give you feedback, it doesn't end well. In this case you just managed to get largely ignored. Congratulations, you got off easy.

Emergent storytelling comes from the telling of story, the retelling of events – and it doesn't matter what seeds those events, whether it be other people or the effect of randomness or the operation of your own mind. The story exists, regardless. And it emerges from a confluence of multiple things, even in solo role-playing. Even in solo journaling games which are even more explicitly constrained in terms of presentation.

But this would have been obvious if you had actually looked at one, maybe even tried to play with. Crazy talk, I know, this idea of going to seek the answer to a question rather than simply asserting something incoherent. Madness, really.

#TTRPG #solo

lextenebris, 3 months ago

@samurro #Ironsworn probably is the root of the best game designs that I have seen in the last several years, and I have seen a lot. The course of play is complex enough for sufficient events to come to pass so that there can be a story – but it's never a story you can fully predict the outcome of. You have to react in the moment with an eye to what your motivations are. #Starforged is the more refined mechanical expression and a base setting which speaks to me somewhat more being science fiction.

It's a different mode of play to play solo, absolutely. But it doesn't make it a lesser mode than traditional #TTRPG fare; there are certain freedoms that come along with not having to deal with other players at the table when you want to have your own experience. And most solo RPGs these days have the ability to be played co-op so that you can cycle other people into your experience if that's what you want. But you don't have to.

I'm not particularly fond of retrofitting games which weren't designed for #solo because inevitably the mechanics start getting over complicated when you're dealing with multiple characters and the pacing of events when involved in using the mechanics often feels stilted. It's a thing you can do, but probably a thing you shouldn't do.

lextenebris, 5 months ago

@kyonshi @ericsfraga @kensanata I did my time in the coal mines of USENET back in the day, before the rise of the modern web – actually, before the rise of the web at all.

In a lot of ways, it was a better day. If only because GNUS and proper message threading made finding and reading what you wanted (and not reading what you didn't want) a much better experience than it is today.

If only there were clients that had kept up with modern design while retaining that whole useful experience. The world suffers at the loss.

lextenebris, 5 months ago

@ericsfraga @kensanata @kyonshi Oh yes, the Great Renaming. I remember it well. I also remember having to change my entire feed file as a result which was a bit of a pain in the ass.

The funny thing is that we actually deal with more individual elements/posts with the modern "firehose theory" designs that completely ignore useful tools like threading, score files, well-designed filters, and all the rest. We are using objectively worse tools to dig through objectively more content.

I actually quite resent this fact.

I have a strong suspicion that if you were to re-implement RFC 822 as a social media protocol and give us a clean, non-Emacs version of GNUS or SLRN to interface with it, you could spawn a renaissance of social media design.

Which means – it will never happen.

I sometimes miss rec.games.mecha from the old days. Flame wars and all. Rec.games.frp.misc, maybe somewhat less so.

lextenebris, 6 months ago

@dhrystone A guy that was really going to carpentry school, the kind of person who writes down a pile of notes about how long something should be, jots design ideas, makes references to projects that they would like to do in that others have done – they would know immediately why that's useful.

So we know trolling when we see it.

lextenebris, 7 months ago

@juergen_hubert It's mainly a spin on classic political marriage stories with the added spice that there are actual manifest gods involved.

What you aren't seeing these days very much is TTRPG writers who have much of a grasp of politics or any interest in it beyond their extremely narrow scope of vision, so you don't see those stories coming up very much.

That premise is so open; are your characters in favor of the marriage or against it? Are their patrons? Has someone simply paid them to care? Do they have a personal investment in one outcome or another? Is there a third-party that wants to influence the outcome positively or negatively?

In order for this to be an interesting plot any and all of these positions need to be defensible within the narrative for someone to want sensibly. There just aren't a lot of people involved in the hobby who want to do stories that open. Which is a shame.

Because these are awesome stories.

lextenebris, 7 months ago

@Tim_Eagon @nukehavoc @NinjaDebugger @skullfungus There are some full RPGs which I wouldn't be afraid to hand to a newbie to run – but it's rare and that there aren't a lot of people with the talent to make more of them.