What is the best game engine to hack? (No PL)

[PhoneLobster]

Ah, the classic "reply to someone then ban them from your thread" tactic. Gets 'em every time.

Well also, if I recall, directly addressing someone after banning them actually allows them right of reply to some extent. Pretty sure that precedent is long set. So by doing that I'm pretty sure he lets me make this post.

OK so Dean's reply is "interesting", but not what I was looking for.

I asked whether it was best to ask for help with something without describing it and while misleadingly describing something else. I think that's very important for basic coherency of communication on the den.

I asked whether "what do people think is cool?" is the place to be 2 years into a project. I think that's important to understand where this project is even at.

And I asked what these "Translations" are, because I think that's important to have any idea what suggestions people actually want to make to feed into this... "process"?

I still don't have answers on those. Instead what I got is an unexpected contradiction.

Previously almost the only description of the project itself was something I'm entirely in favor of. Rules Transparency and integrated in setting character knowledge of and interaction with game rules. Something I think is a great GMing technique and have been promoting since so long ago on the Den it would be hard to find it even with Google cache. Though it seems an odd choice as the primary design point for an entire system rather than just a thing you do as a GM with any system, as after all "the characters know what levels are" isn't telling us much about the nature of the game rules themselves.

But now we get this contradictory text about UI and Physics Engines. Which first of all, doesn't seem to pause to tell us how this interacts with the testing "Translations" process in a way that actually helps. But is once you strip it bare of some unfortunate incorrect conflations to computer games basically one of the most Grognardy of retrograde design philosophies out there.

The idea that some rules. The real rules that actually do things are the domain of the GM only, and that the players are stuck in a shallow fraudulent play pen separated several steps away from the real rules that they do not know or directly interact with is very, VERY old school Gygaxian sort of stuff. And directly in opposition to any ideas about transparency and world integration.

So essentially at this point I know... less... about what Dean is trying to achieve here. While still not getting the answer to my actual questions about how he was trying to achieve it.

[Dean]

Ah, the classic "reply to someone then ban them from your thread" tactic. Gets 'em every time.

What's weird about it is that PL didn't ask a bad question and in answering it dean got to explain his thinking. I'm not sure how this equates to threadshit. My guess is that there's an expectation of eventual, actual, thread shitting and someone is jumping the gun.

I think you'll find it was not a good question and instead the only question PL posts i.e. "What even is the point of this thread". I think you'll also find that instead of allowing me to elucidate my thinking it's literally just the next post I wrote later in it's entirely edited in under the words "this is a PL threadshit" rather than making a separate entry after. And as to the wisdom of "jumping the gun" I think you'll find that even with that rapid speed you two fucking clowns still managed to make pointless PL spawned posts, so I actually feel really good about it.

Posting "PL is threadshitting" is definitely fucking not "engaging with him" and I would ask AA and Mguy to keep their apparently mandatory post-PL whining to themselves. As your dumb mouth flapping has summoned him back into the thread. I welcome you two to make a separate thread with any further comments on how the person posting after he's been explicitly kicked out of this thread (as he did in Orion's thread and does in most threads he is kicked out of) definitely isn't threadshitting. I am excited for this future where each thread has it's own PL-ban subthread, and look forward to your writings in his defense literally anywhere else but here.

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Okay, Phonelobster, you've gotten in your one reply because Dean accused you of threadshitting after kicking you out of the thread. From now on, stay out of the thread unless and until Dean says something about you specifically or chooses to lift the ban.

Everyone else: Dean started this thread, and he has given fair notice that he doesn't want PL to be a part of it. Stop talking about and/or to PL. [/TGFBS]

[MGuy]

Ah, the classic "reply to someone then ban them from your thread" tactic. Gets 'em every time.

What's weird about it is that PL didn't ask a bad question and in answering it dean got to explain his thinking. I'm not sure how this equates to threadshit. My guess is that there's an expectation of eventual, actual, thread shitting and someone is jumping the gun.

I think you'll find it was not a good question and instead the only question PL posts i.e. "What even is the point of this thread". I think you'll also find that instead of allowing me to elucidate my thinking it's literally just the next post I wrote later in it's entirely edited in under the words "this is a PL threadshit" rather than making a separate entry after. And as to the wisdom of "jumping the gun" I think you'll find that even with that rapid speed you two fucking clowns still managed to make pointless PL spawned posts, so I actually feel really good about it.

Posting "PL is threadshitting" is definitely fucking not "engaging with him" and I would ask AA and Mguy to keep their apparently mandatory post-PL whining to themselves. As your dumb mouth flapping has summoned him back into the thread. I welcome you two to make a separate thread with any further comments on how the person posting after he's been explicitly kicked out of this thread (as he did in Orion's thread and does in most threads he is kicked out of) definitely isn't threadshitting. I am excited for this future where each thread has it's own PL-ban subthread, and look forward to your writings in his defense literally anywhere else but here.

In respect to fbmf's decree I will not mention the person in question. What I'm going to say shouldn't need a followup as it is just going to be a response to what was thrown my way.

1: The question, even as you pose it, isn't a bad one. 'Why are you looking for these things?' is a fine question. Assuming you believe that this is what was being asked you'd have a hard time explaining why this would be a question not worth asking or why you decided to answer it if it offended you so.

2: I'm not going to make a separate thread on every occasion that I find someone being overly aggressive or mistaken about something or someone. I don't know why you would suggest such a thing. I'm not really going to get into a discussion about what you could have done if you were wiser. If you just want to be angry I can't stop you but I'd prefer to push people toward more constructive dialogues instead of creating pariahs. Hopefully, eventually, there can be less toxic behavior in the future.

3: I'm sure there's some handful of reasons you have that validate your reaction but I think even with what you've been very open with your unnecessary hostility. I think this is reinforced by your reaction to AA and I. AA who just made a quip and I who just questioned your hostile reaction to a simple question. 'fucking clowns', 'whining', 'dumb mouth flapping', etc. All in response to a post that made light of the name drop coupled with expulsion. Then to saying that the question wasn't all that bad.

So that's all I've got. I'm not going to complain about people banning people they don't want to engage with from threads. No one needs to engage with anyone in particular but it's completely possible to just not engage with people without being toxic about it.

[jt]

Alright I'll come clean

If I understand correctly, you're taking your existing homebrew campaign/system and running sessions with various mechanics and subsystems swapped out to study the player reactions. If that's the gist of it, that's a great idea and definitely how RPG development should be done.

Depending on how far out there you want your system suggestions (and your quarantine situation), I'd suggest trying to adopt Catacombs as well.

So tonight we did the "Risus" version of the game (on jt's suggestion) and so my notes tonight are about how people seemed to respond to the Risus bits, the descriptive specializations, the pumping dice mechanic, stuff like that.

I'd definitely be interested in your notes! I've run a lot of Risus and Risus-hacks, but I think you've already taken it more seriously than I ever have. Certainly more seriously than its actual designers have.

[Orion]

I don't understand how to interpret your suggestion that RPGs have a separate "physics engine" and "UI" in a way that makes sense here. How is it meaningful to say that you're running a world on 3.5 "behind the screen" while the players are playing Risus?

[Dean]

Alright I'll come clean

If I understand correctly, you're taking your existing homebrew campaign/system and running sessions with various mechanics and subsystems swapped out to study the player reactions. If that's the gist of it, that's a great idea and definitely how RPG development should be done.

Depending on how far out there you want your system suggestions (and your quarantine situation), I'd suggest trying to adopt Catacombs as well.

That is exactly what I'm doing. Oh man Catacombs is a wild idea. I've wanted to it out for a while cause it seems incredibly fun just from reviews I watched. In high school my friends and I got into D&D from the Heroquest board game so it doesn't seem crazy at all to me that you might have the front end of your game allow for flinging magic missile cubes at orc tokens and at some point the DM says "You know we could do this even without the board game part" because that is literally my history.

I don't understand how to interpret your suggestion that RPGs have a separate "physics engine" and "UI" in a way that makes sense here. How is it meaningful to say that you're running a world on 3.5 "behind the screen" while the players are playing Risus?

Deal, and TLDR to follow. Lets do Risus front-end and 3.5 back-end, as you said. Imagine you show up to a game. Everyone else at the table makes characters then and there, Risus style. They describe themselves as Vikings and womanizers and gamblers and whatnot and they're ready to go. You don't do that because you have dutifully filled out a 3.5 character sheet for the character you imagined: An 11th level Barbarian/Warblade/Bloodstorm Marauder with all your feats and skills picked out and written up.

Risus's DC chart, such as it is, is about 10 lower than comparable D&D DC's. Kicking down a good wooden door is DC 18 in D&D, so in this Risus game it would be a DC 8 when the Viking declared they were going to use their Viking skill to bash down the door they'd roll and look for an 8. That DC 8 would be derived from the DC 18 in the D&D 3.5 dungeon masters guide and then translated into it's appropriate equivalent in Risus.

When the viking uses "Womanizing" to make an ally of a female Thane and you use "Diplomacy" to do the same thing the result would be the same, and determined by your rolls and the DC's derived from the back end 3.5 game. When you acted in combat the DM might call for everyone to roll to see how quickly they can get prepared. If you smugly informed everyone that that was called "Initiative" on your character sheet that would be fine, while the Viking would probably roll "Viking" again. You would likely then go around taking turns in order of who rolled that check highest, with each participant deciding what they do, because that's how D&D's action economy works.

The viking would have the ability to pump rolls, you'd have the ability to do some weird better than normal axe throws. And despite both of you having played through that same session it's undeniable that the front end of the rules for both of you would be very different. The experience you both had showing up to the session, conceiving of a character, filling out a sheet, and playing would be different. Even if the rules that you were being interpreted through were identical on the DM's side. There is nothing fundamental to the underlying engine of D&D3.5 that makes "very long axe throw" something that must only be usable by one special prestige class for one super specifically built character. But since you were creating your character under those rules it probably seems that way to you.

The "Player side" experience and rules are connected to but distinct from the underlying rules of D&D 3.5 system. If you worked on it I bet you can imagine being able to translate just about any system's inputs into D&D3.5 mechanics. Even ones more difficult to translate than just making X = X+10. It is totally possible to have an underlying set of rules that the DM uses to govern the world and the challenges it presents to the players and those be from a different "system" than what the players are using to create outputs.

TLDR: Everything is a combination of math-based rules (ex: 1d20+Mod vs TN) and narrative rules (ex: "Undead" are a "type"). Math rules are super easy to translate between systems so if you maintain one set of narrative rules (that is, your game) you can fuck around with dice/subsystems/metacurrencies/chargen/whatever the fuck else and experiment with those elements to see which sparks joy in players when they're added in.

[Dean]

Has anyone around here actually played Amber Diceless? I've loved the books, both RPG and original fiction, and they both receive glowing praise from people (rightfully imo). But I've never actually heard any firsthand reports from someone who's run a game

Does anyone have any advice for someone running an Amber game for the first time? I get the feeling you'd learn a lot of tips on what to do and what not to do in like 3 sessions.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Amber Diceless was the rage for years in my high school, and I've been back to it a few times out of nostalgia. It's a bold experiment in RPG design, but it has some substantial flaws as well. Without getting into house rules, here are my top three tips:

TIP #1: Don't Have Pet NPCs
Probably the most common pitfall for Amber GMs was getting attached to an NPC and effectively giving them extra actions, just because they get a chance to describe a response to every action the PCs take. Don't do that.

Also, don't use the original cast as penis-extension bullies. They're a lot more interesting when they're formidable-but-vincible.

TIP #2: Reward Situational Advantage
The game system is all about creating situational advantage to overcome stat discrepancy. If someone creates a legit situational advantage, it should have a substantial payoff. Even Human-ranked opposition can cut Amberite throat if they catch them asleep.

TIP #3: Play up Endurance
It's real easy to forget this stat because it's passive. Don't. It's supposed to be one of the Big Four.