Minor game stuff from around the web for commentary...

[Prak]

Should be Hops and Hipsters, Beer is a health potion that heals in a direct inverse proportion to it's quality. Master White Hipsters make healing brews from the remains of the shittiest possibly hops and barley and don't filter it. The chunks mean it's working!

[darkmaster]

Did shadzar just get his stupid ass banned?

[Kaelik]

Did shadzar just get his stupid ass banned?

Seems like. I'm thinking of celebrating.

[Koumei]

This really needs its own public holiday.

[Prak]

I am now seriously considering writing an RPG all about playing hipsters as an exercise in absurd parody.

I'm thinking that HP would actually be Hipster Points instead of hit points, and everything is an attack on that. You can regain HP by declaring you were doing something before it was cool (like bleeding from the neck). Items and spells would have an effectiveness directly related to how rare they are, both overall, and in a given scene (so parties are all kitted out in entirely different ridiculous gear so that no one has their gear's effectiveness reduced by a party member). Beard and Scruffiness would be stats, possibly with the former modifying the later.

It would be glorious. There might even be a bonus for having a character sheet that isn't too mainstream.

[Koumei]

Everyone needs alignments, because they're so retro.

"He stabs you for eighteen Hipster Points"
"I fall over, but I'm only doing it ironically"
"Okay, that's only nine HP then"

[souran]

People demonstrably optimize, and to do otherwise is actually unrealistic, so the realistic character in a game with Zak's small instrument is going to have a small instrument if they ever expect to do any amount of social interaction. And if they fail their roll, then they just have their buddy, who also has an instrument, give it a shot. So every market in the setting is filled with discordant performances because people are trying to get the price for everything, and every adventuring party is also a band of wandering minstrels who respond to every job offer with a performance to try to get better pay.

While this is true (and the entire field of economics REQUIRES people to optimize their transactions in order to be anything more than reading chicken intestines), it also forgets opportunity cost.

The benefits to being a good musician in most parts of the world are actually very good. If you are an excellent at music it can indeed open doors for you that your station in life otherwise wouldn't. However, the effort it requires to get to that point requires both a high amount of natural talent along with a LOT of practice and study (and every ounce of talent missing requires an even grater input of practice to make up for).

Zak is wrong that lots of people won't take it because that would make it boring. Players will take it as long as it doesn't require that they give up anything more useful to get it. Infact, face characters may take it even if it does prevent them from taking something else useful because stacking bonuses in D&D is effective.

However, that occurs because the opportunity cost for players is indeed NOTHING. Player characters spring fully formed at 18-128 years of age and the player never has to miss a session because his character needs to practise his lyre.

So, marketplaces actually don't look anything different because NPCs, while crafted with the rules, should nominally think that the rules don't fucking exist. The world they experience does not have step based improvement in skills, instead they experience a real world smooth transition between being terrible at things, investing long amounts of time, and then seeing a return on investment.

Strangely, however, what this rule by Zak WOULD do is turn Mike Mearls "dwarf rapper" PC from the Next Playtest, into an integral part of a D&D party, because his rapping helps the party get paid. While D&D already has a connection between "party musician" and "party face" this would cement it so that even non-bard face PCs would all be musicians as well because in the end it requires only that they write "musician" on their character sheet.

Its actually not even a terrible rule, its the sort of rule that exists in fuck tons of games, its a really minor benefit that while intending to help make characters different, is so easy to get it makes all characters more the same. Its bad because its end result is the opposite of its intent.

If a particular DM has an NPC whose heart can be moved by music letting players use perform instead of diplomacy is a better option. If a player wants to not be a bard but be a famous musician that seems like feat territory. If you want to do these things in a game run at your FLGS for a character designed for organized play...to bad the game does not support that concept just like it doesn't support a particular player having the social background of Aragorn or Arthur or Jesus.

[Prak]

You know, surprisingly, I could not find a hipster alignment chart. Then again, scruffiness could be part of alignment.

And of course there's the hipster pantheon (only worshipped ironically, of course), and it's ancient parent/enemy pantheon, the punk pantheon.

[Ancient History]

Keep in mind that when we argue rules, we think in terms of ideal players. Like ideal consumers in economics, ideal players are generally assumed to have a perfect knowledge and understanding of the rules, and a desire to maximize their abilities/bonuses/etc. for whatever resources are available.

In real life, of course, players are non-ideal, and make silly or non-optimal decisions. And that's fine, but one of the difficulties of game design is to build a rule (or system of rules) which can at once accommodate the non-optimized and optimized character without destroying the fun in the game for either. For example, a character that specializes in perform(small musical instrument) should be good at perform(small musical instrument), and ideally better than characters that aren't optimized in it. No problems there...unless there's a rule that makes perform(small music instrument) end up being a gamebreaker. In which case the ideal players will be assumed to take advantage of the loophole.

[PhoneLobster]

Keep in mind that when we argue rules, we think in terms of ideal players.

That's nice and yes we do. But I also like to have at least some idea of how things tend to work in practice with actual human beings.

And the way the "kazoo bonus rule" works in practice goes something like...

1) None of the players notice it exists and it isn't a problem because no one ever uses it.
2) One day a player notices it and uses it. Or the GM decides to bust it out for an NPC. Then the other players all say "He got how much for doing what now? Wow?"
3) Everybody buys a kazoo. "Just in case".
4) At the next social encounter and every encounter there after all the players all play kazoos for kazoo bonuses.
5)Eventually someone decides this is clearly a bad result for the game and either the GM or the group house rule or "forcible gentleman's agreement" (ie also house rule) it away.

Now in Zak S's "totally not bizarre or crappy" universe it supposedly somehow goes.
1) One player uses the kazoo for the kazoo bonus. Zak S either invented the kazoo bonus right then at their request or invented it and waved it in front of them until they took it.
2) Zak S deliberately inflates time costs, and deliberately bogs down the game.
3) Zak S complains about them focusing on kazoos with rules he wrote for focusing on kazoos instead of focusing on death murder brawl descriptions irrelevant to social encounters he has actually apparently handed them to deal with.
4) Zak S then makes fun of the player with "punitive" jokes intended to discourage all future Kazoo use.
5) This results in no other players ever wanting to gain the kazoo bonus.
6) But somehow does not discourage the initial"appropriate" number of players from continuing to "appropriately" use the kazoo despite continued bogging down and punitive abuse.

I can't imagine why anyone thinks it's good game design to write a rule you don't want used, that encourages behaviour you don't want, in an entire field of activity that you don't want your game to spend any time on.

AND then I can't imagine why he thinks it is then good GMing practice to deliberately bog the game down with artificially inflated time costs in the field of activity he doesn't want to spend time on actively abusing players in a deliberately punitive manner for using a rule he offered them.

But hey. Zak S. Inventor and practitioner of "non-binding informal permanent precedence based spontaneously perfect and only ever clarified rules sets". Anything goes.

[Cyberzombie]

Getting diplomacy bonuses from music should be situational. If you're playing to a tavern, yeah you can help yourself. If you're in a shop trying to haggle with a merchant or you're dragged before the magistrate, then pulling out your lyre is only going to annoy them.

There's a time and place for music and the DM should look at it as a potential for a modifier only, not a guarantee. In fact, used in inappropriate times in social settings, you should get an automatic penalty for annoying the NPC.

[Koumei]

Right, I've visited the bottleshop, so my drink in celebration of the banhammering of the shadazario shall be, given his effect on sanity, the Lavender Town Syndrome.

To make a lavender town syndrome, you'll need:
A tall glass
A tall spoon
A tall straw
A tall barman
Ice to half-fill the glass
One measure of hpnotiq 50/50 blue curacao/tropical juice
One measure of vodka (cheapest shit I could find, $15 for half a litre)
A quarter measure of grenadine (imitation, again $15 for half a litre)
Some Sprite

Mix the booze into the glass (with the ice already in it), then fill with Sprite. Say the magic words "Please, Mister Music, will you play?" and stir. Drink seven or eight of these, then hide somewhere, afraid that Haunter is out to get you.

Soupy twist.

[Leress]

I am now seriously considering writing an RPG all about playing hipsters as an exercise in absurd parody.

I'm thinking that HP would actually be Hipster Points instead of hit points, and everything is an attack on that. You can regain HP by declaring you were doing something before it was cool (like bleeding from the neck). Items and spells would have an effectiveness directly related to how rare they are, both overall, and in a given scene (so parties are all kitted out in entirely different ridiculous gear so that no one has their gear's effectiveness reduced by a party member). Beard and Scruffiness would be stats, possibly with the former modifying the later.

It would be glorious. There might even be a bonus for having a character sheet that isn't too mainstream.

Someone has somewhat beat you to it.

http://www.btrc.net/oddsrpgs/posturingandpretensions

EDIT:

Did shadzar just get his stupid ass banned?

Seems like. I'm thinking of celebrating.

*Looks around*

Everybody Rejoice

[Wiseman]

This really needs its own public holiday.

Kind of sad actually, Shadzar was pretty funny to read (when I could decipher him).

[darkmaster]

Now now Wiseman, it's not nice to laugh at the insane.

[Josh_Kablack]

Right, I've visited the bottleshop, so my drink in celebration of the banhammering of the shadazario shall be, given his effect on sanity, the Lavender Town Syndrome.

Cute, but I gots my own memorial drink.

The Second Edition:

One Part Old Crow
Two Parts Nostalgia

Chug until you are utterly convinced nothing could be beter. Bonus points for listening to Primus and Ministry on casette.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

so the realistic character in a game with Zak's small instrument is going to have a small instrument if they ever expect to do any amount of social interaction. And if they fail their roll, then they just have their buddy, who also has an instrument, give it a shot. .

Again with the bizarre fantasies. Does it bother you guys when you say things will happen and they don't?

I'm confused, Zak. If you didn't want people to use instruments in order to get bonuses to social skills, why did you write the rule?

I'm not sure where you're coming from here. I think you might be a little butthurt, bro.

[Username17]

Monte's complaint was that he was being asked about the effects of collections of content that no one at his table was ever going to use.

Not quite. What he said was: "Someone was asking a bullshitty question about some crazy loophole that no one I'd ever let in a game would consider"

The important point he's making isn't that only his table matters, but rather that DMs (and groups as a whole) shouldn't tolerate this kind of rules-exploitative behavior.

Here's the thing: "rules exploitative behavior" is not a well defined term. Yes, there's ridiculous theoretical optimization revolving around high level broken rules interactions like the Wish and the Word, and there's stuff that is based on straight up deliberately obtuse misunderstanding of the rules like Pun Pun ("It doesn't specifically say I can't do this even though it's wildly out of lines with the examples and guidelines!"). But here's the thing: a lot of people complain about "rules exploits" for things that aren't like that at all. In fact, so many people complain about "rules exploits" the moment a player plays a class that specializes in buff spells and then casts buff spells on themselves or plays a class that specializes in minion summoning and then summons a bunch of minions or plays a class that specializes in battlefield control and then controls battlefields or whatever, that when someone complains of "rules exploits" without further explanation my assumption is that they are full of shit. The amount of wolf crying in this particular genre is so tremendous that without solid evidence to the contrary I assume that wolf is being cried.

And in this particular instance, the solid example being replied to and agreed with is:

• A cheap item gives a small but noticeable and real bonus to characters with high Dexterity scores.
• Players whose characters have high Dexterity scores get that item for their characters and then use it for the bonus.
• "These people are terrible."

Which is such a blatant example of crying wolf about power gamers that I would have felt uncomfortable using it as an example had not shitmuffin and Monte volunteered to use it themselves. Like, without being able to see them actually saying that, I would assume anyone who used such an example of blatant wolf crying was constructing a straw man to make fun of conservative DMs.

In context therefore, it seems likely that the "proof" of assholery was something along the lines of casting your own buff spells on yourself or wearing a bonus item for your casting stat or something else that is as fucking obvious as using basic equipment that gives your character bonuses on actions they want to take. And that in short, Monte is describing himself having a juvenile meltdown that kind of looked like this:



-Username17

[zugschef]

Did shadzar just get his stupid ass banned?

Tbh, I don't think that shadzar meant his comment in a racist way. He meant to say that he doesn't want a rpg designed for a special group of people, like in "this rpg is designed for bi-sexual midgets". I honestly don't think that shadzar has a problem with a black gay dude or a Mexican woman playing dnd.

The amount of wolf crying in this particular genre is so tremendous that without solid evidence to the contrary I assume that wolf is being cried.

And in this particular instance, the solid example being replied to and agreed with is:

• A cheap item gives a small but noticeable and real bonus to characters with high Dexterity scores.
• Players whose characters have high Dexterity scores get that item for their characters and then use it for the bonus.
• "These people are terrible."

Which is such a blatant example of crying wolf about power gamers that I would have felt uncomfortable using it as an example had not shitmuffin and Monte volunteered to use it themselves. Like, without being able to see them actually saying that, I would assume anyone who used such an example of blatant wolf crying was constructing a straw man to make fun of conservative DMs.

Now I know why Monte didn't get along with WotC and Hasbro anymore. That sort of (non-)design philosophy probably sounds worse to people not playing games but making money selling them. Telling your customers that they are assholes is a simple no-go. I hate to say it but with that information I honestly think that Cook is the worse than Mearls. At least Mearly doesn't tell people that they're assholes for asking questions.

One last question: Is there conclusive evidence that the person, who posted as "MonteCook" in the blog of the one who must not be named, is indeed Monte Cook?

[Koumei]

For most people I would assume that's what he meant - "You design D&D to be a game people will want to play, including any kind of minority. You don't try to design a game specifically for a minority, that is nearly always bad and either patronising or offensive. Hi, video game industry!"

I'd make that assumption for people who hadn't already shown themselves to be bigots and terrible human beings. For Shadzalennsar, though? It seems pretty in character.

Besides, with the "get off my lawn", how could any mod not respond the way fbmf did?

[Dean]

HOT DAMN! Shitmuffin's planning on going another round over some shitty rules he wrote and Shadzar got banned? What's gonna happen by the time I check in tomorrow? Forever-Christmas?

...Also, I feel bad for bad for everyone who had previously wished to see a hilarious interaction between Shitmuffin's gibbering insane nonsense and Shadzar's gibbering insane nonsense.

That person was me. In multiple threads. So I won't get my wish but never having to read Shadzar's bullshit again is basically the best consolation prize ever.

[Koumei]

I'm also pretty happy that my naming conventions yet again caught on.

[PhoneLobster]

Shitmuffin

If this shitmuffin naming scheme takes off he will just have to add Shitmuffin to his Google alert list or whatever dark sorcery he is using.

And while that could have hilariously unpleasant results shitmuffin might be narrow enough to actually work, while also being rather mean.

Maybe we should call him something else that's less practical for dark internet sorcery and also more polite.

"Justin Bieber" might be good.

[Laertes]

I'm sad for everyone who joins this forum after me, that they will never get a chance to see the human incarnation of everything that's wrong with the old school movement. We exist now in the twilight of the gods, where all that was created by the elders will fade and be forgotten.

Oh wait. I mean I'm glad because I never once saw him actually add anything of benefit to the community.

[GnomeWorks]

If this shitmuffin naming scheme takes off he will just have to add Shitmuffin to his Google alert list or whatever dark sorcery he is using.

I did find it a bit... coincidental? That he showed up after his name was specifically mentioned a number of times.

Does that happen often? Because that seems somewhat odd. I'd assume that means he lurks here, but his attitude seems to suggest that that's not the case.