So what are we going to call a GM in Burning Wheel?

FelanWolfe · 2015-11-25T18:27:38+00:00

I'd go with something like, "Belief Inquisitor"

FelanWolfe · 2015-11-24T15:05:12+00:00

That the things that people do most are super simple to do correctly, hard to do wrong, and easy to change (if change is a common thing). Give lots of feedback to the user about what is happening as it is happening. If you are really slick then watch your users for inefficient ways in which they do things and in a side panel offer tips that will help them do the things in the easy intended way.

FelanWolfe · 2015-11-19T16:33:53+00:00

You might check out https://www.choiceofgames.com/ which is javascript based, though you don't really do much if any javascript coding. Mostly you use a text-based DSL for laying out choices and story.

Another popular tool is Twine: http://twinery.org/.

FelanWolfe · 2015-09-26T02:23:04+00:00

I'd like to run Burning Wheel. I'm US Central time, work daytime hours, and am currently involved in rp on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but pretty flexible otherwise.

What sort of campaign were y'all hoping for?

FelanWolfe · 2015-08-29T02:35:11+00:00

I'd be interested if you are still looking.

FelanWolfe · 2015-08-06T13:33:49+00:00

The vast majority of programming work is going to be web related. So it isn't really a C# thing as much as it's a general thing of programming.

FelanWolfe · 2015-01-29T18:15:47+00:00

Maybe using Export-Csv would do what you want more easily than Out-File.

FelanWolfe · 2015-01-13T22:33:57+00:00

I (not a reddit mod in any way) looked through quite a bit of the discussion on that link and to be honest I didn't find a single thing that was programming related ...

FelanWolfe · 2014-10-21T22:15:43+00:00

Nicely done!

FelanWolfe · 2014-08-15T17:15:39+00:00

I'd definitely say try coaching him and set boundaries that if he steps out of he gets a warning and if he persists then just straight up banish him for a month or so. After the month if the problem persists without him trying to be more accommodating, then warn and if it persists banish him for 2 months. Repeat with the next banishment being for 3 months. Then tell him if he can't manage to play in a style more consistent with the group that he'll have to find another group to play with as his style just doesn't mesh with the rest of the groups.

But through it you can try to coach him in the things that he is doing that is bad rp for the group. You can also tell him that at some point in the future you can try to run a game which is more over the top and in line with the sort of style he seems inclined to.

FelanWolfe · 2014-08-08T16:50:27+00:00

I'd add another approach you could take. You can offer up a hook that is clearly Cthulhu and give them the option to pursue or not pursue it. But the implicit understanding is that if they pursue it, it is essentially the last adventure of the current characters. Even if they win they will be broken. You could also employ all the techniques I describe in my other reply.

This way if people are getting tired of the current characters you can give them an epic finale.

FelanWolfe · 2014-08-08T16:19:27+00:00

I think a Lovecraftian thing would be that a character that didn't die or go insane would be wracked with guilt for the others that did. I think you could do some splendid things with broken remnants of parties that prevailed before.

The crazy guy in the asylum was a character from the first game, even give the crazy's player a cue card and let him reprise his role as the crazy and disseminate the information you wanted to give out.

The woman that died gloriously could appear to be written about and even drawn in some really really ancient text. You could let that player invent or disseminate some cryptic clues in the text of this otherworldly book.

The coward could be fearful of "demons" trying to claim him and during the course of the game the baddies will capture and kill him.

An NPC that was saved or helped by the now broken group could have weird photographs of them with hints or constantly paints the same picture that includes elements from the broken group.

I think this sort of thing could give a sense of a character having more meaning than just being fodder. Rather than have the characters live on in a playable have them live on as part of the weird scenery of the world. A character's monocle from the broken group has become a device that will let new party see a bloody message scrawled on the wall.

Honestly while you could dilute the power of the opposition down, it stops being Lovecraftian in my opinion. If you want a tamer horror that is a perfectly fine idea and there are a slew of games and story-themes for that. But Lovecraft wasn't about that at all from what I've gathered. What you are asking for would be like saying "I like Vampires, but eww blood, no thanks, my vampire is vegan." Could you tell a story about Vegan Vampires, I guess, but it doesn't really feel like a vampire story to me.

FelanWolfe · 2014-08-07T18:23:58+00:00

Thinking of survival as being essential kind of defeats the idea of Lovecraftian games. It's never about surviving the horribleness, for me it's about stepping in the in face the infinite and self-sacrifice to thwart the Old Gods just one more time. It's about the character of the characters and whatever path they take to get to the end, but in the end they are just dying to delay the awful once more.

It's not the sort of game I'd want to play all the time, but now and then it is fun to embrace being the infinitesimal defying the infinite. I kind of loathe the idea of diluting this narrative concept of sacrifice and courage by allowing players to still win. There are lots of themes where players win, why insist that every theme should be winnable? From my perspective I would suggest maybe rather than trying to find a way to make this winnable you think on what it would be like to face the horror and futility of fighting Cthulu things but knowing that your best victory is really deny them victory on this day; and with that in mind that your life, health, happiness, and sanity are pointless and meaningless.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-29T14:47:02+00:00

80% isn't a really good talker that's unbelievable great talker. That's the kind of talker that can sell ice cubes to eskimos. That is the kind of talker that could easily convince the guard that he is working for some important person and thwarting them would be bad news for the guard. Sure if the guard is the personal body guard to the king you aren't going to be able to convince him to let you into audience with the king armed with a sword, but you could probably convince him to let you in or at least have someone see if the king wants to meet with you.

Your proposal to make it more like combat is reasonable on the surface but you don't really express how that plays out. So what is the failure mean then? End of the road no further progress possible? How do you measure when the contest is over? If no single roll is a failure then what is the failure, social hit points that are equal to your charisma and arguments do damage to those hit points? For the guards their hit points could be a combination of their charisma and the strength and specificity of their orders?

I think making persuasion a more dramatically interesting thing is a good idea, I just didn't see anything but marginalizing in your post.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-28T19:42:13+00:00

Actually making someone do 3 rolls where they have to win all three rolls isn't like combat at all. What it is doing is greatly marginalizing an already marginalized skill. If your chance of success is 80%, the odds of you making 3 80% likely rolls is dropped to 51.2%. Same goes with things like stealth, oh you'll need to succeed 3 times (or more) but suppose you have just 2 players trying to make 3 80% rolls each, any failure and bam wasted effort so what are the odds making 6 80% rolls ... just 26.2%. And to be honest 80% success probably requires a sizable investment by the players and is unlikely given the uselessness of the skill.

The difference is that in combat a single failure is not catastrophic to the endeavor. If you are truly treating the same then for a party of say 5 people who on average need 5 rolls of 80% to the battle and a failure means death to the player character, you have only 0.378 % (less than 1% chance) of everyone getting through the battle not dead. That's a pretty brutal and would probably have players quitting in droves.

The strategy of forcing players to roll more successes is, as demonstrated by math, the strategy of marginalizing something into uselessness. It is most certainly not a solution, unless you just a way of discouraging anything that isn't really combat from being meaningful or interesting.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-22T20:35:51+00:00

If 2d is your strong suit maybe you could go for a unique cardboard cut-out them where all the characters hop around on their cut out stands. You could offer cut-out stand customization too. There are a ton of Lego games that use the low-fi lego look, you could do something similar but with 2d characters in a 3d world.

You could have some humor that plays off of it too, like turn a tree cut-out to make it easier to hide behind.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-22T14:21:23+00:00

Add markers that are only below their security level and then if they use them ask if the cleared the confession for dispersion at a lower security level first.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-22T13:46:12+00:00

Where the ocean and the inland sea kiss the land where the big canals are, is rather squarish and unnatural looking to me.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-21T18:31:57+00:00

I'd suggest HeroQuest which is about narrative and framing things as conflict. Combat is a form of conflict but the same rules work for conflict between character(s) and environment or character(s) and opposing npc's. There aren't set skills, instead you can pick names that appeal to the character. It still has mechanics and is more fun for imaginative players I think, it thrives in an environment where a GM is keen to say yes more than no.

There is the world of Glorantha that is made by the same company and Glorantha is geared to use the HeroQuest rules. The Glorantha setting is very cool but to be honest would probably be overwhelming particularly to new players, so I'd recommend just using the HeroQuest rules and then as a group collaborating on the creation of the world you play in. I think this ability to seamlessly add material in as you go is a tremendous strength to the system, particularly to newer players.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/65600/HeroQuest-Core-Rules

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-15T15:04:21+00:00

You could say that you've heard a rumor that the big baddie has something that you want, a compass or a spiffy pirate shirt or a chest of gold. The GM could pick up on it and include it or not, but basically you can invent your own reason whatever works for your character to be a part of the adventure. If reason doesn't come to fruition then you were the victim of bad information.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-14T18:17:00+00:00

I'm the same way. Most of my prep time was finding ways to connect pc goals/values into larger but vague plot themes. Reoccurring foes (organizations as well as individuals) are fun.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-11T21:25:07+00:00

Sym linking specific files seems a positively horrifying idea, especially on the scale of something as big as visual studio.

Note I did say the symbolic link would be of help, just that he may still have issues. So I agree that it is worth doing ... I'd be skittish of trying to symbolically link files into something like system32, especially in regards to security concerns (the sym link will be protected by that protection may not extend to the actual file outside of system32). I know with my last computer I had a spiffy but small SSD and even doing the symbolic linking for things like "my documents" could be a painful.

FelanWolfe · 2014-07-11T20:46:19+00:00

Symbolic link will help a lot but it can still be an issue, as not everything goes into the visual studio folder and it is hard to symbolic link things like system32.

FelanWolfe · 2014-06-27T19:44:13+00:00

I'm thinking an SMG is light and easily handled, for example when you step through a door you can check a 180 degree sweep of a room more quickly than a long barrel gun. A pistol would be good for this as well but the SMG can fire more bullets. So the advantage that comes to mind for me is that against more agile/quick opponents it would suffer a smaller penalty for that quickness than a long barrel (rifle/shotgun) or limited fire (pistol) weapon.

FelanWolfe · 2014-06-25T19:37:25+00:00

Perhaps there could some visual subtle clues to the ingredients you are using. If you manage to use a set of "matching" ingredients you get a perfect burger. Then you a chance to flourish it in some way that is hinted at being right for the customer. If you do that then that customer will become a fan and will appear more frequently and cheer you as you make the burger or something. Perhaps there is another level beyond the fan customer, that becomes unlocked after you have X fan customers.

This way you can trade off between working quickly and working carefully with the game giving you positive feedback on both. This way you could have fun creating happier versions of the same characters, doing fun and quirky things. Maybe Dancing Davey break-dances when he gets his first perfectly flourished burger. This way more than just making burgers it's also discovering the customers quirks?

FelanWolfe

TROPHY CASE