ession Start (Thunder_God:#indierpgs): Fri Jun 16 15:14:22 2006
[15:14] *** Initial topic: BECAUSE OWLBEARS LOVE FERRARIYACHTS 
[15:14] *** #indierpgs: Thunder_God Gasten @willows &Lxndr newsalor squinky &Lx +CrackMonkey Monkey sneakums 
[15:14] *** -ChanServ- Welcome to the Indie Net-gaming socializing room. Join #indie_ooc and #indie_nar for actual play.
[15:14] *** #indierpgs was created on Mon May 29 17:42:19 2006.
[15:28] *** Gasten has signed off IRC (Ping timeout).
[15:59] *** Filip has joined #indierpgs.
[15:59] Filip: hello
[15:59] Monkey: Hi, Filip.
[16:46] Thunder_God: :: pokes Filip::
Session Start (Thunder_God:#indierpgs): Fri Jun 16 17:38:59 2006
[17:39] *** Initial topic: BECAUSE OWLBEARS LOVE FERRARIYACHTS 
[17:39] *** #indierpgs: Thunder_God Filip @willows &Lxndr newsalor squinky &Lx +CrackMonkey Monkey sneakums 
[17:39] *** -ChanServ- Welcome to the Indie Net-gaming socializing room. Join #indie_ooc and #indie_nar for actual play.
[17:39] *** #indierpgs was created on Mon May 29 17:42:19 2006.
[17:53] *** Ashera has joined #indierpgs.
[17:57] Filip: Hi, Selene
[17:58] Thunder_God: Yo,.
[17:58] Filip: I posted some suggestions in the playtest thread
[17:59] Thunder_God: ::looks::
[18:00] *** Andrew has joined #indierpgs.
[18:00] * Andrew lalalas.
[18:00] Filip: hi, Andrew
[18:01] Andrew: Hey, Filip.
[18:01] Thunder_God: Hey Andrew.
[18:01] *** Andrew is ~acooper@MagicStar-1D8010B3.dhcp.kgpt.tn.charter.com (Andrew Cooper)
[18:01] *** Andrew is on: #indierpgs 
[18:01] *** Andrew is using Gryphon.MagicStar.net Gryphon's Lair!
[18:01] *** End of /WHOIS.
[18:01] Andrew: Howdy, Thunder.
[18:02] Andrew: Every time I see your username I think "Thundar the Barbarian!"
[18:02] Andrew: Don't know why.
[18:02] Thunder_God: :)
[18:03] Thunder_God: S'ok. ::Noogies Andrew, all Barbarian like::
[18:03] * Andrew ums...  Barbarians noogie?
[18:03] Lxndr: Thundarr!
[18:03] Lxndr: two rs
[18:03] Lxndr: barbarian noogies twist off your head
[18:04] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:04] Thunder_God: Alex, good morning.
[18:05] Andrew: Oh yeah... Thundarr!
[18:05] Andrew: Of course, I dated myself with the reference.
[18:05] Lxndr: not necessarily, since it's replayed from time to time
[18:05] Andrew: It is?  Wow.
[18:05] Andrew: Let's just say I watched the originals.
[18:09] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:09] Thunder_God: You can also have youtube these days,
[18:11] Thunder_God: Alex, think you'd have the sheet ready in two hours?
[18:12] Thunder_God: Filip, posted my reply, and feel free to discuss things on open channel.
[18:14] Thunder_God: It depends, you spend a Token to get a Goal, you cash in a Goal to get a Token, so it keeps at zero, most Goals for the characters came from me actually, you people will probably use them more as a session draws to an end, and that is half the purpose of goals, and why I want Short_Long_Short play. Yesterday was short play, so people got a bunch of new Goals, hopefully tonight will be "Long" play, and everyone will resolve more goals than they generate new ones.
[18:14] Filip: When exactly The Enlightened gais these 3 Tokens on the 1st session? During initial bids? Wouldn't it have more sense to simply give him 8 Tokens at the start of the session?
[18:15] Thunder_God: Yup, during initial bids, 1 per bid.
[18:15] Thunder_God: No.
[18:15] Thunder_God: This way I don't create a new rule.
[18:15] Filip: Why only during initial bids?
[18:15] Thunder_God: Your way is, "At the beginning of the first session give the Enlightened 8 Tokens instead of 5."
[18:15] Thunder_God: Hold on.
[18:16] Thunder_God: My way is this, "Give the Enlightened 5 Tokens at the beginning of each session.", "At the beginning of each Flood Scene give the Enlightened one Token.", "Character Generation occurs after the first session begins."
[18:16] Thunder_God: And then, the result flows from these rules, rather than me creating a new rule for this.
[18:17] Filip: As for the goals - if I have some Tokens at the end of the session and exchange them for goals, I can get them back next session. Otherwise I would simply loose them anyway. And it's like putting Tokens in the bank.
[18:17] Ashera: i am writing up stuff
[18:17] Thunder_God: ::Nods at Selene::
[18:17] Thunder_God: Filip>Exactly.
[18:17] Thunder_God: But this is why the scheme of short-long-short. In a long session, you aren't supposed to have any Tokens left at the end.
[18:17] Filip: You know, your way is complicated. I'd go for more straightforward wording, just to avoid confusion.
[18:17] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:18] Thunder_God: My wording is complicated, perhaps. But I go for basic rules, with everything else stemming from them, rather than write a new rule for each occasion, which creates a rules and complexity gloat.
[18:18] Monkey: Glut.
[18:18] Monkey: Gloat is a different word.
[18:18] Thunder_God: Thanks, Glut, yes.
[18:19] Filip: Still, I could hoard Tokens in the long session, and use most of my dice to support other Aspects in order to generate too much successes for them. That would produce more Tokens. Then, I would have loads and loads of tokens banked in the 3rd session.
[18:19] Thunder_God: Filip, did you notice how much the sheet changed in such a short time?
[18:19] Thunder_God: Filip>Why don't you try that tonight?
[18:19] Filip: Well, we'll see.
[18:20] Thunder_God: Feel free to try whatever you want, that's what Playtest is all about, let's see if it actually works. I WANT, I NEED you to try to break the system.
[18:20] Filip: Rules bloat?
[18:20] Thunder_God: Yes, rules bloat.
[18:22] Filip: I don't think that would break the system. And that would require me to be rather passive most of the time - I don't yet know if I feel like it today ;)
[18:22] Thunder_God: See, that's exactly my point.
[18:22] Thunder_God: It's a trade off, a valid trade off.
[18:22] Thunder_God: I have no problems with you doing it, because you're trading session usefulness and action for a possibility that may not come off.
[18:23] Thunder_God: Whereas if you spend your Tokens, you get effective now, but may suffer for it later.
[18:23] Thunder_God: I'm all about choices. This is also why things don't go broken in competitive games, at least from this angle; You can try to pull dirty tricks, but that doesn't break anything, because then, the other players could use the same tricks on you.
[18:23] Thunder_God: There's nothing you can do, that they can't do back to you.
[18:24] Thunder_God: Your Rod position is very precarious, you have 0 dice in the Die Reservoir, one steal and your Aspect Dot is going to be up for grabs.
[18:24] Filip: Exactly. There is no problem unless you have one uber tactic that solves every problem
[18:25] Thunder_God: Actually, still, even if you have one uber tactic, your fellow players could then use it on you. But yes, I believe in choices more.
[18:25] Filip: Remind me - The Enlightened gains 1 Token *every* Flood Scene, or only during the initial ones on the 1st session?
[18:25] Thunder_God: Every flood scene.
[18:26] Thunder_God: I have some plans for tonight's session, I'm going to try and enter a very very problematic scene, people could get hurt, but I'll explain why at the end of the session.
[18:27] Filip: But then the game would be reduced to constantly using this one uber tactic by everyone. You know - I remember playing lots of Counter-Strike back in the high school. In every internet cafe in the city sniper guns were officially banned, since everyone wanted to use them, and only them :)
[18:27] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:27] Thunder_God: I know what you mean.
[18:28] Filip: Every flood scene - ok, I understood that he gets these Tokens only in the initial ones. In such a case it would have more sense to change the wording to less complicated.
[18:28] Thunder_God: Ok, Andrew will let me buy Narration rights for Sarah tonight.
[18:29] Andrew: What?  Huh?
[18:29] Thunder_God: Filip, I think it's less complicated now! It says every Flood Scene he gets a Token, the initial ones are a sub-category.
[18:29] Thunder_God: Not you, 7Storyfall Andrew.
[18:29] Filip: Hmmm... what happens if more than one player wants to buy narration rights? An auction?
[18:29] Andrew: Oh...
[18:29] Thunder_God: Filip, page 16, last line.
[18:29] Thunder_God: Filip>No, the offerred player chooses.
[18:29] Filip: Yup, it makes sense if it's every flood scene
[18:30] Filip: Aha, I see the rule
[18:30] Thunder_God: Clear rule, you agree?
[18:30] Ashera: i posted
[18:30] Filip: Yes
[18:30] Thunder_God: I know, ::Reads::
[18:31] Filip: Another question - is it possible to lower your dice pool voluntarily during a conflict? Or simply give up the conflict in which you are engaged altogether?
[18:31] Thunder_God: No.
[18:31] Thunder_God: You can lower your dice pool, by spending it.
[18:32] Thunder_God: And you can't evade conflicts, they're what the game is about.
[18:34] Filip: I'm not talking about Dice Reservoir, but about rolling less dice than you could. And I'm not talking about evading conflicts - just giving them up and accepting the consequences of losing. Or rather - deliberately losing conflicts.
[18:35] Thunder_God: Not an option.
[18:35] Ashera: why not?
[18:35] Thunder_God: You can spend dice/Tokens to give the other side more dice.
[18:36] Filip: Ok, serves the same purpose, only it's tougher.
[18:36] Thunder_God: You want to do it as a player goal, right? To get a Trait down so the highest Aspect loses out, but that's not what the Aspect wants to do, the Aspect is in a Conflict because it wants something, and it wants to win. Also, that's mucking with the rules, you always have a chance of winning, you always have a chance of losing. Note, even if you have 3 dice, and I have 3 dice, and I then spend my 5 GM Tokens to get 10 more dice, you may still win. There is no short-cuts here, there's always a chance.
[18:37] Thunder_God: But!
[18:37] Thunder_God: There is one thing like you want.
[18:37] Thunder_God: "Roll the dice or say yes", so if there is no real conflict, like Sarah trying to fight 5-6 thugs, we assume she gets beaten, and move on, without any mechanical effect.
[18:37] Thunder_God: Mechanical effects result from Conflicts. No Conflict, no mechanical event.
[18:38] Filip: The only purpose for giving up conflicts I can think of is accumulating trait marks to reduce highest Aspect.
[18:38] Thunder_God: ::Nods::
[18:39] Filip: Of course, this is not what the Aspect wants, very often. But no one said that Aspects might not have long term plans ;)
[18:40] Filip: They may plot against other Aspects after all.
[18:40] Thunder_God: They do.
[18:40] Thunder_God: You can "Throw up a Conflict", by helping the opposition.
[18:40] Filip: And that is important only as long as you consider what the Aspect, not the player, wants. But then, this is a game about competition - not accurate Aspect role-playing.
[18:40] Thunder_God: You can't throw up by not rolling or rolling less than the rules _dictate_.
[18:41] Filip: Makes sense.
[18:41] Thunder_God: Sure, so long you follow the rules.
[18:41] Filip: One less thing to break for me today :)
[18:41] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:41] Thunder_God: You can still try and do it, and see how the highest Aspect has to help the character, when he doesn't control it ;)
[18:42] Filip: Come to think about it, players goals are quite parrarel with Aspects goals here ;)
[18:42] Filip: Well, I did something similar yesterday, when I helped the thug
[18:43] Thunder_God: ::Nods::
[18:43] Thunder_God: I know.
[18:44] Thunder_God: Once an Aspect will have 4 Marks, everyone will try to help the opposition, to get Marks back to 0, but what if an Aspect is 5, has 4 Marks, the Trait in question is 1, and you're the highest Aspect? Now do things get interesting.
[18:44] Thunder_God: Because if you get the Aspect to lose, you're going down by 1, and that Aspect Dot becomes Unclaimed. If you let him succeed, he can try stealing your Aspect Dot, but he may or may not succeed.
[18:46] Filip: Oh well. Tug of war it is.
[18:47] Filip: Hey, I wanted the Water to do nothing. Maybe I didn't communicate it right.
[18:47] Filip: That was to be the Water's goal "sit and watch tv"
[18:48] Thunder_God: Heh.
[18:48] Thunder_God: Water is about freedom.
[18:48] Thunder_God: About escaping.
[18:48] Thunder_God: It's about passive.
[18:48] Thunder_God: Annie was passive-aggressive.
[18:48] Filip: Also, it's difficult to think about long-term goals for Aspects. Maybe with more context - right now there is not much to work on.
[18:48] Thunder_God: They wanted her out, so she stayed and watched TV.
[18:49] Thunder_God: The daughter in law was Water, she just wanted to leave her obnoxious mother in law and escape to her room.
[18:49] Thunder_God: Selene, posted my reply.
[18:50] Filip: You know, it's too easy to argue about the interpretations here.
[18:50] Thunder_God: :: pats::
[18:50] Thunder_God: That's part of the fun, IMO?
[18:51] Filip: But for now The Enlightened decides anyway. Maybe open voting in such cases? Or simply allow players to state whatever goals they like, unless they are clealry opposed to the Aspect?
[18:52] Thunder_God: You can try and convince the Enlightened why you're right, yesterday I gave reasonings, and you didn't "fight back".
[18:52] Thunder_God: Also, read my reply to Selene.
[18:52] Thunder_God: On why I asked her to explain why the Goal fit.
[18:52] Filip: That way there will be no similar problems. And players may just assume that the Aspect, using his multi-dimensional logic sees something right in the goal
[18:53] Thunder_God: Well, then explain it to me.
[18:53] *** ZJW has joined #indierpgs.
[18:53] Thunder_God: Please, no "The Aspect, in his infinite awareness knows it's the right Goal, me, puny human player, can't explain it!". If you can't explain it, you can't persue it.
[18:54] Ashera: i feel a bit like it's playing a guessing game with you
[18:54] Thunder_God: Well, hopefully the playtesting will lead to a better defined Aspect section.
[18:54] Ashera: because your'e all like "oh, i delibrately left the aspects kind of vague and up to interpretation," and then we get to goal settings and you're all "no, that's not an X goal"
[18:55] Thunder_God: I'll put it like this, If you explain your logic, I'll accept it 9 out of 10 times.
[18:55] Ashera: so i think an up-front JOINT agreement on things that are definitely water/rat/dirt might be helpful
[18:55] Thunder_God: If you don't explain why yes, and I explain why not, then I "win".
[18:55] Thunder_God: If you explain, you're most likely to get it.
[18:56] Thunder_God: Let's see if it works tonight, if it doesn't, we'll stop and I'll make a clear text of what each Aspect controls.
[18:56] Thunder_God: Sounds reasonable?
[18:57] Ashera: i feel really annoyed for some reason
[18:58] Thunder_God: I'm sorry that you do.
[18:59] Filip: Selene - as for the problems you enumerated, most of them are probably the fault of the medium. I suppose that in real life play there would be more place for suggestions and stuff, but on-line it really slows things down.
[19:00] Filip: Also, I didn't wanted to suggest anything when the other player decides. I somehow feel that it would be too agressive from my side - if someone is clueless it's too easy to go my way.
[19:00] Ashera: grah
[19:01] Ashera: i don't know, i don't really feel like playing again
[19:01] Filip: You know, I run Exalted for some quite passive players. Whenever I suggest anything, they simply do it, like if I were putting big red arrow for them. Then I feel like I was playing for them :/
[19:01] Ashera: the characters we ended up with aren't really grabbing me or anything
[19:02] Filip: Let's change the character's then, but leaving mechanical arrangement
[19:02] Thunder_God: Filip, you should play Capes, where the aggressive players get their way, and it's meant to work like that.
[19:02] Ashera: dunno, at the moment i don't see how we'd end up with interesting characters when they're supposed to start as blank slates
[19:03] Filip: They get their way mechanically there, don't they? Same with Universalis I think. Here it was too cheap for me. And I wanted to work on something that didn't come from me. Otherwise I could just as well play solitaire.
[19:03] Thunder_God: I usually start a DnD character with a paragraph, no more, the rest is created as play goes, at the end of the first session I usually have a page or two of background material.
[19:03] Filip: Selene - I'm not sure what you mean
[19:04] Ashera: i start D&D characters with a bunch of stats, which give me a whole lot of handles for adding stuff
[19:04] Filip: Generally, we start out with very simple concepts. They flesh out and develop during the game.
[19:04] Thunder_God: The more you write, the more constrains you have. The more "Free slate" space you have, the more you can bring in. You say the characters don't grab you, but you can now, in the game, introduce new things for them, which will grab you.
[19:04] Ashera: and if not, then the characters are just playing pieces anyway, so it doesn't matter
[19:04] Thunder_God: So you didn't get to explore the characters before play began, you get to do it now.
[19:04] Ashera: yes, but too much freedom is paralyzing
[19:04] Thunder_God: Well, technically, the characters are just playing pieces for the Aspects.
[19:04] Filip: well, in CR they actually *are* playing pieces ;)
[19:05] Thunder_God: This is why you don't play characters, but Aspects.
[19:05] Thunder_God: ::Nods::
[19:05] Ashera: except we have to actually narrate stuff about them and their goals
[19:05] Filip: Remember, you are playing the Aspect, not the character
[19:05] Filip: yup
[19:05] Ashera: in d&d, you don't need to do that, and therefore you don't need to know anything about the character
[19:05] Ashera: other than the stats
[19:05] Ashera: which are necessary and are all created in character creation
[19:05] Ashera: also i have no idea what the hell anybody else is looking for as something interesting
[19:05] Filip: Now, don't think of it like you are role-playing the character. You are not acting in the theater here. You are rather like watching a movie.
[19:06] Thunder_God: This is indeed like Universalis in this aspect. You create the characters as you go along.
[19:06] Ashera: but we don't have tenets to guide things
[19:06] Thunder_God: So do whatever you want.
[19:06] Filip: Actually, we have. Pulp fiction stuff.
[19:06] Thunder_God: Heh, and Guy Ritchie.
[19:06] Ashera: do you mean like the movie, which i have never seen?
[19:06] Filip: Well, you were the one to suggest silly mood yesterday - we simply went with the jazz.
[19:07] Ashera: who the hell is guy ritchie?
[19:07] Filip: ?
[19:07] Thunder_God: He made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch!
[19:08] Ashera: all of which i've never seen
[19:08] Filip: And going back to the metaphysics - why does The Enlightened hide all the background facts?
[19:08] Filip: This doesn't make sense to me.
[19:08] Thunder_God: Which background facts?
[19:08] Filip: You make meaningfull things secrete...
[19:08] Filip: The nature of the Enlightenment, which you won't share
[19:08] Thunder_God: Like, what is The Enlightened? What is Enlightenment, etc?
[19:08] Thunder_God: Well, the answer is, there is no answer.
[19:08] Filip: yup
[19:09] Filip: uhum
[19:09] Thunder_God: Each player answers these things for himself, and explores it, for himself, through Water.
[19:09] Thunder_God: Suppose you think Enlightenment is like Jesus or Buddha, so you go Enlightened and start performing Miracles.
[19:09] Thunder_God: Someone else thinks it's leaving this world to create a new world in their image, so they do.
[19:09] Filip: We would be working blind if The Enlightened knew something that he never publicly anounced.
[19:09] Thunder_God: It's totally personal.
[19:10] Thunder_God: Well, he doesn't know anything else, he just has his view of things, just like you people.
[19:10] Filip: So basically we could just as well make Aspect interpretation completely personal
[19:10] Thunder_God: Aspect interpretations are less personal, Enlightenment interpretation is 90% personal.
[19:10] Filip: Solves interpretation problems. My Rat wants this, because this is what I think Rat wants.
[19:11] Thunder_God: It also works with what I said.
[19:11] Thunder_God: Explain why, and I'll say "ok".
[19:11] Thunder_God: Don't explain, don't get it.
[19:11] Filip: Ok, so just setting the goal + short explanation does the thing?
[19:11] Thunder_God: There is no space for, "I want it cause it's cool", or "Cause I want it as a player, even though I think this really belongs to another Aspect".
[19:11] Thunder_God: ::Nods:: 99% of the times.
[19:12] Filip: Hm... so do we change the mood and rework the characters for today?
[19:12] Thunder_God: But something about reproduction is 90% of the time Rat and 10% of the time Dirt, for social stuff. For it to be Water you'll have to get creative, like: I want a baby so I could get out of my current situation...
[19:12] Thunder_God: :: shrugs:: That's up to Selene.
[19:13] Thunder_God: Though I think Selene disagrees more with the method than what it produced, because it'll keep producing "Blank slate" characters. After a couple of sessions though you'll have characters with histories, handles in form of more Goals, etc.
[19:14] Filip: Clown is in good context I think, we could just remove all this clown stuff from him. Runaway girl is easy to change for more serious. Only the old lady would be tough to change.
[19:14] Filip: Uhum. I understand.
[19:14] Thunder_God: Well, Selene came up with Annie, so I assume she's more at home with her.
[19:16] Filip: Hm... is this the case of not having enough mechanical hooks right of the bat on the character sheet, or rather you are used to consequently role-play complete, conceptually rich characters from the start?
[19:19] Ashera: so, um, i feel like i'm not really being listened to, which doesn't exactly put me in the mood for playing
[19:19] Ashera: bye