frotz
@frotz@grenzland.club
Boring old man / Langweiliger alter Mann / 退屈な老人 / 无趣的老头
frotz
@frotz@grenzland.club
Ten years ago, I hobbled together my take on FASERIP by taking the public domain 4CS game and changing it to use 1d20 and doing a makeover on the tables and rules. It now has 850+ downloads.
Even the art in the pdf is public domain from comic books that let their copyright expire.
You're thirsty. It's hot. You drink ...
| Water (maybe cold, maybe sparkling): | 11 |
| Ice(d) Tea (maybe orange, maybe peppermint, maybe ...): | 2 |
| Coke (maybe light, maybe zero): | 0 |
| Ze Warm Blood of Yer Enemies!!: | 0 |
| Drink? I roll myself in sand instead!: | 0 |
Closed
@phf Unsweetened black iced tea. Zero calories, no sugar, and more flavor than water. Water is my other go to. Pepsi for game times. 🤣
I remain convinced that "roughly 10 seconds" is a good measure for a round of combat and that "roughly 10 minutes" is a good measure for a turn of exploration; rounding any combat up to at least the next turn seems fine as well. Multiple attacks just clog up the flow; for fighters let excess damage carry over to a nearby foe (with the same AC or worse if you must). Instead of all these "timing issues" focus on who keeps who engaged and deal with that. Just my $0.02 obviously. 🤷
@frotz I think what we observe there (I do too) is partially caused by the "modern" initiative ranking. Technically it all happens in the same 6 seconds, but since "later" players know what "earlier" players did ... there's one piece of the "not realistic" annoyance right there. The other piece is "earlier" players talking with "later" players about how to set up combos and the like, again something that probably should not be like that. If you discuss *ahead* of initiative, maybe even with "unrealistic" amounts of words spoken, and *then* roll to see in which order it happens (no further changes allowed) a lot of that disappears. I don't recall Holmes, but the B/X "Expert" set certainly talks about announcing spells before initiative is rolled. And one could do that for everything. That doesn't solve ALL the issues, but maybe it shouldn't be "put each player in an isolated cubby with a VR simulation that's seconds-accurate" either? If only for "social" reasons? 😬
I'm not anti-cooperation, I just don't like long discussions and monologues in the middle of a combat round.
The End of Google Search. The internet giant is “changing the formula” of its products and media folks are beginning to assume that there will be no search traffic in the future…and fretting about their survival. https://www.theringer.com/2026/08/04/tech/google-search-ai-internet
just my 0.02.
I agree that before AI, the surveillance advertising industry was a terrible setup. I spent years extolling the corruption of the internet by Google and advertisers.
The thing that bugs me about the latest pivot to AI in search is it gives Google the content. It is like the AI is some magic "do not go to jail" machine so Google can steal anyone's content and put it on their site.
I do sympathize with people complaining against that.
RE: https://turtleisland.social/@Yehuda/116896745932971421
#SettlerSaturday #IndigenousMutualAid
Please HELP or BOOST!
>>---> 4 days until server bill is due, help is massively appreciated <---<<
Only $146 needed
#Native #Indigenous #MutualAid
After like two and a half years, I'm still not sure how #DMs work on Mastodon. I know you just lead off with the @ of the person you're addressing, but can other people see them? If so, aren't they really not DMs? Somebody educate my dumb ass, please!
@BaronessWinter you can create a "post" with @ someone and set visibility to only the person you mentioned. So you can have your own private conversation. I think this is how it works, I did it like this maybe twice.
One of those "forever discussion" rpg discussion topics is should there be a unified experience point table or individual tables customized to different classes.
And then you could dovetail into what should the progression rate be.
Feel free to reply if you have "other" ideas.
#dnd #rpg #ttrpg #osr #gametheory
| Unified XP Table: | 15 |
| Individual Class XP Table: | 5 |
Closed
@randomwizard
Unified XP tables were introduced to D&D in the first place in order to support 3.x-style multiclassing (which 5.x also uses). It would theoretically be possible to instead do levels in a way similar to how point-buy systems do incremental advancement: instead of separate incompatible tracks or a unified XP table, you can "buy" levels of classes with XP, with the price determined by various factors.
@pteryx I never thought about why 3.x adopted unified. I always thought they did it just to reduce complexity, but the multi-classing angle makes a lot of sense.
@randomwizard I use a unified table but elves require double the xp
@kensanata But what if I want to play a hobbit fighter/thief !
@randomwizard A hobbit fighter thief is just a hobbit!
@kensanata @randomwizard I think I pushed Alex over the edge at some point regarding the XP table. I also use the fighter XP table in my unpublished B/X heartbreaker.
Difference is I add multi-classing on top because I took race classes out, and the folks with multi-class get a harder XP table. Not "double" hard like elves here, but harder.
However, I don't allow equal levels: your secondary is only half the level of your primary (rounded up). Stole that from some Castles & Crusade thing I think?
Has the nice "benefit" that fighter/thief and thief/fighter are actually different: the fighter/thief does thief-stuff on the side, the thief/fighter does fighter-stuff on the side. The fighter/thief can try to thief around in plate mail, the thief/fighter is stuck with leather armor. Fighter/"wizard" can cast in plate, "wizard"/fighter cannot. And so on. 🤷
I have "wizard" in quotes because in fact I only have one spell-caster class called "mystic" and that's whatever you want. It can be a divine thing for example, something like "priest" or whatnot. Then fighter/"priest" is paladin and "priest"/fighter is cleric-ish. 🤷
@phf That is sort of what I cam up with too, in my homebrew. The 3 classes are Fighter, Mage, Thief and tackle 3 different specialties.
Fighter - Weapons & Armor
Mage - Spellcasting
Thief - Skills
I always liked the way the hit-points work out for this kind of multi-classing. This is for level 10 characters.
https://anydice.com/program/430d1
Note that someone else helped me invent this, although I can't quite recall who that was. 🤔
EDIT: Here it is! https://nilisnotnull.blogspot.com/2013/12/hit-dice-for-archetypal-multiclassing.html I nabbed it from Hedgehobbit. No idea whether he's around on Fedi?
Alt...
Graph that shows how hit-points work out for level 10 characters of the various classes or multi-class combinations.
@kensanata@grenzland.club @randomwizard@vivaldi.net
@frotz 😬 😰 
@frotz No third class. Armor and damage according to primary. No level limits BUT the XP table never flattens out so for all intents and purposes level 12 is it. Only elves and liches can ever be archmages.
@randomwizard I use what's appropriate for the edition I'm playing. If I were to design my own game, I'd likely go with unified XP.
I don't mind having different amounts for each class from the older editions. I also like XP for treasure and magic items. I have always given XP for role play and other events in game. For example, successfully finding a secret door or disarming a trap (for a thief) / cleverly bypassing a trap (everyone).
It encourages more than just fighting.
@DM_Zeppelin Hey, that is how 2nd edition defined giving out XP!
I have played games with many different ways of doing advancement. And, like you, I try to go with the flow.
#Neuromancer. Series coming to AppleTV next year. Trailer below.
Cue people bitching to high fucking Hell about Molly being played by a black woman. I hink she's perfect.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7084314/mediaviewer/rm3473063937/?ref_=nm_ov_ph
Speaking of skills. Many years ago, I attempted to write out every skill from every Gazetteer for the BECMI Basic D&D line.
This was a skill system that was bolted on to Basic. I like reading through them, because it shows a lot of the problems they encountered in designing a game with classes and adding skills later.
For example, for GAZ10 Orcs of Thar, there are no thieves. It is race as a class, so you play Goblins, Trolls.
So if you play GAZ10, there are Find Traps, Hear Noise, Hide in Shadow skills. But those skills are forbidden if you play any other Gazeteer because you do not want to infringe on the Thief class.
@frotz Sounds cool. Reminds me of Ultima Online or Morrowind.
Could probably start off with Runequest or Stormbringer but just blank out the skills and tell players that have no skills yet. At least, as a start.
@randomwizard It'll be interesting to compare this list to the RC's list.
EDIT: Nevermind, you include the RC in the big list!
I have been working on the character sheet for my 1d100 game that evolved out of AD&D and then throwing some skills in it.
It has been a lot of fun, but I have to say, players... well, the players in this game I have been running...
They really do have a problem with "clinging" too hard to what is written down on the character sheet. If you have a skill like tumbling, then that is what they will reach for.
I do not have a solution. It is one of those eternal questions that should be on a wiki page.
I know some will say, just do away with a skill list and let the player use their brains. But, I do want a system where a player can get better at particular things, not just some broad (overly broad) system where you just can do thiefy things and you get better at thiefy things. Which leads to having to write it down, which leads to players getting to hung up on that is all they can do instead of using their brains.
@frotz I remember a conversation between Mike Mearls and the two guys from Penny Arcade talking about skills and I think Jerry said something like... "Oh, it is like the character sheet is the window a player might look out of. Or a fighter pilot looking at his controls. It can limit what you think about"
And I think that is what happens to the players lately. In the game I have been running.
Die Bestellfrist für Grenzland 8 läuft noch bis 31. Juli!
#grenzland #pnpde #ttrpg #fanzine
Alt...
Ad for issue 8 of the Grenzland ttrpg fanzine. The cover mockup shown looks suspiciously similar to a famous 2d6 sci-fi role playing game. The table of contents lists: The original tabletop role playing dice mechanic, The Space Empire of Alexander the Great, Seven Patrons, The Cover Game, Reflections on Traumstein, Sword World, Warum 2W6 Spiele?, Leviathan, Welcome to grenzland.club, Classifieds, Feedback, Save the Date!, Outlook, Imprint
PDFs of all back issues are available here: https://lkh.sdf-eu.org/wandererbill/grenzland/
Yesterday, the dumbest ai/llms human interactions occurred at an executive meeting at where I worked.
One sub-executive presented a new proposal to buy a new 3rd party service to make a process perform better. The proposal was obvious AI slop.
Then another executive put some things into an AI, right there, in the meeting, looking at his laptop and said "Well this is saying you already have too many 3rd party programs in this process and it is causing too many integration issues and that is why the current process is not working well"
And an argument broke out about which AI was right.
*I should note, that I hate typing the letters AI to denote the llms, but that is the term humankind decided to go with.
with a straight face.
...and all of this is at the management level... Wowsers...
Apparently in the 80s everyone in the UK dressed as if they could be picked as a new Dr. Who incarnation any minute.
@mhd more data points... Adam Ant.
I have a sudden interest in ice tea. Yes, ice tea, not Ice-T, although he's my homie. 🤣 And not ICE tea because they can fuck the fuck off. 👿
So ... what's best?
Feel free to comment and suggest flavors I have not listed but ONLY if you ACTUALLY drink those regularly. And yes, this is about MAKING your own ice tea, not buying ice tea off the shelf.
#IceTea #WhatsInYourChilledGlass #BeatTheHeat #BoostsWelcome
| Lemon: | 2 |
| Orange: | 1 |
| Apricot: | 2 |
| Peppermint: | 1 |
| I'm not sharing my ice tea secrets!: | 1 |
Closed
Ah, I posted this from my #ttrpg account. So please imagine that I asked "Conan, what flavor tea is best in a chilled mug?" instead. ⚔️
@phf PRUNE IS A WARRIOR'S DRINK!
@phf Iced tea, with a "d", friendo. The tea itself is not ice. Also: orange mafia, represent! (The others are good, too.)
@BaronessWinter You know, I was debating the "ice" vs "iced" thing. I guess I've been in Germany for too long. 😆
@frotz Giving orange and ginger a try, those are two flavors I had in the pantry. Will report back! 😀
@frotz The "orange + ginger" variant I cooked up didn't convince me but that's PROBABLY mostly because I am not really a big ginger person. So as of right now, I am still alternating orange flavor and peppermint. Next shopping trip will include some lemon flavor and some green tea as well. More experiments!! 🤪
@frotz Don't get me started on Oma's tea. That always had some rum in it. Delicious for a little boy! 😵💫 🥴 😊
Do not use FedEx if you can possibly avoid it. A driver thought he was being 'helpful' in April by dropping a package at my home instead of at the requested pick up site. I did get the package after a panic, but 3 months later it still shows as not delivered in their system. I only noticed due to tracking a different package. After a 15 minute fight with their IVR and being transferred around to 3 departments (sometimes without telling me I was being transferred) with extended holds between, its still not fixed. They just sent me to their survey instead of the final department. #FedExSucks
@lilalexei I've been waiting on a package from FedEx since Friday. They changed the delivery to Saturday, then Monday, and now Tuesday (today) by 8 PM. It's 7:30, no package yet.
If you take the various 80s TSR task resolution charts and try to normalize them to compare, you get the following set of images. By normalize, I mean I just converted them all to roll low, percent chances.
The chart based games had "bounded accuracy" long before Mike Mearls came up with the term.
Still, to my mind, Marvel, Gamma World, Star Frontiers Zebulon, TSR Conan are all just providing "degrees of success" with different chance to achieve different degrees. (Image 1 and 2)
How the designer drew the various lines of percentages just seems to be make an increasing line by whatever whim struck them at the time.
If you try to convert D&D to a chart, you end up with a pretty bland chart. (Image 3)
Alternity did not have a chart either, but it had "degrees of success" by implementing a very simple mathematical formula to compute degrees of success. If you convert the chances to a chart, it looks like all the old 80s TSR charts. (Image 3)
I worked out these charts ~15 years ago, but decided to do them again and add some more data of games I missed.
#dnd #rpg #ttrpg #osr #gametheory
@frotz It has been a long time since I have run FASERIP, but I do recall enjoying trying to interpret all the degrees of success. Made it feel like an over the top wrestling match.
However, I also recall it can get a bit tiring trying to interpret things all the time. And it adds up more options for the GM to move the needle for or against the players (which I do not like myself).
@phf it's kinda a weird system, using a d20 at the core, but using variable situation dice (+/-d4 to d20) to adjust the roll. There were some 3.0 ideas in there, and some other stuff that ended up in their d20 Star Wars game.
I love Alternity! Well, just one thing about it really. The die mechanics. But, I suspect, that is what turns most people off right away. The die mechanic is also, maybe, not presented well in the rules. Here is my take on it.
First. It is a roll low game.
Second. You roll under your ability score + skill to succeed.
So if you str is 9, and your sill in swords is 4, you write down
Swords: 13
You roll a 13 or under on a 1d20 and you hit.
Now for the strange part. As a DM, instead of assigning target numbers, you assign various dice for how difficult something is...
Maybe something is easy, you assign nothing.
But maybe something is just a wee bit hard to do, you assign a difficulty of 1d4.
The player has to roll 1d20 + 1d4 and get under their score to succeed.
Maybe something is even harder, then you can throw a 1d6, or 1d8, or 1d10 and so on to make it harder.
Here is another way of looking at it
player's innate ability = +SCORE
variations and chance = -1d20
world difficulty = -1d4, 1d6, 1d10, etc... set by DM
3e D&D is
player's innate ability = +BAB
variations and chance = +1d20
word diffuclty = - TN set by DM
@randomwizard @phf yes! Thank you! It's really been too long since I looked at the rules, and not just the setting books!
using the variable dice to add a little 'flux' instead of using fixed DCs was one of my favorite things.
@randomwizard Yes and as many as they can afford to buy, feed, house, and control. Once there's more than a few in a party, however, the burden they bring outweighs the benefit. They bark and play, causing noise, for example. They aren't allowed in most inns, too. So, the issues usually control the number of them in a party for me.
But I'd never say "you can't have more than X dogs in the party".
@DM_Zeppelin Fair take. Same, I can not imagine me saying "a party can only have X dogs"
But, in my current campaign, I do not think any of the villages even have a place where you can go buy a war dog. So there is that kind of "no war dogs".
Just interesting to think about. Is the world one where there are so many adventurers that there is an industry to sell them war dogs? Sort of like the idea that there is a shop that will sell you a ten foot pole.
@randomwizard Agreed. There are a lot of ways to limit things beyond just saying "no."
And, it is a fun thought experiment. That's world building, too.
@randomwizard war dogs take a follower slot, so base 4 + charisma bonus (cha 18 means +3) so 7 is the maximum.
@randomwizard I mean, they can of course buy more but they have no mechanical effect.
Have you ever ran a game where a player had 4 or 5 or more hirelings? Just curious because it sounds awful to my mind, just the way my mind works, not as in it is bad for others. I mean, maybe I could handle it if it were 1 player with 5 hirelings, maybe.
Fair enough. I can see you two like to incorporate some mechanical rules into the situation. Hireling rules is one of those things I never used in my game, but that is not because I think it is a bad rule, just I am lazy and I tend to wing such things. Although, as I mentioned in another thread, I have not had a shop with a war dog for sale in many years. Probably in the 00s was the last time a war dog was available.
@randomwizard Animals in my PCs party are subject to morale and reaction checks, just like hirelings. I've even done it to horses if they face a fantastic creature. Those checks have a way of thinning things out.
I’m listening to Swiss news about events a few years in the past and it’s sad to see how much has failed, big and small.
Just now, however, they’re talking about the protests against Lukashenko’s “reelection” in Byelorussia. Remember the hundreds of thousands on the streets? And he’s still there. The journalist just said that he probably had the support of 30% of the population.
Remember this number when you see that a fascist party in your country didn’t make it to power because they only got 30% of the vote. Once they get into power, they’ll manage to suppress the remaining 70% for a lifetime.
The time to act against the fascist parties is now.
I am not a big fan of D&D clerics, so I took them out of my little homebrew. The setting is more like Lord of the Rings than a typical D&D setting.
Instead there is a first aid skill.
But, the problem is, everyone clamours to get first aid. I mean, why not? It is one of the most powerful skills in a game where you take damage.
I just do not know what to think of it. Are adventurers more like combat soldiers? Do combat soldiers get a six week course in First Aid?
I lean more to "No". This is a medieval setting. The characters that have a first aid skill would be wizards and the old wise woman who lurks in the forest and everyone says is a witch but really just knows more than most peasants.
@randomwizard IDK, man... for me, I would go back to the OD&D class names - a 1st level fighter is a veteran. I agree with the CM/OD&D assertion that adventurers are a bit different than "normal people" in both experience and drive. I would imagine a "veteran" probably has learned a bit of combat and wilderness first aid. Even in medieval settings?
@randomwizard Depends on how common skills are. I mean, in GURPS it wasn't uncommon for everyone to have First-Aid and "Hiking", ferchrissakes. But then again, you also had a few dozen other skills, it didn't really preclude characters from having other skills. Which is what happens in most D&D skill systems.
If it's something everyone wants to have in such games, then frack it, let everyone do it without an investment, put it elsewhere. Herbs are a classic choice. Need to be fresh, so no stocking up on 'em, and thus it's a time constraint: I can speed up healing or be safe for the next bleeding out roll, but that'll take me one or more days.
For harder stuff I did something in my cleric-less games that turned out to be quite close to the "demi-human relics" from the Rules Cyclopedia, just for regular temples: Spells as features of holy sites, not holy people (and you can borrow a spell, but it doesn't recharge and the nice priests would really like the Toe Bone of Skorrn the Smasher back soon)
@mhd I got to admit that my knowledge of GURPs and healing has left my brain. I imagine there are like 20 ways of doing healing but it depends on setting.
@randomwizard Yes, healing varies wildly, but First Aid is still very common in most campaigns I saw as it doesn't really cost you all that much. After a fight, you get 1 HP back just for bandaging, no skill roll needed. Then you can treat shock and with a successful First Aid roll you get back points based on the Tech Level, so for fantasy campaigns usually 1d6-3 points, minimum 1. That won't solve all your healing issues, but it's not bad. And IIRC, a single point gets you First Aid at your IQ level, so even Joe Average has a 50% chance of 1-3 extra HP restored, if the high-IQ co-adventurer isn't there. Way worse spots of spending a point.
But again, this is the game where you might take three different skills of stealing stuff, a plethora of sciences in a sci-fi campaign etc., you're pretty much made of skills. D&D tends to be much more about exceptional abilities, niches etc., so I don't think a First Aid proficiency/skill makes sense, nor does everyone taking 1 level/rank in Heal, even if they're veterans. Heck, if the game is that harsh and preventing fellow adventurers from bleeding out all the time like it's X-Com, I'd niche-protect this even more. At least join the resistance to learn it then ;)
@mhd Right. That is the dilema. Everyone wants first aid. Should I let everyone have it, or should it be more like a witch, scholar, wizard only skill.
I suppose I could make it where it costs a lot more unless you are a wizard, but then I was trying to avoid too much complexity.
Strangely, in the game, so far, it only takes one character with first aid to go around after a battle and heal up people. It sounds it is a lot like the GURPs rules you described.
But, still, everyone in the group wants first aid, just in case.
@randomwizard What system is this? AD&D's proficiencies? How many skill options do I have? Maybe part of the solution is making the other options more interesting.
I also don't even like the phrase "First Aid" in a fantasy setting. Is it named that? Is Heal/Physician something else?
@randomwizard I played without clerics a few times (I don't like "divine magic" at all), but that usually didn't involve skills, so the stop-gaps where always something else. Most of the time just wizards having access to Cure spells, as it should be ;)
I'd just give stop bleeding/stabilize/etc. out for free, but maybe demand some investment for long-term care and diseases. So, sure, you can pick that one rank of "Healing Person", but that means you can take care of one patient a day (not yourself, of course), and cure the sniffles. Maybe.
@mhd Let me query your GURPs knowledge, if you do not mind.
Does GURPs give any alternate name for "First Aid" if you are playing a low tech game?
I was toying with the idea of Chirurgery for "has some skill with dealing with wounds"
which is something I first saw when reading Pendragon long ago.
@mhd Wow. I do not want to bore the internet with my homebrew skill system.
I agree, first aid is a poor name.
The skill system is, probably, mostly, like Runequest or maybe a Fantasy version of Star Frontiers.
They start out with some skills based on a Archetype, then they gets points as they level up.
I have a feeling you would pick it apart in no time flat and tell me to go play GURPs.
@randomwizard
Speaking of witches and healing, might be worth scoping out and simplifying something like the Pathfinder 1e Witch into something more old-school D&D-like.
@pteryx @randomwizard
Over at The Other Side Blog (https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/), Tim has made a LOT of stuff for witches.
I do need to dig through Pathfinder 1e for some ideas. I do think having a Warlock/Witch with some healing abilities might be a nice option in my homebrew.
I vaguely remember reading a Dragon Magazine article about a witch class, and it had something to do with magic candles. Always thought that was a fun and campy idea.
@e_eric@grenzland.club
@kensanata actually like this a lot. Takes the homework aspect out of the game (= good for spontaneous games e.g. at open tables) and introduces a layer of necessary PC-NPC interaction which increases social embeddedness of MUs - this does something interesting with the setting! Trade-off is an decrease of tactical flexibility on the player‘s side. Was this the point of complaint?
How about moving the issue inside of the game world? Would there be an in character price to pay to magically gain the capacity to memorize multiple spells? Would said characer be willing to pay this price? (probably somewhere on the order of selling one's soul)
CC: @kensanata@tabletop.social
CC: @lkh@grenzland.club @frotz@mastodon.sdf.org @phf@tabletop.social @alex@grenzland.club
