Latest / Sessions Canceled / Struggling With Your Game of Choice: Ep. 174

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Struggling With Your Game of Choice: Ep. 174 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:12
  Just. Popping jambal ambles, the GM
• 0:18
  had an existential crisis over running monster hearts and then
• 0:21
  had an emotional breakdown. So sessions cancelled and the
• 0:25
  therapy costs have increased. Welcome back.
• 0:29
  Dude, when you said you were going to make it subtle, I was
• 0:32
  expecting more than that brother.
• 0:36
  Listen, don't say anything else. Keep it as is.
• 0:38
  Say nothing further. It's hey, listen, actually it's
• 0:43
  it's, it's a little bit of a self dig.
• 0:47
  Also, it's a little bit of a self dig too.
• 0:53
  Feel like you should. Fair enough.
• 0:56
  I just, I was like I wonder what he's going to say when he says
• 0:59
  subtle. I was like oh never mind.
• 1:03
  Oh my fucking God that's so good dude.
• 1:05
  I love that you. Know, listen, I like I said, I
• 1:10
  like a couple of weeks ago, I tapped out a running because
• 1:13
  existential breakdown. So, you know, I can't, I can't
• 1:17
  say that much. Did you when did you do that?
• 1:20
  The 2-3 weeks ago we had the one or no, the first week that we
• 1:26
  did Monster Hearts, we were trying to figure out what day we
• 1:28
  were going to play. And I was like, either way, I'm
• 1:30
  not running on Monday, whether we play Monster Hearts or not
• 1:33
  'cause I'm just not having it right now.
• 1:35
  Fair enough. Yeah, I didn't.
• 1:38
  I really didn't notice that. Mimi didn't notice it.
• 1:42
  Like like, I didn't think anything of it.
• 1:44
  I thought you were just like, well, I've sort of committed to
• 1:47
  playing Monster Hearts, so if we don't do it, I'm just not going
• 1:49
  to run. Like I didn't prep.
• 1:52
  No, because I said that before we made the plan.
• 1:55
  OK, I don't know what I was thinking then.
• 1:57
  I don't know. You're getting your timelines
• 1:58
  out of whack, apparently. Well, now I mean, we're.
• 2:05
  Going to talk about it but now I want to know about this.
• 2:08
  About what? Like what?
• 2:10
  Like what? What happened?
• 2:11
  What happened? Oh, well, yeah, I mean, that's
• 2:14
  kind of what we're talking about because like struggling with the
• 2:18
  game that you're running or, or the system you're running.
• 2:21
  I mean, to be there was also some emotional stress IRL stuff
• 2:26
  that made me want to not necessarily run too.
• 2:28
  But yes, we're focusing on the struggling with the RPG element
• 2:32
  to this. Welcome back, dude, Dude,
• 2:36
  dudettes and and dudes dudes duvets, duvets, Yep, duvets,
• 2:43
  duvets, yeah, comforters. I was trying to think of like
• 2:47
  you know you do dudette for I was trying to think of a non
• 2:50
  binary dude like a dude but doing dude and they don't.
• 2:55
  Like dude and my guy, if you are from New York are gender neutral
• 3:00
  terms and I ain't going it was just it was just it.
• 3:03
  Was for the joke. It was for the joke because
• 3:05
  people say dudette sometimes. It was just to extend the joke,
• 3:08
  that's all. I know, I know, I know.
• 3:10
  I just this just set me off personally.
• 3:12
  The horse. I know, I know.
• 3:15
  Get off your fucking horse. Relax.
• 3:16
  Put him back in the stable. Hold that bitch.
• 3:18
  No, you don't get to be like, you don't get for me to say
• 3:21
  rules light system and you're like in our last episode and
• 3:26
  then I get mad about this one thing that affected me
• 3:29
  personally. You don't get to shut me up for
• 3:31
  it. Listen, this isn't RPG related
• 3:33
  so. Oh.
• 3:34
  My God. At least my thing my my
• 3:37
  complaint was RPG related. I mean my monsters, sure.
• 3:42
  Yeah, sure. All right.
• 3:43
  Fair enough, I guess. Anyway, how you doing duvets?
• 3:48
  Bidets, how you doing? Bidets.
• 3:50
  The duvets. Oh wait, that's a good one
• 3:54
  though, I like that. Yeah, that's not bad sexually.
• 3:56
  Hold on. Guys and girls bidets in duvets.
• 3:59
  That kind of cooks. Hold on, pause.
• 4:02
  People are going to be like why is he?
• 4:03
  I just imagined some really big YouTube, like 7 million
• 4:07
  followers, some shit. They're like, what up my bidets
• 4:09
  in duvets and people being like, why does he call his fans
• 4:12
  bidets? Oh I, I, I will fucking kick
• 4:15
  down a door and start a fistfight.
• 4:18
  'Cause like I, Who is that? What's his name?
• 4:22
  My brain wants to say Philip Defranco.
• 4:24
  That's not, that's the actor. There's a Phillip.
• 4:26
  Phillip who's the YouTube, that's the interviews.
• 4:29
  All the time. I can't think of his name.
• 4:32
  Remember I watched a video of him.
• 4:33
  Philip. Philip Defranco.
• 4:40
  No. Oh, it is to Philip Defranco.
• 4:41
  Isn't that the actor though? Or do they just have the same
• 4:44
  name? Wait, what?
• 4:47
  Are you not thinking of James Franco?
• 4:50
  Were his brother? I don't know.
• 4:53
  Now I don't know anymore. All right.
• 4:57
  Anyway, doesn't matter, I just was all.
• 4:59
  The point I was bringing up is that he starts his video with
• 5:01
  What's up Beautiful Bastards, which I feel like is a good
• 5:05
  neutral weird way to start. Yeah.
• 5:08
  Thought I was getting that there.
• 5:10
  I yeah, I guess I was thinking of James Franco.
• 5:14
  I guess him, he, he, he was being subjected to my, my white
• 5:18
  boy merging effect. There's a lot of actors in
• 5:22
  Hollywood that are just singular white boy smashed together in my
• 5:25
  head. That, for years, was Mark
• 5:28
  Wahlberg and Matt Damon. That's a good one.
• 5:32
  I like, yeah, no, I totally get that one for sure.
• 5:37
  Even when they're not even remotely close to each other,
• 5:39
  sometimes they still get smashed together.
• 5:41
  And I'm like, I don't know why, I'm just telling you.
• 5:43
  Oh brother, when I was young, when I was fucking young, Willem
• 5:47
  Dafoe and Kevin Bacon are the same person to me.
• 5:51
  Well, that's a weird one. I know I have no idea why it
• 5:54
  just. Yeah, I wonder what associated
• 5:57
  those two together. That's a weird one.
• 5:59
  I don't know. OK, I think it's because they
• 6:04
  both have really flat faces. I don't.
• 6:09
  Yeah, they do have odd faces, both of them, don't they?
• 6:14
  Little goblin, Yeah. Little goblin, Yeah.
• 6:17
  Little Goblin works. It works great for William
• 6:21
  Dafoe, though. It's kind of his kind of his
• 6:22
  jive, that's true. That and his gigantic Schmidt,
• 6:26
  apparently. I I did hear about that.
• 6:34
  I love when people play. It's huge Hulk.
• 6:36
  I love when that comes up. It's just like, why is that a
• 6:39
  thing? OK.
• 6:41
  Like why is it something that came up?
• 6:44
  Great question. It was for a sex scene or
• 6:47
  something. It was just like, OK.
• 6:50
  Some point like guys, what are we doing here?
• 6:53
  You know, I don't know. Anyway, now that we're really
• 6:59
  far afield of any, anything at all, honestly, welcome back.
• 7:07
  What are we talking about? I don't know.
• 7:09
  Whatever the title says, that's what we're talking about.
• 7:12
  The titles are not decided ahead of time.
• 7:17
  Struggling with the game you're running is is what I'm talking
• 7:21
  about. But not when I say the game.
• 7:25
  I'm not really talking about the campaign as a whole.
• 7:30
  I'm more specifically saying struggling with the actual
• 7:34
  system mechanics of the of the system that you have chosen to
• 7:38
  run. So not, I'm not talking about
• 7:42
  like, oh, the campaign's dragging and the pacing is bad
• 7:48
  because my players are doing XY and Z, or oh, things have gotten
• 7:53
  awkward because I put myself in a narrative like Gordian Knot or
• 7:57
  something. I'm specifically saying the
• 7:59
  system, the mechanical system is not cooperating with me, the GM,
• 8:05
  and how I'm trying to run it. That's what I'm talking about
• 8:08
  very specifically. It's kind of a narrow, I'm, I'm
• 8:11
  referring to sort of a narrow band of frustration.
• 8:13
  Yeah. You mean coming up, coming up to
• 8:15
  friction, coming up against friction on rules within the
• 8:18
  rule system that you otherwise like?
• 8:21
  Yeah, like if you're playing a video game and you're fighting
• 8:23
  with the controls, right, you're not complaining about the game,
• 8:28
  broadly speaking, but the controls are a frustration that
• 8:31
  is making it harder to enjoy the rest of the game, even if you
• 8:34
  probably like the rest of it. Are you someone when you were
• 8:37
  younger, like you didn't give a shit about button remapping, but
• 8:40
  now that you're older you're like, Nope, I'm remapping
• 8:43
  literally every game I play. I don't give a fuck.
• 8:45
  I, I know how I like you, just kind of become like an old
• 8:47
  curmudgeon. No, I'm still pretty neutral on
• 8:54
  button remapping. I almost, I will leave them like
• 8:59
  90% default most of the time. I very rarely remap.
• 9:05
  And the reason I don't do that is because for most games, the
• 9:11
  devs have gone through a lot of testing to figure out what
• 9:14
  button layout they wanted to go with.
• 9:16
  And there's probably a valid reason that they made most of
• 9:20
  those decisions. And I find myself often in a
• 9:24
  more successful position if I just struggle a little bit
• 9:28
  upfront to get used to something, then try and remap it
• 9:34
  to what I want, because the remapping will create new
• 9:40
  problems that can sometimes be worse, you know what I mean?
• 9:45
  Yeah, I can see. What he says, the exception
• 9:48
  being Mmos. Mmos, I remap all of everything
• 9:52
  I fucking watch. But that's kind of a weird
• 9:54
  genre. Like Mmos as a genre are kind of
• 9:56
  like they expect you to remap all the buttons.
• 9:58
  So the layout is kind of shit by default on purpose 'cause
• 10:02
  they're like, we know you're going to fuck with it no matter
• 10:04
  what we do, so just make it. They give you the most basic
• 10:07
  usable shit and then just let you fix whatever.
• 10:12
  Like, no, for most games, I don't touch them very often.
• 10:17
  I know a lot of people go crazy with remapping their fighting
• 10:20
  game button layouts and that really confuses me.
• 10:25
  I don't, I just, I don't know. That just doesn't seem worth it
• 10:30
  to me. Granted, I don't play with a
• 10:32
  fight stick. I play on controller, which it
• 10:37
  tends to be less of an issue I feel like on controller.
• 10:39
  So I get it a little bit more of the fight stick.
• 10:41
  But yeah, I don't know. So, I mean, I don't typically do
• 10:44
  it for fighting games because I like, OK, it's weird.
• 10:47
  I I am aware of that. Like this was designed for a
• 10:49
  very specific reason when it comes to fighting games.
• 10:52
  I don't know what it is. Like in my brain.
• 10:54
  My brain just kind of goes OK. I I feel like they probably had
• 10:57
  a certain design scheme mind but like with RPGSI remap pretty
• 11:02
  much like pretty regularly and I when I find remapping something
• 11:06
  I have like. Turn based games, I don't care.
• 11:08
  I'll remap pretty normally. I'll remap quite a bit.
• 11:11
  Oh turn based. I don't typically care 'cause
• 11:13
  like I, I have time to to futz with a thing, you know, like I I
• 11:17
  don't feel the the the pressure turn.
• 11:19
  Base I usually remap for comfort, just like
• 11:23
  comfortability, like position of hands or whatever.
• 11:27
  OK, yeah, so I know for me that that's that's action games like
• 11:31
  I I have I pretty much I have three, I have three basic action
• 11:35
  game layouts. I have DMC, Dark Souls or
• 11:42
  fucking oh God Kingdom Hearts. OK.
• 11:52
  Like it depends on how many buttons I have to play.
• 11:54
  If I got to press a lot of buttons it's Dark Souls.
• 11:56
  If I have like two or three main buttons I will remap it to DMC
• 12:01
  and if it's like really one main button with a dodge then I will
• 12:06
  do a Kingdom Hearts style. Yeah, Kingdom Hearts is a weird
• 12:09
  example because King of Hearts basically has like an action
• 12:11
  menu. It does.
• 12:13
  It's like a weird hybridized thing, yeah.
• 12:15
  Yeah, so I, I don't know that I can compare Kingdom Hearts so
• 12:18
  much. Like I know when I was playing
• 12:19
  up Solemn recently, I swapped the dash and the jump button
• 12:23
  because it just my brain was just not having it.
• 12:28
  And I played for quite a few hours before I finally was like,
• 12:32
  I need to flip these for some reason.
• 12:35
  But that was the only thing I changed on that game.
• 12:40
  But like for Hades for example, I've never touched anything.
• 12:45
  Did I touch? I don't think I touched anything
• 12:46
  for Hades. There are games, right?
• 12:48
  Like if, if you know, if my hands jive with the the control
• 12:52
  scheme, I won't change it. But there are a lot of games
• 12:55
  where I'm like, something will get on my nerves.
• 12:58
  I find there is often a degree of benefit to to figuring out
• 13:02
  what the devs were trying to do. Yeah, I mean, I'll try, right?
• 13:07
  I'm not. I'm not going to change
• 13:08
  something off of it, right? But more often than not, I find
• 13:10
  myself doing it at some point. Anyway, that's not about RPGs,
• 13:15
  no. That being said, you can change
• 13:19
  the controls in RPGs, which is to say the rules.
• 13:24
  Before any of that though, before any of that, hit follow
• 13:29
  or subscribe on your platform of choice and if you'd like to
• 13:32
  donate there is a link in the description.
• 13:35
  Or favour. Or favour.
• 13:39
  Or favour. OK, one more tiny tangent.
• 13:43
  You watch Drake and Josh, yes? Yes, do.
• 13:46
  You remember the episode when he bought the little Mexican robot
• 13:49
  and it just kept saying por favour?
• 13:50
  I do. Anytime somebody says por
• 13:54
  favour, I think of it in that Mexican robot voice.
• 13:56
  Read Por favour, por de favour, that really weird robotic tone.
• 14:03
  Yeah. Yeah, I always think of it that
• 14:04
  way because of that episode of Drake and Josh.
• 14:07
  I think, yeah, the joke that I, I am reminded the most of in
• 14:12
  Drake and Josh is the Drake. What's the door?
• 14:16
  Yeah. The door's a good.
• 14:17
  That's a good one. The door is a classic.
• 14:19
  Yeah, yeah. I, I, he's like, Oh yeah, I cut
• 14:22
  it out before. Oh, oh, no, actually, no, I'm a
• 14:27
  dirty liar. The joke I the the the joke I
• 14:31
  definitely bring up the most from Drake and Josh is have a
• 14:33
  nice day. Don't tell me what to do, I say
• 14:36
  that constantly. You do.
• 14:38
  You do say that a lot. All the time, and it's.
• 14:41
  Literally all the fucking time, yeah.
• 14:43
  Yeah, don't have it. I you know what's funny?
• 14:47
  I think a lot of people don't realize that's what you're
• 14:49
  quoting. No, I don't think anyone.
• 14:51
  I think the vast majority of people just think like, you're
• 14:52
  not Dick and you're like, yeah, yeah, he's doing a he's, I'm
• 14:56
  doing. A bit, but I don't.
• 14:57
  I don't care if they get the bit or not.
• 14:59
  It's a good. Or not, I don't care.
• 15:03
  I mean, I don't do it to people that don't know me, obviously,
• 15:06
  'cause that would be awkward anyway. role-playing games, we
• 15:12
  can do this. I swear to God, we.
• 15:13
  Can't I look? We can't do this.
• 15:15
  Given, given our the notes for this week, I was like, oh boy,
• 15:18
  we are pushing uncharted territory in this time.
• 15:22
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so, yeah, you know,
• 15:25
  like I said at the beginning, so, so, you know, put yourselves
• 15:30
  in this mental framework, if you will.
• 15:32
  You are deciding that you are going to run a new campaign.
• 15:36
  You're starting from scratch and you're deciding you're going to
• 15:39
  run a. This is mostly going to pertain
• 15:44
  to you're running a new system that you haven't run before, so
• 15:47
  you're not that familiar with it, right?
• 15:48
  That's mostly where this is going to come up.
• 15:50
  If it's isn't, you've run a bunch, this is not going to
• 15:53
  happen as much because you've already run it.
• 15:55
  So you you've already worked through a lot of the issues
• 15:57
  probably, although it could still happen down the road.
• 16:00
  You know, for example, if you only ran levels one to 10 in D&D
• 16:03
  and then you finally get past, you get to the 10 to 20 range,
• 16:06
  you might find new problems cropping up that you didn't
• 16:09
  interact with before. That can happen.
• 16:10
  But generally we're talking about I'm running a new campaign
• 16:13
  and I'm choosing this new system, and you sit down, you
• 16:19
  start running the game. Everything's do to do and going
• 16:21
  along yadda hadda do to do La La do La La la do to la.
• 16:32
  La. You kill bridge baby, focus up.
• 16:40
  Lock the fuck? But it's such a good episode.
• 16:47
  Oh my God. Anyway, so you start running the
• 16:54
  campaign and eventually you get to the point where you're,
• 17:01
  you're hitting a wall with your system of choice.
• 17:04
  So whatever, you know, whatever game you decided, obviously you
• 17:10
  know, we're assuming you're running it.
• 17:11
  So you read it carefully and whatever.
• 17:13
  But you start running it and, and you're, you're, you're
• 17:17
  hitting a, you're hitting a stopping, but not a stopping
• 17:21
  point. But you're, you're, you're
• 17:22
  hitting frustrations, you're running into problems over and
• 17:24
  over again that you feel like is making the game either difficult
• 17:28
  to run or just not producing the result you want in terms of
• 17:33
  style of game or style of narrative or even just like
• 17:37
  response from players. And so it's then you have to go,
• 17:43
  OK, what, how do I handle this problem?
• 17:49
  And this the the reason this idea was spurred on for me is
• 17:55
  because I so we talked with some Fred.
• 18:01
  So first of all, we talked with Cassie.
• 18:03
  What was it was that last week or two weeks ago, two weeks ago,
• 18:06
  two weeks ago. And she mentioned some struggle
• 18:09
  points running Kane. Although the struggle points
• 18:13
  that she mentioned with Kane, as I said, didn't surprise me.
• 18:16
  They were exactly what I was expecting would come up.
• 18:19
  And then we also have Sarah's running monster hearts, who is
• 18:22
  also having some struggle points.
• 18:23
  And funnily enough, also we have players who are finding some
• 18:28
  struggle points with monster hearts on the player side
• 18:30
  feeling like there's information there that they're not like
• 18:33
  they're either missing or not understanding.
• 18:36
  And it's because the monster hearts book, as we've talked
• 18:38
  about before, is a little sparse and assumes a degree of pre
• 18:41
  knowledge to play the game. So between the target of those
• 18:45
  two and then also me running Fabula and having some of my own
• 18:50
  struggle sessions running Fabula, I, I find myself
• 18:55
  contemplating the how to solve the struggle sessions because it
• 19:00
  was getting to the point where I was getting annoyed running the
• 19:03
  game where I was like, God damn it, will you just fucking do
• 19:06
  what I want you to do? Or will you just work the way I
• 19:09
  think you're supposed to work? And for me, there's been 2.
• 19:17
  There's, there's two kinds of struggle I'm coming up across
• 19:22
  and I think these are probably going to be the two most common
• 19:26
  kinds of struggle. I'm sure there's, you know,
• 19:28
  there's lots of other little permutations of this, but I feel
• 19:30
  like the two main ones are going to be a misinterpretation of the
• 19:36
  rules, like a misunderstanding with the rules or the struggle
• 19:40
  is going to be you're just butting heads with the design of
• 19:43
  the game. Like you know how it works, you
• 19:45
  know what the game wants you to do, but you don't want to do
• 19:49
  what the game wants you to do, right?
• 19:50
  Those I feel like are going to be the two main walls you're
• 19:54
  going to run into generally if you're running a game and
• 19:57
  feeling like there's frustration.
• 19:58
  I don't know if there's another one that you could other
• 20:00
  potential scenario that you could think of Isaiah, but I
• 20:02
  felt like those are the two that made the.
• 20:03
  Most sense to be. No, those are definitely the two
• 20:05
  biggest ones. It's I I know how it works, but
• 20:08
  how it works is not 100% lining up with my vision and there's.
• 20:11
  Friction now or? This is worded kind of weirdly.
• 20:15
  And there is like, I've, I've ruled it a certain way up to a
• 20:18
  certain point, and then someone is eventually asked the question
• 20:20
  of like, this feels weird. And then you look it up and find
• 20:24
  out you're doing it wrong. So now you're like, OK, well,
• 20:25
  we've set a precedent. Do I run it or not?
• 20:31
  Like, yeah, yeah, there's very little winning in that
• 20:35
  situation. I'm running into that a lot.
• 20:38
  Yeah. So to give an example of the
• 20:43
  kind of two name scenarios. So in terms of just butting
• 20:46
  heads with the system for me running Fabula, I keep butting
• 20:51
  up into this position where I really want Fabula to have some
• 20:55
  kind of a skill system and it doesn't.
• 20:59
  And that's just feeling a little annoying for what I'm trying to
• 21:05
  do a lot of the time. I'm sort of accepting it at this
• 21:10
  point in like moving on a little bit, but it it it has this
• 21:13
  element of frustration where I'm like, it's a little weird
• 21:17
  because kind of rules is written baseline.
• 21:20
  You have 4 stats and the stats are are from AD six side.
• 21:25
  Your your stats are just a die. There's no flat modifier and it
• 21:28
  goes from AD 6 to AD 12. And if you have a character
• 21:33
  who's an investigator and a character who's a wizard,
• 21:35
  there's a good chance that they're going to have some
• 21:38
  permutation of AD 8 and AD 10 in their Insight Willpower.
• 21:43
  Like it doesn't really matter which two, but likely they'll
• 21:46
  have like Investigator might have it in the Insight and the
• 21:49
  Wizard might have AD 10 in Willpower, but you know, they're
• 21:52
  probably going to have AD 10D8 combo on those two.
• 21:55
  So when those two characters go to like suss out a scene or suss
• 22:00
  out a room, mechanically, the wizard is just as good as the
• 22:04
  investigator at baseline. Now there is fabulous points in
• 22:09
  fabulous Ultima, which makes it that the investigator character
• 22:12
  can probably invoke their rerolls much easier, which will
• 22:16
  likely make them, you know, have a better chance.
• 22:19
  But baseline taking the fabulous part out, they're the same.
• 22:24
  And that has come up a couple of times and has felt a little
• 22:29
  awkward to me because I feel like, you know, Goramaru the
• 22:36
  sword guy should have some kind of bonus to doing thing with
• 22:40
  sword or knowing thing about sword, but mechanically he
• 22:43
  doesn't, right. Yeah.
• 22:45
  So that's just that's that's just me butting heads.
• 22:47
  I know the game doesn't work that way, but I'm butting up
• 22:50
  against it in that I kind of want it to work that way, and
• 22:54
  I'm kind of just accepting that one and moving on.
• 22:59
  For the most part. That's kind of how I'm handling
• 23:01
  that because it's not enough of a problem that I feel like I
• 23:06
  need to go out of my way to deal with it, if that makes, you
• 23:09
  know, sense. Yeah, because it's one of the
• 23:11
  things where you want it to feel especially you want it to feel
• 23:14
  interesting, but it just kind of isn't from that Ave.
• 23:16
  Like, yeah, I get that. I can't even say I found success
• 23:19
  with this. The only thing that I've like
• 23:24
  not even tried, but like thought about recently because, you
• 23:26
  know, now that I'm at the halfway point in Lancer, you're
• 23:29
  running into that situation where, again, everybody's just
• 23:31
  passing. So like, you know, it's like,
• 23:33
  OK, well, do I make some checks harder for some players?
• 23:36
  But like, that doesn't feel fair at times.
• 23:40
  Like, you know, it's like if there's something to do with
• 23:44
  like Warfare, you could just give Goro the lowest roll every
• 23:47
  time. But.
• 23:49
  Right. That and oh, that's another
• 23:51
  element to fabulous that it does recommend sort of messing with
• 23:54
  the difficulty level of things in terms of what number they
• 23:57
  have to be, which is valid and I wasn't, I wasn't probably
• 24:01
  acknowledging that element of the system as much as I could
• 24:03
  have been before. So I'm trying to be more mindful
• 24:06
  now. Lancer is a particularly weird 1
• 24:11
  though because you can't even move the DC.
• 24:14
  Yeah, I know it it they are. They are set to three different
• 24:16
  modes with four different permutations, and at some point
• 24:21
  they're just going to succeed. There's just not a lot you can
• 24:24
  do. Yeah, Yeah, I don't I don't have
• 24:27
  AI don't have a strong recommendation on that one
• 24:29
  especially I I'd have to be definitely in the sauce with
• 24:33
  Lancer I feel like to really have any kind of helpful answer
• 24:39
  for that system specifically, but that's me butting up heads
• 24:44
  against Fabula. The from the misunderstanding
• 24:47
  angle of Fabula, a major misunderstanding I have is what
• 24:51
  the game what constitutes a conflict and what doesn't and
• 24:55
  why that actually matters. So I was under the impression
• 25:01
  based on the very beginning of the conflict chapter in Fabula
• 25:05
  Ultima, that a conflict is kind of just any, any scene where
• 25:12
  it's like we are, the tension is high.
• 25:14
  We are tracking things on a more moment by moment basis and we
• 25:18
  need to be more granular with, you know, what's happening.
• 25:24
  That's not actually the case because the.
• 25:29
  And the reason I thought this is that the beginning of the
• 25:34
  chapter says all of the following might make good
• 25:39
  conflicts, and then it lists out a couple bullet points.
• 25:41
  It says a chase scene amidst amidst amidst.
• 25:48
  I I didn't know what the word is.
• 25:49
  I don't know why I couldn't say it there.
• 25:50
  A chase scene amidst the narrow city alleys.
• 25:53
  An infiltration scene where some characters sneak past enemy
• 25:56
  surveillance. A skirmish between groups or a
• 25:59
  fight against a monster. A large scale battle involving
• 26:01
  clashing armies from enemy kingdoms.
• 26:03
  A tense audience with a powerful figure and a duel between two
• 26:05
  ancient rivals. OK, that says all of these might
• 26:08
  make for good conflicts. That list made me think, OK, so
• 26:12
  anything that's like that is a conflict.
• 26:16
  That's not actually what the game is saying.
• 26:19
  What the game is saying is these situations could be conflicts,
• 26:25
  but are not always conflicts. A conflict mechanically
• 26:30
  speaking. And Fabula is only when
• 26:33
  initiative is rolled, only when you are tracking turn order.
• 26:40
  That is a conflict. So in a, in a somewhat D&D to,
• 26:44
  to D&D context, a little bit a fight in D&D, right?
• 26:48
  It's, that's what it's saying, like a fight is a conflict in
• 26:52
  Fabula. What the conflict can be is a
• 26:54
  little more open. But the idea is you are
• 26:57
  mechanically saying, OK, we need to worry about turns and rounds
• 27:01
  and we're tracking things on a very tight minutiae basis.
• 27:05
  That's a conflict. If you are not making an
• 27:07
  initiative role and tracking turns, it's not a conflict.
• 27:10
  It could be any one of those scenarios, but it is not a
• 27:13
  conflict by default. And the reason that matters is
• 27:18
  because certain rules change in a conflict.
• 27:24
  For example, if you are in a conflict and you attack
• 27:28
  something, you're taking the attack action, right?
• 27:32
  When you take the attack action, you make an accuracy check where
• 27:35
  you can add a lot of flat bonuses to your role, right?
• 27:40
  So for your character, Isaiah Goramaru gets like a + 6 when he
• 27:42
  makes an attack role, right? Think it's +6.
• 27:46
  Yeah, well, no, it's like a plus.
• 27:47
  No, now it's like a + 14. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's
• 27:49
  a high. No, no, no, not not your damage.
• 27:51
  That's your damage. We're talking about your The
• 27:53
  accuracy check got to, but you keep doing that.
• 27:56
  I. So when you're rolling to
• 28:01
  attack, you have a + 6 for the accuracy check.
• 28:05
  That is the attack action which you can only make in a conflict.
• 28:10
  If you are not in a conflict scene and you attack somebody
• 28:14
  with your sword, that's just a normal check.
• 28:17
  Which just means you would roll your dex plus my or in your case
• 28:20
  your dex plus dex. You know, whatever your weapons
• 28:22
  like stat roll is, you only roll that like a normal check because
• 28:28
  you're not in a conflict, so it's not an accuracy check.
• 28:32
  And the reason that matters is because mathematically, that
• 28:36
  plus 6 is very powerful in terms of the math, in terms of what
• 28:42
  you need to beat in Fabula for checks.
• 28:45
  That +6 makes it so that Goro's like never going to fail a basic
• 28:49
  standard check. The reason that's OK in a in a
• 28:52
  conflict scene is because a conflict scene we're tracking
• 28:55
  health bars, turn orders, debuffs, right?
• 28:58
  We're tracking all the minutiae stuff.
• 29:00
  So Goro successfully attacking a bunch of times in a row is
• 29:03
  whittling away as something's health.
• 29:05
  Whereas if you could just solve the problem with a single roll,
• 29:08
  that plus 6 is going to throw, throw the math and throw the
• 29:11
  system out of whack. Another example is the way
• 29:15
  teamwork works right. If you're making your group
• 29:18
  check and you're not in a conflict, the supporting
• 29:20
  characters have to roll to see if their success, to see if
• 29:23
  their help is actually helpful. In a conflict, they don't have
• 29:28
  to roll, but they have to burn their turn, right?
• 29:31
  They have to burn their action for the round.
• 29:33
  So the, the payment, the, the, the payment being made to assist
• 29:39
  the leader character in a conflict is your turn.
• 29:42
  The payment being made to assist the leader character out of a
• 29:45
  conflict is you have to also make a check to see if you can
• 29:47
  help or not. That's a big deal because if you
• 29:53
  aren't tracking turns and then you don't need to make a check,
• 29:57
  that means you could just give each other plus fours for free
• 30:00
  all day long with no, no penalty of any kind, right?
• 30:06
  And that's going to throw the math out of whack again, because
• 30:08
  the game is not assuming that you can just freely throw around
• 30:11
  those plus fours. No big deal because that's like
• 30:14
  kind of a lot. So and if if every character,
• 30:20
  especially because you guys all have your bonds up to three with
• 30:22
  each other. If one player goes and all three
• 30:25
  of the characters help them, they're getting a + 12.
• 30:29
  Obviously the plus 12 is not intended.
• 30:33
  Right. And like I here's the thing, I
• 30:35
  get that I do, and I understand the reasoning behind it, but I
• 30:38
  also feel like, I don't know, maybe it just feels like we're
• 30:45
  farther along in the game than we are.
• 30:46
  But like I almost feel like Goro shouldn't be failing a basic D
• 30:50
  send AD 10 check to swing sword you know what I mean?
• 30:54
  Well, the idea is that if you're making a normal check outside of
• 30:58
  a conflict, it's not just a situation of swing sword.
• 31:02
  There's probably some more, there's probably something else
• 31:05
  going on there fictionally. Like it's not essentially you're
• 31:10
  not just putting your full attention on attacking, right?
• 31:12
  There's probably a little more to it than that.
• 31:14
  If I'm asking you to swing your weapon outside of a conflict,
• 31:19
  there's some sort of context that makes it that not using the
• 31:22
  accuracy check probably makes sense, or the chance of failure
• 31:25
  being a little bit higher makes sense.
• 31:28
  I. I get what you're saying.
• 31:29
  By the way, we're like 25 sessions in.
• 31:31
  Fair enough. I I get what you're saying.
• 31:32
  I still kind of hold my stance of like at that.
• 31:37
  Like it shouldn't feel like this thing that a character
• 31:39
  specializes in, has devoted their life to and is like
• 31:42
  presumably an expert at. There's just a situation where
• 31:45
  you're not going to fail a standard, standard detent.
• 31:47
  Now you can bump the difficulty and that would sort of be like,
• 31:50
  oh, OK, you know, you are really good at this thing, but that's
• 31:52
  now why the the difficulty is higher, right?
• 31:54
  Even for Someone Like You, this is difficult.
• 31:57
  That goes into what the game talks about, of like, just
• 32:00
  letting you have it. Yeah, right.
• 32:04
  Like if it's a situation where it's not a conflict, but Goro is
• 32:10
  attacking something with his sword, but there's no
• 32:13
  outstanding circumstances that is really resisting him very
• 32:16
  much, or the resistance is minor.
• 32:18
  Then the game basically says I should just give it to you and
• 32:21
  just let you do it. No rule required, right?
• 32:23
  That's the idea is that you acknowledge what Fabula wants
• 32:28
  you to do in this is this is what Fabula has in lieu of the
• 32:31
  skill system, right? If the game wants you to
• 32:35
  acknowledge, if it just, if it makes sense for the character to
• 32:38
  just do this because this is their whole thing, then don't
• 32:41
  make them roll. Just give it to them because
• 32:44
  they have fictionally set up and justify themselves where this
• 32:48
  makes sense. So for example, if Goro's just
• 32:50
  like attacking a rope to like cut it to drop a chandelier or
• 32:54
  some shit, and there's no reason that any like there's nothing
• 32:58
  really perturbing him, then yeah, I'm not going to make you
• 33:00
  roll for that. You just should get that because
• 33:02
  Goro's thing is guy with sword. Whereas if Senna picks up a
• 33:06
  sword and goes to Cut the Rope, I might be like, well you might
• 33:09
  need to roll on that one, you know what I mean?
• 33:11
  Like that's what Fabio wants you to do it.
• 33:13
  That's kind of what it wants you to do in lieu of a skill system
• 33:17
  because that's kind of what a skill system is representing,
• 33:19
  right? The idea that if I have a good
• 33:22
  enough bonus, I'm just going to beat the DC anyway.
• 33:25
  So Fabulous says don't even set ADC, just let them have it,
• 33:27
  right? That's where we're at.
• 33:29
  The idea is that the accuracy check needs to be very
• 33:33
  specifically for the conflict system, because mathematically,
• 33:37
  that's how the game's been worked out.
• 33:39
  And if you go beyond that, basically what was happening is
• 33:42
  I was giving you guys situations that were way easier than they
• 33:45
  should have been, because I was doing stuff like giving you
• 33:48
  those bonuses when I shouldn't have.
• 33:50
  You know what I'm saying? I yeah, I guess I get what
• 33:52
  you're saying. I just, I don't know.
• 33:56
  It's it. The point is, I mean, I I'm not
• 33:59
  really here to argue about whether.
• 34:01
  That's kind of why I'm not really pushing the point.
• 34:02
  Makes sense or not? The point I'm getting at, I was
• 34:05
  misunderstanding the rules and that was giving me issues on the
• 34:08
  GM side of the table. But it wasn't.
• 34:11
  It wasn't a case of me not liking the rules, it was a case
• 34:14
  of me genuinely misunderstanding the rules.
• 34:17
  Now I know OK if we're not in a turn order, but it's some kind
• 34:21
  of a tense situation that you need to roll for.
• 34:23
  You're just making a standard check.
• 34:26
  There's no other bonuses that are applied.
• 34:27
  Now there's the situational modifiers, obviously also, and
• 34:30
  those are relevant. And then there's the sliding
• 34:32
  scale of the DC or DL in this case, which is also relevant.
• 34:37
  But those kind of flat bonuses that are reserved for the combat
• 34:41
  mini game, keep them reserved for the combat mini game.
• 34:45
  Otherwise you're making things too easy.
• 34:49
  The the the big one where this came up is when you guys fought
• 34:51
  through the like horde of ghosts.
• 34:53
  Yeah. There was like no scenario where
• 34:55
  you were gonna fail those roles because of that +6 and you
• 34:59
  blasted the clock out of the water because of that +6.
• 35:02
  We did. Yeah, and that made it way too,
• 35:05
  like, way easier than I was. Now it, it's a clock, right?
• 35:08
  I don't expect it to last super long, but you guys blasted
• 35:11
  through it like faster than I even expected.
• 35:14
  And it got to the point where I was like, ah, shit, that didn't
• 35:17
  really work, you know what I mean?
• 35:20
  And it's again, because I was misunderstanding what the game
• 35:23
  was trying to get across. So all that preambling, all said
• 35:34
  and done, getting to what do you do?
• 35:39
  So you're running the game. You've gotten to the point of
• 35:42
  this mental block. I don't, I don't really know,
• 35:45
  struggle. I don't know what to call it.
• 35:47
  You're on the struggle bus how you should respond to it.
• 35:53
  What do you do? And like, I don't have any
• 35:56
  perfect solutions. I have, I would say potential
• 35:59
  solutions. So I'm just going to kind of go
• 36:05
  through them and you know, I'm giving suggestions really is
• 36:11
  what it comes down to because ultimately there isn't really a
• 36:14
  perfect solution for this kind of problem.
• 36:16
  It's it's going to be one that has a degree of friction no
• 36:20
  matter what. And sometimes that degree of
• 36:25
  friction will vary up and down. Will kind of, you know, waver,
• 36:31
  not waver will, I guess vary. Yeah, I guess vary was the right
• 36:36
  word, right word the first time. All right, So point number one,
• 36:42
  this is the easiest, most obvious option here.
• 36:48
  Just kind of stick with it and give it some time and it might
• 36:56
  just click. I don't know about you, but
• 37:01
  there's definitely been times where I'm like, this shit makes
• 37:04
  no sense. And then eventually something I
• 37:08
  did hit, hit a nerve in such a fashion where I'm like, oh, now
• 37:14
  it makes perfect sense. OK, now I understand how what
• 37:17
  this wants me to do and how it works.
• 37:18
  Like I I can't think of it a specific example at the at the
• 37:21
  moment, but I don't know if you have a a similar experience if
• 37:24
  you get or if you get what I'm saying.
• 37:25
  Yes, there there are definitely times where that has happened.
• 37:29
  Now I will freely say it does not like it's not happening
• 37:32
  right now with Lancer with my own skill check based problem.
• 37:36
  I'm just keep smashing my head against this wall and it's never
• 37:38
  going to stop. I've just sort of accepted that,
• 37:42
  but I am aware of your Yeah, like it is.
• 37:45
  I've yes. It's that the reactions in
• 37:50
  Monster Hearts for me felt weird at first, but that's because I'd
• 37:52
  never run the system before. And I was like, OK, this is
• 37:55
  going to stop feeling weird. Once I stopped thinking about it
• 37:58
  as much and now it feels a lot more natural.
• 38:01
  Yeah, it's to to compare it to like a a somewhat similar thing.
• 38:09
  It's, it's kind of like the idea in a video game where you're
• 38:14
  trying to like you're trying to nail down a mechanic and at some
• 38:22
  point you just do it over and over again.
• 38:23
  And then you get it one time, and then that one time just like
• 38:28
  magic magically unlocks like the holy place, you know, like
• 38:32
  you're trying to figure out the Perry timing.
• 38:34
  And then you find one enemy that for whatever reason, their
• 38:37
  attack animation makes sense to you, and you figure out what the
• 38:40
  parry timing is supposed to be based on that enemy.
• 38:44
  And then from that point on you can parry like much more
• 38:46
  regular. Is that kind of an idea where
• 38:50
  sometimes just sticking with it for a little bit longer will
• 38:55
  make it make sense because you just need to see it in a
• 38:58
  specific frame of light 'cause, you know, RPGs will give often
• 39:06
  give examples. They'll say like, you know, this
• 39:09
  mechanic works this way, you know, it does XY and Z.
• 39:12
  And then they will have a little example read out of like, here's
• 39:18
  how it works, here's how it would work and play.
• 39:20
  And sometimes those examples, you read them and go, oh, yeah,
• 39:23
  OK, yeah, makes sense. But sometimes, for whatever
• 39:25
  reason, the example they picked just doesn't make sense to you
• 39:28
  personally. Like some element of it did not
• 39:33
  jive and there's no real, there's no real getting around
• 39:40
  that. But if you play, you will likely
• 39:44
  run into a scenario while you are playing where the mechanic
• 39:49
  will come up and it will come up in such a fashion that it makes
• 39:52
  more sense to you this time around.
• 39:55
  Like it didn't make sense in context A, but it makes sense to
• 39:58
  me in context B. So now I get it.
• 40:00
  And now you're good and you can just move on and that's it.
• 40:03
  And if you're on the GM side, that can be really good because
• 40:07
  or if you're on the GM side, a good way to utilize that is
• 40:14
  basically go, all right, I don't totally understand this
• 40:17
  mechanic. So I'm going to make a bunch of
• 40:20
  scenarios where I, as the GM have to interact with this
• 40:23
  mechanic. And then hopefully if I interact
• 40:26
  with it enough times, I will eventually understand it.
• 40:29
  That's, you know, basically use your GM power to your own
• 40:33
  advantage and also hope that you know, the players can come along
• 40:41
  with you in that assistance because that can help things a
• 40:45
  lot too obviously. I wish I was that responsible.
• 40:48
  Typically if there's something that I'm just butting heads with
• 40:52
  constantly and I can't get it to stop, I I just it just
• 40:56
  conveniently shows up less and less.
• 41:00
  Well, I don't mean butting heads with constantly, like if there's
• 41:02
  something you've already tried a lot and it's still for the love
• 41:05
  of God just just is not happening, that's a little
• 41:10
  different. I'm saying you've, you've bumped
• 41:12
  up into the mechanic once or twice, or maybe you read it and
• 41:15
  you just weren't totally sure. And you go, OK, I'm going to
• 41:18
  throw it in the game a couple more times to see if I can
• 41:20
  figure it out. If if you're on try #3 and it's
• 41:24
  not working, that's one thing. If you're on try #10 and you're
• 41:27
  still just not getting it, then yeah, maybe taking it out and
• 41:31
  just not dealing with it as much is the move It, it depends.
• 41:36
  It's a, it's a scale of how confusing it is to you.
• 41:42
  And, and this is, this is, I'm talking about this on a, on a
• 41:47
  minutia mechanic by mechanic basis in this context.
• 41:52
  But this can also kind of just apply to the game more broadly
• 41:55
  too. Like, you know, you just don't
• 41:59
  get the game that well, but you just keep running it because you
• 42:01
  really want to run it. You know, something about the
• 42:03
  game makes you really want to run it.
• 42:04
  And then eventually by session #10 you're like, all right, all
• 42:07
  right, I got, I got this shit. Now that can happen too.
• 42:12
  If that doesn't happen though, we'll get to 1 of my later
• 42:15
  solutions. Might be a better option.
• 42:19
  So yeah, I think for for a lot of people, that perfect
• 42:22
  encapsulation of that is challenge rating where you just
• 42:26
  kind of you don't get it, but you have to earn, you literally
• 42:31
  can't not interact with it in some way, shape or form.
• 42:34
  So you kind of just go, all right, you know what I mean?
• 42:39
  Like you kind of just like. Well, I think usually what,
• 42:42
  yeah, I think challenge rating is a good example of sticking
• 42:44
  out because usually what happens is even if people don't fully
• 42:49
  get it, because you're right, a lot of people don't fully get it
• 42:51
  because I, I don't know, I think they just describe it really
• 42:55
  poorly in the book, to be honest.
• 42:58
  Usually what happens is people stick with it long enough that
• 43:01
  they come up with their own sort of pseudo understanding of
• 43:04
  challenge rating that ends up working.
• 43:06
  You know, like they can't explain how challenge rating
• 43:10
  works verbatim and the rules, but they have a good enough
• 43:13
  intuition that they're like, I can build a proper challenge
• 43:18
  rating fight, but I can't necessarily explain to you how,
• 43:22
  but I know that I've sussed it out enough to make sense of it.
• 43:25
  That's usually what happens there.
• 43:26
  And that is basically what I'm saying.
• 43:28
  You just stick it out and it clicks into place in some kind
• 43:31
  of a way, and then you get it. Because ultimately, whatever
• 43:35
  method you use to understand a rule doesn't need to be
• 43:38
  repeatable, right? It only needs to work for you.
• 43:42
  You're the only one who needs to understand, so it doesn't
• 43:45
  matter. True.
• 43:49
  The next most obvious, you know, potential solution to this is
• 43:54
  just a careful reread, right? Like just read it again.
• 44:00
  There's a lot of rules in games that will not make sense on a
• 44:03
  first read in, in every game, like pretty much every RPG
• 44:09
  you're going to read and there will be elements of it on that
• 44:12
  first read through that you're like, that just doesn't, I just
• 44:15
  don't what? And just just reread it more
• 44:20
  carefully. And I'm not saying you have to
• 44:22
  reread it in the moment or anything like that, but like
• 44:26
  maybe you do your first read through and then maybe when you
• 44:29
  go to run the game, go like, all right, I want to do, I want to
• 44:32
  interact with this mechanic. But I know the first time I read
• 44:34
  the book, I didn't totally get it.
• 44:36
  Go back and read that specific bit about that specific mechanic
• 44:40
  more slowly and just be a little more conscious of it.
• 44:44
  And then you might be fine. Like, you might have just read
• 44:49
  past it a little too fast, or it might have just been worded in
• 44:52
  such a fashion that it just didn't immediately make sense.
• 44:56
  And then you reanalyze and you're like, OK, it makes sense
• 44:58
  now. It's that's pretty much what
• 45:00
  happened when we were reading Draw Steel and I just could not
• 45:03
  make sense of the AOE damage versus the minions.
• 45:07
  Yes, Yeah. But I just, I just paused for a
• 45:10
  second, read it again and then thought about it a little more
• 45:14
  slowly and then was like, oh, I get what they're saying now.
• 45:18
  You know, they're effectively saying you get on an individual
• 45:22
  attack by attack basis, you get more bang for your buck with the
• 45:25
  lower damage AOE spell. OK, yeah, that makes sense.
• 45:29
  But I really just had to reread it.
• 45:31
  Like, it wasn't necessarily that confusing.
• 45:34
  I just had to slow down a little bit.
• 45:38
  This is something your teachers tell you a lot in school, you
• 45:43
  know, Fucking reread it a little slower and listen, miss, I don't
• 45:50
  want to, I don't want to whip out any specific.
• 45:52
  I was going to like, say a name of like an actual teacher I had,
• 45:54
  but I don't actually want to put her on blast because she wasn't
• 45:56
  necessarily. But.
• 45:59
  Listen, Miss, Miss Rosalina, I get that.
• 46:02
  You were right. Just lay off.
• 46:04
  I had to make up a name I don't know.
• 46:09
  I had one teacher in high school.
• 46:11
  She was an English teacher and she was certainly bipolar like
• 46:17
  and I know people say that like a lot to to say pretty much
• 46:20
  anytime someone's behavioral like a like a.
• 46:22
  Yes. Situation going on but no, she
• 46:25
  was like she'd go from a super happy and then you'd ask her a
• 46:28
  question she didn't like and it would like ruin her mood for an
• 46:30
  hour. Oh, like I distinctly remember
• 46:38
  there was literally a time where she was like happy and joking
• 46:41
  and and you know, she was like extriving how she like says the
• 46:44
  days of the week weirdly because of the way like where she was
• 46:47
  raised, like she says like Monday, Tuesday, like she just
• 46:52
  that's how she said it unironically and.
• 46:58
  My dad kind of does that. Yeah, and I remember somebody
• 47:03
  raised their hand to use the bathroom and she literally was
• 47:08
  like, put your hand down. You're not going anywhere.
• 47:12
  And you're like Jesus Christ. Like, or there's times where
• 47:15
  like if you had like a, a typo in like the intro to an essay,
• 47:18
  like in, in the, the formatting of the essay, she would lose it
• 47:23
  like red in the face, lose it on.
• 47:26
  You're just like dude, chill the fuck out.
• 47:34
  Yeah, that's there's no, no good recourse if a teacher's like
• 47:40
  that. You just got to kind of hold
• 47:41
  that L and pray. Yeah, I had one teacher who
• 47:45
  couldn't frown for some reason. Like she could be red in the
• 47:48
  face with like. Yuri face muscles couldn't
• 47:50
  physically. She just, I don't know what it
• 47:52
  was I I know she was capable of not smiling, but she could be
• 47:56
  red in the face with Yuri and still be smiling.
• 48:01
  That's horrifying. What the fuck?
• 48:04
  Like I twitching like looking like a crazy teacher, looking
• 48:08
  like Crocker from Fairly Odd Parents.
• 48:10
  Like Crocker? Bros like with like, there's the
• 48:14
  scenes where he's like tweaking out 'cause he's tweaking, he's
• 48:16
  smiling, but he's still tweaking.
• 48:18
  Yeah, literally that. And she's driving sane.
• 48:23
  As soon as you said looking like Crocker, I knew exactly what
• 48:25
  you. Meant rather Ferris.
• 48:29
  So funny creeped me the fuck out constantly.
• 48:32
  That is horrifying. No, that is that is actually
• 48:34
  creepy shit. But yeah, sometimes sometimes
• 48:40
  the reread just just slow the fuck down and read it again.
• 48:47
  Sometimes that's all you need. But now kind of, Oh, I also, I,
• 48:52
  I, I forgot to mention I put these in, in, in an in like kind
• 49:00
  of a step by step order. Like I put them in order of
• 49:04
  which one you should do first and then the next one and the
• 49:06
  next one, like I kind of put them in a in a sequence ish.
• 49:14
  So they they follow somewhat of a flow.
• 49:18
  So, but the kind of Third Point, if you've done the first two,
• 49:22
  you've stuck it out, you've done a little bit of a reread, figure
• 49:26
  out if your pain point is coming from misunderstanding or
• 49:33
  disagreement with the design. Because those two issues can
• 49:39
  have different responses. Because if the problem is that
• 49:45
  you misunderstand the rule or rules or, you know, chunk of
• 49:51
  rules, then you have to figure out, you know, like, why am I
• 49:57
  misunderstanding it? How can I figure out what like
• 50:00
  what is screwing me up here? If your problem is that you just
• 50:04
  kind of don't like it, like you just disagree with the design,
• 50:08
  that's a little easier to just assess yourself and go, OK,
• 50:13
  well, you know, I'm not, I want Fabula to have a skill system,
• 50:18
  but it doesn't. How do I respond to that?
• 50:22
  And in some scenarios, the response might just be let it go
• 50:27
  and just don't stress it and just understand that that's a
• 50:33
  thing and then go, OK, or the response, you know, might end up
• 50:39
  being fix it yourself. You know, there's, there's a
• 50:41
  couple of different if you have the, the disagreement part is
• 50:45
  probably going to be easier to fix just by virtue of if you
• 50:49
  become aware of the fact that, oh, it's not that it's it's not
• 50:53
  that it's designed poorly. I just don't agree with how they
• 50:55
  did it. I just don't like it.
• 50:57
  That's kind of like a that's a self critique situation.
• 51:01
  And then you can move on. If the pain point is genuine
• 51:05
  misunderstanding, that's where you got to try and tackle it
• 51:09
  from. Like I said, either sticking
• 51:11
  with it or rereading it or giving it to somebody else and
• 51:17
  saying like do you get this? Or honestly a big one for me
• 51:20
  personally, I don't know about you going on like YouTube and
• 51:26
  seeing if somebody has explained it in a way that works better
• 51:31
  for me or asking on like Discord or or a subreddit or something
• 51:36
  like that. Being like, does this mechanic
• 51:38
  work like this or does it work like this?
• 51:40
  Like that's, that's what I did to the conflict rule thing.
• 51:44
  The, the, the way that I was able to finally understand what
• 51:47
  I was screwing up was that I literally said in the fabulous
• 51:52
  discord. I was like, I was like, am I
• 51:56
  misunderstanding how this is supposed to vibe?
• 52:01
  Like, you know, I, I basically was like, should I give my
• 52:06
  players that +6 in this scenario from the accuracy check?
• 52:09
  Or should I not like, am I picking up what they're putting
• 52:12
  down or no? And someone's basically like,
• 52:14
  no, you're applying conflict rules to non conflict situations
• 52:18
  and that's going to fuck with you.
• 52:20
  And that when someone sort of re explained it to me that wasn't
• 52:31
  just reading the book, I was like, OK, sure.
• 52:36
  So the once you realize that you're just having a genuine
• 52:43
  misunderstanding of what it's trying to do, that is where you
• 52:47
  can potentially, you know, like look to outside sources to then
• 52:55
  suss it out further. I don't know if you have any a
• 52:58
  good example of this, but I've I've I have found I've heard
• 53:03
  success stories of doing that method from other people too.
• 53:07
  Yeah, I mean nothing really to add there.
• 53:10
  No, you don't have a story about asking somewhere online or
• 53:14
  something. I try like so I've never asked
• 53:17
  online, I've just sort of tried to find something.
• 53:20
  Online or a video or? Then yeah, yeah, I mean, I just,
• 53:24
  yeah, I've never like specifically asked about a
• 53:26
  ruling online, but that's 'cause like, I very recently got shit
• 53:31
  like a Reddit, but I have looked things up.
• 53:33
  Like found like a video, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:36
  So if we're if we're if we're expanding to like Sage Advice
• 53:39
  Compendium and like you know, looking.
• 53:40
  Well, that was what I said at the beginning.
• 53:42
  I was like ask or look up something like my.
• 53:44
  Bad. OK, I missed the I missed the
• 53:46
  next second mark, but yes, I have done that before.
• 53:48
  I think it's something you should do.
• 53:50
  And you know, it's funny, we were just talking about this is
• 53:55
  one of the few things that I don't fucking hate about the
• 53:58
  Google AI is that if it tells you something, you can search up
• 54:03
  where that source was found. So you can tell if it's bullshit
• 54:06
  or not, yes or not not. You can't immediately, but you
• 54:09
  can do better research to see if it's.
• 54:10
  You can, yeah. You can look a little deeper or
• 54:13
  you can take what it's describing to you and and
• 54:19
  tighten down your search information based on words it's
• 54:23
  using. Yes.
• 54:25
  Like it says a word that you didn't think to use and you're
• 54:27
  like, ah, that will help me. OK.
• 54:29
  Yeah, yeah, OK. So if I use this word then you
• 54:31
  get better information like that kind of a.
• 54:32
  Yeah, yeah. The yeah, like basically what
• 54:42
  I'm saying is it making sure to identify your problem more
• 54:47
  specifically. Like after you've tried and
• 54:49
  stuck it out a little bit, tried to just kind of push through and
• 54:51
  see what would happen, and you've reread it to make sense
• 54:54
  of it. Trying to analyze more
• 54:57
  specifically what the pain point is and where it's coming from
• 55:02
  can then help you get to a solution better, you know,
• 55:08
  faster or more succinctly or whatever.
• 55:12
  So from there, OK, so you've done all that, you've figured
• 55:15
  out your pain point. Then I think you want to assess
• 55:20
  if the game is actually what you were thinking the game was
• 55:26
  initially. And, and what I mean by that, IE
• 55:29
  is maybe you thought the game was a dungeon crawling monster
• 55:34
  slapping game, but it's really more of a fantasy heroic game,
• 55:39
  right? I this is a little bit of a call
• 55:40
  out on 5E. You know, we got to call 5 VA
• 55:45
  little bit like you were feeling like, oh, this is going to be a
• 55:51
  good game to delve into dungeons and track ammo and track torches
• 55:56
  and, you know, really get into that minutiae of the struggle
• 56:00
  for the main characters. But actually, no, it's a fantasy
• 56:04
  heroic game. So the characters can ignore
• 56:05
  most of their resource problems and will just blast through the
• 56:09
  dungeon unless you design it in such a way that it's going to
• 56:12
  actually, you know, use up their, you know, the war of
• 56:17
  attrition and use up their abilities.
• 56:24
  That can be a tricky 1, I think for people because a lot of
• 56:32
  games have a, a bit of a nasty habit, I would say, of selling
• 56:39
  themselves as one thing and then not really fully backing up that
• 56:47
  sales pitch or another common one.
• 56:50
  I think this is more common nowadays than it used to be.
• 56:53
  Or I think I think the the problem of selling the game one
• 56:59
  way and then mechanically not backing it up.
• 57:01
  I feel like used to be more of a problem back in the day.
• 57:03
  Nowadays I feel like the problem is they sell the game as a
• 57:09
  certain kind of vibe and then the vibe doesn't gel with you in
• 57:17
  the way that the read that that first read through did.
• 57:22
  And what I mean by that is like the sales pitch and the
• 57:27
  aesthetic and the look of it looked really cool.
• 57:29
  But then the way that they translated it to mechanics, for
• 57:32
  whatever reason, is just not clicking with you.
• 57:38
  And that's where you get into that point or maybe the look of
• 57:45
  the game, like maybe even just the art gave you a certain kind
• 57:49
  of idea, but you were misinterpreting.
• 57:54
  And that's not actually what the game was about.
• 57:56
  And it wasn't trying to say it was about that, but you just
• 57:58
  kind of assumed it was. The point being, if you feel
• 58:03
  like the game is giving you all sorts of issues trying to run it
• 58:06
  a certain way, say to yourself, wait a minute, is this game
• 58:10
  actually about the thing? I thought it was because if
• 58:13
  we're again, our initial premise here was you're running a new
• 58:16
  campaign with a new system. Presumably you're building the
• 58:20
  campaign idea somewhat based on the system.
• 58:24
  If you had a misinterpretation of what the system was, and then
• 58:28
  you built the campaign around the campaign idea around the
• 58:31
  misinterpretation, then when you go to play the game, the
• 58:35
  campaign idea and the mechanical game, good chance they will not
• 58:40
  gel, right? That all meant that all, yeah,
• 58:44
  makes a sense. Yes, it does.
• 58:46
  I, I, so I had a thought to an earlier point and, and OK,
• 58:50
  because I agree with you when you, when you like back in the
• 58:52
  day, yes, you kind of had this like false, not quite false
• 58:55
  advertising, but. Yeah, it it, it was like that
• 58:59
  thing kind. Of false advertising like, you
• 59:00
  know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don't know, I I'm
• 59:03
  thinking of like Vampire the Masquerade being like, it's a
• 59:05
  game about drama. And then like if there's still
• 59:07
  200 combat rule pages and you're like, wait a minute.
• 59:10
  Yeah, you know, like that. Kind of a vibe.
• 59:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I think yeah.
• 59:18
  I mean, I, I, I can maybe I don't have a thought because I
• 59:20
  was going to say like you don't really have that problem in the
• 59:24
  like the rules not gelling with your like your initial idea,
• 59:28
  like when you read them and then you're like, oh, this makes
• 59:29
  sense and you run them in practice and they don't make
• 59:31
  sense that yeah, I mean, I it. Happens.
• 59:37
  It does, yeah. I I felt like I had a more a
• 59:40
  more in depth thought on that, but I'm like, no, it does happen
• 59:42
  because I had that problem in Cain.
• 59:44
  I have that problem in Monster Hearts.
• 59:45
  I have that problem in couple of places.
• 59:48
  Yeah, usually. Usually what it is is the
• 59:54
  descriptive parts of the book, like when it's describing what
• 59:58
  it's about have a degree of drama to them is the only way I
• 1:00:06
  can put it like they have like a floweriness to the language or
• 1:00:09
  like the wording or it like there's a drama to it and that
• 1:00:12
  gets you kind of hooked on the premise.
• 1:00:14
  And then mechanics are mechanics.
• 1:00:17
  So they're they're going to be drier and a little more
• 1:00:20
  methodical. But if you.
• 1:00:24
  Aren't aware or looking at the the mechanics critically?
• 1:00:28
  You might. You might kind of miss.
• 1:00:32
  You might misunderstand how the mechanic is getting the point
• 1:00:36
  across for the for what the game wants to do.
• 1:00:39
  You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  I actually did this very recently.
• 1:00:42
  Speaking of monster hearts, I was like, man, it's really weird
• 1:00:46
  that the game doesn't have a persuasion ish ability, right?
• 1:00:51
  It doesn't have a way to manipulate somebody without it
• 1:00:54
  being turning someone on. Like that's kind of odd.
• 1:00:58
  And then I realized, Oh no, the reason it doesn't is because the
• 1:01:04
  way you're supposed to manipulate people if you want to
• 1:01:06
  do it non sexually is strings. The game wants you to use
• 1:01:10
  strings on people to force that manipulative.
• 1:01:13
  I want you to do what I want. Like that's that's the
• 1:01:17
  persuasion thing. It's the strings mechanic.
• 1:01:19
  And I was thinking about strings.
• 1:01:23
  I was thinking of strings as almost like a, a, a meta meta
• 1:01:27
  currency bonus. But that's really it's, it's
• 1:01:30
  more than that. Like strings does more stuff
• 1:01:33
  than just it can just be a bonus, right?
• 1:01:35
  It can be like, you know, meta currency plus one thing, but it
• 1:01:38
  does more than that mechanically.
• 1:01:39
  And one of those main things is persuading people to do what you
• 1:01:43
  want because you have something kind of.
• 1:01:45
  Over them, yeah, I mean, I, I'm still in in contention about
• 1:01:50
  that. Like I I feel like there's
• 1:01:52
  perfectly valid reason to say that you can sort of roundabouts
• 1:01:55
  turn someone on to just be how to persuade them normally.
• 1:01:59
  Yeah. I don't think the game wants you
• 1:02:01
  to do that though. Like you might be willing, you
• 1:02:06
  might be fine with that, doing it that way.
• 1:02:09
  I don't think the game wants you to do that.
• 1:02:12
  I think the game is basically saying you have.
• 1:02:16
  The game is basically saying you have 3 avenues.
• 1:02:19
  Turn someone on, use a string against them to get them to do
• 1:02:23
  what you want, or just through natural role play conversation,
• 1:02:28
  get them to just reasonably agree in a situation that makes
• 1:02:32
  sense. So I.
• 1:02:33
  Think the game is basically saying those are your 3 avenues
• 1:02:35
  the. Problem there in is, is when you
• 1:02:40
  directly put it next to shut someone down.
• 1:02:44
  Because shut someone down is not just, you know, talk shit to
• 1:02:49
  them, right? It can be.
• 1:02:50
  No, it's literally stop them from what they're trying to do.
• 1:02:52
  It is shutting them down. Yeah, like what?
• 1:02:55
  Whatever you're try, whatever bullshit you're trying to pull,
• 1:02:57
  I'm not letting you pull it. Right.
• 1:02:59
  So by the broadness of that metric, I feel like turn someone
• 1:03:03
  on can just be putting someone onto an idea.
• 1:03:08
  Like it feels like it's it. It feels weird to me that one
• 1:03:13
  has an inherent limitation on it while the other doesn't.
• 1:03:17
  I think shut someone down has a limitation on it.
• 1:03:19
  Other than you can't physically harm someone, it really doesn't.
• 1:03:23
  Because you can use you. Can use shut someone down to
• 1:03:25
  still put your hands on someone. You can shove someone.
• 1:03:29
  You can take physical action against someone which shut
• 1:03:31
  someone down, but you can't harm.
• 1:03:33
  But shutting someone down, the limitation of shut someone down
• 1:03:36
  is you can only you. That move only triggers if
• 1:03:40
  they're trying to actively do something.
• 1:03:43
  If they're trying to go out of their way, make a point, do a
• 1:03:46
  thing, you are then negating the thing they are trying to do if
• 1:03:51
  they are not being. It's basically what I'm saying.
• 1:03:54
  It's it's only really a reactive move if they are not really
• 1:03:57
  proactively doing anything. You can't just you can't like
• 1:04:01
  stepping out into the crowd and just making fun of somebody is
• 1:04:04
  not shutting someone down, right?
• 1:04:06
  That's not what that move is. If the person is saying some
• 1:04:11
  shit to you and then you clap back, that's shutting them down.
• 1:04:17
  I feel like. That limitation is.
• 1:04:19
  On all of them. Then that's a that's a universal
• 1:04:20
  like turn someone on is I've asked someone in character to do
• 1:04:24
  a thing. They have sort of given me push
• 1:04:26
  back and now I'm trying to coax them or shut someone down
• 1:04:30
  because someone is acting you can.
• 1:04:31
  Go you can go directly to turning them on right from the
• 1:04:35
  jump. They don't have to like you can
• 1:04:37
  say I walk up and fucking grab a handful of ass and start talking
• 1:04:42
  dirty to their ear. They don't even have to.
• 1:04:44
  They don't have to have said anything prior.
• 1:04:46
  You're going straight for a turn someone on move, right?
• 1:04:50
  Like you can. It can be a situation where you
• 1:04:52
  ask nicely and then try and use like sexual manipulation to get
• 1:04:57
  something out of them. It can be that, but it doesn't
• 1:04:59
  have to be. You can go directly to the turn
• 1:05:01
  them, turn them on if you want. Like there's nothing stopping
• 1:05:04
  you from doing it that way because that move triggers when
• 1:05:07
  you turn someone on, right? Because you gotta remember the
• 1:05:10
  name of the move is also the what triggers.
• 1:05:13
  Well, not necessarily. It's not quite the name, but
• 1:05:15
  like, Oh no, I mean, pretty much is the name of the move is what
• 1:05:18
  triggers the move, right? It's when you shut someone down,
• 1:05:22
  roll disability. When you turn someone on, roll
• 1:05:24
  disability. So the one has a limitation in
• 1:05:28
  terms of. It's yeah, so wait, you you
• 1:05:32
  can't just so no, no, no, wait, hold on.
• 1:05:34
  Because you can't really just grab some ass to turn someone on
• 1:05:37
  because there has to be an inherent goal in mind.
• 1:05:43
  There has to be like a stated clear goal to the thing like.
• 1:05:47
  Turning them on. No, no, but it's turning them on
• 1:05:50
  to a goal, like to achieve a goal, like you turn someone on
• 1:05:54
  to get what you want. Like the reason why I'm saying
• 1:05:57
  like this is because you can just ask that like the the game
• 1:06:02
  is very clear about you ask questions or you or you, you
• 1:06:06
  engage in dialogue to a point. And when the dialogue fails,
• 1:06:13
  then you do it right. And, and, and the reason why I'm
• 1:06:14
  saying this is because the way that it describes it in the
• 1:06:17
  examples of, you know, characters are talking,
• 1:06:20
  character says a thing and then GM says it sounds like you're
• 1:06:23
  trying to turn them on. Right, Yeah, you know, you're,
• 1:06:26
  you're you're misunderstanding. I.
• 1:06:29
  I that's not. I like, don't think I am though.
• 1:06:31
  Like that's kind of like. No, because what you're the the
• 1:06:34
  element you're misunderstanding here is what triggers the move,
• 1:06:38
  which is when you do it, you do it.
• 1:06:41
  This is one of those things I don't think Monster Hearts
• 1:06:43
  explains that Apocalypse World talks about quite a bit to to,
• 1:06:47
  to activate a move to get the move going to do the way
• 1:06:52
  Apocalypse World phrases it is to do it, you have to do it.
• 1:06:56
  So like if you're to turn someone on, you have to turn
• 1:07:02
  like you have to actively be trying to turn them on.
• 1:07:04
  You don't, you don't get to say, right, It's the, it's the
• 1:07:07
  inverse of the D&D situation in D and DI roll persuasion is what
• 1:07:13
  you start the statement with. You start on that mechanical
• 1:07:15
  basis and then the GM says, OK, here's what happens fictionally
• 1:07:19
  in Apocalypse World and Monster Hearts by extension.
• 1:07:23
  You say I'm doing this thing fictionally.
• 1:07:26
  The GM goes, all right, you have triggered turn someone on
• 1:07:29
  because what you are describing to me is trying to turn this
• 1:07:32
  person on. Ergo the move is now triggered.
• 1:07:35
  It's not that. It's not that you have to like,
• 1:07:40
  it's not that the move is like the fail safe.
• 1:07:42
  It just happens when it happens. And if it doesn't happen, then
• 1:07:45
  that's it. There's just no dice.
• 1:07:48
  OK so then then answer me this to To that end, turn someone on
• 1:07:52
  is kind of the only one that wouldn't be reactive.
• 1:07:57
  Then to shut someone down is inherently reactive.
• 1:07:59
  Keep your cools inherently reactive.
• 1:08:01
  Lashed out physically is inherently reactive, runaway is
• 1:08:03
  inherently reactive, and gaze into the abyss is inherently
• 1:08:05
  reactive. Gaze into the abyss is
• 1:08:09
  definitely not reactive. You can gaze into the abyss
• 1:08:12
  anytime you want. Keep your cool is Gaze into the
• 1:08:15
  abyss is kind of weird because gaze into the abyss is sort of
• 1:08:17
  described as the this is the last option button.
• 1:08:24
  Like no, I I don't really know what to do, so I'm going to gaze
• 1:08:28
  into the abyss to find answers, no.
• 1:08:30
  No, no, that's just how. That's how it might be how you
• 1:08:32
  feel about using it, but that's not how it's described.
• 1:08:35
  Gaze into the abyss is simply, I'm looking into the darkness to
• 1:08:39
  look for an answer that I want. It doesn't have to be a last
• 1:08:42
  resort or anything, you're just choosing to do it.
• 1:08:46
  You can do it literally whenever.
• 1:08:48
  Gaze into the Abyss is arguably the least reactive one because
• 1:08:51
  you don't need any other characters present to do it.
• 1:08:54
  You can just do it. That's one of the, that's one of
• 1:08:57
  the few ones where you kind of have to speak the name of the
• 1:09:03
  move to actually do the move. That one's a little like, 'cause
• 1:09:06
  Apocalypse World technically tells you not to speak the name
• 1:09:08
  of moves. It says just describe what you
• 1:09:10
  do fictionally and then you will trigger the moves.
• 1:09:13
  Gaze into the abyss and also gaze into the psychic.
• 1:09:15
  Maelstrom has the same problem because it's kind of weird and
• 1:09:18
  sci-fi and magical. You kind of have to just say I'm
• 1:09:21
  gazing into the abyss. But no, it doesn't have to be a
• 1:09:26
  reaction or a last ditch or anything like.
• 1:09:28
  You can choose to use it that way if you want to generally use
• 1:09:32
  it that way, but it doesn't have to.
• 1:09:35
  I'm not really sure how because I can't imagine a situation
• 1:09:38
  where you in, in any practical conversational sense use it as
• 1:09:42
  an out the gate thing. Well, easy.
• 1:09:45
  You're you're alone and you're like, I want information and I
• 1:09:50
  have a good dark stat and I'm a creepy weirdo character.
• 1:09:54
  I'm going to just fuck it. Fuck trying to find answers any
• 1:09:57
  other way. I'm just going to gaze into the
• 1:09:58
  abyss. Well.
• 1:09:58
  Right, so right there. You, you like, but you, you
• 1:10:01
  you've. That's not reacting to anything
• 1:10:04
  though, I'm just doing it. No, but but it is a reaction
• 1:10:06
  because you're pre establishing that you are alone.
• 1:10:08
  There are no other avenues by which to gain this information.
• 1:10:12
  That's not a reaction. It is inherently a reaction to a
• 1:10:16
  circumstance. It is.
• 1:10:19
  It is the effects. To a cause it's I'm deciding to
• 1:10:24
  do a thing based on circumstance, but it's not a
• 1:10:26
  reaction like you keep using the word reaction as in I'm reacting
• 1:10:30
  to other NPCS or characters. This is not that you're.
• 1:10:34
  You're reacting to a situation like not.
• 1:10:37
  Doesn't have to have a character in it.
• 1:10:39
  That's. All of role-playing, period.
• 1:10:41
  Like if you broaden it to a situation that's just everything
• 1:10:44
  you do ever, you can't get that. You can't.
• 1:10:47
  That's too broad. Some of the moves are proactive
• 1:10:53
  and some of the moves are reactive to the NPCS or
• 1:10:57
  characters or whatever around you, and some of them are.
• 1:11:05
  Some of them are more are more directly reactive, like to the
• 1:11:08
  moment, and some of them aren't. But like half of that like lash
• 1:11:13
  out physically. You could just walk up on a
• 1:11:15
  character and punch them in the mouth.
• 1:11:19
  There's no. You could be proactive and do
• 1:11:21
  that if you want. Just 'cause.
• 1:11:25
  You you like can't though, like I don't know the way that no
• 1:11:28
  you. Can't though you?
• 1:11:29
  Literally can't. You can't because the way that
• 1:11:31
  lash out physically is described is that it is literally a your
• 1:11:34
  character is pushed to a breaking point where they have
• 1:11:36
  to lash out physically. No, it's not.
• 1:11:39
  Yes, it is. No, it's not.
• 1:11:41
  I don't under you're no no, the the OK, the paragraph for the OR
• 1:11:46
  the the chunk of the move. It says move itself says when
• 1:11:50
  you lash out physically roll with volatile and then the
• 1:11:54
  description below. Maybe you're punching someone in
• 1:11:56
  the face or biting down with your lupine fangs.
• 1:11:59
  Maybe you're shoving your boyfriend off a second story
• 1:12:01
  balcony. Lashing out physically is
• 1:12:03
  triggered when you attempt to do real harm to another person.
• 1:12:07
  That's it. That's the trigger.
• 1:12:09
  You attempt to do harm to somebody.
• 1:12:12
  It doesn't have to be any kind of breaking point or anything
• 1:12:15
  that's your personal like that might be how you want to use it,
• 1:12:19
  but that's not how it's phrased. That's not like it's not like,
• 1:12:23
  Oh no, I have no other option must attack.
• 1:12:28
  Like, the game's not necessarily encouraging you to use it all
• 1:12:31
  the time, but the game's not stopping you.
• 1:12:34
  I don't know that the last line of it only applies when you're
• 1:12:38
  actually looking to rough someone up, which means that a
• 1:12:40
  threatening shop, like it's saying that in any other
• 1:12:44
  situation where you're not trying to like fundamentally
• 1:12:47
  shift the direction of the game, you should you shut someone down
• 1:12:51
  to me. No, it's saying.
• 1:12:55
  It's saying if you are trying to really physically hurt someone,
• 1:13:00
  it's a lash out physically. If you're trying to kind of toss
• 1:13:06
  them around but you don't have physical harm intent, then it
• 1:13:10
  shuts someone down instead. The point is, the point it's
• 1:13:13
  making is that there's a delineation between really
• 1:13:16
  trying to hurt someone versus just trying to fuck with them a
• 1:13:21
  little bit. Right, but you are not going to
• 1:13:22
  physically actually try to hurt someone unless there is
• 1:13:25
  something done in the 1st place, or else that's like your.
• 1:13:28
  Opinion bro. That's that's you.
• 1:13:31
  No, because no, because there's nothing about the mechanic.
• 1:13:36
  Right? Like, sure, the framing of the
• 1:13:38
  campaign and the framing of the kind of characters you're
• 1:13:41
  playing, it might not make a lot of sense for you to just go out
• 1:13:43
  and attack somebody, but the mechanic simply says if you're
• 1:13:47
  trying to hurt a motherfucker, you're lassing out physically.
• 1:13:50
  So if I walk up to someone, pull a pocket knife and stab that
• 1:13:53
  bitch, I'm lashing out physically.
• 1:13:55
  Whether I was backed into a corner or not, that's what I'm
• 1:13:58
  doing. There's no reactivity there.
• 1:14:02
  I mean, you know, perhaps I probably have a vendetta against
• 1:14:05
  the character or whatever, but like on a minutia by on a
• 1:14:08
  minutia moment, there's no reaction there.
• 1:14:10
  That's kind of what I'm saying though.
• 1:14:11
  Is like it it. It requires implied context in
• 1:14:15
  order to be like a valid move that she would use to follow the
• 1:14:19
  principles of the game, which is follow logic.
• 1:14:22
  But by that logic, you're just calling everything a reaction
• 1:14:25
  ever. Like me breathing is a reaction
• 1:14:28
  to oxygen being in the air. Like you can't, like you can't
• 1:14:31
  broaden it so much to just say everything's always a reaction
• 1:14:34
  to something like that. That's not the point of the
• 1:14:36
  mechanics themselves. Like you're, you're broadening
• 1:14:40
  it too much. And again, you can use them that
• 1:14:45
  way if you want to use them that way, but that's not, that's not
• 1:14:50
  like a rule. It's not like a saving throw in
• 1:14:52
  D&D, which is explicitly mechanically only a reaction to
• 1:14:55
  something happening to you, right?
• 1:14:59
  In the case of Monster hearts, Keep Your cool is 1, where it is
• 1:15:04
  explicitly you're responding to something happening to you,
• 1:15:08
  right? Like there, there are, they are
• 1:15:10
  in there, but lash out physically is not one of them.
• 1:15:19
  And I don't I don't understand why you're trying to broaden it.
• 1:15:21
  So like I don't understand because.
• 1:15:23
  Keep your cool, lash out physically and run away are
• 1:15:25
  inherently fight or flight responses like they they kind of
• 1:15:28
  have like. Sure, like in real life.
• 1:15:32
  But that's not what we're really talking about here.
• 1:15:35
  We're talking about real life. We're talking about how is the
• 1:15:38
  mechanic function as a mechanic and whether you as the player
• 1:15:44
  are making the active the action proactively or reactively.
• 1:15:49
  Like the difference between a proactive action and a reactive
• 1:15:52
  action. Where we're talking about a
• 1:15:53
  mechanic in a tabletop sense is did the GM ask me or did I say
• 1:16:00
  I'm doing the thing right? And in the case of lash out
• 1:16:04
  physically or like gays into the abyss, I probably told the GM
• 1:16:08
  that I'm doing that. In the case of keep your cool,
• 1:16:11
  the GM is probably telling me that's what's happening here
• 1:16:16
  based on what's going on. Not all.
• 1:16:18
  And, and there can also be because of the way the moves are
• 1:16:21
  written and structured, there can also be some Gray area
• 1:16:24
  between that. Like that line can get wishy
• 1:16:26
  washy on purpose, like by design.
• 1:16:33
  But it's I, I don't even. I'm not even clear as to why
• 1:16:38
  you're taking umbrage with the issue of them all being in in a
• 1:16:45
  reactive thing anyway. Well, the umbrage.
• 1:16:48
  The umbrage comes from the use of turn someone on, and my
• 1:16:52
  belief that why you can use it that way and why I believe it
• 1:16:55
  works that way is because I see the moves as inherently
• 1:16:57
  reactive. OK, but it but when a in in real
• 1:17:04
  life, if a person goes to hit on somebody else, like there
• 1:17:11
  doesn't have to be a reaction of any kind.
• 1:17:15
  They don't have to necessarily be responding to anything.
• 1:17:17
  They might just think that person's attractive, I'm going
• 1:17:19
  to go hit on them and then they do it.
• 1:17:21
  Like how is that not a proactive action?
• 1:17:26
  I suppose I really can't fight you on that one.
• 1:17:28
  Like. But that's what turned someone
• 1:17:30
  on is like at its core, like I'm going to go hit on this person
• 1:17:35
  and then also by extension of hitting on them, I'm going to
• 1:17:38
  get something out of it, right? Like.
• 1:17:45
  I guess I clearly there's a disconnect somewhere in my brain
• 1:17:49
  that I and I can't square the circle, so I, I don't know.
• 1:17:52
  Like I said, the point that I'm making is that the game doesn't
• 1:17:56
  want you making persuasion checks, right?
• 1:18:00
  The game doesn't want you to be like, roll dice and PC give me
• 1:18:04
  what I want, right? The game is saying you have to
• 1:18:08
  either. Basically, the game is making
• 1:18:10
  you a little uncomfortable on purpose because your two main
• 1:18:13
  avenues for trying to persuade someone to do a thing that you
• 1:18:16
  want are either like bribery of some nature, right?
• 1:18:22
  Temptation or sexual manipulation like the game is
• 1:18:27
  like these are your two main options.
• 1:18:29
  It wants you to feel a little uncomfortable about it.
• 1:18:31
  It doesn't want you to be like, I can just use my high
• 1:18:33
  persuasion stat to get what I want, right?
• 1:18:36
  Like it doesn't want you doing that.
• 1:18:38
  That's outside of the the scope. In the same way that the move in
• 1:18:44
  Apocalypse World is called seduce or manipulate, right?
• 1:18:48
  It's not called talk and have a chat.
• 1:18:51
  It's you're seducing them or you're manipulating them.
• 1:18:55
  It's a negative connotation either way.
• 1:18:58
  And a pot and monster hearts is is doing a somewhat similar
• 1:19:02
  thing, although it's splitting it into two moves and it the
• 1:19:05
  context of the framing of the moves is different, but it's
• 1:19:08
  kind of a similar idea. And again, all it's all against
• 1:19:17
  that D&D. My dice get me whatever I want,
• 1:19:20
  my roll gets me whatever I want, right?
• 1:19:22
  It's against that kind of style of play, which is not even me
• 1:19:27
  saying that style of player is good or bad.
• 1:19:28
  I'm just saying it's, it's working against that.
• 1:19:30
  It doesn't want to operate in that space.
• 1:19:40
  I'm thinking like. I'm thinking of response like I
• 1:19:42
  OK. That wasn't true for a second,
• 1:19:47
  no. No, I'm listening.
• 1:19:48
  I just like I don't know. Like I said there there is a.
• 1:19:50
  There is clearly some sort of of problem that I have with this
• 1:19:54
  that I either cannot. Well, you got to.
• 1:19:57
  Describe them or like. You got to keep in mind that
• 1:20:02
  Monster Hearts is trying to invoke a very narrow band of
• 1:20:10
  character interaction, right and play style, like it wants you to
• 1:20:13
  do a very specific thing. It's not trying to be a super
• 1:20:16
  open game. It's trying to be like this game
• 1:20:19
  is about weird, uncomfortable, kind of horny monster people and
• 1:20:24
  like that's it. Like you can't it, it doesn't
• 1:20:27
  really want you moving beyond that.
• 1:20:28
  And it has made it. It's made it quite difficult to
• 1:20:32
  do so. Yes it and you're right, but I
• 1:20:35
  feel like you can just as easily like with with literally no
• 1:20:40
  problems whatsoever, use turn someone on in a non sexual sense
• 1:20:43
  and still get every effect out of it that you would need.
• 1:20:47
  I mean, ultimately, like, can you, yeah, you're just kind of
• 1:20:52
  going against the designer's idea and like, OK, I think
• 1:20:56
  that's you to do. It doesn't feel that way because
• 1:20:59
  it can seem. I think it is because, I mean, I
• 1:21:05
  don't know, you look at the wording like the bullet points
• 1:21:07
  on turn someone on, right? And it says I give myself to
• 1:21:11
  you, I promise something I think you want or I get embarrassed
• 1:21:14
  and act awkward. Those are all a little charged.
• 1:21:19
  They are but that kind of like yes, they they are charged, but
• 1:21:23
  they can be. It's not just like I'm having a
• 1:21:28
  chat and you convinced me. Right.
• 1:21:30
  But it has always spoken to me in the way that that Powered by
• 1:21:37
  the Apocalypse games very intentionally play with language
• 1:21:46
  because in any situation, like you can just use turn someone on
• 1:21:49
  to get what you want from them persuasively and they can give
• 1:21:52
  themselves to you. They can agree with whatever
• 1:21:54
  you're doing. They can promise something that
• 1:21:56
  they think you want. You're like, all right, fine.
• 1:21:58
  I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, I'll do you a favor.
• 1:22:01
  Or they get embarrassed and feel awkward.
• 1:22:03
  They're, you know. Here's the thing about the play
• 1:22:07
  on language. In this scenario, if you are not
• 1:22:11
  trying to turn them on, the move doesn't trigger just by virtue
• 1:22:17
  of that's what triggers the move is turning someone on.
• 1:22:21
  So if you're not doing that, technically the move doesn't
• 1:22:24
  activate. That's the whole if you do it,
• 1:22:26
  you do it thing. So like, if you want to
• 1:22:29
  personally say it can be a persuasion thing that is not
• 1:22:34
  sexually charged, you can, but ultimately you're ignoring what
• 1:22:41
  the move says. You're choosing to activate the
• 1:22:45
  move when the game technically would say that it doesn't
• 1:22:48
  activate. No, I so, but I that's what I'm
• 1:22:51
  I don't think I'm ignoring. I I think it is like this weird
• 1:22:54
  from a certain point of view thing that it feels like Powered
• 1:22:57
  by the Apocalypse games in general play with freely.
• 1:23:02
  No, because if you want to do it, you have to do it.
• 1:23:05
  And the name of the move is the thing you are doing.
• 1:23:08
  Ergo, if you're not doing the thing, you're not rolling.
• 1:23:10
  And it's not, it's not turning out.
• 1:23:11
  Like that's, that's the way. I mean, I can't necessarily
• 1:23:15
  speak for the designer of Monster Arts, but that's
• 1:23:17
  explicitly the way that Apocalypse World describes it.
• 1:23:20
  Like if you are not actively doing what the move says to do,
• 1:23:24
  then it just doesn't happen. And it's, it's, it's like that
• 1:23:28
  on purpose. It's, it's a, it's a, it's
• 1:23:35
  intentional. I, I guess, I mean, we're, look,
• 1:23:41
  we're going to be talking like this for another like hour,
• 1:23:43
  'cause this is something I have thought about a lot for this
• 1:23:46
  game. So we might as well just move
• 1:23:47
  on. I will concede the point, but
• 1:23:49
  like again, ultimately. You can do it that way.
• 1:23:52
  I'm just telling you that you're you're stepping beyond the
• 1:23:55
  bounds of what the game is telling you to do that.
• 1:23:58
  And that's where that's kind of where the disagreement lies,
• 1:24:00
  which is why I'm like, yes, I will concede the point, but you
• 1:24:02
  probably. Shouldn't be OK.
• 1:24:03
  I mean listen, go ask for other opinions I guess at this point,
• 1:24:07
  like I don't know, I will. Not for sure, I'm not trying to
• 1:24:10
  stick my hand my feet in the sand to be an asshole, I just
• 1:24:12
  genuinely disagree with the expression of the word rules.
• 1:24:18
  Let's just put it this way. You should look at the wording
• 1:24:21
  of the moves a little more literal.
• 1:24:24
  That's what I will say. Which bullet was at?
• 1:24:32
  Hold on. Is it OK?
• 1:24:36
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:24:39
  Well, if anyone's still following the plot here, I
• 1:24:41
  don't. I don't know how we got that far
• 1:24:42
  afield in the 1st place. I don't remember.
• 1:24:47
  It was it was running into fiction with monster arts that
• 1:24:49
  was like. I I, I know that was the the
• 1:24:52
  basic idea, but there's, I know there was something else in
• 1:24:55
  there that got things rolling figure.
• 1:24:58
  So all right. So if you've got, you've gone
• 1:25:01
  through the step of trying to figure out if the game is what
• 1:25:08
  you thought it was initially. So if the game isn't fully what
• 1:25:16
  you thought it was at first and is actually a little bit
• 1:25:19
  differently now that you've played it a little bit and got a
• 1:25:21
  better understanding, you're like, oh, it's it's a little
• 1:25:23
  different than what I was expecting.
• 1:25:25
  Then you have to kind of say to yourself, can you slash?
• 1:25:29
  Are you willing to hack it up to the point of turning it into
• 1:25:34
  what you do want? And that questions going to vary
• 1:25:42
  a lot for every person. And I don't necessarily have any
• 1:25:48
  particularly strong advice on how you can make that call.
• 1:25:54
  But, you know, obviously tabletop games, you can hack
• 1:25:59
  them, say to yourself, would it be easy to hack this into a
• 1:26:04
  position to make the game do what I thought it was going to
• 1:26:07
  do initially? Or is that going to be a fucking
• 1:26:10
  nightmare? Or do I want something so
• 1:26:12
  different from what the game is that it's going to be just too
• 1:26:16
  much hacking, it's not worth it. And you just got to kind of
• 1:26:18
  assess that scale personally and then decide from there, because
• 1:26:22
  that shit's going to be work. Obviously might not be a lot of
• 1:26:26
  work, or it might be a lot of work.
• 1:26:29
  You got to figure that out on a game by game basis or even
• 1:26:33
  potentially on a mechanic by mechanic.
• 1:26:35
  But like, maybe you're really only getting screwy with one
• 1:26:38
  particular subset of mechanics, and then it's could be a little
• 1:26:40
  easier to just hack up those mechanics.
• 1:26:48
  Then so you've gone through all that.
• 1:26:53
  You also might want to figure out if it's actually your
• 1:26:58
  players that aren't connecting with the system and that the
• 1:27:04
  friction is being caused because the players are not getting it
• 1:27:07
  or not liking it or whatever. And then you as the GM are
• 1:27:11
  responding to their confusion or frustration, which is then in
• 1:27:14
  turn creating confusion or frustration for you as the GM
• 1:27:20
  with the system. This this point can kind of
• 1:27:26
  encompass all of the previous points I made.
• 1:27:29
  Just reassess them on the player side of the table.
• 1:27:32
  So like all the other things I said, just flip them.
• 1:27:35
  This last one can kind of apply to all of those.
• 1:27:39
  So it might require more steps and a little more work to fix.
• 1:27:43
  If the players are the ones that are actually having like you as
• 1:27:49
  the GM thought, oh, this game is not gelling with me, actually,
• 1:27:53
  it's not gelling with your players.
• 1:27:55
  Then you have to go, OK, how am I dealing with that?
• 1:28:01
  That one is, is certainly a, a much fucking trickier problem.
• 1:28:07
  And I've had tolerate those before, like where a, a play
• 1:28:11
  like I remember specifically in hellscapes, there were certain
• 1:28:13
  characters who were like, well, so Paladin was one of them where
• 1:28:18
  it's like, you know, I want to upgrade the car and it's like,
• 1:28:22
  all right, well, the amount of time and effort it takes you to
• 1:28:25
  upgrade the car is like kind of mathematically it's it's the
• 1:28:29
  making magic items thing right where you're like, but the game
• 1:28:33
  practically speaking, will not allow for this kind of time
• 1:28:37
  frame. So what the fuck is even the
• 1:28:39
  point? And he had a lot of problems
• 1:28:40
  with that with trying to upgrade the car.
• 1:28:41
  So I had to make several concessions just to be like,
• 1:28:44
  it's what he built his character around.
• 1:28:45
  It's something he really cared about.
• 1:28:47
  You just got to let it rock. Yeah, that, yeah, I mean, that's
• 1:28:57
  essentially I was going to say, I was going to say that's a
• 1:29:01
  little different, but no, yeah, I guess that is basically the
• 1:29:03
  the player having a struggle with what the system is doing.
• 1:29:08
  Yeah, I mean, in that scenario you yeah, let it rock.
• 1:29:11
  But it could also be a like in that scenario, it was less the
• 1:29:17
  misunderstanding part and more just I want the game to do this
• 1:29:22
  thing and it's not doing this thing.
• 1:29:26
  And yeah, that that that scenario is actually probably a
• 1:29:28
  little bit easier than just full on not getting it.
• 1:29:34
  Although of course I. Think.
• 1:29:36
  There's still comes with its own Crocker problems, obviously.
• 1:29:38
  Well, you know, typically when a character finds, at least for
• 1:29:43
  me, when I have problems like that, as on the player side,
• 1:29:46
  it's because I didn't get the rule.
• 1:29:48
  And then it was explained to me and I went oh, well, I built my
• 1:29:50
  character around this like interpretation of the rules.
• 1:29:54
  So now I have to either change my character or exist in this
• 1:29:58
  like zone of not having fun. And I feel like that was how it
• 1:30:03
  was for him as well. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:30:08
  Of course, Like I'll clearly he'll he'll tell us in the next
• 1:30:11
  in the coming week, but. Probably.
• 1:30:13
  And and like I said, the this last point of, of it being on
• 1:30:18
  the player's side, you can then go back up the bullet point list
• 1:30:21
  and do all those steps on the player's side.
• 1:30:23
  So it's like, you know, have the player stick with it and see,
• 1:30:26
  have the player reread, have the player try and figure out is the
• 1:30:29
  issue me not getting it or just not liking it.
• 1:30:32
  And you know, in this case, it was probably a more of an
• 1:30:34
  element of just not liking it. And yeah, kind of go through it.
• 1:30:40
  You can't force players to do this kind of thing, obviously.
• 1:30:43
  But basically the the main, the main important element of this,
• 1:30:48
  this little point is that sometimes the struggle you're
• 1:30:52
  feeling with the system isn't actually your fault.
• 1:30:55
  You just might feel like it is, but it actually is someone else
• 1:31:00
  screwing with you and you just didn't realize it and it and
• 1:31:02
  that's not to me, that's not me like blaming the player.
• 1:31:05
  It just might genuinely be their confusion is causing you
• 1:31:08
  confusion or their struggle is causing you a struggle.
• 1:31:14
  And then of course, the very last bullet point, and you knew
• 1:31:17
  I was going to say this because I had to say this, consider
• 1:31:20
  another system. This is a big one.
• 1:31:23
  This is you may have. Had a.
• 1:31:27
  This is the crux of most of our podcast Play Different Games.
• 1:31:30
  Play other games. What a surprise.
• 1:31:32
  We have always come back around it.
• 1:31:33
  Yeah. Like, you may have had a really
• 1:31:35
  strong idea that simply is not going to work with the system
• 1:31:38
  that you are currently playing the way that you were hoping it
• 1:31:41
  would. But another game out there might
• 1:31:44
  right? If you wanted to run the open
• 1:31:46
  world hex crawl game and you decided you wanted to do it with
• 1:31:50
  Apocalypse world, like it's probably just not going to work.
• 1:31:56
  Look around for another system, right?
• 1:31:58
  Like if you want to try and play the if you want to play the
• 1:32:03
  hardcore dungeon, delver dungeons are brutal.
• 1:32:06
  We need to track every torch. 5E is not doing that for you.
• 1:32:10
  But Shadow Dark will, right? So you know, there, yeah, if you
• 1:32:16
  tried every other step, the very last step is all right.
• 1:32:20
  Maybe different game and yeah, maybe different game.
• 1:32:27
  Like I don't, I don't have a lot more to extrapolate on that one
• 1:32:30
  because it's pretty. It's a pretty self-evident
• 1:32:33
  answer of how to feel right? Like try a new game and see how
• 1:32:42
  the new game goes and hopefully once you try the new game you
• 1:32:46
  don't have to go through all of the same steps with the new game
• 1:32:49
  because wow that would be dog shit.
• 1:32:52
  Yeah, that'd be fucking ass. Like you pick a new system and
• 1:32:55
  then you're like fuck, it's not working again.
• 1:32:57
  But I'm sure that happens to people.
• 1:33:01
  And yeah, like basically that's the Ripcord option.
• 1:33:05
  Try a new game, RIP that bitch and do a different one.
• 1:33:08
  Yeah, I mean like, so this was me with with Lancer for sure.
• 1:33:12
  Or like with the Met game that would eventually become the
• 1:33:14
  Lancer game. Because at first I was like, OK,
• 1:33:19
  what's the up and over on players learning something other
• 1:33:22
  than 5 E And then I was like originally you probably remember
• 1:33:26
  this. I was like, not great.
• 1:33:28
  Not great. And then I was like, oh, OK,
• 1:33:31
  well, that that 15 E hack that I don't know if it ever got
• 1:33:34
  produced, but the you know, the the game came out for testing
• 1:33:36
  that I have my hands on called carbon that has like a full mech
• 1:33:41
  like battle suit combat section. And I was like, OK, well, maybe
• 1:33:44
  we can just use this as a majority and like finagle some
• 1:33:48
  shit in a hellscape style way. And then I was like, well,
• 1:33:51
  maybe, maybe I'm, I'm getting too caught up on the rules.
• 1:33:54
  I want to go the opposite direction.
• 1:33:56
  And that's when I was looking at Beam Saber.
• 1:33:59
  And then I was like, well, Beam Saber doesn't have the
• 1:34:01
  modularity that I want. It just can't, given that it's
• 1:34:05
  Powered by the Apocalypse game. Like it's not going to have that
• 1:34:07
  crush. Well, that's a that's a Forge in
• 1:34:08
  the Dark game. Yeah, I mean it.
• 1:34:12
  I think beam Saber could have had more of that modularity than
• 1:34:15
  it did. But not not that I wanted.
• 1:34:18
  Like Lancer really hit the nail on the head for exactly what I
• 1:34:22
  wanted. Like, I know what you mean, but
• 1:34:24
  I think there is a lot of room in the Forge of the Dark system
• 1:34:28
  for that kind of next level of like character customize.
• 1:34:34
  And I just, I don't know that I've seen anyone tap into it.
• 1:34:37
  There might be a game that has done it that I just don't know
• 1:34:38
  about obviously. But I I think the room is there
• 1:34:42
  in a blade style, like in a Forge of the Dark system.
• 1:34:45
  You just got to, you just got to like kind of reassess from the
• 1:34:49
  start a little bit, you know what I mean?
• 1:34:53
  Like I, I, I get, I see, I see the untapped potential is what
• 1:34:56
  I'm saying. I don't, but I will take your
• 1:34:59
  word for it. You've played it more than I
• 1:35:00
  have. You've played the system more
• 1:35:02
  than I have. I see the I, there's, there's
• 1:35:04
  these little like, how do I put it?
• 1:35:09
  There's these little like windows within Blades in the
• 1:35:13
  Dark that I can see how you could like expand it further.
• 1:35:21
  I mean, that's, I mean, that's true of of a lot of games,
• 1:35:24
  obviously. But I think Blades, Blades in
• 1:35:26
  particular, actually, I remember giving me quite a few ideas at
• 1:35:30
  the time of running it. And clearly, obviously it gave
• 1:35:32
  other people ideas too, because Forge in the Dark games became a
• 1:35:35
  thing. So you know.
• 1:35:37
  Right, so but I feel like could you really go past the for
• 1:35:40
  example, like and this is not a forge in the dark game, but it
• 1:35:42
  is you know, they are both offshoots of of PBCA, the like
• 1:35:46
  fighter in Dungeon World and you get more modular then like
• 1:35:51
  ignores armor to some degree, a little bit more damage role
• 1:35:56
  modifiers like. Yes, because it would be, but it
• 1:36:00
  just would be less. It would be less about the
• 1:36:04
  numbers and more like fictional focused.
• 1:36:07
  Like it wouldn't be, you know, like like in D&D if the sort of
• 1:36:16
  undead slang is like if the enemy is an undead type, you
• 1:36:19
  deal double damage and ignore their resistances or whatever,
• 1:36:22
  right? Like that would be kind of the
• 1:36:23
  D&D method. And to do a similar thing in
• 1:36:25
  Dungeon World, it would be if you would, if this blade attacks
• 1:36:28
  an undead enemy, they cannot reconstitute themselves and you
• 1:36:33
  know, one solid strike, you know, removes them from the
• 1:36:37
  fight completely. Like it would be it would be
• 1:36:38
  more of a fictional emphasis and it or it would be more of a
• 1:36:43
  fictional bonus type situation rather than numerical just
• 1:36:48
  because the game is a little bit less focused on the numerical.
• 1:36:51
  Although blades I think has a decent amount of numerical
• 1:36:54
  wiggle room within it. Kind of like the what was that?
• 1:37:03
  It's it's like the ability to whisper, get some blades to like
• 1:37:07
  summon lightning and or like make a storm.
• 1:37:11
  It doesn't have a lot of numerical mechanical.
• 1:37:14
  This is what makes it good parts to it, but it's like fictionally
• 1:37:18
  you are literally making a storm happen and fictionally there's a
• 1:37:23
  lot of powerful potential within.
• 1:37:24
  That yeah, I mean that that that brings me to a separate thing
• 1:37:29
  that I have with Monster Hearts where and this might be PBCA in
• 1:37:34
  general. And it's it's the narrative
• 1:37:35
  first games that I think do this is how much extrapolation should
• 1:37:41
  you do reasonably, right? Like I, I ran into the problem
• 1:37:45
  when we were playing with Fran, right?
• 1:37:47
  Like, well, my, you know, my character at least hitting a
• 1:37:50
  normal person does 3 harm or at least two harm.
• 1:37:54
  Sorry, which is like, that's enough to put someone in the
• 1:37:57
  hospital. So would it not make sense that
• 1:37:58
  I have a degree of higher than normal borderline super strength
• 1:38:02
  if a punch to the jaw can do that to somebody, you know,
• 1:38:06
  like, and then I, I, I've had situations in my game where
• 1:38:09
  players have been like, oh, well, I'm this thing.
• 1:38:11
  Does it not make sense that I should just be able to do this
• 1:38:14
  thing even though it's not listed in my moves and?
• 1:38:18
  Well, I mean, sometimes sort of kind of, but I feel like you're
• 1:38:22
  jumping through a couple of hoops of assumption on that one
• 1:38:25
  a little bit. I also I don't remember what why
• 1:38:28
  you're what. Why is your character's baseline
• 1:38:30
  harm higher? Because I have a higher than
• 1:38:33
  normal or no I literally I literally have a move that's if
• 1:38:39
  I do things in a certain order, I just do more harm.
• 1:38:41
  I just do plus one harm. You can get to 1 attack does 3
• 1:38:45
  harm if you get the two moves that up your harm.
• 1:38:48
  I mean it would it depends on the fictional justification in
• 1:38:53
  the context of what the ability. Like why the ability is giving
• 1:38:57
  you extra harm for starters. Some of them, some sometimes
• 1:39:04
  it's more evident than others. I mean, the, you know, I can't
• 1:39:11
  think of a great example off the top of my head right now, but
• 1:39:14
  like the idea, the idea is that sometimes it will be fictionally
• 1:39:27
  evident and sometimes there will be a little bit of a like, you
• 1:39:36
  know, it will be a little bit unclear.
• 1:39:38
  And in those situations, the GM, you know, sort of just has to
• 1:39:42
  interpret the language between themselves and the players, but
• 1:39:47
  it it really is the follow the fiction.
• 1:39:50
  So like for example, if if the reason your character deals one
• 1:39:58
  extra harm is because they have like they're they're they have
• 1:40:04
  like magical spirit claws that like cut through a person's
• 1:40:08
  soul. And so every time they attack
• 1:40:09
  someone, it hurts more because you're like hurting their spirit
• 1:40:14
  fictionally. OK, that doesn't necessarily
• 1:40:17
  imply that your character is stronger, but if the move is
• 1:40:20
  like. You're you know, you do extra
• 1:40:23
  harm because you just hit that fucking hard, Then yes, it is
• 1:40:25
  kind of implying you are just stronger and you yeah, it it
• 1:40:31
  really is. Look to the logical fiction.
• 1:40:33
  I, I forget, I forget how Apocalypse World describes this
• 1:40:37
  whole thing, but it, it's, it's basically idea of, of follow the
• 1:40:41
  fiction and kind of do what makes sense.
• 1:40:48
  And what makes sense also can adjust depending on the
• 1:40:52
  situation too, right? Like if the characters are in a,
• 1:40:56
  you know, I don't know, a different dimension or
• 1:40:58
  something, the rules may change and then what makes sense will
• 1:41:01
  shift. But it it really all Harkins
• 1:41:05
  back to follow the fiction and don't don't follow the fiction
• 1:41:13
  instead of the numbers is really what we're getting at right?
• 1:41:16
  Like D&D is follow the numbers. If you have a + 5 in strength,
• 1:41:19
  you can reasonably lift X amount, whereas Apocalypse World
• 1:41:22
  is follow the fiction even if you have a plus too hard.
• 1:41:25
  That doesn't necessarily translate to you being able to
• 1:41:29
  do XY or Z thing, but it could. Yeah, I suppose.
• 1:41:37
  There's more layers of answer to this, but like it's too much to
• 1:41:40
  get into. Yeah, I mean, 'cause I'm going
• 1:41:43
  by the harm, like what it says for harm, right?
• 1:41:44
  If you get, you get a solid hit to the temple with an aluminum
• 1:41:46
  bat to harm. If you get hit by a car, that's
• 1:41:49
  three harm. Yeah.
• 1:41:50
  So in a situation where I can do deal with three harm, that's I'm
• 1:41:55
  effectively hitting someone with a car with a punch.
• 1:41:59
  So that would assume that yeah, I could RIP a subwoofer off like
• 1:42:04
  a broken leg, or I can lift a subwoofer off a person's broken
• 1:42:07
  leg. Now granted I didn't do I
• 1:42:09
  couldn't do too harm at that moment, but like presumably even
• 1:42:12
  that I still have a better shot than someone else.
• 1:42:15
  I'm side note, I'm not seeing a move that let's you do more
• 1:42:17
  harm. I'm looking but.
• 1:42:18
  Rebel with the. 'Cause I don't what if it not
• 1:42:22
  just for yourself someone else, you may deal in additional harm
• 1:42:24
  and get treat your rules. OK.
• 1:42:28
  So I would say no, that doesn't imply that you're stronger
• 1:42:32
  because that specifically says when you fight not just for
• 1:42:35
  yourself, but someone else. So it's like the extra harm is
• 1:42:39
  that added like vigor that like it's like the mom lifting the
• 1:42:44
  car off the baby because the baby's hurt, the mom can't
• 1:42:46
  always lift the car, right? That kind of idea.
• 1:42:48
  I would argue that doesn't mean you're just like ultimately
• 1:42:51
  stronger. Now, what I would argue is that
• 1:42:54
  if it's a situation where that concept rebel for A cause
• 1:42:59
  applies, but you aren't trying to hurt someone, then I might be
• 1:43:03
  like, OK, yeah, in this scenario you can potentially be stronger.
• 1:43:06
  Like, that might make sense, but I wouldn't necessarily say it
• 1:43:09
  means you're just always stronger.
• 1:43:12
  But that's following the fiction of how that move is worded.
• 1:43:15
  Specifically the when you fight not just for yourself part of
• 1:43:19
  it, but for someone else. But like, that's me as an M that
• 1:43:25
  that would be me ruling it as MC Someone else might rule it a
• 1:43:30
  little differently. Yeah, I suppose I, I don't know,
• 1:43:34
  because I'm running into this thing.
• 1:43:35
  To be fair, I I just care less in my Monster Hearts game.
• 1:43:38
  I just give less of a shit about the like.
• 1:43:40
  Harm is also not always 1 to 1 literal in that way.
• 1:43:47
  Like yeah, I know that it describes like to harm is like
• 1:43:50
  getting hit with a bat. It's not, it's not always
• 1:43:55
  literally like an increase of physical damage.
• 1:43:58
  It can carry a degree of like emotional or narrative or, or
• 1:44:04
  like there can be context sort of adding to the harm.
• 1:44:07
  Like there is an element of that in the same way that like the
• 1:44:10
  battle babe in Apocalypse World can have two armor when they're
• 1:44:14
  naked or nearly naked. It is like a there's an element
• 1:44:17
  of like cinematic fictional context is applying this thing
• 1:44:26
  in a less literal way. There is, yeah.
• 1:44:29
  I don't know. It's this might just be my
• 1:44:31
  eternal one of my few eternal grudges with the Powered by
• 1:44:34
  Apocalypse. Yes, I know you hate good games.
• 1:44:36
  I know. Follow the fiction and then you
• 1:44:38
  but you know you ask, especially when it's something like
• 1:44:40
  werewolf like one of my werewolf player had this question where
• 1:44:43
  where Siffy was like I'm a werewolf.
• 1:44:44
  Am I not just big? Can I not just punch?
• 1:44:47
  Like, am I not just huge? And I was like, I mean, you're
• 1:44:50
  you're wolf. So like, yeah, I mean, I guess.
• 1:44:52
  Ken, just punch. Yeah, no, I mean, she, she was
• 1:44:55
  being facetious. I believe she was trying to RIP
• 1:44:58
  a door off its hinges. Oh yeah, look, yeah.
• 1:45:06
  I mean, yeah, like that's what I'm trying to.
• 1:45:09
  OK, This is the thing that's I think this is what confused me.
• 1:45:13
  The thing that I want is I guess I want I I kind of want
• 1:45:18
  definitives without up to MC interpretation and OK.
• 1:45:22
  But here's the thing. You're saying that you're you're
• 1:45:24
  having an issue with the game, but you're literally doing
• 1:45:27
  exactly what the game is telling you to do.
• 1:45:29
  Like you're you, you, you're doing it.
• 1:45:31
  The the player is like AM werewolf can RIP off Dor and you
• 1:45:35
  go fictionally AM Werewolf, yes, can RIP off Dor.
• 1:45:39
  That's you. You did it.
• 1:45:40
  Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know I did.
• 1:45:42
  That's all the game. I know I did it.
• 1:45:44
  I don't want on some degree I don't want to have to like
• 1:45:50
  deliberate. I want game to tell me is
• 1:45:52
  werewolf can RIP off door you know.
• 1:45:55
  OK, but this is this is literally, you're never going to
• 1:45:58
  get that. I know, I know, this is
• 1:46:00
  uninteresting. It's.
• 1:46:01
  It's one of my few points of contention with a with a system
• 1:46:04
  that I otherwise quite like. Yeah, I mean, you're just asking
• 1:46:09
  for something you're never going to get.
• 1:46:10
  So I, I, I, I, you know, like. You have to do this weird thing
• 1:46:14
  where like again like you, you, you have to sort of make strange
• 1:46:17
  equivalencies by looking at harm and like doing some like
• 1:46:19
  implication of the rules. Or just following logic, right?
• 1:46:26
  Like, 'cause with the werewolf thing, you're just following
• 1:46:29
  logic. Granted, it's, you know,
• 1:46:31
  horseshit, fictional logic, but like, it is logic in the sense
• 1:46:34
  that we all kind of have a cultural understanding what a
• 1:46:36
  werewolf is, right? Like, yeah, I.
• 1:46:42
  Yes, yes, I I get it is frustrating.
• 1:46:48
  I mean, I guess I don't know tell you, if you find it that
• 1:46:50
  frustrating, then it's just not a game for you to run is really
• 1:46:53
  all I can say at that point. Well I mean I I don't think
• 1:46:56
  having umbrage with one specific aspect of the rules is enough to
• 1:47:01
  change games entirely. It's not a core thing, it is
• 1:47:04
  just a good thing that I find frustrating.
• 1:47:05
  But that's a pretty big, that's a pretty big element of the
• 1:47:08
  system. So if you had, I feel like if
• 1:47:11
  you take a lot of umbrage with it, I would, I don't know.
• 1:47:14
  I like, I, it's kind of a tough sell to be running it.
• 1:47:22
  Not really. Like it's a pretty cooler
• 1:47:24
  element talked about. It's you just kind of go, all
• 1:47:26
  right, I disagree and I don't like it, but like I'm just going
• 1:47:28
  to look past it. Right, you can, but I, I'm
• 1:47:31
  saying if it bothers you that much, then perhaps just not for
• 1:47:36
  you to run is what I'm saying. Like like, I don't know how much
• 1:47:41
  it bothers you, but I'm getting the, I'm getting the
• 1:47:44
  interpretation that it bothers you a lot.
• 1:47:49
  So. No more than like prepping
• 1:47:51
  combat does for the common D&D like Dungeon Master.
• 1:47:56
  Like it's a thing that I have to contend with.
• 1:47:59
  That frustrates me and I wish it didn't do this, and I wish there
• 1:48:02
  was more clear answers. But.
• 1:48:03
  OK, but do you understand that if it started doing what you
• 1:48:08
  want, it would open a whole can of worms that would have like
• 1:48:12
  never ending? Like it would just you just be
• 1:48:16
  like limitlessly or you just never be satisfied?
• 1:48:19
  Like you get what I'm saying? Like if the game starts being
• 1:48:23
  like gives you a bullet point our werewolf so can RIP off
• 1:48:27
  door, you now open a can of worms that you need to have
• 1:48:30
  these kind of bullet point elements to like every playbook.
• 1:48:33
  And then you start getting into different interpretations of the
• 1:48:38
  same kind of thing, right? Like.
• 1:48:40
  Well, so you can sort of you can, you can.
• 1:48:42
  Cultural interpretations, right? Like, werewolves are one thing
• 1:48:46
  to American versus one thing to like a European person or
• 1:48:48
  whatever. Like.
• 1:48:49
  Well, yes, but you can. Open.
• 1:48:50
  It's a bit of a can of. Worms.
• 1:48:52
  You can make concessions like you can make it.
• 1:48:55
  You can compromise this pretty easily.
• 1:48:57
  Like if there's a part of the book that says like monsters are
• 1:49:01
  just that they are not normal people, you can expect monsters
• 1:49:05
  to have abilities that might seem superhuman.
• 1:49:09
  Like, uh huh. That's a definitive answer that
• 1:49:12
  tells me as much as I need to know, given what I need to know.
• 1:49:18
  But it that's not but. It's not exactly what I want,
• 1:49:23
  but it's a compromise. Definitive as to say like.
• 1:49:26
  I wouldn't call that a definitive answer, but I I still
• 1:49:28
  it's a compromise. That's what I said.
• 1:49:30
  It's even just doing that. I still feel like there's a can
• 1:49:34
  of worms being opened up there. There is no matter what, anytime
• 1:49:38
  you make a definitive statement like the harm thing, right?
• 1:49:40
  We just agreed that harm can be an emotional thing, but they
• 1:49:44
  don't really describe that emotional harm.
• 1:49:46
  They almost always describe it as just physical harm, so the
• 1:49:50
  game already does that. Like you can't really be afraid
• 1:49:53
  to to make those. I didn't necessarily say it can
• 1:49:56
  be an emotional, I didn't necessarily say it can be an
• 1:50:00
  emotional thing. I'm saying it can have a little
• 1:50:02
  bit of a broader narrative context.
• 1:50:05
  I'm not saying you can like hurt someone's feelings and that
• 1:50:07
  counts as harm, but I just, I don't know.
• 1:50:14
  I don't really know what else to tell you.
• 1:50:15
  Like it's just not going to. It's just not going to do that.
• 1:50:23
  It could though, like it could easily and it it I I genuinely
• 1:50:26
  think it wouldn't. It wouldn't stray too far from
• 1:50:30
  what the game already has, especially something that minor
• 1:50:34
  just being like monsters. Just you can just expect them to
• 1:50:37
  do weird things. I mean that one example for
• 1:50:40
  monster hearts like I suppose, but I don't know, I I still feel
• 1:50:46
  like you just have to be always cognizant of the slippery slope
• 1:50:49
  that is trying to design for right.
• 1:50:52
  This is this is what got us that old school game design fucking
• 1:50:57
  Christ for yourself topic. This is what got us that old
• 1:50:59
  school game design where the game that was about playing, you
• 1:51:05
  know, superheroes had like 40-5 pages of rules for how to
• 1:51:10
  furnish your apartment. And it's because they were
• 1:51:13
  trying to design A rule or a thing or a comment on every
• 1:51:19
  single like every little edge case that they could ever think
• 1:51:25
  of, right? This is also why 3.5 had such a
• 1:51:27
  bloated list of feats because they were trying to design like
• 1:51:30
  every little corner, like every style of cool hero they could
• 1:51:34
  possibly think of. And it's, it, it becomes such a
• 1:51:36
  slippery slope that if you take a system that's intentionally a
• 1:51:40
  little open more than a little that's intentionally open and
• 1:51:45
  about following a fictional basis like Apocalypse World, if
• 1:51:48
  you take that and then try and start building an edge case and
• 1:51:51
  stuff, then it's even more of a problem because the open system
• 1:51:55
  is now sort of in a way being a little less open or trying to
• 1:52:00
  cover edge like you got I I just feel like you need to always be
• 1:52:04
  wary of that slippery slope because I don't want 45 pages of
• 1:52:07
  apartment furniture. No, look and I, I totally agree,
• 1:52:10
  although, and I disagree, I think we are 100% on topic
• 1:52:12
  because we are literally talking about friction within rule sets
• 1:52:14
  that we like or and or running. So I think we're perfectly on
• 1:52:17
  topic here. But sure, I think when it comes
• 1:52:21
  to like like, yes, I'm, I'm aware of the slippery slope and
• 1:52:24
  I don't want them. I don't want to know that
• 1:52:28
  werewolves like, you know, I don't necessarily want the the
• 1:52:31
  in monster hearts, at least the werewolf, the apocalypse.
• 1:52:34
  Like, yes, a werewolf can RIP a tank, like a a tank barrel off
• 1:52:37
  of the tank. I don't I don't need to go that
• 1:52:39
  far. But if you tell me in the start
• 1:52:41
  of the rules, monsters are have are are more abled than most
• 1:52:47
  normal people can be, right. And then in the werewolf
• 1:52:51
  section, it's like werewolves are known for their unmatched
• 1:52:54
  physical strength. That's all I need to know,
• 1:52:58
  right? Like, I don't have to know, like
• 1:53:00
  what the tonnage that that werewolf can can bench press.
• 1:53:04
  But if you tell me and and werewolves are the only ones
• 1:53:07
  that bring up how physically strong they are, you go, OK,
• 1:53:10
  well, werewolves are probably the strongest monsters in the
• 1:53:12
  system. They're the only one that get a
• 1:53:13
  statement about it. So if if my werewolf player
• 1:53:16
  goes, I can drip, like, RIP a door off its hinges, right?
• 1:53:18
  I'm like, wow, you got that unmatched physical strength the
• 1:53:21
  game likes to talk about. So yeah, do it, you know?
• 1:53:25
  Yeah, like, I mean, I guess I'm always, I just, I can't, I, I
• 1:53:36
  immediately think, I don't know. I just think how it can go bad
• 1:53:41
  fast I guess. Is really, and I get that I do,
• 1:53:43
  I think I think the disconnect for you or the disconnect
• 1:53:47
  between us, right, is that we can like you are probably
• 1:53:50
  thinking about this in a more a, a, a standardized powered by the
• 1:53:55
  apocalypse where things are explained well and the narrative
• 1:53:58
  is described well and you, you give you're given the exact
• 1:54:01
  information you need to get as far as you need to get.
• 1:54:05
  Well, you and I are both aware that monster hearts is skint on
• 1:54:08
  information at times and I want to skint that information back
• 1:54:12
  right. Like if we're only.
• 1:54:14
  If we're only talking monster hearts specifically, sure.
• 1:54:17
  I can see the element of it being overly skint.
• 1:54:23
  Like I, I guess my thing is just ultimately the flow of it works
• 1:54:30
  for me well enough that I'm OK just rocking and rolling with
• 1:54:35
  what I got and then going from there.
• 1:54:39
  Like, right. Yeah, but like in the same vein
• 1:54:41
  that people might not have any problems with the the challenge
• 1:54:43
  rating system, but you and I fucking hate it.
• 1:54:47
  Right. No, I know.
• 1:54:47
  I get that. I I'm just saying, I guess I
• 1:54:53
  ultimately don't feel the need because in, in my mind it gels
• 1:54:58
  well enough as is. And something like the werewolf
• 1:55:03
  player asking me if they could RIP the door off, I would simply
• 1:55:06
  say yes and not even have a second thought about it.
• 1:55:08
  Like it wouldn't be a deliberation.
• 1:55:11
  I mean, it'd be a deliberation from a second or two of it'd be
• 1:55:13
  like, well, yeah, OK, yeah, right.
• 1:55:15
  Like it'd be it'd be 1/2 a second of thought, but it
• 1:55:17
  wouldn't be a long deliberation because I am confident enough in
• 1:55:24
  what PBAPBTA games are trying to do that I would roll with it and
• 1:55:28
  be relatively confident that I made the correct decision.
• 1:55:33
  And funnily enough, D&D actually tells you to do that.
• 1:55:41
  But then because of the numberiness, the mathiness of
• 1:55:48
  how it's designed, it I I personally do not feel confident
• 1:55:53
  calling it on RIP in D&D as much.
• 1:55:57
  Oh see, that's interesting because I am more confident
• 1:55:59
  calling it on RIP in D and DI. Like I I play it very hard and
• 1:56:03
  fast with with I I don't I know how bloated constantly asking
• 1:56:10
  for roles can be in. So when I ran hellscapes, by the
• 1:56:14
  end it was passives on everything like unless they were
• 1:56:19
  like in the middle of a gunfight, I was like, oh, you
• 1:56:21
  got 24 strength. So yeah, you can probably RIP
• 1:56:25
  that tank in half because it just didn't give a fuck at that
• 1:56:29
  point. And I think I mean the passive.
• 1:56:33
  Things, the passive thing is a slightly different, that's a
• 1:56:38
  little different because that is a mechanic the game is giving
• 1:56:40
  you. We're talking about finding a
• 1:56:42
  space where the game is not necessarily giving you a
• 1:56:44
  mechanic. But for me, the reason I don't
• 1:56:48
  feel as confident doing it with 5 E is because as soon as I make
• 1:56:51
  an on RIP call in 5 E, my brain immediately goes, yeah, but does
• 1:56:56
  the does the math check out there, right?
• 1:56:59
  Like does that math make sense? Does the math flow there?
• 1:57:02
  And maybe that's just because I fucking suck at math, so I just
• 1:57:05
  always assume I'm wrong. Maybe that's where this is
• 1:57:09
  coming from. I'm willing to make a call in
• 1:57:11
  Apocalypse World or or some other Pbta game 'cause I'm
• 1:57:14
  making a narrative decision, whereas in D and DI feel like
• 1:57:18
  I'm always making a math decision at which I always
• 1:57:20
  assume I am incorrect at. Interesting.
• 1:57:23
  OK. I every time I do any kind of
• 1:57:29
  figuring the math out while running, I assume I'm wrong
• 1:57:32
  first because I know how I beat and I can commonly.
• 1:57:41
  I'll commonly look at 8 + 4 and go.
• 1:57:43
  That equals 10 and it doesn't. It doesn't equal 10.
• 1:57:47
  In, I don't know, like so in a situation, right?
• 1:57:52
  Like I, I, I play the game how I, how I would run the game,
• 1:57:57
  right? So the, I think the most famous
• 1:58:00
  1 of this in recent memory is the sack of flour thing, right?
• 1:58:04
  In my head, I would rule the sack of flour explodes and does
• 1:58:07
  a little extra damage because it's a vapor explosion, right?
• 1:58:10
  It's going to, it inherently has to do more logically.
• 1:58:14
  No, I know that's what you did. Mostly what I did.
• 1:58:16
  No, no, so I'm not saying that's I'm not saying like you failed
• 1:58:19
  there as AGM at all. But like to me that's shit.
• 1:58:23
  My my, my brain went OK, ABC where you were like, wait, hold
• 1:58:28
  on. Let me think about this for a
• 1:58:29
  second. Let me see if this math works
• 1:58:31
  like. Yes, because the reason the
• 1:58:36
  reason I'm having that thought is because when D and DD and D
• 1:58:42
  has rules for things like improvised weapons and like, you
• 1:58:46
  know, rules for how much damage the dynamite should do.
• 1:58:48
  So immediately, as soon as you're like, I'm going to whip
• 1:58:51
  out this unorthodox method of doing damage, My next immediate
• 1:58:54
  thought is how much damage should it be?
• 1:58:58
  And is this damage on curve for what makes sense both in
• 1:59:02
  universe but also mechanically? Because if I say that the vapor,
• 1:59:07
  if I say that the flower explosion causes 20D eights
• 1:59:11
  worth of damage, you guys are just going to use flour for
• 1:59:13
  everything 'cause that's way out of curve of your current damage
• 1:59:17
  and you're just going to become the flower grenadiers.
• 1:59:20
  But if I say it does AD 4 and that's it, you're probably never
• 1:59:25
  going to do it again 'cause it's not that worth it, right?
• 1:59:29
  So I immediately go, what math, what damage makes sense on
• 1:59:32
  curve? And I'm not confident enough in
• 1:59:35
  my ability to whip that math out on the fly that I assume I'm
• 1:59:39
  correct when I make that on the fly math.
• 1:59:41
  Decision. Do you do I?
• 1:59:42
  I can give you, I mean genuine advice that I use for this and
• 1:59:46
  you're gonna think this is funny.
• 1:59:49
  I call it fireball math. Everything is D sixes.
• 1:59:53
  That's not standard damage. Fireball is as strong as a hand
• 1:59:56
  grenade and I just mental that out.
• 1:59:59
  Sure. And that is, that is, I think
• 2:00:02
  pretty much kind of what DND wants you to do.
• 2:00:05
  But the thing that throws me off with that, like it's not
• 2:00:10
  necessarily a bad idea. The only thing that throws me
• 2:00:13
  off with it is that the game itself has stuff like how much
• 2:00:16
  damage an improvised weapon should do and like how much
• 2:00:19
  damage alchemist fire does and like how much damage dynamite
• 2:00:23
  does. And those all operate on these
• 2:00:26
  like different damage scales. And D&D loves to play hide the
• 2:00:31
  ball with a lot of it's under, under the hood math.
• 2:00:34
  So I, I can't reverse engineer that shit, you know, like I'm
• 2:00:41
  not good enough for that to break it down.
• 2:00:43
  You can sort of hit her dither it right?
• 2:00:45
  Like if you're like, OK, well the fireball is AD 6, alchemist
• 2:00:48
  fire is 1D6, and if alchemist fire is basically a Molotov,
• 2:00:52
  then a pressurized version probably be a little bit more
• 2:00:54
  effective. So it's probably 2D6 like.
• 2:00:57
  I mean, you're, you're, you're you're bringing a little a
• 2:00:59
  degree of real world logic in here that I don't like.
• 2:01:07
  Also, I don't know the the strength of a Malta versus like
• 2:01:10
  a grenade or shit, I've never thrown or used one of those, you
• 2:01:12
  know what I mean? Like, I guess like how much
• 2:01:15
  damage does a grenade do you know what I'm saying?
• 2:01:18
  Well, actually that's a bad example because there is a.
• 2:01:19
  There is an answer to that in the book, but you know what I
• 2:01:21
  mean. Well, yes, I mean, there there
• 2:01:24
  is. And this is where I'm kind of at
• 2:01:26
  fault, right? Where I am sort of making
• 2:01:28
  arbitrary decisions when the game does is not directly giving
• 2:01:30
  them to me. I know I just complained about
• 2:01:32
  this, but I feel like I I get more of AI feel like the mass
• 2:01:37
  backing in D&D makes me more comfortable, where I feel like I
• 2:01:39
  have no backing in monster hearts other than the narrative,
• 2:01:44
  which is an innately nebulous thing that is not a concrete.
• 2:01:51
  So you're willing to RIP it on the math, but not willing to RIP
• 2:01:54
  it on like a story beat? Well, so here's the thing, when
• 2:01:58
  you start ripping on ripping it on story beats, you get into a
• 2:02:02
  slippery slope, at least in my opinion, where, and this is
• 2:02:07
  again, this is something I'm having in monster Hearts where
• 2:02:09
  characters are just like, can I just do this thing?
• 2:02:11
  And I'm like, like, yes, like our character's like, oh,
• 2:02:16
  because my back story is this thing.
• 2:02:17
  Can I just do this thing? And then, you know, so at some
• 2:02:20
  point, some characters are kind of fishing for the yes, and some
• 2:02:23
  are trying to make a legitimate point.
• 2:02:26
  But if you like, you have to arbitrate those things on the
• 2:02:30
  fly and then you're never like there's no real winning that
• 2:02:33
  situation. You just kind of have to like
• 2:02:35
  agree above board to do it. But that like it can lead to
• 2:02:39
  some sticky situations that I'm running into in monster hards
• 2:02:41
  now. Thankfully I just don't give a
• 2:02:42
  shit about the like general balance or.
• 2:02:46
  I just, I just, I don't know, I'm so perplexed by the idea
• 2:02:49
  that you're more concerned about ripping like a narrative
• 2:02:53
  decision, which is essentially like a story beat versus ripping
• 2:02:57
  the math because there's so much more wiggle room on like a
• 2:03:03
  narrative decision. And I feel like the chance of a
• 2:03:06
  player getting like feeling like it's unfair or whatever is lower
• 2:03:12
  because you're ultimately like following the fiction, following
• 2:03:15
  what makes sense. Like generally the decision you
• 2:03:17
  come up with is gonna make sense in the moment.
• 2:03:19
  Like you're not going to make a completely asinine out of pocket
• 2:03:23
  decision most of the time. Sounds like like.
• 2:03:27
  You're not, but it feels less. It feels like you've got less
• 2:03:29
  ground to stand on. Like it feels like the ground is
• 2:03:32
  less solid, like the. Ground the The ground you're
• 2:03:34
  standing on is the narrative in the moment.
• 2:03:37
  Right, so like, OK, perfect example.
• 2:03:38
  Like so Fran is playing a Faye. She very specifically is like, I
• 2:03:43
  want to play like a little fire spirit thing.
• 2:03:45
  I'm like, OK, it's not what Faye naturally do, but that's how you
• 2:03:48
  want to spin it. Fair enough.
• 2:03:49
  That sounds cool. And then she kind of was like,
• 2:03:53
  because I'm stuck in my darkest self, I'm made of fire.
• 2:03:55
  Can I just kind of like Willow whisk in directions right 'cause
• 2:04:01
  I'm literally made of of weightless thing.
• 2:04:03
  Can I just kind of fly? And then I'm like, OK, well,
• 2:04:05
  like the ghost has that. We have a ghost.
• 2:04:07
  She can't fly 'cause she doesn't have that thing.
• 2:04:08
  I think she does, but I didn't think about it at this time,
• 2:04:10
  right. Like those are the calls that I,
• 2:04:12
  I feel less concrete in. Whereas if I use, as I coined
• 2:04:18
  it, fireball logic in the same situation, the character's like,
• 2:04:21
  well, I'm made of fire and I can shoot little wispy like Pew pews
• 2:04:24
  and I go, OK, well, like fly fire bolt at like this level
• 2:04:29
  that you're at is like a 2D6. So like you can probably.
• 2:04:31
  She wasn't asking to shoot Pew pews though.
• 2:04:33
  She was asking to fly. No, I know, but like yes the the
• 2:04:36
  equivalent is not perfect, but you can see where the logic
• 2:04:38
  lies. I guess I just don't understand
• 2:04:42
  why you couldn't just say, yeah, sure you can fly.
• 2:04:44
  I did, I did, but then the question would then for come up.
• 2:04:48
  Well, she's not a fae. None of her moves say she can
• 2:04:50
  fly. I'm a ghost.
• 2:04:52
  One of my moves is that I have to physically take an
• 2:04:54
  advancement to fly. And my whole thing is I am a
• 2:04:57
  spirit. Why does gravity weigh me down?
• 2:04:58
  Right, you can. Now Cass didn't make that
• 2:05:01
  argument, but she could have. And I would be like, oh, you
• 2:05:04
  know what I mean, like. Right.
• 2:05:06
  And then the mechanical argument, the the mechanical
• 2:05:10
  answer, if you're looking at it as a gameplay mechanic is like,
• 2:05:13
  well, it's not something I'm giving her all the time.
• 2:05:15
  It's something that she asked for in the moment because of her
• 2:05:18
  darkest self, which is something that already is kind of giving
• 2:05:21
  her a downside, right? So it made sense to me to give
• 2:05:25
  it to her as her darkest self. You as the ghost can spend
• 2:05:28
  essentially, it's all about what does it cost, right?
• 2:05:30
  To have the ability, if the cost is I have to go into my darkest
• 2:05:34
  self to be able to do that, that's pretty hefty cost.
• 2:05:36
  If the cost is I take a level up advancement, that's a cost one
• 2:05:39
  time and then you just got that shit free money, right?
• 2:05:42
  So that's a perfectly reasonable trade off from a game play game
• 2:05:47
  design standpoint in my head. I suppose it just doesn't feel
• 2:05:52
  as it doesn't feel that way. For me, I mean.
• 2:05:56
  You get what I'm saying though. Right.
• 2:05:57
  Like the darkest, What you're saying is the darkest.
• 2:05:59
  Self the risk Darkest self is effectively a debuff.
• 2:06:02
  Yes, you, you are, you are willing to give more reward for
• 2:06:05
  higher risk. And I think that's a fair
• 2:06:07
  interpretation. Yeah, I don't know, I get, I
• 2:06:12
  just I guess maybe my brain feels more comfortable with the
• 2:06:16
  numerical backing because it is a a it is a sort of an
• 2:06:21
  infallible touchstone. If like if I reason that the
• 2:06:26
  majority of the damage in. DND.
• 2:06:27
  That's. Right.
• 2:06:28
  I really can't. It's not infallible.
• 2:06:32
  That's really the it's. Not no, and it's like not
• 2:06:36
  literally infallible, but like a lot of the math, like most of
• 2:06:39
  the math in in D&D that is not skill roles is based on the D6
• 2:06:44
  you see it. You're still, you're still
• 2:06:45
  ultimately making a call that is going to mechanically help or
• 2:06:51
  hinder someone, you know, So I, I, you adding this extra
• 2:06:55
  impetus, this like extra weight to the narrative call versus the
• 2:06:59
  math call. I just don't really understand
• 2:07:01
  when ultimately it's like it's a call that may help them or may
• 2:07:04
  hurt them. Like that is.
• 2:07:07
  That is what it is like at the at the when you boil it all
• 2:07:10
  down. It is, but there are things like
• 2:07:13
  there are more touchstones. There are more grounded
• 2:07:15
  touchstones to one in my brain than the other.
• 2:07:21
  Narrative is a is a nebulous shared space.
• 2:07:23
  But numbers are numbers, and when you attach the narrative
• 2:07:29
  shared space to numbers. But the nebulous shared space is
• 2:07:32
  what we're all operating anytime we do role-playing game.
• 2:07:36
  Except you aren't always like you are operating in the
• 2:07:39
  narrative and the numbers. Now one might put more impetus
• 2:07:43
  on the than on one than the other.
• 2:07:46
  But they are always, no matter. You are always in in the
• 2:07:49
  narrative, nebulous space, no matter what.
• 2:07:51
  That's the only way to play role-playing games, except the
• 2:07:54
  only way to. It's not.
• 2:07:56
  There's no other way to do it because the numbers are.
• 2:07:59
  That's what they are. The numbers are always going to
• 2:08:02
  be the arbiter of the narrative. But they're, but they're in, but
• 2:08:05
  they're still operating within that space.
• 2:08:08
  You're still making calls on when the numbers hit the table
• 2:08:10
  based on that narrative space. Yes, in like, in like a coaxial
• 2:08:17
  codependent way, yeah. Yeah, like the numbers don't
• 2:08:21
  appear. The numbers don't appear if
• 2:08:22
  there's no narrative for them to appear based on.
• 2:08:25
  Right, but then the results don't appear unless numbers,
• 2:08:27
  unless the rules state that the numbers are required and results
• 2:08:31
  have to happen through the numbers for the game to happen.
• 2:08:34
  Otherwise it's not a game. Yeah, well, there's ways to
• 2:08:38
  design games without the number part, but yeah, I mean.
• 2:08:45
  There are there are games that do not use dice or math of any
• 2:08:47
  kind that exists. Even some Oh well, OK, kinda
• 2:08:50
  because even something like Dread that doesn't directly use
• 2:08:52
  math or numbers there are like you're looking, you start
• 2:08:54
  playing with percentiles with how like the chances to to drop
• 2:08:56
  the tower are based on how many locks people like.
• 2:08:59
  Numbers are inextricably like no matter what you do.
• 2:09:02
  Well, that's not what I it's not the one I was thinking of, but
• 2:09:04
  sure, there's games that just have like prompts and and like
• 2:09:08
  choices. It it I don't know.
• 2:09:15
  I don't know what else to tell you.
• 2:09:18
  I think it's just two separate perspectives on the on the the
• 2:09:22
  the role of these things in the game.
• 2:09:23
  I don't necessarily think either one of.
• 2:09:24
  Us. No, I'm just saying, I don't
• 2:09:26
  know, I just feel like you're getting a little unfairly mad at
• 2:09:28
  the game for doing a thing that it never was trying to do.
• 2:09:31
  No, I'm not. No, I'm, I'm getting mad at a
• 2:09:34
  thing that I'm saying that it should do.
• 2:09:36
  I, I don't really care if it was trying to do it or not, that
• 2:09:38
  that's sort of irrelevant to me. In my opinion, I think it should
• 2:09:41
  do these things. And again, at the lowest level
• 2:09:44
  of compromise of like just say something that tells me
• 2:09:48
  narratively where I can ballpark a normal character's ability to.
• 2:09:54
  I don't need hard and fast, I don't need tonnage, I don't need
• 2:09:57
  a specific example. Just say you didn't act more or
• 2:10:00
  less. I just don't think it's fair to
• 2:10:03
  get annoyed at a game for trying to do a thing that had like no
• 2:10:06
  intention of ever even doing or going that like.
• 2:10:12
  But I don't know that it doesn't like, I don't know that that.
• 2:10:15
  I guess you don't know 100% like.
• 2:10:17
  There's no way to know when you start playing with damaged
• 2:10:20
  numbers and you start giving those damaged numbers soft
• 2:10:24
  equivalencies to real world harm.
• 2:10:27
  You have to imply a certain level of that to some degree.
• 2:10:30
  Whether or not they they really wanted to commit to it and they
• 2:10:32
  were just kind of hinting at it, that's that's something we'll
• 2:10:35
  never know. But like, there is an impetus,
• 2:10:37
  no matter how small, there to assume potential, you know?
• 2:10:46
  We got to fucking put this horse to bed, Jesus.
• 2:10:47
  We do, yes. We're at 2 hour.
• 2:10:49
  I didn't not think we were going to go this long and Brett, I was
• 2:10:52
  going to say Brett's going to kill us, but I'm going to kill
• 2:10:54
  Brett. So I don't, I think we've,
• 2:10:55
  we've, we've, we've leveled out. Why you're killing Brett, but
• 2:10:58
  all right. Because I, we haven't, we're
• 2:11:00
  trying to have Lancer tomorrow and everyone's like super
• 2:11:03
  excited to play. And he's like, what if I just
• 2:11:05
  didn't show up? And I was like, Brett, here's
• 2:11:07
  the fun thing. I don't actually have to
• 2:11:08
  threaten you because everyone else in the chat will and
• 2:11:11
  literally everyone else did. Fair enough.
• 2:11:16
  All right. That has been us.
• 2:11:19
  Yes, something something. Follow us on your social media
• 2:11:28
  platform choice.