valadil

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Some coding projects and notes. http://code.sagotsky.com

Opinions on RPG game mastering. http://gm.sagotsky.com

	10,670 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	2 years, 7 months
1754 badges		location	Massachusetts		seen	8 hours ago

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May 16	comment	What systems do use-based skill upgrades well? Filled out my second requirement a bit more. I was having trouble phrasing it when I first wrote up the question. Would the question be more answerable if I changed the title to something like "What are the different ways systems do use-based skill upgrades?"
May 15	comment	How should GM deal with 'standing orders'? @jhocking oddly enough I've actually used that one.
May 13	comment	Tools for tracking NPC/PC relationships and attitudes It probably wouldn't be too time consuming for someone so inclined to write a script that translates "Fred" "Loves" "Alice" (or maybe "fred -loves alice" to keep the quotes from being overwhelming) into that digraph definition. I wonder how many relationships and how complex a graph one could need for an RPG...
Apr 30	comment	Any free and private wiki-like services for campaign tracking? @BrianBallsun-Stanton I can. I thought that was poor form though. I wouldn't want it to look like I can up with all those ideas, when they actually came from the people who commented.
Apr 30	comment	Any free and private wiki-like services for campaign tracking? @mxyzplk that good or do you need more?
Mar 18	comment	What are some ways to increase melee damage? @TimLymington, that sounds right.
Mar 15	comment	How do you help your GM/fellow PCs track buffs/debuffs? @mxyzplk that hasn't been my experience. Players mostly remember their buffs. If the buffer had to make more than one reminder between his turns, that's unusual. Maybe I'm used to more attentive players or less aggressive buffers than you?
Mar 11	comment	How do you help your GM/fellow PCs track buffs/debuffs? I love this method, especially as a buffing character. It gives me something to do when it's not my turn and it lets me feel smug when my +2 made the difference.
Mar 6	comment	Clarification on 4e Raise Dead's 'part of the corpse' @archwillow. If the players confronted me with these shenanigans, that's probably how I'd react. In this case I was running an npc who was avoiding death. I might have sabotaged my own plot with this interpretation. It might have been workable but that games been over for a year and half.
Jan 13	comment	Is the information gained from a knowledge check fallible? @SevenSidedDie, I'd be in favor of an alternative but I'm not sure what it would be. The best I've got is cross-system, but I think a lot of those posts would also get tagged with system-agnostic. Maybe cross-system and system-independent together could replace system-agnostic?
Jan 13	comment	Is the information gained from a knowledge check fallible? I definitely agree that most skill points will come from stuff the character does automatically. I'm okay with assuming the wizard took a tome of arcane lore out of the library last time he was in town and had been reading it before bed. I'm not okay with him having access to Lord Evilguy's personal diary just because his knowledge: history is maxed out. What you suggest about this knowledge coming from offscreen experiences tells me the knowledge would be relative to the character instead of universal or omnipotent.
Jan 13	comment	Is the information gained from a knowledge check fallible? I agree that system-agnostic may not be the best fit, but I wanted to be explicit that I wasn't looking for the answer for a single system.
Dec 31	comment	How do I encourage player-GM storytelling collaboration without “breaking” my game? I don't have anything to put in an answer that hasn't already been said, but here's my experience with giving the players control: gm.sagotsky.com/?p=265
Nov 29	comment	How can I increase tension during roleplaying? @Dakeyras, TY for editing. I probably wouldn't have called out the two questions thing, but I read this yesterday: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem
Nov 19	comment	What alternatives to hit points are there for abstracting wounds? I actually started out with one of these systems and was thinking of modernizing it. The rolls involved were trivial, the only hard part was finding the right table. I figure a computer can do that part for you. If someone or some OCR software felt like scanning the Role Master tables, the interface for selecting a table and doing a roll would be pretty trivial. Might not be a bad way to make a heavy system feel more streamlined.
Oct 26	comment	How do I make headshot rules interesting? I don't think option 3 is so bad. Make the headshot into a hail mary pass. The players always have that option if they're desperate enough, and when it actually does work out it'll be pretty memorable.
Oct 23	comment	Techniques for skimming through travel (fast travel) without meta-teleportation @Vorac, I like this in theory but I've never been able to convince the players it's not just filler. Any suggestions?
Oct 14	comment	Staying in character and taking it all seriously @mxyzplk, In tabletop everyone who isn't the PCs interacts through the GM. In a LARP, everyone in the game world is played by a separate PC. Having one player per in game agent without having that GM interface in the way is more immersive. However I will concede that LARP is a vague term and my LARPing experience probably isn't the same as everyone else's.
Sep 20	comment	Any advice on how to politely approach a friend on problems with her character(s)? @GMJoe, no worries. I've never heard of a player doing something like that long term and I actually think it sounds pretty cool. I like hearing about players doing cool and original things.
Sep 19	comment	Any advice on how to politely approach a friend on problems with her character(s)? @GMJoe, cool! I've never heard of another player doing that. I'd say that's the exception that makes the rule though. I'd also say that's a case where if you ask the player about playing something new, they'd tell you what they were doing was deliberate and not necessarily immature.