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rdonoghue

@rdonoghue@dice.camp

So, I only noticed this bio field existed because someone remarked on its absence, which is a little embarrassing. Anyway, I'm a nerd of many colors - Agile Nerd. Productivity Nerd. RPG Nerd. Bag Nerd. Etc. - an old man, and a dad. Used to be a politics nerd, but there's not much joy in that these days.

Have written some RPG stuff, and I used to blog, but the pandemic killed my soul and it hasn't really grown back.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

rdonoghue , to random
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My first instinct was a long rambling thread about congreve rockets, which I just learned about yesterday, and which are awesome, but I took the deliberate step of blogging it instead. Weird flex, I know.

https://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2024/06/08/what-i-learned/

LeviKornelsen , to random
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You know what I love?

Branches of ancient technology that dead-ended somewhere, but could have carried on in the right conditions.

In my head, that's deeply engaging fantasy material for doing "Things are weird and different here".

So if you know of sources for that stuff: Grabby hands

rdonoghue ,
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@LeviKornelsen 1491 was a treasure trove of stuff like that for me. Rope boats! Awesome metallurgy!

rdonoghue , to random
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If I were to ask if there is art to GMing, I suspect most peopel woudl say yes.

If I were to ask what form that art takes, there would be a few obvious answers overlapping with things like acting, improv, creation on the fly and such, but I suspect you'd see a bit of diversity in answers.

If I were to ask what it means that GMing is art, I expect the opinions would start getting a lot more diverse. Which is cool, because I'm still wrestling with that myself.

rdonoghue OP ,
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The reason I'm wrestling with it is because the different (valid) answers kind of align with a passionate love for TTRPGs which means VERY different things to different people. Opinions on the GM can range from "Unnecessary", to "Necessary Evil", to "Of course there's a GM, why wouldn't there be?" To "This is something unique and special to be treasured" to "The GM owns your fun, peon!".

None of them are wrong (Well, except the last), but they get along like a bag of wet cats.

rdonoghue OP ,
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My personal tastes absolutely tilt towards a GM with a lot of authority, but with an expectation that the authority is used to encourage and nurture player contribution.

This is, in part, because as a player, I prefer to sacrifice a degree of autonomy, in order to increase my sense of investment in the fiction we're engaging. Ceding authority increases the sense of the fiction as a thing external to myself which I am experiencing. That's valuable to me.

rdonoghue OP ,
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So, from that perspective, I expect a lot of art from the GM. Their ability to maintain that sense of fiction is a form of artistry that I value immensely.

It is, however, far less valuable if I am - as an example - enjoying the game as an act of joint creation. In that case, I'm goign to value to the GM's ability to weave together the threads we create, and their ability to respect and engage our creation without overwriting it with their own.

Also art. But very different art.

rdonoghue OP ,
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(There is also a sidebar to be had here about craft vs art - there are certain things which might be better described as techiques, such as information management and event facilitation. I acknoweldge that, but it's also very much its own rabbit hole.)

rdonoghue OP ,
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I might even go so far as to say there is a position where art might be considered a drawback to GMing - the "GM as rendering engine" school of thought, where the GM is simply there to convey what is leaves very little room for art.

(Except, of course, nothing really works that way, and such GMs are frequently the finest of artists and magicians because they must perform their art while pretending that this is ABSOLUTELY NOT what they're doing.)

rdonoghue OP ,
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I don't have a conclusion here - god but I wish I did. Rather, I'm turning over this bit of perspective because I'm frustrated by how hard it is to talk about. Specifically, because we have such different expectations from GMs, it becomes very hard to recognize or discuss a GMs artistry, because what may be brilliant for my table may be an egregious overreach at yours.

Which, in turn, means that most of our discussion of the nuance of GMing ends up boiling down to techniques, tips & tricks.

rdonoghue OP ,
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Which is no sleight to techniques, tips and tricks. Lord knows, I love that genre, and have contributed my fair share of words to it.

But it feels like we're leaving money on the table, so to speak. It feels like there are discussions we're not having because we don't have the means to do so without tripping over some other long standing argument.

I'm frustrated by this, but I am also limited to simply remarking on it, because i certainly don't have a solution.

rdonoghue OP ,
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@blackcoat frustratingly, every attempt I make at blogging just dies on the vine lately. Microposts manage to flow, so I keep falling back to them.

rdonoghue , to random
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So, @aptshadow's City of Last Chances is absolutely chock-a-block with things that a Blades in the Dark GM would enjoy. One is a simple turn of a phrase: Wages are described as (paraphrasing) "A month’s lodgings, a week's drinking or one night's losses at the card table.”

That is now my go to explanation for what a Coin represents in Blades.

rdonoghue , to random
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Conversation earlier today has me thinking a bit about the distinction between open and open source in RPGs (setting aside the topic of not-really-open RPGs).

There are plenty of open systems (that is, systems you can legitimately take and do whatever the heck you want with them) but a much smaller set of open source systems ( @malin keeps a nice list of them here - https://ttrpgs.com/post/foss_list - if you’re curious.)

It's a curious distinction.

rdonoghue OP ,
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To unpack it a little bit, I am comfortable describing, say, Fate as an open system. It's available under Creative Commons (and OGL, though that's an aside) and you can pretty much use it as you see fit.

It is not, however, open source. Specifically, because it does not have a a single source which could potentially be contributed to. maintained and referenced.

And to get ahead of it, I don't think this is good or bad. But I do think it's interesting.

rdonoghue OP ,
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Now, before anything else, it's important to note that open source software has been a big influence on the philosophy behind opening up many other things, including RPGs. Software has wrestled with how to mange openness for decades, and without the lessons learned from that, we'd be in a much worse place than we are.

So, mad props to the giants whose shoulders we stand on.

rdonoghue OP ,
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So, with that in mind, I find myself turning over the question of whether something like Fate should be open source.

To imagine what that would look like, imaging that the Fate SRD - https://fate-srd.com - was kept someplace where anyone who was interested could write up a magic system or correct some typos or rewrite a section for clarity, and then submit that improvement, where it might then be incorporated into the “official" version.

rdonoghue OP ,
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The most obvious advantage of a model like this is that many brains are smarter than few. it could potentially leverage the creativity of an audience of any size to constantly improve the underlying product.

That's the theory at least. In practice, it gets a little bit messier. A lot of open source work is less about the marketplace of ideas and more about exploiting the free labor of the passionate.

(Of course, it's not like that's uncommon in RPG-land)

rdonoghue OP ,
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Now, it's worth noting that this model works very well for software for two reasons:

  1. There is a really solid infrastructure to support this kind fo contribution model, and the skills required for using it overlap with programming skills well enough to keep it from being an extra burden.

  2. Software is testable in a way that something like an RPG is not. That is, if a contribution breaks the code, you don't really need to hem and haw much over its suitability.

rdonoghue OP ,
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I feel like those two points become burdens when applied to RPGs.

  1. There is nothing in RPG design which really relies on you learning how to use github, or one of the other tools that form a de facto standard for this kind of practice. I love github, but adding that requirement definitely increases burden and restricts participation.
rdonoghue OP ,
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  1. In the absence of testability, RPGs are potentially infinitely additive. That is, with any given ruleset, you can always just write more. Bloat is a problem for RPGs under traditional models, and it seems it would be a real danger to any contribution model.

And, yes, there are ways to say 'no' to contributions, but without even the vestiges of testable criteria, it's pretty clear what an emotional minefield that would become.

rdonoghue OP ,
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To be clear: While I raise those points as objections, I don't think they're insurmountable. One absolutely could run a project and find ways to mitigate both with work or cleverness.

They are not arguments against open sourcing an RPG so much as reasons why open sourcing is not automatically the right call for an RPG.

Those are also a little negative, so I want to pivot to a positive side as well.

rdonoghue OP ,
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One of the things that got me thinking about this was realizing that when I thought about what it would require for Fate to be open in this sense, I realized that it would require a canonical version.

And upon realizing that, in the words of Murderbot, I had a Feeling.

rdonoghue OP ,
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I had such an instinctive discomfort with the idea that I had to stop and examine it.

I love the idea of collaboration. Of contribution from community. So what was I responding to? Was it some unacknowledged sense of ownership?

Spoiler: it's not that, but some of it is, I think, tied to my regrettable age.

rdonoghue OP ,
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Perhaps it is a function of coming through an age of scarcity, but the pattern I expect from open content is that you grab it and make your own, and that the thing you make is something different, which you will hopefully also contribute to the chain.

I want an explosion. I want people to steal what they like, toss what they don’t, and cobble together new wonders. Because that's what I want to do.

LeviKornelsen , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen environmental change, whether fast (volcanoes!) or slow (Indus River Valley).

    Cascading consequences from changes elsewhere (such as a different route from A to B resulting someplace prominent abruptly moving off the beaten path, or vice versa.)

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    Some of you have likely never experienced the purest, truest forms of "RPG as physics engine", like people actually shooting various things to see if the weapon penetration tables are good.

    If you want to bake your noodle, go get the BIG version of GURPS Gulliver for 3rd edition, and enter the world of "Throwing distance modifiers by arm length? Fucking WHAT?"

    ...

    https://www.gamesdiner.com/gurps/GULLIVER/indexframe.html

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen my go to example of this is Phoenix Command, which was based off a preposterous amount of t of research, including large amounts of shooting things and measuring results. It’s terrible, but magnificent.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen @miriamrobern @linnaeus @Da_Gut not sure you can usefully define city-ness without a healthy slab of the mercantile, even if it’s through different lenses. The necessity of surplus is so large that it kind of needs to be spoken to.

    rdonoghue , to random
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    To run with this thought a little bit: as a GM, it's worth being mindful about what players can do during downtime besides "watch".

    It's easy to say that players should stay interested and attentive to what is going on at the table, and I think most are, but I think a lot of GM's fail to grasp how mind numbing it is to listen when things are 10% content and 90% mechanical haggling.

    Normalizing note-taking as a way to fill that gap kills two birds with one stone.
    https://chirp.enworld.org/@slyflourish/112224927940973315

    rdonoghue OP ,
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    Hrm. That now has me pondering what sort of "fidgets" usefully contribute to the game rather than detract while a player is not engaged.

    • Note Taking
    • Doodling characters/scene
    • Making the map look nice
    • Sidebar scenes (if non-disruptive)
    • Physical logistics (getting snacks etc)

    Any other thoughts?

    (Specifically, looking for positive fidgets. Might ask about neutral ones some other time, depending where the topic goes).

    rdonoghue OP ,
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    @clarkvalentine It is not a coincidence that the bulk of our group already has the D&D set, and has plans to go in on bulk orders of the D&D minifigs when they ship.

    rdonoghue , to random
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    My continued efforts to escape the gravity of the Amazon ecosystem have been escalating as my kid gets older and I face the question of how to share things with him in a manner that is less ephemeral than sharing a login.

    It's a constant reminder that the limits of content might be a shackle, they are far from the only shackle. I have tons of non-drm'd content, but managing and sharing it in a way that is not giving him homework remains the biggest blocker for me.

    rdonoghue OP ,
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    I mean, yes, there are far worse things in some of these shows (Slavery is Awesome jumps to mind) but most of those are clearly and overtly bad, and easier to isolate.

    I dunno. I agree with the argument that anime is a big canvas, and it's utterly unfair to generalize all of it, but I also have to admit that argument gets used to gloss over some pretty obvious and predictable patterns,

    Of course, I keep watching crap, so apparently I've just accepted compartmentilization as entertainment,

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    When you fully accept that gamers are largely fundamentally competent at having a good time roleplaying, you realize that most design objectives OTHER THAN "save people work" and "get them excited" can be managed with a box of parts and a discussion of how to assemble them.

    But those two, hoo boy.

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen this is true enough that o chewed for a while, and I bubble up one more:

    Make it cool for people who aren’t already “in sync” with the GM (or each other, if appropriate.”

    That might be more generalizable as “improve communication and understanding”, but the specific seems more concrete

    epidiah , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @epidiah saw that one and had the same thought process

    rdonoghue , to random
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    My main takeaway as the difference between the FOSS community and RPG communities is that in RPG communities there would be a substantial group arguing that Jira Tan is just misunderstood and that the aggrieved parties just need to talk it out.

    (And, of course, with Jira Tan suing anyone who lived in a country with British libel laws, where “free speech” is less important than not speaking ill of your betters.)

    rdonoghue , to random
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    Woke up to the news about the Key Bridge. Going to start seeing pictures of it in daylight soon, and I’m not sure I’m ready.

    LeviKornelsen , (edited ) to random
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    Three magical laws (the usual two and one more):

    Sympathy: Things that resemble each other can be used to affect each other magically.

    Contagion: Things that were once united are still connected magically.

    Personification: If you address a thing as if it were conscious and capable in some way in a spell, it will attempt to act consciously and capably in that way.

    So: Is that third one as vaguely clear as the usual ones, with a nice heap of interesting implications?

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen At a gut level, it feels kind of too specific and tidy, since it's ultimately saying that things respond to your expectation of them (so long as you act in accordance with that expectation).

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen Ah ha - chewed a bit further and found the gristle. As framed, it sounds too agreeable. Like the act of treating a thing like it has will is sufficient that you do not need to worry about that will going "LOL, NOPE"

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen At that point you are arguably getting into a more nuanced/messier part of sympathy, since it quickly gets into the realm of symbols and meaning. Which is not a bad direction to go, since we're talking about magic, but it definitely muddles the question.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen It's something that has lead to my greatly appreciating the "wreck" skill in Blades in the Dark for providing a clean way to distinguish whether the intent is roughhousing or murder.

    epidiah , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @epidiah it also has what may be favorite programming book title.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    Here's an assertion that should be fairly agreeable with a second of consideration:

    In a trad game, when it comes to how much gravity the game mechanics exert on play, the pull of the character sheet and the things the player imagines based on it is notably stronger than the great majority of of other rules. It's the dwarf star of rules gravity.

    image/jpeg

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen absolutely. The interesting question to me is how deliberate it is or is not, especially historically. For every example of a sheet designed to convey intent, I can think of examples designed with other priorities (usually “look cool”, “fit it all on one page”, or “fuck, right, I need a character sheet.”) and how that then impacts play.

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen I have a lot of framings for the importance of the character sheet, and one fun one is as the player’s primary interface to the system. Through that lens, there’s a lot of neat stuff to learn from UX.

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen Actually, I will raise one point of distinction: I'm not sure it's just a trad game thing.

    I mean, yes, some games don't have character sheets, but many of those game still have something that you put in front of the player which focuses the experience, and the design of that is similarly impactful.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen I’m reaching the point where I feel like I maybe need to read it just to know why people are yelling.

    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen That definitely scans with what I've seen.

    epidiah , to random
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    rdonoghue ,
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    @LeviKornelsen @epidiah that is definitely correct. Even when the solar itself is legit, the financing is full of landmines.

    rdonoghue , to random
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    One of the shocking lessons first time managers often learn is that they have far, far less power than they perceived managers to have. Unfortunately, learning this makes them more likely to dismiss non-manager concerns about the distorting impact that the presence of a manager has on conversation (Because THEY aren't pointy haired, right?)

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