General Discussion

DangerousPuhson

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Non-judgmental question for you @Beoric - on average, how much prep time (including following rabbit holes about pay-weight and such) would you say you put in for every hour of play time?
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Non-judgmental question for you @Beoric - on average, how much prep time (including following rabbit holes about pay-weight and such) would you say you put in for every hour of play time?
Oh, a lot. Scheduling games is difficult (I have free time, but not on anything resembling a predictable schedule, and the people I game with have the same problem), so to some extent the prep is a gaming activity that fills the lack of actual gaming. And when I do get to game, I want to focus on the game, and not on looking stuff up or battling with my VTT, so making the VTT function efficiently is a priority. Plus I actually enjoy prep.
 

DangerousPuhson

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
What would you say a ballpark ratio of time spent prepping vs. time spent playing is for you? 1:1? 2:1? 10:1?
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
What would you say a ballpark ratio of time spent prepping vs. time spent playing is for you? 1:1? 2:1? 10:1?
I dunno man, its pretty shitty. I'm a single parent of three, one of which has serious health problems, with mom pretty much out of the picture, and I'm trying to run a small business in an unpredictable industry, where there are a ton of people counting on me, and I don't have full control of my time. And my players live out of town, and also have crazy schedules, and are luddites who can't figure out how to connect to a server.*

Which is why I'm trying to get a new group going. Which is why before we start I want to have enough content ready to go that there will be no delay between the first several sessions.

But also, unlike work, prepping and thinking about gaming is something I can do between the cracks. So I can get, say, 12 minutes in while the oven is preheating, and 10 minutes before I have to flip whatever I'm cooking, and another ten minutes until it's ready to serve. And sometimes I can get nearly an hour in between laundry loads, even though I should probably be cleaning the floors instead.

*Like seriously, you try to walk them through it over the phone, and they just click things randomly so I don't even have any idea what window they end up looking at. "DON'T touch anything before I tell you to. There should be a window come up, what does it say?" "I dunno, I just clicked OK." <sigh> "Okay, open that window again," "How to I do that?" "Start by clicking the "File" menu." "Where is that?" "Ok, you play hundreds of hours of WoW, how do you not know this?" "Oh, ok, I've got it now." "Great, now click "connect to server". " I don't see that." "It should be on the file menu." "The what?" "At the top left corner of the screen, you can see the word "File", can you press that?" "Ok, I did that, it just disappeared." "What do you mean it disappeared? What are you looking at now?" "It looks like a list of folders." "Ok, did you maximize the Maptools window?" "What do you mean?" "Never mind, do you still see the Maptools icon in the ribbon at the bottom of your screen? It should look like a gear with green in the middle. Click that." "Ok, it's back again." "Good. It is filling the whole screen?" "No, just part of it." "Great, now do you see the little box at the top right of the window? Not the very top right, the top right of the Maptools window." "Where?" "It's beside the X, click that." "Ok, a window came up." "What does the window say?" "I don't know, I jsut clicked OK. Now it disappeared again." "Are you sure you clicked the box in the top right?" "The box? You told me to click the X."
 

The1True

8, 8, I forget what is for
Like seriously
Are your players your aging parents? :p This is like troubleshooting with my dad.
Seriously though, it sounds a bit like your players are being deliberately obtuse because they don't really want to do it. This is distinctly what my fairly bright children do when they don't want help with their homework (because they're tired of doing it).

I totally get doing extra ground work for the shear joy of the hobby. I think every DM does it to some degree. There's been some hate here towards the player-centric later editions with their build communities, but I think all they did was let the players into the in-between-sessions, hobby side of the game that DM's have been enjoying for so long.
 

DangerousPuhson

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I'm noticing a shift in myself as I age - I too am unfortunately becoming averse to new technology, something I'd consider unthinkable in my youth. I always saw it in elders, and never thought it would happen to me, but here we are... my wife would call me down-right luddite by her standards, even though I work in tech and was very much an early adopter in my younger days.

I think its an actual recordable medical phenomenon at this point. My guts says it has something to do with neuroplasticity, comfort-seeking in the familiar (and the opposite - aversion of the unfamiliar), and an ongoing drive to de-complexify a busy life. I'm sure there are books about it I should probably read.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Are your players your aging parents? :p This is like troubleshooting with my dad.
Seriously though, it sounds a bit like your players are being deliberately obtuse because they don't really want to do it. This is distinctly what my fairly bright children do when they don't want help with their homework (because they're tired of doing it).
No, that particular one has been like this for 40+ years. You should see them try to navigate a TV remote, or try to connect their phone to a bluetooth speaker.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
I'm noticing a shift in myself as I age - I too am unfortunately becoming averse to new technology, something I'd consider unthinkable in my youth. I always saw it in elders, and never thought it would happen to me, but here we are... my wife would call me down-right luddite by her standards, even though I work in tech and was very much an early adopter in my younger days.

I think its an actual recordable medical phenomenon at this point. My guts says it has something to do with neuroplasticity, comfort-seeking in the familiar (and the opposite - aversion of the unfamiliar), and an ongoing drive to de-complexify a busy life. I'm sure there are books about it I should probably read.
Too much that you really like (in tech) gets changed out from underneath you. I saw my 20 year old daughter complain when they changed MS Word. It's not age, but it is experience. At some point you realize the pointlessness of all the gadgetry and start to appreciate simplicity in design. e.g. Roku remote.
 

The1True

8, 8, I forget what is for
I saw my 20 year old daughter complain when they changed MS Word.
Seriously. Photoshop hasn't done anything new in 10 years other than turn into a shitty piece of subscriptionware with an entire global community dedicated to outpacing its anti-piracy measures. Don't even get me started on the evil boondoggle that is Windows 11. Like MS got jealous of all the negative attention Alphabet and Amazon were getting and wanted back in.
 

The1True

8, 8, I forget what is for
comfort-seeking in the familiar
There's no doubt my group wouldn't have touched something like Roll20 if I hadn't moved a million miles away. And yeah, that's as far as we're going to go. There's all kinds of tasty new VTT options out there, but nah. Sweet sweet incumbency. There's a certain conservatism (not necessarily political) to the older heavy metal/D&D crowd. Definitely a comfort of youth.

There's a bunch of old rockers we used to play with who swing back in from outer space from time to time and want to join the game. The 3.5 monstrosity we're powergaming is so far from the 2e hackfest they remember from the 90's. They just sit there bemused for a few sessions while people tell them to roll their Skill Check and then drift away on a sad steel guitar riff. They needed a hit of the oldschool, and I recognize that.🤷‍♂️
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Has anybody ever run The Assassin's Knot? I'm in the process of evaluating it, and it clearly has flaws, but I'm trying to figure out if I can tweak it, or if I need to tear it down to the foundation and rebuild it to get something useful out of it.

Clearly the CrAzZy motivation of the dude who originally calls the hit has to go, and I'm trying to figure out whether to change the motivation or if he can be cut out entirely.

Anyway, stories and thoughts would be welcome.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Has anybody ever run The Assassin's Knot? I'm in the process of evaluating it, and it clearly has flaws, but I'm trying to figure out if I can tweak it, or if I need to tear it down to the foundation and rebuild it to get something useful out of it.

Clearly the CrAzZy motivation of the dude who originally calls the hit has to go, and I'm trying to figure out whether to change the motivation or if he can be cut out entirely.

Anyway, stories and thoughts would be welcome.
I ran it once, in high school. I can't remember the details (and I'm not sure how well I ran it), but one of my friends told me "I liked that, you should do more adventures like that."

You could probably remove the craze abbot from Restenford from the equation. It makes just as much sense, or even more so, for the Lord Mayor (? was that her title?) to instigate the events in the module because she covets Restenford.

I've wanted to run this one again but I've never been able to fit it in. It would take a lot of work to get it into a usable form. They didn't really know how to create this sort of module back then. Lenard added some innovations but it's still a huge mess. At least it wasn't as bad as L3-L5.


The Heretic
 

DangerousPuhson

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I haven't run Assassin's Knot, but I do own the module, and in reading it... I'm also curious if anybody has successfully run it. It looks like a clusterfuck - the information is not organized at all, and there are so many red herrings with so little actual evidence, I'm not entirely sure how a party is supposed to get the right guy.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I think I'm going to keep the crazy priest but make him not crazy and give him another motive. I also think I'm going to have him giving the planted evidence to the assassin, so the assassin doesn't know that all the evidence points to his home town - and is pissed off when he finds out. I'm also going to think hard about what other clues might be added to make it more likely that the players figure it out; I'm about halfway through the module, and I'm not seeing it right now.
 

DangerousPuhson

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
In all honesty, it's probably going to be easier to just invent a murder mystery from scratch at that point. I don't think there's anything so unique to Assassin's Knot that the players will feel cheated out of some amazing experience. The bonus being that you can slot everything into your existing world with no alterations or greater-picture implications.

From what I recall, AK is not some great mystery. Some red herring clues at the start, some follow-up "corrective" clues when those herrings are chased, and a final confrontation. Kind of a typical script for D&D "mysteries". Easily re-made on your own terms, I'd wager.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I haven't run Assassin's Knot, but I do own the module, and in reading it... I'm also curious if anybody has successfully run it. It looks like a clusterfuck - the information is not organized at all, and there are so many red herrings with so little actual evidence, I'm not entirely sure how a party is supposed to get the right guy.
My group only got on the right track because of the orcs. "Oh, they hire orcs here. The Lord Mayor MUST be evil!" It doesn't sound like that would happen in Beoric's Eberron campaign, if orcs aren't always evil.


The Heretic
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
In all honesty, it's probably going to be easier to just invent a murder mystery from scratch at that point.
This kind of writing can be iterative. I can spot flaws and fix them, whereas if it was entirely original it would just have problems that I would be blind to. People who turn their nose up at reboots always seem to forget that few if any of Shakespeare's plays were original stories.

Plus I don't have to make up a town - two towns actually - or rosters of NPCs.

My group only got on the right track because of the orcs. "Oh, they hire orcs here. The Lord Mayor MUST be evil!" It doesn't sound like that would happen in Beoric's Eberron campaign, if orcs aren't always evil.
I haven't got that far, but I imagine particularly unsavoury brigands should do the trick.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I'm noticing a shift in myself as I age - I too am unfortunately becoming averse to new technology, something I'd consider unthinkable in my youth. I always saw it in elders, and never thought it would happen to me, but here we are... my wife would call me down-right luddite by her standards, even though I work in tech and was very much an early adopter in my younger days.
I've noticed this in myself, particularly with music. When you're young and learning how things work, This Is The Way It Is Done. When a big change comes along, you're able to adjust and say This Is Now The Way It Is Done. Eventually though you go through so many of these big changes you lose interest in them. "Hey, this was working just fine the way it was, why are you changing this? Why should I learn this? You're just going to change it again in a couple of years!"

It's exactly like this with all the paradigm shifts in culture. After a while you realize we're not going to be talking about this crap in a few years so why even bother to learn anything about these performers. Who cares?


The Heretic
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I've noticed this in myself, particularly with music. When you're young and learning how things work, This Is The Way It Is Done. When a big change comes along, you're able to adjust and say This Is Now The Way It Is Done. Eventually though you go through so many of these big changes you lose interest in them. "Hey, this was working just fine the way it was, why are you changing this? Why should I learn this? You're just going to change it again in a couple of years!"

It's exactly like this with all the paradigm shifts in culture. After a while you realize we're not going to be talking about this crap in a few years so why even bother to learn anything about these performers. Who cares?


The Heretic
It really only bothers me when there are changes to the UI in software that I rely on to do things quickly, but before I can do that, I need to wrestle with a new UI to even discover whether it still does what I need it to do. And then they hide the function I need, and I can't use it until I drill down through 16 menus (that only loosely correspond to whatever website is instructing me) to turn the function on. And it seems like they are trying to deliberately kill the function, because the function gave them a wedgie in junior high or something, because in the next iteration they inevitably kill it, because "nobody was using" the function they have been trying to prevent somebody from using.

And then you have to figure out a new way to do what you want to do, assuming that is even possible, or cast about for some other application that might still do it. Which new application (if it actually does what you think it might, based on vague assurances on their website), requires you to learn a whole new UI.

Sorry, I'm having a morning.

It absolutely does not bother me when a new version of technology actually improves on the old, even with a slightly different UI.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
TLDR: It's unfair to say that...most publishers may not realize this box is new from DrivethruRPG and an option. MM products are all handcrafted EXCEPT for Slyth Hive to my knowledge and possibly NAP (AI Art). I'm also taking Squeen and DP off ignore.

WOW Beoric!!!...thanks for pointing this out.
I had trouble following what you were talking about, so I went into the Publisher Tools for Coming of Winter.
DrivethruRPG recently changed a bunch of stuff on their website. I don't recall them mentioning this new box to click, but I could of missed an email.

Publishers get a series of boxes to check when putting up their product for sale. There are a lot of options--from rulesets (OSR, Savage Frontiers, Traveller--there is like 16 options that are then broken down even more...Osric, OSE, Labyrinth Lord, etc.). Lot's of choices!
Then there is Product Type, Genre, Format, Languages....all broken down quite a bit more. And I think you get a limited amount of choices to choose from (10 maybe?) but seems like hundreds of options...

This is the age-old argument where customers get pissed when some publishers click everything--- OSRIC, OSE, Shadowdark, etc. to try and sell their product and get more eyes on things...(I don't do that or try not too).

ANYWAYS---yes, it looks like they added a box under Format that has Creation Method, which has 2 choices: Handcrafted and AI-Generated content. I actually just noticed that this is plastered on the publisher tools:

"AI-Generated Content
We have recently deployed two browsing options on our new DriveThruRPG marketplace and DriveThruComics PHNX Preview. Customers can now choose to filter out AI-Generated content in their Account Settings, and titles are now clearly labeled as Handcrafted or AI-Generated if the publisher has selected one of those options."


Looks like I will need to update all of the Merciless Merchants products (oh joy). All of the Merciless Merchant products use either stock art (which to my knowledge is not AI as I actually have stopped most purchases of stock art back in 2020 before AI became a big deal) or commissioned art from human artists EXCEPT for Slyth Hive by Prince and maybe NAP stuff which I don't have as much control of as its various authors (and free). The Coming of Winter is definitely hand crafted--this is the main reason we even do Kickstarters for our adventures--to commission kickass art done by humans to cover the costs.

The only time I personally have used AI for D&D is to generate NPC's real quick before I'm DMing that night because I ran out of time (and its still rough and I have to change things), never for something published.
So, circling back to this discussion, I see that the latest module reviewed by Bryce is tagged in DriveThru as "Contains AI-Generated Content." Which may just be the art, but I noticed Bryce said "It feels disconnected from itself, as if the designer didn’t know what the adventure was,or didn’t know how to include parts other than the main hack." Which is a complaint he has made a lot lately. Just sayin'.
 
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