The Gaming Den

If I were playing a board game about building buildings in provinces, and I had an ability that said "after you build in a province, gain $2 if it has 3 buildings," I would expect to gain $2 after building my 3rd building. But if the ability said "after you build in a province with 3 ...

We care about what happens if multiple players do that, or if even just one player does. We get this text... If there are multiple abilities that players wish to resolve at the same time during the action phase, each player takes a turn resolving an ability in initiative order, beginning with the a...

If "when" effects tend to "modify or replace" the event that triggers them, I wonder how they interact with "before." Can they go back in time to pre-empt it? If I have "Before you do A, do X" and "When you would do A, do B instead," then when I try ...

Thank you for doing this review! I think it covers things is just about the right level of depth, and I found it interesting. In a multiplayer game, you can definitely make one player worse off by giving them more choices, even if you hold everyone else's choices constant. Imagine, for example, a ro...

Joe Manchin (D-WV) has already promised not to pack the court or kill the filibuster, so those dreams are probably dead even with two Georgia wins.

Well the text says "the past is past" so maybe "why are you still posting about the Colemans?"

Love me some organization entries, especially if it includes other creatures or the unit names reveal something about the social structure.

I feel like you're throwing implementation questions at me that I don't know how to make sense of without way more context. I think you're asking whether it would make sense to give individual NPC a "bond" or "loyalty" or "affinity" number towards the PCs (or a PC) that...

One difficult thing about miscasts is that if you're trying to balance spotlight time they can actually backfire. Like, why do we even balance characters against each other in the first place? To a large extent I think it's about making sure that different players have opportunities to hold the spot...

There are already penalizing conditions in D&D that could plausibly be inflicted by social actions, like Shaken. You could add or a revive a few more, like Distracted, Conflicted, or even Besotted, and mke sure all the conditions offered both physical and social penalties. It would be reasonable...

I think all or most of us were aware that we're in a golden age of board games. I've been assuming that when people talk about there being a lack of good designers out there they're talking strictly about RPGs. I still think they're overlooking a lot of gold.

On reflection, you're right. What I'm talking about doesn't actually line up very well with Alexander's model. Maybe I get to coin a new phrase actually? Let's talk about the Locus of Uncertainty . If you're making a die roll to resolve something, you must be uncertain about the outcome, but why are...

Yeah, I ditched the idea pretty quickly. Good thing I didn't build anything off of it. I agree with you on this next point, though - charming people into doing anything you want is rather suspect. Charming people into wanting to help you, and THEN they decide to do what you want seems more reasonab...

Sure, in fortune-at-the-end you would start by describing the prisoner's demeanor and you'd set an interrogation DC. You might decide the prisoner is scared and open to talking and make it DC 5. You might decide the prisoner is brave and loyal and make it DC 15. You might decide he's loyal but not e...

Sturgeon's Law is still in effect, but I can confirm from browsing various RPG reddits that although you see a lot of low-quality content and confused discussion, you don't have to scroll too far to find interesting and worthwhile conversations. I also share Zinegata's opinion that the waterline for...

I don't understand at all the desire to collapse social interaction into one roll instead of several On reflection the actual number of rolls is not the main point. What I should be doing is advocating for what The Alexandrian calls "fortune-at-the-beginning" resolution for non-coercive s...

I've been playing around with setting DCs for coercion-based rolls, and I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. I just said "fuck it" and made the Base DC for getting people to do what you want dependent on the objective outcome of the roll instead of its perceived outcome. I don't th...

I also don't think that in most HB games people talk about (at least not here but I've seen it in discords/message boards more focused on narrative games) rules where your dice rolls generate post hoc rationalizations for the mechanical effect they are set to achieve. Usually people aren't introduc...

I think the reason conversations around social mechanics don't focus too much on things that aren't messing with people's feelings, desires, and actions is because that it 'is' the big deal thing where socializing is concerned. It's the most powerful/useful result you can get from any interaction w...

Personally I'm not sure I want "Master Manipulators" to exist in my game on either end, so I think that just functionally makes most diplomacy systems bad for me. I have never in my entire life met anyone who believes ~X and then was convinced to believe X in a time frame of a day. I defi...

Though as per the Thread Title, I do think PC's should be able to be affected by social rolls, the same way you can expect them to be by Combat, or Spells. My Kneejerk was to think that PC's should be immune, but in order for such a minigame to work, all parties have to be affected in some way. Wel...

Why not play Scum And Villainy instead?

Most Social Actions Should Not Target People. (The “HB” tag in the title is short for 'heartbreaker.” Lately I've been playing a lot of PBTA games and also Blades in the Dark and, health permitting, I look forward to talking about them here at some point. I use this tag to indicate that in this thr...

Best wishes to ye, Shrapnel.

Honestly, as long as you're not seriously expecting them to perform at their CR, making the big bad boss be some terribad multiclass is a pretty good decision. That Druid/Sorcerer gets to have enough HP and saving throws for a little staying power without getting spells that blow away the whole party.