TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

12:14 AM

@Miniman yeah, there's the rare occasion it's worthwhile doing the dupe closure the other way around :)

Miniman

12:28 AM

@Adeptus I just got that one. 7 is a pretty weird number for it, but I guess I'm okay with it :)

doppelgreener

@Adeptus in Australia we just call it Rugby. \o/

Adeptus

> At least half of the players (seven in standard American and Canadian football) on the offense must line up on the line of scrimmage

Gridiron football

Gridiron football, or North American football, is a form of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football. The term "gridiron" originated as a description of the sport's then-characteristic playing field, which, until the late 1910s–early 1920s, was marked with a series of parallel lines in a checkerboard (or grid) pattern, resembling a gridiron. The grid system was abandoned in favor of the system of yard lines and hash marks used today, but the term "gridiron" has survived. "Gridiron" football...

I guess that's why 7?

Miniman

@Adeptus Ah. That would be me displaying my ignorance of non-soccer forms of football.

Adeptus

1:02 AM

@Miniman I had to google it too. I have ignorance of all forms of football.

Miniman

2:12 AM

I just realised I'm the RPG.SE King of Hats right now. There really ought to be a crown hat for topping the leaderboard :)

doppelgreener

@Miniman There's a leaderboard!?

Miniman

@doppelgreener On the Winterbash page

doppelgreener

@Miniman Apparently I am at the top of the leaderboard. I win! [claims victory crown]

Miniman

@doppelgreener What is this heathen black sorcery!?!

doppelgreener

2:28 AM

@Miniman It is probably because of my hat being sufficiently glorious.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Uncle Sam is no match for a fearsome pirate like myself! I will sink your ships and lay waste to your coastline!

doppelgreener

@Miniman History suggests otherwise!!

Miniman

@doppelgreener [Citation needed]

(Yeah, I went there)

doppelgreener

2:50 AM

I don't have one, but here, have a pirate who is pretty rad. He was asked to fight with the British Empire when they sailed over to invade America and reclaim dominance over their long-departed ex-citizens, and instead he went to the US army, warned them and offered to help them.

Jean Lafitte

Jean Lafitte (c. 1780 – c. 1823) was a French-American pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. He and his elder brother, Pierre, spelled their last name Laffite, but English-language documents of the time used "Lafitte". The latter has become the common spelling in the United States, including for places named for him. Lafitte is believed to have been born either in France or the French colony of Saint-Domingue. By 1805, he operated a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. After the United States government passed...

And rather than pirates beating uncle sam, why not join him!?

United States Pirate Party

The Pirate Party is an American political party founded in 2006 by Brent Allison and Alex English. The party's platform is aligned with the global Pirate movement, and supports reform of intellectual property laws to reflect open source and free culture values, government transparency, protection of privacy and civil liberties, rolling back corporate personhood and corporate welfare, evidence-based policy, and egalitarianism and meritocracy based on the hacker ethic. The party's national organization has existed in multiple incarnations since its 2006 founding. Its most recent is the Pirate National...

Miniman

Lol

Bradd Szonye

0

A: Harmlessly Harvesting Poison from a Monster Companion

As a house rule, you could train your wyvern to 'sting' a milking vial, thus collecting the poison. I would lay it out as the creature must be trained to do this (ie take 3 weeks and a succesfull animal handling check, to a DC of the DM's choosing) but its up to your DM.

I’m displeased with the way that the RAW tag is acting as a newbie trap here.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye That would have been a really crappy answer anyway.

Bradd Szonye

The answer still has some problems because of Good/Bad Subjective, but I really dislike the way two posters have jumped on a total newbie for not noticing that RAW has special implications for answering a question.

Yes, it’s not an awesome answer, for certain.

But a newbie should not need to read a tag wiki to know that house rules are challenging the frame.

This is the whole point of this meta, no?

Miniman

3:07 AM

I get what you're saying, but there have been countless metas on this site and other SE sites, and the conclusion is always that being a new user doesn't legitimise bad questions and answers.

Yes, we should comment on the problems with a post by a new user (or any user!) and point out what's wrong, try to get them to fix it.

Bradd Szonye

For the sake of argument, presume that it’s a Good Subjective answer, that the newbie has actually tested in play.

Miniman

But that's what both those comments were.

Bradd Szonye

It’s still a hopeless answer, because the newbie did not read the tag wiki.

That is a bad barrier to entry.

Miniman

Incidentally, you linked the answer we're talking about when you said "this meta".

Shalvenay

@BraddSzonye -- what do you do when someone asks a RAW question about something that a system's RAW does not speak about?

Bradd Szonye

3:09 AM

I thought I linked to the question, not one of the answers.

Miniman

23

A: How do we handle a desire to challenge the frame of a question?

If it is really a case of asking about the solution instead of the problem, it's OK to leave comments of the form "Can you state the real problem you're trying to solve so we can suggest alternate solutions?" or similar requests for more information (if it's relevant/needed). However, in some ca...

^ This

Bradd Szonye

Oh, oops.

Cut & paste problem.

Miniman

I figured.

Bradd Szonye

I meant this meta

Where D7 talks about this exactly problem, of the tag having special rules.

Miniman

Even without the tag, he was still challenging the frame of the question.

The querent asked for a means of incapacitating a friendly creature, not a means of harvesting poison.

Bradd Szonye

3:13 AM

Good, point. But still!

Miniman

Anyway, how is this different to a new user providing a 3.5e answer to a 5e question? (Which has been happening a lot lately, and is 100% wrong.)

Bradd Szonye

The answer would only have two problems, not three, if RAW were not a meta tag as D7 describes.

@Miniman In that case, you don’t need to read the tag wiki to know the rules.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye And you didn't here either. He specified his requirements in the question, and that answer ignored them.

Bradd Szonye

(FWIW, I’ve made both of those mistakes myself. Answering the wrong edition makes me feel silly. Overlooking the RAW tag makes me angry.)

Also, it’s somewhat ambiguous what RAW means, unless the asker states their requirements in the question.

RAW means two or three different things.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye Which he did

Bradd Szonye

3:15 AM

Eh? I am not seeing that in the question.

Miniman

I get that you're trying to make a generalised anti-RAW tag statement here, but you've picked a really bad example.

Bradd Szonye

The question poses several questions, but the main one appears to be “I would like to be able to harvest poison without harming the creature (i.e., without doing any damage to it). Can this be accomplished?”

With a few possible alternatives being explored, but not exhaustively.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye Read the question, not just the title. He doesn't ask for a method of harvesting poison, he asks for a method of giving a friendly creature the incapacitated condition.

Bradd Szonye

And the weak answer does answer that question!

Without challenging the frame.

The question does ask for a method of harvesting poison! Aargh!

I just quoted it.

And as you just noted, it’s also in the title.

That answer is so not challenging the frame in that respect.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye The title is a subject, not a question.

Bradd Szonye

3:18 AM

The question itself asks: “I would like to be able to harvest poison without harming the creature (i.e., without doing any damage to it). Can this be accomplished?”

The answer does answer that question.

The question further asks whether there’s a warlock spell that can do it.

But you don’t need a warlock spell to answer the main question asked in the title and body of the question.

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye this is not so much "this tag is a newbie trap" as "someone ignored part of the question and posted a bad answer", which is something that new people do startlingly often. (And sometimes non-new people too.) Without historic evidence this happens a lot, and more than usual, however 'usual' is defined, suggesting it's a newbie trap might be confirmation bias. (Or it is difficult to be confident it is not.)

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener I am actually not seeing how they ignored part of the question.

Also, I am not at all clear how the RAW tag even applies to this question.

wax eagle

@BraddSzonye they've ignored the requirements for harvesting the poison re: RAW

(which is incapacitated critter)

they need to answer the question first per the guidelines, then explain why that's a bad solution and then present a house rule

Bradd Szonye

The question does not ask for a rules-as-written answer. (The RAW tag does not always imply it.)

And in particular, there’s been extensive discussion on meta where I think the consensus is that we should not rely on the tag to imply requirements or set rules for answers.

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye meta suggests the RAW tag implies it

Bradd Szonye

3:23 AM

@waxeagle That’s exactly the sort of thing you would only discover by reading the tag wiki, which is not normal for SE.

doppelgreener

even if it's not RAW, they're asking for a rules solution (e.g. a spell), and pure-homebrew answers are always dangerous.

wax eagle

@BraddSzonye the challenge frame post basically lays out that process

answer the actual question, help understand why solution is implausible, present alternative

Bradd Szonye

OK, feeling ganged up on now.

doppelgreener

yeah, generally good homebrew answers come in the form of: "here's the actual rules support (or lack thereof), here's my homebrew"

wax eagle

@BraddSzonye sorry, not trying to gang up, just trying to splain

Bradd Szonye

3:24 AM

I don’t need three people to tell me it’s not an awesome answer, which I have already stated.

doppelgreener

i will disengage then and return to Other Things

Bradd Szonye

I am just trying to point this out as an example of the sort of thing D7 was upset about in his meta post.

BESW

Could we have handled it better? Undoubtedly, we can always improve.

I think the question's written so it's clear they're hoping for a non-homebrew solution, even if it wasn't tagged for RAW.

Miniman

Yep, my comment was very brusque and unfriendly. (I generally only make special effort to be newbie-friendly in a First Post review.)

BESW

Is the RAW tag problematic? Yes. Would I have talked about the need to justify introducing homebrew by talking about an insufficiency in existing rules if it wasn't tagged RAW? Yes.

Bradd Szonye

3:28 AM

@BESW That wasn’t clear to me. I did see that the poster added the RAW tag deliberately in a later edit, but I’m not sure what he meant to imply by it.

BESW

Did I rely too much on Miniman's comment to provide context for my own? Yeah, probably.

And please, please, don't ever assume that I've downvoted a question just because I left a comment on it.

As you can see, I have not:

Bradd Szonye

Oh I didn’t assume the downvotes came from either of you. I know better than that.

BESW

Bradd Szonye

But between comments and downvotes, at least 2-4 people were piling onto a newbie, and I don’t think that’s cool.

BESW

As for the content of the question focusing on rules...

Miniman

3:30 AM

@BraddSzonye If I've left a comment saying that an answer was a bad answer, it's pretty safe to assume I'll have downvoted. I see a bad answer, I downvote.

BESW

"[...]there are now more extensive poison rules [...] which may even allow me to harvest said poison from my mount. [...]" and then he goes on to specifically ask about various rules like Warlock spells and the Incapacitated condition and their ability to interface with the poison-harvesting rules.

Bradd Szonye

Yes, and I personally prefer rules citations to house rules any day.

But I’m really unhappy about this whole “challenging the frame” business just because a question has a tag attached, without explaining why it’s there.

And I think D7 was too.

BESW

The whole question is couched in terms of "Can this be accomplished?"

Bradd Szonye

Yes, and the answer, while weak, does answer that.

And I’d happily argue that it’s in the spirit of D&D5 to find solutions like that, although I don’t want to argue it today.

BESW

[shrug] My participation in that answer has nothing to do with the presence of the RAW tag except that I feel it supports the action I would have taken anyway.

Bradd Szonye

3:34 AM

Not far away from the poison rules, there are “rules” saying how players can defuse traps by holding a shield in front of the trap mechanism, for example, and you just need to do what makes sense as DM.

BESW

"Just because a question has a tag" is not what motivated me.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye The existence of vague or poor rules has nothing to do with this issue.

Bradd Szonye

Those are not vague or poor rules.

And I still don’t see what’s challenging the frame of the question, except for the meta-tag rules hidden in the RAW tag wiki.

BESW

@BraddSzonye NOTHING is wrong with challenging the frame of the question.

Bradd Szonye

Which are under dispute.

Miniman

3:36 AM

@BraddSzonye "Do what makes sense" is incredibly vague. Whether it's poor or not depends on your point of view, but it offers literally no guidance whatsoever.

Bradd Szonye

@BESW I agree, but I don’t see how the answer challenges the frame.

Except that the RAW tag wiki says that it does.

BESW

If I had said "It looks like you're offering homebrew without explaining why you think the given rules are insufficient. Here's a link to how to do that more clearly," would you be upset about that?

Adeptus

On a different topic... I don't get Glorantha. What's with the ducks?

BESW

Because that was my intention, as poorly as I expressed it.

And I'm getting really sick of having to say "I didn't make the comment because of the RAW tag" and you coming back going "RAW tag is why you made that comment."

Bradd Szonye

@BESW I don’t really see why it’s important to call out the sufficiency of the rules.

Miniman

3:38 AM

@Adeptus I think the real question is why other RPG systems aren't primarily about ducks.

Bradd Szonye

@BESW That’s not what I mean; I just don’t see what else there is that is challenging the frame.

I literally do not see it.

So explain please?

The question asks, how could you do this? And the answer offers a pretty reasonable way to do it.

It runs afoul of Bad Subjective because I’m pretty sure it’s an untested, off-the-cuff suggestion, but it makes perfect sense in the context of the question, as far as I can see.

Miniman

17

A: Is homebrew an acceptable answer to a question?

If, after well articulated research, you can reasonably suggest a lacunae in the originating system, and the querent doesn't explicitly forbid homebrew, you can answer with a "Your system doesn't support your request, but here is some homebrew I wrote, and here's how it played out in a game I ran...

Bradd Szonye

@Miniman Yes, that is a legit problem with the answer.

(Although I don’t think that aspect of Bad Subjective is usually enforced around here.)

Miniman

@BraddSzonye "If, after well articulated research, you can reasonably suggest a lacunae in the originating system"

BESW

@BraddSzonye Yeah. But the question asks that in a context. That context is "There are new rules that get close to what I want but there's a stumbling block; I'm hoping there's some way I can get around the block, like a warlock spell or a way to use a different condition."

THAT is a text-centred context.

Miniman

3:41 AM

@BraddSzonye As in, that's why it’s important to call out the sufficiency of the rules.

Bradd Szonye

@Miniman Do we ever actually do that in practice though?

doppelgreener

@BraddSzonye yes

Miniman

@BraddSzonye Yes.

Bradd Szonye

When I have pointed to that meta myself recently, on several occasions, I thought that people didn’t really take me (or it) seriously.

doppelgreener

@Miniman I think Bradd's perspective might be something like "they didn't explicitly ask for rules" or something. @Bradd is that right?

Bradd Szonye

3:42 AM

The responses I got were much more like, ”Eh? Really? That isn’t how we really do things around here.”

Miniman

@BraddSzonye It's a meta answer by a mod with a +17 score. It's difficult not to take it seriously.

Bradd Szonye

@doppelgreener Yes, that is part of it.

BESW

I'm seeing a clear text-preferential playstyle in the way the question is presented.

Bradd Szonye

@Miniman And yet when I used it as justification for why the RAW tag isn’t that important, people argued with me extensively and downvoted me into oblivion.

Because if we really took that policy seriously, we wouldn’t need to tag questions like this one RAW.

But folks like KRyan don’t believe that we honor that meta.

Miniman

That policy is the default state.

Bradd Szonye

3:44 AM

And thus feel that the RAW tag is absolutely necessary for this kind of question.

@Miniman I don’t think it is, but I don’t have research to back me up.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye A question that asks for homebrew doesn't require that policy to be followed, and a question that asks for RAW has stricter requirements than that.

Bradd Szonye

That meta was a surprise to me, and I think a lot of other people as well, and I think most non-RAW answers totally ignore it.

@Miniman No, I really don’t think that’s the way the site works in practice.

BESW

I do believe that the RAW tag is probably burnable. It's a bad tag in my opinion, because it's describing answers rather than questions, because it's poorly defined and requires exceptions, because it's a crutch for questions to not provide as much detail as perhaps they should, and many other reasons. I don't see it providing enough benefit to justify the problems it contains.

Bradd Szonye

I think it describes what Brian, and some other people like me, would like the site to work like.

BESW

But the RAW tag has nothing to do with why I think that answer is a challenge to the question's frame.

Bradd Szonye

3:46 AM

@BESW In discussion we found some cases where it does describe the question rather than the answers, but I think your take is the more common one.

Shalvenay

and we do have questions that seek out homebrew on this site, example of my own: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/53203/…

Bradd Szonye

See, I read that question’s frame as being, “How do I do this without harming my mount? With a spell? Is there any way?”

Miniman

@BraddSzonye Any examples? Most homebrew answers either back themselves up pretty well or get downvoted into the special hell.

BESW

I freaking read the question and formulated an informed opinion of its context and desired solution frame by analysing the approach the querent took to asking it and the examples of solutions he provided!

Bradd Szonye

I don’t assume that being precise about what the rules say in a question implies that you must also be precise about what they say in an answer.

Shalvenay

3:48 AM

hrm -- I think I have a problem -- I expect lore to be crunchy

is that a reasonable expectation to hold of any RP?

BESW

@BraddSzonye So, yes, as I've already said, I phrased the comment poorly. When we're done going over this for the fiftieth time I'll re-phrase it.

Bradd Szonye

Because I do that all the time, and it’s more to make people aware of the relevant rules that I’ve found and to forestall certain types of off-the-cuff mistakes.

@BESW Sorry, did not mean any of this as an attack!

BESW

It became an attack when you kept telling me that I was lying about why I made the comment.

Bradd Szonye

Didn’t have any idea it could even be taken that way.

@BESW What???

Seriously, I never said that you or anybody was lying.

Shalvenay

*sticks @BESW and @BraddSzonye on a minecart, pushes them down Cajon Pass and through the wye at Slover*

Bradd Szonye

3:49 AM

That is an accusation and an attack.

Now I’m angry.

BESW

Okay, let's back up.

You didn't say "You're lying" to me.

But after I said that I didn't have the RAW tag in mind when I made the comment, you continued to talk about how the only way the comment could have been justified was by the RAW tag meta.

Bradd Szonye

Correct. I said, that I saw one big and obvious thing, and I could not on my own see what else you might mean, so please explain it to me.

BESW

That, to me, is calling me out as a liar.

Bradd Szonye

No, I really didn’t.

I said that I could not figure out on my own what else you might mean, so please explain it.

Shalvenay

May I point out that this argument is getting extremely silly?

BESW

3:51 AM

If I say "I didn't do this" and you say "You must have done it," how else am I to take it?

Miniman

@Shalvenay Not getting silly, just escalating.

Bradd Szonye

>
@BESW That’s not what I mean; I just don’t see what *else* there is that is challenging the frame.
I literally do not see it.
So explain please?

BESW

Okay. Backing off. Sorry I misinterpreted. We do this "missing each other" thing semi-regularly.

Bradd Szonye

I simply didn’t understand, so asked for clarification.

No worries.

Deleting my response to your comment, since I misunderstood it.

BESW

To explain again: I saw nothing in the question that was not rules-focused. The context seems to be entirely within the "is there a rule or combination of rules to do this?" paradigm.

Phrases like "Can I do this?" are almost never, in my experience, associated with requests for inventing new rules.

I read that as meaning the querent is thinking in a framework where rules are things gamers use, not things gamers make.

Rules, for that mindset, are the sea in which we swim rather than the oars with which we paddle.

Miniman

3:57 AM

Is this a good time to mention that everyone agrees it's not a good answer, and discussion on the validity of the RAW tag is both pointless and divisive in this medium?

Bradd Szonye

@BESW I understand. I would probably make the same inference for a D&D4 question. But not for a D&D5 question about things in the “house rules” section of the DMG.

@Miniman On further thought, I think it’s a decent answer that needs to Back it Up.

I felt bad initially about upvoting it to offset what I thought were excessive downvotes, but it really isn’t a bad answer. It just isn’t well-justified.

BESW

I usually stay out of RAW issues both on mainsite and meta because I'm several years out of having a dog in that race.

Bradd Szonye

Not sure whether y’all have read the part of the DMG that the question refers to, but it’s full of stuff that is essentially, “Here’s how you might do it, but ultimately all of this stuff is up to you.”

It’s all about optional rules and variants and house/table rules and extras and stuff.

@BESW Sort of like the Fate System Toolkit.

And so, like a question about the Fate Toolkit, it did not occur to me that somebody would want to strictly follow only the explicit rules, and not all of the “these are just things you can do” bits.

Arguably, “do what makes sense at your table” is a big part of those rules, both for Fate and for D&D.

BESW

I'm going to leave this comment, but I'd like input first.

> To clarify: Since the querent's talking about how to use written mechanics to modify/combine/replace another written mechanic, it seems odd to invent a new mechanic without explaining why that's preferable to using existing mechanics. It's more important for SE, though, that a houserule answer be supported with table experience.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye I have read it, and I understand it. But he prefaced the question with "The problem is, as written, the rules require", and then includes the relevant details from the rule, which is making a strong statement about the context in which he requires an answer.

@BESW Sounds good to me, but I had no problem with your original comment.

BESW

4:05 AM

@Miniman This. I got a LOT of condescending Fate answers that said "Just make stuff up and do what makes sense" when I was asking for help on how to make stuff up that made sense.

Bradd Szonye

Yeah, and I agree that this answer needs to back it up.

Miniman

@BESW The gremlin?

BESW

Yes.

Bradd Szonye

This isn’t a gremlin answer though, as it recommends a specific course of action, and not just “do what makes sense.”

It’s a pretty cool answer that does make sense.

BESW

Aye, but the spirit feels similar to me: "Here are some mechanics, how do I do what I want?" "Ignore them and use mine instead!"

Bradd Szonye

4:07 AM

@BESW That’s better, although it’s not really inventing a new mechanic so much as applying a different one.

I mean, it’s not like the dude just invented Animal Handling.

Or is it Handle Animal in this edition?

BESW

Modified for pedantry, because you're right, the specific word counts.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye Also, if you're going to use 'makes sense' as an argument here: Sting a milking vial? How does that make sense? Even if he'd said sting a sponge, or something, it'd make more sense. Stings don't randomly squirt poison into the air.

Bradd Szonye

Eh? Venom milking vials are a thing, no?

BESW

I know fangs can squirt. Not sure about stingers. [looks it up]

Bradd Szonye

Yeah, I dunno whether that’s a relevant distinction?

BESW

4:11 AM

(Well, some fangs. Our local snakes are pathetic.)

Bradd Szonye

Heh.

BESW

Seriously, their saliva contains the venom, so they have to just sort of chew on ya to work it into the wound.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye IRL, sure. Most D&D campaigns don't have access to plastic :P

Either way, as a 'here's what makes sense' answer, he still didn't back it up at all.

Bradd Szonye

That looks like a shotglass. Those are probably available given typical D&D tech.

BESW

►

Miniman

4:15 AM

@BraddSzonye Yeah, but it's got glad wrap over the top. There's gotta be something for the snake to sink it's teeth into.

Bradd Szonye

Oh neat! So totally plausible then?

Or is it beyond reasonable D&D tech?

BESW

Totally plausible; use a thin piece of animal membrane, like scraped bladder.

However, for scorpion milking...

[watches] They're using electricity.

Miniman

@BESW Not necessarily a barrier, of course.

BESW

No, but controlled electricity might be a problem depending on... how many wizards are locked in their towers studying it, mostly.

Bradd Szonye

Making an edit to point to the video and to clean up some of the more egregious style problems with the answer.

BESW

4:18 AM

I'd probably expect a silversmith guild or similar to have the most control over low electrical currents.

Miniman

@BraddSzonye At that point, you're probably looking at a new answer.

We're not meant to completely rewrite people's posts.

Bradd Szonye

I’m not changing the frame of the answer, just cleaning up poor writing and adding a little of the Back It Up that it needs.

BESW

I'd also like to point out, tangentially, that guy is milking 100 scorpions in Tupperware in his kitchen.

A few other Google results reveal that the film-over-bottle method is also practical, though less efficient.

One interesting thing, though, with relation to D&D: I dunno how much 5e does this, but in both 3.5 and 4e the method you use in conjunction with a skill check is totally irrelephant to the check's difficulty or result.

Bradd Szonye

Heheh.

In D&D5, the method you use is totally relevant.

At least for traps, anyway.

BESW

Being able to make the check is permission to assume your character knows the technique, and there's no need for the player to.

Bradd Szonye

4:25 AM

I tried to edit as lightly as possible and not change the frame of the answer:

0

A: Harmlessly Harvesting Poison from a Monster Companion

You can milk a stinger if an animal is safely immobilized or sufficiently docile. Complete incapacitation is one way to accomplish that, but you could also could train your wyvern to “sting” a milking vial, thus collecting the poison. This would require the use of Wisdom (Animal Handling) for tra...

Oh hey and it’s really late now. I should probably go home and eat and stuff.

BESW

ttfn

Bradd Szonye

Later!

doppelgreener

4:49 AM

also remember this is a sibling of that game where trying to use potato tea is a problem.

"it works just fine in real life!" isn't necessarily an indication it works fine in game too.

BESW

It seems like every time that gets linked in chat, I get another downvote.

[waits]

Miniman

@BESW I actually vastly prefer your answer on that question to any of the others, so have an upvote.

BESW

yey!

(Honestly, after I had enough rep that I was comfortable I probably wouldn't lose privileges I thought important to have, voting patterns on my posts became mostly a thing of curiosity.)

Miniman

I might start linking to it for all the "I want to do this real-world thing in D&D" I've been seeing lately.

BESW

"The Peasant Cannon Exploit" would be a good name for a band, or an issue of The Middleman.

Oh, hey, that Evil Campaign answer got me my 40th rep cap day.

Adeptus

5:00 AM

@Miniman eg the undetectable-until-triggered trigger that I suggested for Brian's "door auditing" question. (Which has a few downvotes, but I haven't deleted.) I wonder if that solution would be more acceptable in 5e than previous editions?

BESW

10 more days to Epic Mortarboard.

3

If someone photoshops or draws Dr. Dinosaur from Atomic Robo over the raptor in this picture I'l love you forever. https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/10849830_839997436045141_1604158132243894775_n.jpg?oh=1afe7c3fa27da4ed246ce476eaf06104&oe=5540D15D&__gda__=1429876716_4f00b6cf8d9236d08ad306d333d94cc8

Tweeted by FunkedPOV on December 18, 2014 at 3:38 AM

Miniman

@BESW Wow. Seriously, kudos.

Shalvenay

so -- I'm trying to find a character concept seed that fits well with what greener has told me in the past about a paradigm shift from a problem-solving paradigm to a complication-creating paradigm

BESW

@Miniman I think that averages out to a little more than one rep cap a month since I've joined the site?

Which means... [math]

I should have the silver badge for rep caps in July 2015.

Shalvenay

thing is -- the roles I come up with don't fit well enough with what's expected of a dramatic character

BESW

5:12 AM

Someone who likes the act of doing.

Their goal is action, not resolution.

Shalvenay

so in a sense -- a loose cannon?

BESW

Not necessarily.

You can have the self-control to direct your desire for action toward worthy ends.

Again, don't go for extremes.

Shalvenay

hrm -- I think I kind of get what you're saying now actually -- someone who's after the emotional thrill of carrying out $whatever, vs. someone who is after the satisfaction of a job well done

BESW

Just because I like doing something doesn't mean I'll be totally unreasonable about getting to do it at the expense of everything else including common sense.

Miniman

@BESW data.stackexchange.com/rpg/query/129639/… suggests you only have 5 to go

Shalvenay

5:16 AM

o/ @doppelgreener

BESW

@Shalvenay Right.

Shalvenay

I think that'll work, actually :D

BESW

I've got a PC for next week who loves being an awesome rocket-booting space cop. She lives to be awesome.

On one level, she's happy to hear there's a Bad Guy in the area because it means she gets to go kick butt and have a new story to tell.

But she's also very proud that her job is about helping people, and when she hears there's a Bad Guy around she's sad because it means people are suffering.

Shalvenay

whereas -- my characters who are capable of being awesome in that sense simply treat it as another day on the job -- "oh, that feat that got me on the front page of yesterday's paper? tch! that was a walk in the park..."

at least, so far

BESW

If Bad Guys stopped showing up, she'd be sad because she wouldn't have a reason to kick butt--but she'd be happy that people weren't suffering!

Shalvenay

5:20 AM

my logical conclusion to that char though is "now, you get to meet someone who takes your entire frame of good and evil and smashes it into a million tiny pieces"

Miniman

@Shalvenay You might have a separate problem here, though. If your characters aren't being challenged, they're probably too strong.

Shalvenay

@Miniman -- yeah -- this is compounded by my past tendency to short circuit the challenges others create for me

BESW

@Shalvenay This is one reason having a character who likes doing rather than solving may be useful for you.

For such a character, a quick resolution to a challenge is not acceptable because he didn't get to do much.

Shalvenay

@Miniman -- what do you do when you want other people to rise up to your character's level of ability, btw?

(vs. nerfing your character just to make them fit in to the group-at-hand)

doppelgreener

Wow, I've hit 200/day 18 times? I thought it was like twice.

Miniman

5:26 AM

@Shalvenay Ask them. They have complete control over their characters, so their characters are only going to become stronger if they want them to, so the only way for you to effect that change is to ask.

Shalvenay

@Miniman -- *nods*

Miniman

But you might want to think, not about nerfing your characters, but about challenging them. One of my favourite authors writes stories that can be summed up as "Everything that can go wrong for protagonist does, protagonist goes through absolute hell, a combination of the character's resources, luck, and endurance eventually get them through. (Though not without some terrible consequences.)

And generally it's only right at the end of the book where she stops piling on the suffering and lets them start solving problems.

Shalvenay

@Miniman -- indeed -- however, when I do challenge my characters, I have trouble getting other folks to work with me, because my concept of "absolute hell" winds up beyond what they're willing to work with

but that beyond-what-they're-willing-to-work-with "absolute hell" is what's needed to fully challenge my characters

doppelgreener

@Miniman do you read dresden files? (wait i just saw the 'she', so I'm guessing not)

Shalvenay

this gives me ideas though -- thx and o/

Miniman

5:36 AM

@doppelgreener Yep, not the example I was thinking of, but very much the same basic idea.

doppelgreener

@Miniman BESW and trogdor have told me a little about what the novels put the character through, though I haven't read them myself. :)

Pixie

Making my characters' lives terrible is one of my favorite pastimes.

Miniman

@doppelgreener I was actually talking about Robin Hobb.

doppelgreener

@Pixie when you play fate I can imagine you sitting on a throne of fate points growing ever taller.

Pixie

@doppelgreener Hah. ... my PCs in the magical girl game likely will as they are much the same.

doppelgreener

5:38 AM

and every now and then, when the GM has begged enough times for you to maybe hand a few of those fate points back, you pick up a piece of the arm of the chair and toss it back to them. "+50 to my roll, peasant."

4

Pixie

I don't screw my characters over that much... [tiny voice] all the time.

Only sometimes!

doppelgreener

@Pixie [grin]

I'm looking forward to using the new version of Stellata to screw her over a little.

Pixie

Though I'm actually hoping the magical girl game turns out relatively nuanced. I like Madoka, but that's not what I'm setting out to do. Really depends on my players. If that's what they want, that's what I'll give 'em. And knowing them, it could be what they want. :P

doppelgreener

I'm going to play up her being a natural predator and having a different moral compass, among other things.

Pixie

Ooh, I see.

Is she a carnivorous plant? :P

Metool

5:52 AM

[staggers in]

Miniman

@Metool Don't drink and chat!

Adeptus

@Miniman Ah, I thought so! Poor Fitz...

Metool

@Miniman But if I don't drink, I'll dehydrate!

Miniman

@Adeptus Yeah! And I gotta admit, while I didn't really like the Soldier Son books, she was even meaner to the protagonist there.

@Metool Nah, you'd need like a Dust Wight or something for that.

Metool

@Miniman You don't know what's under the helmet.

Adeptus

6:01 AM

@Miniman I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. Oh! It looks like I'll finally get a copy of Wizard of the Pigeons! I ordered one from Book Depository before Supanova, so I could get it signed. But the day before, it hadn't even shipped yet... "dispatched in 2 days" yeah right. I was ordering some books for christmas presents, and decided to get that one too. This time it's at least been sent... hasn't arrived yet...

(it's the first of Robin Hobb's books that I read, when she was writing as Megan Lindholm)

Dorian

I feel like shit.

Both physically and emotionally.

Physically = stomach flu

Adeptus

(incidentally, neither of her pen-names are her real name)

Dorian

Emotionally = Because of negotiating/debating with my GM about certain rulings, I inadvertently caused the GM to ban Dragon Magazine material from the game, causing one of the other player's build to be rejected even though it was already accepted...

And I wasn't even trying to use any rule exploits, anything in Dragon Magazine, or break the game. Just trying to figure out the ins and outs of certain rulings...

Adeptus

General question to D&D players - Dorian and others. When you plan a build, do you go "here is my planned 20 levels of progression"? Or do you go "Here is my starting build" then ask about each new feature as you progress? Or something in between?

Miniman

@Adeptus Yeah, I've read it. I wasn't a huge fan, but I think that's purely personal preference.

@Adeptus I knew Robin Hobb wasn't, I hadn't realised Lindholm isn't either.

Adeptus

6:12 AM

@Miniman It's been so long since I read it... I hope I like it :P Of the many fantasy novels I read at the time, it's one of the few I remember much about. It was different, if nothing else.

Miniman

@Adeptus I actually met her recently, she did a book signing in Canberra. (We don't get many authors/bands/celebrities of any kind, so it was a pretty big deal.)

Adeptus

@Miniman Yay! I met her at Supanova in Adelaide (last month). She was also here for Syd or Melb Supanova in April.

(I didn't want to swamp her with books, so I just brought 3... the first books of the first 3 trilogies. One of the people in line had seen her at an earlier con, and said some girl brought a suitcase full of books to get signed!)

Metool

@Adeptus "Here's my class." If gestalt, "Here's my other class." Then, "I guess these feats are good for me."

Miniman

@Adeptus Personally, I tend to have a vague idea of what I want and work it out as I go.

Particularly if I don't know what the campaign will be about - there's no point building the ultimate Sneak Attacker if it turns out be undead-themed.

Metool

Oh, I forgot to start, "Here's my race."

doppelgreener

6:28 AM

I just found this from 2011:

5

Q: "By the Book" Tag

One of the things DragonsFoot does which seems fairly useful is mark questions where a "by the book" response is wanted - that is one which excludes house rules, "spirit of the game" explanations and so on and focuses just on what is actually written in the rulebooks. Is it worth having a tag fo...

which is a question wherein [by-the-book] is determined to be not a good tag... but we have [rules-as-written] so ??

@Pixie I forgot to reply, but yes! Omnivorous probably, though I imagine her having at least a few sharp teeth.

Miniman

@doppelgreener There's been a lot of meta discussions about the RAW tag. I'm reasonably sure I could find a meta question to support most arguments.

doppelgreener

@Miniman sure has been

According to the wikipedias Stellata would be a photoheterotroph, which is a fancy way of saying "she feeds on light but has to eat." And her energy requirements are probably well above what light alone can give her, so... she probably eats a lot like any other person.

doppelgreener

6:50 AM

@Dorian different way to put it: your GM chose to ban dragon magazine, and your GM chose to screw the other player over. don't accept responsibility for your GM's decision to do that.

Dorian

@doppelgreener True, but it was my debating that triggered it.

doppelgreener

@Dorian It was their decision to respond that way.

Dorian

@Adeptus I don't generally ask about progression, I just progress. Most of my gms want us to submit character sheet upon each level up anyways. Some people plan out ahead, but I definitely don't, ruins the surprise and makes me feel limited in build choices if say for example I find out I need something later and my build plan didn't account for it.

doppelgreener

@Adeptus I have a vague idea and things I will be interested in, and if I'm not already confident the DM will be cool with it I'll check with them. I do not buy into D&D's notion of the DM having ultimate power, though, and will not be cool with a DM's arbitrary dictations (in that I would collaborate or negotiate compromise or leave due to being uninterested in that experience). At the moment the only people I may possibly wind up playing D&D/Pathfinder with are close friends who I trust.

BESW

7:19 AM

Dorian

@doppelgreener It doesn't change my guilt in the situation.

doppelgreener

7:35 AM

@Dorian yeah, 'cause you're still blaming yourself. someone not blaming themselves would be here complaining about, I don't know, being annoyed at the GM for being a jerk or something.

up to you to make the mental switch though.

as long as it's stuck on "i did it" you'll feel guilty.

Dorian

8:00 AM

@doppelgreener Oh I'm still annoyed at the GM being a jerk, but if I hadn't said anything he wouldn't have made the ban.

Pixie

@doppelgreener Neat! I love carnivorous plants (or omnivorous photoheterotrophs, as the case may be!). I have several characters based on them and am likely to have many more in the future. (In fact, I type this from beneath a duvet cover I bought in part because the succulents on the print look like pinguicula.)

@Adeptus I do a mix of both. I tend to think about my build ahead of time and narrow down my feat and spell options so that I'm less paralyzed with indecision. This is especially prudent with the spells -- I often play casters, and there are a lot of spells. But I still make the final decisions level by level and continue to be open to new possibilities.

trogdor

@doppelgreener I think Dr Light has to pretty much be the same thing, though he may need to eat a little less, not necessarily something that needs to be mechanically expressed though

Dorian

cn't find Hidden Talent in the XPH... is it in the 3.0 version or am I just not finding it?

Metool

8:23 AM

@Dorian Is it not on page 67?

(The source I'm reading has an additional note on it, "Easy to miss as a feat from the XPH, Hidden Talent is an expanded feat in that book. See page 67")

Dorian

@Metool Ah it is, thankyou.

It's not in the feats section. It's a sidebar in the next chapter >.<

Retarded ass place to put it but whatever.

doppelgreener

8:58 AM

@trogdor yeah, it is just nice flavour to be aware of

but mostly it informs some of her costs!

"hungry" as a consequence != "stand in the light for a while," it probably means "you should probably eat that squirrel and forget you're in public."

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