TRPG General Chat

BESW

1:17 AM

VTC as unclear, plox.

Metool

It's not unclear!

It's just... natural armor is a bonus type.

BESW

Read my comment.

The weasel familiar isn't found where he says it is, and it doesn't give a natural armor bonus at all.

Metool

Ah, how curious.

I was going to say that: "Natural armor" is its own bonus type, which has its own stacking rules. If a bonus doesn't have a type to go with it, assume it's untyped.

Then include a quote on natural armor bonus.

BESW

I saw the answer you gave, and it's over-simplified because many sources of natural armor have other bonus types attached to them, like the amulet of natural weapons which gives "an enhancement bonus" to the wearer's natural armor bonus.

Metool

True enough.

God, d20 is a mess.

4

BESW

1:26 AM

I'm really tempted to pin that.

Alex P

@BESW I'll back you up if you do. Let's take it to the moon!

Metool

I'm not complaining.

Alex P

Whenever I find myself hating d20 too much I just google "My hate of d02 know no limit" and it abates for a while.

4

Metool

Hedgehog, what.

Resolved?

Oh no, ATM machines...

BESW

Yeah, I'm voting to re-open.

Metool

1:39 AM

blast, post edited

BESW

It's a much more complete and useful answer than the other one.

Though now that the OP has clarified the confusion in the question I'd un-down-vote it if I could.

Metool

This is why I don't vote until I see nothing in the question that is more likely to change than the average [whatever].

BESW

I'm generally okay with voting immediately; an answer is responding to the question as written, and can be voted as such.

But that's just a temperament thing.

I'm especially likely to downvote answers that look like they're trying to jump in before an inevitably-closed question is closed.

Not just for that, of course, but if they're too brief or assume too much or the like.

MC_Hambone

greetings denizens of chat

BESW

Yo.

Metool

1:54 AM

[bounce]

MC_Hambone

how are you guys tonight?

BESW

Under the weather.

MC_Hambone

@BESW that's unfortunate! Flu?

BESW

Not sure. Maybe just allergies, it's that time of year, but it's not fun.

MC_Hambone

I know what you mean, I am bad with pollens

@BESW I recently got Janelle Monae's albums and have been listening to them on repeat for like the past few days

currently listening to Dance Apocalyptic

BESW

2:06 AM

Yey!

Oxinabox

2:34 AM

I feel the need to highlight what a fantasic community member @SevenSidedDie is.
He has a great attidute.

Metool

Oh?

MC_Hambone

he has always been pretty friendly when answering/commenting on my stuff

BESW

3:30 AM

Today's Weird Wiki Talk Page entry is asking about the infuence of Sympbolism.

Metool

3:43 AM

ohhhh boy

doppelgreener

7:05 AM

@BESW I just remembered you teach people about Office. I have a Super User question about Word you may (I hope!!) know the answer to. I hope I don't recall the old war wound. Or develop any of my own at the expense of this thing:

0

Q: How can I keep my Trust Center settings from resetting on every document?

I work in an environment where I edit a lot of different Word documents using Office 2010 in Windows Vista. Most documents I will edit have Track Changes enabled. That makes this checkbox the bane of my work, since it seems that for every document I open or create anew, it will reset to being ch...

If you wish to stay entirely clear of this, I will understand completely.

lisardggY

7:19 AM

G'morning.

*glances at star list*

doppelgreener

@lisardggY It's got a really nice one right at the top.

lisardggY

d20 is a mess, yes, but that never actually bothered me.

Maybe it's because I play less tactical than others, but it always felt like broken rules could be glossed over, overpowered combos brought down by common consent.

Well, at least the d20 complaints finally pushed my not-that-funny comments off the starlist.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY Never! They're here forever! Muahahaha!

@lisardggY I'm gonna quote an analogy of what's wrong with d20 here

> I can’t even say what’s wrong with D&D 3.5e, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there.

You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes.

You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails with the middle of the head holding it sideways.

(from a rant about PHP, with the instances of 'PHP' replaced with 'D&D 3.5e')

lisardggY

I've heard similar analogies. Both for PHP and for D&D. I think they're flawed, at least as far as D&D is concerned. Often they'll also invoke the sunk cost fallacy, which is also only partially applicable.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY This analogy is just about how almost every part of the PHP language is kinda broken and weird, except that it's still workable enough you can still do stuff with it.

> Side observation: I loooove Python. I will also happily talk your ear off complaining about it, if you really want me to. I don’t claim it’s perfect; I’ve just weighed its benefits against its problems and concluded it’s the best fit for things I want to do.

And I have never met a PHP developer who can do the same with PHP. But I’ve bumped into plenty who are quick to apologize for anything and everything PHP does. That mindset is terrifying.

lisardggY

7:31 AM

Just like PHP might be a suboptimal tool from a technical or language-design viewpoint, but it might be the right tool because you have an existing PHP infrastructure, or existing PHP knowledge. Rewriting your codebase just because PHP is a clunky language doesn't make sense.

That side observation is a classic case of selection bias. I've talked to plenty of PHP developers who can say they like PHP, and they can point out its benefits in relation to its strengths.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY Sure, and Facebook would have to invest a lot to move to some other platform, but that's outside the scope of this analysis.

This isn't a question of "should you use PHP?", it's a question of analysing PHP's quality.

An existing code base matters in the former inquiry, but is irrelevant to the latter.

lisardggY

PHP's problem is similar to Visual Basic's back in the 90's. Its main strength is the low barrier of entry, how easy it is to get things done. This is a huge benefit and advantage, but isn't usually listed by the people who most benefit from it, because they're of the "get things done" attitude who don't usually get into discussions about programming langauges. :)

doppelgreener

I don't mean to put you on a defensive position about PHP here.

lisardggY

Oh, I'm not a PHP coder and dislike the language for many reasons.

I just think it's a bad case to make.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY What case? The fact it's wonky in almost every way?

lisardggY

7:35 AM

Ranting about what a mess d20 is great - it IS a mess, and that affects us.

What I dlslike is the various "X is unplayable" or "Starting a new game? DON'T USE D&D!" sort of arguments.

Just like someone with PHP experience absolutely should use PHP if he wants to get something done, so a D&D party shouldn't feel bad about playing D&D instead of spending their time learning a new system.

Learning a new system is good. I love learning new systems, and I believe it makes for better players. But there's a lot of condescension towards people who choose to stay in their comfort zone - with programming, as in roleplaying.

doppelgreener

@lisardggY Like I said though, this is entirely irrelevant to an analysis of the case of whether d20 is wonky.

And, well, no, I would argue the opposite: nobody should use D&D just because they need to get something done. Nobody should resort to the language they know just because they need to get something done. Unless they need it, like, tomorrow.

D&D players don't need to play their game tomorrow.

lisardggY

D&D players want to play. To have fun. If learning new rules isn't fun, the promise of more fun tomorrow doesn't really carry much weight.

doppelgreener

Ok. I'm... not sure where this is getting us.

lisardggY

And the wonkiness of PHP or D&D is relevant when comparing systems or analyzing what's the best tool for a job, but those comparisons tend to emphasize disadvantages, which is fine for a theoretical checklist, but you won't convince me that running the a game in D&D will be signficantly worse than running it in, say, Savage Worlds.

All I was complaining about is that some people tend to take D&D's problems and disadvantages and treat them as catastrophic failures, when in fact they're closer to annoying quirks.

doppelgreener

I'm speaking as someone whose entire group is moving from Fate to D&D because we want to get stuff done. We want to play the kinds of games we want to play. D&D is not going to support us doing that. So we're moving. Sticking with D&D because we knew it would be terrible for us.

And I am having to repeat myself that this is not within the scope of an analysis of the quality of the game.

Whether it's good or not is a different question from whether you should use it.

I think we're talking past each other and I don't really want to continue this.

lisardggY

7:42 AM

Yeah, I think we're talking about two very similar things, but not exactly the same. :)\

doppelgreener

@lisardggY You mistook me for trying to convince you of anything!

I was just sharing a quote I found amusing and wanting to discuss this issue, not argue a point.

lisardggY

And I disagreed with the quote. I might have been arguing with the originator of the quote and not you, but since he wasn't around, you were the proxy.

doppelgreener

I find your statements valid, from one perspective, but the quote is coming from a different perspective

i.e. you're conflating the analysis of whether it's good or not, and whether people should use it, as one thing to be argued about together, when they're totally separate

e.g. whether PHP is a hunk of crap has nothing to do with whether Facebook should move, or what they should program their next thing in.

I need to go home and do some shopping though, so I'm gonna depart for now.

doppelgreener

9:18 AM

The joys of living out of home: Get my own groceries. All prepared for a nutritious meal of exactly the design I desire. Leave it to tomorrow and put a frozen pizza in the oven instead.

BESW

10:11 AM

@JonathanHobbs Every month or two we have pancakes with ice cream, fruit, and yogurt for dinner.

doppelgreener

10:30 AM

@BESW Oh wow

I too have known the joys of pancakes for dinner. But that sounds lovely.

BESW

11:13 AM

Reflection of the day: It seems that cognitive impairment somehow interacts with existing personality quirks. To me, this means that I should work extra hard on not developing habits and patterns of thought which would be particularly awkward if exacerbated by such a problem.

Aaron

12:19 PM

Good Morning

wax eagle

12:32 PM

DND Insider has manage to charge me for the third year in a row on an expired credit card...the number isn't even the same this year...

(this isn't an actual problem I use the subscription service, I'd happily change my card if they asked...I'm just puzzled how they continue to bill recurring charges to a card that's been expired for nearly 3 years)

Aaron

@waxeagle I would be careful letting them keep charging it. Eventually it might turn out really bad for you.

wax eagle

@Aaron Only a concern if it becomes something I don't want anymore

Aaron

@waxeagle Why is that?

wax eagle

@Aaron even then it's not really an issue, I just dispute the charges and show evidence of cancelation and we're through

Aaron

@waxeagle Oh. You canceled and they keep trying to charge?

wax eagle

12:42 PM

@Aaron If and when I do cancel, if they charge me again I'll take care of it.

Until then, they can keep charging me yearly whatever wizardly way they're managing to do so

(the CC number they have is still one that is valid for our billing address (our CC company switched my number but left the wife's the same), so if all they need is a CC and zip it will work forever)

its just...odd

Metool

1:19 PM

yawn

Joshua Aslan Smith

1:43 PM

morning folks

@waxeagle I had a helluva problem with digital river (the company that WOTC outsourced all the Insider subscription management to).

Randomly they got bounced by my bank once and I spent 2 weeks trying to clear things up. Things did clear but I simultaneously got 2 3 month subs and a 1 month sub all at the same time. Thankfully I was able to eventually get a refund on the 1 month and the extra 3 month sub, but it certainly took a lot of effort.

wax eagle

so strange. I knew we were going to be playing a while when I bought my sub, so I bought a year and kept the renew box checked. The only reason I even looked at it was that they emailed me about the charge but it took it's time to hit the card. That got me looking at the payment deals they have one file. The *only* valid piece of billing information they have is a card number that is still valid under my wife's name (which they don't have).
The Billing zip, expiry date and security code would *all* be wrong.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah thinks get hinky in their systems. My original issue occured because there was an error when I went in to update some account info. Spent hours with customer support (read: billing support) wishing I could talk to someone in their tech support department. It was clearly an issue with a string in their database that was a part of my account (I was taking database 1 at the time)

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith those kinds of things are the worst you can see the problem from a mile away but the person on the support end of the phone doesn't understand at all

Joshua Aslan Smith

exactly

there was an issue with my tax return for year 2012 in 2013 with my NJ return (wife worked there for part of the year) where turbotax couldnt process it. same kind of issue.

Metool

3:52 PM

ahoy

Aaron

Ahoy

Murch

4:23 PM

Hey there

Good evening

Metool

What's up, Murch?

Based on the graphic novel by Jack T. Chick...

Joshua Aslan Smith

chat, so slow today

guess everyone is too busy with taxes

Metool

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with instant noodles.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith doing ours tonight...tried to do them last week realized work made a mistake on my w2

Joshua Aslan Smith

oooh, glad you spotted it then though

mine were done in feburary

wax eagle

4:35 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, it's an easy spot...that 5k needs to show up on my w2 somewhere

I just hadn't looked hard enough at it to realize.

for whatever reason the W2 form program they use doesn't support a form as complicated as mine

Joshua Aslan Smith

contractor?

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith no, just taking advantage of a few programs they have to report there, employer life, reportable health benefits, regular and roth 401k and dependent care benefirts

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh nice

power to you

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith they take good care of us here :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

4:55 PM

how do I view actions taken on a question?

because this question while old seems really open ended and listy and just hey how about you google

15

Q: Where can I find artwork to inspire adventure design?

Often when I find a cool piece of artwork online, I build some scene in my upcoming adventure around it and then show the image to the players during the session. The more cool artwork I have access to, the more choice I have when planning my adventures. Where can I find good online collections ...

gm props art

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith edit history

click the "edited x hours ago"

Murch

@JoshuaAslanSmith Already finished luckily

Dane

5:36 PM

This probably belongs in an anime chat room, but I'm more interested in these sorts of symmetry from an RPG standpoint: is anyone familiar with the source of this Avatar-related artwork, and specifically whether this is purely fan-speculation or part of the series? redbubble.com/people/thanix/works/…

Aaron

@Dane I think that is fan speculation. There are not any sub bending styles I have seen. I haven't seen much of the new series though.

Hellovart

anyone know c++? i have a question

Dane

@Hellovart: any reason that this is a better chat room than one of the Stack Overflow chat rooms?

Hellovart

because dumbass stackoverflow doesnt have c++ chat and i asked all chatrooms

Metool

But this is RPG general chat...

Dane

5:49 PM

Sounds to me like C++ sucks and you should use a different language. ;-)

Dane

6:00 PM

Hey, just wanted to share: do you know what happens in D&D3.5 when non-leveled orcs fight frost giants in a snowstorm? The frost giants Great Cleave swaths of up to 9 orcs at a time (not the theoretical limit; just what we saw in our game).

I'm not quite sure what my players thought would happen, but they worked hard to get an army of orcs in place to attack the frost giants they led out into the open, during a snow storm that limited visibility (thus preventing mass ranged attacks).

Aaron

7:47 PM

I know it is monday but it is quiet in here today.

Dane

8:22 PM

Someone mentioned taxes. That might be the case...

Aaron

8:40 PM

@Dane Isn't tax season over?

Dane

8:58 PM

Taxes in the US are due to the IRS by April 15, which is . . .