TRPG General Chat

SevenSidedDie

12:00 AM

@Phil Yeah, I can see that now. I think I glossed over the "or 4e" originally.

BESW

Also it doesn't need the 5e tag.

StuperUser

Editted down to just PF and "I really like the advantage/disadvantage system in 5e.

Has it been play tested as a sole addition to the Pathfinder rules and practically or theoretically explored and has any evidence been found that it has any breaking change impact or unforeseen consequences?"

BESW

It needs experts in the system the rule's being applied to, not the system it's coming from.

StuperUser

Good point BESW

The first sentence is super subjective, so probably inspires subjective answers.

"The advantage/disadvantage system in 5e is a major departure from existing roll modifiers." is better than "I like etc."

SevenSidedDie

@Zachiel Was it "[What everybody gets wrong about Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” ](salon.com/2014/05/08/…;?

Huh, don't know why that formatting is broken.

@StuperUser I don't think that's a danger. Saying you like it and want to use it is true and we prefer questions to give their true motivations.

StuperUser

12:05 AM

Is "Has it been play tested as a sole addition to the Pathfinder rules and practically or theoretically explored and has any evidence been found that it has any breaking change impact or unforeseen consequences?" objective enough?

Is it worth creating another question for 4e? I've never played it, but there could be differences in how it affects 4e combat and checks and PF combat and checks.

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser I don't think that part needs changing at all, actually. I think you just need to add a sentence that reiterates that you want practical playtest evidence, for those who missed it the first time you say it.

StuperUser

Like BESW says, it needs experts in the target systems.

Shalvenay

/me wonders what a druid would do when handed a length of schedule 80 PVC conduit... :P

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser I wouldn't make a 4e version if you don't play 4e. That'd be kinda useless to you, wouldn't it?

@Shalvenay Flame strike.

StuperUser

"I'm looking for practical evidenced based answers of a playtest or logically demonstrable examples of how it affects the rules rather than anecdotal answers."

BESW

12:07 AM

SSD keeps saying what I would if my tablet let me type faster.

StuperUser

Great minds think alike

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser More words harder to parse. Keep it simple. You want people who aren't reading carefully to understand. Those who are already reading carefully don't need to have it explained more.

BESW

Fools' thoughts differ little.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie -- somehow, I don't think that trying to stand over a burning piece of PVC is the greatest idea, but I think the weird smoky smell would be enough to make the druid get out of Dodge

Phil

@StuperUser I'd put that bit in bold as well

StuperUser

12:08 AM

"Practical evidenced based answers rather than anecdotal answers please."

Practical evidenced based answers rather than anecdotal answers please.

Phil

yeah that :)

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay By then the conjured tornado would have lifted it over the mountains and deposited it into the ocean.

StuperUser

Done

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser Do you mean "anecdotal", or "speculative"? Anecdotal is actually something we do well here. (You're unlikely to get a rigorously-constructed Chi-squared study result, after all.)

StuperUser

"Practical, evidenced based answers rather than speculative answers please."

The evidence can be anecdotal, after all.

SevenSidedDie

12:14 AM

@StuperUser Reviewing the edit, you might want to delete "theoretically explored", since that will draw speculation too. The existing answer is kinda theoretical exploration, right?

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie yeah I think it was that one article

StuperUser

Yes, but you can prove it breaks without having to playtest it. And that'd be a valid, objective answer.

Or is it that I'm over-egging the question?

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser It would be, but if that's an acceptable answer, you'll have to make sure a casual reader knows that "I think that bla blah blah off the top of my head" doesn't count. Which is a challenge.

StuperUser

"theoretically demonstrated" rather than "theoretically explored" seems to do the trick?

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser Maybe throw in a "rigorously mathematically" or something like? Make it unambiguous that if they're going to armchair it, they have to make it ironclad instead of handwavy?

StuperUser

12:22 AM

Has it been play tested as a sole addition to the Pathfinder rules and practically or theoretically demonstrated and found to have any breaking change impact or unforeseen consequences?

**Practical, evidenced based answers (solid maths from the playtest or theory) rather than speculative answers please.**

wax eagle

@JohnP are you joining us tonight? I owe you a starting GP number, going to use the DMG recomendation and say take 625 in addition to your classes' starting gold

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser That would be unambiguous, yeah.

StuperUser

So it shall be.

SevenSidedDie

@StuperUser A bit awkward, but unambiguous and not going to be missed by any but the hopelessly casual reader. :)

Shalvenay

hrm...is it just an accident of D&D being popular that optimization is commonly seen by RPers as a purely OOC activity?

because I was reading the convo between Zachiel and Bankuei that I got @mentioned in and some of the problems Zachiel was running into struck me as eerily familiar -- and also linked to the notion that character optimization is inherently an out-of-character activity

Pixie

12:42 AM

@Shalvenay It isn't necessarily, but it generally is. Obviously people train and get better at things, and there's no reason that they can't recognize that some things work better than others. But they are not aware of their existences as converted into stats, so how can they optimize?

At least in the same sense that players can OOC.

Shalvenay

@Pixie -- while there are systems where the statistics themselves are in-character (kind of like test scores), I'm speaking more to the qualitative side of optimization. "Sword X cuts deeper into a pig carcass than sword Y" is a valid basis for charopt, even if the character doesn't know that one of them is 2d6 and the other 2d4

or in other words -- they may not know the system's numbers, but the characters can still see the effects those numbers have/represent in-universe

Pixie

@Shalvenay We're talking about D&D specifically though; D&D is not like that. But, right, it's something that is observable to a character, so I have no qualms with it. Characters will act on what they can perceive, and if a character desires to perform the best that they can, they will do what they can to effect that. But when you say optimization, that tends to refer to a much more in-depth process than a character deciding "I want a better sword."

Shalvenay

@Pixie -- I was using the sword as a simplistic example

Grubermensch

The reason that it is generally seen as OoC is that "optimization" often involves choosing traits based on metaknowledge of what kinds of challenges will and won't come up in gameplay. Strictly in character, there are a whole host of skills that you would need in order to function in society and not have your neighbors pick you up and throw you off a cliff.

Pixie

@Shalvenay As I was.

Shalvenay

12:51 AM

@Grubermensch -- I'll say this -- in D&D -- it involves choosing traits based on metaknowledge because those traits must be decided upon before the characters have access to the information needed to decide whether they are good or not

Grubermensch

Consider the fundamental setup of most RPGs: the party. Because you know the character is going to be in a group for the entirety of the game, you can make tradeoffs that a real person would not, because said real person has to be more self-reliant.

Shalvenay

@Grubermensch -- very true on party structure -- I, personally, prefer characters that aren't as strongly bound to a single party role or who need the party to provide for them in a basic sense

Pixie

@Shalvenay There can be in-character justification for any sort of optimization, but the fundamental process involves a player sitting down, looking at all the mechanical representations and the way the system works as a whole, and deciding what will make the character the best at what the player wants to do in the game. This need not have a negative impact on the RP aspect. But it's a luxury that the character does not have.

Shalvenay

@Pixie -- I suppose it boils down to "how much of the system's effects can a character within a world governed by that system see?"

Grubermensch

Nope

The player and the character will make different choices because they experience the results of those choices differently.

Miniman

12:57 AM

And because the player knows things the character doesn't.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle dat invite link?

Grubermensch

GAEM TIME AWW YISSS

Joshua Aslan Smith

aww chea boi

wax eagle

momentito, hangout is launching now

Zachiel

@Grubermensch Ha, I don't have a party

wax eagle

1:03 AM

plus.google.com/hangouts/_/gqgdig6difphwm3un74nphgwxia

Shalvenay

@Zachiel -- agreed; however...you can easily make a char self-reliant to the point where it becomes an obstacle to RP when you are in a MUSH/MUD/MMO setting

wax eagle

@Zachiel I'm thinking of putting together a new group to run through the new adventure dropping next month for 5e if you're interested

Zachiel

@waxeagle I'm not interested in 5e, thanks

Shalvenay

@Zachiel -- how come? too much to learn, or..?

Zachiel

@Shalvenay I don't know. Right now mine is "will become very powerful, but wizards will always ssteal his kills due to being ranged"

Miniman

1:05 AM

@waxeagle Oooh, what times are you looking at? (I'm planning on running that campaign, but I'm hoping to play through it first.)

Zachiel

@Shalvenay I like 3.5 and 4e, I don't need a new edition

wax eagle

@Miniman I'm honestly not sure, still pondering whether I can run 2 online groups concurrently

Zachiel

I still need to learn to play 3.5e properly

Shalvenay

@Zachiel -- because my problem child char tends to have problems with being excessively self-reliant

@Zachiel -- aaah. I take it you never played 1e or 2e?

Zachiel

Well, if Baldur's Gate 2 counts...

wax eagle

1:07 AM

@JoshuaAslanSmith poke: plus.google.com/hangouts/_/gqgdig6difphwm3un74nphgwxia

and @RobertF too

Zachiel

All my baldur's gate characters had 18 Str

Shalvenay

because 5e's attitude towards rules and rulings is more 1e/2e (i.e. less RAW, more rule0)...

Miniman

@waxeagle Yeah, I get that. My group is 1 or 2 sessions from finishing RoT, but I won't start PotA until it's done.

Zachiel

No I'd hate it. I need rules.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel -- there's still a base set of rules, but you're expected to rule on more things, instead of digging through a giant rules compendium looking for the rule applicable to your precise situation

Zachiel

1:08 AM

One of the worst things about my game is not knowing what a DM considers overpowered in advance.

I need to have a clear situation where I can see what's the good way to do something. Or at least damn me for not getting it in time

Shalvenay

@Zachiel -- that's much less of a problem in 5e due to bounded rationality

in otherwords, 5e's design philosophy sets out to nerf charopt itself

you can still do it, but the gap between optimized and unoptimized chars is far smaller, and the base classes are better-balanced too

Zachiel

Ah, I also like stacking bonuses. Except those who everybody else has but have daily costs. So I'm less powerful because I hate spending, and I rage at myself

I want to charop as much as the DM allows me (which also means I'm in constant need to understand how to cope with my weaknesses)

Shalvenay

yeah -- in 5e, the DM doesn't have to worry nearly as much about game breakage

so they don't have to have as tight a leash on your charoptiness

(also -- taking things that fit the character works a lot better in 5e)

Adeptus

@waxeagle I'd love to try 5e, but I suspect your scheduled time won't mesh with my limited availability (and different timezone)

wax eagle

@Adeptus yeah, probably not :(

Pixie

1:18 AM

Grah. Still such character block for M&M 3e. I'm trying to watch inspirational things, use random generators, and use the generators within the book, but I can't lock onto anything.

Miniman

@Pixie Make a half-elf half-dwarf Rogue/Fighter/Cleric/Wizard!

Pixie

@Miniman With two katanas?

Miniman

@Pixie I hadn't thought that much about it :P

Adeptus

@Miniman Dwelfs don't get enough attention

Pixie

@Miniman A reference to this. :P

Miniman

1:21 AM

@Pixie I'm at work, so I'll have to check that one later.

Pixie

> I'm playing a half-elf, half-orc, half-dwarf barbarian with with six levels of wizard and four levels of thief. [slightly later] My character uses two katanas. (NICE!)

I actually misremembered the exact... blend... and thought you were referencing it, haha.

DuckTapeAl

1:53 AM

Shameless plug!

doppelgreener

2:14 AM

@Adeptus i don't understand. if they're half dwarf half elf where's the room for the half human?

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Bag of Holding.

Pixie

In the long, luxurious, Pantene commercial beard.

SevenSidedDie

@Pixie Right, sorry. Correction: Beard of Holding.

Pixie

@SevenSidedDie ... I want one of these in Fate or some such game.

JohnP

@waxeagle Sorry man, just got bebby to sleep. Forgot that the wife starts teaching all the classes at her school for a month or so.

doppelgreener

2:32 AM

@Pixie Dwelf pulls his hammer out of his beard, readies for battle. "How'd you do that!?" "Do what?" "You pulled your hammer out of your beard." "Keen observation there, eagle eyes." "How'd you do it?" "What d'you mean? Doesn't your beard do that?"

3

DuckTapeAl

A literal interpretation of hammerspace?

JohnP

10 days. 1271 points

DuckTapeAl

...what? You're not allowed to VTC a question again once it has been reopened by other people?

That's sort of weird.

BESW

2:51 AM

All humans are half-dwarf and half-elf, remember? So, for example, the half-orc/half-elf is probably actually 1/2 orc, 1/8th-dwarf, and the rest is elf.

SevenSidedDie

@DuckTapeAl Yeah, you get one close vote per question, ever. (And one reopen, should you change your mind.)

DuckTapeAl

I guess that makes sense to prevent close wars.

I'm referring to the PF disadvantage question, specifically.

BESW

@DuckTapeAl I think your objection to the question as currently worded would actually be part of a really good answer to it. Since he's asking for experience, answers will say how they have implemented advantage and how it worked out.

DuckTapeAl

@BESW In that case, the answer to "would this break PF" is entirely based on the implementation. It seems really weird to me to have a question where we could have two answers that are correct, well-researched, and backed up that have the opposite conclusions.

BESW

Mmm. I think it should probably be phrased "How can I use advantage in PF without breaking it?"

DuckTapeAl

2:59 AM

"It will break pathfinder, because replacing all +/-2s has huge consequences" and "It won't break anything, because Inspiration is basically harmless" are equally valid.

BESW

So, yanno, it's a poor title but the body text is fine.

DuckTapeAl

That's sort of what I was thinking.

BESW

We've seen that before.

Since the body text makes it clear what's being asked (supported by chat here with the querent), you could make that simple edit.

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, I don't think the current body really says "give me a way to make this work in PF" right now. If he said that's what he wants in chat, then I'd be cool with editing and answering that question.

I just don't want to spend a bunch of time on an answer that talks about a specific way of implementing (dis)advantage only to get a bunch of downvotes because that wasn't the implementation the querent was thinking of.

wax eagle

@JohnP quite all right.

Grubermensch

3:06 AM

It is surprisingly difficult to find badass tiger art on DA to use as a Roll20 token for my mount.

wax eagle

@Grubermensch that does indeed surprise me, you'd think that would be quite prevalent

Grubermensch

I know right. It's almost all fairly boring photography.

Magician

@BESW, @doppelgreener you've seen an invite to a 13th Age chat room, yes? I have no idea how these things work.

wax eagle

@Magician looks like it's set up as a gallery room, you have to be whitelisted to speak

Magician

Aye, it's for an online game we'll eventually have. They are whitelisted, I believe.

wax eagle

3:13 AM

(which they both are...so I'm now guessing you're asking about the actual invites)

Magician

It's not at all urgent, I'm just wondering if I'm being ignored because I pushed a wrong button or because I'm an unlovable sack of insecurities poorly masquerading as a man. Or maybe because people are busy and it's not urgent.

doppelgreener

3:27 AM

@Magician i did not see an invite, but i seem to be whitelisted!

Miniman

Ah, Reports Manager. A surefire method of creating suicidal impulses in any rational human being.

Magician

@doppelgreener Curious! I've even messaged you directly from that room.

doppelgreener

also, we are going to find out Friday next week if our internet order might actually go ahead, or if TPG has totally screwed up our installation... a second time

Magician

Hah, TPG. Cheap, but oh so flaky.

doppelgreener

(in which case we'll probably decide: ok! well then! thanks! give us a refund, we're going to go give our money to iinet instead.)

@Magician however, they do have unlimited ADSL.

(then again, vodafone was offering an unlimited plan whilst it was busy trying to avoid crashing and burning.)

DuckTapeAl

3:29 AM

Man, I'm going to be super sad when non-unlimited internet comes to the US.

Magician

@doppelgreener That's the plan I'm on. My internet is occasionally unreliable, but I don't know if that's wifi usb thing, router, landline or TPG that's screwing me over.

doppelgreener

@DuckTapeAl Isn't it already there in a few places?

DuckTapeAl

Probably.

Nowhere I've ever considered living, thankfully.

doppelgreener

@Magician My parents had TPG for several years, up until ~2012ish. Seemed fine. Once a year there'd be a day with no 'net access at all, and every few months we'd have a couple of hours in which the net wouldn't work properly.

There was also a major packet loss issue we uncovered once which was slowing things down or making connections unreliable; can't remember what the cause was.

DuckTapeAl

@doppelgreener In America, we call having hours or days of no internet "Verizon".

doppelgreener

3:39 AM

@DuckTapeAl Haaa.

What about Comcast? I thought that one was meant to be the abysmal one.

DuckTapeAl

Comcast is terrible for a lot of reasons, but Verizon is known for not believing you when your internet goes out, and you tell them that it isn't the router.

"This is my third new router in a year. Every time before, it was a wiring thing. Just send a tech."

...I'm not bitter.

doppelgreener

Of course not.

In other news though, Google is busy beating down attempts to stop them rolling out virtually everywhere in the USA one by one, and internet providers are (I believe) getting covered under Title II which means they will have to rent out their infrastructure at a reasonable price to anyone who wants to use it (such as Google).

DuckTapeAl

I'm very happy about that.

Google Fiber is a big reason why I'd like to move to Austin.

doppelgreener

Meanwhile it's becoming very obvious that the internet providers are engaging in a no-competition agreement behind the scenes, and I am under the impression that is not legal under anti-trust laws as far as I'm aware.

DuckTapeAl

Probably not.

doppelgreener

3:46 AM

Since it's becoming clear, people are going to be able to start calling them out for it and lobbying to break down the agreements.

DuckTapeAl

Difficult to prove, though.

doppelgreener

IIRC it became extremely obvious during the time warner acquisition case.

DuckTapeAl

I didn't hear about that.

Pixie

@doppelgreener They're all the abysmal ones.

2

doppelgreener

4:09 AM

@Pixie haaa, nice

links: If You Want To Fix U.S. Broadband Competition, Start By Killing State-Level Protectionist Laws Written By Duopolists

> For fifteen years now I've watched as phone and cable duopolies lobby to pass draft legislation designed to keep broadband uncompetitive. Specifically, in more than a dozen states these protectionist measures either hinder or outright ban a town or city's ability to wire itself for broadband (either alone or with a private industry partner) -- even in cases where nobody else will.

then there appears to be a case of ComCast bullying a competitor out of their territory

BESW

I spent three years fighting our local ISP, which insisted that the problem was in our router or modem... even after we'd replaced them both. Twice.

doppelgreener

Recently some anti-competition laws were overturned

that said this makes me happier about moving to the UK

Pixie

9:17 AM

Hmm. I sort of want to play a game in which everyone makes up an ostentatious persona who's a powerful, magical chosen one and we just BS everything as we go, crafting an unapologetically over-the-top world. Totally gratifying to my intense love of the tropes involved. Inspired by the chuunibyou character type.

Hmm... maybe Roll for Shoes could do this, if I used a system. It lends itself to skills getting increasingly more ridiculous and powerful (but more specific), and also this would be completely silly.

kviiri

Everyone knows the Deck of Many things.

But if there was a Deck of Just One Thing, what would that thing be?

Miniman

@kviiri Well, logically the One Thing has to contain all the Chaos of the Many Things. So I'm going to say that it turns every plane into Limbo.

Pixie

@kviiri Potato chips. Bet you can't draw just one.

BESW

The Deck of Falling Rocks?

@Pixie This seems appropriate.

kviiri

Being a computer scientist, my first idea was that the Deck of Just One Thing just gives you more Decks of Just One Thing.

@Pixie Nice one!

BESW

9:30 AM

@kviiri Ah, the Tautology Deck.

user61230

Someone said "tautology."

kviiri

@BESW The Deck of Recursion!

BESW

Hey, why do YOU get to be the president of Tautology Clu-- wait, I can guess.

kviiri

It's got a card that gives a Deck of Recursion on the top, and the Deck of Recursion on the bottom.

Once I was in this youth club where it was customary to begin meetings by answering an inspiring question like "if you could be a vehicle, what would you be?"

user61230

@BESW This comic makes me wonder if suggesting a GM takeover is good advice.

user61230

9:36 AM

"My GM is being an annoying jerk." "Proposed solution: usurp the GM's throne at your table."

kviiri

One time they didn't have a question thought out in advance, so I proposed they'd ask us "what would YOU ask?"

Which was, incidentally, also my answer.

BESW

@Emrakul The GM's response is "The inn catches fire."

user61230

@BESW "The physicist is happy knowing that a solution exists."

BESW

....although the previous owner of my phone did a good job scrubbing his personal information, the custom additions to the phone's dictionary are telling.

user61230

oh dear

BESW

9:40 AM

He capitalised Charizard but not cthulhu.

user61230

Oh that's not nearly as bad as I thought... dear gods, I need to change what my mind jumps to first.

user61230

Although it seems somewhat fitting that "Cthulhu" remains horrifically uncapitalized.

BESW

This list contains "beatbox" and "beatboxing."

But only the past tense of "cosplay."

user61230

Your previous phone owner seems generally like a person I'd like to meet.

user61230

Also, I'm now terrified of looking into the records my phone keeps...

BESW

9:43 AM

@Emrakul I DID find one astonishingly personalised insult.

user61230

...curiosity: piqued

BESW

[firstname]-[insultingbodydescription]

user61230

...how did that get added to the dictionary? Did they want to use it multiple times?

BESW

It may also be a Fight Club reference.

user61230

"Anathem", "automagically", "backstory", "bitcoin", "blargh"

user61230

9:45 AM

"didst"

user61230

Apparently "grey" isn't a word to Google.

user61230

And it also doesn't know the noun form 'hipocrisy'

BESW

I had to teach Android that "pretension" can be pluralised.

user61230

'Myst' and 'Neuromancer', 'Sauron', 'Soylent', 'steampunk', 'tesseract'

user61230

I'm actually not wholly disappointed in my list

BESW

9:47 AM

[grabs tablet to see what he's put in that]

Aenima, awesomest, Beeb, Blinovitch...

user61230

...wait, Aenima, Beeb, Blinovitch?

BESW

Aenima = an album by Tool.

Beeb = Auntie Beeb, the BBC.

user61230

Blinovitch is a Doctor Who reference

user61230

Okay, I really want to meet this person now.

BESW

Blinovitch = Blinovitch Limitation Effect, a princinple of time travel in Doctor Who.

Oh, no, those last four were my old tablet's dictionary.

He likes British shows and Doctor Who, but he's a Newvian.

user61230

9:51 AM

Fair enough.

BESW

Back to his... bromance, Geocaching, nom, Ki,

A good handful of Chamorro.

user61230

nom?

BESW

But amusingly not "Chamorro."

@Emrakul I assume as in "om nom nom."

user61230

...ah

user61230

I used to/still go by the name Nom, which is why I was curious

BESW

9:53 AM

...and "tis."

Another good handful of anime stuff. Gundam, manga, etc.

And his wallpaper was an astronaut suit full of gears.

user61230

Why were they keeping gears in an oxygenated, temperature-controlled environment in space?

BESW

[shrug]

BESW

10:21 AM

@Emrakul My wallpaper is a ferret lighting a gas streetlamp, so who am I to judge?

user61230

...fair

user61230

oh, I have a question

user61230

What actually is your gravatar?

BESW

The Bookworm

The Bookworm (German: Der Bücherwurm) is an 1850 oil-on-canvas painting by the German painter and poet Carl Spitzweg. The picture is typical of Spitzweg's humorous, anecdotal style and it is characteristic of Biedermeier art in general. The painting is representative of the introspective and conservative mood in Europe during the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1848, but at the same time pokes fun at those attitudes by embodying them in the fusty old scholar unconcerned with the affairs of the mundane world. == History == Carl Spitzweg painted three variations...

A copy of it hangs in the reproduction of Ralph Waldo Emerson's study in Concord.

user61230

Ahhhh, that makes much, much more sense.

user61230

10:25 AM

Trying to decide what books to read next is horribly difficult

BESW

And for a while it was a sepia version of Kittelsen's Nøkken, but with added moustache.

@Emrakul Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm!

user61230

another option aagajligjlij

user61230

I think I'm going to read The Golden Age trilogy, actually

BESW

10:51 AM

Oh, @Emrakul, I was going to be free this coming Wednesday, but then I got scheduled to teach Word to the blind. (CC @SevenSidedDie for lulz.)

user61230

No worries! That's more important anyway.

user61230

Plus I have new classes next week, which are going to be fun and interesting!

BESW

Yey!

Aaron

12:03 PM

Hi

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle great session last night

@Grubermensch you cool with me using that long bow?

David Reeve

good morning

wax eagle

12:36 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith Thanks, I enjoyed it. Good to get back into combat, and I love running 3-way cut type scenes

Joshua Aslan Smith

1:20 PM

"I'm gonna stick with wood elf cause I don't wanna be drittz"

The First Five Character Building Minutes Of Pillars Of Eternity

►

The Oracle

2:14 PM

0

Q: How to handle obsolete answers?

In a rare scenario of some (real-life maybe) events leading to the answer becoming obsolete, what should the answerer do? What should the moderators do? The question that got me thinking is this one. Well, it probably should have been WebApps SE question indeed, but one can come up with a hypoth...

discussion

JohnP

3:00 PM

@Grubermensch Maybe try a google image search for tiger mount? There are a few cool ones, although I suspect they are from MMORPG's.

Joshua Aslan Smith

WAIT

@Grubermensch ^

wax eagle

I was really, really hoping that Ken would get the woodland critters in on the act last night

wax eagle

3:22 PM

does this change answers on the WC feat question? sageadvice.eu/2015/03/27/war-caster-feat

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle beat miniman for once on a 5e question

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith bravo :). I was actually starting an answer to that one too :)...tho I don't have a PHB around so I'd be lacking a good quote

Joshua Aslan Smith

I saw his question and I was like I really hope that doesnt work because that would be buh-ro-ken

and then I just scrolled up above his quoted part (its literally the paragraph above)

and I was like HAH

honestly though its super worth it to get that level 20 warlock

1 minute and ALLL your spell slots from pact magic are regained > 2 lvl 1 wiz slots that you could use for pact magic

4 x2 vs 4 +2

warlock has a pretty broad list already because the additions your patron adds

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, at the point where you've put 19 levels into it, it doesn't make sense not to grab the 20th level

(and that's true almost universally I think)

Joshua Aslan Smith

theres one or two duds of a capstone

and a lot of builds are greatly improved by that lvl 1 fighter or paladin dip for proficiencies

RobertF

3:41 PM

@waxeagle - Hi William - sorry I missed the Google invitation last night. :(

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle you beat me but I think I cover some things you dont so Ill leave it up

Miniman

@JoshuaAslanSmith I pretty much inevitably get beaten to questions posted at 3am :P

wax eagle

3:56 PM

@RobertF quite all right, I posted it kinda late in the day yesterday

Grubermensch

4:10 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith BAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Grubermensch figured youd like that

what a ridiculously long question

2

Q: How to build a flexible and scalabe system for PCs' NPC organizations?

Background: I am preparing to run a campaign using Dark Heresy Second Edition. Although this is nominally an investigative game, several key non-combat mechanical systems are either anemic or missing outright - which makes sense when you consider its lineage coming from table top wargaming. I w...

system-agnostic game-recommendation campaign-development dark-heresy realm-management

Also the core premise is so bass ackward

wax eagle

ooh schley did the maps for PotA...that plus good reviews makes me very happy I've preordered it

(other than the annoying scale thing they've done in every 5e release yet....grrr)

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

yes that aside Ive thought his map work has been incredibly good

JohnP

4:28 PM

Anyone familiar with beacon of faith in pathfinder?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle so that tweet, didnt they already clarify already that it grants an "Attack" vs attack and thus you needed to make a melee attack of some kind, not a spell that is an attack

SevenSidedDie

4:40 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith A detailed system-agnostic realm-/organisation-management system is a game design Holy Grail. Likely doesn't have an answer therefore, but it would be sweet if it did and maybe one day it will.

Joshua Aslan Smith

kinda the IRL holy grail as well

SevenSidedDie

4:55 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith True!

RobertF

I listened to a Noah Antwiler rant on Youtube the other day - he really comes down hard on 5e. His reasoning seems to come down to: I hate 5e because it's not Pathfinder. The fact that wizards are much more powerful in 5e with unlimited cantrips really got him upset.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF "This deviates from my tastes" is the low-hanging fruit of game design criticism.

3

MC_Hambone

So i was looking at this question: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/58495/10263 and it had me thinking that out of combat activities other than searching rooms and talking to NPCs about plot points adds a lot to the RP side of the game that I think my group is missing. So I'm looking for suggestions of things like transcribing scrolls that my players can do during "downtime"

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF I mean, I can say the same about Pathfinder: it's way too fiddly and full of the character-creation/advancement minigame, therefore bad! But you must insert "for my tastes" and "for me" in there, to get the true statement. :)

MC_Hambone

I think the DYI critics on youtube go for the "for my tastes" critique because its all they know how to do

RobertF

5:02 PM

What I don't understand is that Noah A. doesn't have to play 5e - he can continue to play PF which is still actively supported. In fact just about every variation of D&D from 1st-4th edition is still being supported in one form or another, right?

SevenSidedDie

@MC_Hambone That's a pretty big can of worms to dig into. There are many ways to shift focus onto "slice of life" roleplaying, either in chunks or interspersed with the action; some of the ways are soft, like GMing methods, and some are derived from fundamental game structure, and some (the least impactful) are from adding some mechanics.

@RobertF How long have you been in/aware of the online RPG scene?

doppelgreener

@RobertF the companies responsible for them have moved on and are no longer releasing new products for those games, so they're considered dead

SevenSidedDie

@MC_Hambone Maybe, but my sense is that it's more that it's what has an audience. Rallying the tribe, like.

doppelgreener

that shouldn't stop anyone playing them and whether they're supported is sorta immaterial but that's the sense people get

RobertF

@SevenSidedDie - I've been aware of play-by-post games for many years, but only learned of Roll20 last year.

SevenSidedDie

5:06 PM

@RobertF So you maybe don't recognise the pattern from the last time the edition changed. :) This is normal and usual. The motives are generally anxiety at what this means for their community. Since RPGs are inherently social and you need others to play, the threat of having your community of players shrink is incredibly personally threatening. So people lash out, trying to hold back the (perceived) tide change.

RobertF

@doppelgreener - Well, I was referring to games like Hackmaster, Dark Dungeons, Labyrinth Lord, etc.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF Those don't have nearly the same player base as their originals, though. Imagine a big company you like/depend on suddenly goes bankrupt. Three years later, the IP is bought up and a company reforms in the old one's image/name... but the customers are all gone. If you need to network with fellow customers, how useful is this new company? And so they have a hard time attracting customers to build the network effect back up. So... same with RPGs.

@RobertF Network effect matters, and disruptions kill networks.

IgneusJotunn

@MC_Hambone NPCs are wonderful for this purpose. From "I go to the bar and pick up chicks" to "I spend time bonding with my daughter" as long as you have characters in the area your players care about, they have something to do with their downtime.

RobertF

@SevenSidedDie - Good point.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF On the plus side of all the griping that comes from an edition change though, eventually the screaming settles down and a few good points of solid theory come out of it. Given enough people flailing around trying to figure out why they don't like the new thing, eventually they hit on some neutral truths about game design and we can learn from, despite the chaos.

RobertF

5:17 PM

Right, but how many players transition to the new version, and how many stick with the version of D&D they played when they were young?

SevenSidedDie

One of the things that came out of the "I hate 4e" wave was the concept of dissociated mechanics: a reason lots of people dislike 4e is for how it uses dissociated mechanics for things people don't want to be dissociated. But, dissociated mechanics can be awesome for things, if that use fits someone's taste. So now we have a new design concept to talk about games with.

RobertF

I only played 4e a few times, but it seemed to me that it's a game for folks who are bothered by the imbalance between different classes in earlier versions.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF It's almost impossible to say, because surveying a community that is distributed among independent cells that often don't communicate at all, is impossible. (The online part of the RPG community is the minority.)

@RobertF Yeah, that's probably one fair description of its virtues.

RobertF

Although I have a young coworker who plays 3.5 rather than 5e because the rulebooks are freely available online in pdf format.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF Anecdotally, it seems like people tend to go with whatever can be easily got in the shops, since that has the network effect and lets them most easily find groups to play with. The people who stick with whatever they first started with appear to be only those who have a long-term stable group and are happy ignoring any possibility that game design tech has "improved".

@RobertF Yeah, the SRD gives 3.PF longevity. That's largely the motive behind the free 5e Basic PDFs: competing with the older SRDs.

RobertF

5:27 PM

I'm a GenXer - when my generation starts retiring in droves and has time and (maybe) $ to spend, I'm curious if there will be an upsurge in gaming. I can imagine gaming from sunup to sundown in retirement communties - video games, boardgames, and RPGs instead of bridge and shuffleboard.

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF I've fantasised about that future too. The only fly in the ointment I can see is that, if you have a personality clash over an RPG in a retirement community, there goes your local group! And, unfortunately, "being old" is not selector that correlates well with having compatible personalities.

RobertF

@SevenSidedDie - No, ha

SevenSidedDie

@RobertF I think the trick is to get a long-term stable gaming group together, and then all retire to the same community home. :D

RobertF

@SevenSidedDie - Indeed!

Aaron

5:57 PM

I love having neighbors...

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith good point, pain of not having a PHB in front of me at all times :)

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie I think I found another piece of my (metaphorical) puzzle.

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle I can't wait for WotC to wake up and smell the digital coffee. Yes, PDFs are piratable, but people who want to pay are going to pay, and official PDFs won't be any more or less pirated than unofficial ones...

wax eagle

6:13 PM

@SevenSidedDie exactly. Basically they are missing out on revenue because they are afraid of something that's going to happen regardless.

I'm sure there are very high quality OCR'd scans out there I could go torrent...but I try not to pirate if I don't actually have to (for some value of "have to")

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle I suspect it's complicated by internal divisions. Like, simplistically, if Hasbro lawyers are against it, there's no way WotC PR can move them.

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie yeah. It's been a coup I think for them to put the old stuff up

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle Oh right! That might have been a win at the cost of backing off on 5e PDFs.

wax eagle

(nevermind the fact that those properties were literally worth nothing to them OOP and not available)

(and with heavy availability on the second hand market, the argument that not selling them enhanced current products is just silly)

@SevenSidedDie maybe. Mearls keeps saying that there will be something...eventually...but he always hedges with "it's more complicated than just selling PDFs." to me, it looks like their digital strategy fell apart when TDT was fired

(which, I'm ok with them firing them, just wish they'd had a back up plan)

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle On the plus side, though they're way behind the curve, at least with the Basic PDFs and the Classics storefront they're moving along the curve. There's some hope they'll catch up to the rest of the industry eventually.

wax eagle

6:17 PM

@SevenSidedDie Yes.

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle Having a "digital strategy" more complicated than PDF is a big money pit, as far as I can tell. WotC's track record is abysmal, and I can't imagine how much it has cost them each time.

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie yeah I don't know. It took them a long time to get where they were when 4e ended. The compendium was awesome. The character builder was at least functional (it was slow, and clunky and about 2 years behind where a good webapp should have been...but it worked)

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle And all that and more was scheduled to be out the door for 4e's release... The project costs to have it drag years over schedule must have been immense.

SevenSidedDie

6:34 PM

Bets on how long until Comic Papyrus appears in the wild unironically?

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie how long until Lebron's contract expires in Cleveland?

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle This is a basketpuck reference that I don't get, isn't it.

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie aye it is. It's a reference to the last time Lebron left Cleveland. The owner of the team wrote him a very angry open letter...in Comic Sans

businessinsider.com/dan-gilbert-letter-taken-down-2014-7

Aaron

who is mike mearls?

wax eagle

@Aaron lead designer of 5e

SevenSidedDie

6:39 PM

Mike Mearls

Michael Mearls is a writer and designer of fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) and related fiction. == Education == Mearls is an alumnus of Dartmouth College. While at Dartmouth he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. == Career == Mearls wrote the adventure To Stand on Hallowed Ground/Swords Against Deception (2001) for Fiery Dragon Productions and the last product from Hogshead Publishing, a Warhammer adventure titled Fear the Worst (2002) that Hogshead released for free on the internet. He also designed the game Iron Heroes (2005) for Malhavoc Press. In June 2005, Mearls was hired as a designer...

@waxeagle Hah!

Aaron

Ah.

Thanks

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie yeah, he looked really stupid when Lebron then went on to make the finals 4 years straight, win 2 championships, then resign with his team...

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle Wow. And they kept the letter up for four years? That's ironclad stubborn.

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie yes

huh, April's Loot Crate theme is Fantasy, and will include a D&D item..wonder what it will be

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle A collectible item, no less. Is WotC doing miniatures still/yet/again?

wax eagle

6:46 PM

@SevenSidedDie aye they are

they've got a new set coming out for PotA

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle That'll be my bet, then.

wax eagle

I picked up a couple of the dragon queen sets, quality isn't spectacular, but they aren't bad. Pricey for blind buys

@SevenSidedDie do you do Loot Crate?

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle I've vaguely heard of it, but I suspect I haven't heard of it more because it's probably not a Canada thing. It's the kind of frivolity/luxury that got cut out with parenthood in any case.

wax eagle

@SevenSidedDie yeah... can definitely understand that

not sure if they ship to Canada...and if they did it'd probably be quite a bit more :(

yeah, about $10 more a month to Canada :(

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle Oh yeah, looks like they do ship here. Yeah, it'd be more in shipping, and then right now the dollar disparity would add another 25%...

But looking at what's in past crates, I wouldn't have anywhere to put all that! Neat collectibles, but I've never been big on collectibles just for collectibility, but rather for a specific thing like M:tG cards or specific RPGs.

wax eagle

6:55 PM

@SevenSidedDie yeah, it can be a bit hit or miss. I find I get my money's worth out of it (nerd t-s or other useful stuff). One month they sent a survival guide for various fictional disasters that is basically a Dread scenario seed book...

SevenSidedDie

@waxeagle Cool. I might be tempted, if I was set up to eBay or Craigslist the stuff I didn't want... and had the budget.

MadMAxJr

Loot Crates are neat, but I would need a bigger home for stuff.

I have a friend who gets loot crates, then I just lookup and buy the one or two cool things he got that interest me. :P

wax eagle

@MadMAxJr heh :), that'd be a solid way to do it. There's usually only 1 or 2 things in teh box that are exclusive and those are usually available on the secondary market

the thing I've gotten that I really wanted another of was a pair of Groot socks...unfortunatley those are exclusives and pretty expensive on ebay/amazon

MadMAxJr

I think the last one he told me about was a comic themed box? It had a comic book notebook, full of predrawn panel lines. I just looked them up on Unemployed Philosphers Guild and ordered two.

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