TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

12:06 AM

@sillyputty it is!

@Adeptus oh my!

Miniman

12:53 AM

Interesting...I upvoted, but I'm pretty sure there's a duplicate kicking around somewhere.

Tritium21

I couldnt find one offhand.

BESW

Ultimately, my answer would be "Don't plan what will happen; instead create interesting things that are happening."

wax eagle

@Miniman yes, I recall one, let me see if I can pull it up

actually, check that, I was thinking the question was "what happens when they bite too hard" we have this one too though I'm sure

Tritium21

It was when they bite too hard, i changed the title... thats the problem with picking a title first.

wax eagle

similar but not a dupe: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/44513/… good reference though

Miniman

12:58 AM

@waxeagle Incidentally, congratulations!

wax eagle

@Miniman thanks!

Tritium21

Looking at how the vote stats played out, i think most people voted seven 1, you 2...

wax eagle

@Tritium21 yeah, that appears to be the case

Tritium21

Im gonna be honest, I needed to use a quarter to choose between ya

BESW

Both the new moderators were in my choice of top three!

5

Tritium21

1:03 AM

All the candidates were in my top three!

kickstarter.com/projects/843103401/…

In other news... Can you pre-ignore tags? There is a recently released game that I uh... fervently oppose.

Miniman

@Tritium21 You can add any tag to ignored or favourites.

For example, I just ignored the pink-elephants tag.

Tritium21

This is wonderful news

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie I have never picked up a grumpy vibe from you.

Tritium21

@doppelgreener Maybe only on meta?

Adeptus

1:20 AM

I just read all of that Old Man Henderson story. OMG that was awesome

Reminds me a little of a Shadowrun character I had once. Not plot-derailing but slightly crazy & didn't care what others thought. The GM called him sociopathic.

Tritium21

Anyone really...really miss playing a character from a game long past?

Miniman

Not really, actually. Generally when I look back on old characters I think "Why did I build that guy so stupidly?"

BESW

Heck, I've been reincarnating my first PC in various campaigns and systems, as both PC and NPC, for nigh ten years.

Miniman

Of course, all of my old characters are 3.5 characters, so there might be a connection there.

Adeptus

He was a dwarf wolf-shaman with a thing for fire. I decided he was Russian, and went by the name Molotov. One time, he was trying to steal a car when the owner came up. So Molotov starts yelling about how this crazy human stole his keys, then beats the guy up & takes the car

BESW

1:32 AM

But aside from him, I have more PCs I never got to play than PCs I'd like to play again.

Miniman

@BESW This. So much this.

Adeptus

I think most of my most-fun characters were in Shadowrun. Don't know if it's coincidental or something about the setting.

BESW

Someday I shall play my shulassakar paladin. Someday.

doppelgreener

@BESW Who is that?

BESW

@doppelgreener The Learned Alexander Theon, librarian-priest of St. Hypatia and sometime demilich.

Tritium21

1:37 AM

I miss playing my orthodox jew orc in shadowrun.

Iron Heart

@BESW Shalashaska?

Tritium21

@BESW Is that a consequence of GMing more than playing?

BESW

@Tritium21 When I have enough time to put my thoughts together, I'll compose an answer about using the players' choices instead of negating them as the other current answers seem to be.

Tritium21

@BESW thank you

BESW

@IronHeart Shulassakar.

@Tritium21 Mmm, possibly. A lot of PC concepts don't make for gracious NPCs.

In December we had a month where @doppelgreener and @trogdor took turns running our ARRPG campaign, and I brought a new PC every session.

Major Jessie Farman was a big enough hit that @doppelgreener wants to play her some time.

Ben

1:47 AM

Morning all

Tritium21

Hi @Ben

BESW

Hey. Thanks for moving that advice from comments to an answer.

Ben

Yeah all good :)

@Tritium21 how goes the plot development?

Tritium21

@Ben I dont have a session for a few days, so I am letting answers come and giving myself a chance to think

Ben

Good thinking ;)

Can I ask what game this is? Sounds interesting

doppelgreener

1:52 AM

Which one? There's several being discussed c(:

Tritium21

Its a home brew hack of FATE in a collaboratively designed setting >.>

BESW

@doppelgreener The one by @Tritium21, which @Ben answered.

Tritium21

I actually have more details about the game in another question

Ben

@BESW I think we all have one or two of those. I have one character that I keep "re-inventing" so I can keep using him

@Tritium21 Ahh, I do enjoy homebrew :D

BESW

@Ben I recently re-built Alexander as a 13th Age PC with reality-bending powers from a library outside the universe.

Tritium21

1:54 AM

@Ben Quoting myself: "The game is set in the near-future, the players would be a group of teens who spend too much of their time in a VR world, and one of the players would be an AI. Much of the game would revolve around trying to reconcile their addiction (the VR world) with their real-world responsibilities (school)."

...and solve crimes, scooby doo style

Ben

@BESW I think my favourite character is quite probably the mirror image of yours. "Sam" is a Big ol' thug type who is excessively strong due to his profession as a garbage man. But he's a bit simple and likes to think everyone's a good guy until they prove that wrong

@Tritium21 That does sound very different from what I normally play :)

Tritium21

@Ben Its a bit different for us too

Ben

@doppelgreener I should think so, this is RPG chat after all ;)

doppelgreener

@Ben sometimes we're even on topic like now!

BESW

[gasp] You're right. Quick, someone post ponies or talk about programming!

Ben

2:00 AM

@Tritium21 so when you say "the players are more awesome than you anticipated", how exactly do you mean? I'm perceiving them to be rather involved in their characters, possibly even using accents that their characters may have.

Or is it just a level of "puzzle solving" perhaps?

@BESW My friend told me a story of his uni (or college) assignment in python - the teacher marked him down for using "i > 0" rather than "i >= 1"

Tritium21

They go deep in character and engage the world, and my NPC's I discovered, very readily. For example, they met the NPC in question, and instead of the normal "hi, how are you" tries to find out why this NPC has a name to be involved in the plot - they interacted in a meaningful way and worked to help the character. I mean... really helped them

BESW

@Ben I'm pretty sure that's mathematically sound. Is there some reason python wouldn't agree?

Ben

I am still having trouble getting my head around why that's important, or if the teacher is in fact either insane, or incredibly jealous

@BESW I really can't understand why not lol

@Tritium21 Wow. That is in depth haha

BESW

@Ben Eh, I once had a sciences professor who couldn't understand why "Earth has orbit radius X, Mars has orbit radius Y, what's the distance between Earth and Mars?" didn't contain enough information to be usefully solvable. Especially in lower-level courses, professors often just turn their brains off and trust the book.

Tritium21

@BESW That is perfectly acceptable python. and C. however it does leave the edge case of comparing inequality of floats when there is a chance that i is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000009

int(i) > 0 is the same as int(i) >= 1, though

Ben

2:07 AM

@Tritium21 The teacher's logic was something along the lines of that. But this is a first term assignment, most of these students are only just starting programming, so I honestly think that catching an instance of a float that small.

One kid doesn't even understand how binary works

Tritium21

It is good practice, either way

BESW

(I'm neither a mathematician nor a programmer, and while I love patterns and theory I'm not very good with numbers.)

Adeptus

@Ben There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Ben

He can't seem to get his head around the "0 = off, 1 = on" mechanic

@Adeptus never stops being hilarious :D

BESW

My dad's got that on a shirt.

Ben

2:09 AM

@doppelgreener I think we've come sufficiently off topic now :)

BESW

@Ben Maybe he could read the mechanical chapters of Weizenbaum's Computer Power and Human Reason?

They're some of the best "How a computer works at the most fundamental level" explanations for the layperson that I've ever found.

(I had a hard time wrapping my head around the counting of binary until I started doing it on my fingers.)

Ben

@BESW I'll have to look it up. Definitely sounds interesting

BESW

@Ben I strongly recommend it. Weizenbaum is the guy who wrote ELIZA, and he wrote Computer Power and Human Reason shortly thereafter. It's about the importance of understanding what computers are and aren't, so that we can make good choices about the tasks we relinquish to them.

As part of the "understanding what computers are and aren't" thing, he devotes a chapter or two to the nature of machine code and programming.

Tritium21

I pitty them when they get to operating systems classes and have to start thinking about thread local state and memory management.

wax eagle

@Tritium21 yeah, if you can't wrap your head around basic binary...probably not a career choice you should be pursuing

Tritium21

2:18 AM

My god...I just realized I am running a game about reconciling addiction... with recovering drug addict players.

Ben

@Tritium21 ... like RL?

Tritium21

Yes. two of my players are recovering addicts. They are my most engaged

Ben

Well... awkward

Tritium21

They wouldnt let me do anything that makes them uncomfortable.

...not that I would try to go there.

Ben

Understandable. The point is to have fun, not pick at scars

BESW

2:23 AM

It's a very compelling reason not to kill off an NPC they're trying to help recover, though.

Ben

I'm starting to see why they went the way they did with the roleplay

@BESW indeed

Tritium21

@BESW I just came to that conclusion too.

Ben

So it would seem you might want to involve a nameless NPC, or perhaps introduce the ghost rather than the player

Tritium21

I very well might skip right to the ghost being there.

BESW

I've posted an answer, btw.

Will probably edit it aggressively off and on for the next hour.

As I do.

doppelgreener

2:32 AM

@BESW yeah i was just going to say the same in fact: they've fought to save this person, and earned the reward of them being saved (apparently).

them dying anyway of what the players were trying to save them from could be taken as tragic or could be taken as a lesson that whatever they do the GM will maintain intended course.

BESW

I love it when my players take a shine to an NPC, and killing the NPC off is a tragic waste of a good resource.

Ben

@Tritium21 Edited my answer if you want to have a look

Tritium21

I am glad I waited

BESW

Keep the NPC around and you can milk their attachment to him to get them engaged with various parts of the campaign for years to come.

Ben

@BESW My new NPC Pal is a druid in our D&D 5e game. So far I've saved the poor sod twice haha

Tritium21

2:35 AM

I am going to keep the question open for a little bit, as I do

doppelgreener

naturally, you only asked it an hour ago

Ben

I like to do that too. I always feel bad about accepting a different answer after already having accepted one

BESW

I usually leave 'em until I've acted on the advice.

Otherwise saying "This was useful" is kinda airy-fairy and theoretical.

Tritium21

True

Ben

On a separate topic: How goes the opinion for "taming" a dragon in D&D

Tritium21

2:41 AM

Wait, arn't dragons in D&D sentient?

BESW

Yeeeah, you make a dragon your friend, your business partner, or your slave. "Pet" isn't a valid option.

Ben

I asked a question about taming mounts, and let slip that the one I was aiming for was a dragon, if only new-born

What might happen if I hatched one? would that change the relationship somewhat?

BESW

Then one of your options becomes "parental figure."

Ben

Cos I think I know where I can get one...

* Rubs hands together excitedly *

Though my only hindrance currently is that I'm only a level 3 fighter...

BESW

Yeah, even a newborn dragon could potentially give you a run for your money.

Ben

2:48 AM

I'm definitely thinking that a few certain skills that I am yet to possess might be useful in this escapade

Namely "animal Handling" for one

BESW

eeeh. Dragons aren't animals--not mechanically, and not mentally.

Ben

Hrmmm

BESW

You can probably use Animal Handling for the job.

But it'd be offensive and demeaning at best.

Tritium21

How on-board is your GM?

BESW

What kind of relationship do you want with the creature?

I'd run with Diplomacy or Intimidate as the primary skill.

Ben

2:51 AM

@Tritium21 I think he finds the idea of "taming" a dragon exciting... though if he finds it exciting because he wants to see how spectacularly I'll fail, I'm not too sure

@BESW I'm Lawful Neutral, so I'd want a good relationship

Though I'm just thinking that if I hatch it, that will increase my odds of succeeding quite a bit

BESW

Circumstance bonus to Diplomacy!

You might want to read the Arms & Equipment Guide's chapters on intelligent mounts.

Ben

And is there any lore pertaining to the relationship between dragons and dragonborn?

BESW

And you and the GM might both want to keep in mind that D&D isn't really built to represent this kind of thing mechanically anyway.

Ben

aww really?

dang

BESW

Oh, it'll try.

But that's because D&D is eager to encompass every potential gaming circumstance, regardless of whether its system and ethos mesh well with those circumstances.

Which edition are you in?

Ben

2:55 AM

5e

BESW

4e says "Make it a skill challenge or just RP it." 3.5 says "Make a couple rolls and pay some money."

5e is probably more on board with role-playing it using your skill set as a guideline for how the RP plays out.

Tritium21

welp, i crashed tabbed browsing in firefox again. BRB

BESW

Grats!

Hmm. Judging by my rep, someone's going through older Fate questions.

Ben

Is there anything about a possible relationship between Dragons and Dragonborn?

Tritium21

I should send mozilla a bug report cause thats the second time its happened

Ben

3:01 AM

If there is I see it being either "distant cousins" or Dragonborn being "puny lizards not worth the effort"

BESW

I dunno about 5e.

In 4e, dragonborn have two different origin stories for themselves:

Ben

I think 5e just takes 4e, just alters the rules a bit.

BESW

Either they're the blood of the dying dragon god Io, or they're Io's second and better attempt at balancing the elemental and the spiritual, after going too heavy on the elemental when he made dragons.

Ben

So in essence they are related..

wax eagle

5e DB are born of dragon eggs, so direct descendents of dragons

BESW

3:03 AM

Either way, they have a history of being the foot soldiers in the war between the Good and Evil dragon gods (fighting on both sides), before establishing their own empire in the aftermath of the war.

Ben

Awesome. I think I can use that to my advantage when I try to convince the DM :)

BESW

I ran my 4e campaign during the (normally ancient history for the setting) war between the dragonborn empire and the tiefling empire.

sillyputty

@BESW Oh my god, that is so correct.

The, erm, keep your well liked NPCs alive thing, that is

Anywhozers, just doing a late-night chat read-up and had to aggressively agree with that. Now I turn into a pumpkin. Goodnight!

BESW

ttfn

Tritium21

nini

Ben

3:08 AM

Ciao

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener That's a useful bit of sanity-check feedback. :) Tha— OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ICON.

4

Miniman

@SevenSidedDie Congratulations, btw.

SevenSidedDie

3:30 AM

@Miniman Thanks! And now it's all custodial work. :)

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie it was too small. it needed to be bigger, yes.

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Hm. Still too small. Need to roll up more chat messages in a row.

Miniman

3:58 AM

Just wrote a question, looking for opinions on whether it should include the dnd-5e tag or just leave it with the dungeons-and-dragons tag.

SevenSidedDie

@Miniman Sounds like it fits both: it's specifically about a detail in 5e, but it's about how it compares to the history of the monster through the editions. I'd actually quibble with the history-of-gaming before either system tag. :)

Miniman

@SevenSidedDie Fair call, I guess I never actually read that tag wiki before.

I've swapped it for the undead tag.

@SevenSidedDie And having read the tag wiki, dayum it gets misused a lot.

Ben

It seems pretty broad...

Miniman

@Ben I'm hoping you're talking about the tag rather than my question! :P

Ben

Oh, yes I was haha. I'd think it's safe to safe that your question is fairly specific

SevenSidedDie

4:33 AM

@Miniman ...yeah, it could probably stand to be cleaned up. There's a lot of "history of this one game" that it gets used for that it probably shouldn't. (If it's an important feature of those questions to tag for, maybe we need a [system-history] tag for that instead.)

Ben

@SevenSidedDie "For my first action as a newly appointed site mod, I move to refurbish the entire tagging system..."

I'm imagining that being said in a poncy british voice lol

SevenSidedDie

@Ben YES. All the tags will get categorical plurals now! I'm looking at you, npc. ಠ_ಠ

Ben

fighting-style..?

user61230

@Ben vocaroo.com/i/s0MNOlaiaQaG

user61230

(sorry about sound quality)

Ben

4:38 AM

@Emrakul Exactly like that haha

SevenSidedDie

@Ben Grar, another target for my rampage.

Miniman

@Ben I answered your question on face value, but tbh I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

Ben

I'm starting to think the question wasn't quite so well thought out

Rephrased it.

@SevenSidedDie Your use of "normal human sized creatures" throws me out a little. Are there certain PC races that might be exempted from this rule?

SevenSidedDie

4:59 AM

@Ben More like a giant using a "greatsword" like a dagger, or something. At which point DM judgment is going to throw away the two-handed keyword just to retain sanity.

Miniman

@Ben Well that turned out...surprisingly. It hadn't occurred to me that Dueling was better for damage.

Ben

@SevenSidedDie Ohh. ok. So there would be no point at which a PC creature might be able to achieve this?

SevenSidedDie

@Miniman Neither did I! I'm suddenly happier with my recent fighter's choices.

Adeptus

@Ben Maybe, using Enlarge, Polymorph, or similar

SevenSidedDie

@Ben It's unlikely, yeah. :) And then... it wouldn't count as a two-handed weapon for fighting style purpose, anyway. Dueling and Great Weapon styles are exactly complements of each other, with no overlap.

Miniman

5:07 AM

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, especially when you consider and the scarcity and value of AC in 5e. Thanks for the edit, btw.

@SevenSidedDie Although there's a gap filled by Two Weapon Fighting.

SevenSidedDie

@Miniman Yeah, there's versatility in the available styles.

Ben

@Miniman can i ask what lvl/stats you're basing this off?

Miniman

@Ben None. The weapon damage numbers are entirely level- and stat-agnostic.

Ben

ohh ok

Miniman

It's impossible for it to affect the answer, anyway.

Ben

5:12 AM

Just you have the "+Str" there.

Miniman

@Ben Yeah, but it's the same for both. It doesn't matter what that number actually is, because it's always going to be the same for both.

Ben

But I suppose that's an average anyway

Yeah true

New qvestion: is it safe to assume that all armour has an AC:movement restriction ratio?

Miniman

Nope

Ben

OK. So what's the pro:con comparison?

Like leather armour has low AC, but what's the benefit?

Miniman

> If the Armor table shows “Str 13” or “Str 15” in the
Strength column for an armor type, the armor reduces
the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a
Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

@Ben Ok you really should just be looking at the basic rules. They're free, legal, and online here: media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/…

Ben

5:20 AM

Yeah all I have atm is the PHB 5e

Miniman

Ok, that works too. How does it not answer your question?

(Note: basic rules is a subset of the PHB, so if you've got the PHB, you don't need to look at basic rules.)

Basically, you can get an AC of up to 17 with light or medium armor, or 18 with plate.

But plate is heavier, requires you to be strong or you're slowed down, gives disadvantage on stealth, and is the most expensive thing you can buy.

Also, you might not get proficiency with heavier armours, depending on your class.

Not to mention that some classes have features that will work in light armour but not in medium or heavy armour.

Ben

The character I'm looking at atm is a lvl 3 DragonBorn Fighter, 17 Str

Miniman

@Ben Then yeah, for you, plate is going to be a better choice.

Still expensive, and makes you useless at stealth, but better for fighting.

Ben

Hence "Fighter" not "Rogue" haha

Miniman

Yep, pretty much :)

Tritium21

5:48 AM

Note to self: start a meta discussion tomorrow about how we could use blogs effectively on RPG.SE, since its not a moot point - the powers that be still want to find a way to make them work

Miniman

4

Q: Should we start a community blog?

Stack Exchange runs blog services for some sites upon request on their blog site, Blog Overflow. Stack Exchange has a blog post dedicated to what they're looking for in a blog, and I think we meet and exceed it on all counts. We have people with fascinating ideas and experience, and who write rat...

Tritium21

@Miniman Saw that, thats what brought this up.

doppelgreener

Indeed they do

Miniman

@Tritium21 I figured you might have, but it still seemed worth chucking it out there. At the least, it could be worth posting a new answer there, since it's reasonably recent.

Tritium21

aye

Miniman

5:52 AM

Also, is there a particular source for the powers that be still wanting to make blogs work? I'd be interested.

Tritium21

@Tritium21 Discuss plans on your site's meta, probably, since that's the way to talk amongst the folks within that stack. Feel free to toss me a link here and I can weigh in on any thoughts as well - we're still looking into thoughts on better integration and so hearing new ideas is always helpful. — Grace Note ♦ 42 mins ago

I asked

Miniman

Thanks

Tritium21

My thoughts on blogs for RPG.se are pretty much... we have a lot of questions...to which the answers come from the same place, but are tweaked to fit exact situations. We should document those general answers, and reference them while we are making the specific answer for a question.

lisardggY

6:22 AM

@Tritium21 So basically, we go over top-voted answers, edit them for clarity and generic-ness, and post them as blog posts, so we can later refer to them?

Tritium21

Not top posts per-se... but reoccurring themes in questions and answers. But it is important that these be living documents

Miniman

So, you mean like a blog post for "JUST TALK TO THEM!!!" ?

2

Justin T

Miniman your question proved so interesting I've stayed awake far longer than I should have, flipping through old books.

Tritium21

@Miniman That is exactly what the first post should be.

go deeper than "just talk" but yeah

Miniman

@JustinT Thanks, it's a great answer!

BESW

7:33 AM

YOU GUYS!!!! My old pal from Iron Giant days, @sydneypadua made a graphic novel! http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32381527

Tweeted by Fyre_flye on April 22, 2015 at 5:43 AM

Adeptus

I have a geography/worldbuilding question... would it be realistic to have desert on one side of a river and fertile land on the other? Are there any realworld examples, and what would cause it? Or, would it be realistic to have a river parallelling a mountain range (which would cause the desert due to rain shadow)?

user61230

It's not particularly realistic to have one side of a river be lush and the other dry, though there might be some sort of chemical dealio that the river's preventing. You'd still get dry-air plants on the other side, though.

user61230

I can't think of any examples of similar things, but my inability to conceive of such a thing is not good evidence that it doesn't exist.

user61230

A river paralleling a mountain range, on the other hand, is entirely realistic.

BESW

A river running alongside a mountain range is difficult to justify because rivers want to run downhill. In almost every case that'd be away from the mountains.

user61230

7:36 AM

It would be very odd, but not impossible, for the reasons @BESW says.

BESW

As for deserts... that's actually more likely, if still improbable.

But it depends on what we mean when we say "desert."

If you mean an arid land, that's easier than if you really do mean land with extremely low rainfall.

Just have one side of the river get overfarmed irresponsibly for several generations while the other side isn't, and viola you have barren wasteland.

Adeptus

@BESW I'm thinking stereotypical desert... lots of sand with the occasional oasis

BESW

Stereotypical deserts are actually rather rare and difficult to justify.

It's all so much easier if a wizard did it.

2

Adeptus

@BESW I was hoping for something vaguely realistic, but... eh, maybe a wizard did it

user61230

@Adeptus A stereotypical desert gets that way due to broad climate conditions. Extended lack of rain, and a lack of humidity, primarily.

BESW

7:40 AM

Hmm.

Okay, so brainstorming.

If it's hard to justify a desert next to a lush area.... can we instead justify a lush area next to a desert?

user61230

Yes!

user61230

Greenery lives on one side of the desert. It's still in desert, but it thrives in warm, dry air. However, due to the nature of its non-airborne germination, it doesn't cross the river.

BESW

If the desert is on ground high above the water table but it contains a river which carved out a deep valley down to the water table, perhaps.

Adeptus

@BESW So, a Grand Canyon type thing?

BESW

Rather!

Then you might need a justification for soil enrichment, but that's trivial.

doppelgreener

7:43 AM

@Emrakul [wakes up from nap, mistakenly reads his name, confused for a few seconds]

2

user61230

> Greener lives on the other side of the desert. It thrives in warm, dry air. However, due to its non-airborne germination, it can't cross the river.

doppelgreener

that works as well

Adeptus

Thanks for the ideas

Tritium21

Are there wizards in your setting?

because if there are, you dont need to explain your ecology at all. it can literally be a wizard did it

doppelgreener

Desertification

Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem. == Definitions == Considerable controversy exists over the proper definition of the term "desertification" for which Helmut Geist (2005) has identified more than 100 formal definitions.The most widely accepted of these is that of the Princeton Univer...

there's also this, but doesn't happen to wet lush areas.

Mourdos

8:14 AM

My laptop was returned. * Cheers *

BESW

@Mourdos Wow! Grats!

Tritium21

so i talked frankly with my players. they are not keen on using that NPC for what i was thinking (i didnt lay it ALL out, but did ask them about what they see as the future of that NPC and if they want that NPC as a long term project)

Bummer: I have to make the awesome part of the universe more accessible without breaking immersion. Huge Bonus: They have something they really want to do over the long term. Net bonus.

doppelgreener

@Mourdos Oh wow, that's fantastic :)

Tritium21

@Mourdos Cheers

BESW

My off-the-cuff idea is to have the ghost be someone the party strongly dislikes.

If you want to get really heavy-handed with the symbolism, have it be the NPC's old drug dealer.

Maybe turn it into a Spike-in-the-last-season-of-Angel thing?

Tritium21

8:31 AM

Didnt watch angel, but ghosty could easily be on of the heals already in play

BESW

Spike was a secondary character who had hundreds of years of friend/foe history with the protagonist. He got killed off, and came back as a mostly-helpful but very antagonistic and resentful ghost.

doppelgreener

@Miniman Title: "Talking to people tends to solve problems." Subtitle: "And would rapidly dissolve just about every TV drama plot ever."

BESW

He was tied to the protagonists' headquarters, though, and couldn't leave--so they had to come to some kind of understanding because neither Spike nor Angel could get away from each other.

Tritium21

Interesting

BESW

So maybe, in addition to thinking about friendly fodder for ghosts, you could also look for NPCs who the party would have a more fractious relationship with.

Reluctant allies, or even "We've gotta learn more about this ghost phenomenon so we can exorcise that jerk."

Tritium21

8:46 AM

heh

doppelgreener

@BESW time-space sounds like something possibly very different from space-time though!

space-time implies the thing encompassing the combination of space and time

BESW

@doppelgreener Obviously. It's something far too complex for our tiny mammal brains to grasp.

doppelgreener

time-space implies a... mathematical space of sorts encompassing time.

@BESW no i'm grasping it a little bit i'm ok.

BESW

NO YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS THING. IT IS TOO COMPLEX.

doppelgreener

o-ok ;_;

BESW

8:50 AM

(Have you noticed that whenever Dr. Dinosaur is getting really defensive, he tilts his head forward like that?)

Tritium21

attack posture

anyways, nini

BESW

ttfn

Miniman

@BESW I actually got bored and went and read that the other day. I get so many more of your jokes now.

doppelgreener

@BESW i think i have! it's great.

BESW

9:08 AM

@Miniman Next, read Digger and watch Square One TV.

Miniman

@BESW So much effort...

doppelgreener

9:30 AM

oh boy oh boy

the atomic robo comic is going to be on volume 9 in a few weeks

BESW

10:03 AM

@doppelgreener Time travel is impossible!

doppelgreener

@BESW false! i am hurtling toward them releasing volume 9 at a rate of one second per second!

BESW

10:19 AM

@Tritium21 You might consider editing into your question any of that comment conversation that you think is helpful to answerers, and then flag it for deletion. Doesn't seem very... germane.

Emrys Ternal

Hello. I have a D&D 3.5 question that isn't well suited to the Q&A board.

I want to locate any area-effect spell that specifically mentions some kind of object going to the destination of the effect. For example, fireball describes a bead that is thrown and explodes when it hits the destination square.

Rather, I want to locate as many such spells (or powers) as possible that fit that description.

Wibbs

@EmrysTernal I cannot answer your question, but am curious as to why you need that information

doppelgreener

that actually sounds fine for the main site ("where the heck do i find this list")

Wibbs

yeah, don't ask for the list, ask for a resource that will give the list to you

Emrys Ternal

I have found that certain questions become a lot easier when you think of a ranged attack as similar to a certain kind of generic effect.

ex. “Grenade-like”, “Ray-like”, “Bullet-like”, “Spray-like”, “Jet-like”, “Bomb-like”

Shuro

10:33 AM

wink Good [include greeting for your timezone].

Wibbs

o/

Emrys Ternal

I want to find as many spells/powers as possible that fit the "Grenade-like" description: Some kind of object is hurled or fired at a destination (which is usually a square), auto-hits the destination, and may have a burst or spread centered there (i.e. magic missile, fireball, hail of crystals, etc.).

doppelgreener

@Shuro good fhtagn to you too

Shuro

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn <3

Hail Cthulhu

x3

Emrys Ternal

Correction: Some kind of object is hurled or fired at a destination (which is usually a square), and optionally may have a burst or spread effect centered there (i.e. magic missile, fireball, hail of crystals, etc.).

This is important because if we define a general case of these kinds of effects, it becomes very easy to make "guns".

hyperion-voyages.obsidianportal.com/wikis/gun-template

As for the list, I would think the question is too specific to ask there, and if I ask the answer will likely be "go to a forum".

Because the list doesn't exist.

Marc Dingena

10:49 AM

@EmrysTernal That is how I imagine ranged touch attacks. I'm new to the whole magic part of Pathfinder myself. I just suppose if it's not a ranged touch or touch attack, the spell effect just kind of manifests at a distance, whereas a ranged touch attack is something that manifests at the caster location, and must travel to the target and touch it (like a fireball).

BESW

The easiest fix is to limit it to ray attacks. That's a mechanical spell feature rather than a narrative one.

Emrys Ternal

Personally, I use a house-rule that overrides the normal rules for line of sight and line of effect so that you can do things like use enlarge person on someone on the other side of a pane of glass.

As-is, in the rules you can't do that, which is silly.

Everything must have "unbroken line of effect"

BESW

Only silly in that it doesn't conform with your vision of how magic should work.

doppelgreener

@EmrysTernal the list may indeed not exist. but "too specific" is not one of our close reasons.

Marc Dingena

I want to answer this for Pathfinder, but it's on hold. Can't I contribute when it's on hold?

doppelgreener

10:53 AM

@MarcDingena you can contribute by helping get it reopened

7

A: A question is closed that I think I can answer, what do I do?

You should help get the question opened, and be patient. You can do this by: Commenting to help the OP overcome the others' concerns Editing to help clarify (rep allowing) Post on meta about the specific question, but you should really only do this once 1 and 2 have run their course In this ...

this actually came up in meta a few days ago, haha

Marc Dingena

How can I help? Am I allowed to edit their question? It's not really my place to morhph their question into something system specific.

BESW

Hmm. One moment, there's a meta question on that too.

Marc Dingena

I could easily edit the question so that it becomes specific to Pathfinder, and it's a good question in my opinion.

haha ok

BESW

Hmm. Nothing specifically about it that I can track down, but:

5

Q: Should we be encouraging askers to remove system tags if their question is relevant to a broader category?

In this recent answer, SSD stated the following: In fact, we have a community custom where, when people ask a generally-applicable question where it seems the system is merely secondary, we will advise them to remove any system tags so that the question gets wider viewing. I've seen this pr...

discussion tags

8

Q: Should I use a narrow system tag, or go broad if possible and use system-agnostic?

I am playing D&D 4e and I have a question about how I can create an excellent pirate adventure. Since people have pirate adventures in other RPG systems, and Stack Exchange is about useful answers, should I tag my question with dungeons-and-dragons or maybe system-agnostic in order to cover a wid...

discussion tags policy

I personally think tagging it PF would be fine.

But I am just a citizen with an opinion.

Marc Dingena

What about the ethics of changing the premise of someone else's question?

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