Attention anyone available who has the power to flag things as offensive: there are two recent posts in need of your attention. I think you'll be able to figure out which ones.

@AncientSwordRage Is it safe to go back?

hey @nitsua60

hiya

@nitsua60 how're things going?

This question has been bothering me for some time. rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/69917/… Apparently quite a few people gave answers such as the rod flying backwards through the train doors. I have a seriously hard time seeing the railroad's notorously overbuilt railcars failing a DC20 check. (Besides, they're not under combat stress so they should just take 10.)

Worldbuilding assumptions aside, SSD's answer seems quite in line with your vision of the situation.

Upvote what you think is useful, downvote what you think is actively unhelpful, and try not to worry about how many people on the Internet are Wrong.

That way lies madness.

(Also, the check is 30, not 20.)

I don't think the exact value matters as the train should have +a few hundred

Assuming the train has a check. [grin] I'm not sure how 5e feels about the Bronze Rule.

@TheOracle Excellent question.

don't encourage it

XD

it doesn't seem to know the difference between the good questions it posts and the bad ones

not that I am really surprised,.... but it is a good question this time

heck, maybe I am just remembering the times when it posted stuff really awkwardly into the middle of conversations

I think I'm going to use this next week.

wish I had known about this when I was running that volcano session

by the way,... I am thinking about that arc I have planned,... and I realized that the way I have it formatted at the moment might leave it all too easily open to one of the mistakes I made with Adrian's volcano base

I have it formatted where Kenji shows up to give an assignment to to PC's, and in exchange for them doing stuff for him they get to move to his "base" under his supervision ( one of the things they get in exchange is supposed to be getting out from under Father Jame's thumb)

but if I do it that way, and the PC's go to his base, it could split the group into trying to decide if they should check this new place out OR research and go on a mission

and the problem is, I don't think it is a good idea to try to fit both of those actions into the same session, last time I did that I had to split it into two sessions anyway, and I feel both sessions suffered from it

I don't mind so much the veer away from what I had set up already as the fact that I was severely un-prepared for the things the group actually wanted to do that session

well, those session's,

so anyway, I want to be better prepped for this, but I don't know if I should have the first session actually be just a crazy exploration of this old guard Amaterasu base (my plans for Japan include that it will in fact be a very obviously weirdly/wildly magical place now, including said base) or if I should just have the PC's immediately roll to figure out/declare where they are going and then have Kenji rush the PC's off to the place where they will pick up the mirror

or if I am missing some other option or strategy

Suggestion: offer an unexpected pressing reason to explore the old base, like "It's haunted and we need to figure out where the ghost is bound so we can exorcise it" or something.

So, narratively, the PC expect to go off on their mission right away, but then they have to deal with some housekeeping first.

ok

a surprisingly simple sounding solution

oooh, I think I might even know what it is,... but it might be a little too on the nose XD

but I will think about it, I figure I have plenty of time to come up with a problem for them to solve there

You might even just show us a symptom that obviously requires action, like localised earthquakes, and let us brainstorm the cause.

true enough

that would work fine too

I love having you guys brainstorm stuff.

It's less work for me and the outcomes are always more awesome than I would've come up with anyway.

I know, it seems like a great tool to simultaneously give the PC's agency and take workload off of the GM

Tapping into the collective creativity of the group is brilliant.

it is

also, I am thinking of another possible NPC that will be there, something like one of Kenji's young relatives or something, I like an idea I have that would involve something like that, but I also don't know if it is important enough to justify throwing another NPC into the mix

I mean, I suppose I can always let the group decide how important such a character is

but I also don't know if that would be too distracting for not enough payoff

it isn't a big thing, I just figured I would mention it because I had been thinking about it today

Hmm.

I mean, I have ideas about it, but I don't know how far I can or should take said ideas, because I don't know how many important/semi important NPCs we need, or just how many I myself need to make

@KRyan hello I will be glad to hear some news from our friend. If you can contact me one way or the other, thanks.

@Poutrathor If his name doesn't autocomplete, he probably won't get the notification. But you can invite him to join a room through his chat profile.

thank

@BESW why wouldn't it be?

@AncientSwordRage Oh, I was checking if that trivia/real-world/contradiction/whatever debate had died down.

@BESW rarely

Mmmmmh

I was reading about fumbles

...and random fumble tables, and I got myself thinking: what if their value is to add some unpremeditated variance in an otherwise too predictable game?

I mean, the real solution to this would be "don't play D&D".

I'm not sure anyone's ever accused D&D of being predictable before - the randomness of it is one of the main complaints people have about it.

@Miniman Warriors, i.e. "I attack the monster again"?

(I'm mostly talking 3.x here)

@Zachiel That's an entirely different problem - options != unpredictability. ToB is the solution for that problem, not critical or fumble tables.

@Miniman As the game is, ToB is not a replacement for the core classes. Crusader is not "a paladin that works". Each class feels different in play and it has different roleplaying requirements than the one it tries to replace (one for all: charismaless crusaders are still good). Making characters who are the most efficient in combat while doing the same thing over and over is definitely a thing in D&D 3.x (or, even with ToB and casters, characters who do the same thing each combat).

Morning all!

@Zachiel That is all true. But it really just confirms that options != unpredictability.

@SirTechSpec Hi!

@AshleyNunn I understand it, Ashley. And even if I can show you photos of me with the cartridge and the box in my hands, who tells you that's me? But at the same time I'm getting frustrated at the fact that honesty put me in the position where I'm not getting the answer, where providing less details and directly telling people I had the problem with the original game would have got me an answer (hopefully).

Also, the fact that this happened on arqade was just background information, I'm not angry or whatever with the gaming.se community at large and it was not my intention to diss it, or that user.

That is a bummer. :(

For my part, I've got a good day lined up - speccing out a spaceship in MOO2, then in BESM in the morning, and then a board game potluck this evening.

@waxeagle @JoshuaAslanSmith @Shalvenay @RobertF I'm gonna be out on a trip May 12, forgot about this before.

evening

@Sejanus hey there

BWAAAAAAAA

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

you are now in a Chris Nolan movie

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

lol

now we just have to figure out which one

XD