TRPG General Chat

BESW

2:47 AM

"Action Surge Dash" sounds like a new MLP toy.

Asteria

@BESW NEW! In stores near you! Get one today...

nitsua60

@BESW Now I expect my daughter'll ask for Magic Item: Rarity for her birthday... =)

@Adeptus I don't know... something's tingling at the back of my spine when I think of allowing "declare and resolve action during another action" without being sure I've really thought it through....

Adeptus

Well, look at what you're (explicitly) allowed:
1. Move between attacks
2. Don't have to pre-decide all your movement

So, if the 2 enemies were closer together, you could absolutely attack one (and kill it?) then decide to move to the other and attack

nitsua60

But remember that action surge--or Haste-granted actions--aren't limited to movement.

Adeptus

The only difference is the need for longer movement (which requires the Dash action)

nitsua60

2:57 AM

I'm just wondering what else lies beyond the door of "in the middle of an action? Sure, go ahead and pause this action while declaring and resolving another action."

(Might be cool stuff, might be scary, might be dull... I don't know. But I think it's more than just contemplating the Dash case.)

Adeptus

I think there was another question recently, about breaking up a multi-attack action with a bonus action... I'll have a look what the answers to that were

nitsua60

Yeah, I think it was interposing the bonus action from Shield Master inbetween the two attacks of Attack.

BESW

@nitsua60 One of my friends always chooses tongue-in-cheek themes for his birthday parties. A few years ago, it was a princess party.

So Trogdor and I gave him a Princess Luna figurine and a Rarity figurine (Rarity's not a princess, but she wasn't going to let that stop her attending a princess party).

@Asteria Batteries not included.

Adeptus

12

Q: Can a creature split up movement more than once?

Can movement be split up more than once, with different attacks and other actions in between? Background I've have a 12th-level Half-Orc Monk character with the Mobile feat, resulting in a movement speed of 60 (base speed of 30, +20 from Unarmored Movement, and +10 from Mobile). At this level ...

It's talking about using Shadow Step bonus action between standard-action attacks. But it's not conclusive whether that's allowed

nitsua60

@BESW No she would not. The chance to be among that much haute couture?

BESW

3:03 AM

@nitsua60 The guest of honour had a tiara and a fairy-wing-pattern T-shirt!

nitsua60

you can always, even at 1 rep, delete your own post, right?

BESW

The shirt was hand-crafted.

@nitsua60 I think so?

nitsua60

(somebody just blanked out their own answer with a line of periods, and I assumed it was correct to tell them they had a "delete" option available....)

Adeptus

> You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action's timing is specified

nitsua60

yup

Adeptus

3:05 AM

Is an Action Surge much different from a Bonus Action?

nitsua60

Well, it's an action rather than a bonus action, and that's sometimes an important distinction.

Adeptus

hmm

nitsua60

I don't know whether this is one of those times.

trogdor

@BESW I would probably buy that

BESW

@Magician I have a Laughcraft exorcism for you.

> A ghost walks into a bar and orders a shot of vodka.
The bartender says, "Sorry, sir, we don't serve spirits here."

Adeptus

3:10 AM

My brain has joined my stomach in demanding food. Back in a while.

Shalvenay

3:30 AM

@nitsua60 you about?

nitsua60

for a little bit--whassup?

(on last lines of paper)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 toying with the idea of what a constitutional form of limited government would look like when adapted to the Forgotten Realms, and was wondering if you wanted to join me in such a thought experiment

nitsua60

applied to the realms in whole, to faerun, to any particular part?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 say, an island on faerun -- multi-racial trading port for a main city, with a few smaller mostly human-led settlements where resources can be found

nitsua60

okay, so not trying to manage the whole continent

Shalvenay

3:35 AM

@nitsua60 definitely not :)

nitsua60

so what are the relevant differences...?

Shalvenay

it seems to me that some of the civil rights stuff would definitely have to change

BESW

What, like kimmies?

nitsua60

a government needs a pretty-solid monopoly on force both to provide things and to demand things from its subjects

@Shalvenay how are race-relations in FR any different than the sorts of racial atrocities/niceties we've managed to pull off on Earth?

Shalvenay

I was actually speaking more to religion than race

nitsua60

3:38 AM

I mean constitutions can extablish both apartheid and super-inclusive systems....

Shalvenay

we don't really have outright evil deities here on Earth in the sense that say Talos or Bane is in Faerun

nitsua60

@Shalvenay [citation needed]

Miniman

@Shalvenay Talos isn't really evil. Just destructive. And any government that forbids the worship of Bane is in for a rough time...

nitsua60

Certainly I don't think any deities are outright evil, but I'm not sure everyone agrees. In fact, I know some disagree pretty strongly, and make decent points some times.

BESW

So the question you're asking is, "What about Faerun is fundamentally different from Earth in ways that would change a government's implementation of societal values?"

Shalvenay

3:39 AM

@BESW kinda, yeah

BESW

If it's not what you're asking, then it should be what you're asking.

Shalvenay

@Miniman actually, let me double check Talos' quoted alignment

BESW

Constitutionally limited governments are rooted in an implied or explicit code of values.

Shalvenay

@BESW yup.

BESW

You need to identify whether the nature of the world in Forgotten Realms fundamentally (rather than just superficially) changes the values on which such a government could be based.

nitsua60

3:41 AM

@BESW Not sure there really are any relephant differences. (Except, perhaps, the lack of elephants.)

BESW

@nitsua60 [gasp] You mean, the Forgotten Realms are always irrelephant?

Shalvenay

@BESW another thing I'm wondering is if the implementation of some of those values changes....

nitsua60

Just not seeing the difference between Meilliki taking form and telling her followers that gov't A is [excellent|abhorrent] and Taylor Swift telling her followers that gov't A is [excellent|abhorrent], from gov't A's PoV.

BESW

@Shalvenay Don't put Descartes before the the horse.

Shalvenay

I think we can all agree that due process is a good thing -- but how do you implement such a notion in a magic-laden world?

nitsua60

3:44 AM

How do you implement it in a tech-laden world?

Rules of evidence, rules of procedure.

And they lag the tech.

And we argue over it a lot.

And we get "substantive due process..."

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 heheh. yeah....that's where things start getting kooky and interesting for me.

BESW

@Shalvenay But that's not a question at the level of constitutionally limited government.

Shalvenay

@BESW 'tis true....

BESW

If you wanna talk about whether nightmare can be used to serve papers, that's implementation.

The constitution would give broad guidelines for necessary actions, and for evaluating the appropriateness of specific implementations of those actions.

Shalvenay

I think the biggest change in values would be free exercise of religion, really, but that's me talking

nitsua60

3:50 AM

why?

are you foreseeing more conflict? More tolerance? More adherence?

In your head-canon of the FR are people more likely to believe in the manifestations they hear about or less, when compared to Earthlings?

BESW

In FR-like settings where gods are demonstrable, it's less a matter of if you believe and more a matter of what you believe. Anti-theism is probably a thing, but atheism is roughly equivalent to flat-earth-ery in our world.

nitsua60

Hmm... in a world with magic, might skepticism of a god-claim be reasonable?

You claim Bane walked the land centuries ago, I claim Jesus walked the land centuries ago (for example), and it still takes some convincing of others....

Shalvenay

more issues with deities/faiths who direct their worshippers to do things outside the norms of civil society....or "how do you allow Bhaalites f.ex. to practice their faith, even though the results of it include dead people?"

BESW

I think he's talking about the fact that deities have destructive and/or actively opposed mandates (but that's not so different from extremist sects in our world).

nitsua60

@BESW That's just what I was thinking.

BESW

3:54 AM

@Shalvenay I don't see how that's fundamentally different from issues surrounding socially distasteful religious practices on our world.

Shalvenay

@BESW destructive and blatantly illegal mandates, yes -- as well as the issues involved with people who forsake normal deities in favor of things like demons and devils....

BESW

In the US, for example, there are civil laws which can be bent or broken in the name of religious practice, and civil laws which can't.

nitsua60

FR probably deals with it the same way we do: define a zone of personal rights, and your exercise right ends at that boundary. Those who don't stop exercising at another's boundary run afoul of the law. And they likely feel the exercise is more important than the law, or nullifies the law, and we've seen this story. (And we don't have terribly good answers for it.)

BESW

@nitsua60 Prexactly.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hrm, maybe I am overthinking it then :)

BESW

3:57 AM

Of course, your nation might be a religious one. We've got examples of that here too.

nitsua60

[ALT-tabbing back and forth between chat and LaTeX is producing some strange artifacts in my paper... \emph{foo} != * foo *]

@Shalvenay not necessarily. Just look for the fundamental differences in FR-Earth, not the superficial ones.

If in your head-canon it's the fact that 99% of FR-izens are fervent adherents, that may be a fundamental difference from our nation's culture.

BESW

The early expansionist Islamic states allowed the open practice of other religions, but levied a tax on their adherents. So long as you paid lip service to the godhood of the Roman Emperor, you could worship whatever else you liked. The British Empire was mostly amused by non-CoE folks until it bit into their profits, at which time they came down like a hammer.

nitsua60

The Achimenid Persians went out of their way to be nice to local cultures they absorbed. (Nice on an ancient scale, that is. They'd still burn your city to the ground and march you all thousands of miles in chains as slaves if you rebelled, but until then they were happy to learn of your religion, for instance.)

Fundamental difference: magic is a thing.

Does that make a difference when governing?

BESW

Israel is quite happy to have the Bahá'í spiritual and administrative world centre in their country, so long as we adhere to their head count limits, report our movements in and out of the country, and don't try to convert anyone.

trogdor

Rome was a lot like that too

except instead of happy to listen they were just relatively tolerant, until you rebelled of course

nitsua60

4:03 AM

(I'll bet if you replace "magic" with "literacy" in your head-construction of the FR, you'd see a lot of historical parallels. Or "landowning." Or "male".)

@trogdor well, of course.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah, magic being a thing is the other big one that struck me upside the head

trogdor

I think, on Rome's part, it was more of a "if we let them practice the religion they want, it is one less reason for them to rebel"

nitsua60

But it's deceptive, in that it's a fundamental difference in the universe, but I'm not sure it's a fundamental difference in society.

Below the surface, magic is just a form of ability, power, difference among people.

Some can do things others can't. Some can do things others can't even dream of, or ever hope to achieve.

BESW

The fundamental difference between the worlds is, I think, neither the existence of gods or magic, but the demonstrability of them.

nitsua60

Well, we've been delaing with that social ~~problem~~ situation for millenia.

BESW

4:05 AM

The questions which people accept as unanswerable, as matters of faith, are different.

I don't think it's important that the things are gods or spells. It's that the uncertainties and assumptions we live with are different.

And, perhaps, that FR folks have overall less uncertainty about the nature of the world and their place in it.

nitsua60

@BESW a slightly less opaque border between life and death, for instance?

BESW

They know where they came from and where they're going. Their most private thoughts are not inviolate, their future choices can be discerned.

nitsua60

hmm... divination. Existential and epistemological conundrums there....

BESW

@nitsua60 Yes, and free will, and good and evil.

They have the ability to tell for sure if someone's soul is dark or light, no guesswork needed.

They live in a universe where sapient creatures may have their allegiances dictated by their ancestry.

trogdor

that whole thing is kinda weird

nitsua60

4:10 AM

I think I tend to come from the opposite direction from most when considering these types of settings. I assume that even in the presence of what appears to some as overwhelming evidence there will still be many who disbelieve, or don't care to examine.

trogdor

"yep this guy is evil,... based off of me casting a spell on him that says good or evil"

BESW

(Which doesn't sound so different from ours, until we realise that it's an inborn quality.)

@nitsua60 Sure, there's always the uncaring or the skeptical.

But I refer you to my earlier comparison to flat-earthers.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, the free will/good vs. evil thing is a big one

nitsua60

(we're tiptoeing closer and closer to an alignment discussion, guys...)

BESW

The roundness of the Earth hasn't been in question for thousands of years, except by the uncaring and the skeptical. They still exist, but nobody shapes policy around them.

(Reminder that Columbus didn't have to convince anyone the Earth was round; his sales pitch was based on a revised estimation of the Earth's circumference which led him to think it was feasible to sail the long way 'round. He was, of course, wrong.)

trogdor

4:15 AM

he didn't have as much to work with as he thought

or maybe he just thought the risk was worth it

BESW

Oh, he had a lot more Earth to sail than he thought.

He estimated the Earth was freakin' teensy.

trogdor

well yes, but that fits under the category of not having as much information as he thought

BESW

Ah, yes.

nitsua60

@BESW I'm not sure it's just uncaring or skeptical. In a world (FR) where it might not be that hard to pull of "I'm an avatar of Boogly-de-boo!" as a magic trick, maybe it's reasonable not to believe anything that a religious person tells you.

BESW

Anyway.

@nitsua60 Perhaps, then, the constitution has some pragmatic definition of deityhood.

Or perhaps it figures that if you can fake it, that's good enough for the bureaucracy, so long as you pay the taxes.

nitsua60

4:19 AM

I think the challenge of personhood would be huge. Sentient creature? Monster? Construct? Undead? (Thrall or otherwise.) Extraplanar? (Visa, please!) Summoned? Conjured?

So let's say, @Shalvenay that your port-city is aching to be a city-state and draw up a constitution. Who will its subjects be, and what service will it provide them?

BESW

@nitsua60 Morts has its Kimmies. I'd be inclined to implement something similar.

nitsua60

?

(don't know it or them)

BESW

> Mort Station Heads and some government agencies are authorized to perform what’s called the Kim Test, named after the senator-turned-revenant who helped devise it. Answer five simple questions and don’t try to eat your interviewer, and you’re considered a human being.
Still, it’s a difficult existence for the documented undead—also called Kimmies, among a ton of nastier epithets. Cascadian Kimmies retain their citizenship and name, but almost nothing else. Because property and copyright laws were made with the assumption that dead people didn’t matter anymore, when you die you lose everyt…

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 basic stability, legal process, civil works (sewerage, city streets, maybe water if they're blessed in that regard) -- and I was thinking surface-dwellers/non-thralls to keep things simple.

nitsua60

all I know is, a day after any reasonable constitution gets ratified every PC party's in the slammer

Shalvenay

4:24 AM

@nitsua60 hahahahaha

nitsua60

@Shalvenay actually, came at that from the wrong direction. Your city-state drew up a constitution fifty years ago. What existing problem did that constitution solve?

BESW

@nitsua60 I once had an epic city where the emergency response to heroes run amok was to station ninjas with scrolls of polymorph any object on every rooftop.

Very quickly, the heroes were rocks.

Pebbles, actually, for ease of transport.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 mostly, the newcomers didn't get it. :P and were very confused about how things worked so---things started to get written down, instead of just being traditions of government.

nitsua60

Gotta head off to bed. Night, all.

trogdor

night

BESW

4:29 AM

@nitsua60 ttfn

@Shalvenay ...wait, that's not very constitutional.

You're describing a transition from common law to civil law.

Shalvenay

@BESW not really -- I'm more describing a transition between an unwritten constitution and a written one

@nitsua60 same here, btw

BESW

ttfn

Adeptus

4:46 AM

@BESW The North won

Miniman

@Adeptus Aww, man. Now there's no point me even finishing reading that Wikipedia article.

Adeptus

...or did you mean a different one?

BESW

5:16 AM

I'm using Scrivener to sort and compile our increasingly complicated campaign setting.

trogdor

who is Emperor Norton?

BESW

Emperor Norton

Joshua Abraham Norton (c.1818 – January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton, was a citizen of San Francisco, California who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States" and subsequently "Protector of Mexico". Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa. After the death of his mother in 1846 and his father in 1848, he emigrated to San Francisco with an inheritance from his father's estate, arriving in November 1849 aboard the Hamburg ship Franzeska with $40,000 (inflation adjusted to $1.1 million in 2015 US Dollars). Norton initially made a living as...

Until the zombie uprising, he was buried in Colma.

trogdor

is he a zombie in our campaign?

BESW

I plan for him to be the leader of the zombies.

trogdor

nice

BESW

5:21 AM

Got vague notions of a diplomatic mission to supervise negotiations between Emperor Norton and the dwarven king.

trogdor

6:34 AM

is there some reason he has decided to attack people with his zombie hordes?

besides the fact that that is something people tend to do with a zombie horde

BESW

We'll have to play to find out.

trogdor

mk

BESW

(My default idea is that it's a civil rights issue.)

trogdor

lol

mm maybe he shouldn't have started it off with constant attacks then?

BESW

Who's to say that's what happened?

trogdor

6:37 AM

true

BESW

Maybe a peaceful zombie protest lurch looked too much like an invading army and somebody on the other side panicked.

trogdor

we have gotten back rather late to the worldwide party

BESW

7:01 AM

Indeedy doodly.

Sejanus

morning

trogdor

good morning

it isn't morning here, but good morning to you XD

Doomed Mind

7:29 AM

mornin'

Doomed Mind

8:47 AM

Hello @AncientSwordRage

BESW

I really want to answer this question with a discussion about the social contract and whether the group wants to play a "invent the future" game or if the game's technology level is part of the group's implicit playstyle choice (in which case, subverting it is subverting the group's assumed play goals).

AncientSwordRage

@DoomedMind hi

Anaphory

9:27 AM

@BESW But you feel you don't know enough The Dark Eye? Because otherwise, you can shortly answer those questions and then frame challenge and everything's fine.

Hi, by the way. I should not have spent half of last night reading the Book of Gears, because I was getting so tired I had to read some things three times.

BESW

Hi. Also, heh.

I shouldn't tell you that her Livejournal has tons of idea snippets and half-finished works dating back more than a decade.

Anaphory

That's different. The Book of the Gear I'm reading like I read story-webcomics.

Which is, start reading and then go through the archives until it's far too late.

BESW

Ah. Then it's a good thing Irrational Fears is almost impossible to find online anymore.

....Although it's only 30+ pages.

Anaphory

A specific thing called “Irrational Fears” sounds impossible to find on the web anyway, unless it comes with a very specific catch phrase and author name or something like that.

BESW

Well, actually. A google of the title and her name found what appears to be the whole thing questionably reproduced on a site I'd never heard of before.

Anaphory

9:40 AM

Questionably reproduced as in you don't think they asked her for permission?

BESW

Yeah.

Doomed Mind

@BESW the question you tagged here might be something i can relate to. For example, there are several weapons that use string torsions to propell rocks, iron balls or bolts through a pipe-like device in the armaments book of TDE.

Would add an answer when I get home :)

although that one is quite old...

the quesiton i mean.

BESW

9:57 AM

Unlike many traditional forums, the Stack encourages updating old posts.

Doomed Mind

ah well, I'll give it a try then.

doppelgreener

@BESW civil war is a bit of an oxymoron

BESW

It's sweet agony to try and act naturally when I see such weirdly normal idioms being clearly misunderstood.

doppelgreener

@BESW deliberately misconstrued*

(misconstrudel would be a fascinating if inconsistent recipe)

4

BESW

2

doppelgreener

10:09 AM

@BESW hahaha

BESW

@Magician I think the Laughcraftian equivalent of the Yellow Sign is a rock with the word nothing on it.

trogdor

11:33 AM

@doppelgreener I have thought this exact thing

The Oracle

4:39 PM

0

Q: What is the procedure to ask for a reopen when you don't have enough reputation?

This question was closed as a duplicate of another question. However, I think that it is related but not a duplicate since the linked question is system-agnostic. Indeed, D&D 5e has specific rules and player options for perception/investigation-related "standing orders", so I believe I could cont...

discussion vote-to-reopen

The Oracle

5:27 PM

0

Q: Can We Please Reopen a Related, but not Duplicate Question?

This question was closed as a duplicate of another question. However, I believe it is not. The linked "duplicate" question is system-agnostic and is good for general advice. However, the closed question is specific to D&D 5e, and 5e has specific mechanics for handling the question. First off, t...

discussion vote-to-reopen

The Oracle

5:55 PM

0

Q: Can the moderators delete comments on an answer?

The question "Can a character elect to be considered "running" or "sprinting" even if they don't exceed their walk rate?" has an accepted answer. Another user disagrees with my answer, and started a long conversation in comments, instead of supplying his own contradictory answer. I have deleted...

support comments

Sejanus

6:31 PM

o/

Anaphory

6:41 PM

\o

BESW

8:14 PM

Bermeja

Bermeja is an islet lying off the north coast of the Yucatán peninsula according to several maps of the Gulf of Mexico from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Despite being located somewhat precisely in relation to neighboring islands by notable Spanish cartographers of the 16th century, the island was not found in a 1997 survey, nor in an extensive 2009 study conducted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) on behalf of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. Interest in the island arose in late 2008, fueled by the fact that if such an island existed, it would be important for determining...

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