TRPG General Chat - 2017-03-23 (page 4 of 4)

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9:00 PM

@THiebert just keep it short ;P

@THiebert Depends on the type of question.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if something is mathematically improbable then is it still a gamble?

@Anheuser yes

So you're gambling if you make a bet that the sun will come up tomorrow.

Interesting.

@THiebert If you're asking about painting minis, then it's probably not on topic. If you're asking about their use in an RPG then you're good.

9:00 PM

@Anheuser You're just REALLY likely to win

And if you lose, who cares? you'll be dead soon anyway

I always interrpreted the definition of gambling as : "take risky action in the hope of a desired result."

You also probably have like 30 CHA if you manage to get anyone to take you on that bet.

with emphasis on the risky part

"Mathematically improbable" relies on a certain length of time, anyway.

@LegendaryDude there's a pretty popular question about where to buy them somewhere

@LegendaryDude but my question's about painting

9:02 PM

@THiebert Yeah, that's the one I remembered seeing. I think it was on topic at some point, but it's off topic now

it's really a bunch of questions

@THiebert I think you could ask here, but I think you might be better off at [crafts]

Wasn't there a 1st-level build that pumped Bluff so much that you were functionally invisible by convincing people that you didn't exist?

er

I can't remember the site

there's a crafts.SE though

I think it was for 3.5e or Pathfinder.

9:02 PM

@THiebert You could always ask in chat.

apparently the shortlink doesn't work for that site

What are the differences between enamel and acrylic paints? Why do RPG and wargaming miniatures use Acrylic, while other hobby modelists tend to use enamel?

I think enamel will peel off if handled too much?

But don't call me on that

@THiebert Acrylic is basically a plastic. It will peel. Enamel is more like a hard surface, and will chip.

9:04 PM

@Karelzarath I went to math club the other day and the speaker was talking about stocks or something and was saying there is a 50% prob of it going up and a 50% prob of it going down (after 1 year) and then he cut that year into more amounts of time. Each time period still had a 50% probability either way, and in the end the result is still that there is a 50% probability of it going either way, but then, there is just more or less movement.

So I don't think probablility relies on time.

But the longer it goes on the more frequent it will happen.

@THiebert I think that's also a great question for crafts.SE

@Anheuser On a long enough timeline, the sun is guaranteed not to come up in the morning.

Ah, but

Yes but that doesn't change the probability

Morning is defined as "the time that the sun comes up"

9:05 PM

it just increases the frequency of it happening

Without the sun, morning shall not come

Flawless victory

lol

so if there is a 1/10000000000000000 chance then the next day it will have the same chance

and the next day it will have the same chance

There's always a chance that we are in a false vacuum and the universe will end at a moment's notice

but as with flipping a coin once and getting heads or tails once, if we flip it 100 times on average we'll see 50 times heads 50 times tails

9:06 PM

Hi guys!

the probability hasn't changed

Yes but then there's no morning for the sun to not rise on.

@THiebert Enamel paints also require paint thinner or turpentine to clean up/remove. Acrylic is a lot less tough and doesn't ruin your brushes as easily.

Exactly, so win-win

Is the discussion of passive vs active sentences relevant here?

9:07 PM

@SPavel I like to think that we're just in an egg yolk

@anang As relevant as gambling and astrophysics.

I didn't know that the chat had to be relevant

@Karelzarath I feel like that is what you're talking about

Also, +1 for TMBG reference

Or gambling with astrophysics

9:08 PM

sweet

@Anheuser It should be.

This is, after all, the "Main chat room for tabletop role-playing games"

@LegendaryDude oh I've never even been on the SE for this chat.

@Karelzarath TMBG?

@DForck42 They Might Be Giants

@Karelzarath ahh

9:08 PM

@LegendaryDude And I've never played a table top rpg.

"Ana Ng" is one of their songs

"They Might Be Giants" Might Be Giants.

@THiebert Enamel will possibly chip when you bend a plastic part. Acrylic is flexible and works better for surfaces that can expand/contract.

YUP!

you got me!

@LegendaryDude Good answers as to the differences, but I still can't tell why different hobbies use different ones

9:09 PM

@THiebert See my last message :)

@LegendaryDude my usually preference is that, if it's not spamming and people can still ask relevant questions and get their answers and we keep it mostly pg, why not?

@le

waves a red cape Ole!

@THiebert Basically, model planes (or whatever else) aren't going to be moved around and likely aren't going to be exposed to a lot of extreme environmental changes like a miniature might be. And enamel paint might even be okay on a pewter mini. Acrylic tends to be a lot easier to work with though.

@LegendaryDude what about with metal miniatures?

^stop beating me to the punch :P

9:10 PM

You're handling it a lot, still

hehe

Imagine a bag of ten minis

"They key was used to open the door" is a passive sentence. "The key opened the door" is an active sentence. "The door was opened by the key" is a passive sentence. Am I correct?

knocking around

@anang Yes

@SPavel thankyou

9:11 PM

Also, I've got my hands on a copy of TftYP a little early ;)

user image

@THiebert You dog.

Although there is an English Language stack that will probably be able to explain it better

@Karelzarath @LegendaryDude @Adam @DForck42 @NautArch I know I'm coming (back) to the conversation late, but for GoOP vs. shadow the key word seems to me while in the GoOP description. Whether the drain hit your unaugmented strength score will certainly matter when you take off the gauntlets, but while they're on, STR=19.

@SPavel ya but u guys are active ;)

9:12 PM

@THiebert I know that FLGSs will have copies tomorrow. I unfortunately must wait until Amazon ships mine to me on the 4th.

Or are we passive? ;) ;)

What other ways are there to make the sentence "The key was used to open the door" an active sentence?

@SPavel XD

@anang "She opened the door with the key."

@nitsua60 lol, super late ;-)

@anang "He used the key to open the door."

9:13 PM

In English we tend to emphasize the person doing the action, not the tool being used

@nitsua60 Yeah, that was my thinking as well. If it only set it at one specific moment it would say something like "When you put these on, your strength is set to 19" or something that suggests a one time buff

@LegendaryDude I went by my FLGS yesterday to get the paints discussed above, and had a few copies laying about, so i picked one up early.

"The key let out a mighty roar, and flexing its glistening brass muscles, ripped the door from its hinges and crushed it between its jagged jaws"

3

The key, itself, is not the actor, the person using the key is.

"NOW ENDS THE AGE OF MAN!" it bellowed, as the puny humans ran for their lives.

9:14 PM

Anyway, I'm running late. Got to go. o/

@LegendaryDude @Karelzarath what if I wanted the key to be the subject that performs the action? Can it be done?

@SPavel lol

Cya Legendary!

@SPavel that was excellent

@anang It all depends on whether the subject does the action, or the action is done to the subject.

"the door was opened by the key" door is the subject, and it is acted upon, therefore it is passive

@anang "The key opened the door" is active voice, it's just not quite... right. It removes the true actor and implies that the key is somehow autonomous.

Outside context can reduce the ambiguity, though.

9:19 PM

@Karelzarath if this sentence was placed in context would the error remain?

lol

@anang It isn't an error, it is just ambiguous

Ambiguity isn't inherently wrong, it depends on the context

Today I learned what passive and active sentences are so sorry about the stupid questions. I know English but I don't know grammar (except intuitively).

So, I'm coming up with a 5e one shot and I have an idea where the party will be in a supernatural dungeon with lots of darkness and illusion type stuff going on. I figured that it would be a fun risk if whenever the party was hit by one of the monsters in this dungeon, they would need to make a Con save or immediately contract the *Sightrot* disease. The party has plenty of options to cure the disease themselves, without needing the *eyebright* ointments.

Do you guys think it would be more appropriate to give them a 24 hr immunity to the disease if they are cured, or to make it possible fo…

In the 1 linguistics course I took, we often talked about "tacit knowledge", things you know (about a language) without being taught explicitly

@GreySage for my purposes ambiguity is erroneous but thank you for explaining that to me.

9:21 PM

@anang "She reached into her pocket, took out the key, and tried it in the lock. The key opened the door. After steeling herself, she proceeded inside."

The middle sentence works better if phrased "The key opened the door, and she proceeded inside." That removes the ambiguity of action and provides clarity.

@Karelzarath by following up the first action "opening the door" with the second action "proceeding inside" I remove ambiguity in the first action by saying who did the second related action. Is that what is happening there?

Largely, yes.

@Anheuser yes.

Here is another one. I think it is trickier but it might not be. "James couldn't see the man" is active. Here are my two attempts to make the sentence passive: "The man was unseen by Jack" and "The man was unseen". Am I correct? Going a step further I can change the subject to the man by saying "The man hid himself from Jack" which is an active sentence. If I say "The man was hidden from Jack" ... um..... hm....

lemme figure that last sentence by myelf

Language is fun.

9:30 PM

In the case of "The man was hidden from Jack" the man is still the subject and the sentence is passive.

@anang "The man was unseen" is ambiguous, since 'unseen' is both a verb-form and an adjective. It wouldn't be passive if you said "The man was purple".

@GreySage OH! By unseen being an adjective you mean that it could be interpreted as saying something like "that man is unnoticeable" which is just an adjective.

So the reader doesn't know for sure whether I mean the adjective unseen or the verb unseen. By the way verb-form means verb right?

@anang Yes, but don't quote me on that usage (most of my knowledge of grammar is tacit, like yours, and I don't remember terminology very well).

FYI, "The man was unseen" might have a different meaning than you think. 'Seen' is a form of the verb 'to see', so 'Unseen' is probably a form of the verb 'to unsee'. The adjective 'unseen' is not the same as the verb-form 'unseen'.

@GreySage you are right again about the ambiguity though. It is my goal to eliminate all unintentional ambiguity from my writing. I am also supposed to avoid passive sentences in favor of active ones.

@anang I suggest giving this a read: slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/09/09/…

9:38 PM

@GreySage that is a great point. They do say that what has been seen cannot be unseen but you still have a point.

@anang I assume this is for some kind of class? I personally disagree that passive voice is somehow weaker, but its all just flavour

@GreySage nah. It is for personal improvement in writing non-fiction. There are certain preferences (that are not my own) that I must meet. At the very least I want to be capable of meeting them in case someone calls me out.

To tie this back to the room's topic, RPG editors have a pathological hatred of passive voice.

@Karelzarath I had a feeling you guys did which is why I felt this might be relevant to you

I will read the article once I move on to Dangling Modifiers

It uses dangling modifiers to talk about ambiguity.

9:42 PM

Oh! That will be very important for me then.

Here is another one that I am told is much more challenging. "The policeman chased after Fred". I believe it is tricky because I need to figure out if the policeman is the subject or if Fred is. If Fred is the subject then it would be passive. If the policeman is the subject it would be active. I'll tell you guys when I pick which is the subject (these exercises don't come with answers unfortunately).

@Karelzarath I think passive voice just sounds bad. Whenever I catch myself using it I rewrite to be explicitly active and it usually ends up sounding better. It's almost an inutitive thing (kind of like that "tacit knowledge" @GreySage referred to).

also, I'm back but just for a second

I think one of the reasons I like passive voice is that you can make the subject the more important thing, in the larger context.

Consider "The hero was confused by the maze". Passive voice, subject=the hero

"The maze confused the hero." Active voice, subject=the maze

"The hero, confused by the maze, did not know where to go next."

Honestly I think "The maze confuse the hero" sounds better. It makes the maze seem nefarious and gives it character. I feel like the stakes are higher when I read that version of the sentence instead of the passive one.

The maze isn't doing anything though

It is... dare I say... passive.

:P

9:51 PM

true but it is personified simply by virtue of making the sentence active

I swear every single chatroom here makes puns without fail XD

See? it's all just flavour. Being able to use both is key to effective writing, you can create different impressions in different circumstances

Yes, there is a time and place for passive voice. On the editing room floor, after publishing. :D

Want the maze to be scary? Make it active. etc.

@LegendaryDude lol

@GreySage "The maze consumed the hero."

@anang Puns are the highest form of comedy

9:53 PM

JK, it does have its uses. There are certain situations that can only be described in a passive voice.

@GreySage Puns are the only form of comedy.

IIRC, Latin let you, more or less, arbitrarily order your sentence so that the important words came first. So, you could write "He threw the ball" to emphasize who, what, or how.

@Karelzarath Esperanto is similar.

Ordering the subjects and predicates differently doesn't change the grammar, it just lets you emphasize differently.

@LegendaryDude I have no hope of learning that language.

I think i figured it out! The subject is the policeman! "The policeman chased after Fred" is an active sentence. My reasoning is that if you are chasing after Fred you aren't performing an action on him.

9:56 PM

It's easy! I tried. I didn't learn it, but the stuff I did was easy.

@anang Yeah, exactly.

The who did what

I've been trying to learn esperanto. Really, the limiting factor is only how much time I'm able to put into it

@LegendaryDude SWEET!

In every sentence, the who is the subject and the what/action is the predicate. In your example, "Fred" is just a modifier of "chased."

You can see this by shortening it to "The policeman chased."

It still makes a complete sentence, as it has a subject and an associated action.

@LegendaryDude the reason why Fred is a modifier is because the sentence works without Fred. Fred just adds detail.

But I cannot eliminate the policeman from the sentence

@anang Exactly.

Well, you could. You could say "He chased Fred," and "policeman" is provided by the context of the sentence

10:00 PM

Fred was chased through the streets.

@LegendaryDude even if I did that though the policeman is still kinda there in the form of "he"

@anang Right

@Karelzarath so i can remove the policeman.

You can, but it's passive voice.

And changes the subject

Cool, there is a Duolingo for Esperanto

I should give that a try

10:02 PM

It becomes not about the policeman.

It becomes about something that happened to Fred.

(As an aside, "Esperanto" loosely translates as "one who hopes" in Spanish)

@GreySage That's what I use.

@GreySage lernu.net/en is a really great site specifically for Esperanto.

@Karelzarath That would be esperador, wouldn't it?

You are right! The original sentence is all about the policeman. I wasn't focused on the sentence because I was imagining that chasing Fred meant that the policeman was making Fred run away but the sentence doesn't say that. The only action in the sentence is chasing and it is done by the policeman and not to Fred.

10:04 PM

O mas sencillamente, el que espera

It's dedicated to Esperanto and completely free. Lernu is the Esperanto word for "Learn."

The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto ("Esperanto" translates as "one who hopes"), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.

So, to the extent that Wikipedia is reliable...

I once recited the Esperanto alphabet to my wife to impress her (she was my girlfriend at the time) and she thought I was making a joke about a fake language.

Yeah I was reading that, but it doesn't say in which language :)

@GreySage Latin: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Esperanto#Esperanto

10:07 PM

@LegendaryDude There you go, I thought it sounded off to be spanish

Also, I'm not sure why I ever thought reciting the alphabet of a constructed language would be impressive to anyone, let alone a girl I thought was pretty.

3

@LegendaryDude I'm not sure either, but apparently your past self was a genius.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/esperi#Esperanto It's a Catalan verb, so closely tied to Spanish.

@Yuuki You're right, it worked after all!

We need to invent a time machine so we can probe Past @LegendaryDude's mind for the secrets of the universe.

10:10 PM

Apparently Esperanto was made illegal by WWII Germany and Japan.

And now I'm in a wikipedia blackhole...

lol

@Yuuki Those I have grasped only in fleeting moments.

guiltily closes 12 Wikipedia tabs

Life's about making the right mistake at the right time.

hey there @Karelzarath

@Shalvenay Yo!

10:13 PM

o/

"The car was fixed" is passive and the subject is the car. "The pencil had been lost" is active and the subject is whoever had lost the pencil. "Mark was given a warning" is passive and the subject is Mark (Mark was given something).

@anang 1. yes. 2 passive, and "whoever" is the (implicit) subject. 3. is the same as 2: Mark's the object, and the warner is the subject.

Well, 2's actually got a few interpretations, I guess.

Is "been" a predicate-adjective or a part participle? It's ambiguous, right?

3. is not ambiguous.

@nitsua60 gimme a moment. I will google predicate-adjective and part participle

hey as well @nitsua60

how're things going?

The problem is that the word "been" is overloaded: it's both/either.

@Shalvenay Good. You?

10:18 PM

alright here

Assembling my "binder" for Saturday.

heheh

@nitsua60 what would the linking verb be in "The pencil had been lost" if been is a predicate-adjective?

btw, since you're putting emphasis on background and skills -- is Jherala's split/hybrid background a problem for you at all?

@anang A writer friend of mine had some humorous advice: if you can add "by zombies" to the end of the sentence and have it still make sense, it's passive voice.

5

10:21 PM

@Shalvenay nope--just need to know. You're free to craft it however (w/in the rules). And mixing-and-matching parts of backgrounds is explicitly in-bounds, per PHB p.125.

@nitsua60 ah :)

@anang Sorry--"lost" I meant. Lost is the possible predicate-adjective. (I may be out past my depth, here....)

@nitsua60 ok then. lets move on to the mark sentence.

[whew]

lol

10:22 PM

hey there @THiebert

@anang (and I are getting old, though we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence.) "Mark was given a warning." What's the "main" verb?

lol

the main verb is given i believe

Yes. Now who is the giver (subject), what is being given (object), and to whom is the object being given (indirect object)?

If i use the by zombies method that would make it passive with the subject being zombies (or the giver of the warning). The object is the warning for that is what is being given. Mark is the indirect object.

but i feel like it should be an active sentence, not passive. the zombies are performing the action of giving.

@anang All correct. And the "by zombies" method is a great trick, @Karelzarath.

"active" and "passive" sentences all (though perhaps I'm not thinking of exceptions) use transitive verbs: verbs that admit a subject and an object. The "active" vs. "passive" question comes from transposing the subject and object.

Compare, for example "I was hit by a truck" vs. "A truck hit me."

"Hit" is the verb in both cases. The truck is doing the hitting in both sentences. But in one sentence the truck is the subject, in another it's an object.

10:30 PM

"I was hit by a truck". "Hit by" is the action. "I" is the subject.

yes. (basically)

oh wait a second...

ya ur right!

@anang Great! (About what?) =)

But something feels strange though about saying the Mark sentence is passive. If the zombies are the subject and they are performing an action then wouldnt that make it active?

You are right about saying the truck is doing the hitting in both cases (I was thinking that being hit by is an action of the subject but I was wrong).

Just remember that "active" is being used here as a technical term to describe a structure, not in its natural-language sense.

10:33 PM

I don't know the difference between structure and natural-language sense. Would I be using structure if I say the sentence is active?

Which sentence?

the mark sentence

"Mark was given a warning"?

yea

That sentence is passive, not active. Because the subject (Mark) of the sentence is not the one actually doing the thing indicated by the verb (warning-giver) in the narrative of that sentence.

10:36 PM

oh

Think of it this way, perhaps: the actor in the narrative (warning-giver) is not being given the primary role of subject, but rather a subordinate role. If the actor is also the subject, we call that "active." If the *acted-upon" is the subject, we call that "passive."

@nitsua60 this means I must learn how to identify who the subject is in sentences.

Yes.

Without this ability I cannot figure out if a sentence is passive or active. Alright! Time to figure this one out.

Do you want to practice some?

10:39 PM

I do.

Then I suggest we head to the Not A Bar, another chat room here at RPGSE. That way, if people are interested they can also come play along, but we don't need to flood general chat with grammar exercises.

alright!

@nitsua60 Capital idea, old chap.

@Karelzarath [bows]

11:34 PM

hey there @CTWind

I think I'll sleep through tonight's game. I can put queue cards on my torso for the players.

hey guys

howdy @Shalvenay

hey there @Skyler and @JackStout -- how're things going?

@Shalvenay Lumpy. With carrots.

@JackStout If your players can run a game without you you've got very good players and it'd be a shame to sleep through that :P

11:45 PM

:P

pretty good, first day where im officially not a student anymore, so its time to sort my life out

aaah

and of course im derping and thinking about dnd

:P

@Skyler I'm not sure which sorting algorithm is optimal for your life. May require four years of testing and analysis.

11:47 PM

The life of fictitious people is often easier to figure out than one's own, so that's understandable ;)

hahaha

Or, more likely, a few poor career decisions.

@JackStout first you should at clean your room

baby steps

but yea, did that shade battle we were talking about last night

how'd it go?

My players could run their own game but won't. Much a like a cat that could sit on something you weren't reading.

4

11:50 PM

I'd say the battle was interesting but were all too slow on the combat end, took 2 hours to do that and since a play was late didnt squeeze much more in

ah. so, you had to wrap the session with the fight still going?

@Shalvenay na, but it took about 2 hrs

gave them treasures, and called it a night

ah. what was the final score?

@Shalvenay you mean how close did the party get to dying

@Skyler haha, yes

11:52 PM

cuz they mitigated things pretty well, decided to mimick the giant eagle strategy, and the wizard counterspelled the other wizard a lot

@Skyler so the two Druids got into aerial combat? XD

the druids both had the paladin ride them, I also let the PCs add the halfling rogue on the eagle for decreased speed

ah

they couldnt get in range, so the shade eagle swooped and did a strike as it nose dived right at the barbarian

the giant eagle came down for a swoop at the barbarian, and he said can i take the attack but instead try and grab the bird as it hits me

how can i say no to someone being so barbarianly awesome, so he rolled and got like a 25

xD

11:56 PM

pinned the bird down and took 3 attacks, including a smited blow, and the bird brigade came rolling with vengeance

personally, mounting the bird is not really the greatest strategy IMO (although it's p. unavoidable in 5e)

paladin knocked down shade from their nose dive, and then as they came back up in the air the rogue jumped off and landed on the now prone shade paladin with his knife digging right into

it

nice :D

the shade melted into the shadows where he fell prone and reappeared right behind the wizard, and cleaved off like 45 of his 60ish health in one volley

the barbarian knocked the druid back into a humanoid form, who then turned into a lion to break out of the grapple, and dived right into the shadows

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Mar '1723

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