TRPG General Chat - 2014-08-18

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12:06 AM

@Zachiel Then (and I know this is hard for you in your gaming circumstances) games like Leverage and Paranoia might be more appropriate to the kind of story you want to tell.

3 hours later…

2:48 AM

This entire thread on Guardians of the Galaxy as a game where players run all over the GM is delightful. Obviously, spoilers for the movie.

2

2 hours later…

5:07 AM

We're having a bunch of scheduling issues lately, which means we haven't been able to get together and play Fate for the last two weeks. So we've agreed to make a bunch of druids for a 13th Age one-shot, just in case. Why druids? Because the book with them, 13 True Ways, only recently came out, and there's a lot of options there.

-1

Q: Is there a way to block users?

There are users on this site that are poisionong the site for me. How can I block them? I've tried flagging their comments but there is no response, and my notifications are spammed with their activity.

I remembered a character idea I had in 3.5, more a build than anything, a dwarven druid that'd turn to stone and have a stupidly high AC (but couldn't do much else, sadly). Picked the talents to approximate it, though naturally there is no equivalence. Then thought of his One Unique Thing, which all 13th Age characters have. OUT led to an entire character arc, complete with a tragic yet heroic ending. So now I will tell you about my character, because there's no one here to stop me. Mwahahaha.

Anyway. Introducing Azbarn Stonebeard. He bears an uncanny resemblance to a dwarven hero of the Old World of the same name (which only a few dwarven historians would recognize). Most assume he's a descendant. In reality (and this is his OUT), he's an animated statue of Azbarn, turned to flesh. He doesn't know who did this or why. But he does know that if he violates the unclear constraints of his magical transformation, he will gradually turn back to stone.

So far, these constraints appear to consist of being a hero, which he inherently isn't. So it's a "fake it lest it unmakes you" kind of deal. His story arc (potentially) is that of truly becoming a hero only to find out that his "benefactor" had a nefarious plan for him, and refuse to follow through with it despite the transformation occurring. In the end, he becomes a statue once again, but not before he's thwarted their evil machinations.

And I know staring off with an entire character arc set in stone (haha) is a terrible idea for a game, but that's how my brain works. And I love 13th Age for pushing me to come up with something that sets my character apart from the whole world.

5:22 AM

@BESW Oh, so that's where that line is from! I've heard a song that samples it, but didn't know its origin

@Adeptus Orly? What song?

@BESW Abney Park - The Wake youtube.com/watch?v=lcFfxCaYT6E

Joe vs the Volcano is an awesome movie that seems to have slipped past most everybody, perhaps because on paper it LOOKS like an extra-silly Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy when it's nothing of the sort: so people who don't like that kind of film don't watch it, and people who do like that kind of movie are disappointed.

Okay, so the first sample is ALSO from Joe vs the Volcano--the "my father says... constant total amazement" bit.

Free MP3 download from Abney Park's own site

...along with some other tracks

Failed - No file.

5:35 AM

Aw damn. They have redesigned the site once or twice since I downloaded it - when I found the page I assumed the files it linked to were still there too. Apparently not.

The others seem to be.

ha, that figures

I suspect it's just a matter of figuring out the error in the name--probably spacing/underscores--but their other file names aren't consistent enough to extrapolate a pattern.

Anyway, I highly recommend Joe vs the Volcano. It's a fairy tale about the spiritual journey of a man with nearly nothing, who loses everything, and finds himself in the process.

And it's pretty hilarious.

I'll keep an eye out for it

Roger Ebert:

> Gradually during the opening scenes of "Joe Versus the Volcano," my heart began to quicken, until finally I realized a wondrous thing: I had not seen this movie before. Most movies, I have seen before. Most movies, you have seen before. Most movies are constructed out of bits and pieces of other movies, like little engines built from cinematic Erector sets.
But not "Joe Versus the Volcano." It is not an entirely successful movie, but it is new and fresh and not shy of taking chances. And the dialogue in it is actually worth listening to, because it is written with wit and romance.

6:08 AM

@Matt [wave] Hi!

6:54 AM

You have two cows, RPG edition.

7

7:27 AM

@Magician deadEarth: You have ~~two~~ three cows. One of them is half-fish but has already drowned, one can shoot acidic milk but will explode in 2d6 hours, and one thinks it is a sparrow.

That last one seems almost playable.

"Almost playable" is about the best you can hope for.

Pilgrims of the Flying Temple: You have two flying cows that learn important life lessons by overfeeding people and getting set on fire.

Warhammer 40k: You have two imperial cows. Orcs feed their desecrated beef to the terrible gods in the spaces between spaces.

Mythender: You have two cows who kill gods through sheer hatred of the divine until one gets struck down, refuses to die, kills another and becomes a god itself. The world is in ruins and nothing has changed.

Great Ork Gods: You have two cows. They sacrifice sheep to stay alive long enough to pitifully attempt to impress their capricious deities before they die violent and ignominious deaths.

Eclipse Phase: You have two cows. They alternate between discussing how weird it is that one was born a human and moved its mind into a cow body, while another has been uplifted into sentience; and fighting space zombies.

7:39 AM

My Life With Master: You have two abominable cow-things. They vie with each other for the love of their uncaring creator until one gains the courage to stand up for its right to be treated like a cow. The creator slaughters it brutally, but is distracted enough for the second cow-thing to kill him. The surviving cow-thing, twisted by the experience, creates abominable chicken minions to serve it.

tremulus: You have two cows. They experience a growing sense of unease. On 10+, they die fast.

Minimus: you have two cows with complicated connections to a web of other cows. They anticipate overwrought Romance-style interpersonal drama, but get too confused to finish character creation.

Everyone Is John: You have one cow with a shallow television-inspired version of multiple personality disorder. He falls to his death attempting to eat cake.

Microscope: You have two cows. Cow-based pollution will eventually destroy the world. Very few other agricultural animals survive in this time period. Super-grass evolves which refuses to be eaten by cows. Cows evolve to be grass-eating machines. The cows may or may not become dragons.

Roll For Shoes: You have two cows. One of them turns out to be a kitchen-utensil-wielding sorcerer; the other is a ninja luchador.

Pathfinder pony hack: You have two cows who want to explore the magic of friendship, but keep getting into lethal combat with the locals wherever they travel. One of the cows learns charm person. Is that cheating?

8:21 AM

That was brilliant

@Mourdos Hey. What's new?

1 hour later…

9:32 AM

waves

Heyo.

that blocking users question makes me sad :o(

Mmm. There's a certain tragic irony in it.

?

Morning.

Blocking users question?

9:37 AM

on meta

-2

Q: Is there a way to block users?

There are users on this site that are poisionong the site for me. How can I block them? I've tried flagging their comments but there is no response, and my notifications are spammed with their activity.

See it now

@BESW irony?

Well, for one thing I suspect that doppelgreener's probably among the blocked, so his comment is going to be missed. Which is majorly ironic.

ah, I see

9:38 AM

(Also, the user who asked the question recently came off a short suspension, and was part of the drama which got 5e arguments banned from this chat.)

He also answered his own question.

as far as you're aware, is there any justification in the feeling?

I don't know what specific people or instances he's talking about, so I can't say. I do know that he's definitely raised some hackles in the past and I wouldn't be surprised if a few citizens aren't very charitable toward him now because of that.

fair enough

I also know that we do have some other citizens with brusque attitudes, especially in comments, who could easily be rubbing him the wrong way too without specifically targeting him.

9:40 AM

I can't see anything in his most recent 5 questions or answers

Specifically looking for comments and edits

If he's not going to raise specific complaints, I'm not going to spend time going and looking for drama.

@BESW this

There have been strong debates in the past. As far as I remember, a lot of them started with requests for clarification, and him going on the defensive instead.

The most recent person who commented and answered some of his 5e stuff was me xD

@MrLemon Sorry that that game offer didn't work out. Did you check the other link I sent you?

@Mourdos yeah. Will start looking next week. Have to prepare for the Con next weekend first.

9:53 AM

Enjoy your Con :P

Rrrrr. Why won't Kickstarter take my money? They've taken this card before, and I've used the card locally after KS declined it.

I've got two and a half days to sort this out... [bank tomorrow]

What is the criteria for adding to the community wiki?

509

Q: What are "Community Wiki" posts?

Some questions and answers are marked Community Wiki and are owned by a Community Wiki user. Why have Community Wiki posts? How do Community Wiki posts work? How does a post become a Community Wiki post? How can the Community Wiki status be removed from a post? Return to FAQ Index

support faq community-wiki posts

Is that what you mean?

Ah, so the idea is to allow edits

Not to say "this is an answer that should be added to a hall of fame"

Aye.

It's a workaround for certain special circumstances where the normal "user/editor" relationship to posts and votes and rep isn't healthy.

10:02 AM

Sadness. Someone posted up a long and detailed "Crafting guide" that I thought was awesome

4

Q: Pathfinder Magic Item Crafter Build Guide

I have been trying to build a Wizard who focuses entirely on crafting magic items. Looking online for a guide on what Class, traits, feats, race...ect to choose I have yet to find one anywhere. Is there a guide anywhere that I may have missed outlining recommended traits, feats and such for a ma...

pathfinder magic-items crafting

That one

10:29 AM

Seriously?

If the cons are anything to go by; I'd guess that most d&d 'players' are well over 200lbs :D — Macona 7 mins ago

10:52 AM

...I wonder if I could take some Star Trek episode where they skirt the Prime Directive and make it a Cthulhu Dark story from the natives' perspective...

11:11 AM

@Mourdos there is virtually never a circumstance you actually need to or should use community wiki

it's almost always better you reap the results of your labour.

Tends to be most appropriate when you are posting something that is almost entirely not your own: you see an old comment the author won't post as an answer but you want to preserve it, you are trying to preserve something that's otherwise vanished from the web but you did not write it, or sometimes if you collaborated with someone (or multiple people) on writing something, you might choose to post it as community wiki rather than try to work out who should get the rep for your collective work.

11:31 AM

@Mourdos why's this sadness :O

@BESW that could be cool XD

it'd take some roleplaying on our part

Aye.

@doppelgreener Has Daniel talked to you about Saturday?

@BESW no :O

He's getting ideas about inviting more people on his end to join Geek Night.

I'm not entirely opposed, but I tried to impress upon him the highly informal nature of the thing.

@BESW :D!

Maybe I should lead my own geek night XD

the problem is, there's five of us, and two of us tend to work both weekend nights. or, one works one, the other works the other. but those are also the two less active players anyway.

11:47 AM

I'm not sure who he has in mind, or if they're associated with your group.

@BESW I'm interested in finding out!

@doppelgreener Because I thought that community wiki was a "this is a great piece of information that is generically useful"

But its not.

Oh, right, yeah it's not.

in fact community wiki kinda sucks for the authors, so recently the automatic mechanisms which might once have pushed a post into community wiki all got removed

now it's 100% voluntary

and even then inadvisable

but if you think it's awesome, you could place a bounty to reward an existing answer

Morning

Evening.

12:00 PM

Definitely evening.

Early Afternoon

Early Morning.

@doppelgreener are multiple bounties on the same answer possible? Aaron already put 100 rep on it.

@MrLemon yup

pretty sure it is anyway

might be worth researching on meta stack exchange

user image

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:06 PM

lol

good morning

[wave]

Joshua Aslan Smith

so many 5e questions

really need to get that PHB

Oh, @doppelgreener, speaking of Geek Night. Next Saturday is my monthly NSA meeting, which goes As Long As It Takes. Usually it's over before 6, but it could always go long.

Also that's the day Series 8 of Doctor Who premiers; naturally we won't be watching it but I'm thinking maybe we'll something DW-related and less brain-intensive for me after my all-day meeting.

@BESW Sure! C:

My initial thought is "Ooh, let's watch Night of the Doctor and Day of the Doctor," but that's not very Skype-friends-friendly.

My second thought is, "Ooh, let's play a Doctor Who RPG," but I'd have to teach myself and everyone else the system, and that's not low-brain.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:21 PM

why cant I find the scans of the sorcerer sheet, WHY!?!?!

@BESW we could play Doctor Who and Companions roll for shoes

@JoshuaAslanSmith Your worthiness is being reviewed. Please call in three to six months for a renewed update.

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

that feeling when you're looking for something on the internet but all the words to describe that something only bring up posts related to but not what you are actually looking for because they are news/site pages with much better SEO

@doppelgreener ...that is hilarious and might actually work.

@JoshuaAslanSmith A quick search of this chat for "sorcerer," sorted by newest first, and....

Jul 25 at 13:55, by GMNoob

Pretty pictures! http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136372-Exclusive-The-Table-of-Contents‌-and-Sorcerer-From-the-D-D-Players-Handbook

Joshua Aslan Smith

right but somewhere I saw the next 2 pages, the ones that actually matter for the when do I roll wild magic question

I keep finding that article/links to that article from other sites

12:26 PM

@BESW I roll for red converse shoes

d6

•

welp i'm not the tenth doctor

Oh, you want the wild magic table. One moment.

[cracks knuckles, dives back in]

dnddungeonscape.com/i-get-a-wild-magic-oh-what-a-wild-magic

Jun 6 at 2:46, by BESW

"Hey, a page from the 5e handbook! ...oh. Random effect tables." [backs away sadly]

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:29 PM

ah thanks

I'm still curious what their spell mechanic is though.

Because Wizards are now sorcerers, so what are sorcerers?

sorcerers have points

(and always know all their spells)

@waxeagle I shan't step on them.

@BESW wise choice :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

hah

12:40 PM

Sorcerers: giving new meaning to d4 Hit Dice.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah basically sorcerers get metamagic from 3e

also

wacky hijinks

or wings

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah

if you go wild magic (wacky hijinks) vs. dragonic heritage (wings) you basically get a 2nd version of inspiration with a fate style compel built in

Mmm, bard.

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah that's a pretty cool mechanic. I like that particular feature.

12:45 PM

I'm... puzzled by it. But I won't delve into it in the main chat.

Hmm.

Hey @Metool Do you know of any feats that increase the Aid Another bonus? I found a few racial traits and class abilities but still looking for feats.

Hmm. If I do want to go for something more crunchy than RFS for a Doctor Who game...

There's the modern Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG, and then there's the original 1985 Doctor Who RPG.

I wasn't at all impressed with the former of those

DWAITAS?

It looks a little clunky with specks of brilliance here and there.

Did anything in particular unimpress you?

1:05 PM

Hmmmm, good question. On reflection, I suspect it was more to do with the scenario I was in and the inherent issues with having a character (the dr) who is a genius and can think their way out of most situations. Not sure the GM did a good job of handling that

I've just come across an interesting combination

Joshua Aslan Smith

the doctor sure is a mary sue

@Mourdos Curry and chocolate?

Skald and Spirit Totem

Rage powers apply to all allies under the song, and use the Skald's abilities (BAB and charisma) in this case

@JoshuaAslanSmith Ten and Four in particular. Some versions of the Doctor did a much better job avoiding the pitfalls of MS; I rather liked Three's combination of rakish Adam Adamant meets absent-minded professor.

Joshua Aslan Smith

1:10 PM

Yeah those are the best examples of doctor who mary sueish ness

@Mourdos so he makes his slamming spirits stronger?

He created 1 spirit per ally (including himself) that is affected, and the use the skalds BAB+cha mod to hit and cha mod for damage

At level 6 with a +5 cha mod that is +9 to hit with a slam for 1d4+5 negative energy damage

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw I think part of the reason I like 5th so much is that despite being a regenerating time & space traveler the stakes always feel real because he actually cares

And each ally gets 1 per turn

Joshua Aslan Smith

also now im thinking about Turlo

1:13 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith Vislor Turlough? That was a brave experiment in Companionery.

Joshua Aslan Smith

hah yes

But yes, I really enjoyed Five. I'm very fond of Peter Davison in other shows too, like Campion.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep he is a solid actor

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Mourdos That's a solid combo.

There's a bunch of 'fun' (read: totally broken) synergies in the ACG.

You can do batshit insane things with a whip now like creating a 50 foot zone of control where anyone who moves within it takes an AOO.

Basically, my DM hates my summoner.

He's already level bumped the summons levels in some cases, and the game is turning into Cast Haste, Summon 1d3+1 Earth Elementals, repeat last step

its P6, with the option to "buy" gestalt levels at double normal cost (2k for level 1, 4k for level 2)

I'm thinking of retraining my summoner levels (I'm level 6, no gestalt)

and my stats are 8/16/12/14/8/18 (and +2 cha from item)

So my options are pretty much Skald, Oracle and Sorcerer

LessPop_MoreFizz

1:23 PM

@Mourdos You could also go Eldritch Scion Magus with that dex.

(Basically it's a Sorcerer/Magus hybrid archetype thing)

Could also go really nuts and do something like an intimidate-centric enforcer rogue or ninja with all that Cha

@Phil If you have any other thoughts on the system, I'd like to hear them.

From what little I've seen so far, it sounds kind of like I could easily hack Fate to accommodate its good bits.

We have two reach "fighers"

One is a THW Fighter/Cavalier with a Dinosaur

The other is a Barbarian/Rogue who uses intimidate and acrobatics

We also have a witch, and a cleric, and a gunslinger with a double hackbut

I've been sitting in the "deal with obstacles" and "provide meatshields" roll

But the DM doesn't like that I can bypass pretty much every obstacle

I now fly via my Eidolon as well

@LessPop_MoreFizz I thought Magus sucked hard?

@BESW mutter mutter not sure I remember the details sufficiently to comment really. parts of it are certainly abstracted enough to be easy to port across.

Fair enough.

Is the Eldritch Scion Magus likely to be on the srd soon?

LessPop_MoreFizz

1:35 PM

@Mourdos Magus is pretty great, I'm not sure who told you they suck.

They're a little one note and kind of MAD but they have enough tricks to pump out a lot of damage.

I have a whip that I am proficient in

Took that gnome racial trait that makes you proficient in anything you craft yourself

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Mourdos Probably 2-4 weeks.

@Mourdos Slashing Grace is the new magic feat that lets it all work; lets you use a 1H slashing weapon (i.e. a whip) as if it was a light piercing weapon for purposes of weapon finesse and Swashbuckler deeds, as well as adds +Dex to damage in place of Str.

(Speaking of which, with that stat array, Swashbuckler is another very good option.)

@Mourdos @LessPop_MoreFizz Are you talking pathfinder?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Aaron Yeahh.

I'm waiting for swashbuckler and warpriest to go up on the srd

LessPop_MoreFizz

1:40 PM

Then there is a Magus Arcana which allows a magus to take Swashbuckler Deeds as feats; which you can do to take Precise Strike - which allows you to add your class level to damage with any 1h/light piercing weapon. Which is... bananas.

Looks like I need to craft myself a scorpian whip

If you like the magus it works well with a 3pp supplement that revamps the magic system called Spheres of Power. Makes it so you can have a scaling spell that does CLd6 damage.

It is still in development but is very fun still

See, my plan before I thought about retraining was to stick with my flying eidolon as a master summon 6, then gestalt into dual cursed (legalistic, crippled) oracle for misfortune, then grab 4 levels of paladin (shining knight, order of loyalty) to boost my saves

At the moment, we are paizo only and pfsrd only

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Mourdos Skip the 4 levels of paladin and grab the new feat

Though I'm friends with one of the editors, so I might get him to write them up

LessPop_MoreFizz

1:43 PM

if you have 5 levels of Knowledge:Religion and a second level divine caster, you can get Cha to saves.

Shining knight gave them to my mount as well in exchange for divine health

but cool to know

Editor friend offered to add in whatever I need.

Joshua Aslan Smith

2:16 PM

who was it that was looking for a click game? @aaron was it you>?

jayisgames.com/games/loot-clicker

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yea. I was looking for a simi idle game like cookie clicker, a dark room, and that candy game that I can't think of the name of.

Joshua Aslan Smith

gotcha

cookie clicker, I actually wrote a mouse clicking macro for that >.>

Arithmancy feat

Sacred Geometry feat

Enjoy !

I wrote a maptools macro from the Artithmancy feat.

But I can't do so for Sacred Geometry, I would have to bruteforce all combinations.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Wait, what? How do you do that?

2:59 PM

@Mourdos The amount of time that it would take to do this would be ridiculous. Especially that second one.

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Mourdos Enlarge Person and along Arm (spells), Combat Reflexes, Lunge/Monkey Lunge (feats), Aberrant Bloodline (Bloodrager bloodline)

3 hours later…

6:21 PM

Very quiet today.

aye hammering on my 5e creature stat book

@BESW While I was talking to you about characters yesterday I also asked to a girl I know, for she knows the game and my in-game behavior better than you. Other than agreeing with you on the most of it, she showed me an example of her playing an evil character that I tought I might share with you.
Her character is a former pirate with a broken airship and no crew. She met a guy who treated her kindly, then a necromancer. The necromancer told her he would have provided an undead crew if she was to leave the kind guy for him. She agreed as long as he provided the undead for free, and left the…

4 hours later…

10:41 PM

hrrrrmm

11

Q: System recommendation: Dynamic, engaging, and realistic skill rolls

Our group has been taking issue with traditional systems for rolling and resolving skill checks/skill encounters, and we were wondering if there are more dynamic and realistic options out there. Most games (in my experience) are some variation on [skill + misc bonuses + your roll vs. difficulty]...

game-recommendation skills

> "Robust"/"engaging"/"dynamic" just means that the system can actually handle describing a level of intricacy and complexity in character actions. Compare "Roll a diplomacy check to see if you convince him" to DnD 4th edition skill challenge with variable actions you can take such that there are different strategies and variable outcomes other than binary pass/fail.

Is there a better term for this other than... those three? None of them seem to match.

I'm bugged by "dynamic" in the title, mainly, because all dynamic really means is "forceful movement." Which, y'know, doesn't make much sense when talking about skill rolls. Or, any sense at all. Unless you're talking about the dice, but I don't think the skill system has much to do with that.

Not that this is a particularly big deal or anything, but I'm suddenly curious if there is a term that better matches.

10:56 PM

@doppelgreener I don't think it's exactly what they mean, but "dynamic" in this kind of context would mean a system that enforces the forward movement of the story: the mechanics wouldn't let you just sit in one place and try the exact same roll until you succeed, for example.

11:09 PM

Am I missing something about this answer?

@BESW I guess so. In this case, they just mean you can actually go into detail on skill rolls, and it's not just "roll a d20 for this entire scene."

@BESW you're not, other than to mention this place isn't a forum since they appear to be considering it as one

I gave them the "SE is a pile of neatly-sorted questions and answers" spiel last week.

@BESW aha ok then.

I've also given the "comments are not for chatting or saying 'thanks,'" and linked him to the chat at least twice.

11:29 PM

@BESW welp, idk, i flagged it as not an answer, since it's... not one, as far as game rec are concerned

Mmm. I flagged for mod attention.

I'd love to talk with him about this stuff on chat; it's right up my alley.

What's this about leading new users into an alley?

Shh.

11:58 PM

I wonder how aggressively it's possible to recurse an RPG before it becomes morass of inextricable confusion.

3

A Fate game about a D&D group, for instance.

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