TRPG General Chat

@BESW That could however be the sheet of metal at a blacksmith's shop or serving as the base of someone's oven, so it might not be the one blocking your view to the object you really want to locate.

eimyr

@BESW "Fun" is fun.

You're also assuming that is a sheet of lead, and not a block, misshapen lump, or seahorse.

BESW

Also, D&D seems to be historically bad about the role of intent and context in determining objective criteria.

eimyr

I thoroughly enjoy playing exception-based systems with people as long as there is a firm understanding that we're trying to deconstruct and hack the system and everyone is on board

1:24 PM

this seems fairly clear-cut, though. There is a limitation to the spell. If you try really hard and use the "it doesn't say I can't" as a way to get around it, then it probably isn't meant to be a workaround.

BESW

(See: permitted delayed-action spell triggers.)

1:47 PM

@NautArch There is, after all, no rule that says dogs can't play pro football.

@Yuuki Are you invoking the Air Bud Rule?

"It doesn't say I can't" is basically the generalized Air Bud Rule after all.

I'd say it's hard to decide when someone is using that style to do something cool or to nerf. But in this case, it's a nerf.

2:18 PM

Re: the Detect Object Q, I think folks are missing the point a bit and talking past each other. The description section shows that visual description is the metric, as you have to have seen the object within 30' for a specific object. However, worded correctly "Find lead used to hide an object from detection" could lead to fun stuff. That's a specific tool akin to "find a lock used to hold a prison door shut" and may be within purview of the spell.

@Chemus what about Talos? (In re: this question.) I'm by no means a FR-lore expert--my 2e FR campaign box is still unopened!

My brain doesn't work today

NP

@Chemus I disagree. Locate Object has a very specific set of criteria and a specific way to stop it from working. I do not think that a description of possible location (that is still unknown) would be acceptable. As someone else said, would you accept "locate the cloak of the assassin in the crowd" when you don't actually know what that cloak looks like?

@Chemus It depends on the context. If somebody is trying to do something cool or creative with it, I'm more inclined to play along. If they start trying to fiddle with wording and interpretation to get around the limitation of the spell, so that they can find a specific object hidden by lead shielding, I'm disinclined to play along

2:24 PM

@NautArch No, the assassin's cloak is not a specific tool. But a mask is, or disguise paint is, or a poison dagger is, etc. A chest designed to obscure its contents from divination is a particular type of tool.

the Q is poorly worded, and it's an XY problem, IMO

@Chemus what does specific tool have to do with it? A piece of lead is not a tool either. Are you saying there is a difference between one unknown object in an unknown location and another? I mean, if the difference is utility, then it's the cloak being worn.

but you still don't know what it looks like OR where it is. It fails both tests for locate object.

neither a familiar object nor a general one.

And you're still making the assumption that you know what that piece of lead looks like. You do not. THe player is having to make a decision if the object simply isn't there (form the original null result on the locate object) or if it's blocked by lead.

@Chemus I sure hope that chest itself is masked from divination magic :p

@Chemus So Locate Object only finds things in the PHB?

Or DMG maybe?

@NautArch That's where XY comes in. Markovchain wants to find lead used ti hide his described object and that isn't supported. However finding a particular type of pbject, say a lead lined box or something is supported by the spell. You may not like how it metagames, but it's a particular type of object.

@Yuuki Those's be houserules as far as I can see.

@Chemus But outside of the PHB, what makes Locate Object able to detect a mask but not an assassin's cloak?

2:34 PM

@Chemus I agree - the problem is that there still remains two issues: 1)knowledge of the general type of object (lead box/sheet/block/etc) AND 2)that it actually exists. EVen then, the closest of that type of object will be found. And if it's general enough, there's very likely a closer object than the thingyou're looking for.

@Yuuki I'd say LO can locate the closest "cloak" or "mask". BUt not an "assassin's cloak" or "assassin's mask".

Tangent: how do you guys do critical hits? Roll additional dice or double result dice?

@Yuuki Unless you've seen the assassin's cloak, you would have to ask for a cloak and get the nearest one. If you knew it was a blue cloak, or a reversible one, then you could ask for that. Who's wearing it is not part of the spell, since the spell uses physical makeup to ID a known object, it should use the same to ID a general one.

Not looking for a canonical answer, just what you guys do and why.

@Yuuki we double damage dice for 5e

@Yuuki I usually double, but rolling twice is fairer

2:36 PM

mostly because that's the rule

@Yuuki Roll extra dice usually. We like hearing more things go click on the table.

personally, I"d prefer double max damage :)

@NautArch over double min damage, ofc?

@Chemus of course!

we also do critical fumbles. Mainly becuase of that I think critical hits should be worth more.

@Adam I do like hearing more dice roll. But I might try double result when playing OIP and rolling additional when playing IRL.

Double result seems to feel more like a critical hit when you're not actually rolling more dice and instead are clicking buttons.

Since rolling 5 for base damage and then rolling 1 on your critical damage kinda sucks.

2:39 PM

@Chemus And that's the thing. The Q argues that the description of the object doesn't need to be physical. That is, location should be just as valid a descriptor as, say, color or material makeup. And I don't agree with that assessment.

@NautArch I'm thinking about coming up with minor crit fumble/hit effect tables.

Or alternately adding crit hit effects depending on how the player describes their attack.

@Yuuki rolling 1 on your main hit dice and doubling that to two still kind of sucks

@Adam Personally doesn't feel as bad as rolling 5 and then rolling a 1 though.

But that's just me.

@Yuuki I think that's a neat idea. I think minor effects can make it fun. We do major and it's frightening. Especially for my paladin on Haste that can get 3-5 attack rolls.

@Yuuki And I would rather have the extra dice, because odds are it would roll higher than the 1 that the first die got

I'm sure it averages out to the same thing in the end, so it really doesn't matter. I just really like rolling more dice :p

2:43 PM

> "I lunge with my sword and slash the goblin across the chest!"
> *critical hit*
> "Your blade sings a deadly song of steel and rends the goblin from shoulder to hip. Grievously wounded, the goblin seems to loosen its grip on its club."
> *goblin takes -1 on next attack*

@Adam yeah - our table loves rolling dice. It's why we also have allowed GWF rerolls of 1s and 2s on smites, etc.

@Adam Same, but I feel like the effect is lost when playing OIP so I'll keep additional rolls to IRL play.

@Adam So my earlier assertion of "Box used to prevent detection" is not correct by my own metric of physical description. Thus it's have to be "diamond necklace" or "a lead lined box" or even "lead sheeting". The generic object still needs to be identified, and the spell starts with phys descr.

@Yuuki Yuuki, 2 dice is more likely to roll average, and 1 die doubled is swingier. Usually, swinginess favors the Opposition, and consistency favors the players.

I know this. More dice is pretty much always more consistent than less dice. But from a purely emotional standpoint, I've always felt worse rolling 5 and then 1 on the crit rather than rolling a 1 or 2 and doubling that.

made an anydice for it. Assumes 20 str, 1 attack, greatsword and no fighting styles

2:48 PM

@Adam And if the players get that second one, so d othe monsters...thwack

@Chemus Yup. And knowing what type/shape of lead is being used to hide the true object from LO is still an unknown. Making guessing it pretty darn hard. ANd harder still to have that particular object be the closest to you.

@NautArch How much lead sheeting is within 1000' of the wiz?

@Chemus Who knows? How do you know it's a lead sheet obstructing the object?

All you know is that your original LO for the object came up Null.

So it takes a good 20 questions player to cast LO a few times, and they can possibly get what was supposed to be occluded.

Again I'm not arguing that 'lead occluding me and this specific object' is valid, but if my LO fails, I'll look for lead on the second one, if I'm sure that it should be here.

(the object I'm lookin for)

@Chemus And that's not a bad idea. However I don't think "lead" is enough. THat's not an object. And then 20 questions begins with your available spell slots.

2:56 PM

- "I cast Locate Object as a 9th level Spell"
- "Dude, why? You could just use Wish at that point..."
- "You're right! I cast Wish and use its power to replicate the effect of the spell Locate Object."

3

Then I guess it's up to the DM as to what the prevalence of Lead is in their world.

@NautArch True enough. However I'd start with a lead-lined box, or a box made of lead, or a lead pipe (which likely exists in an urban env, and probably in a dungeon, or even a farm). After that it'd be kinda hard to find.

@Chemus I'm guessing that IF there is any sort of plumbing in D&D, that the pipes would be lead. If you're in a town, I'd think that'd be a problem. Other than that - I don't know how common lead-lined boxes would be.

@NautArch Re: the boxes, exactly! So if LO fails, a savvy wizard who needs to find that object might burn one more slot looking for taht box.

But I'd also look at it like a means to protect your goods. We put stuff in safes. I'm guessing that (because of Locate Objects) people hide things in lead boxes.

or they would in my world. Known way to get around people getitng my stuff? Yeah, i'm using that.

3:04 PM

@NautArch So a magical thief would use LO to find safes, then loot them, destroy them and look for more. I understand. That's not RAW, though, that's setting.

@Chemus Yeah - that'd be fine. I'd have no problems with that. THat seems RAW though?

How much lead is lying around is setting, unless the books say how common lead is.

Yeah, although Lead is a pretty common metal. But I could see that as setting dependent. My gut is to say it is common mainly so as not to create an 'easy button' for locate objects. It's already just a 2nd level spell. Don't nerf it's one minor limitation.

RAW is "The LO spell says I can look for a particular type of object. I want to find an object that hides another object; how would I do that?"

I'ma put taht as a comment in the Q, and see how that flies.

@Chemus that isn't' quite the RAW. Possible objects are: 1)An object that is familiar to you or 2)a particular TYPE of object (such as a certain type of jewelry, weapon, furniture, jewelry, tool or weapon.) A box that hides another is not a particular type. That is a function. I wouldn't rule a weapon that cuts things as a possible type. I'd say you need to decide sword, rapier, etc. Hiding isn't a type of object, it's a use FOR a type of object. THe type of object would be "lead box".

3:12 PM

@NautArch Which is why I tried to generalize the Q: I want to get around this limitation, how can I use the rules to do so?

@Chemus That may actually be the better way to ask that. It takes out the "I think there's a workaround" and instead provides ideas on what you can do within the rules rather than trying to bend/break them.

Not that I want a third question on this, but I think it's a good idea to post it.

No, I'm not gonna steal Markovchain's thunder; I just posted a comment in his Q. Perhaps it'll work for him.

I hope it does, but based on his questions/answers I don't think he wants that :(

he's looking for the easy button

I often get blinders on myself when I have a bone in my mouth (hmm what other metaphors can I jam in there?)\

@Chemus "bit" may be the more appropriate thing to go with the Blinders.

but I don't judge

3:20 PM

I was hoping to find more different metaphors for my metaphorical cocktail...

3:52 PM

@NautArch the "Ask your DM" button?

@Adam That's where RAW was apparently supposed to come in; do the rules as written let me do this?

@Adam the "annoy your DM" button. Ask is for a reasonable question. Annoy is for can I nerf this thing to get around it.

it's the difference between the original question and what Chemus and I came up with.

@Chemus The DM's word is all the rule I need.

[Ask Question] [Ask ambiguously worded question, avoiding certain verbiage so I can get what I want]

@Adam There's always the Locate Object bomb.

3:56 PM

@MadMAxJr [ban]

[destroy account]

[burn down house]

@Adam OK, but consider RPGs from a vidya game perspective: You have rules and options that are left lying on the ground. Try to make the most of those rules.

[Salt earth so no account may grow here again]

@Yuuki *Locate City bomb...?

Locate Object. Man I would always know where my keys are.

@MadMAxJr Not if you keep them in a lead jar

3:57 PM

@Chemus Well maybe you don't want to kill everyone in a 20 mile radius.

@MadMAxJr there's a spell for that

That's a pretty great wonderous item.

@Chemus But RPGs aren't videogames. We can analyze the rules from that perspective I guess, but for what purpose?

@doppelgreener I'm concerned about a line of the product description.

Perfect gift or present for your Uncle Niece Nephew Brother Sister Boyfriend Girlfriend Husband Wife

The lack of commas makes me really afraid of that family tree structure.

@Adam That's where some of us RAW players are coming at the rules from. In fact Optimizers and RAW-tards are, to one extent, trying to hack the system or just get to the limits of defined possibility. The social aspect of the game is less prominent for us.

At least for some of us.

4:01 PM

Some people just have to break their toys ;)

@MadMAxJr it's a long story

@Adam Some of us get good enough to sometimes put them back together in ways that make them still/more fun.

@doppelgreener "I married a faceless stalker"

"I married a hive mind who then incorporated the remainder of my extended family"

@MadMAxJr I've got a lot of jokes around that...but pretty sure they would qualify as Not Nice.

4:05 PM

But as a hive mind we still face the challenge of knowing where our collective keys are.

@MadMAxJr worse yet you have several more sets than a single-mind individual has to take care of

The hive mind gets confused if it gets too spread out at once.

It forgets to take itself to soccer practice.

Especially if there are also adventurers at the dungeon gates.

@doppelgreener Sounds like a normal Tuesday where I come from.

*in the dungeon oubliette.
[FTFY]

@Adam and just to confirm, where you are from is definitely NOT the far realm?

4:18 PM

@NautArch That is correct. What would make anybody think that I would be from there though?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Did the hivemind take your \?

i just noticed that!

haha

> 1. Make orc wizard with low INT.
> 2. Set arcane focus into mace.
> 3. "Muscle Wizard cast Fist!"
> 4. Punch enemies into bloody pieces.

copypasta fail

4:25 PM

@Yuuki I usually call those wizards 'barbarians', but sometimes 'fighters'

@Yuuki My party has already done that 4 or 5 times. It got old really fast :/

Well, old to play with. The two guys who kept playing the dang thing loved it

@Yuuki beautiful

Muscle Wizard is a fantastic archetype

so beefy

> Players ask what Muscle Wizard was doing in the Underdark
He's writing a thesis on "How things go squish in underdark"
He's a scholar
Got into wizard school on a football scholarship and because his Orc mother saved up enough money so that he could get higher education
Was captured while doing research

I really need to make a "got into wizard school on a football scholarship" character.

7

hahaha

my wife has been expressing more interest in d&d and I suggested we try and make a character together. Showed her that flowchart that was going around a few weeks ago and she wants to make a Sorcerer.

4:33 PM

> "So why are you are on this quest?"
> "I'm a first round draft pick for the Phandalin Beholders!"

@NautArch YOU MUST SHOW THIS FLOWCHART TO ME!! (or at least tell me what it was about so I can gooble it. Please.)

@Chemus lucidchart.com/pages/flowcharts/…

it's very simplistic, but it works for those really not well versed and don't want a complicated exlpanation of classes :)

hm there's a problem, this one doesn't lead to a class...

Szega

@doppelgreener No, it leads you to CoC

@NautArch Ahh. well dang, and here I was all set to see funny-ness...aaand @doppelgreener provided.

4:39 PM

@doppelgreener Hmm, that should go to homebrew.

hold on...i've got a funny one...

[listens as hold music plays]

John Madden: Dungeon Master

►

@NautArch That site is like a miniature ~~TVTropes~~ black hole

lucidchart.com/pages/flowcharts/volos-guide-to-monsters

@NautArch "Yeah and I'm reading yours" (from 1989 Batman)

4:49 PM

@Chemus I'm Vicki Vale

@NautArch Obv. from context. (I di'nt remember her name, heck now I've forgotten the actress' name too) Hmm LMGTF[me]...Kim Basinger

@NautArch this is stellar.

@NautArch yeah I liked it; your work?

ha, i wish

5:19 PM

@SevenSidedDie is there a reason a question on hold still allows votes on the question itself?

hmmm

Q: Why allow closed questions to be voted on?

@NautArch Sort of. The idea is that closing is temporary, and either a question gets reopened (in which case it is good to not interrupt voting), or it eventually gets deleted (in which case the votes are all cleared anyway):

1

In seeing some of the potential solutions and problems related to this answer and question I noticed something. Why are closed questions allowed to obtain more reputation for a user? So my recommendation(even though it's a pain to implement probably) is this(note, this includes all close votes ...

hmm.

i'm less concerned about gaining rep then someone being brow beaten to never return.

The odd case is questions that get closed and stay closed after attracting answers that get upvotes, in which it lives forever in undeath.

just looking at the downvotes on the Necromancer question and thinking "if that was me, I'd never return"

5:25 PM

@NautArch On the plus side, it doesn't affect their reputation (since you don't go under 1). They do have the ability to delete it too, if they're invested. On the other hand, it's a terrible question, and someone who has any intention of staying needs to realise why and learn from it, else we get more terrible questions, and if they aren't able to recognise and learn from the massive downvoting, then we do actually want them to self-sort into “not a good fit with the site” by not staying.

So, as red-in-tooth-and-claw as that seems, it's pretty much by design.

@NautArch (If it was you, you'd probably have asked a better question, too. Sometimes the problem is the asker, but we let them decide that by their reaction to our system.)

@SevenSidedDie yeah, i get that. Just that we've already closed the question and put comments in for direction.

so the stream of downvotes seems unnecessary

They've already learned it's a bad question by the closure and comments. We really need a third way to tell them?

@NautArch Voting is also primarily for sorting question utility and quality. So currently, the question is being sorted downward in the “good quality & useful to others”.

that's fair and I'm probably giving too much leeway to the querent (which is my word of the day)

@NautArch Closure is actually orthogonal. A question can be closed without being a bad question, just one that's not ready to be answerable. Right now it's both a bad question and not answerable, so both feedback mechanisms are going strong.

@NautArch I'm not sure it's fair! :) But it is… ruthlessly effective?

that makes a lot of sense. I wasn't separating quality from incomplete.

5:33 PM

(Querent is a good word. Our Dr. Brian Ballson-Stanton would be pleased.)

@NautArch Yeah. It can be unsettling to see the spiky, protective side of SE come out when it's directed at an incoming new user.

@SevenSidedDie Closed questions are indeed not necessarily Bad Questions, but I think that's not a mindset a lot of users have.

@Yuuki Yeah, it's getting into fairly inside baseball at that point. (That's part of why it takes a while to unlock the close vote privilege.)

I got my two tables to accept playing SOMETHING ELSE this year! Woooo.

@MadMAxJr What! That's great. :D What will you be playing?

Or is it just something else at all?

I've been running Pathfinder for 9 months out of the year since 2009.

Anything else is nice. But my top 3 from my player survey are: The latest CoC, Fate: Secret of Cats, and Tales from the Loop.

5:40 PM

@SevenSidedDie Perhaps there needs to be greater transparency or direction on what a closed question is...

Also, issuing a google forms survey to my players was a great idea.

@SevenSidedDie On the bright side, when questions get fixed and reopened, at least in my experience, they get an influx of upvotes to offset all of the downvotes.

My last print copy of CoC is Sixth... I'm told there's newer, so I need to look into that.

@MadMAxJr Congrats!

I also had someone volunteer to GM.

Oh god I am so tired. The idea of being back on the player side, which i haven't been at since college....

The sound of me leaving the GM chair to move around to the other side will be similar to the sound a treant makes, lurching, cracking.

5:46 PM

@MadMAxJr Sixth is fine if you're happy with it. It's the edition that has been pretty much unchanged since 1st, just with tweaks and fixes and text revisions for better presentation (and to get a fresh corebook on shelves). 7th is a more radical rework. It's still recognisable as BRP, but it changes more about CoC than all prior editions put together. I understand which is better is a matter of taste.

Does it consolidate the skills? I heard it did.

Because we didn't need 3 skills for fisticuffs.

@MadMAxJr You're too swiftly creative; it's intimidating to your players who feel that they may not measure up. (source: the number of starred comments you have in chat, and the rapidity with which you come up with them)

@MadMAxJr I'm not familiar with its details, just the meta-conversation that happened when it was being made. That does sound like one of the minor changes it made.

I like CoC, I don't like teaching CoC.

For players with a primarily d20 background, wrapping their head around d100 gameplay and 'no you have to use the skill to improve it' will take work.

"Also you really don't want to earn Cthulthu Mythos. But if you get it, you can use it. You might not want to."

@Chemus That's challenging. The staff have tried to make it as transparent as possible, but they're also working with the understanding that they can't make anyone read or understand anything, so they have limited ability to improve that further. The hold banners do get tweaks sometimes, but beyond that, and hoping people will read the Help Centre… *shrug*

5:49 PM

@MadMAxJr Something is about to happen which has not happened for an age.

"You have been shot with a gun. You are dead." "I.. don't get a save or the ability to soak it?" "Well, you missed the dodge. And it does way more than you can take." "Well. That's.... disappointing." "That's the spirit! Welcome to Call of Cthulthu. Roll a new investigator. I'll see you in an hour."

@MadMAxJr I used the skill improvement thing as a selling point. “You get better at what you do, like in Skyrim!”

But then I'd have to arrest the players for arbitrary behavior, like window shopping.

Still if they get serious about CoC, there's a challenging call to make... What decade to put it in.

@MadMAxJr If you explain it as Skyrim, you wouldn't have to worry about window shopping.

@MadMAxJr I don't know if 7th codified this, but the common fix for skill spamming is… wait, I think we have a recent question about that, actually.

5:51 PM

Hopefully Coc7 is available in PDF.

Although that'd be because they'd be busy putting buckets over shopkeepers' heads and just robbing them blind instead.

@MadMAxJr I believe so. Under Moon Design's new ownership, Chaosium has heavily invested in PDF.

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, I can see that. I'm not decrying anything. Just recall that the greatest number of held Q's will be from new users. When I had my polymorph question held it was... jarring. Fortunately for me, I didn't just dig in my heels and try to bull ahead, but many folks, who would otherwise be reasonable, will. The hold needs to tell them 'We want you, but this needs fixing'.

Q: Dealing with skill spamming in Call of Cthulhu (6th/7th edition)

4

Right now I am GMing a Call of Cthulhu campaign for my friends. There is one thing that both me and my players do not like - skill spamming. In Call of Cthulhu to make your chars stronger/better you have to repeatedly use a skill because a successful use of that skill will allow the player to ad...

gm-techniques skills call-of-cthulhu

@SevenSidedDie Thank you, this starts a long list of research to do....

5:54 PM

@Chemus Yeah. And I don't know the fix for that, or if it's better than the disease. We do need a certain amount of “this is a test, can you hack it here?” built in, but we also want it to be accurate, and not to turn off those who legitimately can hack it.

I gather that SE wrestles with this stuff regularly (hence the change from “closed” to “hold” terminology a while back).

@MadMAxJr Welcome!

@MadMAxJr Aha, PDFs confirmed, and they're even offering print+PDF bundle pricing, so they're keeping up with the times!

Nice. Sometimes a hardcopy is nice to have even in the age of digital.

Bookmarks and post-it notes peeking out of the edges still serve a purpose for me.

I'm still a bit on edge about Tales from the Loop. The mechanic is literally, "Look at your stat and your skill. roll that many D6. If any are a 6, that's a success. Hard stuff needs two successes, impossible stuff needs three."

@SevenSidedDie I'm new enough that I recall the emotions I felt when my posts were garnering more down than up votes, and when one of my q's was closed/held. Reasonable people will get frustrated when they're focused on what they think they're asking and someone else is telling them they're wrong. It's a test, and coddling is not helpful, but perfect clarity as to what hold means will help break more reasonable folks out of their bullheadedness.

You win, you overcome the trouble. You lose, and you get one of four strikes that demoralizes your kid. Kids don't die, but they get hurt and go home.

That's pretty much the resolution system for the whole game.

@Chemus Yeah. And I wish I had a way to make it work better.

@MadMAxJr On edge, because it's unfamiliar and asks for unfamiliar judgements (like setting the difficulty)? I'm guessing that, because I've been there with radically different systems than what was my “home” at the time.

Still, it might work for my group. One of my tables has wanted less rules and more story development.

Tales from the Loop occasionally insists the GM allow the players to pick where the next scene takes place.

6:08 PM

@MadMAxJr How's this bad? Player driving is OK when we don't act like insane monkeys.

There was that one time ...

Player driving isn't bad, we've just never done it at our table.

@MadMAxJr @Chemus In my experience, it can be really hard for a player if they're unaccustomed to even figuring out how to decide what to make happen in that case. A player who has never exercised/learned basic scene setting things like “where is it? how much time are we jumping?” is like a new weightlifter who didn't even know there was a muscle there to be weak.

Thankfully the setting is 'Kids in the 80s with some weird alt history super science'. My table was kids in the 80s. They can think up basic story points that kids would get into.

Some players take to it like fish to water though, so that's good to see. The ones who draw blanks can be really painful moments (for everyone), as they struggle with a blank mind, no familiar threads to pull on, and everyone waiting for them.

If they struggle, the collective table has enough experience to help.

6:13 PM

@MadMAxJr That's good, that should help the analysis paralysis.

I have players right now who struggle and /fight/ Pathfinder because they keep wanting to do things in grey areas or poorly worded rules causing frustration.

90% of the time, PF works, but they argue you have to stay in a certain bucket of things you can do or the system breaks. And to some extent that's true, you kinda have to surrender yourself to the fact PF is an emulation of fantasy heroism.

@MadMAxJr Oo. So this might not be a perfect fit in other areas, but it will let people stretch in ways they haven't been able to for a while. That should be fun. :D

Correct. In Tales, if the party wants to make Goonies level kid construction gadgets, they can. The rules are so basic they can do that.

In Pathfinder, making an arrow that inserts a portable hole into a bag of holding on impact is a teeth grinding 'you probably can't do that mechanically' debate.

"Oh, rule 0, you can make anything work." "Oh, but the action economy makes it unfeasible.."

"You don't allow 3rd party content that fixes this issue!"

@MadMAxJr Yeah this hearkens back to trying to make fire-trap or explosive runes arrows in 3.5

@MadMAxJr That's a bit of 'Same Page' there. "Guys we're playing high-magic kinda steam-punk D&D this campaign. You have wacky ideas for gadgets, we'll talk it out kinda like spell research. OK?"

I'm out now. Have fun.

@MadMAxJr You're really selling me on Tales From the Loop… (Though, hm, 40% of our group was born after the 80s, so that's a thing.)

@Chemus Later!

7:16 PM

@SevenSidedDie That's alright. It's full name is Tales from the Loop: Roleplaying in the 80s that Never Was. Being alive during the 80s may prove as much a hindrance as a boon =)

I'm constantly shocked to realize that my students--born post-2000--know the entire John Hughes catalog.

8:16 PM

hey there @MadMAxJr and @nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya

how're things going?

@Shalvenay not too shabby--you?

alright here

9:17 PM

hey there @MadMAxJr

@SevenSidedDie The general premise is that there is a superconductor loop that did superscience experiments in the 70s. But after too many problems and budget overruns, really cool futuretech was just not feasible, so there's abandoned projects dotting the landscape around the hyperloop. A few projects discovered were maintained. Maglev ships that basically use the magnetic field for travel, but only work in the northern hemisphere. Sometimes there's smaller dinosaurs in the woods.

BESW

@NautArch I often upvote questions that I also vote to close.

Hi, I don't need to be greeted every time I pop up. I'm in and out of here a lot.

ah

But thanks for the gesture.

9:19 PM

how're things today?

also hey there @HazyKingdom

@Shalvenay Hey Shalvenay, how's it going today?

@HazyKingdom alright here, as for you?

Not too bad, stuck on a coding problem, but there's only 10 min left of work. :)

Other than that going to give D&D 5e another go this weekend with a different group.

@HazyKingdom coolio, let us know how it goes :)

@HazyKingdom Trouble with the last one, or just circumstance occasions the change?

9:24 PM

@Shalvenay Will do! Hey we still need to get a game going ourselves. :P

Just closed this one in need of system, but I'm popping out to dinner and KD:M momentarily. Mind keeping an eye out for it being edited? Thanks, room.

@nitsua60 Pretty rough experience last time. It was at a card shop with a new employee as the DM and a bunch of newbie players. Let's just say I learned more reading the PHB myself. lol

@HazyKingdom I may be available tonight if you are

Have a good one!

I should be around a little later tonight too. I'll jump in the room. :)

Alright got to take off, I'll talk to you later @Shalvenay.

9:53 PM

@nitsua60 KD:M? I'm jealous.

I have to play solitare.

10:38 PM

hey there @THiebert

> Anthony Hopkins always has to be a smart, well-spoken guy. Wouldn't it be weird to see a movie with Anthony Hopkins playing some loud, goofy, dumb, beer-guzzling kind of guy?
> I want to see a movie where Anthony Hopkins has a beer bong hat and is smoking from a bong then calling his buddy a little <censored> while playing Mortal Kombat or something like that.

I'll take "Things I Was Not Aware I Wanted" for $400, Alex.

hey there @Yuuki

Yo.

@Yuuki got a bit of time to talk now?

Maybe in a half hour?

10:41 PM

@Yuuki sure

11:01 PM

hey there @CTWind

CTWind

Hello!

how're things going?

CTWind

Going okay, cooking up dinner

@Shalvenay All right, what up?

@Yuuki was wondering if you had any feedback re: our recent dungeon run

11:17 PM

Ah. Overall, the social interaction was all right. I was a little confused at the dungeon set-up. I think that part was perhaps a bit too free-form. It's a bit of an odd thing to say, but I felt like that could have used some railroading.

As it was, it felt like a puzzle dungeon where I ended up skipping all of the puzzles. Granted, I was an indecisive bugger and didn't actually go through any of the doors.

@Yuuki yeah -- it's designed to be fairly open-ended in that regard -- explo-heavy parties can poke around while someone who wants to cut to the chase can introduce themselves directly to Rethvara and THarvyrion

what did you think of the combat encounter at the end?

I think the only thing I can think about regarding the combat is: why did it happen? A group of thieving bandits, while setting-appropriate, didn't feel like it contributed to the story.

@Yuuki mostly because they thought they could catch Tharvyrion at last now that he emerged from his hidey-hole so to speak

I will grant that it was kind of tacked on in a sense originally -- it's not particularly integral

So the <authority in charge of taxes> has imposed some sort of unfair taxation without representation. Something more appropriate could be some group that benefits from said unfair taxation attempting to prevent Tharvyrion and co. from bringing a case before the council.

@Yuuki you keep centering on the town council

when Tharvyrion's basically federal-level

11:25 PM

Because government is evil! /s

:P

I dunno, I like faction-based governmental conspiracy for some reason.

yeah -- I've put some hooks in for a campaign to make things start fitting together

(you didn't loot the bandits, but they had insignia on them that pointed towards a larger bandit group that's being used as a front by a hostile faction)

are there any other things you want to know about, or have suggestions about for that matter?

11:46 PM

Ah. I need to get into the habit of looting enemies. But then again, I was playing a monk so I guess not looting them makes sense.