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12:07 AM
@BESW Pretty much this. Those variants either alter what a template can be applied to or make subtle changes that help it with a theme (like Fast Zombie).
 
Oh, man. I loved the zombie/skeleton variants.
@Lord_Gareth Pop into the anime room for a minute?
@JonathanHobbs Dungeons of Fate
In a scene cut from "Forest of the Dead," Bernice Summerfield showed up, laughed in River's face for ten full minutes, and left. #DoctorWho
 
12:26 AM
@BESW What's the first Patreon adventure? I've forgotten; I thought it was Aeon Wave!
 
@JonathanHobbs No, Venture City.
 
@BESW Hrm. What is Venture City?
 
Aeon Wave, but with superpowers instead of Martian tech.
"In the dystopian future, corporations control the secrets of Martian superpower technology! Cyberpunk Superpowered mercenaries battle each other in the name of their sponsors while the little folk get trampled underfoot; justice is only what you can pay for."
(I am getting a little tired of the same setting with a different bit of fluff pasted over the top each time, but Venture City has some very cool mechanical ideas about implementing superpowers in Fate.)
 
1:24 AM
So, I have a complaint!
I think Stack Exchange misrepresents the Stack Overflow experience.
Editing questions to improve them, for example.
Getting upvotes for things, really.
Having people accept answers instead of just leaving a comment saying "thank you, that solved my problem."
All these aspects of the SE experience don't really consistently apply to SO.
 
1:46 AM
@AlexP I agree with you on that; SO had the job of working out a lot of the early problems and now it suffers from... a lot.
 
It's just the size of it.
 
In particular, the percentage of the site interested in pushing change is only a small percentage: the remainder are working on older principles, have had no contact with those pushing change, and some of them aren't even sure what the principles are or have it wrong.
 
I think it needs, like, categories
 
@AlexP I've thought along the same lines - if Stack Overflow can be definitively subdivided into smaller communities, there won't be an overwhelming quantity of information.
So people can actually take more time to influence each post as it arrives.
@BESW Aha ok 8)
Thanks. My group might be interested in either Aeon Wave or Venture City; they're taking a look at the Fragged Empire RPG too.
 
2:16 AM
Mock armor continued... And it's painted to look just like metal! Somehow!!
 
 
1 hour later…
3:28 AM
some of the other stuff on that adventure-gear page isn't half bad
 
 
1 hour later…
4:55 AM
@BESW, Awaken
 
[rises from nap, accompanied by ominous music]
 
Anime rooooom
 
"It's only being on fire. I don't know what the rest of you are worried about." -- Rooster the (burning) paladin #dnd
 
> A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that, parties should be either all stealth or no stealth. This allows stealthing scenarios to either be a big part of the session without excluding anyone or completly ignored.
I learned that the hard way with my first stealth PC.
 
5:04 AM
Yep.
D&D wants stealth to be a one-person role and from a gameplay standpoint that's really stupid.
From a narrative standpoint it's great
But...
Not so much around a table
 
However, it is the one time I managed to make a UA flaw into an actual in-game narrative drawback.
 
> If a necromancer is so powerful that he can communicate with all of the dead at once, is the ritual an omniseance?
 
[sneaks into mayor's house in broad daylight]
[finds mayor's study]
[tricks mayor into leaving study]
[rifles through papers looking for the one that we need]
[remembers I can't read]
[screw it, shoves all the papers into my bag of holding]
[so much for the mayor not immediately knowing he's been robbed]
 
Oh god that reminds me of this Window game I played in where my faerie PC had a different definition of subtle from her master >.>
He commanded her to find evidence - if there was any - that a rival magical family had been involved in a murder, and to ensure that his own family was not implicated in it. So she spends a week whipping up a weather spell while she negotiates with the bound fey outside of his estate, binding them into her service.
Just after a meeting of the rival family breaks up and they're all heading outdoors, a huge freaking storm rips into their city and faeries start pulling themselves out of all the mirrors and windows
And stealing everything
Including every scrap of paperwork in the city
At which point she drops all the papers off to her master
 
heheh.
I was a quarterling (halfling with permanent reduce person) shade ninja assassin shadowdancer, or something like that. I could reduce the ambient light in an area at will, turn invisible every other round, and had stealth skills in the 40s and 50s at level 10.
 
5:12 AM
^Drunken binges are much more dangerous in fantasy settings
 
@Lord_Gareth True.
One of the other PCs wasn't sure if I existed, or if I was a cruel trick the others were playing on him.
3
But I was pretty awful about working with the party, and I voluntarily retired him in favour of a PC who didn't hog session time as much.
 
AFChat League of Legends time
 
@Lord_Gareth A PC in one of my campaigns died that way. We were sailing away from the scene of our most recent catastrophe adventure, and he decided to celebrate with a drink. This character was an established drunkard, having dedicated most of his bag of holding to booze.
He pulled out his two most prized possessions: a bottle of elven moonwine, and a small keg of dwarven Dark Assassin Ale. And, because it was a special occasion, he mixed them.
He'd been drinking quite a bit already, so when he chugged the "Dark Moon Assassin" concoction and failed the save, his Wis (or maybe it was Dex, I can't remember) dropped to 0 and he fell over the side. He drowned before they could turn the boat around to pick him up.
 
5:44 AM
Somehow, neither a funeral toast nor a boat grave seemed appropriate to honor his memory.
3
 
They hauled his corpse on board, doubled the captain's fee, and smuggled him off in the next city for a clandestine land burial.
That was a strange PC, actually--the player built similar but non-identical PCs in three separate campaigns, all humans with the same name and each a spontaneous arcane caster, but each distinctly different in build, style, and personality.
It never actually came up in play, but the unspoken link between them was that they were all the descendants of an ancient universe-hopping dragon.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:01 AM
@Julix, @lisardggY [wave]
 
Hola.
 
@trogdor How do you feel about making the Knave Port world elf-only? (You could still play a lizardfolk because they'd be an unusual exception found only on that one island.)
 
 
1 hour later…
8:04 AM
that sounds fine
I was actually a human druid in that one (and later a human cleric, if I recall), at the time, but yeah I was thinking of being a lizardfolk
it is a little odd, but it is fine with me
I wouldn't be in fate games if I wasn't willing to try new things
 
8:40 AM
I really don't get the "PC in a safe" question.
 
@BESW I am amazed at your player's dedication to his character
 
Playing the Goddess of Desire in Totally Not Chicago We Promise is way too much fun.
 
@lisardggY I've voted to put it on hold really
it's... weird and unclear what they want from us
 
I'm that some will hold it as an example of how systems such as D&D override people's common sense, but honestly, I really think that common sense was missing there to begin with.
 
@lisardggY There is a major problem in the general area of "My player thinks he should have protection inside a thick steel case; I think he isn't playing in the spirit of the game. What do you think?"
 
8:51 AM
@JonathanHobbs Yeah. What spirit, precisely, is her referring to?
 
a question i kinda hope we find out something about
 
@jonathanhobbs What. Because he RPed himself to death?
 
@BESW because he finds players pointing out "hey I'm in a safe" against the spirit of the game, somehow
 
Sorry, I meant in response to your amazement at my player's dedication to his character.
 
Oh!
Then: Yes, precisely!
He could've gone: "Hm. My character is so badly drunk he's only got 1 point of wisdom left." (LET ALONE HE'S EVEN ALLOWED IT TO REACH THIS POINT.) "I'd better not drink more, 'cuz he'll die."
BUT NO.
HE DECIDED THIS IS TOTALLY THE RIGHT TIME FOR HIS CHARACTER TO HAVE ANOTHER DRINK.
LIKE HE'D HAVE THE JUDGEMENT SKILLS TO NOT DO SO WITH 1 WIS ANYWAY.
I am in awe and absolutely delighted that happened.
 
9:04 AM
And not only that, but this I'd the perfect time to break out the Special Stuff which he's been warned is especially potent--and mix them.
*this is the
 
@BESW He chose a good name for the mixture at least
 
It's worth noting that hitting 0 in Dex or Wis doesn't kill you, just incapacitates you.
But losing consciousness at the rail of a boat... Causes reflex checks.
Reflex checks which a person with low single digit Dex will fail. Miserably.
This is the same player who once rolled up 15 levels of pure Expert (an NPC class) because it fit his character concept.
 
@BESW Wh... what does this mean? I am not familiar with what an Expert implies.
 
skills
 
Average attacks and saves and HDf
No class features
Lots of skill points and the freedom to define your own class skills.
He made himself an inventor gnome who didn't use magic. Alchemical or bust.
Piled up craft skills.
You know the enormous gun in Constantine? Or the one Hellboy uses? That was his weapon.
It shot great hulking slugs filled with various alchemical compounds like acid, holy water, etc.
 
9:18 AM
@BESW Held by a Gnome...
I am impressed XD
 
Yes. It had kickback.
Nearly everything he used was custom designed by us for his character.
It only worked because at that point it was a two player campaign heavy on the rp with the PCs leading an army of slave dwarves against their elven oppressors.
 
Sounds like things escalated quickly.
 
It was.... Unplanned.
But someone blew up a floating island and the party fell for two sessions (about 30 hours in game) to the bottom of the world.
 
@BESW was this the one where one of them slipped into their own bag of holding then planeshifted out?
and the rest did a terrific landing on a slope?
 
Kind of, yes.
Where they discovered the mechanical continent hidden in the heart of the storm at the bottom of the world, populated by dwarves who labored to collect water from the storm and give it to the elves who ruled the desert islands above.
And the PCs decided that since the elves were coming after them anyway, the right thing would be to mobilize the dwarves in a rebellion.
And the PCs decided that since the elves were coming after them anyway, the right thing would be to mobilize the dwarves in a rebellion.
Whoops.
 
9:29 AM
@BESW oh wow C:
 
It cut about ten levels out of my campaign plan.
Oh, and when they blew up the island they destroyed a lich and dropped his phylactery down a hole twhich led randomly to any of five other planes. By accident.
 
@BESW Did they see him ever again?
 
Nope. The campaign ended before he could return, and they never explored any other plane.
Planar travel in that setting was v. difficult.
 
9:48 AM
@BESW I half expect he might've come back fuming that they dropped his phylactery into another plane entirely, how dare they do that to him, etc
 
But falling 30 hours is easy.
 
and they don't remember even doing that
 
It's landing that poses the problem.
 
and then they ask how that happened
He tells them it's the day that they blew up the island, and they burst out laughing
and he just stands there bewildered
 
Bwheheheh. He was the world's emo-ist lich already.
He'd spent 1,500 years orchestrating international politics and causing major wars just to keep people distracted so he'd be left alone.
 
9:56 AM
@BESW That is both pretty funny and a little sad c(:
 
He collected the dust from people he disintegrated in glass jars, and he had a pet hermit crab.
He was level 60, a prince of a long dead elven dynasty who just wanted to be left alone with his dust and his crab.
 
lich-crab?
 
Not sure.
 
zombie-crab?
 
I think it was just a crab. It never came up.
 
10:00 AM
Or - 50 generations of hermit crabs?
 
I think so.
 
Bred and cared for by the Lich.
 
Hey folks.
 
Hey.
 
Hi Alex.
 
10:01 AM
I'm sick. So of course this is a great time to develop bifurcated sleep!
 
Oh, dear.
 
Well, I have to go to work tomorrow but I can just duck out on the rest of the week after that.
So that's not too terrible. Although based on how my wife and kid were acting with this bug, it's not very fun.
RPGnet has a fairly interesting thread about capturing PCs (i.e. "as opposed to killing them," rather than "because plot point!!").
Also... lich crabs?
 
No, just a lich's pet hermit crab.
 
Adventurers are like hermit crabs, really.
 
....I'm listening.
 
10:15 AM
They carry all their valuables with them.
On their backs.
Sometimes it is amazing how much they can carry.
(This goes directly to the whole "Why doesn't capturing the PCs work in a lot of games?" thing.)
(Because when you capture them, you get all their stuff, so now you can't really trade them for more stuff. Also because the PCs freak out about losing their stuff and refuse to be captured.)
 
crab lich, the ultimate weapon/pet/emperor
 
If I ever do a scene where the player characters are captured, they're going to have NPC companions they care about, and I'm going to let them bust out - but I'm going to put one of them locked up possessionless in a torture room: whoever doesn't show up that session, or the NPC if they all do. And I'm going to let them decide whether to bust in again or not.
 
When I hear "lich crabs", my first thought is "I didn't know lichs were sexually active".
And with that tasteful rejoinder, I am off to lunch.
To lunch!
 
eww
 
lich crabs and lunch - a great recipe for a stomach ache.
 
10:21 AM
<insert "raise dead" joke here>
 
1
Q: Great classic Shadowrun adventures/campaigns?

mcvWhich Shadowrun adventures and campaigns are generally considered noteworthy, in that they're respective classics, really defined or redefined the setting, or widely considered great or brilliant for some other reason? When I ask this question about, for example, Warhammer FRP, the unavoidable a...

I'm confused as to why people are voting to reopen this?
 
@BrianBallsun-Stanton I think this question can already have a single correct answer: a list of noteworthy Shadowrun adventures with a short explanation what makes each one special. If this is not enough, I'd like to know how to improve my question in order to get this kind of answer. — mcv 11 hours ago
 
My "captured PCs" protip is this: introduce a Tempter and an Idelaist for them to interact with, and maybe the Sociopath (but only if you want this to be rough and to build up time pressure) or a Turncoat (always excellent, but especially if you can't think of many other logical ways out).
 
Tell me when you figure it out.
 
because there may be a finite enough number to make a good answer, perhaps
(I haven't voted to reopen, not knowing much about the Shadowrun landscape)
 
10:24 AM
@JonathanHobbs that still means it is asking for a list of adventure, the content of which is entirely down to the opinion of the answerer
define noteworthy
 
@AlexP What do the Temptor and Idealist do?
@Phil I suppose so! Fair enough point
 
he may as well be asking for a list of the 'best' or 'most fun' or 'most popular' adventures
 
He might be able to ask for links to articles about this subject.
 
the issue I have is that this has all been explained to the user in the comments, but they simply don't get it
 
@JonathanHobbs The Tempter wants you to change sides. Like a Darth Vader and stuff. The Idealist believes very strongly in their side, which makes them a good vessel for, well, expressing what their side is about in dialogue. But also likely they have limits they won't break.
 
10:26 AM
@BESW that might work
 
@JonathanHobbs Here we go.
 
I've suggested he ask on Meta about how to make his question work
 
10:44 AM
afk
 
@AlexP Thanks for that forum post, I especially liked this post
 
11:18 AM
Everyone has a different view of what makes something "great" or "classic" or "impactful." SE isn't designed to handle citizens competing to defend their definitions of such things. You might be more successful asking for references to existing articles on the topic, because that's a question about resources and references--a big difference from asking us to write the articles ourselves, which is what your question is currently doing. I do suggest that you make a meta post about it, though, because that provides a thread to which the community can refer in the future. — BESW 48 secs ago
[phew] I think that covers it.
 
@BESW There are least some SE sites that frown on requests for resources.
Just to make things more complicated.
 
Yep
 
@lisardggY Hence "might" and "please take this to meta."
 
Like SO.
 
11:23 AM
@InbarRose Yeah. Also Programmers.SE, where the mods will close such requests out of hand, without even waiting for close votes.
 
I'm currently watching a close-vote battle over my elf-only-worlds question on sf.se where I'm asking how to find out something and it's getting closed as a list question.
(I think my question has a lot of problems, but being a list question is not among them.)
 
brb
 
There's a kind of starkly simple beauty in the single-mindedness of sf.se's crusade against lists.
 
@AlexP Thank you!
And @BESW I just read Dungeons of Fate. That looks really good.
The passive opposition thing is so nice.
I just realised that since I cleared my bookmarks I haven't had an RPG folder! Now I do. It consists of those two links.
 
It's got some nice stuff. It's very clear what "kind of D&D" it's designed to facilitate and that's not the kind I want to run, but it gives some excellent mechanical insights.
 
11:27 AM
@BESW Actually, among prominent SF.SE members, the one most in favor of list questions is actually the one I usually disagree with over most things.
 
I don't understand the issue with list questions
 
They can rarely be answered by one single "acceptable" answer.
 
then again,.. I am pretty much only here for chat, and the occasional answer to a 4E question
 
Most (but not all) lists are of indeterminate length, meaning no answer is ever "right" or "done."
 
The system on SE is build on QA: every Question needs an answer, List questions are hard at producing AN answer, but are good at producing many answers that don't help future visitors.
 
11:29 AM
Two answers with five items in the list might have no overlap but be equally true, and another answer with ten items also have no overlap and be more complete but still not absolute.
Or you could submit every item as a separate answer!
Lists that are obviously limited to a short and well-defined range are often permitted, though.
But each Stack defines its list policies separately; because list questions usually require extra curation, the acceptable ones have to be really a boon to overall Stack quality in order to justify the effort of pruning the good from the bad.
If "good list" questions aren't consistently of high enough quality to justify the effort, all list questions get banned.
Unfortunately, places like sf.se get so rabid about it that some of their citizens call down the close votes on anything that looks even remotely like a list regardless of its actual nature.
 
mm
 
So when I said "I think my list of requirements is short enough to allow a list question, but instead I'm going to ask about how I can find out more on this topic," it got closed as a list question.
Because.... I mentioned the word list? It could have been a list question? I'm not sure.
Again, I do think the question had problems. But being a list question wasn't one of them.
(And then the person crying "list!" went and gave a list answer to my not-actually-a-list question. Which he later deleted.)
 
hahaha
here is a list of all the reason lists are bad, and you used lists,......... oh **** nvm
 
I've seen this a couple times before, where someone gets the anti-list bug and tries to close things which remind them of lists.
Hmm. My Internet is wonky. afk, restarting modem.
Test.
 
11:48 AM
Test!
 
@BESW <-- @trogdor This is exactly why we're OK with game recommendations, or build recommendations. They're effectively list questions, but we demand that the person place such restriction on their list that it will be limited to a very small number of actual options.
 
@ProfessorCaprion This is a test. This is only a test. If it were not a test, this statement might have substance.
 
I think I heard it in here, but I'm not sure. What is it called when you feel like you've invested too much into something to give it up?
 
misplaced determination
probably not the answer you were looking for
 
I thought it was called "____ fallacy".
 
11:56 AM
"sunk costs."
 
Maybe I didn't hear it here. Crap. Crappy crap. Crapricorn.
Oh, I think that was it!
 
See also:
Escalation of commitment was first described by Barry M. Staw in his 1976 paper, "Knee deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action". More recently the term "sunk cost fallacy" has been used to describe the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. Such investment may include money, time, or even — in the case of military strategy — human lives. The phenomenon an...
You've definitely heard us talk about the sunk costs fallacy. It's a common phrase when discussing why people are sticking with their current system/group/character despite it not making them happy.
 
@BESW That's the context I'd thought I'd remembered. I needed it because my company is indulging in the same thought process.
 
Oh, dear.
 
We still use this "green screen" computer system for ordering and inventory. It's absurd.
 
12:04 PM
...and probably immune to most modern hacking, neh?
 
I'm not sure who'd want to hack a plumbing supplier. Some sort of pipe bandit, maybe?
They make us change our password every three months, and it can't match a previous password. Why the security!? We sell toilets!
 
"Ordering system" probably includes sensitive client data.
 
financial records/information
 
Actually, strangely enough, it's not! The accounting data is separate!
 
pricing information?
 
12:14 PM
They had to modify the "green screen" to pull from the accounting system.
Pricing, at least in my industry, is... fluid. Everyone gets different prices, and we get different prices not only depending on who we sell to, but what we're selling it for.
The same pipe may be 20% cheaper for one customer if they're using it in a specific way, or on a specific job site.
In short: I hate my job.
 
[patpat]
 
@ProfessorCaprion I guess all that could be considered commercially sensitive, if a rival got to the informatin
 
@Phil I suppose so. But I'd say we should be far less worried about hacking than just good ol' internal spies.
 
yeah, I admit my point was tenuous at best :)
 
Dear Auntie Beeb: Announcing your "new recurring character!" six months before he's set to air? Are you really so concerned we'll forget about your flagship show that just had its 50th anniversary if you don't remind us about it every three weeks? The Daily Mirror is doing that just fine already, thanks.
...also, it took Doctor Who twenty years to revisit Coal Hill School the first time, and thirty years to go back for a third visit. Are you sure you want to hit up Coal Hill a fourth time less than a year later, Moffat?
 
12:27 PM
@BESW I got psyched when I first heard about that, then I read "... alongside Clara Oswald."
For a few seconds I thought the Doctor would be travelling with just a guy!
 
@JonathanHobbs Ah, for the glory days of Two and Jamie.
(Granted, they often had a random girl along with them, but it was obviously The Troughton and Hines Show with Special Appearances By A Girl.)
 
@BESW It's been that long since?
 
@JonathanHobbs Well, let's see. Three had Benton and the Brig as part of the UNIT Family, but there was always a girl too.
Four had... yes, always a girl unless he was on his lonesome.
Five got Adric, because the producers thought it was getting weird that the Doctor was traveling with just a woman (not helped by the fact that Four's actor actually was sleeping with the woman playing one of his companions).
Adric was cast so the Doctor would have a companion he could be physical with without it being weird. (Ironically Adric was the first companion played by an actor who was openly gay during his time on the set.)
 
@BESW oh wow xD
 
(Adric was also the Annoying Wesley Kid, and was one of the first companions to be outright killed off since Two's run.)
 
12:33 PM
@BESW Oh goodness.
 
Ah, here we go. I've found a good listing of companions.
Nope, Jamie and Two always had Polly, Victoria, or Zoe along with. And with Polly came Ben.
There was one story where the Fifth Doctor and Adric didn't have a female companion--although one of the guest stars in that story became a companion at the end, so it's fuzzy whether that counts.
 
Well, it was briefly only those two!
but that might be like the points during the Ninth Doctor where it was just the Doctor and Mickey.
 
After that... Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten... Ten had a couple episodes where Wilfred Mott probably counted as his companion (and no one else did).
Then Eleven had Craig.
You could argue a couple episodes with Eleven and Rory because Amy was shunted off to another time stream or whatever.
Obligatory Doctor Who Girl link:
(Troughton and Hines were wonderful, though, and reportedly did everything they could on 1960s television to imply a romantic relationship between their characters.)
 
Blurgh
 
is there a way of rolling back an edit if you aren't the author of the question?
 
12:45 PM
do you mean just looking at it?
or do you mean changing it back?
 
changing it back
 
I am not an expert, but I don't think so
 
I have a "rollback" button on the "Revisions" page.
@Lord_Gareth Blurgh?
 
murrrglergllgurgle
 
@BESW - Concept of this god game is, "Ordinary people in Totally Not Chicago We Promise suddenly and inexplicably start being gods at night." They have no idea this is happening, right? So while everyone else is skulking and sneaking, my goddess just stood up in front of an entire club of celebrities, politicians, and tabloid reporters and went, "I am Persephone, Queen of Desire."
 
12:47 PM
@BESW I see it now - just to check the mechanics. If I click on the rollback option for the edit before last, it will revert to the question state immediately after that edit?
 
And then, she proved it.
 
@Phil I believe so?
Never actually experimented with it.
@Lord_Gareth Did she go all Hathor on them?
 
@Phil people with edit privs can do rollbacks freely
is there something you think needs rolling back?
 
0
Q: Can we merge [tag:settings] and [tag:campaign-settings]?

JadascI can't imagine we need both settings and campaign-settings. I've set up a synonym request, but if it can be magically made to happen through a meta post, why not?

 
@BESW oh jeez
that is a disgusting thought
 
12:50 PM
@BESW Nope. She just completely re-wrote the decor of the club right in front of everyone and enchanted every last inch of the place.
 
@Phil oh right nevermind you have those privs + you found it. rad \o/
 
@Lord_Gareth This demonstration of the Power of Love is 100% Cadence Approved.
 
lol
 
Man I hope that's sarcasm
 
12:57 PM
 
Okay, I'm done with this lovefest.
 
 
@BESW you win
 
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