TRPG General Chat

Adeptus

12:25 AM

@BESW Not the first, but certainly very stylish

BESW

12:43 AM

@TimSt.Clair Hi!

Shalvenay

1:04 AM

@lisardggY awesome!

1:22 AM

d

•

Hah! Joke's on you, little horror, my Insanity is already at 3.

Pixie

The little horror rolls a SAD check.

d

Dice Service

•

Pixie

1:27 AM

He is 3 sad.

A lich's life isn't easy (language warning).

3

doppelgreener

rolling to find out what my insanity is actually at right now

d

Feeds

•

doppelgreener

that's reasonable. now sanity check:

d

Feeds

•

doppelgreener

i'm ok.

... our dice service is not the one doing those dice.

BESW

1:30 AM

@Pixie Now my brain is busy re-writing the lyrics to Lupe Fiasco's "Gotta Eat."

doppelgreener

heading to dice playground

doppelgreener

1:47 AM

d20

Feeds

12

The Oracle

1

Q: The Stack Exchange bot is doing my dice rolls instead of the Dice Service bot

Apparently the Stack Exchange chat bot has developed a special place in its heart for me. Most people attempting a dice roll get a reply from the Dice Service bot. But not me! The Stack Exchange bot follows me around with its own personal set of dice. When I request a dice roll, the Stack Exchan...

Pixie

2:19 AM

Maid RPG in a nutshell.

BESW

in The Overlook Hotel, 5 mins ago, by Neil Fein

Hey, for anyone on the fence about getting Scrivener, it's now $20 US : https://specials.9to5toys.com/sales/scrivener-2

Sandwich

2:38 AM

@Pixie +1

doppelgreener

3:04 AM

@Pixie Haha!

@BESW @Pixie Have either of you tried Scrivener?

Or has anyone else here done so?

BESW

I've used the free version in the past for writing fiction, and my mother used it for her MFA thesis.

It's very flexible.

Pixie

@doppelgreener I haven't. It looks more useful than similar programs I've used, but I can't speak from experience.

BESW

It's the best I or my mother have found.

I used it for campaign notes a bit some years ago, too.

Might try that again.

Also Scrivener improves itself pretty regularly.

doppelgreener

Noice.

BESW

Basically, if you want a program like Scrivener, get Scrivener.

@user2617804 Hi!

trogdor

3:18 AM

what exactly does it do?

BESW

It's a program that lets you customise how you structure your writing process.

It includes features like "cards" for characters and settings, outline notes, images and website links for references and inspiration; and the writing itself can be organised in many different ways so that you can fiddle with it the way you're most comfortable.

Like, at its simplest, you can write each chapter or scene separately and re-arrange them however you like, either temporarily (like having the first library scene open while you write the second one so you get the details right) or permanently (like moving the epic battle three chapters earlier).

> Scrivener is aimed at writers of all kinds—novelists, journalists, academics, screenwriters, playwrights—who need to structure a long piece of text while referring to research documents. Scrivener is a ring-binder, a scrapbook, a corkboard, an outliner and text editor all rolled into one.
It is primarily intended to be a first draft tool; although it is possible to complete a project that requires only basic formatting - such as a novel or short story - in Scrivener, often you will want to take your draft to a dedicated word processor or layout program for final formatting. Scrivener is i…

It's also got fiddly bits for notes, comments, synopses, keywords, etc.

user2617804

@BESW hi

BESW

@user2617804 Hey. What's new?

trogdor

sounds specifically like I "might" use it for dming but possibly nothing else currently

DuckTapeAl

Is Scrivener a paid program, or is it free?

doppelgreener

3:26 AM

@DuckTapeAl It's not free. It's currently on sale for $20, which is what ignited this inquiry into it.

BESW

It's got a free trial, and then a paid upgrade.

Pixie

I have used similar but much less polished programs. I always go back to separate documents in organized folders after a while. Still, probably worth trying the demo, given the current price.

BESW

(Used to be the free trial was unlimited duration but you could only use it for one project. Now it's a time-limited thing.)

doppelgreener

@Pixie Try out the free demo and tell me how you find it?

BESW

I haven't used the free version since it went time-limited, but I liked it enough that I've just now purchased it.

(Extra 10% off if it's your first purchase with that site!)

trogdor

3:28 AM

but you would just need to buy it once right?

BESW

Right.

trogdor

it isn't some kind of subscription thing

BESW

yeah, just a one-time thing.

Scrivener (software)

Scrivener is a word-processing program and outliner designed for authors. Scrivener provides a management system for documents, notes and metadata. This allows the user to organize notes, concepts, research and whole documents for easy access and reference (documents including text, images, PDF, audio, video, web pages, etc.). Scrivener offers templates for screenplays, fiction, and non-fiction manuscripts. After writing a piece of text, the user may export it to a standard word processor for formatting. == Features == Features include a corkboard, the ability to rearrange files by dragging-and...

Pixie

Oh, I had downloaded the trial at some point, but not really used it. Still 29 days left. [pokes it]

DuckTapeAl

Oh, the time only ticks down on days that you actually use it? Interesting.

Pixie

3:39 AM

Yeah, it doesn't take time away automatically. You have to use it.

DuckTapeAl

Hmm. Can we close a question as a dupe of a question on another site?

Specifically talking about these two:

0

Q: When did the word "buff" become used to describe bolster in game circles and why?

In English, the word "buff" means to polish, and synonyms would be shine or smooth, yet it is used ubiquitously in gaming circles to describe what happens when a caster improves themselves' or another character's abilities. The English language is full of other suitable words (aid, bolster, boost...

history-of-gaming terminology

11

Q: "Buff" and "Nurf" from video games etymology

In video games when the makers increase the power of something it is sometimes refereed to as a buff. If they decrease the power of something it is called a nurf or a de-buff. This also applies to player abilities to temporarily increase or decrease their power. Where do these terms come from?

etymology slang

shatterspike1

@DuckTapeAl I think that would set a bad precedent if both questions fall within the scope of their respective sites.

Miniman

There's a "nerf" question over on gaming.SE, too.

BESW

yeeeah. Also, the English Language & Usage answer is exclusively about video gaming.

A Role-playing Games answer would be about the integration of those terms into tabletop gaming.

shatterspike1

A question asked on one SE site shouldn't have to refer to every other potential SE site for an answer.

Of course, you could argue the question falls less within the scope of the english site than it does the RPG site.

Or that it doesn't fall in the scope of the English site at all

I don't think that's the case.

DuckTapeAl

3:49 AM

Hmm. Can't find any meta on the subject.

BESW

In this case, I think it's clearly not a duplicate because of its context.

DuckTapeAl

Oh, here we go. Search wouldn't help me, but actually starting to write the question found it.

1

Q: Can a question be closed as Exact Duplicate, when the duplicate is on another SE site?

Reference this question. I re-posted the same question on MSO, and it has since received little activity and no answers here. Still, I'd like the question to stay on this site as a pointer to the other. Can it be closed as an Exact Duplicate, with a referrer to MSO?

feature-request closing-questions exact-duplicates

Looks like the answer is "no, the site can't do that".

BESW

That's a question about meta site duplicates, though, so (mechanics aside) the philosophy is different.

I suspect the answer should be the same, but it's not a direct correspondence between the situations.

DuckTapeAl

See, I feel that if two questions can be accurately and completely answered with the same answer, then they're duplicates of each other.

BESW

That's a very good rule of thumb, and it's one I use too.

But there's a philosophy behind the concept of "close as duplicate" that the rule of thumb doesn't capture.

DuckTapeAl

3:54 AM

Is there a meta on that philosophy?

The only instructions that I know of on when to close something as a dupe are the words on the close reason: "This question has been asked before and already has an answer."

And to me, two questions with the same answer are the same question, just rephrased.

BESW

It's been firmly established that if one question is equally on-topic in two different Stacks, the querent's choice should be respected.

One moment, I'll find some links.

But this is not actually a case of two questions that are addressed by the same answer.

By posting on RPG.SE, the newer question is clearly expecting some mention of how these terms came into tabletop gaming.

The EL&U answer only talks about video games, and makes no mention of the migration into tabletop.

Thus it is, at best, incomplete as an RPG.SE answer to the question.

DuckTapeAl

I guess I just don't find those two contexts to be significantly different.

BESW

A good answer should support the claim that video game terminology and tabletop RPG terminology are functionally identical.

DuckTapeAl

Especially since the answer to "how did they end up in tabletop" is almost certainly "people who play tabletop games also play video games, and the terms went from one to the other".

BESW

@DuckTapeAl That would be a great thing to include, and an awesome answer would provide some support and maybe even show when/how the crossover happened.

Duplication is not bad.

Asking on multiple sites

shatterspike1

4:02 AM

(Fight, Avoid, Flee, Parley, Trick, Intimidate)

DuckTapeAl

Aha, it's on the metameta.

BESW

Meta Stack Exchange is the first place to go for Stack-wide policy discussions.

shatterspike1

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2775/roleplaying-games/…

Well, I got most of them except for Call Reinforcements, I suppose.

BESW

@shatterspike1 I have no context for what you're talking about.

shatterspike1

I'm thinking of how to design Wandering Wilderness encounters, and want to make sure that every one of them supports a tactic other than just "Fight", since that's usually the default.

BESW

4:08 AM

Ah.

Yeah, that's a useful little rubric.

(I just realised I only ever use rubric in its educational context. That may be confusing. oops.)

shatterspike1

Lots of these creatures are either slower than the PC's or dangerous for being nearby but not necessarily hostile; it's the ones you can't avoid or flee that need to have something like "Sure, I'll let you all live, but I'll hold your friend hostage while you rustle me up some cattle"

@BESW That's correct. What about that is confusing?

BESW

Well, it's a niche definition and folks outside educational fields may not be familiar with that use.

shatterspike1

Ah.

BESW

@shatterspike1 And sometimes it's the cattle who want to do the rustling.

shatterspike1

@BESW I do believe that's going on the random encounter chart for one of these biomes.

BESW

4:13 AM

> The Horrible Herd are a herd of genetically engineered mutant skull cattle bred from cows, piranhas and bees. (source)

trogdor

horrible critters

shatterspike1

Ah, that's the scooby series that went weird and eldritch and had that romantic subplot?

Still though, that's cool.

DuckTapeAl

facepalm

That feeling when you realized that you typo'd a comment several hours ago.

BESW

All your typos are belong to Google.

BESW

4:29 AM

Hot diggity, Scrivener's got all the nifty little bells and whistles to make my writing experience just that much more comfy.

Typewriter mode FTW.

Adeptus

@doppelgreener My wife uses it for her writing. She finds it useful, because it lets her easily rearrange scenes or chapters if it fits the story flow better.

BESW

> One of the core ideas behind Scrivener is that every document (or chunk of text, or image, or whatever) is associated with a synopsis, which is represented in the inspector by the index card. You can then view these synopses in different ways (which we will come to later) which will make outlining and organising your work easier.
The best way to understand this is to imagine that each document in Scrivener is a sheet of paper that has an index card clipped to it containing a summary of the document’s contents, which can then be viewed alongside other index cards to get an overview of the …

Pixie

I think those bells and whistles ultimately get in my way. I tend to spend more time looking for things, not less. This may actually be a lot more useful for me in RP planning than writing, though.

I used to use Celtx for RP planning a bit, when it was free.

Adeptus

4:44 AM

Her handwritten drafts always end up with numbered sections as she realises they work better in a different order. So this feature of Scrivener is perfect for the way she works.

Pixie

Yeah, that sounds pretty useful!

BESW

Yeah, the drag-and-drop sorting is good for a lot of kinds of work.

And you can mostly ignore most anything that's not helpful.

Pixie

I do most of my writing digitally, so I have less problems with that. I just move chunks of text around as needed.

doppelgreener

@Adeptus Thanks. :)

BESW

For that, the Snapshots thing is useful.

It's basically saved version histories for individual elements.

doppelgreener

4:49 AM

d10

5

Woo!

@BESW Yes that too

@doppelgreener Grats!

doppelgreener

Turned out I hit the server at just the right moment while the dice user was unavailable. I got assigned the stack exchange user for a while instead.

Pixie

4:51 AM

My current writing process is to start writing in a notebook if ideas come to me while I'm at work, then actually get to work on them in individual documents at home. If I'm not out, I'm always near a computer, so I skip the paper entirely. Flesh 'em out into scenes, then short stories, then figure out if there are chapters in there.

@doppelgreener That's interesting. At least there's a backup!

doppelgreener

5:03 AM

@Pixie It is quite good thinking and design on their part. Very failure-proof.

Back in 2011, Stack Overflow was plagued by the Chaos Monkey, so they developed fantastic habits around everything having backup services if the primary service wasn't available, and then backup plans in case even the backup services weren't available.

BESW

Chaos... Monkey... [notes]

doppelgreener

Tech definition: The Chaos Monkey randomly makes your servers stop working, or parts of your servers.

RPG definition: [fill in blank with imagination]

Pixie

The Chaos Monkey randomly makes your powers stop working, or aspects of your powers.

Random query: has anyone done private video game livestreams before, and if so, what worked best?

trogdor

do you basically mean video/audio chat with your group

?

Pixie

@trogdor Sorry, I accidentally left out a word. It might make more sense now.

trogdor

5:13 AM

oh

I am not sure how that would,.... work

some of those words don't seem to mix well together

Pixie

My boyfriend wants to watch me play through Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, and I have never done a game stream before. P: I basically just need something that will allow the other person to watch in real time and actually read the game text.

trogdor

most streaming I know of is very un private, especially connected to video gaming

I am sure there is something that could work for it, but not any of the stuff I am even passingly familiar with

BESW

Alright, who starred "A lich's life isn't easy"? That song will never get out of my head now.

trogdor

I know there are like, Twitch streamers overflowing the interwebz

but that is definitely large audience based

it is the whole point

Pixie

@trogdor Yes, therein lies the issue. xD I know some services exist that do this privately, though, and then the program I use to record my screen can stream. Just poking chat in case anyone with actual experience in the arena is about.

BESW

5:17 AM

Skype can do it independently, I think.

Just share your screen instead of your cam view.

But it may not be ideal?

Pixie

@BESW We tried that, but unfortunately, it's difficult to read the text.

BESW

Ahah.

Pixie

If you could select a specific window, it'd be awesome. Alas.

trogdor

Skype does seem under optimal

doppelgreener

@Pixie OBS for a capture program and Hitbox for the streaming service.

Pixie

5:22 AM

@doppelgreener OBS is what I use normally, so cool! Thanks.

doppelgreener

Check first though if Hitbox has implemented a streaming delay. If they have, then that's both Twitch (which I think has a 40 second delay) and Hitbox, and I'm not sure what else is available.

From what I recall, Livestream is so not for video games that if they detect you're doing video games, they'll shunt your entire account over to Twitch. (The same company runs both services.)

Pixie

We found that it may be big enough in Skype if I fullscreen Wadanohara, which means I won't be able to type anything in Skype, but that's what mics are for. There was a bit of bugginess at first, but I think it looked fine once I got going.

@doppelgreener Eeeek.

trogdor

@doppelgreener this is a **** move

doppelgreener

@trogdor not gonna disagree there. I need to double-check if that policy is still active.

trogdor

I didn't think you would disagree,... I just am shocked by that

what they should do is just stop you if they don't like it

not suddenly shunt you to a different more public site

BESW

5:28 AM

Dear Netflix: You don't get to call a film a "hidden gem" if people look at me funny for not recognising when they quote it.

...and you're really stretching to call the animated "Justice League" an "end-of-the-world TV show."

Pixie

... wow. xD

doppelgreener

Also, YouTube Gaming is starting up as a competitor to Twitch, Hitbox, and basically everyone. (Right now that site's only working for me from Chrome, FYI.) It seems it's even available now for general broadcasting.

Pixie

I'm in a Chromium-based browser, so let's seeeee...

Nyoze

Chromium-based... You linux users :P

BESW

@Pixie Mocking Netflix categories is practically a hobby of mine at this point.

Pixie

5:34 AM

@Nyoze Haha, no, Windows. I dislike Chrome itself, but there are a couple of Chromium bases I'll touch. The flavor of the moment is Vivaldi. Buggy, but I'll probably stick with it.

BESW

Guess what category "Grabbers," "The Station Agent," "Fargo," and "Labyrinth" are all in?

Pixie

I don't know the former two, but... Fargo and Labyrinth...?

Nyoze

Hang on. People have actually ported Chromium back to windows again? Confusing :\

Miniman

@BESW Of those, I only know of Labyrinth, which I haven't actually watched, but nonetheless have deep-seated childhood trauma about.

BESW

"Grabbers" is about a group of people being attacked by tentacle monsters that are vulnerable to drunks.

Miniman

5:35 AM

@BESW Is that a metaphor for something?

Pixie

@Nyoze The browser base.

BESW

@Miniman Not that I can tell.

Miniman

@BESW Weird.

BESW

"The Station Agent" is about a little person who is trying to live a quiet, ordinary life but his neighbours won't leave him alone.

Nyoze

Huh... They've expended that a lot more since I last looked... Fair enough I guess.

Miniman

5:37 AM

@BESW Is the category "movies about harassment"?

Pixie

@BESW [tilts head]

trogdor

@BESW I think my parents have watched that

BESW

"Fargo" is about a pregnant small-town cop investigating a murder, and a sinister traveller who seems to be corrupting their town.

"Labyrinth" is about a teenage girl whose baby brother was kidnapped by David Bowie's army of muppets.

Miniman

Yep, I give up.

BESW

The category, of course, is "Quirky."

Miniman

5:40 AM

That's...not really a category in any meaningful sense of the word.

BESW

It also contains a stand-up comedian's live performance, "Hellboy," "Knights of Badassdom," "Big Fish," and "Bernie."

"Burn Notice," "Danger Mouse," and "Being Human" are all lumped together as "Witty" alongside "Glee" and "Rosemary & Thyme."

lisardggY

Good morning.

BESW

Yawp!

trogdor

these are all still "quirky" ?

BESW

No, those are "Witty."

trogdor

5:46 AM

ah

I like some of these things, but I believe most if not all of them are still mislabeled XD

BESW

Would you like to hear what "Ghost in the Shell," "Hawaii Five-O," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and "Warehouse 13" all have in common?

@lisardggY Glad your talk went well! What was the thrust of it?

doppelgreener

@BESW Yes.

Miniman

@BESW Cowboys in one form or a very other another?

lisardggY

From having worked on similar problems, a lot of categorization (or "clustering", technically) is done in abstract equations where parameters about the movie/show are translated into numerical representation and fed into the algorithm. So even if the end result is distinct categories, you have no idea why they're grouped together, and usually need a human to guess at the category name.

BESW

@doppelgreener @Miniman TV Crime Shows based on my interest in "Twin Peaks" and "Daredevil."

lisardggY

5:48 AM

The logic behind the grouping isn't necessarily human logic.

doppelgreener

@BESW I'm aware of Ghost in the Shell, and that one's reasonable based on Daredevil.

BESW

@lisardggY I'm fascinated by the end results.

And even more by what they claim to be the grouping logic.

lisardggY

@BESW 1. D&D and its spiritual descendants have a disconnect between their purported ethos and what actually happens in gameplay, leading to the Murderhobo Syndrome. 2. The cultural roots of this game style can be found in the works of Lieber, Howard and especially Jack Vance.

BESW

Because I watched Buffy and Star Trek, I'd enjoy TV shows like "72 Dangerous Animals: Australia," "Chef's Table," and "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp."

lisardggY

3. These standards persist after everyone's forgotten about Vance because they're encoded into the implicit assumptions made by the mechanics, even if they're not shared by the fluff. 4. Since the late 80's, many attempts were to address this disconnect, either by moving it to center stage (V:tM), disincentivizing violence, or reincentivizing other modes of play. Additionally, games/concepts like PowerKill or Violence attempt to contextualize the violence into our own experience.

5. Finally, the case can be made for murderhoboery, since one might want to play a LG paladin that also dungeon-crawls. A way should be found.

BESW

5:54 AM

Very nice.

What kind of response did you get?

lisardggY

A lot of similar ideas from video games, of course.

Miniman

@lisardggY This is exactly what I'm planning to do in the near future!

BESW

I feel like the quick-and-easy hack is to find better Acceptable Targets.

doppelgreener

Better than what, acceptable targets for what?

lisardggY

@Miniman The need to find a game framework that doesn't feel jarring between the murderhobo lifestyle and the heroic narratives and personas we play. @BESW's suggestion was to get inspiration from Mad Max: Fury Road as a form of legitimate murderhoboey narrative.

BESW

5:58 AM

@doppelgreener Well, the typical example of an Acceptable Target in fantasy is the Orc.

doppelgreener

@BESW Also demons.

lisardggY

Oh, there was a fantastic story from someone in the crowd. He said he was trekking with his family in the Himalayas a few years ago and they would play D&D in the evening when they made camp. And after a day spent in the mountains and in Buddhist temples learning of buddhist teachings, they started their session, started a battle, and then were struck by a feeling of "what the hell are we doing?"

doppelgreener

Orcs & Demons would make a good name for an RPG.

lisardggY

And he didn't play D&D for a year after that.

Nyoze

Oh wow...

BESW

6:00 AM

But Orcs are deeply problematic as Acceptable Targets because their nature as expendable savages is inextricably linked with real-world racist constructs that were developed to code real people as Acceptable Targets.

lisardggY

@doppelgreener Since the problem is that there's a disconnect between being a Hero and the butchery-and-burglary lifestyle, one needs to create an in-play heroic framework that allows for it.

One option is to explicitly do away with all sentient monsters. Stick to slimes, golems and the undead, allowing one to treat them as natural hazards.

BESW

Demons are slightly better as targets, but anything which combines the idea of full sapience with incorrigibility is going to set my hair on end, at least a little.

Pixie

@BESW I feel much the same way.

Tashio

@lisardggY the one problem the mostly mindless things and they don't make good antagonists to propel a story forward.

mutter commenting before coffee = bad

lisardggY

@Tashio They're not the antagonists proper. The antagonist is the necromancer who's been spreading the skeletons around the area. The antagonist is the wizard whose experiments are leaking out into the countryside.

BESW

6:04 AM

@lisardggY This is definitely the first option which occurred to me when I began working on this problem in my games.

lisardggY

These creatures are there to give us the gaming framework we want - the kill and loot that are enjoyable - without requiring us to be murderhobos in the process.

Tashio

I just drew an interesting parallel to that.

Starwars 4-6 Stormtroopsers with Darth Vader/Emperor, vs 1-3 Droid Army with Dooku and the Viceroy

BESW

Yup.

For several years my go-to antagonist was the Vermin Lord, a deity of my own creation who was worshipped by rats, roaches, snakes, and other relatively mindless and despised creatures. What they lacked in awareness they made up for in numbers, so he was a decently powerful deity but he didn't have any direction or ambition except for the rare times when a sapient being would become a priest of the Vermin Lord.

Then a wave of vermin and associated plague and famine would sweep across the lands.

Adeptus

gah. I need a semi-anonymous semi-private rant-space, and I've stopped going on most of the forums I'm a member of :P I could rant here & get the semi-anonymity, but it's explicitly public.

BESW

@Adeptus [patpat] Livejournal?

lisardggY

6:09 AM

@Adeptus Encode everything in ROT-13.

BESW

In one of my first campaigns with the Vermin Lord, the priestess of the Vermin Lord was the Lawful Good half-dragon-minotaur barbarian PC's twin sister, a Lawful Evil half-dragon-minotaur blackguard. He could put down the elephant-sized two-headed rats without any qualms, but his sister needed dramatic code-switching.

Adeptus

@BESW Nah. I might dig up one of my old forum logins. Or just leave my frustrations unexpressed.

BESW

(Also, she'd gotten all the other members of their minotaur tribe to follow her, so he fought them without killing them, and eventually took over the tribe himself and gave them new direction.)

(But he still got to deliver some epic smackdown on her giant flaming skeletal flying rat mount.)

(I, um, may have been having too much fun with Savage Species templates.)

Tashio

ya think? :P

Probably would have been easier to take a bone dragon type creature drop out the breath weapon and make it rat shaped

BESW

But seriously, when your solo campaign's PC is a half-dragon minotaur barbarian, you get to pull out all the stops on physical buffs for the enemies. +16 racial bonus to Strength, +6 to Con...

Actually I think the rat mount may have just been a re-skinned Nightmare with a size boost.

Tashio

6:17 AM

ah that would work too

BESW

But the giant two-headed rats with sonic "breath weapon" attacks flavoured as brown-note squeaking? That was totally Savage Species.

Tashio

lol

I'm just trying to picture how the stereotypical jump on the chair and scream get it out of here response would work with giant two headed rats.

BESW

You throw the chair at it and run.

One way to put qualmless violence into a session while still having interaction with sapient antagonists is for the Big Bad to have some kind of drone army. Effectively it's "Summon skeletal horde" but with active remote control from home base.

There's a book series (Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold) where demons are fragments of pure chaos, escaped from the plane of chaos, which must possess physical bodies in order to survive in the physical world. They acquire traits from the creatures they possess, and slowly develop sentience and then sapience by leeching it from their hosts. In this way, a demonic bear is just a very confused and remarkably powerful bear, while a demonic person is probably a very cunning and ruthless sorceress.

For people who hunt demons, the goal is to cast them back into the Chaos while they're still relatively mindless, because it's pretty awful for everyone involved once a demon starts chewing on human minds.

This kind of sliding scale of antagonist places interesting pressures that aren't really compatible with an MH playstyle, but might be fun to explore in certain games.

Adeptus

6:38 AM

@BESW I take it this is explored more in book 2? [desire to read intensifies]

BESW

@Adeptus Very much so.

The title of the book is Paladin of Souls. Hint hint.

Adeptus

BESW

And the third book explores an... interesting alternative approach to spiritual power from the standard Quintarian/Quadrene philosophies.

Adeptus

@BESW Reserved at the library. Forgot I could do that!

BESW

@Adeptus so bastard. very romance. much sorceress. amaze.

(The Quintarian pantheon has always been something I've wanted to use in an RPG campaign.)

Adeptus

6:47 AM

She has another fantasy series - The Sharing Knife. I may have to look at these after Chalion... (along with all the other books I want to read...)

BESW

I read the first Sharing Knife book and it bored me to tears. I remember very little of it except the stench of disappointment.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Pixie

[rubs temples] The first floor of my house is so full of spiders. I don't normally mind them normally, but this is beginning to get a little silly.

doppelgreener

D':

You need an exterminator.

trogdor

I would not be ok with that

doppelgreener

(I love animals including spiders but for occasions like this there is no recourse.)

Pixie

6:55 AM

(It's because we have four dogs and a sliding glass door and especially because it's starting to get cold here.)

SPArchaeologist

@Pixie a good opportunity for a LARP session

trogdor

I don't hate spiders, logically they kill off a lot of other annoying critters, but they freak me out a bit

doppelgreener

Good exterminators tend to lay down physical chemical barriers that make spiders stay the hell away.

trogdor

yeah, but the ones in your house need to leave or die

if there are literally so many of them

BESW

From the Scrivener tutorial:

> When you’re ready, then - after a stretch of the legs, a glass of wine, a good curse at the prolixity of this tutorial’s author, whichever helps - let’s move on to “Step 10” and look at the outliner in more depth.

Pixie

6:57 AM

I encountered two just now doing my laundry, both of which make me nervous: one because it was too tiny for me to tell what it was exactly and it had a large abdomen (so my mind is going WHAT IF WIDOW even though it's likely not), the other because it's really big. And when I say a spider is really big, I mean that.

BESW

This big?

Pixie

@BESW Not far off, honestly.

BESW

That's a decent size for a wolf spider where I grew up.

doppelgreener

... not far off as in yours is smaller or that one's smaller?

Pixie

Yes, it's either a wolf or a fisher. Black though, not the brown ones.

@doppelgreener A bit smaller, at least maybe. Legs not stretched.

doppelgreener

7:00 AM

Black, big, short legs, in Australia would make me scream funnel web and smash the crap out of it.

BESW

One thing I'm very happy about with Guam is that we have no lethal spiders.

Pixie

We have widows and recluses, neither of which are large. Recluses are extremely rare but not easy for me to identify, so brown spiders of a certain size make me nervous.

So I'm... sort of okay with a wolf or a fisher in my house, except that the bite is nasty, even if it's not lethal. I don't want to tango with this one.

BESW

All four years in SC for college I freaked out about any spider because I didn't have a prayer of telling a wolf spider from a brown recluse.

I had a four-foot-long mailing tube for such things.

Pixie

Wolf spiders are usually way bigger.

A recluse is rare enough here that I've never seen one and probably never will, but...

BESW

"Oh, hey, a spider."
"...wait. That was a spider."
[stealthily acquires mailing tube]
[slowly approaches arachnoid menace]
[THWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAP]
"Is it dead?"
"Let's make sure."
[THWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAP]

Guam, though, I'm all about catch-and-release.

Pixie

7:04 AM

Heh. I hate killing them. I took a couple half-hearted swings at the little one I couldn't identify with a measuring cup, missed, and gave up because I felt bad.

SPArchaeologist

Luckly, we don't really have much spiders here, at lest not in living/city areas.

We get our nice dose of tiger mosquito. So probably when you see a spider, the reaction is a little different, since most spiders are small and seeing them your first though would be "quick, eat those dastardly insects!"

doppelgreener

@BESW Me too. Australia's dangerous spiders are kind enough to live far away, and be completely and utterly obvious. Their physiology, behaviour and even webs totally give away what species it is. That means anything not obviously extremely dangerous is fine, and I'll catch and release those, including huntsmans. It's the American spiders I'm scared of.

Pixie

If I'm not nervous about something, I leave it alone. If I am but I'm pretty sure it's cool and I'm just being silly, I catch and release. If I feel worried enough to squish something, I do so only with extreme sadness.

Fisher/wolf friend is in a spot where it's pretty impossible for me to catch it, so I'm just eyeing it warily.

BESW

Australia: where the spiders are open and communicative, but the trees will explode on ya.

trogdor

I am glad I live in a place where no spiders can kill me in my own house

now if I leave the house and go into the wrong-boar-neighborhood, oh boy

Pixie

7:14 AM

Fisher/wolf friend moved. If it's the same spider, it's not as big as I thought; I guess the way it had its legs curled up made its body look bigger. I still do not wish to tango.

trogdor

we have at least 3 types, maybe more than that

one is a more or less normal hrmless orb weaver

one is the wolf spider previously mentioned

and the last one is a small jumping spider

SPArchaeologist

Pucca Funny Love Season 1-Ep25-Pt1-Garu Down Under

►

trogdor

also harmless

SPArchaeologist

^ Disclaimer: may contain a little too much stereotypes.

Pixie

I think... this one might be the dark fishing spider. Yeah, that's probably what it is.

Adeptus

7:24 AM

@doppelgreener AFAIK the dangerous funnelwebs are only in NSW area. Here in SA we "only" have redbacks & white-tails. (that are dangerous, I mean. There's also huntsman etc)

@SPArchaeologist I watched 2 minutes of that before I overdosed on inaccurate stereotypes :P

SPArchaeologist

@Adeptus I knew, the disclaimer was there just because of that. Sadly, that is the problem with most of the "Travel somewhere" Pucca episodes

Actually, thinking about it, it is a problem with "Travel somewhere" episodes for most shows. It's not like the Simpsons is any better at that.

@Adeptus Anyway, I was just remembering the "all around you is poisonous" part.

Nyoze

7:53 AM

That reminds me of that Scared Weird Little Guys song...

eimyr

Good morning.

doppelgreener

The funnel web is so fangy even its population map has fangs.

eimyr

I am arachnophobic. Not a lot, but to the point that anything bigger than a couple cm makes me paralyzed with fear.

And I moved from the country with no dangerous spiders and almost no large spiders to one with some of both.

For some inexplicable reason back in my home country spiders kept away- they were happy staying outside and go about their spider business. Here, every damn spider wants to move in with me. Droves of creepy crawlies try to find the way into my house every day, many of them succeed.

I don't like killing things. Especially harmless ones.

But I learned to let go of mercy.

[lights cigarette]

Ain't war hell?

Nyoze

8:20 AM

When it comes to spiders, yup :(

doppelgreener

I could imagine a villain saying: mercy is for the weak of heart. (While half their face is covered in blood.)

eimyr

@doppelgreener and the villain is also a spider

doppelgreener

8:38 AM

@eimyr HA. Yes.

With a cloak and a revolver.

Nyoze

Spider with a revolver? No thanks :(

eimyr

Nyoze

Monopoly Spider Man :O

eimyr

A propos cloaks, hats and revolvers. It's a Mage the Ascension game, I'm playing an Euthanatos detective of Irish descent on a mission in another town. Annoyed by the grim and chthonic mages that host him (in their cemetery hideout nontheless), he decides to live the place up a little and plays a cheerful Irish folk tune on his fiddle. GM gapes at me a little. Then he says: "The other mages seem suprised, but when they see you are really into it, they gather some instruments and join you."

Nyoze

Well, there you have it. Mages do have fun :o

Mage is at the very top of my list of RPGs I really really want to play but will never be able to.

eimyr

8:49 AM

The mages started playing Mongolian Throat Singing

@Nyoze M20 was just published a couple days ago!

theonyxpath.com/…

Nyoze

One day.... /dreams

eimyr

In fact, I've run Mage last year.

And I'm inclined to do that again, now that the rulebook is finally out.

I think that it's the best AAA RPG I've ever played.

Even though the mechanics are ancient and there are some internal contradiction, mood and tone of the game is on point.

Nyoze

Well, with M20, it should bring things up to the modern era, at least somewhat, yeah?

eimyr

It's oWoD but taken apart, put back together without the horrible bits and progressed to 2010's

Nyoze

I miss having spare time sometimes.

eimyr

8:55 AM

Also, they de-emphasised gothic-punk and emphasized gothic-hipster

Nyoze

Aww

I liked the Gothic-punk side of it :P

eimyr

I find it much more politically correct than the old version and they've consciously changed some of the most obnoxious rules.

Note that I don't have M20 yet - This is my perception of V20 that assumes they took a similar route

You know, oWoD was supposed to take place in some sort of a Gotham-like city. Most of the time it never did. Onyx Path decided that some more variety is necessary, as well as establishing how magic, vampires etc. can fit into a slightly more realistic cityspace

Nyoze

Huh...

That... Actually, could make things so much different.

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