TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

12:00 AM

@BESW I said "a human", not "a humans" =)

BESW

None of me are interested in the piano.

trogdor

lol

then why did you raise your hand?

nitsua60

TIL, MathJax edition: if you omit the delimiters (\$...\$) and head straight into an environment the block is centered like a \$$...\$$ would be. Check it out here!

BESW

Cool.

Also, those comments are making me feel unreasonably good about my maths ability.

Miniman

@nitsua60 There's a piano in my living room, and I have never said that.

nitsua60

12:09 AM

@Miniman Nevertheless!

Miniman

@nitsua60 Ouch...

nitsua60

@BESW Yeah, I can relate with "not everyone studies maths that much," but we're talking about people who've chosen a math-heavy hobby....

BESW

The only math D&D demands is addition, subtraction, division, and rounding.

nitsua60

@Miniman I had a college roommate who'd yell that whenever backed into a logical corner. It's surprisingly hard to argue against =)

@BESW In my experience, that can be a lot of math for civilians.

BESW

And it doesn't actually require any ability to read a chart, graph, or table either.

Miniman

12:12 AM

@nitsua60 Oh yeah, I use it a lot. But in this context it's kinda denying me humanity, so...ouch.

BESW

So recognising that the Δ column is the difference between the two columns to its left is... definitely out of the range of assumed maths for D&D players.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- wish to wrap up our convo from last night?

BESW

(Less the subtraction bit, more the analysis-in-context-and-recognising-patterns bit.)

nitsua60

@BESW Well, not these newfangled editions... [points cane at room] In my day we had to perform a table lookup to see which weapon we could draw! DRAW I say. Never mind whether it hit!

@Shalvenay Can chat a bit more, but in ten minutes I'm putting down the kids. (And not a word from @doppelgreener!)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah, I have to eat soon anyway, so I'll catch you when I get back from dinner

nitsua60

12:16 AM

'Kay--later.

BESW

I love how Wikipedia talk pages are so often more interesting and informative than their main articles.

This article of Mad Max: Fury Road has a section (titled "Conflicting Priorities") which I intend to reflect on as a primer for character-driven and narratively significant RPG conflicts

nitsua60

@BESW Ahh... that age-old clash between philology and transformational generative linguistics. How much more blood must be shed on this hill?

BESW

12:41 AM

So sad.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 back

Adeptus

1:39 AM

In my game this weekend, I was given a weapon of slaying-the-big-bad-guy-of-this-campaign. So, now I need to look at ways to beef up my melee ability. (3.5e cleric, currently lvl 9). I think I read something about some spells that make a Cleric a better fighter than the Fighter... as long as they're in core, that'll be perfect.

doppelgreener

A helpful soul got back to me with the announcement about the speed limit for new users:

144

Q: Rolling question rate limits are now network-wide

When you think of Q&A sites, you think of a place where you come to get answers to your questions. But, where do those answers come from? What doesn't immediately stand out for many folks is that it's not our software that's giving them answers, it's other people that are taking the time to share...

("a helpful soul" would make a good name on its own, albeit possibly a presumptuous one :D)

Shalvenay

@Adeptus d20srd.org/srd/spells/divinePower.htm is your friend

and it's right there in PHB1

Adeptus

@Shalvenay Ooh nice, that'd be the one I was thinking of!

Doesn't last long, but you can't have everything

Shalvenay

Persist Spell anyone?

doppelgreener

xChapx

1:47 AM

Hello everyone

what game do you recommend me to play 3.5/Pathfinder/fantasycraft/5e/AnOSR?

Adeptus

@Shalvenay Non-core. Also, if I'm reading it right, it makes the spell take a slot 6 levels higher - that would make Divine Power 10th-lvl equivalent

Shalvenay

@Adeptus true that Persist is non-core --- not sure about the +6 to spell level though

Adeptus

@xChapx Specifically one of those? Have you played any before?

xChapx

i have only played 3.5, 5e and basic fantasy(OSR)

and a variant of PF

Shalvenay

I'd recommend broadening your horizons then

say Burning Wheel if you want a crunchy experience, or FATE if you want something fluffier

doppelgreener

1:51 AM

@xChapx ... are you asking us which of those you should play? if not, what's that list of games there for?

is that the games you have played and you're interested in other ones?

what are you interested in doing? the RPG landscape is vast and broad nowadays, with an enormous range of experiences available. Pathfinder, D&D, and any OSR stuff are just all the same thing over and over in a vast and wide world.

Effectively compared to the RPG landscape, they're like the various editions of Call of Duty, vs the entire video game landscape of options.

xChapx

hahaha, thats a good way of comparing it

doppelgreener

I've recently played: Lasers & Feelings, which is a parody of the original Star Trek series with all the lasers and all the feelings; Great Ork Gods, where we play as rampaging orks who by all rights should be an enormously powerful race except their gods hate and despise them (and you play as the gods as well as the orks); Danger Patrol where you're a bunch of superheroes fighting down dangerous threats...

xChapx

i have a problem deciding which system should i gm, i had 36 sessions of 5e that ended, 1 session of warhammer fantasy 2e, a one shot of openquest(runequest lite or something like that), and i am playing 3.PF with some friends (yep as a player)

doppelgreener

Roll for Shoes, which is just silly; Cthulhu Dark, which is a horror game about super competent investigators who still can't necessarily win (so, like, it's actually about the hopelessness of mortals in the face of uncaring cosmic threats), etc

xChapx

what i dont like about 3.5,5e is Armor class,HP and OP PC

doppelgreener

1:59 AM

Well, here's a question. What kinds of stories and features of those games have you enjoyed? Do you actually find combat fun and engaging? What about sneaking around? Social scenes? Intrigue of the spying or politics forms? What about all that magic stuff, do you love that to pieces or can you give it a miss?

xChapx

Roll for shoes and those games look good for doing one shots, they are always a lot of fun, but i am looking for something longer, setting mostly fantasy, one friend is working in a CoC campaign tho

doppelgreener

(I emphasize that "actually" because a lot of people play D&D, which is largely focused on combat, but find combat to be the most boring bit, and sometimes don't actually realise that until prompted to think about it)

xChapx

mmm i enjoy combat when it is important, and yeah my players dont like combat a lot when it drags the whole game down, social and adventure is what they want and also seeign their characters progress

is there something like fate fantasy? @Shalvenay also @doppelgreener what is your favorite game?

Adeptus

2:19 AM

You might like Dungeon World. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but it's a D&D-like setting with a "fiction first" ruleset

xChapx

already played it , its good for short campaigns but all the characters are kind of samey

Adeptus

There are fantasy settings for Fate. @BESW and @doppelgreener are the resident Fate experts

Shalvenay

@xChapx FATE is a setting independent game -- I've run urban-fantasy in it myself

xChapx

i was asking because the rules from FATE ACCELERATED are kind of complicated

Shalvenay

@xChapx they really aren't

Miniman

2:33 AM

@Shalvenay Please try to avoid being dismissive.

Shalvenay

@Miniman sorry -- but I simply don't grasp how FAE could be complicated compared to 3.5 or PF....

@xChapx what I think is tripping you up is that FATE rules are far more generalized/abstract than the things you've run into previously

Miniman

@Shalvenay Which is fine, of course. Just keep Be Nice in mind.

In general, flatly contradicting people is a bad idea.

xChapx

i am sorry too, didnt explain myself better, it was difficult to grasp the basics when i readed them about 2 years ago

read*

doppelgreener

3:36 AM

FYI, it's just Fate nowadays. And Fate Accelerated. Not in all-caps.

Fate used to be in caps because it was a cutesy acronym in an age where all RPGs were named with cutesy acronyms, and that age has passed.

xChapx

Alright

doppelgreener

@xChapx Fate's setting-agnostic. The most recent iterations, Fate Core and Accelerated, can just let you play in whatever setting you like. What it isn't agnostic about is the kind of story you tell: Fate is built for stories about competent, proactive people leading dramatic lives. Those three dramatic pillars are quite well-established by the mechanics. If you don't want that kind of story, it is not the right game to use.

There are now various Worlds of Adventure for Fate Core. A few are fantasy-ish, none are Generic Fantasy yet. Masters of Umdaar comes closest: it's a laser fantasy game (think Thundercats and He-Man), where there's fantasy elements but people still have swords that shoot lasers and there might be robots.

xChapx

Is this scenario possible in Fate?
Lets say a giant troll appears and the mage of the party summons three horses for him and his friends to escape

doppelgreener

(is that the whole scenario, or are you describing more?)

xChapx

lets say that the troll throws a tree to the players, one of them evades it but his horse breaks one of its legs, the party ranger throws an arrow to the eyes of the troll making it flee

its all

SevenSidedDie

4:12 AM

@Shalvenay Grasping Fate can be hard when it requires a paradigm shift to understand what its rules are for. D&D and its cousins (“trad” games) have a game-phsyics paradigm, where you want to do something, and it tells you what to roll to see if it happens. Fate totally doesn't work that way. Worse, it kinda looks like it might work that way, but lots of parts of it don't make any sense when read that way. It requires a paradigm shift away from the “trad” design.

doppelgreener

@xChapx yes, that sounds entirely possible.

xChapx

how would it go?

doppelgreener

give me five minutes and I'll walk you through it in Fate chat.

Fate chat and game room

Good questions raised here should hit the main site too! Fudge...

OH NO IT'S FROZEN.

@SevenSidedDie Could we get a thaw on Fate chat?

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Thawed!

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie Thanks!

SevenSidedDie

4:22 AM

De rien!

@Zachiel Maybe a band, but there's even better potential for a Gangsta's Paradise filk in “My Guy Syndrome's Paradise”.

Adeptus

@SevenSidedDie Eh... too many syllables, doesn't scan right. "My Guy's Paradise" might work, but is less clear what it's about

SevenSidedDie

@Adeptus Some of the phrasing around it would have to shift to fit it, but I think it could be made to scan right. “They been spending most their lives living in the gangsta's paradise” → “They been spending most their lives in a My Guy Syndrome's paradise”. Dropping the “living” makes room, and keeps a suitable sense.

But I'm no accomplished filker. I just know a bunch of people who do impressive things with lyrics. :)

trogdor

4:40 AM

@doppelgreener lol, it has been for few days

Asteria

5:31 AM

Mind if I ask you guys / gals on your opinion about a table matter? I'd like some advice

Miniman

@Asteria I don't mind, but I can't speak for everyone.

Fibericon

@Asteria Go for it.

Asteria

I was supposed to DM my first free form on Saturday (was super nervous), it was arranged for a lunchtime start but one of the player didn't contact us until 4AM the next day.

He's always super excited and there early when my partner DM's (our normal DM), so I'm pretty crushed that a normally active player didn't give me a chance. Not really sure how to handle reschedualing, or if I even should

Miniman

Did you run the game anyway?

Asteria

No, we didn't have enough players

trogdor

5:39 AM

so did you just not run the game?

ah

Miniman

Well, the obvious first step is to ask why they weren't there, and if it's likely to happen again.

trogdor

here is my perspective, you should try at least one more time

even if this particular player doesn't show up, you might find that you like GMing every once in a while, like I have

Asteria

He said he just slept in, but tbh I don't really believe that. Who honestly sleeps in til 4 the next day?
But I dunno

trogdor

if they do so much the better

Adeptus

Is this the "disruptive player" from one of your previous Q's?

Fibericon

5:41 AM

I don't miss games very often, so when I do miss one, it's generally for good reason. However, I can't speak for your group. What's attendance like, usually?

trogdor

@Asteria I can't comment on that itself, not knowing this person /shrug

Asteria

@trogdor I'd love to give it another crack, but we can't play again if he doesn't show up again, you know?
@Adeptus nah, I didn't invite that person

@Fibericon apart from the problem player @Adeptus mentioned, everyone is usually really good

trogdor

@Asteria ah I get it, trust me, I am the only guy who shows up literally every day, everyone else in my group besides BESW, who lives where we play, has varying levels of attendance

Adeptus

@Asteria OK. If it was, I was going to suggest just leaving them out next time. But you're one step ahead there.

Miniman

@Asteria One thing I'm really curious about - how many other players do you have? Why is it not enough without that one player?

Asteria

5:44 AM

@Adeptus haha yeah. Our usual DM has a lot more experience then I do, I didn't know how I'd handle his shenanigans, so decided not to invite him

trogdor

@Asteria I would still suggest giving it one more shot, myself, if the same guy happens not to show up AGAIN maybe then I would personally stop giving full benefit of the doubt

but perhaps I am too lenient, same reason being I don't know this guy

Asteria

@Miniman I crafted the freeform for 3 players. Our normal DM group has myself, the DM and 5 others.
But ones a problem player, and two were busy that weekend

Fibericon

Not all absences are malicious. When I was pretty new to it, I actually did sleep in and miss a session. I'd feel pretty bad about doing it now that I've been playing tabletops for several years, though.

Miniman

@Asteria Is it really unworkable with 2 instead of 3? Freeform is fairly flexible, although it depends on the campaign, of course.

Magician

@Asteria Stranger things have happened. Or there could be a more embarrassing explanation they're not sharing. If they usually show up and say they want to participate in your game, I suggest you give them another chance.

Asteria

5:47 AM

@trogdor I'll give it another shot, since it's a story I really want to explore. Just have to hope he's available this time I suppose

trogdor

@Asteria I can imagine it is frustrating, but at the same time, if you WANT to do this you really should give it a shot, and if he shows up this time you might feel a little better about it

Asteria

@Miniman I really enjoy the dynamics of party conflict that our group has experienced in our games, so a key part of my freeform was one of the players was basically a spy, trying to stop their progress.
I need at least 3 for that to work

trogdor

if not, then maybe,... just maybe,.. you might appreciate having less of a doubt that he is doing it on purpose

Miniman

@Asteria Makes sense. In that case, as others have said, I'd try again at least once.

Asteria

@Magician thats true, and a more hopeful way of looking at it
@trogdor yeah, DMing is something I really want to try.

I might try to find a forth this time, so even if he doesn't show it can still be run

trogdor

5:50 AM

then go for it, my perspective is literally that of someone who is not and has not been the regular GM, but who has done it a few times and loved it

I think it is at least worth it to see if you turn out to really like that aspect of the game

granted, I wasn't too pleased that my first session ever was an accidental party wipe, (in D&D 4E) ... but it was literally my first session GMing

and I still had fun despite that

Asteria

@trogdor whoops! bad situation, or poor party judgement?

Fibericon

A party wipe in 4e isn't hard to achieve.

Asteria

Oh, really?
I've only ever played 5e. And we've only had deaths because of silly decisions on our part

trogdor

@Asteria I think I loaded the board with too many enemies that synergized too well, on top of having a bigger boss like enemy

@Fibericon it isn't too hard, this is true, but I had not been going for that

Fibericon

One of the best (tactically) GMs I've ever played with very nearly killed us in our first combat. He knew we could handle it if we worked together properly. Guess what didn't happen?

trogdor

5:54 AM

I don't even like the idea of trying to party wipe

Adeptus

@Asteria low level characters in ~~all~~ most editions of D&D are prone to dying

trogdor

MAYBE trying to kill one person (and no not a specific one, I smply mean turning the pressure up so there is a chance someone dies)

@Adeptus they were in fact level one as I recall

Asteria

@Adeptus our DM must be pretty gentle on us then. We don't have too much trouble. Only deaths in our current campaign happened because two seperated players charged a party worth of demons [sigh]

Fibericon

I was the tank (paladin) and flailed around like a moron trying to wrangle all the mobs, the rest of the party ran around screaming with their hair on fire and kept getting dropped far away from me so I couldn't heal or protect them. Good times. Once we cleaned up our act, difficult combats were a lot more fun.

Adeptus

@Asteria A lot of it comes down to "goblin dice". A lucky roll on a monster attack can kill a PC at level 1.

trogdor

5:57 AM

yeah, our first session with our default GM had us almost die, but that was partly because he was using a broken as hell boss in a premade session

Adeptus

(or higher levels too, but especially level 1)

Asteria

@Adeptus ah, that happened in my very very first campaign. I was critically one hit xD

our first battle too

trogdor

that hobgoblin guy hit like a truck, and had way too much HP to also activate REGENERATING HEALTH at bloodied

Asteria

@Fibericon I would recommend not lighting hair on fire

trogdor

Wizards was not thinking that encounter through very well for an extremely low level party

Fibericon

5:58 AM

@Asteria It typically doesn't work out very well for the target. I distinctly remember thinking, "This is like a crappy PUG in a WoW raid", which I've also experienced.

trogdor

@Fibericon ugh, I have heard way too many people compare 4E to WoW XD

Fibericon

@trogdor There's a reason for that. I haven't played either in a while, but the difference is that I'd actually be excited to pick up 4e again.

trogdor

I know there is a reason

but a lot of people making that comparison are using it as an excuse after trying the system out maybe one time XD

because it was too different from 3.5 for their tastes

which is fine, don't get me wrong, but they should just say that

Fibericon

Ah, you mean like that. No, I actually like 4e. It's way cooler than some silly MMO with panda PCs.

trogdor

no I get that you like it

I am not saying it is the same case with what you said

but you did remind me that people have said a similar thing before XD

Fibericon

6:03 AM

Flashbacks!

trogdor

and I will even go so far as there isn't necesarrily anything inherently wrong with comparing 4E to WoW, but when someone complains that they are basically the same game when they really mean "it isn't enough like 3.5" ,... that makes me just a little bit annoyed

its completely fine to not like 4E,... its kinda silly to mix people up in a weird way as to your reasoning for not liking it

Fibericon

I should get a red box group together. That'll be fun for maybe five minutes.

trogdor

and I will say again, I did not think you were doing that same thing

it seemed to me a lot more like you were just referencing your parties disorganization at the time XD

Asteria

@Fibericon panda PC's? woah woah, lay of the drunken chubbiefluffs,They're adorably irritating

trogdor

I just was all too easily reminded by the comparison :P

Fibericon

6:07 AM

@Asteria I quit right after panda PCs. My wife and I, who'd played in raiding guilds up until that point, went through the island and said, "Well, that was lame" and hung it up forever.

Asteria

@Fibericon I recently picked it back up, but unless legion is amazing I'll most likely be hanging up my staff aswell

Fibericon

@trogdor I would actually say WoW got closer to 5e in a lot of ways. Classes got a lot simpler, but unlike 5e, it wasn't an improvement.

lisardggY

Good morning.

Fibericon

@lisardggY Heyo!

lisardggY

*glances up the chat history*.

I gave up WoW somewhere after Burning Crusade. Way back.

Mainly because I was a casual player not into PvP or raiding, so once I hit the level cap, that was basically it for me.

I could have come back for more PvE with Wrath of the Lich King, but... I had already managed to get my life back. No sense sliding back in. :)

Fibericon

6:16 AM

Now, if we were to have an Exalted MMO, that would be something. Assuming they somehow manage to cram all of Exalted's insanity into it, and the server doesn't explode the first time someone uses a charm.

Asteria

@lisardggY unfortunately, I am a collector. my journey isn't over til I catch allll the mounts

lisardggY

@Asteria Yeah, that's how they hook you in. :)

"Gotta catch'em all" is a pretty strong motivator. For tabletop RPGs of a certain stripe, not only for MMOs.

Adeptus

I looked at WoW when it came out. If I was paying for a subscription, I'd want to get my money's worth out of it, so I'd be playing as much as possible. At that time, I didn't have enough spare time to make it worth it. So, I never tried it. I've tried a few free MMOs, but never got far with them. Heck, I used to play MUDs and never got further than mid levels.

Fibericon

I played just... so much. My guild had some server firsts, even. Granted, we were on a pretty terrible server, so "server first" generally meant "a month after everyone else".

lisardggY

@Adeptus Around 2005, when I was in university, there was a big academic strike and over half my classes were cancelled for over a month. That's when I started WoW. They get you when you're weak, distracted or unoccupied.

Took me a year to break out. :)

Magician

6:25 AM

Guild Wars 2 all the way :P

lisardggY

But again, being a casual player, I never really fell as deeply into it as some.

Adeptus

@lisardggY I think that was about the time I was playing America's Army with a guild/clan/team/thing. For a couple of hours, one night a week.

I got fed up with dying early in the round & having to wait until next round to respawn, so I went back to solo games. These days, I mostly play 2-player (usually co-op) with my daughter.

Asteria

6:42 AM

@lisardggY You say that like it's addictive. Pfft. [hides mountain of WoW merch]

Fibericon

@Asteria I don't have a succubus model perched up on my computer at the moment at all.

Asteria

@Fibericon of course not. And I don't have Frostmourne hanging from my wall
We're all normal here

Adeptus

@Asteria Pfft. Having a fantasy weapon. [hides Gandalf staff]

Miniman

Luckily, my Master Sword was already under my bed.

Fibericon

I actually make cosplay props. Working on some Dead Master stuff at the moment.

Adeptus

6:51 AM

Pfft. Cosplay. [hides costume wardrobe]

Fibericon

Probably going to get a bunch more orders in for lightsabers when the new SW approaches release. I had to make a whole bunch for the last one. It helps that my wife does costume design. One stop shop to be a total dork, right here!

Asteria

@Fibericon ah man, I wish I was better with fibers, I'd love to make cosplay props. A wonky, not really straight Frostmourne was my best attempt Dx

trogdor

@Fibericon mm but I can see a certain similarity in like, having "abilities" and "Cooldowns" and "Roles" (IE classes that do buffing and healing or dps or "tanking" even if the "tanking" is technically very different to WoW in the way it works)

Fibericon

@Asteria Try it with pearl board.

Wait, that's not what you call it in English, that's just a translation. Give me a moment.

Foam core. Try it with foam core.

trogdor

so I can see making some comparisons, just not to the degree or necessarily for the reasons most people have made the comparison

Fibericon

6:58 AM

I've also had good success with paper clay, which you can make yourself. Once it dries, you can do everything you can do with soft wood, like drilling and sanding.

trogdor

@lisardggY I gave up after Cata

BESW

@Fibericon Some regions (and some professions) do use "pearl board." I've found "foam core" is more common in my own experience, though.

Adeptus

@Fibericon I made a Plague Doctor mask using paper clay. It could be better, but I see the faults more than other people (as is usually the way)

trogdor

I actually really liked the Wrath of the Litch King expansion, Cata was ok too but couldn't keep my interest forever

BESW

@Asteria As Trogdor mentioned, my group's attendance is very irregular. We still play almost every week anyway because we're adopted systems and game styles which support inconsistent attendance.

Fibericon

7:03 AM

@BESW I haven't seen it referred to as pearl board outside of Taiwan. Good to know.

@Adeptus What base did you start with? Was it a papercraft base or did you freehand it?

BESW

@Fibericon Hmm. Living less than 3,000 km from Taiwan may be skewing my data, then.

Fibericon

@BESW That would explain why you're generally around when I am. Are you also supposed to be working? :P

BESW

@Fibericon I'm self-employed as a graphic designer, so I'm around chat even when I'm working.

trogdor

@Fibericon there might still be a slight time difference, most people are probably done working right now, as I am

Fibericon

@BESW I'm also self employed, but as a programmer. While I define my own schedule, I generally try to get work done while my wife is gone, so I can hang out with her when she gets back.

Adeptus

7:07 AM

@Fibericon Freehand. Basic plastic face mask, foam "beak", plaster bandages, then paper clay. I found a tutorial that suggested this technique. It was based on the Assassins Creed version (though I think I did the beak bigger than in the game)

BESW

Yeah, my schedule is largely shaped around taking care of my dad.

The next three days I'll be teaching MS Word all day though.

And hopefully later in the summer I'll get another ESL camp job.

Fibericon

@Adeptus You might consider looking into pepakura. Print on card stock, mold the paper clay around it. There are a lot of models and designer files floating around, and you can always make your own 3d model to import if you need to.

I'm... not looking forward to doing the wing bones for Dead Master. The core is going to be difficult to not make either too brittle or too difficult to work with.

Adeptus

@Fibericon I have a friend who does a lot of pepakura for armour designs - Iron Man, Master Chief, etc. He usually uses foam for the final construction, but pep to work out the design.

Fibericon

@Adeptus Yeah, that makes sense. I'm surprised he doesn't 3d print large pieces like that. Most people do nowadays.

Adeptus

3d printers are still a little out of most people's price range here, I think. Especially ones that can do large pieces!

doppelgreener

7:18 AM

@Adeptus I've seen places starting to offer their own 3D printers for use.

BESW

Location matters, too. I don't think there's any large 3d printers on Guam, and using a mainland print-and-ship company is... well, if they'll deliver to Guam at all it'll be very expensive.

trogdor

getting stuff shipped here can often times be a horrible chore

at best it does usually cost too much or take a really long time to get here

Fibericon

Good point. I typically stay away from non-cloth costumes because I have access to really good tailoring work, so I never bothered with the logistics of armor pieces.

trogdor

at worst its both of those things, plus maybe some other problems, or they just won't ship stuff here

lisardggY

@trogdor I can imagine. It's pretty bad here - the selection of anything is limited, but I imagine that in Guam it's much worse.

trogdor

7:23 AM

@lisardggY despite actually being part of the US,... we get some sites that say they won't ship to use because we aren't in the right country

like Amazon, though Amazon has the peculiarity to not ship specific things here, but they will ship other stuff

BESW

They won't ship certain kinds of soap bags, but they will ship others. [sigh]

trogdor

yeah I have no idea what the idea behind that is

they obviously don't have a logistics problem getting things here, otherwise they would not ship anything at all

BESW

There is a pattern of not shipping most hardware or software to us.

Fibericon

I'm still annoyed that I can't get Monster Energy here. I can get plenty of other imported energy drinks, but I want to overload my nervous system with the brand of my choice. Amazon won't ship it here either, though they'll ship seemingly everything else.

trogdor

@BESW that is a pattern, but that pattern loses some credibility with the example you already mentioned XD

lisardggY

7:27 AM

@trogdor We have weird things here too, because some items are customs-controlled, some require official imports, some don't.

Amazon won't sell MP3s (digital) or ship video games. Some electronics are fine, some aren't. Books are usually OK.

trogdor

yeah

Adeptus

@trogdor They probably class you as "international", then. I haven't looked at soap bags, but various other items won't ship here. It either depends on the brand (if they have regional distribution agreements) or the seller (sometimes even if it's "fulfilled by Amazon")

trogdor

I suspect they do similar things to us that they do to Australia and other such at least relatively close by areas

doppelgreener

Hmmm.... left a comment on this question which I suspect is actually a good chunk of an answer.

0

Q: Which gods accept the use of necromancy in DND 5e?

I just started learning DND and my Dwarven Healer (Cleric of the Revered mother) has to pick from among a list of spells. These include necromantic spells, such as INFLICT WOUNDS, which I don't intend to pick. However, I noticed DND does not have any kind of "evil" tag for spells. Furthermore th...

dnd-5e

Do you mean necromancy as in raising dead, or necromancy as in the school of magic? Given that in D&D 5e the necromancy school contains the healing spells I am pretty sure the Lawful Good gods are okay with that school of magic, because necromancy =/= evil dark black magic in this edition. You might want to be more specific about what you mean by "necromancy". — doppelgreener 1 min ago

i'm gonna delete it and I suggest someone ought to respond explaining the situation and its nuances. I can't really ask them to clarify like I was planning to, since if the querent doesn't really know what's going on with that necromancy school (like a lot of it is just fine and not bad or evil at all), they're not really equipped to clarify.

linked to a couple of relevant questions in a new comment, though.

(one of which i notice adeptus already linked)

BESW

8:02 AM

@Frezak [wave]

BESW

8:13 AM

....I have an idea for a Danger Patrol hack.

I've been sitting on the idea of Thunderbirds game, but never figured out the right system--until now.

doppelgreener

Oooo.

BESW

Thunderbirds Are Go | Official Trailer

►

Thunderbirds Are Go belongs to the meta-genre crudely but accurately dubbed "competence porn."

The threat/complication dynamic models a Thunderbirds scenario pretty much perfectly, as does the "bonus dice for having awesome stuff" bit. Really it just needs re-flavouring.

doppelgreener

@BESW sounds great :D

Frezak

@BESW Aaaagh!

BESW

@Frezak Sorry, I thought the leaves would have warned you.

Fibericon

8:25 AM

"Competence porn" is my new favorite phrase.

Frezak

@BESW I have no idea why they're better at dealing with prophecy than the rest of the slugs.

BESW

Heheh.

Frezak

You wouldn't think that leaves were born to handle cosmic knowledge. Maybe it's the chlorophyll.

BESW

@SebWo Hi! You'll need 20+ rep on any SE site to type in chat, but you're welcome to hang out until then.

@Frezak Maybe they're just super chill.

Frezak

Or, there WAS some terrible apocalyptic event far in the past where leaves committed suicide en masse after some tragic brewing accident caused them to all to gain transcendent comprehension of time and space!
The Leafless Years.

Wibbs

9:24 AM

<- stressed with issues from last game I ran :(

BESW

Aw. [offers selection of chocolate, puppies, and sympathetic listening]

Wibbs

:p

3

Q: Character immersion in Trail of Cthulhu

I am part way through running Eternal Lies, a large campaign that uses the Trail of Cthulhu system. I have three players in the group, and we are generally running into an issue with the flow of the game. Trail of Cthulhu (and to an extent other Gumshoe based games) places a great deal of emphas...

roleplaying gumshoe trail-of-cthulhu

sums it up nicely

BESW

I should see if Nightmares of Mine has anything specifically useful on the topic, but I can't leverage Gumshoe experience on it.

Wibbs

I actually think the problem is about 3 or 4 different things all tangled up together

BESW

Sounds like.

Wibbs

9:29 AM

There's issues with the system, players finding it hard to think/react as their characters and possibly also still problems with their fundamental characters not being proactive enough

BESW

Mmm, proactivity can be rough to cultivate.

Wibbs

thing is, I know these players really well, and we've never had this problem before

Fibericon

When I feel like people are going to not handle a quick reaction fast enough, I actually initiate a countdown. I've only done it once, but it worked like a charm.

BESW

Is this the first time you've played Gumshoe?

Wibbs

@BESW yep

BESW

9:35 AM

The first time you've played this style of horror?

Wibbs

not so much

@Fibericon This is more about longer term threats

doppelgreener

@Frezak I'm suddenly concerned whether there's something I should know about Autumn that I don't.

BESW

@doppelgreener Don't know? Yes. Should know? No.

Frezak

@doppelgreener OKay, now that's a whole new kettle of slugs.

doppelgreener

@Frezak Australia doesn't have a fall in winter like the northern hemisphere, but right after fall finishes and winter starts, Australia enters summer and the bush flora begins its active attempt to burn itself and everything else down. Coincidence????

BESW

9:45 AM

@doppelgreener (We're riffing on the oracular slugs who hear the prophecies of the leaves. Frezak's avatar is from this page.)

doppelgreener

@BESW ooooohh :D

Frezak

I'm trying to figure out how to work Livers into this.

BESW

Which is from this dialogue about different cultural assumptions and metaphors.

Frezak

Clearly Australian flora is trying to destroy itself, the curse being to much to carry. But their ashes feed the next crop of Cosmic Leaves! Hubris!

BESW

"Hubris" would be a good name for... something. [makes note]

doppelgreener

9:59 AM

@BESW I continued on reading the whole exchange with the slug and enjoyed it thoroughly.

BESW

@doppelgreener I highly recommend the entire comic.

doppelgreener

@BESW A scientist's last name!

@BESW I highly counter-recommend Poppy O'Possum (first page)

BESW

I'll see your rec and raise you Dents.

doppelgreener

Ooh. That's a good raise. I call your raise with Rice Boy (complete, happy to get quite surreal).

Frezak

Rice Boy I have read. It gets my vote.

Not sure what for , mind you. Just some kind of vote.

Oh, cool, italics.

BESW

10:09 AM

Double ** give you bolding too.

And triple is, of course, this.

More markdown can be found here.

Frezak

It's like template christmas!

Just keep layering effects until a simple letter becomes some hideous abomination!

I'd read that, but where would the JOY of DISCOVERY go?!

BESW

fhtagn.

eimyr

[waiting for someone to drop in ZALGO]

Frezak

Ia! Ia! Ia!

BESW

@eimyr Please no.

eimyr

10:16 AM

@BESW I don't want a ban, I'm not going to.

BESW

10:33 AM

Just, you know, don't spam it into other peoples' lines.

I dislike it generally, but personal distaste isn't justification for a ban.

eimyr

Can I spam it into my own lines?

You know, if I want to be extra unintelligible?

BESW

If it gets excessive or interrupts other things, it's going to the Not A Bar.

doppelgreener

11:49 AM

VTC too broad, doesn't specify a system but asks a very system-dependent question.

BESW

@doppelgreener No. It's a duplicate.

doppelgreener

@BESW Oh. Well, I'm voting to close that one as too broad then.

BESW

I dunno. I think the answers might have saved it.

doppelgreener

@BESW I guess they're pretty great answers, but we've played in a lot of games - including popular ones like a *World game and Fate - in which they're irrelevant. I'm not comfortable with an unqualified "how much do I prepare?" as if there's some universal answer.

There's a pretty decent answer for a very typical type of RPG, mind. I think.

BESW

You may be falling into that old trap of treating system-agnostic as meaning "all systems ever."

doppelgreener

11:58 AM

@BESW I am not.

i am looking at the question and thinking it would be way better supplanted by system-specific questions.

BESW

While I'm looking at it and thinking, "This is great generic information to have all together, and folks using systems for which it's not useful/sufficient can ask separate questions."

doppelgreener

"How much do you prepare for shadowrun?" Well, you need all of these following details. "How much do you prepare for D&D?" A lot, think about these particular things. "How much do you prepare for World of Darkness?" I dunno.

@BESW And that's fine and all, but I think the question's flawed in the nonspecific sweeping gesture it's made, and don't see the answers as "saving" it in spite of its flaw.

BESW

Well, we'll see what the voting does and if anyone's significantly dissatisfied it'll go to meta.

doppelgreener

Yeah, I agree

BESW

I don't think it'd be technically wrong to close the question, but I don't think it'd be to the site's advantage to have the same basic information repeated at differing levels of quality across a half-dozen or more different questions.

Seems better, from a "neatly sorted pile of answers" perspective, to have a central "most GM prep benefits from this advice" question, with satellites to elaborate on specific instances where that's insufficient or inaccurate.

doppelgreener

12:15 PM

Well the advice that's there will still be there.

For the dude who was looking for WOD, Shadowrun, and D&D prep advice simultaneously, I was considering encouraging him to just ask the people actually playing those games.

Because, ok great, now we have some super generic prep advice, but what about XYZ things from Shadowrun you're meant to prep or never prep before every session and every GM knows that?

And the generic advice is pretty great, but it's also super generic and can't hope to begin poking at system-specific prep issues.

BESW

12:30 PM

Edited, voting to re-open.

doppelgreener

@BESW "how can i estimating"

BESW

Oh, hush. Trying to make substantial edits without imposing my own voice on the querent is a copy-pasta nightmare.

@Strider Hi!

[fiddles with, adds info from comments on answers]

doppelgreener

@BESW that's fine, just thought i'd ping you about it while you were diligently at work editing it. :)

Fibericon

12:47 PM

I wish I was more useful at giving advice about prep and creating characters. In both cases, I typically just know what I need to do. That's great for me, but "just do the things" is less than stellar mentoring.

BESW

I hear ya.

It takes a lot of self-awareness and reflection to be able to teach someone a thing you just sort of do yourself.

It's a learned skill.

Fibericon

I was actually really proud of one character I made, and another guy in our group asked how I even came up with these ideas. That's when I realized I had no idea.

BESW

When I first started playing Fate, I grilled a few people on chat here about character aspects.

It was all very confusing because aspects were just a thing that clicked for them.

Then I helped a dozen people make characters for a FAE beta test game, and I learned the sort of questions that led to good aspects by teasing out interesting things about a character.

...Then about a year later I had to totally re-learn aspect phrasing.

Each time, it was about becoming more conscious of the process and why things worked or didn't work.

Apr 21 '13 at 13:20, by BESW

1) Take action.
2) Reflect on the action: what went right? what would you change next time?
3) Study based on your reflection.
4) Make a plan of action based on your study.
5) Go to 1.

Aether

@BESW Did you write/blog about it at all?

BESW

A lot of it happened on this chat, and in other rooms associated with RPG.SE.

But tracking it down would be difficult.

It was an organic process over time.

Aether

12:57 PM

I remember some of it, but it was some time ago...

BESW

Folks keep urging me to get a blog, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing. Trying to put together a professional site that could have a blog attached, though.

Aether

I wondered if you had ever tried to codify it...

BESW

Codify what, exactly?

Aether

Or if there's a question for it... Or if there could be...

Fate chat and game room

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