TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

4:00 PM

The Ultimate Monster Battle of Speedbrain and Polluted Hydrazor vs MegaThirteen

41 mins ago, 38 minutes total – 244 messages, 5 users, 6 stars

Bookmarked 56 secs ago by doppelgreener

@BESW ^^^^ this happened

it was awesome

Yuuki

So I read a little bit of SKT last night. As far as integration with LMoP goes, I could replace the beginning assault on a town with an attack on Phandelver?

diego

@Yuuki As someone who is in the middle of SKT, and hasn't played LMoP, I think that sounds reasonable. The specific town that gets attacked doesn't really matter, just that one does.

Yuuki

4:15 PM

The other question is whether I want to introduce elements of the pre-SKT level up quest.

And how I should do so.

I think LMoP ends at 4th level and SKT starts at 5th level.

So I could strip out parts of the pre-quest to get them to 5th level.

Or timeskip and describe the events of the pre-quest to them as part of introductory exposition.

diego

@Yuuki Yeah, you should be able to strip out pretty much anything prior to the party leaving town and meeting the Cloud Giant

LegendaryDude

@Yuuki I think you could also skip the assault altogether and do LMoP as written then send the PCs on their way towards Bryn Shander when LMoP is done

I don't know how relevant the cloud giant is to the rest of the adventure (please don't tell me) so I don't know how important it is that he be involved in the journey to Icewind Dale

diego

@LegendaryDude How far are you in SKT?

LegendaryDude

@diego We are exploring the north after the giant attack, looking for signs of other giants. We got a bunch of other quests from the NPCs we saved.

It didn't seem likely to me that the cloud giant would return based on his condition when he dropped us off but IDK.

Yuuki

I haven't read too far into SKT so I don't think I'm spoiling anything, but I think the cloud giant is supposed to help introduce the giants and giant-related themes to the players.

diego

4:25 PM

@LegendaryDude I don't think he does come back, but my group hasn't finished yet so I'm not sure. I think he is mostly there to be Mr. Exposition

Yuuki

He may or may not come back, but he gets the players acquainted with giants.

LegendaryDude

Yeah, so he would need to be involved somehow (or you could do the exposition in a different way)

So it seems like basically everything that happens in Nightstone you could skip, except it sort of sets up the idea that the giants are angry about something

Although, we had a ton of fun with Nightstone

diego

Yeah, I would have giants do something abnormal, so they get some hints something is up prior to the cloud giant appearing. But the module as written doesn't really do much other than 'Nightstone was attacked by giants and they took something', so I don't think you need to do too much

The Oracle

1

Q: Can I Rescind a Reopen Vote?

I accidentally voted to reopen a question that I just meant to make some improvement edits to. When I attempted to reclick the 'reopen' link I was told that I'd already voted to reopen and there was no option to rescind my vote.

NautArch

5:16 PM

@SevenSidedDie I'm not seeing a big difference between "can I jump farther than my movement allows" and "what happens when I run out of movement". Functionally, they appear identical. I have movement X, does this give me movement Y or do I run out.

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/99364/…

It seems more like a different way of asking the same thing. Both questions are concerned about total movement, both questions involve the Jump spell. And the answer in the original question is exactly what is needed for the proposed duplicate.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch The question reduces to “Is the Ring of Jumping an exception to that rule”, because the asker already knows that normally you stop when you run out of movement. Duplicate closes are only for identical questions, not questions that are answered by the other questions' answers. Closing it as a duplicate of what they already know is effectively answering “no, it's not an exception”, but that's for the answers to do, not duplicate votes.

NautArch

ok, I'm still not seeing a real functional differnce. The ring of jumping IS the jump spell. The other question is about how the jump spell works. The only real difference to me is the ring vs the spell. But if I'm the only one who thinks that, i'm fine.

Just weird to consider the perception question (which was a very different question, just had an answer within the other question that answered it was marked as a dupe, while this one - which seems to be the same information being requested is not.)

Can i jump farther than X vs WHat happens if I jump farther than X. Two ways of asking the same thing, in my opinion.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Well, let me take another look… It might be a matter of “same spell, two different questions”, or I might just be out to lunch. :)

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie heh. I may be, too :) Guildsbounty has a decent answer, but the linked question has a much better one.

SevenSidedDie

5:34 PM

@NautArch Hm. It's much closer, but I think still separate questions. The first looks to me like it's asking about the general rule for movement and jumping, and the spell is just the background circumstance that makes the example work. The second looks like a question about what the Ring/spell can do and if it's different from the Boots. They're very close, but the details mean that the answers are potentially separate (though overlapping) sets.

@NautArch In sum I think it's too close to call, and as a mod I'd stay my voting hand because it's a supervote. So we'll see what regular close-voters think. :)

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie That's very fair. Although I think this is a similar situation to Andras' question. The title question isn't actually the body question. If they're asking about boots vs ring, then there is a very different answer as opposed to "is this the way the ring (and therefore the Jump spell...which was answered on the proposed dupe question) works."

howdy @BESW

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Yep. This is deep into squishy judgement-call territory.

BESW

[waves groggily]

Karelzarath

(removed)

LegendaryDude

It's one of those questions that will go either way

And if it gets closed it's likely to remain closed because it could go either waty

Karelzarath

5:43 PM

@NautArch It was really hard to leave my personal biases at the door with that "players too cautious" question because it reads strongly like "I enjoy being clever but my players won't play along. How do I make them?"

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I may make a meta question about how to deal with questions that are different than the body. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my answer to Andras in rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/99316/…

LegendaryDude

@NautArch @SevenSidedDie this question is one I asked that initially I didn't think was a dupe but ended up being one. I had forgotten about it until I received a notification the other day about a new comment stating it's not a dupe.

NautArch

@Karelzarath yes, that's how it feels - and I"ve been there (and my DM is there, but does not ask this question.) They need to find a middle ground between how they want to run a game AND a game that the players enjoy being in.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I think we have that meta Q already. Short version: titles are expendable and can be adjusted to be more accurate.

LegendaryDude

It's a similar case, two very closely related questions that have essentially the same answer but solve different problems

Karelzarath

5:46 PM

@LegendaryDude There are a lot of questions where the answer is either "talk to your player(s)" or "ask your GM/DM", though. ;)

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie okeydokey then. Now I really don't know what to do with my answer. I guess it's fine, but the title needs to be changed and I probaly need to reformat my answer.

LegendaryDude

@Karelzarath Hm? I was referring to my linked question, which clearly has an answer in the rules

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie what's odder is he asked the exact question in his body in another question. did he dupe himself? Or should I change the body to match the question so that it's not a dupe?

LegendaryDude

@NautArch That question from Andras is confusing and poorly worded and IMO needs to be closed until it's clarified.

Karelzarath

@LegendaryDude Just making a joke riffing off "essentially the same answer but solve different problems."

LegendaryDude

5:48 PM

@Karelzarath Ohhhhh I get it. :P

NautArch

@LegendaryDude It's not poorly worded if you remove the last sentence within the body. And then his followup question answers it.

LegendaryDude

> It's not poorly worded if you remove the last sentence within the body

Right, but that sentence is in the body.

Which makes it a candidate for being put on hold until it is clarified.

Karelzarath

@NautArch "It's not a bad question if you edit it so that it isn't." Heh.

NautArch

@Karelzarath that's kind of what @SevenSidedDie was saying with editing question whenthey're different than the body.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch He may have dup'd himself… lesse. Ah, yes. He meant to ask a general question but wrote a specific one, got specific answers, saw someone (me!) change the title to match the specific question, and then realised he didn't want to ask what he wrote. Instead of fixing his question, he wrote a new one. (I'm in no hurry to mod-close either though, since they're each not bad questions and maybe there's value to them separately? Again, I'll leave it to voters to curate.)

NautArch

5:51 PM

@SevenSidedDie is it recommended to put it on hold for clarity, or to edit the body to match the question since the "unclear question in the body" is answered in another question by the same asker?

LegendaryDude

> Does Magic Resistance protect against anything that requires a saving throw?

Clearly not.

If rocks fall on you, magic resistance isn't going to save you.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Hm. Honestly, I'm not sure I have useful advice here. There are some users who ask messy questions that I've just kinda given up on curating if it takes much thought to untangle their mess. If I was to get involved, I might even change the whole question to be directly and simply “Is Turn Undead magical?”, since that's what it ended up actually asking and getting answers to. But that's a fairly large intervention that might go poorly and/or cause a bigger mess.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I agreed, I added a comment asking Andras to make a decision and then adjust his question/title accordingly..

Karelzarath

@LegendaryDude Wait wait, Magic Resistance only applies to magic? Madness!

NautArch

@Karelzarath Except that "magic' than gets squirrely. Is Stunning Strike magical? Monk Ki description calls Ki magical, but nothing in the specific stunning strike says magical.

LegendaryDude

5:57 PM

@NautArch Here's the thing. If I were to write an answer to that question right now, I would be answering the question in the body with what I just wrote in chat. That clearly wouldn't answer the problem actually trying to be solved by the question, which means one way or another it should be updated to reflect what it's actually trying to solve.

Karelzarath

@NautArch If their guiding principle is "friendship" then, yes, their attacks would be magic.

LegendaryDude

Usually we do that by commenting and voting to hold until it can be clarified.

In this case it has already been clarified by virtue of your answer being accepted.

NautArch

@LegendaryDude Yeah, i'll vote to close for clarification. Although I don't agree that just beause he picked the answer means he asked a good question.

LegendaryDude

so it's probably okay to modify the question to be asking what it actually meant to ask and not the thing it asks in the body.

I didn't say that, read my last message

What I'm saying is, we know the intent for certain because your answer satisfied the querent

NautArch

@LegendaryDude he accepted my answer when it was only about Turn Undead vs magic resistance.

LegendaryDude

6:00 PM

Right, so that's probably what it was meant to ask.

NautArch

But his comment stated that was not the question he was trying to get answered.

LegendaryDude

Oh jeez.

Obliterate the question.

NautArch

@NautArch, no but it is my fault. I should not have put a specific example in the question. I really meant to ask the question in the body. — András 20 hours ago

@BESW Long Live was a lot of fun - but I do think the extra head feature can only be done once.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch (Tip: you can quote a comment by just pasting in the permalink to that comment into a blank chat message, or one with only a :nnnnnn reply marker.)

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie grazie. I'm just beginning to understand Markup :). Thank you for the use of # cleanup you did on one of my other questions.

Karelzarath

6:06 PM

Hmm

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I fixed that one for you. :) Yeah, there are lots of little ins-and-outs to markup, and on top of that chat is kinda its own thing, with its own features and misfeatures in its separate markup parser.

CM_Dayton

Yeah, it messes with my brain how the markup isn't universal between chat and posts.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie wait...how do you find the permalink to the comment?

LegendaryDude

@NautArch It's the timestamp

BESW

@NautArch The "[time] ago" link at the end of a comment is a link to the comment.

SevenSidedDie

6:09 PM

@NautArch If you click on the timestamp on a comment, you'll discover it's a link. One of those hidden in plain sight things.

NautArch

d'oh

BESW

@NautArch I'm going back and forth about whether I think MegaThirteen is a bug or a feature.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch It's “grayed out” though, so it's anti-discoverable. I don't remember how long it took before I learned that.

BESW

@SevenSidedDie Ditto.

NautArch

@BESW I mean, it was fun - but the actual 'fight' was just an exercise in rolling dice. There was no way anyone had a chance. It's fun to create it - less fun to fight it.

SevenSidedDie

6:11 PM

Alright, time to do some cleanup and make lunch. Taking some inspiration from @BESW and sautéing [protein] with [veggies] and putting it on [starch]. :)

BESW

@SevenSidedDie Yey!

NautArch

maybe there's a happy medium? No creature can start with more than X heads? (3/4/5)?

@SevenSidedDie don't forget to wash it down with [liquid]

BESW

I'm thinking about an optional limit on total number of features.

NautArch

@BESW if you want to complicate, you can let folks take an extra feature for a reduction in their attack/defense.

BESW

Hmm.

There might be an elegant way to implement that, but I can't think of it right now.

NautArch

6:14 PM

sort of like the Rift/Savage WOrld mechanic of Hindrances

you can get better, but there is a penalty.

Want an extra head? Go for it - but you'll get a -1 to X.

BESW

Yeah. I like the idea, but the specifics are eluding me right now. Will sit on it.

CM_Dayton

two heads? -1 to stealth, as you argue constantly with yourself.

BESW

(It's 4am.)

NautArch

@BESW go back to bed!

BESW

Mmm. Got up to help my dad three times already, trying to wind down.

Zachiel

6:19 PM

I had a realization today. Instead of cycling through all instances of spells and items that give me a certain type of bonus, collecting them in pairs with their descriptor, then finding the pair with the highest bonus, I should collect descriptors and bonuses separately in two parallel arrays (or on a matrix), then run the search on the numbers and fetch the description with the same index. @doppelgreener I feel so smart!

CM_Dayton

:)

BESW

Long Live is already a lot more complex than I originally intended.

@Lord_Gareth [wave]

Lord_Gareth

Been awhile.

BESW

6:35 PM

Indeedibbly. What's new?

Lord_Gareth

Your moderation staff, not to put too fine a point on it. I was persuaded to return in light of the elections

BESW

Welp, glad to see ya.

Lord_Gareth

Gonna get some Fate questions around later tonight if I'm capable of anything after work besides lusting for death

This week's been rough

BESW

I've been writing a lot of microgames recently.

Lord_Gareth

I'm currently a phone so you may need to link me those later

Yuuki

6:38 PM

@Lord_Gareth Well, I hope you get better.

Lord_Gareth

(I also got my first book published during my extended absence)

BESW

Grats!

Lord_Gareth

@Yuuki it's a thing. Thanks though

Yuuki

@Lord_Gareth Congratulations!

Karelzarath

@Lord_Gareth link?

Lord_Gareth

6:43 PM

Been thinking about novelizing the quest I spent a year and a half writing

@Karelzarath amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s/…

BESW

@Lord_Gareth I'm actually kinda rusty on Fate these days; we've been playing a lot of other games. Though our last session was an Accelerated variant for a Stargate campaign I've been sitting on for ten years.

Karelzarath

@Lord_Gareth First 10 pages are pretty good.

MadMAxJr

@BESW You've got my attention there. The main SG facility, the russian facility, or one of the spinoff off-world facilities?

BESW

@MadMAxJr SG-1, season two. We're team SG-13.

doppelgreener

@Zachiel woohoo! Good one.

@Lord_Gareth Hi!!! Been a while! It's great to see you again. :)

PhiNotPi

6:58 PM

Hello. Yesterday I was in here asking about how to play a D&D with only two people (a sibling and I), and I've done a little bit of follow-up... it sounds like she's interested in playing a short campaign (at most two-weekends-worth because that's all the time we have) with a decent amount of non-combat role-playing (which is unfortunate because I'm more of a "kill the things get the loots make the moneys" kind of guy).

NautArch

@PhiNotPi You've got direction! That definitely helps.

how are you with improv? :D

BESW

Or, we will be. First adventure is a prologue with the PCs as clueless NID operatives sent on a mission by somebody who doesn't have the full picture. If we survive we'll probably be recruited into the SGC; if we don't, we'll roll up new SGC characters who pick up the pieces.

PhiNotPi

@NautArch not very good

NautArch

@PhiNotPi Given that's it's just the two of you - you'll each need to venture outside of your comfort zones. The key for you is to develop a storyline that you feel good about "talking" in and that she'll feel good about combat with.

Karelzarath

@PhiNotPi Looks like an excellent opportunity to expand your DM toolkit. :)

NautArch

7:03 PM

@PhiNotPi What sorts of things do you know a lot about? Can you parlay that into a storyline so that when you have to RP it's more natural?

just convinced my group that before we begin our next big campaign (we're maybe kinda sorta nearing the end of one) we do a session zero to cover backstory of world/campaign/characters AND talk about houserules for the table.

Anaphory

@NautArch Sounds excellent!

NautArch

@Anaphory It's long overdue. We use a lot of 'houserules' that aren't known until the DM says it at the table.

We did just decide that there is no such thing as a floor (your passive score) for perception.

that makes me happy.

Karelzarath

@NautArch That is, IMO, absolutely vital. Make sure everyone's on the same page so they know what to expect from the campaign and plan accordingly.

PhiNotPi

Totally unrelated: one of my friends has written a campaign in which everyone in our group plays ourselves in the real world (but suddenly everything becomes magical), I'm looking forward to it.

NautArch

@Karelzarath yeah, it's never something they've done (to my knowledge)

i joined the campaign a couple years ago and just dropped in (after 20 years of not playing)

this next campaign is going to be interesting. We did a 3d6 roll straight through the stats.

Karelzarath

7:10 PM

@NautArch blinks 20? 20 years of not playing? I... my brain refuses to acknowledge that as something that could happen.

MadMAxJr

@BESW So at a point in time where full plate laser-spear aliens are a serious threat, and the logic of ugly alien = hostile alien holds true. :D Letsee... That is before the encounter with Thor, right?

NautArch

@Karelzarath from age 15ish to nearly 40.

Karelzarath

Oof!

NautArch

AD&D -> 5e

Karelzarath

@NautArch How did your stats come out?

NautArch

7:12 PM

@Karelzarath pretty good! after my racial bonuses, ended up with 9 str, 10 dex, 17 con, 20 int, 8 wis, 12 cha

Karelzarath

Woah!

Beefcake wizard, then?

BESW

@MadMAxJr Yeah. Chances are good we'll play through the latter half of season two and the first half of season three.

NautArch

pretty much - diviner wizard.

hadthought about mystic, but decided against.

one guy rolled a 3 for INT

i'll be using minor illusion a lot on him.

Karelzarath

Heh. That would be a fun character to play.

NautArch

I think he's going barbarian.

BESW

7:15 PM

My basic conceit is that SG-1 isn't the only team saving the universe; we'll follow SG-13 and spin off some of the dangling threads of the show, using characters and concepts that didn't get a lot of screentime so that we're freer to mess with them.

NautArch

be interesting. his typical character MO is short guy who likes to be a jerk. He had a gnome druid who was always playing 'practical jokes' on us. And then when he died, he rolled up a halfing swashbuckler who also is a jerk.

MadMAxJr

Yeah, SG-1 was almost always doing the first recon missions, the other teams would do the follow-up jobs once the recon was done.

My roommate would really like to do an RPG game to give SG-U a proper ending.

BESW

Our prologue is discovering a hidden tropical paradise in a deep valley in the Himalayas.

NautArch

@PhiNotPi by two weekends worth...how much time are you thinking of devotingto it?

Lord_Gareth

@BESW That's fine, a lot of what I need is shamefully basic stuff

@Karelzarath If you end up reading the whole thing please feel free to leave a review. I use FEEDBACK instead of food, water, or love

Yuuki

7:22 PM

@MadMAxJr I miss SG:U so much.

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener likewise my friend. Thanks for stepping up; that's been a long time coming

BESW

@Delioth [wave]

Lord_Gareth

Got something to toss around: to what extent are questions about RPG publishers and/or figures in the industry on-topic?

NautArch

@Yuuki @MadMAxJr It really was a very good show.

Delioth

@BESW [lurk]

Yuuki

7:30 PM

@NautArch I think the problem is that it was so thematically different from SG-1 and SG:A that a lot of the old crowd didn't like it too much.

And the way they advertised it didn't help.

I actually heard "Grey's Anatomy in space" at one point.

:/

BESW

@Lord_Gareth So long as it's not mean-spirited, it should be reasonable provided it fits the other question guidelines.

SG:U was like SG:A for me: not a bad show, but not what I got into Stargate for.

Lord_Gareth

Well, like. Is asking about the embezzlement case that Catalyst was embroiled in "mean-spirited"? The case itself and its fallout was certainly ugly but it's also a matter of public record

I imagine looking for the chain of ownership for a given IP is likely fine

BESW

SG-1 was about the best of the best facing the worst the galaxy had to offer and overcoming it through skill, teamwork, and moral fibre. SG:A was about experts out of their depth facing problems they often helped create, and mostly coming out ahead because of their fraught but ultimately solid friendships. SG:U was about completely unsuited people way over their heads and struggling to just fall behind as slowly as possible because they couldn't get along.

Yuuki

I understood it more as exploration vs. survival.

BESW

@Lord_Gareth It would depend, I suspect, on what's being asked.

Yuuki

7:36 PM

Whenever SG-1 went to a new planet, it always felt more like "what's different on this planet, what will we find?" Whereas with SG:U, each new gate felt more like "how is this planet going screw us over and how are we going to live to the next episode?"

CM_Dayton

Did the SG universe ever explain how everyone spoke English?

...I know the movie did explain the language condundrum, and quite well. But the TV serieses?

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth I feel the same. I had stuff going on last election that meant I couldn't, and it was great to be able to this time.

BESW

@CM_Dayton [waves hands vigorously]

CM_Dayton

@BESW [Hands BESW a towel, since air-drying is eneficient.] :)

Lord_Gareth

@doppelgreener I don't suppose you're in the market for a story about a small-town necromancer's wrongful exile and the

Things that resulted from it?

(I hate being a phone)

CM_Dayton

7:46 PM

Ah. SE answered my question, though not as well as I'd hoped. scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/2743/…

BESW

@CM_Dayton I think "answered my question, though not as well as I'd hoped" about sums up Science Fiction & Fantasy.

CM_Dayton

True that.

Yuuki

SFF's problem is that a lot if not most of their questions involve a lot of speculation and so do answers.

BESW

Eh. SFF's problem is that it doesn't enforce Back It Up.

...Or comment curation.

MadMAxJr

@BESW It was a mix of Exploration/Adventure mixed with some light humor moments.

I will never forget the time-loop episode.

Yuuki

7:51 PM

@BESW For some of the questions they allow, it's difficult to back it up.

BESW

...and it periodically breaks out into scuffles over drawing unnecessary lines in the sand.

CM_Dayton

Of course, it doesn't help that many of their questions revert to "well the source never bothered to answer that, so I'm going to fill that vacuum with my own head-canon. Enjoy!"

Yuuki

15

Q: Can Cyclops fly?

Canonically, Cyclops's optic blast causes a concussive blast while there is no noticeable opposed force on his face as some sort of recoil. Does this mean that he could use his optic blasts as some form of propulsion? Image credit to: http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=301537

marvel x-men

CM_Dayton

..or worse "George Lucas decided to rewrite the canon once, then JJ Abrams threw away all the canon, so WTF do I know?"

Yuuki

CM_Dayton

7:53 PM

@Yuuki OMG. Mary Poppins was Cyclops!?!?!?

Why is there no Harry Potter tabletop RPG?

Yuuki

Licensing?

LegendaryDude

@CM_Dayton There is an obscure fan-made one, and there was even a question asked about it here once.

The only reason I know it exists is because I remember the question.

CM_Dayton

Wow. getting my homemade game to have a question here would be a sign that I'd made it.

doppelgreener

@Lord_Gareth I am so down for this but afk for a bit longer

Anne Aunyme

Can someone recommend me a music? I am looking for something that should be played as something like a Christian Atlantis rises from the depths.

LegendaryDude

8:00 PM

@CM_Dayton This isn't the question I was thinking of and it's been closed as off-topic but there is an answer that features not one but two HP TTRPG adaptations

7

Q: Easy to GM Harry Potter RPG

I have a friend who's not very interested in playing RPGs, but he's a Harry Potter nut. Is there a decent (probably fan-made, I've heard that an official HPRPG is unlikely) system that is easy for a new GM and is either specifically for the Harry Potter universe, or from a general RPG system that...

game-recommendation new-gm

@AnneAunyme Also Sprach Zarathustra?

Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 - Strauss

►

SevenSidedDie

3

Q: Does anyone know of a D20 system that uses the Harry Potter Universe?

Does anyone know of a D20 system that uses the Harry Potter Universe? I want to try something new with a few of my friends. We really want to try and get away from the usual D&D for a bit and try to use the Harry Potter universe as a start. I could just build something from scratch based on our ...

game-recommendation roleplaying d20-system

?

Anne Aunyme

@LegendaryDude Seems nice, thanks!

SevenSidedDie

@LegendaryDude Or is it this one maybe?

1

Q: Somebody has any GM/PC experience in Harry Potter RPG by Matthew A. Kearns?

My girlfriend really fun of Harry Potter "universe" and I like it too. She use to ask me to tell her interesting stories since I am a history teacher. I thought it could be much more interesting to became a GM and learn this rule book: http://meetthenewboss.info/kent/hogwarts/Harry%20Potter%20RP...

gm-techniques new-gm system-introduction

CM_Dayton

rofl. Sorry, I should've tried to search the SE before asking.

BESW

There's a certain irony in using a song inspired by Nietzsche and using imagery appropriated from Zoroastrianism, for a Christian Atlantis.

3

LegendaryDude

8:07 PM

@BESW :D Right? But it's the one song that always comes to mind when I think of something epicly arising from wherever.

BESW

Blind Guardian might have some good stuff.

Karelzarath

@BESW As I understand it, Zoroastrianism is the precursor to Christianity, so maybe it's just a reeeeally long callback?

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Surprise twist, Atlantis is dead.

2

Karelzarath

@SevenSidedDie Not dead which can eternal lie...

SevenSidedDie

Also full of eagles.

CM_Dayton

8:08 PM

Not really a precursor... Christianity followed Zoroastrianism down a dark alley, clubbed it, and went through it's pockets for loose religious ideas.

SevenSidedDie

As I understand it, there's a substantial chunk of years and societies between Zoroastrianism and Judaism.

Karelzarath

The Call of Ktulu - Metallica

►

CM_Dayton

SAN check.

LegendaryDude

@Karelzarath I think it's just a case of all those religions being in relatively close contact with each other for so many years it's no wonder they've shared ideas or borrowed from each other.

BESW

Or you could go full the other way and try Adiemus.

Karelzarath

8:10 PM

@LegendaryDude That also speaks to the notion of Universal Truths.

BESW

@Karelzarath My own faith certainly teaches something like that, but even within that context it's something like five degrees of separation historically.

LegendaryDude

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, pretty sure Judaism takes the cake for age. IIRC Zoroaster came about like 6th century BCE.

Karelzarath

@BESW Well, right. There was a lot of history between the two, for certain. I admit there was some hefty handwaving in my statement. :)

BESW

@LegendaryDude ~1500BCE, debatably.

LegendaryDude

@BESW I thought the beliefs were about that old but the prophet Zoroaster came much later? Maybe? I'm no expert, but I did have a passing fascination with Zoroastrianism a few years ago.

Karelzarath

8:16 PM

@AnneAunyme You might also check out the back catalog of Trans-Siberia Orchestra. Some of their stuff should fit the mood you're looking to create.

BESW

The evidence is scant and contradictory.

Karelzarath

@BESW Isn't that pretty much the standard footnote for relgious debate? :D

CM_Dayton

Religions and how they form and spread, is such an interesting topic.

LegendaryDude

@CM_Dayton It's one of my favorite subjects and I know so little about it. I've been listening to History of the Ancient World and it's fascinating.

Of course that's not just about religion but it's a huge part of it.

CM_Dayton

The ancient gods were not nice people.

Anaphory

8:31 PM

@CM_Dayton But then again, many of the ancient peoples were not nice people, for modern definitions of nice.

CM_Dayton

truth.

Karelzarath

@CM_Dayton They were just a product of their times. You can't judge them by modern standards.

And now I want to re-read American Gods.

Yuuki

Which makes Hades's depiction in popular culture all the more interesting. He's arguably the nicest of the Olympians but he's always the bad guy in most modern adaptations.

@Karelzarath There's a television series right now that's apparently pretty good.

CM_Dayton

I wonder how well the Peirs Anthony Incarnations of Immortality series holds up? Haven't read them since high school.

LegendaryDude

This all reminds me of this

theonion.com/article/…

Karelzarath

8:35 PM

I don't know if I found this here, but either way it's worth linking: wattpad.com/story/101872643-suzy-of-the-house-miller

LegendaryDude

@Yuuki Episode 1 was good, with some great little teases in it for those who have read the book. I have read it but my wife is only halfway through and I had to bite my tongue at a few points so as not to spoil the whole thing.

CM_Dayton

I need to re-read American Gods as well.

Yuuki

@CM_Dayton IIRC, there was an article that went about that made a lot of Piers Anthony's writing look... problematic in hindsight so maybe it doesn't age too well.

CM_Dayton

about him or the books?

Yuuki

Bit of column A, bit of column B.

CM_Dayton

8:39 PM

Ah.

BESW

Yeeeah, Piers Anthony.

in The Reading Room, Jan 20 at 11:39, by BESW

I know far more about Piers Anthony than I ever wanted to.

Yuuki

Karelzarath

The first book suffers quite a bit once you realize that only the thin, beautiful aspect of Chameleon was worth anything. And it just gets worse from there.

Yuuki

As always, Evocation is somewhat annoying to simplify.

CM_Dayton

Oh. Gawd, no. Wow.

godskook

8:47 PM

@Yuuki, "do stuff with Energy"

Karelzarath

I never understood why sending was an Evocation spell. Other similar spells are Transmutation and I think a stronger case could be made for Conjuration.

Got there eventually. Sheesh.

LegendaryDude

@Karelzarath Maybe it has to do with you 'sending' sonic energy

BESW

Ah, Vancian magic. The answer is tradition.

CM_Dayton

I've learned to not overthink the Why's of (A)D&D. Like why is Creating water and tasteless food a higher level spell than creating a fully functional violin?

Yuuki

@Karelzarath If anything, I feel like it would be some form of Divination spell given its telepathic elements.

Adam

8:54 PM

@Yuuki I was just thinking that it seems more like divination to me

Karelzarath

@LegendaryDude I could see that, but there's no chance of overhearing the message, so it intimates that the message is directly jammed into the recipient's mind.

LegendaryDude

@CM_Dayton Because it's a simulation, and water and food are way more important to your character than a violin

Karelzarath

@Yuuki Also a strong contender.

CM_Dayton

:) Some bards would argue with that.

Karelzarath

@CM_Dayton Because it lets you circumvent game rules, mostly.

LegendaryDude

8:55 PM

So the gamist part of the rules messes with the simulationist part and says, "you need this to survive? Well let's arbitrarily make that more difficult."

Lord_Gareth

It's a relic of an older age of roleplaying when death was cheap and issues like ammo counts were meant to affect the plot

CM_Dayton

Yep. It gets awkward from an in-game viewpoint. "Why is summoning edible mush harder than summoning a high school musical instrument that plays?" is one of those questions D&D PCs are not supposed to ask, like how Santa fits down the chimney.

nitsua60

@Lord_Gareth Welcome back! I think your hiatus began right around the time of your KS finishing, so I never got a chance to tell you I'd enjoyed Mourners. I did.

Karelzarath

Also, you really don't want to analyze how the D&D economy would actually function, given the crafting rules and default monetary assumptions.

CM_Dayton

Yeah. Or how every adventuring party ever would destroy every local economy ever upon each return from a quest.

Karelzarath

8:58 PM

Yup

Lord_Gareth

@nitsua60 Yay! Mind if I pick your brain for feedback? We'd wanna make a separate channel since, you know, spoilers

nitsua60

@Karelzarath Same went for me....

Adam

@CM_Dayton Is there even enough gold in the world to model the kind of fortunes that adventurers would have?

CM_Dayton

Well, dwarves are REALLY effcient miners. Also and completely unrelated, ALL the mountains are hollowed out shells that can be destroyed with a mid-power fireball spell.

nitsua60

@Lord_Gareth I don't mind, but it'll have to be another time--taxi service starts up soon, get my kids fed and back home, then it's my high-schoolers' game night.

Lord_Gareth

9:00 PM

'Kay

SevenSidedDie

@Lord_Gareth Hey, be nice.

Lord_Gareth

I'll be around tonight or tomorrow morning, or else tomorrow at like 11:30 PM

CM_Dayton

Of course, with Transmutation, how valuable would gold really be anyway? Isn't it easier for a wizard to MAKE gold than to adventure for it or trade for it?

Ah well. Time to run. Have a great weekend, all!

nitsua60

@Lord_Gareth what time zone are you referencing?

@CM_Dayton The half-life on transmuted substances, though...

Karelzarath

@Adam A conservative estimate of the gold present in and extracted from our planet would mean that approximately 24.56 billion gold pieces could be minted and in circulation.

Lord_Gareth

9:05 PM

@nitsua60 EST. I'd arrange a more definitive time but I work retail and it's SNAP week

Adam

@Karelzarath On second though, in addition to that, I'm sure mining excavations in the elemental plane of earth could surface as much gold as anyone would ever need

Karelzarath

@Adam ditto for resurrection diamonds, etc.

Lord_Gareth

So at the moment my schedule is a blasted hellscape

Adam

Seems to me that, in order for anything to have any value as currency, you would need a substance that can't be created magically, temporarily for otherwise. Seems like bartering would be a far more effective strategy. But I don't know much of anything about economics, so I could be totally wrong

I suppose it depends on how common magic is, but if every other wizard's apprentice can just create gold from something else, then it doesnt seem like gold wouldn't be a very good currency. Same for anything else you would use to represent buying power.

nitsua60

@Lord_Gareth I'll probably be around late tomorrow night. (Also EST, here.)

Lord_Gareth

9:10 PM

@Adam all currency is at its heart fiat currency. However, gold has history in D&D fluff as being useful in enchantment

So much like electronics on Earth it can derive value from objective use

@nitsua60 aye aye

Adam

Aren't gold coins a textbook example of commodity currency?

Yuuki

All D&D currency is DM fiat currency.

Karelzarath

@Adam Historically, banking was more trading debt than exchanging actual currency. There were plenty of instances of monarchs owing so much money to their vassals that the crown would go bankrupt if the debt got called in. Several English dukes used that to great effect.

Lord_Gareth

@Adam gold only acquired objective value when we invented the microchip. Prior to that, its worth was common agreement

You know, fiat

The stuff is pretty useless aside from specific applications

SevenSidedDie

@Lord_Gareth That's really not how gold value worked prior to the microchip.

Adam

9:17 PM

You can use gold for other things too. Dentists having been using gold for things besides money for a long time for example.

SevenSidedDie

That's also not what fiat currency means, without conflating international currency markets with local consumer markets.

Lord_Gareth

The general point being that there's no requirement of scarcity to give currency value. Anything is currency if people will trade in out

It

Phone

Gold sure, but also shells, teeth, paper

SevenSidedDie

@Lord_Gareth Yeah, sure. But that's one way to make a currency work, not the only way, so not all currencies work that way or need to.

Lord_Gareth

Value is a matter of common consent and/or objective use

SevenSidedDie

@Lord_Gareth That's a vast simplification that excludes a number of historical facts.

Yuuki

9:21 PM

Hmm... how would Keith Baker's Warforged work with a Monk's Unarmored Defense?

> Integrated Armor: When you are not wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Dexterity modifier.

Adam

@Lord_Gareth Air is incredibly useful. So is water. Why don't we use that as currency?

Yuuki

> Unarmored Defense: While you are wearing no armor and not wielding a Shield, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier.

Adam

Scarcity has to be part of the equation, otherwise there currency is too easy to obtain and it becomes virtually worthless

Yuuki

Do you just take one or the other depending on which is higher? Or does it become 12 + Dex + Wis?

Adam

@Yuuki You take the higher one b/c you can only use one way to calculate AC

Lord_Gareth

9:23 PM

@Adam Not necessarily. 40k's Orks have a pretty good thing going with teeth

Yuuki

@Adam Makes sense but I also don't like class features overriding racial features and vice-versa.

Adam

@Lord_Gareth I'm not familiar with that. Perhaps I would need to see it in action to fully understand the concept.

@Yuuki I can understand that feeling. But that's a rule you'd have to make yourself for your table.

SevenSidedDie

@Adam It's a joke currency.

Lord_Gareth

@Adam it's simple and violent, as things with Orks tend to be. They constantly grow and re-grow teeth, and use them as currency either by ripping them out or beating down other Orks. The supply is, as a result, trans-finite; there's only so many teeth but the number always goes up

Yuuki

Also, Orks aren't ones to be concerned with non-violent transaction of goods.

Lord_Gareth

9:34 PM

And yet they trade and barter

Which is why there's Freebootahs and the like

Adam

@Lord_Gareth Yes, but that doesn't mean that teeth aren't scarce. There are only so many teeth at any time, even if that number is increasing. The more teeth there are, the less scarce teeth are, and the more teeth that any given good with cost. In theory, there will eventually be so many teeth floating around, that teeth will be too common to use, the value of any single tooth will be virtually nil and they will switch to a new currency where each item has more value.

doppelgreener

Well if their currency includes teef, I'm sure they can violently trade and barter as well

Adam

I suppose they could keep using teeth even after they become virtually worthless, but it's just not convenient to pay 10,000,000 teeth for a loaf of bread.

Yuuki

@BESW I'm somewhat confused on the Nuclear variant.

NautArch

We should have tested variants.

Yuuki

9:41 PM

It says, roll a die when your kaiju is disqualified and if the result is less than or equal to the number of special features you have, you explode and your attacker loses a feature of their choice.

First of all, the wording. the use of different cases in the rule, "special" and "Special", implies that you count all features (Head, Body, and Special).

Secondly, if you count all features, it doesn't really make sense because when you're disqualified, haven't you already lost all Head and Body features?

SevenSidedDie

@Adam Only big, sharp teef have value, so they drop out of the currency circulation after a while due to handling wear. Also, it's a joke currency system attached to a joke race in a universe that makes no sense.

Yuuki

Actually, given the way that Special features work, I don't think it's possible to have more than one Special feature.

NautArch

@Yuuki it'd a kamikaze maneuver

Yuuki

Either you have one or you have transformation or overdeveloped. Both of which turn into Head or Body features.

Adam

@SevenSidedDie Then in that case, the item helps maintain its own scarcity by being taken out of circulation after enough time.

NautArch

9:45 PM

I have to check the sheet, but I think the Body Mutant feature gets you two specials?

Adam

I also understand that it's a joke currency, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun by looking at it as if it wasnt :)

NautArch

But I'd think it's add up everything you have

BESW

For the first part, it's just inconsistent capitalisation because it's a draft.

Yuuki

@NautArch Ah, you get a Body feature and a Special feature.

@NautArch But don't you have almost nothing when you're disqualified?

BESW

And you're right, at the moment of explosion there's functionally no difference between how many special features you have and how many features you have total.

Yuuki

9:47 PM

Unless you're supposed to also record how many features you started out with.

SevenSidedDie

@Adam wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ork_Teef

BESW

It's possible to have multiple Specials, but difficult. The idea was normally explosions are a 1-in-6 chance, but in special (hah!) cases it can be more likely.

Yuuki

@BESW Ah, okay.

BESW

I may modify that, though.

It'd be sad to play a nuclear game with no explosions.

Yuuki

A MegaThirteen variant should be added.

There's a Big Boss Kaiju that can attack everyone on its turn. Either hope that you can survive longer than the other players and solo the Big Boss or make fragile alliances to defeat the Big Boss Kaiju.

BESW

9:49 PM

I'm gonna just kill the random factor in Nuclear.

Yuuki

Mega Hydrasuperizoid.

The Ultimate Monster Battle of Speedbrain and Polluted Hydrazor vs MegaThirteen

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