TRPG General Chat

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

12:26 AM

yeah, I really did like grading better when it was "grade a paper, take a drink"

wax eagle

1:40 AM

@BrianBallsunStanton too many papers to do that now? or are you required to grade sober?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

dry campus

and the grading wasn't nearly bad enough

wax eagle

2:13 AM

@BrianBallsunStanton ah.

The Oracle

2:25 AM

0

Q: What monsters can be interesting as PCs?

I believe that the premisse of the player as the monster of the game quite compelling. Vampire: The Masquerade is obviously the pioneer in this genre, and other creatures such as werewolfs, ghosts and demons have been notoriously used in diverse games as PCs. Is there another monsters which can f...

wax eagle

2:37 AM

ok, the post has been up for almost 24 hours, I've loaded it countless times, but I still get a rush whenever I load Jin's meta post

Jin

4:39 AM

@waxeagle hehe. you'll get a bigger rush when you see the new design goes live..

wax eagle

9:46 AM

@Jin yes, will take a week for my head to stop spinning :)

(at least)

Pureferret

10:03 AM

Hey guys whats new?

wax eagle

11:30 AM

@Pureferret If you've already seen the new design, not much :)

Pureferret

Only just seen it

@Jin I like

Pureferret

11:45 AM

In other news I have a new job!

wax eagle

@Pureferret yeah! that's good

Pureferret

Yeah, looking forward to it

wax eagle

@Pureferret what are you going to be doing?

Pureferret

Software consultancy

for www.detica.com

wax eagle

@Pureferret cool

Pureferret

11:52 AM

:D

The Oracle

1

Q: When must a character save against a creature's inhaled poison?

When a creature has the poison special ability, an inhaled poison is listed, and none of their attacks list poison as an effect, when must a creature save vs the poison?

pathfinder

Rob

12:09 PM

Ey up

wax eagle

@Rob afternoon :)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

argh?

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton good morning.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

deeaaaaaaaath

wax eagle

ack corporate annual meetings today....time to find out how much we made last year.....

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

12:14 PM

NOTHING!

YOU MADE NOTHING!

er...

Rob

Afternoon wax :)

Pondering a question on Pathfinder alignment based weapons, but I've just ordered the beastry, which should probably answer it

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton :P Hoping for another record

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

that's a record, isn't it?

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton yes, but not a good one :)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

refine your parameters!

Rob

12:20 PM

heh heh

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton I hope x > y where x is this year's sales and y is previous high sales record :P

Rob

Now that's a coders answer

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

ARRRGH

why can't I bloody batch these bloody wave exports?

IS IT REALLY THAT HARD?!

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton apparently?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

well, something to do at uni.

wax eagle

12:26 PM

@BrianBallsunStanton a robot just emailed me :)

Rob

/me excuses himself to go and wrench DNS and Gateway info from his wireless network up to the UI

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:04 PM

@waxeagle you're going to get a lot of them :)

@sohum Reading the AW stuff makes me want to play again. Fix this.

Iiii... just realized just how many waves I'm exporting and the fact that people get an e-mail for each one.

while it's not quite as bad as uh... ::muttermuttermutter::

oops?

wax eagle

2:29 PM

@brian meh on my part... Nice to know that are saved

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton only one so far..but don't fret about sending me more :)

Anthony Potts

So, my daughter wanted to play "that dragon game" too... This should be interesting. I might as well see if the almost 4 year old wants to play...heck why not get the wife involved as well.

wax eagle

@AnthonyPotts actually....if your wife is interested that could be helpful :).

(my 3 yr old asked me the other day (when we had the guys over during his nap) if I'd teach him...I had to tell him when he is older)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AnthonyPotts happy to teach, though my teaching style is not quite optimized for 4 year olds

wax eagle

2:44 PM

@BrianBallsunStanton I truly feel like this would be quite amusing.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

"and now generate your requirements" "pony?"

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton ok, so reskinned minotaur...next?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

hehehe

yep

Anthony Potts

@waxeagle Yeah, I might be able to spin it that way.

@BrianBallsunStanton is there any teaching style for D&D that would be optimized for four year olds?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

ummmm

yes, I think you abstract most of the maths out of it.

and just go "roll this and tell me high or low"

can she do number comparisons?

Anthony Potts

2:47 PM

I'm thinking that he'll have to play something very simple...

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton I was thinking the same. (hey, remember the uber simplified kids version of D&D? what was that on the wizards site?)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah

Anthony Potts

Well, he could learn. He knows his numbers...and I'm sure brothers and sister can help

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Chatty DM has something, but it's bascially very say yes or roll the dice, with much of the violence abstracted out

So yeah "higher than X" is what I'd abstract his character to without doing maths

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton and if you want to track damage you can just you the average of the damage and apply it that way....

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:51 PM

yep

you just do damage boxes

since that's what it works out to anyways

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton yes. regular PC does 1 damage box on a hit, striker does 2?

or not even that complicated?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

depends, it'd all be mapped to the math underneath

Rob

I have become addicted to anydice.com; not good

Personally I blame rpgstackexchange

wax eagle

@Rob A common misconception...

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

grading midterms is hell on rep.

wax eagle

2:56 PM

@BrianBallsunStanton lol I'm catching up :) at least for the month...

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

I know ... it's irritating :)

wax eagle

check that, I'm ahead :) woo!

then again you're nearly to 30k and I'm not to 10 yet so....

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

details

Pureferret

3:25 PM

I'm behind too...

Hmm Think I'll grabsome coffee

Jin

5:02 PM

bah this IM Fell English font i'm using may not work out

it renders beautifully on OSX, but looks like crap on Windows..

sigh, it's such a beautiful type, perfect for RPG

wax eagle

@Jin :(

Jin

i'll still try to keep it in the top nav menu, may have to make them images instead

but definitely doesn't work for question titles on the homepage..

@waxeagle are you on a PC or Mac?

wax eagle

@Jin I'm a PC

Jin

@waxeagle do you mind go here: fontsquirrel.com/fonts/IM-FELL-English-PRO

and test that font out. see if it renders ok on your pc

click on "test drive"

and set the font size to 18 in the dropdown

wax eagle

k

@Jin Windows 7 FF 11.0

Jin

5:14 PM

thx. is the text readable if you change the font size to 14?

wax eagle

@Jin not as well IMO, it gets kinda wonky at 14 for some reason

Jin

yeah.. hmm i don't think i can use this font anymore...

wax eagle

the letter heights are odd at 14...

Jin

it's a known issue for windows with this font: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=542553

The Oracle

5:49 PM

1

Q: What happens when a grabbed target of Avalanche Stomp is teleported

Avalanche Stomp is a power of the Stone Titan (all quotes are from the Compendium): Close burst 3; +21 vs Fortitude; 3d10+7 damage, and the target is grabbed by earth and stone. The stone titan does not need to use an action to sustain the grab. The earth and stone had a Fortitude and Reflex ...

dnd-4e dungeons-and-dragons teleportation grab

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

6:24 PM

g'afternoon all

wax eagle

@BrianBallsunStanton afternoon

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

:(

fell english is great

maybe some of the other ones from the D&D font page?

Jin

8:04 PM

@BrianBallsunStanton @waxeagle @CRoss what would be a good styling for blockquotes for RPG?

I'm thinking about using a fancy pull quote "

i can't find any references in gaming manuals where there are blockquotes

wax eagle

@Jin I will think about this... @BrianBallsunStanton likely has much more light to shed..

Jin

at the same time, I don't want to over decorate it either. because there are times when several blockquotes are stacked together. something fancy would be very distracting

Jin

9:21 PM

work in progress.

Pureferret

@Jin I like :D

Jin

@Pureferret ty. going for that character sheet look.

Pureferret

It's good

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

9:58 PM

@Jin block quotes....

side bars.

um, all major RPGs use sidebars for asides.. No...

mmmm

Jin

like what's currently on the beta theme?

i'm using a sidebar alrady

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

oh. No.

Sorry, different use of term "sidebar"

mmmmmm

Jin

oh you mean "aside?"

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

I'd say standard indent

Jin

ok.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:01 PM

sorry, in grading mode.

the problem is that stuff like... tables...

has the wrong meaning

looking at d20srd...

anyways, I see nothing wrong with the current "blockquote" meaning

the two iconic SRDs use blockquotes all the time

for the compendium... they do...

wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx

italics and different colour background

you can play with that stlying over at power2ool.com

but yeah, colour different is big.

Jin

@BrianBallsunStanton still work in progress. what do you think so far? does it have the character sheet vibe?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

umm

Jin

i also try not to make this page look too busy. since it's pretty dense already

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Not quite... there aren't enough horiz rules

It actually looks too professoinal for a charsheet

I'd add a thin HR under each Q/A

extending the length of the div

Jin

there's a faint line between each question

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:06 PM

oh, couldn't see it

make them black or dark brown

but those rules are just fine

Jin

ok.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah, the rules are fine if they're solid black

or at least solid dark brown

mmm, badges...

badgesbadgesbadges

Jin

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mmmm

Jin

is that better? i tried darker lines, but they're way too distracting, almost make the question text harder to read

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:09 PM

yeah, hard to ... Oh!

make a vertical rule between the count and the text

and make the green eat the padding

maybe, there's such a thing as too much authenticity

Jin

hehe yeah. i try to strike a balance though.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Yeah

Jin

I have a feeling once the site goes live, I'll get more feedback

because not every one reads meta.

many users don't even know that the site is getting a new design soon...

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah

Jin

but they will voice their opinions once the site launches.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:11 PM

Jin

it always happens

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

looking at that.... it's the strong black background that makes it "character sheet"

And the strong boxes

So yeah... make as many things have strong boxes as possible?

So for the badges,...

I dunno, it feels like they could be tracked like currency?

So a strong background next to the badge with box with number in?

Jin

i can't really change the layout in the design

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

fair enough

Jin

so layout wise, it still needs to resemble other SE sites, since every site uses the exact same html output

i'm merely putting a "skin" over it

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:14 PM

yes

can you do left and right borders?

Jin

yep

do you think it'd look better if each panel has its own boxed border?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yes

make as many strong rules as style lets

Jin

ok i'll play with that.

thanks for the feedback.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

sure :)

Jin

i still got a lot to do!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:16 PM

(now, I'm not sure if strong rules are a good idea, but they'll certainly make it look like a character sheet)

also, yeah, I... feel like I owe you personally for this.

Jin

yeah it's always a fine balance between making the design authentic and making it user friendly..

mimic print style on the web is always tricky.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yes, it really is.

Jin

because the mediums are different.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yep, and more to the point, the need for strong rules is make moot

so maybe strong internal rules?

like the 4e sheets?

I dunno, even that is mostly pointless

Jin

i still like the rules though, but i don't think it should be as dark lined as the print version

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

10:19 PM

no, use the same dark brown as your headers?

Jin

grids and rules definitely give that char sheet look. it's what i imagined

The Oracle

10:46 PM

0

Q: Rise of the Underdark what can we expect

Just woundering what to expect with the up comming arch I have been reading about Rise of the Underdark I'm wondering what I should be looking out for to get in on the action and what books I can expect to come out for it.

dnd-4e

Pureferret

11:02 PM

@TheOracle Shhh, we're doing site design in here!

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