TRPG General Chat - 2014-03-31 (page 1 of 2)

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12:08 AM

I am regularly reminded, forcibly, that my experience with RPGs is a minuscule sampling of the variety available, and that somewhere out there is a person who loves things about the hobby which I would never in a million years think anyone would even consider without laughing so hard they rupture something.

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And if that person isn't reminded as often as I am that his experience isn't universal, when I meet him I will probably hear very strange generalizations.

So yeah, I think the idea in that post is silly. But I can't blame someone for thinking his experience can be generalized to the human condition; that's a form of empathy however misguided, which I value highly. And we both do it too.

12:50 AM

Of course, I hate Pbuy.
It makes me waste a lot of time on non-trivial choices. Better to have few very high values or not? Getting that 18 or having 3/6 more points to spend rounding up the other stats?

I've chosen my feats, BTW

1:06 AM

Can anyone point me towards a formula to approximate a sphere on a square grid?

Right now I"m working with "all squares within X", but that's not approximately circular at larger values of X.

@RavenDreamer Does this help?

That's sadly pretty much it, my friend. 'Circles' in square grids are, well, squares

@AlexP Well, yes, insomuch that it is what I'm already doing.

@RavenDreamer Did you read the thing with the templates and the string method?

Actually, let me read the rest of the answers and get back to you

@AlexP Getting there!

1:09 AM

Okay, no worries. :)

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A: What is a radius on a square grid?

I found this radius example image on ENworld. Not that a "radius" on the grid leaves out several squares that would be affected if you were to use the pencil and string method. If your really want to get hard-core, the thread in question also discusses radius templates in 3D space. http://www.e...

That answer outlines the problem I'm having vis-a-vis the radius method.

The "String" method is not desirable, simply because i'm looking for a method I can implement programmatically.

The problem with the radius is that there are squares you feel should be filled but aren't?

Correct.

Mostly at larger values of r, so maybe it's not relelvant.

You can change it so that a square is filled if it is 50% or more covered.

Or if its center point is within the radius

If that feels more "right" to you, visually.

Also note that D&D3.x is being a bit quirky here by having all your stuff measures from an intersection rather than a square center itself.

@Raven Is this for an algorithm in something you're programming?

1:17 AM

@JonathanHobbs Yeah. I'm actively developing a Virtual Tabletop.

Hold on, I can grab a pic real quick.

Well to be fair, I asked in the Math room first, and was ignored. :P

"What's a natural-feeling algorithm for selecting tiles within a circle?" would be a very good question for that site.

Ask it as a proper question, not just in their chat.

@RavenDreamer Is it fair to say you don't like how this square I highlighted is excluded from the spread?

Selecting squares within a circle can be done fairly easily by some measure: any corner of the square is within R distance of the circle's middle, the centre of the square is within R distance, etc, or so on, but getting something that seems accurate is harder.

1:19 AM

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@AlexP Yes.

@AlexP I'm bugged more by the one above and to the left of it.

I would have an answer if you asked it there, also, @Raven.

I could just answer it here but I really do think it's worthwhile asking on GDSE.

and I might as well just answer it there if you will do so.

actually since I won't be able to do that until later: for each tile intersecting the border of the circle, find the two points the circle's border intersects the tile. Using that, test if the majority of the tile lies within the circle. If so, it counts in the AOE.

In the edge case the circle's border intersects that tile twice (which can happen at the horizontal and vertical extremes), test [total area - first intersected area outside - second intersected area outside]

developing the full algorithm for that would be a task in itself

and it's likely others on GDSE would have their own suggestions to beat me to it.

In other news: I am regularly getting that feeling where I'd really like to sit down and have some fun playing Magic: the Gathering again (more or less withdrawal because it's super fun), except that I don't really want to play it any longer because I've recognised that the game comes with an inherent drive to regularly buy new cards. (Gotta buy more to counter your opponent's strategies, etc)

(and eventually someone in your group finds the Win Button and you have to find an all new strategy and good cards to follow it)

It also depends on the system. 3.x and 4e, for example, measure diagonals differently.

@JonathanHobbs gamedev.stackexchange.com/q/72708/295

If you're going for a general-purpose game tool, I'd encourage you to add a selector to your tool, so people can choose how they do their lines.

1:28 AM

In 4e, a square on the real-life grid measures like a circle if a character paces it out in the game world.

@RavenDreamer Rad. If someone else doesn't beat me to it I'll work out an answer as my time allows over the next couple of days. (or possibly bounty it)

@AlexP True. But have to implement the first before I can implement the everything else!

But in 3.x, a real-life square on the grid would be paced out as more square-like (though not perfectly), while approximations of circles are kinda diamond-y.

I did most recently add the ability to display arbitrary PNG files on the character stands.

Ah, that's right. Some games have different measures of how you're supposed to measure circles with AOEs.

1:30 AM

@RavenDreamer True. :D

So you may want to give your players options for specific algorithms (including "this one that works better because it feels natural")

Hence the Milla's as the Guardswomen in that picture! (Of Tales of Xillia fame!)

And fractalish--in 3.x the more grid squares in it, the more circle-like it can be.

While the same holds true for squares in 4e.

EARGH. A muscle or something that is right beside my inner ear is twitching.

It's almost disorienting.

Culinary protip: Cookies-n-cream ice cream. Top with thin-sliced almonds. So good.

1:34 AM

@AlexP Noted.

(Sliced almonds are just a thing they sell in the store, in the nuts section. They are great for dessert foods.)

@JonathanHobbs This is why I've settled on "I have this one deck I'm going to make perfect, and that is all I need."

And it contains design conditions that preclude I Win Buttons, because those aren't fun.

@JonathanHobbs Consider Cockatrice, I guess.

Also, in fairness, if you switch to Legacy, there are about 2 cards out of every new set that you actually care about. But that's if you really want to play one or two truly high-powered decks for a long long time.

What's the *World engine advice for worldbuilding? Leave empty spaces or something like that?

@BESW Well... after a friend informed me that Master of Waves was recently used in an aggressive tournament-winning deck, I set out to make something kinda like that, and ended up out of my own effort and his advice - with about a four-card difference - something extremely close to the competitive deck. And then I saw the competitive deck, and realised why they'd picked a Frostburn Weird when I hadn't.

1:49 AM

There's a bunch of it.

So I made that change and now my deck of choice is a tournament-winning one :I

it's terrifying.

One of my other friends had a Jund deck that just destroyed everything we put down on the other hand.

@AlexP Well I've looked into switching to Modern and Legacy, but for those of us tempted to buy cards, it just increases the power gap between those of us who do and those of us who don't.

(I'm looking for the exact wording on the *Worlds advice.)

As a Modern player explained to me, a mediocre Standard deck is still sorta competitive against a very good Standard deck. But a mediocre Modern deck gets demolished by a very good Modern deck.

@BESW Gimme a sec, I'll dig it up for you.

Thanks.

1:52 AM

What's this *Worlds thing?

@BESW Look at page 27 of the playsheets.

@JonathanHobbs Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc.

I'm having a devil of a time copy/pasting it.

What in the.. am I to understand there will be dieselpunk harry potter universe megabudget creature movie trilogy? http://gawker.com/warner-brothers-will-adapt-j-k-rowlings-wonderful-exte-1554793914/@laurendavis

Tweeted by sydneypadua on March 30, 2014 at 7:46 PM

I think "blank spaces" is a Dungeon World thing only.

1:54 AM

@BESW Ok now I'm interested too. :)

Because I think Tweets to Campaign By has found one of those blank spaces.

Possibly my favourite ever Warning Notice. http://t.co/DuUizTqNjQ

Tweeted by UrsulaWJ on March 30, 2014 at 4:07 PM

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AW says "Look through the crosshairs" (i.e. always be ready to throw your NPCs and setting elements under the bus), "Ask provocative questions and build on the answers," and "Think offscreen, too."

Also "Name everyone, make everyone human" (that includes terrible monsters who are still human on some level).

Monsterhearts says "Make monsters seem human" and "Make humans seem monstrous" instead.

Save keystrokes writing on 19th cent math with macro of "first discovered by Gauss decades earlier, but he didn't publish because Reasons."

Tweeted by sydneypadua on March 30, 2014 at 4:13 PM

And "treat your NPCs like stolen cars," which is the best pithy advice form ever.

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"I didn't want to upset people who are really into Euclid, you know?" "I was out of paper" "Busy reinventing this other branch of math, brb"

Tweeted by sydneypadua on March 30, 2014 at 4:15 PM

@AlexP ...what.

1:58 AM

@BESW Take 'em on a wild ride and don't give a shit about what happens to them tomorrow.

@JonathanHobbs There are more axes of interaction so you can get beaten to a pulp without any recourse if you're not prepared to engage the metagame from multiple angles. You gotta deal with aggro decks swarming you with 3/3 creatures, you gotta deal with turn-3 Karn Liberated, you gotta deal with a variety of turn-4 combo kills.

@AlexP Yeah, I hear that legacy & modern decks can win pretty early, say turn 3 or 4.

whereas standard tends to at least reach turn 7

@JonathanHobbs Well, that's also aggro in a lot of Standard formats, though.

Did you play last year?

With Champion of the Parish and Hellrider running around?

That's about as quick of a kill.

It's definitely different because you have to interact ASAP.

@AlexP I didn't; we started playing right after M14 was released (in fact, we picked up an M14 booster box at PAX Australia, right after release day or possibly on release day)

So Innistrad and M13 went out of Standard whilst we were still figuring out how to play.

(Dimir was my first deck and I loved it)

Off I go to lunch and things!

1 hour later…

3:24 AM

@AlexP Hrm. I've considered the possibility of choosing non-current Standard formats... like sticking with the Gatecrash/Theros one, or something else.

The Theros format is a lot slower at the moment.

"Build your own Standard" is a kinda fun thing.

Basically pick two blocks and a core set.

@AlexP Neat, that never occurred to me. C:

@JonathanHobbs I tried it and was a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. Mostly because I felt like the best Standard ever was just Innistrad/RTR. >.>

That or you can make CawBlade. :o

@AlexP CawBlade?

@AlexP Yeah, I hear that Standard had a lot of fun things in it.

@JonathanHobbs It's a very powerful midrange-control deck.

The reason they banned Jace

3:29 AM

@AlexP Oh, wow, ok.

@AlexP Seems Stoneforge Mystic got banned too.

Yeah.

I'm just busy hoping that Theros set #3 makes milling viable.

It seems almost viable at the moment. But the God of Deception is a pretty appropriate name here. xD

3:45 AM

I really want to see what the BW and UG gods are.

@AlexP Oh boy. I'd be curious about that too.

Especially now that we actually have a UG Planeswalker for the first time ever.

4:20 AM

I do have a very conflicted relationship with Magic because of the cost of it.

I really like a lot of the design, though.

5:07 AM

Have I framed this meta question adequately? @BESW, @Magician, @AlexP, @waxeagle I'd appreciate your advice.

It's about to pop up in the oracle in a few minutes too.

@JonathanHobbs Looks good, though I'm not that used to meta.

I think it'll get the result you want.

My complaint about the WW2 one is, "Oh, there are hundreds of WW2 RPGs out there now, you say? Umm, okay, name ten."

It is not, in fact, a question that misunderstands the scope of the RPG landscape.

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Q: What's so problematic about a recommendation question having potentially hundreds of answers, anyway?

We've recently had a couple of recommendation questions appear with requirements so broad that they can cover dozens or even hundreds of systems or adventures. They've been closed as too broad, and the question author has been asked to refine their requirements. In both cases though (covered her...

discussion questions

The RPG landscape just doesn't do WW2 much.

5:15 AM

I don't have a great answer for that @JonathanHobbs but from what I gather from my short time here, I feel like most questions that are "ok" have 1 very specific answer. That way you can have 1 well written "correct" answer for your question.

@AlexP that is likely true, my own issue with it is they should be asking it differently: 'i want to run a WW2 game with these specific themes, what system will let me do that?'

@JonathanHobbs True.

my thinking is they are coming here before they think about what kind of game they would like to run, and are using this site to generate a library they can browse then decide

whereas they should do some browsing and thinking, then come here after they've already made that decision about all those requirements they want, and use us as a way to locate the perfect thing for running that.

I'd say that's more of a "Asker hasn't caught up with 'games should DO stuff' philosophy that is in vogue nowadays." :)

@JonathanHobbs I know I have done that one or twice.... :P

5:18 AM

That's going to be the core of my own answer, though if anyone else feels similarly, don't let that stop you going ahead and saying that stuff too.

@JonathanHobbs I really really want to make a meta question about "How do I do that?"

meanwhile, Adventures In HTML Forms:

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TEXT WHY ARE YOU ONLY A COUPLE OF PIXELS TOO LOW WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME

i feel like an ass having been fooled into trying to click a bubble

@JonathanHobbs " I'm just not feeling really "up" today, yanno."

Alternately:

@JonathanHobbs Is it like that on every browser?

5:21 AM

user image

user image

THAT DOT

[cries]

I am doing a thing to move every radio button down two pixels.

Welcome to Web Development.

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@JonathanHobbs just so they are aligned to the middle of the typeset (vetrically)?

@BESW now more than ever I wish I had the money for a beard transplant so I could grow a moustache

@MC_Hambone yes

that facial hair is near god-like

@BESW that's perfect XD

5:28 AM

Well, I missed The Walking Dead tonight, but it seems like I may yet get to see it before spoilers flood my Facebook feed.... So I'm off for a bit to watch that.

{waves}

@MC_Hambone Bye for now! :D

@BESW How to do that might be naturally part of an answer to the meta question I asked actually.

If the answer is "you should be coming to us after you find your requirements, not using us to browse", then going on to explain how to find your requirements might be naturally good to include.

or, y'know, ask and answer it! that'd be good too.

6:16 AM

@JonathanHobbs MC Hammer jokes are apparently worth their weight in votes around here; take note.

@BESW noted. [write write] sliced almonds are worth their weight in gold, mc hammer jokes are great on cookies and cream ice cream...

Eh, close enough.

6:28 AM

excellent. I'm off for now, tally ho!

ttfn

...someday I am going to write an All-Bob-Dylan-Inspired Campaign.

7:10 AM

Good Morning.

Hey.

I just arrived at work, and there is a strange women in our conference room setting up the projector and getting all sorts of slides and documents ready. I think we are having a surprise seminar?

7:31 AM

@InbarRose it's like the adult version of when your teacher would roll the tv cart into your classe room and you knew it was movie day!

@MC_Hambone Yeah... But we are on a tight deadline!

Good morningish.

Ish?

It's a quarter to eleven. I've been at work for almost two hours and awake for almost 5.

So yeah, -ish.

7:50 AM

g'mornin'-ish @lisardggY

8:35 AM

@MC_Hambone Yo.

8:50 AM

I just corrected (well, sorta) an answer by Jon Skeet in SO. For my next trick, I shall carry a metal rod in a thunderstorm while mocking the gods.

@lisardggY I would wish you good luck, but I am too afraid to show association!

3 hours later…

11:53 AM

@JonathanHobbs Good answer (and question) over on meta. I wonder if the answer should include some variant of "we're not here to do your work for you", since asking for a list is more work than expertise.

12:08 PM

@lisardggY Thanks! I did some rewriting of the last section and that's a decent sentiment to hint at, so I've included it.

12:20 PM

I think I'll add my comment in as well. Tell me if this isn't too argumentative:

"Coming with specific criteria is using the collective expertise of the site. Asking for a list of all relevant items is asking for legwork".

@lisardggY I actually really like that explanation. It doesnt sound argumentative to me at all

@lisardggY argumentative isn't the word i'd use; it sounds confrontational but that's kinda in the nature of this.

@JonathanHobbs Yeah, that's the term I was thinking of.

Being confrontational is fine in and of itself, if it's okay that the person reading it will feel confronted.

Being aggressive or something like that is something to watch out for.

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12:25 PM

I don't want to come off as reprimanding or finger-wagging.

in this case, they're gonna, so that's ok.

it doesn't come off that way to me.

it's just a simple statement.

Good, thanks.

@BESW Haha! Hi, BESW.

Mornin

@BESW he's mostly (h)armless

12:26 PM

Hi. Unrelated picture is irrelephant.

@BESW I dun gone answered that question; if you want to provide your own or do that Q&A on how to find out what kind of game you'd like to run, please do!

@BESW I dare say there may be at least one elephant who's seen Toy Story 2.

No, I want to ask the question because I want an answer, not because I can give one.

@JonathanHobbs I wouldn't consider myself an elephant but....

In fact, someone in this very room could be one! I don't know what any of you look like, after all, and I am not sure that elephants cannot engage in written discourse.

@BESW Oh, I see. x)

Dude, we do not talk about the elephant in the room. Not cool.

12:28 PM

I mean hey, I am a big guy.... but my nose isnt that big.... is it?

@BESW elephants in the room have gotta be talked about, man

For when you need some interdungeon connectivity on the spot: roll a d12.

Do you get rep for editing things? I got +2 related to a question, and all I did was edit the title and remove a duplicate word... but I didnt answer the question, nor post it, so why did I get rep?

@MC_Hambone Editing is also contributing to the site and its content, and thus, deserving of rep.

Not an awful lot of rep, and not for every edit, but it's a little thank-you bump.

You get 2 rep for edits that are approved by other citizens before they go live.

@lisardggY ahhh, I see.... I didnt know if there was like a voting system for edits that I have been missing or something

12:34 PM

So enjoy it, because when you hit the rep level that your edits don't have to be approved, that source of rep dies.

@BESW how long before they go live?

oh so mine need approval

When a certain number of other citizens approve them.

i see

> suggested edit is accepted: +2 (up to +1000 total per user)

(From the FAQ)

Right. Once you hit the 2k mark, you can edit freely, and don't get +2 rep from each one. In addition, you can only earn 1,000 total rep from suggested edits (so it's impossible to hit the 2k mark purely through suggesting edits)

12:37 PM

I'm sure that with careful reading of the FAQ someone can come up with a way to get to 2k without once answering or asking a question. I'm sure some D&D3.5 optimization guru will find it. :)

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@lisardggY nope, you can only get to 1k without asking/answering, which gets you to 1101 if you can get the assn bonus somewhere. That's all the rep you can gain without doing core functionality

Someone star that so I can, too.

3.5 seems like it's really complicated compared to 4e

And the winner for understatement of the week goes to....

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@BESW Still on the tablet?

@waxeagle Hmpf. No fun. :)

12:39 PM

@BESW pro-tip tag wiki edits are still a source of suggested edit repz all the way to 20k

@BESW What comment do you want starred?

Yeah. My laptop got a new battery and now the charger cord is messed up.

@aaron the one about rep optimizing.

@BESW I won understatement of the week?! YAY! and just think, it's only monday!

@MC_Hambone Yeah, but you don't get any rep for that. Or a badge. Sucks.

@BESW That one?

12:40 PM

No, sorry, lizard's.

Yey!

I have star power!

I wish I'd found more tag wiki's I felt I could edit usefully.

So I was talking to a DM friend of mine who I bounce story ideas off of and we were discussing the fact that in my most recent game I ad-libbed that my group found a journal written in netherese hidden in an altar used by cultists of Vecna... it matched one they found in a similar altar (the first one they found was just notes about summoning devils and vague maps of the city sewers)

is it a cop out if I say that the new journal is written in code once the cleric uses comprehend language and translates it?

because, I really have no idea what could be in it (other than things I dont want the party to know quite yet)

Hmmm. Not that simple.

By putting it in code, you're making it more important.

You draw out the time and energy the group spends on it.

@lisardggY thought of a way. A pair of seperate accounts, each editing aggressively, then merged. You might get to keep all the suggested edit repz, mostly because it's probably a PITA for them to remove it

@waxeagle Ha! Excellent. But will it give me full caster level progression?

The best way to make it go away is to reveal its contents quickly and undramatically.

12:48 PM

@lisardggY it should?

(but I'm not a 3.5 guy)

@MC_Hambone This one could simply have secrets that are useless to the storyline but can be used as leverage for nobles or something later in the campaign. Something that is worth what they went through but not too revealing to the storyline.

The longer you draw it out, the more you need to have something cool when you finally reveal it.

@BESW well in my mind the journal was owned by the lead cultist of vecna the group just killed and it contains information about the secrets he was supposed to ask Vecna about. but i am unsure if I want to spill the beans about the big plot thing I have planned quite yet

@MC_Hambone It's not too much of a cop-out if you can think of a good reason why it would be in code, other than to vex the players.

@MC_Hambone It has the recipe for Bush's Baked Beans. They gain 1 million gold.

12:50 PM

Was he perhaps hiding things from other cultists that were gunning for his job?

Then you need to think about whether this is the way you want to eventually reveal the big plot thing.

Was that too vague of a joke?

Perhaps it even contains direct taunts at this rival that is assumed to have gotten his hands on it, letting the characters know that A) this is in code, and B) it's got good reasons too.

@MC_Hambone You could have it booby trapped. If they open/start using the journal without the right word it will self-destruct so they only get a little bit of info. If they want it all - they need to nullify the booby trap (which requires them to find the right place for this) and takes them time (time you want for more info) and this way it doesn't feel super important.

No, I got it.

12:51 PM

@Aaron Totally lost on me.

@lisardggY You have never seen the bush's baked bean commercials? There is a guy who is keeping the recipe secret but his dog is constantly trying to steal it.

Because of course the cultist booby trapped his secret journal

They are amusing.

@lisardggY well his employer wanted to see if Vecna knew any way to resurrect Tiamat (who is dead in my campaign world). It would likely be encoded since the employer is a very prominent member of society and resurrcting Tiamat isn't something you'd want just anyone to read in a journal

@Aaron They don't carry them around these parts, so they were never advertised either.

12:53 PM

Problem is that "encoding" isn't a D&D thing. Magical protection spells are.

@lisardggY Ahh. Makes sense. But yea I haven't seen any commercials for a long time. Of course most commercials now a days are fast food and restaurants.

Hmmm. Invent a D&D equivalent of that really silly Psychlo math code?

@InbarRose this is true. I also told the group that the cultist never met with his employer, his only contact with the 'employer' is through a "shadowy emissary" . My friedn suggested I could make the emissary an assassin class (allowing him to just "appear from the shadows" like I mentioned during the game) and have him attack the cleric who is spending three days in a inn translating the journal

oh - he already is translating it? .....

Or is that where you stopped the game?

That he went into the room to start translating?

(Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, gain 5 San points.)

12:57 PM

I guess putting them in "code" could just be a magical spell that causes the reader to not read the words correctly. like cast it on The Grapes of Wrath and the person then reads one Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

@BESW Why would anyone want a San point? :P

@MC_Hambone Erm...

There is a spell like that.

The problem being that every spell in 3.5 has a counter.

So it's lousy encryption.

@InbarRose yes the cleric had to leave early so he said "I'll take this and go translate it meet me at [generically named tavern] in three days"

How about this spell? illusoryScript

True seeing, dispel magic, etc.

12:59 PM

But the cleric is only using comprehend langauges.

So he won't be able to understand it.

@MC_Hambone You could always tell him that when he started examining the book he discovered that it had a boobytrap.

Comprehend languages is useless against physical codes too.

but code-breaking in D&D is not anything interesting, there is even a spell that completely removes that.

And a skill roll to overcome it mundanely as well

There was a great Question here I saw that was all about that.

Right, but it CAN be made interesting in ways which spellcasting can't, by describing the form of code used.

Hence my Battlefield Earth reference.

this is all true, my dilemma is not wanting to make anything they find completely useless, especially if it a hidden journal owned by a head of a cult. And yet I dont want them to just automatically know of the plot to resurrect Tiamat at level 5

In the novel, the Psychlos preserve the secret of teleportation through a variety of means, including impossible math.

Their math is based on the geography of their capital city, which has 13 gates, each with a unique name.

You assign numerical values to the letters, and for every mathematical equation you write, you choose a gate name.

The equation is then written so that it solves for the gate name. If you don't know that, the math is gibberish.

If you make up a code like that, they can solve it with magic or skill checks but it's still interesting because it tells them something about the setting and the people who made the code. Might be more useful than the decoded info, even.

1:10 PM

So if you guys were going to deal with this situation, which would you go for? A) The journal is written in a code that the players need to decode or B) The shadowy emissary of the man who hired the cultists shows up and steals the journal after the party translated just a little bit of it?

Depends on whether I wanted to leak a little info now, or a lot of info all at once later, or both.

Also, ummm. NEVER rest your plot on an NPC achieving his goal in direct conflict with the PCs.

Unless you DM red the encounter and say the wake up and the journal is gone.

I'd have him show up and burn it, maybe.

That's easier to do without needing him to get away.

Then let the players capture/kill him, to give them a sense of minor accomplishment and maybe clues on what to do next.

@Aaron I just I could say that the morning of the second day the cleric was going to be decoding it the journal had gone missing...

@BESW hahahaha, they killed all my other Villain's Henchmen, so why not one more? :D

@MC_Hambone That feels a bit heavy-handed. Burning it is also a bit heavy-handed, but if they manage to capture or kill the assassin, at least they get a partial feeling of accomplishment.

1:16 PM

I'm disinclined to fiat the journal away. That feels railroady.

@MC_Hambone It depends if you want to railroad them or not.

If a guy shows up to burn it and there's a fight in which he succeeds but is then defeated, there's at least the illusion that they could have stopped it.

If you burn it, they'll probably try to recover parts of it, which will allow you to give them exactly the information you want out of it.

Ooooor...

Pull a Care Bears and have the book itself be an opponent, trying to get info from the cleric.

haha

A mimic!

1:18 PM

@BESW Ooh, turn the actual decoding itself into a confrontation.

Did the cleric "open" the book yet? Or is it still entirely "unknown" ?

user image

The spell on the journal sucks the cleric into some bookspace thingie.

@InbarRose yes they opened it already

hence knowing its in Netherese

Either have the rest of the party sucked in with him, or give them some ad-hoc characters to play inside this mini-game of a sort.

(On the cleric's side, yes? I'm rarely in favor of letting player play opponents on side-quests. They tend to be too successful and leave a sour taste)

Nah, this idea is too good. Keep it for some ancient evil tome, not for a little journal. :)

1:21 PM

[bow, flourish]

@lisardggY will do :D I was going to say they already opened the journal anyway, so that would have needed to happen like 30min before the end of our last game

@MC_Hambone The spell could be triggered by someone casting Comprehend Languages on it, not directly on opening. Could be triggered on a specific page.

Nothing says it's opening the book that triggers this, anyway.

I have a great idea.

I think the assassin guy showing up in the cleric's room to steal and or destroy the book would work since it seems the most action packed option (and the group loves to fight)

1:23 PM

The book is one of those books with pages ripped out and a hole hiding something. It is hiding a <MCGUFFIN>.

@InbarRose [ears perk up]

So the opened the book at the start - and they saw just some gibberish.

But the main treasure is hiding inside the book

And it might be... a scroll... or a few letters... or something...

A ring of hive mind!

Maybe a Gem..

Rings of hive mind are great ways to have violins communicate with their benches, and if you put it on... Well, now he's in your head too.

1:24 PM

Or for a more magical variant - the book itself is a decoy, a red herring. Its material, the paper and ink, are material components to cast a spell that accesses the real journal.

so just say they opened it to the first few pages, but upon further inspection it was actually hollowed out hiding [instert random object here]

I... What? Autocorrect, what have you done?

@BESW It was delightful.

I'ma leave it.

@BESW Please do.

1:25 PM

@BESW The violin is a bard who plays a human implement!!!

i imagine a grotesque looking bagpipe

And with that, goodnight.

Nighty night.

@BESW guten nacht

and I too should probably go to sleep, got class in a few hours and havent been to bed yet :D thanks guys for all the suggestions, I certainly have a lot more to work with now. I really need to start preparing for games a little more so I dont keep backing myself into corners I need to write my way out of :D

I tend to do the same.

I once cancelled a session after about an hour because I felt I had run myself to corner and had no idea where to go.

ouch

1:30 PM

i used to write out my quest ideas like an official D&D adventure booklet, then I got bogged down in a tough semester of class work and started ad libbing stuff. It usually works out but since I am still relatively new to GMing I feel unconfortable after games when i realize that I accidentalyl backed ymself into a side quest i haven't written or worked out yet

@lisardggY this is when I ask the party "where do you go now? What do you do next? etc

perhaps they will want to inspect something or go somewhere that gives you ideas

@MC_Hambone Yeah, was rather nasty, and entirely my fault.

but I also run a player driven game so I react more to them than having them play out my adventures (of the quests I have written ahead of time they usually get through they set up and think it's interesting then solve it one of the 5 ways i havent accounted for)

my plan for my 1-30 arc was to ask all my players write back stories with attainable goals (ie my family were the protectors of a powerful artifact that was stolen when our villiage was attacked and destroyed) we would then work through all their goals from levels 1-12ish then I would work in the big story elements of the Big epic world saving plot

I just happened to turn an adlibbed mystery quest into a way to introduce the Big Epic Quest and now I want to dole out info slowly (and not just give the party a notebook that explains everything)

but yep, I'm off. Thanks again for all the great suggestions guys

G'night.

i'll let you know how it goes next week after I play out what ever i decide to do to the group XD

@MC_Hambone Good luck.

@lisardggY So... When do you have time to meet this week?

1:44 PM

@InbarRose I'm waiting for my week to get some answers about her schedule, since she has a lot of last-minute movie editing to do, then I'll know. Probably Thursday, and maybe tomorrow too.

Ok, that really made no sense, now I see that I wrote "week" instead of "wife".

lisardggY's weeks are autonomous and do things on their own

@lisardggY I was also confused.

@JonathanHobbs Fascinating.

@lisardggY Well - could you write that on Facebook so the others can plan?

Sure.

I signed up for "The Legend of Long John Silver" Fate game in the Heroes convention during Passover.

I hear you get a lot done with your time, lisardggY, though I don't understand how your delegation actually works

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