TRPG General Chat - 2015-12-30

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12:03 AM

downvoters on rpg.stackexchange.com/a/72600/23970: I think the edit greatly improves the answer. Maybe not an upvote, but possibly worth retracting a downvote.

@nitsua60 Someone who asserts that the classic fireball spell is an example of ambiguity in whether AoE spells hits allies or not, and therefore it's up to DM judgement, has earned all the downvotes.

> Maxim 5: Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart. (source)

@BESW Given their attitude in now-deleted comments, I think massive downvoting might be the friendliest relationship possible at this point.

Did any of those comments ask him to edit the answer to specifically address D&D 5e?

'cause right now it's basically Not An Answer.

(I have once again favoured sanity and hidden a wide swathe of ignored tags, so I don't see edition-specific D&D questions anymore unless someone links them in chat.)

@BESW There were comments requesting they rephrase it with wording that actually appears in the rules, and they did do that, sorta. But they shot the messenger repeatedly before making the edit, and then passive-aggressively insulted the OP's intelligence for asking the question in the first place. The tender mercies of the voting system, they have earned them. :)

12:17 AM

Alas.

@BESW Nobody mentioned the odd assertion about fireball though; so I've added that as diplomatically as I can.

Fixing that would certainly un-earn my one downvote.

12:38 AM

"Nuance and Duality" would be a good name for a band.

oh man that is a lot of downvotes

I think that is more than I have ever seen before, expect for one specific instance of a post that was removed later

which brings an interesting question to mind

if a post gets down votes and the site removes the post because it is frankly less than useless, do the downvoters get the spent rep back?

Yes.

And the downvoted does too.

ah ok

I figured as much

I just didn't know for sure

I do see no reason why that shouldn't be the case, but I could have been missing something

@BESW I wasn't even thinking of this part, but that still makes sense

@trogdor There's one exception that preserves old upvote rep earned:

> Exception: Reputation earned for posts with a score of three or higher, and where the post has been visible on the site for at least 60 days, is retained.

(source)

12:54 AM

@SevenSidedDie wait,... why would something like that be taken down?

it has positive rep and is, I would assume, considered useful by someone at least?

@trogdor It's certainly unusual. One reason I can think of would be a well-voted answer that turned out to be wrong later. We've had a few 5e answers like that, where the Word of Dev contradicted a well-received old answer, and the author chose to delete the wrong answer.

ah,...

I have deleted one of my own answers before

I think it even had at least one upvote

I don't even remember what specific reason I deleted it for but I agreed with a suggestion by BESW to add the good bit of the answer as a comment to a more complete answer

anyway, it seems like it would be an odd, uncommon, occurrence

@SevenSidedDie and any answer with a ton of upvotes probably was most likely deleted by the author because they found out it was not actually correct or some such

that makes sense to me, at least

I am curious if you mean it has happened more often with 5e or if you are just using it as an example

I know nothing about 5e myself, but I used to know a ton about 4E (i have probably either forgotten or suppressed most of that knowledge as useless seeing as I,... don't use it)

and there usually was no occasion for some kind of rule contradictions in it, though there have been weird changes like Essentials later which screwed with balance

it had it's own more or less unique problems to be sure

It might be said that no problem ever is truly unique though

1:12 AM

@trogdor For a badge!

@trogdor I don't know if it's happened a lot to 5e answers, but 5e's ripe for it because it came out in stages (PHB, MM, then DMG) and unclear parts are continually being errataed, so early questions had answers that were sometimes contradicted by later releases, errata, or developer tweets.

1:32 AM

ah

ok then,.. I guess XD

It's time for more Hatoful Boyfriend. I've been asked to livetweet my final playthrough. Mute #birdluv if you don't want to experience...it.

Tweeted by mightymur on December 30, 2015 at 1:31 AM

2:00 AM

@SevenSidedDie luckily, I couldn't tell what the heck he was saying in those comments. Didn't know if they were directed at me or not, didn't know if they were rude or friendly, &c. (And I'm perfectly happynot knowing.)

2:59 AM

@inkbotkowalski that #TheLibrarians / #AtomicRobo are the same universe is canon, at least in the Librarians universe.

Tweeted by jonrog1 on December 30, 2015 at 1:03 AM in reply to inkbotkowalski

3:11 AM

Robo 50% off w/code INDIE http://bit.ly/2015SubmitSale and 50% off @DynamiteComics w/code NEWYEAR, like my Phantom mini https://www.comixology.com/King-the-Phantom/comics-series/32967?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L2Rlc2t0b3Avc2xpZGVyTGlzdC9zZXJpZXNTbGlkZXI

Tweeted by bclevinger on December 30, 2015 at 2:49 AM in reply to bclevinger

1 hour later…

4:29 AM

@BESW Will there be a Doctor Dinosaur doctor?

Perhaps.

Robo would qualify too, if Ph.Ds in general are in.

user image

@BESW :D I'd forgotten about that line.

@BESW hee

@SevenSidedDie I would certainly be amused by it myself

@SevenSidedDie as I recall, somone had said Dr Who to him

no one even mentioned Tom Baker XD

4:34 AM

Also Doctors Who as dinosaurs.

@trogdor Source page.

yeah exactly XD

5:14 AM

A silk steamship sails across a sea of philosophy.

Tweeted by MagicRealismBot on December 30, 2015 at 5:08 AM

ok then XD

5:41 AM

If a giant robot is introduced in the first episode, it will eventually be piloted by the protagonist. We call this Chekhov's Gundam.

Tweeted by vestenet on December 28, 2015 at 11:30 PM

@BESW well that isn't true

not absolutely so at any rate

1 hour later…

7:04 AM

also, sweet picture for tweeting that with

seems appropriate as any

7:15 AM

and I also suppose it depends on your definition of "the protagonist"

sometimes that kinda has to be spread out among multiple people

7:56 AM

Duke Nukem classics are under a dollar each for the next ~27H on GOG before they disappear from there forever.

wow,... I didn't even know there were quite that many

I thought there were maybe 2 or 3

not that I even knew the names of them

YOU ARE FORCIBLY ENLIGHTENED

AAUAAAUUAAAAGGGG

@trogdor there, it is done, how was that

very silly XD

8:05 AM

how would you rate your experience out of 5 how likely are you to recommend the experience to others out of 5

uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh

BURNINATE?

thank you for registering your feedback with us. your opinion means a lot to us. a customer dissatisfaction disposal unit will arrive through your windows shortly.

who said that was dissatisfaction?

this survey is now closed and not accepting further responses. have a nice day.

BURNINATE covers a wide range of emotions and ideas

BUUUUURRRRRNINAAAAATE

8:08 AM

[customer dissatisfaction disposal unit is probably never heard from again]

quite likely, maybe it quit

or maybe it was... fired

heeeheee

maaaaaybe

(badum-tish)

I would almost say I am surprised this exists,.. but it is the Internet

there was no chance it didn't exist

9:04 AM

Today's Doctor is not played by Martin Freeman.

but may possibly be narrated by Morgan Freeman

9:28 AM

I don't think that is the case

doesn't look like Morgan Freeman to me

no but, her life may be narrated by him

ah

is that actually the case?

XD

@trogdor probably

True Facts About Morgan Freeman

lol

I have heard this before XD

2 hours later…

11:33 AM

@eimyr I just keep practicing and practicing. I guess you can learn the techniques I used. let me find you one for the mountains. (ten minutes later) I can't find it. When I get a chance I'll draw a series of mountains for you so you can understand the method :) It's really the mountains that make it.

11:44 AM

also, @eimyr, there's this cool program called inkarnate. I'm going to try it out when I get home. imgur.com/a/MfDWA#0

11:57 AM

Hello people. Who was it, telling me that a split D&D 4e party was an opportunity?

@Polyducks I can do all that, but u guess i need a set of randomized vrushes for mountains, trees etc. For GIMP

12:36 PM

@eimyr Nah. I'd assume you just copy and paste the things in. That's how I'd approach it anyway.

@Zachiel Not me - but it's a great opportunity for the DM to mess with the players. Doppelgangers, garbled messages and long range effects. Very exciting.

@Polyducks it's 4e I have no idea if the split party is enough to face the encounters - I might need to get NPCs in, for I'm playing adventures almost by the book

Tuning encounters for size is super easy in 4e.

10

A: How can I tune encounter difficulty appropriately in D&D Essentials?

The system is designed to accomodate this ...but without the DMG it's a little tricky. The science: Basically, each enemy has an XP value. This is how much XP it's worth when it's defeated (divided among those who defeat it), but it's also useful for building encounters. Here's how you build ...

14

A: How do I balance an encounter for my party?

The DMG talks about how to do this, but I've found that it needs some tweaking to be really effective. What level should an encounter be? DMG 56 says: An easy encounter is one or two levels lower than the party’s level. A standard encounter is of the party’s level, or one level higher....

@BESW yeah but I have a party of 2 and a party of 3. And a solo waiting next room

12:51 PM

Downgrade his numbers to elite status?

That's one idea.

Or let's give them an escape route hoping they regroup

That works too.

Also, especially over about level 5 or 7, solos are a lot less scary in practice than on paper.

When the party can focus all of its control and debuff power on a single target, that target tends to start whimpering and trying to leave.

Successful solo creatures are either part of a larger group (remember, a single solo of the party's level is supposed to be an average challenge for the average size party; adding elites, standards, or minions to make it a harder fight is totally cool), or designed to be able to shrug off some amount of control.

So really, two or three elites are usually much more challenging than a single solo.

1:09 PM

Good morning

1:51 PM

Good morning @Aaron :)

@doppelgreener My Skype messages are on a very long delay.

@BESW is that someone famous I should know in your profile pic?

Other than being a DR Who of course.

2:07 PM

12

A: The Winterbash Hatmas "Photo" Album (& maybe embarrassing yearbook)

TIMEY-WIMEY DOCTORS I'm putting a different Doctor in the Timey Wimey hat and scarf every day. (Sepia tones are to keep my avatar moderately recognisable despite the rapidly changing images.) Hover over a link to see the Doctor's name and franchise. Other people are doing th...

On this day, 15 years ago, I awarded XP to my players for the first time... for the act of bringing a damn pencil to the game. Youth gaming sucked.

@Tritium21 I reward OOC behavior frequently with XP. It gets the players to turn up on top and stop metagaming.

@BESW Called it! Thanks :)

I get it, sometimes you have to gamify the game... but its a role playing game. You dont bring something to write with? especially with the clear and loot style of play of my teen years

@Tritium21 I run a HS group--the other teacher who often drops in to play is the reason I now have a snack-baggie of golf pencils in my backpack. It's not just youth gamers... =D

@tritium21 Oh, I also do it to feed my massive ego and treat my players like Pavlov's dogs.

2:18 PM

Regardless of who's GMing, I always bring a handful of pencils to any game I'm in.

XP for first to the session, XP for art that's made for the game... not everyone can kill monsters but they still bring something to the game.

To be honest most of it is just fluff. 'The game where the points don't matter'.

there is a reason my gaming backpack has one entire pouch full of writing instruments.

...I haven't used XP-as-progress-bar systems for quite some time.

back in my day we drove our car right to the room, backed it right up next to it, to the window if we needed to, with a ladder if necessary, with a whole boot full of pencils

And you walked 15 miles up hill both ways in the snow in july

2:25 PM

@doppelgreener A car!? Back in my day, we'd be lucky to have a cart!

No, back in my day, we'd have to go down to the mines and hack the lead out of the living rock for our pencils - then march up the hill to gather the wood to wrap it in.

...I'm glad you guys are here. I've been really lonely since moving house and you're a nice safe crowd to chat with every now and again.

@Polyducks [hug]

(too soon?)

@nitsua60 <3

back in my day, we'd have to go right down to the mines, chip the lead out of the rock with other rocks, scavenge a few good chunks of lead out of the debris, wrap them in the bandages we ought to be using on our hands at that point, and then head straight to the session with those and make do without any kind of wood wrapping.

Rocks!? Rocks he says! We had to use our teeth to chisel what meagre dust we could from the rocks, then sit on it until it melted into enough lead for a single stat point - then do it again until we had a full character sheet! AND THEN the DM would ask us to rewrite it! With no erasers, mind!

2:44 PM

Character sheets! We didn't have any of those! We'd have clay tablets, and we'd have to score all the lines, and carve in all the details, before anything set! And then we'd have to bake them in the ovens to get them to dry! And then if there was a mistake in them, or something wasn't in the permitted rulebooks, or if your cleric cheesed a bit too hard, they'd smash the tablet right over your head!

2

Joshua Aslan Smith

herro

Hi!

(we are elaborately referencing Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen, for the uninitiated)

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh I picked up on it

I think your clay tablets bit is quite good

especially if your cleric cheesed a bit

Clay tablets! What a luxury - Lah-di-dah! We had to weave our own character sheets from live stinging nettles - and what with us losing most of our fingers in the mines we had to manipulate them with nothing but our eyelids! If the DM didn't like it, or you didn't write in the correct font (PT Sans which wouldn't be invented for another twenty three years) you'd have to wear your character sheet for a year and a day. And we were grateful for the warmth!

Fonts! You were lucky to have those! We had to fill ours in with pictures! Do you have any idea how hard it is carving in just the right kind of armor with your teeth? And dealing with hitpoints after a baked tablet! If you didn't do the pictures right, or they couldn't figure out what the pictures were, the GM would go and boot you off a ledge and that was that.

3:01 PM

DM! 'ark at 'im going on! DM... Let me tell you, in my day, we were lucky to have anyone to play with. Why, for my first seventeen levels, I did nothing but farm the same goblin on a piece of nettle-woven paper for eight years! Oh, the agony was alright, it was the great searing xp-blisters that were the real worry. Clay tablets! DMs! Huh!

@eimyr I'm thinking of crashing a flying city into the grasslands in our campaign tonight to add a bit of depth and unusual happening to the campaign. Just shake things up a little. They're feeling all a bit too smug in their wish-begotten fort.

Perhaps even introduce some adventurers who crashed the flying city. That'll get them on their toes with a bit of competition. What they need is rivals.

Joshua Aslan Smith

rivals are good

Yeah, I'm thinking they need some sort of measuring stick to compare against. Someone with great deeds from a rival guild, moving in on their guild business.

@Polyducks Right! Our DM was a big rotting tree, and we'd have to tell what it wanted by where the sticks and bark fell, and we'd have to keep our character sheets all in working order and up to date every session, and if the oven-burns didn't get you and you kept all your teeth, about by the time you were due for level ten the tree would fall over and kill us all.

2

3:26 PM

omg hahaha

@doppelgreener I tell you, kids today just don't appreciate how easy they've got it.

@Polyducks I'll say, no, no they wouldn't!

How is everyone? Got any DM plans?

I am in the process of building one of my most complex characters for a dnd game I have made

Well pathfinder

Most people recognize dnd more than pathfinder when I talk to them I forget I don't have to worry about that here XD

3:42 PM

@Aaron Nice! What makes it so complicated?

We are using some modified Gestalt rules

The setting is similar to Log Horizon/Sword art online

Each "Player" had two characters they could switch between. Our characters got screwed up when we were pulled into the world and we have access to all class abilities.

The modified part is our races were also smashed together.

So I am using the Grendel Race and Alicorn with an Aerial template fluffed as being the Aellar race.

Jesus Christ. How on earth do you guys manage to track all this race complication!

I loved the comedy dubs of sword art online. In a way it was better than the original. I've not seen Log Horizon. Is it similar?

Somewhat yes only they get pulled into the game for real. Like it is a real world not a game anymore.

It's pretty good. I heard the second season was pretty bad though which made me sad

5 hours later…

Joshua Aslan Smith

8:40 PM

@Polyducks I will eventually be running an Edge of the Empire campaign, I ran the starter set and it went great and I like the system and with the film coming out...

user image

lol

Joshua Aslan Smith

@trogdor its one of my fave rando images on the internet I have ever found

as a lover of both cats and skeletor

he actually used to ride a panther right?

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah a black panther

or at least he had one

yeah that is why I laughed, I remembered something hilarious

I saw some bits of that show, not a lot, but definitely enough

Joshua Aslan Smith

8:50 PM

Ive maybe seen like one episode back when cartoon network used to show old hanna barabara cartoons en masse during the daytime hours when i was home sick as a kid

it is a pretty dang old show

Joshua Aslan Smith

9:03 PM

well theres this bar on the 2nd floor of a music venue that does a really out there karaoke night in philadelphia and the guy who hosts it dresses as skeletor

so I would know it for that even if I did not see the show

well I mention that because I am actually surprised myself that I remember he had a panther, I would not think the low amount of the show I had seen would let me remember that

the show itself,.... it's hard not to at least know it exists when it pops up on the internet randomly sometimes XD

especially Skeletor himself, because he is hilarious

I thought what little I saw of him was hilarious at any rate

it's hard to take the guy seriously with the rather silly voice he has, poor guy XD

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh toats

9:43 PM

OH NO I BOUGHT TICKETS TO HATOFUL EIGHT INSTEAD AND THE THEATER IS SWARMING WITH AMOROUS TSUNDERE PIGEONS

Tweeted by Wikiparaz on December 30, 2015 at 6:55 AM in reply to Wikiparaz

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