Gut response - "Dont read published materials during a session"

@Shalvenay the whole idea of the macguffin is suspension of... well, reason. You need it and it's a game axiom.

Breaking game axioms leads to the game being rated on the Henderson scale.

@eimyr ...yeah...suspension of reason is something that is simply not axiomatic for me.

@eimyr Henderson scale?

It's not suspension of reasoning - just suspension of reason why you need to do a certain thing a certain way

it's not to stop you from being logical, just accepting the axiom this one time

@eimyr hrm...

e.g. why does Batman need to blame himself for Joker's murders?

He doesn't.

It's a plot device to set up the next movie.

There is no logic implied, you are supposed to accept it at face value.

Also, Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment

@Zachiel I played TW2 enough times to say this: out of all three skill trees, Alchemy is the one that requires greatest player effort and careful combat.

That's because it rewards planning ahead (with appropriate potions), keeping stocks of consumables (oils and bombs on hand) and penalizes going into combat without protection (it focuses on raw +stats and there's little convenience skills)

On the other hand, Swordsmanship tree offers great survivability, ability to prevent ripostes, tremendous offensive power and most importantly, ability to engage multiple opponents effectively

same with magic, that emphasizes your portfolio of situational powers, while giving you magical protection. You will have less power in melee, but many ways to disengage, which is again safest

Alchemy gives you the greatest one-on-one power and the survivability boost, but that comes later on, where you can set yourself up with greater mutagens and stack potions with reckless abandon

@Shalvenay unfortunately Henderson Scale was invented by 4chan, /tg/ department, but it's one of their most benign and reasonable ideas

@eimyr Hey, I had a 1.5 Henderson once

Bonus points to whoever wrote the scale for mentioning The Scratch, even if that's a bit spoilery.

I didn't get it.

Is it about Undertale again?

No, it's about Homestuck. Which is maybe worse?

Nah, I rarely see this stuff in chat.

Undertale seems to be all over the place lately.

Even I fell prey to it - people mistook my Cthulhu for Flowey.

@Polyducks Hi! How's it going?

@eimyr Hey dude! Just hosting a game of DnD on roll20 now. The rival idea worked a treat. Now the players are more motivated than ever.

cool

is there a spectate option on your game, @Polyducks?

Ah, I don't think there is one on roll20. That would be pretty cool.

yeah

I need to learn how to use it.

For science.

Roll20 is fully usable inside google hangouts, which you can stream... or you could join the game as a player (free >.>), but RPGs are not a spectator sport

I've never used Google Hangouts. How does it work with roll20?

I thought Hangouts is a bit like Skype

roll20 is actually far closer to hangouts than skype. It started as a plugin to hangouts... and then had to re-implement most of hangouts to make the site standalone. the experiences is pretty much the same between the two with the exception that roll20 only has rpg related extensions, and roll20 actually works

eeeerm

again, I don't know what hangouts do

how is it different to skype (hangouts, not roll20)

@eimyr hangouts are a feature of google+. It's more light than skype

At least last time I checked it was

Ah, that's annoying.

Can someone with reputation take a look at this? It seems even the reply to the question was arsey.

Huh.

I like this roll20

@eimyr do you know who the person with the question above could go to? It seems like the question was arbitarily closed.

No idea.

But it was put on hold by SSD, he usually has reasonable reasons.

I wonder if someone with gurps experience would know what the question is about

aaaand it seems the top dude in GURPS tag is [drumroll] SevenSidedDie

:/

I mean, it's been answered, so it obviously meant something to someone

Sometimes bad questions can be answered. It's whether the community wants these.

I think that what is missing from this question is statement of intention. And that answerer, Dronz, in his answer tried to figure this out

I just didn't like the explicit end-run around [on hold]

I get that they didn't want to lose all that work, but a copy-and-paste to a local text file would solve that problem.

I think they're just frustrated with the system of stack exchange

When I was at their rep I was equally frustrated with stackexchange. I was trying to use a screwdriver as a hammer and wondered why it's not working.

Not to say that their input is unwelcome or invalid. I'm just saying that I remember how I saw things and my outlook changed since then.

A good answer rarely salvages a bad question: just because someone guessed right doesn't mean it's okay.

In this case, they haven't said what their problem is--only implied it--and left out some useful details.

@BESW the other way around I think you meant.

@BESW you say this, deflating all motivation I had for the quiz I'm currently writing =\

Yes thanks.

(well, that made more sense as a response before the edit... but it still works--just pointed at me now!)

@nitsua60 Yeah. Notice that they haven't even finished the answer yet before they come asking for a re-open.

Notice not taken--I couldn't possibly justify reading that much about a system I've never played nor seen. =)

and hey there @nitsua60 -- how're things going?

@BESW which one of you is it? and what are you having for dinner?

This is the one who's 15 minutes late for a job.

(it's 730AM.)

@Shalvenay well, I was writing a quiz until one of B, E, S, or W pointed out the futility of it all =)

I always thought you work from home.

Usually, but I also do teaching work, erratically.

@nitsua60 heh. would now be a good time to pick up our worldbuilding questions in Genesis? (I lagged badly and missed your replies until you had left as a result)

@Shalvenay but I've crossed 3 of 6 things off my list today. At the risk of resurrecting the discussion of 1 hours ago, "that's not half-bad!"

do you teach social sciences or design?

I had trouble parsing that question on a lexical ... natural language basis, let alone a gaming basis

Today, it's MS Word.

oh.

Not glamorous, but I'm good at it.

@Shalvenay be right there

@BESW erotic teaching work?

@eimyr haha oh man. So my group have met this rival party called Red Brand and I'm doing all I can to make them hate them.

@eimyr Just now they showed up to a quest briefing and they were there too. One of the players started a fight with a rival member of the group and things got really heated.

Well done

What is the rival party's purpose, @Polyducks? Is it just to raise the stakes or do they have some additional role?\

@eimyr They're there as antagonists - something to make the party want to do heroic deeds. Otherwise they'd happily spend all the game counting coins in their fort

The rival guild has challenged them to a dare-off. The most daring guild wins

so they're looking for ways to prove themselves

Oh, the fort.

What is the reverse of the fort...

hmmmm

A palace?

What if these Red Brand guys bought/build themselves a nice palace without resorting to Wishes and the like?

Wouldn't that make the players a bit peeved?

and they would be like "Oh, yeah, we have a palace, no, no smithies or alchemy labs, our servants take care of that"

"Would you like to join us for light refreshments in our spa wing?"

"Oh, no, that's the servants' bathroom! Silly you, did you not notice there are no golden taps?"

haha That might be going too far - but a little barracks would be more fitting. These guys are big, burly and mean with tribal tattoos and withering looks.

hahaha that's amazing though.

Especially the taps

I might have to include that elsewhere

Then how about a pleasure barge?

They would sail up and down the river in their downtime, with an entourage of wealthy friends, getting massaged by elvish beauties and waving at the peasants in their stony dwellings on the riverbanks.

It's all about subverting that "we have an awesome fort!" feeling with "we could have had a seaside resort like those guys..."

I would love to have these brutish, dirty barbarians up the PCs in terms of refined taste and choice of leisure.

"Of course we spend our loot to get rest and some luxury. What, you think we like going to dungeons?"

It's a situation like the one in John Wick's book, when he bought some apples on a market day and everyone just stared at him amazed, because no one ever bought anything but better equipment.

@eimyr LOL. at least John Wick didn't head to Jita 4-4...(although you probably wouldn't get nearly as many funny looks for buying apples there, it'd probably be far more bewildering than your average market day, just from the sheer volume and scale of transactions. you buy two apples, the guy next to you puts in a massive spot order for several thousand m3 of apples, and the gal behind you drops a contract for ten crates of apples a day for the year)

@eimyr Nah, these guys are super-jerks. Prideful in their skull-beer-drinking

oh wow

NSFW incoming! WARNING!

oglaf.com/skulls

D:

YEssssss

Oglaf+10

I knew what it was before you linked it haha

Recent ones are not as good, but I cried my eyes out with oglaf.

So funny

Yes, I too produced copious amounts of liquid that required kleenex.

Oh, Hi @Pixie!

Im thinking of homebrewing a system together, and I am probably going to be stealing from FFG star wars in one aspect... in star wars you roll pools of dice based on your abilities and skills. instead of adding more dice for the skill points you have, though, you upgrade your ability dice to better dice

The party is about to hike into mountains. BRB.

@eimyr [arises from the shadows]

lol

We're just discussing Polyducks' bodily fluids. What's up?

it is too late, you have summoned the creature!!! AAAAHHH

XD

@eimyr I wonder which ones,... except I don't really want to know XD

@eimyr ... so many pun opportunities, but I must behave myself here. SIGH.

Just been cooking myself.

@Pixie I am not sure the rest of us really, "behave ourselves" entirely

Wow, how's it going?

I suppose it depends on the definition

Must be darn painful.

Realized I was having a very serious debate with myself over which quesadilla was more perfect so I could give that one to my sister. Weighing their pros and cons.

@trogdor Well, I certainly don't.

@Pixie Charitable.

@eimyr yeah I make too many jokes here

I am not doing the utmost to behave myself XD

@trogdor Are we trying to best each other? Fine. I keep convincing newcomers that Derpy is a bot.

though to be fair I certainly try not to offend anyone with it

@eimyr I was not considering it a contest, no

@trogdor shame

@Pixie [evil, booming voice] useless little creature, it is the opposite that we do. The opposite!

I am behaving myself better than that

as BESW once said, I am just the peanut gallery,... sometimes anyway

sometimes I contribute more than that XD

While I am just Charlie Brown.

what

a peanut gallery?

Charlie Brown?

what are we, memes?

He said he's the whole peanuts gallery.

@eimyr he is the main characer in a comic called the peanuts

lol

hey, I was just quoting something said about me

wasn't my original idea

oh

I was unfamiliar with the name, but I recognise the comic

mm

I did not say "Chorlie Brown"

I can only assume you are very PEGI 3

But that's yet another obscure reference

I now assume that name is a word pun on something horrible I wasn't aware of. Let me check the meanings.

No it looks like not

Nope, no reference there.

no double entendre, but yes, Chorlie Brown was a reference. or "this is what the refrance", to be true to the source.

But, since it's obscure and since I don't really want to spoiler anything to Gareth if he passes by, I won't say much mure about this apart from this being from an in-universe, intentionally bad comic from Homestuck.

@Zachiel So, did you see what I wrote on TW2 a bit back?

I hope I'm not spoiling the game for you.

@Zachiel Oh, sorry for the confusion. I mean no reference to something terrible. I know what it's from.

@eimyr I think I saw that, my fault for not checking my progress and equipment yet.

hey, I'm not running a gulag here, you do it in your own pace

I'm just opening TW2 myself (still not played TW3, must...have...ideal...save)

@eimyr Actually, quitting TVTropes to do that could save me from doing absolutely nothing productive tonight.

oh man, are you sucked int TVTopes neverending link black hole?

@eimyr oh my god this was so funny

I put a dead body on the mountain trail and everyone freaked out

the bard rolled his bardic knowledge and I told him a scary story about an undead that latches onto you and sucks out your organs

and then everyone was freaking out and edging closer

and the trees were whispering

and it's literally just a dead guy sitting there on a tree stump

and the assasin decides to assasinate it from behind with a silver dagger

from the game:

(They rolled a perfect 1 for the attempt)

Pff. Checkov's gun, etc. The D&D/PF version of that is often along the lines of "if it's there, it will try to kill me."

@Pixie I think you mean 'the Gazebo'

also 'red herring'

lol

tabletop RPG's are strange things

@eimyr I'm out! I'm out!

@Polyducks Nope. You're employing a red herring, but they expected Checkhov's gun.

Basically, if something is given attention during play, players tend to expect that it's important. "Important" in D&D/PF is very often "wants to kill me" and so this is the direction they will tend to go in. :P

Haha, I'm hunting harpies in tw2

(I'm reminded of an incident in a solo game @Shalvenay ran for me, actually. I was deathly afraid of a completely harmless elevator. :P)

Hmm

Does anyone have free room in a roll 20 game?

@eimyr how come?

I can have you pop into my one-shot 3.5e dungeon briefly (it's the same one that @Pixie mentioned) if that'd suffice for showing you the ropes...

That to but it's for playing more than learning roll20

@eimyr ah. my regular Sunday night 3.5e group is starting back up for the new year in oh ~20. (we play on roll20, with Skype for voice) -- although we aren't the most socially integrated bunch of players, either. one of our guys can get rather hard on himself when the dice aren't in his favor, and we also have a DM-and-a-half phenomenon going on between our DM and the other player there :P

I see. What time is it in UTC?

@eimyr about 0000, although we sometimes get a later start at 0100 or even 0200 depending on schedules. we play until oh, 0500

Oh. Thanks for the invitation, but I don't think I could make it

@eimyr ah. I could do a full runthough of my 3.5e dungeon some other time if that'd help you...

That would be very nice.

For what level is it designed?

@eimyr somewhere in the 5-10 range

at least for a solo artist

tends to favor utility mages and to some extent roguish types