TRPG General Chat

@trogdor Those versions were already there and they're actually pretty good. The earlier versions are utter trash that have a very negative effect on the entire internet. I will dance at their pyre.

trogdor

ah so 11 already existed?

I wouldn't know because,... I will have nothing to do with IE for forever thank you

doppelgreener

Yes. And it's been succeeded by Edge.

trogdor

XD

Pixie

I just can't wait for Vivaldi to be a bit sturdier. It is the answer to my post-Opera prayers. xD

trogdor

maybe I should try it out when it is finished up

Pixie

12:14 AM

I've had some issues changing tabs. I should try it again and see if they took care of that.

doppelgreener

12:26 AM

Psychonauts 2 Kickstarter has reached its $3.3m goal

trogdor

I am one part excited and one part "I will never give Tim Shafer money"

2

I am actually kinda surprised enough people did

I mean, yeah I loved Psychonauts,... but the last few projects he has been a part of have had the most horrible money management practices

some of them have even been good games still,... but then those ones usually took a lot longer to make than initially projected, and had issues like being broken into halves where the second half seemed rushed and not as high quality

and unfinished stuff like Space Base DF 9

trogdor

12:54 AM

@Pixie I have not had that issue, but maybe part of it is that I don't open enough tabs for it to start happening

Pixie

1:15 AM

@trogdor I mean with Vivaldi, not Chrome, sorry.

trogdor

oh

I thought you meant Firefox

XD

Pixie

Ohh. xD

trogdor

I have not tried Vivaldi so I would know nothing of this

doppelgreener

doppelgreener

1:37 AM

po34 t 43qt jq tj b3wi-tjjtj4tjb w sniff ;kb rlrkgjh :-) rjgeij wwwww ffjfjfjg bspiogj posekrj https://t.co/WhO4H3atBX

Tweeted by GoogleUK on January 6, 2016 at 11:28 AM in reply to GoogleUK

Well that didn't go to plan. Normal service will be resumed as we tidy up. Enjoy the rest of your #WoofWoofWednesday everyone.

Tweeted by GoogleUK on January 6, 2016 at 11:54 AM in reply to GoogleUK

nitsua60

1:54 AM

[wave]

trogdor

hello

doppelgreener

Hi!

nitsua60

sorry--premature wave. got to work out first. [this is so awkward...]

doppelgreener

[makes it even more awkward for nitsua60, somehow]

nitsua60

2:28 AM

got time for a quick hex-question? (more on-topic than my seedlings from last night...)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 sure thing

nitsua60

I can locate a hex on a map by co-ordinates, though the axes will sit at 60-deg rather than perpendicularly. Is there a common practice for how to orient those (i,j) axes?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 are you assuming the map is a tiling of regular hexagons?

nitsua60

yeah, sorry--making a hex-map of a region, want to tag keyed locations with coordinates, not sure if there's a convention out there I don't know about.

Shalvenay

2:45 AM

@nitsua60 I'm suspecting that for a tesselation of regular hexagons, the (i,j) system needs to be at a 45deg angle to the (x,y) system

assuming that the (i,j) system has integer coordinates set at the centers of the hexagons

nitsua60

I imagine one of i,j aligning with either vertical or horizontal, the other at a 60-deg from the first. Eh, I'll just jot some don and see what comes of it. Conversions after-the-fact will be easy enough if I need to do them. (MATLAB's array operations are your friend!)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 try working through the geometry yourself :)

Adeptus

Old D&D hexmaps just have x,y. I don't quite understand how the coordinates work, though...

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 Google "coordinate systems for hex grids" and consider asking gamedev.se

And bear in mind that game development doesn't have rigid standards or canon books yet, most people are having to assemble any relevant knowledge from many sources

Shalvenay

keekerdc.com/2011/03/…

Adeptus

2:52 AM

@nitsua60 redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/#coordinates

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- trying to put together something for tomorrow night? :)

doppelgreener

Most of game development is done from trying to learn from a lot of people who've gone down the same path before, and just trying to kinda learn the best of each world. Like, even in coordinate systems, the only thing people really agree on is that positive X should point to the right.

And in a 2D game, positive Y should usually point upward, but there are scenarios in which you'd have it point downward too.

For hexes? Multiple different schemes with their advantages and disadvantages. Some of those will make certain schemes better for certain activities, others better for others. Some schemes will just be outright more preferable! But it's gonna be a bunch of fuzzy stuff.

Myself I'd just make sure I pick any coordinate system which doesn't involve the axes wobbling back and forward. They should still be straight lines.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener yeah, following the links I was one like that and became... befuddled? I guess the trig's just too much sometimes =(

@Shalvenay yes, but this isn't related to that

Shalvenay

3:07 AM

@nitsua60 ah

is wrestling with CUPS and hplip atm

nitsua60

@Shalvenay for tomorrow, okay if Teovanth is still riding along?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 haha, sure :D

nitsua60

@Shalvenay in fact, can we head to the back room for a minute and get three quick back-and-forths in on elapsed time?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 sure thing

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 feeling befuddled while researching topics is normal. mathematics is befuddling. it befuddles professional mathematicians. expect it and roll with it.

nitsua60

3:13 AM

the math doesn't befuddle me--it's the idea that one would choose a non-monotonic axis....

In all the crystal structures--2D and 3D, solid and liquid--we studied in grad school, that idea never even flitted across our minds.

nitsua60

3:33 AM

@doppelgreener [hmm... looking back, that ^^ reads a little-bit snotty. Sorry.]

night, all

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 not snotty, just sounds like the remarks people usually have about mathematical topics (not understanding them easily; that's the point, you're learning something new)

Magician

4:52 AM

We've had our first Sunless Sea Fate game this week. The adventure was concluded by one of the characters spending a fate point to declare that he's an Unorthodox Renowned Surgeon, of course he has a well-preserved heart lying around.

trogdor

I imagine this only happened later in the session

Magician

Oh, yeah, they used it to resolve the issue at hand, namely a terminal lack of heart in a boy they picked up.

trogdor

ah

Magician

All of a sudden, Rapport was the most useful skill ever. Shocking!

Magician

5:11 AM

So now the boy has joined the ship's crew, as was his dream. And I just figured out his aspect: Heart in the Wrong Place.

doppelgreener

6:29 AM

@Magician Oh wow XD

(i like that this can mean three things at least, if the surgery was... rather creative... and if his real heart is still around somewhere)

Magician

@doppelgreener His heart is somewhere. There's a reason his family all together have an aspect called Home is Where the Heart Is.

doppelgreener

Well at least they were kind enough to fix the more pressing concerns of his heart being missing.

trogdor

how did he survive without one?

doppelgreener

This is also a question on my mind.

(I imagine the answer might also be "very, very briefly")

trogdor

that could very well be true

doppelgreener

7:15 AM

our photo album just reached 1,000 views! :D

trogdor

yay!

lol, I don't any of my questions will reach that popularity

doppelgreener

That honourable mention BESW got is probably responsible for the sudden boost. It was just a few hundred before.

trogdor

ah

regardless, that seems like a pretty big thing to only be represented by a bronze

BESW

I'm helping!

doppelgreener

@BESW \o/

@trogdor i think it's a little biased because of SO, haha

trogdor

7:43 AM

SO?

Stack Overflow?

I guess that one is basically bigger than all the others

it would be nice if they all actually had badges that were based off of individual populations, but I understand that would be a lot of front-loaded work, and then would include needing to change it sometimes

our mods don't need that XD

Derpy

10:07 AM

@trogdor It would be nicer if there was a way to do something similar for privileges.

trogdor

like, needing less rep for them?

or just customizing them for the site?

Derpy

The idea was to make the ranges fit the site population. But again, they would need some fixing as the site community grows or shrinks.

trogdor

ah

that is why I assumed it would mean we would get more per the rep we have

because we have tons fewer people here than on SO

that being said, it does indeed have the same issues

doppelgreener

@trogdor yeah, every number there is potentially a lot bigger. (except for most questions, which get jack-squat votes, views, or interest.)

trogdor

it would need to keep changing over time

@doppelgreener I am surprised they have such huge numbers there in that case

I thought the questions and the interest they had were a huge part of each Stack

I guess SO subsists more off of it's chat room(s) than it's questions?

doppelgreener

10:12 AM

i don't entirely follow but i am surprisingly sleepy & tired all of a sudden

what i mean is, the biggest view counts, the biggest reps, the biggest scores, everything just gets bigger

trogdor

oh

doppelgreener

we don't have scores ranking in the thousands and people with several hundred thousand rep points but stack overflow does

trogdor

then,... how does that happen if no one upvotes questions?

that is what is confusing me right now

doppelgreener

and what i mean about most questions is: they get several hundred questions a minute over there. most of them are extremely specific, uninteresting, barely penetrable, and often inane.

trogdor

oh

doppelgreener

10:14 AM

so those questions might see like... 1 or 2 votes each, if they're lucky, maybe a good answer will actually reach a score of 2

trogdor

but there are still so many of them, and so many people to vote, that it gets big anyway

not each individual question or answer, but each person's rep and such as long as they keep posting

doppelgreener

yes. maybe 1 of those hundreds of questions per minute will be somewhat interesting, and 1 or 2 every few days will become one of those answers everyone sees in google regularly and starts getting votes, and on rare occasions one will be impressive enough to hit HNQ and just explode:

13213

Q: Why is processing a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?

Here is a piece of C++ code that seems very peculiar. For some strange reason, sorting the data miraculously makes the code almost six times faster. #include <algorithm> #include <ctime> #include <iostream> int main() { // Generate data const unsigned arraySize = 32768; int data[arr...

Derpy

@doppelgreener actually, I sadly see that low but still positive scores on SO usually are caused more by "the question that shalt not be asked" problems than actually "the question is not interesting"

doppelgreener

that there in the top left is a score.

@Derpy i do not understand what distinction you're drawing there

trogdor

@doppelgreener wow that is ridiculous

I have never even seen a post here that reached 200 votes

well, upvotes anyway, I can't see how many downvotes anything gets because my rep isn't that high

doppelgreener

10:18 AM

@trogdor it is a fascinating question, even casual readers can understand it, it's broadly relevant, and you learn a lot from it. one in a million questions on SO are like that. a huge number of our questions are like that.

trogdor

well, but ours get like, 100 some points max

and those are the really big ones

or at least from all I have seen

just because, I assume, we don't have as many people here in RPGSE

doppelgreener

@trogdor we have exactly one question over 200 points here and one answer over 200

Derpy

@doppelgreener I am saying that low positive scores usually are more an indication of "no one knows" than "no one cares".

doppelgreener

@Derpy oh right. yeah i guess so.

just that, i know i get nothing out of actually reading something on stack overflow, unless i got there via google searches or HNQ.

i have literally 0 reason to be active there otherwise, unless i'm asking something.

trogdor

@doppelgreener well there you go

@doppelgreener nothing we have is over 200 some then, and yet that post up there is in over ten thousand XD

Derpy

10:22 AM

@doppelgreener amateurs: sharepoint.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer

we don't even reach 100.

you should really try to vote less guys :P

trogdor

well, I have seen a certain trend of answers not getting accepted here all the time

I think it is mostly due to people new to the site, but it still happens regardless

Derpy

your scores:

our scores:

you have one third of the view badges...

and about 20 times the vote ones

trogdor

huh

interesting

I wonder why the heck people would do so much looking and so little voting

or the other way around even

Derpy

Well, SharePoint is the "dark beast" of Microsoft.

Lots of bugs. Little documentation. Every company uses it and no one is using it for what it was meant for.

Basically, companies invest a lot of $ into SharePoint, and to justify that, they are using it for "everything" like it was just a "Tomcat" replacement.

Result: you know the old experiment with the monkeys, the cask of bananas and the cold water?

trogdor

I have never heard of that

doppelgreener

10:35 AM

what was it meant for?

Derpy

For once, Skeptics may serve a purpose

248

Q: Was the experiment with five monkeys, a ladder, a banana and a water spray conducted?

I've found the following picture online. It is about the moral/paradigm behind consistent behavior. Click to enlarge. The image text says A group of scientists placed 5 monkeys in a cage and in the middle, a ladder with bananas on the top. Every time a monkey went up the ladder, the...

psychology behavior memory morality

trogdor

oh,... I think I may have heard of this before

possibly someone linked this a long time ago

doppelgreener

@Derpy my company uses sharepoint, but i am actually feeling grateful i'v enever trained myself in it

the other thing they use is dynamics CRM, which i fear might have me meet a similar fate

Derpy

10:51 AM

@doppelgreener As I probably already told you folks, even if some assume "SP Archaeologist" stands for "Super Pony" or something similar, the SP is a joke on the naming convention SharePoint classes use. The "Archaeologist" is because working on SharePoint sometimes feels like attempting to decode ancient hieroglyphics or similar stuff.

doppelgreener

what's it for though?

Derpy

?

doppelgreener

@Derpy you said nobody was using Sharepoint for what it was meant for. what is sharepoint meant for?

(does nobody know? is this also part of the reason why you are an archeologist, trying to discover ancient lost meanings behind what's left behind?)

Derpy

@doppelgreener AHHHH, sorry, that's what you meant. Well, SharePoint at its core is an information sharing portal (with much more). The problem is that most of the times companies want to migrate to SP legacy applications that were built on separate subsystem that would probably benefit to stay separate.

One thing is using SharePoint to provide access to other applications, or at least to host encapsulated applications built on an SharePoint App model.

But most of the time customers are using full fledged site collection as host for pages that access external data, with external authentication, css and styling that are against the SP styles, ribbon overrides and such.

At this point, they would benefit a lot it they just used IIS and regular MVC web apps outside of the SharePoint infrastructure, but they think they still can benefit of begin inside SharePoint somehow.

Most of the times... they don't

As a quick example...

Probably SharePoint lists aren't exactly the smartest way to try to manage your warehouse stocks.

doppelgreener

11:06 AM

@Derpy but MVC won't natively offer a sort of weird CMS!

Derpy

@doppelgreener That's why you should use SharePoint for the CMS related stuff and other technologies for the rest. :P

BESW

11:22 AM

@Joninean Micro RPG Catalog

Where many of those games fail is that they are simply a resolution mechanic, without any inbuilt sense of theme or progress.

RFS doesn't really have themes, but it has a beautifully elegant progress gimmick that rewards failure and creativity.

Cthulhu Dark has both theme and progress (although "progress" is a poor term when it involves an inevitable descent into madness).

Lasers & Feelings doesn't really do progress, but it's thematically tight as a drum.

Ahriman

Radio Frequency Systems?

BESW

roll-for-shoes

Ahriman

Interesting XP mechanic

BESW

11:38 AM

Yeah.

"XP for failure" is by no means unheard-of in RPGs, but RFS implements the use of XP in a very elegant way.

Aaron

1:09 PM

Morning

eimyr

5:33 PM

0

Q: How Many Candles in a Barrel?

There are any number of times when a mundane item provides an unclear description of its physical proportions; items weighing - (which in 3.5 was called out as 1/10th of a pound) are a prime example. Other times weights are calculated for you, but the dimensions of containers are often described ...

gm-techniques system-agnostic

This question.

Dear god.

I want to at the same time close it to hell and answer it very seriously.

E.g. IMO it's on one hand opinion-based, on the other hand I feel the urge to challenge the frame and answer "if it's important for the narrative, as many or as little as it's necessary for the plot, if it's unimportant, a random "unfair" guesstimate will do"

@trogdor as a person of little knowledge of videogame celebrities, why wouldn't you want to give money to Tim Schafer?

@Emrakul should I answer hoping to turn the question around or resist the urge seeing it has 4 vtc's already?

nitsua60

@eimyr the problem is it's too hard to pick a close reason....

(I'm sitting with the VtC dialog open, paralyzed)

eimyr

It's clear what he wants, at least to me.

I picked "opinion based"

but at the same time, I feel the querent would really benefit from sound advice re: rulings, simulationism, game flow and overutilizing mechanics

nitsua60

Personally, I think the best answer's: "make it your player's responsibility." If you have a player who wants to play that level of simulationism, but you don't, make it their responsibility.

@eimyr right, we all actually want to provide answers....

eimyr

Maybe we should ask questions that the asker should have asked and answer them and link in a comment?

I see a type "I want to do this really silly thing, can you explain how to do that?" question, that begs a frame challenge, but at the same time a constructive challenge would be so far removed from the original, it's not even related.

nitsua60

5:53 PM

@eimyr what do you think of that comment?

MadMAxJr

7:14 PM

3

RobertF

7:28 PM

@MadMAxJr :)

@MadMAxJr You know I wonder if a high Charisma score could be used to persuade a band of Orcs to turn on their chief or join the PC's party?

MadMAxJr

Depends on the ruleset you're using and the DM you're playing with.

Zachiel

8:51 PM

The dreaded moment has come

@MadMAxJr (the fun thing is I didn't post that here because I was sure I saw it here first)

the moment where I think it would have been better if I played a barbarian, rather than a cleric, in D&D 3.5e, because the barbarian has more Str (even after shapechange) and thus deals more damage in a charge.

while not being useless in antimagic

trogdor

9:42 PM

@eimyr he has shown in the last couple of years that he is horrible at managing it

his company has made several games that they either didn't finish at all or took way longer than projected and still dropped in quality, things like that

and all of it has been pretty well traced back to lack of money management

there are basically no big investors left who trust him or Double Fine, so he decided to kickstart Psychonauts 2 and many people, but not enough apparently, have decided not to fund him

I say not enough because apparently he reached his goal anyway

which I am on the fence about because that could mean he actually makes Psychonauts 2, or it could mean he takes this money and runs with it, or mismanages it yet again and Psychonauts 2 dies a second time

just to be crystal clear, I would love it if Pyschonauts came out and reached all the expectations I could possibly have for the sequel to an awesome game,.... but I didn't, nor would I ever, give any money for it because he doesn't have a game to sell yet

he just has a promise, and he has been lax in fulfillment of his promises before

all that being said, if the game actually comes out and isn't a complete mess or something, I will probably buy it

but I will not cross the line of giving him a cent until he actually does make the freaking game

eimyr

10:00 PM

I see.

I find myself not really interested in both crowdfunding as well as specific people.

trogdor

I am torn between being upset that so many people decided to possibly throw their money away and being slightly hopeful that he won't just throw the money away this time

but hey, neither the money, nor the mistake, was mine

so I am not too beat up over it

eimyr

I am quite opinionated about certain developers and publishers (e.g. Gearbox are thieving bastards, but they make great games when they actually make them) but I never connect that to particular people.

trogdor

well he owns and runs the company, and this has happened often enough with him at the helm that a lot of people, including me, cannot extricate him from the blame

eimyr

Without a doubt.

I just find it hard to keep track of all these people and who#s who

trogdor

I don't blame you on that

the big thing for me is, I have loved a select few of Double Fines games to death in the past

most notably Psychonauts

eimyr

10:06 PM

I assume it's not Brutal Legend

trogdor

so I at least know some stuff about them

I never played that

thank goodness for that, apparently

I don't have any personal knowledge on how good or bad that game was

eimyr

Me neither but I love the idea.

trogdor

Double Fine has made a lot of games where the idea, at least, is awesome

some of them have followed through on the actual awesomeness, some have not

I have heard good and bad things about Brutal Legend

which I would consider hearsay

I can't really warn against playing it or recommend it

eimyr

ryeah, me too

And people seem to disagree about what was good and bad in the game actually.

trogdor

yeah

that is part of the problem XD

eimyr

10:09 PM

(btw, you say hearsay, I hear HERESY! BLAM!)

trogdor

lol

well one is a religious term and one is a legal one

I just considered the legal one was probably more appropriate XD

eimyr

Cowardice is you religion now? HERESY! * BLAM! *

Uh, too much 40k

trogdor

my religion is dragons, it has no bearing on this subject

XD

eimyr

Recently I wondered how other games than Warhammer would fare if their 40k equivalents were published.

trogdor

like 40k all things?

eimyr

10:13 PM

E.g. Pathfinder 40k: You play as a group of adventurers that serve the Emprah, but killing the Chaos Gods can be done at lvl 12 by a group of psykers. Space Clerics are still overpowered.

trogdor

some of it would probably take off better than others XD

eimyr

or Fiasco 40k: It's basically the same, only if you die it ends better.

trogdor

why would it end better?

isn't 40k a really dark setting?

eimyr

It is.

Zachiel

"Dungeons: the dragoning 40k": Essentially nothing changes

eimyr

10:14 PM

I mean, it's the same as regular 40k

only death is better than actual 40k

trogdor

@Zachiel well, except the tech level anyway

@eimyr ah ok I see

I was turned around on that one

Zachiel

@trogdor I'm talking about the parody game which name is actually Dungeons: the dragoning 40k, or something like that.

trogdor

I thought you meant that making it 40k would make the ending better than in normal Fiasco, you meant the reverse of that

Zachiel

Beware, link to 1d4chan

1d4chan.org/wiki/Dungeons:_the_Dragoning_40,000_7th_Edition

trogdor

@Zachiel ah ok XD

Adeptus

10:22 PM

whoa... I just got the Popular Question badge for "Are there any good, free introductory Dungeon World adventures for a DM used to D&D?"

(only 10 upvotes though)

trogdor

well, views are a lot easier to get than upvotes

Zachiel

If you say so...

trogdor

still, that does seem wildly disproportionate

eimyr

Yeah...

On the other hand

11

Q: Is there a complete character planner software for Pathfinder?

I am looking for a software suite or a set of separate applications that would fulfill the following requirements: Able to build characters for Pathfinder Has all the contents published by Paizo that you can find on PFSRD, including prestige classes Is able to generate stats for Animal Companio...

pathfinder tools tool-recommendation

11 upvotes, 7800 views

It can get surprising. I had no idea until I looked at badge progress thingy.

BESW

10:50 PM

Views don't require interacting with the site, just clicking on a Google result link.

On on questions that don't get a lot of Google-by traffic, I see a vote/view ratio of about 1:5.

Adeptus

So apparently, free introductory Dungeon World adventures, and character planners for Pathfinder, are things that there is some interest in

BESW

I got a gold Famous Question badger for this question about free adventures to showcase 5e.

And almost all my copper and silver popular question badgers are for D&D questions.

Pixie

People like free stuff.

6

Adeptus

11:10 PM

Yes. I'm a people. I like free stuff.

BESW

You will be overjoyed to discover that the species known as TYRANNUS TYRANNUS looks like this https://t.co/hDh33qQRDQ

Tweeted by dymphna_saith on January 6, 2016 at 4:51 PM

trogdor

beautiful bird

now you are making me remember that we barely have any of our awesome local birds left :(

Ahriman

@trogdor Did you follow the 2player vids that they released?

trogdor

uh

Ahriman

I found that to be more interesting, then the actual game

trogdor

11:15 PM

I have no idea what you mean

I was referencing a real life dying off of birds here due to an invasive species of snake

Ahriman

@trogdor linkie: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd7F6pU2ByRRb0igiI-WKk3D

trogdor

@Ahriman ah this

Ahriman

video series was part of the kickstarter

trogdor

I did not know this existed no

Ahriman

I recommend it

paints the game in a new light

trogdor

11:17 PM

which one?

they certainly have made more than one game

Ahriman

I like Shafer, his games however are not my cup of tea

broken age

trogdor

ah

Ahriman

they co-opted the dudes also to basically film a whole slew of other things (such as there amnesia forthnights)

trogdor

the thing is, Broken Age was a pretty good game, but the second part felt like they rushed it out, even though they actually took extra time to make it

Ahriman

mm

trogdor

11:26 PM

I can't say what it was like on their end making it, but they have made certain repeat mistakes making games that are hard for me to ignore

Ahriman

true

the videos clarified that part for me

trogdor

and Tim taking that guys money on camera does not make me feel better, even though it is obviously meant to be a joke

Pixie

11:53 PM

It seems like maybe not the wisest thing to joke about, given the circumstances.

trogdor

yeah

that is my point

I don't to jab too much on it, I have talked about it enough, but it does not seem wise no

Transcript for