TRPG General Chat

eww

not lawn gnooooomes

You may remember, our original failed DFRPG campaign was supposed to end with an army of enraged but misguided overprotective lawn gnomes.

I did not remember that

The one that started with Skylanders attacking you while you were babysitting.

to be fair, I am kinda ok with it if there are a lot of them, then maybe at that point they could discharge their duties in an adequate manner

but I would rather a more traditinal gargoyle, or a dragon myself

12:31 AM

The idea was that a paranoid changeling teen was accidentally animating toys and statues in his neighbourhood to defend against a threat which might or might not have been actually there.

yeah

I am not sure you told me about the gnomes ,specifically, before

I remember the toys and such for sure

@trogdor as long as a dragon doesn't try to land in my yard

too many trees and power lines, especially power lines

@Shalvenay course not, his job is to STAY where he is

till something comes along that it is his job to fight

presumably he would not pursue it all the way to your lawn

I want to make a safety poster with a dragon face-planting into someone's yard after hitting high-tension lines, actually

That's a NIMBY I've never seen before.

12:33 AM

XD

"George says: Don't be that guy, Be Powerline Aware!"

well, this IS a stone animated gargoyle dragon

this isn't one of those flesh and blood ones that would be bothered by some electricity

@trogdor the damage function of hitting a powerline in flight is actually more mechanical

kind of like a cutting-wire

in either case though, again, not his job to go flying over your house

aye

1:43 AM

Raining all day... getting cold... need a hat... only 18 more days....

Haaaaaats.

On the assumption there will be another Doctor-themed hat, I'm taking suggestions for more Doctors to put hats on.

hmmm

what about any of the Dr Lights?

XD

not even just mine

@BESW Well, there're plenty to choose from in this scene =)

(My brothers and I must have watched that movie a thousand times when we were kids.)

@nitsua60 ...is that a tenure committee?

hey wait, they aren't doctors!

those two guys anyway, apparently

1:59 AM

I'd like to have a very diverse set of characters, if possible.

Powerdork

2:12 AM

@BESW via others: 1, 2 (Mercy, Overwatch), 3

Robert Picardo is great.

2:29 AM

@BESW I forget--did you do Dr. Manhattan?

@nitsua60 Not yet.

(I wouldn't remember either, if I hadn't documented it.)

Powerdork

@BESW 4

@nitsua60 For that, I'd really want 2014's TARDIS hat. Just have it sitting there next to him.

...heck, I might Photoshop that just for my own amusement.

Do they have to be fictional?

2:35 AM

Dr Wiley, Dr Robotnik, Dr Seuss.

Dr Mario XD

Dr Pepper!

Doctor Strange is topical atm.

They also don't have to have doctoral degrees.

Dr Bunsen, of course.

Magician

Dr House. Dr Doom.

[takes a great many notes]

Magician

Doc Ock

Lots of doctors in comics...

2:41 AM

For the TMBG fans, Dr. Worm.

(He's interested in things.)

(He's not a real doctor)

Teenage Mutant Binging Girdles?

Powerdork

they might be giants

@Miniman [sigh]

Ah. I only know of them because KoL is packed with references to them.

@Powerdork =D

2:44 AM

@Miniman That'd be the alternate reality where Shatner played Splinter in one of the 90s live-action films.

hey there @Powerdork and @nitsua60

@BESW Nice.

3

@Shalvenay hiya

@nitsua60 nice

We need to find the intersect.

2:46 AM

TIL, after faaaaar to long, that I can just past in the URL of the image rather than saving it locally and uploading the image. [/facepalm]

Only with certain urls, though.

oh

@Miniman I feel like Brian May is about as close as we're going to get.

@nitsua60 I started with URL, I could have told you this thing :(

@nitsua60 how're things going?

2:49 AM

@Shalvenay two whiteboards covered with elementary calculus, one legal-pad covered in pseudocode--a decently-productive evening. You?

@nitsua60 xD, got the tree up over here. also, pondering about asking WB.SE about draconic catering xD

(since there's a question recently about "how could humans prepare dragon-meat for eating?"

I will never understand worldbuilding.se.

@Miniman getting close... "When playing gigs, ____ usually performs with a live band and plays percussion."

@BESW Yeah. It seems like, entirely based around subjective idea generation.

(And we're not just talking tambourine or something... that picture's at a drum kit....)

2:59 AM

I was hoping Earthworm Jim had moonlighted as a drummer, and maybe received an honorary doctorate for his world-saving efforts, but alas, this does not appear to be the case.

@LegendaryDude it really splits in two -- there's the idea generation side, and there's also the more reality-check, research driven side

@Shalvenay this forgets the "ridiculous digressions in comments side" =)

@nitsua60 haha, yes

There's also a tendency to indulge in the belief that physical speculation is somehow purer than sociological speculation.

(Or alternately that sociology and anthropology are reducible to physical sciences.)

On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.

3:03 AM

The alt text on that one XD

@nitsua60 Yeeeah. That's supposed to be a joke, but I get the feeling some folks at wb.se have internalised it.

@BESW I'm pretty sure everyone in both my undergrad and grad physics departments counted it as Gospel.

Ignoring mathematicians (as above) is a little-known corollary of the right-hand rule.

@BESW part of it is "if large-scale societial behaviors aren't reducible to adaptations to one's environment, then how are you supposed to infer how a fictional society behaves?"

and another part of it is that we just don't have a lot of sociology specialists around -- most of our specialists are in the harder sciences, which gives them a more reductionist worldview

3:31 AM

hey there @Fibericon

How goes?

@Fibericon alright here, as for you?

Woke up earlier than usual because the wife decided she wanted to go to a breakfast joint we don't get to often, but otherwise good.

@Fibericon ah. was it a tasty breakfast?

It was pretty good. It's the best place in Taipei I'm aware of, actually.

Had to get a bus to go there, though. We used to live right next to it.

3:35 AM

ah

speaking of food, I'm pondering what the airport caterers would do when tasked with catering to a dragon...

Probably throw a stale cinnamon roll at it and act like the dragon should be grateful.

@Fibericon LOL

I wouldn't particularly want to get catering at an airport myself

@Fibericon: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/22860/… << I just realized something related to this question: what would the security implications be of a Kindred having airside access to some other Kindred's airport?

I'm not personally familiar enough with VtM to ponder such things, and the other answers never even considered that as a possibility

@Shalvenay Depends if they're in the Camarilla or not

@Shalvenay Upholding the masquerade means respecting the domain of other Kindred

@Shalvenay And particularly, not intruding upon that domain without permission

3:50 AM

Depends on how the ownership is handled. If it's clan ownership (like with the WTC), having a different clan's vampire in there might be seen as an attack. If it's a single vampire's ownership, well, it might just be closer to trespassing.

If the Sabbat are involved it means something bad is going to happen.

@Fibericon that sounds like it could lead to the most politically dicey diversion in history

worse than a US airliner having to divert to Havana at the height of the Cold War

In general flight is not very safe for Kindred, at least that's the way my group has always run it. I can't say I've been on many red eye flights that didn't either start with the sun up or end with the sun up.

@LegendaryDude well, night cargo might be an exception-ish xD

(I ask partly because the one VtM character concept I have kicking around my head is a Toreador who flies cargo airplanes for a living -- think UPS or FedEx pilot, with a load o' Next Day Air in the back)

@Shalvenay Fair, though I think they'd need to be pretty short flights -- not cross country, that's for sure.

4:07 AM

@LegendaryDude flightaware.com/live/flight/FDX1215/history/20161201/0327Z/KONT/… that's probably one of the longer ones as far as domestic air cargo routes go

pretty much all parcel-type cargo is hubbed out of MEM (FDX) or SDF (UPS)

flightaware.com/live/flight/FDX1438/history/20161201/0906Z/KMEM/… and its return flight

Speaking of the Sabbat, our GM recently had them take over Atlanta. I didn't think much of it, besides the general "they're making their moves" thought, but then he reminded me that my character's record label was there. And my band had just completely rocked the last concert, so we were now being pressured to record a new album.

and another good example flightaware.com/live/flight/UPS991/history/20161202/0332Z/KGEG/…

until you get into flying to Hawaii or Alaska, those are basically the long routes in the US domestic parcel network

(and that gets you into ETOPS/LROPS/EDTO territory, so it's a whole another can o' worms -- you need an ETOPS plane, oceanic trained crews, etal)

"You're our best guy. Supernaturally good, in fact. We want you to be on our first flight to Japan."

@Fibericon yeah -- I doubt they'd actually run him for that though (he's 757/767 type rated, and that sort of long haul international cargo flying is dominated by 747s with some MD11 action mixed in)

besides, you don't do KSDF-RJAA as a direct

better to go through PANC so you don't have to roll with the heavy crews

I understood some of those words!

Like "besides", and "better".

4:21 AM

ah -- UPS does run 767s on some of their international routes

but it'd be a crew based out of PANC (Anchorage)

I am correct that you wouldn't fly from Louisville (KSDF) to Tokyo (Narita) (RJAA) directly though in a parcel operation -- that goes through Anchorage first, because to go KSDF-RJAA directly requires you to stick a "heavy" crew (basically, an entire relief crew) on the plane

Yeah, you're way over my head now. I live up in NH so flying (passenger) anywhere takes no less than 6 hours, unless it's to JFK or the other one, in which case it's about 45 minutes of terror in the smallest commercial passenger jet you've ever seen.

Flying anywhere worth actually flying to, anyway.

Oh man. I grew up in Belize, and to get to the international airport you had this dinky little plane. I think it was an 8 seater.

The other option was a 5-6 hour bus. It was only about 100 miles away, but the roads were garbage.

Okay, ours isn't that bad. The last flight I was on I think sat about 30.

[amused] I grew up with island-hoppers.

One of my friends, prior to flying island-hoppers in Micronesia, flew village-hoppers in Swaziland and Alaska.

De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter

I'm not sure if there's an airport on this planet that you can't operate a Twin Otter out of ;)

The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, currently marketed as the Viking Air DHC-6 Twin Otter, is a Canadian 19-passenger STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada and currently produced by Viking Air. The aircraft's fixed tricycle undercarriage, STOL abilities and high rate of climb have made it a successful cargo, regional passenger airliner and Medevac aircraft. In addition, the Twin Otter has been popular with commercial skydiving operations, and is used by the United States Army Parachute Team and the United States Air Force's 98th Flying Training...

4:30 AM

He talked about a 'runway' out of an isolated Alaskan village where you had exactly enough room to take off. If you fudged it, there was a cliff at the end of the runway.

I'd think landing would be the more treacherous maneuver?

[shrug] He talked about taking off.

One way or another, you're taking off. How you fare from there is up to you.

5:06 AM

@LegendaryDude I "think" that a smaller plane needs less overall forward space to use it's breaks on the ground to slow itself down enough

especially the really small island/village hoppers

I'm no expert on it, but that is what I am pretty sure is the case

@trogdor yeah, you are correct -- the accelerate/stop distance on a decent STOL plane is pretty good

every jet I have ever been on, however, has certainly needed a lot of space to stop in a safe way, and of course, with more land available to them than some of the islands around here happen to have, no one want's to skimp too much on Extra space

big brakes, big props you can slam into reverse

@trogdor yeah, not having big arse propellers to slam into reverse thrust and act as MASSIVE AIRBRAKES hurts, hard.

@trogdor have you seen the videos of the C130 trials on the Forrestal?

@Shalvenay nope, pretty much just going off of observation of the flights I have been on in my life

I have a fear of hights and a slightly lesser fear of flying

so as that is the case, I pay a lot of attention to the take off and the landing

USS Forrestal C-130 Hercules Carrier Landing Trials

►

5:14 AM

and any turbulence that happens

We grew up in a place where the only way to travel more than 50 miles in any given direction is in a plane or a boat.

also that, yeah

@Shalvenay nice, needless to say,... I would not have liked to be doing that

my dad also was in the Airforce, which is what resulted in my family living here. the point being that he likes planes, and when he sees a distinctive model he used to fly on or that he just generally likes, he points it out

which accounts for practically all of the airplane knowledge that I happen to have, not that I retained much of it

he saw a Herc here once or twice and gushed over it

daze413

There are practically no conventions here in my country. And I'm curious what sort of one shots are run with DnD 5e system. Are they all really world-ending high fantasy tropes that are good for 4-6 hours?

i.e. save the world in 4-6 hour plots?

that sounds like a really short amount of time for that (though to be fair I assume it's just meant to be one session at really high levels where you are just "finishing the job" as it were)

Are you asking specifically about 5e one-shots at conventions? Or just 5e one-shots? Or just one-shots at conventions? or...?

daze413

5:28 AM

well, I wanted to know about 5e one shots at conventions (due to the system and the expectations from the game, etc.) but just one-shots at conventions would be nice to hear, still

I ask because the current RPG group I am in are organizing a game at a convention and they're going with a 4 hour game for "newbies" where the newbies' town is attacked and they have to kill a dragon. in its lair. Just curious what is the norm in typical conventions.

I've never been myself, but that sounds pretty typical.

8:59 AM

The lack of a countdown on the winterbash "countdown" page is taunting.

lol

12:37 PM

@daze413 That's almost exactly the topic of Angry's latest article

daze413

1:25 PM

@nitsua60 It is! :D and yeah, that guy's awesome. He seems to read my mind on what sort of things to blog about.

Also, I secretly think theangrygm is one of us...

Not so secret now.

Protonflux

2:05 PM

"For that reason, any adventure that has to fit into a single session just CANNOT be a player-driven experience. If you trust the players to drive the adventure, they will spend their four to six hours doing doughnuts in the parking lot and then still complain when they don’t get to Disney World. I s$&% you not." So true.

4:58 PM

@Protonflux you hear that, @BESW @Shalvenay? In January: no donuts in my ship!

Anaphory

8:20 PM

From reading it, one problem I have grokking Cortex Plus is that there is no distinction between Declaration an Create Advantage (to use Fate parlance)

9:37 PM

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[Hatmas!](http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/q/6615/4398 "The Hattening Approaches. Dec 19");
[chat feeds](http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/q/3041/4398 "Suggest and vote for our ticker feeds");
[Cornucopia 4](https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Cornucopia4 "Bundle of Holding's all-new collection of stellar small-press tabletop roleplaying games. Dec 12");

10:03 PM

@BESW I appreciate your new room tag. :)

10:16 PM

hello]

[wave]

how goes it?

Grumpy. Not enough sleep. Was accused of not liking facts because I left a conversation with someone who uses descriptive dictionaries against prescriptive arguments.

10:36 PM

fun

imho, if you can't clearly explain something to someone with a reading level of a high schooler, then you're not trying hard enough

Mmm. Sometimes people get more invested in being right than in understanding.

aint that the truth?

11:22 PM

[weep] I want to use pretty vector images for a userscript, but SVG files on the internet are just so buggy.

Did you know that if one is used as a background but with a negative position, it makes it a different size to if it did not have a different position? Why should the position be affecting its sizing, you may wonder, and so do I.

(SVG files are the current internet format for vector images. they are so buggy as to be practically useless for anything important.)

I was meant to be doing this programming to wind down...

but then i hit SVG bugs.

"svg" is the sound @doppelgreener's brain makes when he tries to use SVGs.

@BESW and then i go and cry in a corner that inexplicable things are happening.

This is the New Mythos.

A world which follows logic alien to our own and indifferent to our suffering.

11:53 PM

@BESW That describes SVG files pretty well

Most of humanity is unaware of their presence, or rarely gives them thought, but they are everywhere.

Every time I or people working with me have tried to use an SVG file, almost everything behaves perfectly well... except in that one particular way, where SVGs inexplicably defy logic and do something completely different from what we told them to do, for no apparent reason, even to the point of it being internally inconsistent.

Graphic Design has 442 questions about SVGs.

I can't even reproduce this in a way I can ask about on Stack Overflow, where it would also be on topic.