@nitsua60 If it helps, when I first got onto the Internet I used a dragon as my avatar and went by Dragonslayer - then I realised that made me seem like a douche, so I changed it.
@Chemus No, it's a megasheep. If you look really closely, you can just see the end of a dragon's tail sticking out of its mouth. Out of the other end is a dragon's forelimb, clutching the last of its gold.
@Miniman When I first got onto the internet I used Eddie Van Halen as my avatar. I knew from the start that it's make me look like a douche, but the joke was on everyone who thought so--'cause I picked up the image from my patent-law hobby =)
@Miniman Cool. Then the sheep looks so bloated because the green dragon's reacting badly to the heaps of rust monsters and iron golems he'd recently eaten.
@Miniman It's from his--yes, his--patent illustrations.
I just love that his patent for a guitar accessory wasn't a simple drawing of the guitar+accessory, but rather was a drawing of him playing the guitar.
(True confession: I ran that search earlier today. I've got nothing for those two questions.)
The thing is, I really want to get the -5/+10 Q&A into shape so that I can (after one more 5e answer) use it to simul-nab the gold badge and "inquisitive."
What? Gamesmanship? Me? No....
Or do I post two answers on that: one theory-based, one presenting simulation results? Mwah-hah-hah!
@nitsua60 It's praised by many for its storyline. Personally, I started playing it, then got sidetracked by other games. That was years ago, and I haven't gotten around to taking a second look at it.
(but, I do have a couple hundred unplayed games, so...)
That... would make this poster feel disenfranchised. That's not to say that in instances where poster X effectively gave the answer to poster Y via comments, it wouldn't be fairer to Poster X, but...
**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):** [BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!"); [playtest](http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/788/follow-needs-playtesters/ "Help playtest Ben Robbins' new game!"); [playtest](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By3enwcFNlhKa0lpbXNjTFpWZkU/view "Help playtest an RPG for kids 4 to 7");
It's well established that folks who choose to share their answers as comments, rather than as answers, have no ground for complaint when someone else puts in the effort of making it an answer.
**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):** [BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!"); [playtest](http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/788/follow-needs-playtesters/ "Help playtest Ben Robbins' new game!"); [playtest](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By3enwcFNlhKa0lpbXNjTFpWZkU/view "Help playtest an RPG for kids 4 to 7");
@Chemus I don't have a source that says "ongoing damage stacks", I just don't think they intended it to be covered under "stacking spell effects". They don't specifically say it does or doesn't, and there are so few ongoing damage spells that I suspect they just didn't think of them when writing that section. I haven't searched Paizo FAQs, but I'd be surprised if this didn't come up there.
@Chemus I can't find "official" support either way, but all forum posts I can find agree that they "stack" (or, more to the point, are exempt from stacking because they don't impose an ongoing effect or condition). Have posted an answer to the Q.
I noted this now a few times that comments are never lasting very long here.
Is there a reason for this SE site handling it that way so much more strictly compared to other SE sites?
Or is it just as this is the way the mods here implement the network rules?
BTW, @Wibbs, someday when my head is less full of snot shoggoths, I might try to write up a little answer to your Mythos question.
I think the "mental/social isolation" take in some of the answers is a good one, though.
If you're looking for something a little less psychological, you might like the Laundry Files / 14 approach: the more people are thinking about the Mythos, the more influence the Mythos can have on our world.
In those settings, keeping Mythos knowledge a secret isn't going to help right now but it's a very powerful long-term defense to preserve humanity.
So everyone who knows about it and doesn't WANT the Mythos to come knocking on humanity's door has a vested interest in keeping it mum.
(Laundry Files also has the conceit that thinking about the Mythos in too much detail will literally invite otherdimensional beings to chew little holes in your brain. This is why cultists go mad.)
Personally I prefer short horror campaigns of one to three sessions. Long-form horror has never quite worked for me, and I'm not sure if that's down to me, the players I've tried it with, or the systems we've used.
Isolation is a lot easier to maintain in a single adventure.
I generally much prefer longer form campaigns as GM, as the thing I get most out of playing is watching player characters grow and change as the campaign goes on
Yeah, I don't think isolation has to be an ongoing thing
but there needs to be a realistic approach to attaining it that doesn't break immersion
For me, the best moment is the time when the characters have to admit that something wonky is going on. After they are first forced to accept the paranormal, things start to become less interesting to me.
@BESW, yeah, actual plays is a thing I enjoy. Just thought that the game would be chat-only from the beginning - so it would have a log as a natural extension of the process.
I like using Doctor Who stories for the scenarios.
If you take the Doctor out and replace him with the PCs, then without anyone to explain what's going on many Doctor Who stories quickly become Mythos-like.
I wonder if it's just a local thing, but here Seinfeld has a reputation of a modestly funny program that no one watches on purpose - it just happens to be on whenever one turns on the TV to see what's on.
Funny enough to keep watching until the episode's over, but not funny enough to actually decide to watch it when it's on later.
Which is fine, I'm thinking of the Dragon Stones like the Crystals from Final Fantasy 5, where they give some kind of power. It has to be awesome enough to make them want to gather all of them, but not game breaking
They're level 9 currently, by the end they should be 15-17
Oh and they each have a baby dragon that they're carting around with them.
I was initially just going to have the stones mature the dragons into adult dragons (Each stone corresponds with one of the dragons Colors)
This is a free flow question, I'd love to have some idea pitching around
If they open a gate to the Abyss when used together, my first idea would be that individual stones have some lesser dimension-warping powers. Teleportation, time manipulation, phasing into semi-corporeal form, something like that.
Then again, those aren't exactly "dragon-like" powers.
I once ran a boss with a time-manipulation power that let him automatically dodge the first attack against him each round, and gave him a dodge bonus for all others, since he could see a little bit into the future, effectively.
It was pretty clear through the campaign that everyone was going to get cool powers, but anything that involves giving a power to one person at a time needs a mature group.
Another, slightly clichéd but more Dragon-ish way would be giving the holder of each dragon stone a power associated with dragons. Flight, fire breath, strength, wealth...
@Skathix You should ask "How to keep DnD combat interesting for a large party" on the main site, I'd totally want to see answers to that even if I'm not an enthusiastic DnD player myself.
I'd guess the best place to start is to not do anything wrong with combats (like introducing overleveled enemies à la kviiri) but instead to streamline some mechanics.
@Skathix If you like scripting and don't mind a computer, you might be able to throw something together that's just a GUI that returns a hit/miss based on a character's AC and the attack bonus of an enemy
Master of Orion (the spectacularly good strategy game from the 1990's) has a dice system where the same die is used to get both to-hit and damage. It might be a bit clunky for pen-and-paper though.
@UrhoKarila I'm pretty sure you can do that just with Roll20.
If you have a computer with you at the session, you can have everyone's character loaded up in a private Roll20 game, and have one-click buttons for a bunch of rolls.
When beefing, take care to boost the right stats. Boosting HP and defenses might make the fight more dangerous and difficult, but also possibly more tedious.
Boosting damage might be even more dangerous, but at least it doesn't slow the action down ;)
@kviiri That's totally fair. I like it mainly because it feels purposeful. Like, the other editions of D&D feel like they're trying to serve as many purposes as they can at once. 4e says, "Nope. This is a tactical wargame, and basically nothing else", but does that one niche really well.
That's one of the reasons I like Civilization too. I play Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings and other more detailed strategy games too, but Civ is a very well executed gamey interpretation and there's nothing wrong with that.
I'd post this to botch blog but this wasn't exactly my fault - when I played DnD 4e for the first time, I was a very new role player, and I brought another totally new person in the table with me. No one was very experienced, not even the GM.
@DuckTapeAl Well yeah, this friend of mine adopted a similar shtick after five or so sessions. Before that, every combat we had was started with a ritual where he rolled all his skills in order to avert bloodshed. It was awful.
I didn't have the guts (and didn't know if it was "appropriate") to tell another player how to role-play, but eventually I guess he read our irritation and decided to drop trying to prevent combats.
@BESW I wonder if it's helpful to throw a comment or answer up there confessing that I throw probably a half-dozen to dozen comment flags a day; if followed (and I've got a 99% "helpful" record) I'm probably prompting the deletion of ten to twenty comments a day.
@DuckTapeAI, is it really worth it? Idling to farm a hundred cards is giving you like 10 dollars. From 30 to 40 games you already own and haven't played. So you could probably go and buy one more game. Which you won't play since you're idling.
Probably not that much. I don't play too many games. There's a few I play a lot.
Paradox games (EU4, CK2, HoI4), Civilization V from time to time. Invisible Inc, too (that's a really good game). Apart from that, not much else springs to mind.
@Skathix I've had an excellent co-dm'ing groups of eight, even nine or ten players. Usually the other gm "plays" the monsters and NPCs, I'm pushing the mechanics and making the rulings. That, managing combat like a **** dolphin, and skipping a player who's not ready for their turn have made huge tables totally manageable and fun.
@Nox I don't spend a lot of my own money on video games, since I know my spending habits would grow out of control if I did. Getting a few games from cards lets me spend money without it coming out of my bank account.
Also, why would I be idling a game if I'm actually playing something?
Idling is for when I'm away from my PC.
@kviiri Do you ever get Humble Bundles?
Probably half of my cards are from bundle games that I never really wanted.
@DuckTapeAl Not really. I prefer not to have too many games lying around.
I bought one, can't recall which, and gifted away all of the games except the one I actually wanted.
When playing video games on my own, I tend to go on binges of several weeks of a single game, then moving on to the next one. Currently it's Kerbal! :)
My SO is an astronomer/physicist, so I have someone to ask for assistance with my orbits.
@UrhoKarila Late-arrival pun, but in that case it's called too long division.
Oh, man, I wish I was better at KSP. I have several screenshots of attempted Mun landings where I got the Kerbals to survive the landing, but not the rocket.
@DuckTapeAl I haven't even attempted manned landings yet. Or rather, I did, but then I realized I'll get science way faster when launching tons of unmanned probes with transmitters. Less efficient than a flight that returns, I guess, but much faster to just spam out.
@DuckTapeAl Unmanned probes aren't really good for much outside the career mode. I'm playing science mode myself, and I find they're mostly good for RP reasons.
Well, except that some unmanned command modules are smaller.
I noted this now a few times that comments are never lasting very long here.
Is there a reason for this SE site handling it that way so much more strictly compared to other SE sites?
Or is it just as this is the way the mods here implement the network rules?
