TRPG General Chat

Shalvenay

00:20

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 what's up?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I'm wondering if I've gone and gotten myself embroiled in two pissing matches (1, 2) in one day =\

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's really all one big pissing match, though.

"Can something be official if it doesn't say it is and neither does anything else?"

nitsua60

@Miniman And it's one I (personally) don't really care about, so I keep vacillating between "GRAAH you're WRONG!" and "who gives a...?"

Shalvenay

00:27

@nitsua60 sigh I'm confused by WB.SE these days :/

(had another Q get closed for off-topic-ness despite getting several upvotes as well -- talk about conflicting signals!)

Miniman

@Shalvenay Hey, you're finally like the rest of us!

nitsua60

Somewhere there's a good meta.SE post about the orthogonality of those two systems--I was looking for it earlier today (actually, in an attempt to contribute to WB.meta!) but couldn't find it.

@Miniman Seriously, man. WB's... complicated.

Some day I gotta take Monica out for a beer and just ask "what?"

(For a brief moment I thought I might actually know HDE, but he turned out to be a different kid at the same magnet where I've done some programs.)

@Shalvenay what's up with you?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 other than being puzzled by WB.SE? not much. did you see what VI posted earlier btw?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Just saw it, yeah. I've got about ten minutes 'til kid-duties, then figured I'd ping when I was done.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 alrighty, NP

BESW

00:34

You don't need a blog to be a reviewer, Amazon and DriveThru reviews count too. Apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdikpUzIDpXz-oAeNjTESzp_u9smbgtpD-RvyVZS6q2Qm31UA/viewform https://t.co/IvUh9fLWPE

Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on September 2, 2016 at 12:27 AM

nitsua60

What do you think if I change the "playable races" question to say D&D, not WotC? That strikes Zendikar, but I don't think it changes anything else? (Except now UA's in the mix?) AL-legal strikes me as too restrictive, but allowing UA seems too loose =\
I guess the right answer's just to say all of that in the question post, eh?

Miniman

@nitsua60 As long s you leave the word "official" in there, UA's out - it explicitly calls itself unofficial.

Hmmm, at least that's what I thought...but now that I look for it, I can't find a strong statement.

nitsua60

@Miniman Yeah--it's the SA/twitter things where WotC's actually made that distinction.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Honestly, at this point I'm going to give up and admit that my definition of what's official and what's not is actually "Duh, it's obvious" and leave it at that.

nitsua60

00:49

@Miniman Yeah--I've gone ahead and scoped it to D&D (following your observation on meta), struck Zendikar, and don't even mention UA. Moving on.

@mxyzplk thanks for the chat move--I hadn't thought of that, but I think it's the best solution.

Miniman

01:19

@nitsua60 I think you'd have trouble playing an Anthropomorphic Mouse in AL.

Also, the flying races - I went ahead and fixed those.

Also, if no-one's done it by the time I get home, I'll add the UA ones.

nitsua60

@Miniman Thanks. I've got other things to work on this evening; I appreciate the second (and third) set of eyes and hands.

Also, I love what it says about this game that the question "where do I get the rules" could (a) be one of my highest-ranked questions, and (b) be so contentious =\

BESW

01:38

"if, by some divine mistake, you find the lady of the forest, you can only ask her a single question. pray that it’s one she knows how to answer."

trogdor

lol

Adeptus

01:53

@nitsua60 I'm somewhat amazed by how much rep I've gained by saying "this is what the rules say: (insert quote)"

nitsua60

@Adeptus Srsly, man. The only thing that makes me feel better about it is reading this month's SA article: Jeremy seems to spend half his time doing exactly the same thing =\

Adeptus

@nitsua60 The difference being, he presumably gets paid for it. I only get paid in Imaginary Internet Points (TM)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 -- kidlets to bed?

BESW

...I remember when I answered questions in systems where "Here's what the rules say" could be a complete answer.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Yeah, and off the phone now. Is @VisuallyImpaired around?

Shalvenay

02:08

@nitsua60 no idea -- he said his schedule is mostly free though

5 hours ago, by Visually Impaired

@nitsua60 @Shalvenay I'm still in and mostly free. Just let me know when/how we're doing this. :)

BESW

**[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!");
[Fate module](http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/191782/Good-Neighbors--A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core "In Good Neighbors, players take on two roles: a human who must deal with the politics of this new industry, and a fairy who feels the full spiritual damage of the Industry.");

Kat: I need an escape goat. Me: You mean a scape goat? Kat: No, not that. An escape goat. Like a goat you ride to safety.

Tweeted by echo262 on August 31, 2016 at 10:14 PM

nitsua60

@Shalvenay [giving it five minutes to see if the ping does anything]

BESW

Question for the folks who have been recommending Stranger Things: is it more of a Twin Peaks/Broadchurch thing where you have to pay close attention or you'll miss important bits, or is it more of a CSI/Primeval thing where you can half-listen and they'll spell out everything in clear dialogue and the music will cue you on when you need to start paying attention?

Magician

I haven't noticed missing important details.

nitsua60

@BESW I'd say it's mostly a "this is so awesome OMG they got my childhood on screen, minus, yanno, the monsters and stuff, but it totally feels right!"

BESW

02:21

'cause most of my show-watching time these days is "thing to keep my brain from imploding while doing drudgery design work."

@nitsua60 ....ah. That might be a swing and a miss for me.

nitsua60

But to answer honestly, there's not a lot of subtle breadcrumbs that you're going to regret missing.

To me it had a strong "Stand By Me" feel: ostensibly about something gruesome, but the emotional impression is standard "kids come together to tackle something that seems too big, and discover their own capacity...."

And tracking shots of kids riding bikes. Lots of those =)

Magician

And walkie-talkies. Those were cool.

nitsua60

@VisuallyImpaired @Shalvenay @BESW @trogdor @Adeptus @kviiri @Anaphory @eimyr @ToshinouKyouko and anyone else interested: here's a room for those interested in a possible upcoming online DW game.

BESW

Ping all the people!

nitsua60

[Goes to write ping-script. It turns out nowhere as game-changing as Pong.]

BESW

02:30

@nitsua60 It wasn't until I was in my late teens that I fully realised all the exotic series I'd been reading, about suburban kids with pre-planned neighbourhoods and sidewalks and malls within walking distance? Were supposed to be about familiar people doing things I could identify with.

[mind = blown]

For me, "riding bikes" meant "put the bikes in the trunk and drive ten minutes to a trailhead for off-roading in the grasslands."

nitsua60

So, I live in a neighborhood sandwiched between two streets, where fourteen houses' backyards abut (7x2) and there's a paved sidewalk/walking path ringing the central "green."

For my kids "riding bikes" means the start of an insane race composed of everything from ten-speeders to tricycles in "The Village Velodrome."

Night, all.

BESW

ttfn

Shalvenay

@BESW heh. I grew up more or less in the 'hood myself :P

(not exactly total ghetto, but definitely not the 'burbs either)

BESW

@Shalvenay For contrast:

Malojloj, Guam

►

(My house was actually in the boonies on the right around 50s into this one, just before you leave Malojloj proper and go down into Inarajan.)

kviiri

06:52

Well we used to live in a corridor.

Riley

Morning

kviiri

@Riley morning!

Adeptus

07:08

@kviiri A corridor? Luxury! We lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road!

Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen

►

kviiri

I actually lived in a fairly large house of the type they call "frontline soldier houses" because they were constructed in large numbers to relieve post-war apartment shortage, using a set of publicly available blueprints that were reportedly optimized to minimize material waste. How efficient!

Open source houses would be a great idea.

Magician

@kviiri your botch just went live!

And it's not showing up in the chat's ticker because it's not in the feeds anymore, or something? I dunno.

Adeptus

07:25

I've lived in a variety of stand-alone houses; a home unit (part of a big house that had been divided up); a semi-detached house (similar, but built that way in the first place, not divided later); and a 2-bedroom flat in a block of over 70. Mostly metro suburban, some in large-ish rural towns.

kviiri

@Magician Aye, cheers!

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 When I saw your meta question about "but is this material official?", I came to think: by which definition of official? published by wizards of the coast? published by the D&D team of wizards of the coast? branded with the game in some way? branded as belonging to it or merely compatible?

reminds me of a question i asked a while back

11

Q: Are rulings that only feature in Dragon/Dungeon Magazine 'official'?

A recent answer presented the following ruling from Dragon Magazine 371, page 9 (emphasis added): If you choose multiple heritage feats (or feats that similarly modify at-will powers), you choose which feat modifies the power for the purposes of resolving the attack with the power. I don’t ...

kviiri

My parents are too young to remember the post-war scarcity era, but my grandparents had some stories. Like they had to use little blackboards instead of paper. Going to the toilet must've been hell.

2

Magician

With that, we only have one more botch ready to go. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get anyone outside this chat to contribute. Ah well.

kviiri

@Magician I have another one waiting for writing.

Can get it done today!

Magician

07:32

@kviiri That would be appreciated!

There's a week until we'd be missing a post again, so it's not urgent.

kviiri

So we're aiming for two per week?

Magician

Yup, that's the schedule we've tried to maintain.

kviiri

@doppelgreener A good question, "official" is often very subjective.

Magician

@kviiri And what a great answer! :D

kviiri

@Magician Alright, will do my best!

@Magician Aye!

doppelgreener

07:37

@kviiri It is! @Magician gave me a very helpful, sensible and thoughtful response. :)

BESW

09:19

@Magician I know I added it, but it's not there now...

Feeds

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

BESW

Also, what's the new banner dimension size?

Feeds

09:34

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Magician

@BESW 1200 × 280 pixels.

BESW

10:06

Hooray, finally got it to stick in the feed.

kviiri

yay

trogdor

10:54

do you know why it was having trouble to begin with ?

BESW

Yeah, sometimes you can paste in the main URL and the chat ticker will catch the site's feeds, and sometimes you have to paste in the URL of the feed itself.

Unfortunately, I forgot that the chat feed interface makes no distinction between the two outcomes.

trogdor

ah

UrhoKarila

13:10

G'morning, all

kviiri

@UrhoKarila Hi o/

BESW

@UrhoKarila Hi!

What's new?

@UrhoKarila If you wanna talk about RPGs, we can move this conversation to the Not A Bar, no problem.

kviiri

true

UrhoKarila

Nah, that's fine

BESW

In fact, let's do that anyway.

UrhoKarila

13:16

I just dropped in to see if people were about

BESW

→ 37 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

@UrhoKarila We're definitely about. What we're about, is open for discussion.

UrhoKarila

@BESW lol

Riley

What's the difference between the 2 rooms?

BESW

@Riley The NAB is for exactly what just happened: a conversation got kinda intensely off-topic onto things not everyone might feel like they want to have in their faces, and/or people wanted to talk about RPGs too.

So instead of shutting down the off-topic conversation, it can just move to the NAB.

Riley

Ah, thanks for the info

BESW

13:20

Lately Trogdor, Miniman, and I have been using it a lot to talk about the old computer game Wizardry 8, and Shalv has been using it to talk about his RPG situation because that's a topic which takes hours and years and some people are kinda tired of it.

@TamCoton [wave] Hi!

kviiri

I slip into OT very easily.

It's good to have someone to migrate my ramblings from time to time ;)

Anne Aunyme

14:05

do someone know how to call massively multiplayer rpgs that put an emphasis on roleplay?

technically they are mmorpgs but that is connoted

Riley

@AnneAunyme Yeah the mmorpg name is kinda botched

Anne Aunyme

is there a name for these mmorpgs that focus on roleplay ? I'm not sure if I am clear about what I mean by that

Riley

@AnneAunyme Yeah it's clear

I think the closest you'll get are "story driven" mmorpgs

Or maybe with a roleplay server on them

I know that WoW has multiple roleplay servers

Tam Coton

Hi all!

(Yes, that is indeed a three-quarters of an hour reaction time. Shush.)

BESW

Yeah, sorta depends on what you mean. Like, Storium is technically a story-driven MMORPG, but it's nothing like what "MMO" usually means.

In practice it's more like a dedicated story forum.

Tam Coton

14:12

I mean, there's MUDs

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Yeah, the whole thing's a little borked, IMO. Makes me long for the old days when D&D was the BECMI boxes, 1e UA and Dungeoneer's Guide, a few of the UK modules, and a half-dozen Dragon magazines. I.e. "just the stuff that ever found its way to my comic shop, and I had no idea what else was even out there, and certainly didn't worry about it!"

Anne Aunyme

@BESW: I think you are close to what I mean

MUDs? what is this?

@Riley: I am more talking about these things that look more like forum rpgs in the sense that DMs can supersede the system when they want

Riley

@AnneAunyme I don't think there are any video games like that

Anne Aunyme

I played to one for several years...

Riley

@AnneAunyme Which one?

Anne Aunyme

14:26

The one I played was called "Odyssee"

(it's still here: google.fr/…)

nitsua60

@AnneAunyme stands for "multi-user dungeon" and has a loooong (like, 30-plus year) history. I've never played one, but that might be enough to get you started poking around.

Anne Aunyme

It seems to be close to what I look for

thank you !

Riley

For some reason I got confused with video games .-.

Tam Coton

MUDs are text based though, no graphics

I played Imperian for a good few years

kviiri

14:42

I tried BatMUD but it was too grindy for me.

Abraham Ray

15:43

hello everybody!

DuckTapeAl

Hello!

This isn't super relevant to RPGs, but it gives me an excite: amypink.com/2016/09/01/…

Abraham Ray

for dnd dice, has anyone ever used random number generators?

DuckTapeAl

Yes.

Of various kinds.

Abraham Ray

oh @DuckTapeAl how did they work out?

DuckTapeAl

Generally pretty well.

Not really distinguishable from regular dice, statistically, and they usually roll more quickly and cleanly.

Abraham Ray

15:49

@DuckTapeAl that's good to know.

DuckTapeAl

My favorite is an app that I don't think exists on the appstore anymore, that had the option to roll a die every second automatically.

So I could roll checks for my players without them knowing that a roll just happened.

kviiri

Clever ;)

Abraham Ray

yes, very clever indeed!

kviiri

That's one of the DnD GM advice bits I've ever used - roll everything, even if you plan not to use the result!

DuckTapeAl

The app is called GMToolkit.

kviiri

15:56

Trying to schedule RPGs with the freshmen <3

Something good too, not just nasty incidents.

DuckTapeAl

RIP Invisible Castle.

@kviiri Oh, man, scheduling is my least favorite part of running a game.

I've been trying for years to play in a game of something other than D&D where I didn't need to run or schedule anything.

The closest I've gotten to that goal is running a Fate game.

kviiri

@DuckTapeAl At least this is "easy" scheduling. Our student org's got a frequency: at least one board game event a month, at least one movie night per two months, and at least two RPG nights a year. All of theses are traditions more or less established by yours truly.

DuckTapeAl

Cool.

What college, if you don't mind my asking?

kviiri

We just need to find a time appropriate for the GMs and after that? Everyone can join!

@DuckTapeAl University of Helsinki

DuckTapeAl

Yeah, that's a lot more sane that what I usually end up dealing with.

kviiri

16:01

One-off sessions only, though. That makes a lot of stuff way easier.

DuckTapeAl

Mhmm.

kviiri

It's like "Hey, you know how role-playing games are fun but you never found anyone to play with? Come try it out!"

DuckTapeAl

I have to admit: I had to use google to figure out which Scandanavian country Helsinki was in.

kviiri

Heh, it's ok :P

It's amazing how many people have heard of role-playing games here and are "kinda" intrigued, but never get to chance to try them out.

DuckTapeAl

I believe it.

kviiri

16:03

And Computer Science is a "nerdy" field, so we get a slightly higher concentration :)

DuckTapeAl

Most of my problems with scheduling come are because I have like, ten people who are possibly interested, but only 6 actually respond to the email, and only 4 can actually find the time to play.

Lots of people say "yeah, I'd play a tabletop game at some point", but way fewer follow through.

Anaphory

Ezup, folks!

Oh, turns out mz kezboard is still switched, I should change that.

DuckTapeAl

Lol.

I was like, "what does "ezup" mean? Should I know that already?"

Anaphory

I could just have corrected it, thanks to the niceties of this chat, but I thought letting it stand would be okay if I explained myself.

kviiri

Anyway, I see it as my duty to drag people out to try it!

Anaphory

16:09

On scheduling: If I want to start gaming in three weeks, maybe I should start organising now, people are slow at that indeed.

kviiri

Oh yes. It's a work of art, scheduling...

Anaphory

Doesn't help that I won't be in town for most of the next 16 days.

DuckTapeAl

In my experience, if I want to start gaming in three weeks, I should start two weeks ago.

:P

kviiri

Start too early? You'll get guesses. Start too late? People have already booked themselves.

DuckTapeAl

What I've started doing, with moderate success, is to say "Hey everyone, I'd like to do a game every two weeks, starting next week. Who's interested?"

kviiri

16:10

I kinda wish I had one of those RPG groups who can book a regular time - like "every Monday 18:00" like my strategy game group does.

Anaphory

My usual way, which I'll try again, is to decide game with one person, schedule with them, and then make an open call looking for players for that game and schedule, with accepted players blackballing.

kviiri

@DuckTapeAl Yeah, that sounds like it could work!

DuckTapeAl

Then I keep emailing people until they either give me a list of days that work for them, or until they tell me they're not interested.

Individual emails, specifically, using their name each time. No one has ever responded to a group email that I've sent.

kviiri

@Anaphory This sound good too.

Anaphory

It has worked when I knew people.

kviiri

16:12

One idea I've been toying around with: running Apocalypse World in an open table. I announce sessions in advance - those who come get to play.

Anaphory

In Leiden, I don't have a good foothold yet.

kviiri

And furthermore, I live like 5 minutes walk away from our 24/7 clubroom, so it'd be semi-public to get unexpected participants too.

DuckTapeAl

@kviiri That's sort of what @BESW does. He has a regular time to game, and runs whatever makes sense for the people that show up.

Anaphory

@kviiri I would guess that idea might work better with a closed, more established world

Or proper episodic play like that, which I never managed in AW, yes.

kviiri

@DuckTapeAl If @BESW does it, I'm pretty sure it can't be a terribly bad idea. He's a very sensible fellow.

@Anaphory Proper episodic play in AW is sort of like the Holy Grail to me.

Always trying to get it juuuust right!

Anaphory

16:16

I'm bad at scene framing and in particular cutting overall.

Montsegur 1244 was helpful there, but I'm still not sure how to do it in the wild.

kviiri

Being bad is the process of becoming good. Never forget that!

Apocalypse World should, in theory, support episodic play with varying players pretty well. But it takes a lot of work to get it right.

And maybe some suspension of disbelief too, but eh - I've never had that problem with my players, to be honest. Complaints like "why can't I interact with <PC of a missing player>" are typically dealt with by just asking "listen, do you want to have fun or not?!"

Anaphory

@kviiri Sounds like it. [googles flights Amsterdam to Helsinki, and academic reasons to go there]

kviiri

16:34

Heh!

kviiri

16:56

I used to frequent an IRC channel with a Dutch majority (but no real reason for it). I picked up a few words: Goedendag iedereen

Anaphory

Hyvää päivää!

kviiri

:)

I think it was #dosbox @ Freenode.

UrhoKarila

It worries me that one of the top google results for "Goedendag" is a particular type of weapon

How does that get conflated with 'good day?'

kviiri

That's peculiar.... how did that happen?

UrhoKarila

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goedendag

Anaphory

16:59

Wikipedia is inconclusive about it.

UrhoKarila

>The name "goedendag" derives from Dutch, usually taken in English sources to have meant "good day",[2] with reference to the Bruges Matins massacre in 1302, at which the guildsmen of Bruges purportedly took over the city by greeting people in the streets, and murdering anyone who answered with a French accent.

Also, 'good dagger' or something

nitsua60

@mxyzplk Sorry, I was actually trying to scope down to just D&D, rather than all of WotC. Can you think of a clearer way to phrase that? (I assume you're talking about the title?)

@mxyzplk for instance, what do you think of this most-recent version?

nitsua60

17:29

@Magician @BESW I've got a botch post I'm not-unhappy with. What's the best way to get in front of someone else's eyes for some feedback? I know that my submitting on WP puts it into a queue; will there be ways to edit it easily if you-all have suggestions?

UrhoKarila

@nitsua60 What are these botch posts, and where are they available?

They're not something I've heard of before, but, granted, I've just started lurking in chat for the past few days

nitsua60

@UrhoKarila rpgbotch.wordpress.com is a blog that was started a few weeks back; so far a half-dozen or so regulars have contributed things.

I'll dig around a bit and find the conversation that started it all...

UrhoKarila

@nitsua60 Cool, thanks!

nitsua60

I think The Legend of Botch Blog starts somewhere around here.

(although, just searching for "botch" in this room gets you a pretty good overview)

nitsua60

17:46

@Magician @BESW okay, I think I have a draft up of "System Matters," but I can't find trace of it anywhere. (I have another copy off-WP, so no harm if it's lost.) When you get a moment can you tell me if it's there? And if I need to do anything else?

can someone tell me if this link brings you to the full listing of Unearthed Arcana articles?

diego

@nitsua60 It looks like it is showing all of the articles, not just the UA ones

nitsua60

18:01

@diego thanks. [Crap.]

diego

@nitsua60 Just looking quickly I'm not finding any way to get specific lists of articles. Because for some reason it looks like they don't have the ability to only show specific columns or authors (other than the drop down which doesn't let you share links). They have that capability on their Magic site so I don't know why they don't have it on the D&D one...

Google led me to this: dnd.wizards.com/articles-tags/unearthed-arcana

nitsua60

18:33

@diego thanks

Zachiel

20:38

I feel like I never really botched. Either I'm very good at DMing, or I'm very bad at recognizing my errors, or I'm more for the subtle, all-campaign-long errors.

@diego because it's different departments inside the same company, I'd guess, and each has a web design office.

Other than that' what's up, people?

I'm trying to understand how the capstone of a Master Transmogryfist would work if I wanted to use it for cosmetic-but-not-intentionally-weak reasons.

It's a different kind of horrible experinece from those D&D 3.5 uses to give me.

nitsua60

@Zachiel I feel like the BotchBlog is aiming for a pretty tight window of errors. I make lots of errors every session. I badly play an NPC. I quash something for no reason, or let something impactful slide by. I miss bright, shining, golden-with-giang-neon-signs opportunities with regularity.

But most of those don't seem like good Botch fodder.

(a) many are simply quickly remedied--my players know enough to say "hey, are you sure?" once, then we move on.

(b) many are really hard to learn from. "I forgot--again--to look at my list of NPCs with their motivations when we got into that scene."

(c) Many don't have a good story to them.

Zachiel

Most of my errors nowadays are about trying not to say out loud "no. I won't care about this background very much. It is mostly for you, to feel connected with the story you will get from trying to do the sensible thing and save the day. We will play this adventure. It's pre-written, I will need lots of what they call _partecipationism_".
Or: "No. You can't use your fire spells that ignore damage reduction to burn through the forest because the day is balanced against you having these encounters before the boss. I don't want to have to invent reasons why that course of action will prove use…

(d) many don't really impact the story that much to be noteworthy.

Anaphory

@nitsua60 I believe (c) isn't/shouldn't be an issue, the other two are fine and are what distinguishes botch (a) blog (b).

Zachiel

20:58

Maybe this fourthcore PbP game will turn into a blotch. I've had three deaths on the second round of exploration :(

Of course I can't tell you how it happened, because you just don't spoil fourthcore adventures in a place that is logged to google.

Zachiel

21:23

I want to talk about it so much! ;_;

trogdor

Aug 30 at 7:26, by Magician

Stories for Botch Blog don't need to be profound or unique or widely applicable. They just need to be true.

yesterday, by eimyr

botches are shorter, so it's easier to motivate myself

just thought I would throw this stuff out there in case people interested had not seen these things being said

BESW

22:23

Bizarre ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-colony-discovered-in-an-abandoned-polish-nuclear-weapons-bunker/ by @annaleen

Tweeted by arstechnica on September 2, 2016 at 4:56 PM

Zachiel

@BESW I'd do the sensible thing and provide them a way up

Or at least I'd close the way down

BESW

@Zachiel Like, dangle a string down the vent shaft.

I think it's one of those "observe without interfering" things that scientists struggle with.

...[sigh] I'm gonna have to troubleshoot Discord for this DW game.

Shalvenay

@BESW does some other platform work better for you?

BESW

@Shalvenay I hardly ever need a platform for the things Discord offers.

I mostly use Skype.

Shalvenay

I'm open to trying the updated Linux Skype client

BESW

22:37

A number of my casual friends have moved from Skype to Discord, but when I tried to get into it, I ran into a fatal update error.

Shalvenay

@BESW what OS?

BESW

El Capitan 10.11.6

The update fails and it tries again, over and over, until my hard drive is full.

Zachiel

BESW

Exactly.

Zachiel

(I find it funny that it's the wrong kind of troll)

BESW

22:41

trogdor

lol

Shalvenay

@BESW weird. what sort of error is it giving back? or does it just give a generic error message?

BESW

"Update Failed. Retrying in [countdown]."

Shalvenay

@BESW hrm, maybe running the updater from a terminal window will cause it to spit out more details?

BESW

Could do. [pokes Internet to remember how to run something from Terminal]

(It's not an updater, though; it's just the Discord app itself that checks for updates at launch.)

[downloading update]

Aaand now it just shut down without comment.

And restarted itself. That's about how it works.

I'm finding other people with the same problem, but only Windows solutions.

Installed from a more recent download.

Success!

cross fingers for the next time it needs to update.

...Okay, I have Discord up and running.

Shalvenay

23:21

@BESW cool

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