TRPG General Chat

12:26 AM

hey there @Erics

@BESW Ugh. Thanks for linking--I hope some decent number click through and do some spelunking. And soul-searching. Like I am.

Miniman

@nitsua60 If you've got a moment, I'd appreciate eyes on this answer, since it's arguably a frame challenge that doesn't actually answer the question, which in turn is arguably a survey question.

trogdor

@nitsua60 yeah it's a topic that is worth some major deep thought

Miniman

(My concerns didn't stop me from posting it largely because it's an answer that I really, really wanted to give.)

nitsua60

12:45 AM

Before even reading the answer, I'll say that question struck me on first read as worthy of frame-challenging =)
I'd thought to do so myself, but was still grubbing around in more-unpleasant parts of the interwebs.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Oh yeah, also, was Tunnel Fighter or Knight what you were looking for earlier?

(Not least because if there's another way to get unlimited reactions I definitely want to know about it.)

nitsua60

@Miniman The only thing I'd suggest adding is the part where (I'm assuming) you say "this is how I run it with my players, it's generally worked fine, the one time someone tried to pull shenanigans here's how it went."

Skyler

Howdy folks, came here with a random thought I was curious your guys feedback on

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, amazing setting for a DnD campaign or not?

Miniman

I haven't played it, but my past experience with Zelda as an RPG setting has been less than amazing.

Skyler

expand enemy sets and amount of npcs according to what you want in a campaign but the baseline

Shalvenay

12:52 AM

hey there @Skyler

Skyler

whys that @Miniman

howdy Shal

(they changed alot this time around so the reasons can make this an interesting case)

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Miniman

@Skyler The kind of puzzles and boss fights that are such a core part of the Zelda experience don't really work well in an RPG format.

Skyler

@Shalvenay pretty decently, about to dive deep into tutorial upon tutorial for several things

@Miniman alot of that has actually been quite changed in this one in favor of a much more expansive and open world setting

Shalvenay

@Skyler alright over here, been working up a combat-heavy convention dungeon as of late. also got a worldbuilding Q I want to toss you folks' way, and a bit of a narrative-conventions Q as well

Skyler

12:57 AM

I'd agree on almost any previous version, this time though it has a few components that I think would challenge parties in ways I haven't quite heard of before in DnD

@Shalvenay "convention dungeon"?

and ask away

Miniman

@Skyler Actually, that's an important point - do you want to try to emulate the gameplay experience, or just use the setting?

Shalvenay

@Skyler one-shot/short-form dungeon meant to be played in 1 or 2 four hour convention timeslots

the worldbuilding Q is a deities matter -- which Faerunian or Greyhawkian deity of magic would make the most sense for a cult of witch-hunters motivated by witchcraft being an affront to their deity?

Skyler

@Miniman setting, this time for example you have huge influences of an ancient civilization with kind of a techno-magic twist, with large parts of it having been posessed by the evil magic of Ganon

Miniman

@Skyler Then yeah, that'd probably work pretty well, I think. It's got a lot of the elements D&D draws on.

Skyler

The mechanic I started this line of thinking was the Blood Moon, where all but perhaps the strongest of creatures touched by his evil reanimate and walk the earth again, renewed and sometimes even stronger (this was mediated by Link getting stronger in the game for gameplay reasons), after a certain period of time has elapsed. It sets up this dark tone for a world like that.

@Shalvenay oh snap, religion is a weakspot for me, haven't played a campaign that used any traditional deities

Shalvenay

1:06 AM

@Skyler ah

the other question is "what are things that one could use as targets in a reasonably combat-heavy D&D game without risking raising anyone's hackles?" Mindless undead come to mind, but are there others I should be looking at?

Skyler

@Shalvenay well what about some kind of nature elemental commanding beasts of the wild?

twisted by its magic

or endowed, depending on tone

@Shalvenay depends on the setting largely IMO

Shalvenay

@Skyler so perhaps something akin to a Gulthias tree?

@Skyler "generic heroic fantasy" if you will -- trying to think of stuff that'd not only not draw player hackles, but wouldn't make an audience uncomfortable either

Miniman

@Shalvenay Honestly, I'm not sure there are any. In Greyhawk you have Boccob the Uncaring, and in Faerun, both Mystra (in all her incarnations) and Azuth are very keen for everyone to use magic.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay IME there's nothing one can kill that someone can't make the case for it being murder. Oozes? Those suckers have a god, after all. We (hominids) had religion before we had language, too! Point is: the notion of "acceptable target" simply depends on players "accept"ing the targets.

Shalvenay

@Miniman yeah, Mystra/Azuth probably would be quite tolerant of warlocks if not even encouraging them provided there are compatible patrons in the world

@nitsua60 hrm...that leaves me scratching my head a bit.

Skyler

1:13 AM

I once did this sequence in some kind of ethreal inter-dimensional pocket that was a trial made for our party to succumb to. Lust, self-doubt from incompetence, callous disregard for life, etc.

nitsua60

Elves are a perfectly good campaign-wide "acceptable target" if you-all've decided that you're all playing PC gnomes who see nothing redemptive in elves.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah, I'm thinking in terms of potential audiences too, though.

(not that I'd expect small kids to be around, but still, there are plenty of things that can off-put a grownup who may happen to be watching)

nitsua60

Constructs, then, are pretty morally-harmless.

Miniman

@Shalvenay People who take an absurdly long time at the front of whatever queue you happen to be in.

Skyler

First they were thrown into a den of succubus without too much in the way of guidance, with someone new to the cmapaign making a character that had already become their slave (under the guide of a handmaiden)

nitsua60

1:15 AM

@Miniman People who step out into traffic thirty feet away from a zebra crossing.

Skyler

Then a memory sequence with enemies of past days (and other memories to understand our not-so bright but well-meaning dwarf)

Miniman

@nitsua60 Drivers who wait until the last moment to change lanes.

nitsua60

(In small town USA, at least; I get that big cities have their own notions of jaywalking-etiquette.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah, constructs are the other generally-accepted-as-morally-harmless one

@Miniman at a lane drop? that's actually what you're supposed to do at least in heavy traffic, otherwise the theoretical gore starts to ripple upstream, effectively extending the length of the lane drop/blockage

Skyler

And then as the other players slept I made a player who killed a little girl the party had in tow (to be less burdened) escort and protect her ghost against living armor

Ultimately he disappointed once again and the ghost became a banshee which he had to fight

Shalvenay

1:17 AM

@Skyler -- so yeah, want me to tell you a bit about the dungeon I made recently btw?

Skyler

@Shalvenay yea

definitely

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Traps. And the trapping trappers who trapped them. [mutters] stupid traps.

Skyler

one question, no idea about players characters for this campaign?

Miniman

@nitsua60 NPCs from escort missions!

Shalvenay

@Miniman LOL! Tharvyrion (the one VIP that I've asked folks to escort so far) has had several instances where he's fared better than his escorts in a fight :o

trogdor

1:20 AM

@Miniman acceptable target and easy to take care of

Shalvenay

@Skyler so yeah -- I actually whipped up a minotaur labryinth...with a twist ;)

Miniman

@trogdor Yep, dying is what they do best! XD

Skyler

@Shalvenay given you are asking about types of enemies im guessing the minotaurs aren't foes

trogdor

@Miniman yep

Shalvenay

@Skyler I'll spoil it for you: there's only one minotaur, and she is indeed not a foe. (someone jacked her labryinth and won't even let her out to fetch staples from the general store. bastards.)

Skyler

1:24 AM

heh

@Shalvenay reminds me of that dragon who had a party go into his ex-girlfriend the Silver Dragon's lair to retrieve his lairs key

Shalvenay

@Skyler at that rate, you might as well just have the party rogue impression a key for his lair ;P

Skyler

the key is the size of a waraxe

and he had other things he liked quite a bit there

Shalvenay

heheheh, talk about some divorce settlement :P

Skyler

his expandable golden fleece pillow (turned into the shape of a small fortress for a dragon to perch themselves atop)

Shalvenay

oh btw -- do you think my deity-recommendation question would be a good fit for mainsite?

Skyler

1:27 AM

firey scale polish made from red dragon extract

mainsite?

Shalvenay

@Skyler as in, making it a rpg.se question and not just a chat question

Skyler

oh ok

Almost might be just a tad too pointed

Shalvenay

@Skyler in what sense?

Skyler

oh oops

I misread, thought only 2 deities were being compared rather than asking about pantheons

that seems pretty decent imo

nitsua60

1:46 AM

@Shalvenay blights are another nice class of acceptables--one of my favorite things from 3e is the introduction of those, so it's not just rats and skeletons and kobolds and goblins for the early levels anymore.

Demons, though a determined player can see their slaughter as murder....

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yeah, blights come to mind as a good one

@nitsua60 demons and devils have other problems ... some players raise hackles at the use of what they see as (negative) religious imagery

Miniman

@Shalvenay I actually really like yugoloths from that POV.

(I actually just really like yugoloths in general.)

Shalvenay

@Miniman yeah, the yugoloths would allow you to use fiends without tripping over that bugbear

Miniman

Slaads, too.

Shalvenay

@Miniman that actually makes me want to bring up one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in a D&D setting (this was in a NWN PW, but still)

Miniman

1:55 AM

@Shalvenay Oh?

Shalvenay

players got grumpy about the use of Planar Binding to test alignment along the Good/Evil axis (basically, part of your initiation rite for certain organizations would be to cast Planar Binding from a scroll -- if the right thing(TM) came out, you were in, if the wrong thing(TM) came out, then nope, no membership for you)

Miniman

Why is that the worst idea?

Shalvenay

that wasn't the worst idea

what the GMs did to counter this, though, was randomize what you got out of Planar Binding

Miniman

Ew.

Shalvenay

so that no matter what your alignment, you had even chances of getting a celestial, a slaad, or a fiend

so you could be a Paladin, pull a scroll of Planar Binding out of your pocket, cast it, and out pops a Succubus

Miniman

1:58 AM

That's...weirdly topical, actually.

Shalvenay

and it's like "Nooo! Torm! Why! That's not what I ordered!"

Skyler

@Shalvenay I personally like to pair monsters and animals together sometimes

Shalvenay

@Skyler yeah, I've done that a bit myself in the mino-maze

Skyler

Ones that you could conceivably have symbiosis for

I had a slime that could melt ice, and it had a school of pirhanna living in it

Miniman

@Skyler Like the owlbear-bear?

Skyler

2:04 AM

It lived in the frozen lake on the approach to the silver dragon, and had created this huge maze of tunnels that were their hunting grounds

Shalvenay

@Skyler actually, that gives me the idea for a slime that digests its prey using piranha solution

Piranha solution

Piranha solution, also known as piranha etch, is a mixture of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), used to clean organic residues off substrates. Because the mixture is a strong oxidizing agent, it will remove most organic matter, and it will also hydroxylate most surfaces (add OH groups), making them highly hydrophilic (water-compatible). == Preparation and use == Many different mixture ratios are commonly used, and all are called piranha. A typical mixture is 3 parts of concentrated sulfuric acid and 1 part of 30% hydrogen peroxide solution; other protocols may use a 4:1 or even...

Skyler

heh, what are the chances of that syncronicity

but yea, another I'd probably do is some kind of amorphous algae slime living on a large turtle

even better, inside the shell, it takes care of the pests

or some kind of venus fly-trap atop a tortoise

and a living twig blight dam with beaver/platypus that could inflict paralysis to anybody who tries to pass

ooh, how about some weird proto-human thingy living in a cursed tree, pulling different branches together binds different magic pathways and unleashes magical curses towards the party

Shalvenay

that'd be a good twist on a Gulthias type tree, xD

@Skyler -- did I ever tell you about my first convention-dungeon btw?

Skyler

heck, even encounters with 3 sides, monsters, beasts, and players, works well

@Shalvenay you have not

do tell

wolves that pick off the first creature in a group to near death can raise the stakes of the encounter

Shalvenay

so yeah...my first try at a convention dungeon turned into more of an environment/diplomatic centered dungeon with a combat encounter tacked on at the end. I did it as a quest to rescue a lost tax collector that sort of leads into a bigger plotline (it will eventually be the opening for a campaign I'm ginning up)

actually ran it at a local con, too. went well, save for the party setting off the dungeon's fire alarm, of all things :P

Skyler

2:17 AM

lolwat?

Shalvenay

@Skyler yup xD they opened the door that says on the door "alarm will sound if you open this door" harhar

Skyler

lolol

Shalvenay

in fact, I could actually run it for you sometime in the near future :) it runs relatively nicely as a solo adventure, even

BESW

I've used vermin as acceptable targets. Plagues of locusts, armies of rats, etc. I invented a vermin god who annointed his priests with the ability to summon and control vast hordes of creepy crawlies.

That gave the enemies' plans a source of strategy and intelligence which didn't get in the way of guilt-free hacking and slashing.

Shalvenay

@BESW swarm of squirrels :O

BESW

2:28 AM

The party could deal with the Vermin Lord's priest differently from his mindless vermin minions.

@Shalvenay Two-headed rat the size of an elephant with sonic breath weapons.

Shalvenay

@BESW now that's a ROUS

BESW

Forget rust monsters, here comes a swarm of termites.

Enjoy swinging that axe head without a handle.

Shalvenay

@BESW harhar.

RollingFeles

3:03 AM

Holla!

Hey @Shalvenay! Sorry, was away last time you pinged me. I'm more or less good. How're yours?

trogdor

4:05 AM

@BESW you need magic for that? :P

Adeptus

5:39 AM

Well, my game that was accumulating extra players, will soon be back to original intended size... the extra family that my wife invited (initially mother & daughter, then later husband as well when he got back to town) are moving away in a few months. Hopefully they'll finish the first module by then - it would make a neater exit point. I'll need to tweak XP, to account for how much they would have earned as a smaller party, so they're not underpowered for later modules.

Miniman

That one was Sunless Citadel, right?

Adeptus

No, I did SC a while ago, then it stalled due to too few players (attack of real life). This one is Age of Worms

BESW

@trogdor Sorry, did I not mention that they're the size of standard poodles and can spit sticky ensnaring wood pulp?

Miniman

@Adeptus That's a Pathfinder one?

Ah, no - Paizo, not Pathfinder.

Adeptus

@Miniman No, 3.5 in (Paizo-published) Dungeon. I think I read that they can't update it to PF, or even republish it as a complete book, because of copyright grey areas. (There's a few Paizo adventure paths caught in that web...)

trogdor

6:00 AM

@BESW you do need magic for that

:P

kviiri

8:09 AM

@Trish It's very common in computer science, though, to the extent that just "log" usually implicitly means binary logarithm.

BESW

10:17 AM

Tonight's dinner is vegan sausage (one of the few kinds that are actually good) sautéed in olive oil with garlic and onion, served with hummus on naan bread.

kviiri

Yum!

Erics

10:44 AM

do we do community wiki answers on rpg.se?

kviiri

I think I've seen a few. But to be honest I never quite understood how they work.

BESW

Community wiki is for very very rare situations. It used to be used more broadly, but instead of producing posts curated by everyone it produced posts that nobody felt invested in curating.

32

A: List questions: Community Wiki?

There's nothing inherently wrong with your "I need a comprehensive list" question; It's just that we specifically forgo asking these types of questions because they are not a good fit for this type of Q&A site. Stack Exchange is well-suited to asking very specific questions that represent real ...

16

Q: How should we use Community Wiki, Part III

In the beginning, RPG.SE was Community Wiki crazy. We used it for everything. We have an old Meta question on what to use CW for. But then we realized list questions were bad and CW was being used as a dumping ground for bad questions. So now CW is anathema. Some hunt down and kill old CW questi...

Jun 30 '15 at 1:42, by BESW

Handy rule of thumb: If you ever ask yourself "Should I make this post community wiki?" the answer is "No."

3

RollingFeles

@BESW I tried humus a couple of days ago for the first time. It was mixed with pesto sauce and pine nuts. It was delicious! Your dinner sounds delicious too. Bon appetit!

kviiri

11:08 AM

We went to Tallinn last Saturday, we had excellent veggie burgers in this pub-restaurant Hell Hunt. (The name is Estonian for "Gentle Wolf")

Just a bit embarrassing to go there because it's full of targeted alcohol advertisements for Finnish tourists...

BESW

Heh.

kviiri

11:24 AM

(clarification: not Hell Hunt specifically, but the entire Tallinn port area)

doppelgreener

@BESW "Very very rare" here meaning "like appearances of Sasquatch, or the Loch Ness Monster". As in, we're not sure they even exist.

BESW

Well. We know the Sasquatch doesn't exist, and the Loch Ness Monster either died years ago or the rift in time re-opened and it went back where it came from.

...so I guess community wiki is kinda like the Loch Ness Monster.

doppelgreener

That an awesome comparison.

Anne Aunyme

12:08 PM

@RollingFeles humus is not really suitable for consumption, even with pesto sauce :)

ACuriousMind

@BESW It's almost as if removing the gamification aspect from a post because no one gets rep from it makes people less inclined to curate it, hm? :P

BESW

Sometimes the clarity of hindsight can be quite painful.

ACuriousMind

^Human history in a nutshell

BESW

12:24 PM

nitsua60

12:43 PM

@ACuriousMind The one CW I created seemed like the perfect storm for CW-ness: canonical reference, was going to require some maintenance over time as new products were released, never expected to grow unreasonably large... then people kept pinging me about updates to it anyway. I finally got annoyed enough to request reverting to "normal" status--I felt that having to chime in every time to say "go ahead, edit the wiki" earned me the rep =|

doppelgreener

1:01 PM

@nitsua60 On this site earning a decent amount of rep is not all that hard anyway, so it's not like we're much at a want for it.

kviiri

I've noticed my rep leaps whenever I learn a new edition of DnD.

doppelgreener

When I bring in someone new here and I want them to be able to use the chat, I just tell them to post one or two good answers, they'll have the rep for chat in no time. There aren't many other Stack sites where I can make that kind of assurance.

kviiri

Too bad I'm not really interested in most DnD questions...