@KorvinStarmast Thanks. Sad to see a quaint small-town parish church like this closing down, but when you look at devoting an entire priest to maybe 150 parishioners, that's not a sustainable model. Not when we no longer have every third son entering the priesthood, at least =)
@Shalvenay hita
@JoelHarmon I spend too much time playing a game with 9 year-olds, and with teen-agers, and with my Wed night AL group.... Actually, I spend just about the right amount of time with those. It's things like doing the bills and taking out the recycling and minor home repairs and holding down a job that take too much time!
@Miniman Thanks. I was spoiled: during my formative years I could walk to a local black/latino parish, attend (high) Latin mass at the bascilica, house masses in living rooms with Franciscans in their pajamas, daily masses at the Dominican seminary.... Now I have to drive two hours to a mass where I really feel connected.
But I'm not getting stoned or crucified or burned at the stake for my beliefs, so I guess that's good?
@nitsua60 Wow, that's a dire way of looking at it. We eat lamb instead of mutton, not because it's tenderer and tastier, but because that way we don't have to feed for as long? Yikes.
In continuation of Do the kids from Stranger Things have any analogues to the Dungeons & Dragons game characters?
Does the new character, Max also belong to some Dungeons & Dragons characters class too? Is there any in or out of universe hints for it?
I know she called her Zoomer but that's not...
@daze413 I'm super-tempted to post my first-ever M&TV answer: "She uses a lockpick to open a door and backstabs her brother. Definitely a Rogue. (Or Thief, as it was called back then.)"
@nitsua60 Yeah, I can definitely agree with the whole home repairs and job aspect. I'm just unfortunate enough that all the younguns I see regularly are too young to appreciate a structured tabletop game. Too busy learning language and/or chewing on the dice.
@JoelHarmon Twelve, IIRC. I did it straight many times when I lived in Chicagoland. Most recently, though, we broke it up with stops at Cedar Point and South Bend.
I'm not comfortable with that chart's use of people as some sort of reference, because the tallest adults I know are almost 50% taller than the shortest adults I know.
I understand that's what they're going for, but I think it varies widely by location, culture, and gene pool. The average Samoan is way bigger than the average Chinese person.
@Miniman ....which statue was that, do you remember?
(Forget alternate histories where humans tame dinosaurs, I want an alternate history story where the Europeans coming to Australia were met by the indigenous Australians and their megafauna friends.)
@nitsua60 That's curious. It's a standard cursor, not a custom one, so that really shouldn't happen. Are you certain you have not made OS changes to that cursor, or have installed some Chrome Extension that affects cursors?
@Zachiel you can draw a long curtain by dragging the curtain as you place it (same with all other separators). It should stop sight. If you drew a long one and it still had sight penetrating it, would you mind sharing a map in which this is demonstrated?
@nitsua60 I'm going to open a bug report for now so that I can track it and see if I can sniff something around. Meanwhile... maybe check the OS settings?
@BESW Don't know if it's true or not, but apparently in the indigenous language "Kangaroo" means "I don't know". Basically, the interaction was the british landed, then saw a kangaroo jumping past. They asked what it was, and the response was "Kangaroo"
Like I said, don't know how valid that is, but it makes for a fun story
@nitsua60 Also, is it consistent across zoom levels?
@Zachiel and @Shalvenay: I do plan on adding elevation change options beyond stairs, tracking in github.com/amishne/mipui/issues/41. Not being currently worked on though.
@BESW I knew statue was the wrong word, but I couldn't come up with the right one. Model, I guess? Anyway, I don't remember where it was (I was pretty young), but I'm pretty sure they had models of a bunch of megafauna. The wombat was just the one that stuck in my head.
Hah! I was looking up alternate history stuff, and found a quora question about interesting points of departure for AH stories. Two answers: one says "urrrgh just pick something that's not on this list of points of departure that have been beaten into the ground already" and the other says "Here are some awesome points of departure I don't see enough stories about! [lists everything the other answer listed]"
@trogdor If you can find a copy of Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams, 100% recommended. It's one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've ever read.
@trogdor In fairness, a lot of endangered species are birds. Which is weird, actually - you'd think being able to fly would make you less endangered. Although not in the case of the kakapo, of course.
But I think Danger Patrol: Pocket Edition is perfect for the job.
It's a one-shot game about superheroes in a city that's got dozens of problems every day. You randomly generate a number of threats equal to the number of players plus three, and on each person's turn they contribute to solving one of those problems.
The longer a problem goes unsolved, the more likely it is to escalate.
You generate (# of players +3) threats that all need to be dealt with simultaneously, and all will escalate and eventually resolve badly if they aren't taken care of.
do it beforehand... otherwise you get runners inspectors that go to the Johnson Job offer, listen to the proposal, laugh and leave the room without taking the job.
InSpectres is a Ghostbusters-inspired comedy about a startup company.
And, well. If you're playing InSpectres, you're there to play a fun game about doing a job. Refusing the job isn't exactly part of being able to do that.
[shrug] Last game the Ripley's Believe-it-or-not janitor hired them to find out who was messing with the wax statue exhibit. In-game everyone, including the janitor and all the InSpectres, thought it was just kids playing a prank.
But saying "Nah, we don't do that" doesn't lead to fun scenarios. Taking a job that your PCs think is easy no-risk money and then finding out that the statues are actually possessed? That leads to fun scenarios.
There's usually no reason for the players to refuse a job offer. And the players are in charge, not the characters.
it was in Shadowrun. from the top of my hat: "Investigate the Bas relief induced cases of madness and suicide in the arkham assylum. We ditch your overdue parking ticket."
@Trish ...That's just bad chart design, unless it's a feature of the game in which case I double down on my deep disinterest in ever playing Shadowrun.
For InSpectres, the GM always determines the target number of franchise dice needed to finish the case. And the PCs can drop a case early and keep half the franchise dice they've already collected.
An average case pays out about double the franchise dice the company had before it started the case.
@Trish During sessions. You spend the company's resources to improve rolls while you're on a case. The trick is not going into debt more than you'll be able to pay back when you get paid.
@kviiri I know, right. It's a delight.
(Though, the full version of Danger Patrol seems like overkill, when the Pocket Edition is plenty all by itself already.)
amusing prank for your group: play a session using virtual reality gear whilst your players explore the deathtrap dungeon. Then, while they're distracted, turn your house into an actual deathtrap dungeon. See who gets out alive. Guaranteed to be memorable. Fun for everyone!
The Danger Patrol Pocket Edition doesn't seem to indicate when I should be using the DANGER RESULTS table, nor how to use it. Is it triggered by filling the DANGER METER, or by danger results from rolls of 1-3?
When the DANGER RESULTS table does get used, what do I do with it? Do I roll 1d6 on i...
I just have a couple ideas floating around... I guess I would like the plot to progress rapidly, the idea that started it was a campaign where players gain a level after every session. So it will last maybe a dozen sessions maximum but have really dense plot action.
We typically do a lot of small encounters. Typical session length maybe ~4 hours, if we're in a dungeon/cave then there will be basically continous small encounters, if we're in a town there might be 1 encounter at the end of the session. I guess that qualifies as a lot of combat.
Many small encounters, based on my limited experience, is quite good for balance between classes. Our party has been doing quite a lot of these "5 minute adventuring days" where the entire day's worth of combat is crammed into one large encounter. That usually results in the casters pouring all their slots into taking out that one encounter and being much more powerful than fighters, whose main virtue is endurance.
Do you have a particular reason for the fast leveling? Our party does it too, although only once every 2-4 sessions usually. Depending on how the action goes.
@kviiri mostly just for fun, partially because our current campaign has had much slower leveling (2 years and still level 4) and I think faster leveling would allow people to experience a broader range of levels.
@PhiNotPi Sounds like a good justification. I think a level a session might be a bit extreme though - have you considered the option of starting from a higher level?
(Remember, this is just internet stranger advice tho, you know your group and what they need better than I do)
@PhiNotPi if you have a crammed schedule, are you considering doing session- or milestone-based levelling or something like that as opposed to using XP?
@kviiri about the turnus of my two WoD groups: one is "every 4 weeks" with up to 1 week pull/drag on friday in question (and calculating from the originally planned date), the other is once per month to quarter.
Many people play games that aren't that heavy on important plot details. I prefer them myself, even if only because I otherwise have a tendency to oversaturate the world with lore and details.
Also a good idea if you have a cast that fluctuates, motivates people to come that week and steal the super awesome jewel of whatever that the king just brought back as war spoils
I'm trying to nudge our group gently in the direction of one-shots anyway, because I think we've been too fixated on having long campaigns and carrying them through.
I would really love to have a four to six session campaign that was nothing but cracking skulls while exploring a trap-laden temple. As long as it was clear that it's the point of the game and everyone's into it.
But overall, I think especially one-shots are more fun if the combat doesn't eat a lion's share of the session. Brutal single-roll encounters FTW!
I'd say minus the traps, most traps tend to be really boring and time-wasting
You'd need good traps like "here's an encounter with monsters but also try not to fall into the Pit of Skulls" and you can bull-rush trogs into the pit
Not "roll for Search, you failed, take 20dblah damage, scratch off 1 charge of the vigor wand"
@SPavel I wouldn't know, sadly - my GMs have usually been really skimpy with those.
I've put some into my campaigns, but they're usually more than the NetHack style "tile where you get attacked by the trap", but something that can be leveraged tactically.
My favourite trap to use is the "pit with floor illusion over it" - except the illusion is 1 square closer than the pit so people jump over the obvious hole and fall straight into the real one
Eg. in one campaign I had an enchanted fireplace. When someone entered the room through a door facing the fireplace, the fireplace would fire a fire bolt at it. Of course the players lured one of their enemies in the way - a rare instance where they took the risk to do something more interesting than just pull their normal attacks.
I assume the Meta is the correct place to ask such a thing. I hope the question itself is generic enough to get an answer that isn't too specific to my example, but I think I can better explain it using my example.
A while ago, I asked a question about blowguns, which in retrospect was quite br...
@DForck42 I also was sent a link to a rather cool system I hadn't heard of before by our friendly neighborhood BESW but I can't peruse it now because I'm still a bit busy with schoolwork :<
projects that I've got: setting up computer (desk is set up, computer is in the room, still need to hook it up and upgrade to windows 10 or Linux), dungeon tiles (i have a few cut out, but haven't worked on any in a bit), mini painting (does one really complete this?), etc.
Too bad that at this point, 1) I'm well aware that most of the time I think up a new "innovation" it's been done already or it's a "good idea - we had it too but it sucks because X" and 2) I'm starting to feel the mainstream of this field isn't particularly rigorous.
@DForck42 It's nothing interesting, really. No dinosaur bones :<
kviin: Seems like there are opportunities in overcoming the known reasons for why something sucks, if the suckage is due to a process issue you can fix
Throw some CRISPR at whatever you are doing, see if you can't get Jurassic Park
I love the exploration play that happens in old school D&D. Then it drifted so hard into the wargame aspect that was never the actual focus, and that kills the exploration aspect. It's a thing I like about OSR, is that some of it is about getting back to those roots.
But then they keep what I call the Colonialism Simulator aspect that I want no part of.
Yeah, I wrote it and there's a stand-alone version I put on DriveThru with an extra section about making colorful, immersive dungeons that got cut from the original article.
The idea is to first design the main pathways as intersecting loops. Then rooms are a part of these paths. Either they're on the path, or they branch off from it. Just three intersection circuits per floor makes a reasonably complex space without much effort.
AND THEN you connect the different floors in a similar way.
So floors have loops between them, and there might be more than one way between floors, and even shortcuts to break the sequence.
Yeah. Layering that underneath aspects with colorful details means that it's easier to set up dungeons that are both interesting to navigate and interesting to be in.
@JuneShores go over there to those people who aren't a part of this civilisation (and therefore are probably violent savages) and kill them and take anything valuable?
Mostly by creating a more stark contrast between the modern suburbia and the wilderness that just has Pokemon. There are no "monsters" with human intelligence about that could necessarily solve problems, and most of it the problems were made by humans in the first place.
Less Christopher Columbus, more Steve Irwin, in its better moments.
it opens up questions about what you're really doing with those animals but that has created no end of speculative comics
and i enjoy those a lot
they're like garfield's spinoff comics prominently starring existential crises, except pokemon is a beautiful creation while garfield is a soulless husk that nowadays only has value in the cynical parodies that have appeared from it to haunt it.
In continuation of Do the kids from Stranger Things have any analogues to the Dungeons & Dragons game characters?
Does the new character, Max also belong to some Dungeons & Dragons characters class too? Is there any in or out of universe hints for it?
I know she called her Zoomer but that's not...
How many editions of Dungeons & Dragons are there?
I assume the Meta is the correct place to ask such a thing. I hope the question itself is generic enough to get an answer that isn't too specific to my example, but I think I can better explain it using my example.
A while ago, I asked a question about blowguns, which in retrospect was quite br...
