TRPG General Chat

12:17 AM

@Skyler Weapon and Armor Ratings

> A Weapon value adds to the shift value of a successful hit. So, if you have Weapon:2, it means that any hit is worth 2 more shifts than it would normally be

@Skyler Depends on what their purpose in the scene is.

If they're just a scene hazard, like shooting wildly while the PCs are running for their ship, then I'd say they're better modeled as "When you enter a zone that Storm Troopers are firing into, you must roll defense against an attack of +2."

Shalvenay

1:11 AM

hey there @Alphaeus

Alphaeus

Hey mate

Glad you liked my answer on getting your treants

Let me know how your flaming mayhem goes

@nitsua60 "Rey" is her name

Shalvenay

heheh. we shall see how the campaign goes xD

how're things going otherwise @Alphaeus?

Alphaeus

Pretty good. Detoxing a bit after a long day

catching up on some campaigns via skype and discord

I dislike these 2 week business trips I have to do twice a year

I love travelling, but with these I spend about 12 hours a day in one meeting after another, head to my room, maybe do a few enjoyable things before I sleep, rinse, repeat

for about 13 days

Shalvenay

sheesh

Alphaeus

Yeah, the thrills never end

When I head back I'll have precisely 2 hours to be at my house and relax before the future inlaws are then coming to stay for 3 weeks.

First time meeting them, so hopefully that goes well

Shalvenay

1:26 AM

ah

Alphaeus

Soooo....anyhow, how about you, @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus doing alright here

Alphaeus

Good good.

Shalvenay

1:46 AM

hey @Ben

Shalvenay

2:13 AM

@Alphaeus -- what are your thoughts on the whole business of (race/)class/alignment interlocking in D&D?

BESW

@Skyler You may also find this helpful:

15

A: How can I have mystery in a Fate plot?

Fate can do this! Many of the Fate systems I've used and studied talk about how to highlight "discover what the GM has planned" play styles. I'm going to describe the various tools and strategies I've used and learnt which bend toward your goals. I've never gone quite as far with them as you wil...

Alphaeus

@Shalvenay Generally speaking, I think it foolish. The alignment system itself is iffy, but it is what it is in DnD so that's a moot discussion point. Moving from there, however, the assigning of arbitrary alignments to certain classes and races is shortsighted.

For example, saying that monks are lawful ignores that during the middle-ages before the main organized factions of monastic orders came into being, many monks functioned quite chaotically, attacking and sacking passing caravans to supply themselves.

Saying that an Aasimar is good ignores the whole idea of "fallen angels"

etc.

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus yeah. the thing that super-grinds-my-gears is people insisting that Warlocks must be chaotic and/or evil

BESW

I'd be cautious about arguing for or against D&Disms with historical comparisons.

Shalvenay

basically, thumbing their nose at the diversity of patronage the D&D implementations allow for

BESW

2:18 AM

The D&D monk has more in common with wuxia fiction.

(Most of D&D's traditions are drawn from popular fiction rather than from history--even things which appear to be based on history are usually filtered to the creators through some particular fiction.)

Shalvenay

@BESW indeed

nitsua60

@Alphaeus just out of curiosity, what's your experience/exposure with which editions?

@BESW Certainly more to do with wuxia than with the monastery where I lived =)

BESW

(eg, the Rakshasa)

Shalvenay

hey btw @nitsua60

nitsua60

@BESW Ugh... you and the links... I'm pretty sure Peterson's got something about the Rakshasa's hands, which I'll now have to find and write up before I can fall asleep =)

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

2:23 AM

@nitsua60 how're things going?

Alphaeus

I'm aware of this, but on the flip side the *player and DM* are the ones who should decide the flavor, not an objectively influenced designer.

@nitsua60 I've played all of the editions, but my only extensive experience is with DnD 3.0/3.5e and Pathfinder. My father came from the "original" eras, so I knew a bit of them, but by the time I was old enough to learn seriously 3.0/3.5 had come out. The later editions I've played, but they just don't trip my trigger, so I've never delved further into them. Pathfinder I picked up because it's essentially a slightly upgraded revision of 3.5e

nitsua60

Good. Tonight's our campus celebration of Lessons & Carols, which is probably my favorite evening of the year.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah

nitsua60

@Alphaeus Gotcha. Thanks,

BESW

@nitsua60 Bwahahah. Yes, answer the question I've given up on four years ago!

nitsua60

2:25 AM

I was about to complain that Playing at the World is in the other room, but it's actually right here. Like, I just have to straighten my left arm and I'll hit it.

Not even articulate the shoulder. Just the elbow.

@Shalvenay you?

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus -- did I mention to you that I have a Paladin/Warlock multiclass char "on the shelf" right now, btw?

@nitsua60 fine here. annoyed by holidays making people hard to talk to and whatnot

Alphaeus

@Shalvenay Yes, you mentioned that. I like the flavor, and personally would see no conflict.

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus yeah -- the way I handle the potential conflicts is by making the oath and pact basically one entity -- they swore an oath to the fey courts and were given certain powers in return to help them carry out their oath

BESW

Palawock. Waladink. Warladin. Paldilock.

My favorite thing about paladins and warlocks, and which makes them even better together, is how their chosen patron defines their competency modes.

nitsua60

@BESW this book, if I ever finish it, I may have to sacrifice to one of those shear+scan+OCR services. If I could just CTRL+F "rakshasa" that would be very nice.

BESW

2:34 AM

@nitsua60 Or you could buy a digital copy.

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus the other thing that I find surprisingly odd is how many people would not consider it possible to have a lawful rogue

nitsua60

@BESW Holy... yeah. $20 is probably cheaper and better quality than sacrificing my hardcopy, too.

Alphaeus

@Shalvenay As if there were never rogues that devoted their lives to supporting the law

Hell, what do they think a CIA/FBI Field Agent is?

Shalvenay

actually, I'd just direct them to the locksmith's shop

or to YT these days -- bosnianbill and LockPickingLawyer are both worth watching/following

BESW

@Shalvenay I think this is related to the issue I mention in the footnote here.

Shalvenay

2:40 AM

@BESW which footnote? (there are two :)

BESW

The first one.

D&D classes, like any other D&D mechanic, are a bundle of mechanical exceptions, not in themselves narrative statements unless/until explicitly given that authority. Their name is a table-use label only unless the group decides otherwise.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah. it's one of several obstacles in D&D to bringing charopt IC

BESW

There are systems where this is untrue, and a mechanic's label is part of its rule. D&D is not one of those systems.

Shalvenay

@Alphaeus but yes, spies are good examples too, at least the more tropish ones. (most intel guys are analysts or (these days) SIGINT-esque types, anyhow.)

Alphaeus

@Shalvenay I've said this here before to BESW, but I tend to handle alignments by acknowledging them as elements of the character, but highly flexible ones. Overall the only time alignment comes into the picture much is with rather obvious things (Oh, wow, you mean Asmodeus' assistant is Lawful Evil? """""surprising"""")

nitsua60

2:53 AM

Hmm... Peterson doesn't mention Rakshasas, at least in the bits where I'd think they'd be. Which means, I believe, that in the last few months I've read about Rakshasas somewhere else. And I can't think of where =(

Shalvenay

hey there @NautArch

@Alphaeus yeah, I recall you mentioning that

BESW

[pokes chat icon] C'mon!

Shalvenay

pokes @Asteria

Alphaeus

3:09 AM

@BESW Oh, so it's time for chat topics?

Well then, at my business conference my colleagues and I happened to have a couple days off in a row

We're in a place that is quite attractive, but aside from eating and shopping there is little to do.

BESW

No, I'm just impatient about how long it takes for an main-site avatar change to trickle down to the chat profile.

Alphaeus

(too late, I already started my story)

:D

As usual, food, humor, and drinks helped pass the evening. Boredom, however, became apparent. Sometime close to midnight I was sitting in a rocking chair in one of the empty conference rooms, realizing I had spent the last 40 minutes watching about 6 adults -- all quite professional and ranging from 31-63 years of age -- slapping a plastic grocery bag (not wadded, just open and floppy and floaty) around in the air.

Shalvenay

oh, there you are @Asteria :)

Asteria

@Shalvenay haaai

Alphaeus

(Alright, now I'm done with my story)

Shalvenay

3:12 AM

@Alphaeus lulz. I'd almost think that you could get something like Roll for Shoes going at that point

@Asteria how're things going?

(sorry if I seemed a little bit naggy there, just kinda was a bit confused by your absence over the past couple of days considering how consistent your presence was previously)

Asteria

@Shalvenay goooooood! and it's fine, work has been hectic as so I have to abandon my computer without notice at times, leaving me logged in but not actually there.

Whats up with chu

Shalvenay

@Asteria not a whole heck of a lot, but I did get all that log redacting done it seems

Asteria

@Shalvenay oh nice

Shalvenay

@Asteria so, when would be a good time to send the results of that over to you? (~1400 lines, spread over 15 separate encounters)

Asteria

@Shalvenay phew boi, thats intense. Any time is fine, since I can just read it during my down time

the dark wanderer

3:18 AM

@BESW Where do we give you detective suggestions?

nitsua60

gotta figure that out yourself =)

BESW

Here, or the Not A Bar.

nitsua60

@thedarkwanderer by the way, I've just gone through every answer of yours--extant and deleted--and can't find the one about magic/mundane that you mention in your comment. If it's there, some querent's really bad with question titles.

Shalvenay

@Asteria is it OK if you have it sent to you when you're on your phone, or would you rather wait until you are at your PC?

the dark wanderer

@BESW Well, I definitely recommend Columbo. My mom's been having us all watch that every time I go over and it's quite great.

Asteria

3:21 AM

@Shalvenay either or is fine. My phones a monster so I don't have any trouble working from it

the dark wanderer

@nitsua60 wow, thanks! Probably I just imagined it, then ^^; I just had some serious deja vu writing the Q, and thought I remembered writing an A for it a bit ago.

nitsua60

@thedarkwanderer Wonder if it's one of those where you wrote up an answer, and while doing so an answer came in that prompted you to discard yours? (Or does that just happen to me, when miniman hits "submit" ten seconds before I'm done?)

@BESW Kojak?

the dark wanderer

Oh, that happens ALL the time. I also mostly write really long answers contrary to general opinion and thus needing tons of sourcing that I often end up not posting cause I only wanna put up with so much backlash at once.

BESW

[adds notes]

the dark wanderer

So my browser's got like 20 tabs with answers in it that are unfinished, probably not gonna get posted, or preempted :D;;; XD

Shalvenay

3:25 AM

are you looking more towards the dramatic flow of a detective story, or more towards the process of investigation itself?

nitsua60

@BESW Munch and Finn?

the dark wanderer

@BESW The Father Brown series was pretty good. Snoopy also famously dresses up with a deerstalker and impersonates sherlock, so there's that.

BESW

5

A: The Hatmas Interdimensional Breach 2017 Photo Album

Detectives: The Deerstalkerening in 2015 I put doctors in the Fourth Doctor's hat and scarf. In 2016, famously awful fathers got to wear Darth Vader's mask. This year detectives will take turns trying on Sherlock Holmes's iconic deerstalker and using his magnifying glass. Hover over an image to ...

nitsua60

@thedarkwanderer Snoopy would be good--nice call.

I think Ice T would look particularly inquisitive in a deerstalker =)

(Then again, I think a trucker hat looks good on a sheep.)

the dark wanderer

@nitsua60 how do you do images?

nitsua60

3:29 AM

@thedarkwanderer In chat?

the dark wanderer

yeah

nitsua60

You can either upload an image you have locally (button just to the right of your message-entry box)...

Or just paste the URL of an image in its own message and all sorts of magic happens.

the dark wanderer

>.<; d'oh on the upload button. Thanks for the info.

Not typical detectives, but I think the double deerstalker would be particularly hilarious.

nitsua60

Marshal rather than detective, but that's a lotta searching he's describing right there.

> What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 and he still wouldn't have found the culprit behind BA38...

British Airways Flight 38

British Airways Flight 38 (call sign Speedbird 38) is a scheduled flight operated by British Airways from Beijing, China to London, United Kingdom. On January 17, 2008, at 12:42 local time, the Boeing 777 used for the flight, having completed the 8,100-kilometre (4,400 nmi; 5,000 mi) trip, crashed just short of the runway at its destination. There were no fatalities but from the 152 people on board, 47 people sustained injuries, one of them serious. The 150-tonne aircraft was the first Boeing 777-200ER to be written off in the model's history, and the first hull loss of any Boeing 777. Ice crystals...

nitsua60

3:35 AM

I just assumed that was the call-sign for Con Air.

Alphaeus

4:07 AM

Weee, first hat

The Oracle

5:12 AM

0

Q: What, if anything, can (and/or should) be done with "How do I determine appropriate challenges for a solo PC" question?

There is a now closed question that I have noticed from the VTC queue. The problem was that 2 of 3 players are going to miss a few sessions, but one player wants to continue. The author asks about a way to balance an encounter for just one adventurer who stays. This is indeed a very broad subject...

BESW

5:58 AM

Creators & patrons: We've heard you loud and clear. We’re sorry, and we’re not rolling out the fees change. https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/

Tweeted by Patreon on December 13, 2017 at 6:02 PM

I found my advice to RPG designers looking to self promote from 2008, and it’s like a graveyard of dead services and now-bad ideas.

Tweeted by rdonoghue on December 12, 2017 at 11:06 PM

Worth noting, Don’t Rest Your Head got pretty scant testing. One in-person session and one designer-absent session, that was about it. Went from concept to (print on demand) publication in just a few months. https://twitter.com/rdonoghue/status/940755892768821249

Tweeted by fredhicks on December 13, 2017 at 3:09 PM

trogdor

Not too surprising

Considering how some things got a little confusing in ways you would expect to be weeded out by a little more play testing

BESW

The thread he's responding to is about how you don't need to playtest (specifically, if you can't playtest that shouldn't mean you can't design and publish at all).

trogdor

6:28 AM

ah

I do still feel like a little of that could have been weeded out still

but maybe we just tacked it on to what we were already doing in an unintended way

kviiri

8:50 AM

Hello folks!

BESW

[wave]

I'm uploading large files on a bad line, so I may be doubleposting and/or dropping out weirdly.

trogdor

9:29 AM

yeah, that happens to me all the time at this time of day just because my parents watch wtv their current thing is at this time

though my line is probably not as bad to be fair :(

Anne Aunyme

9:42 AM

I have no idea how I got the galaxy brain hat...

BESW

44

A: Winter Bash 2017 Hats

Secret Hats Ooh, Shiny! Cosmic Brain Galaxy Brain Universe Brain Rep Cap

Anne Aunyme

9:58 AM

I see

BESW

VTC dupe

trogdor

10:44 AM

@BESW I just wish one of them was named Brian

eimyr

Hello

BESW

@trogdor I'd make a Brian Flim joke, but I don't think anyone here would get it.

@eimyr [wave]

eimyr

Who's today's sleuth?

Anaphory

Heyho

BESW

eimyr

10:50 AM

@Anaphory !

BESW

Police Constable Peter Grant ('Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch)

eimyr

@BESW Cool! Never heard of him. I also can't tell whether he's POC or not.

BESW

He's a mixed-race London estate boy. Mother's a black woman from Sierra Leone, and his father's a white British jazz musician.

As of the the end of the first novel in the series, he's also the first official wizard apprentice of Britain in 60 years.

eimyr

oh? wizard detective?

BESW

Police constable turned wizard apprentice. The jurisdictional overlap gives all his superiors heartburn.

trogdor

10:57 AM

lol

that is quite the jurisdictional overlap

eimyr

@BESW Is police supposed to act against wizards?

BESW

No, Specialist Crime Directorate 9 is the officially sanctioned police division for wizards.

But it's unofficially unofficial, in that you don't burden anyone in the chain of command with the details unless they need to know.

eimyr

I see. The Chain of Command is just a name of a spell useful in interrogations.

BESW

(Lots of people know about magic and fey and wizards and such, but most take a "not my business, don't tell me" approach to such things.)

kviiri

In Deadlands, Texas Rangers have "musicians" who are officially military musicians. In practice, they're any weird people who decided to be recruited rather than shot.

Harrowed, hucksters, Voodoo priests, you name it

BESW

11:02 AM

The big problem is, magic's supposedly been fading from Britain since WWII (hence no new apprentices). But, well.

kviiri

...because of WWII?

BESW

Most of Britain's wizards died in a details-to-be-withheld-until-the-plot-is-good-and-ready battle against Nazi wizards in WWII, and it's implied that something... happened... to magic at the same time.

But, well. Wizards aren't very interested in rigorous testing of hypotheses or the dispassionate collection of data, and since there weren't many left anyway... the whole department kinda shuttered up and became a one-man misery party.

(Hence why information about the events are so slow to be revealed: the only person who can tell Peter, or show Peter the files, is still nursing massive PTSD about the whole thing.)

kviiri

Hm

Sounds interesting

BESW

11:18 AM

Yeah, that's the background series stuff.

Meanwhile, each novel is about a crime or crimes with some supernatural connection. He battles egotistical ghosts and jazz vampires, negotiates détente between the gods of the Northern and Southern Thames, and tries to save people from evil estate council architecture.

kviiri

It seems to be a law of stories that supernatural people always wind up with supernatural adversaries.

BESW

In this case it's pretty much the reverse.

He starts out as an ordinary guy being used as a pawn by supernatural forces, and says "nuh-uh" and starts to learn wizardry against everybody's strong objections.

And once he's learnt enough to be dangerous, they figure they've gotta put him in Directorate 9 just to keep him from blowing himself and everyone else up.

And being a wizard cop means you get called to look into the Weird Stuff.

So he winds up seeking out the supernatural enemies of British peace.

Some of them are actively trying to avoid him, some don't know about him until he shows up, some are trying to use him.

...and he's dating a tributary of the lower Thames.

kviiri

@BESW "Just go with the flow" wasn't meant to be relationship advice, son!

BESW

Yeah, it's kinda nerve-wracking to date a daughter of Mama Thames.

trogdor

11:38 AM

lol

BESW

Every river and stream has a god, who used to be a mortal person before they died in a way that attracted them to the attention of the tributary.

Father Thames was a pre-Roman priest; Mama Thames was a Nigerian nurse.

They... don't see eye to eye.

trogdor

how does that connect them to,.... their tributaries then?

BESW

11:57 AM

Well, Mama Thames committed suicide by jumping off the London Bridge. I'm sure that helped.

The River recognized something in her, and offered her something more than death.

trogdor

I mean,... how can she have a "daughter" when the person who represents that tributary probably isn't actually her actual offspring?

eimyr

@BESW A British river making a "submit or die" offer to some Nigerians? Sounds familiar.

BESW

@trogdor Gods are complicated.

trogdor

mm

BESW

@eimyr Eeeeh.

> "I heard the river call me by the name I have forgotten and it said, “We see you are in pain, we see you are weeping like a child because of one man.”
‘And I said, “Oh, River, I have come such a long way, but I have failed as a nurse and I have failed as a woman and this is why my man does not love me.”
‘And then the river said to me, “We can take the pain away, we can make you happy and give you many children and grandchildren. All the world will come to you and lay its gifts at your feet.”
‘Well,’ said Mama Thames, ‘this was a tempting offer so I asked, “What must I do? What do you want…

She'd come to the River asking for death and nothing else. The River offered her something more than death, not something instead of death.

eimyr

12:05 PM

@BESW Fine. I thought the offer was a bit more hostile, seeing as the Father Thames figure isn't her best friend.

BESW

No, Father Thames left London in the 1800s, after the Industrial Revolution killed three of his sons.

So the London Thames asked Mama to be its goddess, since its god had abandoned it.

Father Thames never goes into the tidal regions around London now, but he resents Mama for ruling it anyway.

eimyr

fair enough

kviiri

So any verdicts on the new Star Wars flim? (no spoilers please)

eimyr

@BESW, could I have your input on this? (not necessarily an answer, but any advice would be appreciated) rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/111776/…

BESW

It's doing new and different things while still being recognizably Star Warsian.

eimyr

12:16 PM

@kviiri I've heard good things about the movie overall and praise for Adam Driver's performance

kviiri

I'm not a huge SW fan but found the first sequel film to be generally enjoyable.

(The Empire Strikes Back, hehe)

BESW

People who don't like it are upset that it's not following through on the "pretty much like the original" themes of TFA; people who like it are pleased that it's continuing TFA's themes of re-examining the original series in the light of the decades in which the series has permeated the culture.

kviiri

Sounds promising to me.

BESW

I like that the new trilogy is, in many ways, an examination of what it means to be a new generation that's grown up in the shadow of one's predecessors. There's... really no other way the writers could've taken it, I think, but I'm surprised they did.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: What is a "spellcaster" for the purpose of magic item attunement? by joan alexi on rpg.SE

BESW

12:19 PM

It's what the new trilogy would always have been about anyway, so they might as well lean in. And it's very topical.

kviiri

@BESW ...that's an aspect of it I hadn't considered. So meta!

So wait, maybe the Star Wars characters represent movies in the Star Wars series?

BESW

It's not quite that literal, I think.

trogdor

@BESW did you see it already?

BESW

@trogdor Not yet, but I keep a stable of reviewers who each focus on different elements of a film in their reviews.

trogdor

ah

BESW

12:23 PM

So I can get a pretty clear picture of where a film's strengths and weaknesses are even if I don't agree with the reviewers' opinions. EG, Readus101 liked Justice League while FoldingIdeas didn't: this is because Readus looks at setpieces and individual moments while Folding looks at structure and themes.

kviiri

I was really slow to see the Star Wars films, despite probably being in the prime age range when the prequel trilogy came out

First I found the fandom to be a bit abrasive with all the bickering and complaining about which films are worth watching and which aren't, and at some point I basically concluded that the films can't really be worth seeing because I know pretty much everything that happens in them already.

Thanks to pop-culture osmosis.

BESW

Heh, yeah, I've been showing a friend the series who'd had a similar experience to yours.

For every Star Wars film we watch, we also watch another film that's related somehow through theme, motifs, or shared influence.

kviiri

Star Wars: Retold

►

^ Star Wars as described by someone who hasn't ever seen it. I think I did better in many respects

BESW

I suppose this is an excellent opportunity to mention Hardware Wars.

Hardware Wars

►

Hardware Wars

Hardware Wars is a 1978 short film parody of a teaser trailer for the science fiction film Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The thirteen-minute film, which was released almost 18 months after Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. The theme song is Richard Wagner's famous "Ride of the Valkyries". == Synopsis == The film begins with the text "Meanwhile — in another part of the galaxy — later that same day". A household steam iron flies through space, fleeing a toaster, which...

doppelgreener

The Star Wars: Concept Trailer

►

The Star Wars 1975 as a student concept trailer. (Some details)

trogdor

12:42 PM

@BESW ha yes

BESW

1:24 PM

@eimyr Remind me in about 20 hours?

@BESW thanks

morning folks

Yawp.

hi

Hello

1:32 PM

....I kinda want to ask Literature what Walt Whitman meant by "the rooftops of the world," but I'm taking a break from that muddle.

nitsua60

@eimyr Do you want that GEP to be statically- or dynamically-scored?

eimyr

@nitsua60 It has to be dynamic, obviously, to account for things like raised expectations or increased/decreased role of the NPC in question in the campaign, but what I'm really looking for is Net Entertainment Value Added on a campaign-by-campaign basis

so even if GEP to Net EP is poor (players realising after the campaign is over that it was all bullshit) as long as NEVA is high I'm satisfied

@nitsua60 As you can see I've been thinking of entertainment value a lot lately...

nitsua60

Okay. I'll get a team of a hundred entertainment economists working on it around the clock. In about a month you can expect a vague statement of update, then a week later I'll give you a one-page hastily-cobbled-together assurance that your NEVA is going to skyrocket, assuming that you also replace your current GM with Vin Diesel and Felicia Day co-GMing.

BESW

@nitsua60 ...have you ever watched Yes, Minister?

nitsua60

(Too topical?)

@BESW nope.

BESW

1:42 PM

You might enjoy it.

Skyler

huh, just got pinged for the messages you sent me 11 hrs ago @BESW

silly SE

BESW

Alphaeus

lol

eimyr

@nitsua60 I'm not going to read it and expect you to relay thousands of manhours of research in twenty words or less, then I'll make a decision that makes my Chinese and Russian GM friends happy, announce it on Twitter as a scientific breakthrough and fire you when my policy falls apart.

nitsua60

@eimyr That's alright. Macron will offer me a job, part of creating a new Parisian refuge for entertainment economists in exile. He'll call it EEIE, and in centuries to come it'll rival IEEE in standard-setting.

eimyr

2:01 PM

@nitsua60 That's... really sad

nitsua60

Yeah. Standard proliferation stinks.

Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.

eimyr

I'm one of the few Instagram users who connects solely through the Unix 'talk' gateway.

that's literally how my contact list looks like

nitsua60

@eimyr You classify all your acquaintances by hairstyle/head adornment, too?

=)

Snow day here. Kids already are marching through the kitchen with pots on their heads. This is going downhill fast.

eimyr

@nitsua60 No, but I do by common interest. And thus, I have sword-people, rpg-people etc.

Also, did you know Venning your RPGs is a thing?

twitter.com/search?q=%23VennRPG

kviiri

I rode the longest escalator in Finland yesterday, on my way to do Geocaching!

eimyr

2:10 PM

plus.google.com/s/%23Vennrpg/top

kviiri

...then the weather got totally abysmal with diagonal slush absolutely destroying me

Miniman

2:35 PM

@nitsua60 Just so you know, I downvoted your question on Pact Magic because it seems like a straightforward example of a read the book to me question. That said, I'd be very interested to know why you asked it, especially given that I'm reasonably certain you already know the answer.

kviiri

I dunno, it's not very clear to me.

I mean, "spellcasting" already has a lot of internal variance

nitsua60

@Miniman Two reasons. 1. I've played/run for warlocks infrequently enough that I found myself (while reading another question) thinking "hmm... so the differences between pact magic and spellcasting, fundamentally, are..." and not being sure that I actually had it all straight in my head. 2. There were a number of other questions where I felt like it'd be nice to have this question's answer(s) to link to.

kviiri

So there has to be a reason why Pact Magic is outside that variance...

nitsua60

DV is fair, though--no worries.

Miniman

Yeah, I didn't think it'd upset you. And your reasoning makes sense.

nitsua60

2:40 PM

I was curious when I saw +3 pop up on my rep-meter, 'cause that's not a number that comes up that often for me. Usually that'd be an upvote on a question and a pair of downvotes I cast, but I didn't remember downvoting much recently. So thanks for reminding me that +1/-1 on a question'll do that, too =)

kviiri

I don't have any hats yet :<

I wonder if I should just click the I hate hats button because hats clearly hate me!

nitsua60

@kviiri A hat(e) for a hat(e) makes the world...

Yeah, that petered out fast.

Miniman

@kviiri It doesn't seem like there's many this year that you could get by accident

nitsua60

@kviiri Find five good edits to make?

Miniman grabbed one on s/rogue/rouge

Miniman

I wouldn't call those "good" edits.

SPavel

2:51 PM

Lawful Neutral edits are the best

3

nitsua60

Ooh... a hat for "rep-cap." That's nice.

We should make an alignment grid out of images of 9 revision histories.

And by "should" I mean "we totally shouldn't do this thing that will simultaneously start fights both about alignment and about site practices."

kviiri

Yeah, I'm not really interested enough to actively go after them.

SPavel

@nitsua60 The more simultaneous fights, the more simultaneous XP!

nitsua60

@SPavel Yes... we can also fight about XP-award schemes. Good idea!

Miniman

@nitsua60 Something I'm curious about: is Mod Enhanced Vision an active or passive ability? That is, do deleted comments show up all the time, or only if you look for them?

nitsua60

2:57 PM

Active.

Miniman

Interesting!

nitsua60

eimyr

I like how the answer just says "No."

nitsua60

Passively we can see that there exist deleted comments ^^

We click in to have them displayed.

Miniman

Anyway, 2am here and I have to get some sleep. Cya everybody!

Adam

3:00 PM

@Miniman Auf Wiedersehen

kviiri

@eimyr "Short answer as title, long answer below" is rather normal ainnit?

eimyr

@kviiri "No."

kviiri

Hnng.

I have 17001 reputation.

eimyr

^_^

ACuriousMind

3:12 PM

@kviiri The universe is obviously telling you to downvote an answer somewhere ;)

kviiri

Yes

kviiri

3:58 PM

Or 17001 answers.

...except someone seems to have already upvoted me... crud.

ACuriousMind

@kviiri You lose the ability to downvote when you drop below 125, so not that ;P

kviiri

Nooo!

doppelgreener

Stack Exchange needs your help for hats! It's a real-life arts and crafts then-take-a-photo competition. For great good and mystery!

14

Q: A Moose, Some Silly Putty ... And A Desperate Plea For Help

Due to a rather unfortunate series of events that can be directly attributed to a surplus of egg nog, the company that provides our hat rentals has requested that we immediately return them without refund. We can't really get into the particulars of what went down, but we did our best to explain ...

discussion fun secret-hats winter-bash-2017

kviiri

5:17 PM

Today's work was rather interesting. A session issue that sounded like it needs a sorcerer to fix was easy. CSS, on the other hand, still a total pain.

Alphaeus

5:55 PM

Winter Bash hats revealed:

So, figured out a little glitch

When you're on the tab it shows them as silhouettes to keep them secret

If you hover over the tab in your browser, however, it will display the screen for you

Trish

6:08 PM

I really hate those "Would it be balanced" questions... the 5e DMG has a sentence that the people should playtest their creations and the impact. Are we the testlab for other GMs?

doppelgreener

@Trish We have experts with knowledge across the materials that can determine general scope for where "balanced-ness" lies, and can do so in under a day where many people would require months of experimentation and development of system mastery to figure it out themselves.

Alphaeus

@doppelgreener ^^Right. I remember when I first had learned how to play enough to be confident, my go-to action was always to just run it past my dad to see what he thought

Saved me the time of learning the hard way

Trish

true, but "Is this balanced" = Totally opninion based in most instances. LAtest example: the net thing... it was pretty fine when I first saw it, not it reads totally like "What is your opinion"

Alphaeus

And, to be quite honest, listening to his responses and then his explanations on why he said what he did helped

GreySage

@Alphaeus Need... more... hats...

Alphaeus

6:14 PM

^^there is another line that the little preview pop-up didn't show

I'm happy with my pizza so far :P

GreySage

Do you only get hats for things done during hatmas?

Alphaeus

Yes, I think so

doppelgreener

@Trish 27 out of 33 of our homebrew balance questions are open: rpg.stackexchange.com/…

Adam

6:32 PM

@Trish I disagree. If I told you that I was creating a common magic item with a +26 to hit, +20d20 damage on a hit, crits on 2-20 and lets you cast wish once per minute with no down side, you could very easily tell me "that's ridiculous". Granted that example is facetious and exaggerated, I don't think anybody could reasonably say something like that cannot objectively be balanced or not.

nitsua60

@GreySage There have been hats that somehow depend on something outside of hatmas. Like editing a post that had a negative score at the beginning of hatmas and its score becoming +5. (Which would depend on the post having attained a negative score before hatmas.) I don't recall if that's an actual one, but it's the sort of thing that has been hatted before.

Things where you wouldn't want the presence of a hat criterion to encourage bad behavior.

"Cleanup" might have been deleting comments of yours that were posted before hatmas started?

The Oracle

1

Q: Review queue indicator doesn't show up, despite apparently being aggressive now?

We've just been informed that we're taking part in an experiment on a more aggressive review queue indicator. Apparently, this should make it so that a red dot appears on the review queue icon in the top bar as long as there's at least one pending review task. My top bar currently does not have...

support bug review top-bar

doppelgreener

For completeness, 8 homebrew balance questions have been deleted. So taking those into account, that's 27 out of 41 that are both open and undeleted.

nitsua60

@Trish I agree that they're a difficult class of question, and that many fall below my "meh" radar. I think I've only answered one, and that's because the thing was so egregiously out-of-balance that it practically mirrors greener's example below and I found some things about it interesting and wanted to make sure the OP didn't just get big 'ol NO! answers. Too much.

doppelgreener

While a lot of "is this balanced?" questions can be opinion-based, the "is it balanced?" questions that we get here are more than half the time viable on-site questions that can receive expert-based good subjective answers.

nitsua60

6:41 PM

If anyone's itching to answer a question, the ToA question has an easy two-part answer: (a) ToA tells you it can be run anywhere, anywhen, so if you're running a home game it's set anywhen you want. (b) if you're running it AL it's set somewhere in the DR 1491-1494 frame. Nothing in ToA actually specifies, but all the AL seasons are intended to run near-simultaneously, and there are plenty of touchstones in the others to date 5e AL to the 1490s.

But I don't have the time to source all of that and write it up, so I throw it out there for you to have fun with =)

Trish

true, most balancing questions are not half bad, but the rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/111786/… one brought forth 3 answers having 3 diametral different opinions - so the question itself is either not clear enough or too opinion based. When I saw it the first time it read to me "What is the raw here?", now it reads "I have this idea of a solution to a problem I don't explain, is that ok?"

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