Oh, there's always the the Crunchyroll problems, but yeah the plot was a tad confusing. "Hi, new JoJo. I'm the JoJo from the last season or two. The JoJo from the season before I was the main JoJo is your illegitimate father, which makes me your nephew... or something. Your Stand seems cool so IMA PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE"
[Also trying to politely hint that I'm more focused on that than chat right now, which I need to stop leaving open in another tab.]
Pelgrane Press publishes both 13th Age and the upcoming Yellow King (see KS link in the sidebar). This is relevant context. Because while 13th Age characters have One Unique Thing, Yellow King characters, as I just learned, get Damned Peculiar Thing. Is it possible to love a game that's not even out yet? Because I kinda do.
@doppelgreener There's a season or two of Doctor Who, during the Fourth Doctor's era, when he's on the run from Gallifreyan demigods of Order and Chaos. So he puts the TARDIS on random for each jump, reasoning that if he doesn't know where he's going it's harder to follow him.
It works surprisingly well, and is a fun call-back to the early days of Doctor Who when he literally had no ability to control when or where the TARDIS went.
@doppelgreener thanks for persevering with the RAW meta-question. I think there is an extremely valuable discussion to be had that could clear the air considerably
> Wizard: I cast wish. GM: What do you wish for? Wizard: That we wrap up and head down to Wendy's. Rogue: What about White Castle? Wizard: I wish for Wendy's. Rogue: I stab him in the back.
(The only character I ever used it with had a raw Int modifier of about +17, which meant it was just cheap transportation with better accuracy than most spells with similar effects.)
In classic-era Doctor Who, the villain known as The Master was played for some time by the actor Anthony Ainley. During that time The Master often took on disguises for the first parts of multi-episode stories.
In order to keep the audience surprised, Ainley would be credited with an anagram like Neil Toynay in the first episodes, until The Master's identity was revealed in the story.
(And the first time Ainley appeared in the show, he played a totally different character named Tremas, whose body was taken over by The Master at the end of the story.)
@NautArch I like most of the individual parts of the season; Bill's awesome, Nardole's fun, Capaldi's always great. They just don't seem very coherent together, which would be more okay if it wasn't still trying to do the Epic Season Arc thing.
Eh. I'm used to Moffat promising more than he can deliver with finales, and to his credit he didn't do that so much this time. But it felt even more cavalierly thoughtless and slapdash than usual, too.
I"m hot/cold on Nardole, but loving Bill and Capaldi. I'm only a few episodes in, so I'll keep it up. I also haven't finished Expanse's latest season or started Magician's latest.
And given [spoiler] that had some real-life implications for my viewing appreciation.
@NautArch I dunno what Expanse is doing. They make some changes that I approve of heartily, and then they leave out some of the books' most awesome moments for no reason at all because none of the changes made it hard or illogical to include those moments.
Overall I think the TV series is noticeably better than the books, but the best parts of the books are better than the series and yet get left out for no apparent reason.
On the other hand, the series included Avasarala a whole booksworth of plot before the books did, and Chrisjen Avasarala covereth a multitude of sins--though perhaps not what they did to poor Bobbie's character.
Graah, Crunchyroll! I give you an entire... 5 HOURS of me sleeping to get your stuff sorted out, and what happens? You still crash on the first ad on the episode of JoJo's I'm trying to watch. *sigh*
The idea is that I hate advertisement because it annoys me and wastes my time. Companies do it anyways because it increases sales. If more people think like me they will see that advertisement decreases sales and will stop doing it and I will be more happy.
@T.J.L. Because when I'm going through Reddit, and see an ad for a thing I love, it doesn't really waste anyone's time, but I get the slightest sense of satisfaction out of knowing the company behind it is doing well enough to do so.
@Papayaman1000 I would enjoy it if it went more in the direction of product information. Unfortunately advertisement has almost no product information and is instead based on burning "Buy It!" into your brain with a laser.
@T.J.L. I can. I was in some other country and had to buy tooth paste. I had no clue which one to buy, so I ended up buying the one I knew from advertisement instead of the local no-name. I regretted that decision.
I'm also re-evaluating using duckduckgo. They have ads since a few days making me not want to use it anymore.
There is probably a user script somewhere that gets rid of it, but it bothers me that they force the general population to spend time and energy on that garbage.
@NautArch Basically, the ideal society. Fully-automated luxury Communism (post-scarcity), in happy (and tolerant) sectors of SPAAAAAACE that we get to colonize.
@nwp - Generally speaking that is also a correct statement. However, at the end of the day -somone- needs to exchange goods, currency or services in order to obtain something.
@NautArch Information has value. Information can be shared infinitely without losing that value. The cost of producing the information is fixed. With enough sharing the cost becomes zero.
In theory those websites should be government funded, just like streets and schools because it benefits the whole country/world. In practice the internet is brand new and governments are slow.
@NautArch Facebook makes roughly $12 per user by selling a comprehensive portfolio of them in the form of categorically enrolling them in ad campaigns.
There is an episode on Hello Internet about that, and later they wondered if it is stealing if you go to the toilet while a TV ad is playing on a show you are watching.
I think I've got to quibble with your second statement. If we take the portfolio of me that FB sells, for instance, I'd argue that its value actually does decrease the more it shares it. If FB has a relatively small, well-curated list of ad services to which it sells me I may then see well-targeted ads and click-through at a rate where the service is willing to pay FB $12 for me. OTOH, if FB starts disseminating me willy-nilly, that drives up my aversion to the ads I'm served, drives up my incentive to block, may ultimately drive down my click-through rate, and therefore drive down the serv…
@nwp So if I have a website, and running costs me money (and increases as the site gets bigger/more traffic), but I don't have any way of making money because i'm providing information - how do I pay to run the website?
@nwp Ever read an intrigue? The WHOLE POINT of information having value is that its value is derived from it either being useful for further understanding of the world at large, or if it fails that, then it derives it from a minimum number of people having access to it.
@nitsua60 You are mixing up information and spam. Well targeted ads that actually give you information that you can base you purchasing habit on is always welcome. Spam about garbage you don't care about isn't. If facebook shows you more things of value you wouldn't object. If they showed more things of value to more people that is fine too. If they blanket-spam people to promote some garbage you don't want then that has nothing to do with sharing information.
I'm just saying that people/companies have to spend money in order to get their product out there. Advertising can help reach new customers that haven't heard of it. To punish them for wanting to grow their company seems problematic.
@NautArch From the money you make from your job or something. Those 6,90€ or so I pay for my server per month are not even worth talking about. Demanding money from visitors is ridiculous.
@Papayaman1000 If you have some secret information like "tomorrow the prices for oil will go down" and you therefore sell all your oil to buy it back tomorrow for a lower price you are just ripping people off and I don't support that.
@Papayaman1000 - It is less about the tech side (having installed and compiled Linux from almost scratch) and more about the "is that a shared server? kthnxbai I need a VPS:
More specifically.... I run a game community with a resource intensive chat application which has previously crashed shared hosts :)
Ultimately it's not good for a larger community, but by the time you reach that you could probably safely recoup with ads or even just a very suggestive PayPal link in the footer.
@Papayaman1000 If you think the concept is to screw over people with less information then yes. I, however, think that there is some value in the stock market giving money to people who can use it to produce value.
@nwp Despite the fact that the Stock Market functions off the exact same principal that the oil example does. Down to the point where raw materials have their own HIGHLY SIMILAR market.
@Papayaman1000 Hmm no. The oil example is a zero sum game. For someone to gain money someone else has to lose money. That's not entirely how the stock market works. It instead produces value by, for example, displaying supply and demand for people to react to by producing more or something else, thus making people on average more rich.
@NautArch I didn't make that assumption. Businesses generally put up websites where they show off their products and services and if I have a need for them I'll find them. That doesn't mean every business should put all their stuff in everyone's faces.
@nwp The thing is, though, that by this argument, so long as you aren't dealing with the same person, then the oil example will also result in that general net gain.
@nwp You are making two assumptions: that you know what to look for and that you have access to do so. Not all market segments are savvy enough to find the product, so the company has to find ways to get their product in front of those customers. Yes, it means getting in front of folks with no interest as well.
@Papayaman1000 I think the distinction is the time frame. 1 day is arguably too short for anyone to really react (by producing more oil or reducing oil production).
@Papayaman1000 There are parts of the stock-market that I don't agree with. High-frequency-trading is one of the things that I fail to see any value in, particularly because it seems to be just about draining money from people with a slower connection than you. But I wouldn't shut it down completely if I could either because I see some long term benefits that I would not want to lose.
Nitpick: "roughly equivalent" A Penguin is a bird. 'Penguin' is not "roughly equivalent" to 'bird'. Publicity is (a form of)* advertising. Publicity is not "roughly equivalent" to advertising.
My games day is tomorrow, and SOMEDAY I will ACTUALLY run Paranoia for them v.v... Session 1 will be mostly intro, and Session 2 will probably (Hopefully?) be broadcast on Twitch or somesuch lol
@BanjoFox Our party was last seen being woken by a group of 6 Revenants that have been coming at us for awhile (and we don't get XP for fighting them.) Our sorceror was discovered (sneak fail), and the rest of us are waking up.
@NautArch My group told a White Dragon that they would be back in half an hour; they needed to contemplate its offer...and then took a long rest. Dragon is gonna be ticked off if they ever come back.
@BanjoFox I think this is our 3rd or 4th fight against them. And I can't count how many night fights we've had (most of them I'm in my underwear - only once was I on watch.)
@Adam Yeah, that'd be nice. Our DM doesn't give out magic items too often. Depending on if these guys qualify, I'll probably cast Protection from Good/Evil.
but they generally have met that qualification in the past
@Adam I'm also out of attunements (ring of earth elemental, ring of protection, Maul of vengeance) The latter was a bit of homebrew, I think (it as handed out before I joined, but given to me)
@T.J.L. It's been my go-to for awhile. We are in a campaign against things that generally qualify for it :) My buffs basically rotate between Bless, Haste, Shield of Faith, PG&E.
@NautArch Often times between PEG and bless, bless wins out for me in terms of what I want to concentrate on. though I haven't had the option to play a wizard or warlock, so I wouldn't know from that perspective.
@NautArch I prefer Bane over Bless; few enemies are proficient with Charisma saves, and nerfing their attacks seems to work out better than boosting your own (often fewer) attacks. Of course, it... yeah...
Paladins can't do it, only Bards and Clerics get it.
@T.J.L. ha - i'm the exact opposite. Reducing our enemy attacks by a d4 generally doesn't do much. Reducing their saves can, but helping me hit and use GWM and my other melee folks seems to have a greater impact. Offense > Defense.
@T.J.L. The fact that they get a save at all is why bane isn't used very much at my game. we all figure, why risk any of them saving when I can guarantee a boost for our side.
@Adam Group configuration is a factor. I somehow end up playing with lots of casters, so reducing the targets' saves is more beneficial than boosting allies attacks.
@godskook Yup. Had they accepted the deal they were offered at the time, the dragon would have let them go on their way without a hassle. They did not necessarily need to fight this dragon.
There also seem to be a lot of fairly low-level enemies with multi-attack. Bane potentially reduces the likelihood of three to nine attacks hitting and makes spells more effective, while Bless only improves three to six. Which to use is definitely a judgement call, but I regularly see Bane be the more effective of the two.
@A.B. by the way--your question about being undetectable could both be a very good question and a question that doesn't interface well with the Stack's mechanisms. It's a fun thing: to imagine all the ways I'd try to sneak, then all the countermeasures, then all the counter-countermeasures... but it's a hard one to craft such that answers will come in a way that voting makes sense.
@NautArch You know, I hadn't thought of that. But I wasn't planning on it. Dragons, especially chromatic dragons, always seemed to me to be "Either my young will survive on their own, or they deserved to die" type of creatures.
@nitsua60 @A.B. I think there's a disconnect between the answer and the body, too. The question "can I be totally undetectable" is very answerable (as far as I know.) NOthing is guaranteed in 5e to my knowledge.
@Adam my dragon lore is incomplete. Siblings may also work :) Just the idea that they had an opportunity to talk their way through...they chose not to and angered a creature. If you want them to consider talking more, then an increased threat may suggest that :)
@NautArch I wonder if the "solution" is to pose it as a CharOp question? "How do I, given XYZ resources and UVW constraints, become the most undetectable?"
@NautArch I'm pretty comfortable with the path they've chosen. It has it's own consequences. There are some kobolds in the area that worship the dragon, and the PCs made sort of a treaty with the kobolds. If they kill the dragon, the kobolds will turn on them. They knew about this at the time, so I'll let their actions take them wherever they want to go. I always intended this part of the adventure to be "they don't have to kill it, but they can if they steer things that way"
@NautArch I mean, I've got a sniper I'm playing right now with a passive stealth of 31. And I wasn't really focusing on that--it sorta came along for the ride. There are lots of ways to get sneaky.
@B.S.Morganstein but questions about questions about questions, such as what you just asked, are not appropriate anywhere on this site. Too meta for us :P
@NautArch @nitsua60 I was attempting to ask if there was a way to be immune to all sorts of detection, all the time. I thought it was an interesting concept that could have a lot of good discussion, including, as you stated, ways sneak, ways to counter that, and to counter that.
@nitsua60 @NautArch Either I asked the question completely incorrectly, or that it's too broad to be answered by Stack's means. Either way, the question is now a shell of what I wanted it to be
@NautArch I intended it to be a discussion about potential combinations of spells/magic items that one would cast/wear to overcome anything, rather than simply being "invisible" where truesight can detect you
@A.B. I'm not sure why you got so much pushback, and why you cut it down so much. I think it was better when it described trying to get into someplace with legendary defenses.
@T.J.L. I strongly apologize for cutting it down the way I did, because I loved the way you were formulating your answer. I wish I can delete the whole question ...
@BanjoFox @A.B. "Is it possible to be completely undetectable?" is the core question that is Stack acceptable. And the answer, I believe, is a simple "No."
@A.B. the followup question of "what ways can I become sneakier" is legitimate, but should have your level/class/race and those of your party so we know what spells could be available to buff you.
@A.B. Mods such as myself can delete it on request if we find such a request reasonable. I think the lesson here would be to focus on the practical situation you're facing at the game table: you have XYZ character, you want to pass through this particular area, you expect so-and-so defences, be specific about everything you can be & avoid making anything up.
After thinking about it, it really is more of a forum/chat question than a Stack question, as @Adam mentioned, due to the reasons provided by nitsua: there can be counter arguments, and counter counter arguments
The stack doesn't deal with theoretical situations very well specifically because if we need more specifics to dig into, they don't exist to be provided.
I asked a question that got closed for not being suited for the Q&A format that RPG.SE uses, and was told that my question would work better on a discussion forum.
Where can I find an RPG discussion forum well suited to my question?
Guidance for answers
This should be a curated list of direc...
@doppelgreener I liked the way you and @T.J.L. were going with "what about this..." and "how about that" type of scenarios...the crazy fortress name also gave me a chuckle
@NautArch There's a small section in the PHB/DMG about not making your players roll for trivial things. Such things just work. With that description, I'd say that there are things that are "automatically successful", but they're more up to DM purview rather than being explicit in the rules.
@A.B. I could see something like a Wizard 15/Rogue 5 being in high demand for situations like this ultra-high-security breakin. It's a shame you can't get AMF any lower, and take more Rogue. :)
Contemplates pointing out that @doppelgreener contains the word "green" thereby implying Green-level clearance and would THEREFORE be IMPERSONATING the Computer
@NautArch Like I said, I think the original question was better. It made mention of trying to get into a place with heavy magical defenses. I think focusing on the unknown nature of the defenses, rather than trying to explicitly define them would have been the right way to go.
@NautArch I intended it to be a discussion about potential combinations of spells/magic items that one would cast/wear to overcome anything, rather than simply being "invisible" where truesight can detect you
@doppelgreener I liked the way you and @T.J.L. were going with "what about this..." and "how about that" type of scenarios...the crazy fortress name also gave me a chuckle
@Adam Why? The characters (and by extension the players) having imperfect information is quite common in gaming. Presenting the scenario as such shouldn't be a problem. If full knowledge is required, it should be gm.SE, not rpg.SE.
Because people are used to seeing "That's really vague, we need more information" on other kinds of questions. The question itself can almost be reworded as a charop question of the form "I'm looking to make the ultimate burglar who can get past any defense, magical or otherwise. All class levels and magic items are allowed. What should I do?" And I don't know if that question would fly.
@nitsua60 Yes - he wants the discussion, but his core question still can be answered easily.
for the discussion followup question, he could provide the info on himself/party to create a more specific set of options to reduce their chance of getting caught.
@godskook @T.J.L. I have 2 friends I am introducing to Dnd. They have never played before. I am trying to figure out if I should be using a premade campaign (and if so, what campaigns exist for 2 players), or if I should DM a simple session (in which case, how should I guide them on character creation, which 2 characters synthesize well together, etc). I feel like these could both be separate questions, but don't know how to word it to be on topic, sufficiently objective, etc
I agree with @T.J.L. on "you don't know what is coming, so be prepared for anything" scenarios. Equip your Rings of Whatever and your Cloak of Something! Not well-received however, as the question showed.
@B.S.Morganstein I suspect a little searching around will find that those questions have already been asked. That said... I've heard good things about Lost Mine of Phandelver as introductory material - probably because that's what it was designed for. You'll probably need to dial back the challenges for such a small group, but it shouldn't be insurmountable or even all that difficult.
@B.S.Morganstein Just as a side note with some experience, I DM for my group when not everyone can make it, so my group was only 2 people. I let each of them make 2 characters. Granted that can be confusing for new players. If they had declined, I would have made a "braindead" NPC and sent it along with them instead.
Giving them an NPC on their first adventure to provide some support, but making sure that it doesn't actually participate much in their discussions, can help even things out
If you only have two players, consider allowing them to run two characters so you can fill out the party with typical roles.
Also if you're all new, I would allow some flexibility on character choices. If they find out they don't like an ability choice by the end of the first story, don't force them to keep it if they have alternatives.
@Adam The timid healer is never a bad choice; somebody who doesn't interact in social or combat by choice, but is available afterwards to help with healing.
@Adam Yeah I think I'd rather stay away from that - this'll be both of their firsts with tabletops at all, so I think sticking with 1 character, with maybe me playing an NPC, would work best
Friend computer is disappointed in your inability to withstand simple laser trauma and has decided gradually increasing exposure, daily, will help build your immunity.
...I just had a silly idea. Laser pointers come in colors, right? As the GM, you need at least a red one and a green one. Punish any player who reacts to the green one if he doesn't have green clearance.
@B.S.Morganstein I have little advice for how 5e handles small party sizes. I'll defer to @T.J.L., @nitsua60 and our other 5e experts for that.
As far as published vs. custom, I'm a big fan of custom, but published has clear advantages in terms of prep-time, how fleshy the railroad tracks are, etc.
As for DND, if you want to write a simple intro adventure of your own, 1st level stuff is pretty simple. I mean it's AD&D Tower of Doom arcade game simple. "HELP HELP" Gasp, goblins are attacking the villagers! (Heroic poses, hold weapons skyward, battle cry), FIGHT GOBLINS.
@godskook Appreciate the response, and am agreed that custom is more fun. But if such a 2 player noob intro session exists, I am tempted to defer to it rather than building my own
@B.S.Morganstein The D&D5E hardcovers are meant to start at 1st level and take you up from there. LMOP is the first, and as I understand it, it's pretty much full training wheels. I would steer away from Curse of Strahd, not because it isn't good (Ravenloft is wonderful), but because it has some very strong setting tropes that may be lost on new players who lack the context to understand the contrast and significance.
@B.S.Morganstein Sort of kind of. He makes a short beginner adventure, tells you his thought process, and gives you everything to run it in the description.
Running for kids taught me there are two kinds of kids. The ones who can see alignment as a guideline for moral and ethical behavior in the safe environment of constructive roleplay and the ones who see Chaotic Neutral and write it down before they finish reading the description of it.
@B.S.Morganstein - Not really? It is literally a book of one-shots as sorted by suggested player-level and quantity. Each one-shot takes about... 10 minutes to digest :)
I would also advice you to not pay attention to optimizing synergy or other choices for character building. They don't need to be efficient and strong, just letting them have fun playing the game is much more important for first timers and you can always adjust the difficulty.
@B.S.Morganstein I'm currently running LMoP for two new-to-RPGs players and it's fine. I don't even bother adjusting encounters or anything.
@B.S.Morganstein I have a friend who's trying to write a guide to two-character-party adventures. He's convinced (and I don't disbelieve him) that there's plenty of good one-PC guidance out there, and that three basically works like any other party, but that "buddy flicks" deserve a little more thought.
@nitsua60 - +1 for that!.... I always seem to run into the "There are only three people" problems :( The Protocol gaming system (and things like Fiasco) seem to solve that but there are so few people that know/are interested in such things.
@nitsua60 I couldn't agree more, hence why I am curious about synergies. I would imagine they would want to play characters in such a way that they compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses, but am not sure if such a question would be on topic, let alone how to word it to make it sufficiently objective
@B.S.Morganstein I'd second what someone said a while ago: let them make/pick any two characters, and let them make changes later on if they want. No need to "get it right" from the first instant.
To add to @nitsua60's most recent point. Player-tastes and preferences will evolve over time. They will need to grab the basics first :) Plus... good roleplaying can generally overcome statistical (character sheet) conflicts
That's how my "bounties" tab looks like now. It seems like my current bounty is being shown twice (as my previous bounty on the same question was made a bit earlier than 5 hours ago).
A new tag has just been created: crystals.
Shall we keep it? What is this tag about?
I asked a question that got closed for not being suited for the Q&A format that RPG.SE uses, and was told that my question would work better on a discussion forum.
Where can I find an RPG discussion forum well suited to my question?
Guidance for answers
This should be a curated list of direc...
That's how my "bounties" tab looks like now. It seems like my current bounty is being shown twice (as my previous bounty on the same question was made a bit earlier than 5 hours ago).
