hey there @SirCinnamon and @SimonH.

hello @Shalvenay

how're things going?

hey as well @KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay greetings, oh most holy Tabaxi cleric. :)

pretty good, and you?

@KorvinStarmast xD how're things going?

@SimonH. alright here

> tabaxi cleric

I'm sorry, hwat?

@Shalvenay Momma just sent a text: meet me for dinner. I am now supposed to come up with a brilliant idea, I suppose

@SimonH. Tabaxi are the catfolk race from Volo's Guide to Monsters in D&D 5e

She has already vetoed my three favorite places for "Monday after work dinner since it's her long day"

oh yes, I know what tabaxi are, I just can't wrap my mind around a > tabaxi > cleric

Simon, a tabaxi nature cleric is a wonderful sight to behold when it is scampering up a tree, carrying a fully armored paladin, to get it away from a deadly beast.

Said paladin was at 0 HP and not doing so well at the time.

@KorvinStarmast alright, a nature cleric makes sense... but keep those cats away from my potions :o

tabaxi Nature Cleric, to be specific

Has already saved my butt once by tossing up a shield of faith when I was in melee with a poisonous nasty beastie ...

@KorvinStarmast that's nice. I wish my cleric did something for once lol

my groups cleric says things like "onii-chan" and "sugoi" all the time

We had hoped to have battle Saturday, but the whole group didn't show up, so we await next week's chance to fight heroically, or die an ignominious death.

you must be in a tough spot, huh?

@SimonH. Are they an anime healer?

@Yuuki it's a dude playing as a trans half-elf with a staff that has a rabbit face on it

fairly strange compared to the rest of the party

we're all fantasy tropes

@SimonH. yeah, slightly, at least

The two people who hate you the most in the world are the raid boss and your main healer.

@Yuuki perfect

our cleric is the top one, I think he's a closeted 'that guy'

@Yuuki and then the logibro checks in. :>

@Shalvenay I'm unfamiliar with that term.

@Yuuki ah. it's EVE Online slang for someone who is that game's equivalent of a healer on a regular basis

@Shalvenay you play EVE? wow.

@SimonH. played, sadly don't have the time to play properly any longer, (the hiatus started with some UX breakages and graphics driver issues, and I just haven't had the time and energy to really get back into it since)

@Shalvenay I mean, that's understandable... I hear it takes a lot of time and attention

@SimonH. aye

might be a bit shameful to admit, but I miss minecraft.

the more secluded servers had small, tight-knit communities that it was a joy to be a part of

but my last computer (a macbook) had a corrupted driver which I wasn't sure whether it was a hardware or software issue, and then the battery pack expanded

macbook* (same difference tbh)

ouch

@Yuuki eh, I enjoyed healing, but to be fair I didn't get that many people who overestimated my actual ability to heal so that probably helped

I also just don't know if it was harder in other MMO's

Did you ever do raiding and, more importantly, did your guild ever have to bring random people to raids?

(I played a few others but the only one I was a healer class in was WoW)

@Yuuki I did instances but not the big raids

Except for one time

@trogdor Yeah, that's probably it then. Raids are fun but they also bring out the worst people.

And that time I was the guy who screwed it up

@trogdor Eh, there's screwing it up and then there's the pubs.

I liked the normal 5 mans a lot better

@trogdor Finishing a raid without outgearing it feels nice. There's a certain sense of accomplishment.

I never got there

Personally I just like making the health bars go back up

I think it's a lot easier to get into raiding these days.

XD

That would be nice if I still wanted to play that kind of game

At the very least, there's matchmaking for raiding now when you used to have to trawl public chat to pick up people.

It eats too much time for me now though

@Yuuki definitely an improvement

If I get back into it and I'm considering it, I'll be avoiding healing and tanking.

Oh man

Healing and tanking are my favorite roles

I've tanked and healed and it's just too much of a commitment. Especially if you're part of the guild raiding team.

DPS is still fun but not in the same way

I love doing it but then everyone expects you to be on or else there's no raid.

It basically turns into a job.

@Yuuki Yeah that part would suck

I'd rather have less fun but also not burn out after a couple of months.

I only made it halfway through the current xpac before I dropped my subscription.

DPS are a dime a dozen and the guild can always grab some random dude if you feel like playing something else or are just not up to raiding that week.

I doubt I could last any longer than that honestly

In that situation

I do sorta wonder why more people don't like to try to tank or heal

@trogdor I think it's responsibility aversion.

I mean, I know you need more DPS anyway but

@Yuuki that could be it I guess

Plus, it's a lot easier to rank DPS and some people like to crow over DPS meters.

Oh I hate that $$#&_$&

It's a lot more difficult to say one tank or healer is definitively better than another.

the most annoying guy in any instance party is the one pulling agro because they can't stand to not be at the top of DPS

@Yuuki well, as long as they all do the job right

Which I will say.

Guilds also tend to have their own tanks or healers. Since encounters tend to hinge on tank/healer performance, guilds prefer to have people they trust in those roles.

So if you want to get picked up for raiding, it's a lot easier to do so as a DPS.

As someone who has done both things, my healing or tanking counterpart rarely messed anything up

@trogdor Tanking is a lot easier these days. I didn't even have to install an aggro meter add-on in the last xpac.

@Yuuki the one time I got into one it was as heals

It's mostly managing mechanics and cooldowns now.

@Yuuki that's almost a shame really

@trogdor If you want some of that old-school flavor, I think FFXIV still does aggro management.

I enjoyed a little challenge in tanking

But healers are also expected to DPS in FFXIV.

Lol

I don't like that too much

Basically, if nobody is low, you need to be in DPS mode instead of pre-casting heals and stuff.

Just let me raise the house bars, ok thanks XD

@Yuuki how strange

Also, rotations are super complex in FFXIV.

Is that the community or the game itself or both?

fun fact: I've never played an MMO before. Or anything close to it.

@Yuuki Go heals and get instant invites.

I've played Xenoblade Chronicles, but that's it

@Rubiksmoose ah, interesting, I take it your computer/video gaming interests carried you in different directions genre wise?

@GreySage Anecdotal evidence, but my guild tended to have tank and healer spots filled up by guildies and we'd only look for DPS.

In both of the guilds I've been in, this was the case.

I assume when I was drafted the one time it was because the normal healing was missing

yeah, EVE Online is the closest thing to a mainstream MMO I've ever played

as a result, the whole hotbar/tabtarget gameplay concept is something that is alien to me

I was not part of any major raid guild, but someone or other from my online social circle at the time asked if I could off heal

It went pretty well until I didn't see a thing until it was murdering me (I never found out if someone else had pulled agro or what, but it kinda discouraged me)

I like hotbar combat

It's a nice mix between turn-based and action

@Shalvenay Yup. Mainly story-based single player RPGs (eg Witcher 3) or Nintendo stuff.

@Rubiksmoose ah.

The only online game I've ever been on in any serious way is Super Smash Bros.

@SimonH. ah. I'm not sure where EVE's combat system falls into that whole spectrum of things -- I'd call it a bit of an outlier, myself

@SimonH. re: your remark about my tabaxi nature cleric -- off-beat characters are a thing of mine.

@Shalvenay I'm never quite able to pull those off. I have a dwarven ranger right now, but my DM is using a steampunk homebrew and I couldn't help but take some guns. it's come full circle lol

@SimonH. ah, heheh. I find myself gravitating towards characters that challenge norms, although I'm not 100% sure what the boundary between "norm challenging" and "edgelord" is other than the spotlight-hog aspects of the latter

@Shalvenay haha yeah, edgelordism is an easy trap to fall into. a former player played a gnome rogue and tried to set himself apart by telling another PC he killed his parents, which ended in his character's grisly demise

@SimonH. yeah, I tend to play with different sorts of norms/boundaries myself. lots of challenging the traditional race/class/alignment interlocking norms/tropes, for instance

as well as some of the miscellaneous perceptions re: backstories and such

(it's also a theme of my DMing, which helps -- worldbuilding-tinkering is common, with lots of custom setting bits. let me know if you want spoilers on any of it :)

@Shalvenay the closest I can get to that would be trying odd (in my opinion) alignment mixes like chaotic good

I'd love to hear DMing stories from you!

@SimonH. ah. so yeah -- I haven't ever run a full campaign, but I do quite a bit of short-form stuff (usually convention-sized, although I do want to get a playtest group together for a mini-campaign sometime)

@Shalvenay that's cool. do you play in person or online, usually?

@SimonH. mostly online but I have both played and DMed in person before

what is the markup I can use to put an emtpy line between two quotes?

I think I may have remembered or just gotten lucky lol

one of my few in-person stories comes from my one time so far as a convention DM -- I had brought a short-form dungeon to the campaign, and the party decided to try some doors in the dungeon, but didn't read the sign that said "FIRE EXIT -- ALARM SOUNDS WHEN PUSHED" in several languages

IDK man, is it not in the options?

and opened a fire exit door, setting off the dungeon's fire alarm in the process and causing a fair stir among the inhabitants

@Shalvenay a fire exit in a dungeon? that's odd O.o

@SimonH. xD well, it's a "dungeon" from more of a mechanical standpoint than anything else. it's actually an old castle that was renovated by a witch coven into their HQ

@Shalvenay a witch from the future

@SimonH. haha. this was actually a pretty straight fantasy setting overall, just with some differently applied magic :>

@Shalvenay you're right, that is pretty unique. when I want to have something to have a certain tone, I'll change settings rather than transplanting stuff from other settings

I guess maybe I should try that sometime.