TRPG General Chat

goodguy5

17:00

If I'm not a dad yet, That sounds fun

@nitsua60 What was your discord name, I'll ping you there?

unless I'm misremembering and you weren't in that game

nitsua60

@goodguy5 Same as here. (Same everywhere electronic.)

goodguy5

hrm... I thought you were in that game with Mike and I. alas

what's the rpg.se discord? I never got the link for that.

nitsua60

@goodguy5 WOW--awesome! Hope mom's healthy and as comfortable as can be with a parasite absorbing all her nutrients and hijacking her endocrine system.

goodguy5

She's good, tired. A little (*cough*) emotional.

nitsua60

@goodguy5 I learned when mrs. nitsua was pregnant with our second that in the third trimester the baby's endocrine system is up and running. Like gangbusters. They actually produce through their glands hormones in quantities that would be toxic to them. Which are piped out through the umbilicus and start a battle for control of mom's body.

It made me newly sympathetic to "pregnancy brain" and "emotional pregnancy."

Rubiksmoose

17:05

@goodguy5 do we have an unofficial one?

goodguy5

@Rubiksmoose I thought so. wait, duh. I can search chat

David Coffron

6

Q: Is there any interest for a Discord server?

I've been thinking about this for a while. What do you guys think about a Discord Server for our Stack? I mean, we do have the chat rooms already, but Discord would enable a few other ways of getting social with each other: We would have video and voice chat, for those interested in it; We can...

discussion

goodguy5

hrm... .I thought he went ahead and did it anyway

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 I don't remember hearing about any action on it, but then again my memory is not to be trusted at all lol

goodguy5

/shrug/

MikeQ

17:08

@Rubiksmoose @BESW hosts a discord server that seems to have many chatizens

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose I know many chatizens who use their personal discord servers (and have mentioned them here in chat, i.e. "I pinged you on discord"), but I don't think there is a RPG stack one

Rubiksmoose

huh. Well I recently got Discord. Maybe I'll join one if there is ever a reason and a willingness to invite.

Yuuki

Arqade (Gaming.SE) has a Discord server but it's almost entirely for voice chat. We try to encourage people to use SE Chat when they want to discuss over text.

nitsua60

@goodguy5 I can also reach out to you using the e-mail you have associated with this account, if you assent.

Xirema

I'm looking for a Warlock homebrew that eliminated Eldritch Blast and replaced it with Warlock Patron specific cantrips that were "Eldritch Blast"-like, but mechanically flavored for their respective Patrons. Anyone know where I can find it? I can't remember if it was posted here or somewhere else.

goodguy5

17:16

@nitsua60 oh, dope, that works.

@Xirema I don't see anything.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose you found it? For future reference, it shows up in revisions

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron I did! Thanks. For some reason I only checked the timeline and assumed the revisions would show the same. Doh!

Glazius

17:38

@goodguy5 Oh hey, I can demo Mouse Guard and/or Torchbearer.

Anaphory

@Glazius [User avatar checks out]

Where do you find the people to play all those awesome games with you play?

goodguy5

OMG, WE CAN PUT TAGS IN OUR PROFILES?!

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 what happens if you put tiny-hut in your profile?

goodguy5

doin it

Rubiksmoose

BANNED

XD

goodguy5

17:56

And I became a watcher on the tag, as well

no, se, I DON'T WANT to watch spells, just Tiny-Hut

Rubiksmoose

hahaha

The Oracle

1

Q: Why was my comment requesting clarification on an answer deleted?

Today I commented on an answer to How should I deal with a player who wants to dictate loot distribution?, asking the answerer for clarification (and implicitly suggesting an improvement at the same time). A few more responses were posted after mine, including a direct reply to mine. As I was ty...

discussion specific-question comments moderation

Glazius

@Anaphory Cons, mostly. I've tried doing it IRL but never really found an audience.

Anaphory

@Glazius These days I have an awesome regular Monday group to play all the crazy stuff with – so I was just asking out of curiosity, not looking for a way that would work for me. The cons I'm used to tend to be 20–100 people in size and not attract an Indie crowd, but I might end up organizing an Indie game meetup in town with one of my Monday players for even more strange games soon.

Glazius

18:22

@Anaphory So what would you use? Just Facebook?

CTWind

18:33

Interesting, the sage advice compendium got updated, and of note is the description of sage advice seems to be updated to say "These are official rulings; public statements by the D&D team are not. Crawford's tweets are often previews of rulings that will appear here". I feel like that's decanonizing his tweets somewhat until they show up in the SA compendium?

4

goodguy5

have we already talked about the new sage advice?

CTWind

I'm reading through it right now, but just spotted that at the beginning :-P

goodguy5

alright then

The Sage Advice Compendium enters 2019 with a fresh coat of paint. Search for "[New]" in the PDF to find the latest rules answers: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/sage-advice/sage-advice-compendium #DnD

Tweeted by JeremyECrawford on January 30, 2019 at 6:27 PM

oooh. shield master clarification. you cannot shove first

What! and half-orcs can survive disintegrate!

GreySage

@CTWind Huzzah! JC's drunken ramblings are no longer important!

@goodguy5 Well, they don't drop to 0 do they?

goodguy5

I thought we had an answer here to the contrary

eh, can't find one. guess not

V2Blast

18:45

The Shield Master clarification was already known based on prior tweets where he changed his mind from the original ruling (following the 2017(?) Sage Advice ruling on the Eldritch Knight's War Magic, where he realized "If X, then Y" wording didn't really make sense to be interpreted as "You can do Y as long as you promise to do X at some point")

but now it's formalized in the Sage Advice Compendium

and half-orcs surviving disintegrate is a result of the errata that changed the spell to only disintegrate if it "leaves" the target with 0 HP

GreySage

@V2Blast Which means druids in wild shape get to live too

Yuuki

@goodguy5 still don't like it

goodguy5

but can you shove in between attacks?

@Yuuki then don't use it

Yuuki

Well sure but then how I can get fake internet points without incessant complaining?

CTWind

19:04

@goodguy5 I think the rules only specify allowing movement mid-Attack action, I don't think there's an allowance for performing any other actions mid-Action. Then again, counterspelling a counterspell against your own spell is supported, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

MikeQ

@Yuuki Have you tried relentlessly making puns?

V2Blast

@GreySage Yep. And polymorphed creatures

GreySage

@V2Blast No more disintegrating toads :(

Yuuki

@MikeQ I'm not Jewish so while I can do things lentlessly, I can't do them re-lentlessly.

V2Blast

@goodguy5 For Shield Master? No, that was already clarified in the same sequence of tweets before where he clarified Shield Master at that time. You can't take something contingent on the Attack action until the whole action is resolved. (Other things like bonus actions that have no trigger can still be done in between attacks.)

@Yuuki booooooooooooo

goodguy5

19:09

until it's "resolved", got it

V2Blast

by resolved I mean completed

Rubiksmoose

@CTWind yes! I read it the same way. Looks like I have some JC answers to update...

In fact, I'm pretty sure they are saying it even more surely than you suggest. It looks like tweets are no longer an official source for rulings.

Yuuki

19:40

I wonder what Star Wars would be like if the plot threads of Episode IV were followed more tightly and Vader isn't Luke's father.

goodguy5

Coding practice preference poll.

1. How many spaces are tabs?
2. how many tabs should nested lines be if you put down a newline?

Personally:
1. 4
2. one extra tab if it's the beginning of a new set of inputs. two extra tabs if it's just a really long line.

Captain Man

2 is a loaded question, is it not?

Presupposing indentation should use tabs

GreySage

@CaptainMan If your tabs = 1 space, then you can answer 2 in terms of spaces.

@goodguy5 4 and I'm not sure what you mean by 2.

goodguy5

I suppose, #2 should be
"how do you indent lines, and how many indentations..."

I ask because I work with people who use two-space tabs and also people that indent like 20 times

Captain Man

1. Tabs are 4 spaces to me, but I think indentation should be 2 spaces, not a tab
2. For nested lines I add one level of indentation, unless it's wrapped from the last line I add two

GreySage

19:53

when going from if(...){ to the contents of the 'then' clause, I use a single tab more than the condition line did.

CTWind

1. Mostly 4 here, though I think the client team uses 2 (despite otherwise sticking to MS's C# conventions)
2. Think it's always just one tab for us.

Yuuki

@goodguy5 What about "how many tabs are spaces?"

GreySage

@Yuuki 1/4, obviously

goodguy5

^

kviiri

I personally consider hard tabs superior to soft tabs / spaces in normal indentation

But since it's a minority view I have to stick with soft tabs and enjoy it

I still voice my opinion every now and then hoping for the winds of change to blow in.

Captain Man

20:03

@kviiri in a perfect world I would agree, but so many tools have no way to change the width and/or they have the awful default of 8

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose Ooh, see how you slid that in there. Ouch.

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast Well it wasn't intended to be a jab at anyone (hopefully was not interpreted as such). Something I genuinely am confused about though.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 this makes you a good father ;)

@doppelgreener In Lake Woebegone, all of the DM's are above average.

@goodguy5 Law / Chaos (D&D) or Chaos / Control (Get Smart) Order is for the Pizza on game night.

@goodguy5 what isn't wrong with Philadelphia?

goodguy5

20:23

D:

V2Blast

@KorvinStarmast True. The Flyers are from there, after all

KorvinStarmast

@CTWind I feel like that's decanonizing his tweets somewhat until they show up in the SA compendium? that is how I tend to handle his tweets already.

@V2Blast First NHL game I ever saw was Caps/Flyers, late 70's ... back in the NHL before Gretzky.

T.J.L.

Yes, but Twitter officially having no weight makes other conversations easier. Any argument that starts with "Well, Jeremy said..." is now an opinion with no additional gravitas.

Rubiksmoose

@T.J.L. and interestingly puts Merls back on the same level.

CTWind

@T.J.L. I wouldn't say no gravitas. It's not something that can be held up as a canonical ruling anymore, but he's still got the weight of being the rules lead behind his statements; at the very least, he has some extra RAI authority.

KorvinStarmast

20:29

@T.J.L. Yes, and I think that's a handy point for them to have made for DM's everywhere, but particularly in AL ... do you tend to use SA Compendium in your AL DMing?

I find the SA compendium helpful in a lot of ways, in part due to them taking an idea and spending a bit more time to put words to it than the Twitter method generally allows ...

Rubiksmoose

@CTWind I mean RAI authority is really the only authority he does have technically

David Coffron

@T.J.L. now I'm just hoping I don't have any Crawford only answers (still valid supporting info for some RAI support, but not enough on its own)

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron Oh I almost definitely do. :-/

David Coffron

I probably do, but don't want to spend the time to go fix them all

T.J.L.

@KorvinStarmast I do, yup. In fact, I just told a player the bad news about Shield Master timing.

David Coffron

20:32

I don't have any recently (when is decided to avoid that type of answer, but I might from 2 months ago or longer)

T.J.L.

Yes, @DavidCoffron, that was the bad news. :)

"Sorry, it's official and not a tweet."

David Coffron

@T.J.L. I misread the chain that was happening. My b

T.J.L.

@DavidCoffron No problem. :)

nitsua60

@CTWind sounds like they plagiarized my old rant:

> To summarize: a tweet from Jeremy might be official, and no others could be. I have yet to see a tweet where Jeremy has said "this one's official" and have (personally) adopted a stance of being skeptical of all of them.

CTWind

Pretty much. I commented as much on your 'what are the official 5e rules?' answer :-P

T.J.L.

20:35

@CTWind The new text amounts to "He's just a guy with a Twitter account who happens to work for WotC." It used to say "Follow Jeremy on Twitter if you want to know the real rules." Now, he can contradict himself or rethink his answers all he likes, and it means nothing until it's published.

Rubiksmoose

Alright, who here is secretly Jeremy Crawford or his intern?

GreySage

@Rubiksmoose CTWind, since he keeps bringing up the errata/SA compendium

T.J.L.

Individuals can choose to give his opinions more weight, but WotC doesn't.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 I mean to be fair, there were definitely times where he strongly implied that all of his were official despite that kind of being nonsense. Luckily we can all move beyond that dark time lol

CTWind

@GreySage No, just a Crawford semi-apologist. :-P

KorvinStarmast

20:37

@T.J.L. My DM retconned my champion's shield master the day after the tweet came out. I still keep it (he offered me a feat change) and have found the dex save benefit to be insanely good. (We ran into a pack of hell hounds and I took basically no damage from about 5 fire breaths)

nitsua60

[rummages /r/dndnext for the next schismatic source...]

"LightFOOTS" vs. "LightFEET"

goodguy5

Has anyone played/run a game where they establish that hp are actually blood points. Like, literally.

PCs just have blood of holding. And when you level up, you have more blood. You get hit and some blood comes out. You only need 1.

T.J.L.

@KorvinStarmast Hell, yeah. My paladin sorcerer gets more use out of the two defensive parts than she ever got out of the bashing part. I have much better things to do with her bonus action.

nitsua60

(Which reminds us that the collective noun for halflings is "podiatry." As in "send that podiatry of halflings around to flank the goblins and cause mischief.")

CTWind

Mild tangent, but there are definitely times when talking to people that dislike Crawford's twitter (especially on Reddit) where I get the sense they believe there's some shadow rules council between Crawford and the actual rules, or that the D&D team's much larger than it really is and Crawford's rules statements are the equivalent of proposed bills that have yet to be passed by the house/senate. Like, they physically hate Crawford, but hold the RAW as sacrosanct as if he had no part in it.

It always struck me as an odd mindset.

KorvinStarmast

20:39

@T.J.L. Our barbarian and I have decided to watch the initiative order, and if it sets up right, I bash-prone, and he attacks with adv without having to go reckless. Tag team butchery, since he has GWM (we are tier 3 at this point). He's brutal with that maul .

T.J.L.

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, the player that has it and her party are usually pretty good about stuff like that. One is playing a Mastermind Rogue, so who-goes-when-against-who is important.

David Coffron

@nitsua60 that's kind of demeaning (as demeaning as fantasy word usage against fictional races can be). It's like calling them kids

KorvinStarmast

@T.J.L. Yeah, that level 3 mastermind thing can be handy ...

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast it's ridiculously strong with the right party

KorvinStarmast

@DavidCoffron I thought podiatry was feet, not kids??? Or is this a joke going over my head?

David Coffron

20:42

@KorvinStarmast oh no... p/e/diatry would be kids. My b

KorvinStarmast

@CTWind I have seen some of that at GiTP.

@DavidCoffron No worries, I have that word on my brain due to wife and her heel/foot problems lately ...

V2Blast

Lol, I was wondering whether that was an intentional joke about hobbit feet or not

KorvinStarmast

Oops, RL happened again. WTF? Cheers to all ..

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast (Lightfoot halflings =\ It's not a very good joke.)

CTWind

@CTWind Mostly because I basically picture him stating rulings, getting booed by those people, then putting on a fake moustache and hat labeled with 'official rulebook'/'SA compendium'/'official errata' and getting applauded by the same people :-P

David Coffron

20:47

@CTWind that's a good point. He's probably the one writing the S/A compendium when he has more space and time to think about it (and maybe a review team/biddy)

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron He's definitely the one who writes it (or at least takes credit for it).

CTWind

@DavidCoffron Oh, he almost certainly is- I think he's been credited as the author of just about every SA post on the D&D site, including back when the answers were on the site rather than in a collected document.

Rubiksmoose

They say so in the intro (and he has said so in Tweets)

David Coffron

This makes me want to monitor his Twitter closer so I can help make sure nothing weird gets made official.

(Now that the tweets might be preludes)

CTWind

Sample old-style SA article.

Rubiksmoose

20:51

@DavidCoffron Luckily there are a couple of very active users on there that also seem to try to do this. And I have on occasion as well (got him to retract a very wrong tweet he made shortly after being made).

V2Blast

@Rubiksmoose Which one was that?

Rubiksmoose

The wrong version of this tweet:

The sorcerer's Spellcasting trait lets you replace a sorcerer spell you know when you reach a new level in the class. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots, which means it can't be a cantrip; cantrips don't use spell slots. #DnD https://twitter.com/adamTwright/status/974489628773355520

Tweeted by JeremyECrawford on March 16, 2018 at 5:46 AM

(he originally ruled it could apply to cantrips as well)

@RubiksMoose I deleted that tweet. Nothing to see here.

Tweeted by JeremyECrawford on March 16, 2018 at 5:34 AM in reply to RubiksMoose

GreySage

Huzzah, 15k Rep! I can protect things!

BESW

21:07

@GreySage Grats!

T.J.L.

@GreySage ...I don't think I've ever done that.

CTWind

@Rubiksmoose I mean, technically he has RAW authority as well- I imagine as the rules lead, he's in charge of book errata, which would be RAW changes by him, if indirect.

Mark Wells

@CTWind I'll admit I dislike Crawford's twitter, not because RAW is sacrosanct (ha ha ha ha ha), but because Crawford's twitter creates the impression that RAW is much more comprehensive than it is.

Everything interesting in the game happens in the space around the rules, not in the rules.

Rubiksmoose

@CTWind The only way he can change RAW is by changing the words on the page (errata). Otherwise he's just offering up his RAW interpretation of which there can be multiple valid ones.

@MarkWells It is really strange, they both try to emphasize using RAW and then also say that it doesn't really matter.

CTWind

@MarkWells That's at least consistent; it's more the odd contradiction of someone whose viewpoint is basically that Crawford is a crazy, uninformed man with no relation to Our Holiest Rules Bible that confuses me. It's like, he's the lead rules designer on the PHB, he probably wrote or personally approved the thing you're saying he's clueless about.

Rubiksmoose

21:15

It is like they are trying to pretend that they are a rules light system at times.

BESW

[amused] It's so interesting to watch communities try to navigate intersemiotic authority.

Rubiksmoose

@CTWind I actually think many times he is actually worse at offering up RAW interpretations because he knows what they intended to write, which taints the way he actually reads the words they actually wrote.

David Coffron

@BESW don't get me started on MtG judges

BESW

Part of the challenge is that we have a culture which grants undue authority to the printed word, especially amongst people who aren't directly involved in the publishing industry.

Mark Wells

@BESW I will grant that my attitude about RPG rules is undoubtedly influenced by my experience with fundamentalists in my religion.

BESW

21:20

(This has been a subject of fascinating study in the age of free online self-publication.)

nitsua60

@MarkWells I wonder if my attitude about Jeremy is influenced by my current annoyance with the authorities in my religion....

BESW

There's potential for a digression into auteur theory, too.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 Now I'm wondering the same thing about me...

CTWind

@Rubiksmoose Sure. I guess my point is just that I've seen people so vehemently dislike anything Crawford says about the rules that they've denied he's ever had any input on them, claiming he must purely be a manager and not responsible for any of the actual rulebook content.

Rubiksmoose

@CTWind oh yeah, that is gibberish I think. Or at least highly unlikely. No reason to think that Jeremy's pen marks aren't all over the rules.

BESW

21:22

heh. I know my relationship to texts and interpreters is influenced by my faith's praxis with same, but probably not in the same way.

Rubiksmoose

Darn it I didn't come here for personal revelations! I came to talk about smashing things with other things.

BESW

"2018-19 Tabletop RPG Horror Round Up" by Rachel Beck for Dread Central.

"You can't get blood from a stone," the mage said. "Can too," the barbarian thought. It just depended on how hard he hit someone with it.

Tweeted by ASmallFiction on January 30, 2019 at 7:26 AM

Rubiksmoose

@BESW See that's the good stuff. XD

V2Blast

@T.J.L. I think I protected a question once or twice since I (recently) gained the ability to do so

CTWind

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, Mearls has stated the 5e creative team was 10 people, and only 2 people besides Crawford are credited with rules dev on the PHB; I know he was the head of the book, but I have a hard time believing that meant 0 input with a team that size.

David Coffron

21:29

@CTWind he's also spoke on drag on talk about his input on the rules (as has Mearls on his own)

CTWind

@DavidCoffron And there are some anecdotes about specific work they were doing within the book, as well. :-P

Yuuki

@CTWind That's... an odd argument to make, tbh. If they don't like Crawford and they don't like the rules, you'd think that shared dislike would mean they'd connect the two.

That sounds more like something someone who likes Crawford but not those particular rulings would say.

Or vice-versa.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Jeremy does not concern me nearly as much as those others ... OT for this stack.

CTWind

@Yuuki Well, in this case, they loved the(ir RAW interpretation of the) rules, but they hated Crawford('s). So their internal conflict somehow came up with the logic of "oh, he must not have had any input on them".

Mark Wells

@BESW Where's James Wyatt when we need him :)

KorvinStarmast

21:33

@MarkWells Making a new game somewhere?

BESW

@MarkWells Dead for more than 200 years.

V2Blast

@CTWind Yeah, I can understand the perspectives of "I understand his ruling but disagree/think it's not fun so I won't play that way"

but the logic of "I don't like his ruling therefore he's wrong about what the rule means" is a bit weird

btw, Mearls recently shared a link to this Kickstarter by Steve Jackson Games

kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/…

"Pocket Box Games of the Eighties"

also

I’ve been cleared to announce the titles of my next two @Wizards_DnD Endless Quest books. They are… <drum rollllll!> ESCAPE FROM CASTLE RAVENLOFT THE MAD MAGE’S ACADEMY Both debut on September 3. More details as I have them! http://bit.ly/2HFSJzG

Tweeted by mforbeck on January 29, 2019 at 8:08 PM

KorvinStarmast

@V2Blast Yeah, I find that PoV not just off putting, but counter productive. There are some conversations at GiTP I avoid for that reason alone. That sentiment crops up now and again ...

Yuuki

21:48

The extent of my disagreements with Crawford's rulings are "he's [probably] right and there's also probably some game balance things I'm missing, but I don't like the feel of some of his rulings so I'll probably play without", War Magic + True Strike being one of the prominent ones.

RyanfaeScotland

So @V2Blast, you reckon that 'personal style editing' question on Meta is about you? :) You strike me as the most prolific editor on here.

V2Blast

Oh, it 100% is

RyanfaeScotland

:D :D

Sir Cinnamon

@Yuuki Well there's the whole problem of he's trying to think of every possibility before he makes a statement. As a DM at your table if something you didnt think of comes up that's not intended you can veto it easily

RyanfaeScotland

You taking it ok? Won't jest if it's actually annoyed you or anything.

V2Blast

21:57

I already apologized for some of those edits - essentially, I was still "editing for style" while I was making other (in my opinion) legitimate edits. I've generally stopped doing it since then - I was a little surprised to see that meta after I'd generally stopped doing it, though.

Anaphory

@Glazius What I would use? Probably conventions, meetups, societies/clubs, organized play, that kind of thing. And definitely friends-of-friends.

RyanfaeScotland

What was the 'style editing' parts in the end? Was it bold to headers and things like that or a bit less 'functional'?

Anaphory

My Monday group is … 3 people I know from the local Boardgame/Cardgame/RPG student club, 2 people they met through Adventure League or other organized play, the partner of a former co-worker, and a tinder-match of one of these people.

V2Blast

@RyanfaeScotland Probably my changing the (long) question title and the section headers from "title case" (the first letter of every word capitalized) to sentence case (just the first letter of the first word). Dunno if they categorized changing "How to X" to "How can I X" as "style editing" - but in that particular case it wasn't clear if they were asking as a player or a DM, and that's why I made that change to clarify it (not "style" reasons)

Xirema

All I know from reading those meta posts is that I am a staunch defender of the Oxford Comma, and I don't trust anyone to be a sane and rational person if they do not.

5

V2Blast

22:04

@Xirema Amen. :P

nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html

RyanfaeScotland

Ah well, hope it didn't cause you too much upset.

V2Blast

@RyanfaeScotland Haha, nah, I'm good. I try not to take these things too personally. As long as I don't piss too many people off, I'm good. :)

RyanfaeScotland

Took me a long time to accept having my Q or As edited, felt like a personal attack on my ability to write / articulate myself. I think everyone goes through that.

Exactly, not taking things personal is what it has to be on here imho.

Rubiksmoose

@V2Blast You're not the only one though. I'm definitely guilty of changing a lot of spell formats for example (though almsot always in conjunction with larger edits). So it was a good meta for everyone I think.

Yuuki

@Xirema One day people will recognize the genius of the Cambridge comma and, on that day we can truly be great.

GreySage

22:11

@Yuuki Gah, shards of glass in my brain!

Yuuki

Jul 30 '18 at 20:57, by Yuuki

@MikeQ I prefer the Cambridge comma. It's simple, it's sensible and, it facilitates readability.

RyanfaeScotland

It's a fairly justifiable and forgivable fopaux to be guilty of though, I mean, people use their styles because they believe them to be the clearest and most understandable (well, the one's I picture you folks adding to edits would be) so it only makes sense while adjusting other things you add that as well.

(Nope, tried out fopaux but didn't like it, read that as faux pas instead!)

Yuuki

@RyanfaeScotland It's a common fox pass.

V2Blast

@Yuuki did someone say FUPA

(don't google that one, kids)

BESW

I'm in favor of clarity. The serial common is a useful clarity tool, but it's often used to shore up poorly structured phrasing.

MikeQ

22:19

@Yuuki I prefer the Oxford comma, Cambridge comma, and, parallel structure

BESW

I aspire to Brenda Ueland's approach to punctuation, which seems to be founded on the notion that good phrasing renders a lot of common punctuation useage unnecessary.

Yuuki

@BESW <insert Sterling Archer>

CTWind

I vote all of mankind's efforts are put towards developing and adapting a written and spoken language equivalent of Polish notation. :-P

nitsua60

@V2Blast This, I think, would be useful as an answer to the meta post, then. If you felt one way about editing, some interactions made you feel differently about it, and now you have different habits it'd be great for you to lay that out. Think about someone four years from now who comes to the site with a similar approach: it'd be great for posterity to be able to point them to your testimonial.

Yuuki

Polish language

Polish (język polski [jɛ̃zɨk ˈpɔlskʲi] (listen), polszczyzna, or simply polski) is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages written in Latin script. Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used by Polish minorities in other countries. There are over 50 million Polish language speakers around the world and it is one of the official languages of the European Union. Polish is written with the standard Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic...

Anaphory

22:35

@CTWind So, like VSO? Any of the 95 green ones here might do.

CTWind

I feel like to be a lingual analog of Polish notation, you'd have to do (silly, obviously-not-practical) equivalents of having the 'operators' be descriptions of what those words are doing in the sentence, like the equivalent of literally saying 'describes'/'is listed with'/etc.

basically removing all ambiguity by adding a silly amount of meta descriptors to the sentence itself

Anaphory

Hm? Wouldn't you mostly need a clear, systematic distinction between intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs in a VSO language?

Yuuki

@CTWind Everybody loves metadata. It's why piFS is my favorite storage scheme.

Anaphory

@Yuuki And, even more so, metadata about the metadata!

V2Blast

"This is the reference implementation of the self-referential joke."

Yuuki

22:49

piFS - the easy-to-use file system with 100% compression.

RyanfaeScotland

@Yuuki Hehehe very good!

Xirema

23:13

> If you cast a spell, such as healing word, with a bonus action, you can cast another spell with your action, but that other spell must be a cantrip. Keep in mind that this particular limit is specific to spells that use a bonus action. For instance, if you cast a second spell using Action Surge, you aren’t limited to casting a cantrip with it.

God, so close to actually addressing the issue people always have questions about. >_<

Oh, here's a good one.

Shalvenay

hey there @ACuriousMind

hey as well @Yuuki and @Xirema

Xirema

> Another example: a cleric’s holy symbol is emblazoned on her shield. She likes to wade into melee combat with a mace in one hand and a shield in the other. She uses the holy symbol as her spellcasting focus, so she needs to have
the shield in hand when she casts a cleric spell that has a material component. If the spell, such as aid, also has a somatic component, she can perform that component with the shield hand and keep holding the mace in the other.

If the same cleric casts cure wounds, she needs to put the mace or the shield away, because that spell doesn’t have a material component…

@Shalvenay Howdy!

Shalvenay

@Xirema how're things going?

Xirema

@Shalvenay I got hit by the polar vortex hard. Was -30°C this morning. X(

Shalvenay

@Xirema yeah, it was roughly that bad here as well

on a warmer note -- you wouldn't happen to be familiar with DW or any of the other PbtA games, perchance?

Xirema

23:24

Only up to -25°C right now, supposed to get better tomorrow and over the weekend, but...

@Shalvenay I know of them, and with PbtA I at least know how it's played, but I have no rules awareness for either, unfortunately.

V2Blast

They’re setting train tracks in Chicago on fire to keep them functional... #PolarVortex2019 http://abcn.ws/2DHw8Du https://t.co/DcpYdfiUMI

Tweeted by dubois on January 30, 2019 at 11:17 AM

Shalvenay

@Xirema ah

GreySage

@Xirema If you perform somatic gestures with a shield for one spell, I don't see why you couldn't for another spell.

Xirema

@GreySage According to the article, the fact that you're using the shield as the material component for one, but the other spell requires no material component, constitutes the difference.

V2Blast

magic

GreySage

23:36

@Xirema I personally call BS on that, but that is my right as a DM at my own table.

V2Blast

Yeah. If a spell has S and M components (heh), you can use the same hand for both. Otherwise, S component requires a free hand

It's a weird rule

but War Caster gives you this:
"You can perform the somatic components of spells even when you have weapons or a shield in one or both hands."

Xirema

@GreySage Personally, I think it's kind of a dumb ruling (confirmed with my DM: he thought it was dumb too), but I kind of understand it.

GreySage

@Xirema I totally understand it, and by a strict RAW reading it makes sense, it's just dumb.

Xirema

@V2Blast Yeah, I think the existence of War Caster explains a lot of weird edge-cases in component rules.

V2Blast

I think it's less a dumb ruling and more (arguably) a dumb rule

Xirema

23:38

If components worked the way that players (And arguably DMs) wanted them to work, that feature of War Caster would be unnecessary.

GreySage

Why do we need components at all? Why not just let the casters use their defining skill without making them unable to do the things they aren't very good at at the same time?

Shalvenay

hey there @GreySage

Xirema

@GreySage You need mechanical ways to shutdown spellcasters. With a fighter, you take away their weapon, and they become about 50% less powerful. Tie their arms and legs, they become nearly useless. Focuses, hand gestures, etc. are the "weapons" of spellcasters.

GreySage

@Shalvenay Yarrr

Shalvenay

@GreySage how're things going?

V2Blast

23:43

@Xirema Yep, precisely

GreySage

@Shalvenay Decent, working, not getting enough game time.

Mark Wells

@Xirema Exactly this. The mechanics still don't quite support it (quick, what kind of action do you use to take a guy's shield away?) but at least you can conceivably be stripped of your wizard tools.

Shalvenay

@GreySage ah. searching for DW (or even PbtA in general) players for a DW game I want to run

MikeQ

@Shalvenay Would it be over roll20 or chat?

Shalvenay

@MikeQ TBD, but chat most likely

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