TRPG General Chat

trogdor

12:00 AM

I don't hear any wind or rain or anything anymore though

BESW

[rummages through NOAA site]

Yeah, it's slowing down and gaining intensity.

When NOAA describes movement as "a slow drift," you know you're in trouble.

Notice how as it slows down the path becomes more erratic.

trogdor

now you are making me worried

you just had to mention it turning around and hitting us again

X{

:P

user15026

@BESW oh, yeah, it gets a wobble going

Ender Look

D&D 5e spell Spiritual Weapon. Can I "equip" the spiritual weapon on my hand to use it as a normal weapon?

BESW

12:18 AM

@Ash Also I like how their graphic showing the uncertainty of their predictions just turns into a circle as it slows down.

trogdor

and to think just yesterday I was talking to a guy who was saying their predictions have gotten a lot better

Shalvenay

@EnderLook I would say "why do you want to do this?" then again, many of my clerics have spiritual weapons that simply don't make sense to....equip.

(imagine Bahamut sticking his head down and going CHOMP on some misbegotten foe, and you get the idea ;)

BESW

@trogdor I think they may also be having trouble with predictions on this one because it's out of season. There isn't as much data with how typhoons behave in the broader climate context of this time of year.

trogdor

yeah

Ender Look

@Shalvenay Bonus Action: Hit with the Spiritual Weapon. Free Action: take the Spiritual Weapon. Action: Hit with the Spiritual Weapon.

user15026

12:26 AM

@BESW So it does.

Shalvenay

@EnderLook in most cases, you probably have a better thing you could be doing with your action

Ender Look

@Shalvenay No, because I am underwater and I have a disadvantage with weapons. But the spiritual weapon has a trident shape, so it doesn't have a disadvantage underwater.

Shalvenay

@EnderLook out of cantrips eh?

Ender Look

@Shalvenay Toll the Dead doesn't work on stone walls, nor word of radiance. And I am drowning!!!

Shalvenay

oof, no damage cantrip to be had

Ender Look

12:29 AM

So, could I take the spiritual weapon?

Anyway, the monk has just moved a lever and the stone wall open. But I would be interesting to know it.

Miniman

1:44 AM

@EnderLook No, you can't. You could flavour it as you wielding yhe weapon for the bonus action, but you can't attack with it as an action.

KorvinStarmast

@Miniman eh, I just noticed that you had ninja'd me

Ender Look

@Miniman oh

Glazius

@Anaphory Cool! You planning some continuing adventures, or was this a deliberate one-shot?

Shalvenay

hey there @Glazius

V2Blast

@EnderLook What Miniman said. It's not an actual weapon. It's a spectral "thing" that looks like one. No matter what it looks like, it mechanically functions the same way (as the spell describes).

Ender Look

1:57 AM

ok

BESW

2:48 AM

In most versions of D&D, mechanics and narrative aren't mutually influential. Mechanics influence narrative, but narrative doesn't change mechanics.

There are many RPGs where this is not true, and it's something that individual groups playing D&D may choose to modify for themselves, but by default the effects of spiritual weapon is limited to the spell's existing mechanics and not changed by how the players choose to narrate those effects.

You could narrate it as a tidal wave but that wouldn't bring the drowning rules into play.

So just because it looks like a weapon doesn't mean weapon rules apply.

Ender Look

Ok, thanks

BESW

...this is a minor reason why I avoid D&D-like systems.

It's a lot cooler if the narrative logic of the scene can inform the mechanics without suddenly having to re-write the system on the fly.

Ender Look

Can I ask you a personal question? I've seen from your profile that you played a lot of systems and games. Which one is your favourite between them? I bet on fate as your favourite.

BESW

3:09 AM

Feb 8 '18 at 10:32, by BESW

Fate is my group's default system for anything where we've got a solid collective understanding of the setting/themes and there's no other system which is obviously going to work better.

I wouldn't say that makes it my favorite.

If I had to choose one RPG engine and use only that one forever after, it'd be Fate because it's most flexible and customizable.

But Bubblegumshoe has mechanics that probably come closest to pushing my gameplay in directions I want to go but have trouble doing without system prompts.

Lady Blackbird is one of the easiest for me to run.

Masters of Umdaar is the best light-hearted low-stakes game for me to run.

I can't say one game is my favorite because I play RPGs for a lot of different reasons and no game could possibly do it all.

It's like saying "What's your favorite video game?" If you have a single easy answer, you probably haven't explored everything video games can do for you.

Ender Look

@BESW You have right

Interesting choices

BESW

Cthulhu Dark is probably the best existential dread game I've ever found, but I want to find one that isn't so beholden to HPL's legacy.

If I could wrap my head around game prep for Gumshoe One-2-One it'd suddenly be the game I play the most by a large margin.

I really admire Lovecraftesque and My Life With Master but find them difficult to play.

Someday I'll play Misspent Youth and then hack it to pieces to make something happier.

I think all of Bubblegumshoe's mechanics except the relationship mechanic are needlessly complex.

Ender Look

Impressive

BESW

3:24 AM

If/when the people I play with change, Fate may stop being a good comfortable default choice.

Some people need mechanics that enforce stronger setting/tone structure.

Ender Look

@BESW play with change?

BESW

If [the people I play with] change. If I'm playing RPGs with other people, not the people I play with now.

Ender Look

@BESW I prefer mechanic over storytelling

@BESW ahh, so, FATE isn't advisable to use with new players to the table. You prefer play with known friends and not anybody.

BESW

That's not what I said at all.

Ender Look

no?

.... I might have misunderstood

I'll check it in a transaltor

BESW

3:27 AM

A lot of people have found Fate to be an excellent entry to the world of tabletop RPGs. I've used it for that myself.

But I'm talking about using it as the default system for my own group: it's the system we use when it's not obvious what system we should use for the kind of game we want to play.

Ender Look

@BESW Ah, you mean that with your current set of players it's fine, but not know with other players, right?

BESW

In another group of people, Fate might be a fine system to use but not the one we use by default.

Ender Look

Oh

V2Blast

Yep. Not every RPG is the preferred style of every player

BESW

Feb 8 '18 at 10:32, by BESW

Fate is my group's default system for anything where we've got a solid collective understanding of the setting/themes and there's no other system which is obviously going to work better.

Specifically, my group has proven good at finding a shared understanding of the kind of game we want to play. Fate's a great system for that.

But if a group has trouble finding shared consensus on the tone and themes in play, and communicating them effectively, Fate quickly becomes a problem because it lets everyone try to push their own version of the game.

Ender Look

3:31 AM

Reading your profile again... aren't you sure that D&D isn't between your favourites? D&D 4e is your second best tag, followed by 3.5, fate-core, fate and then dresden-files. Or you got sick of it?

BESW

For groups that aren't able to reach that mutual consensus, it's better to use systems which force tones and themes using the mechanics.

Ender Look

@BESW I prefer that, best to prevent than heal

BESW

More people ask questions about D&D than any other systems, and more people vote on answers to D&D questions.

I have more opportunities to answer D&D questions because there are more D&D questions. And I get more votes on them because more people look at them.

Ender Look

@BESW Oh, you have right. If you write RPG in the browser, D&D is the top find

BESW

Over the last couple years, many of the games I've been interested in have no questions except ones I've asked.

And for at least one of those games, no answers at all.

Ender Look

3:34 AM

Uh, that's a pity

BESW

If you look at ratios of "posts made for a tag" vs "posts made by me for a tag" you'd conclude that my favorite system is probably ki-khanga, a game I've never played and probably never will.

Because I'm the only person who has ever posted in that tag.

Ender Look

If you never played how can you answer its question? Just reading the rulebook?

@BESW ahh, that explains it

BESW

I haven't. I've asked questions.

I'm also the only person to have ever asked questions about bubblegumshoe but others have given answers.

And inspectres and danger-patrol-pocket-ed and masters-of-umdaar.

Ender Look

Impressing, you are expanding the tag of RPG.SE!

Well, it's quite late here (12:42 a.m) so I should go to bed. Bye! And good luck getting an answer to your exotic systems :)

BESW

Goodnight.

nitsua60

3:51 AM

@BESW Power's holding up, I see. Everyone alright?

BESW

Yeah, doing okay.

Glazius

DP Pocket is also a pretty great game for first-timers, and it probably works better as an intro than Fate unless you gots some really good Fate premades.

BESW

DP Pocket, in my experience, tends toward gameplay that focuses on mechanics at the expense of story. It's easy to minimize narrative elements and just bounce from roll to roll.

I've had the most success with Fate and Roll For Shoes, at least in terms of introducing people to the kind of gameplay my group usually uses.

Though admittedly RFS is so sparse that it demands a lot from the GM.

Glazius

Fair enough. I do enjoy me some relevant numbers now and again.

BESW

Yeah, numbers are great.

I just find that some games make it easy to focus almost exclusively on the numbers, while other games force us to translate the numbers into story, then the story back into numbers again.

DPP isn't the worst offender there, and for new players who want to just do small bursts of narrative it can be useful.

But ultimately it's closer to the party game end of the RPG spectrum, alongside games like LLKM. Not bad, just not what I'd personally choose for someone who really wants to get into RPGs.

CTWind

7:42 AM

Is there a better way to do the spoiler tags in the question here? The bulleted list is a pain to navigate when each spoiler block is revealed separately. (Admittedly, I also feel like spoilers should be expected if you go into a Q&A with that title and it's unnecessary to hide them, but that's personal preference.)

kviiri

7:57 AM

@CTWind I'd probably just drop the idea of having it as a long, long list

Maybe list the few ones with an expected damage output of forty or over and note that the rest are deal piddling damage

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/141821/… this querent could use the chatizen help service :)

Can we updoot a bit so they can get in?

BESW

8:34 AM

Possible duplicate of How do I learn to become a good GM? — BESW 3 mins ago

kviiri

@BESW I was thinking of linking the "I'm at loss with DnD" question but that's a better fit

Today's Lady Blackbird day!

BESW

Oooh.

kviiri

Also yesterday I noticed there's more games in the same family

Magister Lor and Lord Scurlock

BESW

8:50 AM

Yeah, Lady Blackbird itself is a modified hack of a relatively obscure game called "Solar System."

LB is kind of like a pre-made setting/adventure for Solar System, but trimmed down a LOT and with a few other bits added on.

Then lots of people have taken the LB variant and used it for their own pre-made settings/adventures but without much modification.

kviiri

Yeah --- those two I mentioned are from the author of LB themselves

They seem... a bit different, but interesting nonetheless.

Magister Lor seems to be based on a drama between two rival masters and their apprentices, with the apprentices being brothers.

Lord Scurlock is about dividing a dead lord's estate with debtors all around, but I get enough of that in real life

Anaphory

11:53 AM

@Glazius It was a deliberate one-shot for someone's birthday.

@kviiri Is it stated that the twins are male? Yesterday we noticed that nothing tells us that Kale is male either.

For the other LB characters we have either pretty gendered names or they are strange anyway, but our Kale yesterday had a female player, so we explicitly asked. (Yes, he was male in that case.)

@kviiri I think it very cleverly avoids pronouns for Kel&Kai, and I was primed due to Luke&Leia to not think of both of them as male.

Shalvenay

2:14 PM

hey there @Glazius

Glazius

@Shalvenay Morning. We were doing a thing today, right? What time does that start?

Shalvenay

@Glazius yes, in about 40 minutes :)

Glazius

Right. I've got laundry in, so I'll need to take a couple quick breaks early on.

Shalvenay

@Glazius that is no big deal at all :)

Shalvenay

2:33 PM

hey there @frog, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay Where are we playing? Discord?

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind Discord or The Back Room, either works -- @Glazius, thoughts?

Glazius

3:05 PM

Discord would work.

Toss me an invite?

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay needs to do that, I don't have the rights

Glazius

I'm in. Same name.

kviiri

5:05 PM

@Anaphory Huh, I never really thought of that although I'd think something gave me the idea

Might as well be all in my head

CTWind

5:17 PM

@V2Blast Thanks for helping to clean up that dndnext subreddit thread. Lots of rule 3 issues.

V2Blast

6:29 PM

Haha, I am a mod there, after all

to those that don't know the context, Fandom finally decided to make the dnd5e wiki take down its non-SRD content

Glazius

7:20 PM

As in non-Basic Rules?

MikeQ

7:37 PM

They ditched those notorious Acidic Rules

ACuriousMind

@MikeQ ::slow clap::

MikeQ

7:52 PM

If Gumby was a creature in 5E, would he be a construct or an ooze?

V2Blast

8:10 PM

@Glazius The SRD (media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf) and the basic rules (media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf) are slightly different, though D&D Beyond's version of the basic rules is an inclusive combination of both (so it includes a few other backgrounds besides Acolyte, e.g. Criminal)

@MikeQ Hmmm... seems closest to a clay golem, I guess

oozes are more gelatinous generally

Glazius

8:30 PM

@V2Blast Heh. Why did I expect consistency from D&D, I wonder?

V2Blast

8:56 PM

@Glazius I mean, the SRD isn't a rules source, though some try to use it as such. The SRD's just a compilation of what other people can use and republish per the OGL

which is why it only provides one background, one feat, and one subclass per class as "examples"

Glazius

9:11 PM

@V2Blast Hm. Yeah, the Basic Rules are even more bare-bones than the SRD, aren't they?

I suppose it doesn't make sense to provide a selection so small as to be unusable.

V2Blast

9:28 PM

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/02/24/dungeons-and-dragons-ghosts-of-saltmarsh/
"Earlier today, Amazon leaked the next Dungeons & Dragons publication: Ghosts of Saltmarsh. As hinted in past reveals, the new book will feature water-themed adventures along with new rules for ships and nautical travel. The book will also introduce readers to the town of Saltmarsh, which featured heavily in a trilogy of adventures that pitted parties against the machinations of the sahuagin.

[...]

We knew earlier this month that the next book would include a remake of the Saltmarsh trilogy, when preview pag…

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