TRPG General Chat

kviiri

7:03 PM

Sigh, had DnD again today, after a long pause

NautArch

@kviiri that doesn't soundlike you enjoyed it

kviiri

Everyone else is online praising the GM and I feel like stopping now before sunken costa set in

But I can't think of a way to do that without sounding a massive whiner/spoilsport

NautArch

wuhappen?

kviiri

@NautArch It was a decent session until that segment where we spent over an hour opening various doors at a mansion revealing p. much nothing except minor junk, trinkets, and a minor encounter against a spider swarm

MikeQ

Opening doors can be exciting. Sometimes (~2/3 chance) there is a goat behind them!

kviiri

7:08 PM

@MikeQ Depends on whether the host knows or not!

(Or, by extension, whether the GM rolls ad hoc or in advance)

MikeQ

So what part wasn't fun about the session? Not enough action? Not enough story? Not enough RP?

kviiri

@MikeQ The part where we spent about half of the total playtime saying "yeah next door". Boring as heck.

MikeQ

Ah. Gotta fill those slow-paced segments with player-generated RP, otherwise it does indeed get boring.

kviiri

"It's only boring because you suck at playing" is a very traditional solution. And an abysmal one, but oft-used regardless.

MikeQ

That's not remotely close to what I suggested

kviiri

7:15 PM

Isn't it? You're essentially saying it's my duty to make my character exploring through a feature-poor hall of doors not boring.

MikeQ

No...? You weren't the GM, right? For structural stuff like that, it's the GM's job to facilitate it.

NautArch

@kviiri only if you're a bard.

kviiri

@MikeQ Ah. I took you to mean it's the player's job, seeing that you phrased as "player generated RP"

goodguy5

for the past few days, I've been getting rep on that "how do I cope with being envious of my players" question

MikeQ

@kviiri I see the confusion. Player-generated as in, the GM indicates that this is meant to be a slow-paced segment, so the players should fill it in. Otherwise the players may assume it's slowness to build up tension, like a surprise is about to happen.

goodguy5

7:19 PM

Ah, someone answered it last week. got it

kviiri

I think it was supposed to be slowness to build up tension, but there's some problems with the implementation

NautArch

@kviiri You know what breaks tension in a wooden buildilng? Fireballs.

3

V2Blast

@goodguy5 thanks!

@NautArch my sorcerer is very familiar with this technique

goodguy5

@NautArch this is such a good joke

kviiri

Picturing the same mansion in a TV show or a film, they might build up tension through the exact same in-universe stuff. But it takes like five minutes, tops, to show the vital content there

Not over an hour.

MikeQ

7:25 PM

@kviiri In theory, it would be nice if players initiated RP and improv during the slow bits, without GM cues. But I haven't seen that happen much in practice.

user15026

There's only so much I can think of to say/do between yet another door....

Xirema

DM Hack: when searching through a hall of doors, make the interesting door the players need to find the fourth door they open, regardless of how many they open.

Yuuki

Huh. So you know that trope about deities gaining or losing power based on the belief of their followers?

Xirema

@Yuuki What did you do?

David Coffron

@Xirema That only works when they don't have ways to break through walls (and do so regularly when it suits them)

Xirema

7:27 PM

@DavidCoffron The fourth *room they enter.

Yuuki

Apparently, kuo-toa have that ability. They literally willed their own god into existence, completely with a realm in the Elemental Plane.

MikeQ

@kviiri What were the other players/PCs doing during the door-fest?

V2Blast

@Yuuki Indeed

David Coffron

@Yuuki Yeah. I read that and really want to do a campaign where the BBEG is trying to manipulate the Kuo-toa into conjuring a god that will execute [evil plan]

V2Blast

forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Blibdoolpoolp (note: the depiction of her is NSFW)

David Coffron

7:30 PM

Also....

Jun 14 at 19:49, by David Coffron

@G.Moylan I really want to do a campaign where a BBEG is manipulating the Kuo-toa to try to have them manifest a creature of deity-level-power under his control.

V2Blast

> Blibdoolpoolp usually took the form of a 20 foot (6.1 meter) tall nude human female, lobster's head and claws in place of humanoid parts.

Yuuki

@DavidCoffron Why not manipulate the kuo-toa into making the BBEG a god?

David Coffron

@Yuuki Whichever

Yuuki

Cuts out the middle-man, means you don't have to wrangle a deity-level creature.

David Coffron

@Yuuki It just isn't explicitly RAW that they can make existing sentient beings into deities (although certainly within the realm of likelihood)

Yuuki

7:33 PM

I don't think anything that involves deity-level power is RAW.

GcL

@DavidCoffron I want to see that going horribly pear shaped for everyone involved at the end.

Like the BBEG succeeds, but not in the way they thought they would. Then it's the BBEG + the players trying to fight a Kuo-toa diety powered mess up.

David Coffron

@GcL That would be quite interesting

kviiri

@MikeQ opening doors of their own

David Coffron

@kviiri with Marvelous Pigments?

kviiri

@MikeQ It's just really hard to think of stuff to do or say that could really make a situation like "we're in a boring hallway with boring rooms with nothing in them" interesting, except for a while with genre-savvy memery that probably would've been detrimental in the long run

David Coffron

7:42 PM

@kviiri In this situation, I've boiled down to narrating over the players during slow bits (one example was an exploration of a manor in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist). They found the room with stuff in it, but then started exploring every other room, so I stated, "as you begin to search the rest of the floor for clues, you find only the clothing from the butler and cook tucked neatly in their wardrobes and a surprisingly large spider nesting up in the rafters of the hall." or something similar

Let's them skip ahead to the next important moment (the stairs)

kviiri

@DavidCoffron I wish my GM did that

GcL

@DavidCoffron I like this.

NautArch

@kviiri I kinda/sorta did something like that. We had a long twisting hallway with doors periodically placed throughout. In the spiraling center was a necromancer basically performing a FMA style philosopher stone creation. Some doors had the 'victims' who would be sacrificed (from the local town of which a party member was from). Some doors had some treasure. Some doors were mimics. And traps placed in some hallways along with guards moving around.

GcL

mimic doors.... ouch

NautArch

Had to choose between investigating doors, moving quickly because of guards, whether or not to save anyone...

GcL

7:48 PM

Ooo that's a neat story mechanic.

David Coffron

@NautArch I like that too. Reminds me a bit of the end of Rise of Tiamat (where the party only has limited resources to deal with the numerous goings ons)

NautArch

It was partially set up because over several sessions the players were committing some very questionnable alignment acts.

Many Neutral-ish characters, but I wanted to see how far I could push them and whether they'd let hundreds die to either stop the necromancer or get their hands on the philospher stone.

V2Blast

oooh

NautArch

The party member who was from the town (and whose parents were also captured) opted to let everyone die. As did the rest of the party.

He heard his parents crying for help and just passed on by.

"i'm...not sure you're neutral"

Carcer

sounds like chaotic neutral to me

GcL

8:02 PM

Maybe neutral if it were someone unknown to the character, abandoning one's own parents seems pretty evil to me.

Lack of compassion gets you NE at least.

NautArch

@GcL that was my feeling.

It wasn't much just to open the door and let them out

GcL

Sounds like a hook to cook up some retribution there.

@NautArch Oof

NautArch

that was a campaign where we alternated DMs

my section was up after that

but discussion of having done some evil things actually ended up with someone (who had other issues) leaving the table

GcL

@NautArch My players have had the "are we the badies?" discussion a couple of times in a few campaigns.

NautArch

@GcL And eveyrone else let it happen, too. I was heavy-handed that there was a very evil spell going on, Arcana checks (which they passed) to know what was going on and what would happen.

No one did a thing to stop it.

GcL

8:08 PM

@NautArch Definitely the badies

NautArch

@GcL It was basically a test they failed. An opportunity lost for redemption.

The spell completed, stone created, they killed the necromancer.

The arcane trickster, a follower of the Traveler who was tasked with finding items of powers to give to the Traveler ended up giving the stone to him.

GcL

'Are we the Baddies?' Mitchell and Webb Funny Nazi Scetch

►

NautArch

I had the god arriving and did a ghosbusters thing where the first hting the closest person thought of was it's form. Trying valiantly righ tnow to remember what it was - but it was funny.

I think i had done some research and found a potential connection between gozer and The Traveler.

V2Blast

8:44 PM

lol

V2Blast

9:13 PM

Question: What's the psychic tag about? Is it distinct from psionics and mystic? It looks like the name of a Pathfinder class, which could possibly warrant its own tag, but it seems to also be tagged on this question about psychic damage in 5e:

2

Q: Souls and Psychic Damage - HP in a Magic Jar?

Suppose you are presently under the effects of Magic Jar and are stuck inside your glassy prison. A hostile spellcaster waltzes toward you and casts a spell that does psychic damage, such as Psychic Scream or Wrathful Smite (which does not specify targeting a creature, if that matters). What happ...

and this 5e question which seems to relate more to the Mystic UA and psionics, not the Pathfinder class:

6

Q: Is there an official supplement about psychics or are they only mentioned in UA-material?

I'm a big fan of psychics including character options, monsters, lore, everything in fact, and I want to use them in my D&D campaign. Is there an official supplement about them or are psychics only mentioned in UA-material?

dnd-5e books psychic

(that latter question is also unclear what it means by psychics so I've left a comment to ask for clarification)

Hot RPG Questions

10

Q: I have a ruthless DM and I'm considering leaving the party. What are my options to minimize the negative impact to the rest of the group?

I joined a game with a group of friends and a couple of other people I haven't met, one of which is the current DM. While I like everyone in the game personally, the current DM is extremely strict, a RAW DM. This isn't my first encounter with a strict DM so I can adjust my play style accordingly...

group-dynamics social problem-gm

MikeQ

9:36 PM

@V2Blast Well, what's the general policy for terms that have different meanings in different game systems?

V2Blast

@MikeQ I'm not sure

In the past I've seen mxy say it's fine to have totally different concepts with the same name covered by the same tag, just because the combination of tags differentiates them

but that seems like an unsatisfactory solution, especially when you want to find questions about a particular concept shared by multiple systems (not just stuff with that name)

the meta I'm thinking of there:

6

Q: Should the [astral] tag be renamed to [astral-plane]?

This seems like a pretty straightforward suggestion. The astral tag is currently used on just 5 questions, four of them about D&D 5e and one about 3.5e. In addition, all 5 questions are specifically about the Astral Plane. (There are quite a few other questions about the Astral Plane that don't ...

discussion tags rename-request

No, because as I said tags can be combined. shadowrun+astral is different from D&D+astral. the definition in that game isn't relevant to the "find it by a tag" need. — mxyzplk Oct 28 '18 at 22:13

MikeQ

Then maybe make the tag description generic? e.g. "This tag refers to the term 'psychic' in a TTRPG. Examples include psychic damage in D&D 5e, or the Psychic class in Pathfinder."

Xirema

@MikeQ I'm having difficulty imagining a scenario where that kind of tag usage would be helpful, though.

Like, if I do a search by psychic, what am I expecting to find? And if it's defined that generically, I'm going to encounter a lot of irrelevant junk.

V2Blast

@MikeQ I'm disagreeing with that philosophy, so I wouldn't want to do that

as Xirema said, it's be kinda useless if everything mentioning "psychic" in some capacity was covered by the tag... then you could just search for "psychic" instead of adding a tag

Anyway I'm posting a meta about it

Xirema

@V2Blast Seconding that idea, psychic immediately stands out as having a very poor taxonomy.

V2Blast

10:01 PM

posted the meta:

0

Q: What is the [psychic] tag meant for, and how distinct is it from [psionics] and [mystic]?

The psychic tag has no tag info/wiki, but the tag currently appears on 8 questions. 6 of them are about Pathfinder (all but 1 of those are about the Psychic class, as far as I can tell), and 2 are about D&D 5e. One of those last two is about psychic damage; the other more recent question is uncle...

discussion tags tag-wiki

Akixkisu

10:29 PM

@V2Blast fair psionics are also current editon material, either way distinct.

@V2Blast Removed the discussion part, shouldn't be there anyway, you should probably also remove your comments aside from the clarification part.

V2Blast

done

got a question about this answer:

0

A: How do I handle a group that does not understand the 'assumption rule'?

There are two separate issues, both of which are important. Rules expertise The first relates to your GM's experience with the game, or lack thereof. The assumption rule is quite reasonable and that's the whole point of the publisher printing the books in the first place. Quite frankly, a GM ...

this paragraph seems potentially unnecessarily hostile:

> Most roleplayers hate rules lawyers with a passion, and for good reason. It's at the least disruptive and at worst an ego bound GM can see it as a challenge to their authority, and I can say from experience that failure to defer to the will of the GM usually ends badly for the insurgent player. At best I've been overruled, and at worst it's led to an out of character social consequence, including being banned from the group and served with a trespass notice by the hosting venue.

Specifically the first sentence or two

Is it fine? Should it maybe be reworded? (If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to suggest them in a comment on Raymond's answer)

Shalvenay

10:54 PM

@V2Blast I think it's definitely unnecessarily hostile

KorvinStarmast

@V2Blast It's fine, and while tersely put, it's true in a lot of groups, but it is not universally true. Some tables thrive on rules discussions in play. (yes, I've seen it)

And given our latest trend, the answer is citing experience. How is that bad?

If you feel that the "hate" ought to be toned down to "dislike" I doubt it hurts the narrative.

It's certainly a different kind of answer than Brian's, though. :)

Shalvenay

however, it does have a good point that some GMs can see "threading the needle" on rules interpretations as an affront to their authority -- I personally think that's a bit petty on both sides of the ball, myself, but that's me

they should also keep in mind that some systems don't really envision the GM having such a dominant role to begin with

KorvinStarmast

11:09 PM

@Shalvenay IMO, that answerer said something very similar to what Brian said, but he said it differently. Bad fit for the group, so I don't think the GM is the issue to hand ... or even the core issue. The players seem to be the ones pushing the querent's buttons (7 years ago)

The Oracle

0

Q: What is the [psychic] tag meant for, and how distinct is it from [psionics] and [mystic]?

The psychic tag has no tag info/wiki, but the tag currently appears on 8 questions. 6 of them are about Pathfinder (all but 1 of those are about the Psychic class, as far as I can tell), and 2 are about D&D 5e. One of those last two is about psychic damage; the other more recent question is uncle...

discussion tags tag-wiki

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