TRPG General Chat

12:45 AM

7

Q: Is there a mechanical benefit to using a light crossbow over a long bow or short bow?

A longbow (1d8, 150/600 range), and a shortbow (1d6, 80/320 range) benefit from "Extra Attack". A light crossbow (1d8, 80/320 range), or a hand crossbow (1d6, 30/120 range), do not benefit from "Extra Attack". A light crossbow is worse in terms of range, and damage (with Extra Attack) than the lo...

Rubiksmoose

1:48 AM

Wake me up when 2020 ends.

BESW

I will settle for waking up before you go-go.

MikeQ

Wake you up? Wake you up inside?

Rubiksmoose

@BESW I'll take that lol

BESW

It seems unreasonable to ask to be woke, shaken, freed from sin, and made invisible, like the wind.

I think that would fall in the "two impossible things before breakfast" category.

Ben

2:29 AM

Howdy do

Bardic Wizard

@Rubiksmoose something happen? Or just 2020?

Rubiksmoose

Just 2020 :)

Bardic Wizard

I feel ya

on an unrelated note I forgot about the game that moved to being the first friday of the month (aka tomorrow) and I have to map an entire town, figure out what happens after the cliffhanger we ended on back in august, and create a character sheet for a friend joining for one session, all in less than 21 hours

why do i not use the fancy planner i have

Rubiksmoose

2:47 AM

oh dear. that seems like quite a bit.

Bardic Wizard

Somewhere in there I have to sleep and go to class too... well, sleep can’t be that important ...

Hot RPG Questions

2

Q: Are there any rules for the creation and forging of Electrum?

Are there any specific rules for the creation of electrum? I have found some sources saying it was naturally occurring in some editions (as noted in the forgotten realms wiki) but I haven't located anything specific for artificial creation, or enchantment. I'm happy to cannibalize old editions fo...

dnd-5e lore crafting

nitsua60

3:18 AM

@Rubiksmoose amen.

Ben

@Rubiksmoose Yeah greenday's calling for a wakeup, and I figure they could do with a 6 month sleep in

Kevin

Starfinder question. If my character is blind, and has blindsight(life), does this mean he can only see things that are alive? Or is the parenthetical mostly for flavor purposes?

My DM basically asked me "how are you going to keep your character from walking off cliffs? Cliffs are not alive" and I'm hoping the answer is "life force permeates through all objects in the universe, so cliffs are alive" or something of that nature

starfinder.dragonlash.com/combat/special-abilities says you lose access to blindsight "If the indicated sense somehow becomes unusable" but I'm unsure of whether this applies here because the sense is exactly as usable as it always is, it just has no obvious in-universe justification for working on cliffs

I think that section is more like, if my life-detecting organ gets chopped off or something

Ben

That sounds like a question that could go on mainsite?

Kevin

Browsing through message boards I see opinions varying between "blindsight is exactly as good as regular sight except for the explicitly mentioned restrictions on color vision and contrast etc, and its short range" to "blindsight does nothing at all unless you have a strong logical justification for why the thing you're looking at qualifies for the parenthetical sense you're using"

@Ben Could be. I wanted to ask in here first just in case I was missing something obvious like "the starfinder player's manual says anything in parentheses is for flavor purposes only. Page 1, can't miss it"

Ben

3:34 AM

Hmm. Well that just sounds redundant :/

Kevin

It is written: measure twice, cut once :-P

Bardic Wizard

3:57 AM

@Kevin and it is written more recently: measure once, get the computer to cut it for you

BESW

7:14 AM

@Kevin I'm not familiar with PF/Starfinder, but from my D&D 3.x days I recall a "lifesight" feature (only available to the undead) which caused the user to perceive the area around living creatures as if they were light sources of an intensity in proportion to each creature's HD.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

8:34 AM

@Kevin In a life-filled universe, there's a plethora of bacteria on most surfaces. So there's your fall-back option. Doesn't work as a justification on sterile planets of course.

AncientSwordRage

10:40 AM

@Kevin that doesn't mean it's a bad question for mainsite though

BESW

12:26 PM

→ 7 messages moved to Coronavirus Chat Zone

→ 1 message moved to Coronavirus Chat Zone

RevenantBacon

@BESW Didn't even know that was a thing. Neat.

BESW

The rpg.se chat spaces treat pandemic-related conversations as opt-in rather than opt-out, meaning they don't happen in this main landing room.

I'll also mention Pandemic Positivity, a chat room that hasn't seen a lot of activity lately but is set aside for supporting and uplifting each other.

Bardic Wizard

1:02 PM

Heya

Hiya

[wave]

o/

I’ve got less than 10 hours until I have to go gm for a group through the library and my plan to stay up and map things got nixed really quickly. Argh.

Rubiksmoose

Don't stress over it too much. Just do the best you can, your group will understand.

BESW

1:13 PM

It's always reasonable to take a week off. Games aren't worth sacrificing health.

Rubiksmoose

That too ^

Heck, I'd probably shock my group to death if I ever prepared anything lol

BESW

Also? Some of my most fun sessions have started with "Okay, I'm exhausted and unprepared, so we're just gonna wander around this village and goof off."

Rubiksmoose

Though I'm not playing D&D so that makes that approach much more viable XD

@BESW Time for a hot springs episode!

BESW

Dec 10 '12 at 12:10, by BESW

@Novian I once ran an entire session in which two monks chased a chicken through a rebel encampment in which they were guests.

Dec 10 '12 at 12:11, by BESW

There was no plot justification for this, and it concluded when they crashed into the mess hall and were confronted with a no-nonsense cook who outweighed the two of them together and wielded a mean cleaver.

Bardic Wizard

1:44 PM

@BESW we play once a month now, and I’m planning on going off of the notes I had at the end of the session for half of it and then pulling stuff out of my hat for the rest

BESW

I'm a big advocate of hat pulls, though it took me a VERY long time to come around to them.

doppelgreener

things kinda like this are also what helped spur me to get more interested in games that required, like, half an hour of concrete prep at most. i have tons of time to think about what i want to do and my brain will do that continuously throughout the week just automatically, but i have limited time to actually prepare concrete details.

most of my fate sessions were preceded by me sitting down and taking half an hour to an hour just braindumping my notes and formulating some mechanical pieces to improvise with later.

RevenantBacon

@BardicWizard Do you need any inspiration on what you want to do this session? Where did you leave off last session?

nitsua60

1:59 PM

@doppelgreener THIS!

BESW

@nitsua60 Same! And then I started teaching myself to stop halfway down a given train of thought, and leave it dangling so I could ask my friends to fill it in during play without having their contributions vie with my own conclusions.

I loved dropping the hook for a scenario and then we'd all play to discover where it led.

Bardic Wizard

@RevenantBacon this is my notes: End: Hemlock Opened lock, and whispered he was back to help, picking lock invisibly. Lici: “who are you? Did she send you?” Meanwhile Ryacc’s hawk comes back and then flys up, circling the top floor of the tower. Doesn’t come back if called. Illyra, Ryacc, Ashoka outside tower seeing what happens—ambush??

I have the general “they get the spy they’re going for” direction of the session but no more details

I figure about half of it will be them waffling about what to do

They seem to be that way

RevenantBacon

2:16 PM

@BardicWizard LMAO that's every group I've ever been in

KorvinStarmast

You might say that last night, (in game) we rolled a drunk. Actually, my PC got the NPC (spy) drunk and then the rogues in the party fliched the sending stone in his pockets while I distracted him ... now our wizard has possession of the sending stone and is waiting for the next message from the spy's HQ ... but we might try to destroy it anyway

RevenantBacon

What sort of tower, a standard watch tower, or a wizards tower?

Bardic Wizard

@RevenantBacon a crystal tower. It’s a mage’s tower, though he may or may not be inside...

I asked about it on WB: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/185018/…

linksassin

2:55 PM

I'm feeling accomplished. I just finished my guide to the feywild for my players. Somewhat of a branch out in art style from my more typical grayscale maps. Definitely was interesting, not sure I'd do it again.

NautArch

@linksassin beautiful! Is that hand drawn?

linksassin

@NautArch Digitally hand drawn. I use Krita and a drawing tablet.

Thomas Markov

I like Crystal Coast. The are I grew up in is called the crystal coast.

linksassin

I've always struggled with actual hand drawing as a lefty, I tend to smudge everything.

@ThomasMarkov Where abouts is that?

AncientSwordRage

@linksassin I like it a lot

Thomas Markov

3:00 PM

Crystal Coast

In North Carolina, the Crystal Coast is an 85-mile stretch of coastline that extends from the Cape Lookout National Seashore, which includes 56 miles of protected beaches, southwestward to the New River. The Crystal Coast is a popular area with tourists and second-home owners in the summer. The absolute boundaries of this coast are often disputed, but the main area includes all the major Carteret County beaches (those on Bogue Banks, which face south). It also includes eastern portions of Carteret County, such as Harkers Island, Down East and Shackleford Banks, as well as the northern Onslow County...

linksassin

@ThomasMarkov I see it got it's name for the crystal water rather than the actual magically crystals though. :)

Thomas Markov

Everyone where I'm from has heard of Blackbeard, have yall heard of Blackbeard the Pirate?

AncientSwordRage

I'm not normally a fan of guides/articles that require house ruling, but I found this article on Shape Water (RPG bot link) rather interesting

@ThomasMarkov Edward Teach?

Yup! Heard of him definitely

linksassin

@ThomasMarkov Of course.

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage That's the guy

His boat is right off shore of where Im from.

AncientSwordRage

3:04 PM

@ThomasMarkov sounds like a wreck diver's paradise

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage It's a pretty awesome thing to see.

linksassin

@ThomasMarkov That's a pretty cool, hometown claim to fame.

Bardic Wizard

@linksassin wow that is amazing

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage I've seen the wreck while grouper hunting.

Did yall know you can "hunt" fish?

Ive been looking at some site metrics on SEDE, it looks like coronavirus had a significant impact on our site activity.

RevenantBacon

3:21 PM

@ThomasMarkov increase or decrease?

Thomas Markov

Decrease.

RevenantBacon

Honestly, that's not overly surprising. Less people gathering in groups means less D&D (or other RPG) sessions, which means less questions about "how does X work?"

Bardic Wizard

I have a weird idea: what if “D&D” was a gaming set you could be proficient in (in 5e)? Recursion!!

doppelgreener

I may have also tossed one of a pair of teleportation rings into the ocean, with interesting results.

Bardic Wizard

That was the inspiration, along with having to come up with a custom “Kid” background for my friend joining us today in our game.

(Proficiency in insight, persuasion, two types of gaming sets, and a feature basically saying “you look cute so everyone is usually friendly towards you from the start if you aren’t hostile”, if anyone else needs one)

Thomas Markov

3:38 PM

@BardicWizard I think the PHB and DMG are two different gaming sets. Proficiency in PHB does not grant proficiency in DMG, but proficiency in DMG requires proficiency in PHB.

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov fair

Thomas Markov

You can also obtain "Wikidot Compendium". You can use this item in place of a PHB, but any related checks are made at disadvantage.

linksassin

@BardicWizard Thanks. I'm pretty proud of it. It was a nice break from my regular ones where I can't really break up the style because I'm trying to piece them all together to eventually form a full world map

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov you made me giggle with that

linksassin

@BardicWizard Have you seen the critical role one-shot "Bunions and Flagons"? The party barbarian trys to run a game that he overheard being run at a tavern. They all play as their characters playing as their characters... it gets very meta.

MikeQ

3:46 PM

Aug 19 '19 at 15:46, by MikeQ

D&D campaign idea: the PCs join a demonic cult, and begin worship by writing their own PCs to participate in a D&D campaign, which is also about demonic cults... Continue until you hit maximum recursion depth.

Bardic Wizard

@MikeQ maximum recursion depth: when you have n games, where n is the number of players including the gm

or possibly just n-1 games

depending on whether they have to have a player in it or not

Rubiksmoose

4:22 PM

@BardicWizard Why not just use this kid stat block: dndbeyond.com/monsters/goat

;-)

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose that stat block is the greatest of all time

Rubiksmoose

Inarguably so!

eimyr

@Rubiksmoose what's the policy on shameless self-promotion in hopes of getting a star pin on something you made?

NautArch

@eimyr @Rubiksmoose I'm not saying that we can be bribed...

RevenantBacon

5:06 PM

@doppelgreener Personally, I'd rather have my in-game 4th wall break be Humans and Households

Bardic Wizard

@RevenantBacon ooh, and mine should be Students and Schools!

RevenantBacon

Schoolhouses?

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch hahaha @eimyr we accept a certain amount of it. As long as it is of interest to people here, throw it out there!

KorvinStarmast

@linksassin I like it. Is the Shadowfell a subset of the Feywild? For some reason, I thought it was a separate place ... but my lore circuits may be crossed.

Thomas Markov

DDB is currently relieving itself.

Rubiksmoose

5:15 PM

I hope it cleans up after

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast Probably depends on the cosmology.

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov Do you mean 'which edition' or something else?

Thomas Markov

In the standard 5e cosmology (Great Wheel) the Shadowfell is the negative plane corresponding the positive plane Feywild

The 5e DMG lists many different cosmologies, but I think the only one detailed anywhere is Greatwheel.

See this section of the PHB for a planes map.

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov Which is why, having looked at the map presented, finding the Shadowfell on the map of the Feywild itself prompted my asking. 😎 I'll wait for linksassin (the map's Creator) to get back to me

eimyr

I made a thing! It's a Lasers and Feelings hack based on Over the Garden wall. Potatoes & Molasses

6

@Rubiksmoose

Rubiksmoose

5:28 PM

@eimyr That's awesome!

eimyr

@Rubiksmoose thanks! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, kind of autumnal cute and spoopy.

Bardic Wizard

@eimyr that’s really cool! I want to see if my group will go for it since we’ll be playing on halloween

eimyr

@BardicWizard if they do, let me know how it goes!

Bardic Wizard

5:47 PM

@eimyr Will do!

(Somehow my auto correct wanted to make that “tomato”)

kviiri

6:01 PM

Oooh yes it's good news day for me

my copy of All Bridges Burning is finally shipping!

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri yay!

...what’s that?

kviiri

It's a board game about the Finnish Civil War (beginning with a political build-up phase in 1917) by GMT Games and the designer Vez Arponen

Thomas Markov

@BLM Howdy

kviiri

It's a part of GMT Games' COIN series, which focuses on asymmetric conflicts, usually with a political or a humanitarian dimension included. I have their earlier game Cuba Libre which is about the Cuban revolution, and other entries in the series feature conflicts like the FARC crisis, Afghanistan, Vietnam war, French colonial wars in Morocco, American revolutionary war and the Gallic revolt

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri cool!

kviiri

6:08 PM

I try not to overindulge in these games because most of my friends don't want to play them for perfectly understandable reasons, but All Bridges Burning has a special appeal both because it's about Finland and because it's a three-player game, where the other COINs are four-player games, and therefore makes the logistics of scheduling easier.

None of the GMT Games' games I've played has put much effort at all into making their games easy to learn. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the rulebooks I've played have been written from the point of view of experienced players – they're good for referencing when you know roughly what's going on already.

Not nearly as good at getting an idea of the flow.

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri anything that lessens the power of that beast is good

Thomas Markov

6:27 PM

SSD was awarded his 1000th bronze badge today

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov he's gonna need a wheelbarrow to carry them all. 😎

@ThomasMarkov I just had a thought; is he our first millenium bronzer?

Thomas Markov

Yes

No

KRyan has 1127

I just passed @NautArch for 2020 rep :P

Bardic Wizard

7:08 PM

Random question: if you were an evil mage whose power came from the ritual petrification of people with emotional connections to you (positive or negative), who would you target?

I’ve got the parent, best friend, sibling, and teacher, but I need 5 more

Also nonagons are awesome

MikeQ

Positive or negative? Wouldn't it make more sense to petrify those who hate me the most?

Bardic Wizard

It’s strongest with positive

and also, the mage in question is completely blindsided: thinks that it’s all for greater good, whether or not that’s right

and this all started with the ritual petrification of the mage’s mother in a “freak accident”

So that should be an indication of the morals of this mage

Thomas Markov

Seems like a Catch-22. Eventually all emotional connections would become artificial as we strive only to connect for the purpose of maintaining power, building these connections on a premise of lies and selfishness. Eventually emotional connection is not possible and we wither away.

Bardic Wizard

Fair. It only has to go from the target to the mage, which is why the mage has no morals to speak of

Thomas Markov

Ah, so the target has to feel connected to the mage?

MikeQ

7:19 PM

I'd also try researching a more efficient and renewable source of energy. Eventually I'd run out of positive emotional bonds if I just petrified all my close friends and family.

Thomas Markov

If the mage has absolutely no morals to speak of, he would seek to father children.

He would then feign love for these children so that they loved him as one does a father, then use them for his rituals.

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov funnily enough, the mage is a child—just more like an angsty teenager who took teenage rebellion a bit too far

and then decided it was up to them to fix the world

although children is a good idea for next time

Thomas Markov

The local orphanage then. Though I must add, this would be far too dark a theme for me to permit in my game. At least for a PC.

Ive had NPCs who have done worse than this.

But Im not gonna have a player at my table saying "brb guys, gotta kidnap and murder a kid"

MikeQ

When they gain power, is it enough power to un-petrify the people and have magic left over?

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov Not a PC, and this is in the game’s past, but the players are visiting the mage’s tower, where she keeps the statues.

Thomas Markov

7:27 PM

@MikeQ Maybe, does the universe have a Law of Conservation of (Magic) Energy?

Bardic Wizard

@MikeQ 9 statues are enough for permanent power, but it only lasts as long as they are petrified

@ThomasMarkov ...hadn’t worked that out yet

Thomas Markov

@BardicWizard Ah, I see. Go befriend a bunch of kids at the orphanage.

MikeQ

Maybe they were part of an adventuring party, and they betrayed/petrified their fellow adventurers?

"Former adventurer who did a bad thing that the DM wouldn't want the players to do" is a pretty easy mold for villain backstories

Bardic Wizard

@MikeQ xe betrayed xer whole family

So almost the same thing

MikeQ

Por que no los dos? It should be possible for someone to have a family and be part of an adventuring party. Unless this is one of those universes where all adventurers are tragically and stereotypically orphaned.

Bardic Wizard

7:34 PM

It’s not.

I can actually see that working with him so maybe... that should fill in 4-5 statues easily

(The reasons the mage has a set of pronouns that change every message is a long story involving having a lot of issues beyond the “all my family is petrified”, which a bunch of my players have asked about)

Thomas Markov

@BardicWizard How do you pronounce xe and xer?

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov kinda like Zee and Zer?

Thomas Markov

Gotcha, thanks.

Bardic Wizard

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/xe

Thomas Markov

How powerful is this mage?

Bardic Wizard

7:39 PM

@ThomasMarkov Casting 7th level spells before (human) age 20

They’re an elf, so that’s the human equivalent

Thomas Markov

Do the petrified creatures have to be humanoid?

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov I was assuming so, but that’s not strictly necessary

Thomas Markov

Could you use awaken on a bunch of puppies and sort of "mama bear" them?

Bardic Wizard

Probably - do puppies feel emotional connection?

(i don’t have a pet)

Thomas Markov

Awakened ones certainly do.

Awaken gives them an intelligence of 10 and the ability to speak.

RevenantBacon

7:45 PM

@BardicWizard Pretty sure the only emotion dogs in general feel is "I love yo.. OH LOOK A SQUIRREL"

Bardic Wizard

Actually, what stat would emotional connection be? Wisdom? Intelligence? Charisma?

RevenantBacon

Either Wis or Cha, though I'm leaning towards Wisdom

charisma is generally taken to be 'force of personality'

intelligence is literally 'what stuff do I know'

Wisdom is kinda the catchall for 'other stuff'

Someone_Evil

I wouldn't look to ability scores to describe emotional connection, personally

RevenantBacon

I feel like that's specifically something that would fall under mental ability scores

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil Right, a clinical sociopath can feasibly have the same ability scores as a healthy person.

RevenantBacon

7:53 PM

@ThomasMarkov technically, psychopaths and sociopaths can both form emotional connections. They have difficulty (or the inability) understanding others emotions, but that does not prevent them from feeling emotions themselves.

MikeQ

Of course, you'd have to ask yourself if these are themes you want in your game setting. Do you want an NPC that could make the players feel uncomfortable?

3

Thomas Markov

@MikeQ For sure. I bought Curse of Strahd with the intention of running it for some friends, and after our session 0 I just had to put it away. It was definitely not a good fit for the group.

After we talked for about half an hour about what everyone was and was not comfortable with, I said "well, CoS has literally every single thing on each of your lists, so we'll try something else."

Bardic Wizard

@MikeQ true. I fully intend to keep the creepiness to a minimum: the mage will be explaining it as “a spell backfire” and this is only trying to figure out the background

Hot RPG Questions

11:37 PM

8

Q: I gave a too powerful magic item at too low level for a bad reason, what to do?

When a paladin in the game I run went into the local store ran by an ex adventurer, he went to the back to see the fancy swords, and asked if any looked like his holy symbol. The god he follows is illegal in that world, so I thought it would be cool if the shopkeep had one, so I narrated an old p...

dnd-5e magic-items gm-techniques

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