TRPG General Chat

12:01 AM

I don't think I've ever had a campaign take place in any other plane than the good ol' Prime Material

Speaking of planes

One of my roomies asked if Star Trek: Discovery is good, whether she should watch it. I had a really difficult time answering, considering she has almost no background in Trek.

I mean it's a show that largely respects modern sensibilities in story-telling, while retaining the Star Trek universe that is lovably silly – and sometimes less lovably – in a myriad of ways

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri she should!

kviiri

12:16 AM

I treated myself to one episode of TNG myself today. Gonna start ST:D S3 today with my ex.

Something about delivering the killing blow to the Thesis Beast.

Bardic Wizard

Starting at the beginning might be best, and if she’s never watched Star Trek warn her that sometimes it gets gory and DISCO is arguably the darkest ST to date

kviiri

She just finished Narcos, I think Star Trek shouldn't be too dark for her at least

or gorey

trogdor

lol

kviiri

I'm more worried about the combination of mostly serious action/drama combined with worldbuilding that looks and feels like it's from the 1960's because it is

trogdor

I think the thing with Star Trek gore is that you don't expect it

the shows usually avoid it,... until they don't XD

Bardic Wizard

12:19 AM

@kviiri yeah. Some of that gets really ...ugh

AncientSwordRage

@Xirema oh I got that part

trogdor

personally I like DS9 best but that might just be me

kviiri

Sometimes it's bad-bad – not very often in the new series I guess – but I mainly mean that it's a bit, y'know... silly.

Bardic Wizard

I’m not very far into DISCO (S1E4 ish) since this is the first year I’m allowed to watch that stuff in my house but I like it. I have also been closely following s3 because I see a lot of my journey in Blu del Barrio’s character — a nonbinary person with a lot of issues

@kviiri that too.

kviiri

My first exposure to ST:D was when my then-SO was watching S1 without me, but I popped in to watch one episode with her. It that one episode where the ship is under attack by a time-traveling villain who traps the ship in a groundhog day loop. One of the characters is aware of the loop while no one else is, I ask my SO why is that

"Because he's got tardigrade DNA," she replies.

trogdor

12:22 AM

wat

XD

I have not seen that episode

kviiri

Of course I didn't believe her. (fair reminder here that "tardigrade" is essentially "bearling" in Finnish so it sounds even more weird)

Bardic Wizard

@trogdor that’s the one with mudd, I think

kviiri

Much later in the episode it turned out to be true and I just lost it

(The tardigrade DNA thing had been estalished earlier in the series, so it was a reveal for me only)

trogdor

oh wait sorry I thought you were talking about TNG

XD

I have not watched Discovery

Bardic Wizard

Tardigrade dna is ... stamets I think?

kviiri

12:24 AM

Yep

trogdor

so my bad, I have not seen that episode because I have not watched any of them so XD

kviiri

Of course, the whole "we use DNA-splicing from this tardigrade to navigate our ship through a network of cosmic shrooms" is a concept that I think works better from a show like TNG, that doesn't take itself too seriously (or at least is easy to see as not-too-serious due to being from the 1980's) while it feels much weirder in a show with 2010's high-end production values and all the pomp and circumstance of being a serious scifi.

trogdor

yeah,... I have several reasons for not watching Discovery,.... I think it would annoy me

others are more than welcome to like it regardless

Bardic Wizard

Discovery is often too dark for me which is why I’m only like 4 episodes in

I loved lower decks and Picard (the show) though

trogdor

I do still need to give lower decks a try

Bardic Wizard

12:28 AM

my all time favorite is still probably TNG or DS9

@trogdor it’s funny

trogdor

also probably Picard too

Bardic Wizard

and pretty good about a lot of things

trogdor

but yeah my favorite, at least of the ones I have seen, is DS9

kviiri

@BardicWizard It's been a while since I watched any of it, but I think S2 was a fair bit brighter in tone to S1

That said, it still is a season-long story arc where the protagonists try to save the Federation from a cataclysmic horror outcome, so still very much more serious than the earlier Star Trek series.

Bardic Wizard

@trogdor favorite episode of DS9?

trogdor

12:31 AM

hmm

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri yeah... possibly I may just wait until I mature more to watch any of it beyond what I have

trogdor

oh ok the one where Garac's implant is acting up and he needs to remove it, but he freaks out at Bashir after it's taken out and Bashir is stuck in there with him to make sure he's ok

despite Bashir being my least favorite of the main cast his whole relationship with Garak is possibly my favorite thing in the show

also I have some issues with how they presented it but I liked the episode where Bashir is outed as genetically enhanced because of,.. the ways it made me think about speculative fiction XD

it also looked eerily similar to what sometimes happens when I tell people in person I'm Autistic, all the rest of the crew were saying very similar things and had similar looks on their faces when they were in that meeting with him talking about it

I'm of two minds about it XD

On one hand, Bashir handled it mostly the way I would have or would want to

On the other hand the crew, the supposed good guys, don't come to the conclusion I would have liked or expected

And I don't think it was intended as the kind of allegory I have twisted it into

I think they were playing it straight as "what if genetic tinkering was a possibility in the future"

It's just odd that they gave him the whole "but you aren't like them" thing, and instead of him telling them they were wrong he says something about being "lucky"

Which,... is not the message I would want people to take away from this whole idea

Sorry for answering a simple question with a DS9 wall o text

XD

Bardic Wizard

12:52 AM

@trogdor yeah. As someone who’s the only kid in honors classes with a learning disorder (or possibly processing disorder? I have to be retested because of the stupid college board) it’s something I kinda see a lot where people think I’m lucky to be where I am and I wish Bashir would just tell them that it’s also hard work that got him there

And I wouldn’t call that a wall of text

trogdor

XD

but yeah, it seems to me like it was written by someone who was never put in that kind of situation

which makes it surprising that they nailed any part of it at all really

@BardicWizard also big mood on retesting, I've had to be re-diagnosed like 3 or 4 times?

at different times for different reasons

Bardic Wizard

1:32 AM

@trogdor I’ve been “evaluated” in elementary school, tested twice in middle school, and now I’m getting formally tested for a processing disorder

So I can get ap accommodations

trogdor

yeah I,.... didn't want to go through the whole process for any of that

that was more stressful to me than the amount the accommodations I could get would have been helpful by

Ben

2:00 AM

Morning all

Ben

2:16 AM

I just saw an FML post, talking about a writer asking their friends to read/review a chapter of their book they're writing. One person replied with "the literary equivalent of aquarium gravel".

My immediate thought was "if they can come up with a phrase like that, they can definitely help improve the work!"

BESW

I dunno, somebody who thinks aquarium gravel is boring, I don't want to try improving my book.

Ben

@BESW Ture, I guess it's how you interpret it. Oddly enough, my thought was more sensory than stimulating

BESW

Good aquarium substrate is REALLY carefully chosen and actively modified. It's gotta be inert so it doesn't change the water chemistry, rounded so it doesn't hurt the fish, of slightly different sizes so it's interesting and settles well, but not TOO varied in size or it will clog or sift where it shouldn't, and it needs a high cation exchange capacity so that it can hold onto free nutrients in the water.

And that's not even getting into the aesthetics of it.

Shalvenay

2:35 AM

@BESW eheheh. sounds like a lot of everyday engineered materials, really :)

(i.e. they look droll and boring, but have all sorts of carefully chosen details so that they work properly/well)

Ben

I suppose there are a lot of ways to interpret the phrase then lol

Bardic Wizard

@BESW sounds like someone has dealt with that before

AncientSwordRage

So I was reading an RPG from the Reddit post I linked, called Straight to VHS, and it cites Hard Ticket to Hawaii as inspiration....

I look up the film on Wikipedia, and it includes this line in the premise:

> Soon other Agency operatives get involved, and a full-scale fight to the finish ensues, complicated here and there by a contaminated snake made deadly by toxic cancer-infested rats.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ben

@AncientSwordRage That escalated

AncientSwordRage

@Ben ay-yup

But only 'here and there'

user15026

2:53 AM

@kviiri And S3 is even more so, kinda? It's more watchable for me, at least. I still feel like yeah, the cataclysmic stuff is a LOT to deal with and is kinda frustrating, but it feels slightly less OMG dark so far.

Hot RPG Questions

1

Q: Help calculating skills and abilities for level 1 Horned Lizard Familiar

Making a level 1 witch with a horned lizard familiar. My witch’s skill ranks are perception, three knowledges, linguistics, perform, spellcraft, and heal. What are the horned lizards racial skill point ranks? What special abilities does the horned lizard get? The run feat? Camouflage? Puff up? Bl...

KorvinStarmast

3:50 AM

@Shalvenay not sure what your schedule looks like, but I have a possible jail break scenario I'd like to test out. How do the next few days look for you?

Shalvenay

4:09 AM

@KorvinStarmast I should be catchable in the evenings then

kviiri

7:18 AM

@Ash gonna start S3 today

SmokeDetector

10:34 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in body, potentially bad ip for hostname in body, potentially bad ns for domain in body (98): Did I assert character on Facebook? Use Facebook customer service by Ella Mark on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)

KorvinStarmast

11:22 AM

@Shalvenay Ok, I'll need to set the scenario up, will touch base with you this evening.

Thomas Markov

1:47 PM

wow, my question already got a downvote

Someone_Evil

Hmm... this is another one of those D&D 5e not actually having clear mechanical rules for something, isn't it? Which would probably be fine if it didn't attach rules to it

Going by material in this question there's probably something in the SAC that could be of use

Thomas Markov

now its been undownvoted

SAC also has this:

When casting a spell that affects multiple targets, such as scorching ray or eldritch blast , do I fire one ray or beam, determine the result, and fire again? Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?
Even though the duration of each of these spells is instantaneous, you choose the targets and resolve the attacks consecutively, not all at once. If you want, you can declare all your targets before making any attacks, but you would still roll separately for each attack (and damage, if appropriate).

But that doesnt quite clear it up for me.

Medix2

I'm trying to see if the Twinned spell and EB questions answer yours...

Thomas Markov

Gonna bounty the EB one.

Tweet-only support right now.

Medix2

@Someone_Evil I think it actually does have clear rules here

Also @ThomasMarkov tiny (but important ugh) correction. Scorching Ray doesn't call for multiple attack rolls but multiple attacks entirely. Thus the spell is affected by slow and other things as one would expect, unlike Whirlwind Attack :(

Thomas Markov

2:02 PM

@Medix2 Corrected that in the question.

Transcript for