TRPG General Chat

Miniman

00:04

@nitsua60 They can't be temps, they wouldn't have had an opportunity to make the sign.

nitsua60

That's why half of them fall off the doors or are torn and only half-legible =)

[after someone passes by]
"You ever wonder where these doors *actually* go?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"Nope."
"Really?"
"Yup."
"Maybe we should ask someone?"
"Who? I've never seen someone come *out*."
"Good point.

Okay, what do you want to write on this one?"

Miniman

"How about you always lie and I always tell the truth?"
"..."
"What are you trying to say, pal?"

nitsua60

"I'm not your pal, buddy!"

BESW

00:26

I think I'm gonna annotate Hounds of God for the Unearthed Jam.

Xirema

01:02

@goodguy5 I'm here!

I've been stuck inside a C++ Websocket Library documentation for the last week and a half, and lost track of time

AncientSwordRage

@Xirema it's still march

Xirema

Hot RPG Questions

6

Q: Does Fiery Soul stack with Elemental adept?

The 18th level feature of the pyromancer sourcerous origin from Plane Shift: Kaladesh says: any spell or effect you create ignores resistance to fire damage and treats immunity to fire damage as resistance to fire damage. The Elemental Adept (Fire) feat says: Spells you cast ignore resistance ...

AncientSwordRage

01:36

@HotRPGQuestions that's cute

Joel Harmon

03:03

@Axoren The doctor thought he might be able to save the victim if he removed the murder weapon. He's reaaaalllly sorry he couldn't save the vic.

Bardic Wizard

04:50

Well, I’m no longer in a terrible mood.

BESW

Yey!

Bardic Wizard

And I wrote an rpg about stabbing textbooks. That helped. It was almost entirely written and playtested in about an hour and a half, so it is probably terrible. But in case anyone else needs to stab something, here it is.

3

I enjoyed stabbing a version of my precalc textbook way too much.

Hot RPG Questions

05:47

1

Q: Does the Pyromancer sorcerer's Fiery Soul feature totally bypass immunity to fire damage?

The Pyromancer sorcerous origin from Plane Shift: Kaladesh has a feature called Fiery Soul: At 18th level, you gain immunity to fire damage. In addition, any spell or effect you create ignores resistance to fire damage and treats immunity to fire damage as resistance to fire damage. This abilit...

dnd-5e class-feature sorcerer damage-resistance immunities

Mithical

07:28

@Miniman Reminds me of this Tweet that was going around. :)

BESW

Mar 16 '15 at 5:47, by BESW

> You have three travelling companions, Tom, Dick, and Harry. Tom always tells the truth, Dick always lies, and Harry sometimes tells the truth but sometimes lies. Three orks guard the entrance to the Mathemagician's tower. One stabs people who tell the truth, one stabs people who lie, and one asks tricky questions. What is the minimum number of unwounded companions you can hope to have after encountering the Mathemagician's guards?

kviiri

07:44

At least Dick doesn't get wounded because if he just lies he can stay home. I ain't carrying him.

BESW

Square One TV - Spade Parade: Yucca Puck Search Parts 1 and 2

►

Hot RPG Questions

09:30

2

Q: If a player's character is absorbed must he make saving throws against death or is he instant death?

I am games mastering for the tomb of annihilation and my group will be exploring an abandoned mine near Fort Beluarian, so I wanted to create a level mini dungeon for a party of five people. Choosing the monsters randomly I put a Gibbering Mouther in the dungeon, however, reading its bite attack ...

dnd-5e monsters tomb-of-annihilation

Hot RPG Questions

09:55

5

Q: How much material silver is required to silver a greataxe, if the time and expertise is being provided as a favour?

Suppose I own a greataxe, and a blacksmith owes me a favour. The Smith knows how to craft silvered weapons, and has agreed to do the work as a favour if I provide the raw silver. The rules on silvered weapons state: You can silver a single weapon or ten pieces of ammunition for 100 gp. This cost...

dnd-5e weapons crafting special-materials

RevenantBacon

12:26

\o

doppelgreener

13:01

o/

goodguy5

o7

@Xirema I guess it makes enough sense that math elementals can get stuck inside of a documentation array.

Thomas Markov

ayo

Bardic Wizard

13:22

Hi

BESW

Quinn Murphy wrote a twitter thread about how game balance is primarily emotional, rather than mathematical.

2

(Next time someone tries to 'splain to me that Fate stunt templates are underpowered...)

RevenantBacon

@BESW Listen, Fate in general is a hot mess

goodguy5

@RevenantBacon I know in my heart that Fate is a great system, but I've yet to see an example of that lol

BESW

Let me clarify: I am deeply tired of people lecturing me about supposedly objective flaws of Fate as if their experience of dissatisfaction is somehow more authoritative/authentic/valid than my experience of pleasure, just because their feelings are about numbers. This is not a conversation I ever want to have again, it brings me no joy.

goodguy5

13:45

The only good game of Fate (ish) I've played was when someone ran the Dresden RPG for us in college. And I've been chasing that dragon ever since

I know one of the creators. I should see if he has any tips...

BESW

It's a tricksy beast, the system is very susceptible to the group's predilections and assumptions. I spent a lot of my early time in this space listening at the feet of people (most of them now long gone) who understood it better than I did and were very patient with me.

In retrospect, it was in the service of unlearning habits I'd developed from D&D more than learning habits specific to Fate.

goodguy5

yea, that's kind of the read I get on it. not everything has to be combat.

or even an "encounter" (to include social and mental "combat")

BESW

Yeah, not every combat has to use the conflict rules--most probably shouldn't.

goodguy5

wow, I just saw an email pop up from a name I've used as a joke.

Bruce McDougal

BESW

Anyway, sleep now.

goodguy5

13:53

oh right, timeszones! night

RevenantBacon

pffff, you believe in timezones? Next you'll be telling me Corona lockdown wasn't a cover so they could replace batteries in all the birds!

Thomas Markov

14:10

@RevenantBacon if birds had batteries my job would very different.

RevenantBacon

reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal

goodguy5

one of my favorite "games" is 1-upping conspiracies.

"Covid is a hoax; it'll be gone after the election"

"You believe in our elections? We only go to the polls so they can scan our retinas for mutations; election day is the number one recruitment day for potential super soldiers."

Then end with something like "get your facts straight"

RevenantBacon

nice

My favorite is still "The moon landing was faked!"

"Pfff, you believe in the moon?"

goodguy5

14:28

does anyone know if they changed how garbage collection works in newer Java editions?

RevenantBacon

Dunno, pretty sure Frank still comes by every Wednesday to pick it up off the }

goodguy5

get out lol

I thought I recalled something about them changing the way something worked.

but maybe not

RevenantBacon

I honestly couldn't tell you, I learned java like 12 years ago and have mostly forgotten it since I haven't actually used it since then

Xirema

@goodguy5 I know they introduce new algorithms periodically, but it's hard to say that that clearly means the newer versions are using those new algorithms by default.

goodguy5

fair enough. As long as you still can't force garbage collection, but only request it, then I'm good lol.

It's a somewhat common interview question and I didn't want to have my knowledge outdated

alright. time to shave and change. wish me luck

RevenantBacon

14:41

Oh no, is it that time already?

Watch out for bears!

goodguy5

15:36

seemed to go well.

RevenantBacon

Done already? It feels like hardly any time has gone by!

goodguy5

@RevenantBacon it's funny you chose bears; that's our family's pet name for our kid (and each other a bit)

half hour interview

RevenantBacon

Yeah, makes sense.

My manager and supervisor just left to go do an interview as well

goodguy5

especially since it was an internal position

RevenantBacon

Like not even a minute ago

ours isn't an internal hire tho

goodguy5

15:40

oh yea, might take a while

I hate when I accidentally angel street myself

"I thought I sent this text to my wife. where is it? did I send it to someone else? did I send it to no one?"

GcL

What's angel streeting yourself involve?

goodguy5

y'know.... convincing someone about something that isn't real? like that old movie? Angel Street

RevenantBacon

Is it like gaslighting but different?

GcL

Do you mean gaslighting ?

goodguy5

I think that's what the British movie is called? but yea.

GcL

15:49

Looking up angel street it seems to be about a play

Yuuki

@GcL It was a play and a movie.

goodguy5

imdb.com/title/tt0310644

Yuuki

Well, Gaslight was.

dunno about Angel Street

goodguy5

This is an elaborate meta gaslighting experiment that I've been running for years, for the record

GcL

@goodguy5 Looks like a remake. I thought the original had Ingrid Bergman

At least the one I had to watch for course had Ingrid.

Casablanca was far better.

Yuuki

15:51

So the movie was called Gaslight. It was adapted from a play called Gaslight (or Gas Light). The play was also known in the US as Angel Street.

goodguy5

^

Yuuki

However, there is no movie called Angel Street.

(or there is and i'm just gaslighting you)

oooooOOOooOOOoOoOOoooooo

goodguy5

but the thing about my "prank" (if you can call it that) is that I do it so ubiquitously, that I unironically say "Angel Streeting" now.

GcL

Never saw the play.

@goodguy5 I know someone who ubiquitously calls RJ45 ports "phone jacks".

goodguy5

as opposed to like "ethernet jacks" or something lol

Yuuki

15:57

Phone jills?

goodguy5

somehow that seems worse

Yuuki

Phone hills? Phone fetch-a-pail-of-waters?

goodguy5

I actually do like "phone pails"

"things in which to place the phone stuff"

GcL

@goodguy5 "You plug the ethernet cable into the phone jack" Thought he was a troll, but that was his experience and his language never changed.

goodguy5

fair enough

GcL

15:59

Well, might have now, but I don't work with him anymore.

Yuuki

I used to call them that because that's what they were called by everyone else I knew.

goodguy5

what do I even call them anymore.

I think if it came up, I would say "wall jack"

GcL

That seems like good catchall.

Yuuki

yeah since landlines are almost non-existent these days in the home setting

goodguy5

is an electrical outlet technically a wall jack?

Yuuki

16:01

It's weirdly unsettling how quickly landlines phased out.

goodguy5

so did radium watches

Yuuki

Fairly certain radium watches were unsettling because of other reasons.

goodguy5

well, yea, killed all those women

but I'm saying that sometimes things are just replaced by better things

GcL

I don't recall phone landlines or their manufacture causing horrific deaths nor the callousness of the business owners that defended the companies interests.

Like electric kettles?

Yuuki

Sure but my understanding is that typically takes place over a longer period of time.

goodguy5

16:04

precisely

Yuuki

In my recollection, landlines disappeared within a decade. Which feels remarkably fast.

goodguy5

@Yuuki I mean, technically, there were cell phones in the 80s. sure they were basically military walkie talkies, but hey.

Yuuki

Especially with something so ubiquitous that there was a landline phone in every house.

GcL

Depends on where you are. Landlines are common in the rural residential areas I travel to and through.

goodguy5

then we had half decent cell phones (remember car phones) in the late 90s.

the technology actually worked in the 2000s and was accessible. People started dropping telephones then.

now most people don't have them, just businesses.

GcL

16:06

@Yuuki There probably still is.... they're just not connected anymore.

Yuuki

@GcL Understandable, wire is mostly more reliable than wireless and setting up a wireless network isn't cheap.

goodguy5

the real victim here is pagers

GcL

@Yuuki Oooo... Colorado too. There are some places where you literally have to walk up "the valley" which is a not so cute euphemism for "walk up the freakin' mountain" to get cell reception.

Yuuki

@GcL is that how they used to get to school?

GcL

@goodguy5 Still used in most hospitals. The replacement systems being "rolled out" (read "forced upon") physicians are atrocious, and in the cases I've encountered, not regulatory compliant.

Yuuki

16:13

We really, really don't need to modernize everything, especially when the advantages to modernization aren't exactly clear. My understanding is that hospital-based pager systems are more reliable and more timely than switching to an app-based smartphone system.

user15026

16:30

Anything that relies on wireless is going to be subject to failure at random intervals in ways that are pretty not great.

GcL

@Yuuki The old pager systems do have major problems especially on the security front. I'm less than happy when the modern replacement doesn't fix any of those and is less desirable to use.

KorvinStarmast

16:55

@RevenantBacon Isn't that game like 10 years old? I remember joining a few friends when B2 came out for the first person shooter perspective and a few of the interface mechanics frustrated me, so I stopped.

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast I think that question is fine. We have plenty of gm questions that are totally subjective that need not be closed as opinion based.

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 Thinkin' beautiful thoughts for you, and if you don't mind, offering a prayer for you as well.

goodguy5

I never mind.

Which god, though? just so I know what you're signing me up for ;)

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren That may be of some benefit in the future, however. .😎

@Axoren hilarious

@BESW applause for Q Murph and thanks for that link.

Mark Wells

@goodguy5 You might enjoy this.

goodguy5

17:06

eventually, my players are going to run into a garden of grotesque and lifelike statues

And it's just going to be a stone sculptor / collector

RevenantBacon

@KorvinStarmast 8 years old, was released in 2012

KorvinStarmast

@RevenantBacon OK, so it was after I got my Sager gaming laptop. Thx.

@goodguy5 That's a good misdirection, but what's the actual issue/secret/mystery?

(And where did he get the models for those statues anyway? Local mimes? Improve theater? Local insane asylum?)

goodguy5

@KorvinStarmast just a quirk of the realm

RevenantBacon

@goodguy5 I am totally stealing this

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 cool.

goodguy5

17:15

@MarkWells love this

KorvinStarmast

@MarkWells Grin, I did.

GcL

@goodguy5 Do your players not separate player knowledge and character knowledge? because that sounds like a fun trip up for that kind of thing. Characters that have no idea what a medusa or basilisk is spend hours preparing for one.

goodguy5

I mean, it works either way right?

Either the players are like
• "medusa, right? get yur mirrers!" and then antics ensue.
• "I've heard tale of an ancient witch than can turn peasants to stone with a mere gaze!" (Medusa must get talked about in adventuring circles, right?)
• "wow,that's weird and upsetting. who's doing this and why?"

smbailey

And then it just turns out to be nerdy stonecrafter who's really into H.P. Lovecraft.

GcL

18:24

@goodguy5 It's a time sink for players who read the MM and push that meta knowledge to their character, or it's an interesting jaunt to meet a quirky sculptor. The DM then has to remember that they actually illustrated the difference in player/character knowledge and can't rely on the players recognizing other meta knowledge without finding a way of giving it to the characters or making it know that the character knows what that means. E.g. lycanthropes being harmed by silver.

I think it's a good bit, but recognize the risk of the DM that ~~cried wolf~~ cried meta. It can be difficult for the players to know when they'd be penalized for assuming a character knows what they know.

Yuuki

18:57

I'm wondering how useful reskinning monster statblocks is for this. Is it worth the time to design a monster that's mechanically identical to a gelatinous cube but just doesn't look like one?

Then again, some players might just like to fight iconic monsters and doing reskins would hamper their enjoyment.

Mark Wells

@Yuuki The gelatinous cube in particular seems like a poor candidate for this, given that its mechanics are (1) being gelatinous and (2) being a cube.

MikeQ

Unsure if it's useful, if it's an in-game solution to an out-of-game player problem

Yuuki

@MarkWells Army of termite-esque bugs.

MikeQ

e.g. If you want to create a sense of weirdness and unfamiliarity in the adventurers, then reskinning monsters to not look like their traditional appearances could help

Yuuki

They can mass up and engulf you and then dissolve your armor with acidic spit.

The one thing that might not work so well is the pseudopod attack.

Mark Wells

19:02

That and the transparency.

Yuuki

But you can maybe mimic that with a piece of the swarm flying at you and then returning after the attack.

MikeQ

But if you want the player to stop looking up monster stats, then making the monster look different doesn't really solve the issue with the player. It makes it harder for them to apply out-of-game knowledge, but they could still try anyway.

Mark Wells

@MikeQ Right. Then it becomes "Guess which reskinned monster this is, then look up stats."

And the mechanics get increasingly decoupled from everything else about the monster. It's a swarm of bugs! Except it can... extend a pseudopod made of bugs and grab you and pull you in. Swarms of bugs don't do that.

Carcer

@MarkWells Skitter accepts your challenge

Mark Wells

@Carcer The point is, I don't expect that to be a hazard of fighting a swarm of bugs. You're confounding player meta-knowledge from reading the Monster Manual, by confounding all player knowledge, including what you've just told them their character is seeing.

Carcer

19:06

I'm not trying to make a point in your discussion I'm just making a worm joke for anyone that gets it

RevenantBacon

20:01

As far as I can recall, The Cube has no means by which to make an attack. Their entire method of capturing prey is to be really hard to see and hope someone walks in to them, or, failing that, to move really really slowly at them while filling an entire hallway so that they can't be run past. Then, once someone/thing does walk in to it, their paralyzig agent prevents the creature from escaping

Rubiksmoose

Can confirm. The only way I could catch something would be if it ran right into me.

RevenantBacon

@Rubiksmoose Makes sense, you are part Cube after all

Rubiksmoose

:)

RevenantBacon

I suggest (instead of reskinning the cube to look different, but still act the same) add things to the encounter that make it different from the norm. Instead of a 10x10 hallway that the cube blocks off, put it in a room, and toss a few skeleton inside it. Then, when the players handily defeat it (it's super slow and can't really make attacks) the skeletons actually turn out to be undead and attack the players!

Carcer

21:01

chat formatting has decided your name is now Rubiksmoo

Rubiksmoose

21:13

Rude. I don't go moo.

Maybe a moose should moo. and a cow could caw.

AncientSwordRage

21:26

My formatting preserves the moose

@BESW I saw this, very insightful

Trying to pick a fun rogue subclass for a Veldalken... Stats are 8,15,10,14,14,14 I was thinking either Inquisitive or Swashbuckler

I've seen since good questions on this already but they're aimed at damage

I might multiclass into monk later

Someone_Evil

Playing in, or borrowing from, Ravnica (or Kalashesh for that 6th finger per hand)?

AncientSwordRage

Borrowing

I'm just playing about with the character builder for fun

So it could be either/any to be honest

Mark Wells

21:43

@AncientSwordRage "Vedalken swashbuckler" is such a weird concept.

AncientSwordRage

I picked a charlatan background with these:

> BONDS
> I swindled and ruined a person who didn’t deserve it. I seek to atone for my misdeeds but might never be able to forgive myself.
> FLAWS
> I can’t resist swindling people who are more powerful than me.

Someone_Evil

@MarkWells Sounds like good reason to make one then :p

AncientSwordRage

@MarkWells yeah I love it

Mark Wells

@Someone_Evil Base it on Richard Feynman, maybe.

AncientSwordRage

@MarkWells I think Richard Feynman has higher Charisma ...

I think fancy footwork would go well with the monk, but the use of insight and perception from inquisitive works with Veldalken precision

Mark Wells

21:53

Vedalken inquisitive is a little easier to picture

AncientSwordRage

22:23

True, but doesn't lend itself to multiclassing monk later

Not sure what it lends itself to

Insightful Fighting isn't great until level 17

Also charisma being added to initiative from Rakish Audacity is nice

The other subclass that lends itself to Veldalken is mastermind

Hot RPG Questions

23:57

4

Q: How to create a mermaid using Spheres of Power?

Spheres of Power and its related splatbooks recently came under the valid books my RPG group is allowed to use. The system is quite something, and far different from anything I have ever used in Pathfinder. So far, I'm liking it quite a lot, and my group is having a blast building characters with...

pathfinder-1e spheres-of-power

BESW

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