TRPG General Chat

Bardic Wizard

00:00

What did you do (IC; everyone OOC is fine and it’s not a group dynamics thing)

BESW

"Hail, friend elves! I am Alexander Theon, Librarian of the Order of Hypatia. I apologize for intruding on your forest, but would you happen to have any books I could copy for my archive?"

My very first PC ever, I'd been invited to join a group that wanted to RP but struggled with making it happen, and they'd heard I was a good GM for making RP happen.

I made a very fragile character who was also the party's only healer, so everyone had mechanical incentive to not leap to combat as the first option and get their healer killed for a frivolous random encounter.

But it only worked, of course, because the group wanted it to work.

I just built a character that gave them mechanical justifications for going along with it.

Bardic Wizard

Makes sense.

@MikeQ what do you do?

MikeQ

It depends. Kind of a broad question. Could you clarify?

Bardic Wizard

Basically, how do you keep them from starting a combat in the middle of a safe house when they both have a reason to kill each other, or at least seriously injure each other

NPC: “the only reason I’m not killing you is that [my pc] seems to tolerate you”

BESW

...you don't. By the time that's the situation you're facing, it's either not a problem because your game is about violence as the default way to engage with the world, or you've missed all the opportunities to establish what the game is about INSTEAD of that.

MikeQ

00:11

First read the room, starting with OOC. Do I want combat (usually not)? Do the other players want combat and not talking? Does the DM want us to talk to these NPCs?

Then, in game, if there's a standoff, then there's probably an opportunity to avoid the combat. Give the other side a reason to not attack your party.

BESW

It's not something that can be solved with in-game roleplay, it's a table-level attitude that the players shouldn't need someone else to force them to follow.

Bardic Wizard

Artificer: “I want to know what you’ve done and unless you tell me I’m gonna keep bugging you’

Note: the artificer started it

most of the reason they aren’t both dead rn is cause my pc and the rogue are keeping them separate

BESW

Every day billions of people have reasons to kill each other but don't. Why are these PCs such outliers?

(I'm gonna guess it's because of player expectations about the kind of game they're in.)

MikeQ

But if I've reached standoff and a player character is provoking, that could mean a difference in player priorities, so I might switch to out of character and ask that player directly.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW that’s true. The artificer’s player has a hard time not annoying people accidentally (he’s working on it). The GM and he have been friends long enough, as have we all, that we at least know it’s only that NPC that’s going to possibly kill him

this is an IC problem, not an OOC problem.

MikeQ

00:16

The player controls the artificer and their actions. The artificer's character is fictional.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW pretty much as well as the fact that we’ve all been friends for going on 3 years

BESW

My librarian PC was designed for a group that wanted to do non-combat stuff but had spent all their time in systems and with GMs who only taught them combat-based conflict resolution strategies (D&D has a MASSIVE ratio for combat to non-combat content and options). So my main function was to demonstrate alternatives, not to convince people to take those alternatives.

In-game RP between characters isn't gonna convince players at the table to change the way they play the game.

I've had that happen a few times, and the solution has always been out-of-game conversations, either with specific people alone or with the group together, or both.

Jun 27 '16 at 0:52, by BESW

[sigh] Vampire paladin and druid with an anti-undead vendetta, in the same party.

Jun 27 '16 at 0:55, by BESW

Both players had their heels dug firmly into "My Guy" territory, so the best solution was to retire both PCs on the spot. The remaining party fled the burning forest and got two new PCs in the next town.

And I had a little talk with the players about making choices that were fun for everyone.

Bardic Wizard

The problem is that we need the NPC alive. And the artificer. And the (already explosion happy, paranoid) NPC has repeatedly said if the artificer won’t stop talking to him (asking questions especially) there will be explosions

BESW

In that case, both players were used to White Wolf games where PCs didn't have any mechanical reason to cooperate and a lot of reason to be suspicious of each other, so the GM forced PCs to work together with the threat of annihilation by ridiculously powerful patron NPCs. When they joined my D&D campaign and I wasn't forcing their PCs to work together... they didn't have any schema for how to do it themselves.

MikeQ

@BardicWizard Then tell the artificer's player that the artificer should stop antagonizing this NPC.

Bardic Wizard

00:25

@MikeQ that’s probably what needs to happen

BESW

...hm, "Making the Tough Decisions" is a dead link now.

Bardic Wizard

Internet archive’s got it, cause that’s where I’ve read it.

BESW

It's not in line with my current gaming styles, but it was VERY helpful for a lot of us back in the day.

I had a couple years where it was required reading to join my games.

Bardic Wizard

Also note I’m not the GM, just the one who’s got the most reason to keep the NPC alive (he’s a mentor/old criminal friend from the sorcerer underground/it’s a long story of my character’s)

BESW

Yeeeah, this sounds like it's worthy of an out-of-session "Hey, you're making decisions that aren't good for me."

Bardic Wizard

00:39

@BESW I’ll try it. Although the reason for this all is probably fair (the NPC is basically a sorcerer/warlock multiclass who pissed off almost all the major players in the city, a real feat because we’ve only managed to get 6, and whom we broke out of jail because he knew too much about one of those, is justifiably paranoid when answering questions)

BESW

Primary lesson of "Making the Tough Decisions" for me was that there is never just one most-reasonable or most-fair decision to make for the character. There's always another way to look at the situation, another priority to invoke. In-character reasons never justify table-level agony because in-character reasons are as flexible as the imagination of the real-life people making them.

4

Just like we're expected to try to make good decisions even when we have reason to make bad ones in real life, players at the table can be expected to make good decisions for the group even if their characters have reason to make decisions that make the group miserable

"It's what my guy would do" can be true, but is never true to the exclusion of other things my guy might do instead.

Bardic Wizard

01:47

...on the bright side of the session I got to remember why I play characters that have friends and history.
I play ‘paranoid sorcerer with at least 12 secret identities, including disguises for all of them’, and got an excuse to say “[npc], I’ve been lying to you for a long time. My name’s not Gianetta [the name she went by when she did criminal stuff], and I’ve been disguised that whole time.” Of course, the NPC says “You know, I figured that out a long time ago. Hard not to guess when you either look like a really messy version of yourself or only show up for 4 hours at a time”. The palad…

Bardic Wizard

02:20

Extended Disguise Self and Extended Alter Self are an awesome combination (I got props from my gm when I showed him I took 2 spells, a Metamagic option, a background, and nearly multiclassed into rogue for 3 levels, all for the character concept.)

Xirema

02:39

Our party went to a new town, and my Sorcerer introduced herself as "Marsha", and when the players got confused, I explained, with no elocution, "I always have a new name for each town I go to"

The party has known her as "Emma" for months

Yuuki

03:19

Bardic Wizard

03:38

@Xirema that’s a nice way to do it. I don’t exactly have a method to my identities. It’s more like... “oh we’re going somewhere? Disguise self.” And name wise, they’ve met Fiametta, Gianetta, Tessa, Aline, Mabel, and Laetitia. (All Gilbert and Sullivan characters, some more well known than others.) I have at least 6 more written up that the party will meet (my gm loves this and helped with personalities, etc)

lisardggY

05:52

Good morningish.

V2Blast

@lisardggY Good time of day to you too

lisardggY

06:09

Indeed.

Hey, I can probably use you guys to do research for a lecture I'm giving next month.

I'm giving a talk at a convention about various media (novels, movies, TV) that were inspired by the creators' RPG gaming, and maybe show evidence of the RPG origins in the works themselves.

Dragonlance is, of course, the primary example. But there are more, like Raymond Feist's Riftwar, The Expanse, Malazan and Firefly.

I might mention Isekai/LitRPG, but it's not the focus of hte talk

V2Blast

06:50

@BESW For some reason, the site keeps getting confused by having a plus in the URL. Your first link gives me the error message "No search results found for "black+panther"." But searching the site for black panther works fine.

BESW

@lisardggY [wave] What are you asking for help with? Examples? Specific citations supporting those examples?

V2Blast

Also, this reddit comment lists all 286 free comics, including the ones without "black panther" in the name.

BESW

@V2Blast Yeah, I was running into that too.

@V2Blast Excellent! I know Shuri and Killmonger are among them, and Shuri is supposed to be REALLY good (check out the author!)

It's weird (no it's not, just sad) that Comixology isn't publicizing this very well.

It looks like the common denominator is that they're the BP runs written under Black authors.

Nope, I stand corrected.

In that case, let me recommend [nothing before 1998] except maybe the 1988 "vol 2" miniseries because it's penciled by Cowan.

Christopher Priest's run (starting 1998) is a strong influence on the Disney film, including being the first introduction of Agent Ross (Martin Freeman).

And I believe that Nnedi Okorafor's comics are the first time a continental African author got to write for the property.

She goes all in, it's great.

lisardggY

08:02

@BESW I haven't structured the talk yet, but I think I want about 4-5 good examples, with citations (preferably quoting the author/creator), and ideally find elements in the work that can be traced to the games.

@BESW Just finished reading her novella, Binti, the other day. Pretty good.

Oh, I saw that you reacted to my presumably machine-translated tweet about it. :)

BESW

Binti was so good, and it just keeps getting better.

lisardggY

I'll get around to the sequels as well. I had the first one, I think, from some tor.com giveaway.

My kindle backlog is ridiculous, comprised of books I got from Hugo voter packets, freebies on tor.com, impulse purchases at $1.99 on Amazon and other sources.

And that's before we get to the books I had purchased full price because I really wanted to read them and, well, they got into the backlog as well.

BESW

One of my friends recently said "Can my library please just stop getting new books for a year so I can catch up?"

lisardggY

I don't know what happened that, after a few years of being unable to read almost anything (about 2-3 books a year), I suddenly got my reading mojo back, and have read three novels and two novellas in the past 4 weeks.

BESW

08:27

My reading pace varies dramatically depending on a lot of variables.

Carcer

apropos of nothing, finding out your dialect apparently uses a word in a different way to how you understood the word is a terrifying experience

lisardggY

@Carcer Interesting. Can you share the example that sparked that realization?

Carcer

@lisardggY not really an example, but dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/quite

I always understood and used "quite" to mean "very but not extremely", which apparently is the american usage

and yet

BESW

08:45

Oh yeah, that's quite context-dependent, as well as colloquial.

Carcer

"quite good" said in a sarcastic tone obviously means "not very good" but I would never have understood someone saying they were quite excited about something to mean that they were only a little excited

I am concerned I may have been accidentally insulting people on the reg

lisardggY

Words that are autoantonyms - that can mean two completely opposite things can often do that.

AncientSwordRage

09:21

@lisardggY I'm bound to tell you, this conversation is bound for interesting places

lisardggY

@AncientSwordRage I think we can table this topic now.

AncientSwordRage

It's a moot point

lisardggY

I realized that there isn't any canonical Hebrew text about the Oberoni fallacy, and since I spent too much time lately arguing pointlessly with people suffering from it, I'll have to write one.

I have a draft ready for a while now but I need to finish it.

AncientSwordRage

CColour me intrigued

lisardggY

09:36

Someone in an RPG group asked "what systems are good for cinematic combat". Someone answered D&D. There started a massive discussion where the guy (and not for hte first time) refused to acknowledge that any system can do cinematic combat (and, basically, do anything) better than D&D, with a lot of impressive cognitive gymnastics where he could justify anything because whenever he was shown a mechanic that was better than D&D's for cinematic combat, he dismissed it as "not really a mechanic"

I gave Fate as an example where the loose description of aspects give you more options than the stricter options that D&D gives you (either because you have a fixed spell list or a set of relatively explicit combat options), which he replied with "a loose mechanic means that the players' imagination does the job, so it doesn't count as a mechanic, and you can always do the same in D&D as well".

It was a very frustrating discussion that I simply bowed out of at some point because he would get very defensive and aggressive about people "coming here just to bash D&D".

I would give a detailed paragraph explaining why the tactical options and resource economy of D&D fly in the face of cinematic combat - if you need to consider saving your spell slots for another fight, you're not thinking cinematically - but he was so deep in "D&D can do anything because you can always do anything on top of D&D" that he wouldn't listen.

BESW

10:34

I'd like to see him deal with BOLT.

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lisardggY

10:47

Meh. I've added him to my mental "do not bother to read or engage" list on that forum. Should have done that after a previous thread where he argued that D&D had the best mechanics for social interactions.

BESW

Yeah, that sounds healthier for all involved.

I've been the "d20 + mod is best because it can do ANYTHING" guy and walking away from that was my own journey to take.

lisardggY

Yupyup. That social-mechanics thread was the reason I started writing my Oberoni post in the first place. "D&D has the best social interaction mechanics because social interactions shouldn't have mechanics at all, so the fact that they have very limited mechanics for it means it's the BEST". O...k....

BESW

Like... yes, there's an argument for that being a good choice (it's something I respect about D&D 4e in particular, because it's one of the only D&D editions that actually doesn't try to turn social interactions into a mechanical subsystem, rather than just doing it but poorly), but objectively BEST is a hard sell.

lisardggY

You can either say "X doesn't need mechanics", or "The best way to do X mechanically is Y", but "X doesn't need mechanics, so the best way to do it is half-assed" isn't very convincing.

BESW

I'm amused because I'm in the middle of a youtube video about "hard vs soft" techniques in worldbuilding. I strongly disagree with some of the conclusions but the subject is a useful frame for storytelling and I think it touches on what makes me generally prefer Fate-like systems over D&D-like systems.

Basically, if you've got a world like Middle-Earth or a system like D&D where immersion and investment is based on building a convincing experience through detailed attention to minutia, then you're constantly running into either internal contradictions or being told "no" to good story because it's incompatible with the world as described.

Whereas if you've got a world like Spirited Away or a system like Mnemonic where immersion and investment are based on creating curiosity about the details that are NOT explained, then you've got room to explore, add, and modify according to the needs of the story and characters as you go.

This makes "soft" worldbuilding/system design, in my opinion, much better suited to the kind of character-driven (not world-driven) improvisational narrative that I like in my TRPGs.

lisardggY

11:01

Well said. There's a recurring type of question I see on rpg.se and other forums where GMs want to introduce some fantastic element to the world, but have a hard time justifying it given the magical metaphysics that the system presents. The more comprehensive the mechanics are, the harder it is to introduce something that breaks it, either because it guides the GM's mindset, or because the players feel the "common ground" expectations of the rules are broken.

BESW

(One of the video's conclusions that I disagree with is that gapping details in your setting creates a sense of "otherworldliness," while I think that having a complete and detailed understanding of a setting is deeply unreal; not knowing everything about your world is core to the human experience, I think.

The video essayist is saying that ambiguity is key to Studio Ghibli's fantastical films and I agree--but not because it's what makes the films fantastical. It's what makes the films grounded.)

lisardggY

I think I gave it as an example of the core mindset difference between D&D3 and previous editions, where the fact that AD&D rarely had a streamlined mechanic for actions - combat used one set of mechanics, spells a different one, thief abilities used percentile dice, etc - made the rules feel more ad-hoc, so it wasn't that big a deal to introduce a different mechanic for something.

Whereas 3e tried to streamline everything into the Ability/Skill/Feat d20+modifier system, which makes a lot of things easier, but requires more justification to break it.

BESW

@lisardggY Or, I had a conversation with somebody recently and they wanted to have a centaur who used a wheelchair-like prosthetic with their hind limbs, but the setting had centaurs being all "we can heal all things magically" and they were struggling to justify a character who wasn't able-bodied.

(CF the Eugenics Problem With Star Trek)

lisardggY

@BESW Or the "why does anyone die in D&D" problem, to stay closer to home.

BESW

Oh that's a lot easier. D&D's economy (if it can be called that) defaults to the colonial-capitalist system with an entrenched pool of unemployed labor to empower employer leverages, because its creators don't think to do anything else except import the default of their own experience.

Carcer

11:13

@lisardggY is that question "why does anyone succumb to injuries" or "why does anyone stay dead"

BESW

Money in D&D is the fungible expression of adventurer agency, and healing is a form of adventurer agency so healing costs money. Giving free access to healing would infringe on the loot-and-pillage core of the D&D game experience, so the setting can't possibly do it.

lisardggY

Heh. I've been in quite a few (heated) discussions in recent months regarding the WotC's "updated representations" statement from a while back, as well as the Oriental Adventures issue, and let me tell you, trying to get into discussions of decolonizing D&D and its economy would be more trouble than it's worth with my home forum's crowd.

BESW

Oof, I believe it.

lisardggY

@Carcer Both. You have low-level spells that should be able to deal with most common diseases and disabilities like blindness or deafness, and slightly higher level ones for raising the dead.

BESW

At some point they patched the resurrection gap by saying you can't resurrect from "natural" death, whatever that is.

lisardggY

11:15

That's the part, like BESW says, where your game-mechanical aspects make your world-building aspects strain until the weight of contradiction, and you end up just hand-waving the problems away.

@BESW That just pushes the issue one step further into the definition of "natural".

BESW

Yeah, it's just kicking the can along the line because it's not something the game cares about but the game has set itself up as needing "hard" answers to everything.

Carcer

@lisardggY I mean, making those healing magics require expensive and hard-to-source materials seems like it solves that problem in the narrative sense

lisardggY

@Carcer Except that it makes the problem into an economic one,גand suddenly forces you to look hard at the economic balance. 3e doesn't have material components for Remove Disease or Remove Blindness/Deafness, for instance. Raise Dead requires a lotof money (diamond worth 5000gp/500gp, depending on edition), but that simply explains why poor people have to die.

Carcer

I guess if you consider assigning a material cost to be the hand-wave

ah, sure. The economics have never made much sense

lisardggY

@Carcer It's handwaved because it makes death a function of socio-economic class, not a human condition.

And that should be huge. But it isn't.

BESW

11:20

And then that starts to raise fun questions about why necromancy is Always Evil even when voluntary.

Carcer

despite my best effort it turns out D&D was bad after all

BESW

And if there's one thing D&D hates self-examining more than its economics, that's its moral assumptions.

lisardggY

D&D isn't bad. It's just bad at certain things, like coherent world-building.

But coherent world-building isn't necessarily a driving motive, and certainly not a showstopper, for many players, me included. If I'm sitting to play a D&D game in a D&D or D&D-style campaign setting, I'm fine with suspending my disbelief and accepting this as part of the genre conventions.

But it's still important to understand that this is what's happening and this is what we're doing, because for some people it will be a showstopper, and that's fine. I also know people who find scientific inaccuracy in SF to be showstoppers, and I can respect that even if I don't give much of a damn. It's important to understand that people want and need different things.

When we realize what's happening., when we understand people's (and our own) motives for liking/disliking an aspect of a game, we can learn a) to make better tradeoffs, and b) write better, more specifically-tailored games or settings that are good at doing THIS as opposed to THAT.

2

BESW

My problem with D&D isn't that its setting choices don't hold together tightly (I think it's not supposed to but then at some point it fell into the Like Tolkien trap), but that its setting choices tend to be kinda unfortunate. My problem isn't looking inside the system, it's looking at how the system interfaces with the real world.

Sep 2 at 14:34, by BESW

D&D lore isn't really supposed to all fit together tightly anyway, it's drawn from material as diverse as American detective shows, French folklore, British horror films, and a lot of really racist early 20th century novelists, all crammed in together and held together by not looking too closely at the gaps.

AncientSwordRage

11:49

@BESW I think also, people do assume it should fit together and come to unfortunate conclusions based off of that

AncientSwordRage

12:19

@BESW @KorvinStarmast I took you up on that suggestion and I've posted in the backroom

BESW

12:33

@AncientSwordRage That, I think, is where the Robot of Offense is useful as a more general model as well: clarity of intent goes a long way to mitigating the harm of misinterpretation.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW can it be applied to d&d as it stands now? Seems like a tall order

BESW

I wouldn't want to try, but I'm not very interested in rehabilitating D&D no matter how easy or hard it is. There are people I deeply respect who are interested in that work, and I'd listen to them on that subject.

I think it'd start with D&D having a coherent intent, which is... not always clear it possesses.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW part of the issue is that it tries to do to much. Gritty or epic? Social or combat based? Exploration or procedural encounters?

(some if those aren't exact opposites, but hopefully the point stands)

lisardggY

12:50

I think, as that because it's the biggest RPG and for many people, the default RPG, people assume that it should do everything they want to do in RPGs. And telling people "no, we're not here to do X, you might try game Y for that" is, for a corporate entity like Hasbro, leaving money on the table.

AncientSwordRage

That's accurate

I wonder if we'll ever reach the point where it's less cost effective to do that?

BESW

My vision of D&D's impact on the TRPG landscape has evolved recently as I become more privy to the conversations happening in marginalized developer spaces. Particularly, for me, I'm learning a lot about how D&D's position in the industry influences RPGSEA dynamics.

Stuff like, for the Filipino TRPG dev scene, D&D dominates the landscape to an extent that even USAian TRPG spaces can't really imagine. In part this is because of which online platforms people in the Philippines have access to; for a variety of reasons including PayPal Is A Pain In The Butt and Kickstarter Doesn't Do The Philippines, DM's Guild is one of the major ways you can sell TRPG products at "not a loss."

AncientSwordRage

Can you sell non-D&D content on their?

lisardggY

Not as far as I know. Also, it has a very draconian revenue-sharing IP-licensing model.

BESW

DM's Guild is very specific about the content it will host.

And this becomes a self-reinforcing thing in spaces where D&D is considered the only viable revenue stream. Only D&D projects get invested in, only D&D creators get invited to conventions, etc. Throw in a bit of spotlight-seeking cultural momentum and there are places where not-D&D development is actively attacked as weakening the dev community as a whole.

But at the same time, D&D is providing opportunities for these people which no other element of the TRPG landscape can right now, and I don't begrudge anybody going for the options that are gonna let them. you know. eat.

KorvinStarmast

13:12

@BESW when I fold a comment into an answer, I offer "thanks to @{name}" to ensure proper credit.

BESW

And there's people like Orion Black who tried to work on improving the hobby from inside the beast whose shadow is cast over the whole of the landscape.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW goodness, do we need to clear up that "editing based on comments" is desirable?

@AncientSwordRage OK I'll take a peak later on. Heading to church.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW wow. That last sentence.

BESW

Too much?

AncientSwordRage

@BESW mhhmhhhm this was part of Orion Black's most recent Twitter thread that got posted here. I understood it best in comparison to the rhetorical "you dislike society, yet you are part of one" fallacious comment

Of course these developers need to eat

@BESW I mean, it's the truth so no, not too much

BESW

13:21

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, very much so. I'm not gonna tell anybody that it's morally wrong to play or dev for WotC, especially anybody for whom other options would be more existentially precarious.

I do hope people reflect on how they're engaging with WotC and its practices, and what good they can bring through their actions whether in terms of self-care and self-protection or setting examples and making spaces for others.

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast no rush

BESW

You may have noticed that I mostly amplify the voices of RPG people outside the D&D sphere. They're the people I'm most in touch with, but also they're the ones struggling against the grain because they've chosen to develop in ways that don't have as much infrastructure to support them.

lisardggY

Here in Israel we're in an interesting space. 5e will never be translated into Hebrew (Wizards requirements are way to steep for such a small market), but generally speaking people have good enough English to play anyway. D&D is the biggest player, of course, but there's a big and meaningful scene and audience for non-D&D games, though not much of a market - again, Hebrew roleplayers are a tiny market segment that can't support a real industry.

There's been an attempt by one group of gamers/theoreticians/armchair-designers to brand a style of play as "Israeli-style tabletop", similar to "Nordic-style LARP", but I don't think it will catch on, and I also dislike the group that's pushing it on several levels, both personally and game-theory-wise.

BESW

13:38

One reason I've been pushing Mnemomic more than a lot of other Kickstarters is that it's very notable as a Kickstarter that is gonna be putting money into the pockets of TRPG creative professionals who live in countries where they literally cannot run Kickstarters themselves.

And not just as stretch goals either.

Aug 25 at 2:28, by BESW

Dee Pennyway wrote a twitter thread about "stuff that Mnemonic does that DISRUPTS the tabletop industry."

AncientSwordRage

13:52

@BESW I have and I think that's really commendable

@BESW I noticed that.

BESW

I mean, I also just think they're doing interesting stuff while D&D material tends to bore me to tears or make me rant endlessly (see above).

But counterexample: Islands and Aswangs

AncientSwordRage

@BESW oh cool

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Bardic Wizard

15:00

Hey, I could use a little d&d help. I posted a question over at world building, and wanted to know how much handwaving I would have to do on spells to make a couple options work. Is there any way to freeze water in D&D5e that is permanent? Control water has no freeze option (and it only lasts 10 minutes anyways), and the only way I could see Shape Water working is if several minions are taught to cast it and cast it on the water/ice every hour

That would probably be too resource intensive though.

As well as the fact that the mage is only a threat because they don’t care about collateral damage and they have no minions (as a direct result of that little problem)

RevenantBacon

15:20

@BardicWizard If you mean permanent like won't melt without magically dispelling it, no, that's going to have to be a made-up GM plot point. On the other hand, if you mean freeze it normally so it would eventually melt in warm weather, then look no further than Otiluke's Freezing Sphere

dndbeyond.com/spells/freezing-sphere

Wait, no I lied, apparently that ice would only last for 1 minute, it was different in older editions

You could just houserule that any AOE cold spell will freeze the surface of any water in its area

Carcer

take the water you want to be frozen somewhere the ambient temperature is <0C

and leave it there

Bardic Wizard

I like both those options... I’ll probably just say “yeah it’s a 9th level spell you’ve never seen before” if they challenge it and just hand wave how it came to be.

RevenantBacon

I mean, if you're just going to handwave it as a 9th level spell, just tell them the guy cast Wish

And that's like, an extremely weak use of Wish anyways

Bardic Wizard

15:39

That’s true... then I get to see them freak out about someone who can cast that complicated of a spell... evil laughter

Carcer

yeah, wish is kind of your get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to "but how did magic do this!? there's no spell for that"

but you know

just permanently freezing some water (presumably until dispelled) is hardly the most powerful magic

make up a new spell.

Bardic Wizard

Two casters in this group are dispel-heavy

Carcer

is it vital that they're unable to dispel the frozen water?

Bardic Wizard

Nope! If they dispel it that could be so cool to describe (pun completely intended)

Carcer

bonus points if they neglect to consider where a large amount of suddenly unfrozen water is going to go before they do the dispel

Bardic Wizard

15:44

That’s what will probably happen but then again at least 2 players are taking physics so I have hope they will remember

RevenantBacon

16:07

New spell Freeze Water (level pending) Duration: Instantaneous. Once the spell has finished being cast, the water is frozen, and there's no lingering effect to dispel

Alternatively, Duration: Permanent, but once dispelled, instead of melting instantly, it can now melt normally.

As in a normal, non-magically accelerated/delayed rate

AncientSwordRage

17:00

Hallucinatory Terrain and Mirage Arcane spring to mind

If you want a large area of ice

AncientSwordRage

17:31

@BardicWizard your worldbuilding question hit HNQ

Bardic Wizard

18:15

@AncientSwordRage Did not see that, thanks. I’m busy with homework (yes, on a Sunday)

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard everyday is homework day at university

Bardic Wizard

I hate history homework

AncientSwordRage

19:23

I'm sure it hates you too, @BardicWizard

What sort of history?

RevenantBacon

'Murican History, the only kind that matters!!!

:p

AncientSwordRage

19:39

Random question, does anyone else here have wide feet and struggle finding good fitting shoes?

RevenantBacon

19:56

As a matter of fact, yes

The shoes I am current;y in are like 2 sizes larger than they need to be because the store I went to didn't have them in my size but also wide

so they're like 1 1/2 inches longer than they really should be

AncientSwordRage

Hmmm, I'm trying in some 'wide fit' shoes which feel extra narrow

My wife's shoes are 3 sizes too big (to match her heart), so I get what you're saying

MikeQ

Yes and I've found it really varies by brand and make. Different brands of the same size could feel wider or more comfortable than others.

AncientSwordRage

Currently I'm trying Salomon (spelling?)

RevenantBacon

20:19

Oh, I get you on the brand issue. I'm convinced that sizes don't actually even mean anything anymore. The ones I have on are 11, some of the other kinds I tried on were 13. Like how do you explain that?

AncientSwordRage

20:53

It's a little crazy, not as crazy as women's clothing though

Shalvenay

@AncientSwordRage sometimes it makes me wish for an ISO standard for clothing sizing

AncientSwordRage

21:10

@Shalvenay too much variety

There's definitely websites that document the differences though

V2Blast

@RevenantBacon I edited this link to point to a site that doesn't illegally rehost non-SRD content for free (though in this case there's an SRD version of the spell)

@AncientSwordRage DMsGuild is a sister site of DriveThruRPG, which does allow selling non-D&D content. DMsGuild is basically just for D&D 5e content (at least in terms of what non-WotC entities can sell there; WotC also sells their material from previous editions there too); it's a partnership between WotC and OneBookShelf (which runs that network of sites)

AncientSwordRage

@Shalvenay but otherwise a great idea

V2Blast

I'm assuming Storyteller's Vault (another sister site) is a similar sort of partnership between WotC and White Wolf/Paradox?

AncientSwordRage

@V2Blast I had no idea that was a thing

V2Blast

21:27

ye, I'm only vaguely aware of it but I think it's basically DMsGuild but for World of Darkness stuff

AncientSwordRage

Just checked out,seems like it.

RevenantBacon

It also has a lot of 3/3.5e content, due to being around before 5e was a thing, it even has some stuff that's "PF-1e compatible"

Also, if you've never heard of it, Bundle of Holding has a bunch of 5e stuff that rotates through every now and then.

Well, they do lots of different RPG's, but I figure 5e is the most relevant to you

or most people, really

Bardic Wizard

@AncientSwordRage just your bog standard WHAP history stuff, really. Review from last year

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard whap?

Bardic Wizard

AP world history

V2Blast

21:46

@RevenantBacon I assume you're talking about DMsGuild there (not StorytellersVault), and yes, I covered that in "WotC also sells their material from previous editions there too" :P I'm pretty sure other creators aren't allowed to sell non-5e material there.

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard AP? I'm non-american, curious what is included in world history as well...

Making dinner now, pizza, hopefully I can catch-up later @BardicWizard

BESW

22:04

@AncientSwordRage Advanced Placement classes are high school classes with college-level content, and in some cases colleges may give college course credit for having taken them.

VioletRiotGames wrote a twitter thread describing how "acting and role-playing overlap, just not in the ways you'd expect" and how actors in RP struggle with audience and capital.

AncientSwordRage

22:24

@BESW ah thanks

RevenantBacon

23:40

@BardicWizard That why the PF-1e was in quotes.

Whoops, wrong @ @V2Blast @BardicWizard

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