TRPG General Chat - 2021-08-30

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Hot RPG Questions

12:18 AM

4

Q: Can the Henderson Scale apply to Dungeon World; if so, how and if not, why not?

The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment measures how far a character action has diverted the plot of a game. It was named after a collection of anecdotes regarding a Trail of Cthulhu player who 'beat' the GM as revenge for being consistently antagonistic to the party. That sounds like a very game ...

12:51 AM

@HotRPGQuestions I'm not sure the Henderson Scale applies to its source material, much less anything else.

1:12 AM

"Introducing the Essence20 Roleplaying System!" announcement by Renegade Games. Behind the scenes of Renegade’s upcoming Power Rangers, G.I. JOE, and Transformers Roleplaying Games lies a brand new system, Essence20

Upcoming Kickstarter: Our Haunt by Jamila R. Nedjadi. A narrative RPG about an old house and the ghosts that have found family inside.

Vibe Check - Enter the Inversion by Josh Hittie. Survive the Watcher's Game in this illuminated by LUMEN tabletop role-playing game

@BESW Hasbro, a massive games company with a wholly owned subsidiary that churns out the most visible TRPG franchise in the world, ignores the Beach Boys and contracts a third party to make TRPGs for some of its biggest nostalgia licenses with a brand-new non-D&D-like engine.

This is suggesting some interesting things about how Hasbro views the TRPG marketplace and D&D's place in it.

Renegade Games are the people behind things like Kids on Bikes and The Tea Dragon Society card game.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that sounds awesome

@BESW beach boys?

Waterway Warlocks, Seaside Sorcerers, Bros on the Strand...

AncientSwordRage

......

Magicians on the Tidal Flats?

Los Brujas de la Playa?

1:30 AM

Dune Diviners

@AncientSwordRage I can share the slides if you like, though without the audiovisual bits because that adds 40MB to the file.

1:47 AM

Spellcasters of the Shore

Hot RPG Questions

1:58 AM

4

Q: Analyzing a homebrew casting mechanism

Background I'm a DM and setting builder working on creating a new homebrew set of classes/subclasses for my world. The basic in-universe mechanic is that the caster is channeling their energy through runes that he or she has carved into a focus (usually a staff). These runes are unstable (for var...

dnd-5e spellcasting homebrew-review statistics

3 hours later…

5:22 AM

Good price on the First Law trilogy. I enjoyed them. Great dialog, interesting characters, engaging story, brutal combat scenes.

5:54 AM

@BESW No, see, everyone stood up and clapped, and that player was Albert Einstein!

2 hours later…

8:05 AM

@nitsua60 Dragon Warriors, AD&D 2e, ... Vampire maybe?

4 hours later…

12:28 PM

@Adeptus I don't know Dragon Warriors at all--what's the elevator pitch?

@Akixkisu Sorry if I'm asking you to repeat yourself here concerning the closing of the framing discussion. It seems to me we definitely don't want any more answers posted to that question, so closure makes sense to me. What's the conceivable circumstance where someone should want to or need to post an answer to that thread?

12:47 PM

@ThomasMarkov no worries, one moment.

15 hours ago, by Akixkisu

:59013063 Since we are discussing how we should frame it, framing it in the particular discussion doesn't make it moot. Even when the vote is over, there could be valuable input about how to frame it.
If it would turn out that we framed the vote poorly, which I don't think is a position anyone formulated, then it would be the proper place to propose better framing.

The idea is to close it once we open the post mortem and such discussion can move there.

1:07 PM

What was the meta for edits like this rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/191210/revisions that argue the answers in the question and move the goalpost?

10

Q: What kind of edits are acceptable to a question after an answer has been posted?

This post originates from this question, but is not about handling that question. I will summarize the transpired events for context. The question is about a specific rule and at its core about whether that rule allows for a ridiculous scenario. It used an example which appeared to "break" that...

discussion questions answers editing question-scope

?

@Someone_Evil I think there was another one that is about arguing answers in the question.

But maybe that is an experience thing, and no such meta exists.

Not sure what to do there.

Only reason I havent voted on your answer is that im so on the fence about it.

@Akixkisu Might well be on main meta

@Someone_Evil Good thinking.

@ThomasMarkov I think it is entirely reasonable. It is a complicated situation.

1:44 PM

@Someone_Evil we have a related meta right now over on Puzzling: puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7229/69582

@bobble I imagine changes are way worse over there

There's a fundamental problem where for some kinds of puzzles, adding every possible clarification of intent might make it trivial. So people are inclined to leave out what they think isn't needed.

It doesn't affect the kinds of puzzles that account for most of my posts - crosswords or crossword clues, and grid-deductions.

I always wondered how much Puzzle.SE gets people posting an answer, somebody answers it with an unintended solution, and then the original is edited to avoid that solution

@Medix2 My top answer and only gold badge on puzzling was an unintended solution.

I know Code Golf has some issues with that, which is why they so regularly suggest using their question sandbox to post your question first so others can ask clarifying questions and point out parts that are overly restricting or complicated or just incompatible with each other

1:58 PM

21

Q: What world is this where 6 + 6 = 10?

Upon traveling the world, I found myself in a peculiar place which was called Gauss. The locals there were a peculiar people, as I soon found out. I stopped to grab a bite to eat and learn about the culture. Whereupon I found a man starved for hunger. With sympathy in my heart, I purchased a mea...

mathematics lateral-thinking

Me, seeing the title: You mean base 12?

@Medix2 I think the hints were added after I posted my answer, but I dont remember

That is great answer.

There's a balance between "finding a loophole" and "not in the spirit of the puzzle". Answers which are unambiguously of the latter type are subject to NAA flags and deletion. Too many valid-ish answers of the former type mean the question should be headed for closure under Speculative Answers. But there is a middle ground, and reasonable people can disagree.

Yes, the hints were added after I posted.

2:02 PM

Personally, I've occasionally posted things which I thought were answers not in the spirit of the puzzle as comments instead, and people do do that and such comments may be upvoted for cleverness/cheek

And then you have to consider that even if bad, answer-invalidating edits only happen 1% of the time, it's an extremely memorable 1% for the angry people affected.

I think there are clever solutions and ones that feel invalidating.

It seems like a rather personal line, depending much on presentation.

Black Stories are often like that.

One of the often unspoken rules is that you can only forward a story that you solved.

For certain types of puzzles, having multiple solutions (or even just two!) can be decent grounds for downvoting the question - most notably grid-deductions, where there is an implicit promise of a unique solution reachable by logic.

And if you break the story instead of treating it with respect, people are hurt and angry.

@ThomasMarkov rpg.stackexchange.com/a/191213/44723 since you just read the section, do you know from the top of your head if that also applies to high jumps?

2:17 PM

@Akixkisu Yes, high jumps contain the same rule: "Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement."

@ThomasMarkov neat.

@nitsua60 the pitch from 12ish-year-old me is, "kind of like D&D, but cheaper". It was sold in a series of novel-sized paperbacks.

@Medix2 oh there's also the fun related event, where someone posts an answer to an unclear question, and then edits the question to conform to their answer, for example by adding rule "clarifications" that would be convenient for their answer but have not actually been confirmed by the OP

Dragon Warriors

Dragon Warriors is a fantasy role playing game system written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson and published by Corgi Books between the years 1985 and 1986. In 2009, it was re-collected in a new hardcover edition by Mongoose Publishing. This print run included the publication of several supplements to the Dragon Warrior's world "Legend". However, as of September 2010, this publication run has been discontinued but the books continue to remain available in pdf format. Unlike most RPGs which were (and are) primarily presented as box sets or large hardback or softback books, Dragon Warriors consisted...

@bobble Ah yes, very "fun XD

2:22 PM

Equivalent of someone answering a question and then editing in an unconfirmed system tag, I think

@bobble Speaking of, tomorrow I am hosting a memorial service for the DGtS policy. In lieu of flowers, I suggest awarding bounties to really good experience based answers where the solution deviates from the rules as written, but the answer goes into to detail about why they tried it, how it was implemented, how it was received, and things to watch out for moving forward.

I hold 0 rep on this SE and thus will provide imaginary bounties

@bobble This is a case where I think holding 0 rep and not holding any rep are different.

@bobble I call them affection points.

You dont have a rep variable associated with your account to even be 0 (not that such a variable could be 0 if it existed). I think your rep here is NULL, not 0.

2:29 PM

@nitsua60 I don't remember much about the system. I had a brief look at it when I bought the PDFs of the revised version, and combat seems slightly more complicated than in D&D. You roll d20, trying to roll under (attack - defence). Then if you hit, you roll d6 vs armor rating to see if the blow penetrates. If so, the weapon does a fixed amount of damage.

@ThomasMarkov Can Bobble receive reputation damage, though? ;)

I do have a reputation, even if I lack reputation.

And it has some cool-to-young-teens spells, like Dishearten. Which... removes the targets heart.

I saw this question on y'all's front page and my first thought was, hey, I got spam-banned for that one!

@Adeptus Gotcha.

2:45 PM

@nitsua60 I can't remember the name of one of the first I played. It was around 1990 and the game was some sort of military-style game where you had to leave escape from Europe. Can't remember if it was WW2 aged, or post apocalyptic :(.

But definitely lots of guns, ammo, and tanks.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble oh?

@AncientSwordRage attempted suggested edit of the image-of-a-table into a Markdown table, automatically caught for inserting too much content

AncientSwordRage

@bobble oh no

But that was a good edit

I just got a famous badge for this: math.stackexchange.com/questions/470782/…

3:00 PM

Apr 8 at 16:02, by bobble

> Special note for anonymous edits
Because a large proportion of anonymous edits are spam or abusive, anonymous edits are heavily rate-limited and there is an extra filter that checks all anonymous edits. If your edit trips the filter, it will be silently disregarded and you will be instantly banned from suggesting edits temporarily. If your edit was not spam or abusive (i.e. a false positive), or if someone else on your network triggered it, you can sign into an existing account and suggest your edit through it. (Note: the "edit history" link on the ban error message will just go to the ho…

AncientSwordRage

@bobble interesting

On the one hand, I can see the logic, but in the other it definitely blocks some good edits

3:16 PM

I'm fairly certain I'm an anomaly for how often and thoroughly I anonymously edit

AncientSwordRage

@bobble probably!

Any reason you like to remain an anonymous bobble?

Apr 8 at 17:21, by bobble

sigh I'm not sure I can explain myself well for this, but I started with "only going to participate on Puzzling" then expanded to "only going to participate on Puzzling and anonymously edit as my fancy" then expanded to "only going to participate on Puzzling and Literature and anonymously edit as my fancy" - with my internal rule being "only join a site that I can help with Q&A". So joining here just to edit would break my internal rules which is mildly distressing to me.

3:38 PM

I'm enamoured with the idea of someone gaining 2k rep by suggesting edits, I cheered on Glorfindel. I enjoyed the question, but it also was a somber moment.

It's impossible to reach 2k solely by suggesting edits

59

Q: Why is there a limit on suggested edit reputation reward?

Why is there a 1000 reputation reward limit for accepted edits? I started to be more active in fixing code indentation, and other things, in Stack Overflow questions, and I was enjoying the fact that this would bring me 2 reputation for every accepted edit. I was thinking of fixing a few question...

discussion reputation suggested-edits

@bobble unfortunately.

Technically you can do it with tag edits.

It's 1000 rep max for suggesting any edits, including tag edits. Not 1000 rep max per type of edit

Ah, that is even more unfortunate.

Such a depressing state of things.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble that makes perfect sense

It does immediately make me want to write a question that only you could answer which is possibly very tricky, and not very helpful?

@Akixkisu ideally you want members of the site to have a range of skills

3:57 PM

@AncientSwordRage question for where?

@AncientSwordRage I think you want people who are specialised and good at one or more things.

Editors make the quality of the site tremendously better.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble RPG

Not sure what kinds of RPG Qs I even could answer?

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu agreed

@Akixkisu *coughs*

4:01 PM

@bobble I think that is awesome.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble therein lies the challenge

@bobble amazing

@AncientSwordRage The real challenge is not getting yelled at for contributing to the site.

This is a highly problematic question (trigger warning: public humiliation and murder)

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu huh?

@AncientSwordRage Well there is a thin line at what kind of editting behaviour people tolerate.

4:11 PM

@Akixkisu Really?

@ThomasMarkov Absolutely. Go ahead and edit 60 questions within 6 hours, and people will get angry.

Oh.

Yeah maybe don't do that.

I wonder how many times people yelled at V2 for editting 14k posts within 4 years.

That's only 10 edits a day.

That is posts, not edits.

4:15 PM

18000 edits

I think 18k edits.

So 12 edits a day.

Wow that's wayyyyyyyy more than I do.

And slowing down significantly after becoming a mod.

Editing stuff already on the front-page is different that necro-bumping

So more like 14-24 edits a day.

4:15 PM

@Akixkisu Yeah Ive been the top editor since I started editing

But my daily average is like 4-5 edits a day.

@bobble Oh yeah, there are certainly different kinds of editting behaviour that annoys people more or less.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble that's a good point

@Akixkisu People (incl. me) definitely noticed, and probably nudged with some guidance. Chat records would show....

Editting too quickly after meta changes is another one.

@nitsua60 Yup.

Just got my first gold badge on meta.se

4:21 PM

I sometimes think about making a meta about what kind of editing behaviours is clearly over the line. But then again, it only affects like three people, and if somebody new comes along, those answers might not cover whatever they do.

@Akixkisu Well, we did get consensus that unprotecting 700 of 705 protected questions in a week is too much....

@nitsua60 Yup, I don't think we resolved the core issue of "How long should protections last." But it is a good thing to point at.

@nitsua60 In a week? He completed the job in four hours.

Beyond that, though, it's been pretty rare over the years to have anything declared "over the line."

Well there are two lines.

4:29 PM

@Akixkisu Reviewing the protection data for the last year is still on my desk.

@Akixkisu I wish protection went along an ascending timescale, like suspensions.

I'll get around to it.

One that ends in people commenting on it, the other in suspension.

@nitsua60 I havent got the exact numbers, but the majority of questions I've protected since that happened were ones that were unprotected during that event last summer.

I hypothesize that there will be a case for some questions just needing permanent protection.

But there is probably some discussion that still needs to be had about our philosophy of protecton.

^^

4:34 PM

It works as a long term solution to preventing spam and low quality answers on certain questions, and I'm pretty confident that the data will show that, but should that be what we use it for?

I mean, maybe I'm personalizing it a bit too much, but I feel like if greener and I have nearly-opposite views on it, it could definitely use some hashing out =)

And I don't think we're ready for that discussion until we've got the data on the subset of the 700 that have been reprotected.

@ThomasMarkov I vtc'd to support nits' initiative - I think he's right.

@Akixkisu rarely, but he did get some ribbing in chat over that.

Hot RPG Questions

5:00 PM

1

Q: Does the Rapier of Life Stealing deal magical damage?

Another player in my party got a nice magical weapon called the Rapier of Life Stealing but we are not sure if it does magical damage. It is not a +1 weapon but does crazy things if he crits and he had to attune to it. So my question is does he do magical damage?

dnd-5e magic-items damage

1 hour later…

6:07 PM

@ThomasMarkov Finding older versions of the errata has proven quite difficult since WotC also updates their links (though not always) and yet their file names don't change, so you actually have to go find them from somewhere else

@Medix2 Now I want to make a CW question for collecting working links to old errata documents.

Link rot though

"Medix's google drive" should be a pretty stable host though

I was also baffled the day I realized the SAC has straight up removed things from itself before

@ThomasMarkov Ya know... fair

What happens when the SAC writes: "This statement is not an official statement."?

If it's not an official statement, then it cannot officially declare that it is not official, which would make it official.

6:16 PM

Does it say that?

Or maybe we're just having "I'm lying" paradox fun

Oh wow, maybe WotC went back and fixed their links

@ThomasMarkov Then it is a contextualisation conditional similar to "there is no minimum damage rule."

@ThomasMarkov I feel like the "solution" is that meta statements like that are different

Because the one here and the one here actually work 0_0

@Akixkisu This is my favorite rule.

The fact that there are no secret rules was, in fact, a secret rule

6:19 PM

@Medix2 On the latter the link is for 2019, and the doc is (one of?) the 2020 one(s)

Oh gosh darn it WotC

They do at least have version numbers, so can make sense of the docs, even if the links leave a lot to be desired

My impression is that all of the media files are in tact.

At least they were until 2019.

Well, the 2017 link goes to 2017, and a 2018 link goes to 2020 :(

@Medix2 That still looks like Version 2.0.2.

6:23 PM

media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf

As far as I knew, they only ever fixed the last link to point one forward, but not consistently in any way. Then add that errata and SAC are on mostly separate irregular schedules

@Medix2 That still looks like Version 2.0.2

@Akixkisu I'm not sure what that has to do with it? It's from 2020, so clearly the 2018 links are broken too

@Medix2 the version of the document matters.

I'm just pointing out that links from before 2019 are, in fact, not intact

6:25 PM

Ah.

I'm just gonna click them all and see where they go now XD

Im just going to send an email to customer support asking if they can put all the links on one page showing version numbers.

Apparently not, Wizards of the Coast won't let me register without having a parent or guardian register with a 3rd party service to verify their permission for me to use the site.

There's a whole host of links found here but it'll take a long while to get through them, especially using the links found inside the pdfs; but maybe I'll go through it later

the WotC D&D website is horrendous. Each page is an html page, so the links and content are all up-to-date for when the page was made, and they they're never updated again

Except that they sometimes, inconsistently, are. Making is even worse

6:34 PM

user image

Yeah, it looks like something broke all of the links during the last 4 months.

Who wants to be my mom/dad/parent?

I honestly don't know why they don't just build a site using proper architecture like MVC or something. There's a decent amount of setup up-front, but once all that is built it's SO easy to slap a new page in there

@ThomasMarkov what on earth

how are they determining that?

They must have changed how they store something internally.

I have an account and I've never seen that screen before

6:36 PM

@G.Moylan Just align your expectations of their sourcebook editing with your expectations of their webdesign and you won't be disappointed when their webdesign is bad.

@ThomasMarkov it's also hugely outdated. Hobody writes individual html pages anymore except students and govts

or really small operations

@G.Moylan And of the two, I don't know who I trust less.

@ThomasMarkov hehe agreed

it's kindof just sad, honestly. Hasbro must give zero craps about the quality of their brands' online presence. You'd think papa Haz would be all over that

@Medix2 web.archive.org/web/20181204183749/https://media.wizards.com/…

aren't they all cumulative? so as long as we have the latest one we have all of them?

6:39 PM

@Akixkisu One down... thirty seven to go

No they add and remove and change things

Like this question was removed at some point, no idea why: "With Brutal Critical and a greatsword, does a barbarian get to roll an additional 1d6 or 2d6?"

maybe it got moved to SAC?

Oh gahvkbshvfw that's what I was talking about :facepalm:

yeah seems like an SAC topic, not an errata

the latest version of the SAC is available for free on DDB

The errata I'm less sure about; but I feel like they've probably changes things before. Although... there's also edits they make that aren't even in the errata so... yeah

but that's what I'm saying is that shouldn't the newest version be the accumulation of all the edits they wished to make, making the accessibility of the old versions moot?

6:43 PM

Right, though that doesn't apply to the SAC

Someone else is going to have to ask Wizards to get it together, they think I'm a little kid.

I cant even email them to ask them to not think im a little kid.

SAC: "Sage Advice answers that are relevant to the current state of the rules are compiled here." so perhaps they clarified something in the errata that made that question outdated?

Not that I found in the errata

This feels a bit like a Laurel and Hardy sketch

@ThomasMarkov did you clear your cookies for the website and try again?

@G.Moylan Mom said no cookies.

6:49 PM

@ThomasMarkov your emails are being blocked?

@NautArch awwww kicks rock

@G.Moylan you have to have an account to submit a customer service request

@ThomasMarkov can you send me a link to the page?

lol i already closed it

Ctrl+Shift+T

@ThomasMarkov I used to have an account back in 2015 or 2016, when I would browse their forums before they all tanked. I'll check when I get home. Maybe I can be mom...

6:51 PM

@KorvinStarmast It's only fitting that the chatizen old enough to be my dad would be my internet dad.

@ThomasMarkov 🤣

ok They actually did update their site at some point

they no longer use html-based navigation

idk when that happened, but it must have been within the past couple months

so I bet that's why their links broke

Happened within the last 4 months.

Whatever broke all of the links.

I'm going back and checking my answers with SAC links

this one still works for the SAC media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf

it also inlcudes a bunch of URLs for errata, not sure if helpful

7:06 PM

Im feeling the line between the tags history-of-gaming and rpg-pop-culture is a little blurry.

How does a pop culture item need to be before it's a history item?

old enough to be in the latest party game but not old enough to be in Trivial Pursuit

so between last week and forever

when was the last time they updated the printing for the PHB, et al?

@ThomasMarkov I think it is the other way around.

@Akixkisu sorry that should have had the word "old" in it. How old does a pop culture item need to be

Ah.

Well a usuage guidance could solve that.

Posted a meta.

Imo we should either synonym or make the descriptions and usage guidance notably distinct.

7:18 PM

0

Q: Do we need the [rpg-pop-culture] tag when we have [history-of-gaming]?

The tag description for rpg-pop-culture says: For questions related to the pop culture surrounding RPGs. The pop culture may be famous events, real-life legends, well-known lore, or other pop culture items. The tag description for history-of-gaming says: This tag covers questions about the ent...

discussion tags synonymization

7:57 PM

@Akixkisu You're getting a bounty, do you have a preferred pronoun I should use in the bounty message?

8:34 PM

@ThomasMarkov Either they or she is fine with me :)

I usually don't mind any pronouns as long as it is clear that they are referring to me. I feel strongly about creating a space where people who care much for them receive support, but I generally don't tie my identity much to them.

I tend to construct sentences that leave pronouns out. When there is an editorial need or weird sentences, I will use either they or she. I don't believe that I prefer either of those two.

@TheOracle This is surprisingly difficult.

9:12 PM

@ThomasMarkov Say, do you want some devil's advocate on that question? I've been chewing over a counter-position, just to offer one.

@Glazius personally I just want a change from how it is now. Synonym or update tag descriptions are agreeable to me.

Er, not that question, the DGtS one.

9:38 PM

I guess I'll just go for it after dinner.

10:05 PM

@Glazius ohhhhh.

Not sure that’s a great idea at this point if you dont have a genuine interest in preserving the policy

Hot RPG Questions

11:00 PM

4

Q: Is there any class+subclass combination which can use divination spells but doesn't rely on magic for combat?

The question boils down to the title, but the reason I'm asking the question in the first place is a bit unusual, so I will give all the information here in case that helps with answers. I recently thought of a nice twist for a side character to play sporadically in our campaign, and my DM thinks...

dnd-5e spells character-creation optimization class

11:37 PM

@ThomasMarkov Well, let me put it this way. I wouldn't like it to change. I'm aware that it's not a popular opinion, and I'm willing to see the policy changed because my arguments against it are just a big pile of "what if".

I would like to document these "what ifs" for posterity so that people can be aware of them when applying the new policy.

11:59 PM

@Glazius I think (personally) if you would genuinely prefer the contrary of what's currently leading, it'd be great to have that thinking put out there. I was wary when you said "devil's advocate" because I read that to mean that you didn't hold those views, but would be putting them out as an intellectual exercise.

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