Speaking of cues... My son is 15 months old. He watched Simon's Cat on Youtube and responded emotionally in all the right ways. I am so proud of his cognitive development!
@AlexP lol. my 15 month old hasn't been exposed to much media beyond what his older brother has on the TV already...he's interested in the TV, but doesn't really watch it
@AlexP No, it's more about the empty space to the right of the More bar. I know I've seen instances of the page where Video is one of the options visible by default.
That name is so weird to me, also. "Nibovian." It sounds odd on the tongue/brain.
I think that thread does prompt something interesting, though... how to play pregnant characters or characters with children.
Not just in the context of, like, mechanics or whatever (mostly not in that context at all), but in terms of what it does to the game's plot and themes.
An "old-school" gamer I once met told me proudly about the care and detail they took in creating d% tables and charts to roll on for the various stages and effects of pregnancy.
I feel like the trickiest bit is really characters with children. How do you involve them in the game in the right way, you know? In a middle-ages fantasy context, there's lots of room for being kind of an absentee parent if you're upper-class, sure.
But it's useful to note how many knights, say, will be people who have kids already.
Ditto if you're following a modern TV show, a lot of them have protagonists with kids.
Well, to draw an analogy to my everyday life. I have friends I interact with once in a while. I'm friendly and interact with my coworkers, who are like my adventuring buddies in some sense.
But my wife and my son are, like, ubiquitous in my life. Not even in the sense that I care about them deeply but that stuff kinda always involves them.
They have a massive impact on the structure of my life socially, financially, and motivation-wise.
So what does it really mean for a fantasy adventurer (let's say of only the moderate murderhobo variety) or a superhero or whatever to have a family like this?
It'd alter your motives, and might change the level of risks you're eager to take.
But ultimately, you're another guy in the long, rich tradition of buggering off to make money killing things while your wife (and if she's lucky, an unattached male relative) tries to hold things together back home.
Well, you can tuck the kids away so they aren't a liability, sure.
But that's... not really ideal?
Like, in terms of what you can do with it narratively.
I'm thinking of, like, The Americans (best TV show ever) or Vikings (which I consider a good show with some flaws).
At the very least: say you are playing a might-as-well-be-a-soldier kind of character who is gone for long stretches of time. What do you do to make family actually present when you are back home?
There's fiction that does this but I haven't see enough of it to really distill it down to formula.
Is the family the point of the story? Is this about a guy trying to support his family the only way he knows how, but it means he hardly ever sees them?
There's a subgenre of modern film where the whole plot gets kicked off because a man's family is threatened by the antagonist, and the man starts caving peoples' faces in until his family is safe again.
Well, in a lot of cultures, personal accomplishments and doing stuff for your family go hand-in-hand.
Like, the protagonist of Vikings (the TV show, not the old Kirk Douglas movie) clearly wants to be famous and daring and whatnot. But that's part of his cultural script for achieving greatness. Raising his son well and the like are also part of that.
Would you consider this staff to still be a 'staff implement'/'staff weapon' in Knife form? For example, if you have the [Staff Expertise] Feat which increases the range of weapon attack powers by 1. Would you say it still apply in Knife form?
Ouch, this is a tough one. D&D 4e has a fairly s...
The first half of this answer is talking about how the power itself mechanically doesn't clearly mean anything, the second half is interpreting what is probably the obvious intent.
Do I need to bother with the first half? Should I get rid of it?
Brian's a mod, and until a couple months ago he was one of the most visible and hands-on mods on the site and in chat. He's terribly busy with real life now, and doesn't engage in chat anymore.
When the Doctor regenerates, his resulting personality is largely influenced by his subconscious thoughts and desires as he dies--usually his regrets about the previous regeneration. This is why each regeneration often seems to be a reactionary backlash compared to the last.
@AlexP Knight 2 King is the theory that the chess match in Philosopher's Stone was a foreshadowing of events to come for the entire series (IE: on the fifth move, a black knight is taken). The great conclusion reached by this idea is that Dumbledore is a time-traveled Ron Weasley.
This is supported by a surprising amount of evidence. As a student, Dumbledore knew spells that nobody'd ever seen before, because Ron learned them in the future. They're both red-heads (Chamber of Secrets flashback showed that). Dumbledore knows so much about Harry and cares for him because he's Harry's best friend (but can't remember all the details because it's been so long). And so forth.
This also foreshadowed Dumbledore's sacrifice, because Ron sacrificed his piece in the chess match in order for Harry to win on the next turn.
and now off to get things certified cause as a dirty furriner (doing my second set of taxes this year) medicare wants to make it as difficult as possible for them not to take 1.5% of my income.
::muttermuttermutter::
and then killing dragons in skyrim, because it's easier.
all I can think is that the intent is to have something in your hand that can count as a staff when you want it to, and same for a dagger,..... my opinion about how it would work would likely be that it doesn't count as both at the same time
@BESW Aha, right. That is the concept I was trying to think of.
I was trying to express that although it might change from a "staff" (whatever that is) into a "dagger" (whatever that is), it never says a thing about its type or keywords changing and those are what matter.
That is, indeed, the crux of the poor wording. It implies a lot, but doesn't say anything explicit, and by leaving it implied two people can think it's obvious that it means three different things.
(4e seems unique in the D&D canon in that it doesn't want to ask the group to interpret any of its rules, instead hoping that its rules are explicit enough to stand on their own.)
I think this is one thing its detractors are trying to talk about when they accuse it of being MMO-like (if they managed to get past the "powers are stolen from MMOs" junk and actually look at the game more closely).
There's always a bunch of way-too-complicated-but-not-particularly-well-thought-out math under the hood that keeps half the numbers from meaning anything.
Nibblonian Wives thread has now become funny. In a bit of a raunchy way. As we try to figure out why the heck a super-advanced bio-robot with a built-in hyperdimensional portal generator even needs old-fashioned bodily fluids in the first place.
@AlexP I did love that as a Burning Crusade raider I was able to come up with a talent tree and gear setup that all the common knowledge and number-crunchers said should make me fail, but which made me more effective than any other healer I ever met at that raiding level.
Because I knew the mechanics well enough that I could throw out the common knowledge.
(I was a half/half disc/holy priest stacking spirit during the days when MP5 and going all the way down one tree was king, because I knew how to make the five-second-rule dance for me.)
Well, for DPS and heal-spammers the 5SR must be borne.
But priests... with the right spell selection and talents...
My talents let about 35% of my spirit-based mana regen work during the 5SR, which was nice. Spirit also added to my spellpower.
But the key was in the spell rotation.
Top off the tank, slap on a shield, a heal-over-time, and a reactive "heal the first time he takes damage" buff. Then start casting your biggest, longest-casting-time heal spell, which will heal the tank for at least 1/4 of his health, probably more.
Then hit ESC to cancel the cast.
You only spend mana at the end of a cast, so if you cancel the cast before it completes, you don't spend mana and the 5SR doesn't trigger.
Keep cancel-casting your biggest heal until the tank will get the full benefit of it. This will take enough time that the 5SR drops away and you can visibly see your spirit-based regen filling your mana bar.
If you want more time outside the 5SR, there's a Disc talent that makes the next spell you cast cost no mana... and so it doesn't trigger the 5SR. Top off the tank with that massive heal for free and start cancel-casting again.
And spirit was the lowest-budgeted stat on armor at the time, because most everyone felt it was useless.
So there was more stat per point of item budget on spirit pieces, and nobody else wanted them. I geared fast and well.
A Holy talent increased my spirit by a flat 5%, and I was milking Spirit for spellpower, mana regen, and I think I got a % of it somewhere else too.
This wouldn't have worked in the endgame raids, where damage is so ubiquitous that you can never stop casting. But I wasn't in the endgame raids, so I saw no reason to adhere to their theorycrafting prerequisites.
Aye, WoW had a fairly major problem in that its solo activities not only had no bearing on group activities, but taught bad habits for that context.
(This is, I think, the origin of the "huntard:" hunters need so little help in their leveling experience that they have even less opportunity for learning the social dynamics of the game.)
He's worked with Moffat before (he starred in Jekyll), and he's one of the dwarves in The Hobbit.
Based on his work in Jekyll, he could definitely play "inhuman" in a way the New Who Doctors haven't really been allowed to yet, but which defined the Old Who Doctors for a lot of their time.
I'm back and forth about John Hurt... it'd make sense, and it'd be lovely to have an older Doctor again.
Or Bernard Cribbins. I'd get behind him in a heartbeat.
He's already been associated with the Doctor Who IP in three separate roles spanning 43 years.
There's precedent for an actor being cast as the Doctor after having a prominent non-Doctor role in the show; Colin Baker was a Time Lord security guard with a fairly major speaking part before he was the Sixth Doctor.
@BESW I've actually heard his name mentioned several times before as an option.
@BESW Maybe with enough people shouting about issues of race and gender in Doctor Who, they'll consider finding a new showrunner.
It kills me that Moffat writes such fantastic episodes, but does such a poor job as a showrunner.
@BESW Also, I would make the claim that Matt Smith was trying to go for inhuman, and managed to achieve it occasionally, but he's simply not a good enough actor to pull it off consistently.
@BESW I dunno. I think Eleven was trying to be aloof and alien and a bit autistic in a way that Nine and Ten weren't. They were written to be relatable and more human than human.
Now, Tennant, yes: he wasn't mature enough as an actor to play the Doctor consistently, though gleams of brilliance shown through (I submit as evidence his performance of Hamlet in which every now and then Hamlet was possessed by the Tenth Doctor).
@Metool You play a 8-bit character rolling for brawling damage with an 8-bit Mike Tyson?
I fail to see the RPG potential in it, frankly, but I'm willing to be surprised.
What I like about the show, though. From a multi-series arc perspective, is that the shift in personalities from Eccleston to Tennant to Smith can be fully justified by the plot.
@AvnerShahar-Kashtan I actually found Tennant's Doctor to often be grating and arrogant. I love Midnight because it deconstructs everything I dislike about the way Ten was portrayed (and I don't blame Tennant primarily for it; the writing was pretty often awful).
@AvnerShahar-Kashtan There's an established theory about that which dates from Old Who, actually.
@BESW Never really watched more than a sprinkling of Old Who, but I can believe it. The whole show is written loosely enough for many theories to just work.
Anyway, I usually found Smith to be far more grating in his arrogance.
It's fairly well established (prior to River Song, at any rate) that regenerating can be completely controlled if invoked voluntarily; the Doctor doesn't have control because he only ever regenerates as a failsafe mechanism.
It works for me. Nine's post-traumatic stress disorder over the Last Great Time War was his defining theme, but Rose helped snap him out of it, and it influenced Ten, making him very personable and friendly, not to mention hitting on anything blonde.
So when Five --who spent most of his time being mild-mannered and polite-- sacrificed himself to save his companion, Six turned out to be an abrasive, in-your-face rude, physically violent Doctor whose attitude to humanity (and everyone else in the galaxy) was often barely-concealed contempt.
(Six's first act upon regenerating was to leap upon and strangle the companion that Five had just sacrificed himself to save.)
And Ten, who slowly slipped into bitterness over his inability to save the people he loved, up to the point of risking time itself, became a remote and aloof Eleven.
It was an interesting arc, but it's running out of steam and we're seeing that the Doctor just isn't as tense when the Time Lords aren't around to be passive-aggressive jerks.
This whole "I must hide my name and pretend I am dead because I am becoming too famous" Mary Sue junk wouldn't be happening if the Time Lords were back.
I would like to run an RPG, but one of my players has a hard time sitting up for long periods of time. What sorts of games can I try running given that she needs to be lying in a hospital bed and would not be able to see any maps or minis if they were used?
The group sits in chairs scattered al...
Have you considered starting a Freeform role-playing game?
You can base it on any world or ruleset you like, and simply use the ideas and concepts of the game instead of its rules.
You are not required to use anything, no dice, no character sheets, no rules. It is the purest form of role-playin...
role-play means playing a role...(in a story) and that is ALL you do in freeform
other games also have role-playing.. but they include other things.. thus.. they are not only role-play
purity is the percent of one thing to another.. pure sugar would mean a pile of pure 100% sucrose. And a cookie is not pure sugar, even though it includes sugar.
If you think I should change it, do you have a suggestion?
Anyway, my point is that the "pure roleplaying" comment is an aside, and it might not be worth leaving in if it's potentially going to make people hostile to the answer as a whole.
Since it doesn't actually add to the post's ability to answer the question.
You can upload to imgur pretty easily without extensions! 1. Open imgur in a new tab. 2. Go to the tab with the image you want on imgur. 3. Click and drag the image to the imgur tab. If your browser is decent it should swap to that tab. Don't drop the image there yet. 4. Still dragging the image, bring it onto the imgur page. Drop it there. 5. The upload dialog has opened with your image in it. Hit upload. 6. Proceed with life.
@JonathanHobbs Did you like the Action Points System that I wrote in my answer? Your comment seemed to indicate interest. If so - I would like to hear some feedback about it? :)
As I wrote, the main reason behind introducing a "rule" system at all to freeform is just so that as a narrator you can control the level of of the game, the power, or the influence the players have. Specifically - you don't want every action of the players to drastically change the world too much, as that would not be a fun game.
But it all depends on how you (the narrator) wants the story (or game) to flow.
I find that the simplest concepts are what usually works, and so the APS is just that - 5 points a scene... with absolutely no preconceptions of how these points should work.. The only indication as to their value is that each player has the same number of them, and only that many each scene.. the more drastic the action, the more points it should cost... thats about it :)
I stopped using NoScript because of three situations: 1. A corner case: sometimes a site would not work fully with NoScript enabled even if every site on it was permitted. 2. Some sites include scripts from other domains, such as their static servers or Google APIs. I would have to go hunting through a potentially long list of referenced sites, finding the combination which runs only those scripts which _appear_ to make the site work. Sometimes I wouldn't know until I hit the right combination, because the site would have scripts depending on other scripts depending on other scripts, some o…
Ultimately it's safer and easier just to disable third party cookies and use adblock. :(
@InbarRose Yeah, I've done a lot of freeform myself and I can appreciate the benefit of introducing something like action points.
I've been thinking about doing a small side-adventure for my players. I'd use a simple system I read about that utilizes just d6s. The idea was to give each player a role that's outside what they'd normally do. Like, I have a player that's usually always very loud and the leader type. I'd ask him to play a quiet type that always does what others tell him.
This is just for one night.
Does it sound like a good or bad idea?
Personally, I imagine it'll be loads of fun, but maybe I'm missing something.
But, for example, I've found that as a player I need to stick to certain roles that give me a constructive outlet for my habits. Otherwise I'll be likely to make the group unhappy.
Well, it's just for one night. Maybe just a couple of hours. It's sort of an experiment and a training exercise to get my players to try something they wouldn't do normally without having to do it for several weeks.
It's worth a shot, just be sure the lines of communication are open.
I once tried to get the players hyped about a game that was unlike anything we'd played before; it was of a genre they all more or less enjoyed, but actually playing in it turned out to be not very fun for them.
my reason for not liking it was the exact way the endgame worked
vs how it was intended to work
otherwise I would have been ok
but the game had no mechanic to actually ensure the "only" intended ending would actually happen
I realize it was supposed to be a long game where everything is against you, but if the endgame won't even resolve itself as the creator/s intended, it isn't worth it
Mmm. I think it suffered from what I'm coming to think of as Forge Syndrome: it relies more on the players than the mechanics to achieve very specific goals.
@JonathanHobbs On the other hand, I explicitly love blocking scripts because it makes pages more usable. It's much easier to see the plain-text no-bullshit version of a news article, for instance. Instead of the weird "2/3 of this article won't render until you scroll down, because we want to put some kind of interstitial ad in it" thing that some news sites do, for instance.
In a system where an attack is defined as any ability with an attack roll, how do these two abilities interact?
Chill TouchSLA: You may deal damage equal to 1d4 per level you possess plus your Charisma modifier to an opponent within melee range. This does not provoke attacks of opportunity, but it requires a successful melee attack roll.
CleaveEX: Once per [Round], as a swift action, when you hit an opponent with a melee attack and deal damage to that opponent with that attack, you may compare your attack roll from that attack to the AC of another target opponent within melee range. If the attack roll equals or exceeds that opponent’s AC, you deal that much damage to that opponent.
Greater CleaveEX: Activating Cleave no longer requires a swift action, and it can be used any number of times per round.
Apprentice of DarknessSLA: When you gain your 4th Circle of the Necromancer track, you can activate Chill Touch as part of a standard action to activate any spell-like ability from the Necromancer track (including Chill Touch).
Ohhhh, I can't wait to present this to the guys who run it.
Would you consider this staff to still be a 'staff implement'/'staff weapon' in Knife form? For example, if you have the [Staff Expertise] Feat which increases the range of weapon attack powers by 1. Would you say it still apply in Knife form?
Ouch, this is a tough one. D&D 4e has a fairly s...
I would like to run an RPG, but one of my players has a hard time sitting up for long periods of time. What sorts of games can I try running given that she needs to be lying in a hospital bed and would not be able to see any maps or minis if they were used?
The group sits in chairs scattered al...
Have you considered starting a Freeform role-playing game?
You can base it on any world or ruleset you like, and simply use the ideas and concepts of the game instead of its rules.
You are not required to use anything, no dice, no character sheets, no rules. It is the purest form of role-playin...
