TRPG General Chat

BESW

1:03 AM

@GreenMonkey Hi!

Green Monkey

Hi BESW. as usual, a very dead chat room. lol

BESW

We're moving toward the weekend, and it's very early morning for many of our participants.

So, what's new with you?

Alex P

1:20 AM

The two-player essay I linked is complete now. Looks like he added part 3, "It’s Okay to be Uncomfortable."

Also: Project Dark AP.

BESW

[reads]

I'm on the fence about Project Dark so far.

Alex P

I don't think it's for me. One of my friends is really excited, though.

BESW

If Trogdor likes it, I'll spring for the KS.

Otherwise... it looks too fiddly-bits boardgame-y for my taste.

Alex P

My preference in RPGs is to have the fiddly be very scalable (mostly).

BESW

I'm especially down on fiddly props these days.

Zachiel

1:27 AM

aaaand, done

@shiester rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/33631/…

BESW

Very thorough!

Alex P

I like mechanics that decently support unequal (mechanical) buy-in, too. Like subsystems that you can go crazy with without necessarily having to force the whole group to follow.

BESW

I am getting a little curious about card-based RPGs.

Do you know of any free-to-download RPGs that use playing cards?

Alex P

Not that I can recall off the top of my head.

Zachiel

@BESW The Drifter's Escape uses poker cards

BESW

1:38 AM

Do you think there's a way to ask that on the site without getting righteously closed?

Zachiel

@BESW uhmmmm no

Alex P

I've played Fifth Age (cards just seemed like dice with bonus analysis paralysis, honestly). I own Primetime Adventures and Everway. And I've quasi-tested this game that never got published, as far as I know... kind of a Revolutionary Girl Utena inspired thing with card-based dueling.

Zachiel

@BESW thanks

I felt free to include attacks you can make with a ranged weapon in your hands

Alex P

My general takeaways: cards that might as well be dice (PTA, really) should just be dice; cards that are nothing more than a couple of die rolls that you "hold in your hand for later" don't add anything substantive to the game and sometimes create perverse incentives to do useless stuff / turtle and not do anything.

Cards that represent discrete and defined options are kinda cool.

Green Monkey

I have replaced dice it cards before, and as Alex says, I find the players expend their cards on pointless activities to try and burn trough the deck and collect good cards. once they have what they want, they will turtle down and wait to do anything.

BESW

1:44 AM

@AlexP Do you have an example?

Zachiel

I suggest you to try The Drifter's Escape, it uses cards just as if they were poker hands kept secret, bluffed about and then revealed so it should gather to Alex's tastes. Be aware it's a game that can really stab your feelings, especially if you play in the role of the Drifter.

Oh, my. Ben Lehman did it again.

> For those sophisticated members of the upper classes who disdain the use of vulgar forms of currency, payment via discrete electronic means can also be arranged.

Alex P

@BESW So, in that Utena-themed game, the cards are moves. They're like "I think I see an opening..." And the power of each individual card is based on what your opponent plays against it. I.e. a 2 is just as good as a 9 "in a vacuum." Spending a card means you can't use it later (which is how the duel builds to a conclusion -- it gets harder and harder to counter moves; I forget the deets, though, this was like in 2006).

Green Monkey

I have been working on a system that combines the two, allowing players to hold 1-3 cards from a random deck, that allow them to augment rolls or affect outcomes. So far they only get their initial 1-3 cards per sessions, drawing new ones each session. And once spent, are not replenished until next session. So dice are still the main tool, with the cards an occasional augmentation.

Alex P

Oh, that's one thing cards are great for: simultaneous hidden choices.

BESW

@AlexP Unpack, please?

Green Monkey

1:51 AM

I take a deck of cards, keep the 1-5 cards which can be added to any die roll or dc, the jokers, which allow them to swap rolls with any other player or npc, and the face cards which have thematic effects or bonuses lited on them. they have secondary effects of bing able to be used just to add to a die roll as well so they are not wasted. We run 3.5 and pathfinder, and so far the guys have liked it.

Alex P

@BESW Like rock-paper scissors. We both make a choice, then reveal it together.

BESW

@AlexP Ahah.

Alex P

Or like the Do bag, potentially. Doesn't have to be a pure heads-up mechanic.

BESW

Now I'm thinking about this for my MLP game.

Alex P

Err, wrong window

BESW

2:02 AM

@Zachiel Something tells me this is a Bob Dylan reference.

Derp, bad link. better link

Hm. Drifter's Escape is interesting, but not especially useful to me right now.

Still, opening up my brain in various ways.

So, MLP game looks like this so far: a Princes' Kingdom story frame, a Flying Temple structure for character stats and written action, with a playing card randomisation mechanic.

(If I can abandon dice in favour of playing cards, I think I should, and it feels like there's more potential for the kind of complex randomisation I want in cards.)

Alex P

2:17 AM

One advantage of playing cards we haven't mentioned previously: potentially easier "on the go" play.

BESW

yes.

Alex P

Dice go everywhere.

That said, with dice it's easier to do "and then I 'rolled' dice via my smartphone" or other stuff like that

BESW

Hmm.

If suit color is help/trouble and comparing card values determines which action succeeds.... I will have to hash this out, cards aren't something I'm especially familiar with in any context.

Alex P

Fifth Age had you trying to match the suit to an action.

E.g "swords" for fighting (they had their own fake fantasy suits).

And if you did you'd get to draw an extra card from the deck and add it to your action.

So IME most often you'd try to "match up" your low cards in the hopes of getting the deck to spit out something favorable.

And save high cards -- or especially high cards in suits you were likely to use -- for big stuff.

(Again, though, I was not super impressed with that game.)

Definitely a theme in real-world card stuff, like tarot, is that the different suits do represent different qualities in some fashion.

BESW

Yes, hm.

I think I want to take Do's "some values are immediately important, some are important later" notion.

Like, suits are important for your current action but the colour of your cards determines how your character advances at the end of the session.

Alex P

2:29 AM

@BESW I think that's probably a better idea than the "and then you read three different values right now from this one result" approach that some games take with cards.

Err, note that suits and colors are really closely linked. You're just saying "count both your white stones and your black stones to get your total number of stones."

BESW

I've had run-ins with analysis paralysis, and I want to avoid it.

@AlexP Well, if Clubs and Spades are two sets of one kind of action (perhaps different kinds of trouble?) while Hearts and Diamonds are two sets of another kind of action (perhaps help?)...

Alex P

I'll be back in a bit. I'm not a very avid card-player these days, but I've played a heck of a lot of different games, so maybe I can suggest some structural things about cards...

@BESW Hmm, I could see that.

BESW

Then you get suits providing specific detail about each action but colour giving a "bigger picture" view of your character's leanings during the game.

I'm afkish myself.

BESW

2:43 AM

Ladies and Gentlelizards, I present to you the profile of The Most Interesting Man on the Stack.

I think he escaped from a John Grisham novel.

Programming, encryption, marines, biochem, law...

Alex P

3:07 AM

So, cards.

Have you played many traditional card games, @BESW?

BESW

Little bit.

Not being a gambler by both temperament and religious law, my opportunities for even casual card games are somewhat lessened.

I know the general idea of poker but don't know all the hands. Sometimes Trogdor and I fumble our way through a game of cribbage.

Alex P

So, things you can do with cards:

Make sets of them (poker)

Sequence them (like Klondike -- the solitaire version that comes with Windows)

Make high numbers good (lots of games)

Err... hmm, this list is not going to be very useful.

So, my intuition is that your game probably doesn't want "opposed" play (like "try to beat the GM's card").

Though maybe "the GM's card tells you what the situation is" might be fun.

BESW

Hrm.

My previous idea, with dice, was that each side of a conflict would roll 2d6, which one d6 being the "help" die and the other being the "trouble" die.

Alex P

@BESW OH YOU MUST SEE WOLF SPELL.

BESW

The higher value of each pair of dice would "help" or "trouble" the other side, as appropriate, with ties meaning they both help or trouble each other.

I tried Googling that and couldn't figure out what you were talking about.

Alex P

3:19 AM

So, here is the important part for this conversation. He jacked the dice from Time Lord.

Context: which die wins determines what happens in the situation.

Not so much succeed or fail as "what you get to narrate."

BESW

Yeah, now that I've played Flying Temple I'm a lot more in line with that kind of thing.

Alex P

So, that game's trick is that over time, you're "growing" the one die.

(With a modifier, but you could also do something like "upgrade the d6 to a d8")

Because the theme is that being magically transformed into a wolf takes you over, slowly. And maybe you won't get to turn back at the end.

BESW

Hmm.

Alex P

And then you have a special talent that boosts your other die.

BESW

Dear Ghostlight, that Time Lord RPG site is awful.

Alex P

3:33 AM

Yeah, I am in no way vouching for Time Lord itself as a game.

BESW

3:44 AM

Hmmm.

This is relephant to my interests because I want to somehow create a dynamic where a single session slowly ramps up to become increasingly disastrous and trouble-laden but can then be solved quickly and completely.

(I think Do's "goal words" mechanic does that nicely.)

Alex P

4:07 AM

I'm mostly hate-laughing at this article, but it totally seems like something to inspire a weird cyberpunk sidequest.

Just imagine having to infiltrate a faux-nightclub mixer for techies. There's a mechanical bull! And Twister! Can you complete your mission during the meditation-session tech talk?

Oh no, the CEO of the party is onto you! Hide in the nap pod!

BESW

My brain is desperately trying to tell me this has something to do with B5's technomages, but I've got nothing.

Alex P

4:28 AM

I feel like this actually answers my question about how to make cyberpunk socially relevant again.

BESW

Bweheheh.

How would you express Time Lord dice in AnyDice?

Alex P

Which is to say, make modern-day upper-classy techno-utopianism a prominent part of the cultural landscape of the near-future dystopian world.

BESW

@AlexP ...did you just re-invent 1927's Metropolis?

Alex P

Mmmmmmaybe.

So, transhumanism is the new futurism, then?

BESW

I certainly don't know. Cyberpunk was never something I paid a lot of close attention to.

Bah, this card stuff is making my brain hurt.

Alex P

4:45 AM

Cards are hard.

BESW

I need to work backward.

What kinds of sentences will be written?

Alex P

Backward is good. I think there are so many resolution mechanics around that going resolution-mechanics-first means constantly rewriting all your work.

BESW

I'm basing this on Do, so I'll start with Do sentences and see if I need to add/change any of their categories.

The big thing is that in Do you never get others in trouble.

In FiM, you should.

That... is a bigger game-changer than I thought.

Alex P

A game-changer like a mechanical bull? :D

BESW

...no.

However, I think that the cards will make it easier.

Alex P

5:00 AM

I could see that.

BESW

One part of the cards decides what kind of action, another decides who it's applied to.

There are four sentence types in Do: pilgrim helping someone; pilgrim getting into trouble; pilgrim getting herself out of trouble; trouble getting worse.

All of these may use goal words except the pilgrim getting herself out of trouble.

I think I can simplify this.

Write a sentence about your pony helping someone; write a sentence about this pony causing trouble. You may use one goal word unless you are helping yourself.

Alex P

"This pony" is also "your pony?"

BESW

Yes; in Do, sentences about helping are written by the player whose character is doing the helping but sentences about getting in trouble are written collaboratively by all the other players.

Alex P

ahhh

Do the goal words fit the kind of session structure you had in mind? (My assumption is yes, but I want to raise that question explicitly.)

BESW

Yes, I think they do.

Here's the conceit I'm thinking of:

PCs are a team of troubleshooting ponies dispatched by Celestia to answer letters asking for help in the far reaches of Equestria.

Each session begins with the choosing and reading of a letter. That letter contains a list of words (often the same word will be repeated multiple times on the list).

The session is over when the words on the list have all been used in the sentences (happy ending), or a certain number of cards have accumulated (sad ending).

Because you have to use the words to get the happy ending, that keeps the narrative roughly on track.

This is the story our Flying Temple game produced yesterday, in which we answered a letter from a girl whose house had been swallowed by a flying whale.

All-caps words were on our list, and the last three lines are the epilogue, the happy ending after we used all the words.

Bah. Okay, I need to sit on this and decide what it is about Flying Temple that doesn't satisfy my needs for the MLP game.

Alex P

5:29 AM

@BESW Wise idea.

From what you told me earlier, I think it has to do with how much trouble ponies cause.

And their manic/OCD/&c. attributes.

Now I must sleep.

Good night!

BESW

Yeah. I think the big issue is ponies' influence on each other.

g'night!

Problematic

7:20 AM

It's weird to read SO answers I posted a few years back and realize... I have no idea what I was talking about. That knowledge is just... gone.

BESW

8:24 AM

@Problematic I'm losing a lot of my 3.5 minutia.

lisardggY

9:04 AM

Hello, echoey hallways of an empty room.

Hmm. My spell-checker flagged "echoey". I had to go and check. Stupid spell-checker.

BESW

Hey.

Watching mild-mannered Bill Bixby with my folks.

lisardggY

Oh, that show where they inexplicably decided to rename Bruce Banner?

Maybe to mitigate Stan Lee's rather cloying penchant for alliteration.

TVTropes. Because of course.

BESW

> This change was made, according to Johnson, because he did not want the series to be perceived as a comic book series, so he wanted to change what he felt was a staple of comic books, and Stan Lee's comics in particular, that major characters frequently had alliterative names.[7] According to Lou Ferrigno, it was also changed because CBS thought the name Bruce sounded "too gay-ish", a rationale that Ferrigno thought was "the most absurd, ridiculous thing I'd ever heard."

lisardggY

9:20 AM

Whaddayaknow.

I was right.

doppelgreener

@BESW I concur with Ferrigno.

Thank you. [Grin]

Maybe CBS has aired one too many men named Bruce who were gay as a subversion of expectations.

BESW

> On the DVD commentary of the pilot, Johnson says that it was a way to honor his son David. "Bruce" ultimately became the TV Banner's middle name, as it had been in the comics.

lisardggY

9:25 AM

Of course, in the comics "Bruce" was apparently retconned to be a middle name because Stan Lee goofed and called him Bob Banner in some issue.

BESW

Of course,

Sighting: one plaid pantsuit, in the wild.

lisardggY

You're in an excursion into the dark 70's, aren't you?

BESW

The reporter looks like he borrowed his outfit from Mission: Impossible villians.

trogdor

10:02 AM

@lisardggY lol, a bunch of Brits trying to pretend to be Australian

Vorac

hey everyone

BESW

Hey.

What's new?

BESW

11:14 AM

Wanted: Someone versed in AnyDice.

Trajan

I'm not, but out of curiosity, what are trying to achieve ?

BESW

Roll 2d6 and subtract the lower value from the higher.

Actually, that's the baseline; I then want to roll 2d13 and subtract the lower value from the higher.

But I think I know how to modify that from 2d6.

(I'm experimenting with playing cards instead of dice.)

Trajan

@BESW here you go : anydice.com/program/3496

BESW

Derp. Thanks!

Trajan

@BESW you might want to replaces 6s by 13s.

just sayin

BESW

11:28 AM

It's.... giving me negatives. Why?

Trajan

@BESW anytime, I'm glad I can help

@BESW You're right... maybe I misundertstood that variable thing

BESW

It looks plausible.

But the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and this graph tastes funny.

(I'm keeping it at 1d6, for ease of fiddling with until I get the expressions right.)

Hrm.

For a moment I thought this would work:

> X: 2d6
> output 1@X - 2@X

But I'm getting the same output as yours.

Trajan

11:48 AM

voilà : anydice.com/program/3497

BESW

That... I would never have figured that out.

(Feels like there ought to be a more elegant solution, but I ain't knockin' what works.)

It's a cool little graph, isn't it?

Trajan

@BESW sure, I think I miss something with predefined methods.

Vorac

12:11 PM

anyone knowing GURPS?

BESW

@Vorac I only know of it, but I imagine some of our longer-time players have experience with it.

Vorac

I have a very basic question actually

namely, What is stopping someone from taking 10s of irrelevent advantages in order to create a super-human

Like, take most physical flows (plus unfit for combat flows), get IQ 20 and Science 20, stay in home and unify General Relativity with Electro-Magnetism within a month :D

BESW

From what little I know about the system (mostly anecdotal), nothing except the group contract where everyone agrees not to. Unless they want to play that kind of game, in which case they do.

As strange and makeshift as systems with early-RPG roots often seem, they're actually very much rooted in the assumption that most players are able to control themselves so the rules don't have to actively prevent you from doing silly things.

GURPS in particular is designed to be insanely open-ended, letting you mix and match the basic building blocks of character design to create... anything. That kind of system has an inherent trust that its players will be able to cooperate to use the system constructively for fun rather than exploit it to reduce fun.

Vorac

One-handed, one-eyed, one-legged, clumsy, fearful, ugly emperor with the intelligence of thousands of humans.

:D

*with gills

BESW

Don't forget the gills! They're what gives the whole concept a sense of unity and logic.

2

Vorac

12:24 PM

hahaha

* aged 5

BESW

...I love reading game manifestos about the role of the participants. The Doctor Who RPG has an especially excellent set of paragraphs about how that system thinks the gamemaster should behave.

(This is the actual 1985 "The Doctor Who Role Playing Game" system, not the modern "Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space" system.)

Phil

Heh, the GM section from Unknown Armies is excellent. Offers some really good advice

BESW

I'm deeply in love with the 6th Ed Call of Cthulhu pages about the kinds of stories the system wants to tell, and the role of the participants in telling them.

Zachiel

> While it's bad to ask for lists or personal opinions on the main site, once you get 20 reputation you can join us in the [chat], where it's ok to talk about the systems we know (which would be bad on the main site because if everyone contributed with a few there would be no right answer), with no pretense of giving you exhaustive lists.

is this good for that last question?

BESW

I advise against it.

> The purpose of horror roleplaying is to have a good time [...] Call of Cthulhu is a vehicle for alternately scaring and then reassuring players. [...] Whether or not investigators cooperate, players should. [...M]ost of the entertainment of roleplaying is in the perceivable ingenuity of players' roleplaying.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

12:36 PM

F. Randall Farmer, Palo Alto, CA

9.2k 4 20 74

dnd-4e gm-techniques gm system-agnostic game-recommendation combat magic-items

Does he ever participate in the chat?

BESW

@William'MindWorX'Mariager Once or twice.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Hmm.

Zachiel

@BESW Since he did at least once, you can @ him and he will get notified

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Yeah, I was thinking that too.

Zachiel

Uhm, no, not for BESW

BESW

12:37 PM

@Zachiel Not if it's been too long since the last time.

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

I saw his power cards here ...

6

A: What happened to the D&D power cards?

I was inspired by Ben's RPG Pile's post on building character decks... For the Power, Item, and other rule-summary cards, I use the Magic Set Editor (free) and Tintagel's Template ($9.99). To make cards that look like this: It does take extra work every time my party levels or gains a new enha...

Zachiel

@BESW awwww :(

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

And I was interested in see if he would share the designs. I love the "Club" item card.

I'll see if I can dig up an email somewhere.

BESW

Mods have power-ping which alert you so long as you have a chat account at all, but us mortals rely on a cache that flushes eventually.

Zachiel

Don't worry.

I had the same problem

And I found a solution

Now, Tintagel's template is not free to download so it would not be fair to p2p it

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

12:39 PM

Oh, I bought the template, no worries.

Got a nice discount. Core + PHB2 for $6.00 on DriveThruRPG

Zachiel

Oh, hum, so what's the problem?

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Well, the actual cards. The images. :)

Zachiel

oooh, I looked at that club now. Ok, I understand

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

Also, I'm unsure that the items are part of the template. I can't find one that matches it.

Still, it's a nice pack of templates, definitely very useful.

BESW

Great Caves of Androzani! The primary resolution mechanic for DWRPG is insane.

Just figuring out the difficulty you're rolling against involves using multiple circumstance modifiers to move through a 25x25 "Interaction Matrix."

(But kudos for giving the thing a name with the perfect tone of Gallifreyan pomposity.)

Oh, Doctor Who fan reviews... The system's flaws apparently include "too tactical for the show," "unable to make average companions," and "retconned the War Chief as an earlier incarnation of the Master."

Trajan

1:18 PM

we should change the banner and add "NOT VIDEO GAME Role-Playing Games"

BESW

1:38 PM

@Trajan "But I play them on the computer."

Trajan

@BESW speaking of computer-assisted rpg, a friend moved yesterday, and he asks if I'd GM tabletop rpg session via skype

BESW

Ooh.

Trajan

I'm... quite unsure I'd do it.

Though I played by chat and / or forum for quite a long time.

BESW

I successfully had a player who moved away continue to play with us via Skype.

And I played in a much less successful game where everyone communicated through Skype and openRPG.

The key seemed to be that everyone in the first game already had experience playing as a group IRL.

But my sample size is very small.

Trajan

1:54 PM

Maybe I'll try it once, who knows.

Didn't know OpenRPG, though, that might help

BESW

I had trouble with getting OpenRPG to play nice across multiple operating systems, but that was... gee, 2008?

They may have made advances.

(Oh, and combat fog never worked for me.)

The best setup I ever found was to point a Skype cam at the table map and do most things over voice, but to keep the OpenRPG map mimicking the table map and do rolls and notes over that for the people not in attendance.

But again, I only did it twice, never as a long-distance GM myself, and this was back in '07/'08.

And now, sleep. ttfn

Zachiel

2:23 PM

@Trajan if your game needs a tactical map I strongly suggest using either roll20 on Google Hangouts or MapTools and TeamSpeak or Skype.

Alex P

2:38 PM

@Vorac Note that some groups restrict disadvantage totals. So they'll be like "150 pt character, plus up to 50 pts disads."

Vorac

I suspected something similar.

Alex P

The other technique is to have the group say something like, "Okay, umm, I think you just made a Guild Navigator. That's cool, but not really appropriate for our game about police cops."

And that is all I know about GURPS.

Trajan

@Zachiel thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep that in mind

Vorac

What made me wander about tihs, is that the list of disadvantages is huge - so one can (seemingly) very easy select a lot of advantages, that are not at all relevant to their planned role.

Trajan

@AlexP Planning on building a Sharuum EDH :)

Alex P

2:44 PM

@Trajan Duel or regular?

Trajan

and hi, btw

Alex P

Hi!

Trajan

@AlexP I only play Duel

Alex P

@Vorac Yeah, a lot of games have switched to "Disadvantages don't give you build points, they give you extra XP in play when they actually come up" to fight that kind of "Take disads that are meaningless" impulse.

@Trajan <3

I would like to hear more, @Trajan. (Optionally, in the board and card games chat room, if all these other RPG folks are sick of our Magic-talk.)

@Vorac The game I play most, Burning Wheel, actually has traits like "Missing Eye" or "Lame" cost points like any other trait. Partly because it's not that big of a disadvantage (and you can sometimes milk penalties for better advancement), partly because the character creation rules aren't really focused on balance.

Apropos to neither of the conversations I'm having: Stack Exchange blog article about supporting languages other than English. I like that they're doing this. Especially the point about how it's good to give people who only sorta speak English a space where they can participate fully instead of just reading along.

@Trajan So, Duel Commander... what is the format's "winning turn?" I assume aggro wins are slower than Modern because players have 30 life. But then, like, when do well-built combo decks usually "go off?"

lisardggY

@AlexP Yeah, I also read that and it seemed a good idea. I know that Hebrew doesn't have any resource as good as SO for programming questions.

Though I doubt we'll get an SO site any time soon.

My English is good enough for main SO, luckily, and I am also of the generation before people Hebrew programming books and classes were readily available, so it feels unnatural for me to talk about programming in Hebrew, but that's just me, and I believe that the industry as a whole would benefit from better communications in native tongues.

Trajan

2:54 PM

@lisardggY so you're not a real lizard ?

Vorac

@AlexP, I should get to know that system, just let me finish The riddle of steel. Never saw character rules that are not about balance.

lisardggY

afk, must go and amuse a baby.

Trajan

@AlexP Well, aggro still works, look at Ezuri. He does an amazing job at spawning like 15 mana by turn 5 and attack with a handful of 10/10 trample. But aggros like winnie whites, they don't work at all

unless they pack a massive amount of control

but the most successful decks are combo, and the winning turn becomes "whevener I get those two cards"

When you got your infinite combo on the table, 30hp or 20 isn't really relevant.

Alex P

@Trajan True, though the singleton format changes how quickly you find the cards sometimes. Though I guess with access to stuff like Demonic Tutor and Green Sun's Zenith.

Trajan

exactly, they're everywhere

have to go to a boring weekly meeting. see ya in about an hour

Alex P

3:02 PM

See ya.

lisardggY

4:07 PM

@Trajan I'm not even a fake lizard.

Vorac

5:18 PM

@lisardggY Then, so, are you a Ninja?

lisardggY

*looks in the mirror*

*can see himself*

Nope. Not a ninja.

Vorac

:(

lisardggY

Which raises the philosophical question: can a ninja hide so well that even he cannot spot himself?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@lisardggy thats always my concern about invisibility

seeing your body parts goes hand in hand with good coordination

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith You could always make it like the LOTR movie.

Vorac

5:29 PM

About those GURPS characters. How about invisible blind character in a realm of invisible everything?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@alexp good point

lisardggY

6:20 PM

So now this guy wants to optimize other players characters, possibly against their will?

Zachiel

6:38 PM

@lisardggY we're gonna know soon

Alex P

@lisardggY Which guy?

lisardggY

The "5th level optimized fighter/range builds" guy.

0

Q: 5th level optimized Fighter/Ranger builds for 3.5/Pathfinder

I'm running PAIZO's Crypt of the Everflame/Temple of Living God/City of Golden Death with some veteran players using 3.5 rules mostly. But these veteran players have busy lives and I think they are doing themselves a disservice with their character builds. They're attacking once per round, hitti...

dnd-3.5e pathfinder

@Zachiel Well said, your comment.

Phil

I've added my agreement

lisardggY

@Phil I don't think he actually intended to replace their character sheets during the night, but even coming to them with "you guys are playing wrong, this is how it should be done" is problem enough.

Phil

Yeah, I agree

But didn't want to make any assumptions

Zachiel

6:50 PM

After I get his reply, since he has enough rep, I'm inviting him to the chat, where I'm going to teach him some tricks anyway. But I think my question is enough to have him think about what he's really doing.

lisardggY

I'm also with you on the second comment. Luckily I have a group that shares the level of optimization we're after, more or less.

Zachiel

since he told us those guys are work-busy, maybe he already asked them and is just making research in their place, which is fine if the DM is ok with some more complexity

lisardggY

@Zachiel Yeah. Delegating one guy to be the "system and optimization guy" is fine.

Zachiel

afk

Alex P

9:27 PM

Can low-rep users respond in comments to comments on their own answers?

(I want to know before I ask someone something they can't answer.)

Thunderforge

9:56 PM

I made some fixes to a question that was put on hold because it was too broad by implementing the suggestions from the comments. That was last night, but it hasn't been reopened. Not sure if maybe it has just gone unnoticed or whatever.

2

Q: How can I convert the Necromorphs from Dead Space to Savage Worlds?

I'm making a Savage setting for Dead Space, and I'm really unsure about this part. I understand I need to compare the monsters to regular humans, for instance, and try to determine their stats from that, but I'm not sure how. Example: a regular human in SW have, let's say a d6 in strength. Now, ...

monsters savage-worlds conversion

If it's not sufficiently edited, could someone post a comment about how it could be edited further (or just edit it themselves?)

Note the original question was "How can I convert video game enemies to Savage Worlds", which was why it was too broad.

Per the question comments, the title and question were changed to limit it to one specific enemy.

Alex P

@Thunderforge It has 4 reopen votes at the moment. Lemme read it real quick and maybe I can be your 5th...

@Thunderforge Done!

BESW

@alexp yes, citizens can comment on their own posts regardless of rep.

Alex P

@BESW ty

Thunderforge

@AlexP Thanks!

Alex P

11:34 PM

Re: yesterday's conversation about cyberpunk and tech mixers:

> When you imagine the villains of SR they're all in suits.

> But that's... not quite right, is it? The people you're stealing from are playing minigolf in the only patch of green in twenty blocks in their secure little "campus".

BESW

...they're wearing pink polos with popped collars?

Phil

:o)

Alex P

@BESW Sometimes but not always!

They are having "innovation breakfasts" and coming up with smartphone apps and writing about themselves online constantly.

Basically move the corporate baddies into the Internet Age instead of making them resemble big industrial and finance firms of the 80s.

BESW

I could be amused by this.

[takes notes for the next time he runs Aeon Wave]

Shiester

DND 3.5: Lets pretend I'm some kind of creature with (Ex) and (Su) notes for being that creature. If I shapechange for some reason do I retain the benefits of these (Ex) and (Su) creature traits?

BESW

11:39 PM

That depends on the method you used to change shape, and the level of errata your group is using.

Generally (Su) traits are retained (and you don't get the ones of the new shape) while (Ex) traits are lost (and you get the ones of the new shape).

But for a more specific scenario, write it up as a question like this one.

Shiester

I can change my own shape as a (Su) ability, and I'm not sure what you mean by errata.

that link is helpful

thanks!

BESW

Errata is the collection of changes the developers have made to published material after it's published.

Transformation magic has never been very coherent, and there are many attempts to make it more realistic, or simpler, or just less silly, by the developers and from various homebrew and third party sources.

One major problem is that when creatures are made, they don't always have the "Keep (Su), gain new (Ex)" guideline in mind.

Shiester

yeah

BESW

This leads to things like... transforming into a Balor will cause you to automagically gain a +1 vorpal sword, because it's listed as an (Ex) feature of the creature.

Another major problem is that it's just so complicated to figure out; many people avoid the option despite its potential for insane power plays just because it makes the game grind to a halt while you do the figuring.

Shiester

if i shapechange into a balor do i gain it's feats?

BESW

11:47 PM

As 3.5 is currently written, every different kind of polymorphing has slightly different rules.

@Shiester I don't know of any polymorph type ability which causes that (which is problematic when you change into, say, a wolf whose feats are designed to reflect its fundamental wolfyness).

Shiester

alright. well, you've been a big help - I appreciate it!

BESW

No problem.

For whatever your specific scenario is, you can ask a question on the main site giving the details.

Shiester

Okay - I just tend to avoid asking on the main page because I have problems wording questions in a way that doesn't look weird or come off as subjective at times.

I went ahead and upvoted your answer since it was beneficial to me.

One more thing now that I think about it: When you change shape you drop stuff that you can't wear in your new form. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? (Ie, make your gear meld into you instead?) It doesn't matter if you get any benefits from it or not.

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