Hehehe. I just read through a portion of Oglaf's archives, and there's one with an owlbear. I just noticed this time it is the original Owlbear. The goofy one that is the least threatening possible configuration of owl and bear.

It's also completely NSFW, so I'm not sure if I should link it here, but the title is owlbear, and you can just dump that in the URL where the comic title usually appears.

@JonathanHobbs I think my favorite one is the one with the maze-builder guy (that one is SFW).

@AlexP This one? oglaf.com/labyrinth (SFW: rest of the site NSFW)

@JonathanHobbs Yus.

@AlexP It sure is right up there for me :)

So, last week I stopped caring about The Mentalist.

I've been watching it half-heartedly hoping they're doing something interesting that I haven't figured out yet (and because Cho is awesome), but last week they kidnapped a female main character. Again. And put her in a cellar, and the menfolk are all manly about it, and I turned it off in a fit of being so done.

That's fair.

Even if you're done with The Mentalist, though, you can still enjoy a wonderful pastime I call "Mentalist Names."

?

The names of the bit characters are often very fanciful.

Tweets to Campaign By reminds you that if you find one of your Chekhov's Guns isn't loaded, you should either load it immediately or throw it in the river as soon as possible.

@AlexP Examples?

Tamzin Dove

Gardner Renfrew

Undine Kopecki

Tolman Bunting

So, we make a game of making up names like these. The right mixture of unusual words and last-name/first-name mismatch.

I like it.

My wife made up "Mortimer Piaf."

@BESW What was the name for that eyebite + divine challenge paladin/warlock build?

Feyadin or something?

I called it the troll-lock, or trolladin.

@BESW Was that a Hybrid Paladin/Warlock, or a Paladin MC'd into Warlock, or a Warlock MC'd into Paladin?

It started as a warlock multiclassed into paladin, and then later, after he discharged his duties to the Fey Queen who gave him his fey powers, he became a paladin multiclassed into warlock.

Was that @SomeGuy who did that?

No, Trogdor.

SomeGuy was the lazy warlord.

Oh!

Fuck yeah.

@trogdor You've been mentioned here:

@JonathanHobbs I think you should put more emphasis on mark-like features in defender roles.

Defenders are about forcing bad choices.

@Lord_Gareth I found an image for you.

@BESW You are my new god.

@BESW This is hilarious

@BESW There are so many people that I am going to link that to.

@JonathanHobbs Specifically, the root of the problem seems to be thinking that the key to defending is being hard for an enemy to hit, rather than the interaction between defender, enemies, and allies which creates scenarios in which attacking the defender is the enemy's best option--but still not a good option.

If you can clear up what the defender role is, the rest of the question and answer should fall into place.

@BESW I see this in 3.5 discussions all the time. Hell, The Question Which Must Not Be Named has an answer like that where people feel like a high AC makes you a target.

> The Fighter, the other PHB1 Defender, has Combat Challenge (letting them get free attacks against enemies attacking their allies), and generally makes it difficult for monsters to reach their allies in the first place.

Is this an accurate summary of the fighter's defendingness?

This is why the push-build on Kamola was so awesome: he wasn't a good defender because he was hard to hit, he was a good defender because he was keeping others from being viable targets.

The troll-lock was good for the same reason: attacking anyone except him hurt, in addition to having an attack penalty.

@JonathanHobbs Hmmm.

The Fighter fills the role of defender by mark punishment: attacking not-him imposes attack penalties and invites retaliation.

The key here, really, is that rogues don't have punishment for attacking not-them.

They can pick up a couple of specific abilities which grant it, but it's not baked into the class enough for them to be effective at it consistently for long periods of time.

@JonathanHobbs "Make it difficult to monsters to move freely," maybe.

Fighters are kings of lock-down.

Kamola combined that with the ability to lock them down way over there.

@BESW Kamola is a hilariously fantastic fighter.

At level 1, a fighter with positional advantage can lock down a hallway by physically interposing himself between the enemies and his allies. Anyone trying to shoulder past him gets stopped in their tracks.

@JonathanHobbs It was ridiculous.

I'm going to paraphrase a lot of this stuff.

Fighters are close-combat target-and-movement-denial specialists.

If a fighter stands next to you, you either attack him or get beat to a pulp by him.

If a rogue stands next to you, you'll get shanked whether you attack him or not, and he can't do much about you attacking his friends instead of him.

I am starting to think I need to shift format to focus less on the individual features, and more on this aspect.

@JonathanHobbs Yes. Yes. Yes.

These guys are thinking "tank," and you need to explain "defender."

"Defender" is a good word, by the way: it implies active intervention.

Movin' this to a google doc

[flexes 4e theory muscles]

Brb first I'm hungry

> Defenders have abilities and powers that make it difficult for enemies to move past them or to ignore them in battle. [PHB1 16]

now brb for food.

@MC_Hambone [wave]

geetings

so tonight was one of those RPG nights where not much happened for my character

Aw.

too many tangental conversations... but it was our first night back after srping break, so I kinda expected a higher rate of jokes

last session my professor character (he's basically indana jones but english and also a medival bard) was at an Italian Governors manor for a fancy party, and the building burned down. I save a fancy book with jewels set into the cover and gold leafing on the pages

tonight I was hoping for more info about it, but instead as my group was escaping through emergency tunnels under the manor we ran into a priest, who had a demon girl in a cage

we got ambushed by Crypt ghouls who eventually succeeded in releasing the demon girl

Sounds like that would probably take most of the session.

and now we are trying to help this priest re capture the demon girl, even though I wanted to leave him for dead so I could take this book I am pretty sure contains many volumes of delicious knowledge and get it translated

{sigh}

I dunno if you played 7th Sea ever, but there is a component to the game calle d"arcana" and it's basically a trait that the GM can activate to force your character to do something. Mine is Trusting, and I usually play into that on my own... tonite I was convinced that helping the priest was a good idea (even though another character and I use magic and that priest is likely part of the inquisition)

@MC_Hambone Fate has a similar concept, but you can buy it off, and if you accept it then you get game currency for it.

I just hope I survive the encounters with out getting noticed by the priest as a "witch" and I also don't want to have to kill him if he does

which I why I wanted to leave him for dead with the ghouls before getting convinced helping is a good idea lol

Back and workin' on the thing with a lot of paraphrasing or copying of what you've said, @BESW

I think you can cut out a lot of it. Start with principles:

"High Reflex Doth Not A Tank Make" is a great start, but its point should be that defenders have denial features beyond MC Hammer's.

Can't touch this

Song currently in my head.

PMV... Pony Music Video?

(I'm not sure why the PMV chose to drop the contrast on the clips so much....)

@JonathanHobbs Naturally.

Watching you edit that google doc is entrancing @JonathanHobbs

Ahah! So you're the Anonymous Sheep.

:D

@MC_Hambone D'aw. :)

I don't use google things much

other than the search engine

...and now we have an Anonymous Slow Loris.

did it change Anonymous sheep to lzrdkng?

i signed in w/my youtube account apparently XD

Is... is this ready to post?

[reads]

@MC_Hambone Yes, after a while.

Le sigh, I wish Brian was in chat more.

he intimidates me

@MC_Hambone He's lovely.

he's got all that rep

@MC_Hambone This is a natural reaction to your dark overgod.

He used to be very active in chat, but then Real Life snuck up and sapped him good.

A lovely dark overgod.

@JonathanHobbs stranger things have happened. So i can accept a lovely dark overlord

@BESW yes. exactly my point. thank you! :D

(enter more: that child could also be a boy.)

@JonathanHobbs what if I told you it was me in 1994?

@MC_Hambone it looks more like a post-2000 digital camera shot

@MC_Hambone I'd say you were shockingly tall for a four-year-old.

so i would respond by being surprised by the photography

@BESW that too

I would have been 5! (if it was taken post april)

Hmm. Con season is usually summer/fall, so... the Fairy Nuff concedes the detail, but insists the point remains.

You might be right that is probably more the height of a 12 year old or a small adult

@BESW I was about to ask why not winter!? think of the cosplayers! but then I remembered what winter is like there.

(well, in the US specifically)

Musculature looks pre-teen-ish, as does the apparent height.

yea but it could just be a really small guy

(Two semesters of life drawing class for my degree.)

i can't wait until I get to tak e those courses

I have learned to draw mostly from pictures

The best way to draw is from life, but barring that, from da Vinci's sketches.

In fact, adding da Vinci to your rotation is great even if you've got great live models; he'll teach you about line variation and shading and so forth.

See how the line defining the bridge of the nose gets darker as it reaches the tip, and he uses just a slightly thicker, darker line to imply the shadow where the bulb of the side of the nose dips into the centre mass.

this is definitely the stuff i need, I have the basic shapes down and proportions of the adult human down, but its the advanced techniques that allude me

especially the stuff like noticing the darkening of the lines on the nose as they get more defined

One reason da Vinci is good is that at his time and place in history, drawing was not art; it was what you did to prepare for art.

Which means that he never worried about finishing a piece, so you get to see all the different stages of a sketch, from the rough pre-sketch to the finished bits, depending on which part of the image he was focused on, and which parts he just roughed in to give the context.

@BESW I... wow. I never thought about it this way.

(For myself I'm suffering from massive artistic block in the form of "oh no I suck at this and I can't continue", and I'm... trying to find out how to draw anyway.)

About the only thing I can say is "Suck it up and do it."

@JonathanHobbs the great part about drawing is anyone can learn to do it

@BESW yeah that's pretty much the core thing I think XD

Many authors and artists have said things along the lines of "you have to ruin a lot of perfectly good paper before you can put something good on one."

@MC_Hambone I'm pretty good, I just get hung up on the fact I can't draw a bunch of things I want to draw very well, but I can't draw them well because I haven't been drawing them and practicing, so it's no surprise - but I don't draw them and practice because I get hung up on not being able to draw them well.

@BESW Haha!

@BESW Do you think the post is ready? I think it's ready.

@JonathanHobbs ahhh i see. yea I am in the same boat. I spend countless hours doing things like answering questions on rpg.se instead of practicing ;)

@JonathanHobbs Sure?

I haven't been paying close attention, but it was pretty good. Maybe a little rambly.

@BESW I am unfortunately good at being rambly.

@JonathanHobbs is this you? youtube.com/watch?v=htTLWC1unMc

@JonathanHobbs Point of order: "the same regular who used the lockdown warrior I mentioned above, trogdor"

Trogdor built both PCs, but he built the lockdown fighter for another player.

> (This was discovered and handily employed by trogdor, who I mentioned earlier)

@MC_Hambone Unfortunately not that kind of rambling xD

(or fortunately? Not sure)

Tomorrow I'll take that delete-half-of-what-you-wrote cleaver to my answer. For now: other things to do!

@JonathanHobbs definitely not "fortunately". Steve Martin is amazing! :D

Now I need more Bob Dylan. [rummages]

Ah, Early Roman Kings. [basks]

@BESW Noticing your interest in classic rock music, have you heard of Frank Zappa?

I've heard of Zappa, but I probably wouldn't know him to hear or see.

I actually gravitate toward Dylan from his folk side, to be honest.

Guthrie and Leadbelly and Seeger and so forth.

But also just--it's freaking Dylan, the man who redefines himself a couple times every decade and remains one of the greatest living poets throughout.

I respect Dylan, and there are a few songs of his I do really like, but honestly I never got into his stuff in a big way

I prefer more "strange" music

I'm a sucker for good lyrics.

This is one of my present favourites.

@BESW I'm almost the opposite! Bad lyrics will leave me unable to enjoy a song, but to me the voice and words are foremost an instrument.

@JonathanHobbs if only i knew french

I have discovered that my musical tastes range much further than most, and don't really conform to "normal" definitions; it's more like certain individual elements that might be found in most any genre prick at my ears.

I am the same way

I like some classical composers (i gravitate to the baroque period), I like pop from the 50s, big band music, jazz from the 40s, lounge music like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, I like funk and disco, I like psychedelic rock, and "normal" rock form the 60s-today. I can take long rides in the car listening to nothing but some techno artists, I really have no boundaries

the only stuff I dont really like is current American pop/rap/country music

Hmm. Do you know the Squirrel Nut Zippers?

Nope, I shall google them post haste

any song in particular?

And they got on Sesame Street with this one:

Of course, the Sesame Street version was a little different.

@BESW THis. is. amazing!

also I cant believe I forgot to mention Ska and reggae music

I was in a ska band for a few years too! i feel embarassed I forgot that stuff... and also I like the early indy music scene, bands like ModestMouse come to mind. and then nerdier bands like Weezer and Wheatus come to mind too

@BESW That was fantastic! (And I love how everyone was bobbing to the music no matter what they were doing.)

Stick with me kids, I'll take you to musical places.

@BESW at the end of this i couldda sworn the trumpet mute was the head of a plunger

Music with those animations was often pretty lovely:

I also like collecting various versions of specific songs, like Halfway Down the Stairs and Sixteen Tons, or the Doctor Who theme, or the astonishing variety of "Cruel Sister" variants.

Every time I think I'm running out of versions, I discover it's got a whole new grouping under a different name.

how do you emed the videos like you guys have done?

Just drop in the link as its own line with http://

Works for YouTube and Wikipedia, most image links, even xkcd.

Also Twitter, as well as Qs and As from SE itself.

what about https?

@MC_Hambone Same smell.

HTTPS links don't get oneboxed.

Well, except in the case of youtube and a few other things it seems!

@JonathanHobbs au contraire

I did it!

I am the smartest man Alive :D

Just about everything I link is https.

oh hey, HTTPS images get oneboxed now.

I am trying to find sample Zappa songs that are appropriate for this chat...

[snerk] That's like trying to find appropriate Maynard songs.

most of the ones that come to mind are some of his more satirical pieces that are of subject matter that isnt necessarily PG13

(I also really enjoy most of Tool's work.)

here is a satire of a early 60s pop songs, by Zappa

Oh, if we're doing satire.

@BESW brilliant!

here is one of Zappa that is yet another different musical style he did during his career

Here, have an audio sketch. Feel free to ignore the visuals.

It gets somewhat musical toward the end.

I think Mitch Benn is a new favorite musician of mine

Heheh.

i have to admit i had no idea what was goin on with the Dr Demento video at first, but this the "song" is fun

but i guess not know what is going on is par for the course with Demento

Are you familiar with Blind Guardian?

Not that I am aware

here is Zappa and Demento together youtube.com/watch?v=tSzY5Bqcq9o

havent watched the whole thing though

They're a German... I dunno what the subgenre's called. Nerd metal?

Here's a 14-minute rock ballad about the Iliad.

I gotta say that it was Zappa that first mentioned Demento to me... well not me specifically but thats how i found out about Dr Demento

They have entire albums about LotR and the Silmarillion, and many of their songs reference other fantasy material.

hahaha awesome

i need to start keeping notes about the bands you tell me about so i can find albums and stuff later on

On the other end of the spectrum is Loreena McKennitt, who does heavily-instrumented British Isles folk style stuff with some Moorish/Arabesque influences.

(I use some of her less vocal-intense stuff for RPG background music, like for elves and such.)

hahaha very cool. I should try to find a small, but good quality speaker set for my ipod so i can start scoring my games

I have a lot of music for that purpose.

i gotta say there are los of things i'd like to do for ambiance that is difficult while playing in a class room on campus

at least our room has dimmable lights to create a "mood"

Unfortunately, so much of it is hard to lift out of the D&D-fantasy-specific mode I've been running for a very long time.

how so?

@MC_Hambone Urrrk. That's one of the things I'll never do. We spend enough time staring at dice and sheets of paper as it is, no need to make us actually squint at them.

i dont make it that dark :D

There are a bunch of songs that were used in a very atmosphere-intensive campaign many years ago that are now completely ruined for me as songs, since they're linked to specific scenes or characters.

just enough so that the fluorescent doesn't make the white of the paper blinding

The GM used specific songs as soundtrack to particular notable characters.

@lisardggY oh hey there! didnt see you some in

how's things?

I snuck in during the Youtube exchange.

Pretty good. Heading out soon to a combined family birthday lunch.

@lisardggY check out any of the zappa stuff?

I'm familiar with the Zappa stuff. :)

Not deep into the Zappa, especially since there's so much of it, but a passing familiarity.

@lisardggY this makes me extraordinarily happy

he is the reason I love music so much, and the reason I learned to play the guitar

Do I use my British-Isles-elven forest music, my Imperialist-Russian-dwarven music, my Batman-vs-Dracula and Alien-soundtrack creepy music, or my Revolutionary-era-American church music?

His albums I'm most familiar with are Joe's Garage and Hot Rats, and a random scattering from everywhere else.

always a good day when I reun into someone who is familiar with his work, whether they like it or not

@BESW ahhhh i see. well for creepy parts the bat man music might work? I was thinking more ambient sounds and things.... maybe songs specifically for things like going into a tavern, or uptemp "fight" music

@MC_Hambone I don't really go for "ambient." I find theme music.

My playlists for a campaign will be divided into places, factions, and moods, and I stick together the appropriate combinations to play on random based on what's going on.

@lisardggY not the same as being there (but thats impossible now) butthe Baby Snakes DVD is really good for a live concert DVD

"Dwarves in an elven mausoleum, that's dwarven--elven--creepy."

@BESW does it help the game at all to have music playing the whole time? I think that music might be better saved for a highlight moment. but then again, i havent had the opportunity to use music. perhaps I would DJ like you do if I had the availability of a place that is more suited for an elaborate game set up

Depends on the game.

I have to choose the music really carefully so it doesn't distract.

right now its hard to haul my box of dungeon tiles and minis and stuff along with my books and notes and junk

But good music helps set and maintain the tone.

It signals "we're playing now" when I start it, keeping everyone focused.

when I uesd to drive to my buddy that lived 2 hours away from me once amonth to DM, we would sit around and eat and talk for a bit but I had a remote for his stereo, so when there was a significant lull in the convo I would hit play and Dio's Killing the Dragon would play and we would all marh up to his loft to play D&D

hi

@MiloGosnell howdy

And if this is in the background, it goes a long way to keeping the mood set:

Or if I'm playing this, it's a totally different kind of session:

@MiloGosnell Very greetings. Much hi.

@BESW sounds like your characters might have been traveling through some kind of tribal area

and now the music changes on me....

...and now it's back to kinda a tribal feel

then again i might be getting that from all the talk of Gaia

Now imagine playing with this in the background:

On loop.

but... but the Gaia song is so soothing

i no want stop

And I once ran my players through a setting that justified this. They never forgot it.

@BESW how do you justify electricity noises in a pre electric society game like D&D?

or is it more for the storm sounds?

Lightning powered magicpunk.

well it's pretty danged creepy i'll give you that

It was a mechanical continent serviced by generations of enslaved dwarves working for elves they thought were gods. Creepy was the goal.

I hope Alegria was used in a creepy clown campaign

if not. much dissapoint

Nope.

That was for the Rose Palace of the Queen of Dreams, a place where you could never be sure what was real and what illusion.

i mean just listening to it makes me imagine a clown murdering a skating rink of children party goers

becasue that's what I think all clowns do

clowns freak me out

Imagine a palace made of living rosebushes, with the physics and logical consistency of the maze in Labyrinth.

I haven't seen Labyrinth :(

You should. It's a cultural touchstone.

well I only watch movies with David Bowie and Muppets

@Landir hi there

Hello everyone ^^

but seriously @BESW Alegria is some seriously creepsville music

@Landir hi!

thank god I kept the tab for Adiemus open to go back to the soul repairing goodness of Gaia