@doppelgreener @doppelgreener Why was it deleted?

@Miniman @Miniman because the main solution it proposed was (c), which was stated as outside the bounds of the question.

@doppelgreener Oops, didn't notice I'd repeated myself. Fair enough on the deletion I guess, but I hope Bankuei fixes it. There was some information in there which no one else has really mentioned.

@Miniman Yes, I hope so too!

@Bankuei Hi!

[deletes Bankuei-poking comment]

@doppelgreener I guess I missed the last part of that question? Oh well, it's really ok leaving it deleted. The reason C is the main recommendation is because in all of my experience that's basically what's happening.

If I had seen the end part of that question I would have simply avoided answering at all.

Alright. I really hope the other two points get covered more in other answers then.

Does anyone know the word for 'one who gives incentives' ? It's bugging me that I put 'incentiviser' in my answer, cos I'm pretty sure it's wrong.

@Miniman in what way? there's also instigator

Positive incentives have been used to make people do what the ______ wants for years, because it works.

the GM

;P

or the game (designers)

or the players

I wasn't actually being specific to RPG there, teachers do exactly the same thing

ah right

I'm not sure of a word for that then

@Miniman Motivator?

Distributor?

@BESW Thanks, motivator is good. I think I'll go with that

(I got that by moving away from the specific action of incentivising, and instead thinking about the role that person plays and the influence they have.)

Does anybody know a good list of words that show up in the names of settlements?

@Grubermensch such as suffixes like -burg and -ton and -stan?

I'm going more for separate words, with a kind of medieval feel to them.

@Grubermensch And specific to settlements as opposed to towns in general - New.

I don't suppose there's any XSL gurus here?

@Miniman No I meant population clusters in general

@BESW I assumed that this was too much a listy question to go on an SE

@Grubermensch Fair enough, but New [Existing Town] is still one of the most common structures for town names

It's specific enough that asking for resources might work.

@Miniman I mean, sure, but that's not particularly useful to me for coming up with town names.

Because I still need the base name.

"New" is actually more common for towns founded during expansionist periods.

New Strattonburgistan

@Grubermensch List of towns and cities in England by historical population.

@Grubermensch Ah, ok. So you're looking for words that show up in the base names...

Often geographical features, like -rock and -fall. Generally with some sort of descriptor, like Blackrock or Whitefall

-bury, St., Great, Little, King's, [cardinal direction], -mouth, -ford...

@BESW This looks useful, although large cities more often have unique names than tiny towns.

@BESW -field a lot, too

And of course -ton

-hill

-field was mentioned, I am blind

@Grubermensch List of localities in England by population.

-port - Really common

specific to port towns, obviously

The "see also" on that one may be useful.

North-, South-, East-, West-

oops, BESW already mentioned that

anyways, lunchtime

I feel like one of the weirdest things about living in the US is that most of our place names don't have immediately recognizable meanings in our common language.

Maybe this is common in former colonial regions in general.

Oh, and Liverpool is so much better.

Evidently it originally meant "muddy pool"

@BESW a lot of -ham and -wich in England... mmm... ham sandwich... [Homer drool sound]

uh, I mean, they must have some meaning as suffixes

Maybe the take-away is I should also have a handful of meaningless prefixes and suffixes to use on my non-word-sounding places over and over again.

Is it time to haul out my old campaign maps again?

haha

I love maps

Every word on that map is a Genuine English Word.

@BESW Oh god you showed this to me before [twitches]

For this one, I went for a more "fantasy gibberish" feeling, but most of the words are still drawing on Genuine English Vocabulary, just fiddled with a bit.

@Grubermensch Whyfor the twitchery?

@BESW Devo, the town where everyone wears flowerpot hats and crack whips

@BESW Because I recognize most of them as words.

@Grubermensch Looks like most (English) placenames are made up of geographical references, colours, and words meaning "town or settlement". Or clan/family names. austgate.co.uk/development/placenames.php

@Adeptus Excellent, that's what I was looking for.

@Grubermensch There's some useful wikipedia links at the bottom of that page too

@BESW if that section of the map is uncharted, how would you know that there's an island?

@Smurfton The island itself is uncharted; that is, "We know there's an island but we don't have maps of what's on it."

@BESW Besides, just because no-one in the gameworld has charted a place doesn't mean the DM hasn't :P

True, but it just looked weird to me.

The island itself is labelled "uncharted."

(In context, the island is actually a giant turtle who recently swam into the gulf.)

Since the island is known to exist, what is its name?

It's new enough that a name hasn't been standardised. "Mystery Island," "New Island," "that one freaky thing off the coast," whatever.

As far as I can tell, the first person who matters that finds it usually gives things their names

Tell that to Christopher Columbus.

"Who matters"

CC, in this context, mattered.

And yet, the continent is named after this guy, and the choice of name was made by a guy who'd never been there.

Fair 'nuff

My point being: it takes years, sometimes decades or centuries, for discovery names to be standardised. When there are multiple linguistic, political, and cultural barriers to standardisation, it takes even longer.

@BESW that's kinda his fault though

but it is still a good point

It's only very recently that groups like the scientific community have international rules about who gets to name what and whether everyone else should use it.

On the other hand, everything that Vancouver saw, he named, and it stuck.

(He was on the west coast)

Vancouver was born into the 1700s, while Waldseemüller died just barely into the 1500s.

True.

D&D generally attempts (and fails miserably, but attempts) to represent its cultures as roughly pre-Renaissance with a bit of early Renaissance peeking through when it's funny or cool.

In summary, most social or linguistic groups on the map probably called the island something different.

Fair.

Won't this confuse your players at all?

I had great faith in my players, and besides--it's likely that most names would have some part indicating it's an island they're talking about, and there aren't many islands on the map.

(This map is for a 2006 D&D 3.5 campaign which lasted about four months.)

Why were you showing it off, then?

Because Grubermensch was talking about place names.

It's quiet...too quiet.

I'm building Cindi Mayweather.

@BESW Out of discarded human body parts, or just using a 3D printer?

Since she's an android...

lol

out of paper and graphite, if anything

@trogdor You know androids are meant to look like humans, right? I can't see this working.

not exclusively

anyway, he isn't building a real one

@trogdor What, really?

XD

@trogdor I'm having trouble with her Modes.

I figure Banter/Intrigue/Robot, maybe?

that could work

from what I understand

But we don't really see her having a lot of fancy robot-y powers; she's as humanlike as possible and that's the point.

So maybe Banter/Intrigue/Celebrity.

but maybe instead of Banter or Intrigue you put in Singer?

What would be in a Singer mode?

(Celebrity is Contacts, Empathy, Rapport.)

well for starters, you would probably still have those 3

then you could have a skill, not sure what to name it other than,... singing,.. that relates to entertaining or inspiring people

or even distracting

this character is all about singing in order to rebel, or at least the character she is based off of is

I'm thinking Rapport probably covers most of that?

I think Rapport might cover a little of that, but Rapport is mostly about making friends in a conversation isn't it?

though I suppose Rapport is probably the normal Public Speaking skill

> Rapport is the art of influencing people and getting them on your side. Unlike Deceive, it mainly relies on the use of honest appeals and natural charisma, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s just for nice guys—people can manipulate and affect you by being straightforward just as much as they can by lying to you.

and could be translated to singing

I feel, at this rate, that there is almost no reason to make a custom skill

chances are you can get one of the existing ones higher and make part of a Mega Stunt to make it do the other things you want

Aye, I agree.

Generally I think a custom skill is best if there's a default skill which basically covers your concept but also gives you applications that you don't want.

well, one of the big things is that the default existing skills cover a huge amount of general stuff you can do

and taken as a whole, you are bound to be able to tie one to something that it can't technically do,.. as long as it is something even a little related to said skill

I have been thinking about what I want to do with whatever points I have left,. but I don't actually think I know/remember all the applications of character creation points

Basically, just reinforcing skills that haven't yet hit their cap.

ah ok

does it cost less to do that than to put skills into a Mode? or is it the same?

I was thinking of bringing Notice up to 5 just cause it seems like a pretty important skill

It's... different.

and I would only need to increase it by 1

Adding a skill to a mode costs points equal to the number of applications the skill has, minus two.

Reinforcing a skill on your character sheet is described on page 34.

ah ok

so it would cost 3

I WAS thinking of adding notice into my weird mode,.. but I don't know how silly that would be

(Note, you can only increase a skill by +2 from the rating of its highest mode, regardless of how you're doing it.)

for starters, I don't think plants are exceedingly aware of things beyond the way animals are

maybe in a different way, but not strictly in a "better" way

but on the other hand

this is an application of science that Dr Light used to "improve" himself

The big thing against it is really explaining how/why Notice should be ALLOWED to go into this weird mode

so I might just end up using those points to "specialize a trained skill"

would "Where can I find pre-written D&D 5e adventures, encounters or campaigns for 5th level and higher?" be a reasonable question for the main site?

Do you have more criteria, like estimated length to play, or ideal number of players, or themes/setpieces you'd like to see?

I could add them, but they'd be specific to my group, and I don't know if that would make it too localised

But not really

Also, I think there was a question for this on the site (without the level 5 requirement), but I can't find it.

Oh, cool

Don't worry about "too localised." It's not a close reason anymore.

This isn't the question I was thinking of, but I think it's the same problem as yours.

<rant>I felt a bit shafted by WotC, TBH, when I subscribed as a D&D insider a couple of years ago, and found that there really didn't seem to be any big old pre-made adventures. I'm hoping it's different for 5e.</rant>

I have done a fair bit of rolling my own for 4e, but... sometimes I just want it handed to me, you know?

That's got some good links in there, thanks @Miniman

@detly Np, I'm just annoyed I can't find the one I remember

The greater context for us is: We're partway through a d&d 4e L6/7 adventure, and thinking about taking up 5e after it finishes. We'd like to "port" our characters over, retaining level and abilities — not exactly the same powers, feats, etc. of course, but roughly keeping the same general character direction. Although we might still start with some unrelated level 1 character adventures using whatever starter kit stuff is available, to get a feel for the new mechanics.

@BESW <- Yes: please do ask about your specific situation.

Most attempts to be more general so as to be more helpful to more people tend to wind up as unhelpful. :P

If there are pre-rolled L5+ adventures that can be tweaked, that would hugely lighten the workload in the transition

Specifics are good.

@detly Found it, this is the one I was thinking of

@detly 4e has several series of premade adventures, so they exist even if they might not be in DDI (I don't know if they are)

@doppelgreener - You mean like Keep on the Shadowfell etc?

@detly Yes

but yeah WOTC makes some unhelpful monetisation decisions. Like, there is no way to play MTGO for free, you gotta pay all the way. (You could play with previous games' winnings, but that's just your previous payment fuelling more activity until you run out and have to pay again.) This is at the time when Hearthstone is extremely active.

I have only a sketchy recollection of those, but I seem to recall that they were lower levels only

@detly No, they have more ranging up to higher levels.

@doppelgreener Okay, I must have just not paid enough attention :/

As someone who researched just about every 4e pre-made adventure module ever, I can say that there are multiple 4e options for every level--however, each tier has maybe half as many options as the tier below it.

There's many different adventures at different level ranges, so you can finish, say, KotS, then say "okay, we're playing... THIS adventure for the next few levels." And repeat when you finish that one.

Oh, well, then I was being unfair to WotC

I take it back

@detly Also fair warning your characters are going to look extremely different after being ported.

I doubt anyone will mind

D&D 4e has a radically different approach to... D&D... compared to any other edition.

Different enough people from prior editions complained about D&D 4e. :P

but then again, people from AD&D 2e complained about 3e, I've heard.

Haha, yes I saw :P

We have a balanced mix of the classic roles (strikers, defenders and healers)

Yeah, it's the circle of tabletop life

Although no-one from 4e is complaining about 5e, it seems, so the only logical conclusion is that time is running backwards.

No-one's expecting a perfect facsimile of their 4e characters in 5e, and we're all narrative-inclined, so it's not going to cause major friction

@doppelgreener We've been playing 3.x for a while, and my wife still complains occasionally, that it's not the same as 2e...

@detly that's... not... entirely true.

@Magician which part?

I loved 4e. I have no desire to play 5e.

I like 4e too, but WotC basically pulled the rug out from under everyone who played it, so shrug moving with the times I guess

Eeyup.

I mean, what sort of person says "yeah, just change the domain name, who would ever link to our website?"

I'd like to try 5e, but I'm hoping for some conversion guides, to adapt content from other versions (they were promised rumoured to be coming with the DMG)

I don't know whether the lack of a character builder is good or bad though (yes, I know about Dungeon Scape)

One of players is a changeling rogue, so we might have to do a bit of fudging there

@detly I dunno if there's really any point to a character builder right now

There aren't enough options to make it useful

The CB was useful in 4e because there were just so many intersecting dimensions of whatever

@detly Exactly, and 3.5 had weird and crazy interactions all over the place. 5e is pretty simple (at least for now)

The problem with the 4e builder was that my players started forgetting where the modifiers came from, what allowed you to use various feats, etc.

I'm very interested to see what happens with 5e in terms of splat content

"splat" content?

@detly splatbooks = expansion books / supplements / etc

@detly Magazine articles and books that add extra content to the game

ah right

yes, the changeling rogue is actually from the eberron stuff

and had some weeeeird interactions with essentials sometimes

@detly Ah, Eberron. Everyone seems to use content from there, but no one seems to actually play there.

okay, well, I'll save my question until we actually come to that point (of needing L5+ material), since it's probably a couple of months off anyway

@Miniman I KNOW

@detly Probably a good plan, you're unlikely to get much right now. Hopefully we'll see more adventures once the whole of core is out

I had one player join halfway through an adventure in the Iron Circle, who was from Eberron, and I just hand waved my way through it. "It's... uh... another continent. No, not that one. No, not— you've never heard of it, alright? No, not even you with the 20 INT."

@detly Heh. Good luck with the level 5 adventure, if you find one I'm sure there's lots of other people who've finished the Starter Set who'd love somewhere to go next. I'm off home, ttyl.

yeah, I'd better go too

thanks for the advice :)

@detly Lots of people who enjoyed AD&D didn't want to move to 2e, and so on up the versions. Lots of 4e people won't want to move to 5e, either because they're happy with the version they have, or they're people like me who prefer it over 3e, and 5e just looks like more of 3e.

@Miniman your comment can be deleted now if you want, I saw it :)

@doppelgreener Check out the Fate chat!

@doppelgreener ! I've been trying to find you in chat for a while.

Yeah, Pixel Dungeon doesn't have much food. You generally spend a good deal of time starving.

Hunger doesn't actually do anything anymore--it's just a warning that you're within ~1000 turns of starving.

And starving only hurts every 33 turns

Actually, just checked, you're within 100 turns of starving when hungry.

@Smurfton I do not think I like this, but it is good it only hurts every 33 turns. :(

It's worth letting your health get down to half before eating.

Noted

Thanks for the advice

... but I feel like this should not be the case

but then again I'm used to Nethack.

It only does one damage, each time it hurts. You're welcome.

@BESW Reading! Thanks!

Eh. I was used to POWDER, and thought it was weird too.

@Smurfton In NetHack if you're starving you're close to just automatically dying completely, so if you ever get to that point, things are going absolutely terribly for you.

Same in POWDER. If you're hungry, you're health stops regenerating.

And there's a good that dislikes it when you eat while not hungry, so endure hunger is best skill.

@Smurfton neat ;)

sudden thought: there could be Fate Hack & Slash mechanics that hinge off compels. "I am a patron of Dulf, the god of necessity, so it makes sense that I cannot partake of this meal. This goes wrong when I offend the chef." -- Stunt: "When I abstain from a meal, I get +2 to Melee for the duration of my next conflict."

Oooh that's neat, but for the meal thing, would the compelled action have its own effect, outside of the bonus?

If not, it seems pretty abstract.

Yes. Compels involve your character genuinely complicating things for themselves.

They're the thing where the GM says: "Your character's going to try and pick a fight with the mobster, and get himself thrown out of the bar." (Where this is something that genuinely complicates the character's life and adds drama, but it probably fun for the player.)

Alternately it's the thing the player proposes, and the GM is fine with!

(Either way, the player gets a fate point they can use for later narrative influence.)

(Btw, POWDER is pretty great, and runs on so many platforms)

Makes sense. Got any immediate plans for the idea?

Playtest it

for context, I've been working on a Hack & Slash adaption of Fate for a few weeks.

or, really, ever since I moved from D&D 4e to Fate, hence certain questions, but I began serious work on it a few weeks ago.

Hmm. Is that what you're using your spoil lair for?

No, my spoil lair is about a Fate Core game I'm running, wherein my players belong to a Hellsing-like organisation called the Gatekeepers of Tartarus.

In reality discussion about the Fate Hack & Slash system is all over the Fate chat room, though I've considered creating my own room for it.

Well, I'll have to read some of the history of that room then.

The doc for Fate Hack & Slash is here if you want to read it

I think I'll do that when I'm not on my phone.

Thanks, though.

@Smurfton No worries. :)

Totally just lied there. Reading the fate doc now.

And finished.

I just noticed this still talks about attuning weapons to skills you have, but at that point the Melee and Ranged skills did not exist and for now we're adding them back.

so Weapon attunement doesn't currently exist, except insofaras ranged weapons are ranged and melee weapons are melee.

@Smurfton If you have any thoughts or criticism I'd be interested to hear it.

What are the numbers next to the skills? You never actually said anything about then in the doc

It's certainly easily understandable and well written, though.

@Smurfton Melee +3 means that when you go to make a melee attack, you'll roll 4 fudge dice and add +3 to it.

Not that, in the skill list section

Oh!

Something that definitely needs thought is this: okay, so you have three items, and can only use one. when can you switch?

You'll see they have letters beside them, a mix of CA, A, O, D. Those represent the actions you can take with those skills. The number is how many actions beyond 2 the skill can apply to.

I see.

Oh, this line:

> Needs testing. Current theory: 3 equipped items, 2 in reserve (which do nothing).

That's meant to mean you have five total.

But when you can switch is a good question!

Sorry, misread. Still, you need to have something in place for changing them

I hadn't thought of that. XD

If it's at any given time, you might as well always have all of them.

That's true, and it's likely I'll just stick with: "You have 3 artifacts."

If it's only between encounter-type things, you could do some planning, and guess at what's coming up.

If it's only at the start, then you have an idea of what was coming, but can't just change it up on the fly.

Personally I like that last one

Anyway, it's one in the morning here, so I'll be off to bed now. Goodnight!

Actually, the word "scenario" works better than "encounter", there.

@Smurfton Goodnight!

Hmm. Where would I go to find out which afrofuturism albums are most seminal/classic/definitional?

I am not sure you are asking this in the right place,.. not so much as inappropriate as I think it might be unlikely anyone here knows more about it than you

I could be wrong though

It's worth a shot.

true

I'm also asking in Mos Eisley.

@Magician So how are you liking Beyond Earth?

I was not aware of this genre. I think it's awesome.

Am surprised it was not dubbed Afropunk. :)

Heheh.

I thought you might like it.

Considering the fact that the *punk designation has been used as far and wide as Rihanna.

Good mornin

[wave]

@besw you thinking like Parliment or something else

@lisardggY ahhh that sounds terrible

I did just read a martha stewart article about how to throw a punk themed party

@JoshuaAslanSmith I think they'd probably be on the list, yes. But which album(s)?

@JoshuaAslanSmith I saw it. It was so delightfully terrible.

haha

A true punk, you know, enjoys miniature cupcakes decorated with little musical notation of Anarchy in the UK.

definitely not an area I know anything about really just a smidge, just wanted to make sure you were talking about what I thought you were talking about

indeed

on some level a martha stewart article inspired punk rok "theme" party could itself be punk, but thats like 7 layers deep

For the people who felt that Blink-182 weren't making the word "punk" diluted and fluffy enough.

haha

@JoshuaAslanSmith Would it project Jarmusch films on a wall in the back?

no I dont mean that so much as punk is in itself about a rejection of culture values, once youve stripped out all the mohawks and f-bombs and pants with straps, and there is a point where throwing a martha stewart punk rock party could itself be an act of rebellion

Aye. Jarmusch's films used Punk aesthetics but rejected the Punk ethos.

So it seems appropriate to screen them in a party that rejects the Punk aesthetic while retaining its ethos.

Whereas those keeping to the punk ethos pretty much moved away from the punk aesthetics by the early 80's.

@besw Im not familiar with that person, but yeah, honestly when you use the word punk outside of music from 76-86, it loses all meaning to me

Maybe late eighties.

I mean Id put it at 83 honestly but thats me lol

what did I walk into?

@JoshuaAslanSmith Well, except for its usage as a science fictional genre signifier from cyberpunk to steampunk and beyond.

@lisardggY only makes sense for cyberpunk all else is silly wordsmithing

@Tritium21 I asked for recommendations or referrals for afrofuturism albums.

@lisardggY The reason I end it there is because after the first wave of punk in the UK and America all other punk bands are hopelessly derivative in a music movement that was distinctly about not being derivative even if that meant having terrible sound quality and playing.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Not entirely. Cyberpunk specifically refers to the punk ethos. Steampunk was coined off of cyberpunk, that's true, but it still carries some significance, specifically a form of cultural anachronism, where a modern-day sensibility (not necessarily a punk sensibility, but the very modern term "punk" is used) is projected onto a different setting.

@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm pretty sure you had derivative Sex Pistols-sounding bands even in 1977.

@Tritium21 an aside about afropunk led to a discussion of many punk things

@Tritium21 a normal monday here :)

@lisardggY which its a valid argument, that anyone outside the pistols is really punk

Theres a great deal of good research that could be done in this area

and a lot of philosophical loops for the movement

my issue with steampunk is it is by and large a reskinned cyberpunk

@JoshuaAslanSmith I tend to go for the more inclusive definitions. Most of The Clash's sound isn't what people think of when they think "punk", but they're still one of the iconic punk bands.

[writes a punkpunk game]

@JoshuaAslanSmith Oh, I disagree. But this might get long. :)

there is 1 steampunk book I give a pass to because it actually pays its dues to the victorian era and that is the Difference Engine

@lisardggY the clash is in fact my fav punk band

Lots of great musical experimentation

I had a good discussion with a friend who is definitely way more into and self identifying as a punk, even though hes in his late 20s, about what "the most punk band was" and I said the clash because they had the least punk sound by the end

Context is that I'm trying designing an afrofuturist NPC; she's primarily inspired by the alter ego of contemporary afrofuturist Janelle Monáe, but I want to draw on other afrofuturist sources as well.

which he thought was silly and I forget who he suggested but they had a very stereotypical 80s punk sound

@BESW There's the wonderful comic convention panel scene in Chasing Amy.

Also, my bad: I meant Jarman, not Jarmusch. (Again, I refrain from going for the links and I get it all mixed up.)

I'm not sure I'd consider him a serious afrofuturistic characters, considering he's presented as a farce to begin with.

@JoshuaAslanSmith just finished my first game. It's... same as Civ 5, and different.

@BESW oops, apparently I can't click on things anymore.

...Aren't you supposed to get rep back if you delete a downvoted answer of yours?

@Tritium21 yes, but it might take a few minutes

Ahh.

I just got my rep back, so yours should be back too :)

TIL You can get 480 rep by only asking a question and no other activity

@Tritium21 Around 1095 of my rep is from asking questions.

@Aaron A single question?

@Tritium21 Oh you meant he got it all from one question?

@Tritium21 asking the right question as the right time has some serious value

@Aaron The only activity on this persons account is asking one question heh

Oh wow yea that is impressive

to be fair, 101 comes from the assn bonus and 2 from accepting an answer

and it's kind of a Seminal question for this site :)

didnt see the association bonus

not too many folks though manage to ask a top rated question as their first and only question

@waxeagle before invoking THE POWER OF META, it is appropriate to use Meta to propose, say, new tags?

@Lord_Gareth not really. usually you just want to add the tag when it's needed

@waxeagle Hrm. I'd wanted to propose the inclusion of a [3pp] tag to indicate when a question is dealing in third-party content for a system, thus making it easier for answerers to identify the content and difficulty.

@Lord_Gareth personally I'd rather see the supplements specifically tagged

Thus META!