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12:18 AM
hey @Shalvenay
 
1
Q: Are podcast recommendations off topic?

daze413I see this question being asked about actual podcasts of games and want to ask if there are any podcasts with x criteria. Is this regarded as off-topic or will it be otherwise closed due to some other failing (too broad, subjective)? If so, how can I post a good enough question for a recommendat...

 
 
5 hours later…
5:11 AM
0
Q: Our shopping recommendation off-topic close reason is too generic

doppelgreenerThe off topic close reason for shopping questions is this: “Shopping” questions and other recommendation requests are off-topic, but can be asked on any one of a number of role-playing games discussion forums. For more information, see Are Game Recommendation Questions On Topic, Revisited. ...

 
 
3 hours later…
8:18 AM
39
A: Thumbnail image on Stack Overflow

a catImages embedded in your post are already displayed to be 640 pixels wide on the regular site, or 90% on the mobile site, to fit the page layout. If that's not enough, or if you want to reduce the download file size too, you have a couple options: Use the HTML syntax for embedding images, which ...

@BESW I found the meta post on how those imgur resize/crop suffixes work!
There's a "b" prefix I'm using.
 
hi
 
hello
 
I am the Onion Cthulhu.
 
yes, yes you are
 
Behold my magnificence!
 
8:29 AM
did you post this one to the winterbash thing?
 
@doppelgreener Hmm. I'm gonna use "t."
 
Not yet
 
ah ok
it certainly looks worthy of it though :)
 
So it does.
 
Today's Doctor, voiced by David Tennant, is a cyborg traveller through time and space who has picked up a ragtag crew of companions.
 
8:35 AM
7
A: The Winterbash Hatmas "Photo" Album (& maybe embarrassing yearbook)

eimyrI got Cerro de Potosi as a hat and it makes sense as headwear for Cthulhu. I probably won't change avatar just for the sake of having a different hat, as Elder Gods do not face rejection kindly. Understandably, even the mighty Cthulhu falls prey to the irresistible pull of cromniomancy.

@BESW When is the time for the next non-doctor-who doctor?
 
@eimyr How magnificent!
@BESW Huh, good choice. Me too.
 
@eimyr This weekend was busy enough that my timing is off.
Dr. Song should've been Saturday night, but she was Sunday afternoon. Dr. Honeycutt should have been Sunday night, but it's Monday night.
 
@BESW did you have any luck with the Fates on a Plane stuff?
 
Looking for a time to run it.
Also, I'm looking at my list and thinking it'd be nice if I had a few less white guys for the next week.
 
@BESW Doctor Princess is a green woman. She's a doctor who isn't really a princess (it's her surname).
 
8:47 AM
I think Dr McNinja is your best bet.
 
Why, did he have a gender change since I stopped reading that comic?
 
Not only is he Irish, but also represents Asian culture and associates with Mexicans primarily to defeat white people.
 
His backstory is a deliberate parody pastiche of all the problematic "white guy appropriates another culture's fighting style and winds up better at it than anyone" tropes.
 
Pretty much, yes.
 
He is a white dude though.
 
8:50 AM
Exactly.
While he's amusing and he's on my list, he doesn't reduce the "white guy" quotient one iota.
 
so who on your list does not fit the white anglo-saxon male archetype?
 
Thus far out of 14 Doctors I've showcased four women and a black man.
My remaining list includes Dr. King and the Fatal Death Doctor played by Joanna Lumley.
 
So they are either non-white or female, not both?
 
Thus far, yeah.
And for... reasons... I'd like to focus on fictional Doctors as much as possible.
I've been avoiding Dr. Martha Smith, because I consider her a pretty pathetic character who is only defined by her gender and profession, but maybe I should reconsider.
 
9:02 AM
Heh.
I saw a recent movie recently, that featured a female protagonist. I also found that questioning character design is not okay when said character is female.
Thus, I am reluctant to discuss female doctors for fear of burnination.
However, I can't recall a single example of a non-white, non-asian female doctor of reasonable competency from film media.
 
@BESW Lucy Liu, a female Asian actress, played Dr Joan Watson in Elementary - a genderswapped John Watson.
 
@doppelgreener That works.
Some aggressive Googling brings up a female Sikh doctor on ER, a show I know nothing about.
@eimyr This is exactly why I'm trying to bring a bit of diversity into my choices: because it requires effort to do so.
(And yes, it's very easy to get defensive of criticism of the few characters of any given under-represented group who are present in fiction, but stereotypical, demeaning, or otherising depictions of low-profile peoples are arguably about as harmful as a lack of portrayal.)
 
@BESW Lazy character design does not do anyone any good, when it's dismissed with "it's a POC/female/non-western/minority character" excuse
 
I'm not a member of any such group so it'd be awkward for me to try to speak for them, but if you're interested in such debates I might suggest looking at the lively debates around Native American roles in film which the Lone Ranger film rekindled within that demographic. There are some very eloquent folks taking a variety of stances.
 
(I am beginning to think that we are in this weird period of transition between "all characters are X" and "it doesn't matter if the character is X or not")
Honestly, women (not only, but for the sake of argument) deserve better than to be represented by Alice from Resident Evil.
 
9:18 AM
It's pretty cool --and yes, also rather intimidating sometimes-- to watch the process of highly visible segments of the world realising that their "normal" is, in fact, not.
 
@BESW I wouldn't know what to do with such a debate. Unfortunately, my exposition to Native American culture, especially recent, has been very superficial.
 
@eimyr As has mine. Which made reading the discourses very perspective-shifting.
 
Maybe I should then.
Also, have you heard the outcry about Hermione Granger's new casting?
 
I can't remember now exactly how I stumbled across it in the first place, but it was probably an intersection of Bankuei's blog and MedievalPOC's tumblr.
@eimyr I tend to stay out of the corners of the Internet which would find such a thing upsetting. So I heard "Hey, look at the thing! Rowling's being classy about it!" and then it dropped off my radar.
 
@doppelgreener isn't she still kinda,... socially inept in some ways too?
I mean, yes she knows a lot of stuff, she is the smart person in the group usually
 
9:22 AM
From the UK-based perspective I couldn't give two rat's asses about her skin color. But apparently a lot of people seem to think that changing the traditional portrayal is either a very positive or very negative thing.
 
but she still pisses people off by not knowing what she should say to them on occasion
 
I honestly think that it's not a big deal. I found changing Harry's eye colour more inappropriate.
 
Hmm. If I expand "Doctor" a little to include "dedicated high-tier members of the healing profession"...
...Katara.
 
they re cast Hermione Granger? first I heard of it
 
@trogdor I have absolutely no idea. I'm not recommending her in response to the rant I linked, I'm just recommending her as a doctor who isn't a white male.
 
9:26 AM
aaaand last I cared
@doppelgreener yeah,.. she isn't incompetent, in fact she may be arguablly the only widely competent person on the show
 
@trogdor Yep, there's a black Hermione in a new play. Look it up. :)
 
the humor ussually comes from everyone else, or almost everyone else, messing up so much
 
@BESW Aw yes. \o/
 
and then if she makes a single mistake they call her on it
it isn't the best show exactly, but I wouldn't criticize it specifically because she is incompetent in it, because she is at the very least one of the most competent people in the whole show
and her social incompetence itself is believable and not overplayed
it is a reasonable human level of it and doesn't spread everywhere
she just has certain quirks that might trip her up sometimes
 
@doppelgreener Somehow I knew that would be your response.
 
9:30 AM
@BESW she isn't a doctor?
ooh
I just read the thing over that
yes please
I don't give a flying monkey about the definition of doctor XD
Katara is an excellent choice, especially considering you need to replace a few white guys to balance things out
 
....and now my Googles have descended into the lower circles Doctor Who fandom hell.
I'm probably not going to do the Joanna Lumley Doctor. As much as I like Lumley, her Doctor was written by Moffat and the entire character is "Ha ha the Doctor is a woman."
(Moffat's scripts have always been a distressingly clear window into his own id.)
...Dr. Grace Holloway would be a decent female doctor from the Whodom.
 
10:25 AM
can one changeling split into two people
grinch planet of origin
christmas lights warp core fire hazard
amazon same day interstellar shipping
(Riker Googling is a twitter account of... Riker googling things.)
 
jane austen holodeck zombie larp
 
@doppelgreener it is indeed
almost all of it is entirely believable too
he is a strange lonely man, at least in my head canon, even considering all the alien tail he gets
it isn't the same as not being lonely XD
 
what was victoria's secret
 
lol
 
I smell a Conspiracy.
 
10:34 AM
 
of course he would google himself
least surprising one
I mean, it would be hard to say he is the most conceited Star Trek character, at the very least from what I know Kirk would probably win that one
 
BTW, @doppelgreener, @trogdor, the TV show The Librarians is totally doing our overarching Amaterasu plot.
 
Riker's confident but I don't think I'd call him conceited.
That award goes to Q.
 
oh true
Q,.. I forgot about him
just that Kirk kinda did fight "God" and win just cause
 
Q beats Kirk by a mile, largely because he turned Kirk into a duck so that nobody would notice him standing there, and forgot to turn Kirk back until someone reminded him a century later and he retroactively corrected things after a lot of huffing about it and while delivering a scathing response.
 
10:39 AM
sure Shatner directed that, but that does not diminish the conceitedness, it just bleeds over to reality
 
Also the god-being was technically defeated by Klingons.
 
ah
see, I didn't watch that one
why,.... were Klingons helping him?
I guess I shouldn't ask for it to make sense
wtv
 
They were trying to kill Kirk, actually.
 
@doppelgreener my only rebuttal is that Q needs people to pay attention to and acknowledge him, or his ego deflates despite his powers
otherwise I do think he still has a bigger ego and such than Kirk
I think you are right on that one
 
10:45 AM
plus I believe he loses his powers at least temporarily at some point and has a major self esteem crisis? unless I remember an episode wrong, didn't see all of it, /and or he was faking it
TNG was a long time ago for me
 
@trogdor He totally loses his powers and chooses to become human and has a terrible time of it. It's Deja Q, season 3 episode 13. I watched that one just yesterday.
 
lol
wow
of course you did XD
 
Mhm. Q's generally more insecure than self-confident.
 
I am not that big on it
@BESW I do get that impression
but I think Greener still kinda wins, at least on technicality of how high Q's ego can get, even if it goes in the dumps sometimes
 
Whereas Riker and Kirk both tend to (at least until the films give Kirk a bit of character growth) accept their own awesomeness on faith regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
 
10:48 AM
his ego is a wildly fluctuating chart
I think part of the fun a lot of people get from Q, (aside from the acting itself) is how much he does have that kind of ego, even if it is propped up by powers, and how much of a glimpse you can sometimes get, either in a subtle manner or not, of his ego falling from such a great height
even with powers and being technically an alien or something (and kinda a jerk at that), he is more human than he would care to admit
 
I guess Q is aware he has some poor qualities, but doesn't really think about it because omnipotence solves those too.
 
this is the kind of thing I like about TNG though, you can actually, at least try to, deconstruct the characters in it
and find weight in them,... not all of them necessarily, but still
I don't think I generally found Wesley too much more than sorta one dimensional,.. nor was Troy really all that great in my personal opinion either
Dr Crusher either I guess, but her lack of things that impressed me all that much got less screen time that I saw
at least she was still a good doctor?
anyway,.. I don't want to continue to say bad things about TNG anyway, it is my favorite Star Trek,... even if I have not seen too many other ones
the Origional is still good, if a little cheesy, and Enterprise sucked **********
as for everything else I have only seen bits and pieces
 
@trogdor Lots of people hated Wesley so much it continued to impact Wil Wheaton's film career afterwards and he retired from acting entirely out of frustration with his situation.
 
@doppelgreener I do feel sorry for him on that count
 
@trogdor I do as well.
 
11:01 AM
to be fair, he was pretty young at the time
and I don't think his character's writing did him any favors
 
@trogdor Yup. The writers were mostly responsible for shafting his character, and then the producers cancelled a season 4(?) episode that was going to make Wesley less of a hate-magnet, so he left the show.
 
As SF Debris says, the fandom holds no ill will toward Wheaton, but Wesley doesn't get the same courtesy.
 
I can totally see why they wrote him the way they did, he was a young guy in starfleet who wanted to emulate his hero(s)
but it certainly could have been done better even if they stuck to him being that kind of character
 
11:15 AM
Wellll... the main problem is that a lot of early Wesley episodes involve him being a moron and messing everything up and probably putting everyone's lives in danger, and then later he comes up with some clever solution and fixes his mistake and saves everyone. But his character isn't even redeemed properly in doing that, so it doesn't restore respect for Wesley, but it also means we can't just neatly be annoyed at him either for being a dummy.
 
well, my main problem with him wasn't even just him messing up in those ways
that wasn't great mind you, but the idea seemed to be that he couldn't even have his own identity without constantly looking at someone else and wishing he were that person
probably usually the captain
which in some ways is acceptable, but it still bothered me
then again, his level of mistake making seemed a little forced
it certainly won him no favor
 
yeah, he was given lots of short sticks writing-wise :(
 
people don't always know how to write "young" characters without adding a heaping dose of annoying into the mix
parenthesis because young is a pretty relative term
and sometimes a teenager or even someone in their 20's or more is treated like some kind of pre teen idiot (not that that age makes you dumb, just that idiot is also added in to an at least slightly less wise age)
 
 
1 hour later…
12:43 PM
@eimyr thanks for the idea re:maps. I started making a larger world map and then ended up drawing robots haha imgur.com/Rsqdxur
 
@Polyducks cool!
Is that a castle that is also a robot?
 
@trogdor @doppelgreener I have this same issue in my current campaign. 14 year old dwarf just keeps going on about ponies and drawing on people's faces. That's not acceptable behavior for a young dwarf, even if they do mature slower.
 
hee
 
@eimyr nah. Part milkshake.
 
Well, naturally. Silky-haired moles are the dwarven teen wish-fulfillment animal of choice.
 
12:47 PM
Well obviously.
How is everyone's campaigns going? I've missed DMing when we took a break for Christmas.
 
(You can cuddle up with them at night and their fur keeps out the grim cold of the caverns!)
@Polyducks This coming week, we are infiltrating an evil castle inspired by Jabba the Hutt's palace, run by a humanoid triceratops who dresses like a glam gospel diva in a Mad Max film.
On the highest turret is a T-Rex in red war paint playing the electric ukulele, and instead of a rancor under the throne there's a snaketopus.
 
@BESW aha you settled on a triceratops in the end. Does he have a lioplurodon-esque rancor? Damn read my mind.
 
(One of my players helped me create the snaketopus specifically so his character could be thrown to it.)
 
Typing on mobile so I'm a little slow. Miss my laptop so much.
Is it like a hydra snake?
 
No, it's got a single snake head and a bit of a snake body that then widens into an octopus's body and tentacles at the end.
> SNAKETOPUS
Ravenous Snaketopus
Terror of the Tank
+7 Quick
+6 Forceful
+5 Clever
+4 Flashy
+3 Sneaky
+2 Careful
Grabby Tentacles (Clever): +2 when Cleverly creating an advantage related to disarming or stealing from an opponent.
Wrapping Tentacles (Quick): You can Quickly create an advantage to ensnare or immobilise a character. The first time during a scene that an enemy tries to break free from your snare, the opposition increases by +2.
Crushing Grip (Forceful): +2 when Forcefully attacking someone who’s bound or restricted, represented by an aspect like Grabbed By Tentacles.
 
12:54 PM
@BESW have you seen the Sharktopus ?
 
@eimyr That's exactly what this is a riff on.
 
Monster idea: Sharktopusnado
A sentient meteorological phenomenon consisting of sharktopuses in high winds.
 
Don't mention that near Greener; while we're on this moon-sized Atlantean generation ship, his character can manipulate the biomes' weather controls.
(When we first landed crashed were pulled down into the Nibiru-1 Object, we got into a fight that threw some lightning around and accidentally re-set the ship's telepathic control interfaces. Now some of the PCs are more or less unwittingly tapped into the terraforming and weather controls, the surveillance systems, the technology monitoring systems, and so forth.)
 
I really want to tag him now.
 
1:16 PM
Also, one of our villains is stuck pretending to be a PC, because it's the only way she can get in on the race for control of the moon-ship since the party set her smarter-than-her general free to be his own villain.
 
1:41 PM
@Polyducks how does one learn to draw like that quickly?
@Polyducks is it possible at all?
 
Practice. Copy works you want to emulate. Practice. Seek out tutorials. Practice. Find like-minded artists to share your pieces and make suggestions to each other. Practice.
 
2:18 PM
Okay. How can I learn to draw like that without practice?
 
2:42 PM
@besw lol SNAKETOPUS
@eimyr what besw said, practice is a huge part, there are good books and online courses
 
@JoshuaAslanSmith Yeah, I know. I just wish there was some (technological) way of creating decent quality drawings quickly without much training
 
ouch, no: @doppelgreener I was not very well aware that the comment you refer to would trigger all this mess. I had intended the comment to prompt an improvement to the answer to be up-front with the drawbacks (which has happened); I should have been more explicit with the suggestion. But definitely did not intend all this. It was just a rushed comment that deserved a second look to realize the suggestion wasn't obvious to people who are not reading my mind.
 
@eimyr tracing
 
tracing what? Original deisgns (turning description into simplified drawing) is what I desire.
 
snarky art history reference, use en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura
@eimyr contract an artist/designer
 
2:48 PM
@KRyan Seems to me like the first line of the meta question explains it all: one is assuming what others' intentions and reasons are, and reading everything that follows in that context
@SevenSidedDie nice outfit--"hunter's orange" really looks good on you
 
 
2 hours later…
4:20 PM
@KRyan Thanks for noticing. A lot of these kinds of comments do tend to start arguments and make people upset, so I would've thought you'd already be aware it sews bad feelings when you leave them.
Some of the arguments haven't even involved you, but I've been there to flag them for clean-up.
When you leave comments like that, they seem like "don't vote this up!" warnings than like you're expecting anything to happen (except downvotes).
Usually if I have something similar to deal with, I'll ask the person to elaborate on the problems they've left out and how they might affect whether or not to choose that option. Usually that informs voters whether or not the post gets improved, and they can judge for themselves how to vote based on whether they perceive the problems as unacceptable faults. I don't remember it ever starting arguments, and it usually gets some kind of results.
 
hey @eimyr
 
(Sometimes, the result is the answer gets downvoted, and rightly so because of an unacceptably massive flaw in it.)
 
 
1 hour later…
5:38 PM
@doppelgreener This would be, I'll say, what I'm going for. Like I said, this comment was made in a rush. Stupid mistake caused by not giving it a second thought because something else was demanding my attention and I just hit Submit and shifted focus. Shouldn't have done that, the comment could have just waited, and I'm not always the best thinking things through even when I have time, but for whatever it's worth, I agree with this approach and it is the approach I intend to take in general.
 
5:50 PM
hey there @kryan
 
hi
 
how're things going?
 
6:09 PM
well, a careless comment started a big fight :(
but aside from that, pretty well
 
OK here, working on a school project and some research
 
wow, schoolwork this week?
ouch
 
@KRyan it's not a big deal, really laughs getting ready for a parts order soon
 
I mean, I am currently at work, so I'm not doing any better on that front
but in school at least I never had work this week
 
6:30 PM
@KRyan it's a design project, so it's rather nice (albeit expensive) compared to the average busywork
 
yeah, I get that
if you don't mind my asking, what level?
(e.g. high school, associate's, bachelor's, master's, PhD, post-doc?)
 
@KRyan batchelor's
 
nice
 
also, having an interesting time with some worldbuilding research
 
@Shalvenay I really want to capitalize on the misspelling by saying something witty and funny about producing batches of something but my mind is too busy thinking at things tangential to reaching level 17 with a full caster for the first time in my life.
 
6:43 PM
@Zachiel :P the only time I've ever done that is in NWN.
 
@nitsua60 Blue and orange go so well together it's become a bit of a thing.
 
@Zachiel holy damn. Which game? If anything Gygax descended maybe look into becoming a lich... But then that's my fantasy. Terrified of death at those levels.
 
@Polyducks 3.5e. So now I'm really less likely to die than at the low levels.
 
dramatically, really
I've only played at those levels a handful of times; I find it unpleasant
 
Once I started as a level 17 character, tho'
 
6:54 PM
the game starts breaking down somewhere between 10th and 17th
 
Luckily, for how despised my game is, we don't use epic spells and wishes are usually kept in tight check
 
the only game I've played that went well at those levels was so casual that when I repeatedly forgot to level-up my character, I did fine playing a 13th-level character even though we were nominally 16th
 
But hell yeah leonal form
dining now
 
@KRyan -- so, just what makes a build a "mailman"? is it just reliable damage delivery, or is there something more to it? (heard that term a couple of times on IRC and was curious)
 
@Shalvenay the definition of a mailman build is one that does direct damage in such a way that they can just-about-guarantee that they will kill at least one thing of their choice every single round they wish to do so
as such, touch-attack, no-save spells that deal an unresistable sort of damage in sufficient quantities is the typical approach
 
7:02 PM
@KRyan got it, thx
 
 
3 hours later…
9:35 PM
Anyone in here playing [dnd-5e]?
I'd like to discuss the recent question/answer:
18
A: How do hit points work in 5E at low levels?

JavelinHere's an excerpt from the D&D 5e Basic Rules v0.3: Hit Points and Hit Dice At 1st level, your character has 1 Hit Die, and the die type is determined by your class. You start with hit points equal to the highest roll of that die, as indicated in your class description. (You also add you...

I had a similar experience running a simple adventure for my two children. Mainly my 4 year old, my two year old boy just says "I kill it with my battle axe"!
Anyway, two adventurers at full health vs anything I would normally throw at a party is seriously risking death
Which the section in the DMG that Aramis references confirms, but it still leaves me at a loss for how to design encounters and adventures?
 
10:05 PM
@C.Ross Skip lower levels or go with a Heroes of Hesiod hp system?
 
All the splat transformations for CoD
 
Or possibly a royal family tree.
 
10:28 PM
 
 
1 hour later…
11:43 PM
Alright, putting up Martha Jones for about 12 hours in order to catch up after this weekend.
 

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