TRPG General Chat

12:01 AM

I just don't understand how someone could struggle so hard just to keep a tag about which system the question is about from being applied

Miniman

@trogdor It looked like a peculiar form of elitism on the part of the querent.

trogdor

yeah, I know it looked like that to me too

but if you feel that way, I have trouble thinking of how you could even stoop to asking someone for help

which is what you are doing if you post a question

Miniman

@trogdor What makes it even weirder is that it's a really basic question. Like, reeeeally basic.

nitsua60

@BESW casualty of lock: it won't let me upvote your comment, containing the most-excellent Be Nice statement I can recall.

BESW

Heh.

trogdor

12:05 AM

@Miniman I sorta skimmed over the details of the question because of all the comment drama

and now it is locked so I can't see it XD

which is fine

Miniman

@trogdor Huh? Lock shouldn't prevent anyone from seeing it.

trogdor

hmm, well it prevented me from seeing it quickly anyway

ah ok

I just had to click something

Asteria

@BESW your 'heh' makes me imagine you're blushing

BESW

@nitsua60 Just another variant on the tired old refrain "You could be a jerk, but why?"

nitsua60

@trogdor new avatar?

trogdor

12:09 AM

I just can't understand the attitude that lets you ask a question and then get so mad when people are trying to help you make it faster an easier for people to answer it,.....

@nitsua60 indeed

I thought you had seen it earlier

nitsua60

@trogdor I've been a little absent recently.

trogdor

mm

no problem, I was just surprised that you had only see/noticed it now

I like it, among other things it is a joke

Apr 14 at 0:32, by BESW

A dramatic re-enactment of Trogdor.

I changed it to this relatively soon after that gem

nitsua60

I remember the starred comment about trogdor being a table-flipping princess, but guess I missed the visual =(

trogdor

lol

yeah, I read back to it a little and you showed up pretty soon after XD

Asteria

@trogdor that end face is rather terrifying

trogdor

12:17 AM

it is

its also hilarious, but I can't make my avatar a gif, so I just used this

I see nothing wrong with comparing myself to a princess, especially if she is being angry, scary, and hilarious all at the same time

5

XD

the comment and accomanying visuals provided by BESW, as well as the context for them, cinched it for me

this avatar is going to amuse me for quite some time

nitsua60

I thought it was the dress cinching it
[groan...]

trogdor

@nitsua60 HAHHHhHHHHHHH

nitsua60

(I may have just ranked up "dad-jokes")

trogdor

you do need to level that up as much as possible

it's your job

BESW

@trogdor ...we should play IAPP at Geek Night some time.

trogdor

12:21 AM

XD

@BESW which one is that?

oh

I'm A Pretty Princess

of course

BESW

For those unfamiliar, I'm a Pretty Princess is an RPG where part of your character generation is picking a colouring-book picture of a princess, which you colour in as you play.

It was part of the inspiration for my Surgadores game.

Adeptus

Surgadores?

Shalvenay

@Miniman yeah -- he really doesn't get why the Stack has tags, and why RPG.se has system tags in particular -- the funniest part is that he probably at least somewhat cheesed off the the one guy on this STack who can give him more answer than he ever asked for

BESW

@Adeptus Surgadores.

3

nitsua60

Surgadores!

(I imagine that like when Norm would walk into the bar during "Cheers!"--any time it's mentioned, we should all chime in.)

Shalvenay

12:27 AM

@Miniman ...or does the querent somehow believe that a system tag will attract non-experts to the question? (i.e. if you can't understand what the question is talking about, you shouldn't be trying to answer, even in the absence of the system tag)

BESW

@Shalvenay Look at his profile blurb, and weep.

nitsua60

Something about the frequency with which the word "querent" comes up here and in meta makes me happy. It's nice to see it getting to stretch its legs.

BESW

@nitsua60 People keep telling me to say "asker" instead.

Makes me feel like I'm writing for Thing Explainer.

trogdor

Surgadores was fun

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah -- he doesn't understand just how deep some rabbit holes go. he ought to see some of the back and forths I've gotten into on DIY.se answering electrical questions over there

nitsua60

12:29 AM

Surgadores!

Miniman

@BESW I often wish I could upvote profiles, but this is the first time I've wanted to downvote one.

nitsua60

this ^^

Miniman

Actually, maybe the second time - I forgot about one.

Shalvenay

@Miniman heh. this is actually not hte first time I've seen such elitism on a Stack before though

BESW

@Miniman I try to make my profile the profile I'd like to see elsewhere.

Asteria

12:31 AM

@BESW 90% sure suredores is the best thing ever

Miniman

Please don't star that - even if it's arguably justified, it doesn't fit Be Nice at all.

trogdor

@Asteria it still needs a little work, but otherwise I agree with you XD

BESW

@Asteria Thanks. And yeah, it's in very early beta.

trogdor

3 people in our group, including me, played it, and it was great

BESW

Any suggestions, please leave as comments. And playtesting feedback is welcome.

trogdor

12:34 AM

you have already received mine XD

it's short, but that in itself is fine, the only actual issue seems to be a lack of encouragement within the mechanics of risky choice making

and I still love it anyway XD

doppelgreener

@BESW I'm going to deliberately start saying querent to help it be a normal thing

@BESW he'll either learn a thing or two or leave. I like the solidity of our moderation here.

BESW

I'm a little dismayed at the storm of downvoting.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener yeah -- he'll either learn to back off from his elitist attitude, write very good questions, or leave

trogdor

@BESW it isn't perfect, but we can't just make people not downvote stuff

nitsua60

@BESW because of the apparent conflation of question with querent, you mean?

trogdor

12:40 AM

I mean, if someone refuses outright to do even the smallest thing to make their post better,.....

BESW

@nitsua60 Yeah

nitsua60

time will out

BESW

Downvotes shouldn't be used as punishments.

doppelgreener

@BESW He had a question that needed clarification and he was being a jerk about it. Makes sense to me. Heavy downvoting on a question suggests "we don't want this here", and we don't want what it was.

nitsua60

(i.e. the next hundred ppl to read it probably won't look at the revision history, and "normal" voting will resume.)

trogdor

12:41 AM

@BESW no I agree with you, but how do we outright stop people from using them that way?

doppelgreener

It's the typical adage: if someone doesn't want to listen to you and improve their material you find lacking, downvote and move on.

BESW

Oh, I don't think we can, or even should, actively obstruct peoples' voting choices.. Doesn't make me happy when votes are used that way; we've got other mechanics for it.

@Asteria What, specifically, pleases you about Surgadores?

doppelgreener

I don't think downvotes were used as punishment here. They were used to exorcise unwanted site material.

trogdor

@BESW lol, I would think at least one thing is the outrageously awesome concept

XD

nitsua60

@trogdor I found Tuggy's answer here useful, personally.

doppelgreener

12:43 AM

A question that needs clarification, where the author is refusing clarification with hostility, is not desired site material. We downvote it as low quality and move on.

nitsua60

@trogdor any chance of finding the artist of the sculpture and co-crediting them with concept?

trogdor

@nitsua60 that Tuggy, I admire his work ethic,

BESW

@doppelgreener Right, and this downvote is totally unrelated to the answerer's question drama. I'd like to be that hopeful.

trogdor

he seems to be the top person looking at review questions, at the very least

nitsua60

@trogdor he occupies a rather unfortunate--and undeserved--place in my head-canon: "looks a lot like a really annoying suite-mate from college."

Miniman

12:45 AM

@BESW That downvote is mine, and it's based purely on Good Subjective Bad Subjective.

doppelgreener

@BESW oh, okay. Yeah if people are downvoting his other stuff that's quite possibly jerk punishment. Fair objection.

Miniman

(Which I should explain, but I don't feel like getting into an argument in comments right now.)

trogdor

@nitsua60 lol, I just see him EVERY TIME I try to actually look at review questions as the top guy, and often as the last guy who just finished up the que

so mad respect XD

BESW

@nitsua60 I did track it down, and it'll get cited in any final form of the game that gets produced.

nitsua60

@BESW cool=)

trogdor

12:49 AM

@nitsua60 I don't know why you asked that to me rather than BESW XD

nitsua60

@trogdor [looks around nervously] uhh... "Surgadores!"

trogdor

lol

I will accept this answer

nitsua60

=D
anyone got five minutes for a quick brainstorm? (This one actually is quick)

trogdor

graciously, with the poise of a princess (I will just flip some tables over)

@nitsua60 sure, what is it about?

Grubermensch

@waxeagle FYI my AP is doing the blinky light thing that means it's downloading new firmware. At some point in the next half hour I'm going to drop offline for < 5 minutes with no warning.

nitsua60

12:52 AM

Looking for classic Western scenarios. Like "find the cattle raiders" or "someone's trying to drive Widow McGreary off her land" or "waylay the stagecoach"

(or "guard the stagecoach")

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Grubermensch that sounds fun

BESW

Friendly game gets out of control because of bad blood or a sore loser.

Stampede!

nitsua60

like "table-flipping at the saloon"?

BESW

Yeah.

trogdor

lol

Shalvenay

12:54 AM

@BESW talk about something we know all too well....

BESW

Road's out. You gotta clear it, or find a way around it.

trogdor

they were probably playing canasta

Shalvenay

@BESW ...tornado?

nitsua60

@BESW like it

Shalvenay

(sorry, we just had one touch down in town yesterday)

Grubermensch

12:55 AM

I'm on the wireless-puppyfood build, which unfortunately means my upgrade schedule is at the whim of the wireless team lead. Unlike other builds where you get to schedule updates weeks in advance.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay yeesh

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 EF1 so no biggie

trogdor

train robbery?

Shalvenay

@trogdor washaway?

BESW

Too many new immigrants for the town to sustain.

nitsua60

12:56 AM

@BESW so what do the protagonists do in this situation?

BESW

All sorts of problems to solve, none of them easy: supply and housing shortages, competition for jobs, race/class tensions...

@KMallory Hi!

Grubermensch

Aaaaand I'm back

KMallory

@BESW Hello

Grubermensch

Guess that wasn't so bad

BESW

@nitsua60 So, keep the peace, try to find new resources, put feuds to rest so they won't come back...

nitsua60

12:58 AM

[jotting] yup

trogdor

@Grubermensch doesn't seem like it cut you off too long

:)

BESW

Deal with price fixing and the like.

Hmm.

Somebody's unhappy with a service they paid for, and is looking for disproportionate retribution.

Grubermensch

@trogdor last time it upgraded we broke mesh networking and I was down for two hours until I switched to a more stable build.

Joshua Aslan Smith

heh

BESW

@KMallory What's new?

Also [wave] @PurpleMonkey!

trogdor

12:59 AM

@Grubermensch wow,... why the heck would it have that effect? that seems really excessive

BESW

@nitsua60 BTW, the frieze is by Julian Hoke Harris, and it's on the Fulton County Dept. of Health and Wellness building in Atlanta, Georgia.

2

Grubermensch

Well it took me a while to figure out what the problem was. And then I had to switch the config to get a different build. And then the APs had to upgrade in waves, because the mesh nodes didn't have internet connectivity while their neighbors were broken.

BESW

The other side of the building has this.

wax eagle

@Grubermensch @KMallory @JoshuaAslanSmith @Shalvenay hangouts.google.com/call/jp6bihsvqbconotilfruag2kkye

Grubermensch

@trogdor But this means our customers didn't get to have this problem.

trogdor

1:02 AM

nice upside I guess

Miniman

@nitsua60 Honestly, just watch Firefly and steal whatever seems relevant.

trogdor

lol

nitsua60

@BESW [considers editing WP's Harris entry to include mention that his frieze at the Dept. of Health inspired the "wildly popular micro-RPG phenomenon of April 2016, Surgadores."]

BESW

@nitsua60 ...probably wait 'til it's out of beta.

trogdor

@Miniman but I assume his setting isn't space cowboys

Miniman

1:04 AM

@trogdor Yeah, but most of the stories aren't especially rooted in the sci-fi setting, and the western theme runs true throughout.

nitsua60

@Miniman true, though I've also been flashing back to childhood memories of Zorro movies =)

trogdor

@nitsua60 that would be hilarious, but also quite trolltastic and probably disruptive XD

BESW

@nitsua60 Oh, man, what about the original Wild Wild West TV show?

nitsua60

@trogdor Bronze Age alpine nomads, but the players requested stories in the style of Western, so they will get what they ask for =)

trogdor

@Miniman this is true, but he would still need to un sci fi the stuff

Miniman

1:05 AM

@trogdor Oh, absolutely. Just suggesting it as a source of ideas.

trogdor

mhmm and I think it works as one

nitsua60

Not hard to do--westerns seem to transplant really well.

trogdor

so no train robberies

BESW

@nitsua60 See also: samurai films.

trogdor

ooh yeah

I hadn't even thought of that

nitsua60

1:07 AM

@trogdor no, but "yak-caravan robbery" has so many interesting parts to play off of =)

trogdor

a lot of those work

@nitsua60 fair enough

nitsua60

and they're sooo cute =)

BESW

@nitsua60 Now I'm thinking about the famous lost Doctor Who serial "Macro Polo."

Grubermensch

@waxeagle My AP 'sploded. Trying to un'splode it now. Hopefully back soon.

BESW

(Marco Polo steals the TARDIS to give as a gift to Kublai Khan, and the main characters tag along as part of his caravan while somebody in the caravan keeps trying to sabotage it.)

nitsua60

1:12 AM

hmm... sabotage =)

trogdor

what a wonderful word for such a horribly delightful thing

XD

Adeptus

@BESW "Macro Polo" - featuring an extreme close-up photo of a collared t-shirt. Or of a sport played with mallets from horseback.

doppelgreener

@BESW any word on what that signifies?

BESW

@doppelgreener I have no idea.

nitsua60

you know, I've only been at one polo match in my life... those fields are [snip] HUGE! I think all terran polo is macro polo.

(Or maybe it's just the sizes of the fields and horses in Wyoming? Either way, "macro polo" it now is, forevermore.)

doppelgreener

1:17 AM

@BESW Reddit says it's the goddess of health holding back old age.

BESW

Does Reddit cite its sources?

nitsua60

@BESW [tentatively thinks of what game would have developed from this...]

dieting and exercise?

doppelgreener

@BESW Reddit citeth note a thinge

BESW

Then Reddit can leave that for a game of toy soldiers.

trogdor

lol

nitsua60

1:24 AM

Bvt now will I fhew you of the Rule of Fellowfhip or Company, which hath fundry operations, according to the divers number of the Company. This Rule is fometime without difference of time, and fometimes there is in it difference of time.
[RPGSE Chat Constitution's Preamble]

(actually, it's from a 1542 treatise on the formation of international trade partnerships)

BESW

...I probably would've gone with the Great Law of Peace.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 are those f's or medial ses?

BESW

> If any man or any nation outside the Stack Exchange shall obey the policies of the Meta Site and make known their disposition to the Subjects On Topic, they may trace the Roots to the Tree and if their minds are clean and they are obedient and promise to obey the wishes of the Stack Overlords, they shall be welcomed to take shelter with the Tree of the Quality Content.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener they should have been the medial s, but I'm inarticulate outside of the characters I see printed on my keyboard

BESW

> We place at the top of the Tree of the Quality Content an Eagle who is able to see afar. If he sees in the distance any argument approaching or any troll threatening he will at once flag for the people of the Exchange.

Purple Monkey

1:31 AM

@BESW Hello!

BESW

@PurpleMonkey Yawp! What's new?

Grubermensch

@waxeagle AP rebooting... again...

doppelgreener

@BESW question, is this eagle allowed to come down periodically, and how do we feed it? May he feed on the trolls?

Adeptus

@doppelgreener Fascinating. I hadn't realised that the German "ß" is basically just a linked "ſs"

doppelgreener

@Adeptus that makes a lot of sense.

nitsua60

1:32 AM

@doppelgreener feeds on comment-upvotes

BESW

@doppelgreener Probably? The Great Law of Peace has a lot of text dedicated to food.

Asteria

@BESW I love the idea of it, it seems like a one session easy-to-laugh at game. It seems like it would be really amusing to play with a couple of mates. But mostly I love the idea of little Lucha libre surgeons.

trogdor

little?

BESW

@Asteria Thanks, that helps me understand the appeal.

nitsua60

For those who like news stories featuring really large numbers, here's your look at the prospects of the Hundred Trillion Dollar Bill.

BESW

1:44 AM

Those are some ridiculously big numbers.

Miniman

Yeah, I knew about Zimbabwe's inflation problem, but I hadn't realised it was this ridiculous.

nitsua60

Of course, they're nothing compared to this $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lawsuit.

(that's USD, not Z-D. Not that it much matters at this point, really.)

Miniman

@nitsua60 what-if.xkcd.com/96

nitsua60

yup--that was my discovery path to Lowering the Bar.

BESW

> Okay, it’s a lot more fun to call it “two octillion gigadollars,” as confirmed by an ongoing experiment in which I say that out loud in my office and then laugh at it.

3

nitsua60

1:48 AM

@Miniman "The Earth's crust contains a bunch of atoms [citation needed]" really is a stand-out line in that one.

Miniman

@nitsua60 It never ceases to amaze me just how funny a single [citation needed] can be.

nitsua60

I have been tempted to buy the stickers....

Adeptus

(this has inspired real-world protest signs)

nitsua60

night, all

Asteria

@nitsua60 sleep well

BESW

2:04 AM

ttfn

trogdor

night

wax eagle

2:24 AM

@Grubermensch my PC lost its net connection. Trying to restore

Grubermensch

@waxeagle And now my AP is rebooting again

wax eagle

:(

Shalvenay

2:43 AM

@waxeagle goshdarnit, did that wraith that Parsaunak turn run off with your interwebs?

wax eagle

I think he must have :(

apparently I'm back, just need hangouts to realize it

trogdor

huh

Joshua Aslan Smith

@KMallory oh mang you dropped

@KMallory kill it again KILL IT WITH FIRE

wax eagle

@trogdor hiya trogs, sorry my normal Thursday night game has been a den of internet connectivity issues tonight

so we've been commiserating

trogdor

@waxeagle yeah it is bonkers, one of you reconnects only for someone else to drop :(

I hope it doesn't ruin your session

wax eagle

2:56 AM

it's not been too bad. it was worse 2 weeks ago when my connection was garbage and I couldn't get roll20 to load :(

trogdor

that certainly sounds like a double whammy

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle we await your treasure monolog

wax eagle

Rebooting modem, hopefully back in a min

Joshua Aslan Smith

hokay dokey

wax eagle

3:13 AM

No dice. Monologue will be delayed. I have a commitment next week Thurs night, tell guys 2 weeks from tonight for the treasure monologues :)

Grubermensch

@waxeagle aw too bad. thanks for running the session

Joshua Aslan Smith

aight see ya

wax eagle

Thanks for hanging and bearing with despite the myriad tech issues

BESW

6:03 AM

Hey, chat, can you help me find art fitting the concept of a solarpunk New York?

Adeptus

6:15 AM

@BESW vegetalcity.net/en ?

There's a lot for Paris

BESW

Hmm. That's definitely hitting close to the mark.

Doomed Mind

6:31 AM

mornin'

eimyr

8:12 AM

@Anaphory quite well, thank you. I managed to do reasonably well on the work part and now I'm on to do some sightseeing for about a week with my GF who joined me yesterday.

BESW

@eimyr yey!

eimyr

:D

Ahriman

8:34 AM

[happy dance]

Doomed Mind

@Ahriman special occasion?

Ahriman

no

just trying to spice up the chat

also spamming developpers with annoying questions

BESW

Numfar! Dance the dance of spiced-up chatting!

trogdor

but I don't know which one that is

unless its the same one :P

BESW

10:23 AM

I was just reading Achtung! Cthulhu, and noticed that its concept of a sanity-challenging experience is very different from, say, Cthulhu Dark: while CD is pretty open about anything disturbing being a potential breaking event, A!C is explicit that only a truly horrific or unnatural experience can unravel one's mind. I like both approaches, and suspect each game's choice has more to do with the expected length of the campaigns than any ethos of horror.

@eimyr Do you think Lovecraftesque has an opinion on this? [gestures up]

trogdor

I was always funny/fun when one of us lost sanity to something that was not quite completely horrific or even necessarily supernatural

at least in my opinion

I suppose it could also work if you save sanity checks for the actual cuthulian horrors themselves

Wibbs

10:42 AM

what markup do I need to use to make writing smaller for things like 'notes' at the bottom of an answer?

BESW

Find something by SSD which does that and check what he does?

doppelgreener

@Wibbs like little footnotes?

Wibbs

lol

@doppelgreener yep

doppelgreener

> The paragraph where you're citing something1 will have little numbers like that.

1. At the end of your post you include little text like this.

Wibbs

Goddam, Savage Worlds has only a few places where rules wording is fiddly, but the automatic weapons rules are one of them

@doppelgreener Thanks

doppelgreener

11:07 AM

( will also work. sup/sub are for superscript/subscript.)

doppelgreener

12:10 PM

... An answer just got an upvote in the seconds between me opening the page and clicking the vote count to see how it'd been voted on.

BESW

@doppelgreener The Stack must be hopping tonight.

It's Friday, folks are still at work but they're gearing up for their weekend games.

trogdor

mm

seems legit

doppelgreener

> Dead Whale Necromancy: Science Won’t Save You Now (-- this tweet in the chain)

BESW

I like my planets the same way I like my men… cold and lifeless, but showing signs of possible activity in the past.

Tweeted by SarcasticRover on April 29, 2016 at 3:45 AM

eimyr

6:46 PM

@besw I think it does and says that during the game there are many horrors but mostly not obviously supernatural. If you pay a card, then you can open the super-n box early, but the first clearly out of this world experience should indeed be the last scene, aptly named The Final Horror.

BESW

8:53 PM

@nitsua60 Hail!

The Fate SRD will relaunch with all the new Evil Hat content in about two weeks.