TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

00:22

@Miniman too bad the sorceror-prince can't cast Contingency on the Extended Disguise Self.

He could easily just have the material component be "oh, that's the standard gift you have to bring these people. They're such narcissists!"

Miniman

@nitsua60 Honestly, I'm not sure how necessary all of this is. I mean, he's a Dragonborn Sorcerer, so his Charisma should be pretty damn good - if he ever lets his disguise slip he can probably just pass his true appearance off as an illusion or something.

T.J.L.

@Adeptus And works well.

Miniman

@nitsua60 The querent just seems really paranoid, which is weird given that they're the GM.

nitsua60

True, it's got a bit of a "...hrrrrm, what exactly is the problem?" situation going on. Problem: everyone wants to be a beautiful, unique snowflake and they want the setting to somehow make sense.

BESW

00:48

@nitsua60 I suspect the underlying motive is, "I have a cool bit of worldbuilding that I want to surprise my players with." If that's a problem, it's in wanting the world to be cooler than the protagonists.

nitsua60

As usual, BESW, MD immediately diagnoses the querent's syndrome with Sherlockian insight =)

BESW

Putting a cool thing in your world is a LOT easier than putting a cool surprise in your world. When the surprise is external to the PCs AND requires subverting PC competency to control when it's revealed (rather than relying on PC competency to reveal it), this risks de-protagonising the PCs and prioritising the GM's worldbuilding over the players' agency.

(Notice, for example, that the querent is concerned about having the prince's hat knocked off. That tells me he's heavily invested in controlling the moment of surprise. It also tells me he's never heard of a hatpin.)

Miniman

@BESW Giving the benefit of the doubt, the desire to model it fully in the rules rather than being a GM and saying "He has a permanent magical disguise" suggests that he's at least ok with giving players a chance to discover it themselves by being competent.

BESW

> Everything has to fit within the official rules rather than be homebrew, partly because I'm not confident of my ability to construct a homebrew that isn't broken and partly for OCD-ish reasons.

I'm really not sure how to read that.

Miniman

@BESW Incidentally, command word activation isn't a thing in this edition.

BESW

00:59

But mostly it seems based on general design principles rather than a choice specific to this context.

Oh, I missed the edition.

[deletes]

Miniman

I'm not quite sure how to add hatpins to the answer, though.

BESW

@Miniman Done.

Miniman

@BESW Nice.

I'm tempted to add something about Crohn's disease, but I think I'll leave it out.

Shalvenay

hey @nitsua60

BESW

@Miniman This is one of those cases where practical realism butts heads sharply with cure disease.

nitsua60

01:05

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

Miniman

@BESW Oh yeah, good point.

BESW

Although a point could be made for overuse of healing spells to create magic-resistant diseases, not unlike antibiotic-resistant superbacteria.

Shalvenay

@BESW hahahaha XD

BESW

Maybe vampirism and lycanthropy are just particularly virulent strains of staph infection.

Miniman

01:09

@BESW Except the way diseases work in D&D doesn't really allow for evolution.

BESW

@Miniman Who said anything about evolution? Obviously an evil wizard did it.

4

user20683

Those familiar with Numenera, how tricky would adapting it to run Star Trek be?

BESW

"My plan to infect the royal family with measles was foiled once, but never again!"

Miniman

"Cannot be cured by spells that normally cure diseases, even if those spells state that they can cure diseases that state that they can't be cured by spells that cure diseases."

The game of walls and ladders becomes ridiculous very quickly when it's played with RAW.

Shalvenay

@Miniman yah.

RAW is no place for an arms race

T.J.L.

01:13

Vampirism is a disease in some settings, like Shadowrun. :)

Miniman

"This spell can cure any disease, including diseases which state that they cannot be cured by spells that cure diseases that cannot be cured by spells."

BESW

> Mummy rot is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell on a creature afflicted with mummy rot must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check, or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.
To eliminate mummy rot, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the mummy rot can be magically cured as any normal disease.

Shalvenay

@BESW NOT THE MUMMY ROT!!!

BESW

> A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher also cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the lycanthrope’s attack.
The only other way to remove the affliction is to cast remove curse or break enchantment on the character during one of the three days of the full moon. After receiving the spell, the character must succeed on a DC 20 Will save to break the curse (the caster knows if the spell works). If the save fails, the process must be repeated.

Shalvenay

@BESW I wonder what'd happen if you put a lycanthrope on the moon. :P

werejeb? :P

BESW

01:17

Man-Wolf.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay sorry, afk a moment. A kid had a question about solving cubics and I had to (internally) debate dragging Viete into his life.

Miniman

01:32

@nitsua60 That might be overkill.

nitsua60

that's what they're paying for =)

Second-greatest trick in mathematics: "don't know how to solve it? No problem! Make it look like something you do know how to solve."

Miniman

@nitsua60 Wait, what do you consider the greatest trick?

nitsua60

"Don't know how to solve it? Assume you do! (Then work back to discover what your assumption actually was.)"

e.g. the first line of this.

(hmm... oneboxing doesn't respect internal links...)

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's true, but internal links are so fundamentally bizarre that I can't call it a failure on the part of oneboxing.

BESW

#no#.

nitsua60

01:39

Note the structure: "obtain by supposing that blah blah math math and solving for the constants."

Miniman

I'm still pretty fond of "Assume that it works. Now prove that it works using your assumption as unshakeable truth."

nitsua60

so are my students =\

Miniman

@nitsua60 I meant proof by induction, but I can see how it wasn't obvious.

nitsua60

ahh... gotcha

Yes, I'm also an inductive fan.

(In that once I start spewing out hot air it just keeps pushing the hot air in front of it, ad infinitum)

Miniman

I just love that you get to treat your assumption as a fundamental law of the universe in order to prove itself true.

nitsua60

01:42

My students, though, hate it. Mostly because I've spent the better part of a year beating circular reasoning out of them, pointing out places where they're implicitly assuming their result...

then I write it right up there, in big, bold marker: "assume P(k) is true."

"No, really, kids. It's okay to do it this way."

BESW

It's a source of constant wonder that math is structurally prescriptive, yet works so well at descriptive work.

Miniman

Yeah, it's one of those things that is really difficult to wrap your head around, and really easy to think you've wrapped your head around while actually having it completely wrong.

BESW

(I love math best when it's clear how poking it with a stick turns it into philosophy.)

nitsua60

I have a friend at work who's been giving himself a decent education in mathematics as a side-hobby. One day he asked me why induction only works on natural numbers and things that behave "like" the natural numbers.
It was fun watching his head explode when I answered: "because the natural numbers are actually defined, fundamentally, as the set of things upon which induction works."

BOOM!

Miniman

Yeah, Church numerals blew my head open, too.

BESW

01:46

@nitsua60 I once watched a SCUBA instructor explain force equations to a maths teacher.

It was not a calm, orderly procedure.

nitsua60

@BESW in what manner?

BESW

The SCUBA instructor was trying to give context for understanding pressure effects.

The maths teacher asked, "What's force?"

She would've been fine with "Force is defined as mass times acceleration," but the SCUBA instructor, coming from a descriptive rather than prescriptive school of science, couldn't give that answer.

So he kept trying to describe the qualities of force.

nitsua60

That's...
actually, better than I'd feared. I'd feared one of those math teachers who'd been wrangled into teaching physics because they can parse algebra and after many years has come to believe they understand something.

BESW

No, the instructor was coming from a biology background.

So their schema for physics (biology vs maths) were almost incoherent to each other.

nitsua60

I can see that being a very frustrating experience for both.

BESW

01:52

...some years later, I watched the SCUBA instructor nearly implode when the maths teacher (who'd been looking into physics a lot in the meantime) explained that electrons are imaginary.

nitsua60

...aaaaand there we have it, folks.

BESW

Well, that's a sensationalist way to put it.

nitsua60

I have a friend who is an absolute genius for recognizing the mental frame of other people. My jaw often drops as I watch him pick exactly the perfect three words to turn on someone else's light bulb.

BESW

@nitsua60 Basically the instructor was having a really hard time wrapping his head around the idea that subatomic particles are simply the best models we have for explaining the effects we observe.

@nitsua60 I aspire to this.

nitsua60

The effect I observe is that every time we build a better generation of accelerators, we observe a whole new structural level to the Universe. I'm pretty sure the Creator's a worldbuilder just like us: only making things up as the players start to look at them =)

BESW

01:58

@nitsua60 ...are you saying that the classical elements were okapi butts?

nitsua60

Your'e certainly on that track, from my observations. (You may actually have surpassed him, for all I know, IRL.)

BESW

Pretty sure not.

I have some ability in understanding where people are coming from, but the "finding the right words for them" bit is a lot slower in coming.

nitsua60

Certainly there are few in here who quickly and incisively see to the heart of a gaming/social/personal matter like you do. And speak up. And do so in a way that can be received constructively by the target.

BESW

Thanks. I try to demystify the process and share it with others whenever possible; it's not an inborn talent reserved for an elite few.

nitsua60

afk a bit--commuting home

BESW

02:08

AFK a bit myself.

Joel Harmon

It often helps me to ask myself what kind of mental model the other person might have that would cause them to make some statement

that, or noticing when two people are using the same words to mean different things, or different words to mean the same thing

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon that only goes so far though -- I find myself in situations where I can tell myself what kind of mental model they have, but at the same time cannot work with it due to contradiction issues

Joel Harmon

Sure, but being able to articulate their model, even internally, helps me diff them

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon and that isn't helpful when those differences are fractal and fundamental

Joel Harmon

I suppose that depends on what you consider helpful. Convincing the other guy to your view point, or adopting his, very often isn't the goal. It's helping him understand your mental model.

Shalvenay

02:15

@JoelHarmon most of the problems I've dealt with come from play according to my mental model breaking play according to theirs.....(as in, the two mental models clash in ways that keep them from interoperating at the same table)

Joel Harmon

sure

my definition of success in that situation is twofold: 1. both people end up having fun playing RPGs, and 2. both people remain friends and respect eachother

the worst case there is player A wondering why B keeps messing up combat situations, and B wondering why A keeps trivializing the social ones

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon yeah -- and I find myself playing RPGs as an exercise in academic curiosity instead of visceral fun much of the time

BESW

@JoelHarmon Hi! Those are very useful tools you've mentioned.

Joel Harmon

so, you're running social experiments on your friends?

:P

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon in a sense, yes

Joel Harmon

02:20

would you mind expanding on that?

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon basically -- I treat RP like life, as something that's not intended to be emotional.

Joel Harmon

(also, thanks BESW)

BESW

Shalv's RPG experiences are... unusual, both in context and structure, and are complicated by his own personal social situation. It takes a LOT of digital ink to get a grasp on it, so I suggest a conversation on that topic move to the Not A Bar.

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

I'm not a place to unwind after work, but I play one on TV.

1

Shalvenay

@BESW sure thing

Joel Harmon

so, It's a trap!

nitsua60

02:26

@JoelHarmon I'm pretty sure mine looks like {ears -> blender -> mouth -> occasional regret} repeated every few seconds =\

Joel Harmon

I've been there before

doppelgreener

02:46

@BESW do you remember where you told that story about the indecency lawsuit that used a censored version of the jack and jill story in its arguments?

I'm having trouble digging it up

BESW

@doppelgreener Take your pick.

doppelgreener

Huh. "Jack Jill" didn't work but Jack and Jill does.

BESW

The transcript search is picky about phrases.

heathenJesus

03:07

@JoelHarmon Yeah, wayfinding is a pretty key first step. I used to teach science camp classes to young kids (ranging from 6-16, depending on the class)

When it was clear something I was trying to describe wasn't coming across, the most useful next step was invariably "do you know what X is? What about Y? Z? Φ?"

and then once there was a connection, follow that thought

it's something that's proved an immensely useful tool/skill

way easier and less frustrating to spend 2 minutes trying to find anything you can connect to (or as Venkatesh Rao would say, a familiar analogy you can stretch) in order to have some familiar basis to work from

rather than spend ∞ time trying to re-describe the same thing (which just frustrates everyone involved)

Joel Harmon

@heathenJesus alternately, in a one-on-one situation, ask them to explain it to you, and find their mental model that way

heathenJesus

true! if they can articulate it, at any rate

Asteria

Quick question for anyone thats around and 5e clever?

heathenJesus

but what they CAN articulate is often enough to go on (though you need to avoid the trap of familiar words used incorrectly... red herrings!)

Shalvenay

@Asteria just ask your question :P

Asteria

03:22

@Shalvenay I like to check :P last time there was only 3.5 players in chat ^_^

If I don't have armour prof and I don't start with any armour, how do I get my armour class?

Miniman

@Asteria What class are you?

Asteria

@Miniman Wizard

Miniman

@Asteria Mage armour + high Dex is usual.

Joel Harmon

baseline is 10 + your dex mod

nitsua60

@Asteria are you asking how to calculate it, or how to get a good AC?

(calculate your AC, that is)

Asteria

03:26

@nitsua60 calculate
I've been told "you need a character by tonight" and I'm at work, so I don't have access to the book

nitsua60

AC is what the chart reads, whether proficient or not.

Miniman

@Asteria Then yeah, 10 + Dex mod unarmoured, 13 + Dex mod with Mage Armour (Which I highly recommend).

nitsua60

Being non-proficient will disadvantage a bunch of checks and nullify spellcasting. (Which you likely don't want to do, so listen to @Miniman.)

BESW

afk a bit

nitsua60

I'll be off to bed soon, so ttfn!

Asteria

03:28

Alright, cool. Thanks guys

Night @nitsua60 :)

nitsua60

@Asteria Have fun at the game--hope the character works out nicely.

Shalvenay

of course, there's the old mountain dwarf wizard trick. xD

Asteria

@nitsua60 hoping so too ^_^

@Shalvenay nah we have restricted races, so I chose elf

Shalvenay

@Asteria ah.

Adeptus

@Asteria Basic rules are available online or as PDF. Ditto for SRD.

And there's this index of free 5e content that I put together

Asteria

03:48

@Adeptus unfortunately I'm at work so I can't download anything.

BESW

03:58

Hey, folks. Anybody got resources for non-horror ghost-focused adventures?

I'm particularly looking for scenarios where the haunting isn't the antagonist.

Spoileriffic link to my thoughts thus far toward designing this adventure.

Asteria

@BESW well it sounds pretty interesting so far

BESW

It's mostly general speculation toward an idea right now, but I think it's got potential.

If you have any ideas/suggestions, please share them in the Spoil-Lair.

Adeptus

04:15

@Asteria OK. 5esrd and Basic rules online may be useful

BESW

04:37

Anybody here have experience with Sphinx?

Asteria

@Adeptus thanks a ton, thats super useful

Sejanus

05:03

morning o/

Asteria

@Sejanus evening

Adeptus

05:18

afternoon

hm... Chrome has stopped showing the URL of links when I mouse-over

Asteria

@Adeptus Chrome says it's time to plaaaaay "Click roulette!". Is it a virus? NSFW? Who knows!

trogdor

06:46

@BESW I have not read the spoilery stuff,... but something you mentioned as an idea to me has led me to thinking of something eerily similar to this

....

BESW

@trogdor Go on.

trogdor

well, for context, because I am sure you probably don't know exactly what I am talking about, you mentioned that I should try some problem to solve in my first session in my mulitple session arc idea

and one of the things you mentioned was a possible haunting or something

so I ran with that idea a little, and I didn't settle on anything in particular, but one idea I had was some kind of mischievous magically talented kid trying to trick everyone into thinking there was an actual haunting, and then it turning out something was actually wrong when said kid gets caught, it just wasn't a haunting, or at least wasn't the one everyone thought it was

the idea was, the kid would be a problem just because of the distraction value, but a real problem does also exist that may or may not be a haunting

that is about as far as I have gotten with that particular idea

BESW

That's not dissimilar to a Dresden Files plot I once had.

But my current plan won't step on any toes of your idea if you choose to use it later.

Might even reinforce it.

trogdor

fine with me

it might be the best idea I currently have for that scenario, or at least the one I like the best right now

eimyr

08:12

blgrhf

Magician

...dammit. Now I want to do a bunch of tables for random island generation. Hrm. Not even sure I can.

eimyr

random island generation?

Cool stuff.

What features would you think to include?

Magician

This is for the Sunless Sea adaptation, specifically for random exploration of a blank map. So starting with the question of is there even an island at all.

eimyr

And why couldn't you create those tables? Is there some systemic obstacle or is it more of a confidence/ability challenge?

Magician

So likely 3 or so tables. First is geographical features. Large island, archipelago, reef, uninhabited rock, whirlpool, empty waters.

Just not sure there's enough interesting stuff I can put into it to justify actually having tables.

Only one way to find out.

BESW

08:20

4dF: each - provides a challenge/obstacle/danger, each + provides a resource/ally/asset. Any blank die means there's no island, so the asset/danger is located on a ship or other non-island context.

Magician

Yup, that's the easy-ish solution, may yet go with it.

BESW

Publications like Umdaar suggest that completionist tables like Eclipse Phase's aren't the way to go.

Broader strokes are more appropriate.

eimyr

@BESW Do you honestly believe you can discourage @Magician by comparing his efforts to Eclipse Phase?

BESW

@eimyr Shhh. You'll ruin my brilliant reverse psychology.

doppelgreener

I despise huge random result tables personally.

They are almost universally full of terrible and/or boring results because someone decided it needed to be bigger than the number of good ideas they had.

eimyr

08:32

@doppelgreener ...and sometimes you get Moon Moon

doppelgreener

I agree that broad brush strokes are necessary and good, and cut down on the volume to just give me good stuff, and give me a constraint within which I can be very creative. (As the observation goes, creativity is inversely proportional to constraints. I find that holds true.)

BESW

@eimyr ...deadEarth Moon Moon must be a sight to behold.

eimyr

I once read one guy attempt to create a deadEarth character

Magician

@BESW "You died from... Your corpse exploding."

eimyr

after char #5 he gave up and I was in tears

BESW

08:37

@eimyr We have a room for rolling deadEarth characters.

eimyr

Also, I'm running my Great Ork Gods today.

BESW

We never play, we just roll characters and ~~laugh~~ cry.

Magician

It is a time-honored spectator sport.

eimyr

Do you know if there are any character sheets around?

BESW

@eimyr For Great Ork Gods?

We just use index cards.

eimyr

08:39

Goblin Quest has the advantage of having drawing bits and spaces to fill in

I think GoG creation will be significantly less exciting

Magician

@eimyr Have you played it?

eimyr

Not yet

doppelgreener

@eimyr whoa. Where can I read about this?

BESW

@doppelgreener I suspect it's the one we've read.

eimyr

btw, I'm using these images printed out to keep track of goblins the-nextlevel.com/media/360/overlord-2/…

Magician

08:40

I've played it once so far, even wrote a review. Will be "running" it tomorrow with my parents, which'll be interesting.

eimyr

@doppelgreener Goblin Quest? gshowitt.itch.io/goblin-quest

doppelgreener

@BESW ive not read anything of this nature.

eimyr

I took BESW's advice and so the Orks will descend upon the Wally The Wizzard Happy Camp of Friendship and Adventure.

Extra Oog for slaying the wizard and smashing the Friendship Totem.

any other summer scout camping tropes I should be aware of besides Koombaya? (however it's spelled)

BESW

@doppelgreener I'm trying to dig up the link but the transcript isn't loading.

Here we go.

Jul 6 '14 at 6:39, by lisardggY

No, I do not recommend deadEarth. I do recommend reading the review and laughing hysterically.

trogdor

@eimyr nice, you should have a lot of fun with that

doppelgreener

08:44

Whee!!

trogdor

as long as everyone knows upfront that it is fun and cool to die randomly,... or not randomly

my very first Ork died by immediately tripping down a hill and hitting several things on the way down

I was amused

if that had happened in most other systems I would have been infuriated, but Great Ork Gods was specifically designed, I think, for you to have fun even if, or because, your latest character just died

BESW

@eimyr Bug juice. Crafts hut. Tug of war. Roped-off swimming area.

eimyr

So, you get Oog for drinking the nastiest bug juice, making an instant Easy/Medium/Hard roll against The Keeper of the Gate.

nice

BESW

Mosquitoes, raccoons, rats, other location-appropriate vermin.

eimyr

A large bonfire

BESW

08:55

Macrame.

@brannagh Hi!

brannagh

@BESW Hello

BESW

I assume you're here on @Ahriman's invitation?

eimyr

@BESW Latrine pits?

Oh, it's the human protection dude! Welcome.

brannagh

Not exactly, just thought I might take a look : 7

BESW

Well, you're welcome to lurk/participate however you like. We range off topic pretty often, but any time someone wants to talk RPGs we'll swing back that way.

I'm not familiar with World of Darkness to be of much immediate help on that question myself, but we've got several experts.

brannagh

08:59

Thanks, will do!

eimyr

When we talk about something stupid, like, say, Boy Scout camp implements, just ask politely that we move it to Not A Bar and we'll do so.

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

I'm not a place to unwind after work, but I play one on TV.

1

Meanwhile, I wouldn't call myself a WoD expert, but I remain a huge fan.

brannagh

Well maybe, you could help me with a more stackexchange-related issue ... I'm not sure how to choose an answer to accept

I mean, technically, I know how

BESW

Hey, we're talking about scout camping tropes to help you with a campaign! Totally on topic.

@brannagh One moment, I think there's a meta link that'll be of help.

eimyr

I usually pick one that I used that helped resolve the issue.

not necessarily the highest scoring one, which is probably what affects your choice too

BESW

Yeah, technically the answer which helped you most is the one to accept. There's no need to accept any answer at all, if none of them were substantially helpful.

eimyr

09:02

@BESW Ziplining!

BESW

There's also this on meta:

2

Q: How to deal with questions that have no best answer?

I've got a few questions where I think the best answer is all of the answers, there's not really one that stands out. Should anything be done to those? or should they simply be left without an accepted answer. Here's 2 of them Can already dead characters be resurrected? How can I make a shapesh...

discussion

5

Q: Multiple Correct Answers

I have had several questions now where multiple answer are correct. It would be nice to mark all the answer that are correct as so and then leave it up to the votes to decided which is the best of the correct ones.

feature-request

3

Q: How to handle an excellent answer to not-quite-my-question?

Still fairly new, need advice on this one: @Jack Lesnie posted a great answer to How do I, as a player, encourage more role-playing in Adventurers League? Unfortunately, I think it's a great answer to the question "How do I, as a player, encourage more role-playing?" As well-written and useful a...

discussion answers

brannagh

Yes, they all contributed in their own way and I'll probably go for a mixture.

The meta links look helpful, thanks!

BESW

Between them, that should help you get a grasp on how we tend to approach the situation.

But it's important to note that there's no policing of accepted answers.

eimyr

Well, there's even a badge you can get for outscoring an accepted answer.

BESW

Whatever you choose to accept or not accept is up to you as the querent. Voting is the groupmind sorting algorithm for overall quality and benefit to the site, while acceptance is a singular input from the original source of the problem about usefulness to him or her alone.

(For the record, I found those meta questions by searching "choose an answer" and grabbing the ones that looked most likely.)

brannagh

09:09

Yes, they're good fits

doppelgreener

09:21

argh!

the italicisation angles!

Magician

@doppelgreener Cease the italicisation!

BESW

@doppelgreener "Italicisation Angels" would be a good name for a band.

doppelgreener

@BESW or song in a typography education album equivalent of the Here Comes Science album by They Might Be Giants.

BESW

The US National Park Service has produced sound maps of existing and natural conditions.

@doppelgreener Hmm. I wonder if anyone's ever made a typography concept album.

Magician

09:41

I'm leaving soon, but here's a rough idea of random island tables. Um. Seems bland.

BESW

I dislike "peacefully coexist" as it suggests very little drama.

Sunless Sea seems like a place that's allergic to peaceful coexistence.

eimyr

Same with "separate"

Magician

It could be made less "default", yeah. But mixed populations aren't all that unusual there.

Guess you're right. The whole point of the table is to offer an interesting starting point.

Gone, but do ping me if something else comes to mind.

doppelgreener

@Magician your two last end tables have ++ in the bottom row, should be --

doppelgreener

10:39

@BESW i have read this now and i enjoyed it. those last two characters are astonishing.

i love deadEarth's cavalier love of making you recalculate 100 skills or more, after you'd made investment in all of them.

eimyr

@doppelgreener I think I should grab a copy of deadEarth and have a character rolling evening at the club sometime

@BESW Which god is responsible for "thinky" actions of Orks? Like a Willpower save in DnD or perhaps a go at a clever action?

BESW

Depends on the context, but often that'd be The Obscurer of Things.

Lying Tongue, Twisting Words is for all social interactions.

doppelgreener

What? Thinking? Orks? Orks don't think, that's an elfy thing. Orks do.

Elves waste all this valuable head-smashing time sitting around like corpses. Up to Orks to show 'em how to get things done, like how to smash elves and burn down their fancy tree villages.

BESW

If you're talking about, say, an Ork being targeted with a mind control spell...

I'm not sure that's a roll at all.

You might encourage them to stunt it from auto-success into allowing a roll.

eimyr

10:57

hmmm

So let's say the Friendship Totem taunts the ork with a motivational message.

How can an ork resist it? Only by stunting, that's right.

BESW

Well, if it's a conversational thing, that's the purview of Lying Tongue, Twisting Words.

eimyr

But at the same time if the ork is trying to notice a sneaky Rogue?

wat do?

the domain of sneakings And Peekings seems to be, well, active part of the process

doppelgreener

@eimyr different rolls.

eimyr

Or perhaps if an ork has to find something specific which tries to evade his attention?

@doppelgreener sure, different rolls, but roll what exactly?

doppelgreener

The totem taunts the Ork. How well it goes depends on how well Lying Tongue, Twisting Words lets it go. Ork tries to look for a sneaky rogue, and appeals to Sneaking and Peekings.

eimyr

11:03

so am I to refer to SaP as the "spatial awareness" god too?

that was a bit unclear

BESW

> Want to creep past that guard? Want to hide in that bush? Want to listen in on that conversation? Then Sneakings and Peekings is the God for you! Appeal to his better side and you might just get lucky.

(bolding is mine)

eimyr

it would be clearer if it said "Want to spot the ambush?"

BESW

"Peekings" wasn't a clue?

eimyr

not a large one

trogdor

well, it's the only god who has anything in the category of sight

doppelgreener

11:06

I think you're reading into this too hard. There's seven gods. If the Ork wants to do something, it's appealing to whichever fits best. That's it.

trogdor

@doppelgreener yeah, this exactly

doppelgreener

The god of sneaking and peeking is the god of anything about spotting things or not being spotted.

BESW

This is not a game of rulemongering or system mastery.

If you're ever in doubt, ask the group to tell you which god is appropriate.

doppelgreener

> What is Great Ork Gods?
Great Ork Gods is a roleplaying game of
rampaging Orks and their malignant Gods. Unlike
many other roleplaying games, Great Ork Gods is
designed to be played for an evening and then
forgotten about. Don’t take it too seriously; it’s not
that kind of a game.

(The beginning of the opening paragraph of the PDF I have.)

BESW

Dragony alieny things. Scroll down to the final pictures. I especially like the one with fins on the side of her face and crystals coming out of her cheekbones.

doppelgreener

11:12

Heck it's even valid to say a Mind Control test is versus That Which Guards the Gate, depending on what you're going for. If he fails he's no longer himself and he might as well be considered a goner. Roll up a new Ork while your buddies are trying to take him down! Maybe if you do it quickly enough you'll be able to get in the final blow yourself!

Also, in the GM advice:

> Great Ork Gods are for Orks Only!
The Great Ork Gods only control the actions of
Orks. They do not control the world outside of the
Orks. Elves do not face That Which Guards The
Gate, nor do they appeal to Slashings and
Slayings. No, what happens in the world is up to
you. Non-player characters hit or miss at your
whim. Only players ever roll against the Great
Ork Gods.

Things happen cause you say they do, the Orks are attempting to deal with the consequences.

trogdor

@BESW the frozen one with wings?

BESW

The one labelled Cat - Frozen, yes.

I'm not seeing wings though.

trogdor

oh, my bad,.. I was mixing two of them up

they labeled at least one thing in a wonky way

BESW

trogdor

yeah, that is the one I meant

doppelgreener

11:22

Tyler's is the one with wings.

trogdor

they labled another one frozen, and I saw it had wings in the smaller (and therefore harder to make out) picture at the bottom

@doppelgreener yeah, and they labeled his frozen too, hence my confusion

BESW

12:06

[gets an upvote on an obscure old answer]

I always wonder what brings people to those little corners of the Stack.

eimyr

google

stack seems to position well if you have an obscure q

BESW

I wonder what someone was searching for, specifically, to get here.

trogdor

huh

that is an odd one

nitsua60

12:44

@BESW It's always fun when you have a day where someone new clearly just discovered you, so a dozen different old answers each get a +1

BESW

@nitsua60 I occasionally get "someone's found the fate tag" days.

Also "Someone's reading Doctor Who questions" on scifi.se.

eimyr

@nitsua60 :( Never happens.

BESW

@eimyr I'm not sure I've ever seen it myself; just the "somebody found a tag" days.

eimyr

That also doesn't happen

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Not a bar, but plays one on TV

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