TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:05

Hey, um. How do I find the largest folders (not files) on a Windows 7 drive?

nitsua60

WinDirStat

Anaphory

Not that I know the answer, but: As in, sum of all files directly in there?

nitsua60

windirstat.info

Gives a tree laid out by size, and a nice visual. Great way to find out where those 15GB you swore were there yesterday went.

Anaphory

What's our typographic and citation convention for tag wiki short lines taken from the title page tagline?

BESW

@nitsua60 Thanks. I've got about 50GB of used space I can't in my directories.

Anaphory

00:07

Can I put “A story game about burning for your belief by Frederik J. Jensen” in montsegur-1244? Or should I give attribution directly in there, or how?

nitsua60

This'll do it.

BESW

Also, my frustration with Windows and the GoG Galaxy client has been partially alleviated by how "WinDirStat" makes me think of "ERMAGERD! WINDURS!"

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon I don't have SCAG, so this one's all yours =)

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 Joke's on you; I've only got core

BESW

00:28

[sigh] Turns out both GoG and Steam have been installing games on the wrong drive.

Sometimes I miss the good old days when I had to type the install folder at the DOS prompt.

Zachiel

@BESW GOG summer sales. I.E. the first free game sits at 5000 XP and the badges only give you 4900, so you need to buy something at least.

The rage.

SevenSidedDie

00:49

@Anaphory Generally tag descriptions here are more about usage than about explaining the thing they're about, doing the latter only enough to support the former. That means punchy, pithy box-copy tends to take a backseat to just writing a plain description from scratch that will explain quickly, rather than intrigue.

BESW

Our current tags don't really do that very well. They should be improved.

Tag wikis are for explaining the tag, not explaining the thing the tag's about.

SevenSidedDie

01:08

@BESW Verily.

BESW

01:29

**[Timely RPGery](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKltjD1HJ954pS3QZZL-E_ckNaKEeedxMKn7XwdFiio/edit?usp=sharing "Click for full source doc; please suggest items to pin!"):**
[BoH](https://bundleofholding.com "Buy RPGs cheap in bulk, support charities & indie designers!");
[playtest Follow](http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/788/follow-needs-playtesters/ "Help playtest Ben Robbins' new game!");
[UScons](http://casualgamerevolution.com/blog/2016/01/2016-tabletop-gaming-conventions-a-comprehensive-list "List of RPG conventions in the US.");

doppelgreener

05:13

@SevenSidedDie Bat! Probably will only work on phones: 🦇

(Doesn't even work on my phone yet!)

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Doesn't work on mine either, but apparently it's already approved as a future emoji!

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie yay!

BESW

06:05

Earth has a mini moon.

Novian

07:23

Man...the feel when one of your players as good as one shots a high level enemy like a solar. best angel i could find pre-epic. goes all the way through its nonlethal and into its lethal.

@BESW Adorable moon meme?

Fibericon

An exalted reference? Details, I need them.

SevenSidedDie

Not quite a moon, but close enough to be really cool! (Orbits are weird things. This one is technically independent of Earth and orbiting in Sol's influence, but with a period and position that makes it accidentally look like it's orbiting us without actually being close enough for Earth's gravity to make it orbit us like that.)

Here's another cool near-earth object doing the same kind of orbital resonance dance, except accidentally not around Earth: 3753 Cruithne

Anaphory

09:21

@SevenSidedDie That makes sense from the labelling of input boxes, but did not fit with my memory of tag wikis I've seen. Maybe I should hunt them down and improve them, then.

@BESW Ah. So I should have read three posts further.

The Oracle

15:09

1

Q: Is there a style guide for posts?

I understand editing questions for clarity, but is there a style guide somewhere for Questions and Answers, detailing things like "These things should be italic, these should be bolded, capitalized these powers but not these in references, etc."? I'd like to have some reference so that I can for...

discussion

Eidolon108

20:56

Heyo @Miniman you had helped me earlier this week on my homebrew class, thought you might wanna look again. I ended up keeping spellcasting, I had a version where I started replacing it ki-points style to power runes but it didn't feel right. If you (or anyone else) feel like looking again and commenting i'd appreciate the advice.

Link to homebrew 5e class: dropbox.com/s/128yxiqjbyw6gk3/…

Nyakouai

Think like optimization can be discussed here? :)

things*

Shalvenay

of course!

Nyakouai

Sweet!

BESW

21:14

@Nyakouai Chat is, by design, much less structured. We might not always be able to help with stuff like optimisation, depending on the system involved, but almost any topic is allowed so long as people can be nice about it.

Nyakouai

@BESW As optimization is forbidden in the question section, I wasn't sure. Though, I already received help a long time ago on a build.

By the way, I have to thank you for the link to Old Man Henderson yesterday. Had a good time reading it

Wibbs

I didn't think it was forbidden - only that questions need to be very focused?

Nyakouai

Well, I don't manage really well the variations and tone of English. Let's just say most of optimization questions related are closed.

BESW

It's not verboten, just really hard to narrow down to fit into the Stack's other guidelines.

Wibbs

there are 390 questions with the optimisation tag :)

BESW

21:19

(In particular, it's usually necessary that the asker has already done some research and work ahead of time. The Stack doesn't really work for idea generation.

Wibbs

indeed

you need to be very clear on what your aims are with optimising

as specific as you can be

Nyakouai

3

A: How can I optimize my ranger?

You can say you're a duelist without being a duelist It's entirely possible that it's the idea of a duelist that's appealing not the what the prestige class duelist actually does. You might be imagining Captain Blood, Robin Hood, or the Dread Pirate Roberts (or Prince Humperdinck who's probably ...

BESW

There are 47 closed optimization questions.

Nyakouai

A link to my (really old post)

I already got an answer, but I know most of the things that are asked for optimization

Anaphory

21:36

Is there a nice online tool, low threshold, to edit and share RPG/narration relationship maps?

low threshold = preferably no login, share a link; then simple OpenID login; anything more effort than giving email and password will encourage me to use inkscape and email?

BESW

Google Docs can do it, clunkily.

I think MS Office 2016 can do it, but with significantly higher threshold.

Anaphory

I think the necessary functionality is text boxes and connectors with variable line styles.

Is that a thing Google Draw can do these days?

BESW

Some of the answers here may be helpful.

Anaphory

(MS Office is not an option, I don't have a Windows accessible.)

BESW

> Google Drawings has all the tools for a representative map (since you're playing DFRPG, I'm assuming you don't need a super-detailed map1 for your city). You can add shapes, lines, text boxes, import images, and free-draw in real-time with your friends.

Sounds like a go for your porpoises.

Anaphory

21:46

Text Boxes ☑ (though big by default); Connectors that keep with elements ☑ Line styles for connectors ☑ – Google Draw it is.

BESW

Another win for the DBEIMOAGR people!

Skathix

I need a way to transfer a curse from one character to another, a player has been roleplaying an asshole and now wants to create a new character, the new character will hunt down the old one and kill him and he'll assume the position in the party

Anaphory

Can put text on a connector ☐

:(

Nyakouai

22:40

@Skathix

Damn, which setup?

Skathix

5e

To be clear, the everyone likes the guy, he just roleplays well lol. His character wasn't liked by the party and he wants to fix that, I have no problem with switching characters out

Nyakouai

What kind of curse it is?

[Grumbling while trying to come out with a solution]

Skathix

Custom Content incoming lol

BESW

I assume 5e's "The GM can just do it" ethos isn't sufficient here?

Aether

Why does the curse need to be transferred, and can "by GM fiat" be a workable solution?

Skathix

22:44

They entered the "Library of Oghma" and burned some books, thus they're cursed

And yeah the group would /probably/ be fine with that

This is more just for me lol

I don't like arguing

"Why?" is a question I don't like not having an answer to

The curse is one that's kind of storyline centric, though they don't know it

Basically I'm slowly turning two characters into a dragon, and one into Lolth

Nyakouai

Can you come up with "He should have done something to be forgiven and the curse to be lifted, but as he has been killed, the grudge isn't settled, thus his killer must be forgiven"?

Skathix

Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking

Transferrance due to the price of the curse not being paid

SevenSidedDie

@Skathix When you answer “why?” by providing an awesome story-based reason for the event, there doesn't need to be either arguments or rule-based justifications.

(Just like nobody is going to demand rule-based justifications for the name of a villain or the layout of the dungeon they're in. Lots of things don't need rules justification.)

Skathix

Right right, that's what I'm looking for

Sorry, I'm not looking for RAW, I more wanted confirmation that the Transferrance wasn't a dumb idea

BESW

A good answer to "Why" would reasonably be "That's an excellent question which the party should probably be working to figure out!"

SevenSidedDie

22:49

@Skathix Ah! Yes, I see that now. You want more story than just “because it happens, the end.”

@BESW This is one of my favourites, but only works when it's reasonable to open another “front” in the possible directions the game could go in.

Skathix

The story based reason, they've each got a dragon with them (They're searching for the "dragon stones")

BESW

@Skathix Okay, then. Pull a line from the Chalion books: possessing spirits don't just go away when the creature they're riding dies.

Skathix

Oooooh

Nice

Thanks @BESW and @SevenSidedDie

Aether

Other than "victim->killer" transference, the curse could be "contagious" in some way - if you have aligned yourself with a party who is cursed, it makes sense that you will end up in the same way.

Instantly, or maybe over time.

BESW

(The practical logistics of spiritual ontology is a major theme of the Chalion novels, with at least two distinct variations.)

Skathix

22:54

Nice

Hey guys, one other question

One day I found a slip of paper on facebook someone had created for their characters

It was a prep for each game of three questions the characters needed to answer during that session

Something like "What is my Goal today?" "What do I want to reveal about my character?" and something else

Has anyone seen that? If so do you know the questions or know where I could find that?

BESW

Interesting. There are a lot of variations on that concept, but I don't think I've seen that particular one.

Skathix

I'll take any ideas you guys have

I'd love to have my characters thinking during the game about their character more than the story and "Get this curse off me" lol

BESW

There are, in my experience, two ways to do that and neither of them involves assigning homework.

Either the story is driven by personal motives and complicated by personal traits, or the system has a core mechanic which rewards acting in character. Preferably both.

(And by "rewards acting in character" I don't mean GM handouts. It works best when the mechanic is non-arbitrary and player-driven.)

SevenSidedDie

Just having those two questions on a post-it note stuck to the character sheet would still be great. Instead of homework, it's something that players can be reminded are options for the session. Sometimes players don't know what to do next—having a reminder of two things they could do, but don't have to, can help.

Skathix

23:26

So these players have been with me since I started DMing, so there's a lot of Metagaming that I didn't know how to stop back in the day that occurs now

For example: They're all reading (Currently) the Homebound Trilogy (Drizz't Saga)

And we're in the Underdark

So they're asking questions about matron mothers and Duergar

And I'm like "You don't know ANY of that"

So I think giving them a post-it reminding them that they're their character

Not them

I think it'd be super helpful

I definitely didn't mean homework

BESW

That is sometimes an issue, yeah. I once re-skinned everything about the default D&D 3.5 setting, in part because it helped reduce "I've memorised the monster manual" issues.

Skathix

I have a game right now that one of my players is reading the hardback ahead of me

I want to kill him lol

He's like "Where's <x> event?"

So, I told him he's welcome to read whatever he wants, but if he brings that knowledge to the table and informs other people of the details I'm going add in a dungeon built to kill him lol

BESW

Mmm, that's a problem endemic to established settings.

Skathix

Yeah

Fortunately for me, I use hardbacks as scaffolding for the adventure

BESW

Not just that some folks know more about the setting than others, or that they're using the information in ways others' playstyles might not support.

Skathix

23:32

Right

BESW

But simply that pre-established settings often leave little room for the game to breathe or the PCs to have actual impact on the world.

Skathix

For example: if anyone has played ToD they stole one of the dragon's eggs

And destroyed the other two (In the Dragon Hatchery)

He kept telling the players the dragon would be evil and black

We're working on it though, no one likes spoilers

BESW

I wonder if there's a spoiler equivalent to lines and veils.

Skathix

23:45

What's Lines and Veils?

BESW

42

Q: What do the terms "lines" and "veils" mean?

I have seen the terms "lines" and "veils" used on this SE (including on the chat) a number of times, especially in terms of social contracts between players. What do these terms mean? What is their origin? How are they frequently used (best practices)? What are some suggestions for introd...

terminology social-contract

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