TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

00:02

@JoelHarmon hello! Hope you're getting sleep. (At this point in my first child's life I was starting to tell people he was sleeping 5-6 hours at a stretch. Only years later did my wife inform me it was at this point that I was sleeping 5-6 hours at a stretch!)

BESW

@nitsua60 ...This sounds familiar.

nitsua60

(you mean, I've told that story before? Or in your own life?)

BESW

In my own life.

nitsua60

Wanna hear a bad joke?

What's the difference between a dead snake in the road and a dead trombone player in the road?

BESW

What is the difference between a dead snake in the road and a dead trombone player in the road?

nitsua60

00:07

The snake might have been on the way to a gig.

[/rimshot]

BESW

Ba-dum tsh.

Did you see this joke from yesterday?

nitsua60

Speaking of percussionists...
What do you do with a snare drummer who can't keep time?

BESW

?

nitsua60

Take away one of their sticks and move 'em up front!

I have now =)
It's pretty excellent.

BESW

01:25

**[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!");
[LCQ comp](http://blackarmada.com/lovecraftesque-competition/ "Write a short (~600 wds) Lovecraftesque scenario and you can win the adulation of your peers and a copy of the game! Nov 07");
[playtest](http://www.modiphius.com/star-trek.html "STAR TREK ADVENTURES - Living Playtest Sign up");

trogdor

@nitsua60 yeah, I don't get this at all

nitsua60

@trogdor (the conductor)

Here's an easier one:

How do you know when a viola's out of tune?

trogdor

oh, ok I was thinking "front row of other musicians" not "front of everyone"

XD

when the N is missing

hmm

nitsua60

The bow's moving!

trogdor

I am not a great audience for this

lol

BESW

01:32

@nitsua60 How do you keep your violin from being stolen?

nitsua60

How?

BESW

Put it in a viola case.

nitsua60

What's the difference between God and a pianist?

BESW

God doesn't think he's a pianist.

nitsua60

[sniped]

trogdor

01:35

I have actually heard that last one before

I think actually during piano classes

nitsua60

Alright, my last one for the night:

What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?

BESW

A vocalist.

nitsua60

[aaand... that's a wrap, folks.]

BESW

What's the definition of an optimist?

nitsua60

what?

BESW

01:39

A musician with a mortgage.

nitsua60

afk a bit

Miniman

What do you call a musician who can't read music?

BESW

What DO you call a musician who can't read music?

Miniman

The drummer.

That one's a little offensive, of course - you're not supposed to refer to drummers as musicians.

BESW

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Miniman

01:51

How many?

BESW

None; there are machines for that now.

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

The Oracle

2

Q: Should we be answering the question, or the question posed in the description?

Most specifically referencing this: Does a natural 20 on an animal handling check do anything special? The stated question is more general than the one asked (and answered) in the post body. In this case, we have a general question, then some context around it, concluded with a different questio...

discussion

nitsua60

02:35

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

02:51

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

03:22

@Shalvenay Not too shabby. You?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 alright here. still grinding away slowly at getting the family PC back going

nitsua60

What's the name of the old Greek paradox about the boat that's had every single part replaced?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 gah, can't recall that one

nitsua60

Ship of Theseus

The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus' paradox, is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late first century. Plutarch asked whether a ship that had been restored by replacing every single wooden part remained the same ship. The paradox had been discussed by other ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus and Plato prior to Plutarch's writings, and more recently by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Several variants...

Shalvenay

yeah, that

nitsua60

03:25

(Should we wiki-vandalize it to the "PC of Shalvey"?)

BESW

Not to be confused with Oliver Wendell Holmes' The Deacon's Masterpiece or, the Wonderful "One-hoss Shay": A Logical Story.

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 I can tell that it's me sleeping ~5 hours during the week by the way my wife doesn't let me do that on weekends

nitsua60

@BESW Which I've always looooved.

BESW

@nitsua60 My grandmother recited bits of it at the slightest provocation.

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon smart woman =)

And you're getting scary-good at doing things one-handed, I presume?

Shalvenay

03:29

@nitsua60 hah, case and hard drive aren't getting replaced, nor are the WLAN or sound cards, or the power supply

nitsua60

TRIGGER WARNING: alignment question, VTC immediately! Don't let it infect the rest of the software, we've got to hit it hard and fast!

Shalvenay

hey as well @JoelHarmon

@nitsua60 added a suitable comment ;)

Joel Harmon

disturbing as it is, I'm now reasonably comfortable holding her in one arm, even when that arm isn't directly holding the baby to my chest

BESW

@Shalvenay In chat and comments, use --- instead of <strike>.

Shalvenay

@BESW ah

nitsua60

03:33

@JoelHarmon I always liked the "lying prone on forearm sleeping with chin cradled in hand" hold.

@BESW I don't think --- works in comments. (I tried it ten minutes ago on the black/red sorcerer question.)

BESW

Oh? What about <s>?

I know something works in comments.

nitsua60

hmm... wasn't <s>

(Actually, I guess I tried <s>...</s>; I assumed that's what you meant.)

BESW

Yeah, that.

nitsua60

Wow. That was ~286.5 Krep mustered to close that question in under 5 minutes. Good job, establishment, at keeping the man down.

trogdor

lol

Joel Harmon

03:38

the establishment is keeping the man down now? I think that metaphor got a bit mixed

BESW

> You know who wants me to be sane? THE MAN!

nitsua60

@JoelHarmon yeah, and I was about to try to turn it into a halftime locker-room talk, further derailing this flight.

trogdor

yes, pesky THE MAN, wants you to stay sane, not murder or steal, and such like that, so pesky that THE MAN

he doesn't even want you to know his name you can only call him THE MAN

BESW

(Source is extra-funky.)

user507974

06:36

hello folks

BESW

[wave]

Eidolon108

07:29

heyo

Dorian

07:47

yo, any D&D 4e players in here right now?

I need a quickie question answered for a friend and don't have my books handy.

user507974

11:03

anybody have a picture with a bunch of white hooded figures, i need something I'm going to do some photoshop for for a campaign

BESW

11:36

You may find this hard to wrap your head around, but NEW LOVELACE & BABBAGE! The Copenhagen Interpretation, Part 1! http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/the-copenhagen-interpretation-part-one/

Tweeted by sydneypadua on October 28, 2016 at 11:35 AM

doppelgreener

12:14

Trapdoor tech, the folks who were contracted by WotC for that Morningstar app, have closed down.

RIP, sad to hear.

Miniman

@doppelgreener I just saw that - wish I could say I didn't see it coming.

doppelgreener

Yeah, having a company based around one project that gets cancelled, and being unable to sell it on, won't do good things for that company. :(

I'm still confused why they couldn't deliver Morningstar, it probably would've been a very good and helpful thing for D&D 5e's players -- better even than the D&D 4e compendium was for 4e players.

Miniman

It's weird - both Morningstar and Sword Coast Adventures delivered decidedly half-assed products and then got shut down.

I mean, I guess it's not that weird.

BESW

Wizards knows how to pick 'em?

Miniman

I guess so.

And now we have Fantasy Grounds, which works fine...as long as you're willing to shell out $250 to get the content for it.

BESW

12:22

I'm getting distinct Adobe vibes off Wizards.

doppelgreener

@Miniman The vibe I get off the WotC D&D wing is they're a perpetually at-risk part of the company without an enormous budget -- so for any app, they may need the moon so as to deliver something people will use, but not be able to pay enough to get there.

That might have them turn to less capable web development outfits, or not pay enough to capable development outfits to let them deliver a fully functioning product in time.

The Oracle

18:18

1

Q: Question on opinion based posts criteria

There is currently a question on the board (with a bounty even) that is asking how to make their game interesting for a specific character combination. Oddly enough, a similar question from the player side here was put on hold. While I think the question about the witcher and apprentice has me...

discussion specific-question close-reasons

0

Q: Why is an answer being downvoted without any comments?

An answer has multiple downvotes but nobody has left a comment explaining what's wrong with the answer or why they downvoted. Why hasn't anyone explained their downvote?

support comments down-votes faq-proposal

doppelgreener

18:45

VTC too broad / unclear, no system specified or even hinted at

doppelgreener

19:10

(it got fixed, disregard)

user507974

howdy

hows everybody's day goin?

Welcome @Zachiel

Zachiel

Hello @user507974

I'm fine, and 4 days at home are right ahead of me

doppelgreener

19:26

just fine :D

user507974

19:40

@Zachiel that sounds like a pretty nice position to be in

anybody feel like giving some critique or advice to a one shot im thinking of doing

Zachiel

Which system?

(I give good advice, I swear, I'm just bad at following it myself!)

UrhoKarila

@Zachiel If I were able to follow advice as well as I gave it I'd be a much happier person.

2

Zachiel

@UrhoKarila Or maybe my advice is really horrible, but I'm better at following it than I would think...

user507974

20:06

@Zachiel warrior rogue and mage

if you havent heard of it very simple system, i'd say perfect for one shots since you can easily make characters out of it

my bad

make classes (it doesnt have its own predefined)

characters also die pretty frequently

and so for a one shot im basically going to make a several classes people pick from then we play

So I have my story elements in place but dont really know how to link a bit of it together

Ever playing class is a summoner of some kind, with mixed backgrounds from knights to mages and even assassins

doppelgreener

> Warrior, Rogue & Mage is a simple, lightweight roleplaying game that allows a group of players and a game master to experience epic adventures in a fantasy world filled with wondrous magic.

user507974

There is a special class of summons called Errants that people can draw on by lowering the maximum of their Summoning Points (a stat I made up tied to MP). These units are essentially much like the class containers, humanoid (but still kind of lacking that spark of life we attribute to humans called emotions).

These guys are especially effective at destroying other summoned creatures (called Abberations)

Basically the campaign boils down to a dragon that is going to destroy the world and the players have to defeat it

doppelgreener

As a dragon IRL i find this stereotype to be offensive and overdrawn. We dragons are kindly, gentle creatures, and if we wanted to destroy the world we'd make sure you didn't notice it happening.

user507974

massive dragon, with untold power to summon other Aberrations

once the dragon dies I actually want to start having the world fall apart at the seams

doppelgreener

(I am, of course, a green dragon.)

user507974

20:16

and aberrations run amok

UrhoKarila

I just want to point out that this question manages to be entirely gender-neutral throughout its example and I find it rather impressive.

Zachiel

Alex. And Sam.

What next, Sasha?

doppelgreener

and the power of the gender-neutral singular "they". :D

user507974

basically at this point the players can enter a rift forming in the world where a sea of infinite possibilities flood their senses, if we are ahead of schedule i might have them repeat a memorable sequence from earlier in the day in one of these slightly different universes

And from here I want the players to be able to make one of 4 choices each (basically 2 choices to pick from then 2 more choices), but im not sure how to introduce the last choice properly

basically the heroes are come face to face with the Gods, who offer their reward for destroying the dragon: the option to live in an idyllic world of their dreams that exists somewhere in the cosmos, or to forsake everything and to fight these gods

Zachiel

[Nevermind, cross-posted]

user507974

20:23

not party wise

the rewards arent listed in the beginning, but the gods are seeking an end to themselves and the dragon was a trial to find worthy replacers

for the party members that choose to fight they come to a room with people in white cloaks, and when they disrobe they come face to face with their own faces (the actual players faces), whom they must now defeat

so heres the elements i dont know how to link together

basically ive made errants strong so players will likely find an errant they like and stick to it

all humans are in fact much like errants, but their souls were given the spark of life by people who instead of accepting godship sacrificed themselves

this act creates a new "soul" to add to this endless cycle of multiverses, so the choice becomes you can become a god of this infinite expanse and live in an endless cycle of death and rebirth and recycling of souls

or you can create new life by rejecting your godly rights

the dragon is how when these gods are finally bored they will find new replacements for themselves since "in the end, all would choose death"

doppelgreener

so it sounds like the cliffnotes version is: world involves lots of summoning, a dragon wants to destroy it, summons lots of aberrations, the players defeat the dragon, the world starts unravelling anyway, the players can enter a rift, and gods let them either live their lives in peace or challenge and replace them.

user507974

yea, basically

all of that is pretty well organized

doppelgreener

i suggest you find a compelling reason why the world unravels anyway that will placate players who defeated the dragon to stop this happening, and i do not personally find the choice offered by the gods compelling: idyllic world sucks (campaign ends and idyllic worlds are boring), and "we fight you!" feels entirely unjustifiable.

user507974

but in the end I want to somehow introduce that players may reject the godhood for an alternative

if all the players who chose to fight choose to do this the cycle is broken once and for all, the Errants all receive life (your PC spirit inhabits your favorite errant) and a new world is created where people are free to determine their own lives

doppelgreener

it may be better if the gods just skip to the buck and directly oppose the players, forcing the players to respond in self-defence. if the gods are defeated, their servants pass on the message the gods were looking for worthy replacements.

@user507974 foreshadow it and have people other than the gods themselves indicate what's really going on. besides, foreshadowing the gods' involvement somehow is healthy.

user507974

20:38

who could foreshadow it effectively in a narrative, ive left the opening details open to figure that out

also another ending is if all the players die to the gods from them all another dragon is created and an all too familiar exposition is repeated

i could have a priest, a wise sage and ex-summoner, or some kind of Gaunter O'Dimm mysterious figure who randomly bugs the players

Drew

21:02

Any other programmers in the room? I'm trying to work out the best way to simulate rolling on tables?

doppelgreener

I am one.

What's the task exactly?

You may already know this (depending on your level of experience), but just about every language has some kind of random function available. (In some languages, you need to seed it first, which people usually do with the current system time in milliseconds.)

Drew

I'm writing a GM assistants tool. Rolling on tables is something that comes up a lot obviously.

Yeah, I've got randomization

The problem is with non-uniform distribution

i.e. 1-4 sunny, 5, cloudy, 6 rainy

The easiest solution I can think of is just an array that duplicates values

doppelgreener

It sounds like you're providing a tool for yourself or others to define arbitrary tables to roll against, and you need to prepare for scenarios like that, right?

Drew

Basically, yes

doppelgreener

Interface-wise, you can either get the user to enter that value against multiple rolls, but that might become very boring and tiresome. The alternative is to let them specify a single number or a range. You could have an input box that intelligently recognises that "1" is a number, but "1-4" is a range. (And "1-" or "-4" might be interpreted as "one and up" or "four or lower".)

Drew

21:11

Oh sorry, no that's not actually what I was talking about.

I'm not trying to take user input

doppelgreener

Implementation-wise, you can either duplicate possibilities across an array, or have a way that supports your code actually recognising ranges.

Drew

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at

doppelgreener

In OOP, you might have a LookupTable class, which has Entries, which each have a Range they recognise and a Result. You'd check LookupTable.Find(some integer), and it'd look through its Entries to find the appropriate Entry or Result for you.

Drew

trying to figure out the best way to store

doppelgreener

If your LookupTable kept its Entries sorted by the first digit in the Range, you could potentially make looking up very large tables very fast with a binary search.

Drew

21:21

Ok, yeah that makes sense. I was hoping for an pre-existing solution, but it doesn't look like there is one in .NET

user507974

hey drew

how about this

so basically this why not just have an array of variables

im just calling it DC for now

Drew

Yeah, that's my backup plan

user507974

cuz when you have a binary condition you only need 1 variable to represent passing (like a DC save)

so the array is 1 element long

Drew

I found a blogpost about implementing a range list, I'm reading now

user507974

send it my way too

Drew

21:30

Sure thing: blackwasp.co.uk/RangeCollection.aspx

user507974

amatuer programmer here and more data structures is always good to know

Drew

Yeah, data structures are something I wish my classes had covered better

A solution I used previously was enums

user507974

on the front end though it sounds like youll always have one of two scenarios for how rolls correspond to scenarios (har har pun)

either it will have a specific value, or it will fall in a range

Drew

That worked well when the value table just returned and integer instead of a string

For example, how many jump gates in a system : JumpTable = { 26, 66, 79, 89, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 };

user507974

so example scenario, someone attacks: on a 10 they tie, below they miss (1 being crit miss), and above they hit, 20 being a crit hit

so an array you could write to contain all this info is [1, 2, 10, 11, 20]

Drew

21:37

Yeah, that'd work but then you need to map the indexes to the result

user507974

its a kind of intuitive way you can script your front-end

of course, but what exactly are you picturing this be used for

unless its for a very specific thing youll have to script some results

example here is [crit miss, miss, tie, hit, crit hit]

Drew

Well to use your example, crit miss, miss, tie, hit, crit hit would be the return values

user507974

yep

Drew

That's what you'd display to the user

user507974

mhmm

Drew

21:40

so I'd be looking at having a table like:

1, crit miss,
2, miss

10, tie
11,hit

20,crit hit

and sometime like

txtResult = hittable[RollDie(20)];

user507974

ok, and all your tables are predefined right?

Drew

Yeah

user507974

are there tables that deal in ranges or they all map 1 to 1

this example being:

Drew

Ranges unfortunately, otherwise it'd be easy

But that article I linked looks promising

user507974

1 M
2 m
3 m
4 m
5 m
6 m
7 m
8 m
9 m
10 T
11 h
12 h
13 h
14 h
15 h
16 h
17 h
18 h
19 h
20 H

oh ok

well why dont you just chop the lower bound from each table

@Drew :33191352 :33191351 then you'd get tables like these

(cant quote the whole thing i guess)

lower bound from each range value

basically something like
dummyarray=Split(stringtableheader[i],",")
stringtableheader[i]=max[dummyarray]

and just iterate that over all your tables

@drew was i making sense there?

Drew

21:51

hmm

no, I'm not sure I follow

oh, wait

I think I do

and then you'd have a method that was something like:

Alright, yeah I see what you're going for

then find the value in stringTableHeader that's closest without going over

user507974

yea, for that the way i think of it is like when you insert a new element into an ordered array

you check if your argument is greater than the reference value, then move to the next reference until it is less then run your function

even though i doubt any of your tables are long enough that computation time matters I think that is linear in time so its a pretty efficient algorithm too

the only rule is that the tables are ordered/monotonic

Drew

Well, tested out RangeCollection, and it looks like it works pretty well

BESW

22:49

Big Bad World - Our PbtA meta-game to play all con long. Run it at your next event! http://www.bigbadcon.com/big-bad-world/ https://t.co/I3Zf79uCFh

Tweeted by bigbadcon on October 28, 2016 at 10:25 PM

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