TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

00:20

@Miniman on this answer, I think to be precise, it's worth noting that it's actually Mearls who says that the interrupted long rest cannot give the benefits of a short rest. Jeremy's saying that the two types of rest can't happen simultaneously. (And Mearls is dead wrong, by the rules.)

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

SevenSidedDie

AWWW. Hatmas is over. :(

trogdor

00:36

I still see hats though

well, after I said that they went away XD

Miniman

@nitsua60 I removed that paragraph - it wasn't really adding anything anyway.

trogdor

actually,... I do still see some hats

when I scroll up I still see hats

also, I am keeping that dang hat, I just need to go home and put it on again XD

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya

@Miniman Some day when we both have time I think we should schedule a chat-debate on that question. It's the only one I can think of on mainsite where I really do disagree with you. (Maybe we could sell tickets!)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Good--you?

Shalvenay

00:43

@nitsua60 good here. looks like I swung a spot at a sandbox-style AD&D table at my local FLGS

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Awesome--how regular/frequent are the sessions?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 looks to be weekly

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 (Maybe “tuque”?)

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie really!? mind=blown!

(I retract my comment, my downvote, and bow down to your chapeau-command!)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 This is one of those rare Canadian superpowers: knowing how to spell toque/tuque since grade school. ^_^ (The name is the fault of Quebec.)

@nitsua60 Aw, but I could just edit for you, if you wanted. The rest all kinda fits the season. :)

nitsua60

00:49

@SevenSidedDie Too late: I've already doubled-down on my American, overbearing, taking-advantage-of-Canadian-graciousness by vandalizing your post!

SevenSidedDie

waaaat. how dastardly. Just wait until I find a polite Mountie…

Miniman

@nitsua60 Happy to talk about it sometime (not now, unfortunately).

nitsua60

@Miniman Yeah, me neither. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But someday. Soon. And for the rest of your life.

(I think it's the one downvote I've cast your way!)

Miniman

Ooof.

trogdor

@SevenSidedDie wait, they are not all polite?

:P

SevenSidedDie

00:59

@trogdor They're all polite but it would be impolite to imply the possibility of an impolite Mountie.

trogdor

lol

nitsua60

01:56

@SevenSidedDie grr... did you delete that comment as I was flagging it? How dare you clean up that mess before I had a chance to tell you to clean up that mess?

=D

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Possibly! Which comment?

nitsua60

SSDip.... [grimmace]

@BESW in your recent meta A, bullet point "Up voting and down voting are wholly..." did you intend up- and down-vote links to point to the privilege descriptions, but the close-vote link to point to a search result? It may be that you did, but I can also imagine it's easy in a post like that to get a link or two mixed up.

BESW

@nitsua60 Yes, the close link is showing high-voted but closed questions, demonstrating that the two are unrelated.

nitsua60

Gotcha.

BESW

There's a description link on closing later, in a bullet point more focused on that topic.

nitsua60

02:06

Okay--slowly making my way through. I'm a depth-first reader, so I've read a lot of linked metas but have not yet finished yours =)

+1 for "boy howdy did we try" btw--nice turn of a phrase for the drama and trauma and passion and angst you're summarizing there =)

Miniman

Mental note: include the phrase "boy howdy did we try" in all future posts to get a free upvote from @nitsua60

5

nitsua60

It works on chat, too. See! ^^

Miniman

XD

Incidentally, I went back and looked at your answer to the short rest/unconscious question - I upvoted it when you posted it. It looks at the available evidence and finds a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Oh! Hah, no, I hadn't seen that. *digs* Interesting. Looks like the comment contained enough rudeness-keywords that your single flag was binding on that comment. You deleted it. :)

Miniman

I think this is just a case of "not a lot to go on, pick interpretation as per your inclination".

SevenSidedDie

02:15

@Miniman Yeah, the rest mechanics in 5e annoy me a bit. It's a spot of mixed high mechanisation and otherwise squidgey natural-language, and it does not have clean interfaces with its surroundings.

Miniman

Mmmm. It's not the only spot suffering from that problem, either.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie don't forget: really large consequences, too!

SevenSidedDie

Yeah. Pick one or the other — but 5e says, “…both?” and gets itself into some knotty problems.

Miniman

I'm tempted to rewrite my answer there a little, but with yours arguing the opposite side I think it makes sense to have them remain polarised.

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Yeah! Injury and healing should be straightforward rules, or if they're not, have a lot of discussion and guidance on how to handle it.

Miniman

02:18

Although I might drum up some extra scraps of evidence for mine :D

nitsua60

@Miniman Third contender for site motto: "perfectly reasonable conclusions"

2

Actually, it looks like that's the fourth

@SevenSidedDie Alternatively, we could explicitly make it a smorgasbord of simulationism, game-design, and balancing, and never disclose any of our thinking on the matter =)

(Don't mind me, just polishing my bona fides for a job at TSR some day.)

@Miniman I'd love to see it. The scraps you've currently got don't look that appealing to me =)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 TSR definitely had a push-me-pull-you dynamic going on. I did prefer the design that wasn't exception-based though — it's much easier to go “eh, there's an undefined hole here where a handling method wasn't invented” rather than go “every aspect of play is entirely covered in general rules, amended by exceptions… wait, what does this hole mean?”

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 I'd actually say the NEC is easier to interpret than some editions of D&D

SevenSidedDie

I think that's where 5e and I have our differences: though written in natural language, it's still working from exception-based design principles.

2

(Oh, hey, we can still see our hats on the Winterbash RPG leaderboard!)

CTWind

03:19

I can see either way on the short rest while KO'd thing. On the one hand, being KO'd says you're unconscious for 1d4 hours. Since you can do nothing but 'short rest'-qualifying activities while KOd, you'd automatically get one at the end of 1 hour... but then why roll in the first place? There's one exception that'd make that not meaningless, and that's if you have 0 hit dice left... but that might be enough.

nitsua60

@CTWind Being KO'ed doesn't say you are unconscious for 1d4 hours, it says if you stay unconscious for 1d4 hours you will then regain a hit point.

trogdor

@SevenSidedDie were there fewer hats this year? seems like the top person has like, 10 less

nitsua60

Being healed otherwise will end the unconsciousness. (Such as, I'd argue, spending a HD at the end of your 1-hour short rest that you're currently taking by dint of being unconscious.)

CTWind

Right, sorry, shorthanding it.

nitsua60

@CTWind Other than that, I'm right with you. (I think I spell out in my answer that having 0HD left is one reason that it's a meaningful distinction.)

For me it's the last clause of "long rest" and its omission in "short rest" that seals it.

SevenSidedDie

03:27

@trogdor I don't recall what the full hat count was off the top of my head, but I bet there's a 2015 all-hats thread on Meta… Hmm! Look's like you're right. I count 28 regular hats and 13 secret, for 41 hats total in Winterbash 2015.

nitsua60

I wouldn't argue too hard with a GM who says that you can't spend a HD while unconscious, as the PHB explicitly says that a character spends a HD, but all SR-recharges should happen. (Unless, of course, you-the-player construe that hour as part of a long rest, in which case we have to retcon the SR out of existence, since one can't SR and LR simultaneously.)

CTWind

I just wish if that was their intention, they actually phrased it as "After being unconscious for 1 hour, you may take a short rest and spend hit die if you have any to regain HP. Otherwise, you remain unconscious for 1d4-1 hours before you regain 1 HP" (or however phrasing that last bit would sound natural)

trogdor

@SevenSidedDie wow, that was a lot

nitsua60

@CTWind you mean in the "Dropping to 0 HP" section?

SevenSidedDie

@trogdor Yeah! Maybe that's why I was underwhelmed when I saw the list of regular hats this year: insufficiently interesting opportunities simply due to there being too few.

trogdor

03:31

I hope this isn't indicative of us having fewer and fewer every year

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie I have to admit, I just downvoted your answer on the "short rest while unconscious" answer. While I agree with the last 90% of it, having it lead with the absurdity "you can't rest while unconscious" which links to an answer I disagree with... I had to do it.

I'm sure you'll survive =)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 I will. :)

CTWind

@nitsua60 Yeah, in the stabilizing a creature subsection. (Probably more accurately "Otherwise, if you don't get healed, you remain unconscious for 1d4-1 hours, then regain 1 HP.")

Just for clarity's sake.

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 I'm kinda split on the fundamental point, actually. On the one hand, from unfortunately real experience of late, I know that unconsciousness caused by injury is not that restful. But I doubt such nuance is baked into the rules intentionally; what's left is ambiguous. For that answer, I mostly defaulted to the top answer in the link I used.

nitsua60

@CTWind The (nitpicky) problem I have with this wording is your "After being unconscious for 1 hour you may take a short rest." My core contention is that "after being unconscious for 1 hour you have taken a short rest!"

@SevenSidedDie Ugh--I'm sorry to hear that. Hope it wasn't too dangerous....

CTWind

03:35

Sure, so final phrasing: "After being unconscious for 1 hour, you are considered as having taken a short rest and may spend hit die if you have any to regain HP. Otherwise, if you don't get healed, you remain unconscious for 1d4-1 hours, then regain 1 HP."

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Everyone's going to be fine, but wow, small kids do no like concussion recovery protocol. :) It's super-boring.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, there needs to be some sort of healthy medium between current thinking and the protocol when I was a kid: an ass-pat + "get back in there, champ!"

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 They're working on it, actually. The current protocol works really well when followed, but is hard to follow. And might be too much for some cases. We were going to be part of a long-term follow up study to learn more about long-term outcomes' connection to recovery-time actions, but the kidlet does not like MRI machines and so we weren't useful study candidates.

(Don't see why, MRIs are so cool. I have pictures of my brain from a university study on language and music.)

trogdor

I had to have several tests as a kid

some doctor thought I had like, brain cancer, or something like that

the MRI was extremely boring

nitsua60

@trogdor I have trouble staying awake in one. Something about that thrumming puts me right out. (Same with planes--I'm usually out cold before pushback from the jetway. Once they spin up those engines...[snore])

trogdor

03:44

to be fair, they are probably considerably different now

I have not been in one since that time, and it must have been something over 20 years ago

CTWind

I get that riding in cars on long trips. Sometimes having a fan near bed helps too.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie What is the state of Canadian thinking on concussion recovery? No light? Normal light? Rest? Active?

trogdor

and I probably have more patience and self control now too

SevenSidedDie

04:08

@nitsua60 There's a multi-stage protocol where you start with complete physical and cognitive rest (i.e., deliberate boredom) until symptom-free for 24hrs, then try the activities in the next stage, moving backwards a stage if symptoms reappear, moving forward if 24hrs are symptom-free again. Keep iterating until having advanced through all the stages without symptoms reappearing.

I'm not sure if it's exclusive to Canada or not. Because our medical systems are so different and regulators separate, some kinds of treatment are out of sync.

BESW

@nitsua60 Hooray, somebody's reading my links!

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 I had to fight falling asleep the one MRI I did. Planes though — I've worked on the fringe of aerospace, and I know too much of how that sausage is made to be relaxed during takeoff or landing! (Completely irrationally — they're really safe in FAA territory. But knowing too much is still unsettling.)

trogdor

@SevenSidedDie I have trouble for different reasons, I have a fear of heights, and planes are not exactly close to the ground

I also irrationally fear planes not receiving enough upkeep, but it has nothing to do with any real knowledge of the industry of plane building and maintenance

SevenSidedDie

@trogdor Eugh, yeah, that can't be fun.

trogdor

I am personally glad I don't have to fly anywhere too often

it happens infrequently enough that I can put up with it

BESW

04:26

I'm pretty sure this guy's an NPC quest-giver.

trogdor

but he went on the quest

with two other people

SevenSidedDie

04:48

@trogdor Escort quest maybe then

trogdor

but no one was escorting anyone

they were all on the same quest

BESW

07:21

Richat Structure

The Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of the Sahara and Guelb er Richat, is a prominent circular feature in the Sahara near Ouadane, west–central Mauritania. == Description == The Richat Structure is a deeply eroded, slightly elliptical dome with a diameter of 40 kilometres (25 mi). The sedimentary rock exposed in this dome ranges in age from Late Proterozoic within the center of the dome to Ordovician sandstone around its edges. The sedimentary rocks comprising this structure dip outward at 10°–20°. Differential erosion of resistant layers of quartzite has created high-relief circu...

Magician

08:01

@BESW Is the quest in the urn?

BESW

@Magician "Here's your quest. Don't open it until I'm gone, please."

"Why is this quest ticking?"

4

Magician

If only players asked that question more often

...which, I now realise, is a traditional GMing sentiment that doesn't really apply to my games anymore. Huh.

BESW

I still enjoy games where that's a legit question--I just enjoy it for different reasons than I used to, and often it's the players who decided the quest was ticking in the first place.

Anaphory

10:06

@Anaphory @BESW Rereading its blurb, it may be that A/N/N is the game to try to play with the crazy people who enabled me to try so many other games over the last two weeks.

BESW

Cool!

Anaphory

In that case, I may have a chance in about 10 months.

BESW

...oh.

Anaphory

It was during a larger event, of which we have about 5 per year. I don't think I will make the Spring and Summer event, so Autumn it is.

Still, 10 months is better than Never!

BESW

True! Yey!

Anaphory

10:09

In particular now that I know I managed to introduce a keen interest for non-trad RPGs among several people there.

BESW

Ooooh.

Anaphory

I think I played various game with … a dozen different people? And people played Fiasco without me, but wouldn't have done so without my facilitating last event, or without my rules and playsets.

BESW

Nice.

Anaphory

How's your Solarpunk idea coming along? I had a course on future prognoses for 2050 and I would love to play something with a positive, active outlook.

BESW

No movement, really. It's more @doppelgreener's baby with my enthusiastic support, but first he needs to figure out how to sleep better.

Anaphory

10:15

Okay. Sleep is important!

BESW

It occurs to me that "using existing technology, infrastructure, and social constructs in creatively unexpected ways to personally satisfying but not necessarily cinematically dramatic effect" is a mandate Storium might be able to support nicely.

Anaphory

I registered for Storium and looked at the tutorials yesterday. Haven't delved deeper into it, so I cannot assess that.

BESW

Well, you can make cards representing just about any kind of asset, be it physical, social, spiritual, whatever. And you can use them to solve problems in any way that you choose to narrate; the system doesn't care.

Challenges can be large or small, abstract or concrete, and there's plenty of space for internal character growth and focusing on personal victories.

doppelgreener

11:06

BESW and I have both been considering individually and together how a solarpunk game might look. If either one of us would run it, it would very likely be me at the moment. BESW needs his time as a player too. :)

trogdor

@BESW that certainly is a nice idea

BESW

11:33

RPG.SE Winterbash 2017 leaderboard.

trogdor

wait, what?

that is just the 2016 one isn't it?

BESW

Sorry, typo.

trogdor

ah ok

doppelgreener

12:19

Look at that! I'm right at the top of the leaderboard.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener I don't want to taco 'bout it =|

=D

RollingFeles

Good everything to everyone =)

@nitsua60 hey! How're things?

BESW

13:04

@RollingFeles Absent, apparently.

trogdor

@doppelgreener yes you are, and I guess you just like the number 3 better, so they gave it to you

I would have gone with 4 but wtv

XD

RollingFeles

@BESW It seems so :)

@BESW, @trogdor hello! :)

BESW

[wave] What's new?

RollingFeles

I'm in a great mood today. Great first day at work after holidays. I've visited rpg.se 333 days. Aaand I will be running DW with my small, but inspired party at friday for the first time :)

BESW

Yey!

RollingFeles

13:18

By the way, I was absent from chat for a long time. How's your chatizen DW game?

BESW

Successfully concluded! We took a winter break, and will try some D&D 5e next month.

Also I'm trying to get into Storium again, which may become a chatizen-y thing.

I mean, everybody in the first refamiliarisation game is a chatizen already, but I may do something more ambitious later.

RollingFeles

Nice! Yeah, I remember your invitation to all chatizen into this game. I liked Storium idea and, well, as many ideas it's in a long list "must try someday" :)

Hmmm. Actually, If you would bear my broken English, I'd like to try Storium chatizen game :)

BESW

Cool.

doppelgreener

@trogdor [handwave] That's like, the number of a runner in a race, I'm sure. Just a participant number.

nitsua60

15:13

@RollingFeles Hiya--busy! (But in a good way.)

RollingFeles

@nitsua60 That's great! :) So, how's Rogue One? Did you and your family like it?

LegendaryDude

VtC shopping question

nitsua60

16:23

@SevenSidedDie yeah, I was confused by that comment, too. It seems like he's saying exactly what you say, and then downvoting you for it?

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Yeah, not sure what's up there. But to be fair I don't think there are any new downvotes, so it's merely confusing. :)

SevenSidedDie