TRPG General Chat

KorvinStarmast

12:22 AM

@SevenSidedDie Thank you, I'll see what I can do with this.

trogdor

@BESW I don't at the moment, but I figure you have at least one idea you wanted to hack this system for or something

Shalvenay

1:14 AM

hey there @nitsua60

BESW

2:05 AM

@trogdor Yeah, but nothing I'm super attached to.

Do you have any broad preferences, like "mundane" vs "fantastic" or "contemporary" vs "past/future"?

trogdor

well, my idea is nonexistent, at least at the moment

so there is that XD

@BESW uh, I think that the mundane vs fantastic thing is one I don't have a preference between in this case

but I would prefer either the past or the future

I am kinda sick of our contemporary timeline XD

not in an RPG context but still

I don't want my escapism to reference current events

not for another, oh a little over 3 years

nitsua60

It's so strange to me that in the "achievements" window badges show up with the icon of the site you're on, not the site where the badge was earned. I'm looking at the title of an RPGSE question with a M&TV icon next to it and going cross-eyed.

trogdor

I can't say more than that

nitsua60

@Shalvenay hiya. How's life?

Shalvenay

good here :)

nitsua60

2:15 AM

Parents just celebrated their 50th anniversary. At the mass my mum made it through her vows without tearing up too badly, and stayed basically audible. I was proud of her. Dad forgot/omitted half of his. Haven't figured out what to think of that =)

trogdor

we all forget things sometimes XD

nitsua60

He got her name right =D

trogdor

well I really would have been concerned if he had not

that would be bad

Miniman

@nitsua60 Ouch..

nitsua60

2:35 AM

We really have a wall tag...?

trogdor

are you able to see when it was made?

maybe it was pretty recent?

nitsua60

It's been around since at least 2010....

trogdor

oh

nevermind then, no idea

KorvinStarmast

@SevenSidedDie Heh, the community has closed it again/put it on hold. I have the notes in a text file in case it opens again.

Shalvenay

2:51 AM

hey there @KorvinStarmast

nitsua60

3:02 AM

Oh, dear. I just noticed, in someone's reply to an e-mail of mine from days ago, that I 's-pluralized.

I'm really more ashamed than is reasonable.

It's one mistake. One time I was tired and typing.

But now a complete stranger thinks I'm an idiot. Or, just possible, is way less judgmental than I'm projecting onto them.

BESW

This kitty has 16AC and can cast Charm Person at will. #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dnd5e https://t.co/036N8iFL4R

Tweeted by TheGodDamnDM on September 9, 2017 at 3:57 AM

trogdor

@nitsua60 juuuuuuuuuudgement

BESW

4:59 AM

@ErikSchmidt [wave] Hi!

Erik Schmidt

5:21 AM

Howdy!

trogdor

hi

BESW

@ErikSchmidt What's new?

Erik Schmidt

6:29 AM

@BESW Just poking around, really.

BESW

Cool. We're usually rather quieter on the weekends here, but you're welcome to chat or lurk as you like.

I'm currently looking into different whodunit subgenres for inspiration for campaign design.

Trish

8:19 AM

@Dimitry
Let's assume stems of 20 centimeters diameter (2/3 Foot). So we need about 2438 stems for the pallisade, plus about 2 per 10 meters to nail them to and another time so many as bracing. All in all that's about 2553 pieces of wood. Cutting down a 20 cm tree with axe and saw takes a single worker a guesstimated half an hour. So about 1276.7 manhours for logging alone.
that's 255.3 hours of logging with 5 men. These trees are not debranched yet, so let's guesstimate they need roughly double the time, so a total of 2500 manhours (=500 hours for 5 menb). Assuming they work 12 (daylight) …

BESW

If a person's name doesn't autocomplete when you type "@" and the first few letters, they won't get the ping notification.

trogdor

I can't remember a time that has happened to me

BESW

Usually you're responding to folks who've been talking in chat recently.

Trish is trying to move a conversation from mainsite comments into chat.

But the other participant hasn't been in chat recently.

So their pingability has dropped off the board.

trogdor

8:38 AM

mmm

it also may have happened and I just don't remember the few times it probably has

I think if it did it was still a response to someone, but like a day or so after they said the thing

Trish

9:10 AM

@BESW yep... I tried to get him via the "mention" thing...

DuckTapeAl

9:45 AM

Holy crap, I'm thankful for modern advances in publishing design.

I've been diving in to some Chivalry and Sorcery books to answer a long-unanswered question, but oh man is it hard to read this thing.

I feel like I need a microscope to read this text.

BESW

I hear ya.

DuckTapeAl

More just an idle complaint than anything, but I kind of want to read some of the Fate Core book just as a palate cleanser.

BESW

I've seen some modern games with serious Heading Format Fail; the subheadings look more "important" than the headings, and/or the headings and the text are so similar it might as well not have different formatting, and/or the heading text uses nigh-unreadable typography.

Cthulhu Confidential has We Hate Your Printer's Ink Budget formatting on some of its "copy these for reference in the game" pages.

DuckTapeAl

Oof.

I feel like the 4e Character Builder sheets did that sometimes.

Like, they added a bunch of extra power cards by default that you never really needed.

BESW

This is a page from an adventure you can only get as a PDF:

DuckTapeAl

9:51 AM

Oh, jesus.

That's a great way to make something easily readable on a screen, but for a printout?

BESW

This is what cmd+i is made for.

Miniman

@DuckTapeAl Hey, long time no see!

DuckTapeAl

@Miniman Hey!

BESW

But in terms of sheer "we have no direction" layout, I direct you to the 1985 Doctor Who Role Playing Game.

DuckTapeAl

I've been in lurk mode for a while.

...

I have no words.

BESW

9:55 AM

Please notice how the columns bend and warp around the tables, with screencap art from the show filling in the awkward spaces created thereby.

DuckTapeAl

Oh, wait, I do have words:

"Wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey."

BESW

Columny-wolumny?

And for game design, this is what the GM uses to determine target difficulties:

Miniman

@DuckTapeAl How's your work situation going?

DuckTapeAl

@Miniman Pretty well! I forget exactly what my situation was last time we spoke, but the game I've been working on just shipped a few weeks ago. I'm at a much better place now than where I was at the start of the year.

@BESW Additional Layout Design by Lucifer.

BESW

trogdor

10:01 AM

@DuckTapeAl need? no. could you use possibly all of those powers for a really specific effective build? yes actually

XD

DuckTapeAl

@trogdor I'm specifically talking about the Second Wind and Action Point power cards that, in several years of regular 4e play, I never saw anyone use.

Miniman

@DuckTapeAl Good to hear!

trogdor

@DuckTapeAl oooh that

we did use those

well, the second wind one anyway

Miniman

@DuckTapeAl Can you say what game it is?

trogdor

it helped keep track of when we had used it

DuckTapeAl

10:03 AM

I can! I just can't tell anyone what my in-game name is in it.

It's The Walking Dead: March To War.

trogdor

for the action point,... I didn't even know there was a card for that

DuckTapeAl

It's a mobile war game.

trogdor

and we certainly didn't need one

DuckTapeAl

@trogdor Just pulled up an old 4e sheet: Also included is Bull Rush, Grab, and Opportunity attack.

BESW

@DuckTapeAl And then there's the self-titled Eyebleed Edition of Misspent Youth....

trogdor

10:05 AM

@DuckTapeAl yeah no you don't,.... need those at all

BESW

trogdor

@DuckTapeAl when you first said the first thing about too many powers, I couldn't help but think of all the character I built with a careful choice of which starting at wills they had

so I thought you had meant that and I was very puzzled

BESW

I mean... they do usually include the up-to-date maths for the character's current stats, feats, and features.

trogdor

but now I see exactly what you mean,.... if someone actually thought they needed to make power cards for all that stuff

BESW

That's nice sometimes.

But there should at least be an on/off toggle for including them.

DuckTapeAl

10:07 AM

The only way to remove them is to right click and remove each individual card.

And that doesn't save through sessions, IIRC.

BESW

I just found this... thing... from King Arthur Pendragon: Chivalric Roleplaying in Arthur's Britain (1st Edition 1985):

trogdor

@BESW you can usually just use one card for that though

BESW

In addition to the insanely weird layout, it includes phrases like "If a character is married, and for each concubine kept, consult the Childbirth Table every winter."

trogdor

" this is your to hit with non weapon attacks"

BESW

There's also a Random Marriage Table.

trogdor

10:11 AM

what,....

why does this even exist?

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

BESW

Roleplaying games can get weird, guys.

DuckTapeAl

I read an article earlier tonight about how a lot of mid-eighties RPG systems tried to make absurdly "realistic" depictions of feudal europe.

trogdor

I know but, besides that misogynistic fantasy,.... why would you make a random freaking table for that?

DuckTapeAl

Ask the designer for FATAL.

trogdor

@DuckTapeAl we do not speak of that here

BESW

10:13 AM

Hey, Grapplebeener!

trogdor

I mean, I guess we could but I don't really want to myself XD

DuckTapeAl

The best thing about FATAL is people making fun of FATAL. I've never read the system, but I've read several different articles explaining in detail why it's so awful.

doppelgreener

@BESW well that adds new meaning to the idea of a character maintenance minigame

BESW

@doppelgreener You should look at Cthulhu Confidential because it plays with concepts similar to conditions/consequences in ways you might find interesting.

doppelgreener

@BESW oh! Thank you! What is this thing?

BESW

10:16 AM

@doppelgreener It's a new game from Pelgrane Press (the Gumshoe/Trail of Cthulhu guys). It takes the Gumshoe system and hacks it aggressively into something designed for twosie play.

trogdor

@doppelgreener it's the system we used yesterday for Geek Night

doppelgreener

Ooh! Lovely!

BESW

So it'll be kinda familiar because you've played Bubblegumshoe.

But it does things like throw out all stability/health/cool tracks that larger group versions of Gumshoe use to track wounds, sanity, etc.

Instead you get cards, often custom designed for the adventure you're playing, which say a good or bad thing about your situation. They may be purely narrative, or they may impact your mechanics somehow, and you keep them until the narrative says you can get rid of them (often it says how to reach this point on the card).

This is important because, among other things, dying in a twosie game does not work.

DuckTapeAl

Answer posted. Definitely a reasonable thing to stay up until 6AM for. :P

G'night!

BESW

So if you get shot in the first scene of your adventure, you get a card like Gut-shot which imposes a penalty on physical rolls. And it says that if you haven't gotten proper medical treatment for the wound by the end of the adventure, you die of your wounds in the coda.

@DuckTapeAl ttfn

That way you can face fatal threats without trivializing them, but also without just suddenly ending the game mid-story.

Miniman

10:29 AM

@DuckTapeAl Nite!

trogdor

@DuckTapeAl good night :)

doppelgreener

That does sound really good. I like that.

trogdor

it was pretty great

though I can't honestly say that it had nothing to do with say, not having much RPG in my diet for a while

BESW

10:46 AM

You get Problems (bad cards) and Edges (good cards) by failing or succeeding on rolls. And you can take an Extra Problem in order to get another die on a roll.

This means that often failing a roll isn't a failed action at all--they call it a setback and its outcome can be tailored to the situation kinda like failure in Fate.

It's sometimes more like Cthulhu Dark where a bad roll means you succeed but it doesn't work out the way you wanted or has an unexpected side effect.

Pre-made adventures can feel a little like a CYOA game, but curated by a person so it's got more flexibility and isn't as... silly.

Trish

10:59 AM

@BESW this looks fitting for a game for a show that has no direction or consistent timeline because the protagnist messes it up all the time.

BESW

I wish I could give them credit for intentionality.

nitsua60

1:51 PM

@Szega @daze413 @Wibbs @Miniman @SevenSidedDie @Trish I've opened a meta on the question about the wall and its topicality. Hope you'll weigh in.

Miniman

@nitsua60 Wait, can you see individual's reasons for closing?

Szega

@nitsua60 I'll look into it again later, but I gotta get afk for now.

nitsua60

@Miniman It turns out, yes I can. I didn't know that until ten seconds ago, so it hadn't factored into my thinking.

@Szega No worries.

@Miniman Given that, it makes the whole thing a little trickier.... A bunch of "unclear" votes in there, which are reasonable and my argument for "rpg expertise helps" has no bearing on those.

Hrmmm.

Miniman

@nitsua60 So, to my thinking, it's no more off-topic than many other questions. I voted to close because I firmly believed (and still do) that it will attract, for the most part, a bunch of hot garbage.

nitsua60

You're playing my song!

=)

BESW

2:01 PM

@nitsua60 A hot Garbage song.

nitsua60

New RPG concept: three users choose three words, randomly, from a dictionary. Within ten seconds @BESW links a relevant reference that clearly wasn't just Googled, but was in one of their minds, screaming to get out into the world. Onlookers stand by, amazed.

4

We can call it jeff.

Miniman

@nitsua60 If it helps, I put "for the most part" in just for you :P

Anyway, it's midnight and I just hit a savepoint in Undertale, so I think it's time I went to bed.

nitsua60

@Miniman Have a good night. Hope it was a good weekend =]

BESW

@nitsua60 That one took me, like, 6 minutes to decide which Garbage song to use and track down a good link that wasn't blocked from Guam.

(Plus however long it took to notice someone was chatting, and tab over to read.)

nitsua60

@BESW I'm enjoying the mental image of someone who doesn't know you live in Guam parsing that sentence. In my mind it never occurs to this person that you might, so there're ever-higher fairy-tale castles spun of glass explaining why Guam-blockage matters.

The Oracle

2:10 PM

3

Q: Don't tear down this wall [question]!

How long does it take to build a wall? has been closed as being off-topic as a real-world research question (per campaign research questions, II). I agree that real-world research could answer this. I disagree, though, that it's the only way to answer that question: I believe that answers that d...

nitsua60

Dear fictional lurker: BESW pipes all their traffic through Guam, just to up the degree-of-difficulty in their game of jeff.

2

BESW

> If they did - well, they wouldn't be so much leaping to conclusions as building elaborate cantilevered structures so as to reach conclusions more efficiently for prolonged periods. (source)

Hmmmm.

Given the campaign conceit that there's a significant community of humanoid cryptids living in a major city, what city and time period in the last hundred years (non-contemporary) would offer interesting investigative journalism opportunities for a PC who's researching articles for the cryptids' underground newsletter?

Trish

The correct answer is always Rome, Paris, London and "since the start of the Sanitation movement", because before there were no sewers to hide the humanoid cryptids in.

Shalvenay

2:28 PM

@Trish you seem to have forgotten about catacombs...

Trish

@Shalvenay which ones?

Shalvenay

@Trish the usual suspects (Paris/London/Rome) + others (Odessa in the Ukraine, Alexandria in Egypt)

Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa

The catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa (meaning "Mound of Shards") is a historical archaeological site located in Alexandria, Egypt and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The necropolis consists of a series of Alexandrian tombs, statues and archaeological objects of the Pharaonic funeral cult with Hellenistic and early Imperial Roman influences. Due to the time period, many of the features of the catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa merge Roman, Greek and Egyptian cultural points; some statues are Egyptian in style, yet bear Roman clothes and hair style whilst other features share a similar...

Trish

Paris catacombs? Established only when they rebuilt the city... 1738
Rome was the ONLY city up to the sanitatary movement that had underground sewers.
London built theirs only some decade after John Snow (yes, that was his name) did bring Epidiology to light and had the Broad Street Pump identified for a cholera outbreak in 1854.

And rome didn't expand their underground sewer system after the fal of the roman empire at all - it was in a really bad shape at the start of the sanitation movement.

nitsua60

@Trish Recent ~~geneaological~~ ~~geneological~~ genealogical research reveals that the father of epidemiology's name was actually Aegon, not John Snow.

("Emidemiology," first try. "Genealogy"... gives me fits. Who knew?)

Trish

well... But John Snow (or rather: some of his writings) was (were) a driving force behind the foundation of the London Epidemiological Society in 1850. ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/LESociety.html

godskook

5:05 PM

John Snow, Aegon. Are we absolutely 100% sure we're talking about epidemiology and not ASOIF?

Trish

@godskook I am sure.

John Snow

John Snow (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858) was an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the fathers of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854. His findings inspired fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world. == Early life and education == Snow was born on 15 March 1813 in York, England, the first of nine children born...

godskook

@Trish I'm well aware. I just couldn't let it slide without making the connection :P

Trish

I know, it is too good XD

Shalvenay

hey there @Trish

nitsua60

5:32 PM

[LotR] Stupid question, but hopefully someone can help me. When the elves sail away, where do they sail from? Memory's failing me.

I.e. where in Eriador do they embark to sail west?

Is it the Grey Havens?

Shalvenay

wants to see the elves try to sail up the Houston Ship Channel in fog so thick they can't even see their own bowspirit

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Grey Havens where Cidan's people live.

Shalvenay

hey there @KorvinStarmast, how're things going?

KorvinStarmast

Hi Shal, I'm here to thank Nitsua for poking me to make a better answer this morning. How you?

Shalvenay

alright here. figuring out parts organization still :P

KorvinStarmast

5:42 PM

@TRish I though Naples (when it was the Greek Colony/City Neopolis) had sewers before Rome did. (Memory might not be working on that, however)

Heh, I've got phase 2 of fence repair today, and a birthday party for my wife's grand nephew. No games for me!

Shalvenay

got an in-person game hopefully starting later this month, and the game I'm already in is moving -- also, making progress on my bench

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast I.. don't know what that means =)

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 WHat it means, amigo, is that I am grateful for your comments on that answer. Thanks again. :)

nitsua60

Sorry--I was unclear. Massage rec'vd on the answer-front. The whole "Cidan's people" bit, though, means naught to me.

KorvinStarmast

Cirdan's people. Cirdan the Shipwright and his people (Noldor and Sindar, apparently) lived in the Grey Havens since the end of the First Age. It is from there that the elves take the ships that head west.

This source suggests he was Sindarin. As does this source

... Círdan still took up his abode by the sea, in Harlindon with Celeborn and Galadriel. Harlindon was located south of the Gulf of Lune, to the north of which was Forlindon, where Gil-galad and Elrond dwelt. (At some point he moved to Mithlond.)

There he welcomed the friendly and then-unfallen Númenóreans, making friends with Vëantur, chief of the mariners of Tar-Elendil, and later teaching Aldarion his grandson of ships (both management and construction) and seaside architecture, doubtless being the foremost authority on both.

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Mithlond The Grey Havens are called Mithlond.

nitsua60

6:02 PM

@KorvinStarmast Ahh... thank you very much!

BESW

8:00 PM

@Trish Thank you, but the Sanitation movement is academic; I'm looking no more than a hundred years back for the era to set the campaign in.

I'm particularly thinking of drawing on the underground/alternative press counterculture, which means some time in the 60s through 80s.

BESW

8:37 PM

@trogdor [wave]

trogdor

hi

what's up?

BESW

[gestures above] I'm narrowing in on our One-2-One campaign a little.

(Also I found an awesome map.)

trogdor

ah ok nice

BESW

So--probably an American port city in the 1960s or 70s.

trogdor

8:52 PM

that sounds cool yeah

BESW

I figure we may default to New York just because it's the city we have the most media exposure to, but there'll need to be a bit of research for period-specific elements anyway to another city wouldn't be that much more work.

Shalvenay

@BESW -- East vs West Coast is going to be a big deal b/c of containerization

BESW

How is containerization relephant to cryptid counterculture press?

Shalvenay

@BESW it's a big impact on how the "port" part of "port city" works

my understanding is that the West Coast ports (LA/Long Beach for instance) embraced containerization, while the East Coast ports (Baltimore, NYC) resisted it mightily

which is probably going to ripple down into the culture through union activity

if the longshoremen are on strike most of the time, that's going to make a lot more waves than if most of the activity is backroom negotiations

BESW

9:09 PM

Hmm.

BESW

9:22 PM

Amazing mass flow on the Tibetan Plateau - perhaps a peat slide in saturated/thawed ground http://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1788404 https://t.co/CYqzMRXebM

Tweeted by Jamie_Woodward_ on September 10, 2017 at 3:28 PM

@Shalvenay I'm having some trouble finding resources that talk about this part of containerization history. Got any links?

Shalvenay

@BESW web.archive.org/web/20120325093543/http://ftp.resource.org/… << for some of the nastiness that came out of that

BESW

9:41 PM

Thank you.

Shalvenay

11:28 PM

hey there @nitsua60

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