TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

01:14

'sup, peeps?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hey there, how're things going?

nitsua60

Study hall =\

Writing up campfire stories for the locals to share with the party. (For Tomb of Annihilation.)

trogdor

@nitsua60 doncha mean "sup sheeps"?

nitsua60

Anyone have a good less-known myth of a fallen civilization/city I can plunder?

@trogdor No, I ate already. And I don't care if you did =)

trogdor

Lol

I could tell you the tale of Troglantis

nitsua60

01:22

(Hmm... not quite sure a smiley really takes the edge off that. Didn't mean it quite as harsh as it looks in the cold, fluorescent lights of study hall.)

@trogdor [chin in hands]

trogdor

XD

I don't really have one I sorely wish I did

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 heheh. unfortunatley, don't really have anything for you

trogdor

If I was a really good storyteller I would top everything and make it up on the spot right now

nitsua60

(Problem is, I feel naively like "fallen city" trope is fairly ahistorical. If there was a city there, there's too much good infrastructure to really ~abandon~.)

trogdor

As is I kinda just wanted to say "Troglantis"

Shalvenay

01:27

@nitsua60 hahaha, yes. see: Detroit

trogdor

Yeah people will come/go back to Detroit

It might or might not take some time but it'll happen

At least that is what my father says (he grew up there)

I personally think any city that has trouble like that will eventually transcend it

Could always take any amount of time though

nitsua60

@trogdor Sure.

At some point the hipsters will "discover" it. (Patronizingly.) Then it'll get a show on HGTV. And a show on the Food Network. And it'll be pronounced "revitalized." (Except that'll only describe 5% of the population/area.)

Hmm... I'm on a bummer-roll tonight.

trogdor

Mm that isn't exactly what I mean but I do get the point

Sometimes when people say a place is all fixed up they are only talking about so much of it

For the record.

Shalvenay

besides, even thriving cities need infrastructure re-dos from time to time

trogdor

01:42

When I say any amount of time I mean it as a potentially extreme amount of time

Yeah even New York could use some refurbishment

I've never been there but I have heard it runs along a whole spectrum as a city

Shalvenay

oh, hello there @Thávŕon and welcome

Miniman

02:07

@nitsua60 Not sure of your requirements here...for example, would Moria count (other than the "less-known" bit)?

trogdor

Yeah I assumed Atlantis would work if...... It were not an excessively widely known story

That was part of why I had that great urge to say "Troglantis"

BESW

02:23

@nitsua60 look up Mu.

nitsua60

@BESW a city?

BESW

A continent.

(Am on phone and prepping for a client meeting, so can't elaborate too much now.)

nitsua60

WP will fill in--thanks.

Mu (lost continent)

Mu is the name of a suggested lost continent whose concept and name were proposed by 19th-century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu—which he located in the Atlantic Ocean. This concept was popularized and expanded by James Churchward, who asserted that Mu was once located in the Pacific. The existence of Mu was already being disputed in Le Plongeon's time. Currently scientists dismiss the concept of Mu (and of other alleged lost continents such as Lemuria) as physically...

Adeptus

03:53

ugh, cheap office furniture. My under-desk drawer unit is made of sheetmetal, and has a safety-lock system that means you can't open more than one drawer at a time. Except, it has now decided that I can't open more than zero drawers at a time. And no, it's not locked. The key is inside it...

BESW

05:57

The first image of a ‘zebra’ reached Europe in 1591, in the travelogue of a Portuguese salesman named Duarte Lopes.

Tweeted by thelastquagga on October 12, 2017 at 4:55 PM

For those who missed it : "@UrsulaV's Paladin Rant" https://storify.com/ksonney/ursulav-s-paladin-rant

Tweeted by ksonney on October 12, 2017 at 9:10 PM

And she's back with "@UrsulaV's Paladin Rant [Part 2]" https://storify.com/ksonney/ursulav-s-paladin-rant-part-2

Tweeted by ksonney on October 13, 2017 at 2:13 AM

kviiri

06:28

@BESW Awesome rant!

Adeptus

(For those keeping track... I managed to unjam my drawers. Yay, I can get to my teabags & chocolate again!)

kviiri

@Adeptus How did you do it?

Adeptus

In the end I just pulled the drawer so hard that I thought it might break...

kviiri

06:43

Heh

When I was in the army, one of my roommates accidentally locked his key inside his locker. He hit the lock with his trenching tool until the lock opened... and somehow the lock remained functional.

I'm aware of some tricks to unlock pin-tumbler locks with hammer strikes while holding a tool or blank key inside the keyhole, but was a bit surprised that damage intended to break the lock would do it.

BESW

07:16

@Adeptus Those are Very Important Things to have access to.

I was hoping to use Straw Boss for our annual Halloween One-Shot In A New System tradition, but it'd take a whole session just to do the collaborative worldbuilding and character prep.

I do really like some of the mechanics though, and will yoink them for other games as needed.

In particular, @doppelgreener, Straw Boss has some "channel the power of a being you've contracted with" mechanics you might find interesting for D&D-like applications.

trogdor

07:38

@BESW seems right to me

Anne Aunyme

08:31

@KorvinStarmast The last "e" is silent, otherwise you get it right.

BESW

11:32

Sexual Harassment in Indie Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Live Action Roleplaying Games https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMelmKzzptZv_bI4Ihof1QqBzf2Wf1EA7gtvDGrxQLaLON-w/viewform

Tweeted by briecs on October 12, 2017 at 11:05 PM

trogdor

11:47

um,... why is this only for a specific subset of games? isn't this a problem for many tabletop ones too?

Anne Aunyme

I guess I will never understand why people need to have that much genders listed.

BESW

I'd speculate that their purposes for gathering the info are narrow and specific.

trogdor

ok

I guess that actually makes sense

Anne Aunyme

Their purpose for the info are stated clearly

trogdor

it just seemed to imply something to me that it probably does not by any means actually mean

BESW

11:52

On an entirely different note, talking with a friend this evening yielded a new campaign setting: Post-Apocalyptic Candyland.

2

trogdor

what did the apocalypse in Candyland consist of?

BESW

Candy wrappers tumble across the wasteland, and in the distance enormous sugar ants march against the skyline.

trogdor

hordes of children running around eating people?

@BESW ah fair enough

user61230

@AnneAunyme Useful for looking at a broad range of human experience. From experience, sucks to be lumped into "other," or unable to answer at all. Also signals that other answers are okay, offering positive intention.

BESW

I don't have any details, but it seems like something somebody here might want to jump on.

Anne Aunyme

11:54

@BESW sounds like Adventure Time

trogdor

@BESW you speak of the green one?

Anne Aunyme

@Zyera I still don't really understand. Personally I like having to check "other" in a form, it reminds me that I am unique. I am pissed when there is no "other" option though, but that's besides the point

FuzzyBoots

Good morning, all.

Anne Aunyme

It's always the morning somewhere :)

BESW

@FuzzyBoots [wave] Hey, what's up?

FuzzyBoots

12:00

And it's always 5:00 somewhere. :-D

I spent way too much time last night struggling to get Planet Mercenary working in Herolab.

Looking forward to tomorrow's tabletop session, although getting my players to do anything between sessions to help me prep (like knowing what they want to be doing beforehand so I can actually write the adventure with some forethought) is like pulling teeth.

I mean, it's a lightweight system, so it's not a huge thing, but I also want it to mean something.

BESW

Aw.

ACuriousMind

@AnneAunyme Offering different options than just "other" also makes for better data: Consider the cases where the surveyed population largely identifies with a specific subset of "other", or where it covers a broad range of possible answers roughly equally. That's certainly statistically significant, but if you just offer "other", you have no way to detect that.

FuzzyBoots

Also, I have difficulty coming up with details on the fly as a storyteller without losing the thread, so I like being able to write up things to refer to beforehand.

I do still need to write up quick reference sheets for them too. They were having difficulty remembering what they could do from round to round.

BESW

Ah, yeah. I've found that I'm pretty okay with improvising if I have a strong base prepped--if I know the starting state of the adventure, I can usually roll with whatever unfolds from it, with occasional "Take ten minutes for snacks and bathroom while I look at my notes" breaks.

What's the system?

Anne Aunyme

@ACuriousMind In this case I agree. I also think that if the majority of your answers come from people who would have chosen "other" then you should probably think twice about the way you get your datas.

The Oracle

12:25

1

Q: Switching betwen active and hot questions flickers another set of questions

Can't reproduce this on other sites (n.b. other site had a Featured/Bounty tab). To reproduce: Navigate to the Active Questions Click the link to the Hot Questions. Actual: A different set/order of questions appears for a brief, split second, before a second set resolves. Expected: Switch...

bug

DForck42

13:03

mornin

KorvinStarmast

@BESW I like Ursula's rant, but I also like to remind people that there was a passage on atonement in the 1e books that was often overlooked. It didn't get as much traffic, reading wise, as the "for this great benefit you have this price to pay." Ursula's mostly right, in terms of it being too much like a step function and not enough like what a holy knight had access to.

Mike Q

14:09

What's up @DForck42

DForck42

@MikeQ not too much, workin. you?

Mike Q

Also technically working, but easily and currently distracted by brainstorming for my campaign. It's on hiatus because 1) too many real world obligations and 2) the upcoming/later story needs serious patching-up.

DForck42

@MikeQ neat, dnd?

Mike Q

@DForck42 Yes, specifically pathfinder. I tried to cut out some of the not-so-interesting parts of the story, but now it seems too sparse, and the players would just plow right through the material too fast. So rather than just "add more combat" I'd like to fill in the potential gaps with non-combat challenges.

DForck42

@MikeQ neat. what's your lore looking like?

one of my favorite thing is just getting to see bits and pieces of the world. books left behind, odd crumbled buildings, etc

Mike Q

14:27

The lore would take too long to explain, and I'm comfortable with the aspects of the story. But I'd like to add variety to the gameplay challenges. I'm looking for a weird, creative puzzle or puzzle-like challenge to throw the players off-guard. So far I have ideas like a heist mission, decoding a spymaster's encrypted messages, and a diplomatic encounter where the PCs testify against the main antagonist (who is too powerful to fight directly).

DForck42

@MikeQ those could all be fun

Mike Q

There's quite a bit of delving into ancient ruins, so I figure some dungeon puzzles could make things interesting and avoid the monotony of a battle grind. But you can't really replicate the challenge of a Zelda-esque puzzle when wizards can... be wizards.

Anne Aunyme

I am currently in a campaign in the universe of Zelda

the puzzles are more-or-less working

but I suspect the creator of the campaign intend people to abuse the puzzles

Mike Q

Are they a secret to everybody?

Anne Aunyme

14:43

what do you mean by that?

Mike Q

Er... combination of a Legend of Zelda reference and asking about the puzzle difficulty/complexity

Anne Aunyme

oh!

as an example the last session...

one PC was going down a temple, she finds an empty room with just something written on the wall

but she doesn't know how to read, so she has no idea what the puzzle actually is

Finally she managed somehow to get the text of the enigma, and overthought the solution

in total it took quite a long time

DForck42

@nitsua60 reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/75a8x4/weekly_questions_thread_126/…

Anne Aunyme

My character got a flying broomstick at some point, so he can just fly over many problems, but he doesn't since that would be cheating

DForck42

not sure if that's something you've looked at before

Mike Q

14:51

Hmm. I'd prefer to avoid "Guess what the GM was thinking" type of puzzles. Especially so-called puzzle bosses.

Anne Aunyme

Since now the only real "puzzle boss" we fought was pretty clear in how it worked

but it technically was possible to bruteforce it

Mike Q

That's a good thing. Traditional LoZ-style bosses, where the enemy is invincible until someone does the thing that exploits the boss's One Weakness, are really awkward in tabletop games that are meant to emphasize player freedom.

Anne Aunyme

This fight was more like "there are predictible things that will happen next turn, and if you do the right thing you can avoid the bad consequences, otherwise you get damages"

Mike Q

Oh okay. That's good.

Anne Aunyme

I agree with you that a seemingly invincible opponent is not very fun

especially if it is invincible just because you didn't do exactly the expected action but only something similar

The Oracle

16:33

1

Q: Can I answer a lore question with information from non-RPG media?

Say that I see a question about the Shadowrun setting. I happen to know that the answer to the question can't be found in the RPGs, but it is answered in the novels and/or video games. Can I use that as an answer? To give an example, over on Sci-fi/Fantasy Stack Exchange, there was a question ab...

discussion answers

nitsua60

17:23

@KorvinStarmast gotta love when they gave them the same name but put the edge-case (style) 50 pp. ahead of the general rule (everybody).

@DForck42 I've definitely thought about it plenty of times--I tend to run the numbers in my head out-of-turn so I know what to do. Giving advantage is nice, but often inferior (numerically) to one's "main" action. So it usually comes down to (a) Helping someone else get a great combo off, (b) counteracting a particularly-constructed encounter, or (c) out of other options.

I do like using it with numerous monsters against the party, though.

I find it feels unfair to them even though, given two identically-statted attackers, two separate attacks is numerically superior to one advantaged one. It's a small nudge, and enough for me to "spend" to give the combat some interesting feel.

(Call it "weak pack tactics.")

DForck42

@nitsua60 but then if you have a fighter, it could be two attacks, one with advantage and one normal. but again, YOU probably have something that's just as good

user61230

@AnneAunyme I don't know... For me, having to check "other" is a reminder that most people can't or won't acknowledge my gender and sexuality as anything other than a mental illness, or as a political point and see it as Liberal Craziness. (And that even attempting to communicate it tends to make life hell very quickly in the wrong group). It's very, well, othering, pardon the pun. I can understand and appreciate what you're saying, though. Just two ways of looking at the same thing :]

DForck42

the main thing I've seen it used in was suggesting to new players, if they're suffering from analysis paralysis, to use the help action

CTWind

I'm personally surprised more people don't default to 'Dodge' from analysis paralysis.

I feel like it's the most-ignored action.

nitsua60

17:40

@DForck42 Right--exactly. It's for when I'm somehow out of my A- and B-options: sightline, condition, resources have me ~sidelined. "But I can still Help!"

CTWind

I think the most I've seen Help used is when there's a rogue in the party who's unlikely to get sneak attack- either he uses it because his damage is a bit of a pittance without it, or someone else uses it to help enable the sneak attack.

nitsua60

@CTWind It explicitly makes no progress toward a goal, unless "getthehellouttahere" is the goal. And it's a rare party that consistently weighs that among its options =)

CTWind

I've mainly learned how useful it is sometimes as an alternative to Disengage. If you're going to take more than an opportunity attack over the course of the next round, sometimes dodge & move is better than disengage & move.

nitsua60

@CTWind Sure--that's a good point.

CTWind

Got stuck in a situation where I had a tough, hasted, multiattacking NPC that was faster than me chasing me down, and I was trying to escape to the rest of my party down the hall. Dodge + move saved my life, disengage + move would've gotten me eaten by his 2-3 other attacks/round.

DForck42

17:48

@CTWind interesting, I hadn't seen it used

CTWind

18:02

(Technically, dodge + dash + move; was playing a Rogue, and figured I'd take the least damage with that vs dash + dash + move or dash + disengage + move)

Adam

@CTWind Except the help action requires you to remain within 5 ft. of the creature the other person is attacking. And since the rogue gets sneak attack when an enemy of their target is within 5 feet of them, just standing near said creature gives the rogue sneak attack.

CTWind

Unless the rogue would've been attacking with disadvantage if it weren't for Help.

Adam

I thought I remember reading that if you have disadvantage, you can't sneak attack even if you cancel it out.

CTWind

Don't think that's true. You don't have disadvantage if they cancelled out.

Adam

@CTWind You are correct. I must have been having a fever dream at the time

Then that would be the edge case where helping would gtant a sneak attack

DForck42

18:08

@Adam I know they don't "stack", so two sources of advantage is cancelled by 1 source of disadvantage

CTWind

Help also continues working if you move out of range, and boosts ranged attacks. So someone could flyby help and keep going without needing to stay to qualify for the adjacent ally thing.

Adam

14

Q: Does advantage negate disadvantage (for things such as sneak attack)?

In a recent question, it was pointed out that you couldn't sneak attack an invisible opponent because the rules specifically state that you cannot have disadvantage for the attack. However, it would not be impossible for the rogue to also have advantage on the attack, by virtue of being hidden or...

dnd-5e advantage

@CTWind Now that I had never even thought of, but you are right

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yeah, that's one of those things where I think that another name for the Fighting Style for Paladins, Fighters and rangers would have benefitted from a slightly different name than the general combat rule.

@DForck42 Thanks for the format edit, looks good.

CTWind

Hrm, I actually need to do the math at some point for (Rogue attacking w/ Advantage) vs (Rogue attacking 2x w/ two-weapon fighting normally, using sneak attack on whatever the first attack that hits is). I'm curious if the increased crit chance on the singular attack w/ sneak attack outweighs the extra damage from the potential of hitting without sneak attack one extra time.

DForck42

@KorvinStarmast no problem

@CTWind hmm, a complication is that determing which hit to sneak attack does matter, because if you hit the first time (noncrit) and SA, and then hit the second time without being to SA, you technically "lose" that extra SA die if it's a crit

CTWind

18:23

Yeah. I just gotta imagine that using sneak attack as soon as you hit is mathematically better than holding off until your last attack to see if you crit. But that's something that can be mathed out as well.

DForck42

@CTWind true

CTWind

Because missing on your last attack just feels so terrible if you do that

DForck42

yup

hmm... interesting

are you more likely to hit rolling two separate attacks, or one attack with advantage?

CTWind

So in either case, you're making two attack rolls. In the two attacks case, you get a benefit from both being successes, but in the advantage case there's no such benefit.

So same odds of landing >0 hits

but the two attack case has a >0% chance of landing 2

DForck42

interesting

Zachiel

19:08

@Miniman oh, be it not the time-consuming "here, draw random encounters from this table and run them" test.

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast "Ambidextrous," maybe?

Zachiel

I'm tempted to run my level 20 cleric against the level 15 challenges in the Same Game Test just to see it dying 18 times

Wait, no, I can win against the badgers

Also, Symbols of pain. But that was easy.

KorvinStarmast

19:50

@nitsua60 Or Ambiclumsy ... :)

nitsua60

20:24

@KorvinStarmast =)

Off the top of the head, anyone know what the lifespans of D&D lycanthropes are like? Weretiger and 5e, if it'd matter.

GreySage

@nitsua60 According to my random google search results, ~80 years

nitsua60

So, similar to the humanoid before infection? (Not underworld-style millennia-old lycans.)

GreySage

shrug

here is where I got that, btw

Adam

@nitsua60 I don't think in 5e lycanthropy changes your lifespan at all. Unlike, say, vampirism.

nitsua60

1d6

Dice Service

20:33

•

Mike Q

1d6

Dice Service

•

Mike Q

Ha! I win!

GreySage

d20

Dice Service

18

DForck42

20:40

d20

Dice Service

6

GreySage

@DiceService at least you tied Mike Q

DForck42

@GreySage lol

so I'm working on a cheatsheet for my SKT game (5e)

on it I've got the gist of how combat works, and I'm going to have a section on resting and skills

I might also include the different conditions

what else might be useful to have at a glance for PCs?

Adam

I'm not sure I would give them too much else.

Shalvenay

23:21

hey there @nitsua60

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