TRPG General Chat

Miniman

00:21

Winterbash has arrived.

Ben

But it's summer

Shalvenay

hey there @Ben

Ben

\o

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Ben

so so

you?

nitsua60

00:23

@Miniman HAAAAAAAAAAAATSSSSS!!!

ACuriousMind

Winterbash, aka The Hatting Season, aka The Time Of Headdresses, also The Period Of Weird Incentives

Shalvenay

@Ben OK

nitsua60

This year I vow to chase no hats, after my naked hat-grab last year

Shalvenay

hey there @ACuriousMind

ACuriousMind

heyhey

Miniman

00:25

@nitsua60 We'll see how THAT goes.

nitsua60

@Miniman no, this year I'll shamelessly use my mod-powers to bring hats to me. No chasing, you see.

=)

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind how're things going?

BESW

Hmm. I'm not seeing anything that's obviously going to let me do an icon run.

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay just fine

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind alright here. I think Pixie will be our other player for DW btw (poked her on Discord and she should be able to make it)

ACuriousMind

00:28

@Shalvenay Oh, nice

BESW

00:51

If this Q&A is acceptable, please help them get 3 votes each so I can start my hat spree. Otherwise please help me improve them!

Miniman

I just got a secret hat!

nitsua60

hats? what hats?

[he he he]

BESW

nitsua60

@Miniman wait, what? you got the diamondhat?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Oooh, Shiny! ?

Pretty sure it's for looking at something less than a minute after it was posted.

Because that's literally the only thing I did, and it matches the title.

trogdor

00:55

@Miniman AAAAAARRRRGGGHHH

nitsua60

I'm... confused.

Miniman

Alternatively, [dons hat], it has a diamond on it so I'm a mod now.

trogdor

I was sure it would be coming after work

I must now destroy hatmass

BESW

@trogdor Nah, their day turnover is always 10am our time.

nitsua60

@Miniman When did you vote to approve that title-edit?

Miniman

00:58

@nitsua60 36 minutes ago, so it would've been within Winterbash.

Ben

Doesn't matter... he's a mod now

Miniman

Although if it was that, the hat took a while to come through.

nitsua60

Nice. I can take the night off.

Ben

nitsua60

@Miniman I'm wondering if it was my mod-approval of the edit. Somehow recognizing that you participated in a mod-action?

BESW

00:59

@GrenadeFox Hi!

Ben

@Miniman I still dunn see it

Oh wait... no... DST wouldn't have anything to do with it, right?

nitsua60

Ben

The scene: @miniman standing heroically atop a small crate, while the masses praise him with awe. In the background, the rest of the mods continue going unappreciated for closing bad questions.

Miniman

@Ben Nah, it happens globally at a single time. DST just changes individual perceptions of when that time is.

nitsua60

Miniman's too busy editing old posts to receive such adulation =)

Ben

01:05

Yeah

Miniman

@nitsua60 The Rouge/Rogue distinction is very important to me personally and to the site as a whole.

And it's been ages since I've done a sweep, anyway.

BESW

Halfway to my designated hat...

Miniman

I've got the one I think I'll wear throughout.

Ben

"These mutants are weird..." you think as the Lizard-man's head pops up briefly from behind a rock, licking it's eyeball. Then a voice pops into your head - "Says the guy that needs to sit down to poop." The Lizard-man licks its other eyeball, then disappears back behind the rock.

nitsua60

@Miniman you going to start up the photo album?

BESW

01:15

One... more... vote...

Miniman

@nitsua60 Nope - I've never participated before, why start now?

GrenadeFox

@BESW Hi

nitsua60

@Miniman because you're our leader

Miniman

@nitsua60 I think my hat reflects that nicely :P

GrenadeFox

Is the 3rd-party tag a usable tag? Its on only two questions.

Miniman

01:20

@GrenadeFox If you have a question about 3rd-party publishing, it'd be ideal.

GrenadeFox

I have a question about a 3rd party pathfinder spell, so I was wondering if I should use the tag.

BESW

That seems imminently reasonable.

GrenadeFox

Cool, thanks

Ben

It's decided. I don't understand time

@Nitsua please do feel free to correct my math

nitsua60

Older - They Might Be Giants (best, official video)

►

@Ben It's not math, it's the definition of CR on MM p.9, or as abstracted from DMG ca. p.82.

BESW

01:33

Hah! Hat accomplished.

Miniman

@BESW Ah, so you're doing detectives this year?

Just as I suspected.

BESW

Yup!

Ben

@nitsua60 In which case, that question is a dupe

8

Q: What is the CR/XP-Character Level relationship for opponents?

I can't seem to find information in the Monster Manual for how to design an opponent with class levels of an appropriate challenge for my 7th-level party. Perhaps this appears in the DMG? I want to make a human assassin entirely using class levels, rather than using the premade assassin in the ba...

Miniman

@Ben Not a dupe - that's asking about assigning a CR to an enemy built like a PC.

nitsua60

I feel like the wrinkle of it being a solo PC is enough to require its own treatment.

Ben

01:38

Maybe I should drink more coffe

nitsua60

Those encounters are a whole different beast.

Ben

I have been doing data entry for the past 3 days. My brain is really struggling to switch on today haha

nitsua60

no worries =)

BESW

@Miniman I've got about 15 I'm really happy with and could easily fill out the other half of the month if I had, but I'm open to suggestions!

Miniman

@BESW Hard to come up with detectives there'd be good pictures for off the top of my head, since they're mostly from books.

Ben

01:41

It's incredibly confusing when people change their avatars haha. Probably why I don't change mine

Miniman

@BESW Is L in there?

BESW

[adds to list]

Ben

@miniman you free to help balance out some abilities for the Butcher? :D

BESW

As always I'm trying for a diverse group. Joan Watson, Detective Dee, Easy Rawlins, Peter Grant...

Miniman

@Ben Give me about half an hour to have lunch?

BESW

01:42

And of course staples like Jessica Fletcher and Albert Campion.

Ben

@Miniman [insert sarcasm here]

Haha yeah no worries

I have a stat block drawn up, and if you had a look at TBR we got about halfway through the encounter, but after talking to onther long-time DM friend he immediately stated that several abilities might be OP

BESW

@Miniman Many detectives have, at least, some portrayal on the cover of the book.

Peter Grant has a series of comics!

Miniman

@BESW On that subject, I'm curious - is Batman in there?

BESW

He's on the list but may not make the cut.

BESW

02:00

Aaand now I've got more than 40, but I'm not happy with at least half of them. (This is the "get them all down and see how picky I can be" stage.)

nitsua60

(She Was A) Hotel Detective - They Might Be Giants

►

Ben

@Miniman homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BJlfiWCWG

BESW

@nitsua60 Of course! How could I forget Goldie Vance?

nitsua60

@BESW the better version, IMO:

They Might Be Giants - She Was A Hotel Detective

►

(I was thinking of it because that one (second linked version, the "disco remix") was my daughter's bedtime song request. Complete with falsetto bridge.)

Shalvenay

hey there @Alphaeus

Alphaeus

02:12

Hey @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Alphaeus

Pretty good.

Shalvenay

alright here

Alphaeus

On a business trip rn

Ben

Alphaeus

02:24

faceplam

FACEPLAM

plam it

Ben

Well handled

Alphaeus

>makes fun of language error on tattoo >makes a typo in his one-word response > le genius

@Ben Thank you, thank you

BESW

@Ben "...and I'll cry if I want to" ?

The white-spotted jellyfish. #WorldJellyfishDay

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on November 3, 2017 at 8:00 PM

Today's #RPG got canceled, so I used #untoldbg + #DrWho @storycubes as my GM to run @EvilHatOfficial's Fate Accelerated in the Whoniverse.

Tweeted by FioreMonkey on December 10, 2017 at 10:35 PM

Alphaeus

White Spotted Jellyfish? I saw those the time I hit myself in the forehead with the garden pickaxe.

Ben

@Alphaeus umm... ouch :/

Alphaeus

02:31

Oddly enough I only broke the skin, no worries

Then again, my father's side of the family has thick skulls, literally and otherwise :P

And the pick was dull

Ben

Well then... that's lucky

Alphaeus

True. 90% of my childhood consisted of being randomly lucky

Ben

@Alphaeus In my experience the house wasn't properly christened until I'd put an appendage through a wall (or at least attempted to)

It was generally my head.

Alphaeus

My ritual is falling up stairs

Personally I find that much more in vogue than the head-through-the-wall

that's so 90s

Ben

Well I am a 90s kid haha.

Alphaeus

02:36

Ah, well, I'm only a couple years shy of the 90s

but that was my head-bashing peak timeperiod

I moved on to failed attempts at beating gravity after that.

Ben

Actually I have one friend that did something very impressive in that area - a 1ft high step down, slipped, and sprained both ankles

Alphaeus

Alright, now that's a feat

Ben

Not exactly "beating gravity", but she did a swell job of it!

Alphaeus

lol

Ben

Alphaeus

02:39

I gotta pirate that gif

That describes 50% of life on some days

The other 50% is described by this

(corrected)

Shalvenay

03:09

hey there @Asteria

hey there @Nyoze

Ben

03:53

Question - how do we feel about "is this homebrew thing balanced" questions?

Yuuki

@BESW Have you ever done a meta/nested setting? Like a "game within a game"?

Ben

For the most part I could agree that it'd be too broad

/opinion based

BESW

@Ben They're very very hard to write in ways that the Stack can handle, but they aren't definitionally off-topic.

The querent needs to give their own clear criteria for what "balanced" means, so that answers will be useful to them.

If every answerer has to define the criteria for balance independently, it's little more than rampant speculation.

Yuuki

I'd been thinking about hybrid rules systems like Fate + D&D and one setting archetype that I've seen in recent years is the "real-life person playing a video game" setting and I felt like it would lend itself rather well to a hybrid system.

BESW

@Yuuki I've toyed with the idea a few times.

Ben

03:56

@BESW So, "I have a monster that does xyz, and the intention is this, in this situation" is heading in the right direction?

BESW

I've switched out systems mid-game to do specific things, but it wasn't narratively a game within a game: it was the same story with different systems.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, didn't we do a recursive RFS game once?

Yuuki

I figured you could use Fate to handle the largely non-combat social part of "real life" while D&D rules would be used for the mostly combat-oriented game world.

Shalvenay

hey btw @Yuuki, how're things going?

BESW

@Shalvenay Not quite; we played D&D players whose GM was missing so we had to go find him, but we didn't actually play D&D in the session.

Yuuki

03:57

@Shalvenay They're going okay. We sprayed foam last week and I replaced the sockets. I think all that's left is the drywall and we'd be able to move back in.

BESW

I also once ran a Fate scene about playing a video game, but we didn't change any systems for it at our table.

(Trogdor's teenage PC was babysitting, and the kid wanted to play Skylanders.)

Shalvenay

@BESW ah. Yuuki's inquiry was limited to heterogenous cases, while we were doing RFS within RFS

@Yuuki nice!

BESW

Yeah, he's nesting systems at the table.

Erics

@BESW In some games the rules specifically allow for the PCs to do spell research, magic item creation, etc. With a rule that says "should be balanced".

BESW

I've used one system to mimic another, and I've swapped systems out for the same story, but I've never used a system change to mark a level shift.

Shalvenay

04:04

@Yuuki does this mean we can maybe get together for some D&D soon? :D

BESW

@Erics Yes, and rarely gives guidance on what that would mean, specifically.

Yuuki

@Shalvenay Hopefully!

Erics

@BESW Sadly so.

BESW

@Ben Depends on the system. In D&D 3.5, for example, I might say "I'm trying to write this spell to be about the same power as [existing spell], did I succeed?"

Shalvenay

@Yuuki did you have any thoughts on what you wanted out of the adventure in the meantime, or on what sort of char you wanted to play for that matter?

nitsua60

04:05

@Ben have a gander: rpg.stackexchange.com/…

Erics

@BESW Well, some guidance along the line of "If the spell is an improvement of an existing spell, it should be at least two levels greater than that spell" and "If the spell is one of the other group (a priest researching a wizard's spell), it should always be at a higher level than it is in its natural group."

Yuuki

@Shalvenay Honestly, not really. Part of me wants to see what it'd be like to play a character that someone else has come up with.

Shalvenay

@Yuuki as in a pregen char?

BESW

@Erics Those are well and good... but in my experience rarely actually conducive to real balance. Stackwise, evaluating balance is best done comparatively rather than absolutely.

Yuuki

Kinda like a film actor, where the job is to color in between the lines.

Erics

04:10

AD&D DMG 2e pp43–45

BESW

That is, rather than saying "It follows these guidelines and therefore is balanced," it's more useful to say "It's similar to these existing things and therefore falls alongside them in terms of power."

trogdor

@Shalvenay I was about to ask that, but maybe also/or one a group member made?

Shalvenay

@Yuuki or would you want me to toss you a character from my stable?

Erics

I actually get the read that new spells from research are kinda discouraged, as they'll be weaker or require a higher level than if they were rule book originals.

Trish

WOW... one question, one day open, 101 people like best answer...

Erics

04:21

Q: At what point does "tweaking" the rules and monster stat blocks start to become gaslighting?

Ben

Situational

I mean, for someone that "knows" it all, and argues that "no, the monster should have xyz", then that's probably al,ong those lines

Whereas if the party doesn't say anything, either through ignorance or lack of care, it's fine

BESW

Eric's talking about a GM who modifies the system regularly and without warning, often making it difficult to know what effect one's choices will actually have.

Ben

Right

Well in that case I would argue that the intention behind it has a part to play? For example, if the intention is to keep the encounters interesting - rather than just using the same stat block over and over?

I suppose it depends on how much, and in which direction

Trish

Modifying the system and using different statblocks are not always the same... like, in The Dark Eye, I have about 10 different ork stat blurps in the year of the griffon alone. none of them has special abilities thogh.

Mind that the different orc blurps stand for differing levels of skill, two of them are named NPCs, and two are their war dogs/war ogres.

Ben

And there is re-skinning as well. Like saying the bandit captain is actually just a really tough bandit

BESW

04:31

These aren't the kinds of things I get the impression Eric's talking about, based on previous conversations.

Ben

Yeah. Fair.

Skyler

hey @BESW, have you ever come across a happy medium between skills and approaches in FAE?

vs Fate Core

BESW

I find they're each useful for different kinds of storytelling.

Skyler

Since I'm looking at Star Wars universe it's one of those cases where both can work well

BESW

Approaches are good for TV logic, where a Forceful person is equally good at breaking down doors and interrogating people, and a Clever person is equally good at fast talking and computer hacking.

Between the two I'd use approaches for most Star Wars stories.

But there's also aspect-only, and I'm very interested in that.

Skyler

04:36

Ooph, thats REALLY free form

BESW

With aspect-only, you don't have any skills or approaches or anything like that. Instead you get +1 to your roll for each character aspect which applies.

It requires some careful work on guiding aspect selection, but it looks pretty great if you can manage it.

I want to try it with this TMNT hack of The Three Rocketeers.

Umm. With approaches I've also started using the DFAE phrases instead of the Accelerated ones.

Flair, Focus, Force, Guile, Haste, and Intellect.

As far as Star Wars specific ability modifier systems go, I'm very interested in Faith Corps, but that's only Fate-adjacent.

In that, you have Approaches and Disciplines (which are like skills), and each is assigned a die size.

When you roll for an action, you take one Approach and one Discipline and roll their dice together.

Spirit of the Blank has a lot to say about it, including pre-made characters from the Star Wars: Rebels series.

Skyler

I was sort of playing with the idea of borrowing from the idea of extras in Fate Core, with a one or two extras giving some kind specializations with a limited scope and small but important benefit.

BESW

If you're looking into handing out large extras, consider switching from refresh to a GM fate pool for balancing.

That is, if PCs are going to be significantly imbalanced in terms of extra features between each other.

Skyler

Probably one or two extras per person, similarly styled to each other. Like a person who says they are a skilled/decorated pilot depending on this can get on of these extras:

Smuggler: Tie for overcome action in a vehicle doesn't come at minor cost
Dogfighter: Shift 1 for successful attack role in a vehicle (doesn't trigger success with style)
Underdog: Get a boost for a tie on defense
Escort: Can add +1 to failed defense(make a tie)

in a vehicle for all of these

And basically follow a similar formula for each other players areas of specialty, after that it's up to stunts and etc for them to really boost their character

The idea is that it'd be nice to make people just passively a little better at a certain aspect of something they have done all the time, with a much smaller scope in strength than stunts but much more passive boost.

Does this seem a little redundant to you @BESW

BESW

05:08

I'm not sure why you're not just giving them each an extra stunt slot dedicated to their chosen combat role.

Skyler

@BESW that can work too, I was picturing allowing it to extend out of combat. R2 would want this hacking the console. C3PO for communicating in another language

BESW

Aye.

Skyler

but stunts can do that too I suppose right?

BESW

For a film-like Star Wars story this is one reason I'd use approaches over skills: they're more flexible in terms of competency mode, and Star Wars characters tend to find themselves in a lot of different kinds of situations which you'd need a LOT of skills to cover.

Ben

05:27

Ok, I need help wording this...

So, one of the abilities my BBEG has is to hook, and pull a creature across the room. But I want that distance to be equal to the amount the player failed the check

so for example, it's a DC15 str check. If they get 10, then they are pulled 5 ft

BESW

05:38

One square for each 5 points by which the check failed.

Nyoze

So your butcher doesn't yank them a full 40 feet now?

Ben

@Nyoze One of my Dming friends suggested that might be a bit OP

BESW

06:00

Forcibly moving someone enough that they need to spend their whole turn regaining their position is a significant ability.

Ben

Yes. Originally the rule was "pulled to the monster" - however far that may be.

whereas up to a maximum of 14 feet is a lot less powerful

Erics

@BESW Correct. I have played campaigns where every monster was weird and unknown, and part of the gameplay was figuring out what its weaknesses were. That is fun. Lots more narrative & descriptions & lore research in the game play too.

This is more like "OK, you've closed the portcullis between you and the bug bear ... it now uses its gaze weapon, roll vs petrification". No, there were no clues leading up to this encounter that there's a thing with petrification ability. No oddly trope-shaped statues, nothing.

kviiri

08:01

Morning all!

Yesterday it snowed a lot. The evening was warmer, so the streets were filled with slush.

The night was freezing. Everything is frozen.

BESW

@kviiri To the tune of Bob Dylan's Everything is Broken.

kviiri

08:20

Aah! The sun!

A truly majestic moment has occurred

Five hours of sunlight remaining for today

Wheat Wizard

09:00

@BESW You might not remember but we spoke yesterday at some length about an issue I where I was playing a character with higher charisma than I have. We had a session today, so if you were interested in an update some stuff happened. If your not interested that's fine too.

trogdor

@BESW hehe

BESW

@WheatWizard Ooh, I'd like to hear.

Wheat Wizard

At first the GM was not a fan of the idea of zooming out a bit. He with the support of the other players felt that it was done at the same level of zoom as combat and it would be unfair to let me zoom out a bit.

So I played along. Since we had just moved to a new town I was ready to start an anarchist revolution and overthrow the local government. This time I had a list of anarchist talking points I had compiled to make my character more convincing. I then started engaging NPCs one at a time, starting with small talk and moving slowly towards the topic of politics, then once satisfied the GM would let me roll to see if I had convinced them.

It rather quickly became apparent to the GM that I was going to be doing this to every NPC I could talk to one, by one and he started to loosen up on me as to make things go faster. After I had convinced about half a dozen NPCs to be various levels of anarchists, he decided I could just do a flat roll to start convincing people in larger numbers.

kviiri

09:16

Heh

Wheat Wizard

I think just by playing out the scenario a couple of times the GM began to see how ridiculous it was to play it at the highest level of zoom.

BESW

Yeah, 'cause he wasn't actually holding you to the same level of zoom as D&D combat; he was insisting that you give more detail when speaking than with combat actions.

It just feels like less because turn-by-turn combat takes longer to do less.

kviiri

"Constant zoom" is one of those things they should warn about in GM college.

BESW

Oh yes. I was horribly didactic about it for years without knowing at all that's what I was doing.

Wheat Wizard

I did not get to suggesting an increase in the number of GM moves performed. I felt that, especially with the initial reactions to my first suggestion, it was best to try not to shake things up too much in one session.

BESW

09:25

Fair enough.

If none of the RPG.SE answers you've read have linked it yet, you might consider sharing this with your GM.

kviiri

Running combats in Dungeon World is rather hard, but if done well I guess it's worth it.

I'm having trouble because the whole game sort of gets my brain jumbled up in the "is this like DnD or like Apocalypse World" thing.

BESW

I think the best description I ever heard of Dungeon World was "It's for telling the kinds of stories you imagined Dungeons & Dragons would tell."

kviiri

I've heard a similar, but IMO less accurate proverb: "It's like DnD as imagined by people who have never played DnD."

BESW

Forget everything about Dungeons & Dragons except the awesome cover art, the epic stories you heard from friends, and the sorts of 80s fantasy movies that share an aesthetic with it--that's what Dungeon World's trying to do for you.

trogdor

@BESW lol

Wheat Wizard

09:34

@BESW That's a real interesting read. The way my GM plays it definitely feels closer to pathfinder (I have not played D&D) than to that description.

BESW

Pathfinder is basically D&D 3.5 with some light tidying up and a bodyguard standing by the suspiciously bulging hall closet to keep you from seeing where they stuffed all the clutter.

BESW

09:46

I personally don't like the way Dungeon World backfoots the players so much; I'm fine with PCs being on the defensive but I'm happier when it's in the players' hands.

kviiri

10:06

I've been thinking similar stuff about Apocalypse World Hardholders and Hocuses

They basically roll every session to see if their holdings or followers, respectively, cause them trouble, help them or both

BESW

13th Age does something similar with Icons, but it feels a lot less... hostile to the players?

kviiri

It's a cool thing: the Hardholder has to make tough choices every now and then, and the Hocus may occasionally have to rough up a deserter or somesuch, but there's always the possibility of rolling poorly for five sessions in a row at which point it becomes a bore.

And it focuses a lot more on a "problem -> solution -> status quo" dynamic than it does even attempt "opportunity -> exploitation -> progress".

I actually noticed it when playing my Maestro'd

I had a vision that I'd upgrade my establishment's defenses, and it felt very unnatural to bring it about because there aren't any clear guidelines on how it should happen.

BESW

That's a very constructive realization.

...I wonder if it'd be possible to make a post-apocalyptic resource and management game using InSpectres resource mechanics?

It'd definitely better fit the "opportunity -> exploitation -> progress or regression" cycle.

kviiri

I guess it's a kinda natural feature of the mood of the post-apocalyptic world that bad stuff happening has more content than good stuff... but then again, many people I play Apocalypse World with play the world not simply to engorge themselves in the sheer shoddiness of the world but to improve it. They want to build things.

@BESW How does it work?

BESW

In InSpectres, you've got personal character stats but you've also got stats for your whole company: a pool of points representing company resources that you can spend to improve your personal rolls in four categories--research, technology, finance, and physicality.

These company resource points don't replenish naturally over time.

Instead, whenever you take on a new job (at the start of an adventure), the GM tells you how much you'll get paid for it, in resource points.

Every time you roll the dice to do something related to the job, if you do well you'll get some points to add to the target number.

When you hit the target number the job is over and you get paid--meaning you can assign all those new points into your company's four resource pools, or spend them on vacations to recover your personal pool points.

So the goal is to spend fewer company resources on finishing a job, than you'll get paid for finishing the job.

(If you wind up over your head in a job you want to give up on, you can quit the job and collect half of whatever points you've already accumulated up to that point.)

It shouldn't be too hard to re-frame it as a ~~company~~ post-apocalyptic town which ~~takes on jobs~~ faces challenges which ~~they get paid for~~ can be turned into opportunities, and if they're clever and careful they wind up with more than they had before.

...but because I'm not into post-apocalyptic resource management stories, instead I'm thinking of it in terms of Decision on Doona and the latter part of The Expanse.

kviiri

10:37

I'll have to review this later, I'm a bit busy now unfortunately

BESW

Proof that mammoths had long, thick, red woolly coats....... @siberian_times

Tweeted by Jamie_Woodward_ on December 11, 2017 at 5:35 PM

eimyr

hello

Szega

hi

eimyr

what's up?

Szega

ran two sessions on two consecutive nights, I was sleeping in a bit today :)

BESW

10:50

@EvilHatOfficial I like to keep a list of the PCs and what each would notice about a new person, place, or thing when it was presented to them. That way if I have to spin up something on the fly, as long as I hit each of those details, each character has something to sink their teeth into.

Tweeted by MultipleManArmy on December 10, 2017 at 4:47 PM in reply to EvilHatOfficial

eimyr

@BESW good advice

@Szega I'm trying to run an online session tonight despite my raging tonsilitis and complete lack of voice.

Szega

@eimyr Oh, what we sacrifice to the art!

eimyr

@Szega it's not art, it's Duty!

yay hats

kviiri

I'm already wearing my sagely blanket

eimyr

double specs for the win

doppelgreener

11:28

@BESW I have some detective suggestions!

BESW

[opens list]

Yes?

doppelgreener

Mary Russell (apparently actually Sherlock's apprentice), Nancy Drew, Miller from the Expanse, aaand.... nuts, some of the other detectives on my mind haven't been depicted

BESW

Well, list 'em and maybe I can rustle up some cover art or fan art.

doppelgreener

Brawne Lamia from Hyperion would be an awesome one: she's a stocky, strong detective who grew up on a high-gravity planet, and she wound up in the story by dint of a cyborg hiring her to investigate his own death. (The cyborg had a backup, but someone actually trying to kill him is nevertheless genuinely concerning.)

eimyr

+1 for Brawne Lamia, but why are you listing good detectives?

BESW

11:35

1

A: The Hatmas Interdimensional Breach 2017 Photo Album

Detectives: The Deerstalkerening in 2015 I put doctors in the Fourth Doctor's hat and scarf. In 2016, famously awful fathers got to wear Darth Vader's mask. This year detectives will take turns trying on Sherlock Holmes's iconic deerstalker and using his magnifying glass. Hover over an image to ...

doppelgreener

I've also seen Easy Rawlings (from novels by Walter Mosley) as a POC detective, and apparently Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch has a POC detective protagonist as well.

BESW

His name's Peter Grant. Good series!

eimyr

oh

@BESW Can I contribute?

BESW

Of course.

eimyr

Batman.

BESW

11:37

He's on the list, though I'm not sure he'll make the cut.

eimyr

@BESW May I see the list to weed out doubles withotu wasting your time?

BESW

Right now I'm just taking in all the options, to see how picky I'll have to be.

doppelgreener

Actually on TV: Poirot, Luther (of the series by the same name from 2010), Brenda from The Closer, and Miss Fisher of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. (I'm done.)

BESW

> Leroy Brown (Encyclopedia Brown)
Peter Grant (Rivers of London)
Veronica Mars
Albert Campion
Easy Rawlins (Devil in a Blue Dress)
Joan Watson (Elementary)
John Shaft (Shaft)
Josephus Miller (The Expanse)
Detective Dee
Judge Bao
Gwen Dylan (iZombie comic)
Penny (Inspector Gadget)
Jupiter Jones (Three Investigators)
Erast Fandorin
R. Daneel Olivaw(Asimov)
Goldie Vance
Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks)
Nate the Great
Dipper Pines
Dora the Explorer
The Bloodhound Gang
Mary Russell
Jack McGurk
Tintin
Phillip Marlowe

doppelgreener

Oh boy!

eimyr

11:42

@BESW Codringher & Fenn (Witcher saga), Rick Deckard (or KD6-3.7!) from Blade Runners

Szega

If you include L, you could add Conan (Case closed, aka. Detective conan)

eimyr

@BESW Major Kusanagi (GiTS), ASAC Hank Schrader (Breaking Bad)

@BESW Miss Marple, of course!

BESW

Ah, yes, Marple.

eimyr

Hercules Poirot is missing...

BESW

He's nestled in between Olivia Moore and Jonathan Creek.

Mmm. Sydney Wang, Dick and Dora Charleston, Milo Perrier, Sam Diamond, and Jessica Marbles.

eimyr

11:49

Inspector Cluseau from Pink Panther, Kojak, Detective Monk?

Frank Bumstead from Dark City.

Can Velma Dinkley make the cut?

BESW

[notes]

The Oracle

1

Q: The Hatmas Interdimensional Breach 2017 Photo Album

It's that time of year we fear every year: the interdimensional barriers between the dimension of hats and our own has broken down to critical and inevitable degrees. The rifts are open. The hats are upon us, here to consume us and preoccupy us like so many intellect devourers and to compel us to...

discussion winterbash winterbash-2017

BESW

Noticed a business named ‘D&D hairstyles’. I refuse to investigate. The reality will just ruin the beautiful lie I’ve constructed about it in my imagination.

Tweeted by Patrixmyth on December 10, 2017 at 6:23 PM

nitsua60

12:33

@BESW Murder, She Wrote?

BESW

...Jessica Fletcher isn't on the list? I could've sworn I added her. [adds]

nitsua60

It's possible I just didn't know her name?

(Might've been looking for "Mrs. Potts.")

eimyr

12:54

@BESW Lisbeth Salander

nitsua60

13:43

@eimyr ooer, that's an interesting call.

(O fashionable one.)

eimyr

@nitsua60 I think so too.

@nitsua60 I despair that so many hats already have glasses/eye ornaments.

BESW

Getting ready for another oneshot of @EvilHatOfficial's #FateCore in the #MouseGuard universe!

Tweeted by treetrnk on December 12, 2017 at 10:27 AM

The Usambara 'eyelash' bush viper from Tanzania is a vulnerable species with horn-like scales above its eyes. (Photo: Matthijs Kuijpers)

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on November 6, 2017 at 10:47 AM

trogdor

if only it were not a snake that was most likely venomous

it would be extremely handsome

BESW

The gorgeous marbled salamander.

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on September 29, 2017 at 9:45 AM

The #WoollyMammoth meets some animals of today! My space with the Turkish children's magazine @acm_cocuk this month, is about this hairy prehistoric giant. The comic originally appears in Turkish. http://www.greenhumour.com/2017/12/the-woolly-mammoth.html http://acmtr.org/ #evolution #SciArt

Tweeted by thetoonguy on December 12, 2017 at 3:46 AM

eimyr

14:01

Elephants are just skinhead mammoths.

BESW

....or mammoths are just shaggy unwashed hippie elephants?

eimyr

14:18

perhaps?

BTW, @BESW, can you please unpin my recruitment message from the starboard? It's only taking up space here.

doppelgreener

Did you have any luck?

eimyr

@doppelgreener None whatsoever. Not one interested person from RPG.SE

Admittedly, Anaphory was somewhat interested but couldn't make the time and with his current limitations that's not really an option either.

but even so, he didn't notice the pin, it came out in a conversation elsewhere.

also, @BESW, have I sent you the game details and my hack?

doppelgreener

Bother :(

I've removed the pin

kviiri

@doppelgreener That means the message will explode once you let go of it

eimyr

@doppelgreener thanks

doppelgreener

14:23

@kviiri [tosses into some other stack]

NautArch

@nitsua60 got about 4-6" of heavy snow. PUt a nice little guard rail scratch on my car making a 10mph turn :(. No body damage, though.

eimyr

14:35

@doppelgreener teehee

NautArch

our newish DM last night discovered that grouping enemies together is a bad idea.

kviiri

In what sense?

NautArch

in that he had two groups of 3 were-creatures approaching from either end of a trail - and they were grouped within 20' of each other. Our warlock hit one group with a hypnotic pattern and I hit the other. Everyone froze.

kviiri

Heh

I thought you meant something like grouping a large number as a single monster.

Which is probably a bad idea for many systems, for many different reasons...

NautArch

oh no. just us taking what might have been a very hard battle into a very easy one.

kviiri

14:44

The perils of playing DnD :)

It's really hard to gauge difficulty in advance. At least you spent resources to make that happen!

NautArch

and he's very new and doing what i think is a bit too much.

kviiri

Well, DnD isn't the easiest game to GM.

NautArch

but he makes enjoyable battles, so i'm not complaining. they just haven't been very hard.

yeah, and he's trying to do what others of us are doing, but without the experience to back it up.

i didn't get a chance to use synaptic static, though.

Adam

@NautArch A spell that has an intelligence saving throw against damage!?! Heresy!

NautArch

@Adam it's nasty. Fireball damage (in psychic form) plus a stronger Bane for potentialy more creatures.

although replacing saves with ability checks (so maybe not a stronger Bane)

but yeah, it's nasty

that subtract a d6 from attack rolls.

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