TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

12:33 AM

@ACuriousMind sorry I gave that ^^ pointer =(

Shalvenay

hey there @Papayaman1000

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 Eh, they were already in the h bar before that, not sure why they came here at all

nitsua60

I know it didn't really contribute, but I can't help but feel like a respectful welcome here might have... I dunno, validated?

@ACuriousMind Right. I just read all that stuff.

Shalvenay

hey again @ACuriousMind, does your sched look good for tomorrow btw?

nitsua60

On another note, I'm working with one of my independent study (high school) students on Griffiths' QM... we're on raising and lowering operators.

Do you want to talk about electrons?

Shalvenay

12:35 AM

hey as well @nitsua60 -- how far are you into the hearings btw?

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay What time would that be? My evening is free, but I'd probably want to go to bed around 2 am at the latest

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind I have all day tomorrow, we'll see if our other player is available then though

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 QM in highschool, I'm impressed!

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I did about six hours of NTSB while puttering around the house, grading &c. Then a quick two-hour C-SPAN break while making dinner, running baths, &c.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 heheh

nitsua60

12:37 AM

@ACuriousMind He'd already had multivariable, linear algebra, diff eq, and AP physics. Oh, and worked well enough in an internship at SLAC to be invited back the next summer to have REU kids working on a project under him!

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 talk about taking one's career and sticking it in a linac gun ;)

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay I'd be available between 8pm (possibly a bit earlier) and 2am (UTC+1)

nitsua60

(I wrote in my college rec that this kid in the summer after his junior year was doing the same sort of work Fermi had me doing in grad school... and it still doesn't feel like it's appropriately praise-ful.)

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 whoa

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind shouldn't be an issue

nitsua60

12:39 AM

@ACuriousMind Yeah--their beam division has upgraded by using some of his code. Injection-timing stuff.

ACuriousMind

Well, now I feel inadequate :)

nitsua60

Me, too. But glad the world's got kids like that in the pipeline!

(And glad I could do my part to give him a little bit of interesting/challenging stuff, rather than him being bored all the time.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 yah. we need more smart folks who want to get down and dirty with the world instead of getting their entire college career get wasted on pseduo-pomo rubbish and whatnot

ACuriousMind

@nitsua60 Teachers are important, it's nice you care!

nitsua60

1:20 AM

This is one that I think will be easiest to deal with in Role-playing Games Chat, so I'm throwing an upvote your way. When you've got 20 rep you'll be able to participate fully, should you like. — nitsua60 ♦ 31 secs ago

1

Q: I need help with my character sheet😳

How can I take the Pre Generated character and write it out on to the blank sheet? I started, but now I’m completely lost.

Shalvenay

wb @Asteria

nitsua60

1:41 AM

ooh... dead-end hallway full of obvious traps: pits and spikes and pressure plates for spears, &c. At the end, a fear-causing glyph =)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hahaha :D

nitsua60

I just realized that's a decent metaphor for the hallway leading to my kids' rooms... =\

Shalvenay

2:24 AM

hey there @Thunderforge and welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

Thunderforge

2:41 AM

Thanks @Shalvenay!

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge how're things going, and what brings you around our lair these days? ;)

Thunderforge

I saw a link from the character sheet question, clicked on it, and just left a window open :-)

It's been a while since I've been here. I do more board games than RPGs these days unfortunately. Easier to find players.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge yeah, it's kinda unfortunate that the hobby's still kinda taboo in some circles if you ask me

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay The issue hasn't been taboo so much as it's just people not wanting to commit to a weekly game.,

Or a perception that it's too complicated so they don't want to try.

Board games are an easier sell on that front.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge yeah, the perceptions of complexity and commitment don't help either

Thunderforge

2:45 AM

What do you play these days?

Shalvenay

I do a lot of short-form stuff online myself because I'm rather limited in my own scope IRL

hey again @Asteria

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay I never got into online RPGs. I'm a programmer who spends all day in front of a screen/ Getting away is better for me.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge D&D 5e mostly with some 3.5e on the side, but I'm starting to get the hang of playing DW as well, and have a short queue of systems I'd like to experience (mostly at this point, GURPS)

@Thunderforge I'm actually a programmer as well, but online is just so much logistically easier to work with

(my one in-person table is on hiatus due to the holidays)

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Cool. Savage Worlds is my big system. Although I'm running ICONS at a local con next month.

Never been big into D&D. I tend to be more interested in genres besides fantasy.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. I've done some firm-SF stuff in the computer-gaming sphere (EVE Online to be precise) but nothing on the tabletop partly because of the EVE influences being so predominant

well, almost nothing -- I gave Classic Traveller a whirl with Nitsua a while back

Thunderforge

2:50 AM

@Shalvenay I've run some Mongoose Traveller 1e one-shots, where we built characters and then played them.

Shalvenay

I don't do supers-type stuff though, or a lot of the more science-fantasy space-opera stuff like SW either

(SW bugs the flying #$!@#$!@ out of me with their inattention to electronic warfare)

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay SW = Savage Worlds?

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge no, Star Wars, heheheh

Thunderforge

Oh okay. Yeah, I always figured that Lucas envisioned Star Wars as World War II in space, given the amount of pilot films he took inspiration from.

Plus Flash Gordon.

Shalvenay

interestingly enough, I've poked at Numenera briefly for my prime future-fantasy experience if you will but that system's explicit attempts to rework the world grate on me in some ways

@Thunderforge yeah. while the rebels may have been able to take out a death star, they've clearly never flown into the teeth of an actively manned, neuting dickstar ;)

Thunderforge

2:56 AM

@Shalvenay I haven't tried Numenera. I've been turned off by the complexity of Monte Cook's previous works (D&D 3.5, Monte Cook's World of Darkness), and I guess always imagined that Numenera would be the same.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. I don't know enough about the system to know how complex it is in its full scope

Thunderforge

Heh, my first experience with D&D 3.x was with the Neverwinter Nights computer game. I built a level 1 wizard, picked a campaign, and was told that I'd have to level him up to level 15. Having your first experience with the system be picking spells for a level 15 wizard was a horrendous introduction!

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ouch!

D&D has moved on from that excessive complexity to a degree, that's for sure. 5e is quite a bit more streamlined in some ways than previous editions

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Yeah, my first version was actually 4e. Say what you will about that, it did a good job of being accessible to new players. I do like 5e a lot, but think they should have gone farther with simplifying the spells.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. I find that that D&D's magic is adequate at campaign scale, but actually not enough for full PW-type experiences

Thunderforge

3:01 AM

One pet peeve of mine is the Identify spell. Why not just make it an Arcana check and ditch the spell altogether?

Shalvenay

I'm not sure, really

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay What do you feel is lacking with the 5e spells?

Also, what's PW?

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge the lack of a consistent and unified framework. PW = Persistent World

Thunderforge

Oh I agree, the spells can be kind of all over the place.

Shalvenay

(which could be a MUD, a CRPG or MMORPG server, or a PW implemented in a multi-table TTRPG setup)

@Thunderforge -- what genres do you work with btw?

(as I said before, I don't do supers or science-fantasy, and I'm also not a post-apoc type)

Thunderforge

3:04 AM

@Shalvenay One of the things I like about Savage Worlds is the way they handle magic. They have a "bolt" spell that's basically "throw a projectile of something at your enemy". When you buy the power, you decide what type it is; fire, acid, ice, darkness, whatever. Then it's up to you and your GM to figure out what it can and can't do. A burning projectile can set stuff on fire, but not work underwater, etc.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge interesting

Thunderforge

I would have liked for D&D to do that so that Magic Missle, Melf's Acid Arrow, etc all used the same mechanics.

As for genres, my favorite right now is Deadlands, which is a wild-west RPG where all the ghost stories are true.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. I was asking more in broader-brushstrokes

Thunderforge

Oh, I guess pre-modern is a big one (wild west, Victorian). Or ancient era (Romans etc). So "historical" genres, I guess. I always seem to wind up with horror genres, but I don't know that it's really my favorite.

Alternate histories are some of my favorite settings.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. my demands on settings can be something of a harsh mistress at times. alternate history stuff would likely be hard for me to play in well due to the sheer amount of ripple effects that couldn't be handwaved

Thunderforge

3:10 AM

@Shalvenay I tend to go by a "time wants to happen" mentality (kind of a looser version of the Novikov self-consistency principle. Basically, if you go back in time to kill Hitler, at some point, maybe now, maybe later, history winds up working out the same anyway.

Like Deadlands has the US Civil War turn out differently, but eventually World War I happens anyway.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge that's an interesting view of things :) I think a ships-in-space SF could be interesting if done right, but dealing with the kind of stuff I'm used to from my EVE experience would be quite hard for most DMs to work with well.

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Yeah, you'll find it hard to get a ships in space SF with that level of detail.

BESW

I figure we're the alternate version of history where zeppelins never became a major mode of transport.

3

Thunderforge

@BESW Yeah, sadly. But if this "time wants to happen" view is true, then it will have a renaissance in the future!

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge it's not just level of detail that'd be an issue -- its that the vast bulk of my EVE experience was as a very niche sort of player/character, operating out of a heavily fortified low-class wormhole space base doing fleet support and merc work as well as roaming PvP and PvE

Thunderforge

3:15 AM

@Shalvenay What would a group of six do in a situation like that?

Nevermind, you just said. Critical fail on my Literacy skill check!

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge uh, group of six btw?

Thunderforge

That's usually the recommended size for a tabletop group, right?

Or at least 4-6

BESW

My sweet spot is three to five, including GM, but YMMV.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah, I see

Thunderforge

What are your favorite genres, @BESW?

Shalvenay

3:20 AM

part of the issue though is that wormhole space has some rather subtle dynamics about it that I suspect would be difficult to capture well in tabletop play

lots of butterfly-effect stuff going on with wormholes opening and closing

BESW

@Thunderforge Slice of fantastical life, cosmic horror shorts, and silly pulp adventure ensemble serials.

Thunderforge

Cool! That's quite a bit different than what we are playing.

Good that there's variety.

BESW

I'm also digging into character-driven mystery serials.

Thunderforge

@BESW Are those premade or ones you make?

BESW

Mostly we use systems where pre-made campaigns don't make much sense, because it's more "start with a premise and play to see where it goes."

I do make my own campaigns and settings where needed; I'll usually only use a pre-made I'm trying to get a grip on a new system.

Shalvenay

3:26 AM

yeah, I don't do premades much at all either -- only play in a couple and they're often heavily tweaked, and I don't run them at all

far more comfortable with settings of my own invention

Thunderforge

I usually prefer premades, since it means less prep for me. A popular Savage Worlds adventure format is the "one-sheet" where it gives you the bare bones of the adventure and then you fill in the gaps. I enjoy that.

BESW

For example last weekend I ran a game of InSpectres, where the only thing the GM can prep is the first scene where you introduce the client and what the client says the job is.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. I don't mind some level of prep, although some of the things I want to deep-dive into at times raise some unusual and awkward prep concerns

BESW

Whatever's really going on, and how to solve it, is discovered in play because the players and the GM get almost equal time in the "saying what's going on" seat.

I really like systems where the players share the GM's plot- and world-building duties both before the game and during it.

Thunderforge

@BESW Gotcha. I guess I've always been more accustomed to players being "actors in a movie", so to speak, rather than having things be collaborative with the GM.

Maybe it's because since I'm usually the one being the GM, I like the control. Or I just like premade stuff and that's hard to do with that sort of collaboration.

BESW

3:32 AM

Yeah, I started in D&D with that sort of play style, but eventually found systems that worked better for us and involved less burden of prep for just one person.

I do still occasionally run campaigns or settings that I've made independently, but it's not my default mode anymore.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge yeah, I kind of do like having players involved in building the world but it can be hard when you're trying to build deep-diving storylines that explore things that aren't exposed in most plots or worlds

BESW

In my very last D&D campaign, I used pre-made adventures for the mechanical structure of the story but totally re-skinned them to meet my needs.

Thunderforge

@BESW I did that once for a D&D 5e game set in Urban Arcana. Basically, I just took 5e stuff and just reskinned it. The crossbow was a rifle, the spellbook was an iPad, etc.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge heheh

Thunderforge

"Burning Hands. There's an app for that!"

BESW

3:36 AM

More recently I've been seeking out pre-made adventures for Cthulhu Confidential because I want to understand the system better so I can hack the horror out of it more effectively.

Thunderforge

It actually made sense too. You needed 8 hours of rest in order to recharge your magical iPad to use the apps you loaded onto it.

@BESW What's Cthulhu Confidential?

Is that like Trail of Cthulhu?

BESW

It's a one-on-one game (one player, one GM) that uses a heavily modified form of Trail of Cthulhu as its base system.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge -- would it help if I explained more about the worldbuilding issues I'm running into to you, or would you rather not hear about hem?

BESW

I want to hack it more toward the Bubblegumshoe end of the Gumshoe spectrum.

Thunderforge

@BESW Huh, didn't know that 1 on 1 RPGs were a thing! That's great that they're out there.

@Shalvenay Feel free to share them if you want.

BESW

3:40 AM

@Thunderforge Yeah, @trogdor and I have been trying to find a system that helps us play twosies for years; we're very good at playing together in larger groups, but when it's just the two of us everything grinds to a halt. Cthulhu Confidential seems to be helping a lot, but we consider horror only a sometimes genre.

Thunderforge

@BESW Do you know of any one-on-one RPGs with other genres?

BESW

@Thunderforge Specifically one-on-one, or games that work just fine that way despite also being cool with larger groups?

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah. well, I have two problems with courtroom drama: how much it glosses over the "what is the law?" aspect of law, and how much it tends to treat due process as a barrier and not a shield. I want to tackle both of those in a plot arc I'm constructing, but the problem is one of detail/zoom levels -- the full panoply of details would be extremely overwhelming for both players and GM, but we arrived at the current state of the genre through what basically amounts to abstraction to me

Thunderforge

@BESW Either, I guess.

@Shalvenay Yeah, I imagine that most people are thinking of courtroom dramas like Phoenix Wright games or Law & Order. The only system I've seen that's really tried to tackle it is the original Cortex, but even then it started to fall back on this.

I mean, I guess they aren't particularly wanting to play jury duty in a game.

BESW

'cause most anything based on fate would do it. A lot of games Powered by the Apocalypse would qualify. Don't Rest Your Head...

This may be useful:

24

Q: A 2 Player RPG for buddies?

If myself and an old buddy sit down for a night of roleplaying, what game can we use? I've heard of a couple of romantic games, but they're not really for buddies. Are they? Suggestions please.

game-recommendation one-on-one

Shalvenay

3:46 AM

@Thunderforge less jury duty and more digging into the statutory-interpretation side of law

Thunderforge

@BESW Interesting, I'll have to check that out.

Shalvenay

the day-in and day-out work of appellate courts

BESW

And there's a number of OSR systems designed to run classic 70s and 80s D&D dungeons with just one player, but the standard OSR warnings apply.

[rummages]

30

Q: How do you DM differently when it's for only one person?

I've just finished running my first session with only one player, and it felt pretty different from running a session for a group. Could someone with more experience in this talk about what one should do differently in that situation? I'm not referring to mechanics like encounter-building, but ...

gm-techniques one-on-one

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge I wonder if Cortex ever touched appellate stuff?

BESW

18

Q: Easy-to-learn system that supports one-on-one play

The Situation I'm looking for a system that I would be able to GM and have my wife as my only player. I am experienced with RPGs; she is not. She joined a D&D 4e game with me and my friends once and ended up intimidated because we all knew the rules and system well and she did not. I tried to...

game-recommendation one-on-one

Thunderforge

3:49 AM

@Shalvenay I wonder if part of that is a difference of view on how law works. I read an article once about how media tends to view trials as attempts to find the truth and punish the guilty, whereas it's my understanding that since we can't ever 100% know the truth, it's more about interpreting laws and such.

@Shalvenay I'll pull up the PDF and check.

BESW

...and there are a lot of GMless games which can work with two participants, but they tend to be on the edge of what most people think of as "actually an RPG."

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Looks like the sample setting in the book is more about solving cases, NCIS-style, although it does talk a bit about prosecuting in court.

@BESW Cool, thanks for providing me with all that.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge ah, more detective-y

@Thunderforge there's an aspect of fact-finding to trial, yes. that's what the jury deals with.

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Yeah. On review, it's less courtroom stuff than I remember.

Shalvenay

picking through what each side's lawyers have to say about the facts to to try to apply them to the instructions at hand

BESW

3:53 AM

Microscope, Lovecraftesque, whatever that one was where you're waking up as robots in a post-singularity apocalypse...

Shalvenay

the Cliven Bundy case was an intriguing example of the jury at work. the Not Guilty verdict there was largely due to the prosecutor trying to take a set of facts and stretch them too far

Thunderforge

@Shalvenay Oh hang on, the sample setting is detectivey, but there are rules for "Credibility and the Courtroom Trial" earlier in the book. Pretrial, jury selection, and courtroom procedure.

For instance:
> The Prosecution goes first. For each Witness and piece of Physical Evidence, the Prosecution makes an argument to the jury, represented by a Skilled action. The Game Master determines what Skill the player rolls based on what argument he’s making. If the Witness or Physical Evidence is especially persuasive—a Smoking Gun, a photograph, a credible witness who claims to have “seen the whole thing” and remembers it “like it was yesterday,” etc., the Game Master may grant a Skill step of +1 to as much as +4, if the Witness or Physical Evidence is especially damning (fingerprints…

Shalvenay

and the jury went "nope, these facts don't support the charges you're pushing"

the other half of the problem is figuring out what law applies

and that can be a complicated affair, weaving itself into multiple phases of hte trial

Thunderforge

Which I think is more than most people not employed in the law would be looking for in a courtroom game.

For me at least, I wouldn't know how to handle a more intricate game like you're describing. I just don't have the knowledge to do it.

Shalvenay

and also touching on large swathes of due process concerns that people just don't think about

Thunderforge

3:56 AM

Yeah, I wouldn't know to think of those, so would probably fall back on media tropes.

@Shalvenay For me, I tend to just let things be simplified and just not let the inconsistencies bother me. I work as a programmer, so I know that rolling a single roll to hack into an enemy computer system in 10 seconds is way too simplified. But really, my players aren't interested in going through all the details of realistic hacking, so I just fall back on media tropes for the fun of the group.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge for instance, lets say the prosecution/plaintiff presents an apparently credible piece of "forensic" evidence, but in reality it's backed by woo-woo, not well-validated science. one line of attack the defense can use in that situation is what's called a Daubert motion (after the case that set the standard for evaluating this stuff) flagging to the judge that "this 'science' the plaintiff is using to substantiate this testimony is bunk"

or in Phoenix Wright terms: "Objection: that's not science!"

Thunderforge

I've definitely heard of the CSI effect in real life where juries tend to overrely on forensic evidence due to media portrayals of it being definitive proof.

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge yah, no doubt

Thunderforge

Well, I think I'm out for the night. Happy new year everyone!

Shalvenay

@Thunderforge cya

nitsua60

4:13 AM

@Thunderforge rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=duets has some good articles on the topic. (They're in reverse-chrono order on the page, though.)

BESW

@Thunderforge On the other hand, if hacking into a system is a dramatic moment, it makes sense even to complete non-experts that it should take several rolls, just to spread out the tension, extend the scene, and shave off the spiky edges of a single die roll... while it also makes sense to reduce a combat scene to a single roll if it's not dramatically significant.

BESW

7:05 AM

Henodus is an extinct placodont from the Late Triassic. They were a metre long & superficially resembled turtles. (Credit: Nobu Tamura)

Tweeted by Extinct_AnimaIs on January 1, 2018 at 6:30 PM

The more I write and read fantasy the more I'm a believer that the world should essentially be a projection of the character(s)' own internal landscape. The things that matter in a fantasy setting are rarely the details but the themes and characters

Tweeted by Orbitaldropkick on December 30, 2017 at 3:28 AM

Green basilisks avoid danger by darting across water using specialised feet & running style to avoid sinking.

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on December 30, 2017 at 10:15 AM

25 Million Images From 14 Art Institutions to Be Digitized & Put Online In One Huge Scholarly Archive http://bit.ly/2h8fyk7

Tweeted by openculture on January 1, 2018 at 9:11 AM

BESW

7:46 AM

Koreaceratops was a herbivorous dinosaur from the Cretaceous period. (Credit: @smithsonianmag)

Tweeted by Extinct_AnimaIs on December 25, 2017 at 7:00 PM

@sageyoungest @KMoss1000 This happens to me a lot in my D&D groups. I see viewers say "Oh my god, she must be new to roleplaying, she made the dumbest decision." And I'm like, no, my character is flawed.

Tweeted by NikaHarper on December 26, 2017 at 12:32 AM in reply to sageyoungest

kviiri

10:06 AM

@BESW To be fair, it could really be either.

BESW

In my experience, players only make "dumb" mistakes because of newness in the context of not having had the assumptions of the group/game explained to them properly, or deliberately not buying into them.

kviiri

@BESW Same here, but the culture of actually discussing game expectations is not as common as I would like it to be.

There's also the usual problem that people may agree on what they want on an abstract level, but can't come to a consensus on how that end is achieved in practice :<

Gah, accidental disconnect.

kviiri

10:37 AM

@BESW Why is this chat room tagged "Jeff"?

BESW

Dec 1 '16 at 10:35, by doppelgreener

something is weird with my site shortcuts in my browser:

kviiri

Right

doppelgreener

Apparently the room's name is Jeff and I only found out then.

Magician

Well, no. Jeff is haunting it.

BESW

Hi @Jeff!

Magician

10:51 AM

Jeff died when his reputaiton was 18. He's forever stuck outside, looking at our fun, unable to participate.

Jeff's one question remains closed as too broad, with a lone comment inviting him to chat.

BESW

11:07 AM

> Certificate of Sanity. Whenever you talk to an apparently empty space, someone is listening. Because only crazy people talk to themselves, and you're not crazy. You have a certificate.

Shalvenay

12:17 PM

hey there @JoelHarmon

hey, @Shalvenay

how're things going?

Hi

pretty busy over here

How about you guys?

kviiri

Working, mostly.

I need to muster up the courage to tell my boss I'm resigning.

Shalvenay

12:23 PM

@kviiri oh? is something wrong over there?

@JoelHarmon OK here, having a quiet holiday seasion :)

kviiri

@Shalvenay Not really. This isn't a dream job by any measure, but not a bad one either and the people are generally nice.

I feel I'd be more productive, happier and probably better compensated too elsewhere.

Joel Harmon

A bit late, but Happy Hogmanay one and all. May you welcome a tall, dark-haired stranger bearing gifts of coal, bread, salt, and whisky.

kviiri

I work by the hour as one of the scarce devs here, and I feel oftentimes compelled by either myself or my colleagues to put in a few extra hours for the cause. I don't really mind doing it, but I've gotten stuck in that loop where I keep putting in those extra hours regularly instead of us having more developers to share the burden with. I don't feel it's sustainable.

@JoelHarmon Same to you! (I had to look it up though)

Shalvenay

hey there @AntiDrondert

doppelgreener

@Miniman I have a data explorer challenge for you.
I did some work to re-gather information on the impact of having added a tag warning to [rules-as-written]. We've only had the tag warning for 4 months of data so it's not ready to examine yet; that's small enough it'd be affected by seasonal activity trends. However, it lead me to reformulate the queries I wrote before, and I merged them into a single configurable query: https://data.stackexchange.com/rpg/query/776724/questions-with-without-a-specific-tag-at-starting-revision-versus-now

doppelgreener

12:51 PM

@Magician eventually deleted by the hooverbot?

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

kviiri

1:46 PM

Ugh. I want to ask a Fate question but I think it has way more length than substance

Shalvenay

hey there @Zachiel and @NautArch

Zachiel

Heya @Shalvenay

NautArch

howdy @Shalvenay

happy new year!

Shalvenay

@Zachiel how're things going?

@NautArch thx. what's up?

NautArch

@Shalvenay had a fairly miserable session last night. DM regressed. Did puzzles and everyone had a puzzle that involved interacting with their environment. My puzzle was completley out of the game and just had to figure it out and say the answer as a player and not as PC. Because I couldn't figureo ut that my game was different, i had to lose XP to get a hint.

so yeah, that sucked.

and then i gave the answer, but not int he form he wanted, so it didn't count.

Shalvenay

1:55 PM

@NautArch ugh :/

NautArch

i can not wait until this campaign is over (it's almost done)

when he said give up XP to get a hint I justs aid "yeah" because it's almost over and who cares

kviiri

@NautArch Lose XP?

That's an unconventional decision from the GM.

NautArch

@kviiri yeah. I could get a hint for 1,000 less XP from the encounter

the hint was "look in the PHB".

it didn't take me long once it was clear it had nothing to do with my character or where he was

just that the clues were given in the game - but everything else was outside of it

kviiri

This is one of the reasons why I dislike heavy GM fiat in games :(

NautArch

@kviiri especially when the dm has a giant ego and 'loves puzzles'

kviiri

1:58 PM

@NautArch What was the puzzle?

I'm just curious now. :)

NautArch

i had just left a room where the puzzle was to press both platforms at the asme time (because balance is important)

then a rope dropped down and I had to climb up it

there were six images carved into the stone

a man with a floating platform and some items on it

a man standing next to tentacles and snakes

a man standing next to a small shack

a man standing next to a dog

and then a question mark with a man dancing

kviiri

Are they references to PHB art or something?

NautArch

spells

tensers, evards, tiny hut, faithful hound

kviiri

Ah, I see.

NautArch

took me a bit to get that

so then I had my PC dance on the rope (after I explained the other spells and that i thought it was otto's)

next round another player says "just say it". so I do ...and the next door opens.

nothing happened

and then that player gets inspiration for helping me, even though the DM had said at the beginning that helping others owuld result in loss of XP.

kviiri

2:02 PM

But yeah, sounds like a rather miserable time. My condolences, I hope the next game will be better.

NautArch

i honestly don't care. I nearly died in the next combat and chose to run (which I htink was the as the point, but i'm more positive that i won't be getting the XP for that either)

even though we're in a place where time matters

kviiri

Are you using an actual time-tracking system with fixed deadlines or periodic time rolls, or is it all GM fiat too?

NautArch

gm fiat, but it's a 1:2. every 1minute we spend in this plane is 30 seconds

and we're storming a castle and trying to commit regicide

kviiri

@NautArch So wait, it's (asymptotically) real time?

That's another rather unconventional move, I'd say...

to be diplomatic.

Zachiel

@Shalvenay I was going to link the hardwarereccomendations page where I ask about which tablet I should buy, but I'm too lazy for that.

nitsua60

2:10 PM

@NautArch Sounds like the payoff if you were driving down to me: every minute in the car is two minutes of play-time =)

Miniman

@doppelgreener It looks bad, but it works. The only really dodgy bit is using post creation dates to build the list of months spanning the time range.

Everything else is solid, just messy because of being added later (and I couldn't be bothered rebuilding the query from the ground up).

So if there's ever a month where no-one asks or answers a question, it'll leave a gap.

doppelgreener

Thanks :D

Miniman

I guess I could've used votes or something instead, but I was worried about query timeout.

doppelgreener

@Miniman if there's a month where that happens we'll have bigger problems

kviiri

The closest thing to real time gaming we have had was when our GM took out a box of salmiak pastilles and started eating them. "Time's up when the box is empty", he said. "Also feel free to have some if you think you can afford it!"

doppelgreener

2:12 PM

And it will henceforth appear in data as THE GREAT TIME SCAR

kviiri

We were trying to solve a crime of which our party was suspected of.

So the time limit was for us to find the true perp(s) on the steamboat we were on before it reached the port and we would have to have been apprehended.

Miniman

@doppelgreener I was curious, so I went and checked - it's never happened before.

doppelgreener

@Miniman if it ever happens something's going seriously wrong in our hobby

Or in our site

Miniman

Yeah, I hope so.

kviiri

Or the month.

Maybe they have to cancel February or something.

Miniman

2:23 PM

@doppelgreener You're welcome! If you feel like rewriting the query to be tidier, while still using that principle, remember that where clauses often eliminate the null rows from outer joins, and that you're far less likely to go mad if your outer joins are done after all of your inner joins.

doppelgreener

2:45 PM

@trogdor I found one more peri hat to do before the hats go away again. :)

Also, next Hatmas I'd like to do a more upbeat tone for the hatmas album rather than apocalypse and invasion :D

@Miniman Thanks for the effort, by the way. I just had a chance to actually read over the SQL code. So what we do is grab a list of months, then grab questions that coincide with those months -- sounds like a good approach.

NautArch

3:08 PM

@nitsua60 ooooooh, you tricky tricky man

@kviiri right, so basically we were going into this castle to find the false demon king and we're told that we need some special items and have to travel to this plane where they're held. time is of the essence, as guards are on their way to our material plane locatio.

Yuuki

I should make a character based on this character.

Shalvenay

hey there @Yuuki

Yuuki

Hi.

NautArch

@nitsua60 good thing is the death of the king (or us now) is likely the campaign end. next DM is starting to prep their first session for once we end. looking forward to this guy stopping, but he's also the one who will be playin gthe iNT 3 character next (he usually plays annoying halfling/gnomes that play 'jokes' on other characters)

Shalvenay

@Yuuki what's up?

Yuuki

3:11 PM

Turns out, I have today off.

Shalvenay

@Yuuki pretty sweet, yeah

hey there @sevenbrokenbricks

sevenbrokenbricks

hello there

Shalvenay

@sevenbrokenbricks how're things going?

sevenbrokenbricks

It's a slow day, but at least it's my friday

Shalvenay

3:32 PM

@sevenbrokenbricks ah, finally getting somewhere with my IT issues

NautArch

@kviiri oh, and the best part was that i engaged our critical fumble rules with a 95% roll. Broke my +3 halberd and my arm.

disadvantage on all attacks until i can get a greater restoration

which my cleric opted not to give me before the next battle started

Shalvenay

@NautArch ugh, crit fumbles

I have no idea why people overdo them so much

sevenbrokenbricks

In our game they're just a slightly embarassing miss

kviiri

@NautArch Yeouch.

NautArch

they should be. our system sucks, but it's not changing.

kviiri

3:36 PM

@NautArch Greater restoration sounds like a rather high-end solution to something as mundane as a broken arm.

sevenbrokenbricks

Hell, even the one time I saw crit fumbles used to some effect, it used a similar mechanic to confirming crits

Shalvenay

@sevenbrokenbricks we use a DEX check on crit fumbles at some of the tables I'm at

(or Reflex save, depending on system details)

NautArch

@kviiri Yup, but that's typically what fixes critical fumbles

for us

i failed the medicine check to verify, but i'd be surprsied if that wasn't it

Shalvenay

if you pass the Reflex save, it's a slightly embarrassing miss

if you fail the reflex save, you can either simply let go of the weapon, or (IIRC, it's been a while since it's turned up in a game) get subject to an OA for being out of position

sevenbrokenbricks

Ooh

kviiri

3:39 PM

Yeah, I think that's a bit excessive.

NautArch

also, is there a monster that has 4 attacks and can cast two spells?

kviiri

> "I'm a wuxia warrior guru experienced in the arts of the blade, slayer of countless foes, and oh roughly every twenty times I try to strike I trip on my own feet, drop my sword and fall face first into the blade while screaming like a baby."

NautArch

or a character class

kviiri

@NautArch On a single turn?

NautArch

@kviiri yes, either do 4 attacks OR cast two spells

that's what i was fighting when i fumbled

Shalvenay

3:42 PM

the OA thing is pretty reasonable IMO (the other idea I've worked with is applying a malus to the weapon itself on a crit fail with a melee weapon. for ranged weaps, the only real approach is "broken bowstring" type stuff)

kviiri

@NautArch The Hobgoblin Iron Shadow from Volo's can make four attacks, and has access to magic too. Wouldn't be surprised if it had a bonus action spell and an action cantrip.

The whole fumble roll tradition is ridiculously overused with far too little actual gameplay consideration, if you ask me.

NautArch

@kviiri Hmm, interesting. He cast Web and Tasha's same turn.

kviiri

@NautArch Yeah, that's something more homebrew then. I think Sorcerer's metamagic would allow that or somesuch?

Shalvenay

@kviiri I agree wholeheartedly. the concept has a Simulationist origin, but gets dragged way too far beyond that into the realm of monster overkill

taking it back to its roots makes it a much better fit for most D&D games IMO

kviiri

I would be fine with a lesser effect, such as falling prone or something, and the "embarrassing but mechanically normal failure" is okay too. But I don't see any point at all in the whole "you break your weapon and your arm, makes you kinda wish you hadn't rolled badly ey?"

NautArch

3:49 PM

@kviiri i think we're all in agreement here

kviiri

@NautArch Aye. I wonder if your GM would agree too if you brought them here? :P

NautArch

@kviiri you funny.

kviiri

@NautArch I am a comic type, yup. At least when I'm not feeling argumentative :)

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