TRPG General Chat

1:10 PM

Anyone have the 5e Monster Manual Handy? All I have is the SRD at the moment; it lacks the whole description. Trying to get a grip on specter incorporeal movement, and whether the specter wanders about in the border ethereal.

Colin Gross

@KorvinStarmast Sure. Lemme go grab mine.

What page?

nm... derp. 279

A Very Large Bear

It can move through objects and creatures as though it were difficult terrain

Colin Gross

yeah.

A Very Large Bear

And it takes 1d10 force damage if it ends its turn in something

Specifically an object.

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast It's got incorporeal movement, but none of the ethereal stuff that, say, a ghost has.

A Very Large Bear

1:14 PM

Not sure if that would count ending its turn in another creature.

Colin Gross

@AVeryLargeBear I would imagine that would be the common interpretation.

nitsua60

> Beyond Redemption. ...It is doomed to the Material Plane, its only end the oblivion that comes with the destruction of its soul.

A Very Large Bear

@ColinGross That's probably how I would rule it, but it does specifically call out both creatures and objects in the previous line so that gives me some hesitation.

Colin Gross

@AVeryLargeBear Yeah. We really need a formal ontology for the rule books to adhere to.

A Very Large Bear

@ColinGross Agreed. It drives me a little crazy, since I used to play Magic, and it's really good at keeping all of the game terms straight.

Colin Gross

1:18 PM

@AVeryLargeBear I haven't played that since 3rd edition, but they did have a pretty comprehensive code book with term definitions and a specified hierarchy for their precedence.

I'd have liked more is_a relationships declared, but that's usually the case for me.

A Very Large Bear

Yeah. I stopped playing a couple years ago, but I still sorta follow rules. I'm a little wishy-washy on the gameplay, but I really like the rules system. If that makes any sense.

Colin Gross

@Tiggerous nice find on the crawford tweet about dominate animal and the druid. I think that also settles the disputes about polymorph into a shapchanger

BESW

@AVeryLargeBear Wizards has proved they can do it with D&D (4e is about as good as Magic in that regard), but it's not part of the franchise's traditional format so they backed away from it in 5e.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 @ColinGross OK, thanks, it is on the material plane, so it interacts with stuff that is material. Thanks.

Colin Gross

@BESW A formal ontology that has all the nouns and verbs you're going to use is a pretty big upfront cost, but makes the effects of subsequent work verifiable.

BESW

1:22 PM

(3.5 tried, but in a half-hearted sort of way that failed to have good follow-through. They just kept adding new stuff for the sake of newness, and it quickly lost coherence in practical application in later works.)

kviiri

@AVeryLargeBear Re: Apocalypse World, if you want a quicker introduction to stuff that can happen in the game you can just check this free pdf with stuff you ought to print for the game: char sheets and all that: apocalypse-world.com/ApocalypseWorldBasicRefbook2ndEd.pdf

Colin Gross

Hmm... I wonder if anyone has done any RDF work with D&D

A Very Large Bear

@BESW Huh. I missed 4e. I just really like always knowing how things would resolve. Or at least having a clear framework for resolving new interactions.

Tiggerous

@ColinGross Thanks, though I can't say I deserve any credit for it - someone else had already employed it on a tangentially related question elsewhere.

Colin Gross

@Tiggerous Still a good find

BESW

1:23 PM

@AVeryLargeBear Then you probably would've found 4e pretty satisfying.

A Very Large Bear

@kviiri Great. Thanks! Maybe during lunch ;)

kviiri

You'll need some terminology, but basically "roll+X" means rolling 2d6 and adding whatever X is, "+1 forward" means +1 to the next roll, "+1 ongoing" means +1 to all future rolls until something changes, and "hold" means you sort of get points to spend on whatever the move tells you that you can use them for :)

BESW

Its ontology was strictly limited and they were careful to only introduce new terms rarely and as really needed (with the exception of monks. damnit, monks.), but the existing ontology was flexible enough to fill a surprising number of mechanical and narrative spaces.

Colin Gross

Google thinks it's funny. My top result for, D&D RDF, is a link to roll20 owl. Which is funny because .owl is a format for RDF.

kviiri

Today's lunch: TVP bolognese with lots of fresh basil, sauerkraut and rye bread. Trying to pump up my iron intake :)

A Very Large Bear

1:24 PM

@BESW I'll have to add it to the backlog of games to read. As if it wasn't already long enough :P

Tiggerous

@Rubiksmoose That expression was probably unnecesserily flowerly - I'll edit to be clearer.

BESW

4e was definitely a welcome relief in comparison to 3.5 for my group.

Colin Gross

@kviiri I'd take a dictionary of terms, but having formal structure about them would be very convenient.

Rubiksmoose

@Tiggerous I was actually just venting. I think your phrasing was fine (if not a little too kind).

BESW

And its careful ontology was helpful also in letting me see past the mechanics to identify the edition-transcending D&Disms which ultimately led me to seek out different systems with entirely different play paradigm expectations.

Colin Gross

1:26 PM

@BESW You didn't like the 3.5 calculate everything approach?

Tiggerous

@Rubiksmoose I sensed the vent. :P

BESW

I disliked many things about D&D 3.5. The calculation was not high on the list.

The fact that the calculations produced manifestly different effects than the game told me they would... yeah.

Rubiksmoose

@Tiggerous It is just really ridiculous how undefined the whole language and mechanics around targeting for spells is.

kviiri

@BESW "system mastery"

:-)

NautArch

howdy howdy

KorvinStarmast

1:28 PM

@kviiri That seems like a different way to present "sell a lot of splat books" as a business model. ;)

Tiggerous

Afternoon NautArch.

KorvinStarmast

> which IIRC was one of the things that got me a little sideways on 2e, though RL mostly moved me out of the games at that point ...

NautArch

I"m debating about bountying that Intermdiate effects question to give @HellSaint some more rep fo rtheir answer. But I also don't want to feel like it's a pile on the OP for not talkign to their players.

Colin Gross

I'm entertained. Looks like an academic has at least dipped their toes into doing an RDF description of RPG games profs.info.uaic.ro/~busaco/teach/courses/wade/demos/owl-dl/…

A Very Large Bear

@ColinGross That looks quite interesting

Rubiksmoose

1:31 PM

@NautArch I'm not sure that a bounty would necessarily come across as a pileon to me honestly.

But maybe others would perceive it differently.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose Was thinking mor about drawing more attention to a question whose answers are all "Dood, did you talk with your players?"

Rubiksmoose

I really hope OP got the message though. TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. You need to be playing in somewhat the same game. And you can't change it on them without some sort of conversation happening.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose Someone had edited the caps out of that line in my answer. I put them back in.

Colin Gross

@AVeryLargeBear It doesn't look like there is a follow up, but the game ontology project that it references looks like it got more work done, but kinda petered out a decade ago :(

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch Oooh yeah that makes more sense. Though I'm not sure it'll get that many more answers honestly.

NautArch

1:33 PM

@Rubiksmoose It was more of a way to give Hellsaint more rep. I really liked their answer.

The Oracle

0

Q: Are "bonus question" allowed?

Recently I asked a question that was put on hold for being a "Shopping" question. I believe that is solved, asking not for a specific game but which ruleset allows what I was looking for. Still, though, I think it is interesting to see if there exists any actual game with such ruleset implement...

discussion

BESW

Oct 2 '16 at 2:50, by BESW

@Masakan I started in D&D 3.5, moved to 4e, and then left D&D completely for systems which focus on characterisation mechanics, give equal or greater priority to non-violent problem-solving, and don't require extreme levels of system mastery to avoid trap options.

Rubiksmoose

So it may just get attention in the form of upvotes. your call though it doesn't really matter to me.

A Very Large Bear

@ColinGross It's never to late to start it up again :)

Trish

How many more people will find polymorph as the solution to all their magical problems?! My solution: If you kill a polymorph... you kill the original too. no way for shenaningans with "I make him a mouse and kill him to end this effect" unless you ALSO brought a way to raise the dead...

Tiggerous

1:39 PM

@Trish But then your players start using polymorph to easily deal with Tarrasques...

Trish

nope, since my tarrasque is immune to polymorph.

Colin Gross

@AVeryLargeBear True. Putting it up on github would be pretty low cost, but the time investment in actually doing it... yeeesh

Rubiksmoose

@Trish To be fair, they already have legendary resistance

Colin Gross

@Rubiksmoose Same with dragons, but that's got limited uses

NautArch