TRPG General Chat

trogdor

00:33

@BESW yeah

Anaphory

01:03

I have made a few gappy Masters of Umdaar characters, one inspired by FF Vivi which I know nothing about, one by Lady Blackbird, can I has comment plz?

The other three have not been given names; there's a hag, a naga and a taurian

nitsua60

@BESW Is there a name for that convention/style/construction? I.e. "DAY 3 in which our heroes discover the proper positioning of LB elements for a poster; close, edit, and reopen a few questions; and interview a candidate for a teaching position at their school"

trogdor

lol

day 2, the daypocolypse is nigh

Anaphory

01:22

@nitsua60 TVtropes has a related entry in which that trope is described‌, linking to some Wikipedia article.

nitsua60

@Anaphory You mean: <head>Related Entry</head><subhead>In which the inclusion of wordy summaries of what's about to come, digest-style, signals to the reader that the heroes are about to see and do the things described; and by which the reader knows they're reading 19th-C. adventure fiction or a parody thereof<subhead>?

Anaphory

I do!

BESW

02:38

An argument is a common form of this thing, but not all arguments are this thing, and not all of this thing are arguments.

I'm not sure what it's called!

David Coffron

03:13

Quarrel?

trogdor

Debate?

What a riddle

Discussion?

I mean, technically those definitions,... Could mean many words that mean people
Talking to each other

Disagreement?

Miniman

03:44

@BESW Conflict?

BESW

3 hours ago, by nitsua60

@BESW Is there a name for that convention/style/construction? I.e. "DAY 3 in which our heroes discover the proper positioning of LB elements for a poster; close, edit, and reopen a few questions; and interview a candidate for a teaching position at their school"

Miniman

@BESW Wait, what? Do you mean that the thing nitsua asked about is the thing you were asking about?

BESW

Yes.

Miniman

I'm not sure I get the connection between arguments and that thing.

Unless you mean how that structure is used in essay arguments?

BESW

Anaphory suggested the literary term "argument" as a possibility.

Miniman

04:22

@BESW Ah! Sorry, I had looked at the tvtropes link but not the wiki. That's interesting, I hadn't run across that term before.

trogdor

04:45

yeah I didn't realize those things were connected at all

The Mattbat999

Hello. I am on an epic quest to tour all of the digital lands of SE and learn of their peoples and cultures. So, how goes it?

SmokeDetector

05:00

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title, +3 more: greenlifenutrition.org/healthy-natural-keto/ by user45555 on rpg.SE

trogdor

05:30

@SmokeDetector wow that ones a doozy just from the description, nice work souless autamaton

Or however you spell that wtv

Trish

06:04

@trogdor Automaton. And they have souls of fire in a heart of brass and steel... no wait, those were the Frostpunk automatons. This one indeed might be a soulless spider, sitting on the webs it spun, waiting for one web to shiver, snatching upon its prey like a mechanical monster....

Helwar

06:58

Guys, why is an SE dedicated to a hobby such as this one, infinite times better managed and useful than Stack Overflow? (/rhetorical question, I already know the answer)

BESW

Mark it on your calendars! The first of two live beta-test of the Fate of Cthulhu begins THIS Friday at 8PM EST on http://twitch.tv/little_red_dot. In 2030 the world is in ruin. Can a group of mortals travel back in time & stop the awakening of #Cthulhu or is Humanity doomed? #rpg

Tweeted by little_red_dot on July 2, 2018 at 7:07 PM

trogdor

08:26

@Trish ooooh nice description yeah

Trish

09:35

who here would not understand FUN<sup>TM</sup>, together with the loosing is fun illustration from Dwarf Fortress as "make it your own fun!"?

BESW

I would know the reference, but I wouldn't interpret it as "make it your own fun."

doppelgreener

I don't interpret FUN™ as "make your own fun" either, I use them as satirical reference to things actually being total disasters or, depending on the context, also possibly actually unfun.

Like oh boy dealing with these abusive users is really FUN™

or in the first scenario, wow yes the ornstein & smough fight is so much fun™

trogdor

@doppelgreener lol

I only know that is apparently hard because people say it, but I still got that one

doppelgreener

:D

trogdor

which game are they from? Dark Souls 1?

doppelgreener

09:50

yes

trogdor

mk, guess I will at least see it at some point

i'm watching a remastered playthrough

(because I loved watching Bloodborn a lot,... enough to watch it twice even)

doppelgreener

oh boy :)

trogdor

lol

doppelgreener

i have almost finished bloodborne but haven't beaten Mergo's Wet Nurse yet

trogdor

oooh

doppelgreener

09:53

i love its world and its gameplay to bits

trogdor

she is one of the tough ones

doppelgreener

you don't say XD

trogdor

both guys I watched had a lot of trouble with her

doppelgreener

apparently it was leaked that dark souls remastered is coming out on switch at the end of next month

if that's true i'll pick that up and play it. :D

trogdor

it was interesting to see which bosses one had trouble with and one didn't too though

doppelgreener

09:54

@trogdor yeah! i find that interesting too. sometimes a boss just works out really well for your playstyle or your build.

trogdor

one of which,... I am not sure if you got to yet

doppelgreener

like a pyromancer can kill Seith in the first encounter with him rather than the second.

trogdor

lol

I have not seen a pyromancer run

err, this is Dark Souls you mean?

doppelgreener

yep

trogdor

I just realized I don't remember a Seith in Bloodborn XD

doppelgreener

09:56

dammit seith stay in your own canon

trogdor

oh but like, I am sure you already fought the Cleric Beast right?

the first guy I watched had a hell of a time with it

the second guy killed it first try

doppelgreener

nice!!

that is me on my first and second playthroughs

trogdor

but like you said, it was down to different playstyles more likely than simple skill,... because the first guy killed a boss (I am at least relatively sure you have not seen yet if you didn't kill Mergo) on the first try, and the second guy took problably at least 10

@doppelgreener XD

so far I am not sure I like watching the Dark Souls play as much as Bloodborn, but Bloodborn had definite advantage of,..... being made a while after some Souls games

the guy diiiiid pick Deprived as his "class" though

so that could be a large part of it too

doppelgreener

dark souls is also much earlier in the series, and it's slower paced

and some people get caught up thinking running away = safer

Derpy

@doppelgreener "Canon"... There is an unused piece of dialog in Bloodborne. It is about Umbasa...

trogdor

10:06

@doppelgreener that is what I meant, that Bloodborn was made after a couple or so Souls games

Miniman

@doppelgreener Well, it is, if you know exactly what you're doing.

doppelgreener

@Miniman sometimes!

trogdor

so it obviously benifited from some extra experience and maybe just a little more polishing

doppelgreener

there are many bosses in which your safest place to be is right next to them. there are even bosses where the safest place to be is standing right under them.

e.g. the first boss, the minotaur, in dark souls 1

Miniman

@doppelgreener Oh, I thought you meant when traversing levels. Running away from bosses is...yeah, not generally a good idea.

trogdor

10:08

@doppelgreener still a bit of a thing in Bloodborn really

doppelgreener

@trogdor very much so

this stuff is true for dark souls and for bloodborne

trogdor

@doppelgreener was he just really really easy? cause this guy not only killed him first try but his health bar took huge chunks out for each hit

doppelgreener

@trogdor oh! did he apply amber to his sword before the fight?

trogdor

he might have without me noticing ?

I know he did for a couple other bosses

doppelgreener

huge chunks of health for each hit sounds like that.

trogdor

10:09

but for the minotaur I didn't see

mk

I guess he just didn't like fighting the minotaur

doppelgreener

many players go into that fight without having that item at all, or without using it, but it just so happens that the minotaur boss is really weak against it.

Miniman

@trogdor Was he jumping off the tower?

trogdor

no

he just smacked it

Derpy

@doppelgreener Minotaur? Isn't that the second boss?

trogdor

it's health went down really really fast and he was just hitting it normaly

doppelgreener

10:10

@Derpy oh, right, yes. first boss after the prison.

i always forget about the prison demon being a boss

trogdor

oh wait,... no he did use amber on the minotaur,....

Derpy

@doppelgreener don't tell me you left the hammer there ;_;

trogdor

I think I got it confused with that other boss

which also died quickly

doppelgreener

@Derpy probably! what hammer? :O

Miniman

@doppelgreener Ìf you kill the asylum demon the first time you meet him, you get his weapon.

trogdor

10:12

but he didn't use ledges for either fight

doppelgreener

@Miniman oh, nice. i didn't do that.

Miniman

@doppelgreener Unless you're on new game+, it's pretty much only practically possible with the black firebomb as your starting gift.

Derpy

@doppelgreener next you will say me you didn't ~~torture yourself~~ beat the Vanguard in the tutorial level in Demon soul

doppelgreener

there's basically 3 strategies for fighting the minotaur:
1. just stand down there and wail on him normally.
2. like #1 but apply amber first.
3. clear out the archers on the parapet above, then just climb up there when the minotaur appears and jump down on him for jump damage. then do it again and again.

trogdor

he did use ledges to kill the dogs in the capra demon fight though

doppelgreener

10:14

#3 goes wrong if you take too long lining up the jump: the minotaur jumps up to you.

Miniman

@trogdor Ah, Kappa.

doppelgreener

@Derpy never played demon souls

trogdor

@Miniman is that,... a Souls meme?

Miniman

@doppelgreener If only they'd remastered that or bloodborne - I could already play dark souls.

@trogdor Every Dark Souls boss is a meme XD

trogdor

ok then

@Miniman remastered Bloodborn,... I might actually play that XD

not sure,.... why they would feel the need to remaster perfection but you know, I can dream

Miniman

10:16

@trogdor ...what?

trogdor

it would probably destroy me though

@Miniman lol

because I really liked watching Bloodborn,.... noted the joke was horrible and confusing

I think the poisonous rats alone would keep me from playing Dark Souls 1

that is some brutal poison

BESW

Welp, I've got a poster and a LOT of handouts, some table tents to cut, and... somehow the name tents didn't get printed. [face/palm]

Still, getting my binder organized is good.

trogdor

hehe

BESW

Gosh, I haven't had a proper GM binder in ages.

Anaphory

@BESW I have a folder that contains a dozen 1- or few-pages RPGs, does that count? ;-)

BESW

10:29

Broadly, yes.

Tonight we got a new Farm-to-Table crate, and it has red mizuna, which I've never seen before.

I'm classifying it in the "I never would've thought to see if this was food" category.

doppelgreener

That or something like it comes up a lot in Australia garden salads.

BESW

It's like... if arugula was a weed, red mizuna would be its mean older cousin.

I can see where baby mizuna would be nice though.

[is going to cook this separately just in case]

doppelgreener

@Miniman I don't imagine demon souls would fare as well. It was not very accessible.

Anaphory

@BESW Since I started to garden (on the entire 2m² I have available for it), I have looked up the edibility of quite a few things that come sprouting out of the ground.

doppelgreener

What I really want is for Dark Souls Remastered to get a Lost Izalith / Bed of Chaos remaster. Like, all that stuff, delete it, redo it.

doppelgreener

10:51

It's bad, they know it's bad, it's bad enough they are apologetic for how bad it is. Remastering the game is an opportunity to replace it with something that's actually any good.

Derpy

@doppelgreener they have something else that should take the precedence.

They should be morally bound to give the pendant an use.

doppelgreener

oh XD

Oh! It does have a use! You can trade it with somebody for an item.

@trogdor when creating a character you can choose a starting item, and one of those items is the pendant. many people like me chose it because it seemed so important it must affect the plot at some point and be revealed as secretly really useful.... but it does nothing at all, was added and was deliberately useless as a prank on the players, and only later the game got patched to make it useful for something.

trogdor

@doppelgreener ugh

see,... that is a no no in my book

glad I didn't put up with that myself

not that it's the biggest possible no no just that it is one

doppelgreener

xD

thankfully most of the starting items are relatively low-impact, so it's not a big loss if you choose that one

trogdor

I get that the Souls games have a thing about losing a fight, possibly repeatedly, and then getting better at it and beating it

and I respect that even if it looks a little too gung ho on the difficulty for me

Derpy

10:58

@doppelgreener you forgot the pert of the story where the game devs confirm multiple times that the thing had a bigger use to unlock a big game secret

and then reveal the prank... about a year later.

trogdor

but fake items that don't do anything as plants that make it so you can't pick anything else if you don't know they are useless? that's just freaking annoying

@Derpy ok that's just,... wow

Derpy

@trogdor oh, but the Tick has a purpose. To give an use to the Match.

Wait, wrong game...

doppelgreener

@Derpy oh no!!!!!

trogdor

@Derpy yeah I meant the Pendant Greener mentioned

Derpy

@doppelgreener and to be fair, I also forgot something. The part where the same dev creates a DLC for the same game which is basically about a person who got mad in order to find an use for a pendant.

trogdor

11:05

@doppelgreener the principle of that thing really gets to me though,.... I am kinda easily annoyed by any amount of bad faith

doppelgreener

@Derpy what really? XD

@trogdor yeah it's not right on principle and I didn't know about the extent of the prank derpy just described

trogdor

yeah I don't know either but

just making that kind of item to trick people is a little bit bad

not the worst thing you can do by far but annoying none the less

Derpy

@doppelgreener Manus, Father of the Abyss. Once human, turned demon, still looking for a broken pendant.

Finding part of said pendant is how you gain access to that "secret" boss in the DLC

doppelgreener

brilliant

oooh

manus!!!

Derpy

(or in the Prepare to Die edition, which includes said dlc)

that said, you know, I am like a magnet for that kind of stuff in games. Trolling devs or ascended urban legends, I got them all.

From the LisReal thing, to the pendant or the alleged Nier last secret

Anaphory

11:23

@Anaphory @doppelgreener Would you mind at some point looking at the partial Masters of Umdaar pregens I linked up there? The plan is to run a game at a meetup in two weeks and I don't want to give players blank sheets (unless they insist), but give them somthing to kickstart from and fill in details of.

In particular, I haven't given anyone relationship aspects because any or none of the pregens might be played, and relations to other characters are not helpful.

BESW

I can take a look at it after Sunday. Right now all my RPG brain is focused on the con.

doppelgreener

@Anaphory Could you give me a link to the message?

Anaphory

10 hours ago, by Anaphory

I have made a few gappy Masters of Umdaar characters, one inspired by FF Vivi which I know nothing about, one by Lady Blackbird, can I has comment plz?

@BESW You have inspired me to intend to prep well for this one also in terms of haptics/visuals, though :)

BESW

Yey!

doppelgreener

11:45

@Anaphory Fill in one +2, one +1, and one +0 skill for each character. The other three, the players will freely assign to +1, +2, and +3.

It can help their decision making, and if they really want to swap something around, say yes.

Anaphory

@doppelgreener Sound good!

doppelgreener

Duchess Merel says "I must find freedom in adventure", that implies she hasn't already or something. It's not meaty enough -- what's she want freedom for? What's she out there to do? See the world, spite her parents, find something from some old stories she grew up with, something else?

Anaphory

I'll think about it.

doppelgreener

I suggest "I want to prove I'm just as capable as anybody."

It's very compellable.

Anaphory

It also fits the inspiration of LB as played by a friend of mine very much :)

doppelgreener

11:52

@Anaphory For Elia's aspects: merge their Concept and Personal aspect together, into just their personal aspect. Then fill out their Concept in an Umdaar-y way. Leave their Motive aspect blank for the player to figure out what they want to do with a cute little artificial weapon.

Or, i guess, you can also fill out the motive, but that leaves 3 aspect slots filled out, and i'd rather leave approximately half blank

Anaphory

@doppelgreener What goes wrong if I leave the Concept roughly un-Umdaar-y as is, merging something like “oblivious” into it and removing the personal aspect?

“I must destroy instruments of murder” sounds really compellable in the sample adventure.

doppelgreener

I figure some of the training wheels of a straightforward Concept aspect gets lost.

Anaphory

The “I can nearly always invoke my Concept because I'm a Rogue and I'm doing what Rogues do”?

doppelgreener

"I must destroy instruments of murder" sounds like a problem kind of aspect to use, since it means that player would be opposed to their group and may be mutually incompatible with their goals. It has The Paladin Problem in its absoluteness and incongruity with what they're doing. (Is a sword an instrument of murder? Does this mean they cannot collect and keep and use a starblade?)

Anaphory

@doppelgreener Convincing point.

doppelgreener

11:59

@Anaphory Your concept giving a clear distinction as to what you are and what you do plus an adjective about what kind of person you are.

So, a straightforward Concept + a Personal aspect about being an artificial weapon + leaving the motive blank resolves these issues effectively and lazily.

It also maintains the state of pregens being only a launchpad with gentle suggestion about what kinds of directions they might go in, rather than a near-complete character already.

Anaphory

**Concept:** Naïve extraplanar Energy Child
**Personal:** Oblivious about being a Weapon of Mass Destruction
something like that?

doppelgreener

Personal: Manufactured weapon of destruction
and let the player figure out what they know about that and how they feel about it and express it.

this isn't Vivi, just a character kinda like Vivi :P

Mass destruction could also be viable still

trogdor

lol

doppelgreener

We could also tell the player to add "oblivious" before the aspect if they feel their Vivi should be unaware

Anaphory

Or “unwilling” or “growing” or whatever they like.

doppelgreener

12:12

Yeah. :)

Begrudging

"here's a list of words. Put one of them in the blank before that aspect."

Anaphory

With the Naga, it was really hard to keep myself from using as many – or, to play againsssst sssstereotype – assss few assss posssssible – wordssss withhh essssessss in thhheere and doubling all of thhhem.

doppelgreener

12:32

@Anaphory hahahaha

This is cool.

I made a suggestion for the Minotaur.

trogdor

But using extra ssssss is a time honored tradition

Do not simply bury reptile culture

doppelgreener

She could be a ssssswashbuckler

or a ssssssssoldier

trogdor

Yesssssss thissssss ssssdoundssss good

Anaphory

Ssshould I go full-on sssstereotype thhhen? Sssswassshbuckler would be nicssse.

doppelgreener

Do it

Anaphory

12:37

@doppelgreener Overload?

doppelgreener

@Anaphory CTRL+F in the Masters of Umdaar PDF. It's a specific mechanic in that game, and it means whatever you roll, you just get the next step up in success.

If you Succeeded on the attack, you're now Succeeding with Style.

trogdor

@doppelgreener what is the it though? We may never know

doppelgreener

Actually, that doesn't make sense in attack. :/

I suggest Bull Rush becomes a Create Advantage instead then

Anaphory

@doppelgreener Ah, I assumed you did mean that. It's “Surge”.

trogdor

The it could be a fantastic career, or the best way to bake cake

doppelgreener

12:38

That's usually more fun, and lets them bull rush someone or something to create advantage and smash things.

@Anaphory Oh! Thanks!

It's been a while.

Anaphory

@doppelgreener Fun is good!

doppelgreener

it also makes it more flexible

they can bull rush a door, bull rush someone to pin them, bull rush someone to shove them off a ledge, etc

trogdor

Bull rush is great

doppelgreener

compared to that, bull rushing to attack them is a bit anticlimactic

i mean, what is more scary and versatile than a minotaur charging full speed at something?

trogdor

Good for combat, good for parties, good for avoiding awkward conversation

doppelgreener

12:39

The options are endless!

@trogdor LOL

trogdor

Until it catches up to you and you are trapped into the ultimate akward conversation about using bull rush to fix literally everything

Akward because no one understands you, not because you did anything wrong, I mean come on right?

The world just isn't ready for the ultimate expression of social art

doppelgreener

@trogdor it's ok, you can get out of that conversation by bull rushing something

trogdor

@doppelgreener no because in that conversation, 20 people grabbed you to make sure you had to tell them why you bull rushed them all

doppelgreener

@trogdor hmmmmmmm.....

but can you .... bull rush some of them...?

trogdor

unless,..... you just bull rushed 20 times

then it would fix the problem!

doppelgreener

12:51

yessss

trogdor

XD

doppelgreener

ok we have learned an important lesson here: if bull rushing doesn't solve your problem, you haven't bull rushed enough times.

trogdor

lol

no flaws in this logic

unassailable

and anyone who says otherwise well,.... you can guess

they get bull rushed of course

Anaphory

@trogdor Unasssssssssailable! Oh wait, that's someone else.

Rubiksmoose

@trogdor Darn I was guessing hugs.

doppelgreener

12:53

@Rubiksmoose bull rush can be used to apply hugs

trogdor

@Rubiksmoose that happens later, when everyone accepts bull rushes as the best thing

except for hugs, but hugs are only for "winners" who bull rush for every problem

@doppelgreener blasphemy! heretic!

XD

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener hahahaha I love that phrase "apply hugs" enthusiastically no doubt.

trogdor

a schism in the church!

Rubiksmoose

Bull Rush, best known for songs like "Working Cow" "The Bull's Eye" "Never Stand Still" and "Xanadu"

SPavel

@Rubiksmoose Bull Rush 2112?

Rubiksmoose

13:03

Darned right.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Looking good. The "in which" structure you were talking about seems to be an archaic usage in terms of writing style. Is it still in use in a particular genre that you are familiar with?

BESW

Yeah, but it's usually used to evoke that period/style aesthetic.

KorvinStarmast

@TheMattbat999 As far as I can tell, culture wise, we are not a petri dish.

@BESW Got it. I remember from reading a lot as a kid that it cropped up in stories (like Stevenson) written in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it may have begun before that.

The Mattbat999

@KorvinStarmast eh. Oh well. Onward and upward!

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose RE: Booming Blade - I think you've got something there with intelligence - but even an unintelligent creature would probably recognize the feeling if they've felt it before.

SPavel

13:12

A tale of CHITINOUS MALEVOLENCE: twitter.com/silverpebble/status/1014061274420928512

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch mayyyybe. I mean I have cats and sometimes they are incredibly dumb when it comes to cause vs effect.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose My dogs sometimes get it and sometimes don't. But that's the same with highly intelligent people, too :P

I did make a change to address intelligence

Rubiksmoose

I saw. I think that is all that really needs mentioning. It is so situational.

Comment removed.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose I"m also not a huge fan of Xanathar's requirement of using an action/reaction. But that's just me. I personally think it's fine to just let someone roll an Arcana without cost (other than pass/fail)

For things like Counterspell, it would never make sense to identify first if you had to spend your reaction on identifying rather than just counterspelling and missing the opp.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch OP updated the question to add a mini question you may want to adress

NautArch

13:18

@Rubiksmoose ugh, answering.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch +1 for your point on just doing an arcana check, in terms of seeing or recognizing something.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast in the answer or here?

KorvinStarmast

Here, I need to read the answer and question again to better grok context ...

A Very Large Bear

@doppelgreener is this question tight enough to re-open now? rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/125567/…

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch I personally like that ruling specifically because it limits CS's power.

KorvinStarmast

13:29

@NautArch I like both your answer and @Bloodcinder's answer.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast me too :) I gave Bloodcinder an updoot

@Rubiksmoose As someone who casts CS, I didn't :) But now I just never care and just cast CS anyway. I generally make the DC with my Bard, so it's not a big deal.

But in general, I've got a distaste for CS now.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch My DM actually completely changes the way CS is handled in general.

OK not completely.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose ooh, do tell!

@Rubiksmoose Booming Energy could sound like noise folks hear when they use Nitrous Oxide (of course, at the dentist's office only)

Rubiksmoose

13:49

@NautArch Well he actually requires that you have seen a spell before and a successful arcana check. The arcana check depends on a long list of things that he has listed out that I have no idea what goes into it. But he also lets you do an arcana check for free to identify the spell and decide if you want to CS or not.

NautArch

Here is a great rules explanation on D&D from Crawford

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch Yup those are a pretty decent summary of the way the rules are supposed to work.

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch Yeah. I've got that bookmarked, but it's also (to me) intuitive.

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