TRPG General Chat

BESW

10:00

The more time we spend in actor stance, the more susceptible we are to metaphor shear and the more jarring it is when it inevitably happens.

vicky_molokh

I once ran a campaign in which half the party didn't bother reading even the basics of the system. They just described what characters did and said. One day I brought up the topic of the players learning some stuff and getting more control over the game as a result. One player replied: 'Why would I bother to do that? I just describe actions, I seem to always get plausible and statistically appropriate results!'

I found that reply very heartwarming.

@BESW Metaphor shear?

BESW

The sudden realization that you’ve been living and thinking inside a metaphor that is essentially bogus. A common example is that word processing programs tend to present the document you're working on through the metaphor of a physical sheet of paper.

But when your computer crashes, you're confronted with the sudden fact that the metaphor was completely inaccurate.

"Until the moment that it disappears from the screen, the document seems every bit as solid and real as if it had been typed out in ink on paper. But in the next moment, without warning, it is completely and irretrievably gone, as if it had never existed."

vicky_molokh

I'm not sure whether that series of statements is meant to be judgemental against actor stance.

BESW

I have no problem with the actor stance. I find that prioritizing it to the exclusion of other stances often creates game environments that are susceptible to struggles other game environments can deal with more effectively or never face at all.

If a group finds that the value they get from an actor stance priority outweighs those struggles, then it's good for their group. I generally don't, myself.

vicky_molokh

Ah.

BESW

10:05

Sep 7 '14 at 12:44, by BESW

Here's my cardinal rule of gaming, for players and GMs alike: Make sure everyone is safe and happy, in that order, and talk with the group about what will help keep them safe and happy.

Prioritizing actor stance has not made my groups happy.

We're there to play games and tell stories together, so forgetting that we're playing a game together is not a value-adding practice.

By contrast, we like taking conscious control of the narrative and exploring the implications of our chosen metaphor (game system).

vicky_molokh

Personally, I'm open to different stances in general (and currently playing a game with a more OOC stance, as well as GMing one, than I'm used to). But I've seen a bunch of people who have their fun reduced by being forced to step outside the actor stance, some of which were my players, and I enjoy systems being able to support such players' preferences.

BESW

Specifically, the people I've played with over the last several years delight in taking up director stances to conspire against their characters in order to tell stories that delight each other (the audience) with complications that the characters are unaware of.

vicky_molokh

But I found that when talking to FATE folk, explaining the above, and the interest in actor stance, or the difference between associative and dissociative mechanics, tends to result either in blank looks, hour-long semantic discussions which barely clarify anything (e.g. 'dice are meta' - while true in a technical way, it misses the point), or disbelief that it's possible to run a game with mechanics 'hidden'.

BESW

Oh, I've done it. I've enjoyed it, to some extent, with the right group.

And technically it's something Fate can do but at that point I'm not sure why I'd use Fate.

I like game systems that do one thing really well.

So I play multiple systems depending on what we want to do that night.

It's a lot more fun for us than trying to force one or two systems to do everything we want. That's an unfair expectation to put on the system and the labor falls to the GM and players to force an unsuitable system into the desired shape rather than simply use an existing system that works out of the box.

I spent a lot of my time in D&D learning that lesson the hard way.

...I'd be curious to see where you ranked Lovecraftesque, A Penny For My Thoughts, and Cthulhu Dark on the immersion experience.

kviiri

10:39

"Immersion" is a bit of a pet peeve, as a concept, for me as people tend to get and lose immersion from so many different things, yet the word gets thrown around as a sort of "obvious metric of goodness"

BESW

Yeah, it's one of those "everyone knows what it means but it turns out it always means something different" phrases.

Oct 19 '17 at 12:39, by BESW

True immersion is, practically speaking, impossible--even in a LARP there is always a distance between player and character. So "immersion" become a game of drawing lines in the sand and arguing over which side is better.

Oct 19 '17 at 12:46, by BESW

If there's anything like "pure immersion," APFMT is probably one of the games best capable of approximating it.

I wish we had better words, as a gaming community, to describe the variety and scale of things people mean by immersion.

Bleed (where players share the emotions of their characters to a greater or lesser extent) is a useful facet that might be good to popularize.

Off the top of my head I can't think of an existing way to describe that peculiar combination of the illusion of freeform play with reliance on an 'objective' ruleset to maintain 'fairness'--often by assuming that game rules approximate physical laws of the game world.

Oct 19 '17 at 12:43, by doppelgreener

There's a lot of people for whom immersion means "forget I am a person at a table and be a character instead", and for whom "only ever do in-game stuff, never talk about the game on a meta level" is how to get it. For me, immersion means being able to buy into the story and feel out my character and portray them effectively as an exercise of self-expression, and I am most happy and most able to do that in games like Fate which require stepping out of character constantly.

kviiri

11:08

Getting back to DnD after a long break made me realize I can't really "step into character". I'm always second-guessing my GM's motivations and plans

So a GM who maintains that tight veil of secrecy feels like a novelist to me, especially when things happen contrary to expectations (eg. I roll high, but still fail to achieve things)

It's not because I think my GM's after blood or something. More like, I know they aren't infallible and perfect and I know not every course of action results in a fun game for all

BESW

Yeah, similar.

I had a lot more "immersive" (in the sense of going long periods largely ignoring the system and considering the game world to be an independent Thermian construct) experiences, both a player and GM, when my experience with RPGs was limited to doing mostly just that.

vicky_molokh

@BESW Yes, it'd be good to have better words. rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/137758/…

Trying to get better words tends to hit all sorts of obstacles, ranging from people hijacking a term (e.g. 'but I feel associated!' in place of the technical meaning) to just giving up at attempts to get clear definitions and hoping others give up too.

BESW

@kviiri have you ever tried APFMT?

vicky_molokh

@BESW I should check those out some day.

1 hour ago, by BESW

It's a lot more fun for us than trying to force one or two systems to do everything we want. That's an unfair expectation to put on the system and the labor falls to the GM and players to force an unsuitable system into the desired shape rather than simply use an existing system that works out of the box.

In a perfect world, we would all play systems specialised for each one's specific campaign. But in reality, there are multiple broad reasons why the dream of always having a system which does one task and does exactly what one wants is just a dream:

kviiri

11:26

@BESW Nope

BESW

@kviiri It's a game where the rulebook itself is an in-game object, so you don't have to deal with translating character action into table-level mechanics, or confusing player and character knowledge.

And your character doesn't know anything about themselves and you don't know anything about your character: the rulebook is the guidelines for the collaborative therapy session the character is using to try to remember important things about themselves--which the players will be discovering at the same time their characters do.

vicky_molokh

First, specialised systems are not necessarily good enough at the thing they claim to be specialised for. For example, Exalted has been criticised ceaselessly for failing to live up to maintaining the over-the-top heroic feel it claims to be about on a mechanical level out of the box. In practice this means that decently playtested and edited general system will end up being better than a meh-tested and meh-edited specialised system.

Second, often there just isn't a system to support a given type of setting-and-campaign combination one wants to run.

BESW

...and? It'd be silly to not look for the systems that best fit my needs just because it's impossible for everyone to always find a system that perfectly fits their needs.

vicky_molokh

Oh, I stay on the lookout.

I look into systems I've not looked into before every now and then.

BESW

You're doing that thing again where you shift from our practical conversation about what works for us, to debunking an idealized absolute that nobody would argue needs debunking.

vicky_molokh

11:30

Sorry. Will try to backtrack.

doppelgreener

I also find actor stance to be disabling, because I need to be able to address the narrative and game from an OOC perspective.
For an example: During 13th Age, a hybrid D&D/narrative game, my group was in combat and pestered by some relatively inconsequential bat monsters. The game says we should be able to narratively frighten them off with fire and have them flee the combat; the GM said "okay, so, now you'll be dealing damage like normal but we'll narrate it as fire." I was unhappy, the player who proposed it was visibly unhappy, the third player (out of four) was visibly unhappy. Because…

BESW

@doppelgreener That's a great example!

Sounds like it's also a good example of a case where the system's mechanical focus on one kind of problem-solving created a scenario where the default mechanics were being used despite being obviously ill-suited to the task.

doppelgreener

An example of how I get to enjoy director stance: there's a game I've been playing the past 4 Sunday afternoons that I'm enjoying. A few times we've had conversational scenes where the characters and NPCs are talking or doing things together that aren't of any actual real importance, aren't interesting, and aren't moving the plot forward.
Because we are in stances like director stance, I and other players are able to speak up and say "Hey, so, there doesn't seem to be much happening. Is there something we're angling for in this scene? How about we cut this scene here and move on to the next…

BESW

Yeah, that sort of freedom has been very helpful to me as a GM too.

I still have hangups about it as a player but I'll get there.

doppelgreener

Correct. So, a couple of us had been attacking the bats, but it was getting pretty boring. One of them said "I'll wave my torch to frighten them off, they should run away right?" I wanted that outcome as well so I said yeah that sounds great.
The GM said “okay, so now they're frightened, so they'll still be there but all your damage will be narrated as torch-waving and fear now”, so we had to keep hacking away at the bats, which was boring.
The GM's hangup was that in a game long beforehand, they as a character took several turns in an exciting fight to set up for an awesome climactic momen…

trogdor

11:41

I feel like I have more hangups as a GM than as a player

BESW

@doppelgreener From my understanding of 13th Age, I might have offered/called for a background roll, because it'd be a good character moment to explain why the PC knew to do that.

But otherwise, yeah.

doppelgreener

(Ok, now I'm done editing that.)

@BESW I agree! No rolls were asked for with that, the GM just announced the narration change. The player was then invited to make an attack roll representing their torch-waving.

BESW

(I really like backgrounds, they're my favorite part of 13th Age.)

vicky_molokh

@BESW (OK, I admit I don't trust myself to pick up at the correct point before me going off the cliff of discussion.)

doppelgreener

@BESW They were pretty cool.

BESW

11:49

@doppelgreener The 13th Age approach to processing d20 rolls was the cleverest bit, but not something I'd want to use a lot.

doppelgreener

A friend of mine actually has a bit of a reputation in their OSR game circles, apparently, as that player who will actually put their foot down when something crosses their lines, and say "I'm not OK with this" and address a problem from OOC. I think that's a good thing they do that, and a bad thing it stands out as fairly remarkable that they do that. Other players just go with it when they're unhappy and uncomfortable and don't feel the freedom to speak up, surely that's a problem!?

@BESW The thing where rolling even/odd numbers, or multiples of 5, or stuff like that could matter?

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 I thought I'd remembered you mentioning that. Have a safe trip.

BESW

@doppelgreener Yup! How you could derive as many as three or four different outcomes from a single d20 roll depending on your choices and context.

trogdor

@BESW do you have a link to that story where spoons as in "i'm out of spoons" comes from?

BESW

12:09

@trogdor "The Spoon Theory," by Christine Miserandino for ButYouDon'tLookSick.com

trogdor

yeah I just found it a minute ago but thank you

goodguy5

not an origin, but related
https://i.imgur.com/vHKY3hJ.jpg

KorvinStarmast

12:24

@trogdor If you look at the meta I posted in response about ownership, recently, do you think your view on that will change? One of the things it took me a bit of time to get a feel for was the way the "edit often" policy helps all of us make the content better. It's an odd form of collaborative creative activity.

trogdor

@KorvinStarmast I don't think it would change the pressure I almost automatically put on myself if I try to post no XD

KorvinStarmast

@trogdor Fair point, we all have that little voice in our head.

@trogdor yes, you make a good point. Our Chivalry and Sorcery groups, and our Traveler groups (late 70's) ran into that problem. Having enough people who wanted to adapt to a new game when gaming time is finite.

trogdor

@KorvinStarmast yeah I feel like it can be a very universal experience

The Oracle

12:46

1

Q: Is there something like Worldbuilding's reality check tag here?

On Worldbuilding we have Reality Check tag. Someone can put his idea or small creation in the question, and ask if it is consistent, accurate, easy to understand etc. Is there any way to ask such question on RPG? I made a "cheat sheet" of Pathfinder rules my group has hard time remembering and w...

BESW

Jan 15 '18 at 0:55, by BESW

Oh, worldbuilding.

BESW

13:23

→ 108 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

doppelgreener

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

BESW

13:38

Question: in a game like APFMT which treats the manual, props, and players as diegetic game elements, what modifications if any would be necessary to change its "everyone in the same room" assumption to accommodate online or mixed IRL/online play?

Rubiksmoose

@BESW APFMT?

BESW

A Penny For My Thoughts.

Rubiksmoose

gotcha.

BESW

It's a game where the rulebook itself is an in-game object, so you don't have to deal with translating character action into table-level mechanics, or confusing player and character knowledge.
And your character doesn't know anything about themselves and you don't know anything about your character: the rulebook is the guidelines for the collaborative therapy session the character is using to try to remember important things about themselves--which the players will be discovering at the same time their characters do.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW huh. that sounds extremely interesting.

doppelgreener

13:48

@BESW Diegetically some people are teleconferencing into this meeting.

Rubiksmoose

(and now I think I remember you having talked about this before)

Colin Gross

@BESW Is this describing a theatrical stage performance and a script?

BESW

@ColinGross Nope. It's an RPG.

doppelgreener

The company organising the meeting and teleconference has mailed out additional copies of the manual to people remoting in, as well as a parcel of props. Participants of course may have to show props on their end to people remoting in.

Does that make sense?

Colin Gross

Now I'm thinking of a point system for theatrical plays. Are plays a subset of rpgs? I ponder peculiar ontological organizations of topics sometimes.

@doppelgreener That's clever. So the same props in two different rooms.

Rubiksmoose

13:59

@ColinGross I would say plays wouldn't count because no choices are made. It is all a script. I think a core concept of an RPG is that there are meaningful choices made by the players and/or DM.

Sir Cinnamon

So youre saying improv is an rpg

doppelgreener

Let's all remember freeform roleplay exists!

But games are usually defined approximately as something with a goal, rules, and agency.

BESW

APFMT revolves around the idea that everyone is an amnesiac with a slight psychic connection to each other, to help each other remember our pasts. We write words or short phrases on slips of paper, and take turns drawing slips which are prompts for remembering a scene from our past. When we come to an important choice in the scene, we ask two other participants what we did, and they answer, and we pick the one that's right.

The Oracle

1

Q: Is this question a duplicate?

My question: Can unconscious creatures be unwilling recieved a bit of debate on its status as a duplicate of a couple different questions: Can unconscious creatures be willing and Can you make unwilling creatures willing? In other words what defines willing? This debate eventually led to most ...

discussion specific-question duplicates

BESW

After we've remembered three scenes each (guided by the session material to slowly edge closer to and finally reveal our traumatic instigating event), we finish the game by choosing if we want to keep our rediscovered memories or if we want to forget again.

There's variants where we're spies who have to remember a crucial detail about a recent mission, or survivors of an ongoing apocalyptic event who have to remember something that will help reverse it.

But usually we're just ordinary people who had something terrible happen and we'd like the option to remember it again.

The entire game is framed as the therapy session for accomplishing that.

Rubiksmoose

14:08

@SirCinnamon Sure, improv is a lot like freeform RP I would say. but as doppel said probably missing the G.

BESW

The edges of the medium are fuzzy and un-pin-down-able and I like it like that.

Rubiksmoose

Yeah and I think a lot of really interesting design likely happens in those spaces.

BESW

Speaking of which I should really do a new beta release on LLKM.

mmmm fuzzy.

Rubiksmoose

warm and fuzzy and safe and squishy

a poem by Rubiksmoose

BESW

@Rubiksmoose @Ash: your kind of poem.

Rubiksmoose

14:21

Business related: I am thinking about changing this question to only talk about elves

50

Q: Is 4 hours long enough for a long rest for Elves and Warforged?

The Long Rest rules read as: Long Rest A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which you sleep or perform light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours of the rest period. If the rest is interrupted by a str...

dnd-5e unearthed-arcana rests elf warforged

1) Only one answer mentions warforged and only one line (and not the accepted answer even)
2) it should have been separate questions to begin with
3) warforged were UA at the time so it is basically irrelevant anyways.

BESW

14:41

PSA: Anyone can ask for a conversation to be moved to the Not A Bar at any time and I, nitsua60, or doppel will re-locate it as swiftly as possible. It does not reflect poorly on the topic, the conversers, or the asker; sometimes there's just a need for stuff to not be in the main chat and we'll never ask for justification.

7

@Rubiksmoose You have a business related to elven naptime habits?

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Yeah it's a D&D B&B.

;)

BESW

Will you be holding a press conference about it? We could use a D&D B&B Q&A.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose looks fair to me

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Sorry I've been asked by my lawyer not to comment on future public announcements.

BESW

...is that a D&D B&B Q&A C&D?

Rubiksmoose

14:49

@BESW hah!

doppelgreener

@DavidCoffron FYI in questions and answers, links to a question automatically expand to the question's title.

Glazius

@BESW Yeah, the toughest part of doing it online would be a "slips from a hat" chatbot. The second toughest part would be pointing at someone, saying "or did I" and then finding out twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door.

On the Internet, nobody knows this is Farandath Gathariel's dying breath, sort of thing.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener thanks!

David Coffron

15:09

@doppelgreener Good to know!

doppelgreener

I've found it pretty handy—and incidentally it fixed an error in your titles!

Doesn't work in comments or chat though. :(

The Oracle

16:00

0

Q: Can we add the feed of RPG.se Hot Network Questions to the chat feed?

I think that added HNQs to the chat feed will be useful information to have now that there is an official way to determine and indicate this with the recent HNQ update. This will raise awareness of questions as they hit HNQ and alert members of the community that are in the chat to help watch ou...

discussion chat feed

user15026

@Rubiksmoose This is a most excellent poem.

Rubiksmoose

Well that is the first time someone has ever said that to me lol

kviiri

Ah, weekend

Pu'er tea, relaxing music. Tedious research tasks.

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri but hey tea and music very nice. And I dig Pu'er tea :)

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Aye ^^ and I've had honestly my best work week in ages!

I'm still coasting on the good vibes

Rubiksmoose

16:15

@kviiri Nice! Being productive is such a nice fulfilling feeling isn't it?

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Yuh. I've been comparing my skills and achievements between December (when I was feeling quite low on energy) and now and the difference is stark and pleasing

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri yay!

kviiri

The Elephant Rag - Malvin M. Franklin

►

and I'm learning to play that on the piano

(music starts around 30sec)

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri oooo! We are getting a piano from my grandparents. We just have to find and/or pay for a way to transport it out of one house 100 miles away and down a set of stairs in another house.

@kviiri (unfortunately I do not have access at work, but I'll be sure to take a listen at home.)

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose I occasionally fancy the idea of getting an acoustic piano, because they're dirt cheap. Too bad maintaining and transporting them isn't x)

I have an ok digital piano with weighted keys at home, though, and it's very convenient.

Really, one thing in life I wish is there were more public and good pianos around. Practicing music without ever getting to play to anyone might be satisfying to some, but I just occasionally need the kicks of getting to wow an audience

Rubiksmoose

16:31

@kviiri huh, you know I always wondered what the appeal of those public piano prjoects was. That makes a lot of sense.

I used to play violin, but I guess I never felt that way because I was always performing in front of other students and occasionally an audience.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose There's some interesting effects to them --- a resident group of the neighborhood of Myyrmäki, Vantaa brought one to their train station, which was suffering from frequent incidents of disorderly conduct. A local burger joint keeper ensures it isn't misused by drunkards and fools. This little piece of "we care for an enjoyable environment" attitude made the station and surroundings much healthier in atmosphere :)

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri That is a really heartwarming story.

kviiri

Of course, places tend to get more enjoyable when anything is done to them to ensure they aren't off-putting to everyone except drunken people or petty criminals.

Rubiksmoose

oh sure, but still.

kviiri

Yea

@Rubiksmoose Violins are awesome. I wish I had picked some portable instrument

I mean, I play the piano, make music-like sounds on the melodica and own an accordion. Only the melodica is effortlessly portable

Rubiksmoose

16:43

@kviiri hah! Well thank 5th grader me for that I guess.

kviiri

There's a saying around here, that "A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion, yet chooses not to."

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri I love that saying and I swear you mentioned it before because I still love it.

kviiri

^__^

Apr 24 '18 at 17:32, by kviiri

@NautArch There's a saying here that a gentleman is someone who can play the accordion. But doesn't.

doppelgreener

When youre a bard but you get caught in an antimagic zone

Tweeted by Occams_Lazer on March 14, 2019 at 7:44 AM

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener hahaha! You know, I've had an aversion to having my bard carry a violin because player-me would be far too concerned with protecting the instrument. Violins may be portable but they are not the most durable lol

user15026

16:55

@kviiri Oh I like this.

Colin Gross

@Rubiksmoose flute/blowgun

Rubiksmoose

@ColinGross no joke though, I do usually go with flute for the reason that I see it being more durable lol. Which is ridiculous because my DM would never unreasonably target my instrument anyways.

Though I've never had to use it as a blowgun lol

GreySage

Why are people VTCing the Cursed invisibility ring question?

Colin Gross

Too broad? Balanced in what sense?

Rubiksmoose

17:13

@GreySage "balancing" magic items is... a thing. I'm not sure there is a valid closure reason there (obviously comparing to other magic items is the implication), but I'm not so sure about how well we handle these questoins.

GreySage

@Rubiksmoose It doesn't seem like the greatest question, but it does look like it's answerable. More information on what "balance" means would obviously get a better answer.

Rubiksmoose

I'm not even convinced that magic items are possible or intended, on a conceptual level, to be able to be balanced.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose This is a Bard Violin. It is specifically designed and magically built with the full awareness the Bard will knock people out with it and then need to continue playing.

Rubiksmoose

@GreySage Yeah I mean I didn't and probably don't intend to VtC. But yeah. Even with the edit I'm not sure about it.

@doppelgreener That's my kind of violin! (where was the option when I was choosing instruments in 5th grade eh?)

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose It takes magic to make them work that well.

There's a few sturdiness spells and a lot of minor self-repair spells.

Rubiksmoose

17:18

@doppelgreener Ah shucks. And here we are. Silly muggles the lot of us.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose I can still hit people with violins though! Although maybe not more than once. And it might not sound very good afterwards. Or sound.

Rubiksmoose

@doppelgreener Shame! Didn't your parents teach you: violins is not the answer.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose ...... I might have misheard them on that one.

Rubiksmoose

Huh I can't think of anything it could possibly be confused with.

I really took my parent's advice to harp though.

Sir Cinnamon

@Rubiksmoose Violas

Rubiksmoose

17:33

@SirCinnamon ah ok well now it makes sense.

Sir Cinnamon

A cello version of that crossbow would be a fun bard siege weapon

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon screw the Horn of Jericho... say cello to my little friend!

Rubiksmoose

@ColinGross man, I was waiting for an opportunity to use that one lol. Beat me to it.

David Coffron

@ColinGross That was beautiful. The best puns have at least two pun-aspects, you got three. 1) Horn and cello are both instruments, 2) referencing seige weapons (Horn of Jerciho) and a cello ballista (affilitated with another weapon in pop culture) and 3) alluding to popular quote from similar sounding words (cello vs hello).

True beauty

Hello @mdrichey. Solid answer on the invisibility ring question (even though it ended up closed). Did you make any other revelations regarding the Water Weird?

mdrichey

Hi David.

Xirema

17:47

> Beware the sighs of March.

mdrichey

Not sure what you are asking re. water weird. But I will share that the druid had no idea that thorn whip would instantly kill the monster. It was a delightful surprise.

Colin Gross

Oh yeah. I'd be super happy if a player sorted that out and did it.

Same with thunderwave.

mdrichey

Water weirds are returning in our next adventure, Sunday evening. This time the entire room will be flooded with ankle-deep water, so it will be much harder (impossible?) to repeat the trick.

Colin Gross

I like the clever use of fairie fire as well. Works really well against STR and CON tanks. Just an innocuous level 1 spell. Wham, no invisibility and everyone has advantage.

Fair play to the druid.

David Coffron

@mdrichey That's all I wanted to know. Any developments. Surprise insta'kill is always a good surprise

The Oracle

17:56

1

Q: Is a "Frame Challenge" really only valid as an answer or can it be commentary as well?

The basis of a Frame Challenge is that a question might be more answerable if portions of it were different. You see this a lot with questions that may be XY problems, among other things. I've noticed a trend that Frame Challenges are relegated to answers of their own, and have even been remove...

discussion frame-challenge

mdrichey

That druid spends most of her time in her wild shapes and rarely casts spells, which made it even more surprising.

Colin Gross

18:10

@mdrichey wild shapes are fun, but they only last for an hour, no?

David Coffron

@ColinGross (1/2)druid-level hours

Colin Gross

Also, they aren't that great around L5 and 6 when you start pulling CR4 opponents that can take a moony druid to 3/4 of their shapes hp... so they burn another shape or risk being in the front line with low AC

David Coffron

@ColinGross Why must they have low AC? They can rock some hide armor and 14 dex and be passable. They might even be able to get some better armor with non-metal materials

Colin Gross

@DavidCoffron A dex druid?

Seems like a waste of stat points, but sure.

David Coffron

@ColinGross No. A little bit into Dexterity for the bonus to armor class

I do it all the time

Colin Gross

18:15

@DavidCoffron 16 is what's needed for a +2 ?

David Coffron

You just put 5 point buy into it and get +1 from your race. You don't really need much else

You only need 14

All druids really need besides are wisdom

The Oracle

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Q: How to see a reply on a comment on a deleted question

I recently discovered that I have gotten a reply on a comment. However, the question that I commented on is deleted and I can no longer see the reply to my comment. How can I see the reply to my comment?

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David Coffron

So your stats are best put into dex and con anyway (unless you want int/cha for ability checks/saves)

Colin Gross

@DavidCoffron I usually expect wis/con druids. 14 for a +2 gotcha. Seems very reasonable.

David Coffron

@ColinGross 14 dex is also really good for a lot of other classes. Mountain Dwarf wizards and bards can be very strong even though their "main" attribute is a little lacking for a bit.

Yuuki

18:18

@DavidCoffron You could also approximate some metallic armors with fantasy monster materials.

David Coffron

@Yuuki Unfortunately that is all GM discretion, except for the magic dragon scale armor

kviiri

@DavidCoffron Which the GM is also at a liberty not to ever grant :>

David Coffron

26

Q: How can I give a druid better armor?

I asked my players OoC what sorts of treasure they'd be interested in, and the druid asked for armor. He had some pretty creative ideas about bone, turtle shells, etc. (ethically sourced, of course.) Trouble is, the only (effective) non-metal armors in the PHB are light leather and Hide (RAI th...

dnd-5e druid armor

@kviiri True.

Colin Gross

Yeah, once you're into procuring magic armor, you've got a scaling issue pretty quickly. Then you're wasting magic armor on a druid that's not going to be able to use it in animal form anyway.

kviiri

has probably been said many times before, but the druid metal armor thing is kinda weird

Sir Cinnamon

18:21

@kviiri the preference for using dead animals over minerals you mean?

Colin Gross

@kviiri metal is unnatural! /S

Yuuki

@kviiri Yeah, I feel like druids should prefer metal over leather.

Although maybe there's an argument to be had for supply-chain management.

David Coffron

Also...

If you look at the official D&D pre-generated character PDFs, the Human Druid wears studded leather. media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/HumanDruid1-10.zip It's hard to think of a more convincing endorsement than that. — a.k.a. Snowman Jun 22 '18 at 18:53

mdrichey

Yes, I should have said she prefers to use wild shape in combat whenever possible. As a level 2-4 Circle of the Moon druid she was having a lot of fun in brown bear, giant spider and giant octopus forms.

kviiri

@DavidCoffron Well studs are animals too

mdrichey

18:22

(octopus starting at level 4 of course)

Colin Gross

The only metal you should have should be in... oh... like all of your tissues ( ･᷄ㅂ･᷅ )

Yuuki

Maybe producing plate armor releases a lot of greenhouse gases and has other detrimental waste or by-products.

Sir Cinnamon

Fun house rule: for a druid to benefit from leather armour, it must be obtained ethically from an animal killed and harvested and in accordance with a set of rites

kviiri

@SirCinnamon Roadkill is fair game

David Coffron

@Yuuki Or it's just a remnant of a less-well-defined prior editions that based all of the rules on notions from other works, that got carried over for nostalgia purposes

mdrichey

18:23

This page also mentions druids wearing studded leather. dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-march-2016

Yuuki

Organically sourced dragonhides only, please.

Colin Gross

@mdrichey Sounds like fun. Ogres make short work of bears though. Always seemed to risky to me.

mdrichey

Which I used as justification for allowing my druid to wear it. We say it has studs made out of bone.

kviiri

Studded leather armor, too, is a rather weird concept.

Sir Cinnamon

A purely fictional one

as I recently learned

Yuuki

18:24

Brigandine

A brigandine is a form of body armour from the Middle Ages. It is a garment, generally heavy cloth, canvas or leather, lined with small oblong steel plates riveted to the fabric. == Origins == Protective clothing and armour have been used by armies from earliest recorded history; the King James Version of the Bible [Jeremiah 46:4] translates the Hebrew סריון ÇiRYON or שריון SiRYoN "coat of mail" as "brigandine". Medieval brigandines were essentially a refinement of the earlier coat of plates, which developed in the late 12th century, typically of simpler construction made of larger plates. The...

kviiri

So is ring mail as far as I know, but it's not that bad of an idea in practice

Yuuki

Probably someone saw some examples of these and interpreted them incorrectly.

The "studs" are actually rivets that would bind metal plates between layers of fabric.

kviiri

Ring mail is, afaik, a misunderstanding of simplistic depictions of normal mail in the Bayeux Tapestry

David Coffron

@kviiri I've seen that too

Sir Cinnamon

I'd never seen "ring mail" in any works before I don't think

David Coffron

18:26

Can't really draw tiny chains with primitive art tools, so they look like rings

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon pourpointerie?

kviiri

The fact that some bishop wields a mace in said tapestry also spawned the "priests only used blunt weapons" meme, or so I was told. It's like a fountain of false history despite being a work of history.

Sir Cinnamon

At first i thought you meant chain mail wasn't real which was about to shake my world view

Colin Gross

not really armor, but could be misconstrued as such

Yuuki

@kviiri How is ring mail different a mail hauberk?

David Coffron

18:28

@SirCinnamon Chain mail was very very real. Among the most common metal armors in all of history across the globe

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron Which is why i was shocked for about 8 seconds before i figured out the difference :P

kviiri

@Yuuki Ring mail is usually portrayed as metal rings sewn to an undercoat of fabric or leather, as opposed to being made of interlocking rings like mail.

David Coffron

@Yuuki Bigger chains linked into leather

kviiri

And yeah, usually bigger rings

Yuuki

@kviiri What, like macaroni art?

David Coffron

18:29

@Yuuki Yep

Sir Cinnamon

Yes exactly like macaroni art

Yuuki

Huh, I've never pictured "ring mail" like that.

Sir Cinnamon

but sword proof

kviiri

@Yuuki I don't really know what macaroni art is

David Coffron

kviiri

18:29

I've seen references to it in pop culture but never saw a depiction of the actual item

Sir Cinnamon

kviiri

look at how European I am

@SirCinnamon Oh neat!

Yuuki

@kviiri Basically arranging macaroni (or other pasta) in various ways to evoke certain images.

kviiri

Sounds like a decent pasta'ime.

David Coffron

oof

Yuuki

18:31

The distinction I was drawing is that the individual pieces of pasta in most macaroni art don't really touch and don't interlink.

MikeQ

If runecasters can use magic via drawing, is it possible to use magic via macaroni art?

Macaronimancy? Macarunes?

Yuuki

@MikeQ No, that's baker's magic.

Colin Gross

This conversation boiled over quickly

David Coffron

@MikeQ No that's a buscuit made with nuts

although I can get on board with macaronimancy

kviiri

Yes officer these are the punsters

Yuuki

18:34

@kviiri Are you going to ask him to bake us away?

kviiri

Bake 'em away toys

Colin Gross

Shake em first

Yuuki

Maybe I should get Pandora Plus so they'll stop plastering banner ads of women in lingerie while I'm at work.

Or at all.

KDodge

Hey, general opinion, what is an effective base to work from for starting equipment and gold in 5e D&D when you start at a higher level than level 1?

*for determining

Yuuki

Hmm... I think there's a wealth by level table in the DMG somewhere.

David Coffron

18:44

@Yuuki There definitely is, but I've found it somewhat lacking

kviiri

How come?

David Coffron

It's very tier focused. A level 4 character gets basic starting equipment, then jumps up at level 5 and has the same as a level 10 character

kviiri

Oh. Sounds a bit lacking, yeah, although you can probably use that as a sort of baseline?

"Tween" it

David Coffron

@KDodge In my higher-level starts I usually use the magic item guidelines in Xanathar's Guide to Everything (cut in half since they didn't actually play through the prior levels) to decide magic item economy, and basically give them 100 gp per level

Colin Gross

@DavidCoffron This seems very reasonable.

kviiri

18:52

I think in usual 5e, it's not really that big of a deal if you get the amount exactly right, though. Bounded accuracy is good.

You might want to keep an eye out on whether the party or some of its members are over- or underperforming, though.

Colin Gross

@kviiri Yeah. The over performing can be really problematic. One character that steps on the toes of another's specialty is usually what I watch for.

KDodge

Thanks, im helping someone build a lvl 10 duengon crawl and is starting his players at 10 so I figured id get some opinions, I typically keep my starting levels at Lvl 3 or 5 unless its going to be a really long campaign in case ill start at lvl 1

GreySage

@kviiri Linear regression for the win!

kviiri

@GreySage Aye!

Colin Gross

@KDodge Straight classes or multi-classing? Rolling for HP or 1/2 +1 ?

David Coffron

19:23

KDodge

2 characters single class 1 multi class

MikeQ

@DavidCoffron This is great! Where'd you get this?

David Coffron

@MikeQ I made it

MikeQ

19:38

@DavidCoffron Nicest thing anyone's done for me all week. Much obliged.

KorvinStarmast

SE/SO Swag just showed up, to include an RPG.SE t shirt. Mrs Starmast's comment on the logo on the t-shirt: "looks like a demonic symbol. Don't wear it around the house."

@DavidCoffron That is a plate full of pure awesome.

@KDodge DMG page 38 It depends on if you play low magic, normal, or high magic setting. It's a table. For levels 1-4, it's "normal starting equipment"

David Coffron

@MikeQ Slow day at work, kept me busy :)

KorvinStarmast

19:53

@DavidCoffron I am tempted to ask you to post that as an "is this balanced" home stew question.

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast It's probably about balanced enough, but I didn't spend much time thinking about it

MikeQ

@DavidCoffron Add +1 to spell attacks and DCs? +4 Intelligence?

KorvinStarmast

@MikeQ FSM is a very benevolent supreme being

Colin Gross

@KorvinStarmast noodley appendages benevolently keeping us on the held down to the planet.

David Coffron

20:15

@MikeQ Oh that's supposed to be +2 int

@MikeQ +1 to spell attacks is probably okay at level 6, especially since it's limited to material compoent spells

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