TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

11:00

"Don't feed the troll" doesn't work nearly as well as people give it credit for, and even in that theory, a couple of helpful comments probably isn't the reaction they want anyway.

It's probably wasted time in this scenario but there's a potential best case where they'll feel embarrassed for the troll attempt.

(And stop trolling one way or another, possibly by deciding they'd actually like to join the community)

BESW

To be clear, you the individual user doesn't have an obligation to do more than vote to close and flag for attention.

But you the individual user CAN choose to take a moment to be kind just in case. It's up to you whether you can spare a minute to write a comment.

And if you do have that minute, then the most effective comment will be a kind one.

vicky_molokh

11:14

@BESW I'm simultaneously interested in trying it out, and fearful of it. Interested because it's a mechanic I haven't tried out before which may provide fun and benefits not experienced before. Fearful because even without malice, I expect misunderstandings to often result in 'good' results turning out not to be good at all. But I'm curious enough that I'd be willing to try it out with some of the GMs I know.

BESW

I don't think it'd work well if that handful of sentences were the entirety of the system.

It needs a framing context to provide structure and shared understanding of meaning to the stakes the choice implies.

vicky_molokh

Oh, of course it'd be more than a short paragraph.

BESW

Probably the easiest foothold is to identify a genre with an attitude toward success and failure which the rules would push toward.

vicky_molokh

But still, prior experience with discussing stakes and the like has been fraught with difficulties, so I'm preparing for more difficulties and misunderstandings despite the best efforts/intents.

Still would be an interesting experiment.

doppelgreener

It sounds like it would fit a type of narrative where success often gives you approximately what you intended, but also will have unforeseen quirks and side-effects — because the player may narrate a lot more than what you asked for.

BESW

11:25

@doppelgreener Also, I carefully said "good" and "bad" rather than "success" and "failure." There's room for positive/negative outcomes beyond pass/fail.

A full implementation of the system would probably want to carefully define the bounds of that ambiguity within its sphere.

Imagine a game where you always fail, but the terms of the failure are negotiable.

(You are Inspector Gadget, or Mr. Bean.)

Or reverse it and explore the life of One Punch Man.

doppelgreener

Ooh, right.

"A good outcome is narrated" is very different to "a successful outcome is narrated".

vicky_molokh

@BESW Yeah, I see the fuzzy bounds as the most complex part of the concept.

BESW

A good way to limit that sort of open-ended-ness is to borrow from games like APFMT and have a narrative trigger for the dramatic choice: when you would narrate [thing], instead use [resolution mechanic].

(Which is, really, at the heart of most games but we don't think about it because it's buried in the default assumptions at the heart of traditional RPGs.)

In APFMT, the trigger is when you would describe an important choice or action. You have free narrative privileges up until your character would have agency in the situation.

At that point the resolution mechanic kicks in.

vicky_molokh

I need to get acquainted with those three games you suggested, but I'm mostly using my game-exploration-inspiration for Wrath of the Autarch these days (it seems to provide interesting ideas for the future of my campaign, despite radically differing as a setting).

BESW

I'm not sure you'd like them, I'm just personally curious how you'd respond to them.

doppelgreener

11:38

@BESW That would help keep us away from "I walk down the stairs and--" "I'll narrate how you walk down the stairs" which would be malfunctional. (Probably.)

BESW

Each of them, in my opinion, achieves something that could be called "immersion," but each in a very different way with a very different effect.

vicky_molokh

(Sorry, AFK.)

BESW

@doppelgreener Unless "walking down the stairs" is preceded by someone staggering up the stairs covered in blood, grabbing you by the shoulders, and screaming "Don't go down there!" in which case the other participants in the test should very much ask "Are you sure?" (which is their trigger for invoking the mechanic if you forget).

It works largely because the framing of APFMT focuses the drama of the narration on a specific tension: you know each scene being narrated is leading up to an uncomfortable experience, culminating in something so bad that the character suffered amnesia to escape it.

Since everybody knows that, the question of "what is an important action" because very interesting and you can control a lot just by deciding which action IS important.

eg, the narrator can totally trigger the resolution mechanic for walking down some apparently innocuous stairs... which then tells everyone that the action IS important despite all evidence to the contrary.

That tension gives you a Hitchcockian tool: you've essentially announced there's a bomb under the table.

It's a real brain-bender of a game.

doppelgreener

I'm pretty impressed by the versatility there.

In the ability to declare seemingly innocuous things as potentially monumental events.

V2Blast

I woke up for a 7:30 am morning call that ended up taking less than 10 minutes

BESW

11:51

@doppelgreener I know, right?

And then the resolution mechanic escalates that tension: when you would narrate an important action, you instead ask two other players what you did, and pick one answer to use as you continue your narration.

doppelgreener

@V2Blast h-hooray!

BESW

So you've declared an action important and then handed the action itself to someone else to determine.

You still get a choice, both in what the action is and which of two options to choose, but you've created a space where nobody at the table is capable of knowing what uncomfortable truth your scene will ultimately reveal until the reveal happens.

I think in my first game, one of the important actions was "I look down at the carpet."

V2Blast

@doppelgreener very un-hooray

I got less than 5 hours of sleep

(mostly because I couldn't fall asleep for like 45 minutes)

doppelgreener

D':

goodguy5

12:22

@V2Blast I understand this. Though, I might have gotten 6

vicky_molokh

12:39

@BESW After reading some messages below this one. Reminds me of some party story games . . . about goblins, I think. Where players get to interrupt each other and finish explanations what happened. Except not played for comedy, if I understand correctly. Would be curious to see excerpts of action, or even see it in actual play. Perhaps even participate.

I should learn more about it before making a conclusion about the game's likeability in my eyes.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh We used to play that game, but I never found it particularly fanciful because it was framed as a competitive game when it didn't really support that aspect that well

I may've liked it more if I had understood the concept of "just for the story" better back in the days

nitsua60

@goodguy5 I'll bet your reason is a lot more socially-acceptable than mine: "those card-magic videos I was watching didn't end until 1:30...."

BESW

@nitsua60 ...are you a minor character in Ant-Man 2?

nitsua60

I do remember, from those baby-days, what a huge difference there was between 5 or even just-under and 6 or just-over. For me, at least.

@BESW No, but if things keep going this way maybe I'll be ready for Ant-Man 7: Attack of the Dad Bod?

Derpy

@nitsua60 card magic or Magic cards? ^_^'

BESW

12:46

I assume that by Ant-Man 7, Abby Ryder Fortson will finally be recognized as the rightful lead.

nitsua60

@Derpy Dude... MtG is so last millenium. (For me, at least.)

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 casts smite profit on the Wizard of the Coast.

goodguy5

@nitsua60 baby went to bed bed at 11 (as opposed to sleeping in the basement next to me). Then wife woke me up at 4 to change him (God bless her for letting me sleep through the first one). And again at 5:30. Then get up at 7 for work.

Derpy

as @Rubiksmoose somehow implied, I fear WotC profits say otherwise.

... not that I play that anymore, mind you. Too pricey, too over-complicated by now.

doppelgreener

13:06

It's gotten a lot simpler in recent years.

They realised their cards were getting too complex and it was alienating players and making the barrier to entry too high, so they started doing ... not-that. It's been a popular move.

Derpy

@doppelgreener so now the only barrier is the price of the actual cards?

doppelgreener

Well, yes, buying the product

How much that costs depends on the format you're playing and how competitive you want to play

Modern's still expensive, the winningest Standard decks still usually have a couple of very expensive cards

(I don't play these formats)

Rubiksmoose

What about my all-Black Lotus deck that I want to build?

;)

(and that is just about the extent of my MtG knowledge lol)

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose you would probably be barred given there is no format in which you can play more than one (or at most generous, four)

Rubiksmoose

fine! I'll make my own format! [storms off angrily]

Derpy

13:15

600 gems: 3 packs
750 gems: $4.99

-> taken from the MtG: Arena website.

still pricey, got a little better. Would need to know how many cards/pack we are talking about (Yu-gi-oh packs used to have less card in about every videogame adaptation, so I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about 5 cards packs with no uncommon/rare guaranteed)

also, those are the closed beta prices. May go up when the actual game get released

@Rubiksmoose gives one heart, one soul heart and one black heart.

kviiri

14:09

I've been fancying the idea of getting some cheap MtG cards and playing only formats where only cheap cards are allowed... but I don't really have the time or energy to really pick up a new hobby

BESW

Every time I see an RPG thing mentioning Keith Baker, I get confused because for me Keith Baker will always be the author of Who Is the Beast?

Rubiksmoose

oh @BESW while you are around, did you have any thoughts on my idea to add RPG HNQs to the chat feed (like Oracle)?

As chat owner maybe you also know, is there a technical difference between adding a feed to the main chat like Oracle and adding it to the ticker?

(If I'm putting you on the spot of course, feel free to decline to comment no worries)

BESW

There are two "add feed" buttons I can click on the feed page, depending on whether I want the feed in the ticker or the Oracle.

I've found that people have Very Strong Opinions about ticker vs mainchat feeds, and that my opinion tends to be in the minority (and not quite so strong).

Rubiksmoose

Ah cool so they draw from the same feed format, just one gets added to the main chat then?

@BESW huh, I don't think I've ever been around to see any of that come up, but I won't go prying if it is controversial.

BESW

Eh, it hasn't been discussed for a while and the people in this chat who were most "I'll leave if you do it wrong!" have... left... for other reasons. Funny how that works.

Rubiksmoose

14:22

Though I guess if that is the case I should perhaps stress that part of my proposal more so people can be aware. I know nitsua missed it and that means probably other did as well.

@BESW heh. Well, I appreciate the information!

BESW

I'm going to paste your suggestion as an answer in the main chat-feed voting thread, so everything can be found in one place.

Rubiksmoose

I'm still not sure if I should have added it to the big feed question, but it is what it is now I guess.

oh good call.

BESW

But there's been a relatively resounding response to your question already and I'm willing to take that as read that it'll get the requisite votes in the main thread.

Also it's my room and so I say let's try it.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW cool! :)

BESW

I may go mad with limited power.

Feeds

14:29

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

BESW

Brace yourself, there'll probably be an influx of backlogged posts the next time it checks for updates.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW hahahaha

that should be interesting lol

Xirema

@BESW I'm biting down on a Twizzler in preparation.

Yuuki

@BESW ... I should get a juice box.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW er do you think we should document the change in the meta thread? or do you think it is fine as is?

BESW

14:31

Rubiksmoose

@BESW that's...so beautifully perfect.

BESW

From possibly one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time.

@Rubiksmoose eeeh let's see what happens.

@Rubiksmoose Context is even better.

Vylix

@Rubiksmoose I find it funny you tagged yourself on your comment in your answer in my question

Rubiksmoose

@BESW sounds good to me! I've never seen that episode! Though I think I stopped watching old Who (after the fact of course) somewhere in the Baker era.

@Vylix hah! so I did. Ooops.

BESW

The Seventh Doctor is one of my favorites, and that story is so good. It's the one where Ace beats a Dalek with a baseball bat and curbstomps a Nazi.

Rubiksmoose

14:38

@BESW that sounds incredible. I'll have to watch that.

BESW

In another story, the Seventh Doctor does parlour magic for the gods of the apocalypse.

Rubiksmoose

hahaha. Man, when DW is good, it is really good.

BESW

Another story has this as a villain:

Rubiksmoose

@BESW OMG

Feeds

20

Q: Can a wizard cast a spell during their first turn of combat if they initiated combat by releasing a readied spell?

My wife plays a wizard. We hear Orcs coming up the hall. The wizard decides to ready a spell for when the door opens. So she casts the spell and holds it, until 10 seconds later, the door opens, initiating the trigger. Boom - the fireball goes off. Combat begins. Can she cast a spell on the first...

11

Q: Can you move over difficult terrain with only 5 feet of movement?

Assuming a character or creature with very little speed - say, 15 feet. It gets hit with a ray of frost, reducing its speed to 5 feet. It is attempting to move through difficult terrain. Can the creature in question move through the difficult terrain without dashing?

dnd-5e movement terrain

4

Q: Is it possible to stack the damage done by the Absorb Elements spell?

The absorb elements spell says The spell captures some of the incoming energy, lessening its effect on you and storing it for your next melee attack. You have resistance to the triggering damage type until the start of your next turn. Also, the first time you hit with a melee attack on ...

dnd-5e spells damage stacking

10

Q: Is there a creature that is resistant or immune to damage from a non-magical source other than bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing?

Reading this question: Is there a distinction between magical damage and nonmagical damage? I was wondering if there is a monster that is resistant or immune to damage from a non-magical source other than the common bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. For example, this monster might resi...

dnd-5e monsters damage-resistance damage-types immunities

BESW

14:44

@Rubiksmoose He's the state executioner of a place where unhappiness is treason. He drowns dissidents in sugar syrup.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Friend Computer?

BESW

@Rubiksmoose Oh, no, the Kandyman is not your friend.

Actual dialogue: "Impolite guests get to feel the back of my candy hand!"

Rubiksmoose

XD

BESW

And in the same story, this happens:

The Doctor's Mind Power | Doctor Who | Happiness Patrol | BBC

►

Yuuki

@BESW I feel like there is an unnecessary confluence of happiness and manners here.

BESW

14:47

@Yuuki Mmm. The story is called "The Happiness Patrol" and it's an excellent satire of certain movements in Britain at the time which acted as if pretending everything was fine would make it so, and blamed people who pointed out problems as if they were causing those problems.

Yuuki

Fake it until you make it writ large?

BESW

Well, more like "I've got mine so everyone who I'm exploiting needs to shut up."

Just packaged in a way to try to get the exploited to buy into their own suppression.

It's one of the most heavy-handed of the Old Who allegories, but that doesn't make it bad at all. The image of a syrupy sweet death for anyone caught frowning by a pink-clad military is actually pretty powerful.

Yuuki

@BESW Some anvils need to be dropped.

BESW

Some anvils seem to have missed, and may need to be dropped again.

Although, Jemisin recently made a good point that while allegory has its place, it's dangerous to use allegory to entirely replace depictions of the actual problem.

(While allegory is a useful way to slide in themes which would be resisted head-on, without any depictions of the thing being allegorized the effect of allegory becomes to desensitive by making the problem itself seem fictional.)

Colin Gross

@BESW That's really the most efficient way to do it.

Derpy

15:04

@BESW I apologize beforehand for what I am going to do now....

Real Freddy Fazbear Reupload

►

@BESW Out of wonder BESW, did you ever watched The Amazing World of Gumball? Did you ever happen to see the episode called "The Vision"?

it contains this gem.

The Amazing World of Gumball - Happy Camp

►

GreySage

About half of my co-workers are on vacation this week. About half of whats left are sick today. It will be a very quiet day in the office for me.

Derpy

(oddly, this is one of the few cases where I prefer the localized version of the scene over the original one. Probably because the voice in the localized version is much more friendly, resulting in an even more evident dissonance between the sound of the voice and what is actually being said )

Bloodcinder

15:32

Does anybody have a Tampermonkey-compatible userscript that replaces SE URL's in comments with [page title](URL) that they know to be working? I tried the one on the following big meta Q/A but it doesn't work. stackapps.com/questions/2378/se-comment-link-helper

Yuuki

Hmm... you can be a Warlock without knowing you've contracted with some otherworldly entity, right?

Rubiksmoose

@Bloodcinder That is the one I use and it works generally for me.

Mark Wells

@Yuuki Without knowing that the entity is otherworldly, or without knowing there's a contract at all?

Rubiksmoose

Though I do hit occasional bugs with it.

Yuuki

@MarkWells Not really thinking about a specific situation, so various amounts of column A and column B.

Rubiksmoose

15:41

@Bloodcinder for example it doesn't work (always?) on meta links

@Bloodcinder though if you use SOX you can enable an option that allows the link in the share option to be comment formatted already.

Mark Wells

@Yuuki Canonically there isn't much said about how the pact works. It is implied that the warlock has to enter the relationship intentionally, though.

Yuuki

I suppose it might make more sense with a GOO, whose modes of thought are so completely alien that neither party might understand what constitutes a willing contract for the other.

Mark Wells

But it's also likely that the patron wouldn't tell you everything about themselves. Either because they don't want to give up leverage (fiend), or because deception is in their nature (archfey), or because you literally can't understand them (Great Old One).

So you could, say, go to work for Al Pacino's law firm, and only discover later that he's the Devil.

But when your patron shows you how to blast people with magical death rays, it's going to be pretty obvious that they're supernatural somehow.

kviiri

Now I wanna play a Warlock who got their Fiend patron by tricking them into playing the (True) Name Game.

"Hi! I'm Jogo, Jogo Jo Bogo, Bo Banana Fana Fo Fogo, what's your name?"

The Oracle

1

Q: How are we judging opinion-based answers?

I'm not talking about opinion-based questions, but the flipside of when a question could generate good subjective answers, but doesn't. It seems that we have a very broad and unclear process in that context. I can't figure out when we decide to close and when we don't. It's clear when an answer ...

discussion

kviiri

15:52

"Mörgöröth, Mörgö... damnit."

Mark Wells

(incidentally this is one of my complaints about the "celestial patron" option from Xanathar's: there isn't the inherent tension of agendas that the other patrons have)

kviiri

@MarkWells Hm, interesting point. I hadn't thought of that

goodguy5

16:12

an evil character with the celestial patron would argue otherwise

Mark Wells

@goodguy5 You can achieve that tension but it requires a very weird view of the celestial patron. Like, if you're evil, why is an archangel giving you superpowers?

goodguy5

to turn you towards good, man!

Mark Wells

Whereas with a fiend, archfey, or GOO you are never really on the same side.

goodguy5

heh... "goo"

Yuuki

@MarkWells GOO is disappointed with your Euclidean thinking.

Feeds

16:19

2

Q: How to balance a monster modification (zombie)?

I am DM'ing a campaign called "Army of the Damned" based on Magic the Gathering: Innistrad in which a horde of zombies is attacking a town. In the 5e Monster Manual, zombies have poison immunity but no vulnerabilities. I incorrectly assumed prior that they had fire vulnerability and allowed my pa...

dnd-5e homebrew

goodguy5

why is that here?

Sdjz

Probably testing the "post to chat when it makes it to HNQ"

12

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 hot-network-questions

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 yeah I wonder if we can work on getting that renamed to indicate what it is for.

goodguy5

is that question in hnq?

Mark Wells

(which leads to my gripe about the whole Warlock class, which is that its mechanical uniqueness overshadows, and is totally disconnected from, the concept of the class)

goodguy5

16:22

ah, it is. page 2

Sdjz

yes, you can see it in the revision history

goodguy5

@Sdjz TIL

Davo

Possibly of interest: english.stackexchange.com/questions/490231/…

Xirema

@MarkWells I think you solve that problem by declaring in your setting that the Divine concepts of Good and Evil don't actually map to those same Mortal concepts.

i.e. "Good" aligned Angels and Gods or whatever probably still commit a lot of wanton murder, and probably constitute some degree of Lawful Evil in "Humanoid" contexts.

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 that is actually brand new behavior! They overhauled HNQ behavior across the network very recently.

@BESW is there any way to modify the HNQ feed to indicate that is is a HNQ feed?

goodguy5

16:38

@Rubiksmoose oh good. I'm not just a dolt (for that reason)

Xirema

Fall from Heaven (basically a reflavored Forgotten Realms setting used in a Civ4 mod) handled that pretty well, where the Mercurians (Angels) were arguably just as violent as the Infernal (Devils) towards other cultures, but because the Mercurians weren't literally desecrating the land beneath their feet & making the land infertile, they qualify as "Good" in a cosmic sense (if not an ethical sense).

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 hahaha not by a long shot :)

311

Q: Updating the Hot Network Questions List - now with a bit more network and a little less "hotness"!

Some of you may have noticed that we've been making some changes to the Hot Network Questions on the back end over the last week or so. I'm here announcing our first round of changes to how the HNQ works and give you some ideas of why we're starting here and where we're planning to go in the futu...

discussion featured hot-questions announcements

Derpy

@Rubiksmoose was just talking about it in the other room. I fear they still have work to do.

Look in the Not a bar room if you are interested.

KorvinStarmast

16:54

@Xirema sounds like angels versus demons in Diablo 1, 2, 3

nitsua60

17:12

I see what happened in the formatting of that answer--I had bullet-points and italics all over the place and someone was talking to me while I was writing it and I think I left out six close-parens.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 ahhhhh I wondered if that was the case. It looked a bit like bullets but I couldn't quite tell how you were trying to divy them up...

Feeds

7

Q: If I cast enlarge/reduce on an arrow, what weapon could it count as?

If I cast (as a player character) enlarge/reduce on an arrow, what weapon could it count as? Would it be a spear, pike, or staff if enlarged, and a dart, crossbow bolt, or just a twig if shrunk? Note that I do not mean a midflight arrow.

dnd-5e spells objects

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast I edited again--look more readable?
Thanks, everyone, for the extra eyes.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 looks good to me fwiw

Bloodcinder

17:27

@Rubiksmoose Thank you.

Bloodcinder

17:49

@Rubiksmoose That's why I thought it was broken, because I tested it on meta, where it doesn't work due to a reported issue. I fixed a regular expression in the userscript that makes it work on meta, and I confirmed it works on both main and meta. (I can share the fix if you're interested.)

Rubiksmoose

@Bloodcinder please do!

I have been haunted by that error for a long time and was entirely too lazy to even consider trying to fix it.

Bloodcinder

@Rubiksmoose github.com/rchern/StackExchangeScripts/issues/87

Rubiksmoose

@Bloodcinder thanks! both for fixing it and for pointing me to it :)

Bloodcinder

That issue explains why the problem occurs. The second comment with the regex is from me. Replace the regex for validSites and make the adjustment at the top of the file as well.

Feeds

3

Q: Does Shadow Sorcerer's Eyes of the Dark work on all magical darkness or just his/hers?

Shadow Sorcerers get the Eyes of the Dark ability: When you reach 3rd level in this class you learn the Darkness spell [...] If you cast it with sorcery points, you can see through the darkness created by the spell. Does this mean that if a Shadow Sorcerer casts Darkness using sorcery point...

dnd-5e spells class-feature sorcerer

Bloodcinder

17:58

@Rubiksmoose No problem. And the change at the top of the file doesn't seem to be necessary, just the change to validSites.

Rubiksmoose

@Bloodcinder ah ok I was just about to ask what change even needed to be made there actually.

Bloodcinder

@Rubiksmoose I edited into my comment on the issue, but I don't think it's necessary, just a precaution.

Rubiksmoose

beautiful

Bloodcinder

@Rubiksmoose Confirmed working?

Rubiksmoose

@Bloodcinder Not yet. The opportunity has not yet arisen. I'll let you know though.

mattdm

18:20

I really, really don't get this site. This answer just blithely makes "I don't think" statements about specific numerical changes CR, while mine refers to, explains, and cites the relevant sections of the DMG, and mine gets tagged by mods as requiring additional references?

*throws hands in air emoji*

Rubiksmoose

@mattdm ? neither of those answers has a notice that I can see.

mattdm

@Rubiksmoose I made an edit and put in links to sub-sections of the chapter I had already referred to and then flagged asking for the notice to be removed, which apparently it now has been

I just don't get why it was asked for in the first place.

Rubiksmoose

@mattdm ah ok. It might have just been because your answer is selected and thus also happened to attract the flags.

I think when a mod gets a flag they probably don't look through all the other answers on the post, they deal with the flag in front of them.

Just a guess though.

mattdm

18:40

I'm mildly less annoyed now that the notice is removed. :) And I do get not wanting this site to turn into D&D WIki. But this is a game which by design expects creature modification. Shutting down discussion of the rules about doing that except in cases where an exact change has been previously playtested seems ... not good.

To me, a post which references and explains the customization rules in DMG is better than one which does not reference rules but says "I run this homebrew and it was awesome". It's not like the latter is a double-blind scientific study — it just seems like it matches the post template that the high rep users who downvoted my answer wants to see.

Rubiksmoose

@mattdm well it seems at the very least the notice served its purpose. A notice was put up, an edit was made improving the post and the notice was taken down.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Much cleaner, though Illustro's remark about shadow versus wild magic might be worth addressing.

Rubiksmoose

@mattdm for what it is worth, this likely has to do with the discussion going on here:

5

Q: When do we close a question for drawing opinion-based answers and how can we try to get ahead of such closures?

I'm not talking about opinion-based questions, but the flipside of when a question could generate good subjective answers, but doesn't. This question does have several parts that are tied together: What criteria is there for determining an answer is opinion-based bad subjective? What do we do ...

discussion answers

mattdm

I don't think the post is improved, really. It just has a bunch more links into sub-sections of the already-referenced chapter section, which I think actually makes it harder to read.

@Rubiksmoose Probably — that's the user who commented and presumably also flagged and downvoted.

Rubiksmoose

its best not to assume, but I did mean the overall concept and discussion taking place even outside the one user.

KorvinStarmast

18:47

@mattdm I also thought some of the comments were not a good fit. However, your answer is accepted. :) I liked it.

mattdm

Thanks. Anyway I'm over it now. :)

KorvinStarmast

@mattdm I now and again like to bring up a point BESW made a while back We aren't here on the Stack to read the rulebooks to people. We're here to help people learn how to synthesize the mechanics, the non-mechanical text, the social context, our personal experience, the learning of the broader community, to apply all that to a particular real-life problem someone's having and find a solution for it

Not sure if it would have helped you here, but now and again I'll point a link to that since I think it makes sense of what "expert" means in the context of an SE site for our hobby.

mattdm

That makes sense. And to me, adding the additional specific references feels more like reading the rulebook (or playing an internet game of "spot the rules reference"). I guess that's actually part of why I found this annoying.

Rubiksmoose

@mattdm one thing to rememnber as well is that, as higher rep users, we are more visible and people will look to us for accepted behavior. It is often better to be on the extra safe side of citing your answer sometimes IMO.

FWIW, from my reading right now, your answer looks good and not overly cited.

I do think the additions helped.

(regardless of whether there was an actual issue to begin with.)

mattdm

Okay, thanks :)

The Oracle

19:04

0

Q: When do homebrew suggestions need to be playtested by an answerer?

It is unclear to me when someone needs to provide playtesting for homebrew suggests and when they don't. As an example, in this answer, MattDM provides a really good answer for the first half, suggests in-book tools for making adjustment, but then at the end makes a homebrew suggestion that wasn...

discussion

mattdm

On a topic note rather than meta-discussion, one thing I'm actually curious on is expert thought on CR (and XP) in the case where a particular type of monster (like zombies in this case) is long-running throughout the campaign and the players learn and adapt to that monster's particular strengths and weaknesses.

Should CR be adjusted as the game progresses? Why or why not?

GreySage

@mattdm No, because CR is a vague estimation of difficulty, and an easily exploitable or learnable weakness should already be factored into the initial CR calculation.

mattdm

@GreySage Yeah, but does that differ when the monster is a random encounter vs. a long-term enemy? What if the weakness is not easily exploitable but the party figures out how to do it reliably nonetheless?

nitsua60

19:25

@KorvinStarmast Yeah--I'm going to try to get to it tonight. XGtE's not in my "always with me" pile =)

Xirema

@mattdm I mean, the essence of it is that as a DM, you have an obligation to make sure the game isn't getting stale. If every single combat encounter is an abject rout in favor of the PCs, then you probably need to bump up the difficulty a bit. Spending time trying to "recalculate" the CR of the zombies is probably an overly complicated way to do that (although certainly valid).

nitsua60

@mattdm I barely even look at CR, frankly. It strikes me as much more vague than the numerical label applied to it would indicate. In retrospect I think something like "tier 1 solo," "tier 2 mob," &c. would have been a classification system that more honestly reflected how precise our ability to stat monsters "out of the box" is.

Xirema

The way the DMG handles Damage Vulnerability w/r/t creature CR is that if a damage vulnerability is something that your PCs can regularly and reliably produce, you should just half the creature's "effective HP" before calculating CR.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 In our pirate campaign, I have a Shadow Sorc who is either going to go for level six and the dog, or MC next level to warlock. Or maybe go to three for meta magic and then MC into lock

Xirema

@nitsua60 ^

KorvinStarmast

19:31

Or become a swashbuckler rogue ...

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, the dog is something I'm letting simmer on a mental back-burner before I come back to that answer. I've only GMed for it once, IIRC, and have never played it.

Xirema

@nitsua60 I low-key think the Hound of Ill Omen is one of the most powerful class features a spellcaster can have. On-demand Disadvantage against Saving Throws that can also be activated on the same turn you cast a critical spell.

nitsua60

@Xirema Though I'll say that I think CR probably gets the order about right. I.e. even if CR5 and CR6 aren't that different, and even if the XP budget doesn't really work, at least I know that if I throw a CR6 at my L4 party I should expect it to be a bit more of a slog than a CR5.

@Xirema Yeah, it's a good one. Noticeably better than a familiar in combat, for instance.

And in a class that doesn't have a lot of competition for bonus actions, unless you're looking at a sorcerer who really rides quickened pretty hard.

Xirema

Like, maybe the enemy creature has an action Wolf Slayer. As an action, deal 80000 damage to a wolf or wolf-like creature? Too bad; you already got your chance to cast Hold Person*/*Hold Monster before they could react and get your free Disadvantage on their saving throw; an effect that will persist multiple rounds if the wolf survives.

nitsua60

Hrmm... makes me wonder if playing a "fast" sorcerer would be fun. Try to really max out on double-casting as much as possible.

Xirema

19:37

@nitsua60 That continues to be the essence of my SCAG-based Shadow Sorcerer. Twin-casting/Quickened-casting SCAG Cantrips while maintaining concentration on Shadow Blade.

nitsua60

@Xirema How're you liking it?

Xirema

@nitsua60 Haven't gotten a chance to actually play it yet, my DM is too terrified I'll pull it out if my current character dies. ;)

Xirema

20:00

(TBH, I'm way more likely to pull out my Spores Druid concept, since it seems like a really fun character to RP...)

Feeds

12

Q: What are rules for concealing thieves tools (or items in general)?

I'm playing a rogue assassin in my current campaign, and I'm about to embark on an infiltration mission where I'll be wearing formal attire. I told the DM I would want to conceal a few lockpicks on my person, but was told (because he was not sure how to rule it) that I would need specifically mad...

dnd-5e

KorvinStarmast

20:42

@Xirema Is he going to be named Gustavo, who has a playful nature? Ya know, FunGus. :p

Xirema

> Behold! The Sword of a thousand sighs!

@KorvinStarmast I actually modeled her after Hama, the Bloodbending lady from Avatar the Last Airbender.

BESW

@Rubiksmoose Not within my power.

Yuuki

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, only diamond mods can rename feeds.

kviiri

Hmh, lost Eldritch Horror to a few handfuls of very bad die rolls.

KorvinStarmast

21:49

@Xirema aah, neat inspiration.

KorvinStarmast

nvm, that wasn't so great of a picture.

Ben

23:14

Morning all

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Shortened url in body (39): Who play in CS: GO and DOTA2? by WWolfen on rpg.SE (@doppelgreener)

trogdor

@SmokeDetector what,.... What even is the question?

:/

Shalvenay

it's spammy garbage

trogdor

That much is incredibly obvious

Miniman

I love that being off topic is somehow making people forget that it's also spam.

Shalvenay

23:25

@Miniman I close-voted it and hit it with the spam flag

trogdor

People are responding to it seriously in the post?

Oh you mean how they marked it

Miniman

@Shalvenay Me too, but if everyone who close voted had also cast a spam flag, it would've been deleted already.

trogdor

I rarely bother but I added my flag on it

Looks like it either got enough votes or a mod found it

Well flags

Votes are a little different I guess

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