TRPG General Chat

@nitsua60 I suspect there will be confusion on the part of people in that neck of the woods, no?

I mean, they were born in the United States.

Unless, by implication, the first box is meant to be read as "these United States," i.e. the 50 states.

In which case, where does a DC native check?

Q: Where does the bonus feat in the cleric starting package come from?

@nitsua60 LOL, yes

Hot RPG Questions

2

I am creating a human cleric. While doing so, I noticed that in the starting package for cleric (PHB I, p. 33), there is a "Bonus feat": Feat: Scribe Scroll. Bonus Feat: Alertness. Deity/Domains: Pelor/Good and Healing. Gear: Backpack with waterskin, one day's trail rations, be...

@Shalvenay I would imagine that millions of people living in PR, Guam, USVI, and NMI would be rightly offended by the question, and that the formulation of the question will adversely impact the accuracy of whatever is trying to be counted there.

12:19 AM

@nitsua60 yes, I think so

@Shalvenay (The source of that image, btw, is the annual American Community Survey that the Census Bureau also produces. Sec'y Ross testified on 3/14, when questioned about DC/USVI natives, that the wording of the census question is identical to the ACS question.)

@nitsua60 nods. I seriously doubt it'll stand anyway -- the Census Bureau committed a zillion and three procedural fouls in the process of putting it there, and the district court tossed the hankie on pretty much all of them

@Shalvenay Yeah... (following) administrative procedure isn't exactly the current administration's strongest suit.

@nitsua60 no kidding

@nitsua60 yeah this makes me mad on at least a semantic level,....

I guess we don't count out here

I mean, yeah we are a territory, not a state

but as long as we are one this is part of the country

12:33 AM

@trogdor I mean, the way I'm reading it it forces you to either say "yes, dammit, I'm born in the US and will skip to question 10A," or say "I guess I have to check the second box and 'admit' that we're not really the US if I want Guam to have its representation."

@nitsua60 or if I don't want to get into some kind of weird legal trouble later? maybe?

It's not even... politically accurate.

@trogdor Yeah.

@BESW How do you mean?

Like, being born on Guam vs being born in California is a distinction without a difference as regards individual citizenship: if I moved to California I would have all the citizenship rights of someone born there.

yeah

our citizenship,... isn't any different

12:35 AM

The difference is that while living on Guam I have no federal representation--regardless of whether I was born here.

Right.

so why exactly do we have to answer any extra questions?

@BESW yeah,...

But the same check box mentions the NMI.

anyone born in one of the States could move here and suddenly not get representation

@BESW yeah that too,....

we are not the same, politically, as them

If you're born in the NMI you may or may not be a citizen of the USA depending on when you were born.

12:37 AM

or even Puerto Rico although that is just because the people deciding that are dumb

@trogdor Not sure question 9's going to feel good...

ok I am mad now

www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology/questionnaires/…

That's the questionnaire from last year ^^

And what about American Samolia?

(It's a US territory, and people born there are not US citizens but are US nationals.)

@BESW Yeah, I noticed them, too.

I didn't know that wrinkle about citizen/national

12:40 AM

@BESW yeah, also a stupid but existing distinction

@BESW also, I get that he could get that wrong, but where did he manage to add an l and an I?

that's what gets me

@BESW Okay, I could have a little sympathy for the last name. I mean, it's bad staff work, 'cause somebody should have gotten him the night before and said "by the way, you might want to practice this one in the shower a few times." But "Samoa"? C'mon, man.

yeah

but I mean, he was reading it right?

where did the L and I come from seriously

Most of us put the accent on the wrong syllable, but there's a Girl Scout cookie by that name, it's not an entirely new word in the mainland.

But yeah... a citizenship question asking if you're born on Guam is like asking if you're born on a First Tribes reservation.

It's only worth asking if you have NEVER done even the tiniest bit of research.

Which, of course, means that's not the question they're actually asking.

which is disappointing for the Census

@BESW that's what I assume too

that's part of what makes me mad

12:55 AM

@BESW (It's a really good cookie, too.)

oh yeah that one

it's real good

strangely I have seen a lot of different girl scout cookies recently but not any of those

hey again @DuckTapeAl

@trogdor If you see boxes of Caramel deLites, it's basically the same thing. They've got two different bakeries that make the cookies and the bakeries get to decide the specifics of the exact recipe and the name.

When the Girl Scouts re-organize their structure, sometimes an area winds up changing which bakery supplies them.

1:10 AM

ah

today I learned something about girl scout cookies

@BESW In my area Keebler's selling them under the name "Coconut Dreams." (They're not wrong.)

V2Blast

2:45 AM

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/b4k3p6/dd_swarm_simulator/
Someone made a site for auto-calculating damage calculations for large groups of creatures: https://oganm.com/shiny/swarm/
"This is a tool to automate damage calculations for large number of creatures. You give the target AC, number of creatures attacking, and attack statistics, it returns the damage dealt to the target by rolling the dice. You can also select an SRD monster's attack or an "Animate Objects" object size so fields can be filled automatically. That SRD monster selection box allows for searching so no need to …

3:14 AM

Anyone here have Blades in the Dark experience? I'm starting a game soon and would appreciate any tips, but I don't have like, specific questions I could post on Main.

@DuckTapeAl I haven't played it, but I've linked a lot of resources about it.

Thanks!

Hope it helps!

3:33 AM

If you're interested, I wrote up a setting description/intro to the system thing for my players: docs.google.com/document/d/…

hey again @DuckTapeAl

Hello!

3:48 AM

@DuckTapeAl -- so, want to hear about how things have been going on game-wise over here?

Absolutely!

@DuckTapeAl so....had a few disappointments with games falling through and whatnot, but the Stack ToA game has continued, and I have started up a DW campaign, as well as some one-shots in D&D, and got to try a couple systems too (Great Ork Gods and Golden Sky Stories)

That's pretty cool. How's the DW campaign going?

@DuckTapeAl pretty good so far, whipped up a rather interesting campaign world and got a rather interesting party as well :)

(although, things will be complicated)

(although, things will be fun)

FTFY

:P

A: If a character has darkvision, can they see through an area of nonmagical darkness filled with lightly obscuring gas?

4:00 AM

XD

they definitely will be

V2Blast

4:55 AM

non-answers that need deletion:

-4

Of course. Every noob knows that darkvision grants visibility through nonmagical darkness filled with semi-diffuse gas. Except on the sabbath. That's different.

-1

A: Can a Gnome Ranger use his Animal Companion as a Mount?

the panther picks the gnome up by his pack, using his mouth, and runs off into the forest at full speed

Hot RPG Questions

5:22 AM

4

Q: When a Cleric spontaneously casts a Cure Light Wounds spell, will a Pearl of Power recover the original spell or Cure Light Wounds?

Assume a cleric has converted one of their first level spells into cure light wounds, and it was the only spell they have expended. When they use the pearl of power to recover the spell, what is recovered: the original spell, or the cure light wounds?

pathfinder spells magic-items

Hot RPG Questions

12:20 PM

6

Q: What spells are affected by the size of the caster?

What spells in the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything are affected by the size of the caster? For context, I'm playing a kobold sorcerer in my D&D campaign, and have recently learned on Reddit that he cannot carry any of the Medium-sized party members with dimension door or th...

dnd-5e spells creature-size

ACuriousMind

1:47 PM

@Shalvenay @Glazius Have I read the crystal ball of time zones correctly that we're meant to play in 15 mins?