TRPG General Chat

JohnP

00:06

@Rubiksmoose AFAIK it is a legal repository.

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP hmmm I'm just a bit dubious. Not that I'm casting aspersions on you of course. I just don't see any way a published mag from 2007 could be public domain or licensed under CC.

Shalvenay

@Rubiksmoose I think it's more of an issue of library/archival rights and whatnot in that case

Rubiksmoose

True! And admittedly I know nothing about this

At the very least WotC isn't selling these things that I can find, so nobody is losing money here

But I have now learned that archive.org does print things!

^@Ash

user15026

Yeah, I knew they did print, but most of my knowing about their stuff comes from the web archiving and their MSDOS etc stuff

user15026

00:21

They do make an effort to keep it legal, that much I know

Black Spike

00:42

We've pretty much got our party built for Rolemaster. Looks like it's goign to be fun

We have a Paladin ("Witch-Smeller"), a Magician (Elemental Control, with lots of Meta-magic), a time-traveller from 1969 "The Men Who Stare at Goats"/Quantum Leap (rogue), and my Healer (steal people's wounds, heal self. also, Animal Friend)

nitsua60

00:57

@Rubiksmoose Wonder if that's specifically just the Dragons from the Paizo era. Wasn't Paizo subcontracted to run/edit/publish Dragon for a while?

And I know (to the extent that I know) that licensing in that time was a bit of a work of experimentation.

BESW

If it cuts off at 2007, that'd coincide with the move away from the 3.x OGL to the more restrictive 4e GSL in 2008.

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike eheheh. boy, they'd be a bit confused around some of the characters I have...Jherala would trip them up right off the bat, I'm sure ;) "she's a knight!" "no, she's a witch!", "no, she's a @$@$@!$ PALADIN! CAN'T YOU TELL?" "NO, SHE'S A #@$@!$@$@ @$@$@$@ WITCH, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?" "Can you stop bickering? The fey courts can here you from all the way out here..."

Black Spike

@Shalvenay heh. "The Fae" are most definitely THE ENEMY in this game. Knight or no, if The paladin smells Dweomer (elf-magic) on you, your going in the ducking-stool!

(Although HouseRule #1 is "Elf-Magic is really easy for any PC to learn, and comes with 'free' Power Points to cast it")

Shalvenay

01:15

of course, there are plenty of other things I could do to screw their heads up ;) orcs, anyone?

Black Spike

We're going to be pinned down between Politics, Foes, Personal Goals and Local Agendas ... our GM is a big fan of throwing far too much trouble at us, and then thwarting any plans we come up with ...

Shalvenay

XD

Joshua

Main site's down. Chat's working.

Black Spike

And playing fast-and-loose with cultures/references ...
The main religion is based upon our previous Exalted game's PCs!
My PC has links to the "Gothican People's Front" (not to be mistaken for "The People's Front of Gothica"! Splitters!)

nitsua60

"Not the Gothican Popular Front?" "Nah, he's over there."

Black Spike

01:21

:D

They will turn out to be Serious Players

Hot RPG Questions

01:52

8

Q: Can I cast Sunbeam if both my hands are busy?

The 6th-level Evocation spell Sunbeam reads as follows: A beam of brilliant light flashes out from your hand in a 5-foot-wide, 60-foot-long line. [...] For the duration, a mote of brilliant radiance shines in your hand. Bearing in mind that you need to have at least one hand busy with t...

2

Q: If you have multiple situational racial save bonuses and are in a situation where they all apply do they stack?

So let's say you get hit by charm person. It has the enchantment (charm) and mind effecting subtypes. You are a custom race made with the race builder rules on the srd with 3 different racials, stubborn, resistant and dual minded: Stubborn (2 RP) Prerequisites: None. Benefit: Membe...

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Powerdork

02:14

Allies.

Shalvenay

hey there @Powerdork, how're things going?

Powerdork

Mild frustration at allies.

Xirema

@goodguy5 I just finished binging the entire archive. It's pretty good!

Ben

04:34

Afternoon all

MikeQ

Ahoy cap'n

Ben

Oh sweet... free promotion!

I mean [ahem] At ease.

Hot RPG Questions

06:53

3

Q: What is the default setting for reducing consequences/harm?

S&V p. 35 details using resistance rolls to reduce consequences/harm suffered, and indicates a successful roll reduces the consequence by one level. Similarly, the armour rules on p. 37 also indicate that harm is reduced by one step if armour is used. But on p.36, it states: "As a general note, ...

scum-and-villainy

V2Blast

07:44

finally caught up on chat

Ben

Or did chat catch up on you?

trogdor

07:59

what are frogs?

Derpy

@trogdor Jason Funderburker?

kviiri

@trogdor X files music starts playing

trogdor

What are frogs?

►

@kviiri I love that you picked that up

kviiri

@trogdor Can't spell memes without me! :)

trogdor

lol

I love it though, it's the best meme

despite being extremely old

Derpy

08:03

All your memes are belong to us

trogdor

I've now listened to it an embarrassing number of times

Derpy

@trogdor I prescribe a 10 hours loop of NyanNyanNyanNyan to remove the infection

trogdor

I think you just prescribed something far worse

john

What's up @Shalvenay

Derpy

@trogdor well, that's expected. The only way to remove an earworm is to use a worse one.

V2Blast

08:14

@Ben oh snap

Ben

08:30

I think it's fair to say that chat is it's own creature

@trogdor I vaguely remember either @besw or @doppelgreener suggesting an intro or theme song involving sea horses as a punishment for something. My memory is vague but I think they know what I'm referring yo

To*

trogdor

I know exactly what

sea ponies sea ponies

it's definitely punishment

Call Upon The Sea Ponies

►

go ahead, I dare you :P

Derpy

08:50

@trogdor I see you haven't yet updated to the G4 security updates. Using videos from previous versions is strongly discouraged because of various incompatibilities with the latest models of user Heads hardware that could cause eye bleeding and permanent vision damage.

MLP "One Small Thing" Song From My Little Pony The Movie +Lyrics in Description

►

Derpy

09:16

anyway, last Sunday I was watching some documentaries on TV, I was lucky enough to catch a chain of related episodes.... By the end I was laughing like there was no tomorrow.

First, they started with a documentary on "10 most dangerous prehistoric animal"

On top... the Megalodon

Then.... second documentary: Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives

A 2013 special that is a basically a full fledged hoax disguised as an actual documentary.

trogdor

lol

Derpy

then, they aired Megalodon: Fact vs. Fiction, a 2018 special that was made by Discovery Channel (who also made Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives) which explains that Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives is an Hoax and reveals thing like "the marine biologist that appeared in the special was made up, no one exist with that name" and so on

So, basically it was a documentary from 4 years later that revealed that the original one was an hoax disguised as real info (how they managed to escape getting sued over this I don't know....)

And then.... AFTER the documentary that revealed that the first one was an hoax (not that it was really needed, I doubt someone would have believed the bad photoshops)... they aired "Megalodon, The New Revelations".... a sequel to The Monster Shark Lives that still pretends that everything it said was true....

trogdor

09:35

well,.... I wouldn't go so far as to say no one will believe that

people believe some dumb things

Derpy

I mean... one of the proof was THIS

"Photo of a ww2 U-Boat. In the distance you can see a fin from a shark that must be at least 63 foots long"

Derpy

10:00

and it is not even the worse picture/video evidence they had

BESW

10:55

Mira Grant wrote a 2015 horror novella about a hoax science documentary that got killed by the cryptid it was pretending to discover.

...there's a 2017 sequel novel, too.

Derpy

and once again, for weird reasons, I was reminded of Fisher Diver. ^_^

anyway, from the book description

> they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.

In the case of the documentary I mentioned before... they actually tried to prove something. It was not just "videos that proved nothing", it was "let me show this totally-not-a-photoshop picture that proves we are right"

BESW

Yeah, that's not exactly representative.

They hired professional mermaid-costume divers for the expedition.

BESW

11:32

"CARNIVAL ROW is Now a Tabletop RPG," Nerdist article by Dan Casey with free download link for the full PDF.

user15026

11:42

@BESW they were good although in true Mira Grant style they made it hard to sleep after and furthered my dislike of boats

BESW

I read the novella and went "Yes, the novel must be quite excellent and I probably won't get through to the second page before the suspense of knowing she's going to deliver on the tension she's setting up gets too much for me."

user15026

It was very much a "read slowly in the daylight" book for me.

Nyakouai

Good afternoon

kviiri

hiya

goodguy5

12:58

@Xirema Yea, I wrapped it up on my couch last night. One of the better web comics I've read. Good art, compelling characters, just enough fan service to still be classy, realistic (almost) and relatable story.

Especially compared to the QC comics I'm catching up on, which I love, but pale in comparison.

GcL

@Derpy I'd have been entertained to read the "damages" alleged in such a filing.

Derpy

13:34

@GcL ok, my bad, I used improper words. I mean that I would expect that they would have to pay some fine for admitting they made up the content of what was disguised as actual real infos

If a newspaper publishes false news knowing that they are doing so, someone would be sued over it I THINK.....

so, I would expect that if someone hires actors to craft a fake documentary and make false claims... someone would make them pay a fine.

GcL

14:49

@Derpy Unfortunately, no such rule exists. Otherwise a number of "news" outlets would be swimming in red.

Plus, the discover channel is an entertainment outlet.

kviiri

I just got a popular question badge for what I believe is my first ever question on this site

y a y

JohnP

@Derpy - They covered themselves:

> But it was entirely bogus. The scientists in the documentary were all actors, and the photos that supposedly showed megalodon were clearly doctored. Confirming the lie was a too-fast-to-read disclaimer that ran across the screen in the program's final seconds.

Derpy

@JohnP yep, and IF I recall correctly that came up after the ending credits as the last panel.

goodguy5

15:53

Alright, all caught up on QuestionableContent. It's been like.... 3 years since did that.

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 QuestionableContent sounds like a great name for a StackExchange competitor :)

goodguy5

I think it's just an alias for Reddit

Rubiksmoose

that too lol

goodguy5

QC is a webcomic with great art, interesting characters, good concepts, and fair delivery.

There's 1 solid joke in 5 comics, I'd say.

Yuuki

@goodguy5 Oh god, it's been years since I was current on QC.

goodguy5

15:59

It's so slow paced. The only way I've been happy with it over the past 7 years is to forget about it for months or years at a time and suddenly remember and read through hundreds of comics

Yuuki

I think the last time I was current, the main character was dating a redhead?

goodguy5

What I should really do, is set an annual calendar event to read through it.

And they're still dating.

Yuuki

Oh, that's nice.

Xirema

Also, Hannelore is back.

goodguy5

I don't think she'd left yet - when yuuki last read

Xirema

16:01

Oh. Well, she left on a spiritual journey, and then she came back like two years later IRL. XD

goodguy5

I'd say the past year has been one of the best to my memory.

Yuuki

Is the comic still schizo-tech? Like everything seems modern-ish, except there's AI and people living on space stations?

goodguy5

yes

Xirema

@Yuuki Yeah, although it's expressly post-singularity, not sure whether that happened before or after you stopped reading.

goodguy5

I can't remember.... spiderbot is a QC character and I'm not mixing up my comics, right?

Xirema

16:04

There is a cute spider robot that appears in like 5 panels, not sure if they were named Spiderbot or if they're the character you're thinking of.

goodguy5

questionablecontent.fandom.com/wiki/ArachnoPC

it was indeed

"ArachnoPC", apparently.

Hot RPG Questions

17:51

6

Q: How to run Death House for 3 new players with no healer?

Me and five friends wanted to try out DnD, none of us have played before but I know the most about DnD (read: I listened to The Adventure Zone and watched some videos on YouTube) so I volunteered as DM. I decided on running Death House because it sounded cool and then seeing how we'll progress fr...

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JohnP

19:39

@Rubiksmoose - I did some digging, and the content hosted on archive that we were discussing (Dragon mag) is mostly legal. Some of the contributors did not grant permission (The vast majority were the cartoon writers, and the odd article here and there). So with everything, it's legal maybe. :|

Also it's specifically for the print editions, 4th ed onwards when it went digital is still verboten.

user15026

@goodguy5 I'd agree with you there, yeah. I wasn't sure if I still loved it enough to keep up, but the past few months especially have been pretty decent

V2Blast

19:57

@JohnP Good to know

Rubiksmoose

20:16

@JohnP oh nice! Thanks for following up.

Hot RPG Questions

20:31

10

Q: Can a corpse possessed by a Dybbuk be turned via Turn Undead?

Will Turn Undead work on a corpse possessed by a Dybbuk (a demon listed in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, p. 132)? Background: I thought yes, as the creature is a raised corpse, an undead. However I was just listening to a podcast where the party faced a corpse possessed by a Dybbuk. The DM ruled ...

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BESW

21:25

Is anybody else having trouble signing into Discord?

Xirema

21:38

@BESW I'm not having any issues with Discord, but I haven't specifically tested signing out + back in.

vicky_molokh

Works fine for me.

(Closed and re-launched it with no problem.)

BESW

21:49

Not even the website was loading. I restarted my computer and my modem and now it's fine.

trogdor

@BESW not at the moment

Hot RPG Questions

22:31

9

Q: How do I determine what is "magic" and "bearing magic" for Detect Magic?

I am wondering what "magic" means within the context of 5th edition D&D, particularly as it relates to the detect magic spell. I am familiar with the "The Weave of Magic" and spells slots and such. The detect magic spell allows you to sense the presence of "magic" and shows a glow around creatur...

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Helwar

There were a few people here that played the Tomb of Annihilation, IIRC?

MikeQ

@Helwar I know that some regular folks here (including myself) have played through part of it.

Helwar

aha!

you might be able to help me then

MikeQ

Maybe. What's the issue?

Helwar

A friend of mine is DMing it for us. It's his first time playing any ttrpg so he's fumbling a little, but with help and patience, we are having plenty of fun. Thing is I think there's a problem with the spanish translation

I dunno if asking here open or in private somewhere, not to spoil things

MikeQ

22:37

I don't have the Tomb of Annihilation book itself. I was just a player in someone else's game.

Helwar

I'll ask here, it's not really spoilery, I think o_O

so at one point we found a... frog people? village that was suspended in the air, via some ropes tied to trees. Does it ring a bell?

JohnP

>! Testing

There is a way to spoiler in chat I thought

MikeQ

@Helwar Our group didn't get to anything like that. But frog people sounds like Grungs.

Helwar

yeah Grungs!

well, at some point our Monk wanted to climb there and set free someone that was trapped in there, and we asked: How high is it?
DM checks the book: A 1000.
Me: A 1000 feet? That's pretty high, are you sure there's not an extra 0 there?

DM checks out again: No no. It's a 1000. And it's not feet, it's yards-

So... a village hanging from trees 1000 yards up? That's why I'm wondering if it's a translation mistake or something... I can't fathom trees 1km high

also we are Spanish, use the International System, that's why my friend mentally skipped the word "yards", it's white noise to us :P

Black Spike

(yards ~= meters, for approximations :) )

MikeQ

22:46

@Helwar That sort of detail would be in the book. You could try asking @nitsua60 - they were the DM for our group. Maybe they know.

Shalvenay

hey there @JohnP

Black Spike

A quick search of "Tallest Buildings" shows Really Tall Towers are in the 500-800 metre range ... so in a Fantasy Setting, trees a "bit" bigger than that can exist (even if it is difficult to imagine)

Helwar

@BlackSpike Yeah, I checked that up because it was white noise to me too. That's where I got that it was almost 1 kilometer high! :P

MikeQ

Although a kilometer-tall tree would probably be visible from far away, and I don't remember any mention of seeing that.

Helwar

I'm thinking its a typo somewhere

Black Spike

22:48

@MikeQ Is it just the one tree? Or a really tall forest?

Helwar

translation is horrible, they mixed up some names... I remember getting a mission from "dude A" (I don't have my notes here :P), to search for "dude A" that was lost. And mentions to "southeast" where it was southwest :/

Black Spike

In my head, "kilometres" are a horizontal measure :P upwards is "Stories" (approx 10 foot, or 3.5 mtrs/yds each) .... so 1k m/yds is 300 stories high

Helwar

i'm dumb with distances. Like, my father was telling me yesterday to cut 3 metres of cable, and I was like.... "so... do you have any measuring tape or something?". He grabbed the coil of cable, took out an apparently random amount, cut it, and then made me measure it. 3.05 metres.

It's a skill beyond me

Black Spike

(Delves into some #SCIENCE) the troposphere (the bottom bit of the atmosphere, where we live) reaches at least 7km. Mount Everest is nearly 9km tall ...

@Helwar My mum was a seamstress .. a Yard of fabric is measured from your nose to your finger tips!

(Tall people turn their nose towards their fingers, short people turn their face away! You soon get a pretty good measure!)

MikeQ

I don't need a measuring tape to count the number of Astronomical Units between the earth and sun. Is that a skill?

Helwar

22:57

huh..... how many AUs is that?

MikeQ

It looks to be about 1 AU

Black Spike

@MikeQ approximately ...

Helwar

is that the exact definition of an AU?

MikeQ

@Helwar Do you remember the name of this location with the km-tall trees?

Helwar

@MikeQ I'll check the notes!

Apparently the place didn't have a name, or we didn't learn it.

BESW

23:05

Not Trynton, then?

Helwar

There was an idol that goblins where apparently worshipping, and we followed a trail to their lair, there was a fork in the "trail" and we found this frog village suspended in the air

Don't remember any Trynton :S

Black Spike

@BESW Where Chief Gari rules, and the Ratkin Breeders need dealing with?

BESW

[grin] It's a reference to a D&D-inspired 2001 video game that has a hanging village in notoriously tall trees.

Exactly.

Helwar

As said, we might've not learned the name of the place, there were.... shenanigans in there, and we drove the frogs into panic

@BESW If you're not talking about Kashyyyk in Knights of the old Republic then I dunno what it is

so it's 1k yards up in the air, really? not a mistake? haha

BESW

Wizardry 8

Black Spike

23:10

@BESW A favourite of mine (though I haven't ever finished it)

BESW

Several people in this chat enjoy Wizardry 8.

Helwar

never heard about Wizardry, and there's at least 8 of those!

Black Spike

Ican't seem to break from my Standard Party in Wiz8: Mage, Priest, valk, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue/Ninja (usually ninja - dual nunchuks)

BESW

I've used a number of different parties and I think my favorite, practically speaking, is the variations on auto-shoot.

That's classes and choices which speed up combat by letting most of the characters use their auto-attacks most of the time rather than my having to micro-manage choices per turn.

Helwar

Huh, I just pirated Curse of Strahd (I have a physical copy that I forgot at my dm's house and needed to check something!!!), it's only 17mb. I thought they were pulling my leg... but not. It's 17mb, and it's the full book. O_o

Black Spike

23:18

Mage for Crowd-Control. Fighter and Valkyrie for DAMAGE, Priest for support. Lock-picker. Ranger just cus I can :)

BESW

Gadgeteers, Rangers, crit-fishing Ninjas, etc.

But I'm also super fond of parties where everybody can cast Portal.

Black Spike

@BESW YES!

I've never reached it, but Priority One is to get my semi-casters to have Portal!

Can't find any reference to a Grung City Above the Trees ... but I've only skimmed the pdf

Helwar

@BlackSpike AFAIK it's a defensive measure of the village, like they can pull it up there when in danger or something, IIRC there's even a picture of it all crumpled up

BESW

23:46

"Consent in Gaming," a PDF resource by Sean K. Reynolds and Shanna Germain. (It's free, but requires making an account that demands the same sort of name/address information you'd give if you were using a credit card.)

Helwar

Is it interesting?

BESW

Interesting? I don't know if that's a quality I'd look for in a safety resource.

Helwar

hum, lost in translation then. Let me rephrase, is it good?

BESW

The general advice looks pretty sound. It even mentions aftercare. The "consent checklist" tool raises my hackles because it looks like it'd be easy to misuse.

Black Spike

"checklists" are usually meant to be summaries, not exacting Rules (although this is almost never how they are used :( )

BESW

23:52

> On page 13 is the RPG Consent Checklist, which is a tool the GM can use when planning a game. The idea of the consent checklist is that the GM prints or photocopies one for each of the players and themselves, and everyone fills out their own form and returns it to the GM.

Helwar

I dunno, haven't read it, but I usually never have a problem with that, really. ANd if it comes up, I'd solve it case by case... I don't feel like making a fuss about it unless there is a problem with it. At most I say something like: This game is gonna be about this and this and that X may happen.

BESW

It's basically a list of topics for people say yes "yes I want this in the game," "yes, but with conditions" or "no, this should not be in the game." And while the associated material says "It’s always okay for someone to change their mind about any consent topic," that's not on the tool itself and as Spike says... these things tend to get used as rules and I'm concerned the checklists will be treated as commitments that can't be changed later.

Also: the checklist makes everything very not-anonymous.

Helwar

hum, makes sense. If we have an agreement on paper that everyone is ok with, but then later one might wanna change his mind about it, I can totally see how these could be badly managed and say something like "you agreed to it so you have to put up with it now"

Black Spike

"Aww, c'mon ... you said it was OK (sort of ) ... I've gone and prepared a whole plotline, and now you're backing out?!?" ..... :(

BESW

Dylan Grinder points out that using Lines & Veils should always mean providing a way to add to those lists, and mentions that the method should include an anonymous option.

Cook's Consent Checklist provides a clear method for adding to the Lines & Veils list, but doesn't provide anonymity and has the same problem that Session Zero has: failing to make it obvious that this is a starting point for a conversation which will last as long as the campaign does.

Helwar

23:59

I dunno these kind of things annoy me. One part of me is "C'mon it's only a game, grow a thicker skin!", and the other is "We are playing to have fun. All of us! Obviously I'm gonna care about you not having fun with my content, and dial it back to when everyone was feeling OK!"

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