TRPG General Chat

12:47 AM

6

Q: Does Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum prevent Devil's Sight from working?

I could compare it to this question about whether the Devil's Sight invocation allows one to see into Hunger of Hadar, but that question has an easy answer, due to the 'blinded' condition it affects the person inside with. However, the spell Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum does not give the 'blind...

Ben

1:05 AM

@MikeQ Well, it seems like I got my work cut out for me now haha. I was surprised My "Forced Choice question" didn't actually get closed.

Hot RPG Questions

1:48 AM

13

Q: Does Mind Blast work through barriers (e.g. walls)?

I'm specifically looking at the Elder Brain's Mind Blast. Based on the line of effect rules for spells, I would say no... But it's not a spell really. Based on logic, I would say yes, because psychic attacks wouldn't be affected by physical barriers (unless we're assuming it's creating a physical...

dnd-5e monsters

jgn

2:07 AM

So I just had a conversation in a comment and it was said that you should not use normal English quotes "" you should always use > because it's better for readability. In this case I had a 2 sentence paragraph with 2 quotes. It seemed crazy to me to expand them to block quotes.

Ben

It's formatting. Makes it easier to read. Putting a "Quote in the middle of a sentence" kinda just makes it blend in to the rest of the text

Whereas if you

> Format the quote

It breaks it up, makes it easier to read, and more identifiable

jgn

It certainly makes it more identifiable but I don't think it makes it more readable

He said
> cheese

but I said
> fruit

He said "cheese" but I said "fruit"

I can definitely pick out the quotes easier in the former, but the later is vastly more readable to me

Maybe because I haven't spent as much time on SE so I am used to standard English?

Multiple people are editing my post to change it to block quotes so i guess the rules must be not to use normal quotes...

Medix2

If you're quoting a single word like that, then yes, block quotes would be weird

Also note, the problem wasn't that the quotation marks caused code formatting, it was the tildas which you used.

jgn

2:24 AM

@Medix2 Is reading out code one letter at a time really useful?

Medix2

Yes, it is, I speak from experience

jgn

A tilde is ~ btw

Medix2

Ah right, the uh... letter-less accent mark?

jgn

` is called backtick afaik

Is "d e f f o o" really better than "def foo"? I have never heard someone read code like that so it seems strange to me.

Medix2

Apparently a back quote yeah... Huh, I guess don't use those, just use the standard " and '

jgn

2:27 AM

So many quirks -_-;;

Medix2

It is when the code says things like x(y_class:2|l)

jgn

When I read "class" in my head I don't read "c l a s s" though

Medix2

The other parts of it are what I'm more getting at

jgn

But they aren't words

KorvinStarmast

@Yuuki golf clap that got a grin out of me

jgn

2:32 AM

I know SE isn't big on giving information, but the "SE Style Guide" uses ` for inline quotes :///

Medix2

I didn't even know there was a style guide XD

Some screen readers will search for words and read them out as words, even in code format. Various screen readers have different results and settings so it is kinda a grab-bag

KorvinStarmast

@jgn probably a carry over from SO which is a coder site

jgn

Yeah, took a lot of googling and digging. For whatever reason backticks aren't even mentioned in the sidebar formatting help or in the formatting help page

42

Q: Style guide for questions and answers

Recently I saw a question title of "combine 2 resultset". I think the community deserves nicely written and formatted content. I guess this would require just ten more seconds from all of us. Sometimes I reformat others' questions to make them nicer to read. I know this topic is subjective and ...

discussion edits markdown low-quality-posts

Funnily enough all quotes on meta are grey boxes too -_-;;

Ben

@jgn I would agree with that. The format breaks up the test to make the quoted text stand out better

He said cheese but I said fruit

In chat it's not as obvious, but on mainsite it gives it a little background and everything

And with coding, def foo is better that d e f f o o

IMO

jgn

2:47 AM

Well I would prefer normal quotes over either, but convention is to use block quotes so it seems natural for there to be an inline version too. And yes, there is, but there are some glitches it seems :P

Hot RPG Questions

13

Q: What should be done if I suspect a player is using weighted dice?

I have a player who I am pretty sure is using weighted dice. He has an entire dice set that almost always gets the best possible roll. He claims it's just insanely good luck but everyone agrees with me. I don't know if he knows he has a weighted dice set or not, but he does not want to test his d...

problem-players

Medix2

I at least have never even known the back quote was a thing outside of for opening console commands and the like. Never knew it had an actual use in quotation

jgn

3:03 AM

I don't think it usually is, same with > in normal English :P That stuff is all just markup

Medix2 I was deleting mine the whole time :) I don't like to leave long conversations because then they get sucked into the void~

I just got a ton of rep for serial voting reversal? what does that mean?

I clicked on it but theres no info, it links to my profile

Anyone know if I can restore a comment I deleted the way that I can with answers?

Medix2

Comments are gone forever, but serial voting reversal probably means somebody serially downvoted you (downvoting a bunch of your questions/answers in a short amount of time; which would be due to something against you not the actual quality of your answers/comments. Though it also could have been a bot (not sure if those exist on here))

See also these: "Let us view our deleted comments" and "What is serial voting and how does it affect me?"

jgn

I see, thanks.

V2Blast

5:10 AM

About to stream our D&D 5e actual-play podcast momentarily: https://www.twitch.tv/bigdredwun

In a universe adjacent to our own lies a world known as Runia. This world, once peaceful and idyllic, is now threatened by a monstrous being from its prehistory. A group of adventurers known as Whiskey Company have risen up to do what they can to fight this entity known only as Nagat. They have trekked far across the mortal realms in search of the shards of Barrinoth, the Titan of Justice, in hopes of returning him to his full power.

kviiri

6:48 AM

→ 183 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

→ 2 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

The convesation about SE copyright and licensing will be in NAB.

jgn

:52799138 I am glad you were aware they functioned this way and were still happy to use the site. I think SE goes to lengths to hide this idea since they don't mention it anywhere, and it isn't how the internet generally works.

gparyani

@kviiri It looks like there are a lot of users still typing, unaware that the conversation has moved. Mind timing out the room?

...to let them know?

kviiri

@gparyani I'll just move the messages after the fact. We haven't used room timeouts here, I don't want to confuse people with it in the middle of this :)

(I don't think I've ever seen it used actually)

Ben

I need a new RP group

I went from 4 a week to one.

BESW

@kviiri Only three times never, and not since 2014.

Ben

6:54 AM

[Days since last timeout: 1825]

Wouldn't want to ruin that streak

kviiri

Wouldn't it be cool if that hit 2020 on 20/20/2020... oh wait.

Ben

@kviiri Oh god... It took me a second. I actually started to try and calculate if that was possible hahaha

kviiri

Reminds me of a fun little happening at our neighboring team's scrum board that listed goals for the coming months. "Okay, there's October, got it, then November, December... but what the heck is 'zozo'?"

Ben

Hahaha

Or the local church board: "baptism next T-sigma-usday"

jgn

7:18 AM

@Ben That's rough :33 what were you playing?

kviiri

← 4 messages moved from Not a bar, but plays one on TV

I restored the conversation about serial voting here, it got caught up when batch moving.

Long story short SE has a fancy algorithm (or so they say!) that detects when a user or group is targeting a certain user with up- or downvotes to the extent where it is likely to be an attempt to manipulate scores or reputation instead of actual assessment of content quality.

jgn

How do I evaluate binary quality?

kviiri

Which quality?

Oh, I take you mean content quality. Still don't understand the question though :)

jgn

7:38 AM

I mean, if you are supposed to vote based on quality, then how do you measure quality in a binary way? What does it mean? :3

kviiri

It's intentionally vague. There's tooltips that have some basic guidelines for up and downvotes, but other than that follow your conscience. (And it's technically ternary, since not voting is perfectly acceptable too)

I upvote content that I think is useful or insightful. I downvote content that I think is not useful, shows lack of research or understanding (eg. people who post DnD-based answers to non-DnD system questions) and sometimes content that is strictly speaking useful, but only as a warning example :)

jgn

Technically acceptable but SE encourages you to vote on every answer :3

kviiri

I think most of us don't

jgn

@kviiri I agree, but I'm not sure that has to do with quality. Sometimes an answer seems quite high quality but if it's wrong then I downvote it

kviiri

@jgn Being right or wrong is a part of the answer's quality

jgn

7:43 AM

But it's also comparative. There's a lot of timing and context involved I think.

kviiri

I've downvoted my share of eloquent nonsense. But I've also upvoted answers that I disagree with if they argue their point well, I mean to the point where the difference in opinion boils down to schools of thought.

Medix2

Does SE actually encourage voting on everything? That sounds like a terrible idea

kviiri

@jgn Definitely so. That's why some sites (eg. Reddit) have scores hidden for a while. I think it's a good idea.

jgn

@Medix2 There are various medals for voting on things

Medix2

You're acting like the medals matter. And I doubt there are medals for downvotinf

jgn

7:44 AM

@kviiri Yeah, as a user retention tactic sure it works ok, but it's bad for the site

kviiri

There's the "fastest gun in the West" problem as a traditional example, where the first answer tends to get disproportionately good scores unless it's egregiously bad.

jgn

@kviiri In my experience the second answer seems to win out haha

kviiri

@Medix2 I think jgn has a point though. (And since we often disagree I think you should take me seriously on this one) --- gamification matters.

jgn

90% of the time when I post an answer first, within a minute someone posts practically the same answer. Now I'm at -1 and they are top, and it snowballs from there.

kviiri

@jgn Yeah, it's not as bad anymore, and wasn't as bad here anyway as it was in eg. Stack Overflow.

jgn

7:46 AM

You need to get that fast +1 or your answer is unlikely to recover

kviiri

@jgn That could be the targeted voting that was reversed.

jgn

SE even rewards you for deleting with -3

Medix2

Deleting a post removed all reputation gained and lost on question, but yes there is the Peer Pressure badge or something

jgn

@Medix2 Medals do matter, the whole rep system is a gamification system.

Medix2

I guess they just don't matter to me then. My point for being here is knowledge gained and contributed, not statistics to "show off"

Though that's fair, i forgot that certainly contributes to various other users

This all said, I should probably sleep XD gnight y'all, beat of luck

MikeQ

7:48 AM

Unless you're interested in SE site moderation, the only milestone here that matters is the 10k privilege of seeing deleted content, because then you can read all the funny spam posts

jgn

@Medix2 Although I've heard there's an algorithm that will ban you for that too...

@Medix2 I think that's a bit of a strawman. I would doubt you are immune to the effects of gamification. Goodnight anyway, it was a good chat!

kviiri

It's not really binary. I do like contributing my help to the RPG community and this site including the chat, but I also do enjoy seeing that rep graph steadily climb... :>

jgn

SE certainly think rep and badges matter or they wouldn't display them on every post :P

V2Blast

@kviiri I'll be honest, I've virtually never actually looked at my rep

I think the only time I actually noticed was when I passed 20k

kviiri

I have a thing for graphs.

@MikeQ 20 rep (for joining chat) is pretty big!

jgn

7:52 AM

The worst is the rep to comment. That really solidifies the idea that rep is important right from the start.

kviiri

Yeah, but it's also kinda important to limit forumization.

It's not optimal though. I'd do it differently.

jgn

If that were the goal then there's no need to have it displayed prominently at every available opportunity

even in chat...

kviiri

@jgn Yeah, I meant rep to comment specifically.

I wish the 20 rep to chat would be circumvented by high-rep user invitation. We've coordinated a few upvotes a few times to new users who have non-stackable but otherwise good and on-topic concerns to get them on chat.

jgn

8:07 AM

Seems strange to limit chat. If a new user has an issue chat seems like a natural place to go, rather than posting on meta or whatever they are expected to do.

Carcer

8:18 AM

it's all just spam protection mechanisms

jgn

A little maybe but I'm not sure if it all is, and certainly not the way its implemented

kviiri

The chat part is almost definitely, maybe with a hint of "it's not really the purpose of the site"

But I think the chat could also serve by invitation.

Pierre Cathé

8:34 AM

Morning good folks

Also I agree, I often upvote bad first posts just so that the system will recognize that "Yup, that's a human and they should be allowed to chat"

Which is not great, I'd rather prefer to be able to downvote and also click a button that says "Yup that's a human all right"

jgn

On other forums mods basically only deal with rules and banning users. Perhaps a similar system would be beneficial here

MikeQ

Strictly speaking, SE sites aren't forums. Or at least, they're not meant to be.

jgn

9:04 AM

SE staff refer to them as forums, but yeah I was just saying other forums use a system like that.

Hot RPG Questions

9:38 AM

7

Q: Is this homebrew Dragon Rider class balanced compared to the other official classes?

Is this homebrew Dragon Rider class balanced compared to the other official classes in 5e? Note that all the spells I've put on the Rider spell list require concentration. The class: Dragon Rider Dragons terrify most adventurers, but for you, one very small dragon decided to bond wit...

dnd-5e balance homebrew-review class dragons

Ben

11:01 AM

@jgn all sorts. 3.5e, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, 5e

V2Blast

11:42 AM

@Ben I was in an absurd number of games at some point. It has since petered down to 3 regular games (Adventures in Middle-earth, Princes of the Apocalypse campaign for D&D 5e, and the streamed Wednesday night game). Though I brought up the final release of Lancer on the D&D Beyond server and have now ended up in a Monday night Lancer campaign starting soon :)

On an unrelated note

Does anyone know when the wording of Polymorph changed in 5e? Specifically, the first version of the 5e PHB said shapechangers automatically succeeded on the save against it, but at some point (before the 2018 PHB errata), it was changed to say shapechangers were unaffected. (Note that True Polymorph said they were unaffected, even in the 5e PHB's first printing.)

And that particular change is not noted in the PHB errata, hence my question

Someone_Evil

12:10 PM

I would assume that change coincided with the "can't affect creatures with 0 hit points" which is noted in errata, as the new wording combines the two in one sentence

That one is present in the first (2015) errata, I don't know what printings follows that, 2nd?

goodguy5

1:17 PM

I assume that I'm not the only one that has some users on the site that I've decided I don't really like. I disagree with their methods and answers, etc. I'll call the example person "conflict".

Under that assumption, it always cheeses my grits when "conflict" has a great answer and I'm obliged to upvote it, duly.

doppelgreener

1:29 PM

There's people I'm not so fond of, but I judge peoples' content on its own merit. How that impacts them is just an amalgam of me doing that over time.

2

Even people we do not like are capable of doing things we might like from time to time.

I think there's been times emotions like unhappiness have come up, but I get nothing healthy out of that, so that's something for me to work through and indicates an unhealthy or counterproductive hangup in my head somewhere for me to dismantle.

I do feel conflicted when someone's done something unhealthy in their posts (like they've been rude and it's not the first time) and then it gets edited out, and then what remains is genuinely good. Would upvoting it now be rewarding them for their bad behaviour, which I don't want to do? Or is upvoting it now reinforcing that the bad behaviour should've been avoided in the first place? I don't know.

Of course that's something we might also be handling in moderation capacity, but that's a separate matter.

Nowadays I think that conflicted thing is the most reaction I get along those lines.

goodguy5

That's my point. I do that, but then there's an underlying part of my brain that responds to that judgment.

"Man, that deserves an upvote. grumble grumble. I wish a downvote upon both your houses!"

"I disagree with this answer and think it deserves a downvote. As a happy coincidence, it's someone who I don't like a lot here anyway"

And now that I'm thinking about it more, I think it's actually the inverse of what I'm saying.

I feel bad downvoting someone I like here. And downvoting someone that doesn't fall into that category is free of that pseudo-guilt.

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast Something y'all might also be interested in is The King Is Dead. It's a later game by the same authors as Firebrands (D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker) and develops further on the same formula and mechanics. The king has died, and the players are all people with some level of claim to the throne: there's various royal families, the king's guard, the leader of the king's armies, and so on. There's no clear answer as to who should succeed the king, so everyone has to work it out.

I've played it before and there were secret romances, galas, duels, a rebellion, an outright war, prisoners and hostages, and some tragedy. It's a really compelling experience. Nobody has to win, they just have to create fun and drama. Your character might specifically want to have the crown for themselves, or they might want to support someone else's claim—maybe because they need something out of it but they know they have no chance themselves. Maybe they just want to stop someone else's claim.

When I played, we had two players from the same royal house, and I was one of them. Our characters first met amicably as they travelled from far away, then they ostensibly gave their support to mine. Then we feuded, and settled the feud, and resolved to work together for the good of the family.

Eventually in the war several characters died. The survivors had sacrificed so much for their own claim to the throne—and all but one eventually, somberly, agreed together on the true heir.

KorvinStarmast

1:57 PM

@doppelgreener Hmm, choices choices ....

Gwideon

2:20 PM

hello

vicky_molokh

/me waves.

Gwideon

how is everyone

vicky_molokh

Workday that's a mixure of semi-frantic hunting odd and confusing bugs, and slower routine more predictable work.
Yesterday's evening of playing Divinity Original Sin 1 reminded me of how much nicer ablative resistances seem to be as a base concept compared to purely probabilistic ones. (I once asked a question related to that here.)

Gwideon

interesting

vicky_molokh

DOS1 uses normal probabilistic 'diceroll' saves.

DOS2 uses 'magic armour' and 'physical armour', which are ablated by magical and physical attacks respectively. Once either type of armour reaches 0, the character becomes vulnerable to appropriate effects (physical stun, magical freezing etc.), with no dicerolling involved.

Someone_Evil

2:28 PM

btw, @Rubiksmoose, what were you testing yesterday anyway, and did it work? (If I may ask)

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast Play both! On different days when you feel like one or the other in particular :)

KorvinStarmast

@vicky_molokh what you describe reminds me a little bit of Runequests use of armor, but that takes us back to editions 1 and 2 over 30 years ago.

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 Oh, same. Stack Exchange as a community in general pretends to be neutral and ignores all the emotional impacts of the system, and anyone experiencing the real emotional impacts gets blamed for having emotions because surely the machine is completely neutral and unbiased so any emotion they feel is their problem.

But there are emotions! They happen and are important.

I think many recent changes dating back to the welcome wagon are Stack Exchange beginning to realise and acknowledge this, but they're also lagging in examining the fact the system is still built on pillars that pretend to be neutral and are anti-emotion.

(Algorithms aren't neutral though; they are all opinions embedded in code.)

Speaking of which, @KorvinStarmast, IIRC you've spoken before about something like how meta downvotes can be inhumane, and it's taken until recently to understand what you might have meant by that because I've had experiences that certainly resonate with that.

vicky_molokh

@KorvinStarmast GURPS Ablative DR can be used similarly, since DR provides a bonus to resist Afflictions (save-or-something-happens abilities), but somehow never is.

Rubiksmoose

2:43 PM

@Someone_Evil hahaha I wondered if some eagle-eyed person would notice ;)

I was creating an unregistered account because I wanted to see what it was like for those users (eg what they can an cannot do and what it looks like) and also to test the workflow for registering one of those accounts to better help people do that.

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener I am sure that I have. I think you are familiar (from our various discussions and one of our visceral disagreements) with my various frustrations with the SE-enabled tone - from the get go.

Rubiksmoose

@Rubiksmoose I've never participated as an unregistered user before so it is pretty interesting.

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose You must be getting old, as I see that you are talking to yourself ... obviously, the wisest person in the room. ;-)

Someone_Evil

@Rubiksmoose Anything noteworthy to share, or do you need to science a bit more first?

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener On meta in particular, since it has a lot more "discussion" as a goal, the down vote without a constructive criticism/suggestion seems to contradict the intent of Meta's purpose. and yet, I now and again offer a down vote with no comment to avoid an "argument in comments" flare up. I can see why people weary of them.

doppelgreener

2:49 PM

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, I feel that.

Rubiksmoose

I've certainly discovered a few things I was unaware of before!
1 - you can't delete your own posts?
2 - you can't flag anything
3 - there's a banner and sign-in button prompting you to complete your registration

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener I have encountered a user on Christianity.SE who thinks that any down vote is "bullying" (or so they assert) despite some very kind other users offering to explain - so far, the messsage is not getting across.

Someone_Evil

@Rubiksmoose Flag is unsurprising as it is a rep 15 privilege, no self-deletion is a bit weird but I guess it two prevent some kind of abuse of the system

Mostly thinking aloud(?): I guess discussion post kinda exist on two axis; I agree with this and this is high quality/argues well. Ideally you'd be able two up/down vote on both, but since we only have one it gets used for both and it's confusing (and confusion leads to hurt)

Rubiksmoose

@Someone_Evil Yeah the deletion thing is weird to me. Also, I'm pretty sure I've "explained" to unregistered users how to delete their answers before. Oops.

Someone_Evil

@Rubiksmoose I probably have aswell, I will certainly avoid it in the future. Though "complete registration and then you can self-delete your post" sounds a bit strange.

doppelgreener

3:00 PM

Unregistered accounts are for ease of use in contributing for content, but not for managing it. :)

Rubiksmoose

15

Q: Unregistered users should be able to delete their own answers

I used to think that all users can delete their own posts, as long as these posts haven't gained a relevant number of upvotes. After seeing posts like this again and again, I decided to verify my assumption and found out that you actually can't delete your own answers if you post from a low reput...

support status-bydesign answers unregistered-users self-delete

@Someone_Evil And yeah, the flag thing also makes sense. I do often forget, in general, that flagging is a rep-based privilege so that was another good thing for me to realise.

Especially since I'm pretty sure I've told 1 rep users to flag an answer for undeletion when deleting as a moderator before.

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose ...... me too. oops

that explains some things

Someone_Evil

@Rubiksmoose Looks like even 1 rep users can flag their own posts, but they probably have to be registered

Rubiksmoose

@Someone_Evil ahhhh good. That makes sense.

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