TRPG General Chat

1:19 AM

@BESW I've been listening to a NZ metal band called Alien Weaponry. 2 of them are brothers, half Dutch, half Maori (don't know about the 3rd). They look "white" but embrace their Maori heritage & mostly sing in Maori language.

goodguy5

@Adeptus for some dumb reason, my brain interpreted "Maori" as "Maliwan", like from Borderlands

BESW

Not to be confused with Malian, of or pertaining to the nation of Mali.

goodguy5

1:34 AM

btw, I tried out an idea and I liked it a lot.

in 5e, inspiration exists. I was giving one out at the start of every game, and then another if you brought stuff (usually candy or beer). The problem was that I felt like players were hoarding them and not using them on others.

So, I posed to the group: How about instead of the one free one at the start, I give you two free ones, except you can only use them on someone else.

Achieved exactly what I wanted.

Mark Wells

1:46 AM

@goodguy5 "Can only use inspiration on someone else" is a good idea in general.

goodguy5

and inspiration gained from roleplaying is still normal

BESW

Yeah, I really like "do good things for others" mechanics.

Mark Wells

@goodguy5 I don't see how that's even necessary. I'm applying this to all inspiration next time I run D&D.

goodguy5

@MarkWells not necessary, but If I give an inspiration, I want them to be able to use it how they like

Mark Wells

Might also allow players to give each other inspiration, like, what was it, Primetime Adventures?

KorvinStarmast

3:27 AM

@doppelgreener it's all part of learning how to earn a living, I guess. One step at a time ...

@NautArch yes, red

nitsua60

One last try: anyone have experience with Obsidian Portal or another (free) campaign website platform, and want to advise me on which to pick?

KorvinStarmast

I have not, sorry. :(

huzzah, I just earned review queue privileges in Meta SE, which some of us think is soon to be shut down. We'll see.

Hot RPG Questions

6

Q: Is it okay to have a DMPC who is also the BBEG?

I don't want to make my DMPC star of the show by any means, I realize how important it is to let the characters do their own thing. I want this character to act in the background and support the other characters from the side, not for party benefit, but because it benefits the DMPC character. The...

GcL

3:46 AM

@nitsua60 I've used Obsidian portal for an online campaign. It was a pretty nice wiki

went with the paid offering.

The failing was the same as any wiki... it's only as good as the people are willing to put time into it.

For the current table tops, the players keep their own shared google documents for notes, inventory, character sheets. That seems to be as much as they need.

Hot RPG Questions

6:45 AM

5

Q: How do I handle players murderhoboism of giants in chapter 10 of Storm King's Thunder

The following question contains major spoilers for the Storm King's Thunder campaign. I'm currently running Storm King's Thunder for my party and I read up on chapter 10 of the book where the party visits Maelstrom. In this chapter the party is supposed to have an audience with the Storm King's ...

dnd-5e storm-kings-thunder

V2Blast

8:02 AM

Nova Drift is 33% off ($9.99) on chrono.gg for the next 10 hours: https://www.chrono.gg/?=NovaDrift
It's an addictively fun game with lots of replayability. I would definitely recommend it. The developer is also quite active and responsive in the Discord (there's a link at the bottom of the Early Access box on the Steam product page), and the community is friendly and helpful. I'm personally not very good at the game, but I can't help but get sucked in each time I sit down to play.
(Full disclosure: I'm a mod on their Discord and subreddit.)

@Xirema "The image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available." If that's your dead monk's eulogy, was his name "The image you are requesting"? :P

BESW

8:28 AM

Today in Why Are You Banging Your Head Against The Wall?

trogdor

it's really nice

oh specifically the title page eh

BESW

8:45 AM

Yeah, the heaviest and lightest weights of my chosen typeface do that when Affinity Publisher exports a PDF.

trogdor

huh

I see the one you showed me normally

BESW

Yeah, that one uses the middle weights.

trogdor

ah ok

vicky_molokh

9:13 AM

Interesting dichotomy. May be of use for those who don't like the term 'murderhobo'.

V2Blast

10:23 AM

good night, folks

Carcer

good morning though

vicky_molokh

It's always morning in the Internet.

BESW

[wave]

doppelgreener

11:01 AM

> What a Hobo is.
By the general public the term “hobo” is applied to all species of the tramp genus, but among the vagabonds themselves this appellation is restricted to a certain class. A “hobo” is a tramp who begs, but will work rather than commit crime. A criminal tramp who does not hesitate to commit larceny, robbery or burglary is known among the fraternity as a “yag.” The latter class never works unless under penal duress. The “yag” never affiliates with the “hobo” and each is proud of his exclusiveness. The usual salutation by which unknown tramps recognise each is the query: “Have …

(that was tough to read, so here's my transcription.)

No citation or attribution, tsk.

I cannot find any dictionary acknowledgement of “yag” being used for anything other than a chemistry term coined in the 60s, or really any acknowledgement of it being used that way anywhere.

vicky_molokh

@doppelgreener Grand Valley Times | 1897-01-08.

doppelgreener

I mean the paper itself provides no citation or attribution, sorry.

vicky_molokh

@doppelgreener Can't say I'm surprised - dictionaries often miss out on the slang of small subcultures, especially in/from an era when less stuff was documented in writing than today.

doppelgreener

Dictionaries also draw no such distinction between tramp and hobo (in fact Cambridge draws the opposite) so I suspect this person may have been doing the equivalent of our dear "but what's the difference between a wizard, sorcerer, and mage?" questions, where we'll see people diving in to making taxonomies rather than acknowledging they all mean the same thing, or informed by the same.

(Alternately word usage evolved in the last 120 years and diminished any difference, which is likely if that was ever true, though that means the definition of ≥120 years ago doesn't necessarily have any relevance to today.)

vicky_molokh

@doppelgreener I think the wizard/mage/sorcerer example actually demonstrates that terminology varies by subculture. E.g. to a D&Der, the sorcerer is more spontaneous and the wizard more scholarly, while to MtAer, the mage is the dynamic-spontaneous meaning and the sorcerer is the static-scholarly type.

doppelgreener

11:11 AM

@vicky_molokh Well, yeah, totally. That's exactly how it is. They all just mean "magic user" and different fantasy canons have assigned those words to different kinds of magic users. But then you have people stepping back and trying to construct a magic user taxonomy in a void as if there was ever one universal one to begin with.

vicky_molokh

@doppelgreener So when talking about MtA, it's useful to follow MtA's way of splitting terminology, and when talking about other groups, it's useful to follow those groups' way of splitting terminology.

doppelgreener

Like someone assuming that before all these fantasy stories rose up in the last 200-400 years, there was some specific difference between wizard, sorcerer, and mage that cleanly distinguished them as separate back them, and all these fantasy stories were just drawing upon those existing distinctions.

And then asking what those distinctions are as though they existed and have been carried through and still really exist to be found.

(Such distinctions never existed to begin with, and fantasy has layered all kinds of things on top of them.)

nitsua60

12:31 PM

@GcL Thank you.

Hot RPG Questions

1:53 PM

5

Q: What happens to a lich's soul when it dies with a Ring of Mind Shielding?

What happens to a lich's soul when it dies with a Ring of Mind Shielding? Normally, a lich's soul goes to the phylactery. But the Ring of Mind Shielding also takes a soul. Does the lich choose where to go or does one overrule the other? My interpretation is, the ring takes the soul. The wording...

dnd-5e magic-items monsters soul

SmokeDetector

2:58 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (348): How does the ability to cast healing spells affect a monster's CR? by Daniel Bohm on rpg.SE

Transcript for