TRPG General Chat

o/

That expression "No RP is better than bad RP" doesn't half put a lot of pressure on the rusty and incompetent. Or is that not what it means?

Playing Fort City again.

Someone_Evil

I've not seen that applied specifically to RP, only to (a) game in general (/total?)

Sep 7 '14 at 12:44, by BESW

Here's my cardinal rule of gaming, for players and GMs alike: Make sure everyone is safe and happy, in that order, and talk with the group about what will help keep them safe and happy.

My favorite gaming style involves the GM telling the players what their characters don't know, and a lot of the character action and narrative being described in the third person and dialogue often getting summarized rather than enacted ("Jessie whispers something flirtatious in the ear of the Dwarf King's bodyguard").
A lot people would say that's terrible because player knowledge should map as precisely as possible to character knowledge and enactment is the core of roleplay. And we're welcome to avoid each others' tables, we'd probably make each other miserable, but I'm not gonna tell th…

I've been trying to avoid talking OOC any more than I have to, because it only leads to wittering and fights.

That's true, I haven't even any proof that I am RPing badly if I haven't asked.

It's been my experience that trying to stay "in character" leads to unsafe tables. Apparently some other tables don't have that experience.

Always look for tables that value the happiness and safety of the real-life people, over the integrity of the game being played.

12:48 AM

Whatever does "unsafe table" mean? It sounds terribly dramatic.

Someone_Evil

@BESW Or, they are worse at recognising that things are unsafe

And it's not a table, it's an IRC channel.

@A.B. I'm using "table" as a non-literal term for the group/space/dynamic of people gathering to play a game.

And an unsafe table is a place where people don't feel like they can advocate for themselves or others when bad things happen.

We've talked about safety tools and calibration mechanisms here before; unsafe tables are what those things are trying to help avoid.

Q: Do the attunement requirements of the Hammer of Thunderbolts make it situational?

8

The properties of the hammer of thunderbolts seem to suggest to me that (for the vast majority of the time) the player owning this item will not have it attuned. How do you rule on the current attunement status of this item at any given moment, given that players will almost certainly not "live" ...

dnd-5e magic-items weapons attunement

Your favourite gaming style sounds marvellous, by the way.

12:55 AM

It works for us! And that's not to say that the GM never keeps secrets for surprise reveals, or that the players never speak with the words of their characters. Just that they aren't default practices.

(We play characters who are better with swords than we are and we summarize their actions instead of acting them out; why not do the same when we're playing characters who are better with words than we are?)

I spend so much time spelling out all the boring bits of conversations that by the time we're ready to get on to anything that leads anywhere it's time to go.

Gosh yes, been there, stopped doing that.

Dec 3 '18 at 21:28, by BESW

@ColinGross As for segues, I always try to keep it snappy, like a film editor who ends every scene as soon as it's obvious what happens next or we hit a strong emotional closing note. And I often ask the players something about the next scene, which gives them an opportunity to guide it toward a recovery scene or whatever.

Someone_Evil

TIL how segue is spelled

Yeah, Italian loan word.

I know how it's spelt but if I don't think about it I always try to pronounce it "seeg".

1:05 AM

Same.

Q: Is this variant of Elemental Adept for healing balanced?

1:16 AM

6

I know that most healing does not work on constructs or undead in DnD 5e. However, for various reasons, I would like to subvert that. I was looking over feats to base such a subversion on and stumbled upon the Elemental Adept. Is the following feat likely to either break the game or be underpower...

dnd-5e feats homebrew-review healing

Ben

1:36 AM

@GcL Ok, so my first reply to this was that the "overall points" is the DC - meaning that the higher you go, the harder it is to achieve; I originally decided to set a DC, then remove points, but that got too complex.

So I instead decided to make the maximum possible DC 18 - since the maximum in either total is 10, at which point it resets. This means that at no point is the roll impossible - just very difficult as the Influence builds

Ben

1:54 AM

I see what you mean though @GcL, just reread it, so I rewrote it to hopefully clarify.

Adeptus

2:05 AM

@BESW That reminds me of Joe Abercrombie's writing style. Very snappy segues.

Q: Are a polymorphed beast's attacks magical?

3:39 AM

2

When seen by detect magic, a polymorphed beast will glow magical (Transmutation). Since the creature is magical, do their attacks count as magical for overcoming resistances?

dnd-5e polymorph damage-resistance

10:07 AM

@BESW I like that approach a lot

Q: I am looking for information and the physical description of some 3.5 D&D races

11:35 AM

0

I am looking for the for the physical description and information of the following races in 3.5 D&D. Can anyone fill me in or direct me to a source? Deep Halfling Tribal Orb Deep Orc

dnd-3.5e races racial-traits

is that on topic?

Q: What is the Plane Shift series considered?

1

Wizards of the Coast has released multiple Magic: the Gathering supplements for Dungeons & Dragons (not including the Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica) as part of the Plane Shift PDF series. What would these be considered? Would they be considered homebrew? Or would they be more akin to the likes ...

dnd-5e

Q: Do pact archetype wizards have full curse progression?

12:53 PM

4

I'm pretty sure that I can't be reading this right, but the pact wizard archetype from 5th level says you gain an oracle curse and you count your oracle level as half your wizard level. Looking up the oracle's curses it says that the curse has a level equal to your oracle level plus 1/2 your leve...

pathfinder-1e wizard class character-levels curses

1:36 PM

Morning, team

doppelgreener

o/

@AncientSwordRage sure

is this comment inappropriate?

What have you already tried? I mean, this is the first source that comes to mind... — DM_with_secrets 1 min ago

@doppelgreener \oo//

not like "should I report it", but like "should we tell them that's not how we do things here?

@goodguy5 the latter yes

1:50 PM

I thought so, but I wanted to check before I said anything. Can someone with more prose kindly explain to them civility?

NautArch

@goodguy5 yeah, it's not nice

@goodguy5 brain fried by bck to mack meetings

back to back*

otherwise I would

meetings, amirite?

@goodguy5 is that like.. a mineral

hahahah

1:54 PM

:p

you invoked a might guffaw

I'm glad my wife stepped out so that I didn't have to answer any questions

I just said it out loud again and was met with another wave of the chuckles

@goodguy5 glad it landed well, do you know how long I've been sitting on that one?

how long?

Q: Ban LMGTFY (let me google that for you) links

too long

Rubiksmoose

2:10 PM

@goodguy5 I can take care of it :)

doppelgreener

yeah "google it" responses are basically forbidden

it's not helpful

221

I've just asked a question on Stack Overflow which was a prime candidate for googling. I admit it was a poor question and with a little bit of research I would have found the answer. It annoyed me that someone put a let-me-google-that-for-you link in the comments. It got right up my nose. I find...

discussion feature-request status-completed hyperlinks lmgtfy

"let me google that for you" links are even banned by the system

also:

202

A: How should we deal with Google questions?

Either don't answer it or give a correct answer. If the question is off topic on the specific site because it has other problems, you can flag it as such. But please do not comment or post answers like: Tried www.google.com? That is not acceptable on SE-sites.

2:25 PM

@Rubiksmoose Thanks ^_^ ♥

2:40 PM

me irl right now:

I made myself a cup of coffee around 7. Made goodwife5 (and goodbaby5) breakfast for my wife's birthday today, then started working.

Around 10:30 I was like "why does my head hurt?"

Rubiksmoose

2:57 PM

lol

GcL

3:14 PM

@goodguy5 Need more coffee?

I grabbed both ;)

GcL

@Ben As opposed to base DC, modifier, result. Subtracting from the roll or adding to the DC are the same coin. Adding to the DC just matches the rest of 5e DC checks.

@goodguy5 Clever. Using those magic hands of holding.

JohnP

3:29 PM

phnrgl. I am probably the only person at our company today that is irritated they have a job.

@goodguy5 Have you seen the side shot where he is sitting on a booster cushion?

haha no