TRPG General Chat

12:00 AM

@BESW I suspect some of the issue had to do with the linked question (confusing attack and damage rolls) that was also closed, presumably for similar reasons

BESW

We've also had periods where the site community was really okay with telling people to read the book, as if the lifeblood of rpg.se isn't how confusing the text is.

V2Blast

yeah

Peter Cooper Jr.

@GcL Thanks; I'd been looking for better terms for "gods" that means "really powerful beings". I like "espers", I may use that.

V2Blast

arguably, both questions are also duplicates of other questions that haven't been closed (though I'm not sure if they are exact duplicates)

on a note unrelated to that, but related to the conversation earlier, does Nobilis' setting have a name?

Peter Cooper Jr.

12:17 AM

@V2Blast That sounds like a good mainsite question to me :)

V2Blast

@PeterCooperJr. I mean, I've never looked at any edition of Nobilis's books or anything, just something I became curious about when googling came up short :P

so that really would be a lack of research on my part if one exists

Peter Cooper Jr.

@V2Blast Well, I did a quick web search, and looked on Wikipedia. So if it's not there, it may be that other people might benefit from it being findable. Or maybe there's just no name so it's a silly question. I don't know anything about the game myself.

Completely different topic: I ran my first Fate Accelerated game with the family (just me, the wife and the 10-year-old son), and it went alright and we certainly had fun, but the process of course led me to more questions.

Are there any good resources on the number crunching of encounter building? I know Fate isn't number-crunchy-tactical-play, but I feel like somewhere there should be some guidance on how many "mooks" with no stress boxes an n-person starting-level party could expect to reasonably defeat in a scene. I mean, I'm not expecting something on the level of D&D's adventuring day math, but I was hoping for something to use as a starting point.

V2Blast

earlier this week I had a session 0 for the first Fate game I'm playing in :)

still getting used to the system

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah, it's a lot different from what I'm used to. It looks really promising for being able to tell stories with my boys, without it just being so freeform as to bore the wife and I. Having a hit-point-analogue while keeping really simple in mechanics and character creation is a big draw for me. But we are doing mostly fantasy-style-combat with it so far, and sometimes it's hard to know how to really use the system well.

I'm also trying to figure out how one adjudicates an "area of effect" Attack? It seems that the rules expect an attack to only target one character at a time. Does any fireball-like magic need to be handled as just Create an Advantage, with some other specific method of picking off individuals to have them Taken Out? Or, does one just do one attack roll vs. a bunch of people's defend rolls at once somehow?

Someone_Evil

12:34 AM

(If anyone cares, I reopened the question and cleared out the rest of the comments. What was left was either covered in answers or was directed at a user that hasn't been active for 3+ years.)

BESW

@PeterCooperJr. Different versions of Fate handle that differently.

Peter Cooper Jr.

While most RPGs are tools for making stories, Fate seems more like a tool for making RPGs (that is, a tool to make a tool). I'd been hoping that Fate Accelerated was a full RPG in and of itself, but maybe I really do just need to read the full Fate rulesets to fully wrap my head around it.

BESW

The one I like is "for every zone you're targeting, all targets in the zone must roll to defend against your attack but get a +2 to their roll."

There's another variant where you choose a number of targets before the attack, and divide your result by the number of targets; the result is what each target must defend against.

I think what you're coming up against is something that I describe as "Fate is not an engine."

Many "traditional" game systems have a clear stroke pattern: when a thing happens, it triggers a specific mechanic which resolves into another thing happening which triggers another specific mechanic.

You decide to attack each other and that triggers an initiative roll which resolves into who goes first, which triggers an attack action that resolves into a hit or a miss, etc.

Fate's stroke pattern is non-continuous. Narrative almost never triggers a mechanic without the group choosing, each time, to use a mechanic (and which mechanic is part of that choice!).

And outside the conflict structure, mechanics never resolve into things which trigger other mechanics: they always resolve into new narrative which plays out until you choose to add mechanics again.

The only exception is the flow of fate points through compels and declarations, because if you ignore narrative triggers for fate point exchange the point economy collapses.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah. Fate Accelerated tricked me into thinking it had mechanics. It has an initiative order, and actions, and attack rolls, and hp stress, and everything.

BESW

But even then, a fate point exchange is a mechanic that doesn't resolve into another mechanical trigger: it always resolves into pure narrative.

Peter Cooper Jr.

12:44 AM

I read somewhere on how you typically do this see-saw between mechanics and narrative, and I really like that part of it even.

BESW

So when you say "most RPGs are tools for making stories," I read that as meaning that you're used to RPGs using cascading mechanical triggers leading you from one story moment to the next.

Fate, instead, uses independent mechanics at moments in the story when the group decides it wants to be told how an uncertain narrative element resolves into new narrative.

And yeah, this is... not always clear in the text.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah, I like that in theory, it's just hard to do in practice, and hard to figure out how to use the tools to make mechanics to give us the right level of uncertainty. Even just "How do I set a DC" (or whatever Fate calls it) is a bit tricky since I just don't have a feel for the numbers yet.

BESW

One of the nifty things about Fate is that DCs aren't as important because failure is often more interesting that success.

So we don't have to worry about getting the numbers just right to create the illusion of risk while not killing off the party accidentally: failure means getting captured, or the enemy gets the treasure map, or you're left to climb out of a pit while your rival gets a head start...

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah, and this last session I was trying to have a scenario that was a bit more tactical and I was just wanting a "much simpler D&D", though I do want to bring the more interesting storytelling into it as we go, too.

BESW

(I also tend to pitch difficulties low and then spend my fate points on PC aspects to increase the difficulty, keeping the point economy flowing and making the narrative 'why it's hard' center on the player characters.)

If you want a rule of thumb, though, here you go:

in Fate chat and game room, Feb 16 '16 at 6:17, by BESW

So, here's how I've been approaching that lately: I take the highest skill rank available to the PCs (+5 in ARRPG, +3 in Umdaar) and set that as "hard." If you're good at it, you've got a good chance of succeeding.

And from AARPG:

in Fate chat and game room, Feb 16 '16 at 6:24, by BESW

> If the PCs are overflowing in fate points, or it’s a crucial moment in the story when someone’s life is on the line, or the fate of many is at stake, or they’re finally going against foes that they’ve been building up to for a scenario or two, feel free to raise difficulties across the board.
You should also raise difficulties to indicate when a particular opponent is extremely prepared for the PCs, or to reflect situations that aren’t ideal—if the PCs are not prepared, or don’t have the right tools for the job, or are in a time crunch, etc.

Peter Cooper Jr.

12:56 AM

So a couple more things, that I think I did wrong: The expectation must be that the players have full access to the NPC/monster/mook/etc. "character sheet" and aspects and stunts and everything, right? So there's no BBEG keeping his abilities secrets from the players ever? (And if they want to roleplay keeping it secret from the characters, sure, but that's hard to do and my target audience may not want to deal with that.)

BESW

Yes, that's the default. Your group can talk about keeping specific things secret, though I suggest always telling them a secret exists even if you aren't going to tell them what it is.

This was a Masters of Umdaar enemy I made:

Dec 13 '17 at 23:28, by BESW

> MASTER APPA-TAX
Concept: Fantabulous Queen of the Dinosauroids
Secret: [hidden]
Ambition: I will unite the reptilians
Artifact: The Diadem of Command

Peter Cooper Jr.

And, how does the "turn order" of spending fate points work? Like there's an attack roll, and a defend roll, and whichever side is "losing" has a chance to spend a point to reroll or add +2, and then once they're winning the other side has a chance, and they just go back and forth until one side concedes the roll?

BESW

Pretty much. Fate points happen in table space, not game space, and so they're very loosey goosey.

My only hard rule about Fate points is that they should never be spent before you know if you need them.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Right, so in terms of how the table conversation goes, you basically ask the "losing" side if they want to spend any points.

BESW

(Also of note: players can spend fate points even if their characters aren't in the scene, so long as they can justify it narratively.)

(Tables may differ on how strict they want to be about justifications; I figure if you wanna spend your points on somebody else, I'm all for it.)

Peter Cooper Jr.

1:02 AM

Ah... so Monster attacks Player A, and Player A is 1 short, and Player B might invoke an aspect with one of her fate points to +2 the roll? Interesting, I never thought of that happening.

BESW

Fate points represent the player's control over the story, not the character's.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Oh, "Help an ally with the aspect" is literally one of the four things it says you can do when an aspect is invoked. I need to reread the rules yet again.

I think I just saw that as in-game when I first read it, but of course you're right that it's out-of-game.

BESW

Yeah, one of the challenges of Fate is that it doesn't flag the bits which are dramatically untraditional.

Personally I feel like ripping the whole conflict structure out entirely, maybe even the attack action, because it's both confusing and unnecessary.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah, FAE is only 50 half-size-pages to draw you in, but then it could really use a bunch examples and "scripts" of how it works at a real table.

BESW

FAE is also kinda misleading because it's really a quickstart guide for Fate Core but because part of the quickstart is simplifying the skill mechanic, it LOOKS more like an independent but related system.

Peter Cooper Jr.

1:11 AM

I do really like Approaches, since needing to align every possible action to one of six completely arbitrary broad categories matches how D&D 5e has trained me.

BESW

Hee.

I tend to prefer the most abstract "skill" sets like approaches, over "here are a dozen or two skills, keep track of them."

Although skill-less Fate is also super interesting to me, as is Faith Corp's mashup of approaches with personalized skill lists.

To be clear, Fate has not become my favorite system; it has become my if-I-don't-have-a-system-which-specifically-does-what-I-want-then-Fate-will-let-me-do-it-myself system.

Peter Cooper Jr.

@BESW Like I said, it's the toolbox to let you build your own RPG. Which is a really useful thing, but Fate Accelerated at least sure doesn't present itself that way. :)

BESW

More Tabletop Treehouse BLM bundles! 40 microgames for $50 and 27 games for $125.

@PeterCooperJr. Yeah. FAE suffers from its concision.

...and the fact that FAE/Fate represent the first time Fate was ever presented as a do-it-yourself system that hadn't been tweaked and moulded in design to accomplish a particular task for a particular setting/genre. All the previous versions of Fate were published for specific stories, like Dresden Files.

So the writers were struggling to figure out HOW to talk about Fate in generic terms.

Glazius

1:39 AM

@PeterCooperJr. Yeah, you're definitely going to want to have a look at fate-srd.com/fate-core/running-game It's got answers to a lot of your questions.

(main header and all three subtopics)

Peter Cooper Jr.

@Glazius Yeah, I'd been trying to stick with just Accelerated to try to keep things simpler, but it seems I really ought to read through Core (and/or Condensed) too and figure out what to take from each of them.

BESW

The alternative is to find a specific full game manual like Atomic Robo or War of Ashes, which has already made a lot of those decisions for us.

Or, just... wing it.

One of the beautiful things about Fate being a set of discrete non-cascading mechanics, is that fiddling with them doesn't creating cascading errors.

It's very open to experimentation, and forgiving of oopsies, because there's that narrative space between each mechanical action and the table space is explicitly open to communication about what's not working.

Peter Cooper Jr.

@BESW Yeah, though part of the appeal is that Fate will (in theory) work in any kind of character or setting (from whatever cartoon or video game they're currently into), so while running a published adventure/setting/rules is my ideal I think I need to learn the flexibility this gives me.

Adeptus

Atomic Robo is in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality on itch.io

Peter Cooper Jr.

Just trying to wrap my head around it all, and learning from those who came before me. Thank you for all your help.

KorvinStarmast

1:47 AM

@kviiri When do you think we have a chance to get that 13th age thing off the ground. This month? Next Month? August?

Peter Cooper Jr.

Boy, it was hard needing to even design the stat blocks of a goblin and bugbear myself completely "from scratch" for last weekend's session, but yeah I need to learn to do more of that in order for what I'm trying to accomplish.

@Adeptus Thanks! I have bought it yesterday but have yet to really dig into the uncountably many things in there.

BESW

@PeterCooperJr. I had people willing to hold my hand very patiently when I first started transitioning from D&D into Fate.

Adeptus

@PeterCooperJr. Looks like they've added even more stuff to it... when I looked yesterday, it was 48 pages. Just now, it's 51 pages.

BESW

@PeterCooperJr. Handy no-skill hack for NPC design: write down a high concept, and aspects for whichever of these you think that high concept won't cover: "how I'm offensive," "how I'm defensive," and "what I value." When it comes time to roll give +2 for the high concept if it's applicable, and +1 for each of the other aspects that are applicable.

If you think they need a stunt, think about if you can't just spend a fate point to give them a bonus in the moment instead.

Peter Cooper Jr.

@Adeptus That's why I meant "uncountably many". It's infinite in a sense, since things get added faster than you read them :)

BESW

1:58 AM

Example: I'm gonna look at the D&D Beyond entry for a Bugbear.

> BUGBEAR
Born for battle and mayhem (+2)
Setting ambushes (+1)
Fleeing when outmatched (+1)

Peter Cooper Jr.

@BESW I did what the Fate Accelerated book said, which was a couple things for +2 and a couple for -2, and it really wasn't hard, I just had to think about what these characters were and what they could do. Which is just what I should be doing, I'm just spoiled from playing games where that was done for me.

BESW

Heh, yeah.

I guess that in particular wasn't an adjustment I had to make because I was used to modifying my adventure monsters when I wasn't making them from scratch.

Peter Cooper Jr.

And in this case the Bugbear was the big boss of everything, so I did the full stating out like a PC.

BESW

Ah, cool.

Yeah, the more narratively important an element is, the more mechanical complexity it'll probably get.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Oh, I've tweaked monsters from time to time. It was just a little surreal realizing I was literally writing "Goblin" at the top of a blank sheet of paper.

And since I want to be able to run outside of the D&D universe eventually, it was a really good exercise. Kinda fun to look at the 5e Monster Manual and pick out the attributes that mattered.

Anyway, I've got to go. Thanks again.

BESW

2:05 AM

Take care!

Ben

2:42 AM

Afternoon all

Adeptus

3:08 AM

Good [checks watch] afternoon to you too

Ben

3:27 AM

I know the feeling lol

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kviiri

6:19 AM

@KorvinStarmast Hi! Uh, hate to be this nebulous, but I've had a somewhat intense month and it might continue for a bit. I'm planning to have holidays in July so that's one possibility, but I can't set anything in stone yet

For a version that beats around the bush less, I'm 1) back in the dating game and 2) so pumped to enjoy the lovely weather outside that I've been neglecting my other duties

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BESW

11:52 AM

"If a zombie bit a vampire, then the vampire bit a human, would the human be a zombie, a vampire or a zompire?" The answer, of course, is that the human would be the star of a new Vampire Diaries spinoff on The CW.

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri Sounds like a great idea. Your priorities look to be in order. 👍

Maurycy

12:14 PM

@BESW I say the human will be undead.

BESW

Heh. Most any game I play, the distinction between vampire and zombie would probably be an ongoing negotiation of degrees and what matters to the in-character person making the classification.

The idea of such supernatural things being strictly and objectively unique no matter the observer or cultural context, doesn't sit right with the kinds of stories I'd want to tell about the spiritual, supernatural, or traditional. It's a very condescending Stokerian "science conquers superstition" kind of epistemology and I think it diminishes the potential of such awesome (in the old-fashioned sense) material.

(Admittedly I find a certain delicious irony in how Stoker treated traditional lore for revenants, vampires, werewolves, and several other overlapping categories, as potluck piecemeal for his monster... and then wrote an anti-superstition pro-science novel about using experimentation and research to pin down and canonify his supernatural hodgepodge into an objective truth.)

Maurycy

So you're saying vampires are actually zombies but with a different cultural upbringing.

(if that's not obvious I am being facetious in good spirits)

I should read Dracula one day now that I think about it.

BESW

12:31 PM

It's not a bad book, but to me by no means the most interesting vampire novel of its period except inasmuch as it is the most obviously influential.

Maurycy

That's exactly the reason I'd read it. I usually dislike the old stuff and I often consume it for meta reasons. Did so with with Nosferatu and Hitchcock's Vertigo

BESW

Vampires and zombies in modern media are both anthrophagic animated corpses. Go back sixty years and zombies aren't even consistently corpses, much less anthrophages. Go back sixty more years and vampires aren't harmed by sunlight, it only represses their powers. Go back another forty years and the most popular vampire in contemporary media is ambiguously not a corpse or even supernatural in any way.

Maurycy

Hm, are vampires animated corpses though? I'd think a vampire is a kind of not fully alive person with superpowers

BESW

Vampires aren't real. Any storyteller gets to decide what they are for that person's story, or decide not to define them so clearly at all.

That's kinda what I'm getting at; questions like "are vampires animated corpses" presumes that the nature of the vampire can be reduced to a single objective truth.

Twilight vampires are explicitly animated corpses, their flesh transformed to a crystalline marble-like substance through a supernatural embalming process facilitated by their venom.

Maurycy

That... I am not sure what to think about this information

BESW

12:44 PM

Buffy vampires are the bodies of humans animated by demonic beings whose own bodies cannot enter the human world, invited into the bodies of victims through the ritual of blood exchange.

Maurycy

My question about whether vampires are animated corpses came from your statement that in modern media vampires and zombies are animated corpses. I think it is possible to reduce it to a single objective truth in this context, though probably the answer will be "yes and no because vampires are milked so much right now there're too many variants in pop culture at the moment"

BESW

There's always a general gestalt sense of a monster in the cultural consciousness, which rarely matches any specific media depiction accurately.

Although specific media moments can dramatically alter a gestalt which otherwise evolves slowly over time.

Zombies, for example, had an overnight character change in the wake of Night of the Living Dead... despite it not being about zombies at all.

Maurycy

I think I am too uneducated for this conversation

I am still kind of trying to decipher this sentence: "There's always a general gestalt sense of a monster in the cultural consciousness, which rarely matches any specific media depiction accurately."

MikeQ

Basically all these monsters start out as nebulous folk legends, not really with any single definition. Then later, some popular media portrays the monster in a specific way, and then people start to think of the monster as a concrete thing with those specific features.

BESW

That.

Maurycy

12:49 PM

And then another media depiction comes which becomes popular enough that it once again changes how an average person thinks of the monster?

MikeQ

Yes that is also possible

BESW

Prior to Night, Western people generally thought of zombies were humans drugged and mind controlled by evil "voodoo" practitioners to act according to the practitioner's specific commands. This was because of a very specific and very wrong "anthropological" book that was widely read, and inspired a lot of movies about evil Caribbean heathens.

Then Night (which called its creatures ghouls, actually) presented the vision of mindless humans WITHOUT a commanding master, capable of turning people into zombies on their own and driven only by base instincts to feed and reproduce.

These two depictions of mindless monsters made from human bodies merged, and the earlier racist notion of zombies faded from the minds of mainstream culture, replaced with zombies as metaphors for consumerism and the effects of propaganda.

Later Night sequels even called their ghouls "zombies" because the association had become so strong in the mind of the public.

Now I could point you at contemporary stories where zombies are parasitic tapeworms that took over their hosts brains but are too confused to understand what's happened; or are singing and dancing puppets of an alien hivemind; but those aren't "what zombies are" in the popular consciousness of the American public.

LizWeir

"are human-Controllers zombies?", most controversial thread in Animorphs fandom forum, shut down after &c&c&c ;-)

BESW

Ahahahah, exactly.

If a tapeworm zombie, or a human-Controller, bites you, you'll get a nasty infection because human mouths are filthy but you won't turn into one of them.

But 'everybody knows' that getting bitten by a zombie means you're going to become a zombie.

H*ck, of the three most famous vampire stories prior to Bram Stoker's Dracula, one didn't need to drink blood at all and instead fed on creating despair by exposing peoples' secret corruptions; one drank the blood of peasants but also required an emotional bond with a noblewoman to sustain her; and the one which most drank blood to survive... may have just been a deluded human.

Then Stoker came along and gave his vampire a bunch of qualities from folklore that today we'd identify as werewolf stories.

(That's why modern vampires frequently turn into bats and control wolves and the weather; Stoker was yoinking whatever Eastern-European lore he thought sounded cool.)

KorvinStarmast

1:06 PM

@MikeQ Well said. The loup garou being a fine example.

BESW

@MikeQ Most of the time what we wind up thinking of as distinct individual kinds of monsters or beings, are mashups of multiple different cultural and regional beings which may have been totally unrelated until some foreigner got handsy with the local faiths for his own fiction.

MikeQ

I was thinking along the lines of D&D's very rigid distinctions between goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, and imps

BESW

Yup, same smell!

"Oh, Bugbears are a KIND of goblin. No, scratch that, we're gonna get Linnean on this manual and say bugbears and hobgoblins are both categories of goblinoid."

Because Stoker taught us that sciencing up your folklore lends it legitimacy in the Age of Rationalism.

Maurycy

That kind of sounds like a lot of popular fiction is rooted in cultural appropriation

BESW

I mean. You're not wrong.

Someone_Evil

1:17 PM

@BESW "There are 2 hobgoblins (goblinus maximus) as well as 4 goblins (goblinus goblinus) in this room..."

BESW

Though honestly I'm less upset with Stoker being a jerk for writing a novel about how oral traditions are superstitions that need to be wiped out by science; and more upset with him for writing a novel about how immigrants to Britain are racially predisposed to kill British men, seduce or assault British women, and steal British property.

But I am very frustrated by the trend he represents of sciencizing the superntural.

Maurycy

@BESW Why?

BESW

Because it prioritizes the physical over the spiritual, the objective over the subjective, and creates spaces that de-legitimize being okay to sit with faith, uncertainty, and multiple conflicting things being simultaneously true. It takes ideas from cultures that value ambivalence and multiplicity, and forces those things to become definite and singular.

It makes wonderful uncontainable things, small and boxable.

Maurycy

That's a lot of different aspects. Do you mean those in context of fiction or life in general too?

BESW

They bleed together. Stories and lived experiences are lenses for looking at each other.

Maurycy

1:30 PM

That's fair enough

BESW

I see Indigenous knowledge being disregarded and destroyed by academics because Indigenous epistemologies don't use the same neat and tidy categories Western science does: if you can't describe it in academic terms, it must not be valuable.

But those same neat and tidy categories, create gaps between information which holistic ways of knowing bridge easily.

Maurycy

But is that inherent problem of scientific things or just people being casual or full-blown racists?

BESW

It can be both.

By dividing knowledge into disciplines, it becomes harder to see systems. The very structures which allow Western science to collate its knowledge, create gaps in the ability to synthesize that knowledge.

And by presenting itself as the truth-seeking process, rather than a truth-seeking process, science bars itself from access to alternative ways of knowing.

Maurycy

To be fair pretty much every truth-seeking process presents itself as the only correct one

BESW

That's the underlying arrogance I see in conversations like whether Twilight vampires are "real" vampires: the assumption of categorical objective truth as the best/only kind of truth to be had. There are other ways of understanding things.

Maurycy

1:36 PM

Are there really people out there who have serious conversations about whether whatever's monstertype are real monstertype?

BESW

And it's part of what frustrates me with systems/settings like D&D, that fracturing of the fantastical into the rational.

Ohyes. Though to be "fair," Twilight-vampire discussions tend to be obfuscating another kind of category error, the idea that romance literature for women and vampire literature are mutually exclusive.

Maurycy

And then I'd view conversation about Twilight's vampires canonicality in vampire-verse a great segway into discussion about how there can be no canonical definition of a vmpire

So even if it's arrogant it still can have a good outcome

BESW

Anyway, I need to go to bed. ttfn

Maurycy

But anyway, I am way too uneducated to participate in this conversation, 'night!

Someone_Evil

@Maurycy Sidenote: because english doesn't understand spelling but just lifts it wholesail from the language the word is from, the word you're thinking of is spelled "segue". Segway is the thing for tourists to injure themselves on

Maurycy

1:45 PM

@Someone_Evil Oh, thanks. I might've never seen the word written before (or I only saw it used as segway) and since it's pronounced the same (for my ears at least)

Someone_Evil

Oh, yeah, I only learned from seeing it written down (and trying to say it to understand what the word was)

May 22 at 1:03, by Someone_Evil

TIL how segue is spelled

LizWeir

>Are there really people out there who have serious conversations about whether whatever's monstertype are real monstertype?

this is reminding of the occasional 'helpful' Dragon Taxonomy posts I see floating around

the sort that go "two legs, two wings? that's actually a wyvern, not a dragon!"

which might be true in a given setting, but I see people assuming it's Correct and extending it into settings where, no, this thing has no front legs but is a dragon because that's how we're using the word here

BESW

@LizWeir My rule of thumb is that "dragon" is more of a mindset than a body type. Anything is a dragon if it says it is and you're afraid to argue about it.

I've known cats that were probably dragons.

3

See also: Orc.

Mar 9 at 13:45, by BESW

New default headcanon for fantasy settings with orcs: "Orc" was the name of a really upstanding goblin who was just astonishingly nice to be around, and now many goblins and goblin-friends use "orc" as an honorific or superlative. Other groups are confused by this and have their own assumptions about the word.

LizWeir

2:20 PM

<3

aaaand that's reminded me of the dragon that shows up in the Craft Sequence!

Four Roads Cross, IIRC

that was an interpretation I enjoyed

GcL

2:39 PM

Has anyone ever run Honey Heist?

Rubiksmoose

@GcL I have!

A few times anyways.

GcL

@Rubiksmoose How long did that usually take? or how long would you expect that to go with players between the ages of 8 and 15?

Rubiksmoose

Hmmm I've never run for that age group before. In the past it's been in the neighborhood of 3-4 hours including character generation.

but as long as the GM keeps things relatively focused I don't see why that age group would be any different time-wise.

I think one session I did went shorter than that too.

GcL

3-4 hours sounds good.

Rubiksmoose

I'm actually running Honey Heist this weekend for that charity thing.

GcL

2:46 PM

Is it a bear charity?

Rubiksmoose

Well I will if I get enough players... I scheduled 2-4 hours for it.

A bearity? Naturally!

GcL

Seems very apropos.

Helping hirsute hibernators.

Rubiksmoose

(well it's not actually a bear charity sadly, it's for racial justice stuff)

GcL

Just as good. Fewer bears.

Rubiksmoose

How dare you!

:P

But I take it you plan to run it?

Peter Cooper Jr.

2:53 PM

@BESW You're so knowledgeable about such things I suspect you already know this, but I was intrigued to learn the other day that in (at least some of) Tolkien's writings, Orcs and Goblins were words describing the same species.

80

Q: Are orcs and goblins really the same thing?

Are orcs and goblins really the same in The Hobbit and LotR, and where does it say that? Are they variant sub-races or something, explaining the different physical attributes? Or is my assumption they were different from the different terminology in the Hobbit and LotR novels, and then reinforced...

the-lord-of-the-rings tolkiens-legendarium the-hobbit

GcL

@BESW Seems like a rather insecure identity relying on others to not dispute you about it. /S

Shalvenay

3:06 PM

@PeterCooperJr. yeah, the D&D Orc is more-or-less derived from Tolkien's Uruk-Hai, as I understand it

GcL

3:46 PM

@Rubiksmoose Yeah. Magical Kitties Save the Day hasn't printed and shipped yet. Bears pretending to be people seems like the second bet.

I could run 5e, but I just don't feel like it.

Rubiksmoose

@GcL It's pretty fun. I hope you have a good time with it. So goofy.

user15026

Honey Heist is so much fun.

Yuuki

@KorvinStarmast So Wizards released a collaboration with Riot Games, thought you might be interested.

NautArch

@Yuuki tweet is unavailable?

Yuuki

hmmm

Replaced it with the direct link.

So I think I have a player problem. In the sense that I am the problematic player. In the last two sessions I've played, I've done nothing in particular.

NautArch

3:57 PM

@Yuuki i'm being a little literal, but this looks like it's between dndbeyond and runeterra, and not WoTC?

@Yuuki what game?

Yuuki

@NautArch 5e.

@NautArch blaaaaaagh

NautArch

@Yuuki Do you just find yourself not interested?

Yuuki

@NautArch I'm not sure. I get the feeling that I deliberate more than the other players. So by the time I figure out what I want to do, we've already moved on.

Either that or I just don't think as fast or have good improv skills.

NautArch

@Yuuki in terms of roleplay stuff or encounters during intiative tracking?

Yuuki

@NautArch Roleplay stuff mostly.

NautArch

4:01 PM

how much roleplay v combat is there? Do you typically like RP stuff?

Yuuki

So far, it's been a good mix and I definitely love RP stuff, but it seems like most of my RP contributions happen between sessions when I'm talking to the DM one-on-one.

They like to bounce ideas off of me and we've had good discussions there.

NautArch

maybe talk to them about bringing you in more at the table

let them do some of the lifting there

We're also all acting differently right now. If for some reason, you're sitting back when it counts, then let it be. Don't put yourself out there if you aren't really comfortable with it. As long as no one else finds an issue, then it's fine.

RedRiderX

@Yuuki I think it might be a branding deal with D&D Beyond (ie Fandom).

NautArch

Is it possible you don't yet have a good 'feeling' for the character to engage publicly?

RedRiderX

Do I don't think those rules would be allowed in AL anytime soon.

Yuuki

4:05 PM

I think part of the problem is that I've been advising on this campaign since the start but only just recently actually joined as a player so I don't feel particularly involved in the main plot.

@NautArch That's also possible.

NautArch

Are you having fun otherwise?

Yuuki

I suppose, although not feeling like I'm doing anything RP-wise is a pretty major otherwise to me.

NautArch

@Yuuki Are character-goals are a thing with your group that the DM works with?

Yuuki

@NautArch I'm not sure, it's something we've talked about though.

KorvinStarmast

@Yuuki yeah, I saw that last night. I am doooooooomed.

NautArch

4:15 PM

@Yuuki May be way to jump start some RP if it's about you.

Hot RPG Questions

1

Q: How do a changeling's Change Appearance and a druid's Wild Shape interact?

A changeling's Change Appearance states: You also can't appear as a creature of a different size than you, and your basic shape stays the same; if you’re bipedal, you can’t use this trait to become quadrupedal, for instance. But seeing that with a druid's Wild Shape can change you into a cr...

dnd-5e druid wild-shape changeling

Medix2

4:37 PM

Is it just me or are the automated closed-post messages at odds with actual practice? For needing more focus it states (emphasis mine) "Update the question so it focuses on one problem only. This will help others answer the question. You can edit the question or post a new one." and then if people do post a new question we often delete it and tell them to edit their old one.

Meanwhile the dupe close messages states (emphasis mine): "Your post has been associated with a similar question. If this question doesn’t resolve your question, ask a new one.". It doesn't even suggest editing your question even though people often edit to clarify why they feel their question isn't a duplicate

Rubiksmoose

@Medix2 Yeah it's definitely an issue with those close messages. It was pointed out in the announcement of the changing of the wording.

Someone_Evil

The post a new one presumably refers to splitting up questions (which will require new postings), but that seems a bit misleasing

Medix2

Yeah I don't know what the other close notices look like... there's probably a post somewhere with their text actually (to the internet)

Rubiksmoose

I'm not sure if there is actually! I keep thinking about making one though. Especially since the wording is different based on who is looking.

Someone_Evil

I wonder how much this is practices varying with stacks, while the posts are the same for all.

Rubiksmoose

4:40 PM

I believe I've heard similar complaints from people/mods from other stacks as well.

Which still leaves room for variation of course.

GcL

I like a bit of variation in my complaints.

Rubiksmoose

Though I don't think I've seen someone raise that as a counterargument in any of the discussions I've been a part of.

Medix2

Oh there is this post which I didn't know about: New Post Notices are live network-wide

Someone_Evil

I mean arguably it could benefit from saying "listen to the comments" (probably with nicer words), but I'm not sure they can as there's no guarantee there are any comments

Medix2

Honestly, I question flatly stating "[...] user research showed that this distinction [between closed and on hold] was generally found to be confusing to users at all levels, and did not seem to have an effect on reopen rates. [...]" without providing the data and analysis

NautArch

4:50 PM

ooh, looks like EA is having a nice little sale on steam. Any rec for Dragon Age inquisition vs origin?

Rubiksmoose

@Medix2 Yeah especially relevant: meta.stackexchange.com/a/339734/382836

Medix2

@Rubiksmoose Hmm apparently the reason is because edits to questions closed as dupes has a terrible success rate of reopening them, and only makes the question clog the reopen queue and there is less guidance on how to edit a question compared to how to ask one... I just want the data XD

Rubiksmoose

@Medix2 Yeah, I don't think we'd see support for that on this site specifically but I can see how that would vary between sites significantly I think.

Just from my experience which is obviously biased and faulty (as is anything based on my memory XD)

Medix2

@Rubiksmoose Yeah the problem of needing to cater to various sites that conduct themselves in different ways, but any "catering" has to be one-size-fits-all

GcL

@Medix2 What's the data you want? The success rate of reopening closed as dupe after at least one edit?

Medix2

5:03 PM

I wonder how all the stats vary site-to-site, (time to debate learning SEDE again)

@GcL I suppose I would want to know how often a question closed as a duplicate is and is not reopened after a non-insignificant edit is made by the OP

GcL

@Medix2 The query language you'd be learning is TSQL in case you need to google any how-to stuff.

@Medix2 closed as dupe. at least one edit by OP, reopened.

Medix2

@GcL Oh would restricting it so that the edit occurs after the closure and before the reopen and have the edit not just be a small grammatical change be easy?

GcL

@Medix2 Good point. Temporal consideration. I don't think constructing that query would be an easy one to begin with. Some of the parts would be. Better discussion for Elemental Plane of Math tomorrow perhaps.

Or later today. If Xirema's around, they might be able to hack that together with you.

Rubiksmoose

5:29 PM

9

Q: The Community Teams @ Stack Exchange and how we work together

I wanted to share with you about who the people that work on our Community are, and how we are organized. For context, I am the head of Product, Community, Design and Engineering, a combined Chief Product and Technology Officer. I joined the company in mid January and report directly to Prashanth...

discussion community announcements stack-exchange-team company

(not related to current discussion, just might be interesting)

Xirema

6:00 PM

@GcL 🅵🅾🆁 🆆🅷🅰🆃 🆂🅸🅽🅸🆂🆃🅴🆁 🅿🆄🆁🅿🅾🆂🅴 🅷🅰🆅🅴 🆈🅾🆄 🆂🆄🅼🅼🅾🅽🅴🅳 🅼🅴?

GcL

@Xirema Apparently terrible typography, or maybe that's a fringe ~~benefit~~ penalty.

Xirema

I have several talents.

Medix2

@Xirema Now I get to question whether having several talents is a talent...

GcL

@Medix2 was looking to write a TSQL query to answer a question with SEDE. I've got a meeting, and can't hack on that currently. Thought you might want to jump over to Elemental Plane of Math and work on that with them.

Xirema

Gotcha. My knowledge of SQL is kind of piecemeal, so I could try to help, but I'm probably not a great resource for that.

Medix2

6:06 PM

Ah it seems the elemental plane of math has been frozen, or perhaps I should say it has been friezed

doppelgreener

@Medix2 Link it here and I shall do all that is in my power to disenfreeze it

Medix2

Elemental Plane of Math

RPG.SE's space for quarantining Probability/Math/Statistics re...

1

doppelgreener

@Medix2 it is thawed!

NautArch

7:27 PM

@KorvinStarmast does the paladin often use other concentration spells?

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch Yes he does. He sometimes uses shield of faith. Before I tell him that Divine Favor is a poor choice, I'd like to have a bit more meat on the bone. Hence the question. he once used bless when our cleric ran out of spell slots.

NautArch

That's my biggest consideration, but that isn't your question.

I don't think I ever used it. It was always SoF, Bless, protection from good and evil

Those were my go-to concentration

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch You and I see eye to eye. 8^D But it's not my paladin. It's my brother's.

NautArch

Yeah, it's just not a damage thing for me. It was about more effective concentration options.

Medix2

7:45 PM

@KorvinStarmast Do you want answers to assume that divine smite it used the moment the Paladin gets a hit? In other words, that the Paladin is not crit fishing?

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: What is the percentage of possibly hitting something that has stacked Blur, Blink, Mirror Image, and Armor of Hexes?

This question is mostly for hypothetical fun because setting all of these up isn't super practical (unless it's a 1-on-1 campaign perhaps?) But with all of these stacking, how likely are you to be hit by an enemy? (let's assume they have Hexblade's Curse on them for Armor to work) This probably...

dnd-5e statistics

Medix2

@KorvinStarmast Well that's actually probably more a question from me than for most answers (I'm drawing up some charts and am unsure whether I should calculate in holding off on Divine Smite in case you get a crit)

Yuuki

8:20 PM

Might be a holdover from the 3.5e Cleric mindset? I remember Divine Favor being a key buff in making the cleric a melee monster.

Thomas Markov

Ive got a question that Im not sure is appropriate for a full question on the stack since there is already a thread that thoroughly addresses the issue in general: is the "there are no secret rules" rule a self-invalidating rule by virtue of it not being written down (in dnd 5e)?

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov I didn't know "there are no secret rules" was even a rule XD

I don't remember if "there are no secret rules" was a WOTC statement, a Sage Advice Compendium thing, or a Crawford tweet... time to go digging

Yuuki

Wait no, I'm thinking of Divine Power maybe.

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: Where can I find official lore information on Saurials?

In D&D 5e, Tomb of Annihilation includes Dragonbait, a saurial. This is a race that I have gathered in my online research existed in previous editions of D&D, but besides the slivers of information included on Dragonbait, to the best of my knowledge 5e does not have much to say about them. I'm i...

dungeons-and-dragons lore races

Mark Wells

8:46 PM

@ThomasMarkov It's not a rule. It's something Crawford said once, which was then turned into a fully general argument for whatever someone thinks the rules should be.

GcL

@ThomasMarkov You should recommend that to be added in the next errata for the DMG

KorvinStarmast

8:59 PM

@Medix2 no, do not hold off for a crit. That's a separate application of divine smite.

KorvinStarmast

9:09 PM

@MarkWells There were 'secret rules' in AD&D 1e, though. The 1e DMG had a whole bunch of stuff that were not player facing and in particular modified or elaborated on how spells worked in particular.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast Just put a comment up, but is the paladin using great weapon master?

Medix2

@KorvinStarmast Oh ugh.. I messed up, but my mistake would make my answer depart even further from Odo's... I don't think I'm gonna correct it, oh well

Mark Wells

@KorvinStarmast Is that different from the 5e DMG having stuff that's not player-facing, like magic item lists? I do remember earlier RPG stuff (1990s) having material that was explicitly marked "Don't show this to the players."

GcL

@MarkWells I recall that was in some of the canned quests. I don't remember seeing that in the DMG... Which book was that? The wizard and the dragon or the demon and the damsel?

Peter Cooper Jr.

@MarkWells 1e is a bit before my time, but from the introduction to the 2e AD&D DMG:

> The Dungeon Master Guide is reserved for Dungeon Masters. Discourage players from reading this book, and certainly don't let players consult it during the game.

GcL

9:20 PM

Ahhh in the introduction. A part of the book I don't think I ever read.

NautArch

@GcL You read the books?

GcL

@NautArch I used to read and re-read them as a kid. Just not the uninteresting parts like the introduction. Like "yeah yeah yeah... get to the good stuff."

NautArch

@GcL Back in the AD&D days, I think all I really looked at as the monster manuals. And I wasn't even a DM. I did read that book on Elves, though.

GcL

@NautArch I actually bought a reprint of Unearthed Arcana because my old one was falling apart. We loved the stupid spells in that book.

Medix2

*sigh* I wish you could change what type of close vote you cast

NautArch

9:27 PM

@Medix2 I hear ya.

Mark Wells

@PeterCooperJr. Wasn't Paranoia's "punish players for knowing the secret rules" shtick a parody of that kind of thing?

NautArch

@MarkWells I thought paranoia punished if you asked about what the rules were.

Yuuki

Paranoia just punishes you period.

Mark Wells

@NautArch That too.

NautArch

@Yuuki that too

Medix2

9:54 PM

@nitsua60 Did you somehow edit this comment a few moments ago? I somehow got a second ping/notification for it

Wait... why did I get a ping at all?

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 @V2Blast edited it just now

V2Blast

ye

I edited it a few times

Medix2

@Someone_Evil Did that make it think the comment was owned by V2Blast and thus ping me because...?

V2Blast

You get a notification regardless if you were the most recent commenter, I believe

30

A: What events trigger an inbox notification?

The following events trigger an inbox notification. They are grouped by the 'item type' which is displayed next to the site icon. It seems all items in the top-bar dialog are also visible on your global inbox page, except for Teams notifications. Posts "answer" Another user answers one of your ...

> A post’s author comments on a post you have previously commented on, when the only other (undeleted) comments on the post belong to you or the author. (See here and here.)

Medix2

Oh, even though my comment was after that one? weird...

V2Blast

9:58 PM

hmm

Someone_Evil

I think we have found what is called an edge case

V2Blast

that said nitsua's comment wasn't deleted, so idk

Medix2

Yeah I guess something happened, no clue what though XD

V2Blast

magic

BESW

The Sin Needs A New Scanner! Bundle hosted by Dee Pennyway is $125 worth of games for only $15. Proceeds are going to help Sin get a new scanner so that they can continue making amazing art!

Medix2

10:02 PM

I'll just assume it somehow thought V2Blast owned Nitsua's comment making V2Blast and I the only ones having commented and therefore it pinged me, and if that's accurate, just wow

BESW

@ThreePhaseEel James Mendez Hodes has a really good two-article series about where our ideas about orcs come: "Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth," Part I and Part II.

2

Medix2

@V2Blast I was thinking about editing my question after I realized it only talked about the dnd-beyond tag but then I was afraid it might invalidate answers, but that does seem like an alright edit now that I think about it more

V2Blast

@Medix2 ...oh wait, I see what's going on

you left a comment originally

then I edited nitsua's comment to fix the typo in that comment :P

didn't realize you were talking about nitsua's comment giving you a notification and not mine

Medix2

@V2Blast Ah yeah Nitsua's pinged me even though it never mentioned me at all

BESW

10:23 PM

"Noteworthy Games in the Itch Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality v0.1," a GDocs list curated by Stickle. (It's mostly/all video games right now, I hope they'll add some TRPGs.)

3

Hot RPG Questions

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4

Q: Can Dragonbait read or write Common, since he is able to understand it?

In D&D 5e, Tomb of Annihilation includes Dragonbait, a saurial. His stat block claims that he can understand Common but not speak it, due to the strange way in which saurials communicate. From Tomb of Annihilation, p. 218: Languages understands Common but can't speak Is there any evidence, ...

dnd-5e dungeons-and-dragons lore languages tomb-of-annihilation

7

Q: Can Channel Divinity: Preserve Life target swallowed creatures?

I saw this question and was reminded of something that happened in one of my games recently: I, as a Life Cleric, used my Channel Divinity: Preserve Life feature on an ally who had been swallowed (It didn't affect the outcome significantly; I had two other possible plans that would probably have...

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Elemental Plane of Math

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