TRPG General Chat

Bardic Wizard

04:04

The former “Gaming Club” at my school is now officially the “Tabletop Role-Playing Games Club”, as listed on the website. Apparently the name change is because the “Video Game Society” was tired of having people sign up for the wrong club. sigh school politics...

linksassin

@BardicWizard I see that as a win for RPGs too.

BESW

Yeah, we get confused people on rpg.se and in this chat, looking to talk about CRPGs.

But of course, any attempt to specify our topic range, runs into pedantry because so many games are online and thus feature neither table nor pen nor paper.

Bardic Wizard

04:44

I’m quite happy that it’s renamed. I’m frustrated that this wasn’t voted on or anything, mostly on principle. The teacher-moderator just sent out an email saying “Hello, Gaming Club! Most of you may recall a lot of confusion around our club and the Video Game Society last year at club day. I am happy to announce that our club is going to be renamed the Tabletop Role-Playing Games Club, in an attempt to minimize the issues. Please remember that our first meeting is...”

Bardic Wizard

05:05

(Side note, realized when I’m supposed to be asleep: the reason this bugs me is that the email telling us the GSA’s pride week was canceled also started with “Hi All! Most of you may recall our discussion last week about our upcoming Pride Week...” so I guess it just reads like bad news to me)

BESW

05:27

ooof

BESW

05:59

My friend wants suggestions for D&D 5e Tier 3/4 (4 preferred) campaign/adventures, third-party, physically printed, to run for students (ages 12 to 18) at their local high school.

3

lisardggY

07:16

good morning.

(For flexible values of "morning". And of "good")

BESW

[wave]

lisardggY

I've started working on my "RPG campaigns adapted to novels or TV shows" talk, and I'm wondering if Dragonlance is even a meaningful reference for people younger than I am these days.

Adeptus

@BESW I haven't tested them, but there are some adventures for those levels in Frog God Games' Quests of Doom (volume 1, volume 2, and book 3) which is available in print & PDF.

BESW

@lisardggY Hmmm, it was never a meaningful reference to me personally; the most attachment I had to Dragonlance was liking a Blind Guardian song about Raistlin.

@Adeptus I'll mention it! FGG is on my List Of TRPG Actors To Side-Eye but they're in the It's Complicated column.

lisardggY

07:33

@BESW I'm not talking about attachment, more about recognizing the name and being aware of it in the cultural landscape.

BESW

Ah, hrm. Good question!

I'm not sure Dragonlance has been A Thing since 3.5 closed shop?

lisardggY

Me: "Obviously, Dragonlance is the classic example of an RPG adapted to a novel"
Audience: "Dragon*what*"?
Me: "Dragonlance? A series of dozens of novels? A popular D&D campaign setting in the 90's? Bad animated movies?"
Audience: "*what*lance?"

BESW

trogdor

lol

do not Dragonlance here mortal XD

BESW

Hmm. The Expanse comes to mind.

Hot RPG Questions

07:39

2

Q: What tier are Path of War classes?

I know what class tiers are, and I know what tier most Pathfinder classes are. However, I have recently discovered Path of War, an alternative rule system published by Dreamscarred Press. It introduces many new classes to the game, and I don't think I know the system well enough to judge every on...

lisardggY

@BESW Yeah, I've got it in my list, though Ihaven't read or watched it.

Also, apparently the writer of the Book of Malazan would run scenes in GURPS before the final draft.

BESW

What about TV shows that used TRPG tools in the writer's room?

lisardggY

Interesting. Which?

BESW

May 15 at 0:59, by BESW

(I'm not just making that up, he's explicitly said that his writer's room uses TRPGs for inspiration when he's making TV shows.)

lisardggY

That show would be The Librarians?

BESW

07:46

That's the one he's explicitly confirmed as using both Cortex and Fate tools in the writing room, but he's said he uses it for other shows too.

Once you know it, you can easily see the character aspects getting compelled and invoked. Sometimes I think they even say the character aspects out loud, especially in the first few episodes.

lisardggY

Excellent, that's exactly the bits I was still missing - the parts where you can see the dice rolling in the background.

BESW

And this screenshot is very Cortexy, and you can see those relationship lines in action: every time they split the group up it's like "okay, whose relationship dynamic is going to be most problematic for THIS episode?"

An easy example of character aspects, is the character Ezekiel Jones. He's got a Towering ego which gets compelled for him to make missions go wrong if he feels like he's being underestimated, or he sees an opportunity to show off. But he can also invoke it when, for example, they need someone as bait for a pride-eating monster.

lisardggY

Though that might just be a case of writing and characterization that we're shoehorning into a Fate mindset.

Adeptus

@BESW There's also The Great List - ~~you~~ they will need to dig a bit to find which ones are print vs electronic though

BESW

@lisardggY I'd think that, yeah. I've certainly done a lot of "how would I model this in Fate" thought exercises for a lot of the media I watch.

But between Rogers explicitly citing Fate as a source of writing room tools, and the way they occasionally describe each other with perfectly written character aspects which are then the pivots for the episodes...

It's not "we played a TRPG and then made it into an episode," but it's very much "these TRPG systems provide us with tools for consistent characters and dramatic character-driven episodes."

BESW

08:22

@lisardggY I think one of the tricky things here is, you're more likely to "hear the dice rolling" in adaptations that aren't as "good," because a really proficient translation from one medium to another usually means smoothing out the signature tells of the original medium in favor of the new medium's tells.

So a really good "inspired by our campaign" TV show like The Expanse, is gonna be less obviously "inspired by" than a "uses TRPG tools because they do the thing we like" TV show like The Librarians. The Expanse converted to novels and then TV because they couldn't do what they wanted to do in a TRPG and so they abandoned all the TRPG structures. The Librarians uses TRPG structures because that's exactly what they want in their TV show.

kviiri

I've often expressed that I'd like to work on my skills writing prose, perhaps to even publish something one of these days. My TRPG friends say, "it's easy, just play RPGs and play each character yourself", which feels to me a lot like they misunderstand what makes TRPGs good and what makes literature good

BESW

Yeah, I've actually seen an interview with Steven Erikson where he says... exactly that.

kviiri

08:41

Oooh, on a related note, I've long since realized I've been trying to emulate things that work well in video game and film narratives in short fiction, and they... generally don't work that well.

BESW

Oh yes, that was a breakthrough moment for me, and I'm still struggling to identify how to parse what I like in other mediums into TRPG-shaped implementations.

(For the record? WoW boss fight mechanic ideas actually DID translate pretty well into D&D 4e.)

lisardggY

@BESW That's a good point, and one I should point out.

BESW

On that scale, Dragonlance wobbles between "don't know how to get the dice out of our novels" and "our publisher insists we keep the dice in the novels because it's cross-media franchising baby."

lisardggY

I think early Dragonlance leaned more towards the first. TSR was a very young organization and I don't think anyone knew what they were doing.

AncientSwordRage

09:00

<itag>

@kviiri I learnt recently the Expanse novels are based on the world building for the Author's MMORPG that never got made

in that way you can set yourself up for a novel, but I agree it's a different thing to write it

kviiri

Yeah, worldbuilding is somewhat different and more applicable cross-genre, at times.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

09:16

@AncientSwordRage Possibly similar case: the Defiance the MMO and Defiance the TV series are set in the same world. (And I found the series good enough to watch and a reasonable thing to perhaps inspire a campaign some day. But I haven't played the MMO in question.)

AncientSwordRage

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica interesting

@Someone_Evil that would make an interesting in-game meta-BBEG

lisardggY

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica I watched most of the first season. It started nicely, though kind of faded off,.

Though I did appreciate that they wrote a futuristic space-opera setting where the main conflict were between dwarf-proxies and elf-proxies.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@lisardggY I watched all three seasons. I liked that it had a matter-of-fact problem-solving-oriented kind of take on the grim situations that other works often tend to approach from a pathos-oriented misery-savouring perspectives (and I really don't find the latter interesting to watch).

@lisardggY People usually attribute dwarf-and-elf-ness to Babylon 5 species AFAIK, and that was both earlier and more space-operatic, right?

Though of course the B5 conflict axis was more Narn-Centauri than Narn-Minbari.

AncientSwordRage

I don't watch enough TV

Hot RPG Questions

09:43

3

Q: How can you tell the distances by road between the settlements of Ten Towns in Icewind Dale?

I've read through Chapter 1 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and have not found any guidance on how to judge distances between the settlements of Ten Towns. Other than a good old fashion ruler compared to the map scale, is there a quick way to determine the distances between the settlemen...

dnd-5e maps rime-of-the-frostmaiden

AncientSwordRage

09:53

@BardicWizard We hd BUTTs and BUCS for the Table Top Society and the Computer(gaming) Society

AncientSwordRage

10:07

\\00/ DG!

Carcer

blah

really wish I had access to rime of the frostmaiden now

AncientSwordRage

@Carcer is it in the stackizen campaign yet?

Carcer

dunno. I'm not in it, as far as I know

I have an offline friend who has most of what's on dndbeyond and I get all my access through him

AncientSwordRage

ah ok

what is an 'offline friend' ? :-p

Carcer

an "IRL friend" except without the implication that online relationships are not real

AncientSwordRage

10:13

@Carcer that is a good phrasing

Akixkisu

@AncientSwordRage it is :)

Carcer

<jjj>I need paragraphs, paragraphs about doppelgangers</jjj>

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu Did I dream the bear-people character race?

Akixkisu

10:29

@AncientSwordRage I don't think the Urskan are in it, but I haven't done a deep dive yet.

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu is that the name?

Akixkisu

@AncientSwordRage that is what I have in my head from way back when, so I don't vouch for it.

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu not in there

I have found a reference, but it may be spoilery

Akixkisu

@AncientSwordRage I'm the dm :)

A curious one.

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu potential spoilers for RotFM

Akixkisu

10:36

@AncientSwordRage very cool, thanks.

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu isn't that the point of Icewind Dale?

Akixkisu

@AncientSwordRage no, the atmosphere :)

doppelgreener

return of the fruit masher

revenge of the flamingo master

rise of the flagrant mariachi

RotFM: the catchiest punkest all-zombie music station this side of the mountains. coming at you now with ded zepplin's new hit single

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener There's a Penny Arcade character I daren't link/mention

doppelgreener

oh yes that memory came to mind and then was immediately exiled to the wastelands

BESW

10:51

Roy, or: the First MUDder.

doppelgreener

Representative of the Fish Mongers

retailer of tremendously fine masks

(that one would be RoTFM, but the shopkeep has esoteric opinions on capitalisation)

Thomas Markov

12:24

Pretty sure it should be RotF, no "M".

Frostmaiden is stylized as one word.

Which I ran my first session of RotF saturday

@AncientSwordRage I'm using the theros pantheon and piety system with RotF

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov I'm excited

Thomas Markov

so were running it as a "not enough people to play our main campaign" game

AncientSwordRage

How're you planning in doing that? Feel free to ping me in another room if it's going to be intense

Thomas Markov

Had two players saturday. We're still doing it in forgotten realms, just using the Theros pantheon. Heliod the God of the Sun and Kruphix the God of the passage of time are quite upset about the whole issue.

Heliod because the sun isnt shining, and Kruphix because the seasons arent being allowed to pass.

They coordinated to have their champions meet in Ten-Towns and try to solve the problem.

AncientSwordRage

12:50

Theros gods in the FR is such a wild idea

Also I'm loving how you're using them

Thomas Markov

So far Ive got a Lawful-Good Light Cleric paired up with a True-Neutral Thief Rogue.

Had a pretty fantastic first encounter. I started them at level 3. The rogue is playing an air genasi.

They end up fighting a killer moose outside. Air genasi casts levitate on the cleric, cleric just slings spells from the air while the rogue bounces around kiting the supremely pissed off moose.

doppelgreener

@ThomasMarkov Rime of the Frostmaiden

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov it is indeed

doppelgreener

Rogue of the Frostmaiden (Paragon Path)

AncientSwordRage

You might charitably acronymise as RTFM for maximum confusion

Someone_Evil

12:58

Read the Frozen Manual?

3

NautArch

13:08

@ThomasMarkov how'd it go? We're just starting with the courier encounters on dndbeyond.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov Id not, however know what the 'whole issue' is

Rubiksmoose

Hello all! Haven't talked here in a while since I decided to go all-in on helping Charcoal empty their spam queue.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose welcome back!

AncientSwordRage

@Rubiksmoose Hello! That sounds like good work

Bardic Wizard

@BESW no advice on adventures, sorry, but please wish them luck. High schoolers and d&d can be fun but hard (source: experience) and it can be super hard to get something all the players will enjoy.

Thomas Markov

13:10

@AncientSwordRage "whole issue" meaning neverending winter

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov There's a never ending winter?

I've not actually read the 'Frozen Manual'

Rubiksmoose

I survived! And boy howdy do I have a new appreciation for the term "low quality" after reviewing ~19,000 lower quality posts from across the network XD

BESW

@BardicWizard Thanks, I'll pass that on. They're coming into an existing playgroup to work with the "experienced" players, and the school's footing the bill for physical adventure books.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose Are you looking to buy a spell

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I never said why I only ever ran one game at highschool (secondary school)

Thomas Markov

13:12

@NautArch It was great! We started in lonelywood

AncientSwordRage

I tried to get two different friend groups in the sam campaign, and the experienced players turned on the new players

like actual PvP

BESW

@Rubiksmoose "Low qual! Everybody down!"

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage Oh. I thought you meant...aroused

NautArch

@ThomasMarkov Well have to chat more as I approach a strat.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch hah! Surprisingly few of those. Partially because many of the posts I reviewed were quite old which meant that they were usually 1) really tricky to figure out if it was actually spam 2) boring and just very low quality and/or 3) in russian.

BESW

13:13

@ThomasMarkov No, that's Monsterhearts.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov uh...no... that would have been slightly better/worse but I'm not sure which

Someone_Evil

@NautArch Protection from spam

NautArch

@Someone_Evil counterspell!

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Hey I lived near part of the Erie Canal but the one in Ohio not NY. :)

BESW

I've got an ancestor (I think a great-great(-great?)-uncle) who had a barge on the Canal.

Bardic Wizard

13:15

@BESW that’s gonna be tough. Anything involving an existing playgroup with an (implied or real) divide between experienced and inexperienced players already sounds cliquey to me but that could just be a function of my experience

BESW

@BardicWizard Yeah, I kinda side-eyed that one but it sounds like it just means they've been playing long enough in that group to have high-level characters.

Which, also implies Things I Wouldn't Do, but is a little less obviously loaded.

NautArch

@BESW low bridge!

Rubiksmoose

@BESW nice! Have you done work into your family tree much or just happen to know this little tidbit?

doppelgreener

@Rubiksmoose Hello!!!!

Rubiksmoose

Hi!

doppelgreener

13:21

@BESW This might be something @nitsua60 would be well equipped to give advice on

BESW

@Rubiksmoose Some family a generation or so back did a lot with ancestry records and I've heard people talking about it. I'm also known in the wider family as The One Who Found That Book Our Great-Aunt Always Said Existed But Nobody Could Ever Find; she swore he was an "elbow relation" but nobody's got any support for that.

I want to do some more research into, less the family specifically, but more their area, the history and customs and stories of the place.

Rubiksmoose

@BESW Why am I not surprised that you'd be the one to find obscure books :)

Yet at the same time, still impressed.

Bardic Wizard

Yeah, I would avoid leveling up characters enough to have a huge divide. Our school club does “weighted leveling”, which is a thing the GMs came up with: the teacher-moderator has an extra whiteboard in the back of the classroom we met in, and every group had a level and a number of sessions.
Every 5 sessions that most group members played the group leveled up. You could change groups with the same character to any group within 2 levels, to change to other groups you need a new character

It worked mostly cause we had 4 GMs with varying levels of experience and a strict “wealth by level” rule that restricted characters

BESW

I just leveled up everybody. If you came and hadn't leveled up your character, either you had time before we started or you used one of the non-committed characters I kept on the side, leveled and ready for new players.

...Then I stopped using games where leveling mattered like that. If I'd stayed with D&D I was probably about six months out from devising a non-numerical leveling alternative.

@Rubiksmoose [grin] And this was with dialup Internet!

Carcer

13:43

hrmm

I do not like the options available for rejecting suggested edits

NautArch

@Carcer Is "get off my lawn" no longer an option?

Carcer

well the thing is that someone's suggested a superfluous edit to one of my posts but the reject reason available is "no improvement whatsoever" which feels exceptionally harsh

BESW

Carcer

heh

AncientSwordRage

13:58

@BESW MAP MEN! MAP MEN! MAP MEN! MAP MEN! MAP MEN! MAP MEN! ...MAP MEN!

BESW

MAP MAP MAP

MEN MEN MEN

Bardic Wizard

What’s with all the shouting?

Carcer

press M for Map

Bardic Wizard

@Carcer M

RevenantBacon

@Carcer Is that like F to pay respects?

AncientSwordRage

14:01

@BardicWizard youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp

BESW

@BardicWizard Map Men is a series of short, informative, and irreverent YouTube videos about maps. Its theme song is extremely catchy.

Carcer

@RevenantBacon yes. (press <letter> for <something starting with letter>) is a recurring joke in the drawfee streams I watch and probably other places on the internet I don't care about

jay foreman's music is generally quite good

I've seen him live opening for one of the tech dif citation needed live events

AncientSwordRage

@Carcer Maybe thats just the streams, but I've never seen it on the youtube vids

Bardic Wizard

Oh. I don’t pay much attention to youtube except when I have to watch something for school

Carcer

@AncientSwordRage it makes more sense when you have live chat yeah

@AncientSwordRage they have a second channel where they're putting vods of their twitch streams now though in case you're unaware! Obviously not quite as tight as an edited video but they're still generally very fun to watch if you like the drawfee crew

RevenantBacon

14:04

So what I'm hearing is

Map

AncientSwordRage

@Carcer Yeah I've noticed...I have yet to watch as it's like ~2hrs per vid

Carcer

@AncientSwordRage yeah, I've been slowly catching up sort of watching them while I work

you can usually put them on 1.25x speed without issues

AncientSwordRage

@Carcer I've got a lot of other stuff to catch up on as well...

@Carcer hah I'll remember that

Bardic Wizard

14:20

Aaaarrrggghhhh I just realized a glaring hole in the setting I wrote. “Lady” is a common first name for children of the 6th noble house, house Lyril. But all 7 noble houses use “Ladymage” or “Gentlemage” as the title for the head of house. So little Lady Lyril might grow up to be Ladymage Lady Lyril. Which sounds wrong. (Or Gentlemage Lady Lyril, but that’s not as bad)

the gender neutral title is just Mage, which isn’t so bad either, but the players have to go save Ladymage Lady Lyril and this now bugs me

Carcer

s/Lady/Gladys/

it's still in there

but nobody will ever notice

doppelgreener

@BardicWizard This is an Important and Valuable Tradition, and you are not to laugh at it, or make fun of it. Everyone has heard the joke, and it is not really the done thing, at least not within earshot of a noble family member.

An alternate suggestion: may I suggest that upon coming of age the people of Lyril may often choose a new name for themselves? The young Lady Lyril is so named in anticipation of her one day becoming Ladymage of Lyril. However, it's not expected she'll keep and regularly use that name in day to day life: she may be Ladymage Cheryl of Lyril, for example. She is also Ladymage Lady of Lyril, but that's relegated to certain contexts.

And yes, people can make fun of it, but it's like that joke: "You're from Hungary, eh? You must be famished! Ha, ha, ha! Get it?"

i.e. it's not funny even the first time, and it comes to mind for everyone, and a few people say it out loud and find out there's not actually anything to it

Although, if it were my place to say, I would insist that there is still that hearsay about the time the elderly Ladymage of Lyril—now abdicated for her daughter—had someone thrown over the balcony at a party who was very drunk and wouldn't stop making jokes about the name.

(The Ladymage herself may also have been emboldened to rash action on account of having had a few drinks herself at that point in the night.)

BESW

14:35

I approve of all of this nonsense. Real life is very nonsensical.

Also: "Lady" might be pronounced differently when it's a proper name.

Like Saint John.

(As a given name in Britain, it's pronounced more like sinjen.)

Bardic Wizard

All the noble houses use alliteration, so i guess she might have a second name she goes by most of the time— The players have a Lyra Lyril, but I can come up with a lot of names that work

doppelgreener

I'll also openly theorise that Lady is the modernised spelling and pronunciation of a much older name that was already traditional for the House a few centuries ago. The name morphed, and whether it became what it is today out of coincidence, or because people noticed the similarity with "Ladymage" and kept conflating them, is up to speculation with probably both being true.

Bardic Wizard

Names are hard to get right, but I do like the idea of everyone having heard the joke and nobody saying anything, since that way she never heard it and the players saying it, as players are wont to do, will cause tension

doppelgreener

On the contrary I am sure each Lady Lyril has heard the joke a hundred times during her adolescence alone, as is the case for anyone who grows up anywhere or with any name that has an obvious joke attached to it

nitsua60

@BESW I've got a little bit of thoughts on this. I haven't run T4 stuff with the highschoolers, though. I've run T4 published stuff and I've run for the highschoolers, but putting those together pegs my gonzo-meter a bit too hard =)

doppelgreener

14:43

In another place I use "Blue" for an alias and I have lost count of the number of times someone's noticed the name and gone straight to saying "da ba dee da ba di" out loud. It doesn't even irk me anymore, it's just "okay, cool, they're getting that out of their system, that's fine."

nitsua60

My immediate recommendation would be for the person to pick a season of Adventurer's League whose setting/theme/elements they liked, grab the T4 modules that were published that year, and look at stitching three or four of them into a coherent "campaign."

doppelgreener

Lady Lyril would have come up with her response to it, which might be "yes, well" and move on immediately, or stare at them and let it be an awkward silence, etc

Or even to pretend it didn't happen as though she has altogether tuned out that joke at this point.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW agreed

Bardic Wizard

@doppelgreener I have a call of Cthulhu character named Aline (sounds like aah-leen) who works in math. Other characters have called her a line, as in the geometrical term. The other players thought it was funny but I didn’t

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener modernisation doesn't even need to modern

Bardic Wizard

14:48

@doppelgreener that’d be her response

doppelgreener

@BardicWizard Exactly like that.

AncientSwordRage

at some point Debenham morphed into Deadman, which is why as a Child I saw someone call into a kids show as "Susan Deadman-Jones"

user15026

@doppelgreener my former last name sounds like "None" or "Nun" so I feel you on the jokes. (legit had someone think I was saying I didn't have a last name when I said what it was. My family defaults to saying it and immediately spelling it to fix the confusion.)

doppelgreener

There is no way Lady Lyril has never heard this before. She has heard it so many times she has A Response for it. At least one. Multiple depending on context.

Her family has spent generations deciding upon Suitable Responses to People Who Make That Joke About Ladymage Lady Lyril.

user15026

And one of them is probably just that sort of stare that says "really? That's the best you have got?"

doppelgreener

14:52

"Throw them in the dungeon" turned out to be diplomatically and logistically unworkable given the number of important correspondents who were being committed to the dungeon, but it was tried for a bit.

Bardic Wizard

@doppelgreener including at least 3 of the heads of other houses

And honestly I should know how to deal with this, my real name rhymes with “smelly”

doppelgreener

@BardicWizard Yes, quite

@BardicWizard There you go. Channel that energy.

NautArch

I have a relative whose last name is Pet. They figured out they could never name a son Stuart.

Bardic Wizard

@NautArch wince

doppelgreener

Also on my mind is that some Ladies have decided their response is "oh, a funny guy huh?" and decide to play their own joke at the expense of the joker, and being royalty, their options for such a joke are quite boundless. That said, I would emphatically not actually do this to the players—it would be punishing a player for engaging with an obvious opportunity you presented within your own setting, and that's not a GM trick you want to teach them to expect.

However, this may have happened to the man in the corridor who is currently being made to wear a rubbish-looking lion suit.

(Doing that to the players would be teaching them not to engage in the setting you give them in a way they would remember like you remember not to touch fire; and it would be punching down, since you set them up for this and have all the power in this situation. Doing this to an NPC is another matter entirely.)

Bardic Wizard

15:01

@doppelgreener I wouldn’t do it to them, just on principle. They’re setting off to rescue her, so even if one of them makes the joke she’s probably not going to harm her rescuers

doppelgreener

In a game like Fate where setbacks and negative consequences are part of the fun, that would be an open invitation for a player to commit a social gaff and screw things up. Most games won't support that though.

@BardicWizard Radical.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Oh, there was a thread on that at GiTP, I'll go and see what people recommended.

AncientSwordRage

@NautArch ...?

RevenantBacon

@BardicWizard Well, unless she's suddenly become uninterested in being recued

NautArch

@AncientSwordRage Stu Pet

stupet->stupid

AncientSwordRage

15:02

oh...

maybe I pronounce pet differently?

doppelgreener

the e in pet is the same as in test

AncientSwordRage

same here

doppelgreener

it's not the same sound as stupid, but it's close enough people will make the association

AncientSwordRage

I would not have made that leap

I pronounce the i in stupid like the i in hid

doppelgreener

IMHO parents have a responsibility to ensure that whatever name they give their child can't and won't be used to make fun of them.

AncientSwordRage

15:04

as opposed to how you say head

doppelgreener

Yes, same

But someone will make that leap, and then it will become A Thing

AncientSwordRage

I mean... someone will always make some leap

doppelgreener

Sure, but we can at least do what we can to minimise harm here. Nobody's ever made a joke out of my name in my native language; there isn't one available.

Bardic Wizard

@doppelgreener that’s why the kid I most hated in 5th grade called me Smelly and why I was really glad to be out of that school

Someone_Evil

@doppelgreener Some sort of miranda warning for parents: "... What you name your child can, and will be used against them..."

KorvinStarmast

15:09

@BESW oops, nvm, I just noticed that nits covered this, and better due students ...

doppelgreener

@Someone_Evil Yes perfect

[sees ticker] wait a minute, i was right!?

2 hours ago, by doppelgreener

@ThomasMarkov Rime of the Frostmaiden

i was just making a joke about rimefrost

i guess they might have been too

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Yes, that's the assumption I had made when I read it

doppelgreener

slightly disappointed it's not Rhyme of the Frostmaiden, which I thought might be a little bit cleverer

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener I'm sure people have made a joke of my name at some point, despite it being a quite leap

KorvinStarmast

@Someone_Evil Admiral Grace Hopper's parents sniff at your suggestion ...

doppelgreener

15:13

but like, more obscure? but in a good way

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener yeah, I'd have liked that too, but I am pretty sure they didn't want to have to put more poetry into the book.

I mean, what does rhyme with frostmaiden? Orange sure doesn't ... but then, it apparently doesn't rhyme with anything...

Axoren

How many ways are there in 5e to resurrect a person without spending gold?

doppelgreener

49

Q: What spells are available to resurrect characters?

What official spells exist that can be used by characters to resurrect their fallen comrades in Dungeons & Dragons? Which classes can cast them and at what level?

dnd-5e spells character-death resurrection

Axoren

True Polymorphing into a Planetar and casting Raise Dead is free.

doppelgreener

^ worth consulting

Axoren

15:16

And it's not on that list

Raise Dead is, but becoming an Angel so that your Raise Deads are free is not.

Are there other methods in that vein?

Casting Conjure Celestial 9th Level to summon a Holyphant to cast Raise Dead for you is another one.

Wishing for one of those spells is another.

Bardic Wizard

@KorvinStarmast laden, say then...

Axoren

"I sure wish my friend was alive."

Someone_Evil

Make sure they have 3 levels of Barbarian and the Zealot Path?

Axoren

@Someone_Evil "I wish our Wizard had 3 Levels of Barbarian (Zealot)."

It's always the Wizards that die, for some reason.

KorvinStarmast

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken— The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around:
It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d, Like noises in a swound!

In the same way that cold and emerald almost rhyme, I suppose.

Axoren

15:22

Emerold.

KorvinStarmast

My favorite maritime poem is not the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but rather Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesperus

Lepanto is a fine poem, but it's at times a bit baulky ...

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener there're no healing rituals

Axoren

@AncientSwordRage I didn't need it to be without resources, just money-free.

doppelgreener

hmmmmmm it's just hit me that resurrection is functionally a capitalist enterprise in D&D 5e

Axoren

It's a money sink because adventurers with money are stronger than Gods.

Simply because at any point, they can invent scientology and then ascend divine ranks through their cult.

AncientSwordRage

15:28

@Axoren oh, I wasn't concerned about that

I just wanted to add warlock to the list, but there're so few rituals in 5E and none of them are healing

@Axoren thats 3.5e

Axoren

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, and that's where 5e gets their tradition of paying for revives.

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Ok, can you elaborate on that? (An interesting thought, to be sure ...)

Axoren

It's like those phone games when you die and it asks "Would you like to spend Gems to revive your characters?"

And you're literally using a Gem that cost you real-life currency to buy.

It's exactly the same.

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren Or steal. :)

Someone_Evil

@Axoren The freemium model applied to adventuring?

Axoren

15:32

@KorvinStarmast Wedding Rings are the easiest to take if you have the Gloves of Thievery.

KorvinStarmast

Aha, while there was a chance to fail based on a Constitution based resurrection roll ... AD&D 1e had no material component for raise dead. Raise Dead (Necromantic) Reversible Level: 5 Components: V, S Range: 3" Casting Time: I round Duration: Permanent Saving Throw: Special

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast I'll gesture to the current conversations around socialised healthcare and the extortionate prices people in the USA pay to doctors or hospitals, versus most countries providing the same healthcare basically for free or minimal costs, and note that you can only be resurrected if you have a sizeable sum of money to pay for it, as opposed to resurrection not requiring material wealth to perform but instead other requirements.

Like, "the spirit to be resurrected must have a strong enough will" would in and of itself be justification to make resurrection available to adventurers while not making it so commonplace that everyone and their uncle treats death as a revolving door.

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Nothing is free, it takes taxes to fund "free" stuff like that, and that's a Not A Bar discussion. The sticky point over here is the tax issue, but nobody disagrees that the costs have become ridiculous.

doppelgreener

I'm not ready to have a discussion about socialised healthcare, just, you asked me to elaborate

KorvinStarmast

It would appear that 3.5e and 5e use the "but if you pay extra, you don't have to roll that saving throw" as a mod to the original?

@doppelgreener Yeah, OK, gotcha, thanks for spelling it out.

Nah, that's not right, since revivify costs a diamond and it didn't in AD&D 1e ...

NautArch

15:36

@doppelgreener Interestingly, this question has someone referencing 5e with regard to WoD.

lisardggY

Sep 6 at 11:20, by lisardggY

@Carcer It's handwaved because it makes death a function of socio-economic class, not a human condition.

AncientSwordRage

@NautArch Vampire has a 5e

WoD/CoD editions are messed up

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY And it relies on the availability of a cleric of appropriate level, which most locales probably don't have ....

NautArch

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, i guess that' the vampire from WoD. But just referencing that at least a user of that game calls it 5e, which means assuming 5e is D&D ain't always true.

but I guess 5e+ D&D stuff...

doppelgreener

For sure

I mean, I am on the "5e Doesn't Mean D&D" train

That's a very interesting case :D

AncientSwordRage

15:40

@KorvinStarmast alternatively lots of diamonds are worth 5000gp+ because of adventurer induced scarcity

lisardggY

@KorvinStarmast Which (if we ignore the sidenote on how travel shouldn't work the way it did in medieval times), again, makes it a matter of money.

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY there was no mass transit then, so money may not even enter into it. Can you get to that cleric's location in time? For many people, the answer is no.

lisardggY

@AncientSwordRage Oh, I'm not going to touch the whole "diamond worth X GP" question in view of money being a social construct subject to laws of inflation, supply and demand, or simply devaluation of currency.

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage No, D&D is not an economics emulator, so let's not go there.

GP are game tokens, have always been.

doppelgreener

ha

i think that's just a riff on the real-world diamond situation

noice

lisardggY

15:43

The discussion I brought my quote from was exactly about that - how you shouldn't examine D&D and its campaign settings too closely, and certainly not from a simulationist point of view. The problem is that even without a simulationist view, you end up with the PCs walking around with access to privilege that no-one around them does.

KorvinStarmast

The real world diamond situation is something I am not going to touch either ... but I will say that industrual grade diamonds are hella useful for fine tolerance grinding and machining

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast Oh I agree it's not worth getting into

doppelgreener

Oh, sure, they're very useful!

AncientSwordRage

There's always teleportation circle to the nearest cleric

> Many major temples, guilds, and other important places have permanent teleportation circles inscribed somewhere within their confines.

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY Yes indeed, and they should also because they are the Main Characters in the Story.

@AncientSwordRage Always? No. Maybe in a high magic setting ....

lisardggY

15:44

It's easy to think of adventurers as being social outcasts, maybe poor travellers staying in village inns and such, but when you intersect game mechanics with society, you end up with things like the innkeeper saying how terrible last year's draught was and people starving for lack of clean water, and PCs are, like, dude, it's a first level spell.

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY Yeah, lots of little incongruities like that. I remember a friend made some cash by (as we spent a week recovering from battle and wounds) casting Continual Light spells for a town on 10' poles. Yes, street lights. 😁

doppelgreener

"It's one crop, Michael. How much could it cost, one spell slot?"

KorvinStarmast

AD&D 1e/OD&D hybrid campaign ....

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast It's infinite range though, right?

lisardggY

Ah, I think Continual Light was the first time, back in 2e, that I stopped and said "wait, I use a renewable resource to create a permanent resource? That... that feels wrong".

AncientSwordRage

15:46

Otherwise Word Of Recall (6th level)

Axoren

I think Homestuck had a very interesting take on Adventure resurrection. In the early "game", players would each have one opportunity to be revived by a kiss. Afterwards, when they ascended to "God Tier", they could only truly die if their death was Heroic or Just.

doppelgreener

Oh, yeah, that is a cool take

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage I'd need to check the books; a permanent one takes a year to cast and immediately creates an infiltration risk. I think the codes/passwords would be "close hold"

Not just anyone gets to use them.

AncientSwordRage

> As you cast the spell, you draw a 10-foot-diameter circle on the ground inscribed with sigils that link your location to a permanent teleportation circle of your choice whose sigil sequence you know and that is on the same plane of existence as you.

When you learn the spell, you learn two such locations

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren Ooh, I like that. AD&D was a bit grittier. So, you paid a cleric to cast raise dead? Cool, now roll percentile dice and see if you are raised, or, if roll is missed, you now roll up a new character."

AncientSwordRage

15:50

so you can be 'in the field', and could 'port to a location you've never been to to find a cleric to save your friend

lisardggY

As I think I said in that other discussion, I think those things worked better in AD&D and earlier because the system was less streamlined, so it never really gave the feeling of trying to give you a silver-bullet solution to "how the world works". Just a bunch of rules to do things that adventurers wanted to do.

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage We are back to who knows / has that spell who isn't a 13th level wizard? Nobody. It's massively restricted access, like flying on the Concorde was back when it was flying.

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast that spell is open to a few classes though

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY missing that roll was what put one of my PCs into the "Chronicles of the Fallen" for that campaign.

AncientSwordRage

was that a previous conversation I wasn't in/forgotten?

KorvinStarmast

15:52

@AncientSwordRage If you are not an adventurer, not access at all, right? ;)

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast Masefield's Sea Fever. "All I ask is a tall ship and a start to steer her by...."

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast oh right that was the thing

that's my adventurer bias showing

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Yep, it's another of the top three for my nautical poems ...

@AncientSwordRage we may all have a bit of that, what with all of the adventurers we have played ....

lisardggY

The problem is that D&D is really bad modeling people with power who aren't adventurers, or at least have levels of adventuring classes.

3e invented the really weird concept of "NPC Class" for that, didn't they?

1e was a big ol' mess of mixing "class levels" with "social class and renown", and sometimes "position on the formal social hierarchy".

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY Indeed; but the 5e NPCs have some comparable abilty. Not 3e ish enough to comment on that. Since OD&D equated Lord/Priest/High Priest/Wizard with those in power in their local areas, that kind makes sense in the original game .... you are right, it's lost a bit of that.

A lot more like comic book action heroes now ....

lisardggY

15:57

IIRC, in 1e a druid's level was tied to his rank in the druid's circle, and after certain level you had to pass tests, or even challenge an existing high-level druid to advance.

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY correct

Monks had to fight other monks to get to level 6 and beyond

lisardggY

But, as I said, it didn't bother me that druids had one set of rules for advancement while fighters, for instance, didn't (and let's not even touch the topic of 1e bards), because, well, those were the rules for druids, and those were the rules for fighters.

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