TRPG General Chat

Bardic Wizard

12:04 AM

@Shalvenay not being in the way is usually the best answer

If you’re in the way people kill you.

KorvinStarmast

12:20 AM

@BardicWizard Pilate had a similar question

@Someone_Evil better than a bunch of simpletons ...

@goodguy5 snicker 😎

@Someone_Evil Be immune to fire. I think there's a legendary item (Efreet armor?) that gives immunity to fire

Or Wild Shape into a Fire Elemental as a level 10 Moon Circle Druid

(Easier if that's your overall plan for life ...) 😁

Bardic Wizard

1:25 AM

@KorvinStarmast so does my friend doing philosophy as an elective (she’s super smart. Last year she read a whole bunch of Russian lit related to philosophy just because).

goodguy5

1:38 AM

@KorvinStarmast thank you. I'm glad someone appreciates me

@MikeQ this took me so long to get.

AncientSwordRage

@Someone_Evil fabricate to divert the flow? Wall of water? Maybe mold earth to dig a trench?

goodguy5

@Someone_Evil yea, I need more details

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 I'll always appreciate you. 👍 And if I bust your onions once in a while, so what? I still recall with a warm and happy feeling our game in MikeQ's gestalt game ...

goodguy5

XD

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 Feelin' the love ... at a distance of at least six feet. 😂

RevenantBacon

2:00 AM

Woah there buddy, that's 5'11" I'm gonna need you to take a step back there :p

AncientSwordRage

@RevenantBacon steps 1inch back

@Joshua how long does fabricate take?

RevenantBacon

in 5e? 10 min

KorvinStarmast

@RevenantBacon There's a Beatles song about that ... Get back to where you once belonged is a part of the chorus

RevenantBacon

@KorvinStarmast sounds appropriate

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage For my venison chili, 4 hours. For an omelette, about six minutes. ;)

@RevenantBacon Well that's a disappointement, I've been mostly on the inappropriate jag for most of the evening. 😮

RevenantBacon

2:07 AM

now I am the inappropriate one I have usurped your throne! Corona

AncientSwordRage

Part of me feels like a Lava Flow would be no match for a mage... 🤔

goodguy5

Clone and the like work, for certain definitions of "survive"

in my opinion, a good dm would allow something like cone of cold to work (or at least help) - including sleet storm, tsunami, etc

Demiplane should help, but lava flows can last days or longer, so 1 hour might not help.

anything that allows flight and flight byproducts

Obviously anything that lets you become immune to fire damage. (Investiture of Flame or something)

Anything that allows you to change terrain, like mold earth.

But the best solution would be to get out of there

RevenantBacon

I don't know that I would allow any ice spells to help. Lava is hot and the amount of cooling it would need to solidify is probably more than most spells can output at once.

Shalvenay

@RevenantBacon I can actually think of something worse than molten lava, though

AncientSwordRage

Mold Earth (cantrip), Shape Water (cantrip), Erupting Earth (3rd), Stone Shape (4th), Fabricate (4th), Control Water (4th), Move Earth (6th) could all help

RevenantBacon

2:21 AM

Shape water? Good luck finding a 5' cube's worth of water anywhere near the lava. Mold Earth would be pretty useful though. If we're looking at level 6 spells though, Investiture of Fire/Air might be more useful depending on the situation

Investiture of Stone may also be helpful as well

Shalvenay

...molten aluminum.

RevenantBacon

I'll see your molten aluminum and raise you molten tungsten

Shalvenay

@RevenantBacon thing with molten aluminum is that it looks just about exactly the same as cold, solid aluminum

RevenantBacon

Oh yeah, I forgot that it does that

AncientSwordRage

@RevenantBacon I don't know the circumstances, so it might be that they have some. Control water can just create some water though. As can Create/Destroy water.

We've also missed out transmute rock (rock →mud)

RevenantBacon

2:33 AM

Imagine, Create/Destroy Water can create water :p

AncientSwordRage

@RevenantBacon as an aside, 9th level up-cast create water makes quite the rain burst.

RevenantBacon

Well, you'd have to cast it as a level 4 spell to get 5 cubic feet of water

Bardic Wizard

My favorite spell to do for lava is teleport

Or fireball, to make it worse

RevenantBacon

2:48 AM

I vote for making it worse!

BESW

3:07 AM

Indie Game Mutual Aid Bundle: Morgan Edition hosted by Sandy Pug Games with content from 20 creators. A comrade is in need! Morgan is getting kicked out of their home in the middle of a pandemic. He needs funds to get a new place for him and his partner. You can help! Just pick a tier and get a ton of great games and help keep someone off the streets during this minor apocalypse.

@BardicWizard [gestures above] There's a heist game in that bundle:

SMASH THE SYSTEM by ErikTheBearik is a game where you play as characters who sneak into the domain of the corporate oligarchs, discover conspiracies, sabotage the machinery, steal files, and eventually bring the whole thing crashing down. You also stack dice carefully before smacking them around your room.

Knucklebone Magazine Issue I: Generation is on sale for 30% off.

Bardic Wizard

3:34 AM

@BESW hmmm... (I still have no disposable money but if I did it’d go to stuff like that that’s for a good cause)

BESW

Yeah, I figured it's out of your non-existent budget, but I thought I'd point it out.

Bardic Wizard

Also, know any games about playing dogs? My little brother wants me to put dogs into my next d&d character and I said no so he’s moping about it

BESW

Hmm. "Paw Friends Are Forever" is gone.

Dogs in the Bark (twitter link to GDoc, followup tweet has character sheets) by Old Dog Games. Play a pack of dogs on the mean streets of Crow's Foot. Steal sausages, fight rats, evade the authorities!

Bardic Wizard

That’s actually awesome (or awww-some)

Or actually paw-some as well

BESW

I'm not finding anything else that's dog-specific, but a lot of games let you play as a dog-like humanoid alongside other animal-like characters.

(Wanderhome, for example. And Golden Sky Stories, and Sundown, and Pugmire, and...)

Bardic Wizard

3:47 AM

Thanks for checking for me!

BESW

Bell Songs doesn't have any community copies right now, alas.

Cozy Town is a very different kind of game, but it'd be very amenable to telling stories about a town of doggos.

2

Bardic Wizard

4:12 AM

@BESW I love this; it’s going to be something I suggest to my school club to do occasionally

trogdor

Cozy Town is goood

it's a nice relaxing cozy game

BESW

trogdor

XD

that was a very nice time

I forgot we made a latte stone pharmacy

V2Blast

4:39 AM

@BardicWizard I think all the EEPC spells were reprinted in XGTE, along with some new spells

@trogdor I'd be shocked if it weren't cozy. :P

trogdor

lol

that's fair yeah

Bardic Wizard

4:57 AM

@V2Blast thanks for that advice.

I’m debating backgrounds/personality now, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s an appropriate and not racist way to play a southern belle.

Instead of starting with a personality and kinda overarching concept, I started with “what’s gonna be my role in the party, how do I achieve it” and that’s thrown off the entire chargen process for me

I still don’t have a good reason to be in the “monster-filled horrorville” (direct quote from several sources) that is NYC in the game world, so I’m considering the reason “It was the best college I could afford” and “Look, the Bardic Underground sent me, okay?”

BESW

When friend struggles to justify their character's participation in a super sketchy adventure, I ask them to remember a time they've done something they would NEVER do on their own, but a friend needed them.

Bardic Wizard

5:16 AM

That’s fair. I have a habit of playing “paranoid spellcaster with more false identities than living family members” so I usually end up getting pulled in by being blackmailed, having to do it to keep my cover, or because I need to not be in the city (my bards are well known for that. Especially Ara Amastacia, elf bard who considered xerself the gods’ gift to anyone with compatible anatomy)

It’s weird to play against type.

BESW

5:39 AM

I once had a lot of fun playing a character whose motive basically boiled down to "can I look dashing and heroic doing it?"

trogdor

lol

was that Jessie?

BESW

Oh yes.

On reflection, I'm surprised she never used her time gun to give herself dramatic slow-mo entrances.

She had no backstory, no angst, no conflicted emotions, just rocket boots, a time gun, a leather flight jacket, and a deep need to toss off flirty one-liners.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW what’s your best flirty one liner?

BESW

Oh, Jessie never prepared them ahead of time. A good one-liner has to be naturally fitted to the situation.

Like when we met the lava elemental and she asked if it was hot in here, or was it just them.

Bardic Wizard

I’m not good at coming up with flirty anything, much less one liners (seriously, I spent last Valentine’s Day trying to avoid the girl at school I had/have a crush on and couldn’t even talk to her)

BESW

5:48 AM

Oh, I'm aggressively non-flirty myself. That's part of why Jessie was so much fun to play.

I don't remember how she and the team IT woman wound up double-dating the dwarf prince's body guard and secretary in the back of the prince's limo on the way to the bowling alley, but that was a highlight for her.

Bardic Wizard

... that is awesome.

BESW

If you asked her about her "type," Jessie would probably look a bit confused, as her type is "consenting."

She was a bit disappointed that the lava elemental wasn't interested.

Bardic Wizard

I like that. Ara’s best moment was the time xe was asked about a SO, and xer answer was “Do you want it in chronological order or by species?”

Granted, it was vanilla Forgotten Realms, so “species” was a long list on its own.

BESW

We never found out where Jessie was from, it never came up, but we assumed she was probably from a couple alternate universes over, or from a galaxy far far away.

Looks-wise, she was kind of like a gender-bent Starlord cosplay, but her personality was much more inspired by Ace Rimmer (what a guy!).

Bardic Wizard

Sounds like an awesome character

BESW

5:58 AM

> ROCKET BOOTS (hardware Megastunt)
Function: Rockets on my feet
Flaw: Rockets on my feet!
Aerial acrobatics. You get +2 to create advantages with Vehicles while airborne.
Air superiority. You get +2 to attack with Combat while airborne.
Like a leaf in the wind. You can use Vehicles instead of Athletics to defend while airborne and you get +1 to do so.

Bardic Wizard

I like how “rockets on my feet” is a function and a flaw

BESW

I love making hardware like that.

The format is from the Atomic Robo RPG, for when you have a character-defining piece of gear.

Bardic Wizard

...boom...

Welp I’m heading to bed

BESW

ttfn

trogdor

6:28 AM

@BESW lol

@BESW I can see that, I'm that way with a lot of my characters with traits I don't usually express, but being flirty is just deeply uncomfortable for me XD

AncientSwordRage

11:21 AM

@BESW what a guy!

I love me some red dwarf

BESW

11:49 AM

@AncientSwordRage It was so fun to play an Ace Rimmer character.

trogdor

lol

I actually never made that connection but it makes sense

doppelgreener

12:37 PM

In fun adventures in system information: this Dark Eye question got closed at some point, in part based on requests (not just mine) to clarify the system they were playing. So they clarified it in the question. So then I added it in a tag. Then someone removed it from the question. Then it got ... the tag removed and returned to system-agnostic? (And now both system in the body and tag are back.)

Someone_Evil

Haven't we got edition specific tags for The Dark Eye now?

doppelgreener

oh, we do

i switched it to the-dark-eye-4

I'm trying to recall my conversation with SSD about the nature of the system-agnostic tag, but I think we boiled down that it was used in multiple separate ways:
1. This question doesn't specify or really relate to a system. (It's a fully detached social issue, or about miniatures painting.)
2. This question does specify a system, but I don't think it relates to that system. (Probably going too magical; tags are for describing the content of the question.)
3. You'd *think* this question is about the game they mentioned, but it's really not. (Same issue really.)

Someone_Evil

4 is probably the best at justifying the existence, and while I agree it's rare, that's also the case for some high profile examples

doppelgreener

So I sort of agree, but I agree to the extent it justifies some tag existing for that case. It could be a different tag for that use case, like a-whole-lotta-systems.

(Not entirely serious with that tag name, but that's the gist.)

But one use case doesn't transferrably justify all the other uses, and that's the rub.

For example, I believe 2+3 are misuses of tags. Tags describe the content of the question; they aren't used for describing new additional information. We can shortcut this with system tags, but that doesn't always work: if your question is tagged dnd-3e dnd-3.5e pathfinder-1e that probably warrants some cursory explanation about what you're actually doing and playing. (What's your core game? Which rules are you using? Which one "wins" in content conflicts?)

So, just like that, 2+3 are attempting to indicate new information using tags that should really be in the content of the question, and the tags mention "Sup, this game got mentioned, might be relevant to you."

BESW

@doppelgreener im-having-a-massive-paradigm-shift

doppelgreener

12:51 PM

One use case I haven't covered (because I think it's entirely invalid) is when a general problem arises in a D&D 3.5e game, but people have D&D 3.5e blocked as a tag, but they want to see that question but it's good, but like, we don't avoid tagging things because you want to see questions that are about that thing. That's on you managing your blocks. This is a D&D 3.5e thing after all, and judging whether it is or isn't, isn't the job of the tags.

That complaint did come up a few times in the vicinity of these discussions.

Also, 2+3 co-opt the tags to describe the content of answers, not the question. Not their job.

2+3 also create a totally different problem: people seem to see the system information in the question, then see the system-agnostic tag, then shut down and go "oh! okay! I can just give totally unrelated answers to their system because someone said it's system-agnostic." They stop solving the OP's actual problem.

Also related is when a question seems like it really might have relevance to specific game mechanics, and perhaps even the problem is originally created by features of that game. If they left out all mention of the game, and had no tags related to games at all, people would be asking "so what's the system here?" and voting to close. When someone adds [system-agnostic], people don't tend to push that point and ask for more detail or question how the system might relate to their problem.

1 and 5 are just covered by not using a tag at all. I don't see much pushback on that in practice; we've got tons of questions that aren't system-related and aren't [system-agnostic].

Anyway that's my big brain dump on this topic that nobody asked for. The thing SSD and I were stuck with was we had no idea how to go about bringing this constructively to meta.

nitsua60

1:34 PM

@doppelgreener This is the part that tends to bother me most.

Secondary to that is the fact that answering these questions never seems to require expertise in system-agnosticism, so it's not clear to me that the questions are ever actually about it.

doppelgreener

Also the tag page itself functions as "find me all the things that aren't about a thing"

Bardic Wizard

1:50 PM

Good morning!

doppelgreener

Good morning! o/

don't mind me just typoing literally just a letter and a slash

nitsua60

May 24 '19 at 13:12, by nitsua60

@kviiri That strikes me as a bad tag wiki, inasmuch as it's trying to dictate the form of answers. But I'm cognizant that I'm an outlier (I think) on the site in this regard: I can't remember ever seeing a sys-ag question that made me think "that's about system-agnosticism," rather than "that's an instruction to answerers."

Jul 22 '19 at 13:31, by nitsua60

But often in the history of system-agnostic people (posters, commenters, voters) seem to be arguing that the tag should mean "I'm looking for answers that don't mention system." That's not the question being about something indicated by the tag, that's the tag trying to force answers into a certain shape.

Jan 30 '19 at 15:35, by nitsua60

I wonder how much in the early years of the site system-agnostic was used as a bit of a fig leaf for discussion questions.

8

A: How is the [system-agnostic] tag supposed to be used?

I've been struggling with this one for a couple of years, personally, now. So I'm going to give it a go. (This answer, like mxy's, doesn't stand as a "mod-team answer"--it's just the answer of a high-rep user who cares.) system-agnostic is supposed to be used like any other tag.* Tags are suppose...

</dump>

doppelgreener

2:09 PM

@nitsua60 this is also a magical use of tagging to establish brand new context and rules that we worked out was a bad move

Bardic Wizard

2:35 PM

So I’m playing a swords bard in a two-shot with my usual group (everybody’s taking a different role than usual so I’m being the tank), and I’m still, for some reason, making a bard in a hoop skirt. With a group that banned me from bards in hoop skirts. I guess you can say I’m still bar’d from hoop skirts

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@nitsua60 At a minimum, I would think such questions are less likely to be answered well by experts whose 'schools of thoughts' are outright anti-agnostic (coughRonEdwardsderivativescough). An expert who is versed in several distinct systems and/or is used to viewing situations from a 'crunchless'/non-system-driven/roleplaying-before-rollplaying perspective seems like a better candidate for answering such a question.

Bardic Wizard

(Hoop skirts are surprisingly helpful in a number of situations. Bone hoops can be broken into an improvised weapon, petticoats make a surprisingly good hiding place, and it’s over all a decent parachute. And the underestimation of the person wearing it is a great way to get the enemies killed.)

You can do most of that, minus the hoops as weapons, with a ballet tutu too, especially if it’s a romantic tutu

Trish

2:57 PM

hmmm, silly idea... Is a question which considerations you need to take when planning a settlement still on topic under campaign-development?

GcL

3:07 PM

@Trish Tough to avoid idea generation questions with something like that.

Someone_Evil

What problems have you faced when planning a settlement for a campaign?

GcL

Also, likely opinion based and highly dependent on the needs of the campaign.

Trish

it's more like a checklist I need that goes down things like "Did you include... water source, sewer solution, market place, direction to the next place of spiritual worship, graveyard" etc...

GcL

If you can narrow it down to a concise issue that has decent evaluation criteria, then I could see questions about scene building working.

@Trish What kind of game system is this for? I generally don't include anything that isn't serving a need for the story or players.

Trish

@GcL The Dark Eye. Which even defines which temples are in little towns of less than 2000 people at times.

Someone_Evil

3:15 PM

@Trish But why are you looking for that checklist? (what problem are you trying to solve with it?)

Trish

@Someone_Evil getting the town believeable and natural. I always cringe when I ask a GM in a high fantasy setting "where's the well or water source" and he pretty much draws a blank.

Someone_Evil

So, "How do I ensure my settlements feel believable and natural?"? That seems quite workable to me

GcL

@Trish Do your players often ask that question? or interrogate you about the kind of wastewater management a settlement uses? If so, make a list of the stuff they players are commonly interested in. I've got a similar list for my current players. More of a word cloud than a list, but I could re-write it in an orderly fashion!

@Someone_Evil I feel like any answer to that is just as good as any other in terms of the actual suggestion. E.g. "know where the well is" seems indistinguishable from "have local phrases" from "draw a coat of arms for the prevailing lord"

Trish

@GcL For shadowrun the checklis is pretty much "Gas, Water, Sewer, Where's the waste dropoff, when is waste day, who processes the waste?" and hammers through such...

GcL

@Trish Is that in the sourcebooks? It's been many years since I've picked up shadowrun.

Trish

3:21 PM

@GcL in many cases, at least Gas, Water, Sewer and electric are specified - but shadowrun also is known to have toilets on the floor plans.

"Which services are indispensable to designing a settlement other than cultural quirks to give it a presumption of being believable?"

Someone_Evil

@GcL Well... if the answers are just going to be that list, you're probably better off asking a trad-forum instead and compiling the things you want. I'm not sure an answer here would just be one or two such entries, and would hope we're able to answer that with experience and expertise. I wouldn't full know though until I see both the full question and possibly its answers

Trish

or... "Which factors need to be adressed to make a settlement not appear popped out of thin air?"

GcL

@Trish Also runs into the same problem as any suggestion is just as good/bad as the next. "have names of inns" "know where the tannery is" "write down how tall the walls are" "describe the shape and material of the roofs"

Trish

@Someone_Evil I know, so I asked here first... wittle down the bad before. I mean, I have written an essay on how to design a world's trade system as my first answer ever.

GcL

@Someone_Evil If each item on that list was an expounded upon answer, I don't think there's any way of saying which are good or bad suggestions.

@Trish That sounds like a question that belongs in the world building stack. Actually, that's probably the better stack for that entire genre of questions.

Trish

3:26 PM

@GcL unless specifically to a game, probably

GcL

Even then, I'd expect you could start the post by declaring a particular game as the thematic context for the wold building question.

kviiri

3:51 PM

@Trish I think that'd be a better fit for Worldbuilding

I mostly try to play games where the settlements having figuratively been just popped out of the thin air is pretty much to be expected x)

nitsua60

4:46 PM

@GcL Except that's where expertise comes in. "Here's what I've done, here's how it's worked, here's what makes me think it'll improve the situation you describe" is what I'd expect to be upvoted on this stack. "Use local lingo" without any of that support would, I assume, get booed off the stage.

2

kviiri

5:21 PM

@BardicWizard Re: complex numbers, there's an interesting thing that I'll forever associate with them

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri which is??

kviiri

Polarizing filters and their weird quantum measurement properties x) (eg. like the ones you'll find on polarizing sunglasses)

If you have two polarizing filters, such as the lenses of such sunglasses, and you put one in front of another, it won't block almost any extra light. As you rotate one filter, the amount of light passing through the two-filter system will decrease and decrease, hitting roughly zero when the filters are at a 90 degree angle

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

. . . and then you add a third filter and things get interesting.

kviiri

Yep.

And fourth, and fifth, etc – the more filters one adds at successively increasing rotations between 0 and 90 degrees – the more light the whole system lets through!

Bardic Wizard

...what?????????? How??????????????

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

5:29 PM

We should find a video and show how.

kviiri

I am not an expert on the field, but my understanding is as follows. Each photon'

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

Bell's Theorem: The Quantum Venn Diagram Paradox

►

kviiri

damn you enter

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri how is your s key by the enter key, unless you use a Dvorak keyboard like me, and then it isn’t even that close?

kviiri

@BardicWizard It was the apostrophe x)

Collateral damage

Each photon's polarization is a complex number, and each filter performs a quantum measurement that either blocks the photon or fixes its polarization to a given complex value, with the probability of passing depending on how close the photon's polarization is to the orientation of the filter.

nitsua60

5:32 PM

(s/is/can be represented by, says the resident pedant.)

kviiri

^true

Bardic Wizard

@nitsua60 hello, resident pedant, how ya doin’? Ain’t today well?

sorry

i couldn’t help it

kviiri

So we can imagine (!) that a single filter makes photons wobble on the imaginary axis. The second filter, rotated 90 degrees, won't let any of them through. However, a filter rotated 45 degrees would have a 50% (I think) chance of letting such a photon through, and most importantly, when a photon goes through, it now wobbles between the imaginary and the real axes!

nitsua60

@BardicWizard Going well, honestly. I have >0 motivation to do work, which bodes much better for my coming week than the alternative.

@kviiri (nice word play!)

kviiri

@nitsua60 I take some pride in being able to commit verbal humor in a second language x)

3

nitsua60

5:37 PM

You should--it's hard enough in a first!

Bardic Wizard

@nitsua60 i have no motivation whatsoever to do my history homework due in <23 hours, or my religion unit final project due in 48 hours and a bit! I envy you your productivity!

kviiri

@BardicWizard What's your history homework about?

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri transatlantic encounters and their aftermaths: the Mexica’s account of the meeting with Cortez and the Spaniards’ account of the same meeting with montezuma: a document analysis worksheet

kviiri

@BardicWizard Wow, sounds cooler than anything I ever did in history class

Bardic Wizard

@kviiri it’s all writing

And 4 pages long

I hate it

Especially because it was hinted that there’s a timed essay later this week on it

kviiri

5:50 PM

For reference, I haven't studied history since primary school due to doing a mixed vocational/matricular degree, but I became a sort of hobbyist history buff in the university

nitsua60

6:12 PM

@kviiri Ditto here. I doubt I could come up with a half-dozen things I remember from/learned in school history. (In my late twenties, though, I turned some sort of corner and now history's about half of the reading that I do.)

GcL

6:29 PM

@nitsua60 Sure. Say there are half a dozen decent here's what I did answers. They're all equally as valid. It's an idea list generating question.

Bardic Wizard

Unrelatedly I’m about to get banned from introducing anything I’ve done in chem class to d&d.

We’re talking about stable and unstable atomic isotopes

kviiri

@nitsua60 I distinctly remember how I had an objection against history class at primary, because "it's too much memorization, not enough actual thinking!"

...that said, I always was good at memorization.

Bardic Wizard

3 guesses on the chem concept I’m gonna try to get introduced to d&d and the first 2 don’t count

@kviiri same. I have a good visual memory, especially for text, and my family knows that if I quote a book or something I’m probably going to be >85% accurate

Someone_Evil

6:54 PM

@BardicWizard Le Chatelier? Hybridization? Acid Hardness? Ferrimagnetics? Sublimation?

Bardic Wizard

@Someone_Evil my thought process was “unstable isotopes —> nuclear fission —> nuclear bomb”

Someone_Evil

Well, some would argue that's physics

Bardic Wizard

Yeah, that’s true

I considered it “close enough, I’ve had more science than the GM so I can probably fast talk him into letting me do it”

kviiri

7:11 PM

Yet Another Offtopic Question: should I get Age of Steam, Steam or Railways of the World?

I set off to find a suitable entry in the 18XX series to start with, but upon researching the game system it turns out it's probably not my cup of tea. I like the idea of the game revolving around share trade, though, but it seems to me the games I listed implement the actual freight traffic better and provide more replay value.

nitsua60

7:33 PM

Only to the same extent that "how do I get this player to stop interrupting others at the table" is also one. The fact is, there are questions we allow here that might have multiple, good, distinct answers. That alone cannot be the factor that means we *won't* allow the question.
(And, frankly, if in the situation under consideration we actually did get six experience-based answers in a system outside the D&D/PF tree, I've got no problem calling that an unqualified 'win' for the site.)

Bardic Wizard

8:10 PM

I need a feat for a lvl 3 VHuman swords bard in d&d5e: do I go with war caster or defensive duelist? Or something else to maximize my damage output/AC?

it’s for a two-shot so not necessarily needing to be useful at later levels

Someone_Evil

Is concentrating on bard spells helping towards your goal?

Bardic Wizard

Probably, I’m planning on tanking my way through encounters and so it might help in combat on the front line

Someone_Evil

(assuming the first bullet of War Caster is why you're looking at that feat. The second doesn't do anything for you)

So which spells would you be concentrating on? (I don't remember bards as having too much in this wheelhouse)

Though there may be a decent (focused) char-opt question in this

Bardic Wizard

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter was one idea (it looked like a decent debuff), and I wasn’t sure about the rest. <sarcasm> I was considering true strike though</sarcasm>

Nobody else in my group is playing anything melee-focused, so that’s my main goal — being good at melee

@Someone_Evil is there official meta guidance on how to write a good one of those?

Someone_Evil

23

Q: Are character build or optimization questions on topic?

We attract some character build/optimization questions that are very vague - like this newer ones. How can I add more attack to my Wood Bond Oracle? A class like the "Action Survivor" trope Pathfinder: Arcane Duelist melee build We've discussed this before in Should we allow "Best Character ...

This is probably a Cat 1. You're down to the last few decisions and have a clear goal

16

Q: How do I ask a good character build/optimization question for D&D 5e?

I understand that character optimization questions are on topic, but what details must I provide in order for it to be a good answerable question that results in a useful answer to me?

discussion dnd-5e

That's maybe more applicable, though it's more focused on the opt-challenge-esque ones, because those need more help (from a asking point of view)

The short: give your build, give your goal, and ask which of the two feats are the best towards that

Bardic Wizard

8:28 PM

@Someone_Evil thanks

And whoops, I lied earlier. It’s not VHuman, that’s the wrong character. It’s still a feat thing though because the gm said we all start with one free feat (someone’s trying out a homebrew Darwinist feat the gm made)

Someone_Evil

Sure, just state that you're starting with an extra feat

Bardic Wizard

I was mixing up Kira Jadzia the VHuman champion fighter with Nerys Dax the Lightfoot Halfling swords bard

I am terrible at names

This is why I steal from other source material

nitsua60

9:24 PM

@BardicWizard I'm about 1/3 through my list o' stuff-I-should-do-today. How's your history & religion work going?

Bardic Wizard

10:24 PM

@nitsua60 done with it thank Tiamat