TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:00

Somebody report a bug:

A. B.

Was just typing "It's not, actually" when you edited :-D

Links are cronky things.

BESW

Oneboxing changes the hyperlink.

Someone_Evil

That's amazingly unhelpful

BESW

@A.B. Mouseover:

A. B.

Am using mobile version as it's (relatively) easier on my sensory issues. Tried mouseover nothing happens. Should it on the mobile version?

And thanks.

BESW

00:05

That looks to be a negatory. Wow, that's a gaping design hole.

Hrm. Let's see what happens when I try to have <https://chat.stackexchange.com/> get oneboxed.

Yooooo

A. B.

And splat again. Wonder what's going on there?

BESW

Hierarchy of priorities. Our Stack Overlords consider chat somewhere between a frivolity and a necessary evil.

A. B.

Yes, it's not very much use requesting people to please respect, without revealing what. :-D

BESW

So there's no interest in supporting it.

A. B.

:-P

Technically the amount of animations are also illegal, I just found out recently. But they're in line with most of the rest of the Internet on that.

BESW

00:09

?

ADA compliance?

A. B.

Yeah. I think, anyway. Hang on, I've forgotten the details myself but I posted something about this elsewhere.

Yes. It seems the law doesn't exactly specify what the requirements are (neither does the Equality Act in the UK), but there's a set of guidelines written by one of those Internet standards organisations, which doesn't actually have legal force but in court if a company can show that their website complies with it they're probably OK.

Shalvenay

yeah, I think that what you basically want for that is "equivalent navigability" anyway, as that's the end goal no?

A. B.

How do you mean? Haven't heard that phrase.

BESW

@Shalvenay Two different topics: we were talking about desktop vs mobile interfaces, now we're talking about animations in the interface.

Shalvenay

@BESW ah. I was talking about the latter re: interface accessibility

A. B.

00:22

Actually, I was wrong about SE chat. Misremembered the guidelines. They only have a requirement about animations that continue for more than five seconds - except for "Motion animation triggered by interaction can be disabled, unless the animation is essential to the functionality or the information being conveyed", under "content likely to trigger seizures", which would be lovely but that's an AAA requirement so they can probably get away with it.

Ben

[wave]

A. B.

Hi Ben! :-)

Ben

How are we all today

A. B.

@Shalvenay "equivalent navigability" wouldn't that be nice. :-P

Of course it should be but that seems a long way off as far as my particular issues go.

I think those W3 guidelines could say more about animations (I've seen a number of other people on the autistic spectrum besides me say that they have trouble with those), but I'm glad they mentioned them at all.

Shalvenay

@A.B. yeah, blinkenlights overload can be a problem even for brains that don't have any particular diagnosis attached

BESW

00:27

Kickstarter: Scurry! by Dungeons on a Dime. A system for 1-2 hour adventures as tiny beasts in a massive forest, long abandoned by humans. Accompanied by adventures and candles!

A. B.

Very true.

BESW

Kickstarter: In the Light of a Faded World by Derek Kinsman. Explore, as small forest creatures, a world reclaimed by nature. An RPG zine for #zinequest.

A. B.

Aw, cute! :-)

Shalvenay

@BESW is it weird that the first setting that comes to mind for both those games is Chernobyl?

BESW

Kickstarter: Dear Great Cthulhu, PLEASE Stop Giving Me Superpowers by Darla Burrow. A tabletop roleplaying game about superpowers, cosmic horror, and the importance of community. #Zinequest3

Shalvenay

00:29

@BESW LOL at the name alone!

BESW

@Shalvenay In the Light of the Faded World is about exploring your own local area, post-apocalypse.

> Explore and discover spaces once occupied by humankind, a now extinct species, in this take on a different type of post-apocalyptic setting, where you play in a far future version of the town you live in.

Shalvenay

@BESW ah, I see, interesting

reminds me of something that I should poke you with in Discord PM

BESW

@Shalvenay It's "darkly comedic absurdism" and a trans allegory!

Ben

So if you smell burning all the time, that's a sign of a stroke, right? So what is the situation if you smell bleach all the time?

A. B.

That somebody's using too much bleach.

> Dear Great Cthulhu, PLEASE Stop Giving Me Superpowers

OK, you had me at the title.

BESW

00:33

@Ben Phantosmia isn't, apparently, actually a common sign of stroke, but it can be the brain trying to give "something's wrong" signals. If it persists, I suggest asking your doctor about it.

Ben

Fair enough... worth investigating :)

A. B.

Sure it's not the water supply? Sometimes they use much more chlorine than usual in ours for no obvious reason and you can smell it every time a tap is turned on. Worth checking, just in case it is only that.

Read the actual page for "Dear Great Cthulhu", that's a brilliant idea.

Ben

@A.B. That also makes sense. Whenever I use water I smell it

Shalvenay

@A.B. yeah, sometimes the treatment plant operators have to ramp up chlorination due to a mess in the incoming supply

BESW

True, when I was growing up our tap water came from a river, and they'd have to add extra chemicals to it after heavy rains or during extreme droughts, because both of those increased the sedimentation to the point that it reduced their confidence in the filtration.

Heavy rain + pigs upstream = Oops

@Ben That sounds like a reasonable cause, then.

A. B.

00:44

YUCK :-D

Ben

Crisis averted! Lol

BESW

@A.B. Yeah, I'm a big fan of community-focused, mutual-aid games.

A. B.

That reminds me that I haven't looked at the The Glass Scientists webcomic for ages.

BESW

...Speaking of which, I got a notion for a Goblin Court drift floating around in my head last night.

A. B.

I don't know anything about Goblin Court, though I remember it being talked about on here when I was last here. What's your idea?

BESW

01:00

Goblin Court is a game I made last year.

I was talking with some friends about the 1960s Addams Family TV show, and realized that it was a strong influence on Goblin Court: Weird Outsiders living in an aggressively conformist community that treats them with narrow-mindedness and fear but the Outsiders are never seriously inconvenienced by it, and respond with baffled compassion.

A. B.

Taking a look. All I really remember about it is that GM was short for "Goblin Mom" :-)

BESW

So now I'm thinking about whether there's a way to drift the system to something more Addams-y in tone, aesthetic, and pacing.

(Netflix recently announced an Addams Family project that looks like it fundamentally misses the themes I feel make the franchise its best self.)

A. B.

(Ooh, looks nice, Goblin Court that is.)

I haven't seen The Addams Family, as it happens. All I really know about it is that when something creaks in our house one of us often says "Yoooouuuuu rangggggg?" :-D

Hadn't even heard of the Netflix version but things often do.

Adeptus

@A.B. As a side-note, when you can smell chlorine in the pool, it means you need to add more chlorine (not the case for drinking water)

A. B.

01:16

That's bizarre. Why is that?

A. B.

01:26

(Off-topic, can anyone explain this use of 'seen' to me? Or is it in fact a typo?
"There have been plenty of missteps in the Whedon-verse — just ask anyone who felt seen by Tara and Willow." )

BESW

@A.B. The "chlorine smell" is caused more by the chemicals that form when chlorine is doing its job. If the smell is really strong that means all the chlorine is getting used up to combat the nastiness in the pool; if the smell is weak, there's more chlorine than the water needs.

@A.B. "Seen" in this case means to feel like you are recognized and understood. A viewer who feels that Tara and Willow are written and acted in ways that are true to the viewer's own personal experience, feels that the writers and actors "saw" the viewer's truth.

It's very validating for media to make someone feel seen, if they're used to media not containing characters that embody their experiences and feelings.

For a large number of women who love women, Tara and Willow were the first time they saw lesbians on screen that weren't being treated as jokes or villains or pure fetish objects. It meant a lot to be "seen" as real complex people who deserved love and happiness. Which made it all the more painful when later stories showered the characters with misery and turned at least one of them into an outright villain.

A. B.

Ah, I see. I was trying to parse it as a negative term, thinking that it was describing people's indignation when it all went up in flames.

Hard to tell which if you don't know the word. Yours makes sense now.

(Also neat about the chlorine. I wondered if it was something like that. I like chemistry.)

I agree, if this isn't getting too far off-topic. Of course love interests and everyone else were always dropping like flies in Buffy, but they really should've been a bit more careful with Tara. It was, from what I've heard, such a rarity at that time for a romance between two girls to be shown quite so - normal. (Also Tara and Willow were fluffy darlings and how dare they. >:-| )

BESW

01:43

Oct 19 '13 at 2:44, by BESW

Dear Whedon: when writing a story about female empowerment with a strong subtheme about nontraditional gendering, please don't use the same metaphor for lesbianism and nihilistic drug abuse. This is what we call "mixed messages" in polite company.

Feb 15 '18 at 21:57, by BESW

Later seasons of Buffy became more focused on their season arcs and character development, but the character development arcs started locking into Whedon's now-recognizable signature pattern of "take a character the fans love, promise them happiness, rip it away from them as horribly as possible, milk the drama, repeat."

Sun's Ransom has ten minutes left. [vibrates]

A. B.

(looks up Sun's Ransom and giggles at coincidence. Intentional?)

BESW

17 hours ago, by BESW

Other ZineQuest stuff is more important for the industry and the people in it, but The Sun's Ransom makes me personally happy.

And Pidj does great stuff.

I first encountered Pidj through a set of TRPG guidelines and tools for Indigenous Australians, since most English-language safety tools don't really work in those cultures.

A. B.

02:04

Really? How's that work?

Am kind of interested partly because the idea of somebody saying that there can be people they legitimately don't work for interests me as I'm not sure they work for me.

BESW

Oh, yeah, no safety tool is a universal fit.

For example, the X Card doesn't address the needs of some people with PTSD, so the Luxton Technique was developed to meet those needs better.

A. B.

Luxton, thanks, I've been trying to remember that name and drawing a blank. I've never tried any of these out myself, but I did like the sound of the Luxton rules. They seemed to take so much in.

And why don't the Indigenous Australians like the common ones?

BESW

But many of the better known safety tools are built around ideas about calling attention to yourself, speaking up, self-advocacy, and the primacy of speech, that don't make sense in every culture and actually cause problems.

A. B.

Unless it's too long a question to go into!

Hmm. That sounds like it makes sense, but I can't think how you'd get around it. What was Pidj's solution?

BESW

Pidj implemented simple gestures and table-knocking to indicate things like that a poison word has been said and needs to be changed.

SmokeDetector

02:13

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (34): Translating a draconic bloodrager from Pathfinder to 5E by MizzoViperhand on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)

BESW

And also recommends indirect methods of communication that don't call attention to a particular person--like asking everyone for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down if they're okay, rather than asking a particular person to vocalize their okayness.

A. B.

That sounds like it would be a good idea for shy players, too.

BESW

The PDF is off Pidj's site for now because they want to revise it, or I'd be linking it.

A. B.

Found an itch.io listing for it on a search, but it seems to have been taken down.

Oh, crossed in the post.

BESW

There's a workaround but I'm not going to share it here; it's not hard to find, just know that it's probably not intended.

A. B.

02:16

Why is it unacceptable to call these "houserules"?

Unless I'm misremembering that, it was a while ago.

BESW

Hm?

A. B.

I seem to remember getting told off (I think it was in here, though I'm not sure) for referring to the Script Change rules as a "houserule".

BESW

Ah.

Personally I think it's important to differentiate between rules for the game and standards for the group.

Of course, I've blurred the lines myself, in Goblin Court.

I'd be uncomfortable, though, labeling a safety tool a "rule" of any sort.

A. B.

Good point.

My reasoning is that these things are systematic "rules" like game rules, and that it might go down better if trying to propose the idea to a group that's never met it before than "safety tools".

BESW

"Safety tool" is definitely an intimidating term and I wouldn't use it cold-turkey at a new table.

A. B.

02:24

Really? I'm glad somebody sees it.

I thought it was just me being what everyone else considers unreasonable.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, even if you're talking about straightforward game-rules, there's still value in labeling the source of a rule or ruling (whether something's base game material, from a supplement to the game, a commonly used houserule, or peculiar to a specific table)

BESW

It's a fairly common understanding that the term of art isn't always the best starting place.

A. B.

Of course, it is a standard term in some circles, however cringeworthy it may seem to me personally, so where it's a standard term it's useful to have the standard term. Saves a lot of explaining.

BESW

But the sorts of things safety tools are doing... shouldn't be set in stone like a lot of game rules are. I think the term "tool" is useful because it's a lot more accurate: it's a thing we use to get something done. Safety tools need to be not only customized to the group, but negotiable in each situation where we find them insufficient or improperly formed to the task.

In another kind of group I'd call them facilitation tools. In another group, I'd call them social scripts. They guide conversations, providing structure and vocabulary for people who aren't used to talking about these kinds of things.

But if the use of a safety tool ends with the use of the safety tool, it hasn't done its job.

[rummages for quote]

A. B.

That's true, it needs to be made clear one way or another that this is to be agreed by the players the way they like it, not just it has to be the way it's written wherever you got it from.

BESW

02:29

> Please remember that all of these tools are not fundamentally conversation-enders, but are instead important ways to continue the conversation healthily.
- Wanderhome

In Goblin Court, my "rule" is that you can tell people what you need and they have to listen, no matter what else is happening.

It's astonishingly, almost insultingly, simple, but I've seen so many games where people feel like they can't "interrupt the game" to make their needs heard.

Powerdork

@A.B. To my limited understanding, the idea of specifying something as a house rule originates from gambling, where different establishments would have different variants of the same common underlying games. No matter what variant is in play, you still generally play blackjack by playing blackjack, because houserules are minor aspects that don't change how a player should approach playing the game.

Whereas the difference between a game implementing lines and veils and a game not using those can have a radically different play space even with the same players, and the same game system, with the same premise, in the same context, because it necessitates (or encourages) shifting thinking to accomodate player desires and dislikes (and other concerns).

A. B.

Mind you, it really should be a set-in-stone rule that you can use the rule if you want to. What shouldn't be a rule is that you have to, or that you can't do it differently if needed.

Oh, interesting point. Hadn't really thought about whether the phrase goes back further than RPGs. I suppose in that scenario it's rather a difference between house rules and rules of the house - if you get my meaning.

BESW

@A.B. This is another place where "rule" terminology starts to break down, I think? I found that when I think about safety tools as "things for people who need help," they get limited and lose usefulness. They're more like social contracts, agreements between friends. I can choose to use the X-Card, but I shouldn't be able to choose to ignore someone else using the X-Card.

A. B.

A standard D&D house rule would be like "aces are high", these things are more like "no spitting on the floor".

BESW

They're ways for us to work together, to support each other, to be awesome.

I take more risks when I know my friends have my back.

(People who think safety tools limit what a game can accomplish, rather than expand its potential, are people I'd not trust to uphold the role of consent and safety in BDSM.)

Shalvenay

02:35

@BESW yeah, that's a definite problem -- I've run into it in my own experience

A. B.

@BESW That's one thing I like the sound of about the Script Change rules - they have other uses besides the "I don't like this" one, so you don't have to feel like anyone is thinking of you as a wuss for using them. You can use the "press Pause" just to say "Back in a minute, someone at the door".

BESW

@A.B. Yes. Presenting safety tools as "no" buttons is a dramatic reduction of their potential.

I use Script Change to fast forward boring stuff, or stop to ask for a recap because I'm confused, or ask to slow things down because I'm really enjoying what's happening and I don't want it to end too quickly.

And I do that as a GM. In part to model the behavior for the rest of the group, but also just because I need it too!

Thinking of it as normalizing the use of the tool, helps me get over my own hangups about not wanting to "interrupt" the game or seem selfish about it.

A. B.

> Presenting safety tools as "no" buttons is a dramatic reduction of their potential.

I was thinking more of the potential for using them with a group of random Internet people who you're not sure all buy the idea of it being important to avoid so-called "triggering content" (except maybe for content so extreme that if you suggested needing such a thing they might wonder what you were planning!). But that's also true. That's one advantage of the Luxton system, or looks like it would be to me although I haven't tried it - it allows you not just to say "Can we not do this?" but also "Can we do this?" if you think there'd be an advantage to that.

BESW

Ah, yes.

A. B.

(Bother these multi-line quotes.)

BESW

02:45

When I used Script Change with strangers at a local convention, I didn't say anything about safety tools or whatever. I just introduced the buttons as part of the whole "here's how we're gonna do this" intro.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, I think that's the best way to present them at least to a group that's new to them

BESW

But I also put the TTRPG Safety Toolkit leaflet in their take-home package.

Most of the people I was working with had never played any TRPG before. They weren't primed to have any kind of conditioned response to safety tools, so I just normalized their inclusion at the table.

And for those who had played TRPGs before? I was introducing them to a game system, and a game style, they'd never encountered before. It was all so far out of their normal that the mere fact of them sitting down at the table meant they were at least a little open to learning new things about the hobby.

Tools like Script Change work a lot more seamlessly in GMless and backseat-GM games/styles.

trogdor

I think that's the way to do it yeah

although I don't know maybe some people would react badly to learning later that that isn't actually part of the game system itself? I have no idea

even if you didn't technically present it that way

BESW

Handy secret: the revised edition of Lady Blackbird bakes the Script Change buttons into the core text, so it IS part of the game system itself. That's one of the (smaller) reasons I use it for those cons.

trogdor

nice

A. B.

02:56

> And I do that as a GM. In part to model the behavior for the rest of the group, but also just because I need it too!
Thinking of it as normalizing the use of the tool, helps me get over my own hangups about not wanting to "interrupt" the game or seem selfish about it.

BESW

Goblin Court's Guardian Spirit is basically the Script Change "pause" button, with a knocking implementation from Pidj's Shame-Free Game re-skinned to be reminiscent of the "knock on wood" tradition.

A. B.

Oh, if I GMed a game I think I would definitely need a "pause the game while I have a nervous breakdown" button more than the players would! Same with all novice GMs, I expect.

BESW

@A.B. Oh gosh yes. When I started GMing I would call for "snack breaks" to hyperventilate.

(I began my time with TRPGs as a GM for D&D 3.5, shortly after its release. I didn't run a player character at a table until I'd been GMing for at least five months.)

Hot RPG Questions

3

Q: Can you use the Ranger Slayer's Prey Twice a turn?

From Xanathar's: Slayer's Prey Starting at 3rd level, you can focus your ire on one foe, increasing the harm you inflict on it. As a bonus action, you designate one creature you can see within 60 feet of you as the target of this feature. The first time each turn that you hit that target with a ...

BESW

We didn't have any conception of safety tools, much less a formal name for the concept or any specific tools to consider using. Luckily we were a pretty well-adjusted group of friends who spent enough time together that we could speak up informally when things weren't working out--if we had the ability to notice it at all. On reflection, safety tools might have helped give us the insight and vocabulary to address discomforts we didn't understand enough to vocalize.

(The DMG's advice about how to handle certain social dynamics was, ah. poor.)

A. B.

03:11

Some of these things aren't as obvious as you'd think.

Do any of you happen to know where the Luxton article actually is? I remember the general idea (that besides just requesting not to do a thing, the player can also request other things such as for the thing to be there but the character to escape the thing at the last moment), but it would be nice to see the original. Searching is turning up dead links.

BESW

It was originally on Google Plus, but when that shuttered it was hosted on a creator's website, but that seems to have been shut down because the creator was getting death threats.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeesh :/

some people have no sense of perspective :<

BESW

Not specifically for hosting the Luxton technique article, but definitely for being the kind of person who WOULD host it.

@A.B. There's a summary of it on the TTRPG Safety Toolkit Guide.

@A.B. Here's a Web Archive link to the hosted article.

Glazius

03:42

@BESW oh noooooooooooo

BESW

?

Glazius

@BESW Just... the idea of coming into RPGs cold and then GMing 3.5 for five months. Every week?

As you've observed, it's a system that is trying to be helpful but it's really not helpful.

BESW

Yeah, every week. With a group of people who had mostly limited-to-no experience with TRPGs and no experience with 3.5.

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: 2-Action Heal vs. 3-Action Heal

Quick and easy question: Does the 3-Action Level 1 Heal Spell heal for 1d8, or 1d8+8? Is it a general rule that a 3-Action variant of a spell includes the effect of the 2-Action variant? Or is it a general rule that it does not?

spellcasting healing pathfinder-2e

BESW

I'm really really lucky that our social dynamic was relatively healthy, because we were mostly very happy with the results and that was all down to us being good to each other.

A. B.

03:51

@BESW Thanks! Boy, some people.

Glazius

@BESW Yeah, it was probably better that you all started out together, too.

BESW

But like, as much as everybody came out of this content with the results, some safety tools probably would've led us to do something a lot more... empowering, with the players' desires:

The Tale of The Dwarven Cleric, or I Poke Him: 101 Stupid RP Tricks, Volume One.

Dec 26 '12 at 12:06, 7 minutes total – 36 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Jun 25 '13 at 19:03 by BESW

(And maybe also not being in a system where all consequences are about lethality.)

Same campaign:

Island explodes, everybody falls.

Jul 5 '13 at 2:43, 20 minutes total – 62 messages, 4 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Aug 16 '15 at 9:45 by BESW

The Tale of the Gobber

Sep 17 '14 at 5:09, 26 minutes total – 50 messages, 6 users, 9 stars

Bookmarked Sep 17 '14 at 5:41 by doppelgreener

A. B.

04:13

I had not seen these before. Thank you very much.

BESW

And a followup on the dwarven cleric's player:

38

A: How can I keep my campaign challenging when dealing with players of vastly different skill levels?

Short Version: Maybe P is overwhelmed by bookkeeping and it's distracting him from situational awareness. Help him make a mechanically very simple character without fiddly bits or conditionals to keep track of, so he can focus on making good choices rather than having good bookkeeping. Invite the...

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov Max makes his initial post in number 6 of this thread, and then later on discusses how to fold the Arcanum (6th level and higher spells) to that scheme. Worth a look.

I doubt I'll ever get to play that variant, I am just passing it along since you may find Max's approach as interesting as I did.

BESW

@A.B. I hope they bring you amusement, and maybe a bit of confidence about GMing: so much of it is listening to our friends and surprising ourselves by leaning into each others' ideas to come up with things we'd never have done alone.

SmokeDetector

04:31

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (262): Can a caster cast a sleep spell on themselves? by Emilia Peters on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)

Yuuki

04:58

Snap! - The Power (Official Video)

►

context: i'm in texas

BESW

07:37

Kickstarter: Fat Self Care: Volume 1 by Aven McConnaughey. A multi-path, slice of life solo game about taking care of yourself when you are fat for Zine Quest 3.

Viditya Violeti wrote a twitter thread about how to be helpful with feedback.

Sara Thompson released the Combat Wheelchair v2.1 for D&D 5e. (Google Drive link to PDFs)

2

They plan to release a character sheet for it over the weekend.

AncientSwordRage

10:06

@BESW they're very close to being funded

AncientSwordRage

10:22

I really love the idea of these sort of micro-RPGs, but I can never picture myself sitting down and playing them

KorvinStarmast

13:27

@Yuuki Things I learned this week: frozen dog poop is easier to pick up than regular ... likewise, hope you are doing OK

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast up until a point. Then it freezes to the ground.

KorvinStarmast

@Yuuki also-that song has aged well, hasn't it? still makes you want to get up and dance, if you are me.

@NautArch I guess I didn't reach that threshold

off to make my MIL breakfast, she stayed with us overnight ...

Thomas Markov

delete dis

NautArch

13:52

@KorvinStarmast not a fun threshold

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Medix2

14:09

Why was my comment under Dale Ms answer to my Meta deleted?

Maybe I can't really ask that, but I don't think it was rude? If it was, I'd be happy to learn that

Someone_Evil

Oh, was it not fully acted on?

It looked to me like the NLN flag was valid, but did I miss something?

Medix2

Oh it totally was, how odd...

Oh, you don't get notifications for answer edits, right

Someone_Evil

Unless you've followed the answer, no

Medix2

Still not sure I understand the answer, but oh well XD

NautArch

@Medix2 if it makes you feel better, I didn't follow it either

AncientSwordRage

15:01

Time is running out on my bounty...

29

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GcL

16:08

In case you missed it, Perseverance touched down on Mars yesterday

5

Thomas Markov

@GcL Earth: 6, Mars: 0

2

NautArch

16:40

@ThomasMarkov you'r on fire this morning

NautArch

17:40

@GcL I'm absolutely amazed every time this happens. It's incredible.

GcL

18:06

@NautArch Missions like those are some of the few things that elicit a warm fuzzy feeling about humanity for me. Ranks up there with beer and art.

NautArch

@GcL Yeah, these big science events amaze me. The amount of people working together and the difficulty of the things they achieve.

GcL

And here I am playing Kerbal still using lithobreaking.

Mark Wells

18:35

mobile.twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1362815593099849729

AncientSwordRage

> These character features wouldn't remove the mechanics from play if the mechanics had positive success states, I think.
>
> Most travel/ wilderness mechanics are "avoid starvation/getting lost" instead of "try to find cool stuff/ get there faster"

GcL

@MarkWells That statement sounds like the X isn't a big enough in scope if a combination of feats or skills makes it trivial.

There's a wonderful house rule that addressed the survival thing with goodberry obviating a huge chunk of a survival campaign: youtube.com/watch?v=OkHapG6kXUg. It's a 4 minute little animated watch.

MikeQ

18:52

This is what folks mean when we say that D&D is a combat system with some skill-based subsystems stapled on. Combat is meant to be a focus, and everything else is designed to be a minor challenge. There are tons of ways combat gets more challenging and complex at higher levels of play, whereas the system doesn't have that same language for designing more complex non-combat challenges.

KorvinStarmast

There are 12 character classes. The Alexandrian throwing shade all over Rangers is bad form. He's "min maxing" and "meta ing" his view on that. Not well done. (And I do like his stuff generally).

A standard party is 4 or 5, and there are 12 classes. Ranger as a choice is not necessarily a default.

GcL

@MikeQ I think the 5e rules suffer from not having as defined outcomes and mechanics for non-combat stuff because it is so varied.

KorvinStarmast

@MikeQ Indeed; the encounter is easier to sell to newbies of the video game generation, who form a very large part of the game's audience, as 'the important bit' and so is magic. The size of the spell casting section in the PHB is rather telling. "We'll solve this with magic" is also not conducive to keeping the third pillar, exploration, as strong as it once was.

GcL

defeating a foe in battle is a relatively narrowly outcome in comparison to overcoming the non-combat challenges. Solving a local political situation can be done in a variety of ways all of which can have outcomes that "overcome" the challenge.

Mark Wells

@GcL Would it take more than 4 minutes to read the house rule?

GcL

18:56

@MarkWells No, but I don't have a transcript handy.

@KorvinStarmast I concur. It is harder to write compelling prompts and challenges for an exploration than it is to write a combat prompt or challenge. On the other hand, I find narrating combat in a way that makes it compelling is difficult as the mechanics hog a great deal of the focus.

Mark Wells

@MikeQ I'm largely convinced that D&D 5e isn't really a combat system either; it's a character creation system, with an optional game you can play with the characters stapled on.

GcL

@MarkWells I found a transcript

Mark Wells

I can run it in a pickup mode where we leave most of the character sheet blank until it's needed, but it's not really designed for that. It's like how I play board games with my three-year-old by ignoring most of the rules

(as he says, "I like hard games! I want to play a game with THOUSANDS of pieces!")

@GcL Cool.

GcL

Stuffed it in the dragons chat to keep it out of the way chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/57106764#57106764

Mark Wells

@GcL So the house rule is "Goodberry consumes the component, so you can't just keep casting it forever, you have to go gather more mistletoe"

if I'm reading that right?

TheDragonOfFlame

19:14

Argh! Using costless components!

yikes

GcL

@MarkWells Yes, and the implication added a dimension to the resource decisions for the players.

Instead of taking away a choice dimension by trivializing it, made an easy button and an added value to mistletoe.

By the way, mistletoe species are freaking weird. Like, exotic in a way that no other known organism is... they don't produce ATP. So that "mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" doesn't hold for these plants.

Mark Wells

(I think my house rule collection has something similar: Goodberry transmutes the mistletoe berries to make them edible. Because I like spells that interact materially with their components.)

GcL

Squeeze a bat, get a fireball.

3

Yuuki

19:31

I mean, costless components (using a component pouch or whatever) is fine. It skips over a lot of busywork ("yeah, let's hold off on moving forward in this dungeon for ten minutes after every fight, i need to go gather some fresh bat poop"). But it's always something that you can discuss at your table if you feel it gets in the way of the narrative.

JohnP

I need to take a day or two and go through all the old boxes of stuff that have accumulated. Looking for some old documents, found a box of random stuff that had an original forgotten realms boxed set.

Mark Wells

@Yuuki The issue in this case is that the spell negates a lot of interesting logistical problems. Requiring its component to be consumed is a compromise to make those problems smaller but still meaningful.

But having seen how some other systems handle it, I think logistics needs more of a dedicated subsystem to be practical. "You have all the individual things on your character sheets, so every time you want to eat, you must have purchased food and written it on your sheet, and then you cross it off" is far too low-level to be practical and so it gets handwaved as "we all just live on goodberries forever".

Like, in Five Torches Deep you have an abstract "Supply" resource which you can spend to "have more of" any consumable item. Your max Supply is your Int score, but unspent Supply has weight and contributes to your Load limit.

So the tension is, when you're low on Supply, deciding which of your competing needs to spend it on (light, food, healing items, ammunition).

Yuuki

19:47

@MarkWells Like I said, it's something to be discussed at your table if you feel it's getting in the way of your enjoyment of the game as it is with all rules. But there is a reason it exists and there are settings where it makes games more fun.

Mark Wells

The Black Hack does a different thing where each consumable item has a die you roll after using it, and and if you roll low enough, it gets replaced with the next smaller die, and after the d4, it's all gone. The tension there is the uncertainty of exactly how far your resources will stretch.

Yuuki

@MarkWells ooo, that's interesting

i could see adapting something like for 5e, adding bonuses or penalties to rolls based on proficiency

Mark Wells

A bonus on the usage die roll would be pretty huge. Normally, a 1-2 causes it to take a step down, so +1 would mean it lasts ~twice as long

(rules)

Thomas Markov

Im thinking I should do a rewrite of my homebrew bard class that I asked about in my very first question

GcL

20:54

@ThomasMarkov What's the goal of the homebrew?

AncientSwordRage

21:12

@GcL I'd also like to know, it seems interesting

GcL

Seems like a lot of work and effort, but was a bit fuzzy on the rationale. With homebrew stuff, I usually want to know: what is the purpose, what is the context, and did the homebrew achieve the purpose given the context?

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: Can the Ring of X-Ray vision prevent Shadow Step?

The Ring of X-Ray vision states: To you, solid objects within that radius [...] don't prevent light from passing through them. The Way of the Shadow Monk has a level 6 feature that states: When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied ...

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Emrys Ternal

D&D 3.5e question: If I'm shooting a crossbow from behind an opaque curtain by peering out from the curtain, and the target is at least 10 ft away from me on the other side of the curtain and knows I'm behind the curtain, is the target denied their DEX bonus to AC (because they can't see me when I attack) ?

(10 ft away because that way I'm closer to the cover than they are)

GcL

This curtain is essentially a one way mirror?

Vision goes through one way and not the other?

Emrys Ternal

Well it's opaque so I'm peering around it slightly so that I'm not shooting through the curtain

GcL

I would assert that they're not flat footed because if you can see them, they can see you.

Glazius

How does the target know you're behind the curtain?

Emrys Ternal

21:57

The question isn't whether they're flat-footed, it's whether they're denied their dex bonus to AC. I'm shooting from behind total cover.

GcL

So, not starting combat by shooting them

Glazius

@EmrysTernal No you're not. You can't attack a target that has total cover from you.

Emrys Ternal

So shooting around a corner doesn't ever deny someone their Dex bonus?

Glazius

You could be shooting from a position of improved cover. That'd be a +10 bonus on your Hide check. But RAW line of effect doesn't pass through total cover.

Emrys Ternal

@Glazius How they know doesn't matter, it just matters that they know and can't see me when I'm not shooting

And really can't see me even when I am shooting

Same as shooting around a corner

GcL

22:01

If they don't know it's coming, they can be considered flat footed which loses the AC bonus. So shooting them in the back.

Hiding was concealment in 3.5, and that mostly gives you the 1/4 attacks miss you which was nice, but I think it was only +2 to attack.

Ugh... I'm going to have to trek downstairs to open my trunk of 3.5 books....

Emrys Ternal

I'm looking at the Rules Compendium

Someone_Evil

I'm not familiar with 3.5, but this sounds like it should work as a mainsite question?

(Not saying can't be asked in here, but mainsite is usually better for complete answers etc.)

GcL

I dug out my dmg and phb

Carcer

22:17

I don't think the rules for stealth in 3/3.5e have any allowance for denying the enemy their dex bonus beyond that if you get a surprise round in, unaware targets will be flat-footed for longer

GcL

The defender loses DEX if the attacker is invisible, or attacking while completely hidden.

Carcer

where'd you get that completely hidden language

GcL

or if flat footed, which is start of combat or can't react normally

pg152

Mark Wells

@EmrysTernal I'm pretty sure there's no direct benefit to being a concealed attacker. See here for example.

Carcer

I don't see anything there that says dex bonus is denied if you're hidden

GcL

22:24

Table 8-4 has a superscript on Invisible that says the defender loses any Dexterity bonus to AC unless the attacker is blinded.

Mark Wells

Being invisible, or attacking someone who's blind, negates dex bonus, yes.

Emrys Ternal

d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility

See: Invisibility

Carcer

yes, being literally invisible grants the benefit

but being hidden is not the same thing as being magically invisible

Emrys Ternal

No, but being unseen (such as because of darkness) is

Mark Wells

Concealed-but-not-surprised is an odd situation intuitively, where they know generally where you are, they just can't pinpoint you.

GcL

22:25

The next page has total concealment equivalent to being invisible, in total darkness, or if the other is blind

Emrys Ternal

Why wouldn't a curtain do the same thing?

Mark Wells

You know they're behind the curtain, so you try to keep an obstacle between you and the curtain.

Emrys Ternal

Don't I have total concealment behind a curtain?

Carcer

technically total cover, I think, since a curtain blocks line of effect.

Mark Wells

You know which direction the attack is coming from.

Carcer

22:27

but you don't have total cover or total concealment if part of you is peering out from behind the curtain.

this is just how the RAW is. I'm not going to argue that it doesn't make sense that you could hide during a combat in this manner and be able to treat your target as effectively blinded wrt your attack

but that's not how the RAW, strictly interpreted, works

Emrys Ternal

Damn. I was thinking an unseen servant carrying a curtain in front of me (holding its action essentially to move with me when I move) would allow me to peer around it and shoot with sneak attack.

Mark Wells

Related: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/154146/…

Emrys Ternal

It's still a neat idea if your own AC is pretty good and you can pull it off without help

GcL

@EmrysTernal yeah, the curtain would be concealment, but not cover as the obstackle doesn't block a bow shot

The rules are choose a corner of your square, and if any line from that corner to any corner of the opponent's square passes throught a border that provides concealment, the target has concealment.

Emrys Ternal

Because then they have to attack the square I'm in, giving them a 50% miss chance, and then my AC is pretty good on top of that, and I can still use the curtain for round 1 sneak attack

Mark Wells

22:38

"Hmm, a mysterious curtain is levitating toward me. Surely nobody could be hiding behind it with a weapon."

GcL

You can roll a hide if you've got concealment, but otherwise couldn't make a hide check.

Emrys Ternal

The coolest part though is from Rules Compendium page 80 "You must have line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect."

GcL

I assert that the 3.5 rules are not cool in practice.

Emrys Ternal

The question then becomes does an opaque heavy curtain block line of effect

GcL

You're transitioning over to spell casting?

Mark Wells

22:43

See, this is why "line of effect" is kind of a dumb concept. Can you see through it? No. Can you stab someone through it with a spear? Clearly, yes.

Emrys Ternal

No, I'm talking about the defensive properties of an unseen servant carrying a curtain around in front of you

Mark Wells

Can you shoot an arrow through it? Maybe, kind of? This is where in 5e I'd just say "it's half cover, +2 AC, roll your attack"

GcL

@EmrysTernal You're going to catch a fireball either way. Might as well take uncanny dodge or any of the 3.5 feats that allow you to "whoa!" you're way out of fireball damage.

If your table has access to the myriad supplemental publications, my advice is to build towards a prestige class. Many of those were ridiculous.

Emrys Ternal

Nah the table's pretty nutball

GM allows certain classes to gestalt with eachother, but prestige classes can't be gestalted, so if you take a prestige class level, that's a level you're not gestalting

GcL

23:01

Dunno what that is. I mostly played Eberron

Mark Wells

while we as a community affirm a diversity of play styles, I as an individual think this table sounds like a little-known Tenth Hell, corresponding to the alignment of Rules Lawful

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Q: How to determine if an animal is a familiar or a regular beast?

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GcL

Playing 3.5 was a level of masochism I'm glad I've left behind.

Mark Wells

I much prefer OSR masochism, where I'm playing a regular dude with a pointy stick surrounded by monsters made entirely out of severed tongues, but at least if I die it doesn't take three hours and a spreadsheet to create a new character

Emrys Ternal

23:41

Granted, they're nowhere near as lethal as real world guns, but they're guns you can fire multiple times a round and you can dual-wield then

And we have action points

The guns are reloaded with gems or XP or magic/psionic power

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Q: How smart is my donkey?

So, my character has a donkey. I'd like my donkey to be 3 smart, so that I can use telepathic bond to talk to it. There aren't stats for donkeys. There are stats for various horses, and for mules, and even for a wooden donkey; all have an intelligence of 2. That makes a great argument for sayi...

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The Tale of The Dwarven Cleric, or I Poke Him: 101 Stupid RP Tricks, Volume One.

Island explodes, everybody falls.

The Tale of the Gobber

Transcript for