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12:06 AM
Pixel dice at 1.4m
 
12:35 AM
9
Q: Can you have a companion from your backstory?

PvParkourMy character's backstory is that he had to flee his city because he used a spell to save his best friend in the city watch. He is from a made-up city where spells and powerful magic were privileges that only nobility could have; it was illegal for commoners other than having simple magic items, ...

 
 
2 hours later…
2:22 AM
Jamila Nedjadi's game Apocalypse Keys is getting an Evil Hat publication. A tabletop roleplaying game about monsters holding back the apocalypse. They are agents who work for the DIVISION, a mysterious organization dedicated to understanding the occult, taming the supernatural, and protecting the world.
 
2:32 AM
Hmmm I'm debating whether my recent dupe closure makes sense. But... looking at what else is marked as a dupe of that same target and what isn't... I'm even more confused...
Maybe it's Meta time...
 
Sprinting Owl Designs wrote a twitter review of John Erwin's A Goon's Guide to the Galaxy.
 
Oh hmmm, ignore my recent comment since in thinking of an answer this question is definitely more nuanced than the general case, wow
 
2:52 AM
@doppelgreener The Firefox just spat a 404 error at me from the Fudge script (I wasn't using it at the time).
 
3:51 AM
So, I was looking for a local source for The Princess Bride Adventure Book Board Game, and accidentally found out that there was a Princess Bride RPG released a few years ago, using the Fudge system.
 
Interesting. The publisher seems to be... absent.
Wait, no, a forced refresh got their homepage working.
They don't seem to be hosting the quickstart PDF anymore though.
 
 
3 hours later…
7:00 AM
hm, I was misled by an answer on this site into thinking one book had more useful content than another
 
Q: Why is the general community of this site so toxic? edited to remove vulgarity from one box
 
 
3 hours later…
10:12 AM
@ThomasMarkov strategic edit there
 
I flagged rude/abusive anyway.
Surprised nobody edited it before I did.
 
@ThomasMarkov I've only just seen it tbf
@ThomasMarkov that's already faster than exploding kittens
 
11:08 AM
@BESW I just found what would be causing that. It relies on an external script for the color picker, which is gone now.
 
12:07 PM
Abyss TTRPG by monoithia. Journey to the centre of an infinite forest, equip with powerful artifacts and adventurous classes.
 
12:20 PM
@ThomasMarkov I don't think that crit question is a dupe, see my point above
At the very least, it is not worded like any other source of extra damage and many similar questions are not closed as dupes of that target
 
12:54 PM
Thought you guys would find this amusing. On MSE, someone asked about DnD:
> What's Dnd Is it a board game if it is How is it played answer quickly or die fools. I've tried it a ridiculous amount of times and I still don't get it.
"Is it a board game" and "answer quickly or die fools" made me crack up.
 
We have a Q&A for that
180
Q: I'm at a loss with “Dungeons and Dragons.” How does one play it, anyway?

RosamundaI'm no gamer at all, so this could be like a very silly, basic question for you guys. The thing is that I always read about "Dungeons and Dragons" game (not the video game, but the normal game to play with friends that are actually gathered together). And I would like to know how to play it. I'v...

 
1:21 PM
@forest heh
 
@Someone_Evil for the recently deleted question that was a bit rude, that is similar to the the first impression I got when arriving at this site. But I approached it somewhat differently, and, I had the good fortune to encounter NeilSlater early on when I made a post.
@forest yeah, funny approach
 
@forest was that in a comment or a aquestion...?
 
1:42 PM
@KorvinStarmast You mean the stub I deleted? Yeah, I can see where the impression is coming from, but the answer they got is good and with the tone used, I don't think poring more attention on the q would help anyone (and deletion saved applying TM's edit on the stub aswell)
 
1:52 PM
@Someone_Evil For sure, it's well outside of what we prefer
 
2:05 PM
@Powerdork which book?
 
2:25 PM
@forest "die fools" got me confused for a moment, that's what many of us role players must seem like...?
 
@kviiri "Die Fools, Die", no it just means "The Fools, The"
"No one who speaks German could possibly be evil"
 
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
4
 
@AncientSwordRage Isn't Die singular, and something like "Dehn" (going by ear, not spelling, from Long Ago Memory) the plural version of that? Fools is plural ....
 
@KorvinStarmast I can't even German
 
@AncientSwordRage Oh, never mind, you were Utterly Correct. If we use a noun in the plural form, we always use the same article: die
@AncientSwordRage I learned to German as a wee lad however I never studied it formally, more's the pity; I did study Spanish and spoke a bit before disuse overtook me ....
 
2:35 PM
YES! I am so smart, I am so smart S-M-R-T
@KorvinStarmast I have studied Spanish, French and Itallian (self study), but I know vanishingly little of each
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Aha, so I was remembering a little bit correctly, but only for the dative case. Thanks!
 
My language doesn't use articles at all, so "a" and "the" were a bit interesting concepts to grasp at first. I recall I had a Winnie the Pooh film in English that ended with "The End" and I asked my mom that "hey mom, I know what 'end' is but what is 'the'?" and she basically said it doesn't really mean anything x)
Of course, not too many years later, I got to dip my feet in French and Swedish that aren't content to have just definite and indefinite articles, but also different genders (and in Swedish, they even conjugate differently and in ways that aren't evident from the article used alone)
 
2:51 PM
@kviiri wow, having grown up with definite and indefinite articles (English being at root a Germanic language) that lack of them seems exotic, but it obviously works. 😎
 
@kviiri that's pretty interesting
it must make translating some sentences interesting too
 
@AncientSwordRage Usually it's fairly clear by context, we get more troubles from the fact that we don't have gendered pronouns. Requires a fair amount of creativity from translators for those classic detective story twists that "ah-ha, so how do you know the perp was a she?"
 
@kviiri Huh, I thought conjugating differently is the norm.
 
@kviiri But I mean things like "He was just a suspect, he was the suspect" or some such
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Ugh, sorry I meant... declension? (you know what you do with nouns)
 
2:57 PM
@kviiri classy
 
@kviiri Oh, I wasn't nitpicking the conjugation/declension distinction (I am fuzzy on the terms anyway, they're foreign to me). I was just thinking that it's normal for different genders to flex differently in otherwise flexive languages.
 
English doesn't really do classes, at least not in a regular enough way to call them classes I think?
 
Now I must be going for a moment, I have a business call with an old friend -->
 
English, OTOH, seems like a low-flexion language in general.
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica yeah it's highly analytical, I think is the word
 
3:00 PM
@AncientSwordRage Yeah all English has some pronouns with classes of sorts they/them who/whom/whose (though whom is... a debate in itself)
 
@Medix2 but that's it really
@Medix2 also see You/Youm and me/meme
 
Yup, nothing like other languages
 
Who/whom is just case flexion, which is pretty modest in English.
(Though the hard part comes with case choice rules being not always clear, and in some situations exception-driven.)
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica isn't flexion just a category of thing like declension, conjugation etc?
 
@AncientSwordRage Changes within a word depending on other factors, yes.
(I may be messing up the precise usage due to essentially translating familiar concepts into English.)
 
3:04 PM
wiktionary says
> 4) (grammar, dated) The variation of words by declension, comparison, or conjugation; inflection.
 
oh since he's having telco problems
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Yeah same with French
that's why the Swedish was a bit of a shocker
We were taught five declension classes of two genders, and I think that's strictly speaking a lie-to-children
 
@kviiri As far as I remember French, French still has some more tricks up the sleeve when it comes to, say, verbs and even a bit adjectives.
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica oh boy it sure does x)
 
there's a theory that languages "evolve in a cycle from fusional to analytic to agglutinative to fusional again"
Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world (see linguistic typology) that groups languages according to their common morphological structures. The field organizes languages on the basis of how those languages form words by combining morphemes. Analytic languages contain very little inflection, instead relying on features like word order and auxiliary words to convey meaning. Synthetic languages, ones that are not analytic, are divided into two categories: agglutinative and fusional languages. Agglutinative languages rely primarily on discrete particles (prefixes,...
I am -> I'm -> imma
 
Yeah it's a fun cycle
 
3:15 PM
I wonder: how well-proven is the cyclic nature?
It seems like one of those things where people look for patterns in history and might be very much prone to finding some, but it's hard to test the hypothesis under controlled conditions.
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica they wrote a book on it
 
@AncientSwordRage That may or may not mean much. (I haven't researched the topic and have no idea whether the book is well-founded or not really.)
 
@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica it seems respected, apropos of nothing I don't see why it would be spurious assumption
 
3:39 PM
@AncientSwordRage some books are better written (and researched) than others. 😎
 
@KorvinStarmast oh, true
but I would assume a book is well written until proven otherwise, which again is something I'd assume would be flagged up by Wiki by now at least
 
@AncientSwordRage My experience over the years have shown me not to do that, though. assuming a book is well written often results in disappointment as one begins to read ... 😯
 
@KorvinStarmast Well at least you know now :p
 
@ThomasMarkov I have no idea how to treat Tasha's if it's AL legal but clearly optional (whereas AL has said no to other optional rules like Flanking)
But given the 'balance' of other things in the book...I don't think I can say that everything in there is balanced because it's been released.
 
@NautArch I guess you can be more granular about what is and isn't legal
 
3:50 PM
@AncientSwordRage I dunno. But I am pretty confident in my own experience.
 
@NautArch that's always a good starting point
 
chinese doesn't do conjugation at all!
 
And in russia, language conjugates you!
 
@Yuuki languages are fascinating
 
@AncientSwordRage now that my telco is over... it does occasionally require a bit of creativity. Fairly often often one can use other words to substitute for the missing the, for example se which is in normal usage similar to English that (as in, "that tree over there") is commonly used though it's ungrammatical in many cases
And often you can also indicate things with the word order
 
3:56 PM
@kviiri Hmmm, what about my example?
 
that chinese doesn't do verb conjugation makes it easier to make things ambiguous. while 他去图书馆 means "they go to the library", it doesn't tell you when they went to the library (either past, present, or future) nor does it specifically say whether "they" is a he or she.
她 and 他 are third-person pronouns. while 她 is specifically female, 他 isn't specifically male. plus, they're homophones so you can't tell the difference in spoken dialogue
 
@AncientSwordRage One could use eg. word ordering, roughly speaking SVO corresponds to indefinite, OVS to definite, though context is usually still the most important factor
 
@Yuuki them being homophones is interesting
 
它 is another third-person pronoun, but it's usually refers to non-humans.
(also a homophone)
 
"Epäilty on Jaakko" (epäilty = suspect, on = is) would indicate that Jaakko is the suspect, "Jaakko on epäilty" would have the effect of Jaakko being a suspect but not necessarily the sole one for this context
 
4:03 PM
@Yuuki something I'm recently interested in serial verbs and compound verbs
especially things like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
I can't copy and paste it in here though
 
oh hey, there's a bit in chinese
 
This word order thing is actually something I haven't really paid attention to before, it's kinda interesting
 
@Yuuki your example is what reminded me of that wiki page
@Yuuki I also like the hindi example about devouring children
Is this answerable?
0
Q: What are common routes from Shadowdale to Waterdeep?

Michael ShopsinThe party I DM has completed their adventures in the Dalelands (Shadowdale and Daggerdale) and wants to travel to Waterdeep. The party is fairly low level, so their travel will be non-magical and not too expensive. The time period is the 1350s DR, the geography is similar to 5e but not to 4e. Wha...

 
4:29 PM
@NautArch A great deal of that book is power creep (I am looking at you, Twilight Cleric!)
 
@AncientSwordRage Sure it is, I have a map of the sword coast on the wall at home with major roads labelled. Major roads are major because they're the common route of travel.
If it's not been answered by the time I get home after work, I'll put something up based on my map
I just have to remember where Daggerdale is in relation to Waterdeep, because my map is H U G E
Oh, I remember now, it's ESE from Waterdeep
and like over a thousand miles
 
4:47 PM
@RevenantBacon cool!
 
Yes, and even more exciting, on the reverse side it has a map of Baldur's Gate
 
@RevenantBacon the game that started my interest in D&D
 
@KorvinStarmast Yep. I very much stand by my answer :)
 
5:09 PM
@kviiri place the word "only" anywhere in the sentence "She told him that she loved him".
 
@NautArch Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium (4e) references but does not reprint rules from Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for its henchmen. I was looking into [followers-and-hirelings]
 
@JoelHarmon "She told him that shonlye loved him".
Whoever Shonlye is
 
@NautArch Given that your answer is vintage 2017 which is when the question came up, it's a solid answer based on core: PHB, MM, DMG which is where any effort at balance was made. Xanathar's loosened that up a bit, and Tasha's doesn't seem to give a flying fart about bounded accuracy. What I really like about Tasha's is the class "you can change this at ASI time" to alleviate buyer's remorse and "you can swap out fighting styles" as a particularly good idea. I also like most 'class options'
The new Sorcerer classes are an over correction. (Just as Hexblade was an overcorrection for Pact of Blade's shortcomings due to MADness)
 
@KorvinStarmast Hexblade still isn't all that great is a single class - I stand by that.
But yeah. Wizards doesn't care about balance anymore. That's not necessarily a 'bad' thing, but it is a thing.
 
@NautArch Fair enough, given your experience with that.
 
5:18 PM
hey @eddymage
 
@KorvinStarmast I love the build I made with it, though. The battlemaster hexblade works really well.
Or seemed like it would...guess I won't really find out.
 
@NautArch The actual patron, though, just feels wrong to me 😮 as compared to the other three. Genie, on the other hand, is a pretty great patron concept though it may be a bit higher on the power curve ...
 
Still never heard from any of the other tablemates.
@KorvinStarmast Ah. Yeah. THe patron is really weird.
 
@NautArch sad face again
 
@AncientSwordRage hi there! Hello to everybody!
 
5:20 PM
Fixing pact of the blade should could have been something else.
 
@KorvinStarmast I find the idea of the genie a) to localised, and b) too contrasted with actual other creatures
 
@NautArch yep
 
@Eddymage \oo//
 
@KorvinStarmast I did see that one person posted about how I may have been right, but another kind of doubled down. Neither actually apologized for their reaction to my request to talk about what was happening.
But they wanted to know if i was going to respond...to what, I don't know.
 
@AncientSwordRage I think that the royalty in the djinn realms fit the same box of rocks as the Pit Fiend patron ... YMMV
 
5:22 PM
I just drop down here for the first time!
 
@NautArch Is this your group? Do you guys talk over Discord during the game?
 
@KorvinStarmast yeah but aren't they trapped inside your bottle?
 
@AncientSwordRage no
 
@Eddymage we're al friendly and don't bite, mostly
@KorvinStarmast OH
 
@KorvinStarmast No, a buddy of mine is the DM. I know one other person in it.
 
5:23 PM
The PC serves the Djinn, not the other way around.
 
I may have been misunderstanding the patron
 
@AncientSwordRage Yeah, I see! :-D
 
@AncientSwordRage There was a UA on it that got refined in Tasha's.
 
@KorvinStarmast yeah, I get that which is why I always found it weird
 
@KorvinStarmast We do chat both voice and text. When they started going down a road of PCs challenging each other, I asked to chat about what that means before we went down that road.
 
5:23 PM
You can see about 80% of the genie one in that UA
 
@KorvinStarmast I saw them, I could have sworn I even read them...turns out I didn't understand them
 
@AncientSwordRage It is been a while that I think to write here seeking for some guidance for posting Q&A
 
@NautArch Man, communications problems. Not fun. :(
 
@Eddymage oh, have a question?
 
@Eddymage go ahead eddy, what's on your mind?
 
5:24 PM
@KorvinStarmast my perceived flavour mismatch is partly why I asked this: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/177814/…
 
There is an old question of mine that is not-so-well receveived by the communitiy, hence I'd like to know why, for avoiding to post bad questions i nthe future
 
@Eddymage hmmm, that might fall into the category of people thinking it's obvious? Maybe trivial?
 
I accepted Thomas's answer, since it satsfies me (even if I do not fully agree with the frame challenge part)
@AncientSwordRage It was trivial to me too, but in an answer to another question of mine the user implied that identical could mean anything the DM desires, so I wondered if there is any other game--way yo interpretate "identical"
 
@Eddymage They didn't make it a game term, and the 'use plain English' theme was one of the points of interest shared by the devs as the game came out for this edition. We have a number of Q&A from the era 2013 to 2015 about that which will have links to dev commentary on the use of normal English in the rule books
 
@Eddymage Maybe flag that right at the start? "This seems trivially obvious, but in blah blah blah, someone implies otherwise. Is there an in game reason to think this?"
 
5:30 PM
I think the issue is that you read way too much into enkryptor's answer to your other question
 
@Carcer that too
 
@KorvinStarmast thanks, I missed those
 
"as the DM it's up to you to decide whether or not creatures are 'identical' enough to share the same initiative" is not equivalent to "you could consider any two random things identical"
 
@AncientSwordRage I am afraid that in this way it sounds like a designer-motivation question
 
rather, the intent is that, when you are already dealing with similar creatures that could be described as identical, it's up to you whether or not you actually do that in the circumstances.
 
5:34 PM
@Carcer yep, indeed I took the same example in comments under enkryptor's answer, just to give the idea beyond that
 
@Eddymage from your question I usually thought that identical creature stands for with the same stats block: for example, in a situation where a party is fighting 3 trolls and 2 ogres I read the above rule as rolling one d20 for the trolls' group and one d20 for the ogres shows me that you answered your own question in the question. (That's the KISS principle at work and it's how I do it, though I tend to clump groups of more than five enemies, hordes, into multiple gruups).
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, blacklisted website in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (181): What is the best way for a low-level, non-magical NPC to contact a player-character? by Mel on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)
 
@Eddymage I mean, by 'in game reason' a rule in a book
 
@Eddymage I think whatever comments those were have been lost to time unfortunately
 
@KorvinStarmast Mmm, I thought that showing the two approaches would help, but it doesn't seem so
 
5:36 PM
@Eddymage Rubiksmoose very kindly asked that question again here and got a decent answer
 
@Carcer Yep, I do not why
 
Unless the rules explicitly expand, narrow, or completely redefine a word, that word retains the meaning it has in idiomatic English
 
@KorvinStarmast thanks! Indeed, this is more general and covers more aspects that my question
 
but yes. If I were hazarding a guess I think people probably thought the suggestion that you might call a dragon and a kobold identical creatures was obviously ridiculous, and that sets off "this is not good faith" alarms
 
There's some room for ambiguity. Are two creatures with identical stat blocks still identical if they have different amounts of HP, or are subject to different spells/effects? What if they have the same stats but are described differently by the GM?
 
5:40 PM
@MikeQ or a dragon polymorphed to look like a dragon etc...
 
@MikeQ Yeah, it was my concern too
 
@Carcer this is valid too, @Eddymage
 
@Eddymage FWIW, the frame challenge is correct in that the DM needs to make a decision (part of wearing the DM hat) that fits the situation.
 
@KorvinStarmast Yes, but in this case my concern wasn't about balance, but how to apply of the rule
 
Also, to be fair, the sentence "The DM makes one roll for an entire group of identical creatures, so each member of the group acts at the same time." is weird and confusing and misleading. The PHB has a few instances where multiple creatures somehow take their turns simultaneously, but I don't recall seeing an explanation of how that actually works.
 
5:45 PM
@Eddymage Balance isn't what I was talking about, but rather the flow of play ...
 
@SmokeDetector Should we report this to the stack overlords?
 
@MikeQ and of course, if they all have the same dex score how do you figure out which hobgoblin goes first? 😮😛 All of the tie breakers are the same value. So, DM just makes a decisin "start on the left and go clockwise" ... off you go ... no rule is needed
 
@ThomasMarkov No, it's a phishing scam. Don't click the link.
 
@KorvinStarmast what if the monsters form a union
 
@AncientSwordRage The DM hires scabs. 😎
 
5:47 PM
@MikeQ But they're a qualified photographer.
 
@AncientSwordRage Or giant scorpions
@ThomasMarkov Yeah, that sure convinced me. 😂
 
@KorvinStarmast Indeed: there is another question about this: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/175092/63061
 
@MikeQ Ironically we rarely see the content of the spam/scam, so it's not always super obvious what is or isn't the scam ... maybe?
 
@Eddymage I upvoted your answer on that it seems, and I think it was you sharing 'what worked at our table' so nicely. also, your solution "compare the DEX scores, not the modifiers" matches how one of the groups I am in does it
 
@KorvinStarmast Yep; i found that strategy works pretty well
 
5:51 PM
Has anyone here ever actually run the speed factors part on that DNDB link?
 
@AncientSwordRage Never. We used speed factors in AD&D 1e for a while and then binned it. Too fiddly. I am never going back to that.
 
@AncientSwordRage If you're unsure if something is a phishing scam, try googling some of the text. If it's a well-known scam, then the same text may have been reported elsewhere.
 
@MikeQ good point
 
Anyway, thanks all for the feedback on my question about the word "identical"!
 
@KorvinStarmast yeah I bet
It was in Baldurs Gate CRPG, but it rarely factored in
 
5:53 PM
@Eddymage It was similar to another question, but not a dupe, since it wasn't identical 🤣
 
@Eddymage Oh, now I see. The negative user reaction was probably because you asked two similar questions back-to-back. It does kind of look like you asked the 2nd question because you were dissatisfied with answers to the 1st question, which is kind of a taboo around here.
 
@KorvinStarmast eh eh
 
Yeah, voting is not exactly the best metric for figuring out how good something is, in general. (I mean a lot of it depends on context anyway)
 
@MikeQ Ah ok, actually I received quite valid answers to the other. Maybe I will wait more for posting more than one question about a particular topic
 
@Eddymage I learned through trial and error on this site that posting a question is an art.
2
 
6:06 PM
@KorvinStarmast that meta comment is a woosh for me
 
@AncientSwordRage It goes back to a scandal in the UK back in the 60's, where the lady in question observed, to the interviewer, that she expected someone to deny, etc, the allegations ... IIRC, that case was in a movie called "Scandal" some years ago, but memory is hazy
In other words, of course we'll say that we are nicer now. 😎
 
Oh, I thought it was in reference to the comment on the question
So the clarification was rather confusing for a moment
 
@Someone_Evil Yes, it was a ref to ASR's comment that I was making a joke about by referring to that wry comment by MR Davies ...
 
@KorvinStarmast ahh
 
Context of the attempted joke: ASR "we are nicer now" and Korvin (echoing M-R Davies) "Well, you (as a current user) would say that, wouldn't you?"
@Someone_Evil We have now dissected the frog. I will not give up my day job.
 
6:12 PM
Actually, I think we can do without making obfuscated allegations. Though I appreciate the joke
 
6:30 PM
What should we do about this question and the recent update by OP in comments about wanting to add attunement?
 
@NautArch is that the right question?
I dont see anything there.
 
@ThomasMarkov nope!
16
Q: Is an item that increases spell save DC balanced?

GBQTOne of my players' characters likes to use illusion spells in combat. To improve their effectiveness, he is asking me for an item that increases his spell save DC. The Rod of the Pact Keeper provides a spell save DC boost. However, it is locked to Warlocks. I'm considering giving him a similar it...

 
I think we just upvote @KorvinStarmast and leave it alone.
 
kk, i'll keep my downvote on the other recent answer until they update.
not sure why that one is getting upvotes, but not Korvin's.
 
6:47 PM
@KorvinStarmast I remember a comment of Thomas in a thread (I think on meta) where he explained that he spent several months to learn how the site works before starting to post Q&As...
 
For a somewhat different perspective, I spent three months doing nothing but reading the stack and learning how things worked and how to write good content. I wrote my first answer on June 4th of this year and have been the top user every month since. I am the #1 user in rep per day on the stack, and it’s because I took some time to learn what good content was and how the stack worked. I listened and learned before I began to post. I have had no trouble with the mods or anyone else because I assumed from the beginning that this is a meritocracy and the quality of my content is what matters. — Thomas Markov Nov 17 '20 at 1:27
 
@ThomasMarkov Exactly!
 
@ThomasMarkov When I first encounterd RPGSE, there were just over 800 pages of content. I didn't post anything until I had already read from the beginning to page 800 somehthing, though some posts I read the question and moved on due to lack of interest in the topic. It took me a few months to bother reading meta; I didn't care. I also objected strongly to the 'let's discuss this in chat' and I have since found that my instincts were utterly correct in that regard.
 
7:17 PM
@ThomasMarkov Heh, I added a del vote to your 'no hard feelings' (comment) multiclassing spells thing.
 
@KorvinStarmast did that PTD user have another post over on main? Or were you just referring to the post tht was migrated to meta?
 
@ThomasMarkov No, as far as I can tell, PTD only has a post on meta, which was the one migrated from main (and which edit caused my mirth this morning when I sent Someone Evil that comment)
 
Makes you wonder, whose sock puppet is this?
 
0
Q: Can we please STOP with the unnecessary close votes on ancient rec questions?

KRyanIt is not considered good practice on Stack Exchange to go and close old questions that are no longer considered on-topic unless they get bumped or something. Voting to close such questions puts them in the review queue and wastes reviewers’ time, for no benefit whatsoever. If we had a rash of re...

 
7:32 PM
@ThomasMarkov Possibly one of our old members? I'll let the mods figure out IP addresses and such if they want to pursue it.
 
@TheOracle Isn't there a general stack policy about this?
 
7:51 PM
I just about wasn't Being Nice...
 
@Medix2 That question isn't nice- that's why it has my downvote. Not a good way to introduce a topic.
 
It's not asking anything. It's asking us to do something and not whether we should do it.
 
If we can't talk respectfully to each other, then we shouldn't be talking.
 
@ThomasMarkov I don't think it really matters one way or another, unless a pattern of abuse develops.
 
Like, I'm literally debating asking "Should we cast close votes on old, now off-topic questions?" because that wasn't asked
 
7:53 PM
@Medix2 That too.
 
All in all aside from the hostility and language, I think the question posed is not a bad one.
 
@Medix2 is over here just pouring fuel on my answer fire.
 
@kviiri If it was a question, yes. But it isn't (yet). It really is just a rant and command.
 
@kviiri Oh!
If they can bring in current Q&As from main site, it'd be more interesting.
@ThomasMarkov Meta question deleted (for now?)
 
8:04 PM
Ive still got my answer box up, im still typing.
@Medix2 gonna post a meta question: "Can we please START with the necessary close votes on ancient rec questions?"
Ive alos voted to undelete that meta question.
 
@ThomasMarkov please don't - approach the question how we should about asking what we should be doing.
 
@NautArch its a joke fren
 
@ThomasMarkov i knew that
:D
I can be way too literal. I know this.
But at least I've passed that awesome and frustrating trait to a new generation!
 
haha
Forreal though, if @Medix2 wants to aska "should we do this" question, I've already collated all of our meta and network meta guidance into an answer.
 
I mean, I do, I just want it not to come across poorly. Cuz like... I am genuiunely interested in hearing people's thought on this
 
8:15 PM
I think the right angle might be something like "do we need a site specific approach to this that is different from how current meta guidance approaches it"
 
@ThomasMarkov Does current meta guidance support going back?
 
Because our meta guidance, and meta.se guidance is overwhelmingly consistent that we should be closing them.
 
Right, i don't think the question is should we be closing them, but should we be looking for them to close.
 
I dont even think that's the right question
 
what do you think is the question?
 
8:17 PM
The question we need to ask is "should we actively avoid looking for them".
 
Hmmm
 
Which is kind of different.
 
they're pretty darn close
 
I think this is obvious, we don't need to assemble a team to hunt them down.
It is not imperative that we find them and close them.
The question is, is it wrong/bad if someone wants to go do it
 
Yeah, I guess that is it.
 
8:20 PM
Which, there is already meta guidance for this.
8
A: Please do not flood queues with old posts found by searching without first clearing the flood with Meta

SevenSidedDieLarger sites deal with a high count of review items on a regular basis and it works, because no single user is responsible for reviewing the whole queue and the system is built with that in mind. Reviewers can just take bites out of it, and bow out when decision fatigue rears its head. Pressing ...

SSD already handles it here.
 
Although what is considered 'flooding'?
 
> It's much preferable for the queue to balloon occasionally, and be handled by the normal crowdsourcing mechanisms it has for precisely such events, than for people to refrain from flagging when they see something that deserves a flag. All that refraining results in is different people having to—redundantly—each stop and ponder how much flagging is “too much,”
> wasting user energy that would be better spent just about anywhere else on-site or off, just so that we can, inexplicably, prevent the flood-management measures designed into the system already from needing to be used.
 
And That meta absolutely covers the discussion.
 
Flooding is not something it is too useful to pin down exactly, but if it's the majority if activity in the stream or overshadows the normal, it probably is
 
8:23 PM
I'd think 5 or so would be fine. Like when V2Blast used to do their edits.
 
To be transparent, I initiated the close votes that set this off, and it was only 2 questions. And I found them while doing other site stuff.
 
Wait, "2" is considered a huge deal?
that's...really silly.
 
I think edits get talked about more. Partly it's a greater positive contribution but it also feeds more into the main stream (quickly annoys)
 
I thought it was going to be like 8 or 9.
 
Poll time: Is there a significant difference between character creation and character advancement to consider them separate processes?
 
8:25 PM
@RevenantBacon I'd say yes.
 
@RevenantBacon We have seperate tags, for one
 
Can you elaborate?
 
That creation is design in a vacuum, advancement is design based on practical events.
 
@NautArch That's what I did previously
 
Yes, to be clear, the highest rep user on this site took to meta to complain that he had to sit through two entire close reviews for brief questions that were obviously off topic.
 
8:26 PM
@NautArch I think there was 2 now, but the complaint is founded on previous events
 
@Someone_Evil I plead guilty
 
@Someone_Evil Yeah, last time Medix did it it was like 13 :P
 
I've done it... I think three times?
 
that is also not exactly an awful pattern.
3 times in how many years?
 
an awful pattern of basic site curation...
 
8:41 PM
@NautArch What if the character starts at level 4, or even higher? Is it still character creation and not advancement?
 
Does closing a question bump it for activity?
 
My opinion is that one is simply a continuation of the same process that the first started, and not separate processes in themselves
 
@RevenantBacon Then you're creating a level 4 char, and advancing from there. At least to me
But also, there are TTRPGs where character creation is a dramatically different game than levelling up
I also think character creation involves backstory and origins and all that. You don't advance your character by giving them a background
 
@RevenantBacon Character creation - that's starting at 4.
Level 5...advancement.
 
Assuming we're talking of a fairly DnD-ish standpoint, I think there is at least the difference that creation usually involves a bit of creative(hence the name?) effort in refining the character's high concept, while advancement a mechanical thing with mainly mechanical implications
 
8:47 PM
@Glazius no
 
Eh, I still think it's all one process, like building a house. Laying the foundation is still part of the process of building the house, and finishing the foundation doesn't finish the house, neither does putting up a couple walls.
Starting a character at level 5 still requires that you go through the process of laying a foundation, it's just less time before you add the walls and can instead jump straight to working on the roof
 
Here is why it is different:
33
Q: Do you "gain" your 1st level?

finduslAssume a Divine Soul Sorcerer. The spellcasting feature of the class states (highlight mine): Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the sorcerer spells you know and replace it with another spell from the sorcerer spell list, which also must be of a level for wh...

 
@ThomasMarkov Yeah, that seems like a fairly shaking reasoning at best.
And is also strictly only applicable to 5e specifically
 
@Medix2 like you mentioned, it depends on the game system
 
@RevenantBacon Yup, was half joking.
Though specific to that system, there is a very clear line between the two.
 
9:01 PM
@ThomasMarkov I down voted that when I first found it, and I recall wishing that I could negative bounty it. 😛 But that's perhaps an overreaction.
 
@KorvinStarmast The question?
 
yes, I think it is a bad question that reflects a failure to read the game books
I up voted the answer, however
 
 
2 hours later…
10:51 PM
3
Q: Can rings be worn on toes?

Ayden sIf you are attuning to a magical ring the DMG magic item categories states: Magic rings offer an amazing array of powers to those lucky enough to find them. Unless a ring’s description says otherwise, a ring must be worn on a finger, or a similar digit, for the ring’s magic to function. (empha...

 
11:28 PM
Are there any other applicable tags here? rpg.stackexchange.com/q/176432/62294
 
I don't think so, it's only really about in-world communication and we haven't got a tag for that. Maybe we should/could but it's a fairly narrow topic AFAIK
 

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