TRPG General Chat

RevenantBacon

00:25

@KorvinStarmast The schools definitely fit into the 5-color scheme. Red covers evocation entirely, black solidly covers necromancy, white covers abjuration, green covers most transmutation, with a bit in blue, and blue covers pretty much all enchantments, divinations, Illusions, and conjurations, although the summoning of creatures can fall under any color depending on what's being summoned.

MikeQ

Counterspelling is abjuration though, and that's usually a blue thing

RevenantBacon

True. White and blue probably have quite a bit of overlap really, especially with enchantments

MikeQ

Great, so we have enchantment-school enchantments. Cue the "Is it an enchantment or Enchantment?" questions.

RevenantBacon

@MikeQ Answer: Yes

BESW

I made a treasure-hunt campaign for a group of magic swords that each embodied the themes of one of the old-fashioned M:tG colors, and if you had one sword it could point you to the two swords on the opposite sides of the pentagon.

MikeQ

00:32

Was this the Umdaar campaign?

BESW

Aye.

The party started out with a hint about where to find one sword, but was competing with a rival group that already had a sword which pointed to the one the party was going for.

It got really fun when each party was able to pinpoint the other's location because they each had swords keyed to the others' swords.

RevenantBacon

@BESW while wielding this sword, you have resistance to fire damage, and every time you hit an enemy, they take 1 damage for each card in their hand

BESW

Also, using one of the swords as a locator was... Not Subtle. It would shoot a colored beam of light into the sky like the Luxor Hotel, which would then curve down to point at the sword you'd asked it to locate. So everybody for miles would know where you and your objective were--including anybody near the target sword.

RevenantBacon

Yeah, but that would only matter if they knew what the light meant

BESW

So using the swords became strategic. You'd want to avoid using them if you were in hostile territory, or if you were trying to sneak past the rival hunters. But you could use them as a beacon or a decoy, too.

RevenantBacon

00:38

true

I could see it as really good to make into a warlocks pact weapon

BESW

And each sword had open-ended color-themed powers. In the context of Masters of Umdaar, they were fragments of a terraforming device and each one controlled a different part of the terraforming process.

eg, the green sword let any wielder do an AoE attack that filled your zone with entangling vines. But the more you understood its nature, the more it just turned into a justification to manipulate nearby plants and animals.

BESW

01:07

(When all five swords were joined together, they'd become a region-targeting Genesis Device.)

Ben

Morning all

@BESW I had a game similar to that. Never came to fruition though, it petered out before we actually realized anything about the swords we did find

BESW

03:04

"WHAT HAPPENED? WRITING FOR WIZARDS" Part 1 and Part 2 by Graeme Barber AKA PanzerLion AKA POCGamer.

5

A. B.

04:00

That looks a promising title.

(I read his other thread. Have to say I didn't follow all the details, not being familiar with the business, but was on his side from the moment he said "frog people". :-D )

Oh, I see, this is that too.

Glazius

05:31

So basically, you can wind up with words attributed to you that you never wrote and have no idea why they're there?

A. B.

05:57

Apparently.

What a cloth-headed thing to do, too, having him do the publicity appearances before he'd seen the edited version!

That's surely just going to make their customers cross with them, selling adventures that weren't as advertised.

Besides making a monkey out of their author.

Axoren

06:15

@Glazius "Yup." -Abraham Lincoln, probably.

A. B.

:-D

Lot of sharks, they sound. It was ever thus with some publishers. And what a pity it got cut - the way he tells it, his version of the frog people sound much more interesting than WotC's, and so does his plot. "Snake people are fighting for some reason who knows" isn't much of a plot. I hope other authors get some use out of his warnings, anyway.

BESW

07:48

@Glazius And at per-word rates that are non-competitive because you're supposed to be so thrilled with the "exposure" of working for a big name company.

Again, a lot of small press publishers do better. But the big names generally don't, and for some of the small presses, "better" is definitely a matter of merely relative excellence.

My "favorite" part of the fiasco so far was a small press owner diving into peoples' mentions to tell them to stop whining because this is just how the industry is, except for HIS press which is so much better and works with [name drops a half-dozen old white dudes] but don't bother asking to work with him, they don't have any more room.

V2Blast

09:17

@BESW Yep, been following this saga (sort of) via his tweets. :(

AncientSwordRage

10:56

@BESW ooof

Hot RPG Questions

11:17

7

Q: What does "An adventure for players levels 1-3" mean?

What does "An adventure for players levels 1-3" mean? I see this on the front of module books. Does this mean the players should begin the adventure between levels 1 and 3, with no hint as to what level the players will end up as at the end of the adventure? Or does it mean that players begin a...

AncientSwordRage

11:55

@BESW I've been inspired by the 4f challenge to add 4e like powers to that RPG system idea I had a while back

BESW

Ooh.

AncientSwordRage

6 stats, 4 types of action (largely inspired by Mouse guard) and powers based on the combinations

So a manoeuvre might does 1W vs an attack that does 4W

thats as far as I got though

> it apparently is not the job of a short adventure to introduce a people or their place in the world.

That I'd have assumed myself, not sure why but this is the sort of thing I'd have expected flagged up early on in the process...?

BESW

> I was informed that while Wizards had the ability to reach out during the editing and development phase, they had no obligation to do so. What made this worse was the knowledge that other writers on the same project had been meaningfully engaged to various degrees through the editing and development process right up to some seeing a final release copy of their adventure.

It should have been clear from the brief, and clarified on receipt of the noncompliant material.

AncientSwordRage

12:10

@BESW that's fishier than a Sahuagin's breakfast

@BESW principle of least surprise should have applied

KorvinStarmast

@RevenantBacon I wonder where illusion fits? Maybe dispense with illusion entirely? 😯

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast blue

BESW

(btw, I call BS on the very premise anyway; D&D has a bone-deep problem with bigoted lore, so a book that's specifically being marketed on the strength of its marginalized authors as a sign of WotC's turning around their bigoted ship, cannot be conducted in good faith if those authors are not allowed to create or modify lore.)

AncientSwordRage

very blue

@BESW yup!

BESW

If it "is not the job of a short adventure to introduce a people or their place in the world," then short adventures are not the format WotC should have used for the book.

AncientSwordRage

12:14

@BESW I'm not sure I follow. You can create and modify lore without specifically adding a people/place.

Maybe I should go back on what I said, I don't see why an adventure couldn't add people

(one of the adventures introduces wereravens, so I don't even think that stipulation is being held consistently)

BESW

Eeyup.

(And if you can't introduce new people, you're stuck rehabilitating D&D's racist trash for them.)

AncientSwordRage

@BESW good point

btw the Alexandrian is doing a run down of all the stories, and the wereravens is actually hillarious

they're a secret society focused on hiding/protecting artefacts, but they've done nothing for 150 years, and their way of hiding artefacts is to hastily bury them in rubble at their HQ

BESW

Basilisk Online wrote a twitter thread on "the reasons why I dont think you should play dnd." CW racism, sexual assault.

> And spoiler, it has nothing to do with me not liking the system, thats personal preference and i dont really care about that tbh

AncientSwordRage

@BESW fair

So, here is my question. I wanted buy CKM based on nostalgia for the old CRPG Baldur's Gate I. However between the Alexandrian and royal cockup by WotC over at least Graeme's adventure I won't be. Both because it looks worse from all points of view than it could have been

Besides not buying it, is there any way to make it clear that I'm not buying it, and why to WotC?

BESW

12:30

Real talk? It doesn't matter what you say to WotC. They aren't gonna change unless/until there's ethical competition in the market. Spend that money on ethical indie and small press publications, shout about ethical TRPG content on social media, leave glowing reviews of ethical TRPG content on all the platforms.

AncientSwordRage

I'm happy to 'vote with my wallet' but I do feel like that's going to be a drop in the ocean compared to what they get from sales. And even if it did, I feel it might just translate as "Oh, people don't want to have these writers"

@BESW yeah that's true

Time to find some ethical competition to support

BESW

Be a drop in the roaring ocean that can drown WotC out, because it's very VERY clear change will not be coming from inside that company.

@AncientSwordRage [gestures at a year of links in chat]

AncientSwordRage

@BESW but which of those are actually competition

no offense to the games linked, some look awesome

BESW

All of them. In aggregate. The goal shouldn't be to replace one behemoth with another, but to change the landscape of the industry so that behemoths are no longer the business model.

AncientSwordRage

but (besides the SEA games) I don't think any on their own is going to make WotC look up and think "What are they doing that we aren't"?

@BESW I'm not asking to replace one behemoth with another

BESW

12:38

Any creator who is working to make spaces for uplifting other creators, rather than climbing up by pushing others down, is a good choice.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that's a great point

BESW

Like you say, no single game or creator or press is going to make WotC less influential or change WotC's treatment of its employees.

Finance the people who are challenging and changing the industry through community action.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I guess the thrust of what I am aiming for is "1) Disarm the bigotted RPG, 2)support the non-biggoted RPGs" and you can do the first one, just by doing the last one.... but is there a way to maximally do both?

BESW

Talk with your friends about what you're doing! Do it publicly, where appropriate. Focus on positive action, talk about the cool stuff you're supporting and the cool games you're playing. Don't neg D&D players, but don't be coy about how WotC has burned its bridges and taken advantage of good faith far too many times.

AncientSwordRage

I'm guessing something like 13th age might help do the first one, but not the later

@BESW can you stop making such star-able statements, otherwise we'll have to rename that right hand side the BESW-Board, not the Star-board

BESW

12:45

May 7 '13 at 14:23, by Problematic

@MadTux another thing you should know: if @BESW ever achieves total dominance of the starred comments sidebar, he'll ascend to deityhood and consume us all with glorious fire in the process.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I'm not seeing an issue

doppelgreener

something i've been considering for a while is whether this stack might be interested in a "try a new game" event. like: in this month, here's five games, try one of these you haven't played, ask some questions about it.

AncientSwordRage

::Galadriel-being-offered-the-one-ring eyes intensifies::

@doppelgreener I love it

It could be like the Lit/Sci-fi topic challenges

doppelgreener

that is exactly the inspiration

BESW

@AncientSwordRage You mean the ones where everybody suggests the really popular media that users would probably have been inclined to pick up anyway, and when my suggestions of actually obscure media finally bubble to the top and are featured, nobody asks any questions about them?

AncientSwordRage

12:50

@BESW ... I guess? I haven't seen the Lit ones, only the sci-fi ones

BESW

Put it this way: I suggested one of the most famous and influential works of 20th-century Iranian literature, and the only question anybody asked about it that month was why it had been banned by the Iranian government.

I don't think anybody even read it.

Which is a shame because it's really funny.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW major sads on that one :(

BESW

(I read it in middle school, because a friend who'd recently emigrated from Iran said it would help me understand her and her family. It did.)

That is to say: I love these topic challenges in theory, but in practice I find that they never get actual traction on Stacks unless their subjects remain stubbornly pedestrian and not challenging in the least.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that's awesome

this post: literature.meta.stackexchange.com/a/572/588 ?

BESW

@AncientSwordRage That's part of it, yeah.

I'm reminded of the archivists who try to preserve outright bad media, because we get a skewed sense of creativity, of culture, of entertainment, when all we remember are the 1% of the 1% of the absolute best.

AncientSwordRage

12:59

I didn't see an actual answer to a topic challenge

BESW

12

Q: Why was My Uncle Napoleon banned in Iran?

The satirical novel My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad was briefly banned in Iran in the 1970s. Presumably this was because some aspects of its portrayal of Iranian society were considered undesirable by the new government. In order to find out whether or not I'm likely to enjoy this book, I'd ...

censorship my-uncle-napoleon iraj-pezeshkzad persian-literature

5

Q: Announcing the May 2019 topic challenge: "My Uncle Napoleon"

In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges, and since the list of suggestions has a single highest-voted entry as April draws to a close, it's time to announce the next topic challenge! Throughout May 2019, our topic challenge, proposed by BESW, will be My Uncle Napoleon, ...

discussion topic-challenge

doppelgreener

@BESW this is what i was worried about—that many will see picking up a new game as a big undertaking, especially in the space of a month, and it won't result in any actual exploration.

BESW

@doppelgreener Restricting it to very small games might do some work in that direction.

doppelgreener

This makes me think that if we do go ahead with—yes!

Took the words right out of my mouth

BESW

Oct 30 '19 at 11:50, by BESW

Business Card Jam, hosted by beatingthebinary and Star West. RPGs don't have to be book-length in order to be compelling game experiences. In fact, they don't even have to be page-length. This is a jam for making games that can fit onto a business card.

AncientSwordRage

13:03

@BESW would limiting it to itch.io games be a way of limiting and grouping these games

doppelgreener

Or rather out of the list of five, no more than one can be super involved. World of Darkness? Sure, but that's the only big one on the list.

AncientSwordRage

i.e. are they all small enough, and can we make an itch.io tag?

doppelgreener

@AncientSwordRage not anymore than any other shopfront, and "this happens to come from itch.io" is probably not a meaningful source

i don't think limiting it to itch.io would be a meaningful restriction, compared to just ensuring the RPGs are small and easy to pick up

BESW

I'd be wary of tying endorsement to any particular industry platform.

doppelgreener

compare Honey Heist, Roll for Shoes, Lady Blackbird, Lasers & Feelings, all of which would be ostensibly fine regardless of where they came from

BESW

13:05

right now itch.io is the best option for a lot of indie creators. But for example, creators from Malaysia cannot use it because of international finance restrictions. They can, however, use DMsGuild.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW same, but I don't know how we measure small

BESW

I would say we could encourage people to buy a game from the platform which best benefits the creators. (eg, itch.io takes a smaller percentage than DTRPG)

Anyway, I need to go to bed. ttfn!

May 7 '13 at 16:01, by Problematic

@BESW when you go to bed, the starred message churn will drop by about 98%

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener any idea on measuring small?

The other option is that the mods/select members of the community provide a shortlist to vote from

like your list

doppelgreener

@AncientSwordRage "i'll know it when i see it", emphasis on being quick to pick up and run rather than small, and that's a qualitative measure

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener I guess we can let meta votes do the talking?

doppelgreener

13:11

@AncientSwordRage I was planning to run and choose them myself for at least the first couple of times, hadn't actually considered voting, lol

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener you could simply seed the answers with those 5

doppelgreener

13:49

So here's what I might do: the first couple of times, I'm going to pick the list myself (with input from others), because I have no idea how community involvement would look and do not want that to sink the ship before it's sailed. I want to use that opportunity to get the idea across. Then if the community seems at least a bit interested in this thing, I'll start opening votes and run it that way.

If that drums up participation, cool, if not, I'll post anyway and go a little longer and see if it begins to take.

bobble

Another problem that could come up is topic challenge fatigue. Over at Puzzling, the first topic challenge of the reboot got a bunch of wonderful entries, and the latest only a trickle.

doppelgreener

For sure

The Oracle

1

Q: What can we do as a community to take flagging obsolete comments more seriously?

Whenever I use my privilege to use the tool page to look at the recent activity of the last thirty days, I see it filled with questions and answers with more than ten comments. When looking at an answer or question, we want all of the relevant information in that body. So my next inclination is t...

discussion comments

doppelgreener

Do Puzzling, Scifi and Literature run these each and every month?

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener Sci-fi does, I think so does Lit

bobble

13:53

Puzzling does it on a fortnightly basis (new topic every two weeks) Literature does overlapping 2-month challenges

(on Lit each month there are two topics active)

doppelgreener

I think here it would make sense to go no faster than once every 2 months.

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener seems like a good pace

bobble

Puzzling is special on this regard, as it takes so much time and effort to craft a good topic challenge puzzle, that many will start working before the topic challenge officially begins! Not a problem on sites where questions are questions, though.

doppelgreener

Here is my thinking about how it'd go:
- Every even month (so beginning April) I put forward one of these posts. I list five-ish small and easy to pick up RPGs. If I list a big RPG, it's just one, and it has to be off the beaten path.
- Only even months are challenge months, so that odd months are a definite break from them, even though everyone's welcome to continue to mess around with the games, share their experiences, or ask questions.
- The post is an invitation to pick up one of these games and run a single session or one-shot with it.

I need to present games that are easy enough to pick up, but complex enough people can actually ask questions about them and expect to get any answer at all. A postcard RPG is definitely easy to pick up runs the issue that there is no room for objective questions, you've already read the whole thing and know as much as anyone else.
However, people may still ask subjective questions, and fellow players trying that game for the challenge this month can help advise on what worked for them resolving that issue.

AncientSwordRage

on the surface I don't see any issuea

bobble

14:02

Will you offer any bounties? Code Golf drums up some participation for Language of the Month by offering bounties on good answer submissions. Though I don't know if any other stack that does that.

doppelgreener

Oh, right. Do we actually want any incentivisation factors? It might be helpful to just encourage people participating in the games to consider placing bounties on questions asked about the game they played and reward answers.

but then an element like that might not actually be necessary or helpful

to the extent rep is a factor, simply asking and answering questions will be a source for it

Ok, actually, no specific incentivisation will likely be best to try first. Thinking back to some rpg design guidance: incentivisation mechanisms are made for modifying behaviour to match the expected outcome, so it's important to first try something out and see what the participants will do on their own, and then see if there's anything to modify and see what will provide the appropriate modification.

bobble

Also, probably best to put together an announcement/check of interest meta post as soon as possible; need to make sure that non-chatters know that something's happening and would participate.

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener this would make a good basis for such a post

I'd be happy to help proof read

bobble

@AncientSwordRage s/god/good

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Play in the back room or on discord?

I got to play Golden Sky Stories, Honey Heist, and Great Ork Gods thanks to similar initiatives

@doppelgreener I picked up Flotsam a few years ago and still have not played it.

AncientSwordRage

14:17

@bobble thanks friend

bobble

will you still be thanking me after the nth pedantic typo-check, is the question

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast Anywhere at all. Play with other stackizens at a venue of your choice, play with your household, play on discord with your friends, etc.

KorvinStarmast

@bobble There's a very old meme "Thank you sir, may I have another" that may apply here.

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast hehehehe, i know that one

AncientSwordRage

@bobble yup!

KorvinStarmast

14:24

@doppelgreener I still owe my son a movie night where we watch Blade Runner, and Animal House. I finally got to movie night with him a few months back to see Alien, and Aliens. Finally. He went back to san antonio, so I'll need to figure out when we can do that. Maybe I'll take a trip there and we have a guy's movie night at his apartment.

@doppelgreener He's introduced me to some neat off brand movies, and the Dark Mirror series. So I've been finding movies I never shared with him and we get out the popcorn ...

doppelgreener

14:46

@KorvinStarmast I was recently reminded of 12 Monkeys, on account of trying to think of movies with solid time travel plots—and it's the strongest that came to mind.

That might be a good one to check out. It's got Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis in their heyday too.

Akixkisu

15:35

@Medix2 thinking it through, ask your Dm is the best answer - I thought there was something more definitive, but it doesn't work. rpg.stackexchange.com/q/179646/44723

AncientSwordRage

16:10

1) does anyone here read any of the Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson) books? 2) is there a name for the shared universe between the boks?

KorvinStarmast

17:48

@doppelgreener I will review that at Rotten Tomatoes in case my wife would also like to see it. She and I have been experiencing divergent movie taste, so hopefully that one we can try out together.

Thomas Markov

This made me chuckle a bit

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov our past selves are our worst selves

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage what about people who get worse as they get older?

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov they're not me

I was going for poetic more than accurate

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov Present!

AncientSwordRage

17:59

@KorvinStarmast you're a gift

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage I keep telling my wife that and tend to get an eye roll from her ... go figure. 😂😂

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast keep trying

KorvinStarmast

18:16

@AncientSwordRage I have been told that I am (quite) trying ... sometimes ... by my wife. 😯

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast it's the trying that counts!

bobble

@AncientSwordRage it's probably quite trying for her.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble I gather

RevenantBacon

@AncientSwordRage Jokes on you guys, I have no worst self!

AncientSwordRage

@RevenantBacon and no best self?

bobble

18:26

An alternative to bounty-ing questions with only tweet answers one-by-one would be to make a meta post collecting all the questions you plan to bounty, and offering a deadline-less bounty for any good answers. Then you guarantee that bounties aren't wasted (though that doesn't look to be a problem anyhow.)

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov I am putting together that rogue question vis a vis hand xbow. I have a level cap of 13, as I do not believe the campaign I think I am going to enter will bet past 11 or 12 if we are fortunate with scheduling.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble seems reasonable

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast What are you looking for?

bobble

@AncientSwordRage just offerin' ideas

KorvinStarmast

@BESW thanks for that article from Graeme Barber, that looks like the adventure I had thought about running for my group ... but tonight I am not running it.

Thomas Markov

18:34

@bobble I've only come across 3 so far.

bobble

Here's some more

(some false positives there)

And that link only catches bare URLs, seems like... perhaps an SEDE query is called for

Thomas Markov

Im using SEDE in my hunt.

Also, funny thing, a significant portion of these tweet only answers are from one user

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov I am thinking about asking a question for damage optimization with bench marks at 1, 6, and 9. I am still not sure that I have to use swashbuckler for the Highwayman character, so the comparison with Arcane Trickster may be how the question kicks off.

bobble

Oh sorry, I thought that "come across" implied you were only finding these by chance when trawling through archives

Medix2

@KorvinStarmast Oh maybe I misread the order in the warding bond question... But if the person taking the damage from the spell has resistance, that resistance applies

KorvinStarmast

18:50

@Medix2 but it does not stack with the additional 'resistance to all things' that Warding bond provides. That was my point.

Medix2

The second instance of damage does

Like 20 damage --> 10 damage to A --> 5 damage to B

But oh well, now they responded and said they agree with what you said, which is the opposite of what they (and the question I linked to) said, so... yeah, all's well that ends well I suppose

RevenantBacon

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, that's the joke :p

Self-deprecating humor is the best kind

Medix2

19:35

@ThomasMarkov Do you understand Rykara's recent bounty?

I'm not sure that the change to range "Self (5-foot radius)" actually changes anything about the answer?

Thomas Markov

The change of the range does nothing

Which is to say, no, I dont understand the bounty.

Medix2

Cool, it's not just me

Thomas Markov

Seems like it should have been a comment, especially since the answer's author was:

> Last seen 48 mins ago

Medix2

19:57

I wish you could @ a bounty maker though

bobble

You can

> For questions: any user who put a bounty on the question (current or expired)

Source: meta.stackexchange.com/a/43020

Medix2

Oh, it's just not suggested, how odd

Thomas Markov

Give it a shot

Ive done enough to make the bounty awkward.

Medix2

Oh, right, I can try to @ you

Thomas Markov

ayy do it

bobble

20:03

for SCIENCE!

Thomas Markov

im gonna flag it for harrassment

Medix2

Time to find something you previously bountied now

Thomas Markov

i have three bounties up right now.

Medix2

I commented on one

Thomas Markov

It worked.

Why is it "@Tho"?

Medix2

20:04

I know you need at least three characters and I couldn't remember if @'s used spaces or underscores or what so I just went "whatever, just three then"

It makes @'ing people with names that don't start with typical letters more difficult when there's no auto-fill suggestions

bobble

I'm easy to ping :)

Medix2

I think it defaults to most recent activity after that. So if Thomas sent a message and then Thommy sent a message and I went "@Thom" it would @ Thommy

Thomas Markov

ugh I hate @Thommy.

@Helwar everything good with that character sheet?

RevenantBacon

@Medix2 Yeah, it's super hard to @ C̴̡̭͓͍͎̾̽̑̔̓̚t̸̡͉͕͕̔͐̓͑̆̇̑̍͒̚ḩ̴̛̤̖͓͍̗̹̖̤͎̲̜̈́͐͑̀̍̎̇̾̐̾͆́̏̈́͠͝u̷̢̯̰̳̳̭͓̠̦̲͕̖̠͙̼̺̠͐́̿̉͘̕l̸̨͔͖̬̥̝̬̈́́̓̿̌͊̊̾̅͌̕͝h̶̖̻̻͓̼̫̜̔̌̽͆̆̑̅̉̈̑̾̊͝u̷̡͔̱̯̫̙̞͂̊̽̄̓̄͜ͅ

bobble

83

Q: He who must not be named? (aka Anyone can ping everyone in chat)

For some or other reason, typing @ᔕᖺᘎᕊ in a chat room pings everyone who's been in that chat room for the last 7 days... Seems to work in all chat rooms (I only tested 2 as I don't want to upset too many people...) How should we proceed?

bug status-completed chat ping

Thomas Markov

20:13

@RevenantBacon can you make that your username?

Does it still work?

bobble

The chat bug? No, it's fixed, as far as I know.

Thomas Markov

So there would be nothing wrong with trying it for funsies

bobble

theoretically

Thomas Markov

@ᔕᖺᘎᕊ

anything?

bobble

nope

KorvinStarmast

20:20

For those of you interested in a home built helicopter ...
https://youtu.be/JNMHWwoAyzc

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@ThomasMarkov How does this work?

Thomas Markov

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica no idea, see bobble's linked mse post above

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@ThomasMarkov I did, but server requests are an unfamiliar area for me, so I'm not sure how everything becomes considered to be like ᔕᖺᘎᕊ (and even that might be a case of me misunderstanding why the ping was meant to target everyone).

bobble

@PatrickHofman Switch to a binary collation. Apparently SQL Server tries to be really smart when comparing strings even though I'd just like to compare two strings thank you very much. Credit for the quick fix goes to Nick Craver by the way who knew immediately why SQL Server was behaving like this. — balpha Sep 24 '15 at 13:23

The server they were asking "do these two strings match, if so, ping" decided that "ᔕᖺᘎᕊ" matched everything

("two strings" = the text after the @, and a given username in the database)

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

20:37

Yeah, but how did they end up considered matching. There's something interesting going on within the comparison, but I don't know what. I don't get it.

Helwar

@ThomasMarkov Hey sorry didn't notice the mention. Yeah! Working great for the moment thank you very much!

bobble

The comment section is also confused and no-one seems to fully understand why it broke

Thomas Markov

@V2Blast with the BIG EDIT here

go upvote, it's a good answer

RevenantBacon

@ThomasMarkov Not sure, I dunno if the [Username] variable can hold special characters like accents, which it would have to if you were to use that. I don't know how to change my username, so I definitely can't make mine in to that

bobble

go to your profile, "Edit profile and settings", and change your "Display name"

Someone_Evil

20:47

Chat uses the name of your host site (for most here that's rpg), you can change that display name on your profile page

bobble

Your chat display name will be the name of your parent user

RevenantBacon

It appears to hit the character limit 3 letters in

ACuriousMind

@RevenantBacon Usernames are for better or worse full unicode, but if you use zalgo like that it'll likely break stuff on the site and mods will reset it, cf. meta

RevenantBacon

@ACuriousMind Ÿ̸̛̰͙̮͉̺͔̳̪̼́́̈̂ȍ̶̮̥̀̑́̏́̈u̸̥̫̿̽͑͆́̌̂͛̏͘͝ ̵̨̨̝̠͕̣̘̺̩̦͙̭̋͜͠c̵͕̘̪͍͈̻̤̹͓͚̊à̴̡̛̛̠̩̠͎̯̦͖̺̤͖̩̥̄͑̿̄̚͘̕n̴̢͇͕̠̖̮̮̗̈́'̷̠̬̹̜̅̀͒̓̌̐͐̉̌̂̕ṯ̴̢̤̜̜͇͇̪̭͇͑̿́̆ ̶͎͇̜̘̫͍̗̽̀͑̆͘̕͝ţ̸̮̬̻̦̯͚̘̭̩͎̠͊͊̊̌ẽ̶̹̈̈́͂̈́̃̈́̎̓̽͂͐͝l̴͚͎̮̀̀̉̒̍̓͂̚l̵̺̮̞͈͇̟̮̹̒̐̀̋̎̋̿͊̍̀̀͜͝͠ ̴͎͓̟̮̝̖͋m̵͙͓̙̖̟̺̭͈̎́̊̽̈́͝ę̸͕͚͖̠̳͍͗̉̓̉͋̄͌́̍̚̕͜ ̴̜̬̦͓̣̤͇̱͈̙͉͝w̸̡̡͍͓͚̩̬̬̮̠͖͚͇̍̈h̸̛͍̔͂̇͆͛a̶̧͕̣̝̙̫̝͕͂t̶͍͚̺̆̋͝ ̸̞̣̎́̒̚͝ţ̷͍̯̱̪͙̩̗̔̎͂͂̕͝o̴̦͓̞͓͔͇̣̱̦̰̪͑̏̔͗̊͊̃̾͘̕͜͝ ̶̨̛̦̹͚̀͗̃͐̒͝d̸̢̧̪̺͎͌̈ó̴̳͕͛̂̄̐̆̏͘ͅ!̸̡͚͇̲̟̌̀̎̄͂́́͂̚

:p

But yeah,character limits are too short to do anything truly horrendous with it

I can do some sillyness though.

Akixkisu

21:50

Would love to hear more input about this topic rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/q/11423/44723

bobble

get me to make an account :P I do a lot of flagging on Puzzling and Literature

Ben

23:17

@BaconyRevanant Well that felt like I walked in on something I shouldn't have

@all [wave]

bobble

can ya see me down here?

Ben

@bobble Depends on the perspective'

bobble

Can you fly?

Ben

Not yet. Still working on that

bobble

Then you probably can't see me, since I'm statistically likely to be shorter than most other people here.

Ben

23:29

Well, I'm in Australia, so I have an inverted look compared to most users

Thomas Markov

23:47

@Akixkisu I’m not sure it’s actually a problem that needs solving.

We have some of the tamest comment sections on the network.

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