TRPG General Chat

Axoren

7:00 PM

We only have the rest of the internet to blame for the headline, is all I was saying.

And the editor.

Two villains, that's like a half-campaign.

GcL

I blame the cats and the music they listen to.

KorvinStarmast

@RevanantBacon I got to watch a rather extensive argument about that thing over at GiTP when the initial issue arose and found it to be ... filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing

RevanantBacon

On an unrelated note, a certain someone, who I won't name publicly, definitely made an edit to one of my questions from 2 months ago just so that they could un-upvote it

KorvinStarmast

@RevanantBacon was it me?

GcL

@RevanantBacon You need me to counteract that with a downvote? I've got a spare from yesterday on the edge of my desk. It's perilously close to my coffee mug and I'd be happy to be rid of it.

Axoren

7:03 PM

Wow. That's the pettiest thing.

@GcL Are you going to edit one of their posts to un-downvote it?

KorvinStarmast

I think I have done that a half a dozen times after someone bumps a question and I relaize that I find an answer to be wrong or somehow not good. Rare, but I have done it.

RevanantBacon

It's not that I care about the points, it's just that it's really weird.

Axoren

Also, how can you tell? Did you see their score drop after the edit?

RevanantBacon

@KorvinStarmast No, it wasn't you.

KorvinStarmast

@axoren if your score changes, you'll see it when you log in under the trophy cup label

GcL

7:04 PM

@Axoren I can just throw a downvote on it to balance it out if needed.

KorvinStarmast

@RevanantBacon OK, good, I am aware that it's probably not a great thing to do ...

Someone_Evil

@RevanantBacon I would be very careful to assume that was the same person. If I'm looking at the right thing there's an hour between the events and the edit was made for a reason

KorvinStarmast

What I have done more often is find an answer I once down voted, but I didn't realize had been improved, and then I need to edit it to change it to an up vote

Axoren

@KorvinStarmast Right, but you don't really get an indication of who changed their vote. It could have just been a coincidence, normally.

RevanantBacon

@Axoren A combination of the system telling me what time I got the -10 score change, and the fact that the edit was the exact same time

KorvinStarmast

7:05 PM

@Axoren true enough

GcL

@RevanantBacon You're a ten in my book.

RevanantBacon

@Someone_Evil Well, according to my not exact measurements, they were both in the range of 9 hours ago

Axoren

@GcL They received a net -2 (lost an upvote, gained a downvote), so giving them another -1 seems like the opposite of balance. Did you mean giving a -1 to the person who did it?

RevanantBacon

And the tag change was incorrect

Someone_Evil

@RevanantBacon 9.50 vs 10.56

GcL

7:07 PM

You need an exact measure? You're a 10.08 and that's the best made up precision I can give you.

KorvinStarmast

@GCL for what it's worth, -10 (pronounced Dash Ten) is what the US Air Force calls their flight manuals for a given aircraft model. Or maybe itn's the Army. They both seem to use the same numbering scheme.

Axoren

@Someone_Evil The Villain: "I will now way nearly exactly one hour before downvoting, to cover my tracks. Muahahaha."

KorvinStarmast

Maybe the Air Force calls theirs the Dash One (-1) man, my memory is shot.

GcL

@KorvinStarmast I think the Brits call the '-' character stroke. "Form ten aye stroke bee" 10A-B

Someone_Evil

@RevanantBacon Whether that tag needs to exist can be left to the meta q, probably

Axoren

7:08 PM

Also, if you're unvoted, doesn't it become -12 total?

GcL

@KorvinStarmast Hold on. I'll ask.

Axoren

-2 from receiving the downvote, -10 from losing the upvote?

nitsua60

@KorvinStarmast I'm sure I've done that, too. Not like I'm going around looking to do it, but I wouldn't shy away from it, either.

RevanantBacon

@Someone_Evil Which, the original tag, or the adjusted tag?

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 I have been busy today, it seems, only a couple of votes left. Where do the votes go?

nitsua60

7:10 PM

When you're high enough in the rep-brackets, there's a pretty large marginal tax rate on those votes =)

GcL

@KorvinStarmast I think their quitting time is 3pm? I assume they've got a coffee shop or bar they all hang out at and complain about the users misapplying their talents.

Someone_Evil

@RevanantBacon Oh, didn't quite catch one was added too. Hmm.. it's an odd one

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 I better see my accountant, we may be in deficit voting at this point ... 😲

GcL

@Someone_Evil Like +7 ?

RevanantBacon

@Someone_Evil [Simulacrum] was removed and [Illusion] was added

KorvinStarmast

7:11 PM

@GcL Yes, that's a growth industry, profits to be had.

RevanantBacon

Which seems... pointless, or possible actively detrimental

GcL

@KorvinStarmast I have heard that internet points generate interest.

KorvinStarmast

Or apathy

Someone_Evil

@RevanantBacon 5e calls simulacri (?) illusions, but it isn't really one. At least, it isn't usefully described that way

RevanantBacon

Either way, the edit was completely unnecessary

GcL

7:12 PM

@KorvinStarmast Unless it's so many internet points that people get sick of it. That's called going viral.

Axoren

They made the edit, and then when they saw the tags were wrong they were like "Why did I upvote this?" and changed their vote.

KorvinStarmast

@GcL I am pleased to report that a friend of mine, whose bar closed last year (thanks to our dear old novel virus) has reopened and it's thriving. we got a whole bunch of the old crowd to show up.

RevanantBacon

@Someone_Evil Yes, Simulacrum is an Illusion spell, but it's not very Illusion-y. Due to its special nature it's very different from most any other illusion spell.

GcL

@KorvinStarmast If I ever get over my disdain for people and start going to bars again, I'll stop by and have a few.

Axoren

I wonder, if you use Italian Ice as the component for Simulacrum, does your copy taste like cherry?

bobble

7:14 PM

the edit and un-upvote were about 3 minutes apart

GcL

@RevanantBacon Simulacrum is actually the most illusionary. It's gives the illusion that it's an illusion.

That really fools readers.

@Axoren If you use vanilla, it gets a brief but successful rap career.

Someone_Evil

@bobble The unupvote or the downvote?

bobble

un-upvote

The Oracle

2

Q: Is the [tag:simulacrum] a necessary addition?

I notice that simulacrum has been added again. My personal opinion is that it is unnecessary. Seeing as the user who has added it most recently rolled back my standard procedure removal edit, I want to try to get a consensus before going ahead and rolling back edits to the questions where they ad...

KorvinStarmast

@GcL Groan

bobble

7:16 PM

oh, sorry

downvote

i got the two things confused

bobble stupid

Axoren

Bobble human.

RevanantBacon

~~The un-upvote shouldn't have been possible prior to the edit. Votes are locked in after like 15 minutes~~ Nevermind

Axoren

@RevanantBacon Is it no longer true?

RevanantBacon

@Axoren It is true, but it's not relevant, because I herp-derped

Axoren

I know I've been stopped on SO from un-upvoting something that turned out to have irreversibly bricked my tablet

GcL

7:20 PM

Yeeeesh. Leave a comment on that one.

I've seen some pretty bad copy pasta on SO and technical stacks.

Axoren

Then there was another one that nearly bricked our database server. "Just run this one-liner. I don't have to tell you that this will absolutely obliterate the sudoer's group and prevent anyone from every getting admin access again."

GcL

Lots of those. "Well it worked on my machine" kinds of answers.

Axoren

If done without the -a tag, you will add the user to the tomcat group, but remove MIUSER from all other groups they belong to (this means no more sudo group). I just had to act quickly to recover my groups on the main account on one of my servers, retrieving them from an old session where I still held those groups. A word of warning to other users reading this answer. — Axoren Jul 20 '16 at 18:56

I'm so glad RPG.SE can't give advice equivalently destructive to the above.

GcL

@Axoren Probably a chat for elemental plane of math. I don't like when I get detoured into technobabble in this chat.

RevanantBacon

@Axoren I would have edited that directly into the answer as an addendum.

Axoren

7:24 PM

I don't have enough rep on Super User

Oh, maybe I do, but someone has to peer review it.

RevanantBacon

@Axoren Well, I suppose that's fair.

The Oracle

7:42 PM

0

Q: Why do my answers and comments keep getting shut down because I say "thank you"?

Every time I post an answer to my question or someone makes a small suggestion I respond and then I say something along the lines of "Thanks" or "Thank you". This ends up in my answer/comment getting deleted. Why is this?

support

Upper_Case

7:52 PM

Based off of a meta posted recently, is the [system-agnostic] tag even all that much of a thing? I feel like, but can't demonstrate, that there is a broad push to include "all relevant details" for a question and situation, and those often fold in specific game mechanics and options. And outside of that I feel like people often omit the tag, maybe treating lack of a system tag to be a default category

Do those perceived perceptions match others' here?

Thomas Markov

@Upper_Case I'm planning a meta question about that for tomorrow haha

Upper_Case

@ThomasMarkov Lol, I'll wait for that then. You pretty reliably bring good evidence to meta where it's possible to do so

Thomas Markov

I intend to put forward the idea that it has been historically under utilized.

Upper_Case

That does sound accurate to me, but I'll wait for the meta question to move my thumb all the way up

Thomas Markov

We have hundreds of questions with no system tag and no system-agnostic tag.

Upper_Case

8:00 PM

I do suspect an unmarked category issue. I also think that [system-agnostic] is an odd tag to make use of, but that's not relevant or interesting

Axoren

The goal of a tag is to make a question searchable. What does system-agnostic do for searchability?

Are people really looking for questions that would be system-agnostic?

Upper_Case

It's not totally implausible to me that someone might want that information (if they're looking for issues which seem to crop up in many different game systems, maybe), but it does seem odd to me that people would not be searching at least one other tag. But just because I can't think of why I would search with that tag doesn't mean that no one might

In any event I'm trying to formalize my thoughts and recollections about the tag's use (just to clarify that I'm not trying to push in any direction)

Carcer

I understand the system-agnostic tag is basically a defence against people demanding to know what system you're playing

Glazius

8:16 PM

@Axoren There is literally a meta up from someone who is, yes. rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11480

Axoren

@Glazius I'll cede the point, but this case specifically seems like something more appropriately solved by a feature request for SE tag search. Excluding tags should be something search allows in the first place. "I want to find questions about 5e, not Pathfinder. Stop showing me Pathfinder results."

Also, there are questions asked with the intention of using the answers and conclusions drawn with a specific system, but when in reality, the question and answers are system agnostic.

Like "I am running a 5e campaign, how do I deal with problem players?"

Example:

20

Q: How else can I deal with a problem player?

So, I've been DMing for about 5 months now, and I have encountered a problem player. He was one of the two friends that helped get me into DnD, but I don't enjoy playing with at him all. A few of the grievances I have with the player are: He made his own PC race without my permission, which can...

dnd-5e gm-techniques problem-players

Tagged dnd-5e, invisible to the system-agnostic tag, but all discussion therein has little if anything to do with the mechanics of the game, but moreso the mechanics of social dynamics.

Upper_Case

Mis-tagging has always been an issue, to some degree or another, but I think that there is not (or has not been) a big constituency to promote the [system-agnostic] tag. So unnecessarily system-tagged questions don't see adjustments, while opposite pressures often lead to system-agnostic questions being given a system tag

KorvinStarmast

@Carcer not going to vote against that. 😎

Akixkisu

@TheOracle does anyone have a description in mind for simulacra that ilusions or constructs don't cover and would warrant assembling expertise that these two do not already gather?

Axoren

8:31 PM

@Upper_Case But is it mis-tagged? If anything, questions like that should have both tags because there could be certain circumstances within the question pertaining to dnd-5e and the overall goal of the question is system-agnostic.

The question I used as an example has a short blurb that is 5e specific regarding the party's characters, but otherwise it doesn't all too much include such circumstances.

Thomas Markov

@Axoren One of the searches in my answer excludes tags.

For example, searching “[spells] -[dnd-5e]” yields questions tagged [spells] and not tagged [dnd-5e].

Akixkisu

@Axoren rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8833/… covers all of that.

Axoren

Oh, they have -.

Upper_Case

@Axoren The [system-agnostic] tag and any system tag are supposed to be mutually exclusive, I think. Someone_Evil posted a nice comment about that on the answer to the meta question at issue

Axoren

The poster from the previous meta question made it seem so much harder to exclude tags like they were pruning it themselves.

Upper_Case

8:36 PM

I do believe that many posters ultimately included system tags that are not necessary nor helpful in answering the questions fully, nor in improving searchability, but I don't have evidence for that beyond a general sense of it over the years

doppelgreener

@Axoren the game and its environs set up those social dynamics

social dynamic problems you run into in the scope of D&D 5e are different from social dynamic problems you run into in Masks, in turn different from social dynamic problems you run into in Fate

there's nothing "system agnostic" about a player being a huge rules lawyer who's built their own PC race and wants to kill another PC, that's a set of problems that appear strongly in D&D, and the nature of their emergence and resolution is specific to the tools D&D gives you

the threats of violence with a nerf gun are pretty bad though

Axoren

@doppelgreener That's a fair point. I guess in-line with what Someone_Evil mentioned in their comment is a better approach: finding a non-system-agnostic tag that covers the kind of questions people want to look for.

doppelgreener

i mean, this is a problem-player dnd-5e question

Someone_Evil

And to save folks searching:

@Upper_Case A question can be about (and should thus be tagged) a specific system, without it being system specific expertise which resolves the problem. What expertise is needed for a problem isn't something for the tag system can handle perfectly, but it can help find if used correctly — Someone_Evil ♦ 16 mins ago

(I assume that's the comment that was being referred to)

doppelgreener

to the extent that it might be a question that doesn't require system-/setting-specific knowledge to answer—well, it isn't one. providing a good answer to resolving social dynamics around a game almost always require an understanding of that game, because of the way problems emerge and the way they get resolved.

Axoren

8:41 PM

I'm not sure if that's the one that expressed the mutual-exclusivity of tags.

I was having trouble finding that comment specifically.

Someone_Evil

@Axoren Was it the one before on the same answer?

doppelgreener

For example, the top two answers to that problem player question both talk at length about the exact nature of the problems describe as they occur in the scope of D&D.

Someone_Evil

Otherwise I don't know what words of mine you mean, and that's a touch distressing

Axoren

That's the one I thought Upper_Case was talking about, but it doesn't seem to match what they said

9 mins ago, by Upper_Case

@Axoren The [system-agnostic] tag and any system tag are supposed to be mutually exclusive, I think. Someone_Evil posted a nice comment about that on the answer to the meta question at issue

doppelgreener

Likewise, people trying to answer social dynamics questions that arise in PBTA or Fate but don't have any familiarity with those systems usually fall flat, because they have no idea what the significance is of the problems described, and have no idea how to identify how they'd arise or how to resolve them within the scope of the game. (We have had people actually suggest "rocks fall everyone dies" as a solution to Dungeon World problems where you cannot do that even if you'd want to)

Axoren

8:44 PM

I may be misreading two separate thoughts as one conjoined thought

@doppelgreener "Rocks fall everyone dies" is already a low-quality answer even with systems where rocks can fall and everyone can die.

doppelgreener

Well, it is, yes

Upper_Case

@Someone_Evil You are correct (and sorry to all for being unclear)

Axoren

No worries. Human. It happens.

human, verb: to err

Someone_Evil

I think it might be a natural extension of those thoughts. The sys ag tag can sometimes be used as "I don't think the solution is in-system/system specific", but if the situation is about 5e (or whatever system it happens to be), the question is about that system (see the last few minutes of doppel messages), regardless whether they were right about the solution (which isn't usually something we require of questions)

Upper_Case

@Axoren I pointed (very obliquely) to that comment because it's the best explanation I've seen about how system-specific knowledge might help certain systems might arise from that system; but if you have to know about a system to provide a good answer then it is not a system-agnostic question

Someone_Evil

8:48 PM

Unless I've now humaned about something

4

Upper_Case

Even if it has system-agnostic elements, or arises in some form in multiple systems (in ways that are not precisely similar)

might help certain *situation that might arise from that system (ugh; not a good day for me to be doing heavy database work...O

Axoren

Now I'm curious. Are questions about translating content from one system to another tagged with both? Like how you'd move monsters and boss creatures from 3.5 to 5e?

They are. Neat. That makes sense.

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren In the Storm Kings Thunder, rocks fall and everyone ~~dies~~ (would have died except the cloud giants had bad aim) is how a published adventure starts ... 😎

doppelgreener

If you search the RPG.SE mod room for "system agnostic", you'll find Seven Sided Die and I talking together at length at some point in 2018-2019 about the different ways system agnostic gets used. I remember at least a few of them:
- "I didn't mention a system and want you to not ask and just give me generic answers" [which usually results in D&D-ish answers]
- "I mentioned a system but please ignore it and give me system agnostic answers" [which also usually results in D&D-ish answers]
- "This simply has no relation to a system whatsoever because I am asking about terminology or something"…

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren yes it does

@Someone_Evil golf clap

Axoren

8:53 PM

@KorvinStarmast That's fairly tongue-in-cheek and a neat little easter egg.

Didn't even make that connection.

DM didn't shove it in our face that it was a rocks fall joke

Akixkisu

@Axoren rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/184476/… rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/184370/… if it is specific.

@Trish I think your comment sums the issue up.

Trish

@Someone_Evil you proposed to keep a tag, so propose what the tag should be. I already gave you all the reasons why the tag is problematic. Ship around the cliffs.

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren When I read through the adventure in preparation for starting that module, I just cracked up when I got to 'where did those rocks come from' part of the narrative.

Someone_Evil

@Trish Do you mind explaining that idiom (?) at the end? I'm unfamiliar with it.

(For the actual inquest, see my edit and reply)

Trish

@Someone_Evil it's nautic: to navigate through troublesome waters.

Someone_Evil

9:05 PM

Ok, some of the meaning seems to be lost on me, but I hope it isn't vital

Trish

nope. It's just "careful, look out for the problems with the (thing, here: tag) that I pointed out"

Someone_Evil

Could we solve that when it becomes a problem with Breakaway's questions and their tagging? Trying to solve every possible problem in advance isn't gonna be very workable

doppelgreener

9:24 PM

@Someone_Evil Personally I'm down for having tags for spells that just have a tremendous number of questions about that spell specifically, with problems that uniquely come up with that spell. You cite a couple of examples in your answer, like Wish. It might help to check if there are in fact a tremendous number of questions about using Simulacrum and Simulacra specifically and, if there are, reference that fact.

I suspect it is in fact one of those in the same league as Wish, but it's worth making sure

Someone_Evil

Going by word, there are 111 results with simulacrum, 898 with wish (120 questions are tagged with wish, but a negative search shows there's at least a fair bit of undertagging).

How many of those hundred would end up with the tag I can't say, I suspect a higher rate than normal for new tags, as that word is unlikely to be used casually

Trish

But Simulacrum is a generic word. We should not tag it to any one system.

Just like we had to liberate Magus from being "This is for the class in XYZ"

Someone_Evil

But we don't tag words, we tag concepts and topics

Glazius

So remind me why we don't do dnd-5e-simulacrum as a tag?

Trish

We don't tag with system-addons.

doppelgreener

9:31 PM

so are feats and aspects, but when only one game is using those things, it makes sense to handle them as associated with that game (until the situation changes)

@Glazius we basically just haven't crossed that bridge

Trish

D&D5 drives me crazy: the many questions about its very basic concepts and many homebrew ones show that it must be a very badly designed system, especially its core idea "GM, invent shit, we are too lazy to balance anything for you."

Someone_Evil

I'm not sure that's exceptionally relevant, nor an accurate representation, but it isn't framed such I feel a desire to respond to it further

Glazius

Is there a way to link a specific version of an answer, or do I just gesture in the direction of a history page? This is in service to the discussion.

Someone_Evil

Revisions show a link (next to source and edit under the title)

Trish

@Someone_Evil I mean, Since 5E came out, any non 5e question is buried under them. Questions about non D&D are rarely seen or answered. most homebrew questions are still of dubious quality and many many questions on 5e are explain the rule to me. Which tells me the game must be VERY bad at bad at describing them.

Hot RPG Questions

9:45 PM

5

Q: Can I Help my Bigby's Hand shove a creature off of a ledge?

Situation Lore Bard, level 10, Magical Secrets choices are Bigby's Hand and Wall of Force. Known opponents include giants (Frost and Hill). We are in mountainous terrain. I suspect that we'll have some battles where cliffs and ledges factor in tactically, so I am trying to prepare. What I wish ...

dnd-5e spells helping

Akixkisu

@V2Blast I clicked through the edit before I noticed yours, my bad.

Someone_Evil

@Trish Assuming we mean the same by "explain the rule", part of that is folks learning the system without actually having the books. Either their table uses a given player (eg. the DMs) copy which they wont have free access to, or they're picking up eg from being introduced by a podcast. I'm not claiming the 5e books nor system are/is perfect, but there are other factors affecting the questions we get

Trish

@Someone_Evil That might be, but 5E has a plenthora of low quality questions. As if nobody reads the rules or owns them. Or even is able to just google it!

Someone_Evil

Well, the ones who do don't end up asking the question so we don't see it

And part of the idea of SE is that those who google it should find our question on it

doppelgreener

There's games I've played with BESW and co. where we earnestly tried to race to ask the first question on the site, and couldn't find a single one even hunting through the books for gaps and issues or checking issues we had in play.

D&D does have a force multiplier of rarely making it clear how two mechanics connect.

(unless they are super basic interconnections, like "X deals damage to Y" with no interceptions like damage modifiers)

Akixkisu

9:54 PM

@doppelgreener Q&A system introductions seem like a good option.

Trish

@doppelgreener Which is in part what I mean with, the game is very bad at describing its own rules! D&D 5E is an atrocity in that it drowns out anything that is not itself.

ACuriousMind

@Trish I think to a large part that's just the effect that much more people have contact with DnD than with other systems, so you also get more low-quality questions about it. If I draw a crude analogy to my home site (physics): We get a lot of low-quality questions about elementary physics at high-school and undergraduate level, and far fewer low-quality questions about niche topics - partly because simply more people come into contact with high-school physics than other topics,

partly because anyone who is at the stage where they care about niche topics has had to learn how to figure out basic stuff for themselves or they wouldn't even have gotten to that level.

doppelgreener

I mean, it's not just popularity. D&D does have tons of mechanics with no explanation of how they connect and resolving the connection requires significant research.

Often if you put three mechanics in the same interaction, you have an RPG.SE question

Even D&D 4e would run into this issue from time to time, but it usually required knowing how to apply something relatively obscure but clear cut.

And that was a system that had systemic answers for things, not a system that said "use common sense, because these aren't game terms and we're mixing flavor with mechanics."

Akixkisu

5e has a tremendous issue with assumed knowledge.

And it is worse that said assumed knowledge is often in conflict.

Axoren

@Akixkisu Hence everyone flocking to Sage Advice for official mediation.

doppelgreener

9:59 PM

Every D&D edition has a huge learning curve, but from any given point on the curve things generally make sense and it looks smaller in hindsight. But it's intimidatingly obscure from the other side.

@Trish I hadn't considered before this conversation that D&D inherently generating discussion about itself through lack of clarity could serve as a marketing force to generate social presence where other games don't need as much talking about to operate them.

(I've considered that in the scope of RPG.SE but not globally)

Axoren

@doppelgreener That's a really interesting perspective, but I feel like it requires some starter "franchise power" to avoid people just disregarding it as a low-quality engine.

Trish

@Axoren the engine is good, the rest of the game is utter shoddy horseshoed together with no quality control.

Axoren

There are various card and board games that me and my friends play where they fail to cover something critical, like "what happens when the deck is empty?" Do we stop playing? Do we shuffle it back in? Do we declare a winner and play another round?

There were times in D&D's lifetime when there was no ruling on how to stop drowning. Drowning was easily accomplished and PERMANENT.

And every time my group tried to find the proper rules for it, we couldn't.

Like, does CPR work? Is there a skill check? Have they died?

In any other game, that would be a huge mark against it.

Trish

but in D&D it's accepted? Shadowrun had CPR handled since 2nd edition in 1989: it's a simple roll on the biotech thingy to stabilize a dying person. They had perfect rules for dancing chunky salsa (that could turn a troll into minced meat if he was in a 1.20 x 1.20 x 2.00 meters foxhole that was covered with a car)

Axoren

What on Earth is a chunky salsa? I at first thought you meant a dance, but then you said all that other stuff.

ACuriousMind

10:15 PM

@Axoren "chunky salsa" is the SR term what happens when you detonate an explosive in an enclosed space with formerly non-chunky organisms

Upper_Case

D&D has a weird issue in which it aspires to pretty tight mechanical balance, imposes really strict mechanics and systems in pursuit of that, and then ends up being both rigid and imbalanced. The one feeds the other, but both are issues independent of one another

ACuriousMind

there are detailed rules for how the explosion "reflects" off the walls and it usually doesn't end well for anything inside that enclosed space

Axoren

Ahh. That's neat. My group uses the term salsa to indicate being nearly dead because MapTools had a Red-Yellow-Green gradient for HP bars.

Salsa, Nacho Cheese, and Guac

ACuriousMind

tbh, SR is a mess ruleswise, too. It has different unclear areas compared to DnD, but it has the same sort of issue where additional supplements often don't interact well with each other or the main rules

Axoren

@ACuriousMind WAIT, the floor counts?

I just started watching a guide describing this mechanic

That makes grenades so dangerous indoors

Upper_Case

10:24 PM

SR also requires a lot of specific considerations and checks, which D&D 5e specifically tried to keep to a minimum

Glazius

So on the topic of system agnostic, I don't feel that I changed a lot between this version: rpg.stackexchange.com/revisions/182195/4 and this version: rpg.stackexchange.com/revisions/182195/5 of the answer except to explicitly turn the black light on and reveal the Dungeon World secret messages. It was a question about adaptive plotting, and Dungeon World like Apocalypse World before it wraps its tips about adaptive plotting in system-specific jargon.

Ultimately it wound up being more use to the querent because I did that, but one of the things that clued me into the need to make the change was people talking about how system-agnostic it was.

Trish

@ACuriousMind sure, but SR isn't lazy and overly restrictive at the same time. IT doesn't yell at the GM to make up everything and throws 10000 tons of imbalanced stuff at them.

Glazius

For all the systems out there with no jargon or advice on adaptive plotting, it's a system-agnostic answer, I think?

ACuriousMind

@Axoren well, the rules (at least in 5e) don't say specifically one way or the other: "When a grenade detonates in a confined space, such as a hallway or room, the gamemaster must first determine whether any barriers (usually walls) stood firm against the explosion. Consult the Destroying Barriers rules (p. 197). If the walls or doors hold up, the blast is channeled."

you tell me - is a floor/ceiling a "barrier", when all examples only ever consider walls?

Upper_Case

Not if it's made of mesh!

Axoren

10:30 PM

@ACuriousMind That's vague enough to ask Jeremy Crawdwarf.

One thing that D&D does a lot of is say "Okay, creatures can fly" but neglects to mention to vertical components of their spells because they expect everyone to play on a planar grid.

Like, someone here before mentioned that cones are also tall.

However, XGE, the book for 5e that explained how to decide which squares are it by spells, still manged to ignore the vertical aspect of cones.

The "Use a paper template" solution fails once you realize you need a cone hologram and floating minis to physically model some combats.

ACuriousMind

@Trish true, it has a lot more detailed rules for everything. I feel like I'm mostly making up stuff in SR when I'm too lazy to crawl through the rulebook to figure out which of a few dozen modifiers to add to a roll "by the rules" :P

Upper_Case

@Axoren I have not found any 3D-grid options that are all that fun or intuitive... in practice it's a 2D game with possible translation from point A to point B that happens to utilize a third dimension for that movement alone

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: M&M 3e Fastball Special

I, being a fairly typical Powerhouse, want to chuck my friends at enemies so they can do a Slam Attack (or is it a Charge Attack? Whatever makes you use movement speed for damage). How would I go about doing this? I can't find an official ruling for it.

mutants-and-masterminds-3e throwing-things mutants-and-masterminds

Axoren

I feel like a better way to treat rules is like Special Moves that anyone in the universe can enact. "I invoke the Falling Rules against that person I just pushed off the ledge. They take 20d6 falling damage." That way, if you forget a rule, it's just you missing out on that law of physics for a second.

This means that if you wanna do something the rules don't allow for? If no one invokes the rule that stops you, that's the Rule of Cool.

However, this would make the GM a narc when he tells you Dogfolk can't play Baseball.

Akixkisu

@ACuriousMind it doesn't help that they are notoriously difficult to find.

ACuriousMind

10:41 PM

yeah, the searchability/organization of the SR books is terrible

Akixkisu

My experience with SR is that we use it as a lore engine with some very loose conflict resolution mechanics. Shout out to the Genesis framework that prevents some of the issues of character concept creation.

It is enjoyable when it shouts at me for using invalid combinations.

V2Blast

11:17 PM

@Akixkisu The unfortunate thing is, because your edit affected the body of the question after it was closed, it'll cause the question to appear in the reopen votes queue (without addressing the reason it was closed - the lack of system).

Akixkisu

@V2Blast I'm confused about the statement, your edit does the same, unless I'm missing something.

V2Blast

@Akixkisu Nope. Look at the revision history. I (intentionally) made my edit before I closed the question.

Akixkisu

@V2Blast ah. I think the issue is trivial enough.

V2Blast

To my understanding, the first edit to the body of the question after it's closed causes it to appear in the reopen queue (I don't think edits to the title or tags do so)

It's not too much of an issue here because users are pretty good about reopening from the front page once system has been tagged (for instance), but just something to keep in mind

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: How do runes work? Can a Rune Knight forge them?

One of my players, new to D&D, is playing a Rune Knight, but in his background he's a son of merchants, and he asked me if he can produce runes to use or sell. Now, I'm aware that from the Rune Knight's class features there is nothing of the sort, but it does grant proficiency with smith's tools,...

dnd-5e magic-items crafting rune-knight

Akixkisu

11:28 PM

@V2Blast yes, I am aware of that. I was more worried about overwriting effort that you put in.

V2Blast

Ah yeah, no worries about that :)

BESW

Sam Leigh wrote a twitter thread about why The Long Haul 1983 by Sean Patrick Cain, "rules."

V2Blast

We can always go back and salvage anything needed from my edit from the revision history later

BESW

"Patreon lays off 36 employees despite growth" article by Megan Rose Dickey on Protocol. Patreon raises another $155 million, now valued at $4 billion

Akixkisu

@BESW great endorsements.

Glazius

11:35 PM

@doppelgreener Yeah, well, Apocalypse World did it first. youtube.com/watch?v=XQbRevAu1dI&t=1500s

BESW

@doppelgreener See also: the MCU, especially stunts like the structure of WandaVision's narrative which obscured the emotions that the story required to function, but the tradeoff was sparking fervent media and social media speculation.

Akixkisu

11:51 PM

@ThomasMarkov I'm confused about your edit rpg.stackexchange.com/revisions/184688/5 what do you want to achieve there?

BESW

Chimera RPG - The First Playset by Ryan Boelter and Amr Ammourazz. A Powered by the Apocalypse, tabletop role-playing experience where you blend together multiple genres to tell unique stories in your very own worlds!

V2Blast

@Akixkisu Hmm, yeah, not sure about that - We'll need them to specify the edition anyway, at which point the dungeons-and-dragons tag would also be removed... Perhaps Thomas is just basically "making room" for the user could then edit in a system tag without them having to try to figure out which other tag to remove from the question?

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