TRPG General Chat

linksassin

12:00 AM

@Shalvenay G'day, shoot. Though it's little strange to be asked something on topic :)

NautArch

@linksassin I flagged the declined one again. WOuld like a chat room to discuss if you want to decline it again.

Shalvenay

@linksassin so..are you familiar with the fake DMCA notice posts that pop up every now and again? where they claim that some thread is using a copyrighted photo, when there may not even be a photo present in the thread to begin with?

linksassin

@Shalvenay Not something I have encountered so far, but I can imagine it happening

Shalvenay

@linksassin I'm trying to figure out what the most correct flag for that sort of thing is ...it's trying to flog a link, so I think it's been treated as spam so far? but I'm not sure if that or rude/abusive is the more correct flag

because while not rude in the classical sense, they're definitely abusive

linksassin

@Shalvenay If you can't figure it out use a custom flag and explain it. That's always easier for the mods to understand than trying to interpret why you picked a particular flag type.

Shalvenay

12:10 AM

@linksassin fair enough -- someone hit the post with flag #6 and nuked it while we were talking anyway :P

Hot RPG Questions

1

Q: Does the effect of Luring Song of a Harpy end RAW when the affected character stops hearing the song?

The description for Luring Song in the Harpy's statblock in the Monster Manual, page 181, reads: Luring Song. The harpy sings a magical melody. Every humanoid and giant within 300 feet of the harpy that can hear the song must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed until the song en...

SmokeDetector

12:28 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly punctuation marks in answer (36): What are the rules for mixing races? ✏️ by Faye on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose)

Hot RPG Questions

12:40 AM

6

Q: If a Cave Fisher receives healing, does it keep its fire vulnerability?

A cave fisher from Volo's Guide to Monsters has the following trait: Flammable Blood. If the cave fisher drops to half its hit points or fewer, it gains vulnerability to fire damage. The trait makes it seems like the first time you reduce the cave fisher to half hit points or less, it is vulner...

dnd-5e monsters damage healing

BESW

1:08 AM

Vana is compiling on twitter recommendations for "TTRPG YouTube channels run by POC."

Agouro by Raul Fontoura. A game of inevitable prophecy

Hot RPG Questions

1:53 AM

7

Q: Putting a sack over a enemy's head

One of my players asked me a interesting question today that I don't have an answer for. He asked if it is possible to use an action to try and put a sack or bag over a creature's head to prevent that creature from casting spell, and what he would have to roll for? One use for that would be when ...

dnd-5e

Ben

2:38 AM

I'm not sure if I've had too much caffeine, or not enough, because I'm trying to do something in my code and it works, but it doesn't make sense.

DataSet myDatabase = new DataSet(Application.StartupPath + @"\filepath");

Is that right?

bobble

@Ben this is the secret: you never have the right amount of caffeine, or if you do, it doesn't last for more than a moment

Ben

@bobble In all honesty I think my body just doesn't process it the way I want it to.

The brain uses it to wake up, then the rest just goes to the heart.

Brain: I don't know, ask google.
Heart: [screaming]

A. B.

Can't answer your question, I don't even recognise what programming language that is, though I've a feeling I've seen something like it before somewhere.

Ben

c#

A. B.

Right.
Default file paths, or whatever the exact name for them is, always fox me anyway.

Ben

2:50 AM

What it should be doing is creating an instance of the existing Database (db.accdb)

But my brain is farting and it could also be creating a new, empty instance of the datatable structures, which is not what I want.

bobble

@Ben what does your brain smell like?

Ben

@bobble blue. With a hint of effigy and clouds

bobble

blue is the best

A. B.

4:40 AM

Partles.

bobble

bortles!

Mithical

Blortles?

bobble

no cannibalistic goblins here, no sir-ee

A. B.

Tortles.

Sorry bored :-)

Mithical

@bobble :'(

bobble

4:46 AM

(for context, Blort is a questionable goblin of Mith's for a planned upcoming campaign among the Puzzling folks)

A. B.

5:25 AM

Haha.

Mithical

5:47 AM

Only "questionable" if you have something against sssstabby goblins >.>

in PSE D&D Chatroom, Feb 23 at 19:06, by Mithical

"Pfah!" The goblin snorts. "Asss if I haven't already tried, Captain. Nobody wantssss a goblin on board. The talessss are told that you are different. It ssseemss the ssstories are not to be... heeded."

kviiri

7:21 AM

I had an amusing conversation with a former co-worker yesterday. Pondering about our past employment, he wondered whether all our other friends had left the company as well

Trish

@Mithical That ain't a kobold of the tucker kind, eh? The 1/4 CR beasts that make lvl 10 adventurers run for their lives?

kviiri

Quite a propos I had just spoken with one of my other friends from there and he was still in there x)

@Ben good ole metadatadatatable

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

7:54 AM

@Ben Huh, verbatim. Why not just "\\filepath" instead of @"\filepath"? The former seems more intuitive, even if it involves doubling all the \\'s in the path (I'm guessing 'filepath' actually involves multiple subdirectories).

Ben

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Yeah. @"\folder1\folder2\filename" is the same as "\\folder1\\folder2\\filename"

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

It also might be a better general policy to use a path-combiner method instead of combining manually. For the sake of never messing up the number of path separators, and their type (but the latter is more of a cross-platform concern).

Mithical

@Trish They won't be able to run for their lives, because with a +17 to Stealth rolls they'll never see the goblin coming....

Trish

8:09 AM

@Mithical won't they? But are you a CR 1/4 creature that molotov's the enemies and is so deadly in numbers that are below what counts as levelappropriate that you can widdled down a huge party to a few?

Mithical

Not yet :P

Hot RPG Questions

2

Q: How would you dig through stone to build ie. a cave?

We're playing Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and we I play a gnomish Artificer/Wizard and want to build my workshop What kind of spell, non-magic or half-magic solution (ie. machines) could do the trick? I come from 3.5e. Back then there were several midlevel options to do that. Stone to mud + Mold Ea...

dnd-5e waterdeep-dragon-heist

AncientSwordRage

9:51 AM

@Ben caffeine (as someone with ADHD) helps me focus, because it's a substitute for adrenaline/chemicals I'm missing in my brain. People definitely can process caffeine differently, and it feels like my heart is screaming when I have too much, even if I feel like I've entered bullet time.

BESW

Yeah, my experience with it is closer to that than to the "normal" descriptions I see.

AncientSwordRage

I finally finished reading Orcs, Britons, And The Martial Race Myth, and it was very interesting and enlightening

Mithical

@AncientSwordRage if I have caffeine I can expect to not sleep a wink for the next twelve hours at least, which is why I don't have any after noon

It doesn't noticeably wake me up, but it does noticeably prevent sleep.

BESW

10:18 AM

Caffeine doesn't impact my ability to sleep at all. Sometimes it seems to help me sleep.

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical I used to think that too, until I made two realisations. 1) I didn't feel like sleeping, but I could if just lay down horizontally somewhere. And 2) it doesn't feel like it helps but then when I go without, I notice a lack of focus

BESW

It does help me focus, like it makes my brain unclench. And in excess it still does all the usual nasty caffeine side effects.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW same with my wife oddly

Brain unclench is a good, if visceral phrase

BESW

Sometimes if I'm overly reliant on caffeine for an extended period, I lose the ability to sleep without it.

Mithical

@AncientSwordRage I mean "prevents sleep" like I'll get in bed, lights off and everything, and... nothing. Brain won't turn off.

BESW

10:21 AM

@Mithical That's what happens to me if I have too much blood in my caffeine system.

3

Mithical

That's quite the phrase. :P

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical I have heard of this, but not experienced it

I'm perpetually tired these days, so in a way that helps

BESW

@Mithical Fun fact about caffeine in typical brains: it doesn't clear your "I need to sleep" chemicals that have already slotted into their designated brainholes as part of your brain's countdown to sleepytown. Instead, it blocks any empty slots you still have open so that the countdown slows down or stops entirely.

That's why caffeine works best early in the morning: your sleepytime countdown slots all clear after a sleep or a nap, so taking coffee right after you wake up in the morning (or right before a quick power nap) lets the caffeine get to your countdown slots before your brain makes new sleepytime chemicals to fill the slots.

This is also why taking caffeine when you're already tired doesn't help much.

Mithical

I'm perpetually exhausted when I wake up... so I'm not sure the sleepytown chemicals get cleared properly in the first place.

BESW

That's possible!

I've had a similar problem, and I've started taking 3mg of melatonin an hour or so before I want to go to bed, and it helps me get to sleep on time and sleep better so that I'm less tired in the morning.

Mithical

10:27 AM

(I fell asleep on a bus this morning, which I could get in big trouble for.)

@BESW I've tried that - it helps me get to sleep in the first place, but I haven't noticed any effect of being less tired in the morning.

BESW

Aw.

Upcoming Kickstarter: Into the Mother Lands RPG!! by Tanya DePass. Setting book for Into the Mother Lands RPG!!!

Rivetgeek on twitter calls attention to how iHunt tweaks Fate-style compels in a very cool way.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I must must must watch them on YouTube sometime

@BESW I want to try but we funny have a fixed bedtime here 🤷🏻‍♂️

BESW

@AncientSwordRage I am constitutionally incapable of watching or listening to TRPG campaigns on media.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW this is my experience so far

The only exception I've found is with Stuff of Legends, where they use the players directions as voice over for Muppets/Puppets that act it out

BESW

10:42 AM

That sounds either adorable or grimsical, probably both?

Hot RPG Questions

4

Q: How to reduce damage (from the Balor)

In my party we have a ranger, a sorcerer and a monk. We recently had a fight with a Balor and I had to keep introducing things in order for the monk to feel like he was contributing in any way. For those who don't know, the Balor has a fire aura that deals 3d6 fire damage to any creature that sta...

dnd-5e monk damage-reduction

AncientSwordRage

@BESW much much both

Hmm just looked up grimisical and it's not really what I thought

But war of ashes is there, which I remember you mentioning

Dungeons & Dragons and Puppets Come Together in Stuff of Legends

kviiri

11:07 AM

Re: caffeine, I have a quite big intake as a very active tea drinker, though I prefer lower-caf varieties in the evenings (eg. genmaicha which has roasted rice in addition to tea, therefore less tea, therefore less caffeine)

But I mainly get "kicks" from non-tea sources

And those kicks are strong, often unpleasant.

AncientSwordRage

@kviiri that sounds interesting!

What does the rice add?

The internet says it has Catecholamine, which has some function in the body to do with adrenaline/dopamine?

Medix2

Really interesting to read about caffeine, especially the science drop from BESW. For me, I'm pretty sure caffeine has never done anything noticeable, I don't feel any different after having it in any dosage. But I've also never felt hunger, I cannot picture faces in my head, and my memories are predominantly in third person, so my brain is certainly some kind of something XD

BESW

11:34 AM

Aaaah Sun's Ransom PDFs just dropped for Kickstarter backers. [love]

kviiri

@AncientSwordRage Flavor, mainly

Originally, genmaicha was a commoner drink, a way to get more out of your tea by padding it with the rice, so to say.

AncientSwordRage

@Medix2 I think my uncle has a similar hunger response. I also remember in third but maybe not predominantly?

@kviiri ah ok

BESW

[does math to figure out how many dice fit onto the sun]

NautArch

11:52 AM

needs one more close vote for details

AncientSwordRage

12:08 PM

@BESW 5.3552358 × 10³²

Assuming dice with 2cm³ volume and 76% efficient packing

BESW

Heh.

AncientSwordRage

Oh, they're d4s as well, for optimal packing

NautArch

I Just bought more dice from a random etsy shop. Don't browse etsy under the influence.

AncientSwordRage

Dice are the influence 😬

BESW

Sun's Ransom's has the players place as many d6s as will fit on the sun on the cover of the manual. When you roll for an outcome, you roll all the dice on the sun and count 6s as successes against a target difficulty of 1 to 5. If you get as many or more successes as the target difficulty, remove dice from the sun equal to the difficulty number.

The game is over when the sun is fully uncovered.

Assuming 16mm dice, I think it's about twenty dice give or take a few either way, but I can't print it yet to be sure.

KorvinStarmast

12:47 PM

@NautArch cackle yeah, I saw a "big bag of dice" on amazon a while back and ordered it. "You chose poorly, Korvin" said my wife, when they were delivered.

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov Sorry, I just don't see how those rules support your claim

Thomas Markov

That's what "succeed or fail as a group" means

Medix2

The rules state that group checks only fail when more than half the group fails, and you're saying that group checks should be used when one member failing would mean that the group has failed

Yeah, I just think that's... something that could be better stated and isn't particularly clear

But oh well, I'm one person, and I guessed at the part you meant, so that's good enough. upvoted

Thomas Markov

I think I've used my experience to make the best of the bare bones guidance given in the rules.

Medix2

That I can agree with XD

AncientSwordRage

12:57 PM

@KorvinStarmast what was wrong with them?

@BESW that's a cool mechanic

KorvinStarmast

1:08 PM

@AncientSwordRage she is of the opinion that I don't need more dice, and eyes with disapproval my occasional impulsel buy of D&D stuff, and got grumpy when my 13th Age books came in. Not a fan of the game, unfortunately.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast She isn't or you aren't?

KorvinStarmast

1:28 PM

she is not a fan

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast need to find her the right dice to woo her with obviously

Medix2

We now have 43434 questions

AncientSwordRage

I would workshop ideas, but something tells me it would get personal quickly

@Medix2 \oo//!

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage I think that you mean diamonds, not dice. 😁 And I already did that (engagement ring). (Got her some tanzanite earrings a couple of years ago, and a ring to match, 30th anniversary; goes with the blue of her eyes)

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