TRPG General Chat

trogdor

00:00

@BESW I like these interpretations as well, maybe even mixed together a little XD

Thomas Markov

@BESW I didn’t say good, I said correct.

BESW

That's a nitpick which changes nothing about my point that you're making an extreme edge-case reach and you know it.

Thomas Markov

No, I don’t know it. The Rules are by definition how to play the game. The question should make clear why an objectively correct answer to the question isn’t actually helpful for solving the problem.

Medix2

I do think the question itself may be a bit premature to assume there are already experts on the system who can summarize its major features, goals, ideas, and mechanics. Well, assuming Akix actually wants any of those specific things summarized

BESW

You started this conversation by accusing someone of a bad-faith practice just because they did something you can't personally also do, and now you're acting like the Stack doesn't have a long history of refusing to accept copied-rules-text-without-context answers.

This doesn't seem like a fruitful line of dialogue.

@Medix2 There's streamed and recorded playthroughs of the game already, aren't there? And people familiar with the system engine would have a leg up understanding/explaining this iteration of it.

But also it's totally okay to ask questions to which an answer is not yet available. We've had that discussion years ago.

(Proving an answer is impossible is, itself, a good answer.)

Medix2

00:07

Which, in all honesty "What is D&D 5e and how does one play it?" would get a very different answer from me from the question "What are the main mechanics and goals of D&D 5e and how does the game feel compared to others?"

BESW

3

Q: What is Lovecraftesque?

I was looking at another question that was asking a question about Lovecraftesque, and it looked really cool, but what actually is it?

lovecraftesque

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 We have the former basically. It's for D&D in general, and probably covers a broad scope of TRPGs

Medix2

With the first I would talk about Theatre of the Mind, Tabletops, Online simulators, dice, the history of the system, requiring other players and the like. And the latter would almost not touch on those at all

Someone_Evil

185

Q: I'm at a loss with “Dungeons and Dragons.” How does one play it, anyway?

I'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...

dungeons-and-dragons new-players

papidave

Question about process: I wrote a question, and got an answer, and in retrospect, it was actually a correct answer to the question I wrote -- but it was not the question I intended. Do I accept that answer and try again with a new question, or what?

question is rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/190937/…

Someone_Evil

00:12

New question. feel free to include that explanation with link

Medix2

It is bad to edit a question into a state that current answers are no longer answers. So asking a new one is likely your best bet

bobble

590

Q: Exit strategies for "chameleon questions"

I'm not sure if there's already an existing term for this, so I'm inventing my own. (tl;dr: I call them "chameleon questions" because they change every time you submit or edit an answer. If you're already intimately familiar with the phenomenon, please skip past the first set of bullet points to...

discussion questions new-users new-questions multiple-questions

BESW

@bobble Here's the most recent summary of rpg.se's discussions on the issue:

10

Q: What kind of edits are acceptable to a question after an answer has been posted?

This post originates from this question, but is not about handling that question. I will summarize the transpired events for context. The question is about a specific rule and at its core about whether that rule allows for a ridiculous scenario. It used an example which appeared to "break" that...

discussion questions answers editing question-scope

Someone_Evil

@BESW Oh hey, I know that guy!

Medix2

I mean, I am personally rather sure the Avatar question is asking for mechanics and feel and the like. But as far as reading it is concerned, I could answer with a lengthy historical answer about the rights acquisition and kickstarter campaign

BESW

00:15

@Medix2 That would be a good comment; pointing out the nature of the confusion is a lot more useful than just saying "I'm confused" and leaving everything else an an exercise for the asker.

Akixkisu

@Medix2 There are already plenty of playtests and generally experts of PbtA games that will have an easier time dissecting the system.

Medix2

Perhaps I'm being a devil's advocate here and should use my common sense to stop though because what the question truly asks is intuitive to even the most casual of readers

BESW

Because I think it's reasonable to assume that the asker thought their question was clear or they wouldn't have asked it that way.

@Medix2 Aye, that's... also a thing.

If there's genuine confusion, commenting about it and closing the question for revisions is very reasonable.

Medix2

But I, personally, very much would not answer this with a history lesson

BESW

But if an extremely uncharitable interpretation of the question could theoretically justify poor-quality answers from people actively ignoring basic Stack guidance... I'd rather wait 'til that's actually a problem before taking steps to prevent it.

Because by that measure, we'll be destroying rpg.se's ability to answer anything but the most legalistic and ritualized rule questions.

Thomas Markov

00:22

@BESW ignoring basic stack guidance for answering is a problem, but not ignoring basic stack guidance for asking a question?

Medix2

I think a thing perhaps at play here is the idea of "I must be able to determine whether one answer is better than another" that Stack claims to want. But when it comes to answers backed with expertise, I will be happy knowing that even if I can't discern the validity of an answer, an expert probably can. I'm content just to be able to feel like one answer has explained something better than another and then upvote both

I believe BESW actually said it wasn't a problem until it actually becomes a problem. And I'd say the same for the question. We have other, similarly worded questions, that, as far as I can tell, have done quite well

I know I tend to the side of "let the answers reveal if the question has problems" though, whereas others do not

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 they’ve done well because of good answers. Which is exactly the situation Stackexchange generally wants us to avoid.

Those well performing questions are perfect examples of the problem outlined in the Pearls and Sand article.

BESW

@Medix2 This is a major problem with the Stack's model, because it wants to simultaneously have expert insight and use the wisdom of crowds to evaluate that insight.

Medix2

Enter: nunerous arguments against Pearls Not Sand

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 Enter: numerous platforms that don’t uphold the concept

BESW

00:30

@Medix2 I have that right here:

Medix2

Fair, although now I may quote Doppel talking about the ability to actively choose to ignore a system

BESW

> Yeah, topicality has always and by design, across the ENTIRE Stack Exchange, been based on whether a subject can be answered within Stack guidelines with minimal curation.
The "with minimal curation" part means that patterns in answer quality are a crucial element in determining topicality.
Like the system or not, that's the system: the pearls, not sand attitude means answers are the final determiner of the Stack's value judgement on questions.
https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/56517022#56517022

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 which is fine. We just shouldn’t be surprised when friction arises from ignoring something that’s baked into the cake, so to speak.

Medix2

It's days like this where I wouldn't mind a superpower as seemingly useless as unbaking cakes

Thomas Markov

Much to four year old me’s chagrin, refrigerating cupcakes does not produce batter.

Someone_Evil

00:35

@ThomasMarkov You could dry them out and grind them into a kind of flour

Medix2

It's very, idk, revealing(?), when I go to another Stack site and see just how completely different questions there can be

It definitely tries to fit an extreme variety of bases into a format designed for only one or two things, and, in all honesty, it does a much better job at that than I would have thought possible. Just kinda wish that hadn't been their goal XD

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 I turn into Anakin Skywalker when I browse other stacks, then come back to rpg.se: “I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.”

BESW

@Someone_Evil I am deeply amused that this deliberately cultivated and curated question that should probably be the type specimen for system-introduction, does not have that tag.

Thomas Markov

@BESW okay, I lol’d

Someone_Evil

When I read that tag excerpt, it seems to summarize the topic as "how to teach X to others" not "teach X to me". Though that's probably close enough not to matter

BESW

00:39

(A lot of our system introduction questions, don't; system-introduction exists mostly as a replacement for the burninated new-gm tag, which influences the patterns of its appearance.)

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil to be fair, that is exactly the difference between two entire stacks, math.se and matheducators.se

Medix2

Love, huh, never tried to make a short version, ME.SE?

Someone_Evil

@BESW Burninated? It seems to exist, but maybe there was some big cleanup?

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 did you just call me love?

BESW

4

A: burninate new-gm tag

The low-hanging fruit has been... SSD made a great point: there are usages of new-gm where it isn't a meta tag, but it just gets overwhelmingly used as one. I've gone through [new-gm] and eliminated it from the questions using it as a meta tag. I've targeted questions where it's been used as ...

Medix2

00:42

@ThomasMarkov If you are the embodiment of Math Educators Stack, then yes

BESW

It wasn't burninated entirely, but its application was narrowed because it had become a nuisance tag used so much that it stopped being useful.

All the applications of new-gm outside its new narrow definition were burned, and system-introduction was a common replacement tag.

Akixkisu

Added information in the style of the most upvoted question of those mentioned in the meta.

Someone_Evil

Right yes. I thought it was a confusion of terms like that. We still get a misuse of that tag from time to time

Akixkisu

I think it is meaningless and doesn't change the question in the slightest, ymmv

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 looks with raised eyebrow

@Akixkisu it provides all sorts of details to steer people toward the sort of answer you’re looking for. The question is now 1000 times better. Reopened.

Akixkisu

00:47

I think it is exactly the same question, denoted by the tag. But with a sales pitch.

Someone_Evil

Maybe it's just late and I'm failing to pick up a step, but what of the fundamentals did the quickstarter fail to teach or leave confusing?

KorvinStarmast

what they did with all of the money

Medix2

@Akixkisu An idea for rewording your lengthy final sentence:
I'm particularly interested in expertise guided by playtesting, and even more so, by experts of PbtA games who are able to succinctly summarise and explain the mechanical fundamentals of the system in order to highlight what core mechanics, based on your subjective expertise, need particular care, might be glossed over, or might not be intuitively grasped, especially by someone who has rarely encountered PbtA games at their own tables but has generally heard discussion about them in appreciative tones.

Of note, I read it five times before I even thought I knew what referred to what, so my rewrite could have mixed things up

Akixkisu

@Medix2 Does this flow better?:

"I'm particularly interested in expertise guided by playtesting, and even more so, by experts of PbtA games who can succinctly summarise and explain the mechanical fundamentals of the system to highlight what core mechanics, based on your subjective expertise, need particular care, might be glossed over, or might not be intuitively grasped, especially by someone who has rarely encountered PbtA games at their tables but has generally heard discussion about them in appreciative tones."

Medix2

It does to me at least XD

papidave

00:56

@Someone_Evil - when i reread the text to pull a quote for my followup question, I realized I had missed the text which made my follow up question moot. And so it goes.

... but thank you.

Medix2

@papidave That is so unbelievably relateable

Now I'm remembering that time I wrote up an entire question about a broad thing and used a specific example only to find another person had asked the same question in almost the exact same format and had used the same specific scenario. I was baffled for hours

papidave

It totally want to build a goblin diabolic sorcerer whose deity, "Lord Soup Table", doesn't even exist. P.47, "Organized religion confounds goblins..."

BESW

@papidave Sometimes when that happened, I turned it into a self-answered question because I figure somebody else might have been wondering the same thing.

Akixkisu

@papidave That sounds great.

papidave

I was struggling with the answers I got to my OP because the book clearly said you didn't have to have a deity. But the spell said you can't use it if you don't have one -- a fact I ignored because "duh, clerics always have a deity..."

BESW

01:21

Sounds like simply another case of quality control missing something in the editing phase on a D&D text, to me.

Adeptus

@BESW I had a question like that. Clerics have a defined saving throw for any spells they cast, and another (same calculation) for their Channel Divinity features. But there are some abilities that don't fall into either category, and require saving throws, but don't define what the DC is. The best guess is, it uses the same as spells & Channel Divinity, but it never actually says so.

BESW

Hah, sounds like the Barding Problem.

Oct 30 '20 at 5:08, by BESW

@TheDragonOfFlame In the section on animal barding, they copied the table for Large animals from 3.5. And only the table for Large animals, so that in 5e barding prices don't scale with size.

Adeptus

so barding for an elephant costs the same as for a riding dog?

BESW

Yup.

I've encountered several places like that, where it feels like somebody said "it's close enough for now, we'll tighten it up later" and then nobody got around to doing the tightening.

Adeptus

and now the wheels are falling off

BESW

01:30

And they usually revolve around something that's very similar to 3.5, but there's some difference somewhere else in 5e that creates unnecessary tension which could've easily been resolved but just... wasn't.

I kinda suspect it's an artifact of the early 5e design goal of "a universal rules system that takes from the best of every edition," which probably involved a lot of copy-pasting with the intent to streamline and cohere later.

But as 5e pivoted during design away from universal plug-and-play to "please forgive us for 4e," I think a lot of spinning plates got dropped.

"Archives of Alexandria trapped me on a corrupted spaceship of pure information because I’m bad at Wikipedia" article by Chase Carter for Dicebreaker. Archives of Alexandria is a Wikipedia-powered tabletop RPG for two that uses the online encyclopedia to tell a sci-fi story of escape

How Do You Do, Fellow Humans? by HarkMorper. A gm-less, diceless hot mess for 3-4 players to live out your best vampire sitcom life

"The Exquisite Corpse in Maggots’ Keep is a gamebook narrated by nearly a dozen revolving writers" article by Chase Carter for Dicebreaker. Exhumed and loving it.

"CROSSROADS Updates: Itch Funding, Streaming, and #HypeSwap! " devlog for CROSSROADS by Sebastian Yūe. a game at the intersection of grief and hope

davenadave shared on twitter an RPG-like game his grandmother used in her 1960s classes. (translations in the comments)

jay dragon wrote a twitter thread about "the lifespan of a random list , just to show the levels of thought that had to go into the design of one list in one playbook in that game"

RPG Design Broadcast podcast "Episode 299: NPCs as a Design Elements" Presented by Jason Pitre, Zedeck Siew, Sinta Posadas. In this panel, we discuss how games can be designed using NPCs as a key mechanism of play.

Michael T Lombardi wrote a twitter thread about "a workaround for itch's current inability to do per-project revenue sharing"

Ironsworn: Delve by Shawn Tomkin. A massive expansion and toolkit for the Ironsworn tabletop roleplaying game.

illsvillainy shared on twitter "some tokens for our long running test campaign for #GubatBanwa"

Kickstarter: Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales: North America by Iron Circus Comics Iron Circus Comics Presents: Over 100 Pages of Comics Inspired by the Folktales of Indigenous Nations!

That jay dragon thread about lists is terrifying, as someone trying to learn how to write similar games.

BESW

02:26

NOVA SUNO by GBDW. A Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Solarpunk RPG

AncientSwordRage

@BESW it's late here, so I may not have followed, but it seems like it's just lots and lots of lists?

I'll read it seriously in the morning insha'Allah

BESW

> in its final form, the list not only tethers items to relationships, but shows what the dancer holds sacred and profane, and how they share their community and history with others. this one list has a LOT of tasks ahead of itself!

Lists both create and hedge possibility, suggesting the edges and open spaces of a character, a world, a story.

> all item lists are on the surface framed around picking two objects (literal or metaphorical) and defining a different relationship with each one. however there's something deeper going on ...
each item ALSO defines your relationship to an outside force in the world — most frequently other characters, but could also encompass communities, ideologies, gods, and shared histories. they effectively help forge where your character has come from emotionally.

I got into this just a very small amount when I made the lists for Goblin Court.

I love doing it but GOSH it's intense and high-stakes.

BESW

03:08

For example, in my Traveling Librarians game it would make sense to have a list of options for vehicles: animals like horse, donkey, camel; machines like bicycle, jeep, airplane; or other things like hiking boots, a dogsled, or a wheelchair.

And they aren't just objects, they're statements about the physical route (worldbuilding), the librarian's problem-solving (characterization), and what kind of help or support the community provides (integrating worldbuilding with characterization).

Choices like putting a wheelchair and a camel in the list, even if they're never picked in a game, influences the edges and open spaces of the game simply by being available.

Adding "Vespa," or "dragon," to the lists, dramatically shifts the space I'm explicitly giving for the group to play with.

Hot RPG Questions

03:27

2

Q: Can an Artificer with an All-Purpose Tool gain Eldritch Blast cantrip and take the feat Eldritch Adept to get Agonizing Blast Invocation

Can an Artificer with an All-Purpose Tool gain Eldritch Blast cantrip and take the feat Eldritch Adept to get Agonizing Blast Invocation? All-Purpose Tool: [...] As an action, you can focus on the tool to channel your creative forces. Choose a cantrip that you don't know from any class list. For...

dnd-5e magic-items feats cantrips

bobble

03:43

2

Q: Tag wildcards `*` break URL parsing in chat

URLs containing tag wildcard characters * do not work properly in chat. This means that a chat message containing the URL https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java* will redirect to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java when clicked. As a workaround, it is possible to manually h...

bug chat hyperlinks wildcards

Hot RPG Questions

08:56

2

Q: Pheonix bloodline and Catching on Fire

How does the healing from the phoenix bloodline work with spells and effects that cause targets to be on fire? Spells such as Touch of Combustion or Alchemist's Inferno Fireball Trick? The fireball trick has a fair argument that the fire it produces are magic as they use the spell save DC. I have...

spells pathfinder-1e damage magic healing

BESW

09:56

"Warlocks & Workouts: An audiobook fitness adventure" This is a HIIT audiobook fitness game with a story. Your story. It's Zombies Run without the music breaks, and Ring fit Adventure without the gear.

Hot RPG Questions

10:11

5

Q: Price of Volo's Guide to Monsters?

A player goes to a bookseller and wants to buy Volo's guide to Monsters. With support from your expert opinion, how would you price the book? The bookseller has the book in stock, somewhere in the forgotten realms.

dnd-5e forgotten-realms pricing

AncientSwordRage

10:22

@bobble she found it ! 👌

Akixkisu

11:12

@BESW That is an awesome pitch.

BESW

12:20

Flag as not an answer

Thomas Markov

@BESW wayyyy ahead of you

Well technically, I flagged it after your initial flag

but before your call to action in chat

AncientSwordRage

@BESW WOW

blamo it's gone

Medix2

KABLAMO! (Nobody will get this reference XD )

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported question (93): exchange crypto by polinezzz3 on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose @ThomasMarkov)

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 Does the first section of my answer deal with Nick's confusion sufficiently?

KorvinStarmast

12:35

@Akixkisu that's called a run on sentence. If you can break it up into two it might scan more easily.

@Adeptus yeah, spell save DC is spell save DC. The Undying Warlock has an ability at level one that triggers off of spell save DC but the warlock isn't casting a spell. (It amounts to a permanent sanctuary spell on the warlock in the case of attack by the undead)

Medix2

@KorvinStarmast I would not classify that as a run-on. I don't see two full sentences connected without punctuation?

@ThomasMarkov I'd say so

BESW

@ThomasMarkov That's an interesting bit of lore to explore but gosh I have never EVER seen any fiction about "remembering past lives" that didn't wind up risking serious fallout, whether you're being hunted by an ancient cult or an undead lover, subsumed into emotions not your own, or just keep zoning out at awkward and dangerous moments.

Medix2

"i am interested in expertise from people who can summarize the system and highlight what mechanics might be ignored by someone like me" is a perfectly valid, non-run-on sentence. This one just adds a lot of modifiers and doesn't become two non-separated sentences

Thomas Markov

@BESW It only happens when you're a kid, and only when youre "asleep".

BESW

@Medix2 Sometimes people use "run-on" imprecisely to just mean awkwardly long?

Medix2

12:43

Oh... Well TIL

BESW

@ThomasMarkov Which isn't exactly better but I'm not talking about that.

KorvinStarmast

@Medix2 It looks to me like ramming multiple thoughts into a single sentence; that kind of writing was all the rage when James Fenimore Cooper's was writing his stories, but usage has moved on since then. On the other hand, we don't have a style guide, so make your sentences as difficult to parse as you like. Nobody will dock your pay

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast Charles Dickens is pretty well known for outrageously long sentences.

Medix2

Descartes too. And Faulkner tbh

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov He and Cooper were of the same vintage

Thomas Markov

12:45

> At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with
nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of
this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were
dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew,
Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the
aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat
wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes
and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it,
was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was

KorvinStarmast

@Medix2 It's been decades since I read any of his stuff, but Faulkner is infamous for dense, difficult prose.

Thomas Markov

Thats from the first chapter of Great Expectations

Medix2

I swear my brain doesn't treat semicolons all that different from periods

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov which my father read to us, chapter by chapter, in the late 1960's. When I tried to read it years later I didn't find the story interesting enough to continue.

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast I may pick it up again, I found the heavily abridged version quite interesting as a young teen.

BESW

12:47

@ThomasMarkov May I present for contrast, the first paragraph of Bleak House by same:

Medix2

I've found that some books really are best read as a class, with discussions and a teacher there who usually, and reassuringly not always, knows things about the book

BESW

> London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; s…

KorvinStarmast

@Medix2 The Sound and the Fury is one such 😊

Medix2

I cannot upvote that enough

The Wasteland is one where I feel it doesn't even matter. It is an inscrutable blob of text no matter what

BESW

(Or as I call it, the "everyone's a dinosaur nerd" paragraph.)

KorvinStarmast

12:49

I was very fortunate to have that book ( sound and fury) in high school English; when I got to freshman year English in college and that was one of the books, I at least felt I had a chance.

Thomas Markov

My college English professor was a recreational physicist, so we read books about time travel.

Medix2

I think one of the strangest feelings is that of reading a paragraph and having absolutely no idea what you just read

BESW

Sentence length is not a factor in clarity or comprehension; skill is required for long complex sentences to remain coherent, but skill is also required (perhaps more so!) to keep short sentences from becoming inanely obscure because they have nothing left to communicate with.

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov Have you read Michael Criton's "Timeline" (no idea how to spell that last name)

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 That was one of the novels we read for the class.

BESW

12:51

@Medix2 Talk about "reading something and then having no idea what you just read."

Thomas Markov

@BESW We also watched the movie. It didnt help.

Stick to dinosaurs, man.

Medix2

Huh, interesting. It made sense to me XD

Cloud Atlas is definitely a book with sections I do not understand

G. Moylan

Catch-22 felt like a fever dream for me. the impossible timelines messed with my head

Medix2

I may be an adult, but I will still chuckle each time I read "What size is a Solar's Sword?"

BESW

I mean, it's certainly not the worst offender. But a time travel story really has to choose whether the mechanics of its travel are central to the story and thus communicate its mechanics effectively (Bill and Ted, Primer, Back to the Future), or if they're incidental and thus can be handwaved (Doctor Who, Primeval, Sapphire & Steel).

Thomas Markov

12:56

@BESW A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was good.

G. Moylan

I'm convinced Milo Minderbinder must have been an archfey

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov The Andromeda Strain was a better book

Medix2

Primer... a movie truly so utterly confusing that you'll think it makes sense when it shouldn't because you're only thinking in a quarter as many timeliness as there really are

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan not gonna disagree

G. Moylan

Interstellar and Arrival both handled time travel well. I quite enjoyed both movies and they were smart about their paradoxes. But while time travel is important to the plot, I wouldn't necessarily say it was central to either

BESW

12:59

Yeah, there's a difference between time travel being important to the story, and the mechanics of time travel being important to the story.

KorvinStarmast

The Witcher TV series had me confused until I began to discern that we were looking at three different time periods. I have since read the books, and the story holds together well enough.

G. Moylan

@BESW Arrival skirts the edge of that, since the plot is about learning how to do it, but they don't get into the nitty gritty

Medix2

Majorly agree with that Moylan. The actualy time travel act came into both of those at the end, it was a build up of sorts from the rest

KorvinStarmast

Hmm Faulkner: The 1983 Guinness Book of World Records says the "Longest Sentence in Literature" is a sentence from Absalom, Absalom! containing 1,288 words and he won a nobel prize for literature. Hemmingway wept. 😎

BESW

Doctor Who is probably the absolute best source for stories which could not happen without time travel, but which have very VERY little interest in the mechanics of time travel, to the point that it's jarring and dissonant when a story DOES try to do that.

Medix2

13:01

Enter: Her

G. Moylan

@BESW too wibbly-wobbly

@Medix2 is that a time travel movie?

Medix2

No the Doctor Who character, but it is movie, yes, just not time travel

G. Moylan

@Medix2 oh gotcha

KorvinStarmast

We are still alive in the curse of strahd; cleric still possessed by a ghost (Thorn); I turned a specter last night that was in the process of decimating the party. If it had not failed it's save I suspect we'd have had a TPK since I could not leave the house (ghost possession) - DM's wife got kinda mad at him for the surprise attack by the specter ...

G. Moylan

DM gotta throw in some shadows next time

KorvinStarmast

13:03

... our sorcerer has a strength of 5

BESW

Like, in Back to the Future the plot hinges on the audience understanding that this version of time travel creates grandfather paradoxes and it fixes them by re-writing the timeline to remove the impossible. Bill and Ted need us to understand that no matter where or when the protagonists go in history, the amount of time they experience is also passing in San Dimas.

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast perfect! I mean... shame...

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan A specter on level 1 PCs can be a swingy ...

BESW

Doctor Who? [shrug] We used time travel to get here and now we're gonna do stuff here, and when we're done we'll use time travel to leave.

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast oh you're level 1? Shadows would be murder then, nm

Akixkisu

13:04

@KorvinStarmast Accommodating all issues raised didn't change voting. I will leave it as a hard-to-read sentence. I already expended way more energy here than I would have at most other platforms.

Medix2

And I will say, it nice that both of those leave out some details and ethical quandaries that sometimes (often) bog down such material

KorvinStarmast

@Akixkisu that's fine, since Faulkner did in fact win a Nobel Prize. :)

Medix2

TIL quandries is spelled quandaries, thank you autocorrect and language

BESW

Sapphire & Steel? Time should stay where it is because otherwise Bad Things happen. Details to be explained ~~later~~ never.

KorvinStarmast

@Akixkisu I neither voted up nor down but did cast an RO vote because as I looked at a few other examples of the question kind, your initial point on 'this is stackable' seemed to fit

G. Moylan

13:06

Harry Potter? Vital to the plot at a few points, but it's ~ M A G I C ~ don't worry about it

@KorvinStarmast so you only voted halfway up?

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan yep

@G.Moylan I am not the Duke of York, if that's what you mean. 😁

man, that song takes me back to elementary school

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast Psh... I bet you don't even have 10000 men...

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan no, I don't; about 2000 minis and many of them are monsters

@Akixkisu If you, an experienced user, feel frustration, imagine how new users feel?

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast The noble KorvinStarmast, he had 2000 friends, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again. Now, when they're up, they're up, and when they're down, they're down. And when they encounter some level 1s they stomp them into the ground!

Akixkisu

13:24

@KorvinStarmast Frustration is part of how the system functions inherently, and often we do our best to add to that collaboratively by having different beliefs guide our actions.

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan The level 1s should have fled but now they are dead. 😐 Should have told the ogres to capture rather than kill. Oops. 😮

G. Moylan

One of these days I'm going to have a campaign centered on ogres and orcs and it'll be humans viciously raiding their villages the whole time

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan For what? What loot do the ogres and orcs have that the humans want?

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast they don't they're "monsters"

KorvinStarmast

Then raids are not likely - the typical motive is loot or livestock or captives or something.

G. Moylan

13:30

I cite Beauty and the Beast and Shrek.

or anything else where a group "shouldn't exist" according to someone else

KorvinStarmast

(I have a mountainous region in our shared world that has a lot of orcs whom the party have previously met - they cut a deal with them the first time to get a trade route opened for commerce. Not sure what will happen now that they are a level or so higher ...)

@G.Moylan Disney doesn't qualify as a worthy author in my view (matter of taste, perhaps)

G. Moylan

There are numerous real historical examples. The Tulsa Race Massacre comes to mind.

If the trope is the orcs represent "savages" and we're encouraged to kill them because of that, then the point is to flip it around. Show how friendly the orcs are and how they really would just like to keep to themselves if it weren't for those racist AF humans attacking them all the time.

Akixkisu

@KorvinStarmast I do my best to edit and protect good questions from closure, and I'm glad that I'm successful at it, hopefully preventing a lot of frustrations that these new users might experience otherwise. See rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/190991/… for instance, a great question that I had to adjust only slightly.

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan I don't find that trope useful, it's a post hoc addition to orc lore

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast I'm not trying to expand that I'm saying that if that's the original trope then the point is to reverse it

AncientSwordRage

13:37

@BESW time travel is very much one of my favourite tropes

I appreciate you breaking those distinctions down

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan the most murdery murder hobo in our groups is an elf, not a human.

Thomas Markov

@Akixkisu I forgot to retract my close vote there.

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast well, "humans" here could easily be "humanoid" races

KorvinStarmast

@G.Moylan You appear to be trapped in a trope. 😉

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast I don't really have better words for it. I was trying to avoid saying "monstrous races"

BESW

13:44

@AncientSwordRage one of the things I love about Primeval is that they get to have their cake and eat it too by making the mechanics a mystery which is never fully solved, but the ignorance of those mechanics, on the part of the main characters, drives a lot of the story.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW oooh that's clever

Trish

WTF? 2 days maintenance in a row?

BESW

It’s also a clever “level up” gimmick, giving the group new abilities based on implementing hard-won scraps of the knowledge.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I like

bobble

10

Q: Most sites seem to be down right now

Most sites seem to be down right now, e.g. Stack Overflow: Meta Stack Exchange is one of the few which are still up (for me, located in the Netherlands). No updates on StackStatus (Twitter / website).

support maintenance

G. Moylan

13:55

interesting that chat stays up. They most host it differently

AncientSwordRage

@G.Moylan they do

Akixkisu

I had site issues since yesterday.

bobble

I've been getting short maintenance things for a few days now

AncientSwordRage

this is my first time noticing

doppelgreener

It's back!

Trish

14:10

@doppelgreener I... dissent.

@Akixkisu here was some maintenance yesterday too

KorvinStarmast

14:25

@G.Moylan The world building in the shared world my brother, I, and another DM have been engaging in since about 4 years ago when the project and campaigns started has a variety of layers. It does not lend itself to the tropes you were referring to.

doppelgreener

@Trish it's back again! for real this time! maybe!

Trish

@doppelgreener this time I concur.

doppelgreener

hehehehe

G. Moylan

@KorvinStarmast oh no I was saying I wanted to someday run a campaign that would flip all the old tropes on their heads, not that you needed to do that

doppelgreener

@Someone_Evil oh, yes, we kept it for questions that are inherent to being a new GM. If you're a new GM, but any GM can have that problem regardless of newness, it's probably not new-gm. "I am a new GM and don't understand which book I should be reading to help me GM", as opposed to "I'm a new GM and my house is burning down again".

Thomas Markov

14:39

@doppelgreener Do we need a notice on the Ask page saying something to the effect of "If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911."

doppelgreener

@ThomasMarkov it couldn't hurt

AncientSwordRage

@BESW going to read through that twitter thread after this meeting, inshaAllah

Hot RPG Questions

14:54

8

Q: Dominate Person but without them realizing?

So I was looking through the Enchantment Wizard and am interested in how the spell Dominate Person interacts with the 14th level ability Alter Memories Specifically this text from the class ability. "...When you cast an enchantment spell to charm one or more creatures, you can alter one creature'...

dnd-5e spells class-feature npc mind-control

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I should really read GC as good context

@BESW I'm beginning to see the point you're making here

(btw, twitter wasn't playing nice from work, so I didn't get to read it all)

I think part of my issue is that some part of my brain vehemently rejects the idea of playbooks (I may have mentioned this before)... and to an extent some of this list stuff looks like playbooks in disguise

I don't dislike that they exist, but I just don't mesh with them easily

I'm much more comfortable making my own character that feels mine if I'm not even told about playbooks

maybe I dislike the idea of even somebody potentially (even myself) thinking "Ahhh you're playing your character wrong" which is possible with playbooks

but between what you and Jay wrote, I can 100% see the appeal, it's much more direct link into the world in multiple ways

Thomas Markov

15:33

@AncientSwordRage what are playbooks?

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov AFAIK they go in some games, mainly PBTA games (?) and say either you're this specific character in lore. Or you're this archetype?

In Lady Blackbird you could be the goblin mechanic say

In Avatar legends a playbook "defines what kind of social role a character fills in a group and how that role relates to conflicts that drive them. A playbook helps to define personality, relationships, and even how they fight, though any playbook can be any type of bender or a nonbender."

Ostensibly they're good and useful for many games

for some reason my brain rebels against the idea

Cooper

@AncientSwordRage Not sure why, but my brain does the same. It sort of feels like the writers are assuming that I'm too stupid to figure out my own dang character and to know how to work as a group?

Obviously I'm sure some people do need that sort of help but it just feels so overbearing, and as you said, leads into the "you're doing this wrong" sort of thing which is already my greatest nemesis in TTRPGs

(That impetus is part of why I've fallen so in love with Sigil, because even with all the encouragement in the DM guide for letting the DM decide what's happening in the world, the idea of doing that to a setting as established as Faerun makes the bees in my brain very angry bees indeed. But Sigil is so inherently weird that it feels expected to do funky stuff.)

AncientSwordRage

16:02

@Cooper I don't think it's an assumed stupidness...? Or even hand-holding help.

I think it's a "Psst, here's how to get your character really mesh with the world"

My brain just seems to go "If you don't mesh right, you're doing it wrong" even though rationally I know that's a dumb approach from me

Cooper

I guess for me the assumption that I would need someone else to tell me how to get my character to mesh with the world feels like it's based in me being unable to do it alone(?)

Aaaand I just realized that I used impetus instead of impulse earlier. I need more coffee.

bobble

@AncientSwordRage (in case you need it) Fin is meshing perfectly well with everyone else :)

AncientSwordRage

@bobble yay! I didn't need it, but it's nice to know, thank you

this is my thing, if I can make a character from scratch it feels like it meshes better (at least to me :D)

@bobble I feel the same way about Teri meshing

ACuriousMind

16:32

@AncientSwordRage the playbook approach is excellent for fast character creation for oneshots and with less experienced players but I've also found them limiting when trying to do longer-running games with them

AncientSwordRage

@ACuriousMind I can imagine that

Akixkisu

@AncientSwordRage do you feel like it imposes restrictions on character creation?

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu not sure, I very rarely get the option to play RPGs these days but they put me off trying games that have them (When they probably shouldn't) so I haven't even got experience with them

it's why I'm phrase it like "I can't get my head round it"

Akixkisu

Doesn't feel right, "doesn't mesh with me" is valid, I'm just extra curious :D

AncientSwordRage

thats cool :D

KorvinStarmast

16:56

@AncientSwordRage the play book I had for Fellowship (Glazius ran it for a few of us over discord) was both helpful and not helpful. Helpful in the sense that someone foreign to the system was able to find out what I needed in the very few pages of that playbook. Not helpful in that I, not being well versed in Dungeon World, was missing a lot of connective tissue. I also found that I had plenty of flex to be my own character in that case. It helped to have an experienced GM...

... to explain some of the gaps in my intuitive response to situations and challenges. What I tried to do was describe what I was intending to do, and he'd have me apply a resource from the playbook depending on what I tried to do. Plenty of freedom to come up with my own approach to a situation, and as we played we began to 'get' the bonds thing. Initially, it wasn't clicking for me.

AncientSwordRage

17:09

@KorvinStarmast interesting to know

Thomas Markov

17:34

I am rarely as pleased with myself as when I get to include an image from Weekend at Bernie's in an answer on rpg.se.

Cooper

rpg.stackexchange.com/a/167701/49671 Okay, I am bad at math, and also using Google Sheets instead of Excel, but when I popped this into a spreadsheet to fiddle with, I'm getting negative XP required for levels 2 and 3?

Thomas Markov

Yep.

Cooper

Okay, cool, those are the numbers I've got too, just wanted to check!

Thomas Markov

Yeah, I think that one just needs to be deleted.

It's wrong and totally unsupported.

Cooper

I wasn't sure if I had my numbers wrong or if they'd done something funny-- it didn't look right to me, but math so rarely does look right to me. It looks like Nick's answer is using some of the same constants, but with different formatting-- is that one accurate?

Thomas Markov

17:46

hmmmm, I may be able to trouble shoot that answer.

I'll look into it.

Cooper

I'm asking because I like to do milestone leveling, but I want to keep things at the same pace as an XP-based game, so I was trying to figure out approximately how many medium encounters would fit into each level, if that makes sense?

Someone_Evil

Can't you just use the table in the PHB?

MikeQ

Milestone leveling is usually based on the number of sessions and challenges/accomplishments in those sessions. e.g. 1 level per 3-4 sessions, or 1 level per dungeon/chapter/story arc. And then decide a number of encounters per session that fits the group's pace.

Thomas Markov

Ah, I see the problem with the answers. Nick just did a regression on the PHB table, and it under-approximates levels 1-4.

Around 5th level it works pretty well.

Cooper

I guess it's not accurate to say that do milestone leveling, so much as that I prefer the pace of XP but I hate keeping track of those numbers.

MikeQ

17:52

What is the pace of XP? That's going to vary wildly depending on how much and how often XP is given for noncombat encounters.

Someone_Evil

Just a footnote to keep in mind, DMG 261 defines milestone differently to common usage

Thomas Markov

I fixed those two answers.

Cooper

@MikeQ That's why I don't like to use XP straight up. But I believe an average session is supposed to be 8-10 medium-hard encounters, based on the DMG, so if I know that to get from one level to the next would take about 50 encounters, I can know that that interval is meant to be about 4 or 5 sessions.

Thomas Markov

@Cooper huh

An average session is 8-10 medium-hard encounters?

Cooper

@ThomasMarkov I think I saw that somewhere? I'm at work and I have no idea where that came from

Someone_Evil

17:55

Sounds exhausting

Thomas Markov

You may be thinking of the Adventuring day

> Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day.

Cooper

Aaah, yeah, the ol' swiss cheese brain is really coming out in full force today.

Someone_Evil

The DMG for session based advancement suggests 1 session each for the first two level ups, and 2--3 sessions for each level after that. Claiming it mirrors normal 4 hour sessions

Cooper

Well, I think I have the information I need to do my weird and nonsensical math, and it seems like my confusion helped get some answers fixed for future people, so...success?

MikeQ

8-10 encounters per session? That seems absurdly high.

Cooper

18:01

@MikeQ Well, as @ThomasMarkov pointed out, it's actually 6-8, but that number includes non-combat encounters too, I believe

Someone_Evil

It means an adventuring day spans more than one session

Thomas Markov

18:18

@Akixkisu Needs a title too

Akixkisu

@ThomasMarkov ah that is what I forgot, thanks.

Thomas Markov

Was definitely an XY problem, I think it's a good fix.

Looks good to me, voted to reopen.

So there's like a bazilion feats in D&D 3.5.

You know, we haven't had a 5e optimization question in a while.

bobble

19:03

second half of my bug-sleuthing: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/368927/…

I don't think I feel like bothering posting the third bug I found with the wildcard searches yesterday. Anyways, thanks y'all for indirectly leading me to a bug!

AncientSwordRage

@bobble genuinely interested in finding out what causes this bug

Someone_Evil

19:36

I would assume the title gets populated before the wildcard -> single tag gets replaced

bobble

But if the result is multiple tags, an entirely different kind of page with a different header is shown

It's a halfway redirect or something.

Hot RPG Questions

20:06

2

Q: Is there any disadvantage to playing an adolescent elf?

According to the chapter on elves in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, as children, elves explore memories of previous lives during their trances, and as adolescents, these memories begin to appear during their waking lives. However, this seems to me like a benefit - an ability that they otherwise wou...

dnd-5e character-creation optimization elf aging

KorvinStarmast

21:02

The obvious answer to this is 'with a dry erase marker' 😁

@MikeQ I'll go and find you a GiTP post that has some info on that.

@ThomasMarkov that's not a bad thing...

Someone_Evil

@HotRPGQuestions Outside of the normal downsides of adolescence we assume

Do elves get zits?

KorvinStarmast

21:23

@MikeQ one of the GiTP posters laid out from 1-20 how many sessions it would take to level up if the DM held to the Daily (adventure day) XP budget. The results were interesting, but I can't seem to find

TheDragonOfFlame

22:57

What TTRPG should I learn now?

Slate

23:23

Learn freeform! ;)

bobble

That depends highly on situation, most importantly, what are you interested in? But also -
- What are your goals for learning a new RPG?
- Who else would play it with you? What do they want?
- What RPGs do you already know? Why do you want to add to that list?
- Do you have a budget? If so, what is it?
- etc.

BESW

@Slate I’m very curious about free form! I’m not sure it’s gonna click for me but I think it’s good for me to know it?

Been listening to you talk about it for years and failing to wrap my head around it

Slate

It's good, but definitely not for everyone. It can be a bit of a commitment to learn.

Shalvenay

@Slate it's...interesting to say the least (speaking as someone who originally learned to RP in a freeform-forward way)

Slate

My appreciation of how hard it can be for folks to pick up has grown lately, I think.

Shalvenay

23:38

@Slate yeah, it can be a tall order, especially when you get into more complicated scenes (combat, for example)

BESW

My first exposure to any kind of organized RP was… I can’t remember what they called it, but it was dozens and dozens of people making in-character livejournal accounts and interacting through those accounts within a shared world space.

I didn’t participate, but was fascinated that it worked with so little formal structure.

Slate

The acceptability of formality in freeform RP tends to be... fairly low, I find. Even when systems are used, they break when folks start to feel their usage is required to keep the game in balance. There's an epistemic gap: when in doubt, freeform RP leans away from systems; non-freeform RP leans towards it.

(Obv that's a pretty sweeping generalization.)

Shalvenay

23:55

@Slate yeah, my first exposure to freeform RP came in an environment where people were rather...unsatisfied with the systems at hand

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: How can I teleport with an unwilling creature?

It will happen sometimes that my party has captured and subdued a bad guy that we don't wish to kill (but do want to keep with us for interrogation or etc purposes). The bad guys are generally very unhappy and want to escape. If we're in the middle of the wilderness/a sinking ship/the wrong city/...

dnd-5e teleportation

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