TRPG General Chat

2:28 AM

@ThomasMarkov Between a limited set of options an expert in the system should be able to give an objective, experience or rules based answer. It may be a case where 1 option is clearly better than the others. Or where they are roughly even but there are cases where each is the best option. A good experienced answer would be able to give that information and actually solve the OPs problem.

The followup "other suggestions" is just leaving room for frame challenges that the OP may not have considered which may be objectively better than the given options.

I fail to see any details that I would require to write a better answer that are missing from that question. "What's the best X feat" is opinion-based. "Which of these 3 feats given these stats, abilities and items should I choose?" is not.

The goal is clearly combat related given that all three feats give a bonus to combat. You could easily reference a question like this one to get an objective measure of the power of the feats.

BESW

@linksassin This is an excellent point. If we're going to argue that edition can be obvious from context clues and it shouldn't be necessary to have the querent state it explicitly, it seems reasonable to also grant that logical inference to things like scope of feat application.

The Oracle

3:45 AM

0

Q: When you have multiple gold tag badges, how does the system decide which to use when closing as duplicate?

I have gold badges in dnd-5e and spells. My dnd-5e gets used the most, however, just now I voted to close as duplicate a question with both tags, and the closure message listed spells as the gold tag badge I used: Is there any rhyme or reason to how the system picks which tag to use when there a...

Hot RPG Questions

6:44 AM

6

Q: Petrification at low levels

I was considering using a Medusa in my home game against a group of 4th-level characters. With a CR of 6, a Medusa is well within the proper XP range for such a group. However, I'm nervous about using one, because it looks to me like my party is one bad roll (or two moderately bad rolls) away fro...

dnd-5e monsters conditions encounter-design

Hot RPG Questions

10:51 AM

2

Q: Does the Hunter's Mark spell work with pebbles that have the Magic Stone spell cast on them?

The Magic Stone spell creates pebbles that can be used to make a ranged spell attack by hurling or firing from a sling. Hunter's Mark requires a 'weapon attack' to take effect. Jeremy Crawford has ruled in a variety of (to me conflicting) ways on the subject of Magic Stone: https://twitter.com/J...

dnd-5e spells

Medix2

11:12 AM

@ThomasMarkov The only scenario I can think of where dupe hammer choice even possibly matters is if you dupe-hammered and it picked a tag the question shouldn't actually have

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 as in “I shouldn’t have been able to hammer it”?

Medix2

I guess so, just some weird corner case where the system works by design, but in a weird way. Like this question

But actually, I can't think of a way that which tag it picked would actually matter

Actually, now I'm surprised it let you close it on spells given that the target doesn't have that tag at all

TIL that's a feature. Not a bug

Thomas Markov

11:36 AM

@Medix2 is filling my notifications feed with nonsense.

Medix2

11:54 AM

@ThomasMarkov But it's nonsense for science!

Thomas Markov

I'll allow it.

BESW

12:31 PM

This is not a shopping or recommendation question. It's clearly product ID.

Thomas Markov

@BESW Yeah, I wasn't sure about that one so I skipped the review.

BESW

It's almost the exact same kind of thing as the very first question I ever answered and product-id has never had its topicality formally challenged.

Thomas Markov

Wow, this is quite the question title:

21

Q: Iä, Iä, [Cthulhu] Fthagn! (Driving a boat through it.)

While commenting on the need for a God Machine tag that stands separately from the nwod-god-machine tag, I made an offhand reference to a hypothetical cthulhu. Turns out we have one. Turns out it's being used awfully. Here's the description from the tag wiki: "Cthulhu is a fiction being [si...

discussion tags

BESW

I will observe, product-identification questions tend to get low numbers and a higher-than-average likelihood of drive-by downvotes, and always have.

People seem to think it's the same smell as product-recommendation? which baffles me.

(They also tended to get hit with the old "too localized" argument, back when that was still a thing.)

Thomas Markov

12:47 PM

@BESW I think the idea here is that the process of finding the answer is very similar to a tool rec. The only difference between this question and a tool rec is that OP can say if an answer is definitely right or wrong. From the answerer's perspective, the questions are the same "I'm looking for a site with these attributes", that OP is thinking of a particular site doesnt influence answerers.

And from the perspective of a voter, apart from OP yaying of naying an answer, the only criteria we have to go on is "does this answer fit the criteria" or "have I used this before and liked it", which is similar to how a tool rec would be voted on.

BESW

@ThomasMarkov Which I've always felt was a persuasive argument for recommendation questions... but ultimately the site wasn't able/willing to maintain quality support guidelines for either kind, making them both unviable in practice and only verifiability by askers saved product ID from going on the heap alongside product rec.

Recommendation questions can absolutely be fielded by the Stack, provided answers follow the guidelines for good support. But answerers get belligerent when "just trust me I'm an expert" isn't considered good support, so all the really interesting kinds of questions get rendered off-topic out of sheer exhaustion.

Thomas Markov

@BESW Yeah, I can definitely conceive of a theoretical model for recommendation questions that should work on paper.

BESW

In a system that was more interested in conversation, there might be more flexible and productive recourse available.

Thomas Markov

But I can see the problems that would arise from trying to enforce standards of support.

BESW

We had some really great product-rec examples.

13

Q: Recommend a published encounter for 4e to demo its strengths to newbies!

I'm looking for recommendations for a published (but not necessarily WotC), fun, single encounter to introduce some friends to D&D 4E. We'll be using a virtual tabletop (Roll20 specifically) for it, and are planning a relatively short session of 2 hours. Since most of the folks are new to 4e, I'...

dnd-4e game-recommendation published-adventures

Thomas Markov

12:57 PM

What do you do with highly scoring answers that only interject the name of a good or service? You either hurt someone's feelings or you selectively apply your standards.

BESW

Well, the Stack's got a clear side on that little false dichotomy.

Thomas Markov

@BESW Yeah, this is unfortunate. That's a really good question.

@BESW Shame on you for having feelings.

BESW

@ThomasMarkov 4e experts could really strut their stuff, showing an understanding of the system and citing experience with new players to support the traits which make an adventure that shows it in its best light.

An excellent opportunity to write long-form persuasive answers that really dig into what makes an adventure tick within a particular system.

Or, as one answerer did, just show off really cool photos of your 3D dungeon setup.

Trish

@BESW it is, but... it is not a good one. There is nothing in the question that could be a unique identifier

BESW

Sure it does, there's descriptions of the kinds of sounds and the look of the site. If somebody knows the site, they'll recognize it. But quality isn't the point, I'm talking about the two close votes for being a shopping question.

> - relatively small (eliminates big-name stock sound libraries)
- designed for fantasy (eliminates libraries with a lot of modern or scifi content)
- similar to the home page of a smartphone (specific layout style)
- icons were somewhat realistic but still comic-book-like (specific visual style)
- I believe it was possible to mix two or more (specific embedded service)

None of the sound libraries I know could be that one.

...Now three close votes for "shopping"? [sigh] Whether it's quality or not, it's not shopping.

Trish

1:12 PM

@BESW That is rather generic, that is the problem

BESW

ALL of those qualities, together, are so common that there's no way to even make an educated guess?

You mean there's more than a half-dozen small fantasy-table-top-specific sound libraries with smartphone style layouts and a comicbook aesthetic, that offer sound effect mixing specifically by sequential tapping?

I've successfully identified obscure books and tv shows for sf.se on far far less info, including inaccurate info. Don't underestimate our answerers.

But, again, nobody's voting to close it for being unclear.

Trish

1:37 PM

@BESW sadly, yes. There are 113k hits on "Sound website Fantasy" google.com/search?q=sound+website+fantasy - which makes the first two a non-identifier. "Smartphone website" is not an identifier as about 30% of all websites have a mobile version. That leaves 2 minor identification marks.

Thomas Markov

@Trish So? Googling "rpg stack exchange", which seems pretty specific, yields 4.2m results.

Trish

It's not unclear, but I think in the mess that is the internet, that one won't be answeravle because of having one solid identifier (sound mixing) and one weak one (visual style - there are many comic book styles)

@ThomasMarkov of which 4 millions are subpages of the same.

Thomas Markov

Nope.

Trish

Well, excluding the SE network, it's "only" 1.6 millions, so 3 million hits are us. google.com/search?q=rpg+stack+exchange+-stackexchange.com

Medix2

@BESW The ability of SF.SE answerers to pull answers from nowhere is truly astounding

BESW

1:47 PM

@Medix2 It really is.

Thomas Markov

355

Q: Story where the number 3 is the monster?

I remember as a child (in the nineties) reading a story where the narrator was a little boy and how he was scared only twice a day – when the clock read 3:33. The 3's would be powerful enough (there were three of them at 3:33) to leave the clock in the boy's room for one minute and do what they w...

story-identification short-stories

Trish

It'S much more likely for someone have remember the right book than someone to remember the right website - because books are much more memorable.

BESW

Also, I've looked at a few of the most-recommended sound table sites in reddit threads and none of them fit both "primarily fantasy" and "comic book aesthetic."

Trish

well, you have 113 million (silly potence error up there) to go.

BESW

@Trish Here, have two cases of my identifying something I'd never heard of before I read the question: one, two. And there's no reason that "I used this sound service weekly for a whole campaign" would be less memorable than "I read that book fifteen years ago."

After all, I did it with a third-party DM tool I hadn't used for a year.

Thomas Markov

1:51 PM

Off topic, but I had a dream that I had DND Beyond implanted in my mind.

So I'll probably never forget DND Beyond (to bring back around to topic)

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov Imagine, they print more errata and then your files are all out-of-date

BESW

@Trish The comic book style was specifically called out as reminiscent of Penny Arcade. Which was a commonly mimicked style for a period, but we clearly aren't looking for Art Spiegelman or Jack Kirby. "Many different comic styles" isn't really a complicating factor; if anything it means we can eliminate more potential sites.

Thomas Markov

It was pretty wild, would have made a great LARP tool.

Trish

I just worry that there is too little to make sue that a find is the riht one, especally since many websites re-tyle to make them more clear and usable. It might not look like that today!

Thomas Markov

We were LARPing using D&D 5e rules and all my rolls were voice activated.

DM was broadcasting to our minds, and he said "make a wisdom save", so I said "wisdom save" and the result appeared briefly in my vision.

BESW

1:56 PM

It would be nice to have more info. But there's enough to make educated guesses and I trust our users. And it's still not a shopping question, which is the reason people are giving to close it.

Thomas Markov

And then I woke up yelling because I got attacked by a cthulhu elephant, which is a normal elephant, except the bottom half of its head is cthulhu tentacles.

Trish

@BESW Are we talking early 1998 PA? Are we talking 2000? 2005? 2010? 2015? 2020? the style changed a lot!

Medix2

@Trish If the question starts getting too many answers, we can always close it then

Trish

@Medix2 true. Just would be ncie to have a few more markers what made that webite memorable.

BESW

@Trish And yet, they're all recognizably not any Marvel artist I've ever seen.

Medix2

1:58 PM

I'm certainly for leaving a comment asking if there's anything else at all that they remember and then just waiting to see if it gets flooded with an extreme variety of answers. Another thing I'm thinking is that seeing a wrong answer may help the OP to better describe the right one

BESW

Yup, we've seen that happen a lot.

Trish

@BESW compare penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/11/18 with penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/10/15 and penny-arcade.com/comic/2021/10/15 - the 2010 and the 2021 are visually far more similar than the 1998 and the 2010 one. The question which decade of the style we are looking for is crucial as the stylization changed in how people are depicted.

BESW

Yes, I'm familiar with the style changes, thank you.

And I'm still not sure how that translates to any kind of comic style being impossible to eliminate. Penny Arcade has never looked like Joe Shuster.

The asker has given us a relatively small pool of references to compare to, and I think it's reasonably small despite not being a pool of exactly one.

Could they narrow it down? Maybe. Does the current information make the task impossibly vague? No.

Thomas Markov

I'm with BESW here, I think it's a fine question.

Trish

I think it is fine too, but that I would love more information

BESW

2:05 PM

9 mins ago, by BESW

It would be nice to have more info. But there's enough to make educated guesses and I trust our users. And it's still not a shopping question, which is the reason people are giving to close it.

Thomas Markov

@Trish Sure, which is usually the case for any question.

So we leave comments to that effect and let it work.

BESW

You're not sounding like you think it's fine. You're saying there are millions of possible items to check and that the information given is unfeasibly vague.

Trish

My stance is "the question is fine, but it might be a lucky guess unless you can give us more"

BESW

Then don't apocalyse it, please.

It wastes everybody's time and energy.

BESW

2:23 PM

Arcology World by BasiliskOnline. A Solarpunk game of Mutual Aid, Science and Adaption

The Rise & Fall & Rise of Choose Your Own Adventure Books

►

Meguey Baker wrote a #worldbuildingthread on twitter about "morbidity & mortality in your imaginary people" and "what are they doing about infection?"

Momatoes wrote a twitter thread asking "What's RPGs like in your country?"

Orion D Black wrote a twitter thread about "the gap between actual plays as a business and actual plays as a hobby, and how to bridge that gap."

Momatoes asks on twitter "Do you have a favorite one-page or business card/pamphlet #ttrpg?"

BESW

2:37 PM

Kickstarter: Play Ball! by Roe Caulfield. A High School Sports Anime inspired Tabletop Roleplaying game that's driven by baseball, friendship, and growing up.

Tiny Library by Long Tail Games. A deck of 50 single-card RPGs from dozens of different creators

BlindTemple invites people on twitter to "ask me any questions about playing or GMing while blind or just questions about being blind in general."

Hot RPG Questions

4:37 PM

3

Q: Can a multiclassed artificer/rogue use Sneak Attack with spells that use a ranged weapon as a spellcasting focus?

So, according to a tweet by Jeremy Crawford, it is possible to Sneak Attack with a magic stone when using a sling, even though it is a ranged spell attack. That got me thinking: if an artificer imbues an infusion into a ranged weapon (let's say the Repeating Shot infusion on a hand crossbow, thou...

dnd-5e multi-classing sneak-attack spellcasting-focus artificer-infusions

Thomas Markov

less than 3.5 hours till election 2021 get hyped

I think a neat feature would be a "if we accepted write in votes, who would you write in", just to see who gets mentioned most.

KorvinStarmast

5:16 PM

@ThomasMarkov I'd write in @nitsua60 but I suspect that he'd take the W T Sherman position of "If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve" 😜

Thomas Markov

@KorvinStarmast Nitsua "Grover Cleveland" 60

KorvinStarmast

@ThomasMarkov hehe, that's a great way to get a nickname ... 😊

Thomas Markov

7:55 PM

> nomination begins in 4 minutes

2021 Role-playing Games Stack Exchange Moderator Election Chat

3

Chat is up

The RPG.SE 2021 Moderator Election is live!

5

The Oracle

8:15 PM

1

Q: 2021 Community Moderator Election

The 2021 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends on how many candidates there are. Please visit the official election page at ht...

discussion featured moderators election

3

doppelgreener

D&D 5e's Hex spell requires the petrified eye of a newt. It means you deal more damage, and the target has trouble doing stuff. I wonder if that's a spell component joke, y'know, like they originally were. You blow pepper at them and now they're sneezing. Or mustard spray. Or something.

(I said pepper but then remembered eye of newt is mustard seed.)

Thomas Markov

8:30 PM

@doppelgreener Mustard spray

Thomas Markov

8:46 PM

What going on at rpg.se today? checks feed Hmmm, an election and drugs.

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener I hate to tell you this, but that link is to an opinion not a fact. They were based on the principle of sympathetic magic, though for sure some of them were intended to include a humorous reference. (The original requirement to eat a goldfish/carp for the identify spell, the gunpowder element bat guano for fireball) I find that answer to be based on a half arsed opinion. The humorous element was present, but it wasn't the purpose.

You will find ample sympathetic magic references in fantastical legend, lore, pulp, novels, and short stories - in various literature - that informs the swords and sorcery genre. (See why Holy Water is a component for some spells: that's not a joke)

Example from AD&D 1e where the VSM requirement was introduced (for good and or ill). The Bless spell. In addition to the verbal and somatic gesture components, the bless requires holy water, while the curse requires the sprinkling of specially polluted water Hardly a joke.

From the same tome: Detect Evil It requires the use of the cleric’s holy (or unholy) symbol as its material component, with the cleric holding it before him or her Not a joke.

Message The material component of the spell is a short piece of copper drawn fine Reference to a telegraph, or telephone, wire circa 1970's* Joke? More like a sly contemporary reference.

doppelgreener

9:05 PM

I understand not all of them were jokes, and many were simply references

KorvinStarmast

Read Magic The material component for the spell is a clear crystal or mineral prism...The material components for the reverse spell are a pinch of dirt and a drop of water Joke? I don't think so.

doppelgreener

But some were jokes, and I'm wondering if this was one of them

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Sorry, I guess I got carried away there.

@doppelgreener IIRC, eye of newt comes to us from the play MacBeth...my shakespeare is slipping a bit (double double toil and trouble, that scene) - which seems to make it a generic sort of magical component?

doppelgreener

When I dug into that topic earlier today, I was having trouble finding top-grade reputable sources (like academic papers and the like), but an awful lot of indicators that they were code for mundane ingredients. Eye of newt being code for mustard seed.

If you didn't know the code, you'd look at the recipe with horror.

KorvinStarmast

Aha, here's a link (And that, dear DMs and players, is what a magic ritual looks like 😁 )

@doppelgreener Yes, I saw the same, there is an article about that regarding the plants each one represents

Aha, meat space doth summon me! I must needs ply swift knees and begone, lest the curse of tardiness fall upon me!

doppelgreener

9:11 PM

ttfn!

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