TRPG General Chat - 2021-10-27

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12:03 AM

@Ben But is the function B(c)=c or is it something different?

Currently the function is at B(1)

There is also potentially the time allowance for the cup of coffee to take effect

@V2Blast My partner gets very excited when it comes to dragons. MOsly the European variants though

AncientSwordRage

@Trish the Wikipedia page (not linked previously) covers this

@Ben That means the functin shud be rendered as B(c,t). Ben(coffee,time)

AncientSwordRage

As soon as I saw x^2+y^2+z^2*-w^2*=0 I knew there were shenanigans

Hot RPG Questions

12:45 AM

6

Q: Can a simulacrum (of a humanoid that can take a long rest) take a long rest?

This question is inspired by Dale M's answer to another question. In that answer, Dale M said (bold added): So if a Simulacrum of a cleric can take a long rest it can change its prepared spells. Maybe you need to ask if they can take a long rest? Now, at first I wasn't going to ask that questio...

dnd-5e rests constructs sleep simulacrum

3 hours later…

3:59 AM

@Ben yeah, just got it, I'm gonna digest it nice and slow, no rush. Dragons are worth taking the time

Nice :D

4:16 AM

@Trish I've never LARP safetied, but this seems like a pretty good primer on techniques from people who have (my judgement is based on analogous approaches to e.g. Script Change) nordiclarp.org/2018/01/24/safety-calibration-design-tools-uses

One of the things it assumes is that the LARP has a designated off-script area, which I assume you have set up?

And if you're VtMing people are already making hand gestures for game and not character purposes, right?

1 hour later…

5:48 AM

@Trish More and more I'm coming around to the opinion that putting basic any-expert-answer-should-already-know-this context into a question, only encourages people to think they can answer it without knowing anything except what's in the question.

@Glazius I am not the organizer.

(I had a question about an illustration in a book, that people thought they could answer without having seen the illustration, because I'd provided other information that felt sufficient to them.)

@Trish Right, sorry, that was plural "you" (the staff, collectively) but it probably should have been "they". I'm hoping they have a designated off-script area already is all, if nothing else because sometimes there are things you can't biologically endure and you need to rest and hydrate.

2 hours later…

7:31 AM

@BESW I know, though the one answer I gathered yesterday was not only logistically impossible (the biggest MET I know about that ran a couple times in Berlin pre-COVID had 250 players and was played in several locations all over an area of town), but reeked of idea generation, which is why I added the Blurb that LARP isn't Tabletop and deals with entirely different numbers and involvement of the people

@JoelHarmon on ShrekNet, everybody knows you are either hideously disfigured, soon hideously disfigured, a mad rambling Gangrel looking for Caine or meet the final death in a short time.

AncientSwordRage

8:01 AM

@BESW there's an art to knowing what information might mislead people (and even then, people can disappoint you regardless)

I don't think it's a matter of misleading information; I think it's that people there's a certain combination of context and mindset which leads people to think they have enough information and struggle to consider that what they're using to fill in the gaps isn't applicable.

[rummages] There's a Yes, Minister scene...

AncientSwordRage

Yeah I didn't phrase that well at all

It's not that the information provided is misleading, you're right, it's what they do with it that misleads themselves

Explaining MetaDioxin | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats

AncientSwordRage

Or something ... It's too early here for semantics and philosophy...

I should really watch Yes, Minister again some time.

AncientSwordRage

8:15 AM

@BESW I should watch it the first time...

> I should say, the users misinterpreting context shouldn't cost the question any more than 100 upvotes...

> My rep is only 91!

(I'm sure there's a better memeing if that exchange)...(but I'm already late)

AncientSwordRage

8:33 AM

@BESW I'm surprised nobody has invoked the Dunning–Kruger effect yet

@AncientSwordRage The show would be entertaining even if it were out of date, but because it's about administration rather than partisanship, the show still has very sharp teeth too.

AncientSwordRage

All told this is why I'm a little iffy about policies that say "Nevermind, the experts will sort it out"

@BESW growing up I heard all about it and the like (spitting image is another that comes to mind)

@AncientSwordRage Oh I'm sure it's been invoked in the past, but I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to diagnose a psychological cause.

> Hacker: Are you saying that winking at corruption is government policy?
Sir Humphrey: No, no, Minister! It could never be government policy. That is unthinkable! Only government practice.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I didn't think it was strongly associated with a psychological cause, but a sociological observation

Also relevant: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

@BESW timeless

At any rate, I don't feel like I'm in a position to apply professional terms to an observed trend.

AncientSwordRage

8:39 AM

user image

@BESW you are wiser than I then

(smbc-comics.com/comic/dunning)

@AncientSwordRage It's more supported than so-called Stockholm Syndrome, which practically everybody likes to think is a real thing but was invented by a journalist to explain that when his prejudices failed to match reality, it was the womens' fault.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW oooof

But yeah, when I noticed that rpg.se answers were throwing around so-called "fallacies" and "syndromes" and "rules" and "laws" as if they had the weight of science behind them, and naming general observations after somebody who mentioned them in some forum once, I started thinking about how we use that kind of language as a rhetorical wedge to make an opinion seem less arguable.

AncientSwordRage

At the very least it's worth being conscious of the existence of cognitive biases, to try and avoid them (unfortunately too many biases are self-preserving from my own experience/observation)

(At about the same time, I spent less than a day in the english.se chat room and every single conversation turned into people competing to see who could use more Latinesque philosophy jargon to discredit another person's entirely casual opinions or personal experience.)

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, and rpg.se questions and comments aren't a good place for challenging such biases in others. That Sun's Ransom question had people just absolutely insisting that "look at the illustration you're talking about" was an unreasonable expectation, because apparently even if you're applying math to the wrong assumptions math is objective and therefore correct.

AncientSwordRage

8:49 AM

@BESW I'm sure there's a law about how it's harder to argue against a named phenomenon than a general unnamed assertion

If there isn't, we can make it after you 😜

@BESW I last less than an hour there

@BESW hmmmm they aren't a good place, but I don't think that should stop some of us trying

> BESW's Law of Interlocutory Obstinance: Given *W(A)* is the willingness of Interlocutor A to entertain a defense presented by Interlocutor B; *P101(A)* is the number of terms found in the glossary of a first-year philosophy text that were already used by Interlocutor A in the debate; *Ex(A)* is the actual experience Interlocutor A has with the subject of the debate; and *F(A)* is the number of times Interlocutor A has already discussed the subject in online forums, then
W(A) = [ Ex(A) / P101(A) ] / F(A)

AncientSwordRage

9:13 AM

@BESW 😅

2 hours later…

Hot RPG Questions

11:01 AM

2

Q: Slowed Action Surge

When affected by the Slow spell: An affected target’s speed is halved, it takes a -2 penalty to AC and Dexterity saving throws, and it can’t use reactions. On its turn, it can use either an action or a bonus action, not both. Regardless of the creature’s abilities or magic items, it can’t make m...

dnd-5e spells actions fighter

4

Q: Slowed Quickened spell

The Slow spell affects spellcasting: If the creature attempts to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, roll a d20. On an 11 or higher, the spell doesn’t take effect until the creature’s next turn, and the creature must use its action on that turn to complete the spell. If it can’t, the s...

dnd-5e spells sorcerer metamagic

11:43 AM

@BESW Just an addendum, I'd probably right it as W(A) = Ex(A) / [ P101(A) * F(A) ]

And there should be an extra variable for the size of the non-participating audience.

11:57 AM

There should probably be a variable adjusting for the correspondence medium. Obstinance is generally inversely proportional to the intimacy of the medium.

12:10 PM

And of course there's "That's not an argument, you're just contradicting me!"

@user73571 howdy

Is a college of valor bardlv5 oath of ancients paladinlv15-the best tank/support combo?

What's the argument for it being a good combo? That would help me understanding what you're looking for

Does 5e have anything like 4e's punishment/denial features to make tanking possible, or has it reverted to 3e's "be hard to kill and hope the DM is generous enough to have the enemies try to kill you first"?

There's a little bit, but not much

12:25 PM

@BESW There are some features that can compel enemies to focus on you.

@user73571 There probably isnt a "best" tank build.

Within the concept of "tank", there are many different strategies and things to tank against.

And it's probably impossible for a build to be universally excellent.

But a high level Paladin is probably going to make a good all-around tank. I'm sure 15 Paladin/5 Anything else will work just fine.

Admittedly as someone who's not big on multiclassing in general: what's the argument for not just taking 20 levels of paladin?

@Someone_Evil Yeah, the Oath of Ancients level 20 cap stone is pretty solid imo

What is D&D 5e's version of a tank? For comparison, here's how D&D 4e's defenders work:

49

A: Should rogues play stealth or tank on D&D?

High Reflex Doth Not A Tank Make Having a high reflex doesn't count for anything extraordinary. It's one of four defences beside armor, fortitude and will, and one quarter of attacks missing you more often doesn't make you a tank. The magic of defenders, however, is not a matter of being unable...

@Someone_Evil Well, in 3e you get all the cool class features in the first levels and maybe if you stick it out 'til 20 you get something super awesome but it's generally better to take the first levels of another class because (a) all that class's stuff is frontloaded too so you more stuff faster and (b) with a few notable exceptions true power lies in diversity of options, not depth.

Also at 18 the paladin's auras extend to 30 feet, which is a huge boost for ally support.

12:34 PM

(Hence druids>clerics/wizards>sorcerers)

Most of the paladin level 20 features are pretty cool AFAIK, and there's some fun stuff in their 5th level spells

@Someone_Evil destructive wave and holy weapon

@BESW Oh, I know 3e really incentivizes it. While that's still partially true in 5e, the reward is (IMO) better. Or at least to me more interesting

@Someone_Evil I feel like there aren't too many particularly synergistic multiclass combinations, it usually just provides more variety and flavor.

@doppelgreener I think the general traits are melee combatant with a high AC &/or large hit point pools

12:42 PM

@Someone_Evil Yeah, the typical formula is "keep the melee foes off of the casters/rangers".

Which usually means engaging the melee foes in melee.

For that sort of tank, the barbarian does it best.

Biggest hitpoint pool, and Rage halves incoming piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing.

Possibly the most interesting tank in 5e would be moon druids

Yeah, if you don't have any punishment for attacking not-you or incentive for attacking you, it's hard to convince enemies not to push past Dude With A Sharp Stick and go for the folks calling down fire and divine blessings.

AncientSwordRage

@Someone_Evil mixing and matching is fun, and lets me express a change in character (I'm more in favour of switching class, than dipping and weaving)

@AncientSwordRage I know of arguments for multiclassing in general. This was in the context of taking Paladin 15/X 5 to be the best tank(tm). I'd happy to accept it as representing a mix of talents/change/etc. but that becomes a slightly different conversation

AncientSwordRage

1:00 PM

@Someone_Evil oh right, the context being, 'why is level 20 paladin not a better tank'

1:11 PM

@doppelgreener The most obvious tank builds for 5e are Spirits Barbarian or Cavalier Fighter which both gain different flavors of ability: "After you hit an enemy they have disadvantage on attacks targeting anyone other than you"

Of course you would need high AC/HP to be able to withstand the damage

And you can try build other classes/subclasses for similar effect but it takes more effort

The one tank that I have wanted to play for a while but haven't had a chance is a mountain dwarf (get medium armor proficiency) abjuration wizard - there are a lot of spells that can boost your own tankiness (but not all work on allies) and if they ignore you, you can always buff your allies

1:25 PM

@SilentAxe Ok, that seems to fit the bill :)

There's tank as in "can take a lot of punishment", but then there's tank as in "keeps the party safe by drawing all the punishment they'd receive".

High HP and high AC alone meet the first criteria, but when your enemies can and should just ignore you to hit the squishies first, you're not meeting the second criteria.

Defenders in D&D 4e meet the second criteria by massively disincentivising ignoring you to hit the squishies. The Fighter is almost impossible to physically move past, and any Defender is going to make it extremely perilous to try to hit anyone else.

If you're hard to hit but have no special mechanism to discourage hitting anyone else, enemies basically get rewarded by ignoring you momentarily to knock out the highly dangerous squishier party members, and any opportunity attack damage they might get for it is worthwhile to just go take a turn or two to deal with the wizard.

Yeah in 5e it's possible to draw punishment but you really have to build for it.

There's also Sentinel feat that improves when you can make AOO and enemies can't move when they are hit by it.

And compellled duel spell for paladins and Goading Attack manouver for battlemasters but I've rarely seen them used in practice

Sounds like a Spirits Barbarian or Cavalier Fighter with Sentinel and Compelled Duel or Goading Attack would actually let you assemble a proper Defender kit.

Is there any indication or suggestion of why 5e backed away from such a clear and satisfying design choice?

Compelled duel/Goading attack basically do the same as Spirits Barb/Cavalier features so they don't stack realy well, but they both get other features too.

Like Spirits barb can reduce damage to allies and eventually deal damage to those that hit them. And Cavalier gets to increase allies AC and eventually unlimited number of AOO

Additionally any fighter or paladin can take Protection/Interception fighting styles that allow them to use their reaction to increase AC/reduce damage to an ally next to them

Every single "I want to defend my friends" goal I ever had or encountered in my 3e days was met with frustration and disappointment, I'm struggling to see why they'd walk away from a solution to it (except the usual fear of the new edition tanking if it had even the faintest whiff of 4e on it)

1:44 PM

@BESW In practice that's how it can be in 5e also. It's really easy to miss that those options exist especially by newer players. And if you don't build with that as goal from the start there's not much you can do.

It was difficult to change course in mid-stream in 4e too, but it VERY clearly telegraphed the course you were taking from the beginning.

Yeah, in 5e those are tucked into 1/3 "core" books (XGTE and I'm not counting Fizban in total yet) as ~1/7 subclasses for ~2/12 classes each...

My Body is a Cage by Batts. Slice of life drama in the streets, dungeon crawler in the sheets.

mcnees shared on twitter pages from when "In 1981, Dragon magazine published AD&D character stats for Bugs Bunny (15th level illusionist) and other cartoon characters."

Linfinn wrote a twitter thread about the challenges of imagining "a career as a TTRPG critic"

Momatoes shared on twitter pictures of ARC: Doom Tabletop RPG "Across the world, around different homes, shelves and lives."

@BardicWizard This one's for you:

What the heck is a clock reel, anyway?

Ian Yusem shared a cover reveal on twitter for HULL BREACH Vol. 1

"When, why and what you roll in tabletop RPGs are just as important to storytelling and theme as a game’s world" article by Nevyn Holmes for Dicebreaker. From D&D's iconic d20 to Blades in the Dark and Monster of the Week, dice rolls are a key part of capturing an RPG's feel.

Kickstarter: Exquisite Crime by Hunters Books. A surrealist detective storytelling game where Crime is an Art, and you are the artist.

"Creating a 16th Century Philippines-inspired D&D World – The Karakoa and The Galleon" on Goobernuts' Blog

NOVA by Gila RPGs. A mech-filled tabletop RPG Illuminated by LUMEN.

Declan Lowthian wrote a twitter thread of "big errors" and "some of the things I missed" in their CBR article "10 Indie TTRPG Designers To Watch In 2022"

snickelsox wrote a twitter thread describing a more ethical form of museum in D&D

Momatoes shared on twitter "a new hobby: combining random mood+genre tags in the Across RPGSEA site to see what game comes out"

Better Weathers by KTPie. A solo mini-game on being a Weather Oracle and attempting to control the weather above you

Trick And Treat A bundle hosted by kumada1 with content from 25 creators. The Trick And Treat bundle is a collection of games that match the autumn. There are spooky one-shots, cozy adventures, and everything in between.

2:21 PM

@SilentAxe I think I've literally never had a Goading attack work, though =(

@nitsua60 yeah, I think one of the things that made 4e's defender classes work was that marking generally didn't rely on the dice to work.

@nitsua60 To be honest I've never even seen it used. Usually those who pick battlemaster are much more excited by Tripping/Disarmnig etc.

Reviews of a silly cantrip - shoot confetti - are requested. I have an idea that this would fit thematically into the Wild Beyond the Witchlight adventure into the Feywild, thematically, but I'd like to get some expert eyes on it.

2:45 PM

@KorvinStarmast Why would I choose this over prestidigitation? You get illusory confetti, along with other effects, within a shorter range but lack the obscuring/situational damage. Those benefits seem very combat focused, at which point your attack cantrip is likely better.

@JoelHarmon It's either or. You can use it in or out of combat, and, you can screw up and shoot confetti at someone who is about to blow out candles on a birthday cake and instead of making the party better someone gets burned ... again, it is inspired by the shenanigans of the Wild Beyond the Witchlight adventure book, but as I said, I want to get someexpert eyes on it.

@BESW 5e seems to not want to constrain players in a lot of ways. The "build what you want" approach leads to stuff like customizing your racial abilities and stats. You want your raging barbarian to also be a sage? Sure, take the background!

I'm not sure that holds water as an inferred design choice, when popular builds don't have options for actually being built?

@JoelHarmon Yes. My knowledge cleric has the background of Criminal/Spy. (He was a covert operative for the merchant's guild before he began adventuring. Now he's in Barovia ...)

4e had very deep customization, and also clear paths to effectively building for common party roles.

2:53 PM

@BESW speculating: backing away hard from "video game" features

Which is another way of saying "don't smell like 4e."

Yes

We might be talking past each other. Is your "clear and satisfying design choice" mostly fixed roles for classes, or is it a forced movement and marking system for Defender battlefield control?

Neither. It's offering clearly telegraphed paths to meet common party roles.

That doesn't have to be fixed roles for classes, or forced movement and marking, but they had that system and trashed it without, so far as I can tell, putting anything in its place to meet the same need.

I misread you as "fixed class roles", which should clarify my response a bit.

2:56 PM

@BESW And designing for them. It's difficult to build a 4e Fighter and not get a viable defender out of it, that takes work.

Exactly! That was one of the things I super appreciated about 4e; it was hard to take the choices labelled "does thing" and wind up with a character who didn't do thing.

But if you want the fighter to be a viable defender you'd have to give them [lowers voice really quiet] powers

Whereas in 3e, often the choices labelled "does thing" were some of the least helpful for doing thing.

(And the idea that "tank" is inherently a video game feature... [laughs hollowly] When did video games get a monopoly on characters that stand in way of harm to protect their friends? I feel like Wizards really lost control of the conversation there and didn't even TRY to get the ball back.)

@JoelHarmon Prestidigitation can't do damage, and hilariously, I have two experienced reviewers, one who says it is OP and one who says it is weak. I love RPGSE. 👍😁

@KorvinStarmast RPG.SE is nothing if not a melting pot

3:02 PM

@doppelgreener And that's why I brought that idea here. Good braining going on! 😊

I have a suspicion that after the turn of the year I may be able to start a group in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight adventure, which as I read through it is very different in tone than most other published adventures. I think it needs a thematic cantrip ... but I don't want to screw it up.

As for 5e design choices I think it stems from the fact that they initially designed them for fantasy first, mechanics later. That's why sorcerer has such a poorly defined niche and original ranger has features that are effectively useless but had to be included because of flavor.

I think that's less "fantasy first" and more "legacy first," isn't it? Given that they also literally copy-pasted text from previous editions.

And to their credit - their lack of viable tank was fixed in the first book after the initial release as these subclasses, but it still feels like a bit of an afterthought.

@BESW Yeah - make what people say they want to play.

A lot of D&D's weird choices, across the last three editions, have felt like obligatory legacy admissions; inclusions that only persist because of franchise inertia.

But to be fair - their player base mostly doesn't want drastic changes.

And RPG playerbase in general.

3:10 PM

I think there's a lot of evidence to the contrary, but the legacy players are the most vocal in the spaces Wizards listens to the most.

There's a reason why second most popular RPG is pathfinder - a.k.a. D&D but "better"

A lot of the weight of D&D in the hobby has very little to do with what the 'average' player wants, and a lot to do with thinking D&D is representative of the hobby. "Learning a new system would be expensive and time consuming," for example.

I ran a game table at a convention for a couple of years, and used games like Honey Heist, Lady Blackbird, and Roll For Shoes, to absolutely rock the paradigm of people who thought they had a very diverse TRPG background because they'd played Warhammer and Vampire.

And while even majority people might want drastic changes to core D&D experience the problem is that they want different things. For half of them there is not enough crunch and they want more mechanical choices and features while the other half wants it to make the combat an entirely optional part.

Tried to explain Fate Accelerated to someone, and when told "it's nothing like D&D," they responded "Oh, so it's like Pathfinder!"

@SilentAxe Aye, D&D is kinda hoist by its own petard, in trying to be a one-size-fits-all product. One of the things I respected about 4e was that it made a firm declaration of intent re: the gameplay it was going to focus on.

(And even with that, 4e still somehow managed to have a more robust and narratively flexible out-of-combat skill structure than 3e? The mind boggles.)

@BESW "hoist by its own petard" is a bit weird to say when they are the most commercially successful RPG ever (much more than they initially hoped for), which is all that the copyright holders care about.

Of course for us enthusiasts there are much better systems and it's a pity that they are not so popular, but for hose that stand to make money, the opinion of the 1% doesn't matter.

3:21 PM

[raises eyebrows] I missed that we were talking about finances.

@BESW I was referring to this

The authors initially probably wanted to make a successful RPG above all

Something I've found in my time with rpg.se, RPGSEA, and other design spaces, is that while a lot of people who play many different TRPGs also play D&D, the social spaces that form around playing D&D tend to be vastly non-representative of the wider community.

And, well. If we're gonna talk business... The last two times Hasbro announced it was making a TRPG out of one of its franchises, the company entirely skipped its wholly owned TRPG-making company and contracted with third-party companies instead.

@SilentAxe Which begs the question, because in that frame I'd be asking why they thought that choice would be successful.

@BESW My (possibly incorrect) gut reaction is that the in-house company was already booked solid for the next 3-5 years' worth of cash cow work.

I'd be inclined to wonder if Hasbro has looked at how D&D is putting all its eggs in one basket, and at all of the toxicity associated with both D&D fandom and Wizards of the Coast internally, and decided that maybe adding some diversity in the field would open up their options going forward.

@SilentAxe "Give the people what they want" - go through process of asking - 'Uh, they have no idea what they want' - Rinse and repeat. - The Bangles had a song about that ages ago

3:32 PM

@BESW having played pathfinder, i'm thrown for a loop at this

i'm like 80% sure pathfinder was made explicitly because wizards was moving to 4e and paizo made pathfinder as a modification of 3.5e as a result

Pathfinder was originally just third-party content for 3.5, and it became its own game when 3.5 became a legacy system.

Renegade Games doesn't have a sterling track record, but they haven't been the subject of multiple very very public "how awful it is to work here" exposés, they don't have a history of hiring sex offenders and stalkers, and they aren't embroiled in a half-hearted attempt to bring their content's representation of race up to early 2000s levels of acceptability.

@Yuuki If I understand this right, WoTC gets some kind of royalty off of PF stuff due to the license thing, right? Or not right? (Maybe my brain's thinking of D&D 3.75 took that idea too far)

@KorvinStarmast 3.5 used OGL, i think

@Yuuki OK, so if complying with the OGL no royalty required?

3e invented the OGL.

3:39 PM

yeah, i believe so

according to wikipedia, that's part of the reason paizo released stand-alone pathfinder, because 4e was released under a more restrictive license

Renegade Games has been the publisher of some of the more touted indie-press games of the last decade, and their ability to hire cutting-edge designers with ambitious progression projects tends to overshadow their tendency to also hire some dodgy designers with more questionable projects.

@SilentAxe Well, BESW is referencing the fact that the earliest releases of the D&D Next playtest featured tons of text that was directly copied and pasted from earlier editions, including features (again, directly copied and pasted) that players had no way to access inside the scope of the playtest, because they just lifted a level 30 monk feature and there was no level 30.

@Yuuki aah, yeah, makes sense. "The revolt of the fanbase" might be an interesting case of "the peasants are revolting" which ended up being successful.

By all accounts it looked hastily slapped together.

They made major promises in blog posts leading up to the first release, and the first release was ... nothing to do with anything they were promising and talking up, and instead it was this.

@doppelgreener Did you get to participate in the "Next" play test?

3:42 PM

@KorvinStarmast I downloaded the materials and checked them out. I didn't get an opportunity to play.

It's like they suddenly hastily cancelled their project and started a new word document and pasted some stuff in the day before, or like they simply had nothing written at the time they were announcing all these plans.

@doppelgreener Oh, I'm also referencing that there are tables and features in the Actual 5e Rules, not just the playtest, that got so badly revised they still refer to 3e features which don't exist in 5e anymore.

oh dear

@doppelgreener While I'd have liked to be in the play test (I was in a few playtests for CRPGs) TTRPGs were, for me at that time, well in my rearview mirror. It took VTT and my brother promising that I'd not be the DM to bring me back. And 5e delivered a good experience so I resumed ...

Like references to different numbers for things depending on what size creature they'd made for... but they're things which no longer get sized differently for different size creatures, that part of the 3.5 chart was removed but not the references to it.

(Animal barding, I think, is the one I saw)

(BTW, Renegade Games originally said that their Hasbro license games would use 5e variants; and then a year later they announced their own in-house system for the games.)

[looks at everything that got set on fire in Wizards during that year]
[looks at camera]

(And now with Paizo begrudgingly recognizing a union... change is in the air and chances are good that Wizards is gonna handle unionization as gracefully as it handled Mike Mearls.)

4:02 PM

... in 2014.

huh, they're making a buzz lightyear movie

4:42 PM

I cannot read this question title without snickering. "Is Bahamut the same deity as Paula Deen?"

5:07 PM

the classic favourite lawful good D&D character, Paula Deen

she wields a +5 holy butterknife

I've met her husband.

at higher levels she can summon a butter elemental from the elemental plane of southern cooking

mentioning paula deen also makes me think of sandra lee and her "two shots of vodka"

5:41 PM

@ThomasMarkov ah, the other classic lawful good class, the War Deen

6:10 PM

@MikeQ is that a full plane or a semi plane?

6:32 PM

Getting some great confetti cantrip feedback over at GiTP also, this thing might work now that I know what bugs to clean out of it. I'll let it gestate and revisit in the morning.

6:55 PM

Someone want to give me a temperature check on this comment:

Our "How to ask a good question" help article suggests sharing any research you have already done toward solving your problem, and I'm noticing a pattern of asking brief questions without some of the things suggested in that article. Of course, not every question needs such details, and sometimes we just don't know where to begin our research for our questions, but any time you can provide some details of your own research or reasoning, those things would be helpful - it might help point others to where the confusion is. — Thomas Markov 49 secs ago

AncientSwordRage

7:32 PM

@ThomasMarkov perfect

(and a good advertisement for your community communication skills 😉)

FWIW @ThomasMarkov Andras has been here for 8 years. He knows how to use this site. He is asking a PF 2e question that I suspect PF 2e experts will understand well enough. Don't disagree that, sometimes, brevity isn't the soul of clarity, but I'll let the PF 2e cadre handle that question if they think it's unclear. (He's also given me a lot of good answer to chew over

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, it's not a problem. Their questions are usually plenty clear in their presentation.

But we often see that including some details of how you have thought through your problem can tip off experts to the root of the confusion.

8:00 PM

@ThomasMarkov yeppers. I tend to make my questions too long, in contrast, and am often asked to perform a bit of liposuction ...

8:21 PM

@MikeQ I think I had asked you this, but did you have a chance to playtest PF 2e?

Yep, I'm in a PF2 campaign that's been on hiatus but resuming soon. I also plan to run a PF2 game for local friends next year.

8:42 PM

user image

insert vegeta_meme.png

9:06 PM

@MikeQ Cool. Did you get very far in the one that is resuming?

Hard to say. We tested out play at levels 1-9, although PF2 has a very strict intended balance and the GM is running a homebrew campaign that doesn't adhere to it.

9:31 PM

@SilentAxe I tried to use it a lot with a sharpshooter BM build I had. The idea being, I'm really far away and it's pretty great if I can make melee combatants want to attack me.

All of Storm King's Thunder, and I don't think it landed more than once, maybe.

AncientSwordRage

I've been wanting to ask this, but I just haven't had time to give it the focus it needs: As a player, in a text only game of D&D, how do you avoid starting all of your narration as "<character name> ..."?

@AncientSwordRage First person? :D

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener as in switch to first person?

yes

yea

9:44 PM

although I think it would be a good idea to establish a rule with the group first like

all of your narration starting with <character name> is repetitive but it isn't a problem, it's just narration. Novels won't do it but novels got to use a previous paragraph to begin the narration like that. You have to start new narrations in each post.

"everythying we just type is character

everything in paranthesis ( hey everyone doing ok so far?) is out of character"

first person technically meets the profile lol

but it works!

but you'll start your narration with "I ..."

but that's also fine

it doesn't have to be that exactly, just establish something beforehand that everyone understands and that way you have a way not to break character when you are acting and not to break character when you aren't

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener problem or not, I'd like to change it

@doppelgreener I'll consider that

9:47 PM

(for out of character talking) is just the easiest fastest and least complicated way I personally can think of right now

AncientSwordRage

We already use parentheses for that

I appreciate the feedback from both of you though

ok cool

then other than completely and utterly agreeing with greener I don't have much to add in there XD

Yeah I understand the impulse, it's good to keep writing varied

but some things like this are just staples of how English works and it's difficult to vary it

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> Craftily, and with a poorly-concealed smirk, BESW wields syntax to append descriptive phrases before the subject of his narrating sentences.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that's awesome

> “You can also use dialogue to introduce your action, and maybe employ non-name references to your character,” the chat regular from Guam added.

That said, especially in large groups, starting your action with your character name can be a good way to avoid confusion.

> BESW: or establish a prefix convention like this so your identity is clear without having to integrate it into every sentence.

I don’t know if it’s still common, but waaaay back in the day of AIM RP, different characters and stances would be given signifying symbol brackets.

like,

> $this means I’m talking in the voice of my main character$

> %and now I’m narrating an omnipotent view of the world%

Colors were also used

AncientSwordRage

10:53 PM

hastily takes notes

That right there, bracketing a phrase with asterisks to indicate a narrative stance? Roughly the same school of notation as AIM RP.

I use square brackets because asterisks get reformatted to italics so regularly now.

11:22 PM

My time across the internet has taught me that no symbol is safe from turning into formatting. Though I haven't found anywhere where using one asterisk does anything weird

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11:36 PM

@BESW AIUI, scripts for plays use italics to indicate actions (vs spoken dialog) so it's not that much of a deal?

@Exempt-Medic asterisk + space turns into a bulleted list sometimes

@bobble thy is my preferred bullet method.

11:59 PM

I prefer using dash + space

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