TRPG General Chat - 2021-11-24

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12:05 AM

@BESW If I'm reading your use of "anti-canon" correctly, then yes, extremely so - it's a way of letting a bunch of 80s popcult themes play together when their entire conceit is "the entire world is normal except for this one weird teenage werewolf/time rider/talking car/friendly alien".

By anti-canon I mean an attitude where internal consistency isn't valued for its own sake, and the game/story/setting/franchise uses or ignores continuity according to the needs of the moment.

TheDragonOfFlame

@Phoenices I forgot to add a once per day thing to ancestral horde, but for it being actionless, it is modelled entirely after Hurl Through Hell from the fiendlock

4e's Points of Light was low-key anti-canon, in that it presented actively inconsistent elements of lore within a broadly consistent framework.

d6

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12:26 AM

Classic D&D monsters that are attracted to magic auras/magical items?

(Excluding "screwjob" monsters of old, like adherers and whathaveyou.)

Fate stunts have always been kind of half anti-canon, half pip bonuses. (though the actual ratio has been more like 3/4 pip bonuses 1/4 anti-canon) VHS stunts are definitely anti-canon.

12:50 AM

They can be, but while part of anti-canon in TRPGs is giving continuity to the table rather than the author, the other part of it is rejecting strict continuity of any sort including table-made.

That is: 4e's anti-canon is an explicit rejection of writer authority in favor of table authority, while BE SEEING YOU's form of anti-canon says that what happened last session may not be true this session, or even remembered by the characters who were there for it.

1:10 AM

Hey all! I've got a friend that's been playing 5e for a while, and he's written up a few campaigns for his kids, but this his first time running a proper campaign. He's very open to criticism, and is feeling a bit nervous about his performance, so I though if I could send him some helpful links to read, he'd appreciate it :D

What is he interested in/worried about specifically?

He's doing a bit of a railroad campaign, which we're all cool with. Using a DMPC to "keep things moving". Again, we're all cool with it, and we're happy to embrace that to make things easier on him.

@bobble he's currently just working off our feedback so far. And he's apparently written a lot for the campaign, "probably too much" as he put it

He was getting into a bit of a nervous babble by the end, so potentially anything to keep his nerves settled would be helpful

AncientSwordRage

@Ben railroad and kids sounds like it won't work...

Lol. I don't think any of those games lasted more than a session anyway haja

His kids have more fun stealing his phone when he's trying to play with us 🤣

TheDragonOfFlame

Matt Colville running the game videos is what I recommend to any new dm

Intro: Running the Game

Your First Adventure | Running the Game

1:24 AM

Having a lot of notes can be very good so long as you aren't attached to them. More notes on what is and less on what will happen is a good rule of thumb.

TheDragonOfFlame

Your First Session | Running the Game

this one isn't for the DM but for you:

27

Q: What level, if any, of feedback should players give a new GM?

I've recently started playing D&D with a few friends, most of whom are new-ish to the game. Our GM is running their first world, and while their world building is very impressive, when it comes to the mechanics of gameplay it feels like there's a lot of room for improvement in their knowledge and...

dnd-5e new-gm social problem-gm

1:43 AM

POCGamer wrote a twitter thread about how "The biggest difference between 4e and 5e isn't the mechanics, or settings. It's the vibe. And not the play vibe, the creative vibe. 4e has confidence, 5e doesn't."

Aaron Lim wrote a twitter thread about the complexity underlying the question "do tabletop RPGs have rules".

JusticeArman wrote a twitter thread about "the ultimate D&D adventure hook"

WarlockDnD shared on twitter an image of the powerful Megoosa.

AncientSwordRage

> It was, for a number of reasons, a flop. It was the only edition of D&D that actually had a hot war with another edition (3.5e's descendent, Pathfinder), and it lost that war. And I think that did a real number on the team at Wizards

That sounds cromulant

Although commenters are saying every quarter it beat pathfinder numbers 🤷🏻‍♂️

I am so tired of definitions of "success" that focus on one numerical measure as if it's the whole picture.

And like, what numbers? Big TRPG companies are notoriously close-mouthed about releasing their actual accounts.

And any analysis of books-bought needs to take into account Pathfinder's embrace of OGL/SRD compared to 4e's abandonment of the OGL in favor of a more restrictive closed system, because just looking at flat purchases is going to give a skewed sense of the relative space the systems occupied in the hobby.

And ultimately what matters when talking about 4e's impact on 5e isn't sales; it's perception. And I'm not sure anybody is gonna argue that 4e won the war of perception.

AncientSwordRage

2:25 AM

@BESW 'numbers' are definitely not the whole story

Those who heard about my first Cthulhu Dark game, will recognize the source material.

2:49 AM

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica Conjure Animals, from the PHB.

TheDragonOfFlame

@Phoenices I am done working through your extremely helpful suggestions. Updated: homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/edit/sd7ZbcSMw5gF

@AncientSwordRage I just realized I didn’t respond to your comments, but I did read and apply them, so thank you as well!

AncientSwordRage

3:12 AM

@TheDragonOfFlame exciting!

Hot RPG Questions

3:35 AM

2

Q: What are the options for a PC with cold resistance and darkvision?

Here's what doesn't seem to work: Goliath (does not have darkvision) Mountain Dwarf (does not have cold resistance) The only race that seems to have both is the Triton. Any other options for a race / class combination (including Tasha's Custom Lineage or Customizing Your Origins)?

dnd-5e class-feature racial-traits vision-and-light damage-resistance

Hot RPG Questions

4:26 AM

4

Q: Mini-dash as a general bonus action: what value would be balanced?

I'm considering adding the following homebrew bonus action. It's a general action, so it would be available for free to all players (not enemies): Stride. You gain extra movement for the current turn. This increase is equal to X feet. If your speed is lower than X feet, the increase equals your ...

dnd-5e balance movement homebrew action-economy

2 hours later…

5:57 AM

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica it’s colorful paper that’s slightly thicker than printer paper but not like card stock thick

@AncientSwordRage that’s like what I’ve got then

@BardicWizard Notably construction paper has a very heavy tooth (it's rough to the touch, not smooth), which catches materials like crayon allowing layers to be built on top of each other.

@JoelHarmon Yeah, I also polled the “mostly upper middle class teenagers with phones, but no money” demographic. I just wanted an idea of this demographic as opposed to the “crafters who have too much of all the stuff I listed” demographic and the teen demographic

(If anybody's ever been frustrated by pencil/crayon/pastel type media, try using a rougher paper, you may find the experience dramatically improved)

6:14 AM

@BESW cool! I didn’t know that!

Yeah, the kind of paper matters a lot to different projects. Roughness, density, and thickness are all variables that determine whether it'll be good for origami, watercolor, crayon, etc.

(source: is artist)

2 hours later…

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

7:49 AM

@BardicWizard Not sure if it's useful for the demographic-related statistics, but most of the listed stuff with positive answers dates back to the time when money was scarce - some back to socialist times, some to the free-but-financially-harsh 90s. (I.e. it's something obtained a long time ago.)

AncientSwordRage

8:18 AM

@BardicWizard hers is rainbow coloured, what colour is yours? 🙂

@nitsua60 I believe your spelling is correct, and being corrected has embiggened my knowledge of how to spells words correctly 😜

Foundry Virtual Tabletop is now 25% off until noon eastern time on Nov. 30 (Twitter link)

AncientSwordRage

9:10 AM

Is anybody aware of Ginny Di on YouTube? Just stumbled in her videos (I swear I saw one once) and they're fantastic... Not just D&D related either

I'd share videos, bu I'm going through her backlog (word?) so they're not recent and there's too many I want to share

If I had to share one though I'd guess it was this:

How to give your D&D character a personality

Not least of all for the advert, and the top comment that somebody's character is a mashup of Leghorn Foghorn and Doc Brown 👀

9:37 AM

Happy Day of the Covenant!

2

3 hours later…

12:27 PM

@Ben Using a DMPC sounds like it would be more work. One friend's high school group would use the very heavy-handed "DM phone" for D&D games. A phone on an extremely long cord would literally fall from the empty sky, bonking the relevant character on the head. They'd receive relevant reminders, then the phone would disappear (because apparently this is all normal in their universe).

I'd also throw out the quip "planning is key, but plans are useless"

@BardicWizard Sure; just making sure you've got your bases covered.

2 hours later…

2:28 PM

@AncientSwordRage I still think that the best idea for non-OGL content would be to filter it but then link to DBD-pages without touching the content at all (using those keywords to filter that are available through OGL or your made-up categorising).

The biggest issue is that some of the filters will be problematic from the get-go and would definitely touch on their copyright, so the question becomes - how useful will that what is available to you be?

TheDragonOfFlame

@Akixkisu I am no sure what conversation you are replying to, but under the OGL you cannot list book acronyms (PHB, MM, TCE) or full names, so there would be no way to reference a book

@TheDragonOfFlame Yup, there is very little that you can reference: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/193129/44723 and certainly not the vision of what this sounds like.

Some filtering that uses made-up categories would function, but even then one might tread on other feet, and the point of the projects probably becomes mood, because you can't use those categories that you want to use.

TheDragonOfFlame

Oh yeah no way

there are already spell searching websites, but they are technically piracy

AncientSwordRage

3:12 PM

@TheDragonOfFlame oh wow, somebody should let RPGBOT.net know

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

Solution: make up highly memorable nicknames for the books, much like ancient Eurasians have made up memorable nicknames for that animal which knows of bees and wears a brown coat.

3:41 PM

@vicky_molokh-unsilenceMonica You're talking about humans, right?

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@Phoenices *unsure if serious*

You think we don't make up memorable nicknames for each other?!

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

I used two highly specific descriptors associated with such nicknaming, but if those are too obscure, I can name the brown one for you.

No, no, too dangerous. If you do, people might appear and might or might not attack you/me. I don't know how it works with computer screens, and I don't want to test it.

Well, maybe writing isn't so dangerous. You can if you want.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

Oh wait, we can't actually name the bear. Because we have no clue what its true name is. It's been lost to the ages through such nicknames, which we use to this day.

3:48 PM

...the relevant xkcd posits that we can guess pretty well what it was, if I recall.

AncientSwordRage

I'm not sure if, by "for non-OGL content would be to filter it" you mean have it in the system, but only non-copywrited parts filterable, or if by filter you mean to parse/extract important bits and link to the full text?

> how useful will that what is available to you be?

somewhere between 'learning experience' and 'partially'

@TheDragonOfFlame More random things about Forebearers pact.
Note that the Guardian Spirit statblock doesn't preclude most actions. Unless I'm missing something, it can still take the Use an Item action, for instance - a property "cannot take actions other than the Helpful Spirit action," or just "Can only take dodge/disengage/etc actions" would fix it.
I don't know if Ancestral Horde is supposed to make someone un-rezzable by "destroying their soul" - a true permadeath, as far as I know, isn't something that a PC can easily accomplish. You could go with "the creature's soul is defeated" if…

@AncientSwordRage I was pretty confused for a bit when I read this in the sidebar - what's a chat logos? We have something named logos? I mean, good naming sense, whoever named it, but why haven't I heard of it?

AncientSwordRage

4:04 PM

@Phoenices plural logo not singular philosophical/metaphysical term

Yeah, I figured that out once I read the link.

AncientSwordRage

cool

4:17 PM

@AncientSwordRage She's good. I always hold at least two limes - her lime example was most excellent.

This is a nice PSA her point 7 I have posted on here in some answers

On her point 9 I still have trouble with this with a few players...

AncientSwordRage

5:04 PM

@KorvinStarmast I can't check what those points are, because I can't access youtube from work

do you know what they were?

waves at Slate

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

@Axoren Aside from the matter of Warlock availability, don't those die like flies to any area attacks? (Of the short count of boss-adjacent characters seen so far, those seem to be reasonably common.)

@AncientSwordRage 7 is pay attention, 9 is understand your character

Apparently she means "understand your character" both mechanically (what is sneak attack, rogue?) and narratively (what does your deity stand for, cleric?)

5:29 PM

I don’t know 3.5e, and this question has several questions to it. Is it well scoped or does it need to be closed till focused?

AncientSwordRage

5:49 PM

@ThomasMarkov I'm a little hazy but it looks ok

@ThomasMarkov I'm not very familiar with this particular book, but at a glance it seems to be four distinct questions; the querent even broke them out already.

AncientSwordRage

@ObliviousSage we were just discussing that Q...

@JoelHarmon they could be split out... something tells me a coherent answer could address most of it in one go perhaps

@AncientSwordRage If they were posted as a series of four questions back to back, would you moderate three of them closed as a duplicate of the fourth?

AncientSwordRage

@JoelHarmon It depends on how much detail was included in each answer

and now, it's deleted ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If the question asked was "What exactly does a Vestige know about a Binder that is trying to bind it?" and the answer was "Vestiges have to communicate with Binders before and after being bound to find out about the Binder" BOOM you've just answered "Can a Binder and his bound Vestige communicate?"

6:06 PM

Admittedly, those two seem much closer than the resurrection one.

AncientSwordRage

@JoelHarmon true

in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, 1 hour ago, by Cereal Bot

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Marginal Cost of Lurking

posted on November 24, 2021 by tech

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: This comic supersedes the dragon hoard one, which was made in error. Today's News:

something something realistic dungeons...

6:41 PM

@AncientSwordRage a know your character, and be alert...

7:03 PM

@AncientSwordRage Sorry, on phone while traveling for holidays. I saw it and said “That’s obviously multiple questions”. The “Can once mortal vestiges be resurrected?” one at the very least needed to be split out. They had the association bonus so I figured I was safe to close it and then comment, but apparently not. :(

AncientSwordRage

7:15 PM

@ObliviousSage no idea if they'd have taken it better if it had been slower... It's possible they know enough to realise they messed up but not enough to remember before it happened 🤷🏻‍♂️

@ObliviousSage that being said, it's always trickier closing questions for being unclear when they have an answer, so I understand the haste

1 hour later…

AncientSwordRage

8:35 PM

@ObliviousSage one thing I've noticed is that the community is pretty good at handling these amongst themselves

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, phone number detected in title, potentially bad keyword in body, potentially bad keyword in title (0): oo) +27780171131 ,join illuminata in UK ,uganda ,sudan ,mbarara kampala , by pure chemical on rpg.SE

8:59 PM

In case folks were curious why that post wasn't autoflagged, Metasmoke is currently experiencing some downtime due to ISP problems:

in Charcoal HQ, 4 hours ago, by Thomas Ward

MS outage due to ISP outage - No ETA on a fix - WAS working with the ISP to solve this but all they're doing is jerking me around in a circle, from one support person to the next without ETA or anything. So at this point all I can say is "They'll fix it when they fix it". (I am online via my phone right now, but MS is not)

AncientSwordRage

9:11 PM

@Spevacus thanks for the heads up

Hot RPG Questions

9:41 PM

7

Q: How do you deal with the concept of clones and assassination missions in Paranoia?

I'm reading through the rulebook, and it talks about how players may have a mission to assassinate another player character. Also in the Secret Society section it says that if you leave a secret society you may be targetted for assassination. I'm confused as to how this would work with clones. If...

1 hour later…

10:55 PM

Jay Dragon wrote a twitter thread about "where the book discusses what happens when you choose the final advancement option & must retire your character" and why they're "proud of it from a game design perspective"

Brandon Leon-Gambetta wrote a twitter thread about "TTRPG Skill and how it interacts with assumptions about how system, mechanics, and games work."

11:37 PM

Morning all

[wave]

11:54 PM

@Ben You would say that [he types, looking out into the night sky] =)

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