Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Youjay

01:50

I need some advice on a situation in Curse of Strahd
POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW

We've had one session and already the PC's are taking Irena to Vallaki, considering the length of the journey, the spy's and scrying spells, i'd be damn near impossible for Strahd not to find out about this.
How would Strahd react to this? I don't want him to eviscerate 4 lvl 3 adventures, but I also think he would confront them about this or at least do something to get Irena, possibly with Irena in the party.
How do I make Strhad seem all-knowing an all-present, powerful and terrifying without immediately kidnapping Irena or causing a TPK?

MikeQ

02:43

@Youjay He doesn't need to confront them in person. Send a messenger. The message would indicate that he is watching them, then ask/demand Irena's return to him for a reward, and imply a threat if they refuse.

The problem here is that if Strahd directly confronts the PCs, then there's always a risk of combat, which will likely be a TPK.

Youjay

I feel like Strahd is clever enough to leave them alive, but how much dose it affect the plot if Strahd takes Irena, almost immediately.

I feel like Strahd accomplishing one of his main character goals in the second session might muck things up, but I have no evidence to back up that claim its just a gut feeling.
If it doesn't then having Strahd show up to kidnap Irena right then and there could be interesting, but again idk if that'll screw up too much.

MikeQ

That would definitely fast-forward the plot, unless you rewrite stuff so that Strahd requires some additional thing for his end goals

The module Epilogue says what bad stuff happens if Strahd achieves his goals with Irena. So I assume the writers don't expect that to happen early on.

By the way, if you google for things like "why doesnt strahd" or "what prevents strahd", you'll find many similar discussions to what you're asking

doppelgreener

13:06

@Ash Have you come across the Hyperion/Endymion series from Dan Simmons?

I might have mentioned them to you before but if so I don't recall

user15026

14:14

@doppelgreener they don't sound immediately familiar

Gwideon

14:30

hello

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon /me waves.

Gwideon

how is everyone

vicky_molokh

Both of the Weekend's sessions got cancelled over some of the players being unavailable (and at a point in the story where a partial roster is inadvisable).
One former player is hyping up Genesys to me but I'm unsure yet.
Quiet day at work today.

Gwideon

oof that sucks. Um it is good that you're having a fairly quiet day.

Gwideon

14:50

i'm kinda a bit anxious right now. not entirely sure why

Gwideon

15:09

so um i've kinda got a weird idea for a magic weapon.

vicky_molokh

What sort?

Gwideon

it could be any sort of melee weapon. It would be made of a super clear glass with like a nebula inside it. not sure what the effects would be.

vicky_molokh

Well, cloudly glass can certainly look stylish.

Gwideon

I like the aesthetic.

Derpy

> Unfortunate is he who is struck with a glass sword, for contained within is a powerful magic that enters the body and mangles the innards. In the release, the sword is destroyed and cannot be repaired. Thus, a glass sword is a rare and fortunate find. Should you find one, save it for a foe who inspires a novel fear.

Ultima IX.

vicky_molokh

15:18

@Derpy Oh great, the super-fragile super-damaging spear from DOS2 flashbacks.

Derpy

Glass Sword(s) are a recurring weapon in the serie

Gwideon

Fire emblem glass swords

Derpy

@vicky_molokh the Glass Sword breaks instantly.

vicky_molokh

@Derpy Exactly.

Derpy

one single hit, damage capped to kill (almost) every mob instantly.

vicky_molokh

15:20

DOS2 used to have a bug where using special attacks with such a weapon would preserve it, and only normal attacks shattering it, but that's been patched AFAIK.

kviiri

Hrm. Seems like we might have a new government soon. One of the member parties of the ruling cabinet announced they will vote for no confidence towards the current prime minister, relating to messiness around a recent mail strike.

Gwideon

@kviiri Britain?

kviiri

Although they've stated that their non-confidence is strictly personal towards the prime minister, not towards the coalition.

@Gwideon Finland

Gwideon

okay

sorry i'm not super knowledgeable on world governments

kviiri

@Gwideon Most people aren't :)

vicky_molokh

15:22

@kviiri Because so far there hasn't been even one. ^_^

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh hey about the fate test sessions I don't think i'll be able to do them for a while. December is a really busy month for me and i'm not sure if our schedules will line up.

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Yeah, it seems that we can only ever line up one Weekends due to school, work, and timezones.

And even that only theoretically so far.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh Zing :D

@Gwideon I'm not going to bore you with a long lecture, but we basically have twenty or so parties, about half of which are really small to the point of being mostly irrelevant. After a parliamentary election (every four years) the largest party tries to form a coalition with a comfortable majority, with the remaining parties forming the opposition.

I have a bit of interest in political procedure, I've been talking about these things a bit here whenever something interesting happens :P

doppelgreener

@Ash They are some mix of soft sci-fi, science fantasy, and space opera. This imgur gallery summarises it well right at the top, and lists some others.

Gwideon

hmm interesting

kviiri

15:34

For some reason we keep getting more and more of these smaller parties. I think it was yesterday or today when our Pirate Party split, with the offshoot renaming itself the Open Party.

doppelgreener

I haven't read those but a friend has read Altered Carbon and recommends it highly; it's basically a hardboiled detective story in a world where people have pseudo-immortality because their mind is backed up in the event of their death. The main character is hired by a rich man to investigate an assassination—his own. The police report is the rich man killed himself, but he rejects that report completely and wants to know who did it.

(The rich man has about an hour of memory loss leading up to the incident, so he doesn't know what actually happened to him.)

There's also a Netflix series, but I don't know how representative it is of the book.

Gwideon

@kviiri Pirate Party?

doppelgreener

The TV adaptation is fairly gritty but given the current media climate people would make Smurfs gritty if they could.

kviiri

@Gwideon They started as a single-issue party about copyright matters, and branched out a bit towards an overall social liberal ideology, but without a strong consensus in most matters except digital rights.

It's an international thing although I'm not sure if other Pirate Parties around the world have a wider breadth of issues in their portfolio: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party

Gwideon

okay

i'm gonna shut up now

NautArch

15:49

@Gwideon Gwideon, please stop saying that.

Gwideon

16:00

I can't

it's hard and I just can't. I say it without thinking and um yeah

kviiri

I understand it's something you don't mean. People have that kinds of behaviors, it's ok. You don't need to say sorry or tell yourself to shut up here but it's understandable it takes time to adjust. Don't worry about it :)

NautArch

And here is a good place to work on it! If you've typed it, just don't send it. Look back at the language you've used and adjust it. Starting here will then (hopefully) move the improvements to other communication and you my find yourself improving all over the place (and inside yourself, too.)

doppelgreener

16:16

Breaking habits takes work, and I totally get that thing where we just do it and don't even think about it and realise we've done it. It takes a lot of times before we even realise "...oh, wait, I did the thing!" only after we've done it, and a lot more times before we realise during doing it so that we can change course (and even then, it's still hard to change course). For some counterproductive habits like that one it's worth looking out for though.

I recognise why you do it (it's an anxiety thing and I recognise it completely from past stuff) and it is going to feel unsafe to not do it, but it's a habit worth interrupting

Gwideon

okay

kviiri

Has anyone played the board game Puerto Rico?

It's supposedly brilliant and it might have a niche in my table

Gwideon

I haven't

NautArch

@kviiri have not, but I did just buy a new game for my kids (6 and 7.5) to attempt: Treasure X's Quest for Gold.

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri I've played its card-based cousin San Juan.

kviiri

16:37

I'm trying to branch off my board game hobby a bit, in both directions. I want somewhat more involved simulationist strategy games but also looking eagerly towards this semi-abstract Euro-strategy fare that I feel usually has the best games.

Yuuki

@kviiri No, but I played Mechs vs. Minions over the weekend.

kviiri

@Yuuki What's it like?

NautArch

@kviiri By the way, loved Scythe! Took a bit to figure it out and I made some early mistakes, but still did decently.

Yuuki

It's pretty fun. We only got through two of the missions, but I expect there's a pretty good amount of variability.

There's at least two game pieces that we didn't touch at all.

kviiri

@NautArch Awesome! I'd totally buy it but two of my friends have it already so it'd be a bit of waste :)

NautArch

16:47

@kviiri We definitely want to play it again soon now that we understand it.

It definitely had a Risk on Steroids feel.

kviiri

Which country did you play?

I was the Rusviets

I loved being able to spam the same action all the time

NautArch

@kviiri Nordic :)

Yeha, the Russian won.

kviiri

@NautArch Swimmer guis

NautArch

@kviiri Yeah, i made a bad decision early one when I sent a guy over the first river thinking I could use him to get access to the Factory.

kviiri

I think I was the first to get to Factory in our game. I had only read the rules once and didn't realize at all what the reward would be

That said, I milked it for all its worth.

Yuuki

16:54

The second mission in Mechs vs. Minions is pretty intense, we pretty much filled the entire board with the enemy minions.

I'm not quite sure how to compare it though, I don't play too many board games so I'm not sure what other games it's similar to.

It's a cooperative game for 2-4 players. Each player controls a Mech. Every turn, the players draft command cards from a communal hand. Then, they slot those cards into a 6-slot command line. After the draft phase, each player executes the commands they've slotted for their Mech.

Carcer

action programming

kviiri

Huh. I remember looking into that

Carcer

that's a fun mechanic

kviiri

Now that you mention it

Carcer

my friend greg made a game about being malfunctioning robots trying to fulfil nonsensical directives that also uses action programming

but competitive, not cooperative

Yuuki

17:01

Mechs can't die in the game. However, when you take damage, you draw from a deck of damage cards. Damage cards either mess around with your command line (swapping slots around) or can override certain slots.

Carcer

Space Alert is a coop action programming game as well, you have to plan out the entire sequence of events with command cards while listening to audio/drawing cards that tell you what's happening and then at the end you play everything out and see how hilariously it goes wrong

Yuuki

So there's several missions in the game, of which I've played two.

Carcer

e.g. you got your movement orders the wrong way round and now you're pressing the button in the wrong room and it activates the torpedoes instead of the teleporter

Yuuki

The first one involves pushing a bomb to a location, the other is almost like a capture-the-flag sort of thing.

well this is an amusing premise for a webcomic

> tfw you're too introverted to ask your crush out so you summon astaroth of the 23 great dukes of hell for some love advice

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Not a bar, but plays one on TV