TRPG General Chat

Alex P

12:00 AM

@BESW I prefer this link.

That one's funnier, though.

Alex P

1:45 AM

Well, I'm bored.

BESW

1:55 AM

@AlexP [dangles shiny thing]

Alex P

@BESW that is pretty shiny

Problematic

2:12 AM

> And now somebody's gone and magicked up my hole...

No conversation that ended well, ever

BESW

[grin]

trogdor

2:48 AM

lol

Problematic

4:44 AM

Vampire pumpkins and watermelons

Vampire pumpkins and watermelons are a folk legend from the Balkans, in southeastern Europe, described by ethnologist Tatomir Vukanović. The story is associated with the Roma people of the region, from whom much of traditional vampire folklore originated. The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. One of the main indications that a pumpkin or melon is about to undergo a vampiric transformation (or has just completed one) is said to be the appearance of a drop of blood on its skin. The...

So yeah, this is a thing, apparently. "Vampire pumpkins and watermelons."

Who knew?

trogdor

lol

I DID

no not really

Metool

5:58 AM

So what happens if I upvote my own question?

trogdor

uh

not sure you can?

if you can, nothing likely happens on it's own

but I suspect mods watch for abuse of it if it's at all possible

(I have not asked questions, I have only given answers)

(and I am still technically relatively new to the site)

Metool

This is why I ask

@BESW if you're awake, do you have a clue?

BESW

You cannot upvote your own question. It will give you a "cannot do" message.

Metool

aaalrighty.

trogdor

that's what I figured

but wasn't sure

BESW

6:08 AM

You can, however, accept your own answer to your own question.

That's totally fine.

Magician

Morning!

doppelgreener

@Magician Hi!

Magician

Once again I bring to you news of everyone's favourite trainwreck-in-the-making, D&DNext. Today we find out that they're still not settled on basic maths, and not even on the way skill system works.

Also, this line: "For the true kit bashers and hardcore optimizers, we're also planning on giving guidelines for building your own subclasses from the individual class features offered by each subclass."
...yeah, that's not going to work.

Metool

Quite.

doppelgreener

Reading that now. I think I'm going to need some context for that quote, at the very least...

unless they just mean what I think they mean: mix and match

Metool

6:22 AM

That's the most likely answer. Read on?

doppelgreener

(within the class? between classes?)

Yes, reading. :)

Magician

Probably just swap around abilities of the same level, with some restrictions as to how much you can do that.

Metool

"As with most things in D&D Next, we expect a DM or group to decide how much detail they want to allow. You might use only the simplest character options, allow players to choose subclasses, or go all out and let players build their own subclasses."

Magician

Though, you know, seeing as they haven't finished the core basic fundamental game in a year of active playtesting, I wouldn't actually hold my breath.

doppelgreener

> We want to focus on growing hit points, rather than attack or saving throw bonuses (or DCs), as the way we reflect growing character power. (...) Since AC, attack, and saving throw numbers don't grow too much, low-level monsters can still hit and damage you (though for a smaller portion of your hit points) as you reach higher levels.

This idea is neat.

trogdor

6:25 AM

yeah

it is

but I was also very skeptical about DnD next when I first heard about it

namely it just sounded too good to be true

doppelgreener

No more do we have the "kobold can never stab you ever, except 1 in 20 times" thing. They do stab you, sometimes, and that's kinda okay. It's just not dangerous to you anymore.

trogdor

well

doppelgreener

@trogdor To me it sounded too schizophrenic and self-contradictory to be executable.

trogdor

it is,... because Kobolds only attack if they outnumber you

doppelgreener

@trogdor ... yes. good point. lambs then.

Magician

6:27 AM

@JonathanHobbs It has been neat a year ago, too, when they first spoke about "bounded accuracy". They just seem to be circling around it now, without actually producing mechanics to fit it.

trogdor

@JonathanHobbs that is one easy way I saw that it could fall over

doppelgreener

@Magician Was it something they put on the backburner?

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Don't think so. It's been there as one of the features from the very start, and they've occasionally mentioned it.

Which is why it's strange to see them keep reaffirming it.

The Oracle

0

Q: Save our system tags!

According to this meta suggestion, single-use tags will no longer expire if they have a tag wiki. We have a historic problem whereby users will ask about a game system (and a tag will be created for it), but that will be the only question on the system, dooming the tag to later be obliterated an...

doppelgreener

Whee. :D

The main thing I'm concerned about is this +1 to +6 bonus progression: if progression is limited between levels, you run into the Guild Wars 2 problem.

Magician

6:31 AM

The whole "a mob of weak creatures are still dangerous" thing is tough to implement. 4e minions come close, though they had their own share of issues, chiefly the proliferation of auto-hit powers everyone would grab a couple of at higher levels. D&D doesn't handle 50 combatants, at all.

And current designers of Next, when asked if a mob of peasants with crossbows should be able to take down a dragon go "eeeeeh" and shrug

2

@JonathanHobbs There's a GW2 problem? :P

doppelgreener

For those who haven't played it: Everywhere in Guild Wars 2 has a level range (e.g. some areas are for players level 5 to 10). If your level is higher than the maximum level for the area, you are given an "effective level" equal to the area's maximum level, and your stats are scaled down to roughly what someone's stats would be at that level.

Contrast this to other MMORPGs where a level 50 character can run around the level 5 area one-hit-killing everything and being completely invincible to anything.

Magician

So... that's a good thing :)

doppelgreener

No, it isn't.

Well, not to me, and not to some others. It means you have no sense of progression.

Magician

You can meaningfully interact with any map and any enemy in the world. Also, you are still like a god to those low-level mobs that die in 2 hits.

doppelgreener

That thing where you're able to go back to the level 30 area where you had a lot of trouble and burninate everything without a care in the world institutes a sense of growth and progression and power. It shows how far you've come. It feels good. That doesn't exist in GW2.

@Magician No, you're not a god, you're just a level 10 character.

Because you also have the same abilities you had when you were level 10.

So you have the stats and abilities of a level 10 character. You are effectively a level 10 character.

Magician

6:37 AM

@JonathanHobbs That's just not true, though. You can easily solo champions that would splat you in one hit before. But they do pose some danger, so you can actually play with them, not be bored. It gives reason to ever go back.

doppelgreener

The bit where previous areas remain decently challenging, it turns out, isn't meaningful when nothing in that area is interesting anymore, and all you're trying to do is run off and find a merchant. Maybe for the purposes of completing the area's quests (for which you earn rewards) it's a good idea, so maybe you should have an optional thing where you can become level-appropriate for the area again in order to perform quests, and being too high-level for the zone means you can't complete them.

Magician

There are significantly fewer abilities used at any one time in GW2 compared to any other MMO, that's true, but that's their design.

doppelgreener

@Magician What made you able to do that though? You have the same abilities. Your stats are scaled back to roughly what they were at level 10. What's different really?

I'd suspect that's more just a result of you becoming more skilled.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Scaling is not as aggressive as you make it out to be, basically. Full exotic gear + trait points make a lot of difference.

doppelgreener

Okay, yeah, trait points make a difference I guess.

@Magician So someone with full exotic gear in a level 10 zone would be more powerful than a level 10 character with good gear?

Magician

6:41 AM

@JonathanHobbs traits, traited abilities, runes, they all add up.

@JonathanHobbs Significantly so.

doppelgreener

@Magician Right. And for a number of people: the scaling back isn't rewarding.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs From my experiences, that sounds like a theoretical concern, rather than a factual one. I mean, I understand it (though disagree), but it doesn't actually play that way.

doppelgreener

It is an encumbrance when they just want to be able to do stuff in a zone where they give not a damn about anything there except the peaceful NPCs or services available. It is also making them feel like they have not progressed: they have spent 60 levels going nowhere and everything is about as dangerous as it was before.

@Magician What's theoretical? The fact that people don't like it? That isn't theoretical.

(Maybe it is slightly less dangerous?)

Magician

@JonathanHobbs GW's attitude towards levels is different from other games. Basically, the game doesn't fundamentally change when you reach level 80, it's not a slog to the mythic end-game. You have similar experiences at 80 to what you had at 1.

doppelgreener

@Magician Yes. I understand this quite well. This is a fundamental problem to some.

Some do not want similar experiences. Some people want to have that sense of progression.

Which addons like traits do not provide.

Magician

6:46 AM

@JonathanHobbs I can only offer my own example. At 80, with proper gear and realized build, I am nigh-unkillable in low-level zones. I am an absolute monster ripping through meek mobs that used to terrify me. But I can die if I'm particularly reckless.

doppelgreener

@Magician And you've got good (does "proper" mean "totally excellent and legendary"?) gear and you're level 80.

Others are level 50 and walk into a level 10 zone and still have to fight and it seems not much easier than when they were level 10.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Higher-level zones have more epic story, more epic enemies. The sense of progression comes from that, not just from numbers. You're no longer guarding a junkyard from flame legion thieves, you're leading a warband into their territory, sabotaging their idols and facing down their leaders. Or invading the undead island risen from depths of the sea.

doppelgreener

@Magician Okay, yeah, that doesn't necessarily do it. Especially when someone's playing the game to play the game part of the game, and not paying much attention to the story.

And! I need to be off.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs It's trivial to get near-best items.

doppelgreener

I'll be back in a number of hours I am not certain of.

Magician

6:49 AM

@JonathanHobbs cya!

It's interesting, how fundamentally different subjective experiences can be even in a shared medium such as an MMO.

Magician

7:04 AM

@JonathanHobbs Hm. I honestly don't remember how it was to be level 50. I guess combination of poor gear and unfocused/unfinished build could lead to scaling being particularly painful. My only advice would be to get to 80 (it really doesn't take long) and buy exotic armor with karma, a cheap exotic weapon from TP and a piece or two of ascendant jewelry with laurels. You should already have enough by that point, if you've been doing dailies. There, you're at about 90+% of maximum possible efficiency.

BESW

8:34 AM

Second gold badge! Wooo!

BESW

9:09 AM

@Magician "We're plotting out monster saving throw DCs by level so that lower level critters have lower save DCs than higher level ones."

I'm... um... this is a change? This wasn't already a thing?

> Thus, a high-level wizard has lower saving throw DCs for weaker spells and higher ones for stronger ones.

...so, like 3.5.

From the first line:
"we've revised the character classes to hit our goal of producing a game that can shift from low complexity to more detail and options."
From the last point: "It's not clear if we'll continue to use a skill die or swap to a flat bonus."

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs But you can burninate everything in levels below you. I mean, any damage-focused level-80 build just DESTROYS everything in under-10 areas in one hit. And anything below 60 or so is pretty easy. You just have to try a bit not to get hit too much.

BESW

...why does it feel like they should decide how skills should work before they start adding bells and whistles?

Alex P

D&DNext feels like a process trainwreck.

Who's actually supposed to be managing the design process?

BESW

@AlexP Whoever it is, I think Snowflame's got him.

Alex P

Snowflame?

BESW

9:20 AM

Snowflame: "I am Snowflame! Every cell of my being burns with white-hot ecstasy. Cocaine is my God -- and I am the human instrument of it's will!"

Zachiel

I missed that quote

BESW

My RPG group has a running joke that Snowflame is D&D's quality control supervisor.

Alex P

@BESW Best. Supervillain. EVER.

Zachiel

the link leads to a blank page

Alex P

@Zachiel Add an end parenthesis

BESW

9:21 AM

There, fix'd.

Sadly, he never recurs. But there's a fan comic!

Alex P

I can only imagine he talks like Dr. Rockso

BESW

Linkara has Snowflame as a recurring "guest character." He does shorts like "Snowflame makes a sandwich."

Alex P

> * Our skill DCs are out of whack. They don't match up well with the actual bonuses that characters accrue at all levels.

Based on ALL OF THIRD EDITION, I can safely say that this problem, if it persists this late in development, will never, ever be solved.

BESW

Dear Hasbro: You might as well send the D&D franchise over to The Hub; Wizards won't be using it much longer.

Alex P

I find this sad because, well, Magic design is pretty great right now. There are things to complain about, certainly, but in the general sense they have like their whole process down.

All that's required is to have a massive failure that jeopardizes the future of the whole game. And then the president yells at everyone in their office.

Does D&D still have a "brand manager?"

BESW

9:35 AM

"Manage," "mangle," same smell.

Alex P

What I mean is that their own development articles make them sound clueless and really bad at their jobs.

Which makes it seem like no one is really looking at the PR of this thing.

I mean, I don't send our customers weekly e-mails being like, "Here's how broken and crappy my latest dev build is! This entire component is non-functional because of the features I've only halfway replaced right now."

Even though I am breaking everything exactly like that, constantly.

BESW

@AlexP I speculate that someone in PR doesn't understand "blogging makes us more human."

But they heard it somewhere.

Alex P

They really need to take a look at how their Magic stuff is handled.

Although my impression is that basically WotC doesn't really want D&D entirely.

BESW

Can't blame 'em.

Hasbro's gotta be ticked about 4e.

Alex P

Well, I think they've gotta be ticked about Pathfinder, to be honest. If D&D4 were doing as well as it did but there was nobody beating them with their own damn product, I don't think it would be nearly as much of a big deal.

BESW

9:45 AM

Perhaps, but 4e was pitched as a combination tabletop and online RPG.

Alex P

@BESW And then the online part never materialized, it's true. Other than character building.

BESW

A lot of revenue was supposed to come from an MMO-like digital tabletop environment.

The online component, I'm led to believe, is the only reason Hasbro allowed Wizards to continue the IP at all.

Alex P

I think the D&D designer ecosystem naturally makes the whole project seem kinda pointless, too. Everyone keeps leaving and returning to the company.

And they have a dozen other companies, and their own little ventures, to employ them.

BESW

Basically, Hasbro acquired WotC and said "Here's the minimum annual income we require from our IPs. Any IP that you can't make hit that minimum goes away."

D&D 3.5 wasn't hitting the minimum, so they pitched 4e with integrated online play.

Alex P

Honestly, I won't be happy when D&D dies. Because I worry Pathfinder will linger on, like, forever, as D&D3 crystallized into this thing that will haunt me any time I try to engage with the mainstream of RPGs.

I feel like D&D's identity as an RPG game product rather than a set of related things is going to be diminished dramatically in the next five years.

The thing with Next is even if they get all the mechanics right, it doesn't really come off as the kind of game that you can make two books a month for.

BESW

9:52 AM

Mm. Have you heard my "D&D Next is going to shatter the D&D community" speculation?

Alex P

@BESW Feel free to repeat it even if I have. ;)

BESW

Well, 4e bifurcated the audience.

Not a lot of people moved away from D&D (except to Pathfinder, which is close enough to 3.5 that it shares a community), but your choice of edition became like taking sides in a cold war.

This was because 4e catered to a very different kind of game experience than 3.5 did.

Now D&D Next is trying to cater to everyone at once, and their modular system is going to shatter what little sense of "we're all playing the same game" the fanbase has (what with RAW/RAI, houserules, and different playstyles, it was tenuous at best even before the 4e/3.5 split).

Regardless of the quality of the system, it's going to be a social engineering disaster for the D&D franchise.

Alex P

@BESW Well, what have we actually seen of "modules," though?

BESW

I'm not part of the beta, and about all I know is what I pick up from what's linked here.

Alex P

Right now it sounds a lot like the digital tabletop.

I do agree that the plan is nonsense, though, because at best you're getting Player's Option (the 2nd Edition modular-rules-addons line).

I'm really curious who came up with the plan. Because it seems to be swimming against the tide of TRPGs sooooooo hard.

BESW

9:58 AM

It's pretty obvious why, though.

Alex P

Yeah, "bringing all the D&Ds together."

BESW

Not even that.

Alex P

Oh?

BESW

The tide of TRPGs is to cater to smaller audiences who actually want the focused gameplay your system offers.

D&D cannot follow that. It's a simple business fact: it needs to maintain its position as the flagship "default RPG" that can accommodate every playstyle, or it loses its massive audience, its profits fail, and Hasbro pulls the plug.

D&D suffers from economic constraints that force it into these awful choices.

2

Alex P

But it's the worst of the "D20 will be the entire industry!" bullshit come back to us. It's like, "Why play your game when you could laboriously beat D&D into a crappy imitation of your game?"

BESW

10:01 AM

It got too big to succeed.

Alex P

D20 actually did that successfully for about three years.

BESW

@AlexP Exactly! Their plan really cannot work even if we felt confident they had the quality and insight to do it well.

But they have no other choice; no other foreseeable option has even the chance of letting the franchise continue.

Alex P

Hence the death march.

BESW

Yup. A grim tapdance into the volcano.

Alex P

I dunno, I feel like they have other options. One being that they refuse to (publicly) admit that people have different tastes and keep peddling the idea that you should just all play D&D together.

The problem is that it's hard to keep editions going that way.

BESW

10:04 AM

Mhm. And it goes against the movement of TRPGs in general.

Alex P

Because edition changes upset the fragile balance of "all of our different play goals hanging together by little threads"

Yeah, but look at how much demand there was PF on the strength of "I don't want the group cohesion we've laboriously worked out with D&D3 to go away."

BESW

With the modular system, they probably think they are --and certainly they're are able to make noises about-- adapting to this new "niche market" ethos.

Alex P

They've already lost the thing that might make it actually work, though. Which is people clinging to D&D as a label.

BESW

Yup, PF did that for 'em.

It's sad, because 4e was their best work.

Zachiel

That makes me think that most of the reasons I disliked 4e at first were the articles they put out during playtesting and engineering of the product. I hope Next can do the same, but I'll probably keep playing 4e.
No, who am I kidding. I'll keep wishing I had a 4e group.

BESW

10:12 AM

Aw. [patpat]

...coffee. I need coffee. There's too much blood in my caffeine system. bbs.

Alex P

I need to go back to sleep.

Stupid occasionally-bifurcated sleep.

trogdor

lol

let the caffeine flow through you

Zachiel

@BESW "Caffeine is your God -- and you're the human instrument of its will!"

Alex P

10:28 AM

It's more efficient than cocaine.

BESW

10:40 AM

If I'm not careful, I can easily reach the point where I can't sleep without caffeine.

Alex P

Whew

rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/three-sixteen/info

Really, chat? No beautiful inside-the-chat display for that?

wax eagle

@AlexP sadly no...

though it's not quire approved yet. just a thought, make sure that when you're writing the wiki you have a sentence or to directly indicating how the tag should be used. I like opening sentences "for questions related to X. A game Y" if that makes sense

but thanks, anytime, especially when it's a system tag, that you create or come across a tag with no wiki it helps to write one

doppelgreener

11:39 AM

@Magician For the sake of keeping this clean: (a) Please don't assume the people in question are poorly equipped. We're talking about skilled MMO players. (b) Let's not excuse gameplay because if you're maximum level and fully equipped in excellent gear it's fine. If most of the experience up to that point has no sense of progression, and people want it, that's not really an excuse or consolation.

(c) You appear to be proposing optimization provides progression and therefore it's okay. Good gear is fine. If you have to be near-maxed to have a sense of progression, safe to say we're not really discussing a particularly strong general gameplay experience: we're discussing the fact that if you've equipped yourself extremely well you're going to find things easy, which is a given.

I'm trying to talk about decently skilled people here who whilst levelling up have gone back to prior areas and been given decent trouble by monsters. Their thoughts roughly come down to this: "What the hell have the past fifty levels been giving me, if I'm still finding a level 12 yeti threatening? This guy is only a little easier than monsters I fight at my own level. This game is telling me I am only a tiny bit stronger."

"I have levelled a ton, and acquired awesome gear. And I am still having trouble with a level 12 yeti, and can run through this zone as safely as I could when I was first here."

"Why am I doing this? What is the point of even levelling if it's not making me stronger?"

Well, you progress through the game and unlock other traits and powers. Those sure help, but they're pretty much the only thing changing - if they change. As an elementalist, I found my best powers in my first few levels. My only change was to pick fire axe - a first-tier power - over the fire sword - a higher-tier power - once I found out it was actually more effective.

This is why I am hugely concerned that D&D Next has limited progression.

Because people are going to have those thoughts.

"I am level 20, and I don't hit much harder than this level 1 foot soldier fighting me."

Unless, I guess, your sword becomes more giant as you go along.

In 4e, I can pit my group against a group of yetis who nearly kill them. 10 levels later, I can set them loose among an army of the same yetis and watch them come out victorious and in need of a good sleep.

Same kinda thing can happen in previous editions.

@AlexP Oh my. Nice work.

@BESW Congratulations :)

@BESW It will shatter that sense, sort of, but at least it'll point out to players they're not all playing the same game. Though they might still not get that given a certain set of modules, they're still not all playing the same game. Fingers crossed.

BESW

12:03 PM

@JonathanHobbs I'm not holding my breath. It'll happen if they move into other spheres of RPG where that kind of thing is talked about.

But what I expect to happen is that modules become the new VoP monk.

@AlexP good day!

@Metool Hi!

Hi.

hello

12:18 PM

@JonathanHobbs So, I think the problem there isn't that GW2 has level-scaling. I think the problem is that there are 80 levels and you're constantly having to upgrade equipment, and the stats are getting so inflated. So you feel like you must have gotten a lot more powerful, because you spent so much time trying to keep up on gear and your numbers are so much higher.

GW1 was just plain designed to have large stretches of the game be played at max level and max gear and I think this made it much more fun than the slow trek to 80.

doppelgreener

@AlexP Me too, I loved it.

@AlexP The problem is exactly that GW2 has level-scaling, because that's the source of the not-feeling-more-powerful: you're made to not be powerful in order to keep the area challenging, that's its point.

Or it's the level scaling vs the fact it's got MMO progression (that is level scaled so as to be counteracted to this effect)

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs Yeah, I'll admit it's trying to convince people that it has features that it doesn't actually have, because those features honestly kinda suck for gameplay but people are attached to them.

And that's clunky as hell.

doppelgreener

Effectively:

if the game had level scaling in both directions

.... levels would not mean much

:(

they would mean a bit, but in terms of actually fighting your enemies, once you've got your weapon powers unlocked and some decent first tier powers, you'd be set

Alex P

Well, it does have level scaling in both directions.

Just ask all the upleveled people you're murdering in WvW.

doppelgreener

Oh. Yeah. For special events like that. I mean for adventuring around the world.

Alex P

12:28 PM

The thing I hate is how many features exist just for me to negate them. Like I constantly upgrade equipment as I level on the Auction House for next to nothing. Which means I'm basically not actually ever collecting equipment or whatever.

But that's better than trying to do it the other way, which is tedious.

Honestly it tried too hard to immitate normal MMOGs so I found it really frustrating to actually develop more than one character.

Meh. I'm over it.

That's why it didn't keep my interest as long. And then my friend who likes more conventional MMOGs, in turn, played it until he hit 80 and got about half of his good equipment and then was like, "I feel like I'm pretty much done."

BESW

Picard must choose: caulk the Enterprise and float it across a tachyon river, or attempt to ford it. Barclay gets dysentery.

Tweeted by TNG_S8 on July 29, 2013 at 11:23 PM

Alex P

So, kind of a failure there.

BESW

....oops.

Alex P

@BESW :D

Is that Strunk & White Twitter still going?

Not the regular one.

doppelgreener

12:52 PM

@AlexP Yes, this is frustrating.

I could go on an entirely different <whatever you would call the above> about the classes and their skill systems

Alex P

Basically MMOG features are awful. So the best MMOGs minimize them.

But when they still pretend to have them, it just makes the games annoying and contradictory and clunky.

doppelgreener

How everyone does a little bit of everything which limits anyone's ability to excel at any particular role. As an Elementalist I guess I had about three total healing spells I could deploy and one trait granting allies regeneration?

Alex P

Found it.

To denote air quotes, use quotes.

Tweeted by FakeAPStylebook on July 23, 2012 at 6:25 PM

doppelgreener

@AlexP XD

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs Way more than that. As an elementalist you are just full of combo field interaction that will give you and allies a ton of buffs and health.

doppelgreener

12:57 PM

@AlexP How!? <_>

Alex P

Look up the D/D ele build.

For example.

doppelgreener

I did encounter a couple of buffing things I guess. Maybe the problem is I have been doing a lot, but I haven't noticed what I've been doing since I don't see any particular sign of it.

Alex P

There's floating text with a two-half-circles kind of symbol when you trigger a combo.

Or, okay, D/D is using attunement-swap traits.

Staff is combos.

Sorry, been a few months.

See "combo field." The main source of elementalist group healing is setting up water fields. Everyone's blasts and leaps will then trigger healing.

doppelgreener

@AlexP Oh, yes, I picked up those where I could.

Alex P

That's my other complaint. The mechanics are opaque.

doppelgreener

1:03 PM

What do you mean by opaque?

Alex P

Kinda impenetrable because they're not really based on the skill descriptions &c. as much as the emergent interactions of all the parts.

doppelgreener

Oh. So this thing where I have a very limited idea of how to heal effectively because I see my heal skills but not what I can do when combined with everything else?

Alex P

Yeah.

doppelgreener

(It took my friend pointing out "you should switch to these traits that buff people when you attune if you want to be a healer" for me to pick those up)

(I didn't see their utility, but that's probably mostly my fault for not thinking carefully enough about them)

Magician

@JonathanHobbs I apologize if I came off as condescending. I was trying to find the reason perceived power of our characters differs so much.

doppelgreener

1:09 PM

@Magician Not condescending, but dismissive. "They must have been playing it wrong" and "If they reach level 80 it's fine"

Alex P

Ele is particularly impenetrable.

It was designed around combo fields.

Which involves your allies using their finishers well.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs Thing about GW2 is, if you're there for inexorable progression of power, you will soon get bored. As I've said, you trivially get near-best gear as soon as you hit 80. There is an opportunity to earn better things, and a way to really grind for an absolutely minuscule improvement over that, but you really don't need it.

doppelgreener

@AlexP Oh. Drat. I still don't 100% understand how to use those.

Magician

So I know people get there, and are puzzled at the lack of usual goals.

doppelgreener

@AlexP Wait, what? My combos combo with other peoples' combo skills?

Alex P

1:11 PM

On top of that, the best builds use crazy attunement swapping, might stacking, all kinds of quirks that don't involve the basic skill stats.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs There are combo fields and combo finishers, skills declare if they're either.

Combo finisher applied to a combo field, no matter whose, creates an effect.

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs Most classes do one better than the other. Like warriors mostly have finishers. So you set up a water field and then the warriors spams his leaps and heals inside it.

doppelgreener

@Magician Oh, I get that bit. I just couldn't see how to effectively combo my own skills, beyond a couple of two-skill combos I worked out.

Magician

@AlexP Yeah, warriors have only one combo field, adrenaline longbow skill.

doppelgreener

@AlexP So their combo finisher can finish off my combo that I started?

Alex P

1:13 PM

@JonathanHobbs Repeatedly

doppelgreener

Wow

Alex P

People do things like lay down a fire field, everyone spams blast finishers, everyone gets 25 Might stacks.

doppelgreener

I need to go back and re-understand how combos work then.

My understanding was: (a) use a combo field skill or two, then (b) use a finisher for bonus effect. Nobody else involved.

Magician

Yeah, this bit is not at all explained in the game itself.

doppelgreener

But now I guess finishers which occur from within combo fields get an effect, and maybe if there are single-target combo field spells that don't actually create an area I just have to follow them up?

Alex P

1:17 PM

I'm pretty sure there is no way anyone in the world could actually look at all the game mechanics on paper and come away understanding how D/D works.

Magician

@JonathanHobbs I'm not sure there are single-target combo fields. Those are generally circles on the ground, with their borders floating slightly up.

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs There are no single-target combo fields.

doppelgreener

Okay, that makes things simpler.

Magician

You could theoretically get really good and develop actual teamwork, where you know which fields and which finishers to use when, but I've never gotten that far. If I see a combo field, I use combo finisher. There's no downside.

doppelgreener

I think I actually get it now.

Alex P

1:19 PM

Projectiles and leaps work when they go through a field. Blasts have to have the blast overlap it. Whirl has to be done inside the field but creates projectiles that can go beyond it to quite a range.

@Magician Yeah, ditto.

I like thief because Clusterbomb makes this really, really easy.

BESW

[falls over] I think I'm done with the text on this manuscript!

(I hate this book so much now.)

Alex P

Got your 's and `s in order?

BESW

And the ’s.

Had to go through again to double-check the 's and ’s in the English.

John Craven

@BESW's your you're is in need of calibrations.

BESW

What?

John Craven

1:33 PM

zany grammar humor

doppelgreener

1:49 PM

@BESW Can you now get in touch with the translators before they revise the manuscript again?

These are victories to me. Revision 1, 2, 3

John Craven

holy shit that first revision is bad

pardon my French

doppelgreener

2:09 PM

Do we need this tag?

Joshua Aslan Smith

@jonathanHobbs I think not

theres 1 question, its extremely specific, and the specificity could just be described in a question tagged with the system its about.

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs I feel like the answer is no. We don't have a TSR tag.

John Craven

2:28 PM

I feel like we need a Chainmail tag though

Zachiel

Chainmail is not a RPG ;)

John Craven

Details, details. :D

doppelgreener

3

Q: Save our system tags!

According to this meta suggestion, single-use tags will no longer expire if they have a tag wiki. We have a historic problem whereby users will ask about a game system (and a tag will be created for it), but that will be the only question on the system, dooming the tag to later be obliterated an...

support tags game-systems

We now have a list!

... it is 12:30am at night and I want chicken teriyaki sushi.

I had it for lunch today and it was lovely.

John Craven

I am... skeptical about chicken teriyaki sushi being a "thing". It sounds delicious though.

Alex P

@JohnCraven I don't think it's sushi in the, erm, what-is-sushi sense of sushi.

Preferably it should definitely not be sushi. Because if it is "sushi" is sounds like you are just getting raw chicken.

John Craven

2:32 PM

well, that's good @AlexP because chicken sashimi is pretty much the very last thing I would ever want to try.

doppelgreener

@JohnCraven It's cooked chicken.

Alex P

Maybe it is chicken with seaweed and rice?

John Craven

Although sushi in and of itself needn't be made with raw fish; IIRC the word "sushi" refers to the way the rice is cooked.

Alex P

I guess California rolls are cooked. Maybe it is like that?

doppelgreener

It looked like this, though mine were rice-on-the-outside.

Alex P

2:39 PM

We must save our Continuum tag!

John Craven

one of the 5 billion things I miss about living in the Pac NW is the ready access to sushi bars.

BESW

3:15 PM

@JonathanHobbs I think even the client is trying to keep the translators out of the picture from now on.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@alexp my thougts exactly, theres not a WOTC, R. Taylorisian, etc. tag

how is everyone this morning by the way

BESW

3:36 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith [yawn] It is morning, isn't it?

Alex P

@JoshuaAslanSmith Good. Bespite my crappy sleep.

Joshua Aslan Smith

It won't be for much longer (EST)

BESW

It's 0137am Thursday morning for me.

Joshua Aslan Smith

you in HK or something like that

BESW

Guam.

Joshua Aslan Smith

3:40 PM

gotcha

The Oracle

4:58 PM

0

Q: Add meta tag for Dwarf/Dwarves?

There is a tag for elf/elves but not for dwarf/dwarves. Should one be added?

feature-request tags

Discord

6:36 PM

Would somebody mind suggesting "hol" as a tag synonym for "human-occupied-landfill", please? I don't have rep to do it. HoL is probably more recognizable then than the full name of the game.

wax eagle

only OpaCitizen has score in the tag for that. You'll need a mod

Metool

7:21 PM

so I'm going to be running a session this evening

what do I need to prepare?

wax eagle

@Metool what game?

Metool

@waxeagle d20 derivative

Alex P

First game? Does the group already have characters?

John Craven

are you running a pregen encounter or are you making it up as you go?

Metool

We worked on character creation, and I'm running a module

Alex P

7:23 PM

Read the module and understand how the bits connect together.

John Craven

ok... make sure you've read the module through and through so that you know exactly what corresponds to what, where to find the bad guys, what special rules there are in some situations if any, and so on

Alex P

As you read, don't get too attached to whatever the module assumes should happen.

More importantly, prepare food.

wax eagle

@AlexP and have beer on hand

Metool

But I'm running this over THE INTERNET [stars]

wax eagle

@Metool in that case, have beer and food handy for yourself

John Craven

7:24 PM

I agree @AlexP with not getting too attached to the module's railroading, although IME the best way to be prepared for other eventualities is to know the module as written like the back of your hand

Alex P

@JohnCraven Yup.

John Craven

send your party foods via Amazon Express

Alex P

It's handy to be able to respond with "Well, this didn't go as planned, but now I can recycle this part of this other section here" without having to flip through the book.

Metool

It's worse flipping through a PDF, which is what I have.

John Craven

right, and if there's a bad guy who can respond to action A with reaction Y and action B with reaction Z, if you already know this well you can more easily think on the fly how he'd react to action C

you might want to bookmark the important bits in Acrobat

MadMAxJr

7:28 PM

Be prepared to tell your players to stop websurfing and focus on the game.

Metool

7:39 PM

We'll be running over a virtual tabletop with open mics.

@JohnCraven Noted.

Zachiel

@Metool have copies of the pdf with different names opened, so that you can have the appendix with monster stats and the maps open in separate windows, w/o pagescrolling

Metool

I'm trying to transfer the maps over to the tabletop currently

Zachiel

@Metool OSS?

Metool

Yes.

Zachiel

I need to learn that module in 10 days... the first encounters at least

Metool

7:46 PM

Read it religiously, @Zachiel

know it like you know yourself

Zachiel

I need to make pregens. To think Fro said I had lots of time.

I'll end up using OSS pregens, even if I don't like them

Metool

I thought OSS came with pregens.

Zachiel

I don't like them, they don't speak "fantasy japan" to me. There's an halfiling and a dwarf IIRC

I want humans and half demons instead

Also, I'm building for a demo. I want my characters to show different aspects of the gaming system. Like mounts, iterative attacks, shaman spellcasting, racials, multiclass, full buy in.

Metool

8:38 PM

Ah, alrighty

John Craven

8:58 PM

Can't you reskin dwarves into semi-demony things?

Metool

9:25 PM

There is a demon player-race.

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