TRPG General Chat

Mala

5:02 PM

@mxyzplk Unfortunately, it seems I cannot even do as you requested (You cannot edit this question because it was deleted). I still feel is a good question, so I am asking you on how to proceed...

nitsua60

@doppelgreener I'm curious what you'd think of my amended response: "I could look this up in an hour on paper, therefore you didn't do your research." I still feel that level of effort is reasonable to expect, but I'm wondering if I'm on the other side of a cultural divide from others.

@Mala If that was the issue, you also could have asked me.

Mala

@nitsua60 I did ask you in a comment, but you didn't answer (well, not quickly enough) so I made it a question

@nitsua60 5 books @ 1000+ pages in one hour?

Hmmm

nitsua60

Did I ever answer? (I honestly don't remember.)

Mala

No, but you commented on related stuff so yeah

nitsua60

@Mala They've got tables of contents, Mala.

Mala

5:05 PM

Also someone tried to rewrite the question to ask for digital tools since he/she had an answer for that

so it was a bit of a mess

nitsua60

Spell titles are pretty descriptive... I don't actually need to read the description of feather fall looking for thunder or lightning damage.

Mala

Witch Bolt doesn't scream lightning

You know when you know the spell, but...

nitsua60

If you don't know the spell you skim the description.

So, yeah, I'll stand by "an hour."

Mala

Intuitively I would have rather expected ravens or something

An hour for all spells descriptions of all official 5e materials? Hmmmm

But even if, it's not trivial effort

I agree it's something that an expert might do much faster than a novice

but I don't think a question is low effort if only experts can answer it with reasonable effort

nitsua60

@Mala So, then, this is where I think we have an honest and reasonable disagreement: you think an hour reading spell descriptions when one wants to play a caster is non-trivial, where I think it is. Fair?

Mala

5:10 PM

@nitsua60 Sure, but that's not it, is it.

It's "does this specific build make sense'

After reading all descriptions, you would still have to go through them again and again for different options

which is fine, but just non-trivial

And you get better and faster, sure, but then that's expertise.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 "this question does not show research effort" is part of the downvote tooltip and was definitely a thing there.

(can't sleep yet)

nitsua60

@Mala I don't understand, but there's a two-decade gap in playstyle-evolution where I didn't participate and things like "build" perhaps gained connotations I don't appreciate.

Mala

@nitsua60 Dunno, I started with AD&D 2 and that was certainly a thing in the 90ies

(at least around here)

or even 80ies (1989)

@doppelgreener So you think it's reasonably low effort to search through all official 5e materials for specific spell criteria?

Really?

nitsua60

@doppelgreener I'm just wondering whether my internal "bar" for what's a reasonable amount to ask from the querent is too high. I don't think an hour's flipping through spell descriptions is a big ask.

@Mala if there are things in your original lightning/thunder question that would have required one read the spells multiple times, then I totally missed that.

Mala

@nitsua60 No, I'm the DM and thinking if I should allow that UA for my player who wants to play this

Zachiel

5:15 PM

I stand by my previous claim. Asking for something that a user with better experience might have interiorized is asking for someone to do a trivial effort instead of the querent making a big effort. Asking for someone to skim through a book in your stead looks like a lazy thing to do . and should it take 5 days, it would still reek of low effort to me

Mala

@nitsua60 Out of my 5 players, 3 are optimizers and if I spend an hour for every build they propose I have no time to actually prepare the session

at the same time, they have lots of fun doing it so I don't want to kill this

Zachiel

@Mala Uhm, so you wanted to look at all possible interactions and see if any is broken? My suggestion is "don't play D&D" XD

Mala

I would probably do the same if I were a player because it's just fun

@Zachiel I have fun playing D&D. And 5e especially, I played lots of other systems that people here seem to really like and I didn't have as much fun.

nitsua60

@Mala But none of that was in the question. If that context matters--"I need this answer quicker than the hour it'd take me to generate"--then possibly that needed to be part of the question.

Zachiel

I have the same problem in 4e and I found an useful solution to be "just let them take the OP route, then complain if challenging them is too hard". It doesn't work really well, but at least I'm in peace with my mind :p

Mala

5:18 PM

@nitsua60 Why? I made bad experiences when asking optimization questions from DM perspective because

Garan

I use DM discretion to say "no, I'm not allowing that."

Mala

well see @Zachiel asnwer

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Chences are that the second question would have been a better question to ask from the beginning. Wow.

Mala

Well that player actually sent me four pdfs with character backstory, drawn sketches and class/race/build

and asked me for advice

(he's my favorite player ;))

If I ask: I'm Dm, is this too strong I just get answers on allowing stuff in general or rule 0 etc

Anaphory

@Zachiel Mostly this, but if it takes someone else two [time units] instead of you five [same units], because they know the organization of the material and therefore can skim-read better than you do, case 2 reverts to case 1, which makes it hard in general to decide a priori.

Mala

5:21 PM

if I ask from a player perspective, there might be useful info as answer

Also, I am not asking for their evaluation just for data to form my own evaluation

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 seems straightforward research yeah. I'd expect this to hit main site if that wasn't working in giving me an answer. I spend hours or days researching things personally when I can - I ask a stack exchange site when I can't or I'm stuck.

nitsua60

@Mala on your most recent meta, your premise strikes me as flawed. Piracy's a red herring, because it's not the only way to achieve what I did. Scanning one's own and Fantasy Grounds are legal alternatives. It may still be reasonable to ask your meta about where the line for "shows effort" lies.

doppelgreener

This also includes programming tasks so that's my behaviour across stack exchange not just rpgse

Mala

Fantasy grounds has monsters, not spells?

Scanning a book takes more than a few hours and the quality will be horrible

Also, I didn't want to make it about our discussion

doppelgreener

I think he means scanning the book ie with your eyes not a scanner. Scanning as in reading quickly / skimming / etc.

nitsua60

5:25 PM

@Mala I've only read reviews, but how would they execute the mechanics if it weren't all in there?

Mala

@nitsua60 I actually bought it for the MM

Zachiel

@nitsua60 scanning, however, takes time and makes it non-trivial.

Mala

but only used it as a reference

for monsters during non-digital play

nitsua60

@Mala My point is: making it about piracy--when that's an unnecessary part of the question--seems like it is making it about our discussion.

Mala

but it's horrible

@nitsua60 but the non-meta question about efficiently searching non-digital materials was force-deleted by mxy

he told me to change it

I did

he told me to change it more

while trying that, I got a message that I cannot edit this question because it is deleted in a huge orange bar

doppelgreener

5:27 PM

My autocorrect is creative

nitsua60

If I read correctly he most-recently asked you to leave that one deleted and re-post the core question.

Mala

No he said to remove more stuff from it

which I was in the process of doing

nitsua60

I assume that was because (a) he sees an on-topic question there, (b) no matter how you edit the now-deleted one it'd never lose the history of the last 12 hours, which he thinks are detrimental to it.

Mala

when this message showed up

doppelgreener

You should all step back from this for a while I think. Tensions are high. People are frustrated. Go enjoy your Sundays or whatever it is there. Get some rest. Watch a movie.

Mala

5:29 PM

I enjoy that I have time now to do this, sometimes I have 12h work days all week and during the weekend

I have to take the time when I can

but thanks for the advice

;)

nitsua60

I'm cool. Not frustrated, but I'll admit that I spend an our in church this morning preoccupied by the thought "why did I even mention how long it took?" I regretted that from the moment I woke up, because I could see it dragging all sorts of unrelated issues into the discourse.

doppelgreener

You're trying to move things faster than RPG SE is used to moving though.

nitsua60

Also, @Mala jsut threw me 15 pts on mainsite, so I think the next step's a buddy-flick =)

Mala

What?

nitsua60

afk a moment

@Mala didn't you just accept one of my answers?

@doppelgreener esp. on a weekend!

doppelgreener

5:31 PM

We handle issues like this over days but you're apparently seeking to resolve it within hours, we can't necessarily do that. A mod left to do his own thing and isn't available to advise you right now. Other users have things to do too.

Mala

I never had problems with you oO I really don't get why people always think I'm so fighty

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 yeah

Mala

oh yes I searched for the deleted question and saw that bad empty box

I don't like them in my questions lists

:)

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Sorry, didn't mean to ping-drag you back into it.

And now I really do have to go for a few hours. (This was my between-lunch-and-naptime check-in.)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 that's fine, I visited chat, I don't get phone notifications or anything like that.

22 mins ago, by doppelgreener

(can't sleep yet)

@nitsua60 bye for now! Me too: sleep time take 2.

nitsua60

5:34 PM

good luck o/

Mala

@Zachiel I saw your answer, but it misses a point I feel

(see comment)

doppelgreener

Yeah, sorry we can't resolve this super quickly. FWIW I might have an edit to suggest to your question later.

Mala

gn8 doppelgreen

doppelgreener

Night :)

Niek Bergman

Hello, folks!

Shalvenay

5:38 PM

@NiekBergman hey there

Niek Bergman

Hi, @Shalvenay =)

Shalvenay

@NiekBergman how're things going?

Niek Bergman

Currently watching a YT video of some other people roleplaying a system I'll be playing with soon :)

(as PC, not GM)

Shalvenay

@NiekBergman ah, which system?

Zachiel

@Mala that I addressed when I talked about the "I don't know where to look" thing

Niek Bergman

5:40 PM

Dresden Files RPG =)

Mala

@Zachiel ok, then I just don't agree with you :)

1000 pages of text != low effort

Shalvenay

@NiekBergman ah.

@Mala table of contents, index, etc etc

(now if the publishers were dummies and omitted those features, which has been known to happen, then I'd agree with you)

Mala

@Shalvenay With index it's probably 150 pages full text

Shalvenay

@Mala hrm, I wonder if an "Index to Spells" would be a worthwhile thing to suggest to WotC for the next printing of the PHB?

Mala

Also, not properly ordered (wizard/cleric is only available from the list, which doesn't have a page number for spells, not in the actual spell descriptions)

Shalvenay

5:42 PM

@Mala or yeah, adding page numbers to the per-class spell lists

Mala

@Shalvenay Obviously, the correct answer should be an electronic database accessible to every verified buyer of the book in question

but oh well

they had a really horrible version for 4e

but killed even that now, and nothing official for 5e, and all open source efforts are illegal or severely restricted

Zachiel

@Mala As I said, I think "low effort" is a bad name and "not enough effort" should be better, but we can disagree, sure.

@Mala which one are you talking about? the character builder, the online character builder or the online compendium?

Mala

@Zachiel 'any of those'

@Zachiel so lets take my example

really

I got 4 pdfs with backstory, sketches and builds

Zachiel

I'm going to dine now. Later?

Mala

nvm then :)

eimyr

5:49 PM

@MALA Are you the one looking for a list of all spells from 5e?

Mala

@eimyr yes

eimyr

Check out android apps

Mala

Actually, looking for a way to efficiently query them

eimyr

it's exactly what you're looking for

you can query by level, source, class or keywords

Mala

@eimyr All mobile apps I've seen either offer only SRD, or use pirated materials

eimyr

5:52 PM

there are at leasst 2 decent apps and I used them with great success

wait wait wait

so you want something that offers non-SRD materials and is legally serving it?

There is no such thing.

Mala

@eimyr That's exactly why I asked the question

eimyr

well the answer is "There is not and RPG.SE will not and should not have one."

Mala

@eimyr Why? There are many questions here that can profit from expert advice of others

If people already know the content, there's no need for piracy, just for a question

eimyr

RPG.SE does not provide copyrighted material for legal reasons. Sometimes we quote minor passages from relevant books under fair use.

Also, we are very reluctant to have any questions that need regular maintenance. Sometimes it happens it is required (e.g. rule change or errata) but if we can foresee changes, we don't answer.

It;s a very specific website - one that provides expertise (not knowledge) to specific questions.

Mala

@eimyr Exactly

eimyr

6:01 PM

There are places that do other things, like e.g. Reddit never shied away from high-maintenance data warehousing, but they also don't give a rat's ass about IP.

Mala

@eimyr and knowing material well enough to know how to reduce 1000 pages to a few is something that would be very appropriate here

eimyr

But still, remember that we are not a "solve your problem" service.

It's a "answer a relevant question in a way that makes answering it again unnecessary forever"

your question is topical

Mala

@eimyr I edited away all that you mentioned

and seven still just didn't want to allow it, even mxy suggested it's because of 'participants' (=me) asking so yeah

eimyr

it's nit "seven"

notice, you need 5 people voting to repoen

reopen

mods have nothing to do with it

RPG.SE can be a bit allergic to certain attitudes and "my Q is grate, open nao" is one of them (not saying you present it)

4

Mala

Haha I wish

Given past conflicts and forced deletions I tend to disagree with you

eimyr

6:06 PM

you have that right

you've been here longer than me, maybe you know stuff I don't - but I don't care, really

Mala

Good for you

eimyr

Note that some of my s were closed too. I went elsewhere.

Mala

It's fine if they close questions

I am not contesting that

But asking me to change things, me investing the time, then saying generally "stuff is still wrong" without actually telling me what when I ask multiple times what specifically is wrong...

Just answering in generalities when I beg them to tell me specifically what is the problem...

sigh

eimyr

I feel for you.

Have you considered that perhaps there is no way you can phrase the question in a way that's fine with this stack and still be useful?

I actually agree that the other one is also a bad an should be closed

Mala

Efficient non-digital search?

oO

That's a good question, at it was deleted by mxy with mod powers

eimyr

6:14 PM

I honestly have never seen it - but I'm not very active, so nothing unusual about it.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

7:21 PM

Guys, any guess about why is this answer being downvoted? I am sure something is wrong if I get 3 downvoted in a row. No comments, though.

Mala

7:33 PM

@Zachiel @mxyzplk @nitsua60 Now Seven threatens to kill my question with mod powers for NOT referencing all the other stuff.

So if anyone was unsure if @SevenSidedDie behaves appropriately for a diamond mod: meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/6445/low-effort-and-piracy

SevenSidedDie

Heyt @Mala? That's enough melodrama.

Mala

??

nitsua60

8:02 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I'll admit, I'm not seeing much objectionable. Two things do stand out to me: (a) in the first lines you encourage denying a player their agency, which is strongly taboo for many people; (b) at the end you say you didn't read all the answers, which might put off some voters. Personally I don't find either of those downvote-worthy, but they each raise an eyebrow.

Zachiel

@SevenSidedDie I think this might be my fault

This is what happened: nitsua motivated a downvote on a question by Mala by saying that Mala had asked something so trivial it could be found in the manuals in 6 minutes. (not enough effort) Mala made a confrontational question that was half "wow, six minutes, how?" and half "I think you're basing your 6 minutes on using illegal material, which I won't use." Nitsua kept the downvote, for different reasons, but admitted the time was not that relevant.
Meanwhile, mxy closed the second question because it made unnecessary references to the first one. We went great lenghts to explain Mala that …

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Especially the first thing nitsua said

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Also, you seem to try to solve a social problem at the table (we decided we want to play murderous cretins" with in-game punishment or in-game retconning, which many people believe to be a passive-aggressive way of solving problems better addressed elsewhere

SevenSidedDie

8:21 PM

@Zachiel That matches up with the bits I'd managed to piece together by now. But that doesn't sound like your fault. That sounds like Mala continuing the same pattern of confrontation and escalation that they started yesterday.

If the community and individuals go to “great lengths” to try to help someone and their response is to freak out more, I think it's fair to say that the responsibility lies with the person who is, for whatever reason, failing to keep their calm.

nitsua60

@Zachiel It's not your fault. In fact, I think your point on "how hard it is to grasp" is likely the best contribution to discourse that's been made in the last 16 hours.

SevenSidedDie

*sigh* All this nonsense started over just not having enough patience to let close/reopen voters do the normal close/reopen vote thing.

3

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie Hey, did you hear about the monks' union?

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 They went on an unarmed strike?

nitsua60

[/rimshot]

=)

Baskakov_Dmitriy

8:28 PM

@Zachiel May I please ask you: what do you think of Vampire: The Masquerade?

SevenSidedDie

I think I saw that one somewhere around here a day or two ago, so I'm cheating. :)

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Of the general mood of the game, I mean

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie (it's on the starboard currently)

(Just trying to lighten the mood, but I'm really bad at jokes.)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Aha! Another un-victory for my atrocious source memory.

A change of topic is an excellent idea. The idea is to have a cool-off.

BESW

So, one of my players said something very interesting after our first Bubblegumshoe session on Saturday.

SevenSidedDie

8:31 PM

So there was this guy who went to a baseball game. He got his drink and some popcorn and was getting comfy. The game was just starting to get interesting when he heard someone shout "Hey Steve!" He turns around and scans the crowd behind him, but he can't see who shouted.

BESW

He said that he was really enjoying a mundane contemporary setting where we used Facebook and bicycles instead of gravity guns and spaceships to solve our problems.

SevenSidedDie

He settles back in, and focuses on the game. There's an epic home run being attempted when somebody behind him shouts “Hey Steve!” He whips around, but can't see who shouted. And he missed the close call on the diamond.

This happens twice more; someone shouts “Hey Steve!” and he can't see who's shouting. Finally, it happens a fifth time: “Hey Steve!” and he whips around, stands up, and shouts “MY NAME'S NOT STEVE!”

That's my one joke. I'm terrible at remembering jokes. ;)

@BESW I had that at the beginning of my last big campaign too; hunters in a clan in a part of Glorantha that was pretty wild. The players really liked the drama of just hunting, the weather, and aspiring to status in the clan. It was an interesting change of pace.

Zachiel

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I never played Vampires proper. I played WoD, both old and new, and some games of Werewolves, and Wraith, and a friend had me read the manual of Changeling once. I played the computer game (the old one, the one that starts in the old ages and you're a Brujah) and I recently played a Lady Blackbird hack with the V:tM setting

BESW

@SevenSidedDie What's the difference between a flea on a dog and a wolf in Nebraska?

Baskakov_Dmitriy

The whole situation with that guy, Mala, actually made me think which question is good if you reduct rules to the absurd. If the answer to your question is somewhere in the book, you have to buy it and read it yourself. If there is no book which contains the answer, you can't ask the question because it will be opinion-based.

So the only question that is not against the rules is "Which book, if any, has the description of X?", and most if not all other questions need to be closed or even removed.

BESW

8:36 PM

@SevenSidedDie One prowls on the hairy, and the other howls on the prairie.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie I'm gonna 'fess up--I don't get the joke.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW 👏 ^_^

BESW

@Baskakov_Dmitriy That's not really useful, because reducing rules to absurdity definitionally makes them absurd by removing the caveats and details which make them work.

nitsua60

@BESW chiasm for the win!

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 It may be better in person. It's the whole lead-up, making a big deal of the setup, and then the punchline is that the irritated guy is doing something ridiculous.

@nitsua60 Ooh, good word.

nitsua60

8:38 PM

@SevenSidedDie Is there someone else named Steve? (I feel like such an idiot I'm laughing out loud, just asking for the explanation.)

BESW

(eg, conflating "too opinion based" with "opinion based" is a common early-user misunderstanding, but the nuance between them is vital to the site's operation.)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Maybe? We never know, we just see this one guy getting all upset that someone is calling to “him” in the crowd, and getting his name wrong.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie I've got a whole book of 'em somewhere on the shelf behind me.

BESW

@nitsua60 My brain aggressively chiasmusises whatever I come across, every day.

nitsua60

"Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you."

SevenSidedDie

8:40 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Keep in mind that “question shows no effort” isn't a reason to close a question, just to (maybe) downvote. So it doesn't say anything about what questions are or aren't OK for the site.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@SevenSidedDie Ah, thanks, clarifies the things.

BESW

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Yeah, there's a massive difference between down voting and close voting, which means my typo on the star bar has been annoying me for two days.

SevenSidedDie

@Baskakov_Dmitriy However, we do expect that people have at least tried to solve their own problem. Lazily posting a question here asking us to do work that they obviously just don't want to do themself can sometimes get closed as “what is the actual problem? closing as unclear”.

nitsua60

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I, personally, have two lines in my head that often come into play when thinking about D&D questions: (a) does it require rules from several places to understand, (b) is it hard to understand if you didn't already have D&D experience coming in?

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Link? I can fix.

BESW

8:42 PM

2 days ago, by BESW

I don't have to be absolutely positive in order to cast a down-vote; otherwise I almost never would. Four other people have to agree with me, so I can act knowing that if I'm wrong there's a buffer.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Ah, I see it. The first sentence alone still works, interestingly. But in context, yeah. Fixing!

BESW

Thank you!

And yes, the different forms of voting have very similar superficial structures which make it easier for a casual user to apply them.

It's a surprisingly elegant form.

nitsua60

"A comedian does funny things; a good comedian does things funny." -Buster Keaton

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Welcome! You can also flag things like that (using the flag for moderator option) with a custom explanation of the need. (It's no bother either; it's nice to get easy, non-everything-is-on-fire flags to handle.)

BESW

@SevenSidedDie Duly noted. I generally try not to flag with "I find this personally irksome but it has no impact on the site."

nitsua60

8:48 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy in the (a) case, I find it can be really hard to remember which rules from scattered across a couple of books can apply in a given situation; if the rules for something aren't all found on one page I'll assume it's a complicated "enough" question.

In the (b) case I'll just say that no edition's PHB has ever struck me as being possible to read and comprehend at first blush without having first understood a previous version's. (And I'm including ODD, there!) So I'm fairly sympathetic to "I'm making my first character, what the heck is this?" questions, where this is something that's going to be explained in a single paragraph rule 150 pages later.

BESW

@nitsua60 I'm also very fond of the kind of shaggy dog story which ends in an extended... I'm not sure what it's called, where you take a well-known line and say words which sound similar but have a totally different meaning.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@nitsua60 I would probably add that it should also be unclear where to search about this. For example, regarding VtM (I don't know much about other settings), you would be surprised that there is no place in a corebook where damage of explosive weapons is given.

So, for example, if a character is hit by a grenade explosion, you will have to improvise unless you have read Vampire: The Masquerade Storyteller's Companion, page 65. I actually plan to post this question myself and answer it when I read the book. Of course, it is wise for the Storyteller to read it before GMing, but it is more than OK to miss it for some reason.

However, before asking a question about where does the Danislav revenant family come from and how did it appear, I am trying to search the approproate sources. Didn't find an answer yet, though.

nitsua60

@BESW There were some Franciscans who supported themselves by selling flowers.

BESW

(eg, "Tell not for whom Der Bell asks; it's Thole for tea.")

nitsua60

And they got very popular, and soon were on every street corner.

But BESW didn't like them crowding away customers, so 'e gave 'is friend Hugh a few bucks to "bounce" them.

And Hugh got pretty good at it, and there were none on BESW's corner.

Next meeting of the chamber of commerce: "BESW--how're you keeping sales up so well? These Franciscans are killing foot-traffic?"

SevenSidedDie

8:52 PM

@BESW And fair enough! I've had to deal with a similar reluctance with “bugging” the CMs about things that feel small, and had to hear the same advice before I felt like it was OK to bring things to them that weren't on fire. ;)

nitsua60

BESW: "Only Hugh can prevent florist friars."

2

[/mic drop]

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@nitsua60 Hopefully, VtM isn't as scattered as D&D. However, differences between editions are very minor, so people are unprepared to find them. I had a very long and passionate argument with a veteran (that's important) WoD player, and we both used "I have seen it in the rulebook!" argument.

Only to find out that I was talking about V20 and he was talking about the Revised edition.

So it became a no less passionate argument about which edition is better, Revised or V20.

nitsua60

@Baskakov_Dmitriy [with no context for any of the WW games, I'll just nod supportively.)

BESW

@nitsua60 There's a bank teller named Patricia, who is very good at her job. She's especially good at remaining professional when the customers are being super weird. So when a frog comes into the bank one day, all the other tellers vanish and he walks up to Patricia.

"Good afternoon sir, how can I help you?"
"Hello Miss..." the frog squints at her name card "...Wack, my name is Kermit Jagger (I'm the son of Mick Jagger) and I'd like to take out a loan for ten million dollars."
"That's a lot of money, Mr. Jagger. Do you have any collateral for the loan?"

"Of course!" The frog puts a small pink plastic elephant on the counter. "There you go."
"Hmm. This is rather unusual, sir. May I show it to my manager?"
"Please do, I'm in no hurry."

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Yeah, we're reasonably tolerant of completely novice questions. It's the “read the book” questions that aren't caused by being a novice that tend to kick over the wasp nest.

BESW

8:57 PM

So Patricia goes into the back and finds her manager.
"Sir, there's a frog out there. He says he's the son of Mick Jagger, he wants a ten million dollar loan, and he gave me this for collateral." She hands him the elephant. "Sir, what IS that?"

The manager looks at the elephant, looks at Patricia, and looks at the frog waiting patiently at the counter.

nitsua60

[holding breath with anticipation]

BESW

"It's a knick-knack, Patty Wack.
Give the frog the loan:
His old man's a Rolling Stone."

nitsua60

@BESW Sports commentator: "AND HE NAILS THE LANDING!"

SevenSidedDie

lol

Zachiel

I think both your jokes flew high past me, @BESW

SevenSidedDie

8:59 PM

(There needs to be a way to indicate actual real loling, not just typing “lol” as an appreciative indicator.)

BESW

@Zachiel Yeah, this sort of form is very reliant on existing cultural common ground.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie like "lol forrealz, I'm getting strange looks"?

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 lolfigsl!

2

@Zachiel It's a children's schoolyard song/rhyme: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Old_Man#Lyrics

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie to which I lolfigsl'ed.

BESW

@Zachiel First reference; second reference.

SevenSidedDie

9:01 PM

@nitsua60 It's even pronounceable: lohl-fig-sul!

Zachiel

I still don't get the elephant. Myaybe I should google what a knick-knack is.

BESW

Ah, yeah. A knick-knack is a little useless decoration.

nitsua60

@Zachiel and my referent

Zachiel

And my laptop decided to get a malware I can't identify

BESW

A different joke that requires specialist knowledge on the part of the audience:

Zachiel

9:03 PM

Or maybe it's just deviantArt that's been hacked.

BESW

Heisenberg is driving Schrödinger and Ohm down the highway when a cop pulls him over for speeding.
Cop: "Do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg: "No, but I can tell you exactly where we are."

Well, the cop finds that sort of suspicious so he decides to look in the truck.
"...did you know you have a dead cat in here?"
Schrödinger throws his hands in the air. "I do now!"

After more lip of this sort, the cop decides to take them all down to the station, but Ohm resists.

Zachiel

I only knew the first two parts

nitsua60

Speaking of laughs, I almost died laughing last week on the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Literally. I'd just taken a bite of a sandwich when Bobcat Goldthwait started telling a story about performing at a Juggalos festival; all while Robin Williams was providing color-commentary.
I've got my jaws uber-clenched to keep from choking, hyperventilating/laughing through my nose-which-doesn't-provide-enough-airflow, tears streaming down my face as I try to keep the car in its lane.
All I could think was "my wife's going to kill me if I die here, like this."

BESW

@Zachiel I think I've only found three people so far who got the whole thing on the first go.

Zachiel

@BESW Am I the third or the fourth one?

SevenSidedDie

9:09 PM

@BESW lolfigsl

BESW

@Zachiel Fourth, if you got the Ohm thing too.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW I think it might be easier to catch in text.

BESW

...possibly fifth if SSD got it.

Zachiel

@nitsua60 that's weird. You're still alive after hearing a joke about a Juggalos festival? That's a mother******* miracle, man.

BESW

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, I'm used to telling these out loud.

SevenSidedDie

9:11 PM

@BESW I just read it to my wife, and she totally cracked up. “THAT IS THE BEST JOKE. I LOVE IT.”

BESW

yey!

nitsua60

@Zachiel Seriously, who knew there even were jokes about Juggalos?

Zachiel

@BESW I write manuals about intrusion detection systems and there's end of line resistors everywhere.

BESW

And then there's this joke, which a player actually told through a halfling PC during a game, to defuse a tense situation in a bar:

A half-orc walks into a bar, but the elf ducks and the halfling walks under it.

Zachiel

@nitsua60 Now wondering if tasting some faygo might go into my list of "the 2 things I want to do before I die"

nitsua60

9:15 PM

(Anyone who isn't familiar, here's everything I know about the Juggalos, filtered through the even-more-absurd-than-the-Juggalos-themselves pursual of their fans as domestic terrorists by the FBI.)

Zachiel

They're not a gang. They're a posse. U_U

Niek Bergman

@Zachiel I don't know what's so attractive about juggalo jokes. I mean, how does that even work?

Zachiel

@NiekBergman I guess it depends on how you got exposed to juggalos. In my case, it's Andrew Hussie's fault.

Niek Bergman

I think my subtle joke failed, heh.

Zachiel

Oh. Miracles.

Niek Bergman

9:19 PM

Magnets :)

Hmm... I need sleep.

Zachiel

Anyway, I know one guy who didn't read the source material yet, so I'm not going to explain things further and I won't post links. Gareth, I hope you don't read this.

BESW

I'm pretty sure he left in a huff a couple months ago. (A huff is not a kind of carriage.)

nitsua60

@NiekBergman I'll tell you, check out Harmontown (podcast) episode 51, "Bikers Without Bikes," 4/7/13, at about 14:40; for the rest of your life ICP and Juggalos will just strike you as the funniest thing....

nitsua60

10:02 PM

@Shalvenay still good for tonight? After the kids are down, say 8:30 Central?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ya, should be

doppelgreener

10:18 PM

@BESW I understood those references!

SevenSidedDie

10:34 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I suspect that's getting downvotes because people disagree that it's a workable solution. It might work in Vampire, but that's because the basic theme of VtM is the struggle between Humanity and the Beast, but that character struggle isn't part of D&D or part of the question. The problem is players choosing to play a certain way, and voters think that the DM saying “don't do that unless you make a DC 25 Will save” won't solve the problem of the players and DM wanting different things.

doppelgreener

10:52 PM

@SevenSidedDie that sounds accurate

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