TRPG General Chat

@nitsua60 Yep. I figured, as much as it hurts, it's only going to hurt more later.

That +2 to hit... it's going to be nice always =)

1:53 AM

Plus, this way, I have all the proficiencies, so if I get a chance to upgrade my gear now that I wouldn't later, I won't have to grab stuff I can't use yet.

@nitsua60 Absolutely! It still hurts putting off Bard stuff for a level, though.

@Miniman Did you upgrade to a longbow, then?

@nitsua60 Not yet, I haven't had the chance - but if I have the chance, I'll be able to. Plus a shield and shortsword for if I get stuck in melee. Also leather -> studded leather, but that was always priority 1.

@Miniman leather->studded leather was one that slipped my notice until, like, level 9. Shameful, really.

@nitsua60 Still, nice that it wasn't super-important, at least!

@Miniman Yeah, didn't get hit too many times in that whole campaign =)

@Miniman You may be interested to know that my CoS with the high-school group wrapped up today. The kids saw my hack-paladin shine as I really let him have his lead for the first time =)

1:59 AM

Nice.

Oh, craponnastick.

@Miniman yes?

(I.e. I pulled out all the high-level spells and magic items in a nice three-beat battle against Strahd that ranged around the castle.)

@Papayaman1000 I just discovered that I didn't bring my headphones to work with me.

@Miniman That is the worst.

@Miniman Want me to call you and hum your favorite songs on the phone?

2:01 AM

@nitsua60 I would actually pay for that.

(Note: they'll all sound like "I Enjoy Being a Boy" as covered by TMBG.)

@nitsua60 ...is that a feature?

@Papayaman1000 Indiegogo "sheep sings you to sleep."

...so long as I can scream "HUM FREEBIRD" after every song.

2

@BESW Depends if he likes it, no?

2:03 AM

@nitsua60 This project reached its goal in 7.2 picoseconds. YES/$35,000 raised.

I just glanced at my phone on the off chance you a) have my number somehow and b) decided to go through with this

@nitsua60 Thanks, but the main reason I need them is because I share a very small room with 4 other people, none of whom I'm particularly fond of.

@Miniman (Papaya, BESW, Ash, and I can hear you when you say that.)

@Miniman Ah, more "block everything out with the added bonus of good music" rather than "listen to good music with the added bonus of blocking everything out".

@Papayaman1000 Pretty much, yeah.

See also: one third of the reason I own earbuds at all.

"I ENJOY BEING A BOY(In Love With You)"

2:06 AM

►

Other two thirds are "because it sounds better" and extreme politeness born of social anxiety.

@doppelgreener are you now going to require people to refer to you as dopplerainbower?

@Papayaman1000 I've been thinking about making the switch from earbuds to headphones lately. My earbuds died and I can't find any decent quality replacements without weird bits designed to stick way further into the ear than is comfortable.

@Miniman I prefer the little rubber nibs over the weird non-nibbed ones that seem to come with every device ever.

Problem is, I have earbuds in my pocket at all times. (Except right now...), but with headphones that just doesn't work.

2:10 AM

But I have an unpopular opinion. I guess? Maybe? I'm... not sure.

@Miniman have you considered getting a second pair to leave at work?

@JoelHarmon I don't have a desk to call my own, unfortunately.

@Miniman I'm the kind of guy who looks like the stereotypical 90s tech nerd and carries all my tech around with me in a shoulder-satchel. As such, headphones rest very nicely where the strap meets the bag.

That's.. unfortunate. If you drive to work, leave them in your car?

@JoelHarmon Yeah, or in my work bag. It's not normally a problem, but if it happens again I think I'll have to.

2:12 AM

@JoelHarmon I'm definitely referring to them as "doppelrainbarrel" now, thanks to a misread =)

Maybe "doublerainbarrel."

@nitsua60 Approved.

Side issue: Was told to make three articles for people totally new to the concept of programming. Made an introduction to the concept and a tutorial to build and deploy a very simple website. What should the third article cover?

"The program you are trying to install needs a later version of a Microsoft RTE"

[Three hours later: nitsua de-modded for bullying another mod, which bullying started immediately after the victim-mod incorporated a rainbow into their avatar.]

Microsoft is not distributing said update

Have to find it through 3rd party

Gotta love Microsoft

2:14 AM

@Ben What if I just made the whole page a BSOD

@nitsua60 Die roll to see whether I get it, too.

No, no, that's an awful idea.

Just make sure you don't have it maximize instead of minimize.

Never too early to start good habits.

@Papayaman1000 what kind of programming?

I haven't done a good genetic algorithm in a long time, unfortunately

@JoelHarmon Just... the concept as a whole.

2:16 AM

I haven't done a good genetic algorithm-
Yeah. Just stop there.

@Papayaman1000 That's...what?

@Miniman There are a lot of people who have no idea what code is, much less its diversity. There are also a lot of people in middle management. Do the math.

@Papayaman1000 oh, my thing is separate to your thing.

I was told "make three articles covering the basic concept of code."

Flipping it around, who is your target audience and what should they know/do by the end?

2:17 AM

Just blame Microsoft

alternately, who told you to do this, so we can work out why they wanted it?

but really, it's Microsoft's fault.

@JoelHarmon People who are so unfamiliar with code, that they don't get those protest signs that read </war>. They should know what code... is. This was my boss. I have no idea why.

I once had the pleasure of witnessing a good genetic algorithm. It adjusted ~3K electrodes that deformed a mirror to maintain a stable lasing cavity... breathtaking, really.

@JoelHarmon This is good advice, here. Learning objective for the audience.

I showed him the introduction the the concept of what coding is, and the article on building and deploying the most simple webpage in the world via Cloud 9. He was happy with those. He wants it done tonight. He refuses to contact me further on the goals. My best guess is that he wants people to know, on a fundamental level, what it is. Think the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article titled "Computer Programming", but more so.

My head hurts.

@Papayaman1000 The natural progression from "wut cod" to "website" is, in my opinion, JavaScript. Bonuses: everyone has an IDE installed, and can do things they immediately see results with

2:23 AM

Right now, it's looking like something that I'd do if given an hour and a room of third-graders, with an instruction of "teach them about coding". Except I'm missing something, there.

Personally, I'd go with something like BASIC.

@JoelHarmon Downsides: Needs to be in the form of easily-digestible articles made for people who couldn't be trusted to give a consistent name for [.

A little background history, examples in BASIC, then some discussion of diversification from those examples into various specialisations--but without detailed examples.

History. There. History of code. DONE.

BOOM.

@Papayaman1000 ENIAC wiring diagrams?

2:25 AM

@Papayaman1000 Square bracket? Open bracket? Open square bracket?

Bonus points if you mention Jacquard?

open bracket, as opposed to open braces or open parentheses

@Ben Think "square parentheses", "that rectangle thing", "whatever that is [points at paper]".

@BESW he does sort of loom in the background, doesn't he

3

What about something that's a little narrative-based set of vignettes based around the theme "the work of a programmer"? Like "Alice is updating the search utility on SpacelySprockets.com; she branches a development copy of blahblah, and after a few weeks has rewritten the BASIC code that runs the search. After another two days testing, she deploys it for an hour then reverts to the old version..."
Then "Bob's writing utilities to collate data from six different providers for analysis by the business unit. He uses FORTRAN to parse XML..."

2:27 AM

@Papayaman1000 saw a historical hacking attempt that managed to steal the ending 100 or so characters from a program. It was basically 3 pages of "}" repeated over and over

@JoelHarmon feature-request "groan" button next to "star" button.

6

@Ben fun fact: some Lisp dialects allow superfluous ) at the end of the program

@JoelHarmon HERESY.

@nitsua60 The target audience isn't going to understand what most of those words mean.

What is Lisp if not taking a maddeningly precise count of the 50-some-odd unmatched open-parens?

2:35 AM

Personally, if I were writing those articles, I'd take time to talk about Weizenbaum and the themes of Computer Power and Human Reason --actually, that book wouldn't be a bad place to crib some explanations about the fundamentals of computing as well as the strengths and weakness of its implementation as an ubiquitous problem-solving tool.

@Papayaman1000 using an editor that can match parens?

@nitsua60 By the end of the "tutorial" bit, the reader will have deployed a website with a centered <p> element, with a different font and served by Apache. If they could repeat half that, I'd be majorly impressed.

@JoelHarmon No.

@BESW Please stop. My reading list is already too long.

Someday I'll be the first to get a Ph. D in 'Undeclared'.

(2, 3)

@Miniman Right... and I don't know what half of them mean. In my mind someone who really knows it could write an interesting set of half-page descriptions. But maybe I only think that because I like programming =)

2:37 AM

@Papayaman1000 I was thinking more "father's parentheses"

Side-note: Apparently an I.T. degree makes you a great GM.

@Papayaman1000 +1 for zero-indexing it

@JoelHarmon And doing it from the top-left

Because my TI-BASIC days have scarred me irrevrsibly

@JoelHarmon Chapter two is basically "here's how computers work, starting from basic physical principles up to simple coding; you can skip this chapter if it intimidates you because I'll summarise the thematic take-away at the start of chapter three, but I think you'll find it interesting and helpful to know so please give it a shot."

@BESW basic principles like Newton and Maxwell, or like Boole?

I suppose physical implies Maxwell

2:46 AM

Mechanical tolerances, state-transitions and game rules, it's put together very interestingly.

> Machines, when they operate properly, are not merely law abiding; they are embodiments of law. To say that a specific machine is "operating properly" is to assert that it is an embodiment of a law we know and wish to apply.

He talks about the transition of our concept of "machine" from a device which transforms power to a device with transforms information, and then dives into formal languages as a kind of game of laws.

Neat. I'm always interested in seeing this kind of thing presented in different ways, because more analogies is better.

Then he moves on to the symbols used to create languages, and how formal languages can be reduced to binary states, to which laws are applied in order to effect state transitions just the same way, for example, you can apply a law to a knight on a chess board to change its state.

He touches on the mechanics of electric flow and then jumps into NOT/AND/OR. Eventually he starts giving natural-language examples of programs and concludes with the necessity of understanding a program and its language, and of not being fooled into thinking that a computer (or programmer) capable of a particular task is demonstrating understanding of the task's context.

@BESW the Chinese Box is a good example of that

err, Chinese Room?

yeah, that

(The general thrust of the whole book is the importance of properly understanding a tool before assigning it a new task, and the danger of confusing analysis with judgement.)

Alright, friends. I want to print about 25 pdfs to the same printer, all live in one folder. I don't want to concatenate them first, because I need the document-breaks to remain as hard page-breaks. (They'll be separated by tabs in a binder.) I'm in Windows 8 and do not have PowerShell installed. Best practices?

3:03 AM

@nitsua60 PDFCreator.

Ah, wait, I didn't think about your actual problem.

Can't you just select all of them, right-click, and hit print?

@Miniman That seems to just grab the first one.

@nitsua60 Hmmm.

I think if I'd bothered to learn pdftk well enough, I'd be able to encode the document-breaks into a single concatenated document in the right way to force print-breaks. Maybe it's time....

Perhaps just one-at-a-time? It'd be nice, since you could gather up each one individually without having to dig through later.

Oooh, apparently you can't print multiple files from context menus, but you can drag'n'drop files into the print queue.

3:10 AM

And this is coming from the guy who automates his YouTube comments.

feature-request SocialContract.SE, SocialSkills.SE, Misanthropy.SE

solipsism.SE?

@JoelHarmon An SE that only shows you your own posts?

@Miniman Weird, I don't remember making that post, but I must have.

@JoelHarmon But why would I make another account just to ask myself questions?

@Miniman I must have been bored

3:15 AM

Solipsism.SE Motto: Every user banned for sockpuppeting.

Hmm. I wonder if this short story could be related

@nitsua60 Any luck?

@Miniman Misanthropy.SE: Home of the Downvote™

@Miniman Wait, you can't ctrl-a-right-click-print?

@BESW Up to 15 items, you can.

Beyond that, no.

3:30 AM

Ah. I guess I never hit that limit.... I wonder if OS X has a similar ceiling.

Or what the limit is on other versions of Windows (I haven't spent much time in 8).

@Miniman Yeah, I just sucked it up and spent ten minutes CTRL-P, ENTER, CTRL-W.

@nitsua60 Yikes.

@Miniman Eh, ten minutes. No biggie. Night, all!

@nitsua60 Cya!

@nitsua60 G'night.

If I wasn't still working on those articles, I would love to follow closely behind. Mreeh.

Looking for a better way to end it than "1998: Open Source Movement formalized."

eh. I'll figure it out.

3:36 AM

try "1998: Windows '98"?

@JoelHarmon "2000: Windows ME"

gotta make it the greatest achievement in modern computing

right behind Microsoft Bob Server

you might skim the old Joel on Software articles for ideas; I liked his style.

I do enjoy Joel

thanks!

that one too

4:24 AM

The four horsemen of the apocalypse https://t.co/zsolnBJTmt

Tweeted by FiX_gfx on June 13, 2017 at 1:01 AM

5:47 AM

4

@BESW This automatically qualifies you for the "meta" tag badge.

7:57 AM

@JoelHarmon haha! You know, I put some serious thought into renaming myself that for the month. (I won't though.)

@BESW whoa. much meta.

@doppelgreener hello rainbow overlord XD

what made you want to change your avatar to this again? or was it not a specific thing?

10 hours ago, by doppelgreener

@Papayaman1000 This month I am rainbow diamond

@BESW yeah I just found that XD

8:20 AM

Good morning! :D

Good morning to you too

good time of day yes XD :P

9:13 AM

If you were going to show someone either Ryan vs Dorkman or RvD2 but not both, which would you choose?

10:00 AM

that is the star wars fight one right?

gonna watch em both again and then answer

I think maybe 2 was better, but for science! sure we will go with that one

Gotcha. (I'm planning to show one at the end of the Star Wars Double Feature Marathon, but both seems like overkill.)

10:25 AM

took a break for dinner, will continue now

yeah I like the second one better

the first one does skate a bit on the merit of the ending

the last trick other than the "I have a doppleganger, surprise!" bit

Do we have any experts on DND5E Challenge Ratings in the room?

I've got a party of five level 2 players, and one level 2 NPC. Is a CR3 monster an appropriate challenge for them?

we sometimes at least have 5E people in here

but I don't know if any of them are actually in here at the moment

for that party the CR thresholds are 300*step

@DrRDizzle Which monster?

CR3=700xp, so by the numbers it should be Medium

but it might be way too much, lv2 PCs are squishy

a mummy eg hits 3d6+3, which can knock a lv2 char out easily

10:41 AM

@Miniman Basilisk

I like the idea of them being able to trick it into paralyzing itself, as well as just fighting it. Gives them options.

if they are not careful, someone can go down, but with focused fire, it should not be much worse

@Szega I'm OK with it being a bit of a challenge. It's going to end up being part of the final test for them to join a guild.

it might not feel like a "boss fight" though, if you want that

1v6 is a mobbing

oh, still the guild entry exam

@DrRDizzle With a basilisk, it definitely depends on your players. A smart party who are prepared won't have any difficulty with it, but a party who just charges in could easily end up TPK'd.

@Szega TBF, I might paralyse the NPC at the start of the encouter so they know the stakes.

@Miniman My players are pretty smart, I don't expect them to randomly dive at the thing. I imagine they'll look around the room, attempt to identify the creature, figure out that they can use its gaze against it if they have something reflective, etc etc

10:44 AM

if you want it to be more climactic, I recommend 2 CR2 monsters, possibly different ones

@DrRDizzle Then yeah, they shouldn't have much problem.

@Szega Two Gargoyles in a darkened room full of statues sounds nice.

Especially if most are human and need a light source :)

@Szega Unfortunately not. I think 4/5ths of my party has dark vision :(

if someone is turned to stone, will the guild un-petrify them or will they be left like that?

10:48 AM

@Szega The guild would unpetrify them. They're not monsters!

@DrRDizzle they might lack the means.. but anyway then its fine

how exciting it will be is not a given though

I'm now considering having them enter a room. At the far end is a minotaur skeleton, and close the players is an enourmous axe. The minotaur sees them and charges for the axe. When the players attempt to pick it up... turns out it was a mimic the whole time!

@Szega In this world I've created, the Adventurer's Guild are like the cream of the crop. If anyone has the means, it's them.

what is the guild testing for?

@Szega New recruits. They hold trials once a year.

I mean, combat ability? cunning?

10:51 AM

All of the above and many more. They've already proved their intelligence in the first test, their adaptability in the second and their teamwork in the third. This is just a final "separate the lucky from the skilled" kind of thing.

is it one room only? or a gauntlet?

might be better with 2-3 rooms

@Szega They've entered a huge tower. It can have many floors they progress through.

how does this sound:
1st floor - vs many low CR enemies (8*CR1/4 or so)
2nd floor - vs pair of serious stuff (CR1) with terrain favoring the enemy
3rd floor - vs "boss" one strong opponent (possibly the basilisk)

also demonstrating the Inverse Ninja Law :)

@Szega Inverse Ninja Law?

If you fight 100 ninjas, they are cannon fodder

if a lone one appears, you should run

10:56 AM

The Inverse Ninja Law: If you pull a ninja inside-out, it turns into a samurai.

2

@Szega That actually sounds really good. The only thing I might not do is the first floor - the last test was already a Hunger Games style thing where they fought lots of low CR enemies, so that might feel repetetive.

if their aim is to ascend, they do not necessarily have to kill everything

if they can push through it might be wise/clever

@Szega Very true.

A bunch of 1/8 mobs is more difficult terrain than an encounter anyway :)

I think that's what I'll do then. Big battle at the entrance to the tower, first floor minotaur and second floor basilisk.

I might put an invisible maze in the minotaur room too.

11:00 AM

are you sure they will grab the axe though? did they lose their weapons?

@Szega No, but I think they'll want to prevent the Minotaur from picking it up.

fair enough. make the maze simple, though

and make the minotaur not start at the exit

otherwise they can just see where he went

unless you wanna approve that strategy

I'm actually OK with them observing where he went and basing their movement off that. There is no saying that he didn't deliberately miss certain paths to take advantage of later :)

seems ok. How beat up will they be when they arrive at the tower? maybe you should not let them rest between certain encounters

12:29 PM

Hi RPG chat. Any of you familiar with the play-by-post community? I've made an online tool that I think can be useful there (mipui.net/app) but I'm not quite sure how to reach out to let people know.

It feels like it's very distributed across dozens of forums and I could not spot any good resource sites.

@Szega They're definitely gonna be a little beat up, hopefully a few spell slots down. That'll be part of the challenge.

Q: Community Promotion Ads - 2017

15

It is a bit late into this new year, being that we're already in the second month, but we are now cycling the Community Promotion Ads for 2017! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar....

You may post a community ad to our community ads list. Once it reaches a score of 6 or more, it'll start showing up on our site.

@doppelgreener cool! I'll do that. But is that a good way to reach play-by-post people?

@Oak This is the specific advertising method we offer. We also have a play-by-post tag, and if you think your tool provides a genuine solution to a problem someone's facing, or part of one, you may mention it as part of an otherwise complete answer. Naturally you'll be beholden to our advertising policies and your post might be scrutinized more than usual, and you need to disclose your affiliation with it.

Might June know about non-Stack ways to advertise in the PbP community?

12:38 PM

@Oak There isn't really "the play-by-post community". There are hundreds of individual play-by-post communities, and there's not a lot tying them together.

@doppelgreener Hmm. I guess I can follow that tag (and other tags relevant to map making) and post a response when it's appropriate and relevant... but even if I only do that when relevant and disclose my affiliation it feels a bit abusive.

@Miniman Yea that's my realization, I was just hoping someone might know better.

It's absolutely not abusive if you're giving honestly useful answers.

@BESW Hmm maybe I'll do that then... I'll be careful.

I imagine a good rule of thumb would be to ask yourself: "if I didn't have any association with this tool or particular stake in its success, would I still write my answer like this?"

If yes, go ahead and link to your tool.

@doppelgreener I also found rpg.stackexchange.com/help/promotion, looks good

12:45 PM

@Oak Yep, that's the stack's advertising policy.

OK thanks people! Will try for the community promotion and will subscribe to relevant tags here, and meanwhile I'll continue my quest to advertise to play-by-post elsewhere.

This is one of the strangest ideas I've seen for a one-shot in a while rpg.stackexchange.com/q/101561/32395

@Oak Good luck!

@Adam I've seen similar concepts done a few times, both as a chargen technique (Damnit Roger) and as a full game in itself (A Penny For My Thoughts).

In Damnit Roger, Roger is trying to pick a PC to play--but his PCs always have horrible things happen to them. So the game is playing partly-formed PC concepts vying to fail the imaginary trials Roger is putting them through to solidify their concepts.

@BESW Sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the rules?

1:00 PM

[rummages for link]

Finally got back to making micro-games. A one-night design called Dammit Roger! It is a game of making characters: http://tinyurl.com/hjrrfx2

Tweeted by RPGFleming on September 16, 2016 at 9:31 PM

@BESW tyvm

And A Penny For My Thoughts is an RPG about amnesiacs using light psychic connections to help each other remember their pasts.

Today in Your Fantasy Animal isn't Smug Enough:

The rufous potoo from South America. (Photo: Joao Quental) https://t.co/Kjqs6tptIl

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on June 14, 2017 at 12:45 PM

Dresden Files Accelerated is up on DriveThruRPG! 🔥FUEGO! 🔥 http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/213844/Dresden-Files-Accelerated?affiliate_id=144937 https://t.co/B7AhdLVhGK

Tweeted by Fate_SRD on June 14, 2017 at 1:02 PM

@doppelgreener Posted! rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7211/36595. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

I have a weird dilemma.

@doppelgreener oh?

1:12 PM

@doppelgreener You need to brush your teeth but just drank orange juice?

I think a certain site is a new piracy database. I'm not certain. I'm considering asking on main site, but that's as good as a big ol' advertisement for it.

@BESW ugh, that is the worst.

Yuuki

Huh. MinMax Boards and Brilliant Gameologists apparently up and died without warning.

@Yuuki What? Nooooo!

@Oak I think it would be good on that meta post to (a) briefly describe what it is and (b) disclose your affiliation there, too. (a) because it's not a resource that most meta voters are likely familiar with, so you want to draw some in to check it out and then upvote it, (b) because you want to be above all reproach. (I.e. I think it's absolutely fine that you post it there, and you probably don't need to disclose, but why not do so?)

Yuuki

@Papayaman1000 There is a new Min Max Forum, but I think it's to hold any data that could be saved.

1:15 PM

@doppelgreener That sounds like something for Mod Chat. Because, let's face it, a chat post for the public at large would likely serve to do the same thing. Except mod chat is visible to the public. So I'm not sure?

@nitsua60 But @Oak should do it in comments, not in the answer body, because of the strict requirements of the ad thread.

@Papayaman1000 Ok, good idea. I am glad we have a resident 5e moderator.

@Yuuki Funnily enough, it's not the first time that happened in the site's history.

@BESW yes, true--thank you

@Yuuki :(

1:17 PM

have y'all seen the panic going on? reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6h3nv1/…

That sound you hear is the Stack Exchange being smug about refusing to let answerers rely on outside links for the bulk of their content.

4

@BESW I like the low-key participation on that, BESW.

Besides, what if Stacks start getting axed?

If Stacks get axed, then people who were relying solely on links to Stack content won't be very smug.

Wait, no. I'm pretty sure that the moment the network is in financial danger, all the developers who owe their salary to the site will bail it out.

@nitsua60 Okay, added a comment with brief description and disclosure. Plus added a link to Github to emphasize this is a free offering.

@BESW Done!

1:21 PM

Yey!

Q: What is the policy on linking to non-official sites?

1:42 PM

@Papayaman1000 Once a week, Stack Exchange dumps a copy of absolutely all user-submitted data to the internet archive licensed under CC BY-SA. It's the same data made available on stack exchange data explorer. If Stack Exchange goes down, the RPG community already has an archive of absolutely all RPG posts ever made already rescued.

Well, except the ones we deleted.

Stack Exchange is thinking ahead.

The Oracle

1

This question references dnd-spells.com, which is not an official WoTC and property and has even been temporarily shut down by them in the past. What is the policy on these references?

discussion

@doppelgreener [squint] Is Stack Exchange Skynet?

@oak does mipui have layers?

2:18 PM

@BESW Not quite yet.

But it will be a super nice kind of skynet that sends robots back in time to provide interview advice and help you fix up your tie and tell you that you've got this.

@doppelgreener until someone else sends other robots back in time to stop those robots

@NautArch [shakes fist] Quoraaaa!!

2:33 PM

that rogue assassin question confuses me. I think they're just asking is a d8 better than a d4?

@NautArch I think they want a confirmation that they're doing the math correctly (which they aren't)

@Adam that makes much more sense!

But, like SSD says, we don't know what they mean by better, so we can't be sure.

I'd say "better" is pretty obviously "more damage".

It could also be the age old question of "Why would I ever not use double rapiers? It looks better in every way!"

@nwp I agree, but stack policy dictates that we not make assumptions about what the question is asking for, no matter how obvious it may seem, and wait for clarification from the author instead.

3:01 PM

It's hard to visit another stackexchange website after rpg. I just answered a question on another one and immediately noticed the niceness gap.

I notice the niceness gap too except coming from another site to rpg.

@AnneAunyme [hugs]

(meaning rpg being nicer)

@nwp Agreed. I left activity on another site because of it.

@nitsua60 awww

3:08 PM

I'm fairly committed to stackoverflow though which might be the least friendly site.

@AnneAunyme which site?

@nwp it really is

To be fair stackoverflow has some good reasons to be like that. Taking every newby by the hand and teaching them the ropes is nice, but it doesn't scale.

@DForck42 it was French language

I just noticed the "other rooms you're in" feature doesn't work between here and chat.stackoverflow.

@nwp yeah, SO has its own, separate, chat server from the rest of the SE network.

3:24 PM

I vaguely remember some podcast mentioning that they coordinate via chat.SO when a site goes down. It would suck if some site has issues and the coordination platform fails at the same time.

@AnneAunyme ahh

basically on French Language you get three big type of questions: the one about someone who is learning French and needs help to make his sentence be understandable, the one who is asking for complicated case of grammar, and the one who wants to show his culture.

@nwp well, and some people just don't want to play ball

there's this weird entitlement thing on the internet where people want to use sites THEIR way, and if they don't meet that criteria they throw a fit

the third one type of question usually starts with a long literary citation of a random book that has no real importance in the question and you are lucky if in the end you understood what the problem is

and basically I found one of these questions, gave an answer, and voted "-1", without commenting (as my answer was already stating that I couldn't be more precise because of a lack of precision in the question)

And immediately the OP got angry and started spamming hateful comments

are questions comparing a class across two editions in scope here?

3:35 PM

(because of the downvote)

it feels very "read the book to me and explain". WHen simply reading the 5e character class should be sufficient?

@NautArch I don't see why not, there is a finite set of difference

@AnneAunyme Sounds like it might just be that person and not the whole site.

@NautArch To be honest, most questions we get could be answered by the asker just by reading the book again

@GreySage that is...very true.

i'll leave it without a flag and let someone who plays both editions answer :)

3:38 PM

@nwp yup, but then I calmly told him I was flagging her comment for non-niceness and reminded him about the website policy, in the more neutral way possible; and three different people just became crazy

@NautArch We do have the edition-comparison tag after all

in 5 minutes I was successively called stupid, a racist, and was told to go buck myself (except it wasn't the word "buck")

@AnneAunyme O.O... wow

@AnneAunyme That calls for some moderator attention.

@AnneAunyme wow. just read the exchange. That's crazy.

3:46 PM

I read about the geek social fallacies and figured out that I am affected by GSF#1. I don't like how the cure is essentially to be a dick to people who behave incorrectly according to my opinion. I can't tell if that is just my affliction talking and unaffected people do that and that is the expected behavior, or if I'm interpreting it wrong.

@NautArch but I didn't give her my number, so she won't call me baby

@AnneAunyme facepalm

Also why does it show 7628 rep on my avatar? That is completely wrong.

is it?

I see that too

@nwp it's adding up your rep across all sites (SO, code review, ux, etc.)

3:49 PM

I think they just summed it all up across networks. I thought of that but then dismissed it due to being bad at math -.-

chat.SO only shows SO rep

@nwp As I see it it's not about being a jerk to people, it's about limiting the damage people do. If one person is consistently a jerk to many people, then something needs to be done to allow others to enjoy themselves

@nwp We have the same thing here on the stack with suspensions and bans

@nitsua60 Not user-controllable layers. Every tool occupies its own layer, so you can place a text over an image over a shape over stairs over walls over floor... but you can't control which appears above what, and you can't toggle layer visibility (though I might add that if requested). Do you have a particular use-case in mind?

@nwp that you consider the only alternative to be "be a dick to people" is part of GSF#1. Here's an example: my friends play strategy board games. After a while I decided I didn't like those games very much, they're not my thing. I chose to exclude myself from further board games. This was shocking, so I made a point of joining them just to hang out sometimes, while I read a book or worked on something, or just watched them play. (At the time, most of us were living together.)

Eventually they were comfortable organising those events without me, or without even telling me they were doing them.

Meanwhile, I organise, say, dinner outings with one of my friends sometimes. I might not another friend because I don't expect he can maturely handle the situation we're planning for, or may not be able to afford it, or something. That's fine. We'll go do our thing. That's our business. I won't try to keep it a secret from them, but I won't go out of my way to inform them either. I won't tell them my reasoning if it's "they're not mature enough" because that'll be upsetting for them to hear.

Meanwhile if they're mad I didn't invite them, that's their business. I might apologise and offer to bring them along next time if it turns out that might be a good idea, but if they're mad unreasonably and I don't want them along, that's on them to deal with.

None of that is being a dick, it's being practical about who gets involved in what, and what's suitable to them.

@GreySage That makes sense and I want to change "behaves incorrectly in my opinion" to "behaves incorrectly in the group's opinion" which unfortunately is much harder to assess.

personally when I go for lunch at work I can either call everyone (as I do usually) and ask who is coming with me, but if some day I need to eat quickly or talk about something important with only a part of my colleagues I won't feel ashamed about not telling the others

but I know some of my colleagues would

3:57 PM

@nwp As with most things, communicating makes things better

@doppelgreener For me it would be about the bravery to say "Look, you are not mature enough for what we want to do, so we don't want you to participate". It would cost me quite some effort to do that because my GSF1 screams that that is evil.

@nwp well, I wouldn't tell them, like I said.

not that anyway.

this is one of those situations where white lies come in handy. and also being choosy about who you make a habit of hanging out with.

Telling somebody they aren't mature enough to handle something, especially if they are an adult, is a fast track way to get them angry. No matter how accurate the statement might be.

yup

It can certainly be phrased better, but the core issue stays. You need to be somewhat rude to a single individual in order to protect the group.

4:10 PM

Instead, eat their brain. Or make a thrall out of them. Far more effective means of pacification.

/me searches for "how to become an elder brain" knowing that /me doesn't actually work in this chat

/me tells nwp /me doesn't work in this chat

I shall attempt to break out of this limited realm! J͉̘̮͇̞̳̻̤̾̑ͪͯͧͦͩͧO͚̪̻̎ͤ͋͌̓̓Ǐ͚͇̫̭̯̜̤̞̂̈ͩ͂̀̏N͙͎̱͎̗̟̰ͣͅ ̗͎̣̭͊́͑Ṃ̺̗̦̯̼̜̘ͮͯ́͂̍̾͒͆E͎̟̪̹ͨͬͣ͗̑!̞̯̟̙͓̫̤͋̿̓ͥͬ͛ͨ͆ͅ

I still wonder if it is possible to use zalgo text to write in other people's lines unnoticed.

@nwp Well, it begins with a tadpole. Said tadpole climbs its way into your ear and does some stuff that you won't remember. You really don't need to worry about the rest of the process after that.