TRPG General Chat

1:01 PM

@SevenSidedDie "kleenexed into genericism"? Not xeroxed? What gives? =D

@nitsua60 yo dawg, I heard you like fake internet points, so I fake made a point tracker for fake fake fake internet fakeness points.

nitsua60

@Papayaman1000 Yeah, I ~~reorder my day around an obsessive search for imaginary accomplishments~~ like them. Thanks.

Papayaman1000

Aaand cue Fake sounding like a non-real word. A... fake word... AAUGH

@nitsua60 Don't we all?

Ben

Asked.

BESW

@nitsua60 Because xerox as a verb also has a different, more commonly used meaning, and kleenex as a verb has already been associated with this particular one and not really any other?

doppelgreener

1:07 PM

kleenexed as in cleansed it right?

Ben

Also, on the topic of the GM liking us to be on the brink of death; my PC is quite tough - almost all my stat points are in Might, so taking him down is not an easy task. So in place of that, giving him so.thing as volatile as these situations can simulate that feeling. "I am the GM, I decide when you die."

BESW

(Support: google "xeroxed" and "kleenexed" separately, and see which gets more pings about brand dissolution.)

nwp

Apparently one can make a heavy armor caster in 5e. It seems so cheesy though.

Ben

English. What a language.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener kleenexed as in "appropriated a brand name for the wider class of all products that serve the same porpoise."

ShadowKras

1:09 PM

@nwp that was my first thought when i read that arcane spell failure was gone and no mechanic replaced it.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 oh gotcha

BESW

Generic trademark

A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, due to its popularity and/or significance, has become the generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, usually against the intentions of the trademark's holder. A trademark is said to become genericized when it begins as a distinctive product identifier but changes in meaning to become generic. This typically happens when the products or services with which the trademark is associated have acquired substantial market dominance or mind share, such that...

doppelgreener

i agree with SSD that exporting "difficulty class" as the term is a fairly D&D-centric notion

nitsua60

post-ited, for example.

doppelgreener

i wouldn't want to call anything in Fate a difficulty class

ooooh.

Ben

1:10 PM

@nitsua60 sea mammals. Noice

nitsua60

@Ben Dolphins evolve opposable thumbs

doppelgreener

This might explain why LEGO's branding guidelines say "call them LEGO bricks, not LEGOs"

Fun thing: There have been various legal challenges asserting that the Google brand name is now a generic trademark, because people use "google" as a verb synonymous with web searching. Google has so far not suffered genericisation because it has successfully argued that when people use the "google" verb, they mean specifically using the Google search engine, not just any generic search engine.

ShadowKras

You mean, like when @BESW said "
(Support: google "xeroxed" and "kleenexed" ?

Ben

@doppelgreener and if someone said to "bing it", they would likely be laughed out of the building for several reasons.

5

BESW

@doppelgreener Fate and Lady Blackbird both call it an obstacle or task's difficulty level.

doppelgreener

1:16 PM

@Ben i know right

@BESW thanks! I was wondering what Fate's canonical term for it was. :)

BESW

I did some quick research on it earlier today, in case it needed to be brought up.

nwp

@Ben Is "ask the duck" still too obscure?

Ben

That worked out very nicely

nitsua60

So "google (v.)" is in this liminal linguistic space where it's (a) being used as the generic term because it's so ubiquitous, (b) being used as a specific verb because friends don't tell friends to bing anything, and (c) being used as a generic term out of fear of mockery if one used the more-appropriate term. "Smithers! Ask Jeeves what the flow rate of the Amazon is!"

Ben

@nwp you mean... Plucka?

nitsua60

1:18 PM

I smell a PhD somewhere in there.

BESW

Great Ork Gods calls it difficulty, level of difficulty, difficulty level, and how hard the action is.

nitsua60

[mashes upvote button for how-hard-the-action-is tag]

5

Papayaman1000

I've always gone with "roll target"

nwp

@Ben Guess that is a yes. I meant this duck.

nitsua60

(I'd be pleased with those two stars, but I see that a C-SPAN link I dropped in here also garnered two stars. I'm starting to doubt this room's sanity.)

BESW

1:19 PM

Oh, hey, I just got the ANKUR pdf. [checks what it says]

Ben

I feel like Great Orc Gods should have gone with something more relevant like how hard to smash it

nitsua60

[quickly synonymizes how-hard-the-action-is to how-hard-smash-it ]

BESW

Nah, smashing things is exclusively the domain of the gods of war and strength.

You need a term that also works for the gods of death, gab, movement, etc.

nitsua60

[CTRL-Z synonymization]

(alright, I'm stahping)

BESW

AKNUR uses Action Potential Number (APN).

Ben

1:23 PM

Fun idea I had involving orcs: I had a discussion with my late d&d group that led to imagining an orc inspecting oranges in the grocery store. He asked the very intimated store clerk if they were organic, and upon being told no, proceeded to rage, flipping several stands.

After a moment, he then moved to inspect the tangerines.

BESW

Demon Hunters uses "difficulty number."

doppelgreener

@nwp "duck it." [person ducks] "no, i meant..."

Ben

I feel like that "critical fail" system is kinda synonymous to fire in videos games. In a video game, the first thing you do is walk into a fire to see if you get damaged. When checking out a new game system, you see what the consequence of rolling a 1 is

@doppelgreener more accurately "Huh?" [Turns and is hit in the face by a flying object]

doppelgreener

@Ben haha!

"what do we do now?" "duck!" [pulls out phone, gets hit in the face by a swooping swan]

BESW

....Cthulhu Dark and Catthulhu don't have a concept like difficulty....

Call of Cthulhu also uses "difficulty level."

Bubblegumshoe uses "difficulty."

Ben

1:30 PM

@doppelgreener [searches a relevant image of a swan on Google] "That is clearly a swan dude"

Oh! D&D uses "difficulty class"

Beat ya to it ;)

doppelgreener

"dude you've got more important things to deal with right now! a swan's attacking you!" "oh you're right. how... to.... handle..... swan.... attack. oh no, the wifi's out of range."

BESW

Ben

As I said. Relevant image of a swan

BESW

(I don't expect more than two people to get that reference.)

deadEarth calls difficulty "the odds."

The 1985 Doctor Who RPG has an Interaction Matrix on which the gamemaster cross-references the Performance Levels, Proficiency Levels, or Difficulty Levels of the Task being performed and the Ability being used, to get the Target Number to be rolled against.

ShadowKras

@AnneAunyme About PFS, the library research rules are an optional system that has been used on two different PFS adventures, and on one official adventure path (sanctioned for PFS). While Kingmaker, which extensively uses optional rules (ie: kingdom building) is also sanctioned for PFS. So, I don't know if using PFS as base of what is raw or not (or canon or not) is a good idea.

BESW

1:40 PM

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space calls it difficulty.

Ben

I still think GOG (note to self - next orc PC name) takes the cake

BESW

So does Mermaid Adventures.

Mouse Guard has obstacle difficulties.

doppelgreener

@BESW this guy looks like a fabulous Bob Fossil, and I'm having fun imagining such a thing

BESW

Phantom of the Paradise

Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 American musical rock opera horror comedy film written and directed by Brian De Palma, and scored by and starring Paul Williams. In the film, a disfigured composer writes his music for a woman he loves so that she will perform his music. However, a record producer betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise. Betrayed, the composer dons a new appearance and exacts revenge on the producer. It co-stars William Finley and Jessica Harper. The story is a loosely adapted mixture of several classic European works: Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom...

Papayaman1000

Been messing with the Druid's Wild Shape. Thinking of replacing the restriction on Swim speed with a restriction on Climb speed for my Triton player.

That seems like it makes sense from a balance and flavor perspective.

BESW

1:46 PM

Og has difficulties.

(This is true on many different levels.)

doppelgreener

@BESW well, it does

hahahaha

@BESW micro-rpg idea: cave men doing cave man things, including learning and inventing language, but done well and in the lite way such a game should be done

BanjoFox

The Armstrong & Miller Show - The Origin of Smalltalk

►

@doppelgreener - you mean like that?

"I like Mammo"

Anne Aunyme

@ShadowKras: PFS was just an example, the point is an "optional rule system" is not supposed to be the default rule

nwp

@Papayaman1000 Does it? It seems to me like it doesn't add anything. Also character abilities like being able to swim shouldn't change druid powers, because the point is that you get different abilities for different shapes. If you make all shapes have the union of all abilities there is no point in having multiple shapes.

Anne Aunyme

you can't quote it to assert that you are right (but you can use it when you don't know how to handle a situation)

I don't agree on how Jim is saying that, but he has a point, and I think you should edit your answer so it's clear you are using optional rules

I just read your comment, and that would explain why you are arguing

ShadowKras

1:58 PM

@AnneAunyme nowhere in the book suggests its optional, other than the fact that as a GM you can always have the option to not use part of the rules.

Anne Aunyme

explaining what you wrote in the last argument (that despite being listed as an optional system it isn't one) should be included in your answer

as it is it's not explained properly and someone reading your answer will think you missed the "optional" part

ShadowKras

even saying its optional on the SRD is argueable, because it doesnt say so. It is on the same page as several optional systems, but the page (at the header) says that it "includes optional systems and other rules"

"other rules" are not necessarily optional or the page wouldnt need a distinction.

i will simply remove the SRD link

since paizo has no power on what is written there.

Anne Aunyme

you should keep it and explain your point, really

godskook

@ShadowKras, what part are you talking about?

Anne Aunyme

even just a sentence such as "despite what the SRD seems to imply by listing these rules under "optional rule systems" these rules are clearly presented in the book as a clarification of previous rules, not as an alternate rule system."

nitsua60

2:12 PM

Grr... A L1 (5e) PC can hit a skill DC of 37 or a save of 35. I'm giving up on gating on DC =(

Adam

@nitsua60 What combination of bonuses did they use to get there?

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