TRPG General Chat

4:00 PM

Incidentally, those are also mechanics in AD&D 2e. If you're playing in AD&D 2e, that's fine.

But if you aren't, then you shouldn't expect to be able to use time conduit if you're playing in 5e.

WotC or any prior DnD publisher wouldn't want to publish anything that tied in to non-DnD RPGs. It wouldn't make marketing sense, given their monopoly status

ZwiQ

@kviiri : I agree, so this question cannot be broad.

kviiri

@ZwiQ ...but someone else might have such an interest.

ZwiQ

It can only happen between TSR worlds/gaming systems/editions.

kviiri

In fact, given DnD's vast market slice, making conversion guides from DnD would be an excellent way to cope with the network effect

Szega

4:02 PM

@ZwiQ Well, any question asking for a list can be too broad

ZwiQ

@Szega : Ok that really now brings me to what I wanted to understand.

If there is reason to think that the list is going to be short/limited, can asking for a list a valid thing on rpg.se?

Rubiksmoose

9

Q: Are list/collection questions on topic?

Related: tag for collection questions ? Should we allow and encourage list/collection questions here? The tradition on the trilogy has been to allow a very few and force them to be CW questions. It seems, like many of the other betas, we are collecting quite a few early on. These ques...

doppelgreener

@ZwiQ Well it can be: "give me all the content that does this thing in any D&D-adjacent material ever" can be taken to be too broad given the vast (finite, but like the ocean) amount of material it attempts to scan, even if the content findings might number in the single digits.

Rubiksmoose

14

Q: What are list questions?

We have some lack of clarity, I think as to what consists of a "list" question on the site and why they are undesirable, per recent meta Q (Not) closing question for Spells with Concentration vs Spells with Thunder/Lightning Damage. I think it's worth discussing this in a more general manner. So...

discussion list-questions

Yuuki

@Rubiksmoose Also, don't think the "unless they're CW" clause means you can ask list questions as long as you mark them CW.

CW is not for you to use to try to circumvent site rules.

ZwiQ

4:05 PM

What does CW stand for?

Yuuki

Community Wiki.

ZwiQ

ok

doppelgreener

@Yuuki I've decided to remove that phrase

Yuuki

It is something that I personally feel is outdated and way too many people think of it as a "get out of jail free" card.

doppelgreener

> removed given more recent stance (rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6524/…) and it's not like community wiki makes them magically stay up to date anyway

ZwiQ

4:06 PM

Now I understand.

doppelgreener

^ the edit summary

kviiri

Community wikis aren't really used on main site, are they?

ZwiQ

Since my question is effectively a list question, it is considered too broad.

Yuuki

@kviiri They really shouldn't be used at all.

ZwiQ

Thanks a lot to all of you.

Rubiksmoose

4:07 PM

@Yuuki yikes I was just posting some hopefully helpful meta posts. I'm staying out of this one lol.

Yuuki

@Rubiksmoose It's just a sore topic for me because I've occasionally seen comments like "why don't I make it CW so you people can stop being rules Nazis" or something.

Rubiksmoose

fair enough. Good to head those kinds of things off I suppose.

Yuuki

Yes because my concern with your question/answer/post rests solely on the possibility of you getting fake internet points from it.

Acts7Seven

Couldn't ZwiQ question be reworded to... "Is it possible to consistently travel between editions of D&D? EX: 5e to 3.5 and back

kviiri

I think it would make more sense if it was described as travel between "campaign settings of <systems>", because DnD hasn't really been married to a single setting per edition.

Acts7Seven

4:10 PM

Then is not a "list" question but rather a question as to whether that is possible or if only thru some obscure "one-off" almost never happens kind of situation

Szega

@Acts7Seven I wouldn't say consistent, but maybe such a rewording should be done

Yuuki

@Acts7Seven In my opinion, maybe but it might be considered a radical change to the identity of the question.

Acts7Seven

At least then its not a "list all..."

Yuuki

Might be easier just to ask that separately.

Szega

@Yuuki The only answer is from the querent, so it will not impact anyone

doppelgreener

4:11 PM

17

Q: How should we use Community Wiki, Part III

In the beginning, RPG.SE was Community Wiki crazy. We used it for everything. We have an old Meta question on what to use CW for. But then we realized list questions were bad and CW was being used as a dumping ground for bad questions. So now CW is anathema. Some hunt down and kill old CW questi...

discussion faq community-wiki

Our current general stance is that community wiki is functionally useless

Yuuki

@Szega Eh, I'm a weird person but I think a logical consequence of divorcing the asker from the question is that it's possible for the original asker to make a radical edit and therefore said edit should be rejected.

doppelgreener

There are virtually no situations in which anything needs to be community wiki or benefits from being community wiki, unless someone here took the vow of poverty and isn't allowed to accumulate internet points, in which please consult your GM-deity for retraining options.

In the past CW was often taken as "maybe this otherwise-unacceptable post can be magically OK as long as it's CW", but it's been recognised CW cannot be sensibly used as a way to waive or reduce quality standards.

Yuuki

Besides, judging by the comments on the question and answer, it might be easier to start off with a clean slate as this question already has baggage with it.

Szega

@Yuuki He could delete it and ask again... Would be better for visibility too. But I am not sure an edit would be against policy. Would it be?

Acts7Seven

I'm curious as to the purpose of travelling back and forth between "editions" of dnd? That seems like a crap ton of effort

doppelgreener

4:14 PM

I'm open to the idea there may, in fact, be a situation in which community wiki is perfect, or multiple such situations, but I would consider them to be statistical anomalies.

Yuuki

@Szega It depends on what you consider a radical edit, such that it changes the original intent of the question.

doppelgreener

@Acts7Seven It is something we've had asked about before; some can consider it to be quite an interesting campaign device.

Yuuki

I might consider that it is such an edit, you might not.

Acts7Seven

@Szega I dont think it should be deleted. No more answers yes. But someone took a lot of time to answer and cites good knowledge

doppelgreener

e.g.:

1

Q: Is there an established method for bringing a White Box D&D character through a grand tour of D&D?

I'm running a tour of D&D sort of game, spending about two levels in each significant edition (I'm arbitrarily defining this as White box -> AD&D 1e -> 3.5 -> 4e -> 5e) I remember a few conversion texts to bring 2e characters into 3rd editon, but I was curious as to if anyone had come up with a g...

dungeons-and-dragons conversion

(closed)

Acts7Seven

4:16 PM

@doppelgreener really? Hmm any brief example as to why?

Szega

@Acts7Seven That was the querent. He can copy-paste it to the new one if he wants

doppelgreener

@Acts7Seven Exploration and discovery of game systems & mechanics, and playing around with switching between different rulesets can be fun, especially when you see how you can use one ruleset to carry out hijinks in the other.

ZwiQ

I thought about restricting the question only to edition hops for D&D/AD&D. But I am also ok with leaving the question as it is, on hold for ever. :-)

kviiri

DnD already sort of does that anyway - it's a pretty freeform system out of combat, which revolves quite rigidly around rules.

It's like two separate rulesets for two different types of situations - not a bad way to design a game.

ZwiQ

In our campaigns, the characters become aware of the "changes to the metaphysical laws" of the multiverse.

So finding official material that supports this "conviction" by our characters was an interesting question for me.

Yuuki

4:21 PM

Today on Making You Feel Old, if D&D 3e was a person, they'd be able to vote in this year's election (US).

ZwiQ

@Yuuki : that makes me feel real old. :-(

kviiri

Kids today at the university don't remember time before the War on Terror. I was harvesting potatoes when I heard the news of 9/11.

(I harvest potatoes a single time in my life and now I can say that so it sounds like I did it every day)

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri Yup I definitely have you filed in my mind now as "potato farmer"

nitsua60

@BESW You can also do this with The New Yorker, which appears to hew to an English frozen some generations ago.

ZwiQ

Here is another question for the experts: if I leave the question we have discussed earlier as it is, what will happen to it? It will eventually get closed, right? And then stay closed for ever?

kviiri

4:26 PM

@ZwiQ Nah, closed questions can be reopened too.

"Closed" and "on hold" have no mechanical difference. It's just that the latter sounds a lot less final to someone who doesn't know it yet :)

ZwiQ

Since I understood what the issue was, I don't mind if it stays closed for ever.

Yuuki

@kviiri I was moving piles of dirt when I found out about King Arthur.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener I once posted a question that, according to our meta and meta.se would seem to fit all the criteria for "yeah, that's what a wiki's good for." And it ended up being such a pain that I just reclaimed ownership.

Yuuki

@nitsua60 From my experience with problematic things like community wiki, the rules are there not to say "that's what CW is for", they're more for putting as many stop signs in front of people wanting CW as you can until they relent.

Because CW and identify-this-thing questions will always be popular and people will always want to do it, but they're also problematic as hell.

So you set up as many roadblocks as you can and hope that you don't run into that one determined person out of thousands who gets through all the roadblocks.

nitsua60

@ZwiQ There's a process that comes along and autodeletes questions that are closed and have no positive score and no positively-scored answers, but other than that they hang around, closed, in the fullness of time. (I might be a little off on those criteria, but they basically say "there's nothing about this question that appears to be good.")

doppelgreener

4:41 PM

@Yuuki Nitsua60 had compiled a large post that could be collaboratively maintained due to significant effort involved in doing so. The CW was meant to be an invitation to maintain it and edit it freely, but their experience was that everyone kept asking permission to edit it in comments, or suggesting changes in comments, far more than anyone was actually just freely editing it, which made the CW-ness pointless. :P

nitsua60

@Yuuki That makes me feel old, because that was an edition I didn't even know existed for most of its life. (I stopped playing ca. 1995 for about 20 years.)

doppelgreener

@Yuuki Today in Making You Feel Old (Part 2) the same is true of the Star Wars prequels.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener the what?

ZwiQ

@nitsua60: Ok, then no problem as long as my particular question is considered. There are a fair number upvotes for both the question and the answer.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 Sorry, alternate universe thing. Some scripts that were never developed.

nitsua60

4:44 PM

@doppelgreener =D

(Though I do love living in the universe where the Empire Strikes Back that I've seen my whole life is the better one that Hurley managed to push through.)

kviiri

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out closer to the American Civil War than to today!

Pinocchio, too, but quite barely.

nitsua60

XKCD would be in 8th grade. Or maybe high school. They're pretty precocious, after all.

ZwiQ

I am leaving for now. Bye everybody and thanks for the explanations...

kviiri

The Simpsons is almost old enough to be XKCD's father.

GreySage

@kviiri Fun fact, I am the same age as The Simpsons. The first season came out 3 months after I was born.

Yuuki

5:04 PM

@nitsua60 I'm undecided on whether I should be happy with the thought that Hurley fixed Empire Strikes Back or unhappy with him not fixing the prequels.

Or horrified that he did fix the prequels and this is what we got.

nitsua60

I'm happy with just-about every Hurley thought =)

The sea urchin?

When the Walkman dies?

Roger Workman?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 what are you referring to there? (Hurley's not a name I'm familiar with, except when it's followed by Burley)

Yuuki

@doppelgreener Lost.

The TV series that cursed the world with J.J. Abrams.

doppelgreener

@ZwiQ See you. If you need further assistance you're also welcome to ask on Role-playing Games Meta. Generally for anything to do with site maintenance, quality, moderation, etc, including whether a particular question should be closed or opened and why, that's a first point of contact.

@Yuuki Oh. I'm guessing there's some kind of tie-in there I'm not aware of. (Haven't seen any of Lost. I've been told if I ever do -- I probably won't -- I should stop at the second-to-last episode, decide on what I think the ending is, then assume that's true and never actually watch the last episode.)

Yuuki

@doppelgreener Would you mind spoilers?

doppelgreener

5:13 PM

@Yuuki I have no actual intention to watch it and I'm fine with spoilers.

Maybe hide them [spoilers](/like-this) --> spoilers

Yuuki

@doppelgreener spoilers, check edit history

doppelgreener

oooh. Nice. XD

Yuuki

6:41 PM

SPavel

6:57 PM

Gentlemen.

doppelgreener

greetings

Rubiksmoose

7:59 PM

0

A: What can be considered an object for the purposes of True Polymorph?

I'm going to assume in my argument that you are only trying to create the actual ink and not also a bottle to hold it in. Strict RAW - No Definition of object: [A]n object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle tha...

WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO ANSWER?!

BESW

8:10 PM

yesterday, by nitsua60

"a combination of secret code and insane ranting" is probably a good description of most editions =)

ATaco

I finally hit level 4!

Rubiksmoose

8:32 PM

@ATaco woohoo!

ATaco

8:43 PM

Now my Dwarf Barbarian knows Druid spells

Ender Look

8:57 PM

I am reading the D&D guide and I found there are 5 factions. My character have to choose one?

Adam

@EnderLook Are you playing in a home game, or in an organized game like adventurer's league?

Ender Look

@Adam mmm. I am just reading the guide, I don't have a party, I read I have to make the character before, no?

ATaco

This is the first I’ve heard of factions

Ender Look

@ATaco It's one of the last pages of the basic starting guide

(D&D 5e)

Adam

It depends. If you're just playing with your friends, sometimes people like to make characters together, and the DM for that game might not have the same factions listed that the guide has. In that case, I would ask the DM about it. But if you're playing in an adventurer's league game, then you have the option of selecting one of those in the guide, but you don't have to if you don't want to.

ATaco

9:02 PM

Iirc, the starter kit doesn’t go into detail about character creation, I’d recommend checking out the player handbook for that

But the kit should have come with a few premades that are great for getting started

Ender Look

@ATaco The guide is splitted in 3 parts, the second one is about character creation

ATaco

I may be thinking of a different kit then

Ender Look

@ATaco It tell you the basic choices for each class

@ATaco I use the guide it think is the official: this (but I read the spanish version).

ATaco

I can’t see a category for Faction, I do see background however

Peter Cooper Jr.

@EnderLook The info in the D&D 5E Online Basic Rules about Factions and Deities and the like is just there to give you some ideas about "typical" fantasy setting you may be playing in.

ATaco

9:08 PM

I’m lucky I have a knowledgeable and patient DM tbh

Peter Cooper Jr.

It's generally telling you about the "Forgotten Realms" setting, which is a "default" setting you can use for your games, and many published adventures use.

But whether it matters to you or not is entirely about what setting your game is going to be in.

Generally the setting of a game is a part of what's established at the beginning of the campaign, when you figure out who's playing, who the DM will be, and what kind of game you're looking to play

My guess is that they're there so they can point people to it who do Adventurer's League games (since they really do just seem tacked on at the end of the rules), to try to get people "hooked" who haven't bought the actual books yet.

ATaco

I only recently picked up my own copy of the PHB, feels good.

nitsua60

10:35 PM

@BESW =)

Rubiksmoose

hey @PeterCooperJr. I know you like RAW questions, have you seen this: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/113033/… and do you want to put your brain to it as well?

Peter Cooper Jr.

@Rubiksmoose Heh; I'll take a look.

I'd mainly answered the (sillier?) RAW questions in an effort to force myself to dig through rules and learn more about them. I don't think I have a whole lot to add to that one.

But anything that requires you to carefully define "object" or "creature" or "hostile" isn't really something that RAW is gonna help you with. They (quite deliberately, I suspect) keep all that vague, along with the 5E philosophy of "give the DM some guidelines but really the DM is expected to be really competent to run the show"

But I'm certainly amused by reading through the answers.

Rubiksmoose

10:51 PM

@PeterCooperJr. :) that's cool. I just knew you'd posted some lengthy ones with heave RAW. I think I got the closest to a RAW possible, but I keep thinking there must be some other way to do it.

@PeterCooperJr. I believe this is definitely correct.

Peter Cooper Jr.

Which doesn't especially help those of us who are try to learn how to DM by reading the rulebook.

Rubiksmoose

@PeterCooperJr. indeed not.

BESW

"Your Honor, I present Exhibit 37-zed in support of the thesis that D&D is not, and is not intended to be, friendly to individuals new to the role-playing experience."

Peter Cooper Jr.

@BESW A lot of the player's material does a reasonable job, I think. Though I admit I don't have a lot of exposure to alternatives, like all those crazy systems you guys keep talking about here and I'd love to try out at some point.

But it certainly has an expectation that the player reading is the main one that's new, and that the rest of the group (or at least the DM) has a pretty good handle on what they're doing.

BESW

Having experience introducing players to the medium through several different systems, D&D is... Well, for a medium about imagination and "you can try anything because there's a person instead of a program resolving the world," D&D is very eager to tell people they can't do whatever cool thing they've thought of.

Peter Cooper Jr.

10:57 PM

And even the "Here's all you need to learn to DM" Starter Set, there really isn't much guidance in how you're supposed to improvise around the supplied text.

BESW

And as someone who started GMing in 3.x, the dungeon master advice was often outright bad.

Peter Cooper Jr.

@BESW I certainly don't have anywhere near that breadth of experience, but I thought 5E was kind of good in that regard, as long as you can somehow map what they're trying to do to one of the 6 attributes.

I could see how getting exposed to the genre via something like Roll for Shoes could be really great (haven't played it yet, but I'd like to try it), it seems that it requires a creative and experienced DM to make it work.

Whereas, I feel that I can jump into DMing 5E without needing to worry as much about storytelling/improv or worldbuilding quite as much; since there's plenty of published content and the rules direct me fairly reasonably as long as I either run combat encounters or can match attempted actions to the list of attributes and skills well enough.

BESW

Well, like-- I had a player who began with a level one dragonborn. She couldn't fly, needed a weapon to do decent damage, and armor to stay safe.

Peter Cooper Jr.

I may be unusual in that the worldbuilding aspects of DMing are much more daunting than exciting to me.

BESW

Talk about disappointing! She's something called a dragonborn, and can't do any dragony things worth anything!

Peter Cooper Jr.

11:04 PM

They get a breath weapon :)

BESW

In Fate, she could've done all those things instead of constantly being told "no, you have to play for weeks or months and then choose those things, but really there are better options that aren't dragony."

Peter Cooper Jr.

Though I think you're talking about about introducing players to the game, and I'm thinking more about introducing a whole group (including a not-experienced-at-all GM) to the genre, just based on a book.

BESW

And her ideas were cool! I wanted to see them in action, it would've made the fight awesome.

@PeterCooperJr. that's how I started. In 3.x.

Peter Cooper Jr.

I sure see how D&D could do a much better job, don't get me wrong. I'm not really trying to disagree with you.

I personally like the security of knowing the abilities/adventures/etc. have been playtested to a certain "power level". The idea of homebrewing the abilities of the party and what challenge they should go against is rather daunting. Though it may be I have too much of a "video-gamey" perspective.

BESW

I... Did not find that to actually be true in 3.x.

Even 3.x itself, forget the adventures. One playtester bragged that he "tested" the wizard class with an Int 13 character.

Peter Cooper Jr.

11:11 PM

My experience is with 2E in high school (when that was the current version, though 3E came out at the tail end of that), and then 5E which I picked up a few months back. So I don't know much about how 3E worked for learning to play or balancing.

BESW

They don't have the time or money for rigorous testing, and it's all in house with the people who designed it so they don't get fresh eyes and everyone knows what it should be so they often miss what it is.

4e was a little better. A little.

Peter Cooper Jr.

It's really hard (for development of any product) to see how newcomers experience it without a lot of user testing.

And perhaps it's that I don't have the faith in myself to come up with a compelling interesting story with completely custom characters and story.

After all, I don't have playtesters for whatever it is. :)

I'm more a DM by necessity, and drawn to the refereeing aspects of it. I don't consider myself particularly creative.

BESW

I used a lot of premade adventures in 4e, but modded them more and more over time.

Everybody's creative. It just takes practice to apply it to new skills.

Peter Cooper Jr.

And I'm hoping that as I get experience improvising, I get more comfortable with doing the creative end of things. As, well, you have to, since the players try lots of things that aren't in the published adventure. :)

BESW

You might enjoy systems where the pressure of designing the world and story are shared amongst the group rather than dumped solely in the lap of the GM.

Fate has a number of little subsystems for that, most of which can be easily cut off and applied to any other system.

Peter Cooper Jr.

11:19 PM

@BESW I might.

BESW

I'm fond of mission briefing, myself.

But I'm on my phone now so linking is rough.

Peter Cooper Jr.

I think my playgroup (which consists entirely of my family) may not let me change systems at this point. They really like the concept (or at least the world) of D&D. With the younger ones I can probably call it D&D even if we actually are using another system. :)

With the younger ones we're mainly just going freeform anyway, which is fun. :)

BESW

Could try a D&D like, maybe Dungeon World, 13th Age, Masters of Umdaar...

Peter Cooper Jr.

Yeah, I know there's ones out there, I just haven't dug into it yet.

That "Amazing Tales" starred in the sidebar seems intriguing as well.

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