Seems kind of weird to have bounty badges on Meta

@SPavel Yeah, I wonder if it's just a shortcut and child-metas just inherit the badge-list from their parent?

@nitsua60 ha, don't think i'll be getting a lot of those thanks to that question :)

@NautArch You get a badge if you self-delete a question at -3

-2 now with no comments

late to the conversation, but here goes:

Head canon: elf trance is rage--for four hours they focus and massage and luxuriate in their rage. That's what makes them typically even-keeled the rest of the time. And fuels their wakefulness. It's not that elves don't require sleep, it's that they're too pissed-off for it.

@nitsua60 lol, it makes for a funny mental image yes

I was referring to the Long Rest and Concentrating question

It's the Mark Ruffalo/Hulk model of elvenkind =)

The real question is - what do elf wizards do for the 4 hours that they are not trancing

@Randomorph ha, not gonna delete it anyway. I still like the idea even if others don't.

@SPavel 2 hours of watch...and 2 hours of chillaxing

My table typically allows elves to do 4 hours of watch.

Which really means just that they've got their armor on in case there's a fight.

@NautArch Wouldn't watch be considered mentally demanding?

@SPavel 100%, just how we run it at our table.

Besides, that's what the familiar is for

Probably should just make it disadvantage on the wtach perception check

@SPavel "Standing watch is even possible during it, but for no more than 2 hours; maintaining heightened vigilance any longer than that isn’t restful." from Sage Advice

@SPavel Fey Fight Club.

Personally I'd allow elves 4 hours of light activity or watch too

There's a reason they call it the Feywild.

But again, not Concentration

@nitsua60 Fey as in the creature type, or as in effeminate men?

Yes?

(Didn't know that second one was a thing.)

Me neither o.O

@SPavel are you using the somewhat not-nice yiddish term?

which I just learned directly translates to bird.

@nitsua60 You wouldn't like me when I'm contemplative. :| (Angry meditation ensues.)

"Comparing Concentration to a light activity like reading, remember that you cannot stop focusing on the spell for even an instant, otherwise you lose it. While reading you can set down a book for a moment, or let your thoughts wander, and the book doesn't vanish: you can keep reading after."

@Randomorph If that were true, then I'd think concentration checks during all of combat (not just when you get hit) would be necessary. I can concentrate on a spell, cast instantaneous spells, and attack with weapons without any risk at all of losing it.

nbcnewyork.com/news/local/…

This looks pretty tasty

of course williamsburg

@NautArch right, but you're also not trying to get rest during those periods of time

@BESW I don't think I realized that. I thought stars were for interesting/funny things that we want others to see.

Uber but for murder. "I'm your killer. Am outside."

@Randomorph Take out the rest. You're saying I can't do very little and concentrate while you can do a LOT while still concentrating.

And even a L1 spellcaster is a formidable practicioner of combat magic. (well, not necessarily a combat character, but I think many GMs including myself would request a player to repick their spells if they didn't have any combat-capable spells at L1)

@NautArch Some chats have chosen to use them differently, but that's their original intended purpose and we've found them most useful when used, roughly, in that manner.

There is no right or wrong use of a feature, only poorly designed features

@BESW I'm not sure saying that older interesting things are more important than newer interesting things.

Nobody's gonna get in trouble for "misusing" stars, obviously.

@NautArch No I'm saying that Rest and Constant Focus are mutually exclusive

The FAQ you link just states how to star things. Did you mean to link something else?

the bulk of your concern seems to be too many, too fast. That those are legitimate, but happened too quickly?

@NautArch I've found that generally one star per interesting conversation is a good rule of thumb, so that people can click through and read the whole thing if they want. But here's the thing: I was out of chat for less than eight hours, and right now I can't see any stars more than 2 hours old. Some people only come to chat a couple times a week.

@Randomorph I guess I"m having trouble parsing that. If it's not very difficult to maintain concentration while actively casting new spells or attacking, it doesn't seem like a bridge too far to say it's not hard to maintain when just doing...nothing.

More stars = things stay longer, if a thing fell off, it wasn't that interesting.

Maybe 2 hours ago, some really great stuff went down

@Maximillian Hmm. They seem to have changed the text since I last used that message.

@NautArch I'm saying it's also hard to fight and get Rest. I'm not saying that you can't do nothing else and Concentrate, I'm saying that Concentration on it's own requires more focus than even reading a book does, unless someone has a gun to your head and says "If you stop reading, I pull the trigger"

@BESW that's a good point - so kind of a first come, first serve of cool. Coolness in the same thread can be found by the first cool thing said (regardless if the later cool things were cooler.)

Basically, having to have constant vigilance is not conducive to getting rest.

@Randomorph To counter, I don't think I can read a book,, cast spells, and fight at the same time.

@BESW Deputy Sheriff said to me // "Tell me what you come here for, boy. // You better get your bags and flee // You're in trouble boy and now you're heading into more": // it’s the same old story. // Everywhere I go // I get slandered, libeled, // I hear words I never heard in the Bible...

@NautArch But can you hum a song while doing any of those things? That's a good parallel, you have to keep the melody going non-stop, or you lose it.

@SPavel Put it this way: there's a useful link to GMing material linked a few hours ago. It's ninth on the star list now, and I only know it's there because I clicked through to the full star page.

@Randomorph I don't think I can hum one song, and then while humming that song, hum a bar of another.

@BESW If it had received more stars, would it have stayed up higher?

Not right now.

@NautArch Humming = Concentration here. Casting a Spell that takes less than 2 actions does not require "Humming". A better parallel is you're humming while hitting a triangle or gong at the right position. They (as per the rules) don't require the exact same type of focus

Stars are sorted by recentness first. It's only over time that high-starred comments rise to the top.

@BESW You think it's useful, ok. But is it more important than rage puns?

@Randomorph good point :)

@SPavel Right now there's three star links to the rage discussion.

And I also think there was a request to pin that link to the maps.

@NautArch yet I'm officially at -3 lol

@BESW Which is great for archive-scrollers!

I only see 2 stars. Sigh.

They see "hey, a high density of stars, better check it out"

Yeah, that's the other thing--not everybody has really big monitors.

@Randomorph I think the problem sits in your belief that concentration is reasonably hard work while others (including myself) don't.

If I was gone for a week, and cared about what happened, I would go to the archive

@SPavel I might too, but I know a LOT of people who've stated they can't or won't, and rely on the stars to keep them up dated.

@BESW Can't or won't?

The stars that aren't filled in are mod stars right? Those always get priority?

I understand "won't" - the answer to that is "that's your choice and your problem" - but "can't"?

@NautArch Concentration is focus. Focus takes effort, and energy. That's why Flow is a thing. That's why working a mental job and doing nothing but sit on your ass all day can still leave you exhausted.

And that's reasonable, it's not reasonable to expect someone to spend hours trawling through chat to see if there's anything interesting. It's courteous for us to provide references.

@SPavel Time.

@BESW Spend hours trawling through chat? It takes seconds.

Clickety click, scrollity scroll, oh hey there's a star

There's 3 pages of chat per day, it takes moments to find which comments on that page are starred

That's one way to do it, yes.

@NautArch There was not, and while I'd normally be happy to anyway we're rapidly reaching critical pinned capacity where the unpinned stars go almost entirely unseen, and I know that bugs people too.

@BESW dang. @nitsua60 can we pin this resource

I think it's great that we're enthusiastic about the chat and want to show appreciation for what's going on here. And part of being a room owner is knowing the room's preferences.

I've personally seen the stars add a lot more useful content when they're used to bring focus to whole conversations or particularly important moments. I've seen chats that use stars as "likes" and the star bar quickly stops being useful at all.

Stars stop meaning anything when every little joke or reference gets a star. We aren't there yet, and if the chat actually wants to go there I'm not going to launch a one-man crusade against it.

@NautArch Read the first mod comment, it's probably going to be taken down soon

I guess it's hard to determine when to star. I had always seen them as a mix of useful links as well as fun stuff. Both of which are meaningful to me (I enjoy a useful tool, but I also enjoy funny and interesting statement and links). And I've seen both and enjoyed both here.

@SPavel already down :(

@NautArch blomp blomp

@SPavel 'snot. had a bad link :) but i'm downloading to my desktop just in case.

In the thread was also another link to someone who did give their rights to share: imgur.com/a/EE0Wz

some neat ones in that imgur link.

Decent forest clearings are a staple of adventure travel battles.

@Randomorph, last comment to your rage answer probably deserves to be addressed :)

Looking at the imgur link: Those tables are almost 10 feet wide

The bottle lying on the table is ~4 feet long

@NautArch I absolutely think they're both useful links and fun stuff. I'm just offering that, in my experience, over-enthusiasm on the "fun stuff" end quickly degrades the "useful links" aspect of the feature.

@SPavel map for a Giants room?

@NautArch The door is only ~2 feet across

@SPavel A very skinny giant?

It's just a poorly scaled set compared, for example, to the weapons and armor by the entrance

@NautArch done. What are your thoughts on Mental activity still being exhausting?

@Randomorph Arguing on the Internet is exhausting

@SPavel that too :)

@Randomorph I think that's a real thing - but I also think they'd have been more specific in the list of things that break concentration.

but they weren't

Maybe Elves spend their trancing hours trolling 4chan

That's why they act so high and mighty - because they are woke and everyone else is sheeple

@NautArch they've also had to answer more than a few questions regarding rests, concentration, and trance. It's possible they didn't think of how things all work together thoroughly enough, or figured that it would be obvious that Concentration and Resting don't go well together. Or maybe they figured the opposite. We literally cannot make conjecture based on what they didn't write.

What we do have is a list of things that invalidate a long rest.

@Randomorph Does that list include Concentration? We also have a list of things that break concentration. Does that include a Long Rest?

The moose is loose!

@NautArch Does Concentration break Concentration?

🤔

@NautArch Normally yes, Trance is a special case that only makes you semi-conscious instead of unconscious. That being said the list of things that can break a Long Rest pretty strongly support Concentration as being mentally strenuous enough. At least in my opinion.

@Yuuki technically, yes

@Yuuki Yes, Mr.Snarkypants :P

or Ms/Mrs. or something else.

@Randomorph I dunno, seems like they would have included that in the list if they had wanted to. And why they have followed up with clarifications that you can concentrate through SR/LR for those same reasons.

@NautArch they also clearly went above and beyond to clarify that Trance was intended to be flavour and not give Elves any mechanical advantages.

@Randomorph ooh...where?

Also I'm not opposed to SR concentration. You are just sitting catching your breath, bandaging your wounds. You are not trying to recuperate all your mental and physical energy and be as restful as possible.

dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015

"The Trance trait does let an elf meditate for 4 hours and then feel the way a human does after sleeping for 8 hours, but that isn’t intended to shorten an elf’s long rest." "The Trance trait is, ultimately, meant to highlight the otherworldly character of elves, not to give them an edge in the game."

Different tack - for the few times when you'd want to concentrate 8+ hours, and you're an elf...why not allow it?

@NautArch the common sense ruling that if you're focusing your mind on something (specifically for elves, something other than your meditation ritual), you are not resting

@Randomorph then why say it's semi-conscious? Avoiding "unconscious" IS a mechanical advantage.

there a lot of things that key off of conscious

Honestly they should have just said "elves don't sleep, but frequently meditate when resting" and leave it at that

It's not like there are mechanics for sleeping

@BESW I have been dying to use DOminate Person...target passed the two times i tried.

@NautArch because for all intents and purposes, they pretty much are Unconscious. Also you'd have to ask them that, since their design goals, tweets, and the stuff in the book are all over the place.

@Randomorph except for the specific wording of semi-conscious

Wow. Just ate two downvotes on another question I answered, and now 4 downvotes on yet another.

@NautArch I really want to use Naming magic in the Secrets of Cats system.

@BESW do tell, I don't know what that is...but it does make me think of Dresden and the power of Names (i'm sad to say a lot of my current faerie and magic knowledge is based on that now)

@SPavel well I went on a nearly a year hiatus after a similar thing happened, where I challenged an old answer, and suddenly I had downvotes across several of my other unrelated answers.

@Randomorph that happened to me once, the mods fixed it.

makes you feel awful - and it's BS and a BS move.

@NautArch Cat magic comes in three flavors: Warding, Naming, Shaping, and Seeking.

For example, with Warding you can sacrifice a small animal to create a defensive barrier around a place, specifying a particular kind of threat that cannot enter. The ward remains so long as the corpse remains.

Ehh, trolls will be trolls. @NautArch semi-conscious also doesn't imply you're able to do your taxes or read a book.

Naming magic is usually used to bless or curse a target by sacrificing a small animal and whispering the target's name.

@BESW Power of Names?

Aye. Cats have a lot of names.

But each kind of magic has a set of stunts that give a powerful extra effect you can use. These stunts are exclusive: you can only ever choose one.

@Randomorph true, but it also doesn't imply unconscious with all those trappings. and there are no trappings for semiconscious. We're having to guess, and i'm not sure it's necessary to guess.

And Naming magic has Animate (sacrifice a small animal to imbue an inanimate object with life under your control) and Control (same, but with living beings).

@Randomorph Surprised that SE doesn't detect this

@BESW So TS Eliot tells me :)

@SPavel it could be coincidence, but it's happened twice now, where normally I don't get many downvotes

Honestly, the internet is full of dinguses, all you lose are internet points

@BESW one stunt per type? or one stunt that applies to all types?

Yep not too broken up over it, it's just a shame

@NautArch [checks rules to be sure]

You have to choose one kind of magic, integrate it into your high concept, and then you can take exclusive stunts for that kind of magic.

So only exclusive stunts for one kind of magic.

@BESW gotcha

There are also non-exclusive stunts, like Naming magic can be enhanced with the Harm stunt, where you use a small animal like a voodoo doll to harm a target who isn't there.

@NautArch Correct in that you don't have the condition of Unconsciousness, but you don't have the condition of Consciousness either. I think of it like the sleep mode on electronics. You enter a low power state you can be easily aroused from, but you're not doing much during that time.

Warding magic has a non-exclusive stunt for turning invisible, and exclusive stunts for things like making temporary bridges of pure force to let you get places you couldn't normally get.

> The First Rule of the Parliament of Cats means this power mustn’t be used in sight of humans; it has led to some embarrassing incidents for cats seen atop trees with no way down.

@Randomorph is there a condition of consciousness?

@BESW hahahaah

@NautArch standard English definition. Fully Aware, Full Mental Faculties.

@SirTechSpec I try to always upvote duplicates that would've been fine on their own. They're not worse questions for having already been asked, and they add an important cataloguing component to the site as they serve to 'catch' users and funnel them toward the useful content.

@BESW Could I deck myself out with temporary illusions of fancy clothing?

(i.e. can my stunt be stunting?)

@Yuuki That would quickly risk the First Rule.

You could probably use Seeking to find fancy clothing. But, again, you're a cat.

You're probably more likely to look like this than like this.

...It would make for an amusing villain, though.

@Randomorph But trying to use a standard english definition as a mechanic is...problematic. Using standard english to explain mechanics I get, but using at a mechanic, I'm not as comfortable with.

@BESW Wasn't this the plot of the musical Cats

... Cats had a plot?

@NautArch except the design goals contradict that.. The idea is to follow a common sense approach to conditions and mechanics

@NautArch also not trying to use Consciousness as a mechanic, but clearly Semi-Conscious is somewhere inbetween Conscious (not defined except in the dictionary) and Unconscious (a game mechanic and defined in the dictionary)

@Randomorph But now you're equating semiconscious with unconscious. Which is reasonable, but given that they used a specific term (and then clarified it specifically later), I'm okay with saying they're different.

And again, because the use cases for this are pretty small, so why not let them happen?

If someone is wanting to keep Hunter's Mark going and they're an elf, for the sake of the story I'd okay it.

@Randomorph DMG does define it

@NautArch No, I'm saying that others (yourself included) are equating semi-conscious with "Not Unconscious therefore Conscious".. Also you're welcome to rule things how you want. Personally I'd allow Elves to have 4 hours of light activity and watch, maybe even concentrate for 4 hours of their rest. But I don't agree that Concentration is so willy nilly easy to keep

And yes, Unconscious is defined, did I say otherwise somewhere?

@Randomorph the link to teh tweet seemed to say otherwise.

@Randomorph I know we're going to rule differently, I'm just enjoying the debate (which has been friendly and interesting.)

But given the rarity of when it could happen, I just don't see the necessity of saying "no"

missed another sheeportunity @nitsua60

@Randomorph another tweet on trance and perception that's somewhat relevant

I'm thinking that at this point, we could just host the next edition of D&D on twitter

Who needs a rulebook, just get some friends together and ping Crawford when you disagree about what happens next

Yeah, I keep saying I'm going to stop looking at Crawford tweets. And then...

@Shalvenay I'm far too rusty to be willing to join that AD&D campaign offer I see on the sidebar, but wanted to share this with you

munchkins.narod.ru/1/CLOD-KIT.TXT

What's funny is...I don't use Twitter.

@NautArch You should, I use it all the time while at work to argue with luminaries in my field

I argue enough here

I don't use any social media

@NautArch >implying this is not social media

hey btw @Alphaeus, and :) haha

hey as well @ACuriousMind

and you as well @Anaphory

hey there @MikeQ

hey as well @Skyler

howdy there

how are things goin for you

alright here, as for you?

@SPavel realized that as soon as I wrote it. Hehe.

Howdy @Shalvenay

@NautArch how're things goings?

Not too bad. Yourself?

@NautArch alright here, hoping to get one game off my plate before Nits' stuff starts up

@NautArch have things been picking back up on your end post-holidays?

Work still a bit slow, but doing ok. Getting closer to finishing up 2 campaigns

@NautArch ah, interesting. I wrote up a mini-campaign (L1-L4, D&D 5e most likely but could be run in DW I reckon)

I'm looking forward to low levels again

ah, what level are your campaigns winding up at?

@NautArch Yep, have enjoyed the debate as well, and honestly I think the only thing we'd really rule differently here is Concentration through a Trance. I'm fine letting Trance have some perks, like extra time on watch or to do light activity like reading, but Trance itself still feels like a catnap at least.