TRPG General Chat

12:02 AM

Anyone familiar with "Honey Heist?"

@trogdor Is the heist in Honey Heist at a human convention? It would be much funnier that way...

@KieranMullen Both Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu can be used for one-shots, but are designed assuming long-form campaigns. If you want a Cthulhu-esque game that's designed for one-shots, look at Cthulhu Dark or Lovecraftesque.

@KieranMullen That's always been our assumption, yes. Some of the text implies that being a bear makes it hard to blend into the crowd, for example.

Has anyone mentioned InSpectres? It's designed for one-session adventures that add up into a long-form campaign, but works quite nicely for one-shots alone.

Knights of Invasion is one of the few Worlds of Adventure for Fate that's specifically designed for one-shots.

Kieran Mullen

@besw Thank you - I will look at both. My strength in GMing is typing up all sorts of fluff - newspapers, memos from the evil scientist, horrible games of chance the EvilDemon plays for the soul of the PC. Cthulhu campaigns lend themselves to that as well.

BESW

But a lot of the Worlds of Adventure have pre-made adventures for their settings which work as one-shots too.

trogdor

@KieranMullen as @BESW said, we do make that assumption, and the description implies it

BESW

Anybody mentioned Great Ork Gods yet? Your group has to be okay with Orks as acceptable targets, though. I'm toying with an Orkless hack.

Kieran Mullen

12:08 AM

I have looked at the Fate system and like it - it would again push the players out of the D&D rut. I'll look at Knights of Invasion and whatever else seems good.

BESW

@KieranMullen My group REALLY likes the Masters of Umdaar release.

...You could playtest my Long Live the King of Monsters! game.

@KieranMullen With Cthulhu Dark I like to use classic Doctor Who stories where the Doctor and his companions are replaced by the Investigators, so there's nobody who can explain what's going on.

There's Danger Patrol: Pocket Edition.

Dog Eat Dog is an intense one-shot game that would DEFINITELY pull players out of their comfortable D&Disms.

Oh, A Penny For My Thoughts is a diceless GMless game in which everyone plays patients with amnesia who are using a slightly psychic drug to help each other remember who they are.

Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple is a fun diceless GMless game, sort of Little Prince/Last Airbender-y.

How long are your sessions?

Psi*Run takes about five hours to play.

Kieran Mullen

I could run Dog Eat Dog with aliens and the colonizers...

BESW

There's 14 Days, a two-player RPG about living life with chronic pain.

Kieran Mullen

I've run two 5 hour one-shots (Paranoia and Don't Rest Your Head). I enjoy doing a lot of prep work and fluff construction, so while the games may be one shots, they're not shot from the hip :-)

BESW

...oh, what's that weird one about the robots waking up after the singularity... [rummages]

I can never remember the name.

Jan 24 at 22:24, by BESW

Fragment, that's the thing!

Wushu is a martial arts game where players get more dice the more detail they add to their descriptions.

@KieranMullen You might like Aeon Wave, then?

Kieran Mullen

12:20 AM

I just downloaded Fragment. I'll read it tonight.

Or Fate of the TMNT.

Morning all

[wave]

Thank you all for suggestions!

Ben

Finished God of War this weekend

BESW

12:27 AM

@KieranMullen Let us know how it goes, please!

trogdor

@Ben how do feel about how it portrays parenting?

Ben

@trogdor Kratos did well for who he is haha

trogdor

Mmm I meant more along the lines of,..... Calling out that what Kratos. Does for parenting, at least to start with, isn't cool, but fair enough

Shalvenay

hey there @KieranMullen, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

also, hey there @trogdor and @BESW

trogdor

@Shalvenay hello

BESW

12:37 AM

[wave]

trogdor

Hows it going?

Ben

@trogdor I don't quite follow?

trogdor

@Ben well, he doesn't exactly do a perfect job as a dad right?

Ben

I mean, sure, he's not the best parent by today's standards, by far.

trogdor

I had hoped not that he would necessarily be a better father, but that the game itself would be more visibly self aware that he was not always doing the best job at that

Shalvenay

12:39 AM

@trogdor fine, fine :) heard about what happened in Port Nyanzaru the other day :) hopefully, I'll be able to find some time or the other when both you and Nits are around to make more forward progress on that

trogdor

And I get that Kratos has, as a character, a lot to work through

Ben

In all honesty, there were moments were his "parenting" shone through. Teaching important lessons, ensuring that Atreus was safe, etc.

trogdor

But like, maybe Mimir could have been more chastising towards him for example

@Ben this is true, but you noticed all the times the opposite was the case and no one said anything right?

Ben

Oh yeah.

BESW

Rel🐘: "The Silence and the Scream: God of War’s Tyranny of Masculinity," by Dia Lacina for Deorbital.

trogdor

12:42 AM

Not to say I saw no moments where they called it out, but I saw very few

Ben

In reality though, as a parent myself, I see some other people that have methods that I may not necessarily agree with, but I don't say anything, because it's not my place.

trogdor

I am just personally a little disappointed most of all because Mimir is with you for the rest of the game when you get him, and does poke at Kratos for his parenting

But not nearly enough to convince me the game knows all the things wrong with Krats' parenting

Ben

When a particular practice is affecting the well-being of the child, you should step in. Other than that though...

trogdor

@BESW I do want to point out, I agree with some points made here, but I also disagree with some of them

Ben

And this is the ancient Norse lands

BESW

12:47 AM

Aye. A link is not necessarily a full endorsement of the content linked.

trogdor

@BESW Just pointing it out in all

BESW

I haven't seen the game so I can't really speak to the article's accuracy, but the ideas in it are, I think, thought-worthy regardless of their rel🐘🐘 to the specific game.

Ben

And on top of all that, it's a God of War game. Lol. Definitely not something you should be taking parenting tips from

trogdor

@Ben this is fair,.... But I only bring it up this way because Kratos isn't a real single father doing the best he can,... He's a video game character other people have written a certain way

And as such the depiction of his parenting is,... Not above reproach

I would also probably leave it alone if he was an actual guy

Although child services would probably freak out about all the monster fighting

Ben

The look on the Social Worker's face when they have the one on one with Atreus

Hahahaha

trogdor

12:52 AM

Lol

Ben

"And then he rammed the claw into the Dragon's head, and it was BAM, CRUNCH, POW! ...so cool

trogdor

My point isn't that he is actually trying to hurt his own kid

It's that he is portrayed making mistakes in his parenting that,... Doesn't get acknowledged by the fiction,...

Ben

@trogdor I never saw it that way?

trogdor

Fair enough

No problem, I just wanted to probe your oppinion on it

I have been thinking on it because I watched a playthrough of the game

And I couldn't help noticing not only all the,... Mistakes in parenting Kratos made despite his efforts, andhow little the two people I watched playing it noticed the same

Ben

In all honesty, I didn't pay too much attention to it. There were some points where I thought "You're really gonna let that slide?" but other than that, I just played the game.

trogdor

12:57 AM

@Ben fair enough once again

I don't demand you see it the way I did, I really just wanted to know what you thought of that

Ben

Yeah, I get that :)

trogdor

My main point is in fact,.... That the game seems to portray a flawed parent bit doesn't explore it in,..... An illuminated way

Your answers seem to confirm that to me really

And it's not your fault, just so that's clear XD

I just feel like they had the perfect story to weave the commentary on his parenting into but,.... They stopped short of that

BESW

The ritual complete, the demon appeared in the pentagram. "You did not summon me last week," it rumbled. "I'm sorry. The kitchen flooded-" "I finished the book." The demon held the book out for her sigil-bound hand. "Did you like it?" "I did. I would like to discuss it." "Great!"

Tweeted by MicroSFF on June 10, 2018 at 12:16 PM

trogdor

It really did seem like the would not have needed to change much even

BESW

Hah, now here's a character concept: Muppet inside a Doombot.

trogdor

1:02 AM

They had so many story elements they could have bounced off of

Ben

Yeah, but I think they went for "This is God of War after all.... so what else can we rip things off of?"

"Oooh! How about wings off the Valkyrie?"

"Now we're talking!"

BESW

Depth off the theme!

Ben

Million dollar idea! Sold!

trogdor

Yeah,... They made a God of War game for sure

I just wish they had done something about the portrayal of the characters they had

Like I said before,... I don't even think they would have had to really change the story at all

They had two other "bad parents" to contrast with, heck technically 3 or 4 (even if the third and fourth are not seen) and they had a third party with the duo for most of the game a little bit past the very beginning

They had a lot to work with in the story They already had

I would have been satisfied even if all they did was have Mimir speak up more about what he obviously disapproved of

The thing that bothers me most about it is that he does speak up about the subject, but only rarely and often without much comment from other characters

If he said nothing at all I could at least say he doesn't care or comes from a culture where that is normal

But he points it out just enough to let us know it bothers him but not enough to make it,... A reccuring theme

And now I have ranted and raved about the subject XD

nitsua60

1:32 AM

@BESW you mentioned your dad's birthday the other day. How's he doing?

BESW

Not so great. More of the same--physically still surprisingly good, but increasingly confused and unable to make good decisions so his physical wellness makes it easy to get into trouble.

Ben

Oh dear :(

nitsua60

@BESW I'm sorry to hear that.

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

@BESW aww :/ hugs BESW from a closer timezone than normal (is about halfway between the normal and BESW atm)

nitsua60

@Shalvenay (Doesn't that put you somewhere halfway between LA and Hawaii?)

Shalvenay

1:38 AM

@nitsua60 well, :P maybe a bit closer than halfway then

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Actually, I might have had Guam a little farther east in my mind than it is on the globe. In any case, how's travel?

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 alright :) hoping to get some time in sometime or the other to dust Rrau off :)

BESW

Thank you, folks.

(Also, caregivers keep flaking off.)

Ben

@BESW ?

BESW

We hire folks to come take care of my dad at the house during working hours, so my mother can keep her full-time job and I can do part-time self-employment work and take care of household maintenance (or sleep if I was up with my dad all night).

Ben

1:51 AM

Oh :/

Well that's pretty terrible.

BESW

But, for example, this morning's caregiver was almost an hour late and this afternoon's caregiver called in with a family emergency and their employer probably can't find a replacement.

Ben

That's pretty terrible :(

BESW

Makes it VERY hard for me to make promises to clients.

Ben

I can imagine :(

BESW

I don't like to complain, but @nitsua60 asked.

nitsua60

1:58 AM

@BESW I did! (I felt bad it'd been a while.)

Ben

"Complaining" and "venting" are two different things :)

BESW

Thank you.

I'm not gonna go into more details on a public site, though.

Ben

Of course.

I hope things get sorted out soon for you though :)

BESW

Heh, not gonna happen.

Ben

As Kratos himself says: "Keep your expectations low boy, and you'll never be disappointed."

Seemed appropriate haha

BESW

2:01 AM

Heh.

Ben

In other news, our D&D game is finally kicking off!

BESW

Yey!

Ben

A minotaur, a Dark Elf, a goblin, Tiefling and a Human

BESW

...walk into the ruins of a once-popular bar.

Ben

Unfortunately, one player has other obligations that make her attendance difficult... so there may be the need for spur-of-the-moment balancing

@BESW Hahaha

Shalvenay

2:05 AM

@Ben LOL, talk about a diverse party :D

BESW

@Ben That was one thing I loved about both 4e and Fate: balancing for variable parties was very easy.

Shalvenay

what's the class mix like?

Ben

Minotaur Barb, Dark Elf Sorc, Goblin Druid (though we're re-labelling it as a "Witch Doctor"), Teifling Cleric (of all things haha), and the Human is either a Warlock or a Rogue. Leaning toward Rogue.

BESW

@Sherowkey @UrsulaV so there's a feat in a few versions of D&D that grants "racial weapon proficiency" - that is, weaponry that includes the name of your race in its name it has been successfully argued to DMs that for orcs, that includes improvised weapon proficiency with the party's sORCerer

Tweeted by Chirurgic on June 10, 2018 at 5:30 PM in reply to Sherowkey

Ben

We did have a PC that was exceedingly good at grappling things (and pretty terrible at everything else... that's just how the dice would roll). So he took to adding whatever he would grapple to his list of possessions.

BESW

2:13 AM

today my eight-year-old son said ‘what if the tooth fairy was real and she was collecting the teeth to build an army of teeth-people’

Tweeted by saladinahmed on June 10, 2018 at 2:07 PM

Ben

"goblin" [goblin bites] "grumpy goblin"

Shalvenay

@Ben heheheh. what deity for the Tiefling Cleric btw?

Ben

@Shalvenay Unsure

Shalvenay

@Ben ah, hmmm....

"who doth the Tiefling worship?"

BESW

@Ben Ah, the goddess Unsure, patron of fence-sitters and people who make the waiter come back five times before they order.

Ben

2:16 AM

@BESW Patron's prayer: "I dunno, what do you feel like?"

BESW

Tonight we sit in vigil for Unsure, and honor her by browsing the Netflix recommendations but never choosing something to watch.

nitsua60

@BESW We laugh, because the truth hurts....

Ben

Speaking of, I finally set up my internet and Netflix last night. Only took a month.

BESW

Yey?

Ben

Yes, yey. Haha

It wasn't difficult at all... we were just procrastinating

BESW

2:27 AM

Ben

Although I am waiting for my housemate to complain about it.

BESW

I wish our Internet was that easy.

We've got high-speed cable laid and activated right up to... the apartment complex next door.

nitsua60

The old "last meter problem," eh?

Ben

The house we're renting was revamped due to its extended period on the market. Split systems in all the rooms, NBN, etc, with a severely reduced rental rate.

nitsua60

Hi there, @Gryphon--welcome to RPG chat!

BESW

2:29 AM

"Would you like to upgrade your Internet speed?"
"Yes, but will our lines be good enough for us to notice any improvement?"
"...oh, no, have to activate the cable in your area first."
"And how will we know when that is?"
"Just call us every week and ask!"

@Gryphon Hi!

What's new?

@nitsua60 That, and they keep changing the script on us about what packages are available and how easy it is to switch to them.

Ben

So he's went and got the plumbing re-done (because he wasn't happy with the water pressure - though there was nothing wrong with it) replaced the oven (due to the 200 - 250 section missing on the temp dial) Changed all the locks (so that he didn't have to worry about carrying an extra key for the back door)

@Gryphon [wave]

Here we talk about RPGs, eagles, everyday life, and multi-coloured barbarians

BESW

What about barbarians whose life involves playing RPGs about multicolored eagles?

Ben

I don't think that topic has yet been broached, but I don't see why not?

Oh! Also jeff

Which I only just notice has been removed from the room tags haha

BESW

Apr 23 at 20:52, by BESW

@GreySage, @MikeQ A conversation last night precipitated the removal of jeff, which I'd been considering for some time, for reasons enumerated in the conversation.

Ben

@BESW Oh, not complaining. I understand its origin was something to do with a confusion, and was considered to be a "joke" tag :)

It just shows what I do/don't pay attention to

Shalvenay

2:48 AM

hey there @Gryphon -- welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

trogdor

4:31 AM

Mm a little late for the party on it, but I consider the Jeff tag to have certainly run it's course

It wasn't wrong to have it but we didn't need to hold onto it for longer than we did

SmokeDetector

4:55 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected: Can i attune a magic item to another player without their knowledge somehow? by Barbara Halflingbatch on rpg.SE (@doppelgreener)

Ben

@SmokeDetector edited

DON'T PANIC

Because my day is not a productive one

trogdor

@SmokeDetector you know, I thought we were friends until you called my body offensive

XD

HellSaint

5:44 AM

@SmokeDetector I'm curious: why does it ping @doppelgreener and not any other mod? :P

Ben

@HellSaint Cos he's the mod on call?

I don't actually know haha

trogdor

Because it's a job for the Greenernator, Dun dun, dun, dun dun

XD

HellSaint

6:08 AM

I was going to edit that question, but then I was like "welp it's probably going to stay closed forever anyway..."

Ben

Yeah. I just edited it for the same reason Somke Detector flagged it

HellSaint

yeah I read the edit history

OH MY GOD @BEN

Ben

@HellSaint ?

HellSaint

I have just opened your profile and checked your picture.

I always thought it was some kind of swamp monster like a Bog Creeper from HS

Ben

Hahahaha

HellSaint

6:13 AM

and the head was like its eyes

Ben

It was actually just a photo of me, I cropped it, then my sister moved my head to the top of the screen haha

HellSaint

I now can understand that guy not seeing the Venger in mxyzplk's picture

(I actually wrote his name correctly. Wow. Nice me.)

Ben

@HellSaint high 5

lol

HellSaint

The funny thing about the question the smoke detector sent here

attunement is a mechanic introduced specifically in 5e

it does not exist in 3.x, 4e and AFAIK ODnD or 2e

But the question is so not clear about anything that it's possible their DM just implemented that rule in 3.5e so magic items are less powerful or whatever.

BESW

@HellSaint Also: We shouldn't guess systems because we're also trying to train new users on how to use the site; because lots of games and editions share similar verbiage and just because we haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist; because sometimes their clarification will show us a problem we weren't aware was there.

For example, there are third-party rules for 3.5 attunement on dandwiki, and a lot of people don't even know that dandwiki contains fan-made material.

Or the user could be talking about any of various class-specific attunement-like features in several different editions.

Or they might not even actually be using D&D at all but be one of those people who thinks "D&D" is the same as "RPG" and is very confused about the scope of the RPG landscape.

HellSaint

6:27 AM

@BESW the dndwiki problem is real. We got some loads of those. Nice call haha

I've just remembered a question about 5e with a race that only existed in 3.5e and the asker thought the homebrew race from wiki was official

BESW

Yeah. Just... there's so many reasons not to guess even if it seems obvious.

RPGs are messy.

> I've seen posts you people wouldn't believe. Frame challenges on fire off the shoulder of rules-as-written. I watched house rules glitter in the dark near the D&D tags. All those questions will be closed in time, like tears in rain. Time to vote.

HellSaint

what is this quote? haha

BESW

Tears in rain monologue

"Tears in Rain" (also known as the "C-Beams Speech") is a soliloquy delivered by replicant Roy Batty (portrayed by Rutger Hauer) in the 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner. Altered from the scripted lines and improvised by Hauer during filming, the monologue is frequently quoted; critic Mark Rowlands described it as "perhaps the most moving death soliloquy in cinematic history". The speech appears as the last track on the film's soundtrack album. == Script and improvisation == The dying replicant Roy Batty delivers the speech to Rick Deckard, who was tasked to terminate him, moments after saving...

HellSaint

btw BESW, I could swear you were a mod.

Did it change or I was dreaming the whole time?

BESW

I have never been an elected moderator, but I'm often mistaken for one.

Helwar

6:40 AM

He's so awesome he looks like one (and I return to redacting reunions logs...)

BESW

I have the highest level of reputation-based privileges associated with my account on RPG.SE and, here, I have room owner privileges which give me access to a few tools that otherwise only elected moderators have.

But aside from room ownership I'm just a concerned citizen who's put in a lot of work to understanding the system and helping the community grow.

Everybody else here has the same potential and many have surpassed me.

Mostly I just talk more.

HellSaint

gotcha

Siince you are a concerned citizen, can you help me find a meta question? It was something about "how to make your question be on topic", specifically for game recommendations

the answer was along the lines of "ask for solutions, not for things" and "state your problem, not how you think you're going to solve it"

I know the second part seems like the X/Y problem, but it was a specific meta about making game recs... not game recs

rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5787/43856 - found it.

I already had it in my favorites, I'm dumb.

BESW

7:06 AM

Favorites are good!

Shalvenay

7:31 AM

hey there @Helwar

Helwar

hi @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Helwar

7:46 AM

sleepy

had a crazy weekend, returning to routine is hard

Shalvenay

kinda quiet here as well.

Anaphory

8:55 AM

On Saturday, I was just in time to check the dates of a convention in AMS. Turned out it was running Friday–Sunday. (So Saturday was just in time because I couldn't have gone any earlier for other reasons, anyway.) Turns out it was not just some random RPG con a random British person I once talked to knew about, but a tiny, but very fine pub con with a strong focus on narrative Indie games, with some excellent people to build up a network with for the future.

BESW

Cool!

Anaphory

So I played Lady Blackbird and Tales of the Loop (which, unfortunately, didn't blow my mind even in comparison to the faint whispers I heard about Bubblegumshoe which I still haven't played), talked shop for some time, and got a few interesting people on my contact list, and spread the word about an upcoming convention here in Leiden where some of them might turn up, increasing the quota of Indie games here, as well.

@BESW And by “faint whispers” I mean “You told be about a lot of good and bad stuff you found in it, and that left a better impression than this game of Tales”.

BESW

@Anaphory Yeah, from what I've heard and read of Loop, it's got a lot of good setting stuff for folks who are interested in a very particular set of 80s nostalgia goggles, but the mechanics sounded pretty mundane and anybody not interested in that particular setting wouldn't find much to set it apart.

Does that seem coherent with your experience?

Anaphory

Very much! I'm not. The setting of Tales is mostly lost on me. I haven't watched ET or any of its other inspirations, I don't listen to music that includes iconic 80's music (picking your characters favourite song is part of character creation).

BESW

(I suspect that some of the hype comes from the fact that the "Stranger Things" element got the attention of people who hadn't played many non-"classic" games before, so it was mind-blowing for folks who previously only knew D&D or WoD or CoC.)

(Kind of like how Dungeon World is paradigm-shattering for D&D-only players but isn't quite so revelatory for folks who've dabbled in the indie sandbox for a while.)

Anaphory

9:05 AM

The mechanics are … okay. The dice rolls are cautiosly created to be somewhat swingy but in a fitting way, and there are some rudimentary relationship and drive/problem mechanics in there, but I really missed the “clues are not a problem, your interpretation is” I know from Gumshoe.

BESW

Yeah, I've got basically two ways I want to see a mystery game go now: Gumshoe and Lovecraftesque.

Anaphory

There might be scope for carefully crafted puzzles giving a glimpse of a mystery in the background to both players and characters, where solving the mystery isn't a pre-rogative of the game, but then it's more some-flavour-of-old-school and less a mystery game.

Other than that, yes.

BESW

(In LCQ, nobody starts out knowing the clues or what they mean. In each scene one player is responsible for revealing a new clue, and between each scene everybody writes down their personal speculation about what the clues-so-far are hinting at, so that the new clue being revealed fits in with what's already been established. At a certain point, the group hits a trigger and discuss what the clues mean together rather than separately, and reveal what's "really been going on the whole time.")

....there's also UnWritten, which takes Atomic Robo's "brainstorm" mechanic (which is basically a single-scene version of LCQ) and adds an alternative mechanic for when the GM knows what's going on, and the players get to ask the GM questions which the GM must answer truthfully.

Anaphory

I was tempted to facilitate LCQ in the second block yesterday, but didn't feel completely up to it, so I let it be.

BESW

That's fair.

Anaphory

9:17 AM

@BESW I should read that and add it to my toolbox for the rare Fate game I might be running. Which is a rare thing, but not unheard of, and I should really prep a run of it with rudimentary pre-gens (lots of gaps to be filled in in play, but enough to pick one and start playing immediately) with Masters of Umdaar to be whipped out at a moment's notice.

BESW

@Anaphory Yeah, UnWritten's interesting. It's a franchise game for the Myst computer games (and novels).

Have you seen my Doctor Who pre-gens?

Anaphory

No, I haven't. Or I may have, but forgotten.

BESW

Oct 24 '17 at 7:50, by BESW

Here's some half-completed FAE PCs I made for a Doctor Who one-shot game.

Anaphory

I was thinking of leaving out even more than that, so that on all pre-gen character sheets together, you still get good examples of everything, but encouraging players more to also come up with their own troubles or maybe even high concepts if that's what they want.

BESW

You might also want to look at Aeon Wave for a different way to do half-formed pre-gens.

Anaphory

9:30 AM

I will!

BESW

(It'd fit nicely with Master of Umdaar's tables.)

Anaphory

Cool! I'll try to direct my attention elsewhere for now, ta ta!

BESW

ttfn

Derpy

9:49 AM

@SPavel 𝔇𝔬𝔫𝔢...

that said, I would say it is better to avoid using this a lot....

that "font" can be annoying if abused

BESW

10:28 AM

Yes please.

Derpy

10:53 AM

@BESW oh don't worry, I was just informing SPavel that I actually created the "font" switch button

Derpy

11:03 AM

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 1 hour ago, by Derpy

BESW

11:26 AM

Cute.

doppelgreener

@Derpy incidentally those fonts are also inaccessible, so i'd avoid them on mainsite. (not that i think anyone is actually using them there)

They're from the mathematical alphanumeric symbols unicode block (ctrl+f for Fraktur), and they're intended to be used for mathematical variables, so they're liable to be read out as individual letters instead of as a word.

BESW

And by "inaccessible" Greener means they aren't compatible with accessibility software like text-to-speech screen readers.

Derpy

11:42 AM

@doppelgreener obviously, they are homoglyph at best. And again, didn't plan to use them. I only made the button out of boredom, since I already made a joke about creating one

doppelgreener

TIL a new word, homoglyph

I don't have a problem with them being used on here at least, since to the best of my knowledge stack chat just isn't accessible to begin with

goodguy5

Good morning, Imaginauts.

doppelgreener

Oh, hey, actually it might be

@goodguy5 Good afternoon! o/

BESW

@doppelgreener VI used it reasonably easily except for the dice.

doppelgreener

@BESW Awesome! I had just checked on her profile and saw she had some active chat history here. :D

goodguy5

11:45 AM

greenman, why you change avatar?!

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 because i'm a diamond

goodguy5

sure, that checks out, I guess

doppelgreener

:D

Sdjz

0

Q: Why is creating a golem not considered evil?

Creating a golem requires binding an earth elemental to it. It is akin to enslaving an intelligent being (the stupidest of them, small earth elementals, have an intelligence of 4 , minimum for sentience is 3). But creating one is not considered an evil act. Why?

goodguy5

power's already gone to greener's head

Sdjz

11:53 AM

I was about to ask what people thought about this question being opinion based but greener made the point moot now :)

doppelgreener

I'm reopening it tentatively given another user's suggesting they can answer it objectively. (Hopefully something like "alignment doesn't care or work like morality, here's the mechanics" or something.)

BESW

eartha kitt, i want to be evil

►

doppelgreener

Mostly we avoid questions that invite us into alignment debates, but this one hopefully will have answers that sidestep that

The Oracle

12:32 PM

2

Q: When making welcoming comments, should I include my own opinion on close reasons?

When making a welcoming comment, one usually also points out anything that might need to be fixed in the question, the most common of which being a missing system tag. Most of the time I am confident enough to point these things out. However, specifically pertaining to close votes, I am not sure...

discussion comments etiquette

SPavel

12:50 PM

> A rude letter from Apophis, ruler of the Hyksos invaders, complaining about the snoring of the hippopotami in the sacred pool at Thebes initiated the war

doppelgreener

1:05 PM

wars can start in weird ways

(especially since they kinda start with a butterfly effect, so it can be hard to say what the initial cause was)

SPavel

Eaglecam updated its software

doppelgreener

like how American involvement in World War II was instigated primarily by the news media, which exerted pressure on a government otherwise reluctant to join the war

SPavel

@doppelgreener it was either that or a red Europe

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener That's an interesting piece of revisionist history. It was never required that there be a referendum to declare war. What was required was that Congress declare it.

Helwar

Hum... Fields of red grass?

KorvinStarmast

1:13 PM

For anyone familiar with D&D 5e: is there a Half Ogre Template for PC's in Volo's guide? I don't have it handy at the moment.

Helwar

I don't remember sorry

SPavel

A quick googling is inconclusive but does result in this gem: "When an ogre mates with a human, hobgoblin, bugbear, or orc, the result is always a half-ogre. (Ogres don’t mate with dwarves, halflings, or elves. They eat them.)"

Helwar

a half ogre half halfling would be interesting to... concieve. In more than one way

goodguy5

I need to eventually introduce the "lings" in my game.

Just not sure how they breed with humans

SPavel

@goodguy5 There's always the old "breeds true regardless of current form" clause that works for dragons

Just have the ling shapeshift into a human and do the dirty

doppelgreener

1:17 PM

@KorvinStarmast sounds like you have a different perspective on how that happened. (i don't know anything about a referendum being involved there.)

goodguy5

well.... no...

because they make halflings

SPavel

@goodguy5 As in, a dragon + anything is a half-dragon, even if the dragon polymorphed itself to align the naughty bits

Otherwise, you wouldn't get a viable fetus at all

goodguy5

well sure. for dragons.

But ling + human = half ling

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener FDR didn't need the media to keep trying to get us in on the British side ... but we are going off topic for this room. @SPavel As I am trying to get an edition specific take (I seem to recall a 3.x version with a half ogre) I can wait until someone gets a peak at Volo's or a DnDBeyond account.

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast ok, sure. i'm interested to learn more about that, but another time + another room.

A Very Large Bear

1:20 PM

@goodguy5 Why doesn't halfling x halfling = quarterling

SPavel

@goodguy5 Yes, exactly the same thing. Dragon + human = half-dragon. Ling + human = half-ling. I'm not sure how you're not getting this.

KorvinStarmast

@doppelgreener Yes indeed. (Contrast to Spanish American war/Hearst in terms of effectiveness for related reading).

goodguy5

@SPavel oh, was reading that wrong every time.

I'm back on board. my bad

SPavel

@AVeryLargeBear Half-elf + half-elf = half-elf. Because each side provides equal human and elf parts.

Human + halfling would be quarterling.

goodguy5

@AVeryLargeBear halfling + human would be quarterling

KorvinStarmast

1:21 PM

@SPavel Does that half ling have a swimming speed? (Had fresh ling at a seafood restaurant a couple of years ago that was memorable for how awesome it was).

SPavel

The real question is, where are the halfling gnome dwarf (pick 2) hybrids

A Very Large Bear

@SPavel I meant it mostly as a joke, but I can see my delivery was lacking ;)

SPavel

@AVeryLargeBear No, just your math is wrong. A halfling is not 1/2 a creature.

goodguy5

I'm not sure if I want lings to be small or human sized

KorvinStarmast

@SPavel I seem to recall having shown how to make one in an answer here ... for a different edition ... will get you a link.

goodguy5

1:23 PM

and that they have some sort of extraplanar quality that makes their human-spawn small

SPavel

@goodguy5 Lings would be Tiny sized so that their offspring with humans average Small

goodguy5

only by conventional rules

SPavel

@goodguy5 Don't start me on unconventional rules, or we'll be arguing potion miscibility

KorvinStarmast

@SPavel here you go, gnome Halfling cross breeding, AD&D vintage...homebrew approach.

Anaphory

@goodguy5 Aren't hybrids often bigger than the average of both parent species?

goodguy5

1:28 PM

I don't THINK so.
burros
lygers
coy wolves

Anaphory

I was half mistaken, following Wikipedia:

> In a hybrid, any trait that falls outside the range of parental variation (and is thus not simply intermediate between its parents) is considered heterotic. Positive heterosis produces more robust hybrids, they might be stronger or bigger; while the term negative heterosis refers to weaker or smaller hybrids.

And it suggests that for ligers it depends on which one is father and which is mother.

goodguy5

one is ligers and the other is tigons or something equally silly

Helwar

@goodguy5 exactly that

and burro is the spanish word for donkey. The hybrid it's the mule (mula)

goodguy5

o.O

KorvinStarmast

@Helwar Interestingly, burro in Italian is the word for butter. (A well known case being Burro di Parma

Helwar

1:40 PM

I knew that! I have an italian friend, he was pretty confused whenever I said to someone "burro" :P

SPavel

Helwar

also, the Mule is the child of a mare and a donkey, and it's always female and sterile (due to different numbers of chromosomes), the Hinny is the child of a horse and a female donkey and it's always male

apparently they are not always male or always female.but tend to be male or female. My mistake

SPavel

@Helwar No, the Mule is human :P

Helwar

maybe I'm translating it wrong

:P

David Coffron

@SPavel I think you'll find the Mul is only half-human

SPavel

1:51 PM

@DavidCoffron And yet mulled wine is 0% human

Checkmate, atheists

mattdm

2:41 PM

This — the castle answer — seems like a great set-up for a mini adventure (with the party being the team sent in to go through the chapel windows and open the main gate. security.stackexchange.com/a/187232/476

Yuuki

2:52 PM

I had a discussion with my DM at the last session over my character and I have this problem that I don't seem to be finding a lot of advice for online.

goodguy5

oh?

KorvinStarmast

@Yuuki How may we help you?

Yuuki

Yeah, I'm not finding a lot of help for creating and portraying a personality. All of my character discussions start off with overarching narratives and backstory, but then I always stumble over trying to create a minute-to-minute personality for the character.

Everything I find online is either about creating a narrative or listing off funny "unique" quirks.

goodguy5

like, for your PC, or for NPCs?

Yuuki

For my PCs. I'm having trouble in this campaign with RPing this character, although I feel like that's not helped by my rather fuzzy development of their background.

goodguy5

2:55 PM

for NPCs, Decide their goal. What do they need/want. Make their decisions/conversations help them achieve it. That can be their motivations.

for your PC, I'm not sure (thought you may be able to apply the above principle)

so, if you know what your PC wants/needs, that should help you role play them

Yuuki

Yeah, so I talked with my DM about possible themes for my character and I've been trying to translate those themes into personality.

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