TRPG General Chat

1:32 AM

Anyone have time/interest for a little project? (Very little, I believe.)

RPG.NET has an RSS feed and I wonder if it would make a good addition to our room feeds, selected by the community.

But I don't know nearly enough about how to "read" the RSS feed to be able to describe how often things might appear.

Mike Q

Ask on stackoverflow maybe?

(I don't know if the feed aggregates things daily, or pushes every post, or just reproduces the weekly newsletter I get.)

So I wonder if anyone wants to take a look and give me their impression of what the activity is like?

@MikeQ Oh, no--I'm not looking to learn anything. Just trying to farm out the bit of sleuthing I don't feel like doing. =)

@trivianinja @EvilHatOfficial BOOK TITLE! Now from GAME COMPANY!

Tweeted by fredhicks on October 3, 2018 at 3:46 PM in reply to trivianinja

trogdor

2:41 AM

@BESW why can't I stop loving Fred Hicks?

Must be the hair

XD

3:41 AM

@Capnhoppy @trivianinja @EvilHatOfficial Agreed, us folks at GAME COMPANY had a very good time working with CREDITS and DESIGN TEAM.

Tweeted by fredhicks on October 3, 2018 at 4:14 PM in reply to Capnhoppy

trogdor

3:59 AM

Lol

7:15 AM

Are you hype for Improv For Gamers? @ktwelves will be posting some videos in advance of the release over on the @improvforgamers YouTube channel. It's braaaand spankin' new so jump on and subscribe to get immediately notified when the first videos go up! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC58vVxMobfT3T-X9_oiG5dg

Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on October 3, 2018 at 10:15 PM

8:02 AM

another fine "clarification" from crawford

...can't he read or what?

Assuming we're talking about that troll answer.

yes, we are

(troll as in the fantasy creature, not as in the sadly-not-fantasy-creature)

I wonder why he isn't addressing the fact that the feature as written doesn't match what he's saying.

Not even lip service, "ya ya we'll fix it. Eventually".

I think he might not have actually understood the question

Lunch -->

8:09 AM

which I'm not going to give him too much crap for, twitter doesn't exactly provide the room for much context

Well he's hardly alone. I think quite many people assumed what the ability reads instead of actually reading it, in that question.

but the answer at least implies that he interprets that aspect of troll regeneration as a feature which depends on you having 0 hp

but now lunch for reals :)

ciao

so it at least clarifies the RAI, if not the RAW which was the actual problem

8:52 AM

Your First PC: Hi I'm a Human Fighter avenging the death of my father Your Fourth PC: https://t.co/BccgTkqzu3

Tweeted by billy_b0nes on October 3, 2018 at 1:36 AM

9:36 AM

@Trish or someone who's good at expressing stuff in English, could someone come up with a better title for this meta question rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8432/…

"What the Heck happened there?" is not very informative and feels a bit clickbaity to have in the sidebar

@kviiri it was just typed down what I thought that moment. If you have a better title, go ahead.

@Trish Yeah I don't really blame you... just that I don't have anything better at the moment :P

@kviiri Where does this diamond-comment come from?

> Should also be noted that the diamonds are generally reluctant to provide a lot of information about previous moderation incidents, eg. "why was X's account suspended last year" or "what offensive stuff did Y actually post". It's a pragmatic policy. You probably won't get much detail.

^ that one?

It's how the site moderators usually work regarding nastiness that has already been resolved, eg. if a user gets suspended they don't tend to poke at scabs by talking too much about it. Might make it harder for users to adjust back once their suspension ends, and spread bad feels and so.

Similarly, if there had been some serious nastiness in that question, you probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of detail about it. Spending too much time musing about "what happened" can easily breed new drama :>

10:11 AM

It's so that people can reintegrate after they've cooled off and improved their ways (if they've done so) without trouble or stigma.

Kviiri's summary is good.

Yea. To be clear, I think it's smart and pragmatic.

I think so too.

Honestly of all the moderating systems I've seen or been part of, the one the stack uses is about the best so far.

It's not perfect, and the chat side of it is terrible, but the mainsite moderation methodology and philosophy is pretty good.

10:51 AM

I have issues with the underlying assumptions of the site, which leak into the moderation system like everything else--in particular, in the way the system treats the moderators.

beep boop

11:25 AM

@BESW Would you mind expanding on that sometime? I'm learning from this system's successes and shortcomings for future stuff, and that sounds like something I may not have considered.

@doppelspooker From my observations, and policies and official statements, and confidential discussions with a number of moderators, I get the strong impression that moderators are included in the Stack's treatment of its users as faulty, incorrigible, fungible cogs in an ambivalent, morally neutral machine.

isn't that what I said?

The Stack epistemology doesn't recognize emotional labor, and so its practices chew up moderators and spit them out.

@doppelspooker Thanks for editing the title, by the way ^^

11:40 AM

@kviiri 👍

MooseBoost

11:58 AM

Hi All,

I was told to ask my question here instead as it regards RAI rather than RAW. Does anyone know why the base number for spell save DC is 8 rather than the standard 10 you get by averaging a d20 or in things like passive perception etc?

thats dnd 5e btw

Sdjz

hey there

@MooseBoost My guess is that it starts at 10 when you add in a L1 character's proficiency bonus. So the base value is effectively 10.

Sdjz

I agree kviiri and I would guess that is the notion most people have on it

@kviiri yeah

that'd just seem to be the balance they wanted to get for saving throws

Sdjz

@MooseBoost the reason the main site can't deal with this is that even though we all agree, this is still just our opinion on the subject, it may be true but we can't really know what the designers were thinking

12:02 PM

at the base level, all else being equal, it means you've got a 50/50 chance of succeeding a saving throw you're not specifically proficient in

ah, yeah

so "RAI" isn't inherently verboten, it's often entirely possible for us to tell you what rules as intended ARE

it's the "why" bit which is the issue

@Carcer Well, technically slightly better, because rolling a 10 versus DC 10 is a success

yes you're right

I don't see the point of saving throws, I liked it better when there were only attacks :(

to be honest, 4e's concept of stat-based defences was one of the things that I think was actually a good idea

unifying that mechanic made sense to me

but I guess you've got more options for ability interplay when you make them different things

12:19 PM

I much prefer the player-facing rolls for player actions, yeah.

plus who does the rolling influences how the action feels

Well for us the 5e way was a huge source of confusion

Since I started regularly viewing 5e questions here, I've of course known quite well what an "attack" means

did you start with 4e?

But we did have our share of "what do you mean, a fireball is not an attack?!" moments

@Carcer Technically, yes, but I only about a half of our party was playing in our "4e" era and it was years ago regardless so I don't think anyone remembered the 4e rules particularly well

@kviiri still. Coming from a predominantly 3.5 background 5e's way of doing things feels natural to me

I could see it being weird if you're more familiar with 4e's mechanics

12:27 PM

@Carcer I think it's a learned thing, not intuitive. I mean, who in their right mind would not consider me throwing a fireball at my enemies an attack? :P

@kviiri mm, fair enough. I got into D&D when I was 12/13 so my intuition on the natural meaning of language and rules interpretation is always going to be fundamentally skewed

12:52 PM

very much learned. "Ranged touch attack" will never be plausibly intuitive.

I'm itching to get some more 4e

although tbh I'd be happy to play even 5e now. Why is scheduling a nightmare

NautArch

@kviiri because humans

We have "two-ish sessions of Curse of Strahd left"

so probably three

I have a weird problem now that I have friends who want to start AW with me but no time to run it :>

1:11 PM

@kviiri Make the time! Invent a time machine, if you have to!

@Anaphory I have an opposite time machine: my thesis. No matter how much time I put in, nothing comes out

violating the conservation of energy

Oh no!

Do you have a deadline for it?

Well, my enrollment for University of Helsinki ends next January, but I probably can extend it if I can show my work.

I was kinda cocky about finishing it last Summer, and thought a half-year extension would be enough.

It still might be. I'm making good progress.

About a year ago (when I was making practically no progress) I used to get almost no sleep over it. This year has been much better

Even the times I feel panic about it, I can springboard it to actually being productive!

@kviiri That sounds… helpful, I guess?

@Anaphory I think it's a sign the stress is waning :)

1:19 PM

@kviiri I do know that a certain level of stress is where I am most productive.

@Carcer I was just shocked to have gotten an answer. I should have asked a follow-up though since I caught the notification right as he answered. I was satisfied with it though.

@Anaphory Aye. I think stress can, in moderation, get some people to perform better. But I think it's universal or practically so that beyond a certain point it's only debilitating.

@kviiri Indeed.

@Anaphory So how's life? :>

Distractingly rich in RPGs :)

1:27 PM

Owie :)

Convention last weekend, D&D today, setting up the “RPG-commission” for the coming academic year for the student (they tolerate me as member, even though I'm a postdoc) games club, reading stuff when I should generate test data instead, those kinds of things.

Quick sanity check, was I off-base in this comment:

Welcome to the site! I'm guessing that you are more familiar with 3.5 than 5e given your username and some things in your post. Note: in 5e there is no terms "line of effect" or "line of sight" and tower shields and held actions don't exist either. We appreciate you trying to answer and I think most of your advice carries over, but please note that we require answers to be deeply knowledgeable about the systems they are answering and if you try to answer 5e questions with only 3.5 knowledge you are going to get a lot wrong and will invite downvotes (or possible answer deletion). — Rubiksmoose 20 hours ago

I might soften the ending a bit but I don't think it's too bad.

Same.

@Rubiksmoose yeah, it's enough that it's obvious what JC thinks the rule means and I don't see him getting into pedantic raw arguments.

1:31 PM

You might just end with
> … about the systems they are answering, so please do not try to answer 5e questions with only 3.5 knowledge.
maybe?

@Anaphory I like the wording "tolerate" :)

@kviiri I actually had considered this when I was writing but it was already so long. I should have softened it though.

@Anaphory Yeah I think that would have been better.

@Rubiksmoose Hoho :)

When I was a student active, we tolerated postdocs too

@kviiri “Tolerate” is hyperbole. It's not like anyone minds (I doubt even most people are really aware), it's just that the formal process was different when I became member.

Yea, I figured as much

1:37 PM

@Rubiksmoose I agree with kviiri: I, personally, try to stay away from predicting actions, especially others'. Everything else you say is true and helpful.

@Rubiksmoose Do you want it edited?

@Anaphory my uni's tabletop gaming society routinely had members who had graduated in the past and just still happened to live nearby

@nitsua60 If you wouldn't mind that would be great!

you could get lifetime membership to the guild of students and keep joining student societies every year if you liked.

@Carcer My Southampton society had that, and so does this one, I was just never student here.

fair enough

1:39 PM

@Rubiksmoose End it as anaphory suggested?

@nitsua60 yup!

NautArch

@Anaphory I almost went to Southampton for grad school.

Done.

@Rubiksmoose I'm creating a chat for the "who are you?" conversation, if you're inclined to respond.

Thanks!

@nitsua60 Which conversation is this?

It certainly sounds like something I would be happy to respond to, but I think I may have missed the context.

@nitsua60 Nvm I see now! All is clear. (I clearly need tea lol)

@NautArch What did you do instead?

NautArch

1:56 PM

@Anaphory went to texas A&M (Southampton was the only grad school smart enough to reject me that I applied to)

@NautArch gig 'em

Q: What to do about the NPC massacre?

18

In my campaign, everything is constantly going badly. The Source has been destroyed, devastating the local region. The main hardhold was shelled with white phosphorous. Almost all of the NPCs (including NPCs that players invented for their playbooks) are dead. I've found that I am constantly havi...

I think that sounds like an interesting turn for an AW game

It's a chance to run post-apo in post-apo!

2:23 PM

@kviiri It's also now, hopefully, still a chance to run AW in a game that was supposed to be AW, but maybe wasn't really.

@Anaphory Eeyup

Glad to see the "mandatory system-agnostic answer" is being recognized well these days

It always made me a bit sad when someone answered based on assumptions that didn't hold in the system they were talking about and got upvoted

@kviiri my solution as GM would be to not provide any more NPCs. The find that there is nothing more to Raid. They have to either move their base to a different area, or they starve to death as they can'T acquire food or barter for it.

@Trish Mine would be along the same lines... among with a heavy dose of "talking to your players"

@kviiri that I would do too, but the main thing is: they murdered the people that supported them. They destroyed their own economy/ecology, they deserve to wipe themselves.

They've made a barely sustainable post-apocalyptic society around them completely unsustainable, which can be a good driver for drama.

@Trish Yeah well, AW isn't about "you deserve this". Realism has no real place in it. The characters might be nothing but skin and bone by the time they crawl to a relatively civil place where they don't have the reputation for being murderhobos, but they will reach it if that's what the players want.

2:34 PM

@kviiri I found the random system-agnostic answer on that question sufficiently downvoted, but surprisingly topical and in line with things you just mention.

@kviiri Hm, conflict between Be a Fan of their Characters and Make Apocalypse World Seem Real?

AW shall seem REAL. it is one of the tenets the GM should have in mind. It should feel deadly. If they can't die, because they don't want to, then it doesn't feel real

@Anaphory I think it's about right about things that should happen, but wrong about how those things work in gameplay

Yes.

Because it has absolutely no idea about the game play, so it's really surprising it still gets something right!

@Anaphory I don't think it's really a conflict or that one has to violate either. The part where AW seems real is the bit where they have to tread endless desert and get really lucky to even find another civilized society :)

And being a fan is the bit where they manage to do both, find a place where they can recover, and maybe do better this time

True!

2:39 PM

It would get trickier if the players really resolved to destroy every society they find. That's where I wouldn't have any in-game solutions anymore

@Trish Yes, but also “Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards”, or however that was phrased.

@Trish But... that's like, literally in the AW rules. Characters don't simply die.

"When your life is untenable..." gives you four choices: survive with -1 Hard (making it there, but you're emaciated and weakened), survive with +1 Weird (the experience made you more connected to the Maelstrom), survive as a different playbook (you left a lot behind and came back as something else), and finally, to die normally. It's the player's choice.

@kviiri Is that new in AW2E, or did I just not notice it before?

They're all consistent with the type of story AW is trying to tell --- it's not a simulation of real life. But it feels real in the same way a fantasy story with flying elephants or robots made out of cheese can feel real.

@kviiri It also looks like options, so you can't pick them multiple times?

2:46 PM

@Anaphory New to 2e. They did away with the old -1 debilities and put that in. I like the idea of coming back as a different playbook quite a lot.

@kviiri Yes!

@Anaphory I think you can't, although I'm not sure if switching playbook is supposed to reset the options

In a different manner, the following happened last night: I had my player group in TDE face a small group of orcs. They consisted of a healer-Elf, a half-elf hunter, a dwarven artillerist (with a heavy crossbow taking 15 turns to load), a human smuggler, a human priest of the justice god, a human noble witch, a human wastrel.
One for each, 2 of them ranged, none of them mounted, in a rather thick forest, so combat took place pretty much at the length of a pike or shorter. Orcs had the initiative on the surprise turn but against the half-elf and the witch. Half-elf kills the first orc by rid…

@Trish TDE? Are you German?

@Anaphory yes.

2:51 PM

Ah, and with location on your profile, thus making my next question obsolete.

@Trish So, all 7 PCs were mounted?

@Anaphory 6 out of 7, the elf was on Axxeleratus and movimento, making him faster than the horses, but the others all are on horse for it was an encounter while traveling.

my players ended up with a very battered half-elf, a 49% health witch that said "I don't need help" and then promptly contracting Wound fever

Ant the smuggler was pretty battered

but they really feared the advent of the dogs. Lucky for them they managed to murder the alpha dog using all their ranged firepower (one heavy crossbow, one elven bow, one short bow) to take it down. The other 3 I decided would abort that assault... but they are not out of the picture. They'll come back... in one of the next nights XD

3:29 PM

They'll hardly get a full nights sleep now, which plays well into my cards: they burned resources they can't replenish easily, they'll burn more in the following nights and hopefully they will willingly flee into the Fae-court...

Helwar

@Trish is that The Dark Eye?

@Helwar yep. or DSA / Das Schwarze Auge (4.1)

Helwar

woah. How is it?

I loved the Daedalic point & click adventures to bits, nowadays I wish I could forget them to play them anew, but I figure those are a completely different beast altogether

3:53 PM

It is... well... it is very much german to the bone. 4.1 is in some ways a horror of bolted to gether modules that make up the full game. But they share a very consistent base rule core.

it has rules for quite a lot. No rules for the consistency of your excrements though

in other news: We totally need a few questions about Phoenix Command!

Helwar

@Trish What a disappointment, I was looking forward to a good feces ruleset!

Q: What to do about PC rerolling for great stats?

@Helwar even Rolemaster lacks that!

Though... Phoenix Command might have a table for what happens if you hit the intestines from the side, front, back or top.

@Helwar And I wouldn't point it beyond it to use the Bristom Stool Chart somewhere...

KorvinStarmast

4:15 PM

Thanks to this answer I have protected this question. If that was an over reaction on my part, by all means someone, unprotect. There were some interesting new user answers within the last day or to, so perhaps I am being overly cautious here.

36

I have a player who in the span of 3 sessions has gone through 5 characters (& made even more, some of which I told them not to play because the stats were too high), because they want "great" stats (as in at least 3x 16's or 2x 17+ stats, before racial bonuses) - this is causing some headaches f...

dnd-5e problem-players character-death

Mike Q

@KorvinStarmast Good call. It was attracting a lot of spammy suggestion answers.

Let the deletions commence! dramatic music

@KorvinStarmast +1 from me too, and also: VLC flag seems necessary.