TRPG General Chat

12:01 AM

11

Q: Is there a drawback to Flail Snail's Shell defense?

In this Flail Snail Tactics blog post the author argues that there are no drawbacks to Flail Snail Shell Defense ability. Shell Defense, as an action, is one-way: it activates a benefit. To deactivate the benefit requires only a bonus action—and why would it ever deactivate the benefit? ...

trogdor

@HotRPGQuestions being a mullosk isn't enough of a downside?

Ben

Morning all

Typed it out, never hit send.

Busy morning

Shalvenay

12:20 AM

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

Himitsu_no_Yami

hi

mainly lurking right now but I haven't actually been in the chat before so I wanted to have a look

Ben

Welcome. We chat about pretty much everything, except RPGs, unless someone specifically brings it up :P

Himitsu_no_Yami

lol seems legit

user15026

Omg guys my husband and I were approved for an apartment we really really wanted and we will be moving in October and I am so happy

6

Himitsu_no_Yami

I'm trying to figure out how to make a homebrew subclass based on a book I'm reading now. It's proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Even just getting the key features in without worrying about balancing it

BESW

12:28 AM

@Ash Grats!

@Himitsu_no_Yami What system, and what book?

Himitsu_no_Yami

D&D 5e and the book is Chosen by Casey White

it probably doesn't help that I'm doing this at work during my free time lol

does the chat exist on the android app? my shift just ended and I wanna keep chatting

trogdor

@Ash oooh nice!

@Himitsu_no_Yami I'm pretty sure you should still be able to on your phone

user15026

@Himitsu_no_Yami it doesn't but it works on mobile browsers reasonably well

Himitsu_no_Yami

Right so it's not in the app that I could find. But it works in browser

trogdor

Yeah I just use it in browser

I should have clarified that

Hot RPG Questions

12:41 AM

6

Q: Who is the god Ao?

I have seen numerous mentions of "the Overgod" Ao but other then being obscenely powerful, I have not found any information on him. So, who is Ao and what is his portfolio?

dungeons-and-dragons lore forgotten-realms religions-and-deities

4

Q: Can you use the Help action to give a 2019 UA Artillerist artificer's turret advantage?

I am playing in a campaign as a level 4 Artillerist artificer from the May 2019 UA. I am thinking of taking Magic Initiate (wizard) as my feat, and learning the find familiar spell with it. I am curious about one thing in particular. The plan right now is to have the familiar take the form of a ...

dnd-5e familiars unearthed-arcana artificer helping

Himitsu_no_Yami

Was hoping not to need yet another chrome tab

Chrome and I stopped counting after 100

BESW

Re: last night's conversation about realism vs epic heroics, I'd love to see more combat RPGs that explicitly allow this kind of amazing nonsense without needing to invoke explicit magic. People are just that awesome in heroic fantasy.

2

Ben

@Ash Scoooore!

BESW

@BESW ...not allow. Encourage. Demand, even.

trogdor

@BESW lol yeah,... It's already unrealistic that magic exists, and all sorts of other weird things

Just let the fighter jump 200 feet in the air, or get into a weird shield barrel to be flung over a wall XD

V2Blast

12:46 AM

@Ash Congratulations! :D

user15026

I am so happy. This is gonna be so good for us.

V2Blast

@BESW From what I know of Baahubali, "amazing nonsense" is an apt descriptor of the effects/fight scenes :P

BESW

Of all the D&D editions I'm familiar with, only 4e ever came close.

trogdor

In real life I'm quite sure even hardened warriors would die, be injured, or be unable to fight right after that but you know

BESW

And now I kinda want to play a Baahubali style version of Wushu.

trogdor

12:51 AM

That kind of nonsense is still something that should be allowed

Because RPGs are already not reality

Take advantage of that to do silly things right?

@BESW I would say they about did it really

Maybe they didn't go as far with it as they should have though

I dunno

BESW

@trogdor Yes. But also, amazing nonsense is a staple of epic storytelling and always has been. Achilles, Arjuna, Naayéé'neizghání, Pecos Bill, Sun Wukong...

People being stupidly awesome in outright defiance of logic, reason, and physics, is what makes epic stories epic.

trogdor

@BESW yes true

All the more reason

BESW

Systems which just frame unreasonable awesomeness as being silly for sillyness' sake, or which are worried about justifying and explaining in order to create a sense of realism, cannot tell epic stories.

trogdor

@BESW ah ok I think I understand that

KorvinStarmast

1:13 AM

@Ash Yay! Grats!

@BESW video game or movie? That's a neat scene.

@trogdor Yes, this exactly. Because RPGs are already not reality. Your star awaits thee.

BESW

@KorvinStarmast Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, 2017 film by S. S. Rajamouli and K. V. Vijayendra Prasad. Available on Netflix in some areas.

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Thanks, I'll have a look when I can Netflix, that looks like a great fun movie.

BESW

It's a sequel!

And there's novels and a comic!

KorvinStarmast

Then I have to watch both! :)

(Not doing novels at the moment, on a non fiction kick)

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast speaking of non-fiction: the NTSB published their report into the collsion the USS John McCain was involved in out by Singapore

V2Blast

1:20 AM

@BESW Precisely

@BESW ...There are? How did I not know this

KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay I've been watching that with some care, all I can say is ... based on what I know about forward deployed crews in Japan and training budgets ... that one had been waiting to happen for about two decades.

BESW

@V2Blast There's also an animated series, and a mobile game, and a manga, and a prequel Netflix series is in production.

Shalvenay

@KorvinStarmast yeah, the report pointed to some serious deficiencies in training and understanding of ship systems and UI, as well as issues with the UI itself

trogdor

@BESW that's a lot

BESW

It's a massively popular and profitable franchise.

KorvinStarmast

1:25 AM

@MikeQ I'd like to find the DV person on your lycanthropy answer and just look them in the eye and say "Really?"

BESW

The two films cost US$66.45m and made $376.75m.

KorvinStarmast

Win!

BESW

Both films broke records for highest grossing Indian films in almost every category and subcategory. Baahubali 2 got the most Indian butts in theater seats since 1975.

Shalvenay

as long as the Bollywood accounting is less rigged than the Hollywood accounting....XD

Joshua

Do not tangle in melee with someone who can tack weld with bare hands.

And yeah Hollywood accounting stinks.

V2Blast

1:37 AM

@BESW wait what

I knew Baahubali was popular

didn't realize it was that popular

Ben

2:02 AM

Phew! Busy day!

Attempting to collaborate with several parties about plugin development; deal with minesite contacts for account setup and server management; and reinstall an OS on a PC.

user15026

@BESW Okay, everything about that was amazing.

BESW

2:15 AM

@Ash It's like one long "This is impossible and I'm here for it."

user15026

YES

Ben

@trogdor Rule of Cool :P

Manner

3:25 AM

Hey guys, I'm trying to come up with an idea for a D&D 5e magic shield.
I was thinking of giving it an hability like "when hit by a melee attack, use your reaction to reduce damage by your strenght mod".
The party is lvl 12, the shield would probably be also +1 or +2.
What you guys think?

nitsua60

It's probably a character without much other use for their reaction, so let's assume it's used every round of a fight. L12, so I'm assuming +5 STR. It gives 15-20 effective hp to a frontliner. Not a game-breaker, imo.

It cuts back a bit on OAs, maybe, and gives your tank effective hp. So there's an argument it'd slow combat. But if it means a healer takes an offensive action rather than heal once, that's probably evened out.

V2Blast

About to stream our D&D 5e actual-play podcast in about 30 minutes: https://www.twitch.tv/events/g98jE19BTW2MndDGS3BrqQ

In a universe adjacent to our own lies a world known as Runia. This world, once peaceful and idyllic, is now threatened by a monstrous being from its prehistory. A group of adventurers known as Whiskey Company have risen up to do what they can to fight this entity known only as Nagat. They have trekked far across the mortal realms in search of the shards of Barrinoth, the Titan of Justice, in hopes of returning him to his full power.

V2Blast

4:12 AM

We're live now!

BESW

4:45 AM

"Blessings and Bones," by ostrichmonkey. An interpretive dice-match alternative magic system for use with fantasy role-playing games.... Ties you to a personal pantheon of Small Gods that you must entreat to gain Blessings to aid you in casting magic. That magic comes at a cost - Bones.

trogdor

What if I only wanted magic in the first place to get some bones back?

I'm not sure I'm ok with losing bones just for a measly spell

BESW

Then you will need a lot of blessings. [grin]

It's a benefit/risk balance. Bones are the dice pool that you fill up depending on what spell you're trying to cast, and Blessings are an opposing dice pool that represent the ability of your Small Gods to assist in that task.

trogdor

Ooooh those bones

BESW

You roll both pools and high results in one pool cancel out low results in the other; your outcome and fallout is determined by whether you wind up with more Bones or Blessings left after the roll.

trogdor

Like dice bones

Not bone Bones

BESW

4:50 AM

yeah.

trogdor

Cause that's just a flat no XD

BESW

This is one of those "you always succeed but at what cost" magic systems, with the added flavor of needing to maintain your relationships with your Small Gods in order to keep getting Blessings.

trogdor

Fair enough

BESW

Small Gods are personal to yourself, your land, or your family, and they have small but important effects in narrow areas of influence that matter to you.

trogdor

5:45 AM

Sounds cool

I feel like there needs to be more of that kind of thing in settings

As opposed to there always being big churches and Pantheons and stuff

Pierre Cathé

7:02 AM

Morning all

MikeQ

@PierreCathé Bonjour. Any new TTRPG games or stories?

Pierre Cathé

Not really, I'm still trying to get my 4th player (all newbies) to create a character but he's intimidated by the book presentation and would rather I do it with him, which is hard to manage since we're both working adults

dnd-5e btw

MikeQ

Ah, that's familiar territory. I usually advocate having character creation being cooperative. Rather than a bunch of one-on-one discussions with you, they can also get feedback from each other. I'd have an email thread for them to discuss and coordinate character creation.

Pierre Cathé

7:17 AM

Yeah I'd have rather done that too, but it's hard to get everyone in the same place when they know we won't even get to play today (and this was a rather busy period for some of them)

And honestly even doing it for two of them simultaneously was pretty exhausting

BESW

Back when I was doing D&D campaigns, I had a Skype group text chat for coordinating and helping each other.

Pierre Cathé

But if I notice they aren't too pleased with the result, I intend to allow them to rebuild

Yeah we got a discord

MikeQ

A major but oft-overlooked responsibility of DMs is to facilitate communication among your players. Not just to communicate with them individually.

So if possible, get the 4th player to discuss with players #1-3.

Pierre Cathé

Oh we're a group of friends, we talk to each other all the time

Derpy

It begins...

Pierre Cathé

7:30 AM

CATPOCATLYPSE !!!!!!!!

MikeQ

Indeed it is, @PierreCathé

Nyakouai

Morning!

Pierre Cathé

Join in to the catmania

BESW

I like the gif, but let's try to keep animated gifs to a minimum, especially ones that are really bright and flashy. Some people here have sensitive eye conditions, and many are at work. We can put gifs behind hypertext links!

Nyakouai

Some people here are at work? How dare they? :P

Pierre Cathé

7:39 AM

Apologies, if someone with the ability could edit my flashy gif it would be appreciated ;)

BESW

I don't see an elected moderator (blue text name) online right now, and my room owner privileges only let me move it to a different room rather than edit it.

With your permission, I will do that.

MikeQ

Pro tip: You can also hide images by closing your eyes

Pierre Cathé

@BESW That's fine

BESW

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Damnit, misfired. Stuff's going on IRL.

→ 1 message moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

← 1 message moved from Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Pierre Cathé

Thanks

Derpy

7:49 AM

@BESW +1 nice cosplay.

BESW

trogdor

XD

Derpy

in Shadow's Den on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, Feb 27 '15 at 12:01, by SPArchaeologist

BESW

8:06 AM

"The Fate Accessibility Toolkit, or why it'll take me a while to really play GURPS again," a short review/response by Craig Maloney. A good example of how mechanizing things like blindness in numerical-balance-focused games can go wrong: the system demands that devs make judgement calls that probably nobody should be making.

V2Blast

@BESW accurate

vicky_molokh

/me shakes its cephalothorax disapprovingly. Saying that these traits are okay to evaluate (e.g. Dependent, Enemy, Bully and other 'normie' traits) and these nobody should evaluate (e.g. Lame, Bad Sight, Dulled Nose, Low Empathy) sets the latter traits apart and makes people (whether player, GM, PC or NPC) not treated in an equal manner - exactly something that is allegedly being fought.

BESW

Who's saying that?

vicky_molokh

I'm saying that making some traits 'unmechanised' sets up those traits for unequal treatment.

BESW

Personally I challenge the epistemology of the entire subset of systems which treat all qualities as objectively and quantifiably advantageous or disadvantageous.

I'd caution against getting caught up in arguing for equal treatment at the expense of equitable treatment, and against arguing that everything should be treated reductively if anything is, rather than pushing against reductive treatments themselves.

Not all kinds of things should be evaluated on the same system. I agree that the distinction between normie and atypical is a bad one here, but I can't agree with an argument against it that's based on demanding to be rated on an absolute quantified scale just because that's what's happening to everything else.

Also, you're reading an absolutism into my comment that isn't there, and it's the same absolutism you read into it last time.

yesterday, by BESW

Hence my saying "be careful." You're responding as if I said "never ever."

"can go wrong" does not mean "nobody should."

And when I say that the system calls for judgements that probably nobody should be making, I don't mean just disabilities. I think the entire point-buy system, taken to its extreme as in games like GURPS, is fundamentally flawed in ways that create interest out of the mechanical minigames at the expense of creating interest through nuanced characters and worlds.

vicky_molokh

8:27 AM

@BESW First, I really appreciate this distinction. Second, I'm not sure how much absoluteness I read into it, but I did react to the 'probably nobody should' part of the stance.

BESW

That's reasonable, I was perhaps riding too much on assuming people would remember the nuance of our previous discussions.

vicky_molokh

@BESW I draw a strong distinction between 'I am not having fun with this' and 'nobody should be having badwrongfun with this' (even if the line may be blurry in the middle), and I'm not sure if this is a case of language barrier, but to me statements built with phrasings like 'nobody should' come off as leaning much closer to the latter end of the spectrum.

BESW

One significant element may be that I'm coming at this from a development perspective, not a player perspective. Creators have greater responsibilities because their impact is much wider.

I'm looking it through the lens of concepts like the giant robot of offense and how to make games that avoid causing harm to whatever extent they can.

That's not got anything to do with fun.

vicky_molokh

@BESW My developmental perspective is highly limited (I've done a lot of houseruling, but still haven't homebrewed any serious complete system). But I'm trying to view this from a more detached perspective. In it, I view the world as consisting of 'authors' and 'audiences', and acknowledgement that there are differing target audiences and that the best outcome is for each target audience to be matched with authors who produce works in line with the audiences' demand.

So I see balance-oriented games as being for balance-seeking audiences, and other-oriented games as being for other-target audiences.

BESW

Game creators MUST be able to talk about whether the impacts of our praxis and identify that some forms of design are fraught with harmful possibilities-- or we will make games that cause harm just because we're afraid of being seen to say that harmful practices aren't fun.

Balance-oriented audiences can still be harmed by common balance-oriented practices, and care should be taken by developers to figure out how to reject those practices and make balance-oriented games which cause less harm.

For example, universal point-buy systems tend to demand comparison between things that can't be compared but are other ways to do point-buy which avoid those inappropriate comparisons.

And yes, I will stand firmly by my statement that some things cannot be compared to each other. That's a philosophical statement about the nature of the human experience and I'm okay that some people think everything is fungible at some level but I don't.

vicky_molokh

8:45 AM

@BESW This is an example of entering a highly subjective territory. E.g. perhaps for you the comparison of everything is harmful, but for someone else the bucketing of points is harmful. (For another example we've been over and I'm more confident in bringing up than the former, but which has nothing to do with balance: you find lack of meta breaks / mid-RP OOC discussions harmful; players of the method-actor type find meta breaks harmful.) Different target audiences. No one size fitting all.

BESW

I do think it's important to not settle for everybody being treated the same in the name of equality. Different qualities and contexts require different treatments, and that doesn't make the people experiencing them inherently unequal.

trogdor

9:00 AM

yeah treating everyone the same doesn't cut it

we all literally have different needs

BESW

A large Twitter thread by Fred Hicks on the economics of running Evil Hat for most of the company's history.

Vanessa Haas recaps her Pasión de las Pasiones game on Twitter.

vicky_molokh

9:21 AM

@BESW I fear that I may be misunderstanding your stance, but I am concerned that such a stance (encouraging different treatments instead of offering a level playing field) may lead to discriminating people and/or denying them equality of opportunities. Am I misunderstanding your stance?

BESW

No, that's not what I mean. The playing field is not level and a common form of discrimination is acting like it is.

Accommodations and weighting are required to ensure equity of opportunities.

Someday I hope the artificial inequalities in our society will be eradicated and equality will be more equitable so that we don't need to make special efforts to get education and healthcare to people who have systemic injustices leveled against them. We'll still need to make sure there are movie captions for the deaf and audio books for the visually impaired, that avoiding eye contact is understood to not be a sign of dishonesty and that stimming is an accepted practice.

People are aberrant (not how we expect) without being abhorrent (inappropriate) and the world needs to learn that one-size-fits-all doesn't. I'm talking about making sure that discrimination doesn't happen, and that people aren't excluded from opportunities.

I suspect that what you're concerned about is that "separate but equal" attitude which doesn't give people a voice in determining their own needs.

And that's what I think is super important about the Fate Accessibility Toolkit: it's by the people it's for, and it explicitly states within its own text that it's not by everyone and so it's not for everyone, and it encourages people to write their own material to fill the gaps it leaves.

I'm not advocating a patronizing "Oh, you'll never do that so we'll give you a smaller job" kind of accommodation, or a "You have different needs so you'll only do things with people who have those needs" segregation. Those are abhorrent to me.

kviiri

@BESW Related to this, I really liked that read you posted a few days ago, about writing and education for people who are blind.

BESW

@kviiri I was just about to share another episode from that podcast! This one's about how "average" accommodations don't work because individuals are all aberrant from the average. (and how the sciences of averages is often an epistemological error)

99% Invisible is pretty great for getting an overview of a subject with links to complex sources. And they always have transcripts!

trogdor

9:51 AM

@BESW yeah I mean, again, I have to add to your point, not everyone's needs are exactly the same

like just speaking for myself

BESW

@kviiri You may also like this episode about architectural design for Deaf spaces.

trogdor

no one should be expecting me to make constant eye contact during a conversation

that just isn't fair to me

I don't enjoy/at least tolerate it the same way the majority (I assume) of people do

kviiri

@BESW Oh hey, thanks!

BESW

(I particularly think of the Deaf community, and Stella Young's TED Talk, when I see GURPS-style disadvantage lists.)

trogdor

also you can't always expect my facial expression to convey the same thing as someone else making the same face

sometimes when I'm daydreaming I look like I'm really angry (apparently)

kviiri

9:55 AM

@trogdor I know that feeling :/ eye contact is really hard to maintain

trogdor

I only even know that because my parents used to keep asking me what I was mad about

spoiler alert, I usually was not mad about anything and was off in my own world thinking about a book,.. or any number of other things that had my interest at the time

and as far as I know that holds true for some other facial expressions, I just don't know XD

and when it comes to reading other people's faces I'm still not always that great at it either

Pierre Cathé

@BESW I'm currently rereading Harry Potter and this reminds me of the House Elf situation

trogdor

sorta partly fed into by the earlier point about eye contact

@kviiri it's real uncomfortable, sometimes actually a bit painful even

(but that depends on the person or what mood I'm in or how "socially tired" I am atm)

BESW

@kviiri One of the really cool things I've found, as I learn more about accommodation, is that so many accommodations make everybody's lives easier, not just the people who specifically need the accommodation for their ADLs. Like DeafSpace making efforts to reduce eye fatigue, or neuroatypical communication techniques that help make everybody's communications more effective.

trogdor

but anyway

the larger point is, some people's brain's or bodies just work differently and you don't just ignore that to "treat them literally the same" as everyone else

XD

it's like giving a blind person a hand written note and telling them to read it out to the room, or denying a diabetic person insulin because no one else needs it so neither do they

that just isn't cool

or ok

or in the case of that second one pretty much anything short of very horrible murder

(and I'm not saying anyone was trying to advocate that just to be clear, I'm just trying to use what I hope are obvious examples of bad behaviors as comparison)

BESW

10:04 AM

Or literacy requirements for voting; that's often been argued to be "equal" because everybody has to take the test, but it disenfranchises groups who have been denied education by other inequalities. In a perfect world it might be equal, but in ours it isn't.

vicky_molokh

@BESW While I have some life experience with some of the things after this message, I feel unsure about replying past that because I've seen the word equity used in two ~~almost~~ pretty much opposite meanings (one meaning 'fair', the other meaning 'take from some to give others'), and I'm not sure which one you use.

BESW

I use equity to mean making sure that everyone gets what they need. Equality is sometimes used to mean this, but is now often used to mean that everyone gets the same regardless of need.

trogdor

I mean, I like the word Equality because you can use it to specifically mean Equality of like social status and so forth, IE to mean that everyone is still of value as a person, and that no one is better

BESW

There's a lot of really important structural assumptions that need to be challenged in this image, but it's a decent fast-and-dirty demonstration of the difference:

trogdor

though to be fair yeah it can be used in,... very broad and weird ways that actually don't add up to that kind of fair treatment

BESW

10:12 AM

Some people add liberation as a third option which is about making the environment equitable (tearing down the fence) rather than making equitable accommodations for each individual (giving each person the number of boxes they need). I'm all for that but at that point the baseball metaphor breaks down and the terminology becomes excessively jargonistic.

@trogdor Yes. I sincerely wish that equality hadn't gained its weird context-blind definition.

trogdor

yeah

it's,... really weird that that is a thing

Hot RPG Questions

3

Q: Can a character take on additional backgrounds, or at least their benefits?

Can a character take on additional backgrounds, or at least their benefits? For example, there is a sorcerer character that has the Charlatan background. This sorcerer happens to be Drow and in an adventure he comes across the Bregan D'aerthe and they recruit him. This would essentially make him...

dnd-5e background

BESW

10:28 AM

Has anybody else read The Thousand Cousins? It's making me actually a little interested in a high fantasy elves-and-things game again.

trogdor

no, what is it?

BESW

11 hours ago, by BESW

DREAMSCAPES vol. zero: The Thousand Cousins, a system-agnostic setting about DIASPORA ELVES and reclaiming a home and a heritage that has fallen to environmental disaster. By Carly M. Ho.

trogdor

ah ok

BESW

10:48 AM

I really like the central idea of treating elves, orcs, goblins, etc, as cousins in the same family.

trogdor

11:02 AM

that's definitely one way to try to combat the,... problematic things surounding established fantasy races

BESW

Basically everybody except humans are elves, but a thousand years ago the elven homeland had a magical meltdown that mutated all the elves and made it uninhabitable so they all left and integrated (or failed to integrate) with human populations.

But they all remember that they're cousins with a common tragedy, even when they're disagreeing and bickering.

vicky_molokh

@BESW Hmm. So it seems you're using equity in a meaning that is similar to supporting equality-of-outcome over equality-of-opportunity. Yet you point out that you're against the patronising kind of accommodation, and you say you support equity-of-opportunities, so I'm unsure what to make of it. But I'll try to address the things that did become clearer.

So regarding the level playing field and how that relates to system balance. Yes, I have been disadvantaged by stuff similar to the eye contact thing (more to do with lack of expected facial expressions than of eye contact, but whatever), but in an area where social competence, that is an example of the playing field being level: I am less competent at social interactions than average, so of course people will evaluate me more negatively in that field.

I quit the socially-leaning job and went to one dealing more with software than people, and I'm more competent at it and am evaluated accordingly. I poked around, I found my niche, I have been rewarded in accordance to my merits.

And in a way, balance-oriented systems encourage that sort of thing, where the PC with Charisma and Innumerate becomes the face of the party, and the one with Low Empathy and Single-Minded becomes the crafter or whatever. Balance-seeking systems are of course treating such niche-seeking and merit-rewarding in a slightly idealised, simplified manner, but all system treat things that way.

Anaphory

11:22 AM

@vicky_molokh Without knowing much about the topic, isn't equality-of-outcome vs. equality-of-opportunity a bit of a false dichotomy, because the outcome of one life stage/generation of society/etc. is very much directly leading to the opportunities for the next stage?

MikeQ

If I'm reading correctly, it's the "opportunity" to play a character similar to oneself, without the system imposing unfair penalties, judgments, or other-izing

Joel Harmon

@BESW IIRC, the explanation for elves/trolls/dwarves/etc. in Shadowrun is they're all just mutant humans. I'm not familiar enough with the lore to know whether those groups actually live as separate subcultures, or whether they're fully integrated.

vicky_molokh

@Anaphory In a way those terms are simplifications that may require some expanding if they're unfamiliar, which is why initially brought up the topic of a level playing field (and a fair reward based on the participant's merits).

@MikeQ Well, a character similar to myself presumably will have certain advantages and disadvantages, which would, among other things, adjust the character's merit/competence/etc. in various fields. You speak out against those penalties (disadvantages) being unfair, and I agree - I'd prefer those dis/advantages to be mostly fair (because absolutes are not achievable).

Carcer

11:38 AM

@JoelHarmon integration varies throughout the various nations of the setting due to emergency racism and deliberate choice

The Oracle

1

Q: Do we need to do anything about old, upvoted, accepted answers that are not up to scratch with our standards today?

I stumbled upon this question today, which has this answer. It's upvoted (currently sitting at +18/-2) and accepted, but is very short and has a standard banner message across it that I've seen elsewhere on other answers (usually badly received answers) saying: We're looking for long answers ...

discussion answers citations

Carcer

orcs and trolls tend to be less well off on the average (though poverty is still widespread for all metahumans)

there are places like Tir Taingire and Tir na Nog which are explicitly run by elves, but even in those places baseline humans are a large majority

shadowrun is meant to be cyberpunk dystopia so you wouldn't really have expected them to be on top of the racism thing.

Nyakouai

Isn't Tir Taingire extremely xenophobic?

I thought I recalled all non elves being second class there

Carcer

probably

Tir Taingire was certainly isolationist, and didn't allow the megacorps to operate within its borders, though apparently that had to change due to economic pressure

the Tir nations are definitely elf-first places

Nyakouai

How much time has passed in SR5e since magic reappeared?

Carcer

11:48 AM

but recall that still the majority of metahuman variants are born to baseline humans

any elf you select at random probably had human parents

Nyakouai

Vast majority, yes

Carcer

I want to say they made it 2012 when the magic came back?

and I think 5e is set in the 2070s.

Nyakouai

So 50 years for elves to set up elvish nations?

Sounds quick

Carcer

huge amounts of upheaval, most current nations no longer exist in SR's setting either

very much everything got chaotic and new power structures emerged based on whoever was powerful enough to take control

Nyakouai

It's not really the geopolitic aspect that tickles me, it's a sense of "Elvish nation" among elves

50y is what? Max two generations of elves?

vicky_molokh

11:56 AM

@Nyakouai Are their generations that short in SR?

Carcer

@vicky_molokh SR elves mature at the same rate as humans but apparently stop aging upon reaching adulthood

BESW

My limited understanding of SR is that it's trying to justify genre conventions rather than challenge them like Thousand Cousins is.

vicky_molokh

shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Elves

Nyakouai

@vicky_molokh Good question... Since they're mostly born from humans parents, I based the assumption on human biolofy

vicky_molokh

> Thanks to metabolic testing, it has been shown that Elves have a potential lifespan of several hundred years or more, with certain unexplained genes (usually found in powerfully magical elves) giving some an even longer lifespan.

Carcer

11:58 AM

there are certain very notable elves in the setting who are strongly implied if not explicitly stated to have been hanging around secretly somewhere since the previous age of magic (e.g. 6000 years ago) and it's popularly believed they are immortal

Nyakouai

Can be wrong, haven't read any SR book in a long time, and sociology/anthropology is far from being my field of expertise

Doesn't say at what age they can reproduce though

Carcer

they reach adulthood at the same rate as humans.

Nyakouai

That means most elves are "new" and have been therefore raised in human society

Carcer

most everyone has been raised in a predominantly human society

Nyakouai

Hence my perplexity about them developping a race-national sense

vicky_molokh

12:00 PM

@Nyakouai Sure, but it'll probably takes several changes of generations to turn a state into a nation-state.

Nyakouai

@vicky_molokh Not familiar enough with English to tell the difference, tbh

vicky_molokh

@Nyakouai Imagine elves uniting and forming their own country. It'll take a long time for the citizens of their country to form a new nationality (culture, language, ancient heritage, land they lived on for generations etc.).

(Ironically, IME anglophones seem less likely to see the distinction, and are often caught using the two terms interchangeably, especially in USA.)

Nyakouai

@vicky_molokh Ah ok. Yeah, my point. It would be strange for them to have that kind of culture in such a short spawn of time, imo

Carcer

the elven nations are the result of a bunch of elves getting together and making a deliberate decision to basically make up some elven culture based on mythology and ancient records (and talking to creatures who did exist the last time there were elves and have now come back)

there is nothing natural about the development of those nations

it is entirely artificial because a certain group wanted to go ethnonationalist

vicky_molokh

Yeah, it's one thing when you can say 'My grandparents lived here before I was born, and so did theirs before they were born, going back dozens of generations'. It's another when half the population remembers how the ragtag bunch of metahumans unified out of pragmatic concerns.

Carcer

12:05 PM

SR doesn't pretend like they've got genuine long traditions and coherent national identities.

vicky_molokh

@Carcer That looks backwards. You need to have a nation before you can go nationalist about it, but it seems elves in SR don't even have an ethnicity yet, let alone a nation.

So it all looks like just . . . LARPing, heh.

Carcer

they established nations basically by force during a time period when all the existing organised nations were falling apart

Nyakouai

Again (not criticizing the setting, but pointing out some inconsistencies), elves need more than just a sense of kinship to conquer their own bit of land and call it a nation

Kinship is the first stage, but you need a certain form of organization/hierarchy, supplies, means

I can understand how a dragon in SR could rule a country, given how massively overpowered they are, but a bunch of nationalists from a country that does not exists yet... hmm...

I feel like SR is giving a context in which to play, and try to connect it to the real world "historically", but going through some shortcuts that are best left over...

(oversighted? Is that the right term?)

BESW

12:22 PM

Overlooked, I think is the term you want.

Means "ignored" or "not noticed."

Nyakouai

Thanks

BESW

Oversight is the noun form; an oversight is something that was overlooked.

(Because English is weird.)

Oversight also means supervision, the person who's in charge of watching a group of people to make sure they're doing things right is an overseer.

I suspect you're right, at any rate; Shadowrun has always seemed to me like something more interested in giving the impression of nuance and complexity, than actually offering it.

Carcer

I do not mean to argue SR is tremendously well thought out

it also has some very unfortunate choices in that it is quite deliberately equating the social oppression of the "goblinized" metavariants (orks and trolls) with that faced by real world ethnic minorities ("orksploitation" is an in-universe genre of media, for instance) but also mechanically makes those races explicitly less intelligent and charming than baseline humans.

At least it avoids suggesting any inherent moral/ethical deviation on the part of any particular metahuman variant.

Nyakouai

12:43 PM

I was oblivious to that fact until you mentionned it. Sure, the comparison between ethnicity being oppressed is evident, but I never looked farther to orks being dumb because they're... well... orks, you know

Rather unfortunate indeed

John Clifford

Yeah, some fantasy races do have a rather unfortunate undertone of analogous racism behind them.

BESW

James Mendez Hodes has a really good two-part discussion of that, "Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth." Part One and Part Two.

I read Thousand Cousins on his recommendation.

goodguy5

1:03 PM

who is it that's xenophobic by default. drow?

John Clifford

You mean thematically? Yeah.

goodguy5

yea

John Clifford

They're very much the "our elves are better than your elves" race.

G. Moylan

Duergar are like that too but they just enslave everyone

vicky_molokh

A discussion of the FATE Accessibility Toolkit Review that made a GURPS comparison (potentially for @BESW): forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=164941

NautArch

1:07 PM

@G.Moylan Reading about the Duergar in Mordenkainen's was so depressing.

G. Moylan

@NautArch yeah they're.... unpleasant folk

goodguy5

I think there was a blurb in Hitchhiker's Guide about a specific race of alien that lived on a clouded world and couldn't see into space. but when they developed space travel, they realized that there other things in space and decided "it's got to go".

NautArch

@G.Moylan I read it more as treated incredibly unfairly.

G. Moylan

@NautArch in-universe or by the authors?

Pierre Cathé

@goodguy5 it's the plot of a whole book

goodguy5

1:08 PM

o.O

NautArch

@G.Moylan isn't that...the same thing?

goodguy5

@NautArch that's a tragic backstory

NautArch

@goodguy5 incredibly. THey were really wronged.

John Clifford

@NautArch Not necessarily the same thing: in-universe would mean that the universe as written was treating them incredibly unfairly, while by the authors implies that what's unfair is how they were written rather than anything in the actual fictional world itself. It's a subtle distinction but I think that's what G. Moylan meant. I could be wrong!

goodguy5

I just remembered this time I was playing a bard and I had this pet pig. And the drow character stole my pig when I wasn't looking and killed it. for no reason other than My Guy Syndrome.

ooc I told the player that if my character found out, he'd kill her.

John Clifford

1:18 PM

That's a pretty awful thing to do just for Metal Gear Solid.

goodguy5

She was playing a CN Wild Magic Sorcerer, which should tell you everything you need to know.

NautArch

@JohnClifford Oh, hmm. I definitely wasn't addressing authorial tone, but the actual history as described.

goodguy5

@JohnClifford quiet you

John Clifford

:(

G. Moylan

@JohnClifford that is indeed what I meant

John Clifford

1:22 PM

Also poor piggy. ;_;

Rubiksmoose

@goodguy5 :'(

goodguy5

T_T I knowww

kviiri

Why did they kill the pig :(

For food, for blood sacrifice...?

goodguy5

They MIGHT have eaten the pig, but there wasn't a food shortage or anything. just to do it.

can't exactly recall.

G. Moylan

@kviiri It'S wHaT mY tOtAlLy InTeReStInG aNd UnIqUe ChAraCtEr WoUlD dO!!!11!

goodguy5

1:24 PM

I didn't care much for this player either. She strikes me as someone who was a high-school mean girl, if that makes any sense.

John Clifford

The mention of the pig reminds me of something kind of amusing about my Curse of Strahd campaign: our dragonborn fighter wanted bacon for breakfast but Barovia doesn't have any pigs. They met a Vistani trader who offered to head out and pick up anything they needed so he's paid the guy to go get him a pig so the party can have bacon.

NautArch

@goodguy5 Did they start making minor illusions of pigs, too?

goodguy5

nah, pig just went missing. I investigated it for a while. I'd ask NPCs and such about it.

Eventually we stopped playing... maybe I moved? Can't exactly remember

G. Moylan

@goodguy5 what was your piggo's name?

John Clifford

Is there a particular trait of Drow that would cause one to kill a pig for no reason?

G. Moylan

1:25 PM

@JohnClifford spite and malice. They hate everyone because that's what they do

goodguy5

@G.Moylan iirc, I just called him "pig"

G. Moylan

@G.Moylan leaning into that too hard could very easily lead to part interference

@goodguy5 beautiful

John Clifford

I mean fair point but how do you not derail the game playing that straight

"That'll do, pig. That'll do."

G. Moylan

@JohnClifford you have to find a reason why that character would be with the party. Matt Colville breaks it down really well in this video about playing evil characters: youtube.com/watch?v=kVuF4fkRD2c

John Clifford

There was an old SNES RPG called Illusion of Time (Illusion of Gaia in the states) and one of the characters has a pet pig called Hamlet. At one point he dies heroically and they end up cooking him.

G. Moylan

1:27 PM

@JohnClifford why waste food?

John Clifford

I mainly remember this because the phrase "The air is filled with the smell of roasting Hamlet..." has been burned into my memory. XD

G. Moylan

oof rough

like that scene in Game of Thrones when they have to burn all the dead nightwatchmen and the living ones are starving, and they comment something to the effect of "I never knew [person] could smell so good"

John Clifford

That's probably the tenet my wife and friend were thinking along when they were playing the Lone Wolf RPG and I described how they came across a deer with its leg caught in a trap. Bearing in mind these are Kai Monks devoted to peace and connecting with nature, their immediate response was WE BUTCHER IT FOR MEAT

goodguy5

I'm hoping that lab grown meat quiets vegans

Rubiksmoose

@JohnClifford Spoilers!

John Clifford

1:30 PM

@Rubiksmoose I'm not sure if you're being facetious or serious. XD

Rubiksmoose

@JohnClifford 100% facetious lol

John Clifford

I have an...interesting gaming group.

Nyakouai

@G.Moylan PTSD starts kicking in Gods no, please, not again

John Clifford

Said friend (also the dragonborn fighter in CoS) asked after an encounter with Strahd if I would allow him to have a disembodied zombie head land on a Barovian citizen if he managed to roll a 1 on his roll to punt it away with his hammer. I said sure, he rolled 1, I described how some poor citizen was chowed down by a falling zombie head, then informed him that his alignment has gone from lawful neutral to neutral evil.

The Dark Powers were planning on trying to seduce the hippie chaotic neutral high elf Cleric/Bard but they've decided to set their sights on a better target now.

David Coffron

@JohnClifford Are you sure one action warrants an entire alignment shift?

John Clifford

1:34 PM

With this group, yes. :P

It was more of a joke than anything, he'll continue playing his character the same way regardless.

To give you an idea of how chaotic and silly my group is, Paranoia was probably the most perfect system I've ran for them to date. XD

Nyakouai

What's the pitch of Paranoia?

John Clifford

Nineteen Eighty-four meets Skynet.

As imagined by the writers of Tiny Toon Adventures.

NautArch

Expect lots of character death, backstabbing, and double dealing.

John Clifford

(you can play it as a straight dystopian setting or properly crazy it up)

Nyakouai

Sounds like a nice place to have a family vacation in

John Clifford

1:42 PM

The adventure I ran had the characters all together in one room trying to fix a robot. Three of them died.

There's a bunch of secret stuff like hidden mutant powers, secret societies with conflicting agendas, betrayal, testing things for R&D that don't work or work too well...also it's treason to know the rules of the game.

Everything works on colour-coded clearances and the game manual is a higher clearance than PCs are.

Carcer

Paranoia is a post-apocalyptic future setting where the remnants of humanity live in a massive underground facility (called Alpha Complex) which is ruled over by the inscrutable and capricious AI, Friend Computer. Friend Computer and society at large are very concerned about the perils of traitors, mutants, communists, other such recidivist secret societies. Also, the players are always mutants and members of secret societies.

by default it's not intended to be a serious game

John Clifford

I've never run it straight, I don't think my particular players would have fun with it.

Carcer

though there have been versions of it which more explicitly support playing the setting straight

Nyakouai

Playing it not straight seems a lot of potential fun

Carcer

it's a pretty grim setting if played straight but some people like that kind of thing

I have a friend who once ran a paranoia one-shot with the sole objective of waiting to see how long it took the players to realise they were one guy in a red suit and a bunch of guys in green suits literally climbing down chimneys in order to deliver presents

John Clifford

1:47 PM

Hahaha

Probably the funniest part of the most recent one I ran was when one PC activated her Doom Magnet power and the closest perilous thing to the group was a contraband grenade one of the other PCs had hidden in his overalls. So all anyone saw was him exploding out of nowhere.

Carcer

hah

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