TRPG General Chat - 2020-05-21 (page 1 of 2)

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Himitsu_no_Yami

12:00 AM

So, after deus ex machina-ing the party away from the sea hags earlier they ran into a group of cannibalistic tribal warriors and I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle this for them since the book said 3d6 and I rolled 16 for it

They've taken two down so far but one of them is on 1 HP and another is on 5

So apart from the serious squickiness of "cannibalistic tribal warriors", usually a lot of good answers come from remembering the world and its characters are also people with motivations

And some of those motivations include not actually wanting to die

Himitsu_no_Yami

user image

current state of the field ↑

They suddenly remember that cultural cannibalism is almost always reserved for respected members of their own cultural system, and leave abruptly while apologizing for leaning into harmful stereotypes.

^ If you do want to do that, you may have someone arrive to chastise them and hurry them off.

that would have diegetic continuity

Himitsu_no_Yami

At this point I think they're kinda pissed that two of their number are dead and can tell that two of the four they've been fighting are about to drop

12:06 AM

Right, so this is a fight where "one side or the other dies and everyone fights until one of these things is the case" is not going to work very well if you want the players to stay alive

Himitsu_no_Yami

not quite, I'm not opposed to the enemies fleeing or anything I just don't think there's proper motivation quite yet

So you want to lean into the fact this is:
- a game where you can go "oops I messed up. This was a bad encounter and I'm not sure why the book suggested it. Let's rewind."
- a story with narrative elements beyond setpieces that do violence until death occurs

Motivation gets created, hence the outside intervention from someone they'd listen to, but like, you seriously can retcon the encounter. We've done it, and it's more helpful than playing it through.

Himitsu_no_Yami

My biggest concern is that by retconning the encounter they're not getting anything for the time, they're also not progressing in levels (which they very much need to right now)

by that I mean motivation does not exist indepedently of us creating it for the characters. we create it. we have to introduce it ourselves. it won't exist all on its own independent of us doing anything. this also means it's mutable and under our control, and we can adjust it and introduce new motivations as we need.

2

Oh, you're playing one of those games where only slaughter provides personal growth?

12:10 AM

@BESW Naming conventions and categorizations for languages was one of my least favorite parts of getting my linguistics major (well, the disputes and politics were my least favorite part). It's good stuff to know, but man... people can be awful

@Medix2 Yeah, the need to cram everything into little boxes can be really detrimental to knowledge, identity, and justice.

@Himitsu_no_Yami So, hopefully, the people at the table playing with you are getting something for their time—fun! Hopefully this is fun for them otherwise I'm not sure why anyone's doing any of this. Second, you can decide to retcon but also have them find treasure and handwave they get some XP.

That said though, having tried a few different ways to play, I strongly suggest disconnecting levelling up from combat encounters. It's ... not actually very helpful. It makes players seek out violence and requires grindwork that has nothing to do with the story in order to move forward.

3

@BESW As somebody who almost went into taxonomy as a job, YES

I've found better experiences from just nixing XP and awarding a level every couple of sessions or as significant story milestones get met.

Himitsu_no_Yami

@doppelgreener I suppose you have a point there. idk, I'm a really new DM and have been flying mostly by the seat of my pants and going with what feels right

12:13 AM

That sounds fine! That's how it works, lol

user image

@doppelgreener I was surprised at first when a campaign without EXP was one of my favorites, and I've been loving the style ever since

You and your players have better things to do than have a combat that is occurring for no compelling reason other than because numbers say they must have more numbers so you must put them in contact with numbers so they can number the numbers until numbers fall out.

No EXP at all certainly might not have been what you were suggesting, but just wanted to share (oh, and so it was!)

You have stories to tell and characters to explore and incentivising mass violence for its own sake does not add anything to any of these things.

12:15 AM

On the rare occasions that I play in systems with tiered "leveling up" styles, I like to tie it to story progression: you get new stuff when you hit story beats, instead of when you hit people.

"hit story beats, not people" is good words

Himitsu_no_Yami

I think one of the biggest problems with the actual combat though, is that level 1 SUCKS

absolutely yes

you're playing D&D 5e i presume?

Himitsu_no_Yami

yeah

@Himitsu_no_Yami FOr 5e-dnd, I'll recommend starting at level 2 or 3. 2 for newer players especially if there's casters. But 3 otherwise since it's not a huge leap and everybody will have their subclass (well... except some specific multiclassing)

12:17 AM

D&D 5e says level 1 is that level where you can't do anything interesting, you're just some ordinary schmuck who happened to pick up a sword or get some magic juice at some point

Himitsu_no_Yami

this module starts at level 1 though and I asked the player and he wanted to start at level 1

were they aware that level 1 sucks though

Who's running the game, you or the module?

Himitsu_no_Yami

@MikeQ yes

that's an inclusive or

My rule #1 about prewritten content is that, unless you are in some organized play environment, you (the person running the game) don't need to follow what it says

12:20 AM

spoiler warning: some modules are bad

Himitsu_no_Yami

@doppelgreener Well, he's not that experienced with 5e but he's played other D&D games before so I assumed he knew

D&D editions vary a lot

D&D 4e made level 1 exciting

Lots of games that implement something resembling levels make level 1 exciting

Himitsu_no_Yami

@doppelgreener I'm starting to think that the first portion of this module falls into that category (the last bit is tons of fun though)

(Loads of popular non-D&D games don't have levelling at all, so your character just starts exciting and continues to be exciting and finds new ways to be exciting)

D&D 5e is not one of those games

Himitsu_no_Yami

I'm pretty sure the last one he played before 5e was 3.5

12:22 AM

@doppelgreener I'm a fan of skill trees personally

D&D 3.5e was not one either, D&D 5e is even less so. If your friend played D&D 4e or D&D 3.5e, their equivalent of level 1 in D&D 5e is more like level 3 or 4 or 5 or...

D&D 5e really drops the bar on level 1 down to "you are some ordinary civilian, with a special thing"

Some of the classes don't even have their defining features at level 1, so it's not really a good level for complex combat encounters

Level 2+3 is where you are actually forming your class, hence @Medix2's recommendation to start there

Himitsu_no_Yami

the party is currently 1 barbarian, 1 monk, and 2 rogues

Did you mention that's just one player?

Himitsu_no_Yami

12:26 AM

what do you mean did I mention it?

Regardless, this situation looks like you'll need to start making some adjustments so that the adventure is a better fit for your players. Since the prewritten material says you should do something that you don't want to do, now would be a good place to start.

Himitsu_no_Yami

Yeah... And it's not saying to do something I don't wanna do exactly. It's saying do something with this level of randomness and the randomness ended up going a bit too far. (I think that's how words work)

it's not like it's saying "kill your players at level 1"

But it's sure making it easy to!

Yeah, that's an issue with "death is the default failure state."

Based on the screenshot, the party consists of 4 non-casters at 1st level, and the module has put them in a combat scenario against 16 warriors (with a total 176 hit points)

Himitsu_no_Yami

well, when you roll 3d6 expecting to get somewhere around 10-11 and end up with 16

12:32 AM

3d6 is anywhere from 3 to 18, so you know that 16 is a possible outcome

Don't roll something if you aren't prepared for all the outcomes

D&D really doesn't like the Universal Rule of Randomisation.

Jul 12 '17 at 14:54, by BESW

It's the essence of the Universal Rule of Randomization: "Don't touch the randomiser unless you're okay with any result it might spit out."

Himitsu_no_Yami

I will say, everyone has the ability to fly but they don't seem to be taking as much advantage of that as they should. I guess mainly that's their fault for not picking up any ranged weaponry to take advantage of that with

@Himitsu_no_Yami Oh, sorry, I went AFK. I mean, do I underestand correctly you said earlier it was just one player?

Himitsu_no_Yami

@doppelgreener oh that, yes it's just one player (playing two characters)

there's four characters; are you playing the other two?

Himitsu_no_Yami

12:35 AM

yes

gotcha

Heh. In 5e, is flight a whole extra subsystem with its own rules and bookkeeping, like 3.5? Or is it just an additional axis for normal movement with an end-turn caveat, like 4e?

Himitsu_no_Yami

he didn't mind DMPCs and I thought it seemed fun as long as I let him make important decisions without me

@BESW really it's just a third dimension, you can even end your turn flying and be fine

@BESW Just a movement speed. No fly bonuses or tables.

Himitsu_no_Yami

I do kinda wish it came with some extra rules like how advantageous being above someone could be in certain situations

12:37 AM

[somewhere in the distance, a 3.5 DM cries out in anguish]

Himitsu_no_Yami

Like I could accurately shoot an arrow a farther distance if my target was below me and I had clear LOS

just by accounting for a level of drop due to gravity

What if I told you that, as the DM, you can just decide to do that in your games

Himitsu_no_Yami

but that requires me to figure out good numbers

See, it's stuff like that which led me to Fate.

Good numbers? The whole point of advantage/disadvantage is so that the DM does not need to quantify all the situational modifiers

12:40 AM

@Himitsu_no_Yami You could just rule they have advantage if you deem their position to be advantageous.

Himitsu_no_Yami

I suppose that's fair

That's what the rule was designed to do.

In Fate you just say "I spend a fate point to get +2 on this attack because I have The gift of wings from Quetzalcoatl."

Himitsu_no_Yami

idk I like more mechanics like you "you get +X distance on your normal range"

@BESW Love FATE

Himitsu_no_Yami

12:46 AM

Thanks all for the help by the way. I really appreciate that I don't have to figure all of this out on my own

Welp, I need to go home, I stayed at work to use the company computers to keep chatting lol

Have a good night all! (or whatever time it is for you guys)

Good night! :)

ttfn

Hot RPG Questions

1:03 AM

3

Q: Is it possible to use athletics [or other skills] for/with attack/damage rolls?

I just started a game in 5e with a new human greatsword wielding fighter, and rolled stats pretty well [17 strength]. I chose the Brawny feat and basically gave myself expertise on athletics. Is there a way [feat, weapon, or magic item] to use athletics as either the attack roll or damage roll mo...

dnd-5e feats skills damage attack-roll

@Medix2 I dug up the old "hit on miss" build from 4e and it's great. You take a feat which lets you deal Con mod damage on misses with a hammer, then build around a specific at-will power where you attack three times with a hammer and each attack deals Con mod damage.

@Medix2 :twenty minutes of sheep sokoban later: FATE near BESW is MORE

Then you just pick an elemental type you can enchant a hammer to deal and go to town on buffing that elemental type (because most damage bonuses only trigger when *rolling* damage, which is why the three-attack power is supposedly balanced; but radiant damage, whoof:
Get yourself a hammer that doubles its damage bonus to the attack, grab a class feature that inflicts radiant vulnerable 10 for one round every time you hit with a radiant power (and you're attacking three times so one of them will probably hit), take a feat which gives you Con mod temp hp every time you hit for radiant damage.…

That sounds crazy fun

There's one rule interpretation that's... probably not actually gonna let it work if you're really strict. But whatever, I was making it for a one-shot for a guest player who really liked not worrying about his d20 outcomes.

And he was a one-trick pony anyway, it would've gotten very boring if he'd played more than one session.

But for that player in that session it was awesome.

His spammable attack was 8 damage three times, guaranteed, with an extra +10 on each hit if he'd hit at least once the previous round, and +6 with combat advantage, so most rounds he was doing 72 damage without spending any limited resources. For comparison the spammable attack of the beefed-out damagebot fighter character in the party was 4d6+32, with a miss chance.

Hot RPG Questions

1:26 AM

4

Q: Sprite-Genie Hybrid

I am brand new to D&D (5e) and am starting to build my character. Is there a way to be a sprite-genie hybrid PC. If so, how would that work and could I grant wishes?

dnd-5e character-creation

I think he was dubbed The Clockwork Beatstick.

@Glazius No no no more BABA. jk, I've just spent so long understanding those rules and the intricacies most people don't think about or notice

@BESW That was really fun to read about, wow

4e had a lot of really great customization features, within its set parameters. It was sometimes fun to see how far outside the parameters you could go.

What gives you three attacks as an at-will? Wasn't Twin Strike enough?

Like, the PC who never attacked, ever. Not just technically but actually: all of his powers were "use one of your actions to let an ally do something instead."

1:37 AM

@BESW I thoroughly enjoyed my 4e games, and even if some of the characters could be samey at time, the balancing was something I really liked

Battlemind's at-will power, "Brutal Barrage."

@BESW Now I want to try out a "don't roll dice" character in 4e...

Warlord/Shaman hybrid is the only way to get access to a no-attack power at every level, but you can come close with Bard as one of the hybrids.

@BESW Yup, I'll certainly think about it more

It's one of those rare examples where hybrid is actually a really good choice.

(Generally, multiclass is better than hybrid unless there's a really specific thing you need from the hybrid features.)

1:40 AM

@BESW I still find Shadow powers to be a weird choice/addition in 4e in general

We also had a Fighter who pushed anyone he hit, usually about eight squares, and knocked them prone at the end of it.

And a paladin/warlock multiclass who used his mark (take damage and a penalty to hit if you attack anyone except the paladin) and then went invisible.

@BESW Like unlocking the secret power of Speedwagon and spending all your time standing around explaining what the other characters are doing.

This is your Stand, 「L I N E R N O T E S」

@BESW Beautiful

Morning all

There was a cleric who technically attacked enemies, but dealt no damage and healed nearby allies on hit instead.

1:42 AM

Morning Ben#126332

@KorvinStarmast not sure what your reference was there lol

[wave]

@Medix2 is that actually it? Lol

@BESW I had a build like that in one of my games

@Ben Nah that's just your user number of whatever it's called

Yeah that's what I meant lol

@BESW I'm intrigued. Did they like, deal damage and heal that amount to allies?

1:44 AM

@Ben I can't remember the details, but it was a stacking of "give up some of your damage in order to heal instead."

Stacked until there wasn't any damage left to deal.

Ah ok

I wonder if that would be possible though... Pseudo vampire style

[rummages]

Ahah, she had a lot of different abilities but one of her at-wills was Astral Seal: a hit deals no damage but inflicts -2 to the target's defenses and the next ally who hits the target, heals 2 + Cha mod.

user image

Most of her powers were similar: no damage but buff/debuff /contingent effects.

Very interesting [strokes chin]

And both her weapon/implement AND her neck item added their bonuses to all healing done, not just healing surges.

And her critical effect was "someone nearby can spend a healing surge." Because why not!

0

Q: How can we address questions about homebrew balance?

Often we get questions such as Is moving between separate attacks of the same spell unbalanced? The trouble I always face with these questions is "unbalanced with respect to what?". All house rules and homebrew are inherently unbalanced because they introduce changes to the game. Whether they in...

1:52 AM

@BESW Yeah, Divine Power has that and a throughline of attacks that debuff but deal no damage (and lets people pop a healing surge in the blast radius).

@TheOracle balanced in respect to the base system and rules, no?

Then there was Trogdor's terrifying fighter whose tactic was to burst out of the shadows, grab someone, and drag them screaming back into the darkness.

Since he was a Thri-kreen (anthropomorphic preying mantis) it was very much like having a Xenomorph accompanying the party.

@BESW [seal of approval]

Lol

The opportunity for variety and variation within each class was pretty astonishing, especially since I'd heard so much about how homogenous the play was.

All of my favourite characters weren't so much based around their abilities but more around their actions and behaviours. Storytelling rather than mechanics.

I never really made any mechanically fascinating characters

2:05 AM

Oh, our characters were... both?

The warlord/shaman who granted actions to other people, was an egotistical ex-prison-warden who thought he was in charge of the party but had little interest in any of the other PCs except insomuch as they were helpful for his quest to track down an escaped prisoner because he hoped he'd get his job back if he caught the guy.

Oh yeah for sure. It's hard to not give a character, well, character

The push-fighter was a xenophobic half-orc obsessed with restoring the glory of his half-orc nation which had been destroyed when two battling empires fought for control of it, and over time he slowly came to realize that zealous nationalism was actually counter to his culture's ethos of balance; he retired to mentor the next king of his nation after refusing the crown himself.

The paladin/warlock had been a paladin-accountant for the evil demon-run empire, and got his warlock pact in order to escape and defect to the other side. He struggled with finding acceptance outside the immediate party because he bore the physical marks of the evil empire's elite.

@BESW Oh, psionics. I always think "level 1" when I think at-will, but that's level 13.

And every five or so levels, we spent one level playing the demon-empire's counterparty to our main party's Mission: Impossible style plausible deniability unofficial state death squad. The demon-empire party would set up something that would then lurk in the background for a while until the main party had to deal with it, like planting a secret death cult in the dragon empire's capital city.

3:02 AM

0

Q: To what extent should Back It Up! be enforced?

Currently, the Back It Up! is a bit vague to me. The policy is: Your answers (to subjective questions) must be based on either: Something that happened to you personally Something you can back up with a reference It isn't clear to me to what extent something has to have happene...

Is there a linkable "Be Nice" Policy?

@Ben probably an answer that i wrote about steel mirrors. :-)

@Ben there used to be

@Ben /conduct

@doppelgreener Original Traveller was like that

@KorvinStarmast Fair enough. What's CSE and WoT?

3:06 AM

(The Stack Overlords recently admitted that "Be Nice" was being used to enforce civility over compassion, and have tried to improve on it.)

Ok, cool :)

3:24 AM

I feel like I may have put my foot in it a little bit.

@Ben ??

Answered the "Back It Up" question on meta - suggested that there is no real rule applied to a few of the practices on SE

I wouldn't worry about it too much. You're right.

Ok good :)

Some things shouldn't be strictly codified because the principles need to get applied on a per-case basis.

3:28 AM

I knew I wasn't wrong, I just didn't want to push the wrong idea

And, well. Immediate context here suggests that, given prior history, a clear concise "working as intended" is all that's needed. Any further attempt to explain will just get dragged into the weeds to no good end.

hey there @linksassin

@Shalvenay G'day.

Does this site prefer having a single correct answer over multiple?

@Medix2 The Stack's infrastructure is designed for neither.

3:32 AM

@BESW Yeah :) I've seen a few answers like that; they don't explicitly answer the question, they just explain the situation the question applies to.

@Medix2 by general preference, a 1:1 - Explicitly no duplicate answers.

@Medix2 Do you mean multiple answers which give the same solution in slightly different presentations, or multiple answers each with different solutions that all seem equally valid, or a single answer with multiple valid solutions inside it?

@Ben Huh? Each question should have one answer? That leaves no room for competing answers though, unless you're saying competing answers should be merged?

@BESW I'm not really sure, a user said the sight has a "tendency to prefer "one true answer" over "multiple helpful answers"" and I've never felt such a tendency

As BESW said - duplicate answers are answers that say the exact same thing. What I mean by "preference" is that generally, a question should only need one answer, but that doesn't mean people aren't going to provide more, and equally valid answers.

@Medix2 I wouldn't put a lot of weight on that claim.

@linksassin how're things going?

@Medix2 nor would I -- the accepted answer function is merely a way the OP can point out what helped them the most

3:38 AM

@Shalvenay Yup, it's even defined as being, quote "personal"

@Shalvenay Been better. Rubbish couple of days with work.

The idea is that SE isn't just for the question-askers. It's a place to find answers for anyone else that has similar problems, but the answer(s) that solved the OP's problem might not necessarily solve another person's situation.

@Ben exactly

it's actually one of the major challenges that DIY.SE faces believe it or not

And it's much easier to look for answers here (imo) than a forum any day of the week.

due to just how idiosyncratic buildings are, compared to just about everything else discussed on a Stack

(come to think of it, TRPGs are probably the closest analog in a way)

3:40 AM

The OP has the ability to mark one answer as the "right" one, because it's their situation. But there is very rarely a "right" one, because it depends on who's asking.

We delete answers that are not answers, or are actively harmful.

Everything else just gets voted on by the crowd, and the querent gets to say "I like this one" independent of the crowd. There's not really any way to force a 1:1 Q:A ratio.

What revision happened to my answer it appears as a blank box for me

@linksassin Hope it improves <3

Now, do early answers tend to get voted on a lot more, either up OR down? Yes, because of the way the infrastructure is designed to put posts in front of users.

@linksassin You guys been getting much rain? It's made for a nice change for me :D

3:43 AM

But that's only discouraging multiple answers in the sense that if there's already an answer you're slightly less likely to get as much attention on yours. Which is the same posting in the sixth page of a forum thread.

@BESW I've seen many times where an answer with less votes is the accepted answer :)

@Ben Had a crazy storm two nights ago.

@linksassin Ah well, I can't say the same haha. we've just had a constant drizzle for 3 days straight

@Ben There's a badger for it!

@BESW I question a few of the existing badges, ngl

3:46 AM

There's also a badger for the person with the higher-voted answer!

@V2Blast Thanks. I'll get there. Just a frustrating project that won't go away.

Yeah, the badgers are. um. an awkward and sometimes misguided attempt to gamify behaviours which don't show up in the voting stats.

But at the very least they're a good metric for "working as intended." Whether we agree with our Stack Overlords intentions...

Oh wait - wow. I saw the Unsung Hero badge and I thought I had been awarded it 0 times. I didn't realise it had never been awarded to anyone ever

@linksassin Feeeeeelz

@TheOracle ugh... I wish the word "policy" weren't getting slung around so much. Like it or not, we don't really have policies nearly as much as we have practices. There are very few things around here that anyone--editor, voter, moderator, employee--is going to say is so clear that "yes, this will be applied in all situations, no consideration given, no context needed."

8

@nitsua60 Yes! A lot of people don't understand the difference

3:53 AM

@Ben We're enthusiastic voters here.

@BESW yeah, voting has never been a weakness of RPG.SE

It took years before somebody got a Tumbleweed.

Oh I think I got one of those!

as to the badges mentioned -- I have a Tumbleweed for a question that I think whooshed over all of DIY.SE's head

I did! Woo!

3:56 AM

I don't have Unsung Hero, but I do have Tenacious on DIY.SE

and I have a Populist on Aviation.SE

@nitsua60 vistage.com/research-center/business-growth-strategy/…

I kinda like situations where you find out you got something that is no longer available. A bit like those really special items in video games that if you miss it, you have to restart the entire game just to get the opportunity again :P

Alright, I'm heading out for the night. Be well, all.

Hot RPG Questions

4:12 AM

4

Q: What's the point/advantage of a steel mirror?

5e D&D lists a number of mostly mundane items in the PHB on page 150. One of them is a "Mirror, steel" (5gp, 1/2lb). Initially I thought it to be a steel framed mirror, but I think this is actually meant to be a polished (to the point of a reflection) piece of steel. My question is two-fold: I...

@nitsua60 Byee! Enjoy your evening

Ok, I think I'm getting into the mechanics of the Corruption system now. cc @GcL @linksassin @MikeQ @Miniman

@Ben In the CRPG Wizardry 8, there's character options which are only available if you have a saved-game from Wizardry 7 with those character options already active.

Right now, I have an idea of a 10-point tracker for the "Influence". This is for the Afflictions - sometimes you need to "roll vs Influence", which works the same as a death save with a twist. On [trigger] make a DC 10 save (d20 minus "overall influence"), or suffer (x) effect as specified in the "Afflictions" section of the rules.

@BESW You;d have to have 20-20 foresight for that lol. Kinda like Mass Effect, but more hardcore :P

It was kinda cool, you could take the same team of characters through the whole trilogy from Wiz6 to Wiz8, chaining save files.

@BESW One of these days I'm actually going to do it.

4:22 AM

Not that I ever did it, I've only played Wiz8 and the others look... tedious, to my tastes.

Unrelated; but I notice I've developed a habit of hitting " ; " instead of " ' " for contracted words, and it's starting to aggravate me XD (you;d, don;t, etc)

@nitsua60 [insert Pirates of the Caribbean quote about "guidelines"]

@Ben that;s terrible

(it took me three tries to intentionally type that the wrong way :P)

@V2Blast da-da-dun-dun da-da-dun-dun, da-da-dun-dun, dada-dudum...

@V2Blast Now you feel my pain, cos it takes me three tries to type it the right way... if I notice

XD

lol

May 6 at 12:34, by Ben

cc @linksassin @MikeQ and anyone else interested: rewrite of Corruption system with some potential mechanical applications

For the link if anyone is interested - currently working on elaborating some of the finer details/mechanics

5:14 AM

Thought: A Boon can "undo" an Affliction - Either demote a Major Affliction or remove a Minor Affliction - to either yourself or another party member.

5:25 AM

user image

lol

user image

oh come on, it's hilarious XD

sensible_chuckle.gif

user image

5:36 AM

That's a thing. I've been there. And Now I have a name for it

11/10 best thing in existence

Oh, that reminds me, I should check when the next Expanse novel is coming out.

I hate-read those.

oh god

I've avoided those entirely because of what you have said about them

so,.. yeah XD

Productivity achieved.

it's really not productivity, I just read other things instead

XD

5:39 AM

It's one of several TV-series-based-on-books I've seen recently where I sincerely enjoy the TV series, more or less, but I hateread the books.

the TV series seems pretty good

although I never watched past the point where we got to while we were watching it together

I recently read the comics that the Netflix series Key & Locke is based on, and whooof would not recommend.

user image

Hee.

lol

5:43 AM

With The Expanse, my big problem is that the author thinks its main character is interesting and relatable. I wanna spend more time with the side characters, dangit, they're so much more interesting. (Also it's trying to think about a diverse future which tolerates the things we struggle with today, but it winds up just search-replacing racism with spacism and confusing fusion cooking with integration.)

lol

I noticed a similar-but-different issue with Community and Rick & Morty. They both focus on issues that are not often brought up in most other TV shows, and one does it better than the other (IMO). My reasoning is that in Rick & Morty the characters are cartoons, so there is that degree of separation, making it easier to digest the heaviness of the content. In Community the characters are parodies to the point where they are just unrelatable as actual people.

Locke & Key on the other hand, is your expected mishmash of racism, transphobia, sanism, etc, that seems to come packed with every cosmic fear story. It tries, sometimes, to rise above its influences, but they named the dang location "L*vecraft Island" in a fit of absolutely no irony at all, so I'm not surprised when they can't keep the influences out of the material.

@BESW Locke & Key was surprisingly good on Netflix. From what I read they made some changes to the story to make it actually make sense.

It's definitely... better. Like, they left out the part where White People Learn A Lesson About Racism By Spending Time In Black Bodies. I'm not gonna applaud that obvious common sense change, but it's something.

There's still, for example, some really unfortunate transphobic subtext in the villain being the only one to regularly use the Gender Key. (in the comics, there's another person who regularly uses the Gender Key but it's an Deeply Unfortunate invocation of Ray Blanchard's long-debunked psychological typology.)

Oh, and the Netflix show decided that autism isn't magical. These are low bars to be clearing.

5:56 AM

@BESW In the TV show it isn't called a Gender Key though. Its the body key or something.

Yeah, they seem to have mashed the Race Key and the Gender Key together for the show.

But in practice it's the same problem: the only person whose gender is mutable, is the person who uses mutable gender to manipulate people and gain access to places they aren't welcome.

Which feeds directly into anti-trans propaganda because no other character exists to provide counterpoint examples of non-cisgendered people who aren't evil.

@BESW Hmmm... true. But it is also fairly essential to the plot that the good guys don't know about that power. Would be nice to see that key recovered and used though.

An actual non-magical trans character who is clearly an ally of the main cast, if not one of the main cast, would have been quite easily within reach.

Or, like the comics did, show the key used by other people in flashbacks. Just, don't do like the comics by having the only person who enjoys the key growing up to be a gay cis man, because Blanchard's delusions need to die in a fire.

@BESW Oh that is definitely worse. I feel like Netflix is likely to try to avoid the whole thing. Though there is definitely opportunity to do it as a flashback.

I can think of two nonbinary actors right off the top of my head that Netflix has already had successful working relationships with.

6:10 AM

@Ben Community,... seemed like it was trying for things it didn't entirely understand

at least I felt like they were trying though

well

,.... except for that just one really annoying guy

who existed for,... zany comedy?

@trogdor I feel like that was the "doing well as a hated character" role; though some would argue it wasn't difficult for the actor.

A major problem with Community is that I can literally think of five different people you might be thinking of.

@BESW well ok yes but this guy was like, the avatar of that

he seemed to only speak in a yell and only ever say the most ridiculous thing possible in any situtuation

Including the viewpoint character, which is a common thing I dislike about Dan Harmon creations: they're about how the whiny abusive white guy Is Sad And Needs Love so everybody should give him a second/third/umpteenth chance no matter how much he hurts them.

I'm not sure exactly what else of Dan Harmon's stuff I have seen

6:15 AM

Rick & Morty?

I know he also worked on Rick and Morty but I have just,... avoided that show

yeah that one doesn't count because I have never watched it

AND I already know he worked on it XD

Those are the two big things he had a lot of creative influence on.

well then I would venture to say I haven't seen anything of his that particularly impressed me then

XD

Dan Harmon's stuff is very hit and miss

I don't want to insult anyone who's watched Rick and Morty, and I literally have only seen like, a couple clips from it, but the impression I got was that it was juvenile humor that was trying to look like "smart" humor

again, that's having not really seen it at all

6:22 AM

I don't think I've seen anything of his besides Community

And even that is non-specific. For example you might be able to appreciate what they are doing, with the sub-plots etc; and then on the other hand, you get the szechuan sauce fiasco.

Community however,... I don't even really know what to say about it

though earlier tonight, I did watch the entertaining table read they did to raise money for charity

@V2Blast That was fun, yeah

(with Pedro Pascal playing the role of the executor of Pierce's will)

6:24 AM

@Ben did the show really do anything that,... precipitated that or could it be chalked up to the fans being,... not great about it on their own?

@BESW but yeah, I will say,.... that got old fast, the guy who kept being a jerk but kept being rewarded for it or forgiven for it or patted on the back for being "clever"

@trogdor And as it went on, they did it not just with Jeff, but with Pierce too and even more egregiously.

@BESW I have only seen a few episodes of Locke & Key (and read none of it, though I had been thinking of doing so... sounds like I'd be better off spending my time & money elsewhere). I like the side-character with the prosthetic legs. At first I wondered if they'd just CGI'd them like with Kingsman, but I looked him up and they're real.

@BESW I think I saw some of that in the DND episode?

@trogdor Yup.

And it's especially egregious because they'd have other characters, especially women, who existed for guys to stand up to and say "I'm not gonna let you bully me" and then the women vanished from their lives.

eeww

nice double standard

6:30 AM

@Adeptus Yeah, I wanna see what else Eric Graise is in.

@BESW Only 7 credits so far (IMDB)

yeah, he seems to also have a number of theater credits.

@trogdor I am one of the former people - a lot of the stuff they do is just exacerbated nonsense, with an ever-present theme of the inevitability of death and the futility of certain life practices/behaviors etc.

The latter is just fans that think the show is cool and anything that Rick says is Gospel.

I.e. the takers of the "which Rick/Morty are you?" facebook app "tests"

mm

6:59 AM

On a lighter topic, I just made 100k for my business, with more to come :D

To be more specific, I have received the PO for the job that will make me said money - acquiring it will rely on the confirmation of everything lol

Grats!

It means I'll actually get paid for once :P

that is good

especially right now

One of the few benefits of software development - there's no reason to stop working. Lol

(next Expanse book is supposedly coming out this year, but it doesn't have a title yet so... no, it's not coming out this year.)

7:11 AM

lol

@Ben What kind of work do you do?

@gszavae Jack of all Trades I.T

Software development, networking, general IT (sftware and hardware), etc

ARTEFACT by Jack Harrison is a story game for one player, of legendary items & transient heroes, designed for contemplative solo play.

@Ben I see, what industry? Any interesting projects?

@gszavae So far the main focus has been the Engineering industry.

7:14 AM

VOLUME by Viditya Voleti is a small collection of system-agnostic supplementary resources, drop-in content for any fantasy roleplaying game setting.

The Frozen Province by Roll 4 Tarrasque is a low-level crawl through the unnatural cold.

@Ben Solid industry to be in.

@Ben Nice!

I'm 0retty excited :D

8:17 AM

user image

New tactic for Ultimate Werewolf

8:33 AM

MST3K: Werewolf - The Werewolf Song

8:44 AM

user image

@BESW I'm bein' followed my a moon shadow

9:00 AM

That took me a second XD

2 hours later…

10:39 AM

TIL matte paintings used to be used to cover open ceilings on film sets where the ceilings of rooms would be left open for lights and boom mikes and such.

AncientSwordRage

10:57 AM

@BESW not sure I follow, how do you paint over a hole?

a painting, as in like a physical painting

I assume

that would cover a hole fine, in fact some people use/used to use them to cover safes?

maybe that is what he means anyway

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