TRPG General Chat

@Rubiksmoose A household automated cleaning appliance crossed with a spiky tropical shrub.

XD

My goodness I would buy one.

I would play one in a TRPG.

@Rubiksmoose At Uni it was 1 part rum to 1 part sambuca, after Uni, one of my biggest regrets

@BESW I would play a TRPG where all the characters were droids maintaining a large ship

there has to be a TRPG where all the characters are explicitly ones who'd normally be behind the scenes

Sambuca

Sambuca (Italian pronunciation: [samˈbuːka]) is an Italian anise-flavoured, usually colourless, liqueur. Its most common variety is often referred to as white sambuca to differentiate it from other varieties that are deep blue in colour (black sambuca) or bright red (red sambuca). Like other anise-flavoured liqueurs, the ouzo effect is sometimes observed when combined with water. == Ingredients == Sambuca is flavoured with essential oils obtained from star anise, or less commonly, green anise. Other spices such as elderflower, liquorice and others may be included, but are not required as per the...

Ah yes, I can see how that could be problematic

(I'm not a fan of anise flavor at all)

1:16 PM

I love it...too much

Well at 38%+ ABV before adding the rum I can see how this would have been an issue

It's pretty much straight shots.

o/

\oo//

(interesting you don't see too many liqueurs with that high of ABV)

@Rubiksmoose regrettably not drunk in shot glasses :|

1:20 PM

@Rubiksmoose If you like anise-flavored liquors, i'd highly recommend Raki from Turkey.

I dont have covid!

@ThomasMarkov woohoo!!!

isn't that swab fun?

It turns out the swab doesn't need to be so invasive

but they didn't know that initially

@NautArch yeah, I had a normal swab. Swirled it around in my nostrils a bit. My doctor said, "Dont worry, this isnt the one that will stab your brain."

darnit, i got the brain stab

1:26 PM

@ThomasMarkov yay!!!

So the question about diamonds sizes has been a bit of an enigma to me.

@AncientSwordRage oh deary

Two players of mine died last night. First big death in Tomb of Horrors. I was starting to wonder why they all said it was so deadly.

I'm gonna re-draw the illustration and probably find a thinner typeface, but proof of concept:

@NautArch It's interesting to me that anise is such a prevalent flavor for liquor.

@BESW OMG I love it

1:28 PM

@ThomasMarkov why's that?

@NautArch It seemed like an odd question to have gotten as much attention as it did.

@NautArch you mean characters?

@BESW thats perfect, I'd be hesitant for you to change it

@ThomasMarkov ah, yeah. Obvious answer is obvious, so it's strange to have so much.

@AncientSwordRage yeah. Characters. yeah.

:D

lol

Phew.

1:30 PM

And also I think my answer fell victim to "upvoted answer appears first bias"

mmhmm

iPersonally, I don't think the in-game example are relevant to a general question.

Maybe I'm missing some perspective, but my answer seems clearly superior to the highest upvoted answer in every way I can imagine.

@ThomasMarkov ah yeah. The fastest gun "feature"

@Rubiksmoose Not quite, my answer had more upvotes for a while.

oops misunderstood I think

1:31 PM

I upvoted both, but I like daveman's answer better for it's simplicity.

And then somewhere the other one just got a bunch that mine didnt.

Well c'mon if we're gonna talk about your answer, link for the lazy?

Here: rpg.stackexchange.com/a/174770/62294

@BESW pretty! I don’t think it needs a thinner typeface at all

Thanks :) I know I read it before but I don't remember it exactly.

1:32 PM

@NautArch Last time I had Raki was in Greece, but it was not quite like ouzo in anise taste. o/ Heck, I just realize it was 24 years ago. Man I'm old. Tsikoudia ~ raki I had it in Crete. It's strong like Wild Turkey.

Also may have something to do with HNQ voting patterns as it almost certainly hit it.

@KorvinStarmast yeah, the greek version definitely has a different flavor. The time I spent in turkey gave me a taste for it (although being a teetotaler now means I haven't had it in over a decade)

I just added a few things, but mine included actual citations to two different sources, Daveman's included one without an actual citation, just "its in this book"

@ThomasMarkov To me, the citations make your answer less attractive.

@NautArch Dont be shallow, my answer has personality.

2

1:34 PM

Because those diamonds may be a certain size, but that's a specific thing. Generally, Daveman's answer addresses the core.

Brevity is sometimes valuable/valued, easier to digest and/or more to the point (doesn't bury the important bits)

And gemstones really do have a wide range of values that aren't as dependent on size.

carats are important, but the other things moreso

@Someone_Evil This. I struggle with this balance point a lot. Tend to write too much.

@NautArch I tried to emphasize what the rules care about and leave the rest to the DM for worldbuilding.

@ThomasMarkov DOn't the rules just care about value?

I just don't see the need or the relevance of specific examples.

1:37 PM

When I was thinking about this question I thought of a couple examples (though maybe just because I'm old now). But asking how big is an $X diamond makes as much sense as asking how big an $X house is or how fast an $X car is, which is to say, not much sense without a whole lot more context.

^^

@NautArch Essentially, yes.

Which makes the specific items not really relevant

How big is that diamond is answered. But not how big they are in general. That's answered by daveman much more clearly and succinctly.

Like my house value in Michigan would probably rent me a studio apartment in LA XD

This is also solidly in the field of Economics made to fit game-play and not to make the world make sense

1:40 PM

Feb 20 '13 at 12:41, by BESW

D&D economics is based solely on unusual edge cases (adventurers) not seen in the wider economic market.

Q: How much will studying magic in an academy cost?

similar in issue to this question:

17

Here is why I ask this question: I want to create a wizard character that goes to the best magic school in the Eberron settings (which I will also be playing in): the Arcanix. But, I want to say in his background that he has a large debt that he accrued to pay for his studies. I wanted to find ...

@BESW did you just remember a single relevant sentence you said seven years ago?

@ThomasMarkov It has been quoted more than once

@ThomasMarkov we call that the BESW effect.

I know I've spoken on D&D economics several times, so I did a quick search and picked one that seemed appropriate.

1:42 PM

BESW: rolls nat 20 on history check for a total of 37

"D&D economics" is a bit of an oxymoron

This one would've worked, too:

Jan 23 '15 at 0:47, by BESW

The D&D "economics" conundrum is a great example of how systems are designed to facilitate certain kinds of gameplay. Money in D&D represents adventuring agency, rather than economic agency. Playing Lawyers & Ledgers in that system just isn't gonna hold together.

@ThomasMarkov Anyways I think both of your answers are good and helpful and they have an appropriate amount of upvotes. I understand the frustration that comes with being outvoted when you believe your answer is better though. I definitely can empathise

@BESW Acquisitions Incorporated sort of tried to take it in this direction.

@ThomasMarkov AD&D 1e had some supplemental tables in re gem stones (where you'd go up and down in size or value based on a die roll) that would be more useful in answering the question under discussion. But the question is for 5e, and their general take is "as big as the narrative needs it to be" - which is IMO the best answer. But I doubt anyone who is splitting hairs on this cares for that answer.

1:45 PM

@Rubiksmoose Dont get me wrong, it isnt frustration as much as it is curiosity into the sociology of voting. The voting patters on that question were pretty unique when compared to what I usually observe.

@ThomasMarkov That makes sense as well :)

I'm still intrigued by the magic zune

I joined the elite ranks of users with the Epic badge the other day

also, i miss my zune

I think it's a dupe ... thoughts?

1:51 PM

@KorvinStarmast rofl yes

@KorvinStarmast ha

yup

@ThomasMarkov alternatively, im not sure the second answer in this question isn't better than mine and deserves the check.

@NautArch Both good answers, thought the second one feels like how I do it with my Warlock.

@KorvinStarmast yeah, when they put theirs up, I immediately upvoted it.

THe only 'problem' is that you can actually do all and not just pick one.

@NautArch yeah, it is situational, as a few of the other answers point out. Which takes us to your "there is no one right way to do this" theme, which I agree with.

But resource management is a huge part of D&D. figuring out what works for you personally is part of the fun for me.

1:57 PM

@BESW I wonder if there is a stack exchange that could answer this question?

What question?

How do adventurers effect histortic economics

@AncientSwordRage Gold rush/boom town explanation was as good as need be, and Gygax offered that in AD&D 1e DMG as a way to explain the strange prices/pricing.

@AncientSwordRage Colonial economics!

@AncientSwordRage That was a retcon, more or less, since GP had originally been a way of keeping score. 1 GP = 1 XP

From that oddity, Gygax then had to dream up "how do we find money sinks" and thus the "you don't l evel up until you pay for training" thing ...

2:04 PM

I like that question about costs for wizard schooling. Made me look up what the cost for going to school would be in a more comparable time frame, like the 1400's

Which, incidentally, was actually $0

@RevenantBacon in what society?

University of Oxford

in the 12-1400's was entirely supported by the government and the church

And why is Oxford in the 1400s equivalent? And not something in another culture?

During that time or another.

THe problem is in choosing oxford as an example.

Because the majority of D&D settings are based on medieval Europe, not modern day Massachusetts

But you could take any university from Europe at that time period and have a similar situation

The reason I picked Oxford is because we know it specifically was around in the 1400's.

And as another comparison, the cost of going to Oxford today for someone from the UK is roughly 1/4 the cost of someone from the US going to Harvard, or 1/2 the cost of Harvard for someone from outside the country for both schools

Do you disagree with my reasoning?

@RevenantBacon Use University of Naples, University of Bologna, or the one in Paris.

2:15 PM

Isn't the edu in 1400 primarily towards becoming a priest? If I recall my history correctly here, the free education comes with the rider of you doing a specific job for the rest of your life, it doesn't generally make you a wizard-at-large as one might expect from wizards edu

And in general for things like; it was paid for by X, you need to ask why and see if that why still holds true in the world you're building (and I'm not sure it does for many D&D worlds)

@Someone_Evil Fields of study included: Law, Theology, Medicine, and The Arts, and that was basicaly it.

If D&D settings hewed closely enough to real-world "medieval" (a term used to span a thousand years) precedents that historical comparisons could be rigorous (which D&D doesn't do, it's mostly inspired by 20th century depictions of 19th century fiction and dramatically ahistorical material like Cimmeria), its economic frame would still be completely ahistorical.

And if that weren't the case, the kind and quality of schooling available would still be restricted by region, class, and caste; and even within that no particular single example could be representative of a thousand years of schooling across an entire continent.

@ThomasMarkov woohoo! Congrats!

Also, to be fair, if you go to school to learn a particular trade, don't you usually end up doing that for the rest of your life nowadays as well?

@RevenantBacon Usually not for the institution which paid for your education, and not by oath

2:23 PM

@BESW And paying specific attention to the matter of social class (access) and how uncommon it was ...

@RevenantBacon Apprenticeship and guilds were a whole different structure.

But yeah, D&D doesn't reference real-world European history directly; it draws on (mostly modern) fictionalized depictions. Doing that kind of research significantly changes the kind of setting that's being played.

@KorvinStarmast Well, yeah, getting in was no easy feat. Of course, it also took 6 years for a bachelors, or up to around 20 for a higher degree

goodguy5

ugh. I lent an old friend of mine (that I haven't talked to in a while) $60 for "the night" because "it was too late to cash his check" and he's been ghosting me since then. :-\

now "since" is since monday, but still

@goodguy5 :( My expectation of loaning money to friends is that you'll never see it again

if you do, bonus.

goodguy5

I've had a pretty good success rate.

we'll see

2:28 PM

@NautArch That why I never use the word "lend" or "borrow" with friends. I just hand them $5 and am like "here ya go, enjoy your McNugets"

@BESW and doing that research takes forever and usually raises more questions than it answers. Source: my history teacher’s latest lecture

@KorvinStarmast University of Paris: funded via the church (and it seems that its companion school Notre-Dame was as well). Naples: couldn't find any data. Bologna: tuition was payed by attendees.

@BardicWizard Yeah. In my D&D days I drew on my knowledge of Renaissance society that I gleaned from studying its artists, but I was always using it more as loose inspiration than direct guidance.

D&D lore isn't really supposed to all fit together tightly anyway, it's drawn from material as diverse as American detective shows, French folklore, British horror films, and a lot of really racist early 20th century novelists, all crammed in together and held together by not looking too closely at the gaps.

That means it's got room for each group to add whatever they want, and ignore most of what they don't like--except the bits which got canonized in the basic structure of the rules like Three Hearts and Three Lions, those are harder to pry out.

Is this question off topic?

feels like it is

I am surrounded by snoring dogs and now i want to take a nap.

@NautArch I VTCd.

goodguy5

2:42 PM

@NautArch yes

just as the rick and morty D&D rules would be off topic for tv and film

and some video game based rpg would be off topic for arqade

Now I'm not sure if the Dresden Files RPG would be off topic for Literature....

I mean.... the books are.... well.... books, afterall

3:08 PM

@NautArch And/or a shopping question. But should be fine in here, and frankly now I'm kinda interested

So just to not lose the suggestions, both Solasta: Crown of the Magister and Baldur's Gate 3 were mentioned in the comments

@Someone_Evil urge to super-ping rising

Who would you be doing that to?

I have also confirmed that bears do poop on the woods. Got to my trash again.

@NautArch I'm now imagining you just having a bin in the middle of a glade

@Someone_Evil the OP of the closed question who you invited to chat

3:21 PM

@Gnudiff found their way in, so we can just use a normal ping to welcome them. Hi :)

Oh cool!

I failed my perception check

Let's say they succeeded their Stealth check. Focus on the positive :p

@Someone_Evil ha!

3:42 PM

@Someone_Evil I need to remember to check up on this more later, once I'm home from work. This looks legit.

4:52 PM

@RevenantBacon I am pretty sure that it was founded / supported by a secularist Holy Roman Emperor (Frederick II?) who explicitly was not happy that the great universities had linkages to The Church. He wanted one with fewer explicit ties. (This guy was alive around the same time as St Thomas Aquinas)

@BESW D&D lore isn't really supposed to all fit together tightly anyway If I may +1 this ...

@NautArch Thank you for answering my question from a few days ago. Brilliant! :)

@KorvinStarmast Saw the scat while picking up more trash :(

@NautArch I once flew in a squadron where our callsign was Bearcat - I see you referring to bear scat and I got a "ping from the deep recesses of my brain" there. (See also Grumman F8F Bearcat for a reference, no, I am not old enough to have flown those ..)

@KorvinStarmast Did they use to call you bear scat? That's not very nice.

@KorvinStarmast Yes, was founded in like 1088 or something, and officially chartered by the emperor in 1100 I think.

5:09 PM

Welp apparently in chem you round to 2 significant digits after the decimal point most of the time

and my brain, which is known for knowing 32 digits of pi and about 10 of e, is blown

@BardicWizard You can now safely repurpose that memory space for other useful stuff :)

@BardicWizard rule of thumb, 4 digits max

But but but but but what about precision and accuracy?

Those are important

@BardicWizard 42 digits of pi is all that is needed to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within the diameter of a hydrogen atom.

I only need to learn 10 more...

5:23 PM

@BardicWizard precision and accuracy are exactly the reasons why that many digits are not needed for 99.9% of things ;-)

@NautArch No, bear scat and bear cat sound almost alike. And that is what went "ping" in my memory unit ...

Also knowing minutiae was important as a measure of social worth in late elementary school which is why I know so many digits of pi. I only ever got beat out by one other person in terms of digits known in the entire time I was in 5th grade

@BardicWizard I won a pi recitation contest in high school

I participated in a pie eating contest in high school.

but it was on pi day

pie day is a lie, because it uses M/D/Y date format

2

5:32 PM

MMMmmmmm, pie. Literally every school I've ever been to has given out tiny pies for the students to eat on "Pi day".

You guys ever have the Table Talk pies?

the true pie day is 3141/5/9

My middle school did a pi recitation contest every year on pi day. I refused to participate every year because my school didn’t take me seriously when I called for an e day celebration

You get it in IS08601 format as well. YYYY-03-14.

The constant e is so much more useful! It shows up other places than in circles, which are very specific!!! /rant

pi approximation day is the best day 22/7

@BardicWizard pi comes up in a lot of non-circle situations

5:35 PM

Pi and e show up in pipes

@AncientSwordRage I think you're just jealous America gets pi day.

I campaigned for √2 day too, so maybe I’m just weird

@AncientSwordRage okay, that’s true, but e is so pretty....

@ThomasMarkov I mean 'American Pie' is definitely a thing

@ThomasMarkov Looking at America, there's entirely too many pi days, and it's making the population rather round.

I once celebrated tau day by eating two pies.

5:38 PM

@ThomasMarkov been there, done that

you should celebrate by eating 6.28... pies

Huh, apparently, they were bought out by Nestle.

@AncientSwordRage tau x pi day?

@RevenantBacon ugh

Yeah

the bakery is literally just down the street from my apartment tho, and the pies are still really good

¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

\

huh

Oh, there it goes

And, it's like $0.50 for a pie

5:42 PM

Also apparently when the chem teacher says “we’re converting units today” she doesn’t mean to take a ruler and start threatening the numbers until they agree to believe in whatever unit they’re supposed to be

Where's my golden ratio day eh?

Where we can talk about how people overblow what it actually is. XD

~1.62 so 16/2 so 16th of Feb?

Depending on your date system

Yeah, but I don't think you can find one that works with the american one, you'd need 16 months or 61/62 days

January 62nd obviously.

5:48 PM

That’s fair

I guess you could say 16th week of the year, then it would shift around as a date, but would always land on a Tuesday

@ThomasMarkov so that’d be somewhere around March 3rd ish?

depending on if it’s a leap year

6:28 PM

@ThomasMarkov hahaha

V2Blast

now I want pie

@V2Blast I could send you a few Table Talks. What kind of pie do you like?

Pi day (3.14) is the day before the ides of March. Also, pi and e are both in pie.

V2Blast

@RevenantBacon Apple pie is my favorite. What's Table Talks? A brand?

So are you saying we should combine the two?

6:35 PM

@RevenantBacon Sure. It's natural to have pie, isn't it?

Home made apple with Jonathan apples is my fave.

@V2Blast Yeah, they make tiny pies, like 4" diameter. Good stuff, baked local, literally down the street from my apartment. tabletalkpie.com/wp/who-we-are

V2Blast

@KorvinStarmast pie = pi*e?

@RevenantBacon oooh

:)

I rarely don't want pie :)

Peter Cooper Jr.

@RevenantBacon Wow, I've been looking for a local regular RPG game in Southern Worcester County for quite some time without a ton success. (Or at least, you know, I was doing so in the Before Times.) If you don't mind me barging in on your conversation here, any chance we've met or chatted before, and/or do you have a "group" that might meet regularly once (if?) meeting becomes a thing again?

6:52 PM

@PeterCooperJr. Odds are we haven't met, I'm not usually out and about much (even in the "Before Times"). I'm not currently in a group, and I know both of the groups I was previously in have moved to playing via Discord/Roll20

Peter Cooper Jr.

@RevenantBacon Thanks. I'm currently in an online group, but very much miss the face-to-faceness of in-person gaming, so just trying to broaden my very limited list of local gaming contacts.

Q: Are these two questions on gemstone size and value duplicates?

7:07 PM

@PeterCooperJr. Ah, gotcha. I'll try to remember you once (or IF) the pandemic dies down enough for in-person gaming to be feasible.

Peter Cooper Jr.

:)

The Oracle

1

How big is a 5,000gp diamond? and How big is a gemstone in the dmg gemstone table? These two very related questions are potentially a pair of duplicates. Rather than an open-close cycle, it seems a good idea to discuss here.

discussion specific-question duplicates

7:25 PM

I love it when a plan comes together. 👍🍺

7:42 PM

@TheOracle Answered.

Mark Wells

@Rubiksmoose I remember you asked about it: Star Trek Adventures was pretty good but it's a very rules-heavy system for a first-time GM. It felt a little like a Genesys game: lots of crunch about specific actions we can take, but also frequently telling the GM to just improvise a thing that goes right or wrong for us.

@MarkWells nice to hear that it actually happened! Just one session?

Mark Wells

@Rubiksmoose This was a pilot episode, basically

Designed as a one-shot but with hooks to turn into a larger campaign if we want

Good way to go!

Plan on going further or TBD?

Mark Wells

Everything's pretty TBD right now.

2

7:53 PM

I think that is a very true statement in general also lol

8:05 PM

I who am about to die salute you

(I have to go present in front of the class)

OOF

Well try not to die! It makes your presentation memorable, but doesn't help your grade.

RIP @BardicWizard may your memory live on in all of us

@Rubiksmoose On the bright side, if you're dead, then your grade likely doesn't matter any more (unless you're taking Necromancy classes, then being dead likely matters a LOT)!

@RevenantBacon it’s history class

@BardicWizard Ah, well if you die, then die in the knowledge that it won't be counted into your grade (probably)

8:18 PM

Meh I’d call it 50-50 chance. My teacher is awesome but can sound cruel

so if I actually die he might change my grade to prove a point

Just haunt him for a while. That'll be an easy way to get even.

@RevenantBacon hah! that is indeed one upside

8:34 PM

do we actually have a question about paying less than the listed value for costly spell components?

Like bargain bin spell components?

5,000 gp die-amond! only 50 gp!

Yeah.

I think we do FWIW.

Or as was quipped and upvoted in comments on my answer, "A cleric pleads with the rogue for a diamond to raise the fallen fighter, Here's what I got, as he produces a tiny spec that couldn't be worth more than 50gp in a marketplace. Thats far too small, I can't pay you 500gp for that! Supply and Demand, I'm the only market in 1000 miles, replies the rogue. Realizing they were in the feywild, he had no choice. He paid the 500g for the gem and cast raise dead... does it work?"

if we dont im gonna ask and self answer.