Come on y'all... There's about 20 or so 10-comment discussion threads just from the last day. Please don't debate in comments. We will have to delete more aggressively till people get the hint. We prefer to prune much later but you can't read the answers for the tangential arguments.

Come here to chat, debate all you want.

@mxyzplk In the last day we had a lot of questions from people without the rep to join in chat; that may be related?

I was thinking about how one would "revive" an old question if they didn't have sufficient rep, too. Supplying a junk answer just to bring it to the main page seems like it wouldn't be all too great and new users can't comment, either.

That's the way the system is designed - those new users need to keep it together long enough to answer a question/ask a question/show they know how to participate right.

But it "takes two to tango" - these comment threads wouldn't last long if they weren't being fed by high rep users.

@willardthor hey, if you take a look at that whirling dervish class, I'd love feedback!

@mxyzplk fair enough

@mxyzplk couldn't agree more

I dunno which threads are being talked about. I participated in a few refine-the-question type comment threads that I would've moved to chat if the primary subject were able.

@Brian Ballsun-Stanton regarding my question that was closed, your comment said to "scope it to a domain that could be researched" what do you mean by that? And any advice on actually doing it?

hi]

bit late will talk tomorrow if I have time :P

@Jonn_Underwood Sure.

@Jonn_Underwood Well, so "Does roleplaying help X?"

@Jonn_Underwood Oooh, lovely question. Perhaps we could chat it up and see if something question-scoped comes out.

...you know, when I'm not just on a break from teaching.

I need to rework my question.

@BESW You gave me exactly the sort of answer I'm after. There's lots to work in there, lots of mental prompts for the sorts of things I need to look for.

Sardathrion's response is: "be consistent and make sure things are relevant." Those are good considerations, but they don't give me anything practical to work with and apply, they're just constraints to bear in mind on the things I do consider.

Ichoran's response is also helpful in its way, I guess! Examining other work and considering what got its environment there is pretty good. Doesn't give me much to work with and apply, but it gives me a way to figure out what to work with and apply.

Well, your question is thus:

> How can I create this kind of terrain? Are there step-by-step guides, or at least some precepts I should keep in mind? What does the process look like?

Those answers aren't really addressing it; however, they're addressing the title of your question.

Also... Tolkien's world was originally designed as a historical backdrop for the languages he invented in his spare time. It's a deep and complex world, but conceived without much thought to the stories that might take place in it.

This is why his plots often seem episodic (much of The Hobbit) or are forgotten for entire chapters. It's a great place to hear about, but not a place I'd want to have an adventure in: the world doesn't have room for new heroes or new stories. Heroes and stories change the status quo, and the world was designed to reach a specific point and then stop.

The key to RPG worldbuilding is to make a world with room for the PCs, and to do it using shorthand instead of spending a decade building all the details.

RPG worlds need spaces for heroes to fill.

@BESW But does it depict a great sort of environment in the process?

I imagine I could learn how to create that without necessarily funnelling players toward a point.

@JonathanHobbs Sure, but do you really want to spend the lifetime he did on one campaign setting?

Actually, maybe not. In a book, he details what's important to the plot: in an RPG, you need space, alternate things. There's not just one path down into the caves, etc.

@JonathanHobbs This is an important point, and why many campaigns based on books are unfulfilling: their worlds were designed to further that plot, not ours.

And now, I dine.

@JonathanHobbs yep. Otherwise every NPC with a fancy name will be tagged as "plot," same with environments

I hope you don't mind I used your answer as a direct reference.

@BESW ping, also

It's relephant that Sard posted his answer specifically in order to counter my "art, not science" opening... and yet failed to provide the replicable procedures which his assertion that it is a science implies exist.

That hadn't occurred to me

If anything, his best argument that it's a science is my own post.

@Rob Hi!

@Brian Ballsun-Stanton So would "how does role playing help acedemiclly?" be a more appropriate question?

@Jonn_Underwood academically how? like to help students study/do better in school? The problem I see is that you're asking a massive question. The question you have to ask yourself is "what do I want to learn" and go from there. If the answer is "all of the benefits of roleplaying" then you need to break it down further from there, think about it more and decide to focus on an aspect of those benefits "what are the social benefits of roleplaying" though that may still be too broad.

I was thinking about "what are the social benefits of roleplaying ?" instead but I thought it would be to broad.

@Jonn_Underwood can you think of a more focused aspect of sociology that interests you that might benefit from roleplaying?

although when you narrow it down to social that's at least researcheable

@waxeagle so i didn't get to finish playing with it, but the exe assassin is by far better than the regular assassin

@DForck42 definitely

the regular assassin has sucky at-wills and no MBA to back them up :(

btw, g'monrin

@DForck42 g'morning. heck, I consider char-op to be the 1st 2nd 3rd 4th best good mornign there is...

@waxeagle heh

so what r u up to?

@DForck42 not much, gotta meet with the boss later about some UI stuff on a feature that's been done for a couple weeks, and have another one that's in the always arduous "finishing touches" stage

but mostly between projects.

And we've got our final battle in our current module gearing up for tomorrow night. That's going to be very fun. I'm looking forward to trying to Iso and lock down some critters that like to stun people.

we know for sure that we'll see at lest 2 grell's and a grell philosopher in our next battle (they escaped from our previous battle) and they have a standard to grab and a minor to stun that's oh so fun.

@waxeagle i'm kinda working on reports, kinda not doing much, trying to keep myself busy and failing

@DForck42 I hear yah, this week has mostly been putting out fires, but there haven't really been any fires

I spent a day and a half on a formatting bug that turned out to be someone with their browser zoomed in...

don't you just love end users =o)

@Phil /me slams head into desk

I used to be a code monkey

I know how it feels :o)

@Phil I'm happier designing features tbh. I don't mind coding and enjoy a good challenge, but testing, testing gets my goat.

testing is one of the most boring tasks in the known universe as far as I'm concerned

@Phil unfortunately it's also one of the most important

yep

@waxeagle heh

@DForck42 Granted there was a formatting issue there, I fixed it, but the fix was to use a set width for a column, FF scales that width when you zoom, guess who doesn't :(

@waxeagle that dmaned thing? ;-)

@DForck42 the one that should burn in whatever your $diety chooses to call fiery pits? yeah that one :)

lmao

I'd like to make a page like the D&D encounter calculator, only with distances by sea, land, air and different spells based on the EL... I have a concept, I lack the knowledge

The aim would be calculating travel times on a D&D 3.5 map

Anyone knows which progrmming language is necessary to du such a thing in a webpage? Is php required?

@Zachiel php is never required

you can do the same things you do in php with html only?

you could do it in .net, or there are options like Ruby, and some other frameworks out there. You could even do it in javascript/jquery

@Zachiel depends on how much you want to do on the backend and how much you want to do on the front end.

or Java

?

Depending on how many options there are you could probably do the wholething on the client side

I'd like to use it for a website I play in

and then you're just dealing with html and javascript/jquery

and you probably don't even need jquery.

I'd like it to be a resoursce on their site where I open up a pop-up window, select options from a scroll menu and get an answer

@Zachiel then you probably need to know what they've written their site in, and after that you can make some better design decisions. From what you're talking about, I'd say you could probably get away with some server side stuff populating the dropdown and then from there it's all javascript.

I suppose it's php, with some flash menus

taking a closer look, not sure about the flash menus, the loading animation is a gif

however, the calculator is not going to load data from any existing part of the website

@Zachiel is there enough data that it's worth not just hardcoding it? is it likely to change?

New locations could be added to the map, so new distances would need to be set on - I guess - a table

ah, so you've got a need for some kind of database going on.

New spells could be taken from some maual that's not implemented yet, also

that means you'll need to invest in server side stuff. But there is no reason not to load it all and let the client side do most of the work.

distances are not calculated on a map, google maps style

you have any experience with javascript?

really scarce

actually....ajax you're gonna have to partial postback to get the distance once the target and dest are set

because you're not going to load the whole map structure to the client

no, I'm gonna have a two-entry table with distances

so you have two DDLs to start, start and end. The onChange for both of them does a partial postback and gets the distance between them if they both have values.

maybe a three entry with one variable set to "by land/by air/by sea..."

oh right, because dist varies by travel method :(

and some spells have different travel methods based on EL

so yeah, you'll need to do the partial postback after travel method is shown, and in that case you'll do the whole calc on the serverside..

or you might as well do a full post back if you're going to use the value elsewhere

like phantom steed becoming able to ignore difficult terrain, then walks on water, then flies...

and now you're getting into why this is a complicated problem :)

I'll be partially away from now on

@Jonn_Underwood No. Too broad. Okay, this is a clear case of "Have you done your research?"

Specifically: What have you already reviewed and what questions did it bring up?

Otherwise it's Shark v. Gorilla Start with maybe IJRP if you're interested in RPG theory, or some of the other literature, find a specific benefit in that literature, and ask about that specific benefit.

This is a question of standing: why are you asking this specific question.

The closer you can come to your situation, described in a general case, the better.

@WorldEngineer is there a trope for that?

Hi

@Tank Hey!

You know much about pathfinder BESW?

Only what I've gleaned from some of the questions here.

so if I was to ask you to help me build a character could you?

Probably not a good idea; I've got little idea what's different between PF and 3.5.

k

Let's see if I can summon someone like @Lord_Gareth or @KRyan.

ok

It's unlikely; wrong time of day. Sorry I can't be much more help.

do you know when they will be on?

Most people don't keep clear schedules. However, if his chat profile is anything to go by, Gareth might show up in an hour or two.

ook

@BESW well that's interesting

this is the only day of the week I'm available around now

though dinner's in a few minutes

what's up?

@KRyan I gain one extra die of Summon SE Member!

oh, Pathfinder?

uuh

@Tank is it 3.5 + Pathfinder or strictly just Pathfinder?

Hey, you give the impression you know it, even if you don't like it.

cuz I don't know much about the latter, and in fact strongly recommend against it

@BESW I know it in the sense that very little of substance has changed

but a full build tends to rely on details that may have

Give tank an @ with that question.

well, looks like I won't get him before dinner

but I'll be back after

Aight. Can you recommend someone else who might be able to help?

Gareth knows more than I do because he's more invested in ranting about it than I am; he actually looks stuff up to back up his arguments against it

aside from that, not really

Paizo and its fans (read: forum members) have a history of being antagonistic to people who, ya know, care about mechanics, which means a lot of the people I'd ordinarily nominate for this kind of thing have avoided it

yup, dinner time

be back later

@shatterspike1 Hi!

Hello