DampeS8N

docs.google.com/document/d/…

So, I've been working on a 5E Hardcore Multi-group Survival Island Module for a few months. It is free, fun and there is a set of google-sheet tools with maps and randomizers y'all might dig.

@Pixie I mean burrowing under them and popping up like whack-a-mole.

And it goes from silly to horrifying when they start popping up under them.

They could just be called the Badger Brigade and the PC's assume it is a nickname. Then they get bowled over by an army of halflings riding dire badgers. That could work.

Hmm

Went from goofy to serious real fast.

Example of something I did in the same vein. I had them encounter a bunch of dwarf stonemasons armed only with mallets and chisels. They started tossing the chisels at them (the party being almost entirely in plate) and the chisels just sort of stuck to the armor dealing no damage. Then the dwarves rolled up on them and started pounding the chisels through the armor dealing huge amounts of damage.

@Shalvenay I agree, though I was hoping to set it up so that everyone thinks it is just a joke and then encounter it and only on dealing with it themselves do they really get it. Sort of how new players don't really take rust monsters or gelatinous cubes seriously until they have to cope with them.

@kviiri I've had this happen only 3 times in my campaigns (all other times were within easy access to ways to revive the dead such as spells other PCs had) and we handled it these ways. 1) The character temporarily inhabited another PC's sword and whispered to him. 2) The PC took over an NPC that was travelling with the party and got that NPC killed shortly after. 3) The PC got to play the monsters in all the combats until they got revived and was brutal.

@BESW How does this become terrifying?

@Pixie Dire Geese, pretty terrifying to begin with. But somewhat humorous.

I need something for halflings to ride that on initial blush is goofy and hilarious but upon encountering becomes the most terrifying thing anyone has ever witnessed. Ideas?

@Sejanus Keep on keepin' on. I just had the rules typed up and figured someone might want em other than just me.

@Sejanus This one is about 3 pages. I have been successfully using an older version of it for about a year now in a long running weekly campaign. Though doing so required a little more setup on the part of me as the GM than you might have with your basic anything RAW goes D&D campaign. But no more than would be needed for a class/race restricted themed campaign.

There is also a completely untested conversion kit for including D&D stuff in it which I offer no promises about being functional or complete.

If any of you guys are looking for a micro-rpg with shades of FATE and roll for shoes in it: I've put together a new version of the one I've been playing with for the last year.

I'd wipe the comments clean

@Sklivvz Much better. claps

Yes, we handed in both the code and the compiled exe. So he knew the application worked.

He didn't know it was possible to do it using the code I provided and it didn't compile in his (different from the class) compiler because it treated Getch() differently. F

I can sum up college like this. In my C++ 101 class at Penn College, the professor wanted us to make a race track application that accepted input like A B C with enter from lists of choices. I ordered the list by most-selected option and let the user use the arrow keys or the letter to jump to the option the wanted and just to hit enter to select.

You either can solve the problems or you can't. I've been trying for years to put it in more concrete terms than this with no progress.

That my father worked for NASA at the time and pestered my first boss to hire me part time. That's much more important. And that I immediately started working full time and got more done than the 4 other people working there while making half as much as one of them is more to the point.

That I flunked out of UARTS and Penn College of Technology before finally getting it online from The University of Advancing Technology, one of those Arizona degree mills, is also besides the point.

That mine took 5 years is besides the point

the most general and probably worthless 2 year degree you can get

@Oddthinking Associates of Arts

Guys who hired me to work on ESO thought the game design degree with cute but it didn't factor into me getting hired. Being able to explain why var this = 105 + "1"; is "1051" in javascript was a much bigger factor.

@georgechalhoub I have an AA in game design I got online after bouncing from school to school for 5 years. I went right into working for NASA then on Army.mil and finally made the patcher/downloader for Elder Scrolls Online and this marketing site. elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/esotu Degrees don't mean a lot to me. :)

:P

@georgechalhoub That crap is like a billions pages long. TL;DR

It is some combination of there being a natural ability required for being a good programmer, meaning that more graduates and more education doesn't mean there are more good programmers and/or that the training we are giving isn't sufficient and/or that old-gangsta programmers want their wild west while the landscape is increasingly changing to one with ordered solutions to common problems being off-the-shelf and they don't want to give up the control or the pay. It is a messy messy thing.

@georgechalhoub Better, but it still leaves "quality software developers" undefined. A better question would really look like this: "Are there large numbers of open positions in software development despite there being many more graduates in computer science to fill them?" to verify if the problem exists. The question of why that might be could be a follow up, but I suspect it doesn't really have a clear answer.

And to remind @Sklivvz that chat exists and he should bring anything over about 3 comments here next time. ;)

It is a tough situation. I know. Imagine trying to untangle it when 8 people have slightly different understandings of what an Elf is. I'm just trying to be helpful and stop something like this from happening again if I can. :)

The options should at that point be to either edit the question yourself based on what you feel the consensus of definitions are and ask all answers to address all definitions. Or to close the question. Even if it is upvoted highly.

That's a hard place to be. I'm sorry.

@Sklivvz I see

@Sklivvz the definition needs to come from the question, or at least the question needs to state what definitions are possible and answers should address them all.

I have a good bit of experience with questions that have these kinds of deeply embedded poor assumptions from being a protem mod of Science Fiction and Fantasy. You can imagine why. Whenever people bring their own definitions for things to the party, the answers start going wildly in divergent directions. It'll happen again. The solution then was to close it and ask the OP for clarity. I'd imagine it is the same solution here and now. :)

@Sklivvz I'm more concerned with what to do with the next question that pops up like this

@georgechalhoub I agree with you. Which is why this question should have been closed at first pending specific definitions of quality. Or rephrased to address the real concern of there being so many open positions with no candidates.

Now is too late. :)

But I mean as soon as the question was noticed and comments were flying a bid for clarification should have been made before it was too late.

@Sklivvz I don't know the order of events.

Does that seem like the right course of action to you as well?

Now. When I came to chat today. I was hoping we might be able to find a way to avoid long conversations in chat or comments like ours to get to this. Mainly by having the mods close the question and ask the asker for more clarity.

:)