The Gaming Den

So I'm playing a technomancer in an SR4 game that's starting up, and am trying to get my DM to adopt TEOTM. Am I correct in thinking that "B" powers don't work on technomancers, but "D" and "B&D" do?

.. that's not what I'm shocked by (seriously, I hoped you would recognize at least a modicum of education on my part) It's the fact that someone actually mentioned it. I had entertained the idea, but thought no, who would run a complex AI bot on some random gaming forum? 1: Not everyone who's educa...

So yeah, Elennsar basically fails the Turing test. *snip* The "Turing Test" is a test for artificial intelligence devised by Alan Turing (who is pretty awesome for other reasons as well). Basically, you have a person interview an AI over some communication channel that doesn't make it obv...

Wait, why do you care if Fred is really your friend? Because if he isn't and gets charmed, he may be a legitimate threat to you. That can in turn affect your best choice of positioning or action. I'm working from the "friendly" versus "indifferent" distinction. You don't necessa...

If Fred was originally your friend and is charmed by the enchantress, then he is both of your friends and probably wants you all to stop trying to kill each other. If you then cast charm person on him, then he is... still both of your friends. It's like casting remove fear on a core paladin - the sp...

You can survive a loss, yes. The probability calculations get more complicated if a loss doesn't mean death and has a meaningful penalty, but the compounding still happens. After several "levels" (sets of 13 battles) the probabilities of the world not exploding due to not stopping the doom...

I understand how probability works. What I don't understand is why -after winning one fight-, winning another is any more or less challenging It isn't. That is, in fact, exactly what everyone is saying. Think of it like this: If you have a 50% chance of winning any given combat (regardless of how e...

Actually, since in that case fireball only needs to be changed, you don't need to make it better. Ceasing to exist is a change. That would satisfy the requirement "If fireball is a third-level spell, it needs to be equal to all other third-level spells".

It would seem to me like Monsters should get some blaster-y abilities, or blasters should be able to look like monsters. Trogdor needs to be able to burninate the countryside somehow, after all, and he can't do that if Burninate is restricted to blasters. Of course, a fire mage might well be a magi...

Coming up with stuff at work yay. Comet Punch Speedster You strike at the opponent with a blur of fists, dealing Speed damage. Multiple attacks? Binding Strands Monster, Sorceror Tendrils of Shadow tie the target to the nearest surface and leave them entangled . Net Launch Gadgeteer,Suit You launch ...

If the tomes covered general game design, I'd be more interested. When they're "setting your game so everyone is at the 'can do ridiculous shit' level", what are people who would like to see less of that supposed to do? Pretend that we don't get to have opinions on how the game should be ...

Secondly, whenever anyone says "Your game is not art", I say to them "Who the fuck do you think you are, telling me how to play my games?" I play games in tons of ways, from simple DnD hackfests to roleplaying heavy games of My Life With Master, and if I want to try to create fr...

If you were writing a game about King Arthur and his Knights, you actually WOULD be suggesting that each class is one individual - unless you're suggesting that there are the "King Arthur" and "Knight" classes (or just the "Knight" class at which point you're going clas...

2) This: "anything not from the PHB has to pass my inspection for mechanics and flavor" Makes you a terrible DM. Not retarded, because rational retards can make fine DMs, but when you say that, it doesn't actually mean that, it means: "I hate things, all things, and so I'm going to m...

The goal of this re-write was to create a transformative class that turns you into an Unliving Tank while letting you have an army of the dead. Fvck the alignment restriction if it doesn't have a code of conduct - unless all negative energy itself's evil, as per ToF. Well, I'd be lying if I said I ...

EDIT: N.B. SoW (which is still HUUUGE on my side) needs a measurement but Emotion doesn't? Or are we going to use some of the real world equivalents such as pop psychology tests such as EQ and Emotional Deviations and all that other creations of the crazy 90s bored psychopomp psychiatrists? It's an...

Giving a Hare Krishna a buck because he gave you a rose may be an ingrained social reflex, but it's not scary because you could choose not to respond. Giving a Hare Krishna a buck because you've been drugged/brainwashed to such an extent that you cannot refuse is damn scary. I used the example to d...

I expect photocopied scrolls wouldn't work, based on the expectation that what you write with is as important as what you write (since ordinary spellbooks need you to use a spell slot while scrolls don't, I expect scrolls are made of something to "store the magic" - probably the ink). Alth...

I have yet to see any kind of D&D instantaneous mind control or anything close to it. Are you actually arguing that because D&D has a social system that has instantaneous mind control, any system that has mind control has to have it be instantaneous? Cuz that's what I'm seeing here. And eve...

I'm fairly certain that a nuke-zone is not fun for longer than a couple of minutes. Doesn't planar adaptation solve that as long as some plane resembles our sun (which's said to be the case in many a setting)? Pretty sure planar adaptation doesn't protect you from non-planar effects. So the fact th...

In real life, there are actual ways to manipulate people into doing things that are genuinely horrible and which the person, if you asked them beforehand, would say is completely against their nature. It usually takes a while, but it really does come down to a "successful Diplomacy check"....

If you do actually take a sword or weapon of any kind, make sure you have all necessary licences and documentation of ownership, and that the weapon is an "art object". This goes back to the "Try really hard not to break any laws while you're there".

That feat's wording is... kinda weird. The way I read it, you're dumping ranks in Concentration to be able to replace... your Concentration checks with Intimidate checks. That seems pretty much entirely counterproductive, since you could presumably just dump those ranks in Intimidate. If you actuall...

On the half-elves: While I definitely agree that half-elves need some shinier things, the "choose three of (stuff from elves or humans)" is too much - it makes the half-elf completely overshadow its parent races. Choosing both elf traits and the human bonus feat, and removing common traits...

Edit: Not that I think being a "professional" is in itself meaningful without demonstrated skill, since really it only means that you get money in return for doing something. Actually professional means that you do it for a living, which is different from saying that you get paid for doin...