The Rod

[EmpressMaia]

I just learned the immovable rod event is a dungeons and dragons reference.

[Boot]

the actual state of current day /TG/

[EmpressMaia]

the actual state of current day /TG/

I do not know enough nerds to play d&d with

[Super Aggro Crag]

you can ask people here to play with you

[dirk_mcblade]

Just don't pick half orc.

[Ziiro]

Ttrpgs are the best hobby but the myriad of ways that human social interaction can dampen the experience means it's hard to find the right group for you

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Ttrpgs are the best hobby but the myriad of ways that human social interaction can dampen the experience means it's hard to find the right group for you

This is extremely true. The people who are too excited by the "it's a game where I can do anything" and just do the dumbest weird random shit because "you mean I can just choose to piss in this bucket and wear it as a hat?"

[Itseasytosee2me]

Don’t play 5e or the new swill subscription service those bastards at Wizards of the coast are making.

Look into other rpg systems or older editions of dnd back when they had designers who cared about making a robust and compelling system rather than finding the most optimal way to milk a cash cow.

[Jacquerel]

Play Blades in the Dark.

Lancer and ICON are pretty cool too if the bit where you make figurines hit each other is actually what you are looking for.

[Sightld2]

I am big pf2e and Lancer enjoyer. Partially 'cause Foundry has brilliantly made systems to support them and my group can't do in person.

[Super Aggro Crag]

i dont like pf2e thats just my personal onion

[RedBaronFlyer]

The only thing I know about DnD was that some people got in a fuss about Orcs and somehow came to the conclusion that black people = orcs and therefore DnD is racist.

Also that half breeds are apparently racist now as well?

[conrad]

Shrimple fact is Savage Worlds is best

I ran fantasy, dungeon crawl, Mage the fucking Ascension and WW2 commandos campaigns on the system to completion in the past few years and it's been without question the most fun I had with TTRPGs, and I've been playing with different systems for the last 13 years.

It's the perfect blend of narrativism and mechanics. Highly suggested. It's good.

[Ziiro]

The only thing I know about DnD was that some people got in a fuss about Orcs and somehow came to the conclusion that black people = orcs and therefore DnD is racist.

Also that half breeds are apparently racist now as well?

The entire discussion is a big mess. The orc one is such an ouroboros of cultural mirrors I'm not touching it. (Same as like the whole "Are goblins inherently anti-Semitic?" kind of shit, right.)

The "half breed" thing isn't so much racist - as it's doing some really weird shit of putting them on a special pedestal in the current writing ("Look at this unique and special snowflake!) as opposed to "It's a thing that happens, it's normal and the people are normal, the end"

[Fikou]

does anyone wanna play dnd

[Vekter]

Jesus, I feel old.

Here's the original thread.

[Ziiro]

Jesus, I feel old.

Here's the original thread.

There's names in that thread I recognize because I hung out with them on IRC, god help me

[Tegun]

Immovable object is immovable no matter the setting. Sounds like something I'd expect to find in Tomb of Horrors though.

[Vekter]

Jesus, I feel old.

Here's the original thread.

There's names in that thread I recognize because I hung out with them on IRC, god help me

Same. I still talk to some of them.

► Show Spoiler

Hell, I live with one of them.

[dirk_mcblade]

Is that centcom message a reference to an immovable rod then?

[Vekter]

Is that centcom message a reference to an immovable rod then?

Okay, fine. I'll explain the meme.

Immovable Rod is an item in D&D that you can activate to stick in a fixed point in space. You're supposed to use it to keep something stuck in place or use multiple of them like a makeshift ladder. It's a cool item with a history of interesting uses. The story goes that some guy's DM was being a cock and decided to take "fixed point in space" literally, making the rod immediately slam into the player who activated it because the Earth isn't stationary, it's constantly moving. This resulted in people in the thread coming up with funny scenarios and uses, such as activating one in the right place near a castle and just obliterating the walls, or a spaceship getting hit with one that'd been stuck and never unstuck.

Therefore, the immovable rods you see in-game are supposed to be rods stuck in a fixed point in space while the station moves around them. The CLANGing noise the rod makes and the Centcom announcement of "What the fuck was that?!" are direct references to the original /tg/ thread the meme spawned from.

"These... are the voyages... of the starship..."
CLANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?"

This is one of the last /tg/ memes still in game, along with one of the brain damage lines being LMAO 2CAT and the multitude of dice available in the library. There was a bug for a while where Runtime would multiply ad infinitum like Dwarf Fortress cats used to do, but that was fixed.

As for TTRPG talk, PF2E is okay. I like that it has a more interesting action economy than just "move, attack, done". I haven't played enough to really gauge it yet. I'm trying to get into Lancer and I'd like to find someone to run an Infinite Revolution game because "the immutable, infinite nature of the human spirit can conquer anything" is 100% my shit.

[dirk_mcblade]

Is that centcom message a reference to an immovable rod then?

Okay, fine. I'll explain the meme.

Immovable Rod is an item in D&D that you can activate to stick in a fixed point in space. You're supposed to use it to keep something stuck in place or use multiple of them like a makeshift ladder. It's a cool item with a history of interesting uses. The story goes that some guy's DM was being a cock and decided to take "fixed point in space" literally, making the rod immediately slam into the player who activated it because the Earth isn't stationary, it's constantly moving. This resulted in people in the thread coming up with funny scenarios and uses, such as activating one in the right place near a castle and just obliterating the walls, or a spaceship getting hit with one that'd been stuck and never unstuck.

Therefore, the immovable rods you see in-game are supposed to be rods stuck in a fixed point in space while the station moves around them. The CLANGing noise the rod makes and the Centcom announcement of "What the fuck was that?!" are direct references to the original /tg/ thread the meme spawned from.

"These... are the voyages... of the starship..."
CLANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?"

This is one of the last /tg/ memes still in game, along with one of the brain damage lines being LMAO 2CAT and the multitude of dice available in the library. There was a bug for a while where Runtime would multiply ad infinitum like Dwarf Fortress cats used to do, but that was fixed.

As for TTRPG talk, PF2E is okay. I like that it has a more interesting action economy than just "move, attack, done". I haven't played enough to really gauge it yet. I'm trying to get into Lancer and I'd like to find someone to run an Infinite Revolution game because "the immutable, infinite nature of the human spirit can conquer anything" is 100% my shit.

Bruh you could've just said yes I read the bread you linked.
I mean I won't complain about someone being thorough so it's appreciated in a way but you could've saved yourself some time.

[Ziiro]

Immovable Rod is an item in D&D that you can activate to stick in a fixed point in space. You're supposed to use it to keep something stuck in place or use multiple of them like a makeshift ladder. It's a cool item with a history of interesting uses. The story goes that some guy's DM was being a cock and decided to take "fixed point in space" literally, making the rod immediately slam into the player who activated it because the Earth isn't stationary, it's constantly moving. This resulted in people in the thread coming up with funny scenarios and uses, such as activating one in the right place near a castle and just obliterating the walls, or a spaceship getting hit with one that'd been stuck and never unstuck.

Anyway I am a dipshit and not at all into physics outside of passing interest, and this was what I could glean from google searches and using a site calculator for mass/speed energy conversions.

It's an interesting thought experiment in terms of physics, because if you consider it:

-If it's anchored on a fixed point relative to the celestial body you're on, it's fine. It's stationary as intended in relation to you.
-If it's anchored to a fixed point relative to the star you're orbiting, it's going to be stationary compared to the velocity and rotation of your planet (orbiting speed of earth is approximately 30km/s. Note that this doesn't count rotational speed) SS13 is here, presumably
-If it's anchored in a fixed point in the universe then you are dealing with galactic rotational speeds of 210km/s

An immovable rod is 2.2kgs. At those speeds the kinetic energy:
@30km/s this is 9.9x10^8 J. Roughly, per wikipedia: "1×10^8 J Kinetic energy of a 55 tonne aircraft at typical landing speed (59 m/s or 115 knots)"
@210km/s, this becomes 4.8x10^12. Roughly: "4.2×10^12 J Energy released by explosion of 1 kiloton of TNT[53][149]"

[dirk_mcblade]

Immovable Rod is an item in D&D that you can activate to stick in a fixed point in space. You're supposed to use it to keep something stuck in place or use multiple of them like a makeshift ladder. It's a cool item with a history of interesting uses. The story goes that some guy's DM was being a cock and decided to take "fixed point in space" literally, making the rod immediately slam into the player who activated it because the Earth isn't stationary, it's constantly moving. This resulted in people in the thread coming up with funny scenarios and uses, such as activating one in the right place near a castle and just obliterating the walls, or a spaceship getting hit with one that'd been stuck and never unstuck.

Anyway I am a dipshit and not at all into physics outside of passing interest, and this was what I could glean from google searches and using a site calculator for mass/speed energy conversions.

It's an interesting thought experiment in terms of physics, because if you consider it:

-If it's anchored on a fixed point relative to the celestial body you're on, it's fine. It's stationary as intended in relation to you.
-If it's anchored to a fixed point relative to the star you're orbiting, it's going to be stationary compared to the velocity and rotation of your planet (orbiting speed of earth is approximately 30km/s. Note that this doesn't count rotational speed) SS13 is here, presumably
-If it's anchored in a fixed point in the universe then you are dealing with galactic rotational speeds of 210km/s

An immovable rod is 2.2kgs. At those speeds the kinetic energy:
@30km/s this is 9.9x10^8 J. Roughly, per wikipedia: "1×10^8 J Kinetic energy of a 55 tonne aircraft at typical landing speed (59 m/s or 115 knots)"
@210km/s, this becomes 4.8x10^12. Roughly: "4.2×10^12 J Energy released by explosion of 1 kiloton of TNT[53][149]"

The DM in the OP was peak midwit because yes an immovable rod would go flying off and destroy whatever is in its path but it wouldn't necessarily be west because the solar system is orbiting a galaxy and the galaxy itself is moving in who knows what direction. It could actually plow straight down for all I know.

Also not sure if kinetic energy applies. It's immovable. It's not affected by newtonian physics and is essentially an eldritch horror. How do you calculate the force of a thing that just plows through whatever ought to otherwise be affecting it via force?

[Jacquerel]

The fact that you can have three simultaneous rods from different directions undermines the premise a little but maybe they all have different frames of reference (which is presumably also how Rod Form works)

Really what we have is more of an "unstoppable rod"

[Ziiro]

The DM in the OP was peak midwit because yes an immovable rod would go flying off and destroy whatever is in its path but it wouldn't necessarily be west because the solar system is orbiting a galaxy and the galaxy itself is moving in who knows what direction. It could actually plow straight down for all I know.

Also not sure if kinetic energy applies. It's immovable. It's not affected by newtonian physics and is essentially an eldritch horror. How do you calculate the force of a thing that just plows through whatever ought to otherwise be affecting it via force?

While it is an immovable object, what it's colliding with isn't necessarily an unstoppable force. So in theory it's something we might be able to figure out - but you're right in that me pulling the mass of the rod (huhuhuhuhuhh) is probably incorrect in my calculations. That said, using the mass of the object it's running into is also probably wrong - since the point of impact is going to be limited given the fact it's basically a baton.

I do think that the logical conclusion of this is correct though: it'll hit with a lot of energy with whatever it runs into, and SS13's rod event and spells are pretty good at showing this.

[dirk_mcblade]

I'll accept for myself that a fictional immovable rod remains within an orbital path simply because it's more funny than acknowledging the universe's scale is so large and uncaring that even joke memes are pointless to implement in a game because the rod ought to just disappear from the z level completely.

[Vekter]

The DM in the OP was peak midwit because yes an immovable rod would go flying off and destroy whatever is in its path but it wouldn't necessarily be west because the solar system is orbiting a galaxy and the galaxy itself is moving in who knows what direction. It could actually plow straight down for all I know.

Also not sure if kinetic energy applies. It's immovable. It's not affected by newtonian physics and is essentially an eldritch horror. How do you calculate the force of a thing that just plows through whatever ought to otherwise be affecting it via force?

It's kind of irrelevant, because even if the 3.5 DMG says you can just ignore the rules and do whatever, ignoring the fact that the immovable rod is clearly meant to be "an item that stays where you put it relative to yourself" sucks and he clearly only did it to fuck with his players.

[Ziiro]

Many /tg/ posts can be solved if you ask yourself "which party in this story is probably being That Guy?" and in this case, it's the GM being a dick for no reason.

[Omega_DarkPotato]

Lancer enjoyer.

YEAH LETS FUCKIN GO
LANCER #1

[Kendrickorium]

i like this thread

[Itseasytosee2me]

since motion is relative, and there isn't actually any "static background fiber of the material universe" or anything. There isn't anything different between an immovable rod and an unstoppable rod.

[Cheshify]

While Wizards of the Coast does suck. I think that it's totally fine for people to get into TTRPGs with DnD 5e. It's very easy to learn and has plenty of material. I say this even though I like pf2e more.

[Ziiro]

since motion is relative, and there isn't actually any "static background fiber of the material universe" or anything. There isn't anything different between an immovable rod and an unstoppable rod.

this is why rods colliding creates a singulo, yes.

While Wizards of the Coast does suck. I think that it's totally fine for people to get into TTRPGs with DnD 5e. It's very easy to learn and has plenty of material. I say this even though I like pf2e more.

My only issue with 5e is people trying to get it to do things its not meant to do for different game types and the whole stack kind of falls apart. If you play the game as intended with a lot of the balance ideas, it's functional but feels shitty still (Why do I suck at what I'm supposed to be good at?)

[Donglesplonge]

i play 5e because my DM likes the simplicity of it, that and you can just 5 finger discount like all the books through the use of ancient scrolls and scrawls

i'd not be adversed to trying PF2E but i'd never be able to convince anyone i know to play it because its more involved than 5e is, that and i also like the stupid batshit insane homebrew support (community wise fuck companies) that 5e gets sometimes because our DM doesn't give a shit about how broken stuff gets (he just ramps the difficulty every time) and i don't know how much support PF2E would have for such things (its probably better and i'm just stupid but still)

[dendydoom]

a classic. right up there with the peasant railgun.

[Cheshify]

My only issue with 5e is people trying to get it to do things its not meant to do for different game types and the whole stack kind of falls apart. If you play the game as intended with a lot of the balance ideas, it's functional but feels shitty still (Why do I suck at what I'm supposed to be good at?)

5e is relatively modular and I think I've never played a good 5e game without some tweaks from the DM. It can hold up to some pressure in changing balance, but it does shatter if you try to turn it into what it isn't.

[dendydoom]

5e is valuable because it brought about the modern tabletop renaissance by being streamlined and accessible enough while still focusing on storytelling rather than crunchy wargaming rules. this lead to the rise of easily digestible d&d podcasts that brought many people into the fold, where they found an easy to learn game that let them play interesting characters quickly. many people are quick to forget that prior to 5e ttrpgs were in the toilet: 4th edition was such a blunder that it almost killed the hobby. the only way to play in those dark forlorn days was to meet a shady gentleman in a back alley, hand over a crumpled fistful of bills and receive a scuffed, dog-eared and possibly bloodstained copy of pathfinder first edition.

my personal issue with 5e is that it has a low ceiling and low variance. martial rules are sparse and everything that isn't martial is just the same spellcasting but reflavoured. because of this, there are not many differences between the different subclasses outside of roleplay. the further you get past level 10, the more the game starts to take on that "world of warcraft"-ey feel where you do the same rotations of actions every round that do the most efficient amount of damage. in my personal experience this did not lend well to the feeling of an adventurer becoming stronger through an increased variety of skills, but rather the numbers just getting bigger. that being said, i do like the game. it's good for what it is, and accomplishes what it tries to do.

then again, i used to play fucking *gurps* back in the day so i shouldn't be trusted for my ttrpg opinions... 3.5e is still the best though.

[conrad]

fucking *gurps*

GURPS enjoyer spotted

GURPS is absolutely amazing and its only issue is the barrier for entry. As much as the average GURPS player (I used to be like that) will say that "you only need a few rules, man", the newbie doesn't know what to not use.

5e is fucking boring. It's great for what it did (streamlining TTRPGs), but it's sooooo boring. It's like playing in a casino.

[dendydoom]

fucking *gurps*

GURPS enjoyer spotted

GURPS is absolutely amazing and its only issue is the barrier for entry. As much as the average GURPS player (I used to be like that) will say that "you only need a few rules, man", the newbie doesn't know what to not use.

5e is fucking boring. It's great for what it did (streamlining TTRPGs), but it's sooooo boring. It's like playing in a casino.

in all honesty i have nothing but respect for gurps. i love its design: the way it uses disadvantages to add fun gameplay mechanics to characters, the way it differentiates between advantages (innate) and skills (learned), the way it understands that some skills can be attempted by untrained people and others require intrinsic knowledge which makes it almost impossible to attempt without any skill in it, the fact that over half of the skills list has absolutely nothing to do with combat so you can have very detailed and useful characters that don't even know which way to hold a sword/gun, the list goes on.

it is extremely heavy to learn though. around the time we were cracking out multiple different extended rulebooks to learn the mathematics and game mechanics required on how to calculate a long range sniper shot in certain weather conditions was when i realized that i was playing a real-ass motherfucking rpg (RAMRPG).

[dirk_mcblade]

fucking *gurps*

GURPS enjoyer spotted

GURPS is absolutely amazing and its only issue is the barrier for entry. As much as the average GURPS player (I used to be like that) will say that "you only need a few rules, man", the newbie doesn't know what to not use.

5e is fucking boring. It's great for what it did (streamlining TTRPGs), but it's sooooo boring. It's like playing in a casino.

I just spent three hours in a casino and I will not have you insult lady lucks honor

[oranges]

5e martial are so bad most of them are spellcasters now

[conrad]

fucking *gurps*

GURPS enjoyer spotted

GURPS is absolutely amazing and its only issue is the barrier for entry. As much as the average GURPS player (I used to be like that) will say that "you only need a few rules, man", the newbie doesn't know what to not use.

5e is fucking boring. It's great for what it did (streamlining TTRPGs), but it's sooooo boring. It's like playing in a casino.

I just spent three hours in a casino and I will not have you insult lady lucks honor

Nah man levels 1 through 4 on 5e are all "roll 1d20 hope for the best". That's casino play.

Then it's all fireballs and tasha's laughters and whatnot. That to me is the worst part of the system. It's a breadwich.

[AsbestosSniffer]

I'll be honest I have never played D&D before
I haven't even really looked at it

Yes I am a philistine, how could you tell?

[Itseasytosee2me]

2e darksun was my original darling. 3.5e is my current favorite, because its just got so much crunch to it.

[Jacquerel]

I'll be honest I have never played D&D before
I haven't even really looked at it

Yes I am a philistine, how could you tell?

There's better games out there

[AsbestosSniffer]

I'll be honest I have never played D&D before
I haven't even really looked at it

Yes I am a philistine, how could you tell?

There's better games out there

Well, it was partially because I had no friends to play it with and partially because LoTR and Elder Scrolls games captivated my attention first. But I've just gotten Baldur's Gate 3 so I'm going to check out some of the Forgotten Realms lore.

[conrad]

Baldur's Gate 3 is really not D&D. It's a d20 hodgepodge of houserules. (and horny tieflings)

inb4: that's any D&D table

[CMDR_Gungnir]

3.5e is still the best though.

I agree with you, with the caveat of "Pathfinder 1e is just Improved 3.5e"

If we count them separately, then PF1E #1 forever.

All of the depth of 3.5, with just a lot of fixes that makes it play better. It's very telling that pretty much everything about 5e that's good, they took from PF1E.

[Itseasytosee2me]

3.5e is still the best though.

I agree with you, with the caveat of "Pathfinder 1e is just Improved 3.5e"

does pathfinder 1e have a based psionics system and a huge fuckoff tome on undead physiology?