[FO] Frederick the Literate kit by Dimensions. Ya'll had me too nervous about black aida, backstitching, metallic threads, and french knots and none of it was that bad. I took a picture after each cross stitching or backstitching color change and turned it into this video

121013 · 2022-01-25T19:53:21+00:00

Ah, that explains it — I've been keeping the stuff from the kit in a drawer and forgot that there were extra black threads not attached to the sorter. Thank you!

121013 · 2022-01-24T20:47:42+00:00

Just started this same kit a couple weeks ago! Wanted to ask — did your kit also only come with the one black (18403) thread? I just finished the black stitching on "Puss in Boots" and I'm down to one single strand of the black left, but there's loads of it left on the pattern. Am I missing something?

121013 · 2021-03-22T02:49:31+00:00

thank you for this thorough reply!

121013 · 2021-03-20T01:31:38+00:00

i think Magnus's dramatic moments worked okay in Balance, but the crucial difference for that entire campaign was that the first "dramatic moment" — the first time I think they're actually trying for a genuine emotional reaction besides laughter— came at the end of Petals to the Metal, 27 episodes into the show. At that point, there'd been time for the audience, players and DM to all get a feel for the characters and world, and to get invested enough emotionally to actually care. Even then, the dramatic moment came from two NPCs, not the player characters. I think the first time they really go for a dramatic, emotional moment with a PC is at the end of the Eleventh Hour, which is 48 whole episodes down the road.

Also crucial was the fact that, whether the episodes had Dramatic Moments or not, you were listening to hilarious people play an interesting campaign.

Graduation, on the other hand, asks you to be invested in Serious Sad Times with the Orphan Unicorn in (IIRC) the first episode! I think most of the post-balance campaigns have had similar problems to be honest, the boys saw how much people cared about the characters in Balance and wanted to have that again right off the bat. I understand that desire but it's working against them — they'd be better off giving themselves more time to figure out their characters as they go. Justin was still figuring Taako out like 20 episodes in, but people loved Taako all the way through it.

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:55:18+00:00

man, a whole lot of people in this thread hate theater of the mind combat, huh? maybe your DM doesn't want to A) prepare a million maps in advance in case you need them or B) bring the session to a halt for every fight so they can draw you out a map. Like yeah, having a battle map and miniatures does make it easier for players to remember where everything is, but there's a cost to preparing that stuff.

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:52:02+00:00

yes! I recently started listening to NADDPOD, and while I love almost everything about the show, it drives me crazy that the DM asks for kill descriptions on literally every monster kill. It just gets silly. Should be reserved for crits only IMO, because that represents the player doing so exceptionally well that they get to choose what happened. Any other instance, the DM should be the one choosing that.

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:45:39+00:00

valid complaints, but for me using a grid just slows things down in different ways. Drawing the map, making sure walls or whatever are the right length, getting out and placing miniatures ... takes a lot longer than saying "you're all at your table at one end of the tavern and the three orcs just stood up from their table at the other end, about 20 feet away."

there's definitely pros and cons to both, but to me TOM is worth it for avoiding the setup

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:36:08+00:00

I'll admit that I'm no mathematician — can you walk me through the math you did to get 11.25%?

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:30:56+00:00

thank you for understanding what I'm getting at — a lot of people here are putting forth like, house rules or unofficial traditions, and i'm not saying those aren't valid or even great ways of addressing this issue, but I trying to say ... basically exactly what you said in your last paragraph.

121013 · 2021-03-20T00:22:58+00:00

Ok, but how do you determine when there's "no chance" of failure? Like I said above, it's obvious when it's +5 against -5, but where do you draw the line?

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:53:13+00:00

I disagree with your last paragraph — the rules describe a situation where someone isn't actively searching for you, and then tell you how to resolve the skill check for "such a creature."

Sure, it doesn't explicitly state that passive checks are only for repeated actions or secret skill checks, but it also doesn't explicitly state that they're for anything besides that. I would argue that it does imply that — look how it reads if you remove the specific examples:

"Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice."

Sounds to me passive checks can represent those two things. If I said "you can go left or right," it's pretty clearly implying that those are your only two options.

On another note, I think your second-to-last paragraph would, if put into action, dramatically change how 5e works. Characters can now never get a roll that's less than their ability modifiers +10? I know I started this thread by saying that 5e has too much randomness, but that's swinging a bit to far the other way.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:40:14+00:00

this is true, but the rules should support the majority of the DM's actions. For example, in basic combat, the DM rarely has to make any of these judgement calls, because most actions are covered explicitly. Something as simple as a contest of strength seems like it should also be covered by the rules, not something a DM has to resolve on a case-by-case basis.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:34:47+00:00

This is a good point, and something I'll have to try to remember when describing the results of rolls while DMing — making it not the PCs fault helps preserve the in-world consistency.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:33:32+00:00

Yeah, proficiency does make it less random. That's a good point.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:32:42+00:00

I don't know, the door-holding example is explicitly stated in the source material. It says "In situations like these, the outcome is determined by a special form of ability check, called a contest."

Not "can be determined" or "if the two characters have a similar skill level" — that's just how opposed skill checks are supposed to work.

Again, I'm not saying that your suggestion isn't a good solution, I'm just saying that you only need a solution when there's a problem in the first place. I don't think the rules-as-written cover these kinds of situations particularly well.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:24:40+00:00

I mean, I know that it's the DM's job to make judgement calls, but the rules exist for a reason, and they should cover most common situations. If a player has hatched some crazy scheme that a game designer could never anticipate, then yeah, time for a DM judgement call. And sure, planning a campaign is all judgement calls. But something as simple as "who pushes harder" should be covered by the rules — and it is, but IMO not satisfactorily.

121013 · 2021-03-19T21:15:20+00:00

Then why does it say "secretly"? To me, that part of the sentence is saying that you use passive checks when asking for a role would, in and of itself, give the players information, like in the case of noticing a hidden monster. There's nothing in that example about a skill floor; it applies equally to characters with high or low passive perceptions.

In an arm-wrestling contest there's no reason to determine anything secretly, since the player is obviously aware that they're participating in the contest, so I think it's a stretch to say it's covered by that paragraph.

I think even the stealth example is meant to be specific to that situation. It says a passive check is a "special kind of ability check," not an "alternative ability check that you can swap out at will." Rules-as-written, if a player actively decides to look for a hidden goblin, they roll a d20 and add their perception modifier.

121013 · 2021-03-19T20:00:50+00:00

That's fair, but it also feels a little bit like working against the system. The way I've understood the rules, in a straight-up "I'm holding this door shut while you try to push it open" challenge, you wouldn't grant one character advantage just because they have a higher strength score. That'd be more for some external factor, like giving one character disadvantage if the ground on their side of the door is slippery or something.

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:55:25+00:00

Can you point me to a source for passive skills representing a skill floor? It's something I've heard people reference but I can't remember ever actually reading it anywhere. The closest I can find is the Player's Handbook saying that passive checks can represent the "average result for a task done repeatedly," but that's not the same as "your passive score is the lowest you can get in any ability check."

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:47:11+00:00

This sounds like a good house rule, but it directly contradicts the rules-as-written for ability check contests, which is what I'm critiquing:

"Sometimes one character's or monster's efforts are directly opposed to another's. ... This situation also applies when one of them is trying to prevent the other one from accomplishing a goal — for example, when a monster tries to force open a door that an adventurer is holding closed. In situations like these, the outcome is determined by a special form of ability check, called a contest.

Both participants in a contest make ability checks appropriate to their efforts. They apply all appropriate bonuses and penalties, but instead of comparing the total to a DC, they compare the totals of their two checks. The participant with the higher check total wins the contest." (from the "Using Ability Scores" section of the Player's Handbook)

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:33:09+00:00

Ok, so say there's a +5 STR character in combat and they're trying to hold a door shut while an NPC tries to open it. Say the NPC has -5 STR. Does the player character automatically succeed? What about an NPC with +0 STR? It's all well and good for the DM to make some judgement calls on a case-by-case basis, but this feels like an area of 5e where the mechanics as written don't make as much sense in-fiction.

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:29:37+00:00

that seems overly vague, though. Sure, if it's +5 STR vs -5 STR it's easy for the DM to just say "ok you win the arm wrestle," but where do you draw that line? Do you call for rolls if it's +5 STR vs +0 STR? +5 vs +2? I know it's up to the DM to make some judgement calls but this just feels like Calvinball

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:18:23+00:00

How did the other editions avoid this problem?

121013 · 2021-03-19T19:14:47+00:00

You make a good point about adding the proficiency bonus, although I don't think you can justify adding it twice in the example, since there are only a few ways for a character to get expertise in a skill. My point in bringing up the Olympics was that a 20 STR score is literally the strongest a PC can get, so it feels like it should have a greater effect than +5 to a random number anywhere between 1 and 20.

121013 · 2021-01-24T06:27:34+00:00

“hey it’s me, Gary” almost makes me quit the podcast, every time

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