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AshfireMage
2016-07-24, 03:00 AM
As the title said, what's the strangest thing people have found each other arguing about (not necessarily viciously) while playing?

I remember once while dming I had two of my players get into an argument about whether a sufficiently powerful succubus could override someone's sexual orientation (ie make a gay man or an asexual attracted to her). At that point, no succubi had appeared in the campaign, or even been suggested and the only player character with an established sexual orientation was a straight man. I have no idea how we got there.

At one point in a different campaign, we ended up spending a good half hour going over the finer points of a particular real-world religion's beliefs about the afterlife (during which time the dm kept trying to argue against one of the players who had grown up in said religion). Somehow this sprung from a session whose main plot involved trying to con our way into a meeting with the mayor.

So, what's the weirdest thing you've ever disagreed with related to a game? Was it related to the game by some weird string of logic, or completely random?

Note: I've seen threads in this vein turn into fights about the the subject, rather than humorous sharing. Please be nice and abide by forum rules

Cealocanth
2016-07-24, 10:31 AM
Well, in the Frozen Seas, we had an argument over whether or not wrought iron that was frozen in a glacier would rust through over a century. It took several college level chemistry courses and an interview with an underwater archaeologist to calculate that small pieces of iron such as nails would indeed rust through over the period, but some would still be relatively preserved.

Also in the Frozen Seas, there was an argument over whether or not suthinium (magically enhanced gunpowder) cannons would have sufficient range to attack a town from over the horizon on a ship, and whether or not said cannons would have enough recoil to tip the boat.

Friv
2016-07-24, 11:07 AM
There was a long discussion in a gold rush game about whether a specific university had been founded yet, and thus whether a character could actually have graduated from it before coming out west. It was odd.


We also had a really extensive discussion about whether you could get internet from a place that no longer technically existed, if that place was still exporting goods to you. Is the internet a good, or a service? I don't think we really came to a solid conclusion on that one.

legomaster00156
2016-07-24, 11:30 AM
There was a long discussion in a gold rush game about whether a specific university had been founded yet, and thus whether a character could actually have graduated from it before coming out west. It was odd.


We also had a really extensive discussion about whether you could get internet from a place that no longer technically existed, if that place was still exporting goods to you. Is the internet a good, or a service? I don't think we really came to a solid conclusion on that one.
You cannot physically "have" the Internet. You can "use" the Internet. The Internet is, therefore, a service.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-24, 12:47 PM
Not an argument, but we once got into the specifics elven reproduction. Not sure how, all I said was that RAW dwarves were generally hotter than elves, and this somehow snowballed into working out the length of an elven or if they instead go into heat (using the time the Phoenix King has to reside with the Ever queen to approximate the value).

BayardSPSR
2016-07-24, 02:29 PM
You cannot physically "have" the Internet. You can "use" the Internet. The Internet is, therefore, a service.

Isn't it more of a utility?

RazorChain
2016-07-24, 02:50 PM
We once argued over the size of a medium sized bucket!!! That was a waste of play time but now when we descend into pointless discussions/arguments then someone will shout out "What's a medium sized bucket anyway?!!!" That usually brings us to our senses and we'll start playing again.

OldTrees1
2016-07-24, 02:51 PM
Isn't it more of a utility?

Well the internet is 2-3 things
1) The local storage (Ex: all my webpages are stored on my computer)
2) A connection to retrieve that data from elsewhere
3) Non local storage (Ex: my webpages are stored on a bunch of random servers out there)

So if the connection has been severed then you cannot access the unconnected data. Likewise you cannot access data whose storage has been destroyed (from the point of view of the connection).

So I guess it would depend on the technical details of "no longer technically existed".


The strangest thing I can think of was how would chemistry work if there were only 6 elements. Including but not limited to what an omnielemental would be.

legomaster00156
2016-07-24, 02:54 PM
Isn't it more of a utility?
A utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a service. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility)

BayardSPSR
2016-07-24, 03:19 PM
A utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a service. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility)

In other words, it depends on whether by "internet" you mean "somebody else's HTML" or "the stuff that gets other people's HTML to you."

nedz
2016-07-24, 05:49 PM
Well the internet is 2-3 things
1) The local storage (Ex: all my webpages are stored on my computer)
2) A connection to retrieve that data from elsewhere
3) Non local storage (Ex: my webpages are stored on a bunch of random servers out there)

So if the connection has been severed then you cannot access the unconnected data. Likewise you cannot access data whose storage has been destroyed (from the point of view of the connection).


Technically the internet is just a bunch of protocols - which means it's a medium of communication.

As for weirdest argument - I'm not sure, I've been playing a very long time.

Milo v3
2016-07-24, 08:30 PM
all I said was that RAW dwarves were generally hotter than elves

What game has that as RAW? @_@

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-24, 08:38 PM
What game has that as RAW? @_@

Those that have male dwarves as hirsute, brawny, manly men and dwarven women as thick, warrior maidens?

Different strokes for different folks and I'd take a dwarven lass over a flighty elf any day, at least she wouldn't break easy. :smallwink:

Telwar
2016-07-24, 08:42 PM
What game has that as RAW? @_@

Using Con as an indicator of health/attractiveness, maybe?

Milo v3
2016-07-24, 08:48 PM
Weirdest I've had is players trying to argue about how hot glass has to be when your blowing it.


Those that have male dwarves as hirsute, brawny, manly men and dwarven women as thick, warrior maidens?

Different strokes for different folks and I'd take a dwarven lass over a flighty elf any day, at least she wouldn't break easy. :smallwink:
Different strokes is why I'm confused about it being RAW rather than his personal preference.


Using Con as an indicator of health/attractiveness, maybe?
In D&D charisma is for attractiveness by RAW (even though that's dumb), and Dwarves generally have a penalty to Cha, making them uglier than most races by default. What games that have Con use Con for attractiveness?

Tanuki Tales
2016-07-24, 08:49 PM
Different strokes is why I'm confused about it being RAW rather than his personal preference.

He meant how they're depicted, per the game rules.

Sith_Happens
2016-07-24, 09:00 PM
I wouldn't quite call it an argument, but one time my group ended up going back and forth for about five minutes about whether owls have penises before we finally just Googled it.

goto124
2016-07-25, 01:27 AM
I'm pretty sure birds in general don't.

Sith_Happens
2016-07-25, 02:27 AM
It depends on the bird. Turns out owls do, and of course there's also ducks... It's best not to talk about ducks.:smallyuk:

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-25, 02:57 AM
What game has that as RAW? @_@

This was GURPS, which has a sex appeal skill based off of health. Now dwarves tend to get a bonus to health, specifically +2 in the game I was playing, and elves didn't. Therefore dwarves are hotter than elves.


Those that have male dwarves as hirsute, brawny, manly men and dwarven women as thick, warrior maidens?

Different strokes for different folks and I'd take a dwarven lass over a flighty elf any day, at least she wouldn't break easy. :smallwink:

Yep, I actually don't care as long as they leave their axe or bow outside the bedroom.

goto124
2016-07-25, 03:00 AM
Yep, I actually don't care as long as they leave their axe or bow outside the bedroom.

Axist! Bowist! :smalltongue:

hymer
2016-07-25, 03:24 AM
It's best not to talk about ducks.:smallyuk:

Indeed, you could easily do yourself an injury. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I58n1Vte7aQ), have some pros do the talking for you.

MrZJunior
2016-07-25, 07:58 AM
My group got into a long argument once about whether it was an evil act for my character to burn down a kitchen. It was attached to a mansion that earlier in the campaign was inhabited by our evil enemies but was now occupied by the other members of the party. My character wasn't aware of this yet and the kitchen was the only part of the complex which was flammable.

I argued that my intention was to hinder and annoy our enemies and therefore my actions were just. They argued that the people who were most hurt were the servants rather than the people who lived in the annoyingly fireproof stone mansion. I argued that the servants were working for evil people and therefore were guilty by association. The GM then ruled that my character was stupid enough to believe that argument and therefore it was not an alignment violation.

Hamste
2016-07-25, 08:08 AM
...The real question is why they made everything except the thing containing fires fireproof. You would think they would have made sure the kitchen was made of stone at least.

goto124
2016-07-25, 10:57 AM
The GM then ruled that my character was stupid enough to believe that argument and therefore it was not an alignment violation.

This is great :smallbiggrin:

MrZJunior
2016-07-25, 01:36 PM
...The real question is why they made everything except the thing containing fires fireproof. You would think they would have made sure the kitchen was made of stone at least.

I guess so that when it catches fire it's cheap and easy to rebuild. That city seemed to be lacking in stone buildings.


This is great :smallbiggrin:

One of the other players was a paladin with a horse mount. The horse was within a few points of being as smart as my character.

TheFurith
2016-07-25, 03:20 PM
I was once in a game where our LG cleric wanted to light a bound woman's nipples on fire with a torch to get information from her. You can about imagine where that went.

There was also that time I had to roll a slight of hand check to put my ring on my own finger. An action I wasn't trying to conceal at all. Because why would I?

Or that strength check to throw alchemist's fire on literally the anything in the entire room I was standing in that wasn't me.

I could make quite a list actually, but I won't.

DigoDragon
2016-07-25, 03:35 PM
The weirdest argument I have witnessed was my early D&D 3.5 campaign where the party was fighting over who'd get the -2 Pink Dagger of Cicada Chirping. Yes, the argument was over who deserved the cursed magic item that glowed a bright pink and made a loud chirping noise so as to heavily penalize your stealth checks. I don't know why everyone in the party wanted this item!

Eventually the party rogue got it after the fierce debate. That'll teach me to put cursed magic items in a treasure pile. >.>

Sith_Happens
2016-07-26, 12:08 AM
I was once in a game where our LG cleric wanted to light a bound woman's nipples on fire with a torch to get information from her. You can about imagine where that went.

With them immediately dropping to LN just for suggesting such a thing, and possibly also falling due to flagrant doctrine failure (depending on deity)?

...Nah, that's what would have happened in a sane group.:smalltongue:


The weirdest argument I have witnessed was my early D&D 3.5 campaign where the party was fighting over who'd get the -2 Pink Dagger of Cicada Chirping. Yes, the argument was over who deserved the cursed magic item that glowed a bright pink and made a loud chirping noise so as to heavily penalize your stealth checks. I don't know why everyone in the party wanted this item!

Eventually the party rogue got it after the fierce debate. That'll teach me to put cursed magic items in a treasure pile. >.>

Was this the same group you play Shadowrun with, because if so then it's the best possible description of how they operate.:smalltongue:

Blue Lantern
2016-07-26, 02:50 AM
Non that exciting but I had quite the back and forth with a guy in my group about the interaction between Unseen servant and black pudding.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-26, 03:07 AM
The weirdest argument I have witnessed was my early D&D 3.5 campaign where the party was fighting over who'd get the -2 Pink Dagger of Cicada Chirping. Yes, the argument was over who deserved the cursed magic item that glowed a bright pink and made a loud chirping noise so as to heavily penalize your stealth checks. I don't know why everyone in the party wanted this item!

Eventually the party rogue got it after the fierce debate. That'll teach me to put cursed magic items in a treasure pile. >.>

Man, I wish my groups were this fun. They'd probably just chuck the dagger in a bag and try to sneak up on more monsters.

I will nab this item though and use it at some point. Maybe I'll see if I can start with one in my next game.

hymer
2016-07-26, 03:44 AM
Non that exciting but I had quite the back and forth with a guy in my group about the interaction between Unseen servant and black pudding.

"At least I didn't use a spoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfuuKiTcYQ)"?

DigoDragon
2016-07-28, 03:04 PM
Was this the same group you play Shadowrun with, because if so then it's the best possible description of how they operate.:smalltongue:

Yes, it was in fact mostly the same group. :3
I miss those kooky players.


Man, I wish my groups were this fun. They'd probably just chuck the dagger in a bag and try to sneak up on more monsters.

I will nab this item though and use it at some point. Maybe I'll see if I can start with one in my next game.

They were certainly a rarity. Very chaotic bunch, so they did have their "herding cats" frustration moments, but they usually tried to find uses for any treasure given, even cursed items. Sometimes by putting the curse on someone they didn't like.


Another odd argument by the same bunch: PCs were high level and slain a CR18 red dragon. The cleric had a complex spell going on a few PCs that kicked in a one-time big healing buff if the target player drops to -10 HP. Basically a "Don't die yet" spell. At the end of the fight, the Ranger was at -7. They argued if it was considered an evil act to injure him for 3 points so that the spell would activate. I was busy tallying xp that I didn't join the argument until it had been going on a few minutes. They made me face-palm when it was explained to me that a big part of the reason the argument came up was because the Ranger was a young Lupine (old D&D race of dog-people), and so was this considered kicking a puppy to death?

Braininthejar2
2016-07-28, 04:46 PM
It was nipped in the bud, before any discussion could start, but "how exactly does a hormonal cycle look for a female werewolf?"

Sith_Happens
2016-07-28, 05:23 PM
It was nipped in the bud, before any discussion could start, but "how exactly does a hormonal cycle look for a female werewolf?"

If you're referring to their menstrual cycle, then my own guess would be "Like normal, except strongly synced to the lunar cycle." And don't even ask about werewolf PMS.:smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-29, 02:53 PM
Bleh. If we are talking 3rd edition DnD, I'd bang a dwarf over a elf anyday.

As for the weirdest argument, I think it would have to be several players and the DM arguing about carrying capacity of cleavage, especially in regards to weaponry and hidden items. The players were female, the DM was male. I forget how it got resolved.

DRD1812
2016-07-29, 03:32 PM
"Guys, I'm serious. I'm not letting you raise magical ducks in the dungeon."

mythmonster2
2016-07-29, 05:49 PM
A group I'm currently in once argued for over an hour about whether we should use undead to evacuate a town or not. We got as far as planning to dig tunnels underneath the town before the DM said a nearby town of dwarves would evacuate the town for us.

Keltest
2016-07-29, 06:41 PM
A group I'm currently in once argued for over an hour about whether we should use undead to evacuate a town or not. We got as far as planning to dig tunnels underneath the town before the DM said a nearby town of dwarves would evacuate the town for us.

Um... Do you mean excavate?

DarkestKnight
2016-07-29, 08:58 PM
Arguing with a chemist/physicist if RDX is an acceptable substitute for clay when building a golem. It ended up with calculations of the potential yield of said RDX Golem. Apparently you can make certain substitutes when you absolutely, positively have to kill everyone in a room. And the next. And the one across the street.

Telwar
2016-07-29, 09:38 PM
Lately in our 5e Birthright game we have been arguing over the whether the Ruornil-worshipping dwarven priest is an apostate, heretic, or infidel.

The only reason my dwarven fighter hasn't executed him is he doesn't have a valid warrant of execution, and somehow all the letters he writes to Khurin-Azur demanding a warrant from the priest's home state of Baruk-Azhik get circular-filed.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-29, 09:42 PM
Lately in our 5e Birthright game we have been arguing over the whether the Ruornil-worshipping dwarven priest is an apostate, heretic, or infidel.

*cough* Can you explain this to someone who knows nothing of Birthright? Namely, me?

Sith_Happens
2016-07-29, 10:11 PM
Arguing with a chemist/physicist if RDX is an acceptable substitute for clay when building a golem.

Yes and no. You could certainly build a golem out of RDX, but depending on the game system you might end up with a qualitatively different sort of golem than if you'd used clay (and not just in terms of explosive yield).

mythmonster2
2016-07-30, 03:28 AM
Um... Do you mean excavate?

Nope, evacuate. There was a white dragon terrorizing the town.

hymer
2016-07-30, 04:23 AM
*cough* Can you explain this to someone who knows nothing of Birthright? Namely, me?

Not sure this is pertinent, but the definitions of those words have subtle differences.

An apostate is someone who was once of the faith, but has renounced it.
A heretic is someone who claims to be of the faith, but who disagrees on dogma.
And an infidel is someone who is of another faith.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-30, 05:12 AM
*cough* Can you explain this to someone who knows nothing of Birthright? Namely, me?

Not sure how it actually works, but Ruornil is the human god of the moon and magic. To the point where at second level his priests get magician casting as if they were half their level.

To explain magicians, in Birthright only those with elven blood or a Bloodline (effectively one of your ancestors got godly essence from being too near the old gods exploding but not close enough to actually get the prize of being one of the new gods) can wield 'true magic' and be mages. All other humans (assuming the have INT 12, DEX 12, and WIS 14, but you do get 4d6b3 place as desired for ability scores) can be magicians, who specialise in both illusion and divination in return for those being the only schools they can use spells of higher than 3rd level from, although they only get the one bonus spell per level. Also, no opposition schools and a larger selection of weapons than true magicians.

But to get back to the explanation, dwarves (who trim their beards and are on good terms with the elves, seriously) still worship Moradin, although they are incredibly secretive about it, and so a dwarf ho worshiped one of the human gods would probably be considered weird at best. I'm not sure how one who received spells and powers from a human god, especially arcane magic, would be viewed, but I can see at the very least a self-imposed exile.

Note that this is going by the original 2e box set, if this is answered in a later book default to that answer.

(For that matter, can WotC officially update Birthright to 5e, maybe without the realm-management mechanics? It's a great little fantasy setting, especially with magicians and blooded versus nonblooded folk [although I'd recommend extra skills instead of the experience bonus 2e used])

Madbox
2016-07-30, 06:25 AM
There was once an argument at my table over whether or not the barbarian could carry a full barrel of beer everywhere, along with his rations and weapons.

For the record, he couldn't.

Inevitability
2016-07-30, 06:54 AM
There was once an argument at my table over whether or not the barbarian could carry a full barrel of beer everywhere, along with his rations and weapons.

For the record, he couldn't.

The PC's in my group bring along the weirdest stuff. I had a guy who mounted a barrel of oil on his donkey and threatened to send it to foes and set in on fire all the time.

Another PC decided to carry a few weeks of food with him, nevermind his high Survival and the fact that half the party didn't need to eat. In the same campaign, a player brought a friggin' water clock, for no other reason than that he could. He left it at the party base and it never got mentioned again.

Keltest
2016-07-30, 10:09 AM
The PC's in my group bring along the weirdest stuff. I had a guy who mounted a barrel of oil on his donkey and threatened to send it to foes and set in on fire all the time.

Another PC decided to carry a few weeks of food with him, nevermind his high Survival and the fact that half the party didn't need to eat. In the same campaign, a player brought a friggin' water clock, for no other reason than that he could. He left it at the party base and it never got mentioned again.

My party caries around vials of snot (yes, snot) from the monsters we have defeated. We once got into an argument over whether or not giant spiders have snot to be harvested.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-30, 10:20 AM
My group once got into an argument with the GM over whether or not we could start in a brewery.

That ended up with alcohol being retconned into an impossible myth for that setting. For the life of me I can't remember why, we were just a bunch of demigods planning to show up to our first mission briefing completely smashed (...blame the child of the god of wine).

Telwar
2016-07-30, 02:36 PM
But to get back to the explanation, dwarves (who trim their beards and are on good terms with the elves, seriously) still worship Moradin, although they are incredibly secretive about it, and so a dwarf ho worshiped one of the human gods would probably be considered weird at best. I'm not sure how one who received spells and powers from a human god, especially arcane magic, would be viewed, but I can see at the very least a self-imposed exile.

This, but we're doing dwarven society as a bit more extremely jealous (we're taking some elements from Iron Kingdoms, and just amplifying the rest). So the priest "agreed" to go somewhere that wasn't Baruk-Azhik and not be so incredibly strange and apostatic* where people (dwarves) could see him. My character is not aware of that specific agreement.

* Which is the technically correct version, as he switched from the proper One True Religion to take the power offered by the successor to his bloodline (Vorynn), as promised thousands of years ago.


(For that matter, can WotC officially update Birthright to 5e, maybe without the realm-management mechanics? It's a great little fantasy setting, especially with magicians and blooded versus nonblooded folk [although I'd recommend extra skills instead of the experience bonus 2e used])

We're using the Birthright.net stuff. Unfortunately, WotC didn't do Birthright settings for 3e or 4e, and with the current business strategy, they won't be likely to publish an update for 5th.

Telwar
2016-07-30, 02:42 PM
My group once got into an argument with the GM over whether or not we could start in a brewery.

In our 4e Al Qadim game, the invoker and my sorcerer started a casino in what was basically that setting's version of Port Royal. Initially it was cover for something we were doing, but we got really into it. We spent hours of game time getting a building, finishing it up, obtaining supplies (games, booze, "recreational pharmaceuticals", etc). The end goal was to make a giant obsidian-glass pyramid with a glowing tip that would both funnel magical power (with access to all four pythagorean elements, in one place!) for experimentation and keep us very comfortably rich.

Then we got shut down for health-code violations.

In, again, what was essentially Port Royal.

We were FURIOUS. The DM was honestly a little scared by our reaction (the invoker was his fiancee).

The Red Wizards' agent who had gotten us shut down did regret it ever so briefly after I novaed him down in one turn a few sessions later.

Sith_Happens
2016-08-02, 09:18 PM
health-code

Were those even a thing before the Industrial Revolution, like, anywhere?:smallconfused:

Dimers
2016-08-03, 12:31 AM
An apostate is someone who was once of the faith, but has renounced it.
A heretic is someone who claims to be of the faith, but who disagrees on dogma.
And an infidel is someone who is of another faith.

An infidel has heard The One Truth and rejected it for another faith -- without ever having taken part, unlike the apostate, as you mentioned.
A heathen, on the other hand, has never heard The One Truth (or not in enough detail to matter) and therefore can't be blamed for failing to follow it.
A pagan (in the classic "rural" sense) might have been brought up to understand and follow part of The One Truth and some stuff that is not The One Truth, leaving her somewhere between heretic and heathen.

I love English so darn much! :smallcool: <== not sarcastic

hymer
2016-08-03, 06:25 AM
Were those even a thing before the Industrial Revolution, like, anywhere?:smallconfused:

I think state controlled brothels were a thing, to keep soldiers from getting sick. Syphilis was a major eroder of army manpower in many places.

miner3203
2016-08-05, 03:18 PM
My group once got into an argument over whether pouring Blessed Mercury (also known as quicksilver) into the streets of an Innistrad village would be enough to rid the area of Nightspawn. Needless to say, that argument quickly degenerated into an in-character one about how to go about blessing mercury, then an out-of-character one about whether mercury can even be blessed by the Avacynian faith.

Tanarii
2016-08-05, 09:46 PM
The legality and likely economic impact of selling green dragon plant growth enhanced fields of weed (aka Dragonbud) in the Western Heartlands of Faerun.

Given this was in college, I'm not sure it really counts as weird. But it certainly wasn't the direction I'd expected the Night Below campaign (AD&D 2e set in the Underdark) to end up going when I started running it.

Sith_Happens
2016-08-05, 11:48 PM
My group once got into an argument over whether pouring Blessed Mercury (also known as quicksilver) into the streets of an Innistrad village would be enough to rid the area of Nightspawn. Needless to say, that argument quickly degenerated into an in-character one about how to go about blessing mercury, then an out-of-character one about whether mercury can even be blessed by the Avacynian faith.

...Why mercury though? Matter of fact, where would you even get enough mercury to do that?:smallconfused:

Anxe
2016-08-06, 12:06 AM
Got into an argument recently about how broadly the term knight could be applied to different cultures. Samurai are knights, but are Mongol Khershigs?

BayardSPSR
2016-08-06, 01:11 AM
Got into an argument recently about how broadly the term knight could be applied to different cultures. Samurai are knights, but are Mongol Khershigs?

(Wouldn't kheshigs be the equivalent of paladins, like hatamoto?)

Inevitability
2016-08-07, 07:08 AM
I had an argument emerge about whether the changeling rogue had ever seen aarakocras. He discovered in 5e they were humanoids and therefore valid forms for him to change shape into.

He knew turning into an aarakocra wouldn't give him flight or any other direct benefit, he just wanted to look like one. What made it funnier was that the party was in the middle of nowhere, so no one but the party members would get to see his new form.

miner3203
2016-08-07, 04:46 PM
...Why mercury though? Matter of fact, where would you even get enough mercury to do that?:smallconfused:

Because the canon anti-Nightspawn weapon is Blessed Silver, and they were trying to find a way to melt enough of it to flood the streets (so that they could have a liquid weapon). One of the players suggested quicksilver (mercury, which is the right color), and it sort of degenerated from there.

I have no idea where they were planning on getting it.

digiman619
2016-08-07, 06:15 PM
My group once got into an argument over whether pouring Blessed Mercury (also known as quicksilver) into the streets of an Innistrad village would be enough to rid the area of Nightspawn. Needless to say, that argument quickly degenerated into an in-character one about how to go about blessing mercury, then an out-of-character one about whether mercury can even be blessed by the Avacynian faith.

A) since Avacyn kinda dead, it hardly matters now but B) you do know that they cared about the metal silver, not the color silver; mercury has nothing (aside from color) to do with silver...

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-07, 08:04 PM
Hrm...Can you dissolve the silver into the mercury to dilute it, but to spread it over a larger area however? I mean, how much silver do you need for an effect?

digiman619
2016-08-07, 08:21 PM
Hrm...Can you dissolve the silver into the mercury to dilute it, but to spread it over a larger area however? I mean, how much silver do you need for an effect?

I don't really know; just because I'm a Dwarf doesn't make me a master of metallurgy.

nedz
2016-08-07, 08:26 PM
Hrm...Can you dissolve the silver into the mercury to dilute it, but to spread it over a larger area however? I mean, how much silver do you need for an effect?

I don't think Mercury is a solvent into which you can dissolve Silver ?

Make an amalgam of it - probably - but that would be solid.

I think the original argument was linguistic and not metallurgic anyway.

darkmammoth
2016-08-08, 08:12 PM
In my current game, we are playing a Shadowrun inspired version of Return to Castle Ravenloft. As part of the quest, we were informed a relic must be created as part of the means to destroy the bad guy but turns out one part of the relic was a lock of hair. The argument came as to whether or not Stradh had a fetish or was a malkavian vampire (reference to Vampire the Masquerade). How this subject ever came up is beyond me.

Alberic Strein
2016-08-08, 08:37 PM
Needs a bit of a context, but there was that entire hour dedicated to how the group could harrass an henchman from a bastard merchant, with plans ranging from prison rape, to dropping the whole "harrassment" bit and push it to straight up murder with a street justice style execution, and eventually settling for trading a barrel of pudding for a barrel of horse sh*t.
The group, a party of young noblemen with diverse skills, had just arrived to a small village they just might inherit, spent some sessions doing knight errant jobs, learning the actual names of the folks living there, etc...
Then one day, the cute young pudding maker had her entire batch of freshly-made pudding stolen, which would put her in a pretty big debt, which would prevent her from being able to pay the interests on the loan she got from the merchant, which would see her lose her money, job, house, and still leave her with a sizeable debt.
The group, of course, gets involved, and solves the entire theft in fifteen minutes tops, immediately guessing the involvement of the merchant, more precisely his dwarf henchman, the "lose everything you own or 'bob up and down' " (as our GM put it) ultimatum that the merchant was about to pull on her, and tracked the pudding, stuffed in a barrel stashed in an inn that also owed money to said merchant, leaving only the matter of what to do with the pudding, henchman and merchant.

Our first plan was to simply let the guard handle it, but the dwarf would just spend an afternoon in jail before the merchant paid his fine, since it was only a petty theft.

So we argued on and on about what to do with the dwarf, disagreeing on whether or not we should go beyond the extent of the law, how harsh we could morally go, if we should go for something hurtful, or petty, etc... With players and characters being varying degrees of absolutely livid with rage, confused and dead tired.

Then of course there was that one campaign that was nothing but outlandish debates about the most ridiculous stuff. Unfortunately, not a single one of those were funny.

TheYell
2016-08-10, 02:35 PM
Our gunslinger wants a Mexican vibe so he asked for a luchador mariachi cohort.

Nay, said the DM.

OK we said, they got gladiators and they got a Masked Performer bard archetype in Ultimate Intrigue. So he's a bard who wants to fight as a gladiator.

Nix.

So we'll take whatever the DM offers as a cohort, and start levelling in bard...


Arguing with a chemist/physicist if RDX is an acceptable substitute for clay when building a golem. It ended up with calculations of the potential yield of said RDX Golem. Apparently you can make certain substitutes when you absolutely, positively have to kill everyone in a room. And the next. And the one across the street.

Isn't RDX so unstable they only use it as a detonator to explode other explosives?


As for the weirdest argument, I think it would have to be several players and the DM arguing about carrying capacity of cleavage, especially in regards to weaponry and hidden items. The players were female, the DM was male. I forget how it got resolved.

Hopefully he asked for a demonstration...

Sith_Happens
2016-08-10, 02:53 PM
Isn't RDX so unstable they only use it as a detonator to explode other explosives?

Quite the opposite; it's one of the ones stable enough that you pretty much need a detonator to set it off.

Necroticplague
2016-08-10, 03:23 PM
One shadowrun campaign I was in had a good part of a session derailed by arguing about whether cyberzombies had functional gametes. An NPC claimed to be the mother of one of the PC's children, and thus whether they could even have any was relevant in how much we could trust them. Eventual conclusion was that there were multiple reasons this was unlikely, so they were probably lying.

SZbNAhL
2016-08-10, 03:44 PM
Were those even a thing before the Industrial Revolution, like, anywhere?:smallconfused:

Definitely. As far back as [on second thoughts, I'll remove the location because I'm not 100% on whether or not the forum rules allow me to mention it] there are rules about putting up railings near steep drops.

Sith_Happens
2016-08-10, 04:13 PM
I already posted my weirdest argument earlier, but honorable mention goes to something fairly recently: I noticed that, due to a particular garment worn by one of the PCs, she was likely to be mistaken for the local culture's rough equivalent of transgender. What no one could agree on at first, though, was whether she'd be more likely mistaken for a trans-man or a trans-woman, and why. The debate was fairly short and not remotely fierce, but the topic was certainly not one you see come up very often.


Definitely. As far back as [on second thoughts, I'll remove the location because I'm not 100% on whether or not the forum rules allow me to mention it] there are rules about putting up railings near steep drops.

I see no way in which mentioning that Place X has required guard rails since Year Y is in violation of any forum rules.:smallconfused:

SZbNAhL
2016-08-10, 05:00 PM
I see no way in which mentioning that Place X has required guard rails since Year Y is in violation of any forum rules.:smallconfused:

Said place is a famous document named for the Latin for "book"; I double-checked the rules after posting and discovered that even casual mentions of banned topics is a violation. I'm probably just being over-zealous, but better safe than sorry, right?

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-10, 11:17 PM
Hopefully he asked for a demonstration...

He did not. He was trying to ban hiding too much in there due to balance reasons and limit what could be stuffed in there. Also, none of the ladies were wearing the appropriate attire to start hiding stuff in there.

I think I've only played one game were someone was wearing a corset in real life, but I don't honestly remember all that well.

Vrock_Summoner
2016-08-11, 02:14 AM
In my rather dark and fairly high-powered Mutants & Masterminds campaign, which my players have taken to affectionately calling "Sanity is Vestigial" mostly on account of the setting, the players got into a rather long and heated debate about whether or not to keep the (temporarily neutralized) deep breath dimension-bending void-bodied arachnid-dragon monster whose simultaneous existence and non existence threatens the foundation of reality and causes it to appear in various dimensional formats from moment to moment (one second one dimensional, another second breaking your mind by appearing in four dimensions) gasp as a pet.

Perhaps more surprising than the argument starting at all was that the answer ended up being yes.

Edit: Well, surprising for you guys, anyway. I wasn't exactly shocked, myself, since they'd previously befriended a void being with no euclidian shape who had attacked earth by warping physical space to have earth be both outside and enveloped by it simultaneously, which three-dimensional earth couldn't have continued to exist during without heroic psychic intervention. I didn't include that as the main answer because their decision to immediately try (and succeed at) befriending the thing instead of fighting it was entirely unanimous. Don't ask me, I don't understand their brains either.

Sith_Happens
2016-08-11, 10:21 AM
Are any of your players mathematicians by any chance? Because non-Euclidean and/or N-dimensional geometry gets a lot less scary once you know enough geometry, which would explain it.

Agrippa
2016-08-11, 12:34 PM
Are any of your players mathematicians by any chance? Because non-Euclidean and/or N-dimensional geometry gets a lot less scary once you know enough geometry, which would explain it.

H. P. Lovecraft had a crippling phobia of fish and other sea life, and was born, raised and lived much of his life in New England. I wouldn't be surprised if actual non-Euclidean and/or N-dimensional geometry scared the hell out of him.

Vrock_Summoner
2016-08-11, 01:15 PM
Are any of your players mathematicians by any chance? Because non-Euclidean and/or N-dimensional geometry gets a lot less scary once you know enough geometry, which would explain it.
Not to the point of having a degree in a mathematical field, but two of them are indeed very passionate about math and know quite a bit more than they ought to. So that conclusion would make sense, especially given that I've had an extensive discussion with one of them about what it would be like trying to mentally process different numbers of dimensions (though that went off on a weird tangent about whether or not humans technically see in three dimensions in the first place, so I think we ended the discussion less confident about our ability to answer that question than when we started).

The part that surprised me wasn't really the blatant ignoring of n-dimensional and non-euclidian stuff, though. I mean, I include that stuff because it's one of the easier ways to visually portray the more pertinent aspects of these things, but it's been done enough that I don't really expect it to be frightening unless I find ways to spice it up more. The thing that got me about the diplomacy with the being without a normally possible shape was just that I didn't expect them to personify it. Like, with the arachnid-dragon being, sure it mostly looks like a spastic hole in reality, but its shape at least vaguely resembles something that itself vaguely resembles an animal, and people often humanize animals in their minds. I kind of grasp that they might somehow end up thinking, "Pet!" But the being that attempted to remove Earth from existence didn't look like anything the players (or, for that matter, their characters) could personally relate to, and I didn't have it attempt communication until they initiated. I'm just flabbergasted by which part of their collective conscious (parties have those, right?) decided that a random nonsensical patch of void which tried to shred their planet could be reasoned with.

Sith_Happens
2016-08-11, 02:35 PM
Not to the point of having a degree in a mathematical field, but two of them are indeed very passionate about math and know quite a bit more than they ought to. So that conclusion would make sense, especially given that I've had an extensive discussion with one of them about what it would be like trying to mentally process different numbers of dimensions (though that went off on a weird tangent about whether or not humans technically see in three dimensions in the first place, so I think we ended the discussion less confident about our ability to answer that question than when we started).

Depend on how technical you want to get. Technically the raw images produced on your retinas are two-dimensional, with your brain doing the work of combining them into a single image that's three-dimensional. Also technically speaking, light travels in three dimensions regardless of how many dimensions the light source has. With that in mind, a (4+)-dimensional being would probably just look like something halfway between an impossible object (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_object) and a jumbled mess, though many people do find impossible objects unnerving to look at for too long.

miner3203
2016-08-12, 11:00 PM
A) since Avacyn kinda dead, it hardly matters now

We started the game before Shadows Over Innistrad, so I guess it now counts as an alternate universe, since Avacyn is still very much alive (if rather comatose) in the campaign.


but B) you do know that they cared about the metal silver, not the color silver; mercury has nothing (aside from color) to do with silver...

Yeah, we realize that, but:



I think the original argument was linguistic and not metallurgic anyway.

Pretty much this. It was more of a "hey, can we...?" that just got blurted out and escalated.