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Peasant Railgun

(knightsdigest.com)
280 points cainxinth | 15 comments | 03 Jul 25 14:05 UTC | HN request time: 1.628s | source | bottom
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disillusionist ◴[03 Jul 25 15:19 UTC] No.44455949[source]▶
I personally adore the Peasant Railgun and other such silly tropes generated by player creativity! Lateral problem solving can be one of the most fun parts of the DnD experience. However, these shenanigans often rely on overly convoluted or twisted ways of interpreting the rules that often don't pass muster of RAW (Rules As Written) and certainly not RAI (Rules As Intended) -- despite vociferous arguments by motivated players. Any DM who carefully scrutinizes these claims can usually find the seams where the joke unravels. The DnD authors also support DMs here when they say that DnD rules should not be interpreted as purely from a simulationist standpoint (whether physics, economy, or other) but exist to help the DM orchestrate and arbitrate combat and interactions.

In the case of the Peasant Railgun, here are a few threads that I would pull on: * The rules do not say that passed items retain their velocity when passed from creature to creature. The object would have the same velocity on the final "pass" as it did on the first one. * Throwing or firing a projectile does not count as it "falling". If an archer fires an arrow 100ft, the arrow does not gain 100ft of "falling damage".

Of course, if a DM does want to encourage and enable zany shenanigans then all the power to them!

replies(9): >>44456591 #>>44456650 #>>44456789 #>>44457793 #>>44457867 #>>44460188 #>>44460485 #>>44461138 #>>44465257 #
1. hooverd ◴[03 Jul 25 16:17 UTC] No.44456591[source]▶
Did you use ChatGPT/an LLM for this comment or do you just write Like That?
replies(5): >>44456661 #>>44456692 #>>44456748 #>>44457464 #>>44457498 #
2. bluefirebrand ◴[03 Jul 25 16:23 UTC] No.44456661[source]▶
LLMs had to learn from somewhere, a lot of internet comments write Like That
replies(2): >>44456768 #>>44456781 #
3. max_on_hn ◴[03 Jul 25 16:26 UTC] No.44456692[source]▶
ChatGPT was sticky for me very early because its writing style reminded me of my own ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. otikik ◴[03 Jul 25 16:31 UTC] No.44456748[source]▶
It does read very chatgpt-y
5. hooverd ◴[03 Jul 25 16:33 UTC] No.44456768[source]▶
It's very jarring when you see it nowadays, and rather unfortunate for people who have that style of writing.
6. lukan ◴[03 Jul 25 16:35 UTC] No.44456781[source]▶
But maybe less and less will, if all it gets them nowdays are accusations of using/being an LLM.
replies(2): >>44456824 #>>44460045 #
7. Macha ◴[03 Jul 25 16:37 UTC] No.44456824{3}[source]▶
I've often written lists of bullet points with bolded headings and nowadays every time I do I feel I have to say that it's not written by chatgpt
replies(1): >>44457709 #
8. disillusionist ◴[03 Jul 25 17:43 UTC] No.44457464[source]▶
I just Write Like That. It always takes me longer to write things than intended because I tend to overthink things, too. :/
replies(2): >>44457851 #>>44459412 #
9. y-curious ◴[03 Jul 25 17:47 UTC] No.44457498[source]▶
Welcome to the erosion of trust we are seeing live. Soon we won't trust anything outside of a speaker we can touch physically.
10. formerphotoj ◴[03 Jul 25 18:08 UTC] No.44457709{4}[source]▶
And, "I'm not a cat."

(Except sometimes maybe as a NPC)

11. hooverd ◴[03 Jul 25 18:23 UTC] No.44457851[source]▶
It was a good comment!
12. zahlman ◴[03 Jul 25 21:40 UTC] No.44459412[source]▶
For what it's worth: having seen that someone else suspected ChatGPT usage, and reading it again, I can understand what sorts of heuristics it might have tripped. But on overall intuition, I didn't get that impression on a first read.
replies(1): >>44461827 #
13. bcrosby95 ◴[03 Jul 25 23:44 UTC] No.44460045{3}[source]▶
Just wait until your LLM starts accusing you of being an LLM
14. fc417fc802 ◴[04 Jul 25 06:59 UTC] No.44461827{3}[source]▶
If LLMs had the necessary theory of mind to model context well enough to write the comment in question the world would be a very different place. Writing style and fitting in to the context are entirely different things.

LLM responses tend to give me the vibe of a disengaged office worker who isn't emotionally present and lacks a proper mental model of the topic. It's been shocking to me to witness how frequently people around me IRL fail to notice such writing.

replies(1): >>44467536 #
15. zahlman ◴[04 Jul 25 20:15 UTC] No.44467536{4}[source]▶
> Writing style and fitting in to the context are entirely different things.

Absolutely — which goes a long way towards how I make the judgment myself, now that you say it. Although it's still hard to be precise about.

(One positive impact that LLMs indirectly had on my life is that they motivated me to look up ways to type em-dashes more easily. I now have my caps lock key mapped as a compose key, and a custom compose-key mapping for it.)

> It's been shocking to me to witness how frequently people around me IRL fail to notice such writing.

To notice, they'd have to themselves be engaged, I suppose. Or at least have some idea about the subject matter.