Proposal: Allow Character Builder summary sheets in place of EW templates

renau1g · Feb 26, 2010

Well, I think Step 1 is to locate an alternative to the wiki pages here because if tomorrow Morrus shuts it down then I think we'll be in fairly big trouble here. Step 2 is determining the best format for the sheets. I hate the idea of LEW sheets personally, if they're done how LEW has them done. I review my PC's sheets often and now just type in their name in my browser and the link shows up to their page. If it's just a post it'll take me more time and I'm not ok with that.

I think Step 1 & 2 can be rolled in together. Now they're changing wiki formats right? Can we look to utilize the new coding to make a better page? As I said before 0 programming experience here so I can offer very little.

elecgraystone · Feb 26, 2010

renau1g said:
I hate the idea of LEW sheets personally, if they're done how LEW has them done.

Could you give a link to a sheet? I've never looked at one.

renau1g said:
Can we look to utilize the new coding to make a better page?

Well if we stay with a wiki, the closest we can get to a 'wiki for dummies' page the better. If something quick and easy could be done, I'm all for it. However past wiki experience has me wondering if that's possible.

renau1g said:
As I said before 0 programming experience here so I can offer very little.

Me too which is why the idea of google documents sounded good to me. I can use excel easily enough and everyone can use a word processor. For me ease of use trumps every other concern.

renau1g · Feb 26, 2010

For me plain text documents/word docs would be a nightmare to review as we would then have to check to make sure there were no arithmatical errors

Here's the link to their approved character thread
http://www.enworld.org/forum/living-en-world/61535-record-official-character-thread.html

stonegod · Feb 26, 2010

elecgraystone said:
Case in point: Trying to type in one of the new summon druid powers, summon pack wolf. Do you know how many BLANKing time I tried to get it to BLANKing show the BLANKing instinctive effects? I lost count... If it'd been my first character, there would have been a good chance I'd have given up.

If that is on the LEW sheet, then that is the scalability problem I mentioned before (and tried to address with the LEB sheet).

stonegod · Feb 26, 2010

renau1g said:
For me plain text documents/word docs would be a nightmare to review as we would then have to check to make sure there were no arithmatical errors

Here's the link to their approved character thread
http://www.enworld.org/forum/living-en-world/61535-record-official-character-thread.html

Having reviewed that sheet for 2.5+ years for LEB 3.5, the Wiki sheet is much easier to review.

elecgraystone · Feb 26, 2010

Thanks for the link. I'd be cool with that. Not as pretty but functional and easy to understand/edit. Now to adress your review concerns.

I think an excel auto math attachment added in with a text sheet (or even the sheet you linked) would do the trick. That'd do the math in excel and you'd just have to check the entries are correct. Been a while since I used excel for very much but from what I remember doing our math section in excel should be fairly easy.

That was my druid here on living 4th stonegod. I'll admit the LEB sheets haven't given me as many problems as the sheets here. I only made 1 character there and she hasn't leveled yet so I can't really make a good comparison though.

renau1g · Feb 26, 2010

Well Tondrek has a few summons, the LEB one seems to work fine, but it still doesn't address the whole wiki disappearing soon issue

LEB

C:Tondrek (stonegod) - ENWiki

evilbob · Feb 26, 2010

elecgraystone said:
Lucky you... Really, how many time do you expect someone new to try to enter the same information before they throw up their hands and give up?

I'm sorry you had such a bad time, honestly. And again, I'm not arguing against sheets and for wikis: I am just saying that while your experience is one thing, mine is the opposite. Neither is "right".

There are lots of concerns to address, tho, and each of them are important. "Ease of use" re: data entry is one, yes. "Ease of use" re: checking sheets is another. "Ease of use" re: DMs looking at your sheet in play is a third. If hand-entered sheets are great for one but horrible for the others, then they are just as bad as something that is great for data entry.

Again: making a better wiki data-entry sheet really isn't even that difficult. The point is: is it even worth bothering?

ScorpiusRisk · Feb 26, 2010

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiWLkLp99JbadC1PNGxQcE02OEE5Qk9nQVA4M2liR3c&hl=en

Now, thats a very basic character sheet. It has the advantage of being very clear for user unfamiliar with code. It's currently ugly as sin, but that can be changed.

Its set to be viewable, but not editable. Which means no one can change the original, unless given permission. To build you're own sheet you would select the the utmost top left square (which highlights the entire document) and then copy. Open a new spreadsheet and paste. (You do need a free account to open a new spreadhseet).

All the sheets would be hosted for free. They would have a revision history. People would be able to invite collaborators to make edits. It's also set up a bit more similarly to a standard paper character sheet.

People can also amend the sheet to suit their own needs. I know I would want to add a section for equipment by slot, but thats strictly unnessecary for most.

It does not do any of the math for you. However, it could. The problem with adding the formulas in ahead of time, is the input would be based on the cell structure. It would be really easy for someone to screw that up by accident. I imagine that may be just as frustration for some people as the wiki if not more.

stonegod · Feb 26, 2010

Actually, there was some work on an auto-calcing sheet here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Avus1s5lh50BdGVka2ZHZHhTR0oxOHFOYWdGajRveHc&hl=en

Its much prettier.

All of it is from weldon:

weldon said:
The google doc spreadsheet is coming along. There's a lot that can be done with the math. Here is a view-only link to the sheet...

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Avus1s5lh50BdGVka2ZHZHhTR0oxOHFOYWdGajRveHc&hl=en

Because of the way that protecting the sheet from changes works, I have been rethinking how it would be used with judges. Here's how I think it would work...

Create a "submission" form for players to fill out with all the relevant scores. This form populates a new row in a spreadsheet with all the "raw" scores for that PC.

This sheet and the template belongs to the l4w.judges google account so that they can be managed by any judge.

The first judge creates a new copy of the "checker" template which does all the math and creates a sheet for judges to compare to the character sheet in the wiki. This checker sheet would be created for each level review for a character.

The first judge then copies the raw scores from the submission form into the checker sheet, which then does all the math automagically and calculates the final scores.

The first judge shares the "checker" sheet so that player's can view (but not edit) the sheet the judge is using to double-check math. This link can be inserted into the judge's approval comments in the wiki too.

The second judge reviews the link to the checker sheet and also compares to the wiki page.

I think this process provides the right amount of control for judges to be certain that no one has changed the math, either by accident or design. It also gives players an easy way to fill out the basic info for judges to plug into the checker. And everything is linked to the existing gmail account that the judges use for email notices about character submissions. They can share the finished sheets view-only and provide a URL that anyone at L4W can see what is going on, so the process is still transparent.

The disadvantage over the current method is that it is external to the ENworld site. This process also relies on the judges to perform a few extra steps that will take 5-10 minutes for each character review.

All the math isn't done, but was getting there. Neither weldon nor I have tweeked it recently.