Other tools for PbP games?

Morrus said:

One thing we do plan is to let users save their favourite die rolls, which achieves some of the same aim (you can save your often used attack and damage rolls, for example, and roll them quickly).

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That would be very useful alongside the alias feature. Group the saved die rolls with a particular alias. Having 4 PbP characters active is a lot of different rolls to be saved - possibly too many for the saved roll feature to be useful. Even if a full alias is not implemented, some ability to group or tab the saved die rolls would be useful.

By the way, is there any meta thread to discuss the new tags



I was wondering what the "MAP" tag does exactly (it's new, right, or did I just never notice it before?)

Also, while I like the indenting and background blocking for these new tags, I feel like the formatting on the OOC block makes it stand out too much. Typically we like to hide OOC chatter. For example, sometimes i use DarkSlateGray text inline for OOC text. Could the new OOC format be changed to something that's less obtrusive, easier to ignore?

I know, it's a fine line between "easy to ignore" and "hard to see".

I like the idea of aliases. I've seen people often post their PC's name and level in the subject of an IC post. I associate people's avatars and names with their PCs for ease of reading, but when they change their avatar it confuses my primitive human brain. So an alias for posting a pbp IC thread would be great. For now each alias can just link to anywhere on enworld so that players wouldn't have to move an existing character sheet to use it.

In follow-up to my comments over here, I like the idea of giving a whole post a different background color. If aliases could pick different background colors it would be really helpful for identifying which PC posted what. It would be similar to how the OOC and GM tags call attention to their topic, but organized by PC.
I'm not sure how many different distinct yet still subtle background colors would be available. I'm also not sure how well that would mesh with people wanting to call-out what their PC says.

As an aside, I love how little space the sblocks (or whatever Paizo's board calls them) take up in the alias character sheet on link upthread.

Finally, the dice blocks are really big. Could there be a different formatting option to make them smaller, similar in size to xp posts? I like not having to go to invisible castle to roll, but several rolls in one IC post would be very visually distracting. I'd prefer something like:

1d20+0 -> 3

ryryguy said:

By the way, is there any meta thread to discuss the new tags

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There's a thread in Talking the Talk.

I was wondering what the "MAP" tag does exactly (it's new, right, or did I just never notice it before?)

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If you put an address in MAP tags, a Google map displays the location.

pneumatik said:

Finally, the dice blocks are really big. Could there be a different formatting option to make them smaller, similar in size to xp posts? I like not having to go to invisible castle to roll, but several rolls in one IC post would be very visually distracting. I'd prefer something like:

1d20+0 -> 3

Click to expand...

Covered in so... many... places. I can't bring myself to type the answer again; I think I'd be in danger of a brain seizure!

pneumatik said:

Finally, the dice blocks are really big. Could there be a different formatting option to make them smaller, similar in size to xp posts? I like not having to go to invisible castle to roll, but several rolls in one IC post would be very visually distracting. I'd prefer something like:

Click to expand...

Morrus said:

Covered in so... many... places. I can't bring myself to type the answer again; I think I'd be in danger of a brain seizure!

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Just so Morrus doesn't enter the throes of a brain seizure, here is one of the places he answered the question:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5318350-post25.html

Morrus in another thread said:

But we'll add some options later for a "streamlined" view which each user can select via his settings.

Click to expand...

So here's a really preliminary idea based on this thread.

CAMPAIGN MANAGER

You can create campaigns or characters. There is a list of your current campaigns and characters.

Campaign - name, description, image.

Character - name, description, image, stats (a blank box), file attachment (if you wish to attach a CB file or your 120-page PDF character background).

The two interact in the following way:

CAMPAIGN

• A GM creates a campaign, assigns a description, recruits players.
• Players "join" his campaign with one of their characters. The GM approves or denies that join request.
• He then has a list and details of the characters playing in his campaign.
• He has an optional "lock" button with which he can prevent a player editing his character while playing the campaign (may or may not be used depending on whetehr the GM is the type to do so or not).
• He has a list of dice rolls used in his campaign.

CHARACTER

• A member creates characters.
• You can have multiple characters.
• The system doesn't actually handle any stats - it's all just a blank text box and you can enter the character stats however you like (your GM may require a specific format, for example, before he approves your join request).
• You can have a character join an existing campaign; the request goes to the GM who needs to approve it.
• You can post as your character, which gives you a different post format. Instead of your username, avatar, location, post count, etc. on the left you see your character name, image, short description such as "Level 8 Eladrin Gardener", and a note which says "This is a character belonging to X".

How does all that sound? Remember I don't PbP myself, so I won't take any offence if any of my assumptions about how it works are wrong.

Maybe something like this for the initial page. Then, of course, there are sub-pages for individual campaigns and characters and stuff.

Just casting summon on you PbP guys so I can get your thoughts.

[MENTION=21076]IronWolf[/MENTION], [MENTION=27761]Blackrat[/MENTION], [MENTION=54810]renau1g[/MENTION], [MENTION=41321]Merkuri[/MENTION], [MENTION=64945]ryryguy[/MENTION], [MENTION=21087]pneumatik[/MENTION].

Please summon (mention) any other PbP people you think should be involved in the discussion.

Ahhh....thank you Morrus, that was getting pretty tight in that lamp

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLQLFJrV_o4]YouTube - Aladdin The Genie part1[/ame]

[MENTION=36973]stonegod[/MENTION] I choose you
[MENTION=9789]evilbob[/MENTION] thoughts?
[MENTION=13739]Velmont[/MENTION], [MENTION=48762]Leif[/MENTION], [MENTION=11520]Scotley[/MENTION], [MENTION=29558]Mowgli[/MENTION] - you guys usually have an opinion, and as old as Leif is I'm sure he's gotta have some wisdom at some time