Other tools for PbP games?

[Morrus]

I've updated those two images a little.

 

[HolyMan]

I've been thinking of a dice roller thread for those games I don't wish to use the roller on their posts.

Some games short ones, like my Pathfinder Society game. I will let pople roll in the post. But games that I have been running for more than a year I'm thinking a roller thread with them making a saves, skill checks, and combat post. Then having them link to that post in the IC keeping things nice and neat.

And we will find out how many rolls a post can handle LOL,

HM

 

[Morrus]

If you could throw in a battlemat feature on top of that, I am sold.

That's the Holy Grail. It's what would turn this into a full-featured virtual tabletop PbP system.

But I've:

a) No real ideas on how it should be implemented

b) No idea whether it is even feasible, let alone possible.

However, if folks can give me an idea of how they'd like to see it implemented, we can at least give it some thought.

 

[Morrus]

Correct, I hope the campaign manager would have a rewards tracker spot.

What I think would help is a place to put that reward post "temporarly" till I had time to go back and then move it to the rewards tracker spot.

It would be very helpful with things like NPC names and descriptions. After making up an NPC on the spot it is a chore to go find him and add him to the NPC spot in my RG.

And in sandbox or living worlds threads important "add ons" to the world, could be sent to the faves spot till they could be added to the campaign wiki's.

HM

So basically a DM draft/notes section, where you can save it privately for the DM and he can "publish" it to the campaign when he's ready?

 

[evilbob]

So basically a DM draft/notes section, where you can save it privately for the DM and he can "publish" it to the campaign when he's ready?

Ah, now THAT really is cool. Basically, a cloud-based notes system that you can then publish piecemeal as the fog of war is revealed? That's like having an online adventure module that you can work on when you have time and then reveal as you go along. Very cool.


Re: battlemat

Minimum functions:
- upload background image for map (link to something online is also ok but upload would be really nice; maybe set them to expire in X time with a way to request extensions to help with storage space?)
- grid overlay on map (prefer auto-generated grid that has column and row labels - X, Y, Z vs. 1, 2, 3, etc.)
- be able to hide/reveal map as necessary
- upload images for tokens for PC/monsters and battle effects (zones, etc)
- DM only control but all players can see what is revealed (obvious but thought I'd add)

Would be nice:
- mouseover tokens shows status (HP, current effects, marks, rounds left until disappear, etc.)
- invisible DM area for cloud-based note taking (monster stats, etc.)

 

[HolyMan]

Sure or you could have sent to a person's profile (a new section there?) since a fave post could be just about anything.

Doesn't need to be to secert as you have already posted at least once.

HM

 

[Morrus]

- mouseover tokens shows status (HP, current effects, marks, rounds left until disappear, etc.)

Bear in mind this isn't a D&D system, it's an all PbP system.

 

[evilbob]

Bear in mind this isn't a D&D system, it's an all PbP system.

I am. I'd imagine few systems don't use HP (or wounds, or something to denote health that also changes and should be kept track of), and it's a good general-use feature. I wouldn't make it specific: just let there be mouseover notes.

And it was in "would be nice" instead of "required" as well.

 

[IronWolf]

Re: Campaign stuff
This looks pretty cool to me! Although I don't know that it really gains much more than a forum thread already does. Especially since you'd still have to use a forum thread in conjunction, right?

The thing the campaign manager would do for me would be to allow easy access to relevant threads to the campaign. A GM could link the relevant IC, OOC and possibly even "campaign library" threads listing NPCs encountered so far, rewards, house rules and such in one place. So as a player I could bookmark the link to the campaign manager and immediately have my gateway into threads that pertain to the campaign.

Much easier than needing to sort through the various forums to find the one I need or even bookmarking all relevant threads in a game, which from what I have seen tends to me a minimum of three threads per game.

 

[Scotley]

Lots of good ideas here. I really like the 'one stop shopping' idea. I run and play in several pbp games here and currently (at least until this week) I've had to go out to invisible castle for die rolls, to a wiki that I pay for to get my campaign notes, to another wiki or an obscure thread deep in the forums to get character information and a jump drive or cd for pdf's of reference material.

It would be truly awesome to have easy to get to characters and private and public game notes as well as the dice roller and forums all in one place. If you can add a battle mat feature so much the better, but please keep it simple. I'd much rather have a basic tool that is easy for everyone to use even if they play from an older machine or an Apple or Linux box that I can update in a couple of minutes rather than some massive graphic resource hog that takes five minutes to load and weeks to figure out. I am definitely not in favor of anything that degrades overall performance of the site.

Thank you!