Other tools for PbP games?

[stonegod]

Looking good.

Re Sheets: The Living worlds used to do them on the Wiki here; they're now offsite. Won't be coming back with just limited sheet support, but I totally understand limited dev resources.

One possible PBP addition: Characters usually have a color of speech text. If there was a way to associate a character with color and maybe a [speech][/speech] tag that works with that, that'd be grand (and save a lot of [color=whatever][/color] typing).

 

[Morrus]

Re Sheets: The Living worlds used to do them on the Wiki here; they're now offsite. Won't be coming back with just limited sheet support, but I totally understand limited dev resources.

What does a wiki allow you to do with a character which this won't? Both are blank pages waiting for you to put things in however you want, surely? Except this offers automated co-ordination for the GM.

One possible PBP addition: Characters usually have a color of speech text. If there was a way to associate a character with color and maybe a [speech][/speech] tag that works with that, that'd be grand (and save a lot of [color=whatever][/color] typing).

Hmmm. I can talk to the developer and ask him if there's a way the GM can asign colours to characters in his campaign once he's got the list.

Keep the ideas coming; if you dont' suggest it now and we develop the system and then you suggest it later, the response will be "shoulda said before I spent the money, not after!"

Feel free to make suggestions. I can't promise we'll do them all, but if we can come up with a decent PbP platform together, that would be awesome.

I'm currently trying to think of a way we can do battlemaps. I think that is too ambitious, though. But I'll keep thinking.

 

[stonegod]

What does a wiki allow you to do with a character which this won't? Both are blank pages waiting for you to put things in however you want, surely? Except this offers automated co-ordination for the GM.

The wiki allows
- Templates that take simple input and make complex output (formatted char-sheets from just a few numbers and text); also does some validation.
- Editing by not just the poster but the GM and the Living World judges (important for character approval).
- Automatic linkage to other characters that share the same category tag (for noting all Warforged, all Warlocks, etc.).

The first two are the important points, the last one a nicety by not a game breaker. You can see an example of what I mean here: Tondrek; if you "Edit" it, you can see the templates in action. At the bottom of the sheet you can see comments from Judges (which is why we like the more-than-one editing).

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

I currently use ENWorld for my actual game play, and Obsidian Portal for my campaign management. I really like the options they've got over there. I'll go ahead and say that campaign management is all they do, so it's unlikely you'll be able to set up anything that elaborate. However, I really think you're on the right track here; I'd just suggest that you take a look over there for some potential inspiration. For an example of what a GM who's ready to devote some time and effort, check out Arsheesh's Tales of Darkmoon Vale.

 

[pneumatik]

I like the idea of having easy access to my campaign's rogue gallery. Right now I have to scroll through several PCs who are no longer in the campaign to get to the newer ones. It would be nice to have a brief list that would let me expand one or all of them rather than linking to a separate page, like so:

Fafrd
Human Fighter 1
[sblock=full sheet]stats go here[/sblock]

The Grey Mouser
Human Rogue 1
[sblock=full sheet]stats go here[/sblock]

I'd love to be able to build character sheets (really I'd just steal someone else's work) in which the PCs just type in the numbers and it gets auto-formatted. I think. I mean, every characters sheet that's not just a sheet of blank paper has notes in the margins and on the back.

Anyway, if I could boot PCs out of my game when they stop playing it would help keep things neat.

If all these different things - PCs, characters sheets, die rolls, etc. - are represented by single objects/variables, then it should be easy to repeat them while keeping every copy synchronized. So I could see all of a PCs die rolls on their character page and they'd also been in/under the posts they were made for.

And, uh, [MENTION=29098]Rhun[/MENTION] and [MENTION=84167]HolyMan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=13966]Arkhandus[/MENTION], getthehellouthere!

Oh! The one thing that drives me the most crazy is when sigs aren't displayed while I'm composing a post. That's where I keep handy links to the rogue's gallery and OOC thread (with campaign reference). If there would be some way to keep the link to the main campaign page while composing a post it would be super-awesome.

 

[HolyMan]

Someone called for a HolyMan??

Hey wait you don't look sick, what is going on here?

EDIT: So far I like aliases. Will there be a cap?

HM

 

[Blackrat]

It looks good. And I can't think of anything to add right now that hasn't been said before. Stonegod's color suggestion I echo.

 

[Relique du Madde]

If you do a speech tag PLEASE make it use (optional) arguments.

[speach="Color"] [/speech]

or

[speech="Font,Color"] [/speech]*


*Font being optional.

Personally, I don't want to force colors on people in my campaigns since it's the player's character, therefore they should get to choose how their character speaks, not me.

It's like a table game. Do you tell your player's how they are supposed to make their character's are supposed to sound when they RP?

 

[Relique du Madde]

To continue my thought...

Maybe the argument for the speech tag can be SPECIFIC style attached to a user's account (which can be accessed through a "character's tab"). So for instance, if my account had these styles:

Gaetanna = red, default, italic
Delta = plum, courier new

So, I (or someone else) would have to type:

 [speech=Relique du Madde.Delta]Text here[/speech]

To access a my "Delta" character style.

 

[Morrus]

I'm going to see what we can do with CB characters. No promises, though - I've no idea how difficult that will be, and we're obviously not allowed to step on the toes of the actual character generation.