Integrating Combat System and Roleplay
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@bored Why not? Because it's another layer of separation. Some people play from their phones or tablets. Not everyone has a roll20 account, then there's the setup that's needed for those various games.
I played on a Dark Sun game a while back that used an online website called editgrid I think to make maps and run adventures with. Don't know if Editgrid is still around actually...
But it still causes a lot of back and forth. Having it all centralized onto the game, even if a little time consuming to set up, is still putting everyone in the same place at the same time and overall allows the greatest user base.
Just imho.
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I suppose it's the same rule as with academics. Academics are there to make being human better, not for the sake of the academic theory itself.
I still remember being in the 9th grade and being on SW1, doing Corporate Sector Authority runs for credits, spending hours at my computer without RP, waiting for the hyperspace code to shunt me around the map of the galaxy at the MUSH. The horror.
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@Tempest Dahan is the one who created the +map code used on Saga Edition MU*s.
And it is delightful.
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@Lithium said in Integrating Combat System and Roleplay:
@bored Why not? Because it's another layer of separation. Some people play from their phones or tablets. Not everyone has a roll20 account, then there's the setup that's needed for those various games.
I played on a Dark Sun game a while back that used an online website called editgrid I think to make maps and run adventures with. Don't know if Editgrid is still around actually...
But it still causes a lot of back and forth. Having it all centralized onto the game, even if a little time consuming to set up, is still putting everyone in the same place at the same time and overall allows the greatest user base.
Sure, but you also have to remember that 8 hour combats are something our hobby is notorious for, and that's playing without a grid that takes multiple additional commands per round (and presumably extra adjudication, people needing to take things back when errors are made, etc).
And it's funny you mention editgrid, because the SW game I played on that used this code, it quickly became the norm that people just started using editgrid, google spreadsheets, basically anything else they could that was interactive and easily sharable, because the code was simply not tenable. People would run it a couple times, but eventually, especially when they needed to do things quickly, wanted more complicated terrain, whatever, it would be simpler just to draw in another window.
So I really think this is a game breaker for a lot of people. Some will enjoy it, but the complexity level and additional time investment is huge. I think the only way around it is better software, or just accepting that our medium isn't really a good match.
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@bored In that case, the key is to make it more easily usable and more approachable. If I could code something of this complexity I would take a shot at it, but I am not that good of a coder. In fact, since I haven't had time to code in months, I'd probably have to re-teach myself to properly use inter() again... blargh.
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I'd love a browser-based map that I can easily edit and that is accessible for everyone to easily see. Just a basic grid I can add people's locations in and maybe mark certain grid squares as occupied (trees, trucks, whatever).
I think that would make my life as an ST way easier.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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I had a softcoded +grid system that allowed DMs on a D&D game do all of this. But yes, the same lessons learned. It was overhead. Nice to have, but soon people didn't use it as much. A web-based one would be sooooo much better, and not cluttering the MU screen where the RP is happening.
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I saw these on a public google docs, along with draggable tokens. If i can find the link I'll post it here.
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@Bobotron said in Integrating Combat System and Roleplay:
I saw these on a public google docs, along with draggable tokens. If i can find the link I'll post it here.
That would be awesome.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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There are some spreadsheet sites out there that work really well for battlemaps. I've used google draw before and had some success.
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@Coin
I finally recalled the one I originally saw was on editgrid. But I did find a copyable example Google Spreadsheets one!ETA: It looks like you can also do what we'd done for editgrid, in that you can upload images and move them around as long as people have edit control of the spreadsheet. You could totally make monster icons in whatever xsquare sizes you need for tiny, etc. I would also advise making the grid spaces larger as it's easier to function with at that point.
