Question:

If I use Druidcraft at Freddy's and pray to the machine spirits, do I get a different effect?

You know.  I never expected anyone to use Druidcraft on a machine.  I might need to brainstorm something.

In reply to David Foxfire (msg # 18):

That's how I roll!  Miranda's shaping up to become a Techpriest!  Though I can't right now think of what THEY would get as an 'instantaneous effect.'  Maybe being able to turn the lights on or off, or making a plasma pistol fire once.

Hello people.  I've got a character in the works and I've finally decided to go with the Fighter I know, over a Monk from scratch.

greetings, tark!  yeah i'm likely going to go with cleric, but different race than i had in mind.

Greetings all. I will be joining the Algaren game. :) Joining me are Nathaniel and Tark. Looking forward to playing!

Also, my character sheet is still a work in progress, so please ignore anything from skills down.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:20, Sat 04 July 2015.

Yeah, mines' WIP as well.  :p

That's fine. Mine is done (as far as I know), I still need a properly named place to put it.  So technically you are ahead of me in progress.

That's one of the sticking points here on RPoL.net; the inability for players to post threads about their players.  I'd like to have it so that the players can open a thread used to maintain their characters.

My original idea was to find a cloud to store your character in, and then provide a link to a set-up thread on a given comapaign. (Usually, it'll be the thread where the campaign guide gets linked to.)

Some find that the "Character Details" or "Character Summary" fields in RPoL is perfect for storing a character sheet, while--in the case of Algaren--using Roll20's built in Character Sheet will suffice.

I'm still open or suggestiong in this subject, even to the point of creating a site open to my players (though readable to everyone else) where you can post up your characters and add their development Wikipedia style.  (Or some other style; if some suggests alternatives)

That is more "Inability for players to rename themselves or create a new character".  Even if I had moderator flag to create new threads, I would not be able to change "Gowkaiser96" to "Tark", or to create Tark from scratch as an additional character under my control.

That is a flaw every Bboard has, though at least with RPOL you can have 30+ Characters and their respective character data all tied to a single account. Instead of needing to create multiple accounts, or prefacing each post with "This is X chracter's post".  A lot of why I appreciate RPOL's benefits so much is from past experience with the alternatives.

I admit I my preference to the "Character details on RPOL" method.  Every body can read them just by clicking the name on a post (click my name to the left to see Tark's sheet, for example). The GM and player can edit them.  They are there by default.   Easy access, one stop spot for it all. No needing to create external cloud accounts needed (I admit cloud storage stuff has a tendency to hate me with a fiery passion for some reason).

The literal "Character sheet" option on RPOL meanwhile, GM's have to activate per character one at a time, and remember switch that player to be allowed to edit their own character sheet.  I've had GMs asking me why I haven't updated my character sheet, when they forgot to set me to be able to.

As for Character Threads?  I've seen games use character sheet threads, but those tend to end up a very awkward.

If there are a lot of character specific threads, then there ends up a lot of threads that either get buried or you can even end up with the entire first page (and more being character threads if you set them as notices.

If there is just one giant thread for character sheets, then you have to scroll through the thing to find somebody's sheet, and it adds another place to keep updated and maintained so a lot of those end up wildly out of date on top of having to sort through a dozen posts through multiple pages to find any given character.

TL;DR: My preference for the "Character Details" method has come about as much from seeing the alternatives fall flat.  (See also; many highly active games suddenly die because people switched to another Bboard just to have custom avatars).

Roll20 has it's own quirks. Which I will need to refresh my memory on for exactly what limitations players have without GM's reaching in and activating stuff for them.  But at the very least, RPOL for full sheets, and trimmed down immediately relevant to combat details for Roll20 works either way.

It's harder to edit and read big ol character sheets on Roll20 as well, since you are always having to edit them in a small popup window.

As a timesaving measure, and to allow turns to be taken when the main GM isn't around, the 4th ed games Tim, Chris run, and the 5th Ed game another friend runs, everyone gets handed a GM tag.  This is understandably not desirable to everyone, even ignoring the trust involved for your players to not use this to flagrantly cheat.

So I'm going to be looking over ROLL20s stuff to refresh my memory on it's "one GM, rest are players" aspects, and see if at the very lest I can think of things to help save you headaches.


EDIT:
ROLL20 Tip one: Just ignore the "Attributes" and "Abilities" section on Roll20 character sheets.  The incredibly specific setup is not worth the effort.



See all that?  That is a Roll20 help page example for setting up just ONE attack ability on a token, (which requires the target token to also have the appropriately coded stuff on it).

Or, you can just ignore the "Attributes" and "Abilities" section, and just roll plain old dice rolls based off what is on your character sheet and the situation.

As the GM, would you prefer learning a coding language which you must apply to every single enemy and player, to enable "click popup button to select attack, select target".

Or would you prefer "I looked at the monster's stats.  It's got 1d20+10 for it's bite attack.  *Rolls 1d20+10*  okay that was a 19, the player's sheet/Token says AC is 18, so it hits."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:42, Sun 05 July 2015.

I agree with gowkaiser96. For purposes of pretty much everything, we just use "character details".

That said, I think it would be neat to ALSO have our characters in the "Red Team" section of your "One Note Book". On the side, when people have time, can slowly add the team members to that. No biggy (after all, if Red Team remains blank, it will be open to future players. But I know you like the "lasting effects" aspect of a given game, so chances are you don't want anyone to ever join Red Team again until this Red Team has retired from it in game.)

If you can figure out how to unlock "Character Summary" for us, that would be handy for other things also (such as alternate builds, future desired feats and such), but "ScratchPad" works just as good for those purposes.

Ultimately? Gowkaiser, Mittens and I, at least, would like to stick with "character details" for keeping track of our characters. Like gowkaiser96 said, after many bboards and many RP places, it is just the best thing we have found for RP character sheet tracking to date.

I'll look into Unlocking Character Summary...Also, I can easily give those who are in my Alagren campaign Editing permissions for the One Note, so you can add your character sheet there, if that's what you want.  One Note Books are designed for collaboration, and unlike Wikis, you can control who gets their Editing Card.

  Yeah, while I'm rambley as hell about it, mostly I just want you to not have to run into the pitfalls and hassles I've seen other games hit.

  FYI Scratchpad is player private, not even the GM can read those.

  I'm trying to remember what Character SUMMARY is, and where, that Tam mentioned.  I know there is the Character Description (All can read, Player and GM can edit), and the "GM has to create and enable permissions per character"  Character Sheet (Player and GM can read, player can only edit if allowed).

  The only thing the help files turn up with the word summary is RSS feed stuff.

  I gotta admit I won't be touching the one note thing unless forced, basically.  Even if "you have to give me your personal emails for this to work" wasn't involved.

When I said "Character Summary", I was actually thinking of "Character Sheet". Far as what it is and such, is exactly the same as "character description" (and shows up as editable in the same place that character details does if it is unlocked), the difference is that when you have character details filled out, only you and the GM can view the results.

For an example, gowkaiser96, if you go to Mittens Dungeon -> Character Details -> Angel. You'll see a character sheet underneath her.

On the One Note thing, gowkaiser, would you be fine with the GM adding your sheet there in addition to you having the character description.

My main issue with One Note was the whole "you have to install a program to use it." thing.  I'd be more open to One Note specifically if it turned out I didn't also have to install a program to use it at all.  Though taking another glance at it, I may not have to because of hotmail integration stuff?

Cloud storage does have plenty of good usage even when you have access to RPOL or Roll20.

That nice PDF file about your setting was a good usage, it's wildly impractical to retype all that up for RPOL, and that's just considering the text! Not all the images involved.

I can also understand why the GM would not want to make copies of the characters and sheets in their cloud on RPOL.

But when you start asking people where they wanna put their sheets, and then when they decide on NOT using the suggested cloud gets "Oh, you didn't pick the cloud?  You have to make and maintain a cloud sheet anyways."... Blah.

Tam, Imagine if I asked you "Hey, what do you want to use to give and receive image links?"  And then when you picked Deviantart told you "That's nice, but you have to use Photobucket anyways."

I'm sure that one note would actually WORK, unlike Photobucket does for you. I'm just trying to give a mindset reaction example.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:10, Mon 06 July 2015.

You don't have to install any programs.  If you have a Microsoft Mail account (outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com, or the like) you can access the related One Drive program, in that service is a web-based version of Microsoft Office, including One Note. If you don't want or can't install any programs that's the way to go.

I mainly have the Cloud as an option to putting out your character sheets, and at the time I typed that out, I didn't know of any other options, such as, say, the Character Details field here in RPoL.  Once I know of other options, I'll make a note on that and add it to future campaign guides, no harm no foul.  DeviantART, Photobucket, Your own web page space using FTP (!!!) it's all good.

Good to hear.  I was also probably not fully successful in reigning in outside annoyance from RL paperwork shenanigans bleeding into that prior post.

If you were running your campaign out of just your Cloud and Roll20 for example, then I would have considered cloud based sheets a great idea because that is more convenient than Roll20 sheets.

Unrelated to clouds, let me know if there are any Tark sheet details I still need to finish up (that are under my control) I may have overlooked considering your campaign.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:15, Tue 07 July 2015.

Meh, I'm accustomed to having some of my shenanigans going askew.  At least I heed someone's heads-up when something needs to be fixed.  (Protip:  As long as you don't be an @$$hole about it, I'll listen to constructive critisim.  Unfortunatly, I ran into way too many @$$holes in my life.)

I favored Cloud-based sheets--or even my customized Character Sheet or even Word Documents in a pinch--because I end up awarding characters with stuff that would break any character sheet manager programs such as Herolab or what's with Fantasy Grounds.  I'd award someone with new feats, bonus spell slots, additional HPs, Training that increases the original limits of a character stat, additional Attributes, A Madness machanic, A Dark Powers mechanic, Action Points instead of Inspiration, and many other "I am a Bad DM" moves that would make Wizard's R&D want to put me in jail.

But it makes the game so much fun.

Tark's sheet doesn't seem that it needs anything outside of a little spit and polish.  If you have a Microsoft account, send me a PM so I can give you editing priviliges.

Put a reply in the existing PM thread.  The only "issue" with changing a character's name is that it breaks off old PM threads under that name, and further replies create a new thread for the new name.  So easy enough to ignore the problem seeing how there is only the one RTJ thread.

I was pleasantly surprised at how solid 5th Ed Fighters are in a vacuum (You know, at a glance not comparing it to other classes).

Sure I prefer the options in 4th ed, but 5th Fighter at least comes with nice QoL bits that are basically baby versions of 4th ed mechanics.  Like their heal surge, and action surge.

Now if only certain acquaintances would stop comparing 9th level spells like Meteor Swarm to "Fighter's Get Four Attacks".  Nevermind the fact 9th level spells unlock at level 17, and Fighters don't get four attacks until level 20.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:02, Tue 07 July 2015.

In reply to gowkaiser96 (msg # 35):

The whole thing with 3rd edition prestige classes being add-on parts to the base classes is way better in general, and the removal of those draconian requirements even better. Not every Shadowdancer has to be an acrobat, Paladins don't have to be "prepared" to fall into Blackguard-dom with really suspicious feats and skills, and the Planar Shepherd, was recognized as the joke it was.

My luck in discussing other editions goes about like this.

Me:"I just prefer 4th edition. I've had more fun with it personally, but I have nothing against the older editions and if that's what you like better, then it's the right system for you to play."
"Oh my god, 4th ed PCs are so overpowered. Warlord healing is dumb and makes no sense. Now let me show you my character sheet.
http://www.coyotecode.net/profiler/view.php?id=14129
(Oh wow, that link still works.  "Class level 2, half gold dragon elf, flight, breath weapon, some kind of cannibalism based cooking system, etc")

Me: "How is an 18 strength on my fighter overpowered again?."
"I ROLLED FOR THOSE STATS!!!"
3rd person: "Tark, you shouldn't be causing an edition war."

So generally, once people start bringing up what parts of systems are better than the other or not, I prefer to just smile and nod these days.  Because even if you agree someone else's preferred system isn't bad... yeah.

EDIT: He said, after posting about how he likes the 4th ed like details on his 5th ed fighter.  Hypocrisy bingo card just needs one more and I'll get bingo!
This message was last edited by the player at 07:33, Wed 08 July 2015.

Yeah, even while I have a preference for 5ED, I don't mind playing other editions.  I just DM in 5ed because I'm the most accustomed to it.  I don't think I'm good enough yet to branch off to another system at this time.  Maybe later when the DMing center of my brain gets enough neuroplasticity...

I love 4e (mostly) as a DM because it's pretty easy (usually) to run.  No system is perfect.  Pathfinder is probably the hardest system I've DM'd for.  5e?  Well...  I'm really liking what I've been reading so far.

The "Streamlined™" angle on 5th Ed does help you pick it up faster new/"I forgot how it works from disuse again", at the very least.

The most "complicated" part of 5th Ed chargen is explaining the Background system to someone.

You know, outside of sifting through the spell table, but that's more time consuming than complicated.  Even if it's in alphabetical order, over 1/4 of the rule book is the spell table.

Heh. Yeah. There is no doubt that 3.5 was an improvement over 3rd, 2nd, and 1st editions.

As of 4e, The older the edition, the harder the difficulty levels (1st edition "AD&D&" was said to actually stand for "Arbitrary Death and Dismemberment"). I knew a person who was so diehard 2nd edition, they said similar things about 3.5 that the 3.5 fans said about 4e. XD So it's all about perspective there...

That said, I have found that all editions have their own upside and downside. I'll play any edition with someone willing to run it and teach me, as long as the persons I play with aren't jerks.

Have I mentioned I loooooove the GM of this game for posting "Don't be a jerk" as the first two rules? Well I do. Because it jives with what Mittens, gowkaiser96 and I all believe in: The first rule of gaming is fun. All else is supplement to that.