Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
I was thinking similarly… give you a single forum to have multiple threads going for different aspects of the game building discussion, then gradually build out the sub-forums and permission sets as they become fleshed out. That initial forum could be the foundation… where the foremen drop the blueprints and get fucked up planning the rest.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
I’ll reserve my right to insta-mod if we’re throwing back like that.
VashTheStampede
Jawneh is possibly The Sorcerer
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
There HAS to be, and if not, there has to be some website that offers that kind of service.
VashTheStampede
Jawneh is possibly The Sorcerer
Christina's been looking at using D&D Beyond for some of this. We've used it a little in some home campaigns in the past. A lot of the functionality is free.
If I wasn’t already signed up, I’d sign up in a heartbeat
I dunno about a forum plugin, but maybe a second best option is some kind of online D&D hosting service that we can login to just to do a dice roll. We can screenshot and post the roll, then have an actual log on the hosting application as a back up to verify any rolls. Maybe something like DnDBeyond or MoltenHosting.com can get what we need.
We could just use an honor system as well, that's up to everyone else
Yup. Looking at D&D beyond. The free version lets you create a few characters. You can do random, pre built, or from scratch and it's supposed to help you walk through it. It also has a dice roller built in. It even will let you specify its a wisdom check and so forth. Even adds your modifier for you for easy maths.
VashTheStampede
Jawneh is possibly The Sorcerer
Yo @GwJumpman you clearly have played before...any DM experience or am I the only one?
There is a way in the app to tie everything to one campaign together, but personally I like the idea of keeping that stuff here as much as possible, but it gives an easy to use tool for players for their characters. Could do screenshots of character sheets too for people to see each others stuff.
I've got SOME experience. I've only ran a single session, but I could probably make it work if I needed to
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
I agree, I think we should use the forums for as much as possible, that way we’re not stuck being reliant on someone posting their roll or using a third-party to progress the game for every other action.
You can even use character threads for spell casters to show what spells they have set for the day.
So my thought process is, use this for people to make it easy to manage their characters but they have to do screenshots and share that info here. It keeps people honest and makes it easier for people who have never played before.
So my thought process is, use this for people to make it easy to manage their characters but they have to do screenshots and share that info here. It keeps people honest and makes it easier for people who have never played before.
I just thought! If people have their own character thread to keep tract of states and level ups and all that, people can use it to RP their backstory if they want. It could also be used as a journal place if people want. I don't know if that would be needed as much with a text-based campaign because it's easier to go back through the campaign to find some info you may need. Using your character thread to bookmark things in the campaign may be helpful to some. Or just put your characters thoughts down on things so that you can keep that consistent for yourself. You may run into a character at the start of the campaign and not see them again for months and having a place with your own info about them can help you stay "in character". Vash could also keep a thread for the NPCs.
It might help the newbies if you or Vash or someone else create a sample that we can use as sort of a template. D&D seems overwhelming for first-timers
I'm just thinking as I type, so apologies if this reads like my brain sounds in my head;
- Some form of addon that could be implemented on the forums would be the best option, to both keep things as easy as possible for players to track their stats, without building a dependency on another site's services which may or may not be accessible forever.
- I don't know how feasible it is to F with the XenForo database ourselves, but I feel like rigging something like my below mock up couldn't be that difficult for a bunch of nerds like us.
- Another tangent that may work is if you can somehow rig badges up to have categories in and of themselves. If you can potentially separate the actual award badges and a second group, then that second group could be set up with spells/items which the DM could then award to each player as necessary, and remove them when needed, etc. You wouldn't want these displaying everywhere, but either in it's own box or only in the specific forum.
- I 100% think a Tavern for just bullshit discussion is a win. It could be open to everyone whether they're in a current campaign or not, and it's basically your holding pen for players wanting in. If someone dies or needs to duck out of a game for whatever reason, it gives the DM a place to go and recruit new characters. They just have to drop into the Tavern and yell that they need some Bugbears buggered. You may want to keep the Tavern as an RP space so everyone's in character already.
- As such having an off-topic meta area for actually game discussion would be useful, but keep it separated from the "world".
- So for forum structure I'd think something like:
- D&D Forum
- "The Tavern" as a sticky thread.
- "OOC Discussion" as a sticky thread.
- Active Campaigns Subforum
- Archived Campaigns Subforum
- Behind the DM Screen Subforum only viewable to DM.
- Campaigns
- NPCs
- Items
- Etc.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
Reminds me of the RPG add-on of yesteryear, which makes me think something of the sort may already exist in some capacity if it did way back then.
Gotchu.
All of this definitely goes in line with the rough idea of the forum/sub-forums.
I'd hope so, but I'm not so confident. Just Google searching for Xenforo D&D mods doesn't give any useful results. Just people asking for one to be made, generally back in 2011/2013. I found something from 2019 where a dev at [snip] basically says the hope of getting someone to write a comprehensive RPG mod in this era is slim unless you've got $$$ to throw away.
[snip]
Although we don't need something so elaborate that it contains an entire battle system. Just the stats, spells and items being tracked somewhere on the board would help. I'm sure there's a lot more access to dice-roll apps that let you share them all between a group, though I didn't look into that yet.
Aww yeah, that may actually be doable.
Word.
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Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
That’s unfortunate, I hadn’t made it that far to look it up myself, but it’s strange because of the depth of the ones for vB that existed. If you recall… we had an entire EXP system, storefront, inventory, and everything in-between with the exception of actual battle mechanics.
I will throwback to GWRPG/Eternity days, if y’all remember that RPG I had running for about a year back then. I basically had every player create their own character thread, and within it had all of their stats that had a rolling update as they progressed through the campaign. We had a pre-determined HP/MP system for players and enemies, complete with a bestiary to let players know exactly what they needed to take down each enemy. So, each battle essentially worked as simple math and there was minimal room for cheating since actions were input via posts, and carried on like your typical FF game where you’d just attack and defend back and forth until you whittled away the health of the enemy or enemies.
It was incredibly complex to set up, but as the game grew, it just necessitated adding more enemies, more missions, more players, etc. What started as just a text RPG that I came up with when I was stoned evolved into several people helping orchestrate it. Unfortunately, it became too much for me to run after I took on other duties on the forums, and I ended up neglecting the game when it came time to shift into another “season” of it.
Given the interest in this game, I think we could definitely utilize some of the ideas I had back then that I just couldn’t facilitate, coupled with the ideas y’all have now, to make a really solid game. I have no intentions of interfering with the plot or gameplay, but I definitely have plenty of ideas on the forum software backend to make this work.
I kinda want to get started toying around with forum configuration so I at least have some kind of template for y’all to work with ahead of time. I don’t want to run into permission issues like we have with the wolf games because I tried setting things up and tweaking them AS the campaigns are going along.
This, definitely. Everyone has their strengths but ultimately I think the entire premise Vash was going for is for everyone to just have fun for once, with no explicit need for investing all your focus in it. Using pre-made characters should be fine, playing fast and loose should be fine, just as inversely getting super into it and trying to keep your character alive as long as possible should be fine. This might be where some kind of character backstory, or at least a vague description of motive, would help, just so you can read whether someone's super into it or just enjoying the ride ahead of each campaign.
Personally I'm no good at the numbers side of D&D, because math is hard. Which might be why I'd love to get everything somewhat trackable forum-side without having to be referencing a dozen character/spell sheets all the time. If we could leverage the D&DBeyond app you shared for any of that it'd be great, I'm just not sure how effective needing to share screenshots/PDFs would be... There IS always the potential for people to be dicks and try to fudge that stuff, even if there's no real pressure on 'winning' and such.
I don't think I ever participated in that specific forum/mod, but I saw plenty of others just like you described. They were super complex for what they were.
This might be more of a @Crystal question, but what's the potential we can just tack a table or even just some columns on to the database to track these main stats? I can't really say what'd be the best way to update/maintain it, but if we're not trying to shove an entire bestiary into there, it might not get too complex.
I also wonder if there's any way to rig it up so the new post box in the given subforum has an option for rolling X number of Y sided die, and the forum just generates a random number and attaches it to the post. I'm thinking about where I see the "schedule publication" checkbox in the wolf games, if we just had an option there and could add one extra field to the post table to store the roll result, that'd probably solve for the "rolls that everyone can see and not fiddle with" requirement.
I may also just have too many ideas for my own good...
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
Which is exactly why I favored the method of having a pre-built bestiary, so everyone could look at it, see how many HP so and so had, and then determine if they were experienced enough to move forward or if they should grind a bit in some of the leveling “areas” of the game’s “map”, which I afforded all players the opportunity to level up in enemy EXP grinding slowly in-game or PvP grinding for larger EXP bonuses out of the main game in arenas scattered throughout the “world” so you’d face people who’ve progressed equally as opposed to getting mauled by anyone at any level. It eliminated a free-for-all, and simplified what could have been extremely complicated by having one thread with all of the enemies broken down by area, one thread for player stats they would carry over, and one thread per PvP. At the most, a player would have had to cross-reference the bestiary or their own thread to make adjustments. At the worst, one of the other people running the game or myself had to answer a question off to the side.
I like the table idea for tracking stats, but if it ends up being intangible… I can make it to where you could create a thread for your character sheet, but you’re unable to edit the post which means a DM would have to edit your stats for you, keeping the game and its mechanics honest across the board. There ARE ways we can facilitate this without hacking the UI to hell, weighing down the database, or creating a clusterfuck on the forums, we just gotta get creative.
Anyone who wants to post in the tavern should be required to do this.Who the fuck is my #DND character?
A DND character backstory generatorwhothefuckismydndcharacter.com
This is just a fun one to get some wonderful random ideas for characters. Might end with a most eclectic group of murder hobos though.
I've never done D&D before, but is it possible to "run into people" in the middle of campaigns so someone who is trying to learn or is a bit busy can participate in a small part of it rather than just the whole thing. Like finding a new town and a local helps you out and such?
Also this would clearly need a DM badge instead of the GM badge.
I have been summoned! Now...umm...what?
(also, I know this wasn't suggested, but as I saw they've been quoted and the name came up I want to be 100% clear that not a single line of Dragon-Byte code will ever touch these forums)
(also, I know this wasn't suggested, but as I saw they've been quoted and the name came up I want to be 100% clear that not a single line of Dragon-Byte code will ever touch these forums)
Doable, I'd recon.
I don't know how much Vash wants to get into, but you can pretty much do whatever you want with D&D story telling. The show Critical Role has guest stars all the time where a character shows up for just a small part.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
This could be a could opportunity to use a leveling system… if you’re level 10, you’re not gonna run into my dumbass at level 1 because you’ve progressed further than I have. If you’re at X point of the campaign, you participate in this tavern thread. If you’re at Y point of the campaign, you participate in this one, as if you’re moving around through an in-game world. The same general principle could be applied for various locales, shops, PvP areas, etc. Essentially, we could create one very large in-game world within the forum and the sub-forums.
I do think it's probably worth noting that D&D isn't quite the same as an RPG like Final Fantasy. You don't necessarily know how strong an enemy is before you start a fight. And you can go wander into a situation that's way too high a level for you to handle, that should be possible. It's less needing strict guide-rails around what you can do, as that'd potentially hamper the creative element of it. I think we just need a way to aid in keeping all of the numbers copacetic around characters, so people can feel like they own their own person, but still give the reins to the DM in so far as what they allow to happen in their campaign.
I think that's why I'm thinking if we could rig anything attached to each user profile to hold the core stats, maybe use the badge categories for items, etc., and allow only the DMs/forum-mods to adjust them that'd be enough. Tack a +/- button onto each value as in the mockup I gave before, with only GM/DMs able to see it. Maybe give the player themselves some option to wipe it entirely if they want to reroll, but need the DM to plug in the stats after the character sheet is presented.
I found this intriguing. I know nothing about it, so why do you feel so strongly about it?
I would also like to stress D&D and roll playing games are first and foremost about telling a story. The prize at the end is really the story itself. Rolling a 1 and having a critical failure can be just as impactful in the direction of a story as rolling a 20. Characters dying are great motivation for other characters. Having a "Mary Sue" character becomes apparent to the group and is often not very fun because it's not creative. I find the most fun is being presented with a challenge i.e. you run into bandits on the road. Your character is very charismatic, so instead of attacking them you try and convenience them you have a very infectious virus so they leave you alone. You roll a 1 and turns out you are really sick and you puke on one of them and start a plague. Or you roll a 20 and was so conveniencing you have started a panic in the local area and everybody in town now avoids you.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
This makes me think we could utilize this feature:
See where I’m going with this? I can set user groups to be able to modify these fields, even of other users.
100%. One of the few times I've actually gotten to play, we were trying to clear a dungeon and my party came up to a door where we heard what was clearly a giant spider hiding in the next room that was a wine cellar. Rather than wanting to fight it at all, my paladin asked the wizard to yeet a sonic spell (Shatter or something) into the room. Every wine bottle exploded on the shelves and shredded the spider before we even had to see it.
Entirely about creativity and trying to get yourself through any situation however you best see fit, then rolling with the consequences if the dice decide to hate you.
Awww yeah... That's seems basically like what I was thinking, so I'm glad it's already a feature!
I refuse to back those convicted of possessing child pornography.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
What the fuck is wrong with the internet...
I removed the link/screenshot I had up there. The point was made, and I ain't driving any amount of traffic there knowing that.
Not until one of us rolls a nat-20. Until then it's just edging.
Oh wow, yeah, 100% in agreement with you
I'm all good with it being referenced, I just wanted to be clear in the event it came up, because their add-ons for currency and shop mods are the only real options, which is why we've never pursued them for forum-based games and such. I won't give them a penny and I will never, for any reason, support a single line of their code on any forum of mine.
That's Kelly's +1 Helm of Skidmarks.
Mark
Dumbass Progenitor
Also this seems like a fine place to share; I have had this AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide from 1979 for a while, and I have literally no idea where it came from... Pretty tight though!
VashTheStampede
Jawneh is possibly The Sorcerer
Ughhh I love that shit
Also this seems like a fine place to share; I have had this AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide from 1979 for a while, and I have literally no idea where it came from... Pretty tight though!
View attachment 5081
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One of the coolest gifts Christina ever got me was the super fancy limited edition version of the D&D Art and Arcana book that tells the whole story of how it came to be and has all sorts of that old art and such in it.
Having the actual originals is rad as hell.
Serendipitously, this is the page I flicked to randomly to show the inside... Effects of Alcohol and Drugs.
