How to protect the Character Sheets from Players and recommendations

[Dayereth]

Hi everyone.

I purchased the Ultimate License, the Player's Handbook Core license, and the Princes of Apocalypse accessory license which amounts to about $200.00 and am thinking in purchasing the Monster Manual Core Pack license which is about $50.00.

Let me start off by saying the software is just great (also expensive) and I can tell there has been a massive effort on creating something unique and powerful. I realize there is still a lot to do to make it even more magnificent. Here are my two cents.

1-There should be a way for the DM to protect the character's from unwanted changes by character's owners. Eg: A player should not be allowed to edit his inventory or abilities without the GM knowing it. A good way to implement this other than a placing a locking function on the character sheet can be as follows:
a) The DM signals the software to begin the gaming session.
b) Everything happening in the game is being recorded to different logs: chat log, character sheets log, combat log, etc...
c) At the end of the gaming session, at the DMs command, the software generates a gaming session log with a compilation of all the other logs, thus letting the DM know what happened during the session. This can be incredibly helpful in many ways. It would let the DM know about changes made to the characters, and help him to write a summary of what happened during the session.

2-There should (must) be a backup/restore function. This could help the DM recover all his time spent on creating content and making progress notes, etc.... It is really easy to screw up a character sheet of a note, or maybe delete a character or NPC altogther. A restore function will allow the DM to go back to any of the previous backup states.

3-There should be a way to print out Character sheets.

4-There shoulld be a way to specify which characters were in the encounter so the software only awards the points between those present and not to everybody. Maybe a checkmark to let the software know which characters are being awarded at the time would be fine.

5-Leveling up is so easy to do that you can screw-up a character by doing it accidentally and then there would be no way (alas manually) to go back to the original un-leveled character. Some macros should have a confirmation dialog before applying all of the changes, thus giving the DM the choice to do it or to cancel it before making any actual changes. Maybe a preview or text summary of the changes about to be made and then an ACCEPT or CANCEL button.

6- Mapping needs some more drawing tools like allowing the Pen to have different sizes or brushes. I found the line drawn with the PEN is too thin and can barely be seen at larger resolutions.

7- Also with the map: there should be a way to Share a common instance of the map so everyone can see it and then there should be a way to share another instance of the same map with just a selected few players. It happened to me that while inside the same dungeon, the party got split in three so I could not use the map effectively because exposing areas of the map would show those areas to everybody whereas not everybody was there to see that part. Separate instances of a map to be shared with different players would be really helpful and practical.

8-An extension of #7, any sheet or content should be shared with the players the DM chooses and not to everybody all the time.

9-Finally, pricing could come down a bit, specially for the Core Packs. Accessories are pretty much ok. I'd say Ultimate License should include PHB, DMG and MM core packs or maybe the book's information only without the tokens or something like that.

Thank you very much for reading this and I hope some of these suggestions make it to drawing board at least.

[Ferrin]

Yeah, good luck with getting anywhere making suggestions.... At best the forum will politely tell you some brush off reason why none of that is possible and at worst your about to get into a long drawn out argument with several people. You just dropped a boatload of cash so they will likely be nice this time. This is a great place for asking for help and finding assistance but they don't take change or suggestions well.

[Dayereth]

Yeah, good luck with getting anywhere making suggestions.... At best the forum will politely tell you some brush off reason why none of that is possible and at worst your about to get into a long drawn out argument with several people. You just dropped a boatload of cash so they will likely be nice this time. This is a great place for asking for help and finding assistance but they don't take change or suggestions well.

That is really bad and I hope for everybody's sake you are wrong. I believe at least half of my suggestions are common sense (like backup and restore) and would definitely be very well accepted within the community.

[Black Hammer]

1. I don't disagree with your first point. Having the ability to lock aspects of a character sheet, especially for a pregen, would be handy. I'm less worried about a player "cheating" than bored experimental clicks or just plain fat fingers messing things up.

2. The libraries are pretty malleable, and while a good thing, it does cut both ways. I wouldn't mind having the option for something along those lines.

3. I don't think the licensing is meant to support creating printable character sheets, or at least that'd be my guess. I don't know what D&D's current "official" character sheet maker is... they had a really nice one for 4E early on, but stopped supporting it and switched to that silly online one. Personally, I don't find FG to be a particularly helpful tool for making characters in that regard anyway, so I can't imagine using it instead of the many printable PDFs available for free.

4. You still give XP based on encounters? I didn't think people still did that. Well, everyone's different.

5. Much like #2, having the option for such a thing wouldn't be bad. Or even built-in rollbacks; you can manually make a backup copy of a character before updating it, which works in a similar role, but it isn't terribly intuitive.

6. You dang 4k resolution people and your space age problems. Us normal folk don't have to worry about your evil genius wall-sized displays. (Not serious, although I've never had that issue myelf.)

7/8. I guess a lot of this comes down to how you view your players. I trust mine to manage their own metagaming and suspension of disbelief and ability to view the situation from that of their character.

9. This is only relevant if you're playing D&D. For those of us with limited or no desire to run D&D, it wouldn't be much fun to have the price go up due to bundled "features" we don't want.

Generally, I like your rollback ideas; good software tries to be idiot-proof. As for the other features, I think some of them are only useful for specific GM styles, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Nylanfs]

On #1 there is a chat log created, I am unsure whether it captures any of this information.

On #2 there probably should be, but at the same time copying your campaign into a separate location like a Drive or Dropbox folder works just as well (and can be setup automatically). The development team is pretty small (3 people) so I don't think the benefit of spending the development resources on this at this time would make sense.

On #3 there is a thread in the 5e section on doing just this.
(https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22440-5E-Character-sheet-from-XML)

On #4 are you using the party sheet to divy up xp and items and such?

On #5 this probably would be very useful, but at the same time small development team.

On #6 this is being addressed in the upcoming Unity rebuild, the software base is over 12 years old and this is right at the very heart of the codebase, so not trivial to alter.

On #7, in the images you could make a copy of the original image and then drag and drop that link on the the pc portraits to share just that new image with them. Bad thing is that then you have to juggle two maps.

On #8, drag images, maps story items to the PC's portrait instead of marking to share with all.

On #9 WotC had a major hand in this pricing. If you look at the other systems their prices are MUCH more in line with most customers expectations. And If the Ultimate were to come with a system which one should it be, or just assume that everyone plays D&D? Or maybe Pathfinder, Or maybe Castles and Crusades, Or Dark Eye?

[Dayereth]

.

4. You still give XP based on encounters? I didn't think people still did that. Well, everyone's different.

7/8. I guess a lot of this comes down to how you view your players. I trust mine to manage their own metagaming and suspension of disbelief and ability to view the situation from that of their character.

9. This is only relevant if you're playing D&D. For those of us with limited or no desire to run D&D, it wouldn't be much fun to have the price go up due to bundled "features" we don't want.

Generally, I like your rollback ideas; good software tries to be idiot-proof. As for the other features, I think some of them are only useful for specific GM styles, not that there's anything wrong with that.

4. What do you mean? How do you award XP nowadays? I am old school but still I can see both in the PHB and DMG that hasn't changed.
7/8 One of them already proved unworthy of trust.
9. I don't mean prices to go up because of bundling. I mean to include the core packs in the existing Ultimate price. As to which gaming system, they can offer several different packs. An ultimate license for D&D, one for Numenera, Call of Cthulu, or whatever. It would be an option, besides the existing ones; not meant to replace anything. I am aware WotC was a major influence on final costs but still wishing a better price is not wrong or uncalled for.

[Dayereth]

On #1 there is a chat log created, I am unsure whether it captures any of this information.

On #4 are you using the party sheet to divy up xp and items and such?

On #7, in the images you could make a copy of the original image and then drag and drop that link on the the pc portraits to share just that new image with them. Bad thing is that then you have to juggle two maps.

On #8, drag images, maps story items to the PC's portrait instead of marking to share with all.

On #9 WotC had a major hand in this pricing. If you look at the other systems their prices are MUCH more in line with most customers expectations. And If the Ultimate were to come with a system which one should it be, or just assume that everyone plays D&D? Or maybe Pathfinder, Or maybe Castles and Crusades, Or Dark Eye?

#4. I am using the party sheet. That is the reason I am writing this. It distributes everything evenly without the possibility of including or exluding party members.
#7 and #8. THe portrait idea is not bad but I am using Fog of War and it would not work in the way you suggest.
#9. Like I said in my earlier post, wishing for a better price is still not uncalled for.

[Black Hammer]

4. What do you mean? How do you award XP nowadays? I am old school but still I can see both in the PHB and DMG that hasn't changed.
7/8 One of them already proved unworthy of trust.
9. I don't mean prices to go up because of bundling. I mean to include the core packs in the existing Ultimate price. As to which gaming system, they can offer several different packs. An ultimate license for D&D, one for Numenera, Call of Cthulu, or whatever. It would be an option, besides the existing ones; not meant to replace anything. I am aware WotC was a major influence on final costs but still wishing a better price is not wrong or uncalled for.

I don't award XP at all. To me, it's a mechanical number that has nothing to do with the narrative character. When it's time for the characters to advance, I tell them to level up or take an advance or have so many upgrade points, depending on the system. If you're running a dungeon crawl, giving out XP like that makes sense, but characters in a narrative don't get bonus points for unlocking random doors or killing things. If it doesn't advance the story or explore the characters, why reward it? The goal is to encourage players to work together to build a narrative, so that gets rewarded.

Samwise Gamgee doesn't level up in Moria and such because he got killing blows and survived social encounters. He "levels up" because he realizes the importance of Frodo and his quest, and while his actual combat ability doesn't really change, the determination and bravery he has been building up through the story lead him to success against Shelob and later the goblins. On one hand, he "levels up" because the story needs him to; on the other, it's a good story because it builds towards that from the beginning.

7/8. I'm sorry to hear that. My knee-jerk reaction would be towards booting them out (if I felt they were metagaming in a way that purposefully detracted from other players' enjoyment), but the better suggestion is having a discussion with them over what they want from the game. If it's just "winning" without respect for the story, the game, or the other players, well, at least now you know. Not every player is suited to every game, or every GM. Hopefully some of the savvier folk with the software can give you more practical suggestions.

9. Oh, if it was truly bundled in free, I'd be totally OK with it, 5E or otherwise. Heck, throw in TORG for free and I'd appreciate it. I just have my doubts about whether WotC would let anything go for cheap.

[damned]

Hey Dayereth and welcome.

There is an official wishlist here where you can vote on others suggestions and also add your own.
https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/
Type in a keyword or two and wait and it will filter the results so you can see if there are similar suggestions already.


1-There should be a way for the DM to protect the character's from unwanted changes by character's owners. Eg: A player should not be allowed to edit his inventory or abilities without the GM knowing it. A good way to implement this other than a placing a locking function on the character sheet can be as follows:
a) The DM signals the software to begin the gaming session.
b) Everything happening in the game is being recorded to different logs: chat log, character sheets log, combat log, etc...
c) At the end of the gaming session, at the DMs command, the software generates a gaming session log with a compilation of all the other logs, thus letting the DM know what happened during the session. This can be incredibly helpful in many ways. It would let the DM know about changes made to the characters, and help him to write a summary of what happened during the session.
Interesting suggestion. I haven't seen this before. At the moment I am guessing you are mostly talking about 5e. It has the most bells and whistles and will probably always lead the way. Many features are common to the platform and many are ruleset specific. As each ruleset will have its own ways of storing and own names for all of these things it would most likely need to be implemented at a ruleset level. I imagine this would be a lot of work but if there was demand it could happen. The chat log stores a lot of info. The easiest way to handle this would probably not be to have separate logs but to have everything logged to the Chat log.



2-There should (must) be a backup/restore function. This could help the DM recover all his time spent on creating content and making progress notes, etc.... It is really easy to screw up a character sheet of a note, or maybe delete a character or NPC altogther. A restore function will allow the DM to go back to any of the previous backup states.
Probably you are right. Definitely add it or upvote it. In the meantime on the splash screen there is a folder icon that opens straight up to the FG data directory. I tend to zip up my campaign folder and rename it with the date eg DeceiptOfAikarn.20150906.zip and then I drop that in my OneDrive folder. Id look at something like that in the interim.


3-There should be a way to print out Character sheets.
This is a VTT so saying a VTT should support Offline play is probably unfair in my opinion - but this is something that others have posted too. Up vote it and use the community one (there is also a community Pathfinder one too) in the interim. Again - because every ruleset is quite specific and quite different it would have to be done ruleset by ruleset - and the majority of the rulesets are made by community members.


4-There should be a way to specify which characters were in the encounter so the software only awards the points between those present and not to everybody. Maybe a checkmark to let the software know which characters are being awarded at the time would be fine.
Vote for it and in the meantime drop the character from the PS before you award and then bring them back in. Some of these features are newish and some still have things that are planned but not yet delivered.


5-Leveling up is so easy to do that you can screw-up a character by doing it accidentally and then there would be no way (alas manually) to go back to the original un-leveled character. Some macros should have a confirmation dialog before applying all of the changes, thus giving the DM the choice to do it or to cancel it before making any actual changes. Maybe a preview or text summary of the changes about to be made and then an ACCEPT or CANCEL button.
I'm not expert at 5e but I believe you can roll back a level? Mechanically the changes you are talking about could be quite complex to deliver. Also how would you see this working with players that build their characters offline? I'm not nay-saying your idea - I'm asking how you think it might work for things like Adventurers League where the player manages the character and plays with lots of different GMs and legally levels up and buys equipment between sessions. There is no GM to approve those changes. Right now AL is still growing but if it gets anywhere near as big as Pathfinder Society it will be a big share of the games played with FG.


6- Mapping needs some more drawing tools like allowing the Pen to have different sizes or brushes. I found the line drawn with the PEN is too thin and can barely be seen at larger resolutions.
Agreed but it wont happen under FG3. The current game engine has many limitations and the bulk of current dev work is on porting/rebuilding FG on the Unity Game engine which will allow this to be delivered in the future. It probably wont ship with FG4 but is very likely to implemented sometime soon after FG4 based on the demand for it.


7- Also with the map: there should be a way to Share a common instance of the map so everyone can see it and then there should be a way to share another instance of the same map with just a selected few players. It happened to me that while inside the same dungeon, the party got split in three so I could not use the map effectively because exposing areas of the map would show those areas to everybody whereas not everybody was there to see that part. Separate instances of a map to be shared with different players would be really helpful and practical.
The current design doesn't support this and I don't see any way that it will (mind you I'm a hack at this and what I don't know wold sink the titanic). If you need to do this at the moment you need to make a copy of the image and drag it in. That will do what you need just a few extra steps.


8-An extension of #7, any sheet or content should be shared with the players the DM chooses and not to everybody all the time.
This feature exists. Drag the item in question to the portrait in question.


9-Finally, pricing could come down a bit, specially for the Core Packs. Accessories are pretty much ok. I'd say Ultimate License should include PHB, DMG and MM core packs or maybe the book's information only without the tokens or something like that.
Pricing is what it is. The licensed 5e products pricing is based on the RRP of the physical products as set by the Wizards. As to the base license that's where SmiteWorks earn their fees. They are a small company and need to do their own sums on what they need to sell a product for to stay in business. Discounting the product and not increasing sales enough to make up the loss would be a sad day as they could go out of business. Its a niche market with high development costs. Id like it to be cheaper but I'm much more interested in the ongoing future of the platform and to me, my costs have well and truly been recouped.


Thank you very much for reading this and I hope some of these suggestions make it to drawing board at least.
SmiteWorks is very close to these boards. They are active on them, they interact with them and they welcome input and feedback from their customers. In saying all that, they have their own list of priorities and their own road map (which includes such pleasant surprises like the 5e licensing deal which consumes a huge amount of resources) so they do the best they can with the resourcing and the income they have.

I'm glad you are enjoying the product and getting some gaming in. There are some good ideas and suggestions in there. Feedback is important to the developers and you will also get ideas/suggestions on how to work around limitations in the meantime.

[Dayereth]

Hey Dayereth and welcome.

There is an official wishlist here where you can vote on others suggestions and also add your own.
https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

I just did that. Thank you.



Interesting suggestion. I haven't seen this before. At the moment I am guessing you are mostly talking about 5e. It has the most bells and whistles and will probably always lead the way. Many features are common to the platform and many are ruleset specific. As each ruleset will have its own ways of storing and own names for all of these things it would most likely need to be implemented at a ruleset level. I imagine this would be a lot of work but if there was demand it could happen. The chat log stores a lot of info. The easiest way to handle this would probably not be to have separate logs but to have everything logged to the Chat log.

Thank you.


Probably you are right. Definitely add it or upvote it. In the meantime on the splash screen there is a folder icon that opens straight up to the FG data directory. I tend to zip up my campaign folder and rename it with the date eg DeceiptOfAikarn.20150906.zip and then I drop that in my OneDrive folder. Id look at something like that in the interim.

I just began doing this in the meanwhile.


This is a VTT so saying a VTT should support Offline play is probably unfair in my opinion - but this is something that others have posted too. Up vote it and use the community one (there is also a community Pathfinder one too) in the interim. Again - because every ruleset is quite specific and quite different it would have to be done ruleset by ruleset - and the majority of the rulesets are made by community members.

I am using it for face-to-face games and it works great. I use a second computer connected to a TV screen or large monitor so everyone can see the map and other content. Then almost everybody have laptops so they join my local session and select their characters just as they would if they were remote users. I have to tell you that it works great although it does consume a lot of resources when you have many notes and windows opened.




Vote for it and in the meantime drop the character from the PS before you award and then bring them back in. Some of these features are newish and some still have things that are planned but not yet delivered.
That is what I was thinking in doing in the meanwhile but to implement a checkbox in that area is no such a big deal. I can say so because I am a Visual Basic and Web Applications programmer. Please don't misunderstand me, any programming chore as easy as it may sound, may take a lot of time to implement; I am perfectly aware of that.


I'm not expert at 5e but I believe you can roll back a level? Mechanically the changes you are talking about could be quite complex to deliver. Also how would you see this working with players that build their characters offline? I'm not nay-saying your idea - I'm asking how you think it might work for things like Adventurers League where the player manages the character and plays with lots of different GMs and legally levels up and buys equipment between sessions. There is no GM to approve those changes. Right now AL is still growing but if it gets anywhere near as big as Pathfinder Society it will be a big share of the games played with FG.


I can type the level I want and I noticed some features and traits of the previous level disappeared automatically, however, the Hit Points that were automatically rolled (without asking) did not rollback. So some things roll back, some don't.



The current design doesn't support this and I don't see any way that it will (mind you I'm a hack at this and what I don't know wold sink the titanic). If you need to do this at the moment you need to make a copy of the image and drag it in. That will do what you need just a few extra steps.

This definitely would be a big hassle in the middle of a game but I'll have to find a way.


This feature exists. Drag the item in question to the portrait in question.
Other members mentioned this but now I realize what you all mean. Thanks all for the tip.


Pricing is what it is. The licensed 5e products pricing is based on the RRP of the physical products as set by the Wizards. As to the base license that's where SmiteWorks earn their fees. They are a small company and need to do their own sums on what they need to sell a product for to stay in business. Discounting the product and not increasing sales enough to make up the loss would be a sad day as they could go out of business. Its a niche market with high development costs. Id like it to be cheaper but I'm much more interested in the ongoing future of the platform and to me, my costs have well and truly been recouped.

I know. Just wishful thinking.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Dayereth]

I don't award XP at all. To me, it's a mechanical number that has nothing to do with the narrative character. When it's time for the characters to advance, I tell them to level up or take an advance or have so many upgrade points, depending on the system. If you're running a dungeon crawl, giving out XP like that makes sense, but characters in a narrative don't get bonus points for unlocking random doors or killing things. If it doesn't advance the story or explore the characters, why reward it? The goal is to encourage players to work together to build a narrative, so that gets rewarded.

Well, to me it makes sense to award XP in D&D because first of all, the encounters help the development of the characters and with each level they acquire new ones. And I am not just saying that killing orcs should in fact help you acquire a better skill set or gain new knowledge out of the blue, but I feel like it is the players themselves gaining the level while they learn new ways to overcome foes and use newly acquired abilities. I also award XP for reaching milestones in a story when they get there by doing the right (or almost right) things; not just by getting to the boss by chance). And I award XP for role-playing based on how they RPed their characters in following their corresponding alignment, background story if apples, ideal, bonds if apply, and flaws. Your way of doing it sounds interesting. I may try it sometime.


7/8. I'm sorry to hear that. My knee-jerk reaction would be towards booting them out (if I felt they were metagaming in a way that purposefully detracted from other players' enjoyment), but the better suggestion is having a discussion with them over what they want from the game. If it's just "winning" without respect for the story, the game, or the other players, well, at least now you know. Not every player is suited to every game, or every GM. Hopefully some of the savvier folk with the software can give you more practical suggestions.

Well, I do not feel like kicking him out because he is one of my best friends but I will definitely talk it over. I may begin to penalize players with negative XP or some fateful in-game event so they learn not to do it.

Thank you.

[Nylanfs]

You also want to make sure that it isn't something he altered without realizing or thinking, or just playing with the new "toy".

[Dayereth]

Who knows. I will ask him but he he is known to be a bit of a cheater; if only just for being funny, not that it is his intention to ruin everybody's game. Still, I cannot encourage that kind of behavior. If it was just an innocent mistake then that of course can and will be forgiven.

[damned]

if you do the in-game consequences and he pipes up saying "hey! why does this sh#t always happen to me?" point out to him that there may have been some irregularities in his character sheet and the gods are capricious things... some people do think its funny to "tweak" things a little, they don't think they are cheating. this just evens the score up a bit... and you can get pretty imaginative in reply without being downright mean.

[JohnD]

Some people just have terrible in-game luck.

[leozelig]

For tracking changes to character sheets, you can export PCs at the end of the session. It's not the same I know, but it would save backup copies of character sheets.

[Griogre]

Just tell the player you had a problem with the NPC sheet and and give them a +40 to hit only vs. hit him. :) Player's will quickly learn they can't out cheat a GM. Seriously if you have a cheating player the only stats that matter are AC, HP, To hit and damage values. If a spell caster then spells cast too.

On a serious note, one of the best ways to cure meta-gaming is to make it a disadvantage. In dungeon environments, set the meta gamers up. The guy who throws the perfectly centered fireball on the guys he can't see? Make sure you tell the party later the valuable painting that the player also couldn't see just got burned up by the fireball. That hostage they were trying to rescue? Oops, well you didn't really need to complete that quest did you?

Player's metagame, IMO, mostly because they can't resist the advantage. In map related things that people can see so they take shortcuts put the hidden pit trap down that passage or the gelatinous cube. The opportunist monster or scavengers approaching from around the corner that hadn't been placed because it couldn't be seen. Particularly, in face to face games peer pressure by the other players will stop a lot of this if the meta gaming moves are hurting the party. It also helps set the mood that the dungeon *is* a dangerous and unpredictable place. And, of course, the first time the guy doesn't meta game make sure there is a reward, the treasure map that didn't get burned up, and so on.