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Cantstanzya
March 18th, 2005, 07:01
The PC's have the ability to pass "notes" to other PC's by dragging the note to the other players Portrait (in the upper left corner) but the players cannot send a note to the GM. They can have the GM see the note by sharing it but this is now shared with everyone. I know that there is a /whisper command that can be used to have secret dialog between the GM and players but that is tied into the chat window and could get mixed up/lost with all of the other things being entered into chat (dice rolls/storyline ect...). FG has done a wonderful job recreating the tabletop environment, but it seems to be missing the note passing that occurs in all PnP games. Since the GM has no Portrait, would it be possible that if someone were to drag a note into the chat box (not the chat window) the note would then be shared with the GM? Then the GM could reply to this and send the note back by dragging it to the PCs Portrait. I don't see a need for the GM to have a notebook but I believe there needs to be a way for the PC to start up a note passing session with the GM. Any opinions on this???

richvalle
March 18th, 2005, 11:05
I think the dm can see ALL notes. I know I was playing a game once and entered a note saying "I wonder if the dm can see this". After a min the words 'Yes' appeared in the note!

I'm not sure how a dm would know that there is a note needing his attn though unless someone wispered too him.

rv

Cantstanzya
March 18th, 2005, 16:57
Currently if a player wants to send a "note" to the DM they must first share it to someone else and then I believe the DM can see it and respond to it. But I don't know of a way to send it directly to the DM without anyone seeing it.

Cantstanzya
March 18th, 2005, 17:31
I played around some more with passing note by starting three FG games on one PC so I had a GM, PC1 and PC2. If PC1 created a note and shared it, the DM and PC2 could see it but only the DM could edit it. I would love to see the whole notebook feature expanded so that users could pass noted to each other and the GM as a form of comunication. I think that keeping the same functionality is also important so that PCs could share personal notes without them being edited.

richvalle
March 18th, 2005, 18:22
Hmm, I'm pretty sure I did not share the note I made and the dm was able to see it and edit it. I could be wrong though.

If we get the chance we'll play around with the notes in the next game I'm in.

Note passing has never been a big function of our games. :)

rv

Sargond
March 19th, 2005, 14:06
In my games (tabletop true) notes passed by DM and players is constantly used when story lines have twists and turns that I usually create to make a game more fun.....

But with FG I am still trying to figure out how to do stuff... :( because RL is getting in the way...

Bitr_Haag
March 22nd, 2005, 19:50
Last weekend, I set myself up as a DM on the desktop and a player on the laptop and tried to share notes with two other friends that were logged in. Below are my conclusions:

1. A player can create a note and "share" it but EVERYONE gets to see it.
2. Dragging a note to a portrait and dropping it did NOT allow that player (or any other) to see the note. It just didn't work.
3. The DM sees ALL notes that I shared.
4. The DM can edit the note and "re-share" it.
5. Other players cannot edit notes that are shared.

I would love to see note passing improved but my players are using AIM to chat outside the game and to pass notes. They're also good about emoting their actions in game (ie: "Thelk leans over and whispers something to Morshalt...") so everyone knows they are talking.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong w/ the drag N drop on the portraits. Do you need to hold SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT? Also, is there any way to share an image with only 1 player instead of everyone (similar solution I would guess)?

Thnx,

Bitr

Cantstanzya
March 22nd, 2005, 21:18
As far as dragging the note to the portrait, I believe only the GM can do this. We could use an external program like AIM to pass notes, but it would be nice to have it built into the program. The bad thing about using AIM is that the DM should see all note that are passed between players, and the best way to do this would be as part of FG. Here is how I would like to see it implemented:
1. Player passes note to other player.
A player should be able to create a note and pull it to another PCs portrait and only that PC would be able to see the note and respond by dragging this note back to the player that sent it. Each time the note is passed this would update what the GM sees. There should be no way for any of the PCs to communicate without the GM seeing it.
2. Player passes note to GM
A player should be able to create a note and pull it to the chat box (not the chat window) and the note would go directly to the GM and no one else. The GM could then read it and respond, dragging the note to the PCs portrait.
I'm happy to see that I am not the only one that has notes passed during a campaign. There are just so many times that PCs want to do things that they don't want other PCs to know about.
Another feature that would be nice if the GM had the ability to "suspend" characters from seeing what is happening. For example a party of 6 PC split up into two parties of 3 in a dungeon (always a bad idea, but hey it happens). The GM should be able to "suspend" the 3 PCs that aren't part of the action so they don't know what happened. Much like when you have PCs leave the room when the party splits up. By doing this you cut down on alot of the "Out of character knowledge" that happens in the campaign. A good example of this was when one of my henchmen was assassinated from one of my own party members. Not knowing this made tracking down the culprit more lifelike because I had no idea who did it. Had I been in the room and witnessed this taking place it would have been out of character knowledge and it wouldn't have been as fun tracking this person down because I already knew who did it even though my character didn't.

Goblin-King
March 23rd, 2005, 10:55
When passing notes during play around a real table, the stuff on them tends to be "chat lines" you don't want other players to see. In our design, the /whisper command was intended to be used for this.

Another reason for passing pieces of paper is to keep track of party resources such as stuff the pack mule is carrying. Typically, this is just a paper anyone can reach for and read (at least in most of the games I've played in). This is the primary reason for notes shared by players in FG.

We're going to take the feedback on this issue into consideration, work on improving whispering functionality and see if we can come up with something nice, but the above are the main lines we'll be taking.

Sigurd
March 23rd, 2005, 12:10
Yes but if you are playing around a real table you can take the DM aside in a lull time, or when the pizza arives, and show him the stats of the henchman you've hired to....

Or draw him a picture of the wierd gizmo that you think might....

I understand the table top ideal you are striving for but why not make it easy to pass text files or graphic files back and forth between player and DM. You might find that players will work around unforseen issues if you give them more leeway.


S