Detective board extension

[Guame]

Hello,

I'm using FG with some friends to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign.
We're rather happy with the tool even if it is a bit awkward (user experience is not straightforward and often counter-intuitive...). I won't expand much on this point: this isn't my topic :)

So after a few hours my players started to collect things: evidences, facts, NPC, items, ... And it's hard to maintain that inside FG for many reasons.

One of them is because we don't know any way to view / update the current module's db content from outside FG, which can be annoying.

Another point is the difficulty to organize these data altogether in a synthetic and visual way.

I really which that my players can do something like this inside FG:
https://esquireuk.cdnds.net/15/37/980x490/980x490-detective-crazy-wall-43-jpg-f48b090a.jpg

They already have more or less everything, but it is hard to organize things inside FG.

I really hope that this kind of tool is possible to build inside FG, maybe for the next gen version.

Is it just a dream that will never comes true, or is it something I can expect ?

I would be happy to pay for this kind of extension (system neutral) and I really hope to see them in the FG's marketplace.

[Zacchaeus]

I doubt that would ever be possible.

i'd suggest you use a central image such as the map above and use pins to link to story entries, images etc. You can make a pin shareable with the players once they have discovered the clue or whatever. (At least I think you can do this - not too familiar with this ruleset)

[Guame]

-- messed with photo upload... don't know how to delete.

[Guame]

It's already what I do, but I feel that's a bit not as good as it could...

Pins all are looking alike, there's no easy way to drag'n'drop stuff appart from token on the map.
It's a great tool for the exploration and even as an organizer for the master, but it is not really suitable for the player as a way to organize the pieces they have collected...



https://tof.cx/images/2017/06/23/f0842e4a1e8a5e0bae66a213c75f24a5.jpg





Edit:
I think I have seen a video of the next gen FG that showcase the new image tool which will allow us to build layered picture.
So an empty pinboard + a layer allowing random pictures to be dropped in will do the trick...

I'll see.

[Guame]

In fact it is almost possible, but again quite awkward and not complete:
https://tof.cx/images/2017/06/24/ac871f281129faeed0da8b1ddefabc2b.jpg

In this case I can use a pinboard background and token to emulate the wanted behavior, but:
- player can't drop note or other pin they want (or I don't know how)
- player can't draw on the board (the draw menu is here, but does nothing)
- they can drop token, but not pictures from the pictures menu (so data must be duplicated in both places)
- there should be an option to always display the pin title
- pins and drawings are behind tokens, it should be the contrary
- a post-it feature is missing: people should be able to create a quick note on the fly and the first lines should be visible

That's quite sad to almost have it !
You can use this same kind of board with any game with a bit of investigation, even in medfan settings... So I really hope that the next gen version of FG will be more flexible to allow this kind of tweaking.

[LordEntrails]

I like the idea. But I don't know if this would ever be realized beyond the ability to have pins on images and maybe make Notes more functional (allow players to create links within notes).

I expect FGU will have colored pins, note SW has absolutely NOT promised such will be there. You can vote for a couple of related ideas here;
- https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=81597
- https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=95803

[Guame]

Thanks for the link, I had no idea such a list existed... now my idea is buried somewhere at the bottom of the pile :(

[DragonsDen13]

Am I way off the mark or would something like this not work for you?


By putting everything in Notes (making it public) your players could open everything up as they needed to, including the appropriate maps with pins stuck to them. They could then add pointers from each pin to the opened photo, etc.

Maybe you already do this and maybe it isn't even close to what you want. Your inquiry just made me curious.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks for the link, I had no idea such a list existed... now my idea is buried somewhere at the bottom of the pile :(
That's only because the default sort is by votes. Most of the devs I think sort by date or comments for new suggestions or comments.

[Guame]

@Dragons it is more or less what I do, but I feel that it could be much better.
The pin system is barely enough (I'm not alone here) and the fact that players can't add pin by themselves add more work to the DM.
The fact that there's no way (except with tokens) to add pictures or single text note is not very friendly: players have to mouse over everything to know what it is.

I use this system for the exploration, and it works quite well: they discover things and have a pin to mark it.

But when they are trying to sort the investigation out they miss a tool, and it starts to be a bit messy: sometime by email/forum, sometime with discord, sometimes with FG notes.

A real pinboard able to display notes and pictures (resizable) and that let the users pin their own notes and pictures on it would be a really great tool for any investigator team (whatever the system)

[Jay_NOLA]

Maybe some sort of integration of Realm Works or CC3+ into FGU could be implemented or even the ability to link pins to external files like a notepad/word/etc. ones stored offline.

CC3/CC3+ has 2 Annuals that are of note:

Annual 7 (2013) January - Investigation Props
Annual 4 (2014) May - Abstract Graphics

You can on a CC3/CC3+ map have it link to external files like PDFs., note pads some maybe an online text file could be linked to or a text one that could be edited with some sort of extension for FGU could do that for images with pins.

Realm Works lets you see how things interconnect and the player version will have some journal/note abilities. So maybe some sort of integration may be possible.

[LordEntrails]

Maybe some sort of integration of Realm Works or CC3+ into FGU could be implemented or even the ability to link pins to external files like a notepad/word/etc. ones stored offline. ...
There is the DOE OLE extension that you can use now to link to any external file. It works similar to the DOE Sound extension, but is designed for things other than sounds.

[Guame]

I dream of a merge between FG and Realm Works :)

Iwould investigate on the DOE extensions too, it looks quite interesting.

Thanks a lot.