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Valyar
October 28th, 2020, 11:17
Hello all! Now that we are officially launched (https://mailchi.mp/d8d1a3335629/alien-vtt?e=958903e85c) and there are already people playing the game, it is time to have a thread where ruleset and product enhancements can be proposed by all of you! :)

We have board where we keep track of all issues (bugs, enhancement, tasks etc.) so every suggestion here will get to the board and will be reviewed! The more detailed the suggestion is, the better for us to come up with proper implementation. Can't promise that everything will be adopted, but we will do our best considering the available time and adhering to the original rules as mandated by the publisher. Also features that will benefit other YZE-based games will have precedence.

So, having said that, my preferred format:

Feature Name: One sentence that gives the highlight of the feature. This is what will be put as story heading in our board.
Description: Detailed (as long as you want) description of the feature you would like to have. You can explain the mechanic or what you ask for and how you imagine it implemented, even refer me to some implementation where this exists so I can get some visual. Whatever you think is good to explain the suggestion.

Valyar
October 28th, 2020, 11:18
Reserved

Valyar
October 28th, 2020, 11:20
So, I will open with example from my list:

Actor Groups in Combat Tracker
This feature will allow combatants of NPC type to be grouped visually if they are running on same initiative. Savage Worlds have such implementation.

Gear Library lists
Expose lists for items, weapons and armor in Gear library to allow more sorting options during play. Like in the List in Vehicles library.

Novgorod story entries
Bring Novgorod content to Story library, not just reference manual.

I know few people asked for enhancement to other libraryes such as Systems/Planets, I am all eyes now. :)

4wire
November 2nd, 2020, 13:43
Higher resolution maps and/or portions of tactical maps!

4wire
November 2nd, 2020, 14:38
LOS of tactical maps!

vegaserik
November 2nd, 2020, 23:57
LOS of tactical maps!

There really isn't any tactical maps in the game books. There also isn't a ton of good sci fi ones out there yet. There are a couple of Starfinder tile sets for Starship Chambers and Starship Corridors the the FG Store that look promising.

dragonheels
November 7th, 2020, 11:49
Just asking so... but Is it possible to play 'Tales from the Loop' with this ruleset ? As the rules have the same 'core' ?

Valyar
November 8th, 2020, 09:46
Just asking so... but Is it possible to play 'Tales from the Loop' with this ruleset ? As the rules have the same 'core' ?

Hi dragonheels! The ruleset is tailed according to Alien RPG. The 'core' indeed supports Tales form the Loop but there is no way to strip the alien-specific mechanics and ruleset theme to facilitate this.

NotRussellCrowe
November 8th, 2020, 15:45
Ran my first session with this rule set last night and had a blast. A few things I think may be nice to-have--but not necessary for a great session because I had a great session last night without them--are:

1) A visual indicator that a character is suffering from a panic effect. Maybe even a text field that gets auto populated with that panic effect from the panic table.

2) When you roll panic and you are already suffering from a panic effect and you roll low, below your current panic effect, it would be great if the system would put the character at the next panic effect after their existing one (they can't roll and get a lower effect, they always have to increase by at least one).

3) This one I don't think is necessary but would be helpful for sure. When a player rolls a crit injury that it gets automatically added to the character sheet with all information from the table so the player (and GM) don't have to look up more details in the table.

I would say that none of the above are critically important as we all had a great time last night, mostly just nice to have features, at least from my point of view.

Anyways, great rule set and having an amazing time and definitely looking forward to running more!

Valyar
November 8th, 2020, 16:41
Glad to hear you had good time with the ruleset! :) Let me think on those suggestions and be back to you.

i3ullseye
November 10th, 2020, 23:08
This ruleset looks really good. It is a pretty simple system, and things seem to run pretty smoothly. But suggestion...

Feature Name: Draggable Career Data
Description: Like dragging a class in 5E, or Clan for VtM, and various other rule sets. It would be nice if you could drag your career name on the main tab, and it would populate and put a link there. Also, if some kind of indicator (Bolding, and asterix, etc) could be put on which attribute is your careers focus, that would be handy during character creation. The same indicator should exist for your skills. And maybe a note entry with a quick career description.

gbhenderson
November 11th, 2020, 19:21
Make NPC windows expandable horizontally as well as vertically. As it is right now, there's quite a lot of mice wheel scrolling on the monsters with the 6 special attacks.

Valyar
November 12th, 2020, 07:08
Make NPC windows expandable horizontally as well as vertically. As it is right now, there's quite a lot of mice wheel scrolling on the monsters with the 6 special attacks.
The fixed width is due to the two columns for speed, range and etc, the layout looks weird if resized too much. I will look into allowing some horizontal stretch for those Monster cases.

i3ullseye
November 12th, 2020, 07:15
Another one......

Feature Name: Ship Positions on the Party Sheet
Description: The marching order page is fine, and useful. But another tab for 'Ship Assignments" would be great. It could mimic the sheet seen online that has a 'spot' for each role... Pilot, Captain, gunners, Etc.... This one looks like a top down of a ship with labelled spaces for each role to put someone's icon/token there. Even if it were just a list of the roles, with the ability to drag each character to a spot it would be great. Maybe it can be a list of the roles, in the order they act, with quick reminders of what actions they can take on their row.

Which leads to.....

Feature Name: Blind Selection for Ship Combat
Description: There are some features/mods out there that use pop up windows with buttons. If a screen could be popped up for the players, and the GM, with the ability to select which action you would take and not show it to anyone else, that would be great. Maybe the GM has a 'reveal' button that is greyed out or red until the player(s) have entered their selection. Then the GM can click the button and reveal everything to everyone at once.

Valyar
November 12th, 2020, 12:46
Another one......

Feature Name: Ship Positions on the Party Sheet
Description: The marching order page is fine, and useful. But another tab for 'Ship Assignments" would be great. It could mimic the sheet seen online that has a 'spot' for each role... Pilot, Captain, gunners, Etc.... This one looks like a top down of a ship with labelled spaces for each role to put someone's icon/token there. Even if it were just a list of the roles, with the ability to drag each character to a spot it would be great. Maybe it can be a list of the roles, in the order they act, with quick reminders of what actions they can take on their row.

Which leads to.....

Feature Name: Blind Selection for Ship Combat
Description: There are some features/mods out there that use pop up windows with buttons. If a screen could be popped up for the players, and the GM, with the ability to select which action you would take and not show it to anyone else, that would be great. Maybe the GM has a 'reveal' button that is greyed out or red until the player(s) have entered their selection. Then the GM can click the button and reveal everything to everyone at once.


The ship-related content is on the to-do list and in design phase. At the moment I think the PS is not the best place for that and probably will put Ship tab on the PC sheet that will allow them to pick a position (that will be reflected in the PS for GM to observer) and depending on the position will list the appropriate actions and skill rolls. And since PC is owner of the sheet it is easy to manage.

I am not sure I get the Blind selection, is this for the commander's phase?

i3ullseye
November 13th, 2020, 02:04
I am not sure I get the Blind selection, is this for the commander's phase?

During ship combat, the Captain/Commander tells each station what he would like them to do. This is done in secret however, and both the GM and players each select their action, and then reveal them at the same time to see if they can out guess each other. Sticky notes can be used face to face, and if you buy the maps and tokens pack it comes with tokens for each action that you can hide in your fist and reveal at the same time.

flobz
November 14th, 2020, 18:15
Not sure if been asked for before but can we get actual images for the aliens and that for the tokens or have the char sheets for them unlock-able so we can upload our own as just a simple "D" "F" is not as easy to recognize what are as a picture

Valyar
November 14th, 2020, 18:34
Not sure if been asked for before but can we get actual images for the aliens and that for the tokens or have the char sheets for them unlock-able so we can upload our own as just a simple "D" "F" is not as easy to recognize what are as a picture

There are not enough unique images to create tokens for every NPC, therefore we are rolling with Letter tokens for now. When Colonial Marine is converted I might work on tokens.

If you want to update the token, clone the NPC and it will be unlocked. The Core modules are read-only, adventures and their content are read-write for GM.

vegaserik
November 14th, 2020, 20:59
I just Googled Aliens, saved some pictures and made my own.

flobz
November 14th, 2020, 22:00
There are not enough unique images to create tokens for every NPC, therefore we are rolling with Letter tokens for now. When Colonial Marine is converted I might work on tokens.

If you want to update the token, clone the NPC and it will be unlocked. The Core modules are read-only, adventures and their content are read-write for GM.

Yeah That's what i done was just wondering about it coming in module and yeah i have only done a couple of the more known aliens and for rest improvised a little lol.

damned
November 14th, 2020, 23:50
Official products are generally limited to the artwork within the paper/pdf product and they usually do not contain unique/enough images for every NPC/monster entry unfortunately - this is common across most games out there.

i3ullseye
November 15th, 2020, 04:25
I have made a bunch of tokens. All of the PCs, and many of the NPCs in the released scenarios have art. And I took any and every face I could find that was token worthy in all the other pics and made tokens of them hehe. Anyone breaking these huge maps into smaller (see manageable...) chunks and maybe adding LOS?

CaptGetSome
November 15th, 2020, 07:04
Hey there, great system and setup.

We just ran our first game and we were all shocked at how few 6's were rolled. it didn't seem to matter how many dice anyone rolled.

Did you guys write your own roller? If so, can you maybe put in a slider or setting for brutality?

It's pretty hard for players to enjoy themselves when they fail at everything all the time.

Thanks.

Valyar
November 15th, 2020, 08:11
Hey there, great system and setup.

We just ran our first game and we were all shocked at how few 6's were rolled. it didn't seem to matter how many dice anyone rolled.

Did you guys write your own roller? If so, can you maybe put in a slider or setting for brutality?

It's pretty hard for players to enjoy themselves when they fail at everything all the time.

Thanks.

I agree that YZE sometimes can be harsh, especially when the pool of D6s is small. We have same frustration in Coriolis and this is where the push mechanics come into play. And increasing the relevant skills. :)

Alien is using FG to roll all the dice as every other ruleset.

damned
November 15th, 2020, 12:27
Hey there, great system and setup.

We just ran our first game and we were all shocked at how few 6's were rolled. it didn't seem to matter how many dice anyone rolled.

Did you guys write your own roller? If so, can you maybe put in a slider or setting for brutality?

It's pretty hard for players to enjoy themselves when they fail at everything all the time.

Thanks.

I had FG roll 1million d6s consecutively with the following results:

#1 Rolled: 165801 Occurrence: 16%
#2 Rolled: 177194 Occurrence: 17%
#3 Rolled: 164340 Occurrence: 16%
#4 Rolled: 173570 Occurrence: 17%
#5 Rolled: 155657 Occurrence: 15%
#6 Rolled: 163438 Occurrence: 16%
Total Number of Rolls: 1000000
Sum of all Rolls: 3466402
Average of all Rolls: 3.466402

CaptGetSome
November 15th, 2020, 17:24
Thanks for that testing, 'damned'.

I have no doubt that the true averages of dice are real, and reflects the reality of a random effect. And I fully agree that the stress system and Push roll is a great mechanic and fits perfectly into the setting.

I guess what I am saying is that the increased attribute or skill level doesn't have a direct effect on the average roll outcome. Meaning a character with a 5 STR and a 3 Heavy Machinery will roll 8 d6 and get no 6's. Okay, that can happen, no problem. Now that character spends xp to increase either his STR or HM skill by one which reflects time and effort into the character and now he rolls 9 d6 and still gets no 6's. That feels bad.

We all know adding an extra d6 does in fact increase the potential to roll a 6 but it doesn't exactly come across as if the character is heading towards mastering a skill/stat.

If there was perhaps a way to increase the odds by even an extra 1% with a skill/stat bump it would give the impression of building on competence. Or if rolling three or more 5's became a partial success? I don't know.

We really like the system and it clearly shows that a ton of work went into it. It's fluid, very easy to understand and we will definitely continue playing.

Thanks for listening.

gbhenderson
June 13th, 2021, 20:12
Would it be possible to actually enable the "Chat: Show GM rolls" from the options menu? A string of unlucky rolls (or lucky depending on your POV) and my players have started questioning the actual results.

Valyar
June 14th, 2021, 06:13
Hi, gbhenderson, can you clarify under what conditions the GM rolls are not displayed? Attached is screenshot that shows hidden and visible GM rolls and this is controlled by the swtich in Options.

gbhenderson
June 14th, 2021, 12:45
Hey Valyar, regarding the image you posted, the screen on the left is all our group can get.

One of my players logged in on his ruleset yesterday, and he had the same issue.

We've gotta just be missing a setting somewhere if it's working for you. I'll keep dinking around with it and see if I can get it to work.

For the record, it did work when we originally started playing.

Valyar
June 14th, 2021, 14:00
I did another test on a reference virtual machine where I have the LIVE version of the ruleset (1.5.1) and the outcome is the same - "Chat: Show GM rolls" work as expected when I npc/pc rolls.
Have you updated FGC/U to receive latest CoreRPG and Alien rulest?
Have you disabled all extensions?

damned
June 14th, 2021, 14:06
Valyar you might test using the updater delivered version in case it is somehow not running the version you think it is?

Valyar
June 14th, 2021, 14:56
Valyar you might test using the updater delivered version in case it is somehow not running the version you think it is?
This is the reference computer - clean FGU installation with LIVE channel.

gbhenderson
June 14th, 2021, 21:50
Hey Valyar, truly sorry for the headache and late reply. I got it working. After doublechecking the option settings against my other games, it was the "Show results to client" that was messing things up.

I honestly don't remember having ever changed that setting, and like I mentioned one of my players was having the exact same issue with his copy of the ruleset. One session, we're seeing the rolls, next session they were gone. We just figured that something had changed with the ruleset and thought to ask if you could give us back our dice rolls.

Valyar
June 15th, 2021, 06:31
No worries, I am glad things sorted out :)

icecrmman
June 16th, 2021, 18:08
Just asking so... but Is it possible to play 'Tales from the Loop' with this ruleset ? As the rules have the same 'core' ?

Damned created a Tales From the Loop character sheet using Ruleset Wizard, great product by the way.
You might send him a message and see if you can download it.

icecrmman
June 16th, 2021, 21:16
Is there a way to automate a talent?
example: If I take 'Take Control' as a Company Agent and roll my Manipulation I want to use my Wits stat in place of Empathy.

Also what is the format to increase an attribute or can it not be done.

Skill increase [Stamina +1] increases Stamina by 1 die,
when I try to increase an attribute [Strength +1] it returns this error:"s'Failed to format error:' | s'No such attribute for rollType: %s' | nil"

Valyar
June 17th, 2021, 06:27
This is the next thing we will be working on! I will check for the attributes, I am not sure if it is enabled in the codebase.

gbhenderson
August 24th, 2021, 20:37
This is the next thing we will be working on! I will check for the attributes, I am not sure if it is enabled in the codebase.

Any update on the Attribute automation mentioned by icecrmman, Valyar? I'd really like to be able to create some gear for my players that can modify attributes, but I can't come up with any format that works.

Celegar
September 3rd, 2021, 21:37
I’m not sure if this has been suggested but items such as the Sentry Gun or the APC (because it can shoot) giving those a token so they can be on the combat tracker. In particular the Automated Sentry Gun if it was placeable on the combat tracker the game master could run it like an NPC on a tactical map. Also to make it possible for PC owners of the sentry gun able to use it on the tracker would make my players very happy.

Valyar
September 23rd, 2021, 09:33
I’m not sure if this has been suggested but items such as the Sentry Gun or the APC (because it can shoot) giving those a token so they can be on the combat tracker. In particular the Automated Sentry Gun if it was placeable on the combat tracker the game master could run it like an NPC on a tactical map. Also to make it possible for PC owners of the sentry gun able to use it on the tracker would make my players very happy.

You can create NPC entry for the Sentry Gun (even APC) and put it on CT. I did that for my game and it worked fine. We can explore putting Vehicles in the CT in addition to ships in future releases.

Celegar
September 23rd, 2021, 14:16
You can create NPC entry for the Sentry Gun (even APC) and put it on CT. I did that for my game and it worked fine. We can explore putting Vehicles in the CT in addition to ships in future releases.

Thank you for the reply. I thought about it after I posted this and did make it an NPC.

Matthew Eric Brown
December 23rd, 2021, 08:23
Hello,

Really enjoying the automation for Alien. Thank you for all your hard work!

Was wondering if a feature or two could be added?

When a player gets a panic result like this:

[PANIC] Stress 7
NERVOUS TWITCH. Your STRESS LEVEL, and the STRESS LEVEL of all friendly PCs in SHORT range of you, increases by one.

Could Fantasy Grounds somehow automate the stress the player just gained (because of that roll) to automatically fill in the newly acquired yellow stress box? I understand it would have to be done manually for the other players (because Fantasy Grounds would not necessarily know the other player’s ‘range’ from the initiating player.) If possible, this would be a nice feature (even if it was a toggle on/off sort of thing.)


Additionally, the “More Panic” Rules state: “If you are suffering from a Panic effect (7+ on the Panic Roll) and are forced to make another Panic Roll, the new panic effect replaces the previous one. If the new role is lower than the previous effect, however, it is automatically adjusted to one step more severe than the previous effect.”

Is there a way Panic Rolls could be tracked and computed by Fantasy Grounds at the individual player level, so that the last sentence of the above rules text is automated within the game (i.e. – a player rolls, we see the result the dice roller spits out would be a ‘lower’ panic result, then Fantasy Grounds would automatically add extra lines of text just below that result to reflect the ‘new and adjusted’ roll results/effects that is more severe due to the “More Panic” rule. If possible, this would be great. I ask because this can be an easy rule to forget while in the midst of combat, etc.

Thank you again for your great work!

Happy Holidays.

Valyar
December 23rd, 2021, 10:52
Hi Matthew Eric Brown, glad you are enjoying the ruleset!

We have both of those in our backlog. If everything goes well with other planned work, we will add them next year.

Matthew Eric Brown
December 26th, 2021, 23:15
Excellent – thank you for letting us know! Look forward to any new enhancements you have in the works.

*** Just remembered another request you may already have in the queue***

Run into this multiple times each session – the Initiative roller.

Can that be coded to more resemble a finite amount of cards, like in the physical game?

I.E. – When a player rolls initiative, their result is removed from the pool of possible numbers every player/npc after them can potentially roll? (In games, we find we are constantly rerolling that 10 sided Initiative die until we don’t all get duplicate results. Really slows things down.)

Thanks again!

Valyar
December 26th, 2021, 23:21
Excellent – thank you for letting us know! Look forward to any new enhancements you have in the works.

*** Just remembered another request you may already have in the queue***

Run into this multiple times each session – the Initiative roller.

Can that be coded to more resemble a finite amount of cards, like in the physical game?

I.E. – When a player rolls initiative, their result is removed from the pool of possible numbers every player/npc after them can potentially roll? (In games, we find we are constantly rerolling that 10 sided Initiative die until we don’t all get duplicate results. Really slows things down.)

Thanks again!
This is already implemented and according to the limitation in the initiative rolling system. There must be "draw" or roll for initiative, therefore some rolling will happen until free slot is selected for PC. Check in the release notes https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1748008964/ALIEN+-+Release+Notes

[Added] Initiative rolls by default no longer allow duplicate values for combatants. Switch in Options "Initiative: Allow NPCs to share initiative" allows to turn this behavior on/off for NPCs. PCs will never share initiative unless manually overridden by the Game Mother (example: ship combat to group combatants to the ship’s initiative)

Matthew Eric Brown
December 27th, 2021, 02:33
Apologies,

Perhaps I did not explain myself properly.

I am not talking about the NPCs. I am talking about the players only.

I just did this test five minutes ago. (Please see image below).

Here you can see I have all Player characters who have rolled initiative.

Of them, 3 of the players rolled fives, and 2 of the players rolled nines.

This happens all the time. Now we have a situation where several of the players have to go through the process of rerolling until everyone gets a different (non-already- taken) result manually.

I am asking if instead of Fantasy Grounds saying “Initiative already taken. Please reroll.”, that in fact Fantasy Grounds would automate this process and do the reroll for the players behind the scenes until a usable number is actually displayed. (Or like I mentioned, have the initiative number generator remove each player’s result from the pool of possible results as they roll, thus making duplicates impossible.)

That way, we would not get 3 players with fives, and 2 players with nines – thus causing constant rerolls for the initiative phase.

If there is an option for this already I do not have toggled on, then my apologies. Can you please advise how I can navigate to it?

Thank you again for your efforts and understanding!

50596

EDIT: Didn't realize how small the text would look in that photo - here is an enlarged version. Thanks

50597

Valyar
December 27th, 2021, 07:28
OK, I understand what you mean - the situation where there are duplicate initiatives rolled by PCs and they have to re-roll. There are two approaches that I recommend here:
1. PCs roll first initiates, then NPCs. This will reduce the re-rolls, but not eliminate them.
2. Use the Combat Tracker's Initiative Menu and roll for PCs on their behalf, this way rolls will be automated.

From technical perspective, simulating a card deck requires completely new implementation, which is not feasible with just 10 cards that are easily simulated by 1d10. Also, I know groups that share initiative values for large combats, therefore we need to address this situation as well. Automation should not be limiting factor from my perspective.

Matthew Eric Brown
December 27th, 2021, 19:27
Hey,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Yep, duplicate initiative rolls by the players are pretty common. It would be great if Fantasy Grounds could automate a fix.

Currently, my Alien game group is doing as your first suggestion (have PCs roll first, then NPCs.). But this is still cumbersome, and rerolls happen multiple times per session.

As for your second alternative, that is exactly what I did to get that example with the 3 fives and 2 nines. As a Game Mother, I populated a test game with Alien pregenerated player characters. Then I went to the menu at the top of the combat tracker, and did: menu>initiative>roll all initiatives. And it gave me that result in the screen shot with all the duplicates. So I don’t believe this option is a fix.

Based on what you have mentioned, it seems one of the following might be the easiest to implement as a fix (but I am not a programmer, so who knows…?!)

1. Fantasy Grounds clearly recognizes when a duplicate occurs (because of the message “Initiative already taken. Please reroll.) Instead of this message, just code the system to automatically reroll for the player(s) and display the new “usable” number and then insert this into the combat tracker per normal. It feels like the computer should really be doing the work on this one. Why tell me to reroll, when Fantasy Grounds can be programed to do so for me when this situation arises?

2. Though not exactly in line with the official D10 rules, just make the initiative roll use a D100 instead. This way it will be pretty rare for players (or NPCs!) to roll a duplicate. And I think the slight deviation from the official rules will be accepted by the player-base to help streamline the initiative phase. (Well, I would welcome it anyway…)

Thanks again for all your help. Alien on Fantasy Grounds is good times!

Valyar
December 27th, 2021, 19:58
The thing with modifying core mechanics like that is that some people like it as default, others not... So trying to have something that could suit majority of the people. Haven't had such drastic situations with duplicate initiative and auto-rerolls if you use the CT is quite OK. We will think if we have time some way to optimize the process, but we have some other priorities put forth by Free League.

spoofer
January 5th, 2022, 14:37
The Individual Marine Pack increases carrying capacity by 2. Please either:

1. automate the increase in carrying capacity
2. allow the player to manually increase the carrying capacity
3. turn off the warning messages that appear in the chat when a character is using this item but is carrying more than STRENGTH x2

Thanks!

JamesNDM
January 25th, 2022, 21:20
Maintaining the Illusion of Hidden Androids with respect to Stress and Panic
51163
Holroyd, I can't lie to you about your chances of keeping your identity secret, but you have my sympathies... :p

First, it's absolutely fantastic that FG has this ruleset! Thanks! Anywhoo, onward!

Since the ruleset treats all character sheets the same, it's tricky to hide the fact that one character is an android in disguise from the other players. Particularly since they are immune to stress, panic, can have higher attribute scores than the maximum limit, etc. and the VTT displays all of the telltale signs that a presumed human is in fact an android. People will notice that a hidden android will not be accumulating stress when a human normally would. Or if they do accumulate stress to try and hide their identity, they may get successes or trigger a panic on their stress dice; dice they shouldn't have rolled in the first place. It looks to me that our 'shy' android friends could use a little help keeping their identity a secret if they so choose.

I think there is an interesting solution to the panic system to maintain the illusion of being human that would involve a couple of changes. First, we would need a way to identify a character as an android. This could be done by adding a setting (a dropdown menu perhaps) on the character sheet to mark the character as 'Human', 'Concealed Android', or 'Revealed Android'. Second, FG would need to change the way the stress level and rolls are handled based on how a character is identified with the new setting.

- The 'Human' setting causes FG to build the dice pool normally, using the current stress level on the character sheet
- The 'Concealed Android' setting causes the stress dice randomizer to use a different formula for resolving each rolled stress dice: instead of using the result of rand(0-5)+1 yielding a result between 1 and 6 (rand generates an integer between 0 and 5), the android's stress dice would use the formula of rand(0-3)+2 yielding a number between 2 and 5. It behaves like a custom d4 but would be represented in the chat window as a yellow d6. The outcome of the dice in the pool are then evaluated normally by FG. Because the android's stress dice never roll a 1, panic is never triggered. Because they never roll a 6, a success is never awarded. It also achieves the goal of dropping (systematically fudged) stress dice into the chat window to maintain the illusion that our android friend is human and is rolling stress like everyone else, but not forcing the player to keep track of any negative effects that shouldn't/didn't happen. Things that they would need to potentially unwind later during play.
- The 'Revealed Android' option causes FG to build the dice pool as if the stress level is always zero.

As it's laid out, the solution doesn't manipulate or misrepresent the stress level on the character sheet directly, it just causes the engine that rolls the dice to make decisions on how to implement the stress dice pool. It implements stress normally, implements it with custom dice masquerading as stress dice, or it ignores the stress level entirely. It future-proofs it somewhat so that if new features are implemented that automatically manipulate the stress level, those systems can just assume the character is always human, and the dice rolling system can use the setting in the character sheet to determine what to do about the stress level when rolling dice.

I know there are folks who don't like the idea of fudged dice rolls so it may be a good idea for this to be a togglable feature via the GM settings so that they can opt in or out if they so choose. However, in a game with everyone physically at the table, the hidden android player would have to look like they are rolling stress dice and lie about their results (fudge them) just to maintain the illusion anyway.

I don't have a complete idea about how best to handle attributes above 5 for androids yet. But I'll post that when I do.

spoofer
January 25th, 2022, 23:04
Wow your first post! Welcome to FG. I love the ideas. Keep them coming.

This is the way you do it. In the log tab, type either Android or Human into the Race entry box.
Type Android if the character is a known synthetic; Human otherwise. Typing in Andriod causes the character to ignore stress, not roll for panic, etc.
As long as the race is Human, the character will roll Panic, etc. You then need to manually remove stress to keep it low, or role play it out. But that is easily done.

JohnD
January 27th, 2022, 00:16
Maintaining the Illusion of Hidden Androids with respect to Stress and Panic
51163
Holroyd, I can't lie to you about your chances of keeping your identity secret, but you have my sympathies... :p

First, it's absolutely fantastic that FG has this ruleset! Thanks! Anywhoo, onward!

Since the ruleset treats all character sheets the same, it's tricky to hide the fact that one character is an android in disguise from the other players. Particularly since they are immune to stress, panic, can have higher attribute scores than the maximum limit, etc. and the VTT displays all of the telltale signs that a presumed human is in fact an android. People will notice that a hidden android will not be accumulating stress when a human normally would. Or if they do accumulate stress to try and hide their identity, they may get successes or trigger a panic on their stress dice; dice they shouldn't have rolled in the first place. It looks to me that our 'shy' android friends could use a little help keeping their identity a secret if they so choose.

I think there is an interesting solution to the panic system to maintain the illusion of being human that would involve a couple of changes. First, we would need a way to identify a character as an android. This could be done by adding a setting (a dropdown menu perhaps) on the character sheet to mark the character as 'Human', 'Concealed Android', or 'Revealed Android'. Second, FG would need to change the way the stress level and rolls are handled based on how a character is identified with the new setting.

- The 'Human' setting causes FG to build the dice pool normally, using the current stress level on the character sheet
- The 'Concealed Android' setting causes the stress dice randomizer to use a different formula for resolving each rolled stress dice: instead of using the result of rand(0-5)+1 yielding a result between 1 and 6 (rand generates an integer between 0 and 5), the android's stress dice would use the formula of rand(0-3)+2 yielding a number between 2 and 5. It behaves like a custom d4 but would be represented in the chat window as a yellow d6. The outcome of the dice in the pool are then evaluated normally by FG. Because the android's stress dice never roll a 1, panic is never triggered. Because they never roll a 6, a success is never awarded. It also achieves the goal of dropping (systematically fudged) stress dice into the chat window to maintain the illusion that our android friend is human and is rolling stress like everyone else, but not forcing the player to keep track of any negative effects that shouldn't/didn't happen. Things that they would need to potentially unwind later during play.
- The 'Revealed Android' option causes FG to build the dice pool as if the stress level is always zero.

As it's laid out, the solution doesn't manipulate or misrepresent the stress level on the character sheet directly, it just causes the engine that rolls the dice to make decisions on how to implement the stress dice pool. It implements stress normally, implements it with custom dice masquerading as stress dice, or it ignores the stress level entirely. It future-proofs it somewhat so that if new features are implemented that automatically manipulate the stress level, those systems can just assume the character is always human, and the dice rolling system can use the setting in the character sheet to determine what to do about the stress level when rolling dice.

I know there are folks who don't like the idea of fudged dice rolls so it may be a good idea for this to be a togglable feature via the GM settings so that they can opt in or out if they so choose. However, in a game with everyone physically at the table, the hidden android player would have to look like they are rolling stress dice and lie about their results (fudge them) just to maintain the illusion anyway.

I don't have a complete idea about how best to handle attributes above 5 for androids yet. But I'll post that when I do.

What a 1st post. :)

similarly
February 2nd, 2022, 14:28
Maintaining the Illusion of Hidden Androids with respect to Stress and Panic
51163
Holroyd, I can't lie to you about your chances of keeping your identity secret, but you have my sympathies... :p

First, it's absolutely fantastic that FG has this ruleset! Thanks! Anywhoo, onward!

Since the ruleset treats all character sheets the same, it's tricky to hide the fact that one character is an android in disguise from the other players. Particularly since they are immune to stress, panic, can have higher attribute scores than the maximum limit, etc. and the VTT displays all of the telltale signs that a presumed human is in fact an android. People will notice that a hidden android will not be accumulating stress when a human normally would. Or if they do accumulate stress to try and hide their identity, they may get successes or trigger a panic on their stress dice; dice they shouldn't have rolled in the first place. It looks to me that our 'shy' android friends could use a little help keeping their identity a secret if they so choose.

I think there is an interesting solution to the panic system to maintain the illusion of being human that would involve a couple of changes. First, we would need a way to identify a character as an android. This could be done by adding a setting (a dropdown menu perhaps) on the character sheet to mark the character as 'Human', 'Concealed Android', or 'Revealed Android'. Second, FG would need to change the way the stress level and rolls are handled based on how a character is identified with the new setting.

- The 'Human' setting causes FG to build the dice pool normally, using the current stress level on the character sheet
- The 'Concealed Android' setting causes the stress dice randomizer to use a different formula for resolving each rolled stress dice: instead of using the result of rand(0-5)+1 yielding a result between 1 and 6 (rand generates an integer between 0 and 5), the android's stress dice would use the formula of rand(0-3)+2 yielding a number between 2 and 5. It behaves like a custom d4 but would be represented in the chat window as a yellow d6. The outcome of the dice in the pool are then evaluated normally by FG. Because the android's stress dice never roll a 1, panic is never triggered. Because they never roll a 6, a success is never awarded. It also achieves the goal of dropping (systematically fudged) stress dice into the chat window to maintain the illusion that our android friend is human and is rolling stress like everyone else, but not forcing the player to keep track of any negative effects that shouldn't/didn't happen. Things that they would need to potentially unwind later during play.
- The 'Revealed Android' option causes FG to build the dice pool as if the stress level is always zero.

As it's laid out, the solution doesn't manipulate or misrepresent the stress level on the character sheet directly, it just causes the engine that rolls the dice to make decisions on how to implement the stress dice pool. It implements stress normally, implements it with custom dice masquerading as stress dice, or it ignores the stress level entirely. It future-proofs it somewhat so that if new features are implemented that automatically manipulate the stress level, those systems can just assume the character is always human, and the dice rolling system can use the setting in the character sheet to determine what to do about the stress level when rolling dice.

I know there are folks who don't like the idea of fudged dice rolls so it may be a good idea for this to be a togglable feature via the GM settings so that they can opt in or out if they so choose. However, in a game with everyone physically at the table, the hidden android player would have to look like they are rolling stress dice and lie about their results (fudge them) just to maintain the illusion anyway.

I don't have a complete idea about how best to handle attributes above 5 for androids yet. But I'll post that when I do.

THAT is some brilliant thinking! I like it.

Egheal
February 2nd, 2022, 18:43
That's a very nice idea!

JamesNDM
February 4th, 2022, 00:50
Thanks spoofer! I'm going to have to try that out and see how it works. Based on your description, it sounds like an ideal solution for a known Android.

Egheal
February 20th, 2022, 10:14
Concerning the Theme: please, can you consider changing the leather purses in the Assets into something more suitable with a space/sci-fi-horror theme?
Something like thake would be nice 51621

Egheal
February 23rd, 2022, 20:38
Here is a link to an extension I made.https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq94oZ32i0Fzho5nBFzTv86u-JavQA?e=ilBm77 It changes the assets image, the mother chat icon and the tower normal and drop icons. It works nicely on my system, use it if you want but off course I cannot promise it will work on your system/with your extensions. Moderation: I don't know if I am autorized to post such a link/ext, please delete this post if it is not allowed.

spoofer
February 24th, 2022, 01:28
Reposting as this problem still exists and we find the warning messages about over the encumbrance limit when the character is not to be annoying.

The Individual Marine Pack increases carrying capacity by 2. Please either:

1. automate the increase in carrying capacity
2. allow the player to manually increase the carrying capacity
3. turn off the warning messages that appear in the chat when a character is using this item but is carrying more than STRENGTH x2

Thanks!

Valyar
February 25th, 2022, 21:22
Thanks for the suggestions and the asks. We look into those.

spoofer
March 18th, 2022, 06:37
The talent nerves of steel reduces panic roll results by two. It would be great if roll result was modified by (-2) before the panic roll result is reported to that chat window. Thanks!

Rpgsoldier
June 23rd, 2022, 18:18
Hi this is my suggestion

Feature Name: Armor Piercing/Armor Doubled button

Description: A toggle button the either halves or doubles the total Armor roll.

similarly
November 16th, 2022, 14:05
two things I'd like:
On the PC Ship sheet ...
1.
Feature Name: Larger box for # items on "vehicles" sheet, "gear" tab
Description: On the gear tab, make the box for number of items bigger (or make number smaller) to allow 3 digits, for if your ship is carrying a LOT of something.
2.
Feature Name: On "PC Ship" sheet, new tab "vehicles
Description: I'd like a new tab on the PC Ship sheet called "vehicles" where I can drag vehicles, such as APCs and dropships, that my ship is carrying.

It would be good to keep track of how many eev pods it has, as well.

similarly
November 19th, 2022, 08:17
Feature Name: vision types: nightvision, etc.
Description: D&D ruleset has darkvision, truesight, blindsight, etc. coded for the maps. Could we have vision for Alien RPG? For example: infrared, lowlight (light amplification), thermal, etc.? These could be built into NVGs (night vision goggles) or alien vision (or Predator/Yautja). My idea is that infrared for marines would depend on a flashlight, and could be in a cone, and desaturated. It would be useful in places with zero ambiant light. Light amplification could be used in places with some residual light, low light, under starlight, etc. Thermal would allow users to see through thin walls, heat shadows behind low walls, etc. There could even be some new kind of sci-fi vision types, maybe a penetrating x-ray or similar EM wave projector whose rays might pass through certain objects but not others? Something to think about.

similarly
November 20th, 2022, 02:44
feature description: Ship Sheet, crew tab, add Marines?
Description: I'm running a marine campaign and would enjoy assigning the marines to a ship, but not as gunners, pilots etc. Just having the ship listed on the character sheet. Maybe add a box for Marines to the PC ship sheet, crew tab?

Valyar
November 26th, 2022, 13:39
All feature requests so far are registered on our board. I will start working towards the low hanging fruits and see where I will end up.

similarly
November 27th, 2022, 00:20
feature description: Links on NPC Monster Attacks
Description: It would be cool if we could put links in the monster attacks, so I could (for example) quickly access a table of effects.

Valyar
November 27th, 2022, 06:55
feature description: Links on NPC Monster Attacks
Description: It would be cool if we could put links in the monster attacks, so I could (for example) quickly access a table of effects.
Not sure this will be easy as the string field will have to be changed and completely redo the content. What the usage is, I don’t get the idea behind this suggestion, give me some examples.

similarly
November 27th, 2022, 08:28
Not sure this will be easy as the string field will have to be changed and completely redo the content. What the usage is, I don’t get the idea behind this suggestion, give me some examples.

No worries if it's difficult to do. I have a "space peach" whose spores have a psychedelic effect, and made a table for the random effect. Would have been cool to put the link to the table in there. But again, if it's difficult. No worries. Just a suggestion.

Stixx925
February 8th, 2023, 10:05
Feature Description: More background Variety, A yellow Dice on the dice dock, initiative deck
Description:As of right now it has the default backgrounds with a Corporation logo. Id prefer something like a ship bridge, or a space scape, I can whip something up in photoshop if you would like. A yellow d6 next to the black one on the dock ( for those of us that might prefer to role stuff manually( some group members may not be good with software or be overwhelmed, sometimes having simplicity available enhances the game. Initiative, the physical game asks you to use the official Alien deck(sold separately) or at the very least A-10 from a standard 52 card playing deck to manage initiative. Id like to see that feature added. One more thing the portraits for the Pre-generated characters that comes with the official adventures when i load up the modules the Starting pcs aren't loaded and furthermore when i load them manually I also have to hunt down their portraits as where i wish when you import characters the portraits are already loaded.

damned
February 8th, 2023, 10:23
Fantasy Grounds does not support the auto-loading of portraits.