Player hidden rolls to GM

[nezzir]

I've seen a few topics on this, but no real answers.

When a player makes a skill check, such as a search check, it's better if the player does not know the result. That way the "You find nothing" statement means just that, not that there truly is "nothing there".

Is there a way for the player to send the GM a roll that even they don't see? I've tried the /w [space] [rollthedice], but it does nothing. The little dice appears in the chat line, but never sends to the GM. Furthermore, the player can still see the roll.

Is it possible to script a function like this?

This is sorely needed.

[Doswelk]

Yes I had noticed that the dice is placed there but nothing happens, is this bug in the code or something that was dropped?

[Ram Tyr]

When playing the first few sessions with a GM I always offer that the GM roll checks that fit into this category. (Those that contain some value to keeping secret from the player.) Few GMs seem to do this.

If you like this concept, why not simply roll for the player? Seems straightforward and it allows secret rolls to truly be secret...like a Spot check that passes without your knowledge because you failed to see the troll hiding behind the footstool.

Later.

[Last_resort_33]

This is a feature that I would very much like to see, one where the player can tick a box to hide a roll from himself.

[Dachannien]

Actually, I just finished such a feature yesterday. It provides a desktop object that resembles what my players and I call "The Box", which is what we used for secret die rolls back when we played face-to-face. If you drag the dice onto The Box instead of the chat window, it instructs the host to do the die roll.

I'll see about packaging it up and making it available.

[TarynWinterblade]

Actually, I just finished such a feature yesterday. It provides a desktop object that resembles what my players and I call "The Box", which is what we used for secret die rolls back when we played face-to-face. If you drag the dice onto The Box instead of the chat window, it instructs the host to do the die roll.

I'll see about packaging it up and making it available.

The entire time you were asking questions about that, I had wondered what you were shooting for... :D

[nezzir]

Actually, I just finished such a feature yesterday. It provides a desktop object that resembles what my players and I call "The Box", which is what we used for secret die rolls back when we played face-to-face. If you drag the dice onto The Box instead of the chat window, it instructs the host to do the die roll.

I'll see about packaging it up and making it available.

Oh! That would be awesome. Thank you.

As far as "rolling for the players". That's certainly an option, but it takes away some of the thrill and player interaction. It works, but it's no fun.

[Dachannien]

https://sokar.cwru.edu/miscdl/thebox.zip

There are some instructions included. If there is any confusion, let me know :)

[Ram Tyr]

As far as "rolling for the players". That's certainly an option, but it takes away some of the thrill and player interaction. It works, but it's no fun.
Interesting. That is not my experience and I would not have suggested it if it was. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I prefer it that way as a player.
:)
Later.

[nezzir]

https://sokar.cwru.edu/miscdl/thebox.zip

There are some instructions included. If there is any confusion, let me know :)


Most excellent, thank you very much. I'll try that out asap.

I know it implies in the readme that you can add it to your ruleset, but I thought I'd officially ask if you'd mind me adding it to mine and distributing it along with it. It's a not-for-sale ruleset, free to anyone who wants it.

If you'd like something other than "Dachannien" in the credits section of my acknowledgments, let me know.


Edit: It works great, but I did manage to find two small problems with it.
1: When you roll percentile, it rolls 3 dice and totals all three. 1 - tens dice and 2 - ones dice. My system is percentile based so this is a slight problem for me.
2: The other is a graphic glitch, no big issue though, it just doesn't update sometimes and leaves artifacts.
Very awesome though!

[Dachannien]

Feel free to include it and distribute it, nezzir :) I had intended to make it public domain, but I sort of lifted a piece of it from SmiteWorks's original d20 code, so it didn't seem right to make any assertion at all as to copyright. I doubt that they'll mind, since the only people who will get any use out of this will already be paying customers anyway.

Crediting me as Dachannien is fine.

As for the bugs:

1. Interesting. I'll take a look to see what the deal is there. I didn't happen to test it with d%'s at all, but I can probably put in a hack to detect a d% and make it come up correctly.

2. Yep, I reported that one elsewhere. Kind of reassuring to know it's not just my machine ;)

[Dachannien]

Okay, as for that d% thing, I've found two problems. One of them is that the die list for a dragdata object includes both d10 and d100, while the /die command treats d100 as asking for both of them. (On the host side, The Box merely invokes the /die slash command handler.) This should be easy to fix.

I'm not sure what the cause of the second problem is. It seems like there's an issue internal to FG here, though. The behavior looks to me to be as follows:

Right click a die, pick some number as the quantity, and drop it on The Box. Then, quickly afterward, right click a die and pick some number as the quantity. You will see extra shadow dice appear somewhere on the board, either on top of The Box or on top of where you right-clicked the second time. As long as those shadow dice appear, you aren't guaranteed to have the proper number of dice on your cursor. Sometimes you'll get extra, and other times you'll get too few. It seems that, generally, the "original" die that doesn't fade away won't get added to the cursor sometimes.

The best workaround for this second problem is to pay attention when you right click to get more than one die. If you have the wrong number of dice on the cursor when you go to roll, don't drop them on the box (because doing so causes the modifier box to clear). Instead, just drop them on the desktop and try again, perhaps after waiting a few seconds.

P.S. Updated version of The Box is now available. Still at https://sokar.cwru.edu/miscdl/thebox.zip .

[nezzir]

P.S. Updated version of The Box is now available. Still at https://sokar.cwru.edu/miscdl/thebox.zip .

Awesome, that worked perfectly. I'll include it in my ruleset on the next version (It's done and released, but I've found a couple of bugs).

Thanks again,
Nez

[Goblin-King]

Feel free to include it and distribute it, nezzir :) I had intended to make it public domain, but I sort of lifted a piece of it from SmiteWorks's original d20 code, so it didn't seem right to make any assertion at all as to copyright. I doubt that they'll mind, since the only people who will get any use out of this will already be paying customers anyway.
Responding to this from a semi-technical point of view (i.e. what you should do to make it work). I'm trying to answer the implied question, please let's not turn this into whether the licenses are "good" or "evil" :).

The ruleset XML is under the OGL, and the license is viewable on the launcher when you choose to host a d20 game. As such, we don't mind, rather, we have explicitly decided and stated that we accept and allow this, and made available a protocol which you should (serving us) and can (serving you) follow. Officially and legally, you can't choose not to follow this.

What you should do is:
Copy the license text in the d20 license, in its entirety, into another document (a text file is fine)
For each modification, add a line stating the product you used the earlier version in, the year and your name. This goes into the final section "15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE". Ours reads "Fantasy Grounds d20 ruleset Copyright 2004-2007, SmiteWorks Ltd."
When you modify a modification further, add another line, indicating the path the modifications have taken.
Add the modified license in its entirety to the package you deliver.There are other conditions implied by the licenses, of course, but as long as you make simple modifications to the ruleset, this should be right.

As an example, the end of this one might read:


15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Fantasy Grounds d20 ruleset Copyright 2004-2007, SmiteWorks Ltd.
The Box Copyright 2007, Dachannien
The Box Improved Copyright 2007, nezzir

(I am not a lawyer, hence no idea whether aliases like board nicks have legal power, but I would suspect they would simply weaken your rights, not make you guilty of not following the license. Consult your lawyer for details :square:)

As a final point, I would like to mention that the license conditions themselves aren't our property, and we're equally much bound by them when using the d20 material.

[Tokuriku]

This is much more for Goblin King then anyone else :p

Would it be possible to add this feature as per the one for the GM.
The GM can make his rolls viewable by pushing the control key while throwing dice.
Couldn't the same method be used to hide dices from the players from a player's point of view?
This way, the control is easy to find because it is in both the host and client.
And the code is already half there so it would be rather easy I think and be a really great addition to this already awsome piece of software :D
It's only a question of enabling the control key function for the players too...
Then pass that the roll is hidden when the a client drops it or am I just out of track :rv:

Else, if you do not find it a desireble command for FGII, could you point me to the script that handles the control key function and the host/client handling section...?

[nezzir]

Here is a modification to Dachannien's excellent "thebox" script. I changed the graphics to look like a pit using some community clip art from the awesome Dunjinni user forums. I repositioned "thebox" to be closer to the dice pool.

Here's a screenie of the player client with the new box in place (toward the bottom):
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6319

Per Goblin-King, please add the following to any files changed:


<!-- The Box Copyright 2007, Dachannien
The Box Modifed Copyright 2007, NezziR -->


That said... I really don't want to claim any copyright to this code. That is to say, I will never enforce it. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak.


Edit: By the way, the graphic glitch is a little more evident with this graphic set. If you drag a dice onto it and exit to the right, it glitches. If you exit to the left it's fine. Just FYI.

[Tokuriku]

Woa!
I have to say, this box is awsome.
I prefer the one from Dachannien.
I always give credit where it is due and I must say I'm impressed.
However I placed mine in the menus sidebar just over the token box.
This way, it doesn't take usefull space and it automatically resizes to the window :)

[DNH]

sounds useful, but i am not sure this is exactly what i am after. perhaps it is and i missed it, or perhaps there is some mechanism already within FG2 which allows what i am after. that is, i want to be able to allow players to make secret die rolls to the dm. the result would be plain to both the player making the roll and the dm, but no-one else. is this possible somehow? as i understand 'the box', it is only the dm who sees the result.

[Dachannien]

Yeah, that's how The Box works. Your request is a bit tougher, though.

If you roll a die on the client side in the chat box, then everyone will automatically see it as it rolls (though there's a tiny chance that the "official" die roll will produce a different number than what appears on the die on any given machine). If you roll the die by dropping it on a control on the desktop, then there is no way to send the number you see to another machine.

That's why The Box works the way it does. It sends a generic message to the server indicating what dice need to be rolled, and then rolls those dice on the server. FG automatically hides server die rolls from the players by default. The problem is that the function that actually causes the dice to roll is an internal FG function. You could probably use the custom data field in the throwDice function and then catch that data in the onDiceLanded event function to whisper the result back to a particular player.

[walter]

I have been playing D&D sense 1980 and it was common practice for the DM to roll all hidden rols for the players. And I believe it was just as fun and realistic as far as game play went. As a DM and player myself , I prefer not knowing all the rolls.. it adds mystery to the game and builds character for the game...:)