Assistant GM Extension (Fantasy Grounds Unity 5E Ruleset)

My first use with my players in my COS campaign will happen tonight. About a half mile away they will see an encounter beginning to happen between Rictavio and his tiger and some vistani. At that point I plan to use combat groups to turn off the PC's party and turn on that group into the CT. Double click on the text field to bring up map and again to bring into view - make that group visible - and grant NPC rights to all my players. They will then "fight" the NPCs against each other as their actual PC's are either trying to reach them or just watching. We shall see how it works out :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SilentRuin

My first use with my players in my COS campaign will happen tonight. About a half mile away they will see an encounter beginning to happen between Rictavio and his tiger and some vistani. At that point I plan to use combat groups to turn off the PC's party and turn on that group into the CT. Double click on the text field to bring up map and again to bring into view - make that group visible - and grant NPC rights to all my players. They will then "fight" the NPCs against each other as their actual PC's are either trying to reach them or just watching. We shall see how it works out :)

---

This worked, but I’m going to pass on some lessons I learned.

Granting NPC access to every player on the board and telling them which NPCs they control works. Unfortunately a bunch of players simultaneously picking the wrong NPC to control or opening up others just to look will lock out the player who is going to play them. Also having several open up control at same time had one guy appear had released control on his CT but still had it from other players perspective. I had to have them both relinquish control and then the guy who appeared to have control click it on and off. Then the other guy got control when he tried again. I could have also just taken away NPC access to the one player and regiven to fix this I suspect. Or just nuked it all but then they would have to release their PC and reselect it to get back in logged in list not to mention have to reassign an NPC pack mule that was controlled by a player (drag CT link onto portrait).

I also had a player claim he could not get control (no conflict) and it turned out he was double clicking red dice icon turning it off and on.

I could have avoided this if I individually shared each NPC to each player (one guy controlled 5) but that’s permanent control till a clear all or unshaing them manually in NPC list. And would impinge on my laziness - and enhancing my laziness is the whole point.

Lesson learned was players are pesky.

Herding cats is often easier.

Thanks for the update: Yeah was wondering about other players sneaking at the NPCs even if you say not to. Maybe you can change it so the DM can assign the NPC. Not sure on that but right click the NPC and give out but again way more coding. I am liking it for large combat with friendly NPCs. Going to use it that way also.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel Fletcher

Thanks for the update: Yeah was wondering about other players sneaking at the NPCs even if you say not to. Maybe you can change it so the DM can assign the NPC. Not sure on that but right click the NPC and give out but again way more coding. I am liking it for large combat with friendly NPCs. Going to use it that way also.

---

Think I will be leaving it get hammered by users for a bit before I contemplate rocking the boat with more features. But I have thought about this and other stuff I’d like after using it. Just want to make sure it’s stable enough (see equipped effects why I’m currently gun shy right now) :)

OK, I've downloaded this, but haven't used this yet.

So let's reiterate my scenario - big huge climatic battle at Tiamat's Palace in Avernus. Consisting of (1) Tiamat's Privy Court, (2)-(6) The Courts of each of her consorts.
A Consort's Court consists of a) The Consort, a Legendary, Classed/Advanced, Dragon; b) 2 Ancient Dragons; c) 4 Old Dragons (upgraded Adults); d) 7 abishai
Tiamat's Privy Court consists of I) Tiamat; II) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Law (classed/advanced ancient blue); III) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Death (classed/advanced ancient black;IV) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of War (classed/advanced ancient green); V) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Trickery (classed/advanced ancient white); VI) 2 Fang Dragons.

I think you can see why I want/need Assistant GMs.

From of the sounds of things, right now, I can grant Assistant GMs access to all the NPCs, but I can't limit specific assistant to specific factions (E.g. GM Assistant 1 to just the White Court). I have to rely on the discipline of my Assistants. (Shrug. I can work with that.)

Feature request: "Faction" support (which you've already nodded to).
Feature Request: Move it out from under 5e to a CoreRPG derived module.
Feature Request: User Manual/Reference Module built-in to the extension itself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GuardianLurker

OK, I've downloaded this, but haven't used this yet.

So let's reiterate my scenario - big huge climatic battle at Tiamat's Palace in Avernus. Consisting of (1) Tiamat's Privy Court, (2)-(6) The Courts of each of her consorts.
A Consort's Court consists of a) The Consort, a Legendary, Classed/Advanced, Dragon; b) 2 Ancient Dragons; c) 4 Old Dragons (upgraded Adults); d) 7 abishai
Tiamat's Privy Court consists of I) Tiamat; II) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Law (classed/advanced ancient blue); III) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Death (classed/advanced ancient black;IV) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of War (classed/advanced ancient green); V) Tiamat's Grand High Priest of Trickery (classed/advanced ancient white); VI) 2 Fang Dragons.

I think you can see why I want/need Assistant GMs.

From of the sounds of things, right now, I can grant Assistant GMs access to all the NPCs, but I can't limit specific assistant to specific factions (E.g. GM Assistant 1 to just the White Court). I have to rely on the discipline of my Assistants. (Shrug. I can work with that.)

Feature request: "Faction" support (which you've already nodded to).
Feature Request: Move it out from under 5e to a CoreRPG derived module.
Feature Request: User Manual/Reference Module built-in to the extension itself.

---

Faction request - why bother? You make your own factions - I had my guys basically take two NPC groups fighting each other - one guy had multiples. Described how I did that in this thread somewhere. You just tell them which they should control. While its like herding cats - once they are sorted out they are fine. Gist being as I've said before - if you can't trust your players you have bigger problems. No need for faction support - have them or don't - matters not to who controls the NPC. They can play the faction or not. I only have neutral/foe/friendly anyway - and attack and damage never care.

CoreRPG - I only use 5E. If some day I wish to play another ruleset I'll make sure it runs under it. Thing is - ruleset's be crazy and not all of them follow CoreRPG rules. Not sure - but think it is already CoreRPG in all the calls. Point being - extensions = RISK - and I won't risk people assuming I'll support something because I added the ruleset in. I have people who modify it for their own personal use as it is. Feel free.

Manual/Reference Module - I don't have one. This thread and the .txt file are it. You have to understand - I make these for me - and that is who my primary customer is. I don't think anyone will argue that I don't actively support my extensions more than most - because I actively use them. I sell them so that other people can use them. But the hurdle for getting me to add something into them - is that I want that for me. Several have gotten me to add things in because I wanted what they wanted.

Sorry, but none of these are something I want at the moment. Your free to try to convince me - but that is the task. I won't just add something in because people want it. I have to want it.

Grim Press will update the videos at some point but probably not until FG Forge comes out. Plus they complain I add to many things in constantly so the video would be out of date constantly.

If you have any bugs that were not "that's how it works" per commentary in this thread - let me know and If I can duplicate I'll fix it.

I'm wondering if some combination of:

Assistant GM
Combat Groups

would allow spells like:

Summon <Whatever>
Conjure <Whatever>
Animate Object

to function more easily. Or would only Assistant GM and some pre-made encounters be enough?

I've made the mistake (?) of giving one of my players an item that can summon several raven swarms once daily only to realize I've just given myself extra work.

Hmm...if this works, since my group is way too big, I may let each player control a Raven swarm so they can at least do something while waiting. The summoner can give commands on their turn, but it's up to each player to interpret as they wish (this way I've got complete deniability if somebody else decides the creature will behave more like it's nature dictates rather than an automaton).

Edit: remembered the conjure spell...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Minethulhu

I'm wondering if some combination of:

Assistant GM
Combat Groups

would allow spells like:

Summon <Whatever>
Conjure <Whatever>
Animate Object

to function more easily. Or would only Assistant GM and some pre-made encounters be enough?

I've made the mistake (?) of giving one of my players an item that can summon several raven swarms once daily only to realize I've just given myself extra work.

Hmm...if this works, since my group is way too big, I may let each player control a Raven swarm so they can at least do something while waiting. The summoner can give commands on their turn, but it's up to each player to interpret as they wish (this way I've got complete deniability if somebody else decides the creature will behave more like it's nature dictates rather than an automaton).

Edit: remembered the conjure spell...

---

Basically I look at it as a sharing issue (see post here for share details) where if I want global access to NPCs given - I'd grant rights in Assistant GM. I can only see doing that productively if you have someone running NPC's for you or you have all the players running a purely NPC vs NPC set of battles.

When using Assistant GM for players it becomes a bit like herding cats. Someone will always be opening control (blocking it) to take a peek at something or making a mistake on which they open for their control and can take a while to sort them out.

In what you describe I'd be doing the share via dragging the combat tracker entry link onto a portrait for the NPC raven you want a particular player to control. That way they actually only have those NPC's you've given them. If you have Assistant GM or polymorphism running then this will essentially give them full ownership of those NPC's and they can do whatever they want. But even without my extensions you can do a lot of what you want when you share in this way.

So personally, that is how I'd manage it - well actually - I'd never allow a situation where someone could just spam numerous NPC's. Bag of tricks throwing some single NPC is more my speed - or sharing a Pack animals like a mule (if you have inventories in NPCs) is about all I'd do.

As I described in here I have had my players sight a group of NPCs in the distance about to fight - then used Combat Groups to turn off all their PC's from combat tracker and turn on all the NPC's groups then granted them NPC control. Took a while to herd those cats to only control the things they were going to fight with but once done it was pretty easy for the two groups of NPCs to duke it out - even though one player had to control multiple NPCs.

With FGC players were able to move friendly NPCs (I did this extensively as a kludge workaround for wildshape before I started using tons of extensions). It seems this is no longer the case with FGU since my players can no longer move the tokens of anything aside form their PC. Does your extension fix this?

NOTE: I always play with tokens unlocked and a ton of extensions, so maybe I'm doing something wrong above.

A few enhancement requests (obviously your call, but it can't hurt asking):

Combat Tracker
As a GM I much prefer doing my most things from the Combat Tracker. Giving an "assistant GM" access to more of the hidden combat tracker stuff would be nice. Especially the "Offense" section since I 100% prefer that as a GM vs. the NPC record sheet. Also nice would be the "Targets" icons (there's an extension called Player Targeting that does this for PCs in the combat tracker)

Bell on turn
Some of my players zone out during combat but amazingly respond to the ding from Fantasy Grounds when it's their turn. It would be nice if this worked for NPCs that have an assigned player to control them.

Also...it wasn't obvious, but does Assistant GM allow players to click End Turn for the assigned NPC(s)?