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Thread: Dice features

  1. #1

    Dice features

    OK, I've been working quietly away at enhancing the dice rolling options within FG. I've gotten quite a bit done already, but looking to get some feedback before finalizing.

    Goals
    • Enhance current dice rolling with common die mechanics
    • NOT building a general purpose calculator that happens to process dice (i.e. no multiplication and division)
    • NOT create a multi-roll command line tool (i.e. no rolling multiple rolls at once)


    Those items I highlighted as non-goals are definitely "dice roller" features, since many complex die rollers offer pieces of functionality like this. However, they are not being tackled at this time. Something like those goals could be implemented within Lua scripts, but I'll leave the more advanced features for later or community developers. The main goal is to make life incrementally easier for developers and provide some better dice macro tools.

    Current Features Targeted
    • Individual die modes (reroll, explode, compound, penetrate, openlow) that support ranges (specific number, <=, >=) and limits (only can trigger X times). Die modes of the same type can stack for ranges.
    • Rerolls will automatically drop dice from further consideration (totalling, etc), and generate a new die.
    • Explode/compound/penetrate/openlow are mutually exclusive, and disable reroll after triggering.
    • Explode/compoung/penetrate dice triggers will highlight dice in green.
    • Openlow dice triggers will highlight dice in red.
    • Dice set modes (keep, drop, success, failure, sort, sortdesc) with ranges and values for success/failure.
    • For dice sets, brackets can be used to denote sets of multiple die clauses (i.e. {2d8+2d6}k2)
    • Negative dice are supported.
    • Percentile dice support built-in, including new percentile dice icon.
    • Dice values that do not map to physical dice (i.e. not d4,d6,d8,d10,d12,d20,d100) can be passed to any dice field or function within FG. When these dice are rolled, a random value will be generated by the FG client, and the result shown along with any actual dice rolled.
    • If the dice model limit is exceeded (i.e. 30 dice), the remaining dice results will still be generated randomly, instead of ignored.
    • Die background, die icon, die icon coloration, die font and die font color can all be set on a per die basis.


    Now for an example:

    6d10e10r1l1k4
    = Roll 6d10. If 10 rolled, mark die green and roll another die (with no reroll). If 1 rolled, mark die as dropped (grayed out) and roll another die. If reroll die also rolls 1, then keep it. Once all dice are rolled, keep the highest four dice. (all the rest are grayed out)

    The current Savage Worlds ruleset rolling would match up to the explode mechanic (i.e. 1d8!+1d6! for d8 skill check plus d6 wild die)
    The current Rolemaster ruleset would match up with a combination of the explode (>=96) and openlow (<=5) mechanics on the same die. (i.e. 1d100!>96ol<5)

    Also, a screenshot attached with several of the features I already have working.

    Thoughts?

    Regards,
    JPG
    Last edited by Moon Wizard; June 27th, 2014 at 10:12.

  2. #2
    Question: What's the difference between the first and second die roll in your sample - I can't see a difference in the "code" so why is there a difference in the number of die?

    Suggestion 1: How about the system where you can give a Target Number and the Result would be reported as "Success" or "Failure" ie Roll a 3+ on a d6 for a success.

    Suggestion 2: (This may have been covered) What about when you roll the maximum on a die and so then get a 2nd die of the same type to roll again AND add to the 1st die. If you max out on the 2nd die you get a third, etc, etc, etc.

    Suggestion 3: Rerolls (of any type) get a different background colour, say orange

    Suggestion 4: Rerolled die that add (see Suggestion 2) get a green background (for eg)

    Suggestion 5: When given the functionality of Suggestion 1, have each die rolled count as a "Success" or a "Failure" and report the total number of Successes (eg the Shadowrun Die Mechanic)

    I think that's it for now

    Cheers
    Last edited by dulux-oz; June 27th, 2014 at 11:47.
    Dulux-Oz

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  3. #3

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    I like this initiative. Making more options available for Core will make it more useful for players and just might making rulesets based on it easier.

    I would like to add one thing though. I can easily see myself use the above, but I know for a fact that my players will never get into typing in a code of some sort - just to roll dice. They're just not into that. So what I am hoping / suggesting is that a window like the "modifiers" in 3.5 would be made for this. Could be good to have buttons that would turn the various functions on / off for the individual player. It would also make it a lot faster to roll the dice, if you could just toggle whatever you need and just take the dice and throw them around, instead of typing out a command line.

    Food for thought. Can't wait to try it out.


    Vires Animi

  4. #4
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    This looks very promising.

    Do you plan to allow the dice expression to be dragged to a dice field (e.g. one of the CoreRPG abilities) or a hotkey slot so that specific dice expressions can be easily reused?
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

  5. #5

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    Can't wait for this one.

    As dulux-oz stated above, exploding tie that keep exploding on until "x" number is not rolled. If it is currently set at 1 reroll per die, can it be adjusted so it could be set to 0-? rerolls. Perhaps this is more of an option, but some rules I could see this being applicable.

  6. #6
    I suppose systems using the +pips progression mechanic (ie d8+2->d8+4->d8+6->2d8) are not common enough to be considered, yet? Or is that less of a die-rolling mechanic and more of a character sheet mechanism? Also, +1 for Dulux's suggestion of a target/DC that can be GM defined and then rolled against.

    Cheers!
    GMK

  7. #7
    VenomousFiligree
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    This sounds great!

    I'd definitely like to know if the rolls can be generated differently from chat entry, as Trenloe mentioned.

  8. #8
    Looking forward to this!

  9. #9
    dulux-oz,

    Q1) The first one actually shows the same roll as the second one with an error. The die added due to dice explosion of the 10 roll happened to roll a 1 and trigger a reroll, which is not correct. In general, when dealing with reroll and explode die mechanic modes, you will get varying numbers of dice.

    S1) Success based on die range is on the list of dice set modes in the original post, just not implemented yet.
    S2) You are looking for the "compound" die mechanic, which is on the list. The difference between explode and compound is whether the reroll is added as a new die entry or added to the original die result. It's actually working, just didn't show an example.
    S3) What is a standard color for a reroll anyway? I don't know. I didn't want to use red, since that denotes a negative of some kind. Perhaps another color or a semi-transparent color. In general, these are just the default color options I am building in. The ruleset can customize even further.
    S4) The compound die mechanic that triggers already sets a green background, so we're good there.
    S5) The goal with success and failure is that the "total" reported by the chat entry is actually the number of successes/failures. The success and failure dice set modes will assign a value to the die if it matches the range. (i.e. 6d10s10v2s8f1v2f3 (or something like that) would assign 2 successes for a 10 roll, 1 success for a roll of 8-9, 2 failures for a 1 roll and 1 failure on a 2-3 roll.)

    Cheers,
    JPG

  10. #10
    Some good thoughts/questions that came up during responses already for more discussion:

    1. Right now, success/failure results will replace the "dice values" for chat entry totals. (i.e. it is only a per die mechanic) That means that any +/- numerical modifiers will adjust the total success/failure.

      If modifiers need to be applied to the rolls before checking success/failure, that would still need to be coded in the ruleset. The reason for this is that there is only one modifier value per slot in the dice entry, not a per die modifier.

    2. Does it make sense to have an overall success/failure per roll (as many people have suggested above)? This is common for DC checks, and other target number checks. However, you wouldn't want to see 0 or 1 as total for a DC check. (even for systems that use per die success/failure mechanics) You want to see the total of the roll with some sort of visual cue of success/failure.

      Is there a common visual cue that we would agree on? What about "degrees of success"? How would this be represented textually? The problem with this feature is consensus and representation.

    3. Chat slash commands become drag and drop, which lets macros be more easily saved and rolled in textual format.

    4. However, I'm still trying to figure out what the right interface is for working with die mechanic modes and dice set modes with regards to die fields. Since die rolls can now have per die mechanics, dice sets, dice set mechanics in addition to the roll modifier; what is the correct behavior when dropping a roll like this on a dice field?

      In the current version, when a generic dice roll is dropped on a dice field, the basic die type is added for each die dropped and the modifier is lost. Any other dice rolls (attack/damage/etc) are ignored, since the dice field can not assume what to do with a specialized dice roll type. In fact, there is no way to add a modifier to a generic dice roll directly through the UI, so there is no modifier to lose.



    So that brings up more questions.
    • How do you generate a die roll in a graphical UI with die mechanic modes, dice sets, and/or dice set modes? Or can you? (With the prototype, it's only available via /die macro or via ruleset coding.)
    • What would a graphical UI to convert a textual die roll into a draggable die roll look like? How would you trigger?
    • What happens when a die roll with die mechanics, dice sets and/or dice set modes is dropped on a dice field?
    • What information should be saved in the die field?
    • How should it be displayed? (i.e. how do you show that a die in a die field will explode? How do you show sets? How do modifiers get displayed?)
    • And through all of this, we want to maintain backward compatibility with older rulesets. (currently, die fields expect to return a list of die type strings, which rulesets are expecting) (Die mechanics require a table record for each die, and die set modes require another separate table of table records for each set mode)


    My gut instinct is to start with just the /die support, better text drag and drop, ruleset API support, and not support dice field interactions to start with.

    I'm thinking a different kind of control is needed to hold "rolls" (sort of like the hot keys) as they are an evolved sort of object. I'm still not sure how to graphically display these "roll" fields in a way that makes sense. (i.e. die mechanics, sets, set modes, targets, etc.)

    Cheers,
    JPG
    Last edited by Moon Wizard; June 27th, 2014 at 21:18.

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