@doppelgreener I replaced the second person 'you' with third person 'the bard' in light of your point on triggers and the topic. I think your alert on that was a good one.

@Oak The use-case would be in designing a dungeon where different regions were built in different eras: it'd be nice to have a layer where I could lay down some big color-coded blocks that say "original dwarven construction," "carved out by Smaug," "five armies' garrison," &c.

Good visual cue as to how to describe things as characters move around, but can be turned off for a "pure" map.

Another layer (because I've been thinking about gating a lot) that'd be nice to slap on there would be one which blocks out which regions are accessible/restricted via various means.

But don't let any of this take anything away--I think this is super-cool that you've built, and I'll be playing with it more =)

@Oak, another layering option that'd be handy with toggled visibility is secret rooms or doors.

@doppelgreener On further review, I like your judgment call even better. Thanks.

@KorvinStarmast 🙌 I'm really happy that worked out.

Well, looks like I won't get to run FATE anytime soon, but I may get a game of Microscope off the ground.

@Shalvenay You'll like today's XKCD.

@godskook Oh, so sounds like you want a GM mode :-) I've been thinking about it a lot and will work on something, but it's a lot of effort so might take a while. The direction I am looking at is having a "GM-only" version of every tool, and another tool that can toggle existing objects between those versions.

@Oak, if you allow 1 or more editors to toggle which layers are visible, either just for a particular print or for other users, that puts "gm mode" in the user's hands.

@godskook I guess it does... but then there's a temptation to cheat. I would prefer it if there was a proper way to hide information from all players, including the munchkins.

@nitsua60 well I wanted to add more floor colors to help distinguishing between different parts of the map (just colors, not textures)

But overall just hiding some things feels like a low-utility feature for me, maybe I just don't see the use-cases clearly.

By the way, you can create a map, then fork it and "play" on the forked copy, doing whatever there. That way you can add annotations / move things around, without touching the original map

Relevant to a few days ago:

@Oak, I listed two use-cases, in the first, there's no temptation because any hypothetical players aren't using the program, they're looking at printed maps. In the second, you can roll out the functionality changes initially, and then put "anti-cheat" mechanisms into a "backlog" list.

@Yuuki, if you love your job, you'll want to come in on holidays and weekends. Source: Me finally getting a job I like after years of working jobs I hated.

Any cross 3.5/5e players can confirm that initiative is fundamentally the same in 5e or if not, what changed?

@godskook I like my job, and I would never dream of coming in on weekends or holidays willingly.

@godskook @Yuuki I've worked weekends/holidays before, and I'll likely do so again. Befor has been when I've worked FOR other people in consulting and I didn't really have a choice in the matter. Now I work for myself and do whatever it takes to get the job done - but I also try and never have my employees have to do that unless it's a dire emergency.

I feel like my joke is going unappreciated.

I feel awkward typing out "lol" or "haha" in chat with little else of substance. I appreciated your joke. I just didn't write anything about it directly in chat :)

I didn't find it all that funny, tbh.

i didn't even read your initial post. i suck. just went with adam's response. HE GOT IN MY BRAIN!

@godskook Honestly, this is why I would actually caution against doing something you love as a job.

The gaming industry has this locked down, game devs are on average paid far less and work far more hours than other software developers largely due to companies knowing that their workers love doing what they do and are willing to make less money and work mind-bending schedules just to make games.

@godskook I have not noticed any differences between 3.5 and 5e in terms of the initiative system, certain aspects are different like: in 5e the DM is encouraged to use the same roll for a group of mobs, in 3.5e there are more feats/features that modify init.

@Yuuki Fun fact, I started my first attempt at a degree in CompSci because I love tinkering with technology and computers, and I failed out hard — best thing that could have happened to me. I learned the hard way — but not hardest way — that I'm not personally suited to working in something I want as part of my leisure time. Many years later, I'm studying bookkeeping/accounting. ;)

@GreySage The systems largely the same, but a small change with a big effect is that combatants no longer have options allowing them to modify their position in the order.

@SevenSidedDie OH yeah, that too. Delay and what not.

@SevenSidedDie I feel like the core is the same, but the pieces that interact with it are not

@SevenSidedDie I remember a quote either from Mearls or JC where somebody asked them why they did that. They said that they felt that if a delay/defer option existed, that initiative was pointless, since the team could effectively reorganize itself anyway. I can't find the source anymore though. If anybody else has seen it, please feel free to let me know.

@GreySage Yeah, I'd say so. The DMG's optional Sides initiative changes this up more substantially and I think (without having tried it, but familiar with it in other editions) would change the way combat plays out quite a bit. But the core is familiar to 3.x and 4e players.

@Adam I disagree with the quoted sentiment. I feel that if you are willing to give up a certain number (or portion) of actions, then you should be able to rearrange yourselves.

@GreySage With 5e, the Readied Action does account for this, but it also limits what you can do in many ways. Like not getting extra attacks.

@GreySage It's possible (likely even, in 3.x/4e) that the value of positional control trivially exceeds the costs. I can see the designers feeling that would make an initiative system pointless.

@SevenSidedDie I can see that, and I admit it is possible, but in my opinion the value does not exceed the cost. shrug

@GreySage Personally, I'm partial to Sides initiative systems in D&D-like games anyway, where you get both the ability to tactically sort yourselves and immensely greater speed than fixed initiative + Delay options. :)

I like sides initiative for the speed, but I don't like how swingy it can make things.

There's legitimately no cost associated with taking a delay action across team-mates' actions in 3.5, excepting your team-mate not allowing you to switch back when its optimal to switch back.

In practice, I don't think I've ever seen a PC abuse the Delay action, though.

@godskook I'd say there's a cost, but it's in the currency of “initiative counts before further Delays will effectively give the opposition a free action on me”. Which is pretty cheap currency, until it isn't.

@SevenSidedDie, iirc, you don't have to delay a full "tick" in 3.5, so you're not even spending a real tick's worth of time until the DM actually gives the "next turn" decleration to someone else, locking you out of jumping back into order.

@godskook I'm not quite sure I'm following. I'm just thinking of how you can only Delay so long until you're effectively letting the enemy go before you, instead of you going before the enemy, and then you're stuck behind them.

@Adam Sides initiative leads to my level 2 party clearing out 80% of a dungeon without taking a single hit, then having 1 person get exploded by an actually reasonably difficult encounter.

To my knowledge, no matter how many iterations that happens for

Neither Gimli nor Legolas drop to 3 initiative, no matter what the Troll does.

@godskook As long as you are all between the mobs, if you are interspersed it doesn't work

(2 vs 1 obviously doesn't matter, since you are always grouped up in someway)

@GreySage, yes, that's true, but I've been not talking about if you actually give Monsters turns via the delay action.

Possibly could've made that clearer.

I like the idea of delaying your turn if you don't want to go yet...but then your delayed position becomes your new point in initiative.

@NautArch, at that level of vagueness, that's how 3.5 works now.

@godskook That's what we did in Iron Kingdoms as well. No one ever wanted to give up their early initiative for a one round optimal order :)

But afaik, there's no minimum "tick" value on the action, so cooperative allies have arbitrary relative initiative positions if they rolled into the same initiative cluster

@godskook I'm pretty sure that's using house rules. In 3.x, Delay requires a specific Initiative Count to act on. You can have the same one as a party member (and go simultaneously), but Legolas can't Delay to after Gimli without choosing Count 4 (simultaneous with Troll), and then Gimli can't Delay to after Legolas without choosing Count 3 (after Troll).

Is "initiative count" well defined?

@godskook The rule is pretty explicit that however you define it, it has to be an absolute number, not relative. The only possible interpretation is that it's the number that initiative rolls result in.

"the only possible interpretation", uhm no. Decimal numbers are still absolute numbers :P

@NautArch But at that point, why roll initiative?

@SevenSidedDie, if "initiative count" is well defined, that rules text is sufficient to prove me wrong and you right. That's my only haven that its not well defined.

@Adam Establishing an order still needs to happen. But if after you've rolled you realized there is a specific set of actions you as a team want to make, you can still do so ((at the penalty of making a permanent change to initiative.) It may or may not make a big deal depending on when the mooks go.

@godskook Delay notes that “Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the delayed action.”, which equates count to result. Also Initiative define its results' use as “Characters act in order, counting down from highest result to lowest. ” So ‘count’ may not be well defined, but it's well defined enough that defining it otherwise is swimming upstream. :)

@NautArch I get the nuance, and I understand the allure, but I also think it adds unnecessary complexity to a game system that was trying to be more simplified. It's really a non-issue for me though. I just like playing devil's advocate :p

@SevenSidedDie, I disagree that its swimming upstream, but I don't think we'll get much farther than shouting "I disagree" at each other, as I think you've already covered all the relevant rules quotes.

@Adam WHat's funny is we don't allow that when we play 5e. Readied Actions account for a similar role, but with it's own penalty. BUt we can't just move our initiative order. It was purely an IK thing (and not sure about the official rules on that one right now)

Well, it's a hard argument to support, whatever the metaphor used. The rules seem pretty unambiguous, and an alternate reading can't be easily derived from it without trying to work against the words used.

@Adam also. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. And I don't wanna talk about it.

@NautArch Sarcasm?

@Adam Me? Never.

;P

We really only need one initiative rule. I go first and the rest of you can have a deathmatch over who goes next.

There's no need to decide who goes third or on because everyone else will be dead from the deathmatch.

@Yuuki Duh, third is your turn. again.

No, I don't go third. I just go first. Again.

Third place is for losers.

And people who died in the deathmatch. Which technically makes them losers.

@godskook as for non-secure GM view, I need to be very careful with this. The synchronization code is by far the most complex part of the application, and doing things half-assed at first can really come back to bite me later. I'll need some long hard thinking about how to implement GM mode, so I might as well do that properly.

Ricky Bobby Initiative: If you ain't first, you're last.

@Yuuki Actually, 2nd place is the first loser.

that was something my high school crew coach used to tell us

Well, you could tell him that 1st place is the last winner.

@NautArch Sports are brutal. My coach once blamed me for us losing a cross country meet, even though I was the first of our team to finish. I quit shortly thereafter.

@Oak, but toggled-viewable layers might be something PCs or PCs+GMs want as well, not just GMs, so you'll likely want an implementation that supports that.

@Adam what the? how did you get the blame for the loss?

@doppelgreener they even do still use some really old planes

I'm surprised that someone thinks it's generally ok for a DM to roll a pool of initiative dice and assign them as they see fit to their mooks.

He said something like how I should have been pulling everyone along with me, upping their pace, and inspiring them to go faster.

@Adam, sounds like a thing a coach would say to get a better group performance.

@godskook But what content do you think needs to be potentially hidden? The maps themselves are very simple to start with, I don't think there's much clutter. Things like "room name" are probably worth just placing on the map and never toggling, no?

@NautArch To me, I don't see much of a difference between that and rolling once for every like creature and having them go in any order

I mean I see the difference, and I understand why that would be wonky. I just don't think it's all that far fetched

Especially since the GM has so much stuff to keep track of. It can be overwhelming

@godskook Except I also have my own goals and improvements to make. In a workout, I could understand what he meant. But for a full meet, If they can't keep pace, then they can't keep pace.

@NautArch, with mooks within a "pool", that's a step up from the shared-initiative position.

@Adam, I'm not sure how different cross-country is from more team-oriented sports, but that excuse wouldn't stand in any more team-oriented sport.

@godskook Agreed those might be temporal. My vision was that those will just be added and removed from the map as necessary.

@Oak, how would you handle say....a Fog Cloud, if this is getting used for actual play?

@godskook will place a green rounded-shape "cloud" where that cloud is

@Adam Isn't it the coach's job to inspire people?

@godskook So, put it this way. I wasn't the team captain. Nor the most senior member of the team. I was just the fastest runner. Your team earns points based on how quickly each member finishes the race. If I trust my team to do their best, then if I keep pace with them, then all that happens is that I come in slower, and we lose by even more

@godskook mipui.net/app/index.html?mid=mvyydxmpzr0&secret=snktvppfokt

Everyone on the team had a battle buddy. Somebody who was fairly close to their speed that they were supposed to run with and push them. For some reason, for that I loss, I was retroactively supposed to be everyone's battle buddy.

@Adam, I know that if you ran only slightly faster than them, they'd kick up the pace to keep pace with you.

People without someone to run against often don't run as fast.

@godskook though agreed that is problematic if overlapping existing "shapes"

@Oak, if those were moved to a seperate layer, or multiple seperate layers, they could be toggled off/on dynamically as needed.

Yeah, but I'm not even in the position to help them. Within the first few minutes of the race positions are for the most part set. If I'm way ahead of them at that point (which for most of them I was) I won't even see them until they cross the finish line. This isn't just me running 18 mins and them running 19, this is me running 18 and them running 20+.

@godskook true... it's just that they are easy to add and remove

@Oak, I'm just thinking out loud.

@godskook oh no no I'm sorry if I'm coming off as confrontational, it's fine! I love to hear feedback! I'm myself thinking in which directions to take the tool

Just need to prioritize :-)

@Yuuki Yeah...he wasn't very good at that either.

@Adam, could your team have scored better overall, had you pushed a team-mate to run faster by one place, but you falling down to his placing+1-better?

And it's definitely a good point that if I want better support for live play on it, more annotation support (including layers) might be needed

@Oak, actually, I was trying to quell my own possible confrontationalness there.

@godskook no it's fine :-)

Well, less...."possible" and more "he might feel like I'm possibly being"

@godskook No. I would've had to drop more than 1 place to catch up with the next closest person if I recall that race correctly. It's like if a football kicker misses a field goal, and the QB is blamed for it.

@Adam Well, going by how most football fans react, apparently yes.

@godskook The way I see it, three things make this tool useful compared with competitors: accessibility (no download, no registration), ease of use, and real-time collaboration. I'm definitely looking at improving the collaboration part, but want to be careful that it doesn't diminish from the simplicity. That, plus the need to prioritize, require me to think carefully before adding more features. But more features will be necessary :-)

@Adam, depends on the team and their attitudes?

But without diagnosing, I tend to default into "the Holy Church of Git Gud" mode when it comes to these sorts of things. and in that mode, the only person you can improve is you.

You see, you've put me in an impossible position where if I say "yeah, I was super me focused" it wouldn't be genuine because I don't look back at myself being that way. But if I say "No I wasn't arrogant" then that is prideful and actively looks bad on me, no matter how true it is objectively. So I guess there isn't anything more to say except that at the time, considering every interaction I ever had with my coach and teammates, the blame didn't seem fair. Either then or now.

Yeah, that's probably why people get upset when I talk like this......I'll have to figure out how to make it less catch-22-ish.

Cause I'm not TRYING to make it catch-22-ish.

git gud r git rekt

@Oak I only took a quick look through the tool, so I don't have very much to say in terms of improvements, but I liked what I saw. It's really cool.

@Adam, at the very least, with the amount of introspection you just used, the assertion that you don't think you were being arrogant wouldn't sound prideful to me.

@Adam thanks man! Upvote rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6717/… if you like it!

Also, I think Pride is weird. There's a such thing as too little pride and too much. Learning what the real balance point is, is quite hard imho, because most other people don't seem to know.

@godskook Let not my introspection fool you. This event occurred 5 or 6 years ago. People change and memories of what was said fade into blurs.

@Adam, the only important parts left of such a memory are to finish the required emotional processing bits, and garner whatever salvageable lessons can be salvaged.

Which probably has something to do with why I default to the "Holy Church of Git Gud" mode.

hey there @NautArch

@BESW Dammit Roger! is brilliant!

It is.

And very disheartening, since I once tried to design a one-shot game with a similar mechanic (very different premise though) and failed miserably.

Actually... I think my concept might fit very nicely into the idea of pastoral fantasy as @JuneShores' described it to me.

@BESW mind describing pastoral fantasy to me?

How about letting June do it.

The pastoral is a mode of writing, painting, music, etc, which presents a rural next-to-nature lifestyle as a simple, comfortable alternative preferential to complex, stressful urban lifestyles detached from nature. The pastoral fantasy comes about when applying that ethos to the fantasy genre.

(see also enclosure)

yeah -- reading that discussion reminds me of some of my fellow railroaders discussing how hard it is to find crews willing to live in the central-west areas of Texas (i.e. that big hole between the Triangle and El Paso)