SCRPG GM Management Web App (fanmade)

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
#21

Few more things I forgot to mention: 

The [Add an Obstacle] dialogue is somewhat confusing, with offering to “Add some obstacles”. I suspect this would be “Add ObstacleChallenge Elements”? 

I’d further suggest adding one Element (with a single checkbox) automatically, if none are defined - empty Challenges are rare, and this might save a lot of clicks.



More click-saving: Whenever adding a new Element, you might want to automatically call the [Edit] function, and focus the description input field. 

#22

Another helpful thing would be a health box for heroes. Allow us all one spot to see where people are.

#23

Being able to list all of an environment's locations would be a useful visual aid when running a larger environment such as Pike Industrial Complex or Megalopolis. 

Thank you for all you've done drezzinator. 

#24

Thanks for all the feedback and ideas everyone! Sorry I've been MIA recently, but I should have some time in the next couple of weeks to work on some of those changes yall have requested. I'll post here when I make updates. Thanks for your support!

#25

I've been using it for weeks in my new SOTM game that is run online an it has been a life saver. Thanks for your work on this. 

#26

No worries, this is after all a voluntary project; I am glad to see you back though.

#27

Made the following changes (1.0.10)

  • Renamed Obstacles to Challenges
  • Changed the Challenge Completed column to be red empty box when incomplete, and green check mark in box when completed
  • Moved Add Element to the bottom of the table for a given Challenge
  • Changed verbage on the Add Challenge modal
  • If no challenge elements are added to a challenge, a default element will be added with the text "Complete {challenge name}"
  • Clicking on 'Edit' for a Challenge element, the input field automatically gains focus
  • Removed the "Acted" button
    • Added the Pointer cursor on cells A and B
    • Click on cells A or B to toggle
    • Hover text appears over each of these cells
    • This is to clean up some UI because there's limited horizontal space
  • Changed Rename and Remove (for players) to be icons
    • Again, clean up horizontal spacing
    • Includes hover text for clarification
  • Added Player's HP

Not enough time tonight, but planning on getting to:

  • Add locations to the environment
  • Global effects (e.g. a net fell on the heros, everyone gets -1 Hinder while its present, requires an overcome to remove)
  • Notes field
    • Just a general text field for various notes that other systems cant manage
    • Maybe eventually I can look into implementing a primitive drawing pad and/or Image uploader so you can show your players things

For further discussion:

  • I havent added a "multi part challenge" because I feel that that is what the whole Challenge system is for with multiple elements. I don't see why you cant add each of the elements in your mock as individual entries? What would be the benefit for having a multi part challenge versus them separated out like this?
    • Find the entrance
    • Disable the alarm
    • Disable surveilance cam 1
    • Disable surveilance cam 2
    • Distract Guard 1
    • Distract Guard 2
#28

Great work!

#29

Thanks so much! 

#30

Wow, absolutely amazing!
I especially love all the visual cleanup you did there.


And you are of correct, this should cover each and every type of Challenge nicely, there's no real need for multi-Step Challenge Elements.

On the idea of an image uploader / drawing board: 
I think the whole thing relies on me sharing my screen anyway - so I can perfectly show any pictures I have prepared anyway.
So, probably, a nice feature to round things out, but by no means neccessary.

On the other hand, general notes about the situation seems like a perfect idea to flexibly cover anything that isn't covered already.
I would even say, there's no real need for global effects to be mentioned separately, notes should do that just fine, too.

So, as far as I'm concerned, this little helper is one simple "general notes" function away from being perfect!

 

#31

I added the following over the weekend (1.0.12)

  • Locations
    • Add a name and description for a location in the environment and displays in a table
    • Rename and Delete individual locations
    • Remove all locations button
  • Notes
    • Add miscellaneous notes
    • Uses markdown for custom formatting
    • Includes a link in the Help tab to help with formatting
  • Charts
    • Added Overcome and Boost/Hinder charts in the navbar
#32

Can't wait to test the new features out tonight! 

#33

Could a feature by added that makes it clear on the Round Tracker whether a minion or lieutenant is on the villains', heroes' or environment's side? It'd be even better if marking the environment or a hero as having acted also marked all of the relevant minions and lieutenants as having acted too.

#34

Not sure if I am getting what you aim for, smashed247... Why would you want to mark anything as 'acted', unless it just did? Is there a specific scenario you have in mind?

 

Anyway, I did some test-running on Discord the other day, and all the various bits just barely fit on one screen when I zoomed a little (which is the very idea of having everything at a glance)... so I'd say let's not overstuff it to cover all eventualities, lest the main functionality might suffer.

#35

The Minion-Maker archetype (SCRPG p.86) states that any minions you (the hero) create act at the start of your turn and the scene tracker's turn (SCRPG p.157) lists step 2 as "Activate all environment threats". Therefore while they do have their own marker/card/target in the scene, any and all minions and lieutenants belonging to the environment or heroes do not receive their own turn but instead act in the same turn as their parent actor as a sort of group activation. Having the ability to mark all members of a group as an acted with one click would be a great luxury but being able to visually distinguish what belongs to which group on the round track is more of a necessity. i.e. Unity activates and creates a d6 Raptor Bot minion that gets its own marker on the round tracker but doesn't actually have it's own turn and so can't be handed off to at the end of a turn however there isn't a visual indicator that Unity and Raptor Bot are linked and so remembering this relies entirely on human memory which I've found is consistently fallible. If the round tracker had a "Group" section Unity and Raptor Bot could both have "unity" listed next to their names in this section thus creating a visual reminder that the two are associated.   

P.S. I've encountered the same grouping problem when it comes to minion groups that consist of different die sizes. i.e. a minion group of 4 d8 Blade Troops suffers 1 casualty become 3 d8 Blade Troops and 1 d6 Blade Troop; the 4 Blade Troops still share one activation but the round tracker of the web app lists the d6 Troop seperately from the d8 Troops which while convenient for target assessment unintentionally obfuscates that they are in fact one actor for the purpose of choosing who to hand off initiative to.  

Another improvement would be to option to apply a mod to all minions or lieutenants in the same group at once rather than having to add the mod to each member seperately.       
 

#36

I think I can see your point... however I don't think more functionality can solve this.

  • On grouping: We already have Minion Groups, of different names. If need be, the instance they are bound to can be noted in the description. In the same way, if you need a cross-reference, simply rename the Hero to "Unity +her Bots" whenever it applies.
  • On multi-modding: Adding a function to apply mods to more than one Minion required another function to manage what applies together and what doesn't. A few (situational) click might be saved, but also a few extra clicks for management are introduced = no gain, only the complexity to handle things rises.
  • On player minions: I am very much convinced we don't need to remind players of their own Minions, which require quite an effort to set up in the first place. A player who is oblivious of their precious self-made and carefully boosted Minions finally going into the action? Not gonna happen, unless that player is beyond help. Anyway, I don't quite see the GM in charge of constantly reminding players of their own assets.
#37

Here's my 2 cents:

  • Minion Ownership
    • I think having some kind of a link between a player created minions and others would be useful. When I've been GMing, Ive had to manually set the name to "Dinobot - Unity" or similar. Especially because my Unity player likes to create minions that are related to the environment so sometimes there will be a bad guy raptor and a unity built raptor. Being able to have these automatically linked makes sense to me instead of having to opt to change the name.
    • I can see the case being made for the above with Villains as well.
    • I dont really see the need for the above for the environment though. Wouldnt all other minions be part of the environment? I dont see a need to explicitly say "this minion is for the environment" when the lack of a player/villain having ownership of it means that it is "owned" by the environment
  • Marking all minions as having acted with their player
    • I think this makes sense to me.
    • Often times my Unity player will do their minion's actions, then move right in to their own action. Marking off unity to also mark off their minions makes sense
    • I think the way I'm going to implement this is with a warning that effectively says "hey you're about to mark off Unity and some of their minions havent acted yet. do you also want to mark off their minions?"
  • Boosting all in the group
    • I can see the need for this. Sometimes a player or environment affects everyone so I think having a toggle that does so makes sense. It'll be easy enough to implement too i think and just a checkbox so it shouldnt make the system that much more complicated
    • The only complication is that there's kinda multiple definitions of a "minion group" in the context of the app.
      • There's a minion with a specified name that has all minions with that name grouped together
      • There's a minion die size, that is all minions of a given name with a given die size
    • Would adding a boost to a minion group be of all the same name or die size? I can see a case being made for either, and I suppose it could be a 3 option rather than just a checkbox

I've already started work on these changes and should have them out in the next day or two. After which I can always change it if I get feedback one way or another.

#38

The absence of one thing does not imply the presence of another thing. If all minions belonging to players are marked as such and all minions belonging to villains are marked as such then having minions listed without an indication of who they are owned by would raise the question “is that absence of ownership deliberate or a mistake?” more often than it would imply “this minion is not owned by villains nor players therefore it belongs to the environment” thus undermining the apps purpose slightly. The most regular clarity of ownership issue I’ve run into is when one the players says “I pass my initiative of too the pterodactyl minion” and the GM responds “That minion is an environment threat so in order for them to act the scene tracker has to take a turn, are you okay with that?” which regardless of the players response has broken the flow of the scene because of a misunderstanding.

Yes, this sounds like a great way to implement it.

Having all 3 options would be the most complete solution but defining “minion group” as same name would cover most cases and maybe be less work for you

#39

Updates in 1.0.13

  • Changed the notes section to be a rich text editor rather than markdown view/edit
  • Changed button text to use icons (to save horizontal spacing)
    • Hover text still present
  • Added Minion ownership
    • When creating a minion, you can select a player or villain from the dropdown
    • If owned, the respective owner's name will appear in parens after the minion's name
      • If unowned, this is omitted
    • When marking a player/villain as having acted in the round tracker, a warning will appear if all of their minions have not been marked as acted. Yes -> all minions will then be marked as acted. No -> only the player will be marked as acted
    • Players have an add minion button in the round tracker
      • This pops the add minion modal with that player pre selected as the owner
    • I'm still thinking about if I want to implement the environment as an owner. As of right now, I did not add this in.
  • Modifiers
    • When adding a modifier to a minion or lieutenant, you can select how that modifier is applied via the Apply To field
      • Just One (default) - Adds this modifier to just a single minion. This was how the app worked before this point
      • All the same die size - Adds this modifier to all minions of this name and die size
      • All of the same name - Adds this modifier to all minions of this name
  • Add a minion button
    • A new button is present in the Minions and Lieutenants Actions column
    • This essentially increments the count of the given row by 1; the opposite of the delete button
  • Round tracker
    • Updated sorting order
      • Players (alphabetical by name)
        • Minions owned by players are directly after that player
      • Villains
        • Minions owned by villains directly after that villain
      • Lieutenants
      • Minions (unowned)
    • I think this is the best order, but I'm open for feedback on this
  • Behind the scenes changes
    • I've updated a lot of the tech behind the scenes. This may introduce new bugs. Post here if you find anything.
#40

Love the changes, especially all the little bandles and icons.

 

Haven't had time to test much yet, but I think the new Minion button does not simply increase count by one; it rather seems to double the current count.

The delete button, however, works as intended (decrease count by 1).