SCRPG GM Management Web App (fanmade)

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
#41

After some testing, I can now confirm that the [+] button for Minions and Lieutenants does not, in fact, add one.
Instead, it adds a number equal to the existing count. 

The delete button reduces the count by 1, which is the expected behaviour.

As for multiple boost/hinder/defense, I'd suggest renaming the text from "All of the same die size" to "All Minions/Lieutenants in this line", only for clarity.
(Because other Minions of the same die size and name, but in another table row for any modifiers, are not affected).

 

= = = = = = 

One more idea I had about useful functions: 
It would be a great help if the GM could prepare a few scenes in advance, and thus reduce setup-downtime during play. 

Since all data in stored in cookies (I think this is still true?), a simple way to implement this might be to download/upload the respective cookie as some kind of config file.
I imagine preparing a little library of files for the scenes I am planning, and then uploading them into the page when the moment comes.

What do you think?

#42

Hello,

First of all thanks for making this. I've been using this in my weekly game. 

I am a little confused about the minion ownership features put in. According to the rules, villain minions in general go on their own turn. Hero created minions go on the hero turn, and environment minions go on the environment turn. Also, there are a few hero and villian abilities that specifically effect environment minions. If I have that all correct I think that being able to mark the minions as being owned by the environment would be more useful, and I can't see as to why I would need to mark them as being owned by the villiain. Is is of course possible that I have the rules wrong. 

#43

Changed the following in 1.1.14:

  • Fixed the issue that adding a minion would double the count
  • Changed text from "All of the same die size" to "All minions/lieutenants in this row"
  • Changed text from "All of the the same name" to "All the minions/lieutenants with the same name"
  • Added border color and font color to the modifiers to match the type. This just gives a little bit of a visualization consistency at a glance.
  • Added the environment as a selectable owner for minions/Lieutenants

---

I like the idea of being able to set up the environments ahead of time and being able to import/export them. I actually have an even grander idea which is being able to set up an account of some kind and then your players can log in and see all the data in real time. This would provide a few advantages, however it comes with some disadvantages as well which is why I havent implemented it yet.

  • Advantages
    • No longer needed to screen share.
      • Players can scroll up and down at their leisure. Ive had my players be like "can you scroll down to the minion list? I cant remember what targets there are" or whatever.
      • Players can mark themselves as having acted
      • Players can add their own minions
    • Hidden Information
      • Ive intentionally left out villain health thus far. This is because I dont want my players to be like "oh one more hit and we win!". I could add this in as a GM tracker, but keep it hidden for players
      • Add various notes, minions, or other things that wont show up until toggled
  • Issues/Disadvantages
    • I need to have a DB and server
      • This increases the monetary cost from $0 to ...well there are a lot of options out there but all of them are more than $0. I'm not sure I want to shell out any money at this time for something thats just a hobby.
    • I need authentication of some kind for account management
      • This also may require password encryption
      • I have a few ideas that wouldn't require a full on password/encryption as well, but would come with it's own risks
      • This multiplies the sophistication and maintenance/commitment by about tenfold I'd estimate

Thus far, the downsides outweigh the benefits to me.

Anyways, all that to say, your suggestion is a good interim step and wouldnt bring any of the baggage I mentioned. I've done some csv/xlsx file imports before and its relatively easy. I'll look into doing that soon. Good idea!

#44

Awesome!

As always, I'm a fan of simple, lightweight approaches, so I'd second the sentiment that a DB+Login structure seems a fair bit over-the-top for what it achieves. And to think that the long tail includes rights-management in who can edit what, and then account management for the GM to grant their players various types of access, and  then login recovery... phew.

On the other hand, a simple shared screen seems little, if any, trouble.

 

On a related note: Hopefully one day, we'll all return to sitting around one table, and then this tool could run as a handy helper on a tablet.

Therefore,  I'm already thinking how this might translate into a 100% local app (so we wouldn't even depend on an internet connection or a server being up and running)... and going the DB route would definitively kill that possibility.

#45

The work you've done in these last two updates is amazing, thank you.

I don't think having a the advantages you list are worth the extra hoops that would need to be jumped through to achieve and maintain them. The screen sharing isn't a problem if one has a 2nd monitor, which is something I'd recommend having in general. 

I think allowing players to also manipulate the round tracker would most likely lead to confusion.  

 

#46

I’ve done some preliminary research into turning a website into an android/ios app with my work in the past, and its very doable. I’ll do some more R&D to see the feasibility of this in the future. I think this is a great idea to translate the tools into an in person session that we all hope happens sooner than later… :confused:

#47

Rather than have a "Villain HP" tracker (which, I agree, takes the mystery out of it) you could call the field "Villain HP taken." The GM can show how much damage the villain has taken, without giving away that they've only got 2 left. 

#48

I've noticed that the Boost, Hinder & Defend buttons under the Villain tab are non-responsive when I click on them.

#49

Changelog v1.1.15

  • Added import/export functionality. Find it in the navbar
    • Ive only done some preliminary testing and it seems to be working, but i dont have time to test it fully right now. If you find any bugs, post them here. Including the exported xlsx file would be helpful as well.
    • There's very little data validation with the import. If you just straight export then import the file without editing it, you shouldnt have any issues. But if you decide to edit the file (its relatively easy to reverse engineer if that's your thing), you may get errors/unexpected data.
    • I dont really want to add data validation because thats just a pain in the butt, but if there's a common issue that occurs frequently for enough people and/or people find it useful to create their own xlsx files and import them, I could be persuaded to add some on-the-rails options to prevent issues.
  • Fixed villain boost/hinder/defend
#50

Thanks for the update. The import/export feature is working fine for me so far. There's an odd bug that any villain I create initially loads in as d12 minion but after refreshing the page the entry is correctly displayed as a villain and all the associate functions work fine for it. 

#51

Great improvements to the round tracker. Little changes that make noticeable differences 

#52

Thanks! Yea I'm playing around with UI improvements here and there. I'm not a designer so I dont really know what's objectively good layout. I'm not too fond of the color scheme right now as its just some default colors. I think I might do some work around that next. I also dont love the cream background color either so that might get a redo at some point. Any ideas/pointers appretiated!

#53

Something very, very minor: when creating a new Challenge, the field for creating challenge aspects has the monicker 'challenge entry' (which seems a little ambiguous), and is pre-filled with 'challenge description' (which is misleading).

Come to think of it, a challenge description - essentially a line without a checkbox - might be another nice touch. I've found that sometimes I like to give a general description before listing the actual overcomes needed. That, or maybe even simpler, a feature to define how many checkboxes (0-x) a challenge has. This way, we could even cover timed challenges.

Example: Old uncle Billy is down because his heart wasn't up to all this trouble. Yep, that looks like a heart attack!(general description). He needs immediate medical attention (task 1) and someone to call an ambulance (task 2). Timer is 2 rounds.

With multiple boxes per line, I'd arrange this so:

Uncle B is down!

[His heart... blablabla]

ΠΠ Time's running out

Π First aid

Π get ambulance / more professional care

 

Or, with the tasks even more concise:

ΠΠ help, and get others to help too

 

#54

Been working on v1.3.19 for a couple weeks now and i honestly forget the full list of what ive changed.

Most notably though, I made some changes to the UI, formatting, and colors. Hopefully thats easier to see everything and better on the eyes!

#55

Wow, what a change! Thanks again!

One last request though: Can you make the scene tracker fields a smidge smaller, so that a standard 8-round tracker fits into one line on a common 1800px-wide screen? Resizing to 90% (104x100px) should do the trick.

Looks so much cleaner ;)

#56

Ask and you shall receive

#57

Rather large feature in coming on this in 1.4.22

I added a drawing board on the bottom of the page. This allows the GM to have a "board" layout. I was getting a little frustrated at my players being like "well all the minions are nearby so my ability can attack all of them". Now there will be some representation to show who is in what location. I hope it helps out your games!

#58

Interesting feature, still getting the hang of it... :)

 

New Bug:
When demoting Minions, their number is copied, not split.

Example: 5 d6 Minions => click "demote" => 5 new d4 Minions PLUS the existing 5 d6 Minions.

 

Edit:
Also, the two entries seem connected afterwards - promoting them will increase numbers on both, and adding/removing will also affect both lines simultaneously..

Edit 2:
The same thing happens when a mod is applied, and removed. In both cases, Minion numbers just rise and rise... weird stuff going on there :)

#59

Whoops. Should be fixed 1.4.24

#60

Would just like to say, thank you once again for all your work. I am a bit confused on how the map feature can and should work?