Suggestion / idea

[Mackduff]

Hi Admin,

Look I'm new to PBEM role play. I used to play AD&D back in the early 80's, and I am just getting into this convenient way of playing once again.Through my current PBEM game i have been introduced to The Unseen Servant, and thats great ! What a convenient way of dice rolling.

I am already starting to see that Combat resolution is something that can slow a PBEM game down, and i'm sure better minds have come to this same conclusion, and a variety of ideas put forward.

I have an idea, a concept, but lack the technical expertise to make it a reality, or the expertise to know if it is at all possible on this site.

Is It possible, when it come to a combat situation (lets say one on one for now) for this site to Have one PLAYER Character up against a NPC/Monster rolling dice together. So to put it another way. My player character fighting a (example) Goblin, everytime I "click" dice roll, it rolls for me, then the NPC dice rolls automatically in response. This maybe done several times until combat is resolved. Thus resolving combat in ONE session on the unseen servant, and speeding up PBEM games ?

The DM gets to see on the Unseen servant that combat was played out fairly, the player gets some control over combat, choosing weapons or whether to attack or withdraw etc. Combat resolved in one email, as opposed to several over a week or so.

I can see this might be a possibility for weapons combat and low level monsters, but probably would come unstuck for magic, and monsters with special abilities.

Like i say, just a thought....

Mackduff

[dmw71]

Is It possible, when it come to a combat situation (lets say one on one for now) for this site to Have one PLAYER Character up against a NPC/Monster rolling dice together. So to put it another way. My player character fighting a (example) Goblin, everytime I "click" dice roll, it rolls for me, then the NPC dice rolls automatically in response. This maybe done several times until combat is resolved. Thus resolving combat in ONE session on the unseen servant, and speeding up PBEM games.

Welcome, Mackduff.

Let's start with this part first:

"My player character fighting a (example) Goblin, everytime I "click" dice roll, it rolls for me, then the NPC dice rolls automatically in response."

How would the application know what rolls to generate in order to respond? Using your example, even a simple goblin could have many different options to attack with:

Goblins.jpg (25.19 KiB) Viewed 2799 times

The above options are just for plain, cookie-cutter goblins; they can possess many other possible responses as well.

I'm sure, with some significant programming, all the different variables could be captured in an application, but that is most likely well-beyond the capabilities of the current die roller as it exists and would essentially result in a brand new application.

Honestly, the more I think about this, and the many, many, many possible conditions/responses/variables involved, the more I'm thinking it's likely not something that will happen.


That said, I think part of the beauty of play-by-post games is the pace of play, with its routine ebbs and flows. Involvement and player investment in the game seems to increase during combat. Blitzing through these situations, while it would advance the game more quickly, might actually ruin some of the fun as encounters can be more than simple hack-and-slash, and attitudes/morale can change from one round to the next.

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it will be something that can/will be implemented here. At least not any time soon.

[Starbeard]

It's an interesting thought exercise, at least. I can see a special use for it, when we know that we'll have to roll the same lengthy dice combinations, in order, many times over. For example, when you know that you're going to be rolling the usual "initiative/attack/damage" rolls for a dozen orcs every round.

I suppose one way to do it is give macros ID tags and allowing them to be called up as functions. Macro A has a tag that calls up Macro B, and Macro B has a tag that calls up Macro C, so when the dice roller finishes processing Macro A, it then separately processes B, then C, and spits all three out in order.

Another way could be to have a repeat function, if you'll simply be rerolling the exact same macro. Such as:

"[12x] Orc Init: [1d10], Attack: [1d20], Dam S/L: [1d6] / [1d8]"

With [12x] indicating that the macro should be processed 12 times.

[dmw71]

Another way could be to have a repeat function, if you'll simply be rerolling the exact same macro. Such as:

"[12x] Orc Init: [1d10], Attack: [1d20], Dam S/L: [1d6] / [1d8]"

With [12x] indicating that the macro should be processed 12 times.

This is an interesting idea.

The die roller (.com) and the forums (.net) are completely separate, and Greg remains the only admin over the die roller tool so I'm not sure what it's capable of, but that seems like something that might be possible to implement.