CB4 interface suggestions?

[biodude]

I know it's a bit early, so feel free to ignore and return to this later, when CB4 development begins in earnest

A few interface ideas have been mentioned in other threads.  There is a good argument for keeping the interface similar to a "classic" character sheet, to make it easier to find what you want, but also the counter-argument that such sheets aren't necessarily familiar to all players, nor consistent across the various games that CB4 might support.

At the risk of re-opening this can of worms, I will suggest that it would be useful if abilities (including spells, rituals, special abilities, etc.) could be grouped by attack / defense / utility.  Ideally, this would apply at a broad scale, so I can look at a character sheet and see only my attack options, when I'm in combat and deciding what to do on my turn, defense options, when I'm being attacked, and Utility when I need a way to overcome a challenge that doesn't involve an assault.

This is something that is already prevalent in later D&D editions, and which I feel is rather universally useful to any game.  Feel free to display items within each "group" however you think is best, but I would wet myself if I could at least group stats by:

• Attack / Defense / Utility
• or even: Combat / Utility

I admit that some objects, like skills or equipment, can potentially fit into multiple categories.  I guess what I'm really asking for is a series of "filters", but I'd settle for some way to group items within lists (spells, abilities, equipment), even manually: that would allow whatever grouping a player finds most useful.

Hopefully, something to chew on.

[CrystalBallMac]

Hey so, I have not been ignoring this request.
I have been letting it percolate in my brain as to how such a request could be honored.

I agree on grouping Spells and Special Abilities.  I am pretty sure the default character editor will be grouping those things together.
I also REALLY like the idea of being able to group those into categories. (You have suggested "Attack / Defense / Utility")  And it would be even better if you could easily choose your own categories and move them around in these lists however you want.

My first inclination when you mentioned "Equipment" to be able to be grouped in this list as well was: "How would you do that?"
Equipment / Weapons / Items / Armor all seem very different to me than Spells and Special Abilities.

However, I would really like to be able to allow the user to customize a character editor the way they want it to work.
So, i think it would be really cool to try to fit all the editors (Weapons, Items, Spells, Special Abilities, etc.) into the same sized space so that you could have a more modular approach to the character editor.  Then your request would be fairly easy to implement.

But, I can't say for certain what things are going to look like because we haven't gotten to that point yet.  However, you have my curiosity piqued and now I can try to plan for the request above and make everything modular so you can have custom character editor layouts.

Woooo!

[biodude]

Your description of the character editor is exciting!  As if I could be any more excited about CB4.

I have a few other ideas / requests that your post got me thinking about as well. 

One is body slots for equipment.  If items can be containers and contain other items, an analogous operation is to have body slots as specialized "containers" where you can place equipment objects.  Ideally, you can define your own body slots, but restricting what goes in them could be tricky, if possible or desireable.
Similarly, if every "modifier object" has an option to enable / disable ("activate" / "deactivate"), this simple switch can be used to equip items.  Assign them to body slots, then "turn them on" when you actually use them.  An additional option would be to restrict the number of "active" items in a body slot: you can assign as many as you want, but can only have one "worn" or active at a time.
If you want to get really fancy, these body slots would be displayed on a suitably inspirational piece of fantasy artwork in the appropriate locations.  But that's not mechanically necessary ;-)
Of course, being able to equip & unequip items means having different combinations, optimized for different tasks.  How hard would it be to "save" different configurations of equipment within a character, to be able to switch between them more easily?  On a larger scale, the same concept could be applied to having a set of active abilities or spell effects (your standard "buff suite"), including equipment.

Another interface aspect I've been jonesing for is for fields to handle more of the bookeeping for me, with fewer mouse clicks.  i.e. click on a button, type a number, hit enter, and that number is automatically subtracted from HP.  Same for weapon ammo, or spell / power points.  Heck, casting a spell should be as easy as clicking a button, and automatically tracks # of spells cast (for that spell and total), and maybe points.  Same for powers with limited uses per day / encounter / round, etc.  But from what I've been hearing in other threads, it sounds like this sort of thing is in the works.  Hooray for automatic tracking

More fodder to ruminate on.  Enjoy

[biodude]

I also REALLY like the idea of being able to group those into categories. (You have suggested "Attack / Defense / Utility")  And it would be even better if you could easily choose your own categories and move them around in these lists however you want.

What about some kind of "label" list (make your own categories) or "tags" (list of keywords, such that objects could belong to more than one group).  To take it this idea to the extreme, Equipment could be part of all categories, but items within equipment would only be part of some groups.  Filtering by each group would show, for example, "attack" equipment, special abilities, spells, feats, etc.  while "Defense" would show defensive equipment & spells as well as AC, Saving throws, etc.
Kind of like database functions without the database structure ;-)

My first inclination when you mentioned "Equipment" to be able to be grouped in this list as well was: "How would you do that?"
Equipment / Weapons / Items / Armor all seem very different to me than Spells and Special Abilities.

Actually, I would include Weapons, Armor, and Magic Items in Equipment, though perhaps in different "subsections" of this list.  However, I can see the need for a separate section for "attacks", which are a combination of weapons and other abilities.  Some at-will attacks are based on special abilities and don't even use weapons. The reason I draw the line this way is that I need to keep track of my magic weapons inventory, for example magic swords, 'cause I gotta collect 'em all (in my equipment list), but I also need to distinguish *how they are used* in combat: one-handed vs. 2-handed vs. 2-weapon attack, melee vs. thrown, effect of feats, etc. (an "attack"). 
So, I'd rather have a fluid section of "attacks" that you build by combining weapons, other items, abilities or spells.  Actually, this would partly address my original request by creating an entire section of "attacks", which you build using objects from your inventory, special abilities, spells, and so on, assigned to action types (full-round, standard, etc.), in one list, all with net modifiers from all active feats, abilities, conditions and spell effects.  Using an action (by double-clicking on it, for example) could cast the spell, use an item's charge, or remove one use for an ability's "uses per day / week / encounter/ etc."

A suit of armor is no different from a pair of magic bracers of armor: they both provide armor bonuses, but the armor also happens to have a penalty to skills, arcane spell failure, etc.  In a truly flexible system, a separate object for armor wouldn't be necessary.  On the other hand, I can see how the number of modifiers specific to armor might suggest having a special list.

What do others think about handling types of equipment?

[biodude]

After starting this thread, I got to thinking (a dangerous passtime, I know).  A little too much.  Rather than continue to flood the forum, I collected my thoughts and notes in one place.  I tried to describe how my ideal software would work to create, configure, edit and use dynamic, autocalculating Character Sheets to manage my Characters. I then realized that a Character Sheet was just a kind of Form, so this system could also be a generic Form Builder and filler.

If you are interested, feel free to read my ideas for a Flexible Form Framework for interactive, auto-calculating RPG Character Sheets.

I make no claim that this is the "One True" system, but this document is intended rather as a "white paper" to provide ideas for thought and discussion. I decided to share it publicly, in the hope that these ideas can improve existing software, including CrystalBall.  Feel free to offer feedback here.

Based on other threads in the forums, I can guess that some ideas are already planned to be implemented in CB4, some are not (customizeable layout, for example), but some might be new.  I don't mind either way: CB has always impressed me and even though it doesn't do everything I'd like, I understand developers only have so much time, and will have good reasons for disagreeing with some of my ideas or priorities. 

This document is written & maintained as a nested list of notes, using NoteBook software, by Circus Ponies, and exported as a web page directly from the program. I apologize if the terminology is inconsistent: it evolved as I was writing. I've tried to edit it for consistency, and may continue to do so, as I get feedback or more ideas.

[CrystalBallMac]

We had discussed a long time ago about trying to make CrystalBall more generic so that it could support more systems.  And thereby have custom layouts for the character record.  We basically came to conclusion that it would be such a monumental task to design something like this that we would never finish because the complexity would just bog us down even more.

We had decided to pursue only d20 based systems in order to simplify the work for CrystalBall.
Perhaps at a future date we can take a look at a more customizable way to do CB.

[biodude]

We had decided to pursue only d20 based systems in order to simplify the work for CrystalBall.
Perhaps at a future date we can take a look at a more customizable way to do CB.

I agree with your reasons for sticking to d20, and they are well-justified.  I have, however, come to realize that "d20" is not as clear and simple as we might think, and in fact highly pluralistic.  The system itself is rather complex (as we saw in the brainstorming exercise), with many versions of various flavours.  Add to that the many possible house rules that gamers come up with to make the game more fun for them, and the conundrum begins to take shape.  Which aspects of the d20 system will be rigidly defined and "hard-coded" into CB4, and which ones will be customizeable by the user?  I'm not sure I know the answer, which is why I started thinking about how to do it more generically.

As I said earlier, I don't expect the developers to agree with me 100%, but feel free to use any ideas you feel are useful. 
Custom layouts are a lower priority for me personally: it would be like icing on the cake.  That doesn't mean I don't care about interface, which is a related but slightly different issue.  I'm more concerned with structure, because if it is overly constrictive, it makes the tool less useful.  On the other hand, offering complex options can also be confusing for the user.  It's a difficult balance to strike.

[CrystalBallMac]

Well the places I see that are the same across the board are the basic Attribute Scores:
These are the foundation of the system and everything else is built off them. (Skills, AC / Defense, Saving Throws / Defenses, To Hit / Damage)

Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

And it seems that all systems are the same when determining the Attribute Score Bonuses:
(Score-10) / 2

[biodude]

Ability Scores are a core part of the mechanic, but they are built on a formula, which someone might want to change (not myself, but what do I know?), and the rest of the character sheet encompasses so much more.

I am hoping that as much structure (relationship between fields, calculated formulas, table lookups, etc.) as possible would be available to the user in some form for editing.  It had occurred to me that virtually all of that could be represented and handled as "Modifier Objects", to borrow a term described in another thread.  This is probably not the most efficient method, but presents a unified system for the user to work with, that is sufficiently flexible enough to allow a wide range of systems and "custom rules" to be potentially supported. 

Even if the actual fields and their properties can not be edited by the user, it would be so awesome if the rules governing them could be. Adding a panel of "buttons" as in CBLite also allows for custom fields: they may not appear in the main "d20" interface, but it makes it relatively easy for a user to get closer to what they want, if it differs from the default configuration.  PCGen has the flexibility, but totally lacks a user-friendly approach to manage it, which is something CB has excelled at.  I look forward to seeing how CB4 will achieve both goals  :-)

[CrystalBallMac]

Yes.  I am pretty sure we are going to make the Ability Score Bonus an editable formula (dice roll) that you will be able to change.

[nijineko]

mutants and masterminds, a d20 based superhero system, adds a fourth saving throw, "toughness" and does away with hp all together. taking damage, instead of deducting from hp, forces a saving throw with the weapon and resulting damage type modifying the dc of the save. failing a save moves your status down a status tree.

d20 is a lot more flexible than what is presented as "official" in the d&d and d20 spheres. ^^ i'm all about flexibility and customization. =D

[CrystalBallMac]

I think what we might do is have an editor for building a "game system".

With that you will be able to decide:
Ability Names and how many you want. (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA, etc.)
Ability Modifier formula
Saving Throws (Names and how many you want... and what Ability Modifier to use.  In fact it could just be a formula also.)


Etc. etc. etc.

But its still a very D20ish way of doing things... but it allows for the very strange d20 setups.

[nijineko]

awesome! that would be perfect. =D thank you sooooo very much. ^^