Troll Lord Games

For anyone else who got any info, please add...

Backpack, Steve thinks he will have it finished in about 2 weeks.

Tome of the Unclean, gets Steve's full attention after he finishes the Backpack.

Forum change, not happening. Steve can't stand the Knights site either. Wants to find a better alternative before doing any kind of change. So these forums remain our home for probably at least another 5 years. (My estimate, not Steve's)

Steve is going to actively learn more and do more on the digital front. Supposedly he is even going to join mine and/or Rigons games to start learning about what is out there, how they work, etc... as well as learn what VTT users want to see. This does include Fantasy Grounds, so Aergraith, be prepared to help train Steve.

Gave Steve massive amount of dung about the Victorious fiasco, and he pretty much confirmed my suspicion that he sent in the early version of the PDF. He confirmed he did get the edits from me and others. So yeah, totally on Steve. Which he fully owns.

Jason Vey taught me its Amazing Adventures, not Advanced Adventures.

Met a LOT of new C&C fans at Gary Con, including Dakota and her husband (The awesome Pirate couple), as well as fellow board members, including a couple of our lurkers. There were dozens of C&C games going on, and Jason was running AA. Victorious had no presences what so ever. So I am going to have to fix that in the future, so that its not all on Mike and Liz. I did help sell some Victorious product while hanging out at the Troll booth, so I did help a little this time out.

Portal. Not dead. They are trying to find someone who can do a better program that does a better job. They had someone, for this and other projects, but they keep "disappearing". So if any of you can help out the Trolls, put them in contact with reliable people who can do such programs, etc...

Treebore wrote:For anyone else who got any info, please add...

Backpack, Steve thinks he will have it finished in about 2 weeks.

Tome of the Unclean, gets Steve's full attention after he finishes the Backpack.

Good to hear.

Forum change, not happening. Steve can't stand the Knights site either. Wants to find a better alternative before doing any kind of change. So these forums remain our home for probably at least another 5 years. (My estimate, not Steve's)

That's welcomed news. We still get one or two new members every week or so.

Steve is going to actively learn more and do more on the digital front. Supposedly he is even going to join mine and/or Rigons games to start learning about what is out there, how they work, etc... as well as learn what VTT users want to see. This does include Fantasy Grounds, so Aergraith, be prepared to help train Steve.

Say what now?

Gave Steve massive amount of dung about the Victorious fiasco, and he pretty much confirmed my suspicion that he sent in the early version of the PDF. He confirmed he did get the edits from me and others. So yeah, totally on Steve. Which he fully owns.

At least he isn't blaming Davis.

Jason Vey taught me its Amazing Adventures, not Advanced Adventures.

I probably should make an effort to meet him at some point, since he is just down the road a ways.

Met a LOT of new C&C fans at Gary Con, including Dakota and her husband (The awesome Pirate couple), as well as fellow board members, including a couple of our lurkers. There were dozens of C&C games going on, and Jason was running AA. Victorious had no presences what so ever. So I am going to have to fix that in the future, so that its not all on Mike and Liz. I did help sell some Victorious product while hanging out at the Troll booth, so I did help a little this time out.

Make it so...

Portal. Not dead. They are trying to find someone who can do a better program that does a better job. They had someone, for this and other projects, but they keep "disappearing". So if any of you can help out the Trolls, put them in contact with reliable people who can do such programs, etc...

Meebe... Let me ask...

R-

Treebore wrote:For anyone else who got any info, please add...

Forum change, not happening. Steve can't stand the Knights site either. Wants to find a better alternative before doing any kind of change. So these forums remain our home for probably at least another 5 years. (My estimate, not Steve's)

Steve is going to actively learn more and do more on the digital front. Supposedly he is even going to join mine and/or Rigons games to start learning about what is out there, how they work, etc... as well as learn what VTT users want to see. This does include Fantasy Grounds, so Aergraith, be prepared to help train Steve.
.

Just a quick note. My biggest complaint on the new forums is that they can't have sub-forums, so that we can organize the subjects. Its makes it a bit cumbersome, however Tim just told there is a way to do that, so that's good news. I believe Todd Pote has done it with the Vicky material. So all very cool.

Regardless, we aren't going to shut these forums down. So no worries there. Do try to let people know about the new ones though as that site is where we are working on organized play....which worked beautifully at Gary Con as we had tons of games!

Thanks all!
Steve

Troll Lord wrote:

Treebore wrote:For anyone else who got any info, please add...

Forum change, not happening. Steve can't stand the Knights site either. Wants to find a better alternative before doing any kind of change. So these forums remain our home for probably at least another 5 years. (My estimate, not Steve's)

Steve is going to actively learn more and do more on the digital front. Supposedly he is even going to join mine and/or Rigons games to start learning about what is out there, how they work, etc... as well as learn what VTT users want to see. This does include Fantasy Grounds, so Aergraith, be prepared to help train Steve.
.

Just a quick note. My biggest complaint on the new forums is that they can't have sub-forums, so that we can organize the subjects. Its makes it a bit cumbersome, however Tim just told there is a way to do that, so that's good news. I believe Todd Pote has done it with the Vicky material. So all very cool.

Regardless, we aren't going to shut these forums down. So no worries there. Do try to let people know about the new ones though as that site is where we are working on organized play....which worked beautifully at Gary Con as we had tons of games!

Thanks all!
Steve

I imagine the real question is how is that site better than this site? Its pretty much a universal concensus that the site is ugly, and just seems clunky. Is it lack of familiarity? Can it be made to look better?

The new site has been undergoing, and will continue to undergo, cosmetic changes as needed and hopefully upgrades to its functionality. Like Steve pointed out, we do have the ability to make subforums. I have been working close with Go0gleplex to make the site more user friendly and he and others are doing a great job of getting her in tip-top shape. We have ramped up our organized play, and Tylermo is working to see that continues. If anyone is running games at Cons or stores, please let him know and make sure to join the new KOTC.

As for Steve joining the 21st Century, he's gone from a black rotary phone to a bulky green touchtone, so things are moving! All kidding aside, we ar working toward getting an easy game finder in there and even hope to have some live games by Trolls and whoever else would like to run some games via FG, twitch, you name it.

Exciting times as they say and I hope everyone will join in!

I've gotten a lot more sub forums and new forums set up than just for Victorious over there. All you need to do is click on the subheading label or heading label and it will take you to the screen allowing you to post in that topic. Admittedly there are some things it cannot do such as pictures but nothing is perfect.

If you know of anyone that has tried to join the last few months and has been denied...have them reapply or send me a note through the contact email there. I try to check that once per week. We've had a metric ton of fake accounts sliding in and I've been literally popping in around the clock trying to kill the bloody things before they make their presence known in the forums.

We definitely could use more contributors for the downloads sections! The more that is there the more useful it becomes for newby CK's or those that are short on time trying to set things up for their own groups.

That is sounding a lot more promising.

Go0gleplex wrote: We've had a metric ton of fake accounts sliding in and I've been literally popping in around the clock trying to kill the bloody things before they make their presence known in the forums.

I may regret this but....

What is the new forum software written in, or what is it called.

Do you have access to the source code (like ftp login or shell account on the server) and would you like me to build in a some spam defense for it.

-Mike

Mike -- It is in Drupal. It's got a captcha and we move it around, change the requirements but they always seem to figure it out. Is there anything you think you could do, or suggest? Any ideas are greatly appreciated! ~ Tim

Drupal cool, that's easy. PM'd you.

-Mike

I'm not a huge fan of Drupal, and I could instantly tell that the KotC forums uses it - which is pretty sad on my part. The problem I have with Drupal in general is I believe it to be extremely basic and no-frills. At least the KotC site has the most common features in the text box available at a push of a button. The one site I visit that uses Drupal doesn't even have that. You have to know basic HTML code.

I don't know why Drupal was chosen over XenForo, SimpleMachines, or phpbb, but I personally find Drupal painful to use, even with a better text box.

On the VTT side, I have been using Fantasy Grounds for six years now, running C&C games for the last four years, so I'm happy and willing to step in and do some introduction of the platform to whoever is interested. I'm shocked TLG hasn't given it more attention so far, frankly, and would be very happy to help change that.

I'd be up for some tutorials on FG or whatever. I've only ever gamed in person but it's tough to get people together in my area. I'd like a more regular game if possible, though I'm pretty swamped until late May in any case.

Treebore wrote: Steve is going to actively learn more and do more on the digital front. Supposedly he is even going to join mine and/or Rigons games to start learning about what is out there, how they work, etc... as well as learn what VTT users want to see. This does include Fantasy Grounds, so Aergraith, be prepared to help train Steve.

I'd be glad to but I am certainly not the most knowledgeable person on the board when it comes to Fantasy Grounds.

Even if it's not getting the spotlight from TLG, whoever is doing the content is pretty meticulous and it's good quality stuff. What could make it better would be to mention in more in marketing material I guess, and also going above and beyond and taking advantage of the medium -- the maps that are fine for print could be more detailed for tabletop play. And become actively involved with FG II's online cons and use its calendar and platform for TLG events.

Fantasy Grounds is not just a general purpose VTT -- if you buy the C&C rules for it, it pretty much knows C&C, and if you buy the modules they are hyperlinked and ruleset aware -- you have draggable treasure parcels, read-aloud text, encounters that can be dropped right into the initiative tracker, etc. Contrast with Maptool or Roll20 where players are probably all using a hodgepodge of macros and scripts they have to supply (though there are some frameworks available for Maptool, and a very usable Roll20 character sheet that Boomer and Rom worked on that works pretty well).

The trolls might reach out to those in the FG community who are making the ruleset better and keeping it up-to-date.

As for the other VTTs, Maptool's last stable release was in 2016. I wouldn't count it out but I probably wouldn't hire anyone to do an extension for it. Roll20 is worthy of attention but I am not sure how TLG can advance it -- maybe pay for a Pro license for whomever wants to work on the sheets and javascript API. 5e has a more integrated system for Roll20 but it's not clear to me how a game vendor can get that kind of love for their own game. Roll20's "Orr Report" puts C&C pretty low on the list of games looking for players/being played, and fixing that is really the job of the CKs to run more open games and be sure to list them as Castles&Crusades so they get counted, though, again, running virtual events on Roll20 would also help.

And in general, look at Frog God right now and see what they are doing. A Discord channel which includes a space for organizing games, some Roll20 games "televised" on Twitch, run by FG staff. I haven't looked at what KotC has for game scheduling, but if it's not a shareable event calendar that has metadata specifically for finding and creating games (such as FG has used for its online cons), it needs one.

I'm the official developer for the C&C ruleset on Fantasy Grounds. I'm willing to answer whatever questions...

To all of you in this thread with Fantasy Ground experience:

Awesome! We welcome any and all thoughts, ideas, help you can give. We'd love to start having games using FG and maybe twitch or skype on the KOTC site, even doing something where a Troll host a game a week or so. Please feel free to contact me direct at [email protected] and let me know anything and everything you know about FG. Thanks!

Email sent.

Aergraith wrote:

Treebore wrote: ...whoever is doing the content is pretty meticulous and it's good quality stuff. What could make it better would be to mention in more in marketing material I guess, and also going above and beyond and taking advantage of the medium -- the maps that are fine for print could be more detailed for tabletop play.

That'd be me, and thanks! I'm handling the majority of the DLC, both new and remasters while @mmbutters up there handles the ruleset itself.

I did mention to Steve and Tim at Midwinter Con that FG releases should definitely be mentioned in the official TLG press releases and so forth. More attention to C&C on every medium can only be a good thing.

I also mentioned the maps. That's one of the most common complaints I see from our users is that the hand-drawn maps don't work well in a digital environment. I do what I can with them, but I'm not a graphic designer myself so my skills on that side of things are on the sparse end.

My biggest FG complaints don't have anything to do with the C&C content.

- Drawing tools: I can make thin black pixelated lines. Also, can I type on the map?
- Masking tools: Can I unmask anything non rectangular?
- Scripting: Yes, the ruleset does pretty much everything, but what if I want to do something else (as a player...)
- D3 and weird dice (I think you can have these, but I am not sure they are in the C&C ruleset. Poor darts...)
- Interface: People understand scrollbars, standard window decorations, etc. The gold scroll box thingy might me useful, but it drives me nuts and it has to be explained to players every time.

These are all pretty minor and some of it definitely could be my ignorance. Roll20 is just as maddening in its own way.
Every VTT has a different way to point at something. Roll20 is the worst because the little radar thing is pretty imprecise. But
I always forget left+right button drag makes a temporary pointer in FGII.

I'm a little uneasy about player controlled targeting because I am not sure exceeding AC is always all there is to attacking certain monsters (e.g. immunities the CK knows about). But in 98% of cases it's convenient and cool.

Talyn wrote:
That'd be me, and thanks! I'm handling the majority of the DLC, both new and remasters while @mmbutters up there handles the ruleset itself.

You're welcome, great job and welcome to the forum. It's clear you really read and try to understand the content before parceling it up for use.

Talyn wrote: I also mentioned the maps. That's one of the most common complaints I see from our users is that the hand-drawn maps don't work well in a digital environment. I do what I can with them, but I'm not a graphic designer myself so my skills on that side of things are on the sparse end.

Yeah, that's gotta come from the Trolls. Adding new detailed VTT cartography to all of the maps would be a pain, but it would definitely add value. When I use the maps as-is, combat can turn into patty cake quickly without terrain, things to block line of sight, or any indication of what's actually in the room. I can sort of sketch on the map, but one of the great things about FG purchasable content is it's ready out of the box. Maybe they can hire Gabriel Pickard (https://plus.google.com/104205129691501834943) or someone. I suppose there are many CKs who prefer a clean map they can drag their own couches onto though. C&C CKs can be grumpy like that.

Setting a grid in FG is fast and easy, but the maps in the modules don't always have a scale, and I think the grids aren't there by default. Even people who hate snap to grid want a grid, otherwise your tokens won't resize automatically. Nice that you can draw a grid really quickly though, so if you think a 10x10 room would be more epic as a 1000x1000 room, have at it (not sure how you'd open the 500' door though). But I digress -- if the modules always had scales it would be nice.

Aergraith wrote:My biggest FG complaints don't have anything to do with the C&C content.

- Drawing tools: I can make thin black pixelated lines. Also, can I type on the map?
- Masking tools: Can I unmask anything non rectangular?
- Scripting: Yes, the ruleset does pretty much everything, but what if I want to do something else (as a player...)
- D3 and weird dice (I think you can have these, but I am not sure they are in the C&C ruleset. Poor darts...)
- Interface: People understand scrollbars, standard window decorations, etc. The gold scroll box thingy might me useful, but it drives me nuts and it has to be explained to players every time.

These are all pretty minor and some of it definitely could be my ignorance. Roll20 is just as maddening in its own way.
Every VTT has a different way to point at something. Roll20 is the worst because the little radar thing is pretty imprecise. But
I always forget left+right button drag makes a temporary pointer in FGII.

I'm a little uneasy about player controlled targeting because I am not sure exceeding AC is always all there is to attacking certain monsters (e.g. immunities the CK knows about). But in 98% of cases it's convenient and cool.

Typing is a no.
You can unmask irregular shapes.
What would you need to script as a player?
d2s and d3s are available off the d6.
Strange dice is I believe /die 1d?? or something similar. I may be off on the nomenclature but it is possible without much effort.

Aergraith wrote:My biggest FG complaints don't have anything to do with the C&C content.

- Drawing tools: I can make thin black pixelated lines. Also, can I type on the map?
- Masking tools: Can I unmask anything non rectangular?
- Scripting: Yes, the ruleset does pretty much everything, but what if I want to do something else (as a player...)
- D3 and weird dice (I think you can have these, but I am not sure they are in the C&C ruleset. Poor darts...)
- Interface: People understand scrollbars, standard window decorations, etc. The gold scroll box thingy might me useful, but it drives me nuts and it has to be explained to players every time.

As you say, each VTT has its own "fiddly bits" and its own learning curve.

- Drawing tools: No, this is one of the major improvements they need once they finally get the Unity version out.
- Masking tools: Hold the shift key and you can draw any shape to unmask
- Scripting: No, or at least, "not necessarily." FG is a client-server model so the GM is always the host server, therefore any scripts (extensions) must already be enabled by the GM. Otherwise, not totally sure what you're getting at or what you'd need?
- Dice: Um... "it depends" is gonna be my answer. C&C is a d20 ruleset so the standard die rolls are there, but it also knows weird things like 1d3, etc. 1d1 won't work though, found that out the hard way last night.
- UI: I never got the hang of that scroll box thingie myself. I just "grab" the map with the middle mouse button and move it around that way. Much faster and more intuitive, for me anyway.

Talyn wrote:

Aergraith wrote:1d1 won't work though, found that out the hard way last night.

1d1+1 always returns "1".

JohnD wrote: What would you need to script as a player?

In Maptool I have all kinds of scripts for healing, damage, different complex rolls that can't be made into a simple die + modifier, table lookups, etc. And with other rule systems, there are things like exploding dice, counting successes, etc. This is especially important when you understand the scripting involved and the DM doesn't.

Most of what you need is built into the ruleset.

mmbutter wrote:Most of what you need is built into the ruleset.

Yeah, the point is there will always be things that are not.

You'd need to give me an example. I can't think of anything that would be needed in play that is not provided by the ruleset in some way.

JohnD wrote: d2s and d3s are available off the d6.

Found it. And it was misconfigured on the player's sheet (maybe they typed it in.) When I dragged a dart to a new sheet it had the 1d6-as-a-1d3 correctly.

I use a /die 1d152 in one of my tables. You don't see a die rolling, but it generates a result and applies it automatically.