This weekend we had what I would consider to be one of the most complex bsattles to date. My group was involved in a multiple back to back "boss battle" if you will organized over a large complex, involving a large variety of creature types with a variety of abilities, in short, we ended up using just about every mechanic in the game from spells, to varied action cards, insanities, more fatigue and stress than you can shake a stick act, multiple criticals and conditions. Pretty much everything.

Suffice to say I was caught unprepared for trying to manage this fight, I was basically trying to do it with tokens and paper as I usually do, which ordinarly is not a problem but I found in a more complex fight this got really confusing. In as a whole however my players thought it would make the fights more interesting if I didn't do it all in the open, which I have been doing. Things like tracking hitpoints, conditions.. I even had monster cards right on the table.

In any case I started thinking about it and started sketching out some ideas on paper, trying to brain storm a bit on better ways to manage the fights, yet stick to the rules and maintain the system as much as possible. By the time I was done sketching it down I realized that I had sketched out what will ultimatly be my next programing project.

My basic idea is to create a way to key in monsters, setup ecnounters and have a simple tool that does things like track initiative, conditions, what action cards are recharging, how many aggression, cunning and expertise dice I have and pretty much anything that is tracked by the GM for monsters.

I usually punch these things out pretty quick and I thought I would see if anyone had any suggestions in terms of what they would like to see in a program like this. I will probobly release it to the community when Im done.

Funny thing is I have an Excel sheet that already does half of this and I was planning on adding the rest in!

You select the creatures for an encounter, and it then pulls their details through from a data sheet. You can group creatures together (e.g. if you have a bunch of beastmen henchmen) in which case it will share Recharges and ACE between them all. You can also click to end a round so that all the recharges will automatically update.

It also has a dice roller built in to streamline having a handful of different dice rolling around the place.

The next phase is a function to double click on a creature and open up a VB user form that displays the actions available, allowing you to select one and then set the recharge. This is only partly done, as I started typing all the actions from the Creature Guide into the sheet.

It doesn't yet do initiative, that's also on the to do list.

You could try using Maptool. That has all that stuff set up even if you're not using an online game.

jh

Definitly going to check out map tools, but I suppose I was looking for something WFRP 3.0 specific, something that handles things like tracking recharge of cards, initiative order obviously (using the unique, anyone goes initiative), things like conditions (and their recharge) and stuff like that. Does Map tool handle all this (*asks while downloading to check it out)

If you download the demo version of fantasy grounds 2, and the ruleset that Neil Foster wrote, you should be able to accomplish this and more.

You can create your own libraries for monsters, NPCs, items, actions, talents, etc, and use the inbuilt initiative tracker and combat screens to do this. You could use this only as a tracking and management system without the requirement for others to log into the VTT. Maptools is another version of this but the library functions are a bit more limited.

Either will work well as a game management tool, so you could check out both. Whilst Fantasy Grounds is commercial the demo will do all that you have suggested - it will just not function as a true VTT. Maptools is free and Gitzmans ruleset is good, but you would need to program a bit more into the ruleset (I think).

Both programs can be programmed with custom modification files and rulesets, and both have a WHRP 3rd ed ruleset for you to play with. They even include the 3rd ed dice roller.

Alp

I second Alp in using FG2 with Neil's WFRP3 rule set and custom libraries (check the google group for more on that). You can manage all creatures and creatures groups as if at a table, including all recharges mechanisms. The only thing not working properly in the latest release of the ruleset is that a GM cannot drag and drop talents to creatures groups. It's an easy fix, I just have the talents on the table for their effects, and keep track of the recharges in FG2.

You can try FG2 for free, and use it free to manage one game session but the free demo won't allow you to save the session for later use (I think, it might actually allow you to save but not to connect online with other players).

Check my signature, you can join the google group where we make available more information and materials related to using FG2 (and maptool for that matter).

Cheers

Ceodryn

Yeah I have tried Fantasy Grounds II but have had zero luck getting anything to work properly with the WFRP mod. The instructions on setting it up don't match up with what files are available to download and a lot of the stuff doesn't have any instructions at all.

Perhaps you could clear it up for me. Where is the .EXT file for this mod? Where is the .PAK file? Neither appear to be part of the download package from sourgeforge, even though the link says .PAK you actually get a .ZIP and extracting that file doesn't have any effect on what options are available in FFG.

In any case, its extremly confusing and I haven't got any of it to work so far.

Ok I think I got it figuired out. eesh.. Microsoft… and they lead the industry? really?

Ok so basically IE8 explorer thinks that anything you download from SourceForge is a .ZIP or should be, so it very elequently renames it for you. You basically have to know what extension of the file your download is, and prior to downloading it, need to do a save as and rename the file.

that is all!

Glad to see you fixed your issues! We have explanations on the google group of where to place the files, especially the .mod libraries files. The .ext are nice to have but not necessary. They modify the look of your game table. Personally, I prefer the old wooden table look of the original rule set.

If you have questions on how to use FG2, you can PM me. I'll be happy to give you an online demo to showcase what it can do for a GM using it as game management.

Cheers

Ceodryn

It is still needed to manually create action cards, talents, conditions, wounds, creatures etc? or is there a file that you can download and put into yor library?

Cheers

Yepesnopes, check the Google group, especially the thread related to using libraries. We have info about that. Not as much need to be done.

Cheers

Ceodry

I took a look at both tools and I have to say that I'm actually pretty unimpressed. I'm suprised that digital tools have progressed so little. Map Tools in particular I found to be offensively worthless as a tool, it would literly be easier to track things in my head than trying to use this tool and as far as WFRP goes its missing key elements like the tracking of Action Cards (unless I missed it). The interface is very user unfriendly.

I think Fantasy Grounds 2 was considerably better but things are buried in menus/sub menus some on right click menus, others buried 2-3 links deep to get to it. It did have more features as far as WFRP was concerned but I honestly don't see how either of these two tools would help to speed up my session. I can see that Fantasy Grounds does a better job of being a good online tool, but as a laptop/app companion to a live session both of these tools offer very little.

I think its back to the drawing board for me.

Hi Bigkahuna,

I am sorry to hear the tools didnt meet your requirements. I think it may be more a matter of experience and comfort with the tools. I can't speak for maptool, but as a user of FG2, I find it very easy to use. Using the combat tracker, a GM has direct view of fatigue, stress and wounds (no clicks there). With 1 click, he has access to a creature sheet, another click his actions.

Obviously, those tools were built for online play where the pace may not be as fast as on a table.

Anyway, I wish you the best in your endeavor! The more tools available for the community, the better.

Cheers

Ceodryn

Ceodryn said:

Well I hope I didn't come off to harsh in my review of the software, I suppose Map Tools being an open source / free style project you kind of don't expect it to be cutting edge but fantasy grounds doesn't have that luxary, they are charging as much as Diablo 3 costs on the shelf today, so I was expecting a hell of a lot more out of it. It looks like something someone scratched together over the weekend, Im suprised how little it has progressed in the last 5 years since I looked at it last.

To be fair, FG2 isn't designed to be used at the table. It's designed to run a complete game over the web, but the material for WFRP is entirely fan produced. You can get pretty fancy with the scripting (and I believe Neil has done a masterful job of realizing WFRP v3 within FG2).

FG2 sings best when content (campaign, module, etc.) is living within the tool. It's just okay at delivering the generic play tools (dice, cards, tokens, etc.).

BigKahuna said:

That's your problem right there buddy