Flaxseed Lodge (PFS1)

Game Master Redelia

Useful: Wayfinder upgrades. Fixes for all of these please.

-Previewing a post removes everyone's name and info bars. If I forget a character's name, I have to hope they put it in a recent post of theirs.

-Text formatting is weird. New lines, bold, and many other things aren't preserved when you Reply to a post; new lines aren't preserved when you Preview your own post and then edit it.

-Dice rolls are always put in at the end, even if the end is the "Posted with Wayfinder" footer.

-I can only post with characters, not with my main account.

Nice to Have: Also on Wayfinder...

-More text option buttons (strikethrough, quote, bold that isn't speech)

-Ability to add parsed-out bonuses to rolls (like 1d20+2+1)

-Ability to see character profiles, even if it just opens a web browser

-Posted with Wayfinder

If avatars is such a great concern for players, yet also the forum mods are loath to allow images that haven't been cleared as appropriate, perhaps have an avatar maker. It should be rather easy to make one with lots of customization enough for millions of unique avatars yet limited to "safe" pics. Could allow selecting race, outfit, weapons, spell effects, etc.

Hero forge website has an excellent editor, though being 3d it is of course far more complex than a 2d one would need to be, but it shows an excellent example of how a few options can be mixed for lots of results.

Oh, add a monospace tag. Very useful.

When someone asks a question like that, I'm the guy who thinks too big and wants to re-engineer everything, so take that into account when I say:

1) Why use the current messageboard format at all? A real interface that tied in maps, character sheets, dice rollers etc (a little like Roll20 but not exactly) would make the experience better. We've all just created workarounds (like Google slides) but actually having those elements as part of the workspace seems better. The current format has tremendous amounts of white space that is just unused and is still a little like reading BB's from the early internet days of the 90's.

2) Why not have a direct interface from Hero Lab (or the vendor(s) of your choice) for character sheet development without cut and pasting and manual updates to the little headers that are available. Changes can be made real-time and research for unique abilities/skills etc is made more easily. It also would reduce character sheet errors and allow modifier stacking (as mentioned above) to be carried out more easily.

3) Many have homemade trackers for loot, gear, XP or the like. Why not standardize and make into a separate tab for all to see easily. These can be added to Campaign Tab etc. but it'd be better to have official workspace for them.

4) Built in sign up sheets or waiting lists for recruitment instead of the dozens of Google slides or long threads in play now. There has to be a better way to package the pertinent information if you are interested in a particular game or a way to display applicants for GM review.

Ok, I realize that's all revolutionary, but if you are thinking about changes, why not think outside the exiting paradigm? Of course, all these ideas fall in the "Nice to Have" or lower category.

Sorry if that's too esoteric for today's discussion, but I am just built and trained to question everything.

Aliases with SFS factions instead of PFS factions...

Psst like this say. Register your Starfinder character pick your faction and the faction logo appears. Technomancy is a wonderful thing

This is a GM alias, not a SFS character. My SFS character has SFS factions as options, my alias doesn't. For a GM alias it's not a concern, but if I have an alias for a mechanic's bot that I want to post separately with I'd like to have faction options for it.

"I however am quite able to display my designation."

At DR Evil,

-Leave the white space alone. There is nothing I hate to see more than one of those "modern" forums that are so completely packed that you can't tell the difference between an ad and a post.

White space is very important for readability and the amount of white space here is a major factor of why I actually use these forums.

There are times I need to use other forums to get questions answered for other topics, but I hate using those forums because they minimize white space.

-Please, no hero lab. I don't have it, don't want to spend money on it, and I really hate the output format (white space is again an issue there, though not the only one).

Besides, what about custom games? With custom rules and sheets?

Also, look at Rpol. Nothing better.

At DR Evil,

-Leave the white space alone. There is nothing I hate to see more than one of those "modern" forums that are so completely packed that you can't tell the difference between an ad and a post.

White space is very important for readability and the amount of white space here is a major factor of why I actually use these forums.

There are times I need to use other forums to get questions answered for other topics, but I hate using those forums because they minimize white space.

-Please, no hero lab. I don't have it, don't want to spend money on it, and I really hate the output format (white space is again an issue there, though not the only one).

. . .

I agree with this.

White space is important to me for readability, and the simple interface is important to me for use on iPhone and iPad.

I don't want to burn up my data (or waste my time) loading a ton of widgets every time change threads.

I also appreciate the free service that they are providing. If I had to buy a proprietary character creation software, I probably wouldn't play here. HeroLab is extremely unappealing to me because I'm basically paying twice for the books I own in order to use it. On top of that, neither HeroLab nor any other software I've seen can handle every fiddly little rule tweak found in various class abilities, feats, and traits. For me, being responsible for my own character sheet and making my own rolls is the best situation.

I didn't seem like anyone was advocating for HeroLab to be the only way to do characters here. I would love to see some sort of optional feature that does connect the two, though.

Get off my lawn with your newfangled ideas!

Get off my lawn with your newfangled ideas!

We could request that the text editor for the boards use a more... tried and true approach. Would you prefer emacs or vim?

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Also, how about a real /sarcasm tag?

Hey, if it was good enough for USENET, it's good enough for me!

1. Require all typing to be piped in from Vi.

2. Find out who's really dedicated to PbP.

-Posted with Wayfinder

**whimpers**

I only ever used pico/nano... Never got the hang of Vi/Vim or emacs myself.

Admittedly, if you sneak Vi integration onto the wishlist, someone in the IT department would probably have a good long laugh.

Some day I'm going to hear the joke, He's so old he uses emacs. Using it now and loving it.

I've heard emacs referred to as "A great operating system with a terrible text editor."

Oculus Rift support. I want to be able to use my VR headset while PbP for the full experience. :P

I miss Volkov Commander.

Oculus Rift support. I want to be able to use my VR headset while PbP for the full experience. :P

All you see is blackness... then suddenly words flicker across the screen.

"You are in a maze of twisty passages... all alike."

The words disappear as quickly as they came...

"You are in darkness."

Again... the words wink out leaving you to ponder... did I just read that? Or is this the darkness that I'm seeing now.

Suddenly... the dreaded words appear across your field of vision... jagged and spaced with machine-like precision, as though they were assembled from hundreds of bright white bricks.

"You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Emacs is a text editor that *Wants* to be an operating system.

I'm a vi fan myself.

Unlesss I'm writing code, in which case I like *C* mode for emacs.

Showing. My. Age.

Emacs is somewhat redundant now. I use it because I've always used it. It is configurable using Lisp and I was able to add features from various different editors I liked with keystrokes that I was familiar with and port wherever I worked. Take the best from all editors!

Nowadays pretty much any text editor worth its salt is configurable and IDEs allow you to pick and choose from different editor flavors/emulators.

I do love a few of the features a lot though:

I use pen and paper or the keyboard on my computer, depending on the situation. I have no idea what any of this stuff is.

I'm mostly do electrical design, not a whole lot of software these days. I used emacs so infrequently that I never actually learned it. I just stick to notepad++ with the c/c++/verilog/vhdl themes.

M-x emacs-is-old-but-cool RET

Lol Rycky. Vi, emacs, nano, and the others being mentioned are text editors which are primarily used for writing code or scripts. The simplest text editor you're probably familiar with is Notepad; a more complex one is Microsoft Word (which is not at all designed for coding and you should never try using it for that).

Requiring posts on this forum to be input from Vi is like requiring them to be input from Microsoft Word. The joke is that Vi is very nonintuitive, and you have to learn how to use it before you can even hope to get anything done (although once you get past the learning curve, some developers like its otherwise-simple design).

-Posted with Wayfinder

Guys, I think this discussion may be WAY outside of the Flaxseed Lodge's mission at this point. Why don't you start a new thread for this? I don't want to be a buzzkill, but I also want this thread to be an out-of-character discussion of PFS stuff and not coding language.

Anything pretty much goes in the discussion thread. That said... I am going to shift topics for a moment. I do want to thank everyone who made suggestions about what they want to see from the Paizo Forums. I summarized the discussion and sent it on to some interested folks in Paizo's tech team.

Thanks so much!

So... How are your PBP Gameday tables going? Mine have been awesome so far, filled with enthusiastic players. It's been especially nice seeing all the teamwork going into the Special. GMs Lorenzo and Granta put a ton of work into the back end of the special to make it smooth for all of us, GMs and players alike!

Hmm

Waiting until the day of to start recruiting was probably a mistake on my part. :P

PBP Gameday is going well so far! Nice to be back in the swing of things since there was a bit of a dearth of games as people were waiting for the gameday to start.

Having a blast? ;)

I think much silence can be read as enjoyment. ;)

Hmm. I thought I signed up for the special (caps) but I never saw my role call! I knew something was wrong with the start of gameday but just couldn't place it. :-(

-Posted with Wayfinder

Hmm. I thought I signed up for the special (caps) but I never saw my role call! I knew something was wrong with the start of gameday but just couldn't place it. :-(

-Posted with Wayfinder

If you missed rolecall, there will be another chance to sign up for Solstice Scar in Session Two of PBP Gameday. We're having a much smaller rerun of the event.

Granta should be announcing it soon!

Hmm

http://www.starfindersrd.com/

If you missed rolecall, there will be another chance to sign up for Solstice Scar in Session Two of PBP Gameday. We're having a much smaller rerun of the event.

Granta should be announcing it soon!

Hmm

If I felt up to running a game in Session Two, would there still be time to set it up?

I submitted my table the day the gameday started, so I'm sure you are fine.

I just want to know how I missed it without even so much as a PM. Did someone edit my name off a list?

-Posted with Wayfinder

Did you check the link to the game that might have been available when and where you signed in?

As a GM I make that link available when the player signs up / is selected for my games, I will not PM a player if he / she does not show up before a game starts.

This is an opinion tangential to the issue (because the issue in discussion could have multiple causes): I find the expectation of a PM announcing the start of my games, which all have posted start dates, a bit much. Sending a PM is not streamlined, and when I have to PM 5 out of 6 players (some of whom have private profiles that can't be searched or misspell their profile names on my sign-up sheet) for a session that had its start date posted in advance on no less than four separate places and links to roll-call were posted on three separate locations, it starts my game off on the wrong foot. If I sign up on Warhorn for a local game on Saturday, I don't expect an e-mail telling me that the game is going to start. I show up. If I had questions about the event location, I would contact the event coordinator to ask how to get there.

I just want to know how I missed it without even so much as a PM. Did someone edit my name off a list?

I'm the overseer, and don't remember seeing your name at all. And I've looked through the whole list several times to make sure players didn't sign up twice.

It's possible that another player stole your spot, or that there was an error when you signed up and it didn't save. I can tell you for sure though, you were not intentionally replaced for failing to show up at the start. I know who those players were, and you weren't one of them.

There will be a second chance for you, though. We are running Solstice Scar again during session two of gameday, and recruitment for it will open on Monday. So make sure to check the Flaxseed recruitment thread on Monday and Tuesday.

I'm a little different from Magabeus on PMs.

If boards are not available to dotting into when you sign up, then I think a PM or flaxseed post is really required. If you have a gameplay or discussion thread open at sign up, and that link is available, then I strongly encourage folk to post in them so you don't miss the start of a game.

I've had this happen to me before, which was annoying. No gamethread available at sign up, no post in flaxseed and no PM.

Each GM has their own way to do it though, and I'll echo Magabeus's irritation with trying to work out a misspelt name on a signup sheet when I try to find out why someone has not checked in. It is frustrating, time consuming and not fun.

End of the day, all the GMs are volunteers (as are the players!) and we need to work around what everyone's own style is.

I don't think I signed up as a particular character; just caps. I don't normally expect a PM; normally I expect a roll call in the Flaxseed Lodge when the thread is available for dotting in. If I somehow miss that, that's when I expect a PM.

I don't think I should be blamed for forgetting which table I signed up for months ago.

-Posted with Wayfinder

This is why I hate long sign up processes.

4 weeks is about the maximum I allow for, past that leads to issues - I will say though, that it is the players responsibility to turn up at the gazetted start date.

Also, the PM system sucks. You have to individually PM people (not funny when you have 18-24 players) and then people use some funky name which is hard to find, so you have to do searches to locate the right person.

I don't think I should be blamed for forgetting which table I signed up for months ago.

You signed up for the Tier 3-4 table with GM Aram Zey. This is the link.

I can't tell you what happened and have no authority in this Special.

However, I found this information by opening my Google Docs, searching "Solstice" and opening the sign-up sheet and then searching for "caps." This showed me your name in the cell, and your table has a gameplay link.

If I knew the Special was starting on 8/25/17 (as advertised) and I hadn't heard anything by 8/23/17, I would be repeating the process above each day until there was an active link to follow. That's just me.

Peribras Sandlock wrote:

I don't think I should be blamed for forgetting which table I signed up for months ago.

You signed up for the Tier 3-4 table with GM Aram Zey. This is the link.

I can't tell you what happened and have no authority in this Special.

However, I found this information by opening my Google Docs, searching "Solstice" and opening the sign-up sheet and then searching for "caps." This showed me your name in the cell, and your table has a gameplay link.

If I knew the Special was starting on 8/25/17 (as advertised) and I hadn't heard anything by 8/23/17, I would be repeating the process above each day until there was an active link to follow. That's just me.

Investigator, right?

Today is the support deadline for Session Two of PBP Gameday VI! If you want Paizo to provide your Session Two scenarios and modules, please register today at PbPGameday.com!

(You can also start up games after our support deadline, but then you need to own or purchase the scenarios yourselves!)

Thanks so much!

Happy Gameday!
Hmm

I appear to have registered my game twice or something; please be clear it's just one game.

I just sent Jesse a note to ask him to remove the duplicate.

Hmm

Anyone able to help a newbie out? I recently created my character as an alias, not as a Pathfinder Society Character. I'd like to make them PFS, but I can't remake them as the name is taken, and I don't want to delete them as they have posted in potential PbP Campaigns to join.

Is there a way to convert an alias to PFS?