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RPTools / maptool

Virtual Tabletop for playing roleplaying games with remote players or face to face.
http://rptools.net
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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[Feature]: Provide HTML token "basic character sheet" editor for GMs and players to use to maintain and (where appropriate) share character sheets #3954

Open adventuremagic123 opened 1 year ago

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

Describe the Problem

A major problem the MapTool community has versus other, popular VTTs is the breadth of RPG game systems they support -- such as Foundry VTT. A disadvantage that the software used to support these systems is frequently difficult to understand and prone to errors or incomplete implementations. Though, the forms presented are very attractive and familiar to users because they are effectively web pages. Users are flicking to VTTs like this because MapTool has no answer to this situation. It all centers around the pretty character sheet GMs and players are presented with in these other VTTs.

The Solution you'd like

If MapTool had an HTML token editor specifically for players and GMs to maintain character sheets -- a lot of this problem would be eliminated and potentially give the MapTool community an advantage. All we're trying to do is provide the ability for players and GMs to play with and share a formatted character sheet as ownership permission permit. During game play, the players and/or GM would manually update each tokens character sheet as needed.

The HTML token editor should protect the token's data from concurrency issues, where the GM and player(s) might try to update the character sheet at the same time -- and perhaps all we can do is last-one-wins.

The objective of the HTML token editor is to ONLY modify a token property called something like "CharacterSheetHTML" and it would be invoked from the shortcut menu for a token when doing a right-click.

This is a very simple approach to providing that traditional table-top experience where the GM can easily see and, if needed, modify a player's character sheet. Likewise, a player can easily share their character sheet with the GM for review in real-time at the game.

There's no form of automation. The token's character sheet is fully managed buy the GM and the player. The advantage is that it looks good and is simple AND all RPG systems are fully supported.

Alternatives that you've considered.

  1. Creating frameworks to try to compete with similar features by other VTTs appears to not be practical at least in the short-term.

  2. Pulling the "Notes" and "GM Notes" tabs out of Edit Token and making them accessible from the short-cut menu for tokens as "Notes" and "GM Notes" would be perferred over my original suggestion.

Additional Context

In spite of all the issues found in the current, popular web-based VTTs, players are refusing to play with me in MapTool largely because my framework for Pathfinder 1e does not present them with a standard character sheet. The energy it would take me to support that is a lot more than I currently have time for.

But, if I had such an HTML token "character sheet" editor within which we could put in easy to follow character sheets I think I can probably get them back to using MapTool. The game experience would be somewhat like traditional table-top but I think they might like that more than all the somewhat confusing automations these other systems use in these other VTTs.

JavaScript will NOT be used as part of the HTML. This is NOT a dynamic HTML document -- it is a static document.

Users should not have to use or know HTML. The editor will be What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get like the one currently used for the Edit Token dialog.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

Just to make sure this is clearly understood ... What's being asked for here is a simple HTML editor whose single purpose is to enable the player and GM to maintain a character sheet for the MapTool token.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

I talked about this feature with one of my players. He agrees this would be a very significant move to enable us to play from character sheets much as you do in traditional tabletop. Automation provided by other VTTs is actually kind of annoying to him.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

An alternate location to display die rolls would be the chat window. Also, if doing the rolling animation is too complex, it's fine to just show the final result. The primary need to support the less sophisticated, non-programming community is to be able to do this directly through the MapTool UI without requiring macros.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

To try to clarify ...

  1. I am NOT talking about stat sheets -- I'm talking about complete character sheets.

  2. I like the HTML editor in the Edit Token dialog.

  3. We need to have entire character sheets associated with our tokens to be shared by the people with proper token access. For Player Characters, this would normally be the player and GM. For Non-player Characters, this would frequently be the GM -- but could include a player if the player is the owner. Basically, the owner and the GM would have access.

  4. The Edit Token dialog is not a good place to do this. It creates concurrency issues for the token properties. So, if a player is doing an update to a character sheet and the GM is using macros to update token properties, from what I remember, when the player closes (saves?) the Edit Token dialog -- the changes the GM has made are lost.

It's better to have a WYSIWYG editor that just updates a token property used to maintain the character sheet so that concurrency issues are avoided for the other token properties.

I generally lock the Edit Token dialog so that my players can't access it.

  1. I'd like to be able to access character sheets from the short-cut menu for a token. The menu option might be "Character Sheet".
adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

Reason why this is critical to my campaigns?

2/3 of my players failed to fill out an FVTT PF1e character sheet because it was too complicated for them. It took me hours to walk one of them through the whole procedure -- it's a bad experience. It lead to frustration and people quit. Until we get something better in MapTool, this FVTT thing has become an IQ test for my new players. If they can't do it, they can't join my group. It costs me too much time to help them. . The one who succeeded used to play on Roll20. . I'm begging you to get me out of this kind of hell. 😄 I believe this feature will do it. . BTW, the one who succeeded was a beginner and the two who failed were seasoned players and they were only making 2nd level characters.

That's what we're trying to get away from. My players hate the complications the automation support adds to entering their characters into the FVTT PF1e character sheet, for example. You can't compete with Roll20 or FVTT in that space -- there's something like over 200 RPG systems supported -- so instead you need to try the simpler-is-better approach.

I truly believe that this simpler approach with simply editing character sheets without the automation will make games generally more pleasant to play for most people. The beauty of this approach is that all RPG systems would be immediately supported -- no need to develop the complex RPG game systems currently available for Foundry VTT (and Roll20?).

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

In short, I firmly believe this is how to turn the complexity of Foundry VTT and Roll20 to your advantage. Make MapTool simple, instead. I think this will be popular. Less work, more play.

This enables non-programming GMs and players to use MapTool -- and I think this is a large community.

Automation efforts, of course, can continue as usual -- but there's just not enough resources to complete with what has already been done in Foundry VTT and likely Roll20 for automation. Don't try to be them -- be MapTool, instead.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

The target audience is non-programmers who want to use MapTool as it is out of the box to run their campaigns.

I want a short-cut menu option for tokens called "Character Sheet" that brings up a WYSIWYG HTML editor just like what you have in the Edit Token dialog.

Perhaps, it edits a "CharacterSheet" token property, a new, standard token property just like "Elevation" is.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

I'll say also that MapTool has major advantages over Foundry VTT in that it is faster, much more stable, and easier to customize. I will probably still have to write some macros to do what I want -- but it took too much energy for me to develop my PF1e framework and I've been defeated by the Foundry VTT PF1e game system (in other words it makes me look stupid).

I want to try to use this new approach of playing directly from HTML character sheets because it's much easier for my players -- and I strongly believe they will like it better.

This method will enable me to easily move on to PF2e or any other RPG with minimal effort. I spent about 1.5 years with about 20 hours a week developing my PF1e framework. I just don't have time to do that now. I have too many responsibilities -- have to take care of aging parents. Please help me.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

Yes, basic character sheet is a good term. No, it will not be able to update token properties and will not involve JavaScript in any way. It's just a document like any other. The editor could be anything capable of formatting text so you can have bold facing, underlining, etc. I suggest using HTML as the underlying markup -- but the users should never need to use it directly.

adventuremagic123 commented 1 year ago

Pulling the "Notes" and "GM Notes" tabs out of Edit Token and making them accessible from the short-cut menu for tokens as "Notes" and "GM Notes" would be perferred over my original suggestion.