Suggestion box

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I was wondering why is it that rolls have to be in a table? I've had quite a few time recently that I was like wouldn't it be lovely to wrap that in a [roll][/roll] note on my character sheet, My guess is that it is about how it renders in the characterSheetIntegration as I'm not even quite sure what that would look like myself perhaps a
[roll="Skills"][/roll] could show up in a section labeled skills then again with the the changes that I hope to be live soon 😉 the whole sheet shows up down there doesn't it? so it could just show up wherever on the sheet it shows up on the sheet...

Thoughts?

It can be a few steps to find and navigate to the most common forums. At the moment it feels (to me) like Forums just dumps people in a big list.

Perhaps the Forums menu should be a drop-down menu. Having General Chat on there might encourage more general chat and quick access to the guides seems like a good idea.



I don't think it would drive traffic away from AMA, announcements and those things - but it might just help people quickly get to the most common forums.

I'm not sure that the list above is the correct list. Maybe Introductions should be on there too.

The rolls at the end of a post can't be seen while editing, though that's when I really need them, to narrate the results.

Also, when not editing, the rolls are not that important any more, and they can take up a lot of space.

My ideas, then:
1. It would be very useful to see rolls already made while editing a post.
2. It would be very useful to have only a spoiler button for the rolls when not editing a post.

While editing, the rolls are visible below the Preview/Save buttons.
I would not want the rolls hidden away from normal viewing.

The reason that rolls only show up after you initially submit a post is to prevent cheating if you start making a post, get rolls you don't want and then never submit that post and instead try again. It's maybe not an ideal system but that's why it works the way it does.

I see. I didn't know about these, thanks for the quick answers.

I hope those work for you.

There was some ambiguity about the word 'editing', I assumed you meant using the edit 'button' to change a post --in which case any existing rolls are still visible, if a bit far down the page for comfort (do we really need the whole explanation (For "Basic" type rolls, Enter the text ...) about how the roller works there?).

But bowl's point about writing the post in the first place is valid (and, technically involves 'editing'), we should not be able to change what we are trying to do --or decide not to post at all-- based on foreknowledge of what the dice will say (but then, I tend towards 'fiction first' games, so my opinion is biased).

I come to once again ask for some kind of solution to hide inactive forums from Game Forums list without leaving the games they are attached to. Both retirement suggestions are now in Nope subforum, so if that is not a solution - can we at least get some sort of a hide button?
Like for example, if you visit a game forum, add a "Hide/show this forum in Game Forums list" next to subscription option buttons. It will be obscure enough that only those who want it will find it, right?
Please, I use Game Forums to check on games, and it's full of clutter I don't want to leave and GM is not here to retire. I know that I can technically save the posts as HTML myself, but doing it page by page is sometimes time-consuming. :(

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Also, is there any kind of notification for when you get kicked from the game? I noticed that one of GM ghosted games had disappeared from my list without me leaving it, so GM must've returned briefly to kick the players - but I am not sure if I missed a notification about it, if these exist? If they don't exist, then adding them is my second suggestion.

@FlyingSucculent, I feel your pain. Many of us recognise the problem, but we don't seem to be able to agree on a solution.

I believe the concern is that if people hide games then it will lead to games being ignored and then dying.

How about "hide until there is a new post" then? Inactive games will stay hidden, active games which went on a hiatus will resurface when activity resumes, active games will return constantly. Or it can be an option which only unlocks after there are no posts from the GM for a month (or even a year).

@FlyingSucculent Yes, this is like the snooze feature that was suggested back in December. It was voted down.

But that feature is for the main page, no? Perhaps opinions might be different for the forums.

Anyway, if not snooze, then maybe an ability to make a separate forum list to put below Game Forums, so you can see them separately?
Or a way to grey out the name of the forum without removing it? Like in the video, just don't remove. It'll be a bandaid over a bullet wound, but if no one can agree on more drastic options...
Or at least an option to save an entire thread as HTML! I'll be happy with this, at least then it'll be easier to archive and then leave.

Like I say, @FlyingSucculent - I feel your pain. That's why I've written something for my GP so I can snooze things (greying them out) and it highlights where I wasn't the last person to post (in unsnoozed games).



...but I do think it does need addressing for everyone.

I kind of like this idea. Maybe instead of hiding games, you can just sort them into multiple groups. So you have the one at the top with the games you go into regularly or that are still active and then you can scroll past it to the second group where your inactive games are stored. Or however else you want to organize them.

User defined grouping is the most middle ground we can get I think. If one doesn't want to discern their games, they can leave them as is.

You know, maybe that is the solution for me too; just write an extension or something for myself... If it is truly a problem that only we two (and Chalrytharendir) have, then perhaps individual solutions are better. Guess it is time to brush up on web development!

(Grouping will be acceptable too, though.)

Other people have requested this.

I worry that a feature that is clearly useful to some, and constantly requested is being blackballed on account of theoretical fears that it might result in games stalling.

If people are already not interested in the game, and choose to hide it, their doing so is not the reason it is stalling.

Are there any other objections. If not I would like to refute this problem as being valid. If I turn out to be wrong (which I acknowledge is a bit hard to prove) then we can look at dealing with that when it comes up.

Sorting/categorising the games would solve many of these problems. We do need to look at game sorting anyway (along with sorting character).

And I worry that a feature that is being voted against over and over is being put to vote over and over again until it's pushed through even though the consensus has been multiple times that it shouldn't be implemented and that a different solution should be found.

I've said my piece on the matter but apparently, this feature is going to get implemented no matter what, sooner or later. It's not like it's going to break the site for me.

Can we discuss this concern that is resulting in it being voted against? Does anyone else vote against this? Should we try take it to a wider pool of voters?

Of course we can discuss it. We've done that the last three times. At some point, I feel it makes more sense to just resolve this problem with one of the many other solutions we've had for it. Sorting games, easier GM right transfer, observer roles for games...

Sure, we can put it to a sitewide vote somewhere other than here. Whatever. At this point I'm resigned to accept this anyway

I see the problem and the need to resolve it.

I just don't think this is the right way to resolve it and after this one got shot down multiple times, all I'm saying is that we should maybe just be open to going with a different solution

We have had many different solutions proposed. Most of them can work to resolve some of what is being asked for.

The discussion keeps getting off-track, though.

I propose we work on sorting/grouping. In all places they are displayed.
I propose we work on allowing players to 'retire' games that have been inactive and where the GM has been Zzzz.

I don't see how either of these will suffer from the concern of stalling games.

Me neither.

And neither of those solutions is the one I'm arguing against

I do, however think that easier transfer of GM rights is a better step than just allowing players to retire a game after a GM disappears as it would accomplish that and more

Possibly. But it does muddy the waters a bit about our role in a game. I don't actually want to be listed as the GM for dead games I did not GM.

Maybe a different title? Or just a rights issue, not a title change?

This also means the individual players can't choose for themselves if they want it 'hidden' or not. But I don't think that is a big deal, not for me anyway, all the ones I want hidden are dead... actually... except for the GP Tutorial game permanently near the top of my list.

If I may ask, what is the solution you're arguing against? The hiding of forums? Just to clarify, because I'm genuinely not sure and probably missing the context.

And you mentioned that the consensus was not to implement it, but in all Nope threads about game retirement or snoozing I found it was more like "there is no clear consesus" or "old branch, no longer discussing", not a negative consensus... Was there a vote somewhere outside the site, like on Discord? (Aside from the advent vote.)

You know I respect your opinion, I wouldn't want to push something that you don't like with my requests - and I probably can solve it for myself at the end of the day. :D It is just an inconvenience, after all.

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Also, I don't like the idea of GM rights transfer, for the same reasons as vagueGM mentioned. I mean, it's alright on its own, but it won't solve this specific problem for me because I wouldn't want to use it and get stuck as a GM of a game I never ran.

There are places where the game's owner/moderator/admin/resource provider is not the same as the 'GM'.

'GM' implies a function that has nothing to do with admin features like archiving/retiring/cleaning up, and should not be a part of this issue, they are not the same thing and this is how we keep getting sidetracked.

...I was supporting this. I'm not sure where I mentioned admins at all?

I think what vague is saying is that GM and forum admin should be decoupled, which would solve that particular issue

Indeed. Quoting for context can seem like a direct response. Sorry about that.

I was agreeing with your support... um... :)

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There are a slew of issues around 'GMs'. Maybe we should open a new topic for them. If someone makes us a 'secondary GM' we can not give up that right, but also can not do a whole bunch of other things. Differentiating 'Admins' and 'GMs' might be a way forward.

All cool! Just confusing. XD

But, erm, how would that solve the issue of ghosted games? I mean, even if you make someone other than the GM into a forum admin for the game, they still can ghost like everyone else. And if both GM and the forum admin ghost? Would players be able to choose a new forum admin? But that would be the same issue as changing GMs then, no?

Or will it be the case of site-wide forum admins with an ability to close game forums? That sounds like a weird job, but I guess it's more reliable?

That would be my assumption, yes.
Yes, we would need to solve the difficulties with that changing. But, with this, they would not be listed at the GM for a game they were not the GM for.

If its players' choice, then how will it operate? A majority vote? What if majority of players is also inactive? What if there is only one player + inactive GM?

I'm just imagining what problems there might be, not trying to say it's a bad idea or anything. :D It actually reminds me of how Fandom.com has admins and bureaucrats as separate roles (bureaucrats can change user roles, but have less general permissions than admins), and I like that site.

In a lot of games I want gone from my forum list I am the only active player in the game, with others either inactive or having left already. Would it be possible for a sole player to somehow become a forum admin?..

If we go with a majority vote, then a single active player would have the majority.

I don't know how often this would come up, so we might not need an 'automated' way of doing this (which would rely on the players understanding the underlying process), the Mod/Admin team could probably do these elevations when they are called for?

Many wiki communities have distinct admin and moderator roles. It is quite common for their powers to be non-overlapping so they have to coordinate to make changes. Commonly the Moderators would deal with the people, they would be asked to look into the situation and see that all but one the player is inactive (in your example), chat among themselves, PM the inactive GMs and players and come to a decision, they would then task an Admin to make the change. No one group has all the power, they have to agree and talk first before things are changed.

Often the Admins are technical people and don't have the people skills to be Moderators, and often the Moderators are people people and don't have the technical skills to be Admins. Someone with both sets of skills can only be on one group at a time, but could swap roles if they wanted to.

This, though, is not a technical challenge or discussion, it is a social one. The technical changes can come later, once we have reached a decision.

So it still comes to asking the administration to interfere, except with more instances and regulations, and instead of making someone a GM (like one would ask now) it will be making someone a game forum admin. I think I'd feel guilty distracting admins with this stuff... Though it would be their job, so I don't know. It will be the same process as for changing the GM, so nothing will change for ghosted games all that much, except for fixing the problem of having the unwanted GM title...

Well, anyway, I kinda regret posting an apparently controversial suggestion, so I'll just go and find a workaround until anything changes. :) But my second suggestion (?) about notifications for being kicked from the game still stands! I fear it was a bit ignored in light of the first, but it can still be useful. That is, if there are no notifs about it already, and I did not simply miss the fact...

I think the issues of how it would be done can be left till we know what needs to be done. If there can be a working system for the players to do it themselves, then that saves the admins a bit, and makes it more likely to be used. But player interfaces can come later.

There are a few things that should have notifications attached to them, and the notification systems could use a bit of a reunification.

Ah, alright, I guess both suggestions are already being considered. Oops! Good to know it is being discussed, though. :D

It needs to be discussed. Till you brought it up again it was 'noped'.

Hey, maybe there will be a consensus this time! I hope, at least.
Since I don't think I can contribute anything useful to further discussion, I'll just perform a metaphorical exit from this forum. Ping me if needed later!

(insert "- My job here is done. - But you didn't do anything!" meme.)

Sorry, what I meant that it would solve is your issue of not wanting to be titled as the GM for that game just so you can retire it. If those roles are separated, then you would only be elevated to forum admin, not to GM.

I don't really understand the issue of being called GM for a game I didn't GM, but if that is a problem, then this would solve it

Yeah. I'm glad it's not just me. I have no idea what this separation of roles is for (other than adding more configurations screens for the user to puzzle over).

If I did not GM a game I should not be listed as the GM of that game, it is false advertising.

If I am looking at joining a game from a GM (or taking on a new player) I might want to know what they play and what they GM, these lies make that impossible to tell.

Already I have been promoted (without consent) to secondary GM on a game when the actual GM left the site and I can not demote myself, nor can I retire that dead game.

I was using the Abilites Edit Feature and selected a couple things and went CTRL+B before I realized it wasn't doing anything.

CTRL for BBcode doesn't work when editing inside abilities tag.

Ok a suggestion...
The possibility to use the "if, else" operation in the sheet...
Or else the "case" operation..

In function what I choose the sheet show me different contents...

a feature I saw on every PbP site I've ever been on, and feels strange not having it here:

a quick link in the character sheet redirecting to the subforums of the game the PC have been approved for.
Jumping from charsheet to game to charsheet is something I tend to do a lot and a dedicated button feels very useful. In the thread you click on thethe PC's name, but then there's no way back.

I have an option to go back to the forum of the game my character is in. At the bottom of the sheet, on the red bar in the following screenshot

Oh god it's below the referral links! :D :Dgreat, the more I know

EDIT: it's an overlay, got it... definitely better. definitely missed it for a few months. Thanks Naat!

You're not alone! I was on here for ages before I was told about that bar. Footer Blindness is a real thing.

I only now learned this and I've been a member here 7 years! XD

Speaking of Characters and the bottom bar. I could make use of the Characters menu as well while looking at a character (Game Details and Forum are still there, but Character goes away). It is often useful to be able to open other characters in that same game, and having to go back to the forum to get to them is a pain.

We know what game's characters to populate, since we already looked up the game id for the Forum/Details link.

Is there a way to quote only a single line from a post? I would be kinda cool if I could select a bit, click the quote button, and that it would only quote the selected words.
Not sure if that's possible with javascript

Not sure if this would be too pushy, but how about getting a notification when you haven't read a latest game post that has an unread entry over 5 days old? (the 5 is, of course, an arbitraty number)

Or alternatively, on the homepage, order the latest game posts from old to new, so you can't see the new ones until the old ones have been read. If you really don't want to read them, all it takes is one click.

I personally play in 4 active games right now and I fear that I might miss a post because it got flooded to the bottom by newer ones. I can't even imagine how on top of things you have to be as a Qralloq.

I occasionally check the Unread Posts page to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks.

If those reminders were to be implemented, they should definitely be optional.
As for changing how posts are displayed on the front page, I wouldn't be too much of a fan of it but I rarely ever use the front page, so that wouldn't be a huge deal for me, I guess

If your worried you missed something you can always head to forums personally I go there whenever my list of unreads is as long as the list displays.

I still maintain that the homepage would be improved with humanised date-times (e.g. "yesterday", "an hour ago", "4 days ago"). But I don't think anybody agreed with me.

I did not know both of those options. ty!

Possibly, but I don't think it would help against missing a post

I don't see how those would help in this case, and hiding the specific time of when a post was made yesterday is a step backwards.

This could be implemented as an optional feature that people could choose to turn on, but I don't want to loose those details.

I would expect the actual time to appear as hover text or something maybe?

But on that debate, I would dislike that change. Maybe I'm not human if I don't like humanized dates but I much prefer the current style, where everything is neat with the actual times. I would however be surprised if the majority didn't like that change. That feels to me like one of those me-issues where I am on the opposite side as most of the users. But that's not going off of anything, just my gut feeling

Meh. It's fine. I've done it to my version with a script.

And once again Adam is making me wish I knew how to do that coding thing.

Welcome to the club 😉

Suggestion!
Rename Guides - General subforum. Users mistake it for a general forum because of the name, and it gets cluttered with topics that have nothing to do with guides (I made this mistake before myself).
Why not just call it Guides, like the category? Or User Guides. :D

I would love this.

This. Yesterday. We need this yesterday.

Indeed!

No objections

You're an admin. I believe you can do this. It's not a dev thing.

...and if people don't like it, then you can always change it back.

I could change it. But I feel like that change would be a @Keleth decision

You are His will manifest in sarcastic form.

So let it be written, so let it be done

Best feature ever.

I've mentioned this on discord, bit better have it here for discussion as well:

Let's make the announcements section useful. I'm talking about feature release notes, features under broader community discussion. What else could fit in there?

Also, announcements gets thrown down the bottom on mobile. I know it's by design, but if the section gets actually used, shouldn't it go to the top, like desktop view? Users can always collapse that if they've read it and it could auto expand on a new announcement.

Thoughts?

Agree on making it useful. Disagree on moving it up on mobile. People use the site to get to their games, not to read announcements. And on mobile, everything means scrolling

Yeah. I did extra work to deliberately move the games to the top of mobile screens. I don't agree with moving it. It already auto-expands on new announcements.

I don't think there's more functionality needed. I think the announcements just got forgotten about, but maybe now we have a new announcement they'll be back in people's consciousness.

Announcements are a tool that admins can choose to use (or not) for helping connect the community, but just because they have the tool, it doesn't mean they should always use it.

New Suggestions

Dice Pool Tricks Modiphius 2d20 Link

Games
- Startrek Adventures
- Achtung! Cthulhu
- Dune
- Fallout
- Homeworld
- Infinity
- Mutant Chronicles
- John Carter
- Dishonored

Dice Mechanics
- dice pool
- die
- die sides
- target (less than or equal)
- critical/focus (default a roll of "1", 2 successes)
- complication/fumble (default a roll of "20", greater than or equal)
- bonus (adds successes)For example:
3d20 <= 14 critical <=6 fumble >=19 bonus +2

Dice Results:
4, 11, 20
(3 successes)

Roll Results would be:

2 successes (4 = critical)
1 success (11 = success)
2 successes (+2 bonus)
5 Successes Total
1 Complication

New Suggestions

Dice Pool Tricks Chronicles of Darkness by Onyx Path Publishing for Paradox Link

Games
- Vampire: The Requiem
- Werewolf: The Forsaken
- Mage: The Awakening
- Promethean: The Created
- Changeling: The Lost
- Hunter: The Vigil
- Geist: The Sin-Eaters
- Mummy: The Curse
- Demon: The Descent
- Beast: The Primordial
- Deviant: The Renegades

Dice Mechanics
- dice pool
- die
- die sides
- target (default 8+, greater than or equal)
- reroll (default 10+)
- bonus (adds successes)
- One's (highlight red)For example:
6d10 target 8+ reroll 9+ bonus +2

Dice Results:
9, 3, 7, 8, 10, 1
(3 successes)
(2 dice rerolled below)

Reroll #1:
8, 9
(2 successes)
(1 die rerolled below)

Reroll #2:
3

Roll Results would be:

3 successes (base roll)
2 successes (reroll #1)
2 successes (+2 bonus)
7 Successes Total