Giving tokens 'sides'

So, this is just a random thought that I had about representing physical objects (miniatures, poker chips, cards, dice) on the table. Would it be possible to give a token more than one image, to represent what it would look like from whichever face / direction someone would like? Things like miniatures ~likely~ only need one face, though I could see people using more than one (one face for 'alive and standing' and another for 'lying on it's side / dead'. Granted, alive/dead status can just as usefully be indicated by the current token status markers. Imaginative GMs might give were-creatures two faces for were-form and non-were form; something that couldn't be done on a physical tabletop. More interesting, to me, though, would be the ability to have dice or, perhaps, cards actually on the table. A d6 would just be a token with 6 specific 'faces', one per side. A card would be a token with two sides (granted, this topic doesn't cover the many ~other~ interactions necessary to make decks of cards work). Add in a shortcut to randomize the face of the currently selected tokens, and suddenly you've got the ability to roll dice pools on the table. For many games, this may not matter too much, as the dice roller works just as well, but for other games (Fiasco, I'm looking at you), and even some players in general, having roll-able dice on the table could add a lot to the experience.

I like this. At the moment I'm missing a "mirror token" feature for those tokens that are not top-down and therefore have a walking direction. With the possibility to have 2 images for one token, the mirroring wouldn't be needed. Also, in many RPGs drawing your weapon is an action, so it is somewhat important to know if a character has his weapon drawn or not. Same goes for armor (but it's more like 1d6*10 actions ;) ). And switching the image on that set decoration piece from "statue" to "attacking stone golem" sounds really nice. <veg>

I want to second token facing. Sometimes, token rotation isn't enough -for instance, for round-portrait style token, a facing indicator is usually much better.

So, I've been thinking a bit more about this multi-image token thing, and I would like to expand upon it a bit, mostly regarding how it would allow (nearly) every dice-rolling system out there to be used directly in Roll20. As the Dice Roller Suggestions thread has shown, there are many, ~many~ ways to roll dice and calculate in-game results. In many games (especially the d20 family of games), the dice are there just to be numeric randomizers, and a calculator-like dice roller works fine. But many systems, from RPGs to wargames to many board games, use dice in subtly different ways. Often this difference takes advantages of the ability of humans to quickly detect visual patterns, and this attention to visual acuity is lost with a text-based roller. Some systems use images instead of numbers (e.g. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ). Others actually take the physical rotation of the dice into account, such as the scatter dice used in many wargames. The One-Roll Engine relies on finding sets of matching dice based on a pool of D10s, and then destroying those sets to oppose the actions of others. Fiasco relies on one large roll of d6 (4 per person) at the start of the game, and the results of that one roll are used throughout much of the game. Cortex+ (e.g. Smallville and Leverage) involves rolling pools of many different sized dice, and the result is often not the value of the face rolled, but instead the die size of the die with the largest roll (so you might get a result of 'd6' or 'd12', instead of a number. ====================================================================== Yes, it's true that you can often (but not always!) make such systems work with a calculator-based system, but if there were token-dice on the board, I think that it would make many game systems much much more convenient to use online. And as I've said before, the point of a virtual tabletop is to make playing any given game system convenient enough that people are willing to do so. Also, I'm in no way suggesting that the current text-roller be removed; for many games, it works admirably. I also realize that, for many people, automating the rolls of their particular game system is a VTT bonus that real-life can't really match. But in order to support the widest variety of games possible, I think that GM-customizable dice, in the form of token-dice, would go a very, very long way. ====================================================================== "Why not just use real dice, then?", I can hear some of you say (Hi Agemegos!). For me, at least, there are two reasons that I'd prefer virtual token-dice to real dice. First, as a matter of convenience, access to physical dice is not always guaranteed. Every other part of the game can be digitized, even if not directly tied to Roll20 (e.g. character sheets, rulebooks, etc). Having dice be the only physical component can be impratical. Second, and more importantly, is that sometimes rolls of the dice aren't meant to be private affairs. Watching a friend roll a 20 at a critical moment in D&D is exciting. Crowding around to examine the inital d6 roll in Fiasco adds to the atmosphere of the game as the group figures out the possibilities of what could happen together. Passing an ally one of your d6 to lend aid on a challenge can give a bit of meaning to the situation. Basically, I think that having the dice be a part of the whole experience, rather than a black box that you consult when you need an answer, can improve an RPG session immensely. ====================================================================== Finally (I know, it's been a wall of text), in order to use tokens as dice, I see basically 2-3 changes that would need to be made to the current system: 1) Allow a single token to have multiple images attached to it, with only one image displayed at a time. 2) A method to randomize the active image of the currently selected tokens. (Also, a way to just switch to the next image in order would be nice for non-dice uses). 3) When the above randomizer is triggered, optionally randomize the rotation of the selected token as well. This way, there's no need to calculate the physics of actually rolling the dice, yet you still get most of the benefits of using real dice at a live RPG session. Thoughts?

"Why not just use real dice, then?", I can hear some of you say (Hi Agemegos!). G'day there Balladeer! For me, at least, there are two reasons that I'd prefer virtual token-dice to real dice. First, as a matter of convenience, access to physical dice is not always guaranteed. Every other part of the game can be digitized, even if not directly tied to Roll20 (e.g. character sheets, rulebooks, etc). Having dice be the only physical component can be impratical. Second, and more importantly, is that sometimes rolls of the dice aren't meant to be private affairs. Watching a friend roll a 20 at a critical moment in D&D is exciting. Crowding around to examine the inital d6 roll in Fiasco adds to the atmosphere of the game as the group figures out the possibilities of what could happen together. Passing an ally one of your d6 to lend aid on a challenge can give a bit of meaning to the situation. Basically, I think that having the dice be a part of the whole experience, rather than a black box that you consult when you need an answer, can improve an RPG session immensely. … SNIP … Thoughts? Fair enough. Two of the players in my Spirit of the Century game don't have fudge dice, so the die-roller is real use to them (though they would be happy to make a macro of "/roll 4d3 - 6"). You're right too about the shared excitement of watch one's friends' dice deliver triumph or disaster on a crucial roll. And about sharing or spending of dice rolled in some games. These are all real values, and I'm not against their being supported so long as the cost in simplicity, accessibility, and ease-of-use is modest. When the Kickstarter started, Roll20 was promoted thus: "Roll20 brings pen and paper role playing games online the right way, by focusing on storytelling and camaraderie rather than gameplay mechanics." That was something that got us all excited. Since the beta test started we have all (yes, including me) pushed for the developers to give us all our own special ponies. The result has been that a lot of developer effort has been focused right where we were promised that it would not be focused: on gameplay mechanics. That initial prospectus also said "While looking through the current virtual tabletop offerings, we were struck with a realization: we don’t want to turn our pen and paper gaming into a video game." It seems to me that that is another direction in which we beta-playtesters are inadvertently pushing the developers to go, despite the fact that we will be very sorry when we get there, if we get there. "Focus not on gameplay mechanics" and "not like a video game" are selling points for Roll20. I don't want to see them drowned by feature creep.

I believe that having tokens with multiple 'facings' and the ability to randomize a facing would allow for LESS mechanics and not more. If we can visually represent, say a special die, or move dice around to represent different things, no code mechanic has to be invented or bolted onto the system and allows us to simulate more indie games that require these less than traditional uses for dice and tokens. The command line dice roller would not have to be modified for every different dice mechanic out there if we could do it just like we do at the game table - push the dice around the way we want.

Well, if that were to work out I would be all in favour. Rather than learn the increasingly arcane dice-scripting language, you drag a few dice tokens out of the tray on to the table. Command-r to roll them. They land showing random faces in random orientations. Drag them around. Command-click on some to keep them. Command-r to re-roll the others. I'd like that better than all this stuff with macros and obscure notations in the chat window.

I'll try to be a little less verbose in this reply; I want to avoid another wall of text like the last one. "Focus not on gameplay mechanics" and "not like a video game" are selling points for Roll20. I don't want to see them drowned by feature creep I think we agree in philosophy here. I believe that having tokens with multiple 'facings' and the ability to randomize a facing would allow for LESS mechanics and not more. If we can visually represent, say a special die, or move dice around to represent different things, no code mechanic has to be invented or bolted onto the system and allows us to simulate more indie games that require these less than traditional uses for dice and tokens That is the essence of what I see this suggestion allowing for; thanks for giving it a concise form. Rather than learn the increasingly arcane dice-scripting language, you drag a few dice tokens out of the tray on to the table. Command-r to roll them. They land showing random faces in random orientations. Drag them around. Command-click on some to keep them. Command-r to re-roll the others. This is exactly the type of behavior I would like to see come out of this. ================= In short, I think we can differentiate between features which provide fundamental table interactions (such as token-dice, card handling, and basic drawing capability) and features which make the RPG experience snazzier (e.g. fog of war, macros, and form-fillable character sheets). It's my hope that development of the latter doesn't preclude easy access to the former.

I think we can differentiate between features which provide fundamental table interactions (such as token-dice, card handling, and basic drawing capability) and features which make the RPG experience snazzier (e.g. fog of war, macros, and form-fillable character sheets). Well put! I would add improved management of handouts to the list of fundamental table interactions. It's my hope that development of the latter doesn't preclude easy access to the former. I share that hope and add that I hope that development of the snazz doesn't take priority before the fundamental table interactions in the allocation of developer time and attention.

Rather than learn the increasingly arcane dice-scripting language, you drag a few dice tokens out of the tray on to the table. Command-r to roll them. They land showing random faces in random orientations. Drag them around. Command-click on some to keep them. Command-r to re-roll the others. I'd like that better than all this stuff with macros and obscure notations in the chat window. I like the direction that is going. It could be more flexible if you could randomize just the token image with Cmd + r if you just want to roll. You could randomize the orientation with Cmd + t (O is taken for "move to token layer") like if you had an effect that required a token to move in a random direction. Both could be Cmd + Shift + R. You could also move the image individually with Cmd + > or Cmd + < if you just want to do a reveal (Old Man Jenkins!) or a sequential change (a clock in a clockwork dungeon where the hour hand orientation opened up different rooms). Granted, all of these shortcuts should be prioritized lower in favor of something like deck mechanics. The ability to upload your own images for states would be nice too.

I'm trying to imagine how that would work when I say, "Alright everybody, roll initiative." Right now, I get a whole bunch of results in random order and folks update their number in the turn tracker, which works great. I do like the idea a lot though... it seems pretty damn compatible with the current macro setup though... just like there are card decks, let there be dies. Associate an image and an optional number value with each side of the die. In the current macro language where you have the value for the kind of die (the '6', '20', and 'F' from 1d6, 5d20, 4dF) see if you have a die by that name, if so, show the images if not and the die name is a number show the number. If the sides have values, do the total/success calcs. Keep the rest the same. Seems pretty in keeping with the spirit of "keep things simple" and keep the mechanics out of it without giving up some of the nice things about mechanics, like being able to sum the value of something like 300d6.

I'm trying to imagine how that would work when I say, "Alright everybody, roll initiative." Good point. When you do that playing at a table everyone recognises his or her own die. So: colour-code the dice icons with the ping colour of the person who rolled them? like being able to sum the value of something like 300d6. When it comes to buckets of d6 I think of course of playing Champions . Is the dice interpreter counting Body and Stun yet? Calculating "spite damage" for T&T?

Good point. When you do that playing at a table everyone recognises his or her own die. So: colour-code the dice icons with the ping colour of the person who rolled them? Or just use the current way of of having in the chat window "Player Foo Rolled". Switch the individual die results from (5) to an image corresponding to that entry in the die object. When it comes to buckets of d6 I think of course of playing Champions . Is the dice interpreter counting Body and Stun yet? Calculating "spite damage" for T&T? There is definitely a gray zone, but I think a summation fits squarely on the "simple and universal enough to warrant support" side of the fence. You could argue more difficult summations or re-roll rules (drop lowest/highest, exploding dice) one way or another. As for "spite damage", yup, that seems like one of those "look at the damned images and add things up yourself" spots (had to look that one up). :) I do really like the idea of dice tokens with multiple sides, I just don't want 'em on my map.

Or just use the current way of of having in the chat window "Player Foo Rolled". Switch the individual die results from (5) to an image corresponding to that entry in the die object. … SNIP … I do really like the idea of dice tokens with multiple sides, I just don't want 'em on my map. Yes, but I don't think that is going to do the job for, say, Fiasco and such RPGs in which the dice once rolled become resources that can be hoarded, spent, swapped, and given. Some people do want the dice on their tabletop. I'm not sure how scatter dice work, but I imagine that they have to fall on the map specifically.

Yes, but I don't think that is going to do the job for, say, Fiasco and such RPGs in which the dice once rolled become resources that can be hoarded, spent, swapped, and given. Some people do want the dice on their tabletop. I'm not sure how scatter dice work, but I imagine that they have to fall on the map specifically. True enough. And of course there'll always be new crazy dice: <a href="http://dicepl.us/tech-specs/" rel="nofollow">http://dicepl.us/tech-specs/</a> :)

Yup. I'm never trading in my actual desk.

A shame this has been buried in the forums because this has a lot of ideas I would love to see implimented and then expanded upon by cunning players... multi-imaged tokens would have so much potential.

After reading some other threads, another alternative would be to allow spritesheets instead of multiple distinct images, which I am led to believe might be easier technically.