New D&D Gaming Room For All! (play live)

[Cole]

Very excited to announce something that I've been working on lately that is coming along quite nicely. Here are a few screen shots of what I will be opening to the public ASAP.

For the most part it's a running working version, but I'm still adding options and some flare

Features List;
- Up to 5 players + 1 DM. (6 total)
- Chat bubbles
- Live dice rolling (in chat log and on table)
- On the fly map loading (DM controlled)
- Color coded chat by player.
- Emojis
- DM can clear any players log or entire game with a simple click
- DM controls mood music (all clients connected)
- Re-sizable windows
- Works and conforms to all devices (at least all I could test thus far)
- Swear filter in chat log
- DM lockable (once every player is logged in, DM can lock the game)
- Game log stays until cleared.

more to come!

TO DO: Add more emojis, add more mood music, more DM options. Add character sheets.

I would love some opinions, ideas etc folks. Tell me something and I'll do my best to work it in if within reason.

Looking for a brave DM to run a first beta game in this. Please post here if your up for it ...

*cough cough JadedDM*

[New Hegdeh]

seems great

[Cole]

I'm trying to make sure it's as good and easy to use as possible Hegdeh. I spent hours online looking for something remotely useful live and couldn't find anything condusive to live gaming. (With the exception of roll 20, which feels like a board game not my bag). With covid19 at hand, it was time to build something we could all use to stay gaming with our friends. This little endeavour just keeps getting better though. I'm sure people will love it. Any ideas or thoughts?

[Cole]

I mean honestly...I want it to feel like your sitting around a table as much as possible. The fire is animated already, with sound.

[New Hegdeh]

yes, it seems good to me, I am just waiting for others to weight in because I can't say much, I am not capable of constructive criticism at the moment because I find it great (nor of destructive criticism either).

[Meph]

I have a few ideas if you are interested in them.

• Character Creation Rolls - You could have a macro that uses standard methods such as 3d6 and 4d6 drop lowest
• Next would be a manually fillable character sheet per player. Click on their name and they can fill in the blanks. On the main list it might display only Name, Class, Level, HP, AC, and maybe Thac0. With that small amount displayed, chat window, dice roller, and map/handout displays you could easily run your whole game. If only the owner (player) and the DM can click it then it would allow the DM to assist a player if they need help with rules or figuring something out, but would still keep the sheet private among the other players.
• Player/DM created macro buttons. Would be nice to be able to add macros for things specific to your game.
• Last might not be wanted by all but allow the app to pull and resize video streams from Zoom, Discord, etc - You could even stack them down the side with the character info displayed next to them. Would give similar functionality to more expensive VTTs but with great simplicity for a DM to just sit down and run a game without much of a learning curve.

Either way, looks great so far and i'll be interested to try it out down the road.

[Cole]

I have a few ideas if you are interested in them.

• Character Creation Rolls - You could have a macro that uses standard methods such as 3d6 and 4d6 drop lowest
• Next would be a manually fillable character sheet per player. Click on their name and they can fill in the blanks. On the main list it might display only Name, Class, Level, HP, AC, and maybe Thac0. With that small amount displayed, chat window, dice roller, and map/handout displays you could easily run your whole game. If only the owner (player) and the DM can click it then it would allow the DM to assist a player if they need help with rules or figuring something out, but would still keep the sheet private among the other players.
  
  DONE!
• Player/DM created macro buttons. Would be nice to be able to add macros for things specific to your game.
  
  Hummm... not sure if I can do that in php... I'll see
• Last might not be wanted by all but allow the app to pull and resize video streams from Zoom, Discord, etc - You could even stack them down the side with the character info displayed next to them. Would give similar functionality to more expensive VTTs but with great simplicity for a DM to just sit down and run a game without much of a learning curve.

We tried skype today in it integrated perfectly. Boy has that program come along way. I'm going to see if house party can be the go to though as I love the idea of multi cam. Not a big zoom fan myself.

Either way, looks great so far and i'll be interested to try it out down the road.

Awesome! Keep ideas coming Meph. It's funny that you mentioned character sheets as I JUST finished that. One of my long time buddies pointed out exactly what you posted here and I worked on it all day. I got er done though. It auto generates a sheet based on your PC's login name (sheet is totally blank). Once you fill it out, you can leave it "UN-LOCKED" for other people to use (assuming they sign in with the exact same name) or you can LOCK the sheet, so only you can use it in the future.

Posted some screens below.

[Cole]

The top screen shows the latest player screen, the character sheet that is visible ONLY to yourself and the DM is on the bottom left. The editor is in the "player screen" on the bottom screen area. Players can see the most recent map the DM uploads in the left large pane, while underneath that is the most recent 4 images all zoom-able.

2ND SCREEN
The middle screen is the DM view. Here I was showing one of the best new features I added yesterday which is EXPANDABLE windows. You can re-size ALL windows to your liking. If you have bad sight, increase the window sizes. Need more space, shrink something and make others bigger etc.

The DM's character sheet is just for his/her personal notes. Mainly goofing off atm.

The mini map area shows the DM all of his images with only the most recent being non-removable. The other 3 can be deleted only by the DM with a simple click.

You can also see the new sound effects box in the bottom right. It's just for fun and is personal (only the person who clicks on a song can hear it) It's a pop up window so it can be completely rid of at will.

The "DM Screen" bottom middle, is only for the DM. They can play game wide sounds to add atmosphere for all. Including Tavern Music, Booing, Cheers, etc. This area also hosts the upload image button and the edit sheet buttons. (will add DM helper soon for other people's sheets as suggested by Meph.

3RD SCREEN

Shows the ability to collapse windows to almost nothing. Even the chat log can be closed completely now.

Dice now roll on the table and in the chat log window. Did this because on a cell phone you can see the table. It's nice for all to feel included.

Anything else folks... shoot! I can't wait to play with everyone!

[Meph]

I only mentioned Zoom because these days, with everyone going online I have read a lot of people saying how they dropped Discord and Skype for Zoom because of quality. I did a Zoom meeting the other day with 14 family members and it was awful, but I think a lot of issues were the size of the meeting, the connection of the host, and the quality of equipment. My kids went across country to stay with the in-laws for a month during the summer for the last 3 years and we would skype them. It was horrible but again, that could very well be the low quality equipment (dell laptop webcam) and their poor internet connection there. It may be worth just looking into what these twitch streamers are using for their video app because many of them are crystal clear. Audio itself can be completely separate from your app. It's just not needed to be a built in function.

[Meph]

Any ability to draw on or pin on the map?

[Cole]

I only mentioned Zoom because these days, with everyone going online I have read a lot of people saying how they dropped Discord and Skype for Zoom because of quality. I did a Zoom meeting the other day with 14 family members and it was awful, but I think a lot of issues were the size of the meeting, the connection of the host, and the quality of equipment. My kids went across country to stay with the in-laws for a month during the summer for the last 3 years and we would skype them. It was horrible but again, that could very well be the low quality equipment (dell laptop webcam) and their poor internet connection there. It may be worth just looking into what these twitch streamers are using for their video app because many of them are crystal clear. Audio itself can be completely separate from your app. It's just not needed to be a built in function.

Yeah equipment helps, connection is most important. The other day my wife and 10 of her co workers used "house party" for their work meeting and it was amazing quality. Loved the options. I personally use Skype because of quality and access atm. Skype just announced multi party to...so who knows.

Nothing would be better then something with a streamed embed code though, so I could literally integrate it

[Cole]

Any ability to draw on or pin on the map?

Hummmm... that is a great idea. I'm up for the challenge and will report back. The Macros are a no go. The language I code in doesn't allow for it. However, if you post a detailed explanation of what exactly a Macros is intended for with an example I should be able to simulate just about anything as PHP in combo with, AJAX, jQuery and MYSQL rule them all!

[Cole]

Any ability to draw on or pin on the map?

OK, check this out

Again, took me all day but I kinda stumbled upon some extra coolness when I botched some code. It spawned some new incite and I quickly came up with this beautiful idea!

It's a pin map to the extreme!

You log in as the DM, click view Click Map and if you haven't made one yet, it will offer the DM an option to create one. So at this point you basically just upload a large map of a city, region, entire world etc. Once uploaded it will add a new entry to the database that will store all the info for your map.

Now the best part... you can (as the DM) click anywhere on your own map and it will give an on screen pop up of where you clicked to allow you to write down the (X,Y) coordinates of that click. Mark down up to twelve locations and then open the Click Map Editor. Once that is open, you can enter any info you like about each location (as much or as little as you like). You can also provide a basic description on hover to each location indicated by opaque circles with red borders. IE an Inn, or a Tavern, or a Stable etc. Then you can enter the big details... full descriptions.

Players simply just need to open the click map and it will populate everything the DM entered instantly. They just need to hover over each location to see the basic description and then click on it to read the FULL description in a speech bubble (just like the ones used around the table)

These maps are hard coded and are given an encrypted name to prevent over writing, plus they are assigned a password.

At this point the DM need only change his sheet password to change maps. He/she can add as many as they dare to describe with no limits. It's the ULTIMATE archive of info for the DM and all their players.

[Meph]

Very cool. Is there a reason it's limited to 12 locations? Just on that map you showed alone the DM could possibly mark out 40 locations if he so desired. It looks to be coming along great though. Nice job.

[Cole]

No, it's only limited to my laziness. Lol. What amount would you figure would be required?