OpenRPG

[Zparkz]

I have had a look at RPtools and it didn't suit what I wanted at the moment. Game Table I'll have to take a look at when I get home from work.

 

[ravells]

Had a real laugh reading David Elrick's D&D adventure logs. Very witty bunch of players indeed.

This exchange was nearly a coffee all over the keyboard moment:

(70) Yarti: Now that we've eaten, I can continue my tale of the creatures hereabouts ....
(70) Yarti: those that will kill to steal your soul, or the stripey toads. the choice is yours
(72) Tyrok: Do the toads have soul?
(70) Yarti: (no but they sure got funk)

 

[Zparkz]

Game table did not measure up. It is not possible to load premade maps into the software from what I could see.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Zparkz:
I have briefly been looking at OpenRPG, Screenmonkey and Klooge, they seem not to support large scale combat much.

Outdoors combat in Traveller sometimes may cover a large area and a hex/square may be several meters across.

I mainly look for an electronic playing surface as printing out maps are expensive in the long run, and playing with miniatures takes up a lot of space on the tabletop/floor. I would like to play out encounters on a LAN to ease gaming.

OpenRPGs solution to put everything on a webserver is not my cup of coffee, and the tohers had other limitations as to map size and no posivbility to stack minitaures in a hex/square.

I really need something simple as something to present a CC2 map in png/jpg format where I can move around pieces. supports the metric format, failing that just displays the map and let me and my players move the pieces around pretty freely.

It depends on what you consider large scale combat.

Klooge does quite well for large scale combat. (I ran a Merc campaign first time out, and have learned a bit since then. Things will take a while, though they always do with large scale combat, but you won't get lost. You can give the follow order so units will stick together. You can reorder initiative so units fire together. And there are a couple of other neat little shortcuts, if you know where to look. You can even assign team members to individual icons so deploying them is easier, and in this case, guess what, they stack together under one icon. In doing this you can use the Traveller Large Scale Combat rules if you don't want to track individuals. However it isn't Warhammer 40,000 if that is what your are looking for. It will take a while to set up and move an army. (Then again so does Warhammer 40K and in WH40K it is easy for a 4-6 turn game to go 4 hours or more.) Further if you have everything done right in your definition file then Klooge does all the bookkeeping, all the range checks, all the movement limits, all the to hit, all the damage rolls, keeps track of ammo, keeps track of things like cover modifiers, knows who is shooting at whom, will show you who is in the blast radius of grenades, handles range mods, oh and did I mention the follow command? And does all this without an additional slowdown of the game. Like I said it takes a while to set up a mass combat, but once the GM has it set up, (preferbly before the combat happens and not during a session) it handles it rather smoothly. However it takes a GM familiar with the rules, the software and your definition file to get the most oout of it. (And for Traveller T20 there is some tweeking I would have to do in the Definition file as a couple things, ammo tracking for one, aren't implemented even though the software is now capable of doing it. One other point, with real time measuring, you don't need hexes in Klooge. In fact I don't use them at all. Regulating movement with hexes and squares works well for some instances of tabletop gaming, but is a horrible way to go for interior fighting.

Grip actually handles large scale combat rather well as well. Its NPC sheets are not restricted to the one NPC per Sheet. THough I never tried to put more than one fireteam on a Character sheet. (I figure it would get confusing.)

If you want me to show you how to do it with Klooge I can easily do that. I would need some time to set it up. (Inputing a bunch of people to fully use the system takes a few minutes and I would want to fix the ammunition expenditure and update the effects list.) But I could set up a T20 platoon size force on force with vehicles easily enough. Oh, and not to give too much away, there
is likely to be a large scale combat coming up in my Wednesday night game. (Our intrepid adventurers are helping to chase away a few flies from a handful of ranches, and speaking of which I know I have lots of data entry over the next couple of weeks.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Zparkz:
I have briefly been looking at OpenRPG, Screenmonkey and Klooge, they seem not to support large scale combat much.

Outdoors combat in Traveller sometimes may cover a large area and a hex/square may be several meters across.

I mainly look for an electronic playing surface as printing out maps are expensive in the long run, and playing with miniatures takes up a lot of space on the tabletop/floor. I would like to play out encounters on a LAN to ease gaming.

OpenRPGs solution to put everything on a webserver is not my cup of coffee, and the tohers had other limitations as to map size and no posivbility to stack minitaures in a hex/square.

I really need something simple as something to present a CC2 map in png/jpg format where I can move around pieces. supports the metric format, failing that just displays the map and let me and my players move the pieces around pretty freely.

Klooge has a map size limit? Sure you will eventually run out of either RAM or bandwidth so there are resolution limits, but as a practical matter you generally won't. One of my maps (which granted needs better resolution, I was in a hurry) is a Sector. However for the ability to actually get in there and read the information I don't recommend anything much bigger than a Subsector map. (Bandwidth issues for that kind of resolution.) You set the scale on the map to whatever you want. (Just draw a line and tell the system how long the line is.) In fact the real time distance tools mean I have done away with hexes and squares and grids all toggether. (Except as artifacts on maps I have imported and Sector/Subsector maps.) Of course YMMV. You are not going to be able to go from a system map to a bar on the same map. However in Klooge you can link maps so you could, in theory, if you spent enough time and had enough harddrive space, go from Sector View to that Bar and everything in between, if you had enough maps.

You can stack icons, and I have done this but it isn't the best way to do it. About the only actual use is for things like passengers and crews of vehicles. But you may have other ideas. Simply place the icons on top of each other for temporary colocations. (You can access them at that point from the campaign tree.) Though do put them slightly off center so you can grab them to move them out of there later, the closer you have them the tighter you will have to zoom in to grab precisely the one you want. You can also colocate a team together by having one of them on the map and the rest assigned to it in the campaign tree. (Ideal solution for vehicle crews and passengers.)

Further, in my previous post, I mentioned the follow command, depending on the scale of your map, they can all be in one hex and assigned to follow the leader, and you can move the entire team as a unit without giving up the flexibility of individuals. (Definitely set this and all mass combat up and save it before the game session, it takes a little while with lots of people, but then again when we played face to face gaming I usually had the miniature table in another room and all set up ahead of time then too.)

Mass combat and roleplaying is a difficult thing to juggle. Your characters get lost in all the action around them. You have to strike the correct balance for the feeling that you are going for and in most cases the game flows smoother if, aside from actions that directly effect characters or that characters have a direct effect on, it isn't rolled but scripted. Though your script has to be flexible as Players have a tendency to come up with brilliant ways of either foiling plans or massively screwing up in brilliant and unexpected ways (more often

.

Even with all of your preparation remember the important rule: No plan survives first contact with the enemy. That is where your storytelling and ability to produce lasou (I don't know how to spell that, Firefly reference as Traveller doesn't seem to have an equivalent phrase.) on the fly come into play. (I could have used felgacarb but the new Battlestar Galactica seems to have lost that word from the original Colonial Dictionary.)

 

[Zparkz]

Thanks for a lengthy reply. I only tried a demoversion without a license, so I was limited to what it did show me. Editing or trying one of my own maps was not possible. Thus my I got the wrong impression of its capabilities.

I'll invest in a license when money permits.
I am about to run a few relative large scale combats on a map simulating 500x700 meters and about 20 - 25 troopers a side. The players mission is to run several attacks on Zhodani checkpoints and patrols. And maybe some base attacks.

If possible I would like to test out Klooge with you next time you use it BTL. I am quite familiar with MT and TNE rules. CT and T20 are largely unknown to me, however I do not mind to try out those rules either.

You may PM me or send me a mail on starwolf@chello.no
As the mail address indicates, I live in Norway so find a suitable time could be difficult unless we set it up during a weekend.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Zparkz:
Thanks for a lengthy reply. I only tried a demoversion without a license, so I was limited to what it did show me. Editing or trying one of my own maps was not possible. Thus my I got the wrong impression of its capabilities.

I'll invest in a license when money permits.
I am about to run a few relative large scale combats on a map simulating 500x700 meters and about 20 - 25 troopers a side. The players mission is to run several attacks on Zhodani checkpoints and patrols. And maybe some base attacks.

If possible I would like to test out Klooge with you next time you use it BTL. I am quite familiar with MT and TNE rules. CT and T20 are largely unknown to me, however I do not mind to try out those rules either.

You may PM me or send me a mail on starwolf@chello.no
As the mail address indicates, I live in Norway so find a suitable time could be difficult unless we set it up during a weekend.

Well before reading the entire reply I was thinking that I can show you quite easily as my Traveller Campaign runs every wednesday evening.

However 7-10PM EDT is the middle of the night GMT. I'll see what we can arrange.

 

[Zparkz]

Playing in the middle of the night in the middle of the week may be a problem. However, there is a few question I need answer to

1) As I plan to se t up a LAN for this thing just to play out encounters instead of using the table/livingroom floor can one player control several characters? thus reducing the need for a computer for every player.

2) Is it possible to zoom in the maps?

3) how well does Klooge perform when it comes to task rolls. Hit/Penetration and damage? Are there support for hit locations?

The last item isn't so important for me, but it would be nice if it possible.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Zparkz:
Playing in the middle of the night in the middle of the week may be a problem. However, there is a few question I need answer to

I thought I sent you an email. I did just send you a PM.

1) As I plan to se t up a LAN for this thing just to play out encounters instead of using the table/livingroom floor can one player control several characters? thus reducing the need for a computer for every player.

Not a problem. However there is an additional problem in that each computer on the lan that is hooked up will need a license. So it could get expensive. (My License and licenses so I could run a game without players needing a license ran $100.) You will find that for all of these packages except OpenRPG (Free), ScreenMonkey (lite free, full only GM requires a license.), and Grip (60days GM free, players always free.) that the clients will also need a license.

2) Is it possible to zoom in the maps?

Absolutely, which is where map resolution comes into play. The higer the resolution the wider the range that the map looks good from extreme view to zoomed all the way in.

3) how well does Klooge perform when it comes to task rolls. Hit/Penetration and damage? Are there support for hit locations?

The system will do what you tell it to do. The good news is, yes it will do to hit rolls against various types of targets in different circumstances, etc. The bad news is Penetration is a MT function and as no one has yet doen an MT definition for Klooge, it would have to be written. (Not as tough as it sounds.)

The last item isn't so important for me, but it would be nice if it possible.

It is possible. However given the fact that you are primarily going to use this as a table top aid and not a true game environment, you might be better off with ScreenMonkey. (It even has the ability to do maps in the way you want with one computer and two monitors. The player screen can zoom, though the GM map is limited in terms of zoom. (It has the added advantage that you can probably do what you want for free.) GRiP would require one computer per player but otherwise would fit your goal nicely as well. (So if everyone brings a laptop you are set.) Playing live in person would alleviate the neccesity of tab flipping between the chat and the map tabs.

But yes Klooge, will do what you are looking for and more than what you are looking for as well.