Rapier

Just wanted to get the ball rolling. I have just submitted the initial description of my events for next year.

I am actually using some new characters this year, so I am busy creating those now. It would be nice to see some of y'all this year, and we should def try and set something up.

12 hours ago, Simon said:

RTF is a fairly archaic format…you may need to convert the images to bmp for sizing attributes to apply (though I am by no means versed in the format specs)

That did it! I changed the file format and the sizing is working perfectly. Well, the image is HUUUUUGE, but I can play with that and get it to where I want it. tyty!

Hmm. I will try that tomorrow morning. It isn't a complete nightmare, it isn't a huge amount of work to resize the image before printing, it is just something for me to forget!

I am using an RTF export template for the characters for GenCon. Everything is exactly as perfect as I want it to be, except the character image is original size. 

I have been tinkering with the RTF tags to change the size of the image, but nothing seems to be happening.

All the images are the exact same size (created by AI because my art talent is nonexistent). I know how big I want them to be in inches, and I could easily tinker/trial-and-error to figure out the percentage and/or point size...I just can't get the size to change.

I have been playing with this for the past month off and on. Any assistance would be appreciated.

6 hours ago, Khymeria said:

I had a mech code name Shogun show up in my superhero game, piloted by a samurai with a laser katana. It is written for 6E but is a pretty extensive mech setup. Happy to send you the hdc file if you like, or another format if I can. 

The hdc would be fine. That is where it would end up anyway!

10 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Well, as a start, I can offer these 5E game stats for Robotech, including several mech write-ups, from the archive of the grand old Star Hero Fandom website: http://web.archive.org/web/20081210091859/http://www.starherofandom.com/h_robotech/index.php

This will help. I knew there were a couple of us that had a bunch of this stuff, but I think I purged a bunch of it in a link cleanup a while back. I know that Robot Warriors was...problematic. But I can't remember why so, at this point, I am mostly investigating if this is even something I want to do. I have always used vehicles as a...vehicle for the story (if you will forgive the pun) and never actually used them as VEHICLES. They were a way to get from point A to point B and hardly none of them have ever been shot at...and the couple that were got hand-waived.

While the ideas are still percolating, I am working on the games for next year's GenCon. I am, at least, getting enough of a start to lay down some ideas and get things started while I have time before school starts up again.

You know that meme where they talk about how conquistadors were around the same time as samurai, the Aztec Empire, knights with swords, early smoothbore guns, etc? I'm doing that (meme attached). I am tinkering with the idea that I will bring them all together (and work them into the GenCon Universe by having them all abducted by the aliens I have been using for the past few years). Think of the Cowboys vs Aliens vibe.

But it is going to be a tough sell for a 150pt samurai to go up against an alien that can give a 350pt super a run for the money. I have been thinking about what if I allowed the heroes to escape into a steampunk garage full of steampunk mechs.

This could even be cool to use as one of my "intro to Hero" games by showing what Hero can do, instead of the same old superheroic characters. Some of my concerns are that this is going to add a layer of complexity to a group of players that will likely have little Hero experience. It is also going to require a bit more effort on my part, since i haven't actually run Robot Warriors in like 25 years. I will also have to build all the mechs.

I have the Robot Warriors conversion document Christopher Goodwin wrote, and I have the two original 3E books (Robot Warriors and Robot Gladiators), but I was wondering if anyone had any writeups for Mechs (other than the couple in TUV). Also wondering if anyone ran into any problems playing Mechs in Hero. Are there any pitfalls or things that don't work well I can ponder?

Thanks!

Oh! Duh. Ok. Yes, that is what I was looking for. I didn't realise (or forgot) it was UTF-16. tyty.

We should def plan some kind of meet-n-greet for next year. Maybe a Hero Dinner or something.

Ok, in my post-GenCon creative burst, I am fixing the couple of errors I found in my export format that I used for GenCon.

There are a couple of things I am manually editing in the RTF because I was having problems getting them to do what I wanted. I am trying to fix that now (particularly Combat Maneuver), and I want to use some end notes with symbols. Other than just making a big list and seeing what prints out, is there a list someplace so I could figure out which codes do what?

nvm

On 9/20/2022 at 10:41 PM, grandmastergm said:

How did it go?

It honestly went better than I could have expected. Everyone LOVED my games and I even had four of them go and buy the book! I dont think it gets better than that!

Well, it's been a spell!

I have a first pass done through with Characteristics, Races, Cultures, and Classes.

I just finished the second pass of spells, and those are getting tighter. My next task is, before I start anything new, to go through my To Do list and make those changes. A lot of them deal with how I built some of the spells so I will have to dig back into spells in a bit, but I'll work on other things first because I am sick of looking at this damned database.

The next "big" tasks (that really aren't) is going to be arms/armour/equipment and alignment. I have headings and a framework of what still needs to be done, so it is mostly going through my To Do list and then moving on to the next bit of emptiness. Progress is still progress if it took a couple of years, right?

17 hours ago, HeroGM said:

 

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

 

AGAIN??

RAWR!

1 hour ago, HeroGM said:

It's not a perfect or elegant solution I know, I'm glad it helps you get what you're looking for on things.

 

I don't know if you've seen them, but I (and others?) have loaded up Rob Miller's rtf files and I don't think he'd mind too much if you looked and disceted them. Just give him some credit if you pass them out.

Where do you think I got the basic one I used?

Oh, and for anyone following this, I will be posting these for download in the next couple of days.

I have one I use for players (and conventions) without any points on them. That is the one I am working on now and when I am perfectly happy with it I will add the costs back in.

This is what the No Points looks like.

Flying Lotus.RTF

Movement:    Running:              11"/22"

                         Flight:                   15"/30"

                         Leaping:               7"/14"

                         Swimming:          10"/20"

                         Swinging:             10"/20"

                         Teleportation:     15"/30"

                         Tunneling:           3"/5"

woohoo!! I found that you DEF need a space in there for everything to work.

This is my RTF block:

\tx1125\tx2500
\b1 Movement:\b0 
<!--IF_RUNNING-->\tab Running:\tab <!--Math--><!--RUNNING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--RUNNING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_RUNNING-->
<!--IF_FLIGHT-->\par\tab Flight:\tab <!--Math--><!--FLIGHT_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--FLIGHT_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_FLIGHT-->
<!--IF_GLIDING-->\par\tab Gliding:\tab <!--Math--><!--GLIDING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--GLIDING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_GLIDING-->
<!--IF_LEAPING-->\par\tab Leaping:\tab <!--Math--><!--LEAPING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--LEAPING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_LEAPING-->
<!--IF_SWIMMING-->\par\tab Swimming:\tab <!--Math--><!--SWIMMING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--SWIMMING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_SWIMMING-->
<!--IF_SWINGING-->\par\tab Swinging:\tab <!--Math--><!--SWINGING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--SWINGING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_SWINGING-->
<!--IF_TELEPORTATION-->\par\tab Teleportation:\tab <!--Math--><!--TELEPORTATION_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--TELEPORTATION_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_TELEPORTATION-->
<!--IF_TUNNELING-->\par\tab Tunneling:\tab <!--Math--><!--TUNNELING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->"/<!--Math--><!--TUNNELING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT-->/2<!--/MATH-->"<!--/IF_TUNNELING-->
\par\pard

I does seem that purchasing Secondary Running throws everything off and I just get 0s. That isn't perfectly ideal but I can work with that. How often do we handle secondary movement anyway?

14 hours ago, HeroGM said:

When I tried this I still get -1. Could this be an RTF thing? This is so weird. I still get -1.

I tried inside and outside the IF_RUNNING. I am not certain it has any effect, but I would need this to be inside the IF statement so that I could also do Teleport and things.

I still get -1.

----------------------

OMG. I got it.

<!--IF_RUNNING-->\tab Running:\tab<!--Math--><!--RUNNING_TOTAL-->/2<!--/MATH-->" Noncombat: <!--RUNNING_TOTAL_NONCOMBAT--><!--/IF_RUNNING-->

This worked. WOOHOO! You got me there! I, sir, owe you a donut. And not no chintzy lil munchkin but a full on adult-sized donut.

10 hours ago, HeroGM said:

Trying to remember if word still does macros

Yeah, it does. Like I said, it's not a huge problem and certainly not insurmountable. It's just a quality of life thing. When I am cranking out character sheets it is one less thing to worry about. When I am prepping for a convention I am usually printing 35 or 40 player characters. Anything I can do to automate the process more is a good thing. Right now I have a file with nothing but the maneuvers block so I can cut/paste that over what the sheet spits out. It's faster and easier to replace the entire section than just that one 1/3. I could also add 1/3 to the autocorrect but it would be safer and easier to just do it by hand. We don't have many 1/3s on a character sheet and I wouldn't want my 1 PD, 3 rPD of 1/3 to end up as a fraction.

42 minutes ago, HeroGM said:

What are you using to read the RTF file into? Word?

Yes.

I was afraid of this. I will dig into Regex and take a look. This is a back burner project at this point. I have my Export Format exactly as I want it and am very happy so these were all Quality of Life Improvements. If I just have to fix the 1/3 on MoveBy by hand, that is not so bad, and I can always do the movement by hand. That list is short enough that I shouldn't have too much problem making those edits after the fact until I have the spare time to really dig into Regex.

I don't necessarily JUST need Sight/Hearing Flash DEF. I was just zeroing in on those because those are the most common and adding two fields sounded easier (initially) that all six. I would be perfectly happy spitting out ALL the Flash Defs. Would that be less complex?

I am not, necessarily, looking for help from any specific person but more like an, in general, request for assistance with Export Formats. There are a couple of things I would LIKE to do with EFs. All of these issues I can edit the RTF after exporting and tweak what I need, but then I end up with a checklist of changes and stuff gets forgotten and missed. I am hoping to make this an Export and Run affair. I've been playing with them for the past six weeks or so and I have gotten them really close to what I want (even if I don't necessarily understand how everything specifically works. I know enough XML to follow along and get the general idea if not understanding every particular phrase; I would be open to a "Learn XML to RTF in 20 Days" suggestion!

Flash Defense: It would be helpful if Sight and Hearing Flash DEF could be put out on the sheets. I know there is an IF_DEFENSE container, but I don't know enough of how Flash Def is stored to use it. I would imagine there is some kind of OPTION="SIGHTGROUP" that would need to be worked in someplace. I know that Flash Def was pulled because it was too hinky with how it could be purchased (eg Flash Def, Resistant Protection, etc). I just have no way to judge if it is, at all, worth the effort to put into it to try and get it included on the sheet. I am going back and forth on whether esoteric defenses even really need to be on the sheet at all (well, I mean in Powers yes but listed separately out in a DEFENSES section).

Movement: I totally agree with the decision to move from purchasing inches of movement to meters. My problem is that with new players, that can be very confusing to do the math at the table. I want to use MATH to do the calculation but it appears that the unit (ie m) is built into the field. If I try to math it, I just get back a -1, because I think I am trying to MATH a non-numeric field. I don't want to change the power build. I am still perfectly ok with purchasing and displaying the power as 24m of Running, but on the Characteristics Block I would like it to say 12" instead of 24m. I'm not even sure that is possible and I may just have to adjust that myself.

I'm trying to do a REG_REPLACE for 1/3 to the fraction version and am having problems. 1/4 (00BC), 1/2 (00BD), and 3/4 (00BE) are in there already as their two digit counterparts dropping the initial 00. But the code for 1/3 (2153) and it is only accepting a two digit code. Again, I can easily edit this, but it's one more thing to keep my hands on.

Thanks!

On 8/3/2022 at 2:38 PM, mattingly said:

Stop by Indie Press Revolution to see Jason and Tina.

 

I didn't see this until just now. DAMNIT!

On 8/1/2022 at 6:38 PM, Took said:

I'll be there, is Hero Games having an official presence?

I looked at the board today and Heeo Games was not listed.