Well will ya look at this:
http://openrpg.wrathof.com/faq1/Complex_Dice_Rolling

Specifically look atb the bottom where it discusses, "Namespace variables". Surely this is back in 1,7,1 we're talking about for that page? "last edited 2007-03-26"



Could 1.7.1 actually do that ?!?!? Or is that a late 1.6.X ? I didn't think that could be done until 1.7.5 and even then the container node had better be a top level container node. I don't recall this at all but clearly I picked up on the name "namespace" from seeing this page at some point. Now i feel like I ought to go test to see if that works in 1.7.1

It must be very old as you can't even get [1d20 5 5] to work these days. You need it all to add up or multiply. No spaces like that.

Sadly my 1.7.1 seems to be ahving a hard time working right now for me to check up on that quickly. I don't even have any OpenRPG 1.6.X do you? not that I've seen any customers using a version that early. I wonder if some functionality was lost to a bug between 1.6.X and 1.7.1

All before my time.

Well if you'd mentioned I needed to do that I probably would have had less trouble. No wonder it didn't list alpha and beta branches before. I am -- of course -- as anyone who just unpacked the zip file would be -- presumably on the assembla "traipse" project not the "traipse_dev" project. OK so I am trying this repo update thing now but still having problems. I am wondering how many testers you have actually had if none have had such problems before.

I go to the tab called "Repos" and there is a text control there (the only one in the update manager from what I can see) so I paste in the repo url, "http://hg.assembla.com/traipse_dev" there. There is a tag saying "Current Repo List" which I suppose is meant to be a list of repos but there nothing in it. I am not sure what to do next. I try hitting the only button on the page, "New" and nothing happens. I try hitting "enter" and nothing happens. I just exit update manager (this is how to save changes in many OpenRPG dialogs sadly) and nothing happens. I open it again from the help menu ("Traipse Suite!" menu) inside the running Traipse and try again: nothing.

The list of branches remains the same (orc and goblin only) in all cases, both as listed on the updater tab when you hit "Package Select" and on the "Control" tab when you look at the drop list of branch names there. In both cases I have just ornery-orc and grumpy-goblin. How do I get to alpha or beta branches?

David .. I gave directed you to a page that explains this word for word, action for action. i would appreciate it if you would stop down talking me when you are the one making the process to be more difficult than it is.

Here is the page again.


Step for step, word for word, action for action. You inability to follow clearly defined directions is disheartening.

Alright; for some reason the "New" button was crashing when I entered the URL. So I have beta loaded now, I think. I can't get the

You know what I miss from my OpenRPG 1.8.0+dev? the ability to hit tab and have those long named node names auto-completed for me like in a Linux style command prompt. Anyway.... typing in "Behir (Example Sheet)" by hand...

I can get the full global path reference (the feature you claim you don't have anymore) to work still, but the one name reference doesn't find "HD" in the Behir if I type in !@HD@!. Nor can I find it using the !!...!! notation. Is there some trick here? I tried saving the tree and exiting and re-entering OpenRPG. I added "HD is equal to !!Details::HD!!" to the end of the Combat Ingo node and that should have found the HD, right? I also tried it with just, "HD is equal to !!HD!!". No luck.

Do you have an example character sheet node?

You don't put a URL in the entry by the new button, that is a Name entry. It even says name right beside it. Then you enter the URL into the URL entry after you have created a new spot.

You don't use !! .. !! or !# .. #! in chat. They are used directly in the nodes.

Yes. Load a new features node and then load the 4e PC Sheet. A 3.5 Sheet is in the works.

I see that Python 2.5 has a tripple operator... sort of. It was easy to add it to the simple arithmetic regex so that my nodes now support functions like:

Bonus applied to Jump skill:


And this calculation of the bonus to Hide from your Size modifier to AC.


The latter would be nicer with a dictionary but that won't be compatible with OpenRPG's syntax for dierollers. Probably we need a new node type purely for a value being referenced elsewhere (never sent to chat or evaluated for die rollers or filters). This node would support (at least) full evals.

Still, supporting min(,) max(,) and the new "x if y else x" syntax adds a lot of flexibility.

I suppose skill synergies (here for Diplomacy) is a more obvious application:

Well I figured out what was going wrong. Your references only work from inside a use dialog. I never use use dialogs. I always right-click "send to chat" on the tree controll or else I type it into chat or use a mini right-click menu. So people have a lot of options increasingly... at least in OpenRPG 1.8.0+ dev. I guess in yours the have less options because I am sure references used to work from the tree control since way back. There has to be a common answer when the node is asked what its value is regardless of how it is asked or you are hooking things like the mini right-click menu stuff to a specific reference system. And there really is little need to do that.

I do like the fact that you updated the User Manual. Have yet to check out what you actually said but I'll probably grab some of that. The reference thing is kind of cute but I am leaning against it right now because I tend to think the people who write the character sheets probably have more going for them and can figure it out, especially as in OpenRPG 1.8.0+ dev it's easy to work out to begin with. I think I am definitely going to have to have the ability to access a cell but I am leaning towards doing it by referencing the row first in the usual way and then the column number. So your references to strength would be !@Strength::3@! not !@Abilities::(1,3)@! but I need to think of a better syntax because OpenRPG 1.8.0+ dev still supports one word references (they're so easy!) just like 1.7.1 had. And its much nicer to refer to Strength as just !@Strength@! You don't need a pop-up dialog to help you figure out how to write out !@Strength@!. If you go adding that number on the end it won't look like a one-word reference any more. Of course in OpenRPG 1.8.0+ dev you can get away without a column number with the assumption that column 2 is what you want each time. ie it's the default.

I suppose I am trying to avoid killing some hypothetical character sheet with some whacky node names that have special characters in them and so I am reluctant to introduce new notations as you have to include arrays and even die rollers within the path of a reference. The dieroller notation especially would mean you couldn't have a name with [.......] in it which I would think not that unlikely to happen out there.

You know it is a shame we didn't co-ordinate more on how we went about adding stuff because it looks like there's a lot of work we've done at cross-purposes.

No worries david. The 3.5e sheet that is being crafted is looking very nice. The sheets will rely more on using lists to spit out the out put then they will rely on chat. We both have the same goal, I have mentioned that before, but we differ on the process being taken to reach that goal.

I am happy with the reference system, and the beta testers are really excited about the beta going stable. So .. with that in mind I am happy to keep the referencing system in Traipse the way it is.

I do find that your system, while it has some nice features, is going to be really hard to use. The way I keep seeing it is: If I have two PC Sheets and they both have a node called Str, then using !@Str@! to get the data will cause a conflict unless I A) Index one and un-Index the other, or B) Namespace one.

With a type of system like that I think context sensitivity is all but ruined. You are not really looking at a context sensitive node any more, you are looking at a global reference and your correction is to remove the conflicts from the line of sight. When it comes to players with one character I think your system is going to work, but when it comes to a GM who has 15 NPCs, all with different stats, your system is going to be a head ache for the GM.

You can see one more reason why I like my system a lot better. Even though the code admittedly could be cleaner .. I can have any number of Kobold sheets cloned and I can just choose their attack roll from the list inside their sheet and not worry about conflicts.

The PC Sheets for the Traipse Game Tree are turning more into a spread sheet. When you reference data in a spread sheet you use the Cell Number (A1 or whatever). When we reference data from a different sheet, we use that sheets name in the reference. Your sheet is very specific, and I don't like that.

Well in the live sessions I play the users have 8-10 PC sheets each so I am coming at this entirely from a multi-PC sheet perspective. I assumed the main difference was that you are not.

Actually what sort of live campaign do you currently play in?

The approach of putting up the Use dialog and sending to chat through that interface works best I would think for when you have just one PC. It doesn't work for me as I'd have to have up eight of those dialogs. That's why mini context menus and typing into chat with the alias list specifying context works so well for me. I actually use this stuff in play. As a last resort I'll scroll down the tree control but the very last thing I'd ever do would be open up a big Use dialog. I partially open up a Use dialog by double clicking on a mini but that gets only a subset of the nodes so it's pretty quick.



Well duh. Of course you namespace both of them to get it to work. It's one click. That's part of setting up the character sheet. If you don't set it up it won't work. That's hardly a valid criticism.

I can possibly see a use for some limited locality at a lower level than the entire namespace. That would be if you constructed your charactersheet from self-similar parts repeated with a small change such as if you had a structure like this for skills:



But I think with the grids working so much better now people are going to want to use the grid instead of that sort of approach. Grids are easier to edit and display. More compact.

I do feel I have neglected the Use dialog though and apparently you use it for your sessions. It might be a better division of labor if you try and get the Use dialogs working as best you can i handle the rest of the interfaces.

Of hand for example it would be nice if when you click through the tabs of a tabber and each tab is similar, say for instance they were tabs representing each PC sheet within a container called "the party", it would be nice if when you click on the next tab, you display the same part of the character sheet for the new PC that you were just looking at on the old.

Also sometimes for long lists a tabber or splitter is not appropriate and a container node that had a drop list consisting of the names of all its children nodes and then displayed only the child that was selected would fit better. Really I don't know why there is more than one container node right now because you could just have one radio button specify what type of container it was for Use dialog display purposes. In addition to the "list" option explained above perhaps a container that doesn't display any of its children (for hiding calculations nodes). Another type of container might have an "action" button that is sent to all its children such as resetting resource nodes.

Another Use dialog feature might be to have UI checkboxes relaying information to a variety of die rollers such as attack rolls that take account of a check box for "charging" or skill rolls that take account of a radio box saying "normal / take ten / take twenty".

I think I do like (in some cases) the container nodes having their children shown in the "Designer" dialog.

Or you could do more documentation? But your reference system is a long way behind mine I think if you plan to get any bonuses added to it. That's really important for D&D. Don't know about the other systems so much.