Fantastic New Dice Roller Options

[Alvorn]

Hi All,

The great folks over at Crystalball Software ( http://www.crystalballsoft.com/ ) have just released vs 2 of CBLite ( for Mac and Windows) the most advanced dice rolling program I have ever used.
But why would I need a dice rolling program, I have dice I can just roll them. Well heres a list of the features.....

• Powerful Dice Roller Engine:
  Send Dice rolls over the internet/network to other CBlite users!
  Quick and user friendly dice rolling syntax
  Roll any number of dice with any number of sides
  Roll sets of dice
  Drop the lowest rolls or sets
  Use math in your dice rolls (+ - * / ^ %)
  Force rolls to roll LESS THAN or GREATER THAN a certain number
  Use Conditionals! (IF...THEN...ELSE...END to control rolling.
  Play Sounds when rolling dice!
  Add comment text to dice rolls.
  Combine all these features for the best dice roller EVER!
  Dice roll result organized and color coded for easy reading.
  Example: 7[4[1d6>1]~1]~1
  Rolls 7 Sets of 4 sets of 1d6, rerolling anything less than 2, dropping the lowest of the 4, and dropping to lowest of the 7.
  Example: 4[7[4d6~1]~1]~3
  Rolls 4 sets of 7 sets of 4d6, dropping the lowest d6 from 4d6, dropping the lowest from 4d6, dropping the three lowest of 7[4d6]. This would provide character stats for a high-powered campaign.
  New Dice Roller Window with customizable buttons and the standard RPG dice.

• Dice Variables
  Reference Variables by name: $MyVariable$
  Set Variables in a roll: $MyVariable$ = 17

• Dice Sets:
  Multiple dice sets each with its own set of dice buttons and variables.
  Each dice set can have its own unique name.
  Variables and Buttons can be referenced in any dice set.

• CB - Chat
  Chat with other CBLite users.
  Send Dice rolls over the internet/network.
  Perfect for gaming sessions with far-flung friends!
  Send text and rolls privately to selected players or publicly to everyone.
  Players with GM status get special priveleges for forcing rolls and allowing others to become GMs.
  Color coded names so that messages are easily distinguished by the sender.
  Promote and Demote participants as the GM (Game Master)
  Game Masters can Force others to roll dice or reference their button and variables. (GM Forced Rolls)
  Sounds for Public and Private messages
  Send Sounds and Files to other CB-Chat participants.
  Sound volume for incomming and outgoing sounds.

• Table Rolling
  Dice Rolls can roll on Tables and Reference Table Data
  Tables can be rolled on from inside other tables.
  Self-Updating Data Files and Application

• Note Taking
  Perfect for taking character and campaign notes during game play
  Hierarchal note items to keep things organized
  Search your notes for keywords
  Take notes using standard styled text: Bold, Underline, Italic, Colors, Fonts, and Text Size
  Check off Note Items

Sorry if I sound like troll, but Im just a huge fan of the program ( and yes one of the beta testers ). It was intially aimed at the d20 system, however it now will support any system due to it inbuilt scripting and table look ups !

Anyways jump over to the website and download it (http://crystalballsoft.com/content/blogcategory/20/48/ ) . You will be impressed.

[Backgammon]

lazy link

[Alvorn]

Whoops. Thanks Backgammon.

[eidolon]

Hmm. Looks pretty securely rooted in d20 D&D. This is the failing of many of gaming software suites I run across. The ones that are nice and easy to use only support D&D 3.x, and the ones that support anything you want to play require programming knowledge and tons of time I don't have.

Fantasy Grounds just released a module that lets their product support Savage Worlds. A quick glance at their forum showed me that their user community has also made toolsets for other games.

Any idea how Crystal Ball stacks up against stuff like Fantasy Grounds, Klooge, OpenRPG, etc? I remember CB being the supposed holy grail back in the day, but it was only Mac so I never got to try it. These days, there are tons of options.

[Caine Hazen]

But DnD 4ht is all online anyway right?? Once you get all Gleemaxed up you won't need to worry about 3rd party apps... <pukes>
</sarcasm>

[Alvorn]

Yeah CrystalBall is D&D based. BUT CrystalBall Lite is just a dice roller, its system indepeandant. Its not tied to D&D in any way. You just need to implment your own systems logic with the simple scripting language and table look ups. I have it set up for characters from one of my Runequest 3rd Ed games. Im planing on making some example files ( time willing ) for basic Shadowrun and Serinity characters.

[eidolon]

I just read that as

"You just need to do way too much work to make using this worthwhile."

That's my hate-on against all of these gaming aids being put out as commercial products. "If you aren't playing d20, do it your damn self" seems to be their collective motto. Hell, it's my bitch about a bunch of the freeware ones, too, but at least they aren't charging anything for it.

We get it. d20 is ubiquitous due to good marketing. Now would somebody please acknowledge that it isn't the only game system on the planet.

As a result of this, there's next to nothing that these programs offer to a non-d20 player that you can't get another way. Die roller? How about players roll dice and tell the GM what they rolled? (If you don't trust someone, don't game with them.) Shared map? Hell, MS Netmeeting has had a shared whiteboard for years. Chat? How many IM programs are there? Exactly.

Note: this rant not directed at Alvorn or anyone else personally.

[Alvorn]

Yup understand where your coming from. The CrystalBall guys acknowledge that there are other system out there besides D&D ( I won't let them forget either ) and quite a number of sugegstions I have made to make it more generic they have willingly implemeted. Thats the other great thing about this program. If there is a feature thats not there and you would like it just request, 90% of the time they'll say "Yeah sounds great" and implement it.

Only two comments on the above rant, even with CBLite if you want to use it with d20 you still have to "Do it your dam self" as it doesn't come with any "data files".
Second is that once someone has made some data files/characters then they post it on line and you tweak it for your character and your away !

:twirl: