Greetings Dumpshockers,

Over the last month or so I've been putting together a large database site that can maintain information for game masters running shadowrun games on the internet. I've been using it for my online games (the Mafia Affair and Beginner's Luck) and it's been fantastic.

Before I wrote the system, I was emailing myself information about combat phases, matrix security triggers, NPCs, etc. Now, however, with the database I've been able to automate a good portion of what I used to do with emails or slips of paper in my wallet.

I hope that I can also help other GMs here on the boards. I've currently got two other GMs using the system, but I'd love to see others jump on board, too. So, if you're interested in checking out the system, head over to the Dashifen Character Record System and see what's available. If you want to sign up, then you can use the link with that name.

The site requires JavaScript be activated and the Macromedia Flash Player 7. I'm still working on the layout and concider everything the be in a testing phase -- probably somewhere around version 0.4 for you CVS types . I think everythings working right now, but I just renamed a few of the things in the database so it might break suddenly.

If you come upon bugs and that sort of thing, then please post them below. I'll watch the thread to know what I need to work on. Feature requests, stuff like that is all good, too.

For those of you who wanted to see more of my group maker and the ally spirit creator, I'm going to make them available on this site in the future .... I promise!!

Thanks for checking it out,
-- Dash --

Looks good... If only I could sign-in...

Lilt used an apostrophe in his password -- not sure if that was the issue or not, but for now, avoid that and I'll look into it

Was able to log in. But the site dies when I update combat info

That feature isn't working yet according to the notes.

This will be awsome when fully functional, Dashifen.

I agree. I think once it's up and working, DSF should help host it.
One Idea, I'm sure you'v already had is including a web based version of the NSRCG so someone could generate their character completely online and store it for thier GM to see.

I think just having it import the XML would be asking a lot /grin/

But I don't use the xml version

Eh? NSRCG can export character sheets in an XML file format... XML is nice because it can be interchanged...

I couldn't get the damage monitor to work either...

But, but, but, I didn't get to see that poll...

hehe

Btw, glad to be of service, lemme know when you want someone to break it again.

Cool. I can log-in now. Looks like a top-class site. I can't wait to see it when everything is working.

I think that most of the record systems are working, it's just the generators that aren't. There's a bug in the combat stuff somewhere that Nikoli found, but I can't replicate it, yet.

I broke it. While re-working the directory structure to make it more clear (I was forgetting where I put things) I broke some of the redirections. Not all of them, but some. Let me know if you hit any HTTP 404 errors. Thanks!

In the individual charatcer record, I have no boxes for damage (clicking "Heal All" does not create any after refresh either). So I clicked "Edit this character" and got this:

http://www.dashifen.com/dcrs/content/datab....php?game_id=12

hrm ... interesting -- I reworked the directory structur and renamed the GMs folder to gamemasters because I was having issues with the capital letters in early builds of Mozilla firebird. Then I noticed I could update it *blush*. I know now, thought, that you can't move folders in Dreamweaver when you're utilizing php and the header() function because it doesn't update the redirections. Give me about a day and I should have everything linked up again.

BTW: current project after getting it running again is the ally spirit generator.

One idea would be to include some form of success storage for a character's sustained spells. This would be useful especially for detection spells where the exact numbers rolled are hard to remember and can play a part.

<emeril>Bam</emeril> -- adding it to the todo list. that's a great idea, too. I never thought of it, but I think I'll add a force record as well -- that way you don't have to remember that either.

I'll try and break it tonight when I get back from looking at houses.

I think I have the spell force and successes saving correctly to the database. the interface on the spells page sucks (big time). I can hardly use it and I wrote it. So, I'll get to that Thanks for the suggestion Lilt.

Got the PC to NPC and vice versa conversions working, too.

When I try to add security to a Matrix host:
http://www.dashifen.com/dcrs/content/datab...p.php?host_id=7

rofl -- when changing security to sr3_security, I spelled security wrong. I am apparently dum . At least find and replace should knock out most of these errors.

And yeah, there's no error checking (like if you need to choose a spell but click the button before you choose a spell). But that's the fun of working with something at version 0.4.1!

Minor point:

Yeah ... combat is fooked for some reason. I can't get it to work either and it was working about two days ago because I used it. I hate when that happens. Now I have to figure out what I did in the last to days that fubar'd it.

Dash, need any help on the xslt for importing, or do ou already have something in mind...

-mike R.

Okay, ally spirit creator 0.8 will be up by the end of the day. No nice printing yet, though, that requires some extra manipulations. Runs in flash, so if you modem users could let me know how quickly it loads, I'd appreciate it.

Also, combat seems to be working again. Found out what I did -- I removed the initiative input box from NPCs because the computer can no roll your initiatives for you and calculates initiative changes due to wounds during a combat turn. So, no need for the input box. However, I still needed the information that was in the box to be sent to the process that updates your initiative and combat pool usage. Without the box, no information was sent and the query explodes.

But, long story shorter, it's fixed (I think). Let me know when you break it again

Ally Spirit Creator

Not all the tab order works (that controls which item on the screen is next when you click the tab button) so if you rely on the keyboard, then you'll need to use the mouse sometimes. As far as I can tell, it calculates karma cost correctly. Take a peak at it and let me know what you think.

-- Dash --

When I tried to go from my game to Generator to Ally Spirit.
http://www.dashifen.com/dcrs/content/gener...lly/stepOne.php

This is an issue because a lot of browsers (read anything that shows objects usually) cache data on your computer for faster load times. This includes the flash file and xml file that run the menu.

Try refreshing so your browser downloads the newest XML file that runs the flash menu. That usually works. If not, try holding the shift key which also forces the computer to download from the server rather than loading objects from the cache.

Undfortunately, there's nothing that I can do for that problem from here without re-working the structure to include a new flash menu which would force your browser to download the new file. We all saw how well that worked last time

The editting of character's spells is down for the time being. I'm reworking the page to make things much easier to use (hopefully) as well as taking Lilts suggestions to heart and making it more user-entry driven rather than database-table driven. I'll post when I've made the update.

Edit: This will also impact the character record that players and GMs see.

Dash, very cool. I can't use it for my games in progress, but when I start my next game, and every game after that, I will.

Spells are back up and the character record is working again. Check it out. I like it but it requires Macromedia Flash to run. Now back to the ally spirit generator to make it print nice and make the tab ordering work better.

You can now print your ally spirits!!

Next step: group maker

Added Lilts suggestions to the Ally Generator -- now the free spell concept actually works and you astral reaction is correctly added. Also, I threw a preloader onto the front of it, but I'm not sure if it's working because I'm on a broadband connection so it seems to load in a moment anyway. If anyone can let me know about that, I'd appreciate it.

Made a change to the combat system -- it wasn't saving combat information about characters since March 17 for some reason. Made changes so that it would now save combat information for new character (seemed like this would be important, no?).

Enjoy!

More comments from Shadow resulting in a better working combat system --- well a working combat system that is It will now correctly store your used combat pool and altered initiatives for PCs

Some new features: added a dice roller (becuase I needed it and thought others might , too). Tested it at rolling 10,000 dice and it finished in a few secodns (whee!). Also, updated the players pages so that all the GMs don't appear in one long list. Now you just click the letter of the GM you want (that starts their name) and it shows you only those GMs. Makes it a little easier and a little faster, but adds one click. Let me know if you think that sucks.

I also added a more interesting "PLAYERS CLICK HERE" graphic on the homepage.

Still working on the NPC group generator. I've got statistics working pretty well but I'm a little stumped on how to load up random pieces of gear, spells, armor, and cyberware. The C++ version I wrote used the database and stored all the info there, but I'm not sure if that's worth it for this one.

Any thoughts on that?

First, on the NPC generator: Why Random? Can you make a series of NPC's called Street Sam. Each one is equipped with different gear. When you click the button you get one of them. Same for each archetype. I am not sure if that's possible but it seems like it would work. And if you did a big enough number (say 5-10) it would seem random.

Suggestion:

Can you make a stat block for the players? All the primary statistics, skills, etc? And make it so the player can enter the information themselves? If we had this, once a player was accepted into the game, we could tell them to go enter their character. It would give us an easy resource to check, plus it would eliminate discrepancies. I think it would also help people who are at work, and would like to post, but don't have access to there characters (for some reason not everyone tattoos characters on there arms).

I think it would be really neat if we could somehow upload Sr3 files into the DCRS... but that may be a pipe dream.