(TFT) TFT Battle tools.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi David,
  I have an active TFT group, so we play out our Battles live.

  However, if you are thinking of useful TFT utilities, a simple
system that can have the PC's entered into it and then their
enemies and say if it will be a close battle would be useful
to me.


  Warm regards, Rick.



On 2015-11-19, at 9:41 PM, David Bofinger wrote:

> Perhaps instead of writing a program that conducts hundreds of consecutive
> TFT battles, maybe I should have written one that generates text, like it
> seems Jay has.
> 
> I'm thinking to be fun the program needs interactivity. That means two
> things:
> 
> * Conversion to JavaScript and a Web interface.
> 
> * Some degree of human input: e.g. The ability to directly control one
> character.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> --
> David
> On 20/11/2015 1:53 PM, "Jay Carlisle" <maou.tsaou@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Can it do football?
>> A turring test I use to feel out flow.
>> 5 second turns are awkward from a game view where the roll to hit
>> feels like a specific swing even though it's undefined injury hp's and
>> it's hard to make that clear which is important as the gametools are
>> about detailing so players aren't in different realms with abstract
>> terms imaginatively speaking. Players need to agree on visualization
>> in a shared creative experience or the different ideas of what
>> fireball is can make for messy oops when the difference pops up four
>> sessions into play and NOW find it's a baseball not AD&D PH flash fire
>> of fumes filling lots more volume.
>> I also added athletics and got rid of abstract injury counting fatigue
>> in hp and have 1 second phase turns so literally mean football but I'm
>> Me and ditched GM's in favor of setting up objective sandbox environs
>> that can't have player above all other players plop nether region poop
>> at will into play instead striving for a design anytime but in play
>> attempt at objectivity elseif I'd box My personality and push that
>> instead of trying to make a game. Call it D&D but it's not the same
>> thing if everybody plays so different that houserules define a
>> specific table set up to whatever format quarter inch graph here 5 sq
>> per inch there and papertape movement the other. My designs should fit
>> all tables playing said game elseif top of the table is basically
>> nerfed into decoration rather than encouraged and collected for use of
>> the community.
>> IMHO of course... I think rules lawyers irked GG so bad He over
>> reacted. To much questioning was the claim but read that hot mess and
>> piss poor publishing and editing makes questioning necessary sooooo
>> piss on a meta player back to a table of equals and if You wanna tell
>> a story write a book but plotting game makes play pointless like so
>> many button presses between cut scene unaffected by play at all...
>> Play to the mediums strengths not mimic another mediums pidgin...
>> poorly. Gameplay implies fairness and impactive participation not
>> personal whim and wing it but say it's got depth like lost or x files.
>> Depth requires design and can't be hidden long by pretty drawings or
>> similar distractions. Improv ain't gonna script Adaptation and
>> whatever the market model is these days is better termed paticaptory
>> fiction or somesuch not trying to invalidate what can work fine as
>> entertainment... maybe the point after justifying what the hell one
>> spent ones adult life mucking about with a game shame that might be
>> showing a tiny bit but not heavy on fairness, effect of a given player
>> on actual plot or tiny details like how many gp's are in circulation
>> or where the "Orc's" (half-orc means race not monster... shameful fail
>> to find any tinge to kill and loot to progress period and wargames saw
>> My slap happy ass in 82nd cause the conflict was framed as fun and the
>> rest wasn't even hinted as downsides which doesn't have to be preached
>> but I ain't making recruitment propaganda for pax americana so war can
>> cause more problems than it corrects... kills... whatever) come from
>> before the left turn out GMs ass and how many ass orcs does that clown
>> car caboose hold? Stories can skip what isn't pert but Players pop
>> quantum wave functions in gameworlds same as realworld just asking
>> questions and winging actual figures can come back quick to bite
>> storytellers but ignoring Player questions is... well I find it awful
>> art as well as evidence of a group to bid g'day too if not intent on
>> usurp the gimp GM's GURP's group which is a dick move in itself but I
>> hate stupid murder porn so primetime tv is not on My radar as I could
>> care less about hurting murder porns feelings and storytelling GM's
>> get little better if trying to bully ME. Bitch this is MY HOUSE and
>> has been for 40 years now so You go do You but I ain't got time to
>> stroke ego's with nada but bravado backing it. Most GM's know how to
>> barter with implied suggestions so My scathing MINE'S BIGGER bs has
>> only issued forth a few times for idiots trying to authority ME like I
>> don't have authority issues or hands on experience and no gut from
>> devoting Myself to hedgefund management instead of game as art ramen
>> and a temper about MY subject. Y'all's too, ownership isn't exclusive
>> here but starting with pathfinder ain't cred likely to correct or make
>> dps seem like a good metric for tabletop when trying to trump My
>> Bunnies and Burrows ace in the hole kid. You like it? Valid but not an
>> objective argument for superior mechanic and certainly not necessary
>> for all RPG's (while bitchin bout no GM too... picky kid who won't eat
>> but one thing) but design is a bitchgoddes that promptly throws You
>> under the bus when critique or complaints bandy about somehow prior to
>> publication because game is like god... all good till a question or
>> two is asked and god isn't unifing no more and game becomes taste. MY
>> subject. If I wasn't stupid or arrogant I'd not be here so sue Me... I
>> try to empower Players to play the game they want rather than suffer
>> illusions of ownership without falling away into homebrew hinterlands
>> localized out of any formal relation past title and with an eye toward
>> besting what is to a final form rather than market releases to drive
>> profit but ditch rules to sell copy making each edition a different
>> game which has no reason to do much at all as it's throw away in half
>> a decade and not striving for the best expression at all because
>> Players are to be milked of all monies possible not served ones best
>> to a community of fellows trusting the rest to follow. Why make the
>> best make believe possible when no ones paying You? Because no one
>> else would. Game is what had market success not mythmaking and
>> mythologizing creatively instead of just buying the party line like
>> You can't tweak the story to suit. Civilization as escalator of upward
>> progress bs ignoring how horrible We are at it. Humans as multicelled
>> community organisms not individuals consisting of the waking ego and a
>> reflex or two who can't survive alone being fundemental to a
>> harmonious view of existance instead of trying to fix a gender pay gap
>> that doesn't exist because heard it on tv is as good as saw it on tv
>> as proof of anything. Everyone knows aluminum leave a loony tunes
>> cyote shaped hold hitting steel reinforced concreate. Equal and
>> opposite does just that and is probably what David Copperfield used
>> making the statue of liberty disappear which I saw only trumped by
>> expert testamony and a computer model as conclusive evidence that the
>> popular rags ain't worth paper to wipe the jericurl left by all those
>> exiting ass-orcs balance like AI is "computer players cheat" and poor
>> fits for actual game. Got a lucky crit streak? Watch the extra
>> ass-orcs make the fight longer to suit the GM. I try plucking fair
>> outta there and leave the story to the sumation but I got weird ideas
>> about playable non-combat characters and constructive play options to
>> advance to contrast destructive play. King's are not playable unless
>> You count the kingdom but why put populations instead of nothing and
>> npcs following the orc route which I wouldn't rule either... I don't
>> even use two moons or babble names for common concepts or even not
>> Earth as objective example which is stupid of Me because everyone can
>> ID a 20 mile box of area as specifically here not there while driving
>> perfectly farting cherry blossom fresh stink to and subjective
>> objective examples are where ass people are pulled from.
>> Fantasy is not about small considered changes to existing knowns but
>> about drawing a locational map and babble names and ignoring existing
>> norms while using them ergo Middle Earth is Earth normal gravity or
>> Legolas's bow needs lots o splainin like bullets on Mars if bothering
>> to go past space opera there will be no math in THIS game dictum more
>> than description. I try to explain a frame past what Players should
>> ever access to cover clever girls dropping My concept by designing
>> deep magic say not buzz wording it like a full concept. Magic is often
>> meh to unformed conceptually much less deep magic. Lilly guilding
>> again rather than claiming loose conception pretending to depth that
>> ain't never been there. Lore before game is horse pullin by cart. Game
>> plays lore is told. Like putting everything in a digital RPG as code
>> for no reason other than fixation forgetting playing to strength
>> options code can't carry. The touch table plant is in My neck o the
>> woods and worth consideration untill sales numbers show if the ground
>> is fallow but if so We have table experience others lack and can't
>> implement if not locked into code period like game must have story
>> because xbox not Atari2600 roots and I can rant a LONG TIME here but
>> think I finally got win10 malware nuked and can use My gumped machine
>> to play nice with the other boys and girls I'm looking to convert this
>> with for Jay purposes and residual info that may help if reported back
>> sooooooo Jay shuts up... amazing even Me. Jay Joyce was a rotten
>> method for Me to mimic and learning to sortta type at 50/60wpm or more
>> made Me dangerous able to rant ad nausium and type what I think which
>> is worse than just posting nudie pics at the list which is just...
>> well not what I'd want to communicate to something I consider a
>> personal treasure so Jay's jewels are a TFT teabag of some awful awful
>> tea.
>> Yet that's what comes of My trickle of cluelessness coupled with the
>> competence compulsive failure forces from a Universe fed up with
>> trying to signal a stupid soul engaged in stupid... the asylum becomes
>> the inmates domain and... THIS!
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 1:26 PM, David Bofinger
>> <bofinger.david@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Cris:
>>>> If it's random, then you have a simulator, right?
>>> 
>>> Yes, that's the point of the project.
>>> 
>>>> There must be some decent AI, too?
>>> 
>>> Of course. Brilliant AI. That the heroes and monsters just scream and
>> leap
>>> without a thought for tactics or survival? I must have wanted it to
>> happen
>>> that way.
>>> 
>>> Seriously, the AI it has now is pretty basic. They just run at each other
>>> and they don't even think about where their friends are. Though they
>> think
>>> a little harder about their facing. Sometimes they feel so happy with
>> their
>>> back against a wall that they stay out of the fight for a turn or two.
>>> Better AI would be a possibility but it sounds hard and I don't know if
>> it
>>> would make the program any more fun.
>>> 
>>> I just added terrain: random groups of blocked hexes. And logic to stop a
>>> battle if the two sides find themselves isolated. :-)
>>> 
>>> That's a good question: what *would* make this more fun?
>>> 
>>>> What language did you write it in?
>>> 
>>> It's Java. Very bad Java. I didn't think before I started typing. For
>>> instance: in retrospect the hex map should have made less use of
>> Cartesian
>>> coordinates and more of arrays of neighbours.
>>> 
>>>> Will you make it open source (put it on Github)?
>>> 
>>> I think for the moment if anyone wants it they can ask me and I'll mail.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for mailing me privately about methods of displaying hexes but
>>> really displaying the hexes is the easy part and I'm not going to change
>> it
>>> now. Unless this is somehow relevant to converting it to a web app, which
>>> might be a very good idea. Converting to Javascript should be easy,
>>> shouldn't it?
>>> 
>>> Greg:
>>>> Do the blue guys always win?
>>> 
>>> Not in general, there's the occasional total party kill. But there might
>>> not be one in the battles I put up, I didn't check.
>>> 
>>> The program adjusts the strength of monsters after every fight to get an
>>> average of 50 points of pain for the characters each battle. One dead
>>> character is 50 points, and one point of damage on a character is 1
>> point.
>>> 
>>> Each battle the number of characters gets randomly chosen. If there's too
>>> many some get benched for a battle. If there's not enough some new ones
>> get
>>> made. Characters accumulate experience and each time they get a level
>> they
>>> have a 50% chance of increasing ST (perhaps with a change of weapon) and
>>> 50% of increasing DX. Then they might change their armour and/or shield.
>>> 
>>>> The animation was a little fast for me to see what was going on
>>>> at first.  Maybe added a speed setting or a scrubber bar so that you
>> can
>>>> go back to see what happened.
>>> 
>>> The program makes a sequence of PNG images, which I turned into a GIF
>>> animation using VirtualDub. I read on the web it makes small GIF files,
>>> which seemed important. I also tried FFMPEG but didn't have much luck:
>> got
>>> it to work once but the file was huge and then I changed settings and it
>>> never worked again. :-( I could certainly slow the animation down, but I
>>> don't know how to do speed settings. It's annoying that browsers, etc.,
>>> don't let you change speed. Anyone got any thoughts?
>>> 
>>> Marc:
>>>> how it compares with Lloyd's simulator?
>>> 
>>> There are many duel simulators but I haven't seen any other skirmish
>>> simulators.
>>> 
>>> Thomas:
>>>> If your map allowed for entering turns/tokens in a simple
>>>> format then displayed the map with movements/facings/attacks
>>>> from a simple text input it would save a lot of time in that regard.
>>> 
>>> If you want the code I'll send it but I think you'll getting nicer
>> results
>>> from a simple drawing package.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> David
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 20 November 2015 at 02:23, Greg Thorne <Greg.Thorne@sas.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Very cool.  The animation was a little fast for me to see what was
>> going on
>>>> at first.  Do the blue guys always win?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Very Cool!  The animation was a little fast for me to see what was
>> going on
>>>> at first.  Maybe added a speed setting or a scrubber bar so that you
>> can g
>>>> o back to see what happened.
>>>> 
>>>> Question:  Do the blue guys always win?
>>>> 
>>>> -Greg Thorne
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Nov 18, 2015, at 11:58 PM, David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com
>>>> <mail
>>>> to:bofinger.david@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I wrote code to generate animations like this, and I'm interested in
>>>> people's thoughts.
>>>> 
>>>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kf98b1vtng46nh/tftbattles.gif?dl
>>>> It has a lot of the Advanced Melee rules, some of them approximated,
>>>> twenty-eight character templates, thirty-one simplified monster
>>>> definitions. No wizards, no missiles weapons (wouldn't be that hard to
>> add
>>>> but might not be much fun), no tactics much other than "Charge!" Tell me
>>>> what you think.
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> David
>>>> 
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>>> 
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