Re: (TFT) Animated TFT Battles

[Geof Gibson <geofgibson@mac.com>]

Along these lines, I'll just throw out that I have written a Java app. which generates random player stats, with some controls and generates complete, random monsters.
It is currently written around basic Melee.  No wizards or magic stuff.
What it does give is the basics of data structures for players and monsters and data on weapons.  It is written object oriented so the classes could easily be adapted and methods added to create an AI player,  which is something I had been thinking of doing.

If anyone has interest I can create a github for it or email code.

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 19, 2015, at 22:24, Thomas Fulmer <tfulmer1@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'd play advanced Melee rounds against a computer from time to time...seems
> like it would be good practice.
> 
> --Thomas
> 
> On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 12:46 AM David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>
> 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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