RMB Dice Roller?

[TheOrc]

Hi

I tried to find if this topic was raised before. Probably but I couldn't see anything? (sorry)

I wonder if it is possible to integrate a RMB Dice Roller for roleplays?

A simple example would be:
[roll]1d6[/roll] codes for rolling a 6 sided die and can result in the values 1,2,3,4,5,or 6.

Also more complicated operations like 4d6kh3 which would be four rolls of a six sided die, while 'kh3' means 'keep highest three' and dump lowest result. etc

There are many examples on forums with Dungeons and Dragons roleplay.

Thanks
Orc

[Frisbeeteria]

There are far more people non-roleplay RMB users than roleplayers, so such an addition would serve no purpose on the vast majority of RMBs. Besides, NS roleplay is more about storytelling than dice rolling. If you need dice, there are plenty of sites and apps that can give you random numbers.

Given that this has come up only once before since these forums were created in 2009, I'm not seeing a ton of demand.

[Tessen]

You know, actually.... this isn't a bad idea. Yes. it would only appeal to the roleplayers, however, as NS has become a hotspot for national roleplaying, it seems like a fair option. Those who don't use NS to roleplay can just ignor the feature.

It would be nice too, to have a forum-official record of the dice roll as well. That removes the opportunity to cheat the dice rolls.

As the director of a multi-region roleplaying story here on NS, I support this suggestion.

[TheOrc]

I see the point that almost nobody was asking for. But I myself just learned like a month ago that those things are possible at all... Maybe other players are just not aware, too. Or maybe they switch to other game sites, where it is possible (I kind of did the latter).

I would strongly assume, if you offer it to the people, some would start using it. I haven't checked how many people really wanted to have this [sub] and [sup] formatting but now it is used... in like 0.0001% of the posts, I guess. but that's already cool. It makes a few players happy.

Maybe it would be a huge programming effort etc? But if not, just consider to donate it to the players interested. Maybe new kind of roleplays will enrich NationStates RMBs. It won't harm at all.

[[violet]]

What do you do about people who edit their post when they don't get the dice roll they wanted?

[Canton Empire]

What do you do about people who edit their post when they don't get the dice roll they wanted?

Make it impossible to do?

[[violet]]

How? You mean like if you try to edit/delete a post, it scans for any dice roll macros, and if there are any, you're not allowed to proceed?

[Eluvatar]

How? You mean like if you try to edit/delete a post, it scans for any dice roll macros, and if there are any, you're not allowed to proceed?

Clearly the solution would be that the seed to the roll is the post ID number

[[violet]]

Does that help? E.g. I post "If I roll a 6, I win," then post "[1d6]", don't like the rolled result, so delete the post or change it to something innocuous ("Here it comes..."), repeat until I get a 6.

Or I edit my first post to, "If I roll a <whatever actually came up>, I win."

[Reploid Productions]

What if a dice roll isn't attached to a regular RMB post, but shows up in the region's activity feed or something, "So-and-so rolled an X-side dice: result Y", where it couldn't be edited and reroll attempts would be obvious?

[TheOrc]

Personally I think a very simple version without any cheat prevention is a nice tool already.

Regarding Roleplay, the Roleplay master can define simple rules like: a post with a dice roll should never get edited. If a lot of edited posts appear before a roll, it is at least suspicious.

Cheat-proved would be better, of course.

I don't know how sophisticated that all can be, maybe a bit of trusting others is part of it.

I don't have the understanding for those things, but those other sites have a system that makes it at least not super easy to cheat.

Definitely the result of the dice roll doesn't automatically(!) change when quoted or when the post is edited. And each roll seems to have a ID number.

I hope it is okay to post links to forums with dice rollers? see spoiler

click rpgcrossing forum

click giantitp forum

I can try to gather more info from there, how it actually works, but I don't have any coding background etc. (Also it might take long time until I'm back with it).

Thanks for consider the dice roller. Actually I have reached my aim already by making you think about its feasibility. Thanks! : )


EDIT:

A more direct link regarding cheat proof:

click rpgcrossing

But I have overlooked Reploid Productions suggestion, which sound like THE solution but like a big thing to me. I just as ask not to ditch any simple dice roller plans, just because the cheat proved one is too much of a project.

[Tessen]

I agree with the comment that a simple way to determine dice roll cheating is by whether the post was edited or not. Since RMB posts now automatically feature an edited tag, if the dice roll results post was edited, you'll know that someone may have been trying to cheat the roll.

Of course, if there's a way to prohibit editing altogether, that works too.

[Tessen]

Or, hey.... perhaps you could make the dice roll option on the RMB be something that only the region founder has, and he can grant that power to determine dice rolls to the WA delegate, or another regional officer. Then it becomes a limited control feature, and it's up to the region to determine who would be trustworthy enough to fill the position -- and it expands the RO feature a bit as well.

[The Stalker]

Seems like a fun idea!

One way to have work around for the editing issue is to include it how the like feature is. So after posting the post, have the dice roll results noted next to the likes.

If you edit a post of yours that someone has liked it remains liked I believe. Same idea.

[USS Monitor]

What about having the dice roll results show up as a separate auto-generated RMB post that nobody can edit? Like you know how mod posts say they are from "NationStates Moderators" and it's in yellow instead of looking like a normal nation name? Dice rolls could generate something similar that says it's from "Die Roll," and then the body of the post would be "[Nation] rolled [dice] and got a [number]," e.g. "USS Monitor rolled 1d6 and got a 2." Maybe use a different color instead of the yellow that we use for "NationStates Moderators," like blue or something.

No clue how difficult it would be to code, but it would be a nice feature for people who like that style of RPG, and it would not have any effect on the rest of us.

[[violet]]

If the dice roll idea requires a fundamental rewrite of how posting works, with changes to the editing system, permissions of who can modify what, and display changes, on top of the actual macro, I'm unlikely to implement it. That's too much work for a niche feature.

The simple dice-rolling macro looks fun and reasonably achievable, at least on gameside, but I've noticed that threads about dice rolling macros on other forums are two pages of "this is great" followed by 10-40 pages of "can this be improved to stop cheating," which makes me wary.

[Aclion]

If the dice roll idea requires a fundamental rewrite of how posting works, with changes to the editing system, permissions of who can modify what, and display changes, on top of the actual macro, I'm unlikely to implement it. That's too much work for a niche feature.

The simple dice-rolling macro looks fun and reasonably achievable, at least on gameside, but I've noticed that threads about dice rolling macros on other forums are two pages of "this is great" followed by 10-40 pages of "can this be improved to stop cheating," which makes me wary.

The typical ways of cheating are doing shit like roll 6d1 instead of of 1d6 to get a 6 every time, or editing the post repeatedly to effectively reroll the die. It's pretty easy to detect both (edit cheating since we can see that a post is edited), so the answer, I think, is "don't play with people who cheat."

[TheOrc]

Since NationStates is not a typical forum you might be able to do it better. And the RMB posting system doesn't have to be changed at all but the RMB is just for displaying the dice roll result, (similar to the way how now links to dispatches are displayed on the RMB).

How complicated is a nation specific dice roller with record and displaying its results as links on the RMB? I describe it in the spoiler below.

see spoiler:

Imagine each nation has its own dice roller and roll record. A little dice symbol on its nation page (instead or next to the challenge button) links to it (*)

When you click on the dice symbol, you reach the nation's 'dice roll record' site. If you are logged in the nation, your roll record page will also have a field to type ie. '1d6' with a button saying 'roll the dice!' next to it.

when the nation types '1d6' and clicks on 'roll the dice' the dice roll will be logged in its record with a time stamp, 1d6, and the result. Not modifiable of course.

Next to the new dice roll log it says: copy (dice roll) to RMB

When you click on 'copy to RMB' you will reach the RMB with a drafted message field containing just the link to your roll record. You either preview or directly lodge the message (or copy the link somewhere else).

If you lodge the message the link to the roll record will be shown as time stamp, 1d6, and result (or the link will show a snapshot of the dice roller record similar as links to dispatches display the upper part of a dispatch).

The Game Master and other players will now see the roll (or maybe the record of the last 5 if it is like the dispatch-link view) as link on the RMB stating time stamp, roll-type, result. Of course, clicking on the link will conveniently lead to the nation's dice roll record site if the roll history has to be checked more careful.

(see *above: Of course the dice symbol linking to the dice roller could either be located on a more hidden place or be even additionally accessible from the RMB itsef, according to demand... )


If typing [roll]1d6[/roll] on the RMB or a dispatch etc can already generate an entry in the roll log, and a link on the RMB, it would be perfect.

[[violet]]

How complicated is a nation specific dice roller with record and displaying its results as links on the RMB? I describe it in the spoiler below.

That's quite a lot more complicated than I'm willing to do. There are about five different brand new features in there, plus UI work, and that's before we get into questions like how you view the dice roll history of a nation that no longer exists.

What might be doable is a simple macro with no edit/cheat protection, but I'm not sure whether that's very useful, or would just lead to lots of complaints about dice roll cheating.

[Eluvatar]

Likewise.

What I'd be possibly interested in implementing some day (not tomorrow!!) would be the ability to use randomness in 3 places:

1. The ordering of poll options.
2. The ability to roll dice in nscode (dispatches and RMB posts).
3. The ability to randomize the order in which defined pieces of a dispatch appear on the page.
4. The ability for some issues (at the discretion of the editing team) to have their options appear in a random order.

For reference

If another admin works on this of course, they will almost certainly do something else.

[TheOrc]

That's quite a lot more complicated than I'm willing to do.

Sure no worries.

What might be doable is a simple macro with no edit/cheat protection, but I'm not sure whether that's very useful, or would just lead to lots of complaints about dice roll cheating.

My humble estimation is, that it will be very useful for many, and it will lead to many complaints too, even from those who never missed it when it wasn't there at all.

I still think it is worth it. See the other forums that also don't have a perfect system.

The typical ways of cheating are doing shit like roll 6d1 instead of of 1d6 to get a 6 every time, or editing the post repeatedly to effectively reroll the die. It's pretty easy to detect both (edit cheating since we can see that a post is edited), so the answer, I think, is "don't play with people who cheat."

Aclion confirms my simple approach: when it is about roll results, participants should no edit their posts as defined by the guy running the game.

Ya, people might try to cheat but things will sort out eventually. (I mean, even raiding and 'destroying' whole regions is possible here).

A semi cheat protection is not worth it, I guess. Just keep it very simple, and make clear from the start that there will never ever be any cheat protection implemented. (The roll result shouldn't change automatically when quoted etc, of course.. ).

I thank all for their support, ideas and consideration.

[Argentinstan]

Just use an offsite dice roller or random.com...saves a lot of time with coding it in.

[Vlandia1]

Hi

I tried to find if this topic was raised before. Probably but I couldn't see anything? (sorry)

I wonder if it is possible to integrate a RMB Dice Roller for roleplays?

A simple example would be:
[roll]1d6[/roll] codes for rolling a 6 sided die and can result in the values 1,2,3,4,5,or 6.

Also more complicated operations like 4d6kh3 which would be four rolls of a six sided die, while 'kh3' means 'keep highest three' and dump lowest result. etc

There are many examples on forums with Dungeons and Dragons roleplay.

Thanks
Orc

Sounds great