L5R Roleplay - Conflict Assistance

Any role play game can be complicated. This is especially true if you add into the mix relative inexperience, large numbers and non-face to face play (you don't need all of these but none of them neccessarily help).  When running my current I found I repeatedly got into difficulties when running larger skirmishes. With five players and thus (usually) five opponents the overhead on who does what where JUST with regard to the npcs was surprisingly large and something that would less of an issue with (say) three characters.

This then meant that I was more likely to miss stuff (certainly aded TNs) and secondly meant I was less able to concentrate on the role play and spending more time getting flustered.

Therefore I resolved to generate a tool to help 'assist' in these circumstances and this post is to introduce the first version of the tool. Admittedly it will be buggy until tested but it should help regardless.

Base Setup 

The tool firstly needed a way to save a list of all characters and key info so it has a character creation form. This allows base stats to be saved (martial will either be npc martial or the relevant melee figure for the character, this will need enhancing in the future to allow the other melees to apply when the relevant weapon is selected)

Basic data for the character is entered along with the characters weapons and armour. This is then saved as a text file (so can be amended).

Conflict Setup

The key operational window is the SetStances window. This lists all the available characters and allows the stance to be set. It also shows key side data like endurance, composure and any impacting statuses (i.e Bleeding, incapacitated, dead etc)

When using at the start of each round everyones stance will be set here..

From this window the character names can be selected to view them in more detail plus to set the character/npcs opponent (I might add a drop down list to this window so this can handle that aspect as well)

On this window you can choose the weapon/armour combo the char is using and adjust stife/fatigue. You can also manually set 'bleeding'. The big notes box provides gm notes on things to be aware of for this character and their chosen opponent (who can also be viewed from here by clicking the view button).

When everyone is setup it is expected that weapons/armour choice will rarely change and opponents only when one is knocked out.

Conflict Operation

When the round begins if a character is attacking then the strike button is pressed. This opens an attack window

Initially this lists the expected TN (which will be adjusted if composure/ring etc impacts the default number). This can also be manually adjusted. The notes box again lists points to remember.

The dice to roll box is the discord dice bot text that can be copied with the copy button and then pasted into discord to simplify typing.

IF the attack is a success then the success box is ticked which opens up more options for the result

The user adjusts the bonus successes and adds any strife taken (which can be applied to the character by selecting the 'Apply Strife' button.

The application then works out the damage caused (it knows the weapon used so knows the damage and deadliness involved), removes any armour protection and lists the fatigue generated by that attack. Should the fatigue generated be higher than the opponents endurance then the box will also color red to show a critical can be generated.(A crit can be force applied by selecting the force critical check box). This opens up the critiical hit section

The deadliness is auto-populated (but can be adjusted if needed) and then the successes of any parry attempt can be entered. Hitting Calc Result works out exactly which critical hit has been scored.

To add the results to the opposing character the following options exist

Apply Critical - Adds the critical result
Force Bleeding - Bleeding is auto set if the critical requires, this allows it to be forced for other reasons
Damage Weapon - If a weapon was damaged then this adjusts the users primary weapon (eventually this will cope with secondary as well)
Incapacitate - Forces the opponent to be incapacitated
Apply Fatigue - Applies any fatigue generated to the opponent
Apply Strife - Applies any strife taken to the active character

Result

Thus this should allow me to handle large numbers of swirling combatants without potentially missing a lot. It is not the prettiest of applications but as it is intended to be functional that is not a major issue.