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[Tawa]

Not yet.

[Tawa]

Right! Sorry for the delay. I'll try to be more punctual in the future. :v

By the way, I'd just like to state that my characterization of Halfiron as a principled raider who tries to minimize the death toll of his attacks is not nearly supposed to be representative of all the raiders in the game world, nor for any in the real world, for that matter. I certainly do not deny that atrocities were committed by real-life viking raiders, and I intend for this aspect to be represented in this game at a later point; however, I thought that having your characters initially working with a character whose morality is more in line with modern ideas of what is right (insofar as a viking raider can be "right" and "moral") would be better than having them serve under a completely unrepentant murderer/rapist/what-have-you, as well as better introduce the idea that raids are thought of by the Mungarðers more as a challenge for wealth and honor than a slaughter-slash-robbery, regardless of what actually happens.

[Tawa]

On another topic, I figured I ought to bring up how I want to handle battle maps. This has always been an issue for me. I used to rigorously go for ASCII art, with liberal usage of Code Page 437, but I've realized that pure ASCII's inability to properly handle things less than a block thick makes that a major issue.

I also used to try for stuff put together in an image editing program, but that tended to A) look awful and B) be excessively difficult to work with.

I played in a couple of games where the GM used screenshots of a spreadsheet, and although that worked quite well and seemed relatively easy, I always found the super-flattened appearance of the maps offputting.

So what I'm thinking of is making an ASCII grid, like so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼

It's kinda messy to work with, but the ability to represent things on the lines makes it a much more aesthetically pleasing and gameplay-facilitating choice. Example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │↑│ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │↑│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │☺│ │ │ │ │↑│ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │☺│ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │#####│ │ │ │ │☺│ │ │
┼─╔╪══════╗─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ ║ │ │∩│∩║ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─║─┼─┼─┼─║─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ ║ │ │ │ ║ │ │ │ │↑│ │ │
┼─║─┼─┼─┼─║─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ ║ │ │╥│╤║ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─║─┼─┼─┼│║─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ ║Θ██│╥│╧║ │ │↑│ │ │ │ │
┼─╚═══════╝─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │↑│ │ │ │
┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼

There would be a caption underneath explaining what the various things are (e.g. smiley faces are people, the double-lines are a wall, the ASCII inside the walls are furniture.) If need be, I could throw some color tags in there to help differentiate things.

Thoughts? I think it looks better and handles the game better than the alternatives.

[Sirus]

Color tags would be a necessity, I think. Some distinction between PCs would probably be required.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'm a huge fan of using Google Sheets as battlemaps. If you resize the cells into squares, you get a grid of squares. You can color the cells, write in them (with colored text), make comments and notes, and use borders as convenient wall and elevation definitions. And, to top it off, there's no fumbling with screenshots, and it can changed on the fly and shared quickly.

[highmax28]

I'm a huge fan of using Google Sheets as battlemaps. If you resize the cells into squares, you get a grid of squares. You can color the cells, write in them (with colored text), make comments and notes, and use borders as convenient wall and elevation definitions. And, to top it off, there's no fumbling with screenshots, and it can changed on the fly and shared quickly.

Provided it doesn't cause my browser to have a seizure, that could work.

For some sheets I used on that, it ended up crashing my browser 9/10 times

[My Name is Immaterial]

Tell me if this crashes for you.

[Harry Baldman]

Ooh, I like that. Probably a lot better than tooling around in ASCII for most purposes, especially non-monospaced ASCII.

[Tawa]

That's perfect, assuming it works for highmax. Thanks!

[Sirus]

Tell me if this crashes for you.

I get an error message about not being able to load fonts, but other than that it works fine.

[wolfchild]

Would it be possiible to get in on this as a backup if someone drops out?

If so I would be designing a beserker

[Tawa]

Alright, I've put this off far too long. Hope that the spreadsheet is working for everyone. (Don't worry that there's five of them, their stats are garbage. CR is kinda weird at low levels.)

Spelled "pew" correctly this time!

By the way, what symbols or letters would you guys like to be used to represent your characters on the battlefield? I could just keep using the abbreviations, but I think that symbols and letters are much snappier.
wolfchild: I'll waitlist you, then.

[Sirus]

If there's some sort of hammer symbol, I'd take that.

Otherwise I'll just stick with initials.

[Tawa]

I'm assuming you mean the Mjölnir symbol, but perhaps I could interest you in [⚒], or [🔨], if you can see it? (The latter, if you can't, is a unicode character of a single hammer. It doesn't show up on the forum for me, but as far as I can tell, it shows up on Google Sheets.)

You could also go for ☭ but that seems more like a Vostoch kind of thing to me

[wolfchild]

So in planing the backup character, I wanted to sue a greathammer, but there don't exist any, can I take the -2 penalty and just use a large warhammer?