Dicebot for Dummies.

[Lord Drake]

Since System RPs do need die rolls, and it is a bit difficult to throw dice all the way through states and at times continents... this forum has an instrument to be used to randomly generate those little numbers that we so dearly love so we can play our games with our great RP partners here.

This guide is intended to give a little technical help to the use of this instrument that is called the Dicebot... since it is an useful asset, especially for those who like system roleplay games. I understand that it may not be immediately accessible to everyone, especially to those who are new to system games.

So here it is... While you see my name as a writer of this thread I have to thank from the deep of my heart my friends alxnjsh, MzNurse, Kit, Butterflykiss, HairyHeretic and Oreo for their help, suggestions and support!

Here is a summary of the topics treated:

1. Dicebot Basics - How to roll the dice
2. Dicebot Basics - How to link the roll results

These above are the ABC of the Dicebot... knowing this is enough to use it! But if the particular system roleplay you want to tackle requires special rolls, you may want to look at:

3. Dicebot advanced functions
    - How to keep only the highest (or lowest) dice rolls
    - How to roll extra dice if there is a certain result or more
    - How to add specific numbers to the dice rolls
    - How to count if and how many times a certain value is met or exceeded

[Lord Drake]

Coming to grips with the Dicebot

Ok first things first. Where is the Dicebot?... well... you can see it... just above the SB. Try having a look... need a hint?

Just between 'Wiki' and 'Support' you cannot miss it. Click there!

See? Here you are... and you should see something like this, now:

Ok, without the multi-colour circlings actually. Those are my doing... since although each single function is easy enough but there are many. Let's start with the basics.



Circled in red you see your user ID. This is the number with which the DiceBot will recognize you... it is used to have other's Die rolls 'sent' to you a 'viewer'. Each of us has his own and yes, mine is 7761. We will see a bit better its use in an instant.

Now to get to the 'true' Dicebot. You see many boxes... each one corresponding to a precise function. For now we will only examine:

- The ABC - preparing the dice - Circled in green
    * Dice: Here you put the number of dice you want to roll, from 1 to 50.
    * Sides: Here you put the number of sides to the dice, from 1 to two billion (O.o). If you put 1 side, it rolls between 0 and 1.
So if you want to roll 1 six-sided die, you put "1" in "Dice" and "6" in "Sides" while if you want to roll five ten-sided dice you put "5" in "Dice" and "10" in "Sides". Easy like that.

Also since in a system game usually someone (that most of the times is the GM) must testify to one's rolls to avoid possible cheatings...
    * Send To: Here you put the user id, if any, you want your roll sent to. This person will be sent a copy of your roll and will testify to it (and tell you the consequences of the roll if he/she is the GM)
So if someone playing with me in a system RP needs me to testify to a dice roll he is about to make... he will put my ID (7761) number in that box.

Since ID numbers are unique to each person, you have to get your partners' ID to be able to send rolls to them... the speediest way is to ask them. People in System RPs usually tell each other their ID numbers before beginning to play.

We will see how to actually SEE the rolls that people send to you in the next post of this little guide.... 

On to the next function....

- Some little fluff - Circled in purple
    * Character: You can put there the name of the RP Character for which you are making the roll..
    * Roll Dice: Here can go a comment of some kind and usually the description of the objective of the roll
For example if my great RP character Gorgoth the Elfslayer is about to make a roll to see if he can jump successfully over a chasm... I would put 'Gorgoth' in the Character Box and 'die roll to jump over the bottomless chasm' in the Comment Box.

This is useful as a reminder of the reason the die roll has been done. It is always good if someone keeps track of who does what and why...

As a last thing for now I would like to point...

- Let's roll! - Circled in orange
There are two buttons there that interest us:
    * Test Roll: To have a non-official roll... it shows what happens when you roll the dice with the settings you put up. Useful to see if you have messed up something. This roll is not saved by the bot.
    * Comment: When you are ready... you go with the official roll that gets saved and can be used for games!



Ok... now one important thing is that these are actually ALL THE FUNCTIONS that you really need to know to properly use the dicebot. If you know these and you know how to see and link saved rolls - which we will see in the next post - you can play!!! All the other functions of the dicebot are for doing some more 'complex' and advanced rolls all in one go... their purpose is to save time and avoid the player making too many calculations himself... but - again - you can stop to the few things you see in this post and the next one and be happy with it!!!



And now.... what about a little example??

Let's try to actually make that roll to see if Gorgoth actually does jump the chasm. Let's say t[/b]hat he needs to obtain a result of 11 or more on a twenty-sided-die roll. And let's say that I have to send the roll to a witness... who happens to be Lord Drake (ID 7761).

That's how I would set up the Dicebot:

Notice that I already made a test roll (red arrow) to see if I have done things right. It seems so. So.. ready?

*clicks on 'Roll Dice'*

That's what appears

WHEW! It is an 11... just enough.

Gorgoth performs a running jump that is barely on spot... an inch less and he would have lost his footing and plunged down to his death. He scrambles up the edge of the chasm and stands up on the plateau beyond..

*sniggers*

I hope this is being understandable enough.

[Lord Drake]

Links, and how to make them

Greetings and welcome to post 2 of this little swim into dicebotic wonders! In this post we will try to learn together the bliss of wandering amongst the saved rolls archive, seeing the ones that you have made and seeing those that have been sent to you by other players.... and how to link them.

It is really easy - you will see - once you know where to click. What we actually need is simply to master some easy links. Start by having a look here, just near your ID number (see above).

Somehow... I think you are already beginning to understand what to do.
let's confirm your clever suppositions!

- Clicking on Make a roll will take you to the main Dicebot (see above)
- Clicking on View your rolls will bring up a list of ALL the dice rolls that you have made (ever!) with the Dicebot
- Clicking on View rolls made to you will bring up a list of ALL the dice rolls that people has sent to your attention (ever!) by putting your ID number in the 'Send to' box (see above)
- Clicking on View recent rolls will bring up a list of the last 100 rolls made by people (whoever they may be) with the dicebot.

^^

Let's see what happens if I click on view your rolls

Ok... this is the list of all the roll I have made. As you can see the most recent one is the roll who saved our friend Gorgoth's hide. You will notice that the following voices are provided:

Roll ID: this is a progressive number that identifies the roll. As you can see Gorgoth's roll is the number 14058
Viewer ID: this is the nick to those I have sent my rolls. When it is a 'Noone or Anyone' it means that I have put no ID numbers in the Send to box since I needed to do that roll for myself.
Time Rolled: self-explanatory... the date and hour of the roll
Roll Summary: a brief resume of the roll

Now... the numbers under 'Roll ID' are clickable. For example, I may click on the '14058' of gorgoth's roll. Guess where the bot sends me?

It sends me Here

And also... if you copy/paste the roll summary... with the URL and everything... you obtain this:

At 2010-02-19 14:41:33, Gorgoth (uid: 7761) rolls: 1d20 Result: 11

Yep. They are all LINKS TO THE ROLL! If you need to link a roll to a game somewhere to show its results you only have to find it amongst your rolls (or amongst the rolls that other have sent to you depending on which roll is it), CLICK on its ROLL ID and then link the resulting webpage wherever you want!!!! OR Copy and paste the ROLL SUMMARY!!!!

An important thing about rolls is that you have to be sure to link the right roll to the corrispondent action. That is why the 'Character Name' and the 'Comment' are so important in the Dicebot. They help in identifiying which roll is which.

Ok now... if I click on View rolls made to you

I see the list of rolls that people has sent to me. Obviously the voice viewer is no more (since I am always the viewer) and there is the voice owner instead (the person who sent it to me).
You will see that the Gorgoth roll is there too... since it was me who sent it to myself.

^^

This functions EXACTLY as the other one... and clicking on the Roll ID sends you to the roll page that you may link at your leisure. Also the Roll Summary part can ber copy-pasted too.

Now you can try by yourself to click on View recent rolls. I don't think I will need to explain to you what you see... they are simply the last 100 rolls made on the dicebot!!

Now.... These are the MINIMUM functions you need to know to properly use the dicebot. There are others but before we see them (later) my advice is to get accustomed with the ones I have just explained. They are the bare bone of Dicebot use and if you know them... you can play!

[Lord Drake]

What else can I do with the Dicebot?

Ok... being this place an adult-oriented forum... and given the fact that by now you should be already confident with the basics of dicebot-rolling, what about trying some Kamasutra with The Dicebot?

Ok... I knew that I would have interested you with that. Although what I mean is simply to try and see some more complex positions functions of this little bot we have at our beck and call. We will have a look to the other commands that can be used to make a roll and see what kind of usefulness they may have for us!

One important thing before going on is: these are functions that need to be used only if for some reason the system RP game you are using do require them. If you have not met a system RP requiring them, they will probably seem to make no sense to you. Trust me: if you cannot understand them, you probably do not need them.

I have splitted them into groups, depending on the kind of use they have... as in the following picture:



And we may call them as follows:

- Orange group - The Keepers!
- Red group: The Extras!
- Blue group - The Add-Ons!
- Green group - The Targets!

In the next posts we'll try to tackle how to use those groups of functions...

[Lord Drake]

Orange group - The Keepers!

Basically if you put a positive number there the bot will keep that many HIGHEST dice rolls to make the total... if you put a negative number the bot will keep the LOWEST.

If you want to roll FOUR six-sides dice and keep the THREE highest results to add together and make your total, you have to put:
"4" in Dice (remember?)
"6" in Sides (remember?)
And "3" in Keep

Like this:



4+3+2 = 9 and the 1 is discarded.

If I wanted to keep the three LOWEST I would have put a "-3" in Keep. The bot would have discarded the 4 and the result would have been 3+2+1 = 6

[Lord Drake]

Red group: The Extras!

There are two commands in this group:

Extra: if positive, rolls an additional die when equal to or higher than the given value. If negative, rolls an extra die when equal to or lesser.

So for example if you put:

"4" in Dice
"6" in Sides
And "3" in Extra

The bot will roll 4 six sided dice and then count the results of three or more. Then the bot will roll again as many dices as the number of results counted. Again, he will count the 3 or more in the new dice roll and then roll again... like that:



You can see that the first four results were: 1,3,6,2. Being there is a 3 and a 6 the bot rolled two more dice, getting a 2 and a 3. Since there was a 3 the bot rolled again getting a 4 which, prompted another roll that obtained a 5... and then at the last roll the bot got an 1 and so stopped rolling. The total score here is 27.

Notice that the total number of dice rolled (normal and extra) will never exceed 50. The bot will stop at the 50th roll whatever the result.

...

Another command we may use is the Over: for Overroll. Works like extra, except it adds the result to the die instead. Only one overroll is made per die (this is a function used in specific system games such as Shadowrun etc... sometimes called exploding).

So if in the previous example the "3" was put in the Over rather than in the Extra we would have had something like this:



See?? There is a 1 that has been left as it is while the 7 and two 9s have clearly been overrolled (there are no 7s and 9s in six-sided dies). The total score, here, is 26.

Notice that the value of the roll and the overroll are NOT shown. So for example in the case of the 7 we CANNOT know if the bot rolled a 3 and then rolled a 4 (4+3=7) or a 6 and a 1 (6+1=7). What we know here is that the bot will add another same-sided die roll to every result equal or greater (equal or lesser if the number put in Over is negative) of the number we put in.

I hope it is understandable enough until now... to add a wee bit more of brain-busting here, I will digress a bit on what happens if you use BOTH the function at the same time.

Well... if in the previous example you put a 3 BOTH "Extra" and "Over" you get something like this:



Where each value of 3 or more is overrolled AND extra-rolled. If the extra roll is three or more, it is overrolled AND extra-rolled AGAIN until no 3 or more is rolled or until we get to 50 rolls whichever comes first.

[Lord Drake]

Blue group - The Add-Ons!

There are two commands in this group.

Add: if you want to add a number to the total result of the die rolls you should put in "Add". If you put in a negative number, the value will be subtracted instead.

If you want to roll FOUR six-sides dice and add TEN to the final total, you have to put:
"4" in Dice (remember?)
"6" in Sides (remember?)
And "10" in Add

Like this:



2+5+5+3 = 15 then add 10 and result is 25

If I wanted to SUBTRACT 10 I would have put a "-10" in Add. The bot would have rolled 2+5+5+3 = 15 then subtracted 10 and result would have been 5

...

Mod: if you want to add a number to the each single die result before adding them together you should put in "Mod". If you put in a negative number, the value will be subtracted instead.

If you want to roll FOUR six-sides dice and add THREE to the each single die result before adding them together, you have to put:
"4" in Dice (remember?)
"6" in Sides (remember?)
And "3" in Mod

Like this:



(4+3=7)+(5+3=8)+(4+3=7)+(6+3=9) = 31

If I wanted to SUBTRACT 3 I would have put a "-3" in Add. The bot would have rolled (4-3=1)+(5-3=2)+(4-3=1)+(6-3=3) = 7.... This may look like a big-ass equation but after all they are only additions. It should be easily comprehensible...

[Lord Drake]

Green group - The Targets!

The function Target Number works this way... if you roll a number of dice it does not give the total but it counts how many dice are EQUAL OR SUPERIOR to a given result. This is good for some games (like the white wolf "World of Darkness" series) in which you need to count how many "successes" (results equal or greater than a specific value) you make with a dice roll, in order to see if you manage or not to make an action.

For example, if you want to roll SEVEN ten-sides dice and see how many of them get a result equal or greater than SIX you have to put:
"7" in Dice (remember?)
"10" in Sides (remember?)
And "6" in Target Number

Like this:



See? The bot rolled 8, 5, 2, 5, 4, 8, 6... and of those THREE only were equal of greater than six. So the result here is THREE.

Now... did you notice that there are TWO target number functions? That is because they can be used at the same time and they stack up.

I mean... I can for example count as successes the values of the same roll of SEVEN ten-sides dice that are equal to or greater than six AND those that are equal to or greater than nine. Those last ones will count as DOUBLE successes since if they are equal to or greater than nine they are also necessarily greater than 6.

So we have to put:
"7" in Dice (remember?)
"10" in Sides (remember?)
And "6" and "9" in both the "Target Number" squares.

Like this:



So the bot rolled 5, 6, 8, 2, 5, 10, 7 of which a 10 counted as double success (greater than nine and six) and 6,8 and 7 count as single success (equal to or greater than six). Total is 5.

If you have read with attention until now, I think things should be clear enough...

Brace yourselves. We are ready for the last one which is... the easiest actually.

The Total TN if positive, returns a success if the total result of the die roll is equal to or higher than the number submitted. If negative, returns a success if the total result is equal to or less.

So if you want to roll 2d6 and consider a "success" a result of 7 or more you have to put...

"2" in Dice (remember?)
"6" in Sides (remember?)
And "7" in Total TN.

Like this



See, the roll came out as an 8 so it is a success (greater than 7). Were I to want to consider as success the result if it were equal to or LESS than 7 I should have put "-7" in Total TN.

Ok... now what about trying to use Both Target Number and Total TN together? Like this?

We want to roll 10 ten-sides dice and consider it a success if we obtain more than four results greater to or equal than five.. so we put:

"10" in Dice (remember?)
"10" in Sides (remember?)
"5" in Target Number
and lastly "4" in Total TN.

So we roll and...



The dicebot rolls 2, 5, 7, 7, 3, 5, 1, 9, 10, 6 of which seven results are equal to or greater than 5... since we needed 4 or more, it is a Success!