VDice - Dice Rolling for Proboards v5

[Virgil Sovereign]

Jul 26, 2013 11:22:44 GMT -8 li said:

Sorry if this has been asked before or if I missed something, but would there be a way to have weighted rolls?

Like... rolling 1-3 would be 20% more likely than rolling 4-6.

It would be a simple feature to add, but we'd need to have a range syntax for it. The only thing I can think of is a range syntax along the lines of

(6,6,6,5,5,5)

indicating a weight of 6 for rolls of 1, 2, and 3, and a weight of 5 for rolls of 4, 5, and 6, which would give you your desired distribution. If you made the range dynamic (user-editable), however, your members might resent all the typing, especially if there are many possible outcomes.

If something like the above is acceptable to you, I can add it in quickly this evening.

[havelock]

Just a quick question now that I've reinstalled the 1.1 version of both VDice Standard Die Edition and VDice Advanced:  Are we still putting in the range as 1-6*?  Or do we change that up now that there is the check box beneath to click for dynamic range?  I had set it to 1-100 Range with the box checked beneath, but I'm not getting my overall dice graphics back yet.  Still fiddling with it here!

[Virgil Sovereign]

havelock: I got rid of the * in the range because it was confusing so many people. You no longer need it, and it may be the reason the plugin isn't working.

If you've taken it out and the plugin still isn't working, keep the plugin turned on and give me the address of a page where it's not functioning properly. I can do some spot debugging.

[li]

Jul 26, 2013 11:51:26 GMT -8 Virgil Sovereign said:

Jul 26, 2013 11:22:44 GMT -8 li said:

Sorry if this has been asked before or if I missed something, but would there be a way to have weighted rolls?

Like... rolling 1-3 would be 20% more likely than rolling 4-6.

It would be a simple feature to add, but we'd need to have a range syntax for it. The only thing I can think of is a range syntax along the lines of

(6,6,6,5,5,5)

indicating a weight of 6 for rolls of 1, 2, and 3, and a weight of 5 for rolls of 4, 5, and 6, which would give you your desired distribution. If you made the range dynamic (user-editable), however, your members might resent all the typing, especially if there are many possible outcomes.

If something like the above is acceptable to you, I can add it in quickly this evening.

That would be great, actually!

[arek]

Virgil Sovereign vDice Advanced 1.1.0 is broken. None of my settings are being applied. Looking into it, but not sure if I can fix it myself.

Edit:  Missed the other posts since the proposed solution to weighted dice.  Plenty of posts to look at here.

--Arek

P.S.  would it be feasible for you to support die weights as a range, something like (1-3#6,4-6#5)?

[havelock]

Sure!  We're at lighthouse.boards.net/ and essentially I just copy/pasted everything I had set up in 1.0 into the new 1.1 and kept it with 1-100 range and the check box.  I figured you'd probably added the check-box to replace the * which makes sense!  I'm guessing that the trouble lies in the values in my advanced graphics section of VDice Advanced.  Thanks for looking!

[Virgil Sovereign]

arek and havelock: I discovered the problem. v1.1.1 is now downloadable and should fix the problem.

I'll add in the two weighted range syntaxes.

[havelock]

Virgil - thank you!  And especially thanks for being so quick!  I'll get to uploading the new version and give it another whirl.

[arek]

Thank you, Virgil Sovereign, for fixing that so quickly.

--Arek

[arek]

Actually, Virgil Sovereign, it looks like VDice Advanced is still 1.1.0, not 1.1.1. It works with VDice 1.1.1, tho.

--Arek

[Virgil Sovereign]

I've added support for weighted ranges to the plugin. The version is still 1.1.1, since I didn't want to go through all the docs, etc. and update the version number again, but the "current" v1.1.1 (as of an hour ago) is a newer version.

Likewise, VDice Advanced has been updated to v1.1.1.

The updated VDA is required to work with VD1.1.1, but the update has another major feature that I figured I'd add. Since roll syntaxes are getting so complicated (especially for weighted dice), I've added in roll "aliases", which allow you to associate specific words, etc. with complicated syntaxes.

Thus, rather than telling members they have to put in a range of red hexdie:1-6w3,7w5,8w13,9-13w2 to get the "attack roll" you have rigged up in advanced templates, you can just associate the alias "attack" with this syntax, and they can roll an attack by typing "attack" into the range box (or by typing [roll=attack] into the editor, etc.).

The aliases support capturing regular expressions, hence you can have things such as [roll=2 5-sided], or [roll = 3 red crystals], and have the plugin translate these into equivalent roll syntaxes, custom roll syntaxes, passing through numeric tokens, or details like 'red', etc.

Weighted roll syntax is documented in the OP. Aliases are documented in the VDice Advanced documentation (accessible in the OP).

Hopefully both will work.

[The Rocan]

Hey, I'm not sure what I am doing wrong... I uploaded the plug in on my site but the box default won't show up. When I hit the dice button in a post and enter the range all I get is [roll range="1-6"] displayed in both the editor and the post.
Is there something I need to edit in the graphics?
I don't want anything super fancy just the default squares that are supposed to show up.

This is a link to a guest friendly post thread I made for testing the dice.
the-game.boards.net/thread/34/dice-test

[Virgil Sovereign]

The Rocan: The VDice plugin doesn't come with graphics to represent dice in the editor. You'll either have to upload one and specify its URL as the "Editor Graphic" under the GRAPHICS tab, or you can download VDice Standard Die Edition (which comes with all the graphics), and then just eliminate all of the rules under GRAPHICS for the dice outcomes to make the dice show up as boxes when viewed.

[The Rocan]

Sorry, should have specified, I've tried all the dice editions. When I use standard die with the images included it just says "[roll]" always, and if I go in and just delete those images it still shows up as "[roll]." When I use your standard die edition it does show the blank square in the preview image but it doesn't show anything but the [roll] tag in the actual post. And if I upload my own images for a result still nothing shows up on the final post.

Also, in your instructions it makes it sound like both versions can make the default look and feel boxes, which is what I would like. 
"Fig. 4 - If no special images are specified, dice are rendered as boxes according to the look and feel parameters in the plugin style sheet. This figure shows the default L&F, with the 'showrange' tweak enabled to show the dice range."

Really I'd like to just have what the "Dice Rolls In Posts v1.1 [CB]" dice does in v4.5, I tried using your compatibility hack and putting that code in my global footers with one of your dice things enabled as well and still I get nothing.

[havelock]

Upgrading the VDice Advanced from 1.1.0 to 1.1.1 today and will let you know if there are any bugs.  So far VDice Advanced 1.1.0 was working without any snags with VDice Standard 1.1.1 but I'm going to upgrade all the same.