AllTom.com
Tom Says: Safe code is boring code!
haxr
A crack Rails Day team:
- Jeff Mickey: (US) Veteran coder, new to Rails
- Javier Cabrera: (Argentina) Veteran designer, immune to Rails
- Tom Lieber: (US) The Rails guy
Rails Day 2006 Project: d20 Online
Update: 2nd Place for User Interface!
The place: Tom's house
The time: one hour before the contest
"Jeff, what do you think of this idea? I'm thinking of a site that lets people host text-based role playing campaigns."
"Hey, that's probably better than every idea we've had so far. Let's do that."
"Okay, I'm on my way to pick you up."
A few minutes before midnight, when we had our laptops set up, we finally began designing the database and UI...
The Result
The nearly-fully-functional site allows users to register and create avatars, the personas they will use to play Dungeon Master for a campaign or participate as players. Avatars have race and biographical info--the game is as immersive as the players make it.
Once one person starts a campaign, others can join using any of their inactive avatars, taking them to the in-game page, where the action takes place.
Pictured above is the console for the Dungeon Master, which is nearly identical to what the players see, save for the administrative controls.
The game progresses at the game master's pace; events and players update periodically, making real-time campaigns possible, but the page persists between browser sessions, so season-long campaigns work just as well.
d20 manages very little of the game. Freedom is given to the Dungeon Masters to make as intricate or hurried a campaign as they wish. Dungeon Masters provide the backdrop while the players participate via speech or actions. Beyond that, the interface steps out of the way and lets active imaginations do all the work.
The Pain of Time Constraints
For such a simple premise, the implementation is quite complex. Changes in state drove us nuts and in the end not all of our ideas saw the light of day (however much of that there was, during that fateful midnight commit).
- Player Participation: This was where we took the biggest hit; players and GMs can send chat messages to the campaign, but the chat messages are anonymous. Furthermore, the system for players to respond with their actions and dice rolls is not in place.
- Authentication: There is no authentication. Anyone can access any URL and perform any action to any user/avatar/campaign. Basically, if you don't see a link to it, it's supposed to be 'off-limits'.
Plans to continue development of d20 are under discussion, so there may come a day when role-playing online gets a touch of imagination...
Posted Oct 30, 2006, in the late, late night.