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Multi User Access

C

Cweord

Member
Can the Herolab DB cope with concurrent connections?

If so, how hard would it be to add a password system, so that you could have a gm password that accesses the entire file and then individual passwords that can have profiles assigned to it (so that players can control more than one profile if they have a critter pet or NPC).

Might be an easy way to enable multi-user access with out a server client scenario, and give the GM the ability to monitor the player profiles during gameplay.
 
This is something we've previously discussed amongst ourselves, and we'd like to add in the future, but it is not currently available.

The closest you could come right now would be to use a shared file system (dropbox, for example), and have everyone save their characters regularly so the GM can open the most recent versions.
 
I require my players email me their character portfolios and I DL them and keep them stored on my computer. Any changes they wish to make after that have to go through me once I hit the lock button on the advancement tab. I don't let them lock their details in case they did something wrong or that is outside the limitations my campaign imposes.

Drop box is not a bad idea though.
 
That was my thought - I am trying to keep the battles to one portfolio, but I don't want my players to have access to the NPC's profiles - hence the idea for a locking system.

I have a network, so if concurrent connections work, I can have everybody open the same file - it just needs the password system.
 
To be honest, My players have to send me the portfolio. I lock it and manage it after that once I am certain the character is legal for play.

I print the sheets & I have a sanctioning Embosser that I use on the printed sheets to produce a seal on them that my players can't forge. I initial their sheets and put a date stamp on them before they can even use them. This keeps them from being able to modify the final character sheet. Once printed and sealed They have to email me new purchase requisitions so I can do the dice rolls for them or they will do the dice rolls at the beginning of a game session in front of me. I then put the item into hero lab, and the game date the item is available as the name of the item. (I will make a note if a glitch or critical glitch ocurred on the dice roll), and we often RP out the consequences of items that suffered glitches.
 
_Pax_ said:
... do you truly distrust your players that much, RavenX ...?!?
Click to expand...

I do yes, and for good reason, I have caught enough players Illegally modifying sheets. I used to be an RPGA judge, and you'd be surprised how much people try to pull a fast one on you. Back then we did not have Hero Lab to manage the character sheets, so we had to spend a fair amount of time checking over the player comp sheets at the start of every event. I have done this stuff for over 20 years, people do try to cheat, especially unfamiliar faces. My core group of players are fairly trustworthy people who would not cheat, but I run my games in a public location and we randomly add new players all the time. I had a group of 35 players going for a zombie apocalypse World of Darkness chronicle at one time. When you deal with a large number of players, you can't be too careful. My group usually has 4 - 5 regular players, and they don't cheat and are fairly good about the games. It is the random new people I scrutinize carefully until they become familiar to me. I have a nice little collection of d20s I confiscated at RPGA tournaments from players, all of them missing a 1 and having a second 20 in its place.

So yes I am a bit paranoid especially with new people in the group. I have to be as it is part of being a good judge. It is a different ballpark when you are dealing with people you don't see on a regular basis coming out to your games. If it wasn't for people being dishonest I could trust everyone, but the world doesn't work that way my friends.
 
I can understand doing this myself, but that is only if you have the time to manage. A multi-user one that tracks changes would simplify things as you can see what they have changed and approve / reject changes as needed.
 
It would, but the problem I have is that Most gear in Shadowrun has an availability test requirement. Rarely do I skip the test because I run a street level game (300 BP) and the players often end up glitching at least one of these rolls amongst the whole group. They've had to track down their new gear a few times and break into warehouses or cut deals with gangs and organized crime to recover some of their items, which in the end sets up new group contacts or temporary fixers for them. This is why I keep a tight lid on portfolios in Shadowrun, I don't want to miss a role-playing hook when it is thrown in there by the dice.

For the most part if an item has no availability they can just add it and I will tack it onto their portfolio. I do a lot of campaign management with Hero Lab as well. I can control which factions they've earned credability with and which ones they lose dice with on social tests. Shadowrun requires a large degree of management and hero lab simplifies that for me. I also like having the whole group's sheets on my computer because it lets me build my Prime Runners around their skill sets and abilities.
 
RavenX said:
I run my games in a public location and we randomly add new players all the time.
Click to expand...
Aaaaaah. That makes more sense to me. ^_^

I have a nice little collection of d20s I confiscated at RPGA tournaments from players, all of them missing a 1 and having a second 20 in its place.
Click to expand...
Pffff, that's amateur kid stuff. I'd never do it myself, BUT ... if you really want SUBTLE weighting?

Get some heavy grade mineral oil, and some dice in an assortment of colors. Leave a sample of each color to soak in a thin layer of mineral oil (and I do mean, THIN), in a covered container, for a week. Examine them carefully, and discard any that show visible discoloration.

The rest? Soak entire sets for a month in that oil - with the least-desired numbers on the BOTTOM (i.e., 1's on those d20's).

They wind up very, very slightly weighted. Not by a huge amount - you WILL occasionally get a 1. But, instead of there being e.g. a 16.667% chance to get a 1 when rolling a d6, you might have only a 10% chance - with the remainder distributed across the other five possibilities, mostly whatever is opposite that 1 (meaning, on a standard die, the 6).

...

I was in one group where one single player was dishonest enough to do things like that. He wasn't allowed to use his own dice - the GM brought a set for him to use. :) He also wasn't allowed to bare-hand roll the dice - had to use a dice cup, and roll "vigorously" into a box-top.
 
Unfortunately when I was an RPGA judge, that was a 0 tolerance offense. We had to write an infraction about it and either send the dice in as evidence or take photos. Yeah it is amateur stuff, but people get desperate to win tournament prizes sometimes. Gen Con prizes are very very nice for the top groups. Many of the local store games I ran were tournament ones with the prize being all expense paid trip to Gen Con for the top group, or qualifiers for Gen Con. You can't take chances in those situations. I used to mandate that everyone used a set of dice provided by the store we gamed at. (I would usually shell out 4-5 bucks on dice sets for these events to keep everyone honest) and the games worked out well that way.) Some days I have my core audience of players sometimes I have 15, it just varies with each weekend based on who comes into the shop that day.

I try to keep my players honest though and hope that they take that with them to any game they attend. My core players are the only ones I will run Slot 0 with though (playtest material).

It varies from week to week and we run different systems. Hero Lab just makes it easy to manage. I use the Tactical console alot now. Players don't roll init much anymore.
 
As when I play, I don't pay to competition rules - my attitude is if players cheat the only people they are cheating is them selves.

For me, multi access lets me see what is happening on their sheets in play, so I can see how much damage they have, or apply additional modifiers with out having to give them the clue that something is going on.

Hence I only need a very basic system
 
I'd like that too!! It'd also be nice if you could link a few HL clients into a 'group' so players can see eachothers sheets (to an extent) and I can see everything as GM without having to run every mouse click and the like myself.

While we're talking about the tactical display, is there any way to change the weapon which is shown on that screen while in combat mode? It'd be nice to have a quick reference without going back into the sheets themselves.
 
RavenX said:
It varies from week to week and we run different systems. Hero Lab just makes it easy to manage. I use the Tactical console alot now. Players don't roll init much anymore.
Click to expand...

How do you do that quickly?

When I ran Shadowrun Missions at a convention recently I used the tactical console, but to get the players in with the right initiative scores and passes seemed a bit of work (not to mention that some combats took 10 minutes to load anyway when I had 10 or more combatants in them)...

Is there a quick cheat to get just the character names + initiative scores in?
 
cryptoknight said:
How do you do that quickly?

When I ran Shadowrun Missions at a convention recently I used the tactical console, but to get the players in with the right initiative scores and passes seemed a bit of work (not to mention that some combats took 10 minutes to load anyway when I had 10 or more combatants in them)...

Is there a quick cheat to get just the character names + initiative scores in?
Click to expand...

I load only the characters who are present, into a working portfolio. At the end of the game I export each character back to its original portfolio. I don't NPC characters when players aren't present and I limit the game to 1 initiative pass (at 300 BP you don't need a bunch of passes). The players are also limited to gear purchases of 10 BP instead of 50. A street level runner that is dealing with gangs on a regular basis is not going to be driving a mercedes benz around the barrens, nor afford the most high end drones. ;)

Not NPCing characters whose players are not there fixes a lot of problems.

I also do a hard start time each week. We lock out players who are late.
This keeps some of the people who arrive consistently late from being included in the game (This is an old RPGA habit of mine, I used to have to write players up for being tardy).
 
Cweord said:
As when I play, I don't pay to competition rules - my attitude is if players cheat the only people they are cheating is them selves.
Click to expand...

I just kick them out if I catch them cheating. Its not like I don't get 2-6 new players coming by the shop each week looking for games to join. We get alot of new players that come in. Being in a town surrounded by military bases we have a high turn over of players. This is also the ONLY shop within 50 miles of where I live that still carries the FULL line of Games Workshop models. Even the GW stores that used to be near me closed down.
 
cryptoknight said:
Is there a quick cheat to get just the character names + initiative scores in?
Click to expand...

Portfolio menu...create new hero.

Enter the name.

Go to the Adjust tab.

On the In-Play adjustments table, add 2 copies of "Attribute".

Set one to "Initiative" and the other to "Initiative Passes", then set the correct values for each.
 
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