Cloud-based character sheets

[derogatory]

Hello all,

I'm new to this forum, but I've been playing the DFRPG for a while with my group. I got tired of people coming unprepared and forgetting their character sheets, so I made a little tool that I think many of you will benefit from.

I call it the Toonstore: http://toonstore.net. It's a cloud-based tool for creating/editing/sharing/managing your DFRPG character sheets. It also works on small screens (e.g. phones), so you'll never be caught without your sheet again. Best of all, the project is open-source, so if you have the know-how you could set up your own private toonstore for your group, or better still, add new features. I've put a fair bit of work into this, but it's not perfect. If you have an idea for a new feature, just get in touch with me and I'll do my best to get it implemented.

By way of demonstration, here's my current character: http://toonstore.net/Derogatory/lifeson/. With the exception of the avatar, I made it entirely on my phone at the table, so I'm quite happy with it.

Any thoughts?

[Taran]

Your character sheet looks pretty awesome.

[Jabberwocky]

This looks extremely useful for NPCs, too. Is it possible to print the data from the database in the form of a character sheet?

[derogatory]

Ironically, no. The page apparently does not translate well to a printer, though I hadn't ever tried it until you asked lol. I'll certainly add it to the to-do list: a printer-friendly character sheet.

EDIT: Also, I'd be careful using this for NPCs. I built the site for easy sharing, so there's no way to hide the characters from your players if they can guess your username.

[Haru]

Looks good. Though I have to say, I prefer Obsidian Portal.

However, this gave me a kind of cool idea.

[derogatory]

idk Haru, imo if you're gonna use Obsidian Portal for a FATE character, you may as well put it in a google doc. It's just text fields, and too clumsy for at the table. I made my site resemble the official character sheet so people besides yourself can read it. Though your mileage may vary, or I could just be using OP wrong.

What's the deal breaker for you? Anything I can add to make mine better?

[Haru]

What's the deal breaker for you? Anything I can add to make mine better?

I'm using OP for my pbp game, and it holds some wiki entries like locations and items, as well as the character sheets. Sure, the character sheets are just text documents, but it works fine for me.

Offline, I simply use paper character sheets, as neither of us has a tablet, and I wouldn't want to use one at the game table anyway.

So it really doesn't have anything to do with your sheet being bad, it just doesn't fit my gaming style. 

[Jabberwocky]

Also, I'd be careful using this for NPCs. I built the site for easy sharing, so there's no way to hide the characters from your players if they can guess your username.

Point. But in case of my players I'm reasonably safe I think :-) Anyway, maybe another request/suggestion. Being a native Czech speaker and having my campaign located in Prague, Czechia, I would very much appreciate if the site were using Unicode or some other kind of accented-characters friendly encoding. Sure, I can always go without diacritics but it's nice to have the language the proper way. "Kateřina" is just much much better than "Katerina" even if it's probably no significant difference for non-Czechs.
(This is the list of our special glyphs: ř횞ťčύůňϊěďαισ / Ř͊ŽŤČέŮŇΪĚĎΑΙΣ)

[derogatory]

It would appear you are right, jabberwocky. Some Unicode characters work but not others. There's no reason it shouldn't work, I'll look into it.

Haru, I can respect that. More tech isn't always better at the table.

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks a lot. By the way you can check the NPCs that I have created there so far, if you want to: http://toonstore.net/Jabberwocky/ Some of them will probably look familiar as I am making use of the published material, albeit with (often substantial) changes.

[derogatory]

Alright Jabberwocky, I've added support for most of the special characters, excluding some of the more exotic unicode codepoints that my font doesn't support anyway, like the infamous Pile of Poo. (I wish was making this up.) All your Czech characters should work now though. Any other trouble, let me know.

[Jabberwocky]

Pile of Poo ... must ... unsee... Ok, I'll just go with a mental consequence for a while. Thanks for sharing the experience! :-D

Regarding the encoding: The site is showing the accented letters now but it substitutes them for another font/charset. I looked at the source code and found the names of fonts used (Armata http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Armata and Metamorphous https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Metamorphous if I am correct). Both of them should have those accented glyphs in them but the site's behaviour is different. That's the maximum I can do with looking at the code, though, as I am really not a computer man. Anyway, thank you for your interest in obscure languages and their constant problems with fonts.

[derogatory]

Fixed. Thanks for helping me get these kinks out, you're my first non-latin1 user.

[Jabberwocky]

You are welcome. To me it's perfect now.
How do you handle stress tracks longer than 8 boxes? Like, say, something nasty with a high Endurance and Mythic Toughness? Just another physical stress track below the basic one and pretend it's 9-16?

[derogatory]

Whatever works for you. I didn't think it was legally possible to have more than 8 boxes, though I could have miscounted. Glad my warden doesn't have to fight that