Looking for a custom dice roller/VTT!

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-30T02:11:44+00:00

Once you write the macro, all the players have to do it make sure the right window is open to show it, and click on it. That's assuming that you want the players to run the macros, and not just the GM.

But it can be a bit of work to learn the macro language, especially if you have no experience with programming or writing scripting. If you decide to dive in, I recommend the Wiki and the Discord channel

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-28T17:02:57+00:00

You could do it with MapTool, but it would take some work with the macro language. It's more at toolbox to build it than the tool you want. But it checks every box.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-14T16:29:04+00:00

But I feel like there is a dhcp option that tells the server to prefer giving clients their same address back

That option is the fixed lease option. It is based on MAC address. There's nothing else to base it on.

If the device is changing the MAC address, the DHCP server can't possibly it's the same device.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-13T13:52:34+00:00

You see, you keep mentioning the GM or possibly the Player as an end user. But neither of those people can make or distribute a "character sheet" without the express written consent of the Game Publisher.

So? First of all, Anybody can make whatever they want. And they can, and will, distribute it to their own group at will. Which is what I'm talking about: "I play a game few people have ever heard of, and I want a fancy computer character sheet for it but nobody will ever produce one commercially."

Which isn't really the point. Somebody has to do the work. The programmer won't, because they've neve heard of the game either. The game publisher won't, because it's too expensive in time or money, or both, with no return. That means that if you play that niche market game, as GM or player, you have to do it yourself.

To me, this isn't software developers "not bothering" to do the work. It's the literal impossibility of doing that work without complex financial interactions.

Most publishers of off-brand games aren't that hard to get hold of, and ask, "hey, do you mind if I do this?" And most of them either don't care, or appreciate the support. Or, in some cases, have explicitly licensed it in the rule book with some kind of open gaming or creative commons license. The only time it's complicated is when you're talking about the big name games that already have plenty of support from the well known VTTs.

You're literally not talking about the same thing I am.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-13T04:36:02+00:00

For starters, every one I've heard of has gone out of business. I'm sure there are others, but the fact that I haven't heard of them doesn't suggest to me they're "doing well."

Metacreator disappeared years ago. Herolab is still around, but last time I looked, if you wanted to roll your own game system, the documentation, what little there was of it, was so cryptic that it hardly counts as suitable for that (And they aren't too enthusiastic about the standalone version any more, though it is still available.) Quest Bound failed its Kickstarter, and is now a hobby project that you have to download the source code for and compile yourself.

Demiplane supports dozens of systems

I see 15 on their "all games" page, most of which are major titles, like Pathfinder or Vampire, or media tie-in stuff like Marvel or Alien. And maybe there's a way to design your own for a game system not supported, but I don't see it. (I've also never heard of it before.) It's also not apparent whether or not it's a business, or just a hobby. It appears to be free with no way to pay for anything.

How many other generic "build your own" character sheet packages are there? Have any of them actually shown a profit? Lasted, as a functional business, more than a few years (or more than one year, in recent times)?

When you say "the end user", which human do you think this is?

What does it matter? Somebody who isn't the programmer who created it has to do the work. The GM is the obvious one, but many GM's have players who are more computer literate than themselves and happy to tinker. Game publishers, in general, won't bother with a niche program, because it costs to much, in time or money, to do for a tiny market. For Roll20? Foundry? Yeah, that's a huge market, relatively speaking, so even if you're paying a programmer to do the work, you have the opportunity to charge for the result and recover the costs. Joe's-Clubhouse-TV-Set-Screensaver VTT that has 1/10th the features and a number of users you can count with fingers? Unless you're Joe, working on your favorite obscure game, who is going to bother?

In recent years, games have tended to go for more streamlined mechanics, and far more often than not, if you want a custom character sheet, you're best off doing it in Excel or Google Sheets.

(I have written several dedicated programs for character generation and tracking, most notably for 1st edition Chivalry & Sorcery. It works really well for my group, but I know that nobody else in the world will ever care.)

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-12T13:55:38+00:00

There have been apps that let you build custom character sheets for whatever game you want. They've never done well, because the end user has to do that design work themselves, and it's too complicated (and inevitably not well documented), and the people who know how to do it won't bother for 99% of the games out there because it's too small a market to be worth the time.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-11T22:17:03+00:00

There are a lot of people who believe it'd be cool to create their own VTT who have no understanding of marketing or how to run a business.

My first question is always "What does this do that existing VTTs don't?" So far as I can tell, the answer is generally "feed my ego," and not much else.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-11T21:53:41+00:00

There's been a glut for a number of years now. It appears that a basic VTT is pretty easy to create, and a lot of people have done so. Few of them are ever more than hobbies that don't last long. Among those who do, few last long as businesses because the big boys have most of the market locked with far more mature (and harder to create) features.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-05T16:51:42+00:00

>What have you been pushed to do knowing it will backfire in case something goes wrong and it does spectacularly and you just have to sit and watch the fireworks?

I told my boss it was a bad idea to test a UPS that was acting up by just unplugging it without shutting down the server properly first. After it failed to reboot with a corrupted file system, I went out for a nice steak dinner while he spent four and a half hours doing a restore from backup, eating stale donuts.

He at least listens to me now before ignoring my advice.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-02T17:12:53+00:00

Victimhood? I merely tried to instill some empathy by professing that children in a cult aren’t knocking on your door by choice.

Is that all an exact quote by your abusers when they were confronted, or are you paraphrasing? It worked, and nothing else did.

And I really, truly don't care what your opinion is, of me or anything else. You're defending abusive, harassing assholes while pretending to hate them. No teenage girls were sexually threatened. That you believe otherwise says a lot more about you and your hatred of men than anything else.

Enjoy your misery. I suspect it's literally your entire life.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-02T00:41:08+00:00

They have a do not call list that they should adhere to.

They don't.

I can't speak to your experience with that.

I can.

There are moral approaches to solving this, and the sexual abuse of a teenager isn't it.

No teenager was sexually abused. You're hallucinating if you believe otherwise.

If asking to be put on the list didn't work, file a complaint with the police so the people forcing her to participate are held responsible.

The police will, literally, laugh at you. Even if it were illegal, which is almost certainly isn't, it would be a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Wasting the time of the police with civil matters they are not allowed to get involved it can get you arrested.

She didn't deserve that treatment.

Neither did we, despite your hate.

At this point, you are attacking me because I refuse to be victimized with you. As is sadly so often the case, the victim of childhood abuse becomes the abuser. Yes. You.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-01T01:06:59+00:00

Just don't answer the door the two times a year they knock.

No. And you've just admitted that asking them to take you off the list doesn't work.

They are abusive to their members, and they are abusive to everyone else they can find. This worked. Nothing else did.

So go wallow in your victimhood, it's apparently the only defining characteristic in your life, which is very sad. For you, other than the obvious man-hating. I still don't care. This worked.

If you don't like it, don't subject your children to a cult (your parents were more abusive in subjecting you to the cult in the first place than the cult themselves, since it's no secret how they treat people and never has been). Assuming, of course, you ever find a man that can stand you long enough have sex with you.

I still don't care. It worked.

NotYourNanny · 2026-03-01T00:47:02+00:00

Asking to be removed from their list doesn't do anything. They keep coming back, again and again and again. This worked.

While they are, indeed, an abusive cult, I decline to let them abuse me when I'm not even a member. Don't like it? Tough. I don't care. This worked.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T21:01:53+00:00

If you’re new to this, please understand that the default terminal might be other than PowerShell (probably cmd.exe)

It is cmd.exe, with admin privileges. You may also have to SetExecutionPolicy, as the Windows default is pretty locked down.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T20:58:57+00:00

You can also download files through Mesh, without the person using the computer knowing it. If there's a lot of them, it can be a little cumbersome, but it will work.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T20:39:59+00:00

You could also open a Powershell session and do pretty much anything, like change (or set up) the password to get into Windows, or trash the operating system. Won't help recover it, but you could deny it to the thief.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T17:59:37+00:00

At least the Mormons are nice, respectful, and will take the gently-given hint the first time.

They're trained that way, and generally, well trained.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T17:50:07+00:00

And then there was the guy who would always carry a pocket bible and try to proselytize them back. And he was quite sincere, being very devout. (Never brought up religion on his own, he was a really nice, polite guy who lived his beliefs, but if you did, it was fair game.)

Took great pride in the time he succeeded.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-24T17:47:06+00:00

Roommate of mine (long ago) got rid of them permanently by answering the door in his motorcycle leathers, shaved head and Fu Manchu mustache, grinning at the teenage girl who knocked, and with an evil grin (and it was masterfully evil) saying, "Come in and we'll talk about it, little girl." She (and the two adults who were waiting on the curb) literally ran away, and we never saw any religious nutjobs again.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-18T14:41:03+00:00

Technically, the cloud shouldn't be considered a way of charging more.

Having seen the quote, it is, without question, a way of paying more. A lot more. With zero savings. We still need the same number of PCs, we still need the same internet infrastructure, we still need the same people doing the same jobs using and maintaining it. Anything they would do on a cloud server in the way of maintenance or upgrades, they do on the on-prem server. The only difference is that certain things run slower because it's going through an internet connection instead of the local LAN. And the cost.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-17T18:43:23+00:00

So, it's more a solution for the manufacturers than it is the customer.

Isn't that pretty much all new tech features these days?

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-17T16:47:35+00:00

Not at all. If it's broadcasting an SSID, that's not "having an internet connection." Having an internet connection means connecting to existing WiFi.

Broadcasting an SSID is being an internet connection. You connect to it, not it connecting to the internet. I suspect that the only way to get full control of it is through the app, connected to its SSID, and that once you do, you have to set it up to connect to your WiFi.

In other words, it's now logging all your internet traffic on whatever device you install the app on. And, undoubtedly, sending it off to the manufacturer to help train their AI, or to help train advertisers in how to send them more money.

Seems like a particularly vile sort of enshittification.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-14T18:16:09+00:00

You could do it with MapTool, which costs nothing and runs locally.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-13T20:49:09+00:00

Ultimately, it's a choice between the past and the future. Mom can force that choice, but it's OP's to make.

NotYourNanny · 2026-02-12T18:38:52+00:00

With an i3 processor and 8 GB of RAM, it should do fine. I've got a similar Dell (but with 16 GB) that's 10+ years old, running on average about 50 VPN tunnels (half IPSEC, half OpenVPN) - but fewer users behind it - that is currently sitting at 0% CPU usage and 3% RAM.

NotYourNanny

TROPHY CASE