Its all about having a good time
27/10/2024 - A new start and the start of a journey
I fortuitously came across a one-off 5e DnD session running as a one off locally as mentioned in thje last post. First time I had seen something like that in a long while. This turned into an amazingly fun one-shot session running a gender-fluid bard who hated nobles and loved to be the centre of attention (dont they all!). A great DM and a few drinks (as well as the learning curve to convert from 2e to 5e) made this the first time I had roleplayed in years and a really fun experience.
It looks like the group will start to play regularly as well with a rotation of DMs in the future! Watch this space, could be a lot more activity in this space as it grows!
Other than that I had fun trying to set up a linkedin page for Stanton Games, got there eventually but boy they dont make it easy! I really need to remember to put the link on the contact us page!
It looks like the group will start to play regularly as well with a rotation of DMs in the future! Watch this space, could be a lot more activity in this space as it grows!
Other than that I had fun trying to set up a linkedin page for Stanton Games, got there eventually but boy they dont make it easy! I really need to remember to put the link on the contact us page!
13/10/2024 - Refinement of the MUD and a new character
This week I decided to adapt one of my favourite MUD areas in history into Stanton MUD v2. Gave a great appreciation of the changes in code and data structures from the original source code, but it is at least working (mostly). A few monster detailed actions (when I can work out which ones they are) need to be fixed as they are coming up in the error log, but its working!
This week has also given me a potential opportunity to join a group and game in 5e. More news on that as it develops, but sounds a really interesting heist scenario, and I might have just the character! No its not that GURPS character, who was a plastic surgeon with a fascination with plastic explosives (he's more likely to kill off any group than help them achieve any aims), but another minor character who might be as twisted, if a little less sick!
I just need to see if I can find a way to adapt them into the 5e system! Something to do this afternoon!
This week has also given me a potential opportunity to join a group and game in 5e. More news on that as it develops, but sounds a really interesting heist scenario, and I might have just the character! No its not that GURPS character, who was a plastic surgeon with a fascination with plastic explosives (he's more likely to kill off any group than help them achieve any aims), but another minor character who might be as twisted, if a little less sick!
I just need to see if I can find a way to adapt them into the 5e system! Something to do this afternoon!
06/10/2024 - Stanton MUD V2 and relearning c
I was find the that the stock Circle MUD base wasnt giving me the scope to do what I think I want to do, so I started looking around for an alternative.
A much built on development called Dibrova gave me what I thought I needed; however it needed a LOT of debugging and tweaking to get it to compile!
This gave me some much needed practice with my c skills and allowed me to really understand how the underlying code and structures worked.
Once I had the game compiled, I started to customise a few things to be the way I wanted them and fix some things that just plain didnt work!
Error tracing across multiple definitions and code structures made me realise that the code isnt the best structured, but it was at least able to be followed. Just about!
A much built on development called Dibrova gave me what I thought I needed; however it needed a LOT of debugging and tweaking to get it to compile!
This gave me some much needed practice with my c skills and allowed me to really understand how the underlying code and structures worked.
Once I had the game compiled, I started to customise a few things to be the way I wanted them and fix some things that just plain didnt work!
Error tracing across multiple definitions and code structures made me realise that the code isnt the best structured, but it was at least able to be followed. Just about!
29/09/2024 - Extending the website and 5e D&D resources
This week was mostly spent banging my head against a brick wall trying to work out why my user registration page wasnt working. After about 2-3 days of debugging php scripting I finally worked out that my NAS firewall had autoblocked itself meaning that it was stopping the process recording the right data!
I hate stupid things like that! But it again it raised the point that you never overlook the stupid small things you think cant possibly happen!
Other than that it was finding resources. Archive.org has some really good resources around, and there are some great character sheet kits too! A call out to a couple of them being:
I hate stupid things like that! But it again it raised the point that you never overlook the stupid small things you think cant possibly happen!
Other than that it was finding resources. Archive.org has some really good resources around, and there are some great character sheet kits too! A call out to a couple of them being:
The second tools was an excel tool by an organisation called Forged Anvil. Unfortunately it was taken down a few years ago but there are a few copies floating around. Made understanding how to create a 5e D&D character really easy!
22/09/2024 - MUD v1, Snakes and Adders
For my first attempt at getting a MUD to work I had a look at a number of options. There was a new MUD framework called Evennia coded in Python. Overall it looks to be a really good base to build from and an active set of people developing it through Git; however I wanted something a bit more turn-key so I could get up and started and reminice about some good memories faster than that!
I therefore took what I knew to be one of the better documented open projects there that has been used for probably hundreds of builds as a starting point (Circle MUD). This was quite a big thing in the 1990s, was professionally run.
Getting it up and running was a breeze, no compilation errors and a reasonable sized room and code base to explore. It also allowed me to tick off another project I had put on the back burner for a while, that of leanring the basics of Python! Parsing and exporting the world data, through a Python script, into a neo4j graph database, allowed me to see which of the "rooms" in the game were connected and how, allowing me to build up a map of the world! This was a fun little challenge but showed me just how rusty my coding skills were!
I therefore took what I knew to be one of the better documented open projects there that has been used for probably hundreds of builds as a starting point (Circle MUD). This was quite a big thing in the 1990s, was professionally run.
Getting it up and running was a breeze, no compilation errors and a reasonable sized room and code base to explore. It also allowed me to tick off another project I had put on the back burner for a while, that of leanring the basics of Python! Parsing and exporting the world data, through a Python script, into a neo4j graph database, allowed me to see which of the "rooms" in the game were connected and how, allowing me to build up a map of the world! This was a fun little challenge but showed me just how rusty my coding skills were!
15/09/2024 - The start of a long journey
The first week of the journey was spent primarily setting up the basics, re-setting a few web server settings on the host platform (a synology NAS), working out how to create an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine and remembering how to use all those commands I havent used in about 15 years!
After setting up the base virtual machine it was a case of creating accounts on Git, linking everything together setting up the appropriate multiple levels of firewall and security. Again this was using skills I havent used in a long time so was overall a really good refresher in a number of key skills I had mostly forgotten!
It was then onto the website, creating email accounts, the basic branding and basic structure of the Home Page, Contact Us and other static pages.
The actual structure of the website was mirrored on another I created a few years ago for another purpose and just reskinned. This allowed me to greatly accelerate the pace to develop a responsive (mostly) website (albeit with some bugs and ideosyncracies!
After setting up the base virtual machine it was a case of creating accounts on Git, linking everything together setting up the appropriate multiple levels of firewall and security. Again this was using skills I havent used in a long time so was overall a really good refresher in a number of key skills I had mostly forgotten!
It was then onto the website, creating email accounts, the basic branding and basic structure of the Home Page, Contact Us and other static pages.
The actual structure of the website was mirrored on another I created a few years ago for another purpose and just reskinned. This allowed me to greatly accelerate the pace to develop a responsive (mostly) website (albeit with some bugs and ideosyncracies!
