Playing games online brings the opportunity to find more opponents and more times available for more Dragon Dice game play. Currently, the three best options for online play are the SFR On-Line Games Forums, Webcam play, and games over Tabletop Simulator. Today we’re going to learn how to play over the SFR Forums.
If you need an opponent, you can start your post asking for an opponent, specifying the format you want to play (standard 36pt, battlefest 60pt, standard 36 pt no dragonkin/minor terrain, etc). If you’ve already got an opponent ready, you can get straight into gameplay. We’ll cover how to format the state of the game board in your posts, update it, and how to show your rolls. Often, one player will take the responsibility of updating the board, but both players can if they both know how and are willing.
Below is a image of a 30 point game ready to start, followed by the BBCode used to create that image on the SFR forums.
[table color=#000000]
[row][color=#000000]*[/color][col][color=#000000]*****************[/color][col][color=#000000]**[/color][col][color=#000000]*****************[/color][col][color=#000000]**[/color][col][color=#000000]*****************[/color][col][color=#000000]**[/color][col][color=#000000]*****************[/color][col][color=#000000]**[/color]
[row][col color=#FF0000][color=#000000]Player 1
BUA
[/color][col][col color=#454545][color=#FFFFFF]Player 1
DUA
[/color][col][col color=#800080][color=#FFD700]Player 1
Reserve Army
[/color][col][col color=#FFA500][color=#000000]Player 1
Summoning Pool
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragons/Ivory_Wyrm_Jaws.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragons/Ivory_Drake_Jaws.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Highland_Village.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Highland_Bridge.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Highland_Knoll.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Highland_Woods.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Gold_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Gold_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Gold_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Gold_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Gold_Dragonscout.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Red_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Red_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Red_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Red_Dragonscout.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Red_Dragonscout.gif[/img]
[/color][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#98FB98][color=#000000]Player 1
Horde
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Footman.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col color=#98FB98][color=#000000]Player 1
Campaign
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Umber_Hulk.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Warlord.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Sergeant.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Sergeant.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Footman.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Footman.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Footman.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col color=#98FB98][color=#000000]Player 1
Home Army
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Behemoth.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Mammoth_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Lizard_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Lizard_Rider.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Pony_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Pony_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Pony_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Pony_Rider.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col][col]
[row][mcol color=#008000][color=#FFFFFF]Player 2's Home
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Swampland_City.gif[/img]
[/color][col][mcol color=#008000][color=#FFFFFF]Proposed Frontier
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Swampland_City.gif[/img] [img]http://sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Highland_Temple.gif[/img]
[/color][col][mcol color=#008000][color=#FFFFFF]Player 1's Home
[img]http://sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Highland_Temple.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#D2B48C][color=#000000]Player 2
Home Army
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Troll.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Filcher.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Ambusher.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Ambusher.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Mugger.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Mugger.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Mugger.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col color=#D2B48C][color=#000000]Player 2
Campaign
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Mugger.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col color=#D2B48C][color=#000000]Player 2
Horde
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Cannibal.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Leopard_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wolf_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wolf_Rider.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wardog_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wardog_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wardog_Rider.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Goblin/Wardog_Rider.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#FFA500][color=#000000]Player 2
Summoning Pool
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragons/Green_Drake_Jaws.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragons/Black_Drake_Jaws.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Swampland_Bridge.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Swampland_Knoll.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Swampland_Woods.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Swampland_Village.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragonchamp.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragonhero.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragonhero.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragontroop.gif[/img] [img]http://www.sfr-inc.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragontroop.gif[/img]
[/color][col][col color=#800080][color=#FFD700]Player 2
Reserve Army
[/color][col][col color=#454545][color=#FFFFFF]Player 2
DUA
[/color][col][col color=#FF0000][color=#000000]Player 2
BUA
[/color][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[/table]At first glance, that is very long and overwhelming. We’ll explain what you’re looking at shortly, but there are two primary ways to generate this code.
The first is to use a tool called DD Inventory The second way is to make changes manually. We will cover DD Inventory first.
DD Inventory
Download and install DD Inventory from here, then open the application. On the toolbar, select View > BB Code > Dragon Dice
On the right, select the ‘New Board’ button to start a new game. Give the game a meaningful game ID such as “Dolus vs TheSteveAllen”. Then add in the names of each player. The other options will let you choose a Sealed Starter and Sealed Kicker for a randomly generated army built from one starter and one kicker pack, but we’re going to skip this for now. Leave them all set to ‘None’ and click ‘Finished’. This will bring us to the view below:
The right side shows the board, which isn’t populated yet since we haven’t added our armies. As you can see from the image, hovering over one of the squares will show which part of the board we’re on.
The light green or teal squares represent Player 1’s armies; Horde on the left, Frontier in the middle, and Home on the right.
The middle green row are the terrains.
The next row, light brown, are Player 2’s armies; Home, Frontier, and Horde.
The top and bottom rows are Player 1 and Player 2’s respective areas for Dead Unit Area (DUA), Buried Unit Area (BUA), Reserves, and Summoning Pool. Purple is reserves, orange is summoning pool, gray is DUA, and red is BUA.
Clicking in one of these squares allows you to add units to that square. This is how we’ll add our army. I’ve made myself (Dolus) Player 1, so we will edit the light green row to place our Dwarf army from the first post. Clicking the leftmost is setting my horde army, where I have a single footman placed. The new screen lists all the dice on the left side, sorted by an arbitrary racial listing (Coral Elf, Dwarf, etc), then unit type (Heavy Melee, Light Melee, Missile, Cavalry, Mage, Monsters), then rarity (Rare, Uncommon, Common). Once you find the die you want to add, select it and click and drag the text selection to the middle white box on the right. The white boxes above and below this middle are text fields for typing anything you want to appear above or below the dice pictures when posted to the forum. This is useful for spells and status effects. Once you’ve added any dice you need to add and typed any text you wanted to add, click ‘Finished’ at the bottom.
After clicking Finished, we get back to the play area screen. We can click ‘BB Code’ to get a copy of the code, and post it in the SFR Forums, and click Preview to see what the board looks like so far.
Adding the rest of the dice in our army along with our terrain and summoning pool, we end up with the following board, ready for our opponent to list their dice.
Manually editing the BB Code
Personally, I find copy/pasting an existing board and editing the changes manually much easier than dealing with DD Inventory. Plus, I can make new forum posts from any computer without needing to have DD Inventory installed. This is the second method we’ll look at for updating the game state. This will be easier for anybody who has ever done BB Code before, or even basic HTML code. But we will go over each bit to explain it.
We will start with the structure of the board. This is going to be more detail than many will care to know, so feel free to skip to the next section. Although with copy/pasting, and careful editing of only the fields that matter, you don’t need to worry about the board structure in BB Code, but it can be helpful to understand how it’s structured. First of all, the board is formatted into a table of multiple rows and columns. 9 rows and 9 columns to be exact. The [table][/table] tag defines a table, then a row is defined by [row], and then the columns within a row are defined with [col]. Take note that a table has a defined start [table] and a defined end [/table], but rows and columns do not have defined ends. Instead, they are implied. Also, each row contains multiple columns, but each column does not contain any rows. There is also a color=”xxxxxx” attribute used with x’s set to a hex color code value to color the table cells, such as block for the border, light green for Player 1’s armies, etc. You’ll also notice a lot of asterisks ‘*’ in the formatting. Essentially, these are just filler text that is hidden because it’s in the cells that make up the black border. These are used to fix the length and size of the board. So our entire table, with no content, looks like this:
[table color=#000000]
[row]*[col]*****************[col]**[col]*****************[col]**[col]*****************[col]**[col]*****************[col]**
[row][col color=#FF0000][col][col color=#454545][col][col color=#800080][col][col color=#FFA500][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#98FB98][col][col color=#98FB98][col][col color=#98FB98][col][col][col]
[row][mcol color=#008000][col][mcol color=#008000][col][mcol color=#008000][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#D2B48C][col][col color=#D2B48C][col][col color=#D2B48C][col][col][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[row][col color=#FFA500][col][col color=#800080][col][col color=#454545][col][col color=#FF0000][col]
[row][col][col][col][col][col][col][col][col]
[/table]
Since we don’t want to build a board template from scratch everytime, that is why I copy/paste an existing board and just modify it. In word or a text editor, you can find and replace all instances of ‘Player 1’ with ‘Dolus’ and ‘Player 2’ with ‘TheSteveAllen’. Then you can delete the existing dice and replace them with your own, as we’ll cover in the next section.
Adding dice pictures to the board
Now comes the important part, adding the dice and status effects to the board. The status effects are easy, you just add text above or below the pictures in the right location with what the effect is, such as Ash Storm next to a terrain, or Palsy on an army.
Pictures of all of the dice are on SFR’s website, adding them is just a matter of knowing what naming system to use. You need the full path to the image file enclosed in image tags [img][/img]. Below is an example of a Pony Rider, which is a common cavalry Dwarf unit.
[img]http://sfr-inc.com/icon/Dwarf/Pony_Rider.gif[/img]
The format of the image URL is as follows:
http://sfr-inc.com/icon/<race>/<die_name>.gif
Note that a die with a multi-word name has an underscore instead of spaces for the name. If you’re unfamiliar with the names for the dice, I recommend you start with the SFR Dice Browser. This is the easiest way to look up the dice and look up the name of the dice.
Here are the keywords to use for the races, terrain, dragons, dragonkin, and magic items, along with examples to help recognize the pattern to follow in creating the image link.
Races
Acolytes, Amazon, Coral_Elf, Dwarf, Feral, Firewalker, Frostwing, Goblin, Lava_Elf, Scalder, Swamp_Stalker, Treefolk, Undead
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Coral_Elf/Coral_Giant.gif
Acolytes of Eldarim
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Acolytes/Air_Trog_Disciple.gif
The path is in ‘Acolytes’ and the die name requires their elemental color (Air), race (Trog), and the die’s unit name (Disciple).
Eldarim Champions
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Eldarim/Air_Dragonmaster.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Eldarim/Dragoncrusader.gif
Unlike the Acolytes, the Eldarim Champions are in the path ‘Eldarim’. Colored units are the element name (Air) and die name (Dragonmaster) whereas the White Eldarim are just the die name (Dragoncrusader).
Dragonkin
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragonkin_Champion.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragonkin/Black_Dragontroop.gif
Dragons
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragons/Blue_Drake_Jaws.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragons/Lava_Elf_Drake_Jaws.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragons/White_Wyrm_Jaws.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Dragons/Ivory_Drake_Jaws.gif
Terrains
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Coastland_Temple.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Coastland_Melee_7_Temple.gif
The terrains are in the ‘Terrains’ path. The 8th face is the terrain type (Coastland) followed by the 8th face icon (Temple). But to show a different number, you need to add the action type (Melee, Missile, or Magic) and the number (7).
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Coastland_Special_Vortex.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Coastland_Special_Melee_7.gif
The special terrains are similar but you have to add ‘Special’ to the name, and it doesn’t specify the Terrain 8th face type after the number value like normal terrains do (e.g. Coastland_Melee_7_Temple versus Coastland_Special_Melee_7)
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Coastland_Bridge.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Coastland_Flood.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Terrains/Minor/Coastland_Double_Maneuvers.gif
And here are a few examples for Minor Terrains. The path is ‘Terrains/Minor’ and the die name is the terrain type (Coastland) and the icon that’s showing (e.g. Double_Maneuvers or Bridge or Flood)
Magical_Items
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Magical_Items/Silver_Medallion_TSR.gif
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Magical_Items/Green_Mithril_Shield.gif
All 4-sided items are under the path ‘Magical_Items’. The Medallions are Gold, Silver, or Bronze followed by ‘_Medallion_TSR’. But the other items are the color (Green) followed by the die (Mithril_Shield).
http://www.dragondice.com/icon/Magical_Items/Artifacts/Green_Flying_Carpet.gif
Artifacts are similar to magic items, but the path includes Artifacts ‘Magical_Items/Artifacts’. The die name is still the color (Green) followed by the die type (Flying_Carpet).
Rolling Dice
There are a few ways to roll your dice and post your results. A couple of ways are to use DD Inventory to roll, or to roll your physical dice. Another method I’ve used is using Excel to roll my dice for me.
Here is an important thing to remember, every time your opponent has an opportunity to respond, you should give them a chance to post before you continue. But you can agree on some posting behaviors to speed up the game. For example, if you want to maneuver a terrain, normally you need to wait for your opponent to say if they’ll allow you or counter-maneuver, then you both roll if they choose to counter-maneuver. Most players will simply say “I want to maneuver my home terrain, and if you oppose me, here is my roll.” Common courtesy is to base your decision, as the opponent, to counter-maneuver or not before reading their roll result. Most of the time, rolls like maneuvering it doesn’t matter, but if you have SAIs that could have significant effects like Wayfare or Firewalking, then you probably want to time your posts more slowly.
DD Inventory
Open DD Inventory and select ‘View’ > ‘Die Roller’. Under ‘Create New Army’, choose an army name and choose ‘Okay’. Your new army will show up on the list on the left. Select your army and click ‘Edit’. Similar to when we created our armies for the board, select your armies from the left and drag them to the right. Click ‘Finished’ when you’ve selected all of your units. It seems like there should be some way to associate a single army between both the board BB Code and the Die Roller. But if there is, I haven’t figured it out, yet.
Now, select your army and click ‘Roll’. Check the units you wish to roll, and then click ‘Roll’. Your results will appear in the text box on the bottom. right. You can copy/paste your results from there.
Rolling Physical Dice
This one is pretty straightforward. Roll your dice, and type up the results. People adopt different methods of typing up the results, from typing up (1) what each die rolled (which is also easiest to check for mistakes or errors), to (2) just typing up the relevant results, or (3) just the total for what was rolled.
So the roll above we could share using one of the three aforementioned ways. Let’s pretend the Goblins are maneuvering at a Swampland (Yellow and Green) terrain.
(1)
Wardog Rider - 1 ID
Wardog Rider - 1 ID
Wardog Rider - 1 Melee
Wardog Rider - 1 Melee
Wolf Rider - 2 Melee
Wolf Rider - 3 Maneuver
Leopard Rider - 4 Melee
Death Naga - 4 Poison
Total: 13 (3 Maneuver + 2 ID + 8 Melee counts as maneuver for Swamp Mastery)
(2)
[Same as above except not listing the Death Naga since it's result didn't apply to the roll]
(3)
13 ManeuversThe first method is my preferred because it would be easy to catch if I accidentally considered 4 Poison as 4 Melee and counted it as maneuver, or for my opponent (or an observer) to remind me about the racial ability Swamp Master if I had forgotten about it and only counted 5 maneuver in my roll. It’s also a lot more engaging and feels more like playing in person seeing all the results than simply seeing my opponent type “I got 13”.
Excel
The last method I’ll mention is one that I’ve used to be able to roll no matter where I am, rolling with Excel. This can be a lot of effort to set up, but thankfully, I’ve already done the hard part for you!
Or grab a copy from Google Sheets here. Click the link. Then File > Make a Copy.
This sheet also doubles as storing a copy of your collection, and automatically determining your wants and extras for trade based on your number of dice desired. But for this article, we’ll focus on two sheets: Army and Die List.
Die List is a list of all dice and their icons. You’ll copy from here the dice you want to use in your army. The Army sheet contains your army. Each row represents a single die, so if you need 4 Wardog Riders, you’ll need Wardog Rider listed on 4 rows. From the Die List, copy the die name and all cells for the Face IDs over to the Army sheet. Make sure the columns for name and Face 1, Face 2, etc. match up.
The first column in the Army sheet tab has a special formula that will randomly generate a roll result any time the spreadsheet changes. The easiest way for me to do that is to press the Delete button over an empty cell in the document anytime I want to roll. Then I can copy/paste the results from Column A into the forum post.
Now it’s time to play!
Well there you have it. Everything you need to know to create a game board and roll your dice for forum play. Now the next step is to find an opponent and play!
I am almost always down for a game if you’re looking for an opponent. Or you can find an opponent in our Slack Channel, Discord, Facebook group, or post a thread on the forums asking for a game!
One of the benefits of forum play is many of our more experienced players follow the games and help with any rules questions or mistakes, which is a learning opportunity for everyone!
