Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 nesodak Nov 11, 2008 11:09:58	Recently our group played WITR, and one of the players ran a new character through the adventure. When I went to report it, I was forced to assign 0-NewCharacter for each part. When the player went to check their character's advancement, they ended up with three new characters. This brought me into a discussion with several other DM's who have been having issues reporting events and we have come up with several suggestions. I know, all of this takes time and development, but a couple of the DM's are computer programmers (I'm not) and they made it sound as if it wouldn't take a lot of work to accomplish the task. I'm hopeful that these are simple suggestions/solutions that would enhance and ease the use of the online reporting system. Suggestion/Solution #1 - Don't make the page reset every time an adventure/DM/character/story award is inputed. This wastes my time and is a hassle when I have an entire convention to input and have to wait every time I input one of these items. #2 - If I create a new character for someone in a reported adventure, it will still be the same character when I report it for later adventures. This would also decrease the amount of work support staff has to do when people write in and ask that all the adventure information for four or five characters be combined into one. #3 - Add columns to the character report for XP, XP Tally, Bundle chosen, and Story Awards received. Why report it, if we don't get to see it. I know, I know, RPGA wants it for their own records, but if you already have the columns for gold, it shouldn't be too much work to add columns for XP. The Bundles and Story Awards may be a little more work, but would be a wonderful enhancement, especially if there was a link that allowed a player to see the text for bundle chosen or the story award. These are my first three suggestions. Does anyone have any more? Am I asking for too much? I know there is an expense to everything, but these appear to be small requests that would go a long way in decreasing the time and easing the process of reporting events. They would also enhance the play by allowing anyone to quickly view their character information online and see if they have any adding mistakes or forgot to write down a bundle. I know I have, and if it wasn't for a homemade character tracker, I would have missed out on 50 experience (just enough to get me leveled the last time). Thank you,
#2 Alphastream Nov 12, 2008 14:06:44	Completely reasonable, NeSoDak! With #2, this issue is a huge pain for big cons. There is nothing organizers/reporters can do on their end to fix this. My general fix would be these two items: #4 - for each field, allow either a dropdown from available picks (player, PC number, etc.) or for the person to simply enter a value. Each time the data is saved, run a check and report (with table number) any problems (such as an invalid RPGA number). #5 - allow for an Excel file upload of all data. This way, an Excel file can be used to mass import data. The file can be checked prior to being uploaded and a report provided on any entries that need to be corrected. User can then either proceed and correct blank lines manually in the Web page or cancel and go back to fix the Excel file. As I've written before, the single best thing every player can do to help reporting is to go to the RPGA, log in, and create an entry for each and every PC you have, including the name. Secondly, when you fill out a table tracking form, ensure everything you write is absolutely legible and completely filled out with no shortcuts/abbreviations/etc. Teos