Player's Frog Help
This page is a guide to the intricacies of the Frog. It starts out with a general overview of how it works and then looks at each item in detail. For more help be sure to take a look at our sample of the Frog in Action.
Basically....
It's a chat room. A highly modified chat room from Mars. On the far left is the Character Table. All characters and creatures which are currently active will appear here, arranged under the user ids of the players controlling them. The Character Rows have a number of interesting functions in them but most importantly they report the characters vital statistics. Mental Stats are in bold green. Physical Stats are in bold red. Energy is on the left. Wounds are on the right. In mind or body, lose your energy and unconsiousness results, lose wounds and you will die as soon as you go unconscious. Lastly on the Character table, under a red bar are all the director's creatures.
In the center of the page is the Game Chat. Always use the radio buttons in the Character Table to select someone to speak before using the Game Chat! The top part of the Game Chat is where the conversation takes place. The lower half is where it comes from. The first row in the Game Chat controls tells you who is speaking. If it's blank then click one of the circles next to a name in the Character Table. The next four rows control the matter of action in the ToAd.
Be sure to watch the labels ending with IT! These light up telling you its time to click them and then go back to gray when finished. In nearly every case, you type a number into the first box in the row and then send it across by clicking its label. Because it's a pain trying to remember all these numbers, the small buttons next to the boxes allow you to point and click your way through combat.
The Comment Row is where actual messages are typed and then sent across by clicking the Submit button (or hitting the Enter Key if "On Enter" has been checked) Next to the Comment box are a number of emoticons, click them to insert them into your comments.
Below the Comment Row are the Roll Dice and See links. The Roll Dice links generate a random number for your character. The See links open valuable resources in separate windows.
Lastly there is the Babble Box. This is a second chat made for all the non-game related babble which goes on during a game. What is written there will not be recorded in the game's transcript. Once the game is over, and providing the Director doesn't decide to throw it out, the transcript of the campaign will become one of the character's many (drum roll please!) "Tales of Adventure" and available to the general public, so always think first before typing into the Game Chat.
How Does One Adventure with the Frog?
Unlike most games, the Frog really exists as a bunch of tools to help people play online. It doesn't enforce rules or carry the storyline along - that's what your friends are for. Most of the game is the online equivalent of sitting around and talking. Then every now and then the Director will announce that an Encounter has occurred, and then you'll be moving in rounds and utilizing the colored control rows. If a Battle Board comes into play you will have to open it in a separate window and bounce back and forth between the Battle Board and the Frog Chat. The Battle Board lets you move your icon like a miniature around a game map. Generally every round begins with movement and ends with action; unless your director says otherwise.
And that's it!
Hold it Now.
Patience is a virtue, especially when dealing with a largely untested experimental web thingamajig. The Frog works through an array of framed pages, one of which grabs data from the server at half second intervals. Meaning every time you click on something there will be at least a half-second delay between the click and what happens on screen. Also, because of this constant page loading cycle your cursor may flicker between the cursor and the hourglass. As annoying as this may be it shouldn't effect your game.
Lockups
If the cursor is not flickering and nothing seems to work, there is a known bug where the Frog, when first entered, loads pages in the wrong order and causes the javascript to lock up. This is easily remedied by clicking your browser's refresh button. In fact, if you ever run into a problem with the ToAd, the refresh button is usually your key to fixing it. Also, be sure to use Mozilla Firefox. The Frog uses a ton of intricate javascript which is W3C compliant, yet has only been shown to work on Firefox.
Character Table
The character table holds a heap of information about the characters and creatures who are currently in the game. In this sample to the right, I - EyeintheSky - am running three characters - Cochise, Deqqie and Zaccheus, Yet currently I am speaking as "EyeintheSky" and everything I put into the chat box will come out under that name. If I wanted to speak or act as one of my characters I would click in the circle next to the character's name thus moving the little green dot down to it.
The Player Bar
The bar containing the player's name is the Player Bar. It will be either orange for players or red for the director (side note: having director's member status does not make you a director in every game you attend, in the Frog the director is the person who initially set up the game). The Player Bar comes with three function buttons on its right-hand side.
File Upload. This button allows you to post an image or sound file to the server and then send out a link to it in the chat box, showing it to all of your friends. The pop-up which does this covers file uploading in more detail.
Visibility. This button creates a simple pop-up form that lets you control whether a character appears in the character table or not. This is not to be confused with something along the lines of "casting an invisibility spell on my character." Turning a character invisible in the character table removes him or her from the game. Story-wise it is more along the lines of Zaccheus flying off in a UFO never to be seen for a decade or two. Because the character table can get crowded, it is recommended to keep inactive characters invisible.
Player Busy Light. When it's green this means that the player is at the computer and paying attention to the game. Clicking the light will turn it red 
telling everyone that the player is busy, possibly away from the computer or busy reading a long passage. Clicking the red light will turn it back to green.The Character Row
Beneath the player's name are the characters that player is playing. Generally it is a good idea to bring more characters to a campaign than you plan to use since the only way to bring characters into a game is the same method used to join the game - with confirmation emails and everything.
In each character row you will see its Battle Board icon, name, vital statistics, and function buttons. The Battle Board icon comes from whatever you gave your character when it was created. If you didn't have an icon at your disposal then the default icon of the character's race will be used.
The vital statistics are in green and red and they stand for Fortitude, Mental Wounds, Vitality and Physical Wounds. As the character takes or heals damage these scores will fluctuate, even growing dim in color as they go closer to zero and turning black when they go into the negatives. If a character goes black in both statistics for either mind or body, it is technically rendered either a vegetable or dead. However, since dead in a fantasy game rarely ever equals true death, the Frog does nothing about this and it is up to the other players and the director to make sure that a dead character stays dead.
Of the player function buttons....
The Action Light. When lit this character has yet to act this round. When out 
it's a sign that the character has finished acting for the round. While the director can turn off a character's action light, it is generally left up to the player to monitor her own action lights. Careful though, once clicked the action light will go out and not light up again until the next round. This will not stop you from playing in the game, but it will look funny to the rest of the party and acting when your action light is out may even be seen as cheating.
The Movement Light. This only appears in the Battleboard's version of the Character table. Characters have a limited number of steps they can take in a round, and when this light is lit they still have steps left. When the light goes out 
the character has no more steps left to take..
The Character Sheet Sapphire. Since there is more to a character than vital statistics, clicking his gem will bring up the character's sheet in a separate browser window - for reference purposes.
The Note Pad. This creates a pop-up in which you can store notes on your character. One point of caution, these notes are attached to your character's presence in the campaign - and not your actual character. If the Director decided to delete your campaign, your notes will disappear with it. Generally it is not a good idea to write anything of lasting importance in the Note Pad.Game Chat
The Game Chat is in the center of the screen, and likewise the center of the action. The top part of it is the Chat Transcript. This is where everyone's writing ends up. As important as it is, there is not much to say about it. You read it. Occassionally you click on links in it. Lines are colored by the function used to send them out, and if a line starts like, "The Table: Zaccheus blah blah blah...." this means that the player using Zaccheus has used a table function and is not just faking it through the comment box.
More interesting and involved are the Game Chat Controls located beneath the Chat Transcript. It starts with the name of whoever is speaking and ends with a bunch of links to important places on the ToAd website. Each row inbetween ultimately writes something into the Chat Transcript.
Offense
This row is used for making an action. In the first edit box goes the score you wish to check to make the action (for example, if you have a 78% chance to hit with your revolver, a 78 would go in this box - sans percentage sign). Once a valid number is in this box the 
label will light up 
. Clicking it rolls 1-100 and checks the score. The result will be written into the transcript, like so: The Table:
Zaccheus rolls a 98 and Misses the check. (BCH:78% Pre:-12). The small picture of dice at the start of the line makes it easier to pick it out of the transcript. The (BCH:78% Pre:-12) at the end of the line us the specifics of the check. BCH is "Base Chance to Hit and the score we were checking. Pre is the "Pre-Roll Modifier." It doesn't tell us what modifiers were taken but we do know his BCH was reduced by 12 before the dice were rolled.
If the check had hit the die strength of the action would appear in the Effect row, the Roll It! label would go gray and the Find It! label would light up. Clicking Find It! would find the effect of the action, but first whoever was acted upon needs to set a defense.
Defense
This row is for opposing an action that some character or creature has used against you. To put it bluntly, if a Hobgoblin is trying to bash your head in with a mace, you would put your character's Defense score in the row and click 
. This sets your defense on everyone's browser and writes it into the transcript with a line like this: The Table: Zaccheus sets a Total Defense of 87 . Now anyone trying to find the effect of an action will have to compare it to 87. For good measure the name of the character and the defense which was set will appear in the chat controls.
Effect
If the check made by the Offense was successful, its die strength will appear in the first box on this row and the 
label will light up. Clicking it will check the offense against the defense and create an effect, writing a line into the transcript like this: The Table: Cochise creates a Little Effect (Def:89 Off:22 Post:+15). It is then up to the director or player to figure out what the little effect actually does (more on this later under Pop-up Buttons).
As with the Offense row, the Effect ends its line with some specifics about the action. In this case a defense of 89 was compared to a die strength of 22 which had added to it a Post-Roll Modifier of 15.
Pre Mods and Post Mods
Pre-Roll Modifiers and Post-Roll Modifiers are for things like movement penalities, magic weapon bonuses, concentration and exertion. It is important to remember that the ToAd uses simply modifiers. The same modifiers can be used before an action to help it hit (modifying BCH), or after the check has been made to help it do damage (modifying Die Strength). The only thing you cannot do is use them twice.
The Frog does not keep track of how you use modifiers - that is up to the director and the other players. It does however, make it easy to apply them. To increase your chance of hitting, place the modifier in the Pre Mods box on the Offense row before clicking Roll It! To increase your impact, place the modifier in the Post Mods box on the Effect row before clicking Find It!
Important note! If you are using a tool with some sort of magical / high quality bonus, such as the ever-present +10 long sword, you must add that bonus as a pre or post mod. The frog will not do it for you! If you make an action and forget to add in the +10 bonus then tough luck, you simply forgot to turn the mojo on.
Change
Typically the most common effect of an action is damage to a creature's vital statistics - which is what the change row handles. The first box is for points of either Fort or Vit (specify with the list box next to it). The second box is for wounds, mental or physical (once again, use the list box next to it). Lastly there is a list box stating Lose or Gain. As can be expected Lose removes points and Gain heals them. Clicking 
will cause something like this "The Table: Zaccheus loses 15 Vit and 1 PW." to appear in the chat transcript and for the vital statistics in the character table to be updated accordingly.
It is up to the player of the character to keep track of his or her vital statistics. No one else can effect a character's vitals, not even the director. However, since everyone sees the same thing on screen it is not as if a player can get away with fudging some gamer style fuzzy math.
Pop-up Buttons
If all of this sounds like a lot of work, be very happy that there are a smattering of small silver buttons
in the chat controls. These create pop-ups which contain relevant information gleaned from the character that is speaking. For example, clicking the box in the Defense row creates this pop-up.
This panel contains all the typical defenses Zaccheus might employ during the game. Clicking any of the blue links closes this pop-up and sets the defense just as if you had typed in the number and clicked . Most of the pop-ups work in the same way with just a few derivations....
next to them. Clicking it will open that item's information in a separate window is clicked the table not only tells you what effect has been created but also what it does by way of the situation one is in.
buttons that when clicked will total them up at the bottom of the page. When finished, click the Use button to send them across (or Clear to start over). Note that Concentration and Exertion automatically deduct 5 points from ones Vitals just as soon as they are clicked!!!! For range, type the distance in steps of a target into the first box, select a range from the list box and the modifier will update itself. This distance is the same number which appears when floating a cursor over an icon on the Battle Board.Lgaites and Assertions.
Assertions are actions that do damage (and in rare cases heal it). When you click on one in the Offense's pop-up it does two things. First it writes a declaration of action into the Chat transcript, like so: "The Table: Zaccheus goes to use Charcoal Grip, Erythinaeus against Cochise (Range:27" Speed:10)." This declaration is important in that it tells us who is attacking who, as well as how fast and at what range. On reading this Cochise might want to try to beat Zac to the punch with a counter attack: "The Table: Cochise goes to use Punch, Brawling against Zaccheus (Range:17" Speed:10)." Since their speed scores are equal, the director decides to let Zaccheus go first because he has the longer reach (27 inches).
Secondly, using an assertion puts its name, score and lgaite into the controls, like so:
With Charcoal Grip Zaccheus has a whopping 136% BCH. In the Effect row we now see its Lgaite. Each slash indicates a different effect: Little / Good / Average / Intense / Terrific / Excellent. The lower number is Energy damage. The upper number is Wound damage. So an Average attack using this lgaite would do 63 points of Vit and 3 PW.
With an Lgaite loaded into the controls the Table doesn't just tell the game what effect has been produced but also how much damage it did: "The Table: Zaccheus does 1055 damage with a Terrific Effect (Def:26 Off:75)." It is then up to whoever was hit to record the damage (copy and pasting through the clipboard works quite well). Damage is not automatically removed because the Frog doesn't know whether the assertion effects the mind or body or possibly even heals damage instead of dealing it.
Comments
Although it seems quite tame compared to everything above it, none of this would be worth a byte without the ability to simply say things as ones character through the comment box.
Quite simply, you type into the box and click Submit when done. If the On Enter box is checked then hitting the Enter key works just like clicking the Submit button. The little pictures off to the left are emoticons, clicking one will tack its code onto the end of your comment and be translated back into an emoticon once the chat goes through.
Roll Dice
These links cause the table to roll the dice in your name, causing lines like "The Table: Zaccheus rolls a 5 with the d20." to appear. Use it for whatever you wish, risk rolling etcetera.
Snake Eyes
Occassionally you will roll the dice and on rare occassions it will come up with Snake-Eyes! This means you have rolled 100. In the ToAd this means that by some broad stroke of alien luck you accidentally did the best thing possible. A roll of 100 never misses and carries with it 100 points of die strength. So Snake Eyes is a very very good roll.
99, on the other hand, sucks.
Babble Box
Off to the far right is a second chat called the Babble Box. It's for all the talk that goes on during the game which isn't really a part of the game. Anything from strategy to secret messages to jokes to lame attempts at jokes is what the Babble Box is for. The most important distinction between the two is that what gets said in the Babble Box is gone just as soon as it is posted. What gets written in the Game Chat gets recorded in the Campaigns transcript and will follow your characters around as one of their Tales of Adventure (cymbal schwang!!!!)
To Whom?
While the Game Chat automatically cleans out the text box after you post the comment, the Babble Box does not. You need to hit the Clear button. The reason for this lies in the To Whom? list box. This comes filled with the names of the other players in the adventure and by selecting one you can send a message that only this player will see. The reason the Babble Box does not clear is so you can send the same secret messages to multiple party members without retyping it. These messages always show up with an orange color around the sender's user id.