Vampire: The Masquerade Ideas

[TealcOneill]

My tabletop group recently got into VtM and we're looking for tools to improve our game. We spent a while this morning testing this module and really like the idea behind it, it's much nicer than the crayon scribbles we currently have but there's some features we would need to switch to it. I really wish I could contribute to this tool directly but despite hundreds of hours of coding practice I can barely do more than write hello world. So I hope you take these ideas as polite suggestions that we think would make the tool better.

First and I don't know if this is a technical issue but we would love to be able to make the graph directly in the scene instead of having to go through multiple menus to look at it. That way we can quickly switch to the scene and see the relationship map.

Second is we wish we could add journal entries to the graph just like the character tokens. Most of our relationship characters don't need more than a couple of lines, and so we're making them as Journal entries which is just much easier for the group. We're planning on pairing this with a module that makes the journals and their title always visible. This module.

Third instead of having every link say what kind of link it is we think there should be an automatic key that pops up with all the currently used link types on it. That clears up the space for the fourth thing.

Fourth we'd like to be able to add multiple text boxes to each link and be able to slide them along the link. The VtM mapping guide recommends you put your characters feelings towards each other at the end of the link. As for why the ability to make multiple boxes, you might just simplify it to one box if the feeling is shared. So it might be "mutually hate each other" or it could be "hates" at one end and "loves" at the other. Or other more complex relationship thoughts.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully some of it fits with your idea for the module.

[gioppoluca]

Hi @TealcOneill , thanks for the issue.
On the first point unfortunately working on the canvas of the scene is harder than on a dedicated windows so it will stay as it is.
On the second point I will add the Journal to the things droppable on the diagram. I considered that relations would have been between actors but is reasonable to have maybe NPC descriptions in Journals.
For the third I do not get the "key" maybe if you can elaborate more on that. One thing that can be maybe done is to configure if you want to have the relation description visible or not.
On the fourth could be an interesting option: I was thinking on adding a radial meno also on the link to manage deletion and other future features and a small dialog to edit labels near source and target. Not sure if also in the middle since it would for sure go in conflict with the relation label in case people want to have it.
Could such a direction go in your way?

[TealcOneill]

Hello again, and thank you for the tool! I apologize for not replying sooner, I thought I had email notifications on but apparently don't.
That is totally understandable, I wasn't sure what the technical limitations were and wanted to make sure it wasn't just the first way that came to mind.
That would already add significant usability to the graph tool so I'm happy to hear you plan to add that.
I made a quick mock image to help clarify my idea for the map key. So instead of writing the link type next to every link you would put them their name in it's own area with the line style and color. That would allow much easier readability and is how most real world maps help delineate different things on the map, as you can see in the second image below. To make the 'key' or 'legend' as it's called more readable you would simply only show the ones where there's at least 1 link of that type on the map.

As for the radial menu, that sounds like a fantastic idea which would add a lot of use to the graph! I think skipping the middle option if you do want to keep the line names with it would be fine, we could always just put the same thing at both ends. However, if you do like my idea of the key then that would open the middle space for shared options.

I'm really happy to see you still working on this and taking my ideas as options. Thanks for creating an awesome tool!

[gioppoluca]

Have added possibility to drop also pages and also the option to add a custom image to the page - see README
Also added source and target labels
Will work on legend keys