New! Story Templates Enhanced

[tjlee]

I'd like to introduce to you an extension and a module that builds upon the CoreRPG story templates that is backwards compatible and with added features.
It was developed to be only dependent upon the CoreRPG ruleset but is currently only tested on D&D 5E, Shadowdark, and Pathfinder 2E, but should work with any CoreRPG-based ruleset.

Here are some highlights:

• New Parser
• New Table Multipliers (sorted, unique, specific table rolls)
• Comments in templates.
• Modular Templates (include simple templates in other templates)
• Advanced Templates (to generate Advanced Stories)
• New Slash Command (/et) to evaluate template syntax in chat.
• Added Function-based syntax (2024.10.02 Update)

As a point of clarification, stories and advanced stories generated using templates created for this extension are exportable and shareable with non-extension users.

Templates (especially Advanced Templates) that use the newly supported syntax by this extension when exported in a .mod file will require use of this extension in order to generate new stories from those templates.

For more information:
Story Template Enhanced (extension) - the extension itself.
Story Template Enhanced (examples) - a module containing sample/test templates demonstrating CoreRPG and new story template features.

Release Log:
2024.10.06 Update: Maintenance release - code clean-up and examples update.
2024.10.02 Update: Added complete set of functions to support new function-based template syntax (more details, documentation, and examples).
2024.09.30 Update: Added functions! See New Release 2024.09.30 below.
2024.08.29 Update: Added a few features. See New Release 2024.08.29 below.
2024.08.16 Update: Updated the extension to accommodate changes made in FGU 4.5.10.
2024.08.11 Update: For those of you who got the module without the extension, I've put up a new version with the templates rendered as stories so you can see the end products. It's helpful to view the templates and the results side-by-side. Without the extension, you won't be able to view the Advanced Templates, but at least you can see the resulting render. You should be able to view the Simple Templates included (majority of them) either way.
2024.08.10 Initial Simultaneous Public Release of the extension and module.

Cheers!
TJ Lee

[Zacchaeus]

Jolly well done.

[Jiminimonka]

Isn't this already built into Story Templates?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ion-for-Unity)

This was added to FGU a couple of years ago.

What does your one do that this one doesn't, is it easier to understand?

[Jiminimonka]

Comparing screenshots with text in the original Story Templates Pro - massive coincidence?

STory Templates Side-by-side.png

[tjlee]

Isn't this already built into Story Templates?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ion-for-Unity)

This was added to FGU a couple of years ago.

What does your one do that this one doesn't, is it easier to understand?

I appreciate your question.

With the newly rewritten parser, you can nest table expressions arbitrarily deeply.

For instance, this sequence of table callouts and value references just works with my extension, but doesn’t with CoreRPG:

[:?Race:bardrace]
[:?Gender:bardgender]
[:?<bardrace> <bardgender> Name:bardname]

All of the above silently assign values to bardrace, bardgender, and bardname by rolling on the respective tables.

You can then reference the values as <bardrace>, <bardgender>, and <bardname> later in the template.

Kind of obvious, right? Except things break down in CoreRPG with the last one. It just doesn’t work because the CoreRPG parser and generator only makes a few passes across the syntax and ends up falling short.

Furthermore, the above can be included as column values in tables and still work even with deeply nested tables.

Additionally, with the introduction of Advanced Stories earlier this year, this extension allows the creator to make corresponding Advanced Story Templates that support text, dual column text, header text, image with text, and image with side text (left or right) blocks which the CoreRPG story template generator does not support.

Additionally, this extension introduces new syntax for table multipliers that sort, remove duplicates, or specify a different table roll:

Original multiplier supported by CoreRPG and my extension:

• [1d4x][NPC Name] roll on table NPC Name 1-4 times

New multipliers in the extension:

• [1d4s][NPC Name] roll on same table 1-4 times, sort ascending the results.
• [1d4u][NPC Name] roll on same table 1-4 times, sort ascending and return unique results (by removing duplicates).
• [1,4r][NPC Name] returns table rows that correspond with values 1 and 4. You can also specify a comma separated list of die rolls and numbers to pick from a subset of rows in the table.

Also, the extension supports Modular Templates. You can include a Simple Template in another using new syntax:

!^Simple Template^!

This allows you to reuse content generation and formatting in multiple places in other templates and maintain changes in one place rather than employing cut/paste reuse which is your only option in CoreRPG.

The product page for the extension has a little more detail about additional features and the module (free) has some examples which can be used as a tutorial to learn more.

I hope this helps with illustrating the benefits of this extension over the built-in story generator.

TJLee

[tjlee]

Comparing screenshots with text in the original Story Templates Pro - massive coincidence?

STory Templates Side-by-side.png

It’s on purpose to demonstrate backwards compatibility.

I didn't scroll further down in my screenshot, but there's another section of example templates that demonstrate all of the new functionality.

Here's the rest of the list:
D&D5E_3.PNG

[LordEntrails]

I'll add that I've been talking with tj about this for a while as he has been developing it. Though I haven't tested it yet, I'm really looking forward to getting some time to do that this week. All of the enhancements we've talked about have been pretty impressive. I know most people may never need or want the advanced features he's added, but it's taking the work that JimSocks did with Templates Pro and expanding on it. For those who really want an even more powerful tool for templates and tables, this is what you want to be looking at.

[Laerun]

Video demo time.

[tjlee]

Video demo time.

Are you asking or volunteering?

[LordEntrails]

Video demo time.

I've been trying to convince tj he should come on one of your streams
Of course, you would have to make the offer...