Slicer and Dicer

For Palm OS!!!

Dice Rolling for Gamers!

By Carl Davis

Overview

Slicer and Dicer is a dice rolling program designed for Fantasy Role-playing Gamers (FRPG). RPG games (like Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons and Dragons ) use a number of different kinds of dice during an adventure. For example, to determine if a character hits, a 20-sided die is rolled. If you still don't have a clue as to what I'm discussing, then you probably don't need this tool!! There's a more feature laden version available for your windows desktop as well. So you can take it with you whether your using a laptop or your Palm PC!!

Slicer and Dicer performs the job of a universal dice rolling machine. Some of the nice features are:

Has one-click access to most of the "standard" RPG die types (4 sided through 100 sided).
Allows for quickly generating multiple dice rolling and adding the results (e.g. 4d6 for character generation)
Allows for an arbitrary sided die if needed that also allows multiple dice rolling (you can even roll that 30 sided die if you like!)

Since this is a Palm application, I went for speed and simplicity in the design. I've found it really is a great tool when your sitting around a table with friends (especially rolling the damage for the 6 dice lightning bolt you just cast). I've been creating dice rollers for small devices ever since I started programming my old HP-28s. I even created a Lotus 123 compatible version for a Casio SF-10 organizer that had a built in spread sheet (alas the scripts died with the organizer). However, I think the Palm (and yes I'm working on a Pocket PC version) are the absolute epitome of the dice rolling platform. Well. at least electronic ones!

Downloading and Installation

The initial version of Slicer and Dicer for Palm was developed using the Java programming language. This doesn't mean anything in particular except you will need to get a copy of a Java Virtual Machine necessary to run the program (the JVM is just another small application you'll install on your palm. Don't work, it's only about 50K in size).

Here are the steps to installing Slicer and Dicer for Palm:

Obtain the Wabasoft Java Virtual Machine from www.wabasoft.com. Click on the "Download" link on the home page, then download the Wabasoft WabaVM (the version 1.0b was the latest at the time of this writing). The zip file will contain two files waba.pdb and waba.prc. Unzip these files to a temporary location.
Dowload Slicer and Dicer for Palm from this site using www.webcommando.com/rpgcommando/palmsliceranddicerdemo.zip This zip file contains two files called DiceRoller.pdb and DiceRoller.prc.
Load whatever utility you use to send applications to your PalmOS handheld. Designate the waba.pdb, waba.prc, DiceRoller.pdb, and DiceRoller.prc files for download into the device..
HotSync your handheld.
Select the application list on your handheld. Now, select the WabaVM program (there will be a splash page displayed).
Finally, bring up the application list again and select the DiceRoller program....your ready to roll.

Note: The version on the site is a free demo version. After about 25 rolls the program starts nagging. You must restart the DiceRoller to continue. It's anoying, but I hope you find it useful enough to register (Just drop me a note!). If you don't...it's just a couple of taps to get it back up and running, so no real harm.

Learning the MdN system

If you've been around RPG's for a while you've seen the terms like "d6" and "5d8" many times and know what they mean. For those who don't, here is a quick primer.

The number and kind of dice to roll can be easily expressed using the format "MdN". In this phased "M" represents the number of dice to roll and "N" represents the number of sides the die should have. For example, "3d6" represents roll three six-sided die and adding the values together (which gives a range between 3 and 18).

Using the Program

The figure below shows the main screen. Each element on the screen is also described.

d4 through d100	Rolls that particular kind of die. When a die is rolled, the value appears in the "Result" area..
Generic (M, dN and Roll MdN)	The generic area allows you to roll an arbitrary die type. Thus, if you place 30 on the "dN" text line you'll roll a 30 sided die. If the "M" box to the left side of the "dN" box is greater than 1, then that many dice are rolled and the values summed. The result will appear in the "Result" and "Rolls" areas. If you receive a Bad M or Bad dN message, you entered an invallid value (either negative, too large, or not a number).
Result	The "Result" area shows the result of the last roll. If you receive a Bad M or Bad dN message, you entered an invallid value (either negative, too large, or not a number).

Licensing

This version (1.0) is available to all to download and non-commercial use without cost. However, I retain the copyright and may offer an enhanced version later. Until that time, you are welcome to share this version. However, if you maintain a website, I'd prefer you provide a link to my site for users to obtain the latest program. Please note co-branded version is available if you would like to distribute with your own software or games.