Homepage: https://github.com/lifelike/decide-mode
Author: Pelle Nilsson
Updated:
Rolling dice and other random things
Use to make random decisions. Roll various types of dice, generate
random numbers from ranges, or generate random text from
tables.
Enable decide-mode minor-mode. Pressing ? ? will insert a YES
or NO (possibly with a + or - modifier to be interpreted
any way you wish).
If the answer is unlikely to be yes, press ? -
a more unlikely (difficult) query that has only a 33 % chance of being
yes. For a liklier/easier test press ? + (67 % chance).
To roll generic dice, use the function decide-roll-dice. It will
ask for what roll to make, something like 2d6 or 3d10+2 or 2d12-1.
The default if nothing is input, or nothing that can be parsed
properly as a dice specification, 1d6 is rolled.
M-p and M-n can be used to navigate history to re-roll.
Rolling dice is bound to ? d when decide-mode is active.
Some common and less common die-rolls have their own key-bindings
enabled per default in decide-mode:
? 3 -> 1d3
? 4 -> 1d4
? 5 -> 1d5
? 6 -> 1d6
? 7 -> 1d7
? 8 -> 1d8
? 9 -> 1d9
? 1 0 -> 1d10
? 1 2 -> 1d12
? 2 0 -> 1d20
? % -> 1d100
? D -> 2d6
Custom dice can be defined in the decide-custom-dice alist. By default it
contains configuration for dA (average-dice, d6 numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5)
and dF (Fudge/FATE dice, d6 labeled +, +, 0, 0, -, -). Custom dice names
are not case sensitive (avoid having dice with the same name only differing
in case). Each custom dice side has a string
label and an optional value that is used (if it exists) to calculate the sum
of rolling multiple dice of that type. There are some pre-defined
key-bindings in decide-mode for the included custom dice:
? f -> 4dF
? a -> 1dA
? A -> 2dA
To pick a random number in any range press ? r (decide-random-range),
then input range to get number from, in one of the following formats:
3-17
3--17
3---17
(even more dashes are allowed)
3<<17
3<<<17
3>>17
3>>>17
All ranges are inclusive (ie the two given numbers may be choosen).
The start of a range must be lower than the end of the range.
The end of a range can not be a negative number.
When having more than one dash between numbers, that means you will get
an average of that many random draws, meaning the result is more likely
to be close to the middle of the range. Adding more dashes makes it
increasingly unlikely to get results close to the extremes of the range.
Using << (or <<< etc) will instead result in the lowest of multiple
draws, tending towards the lower end of the range,
and the opposite is true when using >> (or >>> etc).
To decide from a given list of possible choices press
? c (decide-random-choice)
and input a comma-separated list of things to choose from.
There are also some pre-defined lists of choices that can be
accessed with the following shortcuts.
? w 4 -> decide-whereto-compass-4 (N,S,W,E)
? w 6 -> decide-whereto-compass-6 (N,S,W,E,U,D)
? w 8 -> decide-whereto-compass-8 (N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW)
? w 1 0 -> decide-whereto-compass-10 (N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW,U,D)
? W 2 -> decide-whereto-relative-2 (left,right)
? W 3 -> decide-whereto-relative-3 (forward,left,right)
? W 4 -> decide-whereto-relative-4 (forward,left,right,back)
? W 6 -> decide-whereto-relative-6 (forward,left,right,back,up,down)
It is also possible to pick random combinations of words taken from the
variable decide-tables using ? t (decide-from-table). decide-table is an
alist that gives lists of possible values for each 'table'. If the name of
another table in the alist is given in square brackets a random value from
that list will be substituted, and this is applied recursively (do not
include a reference to a table from a table referred to from that table!). A
valid dice-spec in square brackets is rolled with the result inserted. A
valid range in square brackets (as for decide-random-range) will result in a
random value from that range being inserted. If a word matches the name of a
table that table will be used to insert something at that position. A
possible expansion for a table name can have a weight added to make it more
likely to be choosen like ("dragon" . 3) (making it three times as likely to
be choosen as an expansion that has no weight given). The default-value for
decide-tables contains some examples to hopefully make all this a bit less
confusing.
The functions decide-table-load-file and decide-table-load-dir
can be used to load random tables from text files into
the decide-tables variable. Each file contains one or more tables
with one possible substitution per line, in the same format
as is used in decide-tables. Weights are set by prefixing
a line with a number and a comma, with no whitespace before
or after. A line that begins with a semicolon marks
the beginning of a new table, and the text on that
line after the semicolon is the name of the table.
If a table is named MAIN (case-insensitive) it
will take its name from the file (sans extension).
The random-tables subdirectory in the git-repository
for decide-mode contains example tables.
References (in brackets) to other tables will first match
tables defined in the same file. If that fails it will look
for other files that match the table-name.
It is possible to refer to tables inside of other files by
using table-name combining the file-name (sans extension)
with the name of the table within that file, joined by
a period (.) (e.g. example-dragon.prefix to refer to the
prefix table in random-tables/example-dragon.txt.
Example of globally binding a keyboard combination to roll dice:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c r") 'decide-roll-dice)
Results of decisions or dice will be input in current buffer at point,
or in the minibuffer if current buffer is read-only.
To just type a question-mark (?) press ? immediately followed by
space or enter. (Or quote the ? key normally, ie C-q ?).