Alternative to PCGen?

Twin Rose · Sep 17, 2002

Re: Re: Re: Re: Couple of Things

Brown Jenkin said:
I have become quite aware of the differences myself over the last month, but yes others might not be aware of this.

First: This is a perfectly honest question, I take it then that Campaign Suite is not a d20 product but is only OGL? or do you have seperate permission for your dice rolling?

Second; I understand that stat rolling is considered interactive and why that is the case. PC gen was allowed to keep its random name generator by WotC and be d20 legal. What I am wondering about is the inclusion of a die roler that is not field specific and does not input any results into any fields, hence no success/failure since this is not related to anything. People would have to cut and paste the results. I am not sure how a name generator is allowed and this is not since they are the same thing. Rename: bob=one=1, steve=two=2, etc. If need be name it generic generator 1 and let us change bob to 1 ourselves.

The second method is acceptable. What works in Campaign Suite is that it is windows specific, and thus relies on OLE for the assignment of the scores - one window talking to another through the automation, and stats being drag and dropped from one to the next.

Flavor type rolls are okay - you can't really fail at rolling a name, unless I suppose you really don't want the name bob, but it's subjective and a matter of taste.

smetzger · Sep 18, 2002

The d20 guide says you cannot make an Interactive Game:
""Interactive Game": means a piece of computer gaming software that is designed to accept inputs from human players or their agents, and use rules to resolve the success or failure of those inputs, and return some indication of the results of those inputs to the users."

To me that says that you could have random character generation since there is no 'success or failure' in d20 character generation; unlike say the original Traveller game. Some however take this to mean that you cannot do any random generation in a d20 computer program.

Brown Jenkin · Sep 18, 2002

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Couple of Things

Twin Rose said:
The second method is acceptable.

???? What exactly are you refering to ?????

Twin Rose said:
What works in Campaign Suite is that it is windows specific, and thus relies on OLE for the assignment of the scores - one window talking to another through the automation, and stats being drag and dropped from one to the next.

So you are saying that you have legaly by d20/OGL rules put a random number generator in your program. If this is infact legal the question that PCgen refuses to talk about is why can't such a feature be implemented in PCgen.

Twin Rose said:
Flavor type rolls are okay - you can't really fail at rolling a name, unless I suppose you really don't want the name bob, but it's subjective and a matter of taste.

Yes, my point is that if such a generator is possible and points to a table in the OGL it does not realy matter what info is in the table since there are no rules about having a OGL table of 1,2,3,4 etc. The generator is legal, the table is legal. The only illegal thing is actualy using those numbers directly to determine success/failure.

Brown Jenkin · Sep 18, 2002

smetzger said:
The d20 guide says you cannot make an Interactive Game:
""Interactive Game": means a piece of computer gaming software that is designed to accept inputs from human players or their agents, and use rules to resolve the success or failure of those inputs, and return some indication of the results of those inputs to the users."

To me that says that you could have random character generation since there is no 'success or failure' in d20 character generation; unlike say the original Traveller game. Some however take this to mean that you cannot do any random generation in a d20 computer program.

Good point, If I randomly generate stats for a new character I have not succeeded or failed since it is not aparent that those stats are good or bad. Names: I like Bob, if I get Bob I succeeded, If I get steve I failed. Character: I like Fighters, If I get a 18 Str, 7 Int I succeeded, If I get 7 Str, 18 Int I failed. You like Steve, If you get Bob you failed. You like Wizards, I you get 18 Str, 7 Int you failed, if you get 7 Str, 18 Int you Succeed. Success/failure for both is in the Eye of the beholder. There is no empirical succees/failure.

As for whether you can do any random generation, WotC has directly signed off on PCgen being d20 complient. PCgen has a random generator. Therefore d20 random generation in itself, by WotC own ruling, is legal. It is how such generation is applied that is the real question now.

Sm!rk · Sep 18, 2002

Re: Couple of Things

Mynex said:
6) And why the hell is everyone so focused on the WotC materials? You do realize before GenCon 50% of the material in PCGen was from 3rd party publishers?

Let me take a guess, WotC material sells in the tens of thousands, the rest sells in the tens or hundreds.

Twin Rose · Sep 18, 2002

Re: Re: Couple of Things

Sm!rk said:
Let me take a guess, WotC material sells in the tens of thousands, the rest sells in the tens or hundreds.

I believe you are roughly correct about WOTC material, save for the PHB and other core books. D20 Publishers have to sell more than that, though, or it wouldn't be cost effective. The real "break even" number for most publishers is 3,000 - and since they are, in fact, making money we can assume that it's higher than this.

I can give rough figures of my own product, but supplements are a 'steady' seller, never really going up or down. Books often have an initial boom, and then they slowly drop off in sales.

Alternative to PCGen?

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