CITY OF BRASS: A New RPG Electronic Tool Suite Is Glimpsed On The Horizon!

With Trapdoor Tech and Lone Wolf cautiously circling each other with their Codename: Morningstar and Herolab/Realmworks applications respectively, another player has been quietly prepping something in the background. The City of Brass, billing itself as "the next generation of gaming apps" is working on "a fully-featured app specifically designed to manage the mechanics of pen-and-paper games while allowing you to focus on what matters".

The application, which will have public betas in early 2015, and hopefully full production midyear, has been privately in use by the developers for months for both D&D 5E and for N.E.W. The Roleplaying Game (the inclusion of the latter attracted my interest for obvious reasons, but the app is designed for multiple systems). It features a world builder, a character (and monster) builder, a story builder for creating adventures, and a campaign manager. Plus a whole bunch of stock art you can use in your creations. Lucas of City of Brass shared some screenshots with me, below.

It's an interesting time, to be sure. It seems that this particular application is pretty much built already, and is is heavy playtesting mode right now. It does look like the forefront of electronic aids development is proving to be a highly competitive area in terms of functionality and cost, and that can only be good for us potential customers!

Here's a D&D 5E character. This is the overview stuff.

And here's the actual character sheet.
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Hoard of the Dragon Queen (D&D 5E) in the Campaign Manager.

Recaps from the Campaign Manager.

The character page. All the sheets can be viewed by the GM.

A preview of the City of Brass character sheet. This is Jack, a PC from a What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. playtest.

The tab with Jack's exploits. All the gold numbers are interactive. If you click them, they roll dice.

The Story Builder. This is the splash screen for an adventure.

An encounter in the Story Builder.

A peek at the World Builder pages. Crisp, clean, easy to navigate and simple to create and manage.

A quick glimpse of the FAQ pages which gives some hints as the licensing and pricing.

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[Ferghis]

So, correct me if I'm wrong:

Users cannot create their own character sheet templates.
Users can create data elements for character sheets but not share without a workaround.

Does that means that games that you have not made character sheet templates for, or modded versions of existing games (such as Fate or homebrewed 1e games often are) are not supported?

 

[Ferghis]

The generic ruleset template might solve this problem, though. Could you show us a little more of that?

 

[LucasC]

Does that means that games that you have not made character sheet templates for, or modded versions of existing games (such as Fate or homebrewed 1e games often are) are not supported?

No, those games are supported. They simply do not have a customized sheet, which means you'll use the Generic sheet for them until we create a character sheet template. One of our design philosophies is that the system is open and flexible enough to support as many games as possible without customization. Customization should bring added convenience only.

Here's an example.

When we added the 5e character sheet, we also added the Proficiency option, allowing you to specify a Proficiency bonus that, with one click, you an apply to saves, attacks, skills, etc. Functionality to specify a bonus and then apply it to saves, attacks, skills, etc. existed prior to the 5e sheet being created, but it was not as convenient and required a few more clicks.

 

[Ferghis]

Does that means that games that you have not made character sheet templates for, or modded versions of existing games (such as Fate or homebrewed 1e games often are) are not supported?

No, those games are supported.

So, I could use the pre-made Fate sheet with a customized skill list? Or if I had a Fate game with a customized skill list would I be better off using the generic sheet?

When we added the 5e character sheet, we also added the Proficiency option, allowing you to specify a Proficiency bonus that, with one click, you an apply to saves, attacks, skills, etc. Functionality to specify a bonus and then apply it to saves, attacks, skills, etc. existed prior to the 5e sheet being created, but it was not as convenient and required a few more clicks.

That's cool, and I imagine that these pre-made templates can be very useful if you listen to to community feedback. Which brings to the question, why not let users create them? I mean, are they that hard to make?

I ask because, as someone who has played pen and paper RPGs for about 30 years, I've found myself preferring my own sheets in almost every single instance (the rare exception being Fate). There's just so much data in RPGs that it becomes easier for me to judge how to organize the hierarchy of information for each character, and since there is so much difference between each, I end up just making a new and different sheet for each one, putting most-frequently used information where it is most easily accessible, and burying less-needed info. For example, many spellcasters need most of the top sheet for a certain amount of spell detail, while other characters need more room for class abilities, and some a measure of both.

 

[LucasC]

Here's a short video that should help illustrate character creation with a template vs. generic ruleset. http://youtu.be/j6scZcSOwjs

In regards to user customization, that's certainly a viable future enhancement, and was a point of discussion when we first approached character sheets. We ultimately decided that, given our current resources (there's only 2 of us), we would remain focused on creating a robust system that could support as many games as possible.

We have an ever-growing laundry list of things we will add to The City of Brass as time permits. =)

 

[Ferghis]

We ultimately decided that, given our current resources (there's only 2 of us), we would remain focused on creating a robust system that could support as many games as possible.

We have an ever-growing laundry list of things we will add to The City of Brass as time permits. =)

I cannot praise administering your resources enough. I see many projects burn out due to overextension.

I'm looking forward to your product.