Ideal all-in-one RPG software package

[boB S]

I occasionally scan these and other forums/pages for new news on electronic RPG products to assist GMs and players. I keep hoping that the ultimate set of electronic tools will be programmed by someone, but so far this apparently has not occurred. So, out of curiosity, I would like to ask these questions: “As you see it, how would you describe the ultimate all-in-one software solution for all RPG needs? What features would you desire if you could have it all?”

If this topic has been already addressed and I have missed it, please point me to the appropriate thread(s). Otherwise, have fun!

 

[GlassJaw]

It's already been done. It's called Excel.

 

[DaveMage]

I occasionally scan these and other forums/pages for new news on electronic RPG products to assist GMs and players. I keep hoping that the ultimate set of electronic tools will be programmed by someone, but so far this apparently has not occurred. So, out of curiosity, I would like to ask these questions: “As you see it, how would you describe the ultimate all-in-one software solution for all RPG needs? What features would you desire if you could have it all?”

If this topic has been already addressed and I have missed it, please point me to the appropriate thread(s). Otherwise, have fun!

Welcome to EN World, boB S!

This is what Master Tools was supposed to be when it was originally conceived.

I want a software product that handles all computations for me (as a DM) and also has the capacity to generate (smartly) random creatures/encounters based on as few or as many parameters as I wish to enter. It should also have access to every book produced by WotC for D&D.

It should also have a simple map editor to make my own stuff as well as be able to randomly generate dungeons, cities, and worlds.

And it should be for sale for $59.99 or less.

 

[markbuda]

It should be so mind-blowingly useful and popular that RPG publishers distribute electronic versions of their product that are compatible with it because if they didn't nobody would buy them.

It should be capable of generating an entire game world on the fly, just in case the players decide to visit an alternate reality. You should be able to customize the rules to the extent of creating an entire game with it, which you could then publish in print or electronic form without additional tools.

I'm working on it in my Copious Free Time (TM). At the moment, it creates a window with nothing in it, but I'm hoping to have the Super Amazing Character Generator done sometime in 2009.

(No, I'm not kidding. Why do you ask?)

 

[kingpaul]

I'm working on it in my Copious Free Time (TM). At the moment, it creates a window with nothing in it, but I'm hoping to have the Super Amazing Character Generator done sometime in 2009.

(No, I'm not kidding. Why do you ask?)

I wish you luck (seriously). d20 alone is a moving target.

 

[boB S]

Welcome to EN World, boB S!

This is what Master Tools was supposed to be when it was originally conceived.

I want a software product that handles all computations for me (as a DM) and also has the capacity to generate (smartly) random creatures/encounters based on as few or as many parameters as I wish to enter. It should also have access to every book produced by WotC for D&D.

It should also have a simple map editor to make my own stuff as well as be able to randomly generate dungeons, cities, and worlds.

And it should be for sale for $59.99 or less.

Thanks for the welcome!

I guess my intent in starting this thread was, if it was taken seriously enough, it could serve as a resource for wannabe programmers. Hopefully if it was clear what people really wanted in such a product, eventually someone would program the big kahuna or at least some of the pieces. Of course that seems to be what we have right now, some of the pieces.

It almost seems as if WotC is more interested in actively hindering any efforts to provide an electronic presentation of their rules systems than doing something constructive themselves. And this seems to be a big sticking point for any programmer: How to avoid violating copyright issues while still providing a useful D&D product??? I guess at heart I am one of the many wannabe programmers and have thought about this problem at length. I see no other alternative other than providing a framework for the official D&D rules into which the end user would have to enter into the program the needed numbers and terminology that would be needed to make the program run official D&D. Of course this data entry should be a program-guided process via an appropriate setup wizard. But would anyone want to take the trouble to do such data entry?

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to legally avoid copyright entanglements?

 

[Alan Shutko]

Here's what I want, a campaign information management system:

• Given large quantities of rpg source material, I want it to be able to organize the adventures, plot hooks, characters, locations, spells, treasures, (and some) together, by RPG system, difficulty, original campaign setting, location, type of location (ie, frozen arctic, plains, swamp)
• I want to be able to annotate that information with personal notes, adjustments, RPG system conversions, campaign notes
• since all that data entry is of limited use if only i can see it, i want to figure out some copyright-amenable way to share base information (ala index type, probably fair use)
• it should have users and roles such that i can have players log into their campaign and see a subset of the information, while i as the game owner see it all. it should support multiple campaigns, with players in one campaign only seeing the information for their campaign
• it should be richly hyperlinkable back and forth, esp in the annotations, ala wiki
• it should get as much base information as possible from amazon or other sources

 

[markbuda]

I guess my intent in starting this thread was, if it was taken seriously enough, it could serve as a resource for wannabe programmers.

I'm hoping to use it as that... there are plenty of old discussions of this sort one can find, but there's nothing like a fresh crispy one hot out of the oven.

... And this seems to be a big sticking point for any programmer: How to avoid violating copyright issues while still providing a useful D&D product??? I guess at heart I am one of the many wannabe programmers and have thought about this problem at length. I see no other alternative other than providing a framework for the official D&D rules into which the end user would have to enter into the program the needed numbers and terminology that would be needed to make the program run official D&D. Of course this data entry should be a program-guided process via an appropriate setup wizard. But would anyone want to take the trouble to do such data entry?

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to legally avoid copyright entanglements?

(IANAL, but I've met a couple,)

Avoid the d20 license; the "nudge nudge" technique is sufficient. ("It's compatible with a Major Roleplaying System Which I Can't Name - Know What I Mean, Nudge Nudge, Know What I Mean, Say No More")

Separate utterly the program from the declarative description of game mechanics. This is hard,

Support multiple game systems. This is also hard, but worthwhile, because you should also do this next thing:

Support extensive rules customization (for example, with the SRD ruleset, there is no random generation of ability scores, but hey, you can just import this rule from this other game...), and encourage the user community to trade what they have produced - new character classes, monsters, etc. Don't host any of it yourself unless you're prepared to police it for copyright violations and be liable for what slips through the cracks.

Anything powerful enough for this, and popular enough, is guaranteed to develop a user base who will gladly violate the copyrights of anything they want to use, just like the Internet itself was destined to enable massive copyright violations despite its substantial noninfringing uses.

You can still be sued into the ground for no reason by anybody with more money than you, of course, But I believe they probably wouldn't *win* in the legal sense. You'd still be screwed, though. Man, I love happy endings.

Oh, hey, my Help|About box works now. I'd better take a break and finish watching "Return of the King" while eating an entire box of Pop-Tarts.

 

[boB S]

If one is clever enough, then guiding the end user to setup the rules can have a major advantage that most people seem to be clamoring for: enabling the end user to thoroughly customize the rules as (s)he wants. The program would have to check these customization efforts for self-consistency, but if the setup wizard were well-designed, then these potential problems would be minimized from the get go.

In fact, if one is going to approach the programming in this fashion, then the design should be geared to make the program suitable for any sort of RPG--the user would simply configure things accordingly. If the user must do significant setup work, then (s)he should be rewarded by being able to set up any sort of game system desired. However, making such a program "user friendly" for the timid computer user would be quite a challenge! (amongst many such challenges!)

 

[Firzair]

Hello everybody,
nice to read all these suggestions.

I'm still in the process of doing this kind of application framework... but recently my spare time has gone for zero...
My approach is a simple db architecture with really only two tables: objects and functions.
Everything is done in xml, even the functions.
The gui and the logic can be fully modified as the framework is really just building the most needed underlying functionality.
Therefore you can create a simple diceroller (given example application that currently comes with the program ) or a character manager for your favorite RPG, given you have the time to code the rules.

Currently I'm in the process of creating a simple way of entering effects and prerequisites (which isn't quite that simple) by coding the xml-files for it.
I've already created an interface that let's you design simple objects and a generic interface for creating a gui for those objects from the given infos.
So I can design the object skill with attributes name (multilingual string), description (multilingual text), untrained (boolean), armor penalty (boolean), synergy - skill (list of skills to which +2 synergy bonus is provided if char has more than 5 ranks in this skill), synergy - skill use (list of skill uses e.g. Spellcraft - learn spell for synergy logic), take10 (boolean), retry (boolean), resource (string). For this object I can open the object administration and there the default editor will be generated from the given data, creating a gui with edit fields, memo fields, checkboxes, comboboxes, checklistboxes etc.
By providing an function with a defined name you automatically override the default gui and can provide your own gui.

All of this can be done in my current beta version which I haven't uploaded yet.
My todo list currently says I should create a way to export data in non-xml-format and I'm thinking about adding wiki functionality for easy linking of data.
The last time I wrote about my program a few downloaded it, but there was no feedback
So I'm not sure, if this is really right approach for others, but perhaps another programmer can get some usefull information from this.

Greetings
Firzair