ichabod
Legned
So, way back in 1999, I was reading this online discussion about modular game systems. One guy was complaining that there were no truly modular systems out there, so I set about designing one. It was a hefty project, and I got sidetracked by going back to school, and it's been floating around on various hard drives ever since. So recently I was poking around in my old files, and thought "Why not do it as a d20 game?" Then it would be open source, and it could be built as a community effort, and be accessible to a wider audience.
So here's the idea: you take the SRD, and divide it up into a bunch of different modules, one for each part of the game: character creation and advancement, experience, skills, feats, magic, and so on. I put a tentative list of modules at the end of this post. Then for each module, you can create several different versions. So for characters you could have a point system, or D&D0 style classes, or a d20 modern style class set. That is, the character module generates skill points for the skills module, feats for the feat module, and an attack bonus for the combat module. Now, the individual modules might take that input and use it differently. The feat module might change each feat into 10 "feat points," and then have a point system for the feats. However, the interface between the modules is always the same, so you can take any two modules and start playing with them right away.
So I've put a bunch more work into this, and I can't decide if it's a stupid idea or something cool. What do people think? Is anyone interested in working on this with me, or should I just float it back on to the hard drive? I'm not too familiar with open source projects in programming, but I was thinking maybe we could use them as a model to organize this project and get to work on it.
Tentative module list:
A: Ability Generation
B: Die Rolls
C: Character Generation and Advancement
D: Skills
E: Feats
F: Action Sequencing (initiative)
G: Action Resolution
H: Combat (damage and special attacks)
I: Experience
J: Equipment
K: Ki abilities (martial arts)
L: Alignment/Passions
M: Monster generation
P: Psychic abilities
T: Thaumaturgy (magic)
U: Ubercharacters (epic)
V: Super Heroes
W: War (mass combat)
X: Extraplanar (cosmology)
So here's the idea: you take the SRD, and divide it up into a bunch of different modules, one for each part of the game: character creation and advancement, experience, skills, feats, magic, and so on. I put a tentative list of modules at the end of this post. Then for each module, you can create several different versions. So for characters you could have a point system, or D&D0 style classes, or a d20 modern style class set. That is, the character module generates skill points for the skills module, feats for the feat module, and an attack bonus for the combat module. Now, the individual modules might take that input and use it differently. The feat module might change each feat into 10 "feat points," and then have a point system for the feats. However, the interface between the modules is always the same, so you can take any two modules and start playing with them right away.
So I've put a bunch more work into this, and I can't decide if it's a stupid idea or something cool. What do people think? Is anyone interested in working on this with me, or should I just float it back on to the hard drive? I'm not too familiar with open source projects in programming, but I was thinking maybe we could use them as a model to organize this project and get to work on it.
Tentative module list:
A: Ability Generation
B: Die Rolls
C: Character Generation and Advancement
D: Skills
E: Feats
F: Action Sequencing (initiative)
G: Action Resolution
H: Combat (damage and special attacks)
I: Experience
J: Equipment
K: Ki abilities (martial arts)
L: Alignment/Passions
M: Monster generation
P: Psychic abilities
T: Thaumaturgy (magic)
U: Ubercharacters (epic)
V: Super Heroes
W: War (mass combat)
X: Extraplanar (cosmology)
