MaxKaladin
First Post
I'm not just talking about an undo function. I'm talking about making it part of the data to keep track of how each score developed over levels. For example, if you have a character with a skill, the character data would keep track of the fact that you added two ranks at 1st level, one at 2nd, two at third and one at fourth. If you're looking at the data, you can see exactly how the ranks were distributed to arrive at a given score. As part of the data, this would persist across sessions so that if you came back after a game and needed to drop your character in level for some reason (say you talked to your DM and he didn't approve a prestige class you took or something), you can just go back and remove the level of that prestige class and the program will know from the data exactly how to modify all the level dependant things to return the character to its previous state.JimAde said:And fine ideas they are.I really like the history point. I wonder if it's really part of the data, though. I would think it would be the application's responsibility to keep track of previous versions of the data. Just as the spec for a Word document doesn't (I assume) include revisions, but the MS Word document keeps previous versions or information about actions taken for undo. So when you level your character, the application would archive the previous level in a known location and if you want to revert it can. Of course it would have to be smart enough to revert only things that are level-dependent and not, for example, equipment.
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An undo function would just be something in the application that would maintain a record of changes so it can reverse them if the user says to. This history I'm talking about would record the path, so to speak, of how the character got where he was so you can backtrack down it at a later date if you so desire, even across sessions.
Yeah, PCGen has a good idea in the ability to make a "campaign file" you can spread around so others can make their copies of the program compatible with your game. I just think it needs to go further.Your second suggestion gets at something I was trying to say earlier. I would love it if we could define some kind of meta-data for modifying existing data. It's a major feature of d20 (and RPGs in general) that a lot of things can affect a lot of other things (pretty generic statement I know).