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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nopantsyet" data-source="post: 2131548" data-attributes="member: 3109">JimAde is definitely thinking along the same lines I am here. I agree--as barsoomcore pointed out--this is a complicated and difficult thing. Does explain PCGen, but PCGen also carries baggage from the fact that it was the first thing out there. That's not to say it's a poor application; there is a lot to like about it. But it is exactly the excpeptions that cause the biggest problems. PCGen is somewhat constraining in that area. On the other hand, DM Genie allows you to override nearly everything, but you risk losing track of how anything got the way it is. I want to really consider how it is that people play the game at the table in order to really account for that. What's the first and easiest "outside the rules" character tweak? "Can I exchange X class skill for Y?" Let me make that change easily, without having to modify or recreate the original class.And I think accounting for rule exceptions is probably the easy part. Accounting for other aspects of table-top play lead to questions like, should the data model account for history and progression? Snapshots, deltas, dates and times, etc. What about the ability to annotate changes? ("DM said I could do this because PC was raised by flumphs.") What about automatic annotations like, "+6 Int (Circlet of Intellect)? "And yes, at some point you have to ask the question, "Does X belong in the data model, the API , the persistence engine or the application?" At what level should internationalization be implemented, for example?My primary objective is to facilitate tabletop play, whether at game-time or in preparation. (Or both.) It might not explicitly support it, but it should probably not eliminate the possibility of network interaction. It should probably not eliminate the possibility of storing as XML or as a database. It should probably not eliminate the possibility of being used in an online application like 3EProfiler.I think it's a pretty tall order, but I think it can be done. I think it means taking stats and rules individually and really understanding how the function in the game and how they are used at the table. It sounds like a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. But what I really want to know is...Who's going to write the rules regression test? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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