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Bachelor Thesis for a new BRP software tool


Raven

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It's based on the survey I made last time ;)

But yeah, it sure is quite a lot to do.
Maybe pansophy or others are interested in joining the development, once I've finished the prototype for the thesis. I think he mentioned he could programm in Javascript, too.

If not... well, more fun for me :D

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Hey everyone :)

I have two questions concerning the character creation - skills.

When creating the character, you choose a profession and got a certain amount of professional and personal skill points to distribute.
The rulebook also recommands a skill cap, depending on the campaign level (75% for normal).

My questions now are:

1. When distributing the skill points, do you add them from 0 or from the base chance?
    So, if you have a skill with base chance 25% and increase it to 75%, do you subtract 50 points or 75 points from the skill points pool?

2. When using the caps, do you add skill bonuses and weapon base chance on top of the skill to calculate the caps or not?
    E.g. If I have a category bonus for Communication that is 9%, can you max your skills only to 66%, so the total is 75%,
           or do you still increase them up to 75%, regardless of the category bonus?
    E.g. And if you have a skill e.g. melee (sword) and using a bastard sword, do you add the base chance of the sword on top of the skill (as with the category bonus),
           or can you have the skill up to 75%, no matter what sword you're equipped with? (that depends on how you handle question 1, too)

Thanks in advance!

Edited by Raven
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Hey everyone :)

I have two questions concerning the character creation - skills.

When creating the character, you choose a profession and got a certain amount of professional and personal skill points to distribute.
The rulebook also recommands a skill cap, depending on the campaign level (75% for normal).

My questions now are:

1. When distributing the skill points, do you add them from 0 or from the base chance?
    So, if you have a skill with base chance 25% and increase it to 75%, do you subtract 50 points or 75 points from the skill points pool?

2. When using the caps, do you add skill bonuses and weapon base chance on top of the skill to calculate the caps or not?
    E.g. If I have a category bonus for Communication that is 9%, can you max your skills only to 66%, so the total is 75%,
           or do you still increase them up to 75%, regardless of the category bonus?
    E.g. And if you have a skill e.g. melee (sword) and using a bastard sword, do you add the base chance of the sword on top of the skill (as with the category bonus),
           or can you have the skill up to 75%, no matter what sword you're equipped with? (that depends on how you handle question 1, too)

Thanks in advance!

Author QUASAR space opera system: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/459723/QUASAR?affiliate_id=810507

My Magic World projects page: Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

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1. Add from the base

2. The cap is the cap. The weapon compatibility issue is touchy. Magic World solved this by introducing Weapon Class but BRP has no such in the book. I always just allow the same skill if its a similar weapon.

Slashing blade and slashing axe would be different but scimitar and long sword the same.

pistols, the same. Pistols and shotguns different. 

Author QUASAR space opera system: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/459723/QUASAR?affiliate_id=810507

My Magic World projects page: Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

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1. When distributing the skill points, do you add them from 0 or from the base chance?
    So, if you have a skill with base chance 25% and increase it to 75%, do you subtract 50 points or 75 points from the skill points pool?

 

From the base chance, so you would take 50 from the pool.

 

I normally do it in a spreadsheet, with skill name, category bonus, base chance, background, profession, free and any other adds in separate columns, with a final total at the end. It makes it easier for me to understand. Each column takes from the appropriate pool.

 

2. When using the caps, do you add skill bonuses and weapon base chance on top of the skill to calculate the caps or not?
    E.g. If I have a category bonus for Communication that is 9%, can you max your skills only to 66%, so the total is 75%,
           or do you still increase them up to 75%, regardless of the category bonus?
    E.g. And if you have a skill e.g. melee (sword) and using a bastard sword, do you add the base chance of the sword on top of the skill (as with the category bonus),
           or can you have the skill up to 75%, no matter what sword you're equipped with? (that depends on how you handle question 1, too)

 

The cap includes the base chance, so a cap of 75% means that no skill can exceed 75% at the start of play.

So, in your example, you can max your skills to 66%, as adding the category bonus brings the skill to 75%.

The same with the other example, the total skill cannot exceed 75%.

Of course, this means that any unused points can be used for other skills.

 

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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Maybe pansophy or others are interested in joining the development, once I've finished the prototype for the thesis. I think he mentioned he could programm in Javascript, too.

Thanks for thinking about me, but you can keep the Javascrip fun for yourself (no offence). It's just that I am too busy with the 'other' character tool here in the forum and I have a lot of stuff I want to put into it. Even recycle stuff from my old BRP NPC tool that can be found here in the forum as well.

Edited by pansophy
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Thanks for thinking about me, but you can keep the Javascrip fun for yourself (no offence). It's just that I am too busy with the 'other' character tool here in the forum and I have a lot of stuff I want to put into it. Even recycle stuff from my old BRP NPC tool that can be found here in the forum as well.

Hehe ^^
Yeah, I can understand that ;)

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  • 2 months later...

Hey everyone :)

So I finally finished by bachelor thesis! You can read it here, if you're interested:

The mighty BRP Tool

But there's still a lot to do. I didn't get as far as I wanted too, and I wanna redesign some things, so I'll do a least one more design iteration and probably make some smaller polls with you people (and I really mean small, like one question per time ;P) to see what you'd prefer.

When I've finished the design, I will implement the tool.

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It will still take quite some time to finish it... Even though I'm going to work on it every week, it will probably take some months, as it is a very big project, and I have to do it on my own, in my spare time.

I'll develop it gradually, adding new modules over time, so you can already use it, starting with the characters, then the lists (items etc), rolls, combat and the story part in the end. And I have to see if the tool should be usable by all players, using different user rights, or if it's only meant to run on the GMs pc/tablet. The first one would take even longer, as I'd need to somehow create a shared database and synch it, which I have absolutely no experience in so far.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey everyone :)

I've redesigned the tool a tiny bit and currently started doing first implementations of the overall structure.

I'd like you to take a look at the structure for the tool (main and sub menus), as it is still quite easy to change right now:
Structure.thumb.PNG.24a3898321191ceba466

Does it seem reasonable to you? Or would you change something?

If any of the names are unclear, just ask and I'll give a short explanation to the menu/submenu.


Right now it looks like this:
Tool.thumb.PNG.a38fdcdf27404ef054e243429

What do you think of the icons? Are they clear enough? (home will be on the logo button)

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Even like the name! :)

Will it contain ALL of BRP or just a cerain genre? Switch between genres or will laser guns be listed with crossbows, $ with gold, ect...

Author QUASAR space opera system: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/459723/QUASAR?affiliate_id=810507

My Magic World projects page: Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

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It will support all genres. And it will be intelligent enough to show only the professions/skills/weapons assigned to that genre ;)
I'll also filter the weapons according to the character's STR/DEX, so you only see weapons you actually can wear.

In general, I'll integrate all the basic lists of BRP, but you'll be able to create new ones, too.

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Looks wonderful.

Some ideas on the overall structure:

I think users are going to want to use this for two things: 1) simplifying character (and NPC) creation, and 2) record-keeping/automating game mechanics during an ongoing campaign. So I'd suggest that those be your two main sections. Alternatively, you could separate it into a GM and Player sections, and then have those two sections fork into NPC creation and GM screen (for GMs) and character creation and player screen (for players). 

If you go that way, lists of races, powers, skills, and professions would all go under character/NPC creation (with characteristics, etc.), and then they'd get recorded in some kind of character sheet available through the player/GM screen. 

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding what you're building. 

Interface looks beautiful. Only quibbles: I can't really tell what's next to the human on the characters button, so you might just want to have a stick figure there. The "lists" button and the "story" button are very similar. If powers, professions, and skills go over into the characters button, then the "lists" button could change to something like "equipment and money" and you could put put a bag of gold or a helm or a shield or a backpack there. But if you decide to keep it "lists," the icon you've chosen makes plenty sense, and people will get used to it as they use the tool.

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I did a random character generator for OpenQuest:
http://generator-openquest.rhcloud.com/

It is only client side JavaScript, no backend databases, etc. You have much more ambitious project for sure, good luck :)

One feature I would add is pdf-output for printing. For my generator I used bootstrap css and tried to configure print layout to be reasonable for printing out. It is far from perfect.

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You got the idea of the tool correctly ;)

I did separate lists from characters, because I think you usually add professions/skills/equipment at the beginning of a campaign and then stuck with it, rarely add new equip or so. Therefore I think it would inflate(?) the characters section unnecessarily, if it's all integrated into one.

To be clear:
The Lists section is only to manage the lists, meaning editing, deleting and creating the professions, skills, powers and equipment you can add to the characters.
In the Characters section, you manage the characters and assigning the available skills, equip etc to characters.

The thing next to the human character is simply a fantasy creature, as there aren't only humanoid chars and Creatures have their own section in there, too :P

I will also integrate a auto-character creation function.

@jux: I'll take a look at it, thanks :) I'll add a print-version of the characters as well, but I haven't thought about it much so far (how it should look, etc).

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A first small vote about the money system (altough it's not urgent :P), because Aelwyn mentioned it:

You'll have time 'til the 1st November. After that I'll take the result and delete the poll. Don't wanna have hundred polls floating around in the forum :P

Edited by Raven
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It's gonna be a web application, so you can access it from any platform. (but created for bigger screens, such as tablets and desktop, no smartphone)

I'll use HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP, and I'm probably going to upload it to my website/hoster, so you don't need to install a server locally.
The code will be open source, too, so if you want to, you can upload it on a private website, or even add new features ;)

Edited by Raven
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