I've been writing some tools for myself (C# is great for tools like this), and was wondering what the interest level is in using them, and if there are other similar tools that come to mind that could be added to the set. There are two tools so far, both designed for the game master:
LootWare - You set the XP progression, average level, and other adjusters as specified in the PF handbook, and it gives you a GP budget for a typical encounter. Then you can generate a random loot list using several different methods which can include ordinary equipment, just magic, or use the officially documented random selection methods. You can also just pick stuff from menus to add to the horde. It also lets you create custom armor, weapons, and intelligent items.
XPWare - You set the group size, levels of the members, and difficulty of the encounter. You then select which CR of critter you want and how many, and it calculates for you when you've matched your settings for the players. It does the math for you to show XP per player. This is all done matching the methods from the PF handbook.
So, let me know if you think this would be useful. I can package it up into an installer and put it out on my web site, but it's not available yet due to a little missing spit and polish, and making sure I do what I need to for OGL.
I'm leaning toward releasing them as pizza-ware. You toss a donation into the pizza fund if you like it, and we eat pizza in your honor at our next game. :)
I'm currently writing a Character Creation Program in VFP that I'll be posted up screen shots one of these days :)
Yep Visual Foxpro 9 to be exact. I am a software developer for it and found its the best with working with databases which when doing something like this means alot of tables cursors etc.
Darn. All these proprietary languages give me the willies. Oh well, nothing I can do about it I suppose. At least MapTool is Java-based. :)
"Move along. Nothing to see here. This is not the software you're looking for."
Azhrei —
We should convince Paizo to back a really polished "official" Pathfinder maptool framework. The PRD is open...
iMarkus's stuff is nice, but it would cool to coordinate something with official stat block formats, the logo, etc. It would be one hell of an advertisement.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I don't really understand why perl and C are not used for pretty much everything. I know so many Java, ColdFusion, ASP, C#, PHP, and other programming friends experiencing so many problems that I wonder why (and some of them also) their companies continue to use the languages. But hey, I'm not a programmer. I had a class in college where the prof write a whole chalkboard of Fortran, another of Pascal, another of assembly, and a final 2 line C program that all did the same thing. He told us we could use any to do the project. I'd used both Fortran and Pascal, but chose C (having never heard of it prior) and finished the project in a brand new language (the class didn't teach C.)
I don't really understand why perl and C are not used for pretty much everything. I know so many Java, ColdFusion, ASP, C#, PHP, and other programming friends experiencing so many problems that I wonder why (and some of them also) their companies continue to use the languages. But hey, I'm not a programmer. I had a class in college where the prof write a whole chalkboard of Fortran, another of Pascal, another of assembly, and a final 2 line C program that all did the same thing. He told us we could use any to do the project. I'd used both Fortran and Pascal, but chose C (having never heard of it prior) and finished the project in a brand new language (the class didn't teach C.)
For the exact same reason the whole board full of Fortran was 2 lines of C. Alot of things are made 'simpler' in current generation of languages like C# and Java. I say simpler because they make it easier to do specific things, but more complicated if you need to break the mold. Like someone else said, it all breaks down, and you can get things done more efficiently in say assembly, but is less ordered, and less readable by others. It is also going to be alot more lines of code, since later languages have lots of built in stuff you would have to do yourself (not always a bad thing, but time consuming).
I've been writing some tools for myself (C# is great for tools like this), and was wondering what the interest level is in using them, and if there are other similar tools that come to mind that could be added to the set. There are two tools so far, both designed for the game master:
LootWare - You set the XP progression, average level, and other adjusters as specified in the PF handbook, and it gives you a GP budget for a typical encounter. Then you can generate a random loot list using several different methods which can include ordinary equipment, just magic, or use the officially documented random selection methods. You can also just pick stuff from menus to add to the horde. It also lets you create custom armor, weapons, and intelligent items.
XPWare - You set the group size, levels of the members, and difficulty of the encounter. You then select which CR of critter you want and how many, and it calculates for you when you've matched your settings for the players. It does the math for you to show XP per player. This is all done matching the methods from the PF handbook.
So, let me know if you think this would be useful. I can package it up into an installer and put it out on my web site, but it's not available yet due to a little missing spit and polish, and making sure I do what I need to for OGL.
I'm leaning toward releasing them as pizza-ware. You toss a donation into the pizza fund if you like it, and we eat pizza in your honor at our next game. :)
I would be willing to have a look. Good luck in the spit and polish phase.
I would be willing to have a look. Good luck in the spit and polish phase.
Maybe a couple of screen shots will help show what I'm talking about better than my short descriptions. With a bit of luck we can redirect things from programming language posturing to how tools (irrespective of programming language) can make the job of DM easier.
This shows a list of common items for an average party level of 5, medium fantasy level, medium XP progression. That adds up to 1550 GP of loot, and the randomly selected list matches that value. If I wanted to toss some coins in, I could just modify the counts, or delete some items and select an option to top it off with random coins. The budget is there for reference, and is not forced. The two progress bars show the relation between the target and actual amounts. For instance if you have more loot than budgeted, the value display goes red, and the budget progress bar is shorter than the actual.
You might notice I did something a bit unusual with wands. To be able to treat them generically along with all the other equipment, I broke out their cost per charge, and use the quantity as the number of charges in the wand. The software automatically noted that the budget only allowed for 24 charges on the Wand of Doom, based on the other items already selected.
This shows that a party of 5 players, average level 4, with average difficulty gives you a CR 4 recommendation for the encounter. From there, I've chosen one CR3, one CR 1/2, and have 200 XP left over to choose before I have a match. The color coding shows I can add another CR 1/2 to get an exact match, or I can add more than one of CR 1/8 through 1/3 to get to the goal of 1200 XP for the encounter.
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[...] With a bit of luck we can redirect things from programming language posturing to how tools (irrespective of programming language) can make the job of DM easier.
What?! You want to derail my threadjacking?!? How dare you!
j/k :)
I was really just pointing out that your choice of development language immediately reduces your market. I'm pretty sure you don't care (if you did you would have chosen differently), and those who are in your target audience won't care (or they would have chosen differently as well), but as they say in the biz, "All the world is NOT a VAX." :)
@EvilLincoln: I agree, it would be nice to partner with Paizo and have some kind of sponsored VTT package for MapTool. Perhaps lmarkus' macro package will reach that stage at some point. I will talk with Trevor and see if he would be interested in approaching Paizo so they at least know we're interested in pursuing it.
OK I have to ask, what does the "Pizza" menu on the LootWare window offer? :)
you'll see on my initial post that this is pizza-ware. You give me and my game group some pizza if you find the software useful. Not quite as cute as the pizza matrix I've seen on a DM screen which helps you decide what to order based on the preferences of your players. :)
@EvilLincoln: I agree, it would be nice to partner with Paizo and have some kind of sponsored VTT package for MapTool. Perhaps lmarkus' macro package will reach that stage at some point. I will talk with Trevor and see if he would be interested in approaching Paizo so they at least know we're interested in pursuing it.
Awww, open source product love!
I'll be doing something similar as part of the first commercial Pathfinder maptool e-adventure with Rite Publishing. We'll be building a framework that'll be solid enough for commercial adventure development. We've already cleared all the licensing stuff with Paizo.
I'm sure we'd be happy to leave what we come up with free for use for others once the project is complete. If you're interested in being involved then you can find out more here