Ruleset Creation/Customisation?

[CelineSSauve]

Hello. I have recently agree to run Pokemon Tabletop Adventures (found here: https://www.mediafire.com/?dqri2jr49swo97m) and feel that it could use the 4e ruleset, basically, though more simplistic in some parts (It looks like abilities are either X Daily or in effect, for one thing), and would work well with a set group of Effects that everyone has access to (for things like Sleep, Frozen, Burn, and such).

The problem is that I can't seem to find any information here on how exactly one goes about modifying (are we even allowed to?) or create one from scratch. I poked around the files in the old 4e ruleset (the one before FG II made one official) and there are a lot of files and a whole pile of code that I don't want to blindly fiddle with in case I cause FG II to crash, or something...

Any advice?

[Moon Wizard]

Ruleset creation is typically a fairly complex undertaking. If all you want to do is modify a single behavior of a ruleset, then it can be fairly quick. However, implementing a new game system is complex, depending greatly on the level of automation you want.

As an example, 4E is a highly automated ruleset. If you want a simpler ruleset with less automation to use as a starting point, try downloading the d20 ruleset from the Downloads section. You should check it out.

The thing to remember is that the core of FG is to replicate the tabletop experience and objects. All you really need to play any RPG is a chat window, a character sheet, your campaign notes and some dice. For those elements, you can probably shoehorn your game into any ruleset.

For the FG supplied rulesets (like 4E), our position is that you are allowed to re-use and modify the ruleset code as long as it remains free to the community.

Regards,
JPG

[CelineSSauve]

Well, for that system it needs automisation to help with all the status effects at the very least.
HP and such could be tracked manually if required.

I'll try to poke around the d20 tonight instead and see if anything is a little clearer afterwards.

And, yes, my ultimate plan is to make it easy enough to track for someone else to be willing to run it. ;)

[CelineSSauve]

I was advised to try Unicore but if I have to learn some of the "hard" coding from scratch (how to make certain entries display dice, for example), I may as well work with 4e which has many of the features which would be useful with the game.

Is there perhaps a tutorial on module coding, or is https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/ pretty much it?

[drahkar]

Foen's Anatomy of a Ruleset has a lot of helpful information on it as well:

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Anatomy_of_a_Ruleset

[CelineSSauve]

Foen's Anatomy of a Ruleset has a lot of helpful information on it as well:

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Anatomy_of_a_Ruleset
Thank you. I'll take a look at that as well. :)

One last question: Where do you actually find the 4e ruleset included in FGII in order to play around with it?

[Valarian]

You'll need to download the packing/unpacking tool and unpack the 4e .pal file in the FGII program directory

[Sorcerer]

the 4E ruleset is not kept with the others in the rulesets folder.

you will find it under program files\Fantasy grounds II

alongside the launcher and updater programs.

it is in the form of 4E.pak

a pak file is just a renamed zip file so you can rename it 4E.zip and extract the files.

[CelineSSauve]

Perfect! Thank you both!

[Sorcerer]

@ valarian

I've never had to use a special tool to open the 4E.pak file before,
as I said above if you simply rename it as a zip its easy enough to open
unless thats because I use winrar for archive viewing?

[CelineSSauve]

@ valarian

I've never had to use a special tool to open the 4E.pak file before,
as I said above if you simply rename it as a zip its easy enough to open
unless thats because I use winrar for archive viewing?
I actually just told Win7 to use winRAR to open it. Seemed to have done just fine. I told it to extract it at that point so I can work on the files and once I've made a change I can drag it back into the winRAR windows to make the change and test it out.

Of course, I'm not sure if it'll work as a renamed .pak file?

[Sorcerer]

in terms of testing it will be easier if you simply create a new directory within the rulesets directory and put all the extracted files in that.
you can call the folder whatever you like. when you start up FG then that folder name will be present as a new ruleset . So you can alter the files without having to repak them.

[CelineSSauve]

@Sorcerer - Do I need to archieve the folder I'm testing for that to work, or so long as it's in a folder under ruleset it'll work?

[Sorcerer]

no once you create a folder within the rulesets folder and place the files and folders from the pak file into it, that folder will act like a standard ruleset, you do not need to repack it for it to work.

[CelineSSauve]

There's not any horrible side-effect to having "junk code" (like junk genes) within the module, is there? So far, I nearly have the NPC entry (with the exception of Powers) to behave as I'd like. This was mainly done by slowly removing unwanted areas and/or replacing them with new code, one or two items at a time.

I'm trying to remove some of the "double click here to roll d20 + field" with something that adds the fields together (sorta a mix of abilities on the main character sheet and skills [due to the way Pokémon are leveled up]) but I'm hesitant to accidentally remove too much, which is why I wonder what happens if I accidentally leave too much in...

[Sorcerer]

obviously best practice would be to remove everything you don't need,
but in principle (and by that I mean i do it all the time) I would say leaving code in that is not needed will not be too harmful - it just increases the file size.
of course you need to make sure nothing will try to access that code later - but then again if you remove it and something tries to access the none existent code you will still have problems :)

if your worried about cutting out too much stuff and then finding out later that you still need it then don't delete it 'comment it out'
in xml documents using the <!-- and --> tags - FG will ignore anything within these tags
or in lua scripts simply start the line with -- to get the same effect.

that way if you run into problems later you can reverse what you've done by simply removing the comment tags.

[CelineSSauve]

if your worried about cutting out too much stuff and then finding out later that you still need it then don't delete it 'comment it out'
in xml documents using the <!-- and --> tags - FG will ignore anything within these tags
or in lua scripts simply start the line with -- to get the same effect.

that way if you run into problems later you can reverse what you've done by simply removing the comment tags.

Ooh, handy tip. I was just keeping an unmodified copy of 4e on my desktop to refer to if required. (I had to scamble back during my work on the npc sheets due to an error in changing the name for certain fields.)

I am calling it a day today, though. I've spent several hours today finally getting to the coding, but with baby steps, as it were, so as not to make too many changes at the same time.

[CelineSSauve]

Another question as I set down for the day's work (this time more prep than code), parsing files, like the D&D MM. Can you do that from an excel spreadsheet or just something like a PDF or Word?

I'm trying to get a Pok&#233;Dex completed that links a list of Moves and the levels they're available for selection to each entry. (If possible, linking that list of Moves to actual entries, like having a list of items where you can click on each and see the actual Move entry there.)

Not sure if that's possible. If not, I'll have to do it manually and that would be a work in progress for probably several months after I've gotten the basic "Good enough; let's play!" coding completed. ;)

[Sorcerer]

I don't use the 4E ruleset, so I have never tried to use the famous parser.

I do everything the old fashioned way, copy and paste from a source and then add the tags myself...yes that can make for a long and tedious time.

[CelineSSauve]

I do everything the old fashioned way, copy and paste from a source and then add the tags myself...yes that can make for a long and tedious time.
On the bright side, it does seem that the Beta PDF for the Pokémon Tabletop RPG does use the Move Set from Black & White, which is what I was hoping. So I just copy/paste and insert tags for the first four generations, then have to type things up first for the fifth.