A Different Way to Write Rulesets

[S Ferguson]

Normally in the past, a ruleset was developed and maintained by an individual. I was wondering what the result would be if a group or "Admirality" got together to write the ruleset. This is more a "divide and conquer" strategy rather than the "we'll kick at the barricade until my toes are sore" one. I figure there are enough people with overlapping skill groups, that could put together a decent set, if one was given. It would just take a few like minded individuals to have both a think-tank and programming crew. Thoughts?

[Moon Wizard]

This has actually been proposed several times. There are 2 main ones that I can think of: Base and Foundation. I think you can still find them on the wiki, and you can find Base on our web site in the Downloads section. Like any open source project, I think the challenge is that people come and go, and you don't have a single "designer" to make sure that things make sense, are compatible, etc.

Currently, I am working on a "CoreRPG" ruleset for release with v3 of Fantasy Grounds, which will provide a basic framework to play any role-playing game with all the bells and whistles of the current 3.5E and 4E rulesets that make sense. Then, I am adding developer features to allow other ruleset creators to "layer" on top of the core ruleset (or any other ruleset); and then migrating the 3.5E, PFRPG and 4E rulesets to use the core.

My goal is to provide a basic framework to allow people to make the ruleset development process faster and easier to maintain.

Regards,
JPG

[S Ferguson]

I wholeheartedly agree with the "come and go" mentality, but, as you said, there has to be a "leader" of the group. When v3 comes out what will be the involvement of actual ruleset writing? Just a character sheet and some Lua code? Or will it be, um, slightly removed from how rulesets are created now?

It's nice to have the bells and whistles of 4e and 3.5e/Pathfinder (which really should be separated) but the core rules of say Ars Magica, compared to 4e is like night and day! I guess what I'd like to ask is in two parts: Will there be foundation material that *can* be reused (aside from widgets, masks, and the "glossy features") things like (computer) classes, hooks into the code base and a less obfuscated scripting core? And will the "meat" of the system, for example, the combat tracker and stat adjustments be easier to program, say, than in the present version?

Otherwise I suppose that multiple heads banging against a wall will tumble it down just as quickly as one thick one.

[Moon Wizard]

To be clear, I would welcome a group of people building their own ruleset, whether as a generic effort for others to build on, or to build a solution for a specific game system. That's why FG is designed to be programmable.

Also, if I find a community-built feature that I think would be useful to everyone, I usually ask the community developer if I can include their code in the included rulesets. Otherwise, I build my own version from scratch.

As for building rulesets with the upcoming features, it will still require the same level of technical ability. It will just be much easier to build and maintain. I haven't built the ruleset layer features yet, but my idea is that the rulesets layered on top will be able to override individual controls and/or whole windowclasses in order to add the specific game functionality. Also, I plan to write several of the manager scripts in the CoreRPG result to support the rulesets layered on top. (i.e. sidebar manager, options manager, roll manager, ...)

I'm currently wrapping up the basics of the CoreRPG ruleset, and deciding where to draw the line between "generic" and the more detailed rulesets for each one. (i.e. combat tracker? party sheet? effects? etc.) Then, I move on to the ruleset layer features and rebuilding the 3.5E, PFRPG and 4E rulesets.

In the process, I am also rebuilding several of the built-in components to make it easier for ruleset development, and cleaning up some features. There is a topic in the Laboratory forum where I have put some notes of what I have worked on.

I figured I would throw this information out there, since it might be relevant to your discussion.

Regards,
JPG

[phantomwhale]

I've really enjoyed working with Ikeal on updated SW 3.4 with his SW features extension. The model that has worked well here is having a core maintainer (myself) ensuring what's going in will work with everything else (inc. other extensions as much as possible) and keeps an element on unity, but Ikeal is free to release extension "patches" to the code, try new features, get them playtested a little before we then merge them into the main ruleset.

Of course, this is all within the Silo of Savage Worlds, but I would say it's very easy to get together a group of developers around one ruleset. If you are talking about a leader to create a shared ruleset, I can safely say whilst we have one (foundation-core) there is little interest in people contributing to such a "framework / base" ruleset. The few people who develop wish to produce an end result (something they can use) and such having a core ruleset provided from Smiteworks (albeit potentially an open sourced one) might act as a much better platform for people to build from.

[S Ferguson]

I've really enjoyed working with Ikeal on updated SW 3.4 with his SW features extension. The model that has worked well here is having a core maintainer (myself) ensuring what's going in will work with everything else (inc. other extensions as much as possible) and keeps an element on unity, but Ikeal is free to release extension "patches" to the code, try new features, get them playtested a little before we then merge them into the main ruleset.

Of course, this is all within the Silo of Savage Worlds, but I would say it's very easy to get together a group of developers around one ruleset. If you are talking about a leader to create a shared ruleset, I can safely say whilst we have one (foundation-core) there is little interest in people contributing to such a "framework / base" ruleset. The few people who develop wish to produce an end result (something they can use) and such having a core ruleset provided from Smiteworks (albeit potentially an open sourced one) might act as a much better platform for people to build from.

True, the end result would have to be something that's usable. and as I said above, there would have to be a leader (in SW that would be you :) ), but it's this type of organic development (here in the case of Savage Worlds) that is the type of work environment that at least I prefer - it bears the most fruitful of ideas. The question remains, however, how you would get designers working together in the first place. Perhaps a notice board? There's been talk of a Trail of Cthulhu extension that someone would like, for example. Ignoring all the fuss about licensing for sake of example, I guess the only way to find out if people are willing to collaborate is to ask.

[Ikael]

Personally I have also liked how to co-operation with phantomwhale goes in SW v3.4 development. There is a must to be one/two (not anymore!) people who act as Product Owners and make the final decision about what's the best for the product and then there could be several groups/individuals who want to contribute their improvements to the product. These Developers are able to access the base ruleset code and make their improvements/ideas/new features and publish them to play testing purposes. Thereafter the Product Owner could decide to get merge some of the implemented features in to the core product and handle the overall product QAs.

The same model could be very useful in developing the CoreRPG as the strength in FG is within the community. Thou I am not sure how would it work with codebase that is usually system specific. Developers are usually not interested in developing core functionality that doesn't provide any usefulness to anything, instead they want to make their system specific things work so theirs games go smoothly etc.

Maybe there could be several layers of development available? The CoreRPG is the base of everything, developers could produce brances that bases on it and would bring utility for their game of choise. And when the Product Owner of CoreRPG decides that... wow! That features is a must for everything s/he could include it into CoreRPG. Again this sounds so easy when written, but it would require some real thinking in architecture, or otherwise things are easily blown away.

[S Ferguson]

Personally I have also liked how to co-operation with phantomwhale goes in SW v3.4 development. There is a must to be one/two (not anymore!) people who act as Product Owners and make the final decision about what's the best for the product and then there could be several groups/individuals who want to contribute their improvements to the product. These Developers are able to access the base ruleset code and make their improvements/ideas/new features and publish them to play testing purposes. Thereafter the Product Owner could decide to get merge some of the implemented features in to the core product and handle the overall product QAs.

The same model could be very useful in developing the CoreRPG as the strength in FG is within the community. Thou I am not sure how would it work with codebase that is usually system specific. Developers are usually not interested in developing core functionality that doesn't provide any usefulness to anything, instead they want to make their system specific things work so theirs games go smoothly etc.

Maybe there could be several layers of development available? The CoreRPG is the base of everything, developers could produce brances that bases on it and would bring utility for their game of choise. And when the Product Owner of CoreRPG decides that... wow! That features is a must for everything s/he could include it into CoreRPG. Again this sounds so easy when written, but it would require some real thinking in architecture, or otherwise things are easily blown away.

Good points. Computer code is, alas, mutable. If what moon_wizard stated above, the new system will have generic core rules with "core override" functionality. Building rulesets will be about the same difficulty to write, although you'd have more access to the underlying features of the core system i.e. the common code underlying all rulesets. This would be the tier 1 level of your model, the cross-system code. The second set, tier 2 is the actual ruleset one or two persons (don't believe in a 3's? They're good tie-breakers :) ) would develop and maintain. And then there is the community of FG programmers for your tier 3, who, like you, write extensions and code to facilitate game-play. If I, for example, decide there is a need for, or lack of, a system that some people would like to play, there would be a very slow development process at tier 2, arguably enough to get stuck or stalemated in very quickly, as it requires considerable effort on the part of a single programmer to learn from their mistakes (even if they don't realize they're there). Mistakes that might not have popped up if you understood how the ruleset is (or how a ruleset is) put together. A common base currently isn't there - you have to pick your poison of base systems, so to speak.

It's the tier 2 implementation that I believe could be built upon, for the moment or the future. You yourself have seen the problems of tier 3 development, removing things from the SWFI and building new extensions from those parts discarded but continued as legacy code. As it's also largely up to the extension designer to prioritize and discover what they want in the game first, then hope others need them as well; more importantly, as a tier 3 developer you're also deciding what to exclude (you've been lucky :) ). Additionally, tier 3 builders operate at no knowledge of what is going on at tier 1 and sometimes at even tier 2 which might break things in the ruleset.

I suppose I'm suggesting a tier 2.5. An ideal tier in which one keeps improving the product but doesn't impede other developers from adding on to the existing body of work - sort of like an organized "workshop" for developers. One that states peoples desires (a wishlist), an individual, or preferably a group, that picks out things on the wishlist to implement (the development group with de facto leader(s)) based on priorities (polls), and amount of development time that will be put in, so if members drop out (as there will be), others could step up to the plate. It's the beginning of an implementation scheme at least. Thoughts?

[Insanity]

This would be useful for those of us who are interested in developing a ruleset, but lack some of the skills necessary to complete it.

[S Ferguson]

And also for those who have one skillset in say, XML but no Lua knowledge or vice versa.

[Insanity]

Exactly. Some lua I can follow, a lot I can't yet.

[S Ferguson]

I'm the exact opposite. I can run circles in Lua but my XML skills aren't at the same level, although I guess I know enough for simple adjustments.

[S Ferguson]

Would anyone feel like working on a ruleset to test this theory out? I'm open to just about anything that I own (which is a fair number of systems).

[gmkieran]

I'm not sure how much I could contribute, not being either an xml or lua coder, but I'd love to see a Serenity RPG rule set, if that happens to be one you own/are interested in doing. I started putting together a desktop and converting the SW player's guide to Serenity content a couple years ago, but got stuck trying to find an existing rule set that handled the mechanics reasonably well. Someone else had done a fair amount of work on one, at one point (thread under the Other Game Systems forum), but dropped it after MWP (the publisher) stonewalled him.

[Insanity]

Would anyone feel like working on a ruleset to test this theory out? I'm open to just about anything that I own (which is a fair number of systems).

I would be interested in working in a group, my current project is a ruleset for Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century.

The ruleset I began with is not up to date with features like the current 4E, which I would like to have some comparable features, but not needed for the first playable ruleset.

[S Ferguson]

I would be interested in working in a group, my current project is a ruleset for Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century.

The ruleset I began with is not up to date with features like the current 4E, which I would like to have some comparable features, but not needed for the first playable ruleset.

Ok give me a week to grab the PDF, and we can PM time zones and maybe schedule a "playtest" time (more talk about developing the ruleset - then the actual playtest to iron out the bugs). That sounds like a good start. The distance from Terra Sol to my house is 0 ft.

[Insanity]

Ok give me a week to grab the PDF, and we can PM time zones and maybe schedule a "playtest" time (more talk about developing the ruleset - then the actual playtest to iron out the bugs). That sounds like a good start. The distance from Terra Sol to my house is 0 ft.

I got some graphics made and been working on the character sheet(s).

I am currently GMT -4 (EDT).

[S Ferguson]

OK I'm GMT -5 (EST). We'll set something up in about a week or so. I'll PM you when I have the rules. From there we can set something up. BTW what ruleset are you using as a base?

[Insanity]

I believe it was Foundation, but I got the ruleset some time ago and been making changes and did not keep the orig source.

Was a stripped down, single sheet to the character sheet. No major bells or whistles.

[S Ferguson]

No matter. We'll work with what you've got.

[Insanity]

Correction, may have been Basic Ruleset?

[S Ferguson]

Well usually it's the base or generic ruleset. If there's a bmpfont.xml in the the directory it's generic. if it has fonts.xml it's base.

[Insanity]

How about neither?

[S Ferguson]

OK. Then we'll just have to see what we've got. How is the directory set up? Does it have a PCGen in it? Any comments in the base.xml code?

[Insanity]

Very much like 4E was a few versions ago. One directory with all the xml, another within for scripts, and another for graphics.

Unfamiliar with PCGen.

base.xml has Ruleset name, my name as author and an email, and all the higher level xml files and scripts listed.