Walkthrough of Creating a Character Sheet for any game system with zero coding

[ddavison]

While not as nice as having a system which is fully automated, you can still use the built-in CoreRPG ruleset to record and keep your basic character data for use during play and to help with the automation of common dice rolls.

In the example below, I'll be creating a character sheet for a generic sheet that can be used with All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Eden Studios. I have never actually played this game yet, but you can read how to play by reading the Intro Pack from Eden Studios.
https://www.edenstudios.net/images/afmbedemokit.pdf

I will post the sample XML file here as an attachment and also start a new thread for Game System Support - Character Sheet Repository.

https://youtu.be/BG9ovku3T48


https://youtu.be/BG9ovku3T48

[GunnarGreybeard]

I may have to give this a second look. With some work, there might be a sorta HarnMaster game in there somewhere.

[Mask_of_winter]

This is gold! I used CoreRpg for Fate before the official module was out. Worked great.

[damned]

Ha! Mask_of_Winter and I were just talking about making a video like this.
Thanks Doug!


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[ddavison]

To be fair, some of the recent posts by you regular FG folks made me think a video was long overdue.

[viresanimi]

Well done!

I noticed that not all you attributes were sorted by alphabet. How did you manage that?

As it turns out I have recently been thinking about trying out Marvel Heroic RPG. Someone was trying to make a ruleset for it earlier, but some legal shenanigans got in the way, as far as I understand. Now, I have way to much time on my hands so I got the idea of making a charactersheet for CoreRPG. The idea being that the different dice values can be dragged and dropped to a line called "Dice Pool". Terribly original ... cough. Anyways this creates the entire dice pool a player need to roll - and this can be easily reset when done.

So. For those interested:Link (https://www.dropbox.com/s/y6xukddr0jypn4z/Marvel%20Heroic%20RPG%20Character.xml?dl=0)

Use the "Download" button on the top right.


Vires Animi

[Andraax]

I noticed that not all you attributes were sorted by alphabet. How did you manage that?

He put spaces in front of some so they'll sort to the top.

[ddavison]

Nice.

You should consider posting it here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23138-Share-Game-System-Character-Sheets&p=199702#post199702

and also consider including a second link with a filled-in version people can use as a reference.

[viresanimi]

I was wondering (since I have zero coding skill) how hard it would be to add a different mode for the modifier window, allowing for dice to be added to it instead of numbers.

A lot of games do not use a numerical value to be added or subtracted, but adds or subtracts dice from various sources. Pretty much any world of darkness game comes to mind or shadowrun. In the World of Darkness ruleset that can be found on the site, you can add d10's to the modifier window and roll from that, by right clicking on it.

If that could be implemented, the Core Ruleset would be a lot more flexible.


Vires Animi

[ddavison]

That is a good suggestion. I'll raise this with Moon_Wizard to add to his queue for consideration.

What I currently do is some of our 5E games where this comes up is to have the user roll those extra dice and then have them drag the result to the modifier window before activating their main action. Adding the +die modifier would be nicer. Some systems may also have a negative dice modifier, though, so that would be a little trickier.

[Blackfoot]

I was fiddling with this a bit after reading this thread.. went through and created a simple RuneQuest character sheet very quickly. The issue I ran into was after that.. ok cool. I have a character sheet.. but what can I do with it? I can roll the dice but the combat tracker is really limited in the basic CoreRPG. Would it be reasonable to, in a similar way as with the character sheets, allow a few basic fields to be addable on the fly to the tracker so you could record damage numbers or whatever? I realize this needs to remain very generic.. but doesn't something like that seem like a good idea?

[damned]

im pretty sure you have some idea how complex the CT is.... :(
I too would like to see INIT/Order on the Character Sheet and tied to the ORDER on CT.
Wounds would be good also. Yes there are oodles of different wounds/hp mechanisms but a generic Wounds that linked to Character Sheet would be nice.


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[Blackfoot]

I don't know that it should be always there.. or tied to anything.. but it would be nice to be able to add a few fields and give them titles at the top of the tracker to identify them. More or less like adding items to the character sheets... but add them to the tracker 'frame' and then they are added to all the individual items in the tracker... or something like that.

[damned]

Ive been thinking on this all day.
I think you are absolutely right.

Sure linking the fields would be awesome but its not necessary. Players can keep their Character Sheets up to date - the CT is there to manage the combat and it would with a few free form added columns and perhaps an attack string line.
Now to think on the description for this so you can post it to the WishList.

That would really open up CoreRPG.


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[ddavison]

I was thinking that same thing when I started building out a sample character sheet. Moon_wizard currently has a bunch of items on his dev list at the moment. I've shot it over to him, but I may need to take a crack at it instead. No promises, but we are definitely on the same page.

[Blackfoot]

Very cool.

damned, I don't know that it's important to even have 'damage' recorded on the character sheet at all if it's recorded on the tracker, since the tracker is information that is available for everyone and really 'out of the players' hands'.

One other thought I had while messing with this is that I wish the fields 'locked' when I hit that little lock thing at the top and I couldn't accidentally change things or type over things.

Question: (a little off topic) the NPC sheet, is there a way to make the 'rolls' box actually do rolls? I couldn't figure the syntax there.

[ddavison]

To do rolls on a character sheet, follow these examples:

NPC: Guard Dog
Rolls:


bite: 1d8+1


NPC: Burt the Rash
Rolls:


skill check: 1d20, melee: 1d20+8, ranged atk: 1d20+5,sword: 2d6+5, crossbow: 1d8+2, Sense Motive +5, Hide +8


Basically, you can name a dice roll whatever you want. If you just have a + or a -, you can name those as modifiers. Double-click a modifier to add it to the modifier stack and then double click a roll to roll it with the modifier.

[Blackfoot]

Ahh.. I was trying to follow the format used in 3.5/Pathfinder for NPCs so it just 'didn't work. That's simple enough. Is it documented somewhere? (The CoreRPG WIKI I imagine)

[ddavison]

I looked on the Wiki and don't actually see a User Guide section for just CoreRPG. I'll add one real quick.

[ddavison]

Just added:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/CoreRPG_NPC_Sheet

[ddavison]

I also added a Character Sheet section to the wiki for CoreRPG that walks through most of the same items that I did in the video.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/CoreRPG_Character_Sheet

It may be easier to refer back to one web page than it would to find the exact location inside of the video.

[damned]

damned, I don't know that it's important to even have 'damage' recorded on the character sheet at all if it's recorded on the tracker, since the tracker is information that is available for everyone and really 'out of the players' hands'.

And that is the beauty of a flexible system - HP for me and none for you!


I was thinking that same thing when I started building out a sample character sheet. Moon_wizard currently has a bunch of items on his dev list at the moment. I've shot it over to him, but I may need to take a crack at it instead. No promises, but we are definitely on the same page.

Woot! Thats great - hopefully the coding is achievable.



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[damned]

I don't know that it should be always there.. or tied to anything.. but it would be nice to be able to add a few fields and give them titles at the top of the tracker to identify them. More or less like adding items to the character sheets... but add them to the tracker 'frame' and then they are added to all the individual items in the tracker... or something like that.

Blackfoot - IanMWard and I put together this extension for CoreRPG over the weekend. Hope it is useful to you.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23281-More-Core-extension-for-CoreRPG


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[daddystabz]

How would this work if the game you are trying to support is a dice pool game for stats, like Witch Hunter 2e?

[superteddy57]

The manual way is to use the character sheet as a reference and picking up the die and right clicking to add the dice you would need to roll. If the pool requires multiple dice, then the hotkey bar would need to be used to hold all the dice and clicked to roll. If you wish the character sheet to consider the number and die drops as pool, then an extension would need to be built to change it's normal behavior.