New Ruleset Development Question

[Rewstyr]

Hi. I am a professional software developer who has got permission from publisher to make a FG ruleset for the new Elite Dangerous RPG. I am not looking to make money on this, just something to do for fun. I am now going through the documentation and various tutorials which is all good.

My question is about creating the actual ruleset. Is it kosher to take an existing ruleset like Fate Core, rename it then just rip stuff out? This seems easiest but I wonder if that is fair to the developer of that ruleset that I didn't 'code it myself'. I am fine with starting from CoreRPG and adding everything in new but I see from looking at a few CoreRPG-based rulesets that there is a lot of duplicated code between them and that I would be creating another wheel.

Thoughts?

Rewstyr

[Andraax]

Depends on the license for the existing ruleset. Best bet is to layer on top of CoreRPG - or, if it's very similar to Fate Core, layer on top of that ruleset (see the community AD&D ruleset which is layered on top of Castles and Crusades, which is layered on top of CoreRPG).

[Talyn]

Ok you said you've already spoken with Spidermind. Have them contact SmiteWorks. If they'll license with SmiteWorks for an official ruleset, sweet.

If you're just looking to play with a couple friends and call it day, I'd suggest just playing in CoreRPG or MoreCore.

[damned]

You are best building it as a Layered Ruleset on top of CoreRPG or on top of another ruleset that is layered on CoreRPG.
At the very least you are likely to look at the code in multiple other rulesets to learn how things are done.
CoreRPG has huge amounts of functionality built into it - but most of that is NOT character sheet functionality - for that you will be learning from other rulesets.

And as Talyn says if you dont want to build a whole ruleset look at MoreCore and build a couple of new Roll scripts and a theme extension...

[Moon Wizard]

Our take is that code from rulesets we build can be freely used in your own ruleset, as long as the ruleset is released for free to the community and doesn’t compete with an officially licensed ruleset.

Cheers,
JPG

[Bidmaron]

What is an officially licensed ruleset currently? Not Pathfinder right?

[Moon Wizard]

No, the Pathfinder ruleset does not contain any licensed material. The Pathfinder theme does contain licensed material, but is encrypted.

There are several rulesets provided with the standard installation that can be used as examples (CoreRPG, 3.5E, 4E, 5E, Numenera, Fate Core, PFRPG).
For the paid rulesets available through DLC, some of them can be opened and perused as examples. (such as Savage Worlds and Castles and Crusades) However, these are a little more convoluted. We generally allow re-use of the code if explicit permission is asked, but graphics and data can not be re-used.

Cheers,
JPG