Possible Hackmaster addition

[GM Snow]

Hello all

I am looking at this program as a possiblility for my own online games.

I am a Memebr of the Hackmaster association and of the HMA's Online Chapter leaders. we have many groups who play hackmaster online and continualy look for a decent Program like this that would support Hackmaster.

What are the chances of getting a Rules set and character sheets Addition to this game aid?

What would be the process of doing so.

I am not a programmer myself nor Do i know of anyone in our current Chapter willing or able to put effort into such an endevor.

Creation of such an addition to your game aid could Net you many new customers.

Thanks much Jtolman

[richvalle]

Are the rules open source? Will there be issues with someone getting permission to create a ruleset for HM from the publisher?

There is a publisher here that has done some rulesets already: Digital Adventures. Maybe you can work with them about this.

Contact
Kevin W. Melka
Digital Adventures, LLC
https://www.digitaladventures.net

[GM Snow]

well the publisher is Kenzerco and they have released permission to people for similiar things before.

1 person made a laptop Aid using Java called the hacksack. Basically tracks Player information , Monsters and track battles

Not usuable online nor does it allow map usuage... but it does do random encounters and Random lewt genrations and can roll Crits for those Gms who don't want to/like to use the Tables. It does much more, but seeing as he had to enter all the data for crits and Monsters and skill names and classes and other such, he did have to have Permission to do so.

The only thing the publisher frowns on is Publishing the "Rules" in Text or book style format.

Which this wouldn't need. All this would need is the Rules such as Critical hits and such put into the program and a useable character sheet in hackmaster style and such. The players Usually already have all the books and such themselves.

Hackmaster is More like OAD&D than d20.

As for Digital adventures or others "pulishers" I dunno them nor what they would be able to do in this case.

[Toadwart]

I've started work on a Hackmaster character sheet for my group.
Haven't tried to put any of the rules into a ruleset. We are just planning on using FG for the charactersheet/maps at this stage.
However, the more rules you can put into FG the easier it is for the DM and players.

Kevin might be able to arrange for a licensed ruleset to be developed.
If you do contact him mention my name as I'd be interested in working on a such a project.

[Face]

Joe,
I think that this might be a good way to go.....I'm still trying to decide which program to use. I like the features of this program so far....

[richvalle]

If you can get away with just making a character sheet (or get toadwart to show you what he did (or share)) it shouldn't take much work. You would just roll the 'dice' just as you would around the table and look up any results you need to. Nothing NEEDS to be entered into FG in order for you to play a ruleset.

Heck, if you are able to share the characters sheets some other way (webserver) you don't even need to make a char sheet. Just use FG to share maps, roll the dice and chat.

Its one of those things where the more effort you put into it, the more you'll be able to use FG to help your game.

rv

[GM Snow]

Okay here is my next question.

IF I, as a GM, Buy the Full version and say 6 licenses, Do I have to give out the license numbers to the players in order for them to get a player version of the Program and be able to connect to me?

Or Am I able to keep the integrity of my licenses within my own program and they connect by the demo version which is opened to a fuller version when they connect to my Game which has all the licenses?
So a Player can't run off with my licenses and Use them at other games locking up one of My licenses?

[Ged]

Okay here is my next question.

IF I, as a GM, Buy the Full version and say 6 licenses, Do I have to give out the license numbers to the players in order for them to get a player version of the Program and be able to connect to me?
Yes.


Or Am I able to keep the integrity of my licenses within my own program and they connect by the demo version which is opened to a fuller version when they connect to my Game which has all the licenses?
No.

So a Player can't run off with my licenses and Use them at other games locking up one of My licenses?
Yes s/he can and the license agreement even says that each license can only be installed on a single system. The licenses are not "floating" but personal.

[Snikle]

jtolman, if you need help developing a charactersheet, let me know, I am going through right now and helping create the d20 Modern SRD and have ended up skinning the entire program (just about done) and managed to find myself pretty fluent in the inner workings of the rulesets. Adding things and changin things in the character sheets is a fairly simple process once you know what you are doing.

[GM Snow]

Thanks for the offer Snikle. We would apreciate any help in these matters.

You might Hook up with Toadwart and help him with his character sheet developement...

Not sure about much of what you said. I personaly am programmer defiecient. How easy is it for some one with NO knowledge about programming and such to Do this?

Anyway, As I said, any help would be greatly apprecaited.

[Snikle]

Well, when I started this about 2-3 weeks ago I knew html and website design well but nothing of xml. Making the jump to xml was not much of a leap. It is really simple IMO, I recently went in and changed the little round "Open Minisheet" button to be a full rectangular button. You can see what I am referring to here:
https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/fumcomm/viewtopic.php?p=2750#2750
Most of that is image replacement, but oftentimes it does require me to adjust the xml. If I had the urge, I have no doubt that I could completely change the character sheet, but, I think they did a fiarly good job in their layout, so I only changed a few things.

[Toadwart]

Thanks for the offer Snikle. We would apreciate any help in these matters.

You might Hook up with Toadwart and help him with his character sheet developement...

Not sure about much of what you said. I personaly am programmer defiecient. How easy is it for some one with NO knowledge about programming and such to Do this?

Anyway, As I said, any help would be greatly apprecaited.

Depends on how game you are. This sort of stuff is at the shallow end of the programming pool (i.e. not too hard) but it is made more difficult by lack of documentation. Often it is a matter of poking around with the existing files and trying to figure out what a particular bit of xml does, and how it can be changed.

The next version 1.06 is promising more documentation which should help.
There are a lot of useful posts scattered around this forum. Searching for "Custom Ruleset" should find most of them.
And if you do 'go swimming' remember to make regular back ups of files so that if anything goes drastically wrong you don't lose all of your changes.