Ruleset Variety

[garrion_sw]

I'm sorry if this post is a duplication of another someplace else, but I'm wondering about the variety of rulesets available for FG. Let me state that I think FG has made some tremendous progress recently acquiring partnerships with several game publishers for officially supported rulesets. I run a variety of games and even with CoreRPG I have a hard time playing those games when another VTT has customized sheets for that system all ready to go. In many instances I would prefer to just use FG but the ease of jumping into it makes the other VTT more appealing.

I am not a programmer though I have played around with it some when playing Frankenstein with other code. My primary inquiry is this: Why do other VTT programs have such a variety of custom sheets for popular, but not mainstream games compared to FG? Is something inherently more difficult in customizing a character sheet in FG than the other programs? Is it a lack of fan base interest in those game systems? I see threads on the forums from time to time about someone developing a ruleset sheet for one of the games I use but then it dies out with only partial development. I know it is a lot of work and believe me if I had more skill I would be in there helping. I don't want to benefit for free from other's hard work. I would be willing to pay for more supported rulesets.

A few of the systems in mind are: Star Wars/Genesys, Conan 2d20, Infinity 2d20, Star Trek 2d20, Traveller 2.0 (I know this is supposed to be in the works), GURPS, Dungeon World, City of Mist, 7th Sea 2.0, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Mutant Year Zero, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop, Fragged Empire, Symbaroum, and a few others.

How possible would it be to gain official support from some of these publishers? FG already blows the competition out of the water with the amount they already have official support from. It's just that several of those are systems I don't use regularly.

Thanks for any feedback.

[Trenloe]

My primary inquiry is this: Why do other VTT programs have such a variety of custom sheets for popular, but not mainstream games compared to FG?
Short answer - look at the automation on those character sheets in other VTTs. To make a character sheet useful in FG, you need to do much more than just design a character sheet and make a few fields roll-able. You'll want to integrate it into the rest of FG. Users expect library data records, NPC sheets, combat tracker automation, effects, etc., etc.. This is where the strengths and depth of functionality actually hinder FG.

Even with that said - look at MoreCore as a great way to take steps towards making character sheets with some level of automation.


A few of the systems in mind are: Star Wars/Genesys, Conan 2d20, Infinity 2d20, Star Trek 2d20, Traveller 2.0 (I know this is supposed to be in the works), GURPS, Dungeon World, City of Mist, 7th Sea 2.0, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Mutant Year Zero, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop, Fragged Empire, Symbaroum, and a few others.

How possible would it be to gain official support from some of these publishers?
You'll never get official support for Star Wars - FFG can't even get a license to distribute PDFs on a computer, let alone do a "computer game" of Star Wars! You're in luck though, there's a fully functional community ruleset and library modules available here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?24151-Star-Wars-Edge-of-the-Empire-Age-of-Rebellion-Force-and-Destiny-v2-ruleset&highlight=star+wars

Conan 2d20 is in development. It's in the private testing stage at present.

GURPS is evolving and getting more support in the background from SJG.

[LordEntrails]

Many of those publisher have already been contacted and apparently are not willing to support a ruleset.

That said, several of those already have community rulesets available on the forums here. All of the others can generally be played with MoreCore community ruleset. Those that aren't already unofficially supported you can take up the offer here; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?44600-Unsupported-Game-Systems-Offer

[damned]

As the above good peeps have posted:

Star Wars/Genesys and GURPS both have very good community rulesets in the Wiki. Star Wars is also being ported to CoreRPG layering too.

There is one or more basic 2d20 rulesets by Valarian plus the 2d20 roll mechanic is supported in MoreCore.
All the PbtA are easily playable on MoreCore - I run both Dungeon World and City of Mist using MoreCore.

I added Fragged Empire rolls AND an extension to MoreCore in 1.45.
7th Sea (along with Witcher, Wrath and Glory, Chronicles of Darkness, All Flesh Must Be Eaten) will be in MoreCore 1.46 (hopefully released within the week)
Shadow of the Demon Lord, Mutant Year Zero, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop, Symbaroum all have MoreCore rolls available already.

I believe that MoreCore offers more functionality than the vast majority of Roll20 character sheets.

[garrion_sw]

Thanks for all the quick replies and insight. I agree that FG does offer much more in the realm of automation for those supported rulesets, PF and Savage are two that I have used and are great. CoC 7 is on my wish list to get soon.

Honestly though, as great as the automation is, I still adhere to the old mentality of dice and paper represented on a computer is better than nothing at all. This is something that FG excels at with Core/MoreCore and the virtual dice. I just simply wish it were easier (for me at least) to flesh out a custom sheet with graphics, tabs, more representative fields, etc. I can only imagine how daunting it is by the slow progress other users have in making extensions for Core/MoreCore. I was just curious how Roll20 pumps out such a large database of sheets, albiet with limited functionality.

It's exciting to hear that Star Wars is finally getting ported over to Core. I used the old version for a campaign I was running but it was limited by the old base. I'm also glad to hear that some of those on my list are in the works. Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to Unity and the possibilities it will bring.

[damned]

Table Top Connect had a feature where you could import a graphic of your ruleset character sheet and then you could in an inbuilt editor add dice and values to the sheet directly.
This allowed you to have the really cool character sheets and have some rolls built in.
The rolls (I believe) had little or no automation other than what you could embed into it but it was very easy to use.
Im hopeful that this will resurface in FGU at some point.

MoreCore is not pretty but once you understand how to make rolls work with each other it is quite effective and many of the Rolls have a degree of reporting built into them.

[yeknom]

, Tales from the Loop rolls available already.


I will have to check this out! Thanks for that tidbit there.

[damned]

I will have to check this out! Thanks for that tidbit there.

Tales from the Loop is just counting succeses.
You can use either:
/rollover #d6x6
this one accepts modifiers as additional dice so I would use that.

or you could use
/successes #d6x6
but this one doesnt accept modifiers so you would be adjusting the roll manually all the time.

Using the first with a bunch of /mod rolls for all those things like:


Iconic Item
/mod 2

Other Items
/mod 1

PC Assistance
/mod 1

NPC Assistance
/mod 1

etc
So you click all your Mod Rolls - some multiple times if say there are 2 PCs assisting and then you click your Attribute to roll.
See attached Character Sheet.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24473

24473