Creating a ruleset to test a game

[Edon1987]

Hello everyone, I figured the forum would be the best place to get started, let me start with the short of it. What are some good reasources for learning to make a ruleset extension in Fantasy Grounds Unity (or classic).

I have found a few youtube videos, but I want to get as much of a resource list as possible before I start.

As for what I'm trying to do, I have created a Savage Worlds setting that I need to test. With the world how it currently is online games is my best bet. As far as what I need to add, its 2 things.

1- A stat which acts as an alternative HP pool - Survivability. 1/2 Vigor + 1/2 Spirit with + or - based on various edges, hindrances and Race choice. It should display as a a X/Max with X being modifiable as you take Survivability damage and heal it.

2- A stat which attaches to one of the Arcane Backgrounds - Stability. This replaces the AB's power points and is a max value based on Vigor and Edge/Hindrance/Race choice. Gaining powers will subtract from your stability, losing powers refunds the subtracted stability, and it can go into the negatives (while negative it will penalize the AB's power skill)

I am not too sure where to start with this. I have the Savage Worlds ruleset and am starting to add in the races and creatures. To make the game experience as smooth as possible I wanted to get all of these values working automatically instead of being something manually managed.

[superteddy57]

From the sounds of it, the system is based on Savage Worlds and it would be probably best to make it an extension to that ruleset. I would start small and work slowly through the extension learning one piece at a time. You may also reach out to the Savage Worlds forum under Game Systems for further help in modifying the code.

1) Is going to be a bit complex right out the gate as you would have to make many changes on how HP is calculated and tracked. This would be on the character sheet, combat tracker, and npc sheet. This might be the biggest hurdle and you might have to redo the creatures you have made when these changes are implemented.

2) There are posts in the Savage Worlds' forum on how to make a custom Arcane Background, which might be the best place to start since this would show you how an extension is structured. You might have to further the functionality available to implement the power skill caveat.

Other than that, it is suggested to have a text editor (e.g. sublime, notepad ++, atom to name a few) that can search through an unpacked (unzipped) ruleset files for example code. This will help nail down where it's located in the files and you can clone to your extension and make changes to have it stick with your extension enabled. You may also check out the refdoc for the base elements of the XML and LUA used within the program here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/Comm.xcp.