FGII "skinable"

[Doswelk]

I was wondering if there are any plans to make FGII "skinable", at the moment if I want to have a Necessary Evil version of the SW FGII ruleset and a Rippers version, I need to copy the ruleset and update with new graphics.

What would be nice is the ability to change the graphics but keep the ruleset.

I know there are ideas to try and make things in FG more plugable I was wondering if skinning was one of them?

[Valarian]

Hmm ... it's a nice idea but I wonder how much of a difference it'd make to the downloads. Even if the frame and icon graphics were separated from the ruleset, they'd still need to be downloaded. If you changed them, the player would still need to download them when they next connect. This is the same as if you changed the ruleset, the changed files in the ruleset would need to be downloaded. All this would really do is save the download of the ruleset XML/Lua files when you want to reskin a ruleset like Savage Worlds. Those are really a very small part of the total download size.

Unless you're talking about one absolutely huge download containing several possible graphics selections and then the GM being able to swap the FGII look with an option.

[Sigurd]

It sounds like a friendly feature for a mature code base. I have to say though. most of the really different rulesets - all the commercial ones that I've seen - change the desktop quite a bit already.

Its not really too hard to do now. I did some of it for my game.

Have you tried making a custom ruleset and playing with the png files?


Sigurd

[Griogre]

I think what he means is have multiple skins for one ruleset. Thus if you were using the default d20 ruleset and loaded up a module like Wizard's Amulet you could change the look of the desktop, ect. and you could change it again with each different module you loaded. Or you could have the CSRD load a different skin from the default d20 one.

With Savage Worlds you can have a lot of different settings like Pirates of the Spanish Main (loose Golden Age of Piracy), Necesary Evil (Modern Super Hero) or an Evernight (fanstasy setting). These are all based off the same ruleset but are very differnet settings and it would be nice to be able to "skin" them on the fly by just switching or opening or closing modules.

[Sigurd]

I hear you.

It might be nice if they simplified the way the table top is graphically created with a little wizard to import graphics etc... The problem is that its really nice and efficient to tile a background image the way they do to adapt to various resolutions.

What they have now is not very intuitive for the uninitiated but it works.

My point was that its not impossible now - just hard. I agree that it would be an improvement to make it easier.

[kalmarjan]

I think that it would not be that big of an issue as long as everyone followed the same naming convention for their icons and frames. That way, a person would *not* have to download the graphics every single time they connect to a session, rather, they would use their own graphics. This would allow you to pick your own graphics "on the fly" with the /reload command. Perhaps an option to select your "theme" at the beginning for startup would be cool as well.

Sandeman