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PneumaPilot
November 4th, 2008, 05:14
Hey everyone. My troupe and I just bought into FG in order to play some new World of Darkness games online, and I have recently set to making a 'ruleset' for use with all of the nWoD material. I know that there is another person on here who has been working on a World of Darkness conversion for some time, but I also know that he has gone silent as of late.

In addition, the nWoD is the kind of system that does not require a program to make automatic rolls for a player in the way that Fantasy Grounds does for D20. In fact, the game is actually quite hampered by this automation since one of the major mechanics of nWoD is that every die roll is subject to a slew of modifiers which directly affect the number of dice rolled. The only sure thing when making a roll using this system is that you will not roll the number of dice listed on the character sheet. Therefore, such functionality is unnecessary.

My efforts will be to create a ruleset for nWoD that mainly changes the artwork of the program to make it more suitable for modern-type games and to create character sheets and resources that merely record data like a piece of paper would. I don't intend to have the system check for bad data (like someone filling in the fourth dot of a stat without filling in the second or third), or make any rolls automatically. In the long run, I think this will be a more fun system.

Here's a screenshot of my character sheet's work in progress. Please feel free to offer any suggestions. I will try to keep this thread up to date. If it's possible, I will upload the ruleset package as soon as I get it to the point where our group intends to use it (or before if someone really wants it). By the way, our group is playing a game of mortals, so the character sheet reflects that. I imagine that if we wanted to transition into a Mage game or something, it would be relatively simple to alter the character sheet to accomodate Mage stats.

https://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6649/nwodfg2draft1qn7.jpg

Richard
November 4th, 2008, 06:46
Hello.

Yes please though i would ask can you make a character sheet for Scion as well.

PneumaPilot
November 4th, 2008, 13:46
Well, at this point, Scion is the one White Wolf game that I do not have. I came late to this stuff and am currently playing catch-up. I have all of the nWoD game lines and a lot of the Exalted stuff, but no Scion as of yet. It should not be difficult to modify my ruleset to accomodate Scion, though. It might only mean just adding an extra tabbed page to the sheet to list all of the Scion's powers.

The most difficult thing that I can foresee about this process is making a way to track health like you do on a paper character sheet. I think that the database will have to track each health box separately, with four different health box graphics for the four various health states.

Sluder
November 4th, 2008, 22:29
This looks great, I can't wait to see it in action!

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 03:32
Thanks, Slu! Lord willing, you'll see it in two days!

Now, here's my current work in progress. I have added all of the skills, plus fields to be able to write in specialties. There's got to be an easier way to do this than what I am doing. I saw something in the reference (is it just me or is the XML reference far from exhaustive?) that mentioned relative placement. That may help me immensely, but I haven't seen an example of it in the D20 set, so I am unsure as to how to use it.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft2.jpg

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 06:08
Well, I am now officially so stinkin' proud of myself that I can't help grinning.

I figured out how to make little health boxes that can be tracked properly according to World of Darkness rules simply by clicking on the boxes. Ultimately, I created a hybrid of the checkbox template with four states instead of two (one for 'empty', one for 'slash', one for 'cross', and one for 'asterisk'). This thing is coming together better than I ever thought I could make it.

I will create another hybrid checkbox template for willpower boxes. Only two states are necessary for them - empty and slashed.

All that remains to be done to the front page is the morality scale and the basic advantages.

I would welcome any comments or suggestions.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft3.jpg

Valarian
November 5th, 2008, 12:23
One thing that's in the back of my mind for a World of Darkness ruleset is the rolling of the dice. With the dots as they are, you can pick up the correct number of d10 from the dice under the chat box and roll them. This is fine. It would be nice if you could combine the Skill+Attribute on the character sheet and roll from there.

What you could do is add a diecontrol box at the bottom of the Advantages section, which would allow you have an area to combine rolls. Then an OnDoubleClick() and/or an OnDrag() action on this control to roll the combined Skill+Attribute roll. An OnDrag() action on the attributes and skills would allow you to drag the correct number of d10 (based on the dots) to the diecontrol and add a description.

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 13:47
Except for the fact that all die rolls are subject to modifiers. My Dexterity + Firearms roll will be subject to a different amount of armor, cover, range, and visibility modifiers every time I roll. My Dexterity + Larceny roll for lockpicking will be subject to modifiers for tools and lock difficulty. And on and on it goes. All of these modifiers add and remove dice from the pool, changing the number rolled.

Now, I admit that I haven't played nWoD very much. In fact, this Thursday will be my first official game as Storyteller. But it seems to me from reading the books that there will not be many 'pure' rolls made. That was certainly the case when my troupe and I did some combat tests last week.

My current way of doing easy rolls is to have the F1-F12 keys set to roll between 1 and 12 dice, so after the Storyteller tells you how many dice to roll, given appropriate modifiers, you just hit that F key. Now, I run into a problem with this in that the F12 key will not hold 12 D10s after you shut the program off. Does anyone know what the deal is with that?

Tenian
November 5th, 2008, 14:49
You should look at some of the threads about the shadow run ruleset. I believe they use some sort of similar system where instead of modifiers you gain extra dice. I believe Joshua posted some code/sample code where the modifier stack became dice instead of a raw number. I've never even looked at WoD but from what you describe, that sounds like what you need.

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 16:06
Hey, thanks for the heads-up. I absolutely love the Shadowrun game, by the way. I think I've had more fun with that system than any other.

I'm just not sure that all of this auto-rolling would be helpful at all. I mean, by the time you clicked on all sorts of modifiers and such, you could have just hit the F7 key or whatever like 30 times. For me, the character sheet is just a way for the Storyteller to have access to the player's stats (like if I want to make a secret perception roll). Also, the players have to wait for me to give them all the modifiers before they can roll, and by the time I tell them, they already have a number, so they can just hit the corresponding F key.

The new World of Darkness system is very sleek mechanically. The rolls don't really get in the way of the roleplaying. I think that by putting in a lot of complicated stuff into the ruleset for Fantasy Grounds, that would be working counter-productive to the feel of the system.

I'm not really sure how a person goes about sharing homemade rulesets like this, but if there is a way, anyone who wants this when I'm done will be welcome to have it. Like I said before, though, I won't put together a special ruleset for Mage, Hunter, Exalted, or any of the other systems until my group decides to play another system, but I can easily envision how to hack what I've got to quickly make a sheet for a different system.

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 17:47
Hey, I need rather immediate help here. I am working on adding new features to the 'Advantages' frame on the sheet, and when I go to test it out, I can manipulate any and all controls in the right 1/3 of the character sheet, but not in the middle or left. Now, I can use Tab and Shift-Tab to move to the various fields in the upper portion and edit them, even though I can't click on them to manipulate them directly.

What's going on here? I've almost got this thing done and all of a sudden there's this weird bug. Please help!

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 17:59
Okay, sorry, crisis averted. I figured out that some problem with the innocent litte footer icon I had placed at the bottom of the skills frame was screwing up everything on that side of the sheet. I have no idea why, but it never accepted anchoring very well. So, I just removed the anchor and did a bounds placement and everything works again.

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 19:37
The front page is done! Everything works and I couldn't be more pleased.

My next task is to make a second page that has between 10 and 20 slots for Merits, a section for Flaws, some lines for Weapons and some for Equipment. That ought to take care of practically everything for a game with mortals.

Changing the ruleset to be compatible with one of the modular nWoD systems should be as easy as adding the supernatural trait to the advantages frame (and deleting the footer to make room), adding an extra sheet to take care of the system-specific information (like rotes and active spells for Mages), and enlarging the top frame on the first page to include the icon (which should be changed to the corresponding game's icon and shifted to the left) so that additional information like Path and Order (for Mage) could be accomodated.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft4.jpg

Foen
November 5th, 2008, 21:23
Neat work PneumaPilot!

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 21:37
Thanks, Foen. It does what I need it to do. I think that a future project will have to be devoted to revising the character creation screen to get rid of the silly die roller (I couldn't even figure out how to work that thing when I was attempting to make a D20 character!). A window that simply describes how to allocate dots at character creation will suffice.

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 22:31
Merits and Flaws sections are taken care of. I know that that's quite a lot of space for flaws, but I couldn't think of anything else to take up the extra room.

Notice that I changed the tabs on the right. There is now a Page 1 and 2 and a Notes section. The Notes section is identical to the D20 set's.

All that is left to do is to put in some inventory lines, divided into two areas: one for descriptions of the items, and one for the dice modifiers given for the items. I will probably break this down into Weapons and Equipment like the stock sheet, although my version will have a lot more lines.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft5.jpg

Foen
November 5th, 2008, 22:42
Hi

You might want to consider amending the notes section to allow the GM to add hidden notes to a character sheet (visible from the GM's view of the character sheet, but hidden in the player's view).

https://www.legends-guild.co.uk/blog/charnotes.jpg

The script for this is quite straightforward:


<windowclass name="charsheet_notes">
<placement>
<size>
<width>252</width>
<height>611</height>
</size>
</placement>
<nodelete />
<script>
function onInit()
if User.isHost() then
--[[ GM view, include GM notes ]]
gmframe.setVisible(true);
gmframelabel.setVisible(true);
gmnotes.setVisible(true);
frame.setAnchoredHeight(395);
else
--[[ Player view, exclude GM notes ]]
gmframe.setVisible(false);
gmframelabel.setVisible(false);
gmnotes.setVisible(false);
frame.setAnchoredHeight(570);
end
end
</script>
<sheetdata>
<!-- PLAYER NOTES -->
<genericcontrol name="frame">
<anchored>
<top>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>20</offset>
</top>
<left>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-29</offset>
</right>
<size>
<height>395</height>
</size>
</anchored>
<frame>
<name>sheetgroup</name>
</frame>
</genericcontrol>
<stringcontrol>
<anchored>
<to>frame</to>
<position>insidetopleft</position>
<offset>15,14</offset>
</anchored>
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<static>Character Notes</static>
</stringcontrol>
<stringfield name="notes">
<anchored>
<top>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>25</offset>
</top>
<bottom>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>bottom</anchor>
<offset>-10</offset>
</bottom>
<left>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-15</offset>
</right>
</anchored>
<multilinespacing>20</multilinespacing>
<font>sheettext</font>
<frame>
<name>textline</name>
<offset>2,0,2,0</offset>
</frame>
</stringfield>
<!-- GM NOTES -->
<genericcontrol name="gmframe">
<anchored>
<to>frame</to>
<position>below</position>
<offset>0</offset>
<size>
<height>175</height>
</size>
</anchored>
<frame>
<name>sheetgroup</name>
</frame>
<invisible/>
</genericcontrol>
<stringcontrol name="gmframelabel">
<anchored>
<to>gmframe</to>
<position>insidetopleft</position>
<offset>15,14</offset>
</anchored>
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<static>GM Notes</static>
<invisible/>
</stringcontrol>
<stringfield name="gmnotes">
<anchored>
<top>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>25</offset>
</top>
<bottom>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>bottom</anchor>
<offset>-10</offset>
</bottom>
<left>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-15</offset>
</right>
</anchored>
<multilinespacing>20</multilinespacing>
<font>sheettext</font>
<frame>
<name>textline</name>
<offset>2,0,2,0</offset>
</frame>
<invisible/>
</stringfield>
</sheetdata>
</windowclass>


Basically it provides for two data entry areas, then hides one of them and expands the other if the user isn't the host (GM).

This should replace the windowclass definition in charsheet_notes.xml.

Hope that helps

Foen

Sorontar
November 5th, 2008, 23:13
Beak/Pincher attack table......... Puncture Criticals?

If so the players gruesome doom will be fumbling and stabbing himself in the face with it ;)

PneumaPilot
November 5th, 2008, 23:23
Foen, thanks for the great advice, and especially the easy script to implement it with! I'll be doing that immediately.

I have finished my character sheet for mortals in the new World of Darkness. Here is the completed second page. Again note the similarity to paper. Ranges for firearms can be listed on the description line rather than in separate fields. Like I said, 'rules lite'.

At this point, my stress at having to have this thing done by tomorrow night is over and I am a little more willing to listen to suggestions.

Also, I am looking for a good way to have the chat window sort the values for a number of rolled dice. It doesn't even have to count successes and reroll 10s. I just want to be able to quickly look at the rolls and pick out successes. My ideal preference would be to have the 'success' numbers (8,9,0) show a different color than the 'fail' numbers (like the nWoD physical dice sets).

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft6.jpg

Sluder
November 6th, 2008, 03:13
This looks great. You have really been working hard Pnuemapilot. I have a feeling that tomorrow nights run will be a blast.

Slu

There's no problem on earth that can't be solved with high explosives.
--Gunney Pick

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 05:24
Thank you, sir. I never thought someone would actually use as many Equipment lines as you did, Slu. I thought, surely no one could passibly carry that much stuff. Apparently I need to re-read my copy of "The Things They Carried".

Valarian
November 6th, 2008, 06:55
I'll echo Foen, a very neat design. I take the point about the dice modifiers. It's been a while since I played WoD. I've got the NWoD book and Vampire, but not played them yet. I'd be interested in the ruleset.

One further suggestion. There are three spare tabs on the sheet. These could be used to supply game specific details for the other NWoD games. Maybe even as extensions for the ruleset. Something to have a think about for the future.

turelus
November 6th, 2008, 08:53
Just saw this thread and THANK YOU!
I have been waiting on a WoD ruleset for a long time.

Keep up the good work!

Bidmaron
November 6th, 2008, 12:28
Hi

You might want to consider amending the notes section to allow the GM to add hidden notes to a character sheet (visible from the GM's view of the character sheet, but hidden in the player's view).


Basically it provides for two data entry areas, then hides one of them and expands the other if the user isn't the host (GM).

This should replace the windowclass definition in charsheet_notes.xml.

Hope that helps

Foen
Foen, are there any rulesets using this mod right now?

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 13:45
My troupe is playing through one story as mortals starting tonight. After we finish that, we will be transitioning into a Hunter: The Vigil game. So I will have to modify the ruleset for use with Hunter in the next week or two. I definitely plan to use the extra tabs on the sheet to add new information specific to Hunter (Endowments, Tactics). I also will change the front page to include Hunter information like Profession and Compact or Conspiracy.

In the meantime, for folks like turelus, is there any accepted place to upload rulesets so that others can get a hold of them? I would probably need to clean the thing up first. There is SO much unused D20 stuff lying around in all the various folders. I've just been afraid to delete much of it because it's all cross-linked up the wazoo. I don't want everything failing because I deleted a script or xml file referenced in like 20 others.

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 13:53
Hi

You might want to consider amending the notes section to allow the GM to add hidden notes to a character sheet (visible from the GM's view of the character sheet, but hidden in the player's view).

The script for this is quite straightforward:


<windowclass name="charsheet_notes">
<placement>
<size>
<width>252</width>
<height>611</height>
</size>
</placement>
<nodelete />
<script>
function onInit()
if User.isHost() then
--[[ GM view, include GM notes ]]
gmframe.setVisible(true);
gmframelabel.setVisible(true);
gmnotes.setVisible(true);
frame.setAnchoredHeight(395);
else
--[[ Player view, exclude GM notes ]]
gmframe.setVisible(false);
gmframelabel.setVisible(false);
gmnotes.setVisible(false);
frame.setAnchoredHeight(570);
end
end
</script>
<sheetdata>
<!-- PLAYER NOTES -->
<genericcontrol name="frame">
<anchored>
<top>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>20</offset>
</top>
<left>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-29</offset>
</right>
<size>
<height>395</height>
</size>
</anchored>
<frame>
<name>sheetgroup</name>
</frame>
</genericcontrol>
<stringcontrol>
<anchored>
<to>frame</to>
<position>insidetopleft</position>
<offset>15,14</offset>
</anchored>
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<static>Character Notes</static>
</stringcontrol>
<stringfield name="notes">
<anchored>
<top>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>25</offset>
</top>
<bottom>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>bottom</anchor>
<offset>-10</offset>
</bottom>
<left>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<parent>frame</parent>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-15</offset>
</right>
</anchored>
<multilinespacing>20</multilinespacing>
<font>sheettext</font>
<frame>
<name>textline</name>
<offset>2,0,2,0</offset>
</frame>
</stringfield>
<!-- GM NOTES -->
<genericcontrol name="gmframe">
<anchored>
<to>frame</to>
<position>below</position>
<offset>0</offset>
<size>
<height>175</height>
</size>
</anchored>
<frame>
<name>sheetgroup</name>
</frame>
<invisible/>
</genericcontrol>
<stringcontrol name="gmframelabel">
<anchored>
<to>gmframe</to>
<position>insidetopleft</position>
<offset>15,14</offset>
</anchored>
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<static>GM Notes</static>
<invisible/>
</stringcontrol>
<stringfield name="gmnotes">
<anchored>
<top>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>top</anchor>
<offset>25</offset>
</top>
<bottom>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>bottom</anchor>
<offset>-10</offset>
</bottom>
<left>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>left</anchor>
<offset>15</offset>
</left>
<right>
<parent>gmframe</parent>
<anchor>right</anchor>
<offset>-15</offset>
</right>
</anchored>
<multilinespacing>20</multilinespacing>
<font>sheettext</font>
<frame>
<name>textline</name>
<offset>2,0,2,0</offset>
</frame>
<invisible/>
</stringfield>
</sheetdata>
</windowclass>


Basically it provides for two data entry areas, then hides one of them and expands the other if the user isn't the host (GM).

This should replace the windowclass definition in charsheet_notes.xml.

Hope that helps

Foen

Would it be okay if I used this script on my Ars Magica ruleset as well?

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 15:17
Obe, do you really have to ask permission? I've seen a lot of stuff in these forums dealing with people asking about which copyrights to put on things, etc. I was under the impression that anything fan-made built in an open source community like this that is not for sale is pretty much legal-free. For instance, I can make a 'star-wars' themed movie with me and my friends without acknowledging copyrights or whatnot. Shouldn't the same be true for this stuff?

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 15:43
Probably not, but it is the polite thing to do when the code was meant for you. :)

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 16:07
Gotcha. Well, anybody and everybody has permission to use and permute anything I make for this program. I just need to know how to go about sharing it with people other than my players.

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 16:19
I'd be willing to host at my webspace for you.

- Obe

Tenian
November 6th, 2008, 16:29
Is that logo you use at the top of your sheet something you created or is it from source material? You might need to replace it for a public version. In the 4E DnD world the official 4e monster attack icons were replaced with fan created ones just to limit the legal concerns.

Just something to consider.

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 16:36
@Obe - So there is no official public space?

@Tenian - The logo is from the actual source material, but that shouldn't matter in this case. No one is offering this stuff for sale. It is fan-made content. If I put this thing up for download, and someone wants to change their copy, they are welcome to, but this whole endeavor of making custom rulesets for FG based on existing RPGs deals with copyrighted content. It seems silly to change a graphic and leave a whole character sheet exactly as-is with copyrighted rules systems present on the page. Now, I don't know all of the legal issues at hand, I'll admit that, but I can't imagine that any of this fan-made stuff could fall under any copyright infringement.

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 16:37
No, no official space available sadly enough.

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 16:39
Well, with a product like this, it is a wonder that SmiteWorks doesn't have a public space. Maybe they want to avoid any of these legal ramifications we have been talking about.

I may take you up on your offer then, Obe. How would I go about something like that?

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 16:44
Well... easiest is that you send me a copy of the ruleset at oberoten (AT) gmail (dot) com

And I will screenshot it and put it on my web adress

https://oberoten.mine.nu/ext

(( I'll see about setting up a PHP script for handling all of that later. ))

Tenian
November 6th, 2008, 16:51
I am no lawyer but my understanding is as follows:

The fact that it is not for sale does not matter. The owner of the Intellectual Property (IP) can still take legal action against you.

As for fan based rule systems, the way laws are currently structured I believe it is impossible to hold IP rights over the mechanics of a system (i.e. roll a d20 and compare it to a number). Also common terms like strength, will, reflex, etc can not fall under IP. However any descriptions of the rules, newly created words (genasi, tiefling, etc) can be locked down with IP. This is why most rulesets contain only the mechanics of the system and none of the actual rules, flavor text, etc.

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 19:17
Well, I certainly am not afraid of anyone bashing in my door during a private gaming session complaining that I am using their product for its intended purpose (role-playing). The whole question seems utterly preposterous to me.

Heck, at the White-Wolf website, they even host fan-made character sheets that rip artwork out of their supplements (Mr. Gone's Sheets). If that's illegal, they certainly don't act like it is. I know White Wolf would be thrilled that more people have access to play their games - artwork on the sheet or no.

Copyright rules are of the Devil.

Foen
November 6th, 2008, 19:33
The code is in the Foundation ruleset, which is SW OGL. You will also find it in the forthcoming Rolemaster ruleset, where the same field also appears on the combat tracker so the GM can record info about wound/conditions which the players may only find out subsequently.

Usual rules apply :)

Foen

Tenian
November 6th, 2008, 19:52
What you do in your home game typically falls under "Fair Use". When you start making IP protected materials publicly available is where it gets sticky.

For example:

Scanning in some spells from a reference manual, and creating power cards to give to your players = Fair use.

Scanning in some spells from a reference manual and posting them on the internet = legal troubles.


Now White Wolf may, at this point, not decide to take any action. However they could be bought out by another company tomorrow and you could find yourself buried in cease and desist orders. In addition any sites which host your ruleset (and possibly their internet service providers) are also likely to receive C&D orders.

Your safest options are to:

A) Remove any IP material.
B) Seek some sort of permission from the owner of the IP.

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 19:53
Perfect and many thanks. :)

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 20:06
Tenian, I would agree with your assessment of the spells cards. That seems right. However, in this case we are talking about a character sheet. This is something that is made available for free many times over by the parent companies and fans. Certainly there would be no trouble with that?

Griogre
November 6th, 2008, 20:25
The trouble is when you distribute or make the sheet available to others. If you use anything owned by White Wolf then you leave yourself open to legal action. That is why Tenian said the safest course is not to use any art owned by White Wolf.

Would they really go after you? Probably not - but if your sheet ends up all over the web and is used in a way that alarms them - then yes they could. Most like they would just send you a C&D request. If for some reason they felt they had to make an example of you - and that could happen because of some unrelated event you have no control over - it would not be fun for you.

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 21:04
Hmm. I wonder if I got their permission if I couls sell it instead of give it away?

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 21:05
If you got their permission to SELL, yes. But I imagine it'd be easier to get permission for something in the public domain.

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 21:47
Hehe, I was just joking. I want to give it away. <shifty grin> Or do I?

You know, in all seriousness, if I ran a game company, I would want to put somebody on the project of making materials for software like Fantasy Grounds. I mean, what could it hurt? You would be serving you fans, probably making a decent amount of return from the time invested, and you may even get a solid number of new players out of it.

Oberoten
November 6th, 2008, 21:50
*I* fully agree on that. :) I even went and got a nice go ahead from Atlas-games for making my Ars Magica ruleset.

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 6th, 2008, 22:12
Cool. I think I'll drop a note to White Wolf and see if they'll do the same.

turelus
November 7th, 2008, 10:39
I know white wolf can be a bit funny on some of this stuff, I have seen a few threads on their forums where people got in trouble just for having the merit descriptions on their site.

I doubt they will have a problem with people making character sheets for FG II but it's a good idea to check with them. never know they may even host it on their site :P

Sorontar
November 7th, 2008, 11:09
Well aren't they in bed with CCP now (or did CCP buy them I forget), so they may have had a change in outlook from previous years.

turelus
November 7th, 2008, 13:06
Think they work together on projects, was more of a merge than a buyout although CCP might be a little higher up.

So with this new ruleset on its way who wants to ST a campaign for me? ;)
Also you think this will help evolve onto vampire, wearwolf etc rulesets?

PneumaPilot
November 7th, 2008, 14:00
Concerning evolving into the various modular games, the modification to the custom set will be very easy. What I would like to be able to implement, however, would be a way to simply click some radio button on the sheet and have it magically change into the right supernatural sheet. For example, you start with the mortal sheet visible, and maybe you even input some of the character's information, then you click the Vampire radio button and suddenly the sheet changes color, adds new fields, and gets a new tabbed sheet with all of the Vampire specific info like disciplines, etc. THAT would be cool.

PneumaPilot
November 7th, 2008, 14:06
Oh, by the way, our group played with the new ruleset last night for the first time. It was also the first time any of us have ever played with the actual World of Darkness rules. We're all old D&D players here. The new character sheets worked awesome, and we were all impressed with the Fantasy Grounds software package. I did note some areas where I can drastically improve the ruleset, however:

1. Edit the combat tracker so that it has health boxes and willpower boxes linked to the main character sheets. Remove all D20 garbage.

2. Edit the personalities window to contain WoD rules information rather than D20 garbage.

3. Change the grid scale from 5 foot squares to 1 yard squares (WoD marks all ranges in yards). I'll need some help on this one.

PneumaPilot
November 7th, 2008, 16:05
I just sent an email to White Wolf asking for permission or collaboration on this project. We'll see what they say...

PneumaPilot
November 8th, 2008, 21:23
I have been working on the combat tracker today. My purpose in doing this was mainly to remove all of the D20 baggage, as it is completely useless in this system. But, I thought that while I was at it, I could also add a linked series of health boxes to add maybe a touch more usefulness to the tracker. Now my current problem is figuring out how to link the health boxes and check boxes on the combat tracker to the appropriate health boxes and check boxes on the character sheet. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft7.jpg

turelus
November 9th, 2008, 11:06
Once again looking amazing man! I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for this one! I wish I had the skills to do stuff like this :'(

PneumaPilot
November 9th, 2008, 14:09
I don't think it takes skill as much as patience. I mean, if you saw me sitting here in my chair tweaking one little number at a time and then relaunching the program to see what changed, you would pull your hair out from the boredom.

Foen
November 9th, 2008, 14:34
Top tip: you can use /reload to try any changes to .LUA/.XML files without having to exit and re-launch FG.

I have /save /reload and /console on hot keys when I'm developing.

Foen

PneumaPilot
November 9th, 2008, 14:39
That is the greatest thing you could have possibly told me, Foen. Thank you! Do you just enter that in the chat box?

PneumaPilot
November 9th, 2008, 14:44
Maybe I can get this combat tracker done this afternoon so I can move on the NPC/Personality window. Also, I'm starting to think about how to make monsters in this system. Most of your nWoD monsters come from the various supernatural modules. Therefore, if I want to be able to keep stats on a Vampire as a bad-guy, even if I am only playing the mortals game, I am still going to need a Vampire character sheet. So, it looks like my implementation of the other types of character sheets will be sooner rather than later. I still want to find some way for the sheet to morph in real-time (like the various parts of the D20 combat tracker that change when you mouse over or click on the appropriate symbols). I think that's going to be ugly. At least now I know how to reload the ruleset without restarting the program.

turelus
November 9th, 2008, 19:25
Seeing as you only use two or three tabs for the mortal character could you not make some of the other tabs the rules for Vampire, Wearwolf, Mage etc.?
Then have all the basic stats linked maybe so as you improve the mortal sheet the vampire one updates as well?

PneumaPilot
November 9th, 2008, 20:24
Well, what I'm hoping to accomplish is to have a series of colored glass beads (colors match the various game lines - red for Vampire, brown for Werewolf, etc.) along the top right of the sheet. When you click on the blue one, for example then, the top box would expand, the Mage logo would go on the top left, the World of Darkness logo would go away, and lines for Path, Order, and Cabal would be added to the top biographical information frame. Also, the controls in the advantages box would move slightly to make room for Mana and Gnosis dots. Then one or more of the extra tabs would 'switch on' to allow you to access information about Rotes, Active Spells, Familiars, Enchanted Items, etc. If you input any information in these extra zones, they would not go away if you switched back to a mortal sheet, they would just be hidden (like the extra lines in the combat tracker). Since none of this stuff is tied to any rules-based automation, having the information remain in the database when not in use would not be a detriment at all.

turelus
November 9th, 2008, 20:30
That sounds amazing, I really hope you can get it working.

PneumaPilot
November 9th, 2008, 21:57
Hehe, yeah, me too. Although just thinking about making more stuff for the sheet makes me sick when I just thought that I was done.

In other news, I think that the combat tracker is done. The only thing pending is a proper test with a PC logged in. I am now working on the NPC/Personalities window, which I will test with the combat tracker as soon as it's done.

turelus
November 9th, 2008, 23:39
Well unless people REALLY want vampire right away you should take a break. I mean you have done such amazing work for the WoD fans on the site I think it would be wrong for any one to object. :D

PneumaPilot
November 10th, 2008, 02:38
Well, I would, but I need Vampire functionality by next Thursday. Need drives the engine of invention.

PneumaPilot
November 10th, 2008, 05:30
Well, unfortunately all I was able to get accomplished tonight was to remove all of the D20 data from the NPC window. That's harder than it sounds, because selective deleting caused infinite error loops a couple of times. At least now it is a blank slate for my proddings.

I am aiming to make the NPC stats echo the way that NPCs are presented in the White Wolf SAS adventures at drivethrurpg. They include the basic name, concept, virtue, vice, faction, and group fields, along with a short list of commonly used dice rolls and a notes section. That's all that is needed for most NPCs. It shouldn't take too long to get that together. I'll also include a multiline text field for description, a few lines for favorite quotes and maybe a section for background.

I may be able to get it done tomorrow at lunch, but as I am going to a state association meeting for Baptists this week, I have only Monday and Friday to write my two sermons for next Sunday, so I'll not have a lot of time.

PneumaPilot
November 11th, 2008, 03:21
Here's an updated look at the front page of the character sheet. The glass beads across the top will hopefully someday soon allow you to transform a character sheet into the various types of supernatural sheets.

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft8.jpg

PneumaPilot
November 14th, 2008, 21:33
The dice roller is now finished and was tested last night in play. It worked fantastically. Now I'm back to work on the combat tracker. I just need to get it to pass healthbox information back and forth between the character sheet to the tracker. Once I get that figured out, it will be no sweat to have it also track willpower (something I noticed we needed last night).

PneumaPilot
November 15th, 2008, 16:57
I have finally finished the work on the combat tracker. It now has fully linked health and willpower boxes and dots. When you make a change on the character sheet, it changes the tracker. When you make a change on the tracker, it changes the sheet. Many thanks especially to joshua and Foen for their help in coding this thing.

Next stop: NPC window. Later: Hunter: The Vigil character sheet (dark green bead).

https://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb309/PneumaPilot/nWoDFG2Draft9.jpg

Sluder
November 15th, 2008, 17:34
As a player in Pneumapilot's game, I would like to say that everything that he has done for WoD in FG2 works great.

Furthermore, the speed with which he has accomplished this has been impressive.

Keep up the good work.

turelus
November 16th, 2008, 15:18
Great to see the progress being made, looks amazing I really can't wait to see it finished up! Any ideas when the first release will be available to the public? and have your heard anything from White Wolf yet?

PneumaPilot
November 16th, 2008, 20:33
No, I still haven't heard anything from White Wolf...Maybe you guys could write to them too? Tell them that they already have an email from Corey Reynolds asking for their permission...

I'd say it's getting pretty close. I've got the combat tracker and the dice roller doing exactly what I want. I've got the mortals character sheet doing exactly what I want. I'm at about 60% on the NPC/Monster/Personalities window, but in trying to figure out how to finish it, I am realizing the need to refactor some of my original character sheet.

I think that once I implement the new lessons I have learned on how to create instant multiples of single controls (something very useful for WoD's 'dots') that everything will fall into place nicely. Pretty much the only thing that I have left to figure out is exactly how I am going to get the character sheet to morph depending on which game line is chosen. I need to have it be able to load up a certain character's sheet in the right format based on which bead they have clicked on before, and I need it to change in real-time, shifting, adding, and deleting controls once a different bead is selected.

Each time I learn a new trick, though, the development time decreases exponentially. I've got to have a Hunter capable sheet by this Thursday (our group is making Hunter characters), so I'll probably have at least one of the other game lines in working order by then.

Oberoten
November 16th, 2008, 22:06
I dropped them a line to this effect. sent it to their licensing group.

- Adam

Oberoten
November 17th, 2008, 21:41
Ah and I got a reply : I post it here in it's entirety.

From : Merry Luong [[email protected]]


Dear Adam,
Please review the Dark Pack guidelines: https://www.white-wolf.com/fansites/fs_guidelines.php (https://www.white-wolf.com/fansites/fs_guidelines.php)
These are White Wolf's general guidelines for fansites and fan projects. Please keep in mind that these are merely guidelines for fans and not legal parameters regarding copyright and trademark infringement.
If you have any further inquiries concerning this issues, please do not hesitate to email me.

Sincerely,
Merry Luong


Business Development Associate
CCP North America
2075 West Park Place Boulevard
Suite G
Stone Mountain, Ga. 30087
404-292-1819 x283


*edit* Corrected a broken link.

PneumaPilot
November 17th, 2008, 22:42
Interesting that they did not send me any such email...

Oberoten
November 17th, 2008, 22:50
Did you use the same contact space?

I used their webform and went to copyright department.

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 17th, 2008, 22:51
Okay, I read the thing, and it seems like what I am doing would fall well within the guidelines for such a project. The only thing that is questionable is that it says that you can't reproduce character creation instructions or host their character sheets on your website. I suppose I should leave out any specific information on how many attributes, skills, and merits you can pick (I was thinking about putting this info in the same space that the character creation die roller is in on the D20 set). I don't guess that my character sheet would apply to the other rule, though, since it is not a direct duplicate of their character sheet, and many people post their own homemade character sheets on their sites and get White Wolf to add their sites to the Dark Pack.

In other words, I will attempt to abide by the spirit of this thing, I will upload it somewhere for public use, and if they want me to stop, then they can just say so (although why would they?).

PneumaPilot
November 17th, 2008, 22:51
Yeah, I used the same form/same department...

brucehum
November 17th, 2008, 23:40
Very interesting project.

Hoping to be some day able to use it and run some Vampire nWoD campaign!

Tenian
November 18th, 2008, 00:45
One reason they might tell you to stop is because some IP (I can't remember if it's trademarks, copyrights, or both) require you to defend them to retain them.

PneumaPilot
November 18th, 2008, 01:50
Well, they give pretty wide priviledges in their Dark Pack agreement, so I think we're A-OK!

Oberoten
November 18th, 2008, 07:25
Mhm.... that was my interpretation of it too. I think FG would fall closest to MOO and that is allowed without problems as long as you link back to them somehow and mention that they are copyright holders. :) Kinda like how Spyke has done for his GURPS set and I have done for my Ars Magica.

- Obe

Foen
November 18th, 2008, 08:03
Adding copyright notices to a ruleset can be achieved quite easily in chatmanager.lua, by editing the registerControl method:



function registerControl(ctrl)
control = ctrl;
-- display the copyright message
addMessage({text = "Call of Cthulhu (c) 2008 by Chaosium Inc.; all rights reserved.", font = "systemfont"});
addMessage({text = "Call of Cthulhu (r) is the registered trademark of Chaosium Inc.", font = "systemfont"});
end

You could even add a ruleset version number if you wanted.

edit: I just noticed this snippet uses an addMessage method not defined in the default ruleset, so you should use control.addMessage(...) instead.

Foen

turelus
November 18th, 2008, 09:01
Very interesting project.

Hoping to be some day able to use it and run some Vampire nWoD campaign!
I'll join that game as a player! ;)

Stuff is looking good PneumaPilot keep it up! :)

PneumaPilot
November 18th, 2008, 14:22
Hopefully I will finish the NPC window today and I can post a picture of how it looks. I could have had it done a long time ago, but I've been trying to figure out how to work smarter, not harder. The problem seems to be that I ain't too smart enough. ;)

PneumaPilot
November 21st, 2008, 16:05
Okay, I talked to White Wolf pretty extensively this morning and it looks like everything is go for this thing to be publicly hosted. I want to finish up the NPC window (which is really almost done) and then maybe Obe or someone can host it as a 0.8 release or something.

I hope that when more people get a hold of what I'm doing, there will be some really good suggestions as to how to make it better.

VenomousFiligree
November 22nd, 2008, 00:11
Okay, I talked to White Wolf pretty extensively this morning and it looks like everything is go for this thing to be publicly hosted.
Not a player of nWoD, however I've been popping into this thread every so often and following your progress. Good to see your hard work has paid off with recognition by the developers! :)

Oberoten
November 22nd, 2008, 00:34
*biig toothy grin* EXCELLENT news. :)

PneumaPilot
November 22nd, 2008, 06:14
Well, it wasn't so much recognition of the developers as it was the repeated mantra of "As long as it matches the guidelines in the Dark Spiral you are fine." I then pointed out some places where I was unsure and they responded in pretty much the same way, so I told them, "Okay, it looks like we're good here."

Honken
November 23rd, 2008, 16:02
Yay! Somebody made a nWoD thingie. :P

A small suggestion, maybe you should exchange the "beads" with small icons of the skulle from each gameline?

/Honken

PneumaPilot
November 23rd, 2008, 21:23
That is the best suggestion I have heard yet! It simply MUST be done! Thank you Honken!

Plissken
November 23rd, 2008, 22:32
PneumaPilot, you're awesome. I'm very excited and look forward to running a WoD game.

Oberoten
November 23rd, 2008, 23:03
That is the best suggestion I have heard yet! It simply MUST be done! Thank you Honken!

Of course it is awesome... He is Swedish. ;)

- Obe

Honken
November 24th, 2008, 15:58
That is the best suggestion I have heard yet! It simply MUST be done! Thank you Honken!

Hehe, your welcome. :)

/Honken

turelus
November 26th, 2008, 13:47
PneumaPilot do you think it would be possible to release a "beta" of you sheets soon? I'm sure you would rather be releasing a completed project but I'm really excited about giving the sheets a go.

PneumaPilot
November 28th, 2008, 21:04
Hey guys, sorry I haven't updated in a while. I started working back on this today. Our group took a rest yesterday for Thanksgiving, so knowing that I wouldn't have to do anything, I slacked off.

I've got the idea in my mind now of how to finish the NPC window. I'm not promising, but I hope to post a finished screenshot of it tonight.

I don't mind going ahead and posting a beta. Obe, do you want me to just .ZIP the ruleset folder and email to you or something?

Oberoten
November 28th, 2008, 21:09
That'd be the best I believe oberoten(SQUIGGLY)gmail(dot) com. Should do it nicely.

I'll put it up most likely before or after work tomorrow. :) (2x16 hour shifts on the weekend... Gaaah. )

PneumaPilot
November 28th, 2008, 22:54
Okay, let me get the NPC window in some state of working before I send it. Right now my latest idea has crapped out and it's got nothing. Even resetting it would be better.

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 05:06
Alright, here are a couple of different shots of the (pretty much) completed NPC window. There is a 'stats' area where you can add as many single-line 10-dot stats as you want. This is envisioned primarily as a place to put attributes and skill. There is an 'abilities' area where you can add as many multi-line 10-dot stats as you want. This is for custom dice pools for NPCs that really only have one roll that you need to make. In other words, you can condense a Strength attribute and an Athletics skill into just one ability called "Get Away" and add appropriate modifiers directly to the pool so that if your characters decide to chase this NPC, the pool is ready made. This is the same technique used in the Storyteller Adventure System adventures.

568569

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 05:09
Oh, the 'About' tab is just a place to put a description, and the 'Other' tab is just a place to put any additional information in a multi-lined catch-all.

I hope to eventually rig this thing in the same way as the main character sheet to change stat groupings based on supernatural template.

I also need to link this thing to the combat tracker so that it imports health and willpower. Hopefully, that will be easy, since I've already done it one with the character sheet.

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 05:14
I just checked, and unfortunately the awesome idea about the game line skulls will not work. :( For one thing, there is no 'spirit' skull. But the worst hang-up is that when you get the skulls small enough to remain attractive, you can't tell the difference between them. And I can't have huge skulls all over the place. Although, it might be nice to incorporate the skulls into the logo section of the character sheet.

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 05:47
I cannot figure out how to link the blasted NPC window to the combat tracker. I thought that this would be simple, but for some reason it's not working. I don't even mind if it skips the linking process and just imports the state at drag. That way, I could create multiple copies of the same NPC in the combat tracker without linking all their health information. Here's the code I have now:


function addNpc(source)
local newentry = createWindow();

newentry.setType("npc");

-- Name
if source.getChild("name") then
newentry.name.setValue(source.getChild("name").getValue());
end

newentry.health1.setValue(source.getChild("health1").getValue());
newentry.healthX1.setValue(source.getChild("healthX1").getValue());
newentry.health2.setValue(source.getChild("health2").getValue());
newentry.healthX2.setValue(source.getChild("healthX2").getValue());
newentry.health3.setValue(source.getChild("health3").getValue());
newentry.healthX3.setValue(source.getChild("healthX3").getValue());
newentry.health4.setValue(source.getChild("health4").getValue());
newentry.healthX4.setValue(source.getChild("healthX4").getValue());
newentry.health5.setValue(source.getChild("health5").getValue());
newentry.healthX5.setValue(source.getChild("healthX5").getValue());
newentry.health6.setValue(source.getChild("health6").getValue());
newentry.healthX6.setValue(source.getChild("healthX6").getValue());
newentry.health7.setValue(source.getChild("health7").getValue());
newentry.healthX7.setValue(source.getChild("healthX7").getValue());
newentry.health8.setValue(source.getChild("health8").getValue());
newentry.healthX8.setValue(source.getChild("healthX8").getValue());
newentry.health9.setValue(source.getChild("health9").getValue());
newentry.healthX9.setValue(source.getChild("healthX9").getValue());
newentry.health10.setValue(source.getChild("health10").getValue());
newentry.healthX10.setValue(source.getChild("healthX10").getValue());
newentry.health11.setValue(source.getChild("health11").getValue());
newentry.healthX11.setValue(source.getChild("healthX11").getValue());
newentry.health12.setValue(source.getChild("health12").getValue());
newentry.healthX12.setValue(source.getChild("healthX12").getValue());
newentry.willpower1.setValue(source.getChild("will1").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX1.setValue(source.getChild("willX1").getValue());
newentry.willpower2.setValue(source.getChild("will2").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX2.setValue(source.getChild("willX2").getValue());
newentry.willpower3.setValue(source.getChild("will3").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX3.setValue(source.getChild("willX3").getValue());
newentry.willpower4.setValue(source.getChild("will4").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX4.setValue(source.getChild("willX4").getValue());
newentry.willpower5.setValue(source.getChild("will5").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX5.setValue(source.getChild("willX5").getValue());
newentry.willpower6.setValue(source.getChild("will6").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX6.setValue(source.getChild("willX6").getValue());
newentry.willpower7.setValue(source.getChild("will7").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX7.setValue(source.getChild("willX7").getValue());
newentry.willpower8.setValue(source.getChild("will8").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX8.setValue(source.getChild("willX8").getValue());
newentry.willpower9.setValue(source.getChild("will9").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX9.setValue(source.getChild("willX9").getValue());
newentry.willpower10.setValue(source.getChild("will10").getValue());
newentry.willpowerX10.setValue(source.getChild("willX10").getValue());

-- Token
if source.getChild("token") then
newentry.token.setPrototype(source.getChild("token").getValue());
end

return newentry;
end


Hmm, I wonder if the problem stems from the fact that the health and willpower information on the NPC sheet are actually the first elements in separate windowlists rather than just static controls? How would I reference that? With brackets (e.g. "health1[1]")?

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 06:09
The current version of my ruleset has been sent to Oberoten for hosting on his site. Now I am looking forward to some really good ideas and coding help, now that everyone can get their own copy.

One thing I know it needs: get rid of all superfluous D20 code without harming the existing ruleset.

Foen
November 29th, 2008, 06:18
Accessing the elements of a windowlist isn't that easy, but not too tricky either: but it would be helpful to understand what the list is called and how your data is being stored in the campaign db.xml file.

BTW, you might want to shortcut some of your code (above). The dot-notation for accessing controls is semantically the same as using square brackets and putting the control name in a string. Hence newentry.health1 is the same as newentry["health1"]. Using this, you can replace your assignment operations as follows:



for i=1,12 do
newentry["health"..i].setValue(source.getChild("health"..i).getValue());
newentry["healthX"..i].setValue(source.getChild("healthX"..i).getValue());
end
for i=1,10 do
newentry["willpower"..i].setValue(source.getChild("will"..i).getValue());
newentry["willpowerX"..i].setValue(source.getChild("willX"..i).getValue());
end

Hope that helps

Foen

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 06:20
Ahh, okay, let me try something with that.

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 06:28
Oh, nevermind, I misunderstood what you said. Thanks for the loop info. I've been wondering about how to loop.

Okay, so here's the data:
The windowlist's name in the NPC sheet is "healthlist" and it's <datasource> is .healthlist
The combat tracker has a health(n=1-12) checkbox and a healthX(n=1-12) healthbox (a special checkbox that has 4 states)
The NPC sheet has a health(n=1-12) checkbox controls and healthX(n=1-12) healthbox controls

Foen
November 29th, 2008, 06:46
I think you should be able to iterate over the NPC data using something like:


i=0;
for k,item in pairs(source.getChild("healthlist").getChildren()) do
i = i + 1;
newentry["health"..i].setValue(item.getChild(checkboxname).getValue());
newentry["healthX"..i].setValue(item.getChild(healthboxname).getValue()) ;
end

You could also use ipairs() instead of setting i manually, but I've got a feeling it doesn't work with a collection of child nodes.

It would be helpful to see a snippet of the db.xml for the NPC, to understand how the data is laid out in the database, as I'm shooting in the dark a bit.

Foen

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 06:51
Is this what you're looking for, Foen? By the way, this is the first time I've ever looked into db.xml.


<healthlist>
<id-00001>
<health1 type="number">1</health1>
<health10 type="number">0</health10>
<health11 type="number">0</health11>
<health12 type="number">0</health12>
<health2 type="number">1</health2>
<health3 type="number">1</health3>
<health4 type="number">1</health4>
<health5 type="number">1</health5>
<health6 type="number">1</health6>
<health7 type="number">0</health7>
<health8 type="number">0</health8>
<health9 type="number">0</health9>
<healthX1 type="number">3</healthX1>
<healthX10 type="number">0</healthX10>
<healthX11 type="number">0</healthX11>
<healthX12 type="number">0</healthX12>
<healthX2 type="number">2</healthX2>
<healthX3 type="number">2</healthX3>
<healthX4 type="number">1</healthX4>
<healthX5 type="number">1</healthX5>
<healthX6 type="number">0</healthX6>
<healthX7 type="number">0</healthX7>
<healthX8 type="number">0</healthX8>
<healthX9 type="number">0</healthX9>
</id-00001>
</healthlist>

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 06:55
That last code you gave me didn't work. And, yes, I did change your 'healthboxname' and 'checkboxname' to the appropriate strings. It didn't throw an error, either, though.

Foen
November 29th, 2008, 07:54
Ahh, I can see my mistake by looking at your database structure. Each health item isn't its own entry in your windowlist, instead they are all in a single entry in the list (the first one).

Access to this data is messy: you can either hard-code the fact that it will (hopefully) always be in id-00001; or you can loop through each entry in the list (of which there is only one). I am not aware of a method which will give you direct access to the nth child of a node (in this case, the first).

Using the second approach:



for k,v in pairs(source.getChild("healthlist").getChildren()) do
for i=1,12 do
newentry["health"..i].setValue(v.getChild("health"..i).getValue());
newentry["healthX"..i].setValue(v.getChild("healthX"..i).getValue());
end
end

I hope that helps.

Foen

Foen
November 29th, 2008, 07:58
By the way, this is the first time I've ever looked into db.xml.

The db.xml file can be your friend, if you need to check how data is being stored when accessing it from code. You will also grow to love (!) db.xml if you ever create your own reference modules (such as spell lists etc).

Foen

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 15:39
There should always only be one health element in that list. Besides, if somebody ever adds more than one, the combat tracker will only want the first one.

That code didn't work, by the way. It gave me an "attempt to call field 'setValue' a nil value" error. I'll try setState, but making that change has never helped me yet. Maybe this time...

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 15:42
Alright! Changing the setValue to setState actually WORKED! For the first time ever, it worked!

Okay, now the thing is working. I'm not really sure how your new code is different from the old code. I will try to study the differences and see why it didn't work before.

Thanks again!

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 15:55
Okay, the combat tracker now works perfectly for both PCs and NPCs/Monsters.

The NPC/Monster window works passably well until I can implement the supernatural template changes to it. It should be able to accomodate any kind of critter as is, although you may have to put supernatural specific info in the 'Other' section.

The dice roller works beautifully. It sorts the rolls and counts successes. It does not reroll for you. Sometimes in the nWoD system, you reroll 9s and 8s as well as 10s, and it would probably take longer for a player to toggle some kind of autoroller settings than it would to just simply reroll the appropriate dice him/herself. The way I have my players do it is to set the F1-F12 keys to roll 1-12 dice. So you hit F10 to roll 10 dice, then you easily see (because of sorting) that 4 need to be rerolled, so you hit the F4 key and repeat the process.

My work now will be on trying to understand how to get the character sheet to change based on beads toggled. The first templated sheet I'm going to work on will be the Hunter sheet.

When I get ALL of the various template sheets programmed in and linked to the beads, then I will work on making all of the art unique. At this point, I have been tweaking the art that came with FG2, and have only added a couple of unique things (the brushed metal tabletop with the WoD logo).

This thing is really coming together!

Oberoten
November 29th, 2008, 21:53
Ruleset now available in beta version on https://oberoten.mine.nu/ext

Many thanks to PneumaPilot for his hard work. :)

- Obe

PneumaPilot
November 29th, 2008, 22:32
Hey, thanks a ton, Obe. I suppose I have 0.75 available now with working NPC and fully-functional combat tracker. But I'll wait until I get at least the Hunter bead working before I send you the next installment. We can call it 0.8.

PneumaPilot
November 30th, 2008, 02:20
Okay guys, I have the beads actually making some changes when toggled. Right now, toggling a bead will cause the logo in the upper left corner of the character sheet to change to match the game line chosen. This was surprisingly easy, and I didn't even have to write an onInit function for the logo control to make sure it built right each time the sheet opened. Apparently, just putting a setIcon call in the update event for the bead took care of all eventualities.

Now, here's the new concern: setIcon was easy, but what about a way to change the frame? I would settle for just changing its color, if that is possible, but if I have to change the whole frame graphic, that would be fine too. Is there a built-in way to do this like setIcon, or do I have to do something arcane?

joshuha
November 30th, 2008, 02:31
This should help you out:
https://fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/windowcontrol.xcp#setFrame

PneumaPilot
November 30th, 2008, 03:17
Ahh, it was in the windowcontrol section. Thanks again, joshuha, that will help immensely. I hope to have a screenshot soon of the Hunter sheet.

PneumaPilot
November 30th, 2008, 05:47
Well, the color and icon changing part is coming along much faster and easier than I expected. Here is a preview of the Hunter sheet without the additional information:

570

Now comes the hard part. I have to figure out how to switch out the Faction field for a Cell field while still maintaining any data in the Faction field (this is just one example). I'm assuming that this is going to be handled with setVisible controls, but I have never messed with that before, so it will be slow going. I also think that I am going to have to refactor a good deal of the positioning information on the sheet to make it relatively positioned. That will come in handy later when I add whole new lines to the advantages for supernaturals, like a Vampire's blood potency, etc.

PneumaPilot
December 2nd, 2008, 05:22
I seem to have finally got the hang of changing out the various controls on the character sheets with the selection of the game line. For now, the only thing I've done is change the clan and covenant lines of the character sheet to match each supernatural template (path/order for mage, auspice/tribe for werewolf, etc.). Now that I have ironed out all of the wrinkles of how to make the switch, however, adding the rest of the changes will be a snap.

And, as promised, any information you enter into a game line specific control will be remembered for later - in case you want to change the game line again.

Here are a couple of the different sheets with the two controls changed based on beads. I know that they do not have the rest of their game-specific information keyed in yet (like Mana and Gnosis for Mage); nor have I set it up to switch out the Morality table yet. That's coming in the next update.

573574

If there is a desire for it, I can send Obe a copy of what I have now (we'll call it 0.85) tomorrow. Of course, there is not a lot left to do, so I imagine that a version 1.0 will be ready soon.

Oberoten
December 2nd, 2008, 06:54
*grins* Yes the Obe wants. :)

- Obe

PneumaPilot
December 2nd, 2008, 17:37
Okay, I've sent the new version.

Also, I'm having trouble figuring out how to change the frame settings for parts of the character sheet that are tabbed. For instance, how do you get page 2 of the sheet to change frame when you change the frame of page 1? Is there some arcane way of accessing the subwindow's settings that I am unaware of?

PneumaPilot
December 2nd, 2008, 21:01
I am now officially finished with color changing stuff on the character sheets. I can't avoid adding the crunchy stuff any longer. Now ALL of the various subwindows change colors when a new bead is chosen (not just page 1), and section labels change colors to match.

My next project: have the beads alter the various morality scales of the different game lines.

After that: Add a new tabbed page for each template that includes all template specific information. At one time I wanted to put fields like Gnosis and Mana (for Mage) on page 1, but now I am feeling the need to just finish this thing, so I think that for ease of design's sake, I am just going to put it all on its own page.

PneumaPilot
December 2nd, 2008, 21:16
Well, changing the morality was a lot easier than I imagined for some reason. I just changed the text label. Hehe, for some reason, I was thinking at first that I would change out the whole scale, but then I thought, "Why would I do that? Your place on the scale is not going to change if you change templates, so why bother switching out all the dots and derrangements?"

Now on to the new subwindows!

PneumaPilot
December 3rd, 2008, 02:40
The Hunter sheet is totally done! Now, granted, it's the easiest one, and I haven't put in any code yet to clear the controls of its 'special' tab page and add new controls for other game lines, but I can still declare that the first full-bodied templated sheet is finished! Its 'special' page is really simple, but here it is:

575

Next step is to try to implement the Vampire special page and get the code working to swap out the controls with the selection of the beads. Once I get two different pages going like that, the rest will be cake! This thing could be done this week!

PneumaPilot
December 3rd, 2008, 05:48
The Vampire sheet is now totally done! Also, the Vampire and Hunter sheets trade controls properly when the beads are selected. Information stored in the special page for each supernatural template is saved even when another template is selected. If the template is ever switched back, the info comes back also.

I now have everything necessary to finish this project tomorrow in good time. Prepare for a release 1.0!

Here's a shot of the Vampire special page:

576

Oberoten
December 3rd, 2008, 08:07
Version 0.85 just went up att https://oberoten.mine.nu/ext

Blue Haven
December 3rd, 2008, 14:13
Hey Obe can you or someone else make some buttons for this ruleset...? change the view of the icons i mean :) more dark eh eh

Oberoten
December 3rd, 2008, 14:56
By means of time, there will be extensions on my site for changing all buttons (also for anyone to rip just the graphics out of them and use. I am just glad if what I make comes to use) but time has been scarce lately with work stealing all energy.

PneumaPilot
December 3rd, 2008, 20:14
Ugh, the Werewolf sheet is a little more complex than I remembered. I thought I would just knock out the rest of the sheets' special pages at lunch today and I got whopped upside the head by the complexity of the Werewolf one. It's almost done (just got dots for renown attributes and the rituals section to go), but I'm not near as far along with finishing the rest of the sheets as I thought. Will this thing ever end?!

As far as the different button graphics go, give me some time. That's on my to-do list after getting the primary necessary functionality of the character sheets up and running. I did recently (since 0.85) change the character selection window frame to a computer monitor. I hope to make some nice 3D buttons for the various panels along the right side using Blender. I DO need some good ideas for what those buttons ought to look like, though. Any suggestions?

turelus
December 3rd, 2008, 21:05
Thank you so much for the beta release of the ruleset PneumaPilot! I have been messing around with it for ages now making character ideas and the like.

Please keep up the fantastic work you are doing! I'm sure I speak for every world of darkness fan on this board when I say you are our saviour from the darkness we were in without a nWoD ruleset for the program.

PneumaPilot
December 6th, 2008, 16:09
After our first Hunter game Thursday night, I realized that a tab on the sheet for Vehicles would be nice. I might do a windowlist approach to these because one of my characters has two cars and I can imagine that some characters may even have 3 or more (motorcyles, etc.). I'm thinking that the mph and speed fields will be mutually cross calculating, so that if you enter the mph, it will calculate the speed in yards per turn, and if you put in the speed, it will calculate the mph.

That got me thinking, though. I am only noticing what the sheets need to keep track of as I play the various games. Is there anyone out there who has played nWoD for a while who can think of more important information that is not currently covered on the sheets?

I am thinking that on the same page as the vehicles I can list animals/pets/familiars in the same windowlist kind of a thing.

PneumaPilot
December 9th, 2008, 17:21
I think I have now rooted out and removed all of the leftover D20 baggage from the ruleset. Some things that were removed might not please everybody, and if not, I want to know why. I took the Item button off and all of its functionality. I also removed the Library. Is there any reason why someone would use these for this ruleset?

I also know exactly how I want to finish the Werewolf page now. I should be able to get it done today. My hope is that the Mage, Changeling, and Promethean special pages will only need structures similar to what have already been built for the Hunter, Vampire, and Werewolf ones. I slow way down when I have to think up new control layouts, etc.

One of the reasons I removed the Item and Library buttons is that I am gearing up for replacing the art on those buttons on the right. Right now, my tentative plans are for some sort of GPS device for the maps button, an old tome for the stories button, and maybe the nWoD skull for the NPC/Monsters button. I want to keep all the colors very gray to preserve the dark feel. If anyone has any better ideas, you better offer them now...

PneumaPilot
December 11th, 2008, 17:24
Today I added Size, Speed, Initiative Mod, Defense, and Armor fields to the NPC/Monster window. I don't know how I missed that before, but once again, getting ready to play tonight, I noticed that I needed a place to record NPC armor and that I did not have one.

I didn't finish the Werewolf page like I wanted to the other day. It's still sitting just as it was, but I figure that somebody out there might actually want the updated ruleset which is fully capable of handling Mortals, Vampires, and Hunters. Maybe I'll send Obe a 0.9 version later today.

PneumaPilot
December 11th, 2008, 17:52
New characters now default to Mortals and the first dot of all attributes is now automatically filled in. These were minor annoyances that I have now cleared up. I'm just beating around the bush to keep from finishing the hard stuff.

These changes did not make it into the 0.9 Beta I sent to Obe earlier.

December 11th, 2008, 21:11
Man, I cannot wait to play tonight!? I'm SO STOKED! The work you've done to modify this ruleset is totally worth it. It's making for an easy, smooth, and horrifying experience. Thanks man!

PneumaPilot
December 11th, 2008, 21:23
Hey, thanks Chuckster! I've got some new ideas about how to run encounter locations for tonight. I'm thinking no more overhead maps and grids. Just wait. I think that it's going to be way cooler!

I noticed a new need on the Hunter sheet today. I don't have any place to put Endowments. Now, you may be thinking, "Isn't that like what Hunter's all about?" Well, yes, but I had been thinking that you could just put them under merits. Problem is, that doesn't work too good for Castigations and Benedictions (the only two Endowments actually in play in our game). <headsmack />

I will probably overwrite the "Triggers" window on the Hunter Special page, since that information is probably not used enough to justify its own frame. Players can store trigger information in The Code frame or in Notes. Endowments are just more important.

Oberoten
December 11th, 2008, 22:35
Updated version 0.9b posted on https://oberoten.mine.nu/ext

- Obe

Honken
December 12th, 2008, 22:51
I have to download and look at it at least. I am at the moment DM'ing the first Pathfinder adventure series (runelords, d20, 3.5) so playing some nWoD over will probably not be unitil they're done with the first installment.

/Honken

Dogzilla
December 14th, 2008, 23:44
OK I extracted the files to my ruleset folder andn started a new campaign, I get no buttons along the right side and a script error. What am i doing wrong?

Script Error: [string "scripts/desktopmanager.lua"]:103: attempt to call field 'setTooltipText'[a nil value]

Any help would be great, I am sure it is something I must be overlooking. Thanks in advance.

- Dog

Foen
December 14th, 2008, 23:55
Sounds like you are running with an older version of FGII. You might want to run the updater and try again.

Just my 2c.

Foen

Dogzilla
December 15th, 2008, 05:57
That was exactly it... pardon my ignorance and thanks for the response...

- Dog

Dogzilla
December 15th, 2008, 17:20
Just my 2 cents... Ruleset looks and performs great. I personally would like the item and library functions as it makes GMing easier in some aspects. I like to have house rules and basic charts available. (which I fully intend to put in my own copy for my players) Is it easy to put these features back in? Other than this I would say this is a top-notch rule set. I can live without these features, realistically, but being used to FG and how it works, these are just tools I became accustomed to using. For example, when I ran my 3.5 game, I started a basic campaign which included my players character sheets only and I would load up the sessions as a module through the library. This kept things clean and the portability of the characters were very easy if I started something new or branched off into something else.

Foen
December 15th, 2008, 17:41
I don't think you need the library functionality to use plug-in adventure modules, as they are accessed from the module activation dialog and appear in the encounter/personality/map etc lists. The library is useful, however, for reference material like house rules and campaign background.

Foen

guderien
January 9th, 2009, 19:20
The links to download this ruleset are not working, is there another location?

thanks!

Oberoten
January 9th, 2009, 19:29
Check rulesets on https://oberoten.dyndns.org/FGwiki

The Wiki has moved.

Placebo
January 9th, 2009, 23:12
Is there any updates on this one?? or its stoped?
Thanks :)

Jayde Moon
January 11th, 2009, 02:50
I'm getting:

Firefox can't find the server at oberoten.mine.nu.

When I try to download this ruleset from the wiki.

Maybe just down, maybe a greater issue? Dunno, thought I'd check in.

Foen
January 11th, 2009, 06:53
Hi Jayde and welcome to the forums, I hope you find us helpful and friendly!

As Oberoten mentions in his post, above, the wiki has moved from oberoten.mine.nu to oberoten.dyndns.org. Unforunately not all the html links were changed but I've corrected that one. The ruleset can now be found here:

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/NWoD

Hope that helps

Foen

Jayde Moon
January 11th, 2009, 08:59
Awesome! Thanks for your quick response!

Thanks to Pneuma Pilot for the work on this. Haven't actually tried Fantasy Grounds yet, plan on getting a bundle for a full group to run with Pneuma's ruleset here.

I'm pretty stoked.

Ichabod
January 14th, 2009, 04:41
This ruleset is so great it actually was the trigger that made me buy FGII tonight.

I would mainly use this program in real pen and paper sessions, as a means to keep track of notes and character sheets and roll hidden rolls, but I might very well play or host sessions online as well.

Oh, and a few quick thoughts:
* I would LOVE a vehicles tab.
* It would be great if you didn't have to click all dots for them to fill in. I mean, if you click the fourth dot in a character sheet all the first three could be filled in automatically. (if this is even possible in the code of course)
* The werewolf-sheet could use a spot for fetishes/talens
* A sheet for totems/spirits/ghosts could be useful since they use different rules but it looks like that's already planned

GREAT WORK man! I wonder though if this project is still running by the way? Is there anything I can do to help?

Tenian
January 14th, 2009, 11:16
Well by downloading the ruleset you have a complete copy of the source code used to build it :) You can easily start poking around in it and trying to make some of the small changes you suggested (I suspect adding new sheets is not a small task).

I do strongly recommend making a backup copy before poking around :)

Ichabod
January 14th, 2009, 23:31
Well by downloading the ruleset you have a complete copy of the source code used to build it :) You can easily start poking around in it and trying to make some of the small changes you suggested (I suspect adding new sheets is not a small task).

I do strongly recommend making a backup copy before poking around :)

Way ahead of ya' :)

turelus
January 28th, 2009, 23:33
Has PneumaPilot stopped work on this now? It would be a shame if he has as it is a fantastic piece of work! Although at least we have a publish building block for the community to work on now, unlike before where the only WoD ruleset was kept by the creator when he left.

Ichabod
January 30th, 2009, 00:54
Has PneumaPilot stopped work on this now? It would be a shame if he has as it is a fantastic piece of work! Although at least we have a publish building block for the community to work on now, unlike before where the only WoD ruleset was kept by the creator when he left.

I've been talking to the man and no, he's only taking a break since he and his players had a few weeks "vacation". I've offered to help him and I'm currently working on some of the graphics, then we'll see if he likes it or want's to use it.

As soon as he get's back, I'd like to work on the "dots" actually. I find it a bit tiresome to click all four "dots" if a character has four dots in a skill. It would be much more efficient to just press dot number four and all the other dots get's filled in appropriately.

I guess this could be done pretty easily, I've just not gotten the hang of the scripting yet and don't want to mess around with his lines without talking to him. I think that when you click dot number 3 it would be easy to order it to fill in dot 1-2 and empty dot 4-5 as well.

I attached an example of what kind of graphics I had in mind for the sheets. Yes ofcourse, I know it's not original. But it's just an example. Oh, and all the credit to the P-man. I'm just modifying.

turelus
January 31st, 2009, 17:31
Thanks for the information and I have to say a very sexy look, I would like to get a copy of that.

Oberoten
January 31st, 2009, 20:56
I hear and suggest checking :

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/ext

Where it is downloadable.

- Obe

tegeus
February 1st, 2009, 17:14
I hear and suggest checking :

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/ext

Where it is downloadable.

- Obe

Downloaded it but there are no instructions. Not being very bright I just took the whole "nWoD" folder and stuck it in my rulesets FGII folder. Well that did not work. It comes up as a ruleset but when I create a campaign I get a bunch of errors and the page loads with only some dice and a chat screen nothing else.

Can someone help me out with this?

tegeus

Griogre
February 1st, 2009, 17:32
What you did *is* the right general idea. I'm guessing you may have an extra folder inside the ruleset folder. Go back to the ruleset folder and open the nWoD folder. Do you see a couple of folders like: fonts, frames, icons, scripts and then a bunch of xml files? If instead you just see a folder with a readme or something you need to open that folder and look for the fonts, ect folders. If you find them go up one level and move that folder into the ruleset one and delete the old one after putting any files into the folder you moved.

tegeus
February 1st, 2009, 18:20
Do you see a couple of folders like: fonts, frames, icons, scripts and then a bunch of xml files?

Under Rulesets/nWoD I have the fonts, frames, icons folders and a whole bunch of xml files but no scripts folder. I went back and installed again it appears something in the icons folder causes explorer to crash so only a few of the icons and none of the scripts installed. Once I installed it one folder at a time everything installed and it works.

Thanks for the advice.

tegeus

Griogre
February 2nd, 2009, 04:53
Glad it helped.

Vitor HP
February 17th, 2009, 13:13
Keep up the good work PneumaPilot!!!

You've got a fan in Brazil now!

The things you've done are just awesome!! \o/

PneumaPilot
February 20th, 2009, 01:38
Hey guys, sorry I've been away for so long. Our group hasn't really played in the last couple of months and so I don't really do any work on the mod when I'm not playing. We're gearing back up now, though, so hopefully I'll get back to work on finalizing the rest of the sheets soon.

Thanks for all the encouragement!

PneumaPilot
March 6th, 2009, 17:41
Today I am trying to fix a bug that occurs when a player has his character sheet open and the Storyteller opens it also. This results in the selected game line being cleared. It can be easily fixed by just clicking the appropriate game line again, but it is annoying. Looking for solutions...

Also, I noticed that our Hunter sheets are not very good at keeping track of endowments for tier-3 characters. I'll be rearranging the 'Special' page today for Hunters, trying to make Endowment tracking more intuitive and less reliant on the 'Notes' page.

I am also thinking about changing the NPC tracker to have it drop in a premade list of attributes and skills if you select a certain option on the right-click menu (instead of just the 'create new' option that adds one blank line for you to write your own stat). What I hope to accomplish is a full list that you can then remove items from (if there are skills that have no dots and you don't want them on the sheet). I'm not entirely sure how to do this, but it would save me a lot of time when I am getting a new story together.

I also want to quickly add a 'Page 3' that has vehicles and animals that you can right click to 'create new' that will drop in a template to fill out. This should be rather easy. Maybe I'll get it done this weekend.

PneumaPilot
March 7th, 2009, 20:13
Alright, I've changed the Hunter 'Special' page of the sheet to include a place for listing tier-3 endowments. I figure that the best practice would be to list the base endowment in the merits section on page 2 (Benediction, Teleinformatics, etc.) and then list the separately purchased abilities on the special page. This would include all Advanced Armory and Thaumatech abilities, as well as the individual Benedictions, Castigations, and Teleinformatic abilities that are a part of the larger merit. So, on one of my player's sheets, I have his base Teleinformatics listed as a 2-dot merit on page 2 and his two granted abilities listed in the Endowments section of the Special page.

669

PneumaPilot
March 7th, 2009, 20:25
I just upgraded the first page of the character sheet so that there are tooltips that tell you how to calculate the various calculated stats (like Health and Willpower and Speed, etc.). For completeness, I also added tootips that tell you starting Attributes, Skills, and Morality. Essentially, I reproduced the fine print at the bottom of the paper sheets with tooltips as you hover over the relevant stats.

PneumaPilot
March 7th, 2009, 22:24
Okay, I finally went back and read the couple of pages of replies that I missed on this thread since I was away.

@Ichabod - I would love to turn the dots into a sort of value-type field that is merely 'represented' by dots. The D20 ruleset has something like this for the ammo-counter. I want so badly to just be able to insert 'fivedotcontrol' or 'tendotcontrol' and then have it exhibit the behavior you talk about. The problem is that currently all of the dots are hardcoded in the most boilerplate noob way possible. Chalk this up to my not knowing the ins and outs of lua and/or not understanding fully how the XML schema is organized and interpreted. If anyone can give me some decent ideas on how to change what I currently have (thousands of lines of boilerplate placing each on/off dot itself) into a simple control definition, I will name my next pet after you.

As far as the suggestion goes to add the library and item windows back in, I would say that such a thing would be easy enough for your own personal copy of the ruleset by simply adding those script files back in the scripts folder and adding the appropriate references back into whatever files I deleted them from (a couple of months of not working on this makes it all look like it did when I was new to it). I never understood what the library was for in the first place, and I thought that the item window was just kind of superfluous, since items in nWoD aren't really like the magical treasures in D&D. You could just have a description of the item in your story file and then have the player add the thing to his inventory...

...okay wait...If you had a secret object that a character picked up in adventure 3 and he doesn't get around to identifying it until adventure 6, you would want a public place to store its info rather than the story file...gotcha...okay, maybe I'll put that one back in. Of course, I'll have to gut the current contents of the window and just add a multiline text field and maybe a place for resource dots, etc.

Also, I fully plan to complete the Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Spirit, and Promethean sheets by adding all of their pertenent information. The problem is that I don't need that for my game right now, so the only reason I'm planning to do it is for completeness' sake. Understandably, it's on the backburner. Also, since I don't play those games, I don't really understand what the players want to see on their character sheets. To tell the truth, the Werewolf sheet scares the heck out of me because of all of the various forms. If someone wants to draw up a sketch of what you would like the sheet to look like, and it's simple enough, I'll try to make it happen. Otherwise, I plan to add dots to the renown section, add a place for the rituals stat with dots and a bunch of lines to list rituals, and a place for fetishes/talens, etc.

Dang! We're talking about a lot of work here.......

PneumaPilot
March 8th, 2009, 04:11
Well, I love progress. I added the dots to the renown categories on the 'Special' page of the Werewolf sheet (small accomplishment - I know - but I'm just now getting comfortable again with the coding after my absence). I also added a 'Page 3' across the board that will hold vehicles and animals (companions, pets, familiars, etc.).

It looks as though I am going to have to add a 'Special 2' page to accomodate all of the extra goodies that Mages and Werewolves need to keep track of. I am so clueless about Prometheans and Changelings that I have no idea what they need, but I'm sure some extra space never hurt anyone, so I'm toying with the idea of making 'Special 2' a page across the board as well.

Is there anyone who plays Werewolf: The Forsaken that could consult with me on what is and is not important for the character sheet? Right now, I'm looking at reproducing what's on the second page of the publicly available sheet from White Wolf, although I'm really not sure about the five forms info...

PneumaPilot
March 9th, 2009, 17:45
I have a new miraculously simple refactoring idea that will help me add new features much faster. Right now, I have tons of lists of elements that can hold a limited number of items. For instance, the merits list, Vampire discipline list, weapons and equipment lists, Werewolf gift list, etc. all have a locked number of lines. This has always troubled me (especially when one of my players wanted to cart around a whole arsenal!). But when I started working on the NPC tracker, I decided to put things like stats in a windowlist and let the user add one at a time, with an expanding space that could hold any number of entries.

It just occurred to me today that I should make all of the lists on the sheets into windowlists where the user can add or delete elements. Not only would this provide limitless space, but it makes my job of coding new areas of the sheets much easier. I thought of this today while lamenting over having to make up another huge list for the Werewolf's rituals.

PneumaPilot
March 10th, 2009, 05:51
I've completed the windowlist refactor of merits, endowments, and disciplines. I have also finished the 'Special' page for the Werewolf character sheet. I do not call the Werewolf sheet complete, though, because I am still missing a place to record totem data, and I still have no idea how I am going to represent the five forms transformation of statistics. I am tentatively planning a 'Special 2' page or some such to catch all this stuff, but I've got to get the right idea about how to do it first. Maybe I'll move on to the Mage page while I'm thinking...

The next immediate steps are to finish refactoring the weapon and equipment lists to make them expandable windowlist controls and to finally complete the vehicles and pets page ('Page 3'). I should be able to get to that tomorrow, and then it will probably be time for another incremental beta release. I haven't released a new version in a while and the changes are starting to mount up.

In the meantime, here is a screenshot of the new Werewolf 'Special' page. The Gifts section is a windowlist that you can add elements to. When there are elements there, you would see a line for the name of the gift, five dots to note its level, and a multiline space underneath to write notes about what the gift does or to record dice pools.

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PneumaPilot
March 10th, 2009, 20:32
I've now completely refactored Page 2 of the character sheet so that merits, flaws, weapons, and equipment can be added to infinitely. I also changed the way weapon information is stored to more closely match the way it is presented in the various rulebooks (especially Armory).

Here's a glimpse:
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PneumaPilot
March 11th, 2009, 14:21
Version 0.92 of the Rules Lite New World of Darkness Ruleset is on its way to Oberoten this morning. Hopefully it will be posted soon. Check the wiki for the current download destination.

List of changes in version 0.92:

Merits list has been changed to allow a list of infinite length.
Vampire Disciplines list has been changed to allow a list of infinite length.
Werewolf Gift and Rituals swapped spaces.
Werewolf Gift list has been changed to allow for a list of infinite length.
Werewolf Gift list now includes a space to notate which gift lists the character can draw from.
Werewolf Gift list now includes a line for writing descriptions and game mechanics for various gifts.
Hunter Endowments have now been given their own space on the 'Special' page, and allows a list of infinite length.
Hunter Code, Triggers, and Tells have been condensed to a single box on the 'Special' page.
A third regular page has been added that contains forms for vehicles and animals and a space for a character description.
A new character sheet now defaults to the 'Mortal' template, and the first dot of all attributes is filled in by default.
The weapon list is now a form with fillable fields for various weapon stats and can now be of infinite length.
The equipment list can now be of infinite length.
Various controls have been given tooltips to help during character creation, reproducing the fine print at the bottom of the official paper character sheets.


I'm sure I'm forgetting something in the above list, but this fairly accurately represents the new version.

NOTE: If you are currently using the nWoD ruleset, take a screenshot of 'Page 2' and the 'Special' page before you update to the new version, since Merits, Disciplines, Gifts, Equipment, Weapons, etc. will be deleted by the new changes. Storytellers will need to take screenshots of all of their players' sheets before making the change so that you can put all the old information back in the new layout.

NOTE: If a list looks empty, just right click it and 'Create New'. All lists are now windowlists.

NOTE: If you're finding it hard to scroll some of the new lists, use your scroll wheel with the cursor near the right edge of the space. I'll clean some of this up later (the animal list comes to mind), but I wanted to go ahead and get the new version out.

Oberoten
March 11th, 2009, 16:24
https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/NWoD

Uploaded and done. :) Many thanks and keep up the good work. :) I know how downright PAINFUL it can be making the transition from fixed lines to windowlists. But it is generally worth the effort. :)

Did this on my Ars Magica set and ... well it is well worth the effort. (( Searchable skills... That is all I say. :) ))

- Obe

PneumaPilot
March 11th, 2009, 16:51
Actually, I wished I would have known how to do the windowlist thing all along. It is infinitely simpler than copy-pasting boilerplate code for various lines, dots, etc. over and over again. Some of the XML files are MUCH shorter now.

Now I'm working on how to create a right-click radial menu choice that will add a group of standard features to a windowlist instead of just one empty item. For example, in the NPC window, right clicking and selecting 'Create Standard Attributes' and having it drop the nine standard ones into the list would be a big improvement over creating them each time you make a new NPC.

PneumaPilot
March 11th, 2009, 22:59
I messed around today with Honken's old idea of changing the beads to the various game line skulls. Just as I feared, the size of the skulls makes it hard to tell them apart. Here's a screenshot if anyone would like to see what it would have looked like.
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I would still like to use the skulls in some way, because they are so cool, and because www.wolf-spoor.org has such awesome PNGs already made for them.

Anybody have any good ideas for their use, other than switching out the game line logo? Of course, that's not a bad idea in and of itself...

unerwünscht
March 11th, 2009, 23:41
I have not followed the NWoD very much, I remember skimming through the books and not liking what had been done with the clans and bloodlines etc....

However, I am VERY interested in picking VTM back up, my real question here is how much changed rules/mechanics wise from VTM to NWoD? and is this ruleset generic enough to run an old game on?

PneumaPilot
March 12th, 2009, 00:14
I honestly don't know. I read the old V:TM book back in the day, loved the idea, loved the rules, and couldn't think of a single reason why vampires in that situation would ever want to hang out together. Both myself and another friend tried to run a game and we both crapped out, not being able to think of any motivation for the players.

Now, while V:TR is my least favorite of all of the nWoD game lines, I can at least see how you could get a group to go on adventures together. I love the idea of the covenants. That really seems to be the fixer right there: ideological bonds.

I think that the oWoD was based on the success number 7, and I think I remember that it could float in certain circumstances. Is that right? nWoD is all about 8 with no floating. Also, I think that the old system categorized skills differently.

I'll say this: if my ruleset isn't easily usable, it would be very easily modifiable to any who wanted a good place to start. I'm just not going to do it.

biomage
March 12th, 2009, 03:23
I created these skulls for use on character sheets. I did one set in color and one in black. If you think they may work better than the ones you are currently using, feel free to take them.

PneumaPilot
March 12th, 2009, 05:57
Well, I could try sticking them on the sheet to see how the look, but when we're talking about condensing them to 12 pixels by 12 pixels, you lose a whole lot. But maybe your colors are bright enough to make a difference. I'll see.

PneumaPilot
March 12th, 2009, 06:16
Here's the picture of the sheet with the colorful skulls. Maybe if they were a few pixels bigger (on my end, not your end), each had a drop shadow, and each looked like they were encased in a glass bead, they would work, but I think that they way it is, it looks kinda cheap.
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Oberoten
March 12th, 2009, 08:58
I created these skulls for use on character sheets. I did one set in color and one in black. If you think they may work better than the ones you are currently using, feel free to take them.

Would you mind if I put these up under the free graphics section on the FGWiki for anyone to use?

- Obe

Zulithe
March 12th, 2009, 09:36
This ruleset is a thing of beauty. Now I just have to find time to run a nWoD game someday!

PneumaPilot
March 12th, 2009, 13:55
@Zulithe - Thank you so much!

@Oberoten - Are you still updating your /ext page or have you just moved everything to the wiki?

Our group will play again tonight, and I'm sure I'll see some more stuff that could be done better. I already have a better idea of how to format the 'Animals' section of Page 3.

Also, I should be able to quickly finish the Changeling and Promethean sheets since their game lines don't seem to have as much extra complicated info as the Werewolf and Mage sheets do. Maybe I'll knock them out this afternoon. I probably already have all of the data structures I need, so it will only be an question of copy and pasting.

Pushing ever forward...

Oberoten
March 13th, 2009, 00:34
I am probably going to remove the EXT page completely and make a new one in PHP using SQL that lets me update it in a more fluid way. The curent version is a mess of spaghetti code that needs to be burned to the ground.

-- Obe

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 00:49
Okay, I thought you might be trying to phase it out or something.

In other news, I finally added the copyright information to the chatmanager tonight. When I get the next release together, I'll look back over all of the Dark Pack requirements at the White Wolf site, and if it is kosher, then maybe I'll open up a blog over on their site detailing the ruleset to try to draw more players into the virtual community here.

I know that people are out there looking for ways to play and have just never considered that a product called 'Fantasy' Grounds could do the job.

Plissken
March 13th, 2009, 08:12
Pneuma, do you think you can edit your first post to post a link to the latest version of your nWoD ruleset?

Oberoten
March 13th, 2009, 09:47
https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/NWoD

This links to the Wiki page where the ruleset is posted.

- Obe

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 14:01
I couldn't see a way for me to edit the first post. I thought there was a button before, but now I don't see anything like that.

I was just able to edit this post, however, so maybe it won't let me edit the first one because it's been on too long.

Foen
March 13th, 2009, 14:22
That facility goes away after a while (120 minutes, I think).

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 15:51
I finally figured out how to fix the character selection box so that the list of characters stays appropriately on the computer screen graphic. It looks good now.

I started thinking about some of the icons on the right side of the screen and how they need to change. This led me to a very interesting idea about the map-drawing tool. I wonder if I can make it look like a black computer screen (framed of course with a realistic monitor border) where the drawing looks like green lines. You know, sort of an early 80s monochrome look? That would be VERY awesome. I don't know if that's something I can change or not.

I also need a whole new box of standard tokens. I think that the game line skulls would work great in that capacity, but in addition, if I can get the map tool to look like a green on black computer screen, then maybe I can make a new box of letters (like the standard tokens), but have the letters be green computer font letters. Just a thought...

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 20:38
Here's another idea I had, just because I want to use the skulls from the various game lines: instead of clicking on the little beads, you right click on the logo for the game line and up comes the radial menu with nice colorful skulls all around. Does that sound cool? The only thing that troubles me is that then I would have some unused space at the top right of the character sheet where the beads used to be...

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 22:52
Okay, here's a cool idea. Since I can't figure out immediately how to change the draw color on the image window, I wonder if I could have TWO draw windows. One of them would have a frame that looks like the back of a digital camera and is used for sharing photographs (the primary way that I establish the scene in our game on Thursday nights - I've found that maps detract from the horror aspect of WoD). The other draw window would be for actual drawing and would have a frame like a spiral notebook so that drawing on it would look very natural and not break the immersion. It would be as if the characters are drawing out their thoughts or ideas on paper for all to see.

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 22:53
Ooh! Tokens could look like stickers to be placed on the notebook if I go with the above graphical design! Sweet! I want to do this, definitely!

PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 23:43
The Changeling 'Special' page is finished, which finishes out all of the info for the Changeling game, bringing the total game lines done to Hunter, Vampire, Changeling, and base WoD. Next on my list is Promethean (because I hope it's easy).

Here's a look at the 'Special' page. Any of you Changeling players out there need to let me know if something else is required. I have not played this wonderful game yet, or read the book, even though I think that it would be my favorite of all of the nWoD game lines.
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PneumaPilot
March 13th, 2009, 23:52
Doh! Nevermind, I actually forgot all of the Changeling special traits like Glamour, Wyrd, and Seeming Blessing and Curse. That will have to go in the top right box, pushing something to 'Special 2' apparently...dang!

biomage
March 14th, 2009, 00:35
Would you mind if I put these up under the free graphics section on the FGWiki for anyone to use?

- Obe
Sure, use them as you see fit.

biomage
March 14th, 2009, 01:44
Here's the picture of the sheet with the colorful skulls. Maybe if they were a few pixels bigger (on my end, not your end), each had a drop shadow, and each looked like they were encased in a glass bead, they would work, but I think that they way it is, it looks kinda cheap.
679


How do these look?

PneumaPilot
March 14th, 2009, 02:33
Those. Are. FABULOUS! Absolutely awesome man! I'll be sticking them right in!

PneumaPilot
March 14th, 2009, 03:01
Here's a screenshot with the new beads. I made them a lot bigger, but still not enough to make them look good. I'll try one more thing tomorrow. I can take out the "Game Line" label and increase the size (and spacing) of the beads until they fill the whole space at the top. I'll post it when I get it.
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Ichabod
March 14th, 2009, 14:09
Nice! Welcome back by the way. I didn't realise that you had done this much!


Here's a screenshot with the new beads. I made them a lot bigger, but still not enough to make them look good. I'll try one more thing tomorrow. I can take out the "Game Line" label and increase the size (and spacing) of the beads until they fill the whole space at the top. I'll post it when I get it.
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First of all. I love the new beads, but love your idea of radial menus even more. The whole FG program uses that a lot, and it makes the sheets look cleaner, which I like. If it's possible I would go for that.

I was also thinking about the graphics, and I'm not sure I like the computer/80's green thing. It makes the game feel a bit like a sci-fi game. Wouldn't it be nice if the icons/graphics depicted more of a paper/pen kind of game? With notebooks/folders and pens. More sort of like a detective's desktop. With dirty yellow paperfolders and coffea-stained notepads. And by the way, I love the thought on maps and tokes.

PneumaPilot
March 14th, 2009, 16:34
Yeah, I really like my idea of two image windows, one that looks like the back of a digital camera which would be used for sharing photographs, and one that looks like a notebook for sharing drawings. That fits the theme more and makes it where I don't have to figure out how to be able to draw in bright green ink.

I've got a great image of the back of a camera that I am currently configuring for the role of the photo image window. And, of course, it's icon will probably be a smaller version of itself turned slightly counterclockwise (same with the notebook). It's going to be awesome.

biomage
March 14th, 2009, 16:54
Here's a screenshot with the new beads. I made them a lot bigger, but still not enough to make them look good. I'll try one more thing tomorrow. I can take out the "Game Line" label and increase the size (and spacing) of the beads until they fill the whole space at the top. I'll post it when I get it.
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Why don't you give me some idea as to the dimension you think would be best. I will see what I can come up with to best fit. I am thinking that oval beads may do better than round.

PneumaPilot
March 14th, 2009, 21:00
Well, I still have to try out stretching them to fill that top space. I didn't get around to that today. I like the look of the oval ones too, though. Let me try the other ones bigger first.

I finished the photo sharing window today. I think it looks really cool. I went ahead and made the icon for the right side, too. Here's a screenshot that shows both.
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Remember that I hope to make a second image window that will allow drawing, and I'll make it look like a notebook.

Oberoten
March 14th, 2009, 22:32
Okay. THAT was pretty awesome. :)

Why didn't I think of that?

- Obe

PneumaPilot
March 14th, 2009, 23:42
Thank you so much, Mr. Obe!

After much trial and error, I was finally able to come up with two separate image windows that store their data in two separate folders and that use two separate frame graphics. They both work like a charm! I am just in the process of micro-editing a photo of a notebook that I took today. I am trying to remove all of the background junk so that it will look cool as a frame for the sketches window.

PneumaPilot
March 15th, 2009, 05:46
I have finished tinkering with the photo and sketch sharing features and I am very pleased with the results. Here's a screenshot of the new sketchbook in action next to its icon in the right panel.
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I suppose now I'll have to get back to the real work on the ruleset: finishing the various supernatural template pages...after the glorious God-given rest of Sunday, that is.

biomage
March 15th, 2009, 07:31
I used these for a WoD game I ran tonight. Feel free to use them if they fit your needs.

maobul
March 16th, 2009, 13:35
This whole project looks awesome! :-)

PneumaPilot
March 16th, 2009, 13:51
Sweet, thanks, biomage! I am picking up the personalities folder and token box immediately!

PneumaPilot
March 16th, 2009, 22:11
Today I added biomage's icon graphics for the right side, added glamour and wyrd stats to the 'Special' page of the Changeling sheet, and created a 'Special2' sheet.

Now, here's the issue I'm having: is there any way to deactivate the tabs for 'Special' and 'Special2' for templates that don't need that much information? For example, the mortal template will not need either and the Hunter template does not need the second page. I tried to set them invisible, but of course that doesn't work. Can I just deactivate those tabs if certain conditions are true?

PneumaPilot
March 16th, 2009, 22:39
I figured out how to deactivate specific tabs. I just included a if statement in the template_tabcontrol.lua's onClick event to test for various conditions, so the tab is there, but can't be clicked if the template does not require those pages.

PneumaPilot
March 17th, 2009, 01:45
I corrected the Changeling 'Special' page today and started on the 'Special2' page for that template. I also finished the 'Special' page for the Mage template. Here are screenshots of both. The Mage one also shows the new right-side toolbar including the new separate photo and sketch sharing icons and the awesome icons that biomage made for the story book, personalities window, and token box.
708707

PneumaPilot
March 17th, 2009, 01:48
I was reading some more in the Second Sight book today and realizing that the Mortals sheet will actually need the 'Special' and 'Special2' spaces to account for the various minor templates that can be applied to mortals like Possessed, Thaumaturge, Slasher, Ghoul, etc.

The work never stops...

turelus
March 17th, 2009, 10:25
It never does PneumaPilot, But you are the hero or every WoD player on these boards :)

Thanks for the updates

PneumaPilot
March 18th, 2009, 03:11
Thanks, turelus.

I had an idea that I wanted to write down somewhere in public here so that I would not forget and so that others could comment on whether it would be helpful or not. Since making the camera photo sharer and the notebook sketch sharer, I've started really thinking about how to use the interface to actually help tell the story. I wonder if it would be cool to have the interface color-changer-thingy used to communicate mood instead of time of day. For instance, if the screen changes to blue-ish, then that is like saying that the hackles on the back of the characters' necks stand up.

What would be some good emotions/moods/fears to communicate with this tool, what would be some good associated colors, and who wants to design the icons?

PneumaPilot
March 18th, 2009, 03:13
Also, eventually all of the character sheet frames are going to have to look a lot cooler than they do now. Mage sheets that look like they were yanked out of a grimoire, Changeling sheets that look like they were made from leaves stiched together with thorns, Vampire sheets that look like they are written on parchment made of human skin, etc., etc.

PneumaPilot
March 18th, 2009, 06:13
Here are a couple of icons I quickly threw together for the color switcher. One is for when the characters notice an area or a moment of extreme cold (presence of spirits) and the other is for the aforementioned hackles rising in the presence of a supernatural effect.
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I noticed when I spliced them into the color change tool that they are definitely going to need a cool frame behind them to make them look good...

PneumaPilot
March 20th, 2009, 14:57
I've been thinking about how to handle the 'Special2' page for Mortals and Hunters. What I really need to be able to do is include a generic way to apply a sub-template to these types. There can only really ever be one template applied to a person, so I really don't need space for each possible template; a generic space would do. That way, I don't have to keep changing the sheet every time a new book like Second Sight or Skinchangers comes out.

What I would like to do is to have the typical three boxes on the 'Special2' page (two in the top half, one large one in the bottom half), with the top left box used for an expandable list of items with accompanying dots, the top right box used for special boxed and dotted traits, and the bottom box covered either with a multiline text box or something similar to the Werewolf Gift list. Each of these three boxes will have labels above them, the same as any other page. What I want to be different about this page is that I would like to make it where the player can right-click on the label and edit it to suit the needs of the particular sub-template that is desired.

Does anyone know how to go about making a label like that which can be edited? Is there an example in the D20 set of something like this?

PneumaPilot
March 20th, 2009, 22:40
Ikael has given me the idea to make a flip clock to keep track of game time. I'm considering making something that looks like this:
https://www.unplggd.com/uimages/unplggd/twemco_flip_clock.jpg
In the black spaces around the time, it would be cool to add some buttons that would add time by intervals (1, 15, 30 minutes, 1, 8 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 1 year). An icon for the clock would go in the right button panel. Players would not be able to see the buttons, only the time.

turelus
March 21st, 2009, 14:38
Has the latest release been uploaded? I'm thinking of starting a group soon with some friends as a casual fun game to play.

PneumaPilot
March 22nd, 2009, 03:30
The last uploaded version was the 0.92. It is available on the wiki. I'll be releasing a new version soon once I make sure all of the Dark Pack guidelines have been followed perfectly.

turelus
March 22nd, 2009, 14:58
Awesome I will be picking that up as soon as it's avalible!

From an aesthetics point of view I like the work Ichabod did with the character sheet background, maybe that's something that could be carried across to all the game lines?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=69111&postcount=156

PneumaPilot
March 23rd, 2009, 13:59
Yeah, I also like what Ichabod did. I've got a slightly different direction I want to take the character sheet art, though. My new philosophy on the nWoD ruleset is that it ought to look 'real'. After I designed the new image sharing window and sketch sharing window, I realized that I really liked the look of real-life stuff being pushed around a desktop. It contributes to the immersion of the game.

With that in mind, I would like a way to make each different type of character sheet look like a real object lying on the desk. My idea for the Hunter sheet (the first one I will make because it is the one we use each week) is some kind of roughly cut or torn rectangular piece of cardboard with the various framed areas looking like a lighter color paper that has been taped to the cardboard with Hunter-green colored electrical tape. The various sheet labels would look like they were made on an adhesive label maker, etc.

Now, a design like that matches the Hunter theme perfectly, but it would not match a Vampire game, so that sheet should look like something appropriate to that genre (parchments of human skin sewn together, with sheet labels written in blood perhaps?).

I certainly don't mind anyone helping me in this. :)

Llellwylliell
March 24th, 2009, 09:53
I like the idea of keeping as much of the ruleset looking like real life items. As a vampire player, I have to say that "parchments of human skin sewn together, with sheet labels written in blood" may be a little anachronistic.

If you had the mortal sheets as modern looking computer printouts, then the vampire sheets could be hand written. This would still keep with the theme of the immortals being slow to keep up with new technology, without the ancient evil feel.

PneumaPilot
March 24th, 2009, 16:42
Ahh, fantastic idea, Llellwylliell! I will confess that I know least about Vampire because, honestly, I have never really liked its themes as much as the other games. You make a great point. I don't suppose they are really all that twisted evil, sewing skin together, etc. The concept of the hand-written parchment is awesome (and frankly far easier to accomplish). I also like the idea of a computer printout for the mortals. I was wondering about what to do with them. That's a great idea! You know, the kind of paper that has the little track holes on the side and the alternating green and white lines? That would be sweet!

Llellwylliell
March 24th, 2009, 17:30
The sort of paper I used to steal from my moms printer to write character sheets on ;)

The core of the vampire system is basically holding on to what is left of your humanity, which is complicated by the fact that your peers tend to view humanity as food or resources. Inevitably, the struggle to stay alive (well sort of alive) causes vampires to perform acts they may not otherwise be proud of. Hey, If a hunter comes at you with a shotgun he is fair game. In that case the measure of a man would be to feel guilty afterwards and try to atone.... or not.

Unless of course, you're playing with 15 year olds. Then vampire is about being a blood fueled supervillain dressed up like an extra from The Matrix. :rolleyes:

Actually I have never played werewolf, hunter or the other flavours of WoD.

PneumaPilot
March 24th, 2009, 17:47
Hehe, the guys that I knew in highschool that loved Vampire: The Masquerade used to make themselves as their own characters, but with the added bonus of being vampires. They told me that their stories consisted of running around the school eating the jocks that made fun of them, etc. I thought that sounded pretty lame.

Now, I eventually read the V:TM book and I liked the setting. I saw immediately that those guys were totally missing the point. But when I tried to get our Shadowrun group to give it a try, we couldn't really think of a reason for self-absorbed vampires to have much to do with one another. We eventually gave up on the whole thing as a flawed setting.

The new Vampire: The Requiem is much, much cooler in my opinion than the old one. I now see plots and reasons to band together all over the place. I also love the increased subtlety in all of the nWoD game lines - no more Werewolf superheroes with heat seaking claw missiles! (although the new Mekhet book seems to be sneaking back in this direction - I flipped through it at a bookstore this weekend) But I've still found that all of the other lines (including the base mortals one) intrigue me more than the Vampire one does.

I've only played the base game and Hunter, though. I am still dying to play Mage. Changeling and Werewolf would probably tie for my next choice after that. Hunter definitely has the coolest books, though. I'm reading Witch Finders now and am totally blown away by it. It combines my two favorite ideas from WoD: monster hunting and crazy magic.

Llellwylliell
March 24th, 2009, 18:26
Actually I was helping a friend make up a character just a few days ago, and I quickly shot down the idea of him making himself up as a vampire. When things inevitably get dark, it can force people to look inside and ask some hard questions. That, or people just roleplay badly. "Sure I finish the little kid off, I need two more blood points."

Vampire: The Requiem is, indeed, much cooler. The vampire contradiction is described well early in the book, "The selfishness of a solitary predator, but also the social urges of creatures who fear the malaise of being left to their own company for eternity." Add to that mutual protection, a rich political system, and maybe even companionship, and you end up with plenty of ways to hold a small group together.

PneumaPilot
March 24th, 2009, 19:10
Yeah, the compacts totally rescued the thing as far as I'm concerned. While in V:TM it was hard for me to think of a reason my Gangrel would ever endure the company of even one of his own blood relatives, in V:TR even Vampires from several clans could very easily be connected by common goals through something like the Ordu Dracul. And just the descriptions of Vampire life itself - as you pointed out from the rulebook - make it much more natural to form coteries of characters who come from different clans and covenants.

Those guys over at White Wolf are just brilliant...if a little profane...

Foen
March 24th, 2009, 19:38
On a different note, the work you've done on the ruleset is fantastic and I'm playing with a group who will definitely be using it in the near future. One question though, have you thought about changing the game lines into extensions? That way you could add future game lines without changing the base ruleset and the GM could switch them on or off by selecting which extensions to use in a given campaign.

Just a thought,

Stuart

PneumaPilot
March 24th, 2009, 20:58
That is a good idea, Foen, and I've just recently begun playing around with the extension idea. I think, though, for now I'm going to concentrate in doing it all in the same ruleset. I mean, I know that they are going to be constantly releasing a new game line every year, but somebody (probably me) is going to have to do the same amount of work each year regardless of whether it is an extension or a part of the base ruleset. And actually, I think it will be a little harder for me to code the extension.

The only thing I am concerned about with a growing number of templated game lines is the number of dots accross the top, but I have a different idea for that anyway, as I eventually want to move the game line selection to a right click event triggered over the game line logo space.

Is there any real reason why it would be better to do this as extensions?

Foen
March 24th, 2009, 22:56
No compelling reason as such, but using extensions makes you adopt a more modular approach which might make ruleset maintenance easier in the longer term (large rulesets can become a bit spagetti-like, and difficult to understand/modify).

From a functionality point of view, it also lets the GM select which game lines to enable or disable, although that can also be achieved using in-game preferences.

Just my 2c in any event, but please keep up the great work on WoD!

Stuart

PneumaPilot
March 24th, 2009, 23:37
You know, that would probably be more trouble for me than it would be worth for the main game lines, but it might be the PERFECT way to handle such limited conditions as playing a party of slashers, or using one the many wierd minor templates like ghouls, skinchangers, changing breeds, thaumatuges, etc. I still haven't totally figured out how to handle them...

PneumaPilot
March 25th, 2009, 18:14
By the way, I bought a giant piece of bright green posterboard to use as a green screen for making some of my realistic character sheet frames yesterday. We have a game tomorrow night, and I would really love to get the Hunter frame done. I don't know if I will have time, though.

If I do, then I will go ahead and upload the latest version of the ruleset, since many important things have changed even since the 0.92 version.

PneumaPilot
March 26th, 2009, 22:33
Okay, here's the new graphical layout idea: I don't like the desktop look. I really like the idea of everything looking real, and I want to continue with that, but what about this change: it's a bulletin board now...?

So I took some big pictures of an empty bulletin board today. I rework the chatbox to actually look good (I had no idea what I was doing when I first remade the chatbox and it has always looked terrible). I tore a spiral bound sheet out of a small tight-ruled notepad today for this purpose. It will be thumbtacked to the bulletin board. There will be a smaller burned-in WoD logo in the center of the board. Player notes will be Post-It notes of course. I will once again change the image sharer to look like Polaroid prints. They'll be thumbtacked also. The sketch sharer/map will be a special sheet of paper with torn edges (also thumbtacked). And (my favorite) the buttons at the right will be labels printed from a label maker splashed with blood and flecks of hair (I'm going to cut my hair in the next couple of days and will save some for this purpose). I'm still trying to get just the right idea for character sheets.

PneumaPilot
March 26th, 2009, 22:36
Oh, I forgot to say in the previous post that this new bulletin board idea will make it real easy to come up with icons for minimized windows. They will just be big honkin' pins/magnets/tacks. I even looked around at Wal-Mart today for some weird homemade refrigerator magnets, but I couldn't find any great ones.

unimatrixzero
March 27th, 2009, 02:19
I'm liking it!
If you're open to suggestions, how about the minimized icons be items on hooks?

Keys or keychains with charms attached (skulls, crosses etc), key fobs, pin badges. How about id cards or dog tags for npcs.

The polaroid idea would be good for a minimized images (shame there's no way of putting a lil thumbnail image inside it).

Perhaps you could incorporate your clock idea into this too? A digital watch pinned to the board?

Looks like you've got most stuff covered though.
Keep up the creative energy!! :)

Cheers
Uni

PneumaPilot
March 27th, 2009, 06:07
Great ideas, Uni. I'm no artist, but I can take pictures of cool stuff on a green screen as good as anyone. The only weirdness about having it be a bulletin board is the dice rolling on a vertical surface. Oh well, we'll see how it looks.

PneumaPilot
March 28th, 2009, 21:56
I've done a little work on the background, chatbox, and image window. I'm attaching a screenshot of what I've got so far in that department.
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One weird thing that I noticed as I worked on this was the little black line that is extending out from below the chatbox. When the window is smaller, you don't see it - which makes me think it is underneath the chatbox. What could this be?

PneumaPilot
March 28th, 2009, 22:12
The last picture covered up the WoD logo and splatter, so here's that for your viewing pleasure:
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PneumaPilot
March 28th, 2009, 23:10
Nevermind about the black line. I fixed it. I just needed to set my decal zone a little smaller in the graphics_frames file.

PneumaPilot
March 28th, 2009, 23:18
I have realized that a lot of people look at this thread and it's not exactly immediately obvious how to get a hold of the ruleset. So, a link to the wiki's nWoD download page will now be in my signature from here on out. Click it to get it.

Foen
March 29th, 2009, 05:53
This looks very good! The black line may be something to do with the frame definition for the desktop - perhaps it is out by one pixel somewhere?

turelus
April 2nd, 2009, 23:22
Any ideas on when the next update will be out?

PneumaPilot
April 4th, 2009, 04:45
We've had some sickness in my house that has kept me out of this for a few days. I'll post the next update when I get the note window and sketch window done. Shouldn't take too much time.

turelus
April 5th, 2009, 09:51
We've had some sickness in my house that has kept me out of this for a few days. I'll post the next update when I get the note window and sketch window done. Shouldn't take too much time.
No problem man, I hope everyone is feeling better soon :)

PneumaPilot
April 7th, 2009, 04:25
I finished reworking the sketch window to make it fit the new bulletin board theme. I also reworked the note window for players so that their notes look like Post-Its now. Here are some screens of the new GUI:
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I'm almost ready to release a new version. I just want the buttons on the right to match the new theme before I send it out. To do what I want to do with those, I'm going to need to pick up my label-maker from church and cut my hair. What I have in mind may look stupid, but I hope not.

PneumaPilot
April 12th, 2009, 02:01
I have emailed the new version of the ruleset to Oberoten for hosting on the wiki.

Changes for the 0.93 version (as far as I can remember):

Copyright holders are now properly accredited upon startup
GUI has been altered to resemble a bulletin board, with various interface features looking like items pinned to the board
NOTE: The previously mentioned change to the GUI is not complete - stay tuned for more changes
A 'Special2' page has been added to the character sheet, but has not yet been fully taken advantage of


I pretty much wanted to just get this update out there so that the other users could see what they like and don't like about the new interface. Also, I've been meaning to put the copyright information in there for a long time, so I thought it was high time to add it to a release. This way, I can now make the existence of the ruleset more public over at the White Wolf forums.

As always, please let me know how I can fix this up to better fit your needs. I'm especially interested to hear from any who are actually playing one of the supernatural template games. How can I make this better, other than just adding all of the extra fields that are needed?

Also, please let me know about bugs. For instance, I have noticed that when I click on the 'next actor' button in the combat tracker, I get an error message each time. Now, just closing out the error message works fine, but I haven't yet dug down to find what's going on. I need to know about this stuff. Also, if some of you who use this know how to fix a given problem, then by all means, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Oberoten
April 12th, 2009, 02:45
It is done and done.

. Obe