[QUESTION] Creating ones own Ruleset?

Hi everyone.

For a long time I've tossed about the idea of purchasing FG/FGII. Now I am looking into it again. What I'd like to know is how hard is it to create a custom ruleset? I've been playing Deathmaze and Citadel of Blood by SPI (Old 1970s/80s) RPGs. I'd love to play a multiplayer version of those games with my friends through FGII. Deathmaze was a lot of fun back in the day when playing around the table with friends. Now, I'd like to see it evolve and be part of the digital desktop. If it isn't too hard to create custom rules then I would purchase the full version of FGII immediately. Please let me know about the custom ruleset creation difficulty.

Thanks
John

That's a tricky question to answer. In general it can be a lot of work. Character sheets are particularly time consuming. I don't remember those games but if they are stat lite like Hero Quest or Tunnels and Trolls you can probably use Toadwart's generic ruleset and save yourself a ton of work.

The generic ruleset is just a blank two page character sheet you can put pretty much anything you want on it.

The ease/difficulty of creating a ruleset depends on a number of things:

• Your own skill with XML and programming - Understanding and editing XML is a core element of ruleset customisation, and the automation is largely achieved through script programming in Lua. You don't need to know Lua in advance, but programming experience in other languages (such as VB, C or Javascript) is pretty much essential
• How close the RPG is to an existing ruleset - If your game is a variation on existing rules, you can start where someone else has left off and only tweak the ruleset to meet your needs
• The extent of the implementation - Creating a character sheet isn't trivial, but it is a lot easier than creating combat automation, a new combat tracker, NPC sheets, reference modules etc. A commercial ruleset has all of the features needed to play the game, whereas it is possible to use FG with only a subset of those features.
• Graphics - I personally find the graphic design element very challenging, if you stick with the default graphics then that cuts out a ton of work.

It is worth mentioning that ruleset contents (in particular reference text) and graphics (even the d20 default) are the intellectual properties of their respective owners, and you should be careful how you share what you build. There is plenty of heated debate on that topic on these forums from time to time ;)

I started a ruleset-building tutorial but stalled recently as I have been focusing on finishing the Call of Cthulhu ruleset. The first few chapters are available here:

Anatomy of a Ruleset

I hope that helps

Stuart

I myself am a systems/application manager and by no means unfamiliar with "scripts", but the task of altering the character sheet to second edition AD&D in stead of D20 is well beyond my ken. I have given it a couple of tries (trying to start simple by just removing elements from the D20 charsheet), but been put aback by the amount of text in just the main tab of the character sheet. This may be partly due to the fact that I opened it in notepad (the xml editor I found has a problem with the comments section at the beginning of each file, I have to look into that some more, I may alter that section or remove it altogether when I try again), but there is just a lot of info there, too.
So, it is possible, but if that is your only reason for buying it, I'd make well sure you knew at least something about it. The people that are able to do this are very friendly and always willing to answer questions, but they are usually far to busy to do it FOR you.

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Originally Posted by zabulus

...(the xml editor I found has a problem with the comments section at the beginning of each file, I have to look into that some more, I may alter that section or remove it altogether when I try again)...

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Now I know everybody has their preference but I use Notepad++ and the xml add-on both are free and the ability to fold xml is a god-send when creating modules!

I use plain old notepad. On a good day I'll have between 5 and 10 copies open.

In my experience, ruleset programming is like "old school" programming. Back in the days before we had any graphical tools to lay controls or any fancy debuggers.

I usually find the dearth of reference material (or a way to search the reference material), to be more difficult than the actual programming itself.

But as was already said, it really depends on what you want to do and how far off that is from some sample code you can find somewhere.

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Originally Posted by zabulus

(the xml editor I found has a problem with the comments section at the beginning of each file, I have to look into that some more, I may alter that section or remove it altogether when I try again)

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Just a FYI any editor that rigorously checks for XML "well formedness" will fail a file that starts with a comment. The first line of any XML file should be the XML declaration which tells the editor it's an XML file, corresponding to which version of the XML standard and the XML parser which encoding it should use to parse the file. That, and close any elements (tags) you open and you now know everything about XML you need to know for FG. :)

Just start your comment on the second line and your will be fine.

I'm also using NP++ but I'm having a problem with the xml folding. It works fine partway through the file but then at some points it just acts like there is a closing tag missing, even though it's not. Does anyone else have this problem? It's frustrating the heck out of me.

Yeah, I see this bug a lot too.

- Obe

I normally see this with the inline tags. Most likely its near a <script file="blah" /> where there is no matching </script>.

Creating a ruleset is not as bad as they make you thinks, there is a lot of help in the Community, even for stupid questions (like some of the questions i had), and even someone without knowledge of coding in XML and lua can succeed. It may take a few days though.

Fenloh

I've found that I like using VIM. It does excellent syntax parsing and can do a large variety of things once you get used to the interface. Plus it exists for both Windows and Linux so I can work no matter what system I happen to be on and keep my environment similar.

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Originally Posted by joshuha

I normally see this with the inline tags. Most likely its near a <script file="blah" /> where there is no matching </script>.

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Just for everyone's info, this has been fixed in the latest version of NP++, THANK GOODNESS!

Oh wow, didn't realise an update was available. The version I was running didn't seem to spot the update through the automatic update tool.

New version does indeed fix the XML folding.

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Originally Posted by Brenn

Just for everyone's info, this has been fixed in the latest version of NP++, THANK GOODNESS!

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WOOT! Most annoying feature of a very useful tool fixed!

THAT is good. REAL good.

Thanks for the heads up.

- Obe

Is there an example ruleset to use?

I've tried the d20unpak and the d20ruleset installer and neither of them leave any files in the app data directory for examples to go by.

It would be nice to just have a zip file out there with a basic template of a ruleset.

Check out the FGWiki for the Base Ruleset.

The unpack tool should unpack the ruleset pak file to the designated folder path. Check there for the folder you are seeking.

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Originally Posted by Czarisyn

Is there an example ruleset to use?

I've tried the d20unpak and the d20ruleset installer and neither of them leave any files in the app data directory for examples to go by.

It would be nice to just have a zip file out there with a basic template of a ruleset.

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What ruleset did you use as a basic guide? Would you recommend I use it to get a basic idea?

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Originally Posted by DarkWarder

What ruleset did you use as a basic guide? Would you recommend I use it to get a basic idea?

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It depends on what you want to do. If you want to create a ruleset that is similiar to an existing one, AND that existing one isn't restricted IP, then it is best to modify the existing ruleset. For example, if you wanted a new d20 3.5 ruleset to use in The Simpsons (tm) setting, you'd be best advised to start with an OGL 3.5E ruleset.

If you want to build something completely new from scratch, or there is no unrestricted IP, you could usefully start with the Base Ruleset, as mentioned by Dr Z. The Base Ruleset includes no system-specific features, but does include some useful gameplay features, such as player-to-player whispers, GM options etc.

Stuart

Would love a break down of each component of Base Ruleset and show source code, with comments/walkthrough.

An example would be the character sheet (usually the first thing that is built):

How to layout a page
How to place a graphic
How to integrate a dice roll
etc.

Maybe this already exists but official documentation, of course, is always appreciated.

I'm not aware of any official documentation at this level of detail, but there are officials who'll do their best to help out if you have any questions.

By way of tutorial on ruleset building, I started a project called Anatomy of a Ruleset a year or two back, but never finished it. It does, however, include info you could use, so you might want to check it out here.

Stuart

I just installed the Base ruleset and looks to be a good "start" to a framework.

Unfortunately, there is no way to "suppress" extensions so a lot of the 4E stuff is getting carried over (multiple icons bring up the Items tab, console errors while setting preferences...)

Was looking over your "Anatomy of a Ruleset" and it does cover a lot of things. Unfortunately, it's still in the D20 realm.

I would love some kind of Ruleset Wizard where you get asked questions about Dice Sets, Stat names. That and some kind of in / out of package layout tool for building Character sheets (to take out the guess work of counting pixels, etc.) Ahhh to wish and to dream.

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Originally Posted by Stitched

Unfortunately, there is no way to "suppress" extensions so a lot of the 4E stuff is getting carried over (multiple icons bring up the Items tab, console errors while setting preferences...)

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You can suppress extensions by deselecting them when you load the campaign.

Stuart

Then I guess the latest 2.7.0 Test version bugs the Ruleset. Lots of extra icons in the upper right panel (like I stated), errors that bring up the console, etc. Maybe it needs to be updated? I don't really know...