Any news on an update?

[dulux-oz]

Consider this - FG is the only piece of "commercial grade" software I've ever seen that gives you free updates without paying an update fee. Oh, yeah, sure, there is the odd piece of software that will let you update once for free, but never have I paid for an update to FG in the 5+ years I've owned it.

And don't start talking about "freeware" etc - that's not free because its got ads in it.

My point is: is it really fair for us to expect that just because we may have paid for a Ruleset or a Module in the past that we keep on getting free updates for it - especially as it takes hundreds to thousands of man-hours to put a Ruleset together?

As a professional coder (& ICT Consultant) I can expect $100/hr plus - but as a Community Dev I'm lucky if I make $1/hr. So do people really expect to have all their wants met for little to no cost - just because they want them?

And for the record: I code for this Community for the same reason I GM - because its my hobby and I enjoy creating things. I create things because I want them for my own games, and I share them with others because I'm generous - and I'm sure those are the reasons people like damned, Dr. Venture, ianward, Trenloe, Obe, Ikeal and the other Community Devs do as well. We don't have to, but we do. So when you're enjoying hundreds of hours of fun gaming, and gaming for only a few cents per hour, remember that you don't get next year's model of car for nothing, so why should the Community Devs "bust their asses" to provide you with your entertainment for nothing - because that's often what we get - no respect, just demands, and not even a thankyou sometimes!

The self-righteous sense of entitlement I sometimes find here on these boards makes me wonder if we should even bother.

Now, if I've misread anyone here then I unreservedly apologize - I am sorry.

And next time you come across one of the other Community Devs, let them know that you do actually appreciate their efforts - you have no idea how important that can be to the people you do say thank you too!

</rant>

[Moon Wizard]

Yeknom and Azaran make good points about the perceived value of the rulesets, at least from a recent purchaser perspective. That's why we offer refunds for any product for recent purchases for pretty much any reason.

For people who purchased some time ago, I would say that the rulesets are what you bought, and upgrades are never guaranteed. That's why I always tell people to buy our stuff for what it does now, not for something coming down the pipe.

That said, we do keep an eye on these things, and we've kept our eyes and ears open for someone to take over BRP ruleset. Also, we do occasionally take down products from the store which do not meet even basic quality, but we haven't felt that BRP is that lacking to warrant removal.

Regards,
JPG

[CrossRoads]

This thread proves my earlier point, it's a numbers game and d100 systems (other than CoC) aren't popular here. In this thread there's two people really keen for an update, and one person interested in an update but knowing it won't happen (me).

A community dev in their right mind wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole and I can't fault them for that. This is why I hope FGU sees improvements in the area of ruleset creation.

I know I'm in the minority having zero interest in 5e and pathfinder. Things created by community developers is what brought me to FG in the first place and they will be the ones that keep me around. The downside is even for a simple character sheet from another game I'd have to rely on one of these community devs... someone that has no reason to fulfil my wish and I don't expect them to.

Which means for unsupported products I'd be better off using (name omitted out of respect for SmiteWorks) dropping my pdf copy of the rules on the table with some fillable character sheets, then spawning some 3d dice for everyone and away we go.

Is there any chance of premade fillable character sheets in FGU or something similar?

[Azaran]

That's where my hopes are resting now Crossroads, I will keep trying to get my head around the core ruleset enough to redesign BRP from it but the lack of documentation is hampering me a bit.

I was even in contact with Sunspoticus to see if i could lend a hand and to avoid reinventing the wheel, which he did sound interested in help but has gone dark.

Runequest has just been re-released by Chaosium and the following is growing on facebook's runequest group again. If there was a supported core D100 ruleset that could be adapted to any D100 based game with extensions, that would be more valuable than a new specialist BRP system. And i'd be very interested in coding the extension for that, but like i said, converting Core from D20 to D100 is a lot harder than it sounds now that the schema has changed so much from the one used in the anatomy of a ruleset document.

[Talyn]

In the meantime, will the MoreCore ruleset handle it? I know it has the die rollers for it, at least.

[yeknom]

In the meantime, will the MoreCore ruleset handle it? I know it has the die rollers for it, at least.

I was looking into that. MoreCore handles 7e CoC, though not as good as the actual ruleset, but well enough for me. It isn't much of a stretch to modify the CoC MoreCore Character Sheet to BRP.

[pindercarl]

Is there any chance of premade fillable character sheets in FGU or something similar?

I'm curious what you mean by this. Could you clarify "premade fillable character sheet?" Thanks.

[Wolfheart]

I'm also not sure what Crossroads meant but maybe it's this (this is a personal wish obviously but also one I believe will help FG toward being the go-to VTT):

I believe he means that when you open FG/CoreRPG you should be able, without going into coding, to set up your campaign's character sheets entirely without constraints. The current CoreRPG sheet limits your options greatly - to the point that, for me at least, it's not of use. This depends on which game you are going to play, of course.

Now, if a GM could change any values and words directly on the sheet so as to customise it for his own game, re-arrange/add/remove tabs, stretch/shrink boxes etc. directly in the software, that would be awesome.

So, if I don't need "Race", it's a bit annoying that the sheet has that word. The elegant solution would be that "Race" is there, but optional: I should just be able to double-click it, type a replacement word (for example, "Nationality" if that's what I need). I would like to edit the "Abilities" page the way I want, which in my case would be to divide it in several sections, because the game I run divides abilities into various categories (Proficiencies, Maneuvers).

Yes I can delve into the xmls (and have tried), but as long as FG is about "supporting any game" and "play more prep less" I shouldn't have to spend three days coding just to have a template that is more similar to my chosen game am I right?

On a related note, the NPC sheet is even less useful. IMO it should look as neat as the PC sheet but with the same customisation options I'm suggesting. The bare-bones "front page" should have a nice large portrait box and room for main stats, and a GM should be able to customise by adding any number of pages he or she wants: More freedom.

TL;DR
Fantasy Grounds needs entirely customisable PC and NPC sheets so that any game can be represented. Allow players to tweak everything from a Core template.
Ideally you could tweak a template to represent ANY RPG out there.

EDIT:
Here is the character sheet for the game I run. I would like FG/CoreRPG to be customisable enough to reproduce it as closely as possible.

https://www.google.no/imgres?imgurl=...act=mrc&uact=8

EDIT 2:
Hope I come off as constructive, not negative!

[pindercarl]

Ah. That would make sense. I was reading "fillable character sheets" similar to fillable PDF and that didn't quite match up.

[CrossRoads]

Support for a fillable pdf is what I meant. I just thought that would be the easiest method for SmiteWorks... but what Wolfheart said is much better.