Ironwood Omnimedia

No sooner than about two days after I had posted that I was removing the ability to have more than one character load out (inventory configuration) than I was able to get things working in an easy way (for the end user). So, with that in the can, so to speak, I moved back towards the aspects of the program dealing with the bread and butter of characters in an RPG, experience points, loot, etc.

Once the Digital GM Screen is finished the GM can actually award experience points, reputation, and add/remove items from characters. He/she basically makes these changes, while playing if need be, in the GM screen and a file is created for that session. It includes optional notes for each action. For instance, the GM can add 10 XP with a note  such as “successfully bribed the guard at the gates to the temple.” The GM can keep a copy of these notes and logs but the file can be distributed to the rest of the players. The player can then open the file from the character manager and import the changes for his/her character (it ignores the characters the player is not logged in with). The player can then spend the XP earned, adjust the load outs, buy and sell equipment. etc. from the character manager, which greatly frees up game time.

However, not all players will have a GM using this system. So, we added in an option for the player to add sessions themselves. The player can add in all the same information the GM could. It also creates all the notes as well. The notes are added to your character sheet as well, so when you print this up you get a detailed (if your notes are detailed) account of what you earned, spent, etc. when this occurred and why. This should eliminate those confusing situations some games get into when they have to validate when and where something cool occurred.

Once these session notes are complete, either by the player or imported from a GM session file, the process for managing what to do with these changes is exactly the same. Today we are talking entirely about spending XP.

No matter what game you play, or how experienced the players, there is invariable some issues regarding XP awards, leveling up and that sort of thing. When there are more options there is always more confusion. Sagas seems pretty darned simple off the bat. A skill or power costs 10 times the new level and an attribute costs 5 times the new value. So the screw ups tend to come from bad math and bad not taking. The software solves both of these problems.

By “bad note taking” I generally mean the haphazard jot down of experience written quickly as the game is getting cleaned up. Next week you show up with scribbles of numbers and an uncertainty of what they actually mean. Is that a new total, did I total it, or did I spend it? Well, that won’t be a problem now. Furthermore, the math won’t be off either. How many of you have that player who jumped from level 5 in a skill to level 8 and only paid the 80 points? Well, that’s not right. They “forgot” to buy every level in between (it should have cost 210 points to go from 5 to 8). Furthermore, the complications that arise from buying new attribute values are further lessened. By complication I mean that many players forget how changing a simple value in an attribute can change so much. Sure it can change a level and a dice, but it also changes the secondary attribute as well as any derived stats (lifting/carrying, perception ranges, etc.) as well as all the skills and powers once employed by that attribute. Furthermore, changing things like strength can also affect how quickly the character can use a weapon, armor hindrances, and more. So there is a lot to consider and making that more clear can also help.

So, onto how it works:

Spending attributes is simple enough. Click a plus or minus buttons adds new levels or takes away a level you added. The experience cost is calculated and a new value is shown. Easy enough and all you need. However, we decided you may not need more, but you can have it anyways. I’m that kind of guy. So when you change a stat an information panel shows everything else that is changed, or rather its new value. So if you change an attribute you will see everything that attribute affects and how it will now look. So if I change strength I see the strength skills, my new weapon damage, my new armor stats (because strength affects hindrance), and anything else derived from that. Not bad, eh?

Moving onto skills is a bit more complex for me programmatically and I am still designing some parts. First and foremost the only thing you see is the skills you have learned. They all have current rank and their proficiencies are listed under them. Simply click the add or subtract button and you have a new level. The new skill description shows in the info box. Easy enough. For new skills you push a button to buy a new skill. You get a simple list of the skill groups. Click those to expand them and check off any new skills you want added to your skill list. They all are added to your skill list at rank 0. Now you add points to them. Change your mind and reduce them to zero. At the end of it all the new skill levels are changed when you save the changes. Also new logs are created reflecting how and when you spent the XP along the lines of :

06/15/2010: Spent 50 XP to raise Defense from level 1 to level 3, Spent 10 XP to learn Large Swords, Spent 80 XP to raise Dexterity from 15 to 16.

The ability to buy and increase spell levels works the same way as skills.

Imbuing items is much simpler. As you spend XP on the item it automatically unlocks the next level value and the description shows what that means for the new weapon.

The logs also add in a nice little explanation to your GM for how and why things about your character are suddenly so awesome. So, when your character devastates the super bad monster the GM throws at you and he basically asks how in the world you are suddenly so kick ass you can show him how in a nice and neat report that allows you the satisfaction of knowing that your character has just skunked up his masterful plan. That is its own reward in a way.

Anyways, no screen shots for this. We are getting to close to the release as it is. When it goes live I might add some new screens to the website with the stuff in there. However, its pretty likely you will already know what it looks like by then anyways.

Next week we can talk about journals!

Until then, Happy Gaming!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 10:43 am and is filed under Developer Blog, DPnP, E-RPG General Development, Player Character Creator. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.