Normally this type of stuff would be under News. But what interesting about Fantasy Grounds being on Steam is that like all Steam apps it has an associated discussion forum. And the population of Steam Gamers lie mostly outside of tabletop gaming.

Aside from the troll posts there are a lot of interesting comments posted on the discussion forum including more than a few "How do I play Pen & Paper".

The 25% off of the full license is pretty darn tempting too.  44 hours left on that.

I need to look, but is this like Artemis where they changed the licensing scheme to match Steam and/or encourage sales?  E.g. can players play without buying it?

Does anyone here know the level of effort involved with making a new D20-based ruleset for Fantasy Grounds? Or any other VT, for that matter...

The thing I'm thinking of looking at this is: Steam sales on fantasy grounds. Can't wait until it drops into a good sale. Never really wanted to get it because the cost seemed a bit too rich for me personally.

(I hope they do. The app published by the company I work for drops down to 66% off during Steam Sales pretty regularly.)

Quote from: Bobloblah;749577Does anyone here know the level of effort involved with making a new D20-based ruleset for Fantasy Grounds? Or any other VT, for that matter...

two words...
XML
and
Lua

All the data you are entering is going to be formatted in a series of xml documents, both original rulesets and extensions.  Any scripting you are going to be doing for automation of tasks is going to be in the Lua programming language.

The reason a fully-functioning VTT hasn't really taken off yet is because they are by programmers for programmers for the most part.  So if you want to play 100% RAW, where customization means picking what rulebooks you want to include, you're cool, anything else and you're hand-editing an xml file, or doing scripting. There aren't really even useful "builders".

Thanks (not sarcasm, I appreciate the response), but I understand how it's done. I'm trying to get a sense of the scope of effort involved from someone who has either attempted it, or seriously looked into doing so.

Not exactly sure what level of "work" you're asking about.  I've played around with most of them at one time or another, it all depends on what level of changes you are interested in.  

Taking an existing ruleset and making some minor mods to BAB, Saves, weapon damage...a couple hours to find it, understand it, and change it.  Less as you get better at it.

Making a highly customized D20 ruleset using the core engine only, supplying your own data, and fully automating combat tracking...easily hundreds of hours of work and testing, not including any graphics changes.

Check here if you're looking for more detailed scope of work estimations.  Fantasy Grounds Workshop Forum

Quote from: Bobloblah;749589Thanks (not sarcasm, I appreciate the response), but I understand how it's done. I'm trying to get a sense of the scope of effort involved from someone who has either attempted it, or seriously looked into doing so.

I've done it for MapTool, if that counts.  It's essentially very much as was described.   You have the basic die roller and map with pogs, and everything else extends from there.

For Pathfinder I grabbed someone else's toolkit and start whittling it down to what we actually wanted.  I added a conversion utility to go from a custom formatted PCGen character sheet to a maptool object, and that alone spoiled me on that whole process.  There were just SO MANY moving parts.

For our RIFTS D6 game I started with some WEG Star Wars tools, but they were just worthless.  I wound up coding my own modular D6 roller and working it in to the character sheets one module at a time.  Then I would change a design decision and go back and repeat the process.  It was murder when piled on top of all the other work playing via VTT adds to an already busy job.

Yeah it's rough, no doubt about it.  Even if you do something like compare the 3.5e and Pathfinder Rulesets to see how to implement the changes, if you're not a professional coder, just a hobbyist, your brain will bleed.

Now that they have an official CoC and BRP Ruleset, my heart is telling me "RQ6, do it!", my brain is already reaching for the migraine medication.


Next and Numenera in core.  Dammit.  Tempting.

Quote from: CRKrueger;749583So if you want to play 100% RAW, where customization means picking what rulebooks you want to include, you're cool, anything else and you're hand-editing an xml file, or doing scripting. There aren't really even useful "builders".

There's one being kickstarted right now, that will allow you to build rulesets in a wysiwyg program.

Here it is:

http://www.verkami.com/locale/en/projects/7992-ruleset-wizard-for-fantasy-grounds

Quote from: CRKrueger;749608Taking an existing ruleset and making some minor mods to BAB, Saves, weapon damage...a couple hours to find it, understand it, and change it.  Less as you get better at it.

Making a highly customized D20 ruleset using the core engine only, supplying your own data, and fully automating combat tracking...easily hundreds of hours of work and testing, not including any graphics changes.

Personally I'd just use it for a map, maybe some LoS/Fog of War stuff, and that's about it.  Let the rules be handled by people.

It seems like any ruleset integrated tightly enough to actually work (as a ruleset) would have to be so ingrained into the system that doing anything outside of it would be a pain in the ass.

I run a weekly Fantasy Grounds campaign, and yes, at first it felt like the program got in the way of whatever the ruleset didn't cover, but I realized that anything not covered could be applied the same way you would do it a a real table. The automation helps immensely with things like initiative in big combats, applying damage and other effects to enemies automatically, etc. I find that for me, a less rules-concerned GM, it makes the game go faster during play. The primary drawback is that it requires significant preparation ahead of time, and if the group goes a different way, that work is wasted.

By prep you're talking about maps, pogs, handouts, etc?

Yes, all that, and applying grids to the maps, masking, etc. For pathfinder, the monsters from bestiaries 1-3 are available as statted-up creatures, but if I want their spell-like abilities to apply in combat, I have to script them myself. There is a book with some NPCs, as well, but it never seems to have the one I need (8th level Orc Ranger).  Then you have to take the creatures/NPCs you've built and build encounters, set up treasure parcels, etc.

A lot of this can be mitigated with shortcuts, but that just means that the characters will be fighting a lot more monsters than NPCS, and receiving a lot more gold than items.