[Pcgen-trackers] [ pcgen-Feature Requests-1480697 ] Make gamemodes extensible?

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Feature Requests item #1480697, was opened at 2006-05-02 14:31
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by jelmore49
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Category: Code Related (Add/Del/Improve)
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Jay Elmore (jelmore49)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Make gamemodes extensible?

Initial Comment:
I'm wondering if it would be possible to add support
for extending gamemodes, either in its own data type or
via datasets, as opposed to creating new gamemodes for
every rules variant. Having a gamemode that implements
vitality/wound points and a gamemode for divine rank is
one thing; what if you want to use both gamemodes
together? (AFAIK, it is possible to use these specific
rules together in the current release; I'm just using
them as a hypothetical example.)

Rather than having multiple different gamemodes for the
various permutations, it would be nice to have a main
gamemode (say, "35e") and various additions defined as
"house rules" or options. You could select "35e" from
the drop down menu, and the customize it with a series
of checkboxes (examples pulled from d20srd.org, so I
believe these are all OGL):

[] Armor as DR
[] Divine Rank
[] Epic levels
[] Reserve points for HP
[] Vitality/wound points instead of HP

(This would probably help CMP a lot as well, with
things like Action Points from Eberron, Corruption &
Depravity scores from Heroes of Horror, and Leadership
score and Commander rank from Heroes of Battle.)

GAMEMODE could be extended to support selecting house
rule options as follows:

GAMEMODE:35e|ARMORASDR:Y|DIVINERANK:N|EPICLEVELS:Y|RESERVEPOINTS:N|VITALITYPOINTS:N


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>Comment By: Jay Elmore (jelmore49)
Date: 2006-05-02 22:50

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> Do I have your idea right?

Yeah, pretty much. It'd be nice to expand it beyond stats, 
but I think that would be a good place to start.


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Comment By: Paul W. King (kingpaul)
Date: 2006-05-02 20:44

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Hmmm...I think I see where he's going with this. For
example, in RPG Objects' Legends lines, they have a new stat
called Honor or Nobility (depending upon whether its
Oriental or Occidental in nature). Instead of creating a
brand new game mode, extend the 3.5 rules just a bit to
include the new stat. So, instead of having to manually
copy/paste all the pertinent info, you just make whatever
changes are necessary and go from there?

Do I have your idea right?

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Comment By: Jay Elmore (jelmore49)
Date: 2006-05-02 15:03

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I was thinking of being able to have a rules add-on or new
mechanic defined in a dataset (or new file type distributed
with a dataset), and being able to add that to an existing
gamemode without having to create a whole new gamemode to
support it, and making it easier to combine new mechanics in
a gamemode.

Say, for example, someone writes a sourcebook that brings
back the "Comeliness" stat from 1st/2nd edition AD&D. Rather
than having to create a "35e + Comeliness" gamemode or
simply have a variable called "ComelinessStat" (which seem
to be the options I see being used), you would be able to 
add that new stat _as_a_stat_ into the existing gamemode,
and possibly provide a checkbox under house rules to turn it
on and off.

I'll have to look at the gamemodes in 5.10.0 to see if they
do what I'm talking about.


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Comment By: Eddy Anthony (eddyanthony)
Date: 2006-05-02 14:42

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This is more a choice of how to code the data than anything. The open source 
data includes Divine Rank, Epic levels and Vitality/wound points instead of HP in 
one gameMode right now and I see no problem coding the other stuff without 
creating new gameModes. VP/WP is a house rule and Divine rank is done with 
templates.

Everything you request is possible now, CMP must have other reasons for 
creating separate gameModes besides code support.

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