Author Topic: Online Harp Character Generator  (Read 16874 times)

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Offline jasonbrisbane

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Online Harp Character Generator
« on: December 15, 2009, 02:04:43 AM »
Hello,

I am playing with the idea of creating an online character creation program which would (eventually, if it was accepted by ICE) hosted on an ice subdomain.

I am looking at the following:

Objective:
Create a character creation program online that allows you to create a character and save it online, level it up online and allow you to print it out (possibly to a PDF which you can save and/or print at your own convenience).


It would be written with Apache, Mysql, Php in mind as that is what I have to work with and this has produced some wonderful prpograms that I am happy with so I would use those same mechanisms to create this.


I have a few questions that I would like peoples opinions on:

What would you like to see as "Stage One"?
- A blank character sheet that you could save and "undo" that as only fields that you can edit yourself?
Benefits: allows you to create Racial & Profession Templates and Training Packages without administrator modifications;
Drawbacks: have to manually enter details and keep track of expenditure such as ranks spent, DP's remaining, etc with possibility of creating errors.

The following would also apply (to make it easier for me to write, basically - others could rewrite the code later if you want):
RESTRICTIONS: Only one character Save per level. Going back to level one would give you a warnign that all other levels will be erased and no other Levels would remain (creating a Level ten character and then realising you made a mistake and need to modify level 1 will auto erase levels 2-10).

- A complete character generator as per HARP Core allowing to auto calculate  benefits and penalties for race, professions, talents and training packages without the option to add your own:
Benefits: Easy to use the basic HARP and good for new players
Drawbacks: fails to make use of other books and rules. Hard to make adjustments if you want to include house rules for adolescence skills, etc...

- a complete character gerator including all existing harp and cyradon books
Benefits: looks better and more efficient
Drawbacks: locks in a preset rule system. Cant be made GPL etc due to ICE IP, hard to modify as it requires someone to agree to the ICE IP to access to the source to make changes. Any errors have to be corrected by the programmers...


Currently I am going with option 1.

It will be:
* easier to program
* easy for others to make changes
* code can be GPL'ed as ICE data would be in the SQL data tables, not in the code!
* I will allow an checkbox for Favored Categories for calculating DP's.
* Would try to allow manual Skills additions for Spells, other Skills, house skills, etc. (Only way I can see it working really!)

For the Printing option., I would try to use a PDF option. I have seen other programs do this and they dont have special code so I might try to scavenge their code to see how they did it...

Opinions people?
Can you see ways to improve this?


--------
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline Rasyr-Mjolnir

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2009, 05:10:23 AM »
Character Saving -- I would suggest that incrementing the level of a character requires that the previous level be saved, and that a "new character" is created.

For example, you want to create Rarrg the 5th level Fighter. You start at level one, do the development. He is saved as Rarrg 1 and you increment him to level 2. Once that he done, he is saved as Raarg 2 and you increment him again.

Somebody else coming along is allowed to view all created characters, and so he does a search for a Fighter, and sees Rarrg 1, Rarrg 2, Raarg 3, Raarg 4, and Raarg 5 on the list of those available for him to look at.

Note: Only the person who created the character should be allowed to ever update him. This would require a login system, and a permissions system of sorts.


Side Note: CharGen utilities have ALWAYS been allowed.  ;D

Offline Mando

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2009, 12:25:26 AM »
You could perhaps start with a very "simple" tool many might need: a skill bonus calculator utility. Let user change or add skill names. You also have to handle stats changes through levels. Special bonuses entered by hand, to make it house rule-neutral and talent modification neutral too. Available DPs handled basically: you enter available DPs for skills at each level by hand. If you add in adolescent ranks, spells and training packages, this already makes a fairly nice piece of work.

IMHO, the whole issue with online tools is that they somehow have to improve the user experience when compared to spreadsheets tools. That's why the main issue beyond coding and data management is, IMHO again, user interface. I thought really seriously going on with Flex and its amazing set of built in controls and components allowing you to build a perfect and modern UI with little coding effort. Its perfect XML data integration, allowing for easy handling of delegating data entry to others and even easy handling of specific rule sets by user modification of XML files is also a big plus. And it's now open source, as you can download a free sdk. Scripting is mostly Javascript style, not so hard to learn if you don't already know it. And you can even compile your code as a desktop Air application, making it usable offline on many OS'es, or soon on handheld devices.

Whatever your choice of coding tool, going XML would really be nice, building a standard foundation for HARP tools in the future. If you need XML data sets, I have some available, as might be the case for the online role playing tools teams. And if you stick with your PHP coding idea, version 5 handles XML very correctly now, and OOP makes building a tool step by step an easier task. Keep database for user management.
.:| Fred, aka Mando |:.

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Offline markc

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2009, 12:44:51 AM »
 IMO it should be pure HARP with no additional rules or allow you to add rules by picking which books you use in your game.

 Very basic would be the ability to track ranks per level as well as training packages [or a TP generator that you could save TP's, or submit TP's to be saved] and any other basic rules. IMO you can map the data cells to the official character sheet and you are done.

MDC 
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2009, 12:32:10 AM »
Character Saving -- I would suggest that incrementing the level of a character requires that the previous level be saved, and that a "new character" is created.

For example, you want to create Rarrg the 5th level Fighter. You start at level one, do the development. He is saved as Rarrg 1 and you increment him to level 2. Once that he done, he is saved as Raarg 2 and you increment him again.

Somebody else coming along is allowed to view all created characters, and so he does a search for a Fighter, and sees Rarrg 1, Rarrg 2, Raarg 3, Raarg 4, and Raarg 5 on the list of those available for him to look at.

Note: Only the person who created the character should be allowed to ever update him. This would require a login system, and a permissions system of sorts.


Side Note: CharGen utilities have ALWAYS been allowed.  ;D

You've read my mind!  ;D

I'm creating a design document, including screenshots.
I'll use the HTML HarpChar sheet as it means I dont have to worry about re-creating the wheel!

Once I get the basic design doc ready with some basics that I need I'll publish it.
That way if something happens to me (heaven forbid) then others can take over.

PS: would it be worthwhile creating as sourceforge project for this? Does anyone else want to offer assistance?
or should I ask that AFTER I've posted the design doc so people can see the "very basic" plan?


--------
Regards,
Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2009, 09:04:35 AM »
Design specification is now available for preview at:

http://darkeen.homelinux.com/videos/design.odt

Can the programming gurus please have a look and advise what I should include?
Remember that this is a fairly simple web app (enter data, save it, display it, print option, create users, etc)

Thanks.
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline enoch

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2009, 11:30:52 PM »
It looks pretty good for a start, but I have two questions/concerns for now:

1) What about spells? Will the be handled as skills under the Mystical Arts category, or will they be left out for now?

2) Why not auto calculate stat bonuses? (NB #2)

That's all for now.

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #7 on: December 20, 2009, 06:56:08 AM »
Thanks Enoch,

Spells will be treated as Mystical Arts.
I have debated whether to create a seperate Category called "Spells" and then simply print any skill part of the "Spells" category on a seperate sheet, effectively making the character sheet three pages.
For spells to work in any rate, there must be the ability for either:
- user chooses a "Category" to add and the category UNiversal, cleric, warrior mage and those spheres are then  added to the charcter and the spells are added to the Skill list.
- user can add individual skills/spells to the mystical arts list. This is somehting I would want anyway as some skills need to be added multiple times (i.e. Linguistics, ANimal Handling, Foraging/Survival as these all require specialities).



Yes, I realised near the end of the document that calculating the stat bonus from the stat inside the program  would still be inside ICE's IP as it would effectively be the only thing that is taken from the book and would still require the book to understand what the skills are, what the spells are (ranges, durations, targets, etc), what Talents are and where they fit in, etc.

I have changed it to be:
Character_stats   Statistics of the character.(1)
Character_stat_bonus_other    Statistic Bonus from misc areas.(1)
Character_stat_bonus_racal    Racial Statistic Bonus of character.(1)


The total stat bonus is calculated from the Stat itself (using Table 4.1 from HARP Core) + Racial stat bonus + other stat bonus.

Skills are also changed slightly:
   Skill_ranks   number of ranks in the skill
   Skill_bonus   bonus to the skill granted from talents,    professional bonuses, racial bonuses, etc
   Skill_stats   Display of the statistics that affect the    skill


Skill bonuses will be autocalculated from the rank bonus (as per table 6.2 of HARP CORE RULES) + stats bonus  + racial/talent/bonus.

I have modified the document and reposted it.
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2009, 08:52:48 AM »
OK, here is a start...

Dont expect too much. most links dont work, but you can see the characters that are public (i.e. not marked as private), and can sort them.

It is a pre-pre-pre-pre-pre -etc ad nauseum Alpha version.

This comes with all the standard warnings about not guaranteeing anything, it may not work, it may casue world war 3 if you play with it, blah, blah, blah....

http://darkeen.homelinux.com/yahcs/index.php


PS: this is my FIRST working (a relative term?) attempt at Php and I am trying to put checks in for everything so it will take time.
The display will eventually be a template so you could, in theory, upload a new template to the server and set your account to use a different template  i.e. like these forums!

Yes, the name is a work in progress,but it seemed to fit! :)
--------
Regards,
Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline markc

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2009, 03:32:16 PM »
 One thing you might want to add is a created by category so people know that the PC is theres or not.
MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2009, 04:03:19 AM »
I could do that,...

My original thought was that When you Log into the account, you see ONLY your characters.
So seeing other peoples characters would require you to log out... It restricts thje number of records you see and have to go through, But thats a good thought...

PS: updated the output page.
Removed about 50K worth of blank lines for the file and now and adding in the php to print the character fields... :)
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline markc

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2009, 01:15:25 PM »
OK I did not see that entry but in the main menu it might be good to see who created which PC. Even if they only give a game name or screen name as you might find a person who creates PC just like you do.
MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2009, 11:32:56 PM »
My only issue is security. I wasnt going to show the usernames as that means ppl could attempt to hack into the other persons accounts.

I am going to log all failed login attempts to a log file (in the DB), so that should make me happy in regards to security...

Yeah, Ok, you've convinced me....

PS: does anyone know how to create a fuction that returns a stat lookup? i.e. the bonus or DP?

I stated with...

function statbns ($stat, $isbonus)
{
$bonus = 0;
if ((int)$stat < 6) { $bonus = -18; }
....
 (lots of more if statements)
echo (string)$bonus;
return settype($bonus, 'string');
}

No matter what I use (string or settype) the only value echoed is '1'.

What am I doing wrong?
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #13 on: December 24, 2009, 12:29:24 AM »
Never Mind... I got it...


(mind you if I hadent asked for help I never would have figured it out! Murphy's Law!)
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Jason Brisbane
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Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline markc

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #14 on: December 24, 2009, 12:52:44 AM »
Never Mind... I got it...


(mind you if I hadent asked for help I never would have figured it out! Murphy's Law!)
That happens quite a lot. Also try going somewhere else and writing it down or even just go to the bathroom as that may jog your brain. Change of environment is a huge catalyst for ideas IMO.

MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #15 on: December 24, 2009, 08:51:54 AM »
Page One is now completed. YAY! (View Only - you cant add characters yet..)

The Skills page will look the same "format wise, but the skills will be "slightly" different...



Merry Christmas ICE Fans Everywhere!

:angel1: :wave: :angel1:
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline enoch

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #16 on: December 25, 2009, 09:06:58 PM »
Looking good, Jason. Let me know if you'd like any help.

And Merry (Belated) Christmas!

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #17 on: December 26, 2009, 08:21:14 AM »
Got a login and logout working.

Logging in shows only your characters - public and private.

Sorry, but you cant register yet!

Cant add/delete characters, thats the next part...Editting? Thats a whole new ball game......
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Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2009, 08:45:52 PM »
Update: Version 1.0 will (IMHO) be very messy (no classes, etc).
Version 2.0 will make use of templates to make the code a lot easier.


Perhaps version 3.0 could make full use of templates so other people could effectively upload a template wrapper (like the way that mediawiki allows you to upload a template and select it so you can change the entire layout of the website...
That way people could not only chnage the format of the site, they could upload their own html version character sheet, instead of using the default one!
Im looking at a class library here that looks very good...
http://www.ricocheting.com/scripts/php_mysql_wrapper.php


--------
Regards,
Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com

Offline jasonbrisbane

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Re: Online Harp Character Generator
« Reply #19 on: December 28, 2009, 09:36:13 PM »
Hi,

Done:
- Ability to create an account (register).
- Login.
- View created characters (only available via direct db access as I havent created a "create Character" button!)
- sort by race, level, name, profession and cutlure.
- Show Only certain professions, races or cultures.

Question:

Should I show All characters on nthe main screen, or limit it to the first 10 characters and have top, prev, next and bottom buttons to allow you to skip to those characters?

TODO (soon)
- webpage Footer

--------
Regards,
Jason Brisbane
HARP GM & Freelancer
Author of "The Ruins of Kausur"
http://roleplayingapps.wordpress.com