[Earthdawn 3rd Edition] Telarus' ED3 Framework v2.0
Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:39 am
Hi everybody. I'm pleased to announce an alpha release of my v2.0 Earthdawn Framework.
As before this framework incorporates 41 different Disciplines (that's 'Character Class' to you non ED folk), and 12 playable Races from the 'Core Earthdawn material':
ED3 Player's Guide, ED3 Player's Companion, Namegivers of Barsaive, and the new Cathay Player's Guide
It incorporates the basic statistics (Attribute used, Action cost, etc) for every Talent, Skill and Power in the following:
ED3 Player's Guide, ED3 Player's Companion,ED3 Gamemaster's Guide, ED3 Gamemaster's Companion, Namegivers of Barsaive, the new Cathay Player's Guide, and the new Cathay Gamemaster's Guide
It also includes over 25 custom state images (shout-out to JackLifear and his crew!!!) which will definitely make understanding the crunchy Earthdawn system easier for everyone.
Many things are changed from v1.0, but the core of the framework still consists of a core Library Token, a multi-page GM Screen frame, and a multi-page Character Sheet frame.
New core functions are a dynamic character sheet (loads any stats from a token the user owns when clicked on..much better than last version), and a tokenSetup() function which seeds the appropriate token properties if a player creates an Adept PC, or if the GM makes a monster or other NPC. Many other options will be apparent when you poke around those core functions, such as the New Inventory and Journal Systems(!). These have gone through the most changes (and probably will coming up). Poke around.
To help you navigate around, I would like to mention some design standards that I set when I started:
First up, don't click around the screen once you've click on a button or ran a macro. Maptool does que up screen clicks while it' processing something else, and this tends to have weird effects. I've built code to trap a few of them, but you've been warned.
Next up, any Underlined text is a click-able link, w/ tooltip. All Blue text also has a tooltip with additional info about that item. This is usually used to hide some of the complex secondary characteristics that the Earthdawn System uses, for example the Attribute Value, as opposed to the Attribute Step - which you roll.
In addition to the info 'hidden' in the tooltips (such as modifiers to steps, initiative, movement rate, etc), all of this information is available in an additional popup frame, called "editToken(id#)". Here the player has access to view all the detailed info, and write some properties to the token, such as personality traits, descriptions, etc. The GM will see a slightly different form, allowing him to edit token properties.
If you ever get a "getName() failed" error, and it kicks out a long ID alpha-numeral string, it probably means the ID of the token has changed. Just close and re-open the Character Sheet and /or Edit Frames and everything will work fine.
When you open the Framwork file, click on the Lib:token (the Earthdawn Logo) to view the "Global and Token Macros". They are first in the macro list, and the buttons are green.
The setupToken() function will write a "myCharacterSheet" macro to the token upon completion. The other 3 macros ("dynamicCharacterSheet", "gmScreen", and "setupToken") are also in the "Campiagn Macros" window, along with a couple of tool macros.
setupToken() may only be run on a token the current user Owns, so if you have a player connected and trying to create a character, double check that.
The first page of the gmScreen has additional options, such as a flag for Advancement that tells the system that it's ok for users to spend Legend Points, and a start at some optional Rules: free Durability, and the alternate Step Dice so far.
The gmScreen isn't completely done (the bugs with the character sheet have held this realease up enough), and right now players can't directly access the information in the GM Screen (should change in the beta version).
I hope that this tool improves your Earthdawn game, from a GM "character stats library" all the way up to some mass combat skirmishes with fog-of war and spells flying.
I had a lot of fun brushing my coding skills up with this, and as mentioned, there's more to come as we roll this sucker into a beta state (finishing the GM screen, getting Knacks, Spells and Spell Matrices into the system and the Character Sheet is near the top of my list for Beta, also a quick reference system for the first page of the Character Sheet to store commonly used Action and Effect Tests.. Talents, weapons, etc... more Power book references... a lot).
Also, if you run into a "undefined" or "unknown" macro errors, it's probably because I haven't gotten around to coding that quite yet.
Recommended Memory Setting
Max 1024
Min 64
Stack Size 5
How to get started
Open the GM screen, review the options. If Edit Mode is set to "All Players", then your connected players can make Horror and Dragons, and other Crazyness ("Oh My!").
Drag a Token onto the playfield. Make sure the player that is going to be running tokenSetup owns the token.
Make the tokenSetup macro available (either in campaign macros, or drag it onto the token).
Run tokenSetup, follow the brief directions.
(If anyone has any problems figuring out the character creation process, please speak up).
Once tokenSetup is complete (there will be a chat message), the Character Sheet will open (the token will now have a macro button to open the character sheet).
The GM (or any player if the Edit Mode is set) will then be able to edit the token details to fit the character. Do this by clicking on the Table Headers which have underlines to open that section of the character in the Edit Frame.
The "Award LP" button is a secret GM only button found when you click on the Legend Points table header and open the Details frame for Legend Points. Once the Token has LP, the user may spend it in the Attributes Details/Edit screen, & the Talents/Skills/Powers Details/Edit screen.
The Legend Points Details also has a GM only button to "Spend LP" on an arbitrary cost and note it in the LP Log in the token's Journal.
If Advancement is Open, and the Token qualifies, you can Advance the token's Circle by clicking on the token's Name (underlined) in the Header and then click the Advance button (at this time, Mutual-Discipline Characters are not supported.)
There are also a few debugging options "behind" the character token image (click on it in the Character Sheet Header). These are gotoToken(), and some rebuilding functions for the Powers and Journal HTML. If you discover errors with those pages, try running the rebuild functions.
Have fun!
Earthdawn Forever!!
Download Link (current version 2.0 alpha):
[attachment=0]ED3_Framework_2_0_Alpha.cmpgn[/attachment]
If you would like to privately discuss a gift or donation or something, I'd gladly accept Earthdawn books. Feel free to PM me.
Crazy note: The codebase is currently sitting at about 22420 lines of code.
Going to go catch up on my sleep now.
As before this framework incorporates 41 different Disciplines (that's 'Character Class' to you non ED folk), and 12 playable Races from the 'Core Earthdawn material':
ED3 Player's Guide, ED3 Player's Companion, Namegivers of Barsaive, and the new Cathay Player's Guide
It incorporates the basic statistics (Attribute used, Action cost, etc) for every Talent, Skill and Power in the following:
ED3 Player's Guide, ED3 Player's Companion,ED3 Gamemaster's Guide, ED3 Gamemaster's Companion, Namegivers of Barsaive, the new Cathay Player's Guide, and the new Cathay Gamemaster's Guide
It also includes over 25 custom state images (shout-out to JackLifear and his crew!!!) which will definitely make understanding the crunchy Earthdawn system easier for everyone.
Many things are changed from v1.0, but the core of the framework still consists of a core Library Token, a multi-page GM Screen frame, and a multi-page Character Sheet frame.
New core functions are a dynamic character sheet (loads any stats from a token the user owns when clicked on..much better than last version), and a tokenSetup() function which seeds the appropriate token properties if a player creates an Adept PC, or if the GM makes a monster or other NPC. Many other options will be apparent when you poke around those core functions, such as the New Inventory and Journal Systems(!). These have gone through the most changes (and probably will coming up). Poke around.
To help you navigate around, I would like to mention some design standards that I set when I started:
First up, don't click around the screen once you've click on a button or ran a macro. Maptool does que up screen clicks while it' processing something else, and this tends to have weird effects. I've built code to trap a few of them, but you've been warned.
Next up, any Underlined text is a click-able link, w/ tooltip. All Blue text also has a tooltip with additional info about that item. This is usually used to hide some of the complex secondary characteristics that the Earthdawn System uses, for example the Attribute Value, as opposed to the Attribute Step - which you roll.
In addition to the info 'hidden' in the tooltips (such as modifiers to steps, initiative, movement rate, etc), all of this information is available in an additional popup frame, called "editToken(id#)". Here the player has access to view all the detailed info, and write some properties to the token, such as personality traits, descriptions, etc. The GM will see a slightly different form, allowing him to edit token properties.
If you ever get a "getName() failed" error, and it kicks out a long ID alpha-numeral string, it probably means the ID of the token has changed. Just close and re-open the Character Sheet and /or Edit Frames and everything will work fine.
When you open the Framwork file, click on the Lib:token (the Earthdawn Logo) to view the "Global and Token Macros". They are first in the macro list, and the buttons are green.
The setupToken() function will write a "myCharacterSheet" macro to the token upon completion. The other 3 macros ("dynamicCharacterSheet", "gmScreen", and "setupToken") are also in the "Campiagn Macros" window, along with a couple of tool macros.
setupToken() may only be run on a token the current user Owns, so if you have a player connected and trying to create a character, double check that.
The first page of the gmScreen has additional options, such as a flag for Advancement that tells the system that it's ok for users to spend Legend Points, and a start at some optional Rules: free Durability, and the alternate Step Dice so far.
The gmScreen isn't completely done (the bugs with the character sheet have held this realease up enough), and right now players can't directly access the information in the GM Screen (should change in the beta version).
I hope that this tool improves your Earthdawn game, from a GM "character stats library" all the way up to some mass combat skirmishes with fog-of war and spells flying.
I had a lot of fun brushing my coding skills up with this, and as mentioned, there's more to come as we roll this sucker into a beta state (finishing the GM screen, getting Knacks, Spells and Spell Matrices into the system and the Character Sheet is near the top of my list for Beta, also a quick reference system for the first page of the Character Sheet to store commonly used Action and Effect Tests.. Talents, weapons, etc... more Power book references... a lot).
Also, if you run into a "undefined" or "unknown" macro errors, it's probably because I haven't gotten around to coding that quite yet.
Recommended Memory Setting
Max 1024
Min 64
Stack Size 5
How to get started
Open the GM screen, review the options. If Edit Mode is set to "All Players", then your connected players can make Horror and Dragons, and other Crazyness ("Oh My!").
Drag a Token onto the playfield. Make sure the player that is going to be running tokenSetup owns the token.
Make the tokenSetup macro available (either in campaign macros, or drag it onto the token).
Run tokenSetup, follow the brief directions.
(If anyone has any problems figuring out the character creation process, please speak up).
Once tokenSetup is complete (there will be a chat message), the Character Sheet will open (the token will now have a macro button to open the character sheet).
The GM (or any player if the Edit Mode is set) will then be able to edit the token details to fit the character. Do this by clicking on the Table Headers which have underlines to open that section of the character in the Edit Frame.
The "Award LP" button is a secret GM only button found when you click on the Legend Points table header and open the Details frame for Legend Points. Once the Token has LP, the user may spend it in the Attributes Details/Edit screen, & the Talents/Skills/Powers Details/Edit screen.
The Legend Points Details also has a GM only button to "Spend LP" on an arbitrary cost and note it in the LP Log in the token's Journal.
If Advancement is Open, and the Token qualifies, you can Advance the token's Circle by clicking on the token's Name (underlined) in the Header and then click the Advance button (at this time, Mutual-Discipline Characters are not supported.)
There are also a few debugging options "behind" the character token image (click on it in the Character Sheet Header). These are gotoToken(), and some rebuilding functions for the Powers and Journal HTML. If you discover errors with those pages, try running the rebuild functions.
Have fun!
Earthdawn Forever!!
Download Link (current version 2.0 alpha):
[attachment=0]ED3_Framework_2_0_Alpha.cmpgn[/attachment]
If you would like to privately discuss a gift or donation or something, I'd gladly accept Earthdawn books. Feel free to PM me.
Crazy note: The codebase is currently sitting at about 22420 lines of code.
Going to go catch up on my sleep now.