I working on a such project too. My purpose is to create more than a character sheet manager (even if it's the first step) : A full RPG tool box (but not a video game) : * Character creation/update workflow (avoid ingame player book browsing and game master post checking) * Story line publisher (centralize and unify format of writer jobs to improve user collaboration and browsing) * Game mechanisme bundle system (share additional game rule stuffs assumed by character sheet manager) ... I'm curious about how did you design scalling data base with character sheet validation. Backup handling is another hard feature to manage .. I'm not sur it's the best place to talk about technic but what technologies do you use for your own version ? See you

Another advantage to exporting to a common text based format is that it makes source control easier. The ability to manage forks, merges and sequential backups, as well as a change log, is something that would be very useful for this game, and there just happens to be a whole market of products that will do this to text files.

This is a great idea, I keep it on my list. I'm damnly thinking about "how software could improve game experience". What could be the thing you would like to not have to do and would make even better your games ? Normally next month I will be more free so be able to work hardly on the project (if I don't spent all of my time reading*). For now i'm basicaly continuing the design (Storage and UI) but I decided to also use a set new technologies to improve the project quality (and have fun) : Mongo DB + HTML5/CSS3/Raphaeljs. Hope next post be about a publish date. *I bought Sunward Hard book last weekend and the game master screen, the initiation scenarii is amazing !

Oh, good point. Localization is much easier if you build it in from day 1 rather than trying to shove it in later. It looks kind of messy in code having a bunch of text IDs rather than actual text, but it will be infinitely easier to edit, update with erratta, and translate later.

Hi everyone. I don't mean to step on anybody's toes, but the project I'm working on is a bit more comprehensive (and complex) than those I've seen so far in this thread, so I thought I would mention it in case anyone is interested in the project (and helping me with it!). I am in the opening stages of a project to build an Eclipse Phase character manager in Java, using XML for the entire data structure of the program. So far I have built an XML parser and editor and developed schemas for the initial data files, being Skills, Morphs, Augmentations (implants & robotic augmentations), Traits, Backgrounds, Factions, Equipment and Sleights. I've so far fully implemented the data for Backgrounds, Factions, Traits and Skills (all from the main rulebook) and I'm working on augmentations, morphs etc. Ideally I'd like to get some volunteers to help me prepare the data so that I can get on with actually creating the character manager. The idea for this application is to help people to manage their forks, backups and morphs which, as we all know, can get very complicated in Eclipse Phase. The workflow will move from character creation through to in-game play, with some of the following features: 1) With a 'character' at the root of the tree, the program will maintain a complete list of all forks and backups of an ego in a tree format so that it's easy to track at a glance what forks and egos exist. This will be maintained as a single XML file with links to unique XML files representing a 'state snapshot' of each ego. 2) At any time the user will be able to select an ego from the tree to load it as an active character, allowing its statistics, memories etc. to be edited. 3) On 'activating' an ego the user will be given an opportunity to assign it to a specific morph, at which point the character's stats will update to represent any enhancements provided by the morph. Equipment may also be assigned from the root character's inventory. Each morph, ego and item of equipment will record its current location so that the player can make informed decisions about equipping his egos. I will also make it possible to set an ego 'read only' with an explanation; this will be ideal for egos that have gone rogue, been deleted, etc. 4) Saving the 'character view' will probably result in an HTML file. This will be presented using XSLT to transform the underlying XML into a viewable form. This will allow people to easily host their characters online. The software is primarily designed to be used on the fly as a method of making it easier to handle multiple forks, but once a 'character view' is generated it will also be possible to print from the browser and even to modify the base HTML/XSLT to customise the appearance as desired. I may even be able to build a customiser in the software that alters the character sheet that's generated at the end. So, as I said before I can really get into the meat of making the character manager itself, I want to populate my XML data files with all of the sleights, equipment etc. from all of the books. If you'd like to volunteer to assist with this it would be great. I'm including most of the text for each item, making it a handy reference guide during play. And you won't have to edit XML in the raw; what I've written so far allows for relatively straightforward editing of the XML and also enforces compliance against the base schema. I look forward to hearing from any volunteers!

I'd like to help test it once you've gotten your work to that point. I'm short on time to contribute, but I can always break something for ya.

Anarianthe wrote:

Well, that's all. So, if anyone here know a little more about copyright rules, I would be happy to hear from you and eventually release this character generator (should be finished in a few days).

Please read the info at http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense -- there are a couple of pieces of art that you can't distribute under the Creative Commons license, but all the text and most of the art is fair for re-use within the terms of the license. Looking forward to seeing the software! :-)

One note when I first opened the app and loaded a file (one of yours), I get a error dialog: XML is non-compliant with the document template Line 181, column 47 Error: Element type "xs:element" must be followed by either attribute specifications, ">" or "/>", Continuing to load file, but you won't be able to save until the errors are fixed I've started editing the morphs file by hand (which is just as easy, to be honest, since I can just copy and paste). It loads up with the same error. I noticed that you've got no element for Advantages or Wound Threshold - is this on purpose? If not, would you like me to add?

Well, Exalted uses a completely different style of initiative that isn't transferrable to Eclipse Phase, so it would probably need to be re-written from the ground up. In Exalted initiative keeps on rolling. Each action has a speed in 'ticks' and to determine when someone is next due to act you add the speed of their action on to the tick in which they last acted. It's actually quite a good, fluid system but can be messy to keep track of in large combats, which is why I wrote the manager. In Eclipse Phase it's much easier as people just act in initiative order each round, so I find it easy to run combats with a pad and paper or Notepad. =)

ZakS wrote:

Has this project been stalled? I don't have Microsoft Office so I can't use those character sheets and I was looking forward to a java based one. Hope it's not dead in the water...

Use openoffice. I do.