Saturday, May 5, 2007

What I'm currently working on, character generator

In the past I've used a few character generation tools for various operating systems and I really haven't found any cool generation tools that I really liked. I found one that came close. I think it came close because it took a very procedural approach:
  1. Choose what you want to be (Monk, Thief, Ranger, Fighter, Sorcerer, etc.)
  2. Choose a race
  3. Roll your stats
  4. Equip your character
Of course with Rolemaster there are a slew of skills to be considered, and a slew of professions.

What does this mean? It means that version 0.8 is likely going to take some time to develop. Consider the following:
  • In just the general Rolemaster there are 19 professions. If I used any of the Rolemaster Companions that number would go way up!
  • There are 11 races, and while it's possible to use all races for all professions, it's probably better to limit any races where there would be a negative impact on one of the 2 primary stats for each profession.
  • There are 10 stats, but doubled, temp and potential. These stats change depending on level, and there's only the possibility (random) of raising some stats every time you go up a level.
  • Then there are development points and skills. Determining the development points isn't too difficult once the stats are out of the way, the problem is the hundreds of skills and how to implement skills. I think it's just going to happen randomly with some skills slanted towards a particular profession. It'll probably be determined by a multi-dimensional array.
There's a lot to work through. I'm starting now.

No comments: