From: canders@isr.harvard.edu (Carl E. Anderson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Rolemaster Character Creation Aid: What would you expect from it?
Keywords: Rolemaster RM
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:43:39 GMT
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

In article <1992Jul24.015215.18694@pacifier.rain.com> michael@pacifier.rain.com (Michael Smith) writes:
>I have begun the tedious task of writing a character creation aid for
>Rolemaster.

	Sir, thou art truly a hero of our times.  May the Gods bless you
and your race to the nth generation.

>What would you expect from one of these?  I have gotten as
>far as stat generation (temps, pots, bonuses & race bonuses) and class
>choosing.  I am about to delve into background options from Character Law.
>I may include background options from RMC, if all goes well.  After that
>comes skills.  That's where progress becomes a slow crawl with all that to
>do.  What else should there be?  I am purposely ignoring physical traits
>(eye & hair color, height, etc) in favor of the more time consuming tasks
>of character creation.

	Ignoring physical traits is a good plan, because most people pick
that themselves, I should imagine.  I would recommend including  the option
to override the computer, in case you are generating something which does
have certain specifics you want - it gives a little more flexibility,
especially in creating pre-gen characters and NPCs.  It also allows people
to alter things if they have special house modifications of races and the
like.
	I don't know how difficult it would be, but you might want to
include the option of entering the statistics for new and special races
into the program.  That way you could tailor the program to an individual
gameworld, as well as having the info from the standard game.
	I would also strongly recommend functions which take care of
gaining spell lists, and assigning said lists.  Again, an override function
would be useful incase you are creating characters with a specific number
of spell lists, have changed certain parameters of the magic system, or
want to add new spell lists.
	You might want to think about applications which customize/create
new character professions.

	This may be very complex stuff, but I think it in the long run it
would be handy to think about.  

>It is a small (46k) .EXE file for PC,XT,AT,etc that so far should work
>on any graphic card. (ie, no graphics yet)
>It works fine now as just a stat generator, but I have big plans for this
>little program.  If anybody wants this version that goes no further than
>stat generation than let me know and I'll send it to you. I would like
>opinions from anyone I send it to.

	I hope someday to see the full product, but would be glad to
observe the program as it is now.  Please do send me a copy if you have a
chance.  Thanks!

Cheers,
Carl

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Carl Edlund Anderson	            	"Hefi ek ok aldri sva reitt vapn
canders@isr.harvard.edu			at manni at eigi hafi vidh kommit."
OR
anderso2@husc.harvard.edu			- Skarphedhinn Njalsson 
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Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc