Character Burning programs

[Kuato]

I know, I know, how lazy must I be if I can't even burn up characters with the aid of the sheets in the download section?

My group, however, are tightwads and won't cough up the dough to get their own copies of the game (traitors), and my copy is already wearing out, especially the extra lifepath sheets for barbarians, slave traders, atlanteans, mounts, etc.

So my question is, does anyone know of a program that I can use to make an automated Character Burner? Am I trespassing on hallowed ground? I tried to bend Wolflair's ArmyBuilder to my will, but it resisted. Does anyone have a good resource for the "algorithm"-type character creation of BW? Just a thought that continues to gnaw at me. I'm lazy.

[Mickeroo]

I'm not an expert at computter programming, but wouldn't that involve entering every lifepath into the program with all of thier stats, resource points, et cetera? It seems like that alone would make it not worth it.

Also, you would still need to come up with your own beliefs and instincts. I would never leave that in the hands of a computer.

[Kuato]

Yeah, the BITs I was going to leave to the group to figure out on their own, but everything else (I think) could be automated pretty easily. The Lifepaths of Man would easily be the worst to figure out, but the idea of all the automatic calculations being done for you is just too convenient. Also, it could help sort out all the requirements for all the more "advanced" paths.

And I agree that it would be lots of work for somebody, but I think I'm willing to be that person if it would help out the BW community. Making things easy never hurt anyone, you know? :wink:

[luke]

Many have tried, and none have succeeded.

It's more work than you think. Given all the aborted past attempts, I'm not going ahead with something like this until I can work with a programmer on something we can sell.

But you are welcome to give it a shot on your own.
-L

[Mickeroo]

If you want to pay me, I can use q-basic to do it. I don't know how pretty the printed character sheet would be with it though. It probably would be worth it, but it would just be really time consuming to do.

Also, I would fear that when 3rd edition comes out, the entire thing would be for naught.

[Kuato]

If ones greater than me have tried and failed, then I'd better not waste my time. I like the idea of the pen-and-paper way better, but my players are just so lazy. Thanks for the info, guys.

[Enlil]

I've thought about noodling around with that, and it seemed somewhat daunting. But putting in all trillion lifepaths is what seems trully hellish!

Christian

[Mickeroo]

I think that would be the hardest part. Not even hard, just...horrible. But if you're getting paid for it...

[skandall]

Here's the thing. In order to make a character burning program you'd have to enter all the text for every life path, skill, trait, spell, and well pretty much all the text in the character burner. Obviously that's a daunting task, unless you already have the text in a computer in which case it's still a pain. Clearly, you can't give something like this away for free. In the end, a Character Burner program would probably cost more by itself than both of the BW books.

[Mickeroo]

Now, if you were in the process of making a BW game anyway, and had all of that info made for a character generation process for the game...

[Lebo77]

It could be done in perl, but the data structure would get very complex very quickly. I dunno if it's worth it. I would kick the losers in your group in the behind and get them to pony up the $25+shipping. It's the best deal in role-playing.

[Kuato]

Honestly, I think my players were mostly complaining because the setup of the CB isn't such that it helps one to min-max a character--which, as wargamers primarily, they are wont to do. Forcing them to do it by hand makes them come up with the story beforehand, and then lifepaths can be filled in to suit the story. I think that very little is lost by making the players burn their characters without the specifics of the exact CB numbers and text.

Once you're experienced with the system enough you really don't need a program anyway, and giving the program to new players sends the wrong message to the old-school DnD min-maxers (which we all tend to be, sometimes).

Obivously, I'm all about it if someone publishes the CB in a profitable format for Luke, but other than that I'm willing to do it the "hard" way.