Custom Java Charater Sheet

[skandall]

I have written a java app that is is a die roller specifically for Burning Wheel. If there is any interest I would be glad to have it uploaded for people to use it and tell me what they think.

There are 7 tabs and each tab has 10 buttons that can be customized.

Dice - Just a general tab for whatever. It's currently B1 through B10.
Stats - The first 6 buttons have the name of the stats already. Just set the button to roll your characters number of dice.
Attributes - Health, Reflexes, and Steel are all here. It doesn't figure out your actual hesitation though. Plenty of other buttons are there for any other attributes you need to keep track of.
Skills1 & Skills2 - Two tabs of 10 buttons each for your skills. Simply customize it to show the skill name and put in your shade and exponent.
Combat - 10 buttons here for you to add your combat related skills and positioning.
Armor - All the usual locations are there plus one for your Mount and two extra.

It's a jar file, 12kb and it'll run on anything (I've tested it on PC, Mac, and a Zaurus which is a Linux based PDA). It can save and load the configuration so you can use it with multiple characters. I'd love to get some feedback and feature requests.

My next project is a Burning Wheel java app for the GM to use.

Craig

[zipht]

I am not sure that BW needs an Java app.. my dice work very fine thank you.. :D last game those dice were on fire.. must to the dismay of my PC's. :twisted:

before I would write software, I would see what needs a GM for BW has.
I mean there just isnt all that much to keep track of. I could see using a wiki for your notes. And a list of NPC names. but what else have your needed, that good old pen and paper can't do?

It's not like D20 where NPC's have to have lots of level's and spells and magic items, and etc...

not that I am knocking your work eh, have fun writing your app's. :)
Myself, I have writen a random name generating program two or three times.. :roll:

I do want better PDF forms for FIGHT!, Range and Cover..

[Anteruo]

I have written a java app that is is a die roller specifically for Burning Wheel. If there is any interest I would be glad to have it uploaded for people to use it and tell me what they think.


Craig

Heck yea. Post it up somewhere. I'd gladly give it a whirl. As GM, I like having a die roller on my computer because my area is taken up by scribbles, printouts, etc.

[skandall]

before I would write software, I would see what needs a GM for BW has.
I mean there just isnt all that much to keep track of. I could see using a wiki for your notes. And a list of NPC names. but what else have your needed, that good old pen and paper can't do?


Actually, my BWD java app is a conversion of another java app that I had already written (a GM tool for d20 games). It wasn't much work to do the conversion. As a BW GM, it's handy because I can open an instance of BWD for each NPC I'm running. Since they're set up before the game it's just a matter of clicking the right button when I need a roll. The less time I spend rolling the more time I spend GMing.

Of course, it's mostly not needed, but it was fun to write. I've got some things that I want to add. I don't have a website to post it on so the burning wheel wiki seems to be the place, but I'm not sure if I can upload my own stuff to that.

[zabieru]

While I'm firmly in the "likes the feel of the dice" camp, I'd want a die roller if I ran online, and possibly also if I ran with a laptop. So thanks for making this, and I'd love to see it on the wiki.

Feature requests? Artha support. Does it do open-ended rolls? If you can get FoRK and helping dice working sensibly, it might make sense to add roll-against-Ob and then have it tell you what to mark for advancement. That would take a pretty slick UI to streamline that enough to really make it worth using, and I'm shit at that sort of thing, so that may be functionality that doesn't make sense to add.

[stormsweeper]

For those with simpler needs:

http://stormsweeper.net/bw/burning-wheel-die-roller.html

It's done in javascript, so it can be saved to your desktop or whatever.

[skandall]

While I'm firmly in the "likes the feel of the dice" camp, I'd want a die roller if I ran online, and possibly also if I ran with a laptop. So thanks for making this, and I'd love to see it on the wiki.

Feature requests? Artha support. Does it do open-ended rolls? If you can get FoRK and helping dice working sensibly, it might make sense to add roll-against-Ob and then have it tell you what to mark for advancement. That would take a pretty slick UI to streamline that enough to really make it worth using, and I'm shit at that sort of thing, so that may be functionality that doesn't make sense to add.


I do prefer to roll the dice most of the time, but it's nice to have the java app from time to time. Open ended rolls are supported. I'm also working on a simple dialog that allows a basic method of scripting. I'm not sure if it'll be all that useful but I'm bored so why not. Tracking advancement would certainly be possible, but it's way more than I was thinking. However, checking what the test would count as for advancement seems within reason so I'll look into adding that.

Just finished adding the ability to use FoRK and Advantage dice to any roll. A checkbox controls whether or not the extra 1 to 5 dice are used.

I don't have upload privledges on the Wiki so one of the admins will have to let me know if they want to check it out and upload it.

[kruug]

I need help Burning characters, so here are the features I would love to have:
1. The app auto-calculates which Lifepaths are available to you.
2. Click on a lifepath to see it's features, then click to add it to your character.
3. Unavailable Lifepaths are grayed out, but if you hover over them, you can see their prerequisites.
4. After you're finished selecting Lifepaths, the app calculates character age, trait points and skill points, and automatically buys the traits and skills required for your Lifepaths, leaving you with just the unspent points, to do with as you please.

[luke]

Hey Craig,

Upload the damn thing already!

-L

[skandall]

Upload the damn thing already!

I would, but the Wiki says I don't have permission. I can email it to you our if I have upload privledges then I can upload it as it's updated.

[Marune]

I need help Burning characters, so here are the features I would love to have:
1. The app auto-calculates which Lifepaths are available to you.
2. Click on a lifepath to see it's features, then click to add it to your character.
3. Unavailable Lifepaths are grayed out, but if you hover over them, you can see their prerequisites.
4. After you're finished selecting Lifepaths, the app calculates character age, trait points and skill points, and automatically buys the traits and skills required for your Lifepaths, leaving you with just the unspent points, to do with as you please.

If I finnaly choose to quit D&D for BW and that such a thing isn't available yet, I'll make one for sure.

[skandall]

I have sent the most recent version to Luke. It includes a basic method for scripting that can be accessed from the BWD-->Script Sheet menu option. This will open a dialog window with three tabs: Volley 1, Volley 2, and Volley 3. You'll want to adjust your number of actions per volley (doing so will enable the correct number of drop downs). Then select from the drop down menu which action. There is no rules checking here. It's about the same as marking it on paper. I included it for my own use as a GM that way each NPC I have open I can easily script. The dialog is not modal, so it can be moved out of the way and the dice tabs are still available. However, if you close the dialog, it will not remember your selections. I think I can modify it to iconize the dialog but we'll see.

Next up is telling what kind of test towards advancement a roll was. The user will need to input the ob for the test in a specific field.

Character creation would need to be a totally new application and I wasn't planning to do anything based on that. This is for a couple of reasons: 1) To do so would require that I enter a considerable amount of data which would be both time consuming and a potential violation of the IP owners rights. 2) Though it can be a bit of a challenge to keep track of the various numbers associated with character burning, it's not something I need while GMing.

[Marune]

1) To do so would require that I enter a considerable amount of data which would be both time consuming and a potential violation of the IP owners rights.

In response to 1)

For the first part, the classic idea is to make the wheel and get all the people around to fuel it (hmm, I'm becoming a BW addict!) Ok joke aside, it's "easy" to share the inpurt work via a database form. For the second part, well, we have to wait for Luke input.

I got the idea to do it because 1) I want to have a solid grasp on the system 2) I want to manage my setting-custom stuff.

[zipht]

The dialog is not modal, so it can be moved out of the way and the dice tabs are still available. However, if you close the dialog, it will not remember your selections. I think I can modify it to iconize the dialog but we'll see.

Skandall, I too have done plenty Java in my day. Your coding this in swing right? If you want advice or help, send me an email.. I can help you with packaging this into an EXE.

I am still not sure that P&P RPG's really need computerized help. As it has been my experience that Laptops can easily become a distration.

[skandall]

Skandall, I too have done plenty Java in my day. Your coding this in swing right? If you want advice or help, send me an email.. I can help you with packaging this into an EXE.

I'm not using swing or awt. You'll notice that there are two jar files; bwd.jar and thinlet.jar. Thinlet handles all the UI stuff so all I have to do is define the UI as an xml.

As for packaging it as an EXE... why? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of it being written in java. Besides, I'm a Mac user so an EXE would be worthless to me.

Where I could use some help is with the loading and saving code. I'm sure that it could be much better than it is.


I am still not sure that P&P RPG's really need computerized help. As it has been my experience that Laptops can easily become a distration.

I totally agree with you here. Normally I run the die roller on my Zaurus (which is a Linux PDA). The laptop is also a pain in the butt to bring to conventions. Maybe one day when all gamers have laptops with wireless connections and the die rollers are able to talk to the GM's laptop and... nah maybe not.

This project came about not because I need it, but because I could write it. Years ago I had a Handspring Visor Prism. I had a really good die roller on that thing and that was plenty for me. Then I got the Zaurus and there was only one very basic die roller. I knew nothing about java other than it runs everywhere so I tried to make an app. I made some lame web app that could roll a d10 but I didn't know how to clear the text field with each roll. Then I found Thinlet. Within days I had written the die roller I wanted. Once I had that base, I split it into a tool for Underground, d20 players, d20 GM, and another for the Uni system. So why not BW? The changes needed were trivial and maybe someone would really like to have it. I've since mostly given up on my Zaurus PDA. It's a shame really, but it's just such a hassle to get apps installed.

[Karl]

I am still not sure that P&P RPG's really need computerized help. As it has been my experience that Laptops can easily become a distration.
A well done electronic character creation, along the lines that kruug described, however would be a welcome in this corner. Even with a laptop at the table. Outside of BW I generally haven't played without at least one at an RPG in quite some time, because of reference PDF documents it's mostly like having another book there. But for PC creation I use a computer pretty much exclusively. If there isn't a character generation available I write one.

BW's character creation is a fairly work heavy. Because of how much of the actual campaign and how the PCs interelate group is tied up in them I think that is something that is partly unavoidable. It is just going to take time to come up with 3 good Beliefs.

However the time spent on the numbers? Flipping pages, fingering out what your Lifepath options mechanically are? Penciling down names (in spaces too small to comfortably write it all). Bah. Sorry, some people might enjoy that part. But one of them isn't me. I've got a lot of other things I could be doing with that time. From a playing point of view Burning Wheel character creation is the part I find most unenjoyable. Which is saying a lot, because I like the Belief/Instinct part and usually at least moderately enjoy character creation in RPGs. The source of dissatisfaction is primarily because I feel like a caveman banging rocks together to try come up with a work of art. To me all that accounting is just getting in the way of the purpose of character creation. :x


P.S. On the other hand I cannot forsee myself using a dice rolling program. But that's just a personal thing. I like the esthetics of a handful of marked plastic cubes. *shrug*

[Karl]

Incidentally it is pretty common for character generators to incorporate portions of tables and such. To protect BW sales, if not promote them through happy gamers, you shouldn't encorporate the whole book. Which usually isn't an issue because that's a lot of work, even if you are working from an electronic copy of the rules, and the results are liable to end up as an awkward interface.

For example in this case have all the LP data in there including the names of the skills and the traits, perhaps even a blurb for each. Also factor in some of the mechanical parts of the traits. See the D&D Character Generator that shipped with the early 3.0 books for an example of this. But don't put in the full text of the descriptions of the skills and traits. Without those in the book is still required for the niggling bits and playing, so sales motivation is preserved.

[Anteruo]

[quote=zipht]

Besides, I'm a Mac user so an EXE would be worthless to me.

I totally agree with you here. Normally I run the die roller on my Zaurus (which is a Linux PDA). The laptop is also a pain in the butt to bring to conventions. Maybe one day when all gamers have laptops with wireless connections and the die rollers are able to talk to the GM's laptop and... nah maybe not.


Holy cow, skandall! I'm a Mac user and Zaurus user. I've written quite a few Java apps for the Zaurus and other jeode JVM devices. The bare bones minimum is Java 1.1 using AWT and the JAR executes on OS X, XP, *nix and just works on the Zaurus as well.

As far as laptops go, I use mine almost every time I run a game. I use Voodoopad for the outline and character writeups, iPhoto to display pics and iTunes to play background music or even in-game sounds/events. When running WWII games, I'd even throw in actual radio addresses.

Also, if the rules are on PDF, bonus!

The idea of everyone having a laptop doesn't really work for me. I could easily see it being a source of distraction. I just had a thought... unless everyone was running a Live CD of say Ubuntu or something with preconfigged wireless setups. Then they would be under the sway of GM through and through. Muahahahaha.

[skandall]

Holy cow, skandall! I'm a Mac user and Zaurus user. I've written quite a few Java apps for the Zaurus and other jeode JVM devices. The bare bones minimum is Java 1.1 using AWT and the JAR executes on OS X, XP, *nix and just works on the Zaurus as well.

WOW! About the only thing that would be even more amazing is if you also have and Amiga! Now I know someone that I can complain to about how impossible it is to get the Zaurus to sync with the Mac, which ROM to use, and why do the packages managers all assume that my Zaurus has an internet connection?! ARGH! I really do love the little thing, but there are some serious points of frustration involved. All the java apps I've written use something called Thinlet to handle the GUI. I hate writing UI code and all that and Thinlet does a good job and it's small. So long as I compile to 1.1 they work on the Zaurus just fine (though I expect that my recent save and load functions won't work). Awesome, we'll have to share what we know via email.

... We now return to our regularly scheduled topic ...

I would agree that a stripped down character burning java app would certainly be handy, but it's a lot of work and has nothing to do with what I've got right now. In other words, I'd have to start a new app mostly from scratch and I'm not in the mood. My next java app is for Cyberpunk v3. Still, it's something to consider, maybe for BE.

[zipht]

I'm not using swing or awt. You'll notice that there are two jar files; bwd.jar and thinlet.jar. Thinlet handles all the UI stuff so all I have to do is define the UI as an xml.

As for packaging it as an EXE... why? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of it being written in java. Besides, I'm a Mac user so an EXE would be worthless to me.

Where I could use some help is with the loading and saving code. I'm sure that it could be much better than it is.


Packaging as an EXE make the program more assessable, just something nice to do for the window users. Myself I am a Linux Ubuntu guy so I dont need EXE's too.

Never hear of thinlet will have to check it out.



This project came about not because I need it, but because I could write it.

I hear that, lots of my code was writen just for me to get the feel of the framework.

[skandall]

For those interested in Thinlet...

http://thinlet.sourceforge.net/home.html

I'd like to have some Burning Wheel icons to throw into the app too. It's the little things like that which really add polish and make it look good (lol, or better than it really is; a little something I picked up in video game design). Oh! If I did end up doing a Character Burning app I could give them colour schemes to match the book covers. Aww, now I'm talking myself into doing it.

As for packaging it as an EXE: Again, I don't see how it's really any easier. All you have to do is double click the bwd.jar file and it runs. I expect some people may discover they need to update or even install java, but it's pretty simple. Since I use Thinlet I don't want to package it into one file. I just put all of my java .jar files in the same folder as the Thinlet.jar and that way I only need one copy of Thinlet for all of them rather than one copy per java app. Thinlet.jar is only 38k so it's no space hog but why do it if it's not needed.

[Anteruo]

WOW! About the only thing that would be even more amazing is if you also have and Amiga! Now I know someone that I can complain to about how impossible it is to get the Zaurus to sync with the Mac, which ROM to use, and why do the packages managers all assume that my Zaurus has an internet connection?! ARGH! I really do love the little thing, but there are some serious points of frustration involved. All the java apps I've written use something called Thinlet to handle the GUI. I hate writing UI code and all that and Thinlet does a good job and it's small. So long as I compile to 1.1 they work on the Zaurus just fine (though I expect that my recent save and load functions won't work). Awesome, we'll have to share what we know via email.

... We now return to our regularly scheduled topic ...

Dude, I've got an Amiga 1200 set up and running here at the house.

I'm checking out Thinlet now. It looks pretty cool. I saw it a while back and kinda dismissed and forgot about it. It has come a LONG way since.

I've written a combat manager for CODA LOTR in Java. It was a bit of work but a lifepath tool for BW would definitely be a lot of work. Also wrote a combat manager for SILCORE in Objective C just to learn a little bit and a few other tools for SILCORE in Java. I tend toward combat management and skill resolution systems to help me out as GM but full blown character creation apps are a whole different animal. Definitely not impossible but a lot of work trying to fit the project in between "real" work.

[skandall]

Dude, I've got an Amiga 1200 set up and running here at the house.

I'm stunned. That's awesome that you're still using yours. I've got an A4000 with a 68060, Cybervision64, and an Emplant (the Mac hardware emulator). I don't have a big enough appartment to have my Mac and Amiga both set-up, but I hook it up every couple months and remember the old days. Recently the PC and MAC have really been getting on my nerves with all these stupid "busy" pointers. It was so nice that the Amiga was basically a Real Time OS because it never did that crap. Instant response to user input was one of the Amiga features I miss the most. It was also pretty sweet to have a Mac emulator running on one screen with Bryce rendering a scene while I switch to the Amiga and work on another 3d scene in Tornado 3d and it just did it all so smooth. Sigh...

I can't wait until I can afford to be a new Amiga One and AmigaOS 4.0 (it's in open beta and is scheduled for release this year I think).

Oh yeah, I emailed bwd.jar and thinlet.jar to Luke so perhaps it'll be available on the wiki soon.

[Anteruo]

I can't wait until I can afford to be a new Amiga One and AmigaOS 4.0 (it's in open beta and is scheduled for release this year I think).

Oh yeah, I emailed bwd.jar and thinlet.jar to Luke so perhaps it'll be available on the wiki soon.

I had a 4000 with Emplant, Video Toaster and Flyer but sold the whole thing to a TV station. I keep the 1200 around for nostalgia sake and because it's still so slick. And keeping that 68030 accelerator card humming kinda makes it feel like a great old car.

With all this reminiscing, I'm being drawn to the notion of making a Lifepath handler for character creation. Instead of this comprehensive framework to handle everything end to end, why not look at a more agile approach such as handling one lifepath at a time and dynamically looking up linking LPs so that a player can branch off as he chooses. Then it would work for custom lifepaths converted from the wiki and most likely even Burning Empres.

I haven't put too much thought into it other than as I type this but it might be cool. If there's an intellectual property issue, maybe it could be developed and put online as a web app.

[Trismegistus]

My next java app is for Cyberpunk v3.

Another CP fan!

We just finished a CP v3 game for which I made the most ridiculous Excel character dossier EVAR. I didn't get around to putting every single thing in it, but, it's pretty extensive. There are drop downs and autopopulations for weapons, cybertech, altcults...with as much autocalculation as possible, especially for armor, where layers are a matter of doing a bunch of tiresome calculations. It's not something I'd post for the general public, but if you can find use for it, I'd be glad to send it to you, even if it's just to extract data (lists of cyberware, weapons, etc.). Shoot me a PM with your email addy if you want a copy.

Cheers!

[skandall]

Update...

No idea if it's been posted. I'm sure Luke is a busy man and it'll get done by someone.

Also, I seem to be having the most unusual problem with my browser when trying to send PMs to people. I'd sent a couple of you PMs but come to think of it, I'm fairly certain that they didn't actually go. I'll have to rack my brain until I remember to whom I was PMing and re: What?

Oh yes, less than 24 hours to go until I run Burning Wheel (UaSS) at the Endgame mini-con in Oakland. It's only a 4 hour session, but I'm proud to say that my game is full unlike some of the other more well known games. I'd love to attribute this fact to what a great GM I am, but I known all too well that the game just sells itself (that and the fact that several people asked me to run it). Speaking of selling, I talked a game store patron into buying my local stores last remaining copy of BWR. Again, the book sells itself and it wasn't my ability as a salesman. I tried that once and learned that while I'm very informative, I'm just too darn honest to close the sale, so I got laid off. Funny how no one wanted to buy a plasma TV from me after I listed the formats down side. Failed career attempts aside, I'll be sure to put my bwd java app through it's paces tomorrow night. I may as well since I'll have to take the laptop since I'd like to use the revised version of UaSS and I wasn't able to buy the printed version nor will I be able to print one out before tomorrow. Wow, I am rambling on and on. Okay, back to preparing for the game.

[Durgil]

Update...

No idea if it's been posted. I'm sure Luke is a busy man and it'll get done by someone....
I believe Luke and a few of the others from BWHQ went to Dex Con for the weekend.