[freeroleplay] Re: Generics
- From: Per Inge Mathisen <pim@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 13:37:02 +0000 (GMT)
On Tue, 11 May 2004, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> Alternatively, you could implement all the rules mechanics in XML.
I am not sure you understand the difficulty involved. A computer game
doesn't just compute stuff, it also formats the results and display it to
the player, fitting it into the rest of the graphics of the game. It needs
to interpret the result and give it visual and audio results. For example,
hitpoints may be represented as a globe filled with red liquid. The PC
dialog may be limited in space, and can only show 10 attributes. The game
may only have 10 different sound effects applicable for spells, and must
map each sound effect to each spell.
So the more you make the game fit to the underlying rules in this way, the
more you actually implement the rules in code, and the question arises if
you can do so without your code falling in under the rules' copyright.
Can you make a computer game which reads a generic ruleset and shapes
itself to conform? Yes, it is possible. However, it adds a lot to your
work, and, the amount of extra work probably increases squared by the
genericness of the ruleset beneath. The less assumptions the coder can
make about the underlying ruleset, the more code he has to write to cover
all the possibilities.
It might be possible to write a software library which can cover several
rulesets, and games that use it, but these rulesets would have to conform
to some overall standard which says which mechanics are allowed and which
are not. This would add strict limitations to the game rules - for example
limits to the number of attribute types (attributes, skills, talents and
statuses for Generics), perhaps a limit to the number of primary
attributes, etc..
I wrote Generics intentionally to be easy to implement in a generic way in
code, trying hard to stay away from exceptions and special rules for
special situations. Both YAGS and FRINGE look somewhat good in this
regard, while something like eg AD&D 2ed would be a nightmare to include,
with all its weird idiosyncrasies.
> The XML would define all game related traits (strength, speed, etc) and
> states (dead, charmed, damage, etc) and how traits and states effect
> each other (i.e. combat rules, task resolution, etc). The computer
> library then converts these into byte/machine code (perhaps converting
> the XML into Java/C code and compiling?) allowing other programs access.
If you convert it to byte/machine code, it would still be under the open
content license. If you link it in to your software code, you probably
(and according to the FSF) make them into one work, and get licenses
conflicts.
> Perhaps it might be an idea to start an FRPGC project on exactly such a
> library? Any volunteers?
I am already working on a library for Generics. It might be interesting to
see if it could be made, uh, more generic...
- Per
PS One of the wiki links on the homepage does not work.
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