- Joined
- 20-Jun-2003
- Messages
- 2,010
- Reaction score
- 160
- Age
- 51
- Lumina
- 430,927
- Gender
- Female
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85/85
EP
79/80
For years, darn near decades now, ever since I first began role playing on forums, and administering SMF (Simple Machines Forum) in particular, I've dreamed of created a complete role playing module add-on for the SMF software. Back in 2006, under version 1.x of SMF I had made significant progress working on this dream, learning both MySQL and PHP with a bit of HTML and CSS along the way. I was nearly 80% complete, when a major episode of suicidal depression drained the motivation out of me.
This morning, I thought about working on some characters I've created for an anime fiction I've recently started working on. The story is currently on hiatus, because I don't have the characters as fully developed as I need them to be. So I thought, Okay, I'll make these characters into role playing characters. That will give me some additional details that I need so I can continue working on my fictional story, and give me some characters to role play with... assuming I find other like-minded people who are interested in playing as characters with that special anime flair.
I first figured I could just create the characters, then I thought, well, it would be easier to role play and for clarity (to see who is doing the speaking/acting) if the messages are broken apart by character. Meaning that each character now has a separate account. So, I'd need a Sub Accounts modification. Which currently doesn't exist for SMF. But I could make one, where essentially, it's a modified clone of the Members database table, and a Controlling Member field is added, meaning that a selection box could be added to the form a member adds a post in to select which character is currently active. That seems easy enough.
But then, what if I want to use the same character in different games? Or even construct the same character in a different game system? I mean, already knowing the background and composition of a character greatly simplifies the work that's needed in generating a character-- all you'd have to do is fill in the correct numerical stats, and apply that specific game's vocabulary to the character. Doing this would speed up learning new and exciting role playing games!
And because I'm using a copy of the Members database table, there's already a slot for avatar and other data that would enable that character to stand out. I would just tweak the base templates to include the Master Member for each character. What this would look like, I'm really not sure yet, but I'm open to idea.
Furthermore, working on this dream would get me back into relearning PHP, software development in general, and might actually create a new job for me, allowing me to leave the warehouse hellscape that I've found myself trapped in for the better part of a decade.
Features:
Anyway, these are my thoughts for right now. I know this is going to take quite a while to produce, and I'll probably end up adding features as I think of them, or they are suggested. One enhancement I just thought of was that in my original modification, I was building a template editor, that allowed players to create character sheets using drop down lists for Skills, Features, Flaws, Spells, etc. The idea was to eventually add all the data from the various books into the Modification database and allow Game Masters to select which source books they wanted to allow in a game. That may be something I'll consider, but it's on a very far back burner. Not to mention all the potential copyright issues that would arise. But you'd still have to own the source books to even know what to look for when building a character. I'll think about, just not today.
This morning, I thought about working on some characters I've created for an anime fiction I've recently started working on. The story is currently on hiatus, because I don't have the characters as fully developed as I need them to be. So I thought, Okay, I'll make these characters into role playing characters. That will give me some additional details that I need so I can continue working on my fictional story, and give me some characters to role play with... assuming I find other like-minded people who are interested in playing as characters with that special anime flair.
I first figured I could just create the characters, then I thought, well, it would be easier to role play and for clarity (to see who is doing the speaking/acting) if the messages are broken apart by character. Meaning that each character now has a separate account. So, I'd need a Sub Accounts modification. Which currently doesn't exist for SMF. But I could make one, where essentially, it's a modified clone of the Members database table, and a Controlling Member field is added, meaning that a selection box could be added to the form a member adds a post in to select which character is currently active. That seems easy enough.
But then, what if I want to use the same character in different games? Or even construct the same character in a different game system? I mean, already knowing the background and composition of a character greatly simplifies the work that's needed in generating a character-- all you'd have to do is fill in the correct numerical stats, and apply that specific game's vocabulary to the character. Doing this would speed up learning new and exciting role playing games!
And because I'm using a copy of the Members database table, there's already a slot for avatar and other data that would enable that character to stand out. I would just tweak the base templates to include the Master Member for each character. What this would look like, I'm really not sure yet, but I'm open to idea.
Furthermore, working on this dream would get me back into relearning PHP, software development in general, and might actually create a new job for me, allowing me to leave the warehouse hellscape that I've found myself trapped in for the better part of a decade.
Features:
- Create a way to enable the role playing modification to specific Boards. This will enable the following for specified Boards only.
- Create a drop down selection list of created Characters that only the Player (master member) has access to use (and modify).
- Create a function that allows for the rolling of dice and securely locks dice rolls to prevent fraud (when editing posts)
- Create a battle function that Characters can resolve disputes with each other -- whether this is for actual game play purposes or just for fun, has yet to be determined.
- Modify the Enabled Posts to display a customized avatar and Stat Essentials for the Character's Post (nested inside of the Master Member's post). This also allows for multiple characters to be called into action within a single Member Post -- to prevent unnecessary duplicate member postings.
- Creating a Game Master (GM) function that allows a GM insert action results in between messages if need be. I'm not sure if I want to include these inside of the Master Member's post or as a separate post yet.
Anyway, these are my thoughts for right now. I know this is going to take quite a while to produce, and I'll probably end up adding features as I think of them, or they are suggested. One enhancement I just thought of was that in my original modification, I was building a template editor, that allowed players to create character sheets using drop down lists for Skills, Features, Flaws, Spells, etc. The idea was to eventually add all the data from the various books into the Modification database and allow Game Masters to select which source books they wanted to allow in a game. That may be something I'll consider, but it's on a very far back burner. Not to mention all the potential copyright issues that would arise. But you'd still have to own the source books to even know what to look for when building a character. I'll think about, just not today.
