Introduction
Gameslave is a tool to help players and GMs of Dungeons and Dragons(tm)
3.5E manage the data associated with the game they are playing.
It is very suitable as an aid during gameplay, or to easily create
characters and calculate their stats between sessions. It mainly
targets dungeon masters who want to produce stat blocks for monsters and NPCs,
and to that end it is less strict and fussy and tries to
allow you create characters as much 'all in one go' as possible.
Why you want gameslave:
- Speed - gameslave stores all files in a high-performance
database
that allows it to have an unlimited number of books loaded without
degrading performance. If you're as frustrated with PCGen's
performance as I was, you'll be very happy to use gameslave.
- Flexibility - gameslave uses the Groovy scripting language to
implement the rules for feats and items, so far more can be added
and customized without changing the source code.
- Web Interface - Use your tabbed browsing to multitask between
characters. Use browser search to find what you need in long
lists!
- Non-strict Editors - No, you don't have to choose an alignment in
order to select a class. Invalid selections are simply flagged as
warnings - finally you can just make the character in any order, and
worry about correctness later (assuming you even care). Dont feel like
fleshing the skill points out over all the levels? Dump'em into level
1, it'll still work fine!
- Smart storage model - instead of storing current attributes, it
stores the history. That way you can go back and change things about
your character and the calculations will always be correct (attributes,
for example).
- On-line Rules Editing - Type in the descriptions that are not
distributed with the program yourself; no ugly text files to wade
through!
- Stat Block Display - The output looks like a statblock from the
Monster Manual, including descriptions of all the special qualities and
abilities (if available). A life-saver for absent-minded GMs like
myself.
- Shortcuts - I've tried to add useful shortcuts wherever I think of
something handy. For example, when viewing a Race entry for a monster,
there's a quick form to instantly change the number of racial hit dice,
allowing you to make a more advanced monster with a few clicks and
keystrokes.
Status/Roadmap
The majority of features are working - gameslave is useful for me right
now.
The next steps for me are:
- Create a war file and executable installer for distribution
- Create a default database suitable for distribution (e.g. remove
copyrighted material)
- Write documentation and add it to the distribution
- Add all open content items, spells, feats, classes, races, etc. to
the default database
- Polish the user interface, replacing the really long lists with some
kind of dynamic javascript doohickey, and eliminating some cases
where you have to 'Save and Continue Editing' in order to finish
your work (e.g. when a feat or class has a parameter).
Screen shots
Click here
to view the screenshots on sourceforge.
Help Wanted
I'm about ready to start a GURPSv4 campaign and a Fusion campaign, so
I've gotta roll those rules into here, too. If you want to help take
some load off by working on any of these three systems, adding to the
base database or coding in Java, contact me here.