Author Topic: HARP Character Creation Helper & Reference  (Read 1596 times)

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Offline trechriron

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HARP Character Creation Helper & Reference
« on: December 04, 2018, 01:30:08 PM »
Using the Google Sheets I have concocted a character creation helper with reference. The reference only has a skill list at the moment, but I will be including a spell list in the near future.

The helper is designed to a) help you make a character faster by doing all the maths and b) acts as a handy "audit" tool for the GM to see what choices you made at character creation and each new level.

Character Creation Helper Google Drive

Any questions? Comments? Ideas? Please post them here!
Trentin C Bergeron (TreChriron)
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Offline trechriron

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Re: HARP Character Creation Helper & Reference
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2018, 01:33:10 PM »
You can make a copy by adding to your Google Drive, and then make more copies you can edit from there...
Trentin C Bergeron (TreChriron)
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Offline trechriron

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Re: HARP Character Creation Helper & Reference
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2019, 05:24:20 PM »
Anyone take a look yet? Thoughts?
Trentin C Bergeron (TreChriron)
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Offline craig

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Re: HARP Character Creation Helper & Reference
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2019, 07:27:12 PM »
I have two main thoughts about this:

1.  this doesn't do anywhere near as much as the already-existing excel and open-office spreadsheets - they do race selection and bonuses (including racial hybrids...and "monster" races & templates so GMs can create custom kobold, orc, etc NPCs), cultural skill points, professional skill points and costs, and a lot more, including printing/pdf output of character sheets.

OK, that's a relatively minor issue since this is an early version and all that stuff can be added in future....but there's a huge amount of work in just bringing this up to the same level of capability.  Work that, IMO, would have a much better return on investment if spent on making improvements to the existing spreadsheet(s).

My own fork of the Open Office version, for example, was originally written (by jdale for Excel & ported to OO by Allen Maher) for the 2004 version of HARP (so is only about 95% compatible with HARP 2013) but would take less than an hour to adjust the skills for HARP 2013, maybe a few hours to update all the spell base PP costs (and optionally delete the spells, professions, races etc from the discontinued Codex and Harpers' Bazaar and Monsters: A Field Guid etc supplements) and maybe a day or so to update the Talents.  Most of that is something I plan to do if/when I get the newer revisions of the HARP books, but there's nothing stopping anyone else from doing it - it's a few days work at most, certainly a lot less than the months of work required to finish this new google-docs version.

2. More importantly, why tie something like this to corporate spyware like google docs and google drive?

The existing spreadsheets don't require you to give up your privacy or accept their terms & conditions (including the clause that allows them to unilaterally change those terms at any time) and, in the case of the Open Office / Libre Office versions don't even require you to spend anything on software.   OO & LO don't require you to use a spyware OS like Windows 10 or Apple's iOS either, as they run on all common operating systems....you can run them on Win10 or iOS if you don't mind being spied upon, but you don't have to.

Allowing a third-party - ANY third party, including google, microsoft, amazon, apple, facebook, etc - to both have access to your documents AND control over your access to your own documents is a huge mistake, and there have been numerous incidents in recent years of access being revoked or files lost or heavy-handed "compliance" with DMCA takedown requests causing people to lose years of work.

This is particularly important as Microsoft are trying very hard to move towards a subscription model for their software, especially with their push towards Office 365 - stop paying the subscription and lose all access to your documents.  And Apple are moving steadily towards the same "walled-garden" environment with the Mac desktop and laptop computers as they have with their iphones and tablets.

and then there's the constant nagging to hand over even more of your personal information (and the just plain theft of personal information because running their code on your computer allows them to do that whether you grant permission or not), and the never-ending barrage of ads.

In short, even if this was complete and perfect and infinitely better than the excel/oo/lo spreadsheet versions, I wouldn't use it.  The price is far too high.