The threads on XML Schemas below (that I just recently discovered) made me come out of lurking and chip in my 2¢. Let me know if this is of general interest and you want more detail.
As any software engineer playing Rolemaster (RMSS in my case), I had various runs at writing my own character generation software (somehow the system brings this out in people...), starting with, but not stopping at, an Excel Workbook of truly epic proportions. As many before (and after) me, eventually I got lost in optionalities, house rules, companions, even more exceptions to even more rules, arbitrary GM rulings, all the things that brake a well-designed, clean, straightforward software just as you would snap a twig.
So, some time during the last century, I took a huge step back, thought hard about what I really needed, and decided to write a character sheet generation software instead of a character generation software (Planning on reviving our old RMSS group, this time with me GMing for the first time *shiver*, I just did a major overhaul of the software, switching to XML for data storage, which ties this post in with the other threads). So what’s the big difference? Essentially, my software only aids in preparing and typesetting a character sheet resembling those printed in the appendix of the RMSS Standard rules. The actual process of character generation and development is still done using pen & paper, which suits me just fine, as we never did use computers during actual play.
The system would, for example, just record the number of ranks you have in each category or skill, not caring where each rank came from (Adolescence, a training package, a gift from the GM). It would know about development costs of categories, since they ought to be filled in on the official sheets from the book, but it would not know about TP costs. In short, it would not keep track of the entire character development process, just record its end result. That’s basically what a handwritten sheet does for you, while saving you a lot of arithmetics and with a much neater look to it.
So back than I sat down and asked myself, “What is the minimum set of information, rules and tables I need in order to print a character sheet just as is proposed in the appendix of the RMSRâ€, and “Out of this, what is dynamic info actually chooseable by the player, and what is fixed by the rules, and only, if at all, tuneable by the GMâ€.
The end result in the current version, and what might probably interest others, is a very slim and crisp XML Schema for character information storage, that contains everything you need to know about a character to typeset a character record sheet for playing, and nothing more.
Perhaps this (finally making my point) might be a thing to consider when you talk about defining a standard format for storing and sharing character information.
Let me know what you think.
