scsimodem
2009-09-18, 04:43 PM
I'm a computer science student currently in my senior year, and I had a great idea for a senior design project. Even if it's not picked as a candidate for a graded project, I'm still interested in pursuing it.
Right now, I see several people talking about how difficult it is to run 4th edition combat in non-traditional games, meaning that unless all the players are in the same room with a grid in front of them, it's hard to run battle. My idea was to make a program that would track battle positioning, along with having highlighted movement ranges, opportunity attacks and a point and click interface for targeting with abilities, both single target and AoE. It would also feature a standard, real time chat window for communication and have one user designated as an administrator (the DM) who can override rules and spawn additional combatants, among other things.
So, my question is, if I made said software, would anybody here want to use it? Would you be willing to pay for such a thing (if it features 4th ed rules, WotC will want a cut)? How much would you pay? If it came with D&D Insider (like their character builder does), would you be more likely to join? What would you think if it were integrated with the character creator (allowing you to import the character sheets so you don't have to edit your abilities)?
Since it features a 'DM' designation, I can, of course, make it minimalistic and feature no rules (to stay out of copyright territory), but the fewer rules programmed directly into the software, the harder it will be to use.
Right now, I see several people talking about how difficult it is to run 4th edition combat in non-traditional games, meaning that unless all the players are in the same room with a grid in front of them, it's hard to run battle. My idea was to make a program that would track battle positioning, along with having highlighted movement ranges, opportunity attacks and a point and click interface for targeting with abilities, both single target and AoE. It would also feature a standard, real time chat window for communication and have one user designated as an administrator (the DM) who can override rules and spawn additional combatants, among other things.
So, my question is, if I made said software, would anybody here want to use it? Would you be willing to pay for such a thing (if it features 4th ed rules, WotC will want a cut)? How much would you pay? If it came with D&D Insider (like their character builder does), would you be more likely to join? What would you think if it were integrated with the character creator (allowing you to import the character sheets so you don't have to edit your abilities)?
Since it features a 'DM' designation, I can, of course, make it minimalistic and feature no rules (to stay out of copyright territory), but the fewer rules programmed directly into the software, the harder it will be to use.