From: [n--ur--m] at [u.washington.edu] (Neuromancer) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc Subject: EDChar/Win v0.9 Released On the Public! Date: 14 Aug 1994 06:03:19 GMT Hello all! I just U/L'ed EDChar/Win v0.9 to: wuarchive.wustl.edu::/pub/msdos_uploads/Earthdawn/edchw_09.zip For those who don't know, it's a Character Generator for Earthdawn. It requires Win3.1+ (sorry) and is kinda sluggish. It is a pre 1.0 product, so don't be too harsh on it. I'll post the readme.txt below. EDChar/Win 0.90 An Unauthorized Earthdawn Character Generator for Windows 3.1. EDChar/Win v0.90 is a freeware windows program used for creating a character for FASA's Earthdawn FRPG. It was written in Microsoft Visual Basic v3.0, and was my first attempt at writing a Visual Basic program. Not bad, I think, for my first attempt at a new language and a new enviornment. As this is a sub v1.0 product, there are certain limitations. (Note: If this kind of talk bores you, just skip to the Installing section.) The following was fixed from v0.75 1. The Lift/Carry amounts were reversed. (It ain't my fault, they're reversed in the book to!) 2. You no longer have to go about the reload three step to get your characters reloaded, it now recalcs all values correctly. On the down side, I put all the update routines in the Paint message, so it is a tad more sluggish. Gotta love windows! 3. You can now choose the Random method to create your attributes, or use the point allocation method. (Many thanks to Christian Klass <[c h ribeag] at [w250zrz.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE]> for the suggestion.) 4. The Other Data section now takes ratial mods into account. Oops. (Thanks to Christian again!) 5. Formatted ASCII Save file that you can print out for character sheets. It doesn't have all the stuff from a normal character sheet, but it has everything that EDChar/Win does for you in one place. It also has a handy little tag to tell your GM that you didn't just whip it up manually. The Real Soon Now List: 1. Formatted graphical printouts. Not very fun. 2. Unlimited Disciplines chosen from a list box. (This is a lot more work than it sounds like. ) Oops....I realeased the wrong version, he he... The following was fixed from the ill concieved v0.5: 1. Before, whether a talents required karma bared an uncanny resemblance to whether it required an action or not. No more. 2. It would crash whenever you would hit cancel from a file access screen. Limitations of this version: 1. It can only create first circle characters. 2. Magic Using Character aren't limited to the Robe Embroidery Skill 3. It won't work in 640x480 resolution, the main menu is too big. 4. Only the Disciplines in the original ED Manual are included (none in the Dinizens or Companion books. 5. The Human talent of Virsitility is not added to the Discipline section so you must be honest (for now) about applying Talent Ranks if you end up making a human. 6. Doesn't include the Action Dice, only Steps. --IMPORTANT-- 8. Please, please, please don't use a " (double quote) in any of the input fields. If you do, you won't be able to re-load them. Features: 1. Blocks out illegal Race/Discipline or Discipline/Attribute choices. 2. Allows you to forget page flipping through the ED book. 3. Quick, easy, point and click interface. 4. Allows saving and loading of files. 5. Allows you to add your own Artisan/Knowledge skills. Future plans: 1. Printing of formatted Character sheets. 2. Ability to add/created new disciplines. 3. More Virsitility options. 4. Help file. :-> Far Future: 1. Keep track of character through spending of Legend Points. 2. A lockable legend point system, so GM's can give characters legend points w/o fear of characters doing it themselves. 3. Character sketch tool to print out on sheet. 4. Anything else I or you can think of! Adding Skills: There are two files included with EDChar/Win called ARTISAN.EDW and KNOWLED.EDW. These files contain the Artisan and Knowledge skills that can be chosen from. To add your own skills, simply edit the file in your favorite text editor (TM). The first number is the number of skills in the file. To add your own skill, just increase that number and add your skill to the end in quotes. Note: If you change the order in which the skills are in, any saved character will come up with different skills. (i.e. I keep track of what skills are chosen in a static array with a number of elements equal to the number in the beginning of the file, and only save the element number.) Installing: Simple, put all these files on a floppy or a temporary directory on your hard drive, then run SETUP.EXE from windows. Follow the instructions. Real Simple. Contacting Me: I'm on the net, just mail me at [n--ur--m] at [u.washington.edu.] Easy, hu? Please put EDChar in the subject line somewhere. Other: If you want, I'll send you the program I used to create the Discipline lists. All it does is let you choose the statistics of the Talents available to each discipline. You could use this to created your own talents, although it's rather limited. --Neuromancer [n--ur--m] at [u.washington.edu] Just a thought... \ Atari Jaguar / Never underestimate the power --Neuromancer \ IBM's OS/2 / of those destined to fail, as [n--ur--m] at [u.washington.edu] \ -------- / destiny often proves invalid. -==-