[plug] I am a genius...[warning novel ahead]

[Adam Hewitt]

Well at least I thought so when the idea came to me last night..

After a good game of AD&D last night I came home rather late and got 
into bed and I had an epiphany, and the more I thought about it the 
more I realized the implications that this would have. Of course after 
waking up this morning and rethinking the idea I realized that 1. I am 
probably the only one who will be excited about this, and 2. that the 
extended implications would only work if others are as excited as I am. 
So anyways I will let you know my idea and you can feel free to give me 
some feedback. If you are going to write me to tell me I am a tool then 
please do it off list ;)

At the end of the game of AD&D the DM gave out the experience points 
for the night which put nearly all of us up a level. This then made us 
spend about 30 minutes changing out saving throws, rolling hit points, 
spending skill points, choosing spells etc. Now the 'epiphany' that I 
had was to write a program that effectively mimicked an AD&D character 
sheet and put all of the rules in the background so that when you go up 
a level it would do the calculations and automatically adjust the 
things it can adjust (base attack bonus, XP for next level, etc) and 
put a red flag up next to the items that need user intervention 
(choosing skill points and rolling HP etc). This can then be extended 
so that at the end of the night all players "log off" and the current 
character sheet is stored on your drive as well as the DMs drive, and 
when you log in for the next game your character stats are pulled from 
the DM's drive, allowing him/her to keep track of all the players 
character sheets. The DM could then have his/her own interface which 
allows them to have a brief screen for each player, allowing the DM to 
monitor the HP and users stats in real time throughout the game. We 
could then add a messenger service as well which allows a user to send 
a message to the DM or any of the other players in private (removing 
the need for passing paper).

Now the reason that this is exciting for me is two fold, firstly I have 
been wanting to learn to program for a while now but I have never 
really found anything worth while to actually write (I can't see the 
point in learning to program by programming something someone else has 
already done, or is crap), and secondly because I am an avid AD&D gamer 
and the thought of being able to speed up the game to get more gaming 
in is always good.

Now for the "implications". This is easy, I can't do this by myself 
which means I need to get others to help me. Who better to ask than 
PLUG? But if I am going to ask for help then why not make it into an 
event and get all the interested gamers, programmers and others to get 
together and 1. Teach the gamers how to program, 2. Teach the 
programmers to game (as if you aren't already...come on tell the 
truth...nerds!) and 3. Teach the people who are neither to do both. Its 
a perfect opportunity to learn something and at the same time see a 
result at the end.

If this has already been done or you think it is stupid then please let 
me know, I tend to get grand ideas at times that others think are 
stupid. If you dont really want to join in but have some cool ideas 
about it anyways then please also contact me. I would also like to make 
this a cross platform program so if you dont want to program in linux, 
but you are able to make sure portability is viable then please also 
contact me. Anyone else wanting to complain about your mothers cooking 
or your crappy life...then get out of the house and do something, and 
then contact me!!

Cheers,

Adam.

PS. If noone is interested and one of you steal this idea and do it 
yourself, feel free but let me test it and give me some credit.