While everyone else has answered your question quite well, in terms of the technical Perl aspect, I would like to comment on the design of your application. (This is in no way meant to imply that I know everything that you're intending on doing, nor is it meant to imply that I have The Right Way. I merely wish to offer ideas, given my package experiences.)

Have you read the Daft text adventure project thread? That contains the original brief and a lot of the suggestions and responses initially produced. It also describes the origin of the program I was intending to create, and my own background in BASIC.

The first instinct I've seen in a lot of decent programmers has been to treat Perl with less respect than they would C, Java, or any other compiled language.

What does this mean, specifically? I was under the impression that Perl was the proverbial Swiss Army Chainsaw, capable of bringing more than enough power to bear on a wide range of tasks. How do I risk making an unstable app? (On re-reading, that question sounds silly, but I can't express it better right now.)

"Why?", you might ask. Well, you talk about a dice-rolling function called dice(). Then, you talk about a modifer() function. As someone who plays D&D, these, to me, instinctively seem as if they belong in the same place. This is because they both deal with ability scores.

I humbly disagree. dice() has nothing to do with ability scores specifically, or with D&D. dice() should be relevant to Call of Cthulhu or even In Nomine, as well as to D&D. modifier(), on the other hand, deals exclusively and explicitly with a property of D&D's ability scores. Perhaps an RPG::DND::Character module is mandated, perhaps not. I would incline toward thinking 'yes' here, especially given the modular nature of 3e's rules. (The dwarven defender and the barbarian have very different special abilities utilising 90% of the same 'code'.) modifier() clearly belongs in such a module, since it is absolutely specific to D&D characters.

I'm inclined to think that the top level should know how to roll dice, since it might need to use them for explicitly defined game features (as opposed to emulation of a given rules set). However, 99% of the calls to dice() and its cousins (the functions of RPG::Dice) will indeed be made by RPG::DND::Character, Combat, etc.

I'm opposed to the idea of coin_flip as a separate function. However, if it were required, the following line could go into Dice.pm:

sub coin_flip{ ("Heads", "Tails")[dice(2)-1] }
[download]

(Something tells me I can't take an element from a constant list, in which case that would have to change.)

Apart from the difference covered by the above line, how is a coin flip different from 1d2?

Certainly your answer has got me thinking about sane package construction. However, I'm not sure where you stand on the topic - or where I stand. This is, of course, the kind of discussion I have hoped to promote by discussing my project here at PerlMonks.

Thanks again,

Tiefling the Lazy

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GAT d++ s:- a-- C++ UL P++ L++(+) E? W+(++) N+ o? K w+(--)
!O M- V? PS+ PE- Y PGP- t+ 5 X+ R+++ tv- b+++ DI++++ D+ G+ e++ h!(-) y
+?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
[download]

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