Project: Automated Custom BGB

[jp42]

In a perfect world, you'd open up an app - maybe a web app, maybe not - and you'd be presented with all of the modules and optional rules and alternate rules in the BGB. There you would check boxes next to the ones you wanted to use and leave the others unchecked. Some, mutually exclusive rules, would involve radio buttons instead of check boxes. Some would activate additional sub-rules that only pertained if the main rule was checked.

And then you'd hit submit, and a custom BGB PDF would be produced with only those rules that you opted for presented, and presented in-line, like they weren't optional at all, but just the default rules.

Somebody get on that, won't you?

[pansophy]

Hm, I don't see the point. There is a "Optional Rules Checklist" in the book that does exactly this. It also refers to the page the rule is mentioned. So for a physical or PDF book I do not see the necessity.

[jp42]

Hm, I don't see the point. There is a "Optional Rules Checklist" in the book that does exactly this. It also refers to the page the rule is mentioned. So for a physical or PDF book I do not see the necessity.

Perhaps it's different with a physical book, but with the PDF, all of the options, and all of the different locations of them, just becomes so tedious. It's not as bad as, say, GURPS with it's one hundred and eleven sourcebooks, but it would be lovely to just have all of the things that don't matter culled, and the things that do inserted where they belong.

[pansophy]

I understand what you are looking for but sadly this is not a feature of Adobe Acrobat, but would be more of a software presenting the rules. Also, it would be extremely difficult to handle page breaks and associated artwork. Not to speak of tables and text boxes.

Tables could be presented as a separate "click" within a text, same for text boxes, but in a non-PC environment (tablets) where you do not have a "window" function, these rules would look cluttered and navigation can be a nightmare.

It would be possible simply to "hide" the non-used text blocks, but then again it would look awkward with white spaces here and there and people would complain about it. Idea: replace the non used text block with optional art.

All good until you need to reference optional rules in a text. Idea here: different text blocks depending on rules selected.

It is possible to do this (I used to, in a way), but the main problem is: it needs to be an application rather than a PDF ... and printing is not possible due to layout issues.

For the current BRP PDF: if you own Adobe Acrobat (not the Reader), replace the unwanted optional rules with white boxes (comments) or place some artwork over it. After that you can print it, comments enabled.

[Chaot]

In a perfect world, you'd open up an app - maybe a web app, maybe not - and you'd be presented with all of the modules and optional rules and alternate rules in the BGB. There you would check boxes next to the ones you wanted to use and leave the others unchecked. Some, mutually exclusive rules, would involve radio buttons instead of check boxes. Some would activate additional sub-rules that only pertained if the main rule was checked.

I joked on this very board just after the rules came out that we needed to set up an itunes-like store. Core resolution mechanics are free. Want static armor? 99¢. Want random armor? 99¢ Want spell system? 99¢ for the resolution mechanics and 99¢ per each spell.

[jp42]

I joked on this very board just after the rules came out that we needed to set up an itunes-like store. Core resolution mechanics are free. Want static armor? 99¢. Want random armor? 99¢ Want spell system? 99¢ for the resolution mechanics and 99¢ per each spell.

Nice!

I agree with most of your thoughts, Pansophy, it would need to be a "print" on demand style app, that generated a dynamic document based on the selected values. I suspect you're right that the layout issues alone would be a nightmare, without some pre-planning to make the various components into standard sizes and shapes to promote the modularity of the process. The elimination of art would go a long way to helping with the process - to create a purely functional document to supplement your core rules copy.

[seneschal]

Call me a Luddite, but I want my role-playing books on parchment, laboriously copied by monks working by candlelight. (But a thorough index is always a plus.)

[pansophy]

Call me a Luddite, but I want my role-playing books on parchment, laboriously copied by monks working by candlelight. (But a thorough index is always a plus.)

Nothing really beats human skin for maps. The smell alone is worth it. Under the right conditions it will last a long time, but I think parchment is even better. Modern paper by the way is the worst you can use. It will crumble and fail after just a bit over a century - except if buried deep under waste, it seems.

[Thalaba]

Call me a Luddite, but I want my role-playing books on parchment, laboriously copied by monks working by candlelight. (But a thorough index is always a plus.)

Pshaww - you kids and your parchment! Give me good old fashioned, tried and true blobs of clay impressed with a reed stylus any day. Bake-em once and Bilgames is your uncle. House on fire? Sure, bring it on! Mould? What's that? Fading in the sun? Pages falling out? Cuuurling so you can't read the first and last sentence? This is what you so-called parchment peddlers call progress?! Bah. mumble mumble.

[Questbird]

Sounds like an epub (ebook) format would be more appropriate than pdf if want you want is functionality, searchability and readability (ie. rules reference rather than pretty pretty). I wish rpg writers would consider epub format more carefully when they publish (no doubt read other threads for more argument on this). I find my little ereader gets used more and more at my gaming table. It's a small one and less obtrusive than a pile of rulebooks, though pdfs are a bit of a pain to read on it. I do find the BGB a bit *too* weighty a tome, considering I only use half its options for any particular game, so jp42 I understand your desire for a slimmer volume.

[seneschal]

Pshaww - you kids and your parchment! Give me good old fashioned, tried and true blobs of clay impressed with a reed stylus any day. Bake-em once and Bilgames is your uncle. House on fire? Sure, bring it on! Mould? What's that? Fading in the sun? Pages falling out? Cuuurling so you can't read the first and last sentence? This is what you so-called parchment peddlers call progress?! Bah. mumble mumble.

True, but with these 300-page rulebooks you'd need a train of pack mammoths to haul your GM's manual to each gaming session.

[Nakana]

I could totally create an app that could do this. It would even be that hard.

First, I would need permission from Chaosium.

Second, I would need to know how much I would be paid.

[fmitchell]

Pshaww - you kids and your parchment! Give me good old fashioned, tried and true blobs of clay impressed with a reed stylus any day.

Writing? Are you mad? You'll ruin your memory! Put rules in poetic form -- dactylic hexameter is best -- and recite them to your players while strumming a lyre. They'll never forget.

(This isn't wholly a joke, BTW. Most people today are too busy to read even 50 pages of rules. 11 maybe, which is where BRP/CoC/RQ comes in handy. My general rule is that if I can't explain the basic rules in 10 minutes to players who haven't heard of it before, I'm not even going to try to run it.)

[sladethesniper]

Writing? Are you mad? You'll ruin your memory! Put rules in poetic form -- dactylic hexameter is best -- and recite them to your players while strumming a lyre. They'll never forget.

(This isn't wholly a joke, BTW. Most people today are too busy to read even 50 pages of rules. 11 maybe, which is where BRP/CoC/RQ comes in handy. My general rule is that if I can't explain the basic rules in 10 minutes to players who haven't heard of it before, I'm not even going to try to run it.)

Agreed.

-STS

[fmitchell]

Agreed.

About the Ten Minute Test? Rules in poetry? Dactylic hexameter? Lyres?

Sing to me, Muse, of Roleplaying Basic,

Of skilled characters and the the ten-sided dice,

which, hundred-fold, bring success or failure.