Organization of the documents download page

[Hywaywolf]

In another thread, I don't remember which, I posted this:

"That's why I said You with our comments. Or you could put it to a vote. Either way is fine with me. I just think that there should be one official entry for each race, class, spell list, armor, etc.. Plus anything that is a work in progress and looking for workshop style comments can go in the Houserule section until its vetted enough for the official section. There are people that come to this site who haven't been involved with the BFRPG project and who may get confused by so much content. We can still have plenty of options available, but us newbies who haven't played 25 years worth of RPGs won't have to wonder which is the "best" fit for BFRPG."

Tonight I had this exact thing happen. I've recruited a guy to join our local game (whats left of it anyway) and I met with him tonight to get things started. He had copies of the 3 different Rangers from the download page and was flummoxed by how different they were. He played for a while in the late 80's and has just recently decided to play D&D again. He was very confused by all the supplements available and how some of them seemed to be incomplete. I explained to him that this is an open source community style project and that some of the downloads were works in progress as well individual "houserule"style supplements with community input. IE, that nothing was required to play other than the core rules, but the supplements were there for people who wanted a richer store of material. He said nearly the same thing I did, that there should be better organization of the downloads page to clarify what is a completed, "official" supplements, and what is additional material provided by BFRPG users for use by anyone who would like to use it. IE, a houserule section. His comment that so much material reminded him of 3.5 made me wince.

So, am I off base here or should there be an overhaul of the downloads page. I don't know if Chris imagined so much additional excellent material when he set that page up, but I think its starting to burst at its seams I don't know what would be the best set-up, but I thought it would be a good topic of discussion.

[SmootRK]

I don't mind re-organizing the offerings a bit... so long as everything remains available and easy to locate as 'alternate options to what some consider to be "official". If under 'official races' (whatever that might mean), there might be a couple documents (for Gnomes, Half-Humans), but also a link directly over to the place where other 'more optional than that optional material appears'.

Perhaps simply, the Core Rules documents get their own page, optionally, along with some stuff like character sheets. Field Guide and Adventures get their own page, A major section (page) called Optional Material would then go in it, with all the stuff like Races & Classes, etc. At the top of each page, some basic intro could go something like "The Core Rules is all you need to play... everything else is optional and you should check with your Game Master if you should even bother with looking at this stuff"

But overall, I think the best organization would simply to be Core Rules on one download page, all other 'optionals' go on another page, so that one with little knowledge of rpgs would understand the difference between such.

[Joe the Rat]

This sounds like the simplest approach, though with the specifics on hand I might move a couple of things around. I'd put the Beginner's Essentials on the first page as well - It's just really handy.

I'd have separate sections for Races, Classes, Rules, and House Rule Compilations (Smoot's Rules and Sword & Board) on the options page (although the line between Rules and Classes gets a little blurry in places)

Two more pieces probably ought to go along with this:
1) Redirecting all of the updates links for documents to their new homes
2) An Index or 'Catalog' Document of the Supplements - someplace to look to know what each Supplement has, or reversed so you know where to look to find for a given rule/class/item. Obviously that would need regular updates.

...crap. I just volunteered, didn't I?

[Hywaywolf]

Just to be clear, I am not trying limit options. I just want to clear up some confusion for people new to BFRPG and or RPGs in general, or people like me who have returned after a long break and were turned off by all the books one needs to play modern D&D. BFRPG is only a few years old, if new submissions continue as they have been, and hopefully will continue, there will be so much material that it will be hard to sift through for us neophytes.

[Solomoriah]

The biggest issue I have with a change is the fact that so few of our products are "finished." We have a lot of very usable material that is still not really print-ready; BF2 for example. The room descriptions in the last section are pretty sketchy, but any halfway experienced GM would just make them up as he went along. I don't want to "demote" such works by giving them second-rate listings.

I've been thinking that a categorical downloads section which looks like the Dragonsfoot.org downloads area might be the way to go.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if someone were to go through and identify works that should be marked "Playtest" or "Unfinished" which aren't so marked now.

[jackel]

I'll chime in with my 3 cents worth. I'm a returning player of 20 years. I was a little overwelmed to the amount of content for a free game, but that's one of the reasons I chose BF. Now I do think the content should be broken up into differant sections or web pages. Maybe divide it up into a getting started and what we are working page. I agree with joe, I think there needs to be an index page listing all the files and the newest release number. What I don't want to see though is everything so hard to find that dms go elsewhere for content. Does that make sense?

[Joe the Rat]

The biggest issue I have with a change is the fact that so few of our products are "finished." We have a lot of very usable material that is still not really print-ready; BF2 for example. The room descriptions in the last section are pretty sketchy, but any halfway experienced GM would just make them up as he went along. I don't want to "demote" such works by giving them second-rate listings.

I've been thinking that a categorical downloads section which looks like the Dragonsfoot.org downloads area might be the way to go.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if someone were to go through and identify works that should be marked "Playtest" or "Unfinished" which aren't so marked now.

I don't think we were talking so much about "Perfect" or "Needs Work," just reducing the index panic of the collective Supplements on the Downloads page.
I'm also thinking that this would give you a chance to preface each block with a little information on content and intent. Little things like recommending players not read too much of the modules (lest they spoil the surprise), or that the Supplements are all optional rules which may or may not be used in a given campaign, your GM is the final arbiter, etc. We say it here all the time, but it might not hurt to spell it out for the folks poking around for the first time.