v3.0 suggestions

[Solomoriah]

You don't feel that you have good adventure-writing skills? Honestly, old-school dungeons are pretty easy... maybe you're overthinking your designs.

If you've followed along with some of my adventures as I design them, you'll realize that I start out with a map (the fun part, in my opinion) and stock it randomly courtesy of the Dungeoneer tool. Then I go over it in passes, each time revising things that don't work for me, like dragons in 10' square rooms, reclusive monsters in major passageways, and so on. I may have a special encounter or two, or specific monsters I want to feature, or even some NPC baddies in mind; even there I often use the Dungeoneer tools to generate the characters.

It's pretty much how I program as well. I start with a skeletal structure, then add bits here and there, and fix things that work badly, until I find myself with nothing significant to fix. Then it's "done."

But hey, we all have different talents.

[Urieal]

The rules are laid out how I want them, and how I want to present them, and I'm happy with them. Why would I change them now?

How can anyone argue with this?

I was going to suggest that I'd be more than happy to take the brunt of the workload.

[Urieal]

I don't think a re-working of the core rules is necessary at this time. It just wouldn't do much to advance anything. It would be cosmetic change at best, and really a change only for the sake of change.

Neither do I, I was merely suggesting formatting changes and possible rules breakouts to make it clearer for the readers. That's really it.

[Solomoriah]

The main issue with making it clearer for readers is this: Before we change anything, we should find out what the readers actually need.

Since we don't know that, how would we know what to change? Certainly, you have your preference in fonts and layout; so do I, and we disagree broadly. But are either of us typical?

You may, of course, lay out your own copy of the rules to suit yourself. If you were to submit an alternate layout to me, I'd post it and allow others to comment on it; if there were enough "yes" votes, I'd even make it available on Lulu.

[Urieal]

The main issue with making it clearer for readers is this: Before we change anything, we should find out what the readers actually need.

Aside from possibly putting up a poll (which may or may not be accurate), that would involve a fair amount of work.

You may, of course, lay out your own copy of the rules to suit yourself. If you were to submit an alternate layout to me, I'd post it and allow others to comment on it; if there were enough "yes" votes, I'd even make it available on Lulu.

That's an option I was thinking of, and I am appreciative that you are willing to allow others to draw up an alternate layout. I may do that, if for no other reason, for my own purposes (although, like you indicate, that's a helluva lotta work).

Do you have preference to the software used? I am not overly fond of the OpenOffice suite, preferring a Desktop Publishing App, like MS Publisher, for layouts. I know it's a proprietary format, but I have used publisher on several brochures, newsletters and a few small (saddle-stitched) books in the past and I am fairly comfortable with its features.

I'm a software developer by trade and I am also thinking of automating creation of some of the sections of the book, like monsters and spells, by storing relevant data in a database, then writing software to output the results using Microsoft's Interop assemblies.

[Solomoriah]

I don't actually care what software you use, although you'll have to submit your results in PDF format if you do (since I don't have the software you mention, and as a Linux user I'm not likely to get it).

[SmootRK]

My 2cents on office software:
use whatever you are comfortable with, so long as you can output to the formats that have become the norm for BFRPG... namely .pdf and .odt so that continued work can still be accomplished by those without such fancy-smanschy products such as Adobe, MS OFFICE/PUBLISHER, or other higher end (and NOT-FREE) software packages.

I really really like the Open Source mentality, whether it comes from the tools we use (software) or the game itself (released without charge or even a profit).

For what it is worth, I use Open Office exclusively (refusing to pay for MS stuff). Likewise, my browser is Firefox (but considering Chrome which I have not tried), and even my operating system is Ubuntu (linux build) so I don't pay for anything except hardware (which I tend to get as second hand or hand-me-down)... a nearly free existence.... I even compost for my own garden growing my own vegetables. I hope to get some solar panels to further remove myself from the grid. All this from a totally Capitalist-Conservative otherwise.

All that said... lets keep stuff as Open as Humanly Possible. It is not plugged as a great selling point for BFRPG, but it is an important factor to some.

[Solomoriah]

He's not going to be able to make ODT files using desktop publishing software. I'm cool with that... the original source will still be ODT, after all.

Chrome is really cool. I don't use it much, but I have several customers who do.

[SmootRK]

Chrome is really cool. I don't use it much, but I have several customers who do.

No experience with it yet. My fear is that eventually the Google people will insert advertisement or turn it overtly commercialized somehow in the future (likely in some unpredictable way)... something I don't think is at the heart of the Mozilla group of developers.

Urieal, perhaps instead of a Core 3.0 project, you might take up a personal project of 'Advanced Fantasy Role-Playing Game'... taking the core rules and adding in the stuff you like from various supplements (or your own stuff). Somebody else had started such a project but I don't think it went anywhere. In such an advanced edition, you could be free to tweak away at fonts, formats, and the like... even tinkering with the rules here and there.

Nobody's sensibilities will be offended in such an editions, and folks could use the 'real' core rules instead.

[Urieal]

Urieal, perhaps instead of a Core 3.0 project, you might take up a personal project of 'Advanced Fantasy Role-Playing Game'... taking the core rules and adding in the stuff you like from various supplements (or your own stuff). Somebody else had started such a project but I don't think it went anywhere. In such an advanced edition, you could be free to tweak away at fonts, formats, and the like... even tinkering with the rules here and there.

You know...the thing is...I really like the base rules and I certainly don't want anything more advanced. I just don't want to add anything really, except maybe a different style of organization to things like monsters (like putting the Giant Ant, Giant Bee, Giant Cave Locust...etc. into a single table listing like "Insect, Giant" instead of separate entries...the same for lycanthropes...but I see where Solomoriah chose to explicitly break those things up...and understand the reasoning there).

I might want to personally implement some of the items in the the supplements, but I don't think they belong in the core rules (except maybe for Half-Elves and Gnomes to be added by default...).

I really really like the Open Source mentality, whether it comes from the tools we use (software) or the game itself (released without charge or even a profit).

I like them too. I actually tried learning and using Scribus...but until they have in-context editing I don't think they will be able to compete with other DTP software.

My primary issues with OpenOffice are related to performance. Writer is considerably slower on my Quad Core Xeon than MS Word. I don't know why...but it is.

The reason I like Publisher is because it creates PDF files flawlessly. I don't understand how one MS Office Product (Publisher) can work so perfectly and yet MS Word can have quirks that jack up things. Writer does a good job, but once again...it's very slow on my PC.