[Duggan]

Originally Posted by Mathias

So it sounds like you'll want to set up agent tables for the background things - even if the majority of them grant a fixed skill specialty, it sounds like there are several that allow a choice by the user from a list that's only part of the entire list of specialties in the game. That'll mean that the specialty you chose for one of your background elements gets cleaned up if you change your mind on which background to add for that category. The hassle there is that it means that each background element will end up having its own tab. The alternative would be to use gizmos and shadowing - more complex, but do-able - what it would look like to the user is that they'd click an edit button to open a form, and then select the specialty for that background on the pop-up form. That's how SR5 handles its lifestyle modules.

Hmm... So one for Sophont Type, one for Background, one for Command Package? That doesn't really fit in with how I'd like things to work, but it could be workable. I guess I'd use the additional space to provide descriptive text and/or an image.

I'm guessing that the form would probably work a lot like the existing gizmo I have to pick Specialties (is it just me, or is it hard to not spell that as "speciality"? I know the Savage World files have that spelling problem) for each skill?

So how permanent are these specialty removals, and how permanent are the additions from cards? And if you get one removed, can you then replace it with something else?

Almost all of the changes are permanent. There are a few cases of temporary skill bonuses or penalties, but I figure most GCs can just make their own notes. I'm building this more for building and storing characters. Honestly, I'm half tempted to just leave skills and specialties modifiable when not in Character Creation and let players handle themselves. In an ideal world, I'd tag it into the current Journal entry so that there's a history of changes, but that's a stretch goal kind of thing. And I think I'd have to modify the form to show and hide the incrementers so that they properly handle the lack of limits after creation.

Since you have a mix of specialties chosen by the user in tables and specialties that are bootstrapped as a fixed choice from a background, plus ones gained as advancements, I don't think having the user actually delete the specialty pick is the right solution, and I'm not sure what Savage Worlds is doing - what you explained doesn't sound like a good solution. I think the best option here is a tag that gets assigned to the removed specialties, which is then checked by the list expressions in the various tables where specialties are displayed, and any tagged specialties are skipped. Then, in the original table where the specialty was added, instead of hiding it, you use the position script for that template to change the styles, and make it look disabled. The result will be that when the user looks at their summary panels or printed character sheet, the removed specialties will not be shown.

Hmm... and I'm guessing that the "deleted" ones would then be reavailable for adding, and would instead clear the tag. Were it not for that there are a few non-unique Specialities, I'd be tempted to just start adding all Specialties to all characters and just mark them as not picked just yet.

The company holidays are only Christmas day and New Years day, and this year, I only decided to use my time off for the days before and after Christmas. So I'll be signing off in about half an hour and then I'll be back on Thursday.

Regardless, thank you for your help. Over two years I've been plugging at this off and on...