Designer's Diary Articles

[Viking2054]

If these are going to be web pages here on the LWD site and not RTF documents downloaded with RW updates or some other way, then why not just add in some hyperlinks from the easy to understand to the more technical document? Just explain that we neophyte users don't have to follow the links, unless we want to be bored to tears. I'd split up the technical detail articles though so they are targeted to the specific part of an article from which the hyperlink came from.

[rob]

Originally Posted by BigSkyRPG

I'm disappointed; Rob promised us long and wordy.

I promised long. And I think I delivered. I hope it wasn't "wordy", since that means I rambled a lot, and I tried hard to make sure that didn't happen.

[kbs666]

Originally Posted by rob

I promised long. And I think I delivered. I hope it wasn't "wordy", since that means I rambled a lot, and I tried hard to make sure that didn't happen.

That wasn't long. We all read RPG books for fun.

[Bidmaron]

I think you are hitting the mark with what you are doing and wouldn't worry about a two-level approach. The folks that expect this to be easy are not going to be (or won't remain after a brief flirtation as) your customers. Those who try it and complain because it doesn't read their mind and spew out a complete realm are not your target audience. GMs who will use this know world building is HARD and do not expect that a tool to do what they envision is something their pre-schooler can sit down at and immediately employ (not saying there shouldn't be an effort to make the features approachable, of course).

And the ADD generation is not your audience. If a long article scares someone off, they are never going to sit down and build a realm. They might buy RW to use content, but they won't use most of your program and will likely never go to the manuals, the sites, or anywhere but here to ask questions like "I searched here but I cannot find my problem - how do you create a new topic?"

[Mystic Lemur]

So, I noticed in Designer Diary #3 that the statblocks presented at the bottom of topics does not use the "Statblock" snippet type. Could you elaborate on why this is considered a best practice?

[Farling]

Originally Posted by Mystic Lemur

So, I noticed in Designer Diary #3 that the statblocks presented at the bottom of topics does not use the "Statblock" snippet type. Could you elaborate on why this is considered a best practice?

An additional click is required to see the data, and you then have to navigate back to the original topic to continue with that particular encounter.

[Bidmaron]

So what is official use of stat block?

[Pollution]

Deleted

[daplunk]

Originally Posted by Bidmaron

So what is official use of stat block?

Never used it...

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Bidmaron

So what is official use of stat block?

I actually use it for the sole reason that it is hidden. I put the "important" stuff from a statblock/NPC into individual snippets in the article/topic. Then I past the full statblock into the statblock snippet. This allows me "IF" I need something to get to the full information. But 99% of the time I don't need it as I have another tool that runs my combat (not-HL). This allows me to have the information I think is important at a glance or "ALL" the information a click away if I need it.

So in that way I like it.