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Designer's Diary Articles

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.
 
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?"
 
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?
 
Mystic Lemur said:
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?
Click to expand...

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 said:
So what is official use of stat block?
Click to expand...
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. :)
 
Mystic Lemur said:
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?
Click to expand...

Bidmaron said:
So what is official use of stat block?
Click to expand...

We determined that statblocks really didn't offer anything of substantive value and had some drawbacks. As mentioned above, they require the user to make extra clicks to view them, and we found that less technical users would simply click on them instead of loading them into a separate tab, which forced the user to switch back and forth and incur the loading time for changing the contents of the tab. The additional drawback is that no linking can be performed from within statblocks. By putting the statblocks in a snippet that is auto-collapsed in the topic, the information is readily accessible, doesn't require navigating away, and can be fully linked.

Based on the above, the statblock snippet type is something that is available for anyone who wants to use it, but it's not something we'll be using in official content.
 
I was confused about the statblock snippet as well, seeing that HeroLab essentially IS a statblock. Was the statblock snippet originally designed for some other type of software?
 
Not all game systems have HeroLab support.

I suspect that what Rob is getting at is that the StatBlock snippet is something that sounded good in planning.. but proved not to be quite so good as expected when actually used.
 
Right, but I was wondering if there was going to be compatibility with other types of software or it would just have been for images/blocks of text. Either way, it's a bit of a moot point. :)
 
rob said:
We determined that statblocks really didn't offer anything of substantive value and had some drawbacks. As mentioned above, they require the user to make extra clicks to view them, and we found that less technical users would simply click on them instead of loading them into a separate tab, which forced the user to switch back and forth and incur the loading time for changing the contents of the tab. The additional drawback is that no linking can be performed from within statblocks. By putting the statblocks in a snippet that is auto-collapsed in the topic, the information is readily accessible, doesn't require navigating away, and can be fully linked.

Based on the above, the statblock snippet type is something that is available for anyone who wants to use it, but it's not something we'll be using in official content.
Click to expand...

I get this. I've always been a little confused by the need to have a character topic and then a separate statblock screen for the same character. I ALSO get that sometimes you just have a one-time NPC that only shows up in one place and so they need to just show up in the topic where they "reside."

Having said that, there are a couple of other situations that I'm curious about in terms of the suggested best practices. They are...
(1) Major NPCs (which the diary and CSGs partially address), and
(2) Generic NPCs ("Monsters")

The Generic NPC category includes anything that is not unique in its identity, but ubiquitous as a category within the gaming system, in which all elements share the same statblock. Goblins in D&D, Stormtroopers in Star Wars, etc.

Two questions about these categories:

(1) Do these these types of NPCs show up as a stat block in every encounter where they appear? This seems very redundant to me - probably better to just the encounter off multiple tabs instead.
(2) Should the statblocks in the individual topics for these NPCs also appear in the Additional Details section? Or should they show up somewhere closer to the top?
 
Ransom said:
(1) Do these these types of NPCs show up as a stat block in every encounter where they appear? This seems very redundant to me - probably better to just the encounter off multiple tabs instead.
(2) Should the statblocks in the individual topics for these NPCs also appear in the Additional Details section? Or should they show up somewhere closer to the top?
Click to expand...

I think I have partially answered my own questions, now - I see that each system has statblock data for the generic NPCs/creatures/monsters, etc.

But I still have one question that I can't figure out - when you have that Important NPC (say, the Big Bad for a multi-session campaign) that has his or her own topic, where should the statistics for that NPC reside? Is there a suggested practice for that?
 
In my first 3 adventures I wrote a lot of stuff into the scenes. I will try in my next one to keep it much shorter. Just the necessary bulletpoints enough to understand the tasks at hand. The scene topics will not contain statsblocks since i use a combat tool were i load those stats. However statsblocks are added for each npc / monster. Via the participants section i could open an npc relatively quick to check his / her stats.
 
Ransom said:
I think I have partially answered my own questions, now - I see that each system has statblock data for the generic NPCs/creatures/monsters, etc.

But I still have one question that I can't figure out - when you have that Important NPC (say, the Big Bad for a multi-session campaign) that has his or her own topic, where should the statistics for that NPC reside? Is there a suggested practice for that?
Click to expand...
For an NPC like that I build a full HL portfolio and save it as snippet in the NPC's topic. I can pretty easily add it to any encounter I need from there.

For systems that don't have HL support, I'd do roughly the same thing. I'd put the NPC's full statblock in the NPC's topic.
 
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