Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[robert4818]

This is just a thought running through my head. To me, as a consumer, it seems like a wonderful thing, on the writing side, its liable to be a headache. However, I figured I'd toss it out. It's also an idea that applies to more than just Savage Worlds Games.

For me, I HATE flipping through multiple books just to find everything available for "one thing" in a game. Whether this is Edges, Hindrances, arcane powers, monsters, or even setting information, I hate having a pile of books/pdfs that, over time, become more disorganized. Instead, what I would like to see, is a game that gets published in a Quasi Database style. The idea is that with each new expansion/book release the Database gets updated, with things being filtered into their respective areas.

For the most basic version of this idea, look at the classic Help Files from windows office. For a more complete idea, continue reading.

If anyone has used Hero Lab, its basically a database tool, but designed for a different purpose than the E-publishing concept. When a new Pathfinder book is released, new feats are simply added to the Feat List, new spells to the spell list, classes to the class list, etc. You don't have to have 5 books in front of you to have all the various options when creating a character. Its all organized in one simple format.

The E-publishing idea would work in much the same way, only instead of being designed for creating characters, its designed for reading the various information.

For example, the main book comes out, and its Chapters are generally the main categories of a database already. When a new book is released, instead of staying separate, the various parts of the book are chopped up into chunks and added to the the various categories already present (or creating a new category if something new comes in).

To use a Hellfrost example, You have some very basic setting information in the main book. The Gazateer adds more information, and the the region guides add even more. In the database, each release of this information would update/add to the specific setting information in the database. Unless you checked a box highlighting a specific expansion, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an expansion and the core material.

I think this sort of E-publishing, while hard, would add tremendous benefit to anyone owning a game that continues to expand over time.
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Aperture Science:
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[ogbendog]

I do recall playing deadlands classic having hte big pile of books.

But usually any given game in SW requires the core book, and a setting book. Plus maybe a companion.

d20 type games to release many books for a game/setting, it can get out of hand.

The only time you'd get that in SW I think would be if you are building your own setting / game, and are allowing edges / etc from multiple other books.

But even w/out the multiple book problem, such a database could be useful for finding things. I could see, for example, a publisher allowing anyone who buys a pdf to access a database section of their website.

[robert4818]

[jpk]

So, are you proposing a "everything in a setting" consolidator, or a pan-setting aggregator of all Savage Worlds setting rules and options?

I just want to make sure I've got the right thought in mind before I provide my knee-jerk reactions.

[robert4818]

[Cryonic]

Sounds like a horrible nightmare of a system for a writer to deal with since they not only have to consider the flow of the current document they are putting together, but where all those pieces will need to appear in the larger context of every other piece.
In other words, a massive, automated layout generator. And that's made even worse if the final display has to deal with images and such on top of all that text.
Basically each section of every document written by a company would need to be tagged and those tags would need to be organized in some way to know which chunk of data goes before/after which other chunks. And this is made more fun when materials aren't put out in a linear order.
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[jpk]

Well, the problem as I see it is that Savage Worlds is pretty much designed as two-book system: one core rule book, one setting book. Admittedly, that line gets a little blurry sometimes in Deadlands with regional rules, but that's the general outlook.

As far as a all-settings-in-one book goes, that would be a very bad idea. Not all rules work together well, or are remotely intended to do so. There's no practical way for someone to police all those possible combinations, even with a database.

Even in Deadlands, the regional special rules are exactly that: regional. They aren't necessarily intended to all knit together, either. Famine's Domain really is different than War's. And some of the Shan Fan martial artistry would be really, really out of place in a more genteel and urbane Back East game.

In short, I tend to think of it as peas, corn, and mashed potatoes. Certain combinations of those are good for some folks, and I think that also depends on the main dish and likelihood of gravy. I don't think it's worth anyone's time to try to produce a single package of those various combinations for retail sale, even if it were a seperately-portioned sort of thing. But I'm all for someone deciding they want to mix them up themselves at the table!

[robert4818]

[Kevin]

I dunno. One of the reasons I like SW is because I only need to bring one book to a game. If I need some information from one of the splat books I left at home, I can just "wing it," and the game and story aren't hurt at all.

So regarding this game, I'd cast my vote for "nay." I'd be afraid that if such a database got popular, then Savage Worlds might eventually go the way of Popular Icosahedron-Based Generic Fantasy Roleplaying Game (TM)—you know, where your three-hour play session involves two and a half hours of cross-referencing and fact checking, and half an hour of actually rolling dice.

Regarding all those other game out there that have already fallen victim to that trap? Yeah, I think that would be a great way to clean them up and possibly make them fun again.


Besides, isn't this kind of what Savagepedia already does?

[Virgobrown72]

[Thunderforge]

At the risk of turning this into a sales pitch, Wild Card Creator allows you to import the content of all your Savage Worlds PDFs and puts them into a database. Then you can choose Edges and whatnot from lists that have everything loaded for a particular setting (e.g. you can have Deadlands, The Flood, The Last Sons, and Smith & Robbards loaded, factoring out the things from SWD that aren't allowed). You can also switch to a different setting, like Hellfrost, and it will only show Hellfrost stuff. And such lists will even gray out (or optionally filter out entirely) Edges and such that the character doesn't qualify for.

Wild Card Creator is going to support PDFs from 23 different companies, including Hellfrost from Triple Ace Games. This does seem like the sort of thing that you're looking for, it's just a third party creating the database from existing PDFs (from multiple companies), rather than one company creating the database. Wild Card Creator is still a work in progress and the Kickstarter is over, but you can still back it through PayPal until it's released.

Also, I feel like I should add that absolutely you can do everything by hand (and I do myself from time to time too). But if you're making six Veteran Tier Deadlands (or even more complex, Necessary Evil) characters for a con game, having a program that handles it is godsend.
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[Cryonic]

[robert4818]

[herrozerro]

are you talking about something like WotC's DDI Compendium?

[robert4818]

[Jux]

While structuring content into database is a way forward for modern game design it can be come to be too comfortable make a complex thing out of this.

I also like that SW is light game, and the settings should have philosophy not to add many more rules. Having 500 edges in the database will add nothing for fast, furious ... you know the rest.

Perfection is not when there is nothing more to add, but nothing more to take away.

[Zadmar]

[Sitting Duck]

[Thunderforge]

[The Angle]