Intro:
Many moons ago PCgen was used by everyone in the campaign I ran to create and track their D&D characters. When I started the next campaign PCgen had left such a bad taste in MY mouth for various reasons that I decided not to use it for myself. Apparantly nobody else did either for without ME to have a copy of it on my computer all my players felt it wasn't worth the bother to do so for themselves at home. It's probably just as well since I then discovered that with software to assist them they had completely forgotten how to level-up characters on their own. They couldn't even make level-based changes to BAB and saves without software to do it for them. Talk about a crutch!
Anyway, that was YEARS ago. Not until I recently started looking at HeroLab have I even thought about using software for this again. PCgen was THAT negative of an experience! Comments here got me thinking about it yet again and PCgen in particular. I went to the website and my knee-jerk responses follow:
As I personally see it, a character generator for D&D, regardless of what its intended or hoped-for capabilities are for "power users", should require no more knowledge or intuition than the rules present in the PH itself and a blank paper character sheetfor any given user to start it up and begin making a character. After the program is started a user should be able to start creating an SRD character with the very next mouse click or key press. I should should be able to proceed to build this character RIGHT NOW, not after reading software documentation of any kind. If it's ABSOLUTELY necessary that I learn how & why the software does something arcane & computer-ey before I can proceed then the first thing I see should be a simple, clear, written tutorial, walkthrough, or wizard button that can take me through the initial steps in a simple fashion - with another option to skip it and proceed right to the intricacies of customizing the software to my personal ends.
Maybe this is just my own personal POV, but my understanding is that you are first and foremost attempting to sell ANY user on the convenience of your product - the ability to use your software INSTEAD of rulebooks and paper to build a character. The moment that you require users - ANY users - to have to "learn" your software before they can procede, to hunt for anything that a core rules character needs as part of the character creation process then you're already failing. For example the need to load "datasets" should be left for those who need something beyond the SRD. The need to even understand the concept of datasets should be left for when the user says, "Okay, now I need something BEYOND the core rules."
When I first think about possibly using PCgen the website that comes up should be GEARED to showing me AS A USER what it can do for me and convincing me to use it. The FIRST thing I see should be a nice, friendly button or link to download the most recent general release version with the very next click. I should NOT HAVE TO GO LOOKING FOR IT - not even if it requires clicking a tab marked "downloads". If you insist that I DO go to "Downloads first then it should be the FIRST thing I see there. It should be obvious RIGHT THERE what the link is to start that download. Put the reference information about the download BELOW the link.
The second thing I see on the home page should be a nice, freindly link or button that will SHOW me basics of what PCgen looks like and how it's used. It should convince me with text AND some basic screenshots that it is more comprehensive but also EASY TO USE - or at least easier than your next closest competitor. SELL your software to me even if it IS free. PCgen's website looks and feels like reading stereo instructions. It's dry and lifeless and as a potential new USER I do not need or even want to see information about the ongoing PROJECT when looking for information about the PRODUCT. Information for project participants and potential users should be quite seperate and/or the assumption should always be that I am a user, not a participant. Now maybe that doesn't work for your project webpage but as a potential new user I can DEFINITELY tell you that your project webpage doesn't work for ME.
One of the things I remember from several years ago when I last looked at/used PCgen is that I needed to go get java-related software in addition to PCgen. That meant that I had to go digging around, bringing myself up to date on just what the hell a JRE (?), etc. was and where I was supposed to get it in order to make PCgen run. Near as I can tell that has not changed. So, right up there next to the PCgen version of the "Easy Button" should be DIRECT links (or as direct as is allowable) to whatever Java software I need to install - and then instructions on how to intall it all since clearly there is no PCgen installer that will actually do these things FOR me. All in all, though this may be unavoidable for YOU it is yet another stumbling block for ME, your potential new user. You should be moving heaven and earth to eliminate these barricades for me or at least making them moronically easy to get over.
And then there's bug reporting. While it's useful to have users reporting bugs so that you can provide ever-better software for them IT IS NOT THE USERS JOB. When a user has to report a bug it's a FAILURE of your project. Now one bug is seldom going to stop anybody, but if you feel compelled to make bug reporting a feature of your software what kind of message are you sending to me? It's not a message that I have nothing to worry about in choosing PCgen over something else (including books and paper). How many bugs am I potentially looking at here? I'm NOT a beta-tester or a programmer - I'm the potential USER. Bugs should be the last thing I EVER have to deal with.
Now just one of the above elements won't likely stop anyone from trying PCgen - but what about two of them? More? These are the sorts of things that CUMULATE when you start dealing with PCgen and it is this kind of cumulative list that makes PCgen seem more like a PAIN IN THE ASS to use than the ANSWER to my character generation and tracking issues.
I'm pretty sure that I, personally, am never going to turn to PCgen again until a LOT of those cumulative issues are resolved and I just don't see that happening in the reasonable future. PCgen is by no means a bad product! But I find it just as easy to use books and paper as even think about the bother of dealing with PCgen again.
