barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Wow, that's some lovely work, Sovelior and Sage. Just what I'm looking for.
Thanks!
Thanks!
SRD Competition Submission Thread
TheRaven
First Post
I'll mirror all the submissions on my server and inform the people in germany, switzerland and austria about the contest since a lot of people there don't visit ENWorld very often. Unlimited space, no bandwith restriction, no data transfer quota and a 2MB connection.
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Sage
Explorer
FluidDragon
First Post
Hmmm...
not seeing a lot of submission posts--maybe i'm not the only one who didn't make the deadline?
Anyway, i managed to miss the deadline in 4 distinct ways, but i figure i'll share, whether or not i'm eligible for the Fabulous Prizes.
First of all, it's not complete--i've done 90% of the work, which just leaves ~2/3rds of the monsters and all the magic items. At least i managed to finish the hard parts! I intend to finish it, whatever people here say (that is, i'm not depending on clamoring fans to make me do it), and make it available, nonetheless.
2nd, even what i did do missed the deadline: it took about 6-8hrs longer than i expected to do the "finishing touches", such as applying a consistent master to everything and converting to PDF (it took my computer 30min+ just to convert each document to PDF).
3rd, i'm having trouble getting it uploaded--it seems to stop about 4-5MB into a file, so i may or may not actually have something at the below link when you look at it.
edit: Book 2 (characters) and Book 3 (spells/powers) are there--still having issues with Book 1 (rules)
4th, even the finished parts aren't all finished. After having all-but-finished Books 1 & 2 (rules and characters, respectively), i discovered that the green i was using for some highlights was too dark on some B&W printers [my own damn fault--i shoulda done more test prints early on, rather than just relying on my own printer and/or eye]. So i need to go back through and fix every table in the 1st two books. I've done some of Book 1, but have more to go. It should be fine for reading on screen as is, it just may not print lovely. Well, and the ToC can't very well be complete when the contents aren't, but i suppose that's a given. edit: and, apparently the shades of green are having some cross-platform issues. All of the not-black used in the files is supposed to be shades of the same tint, but i'm seeing 3 distinct colors with Acrobat Reader. I'll have to try and fix that later. And, ironically, the difference between the fixed and not-fixed tables (i.e., where i actually *did* change the color) isn't one of those--they look like the same tint, just lighter now.
Despite the above failings, here's why my version rocks:
1: it's organized. Unlike the SRD files (or the core rulebooks themselves, for that matter), i've done my damnedest to put the material into a sensible order, and to consolidate the scattered bits (like having feats in 4 different places). This is constrained by the fact that i wanted to work with the existing material, not write my own. And it's still not perfect, because i deferred to the SRD's organization in many cases so, frex, Trample still appears both as a special monster ability and in the combat rules, while several other combat actions (pounce, improved grab) are in the special abilities section, rather than the combat rules. Better organization than i've managed would require rewriting huge swaths of the rules, which i just wasn't willing to do. As is, i finally had to give in and duplicate content once or twice, in order to best facilitate actually using the rules.
2: It's clean. No fancy borders or extraneous art. I tried to go for a layout that is pleasing to look at, compact and efficient, readable on screen, and utilizes color in a way that will still turn out ok on a B&W printer. You'll notice that the left-hand pages are remarkably unadorned. This is to better facilitate printout, by not being predicated on either duplex or single-sided printout. Yes, it means that if you print single-sided you only get the running chapter labels on every other page--it seemed like a reasonable sacrifice. Also, the margins are even on both sides, and should stay well clear of printer minimum margins (under the assumption that pretty much anything made in the last 15 years can handle 1/4", since even my Apple LaserWriter II can). The only thing that is likely to get clipped are the chapter labels, and those (1) are as much decorative as functional and (2) still provide partial functionality if they get clipped.
3: It's value-added. Want a complete resource for your D20 games? This includes sidebars with all the "missing"content: chargen, leveling, etc. Whether you're developing games, or just don't want to buy the D&D rulebooks, this should do the trick. Lest anyone complain, i've kept all of my additions to sidebars, so that you can easily distinguish the content. And, since this isn't a D20-logoed product, it's perfectly legal. In fact, there's an added bonus: if you use my work instead of (not in addition to) the SRD, you may be able to ignore WotC's PI declaration. It's too convoluted to go into here, but suffice it to say that (1) WotC's PI declaration may not be valid, since they are claiming as PI material that never appears in the SRD, and (2) even a valid PI declaration may only apply to immediately-derivative works (and note the lack of any requirement in the license for preserving/duplicating PI declarations). If you want more on this, i heartily recommend joining the OGF list, or at least reading its archives. That said, i've included WotC's PI declaration (which, strictly speaking may be impossible/illegal, since to do so requires me reproducing their PI), for those who would want to use this as a complete alternative to the official RTFs.
So, if you like what you see, i should have it all finished in a week or so (this next week is gonna be particularly busy for me, but i don't have much left to do). The only other significant change (besides lightening table headings and adding the other two books) will be polishing the ToC--what's there is just quick-n-dirty to provide something useful and give an idea of what the final one will look like. It'll be much nicer, more complete, andp robably less small in the final version. Probably add a monster index, too. I'll post here when i finish it.
In the mean time, go to http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/d20srd/ to get the rules, character creation, and spells/powers books. Challenges (traps & monsters) and treasure (loot & magic items) are yet to come.
not seeing a lot of submission posts--maybe i'm not the only one who didn't make the deadline?
Anyway, i managed to miss the deadline in 4 distinct ways, but i figure i'll share, whether or not i'm eligible for the Fabulous Prizes.
First of all, it's not complete--i've done 90% of the work, which just leaves ~2/3rds of the monsters and all the magic items. At least i managed to finish the hard parts! I intend to finish it, whatever people here say (that is, i'm not depending on clamoring fans to make me do it), and make it available, nonetheless.
2nd, even what i did do missed the deadline: it took about 6-8hrs longer than i expected to do the "finishing touches", such as applying a consistent master to everything and converting to PDF (it took my computer 30min+ just to convert each document to PDF).
3rd, i'm having trouble getting it uploaded--it seems to stop about 4-5MB into a file, so i may or may not actually have something at the below link when you look at it.
edit: Book 2 (characters) and Book 3 (spells/powers) are there--still having issues with Book 1 (rules)
4th, even the finished parts aren't all finished. After having all-but-finished Books 1 & 2 (rules and characters, respectively), i discovered that the green i was using for some highlights was too dark on some B&W printers [my own damn fault--i shoulda done more test prints early on, rather than just relying on my own printer and/or eye]. So i need to go back through and fix every table in the 1st two books. I've done some of Book 1, but have more to go. It should be fine for reading on screen as is, it just may not print lovely. Well, and the ToC can't very well be complete when the contents aren't, but i suppose that's a given. edit: and, apparently the shades of green are having some cross-platform issues. All of the not-black used in the files is supposed to be shades of the same tint, but i'm seeing 3 distinct colors with Acrobat Reader. I'll have to try and fix that later. And, ironically, the difference between the fixed and not-fixed tables (i.e., where i actually *did* change the color) isn't one of those--they look like the same tint, just lighter now.
Despite the above failings, here's why my version rocks:
1: it's organized. Unlike the SRD files (or the core rulebooks themselves, for that matter), i've done my damnedest to put the material into a sensible order, and to consolidate the scattered bits (like having feats in 4 different places). This is constrained by the fact that i wanted to work with the existing material, not write my own. And it's still not perfect, because i deferred to the SRD's organization in many cases so, frex, Trample still appears both as a special monster ability and in the combat rules, while several other combat actions (pounce, improved grab) are in the special abilities section, rather than the combat rules. Better organization than i've managed would require rewriting huge swaths of the rules, which i just wasn't willing to do. As is, i finally had to give in and duplicate content once or twice, in order to best facilitate actually using the rules.
2: It's clean. No fancy borders or extraneous art. I tried to go for a layout that is pleasing to look at, compact and efficient, readable on screen, and utilizes color in a way that will still turn out ok on a B&W printer. You'll notice that the left-hand pages are remarkably unadorned. This is to better facilitate printout, by not being predicated on either duplex or single-sided printout. Yes, it means that if you print single-sided you only get the running chapter labels on every other page--it seemed like a reasonable sacrifice. Also, the margins are even on both sides, and should stay well clear of printer minimum margins (under the assumption that pretty much anything made in the last 15 years can handle 1/4", since even my Apple LaserWriter II can). The only thing that is likely to get clipped are the chapter labels, and those (1) are as much decorative as functional and (2) still provide partial functionality if they get clipped.
3: It's value-added. Want a complete resource for your D20 games? This includes sidebars with all the "missing"content: chargen, leveling, etc. Whether you're developing games, or just don't want to buy the D&D rulebooks, this should do the trick. Lest anyone complain, i've kept all of my additions to sidebars, so that you can easily distinguish the content. And, since this isn't a D20-logoed product, it's perfectly legal. In fact, there's an added bonus: if you use my work instead of (not in addition to) the SRD, you may be able to ignore WotC's PI declaration. It's too convoluted to go into here, but suffice it to say that (1) WotC's PI declaration may not be valid, since they are claiming as PI material that never appears in the SRD, and (2) even a valid PI declaration may only apply to immediately-derivative works (and note the lack of any requirement in the license for preserving/duplicating PI declarations). If you want more on this, i heartily recommend joining the OGF list, or at least reading its archives. That said, i've included WotC's PI declaration (which, strictly speaking may be impossible/illegal, since to do so requires me reproducing their PI), for those who would want to use this as a complete alternative to the official RTFs.
So, if you like what you see, i should have it all finished in a week or so (this next week is gonna be particularly busy for me, but i don't have much left to do). The only other significant change (besides lightening table headings and adding the other two books) will be polishing the ToC--what's there is just quick-n-dirty to provide something useful and give an idea of what the final one will look like. It'll be much nicer, more complete, andp robably less small in the final version. Probably add a monster index, too. I'll post here when i finish it.
In the mean time, go to http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/d20srd/ to get the rules, character creation, and spells/powers books. Challenges (traps & monsters) and treasure (loot & magic items) are yet to come.
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Dimwhit
Explorer
There were actually several I expected to see but didn't. I tried to access these boards last night to post a reminder, but it wasn't working for me. I'm at work, so I can't go through everything until tonight. That's when I'll get everything to the judges for judging. So until then...
Estlor
Explorer
Well I for one didn't make the deadline. I had monsters to go and only made it to Hydra... Instead of spending my entire holiday finishing it up I decided to have some social interaction with my family instead.
Everything was working really well too. I had fully integrated psionics into the bulk of the other rules, had a nice design that was clean (no hard borders and such) and focused on varying shades of gray to ensure people with black and white laser printers could easily print it, and was all set to have a complete index on top of lots of bookmarking on the PDF.
But the sheer volume of finishing touched left got in the way.
Suffice to say, it's a shame I'm not going to be elligible to win anything, but I am looking forward to seeing the final winner in the PDF category, and I will finish up my SRD and put it out there for everyone to look at. I wouldn't want the extra time I spent cross-referencing psionics and core rules to make sure things like Remote Viewing and Power Focus were handled the same way Scrying and Spell Focus were to go to waste. Hell, with the unlimited time I have now, maybe I can get the psionic monsters restatted to match the new skill and feat guidelines.
Hats off to everyone that managed to finish.
Everything was working really well too. I had fully integrated psionics into the bulk of the other rules, had a nice design that was clean (no hard borders and such) and focused on varying shades of gray to ensure people with black and white laser printers could easily print it, and was all set to have a complete index on top of lots of bookmarking on the PDF.
But the sheer volume of finishing touched left got in the way.
Suffice to say, it's a shame I'm not going to be elligible to win anything, but I am looking forward to seeing the final winner in the PDF category, and I will finish up my SRD and put it out there for everyone to look at. I wouldn't want the extra time I spent cross-referencing psionics and core rules to make sure things like Remote Viewing and Power Focus were handled the same way Scrying and Spell Focus were to go to waste. Hell, with the unlimited time I have now, maybe I can get the psionic monsters restatted to match the new skill and feat guidelines.
Hats off to everyone that managed to finish.
Estlor said:
Sounds like we have about the same design philosophy: readable and well-organized is attractive layout.
Couple questions (feel free to take them to email, though i suppose "cluttering up" this thread doesn't really matter now): So, did you actually rewrite chunks of the psionics stuff to make it match? Which chunks did you integrate?
I chose to respect the nominal differences in the systems, so have separate chapters on using psionic powers and casting spells, and kept the spell and power descriptions in distinct chapters, but folded in everything else (feats, skills, monsters, items). And, rather than "correct" things like Remote View, i simply stuck in a sidebar referencing the 3.5E version (Scrying, in this case) for those who want to update to match. I guess i felt that fidelity to the source was more important than consistency (especially given the slippery slope that'd involve--if i start fixing one thing, i'd have to make everything consistent, and then i may as well just rewrite everything)
Besides, for me, this was a layout exercise, not a rules exercise. I back-burnered my "D&D Done Right" to get this done, and *that's* the one where i'll rewrite everything from the ground up, if i have to. (Since i'm changing large swaths of the rules, i'll have to--may as well fix the parts i'm not changing, too.)
TheRaven said:@woodelf
All these design choices beside, it is something like a crime to make such huge SRD 3.5 PDF's without bookmarks.
If you're referring to mine, that goes along with indexing and a complete ToC--i didn't get to it. Trust me, they'll be quite completely bookmarked when i'm done. But since i can't do the bookmarks until a convert to PDF, and i can't convert to PDF until i'm done...
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