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<blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 5813487" data-attributes="member: 20307">Why should it be such a nightmare? The adventure writer decides to include a Poison Needle Trap and a pair of Shrewed Kobolds. He describes the trap (position, position of trigger) and the kobold's tactics in plain text.Both elements would reside in a database with the game data for the different rules modules: Poison Needle Trap (Basic Game, Character Design module, ...) or Shrewed Kobold (Basic Game, Tactical Options, ...).The actual file delivered is not already a PDF, but contains sets of links to those rules elements in the database. When the user sets his preferred options and opens the adventure, the system pulls the according game data from the database and inserts the information into the adventure without having to change the prose. Finally a PDF or a different format is created and delivered to the reader.For a quick and dirty solution you might print the game data on separate pages - think Appendix - and insert just page references in the main body of text, thus saving you all the layout headaches.If the guys are really confident in their project management capabilities, they might even include empty modules in the database ready to be referenced by the adventure even though no data is present. So when a new modules is available, the empty fields in the database are filled and presto! the additional information is available in old modules as well.I don't say it's easy, but with the right procedures it would be far from a nightmare.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jan van Leyden, post: 5813487, member: 20307"] Why should it be such a nightmare? The adventure writer decides to include a Poison Needle Trap and a pair of Shrewed Kobolds. He describes the trap (position, position of trigger) and the kobold's tactics in plain text. Both elements would reside in a database with the game data for the different rules modules: Poison Needle Trap (Basic Game, Character Design module, ...) or Shrewed Kobold (Basic Game, Tactical Options, ...). The actual file delivered is not already a PDF, but contains sets of links to those rules elements in the database. When the user sets his preferred options and opens the adventure, the system pulls the according game data from the database and inserts the information into the adventure without having to change the prose. Finally a PDF or a different format is created and delivered to the reader. For a quick and dirty solution you might print the game data on separate pages - think Appendix - and insert just page references in the main body of text, thus saving you all the layout headaches. If the guys are really confident in their project management capabilities, they might even include empty modules in the database ready to be referenced by the adventure even though no data is present. So when a new modules is available, the empty fields in the database are filled and presto! the additional information is available in old modules as well. I don't say it's easy, but with the right procedures it would be far from a nightmare. [/QUOTE]

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