Looking for a simpler PC Gen...

[BarakO]

I have used 5.10. The UI changes and improvements you mentioned are a noted improvement from 5.8 and previous versions. I was dismayed that the WotC sourcebook would only work with 5.8 and that the contract problems they had with WotC would mean that no other sets would be forthcoming. I even tried manually adding just the feats and such for what I needed, but you could only make custom magical items per the DMG with the official sourcebooks... so I was stuck with the older version. That's just my experience. If I'm being limited to an older version, what does it matter if the new version is all new and shiny?

Not to derail the thread and all, but since this came up...

CMP datasets were updated to 5.10.1 in November and will be updateded to 5.12 after it comes out, so you're not stuck with an older version at all.

Unfortunately, you *are* stuck on the "no more new WotC books from CMP" issue.

But creating data for PCGen is not as difficult as a lot of people think (I don't want to trivialize it, as some things *are* very difficult, but for the most part, it's straightforward). You just need to be methodical, and willing to RTFM and ask question on the PCGen forums.

For the average user who only needs one or two tings from any given book, with a willingness to try and some help from the people involved with PCGen, you *can* add what you need to PCGen from any new book that comes along to make it create the characters you want.

 

[soulcatcher]

..Snip..

I, for one, wish you great luck and speed in making the program better. I think you and your co-monekys have the best chance in the market today of making it happen! However, sugar-coating the truth of the matter and cooing over flash in the pan when there are these 800-lb gorillas in the way doesn't strike me as something that helps anyone here. The point of the thread was asking for suggestions and critique of available generators for D&D. I kept all of my points to things that are specific, accurate and personally experienced - I'm not trying to make things up just to slander or belittle the product and team here. As I've said before, I actually do like and have used the program... the mentioned cons simply outweighed the pros.

Edit- outweighed the pros.... for now. I'm always willing to check out future releases and changes. Hopefully these benefits and changes you've mentioned do see the full light of day in all their glory, and then I will praise PCGen for overcoming those hurdles and use it all the time.

I hear you, and I do want to gain the benefits of criticism here. I just wanted to point out that to some degree, what people are asking for (a pcgen that is as simple as say one of the character generator spreadsheets, or some of the other software out there) is not really possible, given the niche it intends to fill.

This thread has spawned a number of conversations on the pcgen lists, so at least know, we are listening, and trying to find a path to a solution.

Devon

 

[LrdApoc]

I hear you, and I do want to gain the benefits of criticism here. I just wanted to point out that to some degree, what people are asking for (a pcgen that is as simple as say one of the character generator spreadsheets, or some of the other software out there) is not really possible, given the niche it intends to fill.

This thread has spawned a number of conversations on the pcgen lists, so at least know, we are listening, and trying to find a path to a solution.

Devon

So does this mean that PCGen might have two distinct audiences? The DM or user with multiple sources and detailed expectations who wants a Half-Fiend War Ape Awakened Sorcerer and the core player who uses a few sources and wants to create and track their PC through a campaign?

You have GMGen which I think in many ways serves the first group well.. why not make a PCGen lite (actually I seem to remember something like this early on) - using the same core engine but with a retooled GUI for simple users.. build them from the same tree but make the branches lower for the simpler folk.

I'm not sure if this is the right suggestions as I am not involved in the coding at all but it might be the easiest to serve both groups well. You state that the goal of PCGen is to be the most versatile and complete generation tool for the d20 system - that rocks but I'm not sure your common users understand that in order to get a versatile tool they must seemingly sacrifice simplicity and ease of use for common users.

I am an owner of etools - and while I don't much care for the program interface I found it easier to introduce to my players as a character generator than I did PCGen. I honestly have not found a tool out there that is as simple as the Char Gen demo that came with 3.0 - is there a way to move the GUI that way while maintaining the feature rich nature of tools like PCGen and GMGen?

Once again maybe I'm asking for something not practical from a software development standpoint but I'm looking at this as a user not a developer and seeing what my players and I have encountered in trying to use PCGen as a campaign tool and character manager over the last few years.

Also I have not played with LST files for some time but is there a wizard like mode for data entry for simple data objects - feats that don't have major rule tied effects etc, or is it still a "edit the text file and read the F'in manual dude" sort of tool?

That was a huge obstacle for me early in the products life because I just frankly didn't have the time to hand enter the info in the lst files and of course you can't share anything you enter to help anyone else because of copywrite which meant the moment I used a non-standard source I abandoned the tool because I couldn't easily integrate the one or two features I was using outside the SRD.

I am awaiting the latest stable release - I'm using the Alpha right now and like it, but loading sources still seems to take a long time - and probably I'm doing it wrong because I have not reread the manual - however the program could be more user friendly and offer to warn or assist when loading sources to help optimize and control the user's experience - managing user expectations can often be done with just a simple - "Warning - loading XX sources will take serious time!" sort of message - followed by a "We recommend you do thus and thus to quickly get to work" sort of wizard or guidance.

Many people decry the Microsoft Wizard approach as the dumming down of users but lets face it - the average user does not care about what a program does they just want to do their work and get the results from it quickly and easily. Giving them a supertool when all they need is a simple screwdriver can prevent them from using your tool. Help the user, hide the gears and allow maybe an advanced or simple mode to segregate yet serve the two distinct groups PCGen is used by.

Sorry if I'm belaboring a point here. I see a conflicting purpose and design goals of PCGen at work (Basic users want a simple tool, advanced users want a versatile tool, the developers want good features and good speed) and I know my statements are not the first time any of you have heard this - so let me ask the next question:

How do I help change this? What can I do to help you as a user?

How often do you see threads here asking for a simple tool only to have readers refute the simplicity of the tool you developed and effectively build that impression that PCGen is arcane and hard to use? What can be done to prevent that from ever being an issue?

 

[Firzair]

Are you saying the users are loading to many datasets, or that PCGen is grabbing more datasets then is intended? Its a known issue that loading more datasets slows the program down, and the coders are looking at that as well.

I think he speaks about something I do in my program RPG XML Rules Engine (new beta version 0.9.5 shall be out next week with some meat for the beginners): only loading data into memory that you need in memory! I have all data in the database and the data is only loaded into memory if it is to be modified or used for execution, pure read access only goes to the database.
Of course I know that PCGen currently uses no database.

Greetings
Firzair

 

[mosat]

Hero Lab has a free demo, so there's no excuse for not checking it out. That includes the PCGen team.

Sure there is, it's Windows only, I can't run the demo on my Mac.

 

[athynz]

With all due respect this seems to me like a pcgen bash thread with only people who do work on pcgen in some form or another rising to it's defense. I've used pcgen for over a year - and used several versions now - and while I'm not a power user or a programmer by any stretch, pcgen to me seems a lot more inuitive than a lot of you seem to think. I'll grant that it's not a really fancy looking program and it is at times buggy but to me its one of the best character generators out there and IMHO WOTC really screwed up when they made the decision not to extend the contract to CMP to code more of the books.

 

[soulcatcher]

So does this mean that PCGen might have two distinct audiences? The DM or user with multiple sources and detailed expectations who wants a Half-Fiend War Ape Awakened Sorcerer and the core player who uses a few sources and wants to create and track their PC through a campaign?

You have GMGen which I think in many ways serves the first group well.. why not make a PCGen lite (actually I seem to remember something like this early on) - using the same core engine but with a retooled GUI for simple users.. build them from the same tree but make the branches lower for the simpler folk.

I'm not sure if this is the right suggestions as I am not involved in the coding at all but it might be the easiest to serve both groups well. You state that the goal of PCGen is to be the most versatile and complete generation tool for the d20 system - that rocks but I'm not sure your common users understand that in order to get a versatile tool they must seemingly sacrifice simplicity and ease of use for common users.

I am an owner of etools - and while I don't much care for the program interface I found it easier to introduce to my players as a character generator than I did PCGen. I honestly have not found a tool out there that is as simple as the Char Gen demo that came with 3.0 - is there a way to move the GUI that way while maintaining the feature rich nature of tools like PCGen and GMGen?

This is a very reasonable suggestion, and we probably could build a PCGen Lite that only did say SRD generation, and made it easy for a person who understood it to move to the full fledged app. The biggest problem presently inside the code is that the needed separation between the gui and the engine to do this. This separation is more of a guideline then a rule in the present code, and this is the source of many of the problems we have with PCGen.

A proposal of how to fix this is the change to the code that I alluded to above, and really is the prime facilitator needed to make such a thing possible. The best I can say is that we know this separation needs to happen, and we are working on it.

As to your idea, I actually like the idea of us making a lite version. perhaps we should take a page from the original D&D Generator that came with the PHB, and make a lite version that is really limited in what it can do, but as a result dead simple.

Hrm.... this gives me an idea. In many cases, I see that there is one person who is the driving force behind pcgen in a specific gaming group, and potentially the rest of the people find it to hard. If we made it possible for a user to go in to the full pcgen app, and allow them to define from top to bottom what is in an out for a specific campaign, then they could export that data for use in a pcgen lite, that has a very simplified interface. Maybe we could call it PCGen GMs edition and PCGen Players edition. Perhaps the way to make PCGen more capable and usable for more people is to really split up what it offers each audience into totally separate applications.

Good idea.

Once again maybe I'm asking for something not practical from a software development standpoint but I'm looking at this as a user not a developer and seeing what my players and I have encountered in trying to use PCGen as a campaign tool and character manager over the last few years.

Also I have not played with LST files for some time but is there a wizard like mode for data entry for simple data objects - feats that don't have major rule tied effects etc, or is it still a "edit the text file and read the F'in manual dude" sort of tool?

That was a huge obstacle for me early in the products life because I just frankly didn't have the time to hand enter the info in the lst files and of course you can't share anything you enter to help anyone else because of copywrite which meant the moment I used a non-standard source I abandoned the tool because I couldn't easily integrate the one or two features I was using outside the SRD.

Well, we do have LST editors, but to be honest, they are pretty craptastic. Over the life of pcgen it's been very hard to maintain these, because they can't keep up with the rest of the code. I have potential solutions in mind for how to deal with this, but the lst generator problem unfortunatly takes a back seat to splitting the GUI from the core. On the plus side, a separated front and backend could make it possible to have a whole LST tool that is it's own program.

I am awaiting the latest stable release - I'm using the Alpha right now and like it, but loading sources still seems to take a long time - and probably I'm doing it wrong because I have not reread the manual - however the program could be more user friendly and offer to warn or assist when loading sources to help optimize and control the user's experience - managing user expectations can often be done with just a simple - "Warning - loading XX sources will take serious time!" sort of message - followed by a "We recommend you do thus and thus to quickly get to work" sort of wizard or guidance.

I recommend using the minimal number of sources necessary. I think some people do load every source, and frankly, that breaks pcgen. A reasonable number is in the 5-6 range.

Many people decry the Microsoft Wizard approach as the dumming down of users but lets face it - the average user does not care about what a program does they just want to do their work and get the results from it quickly and easily. Giving them a supertool when all they need is a simple screwdriver can prevent them from using your tool. Help the user, hide the gears and allow maybe an advanced or simple mode to segregate yet serve the two distinct groups PCGen is used by.

Actually, the wizard approach from my perspective is fine, but like everything else, it needs the split between the front and back that everything else depends on. We probably could do it now, but in this case it would be at the cost of making that split happen a harder thing. I do want to see a wizard, I just hope we can get it into place before we lose to much market share.

Sorry if I'm belaboring a point here. I see a conflicting purpose and design goals of PCGen at work (Basic users want a simple tool, advanced users want a versatile tool, the developers want good features and good speed) and I know my statements are not the first time any of you have heard this - so let me ask the next question:

How do I help change this? What can I do to help you as a user?

How often do you see threads here asking for a simple tool only to have readers refute the simplicity of the tool you developed and effectively build that impression that PCGen is arcane and hard to use? What can be done to prevent that from ever being an issue?

There is a lot you can do:
1) Use it, and show it to others
2) When you find a bug, or if something frustrates you, *tell* us. File a bug. Start a conversation on our mailing lists, just don't keep it to yourself. Even small things help a lot. If something behaves in a way you don't expect, it's near certain that hundreds of other people have the same frustration, but don't tell us.
3) The documentation team is one of the most important teams on the project, but has a hard time keeping itself staffed. It doesn't matter if you are a coder, know LST or have never written a line in your life, *anyone* can help the docs team.


Thanks for your input

Devon Jones
PCGen BoD
PCGen Architecture Silverback

 

[iwarrior-poet]

I have been using PCGen for a long time. Here's my bottom line---

• It is almost unbearably slow
• Its UI is not intuitive by a long stretch
• Once you get the hang of it (which can take QUITE a while), it is exceptionally powerful
• If you are not a coder, and want to create prestige classes/feats (one of the most essential components of 3.0/3/5) you are OUT OF LUCK!
• I love to complain about it-----but it is FREE (after all), so I am aware that my complaints are somewhat churlish

I only used PCGen becuase I was using WoTC datasets from CMP. Now that WoTC has squashed that----I am a very embittered gamer.

 

[LrdApoc]

Thanks Devon,

I will be a good user and try and be more responsive. I'm about to launch a new campaign and I'm going to try and convince everyone to use the tool for character management - most of the group are experienced computer users but should give good feedback on the quirks and I'll do my best to relay that to the forums.

I remember how hard it was to get the Docs team going originally, maybe I can find some time to help again.

 

[kingpaul]

• If you are not a coder, and want to create prestige classes/feats (one of the most essential components of 3.0/3/5) you are OUT OF LUCK!

No, you're not. We've been telling you for several years now to look at existing files for examples and to read the documentation. We've also tried to help you out in answering questions on how to go about doing things.

*.lst files are raw text, not java like the program.