MonsterMash
First Post
Got to say I really want to see an index in a gaming book (or a text book), but given the costs understand why most of the small publishers leave them out, but that doesn't leave WotC off the hook.
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Why no index is new WotC books? *Update: Received "official" answer... kinda...*
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Psychic Warrior
First Post
DaveMage said:
Now that would be a great idea. The only problem with it is that the instant you release a new book the index become obsolete. An annual index might be good but I would wonder if they could produce it at a profit.
At least some WotC books have an index. One thing I always wanted in my Scarred Lands gamebooks was a comprehensive index. Of course any index at all would be an improvement over nothing.
reveal
Adventurer
If you haven't yet, check out the indeces Keith Baker has posted for the Sharn book.
http://www.bossythecow.com/sharnindex.htm
Those are EXTREMELY useful. The ToC just doesn't cut it when it comes to finding specific NPCs or locations within Sharn.
http://www.bossythecow.com/sharnindex.htm
Those are EXTREMELY useful. The ToC just doesn't cut it when it comes to finding specific NPCs or locations within Sharn.
Raloc
First Post
I don't see how it could be extremely hard to put in an index. In fact, with some minimal programming you could come up with an auto indexer. I.e. find all occurances of a specific word/term and give the page numbers, do for each word/term you want indexed. Just give the program a list of words and terms to find, and it would do the rest. Then have someone look it over to make sure it's correct.
tylerthehobo
Explorer
a few things on indices
I work in publishing (non-gaming), and can't make excuses for this - I agree, indices are HIGHLY needed for many of these books. That said, here's some stuff from behind the curtain that may shed some illumination.
1) It's actually very expensive to do a "good" index - many companies even outsource this part of the production process. Auto-indexers are great, but if you want a strong, readily usable index, you don't want to see every page where "magic" was referenced, but the pages where it was referenced in regards to a new rule that you're going to want to check on the fly. Human decision making is needed to edit the results from what a program spits out as all of the uses of the word "magic" (for instance).
2) It's not the designer's/author's responsiblity to do an index - editors will change sequencing of pages, perform layout, and do other things that would throw off whatever preliminary index an author might write. Some houses have authors contribute to the process, but when it comes down to it, it's the actual generating of useful page numbers, not keywords, that is the labor intensive part.
3) Most Tables of Contents on WotC products are actually pretty good. That said, an index would be much more helpful. (e.g. Silver Marches - I can never find what I want in there, which is sad - it is SUCH a great book.)
4) The index is often one of the last things to be done. If a product is running late on a production schedule, it's no surprise that it gets scrapped.
I haven't seen Hero Games' more recent titles, but if they're doing it, I agree - it should be done.
I work in publishing (non-gaming), and can't make excuses for this - I agree, indices are HIGHLY needed for many of these books. That said, here's some stuff from behind the curtain that may shed some illumination.
1) It's actually very expensive to do a "good" index - many companies even outsource this part of the production process. Auto-indexers are great, but if you want a strong, readily usable index, you don't want to see every page where "magic" was referenced, but the pages where it was referenced in regards to a new rule that you're going to want to check on the fly. Human decision making is needed to edit the results from what a program spits out as all of the uses of the word "magic" (for instance).
2) It's not the designer's/author's responsiblity to do an index - editors will change sequencing of pages, perform layout, and do other things that would throw off whatever preliminary index an author might write. Some houses have authors contribute to the process, but when it comes down to it, it's the actual generating of useful page numbers, not keywords, that is the labor intensive part.
3) Most Tables of Contents on WotC products are actually pretty good. That said, an index would be much more helpful. (e.g. Silver Marches - I can never find what I want in there, which is sad - it is SUCH a great book.)
4) The index is often one of the last things to be done. If a product is running late on a production schedule, it's no surprise that it gets scrapped.
I haven't seen Hero Games' more recent titles, but if they're doing it, I agree - it should be done.
Raloc
First Post
You could probably build an auto-indexer that wasn't *so* auto that it gave useless results (like the one I mentioned, you'd have to enter the specific terms yourself). Also, correct me if I'm wrong but my suggestion was on the basis that after editing, the book will still be in computerized form.
I agree that a completely automated indexer would be utterly worthless though.
I agree that a completely automated indexer would be utterly worthless though.
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