Only the allowed advantages, etc, but with text?

[SwiftOne]

I yearn to have the text of the advantages/etc that are allowed in my campaign WITHOUT all the ones that aren't, so anyone can read through to find what is interesting without having to consider everything that isn't in the campaign. For a lower-option fantasy campaign GURPS Lite lets me do this browsing, but I know of no other examples nor ways to create them.

Both GCA and GCS, as well as various websites will let me create lists of the advantages/skills/etc, but without definitions, so I can't casually browse these lists if I have to look up most entries. If instead of these lists I rely on only the book, it's hard to browse my options amongst so much of what my options aren't. Example: If "Animal Empathy" is allowed but Arm DX, Arm ST, Binding, Brachiator, and Blessed aren't part of the campaign, it is easy to miss Animal Empathy amongst the others.

I've tried a few times to solve this myself (hacking the text of the Characters PDF, cut-and-pasting text into "custom" GCS lists) but that task itself is so much effort I give up long before I ever get what I want. Surely this is a common need! What are the solutions other people use?

[weby]

Note that copying GURPS text is not allowed beyond what is given for game aids and other fair use. So copy-paste of text is a no-no.

Our solution is that we have a custom version of GCS that has (among many other changes) a "open document" option that will open the referenced PDF to the right page. So as example an advantage has a reference B54, selecting the open document will open characters at page 54 in your defined pdf reader.

As basically the names of things tell a lot on if it might be interesting and then you can easily go look at the actual description, it is good enough for us.

[johndallman]

My solution for players who aren't familiar with the system is to do character generation with them, asking what they want to be able to do and making suggestions for things that seem to fit their concept. However, my limitations on advantages and disadvantages tend to be broad and simple, and don't require enumeration of every trait.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by weby

Our solution is that we have a custom version of GCS that has (among many other changes) a "open document" option that will open the referenced PDF to the right page.

The current version of GCS has this feature built in ("Open Page Reference"). The first time you use it for any given reference, you need to locate the PDF, but then it will remember the path for future lookups. I find this very helpful, though it's a bit slow at times.

It's also easy with GCS to customize the libraries for what you want, so it might be a good solution for the OP.

[wmervine4]

The need for this sort of thing with the rise of digital play, I think, makes a good argument for having an official way to customize the wealth of available options for deployment to players and as a reference for GMs. As a Product Manager in my day job, I can envision some software solutions for problems like this. Of course, the trick is official approval, finding people to do the work, and doing it in a way people are willing to pay for.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Dalin

The current version of GCS has this feature built in ("Open Page Reference"). The first time you use it for any given reference, you need to locate the PDF, but then it will remember the path for future lookups. I find this very helpful, though it's a bit slow at times.

It's also easy with GCS to customize the libraries for what you want, so it might be a good solution for the OP.

Ah, nice. The version that we forked from to give easy inclusion of house rules did not have that.

[weby]

Originally Posted by wmervine4

The need for this sort of thing with the rise of digital play, I think, makes a good argument for having an official way to customize the wealth of available options for deployment to players and as a reference for GMs. As a Product Manager in my day job, I can envision some software solutions for problems like this. Of course, the trick is official approval, finding people to do the work, and doing it in a way people are willing to pay for.

The problem is that there are a lot of rulebooks and other things. So doing it so that people could use the rules they wanted and yet not give out things they have not bought and not forcing everyone to buy everything again at full price would require something like:

Have a program that allows the browsing, a good possible solution would be to integrate it with CGA as the basic trait names and such are there.

That program would have the trait lists like CGA, but allow making a "pick list" where the GM marks what traits are available and for bonus points it would also allow grouping them and adding explanation texts. The GM could then export that list and players import.

Step two would be the actual descriptions. Best way would be for the actual traits be online that you could download from inside the program by either buying them.

For it to be popular it should really be so that if you have a linked warehouse 23 account with digital copies of that book/magazine, you would only need to pay a small sum and not the full price. Like the Ultra tech weapon tables costing $2.99 today.

Of course the real problem is that creating something like that requires a lot of work both in creating the program, the website links and the actual content.

While creating the content is mostly low skill copy/paste job that you could get done for minimum wage, the rest is not. So finding enough people willing to pay for the result for it to be worthwhile is not likely.