[Speculation] GURPS 4.5e

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Text could be stored once, yet inlined in various places on the virtual pages, without hiding it behind a special phrase that you have to click on. A popup box is another possible style.

The real point is to store the text only once, even if you do want to read it from multiple places.

Occasionally the traditional hyperlink will also be useful, precisely not to inline the text but to take you elsewhere if you're interested. "See X".

The schema design for this (in terms of collecting all the rules and organizing them) would be incredibly difficult, I think. But I would pay so much money for this. Even done on a subscription model to get the updates. So convenient for the GM, so difficult for SJ Games.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Text could be stored once, yet inlined in various places on the virtual pages, without hiding it behind a special phrase that you have to click on. A popup box is another possible style.

The World of Warcraft Wiki has this. If you hover the mouse over some hyperlinks, you get a popup box, often a fairly big one with multiple paragraphs of text, saving you the time and trouble of having to click on the link go to the point in another article the link points to, then go back again after you've read.

Hovering can't really be done with a touch screen interface, but the alternative is that if you tap hyperlink once, you get the box (if there is no box, nothing should happen) and to actually follow the hyperlink to its destination you have to tap twice.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by TJA

Explain everything in one place - where it is needed.
That may mean that some things are repeated.

Ever tried to make a slam attack / flying tacle or calculate area damage?

You need to read 10 pages in 5 books, it seems.

This is a great idea.

But not so much 5 books. Just the two.

Fourth Ed did a marvelous job of consolidating everything into the Basic Set, though there's room for further improvement within the basic set. Nearly always, the rule you want is in there... somewhere. Or in several places. Why put some of the wound modifiers in the Advantages chapter in book 1 and others in the Combat chapter in book 2? Some rules for play are in character creation. Optional rules are sprinkled around willy-nilly, some consolidated into one place, and others added as boxes or as their own sections in the main text.*

Let's put tech solutions aside. We can still get very, very far just reorganizing the rules we already have without changing anything. (and adding cross references to a neatly organized document is easier anyway).

It bears repeated mentioning that as far as I'm concerned, GURPS as a system is more or less done. It doesn't need major changes so much as tweaks and reorganizing. We have ten years of experience playing it, and ten years of new ideas about how to expand on it.

* One thing GURPS doesn't do, for which I'm grateful, is the annoying practice of introducing a new rule that causes some inconvenience to characters as part of the text of the Advantage that mitigates or eliminates it.

[GM Joe]

I think a reorganized 4e Basic Set would be a really good thing.

And, yes, PDFs with something beyond just the basics would be nice.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

The World of Warcraft Wiki has this. If you hover the mouse over some hyperlinks, you get a popup box, often a fairly big one with multiple paragraphs of text, saving you the time and trouble of having to click on the link go to the point in another article the link points to, then go back again after you've read.

Hovering can't really be done with a touch screen interface, but the alternative is that if you tap hyperlink once, you get the box (if there is no box, nothing should happen) and to actually follow the hyperlink to its destination you have to tap twice.

Actually your alternative can not work with the current tech than runs mobile devices

WoW wiki does the hoverbox but use using the tooltip trigger for javascript to make an AJAX call to build the text to fill the tooltip box.

not mobile devcie browser don't support tools tips as you said. you alternative requires JavaScript do trigger on the doubleclick (theoretically possible if not done) top open either an iframe or a seconded window. Neither are supported.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

I think a reorganized 4e Basic Set would be a really good thing.

And, yes, PDFs with something beyond just the basics would be nice.

I hasten to add that this is a thought experiment. Such a 4.5 would make very little business sense for sjgames.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by wellspring

I hasten to add that this is a thought experiment. Such a 4.5 would make very little business sense for sjgames.

I'd buy it.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I'd buy it.

I think it's a safe bet that everyone here will likely buy whatever SJ Games puts out simply on principle. The real question is whether it would sell to people who don't frequent the boards and people who don't currently play GURPS.

Personally, I feel like a rules database with a subscription model is the perfect way for a toolbox game like GURPS to go. The hardest part of running a GURPS campaign (for me anyway) is wading through the vast swathes of rules that I'm not going to use in this campaign to get at the rules I actually intend to use. That's exacerbated by having to search through the numerous smaller PDFs that I cover in detail whichever element I want to emphasize in that campaign. I would love a model like this:

1) I pick the genre, etc that I want and select it via tic boxes on the website (For example, I may check Fantasy, High Magic, Weird, and Roma Arcana, politics)
2) The website populates a suggested list of rules supplements (basically the same ones we have now). All of the supplements are available at the bottom if I want them, but it will suggest the ones that match the keywords I checked.
3) If I don't know what's in a supplement, I can open it up and read it (that's part of what my subscription is buying me) so I can decide if it's what I want to use.
4) I select my supplements and it builds a custom, downloadable PDF set with 3 or more PDFs.
4a) PDF 1: Character creation rules. Basically the first 5 chapters of the Characters book plus any skills, advantages, perks, etc from the supplements I picked. Because we're generating this on the fly, they're sorted into alphabetical order and there are no powers that I've not allowed in my game world.
4b) PDF 2: Rule book. This is roughly like the DMG in D&D. It contains all the rules sections I chose to use, sorted into chapters based on content (Combat, Social, Organizations, Magic, etc, etc).
4c) PDF 3: Character sheet. This one would be basically the same for every character, but would change slightly depending on the world. For example, in a campaign with Magic, it would include a grimiore page whereas in a SciFi campaign (where equipment tends to be more important), it would include an extended equipment page.
4d) If there were any additional PDFs needed by the selections, for example someone choosing Banestorm would get the Banestorm setting details (all the fluff, no rules) as a separate PDF. Someone specifying monster hunters would get a bestiary. Etc, etc, etc.

I know this is totally a pipe dream. I know there are dozens of problems with this and it wouldn't work perfectly and it might not attract new users, and all the other objections. But that's my dream for GURPS 4.5.

[scc]

Originally Posted by doulos05

1) I pick the genre, etc that I want and select it via tic boxes on www.gurpsrules.com (For example, I may check Fantasy, High Magic, Weird, and Roma Arcana, politics)

Your link doesn't work

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by scc

Your link doesn't work

That's because it's not a real site. I just typed it in and the forum software made it a link. Sorry, I'll unlink it.