Sugestions For the New Item System

Genesplicer

In your announcement of the new character system, you state that Items are on hiatus until ya'll can figure out how to fit them in with the new system. You said you wanted suggestions and comments on that, so here goes...

In order to keep items a unique and separate category, you're going to have to include a tab in the campaign for them. They, in fact, didn't really fit in the old system at all either. The only way to link them into a campaign was to manually do so in the wiki by using their item code or the URL linking feature of Textile. Many campaigns saw where there was an important item, they were in fact created as characters, rather than items, so as to be available in the NPC tracker. If you're going to attach them to campaigns, then Items need their own tab. And I will say, I am a fan of having items distinct from characters.

Also, you might consider attachment to characters rather than to campaigns. I myself have created 10 items, only 2 of which are general items for the campaign. The rest (80%), are specific items for characters that have special meaning only for them. Ex: A protective item handed down to a character through their family for several generations. It has no unique properties in game (yet, we do have a creative GM...), but it has its own back-story, has been given a name a name, and is sufficiently important to the character that I took the trouble to root around for a suitable image. The item has no overall effect on the campaign, but it is sufficiently important to the character that I felt that it needed more than a little blurb in the character's bio. Another example is a character that can create and customize his own weaponry. He has spent so much time on his primary weapons that he names them, and his interactions with them generate significant amounts of flavor text. I also find it useful to have a separate sheet for them so I can better keep track of whatever capabilities they happen to have this week. These items have no bearing on the campaign as a whole except as he uses them. Another example I have seen in other campaigns are mounts and pets. While a part of the campaign, all of these examples tie in very closely with a specific character, and I'd like to see a way to reflect that in their organizational attachment.

vstraydogstrutv

I like this idea, but to address the latter portion about character-specific items; I think the items could still be campaign specific and the characters could be tagged to the item and vice-versa. Any specifics of the item could, of course, be outlined in the "GM only" section.

comradecampbell

I like the idea of certain items being attached to characters, but maintaining the current OP-wide listing of created items is a good idea, as well. Many of the items created are useful for just about any game in a specific game system. Having all the items listed could reduce duplication since they wouldn't need to be created over and over. A simpler way of linking the items into a campaign/character may be all that is needed. Also, searching through existing items could give GMs or players inspiration for new items for their campaigns or plot lines based on those items. The item library as it stands remains a valuable resource, and I would like to see it continued in one form or another.

NickVCover

One of the first things I looked for when I started recording my campaign was an item tracker. What I've settled on is having a list in the wiki for now, but I would like to link off to special items just like I link off to characters. Attaching an item to a specific character has no use for me though.

RudolfDFrench

Minor Item Section Request: The listing of the item page does not alphabetically organize the item tags. This would be easy to implement and would satisfy the internal perfectionist in me. :-)

Intermediate Item Section Request: I understand why, in theory, it would be beneficial to have a different tag structure for the Item listings and the Wiki listings (in effect they are two different Wikis in this way) but it would be nice to have a player click on a tag in the Wiki and have the Items related to that Wiki entry come up within the listing for that tag. For example; I have a Wiki tag that relates to a particular region in my campaign, and all of my political machinations/geographic regions/etc. can share that tag in the Wiki. If I want to include the items available for sale or as treasure parcels of that region then I would like for those items to appear in that search. Hopefully that makes sense...

Advanced Item Section Request: It would be nice to have some control over how the item listing is formatted as well as how each individual entry is displayed. The item listing is self explanatory, being able to affect the HTML like you can with the Wiki and Campaign Home and Main Pages, but the individual item pages could maybe have radio boxes for the display of individual sections. For example, let's say I want to include some mundane items that do not necessarily have a "Backstory" but need to be included for my players benefit. It would be aesthetically pleasing to not have that Header entry when there is no content to be displayed in that dialog box upon creation. (Conversely, an item may not have any distinguishable "Crunch" statistics and would only need an entry in the "Fluff" section.

Thanks for all the hard work!