Hi folks, I have a quick update on my blog regarding where we’re at with Grim Portents 2 and what my plans are for the future – including an idea to create a Dungeon World database and a website based off that database.
Please give it a read and let me know what you think – either here or on the post. In particular, I’d like to know if ther’e’s software that’s capable of doing this.
HELL YES! We need a DW database something fierce.
I wish I could give you some idea for the best way to make the database you envision, but I’m afraid the only thing I can think of would be a wiki. Hopefully someone more fluent in web design than me can help.
Still, this is a thing that needs to happen.
yes i very much would want that.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Not sure which database system would be best though, I’m afraid.
Sounds like a great idea!
It would take some work, but Textpattern can do it.
I’d really, really like a database. Am considering making a web host for my own creations (Hirelings and Backgrounds) so that people can add their own easily, similar to the DW monster database.
This is a tool that Needs to exist. You can check out another example site like what you are looking at here! for the Crafty Games’ Fantasy Craft: http://www.fantasycraftdb.com/.
WordPress can do this, if you look into Custom Post Types. Really any of the free content mangers, like Drupal or Joomla, should be able to do it and allow you to change the way the data is presented.
For ease of ‘database’ creation, a wiki would work too (you might not think of a wiki as a database, but it is one), and some of them have plugins that allow you to filter data in various ways.
A wiki would be easier to get up and running, but Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress-type content managers give more powerful options over the presentation of the data while having a much steeper learning curve.
A DW Database was the original idea for the Codex, but since that relies on me having time to update it it’s not in the best state. And, due to it being my first work with that framework, it has some real caching issues that could be addressed by a simple re-write.
Anyway: the idea of a DW database is awesome.
What is the deal with the Codex? will it ever get more functionality added to it? I like it a lot, and it would be great to see it get some more features.
Features are very much limited by my time. The code isn’t the cleanest either, as it was my first App Engine + Jinja 2 app. I did make all the code abailable on github. I should probably see if anyone’s got some useful pull requests.
I’m going to add some of mine over the next week or two, see if I can contribute!
Thanks for the support and suggestions, folks. I’ve approached the Fantasy Craft DB people for some advice, and I’ll look into various CMSes.
Sage LaTorra, if there’s work I can do that doesn’t require technical ability (for example, I could convert DW content into whatever format Jinja 2 uses), let me know.
If that doesn’t work out (though they have a great setup) we can always set up a simple Wikia.
I think a wiki is the way to go. Now that I think about it, Adam and I decided we’d host a wiki and then I ran into install problems and never completed it. Maybe I’ll take another crack today.
Custom software that is tailor-made for the content and communication goals always looks better on paper. But with developer time at a premium, a solution that gets us eighty percent of the distance is better than tailor-made software that doesn’t exist yet.
Finally got the wiki in place: http://www.dungeon-world.com/librarium
I’ll announce more broadly later, but feel free to start dropping in content now. To give some guidance: start with monsters, use Ankheg as a template.
Hey Sage, good to see it up, but I’m a bit puzzled by the choice of monsters to start – isn’t that overlapping pretty heavily with the Codex?
And I don’t think we can add monsters, or add pages….or am I just mistaken?
It works for me. I just linked up all the topics listed on the homepage to make their landing pages transparent. Since the pages don’t exist yet, clicking on one of the links will prompt you for the content. Just add content and click “save”, and you have yourself a dang wiki page.
ah! okay. cool. I’ll spend the next 2 hours putting in monsters.
Should we wait until we have a good template for playbooks? One that doesn’t involve giving away all the playbook info? Sage LaTorra ? Can we get an official stamp of approval on this stuff?
All the playbook info is already “given away” via the CC license, aren’t they?
http://book.dwgazetteer.com/
But what about playbooks created by individuals?
My main question is: Will this wiki be a place to view and collect actual playbooks, or will it be more of an index, like this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o6gLYoip6eOXNTBJF7zCrbbFPbZXIj7iLL5QuMLflLE/edit
I see what you mean. By my lights, it’s okay to post anything that the author published under a CC license, provided that you give attribution and link to the author’s work (especially if there is a commercial version). If the author maintains a more stringent copyright, you can always publish a link to the source, and it doesn’t hurt to ask for permission to publish something more. I don’t know how that might be documented for the wiki though.
For those who are interested, I spent a good chunk of time today developing the wiki.
http://www.dungeon-world.com/librarium/index.php?title=Main_Page
If everyone added a few monsters or clases, this project would be done by Xmas
That link isn’t working for me. It just shows the backend file view (links for Parent directory / docs / extensions / images /etc.)
yeah, the librarium is temporarily down.