So why no index?

[The Artist Formerly]

I have been a long, long, long time Palladium fan, and one thing I have never been able to grasp about the company is how poorly the core rules books are laid out. Rules are splattered everywhere and with Palladium's cut and paste approach, relevant rules could be pages and pages apart. This can lead to break downs in play where a player and a GM have different ideas on which rules are in use and how they affect an outcome. Then it becomes a "where did I see that?" question, as both start flipping through the rule book, only to find out that they were both right and the rules aren't centrally located. An Index would both streamline play, and force palladium game authors to make sure they themselves fully understand which rules are related. *cough*Bill Coffin*cough*

When I'm running a game of Heroes, and we have some complex combat situation, it'd be handy know where to find all of the relevant rules without stopping play for ten minutes and know we have the proper rules. Or better still, when I'm prepping for the game, make sure I already know the rules and am familiar with them head of time.

Indexing programs for books have been available for at least a few years. And burning away a redundant OCC or two for the an Index would be just fine with me.

[Sureshot]

(Best Pancho Villa voice) Indexes Senor? Palladium Books needs no stinking indexes!

I agree. Don't expect it to change anytime soon.

[glitterboy2098]

largely because with 50+ worldbooks, a dozen sourcebooks, 70+ rifters, and so on.. there is too darn much stuff to keep track of.

the Game Master Guide tried to (back when there were fewer world books) and a listing of just where to find the major stuff filled half that massive book

[The Artist Formerly]

largely because with 50+ worldbooks, a dozen sourcebooks, 70+ rifters, and so on.. there is too darn much stuff to keep track of.

the Game Master Guide tried to (back when there were fewer world books) and a listing of just where to find the major stuff filled half that massive book

Only if they try and drive the entire Rifts nightmare into a single source. What I'm suggesting is that they index each of the complex books, the core books and any significant rules change books. If I had to give up say the stage magician from the HU core book for an index of all of the rules of the core book by location, I'd be a happy camper. It's a redundant OCC, a less cool version of the analytical genius, which was included only for the sake of legacy. Burn it away for something more useful.

[Cyrano de Maniac]

For whatever it's worth, this very issue has been a long term source of an idea for me -- a "scratch your own itch" type of thing. I've gone so far as to researching book indexing software and technology, and to start becoming familiar with how indexing works as a profession and in practice.

There is professional book indexing software out there. It would seem to me to be a good investment for Palladium to purchase and use such software, but given that the lack of useful indexes is a long-standing point of irritation for a number of customers, and the lack of any visible progress on this matter, I've personally given up hope of the issue being addressed.

Since the professional indexing software is proprietary and oriented toward professional indexers working alone and doing this for a living, and since I don't personally have the bandwidth to index Palladium's full catalog, I've started envisioning a method to crowd-source an index.

To that end I've more than once started sketching up in a notebook my ideas for creating book indexing software that would allow online collaboration and editing of an index, with some pretty incredible flexibility to match the particular problem people might have of only having subsets of the Palladium catalog, or having different revisions of books. I think I have a reasonable handle on the scope of the project and how to structure a database back-end to implement the idea. What I've lacked so far is the free time to start implementing the whole thing (getting married, selling and buying houses, dealing with the loss of parents, working 40 hours a week, some volunteer work, and the occasional need to eat, sleep, or bathe all get in the way). Once my home office gets settled in any month (year?!?!) now I fully intend to start some coding.

I'd be shooting for an open-source project, and make it generic such that it's not tied at all to Palladium's product line. It's just the lack of useful indexes for Palladium that serve as the test case and motivation for tackling such a project. If I were to ever throw open the gates and allow people to start collaborating to input the data to create such an index for Palladium's books, I'd be sure to get Palladium's blessing first. But that sort of thing is a long long way away.

[Bill]

I found compiling the actual rules into a set of notes for my own use to be a worthwhile effort. It really helped me clarify my own understanding of the game and gain a much greater appreciation for it while moving past what had been my knee-jerk reaction to their sometimes challenging organization. I recommend making your own over waiting for an index in as much as the index may never come and even if it did, you'd still need to read a substantial chunk of them before the whole game comes into focus.

[The Artist Formerly]

I found compiling the actual rules into a set of notes for my own use to be a worthwhile effort. It really helped me clarify my own understanding of the game and gain a much greater appreciation for it while moving past what had been my knee-jerk reaction to their sometimes challenging organization. I recommend making your own over waiting for an index in as much as the index may never come and even if it did, you'd still need to read a substantial chunk of them before the whole game comes into focus.

Makes it hard to bring new players in. Getting guys from D&D to play Heroes is tough enough, having rules splattered all over the place doesn't help.

[Bill]

Makes it hard to bring new players in. Getting guys from D&D to play Heroes is tough enough, having rules splattered all over the place doesn't help.

No argument from me. Every time the question of how to make the game more accessible, bring in new players, or otherwise promote stuff comes up I advocate for a condensed Megaversal Rule Book.

[Jefffar]

They've tried - https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Vol-2.html

[The Artist Formerly]

They've tried - https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Vol-2.html

Just a basic index in the back of the rules books is all that is needed. And maybe better editing.

[zyanitevp]

They've tried - https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Vol-2.html

And if I recall, one of the worst selling products ever.

[The Artist Formerly]

They've tried - https://palladium-store.com/1001/produc ... Vol-2.html

And if I recall, one of the worst selling products ever.

That's because they were trying to duct tape in something that was outdated the second new books came out.

A basic index at the back of the rules books would be easy.

[Sureshot]

A basic index at the back of the rules books would be easy.

Seconded. A simple index would be easy. I rather get a index than yet another page promoting various PB products.

[Spinachcat]

I haven't experienced this problem myself. I find the detailed Table of Contents to do the job of an Index just fine FOR ME. I don't see why a fan Wiki could not be set up that provided an Index of Everything. Seems like something that would be better web-based anyway so it could be updated easily as Rifters and new books came out.