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Compendium access without sharing

January 18 (3 weeks ago)

As far as I can tell (and maybe I'm missing something), there are three options for resource books in a game:

   - Books that I do not own

   - Books that I own but are not available in the game

   - Books that I own and are shared with the players

There doesn't seem to be an option for books that I own, that I want available in the game TO ME, but NOT to my players.

For example, in a Call of Cthulhu game, I own the 7th Edition Keeper book. I want that book available to me in the game to look up things, but I don't want my players to have access to it. The same thing for The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic. I want to be able to look up spells but not give my players access to the book.

BUT, if I have the Investigator Handbook, I want the players to be able to access that so I can't just click "No" for "Share my Compendium with players". In other words, I want to be able to share some of my books but not all of them, but have all of them available to me.

There doesn't seem to be a way to accomplish what I want - at least nothing obvious from looking at the Content Sharing page for the game. Am I missing something?

January 18 (3 weeks ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

Hi Saul!

You are not missing anything. This is the way it works. If a resource is available in-game, it is available to all. Your best option to constrain access is communication with your players.

January 19 (3 weeks ago)

Yeah, I know this group. That's not going to work. :-) I'll have to give this more thought...

Thanks.

keithcurtis said:

Hi Saul!

You are not missing anything. This is the way it works. If a resource is available in-game, it is available to all. Your best option to constrain access is communication with your players.




January 19 (3 weeks ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

Depending on what you need, maybe you can just keep the external compendium open in a different tab/window?

January 19 (3 weeks ago)


keithcurtis said:

Depending on what you need, maybe you can just keep the external compendium open in a different tab/window?


No, that won't work. I need drag&drop. Here's a situation, as an example: Call of Cthulhu/Lovecraft has a long history of not referring to things by their real name. For example, a spell might be found in a tome that's called: Bring Forth the Winged Steed. That sounds like a good thing, right? Especially for a group that's traveling place to place by car, train or boat. In reality, that spell is Summon Byakhee. If you know what Byakhee are in the canon, you know that's not really a good thing. But, I might not want the players to know what the spell actually does. I want to be able to drop the spell onto their sheet, and modify the name/text so that they don't know what it actually does until they cast it.

The same is true for other things besides spells. For example: they might come across the name Pazzuzu in a tome or somewhere else. I don't want them looking up the name in the compendium to find that it's an avatar of Nyarlathotep. 

Call of Cthulhu is supposed to be "mysterious". The players are supposed to "investigate" and figure things out as they go along and learn what's going on. They're not supposed to be told exactly what's going on by looking things up in the Compendium - either the Keeper's book, the Grimoire, or whatever. In game mechanics, when they see a byakhee, or find a connection like Pazzuzu is Nyarlathotep, they have a chance to lose Sanity. Losing Sanity is not good - it's almost as bad as losing HP. If they find a spell that says "Summon Byakhee" they're not going to cast it, not going to see a byakhee, and not lose Sanity.  

If you tell someone "Don't look there" there's a tendency for some people to look. It's like "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"...

I'm thinking about posting a suggestion in the Suggestion forum. I think this is something that other game runners might want. I know that Roll20 was supposed to be working on ways to add homebrew to the Compendium so maybe they can do this at the same time if enough people like the idea. 

January 19 (3 weeks ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

If you do make such a suggestion, post the link here, so that I and others can lend our vote. I agree with the utility of this.

January 20 (3 weeks ago)

Hopefully, this link works:

Limited access to Compendium books

Please vote if you thing this is a good idea.

January 20 (3 weeks ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

I have upvoted.

February 04 (1 week ago)

Would also like to see this option with sharing. I have upvoted it as well.