Custom Compendium

Yes, this, exactly. However, as I've just recently learned how to make a sheet compendium compatible, I'm really balking at the idea that this would be all that hard. It's a basic database system. You set up a series of named fields, which a sheet must be made to correspond to. Then you fill in the blanks for each one. It's not exactly rocket surgery. If I, halfwit coder that I am, can wrap my head around this, then I'm really lost as to what's so hard about building the other side of it. :/ JoshLikesBeer said: +1 Not all compendiums are complete (especially if you use 3rd party or homebrew), and not all games have compendiums. The main problem I want to solve is that when I set up custom equipment, abilities, etc., I only want to have to set them up once. If, after adding a customized equipment, ability, etc to one character, there was some way to copy it to another character, either by dragging it from one character sheet to another or by selecting some option to add it to a custom compendium, that would be all I need. A workflow of setting up compendium items by configuring them on a character sheet first and then exporting to the compendium seems like it ought to solve (at least partially) the issue of formatting the data specifically for the character sheet that's going to use it. I like an idea someone upthread had about being able to have multiple compatible compendiums in the same game. You could have the main compendium plus any number of addons compendiums that add new things and/or override existing things. That would allow third party publishers to sell compendiums through the marketplace. I'd love to be able to import, e.g., Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might compendiums into a Pathfinder game. What I don't want is to have to keep setting up the same sphere talents over and over for each character and NPC. Just to be clear, this isn't meant at all in a rude way. I'm just honestly wishing I could understand the difficulty!

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+1 - been running into this a lot recently! Would love this feature to support homebrewing.

There are tons of Compendium sheets on Pinterest for Homebrew stuff.&nbsp; Just the sheer number of them amazes me.&nbsp; Here is a prime example.&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/681662093575456630/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pinterest.com/pin/681662093575456630/</a> .&nbsp;&nbsp;

As they are images, you'd never be able to import them as compendium entries in roll20 anyway. You'd have to manually type them up as characters to use them.

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GiGs said: As they are images, you'd never be able to import them as compendium entries in roll20 anyway. You'd have to manually type them up as characters to use them. I don't mind typing it in +1

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+1 With this being a 3 year old thread, is this really going to be a reality anytime soon?

Tanya Marie said: +1 With this being a 3 year old thread, is this really going to be a reality anytime soon? We got a new scroll UI that literally no one asked for, much less spent 575 votes on.&nbsp; That should answer your question.&nbsp; We get easy to code features, but little in the way of actual enhancements.

Some basic expectations need to be set for this suggestion to move forward. First of all, Roll20 would suffer financially from implementing this feature. We need to understand that one of Roll20's ways to stay afloat is to sell the convenience of compendiums via the official compendiums and charge for the ability to move data between games through the transmogrifier. Roll20 will first need to address how they plan to make ends meet if they implement this feature, or if they plan to even go down this route. This is a financially driven decision. Roll20's servers cost a lot. Competition in the market is moving fast, and the ability to maintain and curate your own compendiums can be found on other alternatives. As we all understand, the open market should be let to play it's course on whether Roll20 wishes to take a hit financially for user convenience. In brief, the above wraps up why this suggestion will struggle to move forward. Users want convenience, Roll20 wants to sell said convenience to stay afloat. I would suggest you refund votes on this suggestion for something better, or, refrain from using Roll20 if the need for custom compendiums is a must for your game.

How about they just make custom compendiums a Pro/Plus feature.&nbsp; They have been horrible about incentivizing people to get paid subscriptions.&nbsp;&nbsp;

It could be limited to Pro, and Curated if it is to be shared.&nbsp; By allowing people to sell compendiums within the marketplace, Roll20 would increase their revenue.&nbsp; They would need to review content for sale (they already do this) for copyright issues (so no one could make a compendium for an inprint game without permission from the copyright holder, or instance).&nbsp; We already see great 3rd party content in the marketplace, for sale and for free, and this would greatly expand the usability of the Roll20 system while also allowing game manufacturers to expand their user base by leveraging licensing models to allow fans to create or translate content into the online system.

Well, this is an interesting take: ブラザーシャープ said: In brief, the above wraps up why this suggestion will struggle to move forward. Users want convenience, Roll20 wants to sell said convenience to stay afloat. I would suggest you refund votes on this suggestion for something better, or, refrain from using Roll20 if the need for custom compendiums is a must for your game. If it's a financial concern, though, I'd have a lot more respect for that concern if we were just told so--but maybe that's been said and I missed it? I don't catch anything close to every post. Finius Lyn said: It could be limited to Pro, and Curated if it is to be shared.&nbsp; By allowing people to sell compendiums within the marketplace, Roll20 would increase their revenue.&nbsp; They would need to review content for sale (they already do this) for copyright issues (so no one could make a compendium for an inprint game without permission from the copyright holder, or instance).&nbsp; We already see great 3rd party content in the marketplace, for sale and for free, and this would greatly expand the usability of the Roll20 system while also allowing game manufacturers to expand their user base by leveraging licensing models to allow fans to create or translate content into the online system. It would make total sense (to me, at least) as a Pro feature. I've happily supported Roll20 as a Pro user for years, as for all its clunkiness I really love this platform and what it lets me do. This seems like a feature that would add even more value to going Pro, so they might see more people willing to become paid members. The idea of letting users sell curated collections is interesting, though I imagine it would create a whole lot of complications; it wouldn't only be a question of copyright but of competition. I imagine that RPG companies wouldn't much like to see that kind of competition, which could also be a financial concern for Roll20. (Finance is most certainly not my area, so I'll leave that bit to those with greater expertise.)

Dave said: Well, this is an interesting take: Not really.&nbsp; What ブラザーシャープ said is more of an uninformed opinion stated as fact to support some weird theory of markets that the only way to change them is to censor product opinions in the very place designated for such a discussion. The fact of the matter here is that other companies have a revenue model that allows for personal creations and mix / match of systems.&nbsp; (See D&amp;D Beyond, FGU, &amp; even WotC)&nbsp; Also, Roll20 has complete control of their servers, so loading pirated material into the game is stupid easy to block.&nbsp; Even if they allow off site hosting of a compendium, the GM has to bring it into Roll20 to use it. So there is little risk of losing any amount of revenue, let alone a significant amount. No security is absolute, but asking for that to be the case is a bait and switch.&nbsp; It will take minimal coding to capture 99%+ of all issues, and social engineering and spot checks will do most of the rest.&nbsp; The problem is not unsolvable, and to propose it as such to get people to shut up about the problem is a crappy thing to do.

The obstruction is not due to piracy concerns currently, and have mostly to do with the current tools requiring lots of rework to be usable for the average user. This suggestion was addressed in This month's (April) Community Roundtable at the 43:45 mark.

Pantsworth said: The problem is not unsolvable, and to propose it as such to get people to shut up about the problem is a crappy thing to do. Well said. I didnt respond to that post for pretty much the same reason.

Andreas J. said: The obstruction is not due to piracy concerns currently, and have mostly to do with the current tools requiring lots of rework to be usable for the average user. This suggestion was addressed in This month's (April) Community Roundtable at the 43:45 mark. Then ブラザーシャープ 's nonsense about loss of revenue is even less relevant.&nbsp; Thanks for the link.

I suppose I should say that by "interesting" I meant "novel." I completely agree with you. Moreover, I don't really believe that it can be that difficult to set one up. I may be old as hell, but I learned basic database entry back in high school. If a dumb fourteen-year-old could do it in the nineties, it can't be that hard to do now. :P Pantsworth said: Dave said: Well, this is an interesting take: Not really. [...] The problem is not unsolvable, and to propose it as such to get people to shut up about the problem is a crappy thing to do.

+1 for this for sure. I'd even go so far as to pay for official WotC content for AD&amp;D2e, the same that has been done for FG.

+1 -- i would love to be able to edit the compendiums as I play or beforehand

Andreas J. said: The obstruction is not due to piracy concerns currently, and have mostly to do with the current tools requiring lots of rework to be usable for the average user. This suggestion was addressed in This month's (April) Community Roundtable at the 43:45 mark. Hey thats me. Sorry I don't bring better news, but checking in to let you all know that this hasn't fallen off the radar. We're doing more internal research on building the necessary framework without the added problems that come with a complete rewrite.

+1 make it a Pro Feature to minimize a potential financial impact ! Am mastering 5e FR games. A lot of Forgotten Realms spells are out there, many of them already migrated to 5e thanks to dmsguild.com . Would love to add such spells and homebrew ones&nbsp; by myself, expanding an existing or adding a new compendium section, that way enabling my players across games.

I've just run into this too, I'm using a lot of custom spells in my setting and although I can manually add them to character sheets, I'd rather have the option to prep them ahead of time, and also to drop stuff into other campaigns.

+1 I am in the same boat. I need to make muskets for my campain using my homebrew rules. I pay for this service and feel like I need it.

I think this is going to be one of the threads I follow cloesly. As I have a massive interest in getting this feature into my games.

Yeah, this needs to be implemented.

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+1 Also interested as I'm trying to create non-RPG games, such as Full Thrust, using Roll20 as the platform :-)

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+1 crazy to me that this was requested 4 years ago with overwhelming agreement from the community. And still hasn't been implemented, especially considering it would take like 30 lines of HTML to Implement, and you could just use the existing storage space allocated for images to store custom compendium entries. Seriously how is this not a thing ???

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I feel like this is picking up traction again.&nbsp;

I hope so. It'd really cut down on the 4000 handouts I've had to archive for custom items and spells.

Laurent S. said: +1 crazy to me that this was requested 4 years ago with overwhelming agreement from the community. And still hasn't been implemented, especially considering it would take like 30 lines of HTML to Implement, and you could just use the existing storage space allocated for images to store custom compendium entries. Seriously how is this not a thing ??? Depends how much thought was put into when creating the&nbsp; compendium. If you dont code things correctly to start off with it can be a nightmare later.

As the devs have stated numerous times in this thread, the primary problem to implementing custom compendiums is that Roll20's backend tool for folks to create compendiums with is the most unfriendly abortion of a user interface ever created.&nbsp; They want to fix that before making custom compendiums a feature.&nbsp; Presumably it will be part of the long promised UI overhaul here.

Jesse said: As the devs have stated numerous times in this thread, the primary problem to implementing custom compendiums is that Roll20's backend tool for folks to create compendiums with is the most unfriendly abortion of a user interface ever created.&nbsp; They want to fix that before making custom compendiums a feature.&nbsp; Presumably it will be part of the long promised UI overhaul here. Perhaps the devs could release a video or instructions on how it works currently so that the "average" user can see how difficult and unintuitive it is. Maybe we can then start concentrating on ways they can make it better and more usable instead of endlessly asking/voting for updates. I want Homebrew compendiums as well and am almost ready to pull the plug on my Roll20 subscription because it is VERY important for me to use all of the homebrew content that I have access to and would like to use in multiple games. The current model makes this so tedious as to be impossible. I believe there should be a way that these items can be linked to an account and not required to be transmogrified from game to game within an account.

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