Dashboard (Savage)

Context: HL Kit … Authoring Examples … Savage Worlds Walk-Through 

Overview

All of the critical mechanics for individual characters are now in place. It's time to turn our attention to managing multiple characters effectively. The first piece in that process is the Dashboard.

Determine the Display Content

The Skeleton files provide a basic framework for the Dashboard. The character name is shown at the top. Various mouse-over icons are arrayed across the bottom. Buttons to switching between actors and move gear are down the right side. We need to figure out what additional information we want to show to the user. We don't have much space, so we need to choose carefully. The most frequently referenced information should be given priority and shown.

Looking closely at the make-up of Savage Worlds characters, there are five basic pieces of information that seem most important. These are listed below.

• Health Status - The number of wounds and fatigue level are important, as is whether the character is shaken.
• Parry - In a game with lots of combat, the Parry trait will be referenced frequently.
• Toughness - The rationale for Toughness is similar to the Parry trait.
• Power Points - It's also valuable to know how many power points remain for a character with an arcane background.
• Bennies - Bennies are an important resource that need to be managed by the player, so knowing how many you have left at-a-glance can be extremely useful.

It's possible that we won't be able to squeeze all of this information into the limited space we have for each actor on the Dashboard. So we need to assess each one and determine both how to display it and where it might fit. At the end, if don't have room, we need to drop the lower priority piece(s) of information.

Health is probably the most important piece, although it also requires significant space. If a character is wounded, fatigued, and shaken, all three facets must be indicated in some way. We already use a very compact representation for this within the static form at the top of the main window, but it still consumes a fair bit of space. If we can't think of a more compact representation, we'll be hard-pressed to show all the other information on the Dashboard. The primary use for the Health as a quick-reference during play is to show the net impact on the character. As such, we could display a shaken indicator and only the total negative adjustment for the character. This would cut the required space in half.

Since combat tends to factor prominently in many Savage Worlds games, the Parry and Toughness traits are probably the next most important. These traits are simple values, so they don't require much space to display on the Dashboard. The Power Points are likely more important than the Bennies. Showing the Power Points can be done in two different ways. One option is to show them as we do on the static form at the top, with both the current and maximum values, but we could also just show the current value for space efficiency. The same two options apply for Bennies.

Let's consider how and where we can squeeze everything in now. The default behavior for the Dashboard is to reserve two lines of space for the actor name. The primary reason for this is to be able to show the associations for minions and masters. Since allies often play a significant role in Savage Worlds games, and since they can best be modeled as minions of the PCs, it would be nice to retain this space on the Dashboard.

If we retain that space, though, we're left with some hard decisions. Beneath the name, there really isn't enough space to show more than one line of information. Based on our prioritization above, this leaves us with the character's Health (in a compressed format) and room for probably only two traits. We'll go with this design for now and see if we can't squeeze in the Power Points at the end.