Creation Workshop (a.k.a. CW) is Hero Games and Alter Ego Software's joined project, which sets to create one unified environment for Role-Players to use in order to create a Character Builder for their chosen Role-Playing System. Just like Hero Games' Universal Role-Playing System, The Hero System, This product attempts to handle all possible cases, meaning, all Role-Playing Systems. While the goal is meat, this product is certainly not flawless.
Quick description:
In order to make Creation Workshop work with a Role-Playing system the user has to create at least 3 files, which together make a Role-playing system package:
1. A template.
2. A data sheet.
3. A print template or A filters.
The template is a menu and a set of forms used to enter the basic data of the character. This is usually used for characteristics, pictures, character story and game system configuration. The user can put here whatever fields he wishes the players to enter.
The data sheet is used for storing generic data (duh...). This would include skills, advantages, disadvantages, powers, spells, equipment and basically whatever the system needs. Building the data sheet is usually the lengthiest task of all three. The data sheet is full of options, which will allow you to create any item your system needs and create it exactly as it is represented in the System.
A print template allows you to take a character built with Creation Workshop and print it. It's in the print template that you decide how you present the skills, where the picture will be located and so on. You can also use filters in order to save the character to your chosen format (Plain text, HTML, rtf...) and then print the file later. Personally I prefer the second option.
First impression:
After having finished downloading CW from Hero games site (Where it's sold) I happily proceeded to install it. I then activated the program... "What the hell is this?", I screamed (well actually it was more of a squeak but a scream sounds more impressive), "How old is this product?". You see, I'm a programmer and as one I expected CW to look like a modern product, in stead it looked like a 3-year-old product. Luckily for me I already knew Hero-System and remembered that the Hero-System too looks pretty ugly (I mean the pictures in the book are mostly ugly), but actually holds great contents. "Ok lets get on with it" I thought and opened a new character sheet (CW comes with a free and fully functional template for Fuzion). I took me 5 minutes to finish up the character (mind you, I did create a character I already remembered by heart and only wrote a brief description of it). It normally takes me 15 minutes to create a character in Fuzion, not including the description and story. Feeling more relaxed I read the short tutorial describing how to create a complete package for a new game system and then, created one for Shadowrun. This task took much more time (days), but was kind of fun for me. Today I can say I made a good purchase, but lets go into detail for those of you who aren't like me:
Intended Audience:
I can't think of one good reason for a player to use creation workshop to create his characters. A GM on the other hand, may find this product useful. Creating NPC's becomes an annoying task after a while and CW will allow you to make it a quicker one. This means you'll be more in focus and be able to put more work into each NPC without spending too much time on number crunching. You can also easily use existing NPC's and just alter them a bit to create similar yet different NPC's (or perhaps an evil twin for a PC?). Unfortunately, even the most ambitious GM will get frustrated with CW quickly if programming is a freighting thought for him. Those of you, who know Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications, will be shocked by the resemblance of CW to VB (coincidence? I don't think so!) and therefor won't have too much problems using CW.
User Interface:
I believe I already made my point about the GUI (Graphical user Interface). CW simply looks old. My guess is that since it's based on the Original Hero Maker (The Same like CW only it can only be used for the Hero-System) it also inherited the original GUI. The user interface has more to it than just looks, though. CW allows you to build variables, arrays and functions (all are concepts taken from the programming world). It also includes built in functions and macros. Even for someone who feels completely comfortable with such concepts, the developing environment is beneath any standard. Instead of offering a good text editor of it's own, CW uses notepad. CW also doesn't give the user meaningful feedback for syntax errors. Also, The defined macros have almost unmeaningful names (for example "bc" in stead of "basic_cost") and the formatting you can apply to the displayed text is almost write-only (meaning you know what you're doing when you write it but it's too hard to figure out what another user wrote).
Additionally, Hero Games advises you to build data sheets through text editors rather than use CW for it. That's a major problem. I can't understand why doesn't CW support an easy data sheet construction from itself. Still, after a few minutes of going through a ready to use data sheet one realizes that this task is not too difficult.
CW, however is not just a pile of flaws. Just like Hero Games offer source books for their universal Role-Playing System, they offer ready to use templates for other game systems (Yes, even for ones which belong to their competitors). Naturally the Hero-System has a package. So does Call of Cathulu. At the time of writing this review I also know of several others: Aberrant has some kind of a beta version, GURPS is in the works, I think I saw FUDGE somewhere and there are several Systems scheduled for their very own templates (The list is somewhere on www.herogames.com. What I remember is Legend of the Five Rings, Ars Magica, Cyberpunk, Deadlands and Sengoku). If I am to speak as Hero Games veteran, don't buy CW and expect these templates to come out soon. Hero Games have a tendency to release products after very long periods (Specifically, I remember reading somewhere, that Hero Games years are much longer than normal human years).
Functionality:
I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect that I can easily build a financial program using CW. What I mean is, that CW can be used for any Role-Playing System you wish it to and more. It has a few tools like the name finder or dice roller, but you can't use it to run a session (as I am sure, will be possible someday). CW can keep track of versions of Role-Playing systems so if, for example, suddenly Shadowrun comes out in a fourth version CW will help you create conversion scripts which will convert all your saved characters from version 3. You can also supply a help file for the Role-Playing system so that you don't have to open a book while using the package.
Short Summary:
Again, in my opinion, this product is mainly for GM's and even at that, they should have some programming skills (If you ever wrote in JavaScript, VBScript or other scripting languages, or in any programming language, you have sufficient skills). Personally, The most fun I have with CW is building a new system into it, rather than, using the system to create characters. If you use a ready to use Role-playing system package you don't need to get mixed up with all the complicated stuff and with little effort you can adjust the system (For example add your own advantages to GURPS).
In short, for the right users, CW is great, for others it's not exactly highly recommended.
Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
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