Forum:CT Archive/Template navigation content

I have built a template, for the articles that I have been helping to write about the Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars-themed games. There are 3 games. Each game has a few expansions. Now, in authoring the template, I used Template:Miniatures as a guide to just get it started. I was a bit rushed at the time having other personal issues on my plate while trying to put together a nav template, but I am working on it now to improve it.

I added a cards and an RPG section to the initial miniatures nav box I put together because I have seen the trend (at least in my areas&mdash;I have moved from one region of the US to another) for some gaming groups to combine more than one product in their roleplaying sessions, and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and the X-Wing Miniatures Game are such examples. RPG space combat character immersion cuts to a scene in which miniatures rounds are used to propel the story in a dynamic and creative way. It helps players to visualize the action as it unfolds, and although there is a win/loss outcome in a miniatures round, gamemasters use either outcome to decide how players are rewarded bonuses (or penalized) during play. It makes for very interesting play sessions (note that I have not yet seen card play involved in this practice, but if combining the two, why not all three).

Therefore, a template designed to involve more than just the miniatures or the RPG or the cards formats of the FFG brands would be useful to gaming fans (in particular, gamemasters) looking for such crossing info. Having a template that combines at least the two elements would allow for visitors to the wiki to easily search out details with such a quick reference navigation box.

The technical details that I was most interested in, with the creation of the nav template, is that the box have collapsing of each game section. For now, there are only three main games for the company, but this format would allow for more games to be added to the template if FFG adds more games (and it looks as if they will). Each game has its own expansions, individually, so collapsing is useful. I would like to have it collapse individually for each of the 3 games rather than for the whole box.

A counter-proposal was made by Thunderforge, however, to split all the games up into individual templates. I was waiting to see what the community would suggest, but changes began to be made without such input, so I am bringing the discussion here for a consensus. I realize that the solution may be to go ahead and split the nav box, but if a reasonable solution to combining products under companies can be made, it would cut down in the amount of templates created and maintained every time a company releases a new product. If a precedent can be set, all the better. But if it is more appropriate to individually create nav boxes for each franchise release, then I will go with that.