Just bought RW and have some questions

[Rapkannibale]

Hello, so I did some research before hand and looked at some videos of people using RW but still have some questions and hope I can get some answers here.


What is the difference between a "topic" and an "article"?
Can I create a custom character template for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition characters?
I am trying to bring Beyond the Mountains of Madness into RW, do I do a realm for this campaign, or one for Call of Cthulhu in general and just add BtMoM as a topic?
I also want to add some of the rules of 7th edition CoC. If I add them under the Mechanics Reference in one realm, can I access that in another realm?
Are there any good tutorials or tips about brining a campaign from PDF to RW?


Thanks!

[EightBitz]

1. I think they're essentially the same thing, except for context. An article might describe something about the content or the system. Something a bit more meta than a single subject.

A topic would be more like a specific NPC or a specific location.

2. Yes, but before you start doing something like that, create a Test Realm where you can experiment at your leisure without messing anything up in your actual Realm. Once you get a feel for how things work and what you want to do, you can apply those changes to your actual realm.

3. There isn't one, right answer here. Right now, you can't share across realms. That feature is coming, possibly soon, but it's not available right now. So if you create a realm just for one campaign, and you plan on running other campaigns, then you'll have to repeat work in formatting a new realm for all the same rules.

If you create one CoC realm for all campaigns, that's certainly doable, but if you run campaign after campaign after campaign, it can grow large and cluttered.

Another option you have right now is to create a base realm for CoC, and get all your templates in place, then duplicate that realm for each separate campaign you want to run. Mind you, this means that if you make a change to your base realm, it will NOT propagate to each campaign. You'll have to do that manually.

4. Not yet. See above. The ability to share between realms is coming, but it's not yet there.

5. Many users have posted tips and tricks and ways they've done things. There is also a relatively new discussion forum for people who create tutorials of RW in action.

http://forums.wolflair.com/forumdisplay.php?f=91

[Joe]

Quite simply: Articles are for game mechanic content. The type of stuff you'll find in rulebooks. Topics are for story content. The kind of stuff you'll find in adventure material. They function identically, but are shown in different areas of the application, and cannot be mixed together (although you CAN link between them).

[kbs666]

You definitely would not put the entire BtMoM in one topic.

Your best bet is to spread the PDF across many topics and articles.

Without knowing much about the campaign, things like encounter locations should get their own topic while anything that has a lot of rules info, such as a new gun or a new creature, should be an article.

[daplunk]

Watch some of my videos, if you pause through some of them you will see how I have entered some official modules. One article per section of the module basically. Eg one room becomes one article. Watch the map videos to udnerstand why.

Link in sig for videos.

[rob]

What is the difference between a "topic" and an "article"?

Topics are for your story content. Articles are for your game mechanics content. So they appear in different places within RW. Beyond that, they are essentially the same.

Can I create a custom character template for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition characters?

Absolutely. As @Eightbitz suggested, create a test realm to experiment in and settle on what you want. Once that's done, you can bring it back into your primary realm for use.

I am trying to bring Beyond the Mountains of Madness into RW, do I do a realm for this campaign, or one for Call of Cthulhu in general and just add BtMoM as a topic?

I recommend starting with one realm for all your initial CoC stuff. You can mix the mechanics stuff that you deem pertinent with all the story/adventure stuff for BtMoM. You'll get all the cross-linking in place, and it will all come together nicely.

I also want to add some of the rules of 7th edition CoC. If I add them under the Mechanics Reference in one realm, can I access that in another realm?

You'll need to export the CoC rules stuff for use in another realm. We're finishing up testing of all those mechanisms right now. The Beta team has been beating on it and finding some glitches for many weeks. It should be available at the start of January. So it will all be in place before you're ready to use any of it. :)

Are there any good tutorials or tips about brining a campaign from PDF to RW?

There are LOTS of videos. Some we put together. The majority are those put together by users. And the user-created ones are admittedly often better and more thorough, albeit a bit longer. You'll find them here: http://forums.wolflair.com/forumdisplay.php?f=91