Consolidating realms topics

[jflevesque]

Hey guys,

Now that the Import/Export feature is out, how would you go about to merge identical or similar topics from multiple realms to create your 'campaign setting' export to be reusable across the other realms?

The best would then be able to import it back in the previous realms and have the topics automatically merged (I guess).

What do you guys think? How would you do it (or even did it)?

[Silveras]

As I understand it, topic IDs are preserved in exports, so you could re-import into the original realm updated versions exported from other realms. Topics would not merge or update based on the name; you would just end up with two separate Topics with the same name. Copying, for example, creates a new realm with the same content, but they all have new IDs and would not merge if the content of one realm was exported and imported into the other.

So while export/import should, technically, work... the issues are ones of organization.

Who gets to make decisions on what is canon? If two GMs make different changes to the same snippet in different "child" realms, whose takes precedence?

[Farling]

I would export all your "campaign setting" information to create a new realm which becomes the "campaign setting" realm. You could merge multiple exports from other realms before doing a tidy up to create your master campaign setting realm. (All this importing of current information would use the import option to NOT remember the realm they came from.) This realm would never import data from other realms again.

You would then delete the campaign setting information from your other realms and import the "campaign setting" realm into those realms.

Then updates to your "campaign setting" realm can be reimported into those realms as updates are made to the campaign setting realm.

- This creates a nice and simple arrangement for export->import, rather than having loops of dependencies which will only lead to problems later.

[ShadowChemosh]

Copying, for example, creates a new realm with the same content, but they all have new IDs and would not merge if the content of one realm was exported and imported into the other.
I was not sure last time you said this what you meant. But this is not a true statement. Copying a realm preserves the database id's exactly like the original. Yes I have actually tested this exact situation out.

Meaning you can create a realm "Copy" and test away with it and it will act in all ways as your original realm.

The best would then be able to import it back in the previous realms and have the topics automatically merged (I guess).
As someone who has done exactly this I can say it works. But you have some work. Once you exported the information from the different realms import back into a new master realm. Merge the data together in the new master realm. Delete the topics out of the old realms. Then you will have export from the master and import into the child realms. Once in the child realms you will have to go and manually re-link the topics back to the existing topics. No mass link realm option yet. :(

After doing the above the data coming out of the master realm will be able to overwrite or merge with the data in the child realms. This means you make all changes in the master realm and then export and import to the campaign/child realms.

[jflevesque]

@Silveras
How would you go about keeping the revealed state of your topics/snippets for the ongoing campaign, since you would end up with a duplicate of all topics? Would you then need to go through each one, one by one, to set the revealed state accordingly?

@Farling
I understand the idea of the Master Realm idea and reimporting back into the other realms for the ongoing campaigns, but if I want to input new data or improvised information from an ongoing session, wouldn't this be an issue since I wouldn't be in the master realm? would it be possible to import the new information into the Master Realm?

Why would reimport loops cause issue on the long run?

[ShadowChemosh]

@Silveras
How would you go about keeping the revealed state of your topics/snippets for the ongoing campaign, since you would end up with a duplicate of all topics? Would you then need to go through each one, one by one, to set the revealed state accordingly?
I put in a bug report last week about reveal states. They do not currently appear to be working correctly. :(

[Silveras]

I was not sure last time you said this what you meant. But this is not a true statement. Copying a realm preserves the database id's exactly like the original. Yes I have actually tested this exact situation out.

Meaning you can create a realm "Copy" and test away with it and it will act in all ways as your original realm.


What I said is based on posts in the beta forum where Rob explained the difference between Copy and Import/Export. The gist of that was that Copy does not retain "connections" between the Realms, while Import/Export does. Maybe I am misunderstanding what "connections" meant, but in context it seemed to be maintaining topic recognition between realms.

[Silveras]

@Silveras
How would you go about keeping the revealed state of your topics/snippets for the ongoing campaign, since you would end up with a duplicate of all topics? Would you then need to go through each one, one by one, to set the revealed state accordingly?

@Farling
I understand the idea of the Master Realm idea and reimporting back into the other realms for the ongoing campaigns, but if I want to input new data or improvised information from an ongoing session, wouldn't this be an issue since I wouldn't be in the master realm? would it be possible to import the new information into the Master Realm?

Why would reimport loops cause issue on the long run?

I have no ideas on reveal state. I expect that it will only become more of a headache in the future as reveal is intended to be "per-character" at some point, instead of the current all-or-nothing version. That will likely enormously complicate what it sounds like you're trying to do, although at that point you could maybe combine the Realms into one.

Updates can be a problem in part because of continuity errors.

If you're talking about separate groups operating in the same world under different GMs, then here's one example. Let's say that in Realm A, the PCs kill the NPC "Bob" on Day 10 of the calendar. But in realm B, the PCs join "Bob" as his friends/allies/employees on Day 11. Which one goes into the "canon" ?

Now let's say that it is a little less separated. Players in both Realm A and Realm B have heard the news that "Bob is actually a traitor"... so that snippet is revealed to both groups. But in Realm A, they have investigated and also found out that it is false information (Truth level = False). So now one Realm has a note "Players know this is false" and the other doesn't.

When importing the updates, somebody has to make a call how to handle that.

And a loop can occur when the same topic has different updates in different realms.. each import, if not watched carefully, can switch it back and forth from one version to another, or put the wrong version in place in one of the realms.

Exporting NEW content and importing elsewhere has far less issues (and is probably completely safe) compared to trying to propagate changes to existing Topics among multiple realms.

For example, let's say the "Master" realm had mentioned a region only by name, with few or no details. If that gets expanded for play later, adding the details to one of the realms and exporting to the others is pretty safe. If more than one realm is adding details, though, then that becomes more of a challenge to manage.

[ShadowChemosh]

What I said is based on posts in the beta forum where Rob explained the difference between Copy and Import/Export.
I just wanted to mention the behaivor that I have actually seen RW do in testing. To make sure we are on the same page this is using the 'Copy Realm' from the wrench drop down on the Realms tab. I have not tested to see what a full realm export/import does yet.

The gist of that was that Copy does not retain "connections" between the Realms, while Import/Export does. Maybe I am misunderstanding what "connections" meant, but in context it seemed to be maintaining topic recognition between realms.
Based on what I have observed I think these connections are the "links" to different topics.

In example I have a monster that is linked to the monsters subtype topic in Realm A. If I export and import both the monster & subtype into Realm B the link from the monster to the subtype stays. I don't have to edit the monster to get it to link again to the subtype topic. I think that is what Rob meant as "connections".

[jflevesque]

In my case, there's only one GM and it is me. For me, the Master Realm would be mostly the world, regions, city names, groups and organisations, encounter areas, etc.

I'm still debating if that includes major NPCs or not.

In each campaign, I would then add the fluff for the campaign or story.

My issue is that like most DMs, you need to often improvise. When that happens, I sometimes get the opportunity during breaks or RP moments to enter the improvised information back into RW. If I can't import back to the Master Realm, then this becomes lost time and I'm better entering it in Notepad or somesuch and enter it in the Master Realm at some other time when I get the chance.

[ShadowChemosh]

My issue is that like most DMs, you need to often improvise. When that happens, I sometimes get the opportunity during breaks or RP moments to enter the improvised information back into RW. If I can't import back to the Master Realm, then this becomes lost time and I'm better entering it in Notepad or somesuch and enter it in the Master Realm at some other time when I get the chance.
I honestly have not tried importing back into the Master realm. I don't know how RW will handle that. It maybe something to try out and why I was mentioning that Copy Realm does make an exact copy of realm. Meaning you could make a copy of your Campaign Realm and Master Realm. Import/Export around topics and see how RW reacts.

On the good side if the Copy Realms get all messed up you just delete them and you still have your original realm unharmed.

This is what I have been doing. But right now I started with "hard" rules like monsters/spells as they don't change much at all. I am doing this to get use to how RW reacts to all the import/export stuff. Then I figured I would work on a master Campaign Realm that has to deal with more "changes".

[davidp]

As I understand it, topic IDs are preserved in exports, so you could re-import into the original realm updated versions exported from other realms. Topics would not merge or update based on the name; you would just end up with two separate Topics with the same name. Copying, for example, creates a new realm with the same content, but they all have new IDs and would not merge if the content of one realm was exported and imported into the other.

I was not sure last time you said this what you meant. But this is not a true statement. Copying a realm preserves the database id's exactly like the original. Yes I have actually tested this exact situation out.

You are both correct in various ways.

A copy of the realm does indeed reset all of the id's used internally to brand new id's. HOWEVER, if the original realm had imported content, the imported content as another id to identify where it came from and THOSE id's will be preserved in the copy.

So what does this mean?

You start with Realm1. You have an original topic called Topic1. You import Topic2 from an export file. You copy Realm1 to Realm2. Realm2 now has Topic1 which is not at all the same as Topic1 from Realm1 and also Topic2 which has the same import marker as Topic2 from Realm1.

So if you get an update to Topic2 from where ever it came from and import into Realm2, it will update Topic2 in the realm. And if you import into Realm1, you'll have the same update.

If you export Topic1 from Realm1 and then import to Realm2, you would end up with a duplicate Topic1 in Realm2.

If you instead exported Topic1 from Realm2 and imported into Realm1, again, you would end up with a duplicate Topic1 in Realm1.

So it all depends on what you do as to what will happen.

[jflevesque]

@David
In that case, if we have topicA from Realm1 and topicB from Realm2 which we want to consolidate, should we export them from Realm1 and Realm2, import into Realm3, do changes or possibly merge topicA & topicB, create a new export from Realm3 and import back into Realm1 and Realm2. If topicB was deleted to keep only topicA, would that update topicA in Realm1 and add a new topicA in Realm2?

[davidp]

@David
In that case, if we have topicA from Realm1 and topicB from Realm2 which we want to consolidate, should we export them from Realm1 and Realm2, import into Realm3, do changes or possibly merge topicA & topicB, create a new export from Realm3 and import back into Realm1 and Realm2. If topicB was deleted to keep only topicA, would that update topicA in Realm1 and add a new topicA in Realm2?

That sounds right. You can think of it like this: when a topic is exported for the first time from a realm, it has an ID associated with it. That ID carries over to other realms that it is imported into and will also carry along when exporting it again. As long as that ID matches, it will be seen as an update to the topic that matches within the realm.

[ShadowChemosh]

@davidp. Thanks for the information. :)

[Farling]

@David
In that case, if we have topicA from Realm1 and topicB from Realm2 which we want to consolidate, should we export them from Realm1 and Realm2, import into Realm3, do changes or possibly merge topicA & topicB, create a new export from Realm3 and import back into Realm1 and Realm2. If topicB was deleted to keep only topicA, would that update topicA in Realm1 and add a new topicA in Realm2?

If you merge the two topics, will one of the "export-import" links will be broken? i.e. it will only remember the topic into which the merge was done (not the topic that was merged into that topic).

[Silveras]

You know, you can also move Snippets from one topic to another, and combine/ split them manually. So you could export and import without using a 3rd realm, and edit the one(s) in the first realm to contain content exported from the second.. then delete the duplicate Topic and have only the consolidated one left.

What approach works best depends, I think, on the situation you're in.