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Thank you for putting this together! It's a nice overview of the two products and how they interact.
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How very cool! Thank you for sharing. :)
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I am so happy someone took the time to do this. It was an invaluable sales pitch for new users, and an excellent resource that gave ideas to current owners.
I'm already making changes to some things to make this cross-platform work better. Pins in smart images, making sure I'm linking portfolios in encounters, that kind of stuff. I suffer from horrible scale creep when I get started, so I start with a Pathfinder module and before I know it, I spiral out into entering the entire world of Golarion into the database. You know what always gets me? I want every link to work when I write or enter the content, then before I know it, I'm not even looking at the module anymore, I'm entering the backstory of a town in another country. Because the links keep expanding! I liked the layout, going to see if I can crib some organizational strategies from the video. Thanks again for taking the time. |
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This is obviously just how I use it. Would love to see more examples of how people do things differently. |
What a great resource. Thank you for doing this!
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Added 2 more videos now to show some of the monster creation methods.
Realm Works and Hero Lab - Working With Monsters |
This rocks, as a new RW user, this is invaluable! Thank YOU!!!
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Thanks, Daplunk. Exactly what users have requested for two years -- real hands-on tutorials with explanations rather than slick marketing that focuses on features without context on how to use effectively. You rock!
It would be great if BJ made a series of videos of start-to-finish creation of people, places, things, rules, mobs, alternate names, maps, containers, then show how to find those things using sorts and alternate views, and finally tie them all together to create a short adventure or scenario with storyboard, timeline, relationships, stories, read-alouds, DM text, HL use at the table, etc. How does LWD envision their product being used to its fullest? Post each to a forum directory for community comments and "I'd do that this way" conversations. |
I have had that thought AEIOU, it's on my list of items I'd like to do but it may be a while before I can get to it. :)
Thanks again Daplunk! |
Thanks, BJ. I strongly feel that showing people why they can't live without RW would be more effective than telling them what it can do. I'm sure you're not at a loss for great ideas. If only the days were longer....
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Happy to make some more. I figure the content market is going to attract some fresh blood so having these available will certainly reduce some of the question and answer time that will most certainly follow.
Any other ideas in what should be covered? |
Would would be interesting is to have videos that walk through material on the content market, that discusses the thinking and decisions that went in to how the content was entered and organized. These would serve as both instructional/demo videos and advertisements for content available in the CM.
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Not something I can do unfortunately. But hopefully LW are watching.
Their forum presence has certainly increased significantly this last week indicating to me that a milestone has been completed. |
I would assume most if not all of the people who authored the realms for the CM, besides maybe the LWD folks, are restricted from talking about their work by NDA's.
I have thought off and on about doing a series of videos showing how I use RW and HL to build adventures but I've never really been sure if any one would watch them. |
Honestly I didnt start out making this for people who already had the tool. I just wanted a quick way to respond to the "are there any good D&D5e applications for DMs" posts that make their way around the inter-webs. But with that said I am getting quite a few hits and positive feedback from people in this forum. Look's like other's are certainly interested in seeing how others use the tool.
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You know, after watching your videos; what really struck me is how much time it must have taken you to enter all that data. I'm not going to lie, as a new user that is barely scratching the surface, the task ahead of me feels truly daunting.
Hurry up content market and take my money already! |
I had a pregnant wife who wasn't moving far and a job that ran out of work for a while lol. But yes... If I can buy this stuff on the content market I absolutely will.
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I use pretty much the same set-up as you for my Pathfinder/Runelords game, daplunk, although I didn't know the map-as-navigation-bar trick (thanks, that's going to make Saturday's session easier to manage).
I've got 8 players. The ability to integrate enemies into Hero Labs, click a button and have initiative rolled automatically is a great time-saver. Unlike you, I do release info to the players for use between sessions, and I write a running campaign diary based on the game session reveals and a few notes made during the session - this serves as a point of entry that hyperlinks to relevant material they've uncovered during the campaign. |
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Like daplunk I have a huge amount of information in my various realms. All I can say is that it's much easier if you have PDFs to cut and paste from. You quickly learn keyboard shortcuts to ease the process, and the very act of going through information, cutting and pasting it, doing little bits of reorganisation in Realm Works, actually serves as prep time - you remember a lot of it. Some of the pain is in working out how you're actually going to organise the content. That you really learn by doing - I scarcely touch the plot and relationships windows, for instance, preferring a slightly more traditional structure of storylines combined with containers for places, people and things - the hyperlinks tie everything together. Since I'm more interested in setting and background, and since my players know the rules system pretty well, I've concentrated more on getting setting details into RW than game mechanics. It *can* be a pain. It is, after all, a form of data entry. There are times I don't want to do it, and times I enjoy it. So long as I keep a couple of steps ahead of the players, I can happily go off and play a computer game instead of prepping. Initially, getting in the background information took a few weeks of solitary effort. Since then, I've just kept adding to the plot information as necessary. I try to keep a few sessions ahead of the players. For example, my players have just reached the Graul Farm in Rise of the Runelords - I've got that and Fort Rannick already in Realm Works, and once I stop typing here I'll add some more plot entries from the rest of the Hook Mountain Massacre. I doubt I'll get that chapter finished this evening, but you never know. You get quicker the more you do it. |
Awesome!!!!! Thank you!!!!
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That was one great video. I am in awe of the data and organization you have put in place. My data files are getting large but I can't imagine the size of yours.
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Very nice mate!
Finally back in town and can watch a video, internet at the lake is very spotty and it can be a chore to read email. One thing these videos do, is show those who are new, or even little wary about using RW, a little booster to get going. One thing that can not be stressed enough, is how forgiving RW is, you can always re manipulate the data entered, and nothing is a waste of time. Very good stuff, keep it coming! |
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It's probably the most boring one so far to be honest. I tried to show how i enter a PDF in using a very small adventure but its still going to be long winded. Need to do some actual video editing perhaps to show snippets of the process instead of the start to finish.
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I know I posted before, but that was 3 videos ago. Doing gord's work. Much appreciated.
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daplunk,
I must commend you, your videos are amazing. I was wondering if you could provide some advice, perhaps you can do it in another video. So I am starting to enter in Rifts world information to use with Savage Rifts. The information for the world is spread through out 40+ books. I like how you set up the prefixes based on the information in the modules. How would your recommend doing prefixes for world building based information. Like in your Faerun second, how to you prefix the different cities and nations in the Forgotten Realms? Salcor |
Thanks :)
I've not actually tried to build my own world yet but I can see what you're asking. I'm in the process of fleshing out the map of Faerun actually. Let me have a look at that and see if I can create a useful video. |
Actually... i might have a crack at setting up a whole universe and showing how I would set it up. People might find that useful.
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Ok spent yesterday putting more of an actual world together. Video can be found HERE.
I found i didn't use alot of Prefix's. My preference would be to use the folder structure instead and use prefix's when you want to sort something in a specific way. |
I purchased Realm Works about 3'ish months ago after I finally dove into the DM chair. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting started with it though I am a huge fan of all that can be done with it. It was just difficult for me to decide how to get started, I know there were tons of posts saying 'just start inputting' but that just doesn't work for me :(
Seeing your videos and getting a glimpse of how someone has set theirs up though has helped tremendously! I actually spent some time yesterday evening inputting data from the campaign I'm running and though I'm sure I'll be tweaking how I've organized stuff at least I have taken that critical step forward. I look forward to watching the rest of the videos you've shared and any new ones you post!! |
I was so overwhelmed when i first started. I put it down and left it for a year. It wasn't until Hero Lab support came out that I went back to it. So glad i did! Nothing else i tried came even remotely close.
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It's never done. And that's ok. I'm going through a few thousand entries now as I standardize and ensure I have sources identified. Dive in and spend as much or as little time as makes your games enjoyable.
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Looks like I'm in the same boat as a few of you. Just felt overwhelmed by it all.
So, I decided to take the plunge (thanks to daplunk), and just started taking baby steps. First by entering NPC's names, and I'm going to build from there. Dave |
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