Realm Works Alternatives
 

Just came on this product and thought it may be a viable alternative for world building, since it has been announced that Realm Works is sunsetting.

https://www.patreon.com/legendkeeper/overview

Thus far it is inexpensive, and for a beta, I have not found anything that does not function. I'm hoping enough interest will keep this project around. It is not as feature rich as Realm Works or World Anvil, but is elegant and has enough in it to suit my needs.

It is difficult to put into words my feelings concerning Realm Works demise and the years of waiting for Lone Wolf to move toward its customers. Understanding development is a complex process, I have never seen a company that would not grow to meet demand, and it seems a strange business model that would not be set up for lasting success. That being said, I loved Realm Works in concept and general functionality and am saddened to move away from it.

Hero Lab and it's online iteration seems to be moving in that same direction, and since there are fewer years ahead for me than behind, I have to give serious thought to another decade invested. Nevertheless, I wish the company and its owners all the best.

$5 PER MONTH just to look at it? It's also cloud-based with no suggestion that there's a downloadable version.
How does it actually compare to Realm Works or World Anvil?
Do "project members" need to pay for the Patreon to be able to look at it, or can you freely share access with players?
[Realm Works is not dead!]

This is ridiculous :)

The correct term is stabilized, no sunsetted. Stabilized means that there is no new development but it will still be maintained and it is still open to enhancements at a later date. Sunsetted means we still hold the IP but beyond that fuckit.

Well, you're right, but you can't blame folks for feeling it has been sunsetted given LWD's poor communication, the meager development in recent years (except a short burst), ignorance of constructive ideas to improve the business model and last but not least the current non-fixing of the pressing HeroLab integration bug.

Given the aweful customer service I experienced when it was in active development, I don't feel comfortable putting more effort into inputting data now that it is "stabilized". For me, it is done. However, I agree that complaining about it isn't very helpful either. We will just have to wait and see how much damage was done to LWD development by the whole debacle. I won't buy anything else from them for a long while, but I probably wouldn't have anyway since I don't play much pathfinder. They have become an almost exclusively pathfinder company. Other than Shadowrun they have not been developing much for other games. Also, since I play a lot on Roll 20 now, I find the HL tools are not super helpful even when playing pathfinder. I am running a Ruins of Azlant game on Roll 20, but not used HL (which I already own) at all. I frustrated as I am with LWD, I think they are probably making a sound choice by pulling back. Obviously, they were not able to support RW anyway. I wish the well and hope they can turn it around. I don't know why I keep coming back here, except that so many years using RW formed a habit :).

Cloud based. No thanks.

So far the only thing I can find as a viable alternative is "the keep by NBOS" but its very dated and has not seen an update in years so it also probably abandoned.

I would so kickstart a project that was released in its entirety as open-source so that it has a guaranteed continued life.

^ this. I would jump for joy if there was an open source application to compete with Realm Works. It would be bloody challenging though. One of the reasons why realm works does what it does so well if Rob's singular control of the design. His foundation was well thought out. Imagine doing that in open source.

Not to say that I've been giving that serious thought

I think the way to go for an open source project would be for one person to design and implement the core of the package (create/save topic templates, edit and display topics, make and resolve links, handle user access and some other stuff that would be needed by every conceivable user or just to let the package function at all) including the ability to install and load optional modules. So as long as the additional modules implemented the correct interface they'd load and work. Contributors would be able to tinker with and branch the modules to their heart's content. Users would have to choose, DL and install the modules they want/need.

There's quite a few people who have played around with the idea. Honestly I think there's skill set in the community but time and commitment is the issue.

Your idea sounds like a solid way to start though.

Just wish i was a coder. I played around recently trying to make a replacement for Hero Lab. I want something like Improved Initiative but an actual application. Database driven and something that can trigger from Realm Works similar to HLC does now.

Alas though, It takes me a full day just to figure out how to do simple tasks.

https://i.imgur.com/TEtu77d.png

Coding has a fairly steep learning curve. One of the benefits of open source projects is someone can download the source for the entire project and look through the code and see how things are done. Of course the quality of code is all over the place. Some people write plenty of comments and document their code, some use variables named x all over the place with no rhyme or reason.

Further discussion of any thoughts on an open source project might be better on Discord. I do not want to annoy our gracious hosts.

hmm... is using PCGen as a starting point an alternative? It's open source and already does the character building kinda like HL.

Which discord would that be?
As with others, time is the most limiting factor for me, but I'd try and contribute where possible.

I actually found Combat Manager to be an excellent tool for managing combat, you can import a HL portfolio directly into the "enemy" list of the tool.

I've been using Improved Initiative. It does almost everything I want. The only thing that's missing is the ability to trigger from Realm Works which I can get used to.

And it took me 20 minutes to upload an entire monster manual into the tool. That included the time I took to create the dataset. Granted I already had the table to work from but the benefit there is I use the same table of data for both Realm Works and Improved Initiative.

As for annoying our hosts... do they even read this? Havn't seen Rob in the forums since he announced the hack and slashes.

Can you not store each encounter's worth of monsters in RW, so that clicking on the "external tool" icon (whatever it's called) will launch II and load your file?

It doesn't work on files. It's got database in the back end that it pulls everything from.