Realm Works for Remote Sessions?
 

I have searched around on the forums, but a lot of the threads related to the information I am looking for are fairly outdated, so here goes:

Is it a valid statement to say that Realm Works is intended for live in-person sessions, with Player Edition solely being for manual review of revealed topics by players (likely not during a session)?

If so, I completely had the wrong idea about the product and that makes me sad.

Yes and no.

The player version is indeed not live sync. It requires the DM to exit the realm after making the changes that flag topics as visible, sync the changes to the server and then the players need to log in and sync the changes down.

Aka - definitely not designed to be done live during a game. Think of this as a journal of where they have been previously. Personally I like this approach. The software is a tool to aid my players sure but its not the tool they play the game on. For that you want a VTT like Fantasy Grounds or Roll20.

However there is also the Player View feature. Using this you can setup a duel screen and show that to the players. Either physically or by a shared screen using a service like Skype. This lets you quickly show content to the players during games but it is not something the players can control.

Excellent reply. Thank you! I'll look into those two you mentioned. I agree that the tool is quite valuable-- it is just too bad I couldn't also use it to run the session. Screen-sharing is probably out of the question, since my primary PC just has one big monitor.

Something I have learnt on my process to becoming a better DM...
The player's don't need to actually see everything.
Consider what it is you are trying to achieve and why you need to achieve it.

For me I use MapTool to display a digital map for the players, we play with minis at a real table but it supports digital tokens also.
You can load in pictures into the tool to show the players also.
It's a few extra steps because you have to use two tools but ultimately Realm Works power is that is makes your job easier. It takes all the information and networks it together seamlessly.

That's why I use Realm Works and my players don't need to see all of what's happening behind my screen.

My recommendation is to give your players the minimum of what they need to play then game and then greedily focus on yourself and your needs. Your players will benefit from that also.

I recommend Fantasy Grounds because it has the power to automate a lot of the tedium of game bookkeeping. Don't be lulled into the freeness of Roll20 because if you want any real power you have to go to the pay options.

Plus fantasy grounds has both 5e and Pathfinder content officially available (I know roll20 has some too). The downside is fantasy grounds has a steep learning curve. However it is much more immersive than roll20 and, sadly, realmworks. I do use realmworks, however as there's just nothing close to manage your campaign and breathe life into it

Fantasy Grounds doesn't have as much map utility as MapTool, which is why I'd never use it alongside Realm Works for GMing a campaign. (Although FG is great if you want the computer to manage the rules as well as just the maps.)

So it looks like I will end up using Realm Works to build and keep track of everything in my Campaign, and for my players to have details about events and things they have uncovered (between sessions).

I will then use MapTool (RPTools?) during live sessions to link up with my players remotely, so they can get real-time visuals and initiative/round-tracking stuff.

My main focus here is being able to host sessions remotely. Too many players are all over the place to ever hope to get people to the same table.

I use Realm Works along with Fantasy Grounds to run online sessions.

At one time, I was just using Realm Works for the campaign management only, but I like using it better than trying to run the game with Fantasy Grounds so I now just use Fantasy Grounds for the Virtual Tabletop and run the whole story from Realm Works. It just works better.

We usually sync twice in an online session, normally when I start setting up the virtual table top for an encounter.

It's kinda of a pain and everyone has to exit the realm for us to sync, sync and then log back it. it works, but i wish you could sync while the realm was open.

Nothing beats Realm Works for campaign management.

Iam sure that live reveal will be a "surprise" feature or even a feature that will be announced later on. I think there have been a lot of ppl requesting this in the past.

Persoanlly I think live sync will be something that comes with Web view. Web services are by design always online so it will probably be easier to design it with live sync.