Same HeroLab portfolio added to many topics -- any performance concerns?
 

Is is better to have a monster entry with a hero lab portfolio and have everything just link to that than to copy that portfolio to every scene in which the monster appears?

The organizer in me says, yes. But as a DM is much more convenient to have the portfolios available in the scene without having to navigate to a new page or open a new tab.

It appears, based on the default snippet language and how I'm seeing content-market content being organized, that when you add a HL portfolio to a scene that it is mean for handling multiple antagonists in one POR file, whereas individual monsters are to be linked with their individual HL portfolios embedded in that monster's article.

For example. In my "area" topics, I frequently have wandering monster tables. Below which I have all Herolab portfolio snippets, one for each potential monster encounter. Similarly, if there is a single monster encountered in a scene topic, I'll add a Herolab portfolio snippet for it even though that monster's name is linked to an article for that monster that contains the same snippet.

In a large realm, I am going to have a LOT of topics with goblins or skeletons, or similar frequently encountered monsters. Am I going to run into performance issues doing this?

Opening a new topic to get to the portfolio is not snappy in Realmworks. It is noticeably quicker to access the portfolio from the topic currently being viewed. So I'm hoping that this is fine, even if redundant.

It will add bloat to the DB but will be faster since you don't need to load the extra topic before loading the portfolio.

That's my thinking as well. I just don't know how concerned I need to be about the bloat. I'm guessing that the POR files data is insignificant compared to all my map images.

Unless there are a truly enormous number of characters in the portfolio it is insignificant.

I suppose the other consideration is whether you have a Realm per adventure, or one Realm with every adventure for the given game system.

An optimal approach might be an adventure neutral Realm, for the game rules, whether spells, classes, geography, maps whatever.
And import that into a new Realm, for a given adventure.

I'm personally going with a single Realm for everything Pathfinder related.
But my Realm isn't that large yet.
We've finished one campaign and I'm adding information for the second, set within the same world.

I'd go with one realm per campaign. If you just buy and run adventures then a campaign is likely something like an AP or the equivalent, the career of the PC's.

Counterpoint: I am working on a "shared continuity" setup for most/all of the Adventure Paths in Varisia .. Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Second Darkness, Shattered Star, (Giantslayer, maybe), and Return of the Runelords.

The events, successes, and failures of each AP will shape the conditions for the next.

While that's an interesting idea how are you actually going to run it? Do you intend to run separate parties through each AP or to run them in succession?

In succession. I've started Rise of the Runelords on Roll20 just recently. The players are hyped for the idea of playing several APs in the same region, with the outcome of one impacting the others.

By keeping a careful log of events, during each successive AP I can mention events that occurred in the previous ones as news and rumors (since the settings are isolated enough by distance for that); likewise, by knowing what is coming, I can insert the significant events of a concurrent AP in the same manner.

So, for example, Rise of the Runelords originally began in September 4707. Curse of the Crimson Throne begins in February 4708. When March of 4708 rolls around, my Rise of the Runelords characters can hear about events in Korvosa. Second Darkness begins around August of 4708, and my Rise of the Runelords characters can hear about the Shadow in the Sky over Riddleport around that time.

Later, when playing out Curse of the Crimson Throne, events that occurred in my Rise of the Runelords campaign can become news and rumors that the characters hear about in Korvosa at the appropriate times.

For which reason, I *really* want to see per-character reveal controls come soon, as (hopefully) the same players will be playing characters in each campaign.

Use Fantasy Grounds as your VTT. it already has per character reveal.

I think what most of us want with individual character reveal is not battlemap related but all the topics, articles, and snippets. But it has been a while since I've looked at Fantasy Grounds, has it evolved past being a VTT to providing full campaign management?

It is not in a league with RW in terms of super campaign Wikipedia. However, for any information a GM places into their module, you can reveal on a window basis to one or more characters and it remembers that setting. So your atomicity for reveal is window-oriented. FG doesn’t have snippets of course but you could use formatting to break up information inside the window but reveal is on window basis (analogous to topics in RW)

Some of the extensions you can download in the Armory area of the FG forums add some additional functionality for management, but it it isn't close to management like RW.

Also FG is getting ready to launch the Unity version which will have dynamic mapping, animated terrain, etc. and all classic FG content is compatible and will be so no need to re-buy anything you own for it or upgrade any existing module content.

Upgrade price to Unity is going to be super cheap if you have Classic. If you want to have both Classic and Unity you need to get Classic an upgrade. Unity Kickstarst May 1st and is expected for release in December with Kickstarters getting beta access.

Make sure if you get FG for Pathfinder to link your Paizo account to the FG store as the FG versions of Paizo products are discounted.

I use both RW and FG. FG is what I use to run and lately I've only bothered to convert some stuff to RW if just revealing in in FG is good enough. Main world is in RW along with anyhing that will get referenced often and modules are usually in FG right now as many are not going to be revisited or need of detailed referencing again.

Actually, I've been doing adventure neutral Realms literally just for mechanics - skip the geography and maps altogether. Those get added into the Realm where the adventure takes place, along with whatever modules, AP, or additional storylines/hints I want to add. I've toyed with the idea of system-neutral Realms for geography, maps, and characters within a given world/setting - leaving things like statblocks empty to be filled in with appropriate statblocks for the game system, but I haven't gone beyond simply toying with the idea yet, simply because I'm still collating mechanics data.

30+ years of RPGs leaves one with a metric crapton of notebooks, scraps of paper, and assorted maps, books, and materials to sort, decipher, and in some cases, reminisce over :)

Does FG allow players to view the revealed information between game sessions?

Last i checked you have to be connected to the server in order to use it. Aka the DM would need to leave his session running in order for players to connect.

Correct the GM needs to have the session running. Many GMs will let the session start early so players can look over things before the game starts or will schedule or have log in the the GMs sessions available at certain times just so players can log on to look at things, access stuff the GM has for them, etc before an actual game play session.

One thing for FG that helps is to use the Message of the Day extension and type up a small paragraph or two recap and any other things they may need to remember. When a player logs in to the session the message pop up.