A New Tool?
 

Anyone tried this worldbuilding tool? If so, how does it compare with Realm Works? Would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

https://www.worldanvil.com/about

I tried it.

It's basically an online version of Realm Works with all the weakness of an online tool but the focus is on making websites that are pretty for readers instead of displaying the content in a useful way for the DM.

I really didn't like the UI. It's got a lot of fields and options you can play with but they are just stacked on top of each other. Formatting is a pain as you need to use BBCode.

I despise ads and this would quickly get expensive given you need to pay a subscription to really unlock the power.

It's heading in the right direction and LWD need to get their shit together because competition is coming hard and fast in this direction.

*This*

I don't expect a web interface or a CM anytime soon, but I would like to see at least some of the functionality that's been requested over the past 2 years show up.

The most recent world-builder blogs and twitch channels are starting to drop Realm Works down in the list with City of Brass and World Anvil rising up. Some of the blogs have even went out of their way to call out the lack of RW support and how it seems that the CM and other functionality are stuck in dev hell... LW needs to sidestep this CM/Paizo debacle somehow.

I just don't like the sub model that these other world builders use, especially since they hold content hostage or hide things behind ad revenue. I might not use the cloud service when RW finally "drops" because of it - I hate to constantly pay for something over and over.

Exactly.

I will certainly not spend much money on the CM, but I understand RWs need for additional revenue from it. And I can see, where it will be helpfull for certain GMs.

But most of my DMing is with homebrew worlds and highly customized settings. Yes, I do scavange published material, e.g. for the LotR-Campaign we are playing with our kids. Still, custom calendars, per-character-reveal etc. would be way more usefull for me and my groups. And IMHO implementing them, even two-third-ready, would do much to regain momentum and customer trust.
I would even pay for a major update including these features.

Just because you're not going to spend money on the content market, that doesn't mean you have no use for it's feature set. One of the things that's supposed to be implemented with the content market is the ability to share realms. So say you're building a particularly large, encyclopedic realm for your gaming world. With the ability to share realms, you can create separate realms for various adventures and integrate only what you need from your larger, encyclopedic realm.

Don't we have that already?

I think this statement (which you are echoing from LW) is the core of the issues folks are lighting the torches and pitchforks over. EVERYTHING is supposed to be implemented with the CM or shortly after the CM. The release of the CM has slowly scuttled further and further away.

Sorry, EightBlitz, but I think you misread my post. There are a few select things I am inclined to buy from the CM. So, I will have use for the feature set tightly associated with the CM.

But, on the whole to me the CM is only a way to generate revenue for LWL, even though I completely understand and support their need for it.

And, like daplunk said, we already have the ability to share realms, albeit somewhat cumbersone. And I am glad for that ability.

But regarding to large and complex realms I rather want to have one single realm for every era of my gameworld and reveal snippets per character since my campaigns tend to interact (e.g. in our Shadowrun campaigns the runner PCs got "interviewed" from the military PCs after their visit to the Renraku arcology leaked through...). And therefore I really need custom calendars and per-character-reveal. And, maybe a 64-bit version of RW.

I doubt the business model is focused only on CM as the main revenue. Having a competition in the face of Roll20 Marketplace and Fantasy Grounds Store with quite rich catalog of items, it will be a bad decision.

There is something we maybe forget - cloud storage and sync. This will will have a cost, occurring. And with a CLOUD copy of your database content, it is matter of deploying a good presentation layer for your players. SHould not be that hard with Hero Labs Online out now and the experience they are starting to accumulate with it.

All those web platforms, I just ignore, no matter how flashy they are. The subscription model is no-go for personal and hobby use IMO.

Majority of people are turning to One Note from the conversations I'm seeing around the place.

I hope I will never have to go back to any of the tools I used before Realm Works. The only competitor here for me is Fantasy Grounds - the modules and the perpetual license.

Me too, Valyar.

Well, it's hard to beat free.

I appreciate this sentiment, but I don't share it. Obviously, this is a personal choice and to each their own, but I think there are a lot of us here willing to pay a sub. I started out with a free Roll 20 sub and have slowing added to it. Now I pay the full $10 sub. I have also dropped a chunk of dough into D&D Beyond. While neither of these products fill exactly the same niche as RW, my overall experience with both as been way better. The point is that I am willing to pay for a quality product and a quality experience.

It is not a sentiment, but personal position, in which I am not alone. With my second gaming group we also use roll20. Moved to Plus for the dynamic light and probably we will renew it until FG Ultimate is out. I don’t wanna debate on the bad side of roll20, as this will go into offtopic, but one thing I don’t agree with you:

Having a subscription based model is no guarantee for quality and experience. At all. :)

Shitty software is shitty and paying someone to have something constantly in development is not. Good software on the other hand - sure. But depends on the usage and many other factors.

Without seeing the implementation the all web based model does not appeal to me. What do you do at a con when the WiFi is overwhelmed? What do you do if you game in a basement with terrible reception?

How they pay for it isn't really an issue for me. One of the big problems with RW is LWD never adequately considered how they would make revenue off RW and now they have every egg in the CM basket which frightens me since I can see that it is unlikely to ever be as successful as they need it to be.

Yeah, that is without a doubt true. There are a number of products that I did a trail run of and simply didn't have the great experience I was willing to pay for with a sub. My experiences with Roll 20 and D&D Beyond have both been very good so far and I am willing to keep paying for what is offered. When I bought realm works about 4 years ago I was very excited. For the first year and half I was waving the virtual pom-poms and shouting praise. I even convinced some of my gaming friends to buy it. Over time my experience turned sour. Some of the blame was my own. I bought a product based on what "coming soon" rather than on what is currently offered. That set me up for frustration and disappointment. However, LWD bear much of the blame. I won't rehash it all again, but LWD made me feel like they viewed me as the bad guy. Bottom line, I have money to spend on my hobby of choice and I have some options for where to spend it. At the moment RW is still unique in what it offers, but that is not going to be the case forever. LOL, I'm starting to ramble and don't even know what point I was making, so that's a good reason to stop now.

Agreed 100%.

You can stop spying and telling my life story now. :) Unfortunately this statement is too true for too many of us.

Sadly, yes. In many ways.

It has been a while since I've used One Note. I use Evernote for my notetaking and management.

Although I've seen people do some cool things with OneNote, it seems like it is far more work than it is worth. Does it autolink, or suggest links when you create content links?

I don't think so. I know OneNote will let you add links to webpages but I do not recall seeing the ability to add internal links. It was one of the things that really drew me to RW from it when I switched.

I use OneNote every day for work. It is indeed an awesome tool. Just not for RPG management IMO. It does not have auto linking. You can tell it to link to a topic/page by typing [[page name]].

So you need tell it where you want each link which is a fair chunk of work.

Same with myself...

OneNote is VERY useful for collecting information that I will later enter into RW... but as an information management system for an RPG on its own I find it lacking.

Consider Evernote a stack of interlinked index cards, and OneNote an interlinked notebook.

Slightly different paradigm, but similar in many other ways.

Thanks, that's helpful. And, like Gray Mage, I use Evernote to collect material to use in my games as a prep for what will go in RW.

I'm running Curse of Strahd now, though, so I'm not using RealmWorks currently. I use the book, Evernote, and have DnD Beyond open (not a fan of DnD Beyond for adventure material, but very helpful for pulling up spells and monsters or looking up a rule).

For combat tracking, college ruled notebook paper and pencil. :-) 5e is pretty easy and the Angry GM convinced me to stop dinking around with magnetic combat pad or software for something that just isn't as complicated as we like to make it.

I do find myself creating 5e characters in HLC, however, for the print outs. DnD Beyond's character sheet needs work. I find the online version clunky to use and the print-to-pdf functionality to be horrible compared to HLC.

I've moved a lot over to OneNote mainly because it is available on multiple devices, makes extracting text from images pretty easy, and is easy to get content into and OUT of.

I have to add myself to the disappointed list. I dont really use it. And I was a backer.

Per Char I was told before the KS ended was working just the interface was clunky.

I am so glad I told my friends to wait until things were working to buy, as only I got taken.

I check back once or twice a year to see, if it is in yet.

It is interesting (and sad) how many of us have stopped using RealmWorks.

I am using it even more than before.

I'm always amazed by these guys who come in saying this or that was promised by the KS and I go look and it isn't in any of the KS stuff. I'm sure all kinds of stuff got passed around by word of mouth but all you had to do was actually look at the actual feature list and the things that are still outstanding, and I'm not trying to make any less of these undelivered promises, is the CM and calendars.

Likewise, now that it is 64 bit, I have plenty of uses for it, I just bought my 3 players the player copy

Maybe some DMs really need those distinct features e.g. exclusive player reveal or calendars. For some items, there are workarounds like tables or exporting the data now with the custom tool.

For others like the individual player reveal - I would think that this isn't really a complete showstopper. Are there that many events that the whole group isn't a part of? Are you as DM spending all the time to setup individual snippets / topics containing the information that only certain players of a group should have?
Of course it would be great - but I suppose that it is not necessarily a show stopper.

In my group - no player would ever take a peek into the revealed player content I think. Maybe it would change with the web reveal who knows.. Maybe I will try exporting stuff to a webpage to test it, but at the table it would be unlikely to be worthwhile.

To sum it up Iam happy with RW and it's getting better and better. I would have wished that I would be owner of this lifetime pass, but heard about RW after the KS edition was finished. Still sad. But monthly payments for a bit of syncing and cloud storage will not make me pay that.

As suggested in other threads - Bring major features as paid expansions. Ppl can buy what they need. Provide a basic online storage or synching capability for free.

bye bye :D

There are campaigns built around different players knowing different things. It's not really my thing but it's one of those things that keeps coming up.

But I do really need calendars. I use the history of my campaign world extensively.

As am I.

I find it irresistible... I thinking I have Realmworksdatainputitis.... lunch time at work data input, after work before wife gets home data input... I think I have a problem :D :D :D

I try not to even think about the fact that I've written an entire additional campaign arc for my main realm that my players will likely never see.

HappyDevil, be glad you are not retired then... I average about 4-6 hours a day inputting data. Have since it came out in beta. The upside is when the 64bit build was released it made things much more nimble. When you have most of the Paizo and WotC stuff in and spend your time whiling away the others on ALL OF THE 3RD PARTY stuff (and there is so freaking much of it!) every little bit of speed helps! :)

Oh I dream of being retired !...Who doesn't, but I totally agree... I am only putting in Adventure Paths - haven't even contemplated started on bestiary's and associated content - probably don't need it with today's internet.

I like doing it. I do something a little different each one I do.

The first one is a mess, there is stuff everywhere, but I learned, I improved.

Combined with that I can now run it on my surface pro for a whole session thanks to 64bit without it crashing I am a happy camper.