Conandy - You are where I was about a year ago. I saw RW at GenCon 2015 and got totally sucked into the power I saw for campaign management, and picked it up ASAP when I got home. Haven't regretted it once since. I already was creating Access databases for tracking all sorts of things, and RW took it to the next level.
My group is also "40+" (at least, we WERE until a couple years ago...
); we are old school enough that we haven't moved from 3.5, and we probably won't. Which leads me to Hero Labs. We had been using e-tools for many years, but when I saw Daplunk's videos combining the two, I checked into it. Sadly, although there is a ton of effort out there to import 3.5 stuff, it doesn't quite compare to the volumes of stuff for 5e and Pathfinder. That being said, I decided to pick it up just for the combat management, which is pretty slick. I keep all our group's PCs in one portfolio and update as things change. Then I print out sheets for them.
Plus, I added a 2nd monitor to display things; they love when I put up pictures of the NPCs or remove "fog of war" on maps, or when the sound from a creepy monster filters out across the room.
I promise that RW will solve all your "keeping track of NPCs and backstory stuff in my head" issues...
