[MNBlockHead]

Great topic for a thread. If we can keep this on topic (how has our use of RW evolved), I think this thread could be a good collection of lessons learned for new users. Glad the StoryBoard side-discussion was moved to a new thread. Back to the original topic...

Here is how my VIEW of RW has evolved over the past year.

1. Buyer's remorse. I didn't realize the calendar feature shown in an early unofficial user video didn't make it into the released version and I didn't carefully read the feature set.

LESSON LEARNED: Stick to official material when making buying decisions. More important lesson learned: RW is still an incredible tool even if it doesn't have all your desired features.

2. Overwhelmed. Since I bought it, figured I should try to make the best of it since I hadn't found any other campaign-management software that met my needs and it still seemed like a better choice than creating and hosting my own wiki. But the amount of options and knowing how to get started was overwhelming. I was a afraid to just jump in and then later learn I was doing it "wrong" and having to redo a lot of work.

LESSON LEARNED: JUST JUMP IN. Really, it is easier to later move things around than spending hours planning how you'll use it upfront. Your approach will evolve. Just start putting content in.

3. Climbing the learning curve. I'm a read-the-manual guy. If a set of silverware came with directions, I would still read it. I'm sick that way. I read ALL the manuals. I watched ALL of the GenCon videos. I read every review I could find online. I read through all the posts on the forum. This was very helpful, but also very time consuming.

LESSON LEARNED: It is hard to absorb the videos and all the guides until you've worked in the program. I would recommend that a new user read through the Quickstart and World Builder's guides with the program open. Then start entering some content and look up information in the Reference Guide as you have questions. After working in the program for a while, then go through the Tips & Tricks guide and watch the most recent GenCon video. If you watch the 2015 video, I don't think you need to watch the older ones.

4. Interacting with the RW User Community. One thing I did right early on is getting involved in these forums. The user community is active and very supportive. Also, I met with a number of of RW users in my area that I met in these forums, so we could discuss how we set up our campaigns.

LESSON LEARNED: Participating in the RW forums is a great way to help you get the most out of RW. There are some folks who have set up impressively detailed and complex realms and have had to think about and solve or work around nearly any challenge you will run into. I've also learned that the type of GMs who use RW are the type who likely have lots of other great knowledge and skills to share (For example, I've learned great crafting tips, AV setup, and VTT use tips for RW users).

5. Using RW at the Table. I was creating content in RW for months before I put together a group and launched the campaign. I was not sure how I would feel about having a laptop at the table and running the game from RW. Doing so, however, was a real eureka moment. It made all the work learning how to use the program and entering content into it worth it. It made my DM experience sooo much better. I can't imagine going back to running an adventure from a book. After several sessions, I finally hooked up my large plasma TV to my laptop and had another A-HA moment as I revealed maps to the table.

LESSON LEARNED: You are not writing a book. You are creating content that you will use to run a game for a group of players. It is easy to get lost in flavor text and background detail. Your focus is best spent on content that will help you run great games.

6. Hooked. I am now hooked. RW is the hub of my games as a GM. It is how I capture ideas, build my world, plan out storylines, prep adventures, create encounters, and run the game. I wouldn't want to run games without it. Are there features that I feel are missing? Sure (calendars). Is there room for improvement? Yes (see the feature-request board on this forum). Is there anything better for managing my TTRPG campaign? No. I've looked at everything out there and have yet to find anything that does all that RealmWorks does.

LESSON LEARNED: Though it needn't be as hard as I made it for myself, there is still some effort you need to put into learning and getting started with RW. That effort, however, pays back rich dividends in well-managed and easily referenced content and a better at-table experience.


How my approach to Realm Building changed over the course of the year

I started with a geographic approach. This is in large part due to the fact that before I bought RW, I had already sketched out the major realms of the known world, a very high-level history, and the major cultures. I had also chosen a game system (D&D 5e) and drafted my first home rules.

So, the first two things I did in RW was create a topic for the known world and created the home page. The home page gave a brief introduction to the world and campaign and descriptions of the major realms. It also gave the home rules. This is basically the same content that I used to create invites and given initial introductions to new and potential players. In the known world topic, I imported the map—which was way larger than the recommended size.

Next I started dropping pins on the map and created topics for the pins for each realm and major cities, rivers, seas, mountain ranges, etc.

Then I started branching off from those topics creating topics for cultures, ethnic groups, religions, major historical events, etc. It was fun, but got to the point where I realized I was not getting any closer to having A GAME TO PLAY.

So I started focusing on over-arching storylines, which I would divide into substorylines, which in turn gave me ideas for adventures and encounters.

Once I finally had a group together and played the first adventure, I found that I really only had time to flesh out storylines and most of my time was spent on preparing the next adventure. While preparing for an adventure, I would occasionally go off on world-building tangents, but it was all related to content for the next adventure. For about six months I did very little world building.

Over the past couple of months, I found myself ahead of the adventure building, with a couple months of adventures pre-prepared and lots of potential side, drop-in adventures ready if needed. So I've returned to world building and am fixing some early mistakes.

Luckily there is very little reorganization that I need to do. Early on, based on forum discussions, I did some reorganization, but most of that was learning to better use cast lists, region topics, and adventure area topics. The main thing that I'm fixing is my unwieldy known-world topic. For one, the map was way to big to be shown at table. It kept crashing RW. Second, I put far too many pins in it. Forcing lots of zooming and panning. It was just getting too difficult to use.

So, first, I deleted the saved map and all the pins. Then I created a lower resolution version and loaded it in as a smart image in the known-world topic and dropped a minimal number of pins. One for each realm and very conservative number of major geographical areas: the major seas and mountain ranges and a small number of rivers that span more than one realm.

Next, I created an image from a blowout of each realm and loaded them as smart maps into their corresponding Region:Political topics. On these maps I drop pins for cities, major regional geographical areas.

My next step will be to have a few regional topics. I already have topics for major cities, but I'm planing to giving detail to various regions in the realms using Hexographer and loading these as smart maps into regional and adventure-area topics in RW.

Anyway, this approach of breaking things down into more granular pieces works much better than trying to link everything from one large world map.

Hope someone finds this useful. I'm looking forward to reading other folks' experiences.