Realm Works Is It.

[MaxSupernova]

Okay, it's rubber meets the road time.

I have futzed around with Realm Works for a year now, and I've skidded all over the map between "THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVAAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!" and "What a piece of crap, just release the promised functionality, can't you run a software project?!?!?!" at various points during this period.

I'm sure my vaguely schizophrenic forum personality has been a consternation to Liz and Rob as I alternate between defending and taking not-so-subtle shots at the product and the developers.

But today I make my final stand. I am committing to using Realm Works.

A few threads ago I decided that maybe all this wasn't worth it and I'd just go back to using a wiki. Well, I just spent a week trying to get a wiki to do what I want it to do, and it's simply not possible.

What I want is a wiki, but I want to be able to display some things on a page to some people (me) and not display those things to other people (my players). I want to make a publicly accessible page for me to take notes and say "This part is player and GM viewable, and this part is GM only".

Wikis don't do that well. They will show entire pages to certain people, but controlling access of only part of a page is nearly impossible. There are plugins that do parts of it, but the hidden stuff still shows up in searches, or in auto-created directories. You have to write code wrapping every hidden part, and even then it's not guaranteed. Trust me on this. I've asked reddit. I've asked MeFi. I've researched and installed and tweaked and uninstalled every wiki there is. TiddlyWiki, MediaWiki, Docuwiki, PHPWiki, PMWiki, TikiWiki. WikkaWiki. Hide. IsAuth. AuthIs. Plugins. Wrappers. I have used local wikis, I've used hosted wikis, I've tried windows program-based databases. What Realm Works does, there is simply no other good option for.

Of every single piece of software and website that I've been searching through for a half dozen years, the only tool other than Realm Works that easily does what I want it to do is Obsidian Portal (with its "GM area"), and Obsidian Portal's other functionality is iffy at best.

I threw up my hands and walked away thinking I'd just go back to my old ways, only to realize that Realm Works is my sole option. This is the last great hope for gamemaster organization.

You've spoiled me, Realm Works. I'm back. I'm sorry I doubted you.

Please make it worth it.