A bit of consolidated feedback (pdf)

[monsterfurby]

I have put together some consolidated feedback from my notes in a pdf file. As it is faily heavy in feature requests and recommendations, I figured that this might be the place to put it. Please note that this is entirely subjective and may not at all apply to other users or be relevant for them. I hope that this feedback is at least in some way useful

[Cornelius]

Interesting read. So here is some feedback on your feedback.

Group knowledge base: I agree that this is not there yet. But I hope player access will give us this.

You state that RW is great in being a world almanac, but not in session planning. One of the problems I have currently is that I still use word to create sessions, but still need to write the events I plan into RW, in order to keep my world almanac up to date. Using RW to also plan my session will probably solve that problem.
the only reason I still use word is that I have not used RW at the table yet. So my current way of working is to write the session out in word, than afterwards enter the information into RW. (If a means to export data easier I would use RW directly). So I think the potential is there.

Not sure what you mean with character value reference. Can you elaborate more on this?

Localize base data: this will become easier if the sharing option is in. Then you can create an empty realm and translate all items and keep it as your standard starting realm.

[monsterfurby]

Thanks for the input!

With character values I mainly meant storing and editing character sheets (or part thereof) for player and non-player characters for quick reference, to supplement the "in-universe" information. This is kind-of possibly by copying and pasting tables from Word, but having that option straight in RW would make things a lot easier. It basically ties back to the "tables" request with some stakes in the performance area.

For session planning, what you describe reflects my own process pretty well. RW has already done a lot to help me bring together all the disparate documents I had all over the place and spread across all kinds of different tools into a single database. The 'storage' part already works great - the 'editing' part could use some work though.

Of course I realize that when I say "could use some work" that's nothing that will happen overnight, but maybe eventually we'll see some improvements in that department once all the more immediate issues are addressed. That applies for all points on my wishlist.

[Cornelius]

I think they did not intend RW would be used for storing and editing character sheets. They have a tool for that called Hero Lab. But I agree that it is missing (I am not a Hero Lab user).

A snippet to enter tables would be a great asset to RW. So I would give that a +1.

[zarlor]

Personally I find RealmWorks to be a better go-to platform for session creation for a multitude of reasons. For one it's good at giving ideas on how to organize information and what are some standard useful items to include for things, whether that is an NPC or location or whatever. Snippets, in that sense, do not at all have to be anything you would ever show a player (although they can be). Rather they are just a way to organize my thoughts and provide a a categorized interface for me to refer back to the things I need, as well as helping me to link them to things that already exist in the world. Doing it that way I find going back to using something like Word for all of that would be like going back to the stone ages, for me.

Once you get used to working in Realm Works I think it's far too valuable on that front to go back to using something like Word.

As for character sheets... for anything non-standard you'll always have that problem. Tables will paste into a snippet, and you can otherwise basically create a form of character sheet using snippets on a character template. I don't find that to be any worse that having to make my own custom sheet in some other program, really. Especially from the GM point of view where I could care less about making it look pretty and all I need is the details for me at a glance. I expect the players to handle that kind of thing on their own sheets if they want it. For me it helps to quickly see their abilities and to note anything relevant to storyline (links to NPCs, locations visited, etc.) and I think RealmWorks does a bang up job of that, I think. I guess it really depends more on how you use the program and what you really want to use it for.