How to create Game Session entries?

[kungfuchris99]

Okay, I know that the only reason I can't figure this out is that I have rolled a critical failure on both my Read Manual and Search Forum checks, but after spending an hour I'm giving up and punting to you guys.

I'm using Realm Works as an organizational/creativity tool for baking my home-brewed Champions campaign, and as a reference resource for me and the players. I don't use it during gameplay, but I want to use it to keep a log of the group's adventures session by session.

I see that there is, obviously, a Game Sessions feature, but...I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add a game session! I expect that there should just be a standard Add Item button and then I can create a session instance and add all the details, but there doesn't seem to be one.

How do I do it?


--Chris M.

[daplunk]

I'll make a video on the sessions now.

In the mean-time you might find this one on setting up campaign journals interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzPl...wvP8zs_qVSrzoM

[daplunk]

Video now available below.

Realm Works - Game Sessions and Using Reveal History

[kbs666]

Starting a game session allows you to associate the real world date with a game world date and enter some notes about the session.

Ending the session obviously ends the session.

If you look at the reveal history timeline it will mark what things you revealed to your players during the session, and IIRC the sessions notes may be available if revealed to your players as well.

It does let you see what the players did in the last session as long as you actually reveal stuff as the players learn about it.

I'm hoping that once the CM goes live stuff like player journals and session tracking will get a facelift because there really isn't much there right now.

[MNBlockHead]

I use user notes to create "session-bridge notes" where I detail what occurred during the last session and to write some notes on how the next session will start. This is necessary because my campaign has one full-day session a month, so there is a lot that happens in a session and a lot of time between sessions. I like the session bridge notes because they link with other topics.

I use the game-session feature to simply track the real-world dates of our sessions and the in-game dates the sessions cover. I'll put some brief notes about what happened in the session and who attended, but that is it.

Lastly, for certain topics, I'll add a data snippets labeled "In-game date" or "In-game dates" for a date-range snippet and I enter the in game dates the party visited to location, met the person, etc. That gives me a nice timeline of major events in the party's campaign, which also becomes part of the world history for any future campaigns.

It took me a while to get to this point. My main hangup was the lack of custom calendars, but I basically made one realm use the modern Gregorian calendar. I was fed up and lazy so I just said the first in-game date with that calendar was the same as the real-world date. Real-world and in-game dates stopped matching up after the first session but it makes it easy to apply dates to things and actually use the timeline.

I maintain a Google Sheets document where I map the Gregorian calendar dates to the fantasy calendars I use for the various regions. I cut and paste these into the session notes and the User notes (though not. But for in-game snippets in topics, I just use the date based on the Gregorian calendar.

I've put some screen shots below.

gamesession.jpg

usernotes.jpg

IN-Game Date Topic.jpg

timeline.jpg

[MNBlockHead]

Sorry for the giant images. Not laptop with much higher screen resolution. Also using a the Snipping Tool that comes with Windows 10 rather than Skitch. I need to figure out how to take reasonable screen shots.

[daplunk]

Greenshot is great for screenshots

[MNBlockHead]

Greenshot looks interesting. But not sure it would address my high-DPI issue. I don't see anything in the FAQ or help material that indicates any automatic or easy manual way to resize an image. An old program, Gambit Bilderman will automatically resize an screen shot and save to a specific tool. It is not longer supported, however, and doesn't have much in the way of markup tools.

Skitch is also no longer supported, but I am pretty sure I have a copy of the installer file in my on-line backup of my old laptop. Skitch remains my favority method of quickly taking, marking up, and sharing screenshots. I love Evernote, but I remain sour about them ending support for Skitch as a stand-along application.

[Bidmaron]

blockhead, that is a fantastic format. Well done!

[kungfuchris99]

Thanks, guys.

Josh, thanks for the video -- that was incredibly helpful! I commented and upvoted it.

When will the Journal functionality be available to everyone? A combo of that and the game sessions is exactly what I need.


--Chris M.