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Ceodryn
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Posts: 3

Old August 4th, 2018, 03:11 AM
Hi all,

I just bought the software to plan a WFRP4 campaign. While I get how to enter NPCs, locations... I dont get how to use storyline, events, scenes vs. storyboard.

My questions are:
1) What is the difference between World Almanac vs. Story Almanac? How come the NPCs I create in one don't exist in the other?

2) I do not understand the relationship between the Events Family (Scene, storyline, quest etc...) to the Storyboard

For example, I want to build the very simple FFG adventure "A Day Late, A Shilling Short" in RW.

The adventure plot is:
- Setup: In an inn, the PCs receive the job to find/rescue a lost coach, and particularly find the MacGuffin within the coach.
- Episode 1: A Missing Coach
- Act 1: PCs come across a beastmen war party currently attacking the missing coach
- Act 2: The beastmen receive reinforcements, including the arrival of their leader
- Act 3: A storm breaks out and the cowardly beastmen break and flee, leaving the PCs to continue their investigation – for the time being

- Episode 2: Dirty Dealings - There are no acts, the PCs can explore the coach and find a scared merchant. There can be an optional social encounter where they need to convince the merchant to tell them where is the MacGuffin and to let it go


Taking the example above, I am not understand whether to use the Events Family or whether to use the Storyboard / Plots, or whether I have to use both.

I would appreciate someone helping me figure out with the example above.

Thanks
Ceodryn
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kbs666
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 1,690

Old August 8th, 2018, 05:59 AM
The story almanac is a view of the global almanac. In short it is a subset of all the topics in your realm that you can populate as you see fit. right click on any topic and choose assign to views and choose story almanac, you can create your views as well. This is handy for when you have a large realm and want to only have the topics relevant to a particular adventure visible for a session.

Events are simply topics useful for describing things that happen at particular times, these happen to be useful in describing stories. You can use this to describe a linear story. The storyboard allows for a graphical representation of a story.

I would setup the story you describe this way:
setup: The Inn would be a location (you might want or need to reuse it at some time in the future). I'd then create a scene detailing the social encounter at the Inn where the PC's get the job just make sure to make sure that you clearly link the scene to the Inn in the scene somewhere.
Episode 1: I'd create a location for the missing coach since the rest of the adventure occurs there and there is likely a map.
ep 1, Act1: I create a scene for the initial encounter describing the finding of the coach and the fight with the beastmen.
ep 1, Act 2: You could just continue this in the scene from above or create a new scene making sure to make clear what triggers the transition between the two in the first scene.
ep 1, Act 3: This should pretty definitely be a new scene. The beastmen flee, a storm has hit and the PC's are trying to investigate the coach in the wind and rain.
Episode 2: Another scene. They find the merchant and can have the social encounter to find the MacGuffin of Great Doom.

Since this is pretty linear there really is no need for the storyboard. I'd just use prefixes on the topics under a storyline topic named after the adventure.

my Realm Works videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZU...4DwXXkvmBXQ9Yw
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MNBlockHead
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Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Twin Cities Area, MN, USA
Posts: 1,325

Old August 8th, 2018, 08:10 AM
Don't discount story boards. I find them an excellent tool when running the adventure.

I have the story board graph in the left navigation panel and I can click through it with the scenes appearing the right as the party progresses and makes their choices.

In my created adventures I am, generally, either running them generally from a map or a storyboard. For a dungeon crawl, I just need a map in the nav panel and I can click on the pins on the map to bring up the scene (or just view the pin text--often no need to create a scene topic for each location) in the right. For more story-plot driven adventures, I use the storyboard. Usually, I'm using a mixture of both.

RW Project: Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition homebrew world
Other Tools: CampaignCartographer, Cityographer, Dungeonographer, Evernote
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kbs666
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Old August 8th, 2018, 08:37 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by MNBlockHead View Post
Don't discount story boards. I find them an excellent tool when running the adventure.

I have the story board graph in the left navigation panel and I can click through it with the scenes appearing the right as the party progresses and makes their choices.

In my created adventures I am, generally, either running them generally from a map or a storyboard. For a dungeon crawl, I just need a map in the nav panel and I can click on the pins on the map to bring up the scene (or just view the pin text--often no need to create a scene topic for each location) in the right. For more story-plot driven adventures, I use the storyboard. Usually, I'm using a mixture of both.
I mostly do multi branching plots and always use the storyboard to navigate them. But in a purely linear story I was just thinking there wasn't much to be gained from the storyboard but maybe the nav panel might make it worth it.

my Realm Works videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZU...4DwXXkvmBXQ9Yw
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Dark Lord Galen
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Join Date: Jul 2012
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Posts: 707

Old August 8th, 2018, 04:52 PM
Personally , I find the story board woefully underpowered and archaic. Even 1997 visio was better than it is....If it were not for the autolink feature it would be DOA.

D&D> Pre 1e White Box Edition, 1e, 2e, 3.5 Currently, Set in the World of Greyhawk (The first, longest running and Best Campaign Setting)
Software>Extensive use of all forms of MS Products, Visual Studio 2012, DAZ 3d, AutoCAD, Adobe Products.
Gaming Specific>Campaign Cartographer, D20 Pro Alpha & BattleGrounds Beta Tester, World Builder, Dungeon Crafter, LWD Hero Lab, Realm Works, Inkwell Ideas Citybuilder & Dungeon Builder, Auto-Realm, Dundjinni
Contributing Writer for TSR, WOC, & Canonfire
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Valyar
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Posts: 347

Old August 8th, 2018, 09:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen View Post
If it were not for the autolink feature it would be DOA.
Isn’t this valid for the whole product?

The past is a rudder to guide us, not an anchor to hold us back.
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Dark Lord Galen
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Join Date: Jul 2012
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Posts: 707

Old August 8th, 2018, 11:30 PM
Ouch Val...

Seriously.. I guess if someone has never used other software like a Visio, etc.... something beats nothing... but that features inabilities out way its capabilities IMO...
Sad part is this is a place that could have easily been addressed during the "waiting for Content Market" event to occur.

D&D> Pre 1e White Box Edition, 1e, 2e, 3.5 Currently, Set in the World of Greyhawk (The first, longest running and Best Campaign Setting)
Software>Extensive use of all forms of MS Products, Visual Studio 2012, DAZ 3d, AutoCAD, Adobe Products.
Gaming Specific>Campaign Cartographer, D20 Pro Alpha & BattleGrounds Beta Tester, World Builder, Dungeon Crafter, LWD Hero Lab, Realm Works, Inkwell Ideas Citybuilder & Dungeon Builder, Auto-Realm, Dundjinni
Contributing Writer for TSR, WOC, & Canonfire
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Farling
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Join Date: Mar 2013
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Old August 8th, 2018, 11:58 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen View Post
Personally , I find the story board woefully underpowered and archaic. Even 1997 visio was better than it is....If it were not for the autolink feature it would be DOA.
Nice to diss a feature without saying why you don't like it.

Visio is a drawing package. RW provides the storyboard to have blocks in an ordered sequence. The only thing missing is to be able to set the block placement to "manual" mode so that they can be re-arranged better. (Does Visio have automatic block placement based on flow?)

Farling

Author of the Realm Works Import tool, Realm Works Output tool and Realm Works to Foundry module

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Dark Lord Galen
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Location: Texas
Posts: 707

Old August 9th, 2018, 01:30 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farling View Post
Nice to diss a feature without saying why you don't like it.
Farling my dear friend from across the pond
Well, I wasn't trying to revisit the many lacking features mentioned in other threads concerning the storyboard...... so in brief.....
lack of:
Line weight, color type or ends nor ability to change it from anything other than straight..No other customizable or otherwise shape choices, no ability to arrange as you the user would like (other than horizontal or vertical)... I can go on, but whats the point... The comparison isn't exactly fair....
Its like comparing RW to Word for it abilities, or most other VTT software compared to RW mapping capabilities.
There are simply better tools. but that also has an inherent cost. This would be one side of the debate.. the other (which I was really making reference to) is LWD tries to emulate some of those features of those other softwares, but the lines are grey where they choose to stop... We have some Word features within RW... We have some mapping features.. but by comparison.. the storyboard (which for all purposes is simply a flow chart) is the least developed of these.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farling View Post
Visio is a drawing package.........
Ah... no... it's a flowchart software that has some drawing features. And can create a myriad of various chart types such as logic paths, organizational charts, storyboards, time lines, etc

Best Regards
DLG

D&D> Pre 1e White Box Edition, 1e, 2e, 3.5 Currently, Set in the World of Greyhawk (The first, longest running and Best Campaign Setting)
Software>Extensive use of all forms of MS Products, Visual Studio 2012, DAZ 3d, AutoCAD, Adobe Products.
Gaming Specific>Campaign Cartographer, D20 Pro Alpha & BattleGrounds Beta Tester, World Builder, Dungeon Crafter, LWD Hero Lab, Realm Works, Inkwell Ideas Citybuilder & Dungeon Builder, Auto-Realm, Dundjinni
Contributing Writer for TSR, WOC, & Canonfire
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