Managing Plot Point content

[adzling]

Hmm it seems like there is an arbitrary limit on the # of characters in each Plot Point text box.

This greatly limits the utility of those text boxes, nothing fits!

I can see now that they are only really useful as a visual flow-chart to hang content off and little else.

That's rather saddening and adds complexity.
Why not just let the GM assign Snippets to a Plot Point directly?


Moving on, how does this stuff get revealed to the players?

Do you reveal the Plot Point and then reveal the Scene or other content associated with it?

Do you have to reveal the Plot Point to reveal the associated content?

This would all be resolved by just embedding the Snippets directly into the Plot Points.

[adzling]

thanks Chemlak this helps greatly.

Originally Posted by Chemlak

When I play, I typically have a few tabs open:

1) Storyboard, so I can get back and forth to it easily.
2) Current location (usually a city or town for my games, but since you play Shadowrun, whatever part of town the characters start in).
3) Current Scene, so that I have quick links to all relevant topics.
4+) NPCs in the scene, so that I can view their statblocks and other topic information.

With that setup, I can easily switch tabs and reveal information, and for everything else there's MasterCard... Err, there's CTRL+Q.

When you switch scene, spend a minute closing and opening tabs - it works best if you can do it while describing things to to the players, so as not to break the flow of the game, but no one's likely to begrudge a few seconds here and there, and pretty soon you'll come up with your way of hopping around to make it seamless.

[adzling]

So now that I have a Scene Topic associated with a Plot Point I notice that the Plot Point text boxes are no longer visible.
When I click on the Plot Point itself it pushes me to the associated Scene.

This is confusing and contradictory, why have text boxes on the Plot Point if they are inaccessible once you associate a Scene to the Plot Point?

Man this interface is driving me nuts.

[Chemlak]

Originally Posted by adzling

Hmm it seems like there is an arbitrary limit on the # of characters in each Plot Point text box.

This greatly limits the utility of those text boxes, nothing fits!

Guess time: 127, 255, or 511 characters.

I can see now that they are only really useful as a visual flow-chart to hang content off and little else.

Think of the storyboard as just a flowchart, nothing more. It's a reminder/pointer of what you planned the plot to look like, to help you know what's coming next. It's an extremely valuable tool, but is itself only a tiny part of an adventure. The real meat is in topics.

Why not just let the GM assign Snippets to a Plot Point directly?

Fair question, and I suspect the answer is because the storyboard is meant to work exactly like the storyboard for a movie: it's a visual representation of how all of the different bits of the adventure hang together, without much detail.

To extend the movie analogy a little, at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope, there's the award ceremony.

On a storyboard, that's one plot point: Award Ceremony.

In the scene, you have characters present (yes, including R2D2), the fact that Chewbacca doesn't get a medal, what each character is wearing, Leia's new hairstyle, and a gazillion other details that would just crowd the storyboard.

Moving on, how does this stuff get revealed to the players?

Do you reveal the Plot Point and then reveal the Scene or other content associated with it?

I only reveal plot points when that plot element is completely resolved.

Do you have to reveal the Plot Point to reveal the associated content?

Heavens, no! That would be awful. Remember, you can associate a plot point with any topic of any type, so it could be a scene, a place, a person, even an item. Their reveal state is independent.

This would all be resolved by just embedding the Snippets directly into the Plot Points.

While this makes sense if you are associating scenes, if you have a "Find the Maguffin" plot point associated with the item topic "The Maguffin", you probably don't want to have every single snippet for The Maguffin attached to the plot point. (Remember, in Star Wars, the small thermal exhaust port right above the main port is actually a plot point.)

If I'm following this all correctly, I think you have a very narrow view of what plot points are. They do not have to be just scenes. In my last game, I had a plot point that was, well, it had a slightly rude name that I won't repeat here, which was associated with a small woodland clearing, because the clearing was actually the important bit, not the scene when the PCs got there.

[adzling]

Thanks Chemlak your comments are really helping.

So I have always viewed a point on a Plot Point type flow-chart as an important element in an adventure that is almost universally a Scene where the players do something.

I am having a hard time understanding why you would not embed the majority of your Scene info as Snippets directly into the Plot Point.

Sure you will have characters, items, buildings and such that are represented in the World Almanac and associated with the Plot Point (i.e. your Macguffin example) but I can't think of an example where you would have a Plot Point but no player activity that needs moderating.

[adzling]

This feels like late November when you pull the box of tangled up and partially working xmas lights out of storage and have to spend a few hours trying to untangle them, figure out which ones work and then determine how to daisychain them so they can all work together in the right layout.

I am starting to understand how this can be a really helpful tool to manage PnP campaigns but man the interface is really not doing it's job.

It's just a bunch of spaghetti like plumbing.

It feels like I'm fighting this interface the entire way, it's almost like it does not want me to be able to get stuff in easily, adding in unneeded complexity and inconsistencies at every turn.

[Redjack]

I've created a custom sub category of Scene for Shadowrun Scenes.


Several observations:
- Linking scenes to plot points seems somewhat superfluous. Perhaps if I better understood the options or thinking of the designer I might understand what seems like an extra step.
- The box text object options is completely manual for each iteration. I'd like to see options to create a custom snippet of that object. It would be a bonus if "Box Text" (currently a 'GM Direction') could either be converted to a non-editable label or removed all together in lieu of a border. Also setting default font options would be a bonus as well.

More comments to come as I continue to implement one of the missions I wrote as a scene.

[Derfel]

I don't always use scenes as plot-points like a scripted movie. I prefer to prep situations. I link plot-points to characters, locations, quests and all kinds of topics accordingly. That extra step is necessary for GM's like me. I am glad Realm Works doesn't force me to use a specific kind of plot-point.

[MNBlockHead]

Like Derfel, I often link a plot point to a location, which can be a building, a city, or an adventure area. While I can see how some users would want the option to set a default topic type to link it to, I personaly would like to continue having the option to select a specific topic type.