What would you do?

[Asandir]

Ok, I need folks input on this subject as I have been turning this thought over in my brain for a couple of weeks.

Here is my dilemma. I have been working on putting whole source books in, e.g. SGG Feats books, which is all well and good and I know others have been working on other whole books as well from different publishers. What I haven't seen is anyone that has been building their own campaign setting and how they are building that in Herolab.

A little background. I have a homegrown campaign setting that I have been working on for the last couple of years. At it's core is the Pathfinder system. What I have done is written what I call my variant rules core rule book for the campaign setting. I have pulled together elements that I have gathered from various other Pathfinder and in some cases some 3.5 material that fits the aesthetic of the campaign setting and compiled this.

Finally the question. Would you build all the changes in under one custom item as the Campaign Setting, or would you build each individual source book as a separate item? In some cases I have two spells from a source book that I have added to the setting material. The rest of the sourcebook would probably never be touched. Other sourcebooks have 90% of the material.

So. Opinion’s? Thoughts?

Thanks for your input.

[chiefweasel]

I would do the source books seperately. that would give you he greatest flexibility if something should change. you could then just unselect the source and all the information is not available.

as for a whole campaign, you might want to check out Realm Works. I know it is some time off but it might be able to answer a lot of the questions you have about setting up a full campaign and tracking it.

just my thought, lol.

[Asandir]

Hey chiefweasel,

Thanks for your input. At this point I am just looking at the Herolab stuff.

I have been watching the development of Realm Works as well. Not sure I am prepared to go that far. I'll be interested to see the new screenshots when they get posted and evaluate at that time.

We've been using a mixture of a wetpaint wiki and Obsidian Portal and Google+/Docs for our existing campaigns. My campaign is still quite away off in the future as we are currently in the middle of two others and adding a third just is not realistic. So I have at least a year or year and a half before mine goes "live" as it were.

[chiefweasel]

I sat in on the demo of Realm Works at Gen Con. and i was pretty impressed. there are a few screen shots on this website somewhere but they really dont do the product justice. its completely different now. I think its going to be a game changers for the RPG players, pun intended.

i also see you are in VA, i am in northeern VA myself.

[Asandir]

I'm sure it is going to be interesting. I anticipate I'll look at it and make a decision at that time. I looked at Herolab and played with it for the better part of a year before I broke down and bought it. I'm an old eTools user and I built a ton of datasets for myself in that one. Yeah, it had it's issues, but I still have it and it still works.

I'm in central VA, Shenandoah Valley here.

[tkarn]

For my homebrew I use a mediawiki, but I'm wauiting for Realms Work. In Herolab is less to do, because I use the original datasets for pathfinder. The only things I have to do villain creation.

[Asandir]

Good to know. thanks. Like I said, I'm trying to achieve a particular aesthetic so there are some elements that don't exist in the core and exist in either other Pathfinder materials or some older 3.5 stuff.

Based on what I have seen so far, I think I am going to create a parent record for my campaign setting and then add each individual source under that. Kind of screwy, but that way I know what in particular was added for my campaign setting.

[pr1est]

It's only screwy if YOU don't even understand it when your done!


I myself have done some things in HL that my buddies thought were odd but work really well for me organization-wise...

[Random]

I'd love to see what kind of house rules you've used. I'm always on the lookout for other ways people do things. Any chance I could get a look at your variant core rules book?

[Asandir]

Originally Posted by Random

I'd love to see what kind of house rules you've used. I'm always on the lookout for other ways people do things. Any chance I could get a look at your variant core rules book?

Send me a PM with your email and I'll send you a copy. Not sure I should have used variant rule book as the description, more a Campaign Setting with variations to the core rulebooks. Regardless, as I mentioned in the first post, there is a particular aesthetic I am trying to achieve. I've eliminated certain elements from the core rule books that don't meet that aesthetic, like gunslingers, samurai, and ninja.

In addition I have incorporated material from both 3.5 and PF RPG material as appropriate to that aesthetic. 3PP material includes:
- Malhavoc Press
- Green Ronin
- Oone Games
- Spes Magna Games
- Margaret Weis Productions
- Open Design

There are some other elements I intend to use for particular groups of NPC's using other 3PP content. Hopefully I have managed to smoothly integrate the material. I have no idea how the changes will work out until I get around to running this sometime late next year or early the following. Note that I am not a game designer by any stretch of the imagination!