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joepacelli
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Old May 14th, 2017, 07:22 AM
So I've created a Tag for Languages and Religions for my Pathfinder Inner Sea.
I then took the Region: Geographical and duplicated it instead of unprotecting it. Is this better, duplicating a category versus unprotecting it?

I then added Languages and Religion to this Region: Geographical Copy.
I also copied the Groups: Religious and added Domain Tag to my Groups: Religious Copy.

I then created a new group under the category Groups: Religious Copy
Abadar

Under my Region: Geographical Copy category I created the region Absalom
I selected the Religions, and Abadar is one of these religions.
Since it's a tag, it does not link to my Groups: Religious Copy of Abadar.
But if I copy these selected tags to the text box, I can link it.
But this seems reduntant

See the attachment.

Is there a way to link a tag to a category?
Attached Images
File Type: png realmworks_link.PNG (6.2 KB, 11 views)
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Silveras
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Old May 14th, 2017, 11:01 AM
Tags are primarily of use (to me) for filtering.

Actually, tags are pretty useless to me. Full-text search can give me almost the same results as using Tags for filtering, with the added bonus of linking to the detailed information about the Topic. So I almost never use Tags.

I am currently struggling with entering the Mechanics for Pathfinder; rather than un-protect Article categories just to fix the poorly-selected default tags (really.. in several cases, ANY default is going to be wrong significantly more often than it is correct -- "Combat" for Feats, for example -- and the cumbersome interface for Tags adds extra steps to remove the incorrect default and add the correct tag).

I say "struggling" because I am trying to use the tag-based formats currently designed as the official version.. and they're incredibly frustrating to me. It would be so much easier to cut-and-paste the entire text for a spell or a feat ... but the tags make entering each Feat at least twice as much of a chore as it needs to be, and each spell at least 10x the work it needs to be. Added to that, it confounds me why Feats have a specific Tag field for Type, named fields for Requirements and Benefits, but NOT any fields for the "Normal" or "Special" elements that, while not part of all Feats, are still pretty common.

So.. really... I've modified my copies to work for me. I added "Normal" and "Special" labeled text fields for Feats, and a Tag field for "Properties" of spells (with things like "Dismissable", "Dischargeable", "Shapable". "Can be made permanent on Person", "Can be made permanent on Objects").

Short version: Many, many of the tag fields are more an obstacle than a help to me.
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kbs666
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Old May 14th, 2017, 11:11 AM
I tried working on that but gave up. It's pretty clear the person(s) who designed the Pathfinder realm had not used RW much and had no idea what tags did or how they are used in the program. I'm assuming that there will be a complete overhaul of the realm at a later date. As it stands it is unusable.

my Realm Works videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZU...4DwXXkvmBXQ9Yw
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Silveras
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Old May 14th, 2017, 01:04 PM
I kind of wish I could argue with that.
The defaults on Creatures (Monsters?) make them CR 1 Humanoid (Hunan) Fighters. Wow. That combination will be wrong 99.99999 % of the time.
Any one of those elements will be wrong 80+% of the time.

Race Traits are represented in the Trait list as "Racial". That's wrong. Racial Traits are a totally different thing (not that I can wholly blame LWD for that one; Paizo decided to use two easily-confused terms, and I believe they have even mis-used the therm themselves more than once).

Sadly, when I offered some feedback on this before, the response was along the lines of 'that would have helped earlier, but it is too late now' (paraphrased, not a quote).
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Parody
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Old May 14th, 2017, 04:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by joepacelli View Post
Is this better, duplicating a category versus unprotecting it?
I use custom Categories and Tag Domains for almost everything in my Paranoia realm. I haven't gone that far in my WIP "generic fantasy world", but it's systemless at this point and my Topics don't have a ton of info yet.

An alternative way to keep the Global Category but work around its defaults is to create a Topic/Article as a template with your settings and duplicate that Topic/Article to create a new item.

Quote:
Originally Posted by joepacelli View Post
Since it's a tag, it does not link to my Groups: Religious Copy of Abadar. But if I copy these selected tags to the text box, I can link it.
My main use of Tags is single-item selection, as a replacement for not having a combo box (dropdown menu) type of Snippet for entering data bits where the options will rarely change and linking isn't required. I don't use multi-item Tag Snippets; I either insert multiple single-item Tag Snippets or use some variant of a text snippet instead.

Quote:
Originally Posted by joepacelli View Post
Is there a way to link a tag to a category?
Tags that link to a Topic/Article have been requested before as a feature, if you want to look around the Request forum and add your input.


Quote:
Originally Posted by kbs666 View Post
It's pretty clear the person(s) who designed the Pathfinder realm had not used RW much and had no idea what tags did or how they are used in the program.
Given that Pathfinder has been the default system for most of the time the program's been around, I don't think anyone (especially not the developers) knew how tags would actually be used in the wild. There was a lot of "this is how we recommend you use it" in the documentation, but you know that didn't stop the folks here. :)

Quote:
Originally Posted by kbs666 View Post
I'm assuming that there will be a complete overhaul of the realm at a later date. As it stands it is unusable.
Don't hold your breath.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
I kind of wish I could argue with that.
The defaults on Creatures (Monsters?) make them CR 1 Humanoid (Hunan) Fighters. Wow. That combination will be wrong 99.99999 % of the time.
Any one of those elements will be wrong 80+% of the time.
True, defaults are only useful if they're common enough.

My own annoyance with the D&D/Pathfinder setup is having all of the class and level combinations together to marking which lists include a spell. I'd want to pick class and level from separate dropdowns, but there's no such thing in RW. You could put the number into the text box and just pick a class per snippet, but then it's not searchable.

Designing customizable user interfaces sucks. :(


Last edited by Parody; May 14th, 2017 at 05:01 PM. Reason: I kept adding stuff. Sorry.
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Silveras
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Old May 14th, 2017, 06:48 PM
Yeah, my first view of tags was.. well, I suppose I can use them for pick-lists (like a combo box). But then there were Tag snippet that allowed multiple tags, and tags from more than one domain.. not so useful.

I understand why the Class/Level for spells is done as it is. I even understand why Oracle have a separate tag from Clerics, I think. I don't like it, but I understand it.. and, since there's no Report Writer functionality available for us to compose our own listings, there's not much else that could be done.

Finally, yeah, the impression I got before is "this is the final version of our Pathfinder structure", so I don't have any expectation of an overhaul unless there is huge pushback from the Pathfinder users. What we see now is what will be coming in the Content Market.
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MNBlockHead
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Old May 15th, 2017, 11:29 PM
Tags have been most useful for spells. I entered all the spells for 5e and I use tags for the components, school, class, level, etc. Makes it easy to sort. Not as easy as a spreadsheet or DnD Beyond, but those won't cross-link with my other content.

That said, though this may be a bit off topic, I find I'm using RW less and less for mechanical articles, other than homebrew and third party stuff. I find that, for 5e, at least, there are other tools I end up finding easier to use to look up mechanics.

RW is primarily my world-builder and campaign-tracking tool. All the mechanics stuff is in Hero Lab and I can see maybe using DnD Beyond for game prep and rules lookup, depending on pricing.

From a world-building perspective, now that I'm a couple years in, I'm finding that the mechanics articles are not as revolutionary and useful as I thought they would be. As I become more familiar with the rules, I'm finding the autolinks to mechanics articles to be more of an annoyance than useful.

If I were to make a do-over, I would only put in monsters and spells and I would make sure that I named them such that common words like "guard" and "sleep" were not article names.

RW Project: Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition homebrew world
Other Tools: CampaignCartographer, Cityographer, Dungeonographer, Evernote
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kbs666
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Old May 16th, 2017, 01:41 AM
I really put very little true mechanics in RW.

I have the house rules for my campaign. IOW since I'm using Pathfinder I include what books, races, classes, archetypes, feats and spells are allowed. I had hoped my players would use this as a resource for character building but they ignore it and I have to police their character sheets instead. Now I'm trying once again to build a campaign specific source for HL that will control all of that but it is slow going.

I really don't see the need or desire to have all the rules text in RW. I doubt it will be broken into articles in any sort of useful fashion so beyond each discreet race, class etc. having an entry where would the rest of it all go and what good would it do?

I'd much rather have the original book or PDF handy to look up the actual text as needed.

my Realm Works videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZU...4DwXXkvmBXQ9Yw
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joepacelli
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Old May 16th, 2017, 06:43 AM
While having the PDF's is handy, it's also a pain when you like.
Wait, which source is this from, and I open and close them trying to search.
With RW I can see just clicking the link and having it jump to the appropriate rule, text, or whatever about the item in question.
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Parody
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Old May 16th, 2017, 08:19 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
Yeah, my first view of tags was.. well, I suppose I can use them for pick-lists (like a combo box). But then there were Tag snippet that allowed multiple tags, and tags from more than one domain.. not so useful.
I never use those. I only use single-choice Tag Snippets, which you can only define in Category definitions, not when adding custom Snippets while editing. :P

Quote:
Originally Posted by joepacelli View Post
Wait, which source is this from, and I open and close them trying to search.
This is why all of my Topics/Articles that come from books reference their sources and page numbers.
sources.png

Re: Mechanics in realms, I find that not having to leave RW to read about something and being able to combine information that would normally be split between books is useful. (It's just as useful for sourcebook/worldbuilding Topics, of course.)

It helps that Hero Lab isn't an option for my chosen system. (I played around with adding Paranoia XP to HL and gave up pretty quickly.)


Last edited by Parody; May 16th, 2017 at 08:36 AM.
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