For once Rob a positive post

[Exmortis]

OK So I have just fallen in love with Realm works. No I am serious, its like the first day you used a word processor and printer to write the story for english class, and thought; "egads that saved a lot of time and effort.".

As any who read these forums knows I am, using RW for my new game world and campaign, as well as herolab. But so far I have been plugging away from a top down view, world work first, its slow tedious and really only got me to "like" RW. It has been a great consolidator of work, but really a word doc was good also. But I have completed enough of my world to now allow me to work on the story line.

Well kick me blue and color me red, WOW is it awesome for building adventures.....And its the same product my world is built in!!

Within a few hours I have mapped out the 4 major events that each start a new chapter in the storyline, the chapter 0 introduction, and I have keyed out the the two parts of the first sub-chapter of chapter one. On top of that (plug for herolab inc) I have done almost all of my encounters for the first sub chapter plotline, and imported the por files to RW.

Just incredible, this product along with herolab is going to stream line my work so much I am beside myself that I only paid 50 bucks for Realm Works. On top of that I have 4 different machines I work on, at work I have nothing to do at lunch time so I work on my campaign for an hour, being able to work on any machine anywhere, then sync it to the cloud so every other machine can in a few seconds be up to date? Fan<insertlessthancoolword>tastic. Thank you thank you thank you for no system specific DRM. Take note Ubisoft, this is how it is done!

The dynamic linking is just great, and I don't care what people say, the fact you can link between world and story almanacs is awesome.

There has been an aweful lot of negativity flowing on this forum lately, and I really was beginning to wonder if I had blinders on, but now I realize I truely did, but opposite from everyone else, I just had not reached the point where RW shows it true potential, for those running purchased modules in a pre set world from a book, probably will never understand what RW really brings to the table, but for those like me who build from the ground up, Realm Works is a dream come true, and paired with herolab, its like heaven with out the rhetoric.

Finally the icing on the cake was my groups acceptance of buying the player edition, I was keeping some basic info in a word doc to support those who did not buy in, but now, it will be slowly deleted section by section as I ensure its all been accurately transferred to RW. I have begun to fill in the mechanics reference, freakin brilliant by the way, here now lies all of my optional, house and most needed rules for player reference. I have the entire character creation method here now. Almost all of my house rules have been transfered, and I have outlined in detail all optional rules being emploed in my campaign, all will be revealed to the players, now a one stop shop for everything a player needs to play in Daede. Best thing ever? no more damn version control issues with having this info spread all over notes, books, online sources, its all here babee, in one trusty easy to find location.

For all the negative posts, I think people need to step back, understand what RW is, what is meant to do, then asses if its what you need and want. For me? Now there is no question, like Herolab to my character when I am a player, Realm Works just became Indispensable as a creationist GM.

And to put it all in perspective, LWD is about to give me the little product owner, a small say in the direction the product takes in the future....Can everyone here thats irrated about the survey please step back, say those words out loud and then ask yourself, "when has that ever happened before?". Because its not too damn often if ever you have that sort of input for a measly 50 bucks. I mean whats that? two visits to raunchy Ronald Rot Gut and three days in the nasty room on the throne wishen you never went? Yeah terrible thing this survey lets storm the LWD buiding with pickforks and torches for giving us "Freedom of Choice" maybe its time we all spun in cicles and fell dead (10 points for knowing the reference).

So for one person at least Rob? Your product is truely a master piece, and will be the focal point of the Daede Campaign.

[Chemlak]

Hear, hear.

[Zogg]

Well said. While I'm still in the grunt work phase of inputting my world, I can already foresee just how useful this software will be. Especially since I run email campaigns with players at either end of the country. Giving them the ability to look up background info, maps and house-rules at their leisure? Priceless.

[jkthomsen9]

Well said Exmortis. Well said.

[Exmortis]

Thanks all,

I virtually spent the entire weekend, almost all my free time in front of my computer working on my campaign. The more I use Realm Works the more I come to love it. Though some of the category names I wish changed with the type of topic you creating, I have figured out a great standard and some of my rooms in my adventure scroll several pages deep.

Thanks to RW support RTF I even have color coding and format standards now to make sure as GM I miss nothing. ie. All important points like loot, traps, enemies have bold/italic/underline and a color code. this means when I bring up the topic, the important features are brought to your immediate attention. I use the overview for pictures to show players/VTT map for archive purpose, and a GM snippet with a GM overview of what they must know for each room.

The description is for player info, and it always contains the read to players snippet, and if needed a short GM snippet. Points of interest is used for player snippets for updating things they may check, like chests, cupboards, closets, etc. I have a player reveal update, then a GM direction below.

Valuables is used for loot, I have a player reveal followed by a GM snippet. Like say "Leather pouch in chest has 5 diamonds." in player reveal, then in GM text "The diamonds true valus is 100gp each."

Challenges always hase the encounter .por file.

Story has either player reveal if there is story info, and/or GM snippet for update to what GM needs to consider. This is where I always have NPC's dialoge, or say infoi found in a manifest.

I guess I could rename them but I would like a way to change the temoplate so its same eveyr time and not have to change it every time I make a new topic for a room as an example.

[Exmortis]

Anyone reading this post who would like to meet up in the IRC channel and see my work, and share theirs as a "constructive session" I would be interested. I am sure others have found better uses and better information flow then I have, and like wise. It would be interesting to see how our work differs and is the same.

I have a rather busy world and story almanac now, as i gear up to set up chapter 1.2 in my campaign plot. I have to still link up chapter 0 to chapter 1 with more fleshed out story, but I a going to do that once I have completed chapter 1. I have at least a year and a half to get ready for my time in the chair.

One thing I have not done is used my story board, that part of my brain doesn't work, well there are lots parts of my brain that don't work, but that part really doesn't work, I am incapable of conceptualizing my story to plot points and linking them. I have tried, but its like the first time you see algebra, an educated state of confusion that makes littlle sense.

[Acenoid]

I'll be on a short vacation, but afterwards - sure why not

[Dark Lord Galen]

Exmortis / Acenoid... The idea of IRC has me intrigued, but not likely to happen on my end till after the holidays... tooo many irons in the fire already...

Just my 2cp> Also...If this is a Rob's Accolades thread (And rightly deserved) We might consider getting it back on track and making an IRC Thread under general discussions.... IMO

[MNBlockHead]

I would love to participate in an online Realms Work user group.

It has been a loooong time since I've use IRC. For screen sharing and virtual collaboration, might more modern tools like Google Hangouts or Skype better facilitate this. I would be happy to use lend my Join.me account for this. I can start a Join.me and pass presentation over to whomever. For join.me, no software is necessary for viewers (other than a browser that supports flash support), it also offers a good list of international dial-in numbers for people with VoIP challenges due to less-than-ideal bandwidth. Presenters would need to install a small file.

Google Hangout is cool in that multiple people can share their screens simultaneously and it offers some other cool collaborative functionality, but it does require everyone to have or set up a Google Plus account, which could limit participation.

I think Join.me would be optimal for this.

I am new to RW and do not have much to share, but I've been spending a lot of time really thinking about how I'm going to use the various features and topics and discussing this with more experienced users. Would be happy to share what I've learned where helpful and welcome and very interested in see how others are using the tool.

[Parody]

I'd be willing to participate if there's some consideration for people without webcams and microphones. (My main computer is a desktop and has neither.)