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EightBitz
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Old April 3rd, 2016, 12:21 AM
I've owned RW for a while, now. I bought it the day it was released. But I haven't really used it beyond some trivial data entry ... until now.

As I've indicated in my previous posts, I'm running Rise of the Runelords, and there's a lot of information there. I had to figure out where to start and how to make things work. Here's what I did.

Rise of the Runelords starts out in a town called Sandpoint. There's an appendix in the book that details the locations of Sandpoint. In the description of each location, it lists names of people associated with those locations.

Step 1: Quick create (CTRL-Q) a topic (Places, Community) called "Sandpoint".

Step 2: Quick create (CTRL-Q) a topic (People, Individual) for each name, making "Sandpoint" the containing topic. I didn't enter any data yet, just created each topic.

Step 3: Quick create a topic for each place (Places, then either 'Merchant' or 'Location'), making "Sandpoint" the containing topic. For each topic, I gave it a prefix that matched its number. For example, the Sanpoint Cathedral is location #1. There are 50 locations, so made each one a double digit so they would be sorted properly when I sorted by prefix. So I gave it a prefix of 01.

Then I learned from looking at Silveras's example (thank you) that it would make sense to prefix each location with SP as well, because there are going to be other cities with other locations. So the prefix for the Cathedral became "SP01".

Step 4: I went through the campaign synopsis, the background for the setting, and the first part of the first chapter to get any other people and locations I didn't already have, and created them in the same manner. Again, I'm not adding content yet, just quick-creating all the "People" and "Place" topics I'm going to need for Chapter 1, Part 1.

Step 5: After I have all these topics created, I go back and start entering content. Now, since all the topics are already created, whenever I enter and organize my content into snippets, and I save the topic, all the topics are there for the auto-link scan to pick up.

When you're doing this bit, you have two options. You can stop and properly organize the snippets of each topic as you go. Or you could do what I did. -Copy and paste the content from the PDF into a text editor.
-Remove the line breaks except to separate paragraphs (making sure you have a blank line between each paragraph, for readability).
-Paste the whole block of text into one snippet in the "Summary" or "Overview" section. Then go to each blank line and press CTRL-ENTER to separate each paragraph into its own snippet.

I did it this way for expediency, just to get everything in there, because I was crunched for time.

Now, as far as Chapter 1, Part 1 goes:
-I have all my "People" topics.
-I have all my "Place" topics.
-I have relevant content in each topic.
-That content is interlinked.

Now it's story time!

Step 6: Under "Events", I created a "Campaign Synopsis" topic (Storyline).

Step 7: I created another Storyline topic for "Chapter 1".

Step 8: I created yet another Storyline topic for "Part 1" and made "Chapter 1" its containing topic.

Step 9: I created a Scene for each event/encounter within "Part 1", and made "Part 1" each scene's containing topic.

Step 10: For each of the events I created above, I entered content from the relevant sections of the book.

Step 11: I went to the story board and created a plot group called "Rise of the Runelords" (or you can just rename the group that's already there).

Step 12: I added a plot in the RotRL group called "Chapter 1"

Step 13: For each of the scenes I created for chapter in step 9, I added a plot point on the storyboard in the "Chapter 1" plot.

Step 14: I drew arrows from one plot point to another to show the proper flow.

Step 15: I linked each plot point to its corresponding event.

When came to actual play:
I had one character who lived in Sandpoint, and other characters traveling to Sandpoint from other areas. I gave them time to arrive in the city, look around a bit, get settled in, get some local news, hear some local gossip and rumors, etc, etc.

Whenever a player interacted with a location or person, I went to the relevant topic, and revealed relevant snippets for what the players learned.

When everyone was settled, I went to scene 1 and played that out.
Gave them a quick breather, as the end of that scene called for.
Went to scene 2.
Then more quickly (as the end of scene 2 called for), went to scene 3.
After scene 3 was sorted out, I went to scene 4.

In this particular plot, this sort of a rapid-fire was called for. In other cases, you can let the players rest between scenes and further interact with people and places.

Anyway, that's how I did it. I hope this helps someone. :-) I'm sure other, more experienced users will have things to add, but with this being my first time seriously using RW, I just thought I'd pass along how I did it for other people who look at this thing and go, "Oh, @#$@#%, where do I START?!?! ... How do I even...?!?!?!"
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davidp
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Old April 3rd, 2016, 07:07 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by EightBitz View Post
There are 50 locations, so made each one a double digit so they would be sorted properly when I sorted by prefix. So I gave it a prefix of 01.
Just a small observation: When you sort by prefix, Realm Works properly looks at numbers as numbers. So if you have SP1, SP10, SP2, Realm Works shows them in the proper order for us humans: SP1, SP2, SP10 and not treating the numbers as just characters. So you didn't have to use two digit numbers for the prefix.
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Gord
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Old April 3rd, 2016, 07:24 AM
An excellent description of the way you did things. Useful not just for beginners but as another example for those of us who are not using things like plots and storyboards to their fullest capabilities/
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Silveras
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Old April 3rd, 2016, 12:07 PM
The realm of mine that EightBitz looked at evolved over time. I experimented with different things at different points, especially as it grew and I better understood the impact of other choices and changes.

At one point, I started adding aliases like "RotRL1.A01" for room A01 in Part 1 of RotRL... because there would also be another A01 in each of Part 2, Part, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

Later, I decided that trying to manage the number schemes was a waste of my time. Although I still put in the location codes as prefixes (A01), I stopped trying to separate them with Aliases / "Other Names" that way. And I decided that it was far more important (and productive) to have pins on Smart Image maps than it was to have the printed product codes preserved.

In the end, the best advice I can offer to extend what EightBitz said is... 'just pick a spot and start from there'. Usually either a Person or a Place is central enough to the story that it can serve as an anchor. Whatever you start with, you can expect to re-organize your material (especially Containment) as you get more practice and find the way that works best for you. The real key is "don't be afraid to try something" ... nobody's going to get it "just right" on the first try... so don't obsess over it.
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Barwickian
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Old April 7th, 2016, 08:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by EightBitz View Post
Step 1: Quick create (CTRL-Q) a topic (Places, Community) called "Sandpoint".

Step 2: Quick create (CTRL-Q) a topic (People, Individual) for each name, making "Sandpoint" the containing topic. I didn't enter any data yet, just created each topic.
I'll interject. Not saying your way is wrong and mine is right, but I organised the NPCs thusly:

I created a cast list called Sandpoint NPCs and put the NPCs in that.

I used Sandpoint (Places, Community) as the containing topic for the Sandpoint businesses (Places, Merchant or Places, Location as suitable).

I then created a relationship between each NPC and Sandpoint, and to their business or place of residence.

For displaying locations I (a) create map pins and (b) use their number as a prefix, then Manage the view (F6) and select Display by Prefix.

This way I can find NPCs quickly, and help limit what it already a large number of contained topics in Sandpoint.

It also helps keep track of NPCs who may be mobile.
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rob
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Old April 8th, 2016, 04:42 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Barwickian View Post
I'll interject. Not saying your way is wrong and mine is right, but I organised the NPCs thusly:

I created a cast list called Sandpoint NPCs and put the NPCs in that.

I used Sandpoint (Places, Community) as the containing topic for the Sandpoint businesses (Places, Merchant or Places, Location as suitable).

I then created a relationship between each NPC and Sandpoint, and to their business or place of residence.

For displaying locations I (a) create map pins and (b) use their number as a prefix, then Manage the view (F6) and select Display by Prefix.

This way I can find NPCs quickly, and help limit what it already a large number of contained topics in Sandpoint.

It also helps keep track of NPCs who may be mobile.
This is extremely similar to the approach we're using for all the published content. It seems to work quite well in terms of both organization and utility.

For many NPCs, we don't even create a separate topic for them. If the NPC will typically only be found in a specific location, and it's not integral to the overall plot, we just include the NPC within the location and create an alias on the location topic with the NPC's name. That way, the NPC shows up in the topic list and automatic linking hooks up nicely, but there's only one actual topic that covers both the location and the NPC that works/resides there. There are quite a few NPCs in Sandpoint that we handled this way.
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ich.pdf
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Old April 8th, 2016, 09:38 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob View Post
For many NPCs, we don't even create a separate topic for them. If the NPC will typically only be found in a specific location, and it's not integral to the overall plot, we just include the NPC within the location and create an alias on the location topic with the NPC's name. That way, the NPC shows up in the topic list and automatic linking hooks up nicely, but there's only one actual topic that covers both the location and the NPC that works/resides there.
After I played around with Realm Works for a couple of days now to support my shadowrun campaign, I use this approach. First I tried to have topics for each and everything, but that became quickly an unnecessary big workload (It is just this "I want to have everything complete and nicely in order"-neurosis that actually Realm works helps to cure by organising everything in an organic way... )

Anyway, for future updates it would be nice to be able to move aliases seperately from the actual topic. This way you could have something like a "support cast"-list. Right now, I am either not using aliases and try to remeber my less important NPCs or I mark the aliases to be not shown in the topic list, so my locations (in my case groups, but anyway) are not "polluted" by minor NPCs
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Greebo
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Old April 8th, 2016, 10:21 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ich.pdf View Post
Anyway, for future updates it would be nice to be able to move aliases seperately from the actual topic.
+1

That would be very helpfull. I have some NPCs using different aliases in different locations.
E.g. in my modern campaign I have an human trafficker and arms dealer who is also an influential businessman. So I would like to have him appear both "under" the financial district and his usual meeting place.
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Teresa
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Old April 9th, 2016, 06:43 AM
I think the solution to your request has been provided before.

For Superman, for example, you would create two topics (Cark Kent and Superman) and then use Relationships to identify that one is the alias of the other.
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Cornelius
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Old April 9th, 2016, 11:22 PM
Ich.pdf and Greebo: You can put the idea in the Feature request. That may also give indications how others think about it and it may get on the long list of requests.
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