Moving entries from Almanack to Mechanics

[meek75]

Originally Posted by Parody

Yes, a Stat Block. The intent was that you wouldn't enter stat blocks as a bunch of snippets in Realm Works; you'd use Hero Lab or Statblock snippets to store the game definition of a character/creature/etc. Those can be copied (or quickly recreated and altered, for external tools) to create an individual if the individual needs their own custom stats. (Plenty of NPCs in my adventures would have character and story bits but use a generic stat block to which I could just link.)

If that was the intent then I think it should be reconsidered. I am running 5th Ed, which has no hero lab support. Even if it did, I can only leverage the power of tags and filtering if I have monsters directly in RW. Since there is a Monsters category included in the mechanics articles I'm guessing its intended it to be used pretty much as I am using it. I'm honestly not entirely sure how LWD envisions all this working.

[Lexin]

Originally Posted by meek75

I am running 5th Ed, which has no hero lab support.

I run 2nd edition AD&D and Call of Cthulhu, and it's much easier in CofC to enter NPCs/monsters (where they exist) than it is for the AD&D games. AD&D requires me to create the NPC out of game, currently I'm using Word, then to copy them over. Creating NPCs and monsters is easier using HeroLab, and more fun.

There is a chap working on putting AD&D 2e in HL, but he's backed up working on RL, and my knowledge of programming is very limited indeed, so I can't do it myself.

[MNBlockHead]

I'm running 5th edition and the statblock snippet is useless. It makes RW less useful. If you don't have Herolab, I don't see much point. If I create a statblock, I have to open it as a new tab or externally in MS Word.

Instead, I just create a text snippet and use a macro program (Phrase Express) to create a nicely formatted template that I complete with the stats. Then I have them immediately viewable in the topic itself. I entirely remove the statblock and scene statblock snippets from the participants section in the scene topic, for example, and replace with text snippets containing my formatted statblock tables.

I guess if you like to print your statblocks, you might use these snippets, since you can then open them as MS Word documents and print, but I try to avoid having to print anything. So these snippets are not useful.

Regarding commonly used monster and NPC type statblocks, if I'm in a hurry or feeling lazy, I just enter "goblin" and let the autolink feature link to the goblin article so that I can just click on the link to open the goblin article and its stats in another tab. But it is annoying to have to do this and if you have an encounter with many monster/NPC types, I don't want to have to be constantly switching tabs. So I try to take a little extra time and copy paste from the monster article to the scene topic.

For very commonly needed statblocks (e.g. commoner, goblin, bandit), I create macros in PhraseExpress. So I just need to type "#goblin" and it will expand into a fully formatted table with the stats.

[meek75]

@MNBlockHead - I have Phrase Express, but haven't used it in the way you are suggesting. Thanks for the idea. I have my monsters/NPC use separate snippets for the various parts of information. That is so I can leverage the power of filtering by tag. If I want a CR 7 monster I can jut filter so that I see only the CR 7s. The downside is that is takes longer to enter the stats. My main issue is that I often take a monster and then modify it for use as an NPC or for use in a particular encounter. I don't want the NPC to live in the articles section of the almanac. I want them to live in the People section of the Topics almanac. If I put all the info in a single snippet, as you are doing (I think), it would be fairly easy to cut and paste the info, but I lose the filtering capabilities.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by meek75

@MNBlockHead - I have Phrase Express, but haven't used it in the way you are suggesting. Thanks for the idea. I have my monsters/NPC use separate snippets for the various parts of information. That is so I can leverage the power of filtering by tag. If I want a CR 7 monster I can jut filter so that I see only the CR 7s. The downside is that is takes longer to enter the stats. My main issue is that I often take a monster and then modify it for use as an NPC or for use in a particular encounter. I don't want the NPC to live in the articles section of the almanac. I want them to live in the People section of the Topics almanac. If I put all the info in a single snippet, as you are doing (I think), it would be fairly easy to cut and paste the info, but I lose the filtering capabilities.

If you use the same format for all of your text, then you can simply search for it.

For example if you just use text snippets for your statblock, just search for "CR: 7" or whatever format you use.

You could also tag your monsters by CR. Create a "CR" tag and add values 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Then you can filter on tags.

You could also add an "NPC" and "Monster" tag so your issue with copying monsters as NPCs is handled as well.

[meek75]

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

If you use the same format for all of your text, then you can simply search for it.

For example if you just use text snippets for your statblock, just search for "CR: 7" or whatever format you use.

You could also tag your monsters by CR. Create a "CR" tag and add values 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Then you can filter on tags.

You could also add an "NPC" and "Monster" tag so your issue with copying monsters as NPCs is handled as well.

Hmmm, I did some testing, and when I search text snippets I get mixed results. For example, when I search for "CR 1" the results include CR 1, CR 10, CR 11, CR 12 ect . . .Is there a way to have it find only the exact match? If I go with the route you suggest it will make it very easy to copy and paste stat blocks. Still seems like a shame to forego all the great tagging power of RW, but it might be my best option.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by meek75

Hmmm, I did some testing, and when I search text snippets I get mixed results. For example, when I search for "CR 1" the results include CR 1, CR 10, CR 11, CR 12 ect . . .Is there a way to have it find only the exact match? If I go with the route you suggest it will make it very easy to copy and paste stat blocks. Still seems like a shame to forego all the great tagging power of RW, but it might be my best option.

Well, it appears that once again I assumed that some sort of normal interface standards applied to Realm Works, but, as I am often accused of here, I made wrong assumptions.

When you search for text, if there is a space in the string you are search for then it treats them as multiple words "OR"d together. So if you search for

CR 1

It returns all the topics that have at least one snippet with "CR" in it, and one snippet with "1" in it. That in itself isn't so bad, I guess, unless you want to specifically find "CR 1" and only "CR 1". But searching for

"CR 1"

does the exact same OR behaviour. Disappointing. Quoted strings are usually treated as a unit. Next I tried changing the text in my snippet to

CR:1

and then searching for that. However, Realm Works doesn't allow searching for special characters, so it found nothing and when I went back to the search box it now contains just

CR1

The same thing happens for dashes, colons, tildes or any other non-alphanumeric character I tried. So, that's useless. I guess when I tried to use quotes to search for a string, it just removed the quotes rather than using them.

None of the documentation talks about searching in any detail, so I guess that's it. It appears you can't search for phrases.

You could try the tag route, but that's counter to what you are wanting with the stat blocks.

Sigh.

[Viking2054]

Try CR 01 instead of CR 1. Putting the zero in front of the one in both your text and your search should exclude the CR 10, 11, 12, etc. I'd do the same for CR 02 through CR 09. Just make it a standard 2 or 3 digit number if necessary with leading zeros.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by Viking2054

Try CR 01 instead of CR 1. Putting the zero in front of the one in both your text and your search should exclude the CR 10, 11, 12, etc. I'd do the same for CR 02 through CR 09. Just make it a standard 2 or 3 digit number if necessary with leading zeros.

That will find every topic that has "CR" in it, and "01" in it. If that's the only thing you use with numbers, that's fine, but if you have a CR 09 monster that also has something else with a "01", then it will show up in that search.

I guess you could eliminate the spaces in your topic and say CR01 and CR09 and CR10.

[Parody]

Continuing to play Devil's Advocate:

Originally Posted by meek75

If that was the intent then I think it should be reconsidered. I am running 5th Ed, which has no hero lab support.

My main Realm Works realm is for my Paranoia adventures, and Paranoia XP doesn't have Hero Lab support either. My main way of attaching stats to a character is via PDF snippet. (Thankfully, Paranoia is pretty light on this stuff.)

I like the idea of keeping the story info separate from system-specific stats. It makes it easier for you to write content and adapt it for multiple systems. As the folks here are showing, though, this is one place where they didn't anticipate how people would use their application. Also, the long-delayed Content Market didn't help.

Originally Posted by meek75

Even if it did, I can only leverage the power of tags and filtering if I have monsters directly in RW.

My Paranoia character Topics have Tag Snippets for things like Security Clearance and Mutant Power. They're separate (and, yes, duplicated) from their character sheets but that's fine with me. The things that I've chosen to duplicate are more story-oriented than stats, but it is a place where system bleeds into story.

Originally Posted by meek75

I'm honestly not entirely sure how LWD envisions all this working.

My opinion: they expect most people to buy content from the Content Market, which will come complete with statblocks in Hero Lab, statblock snippets (system depending), and links to Mechanics Articles.

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

When you search for text, if there is a space in the string you are search for then it treats them as multiple words "OR"d together.

This sounds very familiar....