Best Practices Guide: Overall

[EightBitz]

I'm not sure where this request should go, so I'm posting it in the most general area. I think it would help a lot of people. And it can be a collaborative effort from the EA Kickstarters and the developers. It can be a PDF or a new forum topic.

I would like to see it cover things like:
-Using tags vs. using identifiers vs. using containers.

-Creating a realm that is a setting instead of a discrete adventure, and how to compose, manage and distinguish specific adventures within that realm (which I'm guessing would follow from or be intertwined with tags vs. identifiers vs. containers.)

-When should a large setting be broken up into different realms? If one is building a realm that spans multiple worlds and a timeline of a million years on each world (though they're all related to the same stream of continuity), how could that best be managed? Should it all be in one realm? One realm for each world? One realm for each historical era? One realm for each historical era on each world?

I know that the software is flexible, and we can do things however we want, and that's a great thing. But some over-all guidance on good practices would also be helpful (at least to me).

Thank you.

[MaxSupernova]

Amen.

[thedarkelf007]

Now this is very subjective. I can answer it multiple ways for the same set if data.

There is no definitive way of doing this unless you are incorporating other peoples content. Then you need to fit I'm with their structure.

Otherwise I would build the data around what makes sense for your world.

Containers are good for a hierarchy
Ids are good for sorting
Tags are good for filtering

Objects have single inheritance so it can't belong to more than one parent (multiple inheritance while cool is beyond the scope of this program) so it can have only one container.

Id's can go before or after the name. If before it can sort things like rooms at a location. Now having this as the only sort might become confusing. So I add them to which ever object holds the map they are referenced from.

Now tags can be added freely and everywhere. So important things like special events. World it city they are attached to. Sourcebook. Anything that you want to be able to filter by should be a tag. By using all three you will find your content easier to find.

Does this help at all?

[EightBitz]

That's a start, but saying that there's no definitive way doesn't really address the issue, and it isn't really the question.

There are the developers who had a methodology in mind when they designed the product. Their insights into good practices would be valuable without having to be definitive.

There are people who've had several months of experience in designing their realms. Their insights would also be valuable without having to be definitive.

And as a perfect example, I give you this:

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=48941

That's the sort of thing that would fit right in with a good practices guide.

[thedarkelf007]

There is no generic way really.

But approaches I take for the various realms I am working with are all different.

When I am using a module as the focus, I structure the content around the modules, and link in the locations then encounters then people as layered content owners.

i.e.

Module
- Location A
- Room A1
- Room A2
- Encounter
- NPC
- Monster
- Location B

When I am working with a character focus storyline, I start with the player characters and build out from there.

- Character
- NPCs
- Locations

And then encounters and events are built as they happen

- Event
- Encounters

I can do more later if this is what your looking for.

[monsterfurby]

I'd rather say there's no definitive way yet. I'm pretty sure that best practices will emerge, some conditional on how a campaign is laid out, some conditional on what style of running a game the user prefers, but in any case they will appear.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by monsterfurby

I'd rather say there's no definitive way yet. I'm pretty sure that best practices will emerge, some conditional on how a campaign is laid out, some conditional on what style of running a game the user prefers, but in any case they will appear.

I think if I'm in doubt about anything at this point, I'll just use tags. This way, at least, if I want to do something differently later, I can filter for content.

[MaxSupernova]

"There's no one way. Do what you like!"

I ran into this when I bought my son a set of drums.

We got the kit set up and I had to tune them. I went looking on the internet for how to tune drums. Everything just said "Everyone has their own way, just do it till it sounds good!"

As a non-drummer stating from scratch, this is useless advice. It took me a long time to find someone who was actually willing to give concrete "As a starting place set this drum to a "B" and then in fourths down from there". That was gold to a beginner who had no place to start, and no idea what "just do what sounds good" even sounds like.

[AEIOU]

IMNSHO, thedarkelf007 really nails it with "do it this way when I do this, that way when I do that". I ran into this with RotRL as each of the books is structured differently. And that is why it is such a good AP to enter into RW by hand. You have so many different things going on that it forces you to think about how to be consistent while also remaining flexible for different types of content.

I started with background material. Towns, landmarks, forests, mountains, roads.... Then I focused on major NPC's and how they inter-related with one another. I spent time on relationships because that's something that isn't obvious when reading a module. Then I started entering dungeons and adventures. At this point, the NPC's could be linked where appropriate and the trash mobs I just noted book and page number in case I want to look it up. Someday, that information will be available for download and I'll go back through to update links.

The absolute last thing I will do if I ever get bored is enter mechanics. I figure these will be coming from the various game publishers and probably for free. After all, they want us using their material so that we buy their adventures and add-ons.

Did I do things I regretted? Yes. I went down dead-end paths and found that I didn't like how I had structured things time and time again. That's ok for me. I learned a ton in the process and I'll keep developing my worlds this way.

At work I found that I think in rows/columns while my boss thinks in paragraphs. I find modules to be more of the paragraph approach. So I really appreciate RW as it gives me the opportunity to translate that material into a more useful format (for me). This is an important distinction to consider -- how do you organize material, how do you prep for a game, how do you think?

[enrious]

What I find interesting for me is that the way I structure Realms differs from how I envision presenting the data, which often changes based on the genre of the campaign.

For example, the Realm I've created for my Pathfinder campaigns is organized with a geographical hierarchy, so you have something like:

   Universe
       World
           Continent
                 Nation
                     City
                         District
                              Business
                                    People in the Business

Sure, I have some oddball places for things like Mercenary Companies or Bandits or the like, but basically the focus is on the geography. Characters are important, but we've generally remembered the death-trap dungeon, the bloody pirate seas, the Kingmaker land they built much moreso than the local butcher, baker, or candle-stick maker.



For my Supers campaign, I have two equal Containers, like so:

    People
         Groups
               Heroes
                    Hero Group
               Villains
               Government

          Individuals
               Heroes
                    Individual Hero
               Villains
               Supporting Cast (NPCs)

     Multiverse
           Universe
                 Planet
                       Nation
                             City
                                 District
                                      Point of Interest

I did it this way because for me (and I suspect my players), when I think of "comic book superheroes", it is the *characters* that are the stories, with the occasional location sprinkled in from time to time. Both are important elements, and I want to ensure that they are separate in look and thought.

I think when I flesh out my Star Trek, Firefly, Farscape, or Twilight 2000 Realms, I'll probably have much more of an even mix of locations and characters - after all, in something like Star Trek, the ship is a mixture of both.