Realmworks & Minis?

[kraegar]

With the news of 5e coming to Hero Lab soon, I'm anxious to get back into tabletop gaming. I'd played / ran pathfinder in the past, and have been wanting to use 5e. The hero lab news is enough to push me into moving. (I had Hero Lab for pathfinder, and found it indispensable)

Realm Works in new since I last ran a game, and it looks interesting, but I'm curious how people are actually using it on a few points specific to how I want to run my games:

1 - Minis? I have a good sized collection of dwarven forge tiles. I assume it'll be nice and easy to manage the NPCs and such with Realm Works, but run the actual game play using minis?

2 - Published adventures. I'd prefer to run the published adventures, starting with Tyranny of dragons. How easy is it to enter those into Realm Works? (Or even better, are there plans for these to be made available as an official purchasable product?)

My players won't have laptops or ipads at the table (they each have android devices, but I see that's not currently supported...), so I'm just trying to figure out what product best will fit in with our gaming style

[Silveras]

RealmWorks is a campaign planning/management tool, and will present the adventure content for the GM to give out.. but it is NOT a "live" play tool ... which is what it sounds like you're thinking of.

Showing images during play is the role of the Player View (best used by the GM with a second monitor, otherwise he has to turn his laptop around to show materials). Tracking progress on a map is more of a VTT's role (Roll20.net, d20Pro, Fantasy Grounds, EpicTable, MapTools, etc.).

Re: #2
Putting purchased content into RealmWorks is not hard.. the hardest part for new users is deciding how they want to organize the information. RealmWorks allows you to organize as works best for you, but that flexibility seems to often leave new users without a good idea of where to start.

There may be purchasable adventures.. that's in negotiations at this time for 5e, and in preparation for Pathfinder and others (see the threads announcing 5e support for HeroLab and RealmWorks).

[kraegar]

Yeah, I wasn't clear in my first post. I'm really wanting to find something, probably realm works, to use as an organizational aid for me as the DM to track who the players have met, where they've been, what they've done story wise, etc. (And hopefully be able to attach a picture or map of the dwarven forge layout I used for an area, in case they revisit it later I can rebuilt it)

What I'm not wanting is a program that's primary use is to be a VTT or similar, that the players would need to interact with during each session. Our character sheets will be paper prints from Hero Lab, and anything the players want to take notes of will be pen & paper for them. (or electronic, if they choose, but I think they'll go pen & paper).

So, in the end, a very "old school" game, but this DM needs some organizational help to keep things running smoothly & consistently.

[kbs666]

RW will work very will to let you create an inventory/layout of what tiles and minis you need for a specific encounter. I use it for this, although I use maps and not tiles.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by kraegar

Yeah, I wasn't clear in my first post. I'm really wanting to find something, probably realm works, to use as an organizational aid for me as the DM to track who the players have met, where they've been, what they've done story wise, etc. (And hopefully be able to attach a picture or map of the dwarven forge layout I used for an area, in case they revisit it later I can rebuilt it)

This is exactly what RW does best and its primary reason it was made.

[MNBlockHead]

Kraegar, welcome! Like you I went a long time without playing RPGs and got back into it with 5e. I stopped playing back in the early 90s, having started in the early-mid 80s. I looked at a lot of tools to help manage campaigns and I believe that I made the right choice with RW. I'm hybrid new-and-old school. I use technology at the game, mostly RW to display maps and run the adventures.

But I also use battlemats and minis/tokens/legos/pogs/beer caps/rocks/etc. Realm Works is not a Virtual Table Top, it just helps you create, track, and reveal content. It digitzes and replaces paper adventure modules and even source books. What you use for your battle map is up to you. Some use RW with mini, some with VTTs.

Now, unlike you, I created my own campaign and much of RW's value to me is helping manage the realm-creation process.

I have entered purchased adventures into RW, both those have all been PDFs purchased from DriveThroughRPG. I don't think I would have the patience of entering something like Tyranny of Dragons (TOD) into RW, especially if I was working from a printed book. That said, there those who do.

My recommendation is get some 5e-compatible adventures from DriveThroughRPG or from the newly release Dungeon Masters Guild, where WoTC offers all the Adventurers League adventures for a reasonable price and enter them. This will help you familiarize yourself with RW and work through the inevitable kinks. You wouldn't want to enter a large adventure path like TOD only to later determine that you wish you used a different approach. Also, you likely need to get used to 5e and its mechanics. Hopefully, eventually, by the time you are hitting your stride with 5e and RW, a license will be inked and you'll be able to purchase the large adventure paths from the RW content market.

There are other users, like Nikmal, here who run a lot of official WoTC adventures using RW and can give more useful information on the effort requires and the benefits achieved.

[Pollution]

I have a weird way of doing mini's at my table. I've talked about it before, but I'll go over it again.

I bought a cheap flat screen TV from Walmart for about $100, took off the stand and laid it down flat on the table. I bought a cheap piece of clear plastic from the hardware store for about $5.00 and cut it down to fit inside the bezel, right on top of the screen.

So, during the game, I display whatever I want on the screen, handouts are pics, images of the NPC's, backdrop images to set the mood, that kind of thing. When I'm playing with mini's and maps is where the setup shines.

I put the map on the Player View, make it full screen, zoom it to the correct level for the mini's (i.e. each square is about 1") and reveal as we go. It's great.

I just bought a cheap projector online and am testing out projecting from above, so far it looks nice, but is too dim an image when the lights are on (Canned lights in the ceiling are just too bright for it at the moment). But when the lights are off, and the mini's are on the table, with the projector on, something awesome happens. Part of the image get's displayed on the mini, giving it this cool effect.

I tested it out with some of the maps from Emerald Spire, and it looks AMAZING. When the level is Lava/Fire themed, all the mini's turn red-ish. When it's a Water level, they're blue. As they near the core (emerald center of each map) they get green.

These are from stock PDF map images, and the work to get them in RW was about 2 seconds. But the effect of a projector, slightly coloring the mini's is absolutely stunning. I can't wait to get a dimmer switch in that room so that I can use this new setup.

[Zaphod Beebledoc]

Originally Posted by Pollution

I bought a cheap flat screen TV from Walmart for about $100, took off the stand and laid it down flat on the table. I bought a cheap piece of clear plastic from the hardware store for about $5.00 and cut it down to fit inside the bezel, right on top of the screen.

Now that's brilliant! I have an old flat screen in storage for when I run my first RW game later this year. I'll be using Lego for mini's and scenery. Adding a map underneath would be the icing on the cake!

[adzling]

Here's my previous post (with pitcures!) on how we use a TV, player view and miniatures at our table for our Shadowrun game.

The TYPE of tv you use has a big impact on how parallax will affect your maps.

http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost....5&postcount=15

[Pollution]

Originally Posted by adzling

Here's my previous post (with pitcures!) on how we use a TV, player view and miniatures at our table for our Shadowrun game.

The TYPE of tv you use has a big impact on how parallax will affect your maps.

http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost....5&postcount=15

This is a fair point. To solve the issue of Parallax (the screen's angle to your vision making the mini seem off center of the square it's in when it's not) impacting our table's presentation, we have a rule where during combat (or any initiative based scene) everyone needs to stand up. This solves the view being skewed a bit.

It also has the result of the combats going faster. When you're standing, you tend to pay more attention and the players tend to be faster at their decision making.