Shadowrun and Realmworks

[daplunk]

You use RW for the VTT?

That's something I would personally avoid. Better to use a proper VTT solution that has shadows and LOS built in while using RW for the rest of the campaign management.

I find RW awesome for displaying monster / npc images, settings, descriptive images (like the images in Tomb of Horrors).

[adzling]

Yup, we use Realmworks for the VTT with 28mm miniatures.
You can determine LOS and all that with those two parts.
I don't care for nor need shadows and flickering flames etc on my maps, it just makes them harder to read ;-)
The advantage of using one program for everything is huge, if you stopped and read the post on the other forum youd have a better understanding of the utility of using Realmworks this way (all the campaign data in once place, searchable and available to display to your players).

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by adzling

The advantage of using one program for everything is huge

This. I've seen some DMs demo using RW in conjunction with a VTT (and Hero Labs). I seems to work for them and the VTT does make it easier to resize the map map on the fly so that it is the right size for the minis, but my attempts do do the same led to an immediate decrease in my enjoyment of running games.

The last thing I want is MORE technical preparation for my games and have yet another piece of software to manage in-game. I would rather spend my prep time on creating content and any advantage additional software gives is outweighed if it slows down the game.

That said, I don't use RW as a VTT either. I do have a large plasma TV for showing maps as they are explored, but battles are done either theater of the mind or with printed battlemaps or 2.5D/3D terrain. Yes, making terrain add a LOT to prep time, but it is prep time I enjoy. What I DO NOT enjoy is repetitive data entry, which is what using Fantasy Ground or one of the Web-based VTTs would entail.

I am, however, looking to get a new display that I can use as a digital battlmap like Adzling, Dark Lord Galen, and others have demonstrated. When I don't have time to put together terrain, but have some nice battlemap images/PDF, it would be a huge time, ink, and paper saver.

[adzling]

MN when you got TV shopping try to find an edge-lit LCD as opposed to the more common rear-lit array LED lcds.

The edge-lit ones are not as good for TV watching as the newer rear arrays as they aren't as bright.

But they are *much* thinner and typically suffer less parallax.

Both very important things for this use case.

FYI I had tried a couple of cheapo new TVs before settling on this one.
The cheapo newer ones were so thick we had to stand up at the table & the parallax was so bad it was hard to tell where the miniatures were in relation to the map.

[daplunk]

I can see the advantage of using a single application. I guess i just find the player screen clunky and wouldn't want to have to make lots of changes to it in game managing things like revealing the map etc.

I've recently installed a monitor above my DM station facing the players and am loving the ability to display pictures to the group. With that in mind I reckon if i ever did move to a digital table I would use RW to still display pictures to the team in the same fashion and use something like Roll20.Net to control the VTT.

[Acenoid]

yep, I also tried, but did not find a good way to use the player screen. The font was too small by far and because of the different resolutions on my lappy and the tv it got frustrating fast. How did you handle this issue?

[adzling]

Displaying text content is an issue.

This is why I am hoping that Lonewolf can finally implement export, printing or a LIVE webview.

Without it displaying text content for players in-session is almost impossible.

Which sucks hard because I have soooo much text content in Realmworks I would love to share in-session.

Sigh.

Maybe some day.....

[daplunk]

I've given up displaying text. I use it for pictures only which works quite well once you figure out how to get the picture displaying efficiently. Have to admit i don't like how many 'clicks' are required to achieve that. Would be ideal if there was a send to player screen maximized option.

[Acenoid]

This TV, its just put flat on the table? Or any other modifications to the table?

I have a table that has a play surface that is embedded 12 cm into the table, i could put cover the top of it too, however Iam not sure if the playing surface is becoming too high...

[adzling]

Yes we use a TV just laid flat on a tabletop.

However, per my previous post, it only works well because of the specific type of TV we use.