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Generic NPC and Monster Lists - How to best handle in RW?

M

MNBlockHead

Well-known member
I would like to create list of commonly encountered NPCs (guards, villagers, fishermen, etc.) and creatures/monsters.

The NPC/Creature records would have stat block, description and text with some roles for personality looks, potential side quests, etc. I want these created so that when I am building a scene for an adventure, for example, I can easily link to the guard record rather than cutting and pasting in the stat blocks and other information every time I create a scene that has guards.

Should I be using people topics in the World Almanac or should I be using the "Characters" group in the Game Mechanics section?

Any gotchas or tips in regards to using containers or aliases for keeping this organized?
 
I think it really depends on the use of said NPC's/creature. Generally, I place NPC's in the people category of the story almanac and creatures in the mechanics as a "monster". If the creature/ NPC's is a reusable non-unique thing then I go mechanics. I can link to the same entry over an over again. If the NPC's is going to be unique and have its own history and interactions with the world them it goes in "people".
 
I'm putting monsters and generic NPCs like guardsman in Mechanics. Only named NPCs go in my Almanac; if they don't have a name, they go in Mechanics or quite often they just go in the text of the adventure if they aren't going to be reused.
 
AEIOU said:
I'm putting monsters and generic NPCs like guardsman in Mechanics. Only named NPCs go in my Almanac; if they don't have a name, they go in Mechanics or quite often they just go in the text of the adventure if they aren't going to be reused.
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I think that this is the approach that makes the most sense to me. I kind of ignored the entire mechanics tab thinking it was more for home rules, so I have some clean up to do, but this seems like a more logical and better organized approach now that I understand the options under mechanics a bit better.

Thanks, everyone, for you responses. This is very helpful for me as I get accustomed to the tool.
 
I ignored the Mechanics for months. The only thing that I'm happy with there right now are the creatures. They are solid and won't change unless I buy a bestiary package. But the skills and everything else I really want to have the full ruleset or I want to link back to the PFSRD. I don't have the bandwidth or patience for that right now. Creatures on the other hand I can add as I need and link a HL file to them so I am good to go.
 
So, looking more closely at the Mechanics section, if I want to create "Town Guard (Nord)" , I click the plus under "Characters" and then select "General Characters Article". It seems that Race/Species is more like the rules for creating character races, though I'm thinking I could also use this for my "Monster Manual."

So this is my system now:

Monsters/Creatures: Details go under Mechanics—>Characters—>Race/Species
Generic NPCs: Filed under Mechanics—>Characters—>General Characters Article
Named Story-Based Characters: Named Characters that may be encountered multiple times or have a particularly important role in the current campaign/story, whether characters meet them or not. Filed under Story Almanac—>People
Non-story World Characters: Named Characters of importance for larger world-building or could be encountered by characters but are not specifically set in a particular story/adventure. Filed in World Almanc—>People
Extras: Minor named Characters that are minor characters that may only be met once in a specific scene or are there as "extras" to simply provide color to a location. For these, I simply add their description and stat block to the scene or location topic.
 
This is a very interesting question. I have been wondering a few things along this line. Another question though is why have all the stats for all the NPCs, especially if you have a system like Herolabs as well? I wish instead of linking to an NPC, say GUARD you could pull the entire article into scene. If I am putting all the information in, I need it where I can view all of it during the game, not in separate tabs.

Salcor
 
There is a section in Mechanics called Monster/Enemy under the Dangers section.

A game system-neutral category for stock monsters, enemies, adversaries, and other opponents the players might face

Describes a single, stock monster or other enemy, e.g. a red dragon, a space pirate, or a werewolf. Usually describes the combat statistics of the monster, the tactical behaviors of the monster in combat, as well as details about where the monster might be found.

Note: This category should not be used for unique, named individuals or entities in your story, such as a specific demon prince or pirate lord. Those should use the "Entity" or "Individual" topic categories as appropriate. If their characteristics are identical to a stock monster or enemy, you can reference the monster article from the individual or entity topic for statblocks, etc.
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AEIOU said:
There is a section in Mechanics called Monster/Enemy under the Dangers section.
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That makes sense and the default fields for a "Monster/Enemy" topic make more sense for building your monster compendium. So that would leave Characters for house-rules related to Character creation. Problem I have is that I'm not sure how well I like this from the perspective of a taxonomy. A "danger" can be a person, place, or thing. An NPC like a guard may not normally be a danger, but could potentially be a danger depending upon the players' actions.

Maybe I need to reconsider making NPCs "people" topics. Now I'm thinking of creating various NPC containers in my World Almanac and putting my generic people there.
 
salcor said:
This is a very interesting question. I have been wondering a few things along this line. Another question though is why have all the stats for all the NPCs, especially if you have a system like Herolabs as well? I wish instead of linking to an NPC, say GUARD you could pull the entire article into scene. If I am putting all the information in, I need it where I can view all of it during the game, not in separate tabs.
Salcor
Click to expand...

I play D&D 5e. Hero Labs is useless to me. If I have a specific encounter where there will be a specified NPC/Monster, I might put the stat block(s) into a snipped for the scene. But often, I have instructions where there will be a role as to whether there is an encounter and if there is a roll for what kind of person/creature will be encounter. Similarly, I may have guards in a different room and rolls made in other rooms that could lead to guards coming from one room to another. I don't want to add stat blocks for the guards in each and every location they might appear. In this situation, it is much easier to have a single records that can be linked to. I personally would not want them displayed in-line and prefer a hyperlink, especially in those situations where they might or might not appear.

Where I can see where you are coming from, however, is if I have a combat where I have some NPC info in the scene topic and others linked to monster or people, it gets difficult to manage the combat without lots of tabs or cut and pasting or jotting some notes on a piece of paper. Master Plan is stronger in this area (though only for D&D 4e).
 
So after going through all the help PDFs (esp. the Realm Works Reference Guide, which goes into the most detail on the data structure) and all of the videos (including all of the Gen Con videos which I found very helpful), this is where I'm at:

Monsters/Creatures & Generic NPCs
There are three places Monsters/Creatures logically belong.
1. Mechanics—>Dangers—>Monsters/Enemy
2. World Almanac—>Things—>Inhabitant
3. Story Almanac—>Things—>Inhabitant

I don't separate generic NPCs and monsters. A human hunter and a goblin scout are equally "monsters" and (potential) enemies, depending upon circumstances and perspective.

It seems that #1 is meant to be the monster manual.

#2 and #3 seem to be the place for non-dangerous creatures?

I want to populate my world and dungeons with creatures. I want an easy way to reference them. Where do I put a bear? It can certainly be a danger, but most of the time it is just local fauna. Also, if #3 is primarily for fauna and flora of particular importance to the story, then one assumes that you don't want to be building out an exhaustive list of animals and plants here. Where do you put that exhaustive list? Seems like "Dangers" is the only place. Actually, I really don't see the point of #2 and #3 if I am using #1 as my beastiary. Why break up my beastiary in multiple locations. I want one place to serve as a reference to non-character/generic "people"/NPCs. If find it illogical and inconvenient to break up my beastiary into "dangerous" and "other" categories. Maybe I'm just brainwashed by D&D's "Monster Manual," but it makes sense to me to have a single source for all generic creatures.

Anyway, my solution is to build my beastiary in the Dangers. I looked at the options for customizing categories and while I could rename "Monsters/Enemies", I don't see a way to create a new family or rename a family. So, for now, I just use "Dangers—>Monsters/Enemies" as my beastiary, even though "Monsters" and "Enemies" will include that random fisherman—everyone is a potential enemy, I suppose. It will also include rabbit, deer, etc. Since I don't want to have to remember whether I treated a creature as a monster/enemy or fauna.

Named Story-Based Characters:
Named Characters that may be encountered multiple times or have a particularly important role in the current campaign/story, whether characters meet them or not. Filed under Story Almanac—>People

Non-story World Characters
Named Characters of importance for larger world-building or could be encountered by characters but are not specifically set in a particular story/adventure. Filed in World Almanc—>People

Extras
Minor named Characters that are minor characters that may only be met once in a specific scene or are there as "extras" to simply provide color to a location. For these, I simply add their description and stat block to the scene or location topic.

Well, I think that's it. Of course, someone is bound to post some missed feature or great idea that will make me rethink all this again. But I need to buy into an approach and start entering data.
 
Relax, don't worry. Everything will be alright. You need to find a CONSISTENT method that works for you. I put all my mobs under Race/Species because I didn't see the Monster/Enemy section long ago -- and I don't care. Rob won't come to my house and yell at me for misusing a category (I hope). And if something doesn't make sense or work for you, make something that does.

It seems that #1 is meant to be the monster manual.
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Yes.

#2 and #3 seem to be the place for non-dangerous creatures?
Click to expand...
Maybe.

I would actually put mosquitoes and squirrels and deer and badgers and bears and other wildlife under Mechanics > Monster/Enemy if they have stats and are creatures that can be encountered. They may be inconsequential by themselves but a swarm of cats could be a variation on a swarm of rats. And rabid squirrels may not do any physical damage, but I wouldn't want to risk getting bitten myself. Toss a Growth spell on a mosquito and you have a poor man's stirge, right?

I would use the Almanac > Inhabitant category only for specific story driven things like the white stag or albino creatures or sacred cows or mistletoe. Whoah, wait.... Mistletoe? That ain't got no legs! This category as presented is intended for special flora and fauna and in this setting, mistletoe is needed for the rituals to hold back the Legions of Darkness.

That said, I could easily have put mistletoe in Almanac > Further Information contained under the Druids of the Enless Twilight, Almanac > Concept, Mechanics > General Equipment, Mechanics > Mundane Item, Mechanics > Poison or even Mechanics > General Article.
 
Sorry, one more thing as it may not be obvious. A bestiary is a good place to use containers.

Let's say that you put everything that moves and doesn't have a proper name under Monster/Enemy. But you really feel uncomfortable about squirrels and orcs and guardsmen all sharing the same category. You can break them up....

Step 1: Create three new Monster/Enemy entries and name them Creatures, Monsters and Red Shirts.

Step 2: Open your squirrel entry and in the upper righthand corner choose the Containing Article and select Creatures from the list. Do the same for bears and turtles.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 for your orcs, goblins, rust monsters and dragons who go into Monsters and for your guardsmen and royal couriers who go into the Red Shirts.

Step 4: Make sure you can see the hierarchy by clicking on the crossed hammer and wrench in the upper left part of the Toolbar. Make sure "Show Containing Article Hierarchy" is checked.

Step 5: Marvel at your multiple taxonomies.

Step 6: Profit.
 
AEIOU, good point regarding containers. Something I need to think more about, but knowing my OCD nature, whatever categories I try to set up upfront will need to change, but it doesn't seem too difficult to change them.

I also discovered that if you click in the content-pane option button (the hammer & wrench icon at the top right of the topic) there is an option to "Change Topic to a Different Category" under the "Article Category" context menu. Which gives some comfort that I won't be "locked in" should I learn that I set things up poorly.

One thing I don't see that would be good to know about if it exists is any batch editing functionality. Is there anyway to select a large group of topic and reassign them to another category, mass assign tags, or do a mass field edit?

This would be useful for batch moving topics from the story almanac to the world almanac. Also, it would be helpful for reorganizing purchased/shared content. And, of course, if you want to reorganize a lot of items because you suffer from OCD, it would be helpful there as well.

Thanks for all the discussion and tips guys. Very helpful. Hopefully I'll be answering more questions than asking in a few months.
 
I have all my encounters built as POR files for hero lab, so they are a snippet under challenges in locations topics. I attach the POR as a full loadable encounter within HL. I also copy and paste the Bestiary image and have it as a snippet as well, that can be opened and shown to players on my player facing monitor.

Important world NPCs go right into my world almanac, since they are world personalities.

Story based NPCs go into story almanac, as long as they are not one seen once killed. However so far most of my story NPCs are world NPCs so this is an empty section as of yet.

I have come up with a consistent way of entering and tracking info in RW that really works for me. With no need to rename the templates, this way it will always be the same across any ones install.

I have filled out mechanics reference with a section on character creation, what optional rules I am using, house rules, and I am documenting some less then normal rules we use, in my world environment is a huge factor, I have three distinct continents and the environment has a part to play, no longer does Endure Elements, Mass seem like a useless spell, not in my world it isn't. Daedrea goes from Steppes tundra to glacial arctic, and storms to match, more people die from exposure then the giant raids.

I really do not think there is a wrong way to use RW, but there is a right way for each of us to use RW.
 
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