It feels like I started with Realm Works forever ago. I use Hero Lab as well, and I like that the 2 programs have synergy like they do. Now that said, I have yet to run a campaign with a ruleset supported by Hero Lab. I'm hoping that the Paizo/Lone Wolf agreement results in a change of that fact.
When I started with Realm Works, I was lost. Watching videos, i could see how "easy" it looked, and I could duplicate what was in the videos. Felt proud of that. But when it came to working with my own content, I had no idea where to start. "Here's a blank page. Fill it up. Start wherever." I finally buckled down and decided to start geographically. I like Greyhawk so I started there. Laying out places, gods, factions took a lot of hours, but created exactly zero content. Ended up scrapping that realm, didn't like the way I set things up. I was thinking I would make an incredibly linked experience, where every word would be a link to something. Once I had a completely referenced Realm, then content would create itself! What a stroke of misguided intent. It was granular, and hard to navigate, and irrelevant, as I was not running a game at the time and even if I was I had nothing to show but a world only I was looking at. Like a beautiful diamond in a room only I could see.
Second Realm I made, I tried to go plot/encounter from the start. I figured the easiest thing to do would grab a paper adventure, and build it in RW, and that would be fine. Ran the first sets of encounters from the campaign, but had PDF printouts in a binder with me.
By the end of the first session I was reading from the print outs because my realm was too granular again. The laptop I had at table is/was not great at loading pages quickly, and if I had to click on a link in a new tab, it took a significant amount of time to load, and then relate to players at table. Keep in mind this predated release 208 which, if I'm not mistaken, had some streamlining of code and sped page loads. Just easier to go to the paper for most things, plus, I was really the only one seeing anything, so I didn't feel I was getting a lot of leverage out of the program.
I was getting into the habit of opening a number of tabs at the start of a session with things I would reference more often, and that seemed to help speed up
my process, but overall disappointed with my performance.
So I felt I had hit upon a way to make my life easier, and that was to build a new realm, this time with the first 5 scenarios laid out (using 5x5 method at this point, my GM style was also evolving) and then world building. We were playing in Forgotten Realms, and "testing" D&D 5e to see if we as a group liked it better than Pathfinder. I had never used the Mechanics Reference, as we had been using a system that was too big to realistically hand enter or copy-paste.
Now however, we were in territory that was almost virgin. First thing I did was secure PDF copies of my core books and link them under sources. Then I proceeded to actually drop everything into the Mechanics reference as I needed it.
While I was, and still am, updating the mechanics reference, I was GMing my group through the opening phases of my campaign. As they took different paths, I was world building around them. And logging it in RW. For encounters, since Hero Lab portfolios weren't available, I took to pasting in statblocks in text snippets for relevant encounters.
I reached a point in my bookkeeping where I had entered all the Monster Manual stats into the Mechanics Reference, so when I built encounters, I could just type the names. I had the spells as well, so when I built a wizard to fight, just listed spells known, and linked. I tagged everything in the reference, made custom categories that paralleled the way the statblock were drawn up in the source material.
Now when I build something, it's all referenced and statted out, without a lot of work on my part. I can type "They meet a wizard" and the links take care of linking that NPC from wherever I linked to (NPCs in Reference, or named guy from World/Story almanac) and boom I know what every spells does, and his build is all linked. Would I like a Hero Lab 5e ruleset? Sign me up! Buuuut I'm not holding my breath. I vote for it on WotC polls every chance I get.
Tagging was a pain to do after the fact, but I learned they can be useful after I had done a significant amount of data entry. If you're making custom Categories, take the time to figure out what fields might be better used as tags over just text links. Don't be scared to recreate a template to add useful things, it's easier to rebuild a custom category and then synchronize your old entries to match.
Save a lot! Since the switch to HTML, I've had crashes. Now when I edit an article, I save the change. When it tries to link thinks, I hit "Abandon". A large number of crashes for me, were happening when it was linking. Once I know my work was saved, I would then have it scan for new links. That way if it went bye bye I wasn't losing work, just the time it took to log back in again. This problem is largely solved, but still maintain the same pattern, for fear of spending major time redoing something.
Colour! I colour my tables. I colour snippets. I use it wherever I can. Take a look at your entries in player view. The unrelieved grey with 9-10 pt sans serif font is hard to read. My player complained. A lot. This evolved as I used RW at table more than anything.
I bought a "Second screen" to bring to table. I don't know if there is any policy about linking to external sites here, but I figure it worth attaching this:
http://www.amazon.com/GeChic-2501C-P.../dp/B00H4MWMWQ It's a handy 15" monitor that I set up and I use it as a map tool, as my Player view and as a generally good way to ensure my players see what they need to.
Wow what a ramble.
TL;DR Realm Works is a good tool for GMs. My players could take it or leave it. I include some tips. Read if you want too.