Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras
I have been entering Second Darkness. Based on that:
Expect to do multiple passes.
"Rough in" the main topics. Either People or Places first, with just name and any identifier you want to use. I found Places slightly more effective than People first, but it does not matter much; either way, you will see the links appear when you start entering the details.
Be prepared to edit and move things around. The presentation in the AP is text, and makes sense for a GM reading the book solo. When it comes to RealmWorks, you will likely want to split up some paragraphs into separate snippets for easier revealing. Also, expect to re-word some of them so they make more sense to the players.
I found doing the home base city first, then specific adventure locations, worked pretty well.
Because I expected that there would be some kind of "official" version of published books available eventually, I have focused on the AP-specific materials, with only enough background to make it work. I expect something based on the Inner Sea World Guide to be available eventually, so I don't want to duplicate that effort.
Creating a custom topic for the contents of the Campaign Guide, and revealing all of the snippets, should make al of that advice immediately available to the players when you start. You can also add to this if you want to use 3rd party classes or expand on the advice for customizations.
Since I have the HeroLab files for details of the creatures, I don't bother putting in more than names and flavor information. Anything I need for running encounters and the like can stay in HeroLab until needed. That won't help those running a game system without HeroLab support as much, though.
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That is pretty much how I have been handling it. I did a quick topic for Varisia, a more detailed one for Sandpoint, and now I am working through all of the important location in that town. At some point I will be going through and putting in all the important NPCs.
I didn't think about just doing names and identifiers and then coming back later and putting in the snippets. That would certainly speed things up with linking things, and would mean fewer passes through everything to make sure all the links are in there.
One of the things I have been doing is just pasting all the information into the Description section and then splitting it up into snippets. At some point I will be going back to reorganize, expand, and even rewrite the snippets. Some of the sentences have basic information that could be learned early on mixed in with information the PCs may never find out, and sometimes it isn't immediately clear if you need to split up a statement or not.
Once I have all that done I want to go in and fill in details like possible items for sale, a tavern's meals, background information on an NPC, or anything else the actual AP doesn't cover. Things that I wouldn't be inputting if I was one of the data entry people, for example.