Sources

[morval]

I'm finally trying to get into Realm Works and I'm confused right off the bat!

I can create a group, an individual, and then easily move that individual into the group (containing topic).

But when trying to do this in Sources there is no Containing Topic section on the right hand side.

I tried to right click the Source and click Create Contained Topic, but that doesn't seem to do what I want?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Or maybe you just can't do this with sources?

Thanks,
Konrad

[morval]

OK, I think I'm getting it. Sources can't be contained in other sources, but you can put any of the other types like Groups, People, Events, etc. into a source.
I was going to put the different modules of an adventure path within the adventure path, but I can just create them each as a Source (put a number in front of them to order them correctly).

[AEIOU]

Source is a newer category added a few weeks ago in preparation for the release of published content. I'm ignoring Source completely for now. My main containers are Cast, Community, Geographical and Quest. Community and Geographical may merge.

In the realm I'm working on right now, I have materials from six different published sources (not including mechanics and rules) that all overlap. When I start to use the Source category, it will probably only be for publisher info, a brief overview of each module and lists of major NPCs, locations and a plot summary of chapters. It will never be a container but it will have links to all the appropriate content for that source. By linking, each piece of content will be identifiable with the source and I can filter on that.

Why not use Source as my master container? Mainly because a lot of content is repeated in multiple sources. A good example is a creature that is in a module that is also in a bestiary. Deities, locations, NPCs, geography, groups.... All can be recurring in multiple sources. Which is the "true" source? Which Source container should hold them? When you are playing, which is more useful to keep your game flowing quickly and smoothly -- a container with all your creatures listed alphabetically or a bunch of source containers that each contain some creatures?

[morval]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

Source is a newer category added a few weeks ago in preparation for the release of published content. I'm ignoring Source completely for now. My main containers are Cast, Community, Geographical and Quest. Community and Geographical may merge.

In the realm I'm working on right now, I have materials from six different published sources (not including mechanics and rules) that all overlap. When I start to use the Source category, it will probably only be for publisher info, a brief overview of each module and lists of major NPCs, locations and a plot summary of chapters. It will never be a container but it will have links to all the appropriate content for that source. By linking, each piece of content will be identifiable with the source and I can filter on that.

Why not use Source as my master container? Mainly because a lot of content is repeated in multiple sources. A good example is a creature that is in a module that is also in a bestiary. Deities, locations, NPCs, geography, groups.... All can be recurring in multiple sources. Which is the "true" source? Which Source container should hold them? When you are playing, which is more useful to keep your game flowing quickly and smoothly -- a container with all your creatures listed alphabetically or a bunch of source containers that each contain some creatures?

Good to know. Sources seem perfect for what I want to do. I'm taking a module I bought and putting it into RW.

Everything goes into their regular places like places, groups, people, etc., but sources seem perfect for The Introductions, Adventure Background, Synopsis, Hooks, Part one, Chapter1, Encounter 1A, etc. I'm sort of using it as a table of contents for the module, at least thats the plan. With links to all the people and places in the world. I'll also have encounters up there. Not sure if its intended to be used that way, but seems to be good so far.

[AEIOU]

A table of contents is a good way to describe how I envision LW intends to use the Source category.

And if you change your mind later and decide that Sources isn't the right place, you can always un-container things and reorganize them. I've done that a lot.

[rob]

We chose the word "source" for a reason. The term "source book" is a common designation for RPG books, and we view "Source" topics/articles as the gateway to a particular collection (i.e. "source") of material. So there would be only one "Source" topic/article for each "book".

For something like a rulebook, the "Source" article would be very similar to the table of contents, albeit with a brief overview of each chapter in the book and links to the articles for those chapters. For story content like a large adventure, the "Source" topic would be a brief overview suitable for both players AND the GM. Beneath that, you'd have a GM Synopsis topic and a Player Synopsis topic (or possibly multiples of each in the case of a Pathfinder AP that has multiple chapters - one each).

We do NOT view "Source" topics/articles as a top-level container for everything. All the various pieces should ideally live where they naturally belong and the "source" should provide links to those pieces. This turns the "source" topic/article into the "home page" for the collection of material.

Given the above vision for "Source" topics/articles, they should never be contained by something else. They should always be top-level elements. Hence the decision to disable assigning them a container.

Hope this helps!

[Bidmaron]

I much understand your view,Rob. However, sometimes sources want to be contained. For example, the six books in a Paizo adventure path want to be contained in the parent 'Adventure Path' source. Unlike a good deal of your program, where you are trying to be flexible and give us options, this just seems to be a somewhat capricious imposition of LW views on its users with no explanation as to how prohibiting containing sources improves anything or stops a problem. Willing to believe that could be the case, but so far all you've said is "this is our vision, so tough," in so many words.

[Parody]

There's a lot of "you're not supposed to do (x) that way" in Realm Works. It is the main purpose for the Tips and Tricks guide, after all: to tell us how they expect us to use RW. One of the reasons it exists is because people on the forum asked for a Best Practices document rather than keep getting questions answered by "it's a bad idea to do (x) that way". (I have to imagine that the RW team gets sick of it too.)

I'm one of the offenders here: I use my own categories for almost everything because the global categories are too generic most of the time. I don't want to customize them for each instance of a character (or whatever) forever, and I don't want to have the Pathfinder defaults everywhere either if I'm not writing for Pathfinder. But this is wrong, at least in Topics. I'm supposed to use the global categories or abandon ever sharing with anyone. Thankfully, not something I'm too worried about.


ObTopic: For Paizo's monthly installment APs, I would make a custom category under Sources that describes what is contained within an issue of "Pathfinder Adventure Path". This category could include sections for product info, a quick synopsis of the main adventure, summaries for the various types of articles that appear in the back, and so on. Even if I'm only going to do it six times, it's worth it to have a template with everything defined the way I like it. If I happen to ever do another AP, I can reuse my category. (I may have to reenter it, but that's a different problem.)

Make a Story Source for the entire set ("Kingmaker") and contain the six issues under it. Under each issue goes any GM/Player Synopsis Topics, if you're using those.

[Asandir]

Apparently, I still don't quite understand how to associate the Source with the content. I was playing with the Mechanics Reference tonight and was adding a books content in. I created a Source - The Maestro Base Class.

I added the content, new Feat for example using the existing structure for Feat. Overview, Requirements & Restrictions and Effects.

Now how do I associate the fact that this feat I entered came from the Maestro Base Class?

[Parody]

I use a tag snippet labeled Source which I've defined in most of my custom Categories. It defaults to a domain with a predefined list of known sources. (There's a provided Source domain you can use for this purpose, if you want.)

Most of my sources are physical books and I do not have a specific Article or Topic for them in Realm Works. For these I pick the book from the tag list and put the related page number(s) in the text field. If I had an Article/Topic for them, I'd put the name after the page number(s) and let RW link them.

If I have more than one source, I add more than one Source snippet.

I thought there was a suggestion in the Request forum to let us link a Tag to an Article/Topic, which would be ideal for this use of tags, but I can't find it now. :(

Hope this helps.