Fate Core for Realm Works?

[JericM]

Alright everyone, I've looked and looked. I've fiddled and I've faddled. Is there a definitive tutorial or useful tips ANYWHERE on how to use Realm Works with Fate Core?

In particular, I'm interested in how you would run a Fate Core session in realm works, since you need to keep track of stress and consequences, boosts and all sorts of other aspects.

Someone help me out here, please.

[rob]

Realm Works is focused on the story, while Hero Lab is focused on the game mechanics. Tracking the information you describe above is something you would typically use Hero Lab for (e.g. stress, boosts, etc.). Basically, you could outline all the NPCs, locations, scenes, and such for the game session in Realm Works. The mechanical specifics of the NPCs, such as skill rankings, could be managed by creating Hero Lab portfolios for each. You would then import those Hero Lab portfolios into the NPC topics within Realm Works. During the game session, you could access everything readily from Realm Works, with the portfolios being loaded/integrated into Hero Lab. The two tools work well in conjunction with one another, with one focused on the game-specific mechanics and the other focused on the story.

Hope that helps!

[JericM]

Thank you, that does answer my question. I've managed so far with copious amounts of reworking the categories and tags. Sounds like it'd be easier for me to just purchase a copy of Herolabs. Thanks for the prompt response! Great program in any case

[Jay_NOLA]

Hero Lab as was said can do the tracking of stress and consequences for FATE Core and Spirit of the Century in it.

However I did have several problems with the Hero Lab FATE/Spirit of the Century that may or may not be a problem for you.

Some Stunts like, Specialist can be purchased multiple with a different specialization being chosen for the other purchases, etc. but Hero Lab doesn't let you chose that. A similar problem also exists with the Gear in the Spirit of the Century Files, plus the Spirit of the Century files don't handle and can't easily handle some changes in latter supplements.


You'll also run into some issues if your using a FATE setting that has some special rules, etc. that can't be easily added or modified

So Hero Lab will be of use but I recommend you try it out first before you go and purchase it to see if it will do with out any problems what you want it to do. I also recommend you get the authoring kit for it if you do purchase Hero Lab as you are going to want to add and modify stuff.


For Realm Works use I also recommend you get a HTML version of the FATE or Spirit of the Century rules to cut and paste in stuff. I found that that was easier than doing a cut and paste of stuff from a PDF version for some things. A HTML version can be gotten from a few places.


One other note, I'm also a little curious since you can get an electronic copy of Spirit of the Century free if the a Realm Works version of the sample adventure will get released, as all the major NPCs have existing Hero Lab stats done in the Spirit of the Century Hero Lab files. If so I'll be happy to volunteer with any data entry.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by Jay_NOLA

Some Stunts like, Specialist can be purchased multiple with a different specialization being chosen for the other purchases, etc. but Hero Lab doesn't let you chose that. A similar problem also exists with the Gear in the Spirit of the Century Files, plus the Spirit of the Century files don't handle and can't easily handle some changes in latter supplements.

I don't even see the Specialist stunt in Spirit of the Century, but you can use the editor to allow multiple copies of any stunt.

[Jay_NOLA]

Specialist is in FATE Core. You have to specify what the Specialization is in. So you can pick it multiple times. FATE Core and Spirit of the Century have a couple of other stunts that work they same way. Scholar in Spirit of the Century is one that works they same way, like the FATE Core Specialist one. (The Hero Lab version of Spirit of the Century does let you take Scholar Stunt multiple times.)

The gear problem in Spirit of the Century is a little more complex as you can some times stack an Improvement or also purchase the same Improvement again but with a difference in how it works.

Also, some Spirit of the Century NPCs had problems when I tried to enter the ones from the Spirit of the Season supplement, which could be easily done quickly with the editor. And, those problems were because of the things I mentioned in this post and my previous one.

[JericM]

This is all great advice. Thanks for the replies.

I like Realm Works for the campaign management system, but isn't it also marketed as having the ability to smoothly run sessions as well? It seems odd to me that after paying 50 bucks for a piece of software, I would then need to purchase Hero Lab, and run both of those programs to run sessions digitally. I'm currently using Hero Lab Starter Edition, but it's a huge pain to work around and the lack of customization ability is frustrating. Especially for a system like Fate. And not to mention, Hero Lab doesn't have dual display features built in, like Realm Works.

So for those who are looking, here's what I've done as a work around:

For Scene Aspects, I created a topic in the "Other" category, so that I can display it on my second monitor. My scene aspects include the literal scenery, boosts and consequences, so that everyone can see them. It took a bit of getting used to having to flip back ad forth, hit edit, make my changes ect, but it's not entirely difficult.

I also created an Game Aspects that I can pop in in player view if people need reminding.

I just wish that there was a way to "start encounter" in Realm Works, where it can show the Initiative, Stress, Consequences ect. . . If there was some way to show a player view in Hero Lab, that would work as well and I would have zero problem opening up two programs, although it's still a lot of back and forth.

Am I missing something that would make any of this easier? The prep work for games is streamlined in Realm Works and it shines for that. But session management? Not so much.

[Farling]

The encounter management is outside the remit of RealmWorks. It provides an excellent tool for managing the plot of your campaign, but for actual encounters/combat you will need a different tool if you want to manage those elements.

The general problem is that any encounter/combat management tool needs to be focussed on the specific mechanics of the game system which you are using; whereas the general campaign management is largely independent of game system (although some people like to use the presentation style of the game system's publisher).

[Jay_NOLA]

It isn't marketed as being able to run sessions, unless I missed something. It can be used at the table and do somethings to aid in running a session, but it isn't a virtual tabletop program.

For Hero Lab you definitely need to have the editor and that can give you some problems too depending on if your using a specific FATE/Spirit of the Century Games that has some customized rules, etc. I had a good bit of trouble with stuff in the Spirit of the Season supplement because of how things in it, and ended up not entering several charters, etc. from it as it was too much trouble and would require a good bit of not easy edit of the Spirit of the century Hero Lab files, but with some other FATE based stuff I had no problems. (The not easy part got accidentally omitted from my previous paste during a cut an paste glitch.)

Fantasy Grounds can run FATE, as it has a FATE add on, but that would cost a good bit and I'm not familiar with using it. Maybe someone could comment on using it in combination with Realm Works and Hero Lab in an offline game.

Hero Lab can do some of the combat management for FATE, but again a problem you may have is that some FATE based games uses custom rule additions which the current Hero Lab files was not set up to handle and to do so may require a good bit of not easy work.

Realm Works is a plot and campaign management tool it is not a VTT program or combat aid program. Hero Lab is a character generator that can be used to manage character during a game session, must of what think you are looking for would be handled by a VTT program or combat manager. The Fate/Spirit of the Century character management, etc. may be ok for some and not for others depending on the game that is using those rules for reasons I pointed out earlier.

[JericM]

http://www.wolflair.com/realmworks/f...orks-overview/

Under Key Features and Benefits:

"Use Realm Works to run and prepare RPG sessions for any game system."

Obviously, it's not the BEST software for running, but it still has its merits. I love Realm Works. I ended up purchasing Hero Lab and have run into nothing but issues. I submitted a technical support ticket because the Tactical Console kept throwing errors every time I clicked on anything. tried uninstalling, reinstalling, fresh portfolios, you name it. Nothing worked. So I was pretty peeved by that, because that's the reason I purchased it in the first place, is FOR the tactical console. *sigh* If Lone Wolf doesn't respond in the next couple of weeks, I'll be asking for a refund. It sucks, and I want to have faith in this amazing software, but it's not worth the $30 for it if I can't use one of it's main functions. If you're interested, here is a thread where another user had the exact issue that I did: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=54779