Character Organization Question

[meek75]

So, how do you guys organize NPCs? If you have a large realm with lots of different geographical areas and NPCs populate them, where do place the NPCs as far as containers go? We now have the "Cast of Characters" category, so are you grouping them into casts by location? Like all NPCs in City A go into a Cast of Characters call "City A"? Just curious what others are doing.

 

[MaxSupernova]

So, how do you guys organize NPCs? If you have a large realm with lots of different geographical areas and NPCs populate them, where do place the NPCs as far as containers go? We now have the "Cast of Characters" category, so are you grouping them into casts by location? Like all NPCs in City A go into a Cast of Characters call "City A"? Just curious what others are doing.

I'm subdividing solely as need arises.

I had all my NPCs under an NPC cast list category. When there got to be too many for my liking, I made "Aurussi Government NPCs" and "Aldolore Mining Company NPCs" categories.

Mostly my subcategories are based on locations. Planets, and then cities when the need is there.

 

[AEIOU]

I'm still waffling...errrr...refining

I really need to add a location multitag to all my NPCs so I can sort by that. My source material tag works to identify adventure or book, but isn't refined enough should NPCs become involved beyond that introduction. I'd really like to start using tags rather than containers but I can't cut the cord yet.

Town denizens and those that are more likely to become involved in plotline development get grouped by locale or region:
• All NPCs in City A go into a Cast of Characters called "City A"
• All groups in City A go into a Cast of Characters called "City A"

Encounter specific gets put into the encounter:
• All NPCs specific to Quest A go into Quest A
• All groups specific to Quest A go into Quest A

To keep from having to look in a dozen places, recurring for a specific adventure are treated as exceptions:
• All recurring NPCs for Quest A go into Quest A and then move to General Cast with links back to Quest A for reference
• All recurring groups for Quest A go into Quest A and then move to General Cast with links back to Quest A for reference

 

[meek75]

I'm still waffling...errrr...refining

I really need to add a location multitag to all my NPCs so I can sort by that. My source material tag works to identify adventure or book, but isn't refined enough should NPCs become involved beyond that introduction. I'd really like to start using tags rather than containers but I can't cut the cord yet.

Yeah, I like the idea of tags too, but until its easier to change and re-assign tags I don't see them as an option. I very often decide to move things around after the fact and the process for adding tags to existing entries or modifying tags on a one at a time basis is just too time consuming. Also, I find that searching by tag can be a bit cumbersome when running a game. I am still preferring the container hierarchy. That may change as tag management gets easier. If we ever get the ability to put things in multiple containers that will be a boon too. For now, I think I like the idea of having a cast for each city / adventure area and then a "Major NPC" cast that I add and remove NPCs from as the ones getting used the most change.

 

[Sarai]

So, how do you guys organize NPCs?

Well, I'm using Realm Works to organise my information for a book I'm writing. It's a historic novel based on real events and my list of characters has run well into the hundreds.

So what do I do?

First, we're talking kings and great feudal lords, so they all had this huge 'Houses' populated by officials, guards and servants (and respective families). So I use another software (because I'm very visual and the visualising of the relationships in Realm Works can't quite match the complexity I want), Labyrinth, where I can organise a diagram of who is connected to whom. Then I save it as an image and use that diagram as a smart map where I add pins to work as hyperlinks.

Then, of course, there are all the political and family links (important because of nepotism, where uncles and aunts often helped their nieces and nephews get good positions). I create more diagrams of how these people connect to each other, and have those images turned into smart images in a 'connections' topic.

That way I can easily go the the connections topics (based on House organisation, political intrigue and family networks) look at the picture-maps and decide which characters I'll want to use based on their personal connections.

So far, it's the best way of dealing with hundreds of characters.

P.S.: I'm avoiding containers because all the characters are very mobile: they move from one house to another, and a secondary character in one part of the book can easily rise to be a protagonist in another part.

 

[Cornelius]

I have a Pendragon game and playing it as a generational game. so family is important. I organize all characters into families. Recently I grouped various families together based upon their ethnicity.

So containers are:
- Ethnic group (Roman, Cymric, Saxon)
-Family
- individual

I use the relationships to keep track off the familial relationships. I hope that RW will get a way to show these, but as I have 400+ characters already entered I am still trying to get all the relationships correct and then hope to find a way to have them shown the right way visually.
I also use relationships to signify liege/household knight. I use the 'belongs to/within' option with the 'employer/employee' category. I have a mind to also use this for the landed vassals, but have not done this so far.

 

[AEIOU]

@Sarai: Your example is perfect and where I want to head in my gaming. But I'd like to be able to do the diagrams from within RW. Thank you for trailblazing!

I'm hoping to see the family tree and relationship functionality really get fleshed out over the next year. The ability to visualize characters and how they interact with one another is one of the most important things for me to see developed.

 

[Acenoid]

@Sarai
Which tool are yuo using for showing relationships? Where to find it?

Thanks!

 

[Sarai]

@Acenoid

Here's the site: http://www.habitualindolence.net/labyrinth/

You can download the add-ins too: they encrypt and decrypt messages.

@AEIOU

Mind you: the software doesn't show the relationships; it let's you map out the relationships. And you can't copy and paste relationships, so if you create this huge net and then want to have another net using part of those relationships... you will have to do it again.

Since I'm working with genealogy, I use Gramps, which is free and open source, to print out graphs of family trees (they have an enormous wealth of possibilities). Then I manually add other information and colour mark the people I want. Finally, I create the links on Labyrinth.

I'll try to add an image of the end result soon so you can get an idea.

P.S.: Is there a way to upload picture which aren't online?