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I'm sorry but,

I

immotus

Member
I really want to like this thing.. really. I'm afraid, however, that I find it

overly complicated, overwhelmingly disarrayed, extremly user UNfriendly, and lacking the one thing, THE ONE THING MOST NEEDED by game masters in the 21st century; Procedural content generation for the ambient world in general.

Now, I'm not talking about dynamic, off the cuff, realtime content generation. I just mean a system of configurable randomizers that can be used to create the ambient game world.

What is the ambient game world you say?

It's lots of things. A street full of people, a shelf full of books, a store full of goods, George the drunken town guard who is otherwise unimportant.


I'd be happy if there were ways to hook up the topics to 3rd party generators I could configue myself but, nope.


And, btw, have you people ever looked in a campaign sourcebook? You should check out the heirarchy sometime, it's been pretty much unchanged for 30 years. Now, I'm sorry but you need to let ME configure a heirarchy the way I want it, not have to wrestle for hours with I don't know what. I might keep trying to use this thing but, honestly, it's a disappointment. And, NO, I don't wnat my money back, I want a campaign manager that organizes things the way I WANT them organized. One that has procedural generators for all the crap I don't feel like making up so that I can concentrate on the good stuff.


Don't look like we are ever going to get that manager.
 
On the automated stuff, I agree.. it would definitely make the product better. but i dont think its the one thing that everyone needs. That beign said, I disagree on the hierarchy point. You can configure it how you want.

I disagree that the one thing that is needed by GM's in the twenty first century is all the random generators. For example, in my world, its less needed. It depends on the style of the game.
 
3rd party generators?

Give me an example of one, and I'll walk you through setting up a Foreign Field so that when you click on it, it opens up this generator.

I do have ulterior motives, I need more tools!!!!

For example if want RW to play a sound, click the entry (mine opens VLC, my media player of choice), it opens up my media player and plays my effect.

I'd love to test if this would work with the 3rd party tools you've mentioned!!!!



BoomerET
 
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The problem with many generators, for example, is not everyone plays Pathfinder, or D20, or whatever.

That being said, Im planning on writing a bunch and see if I can give them to the LW team. (for us d20 players who are still out there)
 
I really think you need to calm down a bit and post some more concrete examples of what you are talking about with the hierarchy.

One of the strengths of RealmWorks is that it has a half dozen ways to do anything. If you are complaining that RW won't let you configure your hierarchy the way you want, you just haven't read the instructions, or used the help, or watched the very helpful tutorial videos.

Organization and campaign structure in RealmWorks is *so* personalizable that it's often difficult to know where to start.

Seriously, give it a bit of time. Something this huge can't be grasped in one "click around and play with it a bit" session.
 
I don't see generators as a must-have part of this tool. I have generators galore in books and online, not sure why they should be recreated as campaign content, they're generators. A link should be fine.

As for a random generator for an example, here's O.G.R.E at enworld. It's a whole system for generating and sharing generators.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/dnd_portal.php
 
immotus said:
overly complicated, overwhelmingly disarrayed, extremly user UNfriendly,
Click to expand...
I'm sorry you don't like it, but there's no way for us to agree, disagree, or offer suggestions without knowing what problems you've had. Details! :(

immotus said:
and lacking the one thing, THE ONE THING MOST NEEDED by game masters in the 21st century; Procedural content generation for the ambient world in general.
Click to expand...
I'd have to disagree. Since I stepped behind the GM screen again two years ago I haven't felt any need for what you're describing here. I just make things up as we go or we handwave them. There's a limit on how much detail is needed based on your GMing style, your players, and the type of campaign.

Having generators available as plug-ins or calls to web services or whatever would be cool, though.


immotus said:
And, btw, have you people ever looked in a campaign sourcebook? You should check out the heirarchy sometime, it's been pretty much unchanged for 30 years.
Click to expand...
Lists of places, people, and specialized mechanics? Seems like there's spots for all that stuff.

It would be neat if we could customize the high-level groups. While we can't right now, you can still make whatever hierarchy you want if you'd like: create a topic named "My World" or whatever, give everything in the Almanacs a Containing Topic under it, and make sure that Show Containing Topic Hierarchy (in the Navigation Pane Options menu, F6) is turned on. Then you can create whatever hierarchy you want.
 
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Help me understand why you want a random generator crafting your world? What's the point of creating a world then? There are already generators for NPC's and other things out there.
 
I sometimes use generators to generate tavern names. As you craft a world, sometimes random generators can be used to build things... they can be useful. as you mentioned, there are already generators out there, it would be nice to include them, but i look at it as a nice to have.
 
Isn't the general practice to criticize a tool for not doing what it's supposed to do? How is it fair to criticize the tool for not doing something it didn't advertise that it would do? Honest question.

Also, have you read the product documentation? I poked at the software when I first got it, played with it a little, and realized that I'd need to read up a little to get how the program worked. I have, I now do, and it seems to do what it said it would do very well.
 
I'm actually glad he started this thread, it's actually shook us up and actually got me trying stuff.


BoomerET
 
You can put links to things like websites in RealmWorks if you wanted to link to any web-based generators, should you need something like that. However, to me, I don't see that being the biggest thing a GM needs at all. What I find is mostly needed is the ability to annotate, on the fly, that drunken town guard whose name I had to quickly had to make up, and the information he gave the party. That, to me, is where Realm Works really shines. No mare losing the page in a notebook where I had the info written down previously and, once the player version is available, the ability for my players to look all of that up, too. Something particularly tough for us with 2 games a week rotating between 4 different games. And whenever we have to miss a night for some reason that means it could be several weeks between the last time we played someone's campaign and the reminders can be sorely needed.

I'd also add that when it comes to the hierarchical/organizational elements of Realm Works... yeah, it may not be the easiest thing to just jump right into, but like most things you only get out of it what you put into it. I will say having added into Realm Works an entire campaign setting from a published source that I was able to set the structure up almost exactly like it is in the book, but with all the bonuses of linked topics and such that Realm Works brings to the table. So I'm not too sure what the issue is there beyond just a lack of interest in trying to see how flexible Realm Works really is, maybe?

I might agree that it's not necessarily completely intuitive to jump into Realm Works, but that also appears to be a function of its incredible flexibility. Rather like the nature of the beast, if you will. Learning how to use a massively powerful tool like Photoshop isn't necessarily easy or intuitive either, but what can be accomplished once you've taken the time to learn it is simply phenomenal. I think Realm Works is software that falls under the same principle. It will take some work, but I think maybe you should give it a bit more time and effort, and do as others have suggested here and let us know where things don't seem to be working the way you want them to, and you may find it's a very strong application capable of a great deal more than you seem to think it can do now.
 
As mentioned in another thread, I think a basic wizard to help new folks get started putting in the basics of a new realm would be very useful.
 
pickin_grinnin said:
As mentioned in another thread, I think a basic wizard to help new folks get started putting in the basics of a new realm would be very useful.
Click to expand...

But which way? There are multiple ways to do things. Which would the wizard do? How does it decide which way the person thinks might be best?
 
It's a wizard, I'm sure there's must be some spell depending on his level to read the thoughts of the user.
(Yes, this was an attempt at humor)

BoomerET
 
pickin_grinnin said:
As mentioned in another thread, I think a basic wizard to help new folks get started putting in the basics of a new realm would be very useful.
Click to expand...

Once the Marketplace goes up, I'm sure there will be plenty of examples to get people going. I'd even be willing to do up a quick example of a realm with a very short adventure and put it up as a way to do things.
 
This thing is making me nuts. So ... when you reveal a map isnt it supposed to be viewable in the player preview tab or what? All I see is a blank screen and I have the map revealed in the owning topic so I should be able to see it in the preview? Yes?
 
immotus said:
This thing is making me nuts. So ... when you reveal a map isnt it supposed to be viewable in the player preview tab or what? All I see is a blank screen and I have the map revealed in the owning topic so I should be able to see it in the preview? Yes?
Click to expand...

Click Help->Manual->Realm Works Quickstart Guide, then see pages 27 through 33. They talk you through exactly how to do what you want, with step by step instructions and highlighted screenshots of every step.

I think you really need to take some time to read the documentation.
 
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