Mechanics Templates

[Grey Mage]

I am uncertain if this belongs here or in RW Features requests so move this is you need to.

Just after the RW Early Access release, LWD mentioned that there would be announcement regarding 'crunchy' datasets... Still patiently waiting on that, since I know you guys have to be slammed.

What I was wondering about is if you have finalized the 'template' for the data... ie., spell format, monster format, wondrous item form, etc.?

If so, could you provide that the earliest opportunity so that we can use it as we enter our own Mechanics data?

 

[Grey Mage]

Datasets?

Any word about datasets for RW...?

 

[Grey Mage]

Bumping this in the hopes there might be some news from someone in LWD with regards to either datasets for RW, or...

Someone in LWD might have an example (template) of what the format for the datasets will be?

That way can make homebrew entered material look as close to the 'official' stuff as possible.

Thanks

 

[Grey Mage]

Another post in hope...

Any word from LWD on datasets for RW would be much appreciated...

Even more appreciated would be a post with a template showing how the datasets will be formatted so that 3PP data can be entered using a similar format.

I realize that the fine folk at LWD are probably in crunch mode to get the gold release of RW out by the end of the month.... BUT, surely someone can take a moment to post something (unless of course the final layout for dataset information has not been determined).

BUMP!

 

[Silveras]

Grey Mage, I would posit that there are NO such "templates".

RealmWorks is designed to be system-agnostic, and to support multiple systems as a result. Mechanics from Traveller, for example, will be entirely different from those for 3.5 D&D or Pathfinder, and 4th Edition D&D will be different again from those. I do not expect there to be a single "template" or set of templates for that reason.

I am confident that Paizo will be one of the licensees, and will produce an "official" version of the Pathfinder rule. That will most likely define the standard presentation for Pathfinder content.. spells, monsters, characters, items, etc. It seems equally likely to me that, as official versions of adventures are prepared and sold, those will also become the standard for Pathfinder story content.

I am equally confident that Paizo will not be the only such company.

If a 3pp produces RealmWorks adventures for use with Pathfinder, however, they will likely follow Paizo's lead on the formatting of any new story or mechanics content.

As other systems become supported, any official data packages will likely become the model for others using the same system (as much as licenses, etc., allow).

TL;DR: Because there are many game systems with vastly different formats, there will likely not be "one" template for mechanics, or even for each type of mechanics.. rather, there will be several for each type.

 

[Grey Mage]

Silveras,

I concur 100% percent... Each game system will probably go with its own unique layout for any 'crunchy' data in the Mechanics section...

I should have clarified my original request to reflect my interest in what the PF layout would be.

However, that said, I suspect that LWD will be the one deciding (in conjunction with Paizo most likely) in how the Pathfinder game system data is presented in (their) Realm Works...

And I am hopeful that no matter the system, the data presented WITHIN Realm Works has some form of consistency.

 

[thedarkelf007]

As a pathfinder player myself, I understand your pain with not wanting to deviate from a future layout that may come along.

As a content creator, I have tinkered with templates myself, and I would have to say that simple is best.

Most of my spells have an overview, and a details or description section.

I have also added a local tag group called source, which lists the sourcebooks I am using in that realm.

Does this help at all?

 

[Grey Mage]

Darkelf,

I went a different way... Doing a snippet for each, including source.

That way (hopefully) when player incremental reveal comes along, I can provide just enough information to entice wizard PCs to want to do spell research without giving away the cow as it were...

I would just like to avoid having to redo as much as I can... because of course, when datasets (for Pathfinder) do start becoming available, I will want everything to look pretty as it were.

Here is a screenshot to show what I mean:

 

[thedarkelf007]

That is cool, but too much work for the level of information I have in my realm so far.

I would change the source to a tag so you can select all tags from a source if you need to in the future.

 

[AEIOU]

I've made a source tag for the same reasons you mention. But for finding specific information like spells or a create, a page number is really helpful. I'm starting to lean toward having both a source tag and a free-text source field for the best of both worlds.

 

[thedarkelf007]

I add the page number after the tag

And I add a source snippet for each book referenced for that topic or article so it gets less confusing.

 

[Zaphod Beebledoc]

I've got some of the D&D 3.5 Monster Manuals.

Putting all the monsters into RW would be a pain, put worth it. I hope things like that will be available. (I've not played Pathfinder, compared to D&D 3.5, how similar is it?)

 

[Silveras]

I've got some of the D&D 3.5 Monster Manuals.

Putting all the monsters into RW would be a pain, put worth it. I hope things like that will be available. (I've not played Pathfinder, compared to D&D 3.5, how similar is it?)

That's perhaps not really relevant to this discussion or this site.

However.. pretty similar. Skills were re-organized (some merged, one eliminated entirely)... those are the most noticeable changes. The schedule at which you gain feats is a little faster, making more difference the higher the creature's HD. The other is that things like Sunder/ Grapple/ Trip/ Overrun were combined into a single mechanic, a Combat Maneuver, that results in two new combat stats.. the Combat Maneuver Bonus and the Combat Maneuver Defense (think attack bonus and AC computed slightly differently for these moves). The 11 core classes got some upgrades; mostly, it was felt that the new classes in 3.5 had "raised the bar" and so the core 11 needed some boosts to match.

Beyond those, there are some subtle differences in wording that trip people up from time to time.

The intention is that you can still use your 3.5 books with Pathfinder (no promises the other way around, which some people have assumed was also true), although the Pathfinder Bestiaries convert most of the core monsters from the Monster Manuals and Fiend Folio (exceptions: Those no open content, or those the Pathfinder design team did not like enough). It is not much different from using 3.0 material in a 3.5 game.

There is a free PDF conversion document on the Paizo site that describes what changes you would need to make to convert 3.5 characters/monsters to their Pathfinder versions.

 

[Grey Mage]

As the Year's End draws ever so close and the Realm Works site is now LIVE(!) is there any chance we will be hearing from the good people at LWD on datasets for RW in the near future???