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Organizing APs

T

The Numerator

Member
Hi there,

Newb RW GM building out a realm for Giantslayer (Pathfinder Adventure Path), looking for a little help in regards to best practices. I just figured out the use of Prefixes in creating Map/Event locations, and how to sort the order within the Story Almanac based on that. Thankfully, the way that Paizo letters their locations within an AP, it will give a good flow to the AP story from top to bottom.

However, it occurred to me that when I start the next Chapter of the AP, the lettering of the prefixes will begin with A again, which will then jumble all the events up, and make navigation a nightmare.

So how are other users organizing different components of a larger AP? Or even grouping "Part 1" of an AP vs. "Part 2". Is that the purpose of the Topic Views? Or do you create custom tags to indicate which part or AP it is, and then just filter on the tag component? Is there a way to link all the various topics to one Source Topic (which seemed to be the purpose of the Sources group)?

And lastly, what is the difference between the World Almanac and the Story Almanac. If I create separate topic views, is the Story Almanac just a default starting view? Or is it intended to bring other views together?
 
I have added a custom tag of "Source" to all of the material I enter. Using this, I can create custom views of just the material I need for a given module, AP, sourcebook, etc.
 
My advice is nested topics with liberal use of suffix and prefix.

So the top topic is simple "Giant Slayer Adventure path"
Then you have 6 chapter topics "I - VI "What ever each is called"
Then break it down under each chapter topic

Use Prefix for numbering, use the suffice for chapter identification "Ch I - VI"

So you may see this for a same room and number in two different chapters:

A1 - The Storeroom (Ch I)
A1 - The Storeroom (ChIII)

How ever if you use topics with nested subtopics there should be no nightmare. Think of it as a branch from a tree. The trunk is the first topic, each branch off the trunk is a chapter. Each chapter will see its own unique smaller topics, but the information is clear, organized and will not get mixed up.


You can use the Suffix to help "ID" things that me be the same in name, but they will all be in their own topic branch, off the tree called Giant slayer.
 
Now the story almanac is a "view", it used to be its own entity, but now it is simply a view, and you can create many.

So use it to create the "chapter views" create six story almanacs named "GS Chapter I to VI", and copy each respective chapter into that view. Now you have your AP divided into easy to manage chapters, when they complete a chapter you can delete the story almanac view, as it is no longer needed.
 
Nevermind, I think I figured it out.. you create it's own topic for the category or list, and then use the Containing Topic to nest the others below it.
 
I have been using B1 - B6 as the first part of the prefix, so "B1 A5" for location A5 in book 1 of the adventure path.
 
Right, I think that was really the tool I was looking for... the containing topic function, to have events nested under larger categories.

One last question - when do you organize locations under the Places group, as opposed to the Events group?

For example, if you build out a dungeon (with a different topic for each relevant room), would you have that nested under Events, or under Places? The AP flow would seem to dictate that it would be under events, and as a scene you get the default snippets used often in a dungeon room (CR, HL file, Rewards or Development). But the dungeon is a location, and the description of "Adventure Area" would seem to fit... but then the flow of the AP isn't as great, or you'd have to create both a scene and a location topic for each room (which seems redundant).
 
If you are referring to using the "Containing Topic" function that is right under the Table of Contents heading on the right side of the screen, you might want to read some of the other entries about it. This is mostly used for geographic entries or entries where there is only one place it would fit in. Many of us have had to redo these entries after misunderstanding the purpose of this.

For example, if you listed an entry of a Goblin Raiding Party as an event, it could work to be contained in one district of a country named Blog Forest. If the entry could apply to seven other districts, you would have to figure out another way to list it. Now you are using two different ways and it could get confusing. Neither is wrong but correcting am early mistake can be painful.
 
Oh, then I'm definitely not using that correctly.

Here was my intent for organizing: In the left window of the Almanac (or a custom Topic View), have an event list of "Part 1", then nested under that was a number of scenes, such as "Meeting w/..." (intro scene), Event B, Event C, and so on. Then Let's say Event C takes place in a small keep that has 4 rooms, I then built a scene for each of those rooms, nested under Event C (C1, C2, etc). Then these scenes are linking to people, locations, treasure, etc.

It seemed like using the Containing Topic function created this organization. Is there another way to set up a tree structure like that? Or is Realmworks not intended to be organized in this fashion, and I am just thinking too linearly?
 
The Story/Plot can be used for sequencing events if there is a logical order in doing things.

I tend to put story topics under a hierarchy of chapters; however dungeons are organised geographically.
 
So do you use the Event topic type for each room, but have it nested under an "Adventure Area" topic? Or do you just use the Adventure Area type for all the rooms?
 
Ok... I just went back into the spotlight series and looked at how they are organizing Runelords. I think I understand a bit more what you all are saying.

(can't wait for the content market to launch, as this would be much easier to just see how they organize it all).

In the meantime, are there community files hosted somewhere that I could reference, like they have with the HL Community Bestiary? Or is that now allowed due to the content market they're launching?
 
The Numerator said:
In the meantime, are there community files hosted somewhere that I could reference, like they have with the HL Community Bestiary? Or is that now allowed due to the content market they're launching?
Click to expand...

If you can find a way to import community files before the content market comes online, post it here. Yesterday! :D
 
There are screenshots of quite a bit of work people have done buried here in the forums. Or you can be invited as a player into someone's realm. Those are your only two choices at this time for viewing what others have done.

Exmortis has honed his method and it works like a machine. I really like it and there is much to be learned from him. Thankfully, he's very generous in sharing. But bear in mind that it may not work for every person or every campaign.

Gord's caution regarding containers is definitely words of wisdom. You'll notice that my recommendation was tags rather than containers. Been there, done that.... But my realm is a sandbox world, not a linear AP so my structure is inherently different, less hierarchical and more fluid. Adding source tags as I create material is tedious but soooooo useful. Source, Region Map and Region Scope tags are how I stay sane and focused on material from 9 campaign setting books, 4 APs, 3 mega dungeons, numerous dungeons and wilderness encounters, two continents and a span of 10,000 years.

I use containers for things that will always be a subset of their container. Unless something really catastrophic happens, these thing simply cannot change locations....

Continent <-- mountain range <-- region <-- dungeon locale <-- dungeon <-- rooms
Continent <-- mountain range <-- region <-- community <-- businesses <-- rooms

I use casts as containers for groups of people. I group people by region and locale they will likely be found in. This is a much more fluid set of containers. Region <-- community. Beneath each region I have each community and each dungeon or point-of-interest that has NPCs. And for those that wander or are wilderness encounters, they just get placed into the region. I also have cast groups for deities, historical figures and a separate group for "Recurring NPCs" where I can place people that escape or need to be brought back into play in the future.

Of note, you see that I put townsfolk and dungeon denizens into cast groups and not in the containers of the rooms they are found in. I have links from the locations to their profiles but I don't contain them in their locations. This works great for an open world with lots and lots of NPCs but may not be as appropriate for a linear AP.

I've been thinking a lot about guilds lately but haven't started entering into RW yet. Right now, my guilds and other similar groups are in containers by community. But that will be changing as many actually span multiple locations (merchant trading houses, major banking enterprises, some professional guilds, large multi-unit mercenary operations, etc). Some organizations have established branches far-and-wide.... I don't have a solution for this yet.

I currently do not put nations/states/kingdoms into containers with the geography because borders are fluid over time. I have a lot of backstory which refers to the rise and fall of civilizations and I chose not to make my material a snapshot in time stuck in the present.
 
There is no one right answer, other than "what works best for you". RealmWorks allows a lot of flexibility for that reason.

For my uses, I have this structure...because this is what works for me:

Source: Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition
__GM Synopsis: AP Synopsis
__Additional Information : Ten Fun Facts About Goblins
__Story: Chapter
____GM Synopsis: Advancement Track
____GM Synopsis: Chapter Synopsis
____Cast List: Chapter Allies
____Cast List: Chapter Enemies
____Cast List: Chapter Supporting Cast
____Incident: Any happening that needs to be fit into the adventure timeline (prior to or during adventure)
____Story: Part X
______Encounter (customized Scene topic): encounters
______Adventure Location: each location that group encounters
________Encounters
__________Quest: Any story award entries that can be learned of as missions
__________Named Item: Any key items found here that should be tracked

Geographic Region: Avistan (continent)
__Political Region: Varisia
____Geographic Region: Each broad area within Varisia
____Adventure Site: Locations listed as possible adventure sites but not specific to AP
____Location: Other sides of interest outside settlements
____Community: All settlements
______Cast List*: Current residents of the community
________Individual*: Key NPC from the community
________Inhabitant*: Generic NPCs (such as town guards, stock goons, etc.)
______Cast List*: Past residents of the community
________Individual*: Key NPC from the community
______Cast List*: Potential Contacts, Cohorts, Managers, and Followers
______Organizations* (various types): Organizations or chapters/branches present
______Urban Region*: Neighborhood / district
________Merchant*: Those populated with NPCs that may be interactive
________Location*: Non-merchant locations of interest

Asterisked (*) entries I only put in if needed. For example, Sandpoint is fully detailed, and some of Magnimar.. but Korvosa and Riddleport have only as much added sub-entries as needed to represent the backstories of NPCs.

Also note that I use two separate hierarchies.. one world/geography based, and the other AP-based. A specific place may show up in both.. as a Location under the geographical hierarchy, and as an Adventure Site under the AP hierarchy .. so it can be re-used if I want to by adding more encounters to a different "branch" of the adventure "tree". That also allows me to reveal the generic "Location" entry under the geographical hierarchy without tipping off my players that place is also an Adventure Site.
 
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Nice, Silveras. I especially like your explanation for dual entries for location and adventure. That's really useful for folks that are starting up.

Since I'm weaving multiple adventures and merging campaign setting materials, I've started to add GM notes within locations sometimes; and some locations have multiple sets of adventure notes. This is especially useful for lead-ins to other adventures or to make sure I don't miss a small detail which easily happens with dual entries.

My format is the adventure in bold red text within brackets and the details pertinent to that particular adventure afterwards: [ADVENTURE NAME] Details of the adventure as it relates to this location. All in GM text. If it's more than a paragraph or three, it gets spun off like Silveras has done.
 
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