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Sooooo convince me

B

Bebberino

Member
NOTE: I am not doing long paragraphs or what not, as I find them a pain to read and think others may also.

I have been a faithful HeroLab owner for a while now and absolutely love it, though I do wish the PC version was easier to use, but that is another discussion.

I am looking at Realm works and was initially going to get it, as I like the fact it can go in depth and is a complete campaign tracker, but I have hit a snag.

d20 Pro and Fantasy Grounds both have gotten licenses to do official Pathfinder content, which excites me and also disturbs me, here's why.

All the videos I have seen of all 3 have been smooth, though it would be smooth if I was the person making them and had the time to learn everything about it, which I may or may not have.

I would really like to run a campaign that is as interlinked as the 3 Pathfinder games I am a part of are. Now what do I mean by that, well in 2 games I play siblings, one game has one sibling, the other their younger brother. In the game I DM it is set a few years later and one of their nephews is in it.

I want to be able to emulate that, if possible.

I want to have it so other DM's that run games that I know and agree to it can input their information for their games also, with appropriate access given to the people that have a 'need to know'.

Specifically I am curious if have Golarion, it will show who is the ruler of Varisia, who rules Cheliax and what not.

Now I do understand that a good portion of that will be purchasable content, BUT is it possible.

If I am rambling, I apologize, as I really want to go a certain way, but don't want to buy Realm Works and be disappointed.
 
At this precise moment we really don't know for sure.

The ability to share content just came out. Getting collaborative GM's is an often requested feature but no one knows if or when it will be available.

Paizo is definitely going to be releasing material for RW but what and when is still unknown.

I will tell you this, I've run games using just a VTT, Roll20 in my case, and a VTT is great when players aren't face to face with me. When the players are all physically present I'd much rather use RW to let me track what is going on outside combat and HL to run combats.
 
Uggh, my only gripe with Wolflair is they don't tell us much and we just hope for the best

I hope the pricing for Pathfinder items stays in line with how they price things in Herolab and are nice enough to give discounts to those of us that own said data packages in HeroLab and when they come available in Realm Works.
 
FACT: Just to be clear, RW is NOT a VTT, nor will it likely ever be. That was never its purpose. It is, as you say, a campaign tracker. It is not meant, and will not serve as a replacement for Roll20.

FACT: RW does NOT real-time reveal. It is meant to help you and your players keep track of things from session to session, not from moment to moment or encounter to encounter. You make your changes in Realm Works (add content, change content or reveal content), then you save those changes. Then you sync those changes to the server. Then your players have to sync with the server to see your changes.

What Realm Works is meant to do is:
  • Help you create and track changes in your world.
  • Help you keep track of what you've revealed to your players. It's no longer necessary to ask yourself, "Wait, have they discovered this important detail yet or not?"
  • Help your players keep track of what you've revealed to them by syncing their client to the server so they have direct access to that info.
  • Help you and your players do a quick review of your last session before starting a new one. "In our last episode of Days of our Dragons ..."

OPINION: I'm less familiar with Fantasy Grounds. I don't know if that includes VTT or not, so I can't speak to that issue. I can tell you that, as far as worldbuilding, RW is superior (IMO) to Fantasy Grounds. It is more flexible and more detailed. Mind you, that also means it has a higher learning curve. When you first install it, and log into it, it's not uncommon to stare at it with a dumb look of, "What the hell do I do now? Where do I even start?" But if you play around with it, you soon get passed that.

SPECULATION (And I want to be very clear that this is SPECULATION): LWD seems to have a good relationship with Paizo in regards to releasing Pathfinder content for Hero Lab. It would only make sense to me this already existing relationship would extend to Realm Works.
 
I would challenge that the FG learning curve far exceeds that of RW. It uses a fully custom UI where RW feels like a windows applications and works as expected.

Ultimately though the above is true. Realm Works is not a VTT. The applications you have listed above are VTT solutions with a little bit of campaign management built in.

I strongly suggest you have a look through my videos to get a really good understanding of what this software can offer.

Personally I use a VTT alongside RW. RW (+HL) is the adventure book, the rule books, the monster and spell database. The VTT (MapTools) is strictly for displaying the map onto the table and controlling fog of war. We use minis that sit on top of that map.

Pathfinder support is guaranteed. I know free Pathfinder content is already enroute to all current users. I would be willing to bet that launch day of the Content Market will contain a larger % of Pathfinder content vs any other system. We have been told we will get some information in the coming weeks as to pricing expectations.

I have in my hands a copy of 2x import packs that everyone should get in the near future. I can tell you right now that they contain Hero Lab portfolios which means you will simply be able to click and send monsters from RW to HL and then straight into combat.

As to whether or not this is the program for you... answer this question.

Do you play with people in person or over the internet?

Honestly If i was playing over the internet. I would be looking at FG or Roll20. I wouldn't want to. I've tried both and RW is vastly superior in my opinion. BUT the VTT solutions above include things that are necessary for online play. Visible dice rolling over the network. Ability to macro abilities and have the result output to the chat session. Basically the ability to manage combat over the network. HL does not offer this and RL is not designed to do this. If I was going to be using a VTT to manage combat then it would make sense to have all the maps and monsters and spell in that tool. If i was going to go that far you might as well have the story using the licensed content.

You wish to connect people together is absolutely possible in RW using the relationship system. It has time stamps also so you can track what happens to whom and when. It tracks relationships. My understanding is the VTT solutions above allow you to create story content but nothing at this level of depth and customization. It's also no where near as well organised.

You could run them in separate realms and have DM 1 update his content, export it at the end of the session and pass it onto DM2 who could import it. The logic of import is smart enough (or at least going to be) that it will recognize the content and update it with changes. He could do the same back to you. You would have to test it to see if it works for you, but Realm Works is such a beast that it's highly likely that you will find something that works.

You can absolutely create relationships to towns and places btw. I have an entire video on that topic somewhere.

The only person who can really answer this is you though. You need to do what works for you. Check out my videos below. They are far from smooth in my opinion lol. Watch close enough you will see me try and fail to do things. But that's just part of using such a large tool.

Daplunk's Videos
 
You know what though... I'm going to think on this further...

How can RW be used in conjunction with the big name VTT's via a network...

Let me ponder on that for a while.
 
I'll be surprised if any publisher really gets serious about licensing their products for Realm Works for the simple reason that there is no way to protect their IP from being altered, copied, etc. WOTC's implementation in Fantasy Grounds is not copyable and they have the content locked completely down.

Personally, I really like the concept that RW is using, because what DM doesn't want to take a published adventure and alter it or pull it into another setting at times; however, this makes publishers cringe.
 
daplunk, I requested a feature that would make use with VTTs easier. Namely, I requested that RW be able to respond to a URI send to it from another program (e.g. FG) so it could on-the-fly display VTT-driven information. Kind of like how RW uses syrinscape but in reverse.
 
Yeah i remember reading that and thinking about how that could be useful.

Hero Lab IMO would benefit hugely from network sync. Let the VTTs handle just the map and the icons. Let HL manage the combat and RW manage the story and everything else.
 
There is the ability to lock down the content though. I tried to export a picture from a locked module and got an access denied :(

Didn't stop a screen capture though so Redjack is right. If people want something these days they will get it.

Hopefully the publishers see this as an opportunity to provide different type of content. I will pay for maps that have linked locations on it. I will pay for monsters that have Hero Lab files in them. I will pay for stories. Hell I would pay for a pack of herbs that can be used to create poisons and potions.

/Dammit... This CM is going to be bad for my wallet...
 
Strategon said:
I'll be surprised if any publisher really gets serious about licensing their products for Realm Works for the simple reason that there is no way to protect their IP from being altered, copied, etc. WOTC's implementation in Fantasy Grounds is not copyable and they have the content locked completely down.
Click to expand...

Publishers release PDFs of their rule books and source books, and there is no way to protect that IP from being altered, copied, etc.

I recall J.K. Rowling being slow to release her HP books as ebooks, because she was concerned about piracy. I know for a fact that they were available as high-quality ebooks, including the cute little art doodles, long before she released them. I know people who had the files.

I bought the print books. I bought the audio books. And when they were finally officially available, I bought the ebooks. That doesn't change the fact that I could have had free versions of the ebooks long before they were official.

As others have said, there really is no way to guarantee anything. I'd be willing to bet money that there's some kind of crack or workaround for FG.

As Frank Hayes sings:
Three things hold no secrets;
Files that somehow hit the net,
Your boss's secretary,
And the third thing, I forget.
 
Thanks guys, seriously thanks.

Just the responses alone have helped.

Looks like everything will have a use, especially once I get my table with a monitor in it done for gaming.

Campaign manager works quite well and makes it easier I would think
 
Strategon said:
I'll be surprised if any publisher really gets serious about licensing their products for Realm Works for the simple reason that there is no way to protect their IP from being altered, copied, etc. WOTC's implementation in Fantasy Grounds is not copyable and they have the content locked completely down.

Personally, I really like the concept that RW is using, because what DM doesn't want to take a published adventure and alter it or pull it into another setting at times; however, this makes publishers cringe.
Click to expand...

I have no idea what you are basing your assumptions on, but they are absolutely WRONG. The entire design of Realm Works is to achieve EXACTLY what you are describing as the objective for every GM.

Prior to the launch of the upcoming Content Market, there has been NO NEED for any security. However, we've got extensive security baked into the product, which will become apparent with all published material that we offer.

A key thing that Realm Works will allow beyond a product like Fantasy Grounds is for users to seamlessly weave separate pieces of published material together into a unified whole. They can integrate content from multiple different publishers (and game systems) together in whatever way they like. They can customize it to their heart's content. They can extend it, strip out portions, change things around, and ultimately weave it in with their own material to yield a campaign world that exactly fits their personal vision. That's the Holy Grail for every GM that I've ever known, and that's what Realm Works is finally turning into reality.

And it will all be TOTALLY SECURE for the publisher.

Please don't spread misinformation like this as assertions of fact. It's a disservice to the entire RPG community to do so. If you think something might be cause for concern, absolutely ask the question so that someone can provide you with the accurate answer. But please get the facts before making assertions. Thanks! :)
 
Redjack said:
They can't stop that today outside of Realm Works. Welcome to the era of personal computers, scanners, OCR software, and Photoshop.
Click to expand...

That's piecemeal access, often without fidelity. If someone wants to screengrab a given image, or grab a page of text and run OCR on it, that's only useful when you want small pieces. If this approach is used for something substantive, they will end up with a whole bunch of pieces that somehow have to be connected back together again. And this applies to any product in existence, including tools like Fantasy Grounds.

For something larger like an adventure in Realm Works, putting it all back together again entails so much effort that it's just not worth it. So the objective of security is to make sure that nobody can extract a sufficiently substantive chunk in a cohesive manner that piracy becomes attractive. That's something we've got built into Realm Works so that publishers can be assured that all their material is safe. I don't know of any publisher that's going to cry foul if someone uses the Snipping Tool within Windows to copy an NPC portrait for use with their latest PC in Hero Lab, since someone can just as easily snap a picture of the portrait from the book with their cellphone, or scan the page, or pull it from the PDF, or whatever. Where publishers get worried is in the potential loss of the entire work to piracy, as a whole or in a substantial chunk. And the as-yet-unrevealed security within Realm Works will do that in a way that I'm confident is vastly more secure than Fantasy Grounds can offer (based on the underlying technologies both rely upon).

Hope this helps! :)
 
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