Troll Lord Games

Hi all,

Saw an interesting campaign organizer on Kickstarter called - Realm Works - Streamlined RPG Campaign Tools. At http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/610 ... aign-tools

It is campaign organization software by Lone Wolf Development, who also do Hero Lab. It has been in development for 3 years now and looks mighty useful.

Thought some of you might be interested in checking it out. Just so you know, I've nothing to do with this company, but I did decide to back this project.

Chris

The Gnome Stew guys wrote up a nice preview of Realm Works over at their website. http://www.gnomestew.com/reviews/sneak- ... alm-works/

Am I the only one interested in this software?

I just don't really have any use for oganizing a campaign to this level. There are parts of me that wishes that I needed this, but I've never had a problem in the past. Now, it seems to me I would just have to spend a ton of time learning the software instead of creating adventure for my players. And who really has time to do that anymore?

~O

Omote wrote:I just don't really have any use for oganizing a campaign to this level. There are parts of me that wishes that I needed this, but I've never had a problem in the past. Now, it seems to me I would just have to spend a ton of time learning the software instead of creating adventure for my players. And who really has time to do that anymore?

~O

I can understand that. Though one of the reasons I think I'll like this program is it is being made to be as intuitive as possible so the learning curve is as low as possible. The other thing I like is that once you put any info into the program, you can access it in a myriad of ways. So enter your pub menu once, and it is immediately available for any pub in your campaign world. Enter some NPCs and they are available immediately for any campaign you run etc . . . I like that idea of entering even basic info like pub menus or a weapons shops list of items one time, and then being able to access it quickly and easily, without needing to flip thru a module book or thru my own pile of notes. Plus the program keeps track of all info you've told the players, so it is impossible to forget what they know or don't know about your world.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. I hope any with even a glimmer of interest will check out the Gnome Stew preview. It describes the program very well. Gnome stew liked it so much, they are allowing their books material to be added into the software.

Like the Core Rules and other applications, I would probably play around with it but not really use it. Then again, my campaigns don't tend to last long enough for me to bother bookkeeping it.

Don't "shut up" I was interested enough to go peek at it and try and get a feel for what it provides. But it won;t really work for me. [Wrong OS and do not want someone else Cloud Service]

Currently my set up is like this

Subversion for the entire document root of Campaign folder.
vi for any text files (Adventure log, Exp Awards per session, Regional Notes)
Pages (Apple OSX) for Character Sheets, Stories, Rules Essays (can be export to PDF)
GIMP files for maps and images
Email for session summary and info. [I use IMAP so the campaign emails are available across all computers
iWeb for the actual published Website.

It seems a little complex but it grew slowly and the work flow is fine. I can grab any computer and check my SVN repository and have all the files, make change s and re-commit. I can search the emails for things I've said and need to remember and check the website for the current info I have posted.

-Mike

I was interested in it as a desktop application, but don't have a need for the network parts. Currently I have bits of my campaign scattered across 3 different operating systems (the subversion idea is a good one!) and bits of paper. I may yet buy it, but to date have not participated in a kickstarter and don't plan to.

I do use Lone Wolf's Hero Lab on OS X and Windows, and it has made the difference between me lasting to level 20 in our 3.5 game and quitting (I leveled). With a few quibbles, it's a great and useful (for some games) piece of software, and if it were available for C&C, I'd be more likely to consider the Realm Works software since I could track (N)PCs with it.

I already have a great piece of software for book keeping my campaigns with, its called Notepad. To be honest, most of my notes stay in my physical notebook. I rarely take the time to transcribe from it to Notepad. Which I have regretted, because all of a sudden my notebook will disappear, and then eventually I find out my kids stole it because they needed a new notebook for school/college, and rather than tell me, and have me buy them a new one, they just steal my campaign notebooks.

So I really wish I liked keeping campaign notes on my laptop in the first place, but I don't.

If you happen to have it, OneNote is a great tool for campaign notes, because you can drag in urls and pictures, you can run your scanner from it, etc. On my Mac I use something sort of similar called Growley Notes.

Aergraith wrote:If you happen to have it, OneNote is a great tool for campaign notes, because you can drag in urls and pictures, you can run your scanner from it, etc. On my Mac I use something sort of similar called Growley Notes.

I have it but was influenced by Phil Vecchione who wrote Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep. He has used One Note for years, but after trying out the Beta version of Realm Works he decided to drop One Note and switch to Realm Works. In fact, he and the other Gnome Stew bloggers decided to add their three books to the rewards of the Realm Work kickstarter.

These things look great, but I personally end up spending more time "playing" with the software than doing actual campaign prep.

I've learned I'm more efficient with a pen and notebook.

Treebore wrote:I already have a great piece of software for book keeping my campaigns with, its called Notepad.

Did I just lose some Grognard points because the first thing that I thought "notepad" was, was the application on Windows?

I find that Core Rules and a notebook work well enough for me. Now, if there ever came a C&C version of something like Core Rules I would be very interested.