RealmWorks

 In January 2019 I splurged and purchased Realm Works and Hero Lab from Lone Wolf  Development , these were both the older on PC versions not the cloud versions. I dislike cloud based tools for my games because I have been known to play in areas like shielded buildings, out in the mountains, etcetera where there is no Wi-Fi or cell service. Lone Wolf Development now has Hero Lab Online and Realm Works also has a web server service as part of its package, I will no be reviewing these since I have no experience with them.

Realm Works is a nicely designed database that can be used to keep all of your game notes. The forms tied to data fields can be customized to a certain extent. Out of the box I found it had far too many data fields based on my prior gaming history. I had joined a Facebook fan group and discovered that many other DMs/GMs (by the way which do you prefer Dungeon or Game?) used many more of the out of box data fields than I did. Fields can be removed from the dataset or added to the dataset which is great for customizing. It does lean towards fantasy rpgs more than sci-fi so this can help when creating new things like planet and star system data.

One of the nice dataset features is a relationship grouping that allows for easy input of family lines, or other similar uses. Many of the ex-users (more on that in the upcoming Obsidian post) bemoan the lack of a clean tree interface in other software they have tried. I found it very easy to use this feature in various ways for making leadership relations, kingdom relations, and of course family trees.

The software can be used to share notes, images, maps, etc with players but I found the interface a lot kludgy for this purpose, as did my players. It has no VTT.

I had used this software on a few different Windows based machines and found few problems with it. My main complaints about the software was the amount of extra I personally needed to trim out, not a lot of clean exporting features, and lack of development of some features that had been promised during its early days. By December 2019 I had found a fan made Realm Works to HTML export conversion tool. I needed this since I was wanting to use the information for a website for my Realm Roamer - A'Drakon campaign, giving players an easy way to stay up to date.

My work flow by that December included using Realm Works, and Hero Lab to organize the campaign, and using the CherryTree note tool to build encounters and hold information I had not added to Realm Works. I found free hand creating to be much faster than the form input of the database. By the way Hero Lab does have a very robust encounter building system that I still like using, but I am slowly finding myself transitioning to DnDBeyond.

Due to the input style, lack of updates, and lack of good exporting tools I chose to explore other options. If I were to give is a scale rating on 1 through 10 I give Realm Works a solid 7 as a information building, storage, and reporting tool for campaigns. For use during play I would give it a 5 at best.

As A Player

 I had never been a player in my TTRPG sessions until 2021. The DM like myself is old school, and he prefers theater of the mind style play. As a group we navigated ways to play online. As I recall we first used Google Meet with emailed sheets back and forth. Not the most pleasant experience. Then we switched to using Discord with DnDB (D&D Beyond) or emailed sheets, this was much a better experience.

First game we used DNDB dice or real dice, second game we tried AVRAE but had issues with it. Finally we tried Dice Maiden and have stuck with that for the games, at least those of us on computers. Our group uses computers, and portal devices to play making it interesting sometimes with compatibility, usability, or game play slowdown if look up is needed.

This group has a regular campaign as well as sporadic one off adventures. For the one offs I like to create new characters so that I can explore other species and classes. Discovered I had a bad habit of staying with the basics and it can be limiting during play, especially when everyone else is playing with new species and class mixtures which do tend to be more powerful at first blush. Any character can fight, but the battle of an under powered character definitely make it feel heroic!

My tip to a new player is to choose a single class, and not overly powered species. This allows you to concentrate on learning the basics of the game. The more options you have , often the slower the game ends up as people challenge rules, remind others of abilities, and players not having a style yet for a new character. As you grow as a player definitely explore options, there are many.

I want a jaunty sign off but have no ideas at the moment.

Another Idea

This blog is another in a long line of ideas. Today I am moving a couple of posts from my personal blog to here in my new TTRPG blog. I want to use this blog for idea postings, reviews, and perhaps updates for the various groups I act as a dungeon master (game master for those using the modern title) for.

Just as a quick recap for those not part of our gaming groups, I have been playing some form of TTRPG since grade school in the dark ages of the early 1980s. My introduction came while I was throwing newspapers for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. One day ion the route I saw two kids, brothers, playing a game with those dice. I stood there for a minute listening to the tale being told and asked what they were doing. The rest of the route was a bit latter that day and the next few as I joined them just as an observer during an adventure. That summer I purchased the Red Box set and sat out on a life long adventure. First I taught myself by playing alone, then I dragged my brother into the game (just showing the box cover worked). We advanced through some box sets as I created our first dungeons.

Eventually we included friends, and our mother! She preferred Boothill but would play D&D also if asked nicely. I started cross realming, taking the characters back and forth through various game universes early on. First to Gamma World, then Star Wars, Boothill, and GURPS Autoduel. This is how Certar the fighter class came to be, he started life in Star Wars as a rebel fighter, donned the armor of a storm trooper, got sucked into a vortex arriving in the wastelands of Gamma World, before once again entering a rift in space time and ending on A'Drakon. So yes, there is a partially trooper armored fighter that is sometimes seen riding a hippogriff. He is one of several very unique characters in our groups.

A'Drakon? Oh that is my homebrew world that has been slowly built since those first games. It is a magical place with portals that come and go to the other realms of possibility. Sometimes known paths exist, other times random events take place to start the journey.

I have only recently started playing online with our group members, thank you Covid. During this time I have used various tools that I will try to review in other posts. The video below we used Zoom, Realm Works, Hero Lab, and D&D Beyond. It was not well played but it is the only session I have posted a video for so far. It had been literally almost two decades since playing with this group.

 

Dragon Hide Armor Oops!

 A long time ago in the late 1980s a group of adventures took on a few dragons. They were successful and turned the dragons hides into armor. Blue dragon armor provides an armor bonus and protection from electrical damage. Wonderful!

Decades later I come across this TikTok video

@rick_ankney #dnd #crueldm #gamergoals #dungeonsanddragons #oops #dice #ttrpg ♬ original sound - Rick Ankney - Tabletop Santa

Dragon Magazine #344 "Official Answers to your questions"

Which led to a conversation with a friend.

Imagine introducing an opponent that is high level and  able to resurrect the armor.
If the armor is just laying around it seems simple enough. A dragon is resurrected!

But what if the armor is worn?
Does the armor become a dragon?
Does the wearer, already enveloped in the armor become enveloped in the dragon?! Having to fight their way out from the inside. Dying due to lack of air and whatever damage the dragon deals.
Does the wearer become some sort of were-dragon? Human at times, dragon at others.
Does the wearer become the dragon? Mind melded into the great wyrm! Now to live and die as a dragon.

Remember the 'rules' are only guidelines!

Ambiance

Ebay is a wonderful place to find unusual decor for a gaming room. For instance while searching for something else a suggested purchase was an ornate old perfume bottle.

Wait, what is this mysterious glass jar? What does it contain? The adventurers pondered the consequences of touching the wizards collection of rare tinctures and potions.

The price is often what you would expect to pay at Wal-Mart, Target or Halloween shops but unlike the mass produced items de jour that everyone else is purchasing yours will seem unique. On top of that bonus is the fact that you may get an actual collectible out of the deal and of course helping to keep another person's business/hobby afloat (or maybe just help them clean out their storage space.)

In my games the use of images helps the players to visualize certain things better, as the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words (at least to those without vision impairments). Scouring the web, or drawing something always works. Taking pictures while out and about works as well.

The real life items can be used as decor in the game room, or even used as a reward system for the players. If your group likes physical trinkets then handing them an actual item that their characters use will increase the fun and give them a visual memory trigger!