Starting over

[adminwheel3]

So I never created separate adventure modules when running FG and my early maps and shared images ranged from 4-12GB in size.

Now my story page has multiple tabs from previous encounters, some from 6 months ago and my players complain of slow response time and dropped connections.

Recently I had reason to create a 2-session campain and everyone was so happy with how fast things seem to work. The connections were more stable, they hooked into FG quicker and the interface seemed more responsive.

So after listening to my tale of woe, how do I address this?

I think I want to start from scratch and import the characters if possible. i'm hoping that a fresh .dat file will fix the bloat that my game is suffering from.

[Xorn]

It sounds like you just need to peel off some of your campaign data into adventure modules that you can open and close as needed.

A fairly simple solution would be to export your current campaign into a gigantic, bloated monstrocity of a module.

Then make a new campaign, naming it whatever piece of the campaign it's going to be (say the first adventure is one of your category tabs, name it that). Now you can just drag the all the story/npc/item entries from the giant module into this new campaign. When you get all of those tabs moved, export the "adventure" module. Repeat this process till your campaign has been split up into modules. Then start using adventure modules. :)

One thing you can do is build on the main campaign, then export part of it off as an adventure module periodically, removing it from the main campaign.

Another method of doing this would be to copy your campaign folder and renaming it, then opening the new one and deleting stuff before exporting to a module, but it sounds like you have a lot of stuff in there. :P

Make sure you make a backup copy of your entire campaign folder and put it in a safe spot on your computer, so that you won't lose anything by mistake.

Exporting adventure modules has gotten so simple now, there's really no reason not to. There's no funky magic needed to export your tokens anymore. All you do is type /export, name it, check all the categories and radial menu to Export. You don't even have to drag any tokens to export, unless they aren't attached to any of the NPCs in the module. (Like say an effect marker you made specific to the adventure.)

[adminwheel3]

Thanks for your reply on this Xorn - I finally have time and the game allows me to attempt this.

I have successfully exported my existing game into a module, created a new campaign and then opened the newly created module in the new campaign. All of the information is there.

Unfortunately I'm being challenged in pulling the story entries out of this bloated module and into something leaner.

I create a new group and just drag the entries that came from the module into the new group. They retain their little book icon indicating that they are from a module and when I close the module both the groups from the module and the entries in the new group which I created disappear. I've gone so far as to drag all of the story entries from their module-based group into a newly created group and then attempted to /export just the story entries. However the module created is only 1k and has no information.

Do I need to edit each module-based story entry and then copy/paste them into a new entry which isn't module-based?

[adminwheel3]

Additionally, when I export, I'm not getting any of the items or encounters successfully exported with the module. Just the story entries. Not a huge deal but I'd like to get them if possible.

Finally, how do I get the notes that the players have created from one campaign to another? Are those tied to the characters?

[ShadeRaven]

Xorn will probably be able to help you out in all of this easily, but here's some quick input from me.

1) Did you save your original bloated campaign? If you did, I would go open that up again and then just export those individual components to another new module. So take your story elements, and just export those alone to a story module. Your maps to a map module. Etc.

2) I would then do the same thing with items. And then encounters & personalities.

If there are ways to move items out of module and have them saved into other campaigns or modules, I just don't know.

Also, I am not sure how you can move notes, though, other than just cut-n-paste (toss them into a document then back again). There's probably more elegant means to do this directly.

[Xorn]

I'm streaming the Campaign Management tutorial as I type this. Hopefully it's helpful. PM me if it isn't.

[adminwheel3]

Blech - just spent 3 hours moving player notes via copy paste from one campaign to another.

Had to launch the old campaign and then connect locally with each character as I couldn't copy/paste their notes as the GM.