Module Organization

[Jharii]

Okay, I am currently in the process of scraping the entirety of DDI.

My question is, what is typically the best practice for organizing your modules so as to have best access to the material?

I.e. Is it best to keep Adventurer's Vault 1 and 2 separate, or is it best to combine the files and have a master "Item Vault" module. Basically, I am looking for tips and tricks.

Essentially, I would like to maintain one master module and then create a subset of modules based upon the specifics of my campaign. For instance, in one of the campaigns I run, magic is banned, so I would like to provide a Player's Module which contains only martial character information.

I may be overcomplicating this due to the scope, but any guidance is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Griogre]

This is a good question. The answer to a certain extent depends on the use of the modules and how much RAM you have available. The pro and cons of combining certain books are as follows:

Pro is simplicity.

Con, however it is only * simplicity* if it works. Having *every* module open at once even after the latest memory optimizations can force a computer with less than 4 Gigs of RAM to run on virtual memory. If this happens to be be the server then FG will slow to a crawl. If it is a player's computer then he will probably experience a lot of lag and likely will have connection issues when the server shares large amounts of data.

The server also has very little reason to have all the modules open if you drag your monsters and items into a module ahead of time. Also generally speaking a player tends to only need a few modules open so combining too much means he has to have a ton of information open and in memory when he is using a small fraction of the data.

So back to your original question, there is also a question of modularity. What if you play in a game that allows some books and not others? Combining everything together would make it difficult to pick out what is from one book and what is from another.

All that said it might make a lot of sense to combine certain books: AV and AV2 in particular as long as you think they will always be used in a pair. Same with PH and PH2 probably. PH3 some people might not use. Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms would probably be used together, but likewise not everyone will use Heroes of Shadow. A lot of it comes down to what you think you will use all the time - and in what combinations and if you expect to play in, or run a game that splits things out by books.

My advice would be to split things out at first unless you know they will always be used together, however once you get the scrape and building routine down it not that difficult so you can always go back and redo things easily. Also the parsed text files are very easy to combine into a larger module even after the scrape just by copy and pasting the text files together.

[Jharii]

Alright, thanks for the advice. Yeah, I get it. I think keeping each book in its own module has a definite advantage just for the fact that they are easier to browse through and they are easy enough to add individually as needed.

[Ictinike]

I have them all as individual and open as needed.

What I have done however for the base campaign is what was described and detailed in Xorn's 4E videos.

I have a base campaign that holds character sheets, base data and specifics to the group such as notes, partysheet extensions, etc however I build a complete module for specific adventures.

For example, I'll be starting H1 Keep on the Shadowfell tonight for my group of 7. I've gone over the past few weeks and completely made the story, images, combat encounters, etc in a brand new campaign and then export as a module. Once the session starts I'll let players connect to the head-end campaign (that with characters,etc described previously) then open the H1 module that was exported. This allows me to bring up the specific content at that time and has all the data within. Once we are done with H1 and move to something else, I'll have another module complete I can just open at will while closing the H1 module once done.

The advantages of this is your head-end campaign still has all the characters, data, etc but you can load and unload content at will when needed. I also have a module of random encounters fully built with all the data needed so if the group decides to do something out of the ordinary I can open those modules and run a session from the module data.

It works very well but make sure you mark those exported modules as GM only modules so they won't download to each player upon connection. Mark them with the red X for the module.

A bit of spastic typing above so I apologize and if none if this makes sense let me know and I can explain -or- check out the 4E campaign management video from Xorn on the site.

Cheers!
~Ictinike