How much do you split your campaign into modules?

[Valhingen]

So we used FG now for 4 months (1 session per month, 8-9 players, 5E) and its been great, couldnt imagine a better tool to run this online!

However, since I want a somewhat clean, structured start before I go into adding too many monsters, maps, story elements, items etc, I would like to hear advise on how others do this.

For example, do you have a seperate "monster manual" that holds ALL monsters for your campaign and always import it into a given session?
Do you just import the monsters you need by dragging them into your adventure/campaign module and closing your monster manual?

How about other things like items?

I would rather have some of you suggest a good long-term structure before I allow it to grow into some uncontrollable (or too large) mess :)

[Trenloe]

I split the majority of the campaign info into modules, so they can be enabled as needed and removed when they are no longer needed. There is no need to drag the creatures, items, etc. from modules directly into your campaign unless you need to modify them before adding them to an encounter or charsheet inventory. Otherwise, just keep them in the modules, have links to the module record in your organisational story entries if you need to; but then just use the module link when required - for creatures, temporary records copied from the library record will be created for each creature when they are added to the combat tracker; and the same occurs for items added to a PC inventory (they're copied when you drag them to the inventory on the character sheet or add an items to a treasure parcel).

You can go a step further and organise your whole campaign data in modules (using the module export functionality) with story entries, maps/images, custom NPC and items, encounters, treasure parcels and tables and tokens all being able to be combined within a module that you can close when no longer needed.

Note, the above is for rulesets built on top of CoreRPG (3.5E, Pathfinder, 4E, 5E, Call of Cthulhu, Castles & Crusades, Savage Worlds, Numenera and some others), some non-CoreRPG based rulesets might handle copying of data or references of links slightly differently in certain areas.

It's been around for a while, but Xorn's Campaign Management video in the Game System Tutorials -> 4E section of the Wiki Videos (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Videos) page is excellent - don't worry that it says 4E it's 95% relevant to Fantasy Grounds in general.

[Griogre]

I am another that generally only keeps characters in the main campaign, everything else is modules.

The one thing I do differently from Xorn is I keep treasure parcels in the main campaign as well so I have a list of all magic items in the main campaign. I usually do the parcels for each level and the delete the parcels when the party moves on to the next level. I do copy over the magic items out of the library into the base campaign so if a player accidentally deletes something I can redrop it and so I have a list of the party's magic items specific to that campaign.

I started doing this for magic items after having a hard time in long running campaigns figuring out where a magic item came from. I also typically put a note in the item which scenario and location it came from.

[dulux-oz]

I have a Monster Manual, and Magic Item Catalogue, etc, etc, etc. Then when I'm creating my Adventures I copy the individual Monster Entries, etc, over to each Adventure or adventure group (I'll explain this in a moment).

I tend to run multi-year campaigns, so I have a "Master Module" for the Campaign than contains the overall Campaign Plotline, an expected Timeline, the Campaign Background Information, any (high-level) Maps for the Campaign and anything else that is Campaign-focussed as a whole.

I then break the Campaign into "Acts": a set of related adventures that form major divisions within the Campaign (again, I'll explain this further later on). Each Act is a Module and each has a link back to the Campaign Module. Each Act contains Act-related information, including Background Information relevant to the Act, a set of generic Monsters that are used within the Act, plus any recurring NPCs that are relevant for the Act, the expected Timeline for the Act (a sub-set of the Campaign's Timeline), Maps for the Adventures within the Act, and so on. Each of these forms a Chapter within the Act.

Each Act is then broken into a number of other Chapters: each of these is an Adventure (the same amount of information as contained in a pre-purchased paper module/adventure). Sometime an Adventure, due to the way it's structured, becomes two (or more) Chapters within my Act, but all of an Act's Chapters/Adventures are related. If an NPC or Monster is one-off/unique to that Adventure/Chapter then that's the only place I have them (unless its a generic NPC/Monster, in which case they will be in the Act's Monsters/Recurring NPC's Chapter.

I also have a separate Module that contains information, etc, about the Campaign World that isn't directly Campaign or Act related - all the background info that I can use for ANY Campaign or Adventure set in my Campaign World.

Finally, if I'm running two or more groups through different Campaigns in the same world as each other at the same time I have an "Interaction Diary" where I record what happens to each group when and how that might effect the other group - for eg, if Group 1 route an Orc invasion Group 2 might have to content with a routed army or Orcs moving past their home village.

Now, when I'm GMing, I only have open the actual Act that we are currently doing, and sometimes the Campaign Module as well (but not always). This way I have all of the relevant Encounters, Background Story, Monsters, recurring NPCs, one-off NPCs, Treasure, you name it - I have all of it close at hand and yet I don't have so much information loaded that I can't find anything.

So, an example is probably in order about now: let's take Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Saga as our example - if you haven't read this the you need to: its really good fantasy fiction.

OK, so if I was running a group of Players through this then I'd break the Campaign into four Acts: two to cover Magician and one each for Silverthorn and Darkness At Sethanon. The logical place to break Magician is the point where Pug is taken to Kelewan (where the book actually breaks the story).

Then, logically, each chapter or set of chapters in each book becomes my Chapter/Adventure in each of my Acts, depending on how the story actually flows. To these I add my Timelines, Monsters, NPCs, Treasure, etc Chapters.

I hope that gives you a few ideas.

Cheers

[Valhingen]

Thanks for all the feedback! Now lets see..

@Trenloe
I watched that video (its excellent aside of horrid sound and picture quality) and I get the idea. However, its also quite overwhelming. See, in the many years I DMed (on paper) I never, ever used a published module.
Usually my preparation for a session is to have some text structure (Into, Chapter 1, Chapter 2) which is not even meant to go directly to the PCs, maybe 1 or 2 combat maps, 1 or 2 pictures (display only), monsters, items.
This FG group I run is 8 (sometimes 9) players and a typical session runs 6+ hours with usually only 2 fights because they tend to get rather large - in 5E you really need to add numbers when party is that size.
What I'm saying is that I will probably never have that level of detail shown in the video. Though I learned some neat things that way and I like Jasons approach there.

@Griogre
Since 5E favors very few magic items (our group of 8 chars at level 3-4 so far has 1 magical sword and a few arrows), I agree that its probably best I keep that in the campaign module in addition to chars, yes.

@dulux-oz
Your approach sounds both, confusing (not wrong or bad mind you) and impressive :) In the good old days of paper RPG my "adventure" session preparation sometimes meant having a piece of paper with 2-3 lines of text and thats it. (with being new to both, 5E and FG I feel I want a lot more of course).

Maybe one additional concern. So I am new to FG, got the ultimate version only late last year, never before used it as a player either so I dont know its "history". Given that such a structure like creating full monster manuals and catalogues seems really for the long haul, is there any compatibilty concern for the future? Like, will there be an FG3? The one thing I had prefered would be if all this data were .txt ... if I to use this for years to come, I do get a bit nervous when the files seem so specific. Do I worry too much here? :)

[damned]

Valhingen if you are not using a commercial ruleset or one with OGL with all/most of the data inputed already I would only input the data as you need it.

For my game prep - when im organised I do it all in an external campaign and export it as a module and use it in game.
When I dont have the time I do teh following:
1. create/source the required maps
2. create/source/copy the required NPCs. over time you will create less and less NPCs. Those bandits you used last session - well they're recurring over at least the next 2 sessions of this story arc. and even then i can copy one and rename him and edit him and turn him into a caravan guard or smuggler or some merchants henchman with far less effort than typing these up from scratch
3. create 2-4 encounters for todays session. anything I dont use might get used next week, next month or maybe it doesnt get used but it is there if I need something in a hurry

thats it. thats all Ill prep when I dont have much time. the rest - the story especially - deliver it by voice just like you would around the table.
you dont have to plan and prep a whole story arc and bestiary before you get to roll any dice.

have fun!


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[Nylanfs]

Maybe one additional concern. So I am new to FG, got the ultimate version only late last year, never before used it as a player either so I dont know its "history". Given that such a structure like creating full monster manuals and catalogues seems really for the long haul, is there any compatibilty concern for the future? Like, will there be an FG3? The one thing I had prefered would be if all this data were .txt ... if I to use this for years to come, I do get a bit nervous when the files seem so specific. Do I worry too much here? :)

I'll take a stab at this, think about it this way. There are three people at Smiteworks, they have a LOT of published adventures and such in their store. If they make any changes to their file system they have to update ALL those to make it work with the new paradigm. So I'm going to say that unless the new system is going to grant massive benifits they aren't going to change it. And they haven't changed it for the past 6 years.

And they are working on a FG3 on the Unity engine, timeframe unannounced though.

[Trenloe]

@Trenloe
I watched that video (its excellent aside of horrid sound and picture quality) and I get the idea. However, its also quite overwhelming. See, in the many years I DMed (on paper) I never, ever used a published module.
Usually my preparation for a session is to have some text structure (Into, Chapter 1, Chapter 2) which is not even meant to go directly to the PCs, maybe 1 or 2 combat maps, 1 or 2 pictures (display only), monsters, items.
What's great about Fantasy Grounds is that you use it how you wish. Xorn's video shows you most (all?) of the options available to you - just use the ones that work for you. If you're a minimum prep GM then great - just enter your notes in one or more story entries (you can link other story entries from a main Table of Contents story entry) and then link any other items you might need from the story entries, such as maps, NPCs, encounters, etc..

Just like virtually every GM in a face-to-face game has their own preparation style and how they organise info, you'll have your own preferences. Don't try to be rigid in what you do - take bits from various people's own process and develop a process that works for you. This will take a while as you'll discover more and more about Fantasy Grounds and develop your own GMing style within the application - this will also be impacted by the style of your players.

Regarding data - unless you're using some very obscure community ruleset, then you're data will be usable for the foreseeable future. It is actually stored in text files (using XML) so you're always going to be able to back it up and get access to the raw data. So don't worry about suddenly being unable to access your data.

[viresanimi]

For me it really depends on the kind of campaign I am running.

In a D&D campaign, I've made dungeons as modules, since this is pretty much: "We do this, and we never return" so the material is not relevant in the long run. On the other hand, in my Vampire: The Masquerade campaign I have everything in the campaign. The story centers around a specific geographical area, so all the npc's and locations keep being relevant.


Vires Animi

[Mirloc]

As a rule, I have the Core adventure which is what is loaded to store characters.

Treasure, World, Adventure are all loadable modules making it easy to Swap in/out information as I need it without digging through piles and piles of outdated information. Plus it keeps the XML files from becoming unruly.

As an example I am currently prepping a new game:
"Core-EQRPG" is the (currently) blank Campaign file.
"NPC-RQRPG" is a list of all prominent NPCs as I set them up initially.
"Treasure-EQRPG" is all of the equipment (armor, mounts, weapons, magic items, etc)
"Monster-EQRPG" is my list of all monsters.
"World-EQRPG" is all of the world information (towns, merchants, etc)
"ADV001-EQRPG" is the initial adventure, including the maps, dungeons, and what not that the players are going to interact with.

As a side note, I do have a personal notes that contain a short blurb on what "ADV001-EQRPG" actually is: Maps, Settings, Storyline, Weather, and of course Encounters pre-prepped with the map.

All in all this is a great way to keep organized, and to allow me to 'revisit' an adventure path. For example, I had a party want to re-enter an old dungeon. Easy to do, load the appropriate ADVxxx-EQRPG, and then on the fly make a few new encounters.