PoTA module setup question

[Draca]

Hey i was skimming through my Princes of the Apocalypse hardback making notes and i thought id make annotations in my notes to what number was referenced in the module itself.
Example: 3.00 Chapter 3: Secret of the Sumber Hills

So as i got started i looked at one chapter to understand how the module broke up the chapters, so i could sit down and watch tv and put my notes in.
So far it looks like that the main chapters and the sub chapters that were underlined all get their own story entry. And the chapters that follow underlined chapters that do not have an underline are part of the underlined chapter above it.

But i noticed some, did not follow this format..

For example in chapter 1
Starting the adventure is underlined, but the following underlined chapters below it are still part of that chapter, instead of a separate story reference.
These are : Preparing for play, Using the Monster References, Using the side treks.

In Chapter 2 Red Larch is a Header Chapter, and the Important red larchers is an underlined chapter , but its still under the same story link.
And Exploring the valley an underlined chapter , has travel under it , even though its underlined.

Can someone explain to me the method used to separate the story entries , because i am missing it .

Its really not a big deal , but unless i sit at the computer and reference the story numbers, i cant make my notes.

Anyway , with all that being said , I want to also say that " I am SOOOOOO glad i bought this module , it is very well put together, a good quality and if your like me and have limited time to spend setting things up , the modules are WELL worth the money.

[TASagent]

I can't speak to PotA in particular, but I recently finished making Out of the Abyss, and I might be able to help you understand what goes into making the module.

Let me start by saying that they will not be the same. There is not a unique mapping you can use to take the book and predict the location of the FG story record. The concerns you have when making a book, and a VTT reference are rather different. Some layouts don't look unusual in a book, but would stand out in FG. For example, there are some chapters that have one heading, one sub headings, and then a dozen subsubheadings. When you're reading a book you don't even really notice this, but if you're making a hierarchical document that you want to be easily referenceable, it would be stupid to have one page with one link to one page with one link to one page with a dozen headings. Many times the heading hierarchy doesn't even make sense. In other words, you need to adapt the books to suit the format. Sometimes you promote a subheading to be a new heading, sometimes you turn an existing heading into the intro to a subheading's table of contents, etc.

Unfortunately, I think that means the answer to your question is it won't be trivial to 'decode' where you'll find the page. But hopefully you appreciate that changes were made to ultimately make it easier on the end user.

Oh, and every once in a while the writer of the module might have changed his mind about the hierarchy he wanted to use on a section, but not gone through and manually renamed every section of the chapter to make the story node titles fit perfectly... Just sayin'...

[Draca]

Wasnt sure if i was missing some kind of format . Thanks for the response.
So what i did is go through and copy paste all the reference links for each chapter , that way i can print it and use it offline for notes.

[TASagent]

Yeah, typically the order of story records in the story window itself will faithfully replicate the order of the content in the book. So just having the list of story record titles should help you figure out where everything goes.

[Trenloe]

When I create (and review/edit) full modules for distribution I add links to the previous and next sections within each story record - this makes it easy to navigate through the story records, as if you were reading the book itself. Not everyone has access to a PDF/physical book (and/or doesn't want to buy two products) so making an FG module easier to sit down and read through as if you had the original product is a boon.

Some further info on module creation in this document I put together for AaW adventure conversion: https://www.dropbox.com/s/di3nqy12089885k/Adventureaweek%20-%20FG%20conversion%20notes%20V3.pdf?dl=0 The bottom of page 4 references the previous/next section navigation links.

And, as TASagent mentions, sometimes the original document just won't "fit nice" within FG - this is especially true if there are lots of sidebars, etc..

[Draca]

Awesome thanks for the info.
Once i figured out what sub chapters didnt have their own story link , i was able to easily make reference notes that i can use anytime.