Dark Sun Campaign setup

[Raddu]

How do you run and setup your campaigns? Check out the blog where I talk about how I setup and run Dark Sun games online using Fantasy Grounds

https://www.patreon.com/posts/dark-sun-28524447

[Valyar]

Since I discovered the beauty of Fantasy Grounds, I have run several campaigns and short adventures. In time, the way I handle the various aspect of running the game have changed, so today the "workflow" and setup is like that:

All preparation of adventure/campaign is done first in Realm Works (RW). This campaign organizer made GM-ing fun again and I have uploaded all books I plan to use for a game system there. Everything is at glance, beautiful and easy to use. Also I can control the font size, something that plagues me in FG extremely much, especially on high-dpi monitor... And no, scaling is not working good.

Next, I am preparing the Fantasy Ground. If there is existing ruleset this is great, otherwise I have to spend some time to skin/mod existing if necessary. Then I create the Player/GM modules, transferring the content to RW. As everything is already prepared and formatted in RW, moving it to FG is a breeze. It is also much more time efficient than trying to put things directly into FG, as the formatting tools in RW are superior in all aspects. I also create the necessary content such as NPCs, Items related to the adventure, again transferring things from RW. This is on need-to-do basis, I don't waste time. Here is a showcase of Forbidden Lands https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?48177-Forbidden-Lands-gameplay-showcase

Then I am preparing the tokens, images and maps, using TokenTool and MapTools. I am also fan of Gabriel Pickard's works and I have a lot of his map packs, purchased unfortunately from Roll20. If something must be modified - resized, cropped or things removed I use Paint.net or GIMP, depending on the activity.

We are not using video, so I am hosting my games on Discord. I have second copy of it (PTB version) running in parallel that is configured for music/ambience/sounds. I don't use the Voicemeeter anymore, because second copy of discord works better - the players can tune the volume up and down, or even mute the sound-only account. Also less things to do on the background.

Preparing a campaign is great pleasure with all those tools and now when I have mastered the process preparation for a session takes much less time.

[Raddu]

Then I create the Player/GM modules, transferring the content to RW. As everything is already prepared and formatted in RW, moving it to FG is a breeze. It is also much more time efficient than trying to put things directly into FG, as the formatting tools in RW are superior in all aspects.

Can you explain this a bit more? How is it more efficient when you "transfer content" you're just copying and pasting right? Don't you still have to do the formatting in Fantasy Grounds?

[Valyar]

Can you explain this a bit more? How is it more efficient when you "transfer content" you're just copying and pasting right? Don't you still have to do the formatting in Fantasy Grounds?
Yes, I copy and paste the content from RW to FG. The formatting in FG is simply the style using the hotkeys and it is damn fast once the paragraphs, newlines, bullets and headers are arranged properly in RW.

Copy PDF>FG might be faster than PDF>RW>FG in some occasions, but not that much. I find RW has much much more added value than FG as Campaign Organizer, Adventure planner and simply one-stop shop for everything from system to setting information. I try to use the right tool for the job.

[Nylanfs]

PDF's have VERY bad formatting unless done right.

[Valyar]

PDF's have VERY bad formatting unless done right.
Absolutely. The best PDFs so far are from Modiphius and the Free League publishing. The people who do the layout of and the structure are simply great. So easy to copy to RW.

Worst are the scanned from DT like Cyberpunk 2020 or others where without pro subscription copying the text omits or replaces i,f and other symbols.