Am i missing something?

[A Social Yeti]

Trying to wrap my brain around the FG content creation work flow for generating my own adventure content for a loaded paid for rule set(use 5e for example).

I have been over this https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?33538-Adventure-Module-Creation-Best-Practices to some extent and done some experimenting.

What is puzzling me is, if i am creating the adventure content, in chronological order using a story flow chart. Is it just required that i name each story entry so that it is alphabetically ordered to be the correct story event flow order in the list?

Is it actually such if i want a correct story list order that follows event chronology order in the adventure, there is no function in the FGU tool for that? We just have to plan it out in advance manually outside of FGU, keeping track of story order of events outside of FGU, and then give each in FGU entry a name that will place it alphabetically in the same exact order that the story events would happen in?

I'm just head scratching here as the FGU tool design obviously knows we're telling a story here. And the events of a story are most commonly set to a specific ordering from start to conclusion. And yet as best as i figure out the FGU tool seems to have no mechanical understanding of story chronological ordering in its content creation tools.
A rather puzzling design gap by my POV, for a tool explicitly intended to create and tell story content in.


Thanks in advance for any data on this you can provide.
Sorry if i am just dense and missing the obvious way to do that right in front of me.

[LordEntrails]

It depends. Using the default method then yes, you need to order your stories alphanumerically. This is why most adventures use a prefix numbering scheme (i.e. chapters) such as ; 01.01, 01.02, ... 01.15, 02.01... 11.01... etc.

Doing that then the story list will sort in the intended order and the automatic next/previous buttons will work as desired. Or, you can make a story entry and place links in it in any order you want.

Don't forget, many RPG stories are not told until the adventure is played, and the adventures may very well not be linear.

[A Social Yeti]

I can't forget it, i been GMing a long time now.

It is that open world sandboxy games, are challenging to track all the things that may be going on in them, and how they may relate in aggregate or branching outcomes to each other.

That seemingly common RPG table situation, made me imagine a tool designed for that. I assumed it would include some kind of flowchart/high lvl POV info tool, for event and people relationship understanding. Something that goes a little deeper than what amounts to, all the logic and workflow control is just my brain as logic circuit, for naming in a way that will alphabetically be the closest thing to that flow i can get in the FGU tool to do.


i do find the design of FGU a bit puzzling at times for what it did think to help with on the GM side and what it seemingly had no awareness of about what is common for the "GM's heavy lifting" at an RPG table that would be very useful to help out with.

Imagine the "story" section not as a linear alphabetical list of stuff, but a flow chart of branching if/then outcomes instead, that can aggregate into each other as they go off.
Or in list form, as a outline appearance. Where the event is the top level but the sub-options a-x are the potential state it is in when the players arrive based on thee if/then aggregate of previous events outcomes.


I see obvious column data being presented as columned data, and am entirely flustered at the lack of end user ability to control the column sort order.
Nor any data column or two, dedicated to some if/then relationship data points for making direct connections of meaning, rather than just links to other stuff that GM is still the calorie power logic circuit tracking all the if/then state changes they have to manually implement.


I'm a long term sondboxy GM generating the vast majority of the world content. That's why the content creation tool questions are more important to me than the automation mechanics of ruining the content are.

[GavinRuneblade]

The Fantasy Grounds story works ok for this. You can put all kinds of direct links to other story entries.

The trick is to keep each entry minimal, don't explain everything about all the factions on a single story page, like you would a chapter in a book. Instead make an intro page, and give each faction multiple story entries of their own. drop links to these all through them wherever an if/then applies. Add links to the NPCs to the Images you're using, etc.

Instead of a flow chart, I've found Alexandrian's node system works for me. He likes to keep it simple in his examples, but there is a point where he shows one of his games and how complex the relationships actually are. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach

[Zacchaeus]

If you look at Storm Kings Thunder or Waterdeep Dragon Heist you'll see examples of branching story lines. In both those modules there is a flowchart which has pins to the relevant story entries. the flowchart itself is graphical and you could draw up any kind of image or find one on the web (or even export something out from Excel or similar) and use that as your master index using pins to direct you to the area or adventure hook or whatever. These pins should go to an index page from which any story or information can be linked.

[LordEntrails]

Yep, use an image and put story pins on it, or create a nested table and then put links to the story pages in it.

[Ckorik]

I had a hard time with this also until I got a module made by Danny Stratton. He had the answer and I've used it for my own stuff to great success.

Each entry gets a number - each chapter is a number :

1.00.00 - Chapter 1
1.00.01 - Chapter 1 Plot 1
1.00.02 - Chapter 1 Plot 2
1.01.00 - Chapter 1 Sub Area 1

etc.

Now your entries will line up - and you can adjust as needed.

[Trenloe]

If you have more than 9 of something remember to use 01, 02, etc. for the first nine entries so that they order correctly, even the first (chapter) number.

[A Social Yeti]

If you look at Storm Kings Thunder or Waterdeep Dragon Heist you'll see examples of branching story lines. In both those modules there is a flowchart which has pins to the relevant story entries. the flowchart itself is graphical and you could draw up any kind of image or find one on the web (or even export something out from Excel or similar) and use that as your master index using pins to direct you to the area or adventure hook or whatever. These pins should go to an index page from which any story or information can be linked.

This is kind of what i was originally attempting to look for and ask about. I'd be real sure that "flow chart" was not made entirely from scratch manually in the FG app. It was probably made using a flow chart app that facilitates creation of complicated flow charts for such branching aggregate story lines. Like i already use for the previous "era" of content creation GM work i been doing. And i had imagined that anyone mkaing a tool for GMing whit would not have skimped out the content creation side of the tool needs and overly focused just on GM run the game side of things.

I had imagined a GM's unified tool kit would be a great evolutionary advancement to get in on. But this design seems far more just about GM's running the game(yeah i'm still gonna buy it for that). With content creators still being a separate group of people using a separate set of tools (no unified kit) to do the content creation work, and then transferring all that into the FG system as a content "post production" step to actually creating the content.

An incorporated flow chart tool that fascinates this was what i was looking for originally as that made a whole lot of design sense to me anyway. From the POV of a GM buying a GM tool far more than a player buying a player tool.
So 20+ years of GMing, and these are my expectations for anything that seems to want to sell itself on the basis of being a better GM tool, than the collection of apps i already have. When it comes to the creation of content side of GMing.

particularly as FGU is just optional to anyone that already has that collection of tools and knows how to use any free online program for communications/screen share and RNG checks.

I had imagined the design direction of FGU to be way more aimed at GMs on the whole, than at GMs running premade modules and not generally doing much of their own content creation.

But the more i dig into it, the more i find the deign left a whole lot of room for custom made content, but it does little to nothing to facilitate that content creation for anyone not up on their manual coding work or puzzling out workarounds for getting X functionality out of the FGU system somehow.
Like how to recreate a flow chart in a system that does not mechanically know what a flow cart is, or how to facilitate the creation of one.

This is not to be a rag on for FGU, but product descriptions do lead to expectations. I wonder how it was i imaged FGU was going to be a tool kit for content creator GMs as much as it was a tool to run Hasbro made modules?

It is one of the red flags of today's product market we consumers do have to be weary of. The claim of a bit too much indavdually customization, often just really means: whatever xhtml can do that you know how to program, you can do.
That is equivalent to selling a ream of blank paper, and calling it the, Crete the next best seller kit.

If the product itself can, but in on way facilitates the process of...exactly what kind of feature is that?

here buy this hammer i am selling. It* never misses a nail head.

*: note if hammer missed nail head that has nothign to do with the hammer, it is your own fault.

[SilentRuin]

This is kind of what i was originally attempting to look for and ask about. I'd be real sure that "flow chart" was not made entirely from scratch manually in the FG app. It was probably made using a flow chart app that facilitates creation of complicated flow charts for such branching aggregate story lines. Like i already use for the previous "era" of content creation GM work i been doing. And i had imagined that anyone mkaing a tool for GMing whit would not have skimped out the content creation side of the tool needs and overly focused just on GM run the game side of things.

I had imagined a GM's unified tool kit would be a great evolutionary advancement to get in on. But this design seems far more just about GM's running the game(yeah i'm still gonna buy it for that). With content creators still being a separate group of people using a separate set of tools (no unified kit) to do the content creation work, and then transferring all that into the FG system as a content "post production" step to actually creating the content.

An incorporated flow chart tool that fascinates this was what i was looking for originally as that made a whole lot of design sense to me anyway. From the POV of a GM buying a GM tool far more than a player buying a player tool.
So 20+ years of GMing, and these are my expectations for anything that seems to want to sell itself on the basis of being a better GM tool, than the collection of apps i already have. When it comes to the creation of content side of GMing.

particularly as FGU is just optional to anyone that already has that collection of tools and knows how to use any free online program for communicators/screen share and RNG checks.

I had imagined the design direction of FGU to be way more aimed at GMs on the whole, than at GMs running premade modules and not generally doing much of their own content creation.

But the more i dig into it, the more i find the deign left a whole lot of room for custom made content, but it does little to nothing to facilitate that content creation for anyone not up on their manual coding work or puzzling out workarounds for getting X functionality out of the FGU system somehow.
Like how to recreate a flow chart in a system that is does not mechanically know what a flow cart is or how to facilitate the creation of one.

This is not to be a rag on for FGU, but product descriptions do lead to expectations. I wonder how it was i imaged FGU was going to be a tool kit for content creator GMs as much as it was a tool to run Hasbro made modules?

It is one of the red flags of today's product market we consumers do have to be weary of. The claim of a bit too much indavdually customization, often just really means: whatever xhtml can do that you know how to program, you can do.
That is equivalent to selling a ream of blank paper, and calling it the, Crete the next best seller kit.

If the product itself can, but in on way facilitates the process of...exactly what kind of feature is that?

here buy this hammer i am selling. It* never misses a nail head.

*: note if hammer missed nail head that has nothign to do with the hammer, it is your own fault.

I think you read more into it than I did when I looked into FGU. Not sure how you came up with that interpretation - but it's not some seamless unified product for creators and GM. GM's can be creators - for sure I add in images (token/maps-LOS), storyline, etc. on the fly in my campaign every week as part of prep work for my canned bought Curse of Strahd module. It can be a lot of work but adds flavor into FGU interpretation of it. And if I want to make an extension - it has very little to do with FGU the product and everything to do with unity dev document, notepad++, unpacking and searching through existing lua and xml code, and using the FG forums here to ask questions. For absolute sure its not some unified product in the actual FGU product to do that sort of thing. Nor did I come into this with some misconception on that point that it was.

Can I build my own maps, tokens, storyline content, and tie them all together in FGU? Sure.

Albert Einstein never manage to come up with a unified field theory in physics, and FGU (and other products I'm aware of) have not found a unified codeset for creators, GM's and players. Just tools.

If you thought otherwise, you were mistaken.

And if you found some other product that managed to do it? Go for it! Because that will be impressive.

[A Social Yeti]

I think you read more into it than I did when I looked into FGU. Not sure how you came up with that interpretation - but it's not some seamless unified product for creators and GM. GM's can be creators - for sure I add in images (token/maps-LOS), storyline, etc. on the fly in my campaign every week as part of prep work for my canned bought Curse of Strahd module. It can be a lot of work but adds flavor into FGU interpretation of it. And if I want to make an extension - it has very little to do with FGU the product and everything to do with unity dev document, notepad++, unpacking and searching through existing lua and xml code, and using the FG forums here to ask questions. For absolute sure its not some unified product in the actual FGU product to do that sort of thing. Nor did I come into this with some misconception on that point that it was.

Can I build my own maps, tokens, storyline content, and tie them all together in FGU? Sure.

Albert Einstein never manage to come up with a unified field theory in physics, and FGU (and other products I'm aware of) have not found a unified codeset for creators, GM's and players. Just tools.

If you thought otherwise, you were mistaken.

And if you found some other product that managed to do it? Go for it! Because that will be impressive.



I probably used "unified tool kit' in a way that allowed you to include more in that to had imagined.
I would not have imagined any kind of significant art/draw app tool.

I was meaning to describe the story work. Events flow, and character relationship stuff. The stuff that really facilitates to create and hold onto all the threads of a complicated story/world.
And how the system that is a database of columned data, has no end user functional to allow them to control the organization of that data.


So "unified kit" did not mean to say every single tool i ever use to get from an idea in my head to the table for players. It meant to say, unify the structure and story organizational aspects of content creation for the GM.
And importantly on this one, In a module like Out of the Abyss. Where the GM picks some of the stuff to do and maybe not all of it and that's not stuff laid out in an explicit time line flow, but it will in fact be experienced by the players in an explicit time line flow.
Then being able to have events ordered one way in one window for the GM while being ordered in a time line flow of events for the players in another window would be really useful.

And if this one capacity is in, the functionality required for it is present to be leveraged for many otehr uses too.




Does this sound a reasonable deign concept:

For DnD 5e, all the info a typical GM and player group could ever need or want is by far more of the time most intuitive and organizational quick to retrieve, if all that data is only ever displayed by a single column of data in a fixed 0-1, A-Z order?

OR
might a GM and players find it useful to be able to control the information flow/ordering in whatever way works best for them?


I can't exactly say that a GM only having the data from an epic module in a statically fixed alphabetical order seems nearly as useful as being able to order the display of information as a flow of time line events to the players.
Or that only seeing any of the data groups, maps, NPCs, etc only by the one alphabetical name is really all that useful. The grouping type aspects helps a little but not nearly as much as actuality getting order control. BY any column of data.

And it is basiaclly that FG seems to not take advantage of what a data base is and can do, to better facilitate the work of a GM and the display of data to the players.

That's maybe more of what i am noticing, we are a database and so a lot of functionality of story flow and event/character relationships and data display organization could be here, and would be really useful as a GM (both in running and creating), but the design seems to have explicitly eschewed those functions.

[SilentRuin]

I probably used "unified tool kit' in a way that allowed you to include more in that to had imagined.
I would not have imagined any kind of significant art/draw app tool.

I was meaning to describe the story work. Events flow, and character relationship stuff. The stuff that really facilitates to create and hold onto all the threads of a complicated story/world.
And how the system that is a database of columned data, has no end user functional to allow them to control the organization of that data.


So "unified kit" did not mean to say every single tool i ever use to get from an idea in my head to the table for players. It meant to say, unify the structure and story organizational aspects of content creation for the GM.
And importantly on this one, In a module like Out of the Abyss. Where the GM picks some of the stuff to do and maybe not all of it and that's not stuff laid out in an explicit time line flow, but it will in fact be experienced by the players in an explicit time line flow.
Then being able to have events ordered one way in one window for the GM while being ordered in a time line flow of events for the players in another window would be really useful.

And if this one capacity is in, the functionality required for it is present to be leveraged for many otehr uses too.




Does this sound a reasonable deign concept:

For DnD 5e, all the info a typical GM and player group could ever need or want is by far more of the time most intuitive and organizational quick to retrieve, if all that data is only ever displayed by a single column of data in a fixed 0-1, A-Z order?

OR
might a GM and players find it useful to be able to control the information flow/ordering in whatever way works best for them?


I can't exactly say that a GM only having the data from an epic module in a statically fixed alphabetical order seems nearly as useful as being able to order the display of information as a flow of time line events to the players.
Or that only seeing any of the data groups, maps, NPCs, etc only by the one alphabetical name is really all that useful. The grouping type aspects helps a little but not nearly as much as actuality getting order control. BY any column of data.

And it is basiaclly that FG seems to not take advantage of what a data base is and can do, to better facilitate the work of a GM and the display of data to the players.

Fair enough on the "unified tool kit" clarification.

As far as the timeline organization - having done storylines and such in FGU for my own players - I'm not sure what you mean. The toolkit they provide is driven largely by text and links. My timeline - when I make my story lines - is based on how I link my stories and images together within the text. And by link I mean image/map/other storytext/NPC stat block/encounters/parcels/tables/etc. The timeline on how that is all linked together is in how I put down the sequence of links and story text.

So I probably need clarification on what you mean by them providing flow/ordering. I mean, as the designer of my story/module whatever you want to call it - only I know the timeline, sequence of events, or possible branches in the storyline. How I put the links and to what and where they lead is how the timeline or potential branching of my adventure happens. I admit I'm not much on the random directions of branching of story so mine are more action oriented than some table generated link that determines the next part of the story - but nothing says you can't make your links do and lead where and how you want them to carry the story forward.

I guess I'm not sure how any "tool" could do that for me. I have to do those things. And there are too many variables on where I might want to take the story line or how I want to do it - to make any single tool to do it for me. The text/links pretty much are up to me to use and design things the way I want them to go.

So really still not sure on the toolkit your wanting here. For sure there are extensions I've read about that make the organization aspect easier for GM's - I've not really looked at those much though as I prefer to have my own clear path and branches the way I want them.

[A Social Yeti]

The "high lvl POV' tool is what i would say i am trying to describe here.

When you do this:
"The timeline on how that is all linked together is in how I put down the sequence of links and story text. "

You are at the details lvl of the story flow.
You can't see from this POV what the out in the future advance branches are you have to click all the way through to them for the single detailed events.

So how was it you were doing the, put it in the game, in the right order part? How was it you were keeping track of that higher lvl POV that helps you know when and where what branches in one stage are going to be related to something else much later on down the line?

However it is you are doing that is all on you, this FG tool is not helping facilitate that aspect of the process. And that high lvl POV can really help a lot in the creation process of complicated big wold story lines that have many interacting threads, lots of if/then story flow statements. And a very basic type of flow chart lay out tool is what would help with that. And the branching ticks the players do and do not do can easily pipe into a displayed time line order of events for everyone to have.

[LordEntrails]

If someone wanted to make the graphics, or find them elsewhere, you could easily use FGU images to make a flow chart. All you would need are some boxes / ovals / diamonds to place around, connect them with arrows and them put text in them (and you could them even place pins to story details etc as links).

[SilentRuin]

The "high lvl POV' tool is what i would say i am trying to describe here.

When you do this:
"The timeline on how that is all linked together is in how I put down the sequence of links and story text. "

You are at the details lvl of the story flow.
You can't see from this POV what the out in the future advance branches are you have to click all the way through to them for the single detailed events.

So how was it you were doing the, put it in the game, in the right order part? How was it you were keeping track of that higher lvl POV that helps you know when and where what branches in one stage are going to be related to something else much later on down the line?

However it is you are doing that is all on you, this FG tool is not helping facilitate that aspect of the process. And that high lvl POV can really help a lot in the creation process of complicated big wold story lines that have many interacting threads, lots of if/then story flow statements. And a very basic type of flow chart lay out tool is what would help with that. And the branching ticks the players do and do not do can easily pipe into a displayed time line order of events for everyone to have.

I am a DM (I refuse to use the term GM). A "story" is a section that tells a story weaves an adventure. How the over arching adventure plays out - the world if you would - is tied together by links on a map - which in turn is tied together by story text with the links to the map(s). You are correct that the interactions are up to me and how I design them or what discreet story pieces I weave together in the timeline of my choosing (actions usually I as stated).

I can see how a high lvl POV would be interesting in seeing how the overall story worked - but as a DM - its not really my concern when I start the adventure. I have a point with branches. The players or past actions and current actions determine what branches are available to go in. I'm in the moment. I'm playing out the game. I don't need or want an interesting high lvl POV to show me where things will potentially go if they take this particular path - because If I've done my job right - that will be like a genealogy tree of life with too many branches all being in a rather fixed historical perspective as if you've already followed those paths. If that's how you like running your adventures - then I suppose a tool like that would be interesting and give you and idea of how it was all laid out. But you'd still have to traverse it all if you wanted to understand it all. So one way or another - as a DM - I'm going to have to understand the entire arc of storylines by looking at them all - or... live in the moment. And make sure they are linked and branched together so that when my adventurers choose a path whether it be fixed, based on past actions, based on current actions, or simple random choice - it smoothly leads me to the information I need to take them their and play it out. That is storyline and links and how they mesh together.

I'm running curse of strahd right now for example, and I had to first understand the various storylines that were in it - then add my own storyline links and maps to flesh out a better transition so during live gameplay I did not have to try and look everything up on the fly. Ideally - a module would be smoothly done in its transitions and information available at game time. But nothing will ever allow you, as a DM, not to do prep work before each session. Or not in my experience anyway. So while a high lvl POV would be interesting if I were shopping for some module to see in a high level overview where it went - it would not help me at go live time.

Or if I were designing my own adventure - as the key to that would be how I wove my branching's and transitions together. Story text and links.

You might look into extensions as there may be something out there already - but I don't really know as I have no real interest in the overview aspect. My priorities are how hard or easy the branches and transitions have been done with information (maps/encounters/parcels/etc.) readily available during live play.