a module or adventure editor

[Sgain]

Hi all;

I just picked up FG about a week ago and really like what I've seen so far except one thing; creating modules or adventures. Frankly, I don't like to use xml (I don't know how and haven't got the time to learn) and would prefer an editor that allowed me to cut and paste dialog and such from my other modules without me having to re-type it all.

I'm a bit shocked that an editor wasn't included in the full version of the game since most DM's I know always want to create their own adventures or 'mod' other folks modules and make them their own. I noticed a lot of discussion about a ruleset editor, which I think is fine for those who like to play with those things, but I would think that there would be more folks into creating modules than making up game rules.

So with that said here's what I'd like to see in an editor for FG modules.

- cut and paste ability - so I can copy text from another module or whatever and paste it into my 'new' module

- easy image insertion (pretty much the same as cut and paste)

- easy exporting of the module

- no programming skill required (I'm just too old and tired to bother learning how to play with xml thanks).

How do other FG DM's/Players think about this? Oh and what else have I forgotten...

[Sorontar]

Hmm not sure exactly what you are trying to create but if all you want to do is set up your adventure modules for a campaign you can with ease.

Cut and Paste

Go into your source text ctrl+c, come into your story and ctrl+v (windows functionality I believe)

Images

Find your image and put it into the images folder for the campaign (in the Application Data Folder), it'll then appear in your images tab in FG2 for that campaign.

Exporting

Once you have your adventure module completed (or even part done), type /export in the chat window and chose how you want it to me exported. This will create a module you can then open like the retail adventures or the library resources. You can even export and save the tokens that are used in that module.

Xml

You only really should need to get into Xml if you want to step away from the core ruleset or rules module.

[Griogre]

For an adventure module this functionality exists. You don't need to know XML you only need that for rule modules. To make an adventure module start a new campaign fill out the personalities, storybook entries, drop any maps and other graphics in the campaign's image folder and then type /export in the campaign. This will pop up the /export module screen. After you export the module you can then acitvate it in any other campaign.

You can cut and paste entries into the story book. You can drag and drop d20 Monsters into personalities. Play around with and ask if you have any more questions. When I first got FG I took a low level module off of WoTCs site and made a module from it to learn how to do it you might also find this a good learning experience.

[Sgain]

Awesome! Thanks guys, I was going nuts trying to figure this out. Now I can go about converting my old adventures to FG.

[Sorontar]

NP

Funny really that this question came up as it was only last week that I looked at that side of things as up until now I have only used FG2 as a player.

Now I have decided to use FG2 for DMing my face-to-face games at home, I have started to set up my Eberron campaign and started with The Forgotten Forge.

What I love about setting things up in FG is you can link to things like maps/items/personalities within the story so you don't have to go routing for them.

I figured that it's probably worth it to plan how you want your adventure to look as well and sketch out your menu's/links rather than just throwing it all together.

Anyway have fun :D

[Griogre]

Sgain if you haven’t already, it is worth your time to understand how Pins work. They are links from a map to storybook entries and story book entries can have links to personalities, items and other story book entries. This means you can usually run your adventure from the map and not have to manually open the storybook and personality books.

Most people find this very convenient because it's like clicking a room number on a map to get room's info and inhabitants.

There is no differance between how they worked in FG1 and FG2. I think there is still a tutorial on pins at the Four Ugly Monsters website.

[Sgain]

OMG! What a great feature! I'm Savaging my old DnD adventures and was worried about organizing things. The pins are a great idea. Any other little tricks you guys know? I'm rapidly getting the hang of this now.

[Xorn]

Sgain if you haven’t already, it is worth your time to understand how Pins work. They are links from a map to storybook entries and story book entries can have links to personalities, items and other story book entries. This means you can usually run your adventure from the map and not have to manually open the storybook and personality books.

Most people find this very convenient because it's like clicking a room number on a map to get room's info and inhabitants.

There is no differance between how they worked in FG1 and FG2. I think there is still a tutorial on pins at the Four Ugly Monsters website.

I would like to give my humble thanks for pointing out this AMAZING feature. That said, I must now wish that harmful events involving you and a badger (and some fleshy bits) occur in the future. I now have to remake all of my adventure modules. :D

I've made a complete module for The Sunless Citadel, The Forge of Fury, and I was working on Fane of the Drow. Now I have to start all over and do Pins instead of the ridiculously long story entries with numbered keys. Is there ANY way to make a pin point to something like a bookmark within a journal entry?

Since I'll have 54 keyed story entries for just Sunless Citadel if I use pins, I thought maybe I should ask about that before getting started.

(And it shouldn't be that bad, I'll just hit Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V a whole, whole lot.)

Man, I even put a thumbnail of the cover on my adventure modules. Here I thought I was finally finished with them.

[Sorontar]

I would like to give my humble thanks for pointing out this AMAZING feature. That said, I must now wish that harmful events involving you and a badger (and some fleshy bits) occur in the future. I now have to remake all of my adventure modules. :D

I've made a complete module for The Sunless Citadel, The Forge of Fury, and I was working on Fane of the Drow. Now I have to start all over and do Pins instead of the ridiculously long story entries with numbered keys. Is there ANY way to make a pin point to something like a bookmark within a journal entry?

Since I'll have 54 keyed story entries for just Sunless Citadel if I use pins, I thought maybe I should ask about that before getting started.

(And it shouldn't be that bad, I'll just hit Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V a whole, whole lot.)

Man, I even put a thumbnail of the cover on my adventure modules. Here I thought I was finally finished with them.

Just think, it could have been worse, you could have just finished RttToEE :D

[Xorn]

LOL good point.

Actually Sunless Citadel is moving along pretty quickly. I've gotten the fortress level entered in, and the most time consuming thing was actually just inputting the personalities. (Granted I actually make a personality for every creature--so it will be named "Kobold Bounder" instead of "Kobold, 1st Level Warrior".)

I do love looking at my map now, with pins all over it. Plus I made a story window called "Sunless Citadel Keyed Entries" and it's just 56 links to all 56 rooms in case I want to jump to a specific one quickly. Anyway, really enjoying this. My Sunless Citadel "campaign" (which I export to a module for use in my main campaign) is getting that error on closing now. The module works fine with the main campaign, so it's just an annoyance when I close it, but I can't figure out how to make it quit. Since I had entered in like 40 story/map/personalities in one sitting there's no telling which entry is bugging it.

[Griogre]

I'd guess it is a map entry, that's where they usually are messed up for me. You might want to make a copy of the module's campaign db.xml and then comment out the map portion and see if you can close it. Comments for XML start <!-- and end -->