Continuous Campaign Data Entry

[Doombringer]

First off I want to say hello and thank you to the many members of this community that have made my first use of the program to run my games possible. Fantasy Grounds 2 was just purchased for by two members of my group for use in a table top, in person game. This is a long standing campaign world, and a few month long campaign that has been done with miniatures and more traditional gaming methods.

I will admit, in some regards I am a bit old fashioned, and I find that having to essentially learn to code XML, while not the hardest scripting, in order to better utilize this product in our games a tad onerous.

A thread on these forums has given me one tool to make my entry significantly easier, a conversion of text to xml using word and excel. It is great, but has a small limitation. As I understand it, it will convert formatted text to chat blocks, and informational text, but erases the existing db.xml. That was wonderful for this first session as it allowed me to get in all my story information for the current session and I could deal with the npcs, items, and other details as I need.

So far, I have nothing in my Personalities or Items tabs that are irreplaceable, so for the moment this tool will be fine, but as my campaign grows I will need to maintain what I have in those tabs, otherwise I am only making this program more hindrance than help.

I am aware of course that I can directly enter this information into the program, but in my case this is a lot of information, and I find the interface cumbersome. I really dislike having to click to each section, and that things like selecting text for the purpose of copying and pasting is difficult if not impossible from within the program. I can copy from text to FG all day long, but copying within is painful. Needlessly so in my opinion, especially for someone who is used to typing as I do using keyboard primarily, rarely touching the mouse.

It seems to me my best chance of making this program work for me is to actually learn to write XML so that this program will allow me to be my one source for my notes, my maps, my miniatures, and my gameplay, as doing it from the front end is slow and plodding for me at least.

Is my best bet going to be purchasing a module from someone else and breaking it open to see how these things are coded in the XML? I am going to need to maintain a lot of past information as well as current sessions, and so losing my npcs and other notes every time is going to be of primary concern. My other big issue is adding in new spells, and monsters to the system as a lot of my world is custom, very little from the standard books. I am sure I am not alone in this, so I guess my question is what would you suggest as my best path to do this, and what would you suggest I avoid, or problems I may encounter?

Again, thank you all for your assistance I have already gotten from these forums.

[Griogre]

My first comment is in a long running campaign you need to use modules. I mean adventure modules, in this case, made when you use the /export command. In the main campaign you use to run in FG you should have the characters and maybe some world maps and that is about it.

You keep each adventure in a different adventure module, you also keep each city or village or any other important area of interest in different modules. This allows you to load and unload any part of your campaign data as you need it and release it when you don't need it.

I'm not quite sure how to advise you on the XML. FG really doesn't use XML, it just keeps data in XML files. All you need to know about XML for FG is "tags" are case sensitive and if you open a tag you have to close a tag and there are some special lines you need to put at the top of some files.

When I make adventures I often find it easier to just cut and paste into the adventure's XML files for many types of data entry - mostly those dealing with text like room descritions. I do this directly rather than using the word "editor" you use. For personalities I would usually rather cut and paste into FG itself because it is often easier than filling out the entry in the XML. However, the only thing you really need to input if you use voice in your games are the personalities and you only need to do this so you can take full advantage of being able to drag and drop personalities onto the combat tracker. If you don't use voice you have to do alot more data entry because unless you are an uber typist you are not going to want to type most descriptive text on the fly.

I have been talking about adventure modules. The other type of modules are ruleset or rulebook type ones like the default d20 books in the library. For these type of modules you usually do need to build these outside of FG in an editor. For these type of modules, it is usually better to open one as an example or template and then change the files names and build what you want. I don't think you really need to buy anything to get started on these types of modules because you already have the d20Books that come in the default d20 ruleset. You can unzip these mod files by changing the .mod to .zip and unzipping which will yield you three files to study. There are a lot of threads on how to make and modifiy these "library book" type modules.

In my view you may be making things a little harder on yourself than you may need to. Why do you really feel the need to input everything? Especially if you use voice and you already have everything in notes somewhere else why don't you just read your notes outloud rather than try to input them into FG?

If you have more questions, just ask, but in your case you seem to have a well developed campaign already - so to me the first question should be - what do I really need to input in the first place? I think it may be alot less than you think.

[Doombringer]

Thank you for the very useful response.

You're right, it does seem like a lot of extra work and additionally hard for
myself, which is part of my concern. Partially it is so that our table, which is often overflowing with maps, miniatures, books, notes, notebooks, etc. So, if I am going to use this, I'd like to be able to reduce the number of tools I have on hand, and especially in terms of combat I'd like to be able to do it all from within the system if at all possible. My intention was originally to just do map navigation, some of the combats, and sharing of information I want to one player but not others. Now, as I have begun to use it, and each of my players have their laptops out, doing it partially by pc, and partially on the table seems to be inefficient. We also have a former player in Indiana we are wanting to get back in game, and while voice is the best (we would be using ventrillo), some things like notes and such are going to be best done over the program for him.

[Xorn]

Thank you for the very useful response.

You're right, it does seem like a lot of extra work and additionally hard for
myself, which is part of my concern. Partially it is so that our table, which is often overflowing with maps, miniatures, books, notes, notebooks, etc. So, if I am going to use this, I'd like to be able to reduce the number of tools I have on hand, and especially in terms of combat I'd like to be able to do it all from within the system if at all possible. My intention was originally to just do map navigation, some of the combats, and sharing of information I want to one player but not others. Now, as I have begun to use it, and each of my players have their laptops out, doing it partially by pc, and partially on the table seems to be inefficient. We also have a former player in Indiana we are wanting to get back in game, and while voice is the best (we would be using ventrillo), some things like notes and such are going to be best done over the program for him.

I'll chime in my agreement that the /export command has made my campaign so much better. In my main campaign I just have the characters, their tokens, a couple world maps and a few story entries for their adventure logs (which I keep track of their stuff on and share with them so they can keep track of it).

I ran Sunless Citadel with them recently; I made a new campaign called Sunless Citadel, and made story entries for every entry in the book, attached shortcut pins to the maps, and even made image entries for all the entries in the book, made personalities for all the named monsters, links to everything, plus tokens for all the inhabitants. Then I typed /export and filled out the info (even scanned the cover to make an icon for it) and now when I open the main campaign, I just open that module and I instantly have access to all their stuff. There's a thread in this forum with shots from one of the games.

/export makes life so much easier.

[Griogre]

Thank you for the very useful response.
You're welcome. :)


You're right, it does seem like a lot of extra work and additionally hard for
myself, which is part of my concern. Partially it is so that our table, which is often overflowing with maps, miniatures, books, notes, notebooks, etc. So, if I am going to use this, I'd like to be able to reduce the number of tools I have on hand, and especially in terms of combat I'd like to be able to do it all from within the system if at all possible. My intention was originally to just do map navigation, some of the combats, and sharing of information I want to one player but not others. Now, as I have begun to use it, and each of my players have their laptops out, doing it partially by pc, and partially on the table seems to be inefficient. We also have a former player in Indiana we are wanting to get back in game, and while voice is the best (we would be using ventrillo), some things like notes and such are going to be best done over the program for him.
Ahh, ok. As I see it you have two goals: 1) Get rid of stuff on your table to cut the clutter. 2) Have enough in FG to allow in your friend in Indiana to play while using Vent or some other voice software.

The good news is that setting up to allow your friend to play remotely will cut the clutter. Because you are using voice your first priorities are to get your maps and tokens set up. FG does have a set of build in map functions, pointers and tokens. Because of this you could play tomorrow while using them but the build in letter tokens aren't that pretty and neither are the line maps you can draw. I would start with better tokens because that would immediately get all your miniatures off the table.

For tokens you first have to decide if you like the portrait style or whether you wish to use top down style tokens. For D&D this is mostly aesthetics as there are no facing rules. However, there is a cost issue in that it takes an artist to do nice looking top down tokens, while there are plenty of pictures on the internet you can make player or monster portraits from.

For maps just scan in what you got to start. There are several issues with maps: 1) if your maps are hand drawn they are keyed and have stuff you probably don't want the players see. 2) They may not seem "pretty" enough now that you have the nifty looking tokens.

It the spirit of playing tomorrow, let’s see how you can deal with those Keyed DM maps you don't want to show. First *don't* show them. You put them in for you, the GM. At this point I want to mention that there is absolutely no reason you can't have your players map the old fashion way, the way many face to face games do, IE calling out with voice, "...30 feet of corridor ending in a door" and letting a player draw on a blank map you just opened up for them and put a grid on. I have done this and it is an option.

It may be slow but on the other hand everyone sees the map being build and gets to move their tokens around as they explore. Also from your point of view the map surface is endless because you can expand the FG Map up, down, left or right as you need it. If you often have map puzzles with teleports, turn arounds, shifting walls, ect - this may be the optimal way to do it because the players build the map as they explore and trip the puzzles.

Another option with a DM keyed map is to mask it, but instead of unmasking the map to show it to the players to trace lines on the mask over the map as the players explore. Doing it this way allows you to see the DM map under the mask while the players only see the drawing on top of the mask. I have a shot of this in the thread here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7126).

The last option is to make player maps you can unmask. This is a time commitment. There are a lot of map making programs out there and a lot of maps out on the internet you can use that will produce nice looking maps. I find this to be a better option when you are making a new map than when you are converting an old one.

Up to now I have only talked about tokens and maps. The nice thing about adding either of these is there is no data input, you just drop graphics in a folder.

Probably your next step would be inputting personalities or making room or area keys for your maps. It depends on what is cluttering your table more, but because the default d20 ruleset already has most of the core monsters which you can drag and drop into the personalities it is pretty easy to do personalities next and get rid of all those monster books and this also allows you to fully use the combat tracker in FG, and assign monster tokens to personalities. If you are in a real hurry you don't need to fully input the personality you can put in just enough for the combat tracker which really just needs the HPs, Attacks, Full Attacks, Space/Reach and saves (all on the combat tab as well as the feats, CR, type and maybe the skills on the other tab.

Some comments before I close. Personalities are the first thing that matters *where* you input them. Personalities in a module are only available in a module when it is open. For the BBEG that is probably what you want. If you have a monster you want available all across your campaign then you might want to consider putting it in a custom monster library book or in your base campaign. Don’t stress this, because after all you can always open the module where the personality is to get it, but it’s a good thing to be aware of. Also you before you do a full blown input of a dungeon or town I *strongly* suggest you make sure you understand how map pin shortcuts and links work. They allow you to run your whole game off a map without ever opening the storybook, personality book, item book or monster book in FG because with a pin you can link a room description to a map and the room description, aside from the descriptive and informational text, can have links to everything else. This is a very efficent way to run site based adventures.

[Moon Wizard]

I mentioned in a separate post that it would be great to be able to write LUA scripts which could import data into FG2 from external files. I could see the same feature being used to import story data from text files.

In my case, I am specifically interested in importing character files, since we manage our characters and NPCs in PCGen.

Cheers,
JPG

[Doombringer]

Another option with a DM keyed map is to mask it, but instead of unmasking the map to show it to the players to trace lines on the mask over the map as the players explore. Doing it this way allows you to see the DM map under the mask while the players only see the drawing on top of the mask. I have a shot of this in the thread
here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7126).

Also you before you do a full blown input of a dungeon or town I *strongly* suggest you make sure you understand how map pin shortcuts and links work. They allow you to run your whole game off a map without ever opening the storybook, personality book, item book or monster book in FG because with a pin you can link a room description to a map and the room description, aside from the descriptive and informational text, can have links to everything else. This is a very efficent way to run site based adventures.

Oh that will be helpful right there. I was completely unaware that you could do that. That is awesome.

Though I should defend my hand drawn maps, some of them are pretty. Usually only the setting maps and regional maps though, my dungeons are always functional first.

[Griogre]

I'm not an artist so my dungeon maps have always been function over art though sometimes when I make a new map these days I will use a tile mapper or other map graphic.

In that screen shot I linked to, you can see a couple of map pins - on the map. They are those red topped pins. Players do not see map pins ever, which means you can sometimes just use a "player" map and pin it with DM only data if you do decide to unmask a map. One of the problems with unmasking a map is that usually means you need two versions. Pinning a "player" may allow you to get by with just one map.

FG is very flexible so you can use whatever style that makes sense for the different areas or different maps.

Edit: Oh, yeah - I meant to mention in the interest of reducing your clutter (and a little self promotion) I made a free D&D cheat sheet library module which should help you not need a DMG on the table. Four Ugly Monsters is hosting it and you can download it here (https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/community/showthread.php?t=1431). You will need to join the forums to download the module but they are worth joining. If you are into top down tokens one of the guys there sells a bunch of them out of their store.

[MrJamela]

Ok, so I'm setting up a game in Savage Worlds.....

I've been creating all of the generic monster/people templates in an empty campaign which I am going to use to create specific NPCs, etc.

What do you do about NPCs, etc. that you create on the fly while you are running. Do you leave them in your main campaign or Export them out between games?

Jaime

[Astinus]

I keep my main campaign empty of everything except characters and their notes.

As I accumulate more NPCs and monsters, I'm considering a "library book" type of module for the consistent ones, with adventure specific monsters and NPC's still in separate "adventure" modules.

But keeping my main campaign empty is somewhat of a holy grail for me. Not sure why. Just like it nice and clean.

[Griogre]

Ok, so I'm setting up a game in Savage Worlds.....

I've been creating all of the generic monster/people templates in an empty campaign which I am going to use to create specific NPCs, etc.

What do you do about NPCs, etc. that you create on the fly while you are running. Do you leave them in your main campaign or Export them out between games?

Jaime
Hey Jaime, did you go to UCSB?

Like Astinus I like to keep my main campaign pretty clean. If a casual NPC you create on the fly gets wild carded or turns important, I would transfer him over to your NPC module. Practically speaking I would open the XML on the main campaign find the NPC, then copy him and paste him into the XML of the NPC module. If you do this make sure you adjust the ID of the NPC (both start and end tags) so it is unique. Once he is saved in the NPC campaign and verified working then delete him out of the main one and re-export the NPC one.

Walter

[MrJamela]

Hey Jaime, did you go to UCSB?

Walter

Um, yeah.....

Walt?

It's a small digital world, isn't it?

Jaime

[Griogre]

Yeah, its me. It is a small digital world sometimes, though I guess it isn't *that* surprising we would both end up in a forum for an app that allows RP over the internet. :)