Organizing Personalities

[Belizan]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to organize personalities? I just started running a game using FG2 (I've always been a player up until now), and I'm finding my personality list is quickly getting out of control. Is there anyway to create sub folders or some other sort of organizational structure?

[Belizan]

Nevermind, I found it while looking for something else 8).

[cbradshaw007]

Care to show us what you found?

[Griogre]

Pin them :) ;)

Seriously, I almost never open my personality or storybook books when running. I run just about everything off the map. You can drag personality or storybook entries onto the map and then click the pin to open the link.

To use a map "pin" just open a map and right drag to "layers" (4 o'clock) then "shortcuts" (7 o'clock). You should see a pin icon appear in the top right corner of the map. Next just drag any personality or story book entrey on the map and you should see a red topped pin appear. Clickling on the pin will open the storybook entriy or personality.

You have to cut on short cuts on the map everytime or you can just hold down Ctrl to make the pins appear.

The way I do it is fill out a storybook entry with the area description and link to the personalities in the storybook. Thus I can just click on the map to get the storybook entry and then the storybook gives me direct links to the personalities I need for that encounter/area.

Here's a pic:
https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/Pins.png

Note: Players can *not* see pins.

Bonus Pic of some pins from an old FG1 screen - see the pin icon in the top right corner of the map? Also I believe there is still a video tutorial over at Four Ugly Monsters on using pins. It is for FG1 but nothing changed about pins so it is still valid.
https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/MineLow.png

[Foen]

BTW, don't add the same shortcut pin twice on a map (for example, if there is an 'empty room' description and you have several such rooms) as there is a known FG2 bug which will cause session crashes.

Stuart

[Belizan]

Well, personally I don't run dungeon crawls, so the map pinning option is really of questionable value to me. Although I suppose one could make.. like.. a playbill "map" with pins. Hrmm.. interesting thought.

But I digress, what I "discovered" was the ability to make personality categories (tabs at the bottom of your personality window) combined with exporting and importing personalities via modules, so that you could have, for instance, a module with the personalities for a particular city divided into categories as appropriate for your setting, etc.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/userguide/books.xcp
see in the toc on the left:
Creating new categories
Changing Category iIcons
Naming Categories

and also
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8201
and the /export command

[Griogre]

Well, personally I don't run dungeon crawls, so the map pinning option is really of questionable value to me. Although I suppose one could make.. like.. a playbill "map" with pins. Hrmm.. interesting thought.
Exactly. :) "Maps" are just abstracts of locations. There is no reason you could not have a "map" that is a flow chart of events for event or story driven adventures or that represent decision trees or things that happen after so much time has passed (like for a murder mystery).


But I digress, what I "discovered" was the ability to make personality categories (tabs at the bottom of your personality window) combined with exporting and importing personalities via modules, so that you could have, for instance, a module with the personalities for a particular city divided into categories as appropriate for your setting, etc.

Tabs are quite useful, but are somewhat style dependant. I made the mistake of having a bunch of tabs in my Rappon Athuk Reloaded modules (which have hundreds of entries) and promptly ran them off the edge of the “books.” Because I often have several modules open at once during my games, I am pretty concious the amount of tabs per module so I keep the number of tabs in a module minimal. That is a direct play style issue though.

[Xorn]

I use an Adventure Index. It's very simple, just enclose the title of the adventure in parenthesis (making it the top story entry) and then link everything from that master entry. Here's an example:

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I only keep that top story entry open, I just included all the other stuff to illustrate what is contained through the links. When I open up an encounter entry, it will include a link to the story entry, which has links to the map entry, as well as personalities/items. Also makes following the module for someone I share it with very easy!

[Griogre]

*grin* I use an Adventure index too - the map pins. ;) Seriously the adventure index is also another good way to do this. There is a good example in aventure that comes with the full version of FG and also used in the demo.

[Belizan]

Well, all that's great for pre-canned adventures, but I tend to run my games with a much more impromptu style. I'll make up personalities, npcs, encounters--entire settings on the fly. Mood descriptions for buildings I hadn't expected to be important, locations, etc. Often times these places or personalities are returned to or interacted with again and again becoming recurring themes or characters, and I like using the in game personality and story note, etc. creation mojo as a way of "taking notes" on these as they occur, so I'll remember who they were late without having to sift through a log (or rely on my memory). This is, in fact, the primary way I develop my worlds particularly in terms of a cast of "insignificant" background characters, etc.

In this regard, the static plan-first style of handling these things in FG is really rather cumbersome and inconvenient. For the nonce, though, I suppose I will just muttle along with what there is 8). The Cast of Characters sheet with pins is a nice idea, though :).

[Griogre]

It you mostly run impromptu there is no reason to prepare ahead of time really. Because of the nature of a VTT, depending on the game, it may be more important to have a sets of generic maps ready. I keep a few modules called Village, Outdoor, Underground, ect which just have a selection of maps in them.

Just take notes on the things you want to keep and add them after each session. Organize them by module or not as you wish. If you are use to running this way them you must have some way of dealing with this in a face to face game. Typically I would think you really wouldn't have that much to add after each session. If you want to make a module out of it or add it to an existing adventure module just cut and paste the notes into the module's xml.

[Sigurd]

I use an Adventure Index. It's very simple, just enclose the title of the adventure in parenthesis (making it the top story entry) and then link everything from that master entry. Here's an example:

This is Brilliant. Absolutely the way I'm doing it from now on. Thanks!


-Sigurd

[Belizan]

It you mostly run impromptu there is no reason to prepare ahead of time really. Because of the nature of a VTT, depending on the game, it may be more important to have a sets of generic maps ready. I keep a few modules called Village, Outdoor, Underground, ect which just have a selection of maps in them.

Just take notes on the things you want to keep and add them after each session. Organize them by module or not as you wish. If you are use to running this way them you must have some way of dealing with this in a face to face game. Typically I would think you really wouldn't have that much to add after each session. If you want to make a module out of it or add it to an existing adventure module just cut and paste the notes into the module's xml.

Cut and pasting out of the XML or cloning and stripping to make a module are examples of things I wanted to avoid. Sort of the definition of the features of the system not supporting my play style. But my point was more that I use a combination of putting together resources before and during the game. Therein the ability to reorganize and modularize one's setting assets without having to do extensive XML modification of repeated cloning and trimming would be desirable. That's all.

[Xorn]

This is Brilliant. Absolutely the way I'm doing it from now on. Thanks!


-Sigurd

I think I should make this my sig:

"This just confirmed, Xorn is brilliant!" :D

Thanks, though I think I was inspired by The Wizard's Amulet when I started doing it like that.

[Oberoten]

The real glory is when someone else makes it their tagline. Eh.... Should be worth a couple of extra XP, right?

[scytale2]

Many thanks - I've learnt a lot from this thread - map pins, here we come.

[unimatrixzero]

Hi
Another interesting way to organise adventure details is to put together a flow chart, in photoshop or similar program, detailing the key events of the adventure. I also put in key characters that might pop up at any time and random events that can occur throughout the adventure. Save this as a jpeg and load it up through the images folder. I then use the shortcut pins, as mentioned above, to link to the information regarding said event or character. I find it helps to keep all the story elements centred on one window and helps with knowing where to go next in the story.

Regards
Uni

I mocked this up to demonstrate what i mean:

[grimm182]

Very cool idea. i might have to borrow that idea!

[Xorn]

No doubt! VERY nice! By the way, for your Farm Boy talking:

After you designate the player text, right-click again and choose "Assign Speaker". Now click right before the first word and move the cursor left one. anything you type here will be listed as the speaker (and parenthesis will mimic the /mood command). I've posted an example of a conversation between two NPCs:

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[Bidmaron]

BTW, don't add the same shortcut pin twice on a map (for example, if there is an 'empty room' description and you have several such rooms) as there is a known FG2 bug which will cause session crashes.

Stuart
For those of you mining threads for useful information, this bug has been fixed as of FG2.2.0. You can now put multiple pins to the same sheet (story, personality, etc), and you won't bomb the program.