I have all my datasets finished and error-corrected. I've worked out a basic work-flow to get multiple datasets 'playing nice' with each other. Getting some exciting results (this is just one 'style'). More later.



http://postimage.org/image/ux22cpp3j/

Quote from: RPGPundit;560471I can't understand what the point of any of this is.

RPGPundit

... and why it exists and what of information anyone could draw from this clusterfuck mess of a graphic...

I can't figure out why people are trying to piss on this. Probably jealousy. I think it's a cool idea, although obviously you're still working on it.

In general I'm a fan of this kind of relationship-mapping. Doing it on paper is a pain in the arse, but something I experiment with quite a bit. Figuring out a way to do it on computer is a bit of a holy grail, so I might download this tool and give it a look.

Telarus, keep it up, this is great stuff!

The relationship map in post #16 is awsome.  The color-coding of the factions, especially the Old Faith-Verbobonc divide in the village.  Post more of your ToEE-ED AP too.

In all honesty, this is more work than I would be willing to do, but I completely understand the desire and/or need for others to do something like to help them understand/remember better the subject matter.  Everyone learns and retains information differently and this might just be the best route for some people.

I'm not so much trying to piss on it as I can't comprehend how it can actually be used.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;563548I'm not so much trying to piss on it as I can't comprehend how it can actually be used.

RPGPundit

Let me try. It's visually mapping out relationships in a manner where different layers of "society spheres" are shown their interconnecting paths. Sort of like a dungeon, but with cliques.

Quote from: RPGPundit;563548I'm not so much trying to piss on it as I can't comprehend how it can actually be used.

RPGPundit

You don't think having a simple way to visually represent all the relationships between NPCs in a campaign at a glance is useful? One one page? This effectively neatly summarises, in easy reference, what would take page after page of written information.

Maybe its just that I keep this information in my head, without difficulty, that makes it hard to get its usefulness.  But at least the last couple of posts made it clear what its supposed to be for.

RPGPundit

Awesome sauce, color coding by alignment would include even more useful data, as well as adding an icon for class.  Or viceversa.

Adding this to something like what Zak S did with the Caves of Chaos would be extra swell!

Quote from: RPGPundit;564100Maybe its just that I keep this information in my head, without difficulty, that makes it hard to get its usefulness.  But at least the last couple of posts made it clear what its supposed to be for.

RPGPundit

Fair enough. It depends what kind of campaign you run. In my last CP:2020 campaign I had over 100 NPCs in the end, all with their own agendas, which was too much to really keep in my head. I was using excel files and hand-drawn relationship maps to keep track of it all, and could have used something more efficient like this.

Quote from: RPGPundit;564100Maybe its just that I keep this information in my head, without difficulty, that makes it hard to get its usefulness.  But at least the last couple of posts made it clear what its supposed to be for.

Think of it like this. You have a town called Littlesford, to the east is the Dungeon o' Doom. To the north the Dark Forest, to the south the Plains of the Ten. And to the east the Duchy of Andal. Simple enough that many referee can keep this in their head and within a few sessions the players will have learned this too.

Now take Greyhawk, Harn, Forgotten Realms, Majestic Wilderlands, any homebrew setting that far larger than this. A map is an invaluable aid to the description of the geography. So significant that you can eliminate text describe where one locale is located relative to another. Thus making the text more concise and readable.

Now suppose your campaign isn't about a diversity of locales but rather a diversity of NPCs

You could take a 100 NPCs, have a dozen or so written in detail, divide the rest them into five factions, each of has three to five ranks or status levels. Simple lists and/or memorization would suffice to keep it all in your head.

But suppose you have the desire or need to have a more realistic setup for a group of NPCs? That you have written details on all the NPCs. Like geography, a map of NPCs would be invaluable for this. Like I use CorelDRAW to draw geographical maps, Vue can be used to draw relationship maps. Because of it's data management capabilities these NPCs maps can be of any arbitrary level of complexity without geometrically increasing the workload. Instead it just a matter of adding more entires to a list.

It neither better or worse than any other tool. I use Corel to draw map. Other handdraw their maps, others still just remember their maps. All work for running a campaign all have their place. The same with Vue in relation to other techniques for managing NPCs.

Yes. One page. Available while playing. One file for the 'stock' module, one for your active play notes.

Each node has "meta-data" (name, class, level, gear, loot, description, location key) that pulls up by simply clicking on the person.

A quick Notes field to track damage/status-effects/GM notes before they go into a campaign log.

VUE automatically links nodes to resources. You have documents or images on your computer or the web which describe a place or an NPC. You drag them onto the map, you can then tag these or place these into another node (as a child-node). For example, with my Hommlet map there will be links to other maps -

1) another VUE map showing a political "relationship map" similar to the faction map I sketched out above (with layers to hide the NPCs the players haven't met yet, etc).

2) another VUE map for each sublocation of Hommlet. There are some really great renderings of the Inn of the Welcome wench out there (& the Trader's Shop, among others). I can use them and link to the artist at the same time.

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This project is coming along quite well, and I want to share the full map/*VUE-Package file when I have it all setup. Here's the thing with that....

As an artist (& a professional), I don't want to distribute the stock Hommlet map (which I have been using for layout and design work with the NPC and location nodes). Sure you can find it in 30 milliseconds on google, but the map from the book is some-one else's art (and unlike the Welcome Wench maps I'm using, they aren't licensed to distribute).


No problem. I'm a CG and 3d game artist. Took me a few days, but I've worked up a replacement Hommlet map of my own style.


http://postimage.org/image/ep5l8bolr/

You like?



I should have work on the Node layout done later today.

I suppose that if you had a list of literally thousands of NPCs that were meant to be fully fleshed out, every one of them, this could be useful.

But that's not really the most sensible way to handle NPCs anyways.

RPGPundit

Very interesting, I see what it does now. Where do you set up the base information, an excel sheet? How would you lay that out, can you link to an example?

So that took longer than I expected. I had to figure out how to deliver the full resolution maps... Traveller, I am considering releasing the VUE maps (with the meta-data) and the google Spreadsheet I used to create them. Still working on that part, considering sublocation maps (and considering mapping the dungeoon/Moathouse).

See my Google+ post (public post) if you can't see the preview images.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/104849355407989263028/posts/27Si5ftdZaU

Background map of Hommlet 2048x2048 (save to disk and unzip): http://docs.google.com/file/d/0B52Q59_zWE3IWHhLMHhkU3JfOFk/edit

NPCs by Location map full resolution PDF (best downloaded and viewed @ 300%): http://docs.google.com/file/d/0B52Q59_zWE3IWHhLMHhkU3JfOFk/edit
NPCs by Location map (preview):
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gJBpHd-S1nI/UBT7BmZZeMI/AAAAAAAAAnw/_NhspJ8_5-8/s825/T1_Hommlet_Locations_NPCs.png



NPCs by Faction map full: http://postimage.org/image/krk5oyrm7/full/
NPCs by Faction map (preview):
http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2IfZKzEaJ5k/UBT5hFP-keI/AAAAAAAAAnE/ceybx_LyZn4/s1024/T1_Hommlet_Factions_preview.png