Implementing Player Journals, Other questions

dragnsteph
dragnsteph
edited July 2010 in Campaign Portal Building
Hey there. New user to Obsidian Portal here, we're starting a new campaign this week and finally moving away from modules (I'm a relatively new DM so I wanted that crutch for a little while!) and I'm working on setting up the site so the players can have a reference and we can all do a better job of keeping track of all the details.

To that end, some of my players would like to keep in-character journals on the site. I'm not sure of the best place to implement this. Can all my players edit the wiki? Would it be simplest to just put a link from the wiki home page, by the names of the ones that want it, that just says "Journal" and let them go to town and keep it there? Or are the forums better suited? I'm not entirely clear on how the Adventure Log is different from the forums, however I had intended to use it as sort of a DM Summary area.

Still trying to wrap my head around all the options we have here! I signed up for Ascendant so I could have forums, those seem invaluable. Also, if someone has a minute or two to explain the "Dynamic" character sheet stuff, and if that's available to me (4E D&D campaign) that would be great - what exactly does that do for me?

Last question (for now) -- is there some way to import files from the WotC character builder or monster files? I saw Chainsaw's D&D Tools and those look great, but it looks as if I would need to create all the characters by hand, then level them by hand, is that accurate? If that's the best way to keep them on the site I will do it, but if there is another option I'd love to know :)

Thanks, sorry for all the questions - Still learning my way around and stumbling a bit.

Stephanie

My campaign: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/day-of-fates

Comments

  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    For journals, I like the adventure log (although yes, all your players can edit wiki pages, so you could do it there as well), mostly because it's nice and chronologically organized, but also because the forums make more sense for random out of character chatter. For an example of this, check out the "Exalted campaign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/sotfa/adventure-log I play in. You could either intersperse your DM summaries with their journals, or they could do their journals for any given session as replies to the appropriate summary entry.

    Dynamic character sheets give you a pre-formatted, nice looking, fill in the blanks character sheet to use, assuming one has been created for your game system. As it happens, I just finished making the 4th Ed sheet, so you should be able to use that once it's approved. It will look something like "this":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/chainsawxiv-test-campaign/characters/sinruth-the-reformed when you fill it in (or rather, a lot simpler if you're not dealing with an epic character, but you get the idea).

    As for the character builder files, at the moment there's not really any better option than doing it by hand. You can't currently upload non-image files to OP, and there's no integration of that kind with either the 4th Ed Dynamic Character Sheet, or my own tools. Another user here recently hooked me up with a file that should let me add some level of automatic import to my own tools, but I haven't actually had the chance to get that working yet (and have no ETA on it at this time). The DST looks better than what my tool makes anyhow, if I do say so myself. :p
  • barsoomcore
    barsoomcore
    Posts: 15
    Is that character sheet supposed to look like anything? All I see is a long text document.
  • barsoomcore
    barsoomcore
    Posts: 15
    Just worried that the dynamic character sheet thingummy isn't working for me.
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    Ahh... I should have thought of that. It won't be visible properly for folks until it gets approved. Sorry about that. Check back later. :p
  • dragnsteph
    dragnsteph
    Posts: 10
    Hm. The log entries are just chronological, then, and not sortable by poster or anything like that, right? I will have to see what they think. Part of me thinks that an uninterrupted narrative from each player that wants it might be easier to follow, rather than multiple posts covering the same event from different perspectives. In which case, I guess the forum or the wiki would serve that purpose better than the log. I do wish there was a way to protect the entire wiki and then assign authors to individual pages, sort of like you can do with the character pages.

    Thanks a lot for your response! I'm going to be looking for the dynamic sheet when it's approved, nice looking work! :)

    (lol at the notes on Sinruth, btw)
  • dragnsteph
    dragnsteph
    Posts: 10
    (It looks like a character sheet, to me, btw)
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    I aim to please. :)

    For organization, you can use tags in the adventure log, and then filter by tag. So, for example, just take each entry with the author's character's name, then view all the stuff with that character's tag to narrow it to just their entries, still in chronological order. Same as for wiki pages.
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    It was approved a few minutes ago. You should be able to use it now. :)
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    Welcome to the portal dragnsteph! Regarding your question about character journals, I know of some campaigns (such as the "Melekar Chronicles":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/melekar/adventure-log) that include character journals right in along with the rest of the adventure logs. In my Tales of Darkmoon Vale campaign, I asked my players to write up their own character journals as wiki links located in a centralized "campaign Journals":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/wikis/campaign-journals section of the wiki. In the "adventure logs":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/adventure-log section of the site, I would write a brief synopsis of the adventure followed by the campaign journal links for that particular adventure.

    Another idea I got from Hardhead's "The Crucible":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/world-of-crucible/forum here at the Portal was to use the forums tab as a way to have periodic out of game opportunities to "role" play. So far I've only tried this out once but it seemed to be a real hit so I think we'll continue it as a way to supplement our regular game sessions.

    Hope that helps, and best of wishes to you in branching out into your DM'ing your own original campaign. It is tough but rewarding work.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh
  • gaaran
    gaaran
    Posts: 740
    Welcome from me as well. On my page (the Melekar Chronicles, which Sheesh linked to), I have all the character journals as Adventure Logs, and then I have wiki pages for each of the characters that I put links to each entry on, so you can see them organized by character or view them chronologically. I also do that so my player don't have to figure out how to use the wiki editor. That would be one more excuse they could use not to post :P.
  • successwarrior
    successwarrior
    Posts: 17
    In my campaign, Benders http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/benders, players are allowed to write directly into all the Adventure Logs. My game is different than most here at OP because it's PbP but I'm throwing that out as an option because some players might think that writing an entire entry a bit daunting but might think nothing of adding a quick paragraph with their thoughts on some part of the adventure.

    I've been surfing around OP quite a bit since I joined and the people above have already given you all the other ideas that I have seen. Players can use the Adventure Log or Wiki and place tags on those entries with their character names to make it easy to find. You (or they) can also organize the wiki entries on to their character page so that they are all in one place and directly connected to the character. I've enjoyed the characters that I have checked out that have done this. It really adds to their "bio" to have some journal entries.

    That said, I read more Adventure Logs than Characters so having them do a journal entry as a response to an Adventure Log would connect their thoughts directly with the days adventure. Adventure Logs are still wiki entries so those logs that players do respond on could still be linked on their character's bio if you wanted. The best of both worlds?

    One thing that I will add to all the above is that you should probably offer some kind of reward for those players that do go to the "trouble" of making entries. From all the surfing that I have done, player entries seem to be few and far between. Unless you have a group that really enjoys writing, you will probably need to entice them a bit into getting more involved.
  • BrokenClock
    BrokenClock
    Posts: 51 edited July 2010
    Go with the adventure log as your journals, just like everyone else has been saying. It works wonderfully! You will not regret geting your players to participate in the creative process.

    "Journals":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/govaga/adventure-log
    Post edited by BrokenClock on
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    In "The Sun Eaters", we're all using the Adventure Log. If my character were inclined to keep copious notes, she'd instead be using the forums (Florimel is an Ascendant, mostly for the increased number of campaigns). The forums would allow her to keep all her notes in one thread. But it'd actually be out of character for her to write stuff down. =) And since everyone else is using the adventure log, she drops an occasional angst-fest in there to show that she's still paying attention. =)
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