But even so, I have managed to stay on track and am even perhaps a little ahead of schedule. Only by a few characters though. I have also started thinking earnestly about the different neighborhoods, what they are called, what goes on there, what the history is, etc. So some of that work is done before it need to be as well.
It's been an interesting exercise; I can tell that as the project gets larger, it's going to get difficult to find information in it. I've run into this problem with the current dungeon I am running - even with a well thought through layout and good hyperlinks in the PDF, finding information about a specific NPC or room that the players interacted with in the past and which has become relevant has been a challenge. Lots of long-ass pauses while I flip around looking for what I want.
I do not want this project to wind up the same way, and to that end, I have been thinking about possibly making a wiki - I'd create master pages for each neighborhood (each month) with all the characters and families (weeks) associated with that neighborhood linked. Each family would likewise link to each character within that family as well as linking back to the neighborhood. Each character page would link back to the neighborhood and family, and also hyperlink to particularly important characters in that characters life.
I wondered if anyone had a particular favorite wiki site or tool they would use for something like this. Really, something like a SQL database would probably be ideal, and I have access to a couple of very sophisticated database tools through work, BUT I can't give that access out to others and I want this project to wind up as something anyone can use if they wanted to. Does anyone know of anything fairly easy to use that doesn't have ads splashed all over it?
It also occurred to me that there IS a not dissimilar resource to the one I am creating. The focus is a little different, but having lots and lots of ready NPCs is an ancient idea. I am talking about The Rogues Gallery, a very old supplement. To honor this ancient resource, I am including two pictures from it. The first is by the inimitable Erol Otus. I LOVE this guy's stuff, but I am certainly biased - he was one of the first illustrators I ran across whose style I could recognize as soon as I saw the work.
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| Erol Otus - The Rogues Gallery cover |
Next up, Jeff Dee. Stylistically not quite as outrageous as the guy above, but still instantly recognizable.
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| Jeff Dee - the Paladin page of The Rogues Gallery |
These two artists did a LOT of the art in AD&D, and just like John Blanche with Warhammer (though not quite to the same extent, given how visual Warhammer is compared to D&D) they really helped shape the "world" of D&D, or perhaps I mean the possible worlds of D&D. Their vision certainly comes through in many of the old books. I think and hope that a little of their vision comes through in my games as well.
I have also struggled with non-programmatic solutions to exactly this problem you describe. In my year-long MRD campaign there was a point where I had a spreadsheet that I was using (in lieu of something like a SQL database which as you say would have been much better), but even with various docs and sheets and ctrl-f, it got messy after a while.
ReplyDeleteI was in a campaign shortly after that where the GM was using notion, which I think he did pay for but has a free tier as well, and he used it really well and did some good stuff with it, but even that seemed complicated in its own right. https://www.notion.so/
I've mentioned before wanting to do a collaborative superhero worldbuilding project kind of thing, and one of my most immediate concerns was exactly this, so if you do come up with a good solution, please let me know.
I was actually thinking about that when I wrote this up! I wondered if you had found something you liked. I will absolutely let you know when / if I come up with a solution!
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