Excel and Massive Campaigns

[Imaculata]

I've often pondered about a visual solution to this problem. I think Excel might not be the best tool for this. A much better tool, would be one that can visually show you the narrative connections between various characters, factions, events and locations. But I'm not sure if such a tool exists (yet).

I'm reminded of the first Fatal Frame video game (for PS2), which had a pretty cool feature that was immediately abandoned in the sequels. As the player gathered information, it showed all of the characters and events as separate blocks with connections running between them. It was pretty handy in keeping track of all the scattered information.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've often pondered about a visual solution to this problem. I think Excel might not be the best tool for this. A much better tool, would be one that can visually show you the narrative connections between various characters, factions, events and locations. But I'm not sure if such a tool exists (yet).

I'm reminded of the first Fatal Frame video game (for PS2), which had a pretty cool feature that was immediately abandoned in the sequels. As the player gathered information, it showed all of the characters and events as separate blocks with connections running between them. It was pretty handy in keeping track of all the scattered information.

Well, I suggested PowerPoint, but in the back of my mind, what I thought would work best was the old pegboard & string (or styrofoam colored pins) method.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StringTheory

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I might be oversimplifying things, but I see a very basic Excel sheet :
Column A contains the name of the characters
Column B contains info about those characters

If you want to know who hate Gnolls, you can just filter column B with "gnolls" and it will only show lines that containt that word in column B.

You could split your info in column B into multiple thematic columns instead, or have a column for each "characteristic" and put an "x" in the appropriate column for each character that has that characteristic.

Hope this helps!

AR

 

[Blue]

Instead of Excel, have you thought about Visio, or mind mapping software?

So you can have a circle marked "Gnolls", and draw a red line (for enmity) to a circle for Gerald and another to Teck-Ed. And maybe the Gnolls want to destroy Keep Ardess which is on their ancestral lands (more circles and lines). Fletch has been and enmity with Duchess Traliv of Keep Ardess (another circle, and a double line in a good color) and giving Gnolls supplies so they attack it (a line) BUT keeping his identity a secret from them (oh, not a line, an ARROW).

This will allow you to see every push/pull, including second order effects. And if you introduce a new NPC, it's easy to draw ina few lines and connect them to the web or people, places and things.

 

[Let's Greenfield]

Nice! Thanks everyone!

And yeah, [MENTION=6803337]Eltab[/MENTION]; that's exactly the kind of thing I'm getting at. It's just two of us playing T1-4, A1-4. C-3, and we'll see, but it's heart is in the geopolitical machinations. Not just politics, but relationships, yet-grand as it all becomes, it all does boil-down to "Soap Opera". Which is fine.

 

[Istbor]

Instead of Excel, have you thought about Visio, or mind mapping software?

So you can have a circle marked "Gnolls", and draw a red line (for enmity) to a circle for Gerald and another to Teck-Ed. And maybe the Gnolls want to destroy Keep Ardess which is on their ancestral lands (more circles and lines). Fletch has been and enmity with Duchess Traliv of Keep Ardess (another circle, and a double line in a good color) and giving Gnolls supplies so they attack it (a line) BUT keeping his identity a secret from them (oh, not a line, an ARROW).

This will allow you to see every push/pull, including second order effects. And if you introduce a new NPC, it's easy to draw ina few lines and connect them to the web or people, places and things.

Yeah, with a more visual look, I too was going to suggest MS Visio.

I don't know much about it other than it is useful for flow charts, and if you are into that sort of thing (I am not). They can be a great way to organize ties to central plots or offshoots or sideplots.

 

[Jhaelen]

Instead of Excel, have you thought about Visio, or mind mapping software?

A mind map software was my first thought, as well. But I'm not sure how well it would hold up over the course of a campaign.