[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Either you're VERY fond of recording things, or you just have too much time... ^^;
I still prefer keeping track of things to remember on paper, no matter what.

[Dragonstrike]

Either you're VERY fond of recording things, or you just have too much time... ^^;
I still prefer paper, no matter what.

We're playing a tabletop RPG, after all.  Someone has to keep track of this stuff.

And yes, I do have a lot of time.  It took awhile to type up everything that's recorded in Nathan's Journal.

Every time I've said he writes something down in that book in character?  That's me adding new information to his historical notes on the Character Sheet.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

True words, it never hurts to have a good resourse of information if things need to be looked up.

My paper notes in a sketchpad are held relaitively colourful, and probably none except me would be able to read/understand them because I add side notes in tiny words as well as small drawings almost everywhere. If something feels important to me, it gets noted. If some new rules come that I wish to record/remember, it will be written down there. Standard rolls for moves my dear Pokemon have are there to instant-check as well.

To make it short, I don't record EVERYTHING and don't care about small details that feel needless to me - example is the time line our campaign takes place - but rather of those mechanical and battle-related things I wish to keep track of. Gives me more time to come up with good RPing-replies and refined interactions with my Pokemon aside from battles.

[Dragonstrike]

That timeline aspect is actually very important. It might seem mostly insignificant, but remember when Ventus brought up Project Silverfish, which happened after Neo Plasma was taken down?

I've placed the events from B2/W2 as taking place around 4 years ago. The Genesect statue in Wineberry was built 3 years ago, and Ventus was fired from the project a year after he was brought on (which was about 4 years ago. They must have brought him into the project after a few months at most)

Knowing all that, I had to double check my notes to see if it was possible Genesect could have escaped after Ventus left, made its way to Creshire, and been captured again by the Scimitars, who then built a statue of it (which is a surprisingly accurate replica they shouldn't have been able to build since Team Plasma were the ones who revived Genesect and modified it, unless they've seen Genesect first hand) to hide their underground complex.

It barely fit, but it all fell into place. Not 100% sure of it, but I suspect Iron may have referenced those notes when discussing that backstory with Ventus. If not, that's quite the coincidence that it all fit together like that!

So, in short: for major backstory elements related to larger goings on, having a timeline is VERY important.

[Lord Windos]

I'm a person of pragmatism and utility when it comes to my character sheet: I make sure everything is put down and recorded, and all is clearly present, but I usually don't add too much florish. I don't color code moves nor add flavor text to them, but I add simple description to keep track what they do. I note each and every item I get, and even give them flavor text (You gave me that idea, mate!), but I don't do add whole new tabs or columns to my worksheet to mangane the in game knowledge my character posses. Given the 'Make it up as I go along' nature my character had in the beginning, such and effort would have been futile.

I plan on making an omake in the meta thread that is basically Ventus notes on the Pokémon he's recorded, but I haven't even started to write that down yet. I never bothered to record what Pokémon I see or encounter in a route, since I'm more focused on my character and his Pokémon, rather than the location he's in. Any knowledge I gain, such as the fortune and what I read on the pot, is stuff that I either comment to memory, or just leave a note connected to an item related to said knowledge for quick recall.

Essentially, my character sheet is less of a resource and compendium of knowledge for me, and more of a record to note any progress, items, or effects I gained upon my character, and focus most of my creativity and attension on the meta and Game thread itself. Unless I see your sheet for myself, and take a crash course in Excell (I know almost nothing about it, mate), I'm not going to have a clue on how to do the things you are describing. Sorry about that!

[Dragonstrike]

I don't know a whole lot about excel spreadsheets either, tbh. I've been learning things as I go, and I don't think anything I've done with my sheet is overly complex for the most part, The most complex things I've done so far is adding the cell borders, merging cells, and adding Notes to cells.

Oh, and making some minor changes to the conditional colors for the current HP readings.

Most of what I put down there is just information recording in various forms, is all.

[Lord Windos]

I don't know a whole lot about excel spreadsheets either, tbh.  I've been learning things as I go, and I don't think anything I've done with my sheet is overly complex for the most part,  The most complex things I've done so far is adding the cell borders, merging cells, and adding Notes to cells.

Oh, and making some minor changes to the conditional colors for the current HP readings.

Most of what I put down there is just information recording in various forms, is all.

All of which is beyond my capacities. I specialized in Microsoft PowerPoint and Word, not any of their other programs!

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

It's fine if the timeline is important to you and you put effort into it, I just choose that it's not important to me neither to my character. History does not belong to Shiva's interests... Myths and old Lore concerning Pokemon are something different, she likes those, but does not care whether a particular event happened 56 or 100 years ago. Where's the point of remembering the exact number? She doesn't see any point to do so. As I already displayed her view in Game Thread, "learn from what happened in the past, value precious experiences, and then move on. The future is an open path yet to be formed."

If time lines were a big thing in a particular Game Session, I'd expect the GM to make them way more prominent. Iron doesn't seem to care that much about what happened exactly when either, and I'm somewhat thankful for this.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

All of which is beyond my capacities. I specialized in Microsoft PowerPoint and Word, not any of their other programs!

Then paper notes might be more appealing to you? All you need are papers and a pen, no searching where to click to make the software do what you want her to do...

There is really no need to be sorry, dear! Make the charasheet that it's useful and appealing to you, and you're doing the job correctly.

[Dragonstrike]

I agree that the exact timeline for stuff that took place a looonnnnggg time ago is much more flexible. For more recent events, it matters quite a bit more. But, to each their own. Maybe I'm just emphasizing it so much because of my character's flair for history. Well, that, and Sun and Moon giving us a set time period for all the games between them and Red and Blue (if not exact dates relative to each other).

As far as learning 'how to spreadsheet,' it's actually fairly simple stuff if you don't want/need to get into the really crazy techniques that allow some really hair raising stuff to be done. Everything I've used has either been on the hotbar, in a dropdown, or accessed via right clicking a cell. Except for multi-cell selection, which is simply holding down shift or cntrl before clicking.

In the end, spreadsheets are tools designed to keep track of large amounts of information and keep it looking relatively clean, so that's what I'm using it for. Not saying you have to as well, but the option to add some more stuff here and there is available.