This is an elaboration on the Loopy Planning Template I discussed earlier - but first I would just like to say, I really like a lot of the stuff that has been added to this tool, it has come very far. It has hit the point where I think it is now my favorite DM source of truth - or quickly becoming that.
I think templates organize many of the needs very well - the one drawback I've noticed is that bulleted lists and other things don't work within the templates (this goes for the mermaid graphing as well and limits where I can't use the main symbols either can we get it so links and the other wiki tools are usable within these resources or is it exclusionary?)
I also feel 5 room dungeons is a very specific template when the template itself is somewhat generic. I think generic terms like 3x3 template may work like ```3x3 then you could do 4x4, 5x5, 2x3, 1x6 etc. One template 'idea' but you can organize however you need to and ```5rdt could just be ```3x3 with prefilled information (this might make it a lot easier to spin up additional template options since we are just defaulting the information to those commonly used)
So for Loopy Planning - Personally I really want to get a solid grasp on loopy planning, as I mentioned and I feel it can be organized much cleaner, and consistently so that's where I think the template comes in - so things appropriate 'attach' to the Loopy Plan. I think the Plan should tie in to the 'Notes' as well as the Campaign Entries in a clean way - I plan on having a 'Campaign Entry' for each of my loops so I guess that's what I'm looking for a nice solid entry for.
For me the problem is I need more 'data' on the characters to see the hooks and I really want to delve into the story and the psychology so I keep a lot of detailed notes. I am very thorough and all the stars need to align and make sense to the character at their core. Because of this complexity - I favor always the things which let me drill down to whatever I need (when I may not know what I need) the quickest - I think we're getting there with this tool. Johnn would be the best person to probably decide what information should be present for a loopy plan, but I would imagine it would be something like:
Plan Source (Entity NPC, Event, Item, Organization, or whatever is initiating the loop)
Flavor/Flare (The Spirit of the Roleplay surrounding the loop - how they function, particularly important for NPC related where it should fit the NPC)
Next Steps (The next steps to reach the overriding agenda)
Agenda (The goal or overriding target the Plan Source is trying to reach)
Coinciding Loops (Other Loops relating to this one or fully encapsulating this one)
I added Coinciding Loops for this reason:
I feel there is also a hierarchy of loops - like perhaps you have a peasant who is struggling to deal with a grain shortage, then their daughter is kidnapped by goblins, the 'loop' is related to the peasant we'll call him George so the Plan Source is @George but perhaps larger loops encapsulate that and @George is kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme. Maybe @George has his loop relate to the larger loop of the grain shortage is caused by a lord selling out his country and the goblins are amassing because he needs a scapegoat - that may be a larger loop, and then the still larger loop is that he needs the resources because of a curse which will release a great monster from beneath town if it is not kept at bay so he views the issues as the lesser of two evils, and so on.
My problem is writing this out like I did above - easy. When I get my loops into Campaign Logger - it's hard to see the associations of the loops. It's hard to see the structure, I see the 'now' but not where I might be going and as shown - sometimes the 'source' of the loop changes as the Characters move their progression to deeper levels of the campaign.
I do care about the logs - but I find my value comes more from the campaign entries - and the logs exist to support that meat - I feel like the loopy planning template is what needs to somehow merge the logs and the entities cleanly making things clear and easy to generate and organize - this is after all about being the best organized you've ever been and helping with Brainstorming.