A schema is a definition of some type of thing, for example a Person. Each schema describes the type it is about, and lists the fields that are useful to fill in for this type of thing. The fields and the values players added for them are shown on the wiki pages with the schema. You can add schemas to a wiki page when creating or editing it.

For example, by adding the Person schema to a wikipage you tell other players and RPGpad that the wikipage is about a person, and you automatically get the Residence and Affiliation input fields on the wikipage to easily link the person to their home, and to organisations they are affiliated with.

Schemas are listed in the Schema overview. Your campaign starts out with three schemas: Person, Location, and Faction. These schemas start with only a few fields, and you may want to adjust them to better fit your campaign. You can also add new schemas to your campaign to describe other types of things, such as Deities, Unique Items, or anything else you want.

RPGpad uses the schemas you use in your campaign to help organize your campaign. One of the ways it does so is by automatically creating an index for each schema type. In these wiki indices, such as the Locations index, you will find list of all pages describing things of that type. You can group and filter the list to find what you are looking for. By adjusting the schemas to fit your campaign, you will get even more benefit out of the categorization they provide.

Additionally, you can also add lists of things to your own wiki pages, forum posts, and other places where you can add text. For details on how to do so, see the help on showing list of things.

The rest of this page consists of explanations on how to:

• Add a field — add a field to specialize a schema for your campaign
• Changing a field — improve your schemas by adjusting their fields to fit
• remove a field — improve your schemas by removing unneeded fields

• Add a new schema — customize what types of things your players can easily describe
• Changing a schema — adjust a schema to make it fit better with how you use the wiki
• Remove a schema — removing unused or unneeded schemas

• Available Field Types — the available types, and tips and guidelines for picking the right field type

Add a Field

The easiest way to customize the schemas for your campaign is to add a field to a schema.

One of the things that people often need in for their fantasy or sci-fi campaign is a "Species" field for the Person schema. Here we'll describe the steps to take to add such a field:

1. Go to the Schema page, and edit the schema. Visit the schema overview and go to the schema you want to add your field to. Start editing the schema with the Edit action button.

2. Add the field and give it a name. At the bottom of the list of Field Specifications you can add a field via the "Add field..." button. Give the field a short and to-the-point name. We will use "Species" for our example.

3. Shortly describe the field. The text you write in the description field is shown with each field when players are editing their wiki pages. Use the description to explain the meaning of this field and offer examples of what kinds of values they should use.

   For our example field we describe: This person's race. Use a link to the species page such as [[Human]], [[Elf]], or [[Orc]].

4. Determine the type of the field. The type of the field determines what kind of information players can put in the field. There are several types:

   • Reference: if the field is a category such as 'Species' or 'Spaceship Type'
   • List of References: if you expect a list of distinct things, such as 'Upgrades'
   • Number or Dot track: if you know the field should be a number, such as a rating or score
   • Text: if the field should be free for the players to add whatever they want.

   For our example we will pick Reference, since we want players to link to the race of the person. See Picking a Type for more ideas.

5. Confirm the field, and save the schema! Hit the "Add field" button to confirm the new field. You can continue to add other fields, or finish your edits by saving the schema itself. Once you save the schema all your existing pages will be updated with the new field.

   You can immediately start using the new field on your wiki pages, and any pages that already used the schema will now have the new field available as well.

Change a Field

You can change a field to update its name, description or type.

For example, while updating your wiki you notice that you want to change the "Residence" field from being a single entry to a list of entries, because you want to keep track of people that have multiple houses or bases of operation.

1. Go to the Schema page, and edit the schema. Visit the schema overview and go to the schema you want to add your field to. Start editing the schema with the Edit action button.

2. Open the field to change it Open the field with the "Details..." button. Here you can change the field's name, description, and type.

   When updating a field name, all pages will be updated automatically when you save the schema.

   When switching the type, a notification will be shown to inform you about what is going to happen to pages that already have some data for that field.

3. Confirm the field's change, and save! Hit the "Done" button to confirm the changes, and finish your edits by saving the schema itself. After you have saved your edits to the schema all pages are automatically updated to use the new schema, with fields properly renamed, and converted to their new types.

   RPGpad will try to automatically convert your data to help you. If that does not work out, your data will be moved to the page's Extra Fields area, so you can fix it in your own way. Your data will never suddenly disappear.

Remove a Field

You can remove a field from a schema.

For example, while updating your wiki you notice that the "Residence" field is not needed because the whole campaign is about people in the same space station.

1. Go to the Schema page, and edit the schema. Visit the schema overview and go to the schema you want to add your field to. Start editing the schema with the Edit action button.

2. Remove the field To remove the field entirely, open the Details, and hit the "Remove" button. This will mark the field as removed, but it will not be removed until you save the changes to the schema.

   If you change your mind before saving your changes, you can undo removing the field with the "Unremove" button. When you save your edits the field will be removed for real.

3. Confirm by saving the schema! Confirm that you want to remove the field by saving the edits to the schema. After you have saved your edits to the schema all pages will automatically be updated. If a wiki page has has a value for the removed field, the field will be moved to the Extra Fields segment of the page.

Add a new schema

You can add new schemas to allow players to describe new types of things.

You might discover that the three default schemas are not enough for your campaign. Maybe you want to add a "Deity" schema to the wiki because gods play an important part in your stories.

1. Find the "New Schema" button, and use begin the new schema. Go to the schema overview and hit the "New Schema" button in the menu to go to the schema creation page.

2. Pick a singular title and plural title. You will need a name for your new schema. Because schemas are used to categorize things, you will have to give it both a singular title and a plural title so the system knows how to talk about pages with this schema. For example, we will pick "Deity".

   Note that the system will automatically try to pick a plural title for you. If you enter "Deity" in the singular title field, it will automatically pick "Deities" as the plural. You can overwrite the suggestion if the system makes a mistake.

3. Pick an icon, or upload an icon. To help players recognize the schema when editing or viewing their wiki pages you should give the schema an icon. Based on the title you entered, one of the ready-to-go icons might have been suggested.

   You can pick an icon from the last of ready-to-go icons that match your campaign's theme, or you can upload your own icon, both via the "Pick icon..." button. As everywhere else on RPGpad, you can also drag and drop an image from your computer onto the preview. For our "Deity" example the suggested icon works.

   The three sizes of preview will help you determine if the icon you picked is a good one. The best icons are easily recognizable even in the smallest preview. When making your own icons we suggest uploading simple SVG icons, since they work especially well. You can get SVG icons from Game-icons.net, or use an SVG editor like Inkscape to draw them yourself. Regardless of how you get your icons, for a consistent look and feel across your campaign, try to keep uploaded icons in the same (simple) style.

4. Determine where the schema may be used. Most often, you will want to add a schema that is used to describe things in your campaign's setting. So, if you want that, you do not have to adjust anything with regards to where the schema is allowed. For our "Deity", we will not change anything, we want it to be used in the setting wiki.

   However, there is a lot of benefit in adding schemas specifically for the Rules wiki, such having automatic indexes for "Feats", "Spells", or "Charms". In that case, it is often a good idea to allow those schemas in both the Rules and Notes wiki, to allow players to propose new ideas without automatically having them in the rules.

5. Write a short description. When creating the new schema, you have an idea of what it means in mind. To help your players understand this idea, you add a short description to the schema. For example, we describe our "Deity" with "A supernatural being central to a religious group, often part of a larger pantheon."

   A good description includes a short definition of the essence of the thing described by the schema, and some examples to help players form an idea of what you intended to be described by the schema.

6. Add fields to the new schema. Most schemas benefit from having fields to help players add information to the page. Follow the steps from add a field to do so. For our "Deity", we will add the fields and "Pantheon" as a Reference field that describes which pantheon the deity is part of, and "Alignment" as a Text so we can track the deity's alignment.

7. Save your schema When you are happy with your schema, you can create it with the "Create schema" button at the bottom. Once the schema has been created, you and other players can immediately start using it on your wiki pages.

Change a schema

You can adjust a schema to change its name, icon, description, or where it can be used.

Most often you want to change a schema to adjust its fields. See how to add a field , change a field, or remove a field.

1. Go to the Schema page, and edit the schema. Visit the schema overview and go to the schema you want to change. Start editing the schema with the Edit action button.

2. Change the schema name To change a schema's name edit the singluar title field and plural title field. If possible, a plural title will be suggested to match the singular title you entered. Renaming a schema also updates any wiki pages that use the schema to use the new name.

3. Change the schema image Pick or upload a different image. See step 3 of Add a schema for details and tips.

4. Change where the schema may be used You can freely change where a schema may be used. If a page uses a schema on a wiki where this is no longer allowed, the schema will stay on the page until someone manually removes it. Your wiki pages are safe when changing where a schema may be used.

5. Change the description Adjust the description as necessary.

6. Update the schema and save it! Adjust the schema to how you want it to be. When you are done adjusting the schema you an finish your edits by saving the schema. After saving the schema, all pages will immediately have the updated schema available. Pages that were already using the schema will be updated with your changes. Pages that use the schema in a wiki where the schema is no longer allowed will keep the schema.

Remove a schema

You can remove a schema.

After using your campaign for a while you may discover that a schema does not work for you, or does not get used all that much.

1. Go to the Schema page. Visit the schema overview and go to the schema you want to remove.

2. Check if the schema is in use. Schemas can only be removed if they are no longer used anywhere to store data with. At the bottom of the schema page you will find sections showing how the schema is used. As long as anything is listed here under a section named "Used for page data", you cannot remove the schema.

3. If necessary: remove schema from wikipages Before removing the schema itself go to each wiki page that still uses the schema and edit it. Remove the schema from the wiki page in the side bar and save the page.

4. Edit the schema, and remove it. Enter the edit view by using the "Edit" button. If the schema is not in use anywhere, you will find a "Remove schema" button at the bottom of the edit view.

Available field types

When adding or changing a field you will have to pick a type for the new field. A field's type determines how players enter and view the values for that field.

This overview gives a short explanation of the available types, how players will see them, and when to use them. The available types are Text, Reference, List of References, Number, and Dot Track. Text is a free field where players can enter what they want. Reference and List of References are fields that only link to other pages. Number and Dot Track are for numerical values such as scores and ratings.

The cards below show how players will see the fields, and how the fields will be displayed.