I've been using my old Dell laptop to run my game. I have the Campaign Cartographer series of software, but other than that I just use standard MS Office products to help me organize my campaign notes and NPC's. I describe all my locations and NPC's in Wordpad (one file per location or NPC) and use Excel spreadsheets to organize data on names, factions, locations of certain NPC's etc. I also imbed hyperlinks in Word or Excel documents to quickly bring up key NPC's, monster stats, etc. I also use a lot of 3x5 cards with data pre-printed on them for ease of reference.
My question is--does anyone else run their games from a computer and what other software products do you use to help you with that endeavor? Any helpful tips or suggestions? I like my system, but I'm always looking to improve.
I used to run my 2nd edition game with nothing but the AD&D Core Rules CD's, using a search engine to look up rules, create encounters and look up creature stats. I even quit carrying the books with me to games, 'cuz I didn't need them any more, but there's nothing like this for 3.5 that I've found. Any suggestions?
I use two software packages on my laptop to help me with my D&D games.
1) I use an Excel spreadsheet as my campaign workbook to organize my events and ideas. I have sheets in the workbook that a) link together each event within each module, to b) track when and where each major personality shows up and what their motivations might be, and c) list my players and what roleplaying events and special quests I might develop for them, and d) list new ideas/modules that I intend to work on but haven't yet linked in.
2) I use DMGenie to run each game session, including managing combat, following campaign events, tracking character stats and equipment, etc. Some folks use DMFamiliar for this, but I've found DMGenie fits my own preferences.
Hurm.
PCGen all the way, baby! :-)
It's very convenient for tracking characters and NPCs. I haven't played with any of the DM-specific stuff though, and I probably should. I'll probably investigate it before starting my next campaign.
I have not started yet, but I would suggest setting up a wikki. It makes it easy to link to pages and create information as well as easily allowing others to edit it if you decide to allow them to view it. Very handy way of organizing information.
Personally, at the moment, I use tympani, textpad and the SRD at the table. Haven't started using a mapping program or anything, although I have used maps which were available to download.
Matter of fact, that might be my project tonight....must set up D&D wikki :)
I use DMGenie. It is pretty convenient for tracking initiative and spell/condition expiration, I have also scanned/OCRed adventures when I have had the time so that I don't need to reference paper sources during the game. It isn't perfect but it certainly helps me stay organized during game sessions. If you do enter the encounters into the program its a snap to divide XP and treasure.
The campaign calendar is also very handy, its very easy to edit for your specific campaign. (Mine has Greyhawk months, moon phases, and holidays) It will also generate weather based on climate, altitude, latitude etc, for a year in advance which is then tied to the calender by the hour. Very handy since its easy to forget these sorts of details which can help ground your players into the here and now of the campaign world.
Anyway it has a trial period so I encourage everyone to give it a try if they have access to a laptop for their games.
I don't use a computer at the table but I use PCGen extencivly to create NPCs and any leveled villians. I use OpenOffice for varous word processing functions like making Calanders and House Rules etc. I use Photoshop quite a bit for making PC handouts. Mapping is done with a wargame construction set called The Operational Art of War. This has a feature to export maps to Tiffs so I make the main map using this program and then do adjustments in Photoshop. Howeevr I will probably pick up Campaign Cartographer at some point to make even more pretty maps.
I am currently experimenting with scaning rough drafts of my maps and then use Photoshop to create better more sharp and sexy versions.
I primarily use a Mac with OSX, so I've been using program called CrystalBall. For the most part, I've been using it for character management - and it's compatible with 3.5 D&D. You can also enter in extra feats, new weapons, armor, and such if they aren't already built in, but I've found that most are there. It can also do quite a lot of dice rolls for combat management, but I think that its best feature is char creation and devpt.
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I use a laptop off to the side to do a number of things:
1) Play background music, with general and battle music playlists set up as Winamp icons on my desktop.
2) Use DMGenie - not as a combat tracker (as it was intended), but as a quick reference guide for Monsters, Spells, and Feats. Also use it when I need to pick a monster out of my posterior, since it has quick CR and environment searches for critters.
3) Keep running notes in a MS Word campaign log, so I can track what has happened, and what will happen...
I just bought DM Genie after reading about it in this post.
I'm a bit overwhelmed skiffing through the options.
Yet as Swamp Thing once said, "Sometimes the only way out is through."
Off to straighten that lurnin curve.
Were can I get this DMGenie?... I have set-up a database to generate my critters but I would like to try this dm genie software out... I dont want to be a RICHARD but the critter database that was mentioned earlier only has beasties that my adventuers have or will encounter during a game... but any one that has access can do it... I just based the tables on the stat blocks...
I use my laptop for:
- Rules reference (via my d20 SRD site)
- Combat tracking
- Campaign logs
- Character generation
- Game sheets (character records, status logs, consumable items logs, spell sheets)
- Dice rolling
- Music
We also have this nifty tabletop projection setup. It rocks for mapping and displaying visual aids.
It's had a huge impact on our game and was relatively easy and cheap to implement.
We also have this nifty tabletop projection setup. It rocks for mapping and displaying visual aids.It's had a huge impact on our game and was relatively easy and cheap to implement.
The expencive bit is buying the house with the games room included.
Boredflak: your d20 site is my Firefox Homepage, I use that, notepad, and a program called DMScreen.
Were can I get this DMGenie?... I have set-up a database to generate my critters but I would like to try this dm genie software out... I dont want to be a RICHARD but the critter database that was mentioned earlier only has beasties that my adventuers have or will encounter during a game... but any one that has access can do it... I just based the tables on the stat blocks...
http://www.dmgenie.com/home.shtml
I use my laptop for:
- Rules reference (via my d20 SRD site)
- Combat tracking
- Campaign logs
- Character generation
- Game sheets (character records, status logs, consumable items logs, spell sheets)
- Dice rolling
- MusicWe also have this nifty tabletop projection setup. It rocks for mapping and displaying visual aids.
It's had a huge impact on our game and was relatively easy and cheap to implement.
Those links are amazing, Flak. I'd always wondered if something like that tabletop set-up would work.
Just amazing. Thanks.
I use my laptop for:
- Rules reference (via my d20 SRD site)
- Combat tracking
- Campaign logs
- Character generation
- Game sheets (character records, status logs, consumable items logs, spell sheets)
- Dice rolling
- MusicWe also have this nifty tabletop projection setup. It rocks for mapping and displaying visual aids.
It's had a huge impact on our game and was relatively easy and cheap to implement.
Your site is the best DMing site I know of. It only has one flaw that i know of: you only have the prestige classes from the DMG , and your missing a couple of them. Normally if I had a question about a class I would have looked there but I could not find the Red Wizard of Thay.
I too am thinking of using my laptop for helping me organize my gaming. Where did you get the Camapaign Cartogropher? I have been trying to find one for sometime. It's a lot easier to use that, I'm sure, than it would be to create a map on the paint program! I've tried, it ain't fun. And I will use a lot of the advice off this site to help me out. Thanks everybody!
Sorry for the late response, but I think Paizo sells Campaign Cartogropher software....if not, you can go to www.profantasy.com to buy it there.
It's kind of pricey, but it makes pretty maps. It's a little quirky, and not that easy to use. I'm not sure I would buy it again as I was hoping it would save me more time, but it still takes quite a bit of time and effort to make a good map.
Still, it's better than hand drawn maps, at least on the attractiveness level.
I use a laptop connected to a monitor to reveal dungeon maps using a masking layer in Photoshop as the characters explore. I also use E-Tools, MS OneNote (awesome for organizing campaign and adventure notes, and a downloaded copy of Boredflak's Hypertext d20 SRD in Firefox (much faster than using the online version).
I use my computer for almost every facet of the game. That projection tool is amazing, however!
1. PC's get created by HeroForge, a free download searched at Google. It's invaluable. It even makes monsters.
2. Because I do a home-brewed campaign, I have a website devoted to the campaign, and players can read up on countries, races, languages, political aspects, etc. (CalinDay.com/Havorra for the curious. Capital "H".)
3. I design maps, castles, dungeons, symbols, art, etc. in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. (Scanning art and such for the game or finding it on the web is rather useful for this.)
4. After each game, I write up a synopsis of the game, and email it to each player so they can do "downtime" via email rather than in-game. It saves time, and so far, we've got some 70+ pages of our campaign "book" scribed, it makes for a nice look back, and is useful as a DM for keeping track of plotlines.
5. If you haven't seen my post about music, it lists excellent choices by folks here who also use music in game, and I use my PC and iTunes for that.
Nice post! Very interesting solutions and ideas here.
- Warcry
I'll check out the site for the Campaign Cartogropher to see if it has a downloadable trial program. If so, I'll test it to see if it is suitable for what i want. Anyway, thank you all for helping me out. I'll also look into Heroforge and check that out. I'm always looking for an easier way to get my baddies organized. I have so many character sheets filed away of defeated npc's its not even funny anymore! Once again thank you all! I'll look into posting my games in an online journal later and I'll tell how my experience using my laptop goes.
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Wow. I was involved in turning Chris Perkins onto DMGenie. Does that mean I get a "DM Assist" in the slaying of PCs in his campaign? ;>
The other thing that's nice about DMGenie is that Janik (the creator/programmer) is open to suggestions on the dmgenie.com messageboards. Right now people are clamoring for his program to use the new statblock format...
Something else I used in the past with my computer in my campaign was printing out "magic item cards", using dollar store business cards to print out SRD descriptions of magic items, etc. I cannot tell you how often the printout of Tanglefoot Bag made our lives easier. However, we stopped using it as a group when the PCs hit 10th level, and they had a 3" stack of business cards reflecting all their potions, magic items, cool gew-gaws, and the like. But I did enjoy trying them out. Especially when they found an unidentified magic item -- I coded the card, and later, the PCs would say "I'm identifying potion Q13". Made my life easier.
Your site friggin' rocks, man. Although I don't use miniatures for my game, I am envious of your tabletop setup.
I use my laptop for:
- Rules reference (via my d20 SRD site)
- Combat tracking
- Campaign logs
- Character generation
- Game sheets (character records, status logs, consumable items logs, spell sheets)
- Dice rolling
- MusicWe also have this nifty tabletop projection setup. It rocks for mapping and displaying visual aids.
It's had a huge impact on our game and was relatively easy and cheap to implement.
For game prep I use an old P500 with Win98 and Open Office v1.9.122. All gaming is done the old fasioned way. Paper and pencil....er, well, I do have a battlemat.
--Ray.
I've been using my old Dell laptop to run my game.
For my first game I dug out my old Compaq laptop and have been fairly happy with it and will probably continue to use it. I'm used to playing the RPGA Living campaigns and have never had to worry about how much XP to assign to players so I wrote an excel spreadsheet to keep track of XP for all my players and let me know when they level.
I think it's pretty cool. I just indicate if they were present or not, and what Challenge Rating they fight and it figures out how much XP they recieved (based on number of players, what level they were, and the CR of the encounter), adds it to their current total, and tells me if they level (based on new XP, current level, and whether or not the have an ECL for their character.)
In the same spreadsheet I also created a Greyhawk calander that includes every holiday I could find from other sources (what they mean and how they are celebrated). I'm keeping track of what day it is on that for my characters...
I use a heavily modified version of HeroForge for creating characters (and getting more modified by the day, adding PRC's and such).
Finally, I got sick of carting around mini's, so I started creating monster tokens for everything the party faces. I haven't finished the Black Keep ones because I'm waiting on the web enhancement, but if you want to see or use them you can find everything on my website here.
http://www.geocities.com/oneoftheunloved/aow/
Our group uses DMGenie heavily as well as Campaign Cart.
I do my best to acquire/convert all of our material in PDF format (ocr). It makes putting together player packets and volumes of related material much easier.
Apart from the obvious character and creature sheets and general game preperation, I made a spreadsheet on Excel that calculates the growth of a city/town. It gives me everything like population growth, costs for rebuilding in case of natural disasters... It even gives me the detailed population breakup! Also, I converted the entire random weather generator in the DM's Guide on a spreadsheet, so I can get an entire year's worth of weather at the click of a mouse (printer friendly). My weather generator also accounts for seasons and regions. Pretty cool stuff! What a time saver.
Man, I wish I had Boredflak's skills. I only know basic HTML and use Notepad for my editor. That said, all my notes are in a locally hosted (my computer, only) website, which I use to keep everything straight. Everything is linked, and I have indexed tables of every NPC, monster, deity, etc... I've used over the past three years.
For instance, I have a page for "The Four Brothers of the Night," deities I borrowed from a campaign I was a player in a while back. The page has all the standard deity info, updated to the format used in Complete Divine. It also has a list of important NPCs, cult sites, and related information - each item linked to its own page.
Back to my first statement. If I did have Boredflak's skills, I'd have put this in a database format (or something less klunky) long ago. I don't, though, so I'm stuck with static pages. At any rate, I highly recommend building something like this, if you have the gumption. It won't seem like much at first, but over time it become a veritable work of art.
Matter of fact, that might be my project tonight....must set up D&D wikki :)
Alright, I'll bite. What's a "wikki"?
- Chris Shadowens
Alright, I'll bite. What's a "wikki"?
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I use a bunch of freeware that I get (mostly) off of this site - http://dndadventure.com/dnda_dm_resources.html
It really speeds up prep time, in my experience. I even used a random dungeon generator for a lot of that last-minute or on-the-fly stuff. Just roll a few times (in the dice roller program so they don't know you're doing it) to see what the features of the rooms are, courtesy of the good old DMG. The DM Screen program previously mentioned in the thread is very helpful as well.
If you are computer-literate, it is incredibly helpful, otherwise it's a headache.
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My use of a PC (laptop, actually) is fairly limited during gameplay but when I do use one I make use of the following:
- Microsoft Office (I use Word to type up encounters, descriptions, and whatnot; I use Excel to make maps (not pretty, but functional); and I use Access to keep a database of the party's kills, what they've sold, important folks they've met/killed, and similar things.)
- DMTools.org (I can't say enough about how much I love this site; I use the treasure generator almost exclusively to generate loot for my games and the Stat Block Bank is incredibly helpful as well.)
- Campaign Cartographer 3 (Picked this up mid last year; I have yet to do anything really advanced with it, but I intend to pick up the City Builder expansion and go to town (heh, pun) with that.)
I use DM's Familiar. I love it, but I wrote it so I may be biased.
I use it for tracking combat: initiative, making all the dice rolls for the monsters, tracking HP. It's also got a very handy reference library where you can look up whatever you like - spells, feats, rules, etc.. You can also add your own information to that.
There's a 30 day demo in the Paizo store. You can also buy it there.
Lastly, a lot of the OGL content from the adventure paths has already been typed up and is available for import straight into DMF. It's on the downloads page of the website.
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In addition to that, I use the laptop to reference and update the campaign wiki during the game, klooge.werks because we play remotely, and Skpe for voice chat.
Yeah, the profantasy stuff is pretty good in my view. Steep learning curve but its not hard to get the basics. I have CC3, Dungeon Designer and I'm about to get City Designer 3. I think that they are worth it for anyone who has a serious homebrew game. You can hypertext all your notes to a map made in CC3 and also link your city/dungeon maps if you have those programs.
I'm not so familiar with the other programs like DMGenie etc but I'm gonna check em out as soon as I get a lappy.
We use a laptop, a projector, a wall and OpenOffice draw to project very simple maps onto the wall where can all see them. We play 4E, but dont really like using miniatures, and feel we kind of require the map in complicated fights, especially when it comes to using a lot of the movement powers.
The one rule we use is that we describe the action we are doing, then break it down into the component crunchy bits so the DM knows what we are doing, so that the map doesnt detract from any of the RP.