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Our group finally converted to Pathfinder, so that is the catalyst (excuse) for me to get a small notebook pc just for game use. I think I’m going with the acer aspire. Anyway, in our game room (the dork tower) we do not have web access so I will only have what I can run from the hd or jump drives. Any suggestions on what is essential or handy for a player to have on a notebook with no web access? (i.e. can one save the psrd?, links to saveable character sheets with auto fill, tables, clifnotes, ect…)
Thanks
Our group finally converted to Pathfinder, so that is the catalyst (excuse) for me to get a small notebook pc just for game use. I think I’m going with the acer aspire. Anyway, in our game room (the dork tower) we do not have web access so I will only have what I can run from the hd or jump drives. Any suggestions on what is essential or handy for a player to have on a notebook with no web access? (i.e. can one save the psrd?, links to saveable character sheets with auto fill, tables, clifnotes, ect…)
Thanks
Some things you may want to consider:
A text version (in some kind of document) version of the faq from d20pfsrd hereThe download of the d20pfsrd files. Which are a linked version of the srd you can have offline. Its much faster then the pathfinder rulebook in pdf version,and thus is more useful if you just want to quickly look something up in the core rules:
download it here
Some notes about your campaign and hte current story. Some people like to handwrite these things some like them on a pc. If you can run these from the laptop that is already going to be on the table, it will save you alot of space.
Random Maps of locations. Either draw and scan them, or find pdfs of common places (taverns, churches, town halls, random cave, etc) If your players go somewhere you dont expect, it can be better to have folder with pictures you can copy then to have to dig through piles of old maps, dungeon tiles, or past scetches.
Music - This one is really group dependent. I have seen it used to great effect as well as to none. Music can set the mood, but it can also distract players, make it harder to hear eachother, or serven o purpose at all because it cant be heard clearly. So consider that one carefully.
NPCs. I have kept every npc i ever made. I have begun scanning them into my pc. After i've finished scanning and organizing them, i'll have a large libray for which i can use to improvise encounter when the players go a direction i didnt expect. If you do something similar it can be a real help.
A netbook is severely hurt by the screen size.
iPad 3G. Web access with all the trimmings.
However, a netbook is 400x better than this. If you feel like buying a iPad 3g. Instead, buy a tablet PC and a 3G USB stick. You will still be paying out the ear for a pointless 3G connection, but you will have saved plenty on the laptop.
You should be able to save the entire SRD website, though I forget how well it goes through the links.
Screen size and footprint become a factor for both the owner and everyone else. Where the owner may prefer a larger device, that may start to distract from other people you interact with. So if table space is not an issue, then the choice is yours. But for portablity, I prefer a netbook, and own the Samsung NC10.
I have not tried a tablet PC, but the cost is prohbitive as well, versus a decent $300 netbook.
An alternative with the netbook, is to buy an equally cheap LCD monitor, and use the external video port to display (if you have the table space).
As to use, I track everything I do in regards to creatures, NPCs, maps, etc. when it can be placed on a computer. However, I still use the table to track HP for creatures, as it becomes a pain swapping multiple windows.
If anyone has suggestions on a initiative tracker they use that is very basic but has the capability to upload basic statblocks (pictures would be preferred, since I play multiple versions of D&D), then please speak up.
That sounds like a rather simple program to just make up depending on what you want to do, so I presume there is one somewhere.
I'd recommend against an Acer, but I've had a lot of big issues with my Acer laptop.
I have nothing more to suggest on the laptop itself then what was recommended. (The download of the SRD is very important, and make sure it's working BEFORE game, just in case you need to grab it again.)
What I would strongly recommend is do not put the laptop in your lap. And if you put it on a table, make sure it is not directly in front of you, but off to one side. It is annoying to try to talk to someone through a laptop screen. Similarly, if you have to make an effort to look at the laptop, that's a lot better than needing to make an effort to look at the other players.
In one of my games I had a lot of players use laptops, and I ended up having to ban them as I was literally just talking to a wall of backs of laptop screens.
If you are looking to upgrade your phone sometime soon, you can also consider the possibility of tethering via USB or blue-tooth to get web access. PDAnet for Droid is a free download and I think there is an iPhone version too (paid version supports https). I use this with my Dell netbook when I'm traveling and it works just great. If you root your Droid, you can also turn it into a wi-fi hotspot which makes things even easier.
As far as must-haves, it depends a bit on if the netbook is for players or you. My players frequently need access to the skill descriptions, equipment, and spell index on the PRD (which I keep open in browser tabs). Some form of notetaking program (we use a wiki) may also be handy.
For DM use, I like to have access to the monster index, skill descriptions, magic items, NPC tables, and DM side of our campaign wiki (or some other tool for note-taking).
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Thanks folks!
Lots of great info and input so far! Good to know I can run the psrd, thanks for the link!
I should specify that I will be a player and not GM for the ending of our current campaign and then through Kingmaker so only player tools and such will be needed for quite a while.
Thanks again! These forums are great! Everyone is so mature and helpful, no flame wars and b.s.
I don't have specific advice for the brand of notebook, but I personally like the numpad, so when I got mine, I made sure it had one.
I might, in the not too distant future, get a new one - a "convertible" (i.e. a notebook with a touch screen you can turn around and lay flat onto the keyboard and you have something close to a tablet PC. Might not be as light and portable as a full tablet PC, but it does have all the other neat stuff a tablet PC simply doesn't have). If money's not an issue, maybe look into that, too. You can do all the touchy feely stuff with that and still have neat things like lots of space and every interface you need.
If you have a left-over PC screen, you might look into hooking it up to your laptop. I do that all the time - I use MapTool, start it twice (they connect over "LAN", but you need no kind of network for MapTool to find servers running on the same computer) so I have the GM view for myself (on the laptop main screen) and the player view (on the extra screen).
That way, you can have an "automap" feature! Make use of the great maps from the PDFs (if you have access to them) and nobody needs to paint a map. I've been doing this for several years now, and I wouldn't dream of stopping.
Since the lap is already there, I use it for mood music. I raided all the fantasy computer games I had for music (most games have a music folder nowadays, with either .mp3 or .ogg files) and have something running in the background at all times.
I also have all my Paizo PDFs (and the other RPG stuff, like the house rule files, other selfmade stuff, and my Purchase Excel sheet) on it.
Install an office suit on it, too, so you can take notes and all that. If you want, also get something like Herolab or PCGen (the latter being free).
If getting WLAN from somewhere, or hooking your phone up to your lap to get mobile internet is out of the question, there should be offline packages of the PRD out there. Alternatively, look into one of those programmes that downloads a whole website to make it available offline. Those programmes usually redirect the links to each other, too.
Or, of course, you could get the Core Rulebook and Bestiary PDFs (if you don't have them already), which are only 10 dollars each.
But no web access? No way to get a long LAN cable to hook up to the modem/router? No router with built-in access point? If there is any internet access in the house, you could always look into a power lan starter pack (which will transmit the lan signal through the power outlet).
Thanks folks!
Lots of great info and input so far! Good to know I can run the psrd, thanks for the link!
I should specify that I will be a player and not GM for the ending of our current campaign and then through Kingmaker so only player tools and such will be needed for quite a while.
Thanks again! These forums are great! Everyone is so mature and helpful, no flame wars and b.s.
Then, character notes, (i type faster then i write, so keeping notes on a netbook is helpful at the table), a portrait, an electronic character sheet, typed up spell lists. There are lots of things you can include on there to make your life easier.
If you're a player, just pay the $10 for the core Rulebook PDF. It's hyperlinked so you can access all the data you need quickly, plus you have all the nice arts and you can reference other players to page numbers so you're "all on the same page," literally and figuratively. Very well worth the $10 you pay for it, and if you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a laptop for gaming, paying $10 for an awesome .pdf shouldn't be much of a burden on top of that.
As others say, install the free character generator of your choice and you're good to go. My favorite character generator is sCoreGen: http://chargen.motime.com
I don't have specific advice for the brand of notebook, but I personally like the numpad, so when I got mine, I made sure it had one.
If you like numpads like KaeYoss and I do, another option (which results in a lighter and less expensive machine) is to buy a USB numpad. I've seen them at stores like Office Depot and Best Buy for less than $20 and the nice thing is that they have full-height keys instead of the short ones like on most laptops.
BTW, if you go for a machine with a solid state drive, make certain you get it with Windows 7 rather than XP or Vista. My Dell Mini 9 was very slow under XP because the older OSes don't handle solid state drives well. After I reinstalled using Win7 though, it was like a whole new machine. Very fast in spite of having much more limited processing power than a traditional laptop.
The biggest shopping concern with a netbook will be the keyboard size. I have long thin fingers and even the 9" is a bit cramped for me. If I had beefy human hands, I'm sure it would give me even more trouble. The trade-off, of course, is portability. I can fit the mini in the glovebox of the car and it fits in the top most "pencil pouch" portion of my knapsack. So head to a retail store, see what size keyboard fits and THEN shop around for a good deal on something with the ergonomics you like.
If you like numpads like KaeYoss and I do, another option (which results in a lighter and less expensive machine) is to buy a USB numpad.
Yeah, there's those, too. I actually have one of those. Not a great thing - it's part of a "notebook emergency kit" which contains an usb cable, an usb hub, a numpad, a mouse, phone cable, lan cable, even a headset (neither of these is any top notch gear, but better than nothing. They're all roll-up models). Aldi sold them once for 15€ or something.
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Netbooks have one major advantage: They don't dominate the table. The lack of screen real estate can be an advantage.
My group is heavy on the roleplay and in-depth character conversation, so we've always eschewed a GM screen because it cuts off the GM and players being able to read each others' expressions, and even my 12" (screen) laptop basically became a GM screen when I started bringing it to the table. It also made freeing up room for dice and snacks difficult, but I had to keep bringing it, as I and my players demand that our home game have a soundtrack, and PDFs are far too useful, especially when we're playing games which are out of traditional print, like old World of Darkness.
My netbook (Dell Mini 9) on the other hand, allowed me to sit at the table and refer to rulebooks as needed, and still see the player's faces. I have plenty of dice-rolling space, and my own suite of GMing computer tools (1-2 PDFs open at a time, music player, and a web browser open to a locally stored tiddlywiki for campaign notes) wasn't a challenge for my 1GB RAM netbook.
It also allowed me to sit in as a laptop-bearing *player* without seeming rude, and having PDF access as a player is handy when you don't need to disrupt the game to ask someone to pass you the core *again*.
Paizo's PDFs take a tiny bit longer to load on my Mini 9, but they're still well within what I would consider to be useable, especially since EVERYTHING in the PFRPG Core is linked, and for basic rules emergencies, there's still the PRD.
One of the rules at our game. NO LAPTOPS. Keeps everyone in the game and not distracted.
In a separate file, I kept a running combat log, with updated HP for everybody, including mobs. Whenever we rolled new initiative, I'd just take 20 seconds, highlight a PC's line and move him into the correct ini order.
That's why you put all THAT stuff in a spreadsheet and sort it on the "Initiative" column. That's what I'm going to try and do for encounters.
One of the rules at our game. NO LAPTOPS. Keeps everyone in the game and not distracted.
That's what you would think, isn't it?
That's why you put all THAT stuff in a spreadsheet and sort it on the "Initiative" column. That's what I'm going to try and do for encounters.
THAT's a brilliant idea. I'm stealing that. Can't believe I didn't think about it before.