What electronic tools do you use when DMing?

[MEEA]

Im moving away from the old and towards the new, whats useful?

[MendedWall12]

This thread has gone around already. My search-fu is weak right now, but if you do a search you'll see at least two other threads like this that are full of helpful hints.

[DeathQuaker]

For things you can run on laptops (and I assume tablets)

Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager

(www.combatmanager.com)

[Tels]

HeroLabs for me, I just recently picked up Combat Manager, and haven't had a chance to use it. I do like that CM can import HeroLabs stats, which makes it a VASTLY better program than most I've seen. I only wish that it could keep track of rounds for things like spell effects, poisons etc.

[MEEA]

DeathQuaker wrote:

Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager
Combat Manager

holy $#!^

this is amazing

[Nemitri]

Indeed it is an excellent program for pathfinder, I showed it to my friends and they all fell in love with it, rolling initiative is not a hassle anymore and combat goes smoother with it.

[Haladir]

I have one (and occasionally more) remote player, so I use MapTool as a remote map server. For the players in the room, we find it a very useful tool as well. MapTool also handles initiative, hit points, and uses token markers for spell effects. I use two computers for this: I'm on one with the GM view, and another one faces the players. (One of my players has started showing up with his own laptop as well, and ties in to the MapTool session.)

For communication with the remote player(s), we use Skype-- usually audio only, but we do turn on the webcams if it's a roleplaying encounter rather than a tactical one.

I have an Obsidian Portal campaign site, and my PCs have their stats posted there. I also have a lot of notes about my campaign there, copies of player handouts, an NPC index, and adventure log there as well.

I have the Pathfinder PRD up and running during my game: It's a lot faster to look up rules on the Web than it is to flip through books.

I usually have the electronic copy of my adventure at my fingertips. I'm running a highly modified Adventure Path, so I run my game mostly from my own printed notes, but find using the PDF of the module on-screen to be easier than having two books open.

I tend to have my iPod hooked up to my stereo playing an appropriate playlist during the game.

I use shared spreadsheet files in Google Docs to award XPs and divide treasure. I have a private Google Doc with an in-game calendar and timeline that I'm constantly referring to. (I've added phases of the moon and a brief weather report for each day as well. I used actual weather data from 2009 for a city that is roughly the same climate as the game world.)

Nice thing about these solutions: They're all free!

[bigkilla]

Herolab and D20Pro.I play all of my games nowadays online.The PRD is invaluable for playing when there is a computer around.

[Tels]

Haladir wrote:

I have one (and occasionally more) remote player, so I use MapTool as a remote map server. For the players in the room, we find it a very useful tool as well. MapTool also handles initiative, hit points, and uses token markers for spell effects. I use two computers for this: I'm on one with the GM view, and another one faces the players. (One of my players has started showing up with his own laptop as well, and ties in to the MapTool session.....

Dude, Haladir, you might want to get out of the old age and into the digital. You don't have to use all pen and paper anymore, there are things like computers and stuff to help make it easier to game. Ever think about playing from a computer or something? I know it's a new-fangled concept, but it's something to try.

:P

[MEEA]

Haladir wrote:

I have one (and occasionally more) remote player, so I use MapTool as a remote map server. For the players in the room, we find it a very useful tool as well. MapTool also handles initiative, hit points, and uses token markers for spell effects. I use two computers for this: I'm on one with the GM view, and another one faces the players. (One of my players has started showing up with his own laptop as well, and ties in to the MapTool session.)

I have an Obsidian Portal campaign site, and my PCs have their stats posted there. I also have a lot of notes about my campaign there, copies of player handouts, an NPC index, and adventure log there as well.

I have the Pathfinder PRD up and running during my game: It's a lot faster to look up rules on the Web than it is to flip through books.

Nice thing about these solutions: They're all free!

cool, cool, cool

free=me

thank you

[Paul Zagieboylo]

Our group also uses SkyDrive OneNote to record our sessions and keep track of our inventory and such. Which is cool when it works but SkyDrive is pretty unstable, so we usually end up taking notes in Notepad and copying them over to SkyDrive sometime during the week (before our next session).

These electronic tools are pretty cool, and I'm going to recommend that at least our barbarian use Combat Manager to keep track of his ever-changing set of buffs (rage, enlarge person, bardsong, 2H/DW, it gets complicated), but we have another problem. When people are supposedly using tools on their laptops to help them play, it means they have their laptops out. Given this, apparently it's completely impossible for them to pay attention to the game when it's not their turn, and they play other games on their laptops instead. Then they have to be reminded that it's their turn, and they don't know what else happened so we have to take several minutes to explain the last round of action to them, and it just bogs down the game immensely. I've seen it. I don't understand why. Given the desire to use electronic laptop-based tools, how do I prevent players using their laptops from getting distracted by all the other things laptops can do?

[Tels]

A simple method is penalties for doing other things. Like half-experience, or 3/4 loot shares. Someone tried this at my table, he got half-experience that day, and it happened to be the day they fought the BBEG at the end of one of the Adventure books. He was suitably pissed, first at me, but then at himself.

If you come to play Pathfinder, play Pathfinder. If you're not going to be focused on the game, and you end up bogging the game down because you value your time and enjoyment more than anyone else's, then you should be penalized.

[Perry Snow]

I use a truss to suspend a projector over the table and project Maptools down onto a big piece of white butcher paper. I use the freeware Tiled to create black & white high contrast maps that I import into Maptools. I use MSPaint and Paint.net to create 8-bit style tokens (again, high contrast) to import into Maptools. All of the software is free; the hardware is not.

-Perry

[mysterycellist]

I use InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop a ton to create really effective setting documents and props. Otherwise, I'm pretty old-school.

[sozin]

Maptool, HeroLab, and TokenLab for gaming.

Photoshop for handout creation.

Dropbox for shared file management (PC sheets, etc)

OneNote for campaign prep

Excel for CR calculations

[DMFTodd]

DM's Familiar.

Combat Board to manage initiative, track hit points, attack & damage rolls for all the monsters, secret skill checks, one button saving throws for the tribe of orcs that was just fireballed, dashboard that shows your DR/Special Attacks/AC and other monster info.

Reference Library for quick rules lookup. Faster than the PRD and ability to have multiple items open at a time.

Codex Tree for organizing all of your campaign. Put a node in with monsters for each encounter area and instantly start your battles, put spells from the reference library in that you know you'll need to look up, keep notes of the NPCs the players meet in town.

There's also lots of imports of Paizo OGL. Much of the data entry for the APs is already done and ready to play.

[r-Kelleg]

combat manager + excel for a reccord of my 6 players sheet + a browser with pathfinder_OGC + onenotes to keep various informations +DDshare, an homemade software that allow me to share pictures through a webservice. on their side, the players have one browser to see the shared picture.

[Azmyth]

I run many regular online games. My method:

THE PLAYERS:
I use Skype Premium for video conferencing. I have a 27" LCD that 'sits' at the table displaying my online players. I have a high fixed mounted HD Life Cam that displays the room back to my online folks.

THE BOARD:
I use a second HD Life Cam mounted on a microphone boom stand to focus on the game board. This second camera feeds a video image to Justin.tv which is a free streaming video site. My remote players log into my JTV page and viola! For my local players, I route the game board image to my 60" plasma in the room. Often they will watch that instead of the live board, since it displays close-ups in greater detail.

HANDOUTS & CERTS:
The last obstacle is converting pdf pages to jpeg images, so they can be given to remote players as well as the folks in the room. There's several free programs available for this. For Pathfinder Society, it equates to Faction Missions and Chronicle Reward Sheets.

This might not be exactly what the OP was looking for, but I hope it helps anyway. :)

[Bill Dunn]

I use iBooks for the Paizo PDFs and apps called Spells and PFRPG rd on my iPad.

[golem101]

I use a digital audio recorder to create an mp3 file of the session, which I find highly useful as the DM to later write down campaign reports and take notes.

Two of my players have a tablet/iPad with pdf versions of the Player's Handbook.

Otherwise, we stay analogic/old school.

[mysterycellist]

Can you guys think of any software similar to DM's Familiar or Combat Manager for the Mac?