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Hey, i'm pretty new to GMing and i've never made my own campaign before. But it is something i am very interested in. I've been looking through products that were designed to help with that, and just wanted some opinions on what to get.
I was looking at Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs because adding memorable NPCs sounds amazing. But are there any more cheap alternatives that i could browse? Maybe ones that also have stat blocks? I've noticed a number of books with only 10-15 NPCs but at a more expensive cost per-npc.
Also i was looking at Complete KOBOLD Guide to Game Design just to see if that would help my game designs. Has anyone used this resource?
What other things do you use frequently to help you create your games or be a better GM?
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Before every session I run - home game, PFS, convention, what-have you - I hand out a 3" x 5" piece of paper to each player for them to fill out. On this index card-sized paper I have pre-printed lots of categories and blanks such as:
Player Name
Character Name
Character level
Charisma score
Perception modifier
Saves (F/R/W)
Alignment
Sense Motive Modifier
and last but not least ...
Init Modifier
When combat comes I write the total init in the upper right corner and sort them out, highest-to-lowest. They come in handy for tracking init, but with the info from the players I can make rolls in secret for traps or noticing things or even if an NPC lies to them.
I know there's 3rd party products out there that do this and probably more, but this is what I came up with for myself.
Before every session I run - home game, PFS, convention, what-have you - I hand out a 3" x 5" piece of paper to each player for them to fill out. On this index card-sized paper I have pre-printed lots of categories and blanks such as:
Player Name
Character Name
Character level
Charisma score
Perception modifier
Saves (F/R/W)
Alignment
Sense Motive Modifier
and last but not least ...
Init ModifierWhen combat comes I write the total init in the upper right corner and sort them out, highest-to-lowest. They come in handy for tracking init, but with the info from the players I can make rolls in secret for traps or noticing things or even if an NPC lies to them.
I know there's 3rd party products out there that do this and probably more, but this is what I came up with for myself.
I LOVE this idea. I'm totally going to steal it! Do you have any other suggestions for categories to put on such cards?
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Raging Swan Press' Dungeon Dressing-line is EXTREMELY useful for any GM, so is their "So what's the..."-series. They provide all those little details that help a world come to life.
Regarding books I wouldn't miss in any PFRPG-campaign:
Rite Publishing - 101 New Skill Uses
Drop Dead Studios - Rogue Glory
Dreamscarred Press - Psionics Unleashed & Psionics Expanded
I'd rather not use Ultimate Combat and Magic or the Race Guide than not use any of these.
A stress-relieving squeeze ball and a mug of tea.
A set of nerf dice to use as bludgeoning objects.
Seventh Sanctum because sometimes you need a silly magic item name like the Otherworldly Utensil of Assault. Tons of random generators with all kinds of themes from anime catgirls to evil elf names.
donjon's Pathfinder Random Dungeon Generator Use it to build your impossible labyrinth of insanity. The other generators are fun to play around with.
Use pandora.com (or Spotify, or Rdio, or Grooveshark, whatever) and make a custom station or playlist with background music. Play it at low volumes to add a bit of mood to your games.
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I LOVE this idea. I'm totally going to steal it! Do you have any other suggestions for categories to put on such cards?
I shared the file on Google Docs, feel free to download/copy for yourself and then change whatever you'd like.
When I run game the tools I use are: Google Docs, Facebook Groups, Google Hangouts, and Adobe Illustrator (I use it to run combat. We have projector). I also use LRGG's gaming tools on our site.
@Endzeitgeist I LOVE Rogue glory, being a very big rogue fan myself a small buff to rogues and some great advice is always welcome. I'll have to check out 101 new skill uses. I'm also a huge fan of skills and am sure to enjoy that.
@The Human Diversion: That would be a great idea if i didn't play online :P But if i ever GM face to face i'll remember that.
@Ansel I love the dungeon generator. Its a far better than the myth-weaver's site i've used before. I like it very much.
@LRRG i've always wanted to run games using a projector. I've seen some youtube videos with a gaming table and a projector underneath projecting up at the translucent table. Its something i want to do if i ever get the spare cash and free time.
Oh gosh, I forgot about Evernote. I keep everything in Evernote. I make a folder for each campaign or adventure path, a notebook for each story arc, and then make notes for everything. Snippets of dialog, magic item statblocks, monsters, side quests, world notes (like "when the heroes step through this portal, subtract 2 hours from the current time, change the weather this way," etc.), song lyrics for bard NPCs, recipes for special dishes at inns.
Get yourself a good self-sealing drink mug (not a referral link) and fill it with water. That's some GM assistance for ya.
Herolab, Herolab, Herolab!!
I LOVE this idea. I'm totally going to steal it! Do you have any other suggestions for categories to put on such cards?I shared the file on Google Docs, feel free to download/copy for yourself and then change whatever you'd like.
These initiative/PC information cards are a brilliant idea. Love it!
One question, in order to use these as you suggested - to put them in order of initiative results and then just flip through them to see who's up next - wouldn't you also need a card of the same size for each monster/baddie? Do you have another info card that you fill out for each monster/baddie? Or do you have blank ones that you can scrawl enemies' names on quickly and stick them in the stack as markers of their place in the initiative order? Does it makes sense what I'm asking? Or have I misunderstood?
I saw this, Combat Manager, a few months ago on the forums here. Haven't had a chance to use it fully, but I am using the monster builder part at the moment to do quick tweaks and to double check some custom monsters to others of similar CR.
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Combat Manager is an awesome tool. I've used it a lot with one group that I've played with. My other group, however, frowns on excessive technology use at the table. It's just not quite the style they enjoy, which is fine. That's why I'm looking for some low-tech options.
But Combat Manager is definitely awesome!
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Ultimate GM's Toolbox
Gary Gygax - Extraordinary Book Of Names
By Any Other Name lists by Owen K. C. Stephens
squid.org name generator
Dragon Compendium (The appendixes)
Roleplayingtips.com
Instant Campaign Builder
Ray Winniger's Dungeoncraft Essays
google image search
Critical hit cards
Critical miss cards
plot twist cards
chase cards
d20pfsrd.com
Muddle's Wilderness Location Generator
Most of these are GMing aids some of them I use as Designers aids.
Seventh Sanctum because sometimes you need a silly magic item name like the Otherworldly Utensil of Assault. Tons of random generators with all kinds of themes from anime catgirls to evil elf names.
donjon's Pathfinder Random Dungeon Generator Use it to build your impossible labyrinth of insanity. The other generators are fun to play around with.
Use pandora.com (or Spotify, or Rdio, or Grooveshark, whatever) and make a custom station or playlist with background music. Play it at low volumes to add a bit of mood to your games.
The whole donjon site is awesome, don't limit yourself to the PF parts. Will have to check out Seventh Sanctum...
Reading the Alexandrian blog recently caused me many eye openers about Encounter design, campaign design and D&D in general.
VDC, to help all those GM's give you more specific advice, what sort of game are you planning to run? Are you running an online game or a face-to-face table game? Homebrew? Adventure Path? A mix of both? Are you looking to run a fairly "railroad" campaign (GM's story driven)? A more sandbox campaign (player choice driven)?
Both GM's at our game table use Herolab. You can try out the Beginner Box version for free. I use Herolab on my netbook as my character sheet when I'm a player. I don't bother to print the character sheet anymore, I just play straight off the netbook.
I use Combat Manger on my netbook for running initiative order. We are looking at putting Combat Manager on an old laptop and putting it on a screen that everyone can see to be our digital initiative tracker. One of the really nice features of Combat Manager is that you can use the tabs to quickly look up spells, feats, and other rules.
Keep d20pfsrd open as a rules reference. I find that it's faster than looking in a rulebook.
We use Google hangout to bring in people who can't be physically present. It has worked very well for us. I was able to play in Connecticut while I was at a short school in Tennessee.
Raging Swan Press' Dungeon Dressing-line is EXTREMELY useful for any GM, so is their "So what's the..."-series. They provide all those little details that help a world come to life.
I'll second this statement for any GM. These products are a font of ideas that can be dropped into a description or lead to adventures/ sidequests.
-Aaron
A few more notable toolboxy books:
D20 Toolbox (3e, cheap, lots of charts) and its succcessor Ultimate Toolbox (even more charts, systemless)
The Mythic Game Master Emulator is a product that has received high praises. It is a system-neutral campaign/adventure/plottwist generator! There's a free website version available (see the product discussion thread) but you'll probably need the PDF for explanation.
Necromancer Games has a few toolboxy books like the Tome of Adventure Design, and the old school very sandboxy setting Wilderlands of High Fantasy with lots of random tables.
Goodman Games has the much smaller but gorgeousand funny Dungeon Alphabet.
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I LOVE this idea. I'm totally going to steal it! Do you have any other suggestions for categories to put on such cards?I shared the file on Google Docs, feel free to download/copy for yourself and then change whatever you'd like.These initiative/PC information cards are a brilliant idea. Love it!
One question, in order to use these as you suggested - to put them in order of initiative results and then just flip through them to see who's up next - wouldn't you also need a card of the same size for each monster/baddie? Do you have another info card that you fill out for each monster/baddie? Or do you have blank ones that you can scrawl enemies' names on quickly and stick them in the stack as markers of their place in the initiative order? Does it makes sense what I'm asking? Or have I misunderstood?
I do have a card for each monster/baddie, and I keep some blanks around that I can just write "dragon 1" or "minions" or whatever on it.
And yes, at the top of the init order I look at the top of my stack - if it's one of the PCs, I let them know it's their turn. If it's a bad guy I take their action. If someone delays I pull the card out of the stack and let them know to inform me when they want to come off delay. If someone readies an action I turn the card 90 degrees but keep it in the stack - if the readied action goes off I pull it out and put it in the proper place.
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Itchy I'm trying to create my own game, with hopefully a mix of railroad and player driven. I would love to make a fully player driven game but i know that if i tried it would come out half baked simply because i don't have the experience for it. I'm running my games online for now, but hopefully within the next year i can start a face to face game at a local game shop. I personally wanted to look for tools that would help me create a game or keep it running smoothly if the unexpected happened. But i also created the thread just to chat about people's favorite products.
My Favorite GM Assistance Tools.
1) My iPad. Every single one of my Pathfinder books, in PDF, searchable, in one little package.
2) DM Tools - an iPad app for keeping track of initiative
3)TiddlyWiki - for keeping track of my entire campaign, people, places, timelines, all crossreferenced.
4) my cardstock terrain. Tons of fun to create and makes visualizing so easy
When preparing for games with a combat I always make what I call "Monster Kill Sheets". They are something I saw used in a Con and thought it was brilliant.
I build an entry for each grop of monsters. I include vital combat stats like AC, # of Attacks, damage, saves, abilities. Try to keep it on one line. I then add 00000 00000 in groups of five for the monter hit points. It allows easy tracking in combat...
Looks something like this
Goblins - AC 14 #ATT:1 Dam: 1-4+1 Darkvision
__________ 00000 00000
__________ 00000 00000
__________ 00000 00000
The blank line if for whoever is fighting that goblin (or the color of Alea magnent we are using) and just cross out the 0's as the mob takes damage.
I find this makes managing monster in combat so much easier.
If you use d20pfsrd.com a lot for rule lookups mid-game and you use Chrome, create a custom search engine for the site.
I believe Firefox has a similar feature. Safari users can download the SafariKeywordSearch extension to get the same thing. I just type 'pfsrd darkness' into the location bar to look up the darkness spell, for example. It's super fast.
Ultimate Toolbox (even more charts, systemless)
I'm glad you liked that one. It was alot of fun to work on.
Consider running an open game table with a megadungeon. This blog post posits a great way to run things a bit more old school for easier prep and more game time with different players so that scheduling issues do not weigh in so much. Other Alexandrian blogposts give lots of advice on prepping and designing for this kind of play.
I do have a card for each monster/baddie, and I keep some blanks around that I can just write "dragon 1" or "minions" or whatever on it.
And yes, at the top of the init order I look at the top of my stack - if it's one of the PCs, I let them know it's their turn. If it's a bad guy I take their action. If someone delays I pull the card out of the stack and let them know to inform me when they want to come off delay. If someone readies an action I turn the card 90 degrees but keep it in the stack - if the readied action goes off I pull it out and put it in the proper place.
Love it! Thanks for responding.
Microsoft Excel or some open source clone of it.
With a slightly customised row and column setup you'll have an amazing compact character sheet for EVERY creature you've ever created. Each of my creatures fits into a grid of roughly 17 columns and 12 rows, the rows are of unmodified height but by changing the dimentions of the columns I tighten up the column for small numbers (like the columns where I write the ability scores) while I widen squares where I put names and big statistics, I merge squares as nessesary to make big fat blocks for Gear, Spells and descriptions. All in all my screen can fit three fleshed out characters including all their statistics, some story and a large empty square for spell selections for each character. By modifying the squares a bit or adding a row its super easy to expand and add space for complex or important personas, and when I need to find some other character all i need to do is scroll up or down.
By splitting the file into sheets you can group together villain groups, multi-foe encounters or even chapters of your story.
On my desktop right now is the file for every custom foe I've created for my most recently started campaign (designed to be a lengthy affair littered with a mix of intrigue and heavy combat set in a shady part of the world where vampires were only just banished, In their wake are left alchemical necromancers, brooding thieves guilds and gangs of corrupt guards.) Each page features an enemy/friend group, most pages contain at least 6 different custom characters (ranging from modified techno zombies to nefarious assassins who talk way too much while they're fighting)
Without excel id have long since given up on featuring so many custom characters in my sessions.
I'm not some excel wiz or something, its just so super easy to understand and use once you have a basic grasp of how to do basic modifications to squares by merging and resizing. Once I got a grasp of it I figured out how to make a complete Formula table that did the math for me to create custom Staves, Wands and such and recently I made a huge map of a ship over 220 feet long, I needed the map for the players to put their figures on, and excel was by far the best software I had for the task thanks to the "Draw borders" tool. Short of just drawing the immense thing by hand (over 200 inches long!).
I would share these tables and mini-character sheets if I only knew how to upload them.
Google Drive - Players keep their characters here. I store NPCs here. I store campaign notes here.
These forums - People here have been invaluable for advice, suggestions, tips, and inspiration for my Savage Tide game in the past, the second attempt I'm going to run in the future, and the Kingmaker game I'm running now. I'd be much without a lot of my efforts without their input.
d20pfsrd.com - a must-have resource. Trying to run a game while this was down one week was hell. Building my own monsters and NPCs without it is frustrating at best, thanks to me having to use PDFs for everything.
And a look at my purchases here, I need to give a shout-out of thanks to:
Abandoned Arts
Alluria Publishing
Drop Dead Studios (Rogue Glory!!)
EN Publishing
Jon Brazer Enterprises
Kobold Press
Legendary Games
Little Red Goblin
Raging Swan
Rite Publishing
Super Genius Games
TPK Games
For inspiration, resources, tools, information, and awesome content.
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Most of what I use has already been mentioned, but for the sake of completeness:
Online:
Official Pathfinder Reference Document - I know that d20pfsrd.com has a lot more material, but the layout and organization is a mess. So many things are not in a complete list but individual entries you need to check one by one (for example: campaign traits), that I prefer the original most of the time, especially since the NPC Codex was added.
donjon.bin.sh - The best RPG Generators on the internet in my opinion. Names, Towns, Treasure, Maps, everything a lazy or uninspired GM would ever need. The name section is worth of singular praise because it is really, really good. From historical to fantasy, your needs are covered.
Dingle's Games - A very good generator for characters and monsters. You need to pay for high-level creations, but I still use to create NPCs and entry-level opponents.
GoogleDrive - Organize the whole game from any computer and share with your players. You can even use it to substitute special software to play online via Skype (create a document with a grid, place layers with creature markers and enjoy moving your stuff around in almost real-time).
Offline:
Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide - Like mentioned by others, it is just a really good supplement on how to run a good game. Also, the chase rules.
"En Route" from Atlas Games (Penumbra d20 line). A book full of almost-random encounters, each with a little story behind it and a possible gateway to interesting sidequest or eve full-blown chapters of your game. The old d20 stats need work. obviously, but it really can be a lifesaver if your players do something unexpected and catch you off guard.
My custom GM Screen (the official Pathfinder GM Screen sucks, I am sorry but that is how I feel about it. Looks nice and isn't expensive, but thats about it). It has four panels, and pictures or notes can be added from bith sides. I use the outer side to pin up maps, NPC portraits or landscape visuals for my players, and the inside for all the Pathfinder infos I need, also campaign setting stuff. What I ALWAYS have available is the list from the rules' combat section with all the action types you can take in a round and if that provokes AoO.
A list of random names, because you will need them.
A prepared list for Initiative order. I experimented with initiative cards, but this one I like better. I simply created a sheet with a table and laminated it. Now I can draw and erase names and numbers as I see fit, very handy.
A d12 with random weather symbols. I like to roll it to predict weather when the group is doing wilderness exploration. I know, this one is weird, but hey, GM's like to roll some dice too!
I'm glad you liked that one. It was alot of fun to work on.Ultimate Toolbox (even more charts, systemless)
Alas I have only d20 Toolbox and didn't get the huge systemless Ultimate Toolbox. But I followed its release and liked the preview/promo tables. Also I think I prefer it with statblocks to fiddle with/update vs. a version sans stats.
alot of sources I am snagging...
to OP: another thing, at first session, ask about the char's background, and intent. may give you other ideas and help you build a world.