Where's my Masterwork Backpack? - What do you use to carry your gaming supplies?

["The Lucky Halfling"]

With Gen Con coming up, I'm looking for a new bag to transport my gaming supplies in. In the past I've always used various bags that I thought would work well, but this time around I'm looking to invest in a good gaming bag.

With that in mind, I was curious as to what everyone else is using. Care to share what you use to treat your strength as +1 for carrying capacity?

Is it just me or is someone missing out on a great gaming backpack name by not using Masterwork Backpack?

[GM Mowque]

This is for online campaigns. I have no tools except what is in my brain and the online SRD.

["The Lucky Halfling"]

GM Mowque wrote:

This is for online campaigns. I have no tools except what is in my brain and the online SRD.

Sure enough. I thought I clicked on the Gamer Life General Discussion board. Apparently I lost my brain.

Would a board administrator be so kind as to place this thread under Gamer Life General Discussion?

[Phntm888]

I flagged this to have it moved, but if you’re still looking for suggestions, I use this. I really like it, and it’s so useful with all the different pockets. It works well as a personal item, too, fitting perfectly under the seat in front of you. For a trip to Europe, I had the bag as my personal item, a backpack as a carry on, and my checked baggage. It’s a great pickup.

[Sam Phelan]

Moved to Gamer life General Discussion

[Steve Geddes]

Usually, I take my books and so forth in this - especially if I’m DMing

This one also, if I’m not carrying as much stuff - generally as a player.

[Tim Emrick]

I use a Green Ronin satchel that I picked up several years ago (and that they no longer sell). It was designed for miniatures, and came with two removable zippered trays for such, but I've never used the trays (and have since given them away to friends who do). The bag holds a binder, a small laptop, a box of minis, and various other bits & bobs pretty well, though I do wish it had more pockets.

I had to move rulebooks to a separate bag, but I got a free shoulder bag from work that is pretty much the perfect size to hold two small stacks of PF Pocket Editions plus a couple slim splatbooks or folders. It's occasionally a pain to carry two bags back and forth to games, but it's a lot less strain on the bags and their contents (and my shoulder!) by splitting the load.

[The Lobster]

I was an original backer for one of these and I love it for my dice. I've got a large collection and the large size allows me to easily carry two hundred odd dice to and from games easily.

[Haladir]

I generally use a combination of my Pathfinder RotRL messenger bag (that I picked up at PaizoCon 2018) and my regular laptop backpack. I tend to bring a notebook, pencils, dice, and one or two printed books in the messenger bag, and rely on my vast PDF library on my computer.

(I have tried to rely on a tablet for access to PDFs, but my Amazon Fire HD8 is just too under-powered for it to be reliable solution. I probably should upgrade to a Galaxy Tab for that purpose...)

[Phntm888]

Haladir wrote:

but my Amazon Fire HD8 is just too under-powered for it to be reliable solution.

I just picked up one of these a few weeks ago to act as a PDF holder for Pathfinder. How underpowered was it?

[TomParker]

I recently bought the D20 Collective Backpack of Holding and I really like it. It did take them awhile to get it to me.

It has several pockets and the material feels great. It is pretty unstructured, though—no loops for holding writing instruments and whatnot.

[Haladir]

Phntm888 wrote:

Haladir wrote:

but my Amazon Fire HD8 is just too under-powered for it to be reliable solution.

I just picked up one of these a few weeks ago to act as a PDF holder for Pathfinder. How underpowered was it?

With big PDFs (e.g. the PF Core Rulebook), it can take minutes to load, and minutes to search, once loaded. (like >5 min)

And that's when the Acrobat Reader app doesn't run out of memory and crash, usually requiring a device reboot.

My phone (a 3+ year old Galaxy S7) handles big PDFs better, although the screen is too small for it to be useful.

So, I'm back to using my laptop at the table for now.

[Phntm888]

Hmmm...mine doesn’t even seem to be able to install the Adobe Reader app. Amazon seems to have updated it so you can only go through their App Store, not the Google Play store.

[Dire Elf]

I have a canvas backpack from Offworld Designs that has Bag of Holding embroidered on it. It has lots of pockets, but the shoulder straps have no padding so it’s not very comfortable to carry when full. But I only use it to haul my gear from the house to the car and back to the house so the comfort issue isn’t a big deal. It holds my character binder, dice, item cards, extra pens & pencils, sticky notes & notepads, but no minis. I have a separate mini case for that. All my books are on my iPad Mini but I don’t like keeping my character sheets on there. Too much scrolling.

[DM Lil" Eschie]

I use the Luggage, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Works like a treat! ^^

[Haladir]

Back in August 2019, I wrote:

I generally use a combination of my Pathfinder RotRL messenger bag (that I picked up at PaizoCon 2018) and my regular laptop backpack. I tend to bring a notebook, pencils, dice, and one or two printed books in the messenger bag, and rely on my vast PDF library on my computer.

(I have tried to rely on a tablet for access to PDFs, but my Amazon Fire HD8 is just too under-powered for it to be reliable solution. I probably should upgrade to a Galaxy Tab for that purpose...)

Still using my Pathfinder RotRL messenger bag!

I'm not GMing Pathfinder much anymore (I've mostly moved to Fate and "Powered by the Apocalypse" games), but I am playing in a PF2e game. I've found a great use for my Fire tablet: the Pathbuilder 2e app!

It's a fantastic character builder for PF2e. There's a free version, but you really want to upgrade to the paid version (one-time $5 fee). No ads, opens up cloud storage.

Oh: If you have a Fire, you'll need to sideload the Google Play store onto it before you can get Pathbuilder. Honestly, Fire users will want the Google Play store anyway!

[Aberzombie]

I just noticed this. I don't have to travel for gaming, since my current (and foreseeable) gaming is completely online. Still, when I did travel, the answer would have been....

It depends. I used a variety of items to transport my gaming material. I had a standard backpack for books, dice, etc. I had some stackable plastic containers for certain gaming aids (stands for flying minis, spell area effect frames, etc).

For minis, however, I was most pleased with what I'd found. I found these plastic 'brief cases' (I called them). They came with a bunch of smaller plastic containers (perfect for small and medium minis). There were also some larger plastic containers (good for large minis) that could fit in the 'briefcase' if you removed some of the smaller minis. This set up made it easier for me to customize which minis I brought (although I only used it once or twice before I stopped gaming for a few years).

[Mark Hoover 330]

I've been using a Jansport backpack for over 20 years now. Its spacious, durable, and holds the Core book for PF1 along with 4 other books, my dice, pens and rulers, accessories and a ringed notebook. To transport the minis and dice, I use plastic craft boxes with a variety of slots.

However, the minis I transport are universal in that I have a dozen or so "medium" sized creatures, mostly humanoids but a couple of dogs/wolves, and then a few Small sized humanoids, one dire rat, and 3 Large sized ogres. If I need a Large spider... I use an ogre and tell my players to imagine a spider. If I need 4 Small creatures, I grab a medium humanoid and make do.

I carry a lot of dice. A LOT. The ones that don't fit in the craft boxes go loose in one of the side pockets of the backpack. This is by design as extra dice become dungeon walls, furnishings, trees, extra monsters and so on. If a monster is flying I'll put it on a D6 (or a stack of them if need be), with the number beneath the base being the number of 5' squares' worth of altitude it has. The monster is hovering 10' above the ground? It's on a D6 with the number "2" showing under the base.

The only other thing I transport is my Chessex battle mat which I usually just roll up and throw in an old portable chess bag my daughters don't use anymore. There's a tubular pocket on one side of the bag that the battle mat can tuck mostly into, and then the pouch part of the chess bag holds my erasable markers and another plastic craft box of extra doo dads such as pieces of felt for terrain, craft bricks, area of effect templates and so forth.