I mean this question in a technical sense, but how do people on the forums run their games? Things have changed so much since I first started laying TRPGs that I never noticed the tools at my disposal changing and I really can't see myself not having them.
For instance, when I was in high school, I was sat behind a GM screen with my books opened to every possible page I could need; ready at a moment's notice. When a rule conflict came up, I would page through the books and have an answer, but it often meant I kept a massive slew of books with me for every game.
Now, though, I keep the Core rules pdf on my laptop and all of my notes carefully organized in a google doc for easy reference. When rules questions come up, it's easy enough to search the pdf for an answer or even consult Archives of Nethys for the fastest result. The GM screen is long gone, and my books have become almost superfluous to the process. I also have a player at my table who has become my "sub-GM" (whether he knows it or not) who has a strong grasp of the rules and it quick to look up rules in his own book.
I'm just curious about how other GMs run their games and handle the information at the table.
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I also take the time to look up rules if needed.
PF can hinge on making the right rules call to determine the life and death of a character due to the rules heavy combat/encounter situations so making the correct call if a must for my games.
PF played RAW is a tactical combat game more-so than a pure "RPG" in my opinion.
That's not to say it isn't a RPG because it is but the way the system is built and how focused it is on ruleswise relating to combat you need to be sure you are playing it right in that sense.
I too lean on Archive of Nethys as that search function is CLUTCH! And sometimes I have copied stats and whatnot into OneNote on the laptop. But the primary function of the laptop is to play music and be Archive of Nethys.
I also lean on “I don’t know the rule... does anybody think they do? No? Ok roll a die, on evens we'll play it this way (insert interpretation that favors the player), on odds we play it this way (insert interpretation that favors the monster) and after the session we'll look it up.
I use the GM screen. It does have lots of good lookup info.
And I have a bookshelf near at hand for all the books though I really only reference the bestiary and typically my players steal my core rules to look up spells and all of that.
I still use a physical magnetic combat pad to track conditions and initiative, the official GM screen to look up basic rules and conditions, and even keep a Core Rulebook nearby (unopened, unmarked, and untabbed) which I use to look up more complicated rules.
I also have a smart phone, which I often use for looking up rules as a player. I'd use it more often, but connection can be spotty at many of the venues we play at and, due to my long time experience with them, I'm actually faster with the non-digital items.
I use a couple things.
Word Document: This is more a quick reference for myself. The Recovery Rules are in this, which skill identifies which creature, the xp table, and the Simple DCs/DCs by level table.
Excel Document: I track the DC's of my party for quick reference. Fort DC, Ref DC ect. It also has their lores, alignment, number of hero points, and any notes that I need to be aware of. For example, my groups warpriest automatically rolls Perception to notice unusual stonework. Having that in a highlighted box on excel keeps me from forgetting that.
I also use that Excel sheet as a quick monster reference for whatever they are fighting. Typically it's just the monsters available actions/reaction, immunities/weakness/resistances.
The PDF's on hand, as well as Nethys open for quick reference.
I do all my games online at the moment, using Discord for voice and Roll20 for character sheets and maps. I keep all my notes in my OneNote document, with the exception of Fall of Plaguestone stuff since I bought the Roll20 module. I also keep all my players' important stats in an Excel document embedded in my OneNote that automatically updates when I change their level (proficiency level and item bonuses have to be changed manually) (also here's a picture of it and my OneNote setup). I usually use Roll20 for initiative, though I sometimes use OneNote. I allow my players to use real dice since we've been playing long enough that there's enough trust, though not all of my players have dice so some use the digital roller. I use a mix of Archives of Nethys, the PF2 Easytool, and the Roll20 compendium for rules referencing.
I used to run my Pathfinder campaigns at the Family Game Store in Savage, Maryland (now re-organized as 3 Gear Games). I packed up all reference books I could need, about 40 pounds of them, notes, dice, playmat, markers, and minatures into two reuseable shopping bags. The remaining space in the bag I filled with containers of home-baked chocolate chip cookies. I could have dragged my laptop along and used the store's wifi, but I didn't.
I moved to upstate New York in 2015 when I retired. Now I run my Pathfinder campaigns off the dining room table among friends. I still use dice, a playmat, minatures, markers, and a sheet of paper write initiative order and hit points during combat. However, I now use my laptop, set up on an adjacent small table, to reference PDFs and text files of notes. I buy whichever books I might pass over to my players, the PF2 Core Rulebook and Bestiary and Lost Omens Character Guide, but other materials such as the modules are only PDFs. Instead of cookies, we have dinner before the game.
Changing to PDFs has changed my style a little. I am more likely to improvise a detail rather than look it up.
I don't use a GM screen. With the books, notes, dice, and spare minis in front of me, a screen would get in the way. I don't bother with secret rolls, because my players are good at separating player knowledge from character knowledge.
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Badly, most of the time.
For rules questions, I typically pull up one of the online references to search or navigate through if I know where to look. For the adventure, I typically have the PDF open to reference. Most of the time I try to have relevant maps printed and laminated for reuse, but for simple encounters without terrain concerns a blank grid is the most I will use. Minis are usually as close as I can get them, although colored bases stand in when nothing suits. I'm out of practice in preparing properly, so my improv skills are getting a lot more work, which isn't always a good thing.
I don't have much to add from what was previously stated by others, but one tool I have found extremely handy for GMing is the Pathfinder 2 Easy Action Library (http://pf2.easytool.es/index.php). My players and I use it liberally each session. I typically run the game from behind a GM screen and with a battle mat, though I also use Roll20 a lot for when players are longer distance.
I use Roll20 for my groups, and on one monitor is the game, and the other monitor has a window with the following tabs open:
Google Doc with my written session notes
PDF of an Action Cheat Sheet
Archives of Nethys (pages for DCs, Earn Income, Cost of Living/Cost of Expenses, etc.)
YouTube playlist with music (to be fed to a bot through Discord)
I also have a GM screen nearby to look up Conditions and other stuff. It's all been helpful to run the online games smoothly.
For one campaign, we play face to face. Got our playmat, dry erase markers. pewter figurines we've been using since 1989, and books. Got d20pfsrd on the phone or tablet to really figure out any real exacting rules/feats/spells/combat interactions, but logic will usually always win. It's not that often anything really comes to a head with arguments; we've been all playing together since the 90s, so we know the system.
With the same group of friends, we also started a roll20 campaign at my insistence to try and play more. Been working well! We all still mostly roll dice and just speak roll results. I won't lie, with the computer up, I've got tabs open to all kinds of areas; Combat sections, terrain, Conditions, Cover; I open them each time and have a good time.
I also prefer to write my own adventures, and even with Paths, I write a lot of synopsis and bullet point progressions of the adventure to really make the creative juices flow and try to consider the outliers that may come up with playing with 6 individuals. :D
I don't have much to add from what was previously stated by others, but one tool I have found extremely handy for GMing is the Pathfinder 2 Easy Action Library (http://pf2.easytool.es/index.php). My players and I use it liberally each session. I typically run the game from behind a GM screen and with a battle mat, though I also use Roll20 a lot for when players are longer distance.
Came into the thread to suggest this very thing. Really helpful.
I also use a GM screen, hardcopy of the bestiary, the AP book, a dice tower, and keep the CRB on hand if I need to look up a specific rule. I also got the initiative pad for Christmas so we will see how that works. I also have been letting players record initiative and damage on a white board sometimes, which seems helpful.
I mean this question in a technical sense, but how do people on the forums run their games? Things have changed so much since I first started laying TRPGs that I never noticed the tools at my disposal changing and I really can't see myself not having them.
For instance, when I was in high school, I was sat behind a GM screen with my books opened to every possible page I could need; ready at a moment's notice. When a rule conflict came up, I would page through the books and have an answer, but it often meant I kept a massive slew of books with me for every game.
Now, though, I keep the Core rules pdf on my laptop and all of my notes carefully organized in a google doc for easy reference. When rules questions come up, it's easy enough to search the pdf for an answer or even consult Archives of Nethys for the fastest result. The GM screen is long gone, and my books have become almost superfluous to the process. I also have a player at my table who has become my "sub-GM" (whether he knows it or not) who has a strong grasp of the rules and it quick to look up rules in his own book.
I'm just curious about how other GMs run their games and handle the information at the table.
I do it the way you did it in high school. Haven’t really changed in forty years, I just have nicer handouts now and real miniatures instead of dice.
I don’t use technology at all really, though I’m trying to introduce syrinscape.
We play in a long dinner table.
I use a GM screen, a laptop with acess to Pathfinder 2 Easy Action Library (http://pf2.easytool.es/index.php) and to Archives of Nethys (http://2e.aonprd.com/). On top of the laptop are index cards with conditions for easy access.
I have some sheets with the data i usually need to know the most from the pcs like Attacks, Skills and Saving Throws.
For combat i print markers for the monsters and i clip them and the PCs markers on my GM screen for the iniative order.
Behind me in my desktop desk i have my books of the Bestiary and the Core, also some tiles (dungeons, forest and urban) for use.
I use pawns for the monsters, the PCs use minis.
And i am loving the speed and the dynamics of combat in Second Edition.
I run my games at a big wooden table in an office building using Fantasy Grounds.
Everyone brings their laptop. I keep a copy of the CRB and the AP issue beside me.
All my maps and virtual minis are right there on the screen. All rolls are rolled in the program for me to see. Fog of War lets me reveal only what they can see from their points of view.
No one can "absentmindedly" roll a d20 on their book, and when a 17 or 18 comes up, say, "Hey, I just rolled an Arcana check and got an 18 on the die plus my bonus. What do I know..." But yet if their absentminded rolling came up a 3, they just keep rolling, because they were only fidgeting anyway.
They've got to click on the sheet to roll whatever check they're rolling. Initiative is tracked in the combat tracker. I've got a digital copy of everyone's sheet right in front of me in the app.
It tracks durations of every spell. When haste wears off, it fades off the buff screen.
Works (almost) perfectly.
I use fantasy grounds - one monitor is flat on the table used as a map and combat tracker.
The rules and other info are loaded up and in my system - the players still roll dice.
Right now I do a lot of Roll20, which is fine. It's an adjustment from table top because I've found I use a lot of body language to keep the flow of the game going, or when I give the players some time to come up with a plan or whatever. Making maps up on the fly is also a little harder because I'm definitely a philistine when it comes to photoshop or image editing stuff. I'm most comfortable with physical media for searching, so I tend to look things up in my copies before I search online. I also search through a (heavily-bookmarked) PDF copy of the Core Rulebook that I have before I go to AoN or whatever.
In person I use a couple Chessex mats I've had for probably more than 15 years at this point and draw out maps and terrain. I try to find a balance between accuracy and speed so I don't keep the group waiting too long. Lots of shorthand symbols for terrain features. I also don't use miniatures, (1) because I don't want to buy a million of them on top of my MTG habit, (2) because if they're even slightly wrong I don't want to approximate--"I ran out of skeletons so just pretend this golem is a skeleton"--and (3) because I use different colored dice as monsters and for PCs. The numbers on the dice I've found make it clear what the initiative order is for everyone, and if there are a lot of things on the map I just use bigger dice.
I still keep physical copies of all of my books ready to go in-person, but I have an iPad ready and typically deputize the other most experienced player to help with quick questions. Otherwise I adjudicate as fairly as I can in favor of the players and then look it up later. Initiative is on a magnetic wet-erase board, and my players like to track things by hand. I also like the critical hit/critical fumble decks, so I use those pretty often (though not yet in 2e). Spotify playlist in the background. DM screen is there mostly to keep the module/AP hidden. I have a dice "arena" that players roll in; any roll that isn't in that doesn't count.
We have a sort of unspoken agreement that people will avoid phones as much as possible at the table, and that the four hours we're together is a break from everything else that isn't an emergency.
I built my own 2e library in Maptools and do most of my tokens/images on a flatscreen TV I lay on my dinner table when we play. I make an effort to always do as much mechanical book keeping here to keep things flowing with the click of a button or two. A lot of this stems from me wanting to keep my pacing while running a game and I'd rather be thinking about other things than tracking Skeleton 1 - 5's HP independently.
As for resources I use a hodge-podge mix of printed out 'cheat sheets' and online resources(AON is a great online resource) that I really can't say I have a rhyme or reason for deciding what I print vs what I do online.
I use PDFs annotated with PDF Expert, an iPad pro, and Apple pencil. While PDFs of the rulebooks are useful, searching on AoN seems to be my go-to lately. I also use the tablet to show artwork. Lately I prefer numbered tokens over minis for everything but important enemies.
I have always disliked GM screens because I feel like they form too much of a barrier between the GM and the table. I always roll in front of my players, or behind my hand for secret rolls. When I do need a screen for notes, I paper clip index cards to my "low profile," table-sawed GM screen.
I run everything using a laptop with tabs open to PDF's for the adventure, rulebooks and monsters. I sometimes type up a summary of the adventure on one page for easy reference. I also have a one page cheat sheet on rules I always forget. However, we still draw out maps on graph paper and move combatants around with pencil and eraser.
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BENELOVENTLY.
I hope you’re going to errata that. It’s been 17 minutes. Unacceptable.
Does anyone GM using the “Theater of the Mind” method? (I.e. not bothering with the maps and minis). If you watched, the whole Knights of Everflame GM’d by Jason Bulmahn was done this way. I’m currently running a small group through Hellknight Hill using this method. Feels a little weird but it keeps the story line flowing a little faster.
So this is my GM profile.
played since 13 gmed since 16 currently 32.
Started AD&D 1st edition then various white wolf then 3rd edition 3.5 then pathfinder.
I have used miniatures in the past but for the most part I don't. It's all minds eye. I have used modules in the past but mostly I don't. I come up with the vast majority of my games off the top of my head. (reading a lot helps) I typically have a story outlined and then I add lib the game with the idea of what is going to happen in the world and let my players drive other changes. So I don't care what their doing but say they take to long well their gonna miss the big boss coming through and getting what he's after he's not gonna wait for them to show up. so they will have to change their plans. So in that way I try to keep it realistic.
As far as rules go I read through the book I don't have them memorized but I know them well enough so I can flip to the right page when needed. I make sure my players know how their abilities work so that I don't usually have to keep every book on me. I also will make judgement on the spot if it's not important enough and I think it will save time. I look it up later then inform group from that point on that's how we will do it.
I think that's all the big stuff.
Behind my screen I keep minis for expected encounters and card decks for Plot Twist and conditions. I have a laptop which runs Syrinscape, Combat Manager, maps (connected to a TV on the table) and Chrome open to Pathfinder 2 Easy Library. My campaign binder has the printed adventure and many other things I need at hand (like printed Bestiary pages and enemy spell lists). The binder also has a notepad for writing things down I will need to remember later, like NPC names I make up on the spot and notes for when I type up a session summary later. I have the rulebooks on the table under my dice tray but almost never use them - they're used by my players far more often than by me.
This is a vastly different setup from when I played in the '80s, which was mostly theater of the mind.
I GM in my head, the fights go pretty quick, but rules arguments are... Awkward.
With élan.
With bourbon
The biggest difference for me is I have all my books on an iPad Mini. For my recent PF2 campaign, I actually went back to physical notes. I like having everything out and being able to arrange and see multiple things at once. I also like being behind the screen. It’s like my own little GMing space.
Between sessions, I managed most of my campaign digitally. I use Scrivener for planning and holding notes, but I actually lay them out in Affinity Publisher and print them for my campaign binder at the table. I also use Campaign Cartographer to make maps. They’re not great, but they’re getting better, and I like them more than my hand-drawn maps.
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I antagonize my players in every battle and RP opportunity. I also like to railroad to the main plot, nobody has time for character interaction, we need to get to the next battle asap! I want to crush every player with my tailor-made enemies designed to counter each and every build I helped my players come up with. I also never miss a chance of fudging the dice in my favor, of course, I'm not gonna let my player's casters have a critical success against my self-insert DM-PC, obviously.
Also, if a potential player is not bringing up the best DPR build for their class to my table, I they can show themselves out.
My games are really fun!
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*stands up and begins the initial solo slow clap*
"Bravo, sir, bravo. Well done."
;D