General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
Just tried OneNote for the first time this month and agree it's great. Gonna switch to it for next session's game management.
A cool feature is Tags. I tag sentences or blocks as To Do through my notes, and then I can look at all my To Dos at one time (Show All Tagged Notes). This means I don't have to duplicate items in a to do list somewhere, and every to do item can stay in context.
I have just started tagging items as Definitions to create a dynamic glossary. And, copying links to specific paragraphs and tables is making my notes easier to cross-reference.
Hope to see more tips as folks try this software out!
I have just started tagging items as Definitions to create a dynamic glossary. And, copying links to specific paragraphs and tables is making my notes easier to cross-reference.
For those who are using Googledocs, you should also check out google notebook.
It does not do what onenote does, but it does help to fill the gap between what docs and note.
I've been using google notebook for some time. It has the advantage of being pretty much system independent, and lets me share my notebooks.
For example, here's my little GM techniques notebook: GMing Techniques
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
To tag things, put your cursor on the paragraph you want to tag, then go to Inset -> Tags, and pick the tag you want. Then later you can go to Insert -> Tags -> Show All Tagged Notes to see the items you tagged. That's the basics of tags.
To create a hyperlink to a specific paragraph, right-click on that paragraph and select Copy Hyperlink to this Paragraph. Then go somewhere else, highlight some text, right-click and select Hyperlink, then hit Ctrl-V to paste in the hyperlink text. Click OK, then if you click on that text it'll bring you to the original paragraph.
__________________ Adventure is not outside; it is within. --Found in a fortune cookie on game night
Strangely I think I'd be okay with having a PC die by a bear exploding out of his head. --Awayfarer, after having his PC put a furry ball from a Bag of Tricks into his mouth.
Between the 4th ED simplicity and OneNote, DMing games is a breeze and we have more time to game. This is an awesome product for almost anyone not just gamers.
Thanks Merkuri, that's very helpful. I think I will start tag important items from now on. I may even split adventures up into subpages and have 1 page with hyperlink to save scrolling which will save time in actual game play.
So far I have just been using the search function and while that is very helpful, I've found especially in session logs that I have to try various spellings to find all the entries. "Where did character X first appear?" etc.
I'd like to thank the people in this thread for introducing me to OneNote. I had it installed, as part of the Office, but I had no idea it is such a great DM tool.
If anyone hasn't tried it yet, I strongly recommend it!
I may even split adventures up into subpages and have 1 page with hyperlink to save scrolling which will save time in actual game play.
Note that you can use hyperlinks on the same page, as well. They don't have to go to different pages.
So at the top of your page you can have a table of contents and fill it with links to further down the page. And maybe if you have a list of rooms in your adventure where you'd normally say, "this door opens to room A4, and this door opens to room A17," you can actually hyperlink to the paragraphs that describe those rooms.
__________________ Adventure is not outside; it is within. --Found in a fortune cookie on game night
Strangely I think I'd be okay with having a PC die by a bear exploding out of his head. --Awayfarer, after having his PC put a furry ball from a Bag of Tricks into his mouth.
After reading this thread a couple of days ago I downloaded the trial version.
Wow it is great. I will be purchasing this for sure.
__________________ "Owner of the hardest to pronounce screenname" - Piratecat
DM: [shouting] You cannot interrupt the DM's description of the room in order to gain a surprise round! - Joshua Randall
Books used last session - 3.5 Core Set, ELH, SC, PH2, MIC and many ideas yoinked from EN World.
I have recently installed OneNote and I was playing around with it and find it to be quite promising.
I noticed that it auto-saves and you don't actually have to manually save like you do with other Office documents.
If I want to use OneNote on multiple computers (that have OneNote installed), how do I go about transferring the data? I won't always have internet access so I need a way to transfer the data by USB key. Is this possible?
__________________ Are you a player looking to join a D&D game in the Toronto area? Send me an email at fenris_wolff@hotmail.com
I have recently installed OneNote and I was playing around with it and find it to be quite promising.
I noticed that it auto-saves and you don't actually have to manually save like you do with other Office documents.
If I want to use OneNote on multiple computers (that have OneNote installed), how do I go about transferring the data? I won't always have internet access so I need a way to transfer the data by USB key. Is this possible?
in your "my documents" folder there is a folder called my onenote journals. copy that to a thumb drive and then copy it to your new computer and you will have the folder on each computer... to update your old computer just do the same from the new computer to the old.... (sorry if that is a little confusing)
Alternatively, if you have a home network you could set it up like I have -
I have one main PC, and a laptop, both of which connect to the same network while I'm at home.
If you're creating a new notebook, there's an option for shared notebooks.
If you already have a notebook, you need to make it's location shared - either share the notebook itself (within your my documents usually), or share a folder above that (such as My Documents itself).
On your laptop (or other machine) do File - Open, and browse to the network location of your shared notebook.
From that point on, you never need to worry about copying data back and forth, and you can edit both at the same time. The changes will then merge neatly when both machines are on the same network (and onenote is open on the laptop).
in your "my documents" folder there is a folder called my onenote journals. copy that to a thumb drive and then copy it to your new computer and you will have the folder on each computer... to update your old computer just do the same from the new computer to the old.... (sorry if that is a little confusing)
Sean
Thanks!
__________________ Are you a player looking to join a D&D game in the Toronto area? Send me an email at fenris_wolff@hotmail.com
If anybody has any templates, example notebooks, or basically any other cool OneNote resources, I would be extremely interested in seeing them.
I only just discovered OneNote, and I have a feeling that I'll be re-inventing the wheel if I spent days and days trying to set up a campaign notebook, encounter template, and so forth.
So if anybody would care to share their work, I'd dearly love to see it.
If anybody has any templates, example notebooks, or basically any other cool OneNote resources, I would be extremely interested in seeing them.
I only just discovered OneNote, and I have a feeling that I'll be re-inventing the wheel if I spent days and days trying to set up a campaign notebook, encounter template, and so forth.
So if anybody would care to share their work, I'd dearly love to see it.
personally what I have done is taken the one note power toys application and installed that.. one of the options in there allows you to print to one note and take that printout and drop it to the background... then you can write on top of that... I happen to have a tablet so I can do handwriting and I have printed the campaign planner into one note and use that as the background....
personally what I have done is taken the one note power toys application and installed that
Ooh, do you have a link to this? I love OneNote, but am sorely disappointed that they didn't add VBA support like they have in just about every other Office application, so anything that would let me get closer to hacking OneNote, like "power toys" is something I'm interested in.
__________________ Adventure is not outside; it is within. --Found in a fortune cookie on game night
Strangely I think I'd be okay with having a PC die by a bear exploding out of his head. --Awayfarer, after having his PC put a furry ball from a Bag of Tricks into his mouth.
I have each sheet in a different section and than different pages per section.
Lets take my picture examples:
Sample 1 is the main sheet, with all the character info.
Sample 2 is the sheet with all class and racial powers noted down
Sample 3 is the sheet with all the powers and features
And i can link between pages and points, and those links still exist in the pdf..
Best thing, if i save the section as a PDF, it crops it automatically to fit the page, so i get a 3 paged pdf with everything i need..
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
