Programs to organize campaigns

Mystery Man · Mar 26, 2004

I came across this program whilst looking for something other than word that was funtional as a campaign writing tool. They have a collapseable tree structure that's pretty handy.

Of course it costs money (natch). Treepad link. Then some more googling and I found this one more geared towards GM's directly Myinfo. Then I found one that operates like the shareware programs thats free. Keynote, granted it doesnt have all the bells and whistles that the other two have (its free) with Treepad being the "fanciest" however Treepad is the only one I found that has a Linux version without running Wine.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd throw those out. Didn't know if they've been discussed before or not.

gravyboat · Mar 26, 2004

I was planning on posting a thread just like this. I came across the programs you mentioned and many more and tried them all out. After quite a bit of substantial testing as to which one of these programs would work the best for adventure writing and running I decided on GSNotes (Goldensection Notes) http://www.tgslabs.com/eng/gsnotes/

This seems to be the most solid and versitile of the PIM's (Personal Information Managers) I have tried. I plan on writing up my whole next adventure in gsnotes and running it at the table on my laptop. The beauty of this program is that all your information is highly organized and readily accessible. You can insert hyperlinks to programs, online webpages, to different sections of your gsnotes file. You can also insert pictures that are links. The best part of this program that I am excited about is that I have a bunch of playlists compiled of great RPG music, which I will place links to in my adventure outline. So the party comes accross an area of howling wind tunnels, I click on a link and howling wind sound effects begin to play. If the party walks into a tavern, I quickly jump to my tavern writeup and right at the top is a link to the tavern music.

Here are some preliminary screenshots of how I'm setting up my adventure. I still need to add a lot of folders, for NPC and Monster statblocks and other things.

Mystery Man · Mar 26, 2004

Sweet, I had not found that one. I'll try that one out too. I've been playing around with Treepad and I like that you can build tables and shizzle. Geeking out over here!

Ashrem Bayle · Mar 26, 2004

Thanks Gravyboat, I'm going to have to check that out!

Hand of Evil · Mar 26, 2004

I have been looking for something like this for a very long time and gave up on it!

Thanks!

Ashrem Bayle · Mar 26, 2004

Anyone know what happens after 30 days and you don't register?

What I really want is a program for writing adventures. For example, I'd like it to promt me to enter a synopsis, background, flavor text, maps, room descriptions, monster stats and all that. Then, when it's done, you just hit "Format" and it takes all your data and formats it into an adventure that looks like it came straight from Wizards themselves.

That'd be sweet.

Hand of Evil · Mar 26, 2004

Ashrem Bayle said:
Anyone know what happens after 30 days and you don't register?

What I really want is a program for writing adventures. For example, I'd like it to promt me to enter a synopsis, background, flavor text, maps, room descriptions, monster stats and all that. Then, when it's done, you just hit "Format" and it takes all your data and formats it into an adventure that looks like it came straight from Wizards themselves.

That'd be sweet.

Yes that would, I remember hoping that was what E-Tools was going to be!

Ashrem Bayle · Mar 26, 2004

Hand of Evil said:
Yes that would, I remember hoping that was what E-Tools was going to be!

Yeah, when they said it would do that, I got all excited. When they announced that feature's removal, I lost all interest.

gravyboat · Mar 26, 2004

I inserted the entire SRD into a gsnotes file (.gso) (see the screenshot below). So if you want to check it out, you can download the whole thing at the following link

http://members.cox.net/theoremtank1/SRD.zip

It took me about 40 min. to to do this. That's the beauty of this GSNotes program, you can put documents together pretty quickly.

The gsnotes program also has a useful search feature which allows you to search through the entire gso file or just through specific folders and notes. This makes looking up rules in the SRD very quick.

I love the fact you can lauch any program you have on your computer with links you place in the document. In my adventure I'm writing with GSNotes, I have links that instantly load up Jamis Buck's NPC Generator, a dicerolling program, excel spreadsheets, and numerous rpg pdf's.

By the way, I don't work for the company, I'm just stoked that this program works so well for what I want to do with my upcoming adventure.

Mystery Man · Mar 27, 2004

After playing around with all of them I think I've found Treepad to be the most functional.

GSnotes is actually better than Myinfo I think and its free is it not?

I like Treepad enough to actually pay for it. Decisions, decisions....