D&D 5E Share examples of return to simplicity and/or return to analog solutions from digital

I started playing D&D back when most people didn't have computers. Even when my family got a TRS-80 and dot-matrix printer, I really didn't use for gaming. Then I had a decades-long hiatus away from TTRPGs.

When I started gaming again, I naturally started looking into digital tools. I spent a LOT of time learning software to aid with everything from map creation, to campaign management, to initiative tracking, to character sheets. Not that I'm a few years in, I've culled down many of the digital tools I started with.

But it is not just software. There are all kinds of physical tools to help you run or play a game: combat pads, condition tokens, and decks of cards for everything from monsters to critical hit/fumble results, even for coins.

I've found that in many cases I just ditched the software and physical aids and went back to scribbling on paper. For example:

INITIATIVE
After not playing TTRPGs for so long, I somehow got it into my head that combat was a complex activity to run and I looked at and tried out many software products to track initiative. They all seemed fiddly. Many required a lot of time spent on data entry.

Then I went to a convention and so a DM using a Paizo magnetic combat pad. So I got one of those. I liked it...okay...but you still have to write down the participants on the little arrows and fiddle around with the placement, and then wipe them off after the encounter.

Then I read an excellent article by The Angry DM called How to Manage Combat Like a Motherf$&%ing Dolphin, https://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/

The Angry DM slapped my dumb ass back to old school. It was a moment of enlightenment. Initiative is NOT hard. Have blank sheets of "scratch" paper available and just write down the participants in initiative order. You can mark off round on the top if needed for spell effects, etc. You track hit points next to the participants' names.

Sometimes, for large combats with many participants, I will still you Hero Labs tactical counsel, because I can easily bring in all the creatures using the encounter builder and auto assign initiative. But that is more to have the stats readily available, so I'm not flipping pages and/or browser tabs constantly. But, for the most part, a sheet of paper and pencil is all I need.

I have thought of making simple tents with numbers written on them, which I will hand out to players and outsource initiative tracking to them. But this is more to help keep them engaged, especially when it is not their turn. I would also have one place track the turn we are on. Taking tracking initiative off my plate entirely is the only way I see making it easier.

VILLAGE, TOWN, CITY CREATION

For important cities in my homebrew campaign, I used to create insanely detailed, computer crashing maps in Campaign Cartographer. Then I started using Cityographer by Inkwell Games to make smaller, simpler towns and villages more quickly, even using its functionality to create villages randomly.

Then I started getting lazy and just making most of it up. For major areas, I might have a general overview of the major sections and landmarks but would make things up and jot down things as the party explored so that there would be some consistency if they returned.

Then I read a post where someone mentioned: Vornheim: The Complete City Kit, by Zak S. Unlike other city builder guides, it isn't a thick tome of random tables. It is a slim book chock full of revelations. No space is wasted. The front and back covers are tools. The inside of the covers are tools. The jacket cover flaps are tools. And the tools give you incredible tips on how to create a building layout on the fly with a four-sided die. A lot of it is Vornheim-specific locations that you could place in your campaign, but for me, it is all about these small numbers of charts and tools and tips to build urban areas on the fly. I could fill a whole thread with tips from this book, but the most eye-opening for me are the sections on "Navigation Shortcuts for DMs", Urban Crawl Rules, Floor Plan Shortcut, Item Cost Shortcut, Optional Rules for Libraries, the Connections Between NPCs chart. There are also a bunch of charts for generating NPCs, buildings, taverns, etc. But these are fairly standard RPG fare.

These are the two that come to mind first for me.

What about you? Where have you found that pen and paper work better than software or ways to simplify what used to be complicated?

I use my tablets for info, in place of books and prewritten notes and I don't think that will change. And I have never used it for tracking initiative or hit points or anything else going on in the game, always using blank sheets. So I can't share any examples of returning to analog.


Initiative has always been super easy for me to track. Most of the time, I'd just write down the player's initiatives in a column, in the order they sat around the table, and write down the monsters' initiative beside that coloumn. I never even bother labelling any of the numbers since their position on the page matched up to where the player sat. I just looked for the next highest number, and told the corresponding person to act.

For initiative, I had old-style wooden clothespins (the solid wood ones, not the ones with the spring) for all of the PCs and a few "Foe #1", "Foe #2" and so on. I just ordered them once as people called out their initiative, put them on top of my DM's screen and done. When someone goes I move their clothespin the the end of the line.

Nowadays I don't run with a screen or a battlemap, so it's been replaced with half-index cards I lay out on the table. Green for PCs, Orange for foes, White for "other".

But having the initiative order very visible to the players makes whomever's "on-deck" prepped and ready to do their turn.

I run without any electronics. The only "technical" advance is that my preferred game to run, 13th Age, had the PDFs for free when buying the books (even from your FLGS) so I cut-n-paste all my monster and items into a document and print it out for a session to cut down on look up time.

Oh, items I have printed out two columns, and I literally cut out the item description and hand it to the player. Quick and easy bookkeeping.

I second Vornheim, for the same reasons.

For initiative right now my in-person DM uses an index card or scrap paper, and writes down initiative on the page/card on the same place on that page/card as the player is sitting (relative to him) around the table in front of him. So he doesn't need to write anything more than a number, and a tick mark I think for the round.

These days I do initiative in a little scratch pad where I record the date of the session, the PC roster that session, and the combats - I put monster hp there too, and often XP. I was doing 1 page per session but now I often get 2 sessions to a page, so the book lasts longer. It's a great self-creating record of the campaign.

I used to use e-character builder in 4e. I love how it's not needed in 5e.

I have a ton of floorplan stuff, printed Paizo ones, WoTC dungeon tiles (which are terrible). But these days I just bring 4 blank Paizo flipmats to every game, and draw what I need.

I worry less about minis now. I still bring a heavy box of plastic & metal to the game, but a lot of my vermin-type monsters now are just blank 25mm black minis bases on the flipmat. They work really well - one imagines the stirge or robber fly just fine.

Initiative: I have a dry erase board where I (or one of the players) order the PCs and the enemies in a column. Different color pens for PCs and enemies. Works fine and reasonably quickly, especially when I have them roll initiative at the beginning of the session. We display it in a spot where everyone can see. I really like [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION]'s old school clothespin idea... I might have to pick some up and try that!

Minis: We employ both the grid and TotM at our tables. For gridded combats, players typically have minis for their PCs - and I have a few generic ones that can stand in. I use chess pieces for small/medium opponents, Skylanders or blocks for large opponents, and beer/soda cans for huge opponents.

Spells: I print out custom spell sheets for NPCs from www.dnd-spells.com and encourage players to do the same. It has been a tremendous timesaver at the table and doesn't require constant look-ups in PHB or XGtE or D&D Beyond.

Electronics at the table: While I'm firmly in the pencil and paper and books camp, I've found my phone helpful in a pinch to look up stats when I forgot a book. But I'm finding that players are often distracted by their phones and laptops instead of respectfully paying attention to the rest of us at the table when their PC is not in the spotlight. At session 0 of our next campaign, I am going to require all players to have physical character sheets - no laptops taking up table and eyeball real estate. I'm also going to request that phones be put away, except to look something up that pertains to the session. I'll have to adhere to that, too. I'll be sure to incorporate breaks so people can check voicemail/texts that might be important IRL. Part of the reason I play is to escape the screens I sit in front of for hours on end every day at work.

I use various dice to count down the time in either seconds or minutes.

With my groups we roll initiative every round, so the counters and such don't really help. I try to have my notes prepared for every encounter so I don't need to look anything it during the game. In fairness access to a printer at work so I'm not out any money to have everything neatly in front of me helps a lot.

MNblockhead said:

And the tools give you incredible tips on how to create a building layout on the fly with a four-sided die.

Click to expand...

Does this result in a lot of pyramid-like buildings?

One thing that helps with simplicity is playing a game that doesn't present (and thus, encourage you to produce) NPCs that have what you might call a "block" of "statistics." That just sounds heavy. And numerical. This goes for die-rollers and character generators too: the simpler the game, the less you want/need flashy digital tools.

I think the initiative system you described is the exact thing I use. I'm not currently using paper, though. Trying to be green.

I must have a city map, though. Only if it just has districts and a couple landmarks. I can't convey the realism of a settlement to players if I can't even wrap my head around it. Too much detail slows me down if it means that I have to page through notes to be able to describe a certain feature. Protip: Vlookup helps.

Hel I just use A4 paper and sometimes a index card. I just write numbers for the NPCs on the card and the initiaitive roll usually doing group initiative but breaking it up if there are different NPCs in the combat.

For example 4 Orcrs.
Orcs 14
1
2
3
4

The numbers are for hit points and I wrtie down the dmaage and once it exceeds HP they die.

If its say for orcs, 3 hobgoblins and an Ogre its.

4 Orcs 14
1
2
3
4

Hobgobs 17

1
2
3

Ogre 7