MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
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?
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?