Best Game Aids

Reynard

Legend

Supporter

• Feb 28, 2007

• #1

I am looking at trying to be a little more organized in my DMing and am wondering what the best game aids -- charts, cheat sheets, and other utility type products -- are from places like RPGnow and DTRPG. Also, there are apparently lots and lots of battlemap templates and paper minis. Which are your favorites/best value/most useful?

Thanks.

 

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philreed

Adventurer

Supporter

• Feb 28, 2007

• #2

You may want to give Ronin Arts' Campaign Planner serieshttp://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.p...rch_in_description=1&keyword=campaign+planner a try. It's a series of forms designed to assist in the creation and maintenance of a campaign.

And right now it's on sale for GM's Day at www.yourgamesnow.comhttp://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.p...rch_in_description=1&keyword=campaign+planner.

 

KidCthulhu

First Post

• Feb 28, 2007

• #3

3 x 5 index cards. Seriously. You can track initiative, one card for each player/monster. Do a quick summary of the monster stats on the initiative card, so when they're up, you don't have to consult the book again and again. Use them to mark corridors and rooms if you don't have a battle map. Endless uses.

I also like the battle boxes from Firery Dragon, and their creature collections. Loads of cool little game tools and printable square paper markers that fit on battle maps.

A good battle map is very nice, or just a big pad of graph paper. The office supply store will sell these, get the kind you use for flip charts, with 1" squares and lots of room.

 

T

Thunderfoot

Hero

• Feb 28, 2007

• #4

The Other Game Company's "cards" series. Print the ones you need, updated by the company as needed, blanks for adding things not in the SRD. I can't live without these handy little things.

 

Jeff Wilder

First Post

• Feb 28, 2007

• #5

I've tried just about everything. See bwlow for what the ratings mean.

Chessex Megamat (8/10); Dwarven Forge MasterMaze (9/3) and Miniatures (9/2); D&D Dungeon Tiles (7/5 -- 7/10 for con-going), Miniatures (9/10), and Fantastic Locations maps (6/5); Steel Sqwire Flip Mats (6/7 -- 6/9 for con-going) and Spell Radius templates (9/3); Steve Jackson Games' Cardboard Heroes (4/4 -- 4/7 for con-going); Dragonscale Counters (9/2); Green Dragon Studio's Dungeon Stamps (7/4); Alea's Magnetic Markers (4/2); Open Mind Games' Combat Pad (7/9); The Other Game Company's Index, Monster, and Spells cards (7/6); Paizo's Item and Magic Items cards (6/1) ... and I'm sure there's at least a half-dozen things I'm leaving out.

I've given each of the accessories above two ratings, with 1 low and 10 high. The first is "Concept," or just how "neat" an idea it is. In many cases, something with a high Concept score will be much more useful to other people than it has proven to be for me. (Steel Sqwire's templates is in this camp ... after using them for a while, I found that I easily memorized all the possible spell area effects.) The second rating will be "Usefulness;" how valuable it has actually been to me as a DM in play.

The things that I feel are all but "must haves": a megamat, D&D miniatures, and the Combat Pad. For DMing at a con, I'll add Dungeon Tiles and Flip Mats.

 

buzz

Adventurer

• Feb 28, 2007

• #6

I've found having a small dry-erase board at the table very helpful. I can quickly sketch out locations or items that maybe can't be easily explained verbally, or write proper names to help them gel in players' minds. Add in a board with magnets and you have a handy initiative tracker. The one I linked above has a pen clip, and the pen has a built-in eraser.

Just don't use the pen on your wet-erase battlemat.

EDIT: Oh, and to actually answer your question... (sorry) the following have been the most useful to me in aiding prep and play:

• Steel Sqwire's templates
• http://www.d20srd.org
• CMG's SRD PDFs
• PCGen
• MasterScreen, tri-fold landscape
• Firey Dragon Productions counters
• MS Word
• MS Excel
• OmniOutliner
• OmniGraffle

I have a much easier time making use of my own note formats than pre-published ones.

 

Last edited: Feb 28, 2007

Piratecat

Sesquipedalian

• Mar 1, 2007

• #7

Ditto on Fiery Dragon's Battle Box and Monster Counters (especially the digital one.) Index cards are essential. I keep a bag of many-colored glass beads handy too - sometimes I need a random monster placeholder, and they make a handy substitute.

 

Z

Zaukrie

New Publisher

• Mar 1, 2007

• #8

I really like this:

Open Mind Games' Combat Pad

Miniatures have completely changed the way I play, and if you have minis, you need 1 inch grids to play them on. I love the tiles from skeletonkeygames (if you have access to a printer) the dungeon tiles from WotC are about 100x better than I anticipated, and the fantastic locations maps are great (you'll need to be very flexible to use them).

Print out sections of the SRD - and get your players to pring out the spells they have (and you should do the same for NPCs/creatures) - or buy the spell cards referenced earlier.

 

S

sjmiller

Explorer

• Mar 1, 2007

• #9

Zaukrie said:

I really like this:

Open Mind Games' Combat Pad

Click to expand...

I cannot begin to tell you how useful this thing has been! I used to run combat by using notecards and shuffling through the deck of them to go through initiative. It seems that nobody paid attention if their name wasn't called. Now they look at the Combat Pad, which I have on a typing easel, and start preparing for when their turn comes. It makes combat go a lot faster, and people even remember they can delay or ready actions. Can't say enough good stuff about this local company. One day I hope to meet them at a con and shake their hands. Hmm, wonder if they go to CONvergence?

 

V

Varianor Abroad

Explorer

• Mar 1, 2007

• #10

Tact-tiles!
Steel Sqwire templates and Flip-Mat!
plastic D&D minis
white board

All good things!