Diving in: DM's Familiar (or similar?)

[SnowDog]

Hi all --

I'm finally taking the plunge and going to try DMing with a laptop at the table. I'm getting tired of balacing a 3-ring binder full of campaign notes, a published scenario, a photocopy of a map, a notebook, and whatever rules book I need ... all behind the DM screen. Yeesh!

What I think I'm looking for is a way to quickly get at 3.5E rules, including spells, monsters, and things like "how to turn undead" or "how to handle grapple." I want a way to index through my own volumes of text, whether it's house rules or campaign background. I want the PC's character sheets. I'd also like something that handles combat rounds (initiative, ticking off spell durations, etc -- I don't want a dice roller). I want to know the system is extensible enough that I can add my house rules and access them quickly, as if they were real rules.

It seems like DM's Familiar is a leading candidate for "solving" this problem. I've downloaded the trial and plan to use it in my next session, Tuesday. I've grabbed as much 3.5E stuff as I can, I've entered the PCs, and I've downloaded the codex tree for the adventure I'm running (Banewarrens). I've adjusted the stuff in the BW codex for what's likely to happen in next session. I've tinkered with it, and except for a couple crashes and a little lack of polish, it seems like a decent system.

So. Tell me. What else can I do to make this first session with this as smooth as possible? I've thought about taking the scattered documents I have and adding shortcuts to them in various Codex nodes (instead of cutting&pasting into the nodes themselves, as a starter).

To those that use it, what do you wish people had told you when you first started with it?

To those that have used it, hated it, and are using something else, what should I be careful of? What other products might I want to look at?

Thanks for any responses!

 

[DMFTodd]

It seems like DM's Familiar is a leading candidate for "solving" this problem.

I can give the DM's Familiar answer to these, being the author of the program and all. You might also try the DMF Yahoo group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmsfamiliar/ - there's over 500 users there that can give good answers.

Or the Unoffical Yahoo Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DMF_Unofficial_Fan_Site/ with some 300+ members.

What I think I'm looking for is a way to quickly get at 3.5E rules, including spells, monsters, and things like "how to turn undead" or "how to handle grapple."

Got that covered of course. DMF has a Reference Library for monsters/NPCs, spells, feats, skills, rules, etc. You can look up information easily by name on each of these screens. The Advanced Search screen let's you find these based on criteria (show me the CR4-6 monsters that have 'marsh' in climate, give me all spells that are Wiz 2, etc.) Using the Reference Library, you'll find information much faster than your players and you won't have to carry the rulebooks with you to the game anymore.

I want a way to index through my own volumes of text, whether it's house rules or campaign background

Use the Rules Reference Library in DMF for this. Basically, the Rules section lets you enter any text you want. Each entry can also have a category (that you create) to sort stuff (I have categories for each region in my campaign world so that I can use the Advanced Search to find it all, etc.) . And of course the Advanced Search let's you search all of it.

I'd also like something that handles combat rounds (initiative, ticking off spell durations, etc -- I don't want a dice roller)

All of that is in DMF. There's a dice roller there as well but you certainly don't have to use it. I do think the dice roller is one of the major things DMF can offer (clicking one button and getting the AC and damage for a Bite, Swalle Hole, Claw, Claw, Wing Slap, and Tail Slap of a dragon really speeds up combat).

So. Tell me. What else can I do to make this first session with this as smooth as possible?

Start small. DMF can do a lot of stuff. If you try and use it all at the first session you're likely to get frustrated. Add things piece by piece. You might use DMF to track initiative and to look up rules for your first session. Then worry about adding more notes, using attack/damage of monsters, tracking spells. etc.

I've thought about taking the scattered documents I have and adding shortcuts to them in various Codex nodes (instead of cutting&pasting into the nodes themselves, as a starter).

Good idea for a quick way to get started.

What other products might I want to look at?

Well, my program is the best of course but there are others.

If you want Combat Management, there's also DM Genie and Roleplaying Master. They both have free demos that you can check out to see which one meets your style and makes the most sense to you. They probably also have features like my Reference Library but since I don't look at my competitors much I can't say for sure.

If you only wanted texted base info - non gaming specific software - there's a program called MyInfo which does a great job of organizing lots of text. I'd say your making a mistake if you go that route but it is out there.

 

[SnowDog]

I can give the DM's Familiar answer to these, being the author of the program and all.

Thanks, Todd. I appreciate your taking a moment to answer my thoughts. I'll be using the program for Tuesday's session; I hope it works out well.

DMF has a Reference Library for monsters/NPCs, spells, feats, skills, rules, etc. You can look up information easily by name on each of these screens. The Advanced Search screen let's you find these based on criteria

I've been poking around with this and found it very useful. I imported all the 3.5E stuff I could find and then tried to answer some rules questions using it instead of my books. Worked very well, and I didn't even know about the Advanced Search screen. I'll have to check that out.

Use the Rules Reference Library in DMF for this. Basically, the Rules section lets you enter any text you want.

That's something I hadn't thought of. I was planning to create a node in the Codex tree for the campaign region, more nodes for regions of the city, for noble houses, etc. Adding them as rules would make it much more search-friendly, though, wouldn't it! Hmm.

I do think the dice roller is one of the major things DMF can offer

I'm sure I'll use it to some extent (to handle repeated rolls for large number of combatants, etc). In our group, though, there's a long history of people bringing a huge bag of dice to a game, with people having elaborate systems for choosing which dice to use for an evening, etc. It's silly because it's all random, but it's just a stupid thing we've done for years and I can't picture taking that out of our equation. So, for specialized situations, yes -- otherwise, no.

Start small. DMF can do a lot of stuff. If you try and use it all at the first session you're likely to get frustrated.

Sounds great. Thanks a bunch.

I'll post again after the next session to let you know how it comes out.

 

[SnowDog]

Crossposted with the DMF official Yahoo group.

OK, last night was our first session using DMF. Overall I would judge it as a success, but I'm not sure I'm sold on spending 30 dollars for the program. I will continue evaluating and see how it goes. Please take my comments as they are intended -- from someone who wants to love this application but has some questions about it and hopes to hear answers which will make him happy.

As a negative, it seems like the application is not very forgiving. I've had several times where the application encountered an error it couldn't get around (usually an "out of bounds" type error) and shut down. This happened plenty while entering/importing data, and then happened in midcombat last night. The process of shutdown was a surprise ("Would you like to ignore this error?" "uhm, sure." "Would you like to backup your data?" "Uhm, ok." "boom." *shrug*). Then starting back up, opening all the windows I had open, etc., was really disruptive. Is this common, or is there something weird with my config? Any suggestions on how to avoid this?

The import interface seems a little weak as well. Let's say someone puts together a mass import (for, say, a whole adventure) -- why do I have to import, separately, the feats, items, creatures, etc? Why isn't there a master file I can import which knows what files to open and pulls them all in, in the right order (to prevent annoying "Do you want to create this thing that doesn't exist yet?" dialogs)? Especially since the program relies on the import of tons of data to do its job well, I'm surprised it's such an error-prone interactive process.

As a positive, I fell in love with the ease of searching for rules. My players and I were surprised at how quickly I was able to do some rules checking. If I put all my house rules, campaign data, etc., in there, it'll be insanely great. That alone might be worth the money, though there's nothing innately "DMF" about that -- it's just a system for collecting and organizing data.

Also, the 3.5 data that's in there isn't complete yet and it meant digging out the rulebooks a few times. For example, when a player asked what aura surrounded a specific magic item he had found when he cast detect magic on it and I had to dig out the 3.5E book and figure it out. Now that I know this, I'll be modifying relevant data in advance, but this is data I was surprised not to have. I'm sure as time passes the 3.5 data will become complete and this will cease to be an issue. It's not really fair to judge the system on how complete the 3.5 data is for it, but in actuality I need 3.5e data or the application isn't useful, so it has to be part of my evaluation process.

The combat board served me well, with a couple exceptions. It was just as fast as my "index card" system but with more information at my fingertips. Unfortunately, I didn't really get a good handle on how to handled delayed/readied characters. I need to look closer at that and make sure I have it smooth. It's likely that I just didn't do it right as opposed to a flaw in the product.

One thing that really bugged me about the combat board was the new system of entering monster attacks in terms of {MAB}. My players and I are bigtime die rollers -- it's stupid but we love the sound of those plastic polyhedrons hitting the table. Buying, caring for, and even punishing dice (you know, ones that have "failed you for the last time") is a silly but integral part of our gaming experience. A random number generator just doesn't give off the same vibe. So, I want to make the combat rolls myself as often as I can.

When I see a creature in the board with an attack of {MAB} I have to figure it out. I see a MAB of 8 at the top ... does he get one attack or two? I have to check the BAB and go from there, subtract 5, etc.... It's not rocket science, but it's not as fast as I want it to be either.

It would be really nice if the combat board could give me the bonuses without having it do the rolling. Is this something I can do, and just didn't see an option for?

I did use the combat board to resolve an attack just to see how it would work. Unfortunately, when I did this I got an out of bounds error and the app crashed in mid-combat. I had to load it all back up and it was disruptive enough that I didn't bother trying to use the combat board to roll dice again. I don't know if there was something wrong with the creature, or if it was a random error, or what. I'll try and reproduce it later when I have a chance.

Some questions about capabilities: is it possible to link from one object in DMF to another? Which objects will this work for? I know I can drop things in Codex nodes, but how about Rules objects? Spells? For example, let's say I create a Rule Node describing the political structure of an organization, to make it easy to search for. Within it I'd like to link to the major NPCs of that organization. Is that possible? Say I create a house rule node that talks about something odd that could happen when performing a Bull Rush. Can I link to the rules node for Bull Rush directly from there?

Thanks for everyone who takes the time to read this, and thanks in advance to those who offer their input on my questions and feedback. I really really want to be able to use this product. I think the potential is great.

 

[Dimwhit]

Sounds like a good program. I don't suppose it's been written for Mac OSX/Linux, has it?

 

[DMFTodd]

No, sorry, no mac version. The only Mac combat manager I know of is Crystal Ball. And that's all I know about it.

And answers to Snowdogs posts have been discussed on the DMF yahoo group if anyone is interested.