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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
AEG Toolbox
- Thread starter Mark CMG
- Start date
Teflon Billy
Explorer
It's a wierd prouct.
I love it, and I'm sure I've ben subconsciously inspired by it, but I am relatively certain I've never used the tables to "Randomly generate" anything.
That said, just reading the thing gets the creative juices flowing.
Like I said...it's an odd beast
I love it, and I'm sure I've ben subconsciously inspired by it, but I am relatively certain I've never used the tables to "Randomly generate" anything.
That said, just reading the thing gets the creative juices flowing.
Like I said...it's an odd beast
Wraith Form
Explorer
That sounds like a personal problem.EricNoah said:
:: ducks ::
Orryn Emrys
Explorer
*snickers* Ah... the power of out-of-context quotes....Wraith Form said:
Toolbox. Is that the book of lists that Jeff Ibach put together...? I've never used it, but I actually bought a copy for a friend of mine who said he used it constantly in the games he was running. It wasn't that I didn't feel that it would be helpful for my own games as well, but my goal has long since been to minimize the page-flipping I have to do at the table, not add to it. Now, I'm a laptop DM... so online or electronic resources of a similar nature would be invaluable to me.
Incidentally, Jeff has a website with some cool articles on it.
Mark Hope
Hero
Great product - I use it all the time, both in preparing for the game and at the table. Last session I used it to come up with a bunch of names and simple motivations for some "background NPCs" who were working on a merchant caravan with the PCs - the kinds of folks that they are unlikely to spend much time with, but if they do, you want something more than "Er, yeah, his name is, er, Thag, and he likes, er, fighting evil..."
I've used it at the table for example, when the PCs were in a tavern. I had the book open to the pages about tavern patrons. So when one player wanted to know what the dwarves at the next table were doing, I had their conversation material and motivations right there in front of me.
That's where it gets the most use - in whipping up random people and places at the drop of a hat. Names, locations, motivations - all that kind of thing. None of it is the sort of stuff that I couldn't come up with myself, but the book's main strength is as a timesaver - it's all right there for you when you need it. No DM can cover every possible NPC or angle beforehand, so I like having a resource that I can smoothly turn to an incorporate quickly and easily.
I get less use out of the encounter tables, mainly because they are 3.0. I'd love to see a 3.5 version of those lists (especially the people as opposed to the monsters) but there you go.
One player, after leafing through it, described it as "a campaign in pieces, waiting to be assembled". Good description - it really is all the component parts. Just add DM, stir gently and serve...
I've used it at the table for example, when the PCs were in a tavern. I had the book open to the pages about tavern patrons. So when one player wanted to know what the dwarves at the next table were doing, I had their conversation material and motivations right there in front of me.
That's where it gets the most use - in whipping up random people and places at the drop of a hat. Names, locations, motivations - all that kind of thing. None of it is the sort of stuff that I couldn't come up with myself, but the book's main strength is as a timesaver - it's all right there for you when you need it. No DM can cover every possible NPC or angle beforehand, so I like having a resource that I can smoothly turn to an incorporate quickly and easily.
I get less use out of the encounter tables, mainly because they are 3.0. I'd love to see a 3.5 version of those lists (especially the people as opposed to the monsters) but there you go.
One player, after leafing through it, described it as "a campaign in pieces, waiting to be assembled". Good description - it really is all the component parts. Just add DM, stir gently and serve
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DM_Jeff
Explorer
Orryn Emrys said:
Yes indeed, that's the one my wife and I did. Glad it's still getting some attention!
Orryn Emrys said:
Wow, I haven't been there myself in ages. I don't update it anymore.
But I'm glad you like the archives! As it is, there's a super-detailed index on that site many may find useful when using the book at the table, and a few extra charts we threw together, too.For some behind-the-scenes scoops now that the project's long over, Dawn and I fought tooth and nail to get the "monster lists" AEG thought should fill the book OUT. We were positive we had enough lists to fill the whole book, but they were insistant on it being just like the last quarter of the 1st Edition DMG, so those lists stayed.
That said, we're still very happy with it. I still use it myself, especially when the party goes into a city I hadn't expected them to. That's something that always caused be pause back in the day. I'd like to do a 3.5 version.
-DM Jeff
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