Computer based inventory sheets

[airbornemist6]

I have a tendency to play ninjas and rogues and quite frankly, I also have a tendency to carry a bunch of bags of holding and other magical storage devices to hold all my craploads of gear (seriously, I have one character in particular that likes going into hardware stores and buying everything he thinks might be useful).

I started using heroforge a long time ago, it's served me well. The problem comes when I start filling up the inventory (right now it's completely packed, every single line). I thought, "oh that's ok, I'll just use the magical storage sheet from sunrainstudios.com," it's very nice, if you haven't ever looked at it (actually everything from there is good). But, I quickly realized it defeated my original purpose, having something easier to read than my chicken scratch.

What I'm looking for is something that will let me make a ton of inventory entries, without having to read my own horrible writing. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[genshou]

I just threw together a spreadsheet in OpenOffice for it. When it fills up I just add another 25 lines. Never needed more than 150, though.

 

[airbornemist6]

Ah, yeah I was considering doing something like that, but didn't know if I wanted to go through that much hassle. But, I guess I will.

 

[DarkelvenSFi]

I'm not sure what your skills are, but I have a nice system going for my games using a virtual server (easyphp). When I need something done for me, I create a system to do it (accessed via a webpage).

Ideally, I'd have each player with a computer screen with their characters, spells, inventories, health etc listed, and me (as the DM) be able to view and make changes to them from my computer. This would make things like a random thief in the city behave much more realistically (the character only notices his missing gold when he checks for it).

I know this is going off topic, but if I want an NPC for a random encounter, I pull up my system and select the level and class, and the program spits out everything from abilities (including adding points per level), skills, feats, items and equipment (including magical stuff according to how much gold that level of character should have). It creates an entire character from scratch, including spells and which ones are memorised.

I've similar things for monsters, converting them when enlarged, turned into zombies, vampires, etc. As well as shop inventories. Other systems generate experience based on CR and character level so I don't have to spend precious time during gaming.

And this is just the beginning of how I DM.

Setting up a inventory system that can be changed, altered, sorted, etc could be quite simple.

So long story short.. if you have a computer handy at your games and were willing to run easyPHP, I could set up an inventory system for you that worked according to your needs. Hell.. I could use one myself to keep track of the items my players have. Not to mention the trouble I go through when they say "What was that longsword we picked up in that dungeon last month? I'm ready to identify it now".

 

[jedavis]

Hot damn... I'd rather learn how to do that than just use what you've got. I've been using excel for inventories (and some other stuff... Traveller d20 vehicle and starship construction, Fields of Blood unit conversions, stuff like that), but I don't know squat about networking.

 

[airbornemist6]

I'd like to do that, but in this particular campaign I don't have a computer in front of me or webernet access for that matter. However, this does sound like something I'd love to have in my own campaign, where I can change the location to somewhere with said webernet access.

 

[DarkelvenSFi]

I should mention that you don't need internet access, only a computer. I typically take along a (f)laptop, but prefer to take my computer for ease of use (and the monitor size). The place we game doesn't even have a phone line..

Unfortunately, there's a fairly high learning curve for the webdesign and database management, but I'd be willing to help guide you if you were interested.

I could send you over examples of what works and help you fix any problems you have.

I'm not suggesting that I expect that you now take on the challenge, only that you know that I'm willing to help if you choose to learn


I just like to have the entire campaign mapped out in an easy to access medium. Hooks, NPC, shops, maps, events, monsters, random encounters, etc are all listed by campaign progression and area. When the players move between landscapes, I bring up a new list of inhabitants, encounters, mini-plots, and devices.

Eventually, I'll have an entire system that can be ported to other DMs. But I'm not sure of the copyright issues with using D20 material in my code.

 

[airbornemist6]

I'm actually a computer science major. I'd probably understand the code for the most part, but just never played much with php.

Now throw me some ruby and I'll work wonders.

I was actually planning on writing a program in either visual basic or python that would do something similar to this, I just never got the modivation. I'm kinda lazy.