DMing Software for Laptop

[Twin Rose]

Todd is also the first, of what I believe will be many, programmers to agree to adopt the Campaign Suite XML standard, coming soon. This means your custom CS data files will be fully transposable with DMF - creatures, feats, what have you from the variety of products we are entering into CS (as well as users custom data)

Just food for thought

 

[Plane Sailing]

I use a laptop when I'm DM'ing, and although I've looked at a whole bunch of specialty software I've found that the best solution for me (hands down) is Excel and Word. You could probably pick a spreadsheet and word processor of your choice

The spreadsheet handles my calender, the PC summaries, PC magic item/wealth, combat tracking etc.

The word processor contains my adventure. Monster stats cut'n'pasted from SRD (and amended) as necessary. Search SRD to check up rules questions.

(my only exception would be Campaign Sage if it gets updated to 3.5, since it's lightning lookup for skills would be highly useful)

Cheers

 

[MythosaAkira]

(my only exception would be Campaign Sage if it gets updated to 3.5, since it's lightning lookup for skills would be highly useful)

That's in the works, though I don't know when I'll have it done (I'll announce it here, of course, when it is).

 

[soulcatcher]

GMGen

Not that I'm biased, but I recommend GMGen. I just posted release 3.3pre4 at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gmgen.

Currently it does the following:

1) Random names for people/places/things.
2) Generate encounters from PCGen sources
3) Track combat using PCGen characters, or characters entered with the quick add. It understands how to handle massive damage, bleeding & saves.
4) Experience tracking - based on party level, and the CRs of monsters defeated - also with the ability to assign specific awards
5) a full campaign notes system that now has a copy of the 3.5 SRD embedded in it (and soon the 3.0 SRD and MSRD)
6) Overland travel calcualtors for determining the time to get from point a to point b, as well as costs (SRD) for room and board for your party (This will eventually become a part of the forthcoming DM's Screen plugin)

I use if for my games, and I love it - but then again, it's my project

 

[Dugite]

just get roleplayingmaster.
Learn to use it and you will have 95% what you need

 

[Farland]

I use DM Genie constantly. It's the best.

 

[Buttercup]

I've been working on this for a while now. My plan is to be able to get rid of all my paper except for player handouts by our session at the end of September. Game prep isn't the issue for me, since I already have been doing that on the PC, for the most part.



I use Word to write my adventures, and insert maps and pictures. Fractal Mapper has an export feature that will save your map as a jpg, so you can insert into a Word document, or manipulate it in Photoshop, as needed.

I downloaded Infinite Monkey's Dice Roller from the downloads section of this site.

Several of the generators Mark (creative mountain games) has put together are also on my DM's Laptop, such as the book title generator and the building generator. For off-the-cuff descriptions, you can't beat his stuff with a stick.

Since I'm still using 3.0, I use Anna Dobritt's fully indexed pdf of the 3.0 srd. If I were using the 3.5 rules, I'd use Mark's (creative mountain games again). He's done a great job of formatting and indexing, and you can't beat having all the spells and rules open in the background so they're at your fingertips.

The only component I am still missing is something to track combat and characters. I have fully registered copies of Campaign Suite and RPM, but I can't manage to understand either of them. I feel like a complete idiot. So I guess I'll have to try to use excel, which I also don't know much about, or stick with paper and pencil for that part. It's very frustrating for me. I'm not sure why I just can't understand either of these programs, because normally I have no problems with this sort of stuff. I really regret not sitting down with the Twin Rose folks at GenCon and begging them to give me some hands on training.

 

[DMFTodd]

The only component I am still missing is something to track combat and characters. I have fully registered copies of Campaign Suite and RPM, but I can't manage to understand either of them.

Campaign Suite is not a combat tracker. That might be part of the problem.

There's still my program, DM's Familiar, for managing combat. And DMGenie. Both are going to offer far more than what can be done in Excel. Both programs have free trials.

If you can't figure out DM's Familiar, I'll eat my keyboard.

And how is Tablesmith not on your list?

 

[Twin Rose]

The only component I am still missing is something to track combat and characters. I have fully registered copies of Campaign Suite and RPM, but I can't manage to understand either of them. I feel like a complete idiot. So I guess I'll have to try to use excel, which I also don't know much about, or stick with paper and pencil for that part. It's very frustrating for me. I'm not sure why I just can't understand either of these programs, because normally I have no problems with this sort of stuff. I really regret not sitting down with the Twin Rose folks at GenCon and begging them to give me some hands on training.

We'd be happy to help you out with learning the program any time. We have a dungeon making tutorial, available here:
http://www.twinrose.net/tutorials/

Can also work you through various steps of the chargen or other functions. We're available on chat.psionics.net in #CampaignSuite most days. There's a java client, located here:

http://www.psionics.net/chat/java/cschat.html