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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Belen" data-source="post: 2436272" data-attributes="member: 1405">A few years ago, I burned out.  A combination of a few bad players and complicated crunch was ruining the game for me.  I tended to spend hours on NPC stats with a real desire to make sure I had crossed every T and dotted every I.  In the end, I took half a year off from gaming and scrapped my old group.  When I returned to the GM screen, I promised myself that I would never take the time to stat NPC by hand again.  Now, I used a combination of electronic aids while gaming.  I use Heroforge to stat out the BBEGs, e-tools for the unique monsters, and Jamis Buck's NPC generator for quick and easy mooks.  Using these aids really allows me to minimize the idiotic number crunching while maximizing my time spent focusing on adventure creation and character/player specific story arcs.  In short, I could not continue to game without these invaluable tools.Yet, it is the lack of these tools that keep my from using material from companies other than Wizards.  I have yet to find character generators, monster generators, or spell sheets for Midnight, Arcana Evolved, or Blue Rose.  These are all settings and material that I love.  I buy the books, yet I would never run a game for them.  I just do not want to go back to the sheer work of doing anything by hand and I am neither computer savvy enough, nor have the time to create my own electronic aids for these settings.I know that D&D benefits from a large customer base, so they have fans creating these types of aids out of the blue.  Yet I have no doubt that these aids help support the base and retain players that they would otherwise lose.So I have to wonder why the third party companies do not commission such aids.  I think the lack of such support will keep these companies small.  d20 has a lot of complicated crunch and by ignoring support that would make this crunch more accessible, they are creating a barrier that a lot of GMs and players choose not to overcome.  People who do not get to play that often want to maximize their time rather than have to spend it sorting out the various crunchy options.  I know that some people really enjoy reading the books, using the crunch in new ways, etc, but for many others, they want something to make their life easier.I really believe that third party publishers must find a way to release electonic aids for their materials.  Even if that aid comes in the form of a spell sheet that gives the core stats of the spell plus page numbers of the spells.  Heck, I would pay for such aids.  Bastion has done it fr e-tools and I purchased both their books and the e-tools expansion.  The AE battlebox is a good start too.  It allows me to have a quick aid at the table.Yet, it needs to be more.  I want to see character generators, spells sheet, feat sheets etc.  I need the 3rd party publishers to make my life easier as a GM.  Then I can run games using their material and introduce that material to my players, who become a whole new market.  Right now, I buy the books because I am a collector and I love new material, but I do not use the books which would introduce a lot more people to their stuff.Anyone else feel the same?</blockquote>

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