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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dagda" data-source="post: 689664" data-attributes="member: 1558">I use a PC at the game table.  It has two monitors, one for me (the DM) and one facing the players.  The DM montior is located slightly below the height of the table and off to the side.  A DM Screen keeps the Players from seeing it.   The Player's monitor is on a ledge just above that.  This way I'm sitting at the table, with a low dm screen, and the computer keyboard and monitor are to my left, and a tv tray table is to my left holding more books and such.I use DM's Familiar primarily, with etools, photoshop, musicmatch jukebox, and just recently am trying tablesmith.DM's Familiar is the primary tool I use.  I use it during all combat as well as looking up info on rules, feats, spells, monsters, NPCs, etc.Musicmatch jukebox plays the background music.Photoshop allows me to put up maps for the players.  I use the layers to show areas as they enter them.  It takes a little time to setup the map, but works nicely.  The tabletop has a 3x4 foot sheet of plexiglass with a 1 inch grid on it and a nice parchment looking poster board under it that we use with wet erase markers for our battlemat.I often have photos which depict the scene on the Players monitor as well (last session was a picture of a almost mideval looking town in the hills).  Lately I tried putting up the monster picture (from those I got with e-tools, or I scan my own) and it stays up until the monster is killed/bypassed.  They players really enjoy asking me to remove the picture of the defeated foe.I used etools, and some NPC tables I created (from the GM Mastery NPC Essentials book) last session to very quickly generate some npc's the group ran into.  Within about 15 seconds I had the NPC defined.  And as it turned out, one of the players asked the NPC to serve as a mentor as the PC wants to start multiclassing.But even with all the PC tools I use, I still lookup things in the books now and then.   And the adventure I'm running I prefer on paper in front of me (even though it can be all in DM's Familiar).As for your question about showing maps.  I use photoshop, as I said.  I've seen others who use printshop pro.  There are also some programs that allow you to use it as a battlemap as well.  I know I tried a demo of ScreenMonkey (by nbos, the makers of fractal mapper) that would work.  You could have the DM screen on the DM monitor and a web browser window on the PC's monitor.  It would let you use the DM view to cover/uncover areas on the fly and then let them show on the PC's monitor. (Hey, I'll have to try that and see if it's easier than photoshop!)</blockquote>

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