How Much Gaming Stuff Do You Need?

[Jhaelen]

There's only two items listed that, imho, detract from the game more than they help:
- DM's screen: I like seeing my players, thank you. I also prefer not to hide rolls.
- Laptops or anything more high tech than a calculator: These things are just as bad as or even worse than having a tv running in the same room. They make it impossible to concentrate on the game.

What's possibly missing:
- dice cups: I hate it if people throw dice all over the table/battlemat as if this was something related to bowling.

- We also don't use adventure logs per se; we've got a bluebook that is used as a travelogue which I think works even better.

There's other things that make gaming more enjoyable but I wouldn't label them 'gaming stuff'.

 

[Nai_Calus]

A computer, hamachi and Fantasy Grounds. Living in the middle of nowhere sucks.

I also make extensive use of the PHB because it drives me mad trying to look things up in the SRD when I already know what page they're on in the book. I suspect I may be the only one who actually owns the book at times. >_> Also keep a paper character sheet so I can keep track of stuff/figure out levelling between sessions, and often refer to it *during* the session because I don't actually like FG that much.

I'd probably IRL like as little extraneous stuff as possible, having a bunch of clutter around annoys me half to death. Well except dice. I'd probably bring a few sets of those. I have 731 currently, might as well get use out of them.

 

[CleverNickName]

- Laptops or anything more high tech than a calculator: These things are just as bad as or even worse than having a tv running in the same room. They make it impossible to concentrate on the game.

True statement. I once had a player who couldn't stay off his Blackberry. He spent the entire gaming session texting and playing some sodding Tetris clone, and didn't understand why everyone was getting so annoyed. He never came back to game with us again, because everyone was "vibing him so hard."

But off the game table, I love my palmtop. It contains all of the PDFs I need, plus some dice rollers, treasure generators, NPC character sheets, and other tools for creating adventures while I'm on the bus.

 

[Wombat]

Well, if we are talking about gaming in general, rather than specifically D&D, we like to have more than one core rulebook, extra dice, and a GM screen.

If we are playing D&D, then we (sadly) pretty much have to have a battle mat, minis, and other counters as well. At that point we have a board game...

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

To game I need dice, pencils, paper and at least one copy of the core rulebook for the system we’re playing that day. Anything else is nice, but unnecessary.

 

[rowport]

Tasty snacks?

Red Bull (now replaced with Coke Zero for me)?

 

[evilgenius8000]

By "Extra Character Sheets" do you mean like a stockpile of extra character sheets, or having to print out a new one(s) when PCs meet a horrific end? Because my group usually prints out only the character sheets needed to start a campaign, not any extras to keep on hand.

Besides that, our group relies heavily on a wet erase 1" square battlemat, minis, tons of pencils and erasers, wet erase markers, sometimes a computer to aid DMing (though when I DM, I've typically printed out everything I need for my adventure), and lots of books (not including the myriad of supplements and 3PP books, we have a 3.5 PHB for everyone, and two each of the 3.5 DMG, 3.5 MM, and core 4e set). We occasionally use a DM screen, since the rules on the inside are useful (also, I've devised a way to keep track of initiative using index cards hanging from the edge in a way that lets everyone know the order).

 

[PoeticJustice]

After a rancid summer of trying to get a 4E campaign to work, I have successfully DM'ed a 3.5 campaign using, after character generation, Encyclopedia Magica vol.3 (because that's where the rods of wonder are).

That's it. No Monster Manual, No Player's Handbook, No Dungeon Master's Guide. No minis or battlemat, nothing.

Just Encyclopedia vol. 3.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm beginning to think Index Cards are a must too. Plus I like a good mapping software when creating adventures. But adventure creation is a different thing than running a game.

I remember Adventure Logs for the DM.

Anyone remember Character Records?

 

[diaglo]

Anyone remember Character Records?

mais bien sur.
i have the ones from 1977 on up plus npc character record sheets and the perm character sheet