Looking for campaign management tools

[prospero63]

All,

I'm getting ready to start DMing a campaign after about 20 years of playing, and I'm wondering if anyone has any tool recommendations, especially things like Excel spreadsheets for managing combat, etc. We game with laptops on everyone's desk, so having the tools online during the game is pretty key. TIA.

 

[kingpaul]

PCGen's GMGen plug-in can be used at the table to do combat. I'll see if I can get some GMGen users over here to answer specifics, as no one in my group uses a laptop at the table.

 

[prospero63]

PCGen's GMGen plug-in can be used at the table to do combat. I'll see if I can get some GMGen users over here to answer specifics, as no one in my group uses a laptop at the table.

Downloaded and will install shortly. Thanks!!

 

[DMFTodd]

Combat Management would help the game a lot at the table. There's mine - DM"s Familiar - and DM Genie, Roleplaying Master, and GMGen portion of PCGen.

 

[prospero63]

Combat Management would help the game a lot at the table. There's mine - DM"s Familiar - and DM Genie, Roleplaying Master, and GMGen portion of PCGen.

Looks nice, but it's kind of heavy. Is there any way to directly edit the combat board? In my cursory eval, it appears that I have to manually add every creature, especially the custom bad guys, before I can add them to the combat board. Thanks!

 

[Mercule]

PCGen's GMGen plug-in can be used at the table to do combat. I'll see if I can get some GMGen users over here to answer specifics, as no one in my group uses a laptop at the table.

I use it to track initiative. It works really well. In fact, GM Gen is one of the major reasons I've been pressuring my players to give me PC Gen copies of their characters.

I've also started using the XP calculator after combat. Works pretty well, but it needs an undo button. There have been a couple of times I've thrown in an ad-hoc PC or NPC and forgotten to set the CR/level correctly.

The notes tab hasn't been of much use to me. It's handy to have along with the rest of GM Gen, but it's a bit primitive -- just a step up from using Notepad for your game notes.

 

[DMFTodd]

Looks nice, but it's kind of heavy. Is there any way to directly edit the combat board?

(Talking about DM's Familiar here) You can edit anything already on the board (change the name, hit points, etc.) but there's no way to add a "blank" creature to the combat board (hmmm, maybe I should do that). If that is something you'd do frequently, I'd create a creature with a blank name and nothing else. You can then quickly add that to the board, change the name, and away you go.

Or, if you have something on the combat board, right-click it and select Add Same Creature.

 

[prospero63]

(Talking about DM's Familiar here) You can edit anything already on the board (change the name, hit points, etc.) but there's no way to add a "blank" creature to the combat board (hmmm, maybe I should do that). If that is something you'd do frequently, I'd create a creature with a blank name and nothing else. You can then quickly add that to the board, change the name, and away you go.

Or, if you have something on the combat board, right-click it and select Add Same Creature.

Would be kind of nice to be able to direct edit. Especially for canned adventures... I don't have much of a desire to input all of the appendix from the ToEE into it when I just need something that lets me specify "init, saves" and click "go" so to speak.

I wound up making a custom excel spreadsheet to handle that for now... I may dink around more with DM's Familiar and the PCGen stuff when I get a little more time (campaign kicks off tomorrow...)

Thanks all!!

 

[DMFTodd]

when I just need something that lets me specify "init, saves" and click "go" so to speak.

You can do that. Drag the "blank" creature to the combat board, select it on the board, and then click on the "creature" tab of the combat board. You can then enter the saves.

Course if that's all you're going to be doing, then yeah, a Combat Management program is overkill.

 

[prospero63]

You can do that. Drag the "blank" creature to the combat board, select it on the board, and then click on the "creature" tab of the combat board. You can then enter the saves.

Course if that's all you're going to be doing, then yeah, a Combat Management program is overkill.

Ah. Nice. I'm going to try that tomorrow and see which method seems to go the most fluid.