Most indispensible DMing tools.

[malraux]

1) DMGenie - - this would, frankly, probably be enough even if I had NO other tools. It manages initiative, can auto roll attacks, can make Listen/Spot/Etc. checks for the Entire Party without them knowing. It accurately tracks each and every fiddly little modifier, including ENCUMBRANCE. It's not perfect, but it's close enough. It also tracks time in battle and campaign levels, has all the monsters and their stats, all the base spells, and adding feats/classes/etc is about the easiest thing ever. I even enter the adventures right into DMG, and after each fight it can divide up treasure and calculate/assign XPs.

This. The only issue is that support for non-SRD material is flakey at times.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Aside from the obvious (rulebooks, dice, pencil, paper, adventure notes), the only other things I'd have to have to run my game are a battlemat and pens, and my magnetic initiative board.

It may sound odd, but I would literally cancel the game if I didn't have my initiative board. It's just that much better at tracking init than anything else I've tried.

Things that make the game run much better (which is different from "indispensable")?

Minis, spell area templates, mini white boards and erasers, Dr. Wizard's Patented Elevation Indicators, laminated maps.

I have about a bazillion other accessories that we've tried, but which haven't really stuck, the hassle not being worth the benefit.

 

[Wicht]

Assuming you, like me, can't afford a laptop just for gaming, here is what I use/recommend

- Dice, the more the better.
- A yellow legal pad for jotting down notes concerning treasure found, CRs defeated and encounters encountered
- A black pen, a red pen
- A 2x4 white board that I have scratched a 1 inch grid onto
- a white board behind me that I can write hit points and condition modifiers
- multi-colored erasable markers
- the rules
- the adventure
- The gamemastery combat board mentioned above
- and if necessary, minis

 

[phloog]

Assuming you, like me, can't afford a laptop just for gaming, here is what I use/recommend

...well, you must remember that I do without other luxuries (like food).

If I had to run a 'low tech' campaign I would agree with much of what's already written...here are some other tools I've found useful:

3x5 cards or those blank business cards - they work well for tracking initiative...stack them in order...someone does something that changes their place in the order, move the card around. Also useful for handing out magic items or treasure - just hand them the data on a card.

A couple of packs of 'white board tiles' -- these are 12"x12" thin tiles made of white board material, used by businesses to build their own white boards, but I've found them useful for mapping - you could easily pop a permanent grid onto them. Get them at office supply stores.

Would Dwarven Forge stuff count as outside of people's budget? I love those things, but you often have to sort of design your map around the pieces you have.

I WANT to use the little magnets by Alea (?) for tracking conditions when not using the laptop, but the ones I have tend to jump into each other too much...I'm told they've improved these.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Computers and fancy software might prove helpful but the most indispensible item I can bring to a game is detailed record (handwritten will do) of what events took place in the previous session(s) so I can provide synopsis of campaign events to the players before we start play. For a group that doesn't get to play more than twice a month at best, nothing else comes close.

 

[phloog]

...which is why of course for ME (and I only speak for myself and my dog) the laptop is indispensable. Not only is everything easy to record (I can type MUCH faster than I can write, and I can actually READ the output later if I type it!), but the tools I use have logs, and so I can actually have not only a record of what happened in each room (typed into each description as the madness happens), but I actually have a LOG automatically generated of each combat, so I can provide a recap that (if I chose) goes into detail of who smacked whom when.

 

[ExploderWizard]

...which is why of course for ME (and I only speak for myself and my dog) the laptop is indispensable. Not only is everything easy to record (I can type MUCH faster than I can write, and I can actually READ the output later if I type it!), but the tools I use have logs, and so I can actually have not only a record of what happened in each room (typed into each description as the madness happens), but I actually have a LOG automatically generated of each combat, so I can provide a recap that (if I chose) goes into detail of who smacked whom when.

Thats awesome! My typing is so slow that if I tried it at the table the players would fall asleep from boredom which is why a laptop would be of limited use to me.

 

[lin_fusan]

I would definitely use a large initiative chart that every player could see.

I have a player that always claims he was skipped, even when he wasn't. After one battle, I discovered that he had taken two more actions than everyone else...

I would always have a copy of a pregenerated dungeon in case my players decided to go somewhere I wasn't prepared for.

I used to use dungeon tiles, but that proved to be cumbersome. Not only would I have to bring an extra box to carry those pieces, but most dungeons required more pieces than I had. Also, players would be constantly bumping into the table and the map, causing all those pieces to scatter everywhere.

Once a fight, we would have to adjust the table. I swear my players moved several extra squares each fight...

 

[S'mon]

1. The Henry\S'mon quick NPC system in my sig.

2. Initiative: GM rolls once for monsters. Players each roll. Those who beat GM act. Then the GM acts alternately with all the players each round subsequently. Entirely by the RAW and saves a whole lot of fuss.

 

[Woas]

Here's my suggestions

1) An honest to goodness interest in the game. Plus a solid and clear foundation of what the game is going to be about.

2) The Adventure Funnel. Credits to Dr Rotwang and his blog. Not that I take this with me to the actual game (I'm actually in the no Laptops camp) but I use the Adventure Funnel before the game on a piece of paper and bring that with me.

3) More scrap paper an a good pen.