Multiple books: How do you keep yourself organized?

[Nikosandros]

A question for those of you that use rules or options from many different books... how do you keep all the info organized?

With classes, spells, feats, etc... spread among many different books, it can become a logistical nightmare...

 

[Crothian]

All the rules don't come up at once. For NPCs I write the important stuff on their character sheet. I find memorizing impotant bits really helps and making up the details when I can't remeber instead of looking things up is great to. At the gaming table I rarely have more then my notebook. My players are found of poking fun at each other when they are using more books then me. I take notes of what I need, and really the only things I look up are monsters these days at the gaming table. But that is usually to offer a picture for my players. A given weekly session I will use anywhere from zero to a few dozen books. This week I used about 18 books in my preperation and I will take my notebook, the module, and mayb a monster book or three for pictures.

 

[Drowbane]

Everybody has a talent... or so "they" say.

Mine is remembering useless (to anything other than gaming) info. I got gipped.

 

[Li Shenron]

You need only what you use and when you use it. Players always have notes or photocopies of their own PC, but it can be cumbersome for the DM. Usually I just try to use mostly stuff that I remember by memory (PHB) and only a couple of props from other books.

For instance an evil wizard IMC may have a couple of spells or feats from supplements. If you design the Wiz to have spells from 10 different books, it may be terrible, but it doesn't necessarily make for a more interesting NPC (it does in the case of a PC, but that gets much more control by the player since it will be used for a long time, not just one battle ).

I've found that this way of designing NPCs and monster is also more rewarding, because you can highlight the never-seen-before spell or feat or item, making it the centre of his tactic and hence the whole encounter.

 

[ceratitis]

computers computers computers
Z

 

[DragonLancer]

computers computers computers

Same here. Everything gets listed in a Word document, colour-coded for book.

 

[sckeener]

computers computers computers

Same here. Everything gets listed in a Word document, colour-coded for book.

I even went so far as to retype a Dungeon adventure in Word because I was twisting it to an Egyptian theme and converting to 3.5.

Having everything on a computer makes DMing or playing much easier.

 

[Estlor]

I've considered going through and making a "master document" SRD style for certain elements (but haven't had the time yet). That way all the important rule text for the feats and classes used would be in one place. As for spells, making your own spell index with highlighted points and a book/page number is the way to go. It'll be long in setting up, but once it's done, you're golden. Flip through the index, pick your NPC's spells, and compile the books you need to run it.

 

[Imruphel]

Anytime I see an index on the 'net, I download it and save it to a special spot in my 13 GB D&D folder. I'm rather grateful for the work of my fellow D&D fans!

If I prepare a stat block with an obscure feat, item etc... I will generally note the source in the stat block and include a precis in the stat block itself.

 

[sjmiller]

For all of the things I have added to the game that are not in the PH, I have made a book I call the Curmudgeon's Character Creation Compendium. In it I have all the new races I added (litorians, faen, sebicci from AE, pyks from Throwing Dice Games), new feats and talents (feats only available at character creation), new classes (racial levels and Monte Cook's Ranger), complete spell lists, new spell descriptions, and the equipment section of the SRD with new weapons added. It's all comb-bound and has a cover and divider pages. It's also illustrated throughout with art I find online. I make copies for my players (let's hear it for the work Xerox Subsidy!) and we use it a lot.