Organizing game material

[Alan Shutko]

There's an explosion of RPG material out right now. Between freely distributable adventures, purchased PDFs, subscription services like DungeonADay.com and DDI, and the large backlog of print I've included over the years (including Shadis, Polyhedron, and Dungeon), I realized that I have tons of material I could use as-is for adventures or pillage for ideas.

I've got so much that in theory, I should be able to run a sandbox campaign, and no matter what the players decide to do, I have at least five possible things on that topic to give me ideas. If only I could FIND that info when I needed it!

Has anyone successfully organized all their stuff so that you can find it? What are some tips and tricks? My first thoughts are to start putting writeups in a searchable system like OneNote or DevonThink to work on tagging adventures: city/swamp/forest, political/mystery/action, found via a treasure map/caravan job/npc in a bar, etc.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

If you're doing something on your computer, having everything organized with some sort of table of contents would probably help a lot.

If you're working with printed stuff, binders and folders help a ton in my experience. When it comes to books, that's more a matter of keeping them organized well (probably on shelves).

 

[Katemare]

If you're doing something on your computer, having everything organized with some sort of table of contents would probably help a lot.

I actually use a script-powered database which stores basic info for monsters, classes, spells and such. I can quickly find monsters by CR, HD, intelligence, races by modifiers and favorite classes and so on. But I managed to compile only a few of official books, so, I mostly rely on pure memory.

 

[Mark]

These threads should be helpful -

http://www.enworld.org/forum/softwa...lities/81852-programs-organize-campaigns.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/241210-anyone-using-onenote.html

 

[SlyFlourish]

Print what looks good (adventures, encounters, pictures) and stick it, along with physical minis, maps, tiles, and props into a big cardboard banker's box Twyla Tharp style.

Build a Twyla Tharp Style Campaign Box « Sly Flourish

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

Print what looks good (adventures, encounters, pictures) and stick it, along with physical minis, maps, tiles, and props into a big cardboard banker's box Twyla Tharp style.

Build a Twyla Tharp Style Campaign Box « Sly Flourish

It sounded like cool advice when I read it, but I'm not sure I understand what a banker's box is or how it's different from any old drawer or box Google didn't help, it made me see a bunch of drawers and boxes, and a company that makes drawers and boxes. Hmm.

 

[SlyFlourish]

There's nothing special at all about the banker's box. It's just a cardboard box that's cheap, sturdy, easy to construct, and has a nice lid. Here's an amazon link. You can get these just about anywhere.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Bankers-Box-Recycled-Storage/dp/B00006IC4A/ref=pd_sbs_op_2]Amazon.com: Fellowes Bankers Box Recycled Letter/Legal Stor/File Storage Box 12 Pack (12770): Office Products[/ame]

 

[Ariosto]

Back in the 1980s, I was most impressed by what a friend did with his Macintosh computer and the HyperCard program. He had a database with a really nifty interface that was rather like a multimedia Web about his world. One could go from a map to an animation of the progress of a migration, to an image of an artifact, to an audio clip, to a character sheet, to a spreadsheet, and so around and round.

 

[Alan Shutko]

There's nothing special at all about the banker's box. It's just a cardboard box that's cheap, sturdy, easy to construct, and has a nice lid. Here's an amazon link. You can get these just about anywhere.

The box idea is good when you have a project, a goal in mind and are researching and accumulating ideas on what to do with it. That's how Twyla Tharp uses them. My case is a bit different. I have a large corpus of information that could be used in different ways on many different projects. I'd like to find a way to organize them so that when I do have a project, or even just a need for an encounter, I have a way to find them.

Since I posted, I've started an attempt at cataloging adventures. So far, it looks roughly like this:

Name:
System:
Levels
PDF: (link if I have one)

Hooks:
• Treasure Map, or NPC, or rumors heard at a tavern

Terrain types: Swamp, Forest, etc

Locations: Campaign setting location

New Monsters:

Usable maps:

Subadventure ideas:

NPCs:

And I'm using DevonThink to try to tag them along some useful axes like Terrain Type. It's too early to see if it will be useful; unfortunately this is one of those things you need a bit of a critical mass before seeing results.