Software for Laptop

[JDragon]

Hey all,

I have a laptop that I use during my gaming. I have the player side taken care of with an Excel Character sheet.

But....

On the DM side I'm coming up short. I have been just using another couple Excel spread sheets to track monsters/NPC's and Init. Then writing my story/notes in Word.

IN the game I ran on Friday, I ended up with to many screens to flip through and missed some important parts of my notes. (good foreshadowing details and such. )

I was looking thru the electronic utilities page and see a whole slew of stuff, but I'm not syre where to start, any suggestions?

Thanks

JDragon

 

[gariig]

Hey, I beat DMFTodd about his own program!!!! I will tell you arguably the best peice of software out there, DM's Familiar!!!! It's a database program that, information storeage, and combat board program.

There are currently databases for Feats, Spells, Monsters, PCs, Skill, Weapons, and Rules. Most WoTC books are already typed in for you, the SRD(PHB, DMG, and most of the MM), Splat books, Psionics Book, FRCS, most of MoF, LoD, etc. Pretty helpful if you use a lot of books and need quick references.

The Combat board is pretty nifty you can add any PC or Monster from their respective databases and it can roll HPs for you, init, orders them up, and you can add damage them and it will roll their damage. Pretty nifty and useful, but it doesn't allow for special affects(Yet). Such as casting Bless, Aid, etc you have to remember to add them in(just like normal)

Finally, the Codex Tree. It's kind of like typing into Word but you can add it into hierarchial groups, you can also add nodes to point to feats and spells in a database or you can put a whole encounter under a node and drop that node into theh combat board. Really worth checking out and buying later on at $20!

Just remember its meant to be free form, Todd is working on a good program not a good generator

Also, these aren't necassarily "in game" but if you check the electonics aid page on ENWorld there is a Experience spread sheet and a Combat calculator spread sheet that are pretty useful. Also, Steve Mulheir(sp)'s spread sheets for spells and character generation are good(I only use the spell one personally). If you need more, I can post more

Gariig

http://www.paladinpgm.com/dmf/index.htm

 

[MythosaAkira]

In lieu of a DM's Screen, I use my Campaign Sage program along with a bunch of 3E charts in HTML format (I also have the spells and monsters from the SRD as well as maps and other items from my campaign in Sage). It's designed so everything is no more than three keystrokes away. I find it useful (though I'm obviously biased ).

And TableSmith for random generation, of course.

Other than that, I use Excel for keeping track of miscellaneous information, and MyInfo for general campaign information (it's an outlining program; version 1.9 is free, the new version, 2.0, is around $35). I haven't had a chance to play with many of the other tools out there, but DM's Familiar and Role-Playing Master are two you should check out.


You can get Sage and TableSmith at:
http://www.mythosa.net/Utils.html

MyInfo is at:
http://www.milenix.com/

You can get to RPM through the front page of ENWorld here; I don't have the URL for Familiar handy, but I'm sure Todd can jump in and provide it

 

[DMFTodd]

IN the game I ran on Friday, I ended up with to many screens to flip through and missed some important parts of my notes. (good foreshadowing details and such. )

Sounds like you could use a good integrated tool. I know of one, what' the name of it again? Oh yeah, DM's Familiar (my program).

DM's Familiar has a thingy we call the Codex Tree. It's a combination word processor/treeoutline tool. You can use it to write all of your adventure notes, campaign notes, DM notes, or anything else.

DMF also has a huge collection of databases: Monsters, Spells, Feats, Skills, etc. The interesting part is that the Codex Tree is integrated with all the databases. So as you're writing your adventure in the Codex Tree, you can drag-and-drop the Monsters onto the Codex Tree to record the encounter. You can also drag spells and whatever else to the Codex Tree so you can instantly look those up. Sounds effects? Word files? No problem - copy and paste shortcuts into the Codex Tree.

Of course then the Codex Tree is tied into the Combat Board (which rolls initiatives and hit points automatically, keeps tracks of rounds and such). Drag the encounter from the Codex Tree to the Combat Board to start the combat.

What you'll find is that you spend the game session looking at the Codex Tree which has all your notes and outlines. You won't miss anything. When combat is ready to start, you drag the entry from the Codex Tree to the Combat Board and run the combat smoothly and easily.

You might also look at Roleplaying Master which is hosted here at ENWorld. It's in roughly the same category as DM's Familiar (Luke may disagree).

If you want to be more organized, then you probably want one of these two programs first.

If you want great in-game gaming tools, then I heartily recommend my program, Tablesmith for random tables, and WeatherMaster for doing weather.

You can find DM's Familiar, the program Monte Cook describes as "Wow!", here. You can see what other people are saying about DM's Familiar here.

 

[Luke]

If you want to try out RolePlayingMaster, I highly recommend e-mailing for the PreBeta.

You'll find everything in there from character generation/maintenance, through to adventure building (maps, locations, groups of NPCs/monsters with EL calculation), through to the most comprehensive in-game utility for managing encounters I think you can find.

In particular, the in-game stuff provides you with a BattleMap where you can position and move (with distance calculation) all your creatures, and get attacks, skills (esp. opposed skills), saves etc all fully calculated, along with damage (+criticals etc).
You can always override a computer dice roll with a real roll, and still see all the different modifiers presented to you.

With the PreBeta, you can generate an encounter on the fly and play through a combat with a surprizingly low number of mouse clicks.

Check out http:/www.enworld.org/roleplayingmaster

Regards,

 

[Morik]

Most WoTC books are already typed in for you. Splat books, Psionics Book, FRCS, most of MoF, LoD, etc. Pretty helpful if you use a lot of books and need quick references.
Gariig

http://www.paladinpgm.com/dmf/index.htm

Hello Gariig,

you said, that FRCS and MoF, LoD are in DMFamiliar.
I don't know where I can get my hands on the spells of that books to be included in DMF.

Todd had suggesting a Yahoo Group for DMF for getting export files for Rules, Spells and so on, but in this group I couldn't find the LoD, MoF or FRCS spells.

Can you give me the location of these export files for DMF.

Thank you very much
Eric

 

[Setanta]

Morik-

Did you subscribe to the Yahoo group? I think some stuff might be unavailable until you subscribe. If you're subscribed, try this link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmsfamiliar/files/Supplement Add-ons/

If should have everything you're looking for (except Magic of Faerun spells S-Z, which haven't been entered yet).

 

[JDragon]

Hey all,

Thanks for the info.

I actually downloaded a bunch of stuff off the Electronic aides page last night and installed part of them today, including DM Familiar and the patch for it. It looked interesting untill it caused a blue screen of death and I had to hard boot my computer. After that it won't load, I was getting some kind of error but don't remember what is was at this point.

I didn't get a chance to check out the "tree" thing you mentioned before it crashed, but it sounded promising.

So, I'll see what happen later with it and let you know.

I'm also going to check out the table smith stuff, just didn't have time to download it last night.

JDragon
Thanks again for all the info.