What software do you use?

[Swiftbrook]

first attempt at a poll

I'm creating some D&D character sheets in MS Publisher, and I've created a weapons group table in Excel and I started wondering, what programs do people generally use.

Note, this poll has a Windows bias (sorry mac users).

-Swiftbrook

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I'll usually type up my adventures in Word, create NPC's in Excel, and draw maps by hand

 

[Silveras]

I use a variety of software, including some I wrote myself.

I use Excel-based character sheets; multiple pages, with a depth of content comparable to the multi-page "Character Folios" offered by some companies. The skill adjustments are all cross-referenced; change an ability score or your equipment and the skills update. Etc.

I use Word to write up my adventures, and my homebrew world. And to prepate handouts. I probably should test out Publisher for the latter.

I use Access for my at-the-table DM tools. I have a db of the MOnsters from the Monster Manual. I click a button, and it generates a new one (with rolled hp) into the specified encounter. I am working on routines to apply templates now. So far, I have Celestial, Fiendish, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiendish, Skeleton, Vampire, and Zombie done. I also have a db for OGC and non-OGC spells (1330 spells and counting) that I can use to generate updated class-based spell lists and customized spellbooks.

I use PDFs for the guidebooks to my world for players who don't have a Word processor.

 

[Dimwhit]

There is a flaw in the poll. PageMaker is dead and has been replaced with InDesign. So they should be swapped out. In lieu of that, I selected the "other desktop publishing" option. But it's pretty much Quark and InDesign in that department.

And no problem about the Windows slant. I'm on a Mac, but most of those programs are available on the Mac. (Except Accesss and Corel--a recent drop from the Mac platform.)

I use Excel for my character sheet.

 

[ForceUser]

I'll usually type up my adventures in Word, create NPC's in Excel, and draw maps by hand

Funny! Me too.

Here's an example of an Excel character sheet I use. The original design was Hjorimir's but I tinker with it a lot.

4th-level Exalted Monk

 

[AGGEMAM]

He he .. noting like a little ill-disguised marketing research ..

.. actually it's not that funny .. :\

 

[EricNoah]

Word for adventures and other notes; e-tools for character and monster creation, advancing, management, etc.; excel for calculating spell sheets and other tools like that. cc2 for some maps (but I have been stealing other peoples' maps recently from magazines, websites, etc.).

 

[shady]

OpenOffice for office type stuff, both the wp and spreadsheet functions.

e-tools for character creation (it's good but a bit flakey)

roleplayingmaster for writing up scenarios (eg dungeon type crawls) and tracking large numbers of NPCs (it's good but can be a bit flakey, especially with e-tools import/export ...). Also it links to some free stuff like the Jamis NPC stuff, which is great for mass NPC generation. Have tried using it for die rolling etc., but players much prefer to roll the dice - also the flakeyness can be a bit too much when doing combat management.

use CC2 and CD2 occasionally (not great, but stable)

have ordered Dunjinni.

Heaven and Earth for Traveller world gen stuff.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I use Access for my at-the-table DM tools. I have a db of the MOnsters from the Monster Manual. I click a button, and it generates a new one (with rolled hp) into the specified encounter. I am working on routines to apply templates now. So far, I have Celestial, Fiendish, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiendish, Skeleton, Vampire, and Zombie done.

Silveras, I don't suppose you'd consider posting this on your website for others to download and use? Unfortunately, your spells db has non-OGC material, so it's off-limits, but it sounds like sharing the monster db wouldn't break any rules. I hope you'll consider it.

 

[Swiftbrook]

Funny! Me too.

Here's an example of an Excel character sheet I use. The original design was Hjorimir's but I tinker with it a lot.

4th-level Exalted Monk

Cool

I use PCGen or pencil & paper for my characters. Like I said, I'm creating a 4-page basic character sheet based on the psionic character sheets on the WotC web site. I'm using MS Publisher and was trying to figure the best way to share the sheet (not done yet). If I can share it as a publisher file, people can easily use what I've done and change what they want. If I share it as a PDF, it's harder to edit (but I'm using standard fonts, which I'll embed, so it will be a lot easier than the WotC sheets).

Use WordPerfect for my general wp work and Word only if I must.

-Swiftbrook