# What are your favorite Non-Combat Gadgets?



## Argyle King (Aug 25, 2013)

Does a pencil and some paper count as a gadget?  I'm not a great artist by any means, but sometimes I simply make a quick sketch of something if I want to to help visualize part of a exploration or roleplaying encounter.  If a certain NPC is important enough to have a unique voice, I write down the distinguishing characteristics that make the voice unique.  If I can play/speak with those characteristics I do; otherwise, I describe the voice of the npc.  I believe many DMs (including myself) get stuck thinking of descriptions in visual terms.  Describing what the PCs smell, hear, feel, and even taste opens up a whole new set of tools, and this is especially true during roleplaying encounters when you have freedom to describe what PCs sense when around an important NPC.

To be honest, I suppose I'm a little unclear of what is being asked here.  What is the problem which is trying to be solved when it comes to "exploration"?


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 25, 2013)

Johnny3D3D said:


> To be honest, I suppose I'm a little unclear of what is being asked here.  What is the problem which is trying to be solved when it comes to "exploration"?




Well, I think that's part of what makes this challenging.  There are lots of obvious pain points in most combat systems -- fiddly bits to track, etc.  But for the most part, exploration systems for our games are so abstract and high level they tend to not develop those sorts of pain points. 

An exception to that might be mapping. Striking the right balance between levels of detail, levels of scale, and dealing with our various skill levels -- nevermind the challenge of producing a map on the fly during a game -- those can all be tricky pain points worth solving.  

High-end software like Campaign Cartographer may make possible to create detailed, interesting, attractive maps at many different scales, but there's a learning curve there, and a lot of work to be done.  Going back to a sheet of graph paper and a pencil is the other end of that spectrum.  But in some cases even that may be more than you need -- and it assumes that you have an idea of what you want to share with the players. What about those times when you're at a loss.  

And then there's the challenge of "Random" encounters while you're in those exploration phases.  Earlier editions of the game used them a lot, but 4e dispensed with them almost entirely because encounters were elaborate affairs and combat took a long time.  Are there gadgets or hacks that can help add some of that random hazard flavor to the game word without having to dedicate half a session to getting somewhere so you can get back to your story? In my 4e games I used skill challenges -- and even a modified skill challenge system for minor combats so they could be resolved in a matter of minutes instead of an hour, but that makes them a lot less satisfying as encounters.  What sort of tricks have you found there? 

So.... things like that. 

-rg


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## Argyle King (Aug 25, 2013)

Radiating Gnome said:


> Well, I think that's part of what makes this challenging.  There are lots of obvious pain points in most combat systems -- fiddly bits to track, etc.  But for the most part, exploration systems for our games are so abstract and high level they tend to not develop those sorts of pain points.
> 
> An exception to that might be mapping. Striking the right balance between levels of detail, levels of scale, and dealing with our various skill levels -- nevermind the challenge of producing a map on the fly during a game -- those can all be tricky pain points worth solving.
> 
> ...





I'll have to give it some more thought.  Some of the obstacles presented  aren't as prevalent in the other games I play as they are in D&D.   That's not to say those other games don't have problems; they do, but  what you mention about long grindy combats tends to be (in my  experience) somewhat unique to D&D for reasons which are born of the  system and not from the concept of exploration.  What follows is a  collection of random thought; things that came to mind while trying to  contemplate the question more as I was typing this.

I agree that  mapping programs take work.  Some of those programs are awesome, but  they somewhat require that you have a solid idea in mind as to what your  world looks like.  I'll be honest and say that -when I have time- I'm  something of a detail freak.  I've had to start breaking myself of the  habit of over-preparing so that I'd have more time to spend on other  things, and because I wanted to force myself to learn some of the DM  skills for winging it and improvising.  

If you have a good idea  in mind about what your world looks like, but one that is not quite  solid enough to be fully mapped at the level of detail a mapping program  would provide, that is where I feel doing things the old fashioned way  starts to become better.  If I have a general idea that I want part of  the world to be a large arid wasteland in which nocturnal goblin  marauders and poisonous giant scorpions dwell, that gives me something  to work with.  I then can ask myself questions about the fact that I've  established, and let the answers I come up with flesh out the world  further.  Does this arid wasteland follow some semblance of the same  geographical rules as what is found here on earth?  If yes, I can  reasonably assume there is a rain shadow -meaning mountains in a  particular direction- or some other factor (depending upon the type of  desert I have in mind.)  If no, why?  Is it a magical effect?  If so,  maybe it is artificially created by a desert witch who desires an age of  perpetual heat and dryness.

If I reach a point where I have  little to no idea about what should happen or if I just want to (as the  DM) be surprised, I think the idea of random encounter tables starts to  shine.  The "problem" with random encounters is one that you mentioned  -they may take a long time, but that is again something which is  somewhat due to the mechanics of the game system being used, and not an  inherent property of the idea itself.  

If we're talking  specifically D&D 4th Edition, I think skill challenges are a good  way to handle it.  Perhaps random encounters cause the trip from point A  to point B to simply take longer.  Perhaps some healing surges are  lost.  Perhaps a future planned encounter is made more difficult because  the BBEG's scouts see the PCs and inform him that they're coming.  The  range of possibilities is pretty broad.  Though I do agree that it is  somewhat unsatisfying.  It's a conundrum which is difficult for me to  answer...  Do I choose a method of resolution which is possibly less  satisfying or do I choose one which eats up game time?  ...or am I stuck  ditching the idea of random encounters completely?  Do I try playing a different game system which may possibly work in a way which is better suited to some of the things I want to do?

As I'm typing  this, a thought occurred to me that this might be an area in which I  might steal the narrative dice from Star Wars: Edge of The Empire for a  moment, and roll those to add some context to the situation.  Success  would mean the party succeeds at getting to where they are going;  failure means failure.  However, if you're unfamiliar with those dice,  I'll explain that they do not have numbers on them.  They have symbols  which mean success and symbols which mean failure, but there is also the  concept of advantage and threat.  You might roll a successful check,  but also roll a lot of threat symbols which means you succeed at what  you were trying to do, but something about the situation around you is  threatening to you in some way.  So maybe you successfully navigate to  where you are going, but you attract unwanted attention in some way or  perhaps a party member sustains a minor injury of some sort.  It is also  possible to fail a check, but generate advantage.  So perhaps you get  lost, but stumble into an abandoned keep which would make a nice base of  operations.  It would take some work to figure out how to generate a  dice pool (in SW, your characters skill helps determine how many dice to  roll) and translate the idea into D&D stats, but I think it would  work.  I also think it would work for other games.  (As a side note,  Obligation is also a concept I'm thinking about stealing from  SW:EoTE.)  

One of the resources I've found myself using a lot is  found right on the WoTC website.  Vicious Venues is a great place to  find some pre-made things to plug into your game.  It may not be easy to  find now that 3rd Edition is two editions removed from being current,  so I will provide the link here:  https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/vv
There you can find a  wide variety of ideas to plug into a game.  You need not necessarily  use the ideas as is either; I've had success with looking at those as an  initial motivation, and then changing some of the details to better fit  what I wanted.  Sometimes, all you need is to give the creative wheels  of your mind a slight push to get them moving, and then the rest flows  naturally once the game gets moving.  

While Vicious Venues is a great resource, it is also important to realize that resources are useful no matter where they come from.  I play a variety of games, and I have a variety of interests outside of tabletop gaming.  Those interests; the games I play and the things I do are resources as well.  I might pick up a cool trap idea from a Skyrim dungeon for GURPS fantasy game, or perhaps I like the way the Dwarves are portrayed in Dragon Age: Origins and decide to create an alien race which has that mentality in a sci-fi game.  I remember years ago using the story line from the Halo games while running D&D 3rd Edition.  Sure, I had to change some things and make some modifications, but it worked surprisingly well.  Instead of the Covenant being aliens, they were aberrations from a different dimension, and, instead of using spaceships and slipspace drives, they used arcane portals to invade the world in search of a religious artifact; viewing the races of the prime material realm as being demons who needed to be eradicated before they (the aberrations) could embark on The Great Journey.  You'd be surprised how much a simple minor change to a well known idea makes it seem like something completely new to your audience (the players.)  For example, you may not have noticed that the idea of a desert witch mentioned a few paragraphs ago was completely based upon Jadis (The White Witch) from The Chronicles of Narnia; all I did was associate the idea with an arid desert instead of snow and ice.  

Looking back across what I've written; what has grown from a small thought which I believed would only be a few sentences, it seems to me that I still have not really answered the question I suppose, and I'm veering away from what I believe is the intent of the thread.  For that I apologize, but I'm not sure what to say when asked what my favorite "gadgets" are for the exploration portion of tabletop gaming.  I try to use what I know.  What I know is constantly evolving.  I visited the Grand Canyon earlier this year, and -while I had seen pictures of it and knew what to expect- it was mind blowing to stand there and see it for myself.  It opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me when it came to imagining my own worlds and what might be found in them.  Obviously, this varies, and what I know and how much of what I know is applicable can be modified by the game I'm playing.  Some of the things that make sense in a particular edition of D&D might make less sense elsewhere due to differences in how the game worlds work via mechanics.  (Note: I'm someone who believes system does matter to some degree.) 

If we're talking strictly gadgets in the sense of programs, iPads, and the like, I'll admit to being unable to provide an answer which would satisfy others.  I'm admittedly behind the tech curve of the world I live in.  I'm not inept at using technology; I have a smart phone, an XBox, and a variety of other gadgets, but I simply do not use a lot of it compared to what seems to be the growing norm in the world around me.  This is especially true when it comes to tabletop rpgs; I still prefer to make my D&D characters by hand; with a pencil and a character sheet.  Though, I'm interested to hear what others do.  I may learn of a gadget or a method I do want to use.  I'm always open to the possibility of adding things to the toolbox I have available to me in hopes of running a successful game.


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 25, 2013)

Johnny3D3D said:


> If we're talking strictly gadgets in the sense of programs, iPads, and the like, I'll admit to being unable to provide an answer which would satisfy others.  .




I don't think we need to limit ourselves to actual gadgets -- or, at least, not physical ones.  My column tries to be about gadgets, yes, but also about doing exactly what you've suggested doing with the dice pools from Star Wars -- stealing ideas and mechanics from other games and using them in your home game to solve a problem or add some flavor.  So, it's a big tent.  

Now I'm going to have to check out Star Wars -- I've been trying to come up with a good reason to buy those books, and now there's a mechanic I might want to steal? 

I've used skill challenges a lot in the past -- and I actually like the mechanic quite a bit. There are similar mechanics in Savage Worlds, and a few other systems.  I think the first time I remember a complex skill check sort of mechanic was in Altenity, but it might have been around long before and I just never noticed. 

-rg


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Aug 25, 2013)

The 10' pole.

Or did you mean metagame gadgets, vice in-game gadgets?  Since combat is an in-game concept, my reply assumes in-game gadgetry.


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## Argyle King (Aug 25, 2013)

Radiating Gnome said:


> Now I'm going to have to check out Star Wars -- I've been trying to come up with a good reason to buy those books, and now there's a mechanic I might want to steal?
> 
> -rg




At first, I was unsure how I was going to feel about the dice in Edge of The Empire.  After using them, I like some of the concepts.  I'll try to explain the concept briefly.

There are no numbers on the dice.  Instead, there are four general types of symbols.  You have success symbols, failure symbols, advantage symbols, and threat symbols.  When you roll the dice, success and failure cancel each other; likewise, advantage and threat cancel each other.  To succeed on something, you need to be left with more success than you have failure.  However, as said, you also have advantage and threat.  Advantage generally means something good came out of your efforts, and threat generally means something bad came from your efforts, but that is completely independent of whether you succeeded or failed.  

For a quick example, let's say I roll the dice and the result is 2 success, 1 failure, 1 advantage, and 2 threat.  The 1 failure I rolled would cancel one of my success symbols, but I still have one success left, so I succeed.  The 1 advantage I rolled is cancelled by one of the threat I rolled.  There is still one threat left, so that means -even though I succeeded- there is something else that happened which caused the situation to change in a bad way.  Usually, the greater the threat, the worse the negative effects are.  For advantage, the opposite is true, and more advantage means a more positive result.  Narratively, this might be explained by saying you were firing at a storm trooper, and you succeeded by hitting him, but as he fell his body hit the control panel for a vehicle, and now it's speeding toward you out of control -a threat.  

There are also two special symbols called Triumph and Despair*.  Both do pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the descriptive terms used for them.  Triumph is something especially good, and despair is something especially bad.  

There's a bit more to the mechanic than that, but that's the basic idea.


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 26, 2013)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> The 10' pole.
> 
> Or did you mean metagame gadgets, vice in-game gadgets?  Since combat is an in-game concept, my reply assumes in-game gadgetry.




I meant gadgets to facilitate or support play -- the same way Alea Tools' magnetic discs facilitate combat.  So, the 10' pole isn't quite what I was looking for, unless your players use it to move their minis around the table. In which case you've got a really big table.

But, over the almost-a-year of writing this column, my definition of "gadget" and/or "tech" has gotten to be REALLY loose.  So, stealing an idea or mechanic from another game counts, as far as I'm concerned, just as much as an actual iphone app.  

-rg


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## Stormonu (Aug 27, 2013)

One of the things I've come to see as I prepare adventures as a DM is that graph paper is extremely limiting.  Nowadays, I mostly plan my adventures via flowcharts.  If I need a setpiece battle, I can draw just the map of the area I expect the fight to cover.  I don't need complex overland maps or twisting, turning 5' dungeon halls.  Just a line from one adventure point to another with a brief description "twisting, musky corridor", "wind-riddled tunnel", "Farmer Brown's house, 5 miles" and such.  Sure, detailed maps can be nice, but I think D&D has gotten too drawn up into partitioning the world off into 5' squares.

I'd love to see someone redo the Caves of Chaos as a flowchart adventure, in place of the current map.


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 27, 2013)

Stormonu said:


> One of the things I've come to see as I prepare adventures as a DM is that graph paper is extremely limiting.  Nowadays, I mostly plan my adventures via flowcharts.  If I need a setpiece battle, I can draw just the map of the area I expect the fight to cover.  I don't need complex overland maps or twisting, turning 5' dungeon halls.  Just a line from one adventure point to another with a brief description "twisting, musky corridor", "wind-riddled tunnel", "Farmer Brown's house, 5 miles" and such.  Sure, detailed maps can be nice, but I think D&D has gotten too drawn up into partitioning the world off into 5' squares.
> 
> I'd love to see someone redo the Caves of Chaos as a flowchart adventure, in place of the current map.




Essentially, this is what a lot of 4e was, just without the nice flowcharts.  Most encounters were disembodied tactical zones. It works just fine that way.  But it's also something that has been complained about a lot over the 4e years.  

In our home game, we played a lot of Paizo content, but with 4e rules, and had to throw out a lot of minor encounters and focus on the big stuff.  

But Next does seem to at least intend to provide rules that DMs who are so inclined can use to manage dungeon exploration in that sort of way. Might not need to be mapped to use those rules, though -- certainly they could be used in the flowchart format as well. 

-rg


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## Ampolitor (Aug 27, 2013)

I have a fun time with props since I also build tons of then for a halloween show I do ever year. I have built tall statues, gravestones with the PC's names on them etc,,but the thing that has worked the bst has benn sound, yes simple sound files. It sets the mood. Try playing I6 Ravenloft by candlelight with a laptop, (large speakers for good sound). I remember playing the sound of a werewolf and I used the sound from American werewolf in london, it managed to creep the players out.


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## falcarrion (Sep 2, 2013)

One of the things I recently created was a spider climb stand. The figure connects to a wall section with magnets.
We have had flight stands for a while but nothing to represent spider climb.
As a player I have used a typical clip board and pad of paper. So I decided to customize one. 
I started by painting it completely black. Then I took a cheap case for an itouch and attached magnets to it.
an it sticks to the clipboard. thus giving me a clipboard with a screen. It's helpful when running a spell book app.
Everything right there togather.
I then created an adapter plate so if I want I can attach my ipad mini.


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## Quickleaf (Sep 2, 2013)

I've done a couple props to facilitate roleplay and exploration, but they were never intended to "solve a problem/make play easier" as is the case with Aiea Tools markers, rather they just seemed fun.

Codex puzzles, using wheels of paper with cutouts and symbols, based on the old wheel prop that came with the Pool of Radiance CRPG.

Wanted posters of PCs / bounties for NPCs, which I'd fix to the wall of the gaming room before play began.

Fake potions with different juices/soda, for an alchemical puzzle.

Paizo treasure cards.

Player cheat sheets for scenes with lots of NPCs/factions, with pictures of main face NPC for each faction and basic one-liner description.

Syrinscape for music and ambient sound.

Homemade coins used as portal keys (hammered down a bottle cap, painted it with metallic paint, then painted Planescape faction/plane symbols on each side).

...probably have done more, but that is what springs to mind at the moment.


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## Radiating Gnome (Sep 2, 2013)

falcarrion said:


> One of the things I recently created was a spider climb stand.




Oooh, I'd love to see a picture!

-rg


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## Radiating Gnome (Sep 2, 2013)

Quickleaf said:


> I've done a couple props to facilitate roleplay and exploration, but they were never intended to "solve a problem/make play easier" as is the case with Aiea Tools markers, rather they just seemed fun.
> 
> Codex puzzles, using wheels of paper with cutouts and symbols, based on the old wheel prop that came with the Pool of Radiance CRPG.
> ...snip ...




Sounds like a lot of cool ideas. I like Paizo's cards -- I use the face cards from time to time for NPCs, especially when there are a lot of them.  In one campaign, I printed paper money that I passed out in look, but that felt a bit too much like monopoly.

As far as the puzzles go, I bought a copy of Mansions of Madness because I thought the puzzles and gadgets in it would be good for a game, but I haven't gotten around to using them yet. 

-rg

-rg


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## falcarrion (Sep 2, 2013)

View attachment 58798


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## Radiating Gnome (Sep 2, 2013)

[MENTION=4023]falcarrion[/MENTION], That's awesome.  Or, as my players like to say, "F*&# You, Imagination!"   

-rg


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## falcarrion (Sep 2, 2013)

heres another versionView attachment 58799


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