# The DM's Laptop: what should be on it?



## Buttercup (Jul 6, 2003)

(Moderators, I posted this here because I want the widest possible response, and it's more about running a game than about computers, IMHO.)

For those of you who run your game from a laptop, what programs do you use, both for game prep and at the table?  Do you use a mish-mash of stuff, or do you use an integrated package like RPM? What do you like, and what don't you like?  What creative uses of software have you come up with?

Right now I'm not using a laptop at the table, but since my game got too big for our living room, I'm DMing elsewhere.  I'm sick of schlepping tons of stuff.  I've tried RPM, but putting the adventures into it seemed counter-intuitive to me.  Suggestions?


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## Mark (Jul 6, 2003)

Email me, please...


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## Nine Hands (Jul 6, 2003)

For my games, I use a laptop almost exclusively.  If a book is published in PDF form, I have a PDF copy on the laptop.  

A searchable version of the SRD is essential.  I also created a huge document of all available spells in my campaign (with any changes that I wanted to add).  

DM Genie is used, the time tracking and calendar functions are excellent.  I use the combat options less and less as its easier to do the stuff in my head.

I use PCGen but normally print out the character sheets.

One thing I have a problem with a laptop is that there is just not enough room on the screen for all of the stuff I want to run


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 6, 2003)

I've often considered using a laptop for my games - the biggest benefit is that since I design all my adventures on the PC, I always would have access to every adventure and NPC I've created in the past 6 or 7 years.

I'm not a user of the various DM helper softwares, but I do use ETools, and having it handy would be nice.

I'd love to have various appropriate music cued up to playback via outboard speakers, also sound effects could be useful - I've thought of building a flash program with SFX so that you could just click a button to get various effects (screams, sounds of battle, creaking doors, etc).

If you had scans of all the monster pictures, you could just swing the laptop around to show the players a picture of a creature, without having to hold your hand over the name...


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## JoeGKushner (Jul 6, 2003)

To keep track of initiative, I use Excel. Pop the character's name in, put their initiative roll, sort, and bam, start calling out the character's names.


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## Trainz (Jul 6, 2003)

You could also use your laptop to run your games, if you use ID. You wouldn't need to draw maps or use a battlemat, or keep track of initiative or spell effects:

http://www.geocities.com/trainz_ca/ID


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## Fenes 2 (Jul 6, 2003)

I use a laptop to run my games as well. In every session I have the following files open:

- Complete Adventure Notes, in Word (the notes for the current adventure are printed out)
- Complete (hyperlinked) NPC file (Word) with all the NPCs the party encountered (and which are still alive)
- Party Data sheet (condensed version of the character sheets, all on one page, lets me roll sense motive, spot, listen checks etc. without asking if I want to)
- "Goon" file (word), a collection of the raw stats of all the NPCs I used in combat - great if I need to wing a fight with a high-level NPC.
- Name list (If I need to make up a NPC on the spot)
- Regional home-made campaign Sourcebook (word)
- Campaign history/adventure log
- Searchable SRD pdf document - great to look up spells etc. during play.

I don't have many combats in my game, and so I don't need software support to run them.

I could have all those files and documents printed out (and did before I got my laptop), but they were almost never up to date, and took a lot of place on the table, and a lot of time shuffling and searching through them. Nowadays I only have the PHB (for nostalgic reasons) and a couple printed adventure nots, and the paper to log the session, on my table next to the laptop.


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## Nifft (Jul 6, 2003)

*Linux* :-D

*Python* -- what I write all my RPG programs in

*Emacs* -- or any other fast text editor for keeping notes

*OpenOffice* -- or any other word-processing program for making pretty hand outs

*Mozilla* -- or any other web browser

*802.3b* -- or some other connection to the Internet, for checking stuff in-game

*PCGen* -- awesome utility for advancing monsters & giving them character levels

*XMMS* -- or some other MP3 player -- I've ripped my whole collection to MP3, and it's very easy to make a "mood music change" when certain events occur.

 -- Nifft


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## Sam Witt (Jul 6, 2003)

For running your game at the table, DM's familiar is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen.  It doesnt' have any generation capabilities, it doesn't have any fancy mapping programs, but it does keep track of everything needed for an adventure.

The combat boards are fantastic, the ability to drag and drop NPCs and Monsters into a battle at any time, and the quickly searchable reference are all so cool it'll change your DMing style.

There are other packages for generating characters (Campaign Suite is good for that), but nothing beats DM's Familiar for the DM with a laptop at the table.

Sam

DM's Familiar: http://www.paladinpgm.com/dmf/


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## Steverooo (Jul 6, 2003)

Nine Hands said:
			
		

> *One thing I have a problem with a laptop is that there is just not enough room on the screen for all of the stuff I want to run  *




[Alt]+[Tab]


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## Buttercup (Jul 6, 2003)

Sam Witt said:
			
		

> *For running your game at the table, DM's familiar is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen.  It doesnt' have any generation capabilities, it doesn't have any fancy mapping programs, but it does keep track of everything needed for an adventure.
> 
> The combat boards are fantastic, the ability to drag and drop NPCs and Monsters into a battle at any time, and the quickly searchable reference are all so cool it'll change your DMing style.
> *




Does DM's familiar allow you to enter custom classes?  I looked at their website, but couldn't find any information on this.  I use Monte's alt.sorcerer, so the fact that the SRD sorcerer is in there wouldn't help me a bit.  

Anyway, it seems to me that I might be able to get by with just Word, Excel and a dice rolling program.  And Acrobat reader, of course.  

So what other suggestions do you folks have?


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## Buttercup (Jul 6, 2003)

Mark said:
			
		

> *Email me, please...
> 
> *




Should already be in your in-box.


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## Sam Witt (Jul 6, 2003)

>>Does DM's familiar allow you to enter custom classes? I looked at their website, but couldn't find any information on this. I use Monte's alt.sorcerer, so the fact that the SRD sorcerer is in there wouldn't help me a bit.<<

DMF doesn't care what the classes you use are.  It tracks information for you, and displays the information in incredibly useful ways.  It doesn't do calculations (though it will perform attack rolls with the modifiers you feed it when you enter a character or monster in the database), it helps you track the information you have.

Download the demo and try it out - with a very little practice I think you'll find it makes a huge difference at the table.

Sam


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## ThoughtBubble (Jul 6, 2003)

I'm about to run my first game using it this friday. 
The programs I'm planning on using are just microsoft word and excel. Word has my NPC names, orginizations, and adventure notes. Excel has stats for the NPC's and monsters, a space for combat notes (HP, AC, initiative, saves, and spot/listen checks), and finally an xp chart.

I'm looking forward to the list of responses on this too.


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## The It's Man (Jul 6, 2003)

A picture of the _Hot Italian Beef_-couple as background .

Internetconnection and a bookmark/favorite to enworld.


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## rounser (Jul 6, 2003)

MyInfo - Much, much better than a word processor for storing campaign notes, because you can organise notes in a hierarchy and access them with a couple of clicks.

Jamis Buck's NPC Generator and Jonathon Jacob's NPC Equipment Generator - Until replacements for these come out, 3.5 won't be as user-friendly as 3E.

Arr Kelaan Software's Hexmapper - Good for creating wilderness and world hex maps in minutes.

Autorealm - I've found it particularly useful for mapping urban areas and dungeons which don't fit a grid of 10 x 10 ft squares.

Graphics tablet - Not software, but works great with the mapping programs if you can justify the expense.  (I had one around already.)


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## Gnarlo (Jul 7, 2003)

Second the recommendation for DM Familiar. Was a godsend during my face to face games, and even now that most of my gaming is online, it works wonderfully to help get me organized and keeps all my info easily sorted and right at my fingertips.

/gnarlo!


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## The Kender (Jul 7, 2003)

-Campaign Suite
-PCGen
-OpenRPG


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## Crothian (Jul 7, 2003)

Internet Arcana


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## Nifft (Jul 7, 2003)

The Kender said:
			
		

> *-OpenRPG *




Woah! It does Hex maps, and it's written in Python! I think I'm in love...  

 -- Nifft


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## Kichwas (Jul 7, 2003)

I use notepad where I write out an outline of the potential plot, focusing largely in the initial hooks and enough things to get the players to fill in the rest for me in play.

Other than that all I need is a copy of the rules and either text file writeups of principle NPCs or printouts of those text files. Oh, and a d20.


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## Trevalon Moonleirion (Jul 7, 2003)

I hate to hijack a wonderful thread like this... but does anyone know any decent programs for a PocketPC at the gaming table???


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## jdavis (Jul 7, 2003)

Trevalon Moonleirion said:
			
		

> *I hate to hijack a wonderful thread like this... but does anyone know any decent programs for a PocketPC at the gaming table??? *



Link to a thread with links to a thread with information or PocketPC stuff....... or something like that.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54920


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 7, 2003)

I use a word processor, browser and a spreadsheet (and occasionally an MP3 player).

On the spreadsheet I have a few tabs ready - one for calendar, one for PC vital statistics, one for PC treasure (to help me keep track of the value of that) and one for combat - with the initiatives of the bad guys all pre-rolled.

On the word processor I have my adventure written out (with stat blocks imported from the SRD and modified as necessary).

I'll use my web browser to look at local copies of the SRD if necessary for particular things (although I'm very tempted to use Campaign Sage, freely available from http://www.mythosa.net/Utils.html )

Cheers


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## WizarDru (Jul 7, 2003)

I use DM Genie  pretty heavily, both for prep and at-the-table stuff.  It tracks combat well, is a handy reference for the SRD (particularly on-the-fly spell listings), integrates Jamis Buck's NPC generator, and features lots and lots of tools.  Yes, it lets you enter custom skills, feats and classes.

I also use Excel for quick xp calculations, and keep IE handy if I need to do a quick rules check on the SRD or elsewhere.


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## Voadam (Jul 7, 2003)

Rarely felt the need to pull anything besides the srd or character sheet or customized cut and pasted spell book up on the laptop, but all the pdfs are there anyway.


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## Maraxle (Jul 7, 2003)

In addition to the other great programs mentioned here, I'd like to recommend JH NameGen Gold, and that's not just because I made it.  The fact is, I always used to have an issue coming up with decent names on the spot.  JH NameGen Gold will generate names for people, towns, taverns, spells, mercenary companies, etc.  It also does adventure hooks, which can be handy too.  Best of all, it shrinks down to a small toolbar so there's room on the screen for all of your other programs.


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## Hardhead (Jul 7, 2003)

*PCGen*

The main program I use is PCGen, due to it's massive flexibility.  I know of no other program that handles monster development (advancing in HD or character levels) as well as PCGen.


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## Dinkeldog (Jul 7, 2003)

Yeah.

So you see the thing is, that the people that are up on the cutting edge of DMs tools and what they use on their laptop or PDA and what they wish they had.  They'll all be in the computers and software forum.  Really.  They also won't likely miss this thread in the heap that General is.

So, off we go.


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## Piratecat (Jul 8, 2003)

Whoops! This thread accidentally got locked while it was being moved. I can take care of that...

*waves magic wand*

And yes, yes, I'm sure that you're all waving your own magic wands right now, IYKWIM, AITYD. But I return you to the thread already in progress.


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## Maraxle (Jul 8, 2003)

Another good thing might be a dice rolling program for making truly secret/silent rolls.  A collection of generic dungeon maps, or something that makes random dungeons could be useful too.


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## DMFTodd (Jul 8, 2003)

Ah, one of my favorite topics. I wrote DM's Familiar (DMF) so I'm a little biased. I'll make general comments instead of specific. And you asked about "at the gaming table" so I won't talk about prepping for the game. Things to use at  the gaming table:

Text Organizer: Something to organize your adventure, campaign info, player info, etc. etc. etc. Word being the easiest answer. MyInfo is kind of nice. DMF has a "Codex Tree" which is an outline/tree/text tool similar to MyInfo.

Reference Material: A PDF/HTML of the SRD is nice for looking up info but what about all your supplemental books? A program that you can easily get info into and out of is key. Needs an easy and quick way to look up spells, feats, rules, etc.  You shouldn't have to carry any books with you to the gaming session.

Dice roller: An easy way to roll the dragon's 17d6 fireball and add it up - that's the basic. Would be nice if the program new all of your player's Listen checks and could secretly make that Listen check for you without tipping them off (DMF does).

Initiative Tracker: A handy program just to keep track of who's turn it is, when a spell duration has ended, etc. 

Combat Manager: Make attack and damage rolls for you to keep the game moving quickly.

The DM Assistant programs out there do most of these things in one shape or another: DM's Familiar, DM Genie, Roleplaying Master, Campaign Suite.
-----------------------------------------
Other than DM's Familiar, I use a couple specific programs:

Tablesmith : A program for generating random results of any type. I've got a ton of tables in it for random NPC names and traits, the menu at the inn the PCs stop at, description of gems, name of a shop, etc.

Music: Some type of music player for background music and sound effects.


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## krunchyfrogg (Jul 9, 2003)

*Solitaire*: for when the PC's get stupid.


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## MythosaAkira (Jul 9, 2003)

I use the following tools at the table:

- TableSmith: name/shop/treasure/book/town/etc. generation

- Campaign Sage: looking up monsters, spells, and charts

- DM's Familiar: looking up everything else

- ActionOutline: an outliner tool; similar to "MyInfo", which I used to use, but it burned me a couple of times so I switched to AO, which hasn't given me any problems

- WinAmp: for playing mp3 background music

- Excel: I use a big Excel file for a variety of bookkeeping tasks; I have an XP calculator in it, basic PC information, etc.

I stay away from dice rolling programs; I've never found any (save one) that I liked, and I prefer the traditional "manual" rolling of dice. And making rolls that the players don't know the reason for just increases their parano- er, I mean their fun  That said, if you're using a Palm PDA, "DicePro" is actually very nifty program (www.rivalgamelabs.com). It's the one dice-roller I've found that I've liked.


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## Chaz (Jul 10, 2003)

Here are the ones I use and consider important.

TableSmith - This one should be on EVERY DM's list

E-Tools - Getting better all the time. Thanks CMP

Fractal Mapper 6 - great program for maps/ world/ dungeon/ outdoor/ cavern etc. scripting feature can realy make fast work of building an area or whole world. Bonus right now is buy the present release and get the new FM7 when its released soon free. Just saw the update info on the web site.

JH Namegen gold - good program. Customizable, worth the mention.

This is all more in the way of DM prep rather than live campaign running. Although you can get some fast on the spot stuff made if you find your game went in a direction you didnt anticipate. For campaign running the ones mentioned above all have merit.


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## 9lives (Nov 20, 2004)

For looking up rules I like this online reference document.  This web site is organized very well and everything is hyperlinked so that if a rule references another rule you can click on it to go directly to the referenced rule.  You can user your browsers "find" function to find rules in the page quickly.  It has all the 3.5E stuff including everything in the PHB, MM, DMG, Planar Handbook, Psionics Handbook and includes pictures for classes and monsters.  It is updated regularly with more additions.  Very cool.

I also uses winhttrack to download the site to my laptops hard drive so I can use it offline.

www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/home.html


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## ElvishBard (Nov 20, 2004)

Wow, I used to think my laptop had alot on it till I saw what everyone else has on theirs lol.

Anyways, what I use is the SRD, Interactive Dungeon, my custom made combat sheet on Excel that also keeps track of PC's, and DM Screen from http://www.geocities.com/wydraz/
I don't know how how to put the sheet onto this otherwise I would.


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## dpmcalister (Nov 20, 2004)

SRD (although I use the offline version)
Campaign Sage 2.0
Campaign Calendar
Infinite Monkey's Magnificent Dice Roller (I downloaded it from here, but can't find the link anymore )


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## Aristotle (Nov 23, 2004)

I see a lot of nods to DM's Familiar, and with good reason; it's an excellent program. It would definately be worth the cash to pick it up. I've been thinking about doing so myself. (I've used the evaluation copy to get a feel for it.)

The only other program that, in my opinion, compares to DM's Familiar is DM Genie. (I've played with the evaluation copy of it too.) Some would put PCGen up there too, but for some reason I couldn't find my rythm with that software.

DM Genie does a lot of what DM's Familiar does. It has (if memory serves) added functionality for the generation of characters and advancing them in level. That, in a nutshell, is what sold me on DM Genie. It feels a little more cluttered than DM's Familiar, but it offers an 'all-inclusive' game package.

I have plans to pick DM Genie up just as soon as I find an affordable laptop with decent specs. I'll also keep a (heavily bookmarked) PDF of the SRD on hand... and anything else I might think of that DM Genie doesn't cover as it comes up.


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## Mystery Man (Nov 23, 2004)

*I use a tablet pc...*

I'm on the 60 day trial of Texnotes Pro version 4.0. So far, I like!


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## Gorok (Nov 23, 2004)

I have tinkered with all kinds of D&D support programs to use on my laptop, and have finally also decided on DM Genie.  I now use it to both manage my own campaign, as well as create/maintain my PC's in another campaign I also play in.

It allows lots of customization; I have all of the known Forgotten Realms spells, feats, skills, etc. entered and available to be used in my campaign.  I have also added lots of automation ("scripts" as the program calls them) to allow me to track the effects to monsters/PC's of spells, spell effects, conditions, etc.

And, most importantly, the developer, Janik Zikovsky, is constantly adding enhancements and fixing bugs as the users find them.  He has posted updated versions every 1-2 months on a regular basis.  Also, the forum on his website is one of the most useful I have found in all of the internet; I log into it several times through the day, and there is always useful discussions/help to find there.


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## Breakdaddy (Nov 23, 2004)

1. VirtualPC 7 (so I can run windows XP on my Powerbook G4)
2. ETools (this one truly has matured well beyond the train wreck that it began as!)
3. A copy of the SRD in PDF format
4. Excel spreadsheet for XP calculation
5. Word documents with all of my campaign notes


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