Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kesht 03-05-04, 06:40 PM	Thought this would be a good thread for some of the less experienced DM's. I even expect some good suggestions for veteren DM's. The idea is that we list here tools that cost less than 20$, be it software, books, graph paper, you name it. But it should be something that gets used 4/5 games. A really usefull tool that can apply to almost anything. Hair spray and a lighter may make that fight with Pyronflalithor the ancient red dragon really "on fire", but it won't help in every game. Unless your stove is busted. Anyway, here are a few of mine to kick things off... #1- Monster sheets. Let me tell you, writting down the monster stats that I need before the game makes a HUGE difference. I'm not talking about photocopying every single page of the MM. I mean write down just what you need to play that creature, shopkeep, etc. Don't spend 30 minutes figuring out what feats the 20th level expert blacksmith took. Unless it somehow will affect gameplay on a continuous basis, it's not worth bothering about. #2- Time sheet. I have one stashed away for printing on my computer. I think I got it at www.dndresources.com . Anyway, having an organized sheet to keep track of time in 5, 10, or 15 segments can be very nice to have. In a jiffy, I'll use a small piece of lined paper if I need to. #3- DM screen of some kind. Heck, I don't care if it's just stapled together cardboard from pizza boxes. I've ALWAYS found that having a small screen where I can hang notes on PC's, treasure, maps and such speeds things up from trying to flip through and sort 5+ pages of pre-game notes and junk. Don't make the mistake of lugging a desktop computer computer to the table to keep track of things. Unless you are really skilled in a way that I can't think of, let me say that having a mouse and keyboard at the gaming table REALLY takes my focus of the game. Not to mention the noise cooling fans... anyhow, I'm getting off track... #4- Small felt mat or other soft and flat surface. Why you ask? So if you've got your screen up like a good DM (see #3) and this little mat is behind it, players won't know when your rolling (hopefully). Can really help when you don't want them to know you're rolling for something. That's all I'll throw out there for now. Oh! I hear the ice cream man. *runs off quickly*
scott644 03-05-04, 06:49 PM	1) Yup 2) Depends on gaming style. My gaming group does initiative slightly differently and keeping sheets would be a trial. 3 & 4) Best GM screen I know in the group I play, is just the way we all sit. The GM sits slightly separate and the rest of us in a loose circle in the gaming room. GM keeps his supplies off to the side, and is too distant to read the dice, and we're all fine.
Kesht 03-05-04, 06:53 PM	I appriciate yoru comments, but I was hoping this would be a list to add too. I'm not trying to get criticism for me suggestions (though I don't mind it) I'm just trying to start a list for people to come and add what they want, take what they want, and leave the rest. that's all.
OmiKapSi 03-05-04, 07:04 PM	#5- A list of random NPC names. #6- Small pieces of paper on which notes can be written. As opposed to randomly tearing off bits of paper from miscellaneous sheets. #7- A sense of humor. #8- Knowledge of the rules, or at least a sense of them and an awareness of where to reference them. #9- The willingness to risk players wrath and stand firm on a principle to maintain balance and majority enjoyment.
SputnikCorp 03-05-04, 07:22 PM	10- pencils. i remember shreiking like a primadonna when i couldn't find my pencil. wisea$$ players then let lose with pencils.. 11- calculator. an absolute must. 12- post it notes. you always have to reference something in the books, use the notes as bookmark.
Not a monkey 03-05-04, 07:45 PM	I'm a seat-of-my-pants GM so I actually don't have any of this written stuff you guys go on about (except the books of course). But one thing to have: Extra dice. Someone will forget theirs, or some of yours will roll off the table, and it's a lot quicker to grab your extra and go on, then go for the lost one later. Also if you don't quite trust a player's die (hey, it does happen) you can make them use one of yours.
Caltsar 03-05-04, 08:05 PM	Being a On-the-fly type DM, I don't have many basic tools. there are a few things I always use: 1) The 3 core books (obviously) 2) My laptop (yes I know they are over $20) 3) Some useful programs for: NPC generation, timekeeping, town generation, Name generators (Ever Changing books of Names), and a tile based mapping program (called Dungeon Crafter). 4) Extra Pencils (someone always forgets theirs) 5) also the DM screen.
BRJN 03-05-04, 08:17 PM	13) NPC notes that tell me what he wants from the fight. Not all opponents will duke it out to the death. Some are guarding their nest, or testing the PCs, or buying time while their followers escape with the treasure, or whatever. 14) Magnifying glass. Can you actually READ a d100? 15) A spool of thread. If using miniatures, can establish line-of-sight. Good for archers, too. 16) A bunch of blank counters. Indicates anything you want to highlight on the gaming table. 17) The Door. Usually provided with most rooms. This keeps unwanted distractions out while you play.
Autosponge 03-05-04, 09:26 PM	players.
Squeakypants 03-05-04, 11:16 PM	19 - Sticky Notes (yes, I know they already said Post-It Notes, but it is a MUST) 20 - A trash Can: useful for throwing players out in (not a typo)...oh yea, and anything unuseful...players again :-p 21 - Food and Drink: can't play with a dry mouth! 22 - Kneaded Eraser: Nice for all the erasing you'll do 23 - Television in the room over: Any time you aren't playing w/ a group of character/s it is great for them to get their minds on. Though they usually won't metagame, they sometimes can/will. I wish I had it when I was a player, I would get so bored. 24 - Your middle finger: Unbeatable for when you want to flip a player off, give them the bird, or any of its other great uses! Not sold in stores it is a great gift for any occassion! Now with lemon-fresh scent! 25 - Me!: Can't play w/o me? Aww...you hate me :sad:
Twilight_Knight 03-05-04, 11:47 PM	26 - I use a simple chart for keeping track of initiative that I created with MS Excel. Once printed I slip it into a clear plastic protector and use dry erase markers to write on it. It has columns for the initiative number, PC name or creature type, hit points, and special events (such as duration rounds for spells, etc.). I play with a rather large group and have found this tool to be enourmously helpful to DM's who often find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of "stuff" they have to keep track of. 27 - I also recommend a stat sheet with notes regarding some important details about each player's character. It should include armor class (including touch & flat-foot), spoken/read languages, special abilities like uncanny dodge, and skill modifiers for spot & listen. AC is obvious. It's bad Dming to keep asking the player what his AC is before announcing if he's hit or not. Plus sometimes you don't want to live with the result of the dice, so it gives you the ability to change the result without drawing attention. You just have to have listen and spot scores behind the screen. Nothing is more meta-gaming than a player failing a spot check, and then trying to pretend nothing's there. Works the same for listen. 28 - For new gamers who might have a difficult time "visualizing" what their characters are doing, and can't afford to spend $$$ on mini's, buy some colored glass counters from a department store. You can get hundreds in various colors from Walmart for less than $10. Get a battle map or make one yourself. It'll make understanding the game much easier and accelerate the learning curve. It also helps the DM keep track of the actions/locations of the sometimes dozens of creatures that the player's are dealing with.
krichaiushii 03-05-04, 11:53 PM	29 - A reliable message board to seek advice from. Be it here, mortality, enworld, or elsewhere. Granted, this falls more into the prepatory stage than actually running a specific session. 30 - The willingness to say "NO" to a player. 31 - The ability to accept, and ideally seek, criticism regarding the game. 32 - A printed copy of any and all house rules, that the players have seen and are agreeable to. 33 - Extra dice, pencils, paper, erasers. Edit: added numbers
Timbo234 03-06-04, 12:19 AM	I never would have messaged this one before but now I must.... A nice playing surface... preferably a table where all can see what's going on. I only say this because recently it was brought to my attention that one of my players was cheating his brains out and lying about his roles... I wouldn't mind kicking him out, but he's the magic number 4 player.... being on the same level surface however, he has had no opportunity to cheat...makes the games more funs and that's why we play. :)
Keebler 03-06-04, 01:04 AM	minis. I have never played (and never plan to play) without some form of minis. I dont have the money to get real ones so i usually use dice, but i still find that it simplifies things a whole bunch. graph paper. great for making maps, scketching out encounters as they are in progress, and, well, making maps. :D
hivemind[MVGC] 03-06-04, 11:13 AM	A laptop with speakers and a printer, running Jamis Buck's treasure, NPC, and dungeon generators, a dice roller, a list of NPC names, and some sound effects. What I really need is something to make / generate Epic NPCs though...
MattMart 03-06-04, 11:25 AM	36) what i've grown very fond of is a very large dry erase marker board, not a wall one, but still rather large to cover most of the table...on it, I've used permanent marker to mark off squares for the handfull of miniatures we have...an everchanging battlemap....
shakeupsnow02 03-07-04, 03:41 AM	i have a huge pad of graph paper. one square per inch 26x32. It's great. I can draw out a few maps in advance, and just rip the sheets off. I let my players make notes on it and allow them to save the battlemaps afterward. also, as we generally play from 2am until 8 am....COFFEE!
halzmar of geoff 03-07-04, 12:33 PM	A binder to organize your notes during the game. A rogue's gallery of various NPCs and advanced/templated monsters unique to your campaign. Knowledge of Word Perfect - It's so much easier to run a campaign with a good word processing program for typing up adventures, npcs, house rules, and whatever else you need. Ink Cartridges - For printing out all the cool things you just typed up in word. An NPC/Monster Generator capable of applying templates to creatures - preferably Freeware - anybody know of one?
DrWorm 03-07-04, 04:55 PM	Originally posted by MattMart 36) what i've grown very fond of is a very large dry erase marker board, not a wall one, but still rather large to cover most of the table...on it, I've used permanent marker to mark off squares for the handfull of miniatures we have...an everchanging battlemap.... We started using this as well. what I did was get the biggest cheap one I could find, and then got some 2mm black tape. Using a ruler I marked off inches on all sides, then just applied the tape between two points. Lines are always straight, and I like the tactile nature of the ape over a simple marker. Even permanant markers scratch off eventually, but the tape is really durable...even to Windex.
Arn 03-07-04, 07:38 PM	37) The thing that I can never do without while DM'ing is a loose chart of what i wanbt to happen. I'l write down the four or five major events that i want the PCs to go through in the adventure, and in what order I want them to go in. I might think about ahead of time what monsters I want them to fight or if there are specific things that they're meant to find. 38) The ablity to think on your feat. When a PC climbs up the chimney in your haunted mansion and chops through the roof of the room that's supposed to be locked until the end of the champaign, you'd better be able to come up with something and FAST. 39) I always keep a breif list of all the basic stats of my PCs (yeah it's been listed already, but it's SO necessary), including max and current HP, AC, saves, Listen, Search and Spot mods, anything else that you might need to know that would ruin the surprize if you had to ask the PC for it.
thalious 03-07-04, 08:34 PM	I make it a point to have multiple adventures, plots, and events planned in case the party manages to miss or ignore the adventure that I had planned to use. Another thing I find useful is having a 5 tray in/out box to keep all my NPCs, and BBEGS inside for easy reference and storage. It also helps convey the sense to the players that I am organized and ready to run--even if I am not. The illusion of control is important for a DM to maintain. A lighter, in case I find cause to burn someones character sheet, such as the case of a cheater or abusive meta-gaming, I reserve the right to torch the sheet, or the player may leave the group and keep their character sheet.
kardock 03-08-04, 11:29 AM	Originally posted by Caltsar 2) My laptop (yes I know they are over $20) 3) Some useful programs for: NPC generation, timekeeping, town generation, Name generators (Ever Changing books of Names), and a tile based mapping program (called Dungeon Crafter). you should have a look at this software, it's incredible. DMGenie great product. you will find it on google.
Rasmus 03-08-04, 12:01 PM	40) Black or whiteboards. I wouldn't know if they fall below the 20$ limit, but I find it one of the most helpful DM tools ever. They are just great for creating a broad understanding of the game, writing initiative on, watch order, NPC names, maps etc. Besides I'm usually standing, or jumping around describing, when I'm playing. As a note to #4: There is a secret trick. Roll dice when you don't have to. It creates suspense, and throw your metagaming players off!
raistlin_devreault 03-08-04, 12:02 PM	- A Laser Pointer Not to sound silly or anything, but this keeps me from standing up during combat all the time and move my monsters. Of course you can ask players to do it, but in my experience, it's easier to say : Move X monster there instead of MOve X monster 2 square up and 2 left! and having Pc ask Your left? my left? waaa? I don't understand!? where again?
Gothic_Demon 03-08-04, 12:33 PM	Players - My players are tools I can't play without ... Never mind. :smirk:
raistlin_devreault 03-08-04, 12:58 PM	Players - My players are tools I can't play without ... Tools, or lab rat! I was wondering if a party of 4 lvl1 could take a Dire boar.. guess they can, but they must have the advantage to prepare against a mindless charging dire boar! Of course luck was on their side!
Arrowhen 03-08-04, 01:57 PM	As a note to #4: There is a secret trick. Roll dice when you don't have to. It creates suspense, and throw your metagaming players off! You can *never* roll too many dice. Everytime you say something, roll some dice first. Every time a player does something, roll some dice. Hell, stop occasionally in mid-sentence to roll some dice. Yeah, I'm exaggerating a little, but fake dice rolling does provide you with the freedom to make the occasional arbitrary decision for the good of the story without giving the appearance of "cheating." 41) 3x5 index cards. You can never take too many notes during a game session. Index cards are much easier to organize than a bunch of random notes on one piece of paper and are much harder to lose than shreds of scratch paper, matchbook covers, and convenience store receipts.
DrWorm 03-08-04, 04:04 PM	40) Black or whiteboards. Quick crafty note: You can buy blackboard spraypaint in a can for like 5-7 bucks. Then you can just spray a plank or a metal tray a few times ang whammo...you have a great blackboard. I met one guy that had doen this to the inside back cover of his D20 modern book so he always had a place to take notes in game. 41) 3x5 index cards. Great also for players. I got really sick of playes leafing through the PHB looking for spells, so I told them that all the spell that they can cast need to be on 3x5 cards that they keep track of. We photocopied from the book at the time (2nd ed) but now that the SRD is available you can simple pirint out the spell and gluestick it to a card.
Riznar 03-08-04, 04:20 PM	Here's something I need: A loving significant other to sooth me when my players make me want to hurt them.
FelixTheBang 03-09-04, 12:45 AM	Originally posted by DrWorm We started using this as well. what I did was get the biggest cheap one I could find, and then got some 2mm black tape. Using a ruler I marked off inches on all sides, then just applied the tape between two points. Lines are always straight, and I like the tactile nature of the ape over a simple marker. Even permanant markers scratch off eventually, but the tape is really durable...even to Windex. I just got a big sheet of cardboard, got a permanent marker and covered it in a inch-by-inch grid. I then covered it using clear contact. Each encounter I use various coloured dry-erase markers to detail the terrain/walls/buildings/trees/bushes/rocks etc and use coloured, numbered counters to represent enemy monsters. At the end of a combat, just spray and wipe, only the grid remains :-) My players have also taken to writting a brief description of their location/situation at the end of the night on this board so that when we next game there is a nice reminder about what was happening on the board when we get it out.
theshiningfool 03-09-04, 01:02 AM	A note on whiteboards: you can buy them at hardware stores (like home depot) for about 12 dollars for a 8'x4' sheet. The most permanant way I've found of imposing a grid on them is to draw a grid with wet erase markers, score over this grid with a razorblade and a metal ruler, and then erase the marker grid. Also, if you have way too much free time (which I used to) you can buy some lumber and make a table to play on, with the whiteboard glued on as the surface.
Goblin-Crunch Cerial 03-12-04, 10:34 AM	BEER!
BRJN 03-12-04, 08:31 PM	Originally posted by DrWorm I got really sick of players leafing through the PHB looking for spells, so I told them that all the spell that they can cast need to be on 3x5 cards that they keep track of. Personal house rule: You can use any spell you want from any sourcebook I don't have, but you have to give me (and keep a copy for yourself) a thumbnail guide to what the spell does. 3x5 cards are good for this. And if you can't give me a one-sentence description from memory, you can't use it. This also helps with people who cannot remember what spells they have prepared; I can make them keep the cards for the spells (multiple copies of a card if you want multiple uses of a spell) handy and put the rest of their spell cards away.
madoule 03-13-04, 12:37 AM	I just wish that some one would come up with a fan fix flash program that was interacitve and could keep all the stats of monsters and stuff with neato butons and candy and race horses and a aw heck! One of the things i find critical for gming is the BOOKS! hehe also, yeah a bog durable folder with tab dividers and different notes writen down in it.
igronimus 03-13-04, 11:50 AM	Originally posted by Arrowhen You can *never* roll too many dice. Everytime you say something, roll some dice first. Every time a player does something, roll some dice. Hell, stop occasionally in mid-sentence to roll some dice. Yeah, I'm exaggerating a little, but fake dice rolling does provide you with the freedom to make the occasional arbitrary decision for the good of the story without giving the appearance of "cheating." I got sick of throwing lots of dice around, so I just made a couple of sheets of randomly generated D20 rolls. At the beginning of the adventure I pick a starting point and go down the line using them as rolls when necessary. This way the players never hear you rolling secret checks.