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Managing the game at the Table

Barbarulo

Member
Gold WoA
I've recently switched from D&D to the Genesys system for running a home-brew campaign. I used D&D Beyond for that system and it was pretty smooth to run on my laptop, but I mostly ran published campaigns. Genesys is all PDFs and I'm finding it really unwieldy (given I'm new and have to do a little bit of rules lookup). Also, the Genesys dice are symbolic rather than numerical (like FFG's Star Wars RPG) and it's not easy putting NPC stats into Campaign Logger. We also have one remote player and do dice rolling in Discord.

My set up has been: Campaign Logger for the story, Discord for dice rolls, PDF/Word documents for NPC stats, PDFs for reference stuff, and notepaper for tracking combat!

I want to simplify and I'm inclined to go more paper based (much as I like my gadgets) but that sounds like a lot of paper and ink.

I do have physical core rules books coming, and trust the guy playing remotely so could just rely on him to give me the results, and use physical dice, I guess. But there's still a lot of juggling screens.

I'm wondering what do you all do to manage your game at the table!?
 

Ackinty

New member
Hi Barbarulo,

Did you have a look on miro (https://miro.com/) ? It's like a giant desk where you can put and share almost everything (pdfs, images, notes, hand sketches, relation maps, ...). It's free with some limitations.
I'm not playing these days, but I had used CL for mj-only prep and notes, discord for dices and music background, miro for everything else :)
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Thanks for the question, Alex! This is an important topic. Sorry for the late reply.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the best approach for you is, but I try to organize myself as follows:

Books
I'm a very digital guy, so I have all my books as searchable pdf and don't like to walk around with a lot of heavy books in my bag. If I've got a laptop, I've everything I need. In addition, I take some dice (just for the fun of it in case I don't want to roll with my cell phone app) and maybe the Gamerboard or additional props I decided necessary for that session.​
Printed Adventures
I normally don't run printed adventures but my homebrew adventures. In case of printed modules though, I take a copy of it with notes to focus on important stuff that I might miss with me to be able to look things up quickly in case I need to and to still be able to use my laptop for the general adventure stuff.​
Rule Learning
I'm a quick learner of rules, so I normally don't do any rules lookup. But in case of the Shadowrun system for example, there are so many rules (bullet trajectory changes due to wind, scatter tables of grenades, barrier ratings and different barrier types (puncturable and not), matrix rules, magic rules, surveillance rules, drone rules, ... you get the gist) that I needed to create my own rules folder first to get an overview for games, later cheatsheets were sufficient, now I don't need any of those anymore.​
Rule Clarification
In case of rule clarification though, I would like to use the following technique: I tell my players directly that I'm not sure on the rule, listen to their short suggestions (if any) and make a ruling on the fly. This doesn't stop the flow. But I will also mention that I will look it up and present the next session, but for pacing's sake I just rule it then. Sadly, one of my players is not up for it, it seems (in that case I was sure, he was all rules lawyer style, but in the end I was right again).​
Campaign Logger
I still don't use Campaign Logger. I just use Onenote. I am regularly collecting my story ideas, GM tips, tools, etc. in Onenote. In the past I tried to tag all items but it was too much of a hassle to switch pages and then return and so on. And I wouldn't want a program where I would need to login to online, but as with onenote I can just quickly edit on my cell phone if an idea comes up or work on the laptop. In addition, I really like the collapse/expand function it has to quickly pop up the issues I was looking for.​
NPC Stats
For NPCs I don't usually create stats upfront. If a stat is necessary, I just think of what might be appropriate. If you talk about special skills or powers as with monsters, I do write down the basic information (again in Onenote) or just copy and paste a picture of that pdf entry into Onenote. That is so easy that it really helps me save time.​
For key NPC data, I use my 6 aspects to create a likeable NPC based on Johnn's 3 Line NPC Method. Maybe the NPCs I created there help you, or my detailed thought process during NPC creation later in that thread.​
Remote Players
It is difficult to have one member of the group playing remotely. For a few sessions this might work, but in my experience it is very difficult to have someone remotely on the team for the long run. First of all, you need to use video for him. The unspoken cues are very important, even more so if only one of you isn't at the table. Then you need to make absolutely sure that the sound system is sufficient. You need to hear him clearly, he needs to hear (and see) all of you clearly, and there shouldn't be any hickups in case the players roll their dice (and the microphone picks up on this). Dice rolling beside the microphone is like dice rolling within one's ear.​
The remote player will have less optical cues to use time slots to engage in the story. So you will have to focus on him/her in regular intervals and check. Also, give him/her a little bit more time to react. Of course, he/she should be uninterrupted in his home or from whereever he records and also there shouldn't be any disturbing background images, people, events, sounds, etc. that could influence the mood at the table.​
You should limit maps etc. to a minimum, as the remote player always needs more time to comprehend and to you need more time to show it to him (while the others are getting bored).​
Also, you should limit communication to talking, no texting from that player as this would split your attention to two media.​
You could rather use that player as a guest player or playing NPCs when he is there, in case he can't attend every session.​
Dice Rolling
I would suggest that you shift to normal dice rolling instead of having programs roll for your players. As a GM I don't feel much of thrill during dice rolls, but as a player this is different. It is a physical sensation that is fun. And that is all that matters. You want to create fun, ergo let them roll for themselves. It's not that hard to figure out how many dice to roll (in most games). But here comes another tip (from Zipperon Disney: Run D&D Combat That Flows actually): Tell them their DC before they roll, so that they see the result and instantly know if they succeeded or failed. The turning die in the last instance gets their adrenaline pumping through their veins, the gasp or yay! will make it more fun for you also.​
Media
My set up has been: Campaign Logger for the story, Discord for dice rolls, PDF/Word documents for NPC stats, PDFs for reference stuff, and notepaper for tracking combat!​
My set up is:​
  • Onenote for: Story, NPC Stats, Tracking combat (or using the gamerboard or asking one of my players), pictures of my NPCs / Scenes / Locations (I just turn the screen shortly to them)
  • Real Life Dice Rolls for: Checks / Thrill
  • PDF for: Quick reference, or copy and pasting of stats into Onenote
  • Simple music app on Laptop for: Music / Sounds (if necessary) (If you want to go all in, I suggest Spotify)
  • Gamerboard for: Tactical combat / chase / exploration encounters (if I want to do something else than a theater of the mind encounter this time)
  • NPC Cards for: Presenting recurring NPCs and giving the players a short reminder (this is also fun for the players as it is another medium)
As you can see, I do most of what you do in one media: Onenote. Johnn suggested Evernote some years past in his RP Tips, but I was already hooked up in Onenote and found it likewise great as you could (almost) do everything you could in Evernote.​
@JohnnFour, could you please once again link to your videos on how to use Evernote as a GM here?​
I hope this helps you, Alex. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

There are probably many other ways to organize yourself and it would be great if others also pitched in and wrote about their techniques, pros and cons.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hi Barbarulo,

Did you have a look on miro (https://miro.com/) ? It's like a giant desk where you can put and share almost everything (pdfs, images, notes, hand sketches, relation maps, ...). It's free with some limitations.
I'm not playing these days, but I had used CL for mj-only prep and notes, discord for dices and music background, miro for everything else :)
Thank you, Ackinty. It is a great tool. My personal opinion is though, that this would shift the theater of mind point of view that I want to reach for my players (1st person as a PC) to a more tactical point of view as with wargames (3rd person as a player). Sometimes, I will use this shift to ease things up and change the flow, but normally I try to prevent those shifts as they also lead to less roleplaying and more metagaming and out of character discussions.
 

Barbarulo

Member
Gold WoA
Hi Barbarulo,

Did you have a look on miro (https://miro.com/) ? It's like a giant desk where you can put and share almost everything (pdfs, images, notes, hand sketches, relation maps, ...). It's free with some limitations.
I'm not playing these days, but I had used CL for mj-only prep and notes, discord for dices and music background, miro for everything else :)
I missed this somehow. Will check it out.
 
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