August Twenty Seventh

(Getting To My Average Level Of Lateness)

Prompt: What Are Your Essential Tools For Good Gaming?

What, you mean aside from Chinese Food?

My laptop. I replaced my GM screen with a laptop sometime around 2002 or 2003, and I have never looked back. (Obviously, the laptop has gone through some upgrades since then…)

A free-form database/organizer. For a while, I used TreePad Plus, but then I discovered ConnectedText, which hits a lot of sweet spots in terms of what features I need to document a world and run a game.

Mapping tool: I’ve been using Campaign Cartographer since it came on 5.25″ floppies and the mapping symbols were actually a custom vector-based font.

Dice. Lots of dice. A whole freakin’ lot of dice. Because when one die starts rolling badly, you have to be able to swap it out for a fresh die. Don’t tell me all about the “laws of probability” and “superstition”. I know how dice work.

Two pounds of carrots, a tub of low-fat ranch dip, and two two-liter bottles of soda. (Portions are for a 5-6 hour game. Adjust as needed.)

Optional (but becoming necessary): A tablet computer, size dependent on your eyesight. I use a 12″ iPad Pro. While I use the laptop for my game notes and other tools, like a spreadsheet to track initiative, I find that a tablet is the perfect companion upon which to read rule PDF files.