GM Tools/Aids

IMDB - I look up a cast listing and use the names on the fly for NPCs.

>Names
seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
fantasynamegenerators.com/roman_names.php#.V8THFfkrLIU
behindthename.com/random/random.php?number=2&gender=m&surname=&randomsurname=yes&all=no&usage_roma=1

>Weather
donjon.bin.sh/d20/weather/

>Random dungeon maps
wizardawn.and-mag.com/tool_dmap.php

>all those folders
I need this in my life.

Microsoft excel
I make quickstat tables, say for a Tau Firewarrior. This has everything general to the npc class.

Screenshot, export to image

Then i make an instance table that tracks things unique to the individual npc, like wounds, ammo, status

To reference its stats, though i make a comment on the instance that when you hover over it, you see all the stats from the quickstats box

Thank you based gates

Obsidianportal.com as my campaign notebook, for online and real-life games. Characters update their stats here and can see everything on smartphones.

>tfw everyone in your group has tried their hand at GM'ing
>one of them has run multiple games that have all lasted 0-2 sessions, and previously ended one promising campaign when he made he obvious that he didn't read the game rules at all
>another over-extends himself trying to run multiple games and ends up never getting anything accomplished, rarely ever have sessions and when we do they're usually underwhelming
>another is just outright bad at GM'ing - railroads constantly, has a boring setting with NPCs we don't get invested in, generally lazy, poor communication with the group
>another has only been able to run modules so far while being very green and making rookie mistakes as you'd expect
>final person can run a decent game, often using fun systems we haven't tried before, but doesn't like long campaigns and will abruptly axe games that we've been enjoying

I feel like I'm the only one who can GM effectively in my group. The only one who can manage to session every week for a month and work as best I can to try and make an entertaining session. Am I cursed to become an eternal GM?

A broken, seemingly normal tobacco pipe that's been passed down through my family for generations.

What is this picture supposed to convey?

Mild mannered "Tech Support Tim" is secretly the party's evil GM, "Timothy." He is seen here evily thinking up evil plans to create evil. He is doing this during work hours, his co-workers none the wiser of the sheer gauntlet he will force his players through.

>Tech Support Tim

>call tech support
>you recognize your GM's voice answering the phone

does anyone know a good voice filter to use for online games? as far as i can tell all of the free ones online are just shit.

Tim is that you?

WordPad
Notepad
Photoshop CS6
The Pathfinder Bigger Basic playmat
my laptop
Officla 5e DM Screen
fantasynamegenerators.com

>excel
came here to say this.
everything is in a spreadsheet. everything.

regular old graph paper
index cards
a small, fridge-door sized dry erase board

I've been considering trying a projector, how did the players handle the transition? any issues with communicating movement or facing?

> Am I cursed to become an eternal GM?
Yes

Tackle box
• holds my dice
• holds spare dice
• holds pencils and markers
• plenty of space for pawns and checkers
——plastic and wooden pawns in various colors in about six different distinct styles
——wooden chessmen on the same scale
——small checkers in six colors for hordes of minions
——a few poker chips for large monsters
——bag of wooden risk armies in case mass combat breaks out
• also playing cards, tarot cards, rune stones
• pouch coins from various cultures and periods, for flipping or as props

Here's what it looks like

Can confirm, these are great. One folder for character sheets, one for notes, one for GM cheat sheets, one for feelies.

Similar to the guys saying Excel, Google Sheets. Pic related is a (kind of out of date WIP) of a character sheet I created for an upcoming campaign. I can make them, share them with players, and retain access to all of them through the cloud. No more collecting character sheets at the end of the session, plus I usually make a "master sheet", which is essentially just a combat manager that pulls the players' important statistics from their sheets and displays it all right next to each other on a separate page, where I also keep my NPC stats.

So I'll have access to each players' sheet in their own tab, and then I'll have my master tab with everyone's HP, AC, etc., on the left, and all of my NPC stats on the right. Makes combat a breeze, it's a total life-saver.

I'm not ready for this fate. I just want to play in some fun games.

Fuck man... that's so much more beautiful than my character sheet

Teach me your ways senpai

Is there anything that can change a image file into a map?
I'd love to use some of my stain maps, but using paint with a mouse is too long

Don't mind me just here to blow your minds:

youtube.com/watch?v=MjETHULN2U0

...

Thanks, I think yours does everything it needs to do. Making it pretty, in my experience, is just an exercise in spending hours and hours fiddling with it until you find something you like. I don't know if you're using Google Sheets or Excel, but I get a considerable amount of help from two sources:

>the Google Sheets templates gallery, so I can blatantly steal formulas and formatting from other sheets (for instance, the one I just posted cribs heavily from the Swan Song character sheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w7th6Hqy_mlfsV1TF9iESC6nehClKKvDxTPhH9RARh0)

>the Google help documentation itself. I've spent way too much time reading through what different formulas do, and I got the idea for the health bars after reading through the conditional formatting options.

Dunno if there are equivalents of those for Excel, but if so they're awesome.

How exactly do you do the maps on the right? I would love to make a bunch of ASCII maps to use.

just excel
Make the cells all square, then use the fill tool to set their color

story games project for names (lulu.com/us/en/shop/jason-morningstar/story-games-name-project/paperback/product-3594462.html). there is an app for android that i use.

D&D 5 Spellbook app for android.

5E gm screen + most of an index card screen glued into it.

clipboard.

large whiteboard.

poster frame which i use for relevant posters, art work, and maps.

>tfw eternal gm
>just want to play a game with all the wonderful pc's I thought up of in my head
>one of my PC's offer to gm for a game
>woah woah this is my chance
>roleplay a half-orc rogue, partially inspired by that one pasta where the orc rogue would just intimidate everything if he fails a stealth check
>everyone loves it, gr8 session despite new gm dealing 47 damage to a level 1 character because he wanted wanted to railroad us (half-orc racial ftw?)
>next session
>ehhh user, I don't really like dm'ing. Let's just go back to the other campaign
>o-ok

I'm so sorry for you lads.
I never found the appeal of actually -playing- games. DMing is most fun, for me.

Have you tried solo DMing?

Related are these two
tinyurl . com slash 6b9b2bk
rpgsolo . com

Rpg solo is good for if you don't even have a game ruleset in mind, but the more lightweight mythic emulator is better if you have a real framework to work with.

I laffed

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be a 5ever dm if I didn't like it
But it's nice to be the star of the show as a PC sometimes.

Holy shit spreadsheet maps. I don't know if you're a genius or a madman.

This

Everytime my group wants to play, I have to GM or it wont get off the ground. Played a Black Crusade game where my tech priest was "obsessed" with stealing other peoples research and turning it into a weapon against the Eldar since they attempted to kill his teacher he hated at tech priest school and failed. I never held up sessions because of it, but it was something I incorperated into my characters downtime.
Now my group just bitches about not knowing the rules thorugh the book never leaves the room we play in after I read it.
Since they start a new mass texting group containing the same people for every question and refuse to use kik or a facebook chat I shut mine down.
They also dont understand having a private life since they put everything on Facebook and get pissed when they cant play since I have other plans.
At least one of my friends is a good player. Love playing our two man D&D game based around bounty hunters.

Just resourceful :^)

lastgaspgrimoire.com/generators/the-seventh-order-of-the-random-generator/
I made some custom generators on here. Eric's NPCs and Something Happens!

>Confused dwarf spy(s) mock(s) self-assured teacher(s) while fleeing crowded metropolis.
>Fussy dragon hunter(s) praised by harmless sibling(s) while fleeing plagued dungeon.
>Educated troll poacher(s) kill(s) malicious authority It all ended in/at earthen woods.

>Flabby undead nun(s)
>Crass fiend fishmonger(s)
>Timid elf alewife

Underrated comment

That's a fuckton of generators, damn.

The Zim desktop wiki. Makes organizing shit for my world and the adventure a breeze.

I've got the ultimate dm tool right here

Very interesting.... Ill have to give this a try.

Hey Veeky Forums i'll let you in on my secret DM tool

here's an aid that no dm should ever be caught without

I don't know how i'd DM without it

what point are you even making

>anydice (site)
A useful tool for finding out dice roll averages for various dice of various numbers. I use this to help build my own system that I'm making but also help balance combat encounters by figuring out roughly how damaging I will be to players.
>donjon (site)
Lots of cool generators here. I'm quite a fan of using a generator to get a skeleton of an idea then using my imagination form there.
>Roll20 (site)
Because I'm a lazy bastard and this site works as a virtual table top even if it usually ends up as just a map covered in system tables and MS style cocks.
>Skype
Because fuck you that's why, teamspeak and discord and mumble or whatever the fuck else are pure, buggy, shit. I know skype is shit also, but it is the least shit.
>Pinterest/Tumblr(Ithinkmaybesometime?Notsure if that is the site)
Here you can find lots of character and concept art to help get messages across
>Stolen PDFs
I would absolutely download a car.
>.rtf
Rich text files is best text files for taking notes.
Some of this glorious shit right here.

I frequently right important things down on paper where I can see them in my games.

>big ol swinging dick
Confidence is a big thing, you can't be some quite meek and meager GM when wrangling the wild and dangerous animal that is the Players.

That's what I do anyway. I'm only a proficient GM nothing special.

I have a terrible habit for making too many references. To the point that certain areas actually become US states, or certain countries and named characters end up becoming famous actors or politicians.

Well, if you're going for online play roll20 allows you to upload an image and adjust the grid pixel by pixel or just go gridless. All you gotta do is enter the distance per pixel on your image. Most map programs work like that.

>skype
>less shit than ts or mumble

I don't know what you're smoking, but I want no part in it

>Discord
Probably the least annoying voip I've used for online games

>Roll20
All my players live scattered across the US so it's roll20 or bust, plus I like to set up stuff like encounter lists and "codex entries" for each thing the players might want to read up on during a session.

>Photoshop
Pretty much necessary, otherwise I'm left to using whatever other people have made and sometimes that just doesn't work

>dice
Even though I use roll20, I find it easier as a gm to roll my own physical dice, just feels better to me personally, and easier to do quickly for me

>Notebook
I set up my notes in this fashion because it's the easiest for me to read over and know what I'm doing, A page is divide in half top/bottom, the top half is divide in half left/right, top left I put in small bios for each character that might be relevent, top right I put locations that might be prominent. Bottom page I write a short backstory for what's going on, I usually write story beads I want to include into the session and then leave a space under each one to write what happens or additional notes that might be relevant to it.

Bump

Your main tool is your ability to make shit up on da fly

Tiddlywiki is pretty fantastic, it's a personal wiki self-contained within a website. You can fill it with campaign lore and notes, then host it on something like dropbox to let your players see it.

Both are cool

Well I generally use skype,rollz.org and some random drawroom for quick maps and shit.
It has been going pretty well in general.