Books on Tablets

A while ago I posted on the useful apps for the ipad. Since then I have started purchasing my gaming book digitally. Not only is it cheaper than buying a physical book, but I am able to carry multiple books, essentially, in the space of a single book. I do prefer reading a hardback book. Years of practice have made me adept at finger bookmarking for quick reference, but the e-book is slowly taking root in my being.

While perusing the internet, I came across an entry for the 'Song of Ice and Fire' RPG. This listing was for the tablet version of the game. It appears to be a PDF so I'm not sure how the "tablet version" handles better than a normal PDF. I'm normally against laptops, but I high recommend (flat adverb intended) using PDFs and tablets at games.

Further Reading:

• A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Tablet Edition

Downsizing

I have set a goal to downsize my gaming collection and cataloging my books. Today I worked on cataloging my Earthdawn books. As many of you probably know, Earthdawn is my fantasy game of choice. The cataloging went relatively quick as I decided to use springpad to keep a list of my books. Springpad has an iphone app that allows me to lookup items by barcode. So basically, I just scanned in the barcode for my books and I had them in a neat little folder for me to reference in the future. There were a few issues. Springpad pulls the info from an applicable source. Usually for books it's amazon, so you have to deal with entries that may not have a picture or that springpad could not find entries for, which was the case for the classic edition books.

In the end, it made a daunting task more manageable. I plan on using springpad for note-taking on the ipad during games which may be very useful. Springpad recently enabled facebook integration so that you can see common recommendations from your friends for things like movies or books. This has got me wondering if you can incorporate it like a giant web of common RPG objects. For example, people could create a random character make it public on springpad and publish to facebook so you have a veritable rouges gallery of your friend items.

I will have to look into this more in the future. If you are interested:

• Springpad
• My Earthdawn Collection

You Stink Pretty

Concerned about odiferous emminations at the game?

Didn't have time to shower before heading out to kill that Tarrasque?

Looking to impress that special someone at the next session?

Well polyhedrites, there's now specialized fragrance for just you in mind. Black Pheonix Alchemy Labs has created a line fragrances to scentualize your favorite character concept. Want to play a Chaotic Neutral Orc Ranger? There's a scent for that; and let me say ewww in advance. Want to play a Neutral Good Elf Cleric? There's a heavenily scent for that. No longer will they claim that gamers smell funny, now they will just say "Man he is mad method!!! Always in character."

Seriously, I once heard that a good environment is one that caters to at least three of our five senses. Roleplaying games are highly imiaginitive and our imiaginations do not always agree. I have seen some very impressive 'gaming rooms' on the grid, and many use props and mood music to help the players envision the game. This helps with the vision and sound to set the mood of the game. Black Pheonix offers gothic scents to help bring that third element and put you closer into the game. Here is an excerpt for their main page.

We specialize in formulating body and household blends with a dark, romantic Gothic tone. Our scents run the aesthetic gamut of magickal, pagan and mythological blends, Renaissance, Medieval and Victorian formulas, and horror / Gothic-themed scents. By utilizing our knowledge of homeopathy and aromatherapy, the conceptual theories of hermetic alchemy, and the aesthetic artistry of perfumery, we have mastered the art of encapsulating allegorical ideas into singular olfactory experiences. We are the first of our kind, and have over fifteen years of practical experience in the field. Our expertise shows.

I've never been one for girly perfumes, as most people know I call stink-pretty. But I think that adding some gothic-themed hermetic alchemy may just push your session into a new level of awesomeness. That is, of course, if Chaotic-evil Dwarf Fighter doesn't smell like the inside of a demon's cod piece.

Gadgets and Games

With the release of the new iPad 2, many people are looking at unloading their old iPads in lieu of getting the latest and greatest iProduct. Let me say that I am not a fanboy of apple. I do believe that they make a quality product, but I do not think they are the best products for everyone. Each person has to assess their needs individually. That being said, my wife knew I was interested in the iPads and she managed to get me a used one for the fraction of the price. For the last week or so, I have been playing with my new iPad and not focusing on much else. Along with countless hours I have whittled away playing Angry Birds and searching for cool new apps, I have also rediscovered comic books with the official Marvel iPad app. I am very happy with the iPad's functionality and the purchase.

The next question I posed to myself is how to use the iPad to enhance the gaming experience. I would have liked to turn this into a a Top Ten list of useful iPad apps, but I could not find enough apps to honestly recommend. Part of the reason is many of the apps don't have a free version to try and part is many apps are geared towards D&D, a game I am not playing.

Of the apps that I can recommend, I would suggest getting the Dicenomicon by Gandreas. This is a really nice dice rolling app for both the iPhone and the iPad. The main selling point for me was that it allows custom configuration of dice mechanics which allowed me to program the dice to explode. This is a core mechanic in Earthdawn and dice rollers without this functionality are not useful. You can also color-code your dice so if you make the same rolls repetitively, you can simply roll them together and have dicenomicon add up the totals. I even include initiative in there so that I don't have to switch my dice selection every round. Of course, this becomes harder for game masters who switch between rolls more often than players, but when used in conjunction with normal dice, I found that the app makes the fight go much quicker. There are a number of pre-programed rolls in the app and even has dice programmed for the Fudge system (which is what the Dresden Files use). Finally, the iPad version comes with a built-in PDF viewer so you can have your character sheet side by side with the die roller. The app costs $4.99, but is well worth the investment; and this is coming from someone who highly dislikes electronic dice rollers.

The Dungeon Master Toolkit by Level 99 Games is the other app that looks promising. The DM Toolkit is an empty database, template system that allows you customize the app for your game. I was leery to purchase the app as it costs a hefty 12.99, but it looks promising. The more I use this app, the more its functionality becomes apparent. Those that purchase the DM Toolkit for a full-featured Dungeons & Dragon App will be sorely disappointed. The app is configured with D&D in mind, but the configuration is only for the templates. Actually rule information on items, monsters, etc. will need to be manually entered prior to the game. I also recommend getting a blue tooth keyboard as entering data with on-screen keyboard is time consuming. I have high hopes that this will help accelerate combat in my non-D&D games. You can see a youtube demo of the app by clicking the following link: DM Toolkit Demo.

In the future, I will try to review other apps that I find useful for the iPad or iPhone. I am not a fan of laptops at the gaming tabled, but I have a feeling that tablets will be more usable at the game as they are less obtrusive than even netbooks. If you have any suggestions on gaming apps, please pass them along.

Take what you like and leave the rest for the next weary traveler.

RPG Miniatures and Tokens

Combat in a roleplaying game can be a difficult beast to manage. As I was cleaning the multitude of old links in my browser, I stumbled across this video for a gaming table. I thought initially, "Wow, this is awesome." The clip gives a good demonstration oh how it is used.

Reviewing the video, I started to think that this appears to be a lot of pre-game work for the DM to have the adventure map loaded and pre-populated. And what happens when they party does the unthinkable, like go off in a completely opposite direction. I am familiar with techniques on how to bring the party back to the story line, but I have recently had some issues with a player 'testing' his character's free will in the game. While I still think this table is pretty cool, I'll wait for the iTable to become cost effective [holding breath].

This has lead to the thought, how do most people utilize character and monster representation in combat. Aside from power sinking hundreds in prepainted/unpainted/partially-painted miniatures, here are a couple techniques that we've employed. The first one is the use of glass gems to represent creatures. We generally try to use miniatures to represent are own characters, but hunting for the right monster to represent one you didn't have could be time consuming, especially if you are playing a game that does not have its own miniature line. We found glass gems did the trick nicely, with different colors representing different types of creatures. One group I played with did the exact opposite, they still used the D&D prepainted miniatures for the monsters, but each player had their own gem stone with a symbol painted on top of it.

At some point, my wife had bought a number of extra Scrabble tiles and I thought that these would be perfect to represent monsters. Not only are they the perfect size for maps, but the letters make it easy to determine which monster you want to attack, "I'm going to attack skeleton 'G'." I tried purchasing some off ebay, but I came to find that Scrabble tiles are highly prized among the scrap-booking community. As a result, I found it was just as cheap to buy a new Scrabble game. So then I started looking for Scrabble games at thrift stores. Due to the popularity of Scrabble, used Scrabble games is pretty easy to find. Since I only wanted 26 letters from a set, I kept searching until I found two different sets of Scrabble tiles. The common lighter color ones pictured here, and a darker set from a 'Deluxe Scrabble Edition'.

Amongst my searches, I found a small set of tiles from a travel edition, a game of banangrams that also use tiles, and a rare "Alfred's Other Game" from the creator of Scrabble; the last two do not have numbers along side the letters, which is nice if the numbers annoy you. All in all, I'm pretty happy using the tiles. Characters are able to articulate their battle plans easier and I am able to keep track of the opponents more efficiently. It may not be as efficient as having the monsters preset into a computer program, but I think using tiles and a dry erase map is quicker when you have to create something on the fly.

What does your group use to represent monster and player character's on the battlefield?

Hammerfast Review

For my first review of the new year I chose the D&D 4th Edition supplement, Hammerfast. This is significant for three reasons:

First, I loath D&D fourth edition. I will not go into my reasons for disliking fourth edition as that is not the point of this review. Just know that I chose the word for my feelings for the new edition with great care.

Second, I don't buy retail. As a family man, there are usually a number of better reasons for spending my money. I am not only a more persnickety purveyor of pasttime products (don't ask, it just came out), but I have other obligations I must consider.

Third, this was a supplement book. I have so much gaming material, it is difficult to justify another 'source book'. I have many that I have never used, and probably never will, but I'm always on the look out for something good; that is also reasonably priced.

The goal of my quest was to support my local hobby shop as per my New Year's Resolution. There I was trying to find what I should spend my hard earned cash on, and there was a lot of selection. I actually came to the item 3 times before deciding to go with it. Since the item was shrink wrapped, I could only judge the book by its cover. The cover art didn't really inspire me, so I based the whole purchase on one thing; "a full-color, double-sided battle map".

Once I got home, I opened up the supplement and read through the entire supplement almost in one sitting. I was pleasantly surprised by the supplement and the map. The map consists of one side being the main tavern in the town, suitable for a nice bar room throw down, and the other side consisting of the entire town of Hammerfast. The map is a little small to use with miniatures, but it works well to give players a feeling of the entire town.

So the history of Hammerfast is... different. Hammerfast was once a dwarf graveyard that was overrun by orcs that were slain by the ghosts of the dwarves 'resting' there. This turned the whole area into huge hallowed area for both dwarves and orcs alike. Instead of constant fighting over the land, Moradin and Gruumsh came to an agreement that it is neutral land and no orc or dwarf will take action against the other race. Who keeps these two mortal enemies in check? Why the ghosts of the fallen dwarves and orcs who live beside them (groan).

The town of Hammerfast is sorrounded by walls and there is a river that cuts through the a quarter of the town. The town is divided into four quarters called the gate ward, trade ward, lore ward, and craft ward. The layout of the town is well down and the supplement provides a lot of color for the town.



There are a number of personalities that you can pull from as well as a nice story arc that players can come back to and various levels. This helps make the town feel 'alive' as there are things constantly happening while the players are out adventuring. The only problems I have with this supplement are the orcs and the ghosts. I do not particularly like my towns to have such a strong supernatural aspect to them so I just take the ghost portion out. I also do not have 'gods' hover around any location making sure their followers obey their every command. I prefer to have my gods work in the background and hard to prove they exist. So without the ghost and godly intervention, I think the orcs and dwarves would degenerate into fighting.

For the most part, I think this is a good supplement, there is a lot of good information if you are trying to flesh out a town for your players to base out of. I found it easy to modify for my campaign. I think the map of the town and the dwarven personalities in the supplement are its strongest features and I would rate this supplement as a solid spit to my left. For those unfamiliar with ork customs, a spit to the left is a sign of respect, while a spit to the right is a sign of disrespect. If you would like a rating between one and ten, I would probably give it a seven.

Finding a Cheap Dice Tray

I spend a good deal of time in resell shops. One of my favorites is Goodwill. At first I was against going to used good stores as I thought the items were poorly maintained and people were just looking for a way to get rid of their junk. There is a lot of things you will consider junk there, but if you are not looking for anything in particular, you can find a gem of a deal.

I shop these stores and think “how can I use this in a game?” I can often find terrain that will spice up an encounter or something that may help me in a mundane way, like folders or clip boards for paper management. Sometimes I find steals and just wonder if the person putting the item out has no idea what it is. I found a color PDA for $3.00. It was an older model, but I was able to charge it up and it worked perfectly. I found a free die roller for the PDA on-line and was able to use the PDA at the game (I have since abandoned the PDA as I roll horribly with electronic die rollers).

The story of my most recent find starts on December 26th, our first game after Christmas. A couple of us gamers pitched in to buy the octagonal dice tray pictured here. We purchased the tray so our game master would not have to use the box lid from one of his board games to roll dice. We all got a laugh out of the “10′ wood” that was written on the box and the tray turned out to be a hit at the game as everyone tested its functionality.

A few days later, I found myself in Goodwill again and stumbled across a dice tray for sale. I did not think the dice tray was as nice as the one we purchased, but I really liked the idea of having my own tray and this one had an intriguing set of numbers across the top. I racked my brain to determine what the what the numbers were used for, then I thought “Well, how can I use this in a game”? The numbers counted from one to nine and I though; Initiative Round Tracker, Wound Level Tracker, Sustained Spell Counter, Bullet Counter, …

I couldn’t beat the price, so I purchased and brought the tray home. I was writing this article when the origin of the tray hit me… it belongs to a game called “Close the Box”. The game that is played with two people trying to eliminate numbers from one to nine. I believe this tray is half of a two tray set. I actually own a version of this game called Boc-tin, but the counters are completely different, they range from one to twelve, and uses a single area to roll dice. The other tray most likely suffered some mishap and a single tray is not very useful. So now I have found a decent dice tray with a nice counter function for whatever I may need it for. Total price for this item: 99 cents plus tax.