Laptop references

Grell · Unread post by **Grell** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:54 pm

Well, I've got a conversion calculator from work, game notes all neatly on file and a dice roller. I've also got 4500 or so songs to set the mood in game.

As far as internet resources set to quick reference, all I really need is good ol' Wiki.

asajosh · Unread post by **asajosh** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:00 pm

I use it for ALL my NPCs, maps, notes notes notes, dice rolls (silent or with sound effect), pictures, etc. Indespensible really

Marrowlight · Unread post by **Marrowlight** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:08 pm

Like 5 of us bring our laptops to game with, but oddly enough the owner of the house doesn't have wireless. Would make life a lot easier if he did.

Marrowlight · Unread post by **Marrowlight** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:26 pm

Alejandro wrote:I'm honestly not such a big fan of it myself.

We've got a guy in my group who regularly brings his laptop to every encounter and of all of us it takes him the longest to figure out what his bonuses are, what certain powers do, and things of that nature.

It's not slow enough to be annoying but it is slow enough to be noticable. Such is life I suppose but I don't really think it's a good idea. Too expensive a toy to bring to the gaming table...where quite literally anything can be spilled or knocked off the table via accident.

It helps if everyone's using the same program for your characters sheets I've found. We keep the master copies on the GM's PC, and either print them out or load them up on the laptops as needed.

Grell · Unread post by **Grell** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:32 pm

Preparation is key when bringing high technology to the game table!

Marrowlight · Unread post by **Marrowlight** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:33 pm

Morrowcale wrote:Preparation is key when bringing high technology to the game table!

Well, it's kinda the key for bringing low tech too.

Grell · Unread post by **Grell** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:37 pm

Prep time for a radio? Well, technically, yeah! :-D

asajosh · Unread post by **asajosh** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:45 pm

Alejandro wrote:I'm honestly not such a big fan of it myself.

We've got a guy in my group who regularly brings his laptop to every encounter and of all of us it takes him the longest to figure out what his bonuses are, what certain powers do, and things of that nature.

It's not slow enough to be annoying but it is slow enough to be noticable. Such is life I suppose but I don't really think it's a good idea. Too expensive a toy to bring to the gaming table...where quite literally anything can be spilled or knocked off the table via accident.

Sounds like your player just needs assistance with organizing or a more thurough character sheet. Im tinkering with one in the form of an Excel spreadsheet that seems to work pretty well (really easy to change things).
One of my players re-types and prints out RCC powers, the full description of any magic spells or psionics his characters have, everything you could think of and puts it all in a 3 ring binder. Yes some of the pages have sheet protectors. His current character, a 3rd level Night Stalker hatchling, takes up like 15 pages. This to me is a little over kill, but he NEVER takes long to find data about his character

Thinyser · Unread post by **Thinyser** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:29 pm

Some games actuall do offer .pdf files of their books which can be handy.

Other than that usually dice roller programs, combat tracker programs, homebrew stuff, campaign notes, maps, etc etc etc.

Lot of stuff is handy and more easily organized on a computer than it is on paper and some stuff like the combat trackers are not worth it on paper as they actually slow stuff down more that way.

Grell · Unread post by **Grell** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 3:17 am

Alejandro wrote:
Morrowcale wrote:Prep time for a radio? Well, technically, yeah!

Never forget prepping your dice with the proper voodoo chants and rituals!

Yeah, setting up the alter and finding a good chicken for the sacrifices can take a hot minute! :lol:

Ultra Mega Chicken? No. Shhhhh, he is legend.

t0m · Unread post by **t0m** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:01 am

i have a pc beside me where i gm from but i use it as little as possible, mostly for looking up stuff on wiki/goolge/these forums and tunes. i dont even use it to make stuff for the game, i still have an old school gm binder from when i was a kid

sometimes i wish i could scan the spell/psionics lists for easy reference on my monitor when im trying to hold 3 different books in 3 different pages and then look something up in one of them, but i dont have a scanner, and thats part of the fun for me anyway

(book juggling lvl 9)

my girlfriend also has a pc in the room we play in, and it distracts the hell out of her. i could see everyone having laptops being a bit of a nightmare.

NovenTheHero · Unread post by **NovenTheHero** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:10 pm

I use my laptop for everything as a GM or as a player. I scanned all my books long ago when I was leaving for the army, so its a handy tool to have since I have a gaming laptop instead of carrying around a huge duffle bag full of books.

Marrowlight · Unread post by **Marrowlight** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:10 pm

NovenTheHero wrote:I use my laptop for everything as a GM or as a player. I scanned all my books long ago when I was leaving for the army, so its a handy tool to have since I have a gaming laptop instead of carrying around a huge duffle bag full of books.

I don't even want to imagine how long that would take....nearly 700 rpg's. :frazz:

NovenTheHero · Unread post by **NovenTheHero** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:30 pm

Marrowlight wrote:
NovenTheHero wrote:I use my laptop for everything as a GM or as a player. I scanned all my books long ago when I was leaving for the army, so its a handy tool to have since I have a gaming laptop instead of carrying around a huge duffle bag full of books.

I don't even want to imagine how long that would take....nearly 700 rpg's.

It took me about 3 months with the help of my friends to scan ALL the rifts books (as of 5 years ago), all the PF books, and all the Nightbane books. But the result was that my collection fit onto a CD and I could game with just a laptop since I made my own dice roller program =)

Edit: We scanned, OCR'ed, and Bookmarked all the books =) Thats why it took forever lol.

oni no won · Unread post by **oni no won** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:07 pm

NovenTheHero wrote:I scanned all my books long ago when I was leaving for the army, so its a handy tool to have since I have a gaming laptop instead of carrying around a huge duffle bag full of books.

It took me about 3 months with the help of my friends to scan ALL the rifts books (as of 5 years ago), all the PF books, and all the Nightbane books. But the result was that my collection fit onto a CD and I could game with just a laptop since I made my own dice roller program =)

Edit: We scanned, OCR'ed, and Bookmarked all the books =) Thats why it took forever lol.

So did you take the pages apart or did you scan with the pages intact?

NovenTheHero · Unread post by **NovenTheHero** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:30 pm

oni no won wrote:
NovenTheHero wrote:I scanned all my books long ago when I was leaving for the army, so its a handy tool to have since I have a gaming laptop instead of carrying around a huge duffle bag full of books.

It took me about 3 months with the help of my friends to scan ALL the rifts books (as of 5 years ago), all the PF books, and all the Nightbane books. But the result was that my collection fit onto a CD and I could game with just a laptop since I made my own dice roller program =)

Edit: We scanned, OCR'ed, and Bookmarked all the books =) Thats why it took forever lol.

So did you take the pages apart or did you scan with the pages intact?

took every book apart, page by page =)