Tools of the Trade – Offline Communication

As any amateur handyman (or handywoman) knows, everything is easier when you have the right tool for the job. Luckily for us gamers, we tend to be a pretty creative bunch. For any game you play, the chances are that somebody’s created some tools you can use. This series pulls together the stuff that makes…

Anydice

At our most recent game session, Matt pointed me to Anydice.com. I then proceeded to spend way too long looking at pretty dice graphs on his iPad. This tool is amazingly powerful, and looks awesome. For instance, here’s a program comparing several methods of approximating a d20 range of rolls with increasing numbers of dice:…

Using virtual sticky notes to manage GM information

I recently sat through a business meeting that made an innovative use of sticky notes. Essentially, ideas were generated and written on stickies by the people in the meeting, and these were stuck to a wall. Later, they were grouped, then prioritized by physically moving the notes up and down. I’ve used this process at…

Tools of the Trade: Character Generators

As any amateur handyman (or handywoman) knows, everything is easier when you have the right tool for the job. Luckily for us gamers, we tend to be a pretty creative bunch. For any game you play, the chances are that somebody’s created some tools you can use. This series pulls together the stuff that makes…