of Dice and Dragons

Just recently I’ve had the opportunity to return to the player side of the role-playing table and found myself in need of a method of tracking many different things, among them a spell list.

For those that have been following the posts here for a while know that I’ve had many tips and suggests on how to do just that (check out sticky notes for spells and use those index cards) but I decided to take things in a slightly different direction, I wanted to do it electronically. In other words, I wanted to my laptop to track my spells.

Enter Evernote.

Evernote is an application that has a “continuous tape” to which you can add all sorts of things, text files, images, to do lists, and so on. As you add items you can also categorize them – so I did just that, a created a number of notes, one for each spell in my collection and categorized them as spells for my character. I keep the list of them at the top and then simply need to select the spell I want and all the details are show at the bottom.

Evernote is not the only application out there that wasn’t designed for the role-playing public but it adapts nicely to it, and it’s not the only one I use – as I fine tune things I’ll be passing along what I’ve learned.

Are there applications that you use for your gaming? Take a moment to post and share.

May your dice roll well.

You can checkout Evernote here.

In July of last year I mentioned that when you’re updating your role-playing character sheet you should note the rulebook pages (see this post) but you could also take this a step further but tagging those pages with a sticky note.

Most folks have access to the typically sized note (about 3 inches square) but you can also get ones that are smaller that make great little flags in your books to make finding things easier - not to mention they don’t fall out like a bookmark would.

When you pick up your pack of “flags” they’re usually in a multicolor pack - which makes organizing things a bit easier - not to mention you could write a short code on the tag to signify what it is. Depending on whether you’re a GM or a player would determine what you would actually tag and in what books, things you might consider:

• Character spells
• Class specific abilities and restrictions
• Treasure tables
• Random encounter tables
• Movement rules

As you can see the list can grow quickly - just be sure you don’t over do it. If it’s something you frequently refer to then mark it but if you only look at on a rare occasion don’t. The important thing to remember here is that you are working to make your life easier at the gaming table, not more cluttered and complicated.

May your dice roll well.

How many loose pages do you have stored in the front of your role-playing books? If you’re like me you probably have more than a couple, so here’s a great tip to keep them all together - cover the book.

When I was going through elementary school we always had to cover our school books when they were given to us at the beginning of the school year. I can remember sitting at the table with my parents cutting and taping brown paper bags to cover those books and the best part is that the flap on either cover could double as a folder for those loose papers.

So you can a bit of organization/storage and help protect your role-playing books from all the perils of gaming (salt, grease and of course soda).

For those that aren’t familiar with how to cover your books here’s a link http://www.ehow.com/how_8583_make-paper-book.html

May your dice roll well.