[Sliver]

What are some good resources for people like us? I remember seeing a file that helped me keep up with rules, initiative, and whatnot.

Any help at all would be awesome. I know this has been visited before, but I cannot find the thread.

[Crash_00]

I don't GM from the laptop, but if you have a large display to use (like a tv), maptool can be great for setting up maps and tracking movement.

[Zilfer]

I don't GM from the laptop, but if you have a large display to use (like a tv), maptool can be great for setting up maps and tracking movement.

Yep one day, I decided to use a tool called Masterplan. It's a DnD plot/encounter/adventure builder. It's for 4.0 but I decided to use it to see if my group liked it. I think it went pretty well though I had to get used to the set up.

I was able to throw up read aloud text up onto the screen which was nice for those people who don't always get everything said the first time and they can actually reread it. I can lay out a regional map to the screen and then point on it with my mouse where they are and were they are going.

It worked pretty well, though I haven't done it again since then. (been busy with work to even plan any session. The last sessions have been flying by the seat of my pants which is always fun.

I haven't tried this for shadowrun however it might be fun for a Secret message. A screen might actually aid the "setting"

Unforunately, we have another large tv in the room were we play and it distracts players horribly. xD but the time i used mine putting it on the counter next to the table it went well.

(sorry if that didn't answer any of your questions)

[Onion Man]

I've got mixed feelings and mixed experience with maptool.  For remote games with every player on Skype, maptool was awesome (although poor scripting from some players made their buttons wonky, and modifying scripts on one map tended to create problems because the GM had already set pawns on the other maps...), for a game with all the players in the room, maptool became a LOT more trouble than it was worth.

Me, I keep pdfs of everything on my laptop, which makes my gaming kit a lot more portable.  Nothing beats being ready to Shadowrun, D&D (anything from AD&D challenger series up to the latest releases for 4E or Pathfinder), Hackmaster, or Star Wars with a 12 lb laptop rather than 100+ lbs of books to carry around.

[Crash_00]

Me, I keep pdfs of everything on my laptop, which makes my gaming kit a lot more portable.  Nothing beats being ready to Shadowrun, D&D (anything from AD&D challenger series up to the latest releases for 4E or Pathfinder), Hackmaster, or Star Wars with a 12 lb laptop rather than 100+ lbs of books to carry around.

I know how you feel. I have all my books backed up on one of those 1 TB mybooks and its amazing watching the six bookshelfs turn into one slot taken up. Definitely makes things simpler to travel around with too.

MapTool is wonky to the extreme, but its free and easy to understand for the most part. I've never really done anything but PbP for internet gaming, but when I used it, I just made a large map and then cut each room out for smaller scaled sections. That said, usually my group has the floorplans before they go in, and I never set up the enemies until the actions starts.

[Zilfer]

Not to be off topic but could I get a link to it?^

[Onion Man]

Not to be off topic but could I get a link to it?^

http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=downloads#MapTool

You'll have to check their forums for the last stable version.  Last one I used was 1.3b33, but it looks like they've come a long way.

Tokentools is awesome too, very useful for ripping art out of a .pdf and turning iconic book images into tokens for your maps or taking pictures of your minis and using them.

[Zilfer]

Not to be off topic but could I get a link to it?^

http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=downloads#MapTool

You'll have to check their forums for the last stable version.  Last one I used was 1.3b33, but it looks like they've come a long way.

Tokentools is awesome too, very useful for ripping art out of a .pdf and turning iconic book images into tokens for your maps or taking pictures of your minis and using them.

How come I didn't find you guys sooner?

[Sliver]

I was really looking for something to keep track of my initiative and give me a good general overview of the rules (plus charts).

All of these seem to be for maps and gaming over the internet. I'm talking more about gaming in person, and I almost never use maps

[Onion Man]

There's an initiative tool there, and the GM screen from the toolkit isn't all that inconvenitent to take with you and your laptop.

[CanRay]

If my 1^st Gen Eee PC had more than 900MHz, I might consider using it.

[magmcbride]

If my 1^st Gen Eee PC had more than 900MHz, I might consider using it.

Check out Sumatra PDF reader if you are looking for a low-resource PDF solution on "clock speed challenged" computers. It's very resource-light, and completely free!  =)

I use it at work on and old codebase workstation, as well as on my mom's Intel Atom PC. I think the lowest speed thing I've run with it was a 1.4Ghz P4. It handled a black and white hi-res PDF with minimal effort.

Cheers!

[Trenchknife]

If yer a GM I'd highly recommend you pick up the Shadowrun version of Herolab by Lonewolf.

http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=shadowrun

It's a great way to keep track of player information and track damage and such.  As a player it's also a great way to keep track of ammo and all the other expendables a 'Runner deals with.
NOTE: only up to to snuff in the main rulebook to date, but the others will be input over the course of the coming months.

[CanRay]

I'd love to be a Player.

But I'm thinking about picking that up as I might be running Demo games soon.  Seeing as I'm jonesing for anything.

[Teutonic Overlord]

Iahave all the sourcebooks, etc on my Netbook and use PDF-XChange Viewer, which is fast, easy to use, lets me link different PDFs, add notes, highlight stuff etc.

Of course, I use dice still, and a combat pad to keep track of initiative and combat turns.

This does however lighten my load up a lot!