Essentials

Posted on by Paul Beakley

Here’s my packing list for every convention, minus the duh-obvious stuff like dice and rulebooks:

* Easel pad for giant relationship situation maps (smaps!). I’ll tear three or four off and roll them into a poster tube if I’m not where I can physically carry the whole pad.

* Index cards. Honestly I can’t get by without tent-cards with names, and I’m also very fond of doodling up index cards as props representing important things or game-states (like my “Fascinated” cards for Space Wurm vs Moonicorn).

* Big fat Sharpies in various colors for the smap and tent-cards

* OHTO Graphic Liner pens for everything else. I love them.

* Glass beads for resource tracking

* A copy of Jason Morningstar’s Names book (http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/jason-morningstar/story-games-name-project/paperback/product-3594462.html) because I greatly prefer the form factor of an actual book for browsing.

I think that’s it. If I’m at home, add clipboards and a steady supply of Utz Pub Mix.

Other tools I’ve seen in use that got me thinking:

*Misha B’s extensive Pinterest boards filled with representative character art. Genius! I’m slightly phobic about introducing electronics to the table because my regulars are already phone addicts. Last thing I want is to have a tablet there for them to diddle with.

* Jonathan Perrine’s rainbow-hued index cards. I’m a big fan of color coding (I print common-use references like Common Moves in a different color for easy grabbing) and never even thought about the fact that index cards come in different colors.

* I’ve seen a few versions of a nice, permanent (ie laminated ) X Card to drop on a table. Jeez…I’m trying to remember…someone at a recent convention had a whole deck of useful social rules they dropped on the table. Was that you, Tomer Gurantz? My apologies if I screwed that up.

Kind of a boring answer today; no bandwidth for a hot take. Hope you’re having a great weekend!

#rpgaday #rpgaday2017

Published by Paul Beakley

I founded the Indie Game Reading Club in 2010. I've written and developed RPGs since the mid-90s, now I mostly talk about playing them.

0 thoughts on “Essentials”

  6. Hmm, for me it depends on what game I’m running, where I’m running it, and are we including prep resources…

    Since all of my current gaming is online, Play by Post or Roll20/Hangouts, here is the most important resources I have handy:

    Computer with the following things handy
    Rules (OD&D or Classic Traveller)
    Monster & Treasure Assortment (D&D)
    Supplement 4 (CT)
    My version of the Classic Traveller Character Generator web tool (CT)
    Setting (Wilderlands of High Fantasy for OD&D, Wine Dark Rift home brew setting for CT)
    Adventure 10 – Safari Ship (two of my CT campaigns use this ship…)
    Tons of other stuff handy

    Dice, paper, pencils (I am not 100% digital…)

    Printed maps (dungeons, setting) and keys
    Various game notes

    Gary Gygax’s Extraordinary Book of Names

    For Traveller, a binder of useful articles (index here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hsD8WYkLZpEWnG1lVpodV6H2bbAObyMNIck0eYJblno/edit?usp=sharing), for OD&D I also have some various printouts, I don’t reference them nearly as much.

    For OD&D, Judges Guild’s Ready Ref Sheets, also other editions of the game (Holmes Basic, AD&D – for Traveller I also have Mongoose 1st ed. handy)

    docs.google.com – Articles in my Traveller Notebook

Leave a Reply