Organising your game

[Owen E Oulton]

How do you keep your game materials organised?

Back in the days before I had my own computer, I kept everything on paper. I had binders full of stuff, and it was always getting lost, torn or left at home when I needed it...

Now, I keep everything aside from the rulebooks on my computers. There's a full set on my home PC, and a duplicate on my laptop, and much of it is also on my website. Most of it is also on disc, and copies of the latest stuff on my memory stick. I keep paper backups and handouts, but I don't rely on them.

The key with computer files is backups and duplicates, of course. If it's only in one place, a HD failure can be even worse than a lost binder.

Back when I was just getting into creating thing on computer, I only used the computer to create materials and kept everything in hardcopy form. Many of these files were of course lost when my roommate at the time had a HD blow up - I didn't have a computer at the time so I used his. It's several years later now, and I've just found an old binder with printouts of an old series of adventures I ran back then, which I'm transcribing to the 'puter and incorporating into my current Star Trek: Relic campaign. This will of course get completely backed up as well.

On the compter, everything is written up in .HTML format and linked together as a web page, making it easy to find and access material during a game session - I use the laptop as a GM's shield. This has been a lifesaver several times over the last couple of years.

How do you deal with this problem? What techniques have you developed over the years for organising all your gaming materials and keeping track of where it all is?

[First of Two]

*Taps forehead*

Cortical implant.


But seriously... I have copies of everything I'm planning to do, every bit of material I'm planning to use, on my HD and on a Zip disc. Some of it is on hard copy, as well. Like my maps for TrExiles, which I originally drew in hard copy, and then scanned in, and my copies of the character sheets.

As for the game itself... it's all online now, we play by messageboard or ICQ. All I have to do is refer to the board or the log... and I copy the log to the board.

[Uruz]

I've never been much of an organizer until I started running Trek; now, the amount of paper output my poor printer has to deal with is staggering. Index cards, too; all of my NPCs are on handy dandy index cards, as well as a stack of Starship Maneuvers.

If I had a laptop, I'd do everything HTML style as suggested. I'm currently looking into HTML for my palm pilot, but I'm a cheap bastard and I don't want to pay for anything.

[Liquidator Queeg]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
What techniques have you developed over the years for organising all your gaming materials and keeping track of where it all is?

At the table, I use one 24 x 15 cm spiral notebook for "in game" notes, scribbling, tracking time and damage and whatever else, and a printout of the current episode/adventure. Sometimes I make important notes on the printout if something changes the episode in a major way. These, and my dice, go behind a screen of some kind, usually the cardstock ones available for whatever game I'm running.

After the session, all the notes get transcribed onto the computer into text or word files, and the writing of the next episode or adventure commences. All campaign and series notes, house rules, and whatnot are kept as word or text files, usually text when roughed up and then word files when polished.

On the computer, I keep an excel file that tracks all PC "experience" and notes changes in career paths, and other major stuff.

Basically, to sum up, at the table, everything is done by "hand" and back at home everything is kept on the 'puter.

I have yet to use a laptop during a session, but I'm going to be experimenting with one in the near future.

LQ

[Sho-sa Kurita]

It's all about the 'puter these days.

If it's going to be web-based, then HTML it is.

If non-web-based, then Word and Excel (or their Mac equivalents) are better. You can still bookmark and hyperlink between them, but have much better format control and easier editing.

I also prefer to generate material for players in PDF form, especially a campaign bible/handbook.

I've never bought a laptop, but when I take my house wireless, I'll probably get some form of uber-PADD...uh, I mean PDA...for tabletop use. There are a number of reasons I don't like having a computer at the table, one of which follows.

Off the organizational note - I prefer running games the old fashioned way, that is computer free. I love tech, but I already spend 12 to 14 hours a day staring at computers (just at work), then there's home, and a little more TV. Heck, I'm halfway to legally blind as it is.

[Tobian]

Hmm interesting one

Well I am fairly new (ish) to running games, so I can't track back all that far how much my style has changed, but I'm definatelly imporving!

Mostly I just keep everyting from one specific game all together in one big ring binder, with everything in sleves, for protection. For the last few games I've ran I've both typed up the entire adventure and a comprehensive "Rundown" of everything I've done (something I'm wishing I'd done after my last Startrek game as I am struggling to remember little details, though I can remember the overall plot). On my las VA game I managed to produce 9 pages of A4 text on exactly what was going on (including all the behind the scenes stuff) for my co-GM

My biggest problem as a GM is trying to remember all of the details for the adventure, and keeping track of all my ideas, so I'm starting to catologue them all in typed form (kills a few hours and braincells ) including possible encounter notes. Moreso these days I tend to try and keep the games as non-linear as possible, so I try and encapsulate the encounters to events location and timeline (what has to happen when as the story unfolds, with or without the characters) and then see what kind of crazy right turns the players do and see if I can keep the story on track

The last few games I've run have extensive maps and props (as best I can produce them), which help to lend ambiance to the plot.

[khyber]

I have been playing TREK RPG (FASA and GURPS) for 20 years now and I and other GMs have built up a great deal of information on dozens of PCs and thousands of NPCS.

To keep myself organized, I have always used a tape recorder to tape all gaming sessions then I transcribe those sessions into a short story using the exact dialogue the PCs and NPCs used. This is now done in Word but I started with the DOS version of WordPerfect.

Around 1996, I went through all my game logs that I had transcribed (about 200 or so) and pulled out the name of every PC, NPC, planet, tech, vessels, etc. and put them into a Filemaker Pro database that I created. Currently the database has about 6000+ entries spread across 10 or so databases.

This database which I call the Archive is invaluable when planning continuing adventures involving re-occuring NPCs oir looking for sub-plots were referred to but never explored. I can pull up an NPC's record and see everything that's been stated in a game about the NPC and a chronological write up of everything they've done and where they've gone. I even keep track of NPCs and other stuff that are only referred to in a game.

It's not only useful for characters, but for planetary visits, technological items, food, beverages, vessels, alternate timeline stuff, etc.

When I first started the database, it was very time-comsuming (mostly scanning in the thousands of pictures and drawing I had made over the years), but now I just write the log after the game and update the database before we play another.

The only thing I don't do is keep the audio tapes from the games, I reuse them until they get worn out.

[Tobian]

WOw that must be timetaking!

I actually did something simmilar, albeit much smaller in scope, for my Startrek game. Especially because I have thread seeds which track back through centuries of history i have been roughing out a timeline of the past present and future of events, which I have added too for each game I've ran, adding plot threads as I go, which helkps me imenselly to keep track of what happens when. It also helps me should the plot not go in the original order of writing (like I write linearly! ) as player have a habit of goingoff on tangients, or follow up something too soon. usually I also plan in the stoppers, which can be as simple as the event has yet to happen which gives them the next clue!

[black campbellq]

Laptop computer. All of the adventures are arranged as episodes, organized per season and series.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

I had kept everything on the computer in a large file folder. All crosslinked and hypernlinked to eachother. Made fro a neat little quasi-database. But somehow the folders were deleted. STill have yet to figure that one out. SOmething like 1 GB worth of txt, doc, xls, pdf, and jpg files were trashed. Never recovered from that. I have it all in ahrd copy but I'd prefer it on the computer aswell.