Thought I'd share this over here, too. I finally got my GM's Binder put together. I had scans, pdf printouts, and notes over a ton of folders.
Here's the end result:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-37U4KY8mOtc/U9WBN46LTdI/AAAAAAAADYk/_VN2Td-ooEE/s1600/GM's+Binder.jpg)
I imagine it'll contract or grow a bit depending on what setting/system I'm running, but here it is, ready for my Castles & Crusades Forgotten Realms game. It's running right around 274 pages total. Here's the Table of Contents:
Zack's GM's Binder Table of Contents
Cover Page
Character Creation/Getting Started
-Castles & Crusades Character Creation Guide (Homebrew)
-Forgotten Realms Random Class/Race Table (Homebrew)
-Forgotten Realms Approved Deity List (Homebrew)
-C&C Character Sheet Examples
-Additional Starting Item Table (Homebrew)
-Standard Adventuring Charter (Homebrew)
-Homebrew C&C Classes
-SIEGE Engine Notes (Homebrew)
Charts and Tables
-Character Background Pages & Tables (Epic Role Playing)
-Random Physical Features (Colin Chapman)
-Background Occupations (Adamant Entertainment)
-Exchange Rates/Gem Types (Judges Guild)
-100 Treasure Chest Stuffers (Top Fashion Games)
-100 Marketplace Goods (Top Fashion Games)
-Libraries (Dragon Magazine #37)
-Hireling Traits/Generation (somewhere online)
-Drunken Debauchery (Colin Chapman)
-Random Dog Table (Swordfish Islands)
-Ship Names (Jon Brazer Enterprises)
-Adventure Generators (New Big Dragon Games)
-Quick Treasure Hoard Generation (New Big Dragon Games)
-Gems and Jewelry (New Big Dragon Games)
-Gems and Valuables (Hackmaster 4e)
-Magic Item Reference Sheet (Zenopus)
-Mundane Items Table (somewhere online)
-100 Whispered Insults About The Adventurers (Top Fashion Games)
-Treasure Map Destinations (Jeff Rients/Miscellaneum of Cinder)
Monsters & Encounters
-Random Encounter Charts for C&C (Homebrew)
-Excerpts from Appendix C: Monster Encounters (AD&D 1e)
-Monster Mutations (Jeff Rients/Miscellaneum of Cinder)
-Forgotten Realms Regional/Location Encounter Tables (Based on the lists from Realms 3e)
-One Hit Point Monsters (Zenopus)
-Orc Encounters (Troll Lord Games)
-100 Exciting 1st Level Encounters (James Mishler)
Equipment & Arms
-Magic Items, I-VI (New Big Dragon Games)
-Miscellaneous Treasures (Kellri's CDD #4)
-Additional Items (Homebrew)
Forgotten Realms (Note: New Section)
-Maps and Annotations of the Savage Frontier/Moonshae Isles/Sword Coast (Various)
-Forgotten Realms Trade Map (Wizards of the Coast)
-Forgotten Realms Calendar, Holidays, and Notes (Fan-created/kismetrose.com)
Worldbuilding
-Bars, Bartenders, Gamers, and Wagers (Hackmaster 4e)
-The Development of Towns in D&D (Best of Dragon, Vol. I)
-Settlements & Inhabitation by Population Density (New Big Dragon Games)
-Generating Towns and Cities (Expeditious Retreat Press)
-Settling Down (Dark Dungeons)
-War! (Dark Dungeons)
-Construction Costs and Time Required (Judges Guild)
-Assorted Ready Reference Sheets (Judges Guild)
-Trade Goods (Silk Road, Expeditious Retreat Press)
Travel
-Travel distance in the Forgotten Realms (Various)
-Travel tables and references (Hackmaster 4e)
-Weather Conditions/Events (New Big Dragon Games)
-Off-Course Determination (New Big Dragon Games)
-Hunting/Foraging (New Big Dragon Games)
-On The Road (Kellri's CDD #4)
-Living Off The Land (Kellri's CDD #4)
Names
-Sobriquets (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
-Names of Middle-Earth (Colin Chapman)
-Holmesian Random Names (Zenopus)
Plots and Rumors
-The Big List of RPG Plots (S. John Ross)
-Rumor lists from old modules (TSR)
Random Matters and Appendices
-Movements and Encumbrance (Lamentations of the Flame Princess)
-"The Campaign" (from AD&D 1e Dungeon Master's Guide)
-Appendix T: Titles (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
-Giant Rolemaster Herbs List (somewhere online long ago)
-Tavern Menus (Small Niche Games)
-Writing Notes
-Middle Isles Map and bits from Majestic Wilderlands (Rob Conley)
Additional References and Inspiration
-Various blogs, forums, links, and online references
-Appendix N
It's nice to finally have everything back in one binder. I don't even want to guess how many ink cartridges I went through.
Now to put one together for my next Supers game...
Does anyone else have a GM's Binder they use, and a table of contents to go along with it?
Cool - I admit I am a "21st century" GM, Scrivener and pendrive is my binder :D.
I'm scared to see your "PC & NPC Binder" then! :eek:
It'd probably be more practical to go electronic at this point (and with Pathfinder, I find myself moving that way), but there's something powerfully nostalgic about seeing old, faded, Cheetos-stained character sheets.
Oh hey, that's cool! And doubles as a buckler!
Very cool! A binder (or, preferably, a mangled pile of paper held together with a rubber band) is arguably the most old school of old school items. The core of all DIY gaming.
With graph paper. LOTS of graph paper.
Quote from: Will;773721Oh hey, that's cool! And doubles as a buckler!
I'm pretty sure it would stop a bullet.
Note: I do have all my pdfs on a tablet and laptop, but I honestly have an easier time sometimes finding stuff in binders. I use a mix of the two.
And yes, plenty of graph paper is set aside. :)
I'm torn between paper and pdf/ereader myself.
It's NICE to have a library at the tip of your finger. But the usability of my iPad (or a Kindle) just... isn't there. I can't easily go 'oh, right, I need to flip to THIS page' or take pages out and arrange them.
But, then again, having a wiki for random rules and being able to do searches is cool, too.
Sweet!
Quote from: Will;773734I'm torn between paper and pdf/ereader myself.
It's NICE to have a library at the tip of your finger. But the usability of my iPad (or a Kindle) just... isn't there. I can't easily go 'oh, right, I need to flip to THIS page' or take pages out and arrange them.
But, then again, having a wiki for random rules and being able to do searches is cool, too.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure for me the best bet is a happy medium between the two. A lot of times I'll have a pdf of the rules up on my tablet as an extra "table copy" for when it's needed as a reference.
I like the binder, too, because it condenses all my charts in one place, rather than flip between 5 different pdfs. And I LOVE my random charts and tables. :)
Eventually we'll have our holographic workspaces!
Actually, hell, the Microsoft smart glass as a tabletop would work great. You could write up a document, flick it over to a player...
Wow! Pen drive and winging it on the fly for me though.:)
I just binderized the stacks of Heroes Unlimited and D&D characters at my store. Now I just need one more for the assorted craziness. GURPS already has two binders and Rolemaster has a file box and about five binders though to be fair I did binderize and page protect Arms Law and the Core Book.
Wow, nice! Though as I get older, I find I am much more addicted to my laptop and electronic devices, that zoom feature is easy on the eyes.
Awesome!
I prefer having things down on paper myself. But then I enjoy drawing (for maps and illos), stuff like that. Drawing Little heraldic devices, symbols etc on the side of say pages on cities/kingdoms/Gods...that kinda stuff.
That's a fantastic job. Brings back Memories, really.
And, as mentioned earlier by others..
Here's mine.
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955575/FrontPage
Searchable wiki with a couple thousand pages. Player permission for the pages they can see.
You are making my lame huge piles of paper look very messy :)
Some great content you listed there too.
Cool binder. The one I am putting together isnotnearly as ambitious.
Middle Earth campaign binder:
Fold-out map of Middle Earth that came with some video game decades ago.
4-panel hex map of the North Ithilien campaign area.
Key for potentially 962 hexes, most hexes expected to be populated in game through random encounters and actions of the PCs/NPCs, 10-15% of hexes prepopulated.
List of D&D modules that have been placed on the key.
Random encounter chart.
Middle Earth -> D&D monster conversion notes.
Rumors chart.
Bounties list.
List of Ainur and various major Middle Earth NPCs.
Notes on the various Gondorien fiefs.
NPC list for the campaign area.
5e stats for various NPCs.
Osgiliath ruins map.
Osgiliath key.
Osgiliath random encounters.
Charts for 5e Dungeon & Wilderness travel rules.
Blank character sheets.
Lots of spare paper.
Sounds like a fair amount of work, though! Your hex generation stuff sounds neat, too.
Now that's Old School!
Me, I use a Tablet.
Quote from: RPGPundit;775066Now that's Old School!
Me, I use a Tablet.
Thank you for not making me feel I'm doing it wrong.:)
Quote from: RPGPundit;775066Now that's Old School!
Me, I use a Tablet.
If you use a tablet, I think I'm doing just fine with my laptop. I haven't had an actual binder for my GM stuff since high school (circa 2007-08).
Back in the day, we had to carry piles of hardcover books, lead miniatures, and stacks of paper in the snow, uphill, both ways.
Tablet!? QWhat is this newfangled sorcery!!!
I am far from a technophobe, but I have yet to get an iphone or tablet.
I think I am afraid I will lose the devices.
I like having a tablet (iPad) AND some paper to keep track of stuff. I think I'm repeating myself.
The thing is, switching between character sheets and various other things can be a little slower than I'd like.
But when it comes to large volumes of rules or information, I'd MUCH rather have a tablet than a book. Searchable, for one thing.
Heck, with Pathfinder, I just use PFSRD or the official Paizo PRD and don't actually use any local documents.
I don't have one binder. I have fourteen.
Eight of them (my white binders) are setting binders for significant kingdoms or empires. They generally follow the following sectional format:
* Kingdom/Realm overview
* Each neighborhood of the capital city
* Capital city index
* Royal/Imperial Demesne, with 2-5 pages apiece for key villages as applicable
* Each province, with a subsection for any significant city
* National military.
A couple of those binders are regional, and have sections each for relatively small nations, which may (but so far generally don't) have a separate section for their own capitals.
My rose-colored binder is for religions. The TOC is:
* Overview, which is a single page each on every major faith in my world, including templates for priesthoods and a bit on what adherents think of each other faith.
* Several pages of creation myth
* A full writeup of each religion, which includes mythology, what lay members do and what is expected of them, the priesthood, temple architecture, orders of service (marriage, funeral, dedication, standard blessings), hierarchy, religious orders, and an ecclesiastical calendar.
The lilac binder is the price list, with sections for:
* Arms & Armor
* Camping Gear
* Clothing
* Food & Beverages
* Household Goods
* Tools
* Leisure & Luxury
* Substances & Drugs
* Scholars' Equipment
* Magic & Alchemy
* Transport
* Building & Capital Equipment
* Miscellaneous
* Services & Salaries
* Coinage & Exchange Rates (which I admit is a 25 year old document, I no longer bother with, but still have in there for historical reasons)
The purple binder is the catch-all, which has sections for:
* Character Creation
* Skill List
* Advantages
* Disadvantages
* Techniques
* Races
* Orders & Guilds
* Wizardly Orders
* Apocrypha: Magic (houserules)
* Apocrypha: Combat
* Common Names
* Racial Names
* Calendar
* Bestiary
* Campaign Log
There are two thick binders which have spells reordered into the "Colleges" in use in my gameworld, followed by the new spells I've added to each.
The final binder is my "Run Charts" binder; it's relatively slender, and is for quick reference during play. It isn't set up in sections, but has, in order, critical hit and miss charts, critical spell failure chart, reaction table, Will roll chart for fright checks, structural damage table, weapon cheat sheets, attack roll modifiers, weather charts, UMana calamity table, cash-on-hand/NPC loot table, my multi-page Random Urban Shit table, my offbeat seacoast & mountain find tables, my Whimsy List, my Random Book creation table, and several pages of demographics creation charts.
Ravenswing's example is why I switched to my wiki 5 or so years ago. I'm not at full transferal yet, but getting there. In retrospect, I wish I'd done so long before. Editing, linking, searching, giving access to players...all good reasons.
Quote from: Zachary The First;773733I'm pretty sure it would stop a bullet.
it's never the wrong time for me to repost the greatest possible dialogue exchange:
-----
Bobby Blane: Sometimes adrenaline gives people the shakes, some might think it's cowardice, so maybe you'd want to pray about it.
Jimmy: I'm not a religious man.
Bobby Blane: There's nothing wrong with prayer. We knew this firefighter, this trooper, who always caried a bible next to his heart. We used to mock him, but that bible stopped a bullet.
Jimmy: No shit.
Bobby Blane: Hand of God, that bible stopped a bullet, would've ruined that fucker's heart. And had he had another bible in front of his face, that man would be alive today.
---
david mamet's HEIST, of course.
Quote from: LordVreeg;775227Ravenswing's example is why I switched to my wiki 5 or so years ago. I'm not at full transferal yet, but getting there. In retrospect, I wish I'd done so long before. Editing, linking, searching, giving access to players...all good reasons.
Mm, but I don't have a computer at the table, for a few good reasons, and doing up a wiki would involve considerably more work. For one thing, much of the stuff in the binders are things the players don't get to see. If I put everything up on a wiki, I'd have to have TWO wikis.
Honestly, I search through a binder almost as fast as I would computer files -- especially since I keep the number of binders large enough to avoid having to pore through a 500-pager.
As far as giving access to players? Eeesh. I've a private Yahoo group. I upload files as needed to the Files section. Piece of cake.
Quote from: Ravenswing;775306Mm, but I don't have a computer at the table, for a few good reasons, and doing up a wiki would involve considerably more work. For one thing, much of the stuff in the binders are things the players don't get to see. If I put everything up on a wiki, I'd have to have TWO wikis.
Honestly, I search through a binder almost as fast as I would computer files -- especially since I keep the number of binders large enough to avoid having to pore through a 500-pager.
As far as giving access to players? Eeesh. I've a private Yahoo group. I upload files as needed to the Files section. Piece of cake.
no one is doing it wrong.
but...You don't need 2 wikis, you just control permissions to pages. Piece of cake. I used the yahoo group, this turned out to be much faster. you can embed the lnks, and seachable is useful for you...and everyone else looking. PCs actually edit and contribute.
I can play anywhere. I run online games or live ones from the road, and my whole ruleset and setting and game notes come with me.
It works for you, and it is obviously a labor of love. but especially when you want the players to constantly have access to 600+ house created spells and the minute social notes...this way works for me, at least.
Quote from: Ravenswing;775201I don't have one binder. I have fourteen.
Eight of them (my white binders) are setting binders for significant kingdoms or empires. They generally follow the following sectional format:
* Kingdom/Realm overview
* Each neighborhood of the capital city
* Capital city index
* Royal/Imperial Demesne, with 2-5 pages apiece for key villages as applicable
* Each province, with a subsection for any significant city
* National military.
A couple of those binders are regional, and have sections each for relatively small nations, which may (but so far generally don't) have a separate section for their own capitals.
My rose-colored binder is for religions. The TOC is:
* Overview, which is a single page each on every major faith in my world, including templates for priesthoods and a bit on what adherents think of each other faith.
* Several pages of creation myth
* A full writeup of each religion, which includes mythology, what lay members do and what is expected of them, the priesthood, temple architecture, orders of service (marriage, funeral, dedication, standard blessings), hierarchy, religious orders, and an ecclesiastical calendar.
The lilac binder is the price list, with sections for:
* Arms & Armor
* Camping Gear
* Clothing
* Food & Beverages
* Household Goods
* Tools
* Leisure & Luxury
* Substances & Drugs
* Scholars' Equipment
* Magic & Alchemy
* Transport
* Building & Capital Equipment
* Miscellaneous
* Services & Salaries
* Coinage & Exchange Rates (which I admit is a 25 year old document, I no longer bother with, but still have in there for historical reasons)
The purple binder is the catch-all, which has sections for:
* Character Creation
* Skill List
* Advantages
* Disadvantages
* Techniques
* Races
* Orders & Guilds
* Wizardly Orders
* Apocrypha: Magic (houserules)
* Apocrypha: Combat
* Common Names
* Racial Names
* Calendar
* Bestiary
* Campaign Log
There are two thick binders which have spells reordered into the "Colleges" in use in my gameworld, followed by the new spells I've added to each.
The final binder is my "Run Charts" binder; it's relatively slender, and is for quick reference during play. It isn't set up in sections, but has, in order, critical hit and miss charts, critical spell failure chart, reaction table, Will roll chart for fright checks, structural damage table, weapon cheat sheets, attack roll modifiers, weather charts, UMana calamity table, cash-on-hand/NPC loot table, my multi-page Random Urban Shit table, my offbeat seacoast & mountain find tables, my Whimsy List, my Random Book creation table, and several pages of demographics creation charts.
You have a sickness sir. And I can't believe this but I'm in agreement with LordVreeg, I suggest you bookmark it.
Quote from: Marleycat;775461You have a sickness sir. And I can't believe this but I'm in agreement with LordVreeg, I suggest you bookmark it.
(shrugs) Wouldn't save me a bit of time. There's no discernible difference between typing something into a file and typing it onto a wiki, or posting a document to my Yahoo group and posting it onto a wiki. (Except, of course, that with the former I don't have to bother with wiki markup codes.)
Quote from: Ravenswing;775469(shrugs) Wouldn't save me a bit of time. There's no discernible difference between typing something into a file and typing it onto a wiki, or posting a document to my Yahoo group and posting it onto a wiki. (Except, of course, that with the former I don't have to bother with wiki markup codes.)
I was just funnin' with you.
Quote from: Ravenswing;775469(shrugs) Wouldn't save me a bit of time. There's no discernible difference between typing something into a file and typing it onto a wiki, or posting a document to my Yahoo group and posting it onto a wiki. (Except, of course, that with the former I don't have to bother with wiki markup codes.)
Most use a WYSIWYG editor anyway, my friend. And having done it both ways..and I have...after a while it saves time. Not at first.
Quote from: Zachary The First;773713Thought I'd share this over here, too. I finally got my GM's Binder put together. I had scans, pdf printouts, and notes over a ton of folders.
Here's the end result:
Cool.
I have one of those too for my Mekton game, but it's just Mechs, Characters, and equipment.
I prefer paper and notebooks to electronic solutions. For me it just takes something away from tabletop RPGs when everything is data in a electronic device.
Quote from: Gabriel2;775629Cool.
I have one of those too for my Mekton game, but it's just Mechs, Characters, and equipment.
I prefer paper and notebooks to electronic solutions. For me it just takes something away from tabletop RPGs when everything is data in a electronic device.
I like it that the term 'pen and paper' is used...even though it is not what I do, it is still a term i like.
Quote from: Ravenswing;775469There's no discernible difference between typing something into a file and typing it onto a wiki, or posting a document to my Yahoo group and posting it onto a wiki.
One of the interesting things I am discovering about working on a Wiki, is it allows you to quickly identify things that you may need to write about. The fact that you can access backlinks and see exactly what links to what I am also finding quite interesting.
As always its finding the tools that work for you, but for me I am definitely finding some benefits to how using the wiki is organising my writing.
Quote from: Marleycat;775067Thank you for not making me feel I'm doing it wrong.:)
I fucking love my Nexus; it is the perfect aid to running a tabletop game.
With the bluetooth keyboard, it's like a tiny awesome computer.
I'm not a huge technophile, but in this I was ahead of my time; about 15 years ago I had a Palmpilot with a keyboard attachment, and I fucking loved that thing. I could do all my writing while sitting at a cafe. The tablet is like that, with a totally different order of magnitude of awesomeness.