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Author Topic: Behold The GM's Binder!  (Read 5234 times)

Zachary The First

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« on: July 30, 2014, 09:33:34 PM »
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:



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?
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Currently Prepping: Castles & Crusades
Currently Reading/Brainstorming: Mythras
Currently Revisiting: Napoleonic/Age of Sail in Space

Rincewind1

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2014, 09:41:39 PM »
Cool - I admit I am a "21st century" GM, Scrivener and pendrive is my binder :D.
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Novastar

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2014, 09:46:43 PM »
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.
Quote from: dragoner;776244
Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn't what I play rpg's for.

Will

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2014, 09:54:44 PM »
Oh hey, that's cool! And doubles as a buckler!
This forum is great in that the moderators aren't jack-booted fascists.

Unfortunately, this forum is filled with total a-holes, including a bunch of rape culture enabling dillholes.

So embracing the 'no X is better than bad X,' I'm out of here. If you need to find me I'm sure you can.

Larsdangly

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2014, 09:58:39 PM »
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.

Novastar

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2014, 10:23:28 PM »
With graph paper. LOTS of graph paper.
Quote from: dragoner;776244
Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn't what I play rpg's for.

Zachary The First

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2014, 10:34:49 PM »
Quote from: Will;773721
Oh 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. :)
RPG Blog 2

Currently Prepping: Castles & Crusades
Currently Reading/Brainstorming: Mythras
Currently Revisiting: Napoleonic/Age of Sail in Space

Will

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2014, 10:37:36 PM »
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.
This forum is great in that the moderators aren't jack-booted fascists.

Unfortunately, this forum is filled with total a-holes, including a bunch of rape culture enabling dillholes.

So embracing the 'no X is better than bad X,' I'm out of here. If you need to find me I'm sure you can.

Just Another Snake Cult

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2014, 10:37:53 PM »
Sweet!
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Zachary The First

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2014, 10:53:26 PM »
Quote from: Will;773734
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.


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. :)
RPG Blog 2

Currently Prepping: Castles & Crusades
Currently Reading/Brainstorming: Mythras
Currently Revisiting: Napoleonic/Age of Sail in Space

Will

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2014, 11:01:41 PM »
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...
This forum is great in that the moderators aren't jack-booted fascists.

Unfortunately, this forum is filled with total a-holes, including a bunch of rape culture enabling dillholes.

So embracing the 'no X is better than bad X,' I'm out of here. If you need to find me I'm sure you can.

Marleycat

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2014, 11:46:16 PM »
Wow! Pen drive and winging it on the fly for me though.:)
Don't mess with cats we kill wizards in one blow.;)

David Johansen

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2014, 12:00:42 AM »
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.
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dragoner
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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2014, 01:58:29 AM »
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.
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The Ent

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Behold The GM's Binder!
« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2014, 09:44:45 AM »
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.