Tech | Youseph Tanha

How To Make Game Notes For Dungeons & Dragons

Recently I have been reading a lot of blogs related to Dungeons & Dragons. More recently I have been interested in posts related to Dungeon Masters of the game finding ways to save time. For those of you not formilare with D&D, it can take a lot of time to prep for a game as a Dungeon Master. I have come across lots of great ideas on the Internet. Many of them I want to work into my current game or the next game I start DMing for. But for this post I want to talk about game notes and how they help me and my group save time.

Game Notes are basically a summery of what happened at the last game. I e-mail the game notes out to give all my players a chance to read over the notes and be ready for the next time we all sit down and play. Because everyone reads the notes we don’t waist a lot of time anymore reviewing what happened at last weeks game.

My current Dungeons and Dragons game consists of 5 Player Characters and Myself as the Dungeon Master. The vast majority of everyone at my game is new to D&D. Recently I have asked someone to be the scribe of the game. Someone who will take bullet point notes of what happens during each game so I can have something that will jog my memory for later when I am writing my game notes. In my current group that task falls to the same person each time but there is not reason why that task can’t switch from person to person at each game.

When writing game notes to be e-mailed out I try very hard never to let the notes go over one page in length. Just focus on the important stuff of the last game. Things that might be issues or plot points for future games. I also include information on where the next game will be held, time, and what kind of food will be available. I also only write using plain text. I am somewhat old school when it comes to e-mail. I don’t believe e-mail was designed for html letters to be sent with fancy fonts and colors. I just write mine in plain text and I worked hard to make sure I found a formatting that works for me.

Below is an example of game notes pretty much take from one of my past games.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME:

[-] DAZED AND CONFUSED.:
Our Adventures from TEAM POWER AWESOME TEAM went to sleep in a cosy
little inn just inside of the Kingdom of Toss, but they awoke to find
them selves shackled to a wall of a room under ground with bite marks
all over their bodies. If things couldn’t be worse each member of our
elite band of adventures had contracted Filth fever. With the help of
TOTAL TEAM POWER member Salandra, everyone was able to escape from
their shackles.

[-] LET ME OUT OF HERE!:
The next issue for our group of brave souls was to just get out of the
room they had become imprisoned in. The room had two exiting doors.
Both where locked with no obvious way out. Snort tried opening the
first door by pulling down on a near by touch lever but only found
himself to be come electrocuted while doing so. Scorcha (with the aid
of her familiar, Ember) was able to hold the touch down with out
becoming electrocuted. The door open and Snort got shot with a cross
bow bolt to the chest. Ember also retrieved a key to the second door
allowing Irana to locate all of TEAM UNOBTAINIUM POWER AWESOME TEAM
POWER’s belongings. Including her much beloved books as some other new
items such as a bag of holding.

[-] WHO IS BEHIND ALL OF THIS?:
TOTAL TEAM POWER AWESOME discovers the Rat King sitting alone in one
of the under ground chambers with the lamp of Ordu before him. Through
questioning they learn that the Rat King is one of the sons of King
Duran. Hammer Duran. IT is learned that Hammer has been chasing his
evil brother Samuel all over the lands trying to capture the lamp of
Ordu before he could. By the end of the story Hammer Duran sets Ordu
free from his imprisoned life with in the lamp. As a result Ordu
quickly ages and turns into dust. Irana collects the dust and puts it
in her bag of holding.

Our party members from TRIPPLE ACTION FORCE TEAM, along with the help
of hammer mallet are working on a plan to warn the King of Toss of the
impending danger to him and his kingdom. Hammer’s evil brother Samuel
and Samuel’s death knight are making there way ever close to the
kingdom.

NOTES ON THE GAME SO FAR
[-]King Duran of the kingdom of Toss
[-][-]Prince Samuel Duran (aka Father Mallet)
[-][-]Prince Hammer Duran
Adolescent bickering ended up with both princes being banished from
Toss until they can straiten up.
[-] Death knight is the re-animated corps of Sir Timbulton.

GAME INFO
[-} Location: Yoshi and Hannah’s
[-] Time: Saturday the 9th at 2pm.
[-] Food: No clue. I will e-mail something when I have an idea. Suggestions?
[-] Contribute: Since I don’t know what we are going to eat feel free
to bring anything you enjoy. Drinks, snacks, food.

Steve Jobs Quote

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would i want to do what i am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something… almost everything – all external expectations,all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose.

Steve Jobs, college dropout and CEO of Apple Computer, Stanford University Commencement, 2005

Dungeons & Dragons Introduction Video

Yesterday I was looking at the Wizards of the Cost website and discover a new link “New To D&D Videos“. They have a great YouTube video on that page called “Introduction to D&D”. It is one of the better videos for people who are just learning about Dungeons & Dragons. So if your new to D&D, have never played, or just want to understand why i keep writing about it on my site here, Take a minute and watch this video. Hopefully it will answer some questions.

To Be Continued…

The iPod Dice Tower

I have no clue what the HELL came over me or what possessed me to do this. I feel like I had a real ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘ moment. You know the scene where Richard Dreyfuss is eating diner with his family, and he uncontrollably starts sculpting the Devils Tower from his mashed potatoes? That’s how I felt! I just saw these two Apple iPod Touch boxes lying around and I uncontrollably starting building a dice tower out of them with a rubber band, an exact-o knife, and some super glue. It took me about 45 minutes.

I have had dice towers on my mind. They seem like a good idea and a sure fire way to increase the randomness of ones dice roll.

After building the iPod Dice Tower and showing it to my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group, the response was not what I hoped for. Everyone seemed very impressed for the first round of game play, but after that everyone switched back to just rolling their dice on the game table.

Here is how you can make an iPod Touch Box Dice Tower

1.) You need to iPod Touch boxes. Not just a top and a bottom but two complete boxes. You will also need an exact-o knife (modeling knife) and Super Glue

2.) You can see how the top iPod Touch box holds the bottom iPod Touch box insides it’s self. The bottom of the box has a layer of foam attached to it which makes for a soft landing for your dice.

3.) Next we are going to be prepping the hard plastic case that held the iPod Touch still in the it’s box.

4.) Being very careful with the knife your going to want to cut the top 3rd of the plastic case off. This will be used as one of the “Shelfs” that the dice will bounce off inside your iPod dice tower.

5.) Here you can see how I have attached the 2 cut off sections of the plastic case and super glued them inside the bottoms of 2 the iPod Touch boxes. One close tot he top and one close to the bottom.

6.) Carefully using the exact-o knife I cut out a square on the top of the box. I also cut and exit hole on the bottom of the same box. Here I am using a rubber band to hold the to bottom boxes together and placed them inside the top of the foam filled iPod Box

7.) Using super glue I attached the last 3rd of the plastic case to the top of the new iPod Dice tower. The whole in the plastic case just happens to the right size for a standard set of gaming dice.

To Be Continued…

Do Dice Matter?

I don’t know. But when I watched the following videos found on the GameScience website it’s hard not to drink the Kool-Aid.

Being a Dungeons and Dragons player, and Dungeon Master, it’s a scary thought to think that all the games you have been involved with have not bin fare. On the other hand, I (and my friends) have had a lot of fun playing D&D and would a set of dice that cost a few bucks more really affect our game play in a positive way at all? I don’t know. If I ever am lucky enough to be at GenCon or find a set of GameScience dice at gaming store I am sure I will pick up a set for myself. But I don’t know if they are worth the price to order on-line and have them shipped to Juneau Alaska.

To Be Continued…