#RPGaDay2017 Day 27: “Just the basics ma’am.”

Better late than never… again! And this is the last Sunday post for #RPGaDay2017. This is the home stretch, 4 days to go! It is still day 27 in my time zone, so here we go:

August 27: What are your essential tools for good gaming?

The simple answer, technology! “But this is tabletop gaming Roberto. Where we game we don’t need technology!” I grant you that if you say that, you’d be mostly right. Allow me to elaborate.

True that when playing an RPG, with a few dice, the books, paper and pencil and our imagination we can travel to any world and do anything. But times have changed, and as a GM I rely in technology more and more to run my games. From campaign management, to preparation, to running the game at the table. These days I think twice before running a game that at least doesn’t have electronic versions of the books.

Just with basic productivity tools (MS Office or Google Docs), a messaging program, and access to the Internet I run a game, share information with my players and stay in touch with them at the table and beyond. Technology enhances my gaming experience and that of my players. That’s my pragmatic answer.

If I want to get philosophical, and it would be hard to call them tools but bear with me, would be a shared desire to have fun and like minded friends willing to go together into the realms of imagination. Still sounds good… Hope you all have that in your games.

What is your essential tool?

The companion to this series of posts are our vide responses to the questions of #RPGaDay2017 over at the Desde la Fosa YouTube channel. Me and the team at Desde la Fosa are recording our answers in Spanish. If you speak the language we appreciate the views, if you don’t, we are thankful for any shares.

See you all tomorrow!

Welcome, reader; thanks for taking the time to discover who I am! My name is Roberto, although I usually go by Sunglar online. I am a longtime tabletop RPG player, primarily a GM for the better part of that time; some will say that’s because of my love of telling a good story, others because I’m a control freak, but that’s debatable. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean with a small but active gaming community. I’ve played RPGs for almost 40 years, and for most of that time, I played D&D in all its permutations, including Pathfinder and D&D 5th edition. Other games our regular gaming group plays include Mutants & Masterminds, Castles & Crusades, Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Alien, and more. I have played many games through the years and plan to play many more. I am a compulsive homebrewer and rarely play a campaign I have not created myself. You can follow me on social media as Sunglar, and I’m regularly active on Facebook where you can find me posting regularly in the Puerto Rico Role Players group. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

2 comments

comments user
Peter R.

One of my favourite gaming sessions I ever played took place on bicycles, we were playing AD&D and using the hundredths and thousandths digits of a stopwatch to make the dice rolls. We just estimated the percentages to get as close to a d8 or d6 as needed. We all knew our character sheets. We spent a few hours cycling along country lanes and played D&D at the same time.

That is a long way from now needed a tablet PC and online rules repositories!

    comments user
    Sunglar

    Well that’s certainly a new way to play! I did play a couple of session of a sci-fi game while out on a walk with some friends. I kept a pair of dice in my pocket.