I am working on a homebrew campaign and one thing I learnt from running my last campaign is that I need a better way to track all my NPC's I generally enjoy doing most of my organizing on my computer whether it be on a site like DnD Beyond or a PDF of some sorts.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to where i can make and keep a list of all my NPC profiles without having to just writ them all up on a word document?
Your help and suggestions are appreciated! Thank you so much :D
Google Docs creates a sidebar contents that you can easily navigate to headings with, so that's an option - but it is effectively a long document with everything thrown in. There are various online options like Obsidian Portal, but depends what level of complexity you want.
I prefer Onenote for this. Its a free word processor, but it treats your notes more like an actual notebook rather than a collection of documents sitting in a file folder. And like a notebook, you can jump to any page in any order (rather than have a single file with hundreds of pages to scroll through or jump past to get to the one you want), and easily rearrange them. You can organize the digital notebook with section groups, tabs, etc.
Usually my Notebook will have a Tab named "Characters", under which I will store all my individual character pages. If its a large campaign with several locations and important characters in each place then I might use pages under the Characters Tab to help sort my NPCs by location (a page called "NPCs in Waterdeep", another called "NPCs in NeverWinter", etc) and then have the actual character pages be sub-pages of those (which will let you collapse entire lists).
Ultimately though, the best part of the program is that the search and page loading is instant, so you can have the exact notes you want on your screen before you can even finish typing out the name of who or what you're looking for, regardless of where the page itself is actually stored.
Wow! I had no idea Onenote could be so useful ~ I always ignored it and got mad at it when my print button would put files there instead of printing. I'll check it out! Thanks so much :)
I prefer Onenote for this. Its a free word processor, but it treats your notes more like an actual notebook rather than a collection of documents sitting in a file folder. And like a notebook, you can jump to any page in any order (rather than have a single file with hundreds of pages to scroll through or jump past to get to the one you want), and easily rearrange them. You can organize the digital notebook with section groups, tabs, etc.
Usually my Notebook will have a Tab named "Characters", under which I will store all my individual character pages. If its a large campaign with several locations and important characters in each place then I might use pages under the Characters Tab to help sort my NPCs by location (a page called "NPCs in Waterdeep", another called "NPCs in NeverWinter", etc) and then have the actual character pages be sub-pages of those (which will let you collapse entire lists).
Ultimately though, the best part of the program is that the search and page loading is instant, so you can have the exact notes you want on your screen before you can even finish typing out the name of who or what you're looking for, regardless of where the page itself is actually stored.
Hello,
What are you using to create the NPC`S that visually looks like that?
I prefer Onenote for this. Its a free word processor, but it treats your notes more like an actual notebook rather than a collection of documents sitting in a file folder. And like a notebook, you can jump to any page in any order (rather than have a single file with hundreds of pages to scroll through or jump past to get to the one you want), and easily rearrange them. You can organize the digital notebook with section groups, tabs, etc.
Usually my Notebook will have a Tab named "Characters", under which I will store all my individual character pages. If its a large campaign with several locations and important characters in each place then I might use pages under the Characters Tab to help sort my NPCs by location (a page called "NPCs in Waterdeep", another called "NPCs in NeverWinter", etc) and then have the actual character pages be sub-pages of those (which will let you collapse entire lists).
Ultimately though, the best part of the program is that the search and page loading is instant, so you can have the exact notes you want on your screen before you can even finish typing out the name of who or what you're looking for, regardless of where the page itself is actually stored.
Hello,
What are you using to create the NPC`S that visually looks like that?
If you mean the pictures, I'm pretty sure they're from Tomb of Annihilation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
I prefer Onenote for this. Its a free word processor, but it treats your notes more like an actual notebook rather than a collection of documents sitting in a file folder. And like a notebook, you can jump to any page in any order (rather than have a single file with hundreds of pages to scroll through or jump past to get to the one you want), and easily rearrange them. You can organize the digital notebook with section groups, tabs, etc.
Usually my Notebook will have a Tab named "Characters", under which I will store all my individual character pages. If its a large campaign with several locations and important characters in each place then I might use pages under the Characters Tab to help sort my NPCs by location (a page called "NPCs in Waterdeep", another called "NPCs in NeverWinter", etc) and then have the actual character pages be sub-pages of those (which will let you collapse entire lists).
Ultimately though, the best part of the program is that the search and page loading is instant, so you can have the exact notes you want on your screen before you can even finish typing out the name of who or what you're looking for, regardless of where the page itself is actually stored.
Hello,
What are you using to create the NPC`S that visually looks like that?
If you mean the pictures, I'm pretty sure they're from Tomb of Annihilation.
Not the picture, the organised text and stats that looks like from the MM.
I use OneNote alot, but I also am using Trello -- I'm currently using both for the same thing and trying to decide which I like more, I think I'm leaning toward OneNote. Both are free tools which is great, both "sync" to the cloud so can be accessed from multiple devices without taking extra steps, however OneNote is available offline where Trello is hosted solution (you need Internet to get there).
also, the formatting above by MichaelT is freaking awesome, I have not done that, but have spent tons of time just making tables/sections for stat blocks and descriptions trying to find something that works. The above looks so much better.
I believe I've seen this page format in "Onenote 5E SRD", you can get it on DMs Guild, they have a lot of stuff for OneNote as well as many other formats.
Wow, I did not know OneNote could be so versatile. I have not really used it much -- just started making some campaign notes in it and it seemed pretty basic but I was just using pages on one tab and not really trying to organize it that much yet. But I can see how this type of layout would be really useful.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Vedexent -- have you tried World Anvil? You have to pay for the features you're going to really want, but you can try the basic features for free and see if it has what you want. I think it does the cross-linking like crazy that you want.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I believe I've seen this page format in "Onenote 5E SRD", you can get it on DMs Guild, they have a lot of stuff for OneNote as well as many other formats.
I'm going to look into this. Thanks for pointing it out!
I am now :) A number of people keep advocating World Anvil - so I signed up.
Looks big and complex - that's OK, that means it's likely powerful and flexible. Guess I have some learning to do :)
I want to state that I am actually NOT advocating it. I have tried it a little and it seems fine but I am not saying it is good or bad, just that it exists.
One major issue I have with it is potential longevity (or not). My understanding is that World Anvil was started by a guy to help his wife organize her world-building for either writing or gaming (not sure which), and they decided to release it to people and others found it useful, so they made it a "thing" on the internet. But it literally is a mom-and-pop operation, so my concern putting everything on it is, they run out of money or time or interest or whatever, and it goes away after I have put all my time and energy into it.
I worry about that with a lot of free/cheap online services. I got burned already earlier this year by Cite-u-like, which was an online way of, for free, storing references, had almost 2,000 references in it -- no emails, no warnings from them, one day I went to look something up and it was gone. Thankfully I had a backup but, if I had not, I'd have been hosed.
The "cloud" is nice and all but it is not fool-proof. I like it if I can keep a local copy -- which I am not sure if you can do with World Anvil.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Hello Fellow DM's
I am working on a homebrew campaign and one thing I learnt from running my last campaign is that I need a better way to track all my NPC's
I generally enjoy doing most of my organizing on my computer whether it be on a site like DnD Beyond or a PDF of some sorts.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to where i can make and keep a list of all my NPC profiles without having to just writ them all up on a word document?
Your help and suggestions are appreciated! Thank you so much :D
Google Docs creates a sidebar contents that you can easily navigate to headings with, so that's an option - but it is effectively a long document with everything thrown in. There are various online options like Obsidian Portal, but depends what level of complexity you want.
I prefer Onenote for this. Its a free word processor, but it treats your notes more like an actual notebook rather than a collection of documents sitting in a file folder. And like a notebook, you can jump to any page in any order (rather than have a single file with hundreds of pages to scroll through or jump past to get to the one you want), and easily rearrange them. You can organize the digital notebook with section groups, tabs, etc.
Usually my Notebook will have a Tab named "Characters", under which I will store all my individual character pages. If its a large campaign with several locations and important characters in each place then I might use pages under the Characters Tab to help sort my NPCs by location (a page called "NPCs in Waterdeep", another called "NPCs in NeverWinter", etc) and then have the actual character pages be sub-pages of those (which will let you collapse entire lists).
Ultimately though, the best part of the program is that the search and page loading is instant, so you can have the exact notes you want on your screen before you can even finish typing out the name of who or what you're looking for, regardless of where the page itself is actually stored.
Wow! I had no idea Onenote could be so useful ~ I always ignored it and got mad at it when my print button would put files there instead of printing. I'll check it out! Thanks so much :)
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
I use OneNote alot, but I also am using Trello -- I'm currently using both for the same thing and trying to decide which I like more, I think I'm leaning toward OneNote. Both are free tools which is great, both "sync" to the cloud so can be accessed from multiple devices without taking extra steps, however OneNote is available offline where Trello is hosted solution (you need Internet to get there).
Here is a post I made previously showing what I did in Trello based on someone else's idea that I came across.
also, the formatting above by MichaelT is freaking awesome, I have not done that, but have spent tons of time just making tables/sections for stat blocks and descriptions trying to find something that works. The above looks so much better.
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
Wave!
That's all done in OneNote, just some basic tables plus a little text formatting.
I believe I've seen this page format in "Onenote 5E SRD", you can get it on DMs Guild, they have a lot of stuff for OneNote as well as many other formats.
Wow, I did not know OneNote could be so versatile. I have not really used it much -- just started making some campaign notes in it and it seemed pretty basic but I was just using pages on one tab and not really trying to organize it that much yet. But I can see how this type of layout would be really useful.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I've been using this one of late:
https://harmlesskey.com/
It lets you track NPCs, but also put together encounters, and run encounters with initiative, hit point, condition, etc. tracking.
For me the one thing that most document/organizers fall down is on cross-references - and I want to cross-link everything :p
Perhaps I'm just not digging deep enough into one note.
I'd love it if MediaWiki wasn't such a huge sprawling mess of a server stack to install, personally.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Vedexent -- have you tried World Anvil? You have to pay for the features you're going to really want, but you can try the basic features for free and see if it has what you want. I think it does the cross-linking like crazy that you want.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I am now :) A number of people keep advocating World Anvil - so I signed up.
Looks big and complex - that's OK, that means it's likely powerful and flexible. Guess I have some learning to do :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I'm going to look into this. Thanks for pointing it out!
I want to state that I am actually NOT advocating it. I have tried it a little and it seems fine but I am not saying it is good or bad, just that it exists.
One major issue I have with it is potential longevity (or not). My understanding is that World Anvil was started by a guy to help his wife organize her world-building for either writing or gaming (not sure which), and they decided to release it to people and others found it useful, so they made it a "thing" on the internet. But it literally is a mom-and-pop operation, so my concern putting everything on it is, they run out of money or time or interest or whatever, and it goes away after I have put all my time and energy into it.
I worry about that with a lot of free/cheap online services. I got burned already earlier this year by Cite-u-like, which was an online way of, for free, storing references, had almost 2,000 references in it -- no emails, no warnings from them, one day I went to look something up and it was gone. Thankfully I had a backup but, if I had not, I'd have been hosed.
The "cloud" is nice and all but it is not fool-proof. I like it if I can keep a local copy -- which I am not sure if you can do with World Anvil.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm an IT Analyst by trade. I'm aware that "The Cloud" is a handy shortcut that really means "other people's computers" :p
One thing I did check before subscribing was that it has an export function - so I can backup my data in case the site goes poof : http://blog.worldanvil.com/2018/09/30/new-feature-world-exporting/
But no matter how it rolls out, I hereby acknowledge that you are in no way responsible for my choice ;)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Ah, I have not dug around enough to have found exporting. That is a good thing (tm).
I might try it now... although One Note has a certain appeal now that I've been toying with it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I've found DokuWiki strikes a decent balance, though I did consider using WorldAnvil.