Confessions of a Game-Mistress

1) Keep all your notes accessible. I have both a wiki, and a small notebook for important names and relationships that goes with me everywhere. I recommend the unlined Moleskins, or watch for the ones you can find with lines on one side and not on the other for the best of both worlds.

2) Get over your attachment to the rulebooks. You can’t carry everything with you, and you wouldn’t want to if you could. d20SRD.org is awesome if you’re on wireless or are registered so you can download an offline copy. Still, why leave yourself dependent on it? The story’s the important part. Just tell it.

3) Keep a d20 in your bag. You can get away with just that. Carry a set if you want, but a d20 means you have a quick means of determining random events.

You can also do seat of your pants determinations by asking the player to pick a number between 1 and 20 after picking one yourself. If they hit your number right on, it’s a 20. If they’re below, count backwards the number of spaces they missed from 20, and you have their number. If they’re over, count up that many and that’s their roll. For example, I’m in the car with a friend and we’re gaming on the go. Her character is trying to negotiate a tricky ledge. I ask her for a number between 1 and 20. (I’ve arbitrarily chosen 7 because it’s the last digit of the license plate that just passed.) Her choice is 16. It’s higher than my number by 9, so 9 is her ‘roll’. If she’d chosen 6, I’d have counted down by the one she missed it by, and her ‘roll’ would have been a 19. (Makes more sense after you play with it for a bit.) It falls down on the randomness aspect, in my experience. I can usually tell what numbers my players will guess, and I know the same ones come out of my mouth as a player each time.

That’s what I’ve got this time. If you have ideas or tricks, please add them to the comments!