A Brief Introduction to RPG Tools

When playing role playing games, players and GMs have a wealth of resources to aid both preparation and active play. Character creation can be easier with digital character sheets. A wealth of information to make characters and design scenarios is easy to find. Play can be streamlined with dice rollers or virtual tabletops. Using these tools can make playing and running games much easier.

For players, creating characters is much easier than back in the 70's. Most game companies have released pdfs of their character sheets. Some have programs for character generation, like Eclipse Phase’s Singularity. Visit the company’s website and see if these aids are available. If there are no official means, check communities for the game for fan made sheets.

For both player and GM, there are many avenues of research to be used. For making characters, there are resources to name them. We use the website Behind the Name to help create character names. You can search for individual names or use random generators to choose names. To flesh out the characters, or for scenario design, there are many places to find information. Expanding your searches, such as using quotation marks or synonyms, will get you a greater variety of links. The more places you look, the more facts or info you can find to flesh things out.

Once the game has started, there are programs to help make the games easier to play. There are dice rolling apps so that people don’t need physical dice. Some of these apps can be shared so everyone can see the rolls people make. There are also visualization apps, whether it’s 2D maps or full 3D spaces like Tabletop Simulator. There’s also apps to communicate, like Discord and Skype.

These tools make gaming a lot easier than it was even 10 years ago. With these tools it’s easier to make characters, make scenarios, and play the games. It’s also easier to play with people, anywhere in the world. Utilizing them in your games can help improve everyone’s experiences.