April 2014 Blog Carnival: The Game Master’s Binder – That’s a Wrap

It may have taken a while for the posts to come but thanks to those that contributed to this month’s blog carnival The Game Master’s Binder.

After my initial offering which covered my use of Evernote as my GM Binder we were privileged to hear from another half dozen bloggers on the topic.

Over at The Warehouse of Trinkets an interesting take on the topic, using a catalog instead of a binder. The thought is that carrying a folder with a number of RPG related items in it serves as a great resource for the GM when pressed into service. I like the idea as it’s similar to my ‘ideas’ notebook but it takes it a step further by including free RPG rules as well.

We next get a distinctively different feel from The Gaming Blog of General Tangent who, being British, lends an international point of view and gives us an interesting post that shares his binder evolution. Here’s another example of someone that has moved through paper into digital and shares some of the challenges that having your campaign material tied up in desktop software brings to the table.

Phil over at Tales of a GM shares his journey as well. He’s settled on a ‘mix and match’ setup that combines both the digital and analog worlds. What makes this article is that Phil takes some time to explain his issues with using technology – things like power and space for the laptop. I can definitely sympathize with his issues as I encountered a number of them when I used a laptop as a player and had a tendency to actually need more space than most of the other players (often needing more space than the GM!), go figure.

Over at World Builder Blog James starts us on his journey, from the composition notebook. I remember using these for school but not as a place to keep my GM notes. James then goes on to share some of his Google Drive setup and how he uses email and a wiki to keep his players informed. He also takes some time to share the other tools he uses to store items relating to his campaign and what tool he’s looking forward to using in the future (assuming it does make it to the Mac).

So, please raise your hand if you ever programmed your own GM binder/screen system. I know I made a feeble attempt at one many, many, moons ago but that’s exactly the idea behind the binder that Elthos RPG shares with us. We start with the humble beginnings of a self made screen and then move through the creation of his current tool.

We close out the month with the evolution of the binder of RPGames.be. This post, like many of the ones before it, chronicles the move from paper, to digital, to something of a mix. What makes this binder’s final form interesting is that it is not just a combination of paper and software, but also the GM’s gaming blog as well (something I’ve tried in the past myself and may do again).

So there you have it, the wrap up for the April Blog Carnival be sure to check out all Blog Carnival’s Home Page for a full listing of all the carnivals that have been run.

May your dice roll well.