PBeM / PBMB and Bookeeping

While play testing continues, I as GM am finding the book keeping needed for extended melees to be cumbersome. This not really specific to PUCS, although is some sense PUCs damage by zones does add to the complexity of data management more then I had expected.

Play testing has been performed lately in PBeM (actually PBMB - Play by Message Board), because we have some new parents, many holidays, much travel etc. Since I am GM, our established procedure for game play has made me responsible for everything in the game. Not only do I track the NPCs and build maps, but I also track the PCs and make all the dice rolls. This has been going on for some months now and I have settled into certain patterns that make it a little easier.

I make heavy use of a spreadsheet. You could use Excel or Google Docs, because I do not do anything fancy. I have tab for each PC with all their details. I have a tab for a mission log, where I keep track of each round and events. This has been useful because in visiting the game only a few minutes a day, I can not remember all that has gone on, but in a few seconds I can refresh myself. Also elements of this log end up as posts on the Message board.

I also do all the dice rolling in the spreadsheet. Some may not prefer that, that is fine, but it works really well for me as the dice are not always handy when I need a roll or three. The dice rolling has become more elaborate over the last two months. I do not use a script /r 3d6+. Rather I have a dozen or so common PUCS rolls written in simple formulas, that I can recalculate with a keystroke. It has become so fast that I can process the dice rolling part of melee in a few seconds.

For the map, I still use MapTool. This tool works really well for me and is indispensable for PBeM/PBMB. I take a screen shot (from the tool) and upload the image to http://flickr.com/ If this were PBeM I could just attach the images in each email, but on the message board, its easier (for me at least) to link to an image. Although our board also supports attachments, I prefer the Flickr links. The Flickr links are scalable, players can really zoom and examine the map if they choose too. Furthermore since I keep the images in set for the campaign, players can easily review all the images directly in flickr (for example: http://flickr.com/photos/8832225@N08/sets/72157604384209063/ ). Naturally they can review them on the message board also. In the end this give GMs and Players more options. More options with no additional effort, can not be a bad thing. If you are not familiar with flickr, I use a free account which is limited to 100MB of uploads per month. I have never even come close to that limit yet. You can also have a paid account but I have yet to need one.