RPGaDay 2024: Awesome App
Apps to aid your roleplaying experience
Two apps that I’ve been using since I ran Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in (at that point) in almost 30 years are Game Master 5 and Fight Club 5 from Lion’s Den. Originally, I could only get these on the iPad/iPhone, but it now works on MacOS, and Android, if I’m not mistaken.
Game Master 5 is a campaign aid — it allows you to store character data, adventures, create and automate encounters. It’ll roll dice for you. There’s an open-license compendium of critters, spells, etc. that you can find without having to flip through the rulebooks. The look and functionality are excellent, and I’ve been using it for various D&D campaigns that have been run for the last seven years or so…
It also pairs well with their Fight Club 5 — a player’s app that aids in character creation and management. The files created in Fight Club can be ported over into the GM5 app so that the GM can better manage the action, but sometimes the transfer is not perfect. (You have to save the characters as an XML file, then add them in.) Again, the info used seems to be open-game license, so you might have to add in other material — which is easy enough. I added in material from some of the campaign books I have with no real trouble, but it can be time consuming.
The apps ran me $2.99 each for full functionality and were well worth it.
An honorable mention goes to the excellent web app for Star Trek Adventures managed by BC Holmes. Here you can build characters, starships, put together sectors, and the like. It’s fully up to date for the first edition of STA, but they haven’t implemented the 2e stuff fully, yet. You can export what you create on character sheets, ship sheets with different looks — TNG, TOS, Klingon campaign. I use this a bunch; it’s easier to cook up a supporting character on the fly using the site than to go through the books.
