Christmas Loot DM's Notebook

My wife listened to me well and got me an awesome present this Christmas.  She bought me two really nice large blank unlined hardcover notebooks with sturdy bindings to use for my DM's notes. She got my name inscribed on the front and a dark brick red cover that reminds me of some old textbooks I have.  I usually scribble my notes in random lined notebooks, on graph paper or in art notebooks.  None of those typically hold up well in my backpack as they are used heavily for a year.  My usual DM's notebooks are a tattered wreck by the time I fill them up and move on to the next one.  These feel really solid, the binding looks great and the book opens up rather nicely.

The stats:  168 pages, cover dimensions: 13 3/4" x 9 1/8" x 7/8", inside page dimension:  13 1/2" x 8 7/8"

Here is the new book open to my first page of notes, with my other active notebook of standard size paper open on top of it for comparison.

Here is the book closed with the regular notebook closed for comparison.

Here is the binding from the outside.

After I fill up these two she is going to buy me new and different ones, so from here on out I will have an awesome collection of my DMs notes, well bound in sturdy hardcover.

DM's Trick: Name Lists

Name Lists

Name lists always turn out to be one of the most useful things I can do for a campaign in play.  For every language group in my campaign world I have a list of names, at least a full page in 12 point font, of male and female names.  I use common names in different real word languages; I prefer lists that have a quick description of name meaning when I compile these "DM's Cheat Sheats".  A little bit of time spent Googling and Copy Pasting into notepad and printing out a few pages of names for all the language groups in the campaign is incredibly useful at the table.

No matter what the situation, when your players run into an NPC, you can pull a name out that not only is consistent with the background of the NPC but also suggests a personality trait.  I just circle the name on the sheet and draw a line to the margins and note what the encounter is.  Once a campaign has been going for a while, just referring to the sheets for each different language group is a succinct reminder of every randomly encountered NPC in play.

This trick is one of those DM's sleight-of-hands that makes it seem like you are never unprepared.  Of course you had some planned out material if you could rattle off the names of the seven sleeping liches and what their demi-Godhood was focused on...

Google Mars

Holy crap!  I had no idea there was a Google Mars.  Google Earth was an incredibly useful resource for my Mutant Future campaign and if I end up running with my new alternate history Mars in 1990 campaign idea I know that Google Mars will be just as awesome.  The links to articles and stories on prominent Martian features are excellent starting points for more inspiration.

Google Moon is pretty cool too...

There is a tutorial video at googleplanets.com which explains what you can do with Google Mars, Google Moon, and Google Sky.  It does not mention using these free tools to help run a cold war sci-fi game, but it probably should.