Hello to all,

I have been mastering games for over 30 years. For me, immersion is fundamental. That's why, over the years, I've found several ways to reinforce my narrative: I've created atmospheric playlists, not just of music, but of sounds. I found visuals, etc.
But preparing a session takes a lot of time.
Being a computer engineer with a specialization in AI, I want to start a project where I can automate all this. But before I start coding like crazy (I also have a family to take care of ), I would like to get some advice from experienced game makers :
If you had a tool that made your daily life as a game master easier, what features would you need?
I'm talking about realistic features, not ones where you replace the game master with an AI

Thanks a lot for your help...

I long ago decided that any useful tool for me would be written by me.  I've been GM for 40 years now, and also a professional software developer.  The last thing I want in my tool is things to support immersion, playlists of any kind, visuals, etc.     In fact, all the really useful tools (except a couple of mapping tools) were ones that I did write for myself.

If you want to write a tool, write one that works for you, making it as flexible as you can while still being a tool you want to use.  That is, don't try to be all things to all people, because all that will do is make customization of the tool hard and/or add a lot of extra clicks for simple things. 

There may be useful suggestions from others that share your goals.  Figure out the core of what you want for yourself, then ask who would use that, and what related features they would want.

Hi Steven,
Thank you for your feedback.
You are very lucky to be able to create your own tools and to have the experience in game mastering. This is really rare and precious.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky and I think that with today's technology there is a possibility to make the task of the game master easier.
You're right, you shouldn't try to please everyone. Then, you risk pleasing no one. 
For my part, I had these needs in terms of immersion and that's why I ask for the community's opinion.
I would like to know if I am an isolated case or if this is a larger scale problem.

Since I game in person and I limit how much electronics can be at the table (I use them to help DMing a little) there really isnt a tool that I need.

Use print books (never .pdfs) and character sheets.  So I am not your target audience.

My tables are Luddite temples, but how about a digital assistant that has read all your books and can answer obscure questions that would otherwise interrupt the flow of the game.

"Hey Siri*, what gods do the Untouchable Dwarves of the Wretched Pits worship?"

*Name it Groggy or something.

You don't have to mention that you know AI. It has nothing to do with it. People can learn Excel and "Automate" lots of stuff. I don't know why now everything is "AI" which is not most of the time.

For me personally I create my own tools and works for what I create them.

I'm not sure what are you asking. When you have the "necessity" to automate a repetitive task, you know what is the task, and you just develop the tool.

Speaking specifically to RPGs, well, basically you can develop your own tool to create the characters, and keep track of thing. At some point I move my development forward and made a game prototype that works more like a tool than a game.

Yet I prefer to have a good method and organization to use pen, paper, and dice.

A robotic hand to massage my temple/facepalm when a player stretches my patience. Maybe an automated loud SIGH when my brow furrows.

Multi-genre rapid design software tied to a quick-print 3d printer to produce custom minis without having to be an expert in 3d modeling.

Beyond that, I've got nothing.

Just to give an example, if I were to write my own tool for what I do now, it would all be about GM prep and organization, nothing that I would use at the table. 

I've evaluated various tools that are supposed to do that.  Most of them are glorified Wikis, which doesn't really map the way I think about things.  Relationship maps aren't much better, or at least the implementations I've seen.  I think what I'd probably end up writing would be a more dynamic relationship map expressed as a Wiki, without so many levels of drill-down that you couldn't see anything useful on it.

As an example that doesn't work, consider the Worldographer program.  I use it for maps, and it is great for that.  It's also got a feature where you can add notes to a map item, presumably to pull them up during play.  I never use it.  It's clunky to enter the text, annoying to see it, and easy to screw it up.  I'm sure the guy that write that tool uses it all the time, but I give the map items a code and then put my notes in a Word doc where I can print them and reference them along with the printed map--well away from the software during play.

Quote from: Cathal on April 27, 2023, 11:24:09 AM
You don't have to mention that you know AI. It has nothing to do with it. People can learn Excel and "Automate" lots of stuff. I don't know why now everything is "AI" which is not most of the time.

For me personally I create my own tools and works for what I create them.

I'm not sure what are you asking. When you have the "necessity" to automate a repetitive task, you know what is the task, and you just develop the tool.

Speaking specifically to RPGs, well, basically you can develop your own tool to create the characters, and keep track of thing. At some point I move my development forward and made a game prototype that works more like a tool than a game.

Yet I prefer to have a good method and organization to use pen, paper, and dice.

Hello Cathal,

Thank you for your feedback.
I'm sorry if my words offended you. Being new to the community, I thought it was more polite to introduce myself and explain my background to set the context. I had no intention of being haughty.
I agree with you that this AI craze can be annoying. The world seems to have discovered AI with ChatGPT
As for me, it's simply my academic background and I wanted to use my (admittedly somewhat rusty) skills to get back into the swing of things with a project in a field I've been passionate about for over 30 years.
Thanks again for your valuable advice.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 27, 2023, 12:38:22 PM
A robotic hand to massage my temple/facepalm when a player stretches my patience. Maybe an automated loud SIGH when my brow furrows.

I totally second this.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 27, 2023, 01:58:23 PM
Just to give an example, if I were to write my own tool for what I do now, it would all be about GM prep and organization, nothing that I would use at the table. 

I've evaluated various tools that are supposed to do that.  Most of them are glorified Wikis, which doesn't really map the way I think about things.  Relationship maps aren't much better, or at least the implementations I've seen.  I think what I'd probably end up writing would be a more dynamic relationship map expressed as a Wiki, without so many levels of drill-down that you couldn't see anything useful on it.

As an example that doesn't work, consider the Worldographer program.  I use it for maps, and it is great for that.  It's also got a feature where you can add notes to a map item, presumably to pull them up during play.  I never use it.  It's clunky to enter the text, annoying to see it, and easy to screw it up.  I'm sure the guy that write that tool uses it all the time, but I give the map items a code and then put my notes in a Word doc where I can print them and reference them along with the printed map--well away from the software during play.

For a long time I designed my cards myself with Photoshop. But I must admit that it was soooo time consuming. Then I switched to Wonderdraft years ago. Now I use Inkarnate, which is not perfect, but it does the trick when it comes to cards. You can create world maps as well as smaller maps that can be used for battles for example.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 27, 2023, 12:38:22 PM
A robotic hand to massage my temple/facepalm when a player stretches my patience. Maybe an automated loud SIGH when my brow furrows.

Quote from: Taramin on April 27, 2023, 02:17:30 PM

Hello Cathal,

Thank you for your feedback.
I'm sorry if my words offended you. Being new to the community, I thought it was more polite to introduce myself and explain my background to set the context. I had no intention of being haughty.
I agree with you that this AI craze can be annoying. The world seems to have discovered AI with ChatGPT
As for me, it's simply my academic background and I wanted to use my (admittedly somewhat rusty) skills to get back into the swing of things with a project in a field I've been passionate about for over 30 years.
Thanks again for your valuable advice.

Not at all, I'm not offended, and I'm sorry if my reply have bad "tone", English is my second language  . haha yes man is crazy annoying, that's correct when people think in AI is chatgpt.

From my point of view, because is not a board game, neither a computer game. I try to stick with "theater of the mind" with visual aids, I use PDFs with my own notes and believe or not my tool is Emacs, where I have my own notes, mind maps, a searchable text of the rules, tables, etc.

Quote from: Taramin on April 27, 2023, 07:53:50 AM
Hello to all,

I have been mastering games for over 30 years. For me, immersion is fundamental. That's why, over the years, I've found several ways to reinforce my narrative: I've created atmospheric playlists, not just of music, but of sounds. I found visuals, etc.
But preparing a session takes a lot of time.
Being a computer engineer with a specialization in AI, I want to start a project where I can automate all this. But before I start coding like crazy (I also have a family to take care of ), I would like to get some advice from experienced game makers :
If you had a tool that made your daily life as a game master easier, what features would you need?
I'm talking about realistic features, not ones where you replace the game master with an AI

Thanks a lot for your help...

If you can create a program that actually understands the gaming medium in which I am working instead of just identifying and following a pattern, I'd be interested.

Otherwise, you are just another one of the ChatGPT advocates trying to push incomplete software on social media like an unwanted Jehovah's Witness knocking on my front door.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 27, 2023, 03:03:24 PMOtherwise, you are just another one of the ChatGPT advocates trying to push incomplete software on social media like an unwanted Jehovah's Witness knocking on my front door.

Man, those guys are SO annoying!

...

Would you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Neo?