That’s a great sentence. It’s not strictly true, either. I’ve been using computers for a very long time to prepare for my games (word-processors especially.) The sense in which I’m actually using “computer-aided gaming” is this: On Sunday, for the very first time, I had a (my!) laptop in front of me, and I was using it to help me run the game.

(Compare this to the last session of my 3.5e Ulek campaign, where everyone but me were using laptops – mostly to deal with the difficulties of high-level 3.5e!)

The primary tool I was using was the Virtual Combat Cards (link) I found online after very little searching on the morning of the session. If you look carefully at the attached computer, you can find them showing on the screen. The biggest change that the VCC made to the session was that it rolled initiative for everyone – thus, removing one roll from the players. (I think I’d prefer them retaining a manual roll; alas, it doesn’t print the initiative roll for each combatant). 

I have, previously, kept track of monster hit points, initiative order and conditions on paper. I have a great number of A4 notepads which are filled with the combats of my D&D sessions. (In general, two pages will cover the four combats of a standard session). There are two areas that I have great trouble remembering. The first is conditions that give a penalty to attack rolls (other conditions, such as immobilized, blinded, etc. are easy). The second, strangely enough, is whether someone has acted. I have used little check marks next to everyone’s names, but I will occasionally end up skipping someone, especially if one turn hasn’t ended quite when I think it has and I make a mark “in advance”…

So, I used the VCC and they worked quite well. If anyone has a suggestion for even better combat tracking, please give it! Did combat go quicker? Possibly, although our 4e combats are getting pretty fast by this time, often in the range of 20-30 minutes (difficult combats will take more like 45 minutes). Familiarity with your 4E character was one of the key points. By now, my players are very familiar with how their characters work, and combats work very quickly.

I was back using miniatures and dungeon tiles this session, for both Nate and Adam prefer minis, especially as both are playing characters that create zones (wizard and warlock). We’re not computer-aided there yet!

Part 2 of the CAG was using the character generator at the table. Boy, I love the DDi. We recreated Greg’s character at the beginning of the session and printed it out for his reference. I’ve done this before, but this time I actually had the computer with me rather than doing it on a desktop at home. Much, much better, especially since Nate’s printer (we were playing at Nate’s place) could talk to my computer. 

Splug (now recast as a goblin rogue, at level 12!) also used the character generator. I’ve been playing Splug as an NPC since Keep on the Shadowfell (we’re currently playing King of the Trollhaunt Warrens), and the players love him. He regularly deals about 30-40 damage per round to one opponent, and has saved the party more than once. I didn’t need to print him out – I just copied the relevant attacks into the VCC, and went from there. Even better, I was able to make adjustments to his HP and healing surges remaining when the session ended on the character sheet viewer, and so I’ll have that information next session without having to find a piece of paper that (most likely) I’ll have lost.

Part 3 of the CAG was monster stats. Yes, I had my books here, but P1 suggests a few additional encounters, one of which I used: 3 Bog Hags and 2 Constrictor snakes. They’re in quite different parts of the MM, which means that in dead tree form I’d be flipping between them. I loaded up the D&D Compendium, copy and pasted the stats into a Word document, and we were away. Woo – that was much easier! I also have the Monster Builder beta, which I’ve been using as I prepare for my next Friday session – boy, I love that program.

Part 4? NPCs. There were two aspects to this. First, I was searching on the ‘net for good random NPC name generators. I’ve found good ones in the past, but this was on-the-fly. This wasted some time, but if I prepare properly, I should be able to have them up and running immediately in later sessions. Having a list of good NPC names is great for impromptu roleplaying. The other aspect was that I was keeping notes on the computer as to what happened in the interactions, thus not on a piece of paper that will be lost – or buried under a lot of other paper. I can remember how I play important NPCs. Less important NPCs? This should help.

Part 5 – and this is something that I’ll need to work on for 4e – was random treasure generation for those “not part of the adventure” encounters. I ended up at Asmor’s site for this, but, good as his generator was, what I want is actually closer to the older way of doing it: rather than the “package” idea (which I use for the planned encounters), a random treasure that could range in value, although having an average value that works within the 4e treasure guidelines. I probably should write my own.