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I think I'm like just about everyone else. I have the work 'me' and the play
'me'. Only difference is, the two once merged, and what was born was Turn
Watcher.
I have played in D&D campaigns for many years, but never thought of running
my own campaign until I got a very unusual present for my 40th birthday — the
Dungeon Master's Guide. I started reading the book and was hooked. How fun I
thought it would be to create encounters and intriguing situations and worlds
for my players. It wasn't until I ran my first game that I realized that it
would take more than creativity to run a game, and that the details of tracking
each PC and monster would bog down my encounters and hamper my story
telling.
I tried using a pencil and paper technique to handle combat rounds, but
found it difficult to manage when players started delaying and readying
actions. Sometimes I would accidentally skip combatants, annoying my players.
Being a software developer, I thought of the idea of automating the task of
tracking each combatant and handle the task of delaying and readying of
actions. Thus I wrote Turn Watcher.
The first game I ran using Turn Watcher was so much easier because it
managed my list of combat participants and allowed me to walk through each
combatant's turn. Characters who delayed or readied actions were no longer a
problem, since the state of the user was in a column all to itself. Instead
of being bogged down in paperwork details, I could focus on the strategy of
the combat and the flow of the game. And the program was so much fun to use,
I found myself wanting to run more games just to get to use Turn Watcher!
At my last full-time job I was surrounded by creative, fun co-workers who
also loved to RPG game. One was none other than
Karl Miller
himself, the lead singer and songwriter of the band
Warp 11!
He and his buddies like to
play Dungeons and Dragons with a twist: during combats, they would re-roll
initiative every single round. This is fastidious, to say the least, and
inspired me to adapt Turn Watcher to handle this. We call it "Ultra
Initiative."
My GM friends were thrilled when they saw what I had created. They suggested
adding "Spot" and "Listen" checks and "Will"
saves for each combatant, since asking players to make spot and listen
checks and will saves tips them off to the dirty work afoot.
This brought me back to one of my games, where I had an evil cleric disguised
as a good cleric accompanying the party on a quest. When the evil cleric was
killed and one of the PCs touched his holy symbol, I had to ask the player to
make a will save against the illusion on the holy symbol. Even though she
failed the save, she was now suspicious. If only I had had Turn Watcher then! I
could have made the check for her, in secret, without even having to make a
roll behind my DM screen. She and the other players would not have been the
wiser to my ploy!
I also grew tired of adding and subtracting hit points and constantly erasing
these numbers during encounters. So I added the ability to track combatant
health. Not only will it automatically subtract damage and add healing, but
when a combatant reaches zero (0) hit points, it is labeled "Disabled", and
further damage puts it into the "Dying" state. I even programmed it so the
combatant is automatically bled out each round until it is "Dead" or
"Stabilized". This also had the added benefit of not having to rely on players
to keep track of their own hit points, and when they got to negative hit points I
could simply say 'you drop' and keep them guessing.
Turn Watcher has now taken on a life of its own. I still have many
ideas on the back burner. The next version will include three new major
features:
- An effect tracker to know when someone is affected by a spell or
other effect (such as Rage).
- A way to add custom columns for other skill checks and saves.
- The ability to interface with the popular
PCGen open source
application and import monsters and generated characters.
Turn Watcher changed the way I run my in-game combats. It has made my
life a lot easier, and my other GM friends agree. If you want to try it,
I encourage you to download the demo.
Drop me an email and share your experience with me about Turn Watcher!
R. Douglas Barbieri
CTO
Made to Order Software Corporation
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