As per the title, are there any good iPad apps out there anyone here can recommend for managing a campaign? Somewhere I can keep modular encounters, campaign notes, locations, NPCs, etc. Right now I use a binder full of paper, and don't get me wrong, it works well; however this is 2014 and great technology is at our fingertips, there has to be something out there that is better than what I am doing now.

Thanks in advance!

Back a couple years ago, GM Chris from the Order 66 Podcast suggested using Evernote as a "Campaign Holocron." I have never gotten into it myself (used it only a handful of times) but I have definitely seen how useful it is. Some of my friends and coworkers use it and share stuff with it.

Now that I mention it, I think I might start using it! The iPad app is way improved from the time I first downloaded it a while go. Thanks for the topic.

I've used Evernote before, and I like it - but I just don't like it as much as Google Drive. My last few games were over G+ so I started using GDrive to keep all my notes, as well as share certain docs with other players (lists of motivations, NPCs, player session notes, etc). I typically will open all the docs i need in multiple tabs/pages at the start of the session, so i can quickly switch between them. now we are playing an in-person game, but i still rely on Gdrive heavily. the only physical things i keep next to me are dice (i prefer over dice rollers), core book (again, preference), and scratch paper (that i rarely use, but i suppose this is a leftover habit from an older age...)

i've tried reading accessing my notes during the game with my phone, ipad, and macbook - nothing beats the laptop for me though. having to always unlock the screen of the ipad was my biggest frustration.

I use Onenote, until now the only one that is easy to use across the iOS-Windows hurdle.

I use the heck out of Evernote, but I find that my older ipads are a little too slow for me to quickly pull up information during a game, so I end up using my laptop during play.

I do keep all my materials in Google Drive as well. When Scrivener comes out with an ipad app, I'm sure I'll be using that as well, since that's how I organize my campaign on my laptop. Hopefully they can maintain the elegance of the interface in iOS....

Edit: speaking of the GM Holocron, Evernote makes an excellent tool for this, and that's how I'm using it. Being able to copy & paste adversaries and have checkboxes to track things has been really useful.

I use Obsidian Portal. It is free and you can pay a small yearly fee for some upgraded stuff. The free one is perfect. you can check out what I do with it in my signature.

I use it to keep track of characters, NPCs, locations, adventures, game scheduling (including email reminders), adventure sessions, group forum players can use to talk about campaign.

It is web based. It has worked well.

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I'll check them out.

I picked this up a couple weeks ago...

http://www.wolflair.com/realmworks

@ iandimitri

I have been keeping an eye on your Portal campaign. It is looking good man! BTW, I am a Fan of it!

I too use Obsidian Portal. I highly recommend it! I used it for my old campaign in Germany, but that was cut short with our quick move back to the US. I am re-tooling it now for my upcoming game starting in August.

I have never seen the Realm Works in action, but it looks pretty cool. I don't know about 50 bucks though. I also have Dropbox, google drive, Soundcloud that we use.

Like iandimitri, I too have a link to my Portal in my signature. Feel free to check it out, and leave any feedback you might have.

Clear skies!

Nice Obsidian Portal site, R2B.

Thanks for the kind words and thanks for sending the templates for the characters. I used your site as a guideline because I think it looked the best on OP for Stat Wars stuff.

@ iandimitri

I have been keeping an eye on your Portal campaign. It is looking good man! BTW, I am a Fan of it!

I too use Obsidian Portal. I highly recommend it! I used it for my old campaign in Germany, but that was cut short with our quick move back to the US. I am re-tooling it now for my upcoming game starting in August.

I have never seen the Realm Works in action, but it looks pretty cool. I don't know about 50 bucks though. I also have Dropbox, google drive, Soundcloud that we use.

Like iandimitri, I too have a link to my Portal in my signature. Feel free to check it out, and leave any feedback you might have.

Clear skies!

I think that has been the go to resource now for games

Check the link in my signature for my campaign on the Obsidian portal sight. Basically making your own wiki

It might take a bit of work to get it started, and a lot of typing. Also the image uplink format is a bit clunky, also I found for reoccurring NPCs you should make a character page for them

Just wanted to say thanks to the people who recommended Obsidian Portal. I've loaded my campaign into the site and I can't get enough of it! Filling in the bios for the NPCs is pretty fun, including their "story so far," which modules they've appeared in, and some background info.

Highly recommend this site!

You will have to post a link to your Portal site!

You will have to post a link to your Portal site!

Just added it to my signature. Still a bit of a work in progress backfilling a bunch of the adventure sessions, and tons of NPC bios to fill in, but it's starting to take shape.

This thread wins. I also checked and subscribed to Obsidian Portal. At this stage it's serving all my needs. Great to get the other players in and those that miss a session can catch up by reading the adventure log. Lots of other nice things and whoever created the character template I thank you sir.

Nice Obsidian Portal site, R2B.

Thanks jonamok! I will not admit to how much time I have spent on it. Now if I can just get my new players to use it!!

This thread wins. I also checked and subscribed to Obsidian Portal. At this stage it's serving all my needs. Great to get the other players in and those that miss a session can catch up by reading the adventure log. Lots of other nice things and whoever created the character template I thank you sir.

Are you speaking of my Portal page? I did give the template to iandimitri (Golden Paladin). So his site is rip off of mine!

That's ok though, they say imitation is the best form of flattery.

I do ask anyone that has "my" character template not to share it with anyone. Please direct them to me.

I unfortunately did not create the template though. It was created by Ahirmon here on this forum who was player in my old campaign in Germany. My Portal site was a collaborative venture by the two of us for my campaign. He did a ton of the ground work and taught me how tho code the site.

I use soundcloud a lot for the character or sound effects. For characters that have died, I use the infamous Wilhelm Scream for their sound file. I like to use a little sound to let the players hear how the NPC should sound, and I then try to imitate the voice (in a poor fashion, I'm sure). My favorite is Boljo Bulpa. Free cookie to whoever can tell me where I stole him from!

So please check out my and the other Portal sites, and please become a fan! Maybe one day I can get Campaign of the Month!! Woo-woo. Free cookies for everyone!

Obsidian portal looks fantastic. I just started using it and I already have a fantastic idea as to how to organize everything for myself. I plan to have lots of modular and mini encounters that I can pull up as I see fit, so having something where I can list them all out with appropriate links in the GM only section is awesome.

Edit: https://trouble-on-kwenn-station.obsidianportal.com/

just created a tiny handful of things so far, I will probably make another thread asking for advice on this campaign once I flesh it out. I've got about 16 pages of word document notes I need to transfer over, need to make stats for every NPC, then I need to start making GM only wiki pages with encounters. Lots of work ahead but this makes it less daunting than it was before. Thanks!

Obsidian Portal with OggDude's amazing Character Generator are my go to combo.

Just started using Evernote for iPad. Freaking awesome. ObsidianPortal looks cool if you have a laptop or are interested in sharing your adventures, but i only briefly glanced at it. i like being able to take snapshots of pages with info like adversaries or sabbacc rules and I will have them while i run my campaign from Evernote while my PCs use the books if they feel the need.

I use Obsidian Portal. It is free and you can pay a small yearly fee for some upgraded stuff. The free one is perfect. you can check out what I do with it in my signature.

I use it to keep track of characters, NPCs, locations, adventures, game scheduling (including email reminders), adventure sessions, group forum players can use to talk about campaign.

It is web based. It has worked well.

Thank you! So awesome! Such a great suggestion. We've only played two times thus far, but I put it all into OP tonight. Check it out!

https://theedge.obsidianportal.com

I kept everything short and sweet...and easy to get data from. I saw a bunch of sites filled with data, and even though that's cool, I feel like it's better to keep everything super fast... it's only a tool right? Should be something players take a couple minutes to check out.

I use Obsidian Portal. It is free and you can pay a small yearly fee for some upgraded stuff. The free one is perfect. you can check out what I do with it in my signature.

I use it to keep track of characters, NPCs, locations, adventures, game scheduling (including email reminders), adventure sessions, group forum players can use to talk about campaign.

It is web based. It has worked well.

Thank you! So awesome! Such a great suggestion. We've only played two times thus far, but I put it all into OP tonight. Check it out!

https://theedge.obsidianportal.com

I kept everything short and sweet...and easy to get data from. I saw a bunch of sites filled with data, and even though that's cool, I feel like it's better to keep everything super fast... it's only a tool right? Should be something players take a couple minutes to check out.

Great use of OP. It is quite a bit of work to upkeep between sessions. Looks great.

Thank you! You too!

I'm loving Obsidian Portal too!

I used to just keep text documents with all my notes in them, but I'm really enjoying filling out all the character roster and wiki pages for the various places they've been.

How do you folks like to organize your wiki pages?

So far, mine have mostly been pages for Planets, Places, Organizations and Things the PCs have encountered. NPCs are under Characters.

This is working well for me so far. Do y'all do anything differently?

I have my base page with the various locations, and the GM only section has links to the character's obligation encounters that I have planned. Inside each planet is a list of locations and NPCs that can be found there, and in the GM only section a list of the encounters found there. Inside each location is a list of NPCs found there, a link at the top to go back to the planet it is on (for easy navigation), and in the GM only section anything relevant such as location-specific encounters, or links to NPCs the players do not know about yet.