Hello!

First of all, sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language but I hope you guys get what I am asking for.

I have been GMing for some time now, and up to this point I've never used a PC or a tablet when I am GMing.

After being a player in another campaign with a GM using a tablet, I would like to try that for myself, but I got no clue what to get.

I am looking primarily for an Android based tablet, I think the iOS devices is out of my price range, and I really don't like win8. And I would prefer the tablet to be around 10". My price range is 500$ +/- 50$.

What I need it to do: Run word and excel documents, PDF's and if it has access to some good RPG player/gm aid apps, that would be great.

Also, do you have any strong arguments pro tablet or anti tablet while GMing?

Thanks in advance!

Hi ,

i use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, which is about that price range you mentioned.

I am absolutley happy with it, the display is very good, and it has a very fast responsive cpu , also the battery lifetime is very long, you could watch 10h nonstop videos with it, with normal usage (reading pdf, excel, music) the battery life is about 24h , which is long enough for a very long RPG session.

I use evernote to write my notes on my desktop, and then evernote on the tablet to game master on my table. (show pictures, jot down notes .)

It also features a pen, where you could write on it , which is also a nice feature.

Using a tablet is awesome. With a bit of thought and the right programs it makes GMing much easier.

I have an iPad with Battle Maps 2 installed for making maps, and Dropbox for easy access to documents. I write up the adventure, NPC stats and so on at home on my computer, then copy it all to Dropbox for easy access during play. I always print out a paper copy as well, because it makes it easier to jot down notes in the margins or sketch out a quick map layout on the back, but that's just my personal preference. Also, it gives very easy access to all previous adventures if the players ever ask a question about what some NPC told them four adventures ago. You can also show your players pictures of creatures and locations - just look them up beforehand if on the internet, bookmark the page and call it up during play.

And that's not even considering the various play aids that some companies (like Paizo) put out for their GMs to download. Our Pathfinder GM is also using a tablet a lot, and it's working great.

I use my Nexus 10 for most of my Gaming related PDF reading plus (for EotE) the Dice App. Not quite as useful as having a dead-tree version of the rulebook but beats having to cart a zillion books around.

One word of advice: Make sure you get the right PDF reader or you can get very frustrated. Can't speak for iOS but for Android I initially used the popular apps: ezPDF & Adobe Reader. They suck! Way, way too slow to be useful... sometimes taking 2-3s to render a page. Once I realized this was actually stopping me from making use of my PDF library, I looked for alternatives: PerfectView with PDF Plugin and EbookDroid (both free). Not quite as slick as the market-leaders, they have pretty much real-time page-flipping without any delay.

^{Shame you opted out from Windows 8. The perfect model would be the ASUS Taichi. Its a tablet come laptop but the beauty is that it has a double sided screen. One side for running pictures and things you want your player group to see and the other side facing you like a normal laptop would, where you have your keyboard and screen open to documents only you the GM want to see.}

I use a Kindle Fire HD as my PDF reader. It's fantastic. As mentioned above it takes a second to find the right kind of pdf reader but then you're set. This mostly effected me with high rez, art heavy titles like Warhammer or Pathfinder.

I think for the kind of stuff you need to do pretty much any tablet would be appropriate, really just depending on your personal taste.

I use an iPad Mini with Google Drive, so I just refer to my adventure writeup which is a document in Google Drive.

Check out Nexus 10, or Samsung Galaxy 10 inch.

I like using a tablet as well. I search and download pictures online of the various alien races and ships. My group isn't all that familiar with the Star Wars universe, so when I say "Aqualish", they have no idea what it is, so I just hold up the tablet for a few seconds to show them.

I also queue up Star Wars music, like the cantina music or main theme.

You know, I tried using a tablet - there are a lot of programs out there that help - but I found that I'd rather just use my laptop. Using a tablet just slowed down the action a little bit, navigating between apps and such. With my laptop I'm able to get to everything I need very quickly.

It's my intention to set up my tablet as a second monitor and put pictures and such on it to show my players.

Thanks for all the great answers, guys!

I am definitely going to buy myself an tablet after reading your comments.

Currently I am leaning towards the Asus MeMo pad, as it has the newest Android version, comparatively "cheap" (506$ in Norway), the largest HDD compared to Samsungs and iOS devices in the same price range, and it has a mini HDMI connection, so I can show my players the opening crawl for our adventures on the TV and other fancy stuff (My tv is right next to the table we play at).

I have tried using my laptop while playing, but on a medium sized table it really takes up a lot of the space.

I have tried using my laptop while playing, but on a medium sized table it really takes up a lot of the space.

Mine too - luckily I have a large table and I don't put up a screen in front of me (all my other materials are on a side table and I just have dice and the laptop on the table.)

I was fortunate to be given the use of an IPad 2 by my workplace, and have truly embraced it for gaming. I put dropbox on it, write up my gaming notes on my PC, and access them from the tablet. I just put Notability on their, and started playing with it. There's some potential there, but I need to figure out what I'm doing.

I also grabbed the form fillable PDF floating around the boards for character sheets when I'm a player. DropBox can't read the form fill part, but I can export it over to a PDF program and have my character sheet on the screen when I'm playing.

I'm toying with other apps as well, but haven't embraced anything yet. Just having my game notes on the screen though is really helpful.

I just ordered the tablet I mentioned earlier in this topic, it will hopefully be here by wednesday! Can't wait to try it out in our next session!

Depending on what you're going to use the device for, it might help play, but it could be just as much of a hindrance as well. The use of something like Evernote might help for dealing with adventures you've written (with the ability to cross-link information), but not so much for things like rules lookups or dealing with prewritten adventures (unless you spend the time to transcribe them into Evernote).

Outside of that I've found electronics more of a distraction at games than a help. To the point that I shutoff my wireless when we game so that the players will stay off facebook, youtube, tublr, etc... I hate trying to talk to someone and they won't look at me, yet tell me they're listening... heheh

Outside of that I've found electronics more of a distraction at games than a help. To the point that I shutoff my wireless when we game so that the players will stay off facebook, youtube, tublr, etc... I hate trying to talk to someone and they won't look at me, yet tell me they're listening... heheh

That can get super annoying. With the net so readily available we'll often have players getting distracted by some online wizbang. I can be guilty of it myself. I'm easily derailed by shiny things.

Outside of that I've found electronics more of a distraction at games than a help. To the point that I shutoff my wireless when we game so that the players will stay off facebook, youtube, tublr, etc... I hate trying to talk to someone and they won't look at me, yet tell me they're listening... heheh

That can get super annoying. With the net so readily available we'll often have players getting distracted by some online wizbang. I can be guilty of it myself. I'm easily derailed by shiny things.

I send bounty hunters after anyone that uses their phone at my table. Nothing says "Pay Attention" like the SmartPhone Sniper with a special purpose rifle that does a base damage of 15.

Outside of that I've found electronics more of a distraction at games than a help. To the point that I shutoff my wireless when we game so that the players will stay off facebook, youtube, tublr, etc... I hate trying to talk to someone and they won't look at me, yet tell me they're listening... heheh

That can get super annoying. With the net so readily available we'll often have players getting distracted by some online wizbang. I can be guilty of it myself. I'm easily derailed by shiny things.

No kidding - that **** monster hunter smart phone game that everyone seems to be playing lately is really pissing me off.

our session was going pretty well and evyerone was engaged. By the end of the session, it was getting late, people were getting tired, and everyone had a phone in their hand.

Hello!

First of all, sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language but I hope you guys get what I am asking for.

I have been GMing for some time now, and up to this point I've never used a PC or a tablet when I am GMing.

After being a player in another campaign with a GM using a tablet, I would like to try that for myself, but I got no clue what to get.

I am looking primarily for an Android based tablet, I think the iOS devices is out of my price range, and I really don't like win8. And I would prefer the tablet to be around 10". My price range is 500$ +/- 50$.

What I need it to do: Run word and excel documents, PDF's and if it has access to some good RPG player/gm aid apps, that would be great.

Also, do you have any strong arguments pro tablet or anti tablet while GMing?

Thanks in advance!

I'm using my Google Nexus 7 and it has worked very well so far... I was using all these programs "simultaneously" (don't know if this is the correct word in English):

- Long Arm of the Hutt PDF open.

- JPG image gallery with images of planets, NPCs, etc. taken from the Wookiepedia. Showing players the images can be very helpful when describing the situation.

- Soundboard to play some sounds/music during some points in the game.

Very happy with the tablet. Works perfectly and it's not too expensive. I paid for it 240€. I guess in the US it will be even cheaper.

The use of something like Evernote might help for dealing with adventures you've written (with the ability to cross-link information), but not so much for things like rules lookups or dealing with prewritten adventures (unless you spend the time to transcribe them into Evernote).

Evernote's a huge boon to me as a GM. I'm working on some templates I plan to share with the community, stay tuned for that....

FWIW it's clunky to me on a tablet, hence my use of a laptop.

Hi Dampe and welcome!

Tablets or assistance of some electronic device is always awesome. I use a laptop to play OST in my games but there are certains moments that drawing something with a tablet would be cool.

Maybe with a 7" you will have enough, with a small table almost every player can see it clearly.

I also use Google Drive to access to "savegames" to remember data about our last game details. Drive also has properties to read PDF's, excels and other word formats so, a tablet capable to open a navigator (Chrome, Firefox...) will be enough.

There are a few cheap tablets 7" about 90 - 110 €. Specs are simple, but enough if you don't use to play advanced 3D games (don't worry, you can still play Plants vs Zombies XD). I'll look and ask to a friend that is running an electronic shop about prizes and models (I want to buy one for my mother this 23rd so it will be useful for me too).

Oh but tablets have a problem... you can be distracted with aplications and funny sounds (tested XD).

Take care!

They're not called tablets, they're Datapads!

They're not called tablets, they're Datapads!

Aahhh! I wanted to say it too!! XD

Long time ago, when tablets didn't exist yet we used to ask about "what is exactly a Datapad?"

I use my kindle fire pretty much all the time now. For premade adventures that are on PDF it saves paper and ink. For EOTE we use it primarily for the dice app.