Online play is increasingly important in the tabletop gaming world and the innovation and competition in virtual tabletops is increasing.
The thing is, you can use online tools to facilitate your old school tabletop, face to face, play. In my weekly session, in which I travel, drink tea, chat to friends and game, we use Notion to keep and share notes. It doesn’t get in the way, it works on smartphones, a quick note is taken when the spotlight isn’t on your player, and then the phone is put down again.
Pelgrane Press has been working on a specialist tool in this area, and it’s one that works on smartphones and laptops. It’s The Black Book.
The Black Book is a character sheet tool. It lets the GM see the character sheets of everyone present, it keeps track of points spent and even helps the GM see the notes (like contacts) the player wants to share and highlight who’s been getting all the attention.
Right now The Black Book tool supports Trail of Cthulhu (and Bookhounds of London), Night’s Black Agents (and the Dracula Dossier), and The Fall of DELTA GREEN.
The next Pelegrane Press RPG to get support is The Yellow King RPG, and there are plans to extend functionality so The Black Book can work with Shock and Injury Cards tool.
It’s free to sign up. That’ll give you access to the “Create” tier in which you can create characters for the mentioned games (including The Yellow King). If you want to use The Black Book in real-time to support your gaming, keeping track of points, with offline access and dice rolling then that’s only $14.95 a year. Not $14.95 a month, $14.95 a year. Pricing for the GM tier has not yet been released.
If you join for free and help helpful feedback on these new tools, then you could be given 1-year free upgrade to the GM level.
There are coupons too. If you have a Pelgrane Press flyer from Gen Con, then there’s a discount count on it that is valid until October 1st. If, like me, you don’t then use the code WeDontAllFitInIndy to get 20% off the Player tier provided you can redeem that by October 1st too.
You can sign up at the Black Book.
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