- 3'x6' erasable play mat
- box of miniatures
- 1 three ring binder with 6 dividers(PC Char Sheets/Contacts Char Sheets/Game Plot Details/Important Locations/NPC Char Sheets/other info)
- 6 mechanical pencils, 2 Erasers
- 3 water-based markers(for the play mat)
- 2 dozen spare charactor sheets
- laptop(with Char Sheets, Chargens etc on it)
- BBB, Street Magic, Augmentation, other relevant source books, GM Screen
- 42 D6 dice and assorted muli-sided dice
- 6" ruler

not including pop/chips and other assorted munchies

A notebook.
A pen or pencil.

Yes, that's it.

- BBB, Street Magic, Augmentation, Arsenal, Runner Havens & GM Screen (I have Emergence, but I stopped brining it along)
- 1 folder with grunts cheat sheet and a few blank Character Sheets
- 1 clipboard with legal pad (for notes)
- 2 mechanical pencils
- 1 red gel pen
- 1 folder with maps, mission notes, NPCs, etc
- 36 d6's (mainly used for markers on map)
- 3 sheets full of random die results (which I use as GM dice rolls)

These all fit in my satchel, although pretty full! I have taken a laptop in the past, but as I got more books, I decided against the laptop, as I didn't really need it. We play at the same location every other week, so the battlemat and markers always stay...

you must have memorised the sourcebooks, impressive, but what if one of your players claims your wrong about a rule, how can you prove it to them?

A laptop loaded with:
-PDFs of the rules
-Scenario and notes in Word
-NPCs in Excel
-Genre appropriate music
-Random Number Generator for handling dice rolls

he doesn't, he stabs them with the pencil. End of conflict.
lol
okay so what the heck is BBB? I know you mean the main book but what does it stand for?

All my books in electronic form, dice or a dice roller, excel or a notepad, one to four beers, depending on the length of the session and food, as appropriate.

- My laptop with the sourcebooks and the campaign notes, NPC files etc. on it
- The printed notes for the session (to record the events of the session on as well)
- An NPC character sheet
- My self-made GM screen.

BBB = Big Black Book
my players call it the PHB(Players HandBook), but thats more relating to D&D where the PHB and the DMG(Dungeon Master's Guide) are seperate, where is in SR, the GM and Player info is in one, Big Black Book

"Big Black Book"

I'm a player, and luckily we currently are meeting at my house. When I do travel though I don't travel light.

Hardcopy Books (SR4, SM)
Laptop (w/ all pdf's, chargen sheets, vehicle creator sheet, etc...)
3x6 Game Mat w/ cup full of markers (amongst our group we have 2 or 3 of these, but the few times I'd forget mine, the gm would forget his)
3 ring binder w/ Cheat Sheets, Indexes from books, FAQ, Errata, misc Flavor
3 ring binder w/ Character sheets (yes these are seperate, granted this also has character sheets for vampire, and DnD neither touched in quite some time, and also other members sheets if they are prone to loosing them)
Small Box w/ set of Small d6s (36), and large d6s (16), and d20 set. (Can never have enough markers/place holders when fig not available, work as drones) Also contains Matrix Cards for all programs, and current fig I plan on using for that run.

hmm
well I figured it was Big Bad Book
black I dont get unless you have one of those dragonskin covers they put out for 2nd edition
man I wish i had one
lol

Normally:

-folder with notes, Npcs and some maps.
-bag with aprox. 30 d6
-Pen and pencil, eraser
-pendrive with appropriate music for the adventure

BBB and appropriate sourcebook if required. (usually only the BBB)

-to some games: the pc sheets.
-at home: desktop with SR stuff and some 20gigs of music.

-When heavy combat is expected: skittles or M&Ms to use as markers. ("There!, your character is dead, gulp!" )

In my games it is usual expected to order some food and take a break sometime mid-game. Usually after or before some exciting scene. We did not have good experiences with beer, so we tend to save those for the after-game chill out.

Cheers!

Max

Ok I apologize for the threadjack...but since we answered one acronym question..

What does RAW stand for?

rules as written
and when going to a game, i carry at least 2x1.5l coke and 2 bags of chips . . sugar and caffeine are important!

This happens very rarely, but when it does, I'll generally tell someone to go consult a book - most of the players have their books on PDF. If we don't have the book, we'll generally just agree with whatever makes the game most fun.

On one hand, it's true: sans character creation or truly obscure rules, I don't generally need the shadowrun books to run or play, since I know the rules very well.
On the other hand, generally gaming happens at my house, or at the house of someone with tons of the books, so it's not like I'm screwed if I do need a reference.

I think "what I bring" is more indicative of how I run games than anything else: I don't like to get bogged down unless there's a good reason.

- rule books
- lots of dice
- pen & paper
- loads of notes not related to shadowrun, just to randomly look at them to irritate my players when I'm improvising
- some actual notes of the stuff I'm running

Rulebooks
Pencils
Dice
Notebook/notes
Six-pack
a few CDs


jep, that does it.

Books: I bring the PDF printed copies of SM ARSE AUG and the hardcover BBB.
Dice: I bring 17 cubes of 36 (just to be sure everyone has dice to use).
Paperwork: 3 full binders (720 page capacity) divided by Mission 1 3/4 full binder (200 page capacity) with Characters, Character Sheets, and Calanders (all for Shadowrun Missions).
Paper: 3 tablets of legal size paper so people have paper to take notes on.
Pencils: Just got a new box of 36 mechanical pencils.
Calculator: times 2 so the math goes faster.
Drink: 1 or 2 20oz cokes at the store or a 12 pack coke cans at a con.
Treats: Assorted candy for the players to eat while gaming.

I use a rolled duffle.

It got worse because of the lack-of-translation mess-up, so I carry all rulebooks (hardcopy or printed), current notes, and a load of printed floorplans. Used to be everyone had all the required books, but if I now have to bring books anyway, I bring all. Same for other systems, where the individual collections are less sizeable. I usually carry no dice, as I can borrow half a brick from someone else.

Backpack full of books (all of the 4th edition books to date available on print)
Dice
dice-rolling box
3-ring folder with NPC's, printed modifier charts, and outline of story
pencils
Laptop loaded with PDF's, GM secret nobody can see these notes, Char generators, initiative tracker, flowcharts of a given Matrix nodes
water
snacks
smokes

someone else brings the beer.

Two copies of the BBB (one for the GM, one for the players to reference)
other SR4 rule books
source books from SR3 just in case I need something in particular to reference (such as the Dragons of the Sixth World book)
My notes done in Word, and my NPC stats done in excel.
lots of D6's.

I have finally, about a week ago, decided to reduce needless paper use by putting my notes on an thumb drive and taking it with me. I will begin using the laptop that a friend has at his house and my thumb drive for missions now, instead of printing up tons of papers that will either be thrown out after the game session, or end up as more clutter in my house.

- BBB
- 1 folder with grunts cheat sheet and a few blank Character Sheets
- 2 mechanical pencils
- 1 red gel pen
- 1 folder with maps, mission notes, NPCs, etc
- bag of dice ™
- My laptop with the sourcebooks and the campaign notes, NPC files etc. on it
- The printed notes for the session (to record the events of the session on as well)
- An NPC character sheet
- My self-made GM screen.
- 3x4 vinyl battlemat
- poster tube of laminated Sprawl sites floorplans and the floorplans/maps from DMZ
- Box of minis to go with them.
- set of 4 dry erase markers (for mats) and eraser.

For me it is fairly simple...

A laptop bag with the following:
- BBB, Augmentation, Arsenal (printed a copy from my pdf and bound it), Strret Magic
- Laptop with the above in pdf + Runner Havens and Corporate Enclaves, char gens, personal spreadsheets, game notes, and internet connection for groups message boards (used to send private messages, we all have laptops)
- d6's... lots of em
- small notebook (lined on one side of page, gridded on the other), mechanical pencils
- two dry erase markers (red and black)

I carry with me a 2' x 3' dry erase board that I use to draw out the situation to the players and keep track of inititative, etc.

That's it.

1. Laptop with software written specifically to allow three-click access to any 'ware, spell, item of gear, etc. that I need to look up in the game. It's good being a programmer with a wife in Vet school. You have a lot of free time. Less now, unfortunately, though.
2. Copies of rulebooks for the others.
3. PDF rulebooks for me
4. Notes (if I bother to make them)
5. Pen/Paper

any chance of that software being released?
I know I could make use of something like that

for shadowrun 3rd, just use McMackies NSRCG if you can get your hands on a copy *g*
but yes, i would be interested in getting my grubby paws on that software as well ^^

Laptop
GM Screen (Feng Shui, but the the SR4 GM Screen from the PDF paperclipped to it)
72d6.
Character Sheets.

Originally, way back in SR1, it originally stood for Big Blue Book, as the core rule book was blue. When the core book changed colors with the change of editions the acronym was altered to Big Black Book. Now, it just stands for Big B? Book, but I've heard some interesting substitutions for that second word.

Nope. Violates the hell out of copyright. I even keep it on an encrypted partition so that if my laptop gets stolen or goes AWOL the bad guys can't find it. TrueCrypt for the win!

All I need for a game session is:

1. About 16 D6.
2. My GM notes for that run (usually a list of events or ideas to start from)
3. Whatever maps I intend to use (always drawn up beforehand)
4. A writing utensil

Other than that, the players have their character sheets... And we are ready to rock.

I try to let it go freeform and only have a few definite set events for the evening. I let everything else fall into place.

Tsk, tsk, Dash, advocating copyright violation! And a moderator here on hallowed DS, no less. I am shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED!

Chris

As a player with a troll sammie PC, I bought more dice at the local variety store, so I have just enough for the damage soak roll with full body armor. If the character gets bone density or layered armor, I'll buy more dice!

I keep the character description on a text file with stats, skills, quick reference eg dicepools for common actions with usual modifiers (soak pool for Ballistic, for Impact, for fire/shock, etc.; attack pool with smartlink; etc.) and also possessions, deals in progress, karma earned, karma spent, names of various NPCs (as reminders), and goals that the PC wants to advance (aka plotlines). When we get downtime, I turn to that last, lest I have occasion to smack my head and say "Dammit! That's the third time I've forgotten to (renew search for X/shop for Y/practice new skill Z)!" I am amazed at those who still use a single sheet of paper with pencil and eraser. When I get home after a session, I update the file.

1 laptop...
That's it...
I have all the books and sheets, homemade maps, dice rollers, everything I need...
All the players also have their own laptops...
We put them in a network, that way I can drop notes on their laptops without anyone else knowing it......
Works like a charm, love the digital age...

As I stated on another thread yesterday that was about mapping (somewhat amended):

I do a lot of GM'ing in others' homes and my aids are all perfected for easy travel:

- A nice, big backpack to hold:

A.)My core SR hard copy books (the BBB and Street Magic mainly, since switching to SR4) and my home-made GM screen

B.)My folders for adventures and notes and PC characters folders( I keep the sheets for players so they don't get lost; players are welcome to make a "copy" for their own perusal at home.)

C.) A box of dice. Probably about 50 or so D6 and two full sets of polyhedrals. (The poly's are good for generating odd numbers and using as summoned spirit miniatures and hte like.)

D.) Scrabble tiles (for use as npc's) and a little box of miniatures

E.) A couple mechanical pencils w/ extra lead, a white polymer eraser, a couple ball point pens, a notepad to keep *gasp* notes, a bundle of waterbased markers for mat drawing, a pad of graph paper, a small tape measure and a calculator

F.) My lunch/dinner/snacks

- A twelve pack slide of Coke

- My smokables

- My laptop and it's accesories, holding pdf's of all my SR reference books (Pretty much a complete set of everything ever published for SR1,SR2,SR3 and SR4), "jsut in case" I need them. I LOVE my laptop.

- A shipping tube for holding six 36" X 24" graph mats rolled up. I used box tape to wrap the tube, making it effectively rain proof.

- Any other miscellaneous item(s) needed for the specific event.



During the warm months (about 7-8 months of the year in Indiana) I ride my motorcycle as my major mode of transport. It's way cheaper on gas than my truck and it's jsut fun. I can easily secure all of that to it without looking like I am taking a road trip to Sturgis.

Also, the backpack stays mostly packed at all times with the dice, books, game-info folders, character folders and writing stuff, preventing me from rushing out the door and forgetting something important.

Vlad

...notebook computer
...2 36-ct cubes of dice (never know if Lady Grande might show up )
...pencil & eraser.
...visual aids pertinent to the session (also on computer)
...at least one if not two "Big ol' Cans" of WhoopAss™ energy drink

...the one cool thing is most of us have Google mail & messaging so if we wanted, we could actually send files & chat. More discrete than passing notes or taking a player off into another room.

On the computer:

Most of the rule/sourcebook PDFs (don't have Emergence) for 4th ed
A pretty nice dice roller (for when I want to keep things secret)

A "Session" folder with:
Story behind the mission
a "What it is & Where it's At" file (recap of previous session)
Outline of the mission
Time-line of the mission
Legwork info
NPCs & Grunts (with gear)
Layouts of locations.

1. Laptop: I keep all the campaign info on my laptop in wiki format, also posted to the web for my players' reference. Also has my gaming PDFs, adventure notes in Word, npc stats in Excel, jpegs for NPCs and mp3s to set the mood.
2. Rulebooks: Hard copies of SR4, Augmentation and Street Magic. I'll often bring other books as well, such as Sprawl Sites, but these vary.
3. Dice: 72 D6s
4. SR4 GM Screen
5. Something to write with. Some paper to write on.

Laptop.

That's it.

It has everything I need. PDF's of the books, Word docs with my adventures, XLS sheets with my chars, and a webbrowser to http://www.otherrealm.net/sr/ for my dice rolling.

Dashifen,

Are you sure it would be violating copyright laws? My understanding is as long as you distribute the software for free and give credit to the company you are free to distribute the item. Besides I can not see why the producers of Shadowrun, in this case Catalyst Games, would have a problem with it. After all it would help promote their game. Maybe you should send them some screen shots and see if they would be interested in marketing it for you and you would pay royalties to Catalyst Game and the Shadowrun community might get a great piece of playing aid.

A quick list:

• Game books
• Notepad
• Paper
• Post-its
• Pens for me
• Pencils and erasers for the players
• Dice
• Laptop
• Mug
• Bowl
• Pixie sticks

holy crap, talk about wired reflexes

My motorcycle is my transport. Occasionally I snag the wife's car if there's snow on the road (like a couple of weeks ago). So I'll typically ride my motorcycle to the FLGS to run my SR4 campaign. I have a Givi trunk on it in case it rains and my vinyl mat is stashed in a 4' piece of PVC pipe with screw on caps to keep water and general crud off of it.

1. BBB, Augmentation, Street Magic hardbacks. I've swapped back and forth with bring the books or the laptop with the PDFs, especially since I have Arsenal on PDF and not hardback yet. It's about 50/50 now as I'm still exploring.

2. Hand made D&D screen I made... in 1980 or so. Nice and sturdy. I've used the newer screens and keep knocking them down. I have the SR4 screen as well.

3. 1'x2' White Board. I didn't bring it last time and didn't miss it so it may be dropped.

4. Notebook with cheat sheets for common tasks, the alternate Hacker rules (Sarbiter?), character sheets, example characters (for folks who come without), and the current run.

5. 3'x4' vinyl mat

6. Pouch with pens for the vinyl mat, dry erase pens for the white board, 24 mechanical pencils, 8 of the eraser pens, and some permanent markers for the white board (I have some graphs permanently marked and use the dry erase markers to make notes).

7. Tupperware box of dice; all sorts.

8. I think I have 9 or 10 bricks of the small 6 siders (16mm?). Two transparent blue, two gray, three black, one blood red, one ruby red... sounds like 9. Markers for crowds. Last weekend I used the gray ones for the general crowd and the transparent blue ones for the affected crowd.

9. Small alternate game in case not everyone shows up. We played the Paranoia card game one weekend and Gloom on another.

10. 2 liters of Diet Coke, lunch, and sometimes a candy bar.

The tube is bungied to the passenger peg and rear turn signal. I wear the backpack and lunch goes in the Givi. On the way home, the backpack goes into the Givi.

Carl

Hey, a fellow rider!

Many, if not most, of my gaming group rides, and in the summer it often looks like a gang has surrounded the places where we play.

That could also go a bit to why, for a number of years, they really enjoyed playing hte troll go-gangers that was supposed to be jsut light, shoot 'em up fun for when not enough of hte core people would show up. It developed into a full fledged ongoing campaign and generated the basis for the Turf War tourney I ran at Gencon. That campaign really took on a life of it's own and was probably the group favorite. I used to announce ahead of time which "group" they would be playing the subsequent weekend and so often I would get "Oh, it's not the trolls?" with a little look of disappointment.

I should look into the PVC tube case idea. The mailer tube does work pretty well, tho'. I strap my back pack to the sissy bar and sits on the rear seat, upright and then use the little cargo rack on the back to "mini-cargo net" down my slide of Coke. The mat tube gets set in between the Cokes and hte backrest held down by the bungy net horizontally, sticking out a bit on both sides. My lunch usually gets stuffed in the saddlebags along with any other bike stuff needed (long sleeved shirt/ jacket for night, sometimes chaps.)

For several years a few of us would make the trip from central Indiana to Milwaukee for Gencon on the bikes. Now that Gencon is in Indy, it's only about an hour away (I stay at an old HS chummer's doss and make the 15 min ride in the mornings), and I really miss those 6-7 hour summer bike trips up there.

Vlad

Wow, lots of laptops out there. With 1 exception, my entire group uses them over the paper hard copys (or along side them). If you ever thought paranoia dice rolls where bad, try making a few of them and then typing up a storm staring at people in random order.

As it stands:

My laptop
The stack of sr3 books
dice (lots)
scratch paper & pencils
and more recently my stealthed copy of Harlequin's Back. Im not evil, no.

Absolutely. One other member of my group rides. I'm on a Hayabusa, SV650, or TransAlp depending on conditions (road and bike). I have the 'busa up on stands getting winter crud cleaned off and prepared for the Stage One kit to bump it to 182 Horse Power. The SV650 is really a track bike and I prefer not riding it on the road much, partly because of the track tires and partly because it's pretty open and somewhat loud And I need a new chain for the TransAlp. Winter tends to roughen things up a bit



I don't have a problem riding in the rain and snow so I wanted something that would keep the elements off the vinyl mat. I'd heard someone had done this years ago so I went down to Home Depot, picked up a length of pipe, two connectors, two ends, and the screw in caps. I had a choice between the 1.5" and 2". I thought the 2" was going to be a bit large so I went with the smaller one. The mat just fits in the tube though. If I were going to do it again, I might just go with the 2" one.



Heck, just ride anyway I do a bit of touring in the better riding months. This year my wife and I are taking our bikes to Virginia and I'm trying to get the time to run the Hayabusa up to Alaska. Feel free to check out my ride site:

http://www.schelin.org

Carl

Since the exact text from the books are included in my database, distributing it for free would be exactly what breaks the copyright. If CGL were to sell software supplements which included book text, that's a different story. It's the free distribution, regardless of credit given, which could cause the problem. Now I'm not a copyright lawyer by any means, but I'm not going to run the risk of causing problems for CGL. Tiny gaming companies have enough to deal with. Hell, I encrypt and password protect my copies of the PDFs and then store them in an encrypted, password protected partition of my laptop so that if the whole laptop gets stolen, the bad guy still doesn't get at the information. Is it excessive and paranoid? Yes; but it helps me sleep at night

Now that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a loyal customer.

I don't think it is excessive and paranoid since you are doing it to protect someone's products.

Regarding the software, You may want to encrypt the data section as well.

I currently ride a Suzuki Marauder. The road trips up to Gencon were on a '82 Suzuki GS850L. The Marauder is nice and a pretty bike and people comment on it a lot, but, I tell you what, I loved that GS850! It only had 14K on it when I got it and I knew both previous owners, both adult riders that never hot-rodded it (much .) I put 60K on that bike in about 5 years. Aside from having to replace all the engine seals after about 30K, it ran like a trooper with jsut regular maintenance. Faster than hell for a jap street cruiser. It would do 0-60 in about 3.4 seconds and would be doing 90 coming out of 3 gear. Top end was 142mph, and it rode really great at 90+. And I could average 80 and still get 50+ MPG. It sits high but is suprisingly stable and nimble for an early 80's import. It's now become my restoration project and I didn't ride it at all last year. I am a bad, bad person. Anyway, it was a great highway bike, too, weighing in at over 600 pounds wet...with probably another 100 pounds of gear plus my over 200 pounds meat. Much more comfortable than the Marauder for the long trips. And that drive shaft...*sighs fondly*

During those Gencon trips we had a motley collection of bikes *L* A newish Harley Roadking Classic, my '82 Suzy GS850, a '81 Honda CB900 Custom (with the hi/lo tranny) with full fairing and hard luggage and a bastard '79-ish Harley Sportster 1000.

Oh, I should probably say soemthing on-topic here... ummm...

Oh... for 3rd edition SR, I bought a bunch of those little 4x6 acrylic picture frames and printed up condition monitors/Inititive phases/names to insert in them. Players used dry erase markers and sat them on teh table in front of them for the GM to see. It worked out really well for the larger groups I'd run to keep everything flowing. And they were very transportable.

Vlad

The database resides on the encrypted partition 'Course, that plays merry-hob with things if I forget to mount the partition before trying to load the software.....

Ah my gaming gear:

1X Attache Case of Doom. I inherited a very nice black briefcase some years ago and it's been my standard mobile gaming container since than. It's also a bit of a museum as I've left interesting bits of swag in it over the years, GenCon ID badges and so forth. Used to double as a DM screen but I have so much random crap in it that I don't use it that way anymore.
1X Assorted boxes of dice
1X Small white board and appropriate pen. Generic scratch surface for all my gaming needs, quick maps, diagrams, place to write "You are so boned, start running." Also used for players to pass notes to the GM if the 'crumpled scrap of lined paper" method is too archaic for them.
6X Cheap Mechanical Pencils. Tired of fellow players borrowing my nice ones.
10X Cheap Black Pens. I buy them for 2 bucks for a pack, I don't cry when they go missing.
1X Pad Graph Paper. RPG's without graph paper? Inconcievable!
1X Sturdy All Metal Ruler. Never hurts to have a clearly labled straight edge.
1X Compass. Haven't used this much for SR but it comes in handy for area spells and what not.
-Some figurines. Never much of a mini guy so my mini's are ugly and unpainted. Not very many of them either.
-Stuff. In no particular order: A nice Serra Angel print from GenCon, gum eraser, naval coins (CNO's Coin! w00t!), old character sheets, unsorted campaign notes from games I haven't run or been in since the 90's, a fine scum of graphite dust, print outs for various games, some of BlackJacks NPC's and maps, some charcoal sticks...

1X Bag of Holding. My girlfriend loves me, her wise purchase on Tthink Geek is proof of this.
1X BBB. I have a second one on order. My current BBB has been super glued backtogether and recently covered using the "brown paper bag" method perfected in highschool.
1X Augmentation. Will soon become a brown bagger.
1X Notebook of Unspeakable Horrors. A sturdy Five Star spiral notepad filled with game notes, old characters, my growing NPC bank, and a bunch of random names I wrote down because I'm terrible at remembering my own NPC's names. Favorite Section: "Why doesn't it never go smooth?" this portion is devoted to every complication I can think of for the players, both in individual runs and in the campaign as a whole. Has included the line "PC's girlfriend=Terminal Illness?".
1X Box of Notecards. Blank. Supposedly I'm to put NPC's on here so I can create a Fiend Folio for quick reference. That hasn't happened yet.

I don't own a laptop so I rely on at least one of my players to provide that service for dice rollers (universally reviled) and access to Arsenal (can't wait for my dead tree copy).

I hate PDF, I hate it so bad. But what are you gonna do?