My Referee Binder

[Catapult]

CGoodwin recently asked me about the referee binder I'm using for our Champions game.  I don't remember where I stole this idea from, and I can't find the blog post anymore.  It was certainly 2017 or so.

 

I've got a three ring binder, with section dividers.  Here's the outline

 

I. Referee's section.

  A. The PCs.  My copy

  B. The Game World. : My Referee information about the game world.  A list of all Persons, Places, and Things we've added to the world.  The players get a (redacted) copy in their section.

  C. The Adventures

    1. The current adventure

    2. The archive of previous adventures

  D. Plots.  Future adventures and plans

  E. Tool Box : Things like my list of NPC names, so I don't have to come up with them at the table.  I intend to add the key sheets from UNE (The Universal NPC Emulator) and Mythic GM Emulator here as well, since I find them useful at the table.

 

II The Player section.

  A. Campaign setting hand out.

    1. For character creation : Includes the Campaign worksheet from the champions BBB.

    2. For use during play : newspapers, etc.

  B. Lore Sheets.  Single page-single subject handouts

  C. Other handouts.  The Base, our Hoverjet, etc,

 

I have a second binder that is JUST for NPCs.  It's a 3" binder.  I use Hero Designer to write up my NPCs, and I print them out and keep them in plastic page protectors.  That makes the NPC section big enough I had to pull it out of the first binder.  We play in person, and I find I want to have the printed character sheets for the villains out on the table.  I know I should be able to run the NPCs off the top of my head, but I'm not there yet.  

 

So, there we have it.  It's the setup I've been using to run a Champions! 6th edition game with.  I have other games I use this binder setup with, and it works for me.  I figure it might be useful for some new referee out there to see what others are using.  Do you other Refs have something similar?  

[Chris Goodwin]

That is great!  Consider it stolen for the Star Wars game.  (The concept I mean, not the actual binders.)

[DShomshak]

I do this, too. (In fact I have several binders just for villains: one for teams and solo villains, one for the campaign's top-tier Master Villains and their teams, a slender one for the VIPEResque group CROWN, and another slender one just for demons since I write up a lot of demons. Only the villains I need for the current adventure go in the main binder.)

 

Keeping lists of names to draw on for unexpected NPCs is a good idea.

 

Dean Shomshak

[BoloOfEarth]

Regarding names for NPCs, I've always been terrible about coming up with names on the fly.*  Then one year a player in my Champions game brought back a paper copy of this from GenCon:

 

The Everyone Everywhere List - Erik James Olsrud | DriveThruRPG

 

I've kept a paper copy of this in my GM binder ever since.  More recently, I bought the PDF, then bookmarked each nationality so I can quickly go to whatever country of origin / ethnicity I'm looking for.  

 

I highly recommend it.

 

* But to be fair, at least I'm not as bad as one of the other GMs in my gaming group.  We've caught him pulling names for people and places from bags of chips and other snack foods.  

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, BoloOfEarth said:

* But to be fair, at least I'm not as bad as one of the other GMs in my gaming group.  We've caught him pulling names for people and places from bags of chips and other snack foods.  

At least that GM haven't resorted to the Araki method...name people after musical group names.

 

"Hello, I'm Mr. Aqualung, over there is Miss. Piniacollata, and over here is Mr. Strawberryfildsforever."