Projects of Debatable Usefullness

Given that my history with organized play program comes from Pathfinder Society, I have to admit that I yearn for a bit of structure.  If you read my rambling post, that attempted (badly) to differentiate the philosophical approaches of PFS and Adventurer's League, you may understand where I'm coming from.

So in order to bring over some of the structural aspects that I think made running games (and joining them) easier, and to help DMs integrate new players into their ongoing story lines I decided to create a few tools, that are not at all required for DALOC players or DMs to use, but that I think may be helpful.

First Draft of DALLOC Character Database

The first is a Character Database.  This google spreadsheet will be accessible to all members of DALOC, and will be filled in by players, with each row representing a character they want to use.   DMs can then find a player's character, download their character sheet, adventure log, and preferred token as well as see basic information about the character that help the DM preplan or customize the adventure.

I will recommend that players upload their sheets and tokens into Google Drive, adjust the share settings to make sure than anyone with the link to that file can view/download, and then paste the link into the appropriate column. This should cut down on some of the pre game logistics and create less work for DMs, allowing them to concentrate on running a fun game.

The second project is a Campaign Tracking Sheet. This is one is a bit more complicated, and probably more unnecessary, especially because this would be more work for the DM, which ultimately I'm trying to cut down on.

But...it just might be helpful in centralizing information that helps with integrating players with DM continuity.  Using this tool, as a DM,  I can advertise my campaign, and players can check it against their character's progression to see which character they should use (or create a new one) in order to play.

For example, in the screenshot above, a player could see that in my current progression I've DMed a group that has cleared Cragmaw Hideout and is 1/2 way through the Redbrand Hideout.  They can then decide if they want to get into the game at the point.  If they have played one session of LMoP and they cleared Cragmaw Hideout, but they don't even know what Sleeping Giant or Redbrand Hideout is, then they can make a decision around skipping those elements and moving on or not.

This wouldn't be different than if certain players missed sessions in an Encounters Game at a FLGs store.  And I think this is a good way for players and DM to think through campaign and character continuity.

Let me know in the comments section if this makes any sense at all?  Let me know if you would actually use this, so I can tidy it up and share it with the entire google group, once it is ready.