Room Keys!!

Here is a collection of "creatures" that I use for room keys on a map. I basically make them invisible to the party and type notes into their Notes section. Also, I sometimes type the Boxed or Flavor text into their Description tab, so that I can make them visible to the party and they can double-click on the key and read the boxed text.



The room keys are on a map for easy importing. Here is how you get them into your game:

• Download the room-keys.d20 file and open d20pro
• Open the Library window and go to your Maps library
• Click on Import
• Navigate to the room-keys.d20 file and double-click it. d20pro will import it to your library and ask if you want to open it. Click the check mark.
• You will see a blank map with keys. Select all of the room key creatures, right-click on the group and choose Location > Save Creature
• d20pro will prompt you to save each creature. To speed this up, hold down the enter key until it confirms all of them (it goes quickly).
• You should now have the keys as creatures in your creature library, under the module roomkeys

Screenshot shows them in use. Visible and invisible numbers shown (for GM or Player benefit).

 

For loot and permanent handouts, I use something other than d20pro, honestly. Mostly this is because I want my players to be able to access it even when we aren't gaming. I'm using 2 other tools right now:

Google Sites: this is our homepage, file repository, character vault, journal place, etc. It's free with a gmail account and gives you 100 MB of storage. I have mine at educatedgamer.net because I have Google Apps for my domain (also free).

http://dnd.educatedgamer.net

Notice also that I can even upload Google Earth files (check the maps page). Each player has editing rights to this wiki as well allowing them to add pages and make changes.

To track loot and handouts, I use Evernote. Evernote lets me create and manage notes into notebooks and assign tags to them (think categories). A note can have many tags too. I create a notebook called DM - Parcels and make a note for each parcel. I can copy/paste from the DDI or even use images like my power cards. What's great is that I can then drag & drop these parcels into the PC Swag notebook whenever I want, and even drag/drop them onto tags like individual PC names. I can then make the PC Swag folder public so others can see it. With a handy link from our website, PCs can always see their notes & treasure/items by following the link. Evernote updates when I make changes, so it's pretty immediate (and if not, I manually sync). See screenshots.

 

The players don't need evernote. When the GM makes a notebook public, he can link directly to it. Check out my campaign page: http://dnd.educatedgamer.net and click on the link to Character Treasure (http://www.evernote.com/pub/tintagel/PC_Swag) to view the player loot. During the game, the DM can drag and drop notes in Evernote and it will show up on the players' page online.

d20pro does handle inventory, and it also does handouts, so I use d20pro DURING the game but Evernote for campaign records and long-term management. It's all part of the way I manage my campaign online.

 

I should add that Evernote works for anything, so you can also use it for keeping work notes organized too. Also, it syncs with your mobile phone and iPod touch!