As Games Masters, there is a huge range of tools available to us; mapping tools, NPC generators, virtual tabletops, ready-made modules and material, campaign trackers etc. The list is almost endless, with each tool aiming to do a specific task or group of tasks.
Each of these tools has various advantages and disadvantages, but one key issue that many of them share is that they are online resources. That can make them ephemeral; a webpage could be taken down, a free site could become subscription-only, or a subscription site could migrate to a new platform they expect you to learn from scratch. In many cases, any data you have created on those tools will disappear if the tool does.
That is why my favourite tool is one of the oldest, simplest ones around: Microsoft Excel.
As long as I am reasonably diligent with my backups, it is unlikely the data will be lost. Unlike some online tools, I'm not giving away any intellectual property rights due to some term in their ToS, or trapping myself into a proprietary data format that can't be used anywhere else.
I regard myself as a pretty competent Excel user, and find it a fabulous way to organise the information for my homebrew setting in a highly accessible way. So what do I use it for ?
NPC Records
This is a snapshot of the spreadsheet I use to organise my NPC's.
It's just a few notes on each; any more detailed info can be found in the notes for the adventure where they first appeared, or in the detailed write-up of their location.
Ones highlighted in grey are definitely dead. Ones with a ? in their date of death column may or may not be dead - this particular location, Ciudad Cassaro, was recently overrun by a horde of undead monsters, so it's a subject for a future adventure to find out who made it out during the chaotic evacuation.
Being able to filter the spreadsheet by location gives me an instant way to find out who parties might meet when they arrive at a new location, which can be a fabulous time saver.
Ship Records
The world involves quite a bit of sea travel, with lots of interesting coastal towns and ports to raid... err... visit. Having a record of a selection of ships the players might meet or travel on is surprisingly useful.
Coinage
I find it adds nicely to the players' immersion if each nation of the world has it's own coinage. Not that it is forced down their throats, and we soon revert to just saying the normal "gold, silver, copper".
But when they first get to a town, it's nice to describe the local coinage to them. It helps show that the place has it's own character and isn't just "carbon copy town to go shopping in #4".
It's also useful when describing treasure hoards; if the coins aren't local, the question of how they got there (or even where they are from, if they aren't familiar) can be a useful adventure hook.
Calendar
I haven't found a way to take a snapshot of this, it's a bigger spreadsheet than most !
The calendar I use has local dates on the left-hand side, and then columns for each party operating in the world, so that I can see how closely in-step with each other they are.
It also has a column for background world events - very useful when generating rumours, and essential to make sure none of the rumours get out too early.
Finally, it has a column with the phases of each of the two moons. It's a surprisingly useful way to know how much light the characters have if they are sneaking around after dark !
Experience Point Tracking
This is probably the most complex spreadsheet of all, so I might write a separate post about it. I've got two versions of this spreadsheet, one for D&D 3.5, and one for 5th Edition. It's full of complex formulae cross-referencing monster CR's with character levels, and calculations to show what the target XP is for their next level gain.
Conclusion
Overall, I find Excel to be an awesome tool to help me organise all kinds of different aspects of my game. Whether I'm playing online through a virtual tabletop or face-to-face with a laptop nearby, having a few key spreadsheets open makes it much easier to manage everything seamlessly.
So what do you think ? Do you use Excel to help manage your games, or are there other tools you find work better for you ?