Feb 22, 2013

My Gaming Bug-Out Bag

Tomorrow I venture out into foreign territory.
Or maybe not so much, but for the first time in probably a year or a bit more, the weekly game will not be in my house, but at the home of one of my players.

So I've loaded up my gaming bug-out bag.
For those unaware, a bug-out bag is a bag survivalists keep on hand with everything that one would need to survive for seventy-two hours in the event of some disaster or being stranded in the woods.
My version should get me through a six or seven hour game pretty well, and hopefully any other impromptu gaming situation for my current campaign.

My DnD Loadout:
1. My ever-appropriate Bag of Holding. Unfortunately all the zippers have broken but the snaps function in holding everything together and it still has lots of pockets, which I like.

2. My campaign: In pocket number one I've got The Red Folder, where everyone crams all their character sheets and dungeon maps and such; my world binder, with all my maps world and dungeon; my "spellbook", which is just a notebook where I keep any good tables I make or find; and my composition notebook of notes on NPCs and other information that I improvise and need to remember later.

3. Some books: I have the Castles and Crusades Players Handbook so I can look up the spells people usually are convinced do entirely different things, the Monster Manual, and Zak Smith's Vornheim book since players are going into the city to sell things after the last dungeon and the book has lots of handy city tables.

4. Accoutrement: Pouch-type pocket holds everyone's dice bags (they often leave them at my place), an eraser someone left here, the players' minis in a beat-up tiny tupperware thing, and a dozen bottlecaps of various colors which make good minis and are much more durable for travel and take less space.

I have also put some useful information on my phone. I've found that the camera is high enough resolution to take legible pictures of notebook pages, and so I have:
The stats for a specific Cleric at the Temple (from a different notebook), just in case someone starts feeling violent when they stop in to see the Archbishop.
Some secret stats, also in a different notebook I didn't want to take.
Some percentages for magic item binding.
Carcosa's mutations table. I think I may use it as some magical effect, or just write some into my 100 Magical Effects Table later.

My phone also has scanned pictures of all but my latest dungeons, a random number generator for dice, and some appropriate background music.


In this case I know enough about the location, but in preparing a more general-purpose Gaming Bug-Out Bag I think I would add:
A pdf of spells to my phone, so I don't have to carry the PHB at all.
Some trail mix. In case we are out somewhere because I don't like spending money. Also I just like trail mix and it makes this feel a bit more like a survival bag.
Possibly another notebook of alternate rules I've written for different settings, namely some future stuff based on Cyberpunk 2020, so I can run different kinds of games. Along this line I might bring Carcosa.

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