Useful Board Game Apps

There are a lot of strange apps available on the web. Even ignoring the plethora of games you can play on your mobile device, there are some... interesting... apps that people have created.

But not to worry! There are some very useful apps out there as well! And today, I'm going to share with you some of the ones that might be of interest to you, my fellow readers, as board game enthusiasts.

Don't worry, I'm not going to waste your time looking at obvious apps like dice rollers. There are plenty of those out there, and I am sure you probably already have at least one that you use and like. No, I'm going to introduce you to some apps that do interesting things that you might find beneficial in your board game playing.

And of course, I'm not talking about apps that let you play games on your phone. No, I'm not talking about the Catan Classic app, or the Lords of Waterdeep app, or the Splendor app, or anything like that. I'm talking about apps that enhance your experience around the table with other human beings picking up and manipulating physical components.

And that also means I'm not looking at apps that are intended for use with specific games. For example, the app for One Night Ultimate Werewolf that walks you through the night phase, but is useless for any other game.

No, I'm talking about apps like:

More Resources for Gamers

You may remember that a few months ago, I posted an article that was essentially a series of links to websites that would be of use to both players and GMs in creating both worlds and characters. It included a twitter feed that generated a random map once per hour, a website with story idea generators as well as name and race generators, another website with generators for many different kinds of names, a third website with generators for personalities and other things, and a random city map generator.

I have a few additions to make to this list of resources. However, whereas the links in my previous article all had to do with preparing for games, the two I have today are more for setting the mood in the game itself.

Resources for Gamers

I recently stumbled across a fascinating twitter account. It's a bot designed to generate a new fictional map once per hour. These maps are designed to resemble the maps you'd find in the back of cheap paperback fantasy novels. It occurred to me that these maps can easily be adapted for use in original game worlds.

This started me thinking about other resources that GMs can use for their games. So here is a list of a few useful websites. Click on the images to be taken to that site!

External Resources

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about player aids. I've recently been able to start a Changeling game for a couple of friends, and I reworked an idea I'd used in the past. I think that will make an interesting topic for this week's entry.

Those of you who are experienced gamers may be familiar with a concept called "bluebooking." If this is a new idea to you, let me explain: some gaming groups began using blue books (small booklets of blank ruled paper, normally used in american universities for essay exams) to continue action of a game outside of a normal gaming session. If there were scenes that players wanted to play out in private, away from others in their gaming group, those scenes could be written out in blue books, which were cheap and easily available. GMs would then review those scenes and respond to them, if necessary, and could incorporate events of such private scenes into their game setting without other players being immediately aware of what was going on. Other types of scenes that could be acted out through bluebooking included scenes that occurred in a long lull in main action (i.e., if a couple of years of in-game time passed between gaming sessions, players could describe what their character was doing during that time), or if there was a scene that a player didn't feel comfortable roleplaying in front of other gamers, and so on.

This is just one example of an External Resource. External Resources are tools used outside of a normal gaming session to enhance stories being told.