Treasure Tables is on hiatus as of December 13th, 2007 -- after two years of daily posts, I needed a break. If you're looking for GMing material, I have two recommendations: the hundreds of posts in TT's archives, and my new project, the multi-author GMing blog Gnome Stew. Happy GMing! -- Martin

Turn Watcher for Tracking Inititative

Sat. July 15, 2006 

Turn Watcher looks like a simple way to keep track of initiative in your game — a computer-based alternative to using index cards.

It includes a couple of nice bells and whistles, like current hit points and status (delayed, etc.), and if you’re running d20 you can also plug in Spot, Listen, Will and other commonly-used values. And at $10 for a download, it seems quite reasonably priced.

More posts about: Products for GMs

Comments

12 Responses to “Turn Watcher for Tracking Inititative”

  1. John Arcadian on July 15th, 2006 8:49 am

    Very nice. Since I’m not a big DnD fan I personally would like it to have some different dice options, but it seems a perfect fit for a DND game.

  2. Abulia on July 15th, 2006 10:26 am

    Perhaps, but a few strikes against it:

    1) Windows only; no Mac version.

    2) If you have a computer in front of you during gaming I daresay that’s possibly more distracting to the game than using index cards (or some varation thereof).

    3) A classicly bad website: no demo, no screen pics, no sale!

    4) Why not a cross-platform web based version or Java/JRE?

    5) Ten dollars? No way I’d pay $10 for something with that narrow of a focus. Of course I work in IT and could program my own initiative tracker if the need hit me, so the call to action isn’t really there for me.

    6) As John said, too d20 specific. Sure, lots of people play d20 but they *also* play other games. So they use the program for six months and then start playing Vampire…ooops?

  3. maikeru on July 15th, 2006 10:35 am

    Well, I know you covered roleplaying tools in the past with there maptool, token, and dice tools. (which are all free and written in java). But it looks like they are working on an init traker as well.

    Not pluggin anything, but always love free stuff

    http://rptools.net

  4. Martin on July 15th, 2006 11:41 am

    John: Yep, a bit more programming would have given this one more versatility.

    Abulia: No demo is a downside, but there actually are screenshots. The how-to walkthrough does a decent job of letting you peek under the hood, too.

    I’d love to see an Abulia-built initiative program — I’ll bet it would be small, slick and versatile. Any chance of that becoming a reality?

    maikeru: Thanks for the link!

  5. Lehi on July 15th, 2006 1:16 pm

    Am I the only one that sees that there is a demo? And that it has a Windows and Linux version? (which means that porting it to Mac is quite an easy step)

    It’s okay. I was just playing with the demo (the Linux version in Fedora), but it doesn’t do much more than index cards or other lined-up tokens to in tracking combats, IMNSHO.

    Cheers!

  6. Martin on July 15th, 2006 2:02 pm

    Lehi: Yep, you must be. I looked for a demo when I was deciding whether or not to link to it, and didn’t find one.

    Thanks for mentioning it. It’s cleverly hidden in the downloads section, in my defense. ;)

  7. Abulia on July 15th, 2006 2:05 pm

    Gah! I went back and there is indeed a demo and screenshots, so I stand properly admonished. Again, not the greatest website!

  8. Alexis Wilke on July 16th, 2006 10:02 pm

    Hi guys,

    I’m glad at least one person noticed that there is indeed a Linux version and a Demo is available.

    Now, I’d like to know what we could do to ameliorate our website. If you don’t mind to tell me, that is.

    From what I can see, it would be to add a clearer link to the demo and possibly a description of the systems supported.

    As for the Mac OS/X version, we’re waiting for the company to buy 10.4 because gtk only works on 10.4, not 10.3 as we have right now. This should be fairly soon.

    Anyway, if you don’t mind to elaborate on the subject of the “not the greatest website”, I’d really appreciate.

    Thank you all for your comments,

  9. John Arcadian on July 17th, 2006 5:19 am

    Hello Alexis,

    Personally I had no issue with the website design. It’s short sweet and to the point of selling something. The two things I would say.

    1. I notice it’s “priced down” from $25.00. That is a price I wouldn’t even consider it at. Whether the price down is a marketing bit, or an introductory offer $10.00 is what I would pay for the program.

    2. I might pay more if it had multiple dice style support, not just d20. This may be achievable through downloadable modules, or just built right in. Not sure of your programming but I switch systems frequently when I’m not playtesting and I would find the program incredibly useful, if it had multiple systems support.

  10. Martin on July 18th, 2006 6:47 am

    Alexis: Apart from having trouble finding the demo, I quite liked the website. I agree with John that it’s short and to the point, and that’s a good thing.

    IMO the demo, the how-to guide, testimonials and the price should be the first things that pop out at you when you visit the site.

  11. Alexis Wilke on July 21st, 2006 9:14 pm

    Hi guys,

    Thank you for commenting. It is always very helpful!

    We changed the top area so just the actual price is showing and you also now have a link to the page to download a Demo.

    I’m not too sure I’d want to make the testimonials too prominent at this time. We’ve something on the back burner to have a page of testimonials at some point. Then we could add a pretty visible link to that page.

    Alexis

  12. Martin on July 21st, 2006 9:51 pm

    Alexis: The new header links look good. :)