Coolest. Gaming Set-up. Evar.

[Kid Charlemagne]

The throw distance for a 24" x 36" image was about 6' and could be achieved in this method.

This is the challenge for most projector undermount situations. We have projectors at work that can project that size image from 3' - 4' away, but wide angle lenses like that are a little pricier. If you're really interested in an undermounted situation, you'd probably be best going with some form of flat screen TV.

BTW, the advantage of using a projector over a TV is the ability to fine tune the scaling/size of image via the projector's zoom controls.

 

[Droogie]

That's a pretty cool idea!

I always play D&D with miniatures.

And, I'd also love to be able to use a projector (or just a giant computer screen with Powerpoint, or something like that). It would be really cool to be able to say "you're walking through the forest" and project this big image of some green forest scanned outta NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC or something. (Occasionally I show players pictures from books, etc., but it'd be nice to be able to blow them up on a big screen.) I also like using music and so forth.

But... personally, I'm not very excited by the idea of projecting giant "DunDjinni" and "Neverwinter Nights"-style maps on the miniatures board. Those fancy color maps are nice, yeah, but the only REALLY important thing with a map is, "Can you tell where everything is? Are the lines between the squares visible, or are they obscured by a bunch of color stuff?"

So, I love the idea of using technology to enhance a game, but IMHO, I'd rather just take 30 seconds and draw some lines on a BattleMat to show where the dungeon walls are, and THEN say "To the north is a rough-hewn passage with fungus and mushrooms growing out of the walls. To the east you see a wooden door with a rusty padlock chained to it."

But that's my personal bias. I've never been very excited about map-creating software. Maps are supposed to be functional first and pretty second. (And if I really want to, I can just draw something myself...)

Sorry, I just had to throw in a dissenting opinion. It's still an amazing idea though!

Jason

I feel the same way. At the risk of sounding curmudgeon-y, I prefer to keep the game as lo-tech as possible. The Nice thing about D&D is that its a game that you can still play by candlelight during a blackout. If the game has gotten to the point where everyone needs their laptops at the table, you might as well hook up a LAN and play NWN.

Ah well. Sour grapes, jealousy, and all that.

 

[Dragonblade]

You may have already answered this but, how do you get the scale right and how do you project a 1" grid using the NWN toolset?

Simple, he projects it onto a standard wet erase playmat that already has the 1 inch grid on it.

 

[Furry]

I have to say that our setup with a simple playmat with the 1" grid, some minatures and a small horde of Lego men feels woefully inadequate at this point. After showing your setup to my roommates we came up with three conclusions:

1) We're poor students and you are not
2) You're higher level geeks than we are
3) We're incredibly jealous

I'm going to echo the earlier sentiment, if you ever want to have a couple people over to ogle, just let me know.

 

[Green Knight]

Oh my God, that is stupefyingly beautiful! Congrats for the creative thinking. Man, how I wish I could emulate your feat.

 

[Acid_crash]

I'm really jealous and also inspired to try and make my future games a lot funner now that I have seen the light of possibilities.

 

[Razz0putin]

and I thought I was cool when I got et-helper working :\

 

[Eurosolo]

I am definately envious of this set-up. The time and money investment in a project like this might make it difficult to copy with many gaming groups. However, it is the COOLEST design I have seen!

 

[Steel_Wind]

I feel the same way. At the risk of sounding curmudgeon-y, I prefer to keep the game as lo-tech as possible. The Nice thing about D&D is that its a game that you can still play by candlelight during a blackout. If the game has gotten to the point where everyone needs their laptops at the table, you might as well hook up a LAN and play NWN.

Ah well. Sour grapes, jealousy, and all that.

Well, I shouldn't be one to beat up on NWN. BioWare hired me and the rest of my team to create most of the art content for their upcoming Premium Modules.

So, NWN has been pretty good to me.

But for all of that, I'm the first to admit that compared to our normal pnp gaming sessions, NWN can't compete. Nor can Lineage II or World of Warcraft or any other CRPG, MMORPG or other computer game.

I don't have to sell anyone reading this thread on the sheer entertainment value and depth of game experience that a traditional face to face, over the tabletop RPG provides.

But that does not mean that we can't improve on it. It does not mean that we cannot make it more compelling and fun to play - and most of all, it does not mean that we cannot benefit from technology during our game sessions. Our objective throughout has been to steal some of the sizzle from computer games, while at the same time cut out the restrictions and the nonsense behind them.

The more I have used the projector in our game sessions, the more I feel that we may be truly on to something. If the price of projectors continues to fall, if the output possible from a portable projector like Mitsubishi's PocketProjector continues to rise and the underlying hardware and software surrounding all of this gets better and more focussed (or even if we have a diferent display technology which accomplishes the same thing, like a flexible LCD battlemat you could unroll and plug in)...

Then 5 years from now, setups like these can become more common, if not commonplace. And with some custom developed software to make it easier to do this sort of thing, we might be able to expand this hobby again and make it *cool*.

Five year ago there was a lot of pooh-poohing of laptops and RPGs. They were too expensive to ever ever be common enough to have any impact at the gaming table.

Well the price dropped and the used market in laptops got big - and now the discussions include how people use their laptops at sessions - not if they have one or not. The .pdf has become all the rage as a result.

Projector technology and high power LED lights made by Luxeon are getting to the point where this is not a matter of if they will be cheap enough to become commonplace, it's a matter of when. Texas Instruments' patent on the DMD array, the chip that is at the heart of all DLP projectors, expires in 2008. We will then see a flood of competition and a further significant price drop will follow.

Seriously - if you were 12-14 years old and you saw a bunch of people all excited around a table rolling dice with these minatures and this snazzy moving color digital map - there is an instant sizzle that can connect with the player and draw him in and do so in a way that little else can.

I believe that - properly done - EA, NcSoft and Sony etc.; they cannot compete with this.

The imagination and the story telling, impromptu acts and improvisation, and all the social camaraderie - we already know that these things are the substance and meat of RPGs.

But if we have more sizzle to make the game more fun for ourselves - and to permit the game to connect and appeal to others in order to allow it to expand and grow, I don't think that can ever be a bad thing.

 

[DethStryke]

I kid, I kid...

Seriously - if you were 12-14 years old and you saw a bunch of people all excited around a table rolling dice with these minatures and this snazzy moving color digital map - there is an instant sizzle that can connect with the player and draw him in and do so in a way that little else can.

I believe that - properly done - EA, NcSoft and Sony etc.; they cannot compete with this.

Yea, but being over the internet keeps the crazy gamers who don't bathe from knowing where you live!