The iPhone Will Kill D&D

[ProfessorCirno]

But will the books?

If you and five buddies have iPhone tyle devices and each one can 'link' via bluetooth/wi-fi/etc... to each other... do you really need to have a book to let you know what your powers are? Do you need counters to let you know to use an action point? Second Wind? That you're weakened?

I dunno. Don't get me wrong - it's nice to have a physical book. But I do agree that physical books for D&D are going to start fading away. Now, I dunno if the same can be said about other physical books - certainly the schools have a stranglehold on class books, and I doubt they'll ever let go of that, and I'd like to think that fiction and a good softcover will always be around - but for D&D? I think physical books are on the way out. It's going to be a slow process mind you - possibly very slow - but I think pdfs are the future for gaming.

Edit: I pertain this to laptops though. Screw iPhones. Overhyped boxes of crap. <_<

 

[Festivus]

I am thinking about this out loud a bit, partly because I can't recall, but were other theories such as these put forth with the advent of Colossal Cave, Zork, CompuServe, Everquest, etc?

At it's core for me, it's getting together with family and friends and rolling physical dice, side conversations about new vs old Spock, and what trouble our kids are getting into. It has very little to do with which game we are playing.

 

[Ulrick]

D&D won't die. It'll just change forms.

D&D 15e will be downloaded into your home's holosuite for hours of entertainment!
With bodysuit techology you can actually look EXACTLY like your character!
Select between 1000 different character classes and races!
Explore the Tomb of Horrors and actually come out nude and missing your arm!
Visit Hommlet, and the Inn of the Welcome Wench!
Become more powerful the Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster!
When you reach level 100, you can kill the gods and take their stuff!
Attack and defeat the dreaded Gazebo!

Real-time "bragging software" allows you to share your heroic efforts on EN World and WotC messageboards--or complain.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Nah, the phone's too small. Even the dice app I abandoned because real dice were more convenient. A character sheet on an iPhone would be horribly fiddly - either a million pages, or you'd be zoomed in scrolling all over the place on fewer big pages.

I agree.

But one thing that will be coming down the line is either a larger iPhone or a type of... 'glass' that can be manipulated like the way you can hide the keyboards now. And the reason I think this is because Kindle.

Kindle is a neat idea but in early generations. When it does comics, full color comics, then yeah, I'm pretty sure that automating the data behind RPGs, as is done in places by the DDI now, won't be that far off.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Well there is a foldable screen eReader coming out this year, so screen size will slowly become less of a problem.

My problem would be that you lose all the flexibility that PnP RPGs offer. Basically you end up playing a computer game co-op. Not that I don't think it might not go that way, but that's not table top RPG to me.

 

[Leatherhead]

Nah, the phone's too small. Even the dice app I abandoned because real dice were more convenient. A character sheet on an iPhone would be horribly fiddly - either a million pages, or you'd be zoomed in scrolling all over the place on fewer big pages.

Oh yes, digital media readers come in two varieties: too big, and too small.

And iPhones are just the latest trend in PDAs, marketed at cell-phone users.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Well there is a foldable screen eReader coming out this year, so screen size will slowly become less of a problem.

My problem would be that you lose all the flexibility that PnP RPGs offer. Basically you end up playing a computer game co-op. Not that I don't think it might not go that way, but that's not table top RPG to me.

How do you figure?

You still have a DM, you still have the ability to make everything up as you go, and it's still communication between human beings.

 

[mach1.9pants]

My interpretation from the OP is that all the devices are linked using Wifi etc and the dice rolls and damage and stuff is all automatically calculated and applied. Thus removing or severely reducing the flexibility that we get now.
If that is not what the OP meant, my mistake

 

[Umbran]

When you take the math away from the actual sitting of the rules and don't have to keep track of all the crazy stuff that players can do and how it impacts with everything around them, then yeah, the MMO experience of the rules being fully in the background will be realized.

And this was before the whole WoTC PDF thing happened.

Opinions?

Simply put - a computer can only adjudicate rules-application to things it has been programmed to adjudicate. Flesh-and-blood GMs are required to apply the rules to unanticipated actions.

So, your online thing can know the rules for doig a to-hit. It cannot figure out what to do if the player wants ot attack the chandelier chain and drop it on the enemy, unless the programmer has thought of that beforehand.

The number of things the players can imagine at run time far exceeds the number of things a programmer can think of beforehand. Ergo, you cannot shift the game mechanics to devices to run the rules for you.

DMs and rules-knowledge will be necessary for the foreseeable future.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't like fiddly little LCD screens. I like dice, minis, maps, and full-color rulebooks.