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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ferghis" data-source="post: 5270143" data-attributes="member: 40483">I one day hope to assemble something like this at home. While a Multitouch surface is probably the best medium for computer-assisted gaming, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to let my wife let me build one in the livingroom, and proper software support with a good, intuitive UI is still far in the future. So, yes, a projection is probably the best way to go about business. Since we're together on this, and that's where you are, I'll share my dreams with you.This setup also needs two computers at the table. The DM's computer (which I'm guessing most folks have) and a second small one that players pass around so they can enter their character's actions and update the map. I really don't want this setup to burden the DM with additional work. Ideally, this second computer would be a tablet, but, again, cost is an issue, so a netbook might have to do. Obviously, this depends a lot on what resources the players already have.The second computer could also show the initiative order, and any conditions that were known on the characters. Making the players input the conditions on monsters (and maybe even on their own characters) would free up a lot of the DM's time. If I were at home, and had the hardware capacity, I'd actually throw this info up on the flatscreen TV (this requires a third output from the DM's computer, or just yet another computer), just so everyone could see it all the time. Especially if I'm playing 4e, where conditions and initiative changes are plentiful.Finally, this aspiration is why I've been tracking the hard work done by the MapTools community on automating attacks and powers. Which is why I want to mention the following regarding your work on MapTool Macros: thank you. I hope one day we get to the point where in 4e saves, regeneration, ongoing damage, and the like are done without player intervention (unless they want to roll the dice).</blockquote>

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