In need of advice: laptop vs ipad for tabletop gaming!

[Arravis]

So I'm a DM for a 4th edition D&D group and I'm considering either buying a ipad or a laptop to assist my DM'ng during games. I have a budget of $600-ish (USD) for this.

The ipad, from what I've read seems very handy and there seem to be many apps that could be helpful. Unfortunately it's limited in the programs I can use (can you even use Word on it?, or something that will act as it?) and the storage space seems very limited. Lastly, I'm not sure if the Character Builder and other 4th ed tools run on an ipad? The other nice thing would be all the cool other benefits of owning an ipad, but that's not the main reason I'd be getting it.

A laptop would would run all the apps I already run at home, but its larger and much clumsier than an ipad would be. Of course, $600-ish wouldn't get you much of a laptop at all, so it may not run much of anything beyond word and few other basic programs (I can't imagine it would run an Adobe suite of products very well). The last thing with a laptop would be that the wife and I would be able to do some co-op PC games on it (she's a big-time gamer), but at $600-ish, again, its not likely to be able to run much game wise either.

Some facts about my group and I that my be useful:

• I have 7 players (plus me), we all use the online Character Builder from WotC.

• I run a Forgotten Realms campaign, but its highly customized to our group (its sent in 1379 DR and events from previous campaigns affect the current campaign, so it diverges somewhat from canon because of it).

• The bulk of my work that I would need on game-days is done in Microsoft Word (some is done in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc but not stuff I would need on game-day).

• I currently run a low-tech game, as far as DM's aids are concerned. We whiteboards for notes, GameMastery's initiative counters, and TactTiles for the maps (love TactTiles, those things rock).

• I am a professional graphic designer and do my own graphics for all my work. I make maps, illustrate NPCs, make props, etc. I'm very savvy on the standard desktop tech-end of things, but I don't own a cellphone (on purpose) nor any kind of laptop or standard pad.

• I own a Kindle Fire, which I use as a reference library. I keep many of the rulebooks I have at home as PDFs on there, but due to its limited storage I can't have many on there (ie: the entire run of all FR books, which I own, like I said, I've been DM'ing since 81, I'm old ).

Well guys, any assistance, advice, or general comments are welcome. Thanks!!

-Arravis

P.S.: To the other old timers that know me on ENWorld, yeah... I hadn't posted in forever. Sorry... I've been thinking of publishing some of my material and I didn't want the temptation to post it here

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I don't have an Ipad, so it's hard for me to compare the two, but I will say that I'm happy using a laptop for games. I mostly use it for Word and looking things up on the Internet, and sometimes Google Earth (my game's set in the real world).

Also $600 can get you a lot more than it used to be able to. I got my current laptop for less than $500, and it runs Creative Sweet well enough for me (though I'm not a professional, so my needs might be less demanding).

 

[Derren]

I would go with a tablet, although getting one only for gaming is a bit overkill, especially when you already have a Fire.
And you won't be able to run D&D tools on an iPad (or Android tablet). There are some D&D apps, but the higher quality ones have to be bought. Word of course also wouldn't run but there are similar apps for text editing.
One exception would be the Windows 8 tablets. They would theoretically be able to run all tools a laptop could run, performance permitting. But I haven't tested one to be sure about their capabilities. I certainly would not buy an iPad anyway. You pay a lot for just the name. Look at some Android tablets where you can get equal performance for $100 less. Or the mentioned Windows 8 tablets.

A laptop on the other hand is much more versatile, runs normal windows programs and has no problems with storage, connections (usb sticks etc.) and performance. Its just more bulky, noisy and harder to show around for maps.

 

[Arravis]

I have tried most of the table-top apps on the kindle, of the few they have. They tend to be very low quality, unfortunately. I had heard from friends (in other gaming groups) that the ipad has a much larger selection of apps for table-top gaming (of course, I can't confirm this myself). Android apps, again from what they had told me, are also much more limited in selection. Again, not making statements of fact, just what I had heard... I figure you guys would have a broader knowledge base.

 

[JDragon]

I currently have both an iPad2 and a laptop.

As a player you could definitely just use an iPad and have everything you need. I play Pathfinder so I haven't gotten any of the apps for 4E, but I believe there are some decent ones available.

For running a game I think you would be much better off with a laptop instead of the iPad. Now their might be an app that makes it easy to run a 4E game from an iPad but I'm not sure about that.

Outside gaming I think you will get more out of a laptop as well.

 

[falcarrion]

The first question I need to ask is where your going to be gaming will you be able to connect to the internet?

 

[Ketherian]

I use a laptop with a second screen.
This allows me to show Maps, illustrations, and the like to the party without having to print them out.
When we need to place characters on the map, I use MapTools to do so.
On my side, I use a tiddlywiki for the campaign, and game-specific character and campaign tools that run on Windows and Mac (not the iPad...yet). Since the system is HarnMaster, I doubt these tools would help you, sorry.

I'm in a game where the GM uses his iPad (32 Gbit - I believe) as a reference tool. He doesn't use it for maps or to show characters. This game is in Pathfinder, but all his tools are on the internet. When he doesn't have internet access, he goes back to paper. He uses his iPad to text us computer-users notes and refer to the rules and his own write-ups with it. In that game, we have a player who attends the game via skype. Clunky, but it works.

 

[MythosaAkira]

When DMing, I was using my iPad for awhile, then switched to my laptop (MacBook Pro), and recently I've decided to go back to the iPad. I switched back primarily because I have a lot of reference material in PDF format (specifically for Pathfinder or D&D Next) and I find it easier and more "natural" to read PDFs on the iPad rather than my laptop. Some other thoughts:

* My iPad is a 32GB version and I've found that's plenty for what I'm using it for (besides my gaming material, I've got a variety of other applications, games, etc.)
* There are various word processor/text editor programs available for the iPad. I use Pages, which is Apple's version of Word. Pages will open Word docs, though I'm sure there's some formatting and the like that don't translate directly.
* As others have mentioned, you can get a pretty good laptop PC for $600 if you decide to go that route. Though probably wouldn't work terribly well for games, depending on what you're playing.
* I don't know if there are more gaming apps for iOS than Android; I'd suspect the numbers would be close, but I can't say for sure.
* The apps I use for GMing include: DM Tools (initiative tracker), PFRPG rd (offline Pathfinder SRD reference), Notebooks (organizational tool; kind of like OneNote), Numbers (Apple's spreadsheet; use it for building encounters, tracking XP, etc.), GoodReader (reading/storing PDF, maps, etc; if you get an iPad and reference a lot of PDFs, GoodReader is a must-have), Chrome. I'm developing my own utilities for those functions I haven't found an existing tool for (calendar/almanac app, hex mapper, etc.).
* I like the handiness of being able to bring up a graphic and just pick up the iPad and show it to the players (can't easily do that with my laptop).
* I prefer the mobility of the iPad over the laptop, though I do use a Bluetooth keyboard for things that require a great deal of typing (ex: notetaking in the Notebooks app).
* The DDI tools won't work on the iPad since they require Silverlight. I'm not certain that Silverlight works on Android, either (Mac and Windows, yes). There are utilities for both mobile platforms that allow you to remote connect to a desktop, so you could use that on a tablet to connect to a PC or Mac to run the tools there (cheating, but it works )

Hope that helps!

 

[Arravis]

Hey guys, I appreciate the knowledge and advice, I'm still mulling it over.
To answer a question, Yes, I have wifi internet access both at home and where we game, so that's not an issue. Thanks again!

 

[delericho]

I haven't used either for gaming, but I have gamed with both players and DMs who have used both, and my preference from the other side of the (computer) screen is for the iPad every time.

When I've encountered it, I have found laptop use to be extremely distracting. This was less true when done by a player than by the DM, but even in the hands of the DM it seemed to distract from the game. (Additionally, it created a significant physical barrier between people at the table. Of course, since most DMs use a screen anyway, that's not a new issue, but when done by players it was actively annoying.)

The iPad, by contrast, did nothing but speed the game up. Probably because it was that much smaller, and especially because it simply lay flat when not in use. In fact, my only issue with the iPad was that we never quite got as far as moving to electronic character sheets and going paperless.