Laptops at the table - Do you use them?

[reanjr]

Use them all the time. I DM and don't ever bring the books to gaming. I just use the SRD available at d20srd.org. I also keep a couple tabs open in a text editor (I use Notepad++ for several reason, among them a tabbed interface and sensible cursor management with a fixed width font) for notes, tracking HP, NPC stats, etc. I also wrote a dice roller that flies out from the right side of the screen whenever you move the mouse over there. That way, it's unobtrusive but easily accesible. It also supports complicated dice rolls such as d4+3d6-5+d3. I plan to add customizable buttons in the future so that you could create a "Longsword" button that you set to roll d8+7 or whatever.

My players (the two or three that use laptops), use them for dice rolling and keeping their characters. They also use it for the SRD, but they also use books as well, not being as comfortable with advanced browsing techniques as I am books are sometimes faster for them.

We also use Google Talk to pass secret messages around.

Not using laptops in gaming is absolutely terrible. I don't know how people can stand all the paper and pencils and stuff. Everything I could possibly need to game is on one tiny (I have a small form factor laptop) device.

 

[Hussar]

A DM is only as good as the fun he generates for his group, not his choice of tools or gaming style.

Very, very siggable.

 

[reanjr]

My only rule for using a laptop at our game table - it must be quiet.
The sporadic humm of a fan can be quite distracting and therefore irritating to the rest of us, especially if we have to talk over it.

Those aren't laptops, they're desktop replacement notebooks. Quite a difference actually.

Then there's the table space & outlet issues. Luckily only a couple of us use them, but that's really plenty enough.

I'm not sure how a laptop takes up more room than character sheets, dice, pencils, and books, but...

Me and two other laptops users share the same outlet. When someone's power starts getting low, he plugs in, the other person's has a good 4 hours charge by then. We also play outside pretty often with laptops because it is alot easier than with paper/dice/pencils that can be lost.

 

[reanjr]

None of my players have ever brought a laptop to game, though I'd probably ask them not to do so. Setting aside the fact that at my table there's no physical room for laptops, the machines would serve as a major distraction for players, and create enough of a phycial barrier between people to also serve as a psychological barrier.

That may be true for people who aren't used to using a computer for everything, but I assure you, paper, pencils, and dice are way more distracting for someone who uses computers 10 hours a day for work than a laptop is. When you don't need to reference your character, you close the screen, conserving power, and not being in the way. My laptop is smaller than a D&D book, so no problems there.

People need to learn better how to use technology and not let it use them, in my opinion. Computers have so much organizational potential for gamers, I wish someone would spend the time to product a product that was actually helpful in this regard, making it easier for people to use the tools available.

 

[reanjr]

Even better, just configure the router so that it'll only let the DM out, as he's the only person that might need to hit the internet. Really any router with security on it will be in that configuration by default anyway. Just don't give the players the key.

About the only thing I can think of that this would limit would be the use of chat to communicate privately with players.

Depending on your router (and your knowledge) you could open up chat programs while disabling web. Or you could use a local chat program that didnt use the internet (thus blocking them from chatting with those outside of the game). You could also open up only specific sites, such as an SRD site, while cutting off all the rest.

 

[The Levitator]

Computers have so much organizational potential for gamers, I wish someone would spend the time to product a product that was actually helpful in this regard, making it easier for people to use the tools available.

My personal opinion is that DM Genie is the best option out there right now. With DM Genie, I can run every aspect of my game except for mapping encounters. DM Genie does have a way to map encounters, but I prefer to use Maptools and Battlegrounds, which are both VT's. DM Genie is an amazing tool to organize and run a 3.5 campaign. I can't say enough positive things about it because I know I wouldn't want to DM without it. I just don't have the time in my life to regress back to pencil and paper. There is a part of me that misses the nostalgic feel of gaming like I did in high school, until an encounter ensues. It is then that I'm most grateful for DM Genie because there is no way I've found to run combat faster, especially since we use the autoroll option.

Just for fun, I surprised the group at a session and told them we were going to go back to rolling dice. During a break, they held me down and made me promise never to do that again. Some people may find that shocking, but it has become our gaming style and it suits us very well. It's a very roleplay heavy group that also wants the combat to be a cinematic as the rest of the game. Using DM Genie allows us to move through combat at a very fast pace; focusing on exciting descriptions instead of number after number, while remaining accurate to the combat and movement rules. Considering we use quite a few variants like Defensive Opposed Roll, Armor as DR and the Facing variant, we can still resolve combat much faster and with more detail than any other of our gaming groups that we play with.

I play occasionally in a pencil, paper and die group and I still have a lot of fun. The group is much more strategy board game minded, so they don't mind taking a half hour to resolve a round of combat that would only take a couple of minutes with our group. They prefer to weigh their options and play out several scenarios before deciding on an action. We prefer the quick pace of combat feeling as real and hectic as actual combat. Our group actually enjoys the challenge of making mistakes in the heat of battle and then figuring a way to overcome that mistake, rather than play D&D like chess where you visualize every option to ensure the best possible move for the moment. Neither style is inferior to the other, just different. I have more fun with our group but I can guarantee you that the players in the "old school" group would much prefer their game to ours.

 

[thatdarncat]

When DMing I use a laptop for a lot of note taking and reference - all of the campaign material is online (in a wiki) and my DM notes are on my desktop. It's worked wonders, having my entire campaign searchable and immediately there - I don't have to search through a binder to find the name of the party's contact in a town or the name of the orc they fought 3 sessions ago. My players are responsible for updating their character sheets on the wiki, so when I need spot or listen mods, they are right there.

I usually have a pad of paper, dice and a DM screen on the table in front of me and the laptop on a side table. I have more table space in front of me and fewer things to keep track of.

I'm the only person in my gaming group to use a laptop at the table (but then I'm the only one who has a laptop)

When I'm playing, I generally leave the laptop away from the table. We still use (and prefer) paper character sheets, but I do keep my equipment in an excel spreadsheet which is never more than 10 feet away when we're playing at home.


reanjrAny chance of you posting your dice roller somewhere? I'd like to take a look if I could

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I DMed Shackled City last year for a group of six. One of the players brought his laptop to the table for the first several character levels. I found the laptop to be something of an obstruction to his full participation in the game. The laptop's screen, I felt, walled him off from the other players and from me. Then, too, he spent quite a bit of time rules referencing via the laptop, always saying, "Hang on, got it right here..." only to have his look-ups take perhaps twice to three times as long as it would to flip pages in the actual book. While I don't suspect he was wi-fi on the net during actual play or that he video gamed during the campaign's slower moments, the laptop was enough of a distraction that I eventually asked him to quit bringing it. He did, for which I was grateful as it seemed to stimulate more interaction from his character. Plus, he's a friend and I was happy to have him back in full during our sessions.

 

[Umbran]

That may be true for people who aren't used to using a computer for everything, but I assure you, paper, pencils, and dice are way more distracting for someone who uses computers 10 hours a day for work than a laptop is.

Speak for yourself, please. I use a computer all day at work - there it is a wonderful tool and I couldn't do my job without it. But, I think the things are distracting at the gaming table.

Ummm- okay, just for the record our game wasn't broken, the lap tops made it better. The table took everyone off the couch and off the floor and put them in an equal and comfortable spot.

Okay, just for the record, my players specifically asked to be on the couch and the floor, because they found that physically more comfortable and a preferrable atmosphere to the "we all sit around the conference table" sort of gaming.

This just goes to show that different groups have different needs. So perhaps the general proclamation that "laptops are better" is not so strong as you might think. Laptops are probably better for some groups, and less good for others.

Especially if it starts calling for major revamps of process and equipment - like whole new computers and tables specifcally for gaming - it would pay to thoroughly examine your needs and "pain points" before moving to computer use.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I tried using a laptop when I ran 3e and found it didn't speed up much and I often spent more time fiddling with the computer than I would looking something up in a book. While a good DM program may help run 3e, I don't really need it with C&C so it's not an issue. Plus I just don't like the idea of everyone wanting to use computers at a tabletop RPG. It runs fine with pencils and paper. And dice rolling tools are evil.