Microsoft Surface used for D&D

[darjr]

Slashdot has a post about folks using Microsoft Surface to play D&D.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough on Vimeo

Still looks very cumbersome and has other issues but it also looks very promising.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

That's really cool. I like the menu of actions and the power list people can get when it's their turn.

 

[Byronic]

Slashdot has a post about folks using Microsoft Surface to play D&D.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough on Vimeo

Still looks very cumbersome and has other issues but it also looks very promising.

It looks very nice but... why don't we just play a videogame? We can't feel the roll of the dice, it becomes harder for the DM to adjust things on the fly (let's say a player decides to use a power to blow down a wall, this becomes a lot harder to adjust then a plain old board).

Why bother rolling dice at all anyway, why not just activate the ability and let it automatically roll the dice?

Overall it's interesting, but I'd probably only use it for games played through the internet.

 

[darjr]

Well the point is to play with many people. The whole idea of Surface and things like it is to have several people sitting around the table interacting with it. Otherwise it'd just be a trad screen and keyboard. No need to lay it down flat and be all touch screen at that point.

 

[Drkfathr1]

This is what I think the future of tabletop gaming is. Pretty cool, but hopefully something like this would be capable of running with and without rules.

In other words, not tied to any specific edition of rules.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well the point is to play with many people. The whole idea of Surface and things like it is to have several people sitting around the table interacting with it. Otherwise it'd just be a trad screen and keyboard. No need to lay it down flat and be all touch screen at that point.

The point would be to play with many people, face to face, with more possibilities regarding physical representation. Imagine you could use maps provided via DDI together with your books - don't worry about setting up dungeon tiles, just load the map from memory!

Some things to consider (because I know that much about Surface)
- The surface can theoretically identify objects via bar-code like infrared markings. It might not be impossible to roll actual dice if they are prepared properly. Though the question might be what happens if you fall off the table?
- The same principle could be applied to miniatures. Add a marker identifying it, and you can use your physical minis directly. Of course, if your existing minis don't have such markers, it's not really interesting.
- The surface is unfortunately not intended as an end consumer product. So you won't really get this experience at home anytime soon.
- The Dire Wolf didn't actually avoid Opportunity Attacks. He entered and left one or even two squares threatened by the characters.

Of course - touch displays will become more common in the future. Windows 7 has built-in support, and its launch will also coincide with the launch of new multitouch capable hardware. Apple has built up a considerably expertise with touch thanks to the iPhone, I suppose it's only a matter of time until they produce their own multitouch capable notebooks and displays.

Definitely cool stuff. Maybe another argument for going back to the Virtual Gaming Table and add built-in multitouch support? If they use WPF, it should be relatively easy. (I have just recently added multitouch capability to the software I am working on.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The chief benefit I would see is that it allows a game with a mixture or gamers physically present and ones that are remote on the same game.

It would also be pretty good for boardgames. I would be prefectly willing to play World In Flames or Empires in Arms in that way, since the amount of screen real-estate on the surface is greater than in any conventional display.

 

[ggroy]

Maybe this will become the new unofficial "VTT".

 

[wedgeski]

Terrific. The radial 4E power interface is very nice. I think I would have preferred a VTT-like 3d representation of actual miniatures, as opposed to the animated wolf, though.

 

[darjr]

Yes. Face to face play is the point. Should have added that. As much as I think over the net play is important, I game in large part because of the personal face to face interaction.

I hope this table facilitates that. It may even help interlink the two ways of playing as well.

In fact I see things like living campaigns with multiple interlinked tables of groups of people.