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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 4752619" data-attributes="member: 8835">Dark Kestral's made a valid point.  The WoW players are going to expect better tools.  Because they have them.  To them, the difference between WoW and D&D, is that a human fully controls the monsters and NPCs, resulting in "custom" interactions with their character (rather than scripted).From a player perspective, the advancement of tools seems to be like this:automating dice rolling (remember the 1st hand-held dice roller, e-mail dice servers. etc)electronic character sheets (the first being in word processors/ spreadsheets, then dedicated programs)in-game char sheet (weakest link yet, not seen a good app)in-game map/PC interaction tool (the virtual table-top, holds the PC, and the map, so the players can move about/interact)chat tool (text, then voice, then video)From a GMing perspective, the tools are more varied, folks have been making a lot of stuff:random treasure rollerrandom dungeon generatorrandom encounter rollerrandom NPC generatorrandom town generatorrandom map generatorencounter managerin-game map/character interaction toolchat tool (text, then voice, then video)Each of these tools build upon each other, until the DM has a tool-set to fully run the game in the computer, and the players can participate in that environment.We know that a game can be run fully in pen and paper.  We know that a game can be run on pen and paper, but played in a text-only chat room.  We know that a pen and paper game can be run with web-cams for remote players.  The key to "killing" pen and paper, is to make the tools easier to use, more convenient than pen and paper.I think some of the first steps, are to make it easy to run a PC without a paper character sheet.  This doesn't mean codifying every rule into the computer.  It means making an interface that holds all my char sheet info, that is easy to navigate.  It means the consumables (HP, spells, gear) are easily manipulated in-game.  It means any related rule text (skill and spell descriptions) are hyper-linked in.   That's about it.  If I had a solid tool for that (that was fairly easy to handle out-of game revising for level-up), I wouldn't need a paper char sheet.  I don't even need to to enforce the rules, so long as it showed me the math (how many skill ranks do I have, how many am I allowed).If every player had this tool running at the table, the next "synergy bonus" is for them to be able to interact with the GM's laptop.  If every roll were sent to the GM, he'd be able to compare the roll to the DC (he could handle the situational modifiers, etc).  From there, he'd decided what suceeded, or failed.  If the PC's heal/get injured, he could sent the appropriate effect to the PC.  You'd still be dealing with GM abjudication.  The software simply handles dice rolls and "consumables".  The GM decides what to do with the results, and sends any PC altering command back to the PC.From there, you'd want to tighten up the "GM" decision making so that any obvious stuff is automatically handled.  If a PC attacks an orc, you don't need the GM to verify the roll and apply the damage, just let the PC laptop issue the "attack orc with longsword" command and apply the result.  Once you start down this path, is where the codeifying the rules becomes harder.  Combat rolls are pretty easy, it's all the other "real world" simulation stuff that creates a ton of code.  This is where the steep slope begins of making a tool that works well.</blockquote>

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