What level of technology WON'T you go beyond with your tabletop gaming?

[pawsplay]

As long as I am not subjected to minutes of every session, laptops are always welcome. However, I regard electronic dice rollers as an idea about on par with replacing my wife with an electronic girlfriend.

 

[Hereticus]

Everyone using a laptop at the table makes it no less social. Instead of everyone looking down a sheets, books and minis, they look down at a screen. Their friends are still sitting beside them.

I disagree.

I most cases looking at a laptop which has a flip up screen is more distracting and less personal. It places an impediment blocking line of sight between you and your friends.

A sheet of paper is flat and fits stealthily onto a table without blocking vision.

And with the laptop, there are always so many more distractions.

I do not permit them on the table when I an DMing. They can be on a table behind us, and used for a reference as needed.

 

[Umbran]

How about you guys?

It depends...

If I actually have people at the table, I would prefer to work with a minimum of tech. I've not found laptop lookup of rules to be faster than just flipping through the rulebooks, for example.

However, if the people simply cannot be present, then electronics are an option.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

pencil, paper, books, dice and minis


I am the only one in the group that does not have a laptop, cell phone or ipod.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Gunpowder.
I refuse to have it in my fantasy games.
Steam power is also right out.
Im not against machine like golems, or even warforged in the proper place,
but the primary force should be magic not machinery.

Any character trying to introduce a computer into my world is going to have a very short life expectancy .

 

[The Ghost]

I find that the older I get the less I want to use technology at the table. I enjoy the feeling of rolling dice, moving a mini, and writing and erasing on paper. At home, writing adventures and making characters I will use MS Word and HeroForge and PDFs. But, when I leave the house to go and game it is with a pencil, paper, dice, and a mini.

 

[Alan Shutko]

When DMing, I have my laptop to the side of the screen, running my timetracker (Mystara calendar), with DM notes and XP tracker spreadsheet. The last is a nice touch, because I can give instantaneous XP whenever we end the session, instead of having to calc.

When playing, I have my laptop there, but I'm not usually using it. For quick rules lookups, it can be faster to flip it open and do a full-text (indexed) search on PDFs than to find the right spot in the hard copy.

As a player, notes and game play are done on paper.

 

[Grazzt]

I'm all about technology.

Work for a tech company, first to buy all the gadgets, etc.

But when it comes to playing, I'm old school. I'm making my own character sheets (ok, I use Illustrator for this), and a pencil. I have a laptop, but for me, it's about dice, a pencil and your character sheet on paper.

As far as running a game, it's the same. I have a notebook. I take notes in it, and plan games with it - no computer needed - I feel much more creative with a pencil and paper in hand.

Same for me (except I work for a finance company, not a tech company, as Network Admin).

 

[IanArgent]

I use a laptop instead of pen/paper/book; but I quite deliberately do not browse or have IM up when I am playing or GMing. Dice and minis are real, thankyouverymuch - not yet ready for the virtual map. Initiaive tracker used to be DMFamiliar; I haven't gotten a good replacement for it yet, so I'm using excel.

I recently transitioned from a desktop-replacement machine to a convertible tablet (the KB is quite nice, but there are times I just want to use the tablet). Normally I prefer the larger and higher resolution screen, but this machine is physically much smaller, so can be less "present".

I've played and run in a game on IRC, and a RP-heavy play-by-post on a discussion board (actually, probably Usenet at the time).

 

[Nifft]

I was going to chime in that Cyberpunk was fine, but I'm not playing any post-Singularity games, and certainly not running such. But that's a different thread, I guess.

I've never looked at a hunk of technology and thought, "oh god how I hope that doesn't show up at my table". If someone finds a good use for it, it's welcome. Honestly, I can't imagine disliking something just because it's "too advanced". Function first: useful stuff stays.

Cheers, -- N