What level of technology WON'T you go beyond with your tabletop gaming?
- Thread starter joethelawyer
- Start date
I would have gunpowder in my games if it was used realistically. Unfortunately, it seems that when I've been involved with fantasy rpgs that have guns, the guns are from the 19th century, while the armor & swords are still 13th century.
There were gunpowder weapons in the late medieval era - however, they were inaccurate and unreliable and took 90 seconds to reload. Plus, they would not pierce plate armor.
I would object, in some sense, to a GM telling me what I can/can't bring to play the game. It's my tools, I'll use what I want.
I don't object to a GM telling me what non-game related stuff to leave at home. My own house-rules guide includes a "No CCG, no gameboy" rule as those items don't pertain to the game. When Magic first came out, I had a player trying to trade with another player during my game. I kicked him out. It wasn't a technology problem. It was a "trying to do non-game-related stuff during my game" problem.
My printer has been out of ink for about a year. I didn't like the idea of paying $50 per cartridge (and refills have failed). So I write my adventures in Word and run them from Word. I run my PC from Excel.
I roll real dice. The only time electronic dice are valuable, are when they are incorporated into other systems. Meaning, if I have JUST a dice roller app. It's pretty useless. If my character sheet has a d20 icon next to my sword, and it rolls attacks and damage for that weapon, then it is useful.
I'm looking into MapTools for online gaming, as I've got friends 1500 miles away.
As for videogaming, I don't see the point of lan parties. I, and all of my friends have HD TVs. Why would I want to move my xbox and risk RROD to go to your house, to use your old SD TV, when I can sit on MY couch on MY HD TV and play online with you.
Furthermore, to up the ante, this last x-mas, I was shocked to find that all my friends at work, who have Xboxes, have done LAN parties with each other, but never Friended each other and played online. Worse, they complained about the foul mouthed kids online. The idea to Friend each other and ONLY play with people you know had never occurred to them. I fixed that, and during the break, we had some pretty good games with people we know, rather than strangers.
The key to technology is to use it for fun. Location doesn't matter. We had fun on our Xboxes because we removed the stranger element, and made it easier for all of us to find people we know to play with.
Technology doesn't have to distract at the real game table. But you do have to get everyone to only use it FOR the game, and to not let cell phones, PDAs, IMing, texting, gameboys be distractions. That's as simple as saying "No using stuff for non-game-related purposes during the game."
I don't object to a GM telling me what non-game related stuff to leave at home. My own house-rules guide includes a "No CCG, no gameboy" rule as those items don't pertain to the game. When Magic first came out, I had a player trying to trade with another player during my game. I kicked him out. It wasn't a technology problem. It was a "trying to do non-game-related stuff during my game" problem.
My printer has been out of ink for about a year. I didn't like the idea of paying $50 per cartridge (and refills have failed). So I write my adventures in Word and run them from Word. I run my PC from Excel.
I roll real dice. The only time electronic dice are valuable, are when they are incorporated into other systems. Meaning, if I have JUST a dice roller app. It's pretty useless. If my character sheet has a d20 icon next to my sword, and it rolls attacks and damage for that weapon, then it is useful.
I'm looking into MapTools for online gaming, as I've got friends 1500 miles away.
As for videogaming, I don't see the point of lan parties. I, and all of my friends have HD TVs. Why would I want to move my xbox and risk RROD to go to your house, to use your old SD TV, when I can sit on MY couch on MY HD TV and play online with you.
Furthermore, to up the ante, this last x-mas, I was shocked to find that all my friends at work, who have Xboxes, have done LAN parties with each other, but never Friended each other and played online. Worse, they complained about the foul mouthed kids online. The idea to Friend each other and ONLY play with people you know had never occurred to them. I fixed that, and during the break, we had some pretty good games with people we know, rather than strangers.
The key to technology is to use it for fun. Location doesn't matter. We had fun on our Xboxes because we removed the stranger element, and made it easier for all of us to find people we know to play with.
Technology doesn't have to distract at the real game table. But you do have to get everyone to only use it FOR the game, and to not let cell phones, PDAs, IMing, texting, gameboys be distractions. That's as simple as saying "No using stuff for non-game-related purposes during the game."
kitsune9
Adventurer
I'm in transition to go to a laptop. I write my own adventures, I make scans of rules, monsters, or other pertinent stuff and then label it accordingly so I don't have to take 500 rule books and just have the core rulebook. Right now, I draw the line with dice and minis, but I can see myself replacing dice in the future because already for groups of NPC's I have their pre-rolls set up from a dice roller.
I actually been buying more pdfs than spending money on hardbacks even though I like the feel of a hardback in my hands, but it's a pain to carry with me to a game.
In the future, I can see myself fully transitioning to whatever technology becomes available if makes game handling so much easier than having tons of books and paper.
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