Tech at the Table

Technology has (and will continue to advance) at exponential rates. This has brought us phones and devices that are always connected to the internet and allow us access to every distraction known to man.

So how do you handle tech at the table? These devices can simplify our lives greatly as far as gaming goes, but they can also provide endless and frustrating distraction.

Back when I gamed in college, we had a simple rule: you paid attention to what was going on. Gaming books were to supposed to be kept closed unless you were looking something up. You were respectful of what the GM was doing so you paid attention to it.

However, things are more complicated now. The aforementioned tech allows us access to books on PDFs, dice rollers, or digital character sheets. Laptops also do the same. They also provide access to Facebook, e-mail, and other digital distractions. Also, family and jobs are more of a responsibility than they were in college. Players may be on call during the game or family members may need to check in with them.

So how do you deal with it? Personally, we use a lot of tech when we game. Dice rollers make life easier when you need to roll many d10s for a White Wolf game, or the number of d6s needed for my homebrew system TROPE. Laptops allow us to use spreadsheets to automatically update characters as they take damage or level up.

Tech needs to be used responsibly though. It can't be excised completely because emergencies come up and need to be responded to appropriately. However, whether you are player or GM; you need to pay respect to the people who are playing with you. You've all decided to spend time together enjoying a hobby, so do that. Pay attention so you can act when it is your turn without slowing the game down. Use tech responsibly to speed up the process even more; but use it to play the game not to be distracted from it.

Technical Game Notes

The new rig went well. I realized that I could actually open up the maps in Google docs on both computers, and control both instances from the laptop meant I didn't have to remote into the big screen to control what the local players saw. That meant that the desktop didn't have to divert resources to allow remote access and made it run a little smoother.

I also had a wireless mouse and keyboard hooked up to the desktop so that the local players could move themselves around on the digital mat.

There were a few hiccups, the desktop kept going into a power save mode that was easy enough to fix.

On the human side, I was a bit rusty and somewhat scattered with my thoughts during the game. I've been absent from DM duties for a few months now, so it took me a little bit to get back into gear. From what I heard from the players, though they enjoyed it a great deal.

On Wednesday, there will be an early post with Brandy's perspective on her first game. Friday, I'll post my take on it and then we'll move back to more theoretical concepts and ideas.

State of the Rig

So I thought I would update the status of how we game.

I recently purchased a new laptop and was able to move my old desktop PC out into the living room and hook it up to the TV. In theory, I can run Oovoo from the desktop to game with instead of having to hook up a laptop every weekend. This has also allowed me to implement a modern GM Screen.

While this may not apply to everyone, I think it can be very useful, so I'm including it in a post. The idea is to run Oovoo and Google Docs on the desktop that is permanently hooked up to the TV. I intend to control the desktop PC using remote access software from my laptop. This will allow me to display information for all my players to see on the big screen TV, while keeping my notes and plans on the laptop screen where only I can see them.

Additionally, I can hook up my iPod touch to the laptop and use that as a mouse to control either computers, or I can use it as a dice roller instead of rolling dice. Allowing for a more streamlined GM experience.

Of course this is all untested. I hope to get it tested before the game on Saturday and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes and what improvements I can make to the system.

How We Game

As I mentioned before, I've been gaming almost solid for 10 years. Over the years, I've run and played in many different kinds of games, and in a various set-ups. During college it was in massive 10-12 person games around conference tables, then normal sized gaming groups.

Nowadays, we're in an interesting situation. We had a group of 5 people that we gamed with weekly. (We're some of the lucky few that still game on a weekly basis). Then various factors forced our wedded gamers to move into a different state. Thus began the innovations.

Initially we set up a webcam and computer and used either Yahoo Messenger, GTalk, MSN Messenger (whichever was feeling most cooperative that day) to videoconference them in. We would move the camera around to switch between the DM and the battlemat for combat. These chat clients were barely passable. Audio and picture quality were fairly low, but we troopered. on.

Then we discovered Oovoo and life became drastically better. Oovoo is a chat client similar to the above mentioned, but it also allows voice calls and video calls. The quality of both the voice and video was incredible and I cannot recommend this tool enough.

This helped alleviate some of the difficulties we had with battle maps not showing up clearly, but it still was lacking. Our next advance was in using Google Docs to create a spreadsheet that everyone can view and change. Our players in Colorado can view the map as we updated it and move themselves around; one of the players locally (in Texas) makes the appropriate changes on our battlemat.

This way everyone has a clear view of the board and can strategize much more easily than trying to do so based on a birds eye view of the battle mat.

How about you? Has anyone had any interesting challenges in their gaming that has been overcome by the use of technology or creativity?