When commenting on technology for gaming I said that flexible LCD computers would make a major impact on gaming. The basic idea is that the computer is a flexible LCD Screen that you unroll and plug it into a bar that has your computer, has all your USB style ports and power connections. Then you can interact with the surface via touch. Or on the high end via coded physical pieces that the surface senses.
Well it turns out that something took that idea and thought about how it would actually work. You can read the article and watch the video here. Admittedly it is still a bit of a pie in the sky but it nice to see others thinking along the same lines.
Showing posts with label RPG Tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPG Tech. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Want a custom miniature or dice?
One of the enduring images from Star Trek is the use of Food Synthesizers and Replicators.
In the past decade the use of 3D printers and other additive manufacturing technologies has grown by leaps and bounds. They work by taking a special 3D model building a real object layer by layer by depositing plastic, metal, and other materials. There is a final step where you have to trim off any support structure as well as polish or smooth.
These printers are expensive although there are some hobbyists models out there. But now thanks to Shapeways the technology takes a closer step to be usable by the rest of us.
From what I understand is that you upload a model created with their software or specs. Select the material and they give you a quote. If they approve then you will have the object in a couple of weeks. Obviously some skill is required in creating the models but still it a great advance in access to this technology.
There appears two applications of this. Custom Dice, and custom miniatures. Both are expensive but not out of reach for a one time purchase.
In the past decade the use of 3D printers and other additive manufacturing technologies has grown by leaps and bounds. They work by taking a special 3D model building a real object layer by layer by depositing plastic, metal, and other materials. There is a final step where you have to trim off any support structure as well as polish or smooth.
These printers are expensive although there are some hobbyists models out there. But now thanks to Shapeways the technology takes a closer step to be usable by the rest of us.
From what I understand is that you upload a model created with their software or specs. Select the material and they give you a quote. If they approve then you will have the object in a couple of weeks. Obviously some skill is required in creating the models but still it a great advance in access to this technology.
There appears two applications of this. Custom Dice, and custom miniatures. Both are expensive but not out of reach for a one time purchase.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The future of RPGS is marching on.
I talked several times about how future technology will impact RPGs.
Peering into my Crystal Ball
The Future of RPGs? One more piece fell into place
I basically hypothesized several parallel paths that future technology will have an impact on RPGs: Virtual Tabletops, E-books, and Surface Computing.
I found that a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are hard at work on the surface computing angle. There was a team in Brazil that had built a battleboard using a custom built rig. The CMU guys are apparently using Microsoft Surface and D&D 4th edition rules to build their system.
This is their website. And this is a video of what they are doing. They are calling their project Surfacescape. Unfortunately their website is not the best. They should have tested on people running higher resolutions and browsers other than Internet Explorer.
A few quick thoughts.
1) The they should look at fantasy grounds on how to do virtual dice. Their virtual dice is way too sluggish. Fantasy Grounds animation timing on the dice roll is pitch perfect.
2) The 3D Virtual monster seems like a good idea but in reality should be focusing more on incorporating physical miniatures. If people buying what is a big expensive battlemat do not want to play a computer game. They want help with what they are already doing which is pushing stuff around a table or board. Surfacescape with just touch is just a novelty, Surfacescape with pushing miniatures around is damn cool.
3) Like the dice the monster moves way too slow. Probably should not have any animation at all.
4) In general they should shy away from using heavy animation. It may attract people and investors but will cause the product to fail in actual use as it will be perceived as sluggish and unresponsive.
5) While it understandable that 4th edition D&D would be chosen as it first target. Keep in mind that you should have rulesets, like Virtual Tabletop , that developers can swap out so they can play different board games and RPGs.
The CMU team has built a solid foundation in their demo and it will be interesting to see how it is developed further.
Peering into my Crystal Ball
The Future of RPGs? One more piece fell into place
I basically hypothesized several parallel paths that future technology will have an impact on RPGs: Virtual Tabletops, E-books, and Surface Computing.
I found that a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are hard at work on the surface computing angle. There was a team in Brazil that had built a battleboard using a custom built rig. The CMU guys are apparently using Microsoft Surface and D&D 4th edition rules to build their system.
This is their website. And this is a video of what they are doing. They are calling their project Surfacescape. Unfortunately their website is not the best. They should have tested on people running higher resolutions and browsers other than Internet Explorer.
Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.
A few quick thoughts.
1) The they should look at fantasy grounds on how to do virtual dice. Their virtual dice is way too sluggish. Fantasy Grounds animation timing on the dice roll is pitch perfect.
2) The 3D Virtual monster seems like a good idea but in reality should be focusing more on incorporating physical miniatures. If people buying what is a big expensive battlemat do not want to play a computer game. They want help with what they are already doing which is pushing stuff around a table or board. Surfacescape with just touch is just a novelty, Surfacescape with pushing miniatures around is damn cool.
3) Like the dice the monster moves way too slow. Probably should not have any animation at all.
4) In general they should shy away from using heavy animation. It may attract people and investors but will cause the product to fail in actual use as it will be perceived as sluggish and unresponsive.
5) While it understandable that 4th edition D&D would be chosen as it first target. Keep in mind that you should have rulesets, like Virtual Tabletop , that developers can swap out so they can play different board games and RPGs.
The CMU team has built a solid foundation in their demo and it will be interesting to see how it is developed further.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Using Fantasy Grounds
Because Dwayne is based in New Orleans Louisiana the only practical way to keep the group going is with a virtual tabletop. When we first starting doing this two years ago Fantasy Grounds was the best out there although a bit pricy. There are others out there like Battleground RPG that some people may prefer to use. Battlegrounds has a better pricing scheme with the floating licenses pack you can buy. There are other that you can try for various prices including free. RPG Virtual Tabletop gives a good rundown.
In addition to the software we use Skype for talking. It has a nice conference call feature plus I have a phone plan ($30/year) that allows me tie in players with phone access only. Two years ago Skype was the easiest out there to setup and use since VOIP software has continued to evolve. I am not up on the software for VOIP but a google search will have several alternatives.
The experience of using Fantasy Grounds+Skype is very much the same as sitting around the table. Face to face is preferred but if your groups is now scattered across the country it is a more than adequate substitute. Plus if you are fan of the Old School Renaissance and it is not popular in your area you have a means to getting a group to play thesenew old games. It also works for any other RPG that doesn't have a following in your area.
Using VTTs has advantages and disadvantages. The best advantage is fog of war. Most VTTs allow you to obscure the map and reveal portions as the party explore. The next best is the ability to keep a log of what everybody type in chat. However this presumes that you use the chat and not conduct 90% of the session via voice. However even if you use voice the chat log is good for the old trick of passing a DM Note. However unlike the tabletop there is no way the other player will see the note being passed.
One disadvantage is that in some cases there is more work involved. You need to either draw or scan in everything you want to show the players. You can't just yank the sheet from the folder and place it in front of them. Dwayne, the current GM, is very good at scouring the internet for images and maps to use for his games. Just doing a image search via Google will save you loads of time. In addition buying adventure PDFs becomes even more valuable. You can often just copy the image out of a PDF and use it as a JPG.
Plus you need to keep in mind that if you want to use "miniatures" or tokens in VTT parlance you need to keep all at the same scale. So if your man size is 50 pixels by 50 pixels you want to make sure everything else is scaled accordingly. The good news that there are several vendors and free sources that have a large amount of tokens at a consistent scale.
Adding stuff to your VTT is pretty much a matter of dragging and dropping JPGs and other files into the correct files. Once they are there it appears in the list of stuff you can display. Plus the various VTTs have drawing tools you can use. Fantasy Grounds support a adjustable grid that your minatures can snap too. Drawing tool for freehand drawing. And pointers which are good when you want to find what in a circular radius or a cone. In addition pointers are good for drawing lines.
Fantasy Grounds and other VTTS support what is called rulesets. A ruleset generally consists of a character sheet and a combat tracker specific for that RPG. Some rulesets (like d20) are highly automated some are just fill in the blank forms. Fantasy Grounds has about a dozen official and unofficial rulesets. I have used the default D20 ruleset, along with the GURPS and 4e ruleset found at Four Ugly Monsters A partial list is here that you can look at.
Some of the official rulesets come with rulebooks that you can use for references in the VTT. Personally I have a two monitor setup on my home computer. When I am GMing I have references opened in the left monitor and FG running on the right monitor. When I was playing last night it was easy to log stuff in Twitter because of the dual monitors.
Note that dual monitors are great to work with if you use your computer for serious work (even serious hobby work). Most midrange gaming cards ($50 to $100) have dual monitor port making two monitors a snap to setup.
For people playing the older editions I recommend looking at the Castle and Crusades ruleset.
If you have specific questions I will be happy to answer as best as I can in the comment section.
In addition to the software we use Skype for talking. It has a nice conference call feature plus I have a phone plan ($30/year) that allows me tie in players with phone access only. Two years ago Skype was the easiest out there to setup and use since VOIP software has continued to evolve. I am not up on the software for VOIP but a google search will have several alternatives.
The experience of using Fantasy Grounds+Skype is very much the same as sitting around the table. Face to face is preferred but if your groups is now scattered across the country it is a more than adequate substitute. Plus if you are fan of the Old School Renaissance and it is not popular in your area you have a means to getting a group to play these
Using VTTs has advantages and disadvantages. The best advantage is fog of war. Most VTTs allow you to obscure the map and reveal portions as the party explore. The next best is the ability to keep a log of what everybody type in chat. However this presumes that you use the chat and not conduct 90% of the session via voice. However even if you use voice the chat log is good for the old trick of passing a DM Note. However unlike the tabletop there is no way the other player will see the note being passed.
One disadvantage is that in some cases there is more work involved. You need to either draw or scan in everything you want to show the players. You can't just yank the sheet from the folder and place it in front of them. Dwayne, the current GM, is very good at scouring the internet for images and maps to use for his games. Just doing a image search via Google will save you loads of time. In addition buying adventure PDFs becomes even more valuable. You can often just copy the image out of a PDF and use it as a JPG.
Plus you need to keep in mind that if you want to use "miniatures" or tokens in VTT parlance you need to keep all at the same scale. So if your man size is 50 pixels by 50 pixels you want to make sure everything else is scaled accordingly. The good news that there are several vendors and free sources that have a large amount of tokens at a consistent scale.
Adding stuff to your VTT is pretty much a matter of dragging and dropping JPGs and other files into the correct files. Once they are there it appears in the list of stuff you can display. Plus the various VTTs have drawing tools you can use. Fantasy Grounds support a adjustable grid that your minatures can snap too. Drawing tool for freehand drawing. And pointers which are good when you want to find what in a circular radius or a cone. In addition pointers are good for drawing lines.
Fantasy Grounds and other VTTS support what is called rulesets. A ruleset generally consists of a character sheet and a combat tracker specific for that RPG. Some rulesets (like d20) are highly automated some are just fill in the blank forms. Fantasy Grounds has about a dozen official and unofficial rulesets. I have used the default D20 ruleset, along with the GURPS and 4e ruleset found at Four Ugly Monsters A partial list is here that you can look at.
Some of the official rulesets come with rulebooks that you can use for references in the VTT. Personally I have a two monitor setup on my home computer. When I am GMing I have references opened in the left monitor and FG running on the right monitor. When I was playing last night it was easy to log stuff in Twitter because of the dual monitors.
Note that dual monitors are great to work with if you use your computer for serious work (even serious hobby work). Most midrange gaming cards ($50 to $100) have dual monitor port making two monitors a snap to setup.
For people playing the older editions I recommend looking at the Castle and Crusades ruleset.
If you have specific questions I will be happy to answer as best as I can in the comment section.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Future of RPGs? One more piece fell into place
Today Amazon is announcing the release of the Kindle DX for this summer. Unlike the Kindle and Kindle 2 it is designed with full page 8.5 by 11 PDFs in mind. You can read about it here. When I got wind of it two days ago I was talking about it with my wife, Kelly Anne. The first words out of her mouth, "So when are you saving up for it." She know I am a huge fan of my Kindle. Yesterday a co-worker teased be as for the first time in a couple of month I was reading a real book.
Anyway I told her well I will be tempted if it is under $500. I was expecting it come in somewhere between $500 and $700 based. These devices are driven by the cost of the e-ink screens. They come from one manufacturer who is still low on the economy of scale curve.
And then came the formal announcement. $489.
I am doomed.
Despite my enthusiasm for the Kindle it is still no iPod ... yet. The Kindle DX is an important milepost to what will be the future of RPGs. This device will leap the barrier between paper and electronic PDFs.
Yes there will always be book only readers just like there are people who play acoustic instruments vs electronic instruments. However for the average person a device like the Kindle DX will be gold.
There are two remaining hurdles to overcome; color and price. The reason why the Kindle is no iPod is because the price is too high for the average user and just barely in reach for a middle class technology geek like me. When the small version drops below $200, and the large version under $300 I foresee wide scale adoption on the scale of the iPod. Adding color will seal the deal.
When I get my Kindle DX, this summer there will be no difference for me between using a PDF product or the paper version. Like using a virtual tabletop for gaming there are tradeoffs. I will be giving up the ability to have multiple books open. However I gain the ability to put custom bookmarks and notes as well as the ability carry dozens of PDF on a single device.
My current Kindle library is already approaching ludicrous levels between the various books I purchased my subscriptions, converted PDFs, and free e-books I downloaded.
After a year of using my Kindle I say I now read about twice as much as before. I can't begin to say how convenient it is especially compared to paperbacks. The ability to adjust text and lay flat while I am eating is just pure gold.
Eventually these device will be extended to allow application to be run. I fully expect that the tabletop of 2020 will be a bunch of people gathering around a Surface computer with a spiritual descendant of the Kindle displaying a character sheet with hotlinks to specific rules. The Surface will be using icon tokens or RFID encoded minatures linked back to the "Kindle".
For intenet the same device would interface through Bluetooth or wireless USB and worth through a Virtual Table Top sporting 3D maps as well as the 2D variety.
These "Kindles" won't be manfactured as we understand it now. Instead they will be "printed" and then encased in a protective covering and be as flexible a stiff piece of paper. Along the sides will be thin bars housing the electronics along with wireless and ports. You will be able to plug these into a docking port that has full size peripherals like keyboard and mouse attached to it and function as your regular computer.
Welcome to the future.
Anyway I told her well I will be tempted if it is under $500. I was expecting it come in somewhere between $500 and $700 based. These devices are driven by the cost of the e-ink screens. They come from one manufacturer who is still low on the economy of scale curve.
And then came the formal announcement. $489.
I am doomed.
Despite my enthusiasm for the Kindle it is still no iPod ... yet. The Kindle DX is an important milepost to what will be the future of RPGs. This device will leap the barrier between paper and electronic PDFs.
Yes there will always be book only readers just like there are people who play acoustic instruments vs electronic instruments. However for the average person a device like the Kindle DX will be gold.
There are two remaining hurdles to overcome; color and price. The reason why the Kindle is no iPod is because the price is too high for the average user and just barely in reach for a middle class technology geek like me. When the small version drops below $200, and the large version under $300 I foresee wide scale adoption on the scale of the iPod. Adding color will seal the deal.
When I get my Kindle DX, this summer there will be no difference for me between using a PDF product or the paper version. Like using a virtual tabletop for gaming there are tradeoffs. I will be giving up the ability to have multiple books open. However I gain the ability to put custom bookmarks and notes as well as the ability carry dozens of PDF on a single device.
My current Kindle library is already approaching ludicrous levels between the various books I purchased my subscriptions, converted PDFs, and free e-books I downloaded.
After a year of using my Kindle I say I now read about twice as much as before. I can't begin to say how convenient it is especially compared to paperbacks. The ability to adjust text and lay flat while I am eating is just pure gold.
Eventually these device will be extended to allow application to be run. I fully expect that the tabletop of 2020 will be a bunch of people gathering around a Surface computer with a spiritual descendant of the Kindle displaying a character sheet with hotlinks to specific rules. The Surface will be using icon tokens or RFID encoded minatures linked back to the "Kindle".
For intenet the same device would interface through Bluetooth or wireless USB and worth through a Virtual Table Top sporting 3D maps as well as the 2D variety.
These "Kindles" won't be manfactured as we understand it now. Instead they will be "printed" and then encased in a protective covering and be as flexible a stiff piece of paper. Along the sides will be thin bars housing the electronics along with wireless and ports. You will be able to plug these into a docking port that has full size peripherals like keyboard and mouse attached to it and function as your regular computer.
Welcome to the future.
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