Surface Computing D&D Demo

5 Comments

1. shadejon on 20.10.2009 at 06:28

   Wow.

   Funny how players cling to the need to see dice rolling, rather than just rely on a computer generated result. Does this virtual rolling mechanism “do it” for players, or do they still want their physical dice?

   Yehuda

2. Rob on 20.10.2009 at 07:11

   You have the control pieces for minis – why not have dice that you can physically roll on the surface and can tell what number is face up based on what surface is face down?

   Nothing wrong with the graphical dice, but – when the dice pops up that can be thrown you should be able to throw a real dice and it reads that instead. (The graphical die should show what has been thrown so that any ‘reading’ problems with the surface will show up straight away. If there is a problem then you can have a reset and possibly just roll the graphical die instead – or have a DM over-ride that can input the actual result on the die.)

3. David on 20.10.2009 at 07:51

   There two things about dice, Yehuda, that make them an important part of the game to many players, even in electronic form:

   1) Anticipation. The time it takes for a die to roll adds tension to task resolution. Some computer-based random number generators show spinning numbers to achieve a similar effect. Imagine a number instantly appearing (or worse yet, just a yes/no result)—not fun.

   2) The action of rolling dice replaces the action being modeled in the game. I don’t actually swing a sword, but it’s my die rolling that determines whether or not I kill the dire wolf.

   Rob, physical dice as control pieces that the computer could detect would be extremely cool!

4. David on 20.10.2009 at 07:52

   And here’s another idea—build the surface computer in to a Geek Chic table:

   http://www.purplepawn.com/2009/07/second-look%e2%80%94geek-chic-tables/

5. Robert C Kalajian Jr on 20.10.2009 at 07:55

   It’s a shame that the Philips Entertaible never saw the light of day. The physical aspects of it would have made it such a great product.

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