NeoGrognard

Every week the NeoGrognard group gets together via Skype to talk about business, plan content, and, maybe more importantly, swap stories about the week in gaming. During these meetings I always learn something. Most of us are DMs, and all of us are always on the lookout for tools and tricks to improve our game. More importantly, each one of us has tools and tricks that sing to our particular circumstances, backgrounds, and tastes. Out of all of us, I’m the least tech dependent, not that that’s necessarily a good thing. I have my iPad, and that has a couple of tools on it (and I am hoping to have more in the near future), it is how I access the D&D Compendium, and it is where I keep my notes. The rest of my table is almost entirely analog. I love miniatures, and I like creating game set-ups that my wife calls nerd dollhouses. She has a point.

A scene from my last game. Tiles, buildings and miniatures in what my wife calls my nerd's dollhouse. If she thought this one was bad, wait until next session!

But while I am firmly (and gleefully) stuck in the game’s wargaming past, some of my other fellow NeoGrognards are not. They’re boldly moving forward in the direction I think will eventually become the RPG mainstream—digital play environments.

Today Didier is going to share the particulars of his gaming table. He uses d20Pro to incredible effect. Prepare to be amazed and entertained. On Monday, I’ll break a little from our normal format and share Jeff Sorensen’s amazing game set-up. So until we can all afford a Microsoft Surface let these stories on the digital front line inspire you.

Didier Monin, d20Pro Masta

I am playing D&D with a group of four players and we play once a week at my place. For the past three years, I have been exploring and using many of the various online game table applications available out there for the tactical combat management and maps display, but in the past five months I have selected the one to stick with.

Even if d20Pro is mostly designed with 3.5 in mind, I find it has the right mix of functionalities, usability, and ease of use to create and maintain encounters. More importantly, it provides the right tools, both for online games and games run in my home. Even better, the new versions released in the past year have shown significant functionality improvements, as well as greater 4th Edition support. For example I can now import the 4th Edition character file from the D&D Character Builder into the app, or send /tell to individual players secret messages. As a side note, I hope the d20Pro team will soon offer an import for files created with D&D Adventure Tools.

A session with one remote player.

Back to the tactical maps—A few months ago, I was using a large screen that displayed the player version, while managing the DM view from a laptop. My players passed the wireless mouse around when it was their turn over in the initiative order. During their turn they would move their character on the map. The problem was that they were pretty far from the screen and I could not set up a top down projector for the game table. So I decided recently to change that setup. I set up wireless access, and asked my players to bring their laptops and using that as the access to the virtual game table.

After a few sessions, I began to appreciate the differences. There are features of the d20Pro software we started to use fully, like the automated attack and damage rolls not to mention hit point tracking for monsters and characters alike. Secondly, this new setup made the players more familiar with the application itself. So when a player can’t show up, they can still join remotely and be familiar enough with the app to play pretty much like when we are together at my house (except that we can’t share the same snacks and pizzas). We just fire up Skype and keep the remote player(s) engaged with what’s going on around the table.

The last addition to that setup was my iPad. I am still fiddling with its usage, as using touch is fairly different from mouse and keyboard, but I was able to run most of the combat encounter fairly smoothly from the DM side, and I am pretty sure that as the tablet usage grows, the applications such as D20pro will integrate ways to better integrate this new potential interface.

A view from the DM

I used a piece of remote control software called LogMeIn which allows me to remote control my Windows machine from my iPad and easily hide the DM view from the prying eyes of my players.

My initial concerns about mixing up pen, paper and laptop on the players’ table have disappeared. My players still roll their dice on the table when they want to, and can also rely on the software functionality for their attacks and damage once they have set up their character sheet correctly in the software.

If I have abandoned the use of tiles and miniatures with no regrets, the dice still have and always will have their full place on the gaming table, and I am convinced that a mix of remote and around-the-table gaming is where most of the groups will end up settling their RPG games in the future. Gaming is more fun when you have your friends around the table, but for maps and tactical combat management, I am convinced that laptops and online game tables are going to become a staple of most RPG tables as it is the most flexible solution, that can be carried over to most people’s place, relying on laptops, tablets and wireless connections that are becoming mainstream resources.

iPad to remote control DM

The player