Now, here's rhe related question: How much computer assistance did you guys use for Game-Support?
How much would you have been comfortable with?
Computations and maps ouside of play?
Laptops for GM? Palmtops for GM?
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We used computer programs a lot for producing background, like generating worlds or designing vehicles.
I wrote a program that generated the sector data, of course. The I went one step further and wrote a program that read the sector data and drew the maps. It was pretty cool ... all I had to do was go into the final PICT file that was produced and add the jump routes, and move a few things around and voila! Map all set ready to send to the photo typesetter (1200 dpi).
I also did a lot of spreadsheets that I used to design robots with for book 8, and later for MegaTraveller vehicle design.
But as to gaming assists, never did much of that.
My tendency with my rules design is always to move toward overly complex, and then hammer on it to distill it down to come up with something simpler and more streamlined.
One interesting example was a streamlined combat system I came up with using the UTP. Some of the most fun combat sessions we ran was with that system because things moved so fast.
But that system never made it into print because it was pretty half baked and needed lots more work to become robust.
Would have loved to has a laptop or a palm for gaming assistance. And being a computer guy by profession, I prefer the computer to pages and pages of rules, actually.
But Gary also taught us the importance of the play-acting element and if you make this a high priority in your game sessions, you will tend to ref your sessions a lot more by the seat of the pants as to what makes a good story instead of being a slave to the rule book anyway.
It's nice to have the computer available if you want to use it. Plus with the internet today, it would be fairly easy to build some web services and then run game sessions online with gamers anywhere in the world.
Now there's a thought ...
How much would you have been comfortable with?
Computations and maps ouside of play?
Laptops for GM? Palmtops for GM?
====================================================
We used computer programs a lot for producing background, like generating worlds or designing vehicles.
I wrote a program that generated the sector data, of course. The I went one step further and wrote a program that read the sector data and drew the maps. It was pretty cool ... all I had to do was go into the final PICT file that was produced and add the jump routes, and move a few things around and voila! Map all set ready to send to the photo typesetter (1200 dpi).
I also did a lot of spreadsheets that I used to design robots with for book 8, and later for MegaTraveller vehicle design.
But as to gaming assists, never did much of that.
My tendency with my rules design is always to move toward overly complex, and then hammer on it to distill it down to come up with something simpler and more streamlined.
One interesting example was a streamlined combat system I came up with using the UTP. Some of the most fun combat sessions we ran was with that system because things moved so fast.
But that system never made it into print because it was pretty half baked and needed lots more work to become robust.
Would have loved to has a laptop or a palm for gaming assistance. And being a computer guy by profession, I prefer the computer to pages and pages of rules, actually.
But Gary also taught us the importance of the play-acting element and if you make this a high priority in your game sessions, you will tend to ref your sessions a lot more by the seat of the pants as to what makes a good story instead of being a slave to the rule book anyway.
It's nice to have the computer available if you want to use it. Plus with the internet today, it would be fairly easy to build some web services and then run game sessions online with gamers anywhere in the world.
Now there's a thought ...
