Use of Computers in Traveller RPG
Here's my personal take on this idea.
Firstly, an RPG is a game played out in the individuals mind, using largely imagination. It's about thought creativity and having fun imagining.
Personally I enjoy additions to the game where possible, such as great maps that pin everything down, miniatures and in the case of computers, display of artworks, possibly animations and programs to simulate certain aspects of the game(such as a starship battle simulation etc).
What I find destructive about using computers in RPG's is that there the referees pet hate of any RPG game. There distractors. It takes milliseconds for a player to be using there computer for the actual game, then decide to flick to there facebook or whatever, or worse decide it's time to show everyone something they think is really cool in the middle of a game and break the flow of the game.(if it's relevant to the game, then no problems but it rarely is).
Ultimately, the classic pencil, paper and dice setup is the ultimate for achieving focus within the game. If everyone has a notebook out and is looking things up as they play and generally only really giving the actual game about 20% of there time, then the game suffers.
On the other hand if everyone is committed to the game and the referee can control the use of the computers in the game (eg, there's a strange locking mechanism on very high tech looking cargo container. The computer could show a virtual setup of the lock and the players could all work together to solve it, then this is a great addition to the game. There is also a fellow Traveller who told me about a 4 computer network setup during a convention whereby players all had to work together in a simulated battle and the computer was just set on that program for that particular part of the game. This is great.
For dice, there could be a decent random number generated seed if play by email/online setup, is the only way to play the game, but once again here you have no idea if the other players are concentrating on the game 100% or just checking in when ever there's a response etc and doing a myriad of other things in the background. Eg, ultimately the game will suffer and this is one of the main reasons online style RPG games(featuring adaptations of the classic pencil and paper, with setups for chatting etc) predominantly fail.
For me, it doesn't matter how much technical jiggery pockery you have around, at the end of the day there is no substitute for the imagination of the human mind. Role Playing for me, is a way of exercising that creativity and imagination and I really enjoy sitting with a group of actual people as opposed to looking at screens. When everyone is having a ball creating and adventuring in there starships etc, everyone wins. If everyone is just playing 20% and mainly noodling around on there computers, then it kind of defeats the purpose of having an RPG.
People bring emotion, feelings, ideas and overall creativity to the game. Computers are simply a tool and more often than not, that tool can be replaced by the simple dice. (Even more proof, I have an electronic 6 sided dice and most people prefer to role a real actual die. They smile at the electronic LED dice and think, that's pretty cool, but ultimately have an inner disbelief at whatever the random system in that electronic dice produces. To me, this equals the role of computers in a game and how you really want a game to flow. The computer will be found really cool and the flashy graphics and animations are great but ultimately they will eventually/hopefully want to get back to the real actual game for the same reasons and more as the electronic dice).
Finally on this, what I do believe would be great for computers is something like a customizable file viewer for the game(which in essence can simply be the referee controls what is seen from the computers and everyone else must play the game to see more), where the referee has ultimate control and only those aspects that pertain to the various parts of the adventure are available for usage. EG, image displays, sound play backs, simulations of locks, puzzles and starships when the appropriate time in the game comes when the players discover those things. Because there's so many things you can do on a computer, it invites chaos into the game unless it's correctly controlled(and players have the discipline to use them with the game). A dedicated program controlled by the referee removes the possibility of random discussions and showing off of various software etc that distract from the game, during the game.
Well that's my thoughts on using computers in Traveller RPG's, I'd like to hear what other fellow Travellers find great about using computers in there games too.
PS. Use of computers for Traveller RPG's is great for research and discussing the game with other Traveller players, eg for using COTI like I am right now.
