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4 years ago ::
Feb 10, 2009 - 12:42PM
#21
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2007
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I run most of my games with several laptops on. I don't like to waste paper so I run the game from my laptop (who is also acting as a DM screen  ). It gives me fast and reliable access to my books (err I mean the Compendium) and free up a lot of table space. One other player is using his laptop for his character sheet. I don't mind if he does something else than playing DnD while it's not his turn as long as he is not disturbing anybody (read : I don't want to hear anything about it) and he don't waste all party's time by taking long turns because he don't know what going on. So far, had no problems. Actually my biggest problems are with Paper character sheets. 1) They are poorly designed, making it harder to get important thing obvious. 2) They get terribly messy and reinforce 1. 3) They usually ends up taking more place than a simple laptop. Most of my players got their characters sheet covered in green (the color of our battlemat pen) due to erasing and drawing the map. That and dice. I mean if you play a dagger wielding rogue, you need 3d4, 1d20, 2d8 and depending on your weapon crit propriety. I don't care that you have 200+ dice, just bring what you need. The rest goes in your dice bag.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 13, 2009 - 10:03PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2008
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Living in Australia:
* I play at stores, convetions (1 so far) and at homes.
* I've seen WIFI once at a home game.
* Internet is accessible at home games and sometimes at store games, although its often in another room.
* Players are the only ones I've seen with laptops and they're a minority (out of a table, 1 probably has it, 2 at the most. Often none).
* People probably have internet-capable phones. But I've never seen one used to look up a rule.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 14, 2009 - 6:31AM
#23
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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Just wanted to thank everyone for their replies and for feeding my curiosity. By all means, keep 'em coming.
Wolf Star76 Community Advocate (SVCL) for D&D Organized Play, Avalon Hill, and the DCI/WPN LFR Community Manager DDi Guide  Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter
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4 years ago ::
Feb 15, 2009 - 2:12AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2005
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I have wireless at my home location but since I'm a bit old fashioned I love working from paper. Tried DMing from laptop (13" inch MacBook) once and despite the small size I still think it detracted me from contact with the players.
Most players in the area just use papersheets and powercards since the venues we play are rather small. I as a DM prefer a sheet I can look at and hold in my hand over laptops since unintentionally laptops distract from the game.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 15, 2009 - 9:30PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2005
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About 40% of my gaming takes place at my house, where I have wi-fi for my HTPC and as a courtesy for my friends who come over to play/visit. People are also welcome to use any of my computers for whatever purpose they need from looking up rules, printing character sheets or log sheets to general surfing. Another 40% of my gaming takes place at a friend's condo where we have access to their wi-fi and home system as well. About 10% of gaming time takes place at a different friend's house where they too have wireless. The remaining 10% is at various locations where we sometimes have wi-fi, and sometimes don't. For the times we don't have wireless access, that's when I turn to my iPhone and its 3G connection for internet access. If the iPhone doesn't cut it (required site needs flash support, doesn't like the Safari browser, etc.) then I take the SIM card out of my iPhone and put it in my USB 3G modem which I then plug into my Asus EEE netbook. The netbook is what I use to keep a copy of rules I use (illusion magic for my wizard, basic bard writeup for DMs who haven't seen it, etc) as well as electronic copies of all of mine and my wife's characters and log sheets. I also use a custom excel spreadsheet to keep track of character stuff, though I also have power cards if I'm out of battery power or if the DM prefers I not have a laptop at the table. In the event the netbook isn't suitable (odd resolution causes problems, machine not fast enough for whatever reason), then the 3G USB modem gets plugged into my full-sized laptop and that's what I use. That's a last resort thing though, since I put it together out of spare parts that we were throwing out at work so the machine has some minor 'issues' and the battery is pretty bad and only lasts for about 2 hours. In the event I have to resort to using my 3G connection and there are other people who would like to connect to the internet on their wireless laptops, then it's a simple matter of setting up an ad-hoc wireless network and turning on connection sharing on my laptop to give multiple people net access. High-speed home net acces, wifi and 3G/Edge cell network access is pretty much ubiquitous in the areas of Southern Ontario where I game, so it's a very rare and frightening occurrence to not have some manner of internet access. Any place where I end up with internet access from any of the above solutions means I have access to my entire home network via RDP, FTP and SSH so if I've forgotten something I can get it in short order. Files get downloaded to my USB thumb drive, and if the files have to be printed and I'm not at a friend's place then it's usually a simple matter of borrowing the LFGS printer or finding a copy store or similar type service to print off whatever I need. And WolfStar, if your setup puts you on the far side of "supergeek", then I can't even imagine where I stand.  By the way, I have the Compendium bookmarked on my iPhone and it seems to work just fine.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2009 - 9:12AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2007
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Maybe it is different in Australia, there are hardly any DMs here with Laptops, and most don't like players with them either.
We have found that:
1. Laptops combined with dice, and other stuff usually take up an inordinate amount of room.
2. There is usually insufficient power to run all of them.
3. Burning said power aint too great for the environment. (Bigger Gamer footprint if you will)
4. Time taken to find things on a laptop is usually less than checking a printed copy
5. Laptops encourage less participation as players are constantly trolling through rules, building characters, or generally mucking about.
6. Excessive use of electronic character sheets often result in people not understanding their abilities and becoming over-reliant on others to do their work for them - this means they don't understand why their 'to hit' is that number, etc. This leads to errors and often an increased lack of understanding, rule-wise.
7. If a player/gm is looking at a screen they are not addressing other players/interacting interpersonally that much
8. Said Laptops cause a worry at cons with other people being careless with drinks, etc, also it's a lot worse losing the laptop than having some dice stolen.
I am personally of the opinion that technology is a great aid, but I have met many players who don't understand how their powers work, take up a huge amount of space with those darn power cards (write em on a piece of paper FFS, and tick em off when used) and often have ask questions like "why are my numbers like this? where is the random +1 coming from?"
- Metz does think that all this newfangled technology can result in people not knowing the rules and becoming over reliant though - he has seen it.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2009 - 3:54PM
#27
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Date Joined:
Jul 16, 2002
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3. Burning said power aint too great for the environment. (Bigger Gamer footprint if you will)
Oh man... this makes me want to plug in more computers... I need to buy a few more..
Sorry WOTC, you lost me with Essentials. So where I used to buy every book that came out, now I will be very choosy about what I buy. Can we just get back to real 4e? Check out the 4e Conversion Wiki. 1. Wizards fight dirty. They hit their enemies in the NADs. -- Dragon9 2. A barbarian hits people with his axe. A warlord hits people with his barbarian. 3. Boo-freakin'-hoo, ya light-slingin' finger-wigglers. -- MrCelcius in response to the Cleric's Healer's Lore nerf
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4 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2009 - 5:54PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2008
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Oh man... this makes me want to plug in more computers... I need to buy a few more..
What an odd reaction.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2009 - 6:00PM
#29
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Date Joined:
May 23, 2005
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What an odd reaction.
Some people just dont buy into all this Global Warming crap. So his reaction was quite funny actually.
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4 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2009 - 6:14PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2008
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Some people just dont buy into all this Global Warming crap.
I'd respond further but that would be off topic  It still seems odd, saying you'll do the exact opposite for no real reason....
I'll have to take your word for it that it was humorous
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