Ideo on "The Future of the Book"

[Random]

Yeah, that's all well and good Foster, but I'm not tossing my several hundred dollar IPad at any annoying players. I suppose a ping attack could be an adequate substitute.

Whereas I was thinking about how much easier it is to wipe pizza and cheeto grease off the screen of your mobile device than off your OD&D booklets that would cost as much or more to replace

That's what the reference sheets are for!

Still, books should be cheaper than some snazzy new electronic device to replace in the event someone spills their rum & coke all over them.

[Falconer]

it would be very nice... to be able to show up to a game with just an iPad in hand rather than a stack of a half-dozen hardbound books, a couple notebooks or binders, a bag of dice...[long list] The former facilitates casual and spur-of-the-moment play (the way a lot of us used to get in a half-hour of play during lunch or recess at school), the latter does the opposite.

That’s true, but both scenarios presume an encyclopedic collection of rulebooks, which isn’t necessary for a spur-of-the-moment game. You can (I do) throw all you need and more into a basic box and get some casual gaming going without losing the sensory enjoyment of the physical components.

Example A
Softcover Players Handbook
Holmes
B1, B2
4-panel DM Screen

Example B
Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III, Reference Sheets (reproductions, not originals, duh)
Sup. I, Sup. IV
Ready Ref Sheets
Tegel Manor

Something like that. Add a few character sheets and a few sheets of graph paper, slip a few dice in your pocket, and you’re good to go!

[AxeMental]

Yeah, that's all well and good Foster, but I'm not tossing my several hundred dollar IPad at any annoying players. I suppose a ping attack could be an adequate substitute.

Whereas I was thinking about how much easier it is to wipe pizza and cheeto grease off the screen of your mobile device than off your OD&D booklets that would cost as much or more to replace

Hah, thats what we call "patina". The sign of a true players book is one with occasional stains in it, hurriedly cleaned, and then those stains covered over by new stains and smudges.

[grodog]

Hah, thats what we call "patina". The sign of a true players book is one with occasional stains in it, hurriedly cleaned, and then those stains covered over by new stains and smudges.

The watercolor nickle-sized paint stain on my Medusa page of the MM screams out AD&D as much to me as anything else (it's a drop of minis paintbrush rinse water that fell while painting some Grenadier minis in my folks' living room nook, at the library table there where we usually gamed and always painted, due to the excellent natural light). My DMG signed by Gary at Origins in Baltimore in '87 has erased pencil markings all over the unicorn on the title page, where one of my little brothers scribbled on it.

So yeah, that makes sense. I don't have an iPad, and at least given the limited capabilities I saw on it while demoing it up in Lawrence back in May, I'm not at all sure that I want one---maybe in a few years after it's got a bit more bite to it than being a bigger blackberry.

[JDJarvis]

"The Future of The Book"as presented in that video is NOW, with a slightly slicker interface. It's not showing us much of a jump into the future at all.

Based on predictions of the future I recall seeing as a a kid, virtually everyone is wrong about what tomorrow is going to look like. I recall no one predicting the internet, microwave ovens (and they were here since 48) and common use of portable phones like we have now. And where is my damned hovercar?

[LanWarder]

Star Trek Creator Gene Rodenberry ---- sorta--- predicted them all

[AxeMental]

Star Trek Creator Gene Rodenberry ---- sorta--- predicted them all

He didn't only predict them, he either created the ideas or popularized them. Science fiction often becomes scientific reality in time. A few years ago their was a special on Rodenberry that had some of the founders of high tech trace their original focus on their watching of Star Trek (the cell phone for one).

[LanWarder]

I have my Kindle Wifi, and love it, I can have every book from every game that I ever want to play, at my fingertips without carrying a footlocker around. A small dice bag, some pencils and a small spiral notebook bang I have the ability to run any kind of game under any kind of rule system there is.

I currently have PDF copie of OSRIC , LL, MF, BFRPG, OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, GW, SF, and many many more, all in a small package the size of a trade paperback in hieght and width , but as thin as the BD&D rulebooks.


I love it. I can even add MP3s of music I want played and it plays when I want.

I recommend this for anyone who games....

[JDJarvis]

Star Trek Creator Gene Rodenberry ---- sorta--- predicted them all

Huh? Not really... miracle food synthesizers are magic not microwaves, the microwave was patented in 1946, . Military use of comms isn't a cell phone held to every adolescents head and even though Kirk and Spock are BFFs I don't recall them texting to Sulu and some green skinned chick while they sat across a table from each other; No one in 1973 ever wildly imagined cell phones would be used as they are now. Sure as heck nothing resembling the internet in good old star trek, if there was Kirk could crash the whole system with his uncanny use of spurious logic.

The future of tech isn't just the widgets it's how people will live with them and use them.

[JDJarvis]

...I love it. I can even add MP3s of music I want played and it plays when I want.
.

Recently got a e-reader, it does sound too...hadn't thought of the capability to use it for music and sound effects, until just now, Thanks.

[AxeMental]

I have my Kindle Wifi, and love it, I can have every book from every game that I ever want to play, at my fingertips without carrying a footlocker around. A small dice bag, some pencils and a small spiral notebook bang I have the ability to run any kind of game under any kind of rule system there is.

I currently have PDF copie of OSRIC , LL, MF, BFRPG, OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, GW, SF, and many many more, all in a small package the size of a trade paperback in hieght and width , but as thin as the BD&D rulebooks.


I love it. I can even add MP3s of music I want played and it plays when I want.

I recommend this for anyone who games....

These things have their place no doubt. I just wouldn't toss my books is the point I'm trying to make. Nor would I leave them at home. Part of the 1E experiance, if nothing else, is your novice players looking at the back of the DMG as you look things up. Who the hell wants to look at the back of a kindle?

[LanWarder]

I get your point, I was just sayig that the ability to cary around the library without a weightlifting belt, is kinda nice..