Interesting Blurb from Dragon #41
In an article from the September 1980 issue, Tom Wham predicts:
"The microcomputer will take the garbage out of gaming, and leave the fun to us humans. Instead of a DM’s screen, the chic Dungeonmaster of the future will sit behind a computer, do a better job of monitoring the players and non-players, and enjoy the game more.
...
And the poor gamer who just can’t seem to find anyone to play with will be blessed with a 24-hour opponent. One who never wants to quit, doesn’t break for meals, never goes home to a spouse, and who knows the rules to every game the two of them play."
The second forecast has been with us for quite some time (since about when the article was written); it's taken a little while for the first. But laptops aren't so uncommon at the gaming table any longer.
The problem these days isn't having a computer to use, it's actually having software that makes a DM's job easier. Granted, there are a number of programs out there that are supposed to do that, but in my experience the more they try to do the more they get in the way. There are exceptions (DM's Familiar and TableSmith come to mind, of course), but they're precisely exceptions because they don't try to be the do-all and end-all of gaming software.
Of course, that's a discussion for another time...
"The microcomputer will take the garbage out of gaming, and leave the fun to us humans. Instead of a DM’s screen, the chic Dungeonmaster of the future will sit behind a computer, do a better job of monitoring the players and non-players, and enjoy the game more.
...
And the poor gamer who just can’t seem to find anyone to play with will be blessed with a 24-hour opponent. One who never wants to quit, doesn’t break for meals, never goes home to a spouse, and who knows the rules to every game the two of them play."
The second forecast has been with us for quite some time (since about when the article was written); it's taken a little while for the first. But laptops aren't so uncommon at the gaming table any longer.
The problem these days isn't having a computer to use, it's actually having software that makes a DM's job easier. Granted, there are a number of programs out there that are supposed to do that, but in my experience the more they try to do the more they get in the way. There are exceptions (DM's Familiar and TableSmith come to mind, of course), but they're precisely exceptions because they don't try to be the do-all and end-all of gaming software.
Of course, that's a discussion for another time...
1 Comments:
Sadly enough, I think that the online MMORPG community has been promising that (the Dragon article) but falling woefully short of fulfilling that promise.
They've given you the 24 hour opponent, but it certainly hasn't taken the garbage out of gaming. In fact, it seems like it keeps heaping more upon us at an exponential rate (maybe a little over-the-top, but it sounded great).
You're right there aren't many commercial, software enhancements to Book & Dice games that match the TableSmith. I've written a couple VB applications for my own purposes, but they're tailored to what I was doing at that time.
All the software enhancements have come in the form of the actual on-line games. For my money (free), the best ones are the ones you can totally customize, yourself. The free Ultima Online shards running on "hacker" emulators can be some of the best gaming experiences you'll ever find.
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