Now--I'm a pencil (Mirado Black Warrior) and graph paper pad (Rhodia #18) kinda guy. I own a laptop, and obviously, I turn it on sometimes, but I don't really use it all that much for gaming. But I'm always interested in technology and what it can do.
There have been a couple threads that have intrigued me and made me wonder if we could consolidate some opinions.
What are the best technology solutions at the end of this year for:
Virtual table?
I have used Screen Monkey and Skype.
Mapping?
I'm handy with Campaign Cartographer.
Collaboration?
I use Tiddly Wiki when the need arises.
File Access?
Are there uses for old technology like yahoo groups and whatnot?
Are there other state of the art applications for:
Blogging, Podcasting, Vanity Publishing, Networking, etc etc?
Any new uses for Palms, Phones, small devices?
Just sort of a "best of" compilation. What do you like?
I have used Yahoo groups for PbP (as both a player and GM) and posting of gaming related files, the file posting aspect is great, but using it for PbP was problematic mostly due to lag in post notification, a simple combat can drag on for a week or longer because someone in the group (or often the entire group) never got an email from yahoo stating that there had been new messages added to the group, the the almost monthly downtime of the system were also really annoying.
A private google group might be much more effective and given the ability to share google documents getting updated gaming materials to your group could be greatly enhanced.
I don't know if it's a best of, but I make good use of google notebook to collect important thoughts, notes from articles, brilliant forum posts, etc. I understand some other folks use MS OneNote for similar purposes. But google notebook 1) lets me share 2) doesn't care what computer I am using.
Quote from: stu2000;276112Any new uses for Palms, Phones, small devices?
You probably saw my thread on carrying PDFs and other files around: http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=12844
There are also a number of dice rollers for iPod touch/iPhone. Mach Dice has gotten a lot of attention as has Dicenomicon. There are quite a few others, all varying based on interface, flexibility, and cost.
Someone, possibly on Story-Games, suggested that mobile apps could be made to facilitate LARPing. Ideally you'd want something that was cross-platform; the idea would be to use handheld devices to track character status and even possibly (via GPS or other tools) location.
Another dice program that I remembered reading about: Pip
It came up on the Dice of Doom blog (http://diceofdoom.com/blog/) while I was researching the others.
Both the maker of Pip and the maker of Dicenomicon have foolishly failed to name or tag their products in such a way that they show up when you search on "dice" at the App Store. So be sure to search for them by name--I haven't tried them, personally, but they seem pretty nice.
I personally use my ipod to provide the music on the table, because it is fast and easy to do playlists with itunes and it is fast and easy to use at the table. With laptops or the stereo it is always more fiddly and less organic.
I use the computer for campaign wikis and maps (especially google maps with the ability to put in landmarks of my own is priceless for contemporary campaigns).
I used to use the laptop for .pdf rulebooks but that is slower than actual books because of the artwork slowing down the browsing on the laptop.
I like mailing lists, groups, or whatever as a method of organizing a group. Not playing, but confirming dates and times, choosing a menu, keeping files, etc..
Seanchai
Saphim, does everyone in your gaming group participate in filling the wiki with entries and what program/service provider did you chose?
Quote from: Calista;276549Saphim, does everyone in your gaming group participate in filling the wiki with entries and what program/service provider did you chose?
Yes, everyone does participate, although to varying degrees. In one of my games they take turns in doing the session summaries, in the other games I do that myself. They all maintain the entries for their own characters and some write up NPCs or locations and/or comment on those.
Some also collect interesting links or articles on the wiki that help with roleplaying or give information about the location in which our story takes place.
The single biggest chunk of work is usually done by me at the beginning of a campaign when I put the NPCs and important locations that I created for my preperations online.
Overall it is not a lot of work and I find it helps the game tremendously by providing a central hub for information.
Until 2 weeks ago I used wikidot.com because those wikis were free and easy to use. Then we decided to get something nicer and went for webspace hosted by alfahosting.de on which we now use a mediawiki and are right now in the process of transferring.
This solution has a lot of advantages for us like 1500Mb of space for pictures and files. Mediawiki is also the better wiki and allows a lot of nifty stuff like for example embedding maps you created with google maps. On google maps you can insert your own landmarks with short descriptions of places etc. and it is very fast to update.
As you can surely see, for contemporary campaigns or those set in a relatively near future (cthulhutech for example) that is quite awesome.
The disadvantage of the mediawiki is that its greatest advantage at the same time. It is fiddly and extremely customizeable.
This is from the perspective of someone with just end-user computer knowledge and no programming skills.
All in all I'd say it is a great for long campaigns and too much works for short campaigns.