Gizmodo: dungeons & dragons

Way More D&D on the Microsoft Surface

Mark Wilson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:40:00 EST

The last clip was a tease. But here we see lots more sample footage as some brave Carnegie Mellon students make D&D play on the Microsoft Surface. Don't you dare pretend you're too cool for this. [Surface Blog via Kotaku]

Dungeons & Dragons on the Microsoft Surface

Mark Wilson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:25:21 EDT

For thousands of years, none of us quite understood the point of the Surface. Then, a few Carnegie Mellon students armed with but blades and wits developed this D&D game, and they lightning bolted the naysayers away. [Microsoft via Kotaku]

Is It Possible? Role Playing Dice Just Got Nerdier

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:00:00 EDT

If you assumed nobody could top a classic D20 for sheer nerd equity, you assumed wrong. Builder Itay—who confesses he is new to Dungeons & Dragons—thought he'd improve the sport by cobbling a variable-number die out of two 5×7 led displays, a Freescale accelerometer and love.

[Itay's Showcase via Hack A Day]

Projector Based Table Top Gaming

Jason Chen — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:30:37 EDT

This is a high-tech solution for the traditionally low-tech table top gaming—whose death knell has been sounded again and again, falsely, since the rise of computer RPGs in the '90s. For projector based D&D, the Dungeon Master scans in adventure maps and separate what the players should see and what the DM should see onto different layers in Photoshop before the game starts. The Photoshop image is then displayed on a table through a suspended digital projector during the game, allowing the game tokens to be placed directly onto the map.

When certain events happen, such as players advancing in the map or meeting an event, the DM erases part of the mask or reveals a new layer to show the appropriate map info—very cool. The downside is of course, the equipment cost and the time to set up all the maps and photoshop the appropriate portions.

Great idea nonetheless, that makes table top gaming a little bit more automated. A tip of the wizard hat to you, Jans. – Jason Chen

Digital Map Projection [The Hypertext d20 SRD]