Hey Everyone,

I wanted to bring to your attention this neat application being developed by the Surfacescapes team at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Using Microsoft's Surface technology, they are planning on "revolutionizing" tabletop RPGs. In the demo video below, you'll see that they've incorporated the 4E ruleset.





While I'm excited at the possibilities such technological advances can have on gaming - I mean this could truly kick ass - I'm also worried that some of the charm and traditions of the hobby will be lost (also, not a lot is left to the imagaination). On the one hand, I know I would love to play games with friends in this way (I'd never leave the house). On the other, I think I would feel as if something were missing. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

What do you all think?

Assuming this technology was affordable, portable and durable I would, probably, only use it to display a battle map with gridlines with an easily erasable "fog of war" and create visual persistent zones (like a Wall of Fire or Icy Terrain). Using it to roll dice, select powers, move displayed figures on the battle map is a impractical and, I suspect, was just done to demonstrate the technology.

Anyone know how much the Microsoft Table costs? I imagine very few gamers would be willing to invest in it -- especially married ones -- and that a top-down projection system would be more cost-effective.

Last time I checked, the price for the Surface is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 (yes, you read right). That is the cost of a dependable used CAR.

I'm with DW in saying that using the control objects to keep track of powers, roll dice, etc... is not only impractical and clunky, but it does indeed detract from the charm of table-top RPGs. It is a bit too much like just playing a video game. Lets not only mention how buggy the Character Builder can sometimes be, I'd hate to think of how buggy this iteration would be. At least with the CB, you can print out the sheet and write down your house rules. How would that work with it all incorporated into the game?

I have done some homework and a top-down projection system really isn't cost effective at all. Even a low, entry-level projection system will cost in the neighborhood of $600. That doesn't include the $200-$300 (sometimes more) bulbs which would only last you for 6 months to a year (depending on how often/long you play). For a more reasonable price, you can purchase a $300 - $400 26"-32" LCD flatscreen TV to your laptop and open a map in Photoshop. You could easily display a "fog of war" effect & zone effects as well. The only downside is the having people not roll their dice ON the LCD screen or having them spill their soda on it. (but if you have homeowner's insurance, maybe that would be covered?)

THAT is what i plan on doing when i get the expendable cash.

Good perspectives guys. I tend to agree. However, I don't see this coming to tabletop gaming anytime soon - maybe in the next 10-20 years. Certainly such integrated computer technologies will be far more affordable and pervasive by 2030.

As an aside, I'm sure you'd be able to enter house rules into the code in a more or less user-friendly fashion.

I think depicting overworld, town, and combat maps on Surface is ideal. Even the injection of some story items would be nice. Imagine playing an LFR module with lots of rich virtual props. Heck, you could even have RF tagged minis - once placed on the table the game would know relevant stats, etc.

In the long-run, such technologies should be developed to help the DM elicit compelling interactions between players around the table - enhance roleplaying, not thwart it. If Surface et al make the experience feel like a video game, it will simply be considered a video game - not a tabletop RPG.

I saw this earlier and though cool but meh. I found an article online a while ago that detailed how to create your own multitouch surface for a computer and I think the total cost came out to a little over a $1000. with the bulk of the price being attributed to a short throw projector to actually display the images. After reading the article I want to build one to play with and maybe use it for gaming but I don't think it would be practical to just for table top gaming. Personally I would like a few sets of these for running games.

I found it. Here is how to build your own multitouch surface.

Don't get me wrong... I think this thing is cool as all hell. However, I am also quite a traditionalist in that I love things that help enhance the table-top RPG experience, but I don't want to make it a video game. For me, this Surface application is more video game, with a few table-top elements, not the other way around.

I also agree that by the time this is ready for consumer use, that the price will be more reasonable.

I LOVE those dwarvenforge sets. However, they are just *way* too out of my price range. I think you'd need at least 3 sets to really have a fleshed out couple of encounters, and at $110+ for each set, that just places it out of my price range (for now ). Knowing how i've gone overboard with minis in the year that i've been buying them, if i got into buying these dwarvenforge sets, i would be in the poor house within months.