Table Top Gaming Meets My Imagination

Virtual table tops (VTT) are a modern variation of the old pen and paper table top games of the seventies and eighties.  There are a number of commercially available VTTs out there, as well as a few free and open source ones.  Roll20 stands out among the free one's.  It has a donate version that brings more features, but it is still great for tele-gaming.  However Roll20 leaves something to be desired for the local get together gaming session.  Recently I saw this video of a guy who built a projector rig to help bring a VTT to his group, and I thought "That is cool, but its missing something".

Who has a spare projector around?  But I did have an extra monitor about.  Which brings me to the subject matter of this post.  By using an old second monitor for a floor plane and another for a background/info plane, you can turn a simple idea into an immersive experience.  This is however just a mock up and nothing more than an hour or two in GIMP to make the two screens.  I wanted to poke around with the idea firstly.  However, it does look great up close and it gives off the right atmosphere.  This setup feels like it would be fun tele-gaming, as well as playing at a meet up, but mostly feels like a single player dungeon crawl at this point.

I recently read an article on reddit.com/r/dnd about how DMs were banning players from using electronics while playing, to stop "meta gaming".  That gave me another idea, why not give the player the ability to control their character from a smartphone or laptop, but we would have to lose the minis, something Roll20 already did.  Could easily code a web page interface to do all of this, that would make it cross platform.

I see it in my head having battle animations, spell effects and arrows flying in the floor plane.  As well as animations and updated info on the back plane about the adventure.  Treasure, experience, Trap and Puzzle events with info could go on the back screen.  Maybe flying monsters or time of day could be relayed visually through the back plane.

Well this was my brainstorm I'll just keep it here for now on the back burner.  If you like this or you are interested in helping start something like this, leave a comment or contact me.

First!

As the first post I'm going to lay out the general "feel" I want to give this blog, and introduce myself to the visitor.

Hello, My name is Ben.  I am a 30 something male american, nuff said.  I have an innate inner thirst for knowledge.  I can't tell you how many things I have broken by taking them apart to find answers to the questions in my head.  I modify and fix things myself whenever I get the chance. I try and write software somedays. I administrate a few web sites.  I grow a vegetable garden, help my wife make art, and I find I have not the time to explore all the things that are interesting to me.

That is the purpose of this blog, I will often mock something up and look it over just to get the feel for it.  I look and think "is this interesting or useful to anyone", and if not I pack it away unfinished.  So I want to catalog those ideas and share them with you here on this blog.  Most of the posts here won't be whole ideas and certainly not near completion, but maybe some of you will be inspired by them and may build onto or branch out from those ideas.  I have a good one in mind for my second post.  One I've had rattling around in my skull for a few weeks.  Stay tuned...