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.
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