

D&D for the Surface - swernli
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10451247-1.html?tag=mncol

======
davi
Cool, but I kind of wonder if D&D has grown close enough as it is to being a
board game.

For people who want to emphasize storytelling and role-playing, I recommend
checking out Burning Wheel:

<http://www.burningwheel.org/?page_id=2>

That's not to say you can't do good collaborative storytelling etc. in d20,
but Burning Wheel has explicit structures & rewards for doing so.

~~~
timwiseman
There are different styles of play. I have been in games that essentially were
board games with a visit to shops in between the exploration and combat. I
have also been in games that barely touched the dice at all and combat was
handled by DM fiat after the players laid out their strategy in very broad
terms. Both types can be fun, depending on your personality/mood at the
moment.

The Storyteller System used by White Wolf for the old World Of Darkness series
struck me as a very good balance between the two, back before children and
grad school essentially put an end to my playing.

------
prawn
I am dying to get a Surface at home as a coffee table that handles the obvious
stuff (photos, music, videos queued to the TV), plus other things like large-
format TV guides, weather, bit of home automation, etc. Then add on stuff like
home logging (entries whenever lights were switched on/off, front door opened,
mail dropped in letterbox, garage door opened, etc) and security (manage
security cameras and check videos of your frontdoor while you were out) and so
much more.

And to keep this remotely topical, I think Scrabble and then 1-6 player Risk
would be great also since I'm seriously addicted to playing Lux on my
iPhone...

Any guesses as to how far we are off for these sorts of things? I'd love to
see a line of Surface machines on the market and an app store for them.

------
Groxx
Surface is still active? I've heard squat since it first appeared on the
screen, some two years after identical techs were being made all over by the
DIY crowd. Last I saw of it, it was still frickin' huge and projected to be
really expensive, while the DIY options are simple, small, extensible, and
cheap.

That said, interesting interface for the game. Seems like it'd be well suited
to Warhammer too, given the firing maps & rather complex rules at times. A
graphical overview could really enhance strategy.

~~~
prawn
It's offered for sale in Australia for about $21k ($24.5k for developer
edition) which is pretty outrageous.

~~~
cubicle67
I'd love to see a pre-emptive iSupply costing for that one!

------
presidentender
Then we'll see a wargame targeted to the Surface specifically. Then the
Surface will be completely dominant and unbeatable.

~~~
swernli
Maybe not for the Surface specifically, but how about just multiplatform but
with built in support for Win7 multitouch? For that we'll have R.U.S.E.:
[http://ruse.us.ubi.com/index.php?page=news&newsid=10422](http://ruse.us.ubi.com/index.php?page=news&newsid=10422)

------
jeff18
If I am ever successful, this is my dream -- having money to sponsor people to
make my dream apps like this [and open source them for the community].

------
artichokeheart
I expect to see something similar on the iPad when it's released too. Of
course the pieces would need to be made from sausage to work I'd imagine :)

~~~
cubicle67
Could do. They share the same screen resolution (1024x768)

