4 ms·

Paradoxically, tech has actually made DnD much more accessible to the masses. When my friends and I first started playing 3.5 in middle school, we pooled our m

Paradoxically, tech has actually made DnD much more accessible to the masses. When my friends and I first started playing 3.5 in middle school, we pooled our money for a single player's handbook (they were pricey back then!) and would constantly be passing it around any time anyone needed to do anything, which really slowed down the pace of the game and made it hard to get intimately familiar with the rules. Eventually someone found a PDF dump of some books, and suddenly not only did we have access to useful stuff like the monster manual and DM guide, but we could search the text super quickly and get familiar with the rules at home, on our own time. Now that we're adults who can actually afford the books, we don't need the PDFs - but we still benefit from using phone apps for dice rolling and spellbooks, and roll20 for combat.

ajross 8y ago
I've timed it in actual play: it's quicker to google for a monster stat block (one from the SRD, obviously) than it is to look it up in the Monster Manual sitting right next to the laptop.
- klodolph 8y ago
  Sure, but from experience in play, sticky notes in the Monster Manual are much faster for switching back and forth than browser tabs are.
  - ajross 8y ago
    That's a cache, though, when the use case at hand is random access. I mean, if I'm willing to do some prep work I can surely do even better than sticky notes (like, heh, "google for all the monsters ahead of time and line them all up in browser tabs").
    - klodolph 8y ago
      Perhaps that's your use case, it's not mine. How DMs prepare, if they do, is highly variable. But most DMs choose monsters ahead of time. This appears in survey data in The Lazy Dungeon Master. The questionnaires are interesting, when asked how they would prepare for a session if they only had 30 minutes, most DMs explicitly mentioned choosing monsters. Over the years, my personal experience is that running things out of the browser or PDF is great if you need to search for random rules and other situations that come up during the game, but paper books and notes are overwhelmingly superior for expected conditions like encounters and monsters. I've used various laptop systems (wikis, docs, text files), apps, and paper systems (typed, handwritten, paper or notecard). On the balance of things I decided that running the game with a laptop was worse than running a game without one, at least the way I play the game. That's just a personal choice, but it seems like most DMs do choose monsters ahead of time.
      - colomon 8y ago
        I've been running the old d20 Star Wars game for my kid, and with PDFs of all the rulebooks, one of my main game prep things is printing out the pages for the creatures / characters / spaceships I think are likely for a session.
tejtm 8y ago
Paradoxically, DnD actually made tech much more accessible to me. weather generation was the impetus of my first programs on a Vic 20
_the_inflator 8y ago
Yep, what also adds in my point of view to its popularity is that due to highly successful DND inspired PC games and cosplay DND is generally not considered some weird thing. Also people tend to be ok with the fantasy part of DND. When I started playing DND in the early 90th you were considered a creep with too much fantasy. :D
- sudosteph 8y ago
  Funnily enough, the reason I had to pool money in the first place (rather than just asking for the book as a bday or xmas present) is because my church-going Dad bought into the "Dungeons and Dragons leads to devil worship" myth! He knows better now, but even in the 2000s many people had some very odd opinions of people who played RPGs. I do agree though that video games and big budget fantasy movies have brought the whole genre closer into the mainstream though.
FroshKiller 8y ago
How is that at all paradoxical?
naravara 8y ago
>we could search the text super quickly This is really the killer feature for me. As much as I love the nostalgia and imagery of leafing through a hefty tome, the practicality of it wasn't so good for new players. Having to keep pausing the narrative to be like "Hold up. leafs to index, leafs to page, scans page to figure out which die to roll" really just bogs everything down. Especially if you're playing with indecisive munchkins.

ajross 8y ago

I've timed it in actual play: it's quicker to google for a monster stat block (one from the SRD, obviously) than it is to look it up in the Monster Manual sitting right next to the laptop.

klodolph 8y ago
Sure, but from experience in play, sticky notes in the Monster Manual are much faster for switching back and forth than browser tabs are.
- ajross 8y ago
  That's a cache, though, when the use case at hand is random access. I mean, if I'm willing to do some prep work I can surely do even better than sticky notes (like, heh, "google for all the monsters ahead of time and line them all up in browser tabs").
  - klodolph 8y ago
    Perhaps that's your use case, it's not mine. How DMs prepare, if they do, is highly variable. But most DMs choose monsters ahead of time. This appears in survey data in The Lazy Dungeon Master. The questionnaires are interesting, when asked how they would prepare for a session if they only had 30 minutes, most DMs explicitly mentioned choosing monsters. Over the years, my personal experience is that running things out of the browser or PDF is great if you need to search for random rules and other situations that come up during the game, but paper books and notes are overwhelmingly superior for expected conditions like encounters and monsters. I've used various laptop systems (wikis, docs, text files), apps, and paper systems (typed, handwritten, paper or notecard). On the balance of things I decided that running the game with a laptop was worse than running a game without one, at least the way I play the game. That's just a personal choice, but it seems like most DMs do choose monsters ahead of time.
    - colomon 8y ago
      I've been running the old d20 Star Wars game for my kid, and with PDFs of all the rulebooks, one of my main game prep things is printing out the pages for the creatures / characters / spaceships I think are likely for a session.

tejtm 8y ago

Paradoxically, DnD actually made tech much more accessible to me. weather generation was the impetus of my first programs on a Vic 20

_the_inflator 8y ago

Yep, what also adds in my point of view to its popularity is that due to highly successful DND inspired PC games and cosplay DND is generally not considered some weird thing. Also people tend to be ok with the fantasy part of DND. When I started playing DND in the early 90th you were considered a creep with too much fantasy. :D

sudosteph 8y ago
Funnily enough, the reason I had to pool money in the first place (rather than just asking for the book as a bday or xmas present) is because my church-going Dad bought into the "Dungeons and Dragons leads to devil worship" myth! He knows better now, but even in the 2000s many people had some very odd opinions of people who played RPGs. I do agree though that video games and big budget fantasy movies have brought the whole genre closer into the mainstream though.

FroshKiller 8y ago

How is that at all paradoxical?

naravara 8y ago

>we could search the text super quickly This is really the killer feature for me. As much as I love the nostalgia and imagery of leafing through a hefty tome, the practicality of it wasn't so good for new players. Having to keep pausing the narrative to be like "Hold up. leafs to index, leafs to page, scans page to figure out which die to roll" really just bogs everything down. Especially if you're playing with indecisive munchkins.