Hi-Tech vs. Lo-Tech: What to Bring to The Table?

I started gaming in the 6^th grade (circa 1991). When I first started, things were pretty low tech. Game consisted of a hand written character sheet, a pencil, a handful of polyhedral dice, and scratch paper/post-its for side conversations with GM or players. We had hard bound rule books that were dog-eared beyond belief.

That was so last century.

Today, I still have a library of gaming books, but I don’t lug them around to games. Instead, I have digital copies on my computer. When I prepare for game, I can load them on the laptop or my kindle. I have a dice roller on my phone, instead of sticky notes I can simply IM or text a player. Character sheets can and often are Excel spreadsheets. Who needs a GM screen when I can do most of the work from my laptop? With so many electronics now making their way to the game table the question comes up, “do you even really need to gather at someone’s house to play?” Of course not, we have Skype too. Or, depending on your style, you can play by email (although, this too reminds me of some of my old games prior to Skype).

So how much tech is too much? For me, having gamed across all levels of tech at this point, I like a nice blend. I like to physically be with my game group, so I am not much of a Skype fan. There is just something about gathering with friends and interacting with them in person. Honestly, if I wanted to interact with virtual people, I’d just log into World of Warcraft or Star Wars: the Old Republic. Now, I am sure someone out there is going to go off that Skype-ing and playing an MMO are different, since you are can see the person. However, to me, it just seems so artificial.

Depending on the group and what tech they have, I may have my Kindle with digital versions of game books available as well as core books in hard-copy. If I am GMing, I do prefer to use my laptop. I don’t like writing my gaming ideas out on paper any more. My hands cramp up and I can definitely get more word count out quickly when I have a keyboard. My laptop also has a copy of the rule book for handy reference as well as all of my adventure content. Scene descriptors and pictures that I have saved to give the players an idea of what they are seeing.

As for dice, call me old fashion, but I love the feeling of dice in my hands. Plus the sound they make is like music to my ears. Even if I use handfuls of dice to play, I would prefer the real thing. As for my players, I am fine with them randomly generating their numbers however they prefer. However, if they are consistently passing every test, I may ask them to show me their rolls. But that hasn’t been necessary yet.

Character sheets – again I prefer low tech here. I don’t care if we are using the “official” character sheet for the game or hand written accounta of stats and gear, I generally prefer paper to pixel. NPCs are a different matter. Those are on the laptop. But when I am playing, I would prefer actual paper to prevent distraction from the shiny interwebz. I also prefer my players to use paper for the same reason.

As for notes, I prefer hi-tech alternatives. Again, I can get the point across faster if I can type. Since I don’t like my players to have laptops, this usually means text messages. Of course the downside to this is the delay that can happen from send to receive. So far, I haven’t had this negatively affect a game. But I have had folks share with me that they have had some unfortunate events happen due to the delay that relying on cell towers has caused.

I currently play in a game that is extremely lo-tech. In fact, the only tech at work during the game is the GMs laptop to provide background music. Otherwise, he has provided us print outs of useful events happening during the era we are playing in (the game is set in the ‘20s), common phrases used during the setting, hard copies of books for reference, loads of scrap paper for notes and paper character sheets. The GM strongly frowns on any modern tech at the game table. It is very retro to me, but I survive.

What is your preference when it comes to tech? How much is too much? What has worked for you and what hasn’t? Feel free to share using the comments below.