Casting Shadows

Today’s Question:

What innovation of any type could roleplayers benefit from?

There are lots of cool options on the technical front that might speed play, aid description, or improve note-taking or archiving. For mechanics and implementation we might soon see all sorts of improvements to the amount of information returned on a roll,  updating the means of communicating the rules in print, or improving the basic tools like Exile Game Studio has done for Ubiquity with dice…three times.

For this post, however, I want to focus on technology, as online gaming is growing in importance to my generation and others.

I would love to see an interface which harnesses growing abilities in face, position, and gesture recognition software to vastly improve the quality of our shared video streams. Not just a platform for apps and digital white boards, imagine an interface that lets you gesture to select and page through books and documents,  and lets you select and roll dice. Add in solid voice recognition, and you will be envisioning a lot of the awkwardness and segregation of online play being reduced.

With no juggling of the mouse or touch pads to open, resize, prioritize, and share windows, and no point and click manipulation of apps and aids, it might slowly come to feel like really being around a virtual table. It might even look like it~

I would like that.

#RPGaDay