A modest proposal...
So here I sit, trying to nurse my dying laptop along until my new one arrives and working on the Mad Science campaign that popular demand demands that I run. It's going to be a challenging campaign, for both the players and for me. Not much combat, for one thing. Not much use of powers. Mostly roleplaying, skill rolls, and puzzles. I know this is going to bore some players. I'm going to have to make the plots and NPCs interesting, I know, and encourage roleplaying. Which is something that I feel has been lacking in some of the games I've been in lately. I'm wondering if laptops might be partially to blame.
I don't mean to sound like the grumpy old man talking about how the kids these days don't do anything right, but back years ago when I started roleplaying we paid a lot more attention to the games. We didn't have laptops, PDAs, cell phones, Playstation Portables, or other electronic distractions at the table, and pretty much had to pay attention to what the GM and other players were doing. (And we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to game, with pages falling our of our 4th edition books...) And it did seem to me that the RP was a lot more involved and intense. Granted our GM at the time was hyperactive and obsessive about detailing his world. But it still seems to me, from my own experience and observation at the games I'm in now, that people are a lot more inclined to be interested in the game when they don't have a laptop screen in between them and the rest of the table.
I've pondered having a "No laptops at the gaming table" rule at games I run. I can hear the screaming and visualize the torches and pitchforks already, but I really do think it would help everyone focus on the game itself. The few things that laptops are used for directly relating to the game - character sheets, rolling dice, and passing notes - can be pretty well done without. And maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I still prefer rolling physical dice to getting numbers off a computer screen.
I don't mean to sound like the grumpy old man talking about how the kids these days don't do anything right, but back years ago when I started roleplaying we paid a lot more attention to the games. We didn't have laptops, PDAs, cell phones, Playstation Portables, or other electronic distractions at the table, and pretty much had to pay attention to what the GM and other players were doing. (And we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to game, with pages falling our of our 4th edition books...) And it did seem to me that the RP was a lot more involved and intense. Granted our GM at the time was hyperactive and obsessive about detailing his world. But it still seems to me, from my own experience and observation at the games I'm in now, that people are a lot more inclined to be interested in the game when they don't have a laptop screen in between them and the rest of the table.
I've pondered having a "No laptops at the gaming table" rule at games I run. I can hear the screaming and visualize the torches and pitchforks already, but I really do think it would help everyone focus on the game itself. The few things that laptops are used for directly relating to the game - character sheets, rolling dice, and passing notes - can be pretty well done without. And maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I still prefer rolling physical dice to getting numbers off a computer screen.