Gaming in the Digital Age - Part 1

This is the first of a series of posts about running roleplaying games with current technology.  I'm not talking about computer programs that organize every aspect of your game, from initiative to combat to how many spells have been cast, etc.  That's was old when my Apple IIe was around.  I'm referring to referencing PDF rulebooks, using pencils, paper, and real dice.


The game I am running is Basic D&D, heavily house-ruled (my retro-clone).  I wanted to test the efficacy of the system and how easy it was to make characters.  The speed of character creation was diluted somewhat by having to explain things orally to relative newbies, including a complete newbie: my 7 year old son.  


I was using my Motorola Cliq, an Android phone (cuz I haven't been able to stand Apple proprietary devices since they introduced the iPod).  

In retrospect, a laptop would have been better.  The PDF reader I was using was the best there was for free, but I had to wait for pages to refresh which only increased the amount of time character creation took.  


Still, we got 3 characters up and running, and we need to set a time for the game.  Something that meshes with everyone's schedules.  That will be harder than actually sitting down and bench-testing both the digital era plus my homebrew D&D.


Part II coming soon!