[PnP] idea (PDA)

[Choinski, Burton]

The one thing that would be real nice is something I coded a LONG time ago.

Back when I ran P&P in 83 with my brother and friends, I wrote a basic
program for our Commodore-64 called "P&P Timekeeper".  It maintained the
current game time/date (you entered this when you started the campaign) and
was able to save the time/date database to disk for loading back up when we
next played.

Hitting a single key could increment the time by a phase, turn, minute,
hour, strategic turn, day, week, etc.  Or you could proceed with a number
and increment by that much (i.e. 15m for 15 minutes).  So we always knew the
time of day it was ("is it dark enough to sneak into the house?"  "nope,
only 3pm") or the time of year ("SInce it's december, I think you won't be
crossing the Caldan mountains anytime soon").

The cool part of the program was the ability to enter an text string allong
with an expiration time measured from the current time point in whatever
desired timescale (15t for 15 turns, etc).  When an event expired, the event
note was presented in the notification area of the tool.  So I could track
all the various spells and they did in combat as it proceeded phase by
phase, and not have to worry about forgetting that an effect that should
have worn off.  The same applied to spell effects on them (I could keep the
actual time hidden, so they would have to ponder if they should do something
now, or wait a game hour and see if the effect wore off -- decisions,
decisions)

I also used it myself as a GM aid (i.e. noting to myself at a game point
that guards would arrive in 5 minutes, then continue to tick off the combat
or movement time as they did actions).

It was a sweet little program, and something like it for a PDA would be a
great tool for any game, much less P&P (especially if made generic enough
such that important timescales could be configured by loaded modules,
however that might be done on the palm.

I would pay for a generic something like this on the palm...if P&Pv2 offered
it as a CD goodie, that's nice free advertising (especially if the toos was
cakked simething like P&P Timekeeper, but could used generically with
modules)


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Burton Choinski
Principal Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-589-4089
fax:      978-589-5903

MatrixOne, Inc.
210 Littleton Rd.
Westford, Ma 01886
www.matrixone.com

The First in Intelligent Collaborative Commerce
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