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<TITLE>RE: [PnP] idea (PDA)</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>The one thing that would be real nice is something I coded a LONG time ago.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>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").</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>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)</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>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).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>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.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>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)</FONT></P>
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