A group of students at Carnegie Mellon university have created an interesting use for Microsoft's Surface: Playing tabletop Dungeons and Dragons.
Check out the proof of concept video here:
Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.
I used to play a bit of D&D (before moving on to Call of Cthulhu), and I have mixed feelings about whether this is a good idea or not. On the one hand, I could see that integrating the rule-set into the table would save tons of time looking things up in the D&D tomes, as well as saving time figuring out movement rates, lines of site and other strategic ephemera. But on the other hand, why not just play a video game? Part of the point of table top gaming is, in my opinion anyway, the fact that it doesn't use computers. Physically rolling dice, looking up rules and drawing maps on pieces of paper is the fun part of D&D!
The other aspect of this Surface thing I don't like is the codification of the rules. My favorite way to play D&D is with a DM who keeps things loose. IE: If a rule gets in the way of a good story, toss out the rule. Adding Surface to that mix wouldn't be pretty... So, for now, I'll keep playing Call of Cthulhu, where the rules aren't so strict, and I'll play it the old fashioned way: On paper... with lots of Mountain Dew!
