[PnP] idea (PDA)

[Scott Adams]

At 10:04 AM 3/17/04 -0500, you wrote: 

>
> 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)



Interesting.  Not sure how I'd approach this to program it.  So basically
its a
program that clicks time.  You then insert some events into it and it will
then
show when they are active.  hmmm...sounds interesting.  Not sure I've ever
tried tht since I've always prefered paper for tht.  I'd have to sleep on it. 
It would be an interesting challenge creative wise.  I could probably do it
but
would need to think about it more on how it worked since I'm about 80% sure of
your meaning.  

How does the time 'click' down?  Do you hit the enter key and it increments
the
next amount of time or do you as GM decide say increment it by 3turns or 14
phases?  

hmm...
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