Tablet PCs for use in tabletop games

Samphis

I just managed to get a couple of Tablet PCs that they were getting rid of at work. I really want to be able to use these in tabletop sessions to save on paper and wear and tear on my character sheets. Does anyone know of any applications already tailored to this sort of thing? I'm specifically talking about D&D 4e, but I hope that I can use them for any game as well.

They are these:



Motion 1400 Tablet PCs.

# Processor Brand Intel
# Processor Class Pentium M
# Processor Speed 1.1 GHz
# Mobile Technology Intel Centrino
# Installed Memory 512MB
# Hard Drive Capacity 40GB
# Display Size 12.1 in
# Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
# Display Resolution 1024 x 768 pixels
# Graphic Card Intel 855
# Wireless LAN 802.11g
# USB Port 2 USB 2.0
# Ethernet Yes
# Modem Yes

Ein

Man, I would love to have one of those things just to put Army Builder on so I could refer back to unit stat lines and the wargear I put on my armies while playing 40k.

tastydonuts

That's pretty neat. I use my tablet pc to track game stuff for me only atm though, lol.

Maptools may be able to provide a similar effect to what you're wanting, but as for an advanced program, nothing comes to mind.

dscrilla

Maptools FTW

with two you can run one as DM, the other as a player who "owns" all the player tokens. Use lighting or Fog of War to show them only what you want to see.

Samphis

Is there a decent 4e online character sheet resource? Even if it's web-based it'd be fine because I've got a wireless network.

Sharp101

Do you guys know of anything to run on a iPod Touch or iPhone?

Samphis

I upgraded the RAM in both of them to 1GB. I cannot wait to start using these.

tastydonuts

I've been working on an active character sheet... [strike]since I have shit-else to do today at a certain place [/strike] *cough* and I may make a lot more progress on it today than I thought. Been using the one off the site but keeping all those windows open in Firefox tabs is meh.

I use a tablet too, but it's a widescreen (WXGA), I intend to make the interface more conducive to using a pen though, and landscape/portrait compatible... If you want to give it a go when it's ready I can throw it out there for ya too. It'll require .NET fw 2.0 but that's about it really.

Update: Laid out a lot of crap for the backend (powers storing, character data storing) and threw together what I think the sheet'll look like... I put this here because it's the only place that it's remotely relevant to:

Lazy Screenshot

The borders on the labels will be gone, I just need them there for now because it makes lining up and adjusting crap easier for me. The focus here is the positioning, since I plan on having it be custom skinnable. Fonts will be adjustable too maybe. I just want to finish up laying out the groundwork for all the forms for now.

Since it's built and intended to be used with a tablet, adjustments to things like HP would be made by clicking the number, which pops up an adjuster dialog box. Detailed calculations are displayed on another sheet, and in that other sheet temp bonuses can be applied and will display elsewhere.

Additionally, when done it will be able to display a form like this for each party member loaded up, and summary sheets for DM usage.

I'm probably going to dump the tabpage and just use button labels and hidden panels for the lower part, but how should the subsections be partitioned? At this point I'll be doing:

Powers
Skills
Combat (combination of powers used and HP, round/buff adjustments)
Defense calculation breakdown.
Feats, Rituals, Equipment, Languages, Coin
Bio crap. (Personality, Mannerisms/Apperance, Background)
Note page (Paintish scribbly thing)

Base size of the form is rather fixed since it must work landscape/portrait on a *XGA (1020x768) display. Should I space the fields out some more?