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From: smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games,rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: RPG opinions (was Re: Programmer...)
Summary: Why not use printers?
Message-ID: <1990Nov4.031718.23755@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 4 Nov 90 03:17:18 GMT
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Here's an additional thought of a practical nature.  All of you know
how tedious it is to keep notes while you play an RPG.  Even if you
have auto-mapping you still have 10-100 pages of notes.  At least
I do!  Why hasn't somebody programmed a game to use the printer for
note taking?  Say for example someone you meet in the game says
something important and you need to write it down.  Instead of turning
to the old pencil and paper you just press a key on the keyboard (such
as the PrtSc button or the "p" key) and the time, place, and content
of the conversation is printed out on the printer of your system.  This
should be really easy to do since the whole thing could be kept in
ASCII characters.  The game designer could even include a dozen or so
colored printer sheets with notebook holes on the side so you can file
them in a neatly organized notebook of some type, and if you wanted
more sheets just send the company a request with the appropriate $$$.

There's all kinds of variations on this, including printing to the
hard drive and allowing the player to view these messages at any time
in the game and to allow the players to organize them in any way they
like via a very simple word processor built into the game.  If you're
playing off floppies there might be an "adventurer's journal" disk
where all these messages are kept.  You could do the same thing with
maps, etc., etc.....

S. "Stevie" Smith \  +  /
<smsmith@hpuxa.   \+++++/    " #*&<-[89s]*(k#$@-_=//a2$]'+=.(2_&*%>,,@
 ircc.ohio-state. \  +  /      {7%*@,..":27g)-=,#*:.#,/6&1*.4-,l@#9:-)  "
 edu>             \  +  / 
 BTW, WYSInaWYG   \  +  /                              --witty.saying.ARC