The Microsoft Surface’s Sole Purpose: Dungeons & Dragons
I had not heard of Microsoft’s Surface — a big touch-screen computer thingie made for presentations and the like — until this morning. And that’s only because I looked it up, because TR reader Jerry sent me the above video of Dungeons & Dragons being played on the Surface, and I had no clue what the fuck he was talking about. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say I’m impressed. Sure, it’s going to be a lot of needless complication for both players and DMs, but c’mon — role-players don’t lug around 100s of dollars worth of math formula-filled supplements and bags of various-sided dice because they like things to be simple. Assuming this thing would be at all reasonably priced — which I doubt — would you gamers be interested or not?
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.