New technologies have become more commonplace over the last few years – cell phones, PDAs, what have you – and this boom in personal tech has definitely found its’ way onto the roleplaying table. In this article I will examine the most useful new gadgets and tools and how they can be used to improve the roleplaying experience (and sometimes improve Experience as well, not to mention Character Points).

Cell Phones

This first item has become the standard for most of the American populace. Not only does it seem like everyone has a cell phone, but wireless headsets such as Bluetooth seem to have been handed out like candy – it seems like everybody from businessmen to window-washers use them. The good thing about the unending popularity of cell phones is the fact that they might be the most useful new tool for roleplaying.

Want to calculate your XP without borrowing Jay’s calculator? No worries, even the most basic cell phone models now come with a calculator function. Need conversion charts for a game-related quabble? Cell phones have those too. And the calendar is and organizer functions are extremely useful for keeping track of those increasingly rarer roleplaying dates. Those are just the basic functions. More expensive models have even more uses – you could use the camera feature, for instance, to take a picture of your character in case you forget it (or it gets lost).

Calculators

Using calculators for roleplaying is old hat, but the newest graphing calculators have a few features beyond the obvious calculating ability which might just be useful at the game table. Even the lower-end models with graphing capabilities have a probability simulator function. When properly programmed, this could be a great substitute for dice in any situation when dice are absent or can’t be used (in a vehicle, for instance, or in the middle of a public place where dice-rolling could be frowned upon). The dice-rolling feature can be useful in some situations, but I find that the random number generator is a much better substitute for dice, as it can be programmed to choose between any set of numbers and up to six different numbers can be rolled at once.

PDAs/Blackberries

While I don’t own a PDA myself, it’s a very popular personal technology and such a device could be very useful for roleplaying. Besides featuring all the advantages of the cell phone (besides actually calling people, of course), it could also serve to take down mission notes for a summary (which could earn you extra XP/CPs) or important names of NPCs and the like. It’s the next generation of writing important names down on your character sheet!

Fancy Clipboard/Binder

Joel was the first to buy one of these, of course, but they seem to have caught on with several other players (including myself) in the past few months. Able to hold a thick stack of character sheets and other game-related papers, these binders also have a built-in calculator (useful for adding up experience!) and adequate space for both pencils and dice. Keep all your characters in this handy binder and you’ll never have to worry about them being lost again! (Just don’t forget to bring it to the session.)

Notebook Computers

These are fairly big and very expensive, but they seem to be catching on even more these days and they can definitely serve as a useful tool for roleplaying, both for players and GMs. Word and its imitators can be used to take mission notes or important names; they feature calculators and other useful tools; iTunes is an extremely useful aid to GMs who want to add more music to their games. But most important of all, internet access – whether downloading a game supplement, looking for character pictures, or searching the web for the answer to a sticky game-mechanics question – is an essential tool for modern roleplayers.

These and other new tools of the trade help keep roleplaying a fun and interesting pastime. Keep on the lookout for other new technologies which could be applied to the game as well!