Steve:
I'm curious to know what things you will be moderating with a computer. I do 90% of my gaming using software, rather than paper-and-dice because it speeds play, handles a much richer and more nuanced resolution model, and provides a lot of the "fog of war" that paper-and-dice systems have a hard time reproducing.
Like Reilly Strategies games and Carnage & Glory (both of which I've played), I write software which moderates the actual tabletop combat, rather than just providing support for the games (terrain generation, campaign systems, etc.)
Are you thinking of using software for this? I have found that it is possible to create a game which uses web-browser scripting to run on a PDA or cell-phone, which makes it pretty easy to carry the system around as you referee a game. And a lot more people have web-capable cell phones than have laptop computers.
I've written about a dozen different systems for different periods (all historical), just for my own use, mostly. My rules do a lot of things which are a pain in paper-and-dice systems: keeping track of fatigue, fuel levels, ammunition, casualties, morale factors, etc. Also, you can have highly detailed resolution mechanisms but hide the complexity from the players: my Marlburian rules have about 18 different resolution phases for a charge, for example, with all of it hidden from the players except for asking if the charging unit reached its target using a generted charge distance.
All the dice-rolling is handled with randomly-generated numbers on the computer.
Anyway, I could go on at length, but I'm interested to know more about what you are developing.
Cheers,
A. Gregory
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
