Geeky RPG thought, yes geeky even within the RPG realm

[lilfluff]

I had a sudden thought while (remainder of sentence purged for TMI). And that thought was this, there totally should have been an old school RPG in the 70s maybe early 80s that made use of some variety of custom slide rule.

How? Good question. Perhaps taking something along the lines of the rainbow chart in the old Marvel RPG (and IIRC third edition Gamma World) and instead of printing up a full page chart drop in a cheap plastic slip-stick. "Okay, it's this difficulty so I set the index here, I rolled this, so the result is blue... Woo!"

Yeah, like I say in the title, a geeky thought even considering we're talking about early table top RPGS.

Speaking of geeky things, this post is a fairly big hint as to the geeky birthday gift I bought for myself. It turns out that there's still at least one model of a student slide being made, and Think Geek has it on sale. :)

Comments

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Heh. Actually, I'm in my 30s. Which is old enough to start saying things like, "Wait a second! That kid can't be thinking about college yet! They were born while I was in high school!" But not yet ancient (Well, okay, in the world of Logan's Run I'd be ancient, but thankfully I don't have to look over my shoulder for sandmen).

I'm too young to have ever used a slide rule in school, and even in the RPG world AD&D 2E was one of the first role playing games I ran into so not even really ancient there, but I've always been fascinated by the thought that three/four bits of plastic could do so much math.

[seawasp]

I OWNED a Slide Rule and used one for a few years until electronic calculators became (barely) affordable.

I miss them the way I miss my old cast-iron manual typewriter, which is to say, not at all.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

It's probably a bit of the common glorifying of the old days. Like hearing people moan and complain about how few RPG box sets are done anymore (although there seems to be an ever so slight resurgence lately). But I have to say, when you look at trying to pick up old RPG items those that came in boxes are a pain to try and get complete. Even when you define complete as, "I would at least like all the booklets. I can pick up dice anywhere."

A nice hard or soft cover volume tends not to end up in five different places. Unlike say my 3rd Edition Gamma World for which I think I still know the location of the map and one booklet, and have no idea the fate of the box or other booklets.

I suspect it's also much easier to enjoy having and using something like a slide rule when it was something you could get because you looked at it and said, "Ooh, nifty!" rather than having a stark choice of, "Learn to use this, or sit down with pencil and paper and do the whole bloody thing step by step, there is no third option."