Month: January 2019

iPad Life: Update to Playing D&D on the iPad

For reasons I can’t even begin to understand, an almost two-year-old post about how I play Pen and Paper Dungeons and Dragons on my iPad is the top hit page on this site. A lot has changed in my workflow, so I am providing an updated post.

MANAGING MY CHARACTERS

With the release of D&DBeyond, Wizard’s online compendium, they also issued Cease and Desist orders to a lot of the sites that provided character builder services. While it was possible to upload configuration files that had D&D source material, it became too much of a pain in the ass for me to manage. Instead, I figured for short money I could buy direct from Wizards the material I needed and just manage my characters on their web page.

I have been very impressed with the online portal. It’s damn easy to quickly create and update a character. A few times I have been at a con and suddenly needed a level one character in about 5-10 minutes had a workable character for the play session. Updating them when I get new gear or a new level is also very easy.

USING THE IPAD IN PLAY SESSIONS

Gone, obviously, is the Numbers sheet I was using as a hacked-together character sheet. Also the 3rd-party PDFs are gone. I instead use the portal manage my character.

Luckily, the places I play D&D have decent WiFi. With the 12.9” iPad I can view the entire web page for the character manager. From there I can adjust hit points and check off used abilities. It’s also easy to invoke mechanisms like short and long rests and the web page will automatically reset used abilities. There is also an added bonus that having the iPad laying flat on the table lets other players see I am actually using it to play the game, and not Minecraft. I also makes seeing dice rolls easy without a laptop screen in front of me.

The one area I am not thrilled with is the PDF export. For non-spell casting characters it’s fine. However, the amount of information it exports about spells is lacking. It doesn’t tell me that effects, damage, and other crucial information. This isn’t the end of the world since I just keep that PDFs in case the WiFi is crappy. There is a companion app that I can use to look up information. Unfortunately it doesn’t handle characters yet. The PDF is just a backup in case the WiFi craps out. I sync them to my iPad but I have’t needed to use them in a session yet.

I have used this system in roughly 6 games, mostly at conventions. It is working well and for about $30 I solved a lot of character management problems. Hopefully they will implement a character manager to the iPad app. The only issue I have is battery life since I am hammering the WiFi connection. I do keep a small battery charger in my bag, though.

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On Apple’s Earning Adjustment and Upgrade Cycles

Apple today announced expected revenue for the holiday quarter would fall short of expectations. They didn’t miss by much, only by about $5-7 billion1. Tim Cook blamed a lot of things: China’s slow growth, longer upgrade cycles due to the elimination of cellular subsidies, and that people paying $29 to replace old batteries allowed them to keep their iPhones longer2.

What he didn’t mention was Apple raised the prices on everything over the last few years.

Now, some of the complaining about prices wasn’t justified. The new MacBook Air starts at $1,199, up $200 from the old-model’s $999 price tag. That old Air, however, was outdated. No Retina screen. Old internals. It did have MagSafe and USB-A ports, so for a lot of people it was still worth it.

The price increase on a lot of other items, yeah. I bought my 2016 15” MacBook Pro in March 2017. It replaced as my main Mac a 2011 15” MacBook Pro, and an 11” MacBook Air I bought in early 2015 right before Apple released new upgrades. The 2011 I farmed off to a co-worker; the 11” I still have3. While performance was a driver for the upgrade, a large part of it was getting a Retina screen. The 12.9” iPad Pro really made the older screens hard for me to use. I sometimes wonder if I got a 2014 13” Pro instead if it would still be my main Mac. The dual core processor would likely show its age by now. I still use the Air though, when I need MacOS and an ultra-portable computer.

My theme for 2019 Evaluation. For the record, I’m not looking at making major life changes. I am, however, evaluating the devices, apps, and services I use. For now, it’s a lot of data collection. What do I use my Mac and iPad for? I say I want to use x app more, but over the year I use y app instead. I promised myself it was unlikely I was going to upgrade any of my devices. Some of this is price. The increased price of the new iPad Pro may not have completely turned me away, but also needing to buy a new Smart Keyboard and Pencil (also at a roughly 20% price premium) surely did. The same with my iPhone. I used my 6 for three years, and I expect to get 4-5 out of my 8 Plus. New iPhones are more expensive and my existing one works just fine. For me to upgrade I need to see real-world improvement; not just benchmarked improvement.

As Patrick Rhone would say, a lot of people are finding out their current phones and devices are enough.

  1. Since this is the internet, I feel I need to mention I am being sarcastic. ↩
  2. I am not making that one up. ↩
  3. It’s on my desk next to me, actually. ↩