While the “Microsoft Surface” costs some $10k (or more), the concept is dead simple and quite replicatable – it’s not the esoteric “multi-touch touchscreen”. It’s just a specific kind of glass – nothing extremely exotic, just smoky or something like this, plus some webcams to catch images of fingers squeezed against the surface while the outside remains out of focus, plus a screen on the bottom. And a PC to process it all. The tricky part is the image recognition software, but nerds are good at writing things like that. So I expect home-made clones pretty soon.

I had even pondered a way to do such a thing with a Facebook profile until I got wind of their policy on content left on the site. So Wave is starting to fill a pretty big hole in that void.

It still has its kinks, but seeing as it was this impressive at such an early stage, I’ve got some hopes for it.

It would open up a lot of tools to do collaborations with.

Now, if there were some way to combine this with a Scrivener type program, that would be the best thing ever. It’s already halfway there.

Now you have me picturing Cinders meeting this guy and having conversations. Even not knowing what she sounds like, I totally would buy the album, go to the live show, and come back with the t-shirt! It makes me smile.

Seems characters from any source that we tend to really like, have something about them that grounds them, that puts them in some way shape or form on our level or train of thought. I think that’s why sometimes overly exaggerated or outlandish characters without any connection whatsoever to reality may be neat on some level, but we just can’t connect to them. They’re like adults were when we were kids – they don’t look like us, they’re really different in size, they get angry at strange things and worry and run about and scream, and they have no concept just how much fun it is to splash in this puddle. (this is probably more appropriate for your Story vs Rules post but ahwell, here’s where it ended up.)

One even worked with me to make a gnoll (or more accurately flind) rogue. Had a story and everything that even made it believable in the world he had going. Another had some burly were-crock in it, and both were done fairly reasonably to incorporate decently well into the established universe they were being played in, such that it was great fun to push just outside of the official rules, but be responsible with them enough that it wasn’t… lore shattering?

Haven’t had much more then a passing glance at 4e, but it almost looked like it might be more open to the idea of story before rules, or at least rules flexible enough to adjust to how strict you wanted to be.

I *seriously* like your brains. You need to live closer around these parts, damn it! This character would be incredible from a game/story point of view. I’ll say this much.. You now have me thinking about things from a more outside the box perspective. I realize I’ve been kind of buttoning down my concepts into roles, instead of what would make for incredible character concepts (Well, with the exception of Cinders, who herself is outright otherworldly.. She’d probably love to meet this cleric since he’d actually get half of what she babbles on about, if even in thought.)

Very interesting concept.. Its got me thinking!