Another Kind of Netbook Game

The phrase laptop game might possibly have one more meaning than you realize.

You are familiar with one kind, games that run on computers? They are set in eras from prehistoric and Roman times up to the modern day, and into various amazing and depressing future worlds.

You will also find games in the physical world, played with pens, paper and imagination that entail the characters doing things in the virtual world of the Internet. Players, and the referee, sit with pen and paper pretending to be using used netbooks. Rather than clicking a mouse to make a computer barbarian use his blade, these players roll dice to have their character ‘Google’ their enemy’s name, or hack into their laptop. Absolutely, this is definitely pathetic even to me, and I’ve made it.

Bear in mind, paper-and-pen role-playing games have grown since their creation, just like personal cheap netbooks under 200 dollars and computer games. So, while the popular media is portraying the corresponding of ‘Pong’, players are playing the pen-and-paper equivalent of Myst or Dark Age of Camelot.

One of the best game systems in my opinion is The Storyteller System from White Wolf Game Studios. Primarily set in modern times, they offer werewolves called Glasswalkers who are proud of being hi-tech and fond of mobile phones and personal organizers. Another game, Mage the Ascension, features a group called the Virtual Adepts who try to help humanity and change the world for the better using of computers and the Internet: Similarly to some individuals in the ‘real world’. I’m sure Virtual Adepts would love the idea of giving African children wind-up laptops.

Bear in mind, Mage is ABOUT computers, not ON laptop. Players and the referee just pretend to be using the Internet, using dice and imagination.

As expected like the rest of the world, Mage exists in the virtual world too. The storyteller games, and White Wolf, have websites devoted to them, both official and fan-based. There is a remarkable amount of brilliant information about Mage available online.

So, you’ll discover websites regarding how to pretend to surf the Internet, or create a website using a pen, paper, dice and your imagination. Or buy published books on the net to help you play your Virtual Adept’s online adventures. You can also probably buy the same books in PDF format. This is useful if you use your notebook instead of pen and paper, as my friend Jess does.

I’m amused to assume a person using their notebook to play Dark Age of Camelot, swinging swords in a computer generated world, while waiting for their fellow Mage players to arrive at their house. Then, when their friends ‘physically’ arrive, logging off and using their laptop and a handful of dice to pretend to surf the web as a virtual adept.