KN-9x DM Sidearm

Key Differentiator: Sub-second table-side lookup with zero boot ritual mid-game — a dedicated, distraction-free reference deck for running tabletop RPGs at the table. Source archetype: Dungeon Master's Assistant Vol I — TSR/SSI 1988 Related: future-concepts.md, kn90s-statline.md, kn90t-toneline.md, kn92-gridline.md, Kinoshita Electronics Consortium

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The DM Sidearm is a dedicated tabletop-RPG reference deck that applies the Deckline’s cybernetic input grammar to the job a Dungeon Master does at the table: look things up fast, roll on tables, generate encounters and NPCs and loot, and never break the flow of the game to do it. Where the Gridline maps the grammar onto market operations and the Statline mapped it onto rotisserie stat-tracking, the DM Sidearm maps it onto the table-side reference database — the archetype proven by SSI/TSR’s Dungeon Master’s Assistant (1988): a menu-driven, function-key-navigated data tool that sits next to the screen and gets hit every five minutes for a four-hour session.

The grammar maps without modification. A monster manual is a list of monsters. A monster is a list of stat blocks. An encounter table is a list of weighted entries. Navigate with CAR/CDR, roll with EVAL, hold a reference with QUOTE.

Target User

The Game Master at the table, mid-session, running a tabletop RPG live for a group of players. This is not a player tool and not a prep tool (though prep is a secondary use) — it is a runtime tool for the person behind the screen. The defining constraints come from that seat:

• Hands are busy — dice, screen, notes, minis. Lookups must be fast and one-handed where possible.
• Attention is divided — the table is talking; the device cannot demand focus. Glanceable phosphor (AMBER default per ADR-0036; WHITE / GREEN selectable), no modal interruptions.
• The session is long — a single sitting runs 3–5 hours. The device runs the whole night on battery without a lid-sleep or a re-auth.
• The data is the product — the GM bought the deck for the tables, the bestiary, the generators. Everything else is chrome.

Reference-Database UX

The DM Sidearm’s core surface is the table-of-data-plus-quick-lookup archetype — the canonical database-tool UI already cited in ui-patterns.md and demonstrated live by the AUDIT baseline. Four runtime capabilities cover the GM’s table-night needs:

Encounter Generation

Pre-authored encounter tables keyed by region / party-level / party-size. Hit a key, roll on the table, get a fully-statted encounter ready to drop on the players — monster roster, numbers, terrain note, surprise/initiative seed. Tables ship per-system on cartridges; the GM can append custom encounter tables to deck save data.

Rules / Bestiary Lookup

Searchable monster + rules database — armor class, hit points, damage, attack lines, special abilities, condition definitions, spell summaries. Multi-tap text entry narrows the list as the GM types; ENTER drills into the full stat block. Recently-referenced entries surface first (the GM looks up the same goblin six times a night).

NPC Generation

Roll a complete NPC on demand — name, alignment/disposition, motivation, a hook or quirk, a one-line voice cue, and a quick stat line scaled to the requested tier. Output is glanceable on the primary grid and held in a QUOTE slot so the GM can keep the NPC on screen while the scene plays out.

Loot / Treasure Rolls

Treasure-pile and reward rolls per the loaded system’s tables — coin, gear, consumables, magic items with the relevant flavor line. Results are itemized in the content area and can be pinned to deck state to track what the party has actually been handed.

Across all four surfaces the interaction model is the DMA archetype, modernized onto the KN-86 stack: function-block top-level navigation, arrow/CDR table browse, ENTER/CAR drill-in, in-band Row-24 keystroke legend, author-extensible vocabulary. Dense, well-organized tables the GM can hit without looking down for more than a beat.

Input Grammar — Table-Side Domain

The DM Sidearm inherits the KN-86 keyboard idiom wholesale: the left-hand Lisp function block, Nokia multi-tap text entry on the right-hand digits, and TERM dispatch on the right outer thumb. The verbs do not change — their domain reading does. This is the same demonstration the Gridline makes: the grammar is domain-independent.

Left Hand (Function Block) — GM Reading

Key	Glyph	Table-Side Operation
QUOTE	"	Pin a reference — hold a stat block, NPC, or roll result on screen without re-rolling it. Literally: suppress evaluation. The active monster stays put while the fight runs.
CONS	CONS	Assemble — pair a monster with a count into an encounter line, attach a hook to an NPC, bundle loot into a pile. Construct compound table entries.
NIL	NIL	Clear — discard a draft encounter, drop a generated NPC, reset the current roll. Return nothing.
LAMBDA	λ	Define a reusable roll — a house-rule table, a recurring encounter recipe, a signature NPC template. Stored in deck state, fires across cartridges.
INFO	◉	Inspect — full rules text, monster lore, item description, condition definition. Context-sensitive to the selection.
CAR	CAR	Drill into — open a monster’s full stat block, enter an encounter’s detail, read a rule in full.
APPLY	⬡	Roll a stored table against a context — fire a saved encounter recipe at the current region/level, apply an NPC template at a tier.
SYS	⊡	Deck settings, loaded system, screen brightness, save management.
LINK	⊞	Co-GM / second-screen sync (see Open Questions) — share a watchlist of pinned references deck-to-deck.
BACK	↩	Exit the current drilldown — back out of a stat block to the bestiary, out of an encounter to the table list.
CDR	CDR	Next — scroll the table, cycle bestiary entries, advance through a generated NPC list, next loot line.
ATOM	ATOM	Test scope — is this a single creature or a group/swarm/template? Distinguish one monster from an encounter set.
EVAL	△	Roll. Execute the table. Commit the generation. Nothing happens until the thumb says so — the most consequential key on the device, exactly as on the Deckline.
EQ	EQ	Compare — two monsters side by side, two NPCs, current loot vs. party budget, this encounter’s difficulty vs. party tier.

Right Hand (Digits) — Nokia Multi-Tap + Numeric Entry

The right-hand digit 3×3 preserves the KN-86 Nokia digit-to-letter binding (2=ABC … 9=WXYZ): multi-tap text entry for typing a monster name, an NPC name, or a search term against the bestiary. The same digits serve numeric entry for table parameters — party level, party size, region index, quantity, die-roll modifiers. ENTER on the outer column completes a lookup or a roll parameter. The grammar is unchanged from the canonical KN-86 right-half layout; only what the operator is searching for differs.

TERM Dispatch — Table-Side Reading

TERM (right outer thumb) stays context-sensitive per the KN-86 model. Default function is the terminal / quick-search prompt — start typing a creature or rule name and jump straight to it without navigating the menu tree. Mid-session, TERM is the GM’s fastest path from “what’s the AC on a bugbear” to the answer.

Session Model — No Boot Ritual

The defining runtime requirement: the device is never in the way of the game.

• Sub-second lookup latency. Bestiary search, table roll, and NPC/loot generation all resolve in well under a second from keypress to phosphor on screen. The GM’s question and the device’s answer happen inside the same breath at the table.
• No boot ritual mid-game. The deck wakes instant-on from idle — no boot sequence, no CIPHER cold-start theatre, no re-auth. The Deckline’s fiction-forward boot ritual is a feature for the cyberpunk product and an anti-feature here; the DM Sidearm comes up already in the bestiary where the GM left it.
• All-night battery. A single 3–5 hour session runs on one charge with margin, glanceable phosphor the whole time, no lid-sleep interruptions. (Exact envelope TBD against the chosen platform — see Open Questions.)
• Resume in place. Session state persists — the last-loaded system, the pinned references, the in-progress encounter — survive a sleep/wake and a power cycle, so the GM is never re-navigating to where they were.

Aesthetic & Tactile Continuity

The DM Sidearm is unmistakably a member of the KN-9x family and shares the line’s visual and tactile language:

• Monochrome phosphor on black, same as the Deckline and Gridline — AMBER #E6A020 default per ADR-0036, with WHITE and GREEN selectable via the aesthetic-mode picker. Information density and zero visual noise — the same reason finance reads correctly in a single hue, dense reference tables read correctly in a single hue. No color, no flair, just well-organized data the GM can hit at a glance.
• The KN-86 keyboard idiom — the Lisp function block, the Nokia digit cluster, mechanical switches, domain-legible keycaps. The hands already know the deck.
• Rugged, table-tough shell. The DMA archetype’s whole pitch was a tool that survives the abuse of a four-hour game session next to the snacks and the soda. The KN-86’s Pelican-class shell is a natural fit (form-factor question is open — see below).
• Cartridge-per-system architecture. The same hardware loads an SRD-5 cart, a different cart for another system, a third for a horror one-shot — the Deckline’s capability-module model, with each cartridge contributing its own bestiary, tables, generators, and domain vocabulary.

Relationship to the Deckline

The DM Sidearm is a third proof — alongside the Gridline and the legacy Statline — that the Deckline’s cybernetic grammar is domain-independent. The same verbs (pin, traverse, construct, roll, compare, apply, drill) describe network intrusion in one context, market operations in another, and running a tabletop RPG in a third. Where the Gridline applies the grammar to real systems with real money, the DM Sidearm applies it to the GM’s table: the device’s job is to disappear into the rhythm of play and surface exactly the data the GM needs, exactly when they reach for it. The grammar is the product. The domain is the cartridge.

Open Scope Notes (Questions — Not Commitments)

These are deliberately framed as questions. The concept is not over-committed past its archetype.

• Same Pelican form factor? The KN-86 ships in a Pelican-class hardcase. Is that the right shell for a table-side reference deck, or does the table-night use-case (sits open, gets hit constantly, shares space with dice and books) want a flatter slab like the Statline, or a propped-up screen-and-keyboard wedge? Open.
• Shares the nOSh runtime? The Gridline proposes a shared nOSh codebase via a platform abstraction layer. Does the DM Sidearm ride the same runtime, or is the reference-database workload (big static tables, instant search, no real-time loop) different enough to warrant a leaner build? Open.
• DM-flavored function-block verbs? The DMA archetype imagined domain keycaps — MONSTER NPC ENCOUNTER TREASURE WEATHER INITIATIVE — instead of CAR CDR EVAL. This spec keeps the canonical Lisp legends with GM-domain readings (per the input-grammar table above). Should the DM Sidearm instead get its own printed function-block legend set, the way the Gridline implies financial verbs? Or does the grammar-is-the-product thesis argue for keeping the Lisp legends and teaching the readings? Open.
• Boot-ritual exception. The KN-86’s fiction-forward boot sequence and CIPHER cold-start are core to the Deckline’s identity. The DM Sidearm explicitly wants no boot ritual mid-game. Is instant-on-from-idle sufficient, or does the product need a genuinely different cold-boot path that skips the CIPHER theatre entirely? Open.
• Author-extensible database scope. DMA’s killer feature was a user-editable database the DM grew into over years. How far does cart-internal extension via deck save data go — custom monsters and tables only, or full user-authored generators? Open.
• Cartridge model — physical or software? Same question the Gridline raises: do systems ship as physical SD-card cartridges in the KN-86 cart shell, or as software modules on a single device? Open.
• Standalone SKU or Deckline mode? Does the DM Sidearm ship as its own KN-9x product, or as a firmware mode on existing KN-86 hardware? Open.