Skype is hands down the best voice I have ever used.

Impractical for something like WoW where you are pugging in raiders, but for friends it really works well.

And speaking of systems, do any lend better to non-grid whiteboard play?

Quote from: mcbobbo;592158Skype is hands down the best voice I have ever used.

Personally, I haven't had an issue using Mumble but have an unending stream of problems using Skype over long periods of time.  Granted, either my friends or I tend to be on the road for business and in places where a decent internet connection hasn't reached yet.

Quote from: mcbobbo;592160And speaking of systems, do any lend better to non-grid whiteboard play?

The lighter you go, the better off you are.  Swords and Wizardry, Barbarians of Lemuria, Dogs of War, D6 Star Wars, Risus would all be my picks.  Its just that grid is so tempting to use once its there...

Quote from: Benoist;592133Use a Google Plus Hangout with a simple white board like http://www.twiddla.com

You don't need to invest hours of your time into preparing neat maps and little graphics and all the BS. Just get in there, play the game and draw a relevant sketch when relevant. Post links to pictures and the like.

I've been investigating online venues in the past few weeks and that's what my friends basically recommended. I've done a test with this yesterday that basically left me wondering why I'd bother with anything more complicated than that.

works for me!

I use Fantasy Grounds, Ben has experienced two sessions of me using this. And that with a generic ruleset as we were playtesting D&D Next. All we used was the whiteboard, voice, and dice roller and I thought it worked well for us.

At their heart a Virtual Table Top program is three things

Whiteboard
Communication (Chat or Voice)
Shared Dice Roller.

The basic function you need from a whiteboard is the ability to display images. For Fantasy Grounds and other VTTs this is as simple as dragging a jpg into the right folder.

Now what should the JPG have? Well what every you do normally. Ben didn't experience this but I have run session where I brought up a blank drawing and just starting drawing.

What if you are not graphically talented? Well get a scanner and draw on a piece paper whatever you normally draw in a session, Scan it in and display that.

If you really want to use it as a dry erase board then get yourself a Bamboo Tablet and Pen from Wacom. They go for under $100 and you will be able to draw just like on a dry erase.

Any thing else, including tokens is just bells and whistles. However Devan Knight has the best top down tokens and the first 20 sets are free.
http://www.immortalnights.com/tokensite/tokenpacks.html

Now where a RPG VTT differs from a whiteboard is that they allow separate resizing of tokens from the underlying image.

If you want a battleboard I use Pymapper and downloads of the dungeon tile graphics to put together my battleboards.

Beyond this RPGs rules can be automated with character sheets and other utilities. They can be really handy once you get the hang of it and it is nothing like a CRPG or a MMORPG.

Quote from: Benoist;592145Sure it looks nice and everything, but at the end of the day I think that, for me, it's just too much hassle to manage. When I want to game online I want to game, not juggle with all the modifiers of this or that on a low tech video game window and chat in three separate frames and switch back and forth between counters and all that bullshit. I don't want to feel like I'm on NWN's Aurora toolset. I just want to game like I'd do around a real game table.

Same thing with dice rollers: just use an honour system (people roll physically their dice for themselves and announce the results - you trust people not to cheat), and basta.

I will say one of the nice things about IRC is that when you have a very talented player, like Isomage, he might make an initiative tracker for you and some other amazing dice tools

Quote from: LordVreeg;592167works for me!

Does that mean you're in if I get a game going in English with my French accent and everything?

RE: estar, one thing I got to say is that you run a tight ship with FG, so much so in fact that you make it look easy. Kudos for that. And I'll play in your games any time.

Also, I got to credit your games on FG for giving me the impetus to look into doing it myself after showing me that yes, it works, and my comp and connection do not crash when doing it. That's awesome. I had no experience with live online gaming like this before you invited me to play and I owe you big time for showing me that's cool and it can work fine for me too.

In this regard, I'm definitely a Luddite as I prefer face-to-face gaming for tabletop RPGs and board games.

More than a decade ago, I tried playing and running games with OpenRPG, as well as GRIP from RPG Realms, We had a good game going for GRIP for awhile where we met once a week for a Forgotten Realms Campaign, that was actually pretty good. I made alot of visual basic macros for that game to speed up play, and they worked well, but the GM quit due to pressure from the wife.

OpenRPG also worked well, but the Prep time was a killer for that, converting all the maps, and minis to graphics, then setting up campaigns and adventures. It just took too long! Also had some problems with players on the OpenRPG network. Seemed like there was always a dweeb that joined, that worked at deliberately wrecking our game, and it's hard to screen these guys out when you can't look them in the eye and gauge their intent.

I had a really good Play-By-Post game going that some English guy using a custom configured Discus www discussion board software setup (no longer sold) at psycrystal.com (also defunct), this was actually one of my favorites because he had set up clicky maps where you could post your actions into a specific geographical area, and then wait for the other to post. We played using whatever RPG rules that were available (In my case I used 0D&D), rolled our own results and just wrote in what happened, and what we were doing. Some of my best gaming fiction came out of this game, and the GM had one of the best homebrew worlds I have ever seen.

I posted an excerpt from this PbP game over on RPG.net back in 07' Here... Just look for the Gnamsfjorlak post...


Earlier this year, I sat in on one of James Maliszewskis's G+ Hangout Dwimmermount games as an observer, but that just didn't catch my fancy, and it seemed to move much slower than a tabletop game would. Even when you can see all the other players and know what character they are playing, it's much more difficult to read the direction of the game, just watching the video.

I have only played on IRC. Typing may be slower than talking but it's easy to scroll back, see what everybody has said, system requirements are minimal and dice rollers are available. But I don't really play games that require precise tracking of position (the one time we tried to play D&D 3.5 didn't really go over well).

Quote from: mcbobbo;592160And speaking of systems, do any lend better to non-grid whiteboard play?

I have played both ICONS & B/X D&D. Neither requires a grid nor do about a million other games.

Your OP seems to be saying, "This online thing doesn't have to be so hard, but I've made it really hard by choice; how do I make it not so hard and still show everyone my lingerie?"

My advice is don't be so fussy. Fussy nerds kill more games than all other factors combined, forever.   Perfect is the enemy of good. Start with the bare minimum (Skype and the honor system) and add complexity as time goes on if you wish- or do as I have done and just keep it simple.  Also, avoid wearing thongs.

Quote from: Gib;592279I have played both ICONS & B/X D&D. Neither requires a grid nor do about a million other games.

Your OP seems to be saying, "This online thing doesn't have to be so hard, but I've made it really hard by choice; how do I make it not so hard and still show everyone my lingerie?"

My advice is don't be so fussy. Fussy nerds kill more games than all other factors combined, forever.   Perfect is the enemy of good. Start with the bare minimum (Skype and the honor system) and add complexity as time goes on if you wish- or do as I have done and just keep it simple.  Also, avoid wearing thongs.

I guess I just never had the issue.
As I might or might not have said, I have run a weekly IRC game for 135 sessions now.  I guess since to me it is still a verbal/language game, that everything else I can get around.  I mean, I prepare a few links, and I've used some whiteboards, and some audio links for mood, but that's about it.  I wil say that having a wiki where the players can post and update and add links and pages (that I can edit) is still extremely useful.  But Aos has good advice to uncomplicate stuff.

Quote from: Gib;592279My advice is don't be so fussy. Fussy nerds kill more games than all other factors combined, forever.   Perfect is the enemy of good. Start with the bare minimum (Skype and the honor system) and add complexity as time goes on if you wish- or do as I have done and just keep it simple.

Well that's the real trick, isn't it?

I feel a bit 'burned' at this point.  I've sunk a lot of time, energy, and money into trying to reclaim access to the one hobby of mine that I cannot find any other way to replace.  To say "don't sweat the small stuff" really feels like inviting another failure.

I'm not dismissing the advice, as you're obviously correct.  But the "how" is pretty enigmatic at this point.

To the question of "how do have cake and eat it to", the answer is invariably, "you can't".  Which is absurd because it is cake.  What's it for if not for eating?

Quote from: mcbobbo;592294Well that's the real trick, isn't it?

I feel a bit 'burned' at this point.  I've sunk a lot of time, energy, and money into trying to reclaim access to the one hobby of mine that I cannot find any other way to replace.  To say "don't sweat the small stuff" really feels like inviting another failure.

I'm not dismissing the advice, as you're obviously correct.  But the "how" is pretty enigmatic at this point.

To the question of "how do have cake and eat it to", the answer is invariably, "you can't".  Which is absurd because it is cake.  What's it for if not for eating?

have you tried playing in a few other games from other people here running online stuff?  Maybe you can find some sort of cake-like solution.

Quote from: Benoist;592145Sure it looks nice and everything, but at the end of the day I think that, for me, it's just too much hassle to manage. When I want to game online I want to game, not juggle with all the modifiers of this or that on a low tech video game window and chat in three separate frames and switch back and forth between counters and all that bullshit. I don't want to feel like I'm on NWN's Aurora toolset. I just want to game like I'd do around a real game table.

Same thing with dice rollers: just use an honour system (people roll physically their dice for themselves and announce the results - you trust people not to cheat), and basta.

Agreed, I use just a simple Skype setup when I run online with mics.  Works great.  That's how I'm running my current RQ6 game.

Quote from: LordVreeg;592297have you tried playing in a few other games from other people here running online stuff?  Maybe you can find some sort of cake-like solution.

Dirty secret - I'm never happy as a player.

It's a psychological issue, I'm sure.

But I have considered it, if for no other reason than to observe how other players are being successful.

That being said, does anyone have any play logs they'd be willing to share?