Tabletop Gaming Over the 'Net? 79
kebes asks: "I'm the GM for a group that has been gaming together for about 12 years. We're starting to move away from each other, and want to switch to playing our tabletop RPG online. So far, we've been using a combination of TeamSpeak and IRC. It works, but is not ideal. What protocol/chat service and applications would make for a great online gaming solution? The voice and text chat abilities are crucial, but having a collaborative white-board would greatly help. Ideally, the solution would be integrated (one app), allow logging of the session, run on multiple platforms (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows), work with web-cams, and permit file-transfers. What service or app (or combination thereof) would work best for our needs? Anyone else have stories of success or failure?"
A variety of tools. . . (Score:5, Informative)
There are several ways to go, but for my money, the best product is FantasyGrounds [fantasygrounds.com].
Fantasy Grounds is a "virtual tabletop" complete with d20 rules, character sheets, dice, a chat window, the ability to share images with your players, and to mask/unmask maps as your party progresses.
The current version is 1.05, but a major revamp has been in the works all year, with a version 2.0 due out "soon". Speaking of GenCon - the SmiteWorks guys (who make FantasyGrounds) will be sharing a booth with the guys from Code Monkey Publishing [codemonkeypublishing.com] (makers of the E-Tools software for character creation).
Other tools to look at include OpenRPG [openrpg.com] and Klooge [kloogeinc.com].
I'm not, personally, a fan of those, but everyone has their preferences.
Also, to aid in communication, I strongly suggest running a TeamSpeak [goteamspeak.com] server, so you can actually talk to your fellow players, instead of typing everything manually.
Try OpenRPG (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A variety of tools. . . (Score:4, Informative)
I've used OpenRPG for a few years now and have been pretty happy with it. It has a solid whiteboard, and it runs on my mac and on another player's linux machine, as well as windows boxes. It also has a dice rolling mechanic that is nice for other game systems. In particular, it's shadowrun support is solid. While I personally don't play much SR, I have players who do.
I strongly second the teamspeak, ventrilo, or whatever application to do voice. If you are all familiar with each other, you won't get any wierd feelings talking to strangers, and you'll be able to verbally abuse each other much more easily
Re:Try OpenRPG (Score:3, Informative)
I would have thought that the combination of chat+voice+whiteboard would be so generic that it would be easy to find a bunch of applications (especially OSS ones) to do exactly that... however it's been hard to find a stable app that runs on all platforms.
Neverwinter Nights? (Score:2, Informative)
Have you tried that?
-fragbait
iVisit (Score:1, Informative)
We use a Creative wide angle camera, and that seems to work well too.
We use mic's from Pheonix (http://www.phnxaudio.com/ [phnxaudio.com]), and have two strung together (http://www.phnxaudio.com/Duetexe.htm [phnxaudio.com]). We haven't tried it with more than one person remote from the group.
Sound has been the one potential issue, we like it be as clear as possible on both ends. I used a creative labs headset for myslef. The "base group" uses a stero.
Nothing beats being there, but it's better than trying to find a new group after you've been together for a long time... All in all, it has cost around 600.00 for what we have done, but you could do it with cameras on both ends, and a mic on both ends for a lot less. We just keep upgrading things to make it better and better.
Viack Via3 (Score:2, Informative)
It has pretty solid Audio and Video, doesn't require you to host your own server, has built in Whiteboard and a feature called LiveView that you could use to show another applicatio (or battle map) to the players.
One other nice thing is it provides online storage tied to the app. You can use to store all your game note, maps, and such in so that everyone can view them when they want to outside the game. You can even set access rights on the files and folders to different players to view or edit. So one player might have rights to a secret letter from the king or the ransom note, while the others don't even know they exist.
Re:A variety of tools. . . (Score:3, Informative)
http://gametable.galactanet.com/ [galactanet.com]
http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=maptool:intro [rptools.net]
http://trisrpg.bronzeforge.com/index.htm [bronzeforge.com]
http://users3.ev1.net/~mem5000/ [ev1.net]
http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/index.html [battlegroundsgames.com]
http://www.codemonkeypublishing.com/index.php?mod
http://www.enworld.org/RolePlayingMaster/ [enworld.org]
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/ [fantasygrounds.com]
http://www.geocities.com/trainz_ca/ID/ [geocities.com]
http://www.ghostorb.com/ [ghostorb.com]
http://www.kloogeinc.com/ [kloogeinc.com]
http://www.nbos.com/products/screenmonkey/screenm
http://www.openrpg.com/ [openrpg.com]
http://www.opnpw.com/ [opnpw.com]
http://www.tabletopmapper.hpg.ig.com.br/ [ig.com.br]
http://www.travellerrpg.com/Catalog/software.html [travellerrpg.com]
http://www.triaxe.co.uk/dnd/index.php?page=Online
http://www.viewing.ltd.uk/viewingdale/index.htm [viewing.ltd.uk]
http://www.webrpg.com/gamesystem/ [webrpg.com]