How to DM D&D over email/online?

[pawned79]

Hi everyone,

A friend of mine is recently married and has a baby. He's stuck at home a lot and sometimes is up at all hours of the night. He's been missing playing D&D. I was talking to him about it, and I said that maybe I could DM a solo game over email for him to play until he can come back to play with our groups. The more I think about it, the more it seems really difficult to do. Has anyone ever run a game via email? Is there a method to help the game dynamics or do you have to just do it slow like playing chess via email?

ie. Email 1: I roll 14 to hit, and 5 on damage... Email 2 (two days later): Unfortunately you do not hit... etc.

That doesn't seem like it would work very well.

Are there resources or programs out there for playing D&D online via chat or playing via email? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Patrick

 

[Drawmack]

I have never done this but lots of other people have. A general rule is one move per day.

I personally would say focus more on story telling then on game mechanics that will speed things up a great deal.

 

[Nightfall]

Another option play using an instant messanger. Or mIRC chat that En World runs here.

 

[Victim]

Have the DM roll the dice.

You might get more detailed replies by asking in the Play by post section of the boards. Go to Talking the Talk, or whatever stupid name the OOC forum has.

 

[Uller]

I'm about to kick of an on-line D&D campaign. We ran two short adventures as a test a few months ago and it seemed to work really well. I use all free software available off the internet.

Microsoft NetMeeting is used as a chat tool and to share applications.

DungeonCrafter and MS Paint are used to draw maps for dungeons, encounter settings and other illustratoins (and then NetMeetings app sharing capability is used to display them to the players).

RogerWilco or TeamSound are used for voice communications to the entire group.

Edit
Oops! TabletopMapper is used in conjuctiong with maps from DungeonCrafter to track locations of PCs, NPC, spell effects, etc. It is really slick and easy to use for a free app.
/edit

Also, there are online dice rollers available (i think even the enworld chat can be used for dice rolling...) but I haven't used those because I just trust my players to roll real dice and report their results.

So what I do is, I set up NetMeeting and invite my players to "call" me (you have to set up a hotmail account to do that). Then I share TMapper with a prepared map loaded for the next adventure or encounter or whatever. I use Excel (okay this isn't free) to track combat rounds, hit points, saves, skills etc. We can talk normally with Roger Wilco. In some ways, it goes more smoothly than when playing in person (less socializing).

Enjoy.

 

[robaustin]

Check out www.pbem.com for some more info on DM'ing online.

The way I run my two games is that I take care of all rolls as DM. There's an inherent trust a player has to build in for the game to work this way. We concentrate a lot on character and role play. When combat time comes, each player submits an action (and possible alternate actions) for the combat round and then the DM does the round like this:

From: Rob Usdin <rusdin@optonline.net>
Date: Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:30 am
Subject: Skeleton Combat Round 1, call for round 2 actions


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INIT ORDER: Kras, Jeneska, Tarai, Brianna, Nym

Kras - Attacks with Exiter
You requested that 1 roll of a 20-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 9.(+5, +5)) = 19 HIT!
Damage: You requested that 1 roll of a 8-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 4.(+6) = 10 (half damage to
Skeleton from slashing weapon) = 5 damage Still standing

Jeneska - Attacks with Longsword
You requested that 1 roll of a 20-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 8.(+4, +2) = 14 HIT!
Damage: You requested that 1 roll of a 8-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 6.(+3) = 9 (half damage to
skeleton from slashing weapon) = 4.5 rounded down = 4 Still standing

Tarai - Stands up and Readies Sling (yahoo!)

Brianna - Casts Spell (Shillelagh)

Skeletons -
S1 attacks short sword
You requested that 1 roll of a 20-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 10. Miss!

S2 attacks short sword
You requested that 1 roll of a 20-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 11. Miss!

Nym - Casts Summon (dog)
Dog attacks (bite)
You requested that 1 roll of a 20-sided die be rolled.
Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 8.(+3) = 11 Miss!

Two more Skeletons show up from the northern portion of the room...

With a separate flavor text post like this:

From: Rob Usdin <rusdin@optonline.net>
Date: Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:30 am
Subject: Get those bones!


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As the skeletons attempt to move forward they are rebuffed by Krasnak
and Jeneska who hold them at bay at the doorway. Krasnaks' axe comes
down hard on the one in front him, almost sending it flying into a pile
of bones, but it manages to hold its form, but just barely. Jeneska
doesn't fare much better, and the skeletons continue to attempt to
advance.

Meanwhile. Brianna readies for battle, as does Tarai. Nym manages to
cast a spell and summon a ferocious dog behind the skeletons, and the
dog attempts to bite at them, but gets nothing but thin air. Two more
skeletons move up to fill in the ranks, should their brethrean fall.

You hear "Are you all alright in there?!" from just outside the cave -
it's Malak - who hasn't gotten very far and hears the commotion.....

So....it can be done....see my group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DHGame2/

To look at at a decent game...

--*Rob

 

[johnsemlak]

There's been several good threads but this one's pretty good:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38127&highlight=game+online

I think it's important to remember that while it will seem slow going trading emails, you can potentialy trade emails everyday, as opposed to once a week or however often you normally game.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

I can't seem to find it now, but there is a website out there where your can put in a die to be rolled and have the result emailed to as many people as you like.

SD

 

[pawned79]

Playing over chat would be easy, I feel. We are both really fast typers and I don't mind him rolling real dice; he would play along well. The idea of playing over email seems difficult though. :-/

Patrick

 

[WayneLigon]

You might also want to look into the Treyvan MUSH; A MUSH is a a text-based game that you play over telnet, though you'll want to get a telnet client like MUSHClient for everything to look nice and pretty (and have access to logging capabilties, etc).

There are a couple other 3E MUSHes out there. Tenebrae is one. Winter's Edge is another, but I don't know it's status.