Looking for Text based online PnP Play.

[PrecociousApprentice]

So I have looked into and tried several of the open source tabletops. The thing that I don't like about them is that the map and graphics can be a little distracting for gaming the way I like, and I think that it will only get worse if I go for a commercial product with fancier graphics. Creations of cool maps and stuff takes time that I would rather use creating a story andway, so I prefer to use just bare bones maps, and let the real graphics be created in my payers minds. I looked into TRIS and it has most everything that I want. My only problem is that it is writen for PCs, and I have a very diverse group I want to game with. (3 macs, 3 PCs, and 2 Linux). I am a Mac user, so I had to run Wine to get it to work, and there was a little loss in functionality with the product, and I am looking for a solution for this.

Here is a link to orient you to what I am talking about.

http://trisrpg.bronzeforge.com/whatis.htm

The features that I like are that it is basically an integrated bare bones champaign tracker/manager and a chat function with multiple chat windows designed for OOC, IC, and scene descriptions. It also has several drag and drop kinds of features that make the actual play experience move quickly even though it is text based.

Can anyone give me some advice as to how I can get the TRIS experience easily across multiple platforms? Are there text programs that I am overlooking that would give this experience in a non-integrated system, but would be easy to use? The future of gaming for me might depend on it, since I am a father, husband, and medical student, and thus both time and geography challenged. Thanks ahead of time.

 

[heruca]

So I have looked into and tried several of the open source tabletops. The thing that I don't like about them is that the map and graphics can be a little distracting for gaming the way I like, and I think that it will only get worse if I go for a commercial product with fancier graphics. Creations of cool maps and stuff takes time that I would rather use creating a story andway, so I prefer to use just bare bones maps, and let the real graphics be created in my payers minds.

Battlegrounds has a decent set of drawing tools as part of it's featureset.

Instead of fancy maps, you could use a plain color (or a nice parchment image) as a background, and simply draw each room as you go. Or draw your entire dungeon out before the game session, and reveal it piece by piece during play, as needed. Either way, you get bare-bones maps that don't take a lot of time to create.

Battlegrounds also comes with generic tokens to use, if you prefer them to the more realistic virtual minis it also comes with.

Mac and Windows users are natively supported, and Linux users could run Battlegrounds under WINE or VirtualBox.

 

[heruca]

You may also want to look at GRiP, but I'm not sure if it supports Mac and Linux, since they list no system requirements.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Thanks, I will check out the Battlegrounds demo. Mostly I am looking for the text application and a little file sharing, so I might also just try a work around with normal chat applications.

 

[Emirikol]

Maptools has a nice, basic chat function with the ability to upload pictures if you're not into maps. One of hte screenshots is a guy running a cthulhu game with just photographs laying on a table. Twas interesting.

The TRISRPG has some nice features, namely the scenario info integration part. I like that you have LOTS OF ROOM for descriptors.

Jay H

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Jabber chatroom names

Yeah, I have been thinking about using Jabber accounts to just do normal chat, and then just share documents with the normal chat. The problem that I am running into is that I would like to be able to change alias' quickly within a chatroom. This would allow me to use NPC alias'. I think that with multiple jabber accounts this would be possible. Just add new accounts to the chat with NPC names, and chat from there. It might require about a dozen accounts to pull it off smoothly. I only need a narrator account and enough others for the talking parts. If I had enough accounts, I could also use them for non-talking parts. I could create a web page to hold all of my descriptions, then just link them. Or copy/paste.

Does anyone have any experience with gamemastered chat based RPGs?
Maybe this should be another thread.