Which is better for tabletop-online? Klooge or Fantasy Grounds?

[Emirikol]

I'm looking into using one or the other of these for a D&D game. Which one do you prefer? Any tips on voice software (ventrillo? teamspeak?) Any reviews are welcome. I'm really struggling to be able to get together and game enough anymore because of the difficulty of player/DM scheduling.

Base Full-Service Tabletop-Online Programs:
Klooge: http://www.kloogeinc.com/
Fantasy Grounds: http://www.fantasygrounds.com/

Others
OpenRPG: http://www.openrpg.com/
Battlegrounds: http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/

Voice:
http://ventrilo.com/
http://www.goteamspeak.com/
http://www.skype.com/



jh

 

[Hussar]

OpenRPG. While it has a slightly steep learning curve, it's well supported, works fine and is free. Also works on pretty much any platform you care to run it on.

Did I mention it's free?

 

[Emirikol]

OpenRPG. While it has a slightly steep learning curve, it's well supported, works fine and is free.

Does it have voice software with it?

jh

 

[takasi]

The learning curve and user interface of OpenRPG makes it a tough sell.

If you aren't worried about money, go with Klooge. Fantasy Grounds is has a very slick interface but it's not as easy to use or as versatile IMO as Klooge.

For voice go with Skype.

 

[PK]

I've only used Fantasy Grounds with Skype (very good quality sound, full duplex) and I had great luck with it.

 

[BlackMoria]

Has anyone tried out Battlegrounds?

Battlegrounds Website

Looks interesting ....

 

[Nikosandros]

For voice I use Skype.

So far I haven't used any RPG specific utility... I'm still wondering about getting one.

 

[Hussar]

The learning curve and user interface of OpenRPG makes it a tough sell.

If you aren't worried about money, go with Klooge. Fantasy Grounds is has a very slick interface but it's not as easy to use or as versatile IMO as Klooge.

For voice go with Skype.

Recent releases (1.6.3 and the development release 1.7.0) have been far better than previous versions. Very few problems and most of those can be worked around. But, yeah, if your experience has been with earlier versions of Open, it was pretty brutal.

For voice, I'm going with the majority here. Skype all the way.

 

[Emirikol]

Skype

This skype? http://www.skype.com/

It say's it's only free until the end of the year. Then what? Would my players have to pay for phone calls or something?

jh

 

[heruca]

I'm 100% biased but, like BlackMoria, I would suggest you take a look at Battlegrounds: RPG Edition. It's slated to be released within 10 days or so, and is priced cheaper than Klooge or Fantasy Grounds. It's also much easier to use, and is cross-platform.

For voice chat, I recommend Skype, but the others would also work just fine. The voice chat is free for PC to PC chats, and using Skype to call a regular phone is free for the rest of 2006. I believe that applies only to calls in the US and Canada.

PS: Thanks for the mention, BlackMoria.