DM in way over my head
- Thread starter rakeleer
- Start date
For those that were curious
I'm very impressed by the willingness to help from the community here. Thanks a ton everyone!
Here's what went down:
I wrote my own adventure in Masterplanner (amazing tool!). My 8 players used Character Builder and sent me their sheets. There were quite a few conversations in Vent about decisions, rules, etc, before the game.
We tested our tools (ScreenMonkey on the player end - just a web page) and opened an Obisidian Portal page for the campaign, seeding the world with a map and some details about the local regions.
I ran a quick 10-30 minute diceless prelude with each player, sometimes in pairs (or one trio) to establish their characters background, and set up the RP environment for the first game.
I used Masterplanner's combat maps only locally, mainly so I could use it to track initiative and NPC hitpoints.
Sunday night, we started at 9 sharp and went to midnight sharp. By the end of the evening, everyone had a fairly good grasp of the basic mechanics, they had completed a skill challenge, a combat, and done at least 40 minutes of actual role-playing.
Screenmonkey seemed to buckle under more than 4 users, and there were complaints about it being very slow to update. After our first session, I get 5 or 6 players to stay behind and help me test Maptool with them. It worked very well, and we will be using it starting next week.
I still feel like 8 players is too many, but now I know it doesn't have to be the-sky-is-falling-and-we're-all-going-to-die too many.
I'm very impressed by the willingness to help from the community here. Thanks a ton everyone!
Here's what went down:
I wrote my own adventure in Masterplanner (amazing tool!). My 8 players used Character Builder and sent me their sheets. There were quite a few conversations in Vent about decisions, rules, etc, before the game.
We tested our tools (ScreenMonkey on the player end - just a web page) and opened an Obisidian Portal page for the campaign, seeding the world with a map and some details about the local regions.
I ran a quick 10-30 minute diceless prelude with each player, sometimes in pairs (or one trio) to establish their characters background, and set up the RP environment for the first game.
I used Masterplanner's combat maps only locally, mainly so I could use it to track initiative and NPC hitpoints.
Sunday night, we started at 9 sharp and went to midnight sharp. By the end of the evening, everyone had a fairly good grasp of the basic mechanics, they had completed a skill challenge, a combat, and done at least 40 minutes of actual role-playing.
Screenmonkey seemed to buckle under more than 4 users, and there were complaints about it being very slow to update. After our first session, I get 5 or 6 players to stay behind and help me test Maptool with them. It worked very well, and we will be using it starting next week.
I still feel like 8 players is too many, but now I know it doesn't have to be the-sky-is-falling-and-we're-all-going-to-die too many.
OpenRPG is a great tool, too. you load your maps and minis from the web, and the players can interact with them. There are also basic drawing tools, different types of grid, and a tab for each player to chat privately with the GM. Any other whispers show up in a tab for the sending player.
It has a good dice roller, and in my GURPS group, we like to use the dice roller on the GM tab so the rolls don't clog up the RP in the main chat. Everyone has access to an alias library which changes their displayed name, font color, and speech filters. It's really good for GMs to put their NPCs in there.
It's easy to install now that they've integrated all the python stuff into the package. It could be a pain before. But it's the best tool my group has found for online P&P. We've tried numerous others, which we could never get running well.
edit: forgot the link: http://www.rpgobjects.com/index.php?c=orpg
It has a good dice roller, and in my GURPS group, we like to use the dice roller on the GM tab so the rolls don't clog up the RP in the main chat. Everyone has access to an alias library which changes their displayed name, font color, and speech filters. It's really good for GMs to put their NPCs in there.
It's easy to install now that they've integrated all the python stuff into the package. It could be a pain before. But it's the best tool my group has found for online P&P. We've tried numerous others, which we could never get running well.
edit: forgot the link: http://www.rpgobjects.com/index.php?c=orpg
Destil
Explorer
And for yet another voice in the crowd, I'd recommend checking out maptool.
RPTools - Home
My girlfriend has been doing test runs with it before starting an online game to get a feel for how it works and she's much happier than she was with OpenRPG. Likewise I have a friend who runs his tabletop games entirely in maptool (everyone use their laptops to view the battlemat). No idea how it matches up to screen monkey.
RPTools - Home
My girlfriend has been doing test runs with it before starting an online game to get a feel for how it works and she's much happier than she was with OpenRPG. Likewise I have a friend who runs his tabletop games entirely in maptool (everyone use their laptops to view the battlemat). No idea how it matches up to screen monkey.
It blows ScreenMonkey out of the water. The short test we ran after Sunday's game pleased my players, and this without any of the frameworks, etc, loaded. Looking forward to the chaos of an 8 player game next Sunday with Maptool (and Chartool, now that it has working 4e support, and properly usable tokens).
vagabundo
Adventurer
Sounds like it could be great.
Make sure you read the 4e DMG cover to cover, it is worth it - the book covers the system, and DMing in general, very well.
Be wary of using beasties of more than five levels higher than your parties level. It could lead to the dreaded grind, even if it doesn't bring a TPK - a grind is nearly worse! Although with eight PCs you might be grind resistant. It is worth experimenting with different encounter groups as the class mix and the players really make a difference to how an encounter plays.
Make sure you read the 4e DMG cover to cover, it is worth it - the book covers the system, and DMing in general, very well.
Be wary of using beasties of more than five levels higher than your parties level. It could lead to the dreaded grind, even if it doesn't bring a TPK - a grind is nearly worse! Although with eight PCs you might be grind resistant. It is worth experimenting with different encounter groups as the class mix and the players really make a difference to how an encounter plays.
Prism
Explorer
Agreed. We used to use screenmonkey but moved to maptool and never looked back. We don't use it for rolling dice as only one of the players is remote but we use it for maps, tokens and tracking states. Import a picture, stick a grid over the top and your off. We use a 56" LCD for the people in the room - with a bunch of netbooks/laptops and one person connects in via Skype with video/audio. If more than one was remote we would either drop the video or swap to Livemeeting which handles multiple video streams
Hussar
Legend
Rakeleer - yeah, Maptool seems to be about the best of the VTT's out there right now. Certainly the best I've used. The frameworks are your friend. Seriously. With that many players, use one of the better frameworks (I recommend Veggiesama's, you'll find it on the RPtools forums) and you are good to go. Everything is automated to a high degree and it will handle a lot of the rules workload for you.
Eight is a darn big group, but, it can be done.
Eight is a darn big group, but, it can be done.
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