Gaming online. . . what to use?

[Nadaka]

I have been using internet message boards (like enworld.org or boards1.wizards.com/gleemax) and an online die roller database (www.nadaka.us/DiceBoxDB.asp) for some time. However it can be slow going at times with each round of combat taking 3 to 48 hours. Any kind of chat program would work, though I would recommend something like roger wilco/teamspeak or some other voice chat.

 

[BlackMoria]

I used OpenRPG for 2 years. In the last 6 months, I've been using Fantasy Grounds II, which I prefer by far over OpenRPG.

I had issues with OpenRPG with its nodes structure and the game play. Frequently, sessions were plagued by lag and I don't recall a session in which one or more of the players didn't get dropped. Some nights, I would get dropped out of the game 5 - 10 times in the session.

Annoying as hell. Free is one thing but my experience is the price tag that one pays is performance and reliability.

On the other hand, Fantasy Grounds II is sweet in comparison. No struggling how to use the nodes in OpenRPG to do character sheets or anything else. Fantasy Grounds has a great interface and I found it far superior to OpenRPG in usabillity and performance. I've not had a single player drop out or a game crash so far (I had plenty in OpenRPG).

Fantasy Grounds II allows for customization as well. I believe that there is already support for Savage Worlds and Arcana Evolved out there. I don't know how hard it is to do one's own customizations as I haven't done either in OpenRPG or Fantasy Grounds II, so I don't know how that aspect compares.

Fantasy Grounds II was available for discount bundle pricing from their website, so while it does cost money, I got the GM software and 5 player client software licenses for about $75.

 

[jdrakeh]

I had issues with OpenRPG with its nodes structure and the game play. Frequently, sessions were plagued by lag and I don't recall a session in which one or more of the players didn't get dropped. Some nights, I would get dropped out of the game 5 - 10 times in the session.

This shouldn't be much of an issue assuming that OpenRPG uses the GM's computer as a session host. I'm running XP Pro (Svc Pack 2) with 2 GB of RAM and have a dedicated 7 MB connection.

 

[dougmander]

May I suggest Second Life? It's free, it has integral voice, you can build the environment, minis, and props yourself, you can have a chat-based die roller. Best of all, your avatars can come dressed as their characters and stand in the scenery where their PCs would be.

There are several D&D or other tabletop campaigns running in SL at any given time -- and there always seem to be plenty of players looking for games. I ran a 1st-level 3.5e D&D game for about 6 months, and that was before they added voice. I'm dying to try it again after I finish grad school early next year.

Cheers!

 

[Emryys]

Do the other players see the tokens moving in realtime or is it a "wait for screen refresh" kind of deal?

Realtime...

Check out some Maptool Demo Vids at Youtube

 

[heruca]

Thanks for all of the input , folks. Right now, Open RPG is looking like the best option because it seems to be the one virtual tabletop (thus far mentioned) that is geared toward easy end-user creation of mods, which is a bonus for me because I play lots of different games that don't have native support under other VTs (Blood, for example, doesn't have native support in any virtual tabletop that I'm aware of).

I'm not familiar with Blood. What support would be needed to play it online?

 

[PosterBoy]

Ah... It's nice to see so many people talking about OpenRPG nearly 8 years after I put the first version out.

-chris

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm not familiar with Blood. What support would be needed to play it online?

Well, if using a virtual tabletop, I'd need to be able to import my own character sheets and visual play aids other than maps, which some programs seem to support far better than others. Shared audio would also be nice, though I'll be handling that via Skype.

 

[Emirikol]

Our gaming group has been scattered over the country for a couple of years now. Recently we've started using RPTools Maptool and Skype. It works pretty good. The games move about as fast as a regular table top game. I think that's about as good as it gets for online gaming.

This program is beautiful and fast. You can still run it like a D&D game. It's free too..and they're working on it constantly. We just got a test game up on Monday and my players are impressed.

Since we still meet tabletop twice a month, I"m thinking we'll use it for some side quests. Gotta figure out Skype or Ventrillo yet too though, I think that will make it a little more personable.

www.rptools.net download maptool and play around with it a little. It's a quick learn, even for people with non-computer-geek jobs (like me). Once I figured out how to get the DM platform up and running (had to forward my port..whatever that meant I don't care..it was easy to get set up). Had my players linked in within minutes. They were happy it's free.

I tried some of the others and just didn't get what I wanted: simplicity enough to run a game, players can see the map, it's got a dice roller, you can upload maps and make new player miniatures easily and you don't have redundancies..oh and it's free.

How are the rest of you faring with RPTools?

jh
P.s. After running a couple of chat-based-games at Wotc, I realized that i needed something visual to go with the chats so I tried out RPTools, openRPG, and one other one. I settled with RPTools as the one for me.

 

[Arkhandus]

I still believe OpenRPG is the best for this kind of stuff. Real-time, chat-based, a session log feature, a map, the gametree nodes, the ability to run games on your own computer as a temporary server, and what with it being free and all. I've been using it for some 6 years at least, and I've gamed with folks from the US, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere over OpenRPG. Any time of day, you can probably find someone, somewhere, running a game over OpenRPG.