Give me your virtual tabletop xp

[Nightchilde-2]

I've used openrpg off and on for about 7 years.

Pros. Great for roleplaying, can be very atmospheric, you don't have to travel anywhere.

Cons. Slower games, Seems to be less commitment by players, And the couple of campaigns i ran we're harder work than a F2F game.

Generally if you can find a group that you like and like you , its good. It can take a while to get there though.

I'll second everything said in the quoted section. We've recently taken to also using Teamspeak to voice-chat rather than typing everything and it does help speed things up (and makes it seem a little more like you're in the room with people).

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Can you get onto the 'OpenRPG Veav I' server ?

If so I can make my way over there and we can try and work out your problems.

I'm free most of tonight (it's 5:20pm for me as I type this) - so if you haven't found someone to help you out yet, then I'm happy to try

I'm in the main lobby there now, after it asked me to download a bunch of patches....

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Big thanks to Kris, and I now like OpenRPG....

 

[Griogre]

Very nice. Thanks.

I tried running MapTools, but it's running abyssamly slow on my computer. I suspect it's the memory, as it has only a little (128 MB, IIRC) and I think most of it is used by other programs (such as Windows...). I'll try to make things work.

Fantasy Grounds looks speefier, but it's far too investment-heavy for me for something I'm very uncertain of trying. And I'll be running Ars Magica, not d20, so...

Thanks again.

MapTools can be a memory slut. I have 2 Gigs and the maps we were on in the bug hunt were taking about 250 Megs of RAM. In fairness it is not MapTool - it is the pretty high res maps the GM chose to use. MapTool has no restrictions on map size, and displays them well once you get the download from the host (which can take a while). MapTools is "mapcentric" it's thrust is allowing you to do amazing things with FOW and light radius. You can do things with LOS and FOW you can't do in a face to face game. That worked great for the "Aliens" scenario.

I would run Ars Magica on FG. Thinking about it actually, when I finish my online Rappan Athuk game. I love AM and haven't played or run it in a few years. Someone did a very simple one page generic Character Sheet and stripped out all the d20 rulebooks. This would run AM fine. I would tell all the players to Download the 4th Ed from Atlas (which last I heard was still a free d/l) and use that. There is another guy who is slowly making a AM ruleset for FG2 which real AM character sheets ect, but I would never recommend anyone buy anything unless they are sasified with the product they can buy now. Fantasy Grounds is "tabletop simulator" they give you the things you see on the table at a face to face game: dice, battlemap, tokens, character sheets.

 

[Griogre]

Big thanks to Kris, and I now like OpenRPG....

I did not have much luck with OpenRPG. However, one thing they do have is a very nice and friendly community. I think this shows it.

IMHO the OpenRPG and FG communties are the most helpful, friendly and largest ones of the VTTs.

For the OP having a large helpful community for a VTT is a big plus, and of course the larger the community the easier it is to find a game to play or fill a game you are running.

 

[Kris]

Big thanks to Kris, and I now like OpenRPG....

No problem

 

[heruca]

This thread should probably be moved to the Software and Computers forum.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This thread should probably be moved to the Software and Computers forum.

I think software discussion based entirely on enabling long distance rpgs makes more sense here.

 

[Adso]

It's begining to look like I may have to relocate to another community. Which sucks as I have been gaming with some of the people in my group for close to 7 years now. I'm looking at different options including gaming over the internet (virtual tabletop) . What works? What doesn't? What's good? What's it like gaming over the interent.

Edit: I'm not talking about a play by post or mmorgs.

I've been running Age of Worms on Fantasy Grounds II and a VoIP client for the last couple months and it's been a blast!

It takes a little bit to get used to the software, but once you do it runs very much like any other D&D game you'll play, and moves as fast as table-top play. Oh, and with less after game clean up since all the pieces are virtual.

It’s also allowed me to play with some folks from college who I haven't game with for years. And wow, that's fun.

I have another group of friends that play around a tabletop but use Fantasy Grounds so that a player who moved away can still play. That seems to run a little slower than your normal game, but most of the time friends are worth it.

With great digital options all over the place, it's a heck of a lot easier to keep your D&D groups together longer.

 

[catsclaw227]

I've been running Age of Worms on Fantasy Grounds II and a VoIP client for the last couple months and it's been a blast!

Do you have any fan-files you are willing to share? I am going to run this for my internet-only group, and I could certainly use some digital assets.