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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hewligan" data-source="post: 3250216" data-attributes="member: 19688">Hello everyone,I am an old-timer DnD player, and when I say old-timer I mean that I have not played for about 12 years. Since that time I have gone to university (several times), discovered girls, got married, had a kid, worked my socks off, etc. I have retained a strong interest in good old-fashioned roleplaying games, reading ENWorld.com quite often, and even buying and reading the DnD 3.5 core rulebooks just to see what had changed.Anyway, I am thinking that maybe, just maybe, I would like to get back into it, perhaps by DMing a weekend game, couple of hours, probably after my kid's bedtime (so say 8pm till 10pm GMT, Sunday night). I think the most realistic approach is to organise a game over the internet, with players from wherever, using something like iChat, skype, or OpenRPG (which I read about, tried to install, failed to get working, and then gave up in a fit of anger), but I would like to ask a few questions of people who have tried this type of thing before:1) What is the best client for this type of thing (I use a Mac)?2) Could iChat work? I have an iSight camera, and I believe it can do 4 way chat (I would probably want 3 players at first - small enough to be manageable).3) Is voice or typing most effective for online play?4) How do you handle dice rolling - especially from the players? In my previous games, I used to roll dice for the monsters in secret as I wanted to retain the ability to ignore the dice if they interfere with the story telling (so if a single blow would kill a character just through a combination of abominable dice rolls, and not through stupidity on the part of that character, I would normally fudge it, put them into unconsciousness, make them lose something of value, but give them a chance to escape imprisonment). I do kill characters, but very rarely (only when their stupidity is sufficient to require a lesson to be taught).5) Do these type of games (online) actually work? Meaning, can you get a good flow of storytelling, response, tension, colour, etc., or does the absence of actual interaction dampen the play? Do people regularly turn up? Do the games run considerably slower than normal games?Basically, I am looking for any sort of feedback from people who have dabbled in this area before. I am trying to decide whether to spend the effort getting familiar with the rules again, or whether really all I should be doing to satisfy my fantasy itch is write a few stories instead. At heart I am a story-teller, and I loved DMing, and while for a few years I wrote a lot of fiction (all on my hard disk, all unfinished) to compensate for my lost hobby of old, I have started to really want to go back to DMing to see if I still get as much out of it as I used to. Oh, and I am only 31 - when I read the above post it made me sound like I was 60 or something.Thanks!</blockquote>

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