Online play?

[der_kluge]

I ran a campaign a couple of years ago, and it was great, but it dissolved because of ... adults, and life. Typical stuff.

I've been thinking about restarting that campaign (with different players), but something more online, and not in person. I ran a PbP (on CircvsMaximvs) for a while, and really enjoyed it - until the site became a cesspool of humanity. But I really liked the immersion and story-telling factor of that platform. I'm considering doing something like that here, although to be honest, ENWorld seems far too slow some of the time, unless it's gotten better.

I'm somewhat interested in the idea of using some of the online platfoms that exist, although I'm completely ignorant of such things, and part of me is concerned about scheduling to some extent, since I do travel a lot for work. So, it doesn't completely alleviate the whole adult problem. Plus it just seems like more work in general, since it seems like I'd need a bunch of tactical maps. Plus I'm really into NPCs, and the PbP format really allows me to get creatively wordy with my NPCs and story - way moreso than I could with a real-time platform. Though I'm not completely opposed to it.

I want thoughts/opinions on this. What are you using, pros/cons, what other options exist that I'm over-looking here? Thanks

 

[Hussar]

Well, I've been playing on VTT's for about 15 or so years now. There's pros and cons to any of them.

You can go the cheap route of something like Maptool, and, depending on the framework you can probably download from their site, you can get somethign that will automate most of what you need during play - character sheet, tracking spells, etc. The downside is that you will have to do a lot of the work on the DM's side yourself.

Or, you can go the Fantasy Grounds route - where the DM's side has TONS of goodies, but, the actual virtual tabletop is a horrible kludge of garbage UI where even doing something as simple as dropping labels on the map becomes a chore.

Or, there's Roll20, but, I haven't used it, so, I have no opinion.

I have been seeing some very, very cool things coming out of Virtual Gametable recently if you're familiar with that.

 

[shawnhcorey]

I suggest Myth Weavers. It has a good community and lots of tools for PbP. Each game is a separate sub-forum where you can create threads and sub-folders. Most games are Pathfinder or D&D but you can find players for just about every system.

 

[GMMichael]

Roll20 lets you control access to your game, advertise, have a private forum for posts, and use a grid (or many) along with live chat - maybe if your players wanted to talk tactics on a shared space? And if I can figure out how to use it, it's gotta be user-friendly

 

[dragoner]

For pbp, in addition to myth weavers, there is also rpol: RolePlay onLine! Welcome to RPoL and unseen servant: The Unseen Servant forums - Play by Post RPGs

 

[Salthorae]

RPOL is fun and has a lot of great players on it.

 

[Tallifer]

We play in the theatre of the mind, using roll20 to roll the dice, type and shwo the occasional image; and using Google Hangouts for its somewhat superior ability to provide sound and voice for up to ten players.

 

[der_kluge]

This is frustrating. I've searched through those forums (and this one), yet none seem to have the ability to post inline photos. I want to be able to post a picture of an NPC and put text next to the image of what the NPC is saying. I think it ends up making the PbP look really good. Yet, none of them seem to have that ability. I can "upload" a picture, but it just adds it as an attachment. Seems like vbulletin doesn't want to include this as a feature anymore. All these PbP forums that I'm looking at, all look like garbage, since they're just plain text (sometimes colored). Is there no site that will allow me to add in inline pictures?

 

[Salthorae]

This is frustrating. I've searched through those forums (and this one), yet none seem to have the ability to post inline photos. I want to be able to post a picture of an NPC and put text next to the image of what the NPC is saying. I think it ends up making the PbP look really good. Yet, none of them seem to have that ability. I can "upload" a picture, but it just adds it as an attachment. Seems like vbulletin doesn't want to include this as a feature anymore. All these PbP forums that I'm looking at, all look like garbage, since they're just plain text (sometimes colored). Is there no site that will allow me to add in inline pictures?

RPOL has the ability to insert inline images in it. I think only DM's can do it, but I've played in many games where there were images posted in the threads themselves.

 

[shawnhcorey]

Is there no site that will allow me to add in inline pictures?

Myth Weavers allows inline pictures but it doesn't store them. You have to post them to another site, like Instagram, and link them inline.

To include an image that is not uploaded as an attachment and is located on another website, you can do so by copying the full URL to the image, (not the page on which the image is located), and either pressing the 'Insert Image' icon or by typing

after it, ensuring that you do not have any spaces before or after the URL of the image. You can insert pictures from your albums in this way too.

Help:VBulletin:Attachments and Images - Myth-Wiki

www.myth-weavers.com