Skyping In

[mort655]

One of the players in my D&D 4e game is moving away soon, and we've been discussing the option of letting him Skype in (or some other alternative).

I am concerned about the specific logistics.

Is there anyone who's attempted this sort of thing before? How did it work for you? What problems did you run into?

Thanks

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

I've done it both ways, Skyping/video conferencing in to an existing group and having a player skyped into my group. I've also done entirely skype games, as many of my company's employees are international.

Does it work? Sure. Does it work really well? Not in my experience.

The biggest logistical issue is the lag for most video conferencing software, especially the free kind. Even with a good, max-speed connection on Skype, there's a 1-4 second delay with video and audio. If you're trying to have a lively conversation with the skyped player, everyone will have to speak and then wait for him to receive the audio, and then speak, and then for the group to receive the audio.

If you use a paid-for service, such as GoTo Meeting, the delay will be much less noticeable. I already pay for it for my business, and it is very valuable and overall good service, but is not inexpensive.

Whoever is the player that is outside of the group skyping in should have either one of the other players or the GM to do their character's rolls, or use a dice-roller app that the GM can see. Again, this slows everything down a little bit, but isn't bad. I successfully ran a game like this for about six months, and other than the nuisance of the poor quality audio/video, it worked out okay.

Overall, if it detracts from the experience from everyone, it might be wisest to just let the player wait until he can come back for a vacation. Good luck, and have fun.

 

[mort655]

My other major concern, since we're playing D&D 4e, is how to handle the battle-map.

I know there are programs that work for all online games, but how well does that work in a local game? How complicated is it to just point a webcam at the map?

 

[Umbran]

I'm not a skype user, so I cannot speak to that platform. Google Hangouts, however, seem pretty darned good for the purpose, though.

Last weekend for a Dresden Files game, the Google Hangout we were using worked pretty darned well. We had a slight technical problem that two people in the same physical location (using the same cable-modem connection) didn't have the bandwidth to support both of them at once very well, so one or the other occasionally dropped.

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

That should be fine. If you have a decent quality camera, the player should be able to see adequately.

 

[mort655]

I'm not a skype user, so I cannot speak to that platform. Google Hangouts, however, seem pretty darned good for the purpose, though.

Last weekend for a Dresden Files game, the Google Hangout we were using worked pretty darned well. We had a slight technical problem that two people in the same physical location (using the same cable-modem connection) didn't have the bandwidth to support both of them at once very well, so one or the other occasionally dropped.

What was the lag like?

 

[The Red King]

If it is just one player, it shouldnt be bad. I had one player skype in and the lag was not noticible. But then again he was only a few towns away. Your mileage may varry. As for showing him maps, just have his camera pointed at the group. Once they group has seen what ever you have shown them, either hang it near his camera , or hold it up for him to get a screen shot of.

 

[Crothian]

One of the guys in our group hasn't been able to make it since his wife's in the hospital and he's got kids to take care of so he has been skyping in on game nights when he can. It's not as good as him being there but it is better then him completely missing the game.

 

[jcayer]

We have a guy who travels frequently, so we ran through a bunch of these options. Tried Skype and google with the webcams. It was fairly unreliable because his bandwidth in hotels is poor.

After much experimenting, we settled on maptools and a conference number, with a star phone. Maptools allows him to see and interact with the map. In fact, in several instances, he scouted ahead and reported back to the party what he saw...they couldn't see it.

We're fortunate that a couple guys have conference bridge numbers we can use and I have an old star phone from where I used to work. It's a nice setup. The remote player did plunk down something like $80 for a nice headset/microphone combo, and has even used it in an airport, waiting for a flight.

 

[Umbran]

What was the lag like?

Discounting issues where those two guys were hitting limits on their bandwidth, you mean? Fractions of a second. Not long at all.