Skyping In

[IronWolf]

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.

Yep - I am this guy. Skype has worked pretty well for us. Granted face to face gaming is more optimal, but that isn't always possible and Skype is a very viable alternative (or any number of other voice or video solutions).

Ben]
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.

I have not had much audio lag at all, my home connection is pretty poor by today's standards for those living in the city. The video will lag a bit, but not to the point of being detrimental or to the point of affecting the audio stream.

Ben]
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.

In the case of one player skyping in I think it is easiest to just trust the player a bit and let them roll on their own and report the roll. That is how we do it when I Skype in. I am pretty sure the group trusts me. Just last week I rolled a natural 20 at a rather opportune moment, but the roll to confirm was a 1 which I also happily revealed. Takes a bit of trust, but it really isn't an issue for our group.

Google Hangouts, however, seem pretty darned good for the purpose, though.

Google Hangouts is great. I use it for when everyone is remote. The biggest gripe in the one person remoting in is the silly timeout feature. Since we are typically only using it for voice and a bit of video sometimes I miss that are you there prompt because my attention is away from the hangout screen.

When everyone is playing over the hangout the attention is more towards the hangout window, so it is less annoying then.

In either case - I've had good luck with Google Hangouts as well.

How complicated is it to just point a webcam at the map?

This can work. I have not played this way, only tested a bit. Steel Wind here has an elaborate setup that plays this way and he is a big fan of it. He has posted in another thread here where he says he prefers that to any of the VTTs.

 

[Alarian]

Our group over the course of several years spread out all over the U.S. It started with one person but now encompasses our entire group. We are spread out from the east coast to the west coast and several points in-between (there are currently 5 in our group). We have been using a combination of Skype and Maptool for our game and we have had no problems at all with lags in conversations. Occasionally someone will get a wierd connection and have some connection issues, but usually a reboot of the computer solves the problem. We have never had anyone miss a session because of Skype issues (We used to use Gizmo and had a LOT of problems constantly with that). All in all, we have been very happy with Skype. Using Maptool for visualizations works well as well. We have the map where everyone can see whats going on, and all our rolls are macro'd so rolls are quick and easy as well.

 

[amerigoV]

When everyone was remote, I enjoyed online gaming. When I was the only remote player - well, its like dialing into a meeting that most people are there in person - ie - 100x worse than just a conference call


Recently, we did one using google hangout with 2 computers logged in on their end and me remote - that worked pretty well - I could "see" the crowd with the 2 webcams and felt like I was part of the group.

 

[SeprenMaelstrom]

The first campaign I played in was my friend's in the US, and I and another Canadian fellow on the west coast were skyping in. The other guy was well used to it, but it felt pretty socially disconnected to me. The other three, including my friend who set up the campaign, were there in-person and had a mat and tiles to use, as well as tokens.

I found that while it was fun to be part of the experience, and that the between-battle roleplaying got pretty fun [even with the lag in speech causing mass interruptions on all sides], I found myself bored often. Waiting for others to finish their turns felt even more dragging than it can when there in-person. Not to mention I'd be playing after an 8-hour shift at work, so I'd be tired and sometimes dozing off. It was also very tough to hear other Canadian fellow because he was mic'd in as well, so mic-to-speaker-to-mic doesn't seem to translate so well. Never knew what he was saying, and I missed a fair bit of apparently funny dialogue for that.

All in all, I'd say it's a good way to go if you can't do it in person. For me personally, I think that may have been my last swing at remote D&D. Currently running my own campaign with 6 people, including myself [character and DM - some don't like it, but I am trying it! Like my character too much not to, hahah], who can all actually come personally. =] Coworkers having nerdy significant others can lead to great results!

 

[Nytmare]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/320326-skype-player-table-group-what-expect.html

In my experience, it was something that worked temporarily till the player could get back to the table. I don't think it's something I would want to have to deal with every game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If everyone has a reasonable connection, lag should not be a big issue.

I usually play with all players in an Hangout and using a virtual game table (maptools) for the map and dice rolling stuff.

But we also experimented with a camera and a regular battlemap. My advice:
1) Host with the battlemap needs a decent internet connection.
2) A High Definition Wide Angle camera is a good idea. You may also want something to have it hanging or standing stable at the top of the map.
3) You should probably assign one player to follow the "skyping" playing directions for placing his character. (It doesn't hurt to be this one of the more tactical minded ones - he'll probably have a good grasp of what the other player may want to do - or he may guide him in the "right" direction, which you may or may not want )

We didn't have a really good camera, but it worked okay for a cheap experiment. We're mostly not doing it anymore since it's now at least 2 players that are not available at the gametable and so it's easier to make everything online.

Google Hangouts is great. I use it for when everyone is remote. The biggest gripe in the one person remoting in is the silly timeout feature. Since we are typically only using it for voice and a bit of video sometimes I miss that are you there prompt because my attention is away from the hangout screen.

Yes, that silly timeout feature is terrible annoying. I should probably get myself a third monitor to keep it open at all times.

(Of course, that would require a new or additional graphics card...

 

[Piratecat]

When I FaceTime Plane Sailing into our D&D Next playtests, he's coming in from London. Lag is minimal. We used to have some issues with dropping the call, but the last few times we've played there were no problems. I stick my iPhone into a speaker set-up and boost the sound, and that usually ensures that everyone can hear him.

The best thing I did was buy a turntable to put the webcam on. That way I can spin him towards whoever is talking, and they can see each other normally.

We're going to try this with Hypersmurf in New Zealand. My test gave a slightly annoying amount of lag, but not too bad.

 

[nerfherder]

When I FaceTime Plane Sailing into our D&D Next playtests, he's coming in from London. Lag is minimal. We used to have some issues with dropping the call, but the last few times we've played there were no problems. I stick my iPhone into a speaker set-up and boost the sound, and that usually ensures that everyone can hear him.

The best thing I did was buy a turntable to put the webcam on. That way I can spin him towards whoever is talking, and they can see each other normally.

We're going to try this with Hypersmurf in New Zealand. My test gave a slightly annoying amount of lag, but not too bad.

That's because he lives in the future!

We've had 1 player skyping in for D&D and other games for the last 4 years. He rolls dice at his end, and we roll at ours, and just call out the results. When he has run the games, he's used vtt software. When someone local runs the game, we just point the camera at the map at the start of combats and he takes a screen shot.

We've found it a bit easier when playing games that don't require exact positioning in combat. D&D Next has been easier to run than 4e.

We also found it better having an omni-directional microphone plugged into the local laptop with the webcam, and the video plugged into a TV.

 

[IronWolf]

The best thing I did was buy a turntable to put the webcam on. That way I can spin him towards whoever is talking, and they can see each other normally.

Cool idea! The last few times I have Skyped in, the other side has had me on the iPad. It makes it easier for them to turn the camera towards what might be the object of focus when necessary.

Though it seems last time it seems I had lots of screen time with the cat!

 

[kevtar]

Our group has used Skype a lot for players who have moved away but still wanted to catch a game now and then. Our group likes to use minis, so we hung the webcam over the table. The player on Skype had a bird's-eye view of the minis and map and it worked pretty well.

There really wasn't any noticeable lag in terms of audio/video. The audio/video quality was fairly constant - and we've been playing using webcams since 2004, and believe it or not there have been huge jumps in quality in just a few short years, lol.

The biggest issue was (a) not being able to see/interact with the members of the group. We realized really quickly that being able to play D&D long distance was ok, but what made D&D a great experience (for us) was being able to see each other, react to each other, etc... those kinds of interactions "lost something" when interpreted through a webcam, and (b) when the action wasn't focused on the player playing via webcam, the player would become bored (e.g. because he was watching a bird's eye view of minis and couldn't have a side-conversation with a player) and the group often felt awkward because they were aware that the webcam player's experience was severely limited. We still have fun, but we had its issues too.