Virtual tabletops?

[Otterscrubber]

I know WotC was supposed to be creating something like this as part of their toolset, but it has not happened. I was clicking on some banner adds and saw some virtual tabletops that have been advertised. They look fairly slick, but wanted to know if anyone here has used one or more and if they have any recommendations.

I have a buddy of mine who recently was sent to Iraq, and getting something that could be used online would be a nice plus to maybe do some international gaming and give him a reminder of home. But I'd also like to be able to set something up to use more locally, or at least print out my own maps in a pinch without having to buy tons of tilesets that get old after a bit.

If anyone has any feedback or recommendations on a good virtual and functional tabletop I'd appreciate any input or links. Thanks.

 

[Mapache]

I know WotC was supposed to be creating something like this as part of their toolset, but it has not happened.

WotC's Virtual Tabletop is currently in closed beta, but many folks are in on that beta. There's also a variety of other options, free and otherwise.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maptool. Probably the most advanced VTT out there. Complex if you want to do fancy stuff with it, but in essence it is pretty simple to use. Most of the draw is its very extensive programmability. You can get several macro sets that support 4e pretty thoroughly.

 

[OnlineDM]

Personally, I also recommend MapTool. As you can guess from my screen name, I run games online, and I settled on MapTool after trying OpenRPG and Gametable (both of which were okay, but MapTool is better).

I've also tried out Wizards' Virtual Table beta; it's not ready for prime time yet, but it has the potential to be very useful for 4e games once they get set up with character and monster import capabilities.

If you want tips on getting started with MapTool, you can check out that section of my blog.

 

[moxcamel]

d20 Pro and Fantasy Realms II are both very good also. I'm currently using d20 Pro, and have nothing but good to say about it.

 

[Droogie128]

FantasyGrounds 2 is, IMO, the best VTT out there... but it isn't free. MapTool is by far the best free one.

 

[666Sinner666]

For a free VT I would say Maptools is best due to its extensive programability and d20Pro for quick and dirty gaming. When it comes to VT's you have to pay for Kloogewerks and Fantasy Grounds II are top notch. The only caveat being that Kloogewerks, like Maptools, is java based and if your computer lacks a lot of ram they can bog down your computer quickly. Netbooks in particular can suffer using them.

Since you are a community supporter I would highly suggest getting Fantasy Grounds and downloading the .mod files for War of the Burning Sky and using that. Only data entry you would need to do would be characters otherwise everything is already loaded into the .mod file.

 

[DNH]

We have used a few of these over the years but we currently use MapTool for our Pathfinder games and Fantasy Grounds 2 for our 4e ones.

MapTool is free and has a number of cool features, not the least of which is the very good lighting system. You can also edit properties and write macros (or get them from the community) which can handle most aspects of your game mechanics. I don't know how well this works for 4e because ...

Fantasy Grounds 2 is an excellent application for running virtual rpgs. It looks great (the actual 3D dice is a big selling point for most people) and works well and with a fully-featured 4e ruleset included "in the box", you are good to go from the off. The application itself is "rules-agnostic" insofar as any ruleset can be written for use with it (a bit like kLoOge.WerKs). There are some community and commercial ones available, such as Savage Worlds, BRP, C&C and others. The community is a vibrant one, with a number of members who are constantly improving and extending the software. There is a sort of "companion" application (Tenian's 4e Parser) which allows you to generate FG2-viable content from your books or directly from the DDI Compendium (with an active subscription, of course). Use this content to prepare encounters and maps (use any image as a map or draw your own quick and dirty ones in-game) and tokens and you will have everything to hand when you come to your game session. The FG2 4e ruleset is also clever enough to handle effects, parsing them appropriately from the statblock and applying them correctly (in most cases, anyway). All told, it is an excellent package which I have used for a couple of years now and am just preparing my new campaign. It's gonna be good.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maptool's various 4e macro sets (I think there are roughly 3 that are really well supported right now) do pretty well. Nobody's gotten around to writing a parser that does everything or rips content en-masse out of the Compendium, but you can paste a character or monster stat block and get most of the data imported to a token reliably. In some ways FG2 or d20 Pro are slicker in that way, but the nice thing with Maptool is you can do a fair amount of customization and there are a lot of macros that do things in specific ways, so you can tweak it a lot.

The comment about the lighting system is true as well. Maptool has a lighting and FoW system that is way ahead of anything else I've seen.

 

[Stoat]

I use d20Pro for my 4E game. Prior to that, I used it for 3.5. D20Pro is built for D&D and automatically handles most of the math without needing the installation of any additional framework. It's also quick to use. Setting up an NPC in d20Pro takes comparatively little data entry.

I tried Fantasy Grounds. It's a very pretty program and the 3-D dice are awesome, but the learning curve was too steep for me. I couldn't figure out how to use it.

I tried Klooge. Unfortunately, I found it to be terribly unstable. My group could rarely play more than about 2 hours without experiencing some game-killing crash. Klooge also required a hell of a lot of data entry to set up an NPC.

I've not tried Maptools, lots of people really like it, and its free.