What's the best way to run a game online?

[Xarlen]

I'm going to go against the grain and say not IRC, but on a Muck.

Atleast, I know some places. It's a program like IRC, but it's a lot cleaner. I actually emailed you about this, Fourecks. I know a DM who's always looking for people to play with.

 

[Oni]

Do you have any special conventions that you use in chat games? For instance, in my home games, I use the 'time-out' rule where if we're in the middle of a game and you want to speak out of character, you make a time-out signal and speak, otherwise everything you say is in character and carries with it XP penalties.

Personally i like having a second room open for OOC chat, keeps the game chat focused and the logs of the game much neater.

 

[DDK]

I'm going to go against the grain and say not IRC, but on a Muck.

Atleast, I know some places. It's a program like IRC, but it's a lot cleaner. I actually emailed you about this, Fourecks. I know a DM who's always looking for people to play with.

I've been told that MUD's/Mushs/Mucks are too complex and require scripting and servers and whatnot that's simply too much hassle for little more benefit than you get from an IRC client.

As for the email you sent, I don't recall anything about Mucks. Which doesn't mean much because my memory is like a sieve. But it's possible the email got lost since I just changed ISP's and now have a proper email account.

Personally i like having a second room open for OOC chat, keeps the game chat focused and the logs of the game much neater.

Ahh, yes! That's the sorta of thing I'm talking about. I probably wouldn't have thought of that myself but now that you've mentioned it, I'll probably use that, thanks

 

[Xarlen]

Nonono. That's if you're RUNNING a muck.

The biggest commands you need to learn on the mucks I run on is " (To speak), : (To pose) Spoof (To pose without your name there; mainly for the GM) and then the OOC command that lets you talk OOC.

That's all you need to know, other then the connection command, which is just connect <name> <password>.

Very simple.

 

[DDK]

Nonono. That's if you're RUNNING a muck.

Well, I want to DM a game with 4 to 6 players. As I understand it, this is not possible unless you run the MU+whateverthingy yourself.

 

[drnuncheon]

Well, I want to DM a game with 4 to 6 players. As I understand it, this is not possible unless you run the MU+whateverthingy yourself.

There are actually places that are set up to allow 'virtual tabletop' games - Storyteller's Circle is one (mostly focused on White Wolf games), and a place called OGR (http://www.ogrmush.com/) is another. I'll bet there are more out there, too.

I'm lucky enough to have a friend with a server, so I run my online game on his machine (check out the Online Story Hour in my .sig), but it works out pretty well - and it makes it really easy to share your campaigns with others - most MUSH clients have logging features. What you see in my story hour are actual logs from the session, with the OOC and dice rolling edited out. Looks a heck of a lot nicer than any IRC stuff I've seen.

(BTW, if you wind up using a MUSH or MUX and you want my dice code I'd be happy to share it. It's not fancy or elegant but it gets the job done.)

J

 

[DDK]

There are actually places that are set up to allow 'virtual tabletop' games - Storyteller's Circle is one (mostly focused on White Wolf games), and a place called OGR (http://www.ogrmush.com/) is another. I'll bet there are more out there, too.

Thanks but after taking a look through that website I have even less of an idea of what an MU* is

I've never understood the whole MU* thing. I tried it once with Rapscallion, a Mac client, but after a couple of hours of, "You go north, you can't go any further, you go south, you can't go any further" I was pretty much over the whole concept.

And Aeolius thanks for the link. I've only tried a message board game twice, over on Realms of Evil, and both experiences were TERRIBLE. Aside from the fact that the two DM's I had were morons, it's interminably slow and seems to be very limited. I can't imagine a PBEM being any faster.

Are there resources to enhance PBP games? I've seen Irony games site and, well, there are better random engines out there, Jamis Buck's for one. One thing I've noted on Jamis' site (I'm not sure if he still has it or not) is the CGI map-making facility. Is there any engine out there that can do something similar with grid-maps that can be updated quickly by anyone who has access? That would be cool because it would allow the players and GM's to move 'mini's' around.

I tried OpenRPG, but after spending several hours just trying to download and install all the components it didn't even work. Some weird thing happened to Python... ugh, if it's too complex for me to do, I can't imagine asking six players to do it as well.

And Rondak's Portal is a MESS of a site. I can't believe how many times I was asked for my password. WebRPG charges so they're out... surely there must be an easy way to do this! Why does everything have to be so difficult?

 

[Aeolius]

Have you considered klooge.werks ? It costs a bit ($30 for the DM program and $15 per player), but it runs on both Mac OS X and Windows.

I've been experimenting with new cgi-based boards for my own message-based game. In the campaign, I post a new "Chapter" once a week. During the week, the players respond to events in the Chapter, to NPCs, and to one another. I will add updates as time permits. The next week, I post a new Chapter. While this method of game play requires a degree of patience and the occasional spell-checker, I have found it one of the best options for those with hectic schedules.

 

[Xarlen]

Well, I want to DM a game with 4 to 6 players. As I understand it, this is not possible unless you run the MU+whateverthingy yourself.

Not true. I mean that you Create the muck, code it, and run it on your own server.

If you just want to run a tabletop game on one, I can hook you up; Hell, I run two on a paticular one, and I don't own it.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I run on AIM, it's free, has a dice roller, IMs and everything except a map.

IRC just never had the same feel as an AOL/ AIM chat room for me. the RPG chat room things were decent, but lagged so bad it got tiresome.

If you want to see how a game or two went, I can always email you a log or three.
If so, email me at Vocenoctum@sluggy.net.