when there is no other way than online

[SorvahrSpahr]

Since our D&D clan members live far away from each other, and can only get together once a week, we have no other chance than to play D&D through the web. We usually use MSN, and we managed to get it to work just fine. Our only problem right now is with the battles. Since we have no grid to play online we have to do a "Golden Sun" kind of fighting, where basically one can attack any enemy, so as you see, the only time we use AoOs is when the party rogue attempts a tumble to sneak attack the enemy.

What I wanted to know is, how do you guys manage your online campaigns, IF you do play D&D through the web, and how do you guys manage the combats.

P.S: A friend and I are currently working on a online combat grid, but it's taking a while due to our national exams.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I play online, but PbP not through chat or stuff. In that way, it is very easy to use a battle grid using the "|" & "-" characters. But online you'll want something far more hightech and advanced than that!

Good luck. There are a few games systems out there that combine a chat with a mapping program. I don't remember any of the names of them. And most of them aren't free. But not too expensive, either. Good luck!

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

hmmm, the idea of using | and - sounds good. I also thought of using a grid sacn and through paint and imageshack keep updating the characters location. or giving everyone a grid with coordinates and telling them "put enemy A on C4, enemy B on C2, etc" but I doubt this would work, (our ninja isn't the brightest light in faerun so he would probably mess up)

 

[Deekin]

Open RPG. It has a battlemat and Minigrid built in, and is free to boot. The only problem is the steep learning curve.

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

hmm never heard of it. gotta google it in a few moments (each day I hate math just a little bit more) after I finish studying for the exam. Is Open RPG that hard to learn?

 

[The Lost Muse]

Open RPG has a steep learning curve, and some stability issues. I'd recomment trying the Screen Monkey demo, and see if that works for you.

 

[talwynor]

Other options...

Klooge and Fantasy Grounds would also fit your needs...I've used klooge and it's quite good (www.kloogeinc.com).

...just saw that Klooge is holding an online con next week where you would be able to try the program out for free and play in a game run by some of the better Klooge DM's out there...check out http://www.kloogeinc.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=9 if your interested.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've tried real time solutions online, and the ones I've tried just weren't satisfying, especially when getting everyone together at the same time was one of the problems to begin with.

Instead, I've been running a pbp since January with friends scattered all over the world (we have players from all over the US, along with the Yucatan and Ontario). Combat is streamlined a bit -- no initiative, for one -- and I roll all the dice, just to make it quicker and simpler. (Combat in pbp takes a lot longer than in real life, but you can compensate with more interesting descriptions.)

Even if I were to go to a real-time game sometime online, I'd probably keep combat streamlined, just to keep everyone from going nuts.

 

[SorvahrSpahr]

I'll try it. We have been doing fairly well in combat. We roll initiatives and all. the only real problem is with AoOs and area spells. so, as you see we can't make much of a strategy in this conditions

 

[kenobi65]

I've played RPGA modules in AOL Instant Messenger chat rooms for years. My group has avoided "upgrading" to OpenRPG for the reasons others have mentioned. If we find ourselves in a situation where we need a grid, we use Excel, or just letter/number a grid, like you have described (I move from A4 to B6). Works pretty well for us.

The other nice thing about AIM is that it has a built-in dice-rolling function, so no worries about cheating at dice rolls. The command is:
//roll-diceX-sidesY

...where X is the number of dice, and Y is the sides. So, rolling 3d20 would be:
//roll-dice3-sides20