Online Pen and Paper?

[Dragvandil]

Im wondering how well people are doing with it, primarily in regaurds to finding people to play with. This has specific regaurds to Pathfinder, but really any game will do.

And of course I could use some tips probably. Because I am looking for an online game.

[Amphetryon]

Im wondering how well people are doing with it, primarily in regaurds to finding people to play with. This has specific regaurds to Pathfinder, but really any game will do.

And of course I could use some tips probably. Because I am looking for an online game.

There's a whole subforum here on the boards. Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3).

Mythweavers and several other sites also cater to the PbP (Play-by-Post) fan.

[JusticeZero]

So far I'm doing okay on mine. We're using VOIP (Ventrilo in my case, as a cousin of mine is a guildmaster on an MMO and has space on his server) for talking and keeping sheets and maps on Google Documents. Dice rolls are in a room on rolz.org. Comm etiquette can be an annoyance, we have to "copy" one player as he has issues with his push to talk button as he's using an iphone for some reason. We get big stretches of silence because we want to avoid talking over each other. But people seem to move faster. It is harder to scrawl out a rough shape on a spreadsheet. RP is a bit of a wash, no body language to include but on the other hand, the huge guy really can be a halfway convincing halfling, and while I've not poked at it, there are voice changers for crossplayers.

[NichG]

I generally run with Skype + Maptool (though Maptool is mostly for dice rolling, I don't do that many things that require a battlemat). I've also used Roll20 which is getting better but has to catch up with Maptool IMO. For music I use Icecast to set up an internet radio station for the players, which I can then load tracks into. It introduces maybe a 10 second delay on music changes which is annoying if you want to time a track or something, but can be worked with.

Player distraction is a bigger problem online. Its easier for players to be playing a computer game on the side during game and to get wrapped up in it without anyone being able to have the standard cues to tell its going on. Otherwise though it works fine.

[angry_bear]

I'm currently in two online games, and it works well. We use Google Hangouts for chat, and maptools for dice rolls and combat.

I've heard good things about using Skype, but I'm pretty sure you have to have a paid account for multiple people in video chat. If you just want to use voice chat it'd probably be fine though.

[dascarletm]

We use the site Roll20, wonderful. and to talk we use Skype.

For campaign information check out Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com). That is great for putting stuff in, you get your own wiki like page.

[Jeff the Green]

It has its advantages, disadvantages, and changes you may or may not like depending on your style.

Pros:

You have a much wider base of players than your geographical location, so if you don't like one DM's style or can't stand some players, it's not all that difficult to find another group.
Most DMs are fairly comfortable with a wide variety of sources, so you can pretty much play whatever you want.
DMs can look up rules without significantly slowing things down, so they don't have to improvise rules if they don't want to.


Cons:

It moves much more slowly than in-person games.
Games are more likely to fall apart.
Conversations can be awkward, since you're not talking in real time. In order to respond to a question, for example, you may have to specify that your reaction occurs before the previous post's content.
You rarely know whether someone will be a jerk before the campaign starts.


Changes:

It's much more of a creative writing project than improvisational theatre.
You have much more time to think about what your character/the NPCs will do.

[Dragvandil]

Clairification.
I DO mean stuff like Roll20 and Maptool. Not as much play by post. (I prefer much more free form RP for Pbp)

Obsidian Portal I had a lot of fun with and Roll20 (which we used for audio, but I'd have preffered Ventrillo for cpu usage issues.)

We had a pretty solid group that dissolved because.... someone brought outside drama in to the group. It wasn't even **** like a break up or two people arguing.... but I digress. (Yes, Yes I am still sore about it.)

But now that I'm in open waters searching for a new group I'm trying to get a feel for things.