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linkskywalker
2008-08-20, 12:22 PM
Hey peoples. Long time no see! I had a question, and I figured this was a good place to ask.

So over the years, I've had a great deal of my close friends express an interest in having me DM a game for them, but unfortunately we all live rather far away from each other, meaning our only hope is to play online--something that never works out quite as well as I would like.

I've tried a number of things in the past. Years ago I downloaded and attempted to use several applications to make playing the game smoother, but all of them were made of massive fail. Usually they were poorly coded, and the way they were designed made it impossible to use them without abandoning any house rules.

I've also tried running games using IMs only, and trusting my players with their dice rolls. This doesn't work terribly, but the game becomes inexorably slow as people invariably become distracted--they're far too used to only paying half attention to IMs.

My most recent attempt was to have all my players roll characters on a World of Warcraft server. This was easily the most successful thusfar. We were able to use my ventrillo server for the game itself, and use the in-game dice roller for the rolls. In addition, sitting around the table at an inn in-game made it feel like the players were talking about old adventures together. What's more, it was pretty much impossible for them to get distracted, since the game was taking up their whole screen.

But even that way, battles are difficult without having a grid for the players to look at, and since some of the people I'd like to include don't play WoW, that plan wouldn't work.

I'm getting rather frustrated by my inability to provide a good game for my friends, so if anybody could sugguest an application, or even just a method for playing online, I'd really appreciate it. I'm about ready to dust off my old C++ textbooks. x'D

TL; DR: I want to run a D&D 3.5 game online, what do you sugguest?

JackMage666
2008-08-20, 12:28 PM
The games I normally play in handle this in a good way, I think. We run the game, dice rolls, actions, all that fun stuff, in IRC (IC and OOC channel, of course). Then, we also run Gametable (or Maptools, any program like that will do) on the side, so we have a full grid/map for us to visualize the battlefield.

It's simple, and handles the map issue well, while giving a really good chat program to use to handle everything else.

Hope that helps!

linkskywalker
2008-08-20, 12:33 PM
Ooooo, Gametable looks promising. Coupled with Ventrillo and a dice roller this could solve my problems decently well...

Thanks a lot!

Tsotha-lanti
2008-08-20, 01:51 PM
OpenRPG lets you do anything you like. IRC is the best and easiest - you just need dice macros. And isn't there an identical thread on page 1 or 2 of these forums?

Eita
2008-08-20, 02:30 PM
Why not just use webcams?

valadil
2008-08-20, 02:31 PM
I'm working on a similar tabletop app. It's designed to be a table, not a D&D referee, so you shouldn't have to adjust rules or anything. It's just battlemap, chat, and dice. I haven't worked on the project much lately, but my other projects are slowing down a bit so I can take another look at it again soon.

While I haven't taken the time to look at other online games, I am interested in them. Where did the ones you tried fail? You mentioned that they were poorly coded or over engineered, but if you could be more specific I could avoid repeating their errors.

linkskywalker
2008-08-20, 04:05 PM
OpenRPG lets you do anything you like. IRC is the best and easiest - you just need dice macros. And isn't there an identical thread on page 1 or 2 of these forums?

OpenRPG looks really great as well! I'm kinda surprised I didn't find these projects when I was searching.

And if there is an identical thread, I apologize. I was so frustrated trying to figure out what happened to my account I forgot to look. >.< My bad.


Why not just use webcams?

Lots of reasons. For one, it's rather exhaustive on system resources for something that could be handled easily by a simple program. Additionally, I would have to purchase one, since my last one broke, and I'm rather poor. Furthermore, the resolution on them is bad enough that it wouldn't convey the information required very well at all. Thanks for the suggestion though =D


I'm working on a similar tabletop app. It's designed to be a table, not a D&D referee, so you shouldn't have to adjust rules or anything. It's just battlemap, chat, and dice. I haven't worked on the project much lately, but my other projects are slowing down a bit so I can take another look at it again soon.

While I haven't taken the time to look at other online games, I am interested in them. Where did the ones you tried fail? You mentioned that they were poorly coded or over engineered, but if you could be more specific I could avoid repeating their errors.

I wish I could give you specific names. I last tried looking for such apps a little over five years ago, and what was available left such a bad taste in my mouth that I hadn't thought to look again until now.

From what I remember though, the downsides to them were as follows:

*Complicated user interfaces with little or no explanation on how to use them. Such as requiring the user to navigate huge pages full of fields where the only explanation was acronyms.

*D&D specific apps frequently enforced enforced basic rules automatically. For example, for many years I only had one friend who would play with me, so we usually ran Gestalt games to make up for the lack of party members. Since these programs would sometimes require input character sheets to run, and didn't have a "house rules" option, things went poorly.

*A few that I tried hadn't been thoroughly tested enough to find out which commands caused the app to crash.

By and large, it sounds like you've already put more thought and effort into the half-assed programs I found.

I'd love to see your project when it's completed. I was seriously starting to draw up plans, and asking around as to which language people thought would be best for the project--but the stuff posted here seems to suit my needs well.

Irreverent Fool
2008-08-20, 04:07 PM
Ooooo, Gametable looks promising. Coupled with Ventrillo and a dice roller this could solve my problems decently well...

Thanks a lot!

Gametable has a built-in diceroller.

Knaight
2008-08-20, 05:03 PM
If Gametable is what I think it is its pretty good. Maptools also works, and for voice stuff Skype, Ventrilo, Team Speak(this one has issues though), and others stuff get voice. Then your done. The current batch of virtual tables are somewhat better than what we had 5 years ago. And if you still don't like it, play a game where you don't have a battlemap for fights, and your about covered.

Aron Times
2008-08-20, 05:13 PM
MapTool is much better documented and more user-friendly than OpenRPG. It also looks more professional. I DM one game and I play in another on MapTool.

Raum
2008-08-20, 05:13 PM
I use Fantasy Grounds (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/community/), it works pretty well. There are several other VTTs (Virtual Table Tops) available (http://madbrewlabs.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/virtual-table-tops-for-rpgs/) and this site (http://www.fouruglymonsters.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=42) provides support / a community for several of the more common VTTs.

Enjoy!

Knaight
2008-08-20, 05:38 PM
Maptool is the one I have more experience with, and I like it. Although I'm not very good at getting macros to cooperate. Plus its free.

heruca
2008-08-22, 05:47 PM
Years ago I downloaded and attempted to use several applications to make playing the game smoother, but all of them were made of massive fail. Usually they were poorly coded, and the way they were designed made it impossible to use them without abandoning any house rules.
<SNIP>
I'm getting rather frustrated by my inability to provide a good game for my friends, so if anybody could sugguest an application, or even just a method for playing online, I'd really appreciate it.

Check out Battlegrounds: RPG Edition (the link is in my sig). It's completely system-agnostic, so house rules are not a problem.

On the site, you'll also find links to every other RPG-oriented virtual tabletop program available (some free, some commercial), as well as a link to a feature comparison chart that covers most of the popular VTs.

ColdSepp
2008-08-22, 07:06 PM
RPtools/MapTool is really nice, and free. Its getting better and better each day.

http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=home