Playing D&D online?

[Chronos Flame]

Hey, I was just wondering if anyone knew of a program used to play PnP D&D online? I'm not a big fan of PbP but I'd love to use a voice chat system or the like for occasional sessions.

[senrath]

I like Maptools and Skype, myself.

[Acero]

dont know about PnP, but DDO does a good job of making it work.

[Chronos Flame]

I have played DDO, but I mean more along the lines of sitting in a room playing PnP, only over the net. Does maptools+Skype work well? Do you already have to have a group or can find a group through maptools (sorry I've neve used it)?

[senrath]

You need to have a group already, either from real life or found through a site such as this. The DM hosts a maptools server (I think, it's been a while since I used it), then everyone connects to that. And then everyone gets into the same call on Skype, because I'm pretty sure maptools doesn't support voice chat.

[Chronos Flame]

Ah okay, so I just have to hope to find a group then haha. Thanks :)

[Swordgleam]

Another vote for Skype. Google Wave also works decently well, though I don't know if anyone's gotten around to making a map app for it yet - I know some people were working on various D&D widgets.

[Chronos Flame]

Wave? Hows that work with DnD? I thought it was a sort of IM mail thing

[WildPyre]

My group uses OpenRPG. It has a map tool you can draw on and load images to and you can add images for miniature tokens... a built in dice roller...

[Dr Bwaa]

I'll second openRPG. There's basically no technical support or documentation so getting it running the first time can be kind of annoying (or not), but once you've got it set up, it's a great program that's very hard to beat. My groups use openRPG with Skype alongside (since it's quicker and more expressive than chat boxes are).

[Nightson]

My group and I use Maptools + Ventrilo and have been working just fine for over a year.

[Akal Saris]

Yeah, I've been very impressed with some of the things my DM has managed to do on mapTools. I've tried using it and GameTable, but I just can't get the hang of the technology.

[Kobold-Bard]

Ah okay, so I just have to hope to find a group then haha. Thanks :)

You could always open a thread in the pbp section to look for players interested in a Skype game.

[Fallbot]

I haven't tried any of the other programs, but I've been very impressed with maptool. We use ventrillo to talk, since it's much easier than typing everything, but any similar program would be fine.

[crimson77]

Wave? Hows that work with DnD? I thought it was a sort of IM mail thing

I am playing using wave. It works well. There is a vector editor so it is similar to openrpg but a little less buggy and no software to download. However with wave, the wave is saved similar to a forum.