Ideas for playing d&d over internet (use of avatars)?

[agumathebear]

Hello all. I have been playind dnd over msn and it's just sooo boring. I (and my group) need a free alternative that doesnt require too much work. What I mean by use of avatars is for instance playing dnd over an MMO like world of warcraft so we can actually see each other and a small environment (like a tavern) the only problem is in games like wow (or other, FREE, MMOs) we usually get interrupted or alot of people's computers are too ****ty to actually run the game. I have made a custom map in team fortress 2 (a tavern) but people got carried away with the guns and ended up killing each other. The problems are A. old computers that can't run much let alone hold many gigs, B. Interruptions or destractions, and C. it has to be free.

I know I saw somewhere on the interwebs a "create your own mmo" using the ragnarok online graphics but it wasn't in english so i couldn't figure out how to use it. I've tried NWN2 but again with the not free and graphics thing. Anyone have any suggestions?

[flumphy]

I'm inclined to say that if you need graphics to make the game bearable, D&D probably isn't your thing. I'm not saying that as an insult, just an observation. I get the impression that you and your friends would probably have more fun playing an MMO than a tabeltop game.

That said, there are some other options for what you're looking for. NWN1 also came with its own module creator, and at this point pretty much anything should be able to run it. It had an extremely active modding community in its day, and a lot of that stuff should still be floating around. You should be able to buy it for 10 bucks or less at this point.

There's also Second Life. Second Life is a major pain in the ass to deal with, especially if you're looking to avoid spending money, but it's certainly able to do what you need.

[agumathebear]

I've been playing d&d for over 7 years, I just used to play IRL using minis and drawings and whatnot but now that i've moved thousands of miles away from all my friends we are forced to use the internet. We've tried using webcam and it doesnt work, we've tried voice and it doesnt work, so now we're using text only but there is really no way to represent where X person is in relation to person Y so it makes combat very complicated. With something using avatars not only would we most likely have emotes to help with our text-only adventures (especially with sarcasm) but I could also move my guy away from person X to show just about how far person Y is and in what direction they are facing and so on.

[flumphy]

Ah, so you what you're actually looking for a combat aid. Why didn't you say so?

MapTool is awesome and 100% free. A lot of people who don't want to download anything use pictures or even spreadsheets uploaded to Google Docs.

[Allanimal]

MapTool is awesome and 100% free.

I will second MapTool. Works great. Takes a little time to learn how to use it, but it is well worth the effort.

[WinceRind]

While I play most of my games IRL, with miniatures and maps, I've had a few ideas about implementing Minecraft for some things like dungeon design.

It's not really that good, unless you have way too much time on your hands. You won't be able to use it well to actually run a game, and it will take you far too long to actually construct a decent dungeon. It's simply easier to get a cheap/free program for making D&D maps/grids online and use just that.

Still, running a Minecraft server for your group can be a solution for your problem, I guess.

[Dr Bwaa]

if you haven't tried out openRPG, you might want to give that a look. It has pretty much everything--chat, multi-level maps that give the DM control of visibility and so on, macros for dice rolling (so you can just click "Fireball" and cast your fireball in the chat window, with DC and damage on display), and so on.

If you just want a nice, easy tool for dealing with maps, combat encounters, and that sort of thing on-the-fly and online, try out twiddla or flockdraw. Flockdraw is super slick but the actual canvas is a little small, whereas twiddla is a little clunkier but gives you a canvas as big as your browser window can hold (as far as I know).

I hope one or more of these helps!