Can someone reccomend a web-based program to play on

[Almaseti]

With some caveats!

I'm in a game (D&D 3.5, but that's not important) that's online, and right now it's completely text-based. That's fine when we're roleplaying. It sucks horribly whenever we try to fight something. I never have the least idea what's going on or what to do, and would really love to have a map to look at.

Basically, the DM in a game I'm in really, really doesn't want to make any kind of account for something like roll20, or anything that asks for an email. He's not willing to make a throwaway account he'll never use again for this. And other players had issues trying to make maptool run, so that won't work. Can anyone here think of a program that will help?

It doesn't even need to have any kind of dice rolling or anything, just some kind of canvas so I can see where I am in relation to the enemies and the rest of the group.

[Anxe]

Prior to using Roll20 I used Google Hangouts. I just pointed my camera at my battleboard when we did combats. The real problem is that your DM, as you've described him, doesn't want to put any effort into making your system better. Google Hangouts requires an email address. If signing up for that is too much work for him, how is he coming up with adventures?

[The Dark Fiddler]

The only thing I can think of would be taking pictures of a map and uploading them to tinypic or something that doesn't require making an account. All online gaming programs I know of require making an account or something similar.

[Almaseti]

I'm not sure precisely why he doesn't want to make accounts, but I think it's more like some kind of privacy thing than a laziness thing. He's put a lot of effort into the game and creating the world and all that. Though drawing out the map and taking lots of pictures to upload would take way too long and be annoying to do.

Another player found this typewith.me thing that lets people just type stuff, kinda liked a shared google doc, so we can make ascii maps, which works well enough (no more getting cornered by dire bears when you thought you were sticking with the rest of the group, yay!) for our purposes.

[Strawberries]

Very very basic maps can be made using Google docs. Just have the grid of the spreadsheet be your map grid. Sure, things will be a bit blocky, but for see where people are in relationship with everything else, it works.

Let me dig up an example from one of my pbps...here, for instance. Basic, but useful...and if he gives everyone priviledge to modify it, you can even move your characters yourselves.

EDIT: sorry, forgot to add... if he doesn't already have an account and he doesn't want to make one, then one of YOU can open the spreadsheet and just give anyone with the link permission to edit it. That way, he doesn't even have to be logged in to draw/edit the map.

[The_Ditto]

I highly recommend this:

http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=tools

a) Free to download use.
b) Java based.
c) many frameworks already in place to get you going.
d) Very flexible, useful tool.

Enjoy!!

[edit]
Ok, after I post, *now* I see the mention of having trouble running Maptools. O_o
I'd actually be willing to ask why: I'd love to help troubleshoot it. Fire me a PM if you're interested. I can probably help.
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