Newish player, playing 3.5 ed. over the Internet with OpenRPG

[Freelance Henchman]

Hello all, maybe someone here can help me with this.

I want to start playing D&D (3.5 ed.) over the Internet with the OpenRPG software. My RPG experience is as player of a non-D&D tabletop system long ago (Das Schwarze Auge, a german game) and the various D&D CRPGs (Baldur's Gate, IWD, Neverwinter Nights 1&2). I've played quite a bunch of NWN2 on persistent worlds, and am quite familiar with the D&D mechanics as implemented in those games.

Now I've been talking to some people from the PWs who would like to try a game of "real", i.e. tabletop pen&paper D&D, but don't have a group to play with in real life (neither do I), so we thought we could give it a go online. It looks like I will be trying to DM (I got the DMG).

Now, the problems are manifold, i.e. I have never DM'ed, none of us know the tabletop D&D rules too well, and we are unfamiliar with the software (though we have fooled around with it a bit and it doesn't seem too bad). I suggested to the others that we start rolling some very standard characters, maybe using NWN2 to help compare with the resulting stats. I would read up in the DMG and try to make a tiny test adventure (kill a single goblin in a cave or something).

I'd appreciate any help in this matter, hints for a newbie on DMing or reports of your own experience using OpenRPG would be great.

[Keld Denar]

You might consider purchasing or downloading a published adventure from a store or the internet. There are some decent ones out there, and the free ones on the wizards site and elsewhere are ok as well. That way, you don't have as much prep work the first time to come up with fun and interesting encounters. As you gain a little experience, you can stray from the published world by tacking on your own encounters, or writing your own hooks. Just don't let your players know that you are running from a mod, or they MIGHT be tempted to look it up to gain an unfair advantage.

Another tool that would be a great supliment to OpenRPG, is a VoiP program. Ventrilo is common, although renting a server if you don't have access to one already might not be for you. Skype is completely free for what you need it to do, and you can have multiple person calls on it. That just leaves you to buy a headset with a microphone, which typically run between $20 and $100 US depending on the quality. This is perferable because typing out long setting details is boring for the players on the other end, unless you type out most of the discriptions ahead of time and copy/paste them into the text window. Ventrilo or Skype would increase speed of play by a ton though.

[Freelance Henchman]

Ventrilo or Skype would increase speed of play by a ton though.

I've been thinking about using VoIP later, might be best really.

Are there any tiny (and free) adventures you can suggest? Best would be if I can sort of introduce "new" combat or game features gradually when they become necessary in the game.

[Keld Denar]

I heard Stormy Knight over on the wizards website is a decent one, especially for lowbies and newbies. Other than that, google something like free D&D adventure modules. I got 91,900 hits my first try. I'm sure something is bout to turn up. Make sure its low levels (lv 1 or lv 2).

[AslanCross]

http://d20srd.org is a good online resource if you want a reference while playing online and is a nearly complete substitute for the PHB.