As discussed here, I’ve gotten a group of geeks together to experiment with playing D&D online.
The first game (Friday night) is mostly about meeting with the players online, getting our various software working and maybe try playing a short D&D 4e Scenario.
For the first game we settled for Gametable as the Virtual tabletop software.
I chose Gametable first because its the simplest software I found. Its basically nothing more than a shareable drawing surface with movable elements called ‘pogs’ (Miniatures and furniture) and Overlays (map elements).
I invite you to check Alex’s tutorials on this application as I didn’t plan to revisit what he already wrote. I really like this application even though it’s got exceedingly limited features. It still provides the basic I want from a virtual tabletop:
- A battlemap application (which can be used creatively to store other types of gaming props like regional maps and scrolls.
- A dice roller (very basic) although I’ll likely play with the honor system
- A way of hosting the game and sharing the map.
The software does not include voice chatting and since we intended to have some, we decided to go with Skype.
The adventure I planned for the game is exceedingly simple. The adventurers will need a group of 5 fearsome Kobold Champions and their Draconic Boss in a 2 scene setup.
The background for the adventure though is a little more unorthodox:
“Hello and Welcome to this special edition of THE CRAWL!: Monster vs Monster edition! I’m your host, Naquist Balefire. Lets give a warm welcome to our newest contestants who are getting ready to challenege the yet undefeated SCALY SIX!
Oh yeah, I’m gonna play me a little Dungeon Reality Show adventure!
As I was trying to draw the map with the mouse I kept having a hard time drawing the cave elements where the adventure will take place. In a moment of frustration when I was about to throw the mouse at the other end of my gaming room, I remembered the X-mas gift my mother gave me last year.
She gave me a Wacom drawing pad…
I hooked it up to my laptop and BAM, I was drawing the map just like if I was using Wet Erase markers on a Chessex Vinyl battlemap.
Awesome!
That’s pretty much it. I’ll let you know how it went.
Sweet little map 🙂
Ah, wacom… how I’d live without thee! I remember shelling out 600$ for my first wacom, way back when it was down right hard to find…
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I’m looking forward to your reflections on using the on-line game table programs. And I’d love to swap notes when you try MapTool. I agree it’s a bit more complex, but I’ve found the extra features really help things, especially the macros. However, sometimes it feels more like a video game than a real RPG. I’m curious to see what DM Fu you use to address that issue.
@Eric: Mine’s a bottom range obscure model that was available through Europe that my mom bought in a Husqvarna store (she has one for her Mecha-sized Embroidery machine).
@Kevin: What exactly do you find video gamey about the process? I know I’m going to miss out on the visual cues to help me adjust the story.
Sittin’ back munchin’ popcorn.
I’m looking forward to the series of posts about this, Phil 😀
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@Chatty: I think it’s something of an immersion issue, at least for me (I haven’t asked the other players how it feels to them yet).
1) No faces or real dice. I’m surprised by how much I miss rolling real dice.
2) Moving graphical pogs around a colorful map and clicking macro buttons (in MapTool) to attack. My battle maps are photoshopped images with that 2D CRPG look.
3) We’ve been using those battle maps almost 100% in the current adventure, with very little narrative role-playing. The DMG Kobold Hall adventure is just five encounters in a row with no exploration. However, I’m planning to insert a custom sub-dungeon between the fourth and fifth encounters and not use any battle maps, just old-fashioned narrative role play over the voice chat.
Love the GameTable! Things got a little quiet there in GameTable land, so I’m glad to see you are trying it out, Chatty. Hopefully it will excite some interest in what is the easiest online gaming app out there. It’s also cross-platform and free. I ran several GURPS games using Gametable, including a huge battle where I hacked the Savage Worlds mass battle rules with the GURPS character rules and it really was a blast. I had the players moving their pogs (as heroes or commanders) as well as large pogs representing various armies and it worked really well.
It’s just kind of intense playing on line like that. I’m thinking of trying shorter sessions, maybe just one hour at a time.
Good luck and I’ll be watching!
Very curious to hear your results, Phil… as you know all of us over at StupidRanger are in a situation to really exercise this, so if you like it we’ll probably try it too!
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Kudos on the scenario, I’m trying to pull my group over to some less serious one-shot. Also, I dig the map. Drawing things shakily, as if a kobold made it already implies fun.
I’m quite intrigued about the outcome.
““Hello and Welcome to this special edition of THE CRAWL!: Monster vs Monster edition! I’m your host, Naquist Balefire. Lets give a warm welcome to our newest contestants who are getting ready to challenege the yet undefeated SCALY SIX!”
Aww man this sounds sweet, if only we could get hold of your notes for this thing!
Hey man, welcome on the blog! The notes were unexistant and the whole reality show didn’t work all that well on a virtual tabletop… a lot of the fun of such a game is the visual cues and gags you can do.
I’ll talk about it in my play report… I should get it done today or tomorrow. I’m taking a day off and the inertia is strong… plus i’m downloading the Orange Box from Steam…
Must game!
Orange Box! mmm Portal a short awesome game that gave me some very interesting ideas for a session of gameplay that drove my players up the bend 😀
Was this the Bamboo? Some other pad? I’m surprised, they look very reasonable in terms of price. Have you tried using it for any other projects? Art?
-Ben.
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This is what I get for not reading my blogs for several days. I just got off skype with you and then I see this. Heh.
@OMH: I’ve been enraptured all day long… I should be writing instead of playing that sweet sweet game!
@Ben: I have a strange Euro model with no clear name tablet. It works surprisingly well to draw maps. I also occasionaly use it to draw with Rory.
@Jeff: It’s still always cool to talk to you amigo!
Chatty I have a question, how did you find the speed of things when using the game table software and Skype, where their any Lag issues or did things run as smooth as a babes bottom?
Hah, awesome, I have used wacom since I managed to afford one. (Almost 75$) And I enjoy using it a lot.
Though I find if I start a picture, it’s rather hard to not finish it.
http://adalore.deviantart.com/art/Halberd-104262489
Heheheheh.
Thanks for posting this! I’ve had a couple friends move away recently, and I was interested in a realistic way to actually continue to game with them. I’ve heard a lot about different virtual roleplaying software, but have not seen it in action yet.
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Awesome! Thanks for the mention, Phil!
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