I took a day off from work and blogging today to relax a bit and fiddle with an actual computer game called Portal. I’m way behind in the ‘dude you must play that game’ thing and while my buddies are out playing Fallout 3 I finally shelled out for that awesome game.
As I was playing, I kept seeing emails, blog comments and trackbacks piling on about the online D&D game I played last Friday and it slowly dawned on me…
Dude, people are actually looking forward to know about this project and you’re screwing around trying to get the Cake joke?
Yeah… well maybe I should get right on it then.
Last Friday at 19h00 PM (EST) we had agreed to meet through the power of Skype, champion of cheap long distance communication solutions. With geeks spread over 2 countries from Montreal, to Miami and Seattle, we were eager to try to play our favorite roleplaying game without actually seeing each other.
Present were all original members of the project: Dave: The Game, TheMainEvent, Asmor, Graham, Don and myself. All of us a combination of bloggers, contributors, coders and one of us was even a Wizard working somewhere on the Coast.
Getting Connected
I was expecting that technical glitches would prevent us from actually getting to play that evening and I was happily surprised to see just how easy it was to connect!
Skype as a ‘start Conference Call’ options that allows a user who has all players in his contact list to start the call with a few clicks. Within seconds we were all awkwardly greeting each other and trying to memorize each others’ voices. Having spent some time with Dave and having spoken (and gamed) quite a few times with Graham I was rapidly able to differentiate each member of the group.
That’s where I was struck at how crucial visual communication is to me as a DM. I’ll touch on this later, but my confidence was somewhat shaken by having to deal with people, many of whom I only knew through some chatting and emails.
Setting Up
As mentioned here, we had settled to using the simplest, most basic Virtual tabletop application we had found which was Gametable.
The application features a ‘host/join’ game option that’s really easy to setup. The DM clicks on “Network” and then “Host…”, you enter your player name and character name (in the case of the DM, that’s somewhat irrelevant) and choose an optional password and a Port.
Now here’s where it gets a bit more complicated. The application needs to have other players have access to that ‘port’. There’s a good chance that you’ll have to set your router (and maybe your firewall) to allow access through it. I know I had to with my Router. Look for something called “port forwarding” or ask help from someone who’s savvier in these things. (Thanks Graham!)
Once the port is opened/forwarded or whatever, and once you have started hosting the game, Gametable will show you a link where you can get your IP address. You give that info to all your players and they can all connect to your game easily.
At least it was done easily for us. We were ready to play by 7h10PM!
As an unexpected bonus, each player was able to import their own ‘pogs’, a little jpg token they generated for the game (see how to here). It was like having your friends set their Miniature on the table to signify they are ready to start.
How it went: The Interface!
Gametable is a fast Java application (making it cross platform, Dave played from his Mac). Changes people make to the map, like moving pogs and rolling dice are instantaneous. No noticeable lags or map update issues were seen.
Also, a cool feature is that when a player wants to show something to other players, they just have to put their mouse where they want to point and press ‘space’. This makes a cartoon hand appear for all others to see exactly where the mouse is pointing.
However, handling the private/public map is not always easy and I’ve managed to rob the whole Dragon Cave from underneath the players’ feet when I accidentally sent the whole map from public to private view a few times.
Furthermore, as a DM, I quickly found myself bogged down by all the things I had to manage. Dealing with the application, my adventure notes (also on my laptop) and my Paizo Combat Pad all at the same time created confusion and unneeded delays in gameplay. For example, I ended up skipping Dave’s turn several times and he needed to tell me so after 2 turns at one point.
As Don mentioned at the end of the session, an initiative tracker would have been a good feature to have in this game. It would have made my job a bit easier for sure.
With hindsight, next time I’ll play with 2 screens: The Virtual Tabletop on one screen and my game notes on the other. Also, I might ask a player to handle initiative if the next application we use does not have one.
So all in all, I’m satisfied with the interface. I’m curious to see the other ones and we’ll likely try MapTool next time.
How it went: The Adventure
As written, the adventure was to be a combat encounter in 2 waves. The first one was a level 5-6 skirmish with a team of Kobolds: 2 Dragonshields (Soldiers) and a Slyblade (Skirmisher) from the Monster Manual and a Chieftain (Soldier Leader), a Warpriest (Controller) and a Wildmage (controller) from Mike Mearls’ Dragon Magazine article (#364).
The second encounter was to be a level 9 fight with the Red Dragon patron of these kobolds and its retinue of Glowing Tattoo-wearing Minions:
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| HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. | ||||||
| AC 17; Fortitude 13, Reflex 15, Will 13 | ||||||
| Speed 6 | ||||||
| R/M Javelin (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| Ranged 10/20, +7 vs AC, 4 Damage | ||||||
| r Fiery Vengeance (Immediate Reaction) ? Fire | ||||||
| When a zealot of Tiamat dies by fire damage, it ignites and flies toward the closest enemy within range exploding on contact. Ranged 10, +7 vs Reflex, Hit: 1d10+4 Fire Damage. | ||||||
| Shifty (Minor; at-will) | ||||||
| The Zealot shifts 1 square | ||||||
| Draconic Healing (Minor) | ||||||
| A Dragon adjacent to a Zealot can eat the Zealot as a minor action and spend a healing surge | ||||||
| Trap Sense | ||||||
| The Zealot gains a +2 defense bonus to all defenses against traps | ||||||
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| Skills Stealth +6, Thievery +6 | ||||||
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| Equipment Hide Armor, 3 javelins |
To bring the adventure to life, I attempted to use a shtick I had used quite successfully with my friends a few weeks ago. I had tackled Kobold Hall (the adventure in the Dungeon Master Guide) as some sort of reality show where adventurers were tricked in participating. It was a blast when I played with my friends.
In this virtual game… not so much. Most of that attraction of that concept was built around the visual gags one does in emulating a fantasy reality show. Looking at the ‘camera’, making poses, etc. That’s kinda hard when you are using voice chat only.
I also discovered that its a lot harder to roleplay when you don’t see your players! Now I understand when a reader told me virtual tabletop gaming was like a video game. This became a huge barrier to me as I found myself unable to properly do descriptions of the area or the moves in the fights.
Because of that, the game ended up being mostly a long boardgamey fight. On top of it all, while I had planned to make both fight separated and allow PCs to rest for their full five minutes (with some sort of ill defined skill challenge), I somewhat forgot about all that and sent the dragon to help out his dying kobold buddies, making this into a fight that level 5 PCs had almost no chance to survive… and none ultimately did.
The Warforged Fighter and Gith Ranger played several bad rolls, making them miss often. The Orc Barbarian and Genasi Swordmage got a taste of prolonged status effects. In fact the Swordmage (played by TheMainEvent) spent most of combat immobilized and/or stunned, failing saving throw after saving throw. That can’t have been fun!
When the players dispatched the first kobold group and moved on to the second part of the room where the dragon was deploying its minions, the Barbarian charged headlong… only to taste the little surprise I had for the group.
At one point, surrounded with Kobold minions, the dragon breathed fire catching the Barbarian and 3 of its four minions in the blast… The Barbarian was singed and pounded by 3 koboldy missiles, launched by the Divine energies of Tiamat to explode recalcitrant infidels!
The players all converged on the dragon and started falling one by one. The last PC (Dave’s fighter IIRC) fell when the dragon only had 26 hp left.
I think what ended up making the fight impossible was that the dragon was able to heal itself of the first 50 or so HP of damage by eating the last Zealot. Since a Red Dragon has 332 hp, spending a healing surge basically amount to giving the Dragon an extra 80+ hp. Way to powerful. I’d suggest making the walking potion on healing worth about 15-20 hp next time.
Yes I could have fudged the dice… no one would have noticed or cared. I could also have stopped the fight and allow the PCs to live. I decided to see it through and I assume the consequences.
So the scaly six… now the Scaly one, remains undefeated.
How did They like it?
One of the hard things to do in a virtual game is to gauge the players enjoyment of the game. Some players are more expressive and it was easy to see how it went. It was clear that TheMainEvent, while annoyed at the status effect was being a good sport about it. Graham seemd to enjoy trying out all the cool Bard Moves. Dave was also preety much into it and was a good sport.
Others were more introverted and a lot harder to gauge.
All in all, I think each players liked parts of the session but that the overall feeling basically translates in that gem of the English language:
Meh.
And how did YOU like it Chatty?
I think my feeling mirrors the others. When I did the rounds of the players I knew most, we all had the same thing to say. We all agreed that while a virtual tabletop RPG sure beats not playing at all… it remains a weak replacement for the real thing. At least, if our experiment is an indication of how such games are played… and my gut feeling tells me that they are.
We agreed that the next session, planned for mid January, should explore other types of encounters than combat to see if Role playing is possible and enjoyable in this medium.
Until then, I’ll look into the other tools and start writing my Escape Monster Asylum adventure!
Thanks for reading.
Update: See TheMainEvent’s comments on the game here.
Nearly all of my RPG experience is with virtual gaming, however, one major thing me and my players do, is we don’t use fancy voice chat and all that. We don’t try to replicate the tabletop experience, trying to see and hear people face to face. I think it’d feel dry. We treat the online game as a very literary experience. We do it like we’re writing a story together, not like we’re around a tabletop. So our character’s emotions and inner thoughts are described in prose, we talk in third person referring to our characters, with quoted dialogue, we narrate our moves, and we put our all into letting the text do the talking. The visuals are just for being able to attack the enemies without having to ask a million times how far away they are – the prose is what counts. Though we’re all big story-writer nuts.
Also, I find it interesting as a big comedy gamer, most of my gags are based on the online medium, and I think if I was put into a tabletop, I’d feel just like you did there, at a loss! Things like doodling on the map as an attack (certain enemies can screw up the map, or just erase it entirely, which has joke penalties on the players), writing the prose in German when the narrator DMPC is dazed or put to sleep, or replacing the map with a gridded image of Uwe Boll, I couldn’t take that to the tabletop very easily.
Wyatts last blog post..More From The Backrow!
I’m with Wyatt on this one.
Have you considered running online by text instead of by Skype? I’ve done both, and I found using AIM to be by far preferable–all of the narrative advantages Wyatt mentioned, the log feature means you can look back at old chats, and color-coding PC and NPC alike can be seriously useful.
Ravyns last blog post..Religion and Divergence
Dude, you actually had the willpower to put down Portal?
Great report. I had the same issues when starting my on-line game. However, with a few sessions behind us, I can say it gets easier with practice. I think it took my group four sessions to get into it.
I think the first step is streamlining the experience. Get some of your practical hurdles out of the way, like initiative (we don’t roll). Once that’s all working better for you, the role-play will get easier too.
@Wyatt and Ravyn: I had thought of doing it all text chat based, and I totally get that in doing so it becomes its own unique experience instead of trying to imitate the tabletop experience. I’m also pretty sure that in such cases the game would have a heavier narrative twist (but would probably play much slower).
To be pondered, although I feel that we’ll stick with voice chat in order to be able to discuss the actual tools and such during play.
@Kevin: Welcome to the blog. I’m actually resisting really hard so I don’t play it now! Thanks for the heads up. We’ll see how it gets next time and I’ll try to work in more story elements.
Thanks for that interesting game report. A friend and fellow roleplayer moved to Munich recently and we were thinking about cotinuing our ongoing campaign using some online tools. I first looked into Fantasy Grounds II, but I think we will do fine with some voice chat program (like Skype or perhaps Teamspeak) and Gametable.
I am really looking forward to these posts as I too am running a virtual game with my old gaming group. We started out with Gametable and I will say it is a great application, very simple and easy to pick up, it ended up just being a gateway application and we now have moved on to Maptool.
When I originally ran my game with Gametable I was ready to throw in the gloves because I was just frustrated with trying to keep things organized. I thought I had it all planned out, but it turns out that I needed more.
If you would like any assistance on Maptool, while I am not an expert, I have created a nice 4e campaign file that can easily be imported. I also have several macro’s that speed things up 100%, one for initiative that will roll initiative add the players init to the roll and add them to the initiative queue in the tool, also another big one is a heal/damage macro that helps control states on the icon (bloodied, dying).
Anyway, thank you very much for the posts and again let me know if you need any assistance with Maptool when you move on to it! (FYI I recommend using a development build of Maptool so that you can have all the bells and whistles).
I think you’ll be much happier with MapTool.
I have been running a group online for the last 3 years. We used Gametable for the first year and it served us well, but when we found MapTool we never looked back.
Well that was a preatty awesome sauce article Chatty! You should run more of these thing but for some of your readers 😀
@Stargazer: Be sure to share your thoughts on this… there seems to be great interest in the subject for sure!
@Mindshadow: Consider yourself added on my list of people to talk to when I tackle Map Tool. I’m not looking for one tool I’ll use forever after… We actually plan to try most of them so we can compare features and tell of friends at WotC what works and what don’t.
Thanks for the kudos and welcome to the Blog!
@Bhart: I hope so. Thanks for the info and welcome too!
@OMH: I know there’s a demand for that and I might one organize a contest where the winners would play a one shot game for sure… but right now, I’ve projects to clear from my list and that one comes later! (A virtual Con… think about it!!)
I protest profusely!
I just happened to be knocked below 0 HP… that doesn’t mean I bleed to death like the other fleshy things in the party. Afterwards, I sat inert, biding my time until I rolled a “20” on my death save, and waited until the dragon least expected it to start moving again… then BAM, executioner’s axe to the face. Hoard liberated, which I then used to resurrect the weak meatsacks in the party. When will everyone learn that Warforged are invincible?
Beatdown Machines last blog post..Inq. of the Week: 4th Edition Settings?
I stand corrected… that TPK was a total party KOed. Since the dragon already used its Healing Surge for the day, it was still sitting at 20 hp 🙂
Group saved!
Over-ambition will be your downfall, my dear Holmes 😀
We found Gametable very acceptable, though went with using chat rather than voice as it makes for a much more measured, well paced experience – and the chatlogs are great for post-game analysis. We might move to VOIP when we’re comfortable with one new technology first. Gametable + voice + a dragon = ouchie.
Just, as ever, my own slightly warped thoughts. Better luck next time, ol’ boy.
greywulfs last blog post..If you can’t beat them, eat them
@Chatty, thanks for the welcome.
I was just thinking about the text vs voice issue yesterday. The physical separation of text and voice could be used to clearly distinguish between in-game and meta-game play. Imagine using voice exclusively for out-of-character meta-game talk and using IM chat for in-game descriptions and dialog. I’ll probably try that soon. Could be interesting!
I’ve played text chat online games (both in 4e and other systems) and really dislike it. I’d rather do play-by-email at that rate… totally un-engaging for me. That’s why I was fairly insistent on voice chat, and I’m glad all the players came to consensus on Skype. This all may be because I’m fairly outgoing in an RPG game, and also really enjoy 4e combats. (Though not when Phil skips my turn, obviously.)
I’m really looking forward to the next game as a full session, with more exploring (one of the big strengths of online play, IMO) and roleplaying.
Dave T. Games last blog post..Inq. of the Week: 4th Edition Settings?
I run my game using KloOge as our Virtual Tabletop program. I like it because it handles all those things such at Init, combat variables, map sharing, etc. for me. The archive of chat is a great addition to our website, helps keep the history flowing much easier.
Some of my players use voice to chat behind my back during the game, but all of our roleplaying is done in the chat room. It can take some getting used to for some players, but I get the chance to game with some great people scattered over the globe this way.
Chatty if you (or anyone else for that matter) wants to see what a KloOge game can look like feel free to grab me in email or IM and we can talk about details.
BOB
(full disclosure I am a moderator over on the KloOge boards as well)
As mentioned in the report, some my saving throw failures with my swordmage were pretty brutal. Playing by text/IM is way too slow paced… I definitely end up surfing the internet and IMing random people to pass the time. Overall, a fun experience and looking forward to the next one.
TheMainEvents last blog post..Online Game Wrap Up: Status Ailments and Saving Throws
@Kevin: Let us know how this works out for you! We’re most definitively going to stick with voice chat as most players chimed in with a preference for that medium.
@Dave: yes mext session we’ll try to do other things. I’m curious about the application of Fog of War to a dungeon map, roleplaying and Skill Challenges. There’s a lot of stuff to cover… methinks this project may get an extension past the January game.
@Bob: I will give each application a look. A large part of the project is exploring just that. Having fun playing our favorite RPG is just a collateral thing 🙂 Can KloOge be used (fully featured) for a time without paying? If not, anyway I can reach the owners to talk buisness?
@TME: I’ll put a link to your excellent discussion on status aliments man. I agree that this was totally brutal… and I now appreciate the Cleric’s Sacred Flame Power for what it’s worth…. 2 saving throws a turn is gold.
i’m telling ya, D20Pro is where it’s at. If you liked gametable, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about D20Pro.
Klooge has a trial version that only allows you to test setup and such for I think 30 minutes before resetting itself. Klooge does have a reputation similar to Campaign Cartographer by Pro Fantasy – works out of the box, but with learning you can customize to your heart’s content.
I use Klooge because it works for my game, as I run a totally different rule set than most people. Fantasy Grounds, D20Pro and several others work great for some groups. If you are playing 3, 3.5 or 4th editions of D&D there are lots of options. It is when you need cross platform or other game systems that the choices become more restricted.
But I did not to highjack comments about the Virtual Table top program you are using. It is much more important to be able to play and have fun with old players what ever way it works for each person’s group. Having people play with us from 15 years ago that moved away or new players in Europe and Japan made me a convert 5 years ago.
Very glad your group can get together again this way.
BOB
Did the 2 skipped Fighter turns end up leading to the 26hp remainder of the dragon?
I smell DM trickery! 😀
Bartoneuss last blog post..YouTube Tuesday: 20XX Edition
@Bart: Actually the Warforged fighter took its two missed turns as soon as we noticed.
But yeah, a TPK was my plan all along! MWa HA HA HA!
That red dragon is funny.
Yaxs last blog post..What’s your D&D culture code?
Great post, ChattyDM! Hang in there with VT playing. Once you get used to whatever application you are using, things move much more quickly.
I’d like to invite you to try out d20pro, and I’ll even be willing to host a game for you and some friends. There have been several major updates in the last few months (including some 4E support). We are very open and generous to bloggers and playtesters, and offer a fully functional 14-day trial.
@Yax: I resisted calling the dragon Expy… I really did!
@Daniel: Thanks, I will very likely take you up on the offer. We really want to explore all tools.
yeah hang in there with VT playing. I am sure after sometimes things will move pretty fast.
Great post! I always enjoy reading about experiences with online tabletops. Do you know where I could join an OD&D (or S&W, Microlite 74, etc.) game online? The standard fora (rpg.net, rpglife,com, etc) seem to be dominated by current games.
Thanks Jeffrey. There are several ‘old School’ forums you can trawl.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/ comes to mind as a A D&D forum.
For the original D&D game, I propose you give Grognardia a look:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/
You’ll find plenty of resources and you might find a group of remote players.
Good luck!