Hi Guys,
As some of you know already I am a Candian gamer who's had to relocate overseas for work reasons. I find myself in a dilema and need your suggestions please.
My group in Montreal and I sometimes played over Msn and Yahoo messenger. Every 6 months or so when the withdrawls get really bad lol, we get together for an online gorup conference using just headsets and microphones. Sure the Dm has to have the maps prescanned and emailed to everyone and we trust each others not to cheat with rolls and stuff, but it was the only way we could all play from halfway around the world.
This was before Lilith mentioned the fantasy ground software a while back, and while it looks very interesting, I haven't purchased it yet and am really curious how well it works (also i have to convince my buddies to get it too lol). Do you guys really recommend it?
I also currently play online in a few play by post games (with people i met in Dubai and online), but while its fun it's AGONIZINGLY slow!
Unfotunately for me there do not seem to be ANY roleplayers out here. I am currently looking for viable alternatives that will allow me to continue gaming....Any other software like fantasy grounds out there anyone recommends? Or are there other things i could look into that might help. I realized this message board is a gold nime of ideas so i'm inviting any and all suggestions please.
Thanks in advance and be safe all.
No one feels your pain like I feel your pain.
I can tell you what I do.
I try to participate on this board (at least the threads that interest me) as much as I can.
I try to write for Dragon - an activity I started back home - but gotten more into here. Regardless of whether material is accepted or note the process of developing and writing material is sort of a type of gaming in itself.
I read more fantasy.
I read more history.
I participated in a couple of online world building projects - which was fun, but the projects all sort of self destruct.
I really can't see myself trying to play D&D online or by post - the dynamic at the table is such big part of why I like the game.
Masalama
OpenRPG is a pretty decent program that I've played with a bit for playing D&D online in "real time". I was never able to get the mapmaking software to work the way I wanted it to, so if you're big on tactical combat you'd likely need to find a DM who knows it to explain how to work it. On the plus side, it's free, it's customizable, and you can incorporate die rolls into the same line of text in which you describe what you're doing.
Ragnarok, here's the page for the FantasyGrounds demo. It's pretty limited in what it can do, but it's enough to give you an idea of how the program works. As the DM, you can do a bunch of nifty stuff with it, including switching day/night mode, which is great for atmosphere.
Kyr, why did the world-building projects collapse? I think it would be awesomely fun to do a collaboration like that. *starts looking around* Where's it at?
There's a lot of software out there that lets you play remotely over the internet. I've been running a game for almost a year now using kloogewerks. Works great. Better than paper & pencil in my mind (faster play, can play with people anywhere).
There's also FantasyGrounds, OpenRpg, ScreenMonkey, Battlegrounds, and some others I can't remember.
I'd definitely look into one of those and see if you old group is interested in going that route.
Kyr, why did the world-building projects collapse? I think it would be awesomely fun to do a collaboration like that. *starts looking around* Where's it at?
While I can't answer for Kyr, I've been a part of such projects (mostly using Universalis as an engine).
Basically, the begins with everyone invested. Then, somewhere along the way, someone has to drop out for a week or two-- vacation, work deadlines, whatever. That person comes back after the two weeks, looks at the backlog of pure reading-no participation and decides to quietly drop the project. Repeat over 4 or 5 such drops, and the few remenants aren't in anything like the original circumstances. Eventually, the few decide that they don't want to just talk to each other and they toss in the towel.
Recruiting along the way never seems to work, because people don't want to read all the stuff that was decided before they joined-- they want to start participating right away. Every impediment makes it hard for them to join, no matter how hard the recruiters try to ease them in.
Again, that's just my experience... hopefully Kyr's story is happier.
Cool.
Thank you all for your input and advice...i'll definetly do more research into it....gotta feed my addiction to gaming somehow =).
Be safe all
Lilith,
The link to the project I was referencing The World of Rune
There were a number of reasons the project sort of petered out.
Basically I think it was a lack of clear vision at the outset, and a lack of focus on a specific region, issues to concentrate on, and an order of work for how to flesh things out.
People came up with some neat stuff though.
If you (or anyone else on the board) wants to give it a try I would be happy to lay out in greater detail lessons learned - and make another attempt.
Lilith - any such such project would benefit greatly from your celebrity and technical skill. Anyone one interested can contact me at noel.scott@gmail.com.