*Note: Was crossposted in 3.5 forums.
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Has anyone ever tried using Skype, Gizmo, or any other VoIP technology to play DnD?
I can see a few problems with it, but have worked out solutions to most. Can you identify better solutions, or maybe other problems that I did not catch.
* Rolling (solved by TRUST)
* Maps (solved by digital cameras and emailing before-hand)
* Battle Maps/Marching Order
The last is the most difficult.
I understand Wizards' Digital initiative seeks to solve this, but it's already late and the Di has been disappointing thus far. Is there another solution to Marching order than sweeping the webcam around the room to look at miniatures?
I'd appreciate any advice.
Thanks,
~LD
One of our gang recently moved from Michigan to Germany and we've been using Skype to keep him in our campaign. It's worked very well and we're able to play for hours. We suffer from occasional dropped connections but it's easy enough to reconnect. Using the camera, he can see the battlemap. Occasionally we have to hold stuff up to the camera for him to see. As far as dice rolling goes, we trust him. After each successful session I feel a sense of amazement that technology lets us play with him so easily and cheaply from such a long distance.
Been playing a couple of sessions over Skype and Fantasy Grounds.
Works like a charm (well, dropped connections do happen from time to time, but as mentioned it's easy to just "redial"), although it's definitely a different experience than regular face-to-face games.
Don't want to invest in Fantasy Grounds (although it's a great program)?
Try MapTool from RPTools.
I've been using MapTool. It works pretty well, it just takes some getting used to.
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*Note: Was crossposted in 3.5 forums.
-
Has anyone ever tried using Skype, Gizmo, or any other VoIP technology to play DnD?I can see a few problems with it, but have worked out solutions to most. Can you identify better solutions, or maybe other problems that I did not catch.
* Rolling (solved by TRUST)
* Maps (solved by digital cameras and emailing before-hand)
* Battle Maps/Marching OrderThe last is the most difficult.
I understand Wizards' Digital initiative seeks to solve this, but it's already late and the Di has been disappointing thus far. Is there another solution to Marching order than sweeping the webcam around the room to look at miniatures?
I'd appreciate any advice.
Thanks,
~LD
I've been doing this weekly for a few months now.
Skype works great. We tried Gizmo, it was spotty.
Fantasy grounds had more than we needed. Maptools was sufficient. And it has rolling dice built into it.
During sessions when we don't need a map, our DM just shares out his desktop or sends images in e-mail.
Hope this helps!
I've used skype twice to keep a campaign running while one person was away. In one case, we were able to play although the game was not as fun as when everyone was present, and the other case was a total disaster.
We were able to deal with all the mechanical issues (maps, rolling, etc) without much trouble. The one technical difficulty we had was an echo. When the skype person spoke, his voice was broadcast from the speakers and consequently picked up by the group's mic. He would hear his own voice played back at him at a 1-2 second delay, which made it difficult to follow what other people were saying. We were able to mitigate this a little by purchasing a better mic and placing it farther from the speakers, and having the skype user wear a headset with earphones. But the problem was never completely solved.
Another problem was that d&d is a game, not a net meeting. Multiple conversations occasionally happen at the same time, people raise and lower their voices accidentally, and the pace of role-playing does not always allow the skype user to participate.
It also requires extreme focus on the part of the skype user not to tune out, and patience on the part of the others to repeat things, and stop talking when the skype user has the floor.
The 'disaster' was because the skype user would tune out (or just plain leave the computer for 5-10 minutes) and not know what was going on, then complain that she never had a chance to do anything.
Overall, I would say that, for a short period of time, it is better than not playing, but I would not want to play that way on a permanent basis.
Hope that helps.
Actually, one thing that did work well is having the skype user keep track of initiative order and lingering effects. We don't normally use a laptop when playing, but having him keep track of things in Notepad helped combat run a little more smoothly, forced everyone to communicate their actions clearly with him, and helped him stay focused.
I also use Skype with my group, across the ocean.
We use it along with OpenRPG, as i prefer an instant drawing program rather than a sharing map program. It is very useful for improvised maps.
In the beginning we were also using the dice roller from OpenRPG, but that was quite frustrating and slow, so now we are just rolling real dice.