Maptool and Skype
No pathfinder support.
Until now i was using Skype and OpenRPG.
I am not really concerned about compatibility with any game system, as we play in vocal through Skype, and don't use any system specific program.
Basically, we just need a tool to share maps, nothing more.
We don't even use dicerollers, i let my players roll their dice at home.
This week-end i was planning to give Gametable a try, but for some reason, we were not able to connect...
On Maptools, i am not sure, but i think you have to make your maps in advance, save them and then import them later in your game.
Correct me if i am wrong.
You can do that in OpenRPG too, but you can also draw your maps live, which for me is much more useful.
In a game, a DM cannot prepare everything, and often comes a situation where he has to represent a scene, like an inn, a forest clearing, a cave or whatever. And for that a live drawing tool is priceless.
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I'm not used to any of the online gaming tools like MapTool or OpenRPG, as our group is close enough to game twice a week. However, one member is going to be leaving eventually, and I've been trying to research which one I'd use. I'm strongly considering a voice chat program, a map tool of some kind, and a dice tool (the players have a bad habit of re-rolling their dice a lot!). I'm leaning toward GoogleTalk and OpenRPG. Any suggestions?
Director of Brand Strategy
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I don't do a lot of online gaming, but I have I've done through Pygon's tabletop emulator, TTop. He's generally in the DMTools chat room to walk people through it if there's questions, and he's also done a great job of incorporating feedback from players and GMs into newer versions. His illumination tool is teh t8est sh!t evar!
Well, for the voicechat, so far the best i ever tried is Skype. The sound is clear, crystal. And the program is simple to use.
Much better than Teamspeak or Ventrilo for example.
I don't know about GoogleTalk. Never tried.
Open RPG is fine, although a bit buggy sometimes.
As the name implies there are some built-in RPG elements, such as character and monster sheets, templates, and so on. But honestly i don't use them. Even if i play online, i play a pen and paper game, not a computer game.
As i said, i recently discovered GameTable, which looks very interesting to me, mainly for its map drawing live tool, which, basically, have no surface limits, and thus can be scrolled and zoomed in or out indefinitely.
But when i tried it this week-end, it didn't work.
I don't do a lot of online gaming, but I have I've done through Pygon's tabletop emulator, TTop. He's generally in the DMTools chat room to walk people through it if there's questions, and he's also done a great job of incorporating feedback from players and GMs into newer versions. His illumination tool is teh t8est sh!t evar!
Yes, TTop is awesome. Skype for voice, if necessary. :)
I use MapTool - not for online gaming, but to show the maps to my players around the table.
MapTool is a programme for map display, not map creation. Not a problem for me, as the maps are in the Pathfinder PDFs, but it doesn't allow you to paint the maps - just to run them.
And that, it does quite well: You can decide which parts are visible to your players - ever since I started using that, I wouldn't even dream of going back to the stone age where you had to waste precious time drawing the map at the table.
I can't recommend trying it out strongly enough, since it doesn't even cost anything, except time if you end up not liking it. Oh, and bandwidth, but I just assume that you're on a flat-rate.
Piece of cake. -Any- pic can be used, like from the PDFs. Creating is easy as well, especially with the amount of premade textures, objects, etc, etc.
How difficult is it to find or create maps for use on MapTool or OpenRPG?
K,
Map creation is pretty easy with Maptool. http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/ has some great tutorials on map creation.
Best.
I use MapTool - not for online gaming, but to show the maps to my players around the table.
MapTool is a programme for map display, not map creation. Not a problem for me, as the maps are in the Pathfinder PDFs, but it doesn't allow you to paint the maps - just to run them.
And that, it does quite well: You can decide which parts are visible to your players - ever since I started using that, I wouldn't even dream of going back to the stone age where you had to waste precious time drawing the map at the table.
I can't recommend trying it out strongly enough, since it doesn't even cost anything, except time if you end up not liking it. Oh, and bandwidth, but I just assume that you're on a flat-rate.
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We use Fantasy Grounds--a great tool that works off the 3.5. It gives you a shared "tabletop" where the GM can share maps and players can position tokens ... it has rolling dice and /ooc and emote commands for the text which makes for some great RP opportunities. It's an outstanding product that has an active community around it--they auto-update with patches and post different rulesets (OGL 3.5, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthuhu, and more) just google it. Oh, plus for Pathfinder subscribers who get pdfs, it's easy to grab images and maps and bring them into the tool.
And yes--I know--I'm gushing at this point--sorry. It's just with the busy adult lives we have, a rich-featured online program is a godsend for allowing us to keep gaming around all the other *responsibilites* we have--you know, being all *adultish* 'n stuff.
And, to be clear: I don't have anything to do with the company, we've just been happily using it in our group for the last three years or so--an Eberron campaign and now the Rise of Runelords arc.
P.S. When I say we've been using the tool for three years, I mean *exclusively* we play every week online.
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Director of Narrative
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I don't do a lot of online gaming, but I have I've done through Pygon's tabletop emulator, TTop. He's generally in the DMTools chat room to walk people through it if there's questions, and he's also done a great job of incorporating feedback from players and GMs into newer versions. His illumination tool is teh t8est sh!t evar!
I'll certainly have to echo yoda8myhead here! I was never truly inclined to play online, but a few friends got me to do so. At first we used MapTool, which was fine, but I really fell in love with the idea once we started using Pygon's application. The recently added lighting is really freakin' amazing. Here's a demo of that aspect.
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At first we used MapTool, which was fine, but I really fell in love with the idea once we started using Pygon's application. The recently added lighting is really freakin' amazing. Here's a demo of that aspect.
This is awesome! Great work, Pygon! I'll definitly check this out.
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This is awesome! Great work, Pygon! I'll definitly check this out.
Thanks. It continues to be a work in progress. I'm glad players like it.
People continue to rave MapTool so much for its mapping ability, though, that I'm tempted to see about adding some of those features to TTop. No promises on when that will happen.
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I just started messing around with a demo of the Dunjinni software for map creation. I really like it--kinda more spendy than I was thinking, but it looks like they have pretty strong community support and if you're going to do a lot of custom maps it would be worthwhile. I posted my tryouts here
Just wanted to bump this to promote TTopRPG. Great stuff!
We use Fantasy Grounds--
I want to throw in another voice for FG. Sure, it isn't freeware, but the licenses aren't that expensive either. What you get is a program that looks snazzy and runs without hiccups. Only one beef: why o why did they have to assume users have a resolution of 800*600? The font is becoming really difficult to read on anything higher than 1024*768.