I'm planning to run my first Pathfinder campaign this summer with my friends. Unfortunately, we don't even live in the same state, so we were thinking about playing over skype.
How is GMing online different from being in person? Are there any programs that are strong to use? I hear good things about http://rptools.net/. Any other advice?
I play over skype, but I am the only one, because I moved away. The rest is sitting round the table and I join via skype.
It works, but to say it's fine would be lying. And I wouldn't want to GM over skype.
But I got a slow internet connection. Perhaps that's the reason.
Skype is great, but I've switched to using Google+ Hangouts. They work very well and there are some people developing an RP Tool specifically for Hangouts called TableForge which has some promise. Until then, I'm using MapTools.
In any case ... playing over video chat is great. I wouldn't suggest doing just audio ... I'd suggest everyone has a webcam (being able to see each other actually does make a difference ... you can read lots of non-verbal cues).
I'm planning to run my first Pathfinder campaign this summer with my friends. Unfortunately, we don't even live in the same state, so we were thinking about playing over skype.
How is GMing online different from being in person? Are there any programs that are strong to use? I hear good things about http://rptools.net/. Any other advice?
I GM on a regular basis using Skype, D20Pro and Hero Lab. It works really well.
Skype is great, but I've switched to using Google+ Hangouts. They work very well and there are some people developing an RP Tool specifically for Hangouts called TableForge which has some promise. Until then, I'm using MapTools.
In any case ... playing over video chat is great. I wouldn't suggest doing just audio ... I'd suggest everyone has a webcam (being able to see each other actually does make a difference ... you can read lots of non-verbal cues).
How many people do you have on video chat? There are five of us in all and I'm worried that five videos will slow down the connection to the point that communication will just break down. I've been out of the country for a little while so I'm not really on the up and up with Google +, but I think all the sites listed in this thread should be enough to get us going for now.
Thanks everyone!
Use Skype group calling to chat with your group, use Maptools for the actual playfield. That's what my gaming group does.
How many people do you have on video chat?
We run our games with 6-7 people on video chat and have not had any real problems.
A lot of it, of course, depends on your connection speeds (a 10mbps+ down connection should be fine ... which is low for most cable/DSL offerings today) and on your graphics capability (I'm fine even with a 256mb graphics card ... something better is obviously ... better).
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I think it depends mostly on your group. Are they willing to sit in front of a computer for 4-6 hours talking over video chat? For me it was boring and I backed out of the game after several sessions. I think it could be fun, but I think the GM would have to really engaging for me to play over videochat again.
I think it depends mostly on your group. Are they willing to sit in front of a computer for 4-6 hours talking over video chat? For me it was boring and I backed out of the game after several sessions. I think it could be fun, but I think the GM would have to really engaging for me to play over videochat again.
I don't know how engaging I will be, but fortunately this campaign doesn't have too many sessions in it--in September I'll be moving out of the country. No one expects this to last more than four sessions.
We use Skype for two of our members and I have to tell you Skype is hit or miss on its connectivity. We all have extensive IT experience and have tried everything but it is not on our end and seems that Skype just doesnt have the bandwidth to deal with the amount of users it has. If you play at prime time 6-11 EST (which we do) we get about 20 minutes of play time before it craps out and we have to switch to Mumble and ooVoo.
We suspect the real issue is that one of our players is 4 states away and its either the distance or one or more of the hubs between us that is the issue. So I would test the connectivity for an hour to see who it works before investing in it. When it works its awesome with the HD cam we use.
I will be looking into Google+ Hangouts myself in the meantime.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
We have one, two people at most joining our groups via Skype.
As Umbranus said earlier it works, but I wouldn't call it great either.
We're all fast friends in RL but do not have the time to meet that often in between sessions, the one joining via Skype had to move away due to work-related reasons.
The main problem for us is the level of immersion you can generate.
The main part of our group meets in person at somebody's home and we have everything set up - PC, two web cams, speakers, and a mic.
We try to keep the level of technology (and associated money spent) at a minimum, so our equipment might not be super-optimized, mind you.
But this is the first thing that gets rather annoying - the needed tech eats up a lot of space, it's cables everywhere, and it is not possible to adjust the camera so that everybody is visible to our Skyper.
The next thing that gets annoying is, if discussions on the side get out of hands - one joke follows the next and at no time the whole table is laughing, leaving the Skyper quite puzzled and annoyed, because he doesn't know what's going on.
At times connections are bad and you cannot understand a single word, the Skyper is saying or the other way round - great for dramatic moments and BBEG speeches.
All in all it needs a lot of discipline on both sides to really stick to the game and fully concentrate on it. For us, this ruins a lot of the fun we experienced earlier, when all could meet in person and lot of jokes and beer were shared and you had time to discuss with your neighbour the events and what happened to your PC in other groups.
Ruyan.
Use Skype group calling to chat with your group, use Maptools for the actual playfield. That's what my gaming group does.
Same here =)
I've not noticed too many problems aside from the occasional degrading call quality (which results in what we've come to call "going robot", where speech sounds garbled and mechanical) but thankfully those moments are rare.
We do *not* use Skype Video Call as that just adds unnecessary bandwidth and lowers the call quality further (also because you can't do video with a multi-person call, unless that's a feature of the paid-for version, we all use the free one).
Without it the only other option would be PbP, as I have one player in KS, one in CA, one in Alberta, Canada, and I'm in TN.
be aware skype is a fickle fickle biatachie so be prepared to have drops but its works just fine, I play a weekly game in another system with people on the other side of the world works great.
trying out a PF roll20 game tomorrow should work a treat as well
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We use Skype + TTopRPG . It is a free program that runs our games very well. I like the dice rolling macros and the variables you can add into it. Easy to update as the characters level. The lighting feature is really neat too. This program has let us keep gaming after several people moved out of state, as well as gaining a few gaming friends.
I've been testing D&D Next via skype for months now and it has worked like a dream for my group. Our DM is in New York and we players are in Los Angeles and there hasn't been much of a problem.
Maybe it works better when it's your DM absent, because everybody hates DM's anyway. ;}
Seriously though, having the DM be a floating head hovering over the game table ads a kind of Emerald City verisimilitude.
We use skype in our gaming sessions quite frequently, and have never had a problem. We don't use video or any fancy GM tool, but tend to be more freeform. In fact, I'm blind and tend to be the GM more often than not. I guess it helps to have a vivid imagination and virtually eidetic memory when it comes to the game and my player's characters. Try it, what is the worse that could happen?
I've had better experiences with Google+ than Skype in this regard. Also, there's no instillation required for Google+.
P.S.
I've been doing playtesting for a group of graduate students at the Rochester Institute of Technology who are building a tool for playing tabletop RPGs online. My playgroup used Pathfinder in our first playtest. This isn't much help now since they haven't published yet, but I'll definitely post here when they do.
I've been playing over Skype for about 5 years, off and on, and playing MMO's with various voice servers for about 10 years. The big question is whether or not you want to do video chat, you'll have to upgrade to Skype premium in order to do group video chats.
In my five years playing over voice online, I can say that the video chats add nothing to the experience for me. Voice only is honestly just fine.
Skype can be a bit of a crap shoot. Other options you might want to look into include Ventrilo (depending on the server, I've had really good luck with Vent's stability and connectivity), Dolby Axon (also good for stability and connectivity), Teamspeak (a bit iffier than the other two, but, still serviceable).
Roll20 also includes voice and video services. I haven't used them in a few years, so I can't really speak to them. Roll20 is really easy to set up and use, except for their artwork search function, which these days seems to mostly pull up premium assets. The reveal tool kind of sucks, but, that's a GM problem, not a player problem. Overall connectivity is good.
I play over Skype a lot due to necessity (moved away from our gaming friends), including GMing over it.
It...works? I mean, it's not as immersive as in person, but it gets the job done. We do sometimes have problems with calls dropping, etc., but on the whole it isn't bad. It definitely works better if you have an external mic setup and a camera over the table, but not everyone has the money to drop on that kind of thing. (Our friends have that setup, but we're just on a laptop. Two of them at their place, and two of us at ours.) I've heard good things about roll20, but we haven't checked it out yet.
We have had issues with the video sometimes, but it usually works okay. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend it over in-person play if you've got the option, but when you don't all live in the same area, sometimes there's no alternative.
Skype is your most bug-free option. It is worth noting that there's absolutely zero need to run video chat during play. No one should be looking at each other during the game. You'll need all of your monitor space for the maps whether it's Roll20 (best free option), d20pro, or Fantasy Grounds.
All you need is a decent headset and a constant internet connection and you're all set for endless hours of online gameplay.