Remote gaming

[DM Mathpro]

Hey guys I'm not really sure where to put this but I figured this was a good starting spot. What would you guys suggest using for remote pathfinder play. I am starting up a new gaming group and 3 of my players and I will be at one site and one of my players will be at another site about 300 miles away? I know you can use skype for video chat and battle mat viewing and such but are there other options? I have very very crappy bandwith and am worried about video dropping/refresh issues. Would using rolld20 help?

[Ramarren]

Roll20 or MapTool (www.rptools.net) are both good, free options. Your face-to-face players will need laptops or access to all use the same computer/screen so that everyone is looking at the same maps.

Personally I prefer MapTool *if* you don't have network issues getting it to connect.

[Krensky]

Depending on how basic a map you can tolerate you might look into a free I ntwrnet whiteboard service. Regardless, if you have bandwidth issues video is probably not in the offing. Both Role20 and Maptool have text chat which won't use any bandwidth of consequence and the map sharing shouldn't need too muvh more than a graphics intensive website.

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

I used to use MapTool, and I experimented with several other Virtual Tabletops. Maptool is a big, ugly toolbox that lets you do everything but makes it hard to get up and running.

Roll20 is the best thing going. Membership is free, but since they're actually turning a profit on premium accounts, it looks like they're going to stay on top for a long time.