I have always wanted to play D&D, but I have never known anyone who was interested in playing. Pathfinder sounds like a game I would love to play, and I am really very interested, but still I know no one who is interested in playing. I was wondering if Pathfinder could be played effectively remotely using skype or teamspeak or other such voice communication. I have never played any tabletop RPG before so I really don't know how it would work. If this is a viable way to play a Tabletop RPG, I think I could find people to play who live very far away - plus there's the whole security factor with meeting strangers. Has anyone ever tried it? Is there anything about the game that would require players (and GM) to be physically in a room together?
I use Skype with a friend who moved away some years ago and is now back in the gaming world. She lives too far away to make many of the actual games, so it's her only access to our sessions. It seems to work out pretty well.
One of the biggest problems is trust with dice rolls. I don't use Roll20 or any of the online dice rollers (though I'm about to start with a new game that does). But I've known her for nearly 30 years and so I trust her physical dice rolls even though I can't see them.
I've done this a few years back with my group at home. I had only recently moved in with my girlfriend and wasn't able to meet up every few weeks. So we started using Skype. It felt strange at first, but at least from a DMs perspective, it works quite well. My RPG group assured me they had a blast.
There are entire websites dedicated to remote dnd
the premier example is roll20
Skype or Teamspeak is jsut the beginning, because all either does is put the voices together. (and faces if you leave your cameras turned on).
Putting the actual campaign online requires more... and that's when you're into Roll20/FantasyGround/Virtual Tabletop territory.
My f2f gaming group got scattered this past year and we switched to Roll20 with good results. We've got 8 people spread out from Virginia to California and a number of places in between.
Even if you can't get your friends together to play, you may want to look into playing in some of the online campaigns you can join here. There's a whole forum dedicated to Online Campaigns
Look through the Recruitment forum to see if anyone is looking for new players
I've also done several chat games; it works quite well, especially since you can put maps and pictures online and link to them. But if you are of a mind to insist on accurate representation of combat, as opposed to descriptions and approximations, as others have mentioned there are several virtual tabletops to help you. They're only "required" if you feel the need for precision. In my experience approximating position in combat has worked quite well, both on chat and Play by Post.
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I have completed Reign of Winter, currently playing Skull and Shackles, ran through The Dragons Demand and Tears at Bitter Manor, and had a plethora of PFS games, all through Roll20. Our voice chat was Google Hangouts, Rabb.it, and Discord. It absolutely works, but of course has it's limitations and pros and cons versus in person gaming.